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jelliedink · 5 months

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Little Revenge

Warnings: smut, cheating!, pet names, older man/younger woman, boss/employee, power dynamic Picture is not mine. Divider by @thecutestgrotto

“You’ve fucked your wife thinking about me before, haven’t you?”

Your boss, with whom you’ve been chatting for the past hour, nearly choked on his drink.

“Excuse me, but where did that come from?”

It wasn’t the smoothest delivery, but you just couldn’t think of a better way of introducing the topic and you were afraid of losing the courage to do so. You’ve been babysitting his daughters sporadically for almost 2 years now, as you did with many other children in your university campus’ neighborhood. Everything was fine until about 8 months ago, when his work schedule became flexible enough to allow him to always spend some time in the house most of the days you were there. Before this you dealt almost exclusively with his wife, meeting her at the start and the end of every shift. Since this change, though, Ian was the one you spoke the most to.

At first, you didn’t mind it. It was quite nice, actually. Ian was reliable, pleasant and seemed to genuinely care for you. When with you he was always trying to lift the mood, asking about how things were going in your life and offering advice.

But then he seemed way too interested in you, and his wife, previously sweet and warm towards you, became increasingly harsher and nitpicky.

“I have a theory for what the real reason why Mrs Allen fired me is. When you started staying at home I didn’t think too much of it, but it became difficult to believe you were just being hospitable as you gradually increased the frequency in which you inquired me about my love life and found excuses to touch me in ways that would make your wife fire me on the spot if she saw.”

Ian’s charming face changed its expression from its typical amicable neutrality to a condescending look.

“Darling, I think we have a great misunderstanding here.”

Your heart started beating faster, the voice in your head that said you got it all wrong getting louder by the minute. But now there was nowhere to go but forward.

“Mr Allen, I’m not mad at you. I’m actually kind of flattered, you know? To have an attractive and successful man such as yourself look at me in that way. I’m mad because I can’t get other jobs in the neighborhood because, as told by some of the other nannies, Mrs Allen has been warning all the mothers about her shameless babysitter that appears to be trying to sleep with her husband.”

His face didn’t change.

“I’m sincerely sorry about that, and rest assured you’ll be compensated for the trouble my wife’s actions brought you, but I still can’t see how that led you to such an unusual question.”

“Are you really not going to drop the act?” His insistent denial made you so nervous you felt almost dizzy. What if you were making a fool of yourself? “That’s a shame, really, because I was looking forward to letting you know how the real thing feels.”

Upon hearing this last statement, Ian confusion and disbelief flashed through his face, breaking the mask for a moment. Then his eyes filled with amusement as he answered you.

“My dear, aren’t you something?”

He got up from where he was sitting to get closer to you, squatting down in front of your seat in order to bring his face to your level. His initial defensiveness seemed to almost disappear, curiosity replacing it as he questioned you, eyebrows raised:

“Aren’t you afraid of the consequences in case you turn out to be incorrect?”

You were. But you also knew your reputation was already unsalvageable, so you didn’t see how it could get any worse.

“It’s not like anyone is going to believe me, so I have nothing to lose anymore, I thought I might as well try and get something positive out of this whole situation.”

He let out a hum of acknowledgement and stayed silent for a while, his eyes fixed on you while trying to decide if you were telling the truth or if it was some sort of elaborate joke. Seeing that he was not yet fully convinced, you decided to face his gaze and say something you thought would help him make a favorable decision.

“You know, I’ve only been with guys my age before and it has been really disappointing. But I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t secretly hoping for you to show me what a real man feels like.”

Ian let out a loud, amused laugh at your flirting attempt. His lips were still curled when his hands touched your chin.

“And to think I’ve been chastising myself for feeling attracted to the young, innocent little thing I thought you were.” He let out a series of “tsk”, feigning disappointment at you. “I feel tempted to take up your offer, missy, but I have a condition.”

“What is it?”

“You’ll do exactly as I say and, once we start, I’m not going to stop. So, are you sure you want to do this?”

“Yes.” You nodded almost immediately. “But I have a condition of my own, too.

His eyes filled with curiosity.

“Oh, do you, kitten? And what is it?”

“Fuck me in the master bedroom. I want to have the satisfaction of knowing your wife will be sleeping in the same bed you fucked me in.”

Your request caught him by surprise, making him look at you with a mix of disbelief and delight.

“My, my, how did such a petty little devil make her way into my peaceful home? Alright, I can do that for you.” He closed the distance between your faces in a kiss, wrapping one arm around your shoulders and the other behind your knees. “Up we go.”

You hid your face in the crook of his neck while he carried you, unsure of what to do next, until he laid you on the bed.

“Here we are, sweetheart. I must admit, I thought you were smarter than this.” The condescending tone came back while he gently stroked your cheeks with his thumbs. “Lucky me.”

He didn’t give you time to fully understand what he said before he kissed you firmly. It didn’t take long until you were straddling him, his hands traveling through your body, eventually finding their way under your dress. For a moment it felt like he was looking for something on your bare skin, until he broke the string of kisses and looked at you with a grin.

“Of course you’re not wearing underwear.”

“In case you needed more convincing.” You answered, suddenly self-conscious of that decision.

“So you were that determined to be my little whore today? What a naughty kitten we have here.”

He immediately started kissing down your neck while you clumsily palmed his abdomen through the polo shirt he was wearing. He took it off right after helping you get out of your dress, and then leaned back for a moment to admire your naked figure with hunger in his eyes.

“Oh, pretty, you look just right.” His hands ran through your upper body, eventually fondling your breasts. “The perfect little toy.”

His mouth joined your body once again, leaving kisses all around your collarbone and chest while your hands tugged lightly at his hair. You moved your hips, trying to find the perfect spot to grind on top of his clothed cock, and you felt him smile when he noticed what you were doing.

“So desperate, grinding on me like you were in heat. Let me see how needy you are.”

One of his hands traveled to your pussy, and he groaned the moment he felt how wet you were. Then he started alternating between slowly rubbing your clit and moving his fingers through the whole length of your cunt, parting your lips and teasing to enter you, only to slide back again. The whole time his eyes were glued on your face, watching your expressions change as he toyed with you. You were way too turned on to feel shy at his gaze.

“Ian, just fuck me already.”

“Of course you do, kitten. But first you’re going to put on a little show for me, ok?” He took his now soaked fingers back to your entrance. “Daddy’s going to curl his fingers up and you’re going to fuck yourself in them.”

“Haven’t you teased me enough already?” you whined, frustrated.

“Princess, you were the one who asked me to show you what it's like to be with a real man. You thought I’d just pound my dick into you mindlessly like the guys your age?” He brought his torso near you and nuzzled his face on your neck, speaking into your ears. “No, pretty. We’re going to be here for a while.”

Then he leaned back again, curling his fingers as he said he would.

“Now be the good, obedient girl I know you are and fuck yourself on my hand, ok? Don’t make me ask again.”

You obeyed, placing your hands on his shoulders to support yourself while your hips moved up and down, his fingers sliding in and out of your cunt with ease from how slippery you were.

“Ian…” You started, after a while, panting and almost breathless. “Please, I need to ride you.”

“‘Need’ is a strong word, kitten. I’m having so much fun watching you act like a horny pet for me.”

“Please.”

“Shhhh…” He shushed you, stuffing your mouth with the same fingers you were riding. “You’re talking way too much for a pet. Be a good kitten and lick my hand clean.”

You sucked and licked all of your slick off his fingers, not breaking eye contact. When you finished he connected your lips again, this time with a kiss that seemed like he wanted to devour you.

“Such a tasty pussy. I’d eat it for hours if you weren’t so needy. Lay on your back for me.”

As you did so he finished undressing himself, hovering on top of you immediately after, one of his hands caressing your tights and propping you to lift it up to his waist.

“Since you’ve been such a good girl, I’ll give you what you want this time.” You let out a loud, obscene moan at the feeling of the head of his dick running across your cunt. “I’m going to fuck your pussy now, ok?”

“Mhmmm.”

He forced all of his dick into you at once, groaning a low “fuck” when he bottomed out. His dick was not that long but the girth felt good. You dug your nails in his back as he started moving his hips, skillfully rolling them towards you while kissing you once more.

“If I knew that little warm cunt felt this good I’d have taken you sooner.” He muttered at your mouth, along with a string of swear words you never thought you would hear from his mouth. “God, listen how fucking wet you are.”

You couldn’t say anything at first, his rhythm leaving you breathless and unable to make any other noise other than pants and moans. But when your cunt adjusted to his size, you started pleading for him to go deeper.

When he heard you, he stopped for a moment to grab a pillow and place it under your lower back, wasting no time sliding back in when you found a good position.

“Better now?”

“Fucking yes.”

It felt better for him too, and it didn’t take too long before his pace started to get frantic. Then you placed one of your hands on your clit and started rubbing it, moaning even louder at the added stimulation. He moved his lips to your ears and started praising you when he noticed this, saying how pretty you looked stuffed with him, how cute your moans were, how perfect your pussy felt. You felt your orgasm approaching even quicker.

After you came your arms went limp, barely holding Ian as he came inside you. He then kissed you one last time before falling by your side, both of you catching their breaths. His arms pulled you closer to him, and you laid your head on his chest until he decided to break the silence.

“You are a diamond. You did so, so well”

“The best fuck you’ve had in months?”

He laughed loudly before giving you a peck in the forehead and answering your question.

“You truly are a little devil, aren’t you? But how do you feel?”

“Great. A little ashamed, to be honest, but great.”

He gave your forehead another peck.

“Don’t worry about it, my darling. That was also not my wisest decision, but I enjoyed it very much.”

You hummed and snuggled in his chest even more, unsure on what to do next. Thankfully, it felt like he knew exactly what was going through your mind.

“Here’s what is going to happen now: we’ll take a bath and eat because no man in their right mind would send a woman home like this. Then, you’ll get to decide if you want to go home after accomplishing your little revenge or if you prefer to spend the weekend with me in the lake house and not have to worry about your bills for a very long time.”

You looked at him, eyes wide with surprise.

“Are you trying to buy me?”

“I’m willing to pay very well for it. But you don’t have to answer me now.”

He started getting out of the bed to prepare a bath, and once it was ready he came back to the room to take you there. When he took you in his arms again you materialized a thought that had appeared.

“I know it sounds silly now, but even though I’m tempted to spend the weekend with you, we’d have to stop by my house for me to get some clothes.”

Hearing this his mouth opened in the most mischievous grin.

“Don’t worry about it, kitten. My wife has a whole closet there for me to fuck you in.”

#dilf x reader #oc x reader #older man younger woman #older men do it better #smut #female reader #reader insert #fem reader #boss x reader #boss x employee

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cryptocism · 7 months

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Since I think about clones like I’m getting paid for it, I've been rotating those alternate universe "what if Bart and Thad were actually raised together" scenarios in my brain, with Thad either post-redemption-arc or pre-villainy. Because adjusting Thad's character to fit an ally role while still keeping true to his core motives and personality is so so fascinating to me.

Like I think there's an immediate first instinct to slot Thad into a "bad" twin category: ie rebellious and prickly, doesn't get along with people, mean lil shit. And obviously it's not wrong bc we're outside the realm of canon, but the reading still feels a little left of center.

Because Thad is mean and prickly in canon. In the Impulse comics he belittles Bart and Bart’s friends/family constantly in his appearances. He loves to goad, and monologue about his own superiority and intelligence. He’s very Not Nice, and he causes many problems, and he even does it on purpose.

But, I think it’s important to consider the context. From the jump Thad knows very little about anything except which team he’s on and who he’s playing for. He gets his orders from an unseen authority and he carries out his tasks because success means his team wins.

For all his self-aggrandizing talk, everything he does is in service of an end goal that doesn't actually center him. He's trying to get revenge for grievances he's never personally suffered, retribution for actions never committed against him. Everything he does is on someone else's behalf.

Thad sees in black and white, us or them. Up until the final few issues of Mercury Falling, Bart and co. are Thad's enemies, of course he's not going to be nice.

So Thad's motivation seems pretty simple: Thawne Supremacy™.

But it’s in Mercury Falling where this starts to fall apart, and the real core of his motivation gets revealed. Thad pretends to be Bart and suddenly Helen is nice to him. Bart’s friends think he’s funny. Bart’s teachers are impressed with his grades. Max ruffles his hair and gives him hugs and tells him he’s done a good job.

If he was actually an inherently mean and standoffish character, if Thad actually had significant personal stake in the Thawne VS Allen conflict, the weight of such tiny acts of kindness wouldn’t completely break him the way that it does in canon.

Thad thinks his goal is superiority and revenge and Thawne Supremacy™, but he's chasing validation. Thad doesn’t have a personal stake in the Thawne VS Allen conflict. He wouldn't get much satisfaction if he actually destroyed Bart and his family. Thad's personal victory would be the recognition after the fact: the praise and attention from the other Thawnes (a group of people he has literally never met) for his success.

He wants validation. That's basically it. And the fact that he gets it so easily from Bart's family and friends doesn't align with how he's told himself things are supposed to work.

Actually tangentially, Bart and Thad’s respective relationships to authority is so diametrically opposed and tbh kind of subversive in a superhero narrative. Where the hero is the one carving his own path without regard to social or societal rules, no fucks to give what anybody thinks of it. And the villain is a chronic people-pleaser.

Just based on Thad’s reaction to simple praise and affection from Max I really think Thad’s motivation has more to do with the response he gets than whatever the details are of any given task. He has no actual personal convictions beyond getting positive attention, and whatever he did have crumbled as soon as Bart’s friends laughed at his joke one time. Which of course leads into the core of his whole conflict at the end of Mercury Falling. He cares too much about Bart’s friends and family now, he doesn’t want to kill them, but worse than that, he’s faced with the sudden realization that he’s on the wrong side.

