#Danny's parents died when he was nineteen

[riot-ghost]

Commissioner Gordon was ostracized within the Gotham Police department. He knew this was because of his ties to the Bat, his late hours, constant overtime. He knew that even the good officers, while he couldn't tell too much who was who, didn't mean to ostracize him. It happened on accident, he's sure. He picked up some clues from the world's greatest detective. Rumors went around, running rampant about him. He just couldn't care so much about them.

Everyone knew that Commissioner Gordon always took his late dinner at 9:37 at night. Everyone cleared from the break room. Gordon opened the door, taking a heavy breath. He was still expecting the empty room. It felt empty, in a way Gordon had picked up from The Bat. He pulled his burrito out of the fridge, opening the styrofoam container and eating a bite. "You're not going to heat it up?" Gordon barely manages to catch his burrito, his whole soul leaving his body.

"Jesus Christ, kid, you scared me." Gordon lets out a heavy breath, seeing the new detective sitting at a table in the corner. He's eating... Something indescribable. He looks tired, his long black hair bulled back into a high ponytail. His face seems disproportionate, large prominent features. A crooked nose, a wide, thin mouth, large eyes accompanied by large bags. His skin was pale, dusted with faded freckles and litchenburg scarring. The young man- still a boy, practically, shrugged at Gordon's words, eating another bite of the odd food. "No one warned you I'd be in here?" Gordon decided to sit with him.

"No, they warned me. But the past couple of days they've been... Avoiding me." Dr. Fenton, Gordon remembers his file passing over his desk. He could never be a cop- he was a detective-by-hire because of some medical condition. Gordon feels a pang at the emotionless words.

"Ah, they avoid me too." Gordon takes another bite of his cold burrito. "So, how have you been enjoying working here?"

"Well, it's been alright, I guess." Fenton took a drink from his thermos- which has a straw in it. It goes unsaid that this was the only job Fenton could really get. Close to the force, anyways. His medical condition refrained him from being a proper officer, so he wasn't officially a Gotham PD detective. He was an out-contract detective, receiving the same work, pay, and hours as the regular detectives.

"Getting around the town well enough?"

"Well enough, I suppose. Almost got robbed." Fenton held three doctorates- criminology, psychology, and natural sciences. All at the young age of 22.

"Almost?" Gordon snorts a bit at that. "Scared them off with your badge?"

"I don't have a badge. And I don't have a gun, if that's what you're thinking. I guess they just thought I was too pathetic to have much cash." Danny shrugged.

"Oh come on, you're not pathetic." Gordon is a bit taken aback that the boy doesn't carry any weapons. He makes a mental note to get him a badge.

"I looked pathetic enough not to rob."

Gordon feels like he missed something there, because Gotham robbers would rob a kindergartner if they were unattended. Regardless, he and Fenton sat in silence for a good couple of minutes. "What are you eating?" Fenton asks eventually.

"A burrito from the Mexican stand on Westwood."

"Why are you eating it cold?"

"Because if I reheat it, then the sauce becomes a solid liquid and everything gets soggy. What are you eating?"

"It was supposed to be stir fry?" Danny stared down at the leftovers container. "I'm not good at cooking. No videos ever make sense, so they don't turn out right."

"Your parents didn't teach you?" Gordon asks.

"No, they weren't the best chefs. They did pass on the family fudge recipe though. I can make some killer fudge." He laughs a little bit at that.

"I'll bring you lunch in from now on." Gordon says. "Until we can get your cooking sorted out, anyhow. Normally my daughter and I spend Tuesday nights fixing dinner together, so you'll get the best meals Wednesday."

"You don't have to do that." Danny seems a little caught off guard by the kindness.

"I can't have one of my youngest detectives going hungry!" Gordon smiles. "Besides, you're the first person in the precinct to eat dinner with me in nearly twenty years. You keep eating with me, it'll be no problem. I enjoy the company." Danny smiles at him and Gordon is reminded of someone, but he can't remember who.

Over the next couple of weeks, Gordon and Danny get well acquainted in their overlapping shifts. Danny works the nights and sometimes early mornings, similar to what Gordon does. Gordon finds himself feeling fatherly to the young man, who's working and picking up significant overtime to pay off his student loans. He learns that Danny moved here from Illinois- it was the only PD he could work at. He had no formal fighting training, but apparently his mom had taught him some moves. They had yet to overlap in the field, and it was easy for Gordon to forget that the boy was really a detective.