The Allens gave Thad everything he actually wanted and needed, but his conception of himself is inexorably tied to the Thawnes: who gave him jack shit. These two facts are in opposition to each other, and he can’t reconcile the reality of it.

Anyway all this to say, in an AU where Bart and Thad are raised together or Thad gets an actual redemption arc etc etc, I think my personal take on Thad’s personality whether it be pre-or-post-villainy would be one that is extremely socially conscious. He is much more of a people-person than Bart. Whether he's actually accurate in assessing people's feelings and how to respond to them can be hit or miss, but he wants to behave in a way that gets people to like him.

Pretending to be Bart isn’t remarked upon as, like, a difficult task for Thad. In his internal monologue he’s literally bragging to himself about how easy it is. But what’s especially notable to me is where his act differs from Bart's typical MO. Everyone notices, and lots of people comment, and presumably if Thad didn’t have the excuse of Max’s illness to “motivate” Bart to do better he would’ve been found out immediately. And those things are, specifically: paying attention in class, doing his chores, staying on task, and being helpful around the house. The one thing about Bart he chooses not to emulate is Bart’s rebelliousness.

Thad wants to prove himself, constantly, to whatever authority he respects (probably Max in this scenario) and will do whatever it takes to make that happen. In contrast to Bart, who only listens to authority when the shit they're saying actually makes sense to him. It’s excessively difficult to convince him to go against his own interests. (And I think a key part of that is Bart’s security in knowing that no matter how much he fucks up or doesn’t listen, the people he loves will always love him back.)

Thad’s got the people-pleaser in him that has to deserve whatever he’s given. It’s why he’s happiest when he’s given a clear goal or objective to complete, because it gives him an opening to prove himself.

All this to say that if we are quantifying Bart and Thad as a "good" or "bad" twin, in the eyes of every authority: Bart is the bad twin. Bart is the bad twin, Bart is the bad twin. Bart is the one who doesn’t care about school and whose grades vary wildly depending on his personal interest. He’s the one who goes off to do dangerous shit for fun and gets in trouble constantly and doesn’t do his chores and is thoroughly unconvinced by any authority figure trying to sell him bullshit.

Thad is the one who needs to know all the rules just so he can experience the joy of following them. Relentlessly obedient. He'll put all his effort into doing all the right things that’ll endear him to whoever he wants to impress - meaning he’s the asshole who reminds the teacher about the assigned homework. Bart might be the most popular boy in school, but Thad is a pleasure to have in class.

Like Thad can (and should) still be high-strung and short-tempered and sarcastic and edgy and mean, because he is. But he can’t be doing all that without rhyme or reason. Colouring every interaction has to be that one-zero binary of ally or enemy. He needs to have somebody he’s proving himself to: a team he’s on and a team he’s against. He’s not an inherently rebellious character. He can go up against The Enemy, whoever he deems as such, but it has to be in service of a hypothetical future in which somebody eventually tells him he did a great job.

And in the interest of continuing to beat a dead horse, it connects to their respective upbringings. Thad and Bart were both raised in VR, but Bart’s experience had the side effect of basically hard-wiring him against insecurity. His world was a playground tailor-made for him, and he was never made to feel bad or insufficient about any aspect of himself. His first interaction with a real human person was Iris moving heaven and earth to save him, without him knowing her, without her knowing him, with no reasoning for the act needed beyond Being Her Grandson. Which is probably a significant factor in why Bart moves through the world with frankly atomic levels of autistic swag.

Thad’s VR upbringing installed self-consciousness in his psyche before any other personality trait. As in: he is immediately made conscious of himself and his relationship with everyone he will ever encounter. He’s told two things: he’s a clone of someone else (inherently derivative, lesser) and that he was made to be superior (a status to achieve). Which is such an instant clarifier for Thad’s everything. Where superiority is a condition that everyone either has, or does not. It’s the one-zero binary again: are they better than me or am I better than them. Being above others is mandatory, and if his superiority is ever challenged by hard evidence or god forbid nuance Thad’s brain physically cannot take it. He needs to be better, to be worse is unthinkable, and there is no other way to be.

And this status of better or worse is, crucially, not up to Thad to decide. He needs The Authority to validate him. Bart never tries to prove himself because he has nothing to prove. Thad’s entire identity hinges on the self-worth he gets from doing a Good Job.

It is such an inherent part of his motives in the Impulse comics canon, which is why it always feels a little off when he’s interpreted as a jackass indiscriminately.

Like I don't think he needs everyone to like him. But I do think he has either one person or a set of very particular people that he needs to like him. Everyone else is either in that circle or outside of it.

(Which is why Bart is such a great foil for Thad tbh. There is no set of words or behaviors that’ll change Bart’s opinion of Thad, because Bart is unaffected by obedience or charm. So ironically Bart is probably one of few people that Thad doesn’t bother to put on even a little bit of an act for.)

While Bart goes with his instincts, his personal beliefs and convictions at all times, Thad is hyper-conscious of big-picture goals. They balance each other out that way. Thad's keeping track of whatever expectations he has placed on him, and how his actions reflect on him and the team beyond short-sighted solutions. He's a team player. AND he's an asshole.

#soapbox #dc #thad thawne #thaddeus thawne #inertia #bart allen #impulse #like he cannot be mean indiscriminately... u must interrogate WHY hes mean and to whom #if hes being raised with Max and Helen he would not intentionally do anything to make their lives more difficult #if hes being raised by Meloni same situation #he needs to be trying to get validation from SOMEWHERE u know #and of course he'll mess up and hurt the people he loves or wants to impress he is a human being #but while that can sometimes be the result #that is never the Goal u kno #not his Core Motivation #i feel like the more i talk about this the less sense im making

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sunlightmurdock · 6 months

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Operation Apollo | 2.9 | Jake Seresin x Reader

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Synopsis: After a threat is made against her life, the President’s grown up daughter gets her security tripled. Her long term detail is about to retire and needs replacing, only — she isn’t the easiest to work with. Ex-Navy and current Secret Service, Jake Seresin is devoted to being the best at everything he does. He isn’t going to let a bratty little girl cost him this job.

Warnings: age gap, power imbalance, enemies to lovers, danger and angst, manipulation, sucky parents, grief and manipulation, lying, distressing themes throughout but especially towards the end of the chapter. Graphic violence, dangerous situations, revenge, wc: 3.5k

…

Jake doesn’t sleep well anymore. This seems to be a settled fact. From the day that Dani died, he just doesn’t rest like he used to. When he was with you, things got better, for a bit. They’re bad again now.

Now, he spends his nights tossing and turning and wandering to the bathroom of his hotel room to splash water on his face to remind himself that his nightmares aren’t real. It’s been two days since he heard your voice, and growing harder to convince himself of reality.

Allen promised to check in in the morning. It’s technically morning now, as the breaching sun threatens the skyline. Morning. It’s too fucking vague. Dawn and 11:59 leaves Jake a lot of time to pace the San Diego shore.

Nothing settles him these days.

He leans his palms forwards on the bathroom counter, and cocks his head to the side. His therapist had once told him that it wasn’t helpful to try to remember the day Dani had died. It always ate at him that he couldn’t really remember receiving the news. He remembered the before, and god, he wishes he didn’t remember the after — but he could never remember hearing the news for the first time.

He remembers the abruptness of it all.

Convincing himself that her voice was still fresh in his mind in the evenings was the only way he could keep her alive. It hadn’t worked much. He doesn’t think of her in the evenings much anymore, and she’s still dead.

When your voice echoed in his ear a few minutes ago, it’s the first thing he thought of — that her voice outlived her.

The cold water drips down his chin, saturating days old stubble, falling in thin droplets onto his naked chest. His eyes are narrowed, smaller than normal and heavy with sleep. His shoulders are hunched. His skin looks barren without the trace of your touch.

His bed is unmade and the sheets are wrinkled from the sleepless night he’s leaving behind. He inhales deeply and considers just taking a shower and starting his day before the morning sun.

Then, his night-morning medley is interrupted. Three calm knocks on the door. He closes his eyes, shutting out his reflection and the fluorescent noise of the bathroom, and tries to reason with himself.

Two further knocks confirm to him that the sound is real. It’s not part of another one of his bad dreams.

Jake walks barefooted out of the bathroom, and leans up to the peephole. He’s unsure, really, of who he is expecting to see outside of the door at five in the morning, but the sight of two secret service agents standing there makes his blood run cold and his mind fill with thoughts of the first woman that he loved.

Though he can’t remember that day, he knows it was less of a formal affair. He can’t take more bad news. He pulls back the chain and turns the lock with little thought about what they could be there for, not wanting to let his mind linger on the worst possibility.

“Agent Seresin,” The taller one says, his thin lips stretching into a tighter line as he looks the man before him up and down. If Jake had been sleeping better, maybe he would have gotten dressed before answering the door. The morning air chills his bare chest and thighs, his underwear doing little in terms of providing warmth. “You’ll have to come with us, sir.”

Sir. The word makes the hair at the back of Jake’s neck prickle, and his stomach tighten. Sir, please calm down. He remembers hearing that on the day Dani died.

“Where is she?” Jake asks.

“We can’t say.” The shorter, dark-haired one won’t meet Jake’s gaze. That’s good. They would have told him if you were dead. “But we need you to come with us. Now.”

The entire West Coast network is abuzz as Jake is driven up to the house in the hills. As the count ticks over into seventeen hours since you were last seen, and four hours since that video was received, everybody who is anybody is working on your disappearance.

Allen was the first to report it yesterday. You had been gone for two hours already by the time he came to check on you, and found Jake’s bed empty. It’s his fault. He had assumed you were finally sleeping, and he had waited too long to check on you.

By the time he realised, you could have already been out of the country for all he knew. His experience in this field told him a lot of things — not a single one of them reassuring.

He first alerted the West Coast liaison. After confirming there were no active hits on your location in a six mile radius of the house, things went nationwide. He considered calling Jake then, but there were too many eyes on him to sneak a call.

Once nationwide, your parents had been alerted. Matthew landed on a private airstrip just after midnight, thirty-five minutes before the video footage was received. A dark, grainy two-minute long video with no timestamp.

The first thirty seconds is almost silent. The camera is focused, unmoving on your face. You’re staring at something above the lens, the man behind it, with pure venom in your eyes. You’re already hurt, bleeding from your nose and your hairline, your eye sore looking and swollen.

From the second that the voice first rings out, Matthew recognises exactly who it is. It’s the first question they ask of him — if he knows who could have wanted to hurt you. The answer is more complicated, because it’s not that Ellis would have wanted to hurt you specifically. Ellis would have wanted to hurt Matthew.

But, Ellis hurts all kinds of people every day, for reasons that span far beyond simple dislike. It’s why the debt between the two of them is something far beyond what money can settle.

The instructions on the video are clear.

Shadows dance across cracked concrete walls, the lone lightbulb wobbles on its wire above your head. Your wrists itch and burn, your arms stiff and your neck aching. You lost the feeling in your legs a while ago. The blood from your nose has dried around your mouth and chin, your eye has started to swell. Your head throbs.

You have been alone for two hours.

Occasionally, someone will pass by the door. No one seems to care much about checking on you. As the hours have dragged on, you’ve stopped moving so much. Getting out of your restraints is decidedly impossible. Your eyelids feel heavier and heavier with each slow blink.

“Don’t fall asleep.”

Your eyelids flutter, your vision blurred and unsteady as you search the shadows of the room for the voice. For his voice; Jake’s voice. Even like this, you know what he sounds like.

“Come on, honey,” Fingers brush across your hair, soft, unbothered by the blood crusted into your hairline. “Keep your eyes open. I know it hurts.”

It does hurt. You’ve never hurt like this before. Wrapped in bubble-wrap, hidden behind thick walls and tall fences — maybe if they hadn’t kept you so safe, it wouldn’t all hurt so bad now.

“Jake?” Your throat is dry, your voice is hoarse, the rag cuts into the corners of your lips.

“I’m here.” He isn’t, and the realisation makes you want to cry. You can pretend he’s here, and pretend he’s telling you to fight all you want. He isn’t here, and you’re tired.

Ellis’ terms have been circling your mind for all of the hours you have been alone. You, for her. Your father, in exchange for you, as to be delivered by Jake.

The government would never let it happen. Jake would never let it go. Your heavy eyelids droop shut and you leave them that way.

When they’re closed, you’re not here either. You’re at home, and in Jake’s bed. Your cheek is on his chest and he’s asleep, you rise and fall with each one of his breaths, your fingers smooth across the heart-shaped, thumb-sized birthmark on his hip.

The morning sun is shining, the bedroom walls are white and the mattress is soft. Jake’s right arm is draped around your shoulders, cradling you to his chest. There, it’s safe to fall asleep.

A little after nine, the bright sunlight spills into the living room. Another sunny morning, like the world hadn’t been turned upside down overnight. Jake has never felt quite so out of place in this house. It feels colder without you here. He stares at the dark, blank screen in front of him, sick to his stomach.

Your picture is gone, but the image is burned in his mind. Your bloodied, bruised face staring right at the lens, your lips pressed into line, adamantly refusing to speak. God, just speak. Do what they tell you to do. Please.

Slowly, he leans forwards and hits the button to replay the video. It’s his fourth time watching it, now. There it is again, your tear-filled eyes and the stubborn scowl on your exhausted face, the long fingers curled around your chin, angling your face towards the lens.

Jake has been filled in with some need-to-know information. Ellis Armstrong was an associate, and informant and a business partner of Matthew’s from before the elections. He’s a bad, bad man.

Outside of the need to know — Matthew is the only one who really knows the extent of what this guy will do, of what he has done on behalf of Matthew himself in the past. Of how far this debt reaches.

Matthew, I know that you’re far too much of a coward to face me in person. You have done an excellent job of avoiding me so far. How lucky I was that your clever little girl sought me out.

Jake turns his head. He studies the skulking man in the corner of the room, his head turned toward the ground and his fingers trembling as his hands wring together in front of him.

Things hadn’t ever seemed this serious back then. At the start of it all, it was just a little maintenance, making a little indiscretion disappear. Then, the favours had gotten bigger — and then they had stopped being favours at all.

Jake and Matthew are far from alone in this living room. They’re surrounded by agents with years of combined experience, government advisors and White House big-wigs. And yet, Jake is the only one that Matthew can’t bring himself to look at.

I know you won’t come to me yourself. That’s why she’s so perfect. We’ve all seen the news. If you won’t come to me yourself, the bodyguard will bring you to me. You, for her.

Apparently the message was supposed to reach Jake privately, which is why he was intercepted. He sits with the thought for a moment as he stares down the man who raised you; he would trade him in to keep you safe in a heartbeat.

That’s why the first point of call was to bring him here. Here, they have an eye on him. They can’t risk him trying anything stupid.

You have twenty-four hours to reach the location provided. Say goodbye, sweetheart. The faceless fingers curl into the hollows of your cheeks and Jake grits his teeth. His gaze flickers up, and this time Matthew is watching him.

“You’re going.” Jake tells him, from the spot on the couch where he had kissed you for the first time. Everything had unfurled here, in this house, up until Jake had taken you home.

It’s a shell of a home and it always was. Cold and white, almost clinical in its modernity. It’s the place you met but it’s not your home, and it’s not Jake’s. He just decided that. The two of you will have a real home.

His gaze is a cold green, steely and serious. There’s a movement around the room, uncomfortable murmurs of disagreement as the crowd prepares to stop the bodyguard. “This is your fault. You didn’t protect her, and she’s in danger. You’re going to fix this.”

“No, Agent, that’s not how we’re going to—” The serious looking man in the Armani suit, who considers himself responsible for Matthew’s safety here, doesn’t get a chance to finish his sentence.

“I’m done with the plans.” Jake decides, pushing himself up from the couch. He makes no efforts to step towards the president, this isn’t a threatening motion, it’s merely a man who won’t stand back idly once again. He gives a cool shake of his head. “The plans are what got us here. You… deserve this. You fucking owe her this.”

Matthew swallows dryly, loosening his tie.

“Jake,” Allen steps up from his perch by the wall, giving a soft shake of his head as he reaches out to rest a hand on Jake’s shoulder. “We’ve got to keep our heads about this.”

It’s not a sudden thing, that the attitude in the room is that Jake is the crazy one here, but the mood shifts nonetheless as he rounds on the older man and points a finger squarely at him.

”Don’t. Don’t say a damn word to me — where were you?” he spits.

“I… she promised me—” Allen shakes his head dumbly, blaming himself more for this than your own father does. He’s blind with worry, that image of your bloodied face just won’t leave his mind.

“You promised me.” Jake bites.

Silence falls across the room for a beat. Manny wipes his nose with the back of his hand, squeezing his eyes shut as tears spill silently down his cheeks.

When he had gotten into this business, he had first felt invincible. A background in Tactical Ops and a pristine track record, he told everyone that he was perfect for the job. Then, he had met you and he had realised quickly he was out of his depth — but he liked you, and you reminded him that there was more to this line of work than the rules.

He hadn’t ever thought he would let you down like this.

“I’ll go.”

Jake turns his head. He isn’t impressed. He isn’t pleased. It’s barely enough, after what he has put you through. Looking at Jake, your father knows that.

“Mr. President—“

“Those were his terms,” His eyes are shut now. He can’t bare to look at the man before him, knowing that this wouldn’t be a difficult decision for him to make in the slightest. Jake would put his life on the line for you without thought. He shivers through an inhale, “We come up with a plan around them, and we get her out of there.”

“But, sir—“

“Figure it out. You can keep both of us safe. That’s your job.” Matthew exhales finally. Opening his eyes, he finds Jake once more and finds himself chilled to the core. The look on Jake’s face is finally, wholly sincere. If it came down to it, Jake wouldn’t give a fuck about keeping Matthew safe.

“Sir—“

“Figure it out, god damnit, or I’ll take myself.” Matthew bites out finally. It’s not like he has much of a choice in walking away from this, anyway.

When Jake closes his eyes, and thinks of you afraid and alone, it makes his choice easy.

Matthew feels like a clock within him has started ticking. As the men and women around him scramble to draw together a plan that will keep him and his daughter alive, he feels it counting down his last moments.

He tries not to look up, because when he does he finds Jake looking at him every time.

It’s like Jake can hear it too, that awful ticking. Time passing by. Counting down the moments.

“Catherine?” Matthew calls weakly, rubbing two fingers against his temple from his spot in the corner of the living room. His secretary turns attentively and graces him with her full attention. “I’d like to make a statement, and I’d like you to write it down. Do you understand?”

Jake can’t sit and listen to them anymore, but that’s not what makes go wandering. He starts out in the kitchen, looking out over the pool. The place he had first seen you. Then, he takes the stairs and winds up in his room. His bed is unmade here, as it was in his hotel.

His shoes are quiet against the floor as he walks over to the bed and lowers himself to the edge of it. His fingers smooth over the faint dips in the pillow, where your head had last laid.

Jake has money from his time in the Navy. From his work in the service. He hasn’t had much to spend it on. The job involves living with clients, expenses are usually covered, and his sisters won’t let him spoil his nieces too much. Enough for a house. One with a big bed, so you can stretch out all you want and still wind up draped across his chest.

The thought almost makes him smile, and then a lump in his throat threatens to make that smile spill into tears.

He hopes he gets that.

He can only imagine what you’re doing now. If you’re still stuck to that chair, if your eye is hurting you, if they have touched you again since. He’s not even sure if you have water. The one thing he does know is that you’ll be waiting for him. You’ll know that he’ll get you out of this.

A little after noon, the plan is as good as it is going to get. Twenty four hours since your disappearance, sixteen hours until Ellis’ imposed deadline.

Jake stands with his back to the front door as the President listens to the briefing once more. There are back-up plans on backup plans and protocols coming out of his ears, and Jake doesn’t care one bit.

Allen doesn’t like the look on his face.

“Jake,” The older man broaches the topic softly, trying not to alarm the already flighty ex-pilot. “I know you’re going to do what you need to do. I can’t stop you. But, if this goes south — and you’re responsible, you’ll never see her again.”

Jake knows what he’s trying to say. If he lets the President go, he’ll suffer the consequences. As much as he wants that house, and those lazy mornings in that big bed with you, he would let it all go if he could know that you would never be in danger because of this man again.

“I know the plan.” Jake tells him calmly.

Ellis isn’t an unintelligent man; he knows that if Jake was going to be able to deliver Matthew successfully, it wouldn’t be alone. That makes things a little easier — they don’t have to be as sneaky.

But, if Ellis has a feeling that the trade is a set up, they’ll both be dead. Jake won’t let that happen.

It’s just himself, and your father for the journey there. It’s two hours from your place, and there’s practically a motorcade escort most of the way. Once they hit the five mile out mark, security drops back, and for the first time — they feel alone.

“So, what did you actually do?” Jake squeezes his hands around the leather of the wheel, with no real interest in small talk. He shoots a look towards the cars in his peripheral, and then at each mirror. Last, comes his scope of the skyline. Habit. He was a good agent.

There’s no point lying anymore.

“You’ve got to understand, Ellis is a powerful man.”

“More powerful than the president?” Jake scoffs.

Matthew makes an uncomfortable sound of consideration. He wouldn’t expect Jake to understand.

“Having powerful friends makes him more powerful. You know?” He tries to explain it anyway, it beats listening to the silent radio and the tyres rolling. “I let him do me a lot of favors. Money, marketing, making people go away.”

He looks across and studies Matthew’s face for a moment.

“Not with money.” He realises, watching the stretch of road. There’s one turning, the only one Jake can see. That’s it.

Matthew looks ahead of him, colourless as he gives a weak shake of his head. “No. Not with money.”

It’s already in his head that your father is a scumbag, but it stings Matthew to realise that Jake isn’t surprised by this. It shouldn’t. He shouldn’t care about what someone like Jake thinks — and he supposes he wouldn’t, if it wasn’t for you.

“So what’d you do to him?” Jake prompts.

“I tried to get away.” Matthew says quietly. The wheels turn and the car pulls into an empty parking lot at the rear side of an old hangar. “Put some distance between the two of us — between him and my family, my career. It’s not the kind of thing he was willing to let go.”

“Go figure.” Jake answers bitterly. The car pulls to a stop and the ticking rings out loudly in Matthew’s ears. Jake turns his head, green eyes colder than ever. “You ready?”

…

tags: @alanadetigy @thedroneranger @momc95 @basicchelsea @perpetuelledaydreaming @cherrycola27 @eviesaurusrex @xoxabs88xox @desert-fern @hotch-meeeeeuppppp @khaylin27 @cowboybarbie @marchingicenotes7 @marantha @lgg5989 @herladyshipxx @chaoticweirdogeek @mak-32 @obiwankenobis-lap @diamond-3 @wolvesofthewinter @shawnsblue @itsmytimetoodream

#operation Apollo #Jake x Apollo #Jake Seresin #Jake hangman Seresin #jake seresin x reader #jake seresin x you #Jake Seresin au #Jake hangman Seresin x reader #Jake Seresin smut #top gun: maverick #tgm fic

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pluckyredhead · 1 year

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Character Profile: Rose Wilson (Ravager)

By popular demand, the next member of the Lost Titans: Rose Wilson!

Rose was introduced in Deathstroke the Terminator #15 in 1992. She is the daughter of Slade Wilson, a.k.a. Deathstroke the Terminator, and at the risk of rehashing stuff everyone knows, I have to give you the basics on Slade, too.

Slade Wilson was a soldier (originally in Vietnam, though that's obviously been updated since) who was so good at soldiering that the army gave him a super soldier serum that made him faster and stronger than any normal human. After leaving the military, he became an assassin - unbeknownst to his wife, Adeline, and their young sons Grant and Joey. When Slade's secret assassin-ing and ego caused Joey's throat to be slit, rendering him mute for life, Adeline left him.

The Wilson family first crossed paths with the New Teen Titans years later when Grant became the supervillain Ravager. When Grant's own janky powers got him killed, Slade decided this was the Titans' fault somehow and vowed revenge. This involved sleeping with a fifteen-year-old girl for some reason. Slade is a terrible person.

Meanwhile, Joey grew up to become the superhero Jericho, and became a long-standing member of the Titans. However, he got possessed by like a thousand ghosts at once, like you do, and went crazy and evil, and Slade had to kill him for his own good.

By this point, Slade had become such a popular character that he'd shifted from villain to antihero. (Never mind all the attempted child murder and statutory rape.) It was in this context, fresh after Joey's death, that Rose was introduced.

Rose is the daughter of a woman named Lillian Worth, a.k.a. Sweet Lili, a Cambodian woman who Slade once helped escape from the Khmer Rouge. Lili set up a high-end brothel in the States, and she and Slade became essentially fuckbuddies (this was after Slade's divorce), which eventually led to Rose. Lili didn't tell Slade about Rose because of his...everything, and Rose had a happy childhood, growing up with the other sex workers' kids in the brothel.

Unfortunately, Slade's enemies eventually came for Rose. Specifically, Slade's evil, shitty half-brother Wade LaFarge. (If you're thinking "Wait...Slade Wilson has a brother named Wade?" then yes, Deadpool was in fact Rob Liefeld shamelessly ripping off Deathstroke. Liefeld's collaborate Fabian Nicieza named him Wade to acknowledge this, and joked that he was Slade's brother. So Marv Wolfman gave Slade an actual brother named Wade, who sucks so bad and who nobody likes. I don't think Marv was happy about Deadpool.)

Anyway, Wade became the fourth Ravager (don't worry about the second or third, they don't matter) and kidnapped Rose. Slade...basically decided not to try to rescue her because he was busy, leaving the job to Lili and his best friend Wintergreen. Rose, who had been trained in martial arts by her mother, managed to partially escape on her own...at which point Lili showed up and tried to kill Wade by hitting him with her car...and driving them both off a cliff. This is usually described as Wade killing Lili, which...okay. (She died, but he secretly survived, because of course he did.)

Slade refused to take any responsibility for Rose, afraid of putting her in even more danger, so this extremely traumatized tween was placed in the care of the Titans, who at this point were led by Roy Harper. She was still a civilian at this point, although she did spar with the team, and she also showed she was not to be fucked with when women and children were in danger:

This is when Rose's powers first manifested: she has precognitive abilities, which originally involved lengthy visions of the distant future but quickly became flashes of what is about to happen, which makes her particularly good in a fight because she can predict what her opponent will do.

Also! During this period she became friends with Grant and also developed a brief but adorable crush on Kyle Rayner, while Bart Allen developed a brief but adorable crush on her. Babies!

She later shows up in the 1999 Titans series, considerably older (I'm assuming she's at least 18 here), when Roy hires her to be Lian's nanny, a job she takes very seriously:

But then the 1999 series was canceled. Then the 2003 Teen Titans series began, and very quickly it was revealed that Joey Wilson was alive, that he had been possessing his father, and that that was the reason for Slade's turn as an antihero, not any actual desire on Slade's part to be good. A newly freed Slade decides he wants a do-over with one of his kids.

Meanwhile, Rose has been placed with a foster family, because I guess she's somehow underage again? But said family is then murdered by Wade LaFarge - remember him? - who then kidnaps Rose. Who is rescued by Slade:

Rose, at Slade's encouragement, kills Wade and becomes the new Ravager. It's later revealed (to the reader, not to Rose) that Slade anonymously hired Wade to kill Rose's family because he wanted exactly this setup: for Rose to become completely emotionally dependent on and devoted to him.