"Danny?" Jim paused, having finally made his way to the crime scene. Danny was crouched over a dead body, using his gloved hands to inspect the wound- the word Joker carved using some sort of knife.

"Gordon?" Despite all insistence, the boy still used his last name.

Jim has to stop himself from asking him why he's here. Danny's eyes shift to a spot behind him and James sighs. "What happened?" Batman's voice startled the last officer in the room, who quickly stuttered an excuse and left.

"The Joker broke in, tortured her, and left." Jim says. "We just have to figure out why."

"No, we don't." Danny looked back at the body, his eyes unfocused. "It was political. Do you see the swelling here on the neck? No lacerations, and no bruising. Allergy, I suppose, or a poison that reacts similarly. No clawing at the neck or face, but heavy rope burns on the wrists and ankles. The cuts were sloppy, and from the bleeding, it was done after she had died. Maybe five, ten minutes after? The window wasn't fully closed when it was broken into, do you see how the glass fractured there at the top?"

Jim blinked, and Danny continued. "It doesn't fit the motive of a mad-man like the Joker to do this. Who you're looking for is a woman, younger than the victim, maybe around twenty or thirty?" His eyes unfocused again. "Hmmm." He snaps back, looking around. He stands, his hands shaking a little. He looks around, eyes landing on the shelf. He scans it, using gentle hands to lift the potted plant. He pulls out a camera, unplugging it. "A Direct Link- model E47C." He sets the camera in an evidence bag.

Batman gives a grunt- and if Jim isn't mistaken it was one of approval? Danny held the camera out to Jim. "That was some fine detective work today, kid." Jim sets his hand on Danny's shoulder. Danny glances off to the side nervously. He locks eyes with Batman. "Danny, this is Batman. Batman, this is Dr. Daniel Fenton, the newest detective on the force."

Batman holds a hand out. "I look forward to working with you." Danny pulls off one of the disposable gloves, reaching out to shake his hand. "You're shaking a little, are you alright?"

"Medical condition." Danny answers. "You're taller than I expected."

"It's the ears." Jim represses a smile. "You go ahead and get your deductions filed. I brought pasta." Jim watches Danny leave. He turns to Batman, who's staring him down with that signature I-know-everything™ face. "What?"

"When are you going to let him know that you're mentoring him?" He says it like a sentence, and was that amusement in his tone?

"I'm not." Jim turns to the window.

"You brought him pasta."

"He never learned to cook."

"So you're teaching him." There was definitely amusement in his tone now.

Jim huffed. "We're getting old." He finally sighs. "We both have full grown kids. Crime and corruption are still thick in this city." Batman is standing next to him with a swoosh in his cape. "Retirement... I could see myself with it. Sipping cocktails on the beach. A beach with sunshine and no broken down carnivals."

Batman is silent for a moment, as if considering this. "So you see Fenton taking your place?"

"Like you see your Robin." Jim admits.

[wastefulreverie]

fixed point

“Would you like to know how much time you have left?” Clockwork asked.

Danny had never wished more that he’d died in something with pockets so he could hide his shaking hands. The endless ticking in the lair—hundreds of hands TICK TICK TICK -ing in perfect sync—had never sounded so ominous.

“I—” his voice rattled his throat, a raw thing “—I didn’t think you gave spoilers.”

With an absent spin of their staff, Clockwork shifted from adult to child and said nothing. Dread hung heavy in the air, Clockwork’s unblinking stare piercing through it all. Danny pointedly did not make eye contact. Instead focusing on the oscillating hands of the wall behind them.

He took a breath.

“Will it make it easier, knowing?”

Clockwork blinked once, face betraying nothing.

Dammit.

He wasn’t an idiot. There was really only one outcome of this conversation. Just as there had been the day he’d first pulled on his jumpsuit, walking—tripping—through the threshold. Life snuffed out of him in less than a second.

He brought his shaking hands together and met Clockwork’s even gaze.

And answered.

Thirteen days.

Seven hours.

Thirty-six minutes.

It was somehow both longer and shorter than he’d expected.