Rose spends the next few years by her father's side, attacking the Titans and saying "Yes, daddy" in a sexy baby voice a lot. It's...tiresome. She's so determined to prove her loyalty that she even stabs her own left eye out, because we're in the mid-2000s now and it's peak edgelord time, baby! It's later explained that she's behaving like this because Slade drugged her with the same super soldier serum that gave him his powers (???), so Rose is now also extra strong, fast, etc.

Slade blackmails Dick (in his "villain" era) into briefly training Rose, and I have to include this panel because it kills me every time:

She's trying to be mean and scary but she loves the Harpers so much. I'm cry.

Anyway, Slade has only involved Dick as part of a convoluted plot to kill Superman by putting kryptonite in Rose's empty eye socket (sure), and when Dick reveals that kryptonite causes cancer in humans and that Slade knew that perfectly well and just didn't give a shit about Rose, Rose decides to go back to the side of good and join the Teen Titans properly.

It...does not go smoothly. Cassie hates and distrusts Rose and makes that very clear, and Rose responds by being as obnoxious and antisocial as possible, constantly accusing the other Titans of not trusting her, and basically causing problems on purpose. Like slipping naked into Tim's bed to surprise him problems:

I want to be clear that the writing here is absolutely abysmal. Johns and later writers (and artists) were trying to make Rose sexy sexy jailbait and also going for some kind of reductive Madonna/whore dichotomy with her and Cassie, and it's all very sexist and boring. But if you look past the, uh, actual comics, I do think that a lot of Rose's characterization here makes sense. She's a very traumatized teenager who expects people to dislike her, so she ensures that they dislike her to maintain control of the situation. She sees sex very much as something transactional and rooted in power exchange - which makes a lot of sense, since she was raised in a brothel! Plus she likes starting shit for fun. The comics are bad, but the idea of Rose is so, so good.

Another thing that is good in concept but shitty in execution: Rose/Eddie. As I mentioned in my Eddie profile, Eddie is utterly smitten with Rose pretty much immediately and he is both not at all subtle about it but also not at all a Nice Guy - his feelings are his to deal with and he never puts them on her to manage for him. Rose, for her part, doesn't seem to know how to handle just...a sweet boy who adores her, and so she alternates between flirting with him, being extremely mean to him, and being fiercely protective of him.

That last comes into play when Eddie is abducted by a villain team called (sigh) the Terror Titans. Rose fights her way through a gauntlet of them to rescue him, which is SO DAMN ROMANTIC even if the comic looks like shit. But she's so ruthless about it that Cassie and Tim discuss kicking her off the team, which she overhears - so she defects to the Terror Titans. Her plan is to go in undercover and take them down, but during the storyline she starts to wonder if maybe this isn't where she belongs after all.

Rose. Honey. Baby girl. The Terror Titans are led by the fucking Clock King, a loser in clock glasses who likes to sleep with teenage girls and is making other teenage superheroes fight each other to death in a ring. No, this is not where you belong.

(During this period Rose also becomes addicted to huffing adrenalin. I truly do not know how I made it through the late 2000s, y'all. The comics were abysmal.)

Somewhere in there Joey Wilson comes back as a hero, and he and Rose quickly bond, which is as touching as it is heartbreaking. But Joey is still deeply unwell, and despite Rose's best efforts, he goes villain again, and she has to help the Titans take him down. After butting heads with Cassie again, Rose decides to leave the Titans, again. She tries to convince a depowered Eddie to come with her, but he declines. She then stars in her own backup feature where she travels to a remote Canadian village and saves a bunch of women and children from trafficking; while she's gone, Eddie is killed. Rose then returns to the Teen Titans for the fifth time and remains on the team until Flashpoint.

New 52 Rose is...honestly I'm not even going to try to explain her, because most of it is just incomprehensible nonsense. She shows up as a supporting character (with two eyes) in Superboy and The Ravagers, but it really feels like Lobdell just used the character name (and a worse design, which is saying something) for an OC. She's basically hired muscle for an evil lab, and there's no mention of Deathstroke for ages.

Eventually over in Deathstroke's book, it's revealed that Rose's mother is Adeline in this universe, not Lili, which means that Rose has been completely whitewashed. Of course most art of her has always depicted her as white, but this erased any possibility of her being biracial. The Wilson family's New 52 adventures culminate in Slade killing both Grant and Joey by sticking a sword through their heads (?) while Rose watches in horror, which is so awful as to be actively hilarious.

Also the New 52 is of course where we got the first hint of a Jason/Rose relationship, when she appears in Red Hood and the Outlaws as his ex. This has nothing to do with any of her other completely contradictory appearances during this era. The New 52 was a goddamn mess.

Rebirth erased all of that mishegas, thankfully. Rose is once again Lili's daughter, and Lili is specified to be Hmong, meaning Rose is too. In a change from the pre-Flashpoint continuity, Rose was conceived while Slade and Addie were still married, meaning Slade was cheating on Addie with Lili. In fact, Slade was out of town saving Rose's life when Joey's throat was slit, so Addie viscerally hates Rose even though obviously none of that was Rose's fault. Despite this, Rose and Joey are quite close and love each other fiercely, which is nice, even if the astonishing toxicity of the Wilson family means they can't really do anything in a healthy or functional way, including love.

Here's an example of what I mean: during this period, Rose became possessed by an ancient Vietnamese warrior princess who occasionally took over her body. During one of those times, she killed Joey's fiancee (who was also sleeping with Slade) (and who Joey was cheating on with Slade's friend, a man at least twice his age). Joey forgave her. So that's...nice? I guess?

Both of you need so much therapy and also to go no contact with your father.

As of Infinite Frontier, Rose's original history seems to be pretty much intact, except that she has two eyes. (Her missing eye was restored by the New 52, although she was wearing an eyepatch in Death Metal. Maybe just for fun?)

She next appeared in Robin, hanging out on Lazarus Island with Damian, partially to keep an eye on him but mostly because she was trying to figure out what the deal was with one of the other competitors in the assassin tournament, a kid named Respawn. Eventually Respawn was revealed to be a clone of Talia and Slade, so basically Rose's younger half brother. Rose tried to take him under her wing, but she made the mistake of introducing him to Slade, who was like "Yes! A third chance to have a son and not fuck it all up entirely!" Rose was like "Hey maybe don't hang out with Slade" and Respawn was like "No this seems fine" and then Respawn was almost instantly murdered. So. That was a bummer.

Should've listened, Grant 2.0.

These days, Rose is a member of the clandestine team Stormwatch for some reason, and is appearing with them in Batman: The Brave and the Bold.

Rose is one of those characters who is a fan favorite of gross dudes and so a lot of the writing (and art, oh god the art) around her has been truly abysmal. But she's so popular that every so often she's in something really solid, and even when the comics are bad, she somehow shines as a really fascinating, heartbreaking, lovable character. Maybe someday we'll get a really good Ravager and Jericho miniseries, that would be nice. In the meantime, there's always twelve thousand shitty issues of Teen Titans!

#rose wilson #ravager #character profiles #the lost titans #meta

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longitudinalwaveme · 2 months

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The Rogue Backstory Information Masterpost

Or, everything you always wanted to know about the Rogues' canon backstories, but were afraid to ask.

This post would be much simpler and less confusing if writers weren't constantly retconning each others' work.

Captain Cold

Showcase #8 (1957): Len Snart is a, quote, "ambitious" crook, who has realized that, if he's going to be successful as a criminal, he's going to have to find some way of dealing with the Flash. Conveniently, the newspaper he's reading informs him that a "scientific magazine has prepared a comprehensive article on Flash!" Hoping that this article might give him an idea, Len breaks into the office of the magazine, takes the manuscript home with him, and reads it. From this article he learns that "a cyclotron might effectively interfere with Flash's speed". Cold decides to imbue a weapon with the power of a cyclotron, and, to this end, breaks into the cyclotron building that is located "in a a suburban area" a few nights later with what appears to be a toy gun. He turns on the cyclotron and starts fiddling with it, but pulls the levers the wrong way, irradiating the gun and alarming himself. Assuming that he's failed, he goes to leave, only to run into the watchman, who pulls a gun on him. Len, in response, points his own gun at the watchmen in the hopes of scaring him off, and accidentally pulls the trigger...which causes the watchman to be frozen solid. Surprised but pleased by this turn of events, Len designs a uniform for himself (his classic parka---which we would learn in Flash #141 was sewn by a tailor named Paul Gambi), and comes up with the costumed identity of Captain Cold. (Rejected names included Mr. Arctic, the Cold Wave, Sub-Zero, and the Human Icicle.) He then goes out to commit crimes and fight the Flash.

Flash #250 (1977): We learn that Captain Cold has a younger sister named Lisa Snart. She's a professional figure skater who goes by the stage name of Lisa Star, presumably in part to avoid being connected to her infamous brother. Len tries to talk her out of taking revenge on the Flash for the death of Roscoe Dillon (aka the Top), her boyfriend and his fellow Rogue, but fails pretty spectacularly. This issue also is the first time one of Len's parents is mentioned, albeit in an offhand way; Lisa says "mother would never forgive you for snuffing her only daughter!"

Flash #300 (1981): The backstory presented here is mostly the same as that seen in Showcase #8, with a few minor differences. "Many years ago, Len Snart was a small-time crook who broke into a research lab, looking for an experimental weapon he could use against me [me here referring to Barry Allen, who was reviewing all of his enemies' backstories in the hopes of determining which of them was behind the most recent plot against him]. What he stole was the prototype of a revolutionary cold-gun." The main change here is that Snart appears to have stolen his gun, rather than having created it by complete accident after pulling some levers the wrong way...though it is possible that perhaps Barry has been misinformed about the creation of the cold gun.

Secret Origins #41 (1989): This retelling of the origin is completely identical to the one found in Showcase #8; although the fact that it's being narrated by the Rogues' tailor Paul Gambi does give it some extra flavor. The only new detail is Gambi's suggestion that Len didn't do too well in school: "The trouble is---and this would not have surprised your teachers---you figured it wrong!"

Justice League Quarterly #2: This story may not be canonical, but in it, we learn that Snart calls his cold gun Shirley, after his mother, indicating that her name may be Shirley Snart.

Flash vol. 2 #165 (2000): "The place reminds me of my parents' house. Smells like cigarettes and pine sol. All my dad did was smoke; my mother cleaned. They didn't drink much. That was me and my sister's job." This was written by Geoff Johns, and he would later retcon out most of this information. This story was also the first to suggest that Captain Cold didn't have a good relationship with his parents: "My name's Leonard Snart. It's a bad name, I know. But my parents were bad people."

Flash vol. 2 #182 (2002): This is the famous Cold origin story, and still the best one. It establishes that Leonard Snart grew up in a trailer home outside of Central City. His father was unemployed and on disability; he had once been a police officer but was fired for being drunk on the job, which led to his partner getting killed and himself being shot in the arm. He abused his wife (who would leave for days, but would always be forced to come back due to lack of resources) and both of his children, both physically and verbally. He was especially aggressive in response to words of affection or love from his children.

Leonard's grandfather (who was his father's father) was "the only real adult in my young life". He intervened to protect Len and Lisa whenever he could, but due to his poor health, wasn't able to take the children in himself. The grandfather drove an ice truck and used the truck to take his children to visit places like ball parks and restaurants that they otherwise didn't get to visit. Unfortunately, this grandfather died before Len turned twelve, leaving him alone with his sister, his often-absent mother, and his abusive father.

Len left home himself in his late teens. At this point, his mother had been dead for over a year, and he was fed up with his father's abuse. His sister, Lisa, wanted to leave home with him, but Len had already gotten involved with a bad crowd, and didn't want to put his sister in danger. "Keep skating, kid. You've got talent. You'll be fine." It's clear that leaving his sister alone with their father later haunted him, and it seems to be one of his biggest regrets.

Leonard quickly joined up with a gang, and one of its members invented goggles that protected their eyes from gunfire and contained a police band receiver as well. Len thought that these were cool, and they would ultimately serve as the goggles he would wear as part of his Captain Cold uniform. He and this gang then went out to rob a pharmacy...only to be stopped by the Flash and sent to prison.

While in prison, and seeking revenge on the Flash, Len "studied kinetic motion and thermal energy. But what really caught my eye was an article on absolute zero....Absolute zero means zero atomic motion". When he was released on parole, he "broke into one of the labs I'd read about. I never was too great at all the science, so I needed some help. I stole some blueprints. And I made a weapon." From here, Len used this gun to become Captain Cold.

Flashpoint Citizen Cold #1 (2011): Technically, this takes place in an alternate universe, but it included a recap of the Snarts' past, and it seemed identical to the one provided in Flash vol. 2 #182, so I'm going to note a few relevant details that this issue added. First, Len's dad is named Lawrence, and second, he's suspected to have mob ties. In other words, there's a good chance that Leonard's father was a corrupt cop.

Rebirth Flash #14: Most of the backstory remains the same as what we saw in Flash vol. 2 #182. "I'm sure you know their father was a real piece of work. After their mother died, he lived off hate and drink. Lisa used to tell me that her grandfather would take them on his ice deliveries. It was their only escape. They felt protected with him in the cold." That being said, the notion that Len's dad only became abusive after his wife died is new; in Johns' version he was just as abusive to his wife as he was to his children. This version also claims that Len was directly responsible for Lisa's turn to crime; in all previous versions of the story she didn't become a criminal until Roscoe's death.

Rebirth Flash #38: "Y'know, Flash, every time my dad would hurt my sister and me? He would beg for forgiveness afterward. And then he would just do it again. [I'm not like my father.] I would never ask for forgiveness." I'm not crazy about Williamson's version of Captain Cold's past, and this is a big part of the reason why.

Rebirth Flash #72: We learn that Clive Yorkin (the criminal who is experimented on, A Clockwork Orange-style, and then becomes a monster in the 1979 Death of Iris Allen arc) was part of the gang Len was in before he became Captain Cold. Yorkin is a wild card, and nearly shoots Iris (who is reporting on the scene of their crime) despite Cold's attempts to talk him down. Barry saves her, and then defeats the gang and takes them to prison (as we saw in Flash vol. 2 #182).

Golden Glider

Flash #250-251 (1977): "The girl at the grave is Lisa Snart---younger sister of the notorious Captain Cold! Small wonder, then, that ice played a vital role in her life, too---as a champion skater who performed in ice shows all over the world!" Lisa performed for the Futura Ice Company under the name Lisa Star and was internationally famous for her unparalleled spinning ability---something that had been taught to her by her boyfriend, Roscoe Dillon, who was also her (presumably unofficial) figure skating coach. Their romance "blossomed for months--but undercover", during which Roscoe followed her from city to city to watch her performances---but then Roscoe died from a brain hemorrhage; the result of his battles with the Flash (see Flash #243-244 for more details on this). Lisa swore revenge on the Flash for her lover's death and became the Golden Glider in response, using her brother's cold guns, her boyfriend's tops, and a pair of ice skates which produced ice in mid-air (also invented by her brother, Captain Cold) as the tools of her deadly scheme.

Flash #257: We learn that Lisa can read lips. Where and how she learned this is never explained, but she can. We also learn that she apparently has quite the inventive prowess, as she is now armed with a whole arsenal of jewel weapons.

Flash #300 (1981): Barry's recap of Lisa's past: "At one time she was a world-renowned figure skater travelling all over the country as the star of an ice show by day....while carrying on a torrid secret romance from city to city by night. The object of her passion---an infamous costumed criminal who just happened to be one of my most cunning long-time foes---one Roscoe Dillon, better known to the rest of the world as the villainous Top!" After a brief detour into Roscoe's past (more on that later), he gives us some new information about Lisa's past: "Dillon shared the grim details of his imminent doom with only one person---his grief-stricken sweetheart, Lisa! The final spin for the Top came the following day---as Roscoe Dillon became the first of my personal Rogues' gallery to die in his prime." This story also reaffirms the notion that Lisa frequently made visits to Roscoe's top-shaped tombstone after his death.

Flash vol. 2 #165: Len claims that he and Lisa drank frequently.

Flash vol. 2 #182: Most of the backstory overlaps heavily with Len's; since they're siblings and thus had the same runaway mother, abusive father, and kindly but sickly grandfather. Lisa was left alone with her father by Len, but managed to escape a few years later by becoming a figure skater. The rest of her backstory is basically identical to the one that was already established for her, but this issue claimed that Lisa, in addition to wanting revenge for Roscoe's death, became a Rogue because "I wanted to be like my brother. With my brother."

New 52 Flash Annual #1: We learn that Lisa is Sam's girlfriend, and that she was not properly a member of the Rogues until Len got the bright idea to give the Rogues superpowers and she was put into a coma but also given astral powers. This backstory would be retconned out only a few years later by DC Rebirth.

Rebirth Flash #14: We learn that Lisa was coached in figure skating by a woman named Glenda Dillon (Joshua Williamson says she's Roscoe's mother.) Glenda implies that Lisa gave up figure skating and went into crime in order to protect her brother. "Leonard always thinks he's taking care of her. But the reality is Lisa takes care of him. It's why whenever he asks for help she follows him." This backstory also seems to suggest that Lisa never became a professional skater or dated Roscoe in this version of events and makes Lisa's motivation entirely about her brother, who appears to have led her into a life of crime in this version of the story (in contrast to all of Len's earlier appearances, where he tried to dissuade her from becoming a criminal until she made it clear that she was going to become one no matter what he said).

Flash Rebirth #83: We learn that Lisa, for some reason, was terrified of dogs as a kid, and that Len knows this and thus also presumably knows why. Did it have something to do with their father's abuse?

Trickster #1 (James Jesse/Giovanni Giuseppi)

Flash #113 (1960): James Jesse is the youngest member of the Flying Jesses, a family of high-wire walkers who work for the creatively-named Big Circus. His mother's name is Helen; his father goes unnamed. Unfortunately for James, he's afraid of heights (or, more accurately, of falling) and thus is resistant to practicing. He prefers to read books, particularly books about his "reverse-namesake", the outlaw Jesse James. James' parents do not approve of his reading choices, and insist that he focus more on practicing (in part, I think, since he hasn't ever told them about his fear of heights).

In spite of his fears, James still wants to be a famous aerialist, so he invents a pair of shoes that use jet propulsion systems to let him walk on air. It takes him years to create and master the shoes, but once he completes them---from all appearances, when he's still a teenager!---they allow him to become a champion tightrope walker and the star of his circus. He also earns his parents' praise for his abilities.

However, this soon proves too boring for James, and he decides to become an outlaw like Jesse James in order to get more excitement. "But instead of holding up railroad trains like he did---I'll be a 20th-century version of Jesse James---and hold up airplanes!" James proceeds to do just that, and becomes the Trickster.

Flash #300 (1981): "I'll become a famous criminal--like him...a 20th century version of Jesse James! With my jet-shoes I can pull of the trick! And that gives me my name, too! I'll become---the Trickster!" That seems like a bit of a stretch, but I guess that's where the name came from. Barry also calls James "the most famous acrobat of all", implying that he did pretty well for himself in the circus.

Secret Origins #41 (1989): We learn that James Jesse is a stage name, with James' real name being Giovanni Giuseppi. His family comes from Naples, so James is either Italian or of Italian descent. This version of the origin story also strongly implies that his father was an unpleasant man; he insults James for reading and wrenches James' arm out of his socket when he gets distracted by some of the women who work with them at the circus. "It wasn't the heights you were afraid of---it was the old man dropping you!" This story also suggests that the Giuseppis did some trapeze artistry in addition to their high wire walking.

And then there's James' explanation (in song, no less!): "Oh, I flew through the air with the greatest unease, till I thought it all over and came up with these! My airwalker shoes were undreamed of by sages, and I did in one song what took Gambi two pages!"

New Year's Evil: The Rogues (1999): We learn that, twelve years prior to the start of the story, James had a relationship with a woman named Mindy Hong, whose family had its roots in a fictional Asian country called Zhutan. It's not 100% clear that this relationship happened prior to his becoming the Trickster, but it seems likely. This relationship also produced a son named Billy.

Rebirth Flash #66: The basic backstory for James remains the same (circus, reading about Jesse James, fear of heights, airwalker shoes) but a lot of the details are different. This story doubles down on making his parents awful; both of them are neglectful of and verbally abusive towards James. They're also portrayed as being con artists who use their act as a distraction while they pickpocket people, rather than being legitimate performers as in previous versions. The origin of the airwalker shoes is also quite different in this version of the story. Instead of making the shoes on his own so that he can better perform in the family's act, in this version he ran away from his parents and the circus, and pulled a "long con disguised as a lab tech at S.T.A.R. Labs. Fooled some lonely scientist into falling in love with me. And I stole her research and sold it to Lexcorp. But I was living that scam long enough that I picked up a few things. Like how to make shoes that run on air." Then he became the Trickster. Interestingly, this version of the story also removes any hint of James' family being of Italian descent.

Captain Boomerang, Sr. (George "Digger" Harkness)

Flash #117 (1960): Digger Harkness, a criminal who has spent "years hiding in the Australian bush hiding out from the law", is reading a newspaper when he finds an ad from W.W. Wiggins' toy company. Wiggins is looking for a person who can throw boomerangs expertly to be a mascot for his toy boomerangs, and Digger, who has been thinking about becoming a costumed criminal and becoming famous, decides to apply for the job himself under the alias of George Green. He is promptly hired, due to his incredible skill with boomerangs, and is given the name and costume of Captain Boomerang. Digger does work for the company for awhile, serving as the mascot, but commits crimes at the same time. Eventually, he and the Flash come to blows and he is exposed and arrested as a criminal.

Flash #227: We learn that Digger's father is called "Aussie" Green, and that he's a small-time crook from Australia.

Flash #300 (1981): Barry gives a beat-for-beat retelling of Digger's origin story from Flash #117. No new information is given.

Flash #310 (1982): We learn that W.W. Wiggins has a young son named Willard Wiggins Jr.; later revelations would make Willard Jr. Digger's younger half-brother.

Flash #311 (1982): "Regardless of the exact year, we calculated the arrival would take place somewhere over the South Pacific---which means a splashdown in the ocean---and my parents never taught little Digger how to swim!"

Secret Origins #41 (1989): Gambi gives another beat-for-beat retelling of the origin story from Flash #117.

Suicide Squad #44 (1990): This is the famous Captain Boomerang origin. It establishes that Digger grew up poor in Korumburra, a rural town in Australia. He lived with the man he believed to be his father, Ian Harkness, his mother, Betty Harkness, and his older half-brother Tom Harkness (who would eventually become an accountant). His mother was loving towards him, but his father was neglectful and abusive.

George made his first boomerang in elementary school, and, after being taunted about it by a kid named Mick Wentworth, he threw it in anger and managed to hit a kookaburra with it...which set him on the path of using boomerangs as weapons. Digger and Wentworth (so called as to not have him confused with Mick Rory/Heat Wave) promptly became friends, and proceeded to cause all sort of trouble together as juvenile delinquents. (His mother bailed both of them out of trouble frequently.)

When Digger turned 18, he tried to rob a general store, got caught, and narrowly managed to escape using a boomerang. This led to an argument with his father, and, after his mother tried to take his side, arguing that he was Ian's son, Ian flipped out and slapped her across the face. Digger responded by punching out his father, and his mother, in a panic, contacted W.W. Wiggins and had Wiggins give him a job in America. Wiggins made him a toy salesman, but after a few weeks (maybe months) on the job, Digger got sick of being a toy salesman and tried to pick somebody's pocket. The Flash saw him and tried to intervene, but Digger managed to tag him with a boomerang and knock him out. This led to Digger's official career as a costumed criminal.

It wasn't until Digger attended his mother's funeral that he learned (from W.W. Wiggins) that his mother had had an affair with W.W. Wiggins when he was a soldier stationed in Australia, and that that affair had been reignited many years later when Wiggins returned to the country, this time as a toy salesman, albeit only for one night. This affair produced Digger---and was the main driving force behind his father's dislike of him.

Flash (2010) #7: This origin is basically the same as the one from Suicide Squad #44, although in this version instead of completely ignoring his son for 18 years, W. W. Wiggins sends little Digger boomerangs. Also, Digger tried to rob a pawnshop instead of a general store at age 18, and it was he rather than his mom whom his father hit. This version of events also implies that W.W. Wiggins went bankrupt trying to promote the boomerangs, and that it was this financial difficulty that led to Digger becoming Captain Boomerang---he wasn't getting paid because Wiggins had no money, and so decided to steal money instead.

Suicide Squad #47 (2019): Most of the backstory remains the same, but now Digger was also at some point a secret agent for the Australian government. No, really. This is actually a thing that was established in this issue.

Heat Wave

Flash #140 (1963): "I used to be a fire-eater in the circus, but I lost my taste for the work! And then one day a week ago I finally made up my mind for---er---private reasons, I must say--- to embark on a criminal career in a big way! Naturally, with my circus background you understand why I chose the character of Heat Wave! I created my own uniform---and my weapon--a heat gun!" The "private reason" for Heat Wave's criminal career was...a desire to impress a local TV personality called Dream Girl. No, really, that was why.

Flash #266 (1978): Mick, at the age of nine, went on a field trip with his school to a meat packing facility. Being curious, he wandered off on his own, and accidentally shut himself into a meat locker. After nearly freezing to death, he managed to use the heat of his breath to "un-numb" his fingers enough to open the latch on the door and escape. This near-death experience gave young Mick intense cryophobia and a love of heat and warmth. Mick felt comfortable only when wearing several layers of clothes (even in the summer) and he spent his teenaged years experimenting with heat. When he became an adult, he became a fire-eater in the circus, and then fell into crime (presumably for fame and/or to impress girls as per Flash #160). It's also worth noting that we see two people who look very much like they're probably supposed to be Mick's parents looking at their teenaged son with concern as he experiments with fire, indicating that his parents did not die when he was a child.

Flash #300 (1981): Barry gives a beat-for-beat retelling of the origin from Flash #266, with one exception...Mick is said to be ten years old, rather than nine, during the meat locker incident. This was probably just an error on writer Cary Bates' part, rather than a deliberate retcon.

Secret Origins #41 (1989): Gambi gives us a mostly beat-for-beat retelling of the origin from Flash #266; the only new information we learn is that Mick ran away from home in order to join the circus as a fire-eater.

Flash vol. 2 #218: This is the famous Heat Wave origin. It mostly follows the facts established by the previous origins, but adds a really disturbing twist to them.

Mick Rory grew up on a farm with his mother, father, grandmother, and brother. He had a mostly idyllic life---but he was a pyromaniac, obsessed with flames. (In all previous retellings, Mick was obsessed with heat more than with fire, and his obsession only manifested after the meat locker incident.)

When Mick was 12 years old, he couldn't resist the urge to set the family house on fire...and was so transfixed by the flames that, even though he wanted to help his family, all he could do was watch as they burned alive. Mick was then sent to live with his uncle.

Mick's classmates made fun of him because he wore winter clothes at all times of year, and one day, on the tour of a local slaughterhouse, Brad Riker locked Mick in a meat freezer. Mick took nearly an hour to free himself, and the next night, he felt compelled to lock Riker and his family in their house and burn it down. Horrified, Mick then ran away from his uncle's house and joined the circus, where he became a fire eater. He was happy there for a few years, but then his urges surfaced again and he set the circus on fire. And this time, he took pictures.

When Mick saw the developed photos, he was disgusted with himself and what he had done, and, when he saw Captain Cold on the news, he decided that the best way to get his urges under control was to make them into a gimmick for costumed crime.