It was also a weight off his shoulders, at least in the beginning. It wouldn’t happen any earlier than the date Clockwork had recounted that night. Thirteen days of freedom. Peace. Liberation.

Because if he thought too much about the length of thirteen days, how three-hundred or so hours wasn’t enough time— it’s not fucking FAIR —he would be swallowed by the crushing anxiety that made its permanent home in his stomach.

So there was that.

He didn’t bother telling his friends. They were already all on edge, but if he could act like all was well he could ease their worries. Because ultimately they were just worried about him, and if he was fine they would be too.

He did, however, make contingency plans. Farewell videos on a USB drive taped to the underside of his bed.

He wanted Clockwork to be wrong. Some nights he laid awake, trying his damndest to find a way off this track. This self-fulfilling prophecy. But there was nothing. That moment had already passed with that stupid news broadcast that had glued him to the couch, shaking, as his parents had shouted and jeered at the screen. Dismissive. Furious. Invested.

They hadn’t noticed when he pushed himself off the couch and stumbled, shaking, to the bathroom to purge the contents of his stomach.

It was a miracle he’d only gotten a two-day suspension for slugging Wes in the face in front of the whole cafeteria. Even more so that no one had pieced it together from that.

No one saw him. But they would. When it was too late.

He couldn’t stop it. But as he didn’t acknowledge it in the waking world it wouldn’t exist. So he reserved his existential crises for when there was nothing to distract him from the looming, inevitable deadline.

He wished he could tell Mr. Lancer that whenever he was given detention that afternoon.

On the night of the twelfth day, he didn’t sleep a wink. No amount of coffee could keep his head above his desk that morning, and so, Danny spent his final hour in detention. He considered skipping. Detention was not the place for everything to come to an end.

But wouldn’t leaving—deviating from his normal routine—up the chances of putting events in motion?

Avoidance was his specialty, after all.

Jazz could write a paper on his coping tactics alone if she hadn’t already. 

At nineteen minutes Mr. Lancer stopped in front of his desk. It was only him and Valerie today, and she sat somewhere three desks behind and to his left of him. Her hair was in a loose ponytail, loose yellow sleeves draped over her hands. The bags under her eyes rivaled his own, even though he was sure there hadn’t been too many ghosts in the past week or so—but then again, he’d not been the most attentive to things on the ghost front lately. It was probably his fault she was here at all. 

“Mr. Fenton,” Lancer said. He forced his head to turn, a feat much more difficult than it sounded. His head felt full of lead. “Is everything alright at home?”

Danny forced himself not to cringe.

“Uh.” He ignored the sound of Valerie shifting in her seat behind him. Great. An audience. “Yes.”

“I’ve noticed you’ve been getting much less sleep of late, is all.”

Now this was a load of shit. Danny’s sleep schedule was normally trash. This current existential crisis was no more taxing than his normal night activities.

Lancer continued. “And your parents have—” he paused, eyes flitting somewhere behind him. “—in light of recent revelations, I just worry, Mr. Fenton.”

Hm.

Did he know, then?

Was this it?

Danny stared stupidly for a moment, forgetting to shut his mouth. And then shrugged.

Falling back on ignorance.

If he was honest, he hadn’t quite expected Lancer to be the one to put it together, but it also made sense. 

Lancer’s mouth thinned. “I know they can be intense, especially with the scrutiny placed on our school now. No one should feel scared to come to school. Or go home,” he said, letting the words hang in the air for a moment. “This is a safe space.”

For a moment all he could hear was the drum of his heart in his chest. And then behind him, Valerie cleared her throat.

“With all due respect, Mr. Lancer,” she said, “nowhere is safe with that putrid ghost hiding among us.”

Danny didn’t turn around. Lancer’s reaction was subdued, but there was a protective fire in his eyes that confirmed Danny’s suspicions. He wondered how long ago he’d put it together.

“Ms. Gray,” Lancer said, “I see your point, but I’m just trying to ease tensions.”

Danny checked the clock.

Seventeen minutes. 

Maybe he should’ve skipped detention after all.

(No escaping the inevitable. No do-overs this time.)