"I designed a heat-gun based on the flame-thrower. I compacted the fuel in catridges at the base of the gun, focusing on a mixture of Greek fire and butane gas. Originally, the ignition system in the tip was the typical electrical coil. Through the years, I managed to improve it, adding in a laser that super-heated the fire and helped me control its shape. I lined my fireproof suit with hoses filled with the fuel. And gave the gun a quick reload system which would replaced the tanks whenever I locked it down into the holster." After completing his gun, Mick set off to become Heat Wave.

I'll be honest and say that, while this origin is iconic at this point, I don't really like it. I feel like the death of his family was sufficiently horrible and tragic to make the point about his pyromania; having him kill another family and burn down a circus was a bit much.

Mirror Master II (Evan McCulloch)

Animal Man #8, #17, and #21 (1989-1991): Evan McCulloch is introduced as a Scottish hitman, and is hired by an organization composed primarily of three powerful corporate businessmen to scare Animal Man away from crime-fighting, since his focus on protecting animals was cutting into their profits. They give him the Mirror Master costume and gear so that people will assume that the attacks are supervillain shenanigans rather than a corporate hit.

Evan readily agrees to harass and beat up Animal Man, but when this fails to scare off the hero, the organization then orders him to kill Animal Man's wife and two young children. McCulloch promptly refuses, as he doesn't kill women or children, and he is replaced as an assassin by someone willing to take the job. We also learn that he has spent a considerable amount of time in Glasgow.

Justice League #10-12, 15: We learn that Evan McCulloch grew up in an orphanage. Batman offers to donate money to it in order to get Evan to turn against the Injustice League formed by Lex Luthor.

Flash vol. 2 #212: This is the famous Evan origin.

As a baby, Evan McCulloch was abandoned in a basket on the doorstep of an orphanage in Kirkaldy, Scotland. A picture of his parents was tucked inside the basket with him. The orphanage was run by a kind-hearted woman named Miss McCulloch, who did her best to be a mother to all of the children at her orphanage, including Evan. As such, while he obviously wished for his parents, Evan was generally pretty content at the orphanage.

There was only one problem: an older boy named Georgie, who came into the rooms of the younger children at night, dragged them outside, and sexually assaulted them. When Evan was eight, Georgie dragged him outside and attempted to abuse him, prompting Evan to kill him in self-defense.

Evan left the orphanage when he was 16 and ran away to Glasgow, where he spent a few years on odd jobs, then drifted into crime. Eventually, he became a hitman, and was hired to kill two people in one day. The first target put up a fight and cut Evan across the eye, thus impeding his vision and preventing him from realizing that his second target was his father (whom he knew from the photograph) until it was too late. Evan shot his father, and, when he went to confess to his mother after his father's funeral, he found her dead in the bathtub from suicide. After killing the man who hired him to kill his father, Evan planned to turn himself in, only for the American government to turn up and hire him as their hitman. When Evan agreed, they gave him the Mirror Master costume and gear (again, to ensure he wouldn't be traced back to them). Mirror Master worked for them for awhile, then got fed up with them, trapped them in a mirror dimension, went to Central City, and joined up with the Rogues.

Pied Piper

Flash #106 (1959): "I am a master of sound! For years I studied sound in all its phases! Do you know what it's capable of? Maybe you've heard of sonic booms---explosions caused miles away by an airplane passing through the sound barrier!...Don't worry, I'll stop the Flash!" And for over twenty years, that was all the backstory we had for the Pied Piper!

Flash #300 (1981): Barry on Piper's mysterious past: "In all the years I've been battling the Piper, I've never been able to learn much about his pre-Piper days or the origins of his expertise in the science of sonics!"

Flash #307 (1982): Cary Bates provides us with what is effectively Hartley's definitive backstory.

Hartley Rathaway was born to the millionaire publishing magnates Osgood and Rachel Rathaway. He was born deaf, and his parents spent millions of dollars for highly-advanced hearing aids that would allow him to hear. Once he could hear, Hartley became fascinated with music, but didn't seem to have an aptitude or interest in much of anything else, much to his parents' frustration. What they didn't realize was that Hartley had begun to tinker with musical instruments----or that he would learn how to use them to control minds by the time he was a teenager.

For his sixteenth birthday, his parents gave him a silver-plated flute.

When Hartley graduated from high school, his parents bribed his way into a top college, bribed his professors into giving him good grades, and then bribed his way into an executive post at a major firm. Hartley wasn't interested in any of this, and instead just used his hypnosis to make things even easier for himself. Bored out of his mind by how easy life was for him, Hartley decided to become a criminal to finally experience risk and excitement (or at least, that's what his parents, Rachel and Osgood, seem to think). And so the Pied Piper was born.

To keep anyone from learning that their son was a costumed criminal, the Rathaways bribed everyone from the chief of police to the FBI to created the identity of Henry Darrow for the Pied Piper, and it was by this name that Hartley was known for much of his criminal career.

The Pied Piper himself also gives his own opinion on his childhood later in this issue, when he arrives at the Rathaway mansion with stolen goods and reveals that he has been giving much of the money he's been stealing to his parents---"At last I've paid back every Rathaway dollar my parents spent on trying to mold me into someone I could never be!" He also argues that his parents never wanted what was best for him, but rather "what was best for the Rathaway name! What I wanted never really mattered much to either one of you!"

Secret Origins #41 (1989): Gambi gives a beat-for-beat retelling of the origin from Flash #307.

Flash vol. 2 #32: This story establishes that Hartley has a younger sister named Geraldine, who appears to be about eight to ten years old.

Flash vol. 2 #190: This story is mostly the same as the one in Flash #307, but it does change some details and add a few things. This issue establishes Hartley's middle name as Robert and identified Dr. William Magnus, the inventor of the Metal Men, as the man who invented Hartley's hearing aids (when Hartley was nine). It also establishes that these hearing aids give him super-human hearing.

In this version, Hartley's parents are obviously neglectful---they went out every night for the first month of his life rather than spending time with him, and they don't even notice he's deaf until he turns two.

Hartley loves listening to music, but doesn't have much talent for playing it. He also felt as though he could never relate to his parents or their friends; the people in his social class looked down on him and gossiped about him behind his back.

Hartley got himself kicked out of every college he was sent to, apparently as a form of rebellion, and things only got worse when he came out to his parents. It sparked a huge argument, and in response, Hartley ran away from home, taking his musical instruments and some of his parents' money with him. He then used his knowledge of sonics in the hopes that he would be able to create and sell his own instruments...and then stumbled upon his mind-controlling flute, which gave him a sort of power he had never had over his life before. Intoxicated by this control, and angry at the world, he took to a life of crime as the Pied Piper.

Weather Wizard

Flash #110 (1959): Mark Mardon was a petty crook, and had been arrested for burglary on at least three separate occasions; once by a Central City police lieutenant named Jim Harvey. On his third arrest, he was sent to Tri-State Prison on a train...and escaped by jumping off of the moving vehicle! After his escape, he decided to hide out with his brother Clyde, whom he knew lived along the shores of Big Water Lake as something of a hermit.

When Mark arrived at his brother's house, he was surprised to find what looked like a scientific laboratory, and even more surprised to find that his brother was dead of a heart attack. Shortly thereafter, Mark stumbled upon his brother's notes and learned that his brother had been about to announce to the world that he had learned how to build a device that could control the weather. Clyde had intended to use his device to help the world, but Mark had a "better" idea: he would follow his brother's notes and build his own weather-controlling device to get rich and revenge himself on the men who had sent him to jail. After building the wand using the notes, Mark dubbed himself the Weather Wizard, donned a costume that even he called "bizarre and original" and set out on a life of crime.

Flash #300 (1981): Barry gives a beat-for-beat recap of the origin from Flash #110.

Secret Origins #41 (1989): Gambi gives us what is mostly a beat-for-beat recap of the origin from Flash #110, but adds a few new details. "Your brother Clyde---who had always had everything better than you except a first name (and your mom almost made you switch that)---lived not far away on Big Water Lake." This is the first evidence we have that Clyde was favored over Mark by their parents. Or at least their mother.

The Flash: Iron Heights (2001): We finally get confirmation that Clyde was Mark's older brother, and that he was a meteorologist. This is also the first time that Geoff Johns starts hinting that Mark killed Clyde after escaping prison (as this had not previously been part of the story).

Final Crisis: Rogues' Revenge #3 (2008): We get confirmation that Mark killed Clyde after escaping prison (albeit by accident). When Mark arrived at his brother's laboratory, Clyde went to call the police, telling Mark that he had to turn Mark in and that it was for Mark's own good. Mark reacted in a panic, insisting that he couldn't go back to prison (and perhaps hinting that something rather bad might have happened to him the last time he had been sent to prison--though that's speculation). In his panic, he grabbed the Weather Wand, and accidentally killed Clyde.

New 52 Flash #10: Marco Mardon is from Guatemala, and his older brother is now named Claudio. His family ran a drug cartel (because stereotypes). Their father didn't think either of them were fit to run the cartel, but after he died, Claudio became the head of the cartel anyway. Marco, on the other hand, wanted nothing to do with the cartel and ran away to Central City, where he would ultimately join the Rogues. His brother, Claudio, later came to the city on a "business" trip, and attempted to convince him to join him in running the cartel. "When we were kids, you said you'd always look out for me." While he's on the phone with Marco, he gets murdered, and, as we find out later, the hit was ordered by his own wife, Elsa, who thought that Claudio was too weak to do what needed to be done as the head of a drug cartel. When Marco found out about this (after he became the Weather Wizard), he was understandably upset and attempted to kill both her and himself with a lightning strike (though he managed to survive).

Rebirth Flash #85: "Marco was a loner in a family of criminals. He tried so hard to escape that life---that family--and it hurt people he loved. He can never escape the pain." Weirdly, the art makes the Mardons look more like 1920s gangsters than a modern drug cartel.

The Top

Flash #122 (1961): When Roscoe Dillon was a boy, he discovered some toy tops in the attic and became fascinated with them, to the point that he preferred spinning tops to playing with other children. As he grew older, he drifted into crime, and, after the second time he was caught (he wasn't the most successful criminal), he hit upon the idea of using his old boyhood hobby of spinning tops as a way to improve his criminal career. He immediately plunged himself into research on tops and learned everything he possibly could about them.

"Tops are amazing! They're linked up with intricate scientific devices like gyroscopes! Although they've been just about forgotten, they are the basis for some of the most startling advances in science! The theory behind tops gave rise to guided missile systems---to the gyrostabilizers of ocean liners! And unless I miss my guess, the same theory will help me reach the top of my profession!"

Roscoe invented a huge array of weaponized tops, and also taught himself how to spin at incredible speed. This spinning also increased his brainpower, and, filled with newfound confidence and weapons, he set out to take over the world as the Top.

Flash #300 (1981): Barry gives us a beat-for-beat recap of Roscoe's origin from Flash #122, although the art does seem to indicate that Roscoe was playing with tops well into his teenage years.

Flash vol. 2 #120-121: Roscoe offhandedly mentions that growing up on the streets of Brooklyn didn't provide him with the education that he would need to become president. This doesn't really jive with any of the other backstory information we're given on him (the scenes of his childhood from Flash #122 seemed quite suburban, for example).

Flash vol. 2 #216: "His name was Roscoe Dillon. But you know him better as the Top. For a long time he was just another one of the Rogues. A crook from Central City who got creative like Len Snart and Digger Harkness. He had a talent for inventions and explosives, and an obsession with, of all things, tops. The only good memory of a horrible childhood, he claimed."

More specifically, it appears that his parents were extremely demanding of him. "When I was growing up, it was always be the best, be the greatest. Show the world you're my son. When I couldn't, I lashed out. I rebelled against everything."

We also learn that, while he was inventing his tops, Roscoe tested them out, hurting innocent people in the process.

Flash vol. 2 #217: This issue reveals that Roscoe visited a Wiggins Toy Company toy shop every day when he was a child, presumably because they sold tops there.

Trickster II (Axel Walker)

Flash vol. 2 #183: Axel Walker comes from an upper-class family. When his parents divorced, he drifted into juvenile delinquency, doing drugs and vandalizing buildings. Then he broke into one of James Jesse's old storage units in Keystone City and stole his costume, his tricks, and a pair of airwalker shoes. Axel then used these to become the new Trickster.

Flash vol. 2 #1/2: "When my mom divorced my dad, Pops told me, 'There's two things you can be in life, Axel. Either you're the Trickster, or you're the one getting tricked!'"--Axel, on his dad's life advice.

Mirror Master I (Sam Scudder)

Flash #105 (1959): Sam Scudder was sent to prison for robbery. While he was working in the prison's mirror factory, he made a mistake, putting a wrong chemical in the silvering of the mirror. The prison foreman (Tyler) ordered him to throw it out, and, as he was in the process of doing so, he was stunned to discover that the mirror had held the image of the foreman like it was a camera. Sam decided to hang onto the mirror, and hid it so that he could study it later. He spent the rest of his time in prison studying mirrors, and, upon being released, put his knowledge to good use to invent what was effectively a 3-D printer, which he used to commit crimes as the Mirror Master.

This issue also implies that Sam feels some level of resentment towards society generally: "Besides, why should I try to help science and society? What did they ever do for me--besides put me behind bars?"

Flash #206 (1971): "Posters of famous movie cowboys! That's why Mirror Master went through that gunslinger bit---he was a rabid cowboy fan! Probably wanted to be in a real showdown ever since he was a kid!"

Flash #255 (1977): "A nice save, old foe! How'd you know I couldn't swim?"

Flash #300 (1981): We get what is effectively a beat-for-beat recap of the origin provided in Flash #105, although Barry describes Sam as "a hard-case prison inmate", implying that he might have been arrested more than once prior to becoming the Mirror Master. Barry also claims that Sam didn't really start studying the strange mirror until after his parole.

Flash vol. 2 #212: "I'm not the first Rogue to go by this name. No. Sam Scudder was. Kansas City boy. Simple thug."

Flash: Rebirth #2: In a frankly unnecessary bit of grimdark retconning, Sam is sentenced to prison for burglary and murder instead of robbery. Barry Allen, police scientist, is responsible for his conviction (I have no problems with Barry Allen convicting Sam---but couldn't he have convicted him for robbery rather than murder?)

Flash: Blackest Night #2 (2009): "I know where you're comin' from, McCulloch. I was like you. Hatin' who Sam Scudder was. Puttin' on a mask to escape it. Like all the Rogues. Running away to Wonderland."

As you can see, we don't know much about Sam's backstory....

#the rogues #flash comics #long post

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cardentist · 1 year

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regarding kyle from the evillious chronicles/daughter of evil series:

I don't think people ever put this in blunt enough terms, but kyle was a Victim in the situation.

"kyle had a crush on a lesbian and that's why he's a bad irredeemable character" is a take that I Still see used completely unironically to this day, and it's so baffling to me.

prim marlon, kyle's mother, is in possession of the sword of venomania, the vessel for the demon of lust. she used that sword to possess king arth, someone who was not interested in her romantically and had a wife, and forced him to have a baby with her (something that she made him forget after the fact).

to put it bluntly, as the fandom often doesn't, this was rape. she used magic to coerce him into having sex with her against his will. this is a consent issue, the power of the venomania sword is Inherently a consent issue.

and then what she did see, is she intentionally put kyle in an arranged marriage with the purpose of one day coercing him to break it.

for those who aren't aware. prim was in love with arth, arth was in love with anne. arth and anne got married and had children (riliane and allen), prim plotted to get revenge and had intended to burn the entire world if necessary to get it.

in that process she intentionally arranged a situation where riliane would be possessed by the demon of pride without her own knowledge, affecting her behavior.

riliane would become more volatile as she grew up, and in that time she'd Also grow up knowing that kyle was intended to one day marry her. having kyle Reject that marriage was Intended to send her into a blind rage, that was what prim wanted to happen.

so what she did was give kyle the venomania sword as a "gift" and Didn't Tell Him What It Did.

it was the Sword that influenced him to develop a crush, it didn't matter to prim who that crush was on only that it happened. and this, as I need to make perfectly clear. Was Prim Violating Kyle's Consent.

prim, kyle's own mother, used demonic sex magic to Force him to develop feelings that he might not have otherwise.

this isn't the only way that she hurt him, she abused him throughout his life, but I Need the fandom to internalize this.

kyle's crush was not his fault, kyle's crush was him having His Own Consent violated without his knowledge. He was the victim in this situation.

and notably ! when venomania (as the sword is named after) made a contract with the demon of lust he kidnapped women to his sex dungeon basement. when Kyle was unknowingly possessed by the demon of lust he gave a girl he had a crush on a hug.

kyle Never forced himself on michaela, he never made her do anything she didn't want to do, he just Liked her and wanted to get to know her. the fact that she was actively falling in love with someone else at the time Wasn't His Fault.

and moreover, Kyle Did The Right Thing By Ending His Arranged Marriage With Riliane.

kyle was in his early 20s, riiliane was Fourteen Years Old. the marriage was arranged without his consent when he was a child, it's not his fault that he was in that arrangement in the first place. but it's Objectively A Good And Moral Thing that he broke that arrangement, despite what ended up occurring in response.

nobody has to Like kyle, but you Cannot criticize him without acknowledging that he was intentionally manipulated, abused, and Possessed by his mother into making the mistakes that he did. kyle is not the villain of the daughter of evil series, prim is.

kyle's only crime was being straight and not wanting to be married to a minor, and in that I think he can be forgiven

The daughter of evil series: [Link] The entirety of the evillious chronicles: [Link] A guide to the series: [Link]

#evillious chronicles #evillious #ec #daughter of evil #kyle marlon #rape mention #discourse #I know I'm #[checks notes]#Fifteen Years Late to this conversation #but it's been on my mind for a Very Very long time #and I've seen recent enough conversations about it #that were (as far as I can tell) Sincere take downs on his character #that I was finally annoyed enough to say something #I'm sure all of no people will read this #but it is what it is

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milaisreading · 9 months

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Imagine in 2p Hetalia x reader, someone hurts and insults Y/N both physically and emotionally but the 2p's are behind them and just saw the whole thing.💀☠️🔪

Warnings: Mentions of murder and I used she/her for the reader.

Hmmm, let me think for a second...

2p!Italy 🇮🇹

2p!Italy, who didn't hear exactly what was said, but saw Yn getting upset.

2p!Italy: What happened? :3

Yn: I just got told that the dress looks hideous on me. I liked the dress- LUCIANO DON'T POINT THE KNIFE AT HIS HEART

2p!Italy: The jugular vein it is then! What did you just say to her?! Repeat that?!

2p!Germany 🇩🇪

Dude, who was talking shit to Yn after he saw 2p!Germany: Who... who is that?

Yn turns around while holding her tears in: Oh... that's Lutz, he doesn't bite

2p!Germany: Yes, I do. Now, care to repeat what you just said?

2p!Japan 🇯🇵

The man doesn't even finish his 1st sentence before 2p!Japan takes out his katana

Yn: Where did you get that?!

2p!Japan: Don't worry your cute brain about it. Now, let me take revenge on the man who insulted your honor

2p!America🇺🇲

2p!America heard everything while he was stalking watching over Yn, and he held himself back from swinging his bat at the person... for now. 2 days later tho...

Yn: Allen, why is your bat red again? Did Matt prank you again and painted it?

2p!America: Sure! :D

2p!France 🇫🇷

This man would straight up start insulting the person while mixing English and French. Yn would have to hold him back from checking the person who insulted her.

2p!England 🇬🇧

Person: And not to mention that dumb hairstyle!-

Yn, at the verge of crying as the person pulled on her hair a little.

2p!England while stabbing the person in the back: Looks like I will be able to make more cupcakes soon :3

Yn, looking in surprise at the dead man and then up at 2p England: Isn't this an overkill, Oliver?

2p!England: That is not a real thing, poppet!

2p!Russia 🇷🇺

Bold of you to assume he let's Yn get near anyone, let alone a stranger. But, on the off chance she runs into the wrong person and they start insulting her and threatening her physicall well-being... Then Viktor will pull the person into an alleyway and kill them. Then he will pick up Yn and carry her back home.

2p!Russia: This is why you stay home.

2p!China 🇨🇳

2p!China, pretending to clean his ears: I must be hearing this wrong... her? An eyesore? And not belonging here? I must inform you that this is the most beautiful girl in the world! And I will not let some street rat looking asshole insult her! Do you know what she means to me?!

Basically, he starts pestering the man for two hours about what Yn means to him... later on Wang kills him, tho.

2p!Canada 🇨🇦

This man will just pull Yn away and let Kuma deal with the man...

#hetalia world series #hetalia #2p hetalia #hetalia scenarios #2p italy #2p germany #2p japan #2p america #2p england #2p france #2p russia #2p china #2p canada

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spnfemslashbang · 3 months

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Title: The Perfect Woman

Author: @friendofcarlotta

Artist: @KaylieMalinza

Rating: Mature

Pairing: Daphne Allen/Carmen Porter

Warnings: Internalized Homophobia

Additional Tags: Comedy, Mad Scientist Daphne, Bisexual Carmen Porter, Minor Castiel/Dean Winchester, Minor Daphne/Carmen/The Djinn Queen

Summary: When Daphne Allen discovers that her vanished husband Emmanuel is in fact the angel Castiel and is happily dating a man named Dean Winchester, she decides to take revenge. Step 1: Create a living replica of Carmen Porter, Dean Winchester’s perfect woman from a past djinn dream. Step 2: Watch Castiel’s relationship with Dean fall apart and dance on its ashes. What Daphne didn’t consider is that Dean is immune to Carmen’s charms these days — and that Daphne herself is not.

Posting on July 17

Keep reading for a short excerpt!

The door to Dean Winchester’s prison opens with a weary creak of rusty hinges. He smirks up at her from the chair where she has him bound with sturdy ropes. “You finally gonna deliver on that pie or—”

He breaks off abruptly, expression growing slack as he notices Carmen. He darts his eyes up to stare at the water-stained ceiling, his throat bobbing with a dry, clicking swallow. “Holy shit, lady, how many people do you keep down here and why the fuck is she naked?”

“Look at her.” Daphne’s voice trembles with the joy of her impending triumph. It’s so close that she can almost taste it in the basement’s mildew-scented air. “Look at her, Dean. Doesn’t she seem awfully familiar?”

Dean slowly lowers his head, squinting one-eyed at Carmen. The corded muscles in his neck strain with the effort of looking no further south than her chin. Then his lips part in surprise. “Shit. Carmen?”

“Hey, Dean.” Carmen smiles that disarming, beautiful smile of hers. “It’s nice to see you again.”

“Yeah, uh, same.” Dean is still determinedly looking anywhere but at Carmen’s bare breasts or the hair that curls thickly between her legs. “What… how are you here?”

“Oh! Funny story. Daphne here—” Carmen steps up to Daphne’s side and loops an arm around her waist. Daphne pulls away from the touch, carefully not looking at Carmen’s face in case she might find hurt or disappointment there. She doesn’t want to give Dean the wrong idea. “Daphne used a spell to make me corporeal. Pretty neat, huh?”

“Neat,” Dean says weakly, then mutters something under his breath that sounds suspiciously like "fucking witches." “Listen, uh, Carmen… could you maybe put on some clothes? It’s real hard — difficult — to have a conversation like this.”

Daphne smiles to herself at the Freudian slip. Everything is going according to plan, so she supposes she can be merciful. Dean’s comfort is of no importance to her, but Carmen’s… well, it is quite cold in this basement.

“One moment,” she says, and goes to fetch some clothes from the bag in her art studio. Carmen is rather more… curvy than Daphne, but the bathrobe and slippers ought to fit her.

#supernatural #femslash #supernatural femslash bang #daphne allen/carmen porter

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kinzis-writing · 8 months

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Kinzi's Masterlist

Here you will find all of my works that I have written, please note that the top of the Masterlist are the people I write about the most!

Requests are Open!

Updated on: May 13, 2024

Purple Text = summary of imagine, 💔=angst, 💘= fluff, 🔥= steamy or smut.

🏈NFL🏈

I can see you | Tee Higgins 💘💔

After a horrible break-up, Y/N, decided to pack up and move her life from Buffalo, NY to Cincinnati, OH. She would be closer to her manager and she would be in the area where her podcast began. What she didn’t expect was to find a new relationship in another football player.

Surprises | Josh Allen 💘

Y/N ends up surprising Josh at one of his games, which leads to Josh knowing that he has to play his best to impress his woman.

Christmas Surprises | Tee Higgins 💘

Y/N was hoping to spend Christmas with Tee, but he was flying to his hometown and she would be staying in Ohio. Unless her family had other plans

Christmas Tree Farm | Josh Allen 💘

It is Y/N's first Christmas living with her fiance, Josh. Y/N had a Christmas tradition to wear her family and/or friends always went to a Christmas tree farm to pick out their live tree. Y/N is sad when she feels her tradition has to stop because of a new developed allergy to her favorite kind of Christmas trees. Josh makes it his mission to keep the tradition alive, even if he has to improvise a little.

Christmas Miracles | Tee Higgins 💔💘

In which Tee and Y/N have been trying for a baby and they receive a Christmas miracle

Jellyfish tank | Tee Higgins 💘

a Jellyfish tank in your boyfriend's house, what could go wrong?

Sweet Nothing | Tee Higgins 💘

Tee and Y/N appreciate the simple pleasures of being together, no matter what the world puts them through.

Jealous, Jealousy | Tee Higgins 💔💘

🪄Harry Potter🪄

Better Than Revenge | Mattheo Riddle *Masterlist* 💘💔🔥

Y/N Nettleby did not know what to do with herself when her boyfriend of a year, Theodore Nott, broke up with her suddenly. It was true that they were in different houses, but she had hoped that he would not let his ego get in the way. Now she was coming up with a plan to get her revenge on Theodore, and what better way than to involve his best friend.

Three Years | George Weasley 💘

In which Y/N and George have been together for three years, and it takes a mistake for him to take the next step of their relationship.

✈️Top Gun: Maverick✈️

The Only Exception | Bob Floyd Masterlist 💔💘🔥

Y/N Mitchell swore to herself that she would never allow herself to date or get involved with anyone from any branch of the military. After worrying about her father, the past few years, she knew that she never wanted to experience her worry for a significant other. After her father gets ordered back to California, she may just meet the one that ruins all of her plans.

Life Changes | B.B & J.S pt. 1💔💘

Two lovers thought their love would forever burn bright, however, things change and people change. What happens to be a big change for people can lead them to the best version of themselves. Life Changes and people have to move on. AU

🌊Outer Banks🌊

Marry Me | JJ Maybank 💔💘

JJ has been in love with you for a long time (seeing as you guys were best friends) and now you guys are older and you’re fixing to get married. He doesn’t know how to take the fact that you didn’t want to marry him.

Marry Me | JJ Maybank pt. 2 💘

JJ had been in love you (his best friend) for a long time. His heart was shattered when you started dating topper and years later got engaged. During your rehearsal dinner, you overheard a conversation between JJ and your father. Your feelings took over and you left topper at the wedding and found your dream guy. Now you have embarked on your relationship with your best friend.

Last Christmas | Rafe Cameron 💔💘

It's Christmas in Outer Banks, the holiday where you got to spend time with your friends. It's hard to enjoy the holiday when your mind goes back to last Christmas and who you were spending it with.