Valerie scoffed. “So what? We let our guard down?” he chanced a glance behind him, and Valerie’s eyes were red-rimmed—from lack of sleep or otherwise he had no idea. “Someone here is a walking weapon and we’re supposed to ignore this? Fenton at least knows he’ll be safe at home, but what about the rest of us? We don’t get to go home to ghost-hunting parents—we have to hold our own.”

Lancer nodded. “I understand. I just think that it’s very frightening for all of us, ghost hunters or not.”

Danny’s voice cracked when he spoke. “Yeah.”

Valerie’s expression softened. “I didn’t mean to make light—”

“No. No, you’re right,” he said. “It’s not safe with Phantom as a student here. Whoever he is.”

She sighed. “Danny, I don’t know what it’s like with your parents, but—”

“But what?” he cut her off. “Because they’re ghost hunters they’re automatically the safest people in the room?” He lowered his voice. “You would think that.”

She froze. “What does that mean?”

Hm. Whoops.

“People don’t know what it’s like, I guess.”

Danny turned back around. Lancer’s stare was dripping with sympathy.

Fifteen minutes.

There was a scrape of a chair, a thud of feet, and a warm hand on his shoulder. Valerie released him just as fast. When he met her eyes, they were as wide as saucers.

“D—Danny,” she said with a note of panic. “You’re cold.”

“Yeah?” he asked.

She took a step back. He hadn’t seen her this scared since they’d been stranded on Skulker’s island together. He could see the realization dawning. 

“Val,” he said, knowing full well what was going through her head, “what’s wrong?”

“It’s not you,” she said, a desperate plea. “I can’t be this stupid.”

He sighed and Lancer stepped between them.

“Ms. Gray,” he said, “now let’s not jump to conclusions—”

“No!” she shook her head. “No, no, no! It doesn’t make sense. You’re—your parents hunt ghosts. Hunt Phantom.”

Danny crossed his arms.

“So do you.”

Lancer looked between them like Danny had announced that he liked eating golf balls. “What.”

Tears welled in Valerie’s eyes. “I trusted you!”

The minute hand inched forward.

Fourteen.

“You trusted me to what?”

Valerie clenched her fists. “Don’t do that! Don’t play stupid!”

“Ms. Gray—”

“I’m not playing.” Danny turned sideways in his desk, facing her head-on. “Tell me what you think I’ve done, Val.”

“Mr. Fenton—!”

“You replaced him. You replaced Danny. How long have you been pretending to be him? To be alive? How can you live with yourself, going home everyday and seeing his parents and—and—acting like you’re still—” she choked on her tears. “You terrorize this town, Phantom. I won’t let you take anything else from me, or anyone.”

Lancer’s eyes were wide. He’d never seen the man so shocked, in such foreign territory.

Valerie, on the other hand, was resolute. There was as much determination in her face as tears.

“I’m still me,” he said. “I died, but I came back. I never replaced myself, however that works. I am sorry, Val. There’s a lot that—”

“Shut up! Shut up shut up shut up! ”

“—that I didn’t mean to happen.”

Lancer slammed his hand on Danny’s desk.

“Can we all settle down!”

It all happened in a matter of seconds. The clock in his peripheral kept him tethered to the moment. 

Valerie reached behind her and pulled a blaster.

A flash of red—

(The minute hand moves.

Thirteen.)

—and a burst of hot pain through his side.

He crumpled forward, his head meeting the linoleum floor with a SMACK and somewhere above him a distant shout.

Everything from his side to his cranium THROBBED and it wouldn’t fucking stop.

(He’d taken hits from Val before. This shouldn’t hurt so much. Why does this—?)

Iron pooled in his mouth. 

Oh right.

Ectoplasm was thicker than blood.

Danny tried to push himself up from the floor but the world spun and his arms gave out below him and he slumped back down to the cold, hard floor.

The floor felt better.

Maybe he would…

Stay here for a while…

***

The television clicked on. A rerun of the six o’clock news.

He didn’t let Jazz turn it off.

“According to a recent report, there is speculation that our local ghost vigilante Phantom might be living among us. Care to tell us more, Lance?”

“Yes, Tiffany.” Lance Thunder’s stupid blonde hair was polished and perfect as usual and he wanted to wipe that stupid half-smile off the bastard’s face. “A ghost ID’ed as Walker —” at this, a crude picture that was mostly just a white blur appeared on the screen “— has publicly announced that our hero is a student at Casper High fooling us, flying under the radar.”