🧛TVD/TO🐺

Dating Klause Mikaelson Headcanon 💘

#masterlist #nfl imagine #nfl fandom #harry potter imagines #imagines #requests are open #better than revenge series #tee higgins x reader #25 days of imagines #nfl player x reader #nfl players #josh allen imagine #tee higgins x you #obx imagines #rafe cameron x pogue!reader #rafe cameron imagines #my stories

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sparrowsage · 4 months

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Revenge, Part One: Ghosts of the Past

Hello! I know I haven't posted in while. I've had some major stuff pop up in my personal life, but things are on the mend! This is the first part in a mini series that takes place six months after the end of Warehouse. It's very far out in the timeline for the Warehouse series, but my brain wanted to write this, so here it is! I'd like to give a special thanks to @oddsconvert and @darkthingshappen for the mention of their oc's Henley Allen from A Taste of Your Own Medicine and Agent Vaughn from Brothers Keeper. And I'd also like to thank them as well as @whumpcereal and @flowersarefreetherapy for their support as I wrote this! I got the inspiration and motivation for this piece from day four of the Merry Whump of May event as well and it was a ton of fun!

TW: Vague mentions of past captivity, vague mentions and implied past noncon, kidnapping, noncon drugging, mentions of past character death, threatened murder (if I missed any, let me know and I'll add them!)

MWoM Prompt: Day 4 “Forgettable, ‘Who are you?’ Lamp, Alleyway”

If Sparrow would have been asked when he was teen where he thought he’d be when he was an adult, his response wouldn’t be what you’d expect. As far as he knew, he was going to be in the Warehouse facility for the rest of his life, or with some random person who had bought him if he ever got to the point of being sold. Not once did he ever think that he’d be living with a close and trusted friend, free to make his own decisions, able to finally carve out a life for himself of his own free will.

It had been six months since the Warehouse had gotten raided. Six months since Damon had tried to escape the facility with him in tow. Six months since he was reunited with his friends and finally free from the hell he never thought he’d be away from.

Sparrow snapped out of his thoughts as he heard his friend giggle, looking over to him as Felix spun around in a small circle, arms outstretched.

“It’s been so long since I’ve been able to go and see a live show like that!” he exclaimed. “Thank you for coming with me.”

Sparrow gave his friend a soft smile, putting his hands in his pockets as they walked back to their apartment building. “Thanks for offering to take me. I’ve never seen something like that! I’m surprised they have all those lines and stuff memorized, it looked like a lot!”

Felix nodded, looking up at the clear night sky above them for a moment before looking back at his friend. “It’s their job, and it does take a lot of work, but it’s totally worth it. I’ve often had thoughts of trying to get into theater like that, but I think my stage fright would get in the way of it all.”

Sparrow chuckled, giving Felix a light nudge as they continued on their way, “With how often I hear you singing in the apartment, I know you’d do great!”

Sparrow let out a sigh, recalling the memories. It had been a whirlwind to try and get things back on track once he was released from the hospital this time. He still had weekly therapy appointments with Alex, but it had been more difficult to fall back into old routine with Felix this time around. There had been a short period of time where there were awkward conversations when the two interacted, both from Felix’s guilt over the invitation Damon had sent out and Sparrow not showing Felix the invite before he left amongst other things. Over time, they had talked things out and their friendship only got stronger from there. Henley still came by frequently as well, often spending a lot of time with Sparrow when he was free, which Sparrow appreciated. The two of them would help teach Sparrow how to read and write alongside teaching him about other things while also having some fun.

At the thought of Henley, Sparrow took his hand out of his jacket pocket, looking at the digital watch Henley had given him a few months back.

“Hey, it’s already 10:43. Do you think Henley would mind much if we moved movie night to tomorrow?” he asked.

Felix looked at his own watch in return before looking at Sparrow, “I don’t think he’d mind. We did warn him the show may run late and he seemed fine with the possibility of postponing movie night. We’ll text him when we get home.”

Sparrow hummed in agreement, putting his hand back in his pocket as they continued home, looking around the street as they walked. Due to how late it was, there weren’t any people out and about, the only lights coming from the lamp posts lining the sidewalks and the light up signs in the shop windows, long since closed for the day.

Being outside at night was something that Sparrow had never realized he’d appreciate so much. Sure, there was anxiety lurking in the shadows, often keeping the man on edge, but nights like this where he could look up at the clear sky and see the glittering stars and enjoy the light breeze and inhale the nightly air, it felt freeing.

As the two passed by a dark alleyway, some rustling caught Sparrow’s attention. He paused his steps, Felix looking back at him a few seconds later when he realized his friend wasn’t beside him. “Sparrow, you alright?”

Sparrow stared into the dark alleyway, trying to see what was hidden in the shadows before shaking his head slightly to clear it. “Y-yeah, just thought I heard something is all.”

Just as he was about to continue walking, a voice called out to them, “P-please help me.”

The two hesitated, giving each other a look before Felix hesitantly approached the entryway to the alley. “Are you alright sir?” Felix asked.

“Do either of you have some spare cash, or some change?” the voice asked, his voice sounding rough and raspy.

Felix squinted as he hovered at the edge of the alleyway, trying to make out whoever was talking to them. “I-I’m sorry, but we don’t have any cash on us.”

“That’s quite alright,” the voice responded. There was something about the voice that seemed off to Sparrow, but he couldn’t place it. There couldn’t be a way for Sparrow to know that voice, but the fact that it sounded familiar ate away at him the more the stranger spoke.

“Felix, we should be getting back home,” he said, trying to keep his voice level. He didn’t want to scare Felix just because he felt uneasy. It was probably nothing.

“Could you just help me up, sir? Before you leave? I have a bad knee.”

Felix looked back at Sparrow for a moment before he stepped into the alleyway, the shadows swallowing him, “U-uhm, yeah sure.”

From Sparrow’s spot on the street, he kept an eye on the dark alleyway, expecting Felix to come out seconds later, but all he heard was rustling before a muffled shout came from the shadows.

“Felix?” Sparrow asked, taking a step towards the alley, the hairs on the back of his neck standing on end.

Something was wrong.

Sparrow heard some more rustling and a bit of muffled cries before he spotted a figure in the shadows of the alleyway.

“You should teach your friend to be more careful. Helping the wrong stranger is going to get him into trouble,” the figure said.

“Who are you and what do you want?” Sparrow asked, his body frozen in place on the sidewalk.

The figure started walking forward towards him, an unmistakable limp to his step that made the blood in Sparrow’s face run cold, further cementing him to the sidewalk.

This can’t be him, Sparrow thought. He didn’t remember Agent Vaughn telling him about some Keeper’s getting free from the raid. He thought that since his name didn’t get brought up in the court case or the fact that he didn’t see him in court meant that he died during the raid.

“I bet you’re surprised, aren’t you?” the man asked, the light from the lamp posts illuminating his face as he stepped out of the alleyway. “Because who would have thought that you’d be seeing me, of all people, again after so much time.”

“What do you want with us, Logan?” Sparrow asked again, his voice low but lined with fear.

“You’re in no place to be demanding answers here, Sparrow. You should know that. Has living outside the facility for six months really put you back so much on your training?”

Sparrow’s hands balled into fists at his side as he tried to figure out an answer. Logan took the hesitation of an answer to motion whoever was behind him in the alleyway to step forward, causing Sparrow’s breath to hitch.

Five more people stepped out of the alleyway, one of which had Felix flush against his chest, a hand clamped over his mouth while the other held his wrists behind his back. Felix looked at Sparrow with a scared expression, his whole body trembling as his eyes started to water.

“It’s been hard, these last six months, you know,” Logan started, slowly walking towards Sparrow. “Having to hide from the police all because the facility got shut down. They’d arrest us on sight if anyone found us. But you know what kept us going?”

Sparrow let out a low and quiet growl as Logan got close to him, taking a small step back as Logan leaned in close. “Finding a way to get back at the person who ruined the entire operation.”

“Felix wasn’t the one who took down the Warehouse, the FBI did,” Sparrow said, his gaze flickering between Logan and Felix. “You have no business with him.”

Logan straightened himself as he faked a look of thought. “You’re right, it wasn’t the runt who got the Warehouse shut down, not in full. But he played a part in it.”

“Vaughn was the one who found the place, not Felix.”

“Yeah, that fucking agent found the place, but you know who went crying to the FBI when you didn’t return home that night you went to that party? Him. And why did he go to the FBI? Because you managed to escape and make friends, connections, something of which you had no right doing. He cared about you so much that he did everything he could to find you and get you back safely. If you hadn't defied orders and escaped the facility ten months ago, then we wouldn’t be here now.”

This wasn’t good, Sparrow didn’t know what to do! If it were just him facing off against these guys, he’d fight back, but with Felix trapped, Sparrow couldn’t risk his friend getting hurt all because of his actions.

“Just let him go, Logan,” Sparrow tried, a hint of desperation leaking into his voice. “You have issue with me, not him. Let him go and we can work this out.”

At that, Logan let out a laugh, as did the other men standing around them, causing Felix to squeak in fear at the sound. “You think it’s that easy, pleading with me to let your friend go? And that I’m here for you? I often forget that you’re not that fucking smart when it comes to how the real world works. We came here for him and you just so happened to be with him. We’ve had our eyes set on this runt for months, we just needed the perfect moment to grab him, and what better night than tonight!”

Sparrow glared at Logan as he spoke, trying to work out a way to get them both out of here safely, but anything he thought of wouldn’t work. In every idea he thought of, Felix would get hurt and Sparrow couldn’t let that happen.

Logan looked around the empty street for a moment, turning on the spot to look back at his men and Felix, who stared back at Logan in fear. “Get him ready to transport, we’ve spent enough time here.”

At the word ‘transport’, Sparrow started towards the men around Felix, anger and fear powering his limbs. “Don’t you fucking touch him!” he shouted, lunging for the closest man that was around his friend.

Before he could get very far, three of the remaining four men pounced on Sparrow, quickly grabbing onto him as the fourth man grabbed a prepped syringe from his pocket. Felix started squirming the moment Sparrow was grabbed, just about missing the needle headed straight for his arm. He let out a loud but muffled yelp as the needle was jabbed into his arm, causing Sparrow to struggle even harder, but it was no use. The three men holding onto him were too strong and he was very outmatched.

Amongst his struggles, Sparrow watched as Felix started to grow limp, his eyes slipping shut as the drug he was injected with took hold of him, forcing him into an unwanted sleep. Once he was under, Logan turned his full attention to Sparrow, who only continued to struggle.

The former Keeper nodded to his men and they forced Sparrow to his knees on the ground. Sparrow let out a hiss as the gravel and pavement dug into his knees as he tried to pull his arms out of the grips that held them, but he slowed his attempts as Logan stepped closer to him, leaning down at the waist slightly.

“I swear to god, Logan, I’m going to fucking kill you if you hurt him,” Sparrow growled as he glared at the former Keeper.

Logan chuckled at the sight of the former pet, letting out a short sigh. “Your threats don’t work on me. Over the twenty years I worked to train you, you’ve only come close once, and that’s because I let my guard down. I’m not making any mistakes this time. You’re going to watch as I destroy your friend, bit by fucking bit, til there’s nothing left of him, and you’re going to help me do it.”

Sparrow tried to jerk one of his arms free, his gaze never breaking from Logan as he let out a grunt at the wasted effort. “You’re fucking crazy if you think I’d willingly hurt him.”

“Ah, well you see, I know you. You’d do anything to trade places with him, no matter the cost, and I think that seeing you get tortured in more ways than one will do just as much damage to him as if he were the one being hurt.”

Sparrow stilled as the words registered, his expression falling for a moment. Logan was right, he’d do anything to make sure Felix didn’t bare the front of what they were about to endure, even if it meant sacrificing himself.

“You’ve been told, time and time again by multiple people that you’re not supposed to form connections or to make friends because it isn’t your place to have feelings. Your job is to serve and please whoever owns you, doing whatever they ask of you with no hesitation. I am excited, if I’m to be honest, Sparrow. You know why that is?”

“Why?” Sparrow asked through gritted teeth.

“Because I get to hit you where it hurts. Just because we were going after him doesn’t mean that I won’t be paying special attention to you. You’ve caused me so much trouble ever since you were brought into the facility, especially after Damon took on your case. Now it’s my turn to level the playing field. You remember how you used to protect Jayden when he was alive? How compliant you got all because of a simple threat to his well being?”

Logan stood then, nodding to one of the men holding Sparrow. “Well, you know that I won’t hesitate to kill your friend here if you step a toe out of line. I highly doubt that you want another one of your friends to die all because of you.”

The mention of Jayden made the blood drain from Sparrow’s face as a new fire blazed inside of him. This wouldn’t be a repeat of what happened with Jayden, Sparrow couldn’t let that happen. He wouldn’t let another one of his friends die by the hands of this fucking bastard.

Just as Sparrow was about to start struggling again, he felt the pinch of a needle in his neck and a coolness spread throughout his body. As his vision started to tunnel, he looked up to see Logan start limping back into the alleyway as he started to lose feeling in his limbs.

“Let’s get these guys into the van, and don’t forget to restrain them. The runt will be out for a while, but with this shit’s tolerance, I don’t know when he’ll wake and it’ll be easier to handle him if he can’t move.”

The last thing Sparrow remembered seeing was a set of headlights turn on far back into the alleyway and hearing an engine roar to life as the drugs dragged him under.

Taglist: @mannerofwhump, @honey-is-mesi, @painful-pooch, @whumperfully, @hiding-in-the-shadows

@flowersarefreetherapy, @goronska, @blueyellow8green (If you want to be added, let me know!)

#The Warehouse #Revenge #Sparrow Cresky #Felix Wright #Logan Valar #Vague mentions of past captivity #vague mentions and implied past noncon #kidnapping #noncon drugging #mentions of past character death #threatened murder

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