“And as far as we understand, tips from ghosts aren’t verifiable…?”

“Normally, yes, but there is evidence to suggest that—”

“This isn’t good for you,” Jazz hissed. “I know that it’s scary, but—”

“Exposure therapy,” he snapped back. “It’s gonna be the talk of the school anyway.”

She slumped back down onto the couch. “Take care of yourself.”

The door to the lab was thrown open. His parents marched through the kitchen and into the living room, perfectly eclipsing the TV.

“—telling you, Jack. The DNA scans are inconclusive at best. Their so-called ‘experts’ are out of their depths.”

“We’ll show them once and for all. If we can find out which student it’s using as cover—”

“—we’ll expose Phantom for the monster he is!”

His parents disappeared upstairs for the night, but he could still hear snippets of their vows to destroy him. 

He shot Jazz a tired look. “Easier said than done.”

***

Someone was touching him.

Everything on his left burned. Far above him were LEDs and beige ceiling tiles. He wasn’t sure when he’d been rolled onto his back. But he was now, and someone was pressing down on the spot that burned burned burned—!

Blood trickled down his throat.

How many minutes had it been?

How many did he have left?

There were voices, somewhere, but everything sounded like it was underwater. Maybe it was. Drowning would be preferable to many of the other deaths he’d prepared for. Still terrible, sure, but vivisection lowered the bar considerably. 

“—have you done!”

“He’s—” A girl’s voice wavered, quiet. “He’s Phantom. He’s not supposed to—to—”

Wow. Valerie had the decency to sound ashamed.

At least he could die knowing that his killer at least had a few shreds of regret.

(Is it sad that it’s more than he expected?)

“—little first aid.” The pain came in waves, and all Danny could hear was the rush of his stupid heart in his ears. “—expecting shootings in America, but not from a—” 

Just as fast as it came, the world melted away. His last grasp on consciousness slipped away.

(As fast as the click of a button.)

***

Wes had a punchable face.

But hey—that’s what you get for talking to the press. The accusations were written off as pretty baseless, but the damage had been done. He got inquisitive stares now and again. After all, Wes was a joke, but his interview put Danny’s name on the list of suspects and that was enough to fuck his entire life over.

After his two-day suspension, Danny had little opportunity to survey his work. Honestly, more people asked him about how bad he fucked up Wes’s face than whether or not he was Phantom.

(From what he had seen, it was in a perpetual state of purple and that was enough to curb his anger for now.)

So. He had two days off from school.

Danny went to see Clockwork.

Long Now welcomed him with welcome arms, and he broke down into a fit of whines and gripes about how it seemed like everyone was out to get him, that everyone wanted to put his head on a pike. Everyone wanted to ferret out the wolf in sheep’s clothing.

Clockwork shared their sympathies.

“No matter what I do, I just—I’m a wreck. I think someone’s figured it out. That they know, but then I mention it to Jazz or Sam or Tucker and I’m just paranoid and I think I’m paranoid now and—” he groaned. “I don’t know what to do. I’m losing my mind.”

“You do know that it’s inevitable that the truth comes to light.”

He froze. “What.”

Clockwork shifted from senior to adult. “Your paranoia isn’t for naught. It’s a matter of time.”

No. This couldn’t be happening.

He’d figure a way out.

There had to be something.

“I thought nothing was inevitable.”

“Not nothing,” Clockwork hummed. “Often, it is nothing. But not this time.”

Their words shook him to the core. He’d suspected it, sure, but confirmation was—

“I know it isn’t fair.”

“Don’t tell me what is and isn’t fair!” Danny snapped. “Your entire life isn’t—isn’t under scrutiny for everyone. If they know that I’m me, I—”

He pressed his hands to his chest.

He would be finished.

One way or another, someone would find a way to put him on their table.

The government.

His parents.

Maybe someone else out for his blood.

(His body.)

“I can’t see what will happen past them learning the truth,” Clockwork said. “But it is a fixed point. Everything past that diverges, a thousand roads. Timelines. Possibilities. I can’t tell you what to expect. The best, the worst. I cannot offer that reassurance.”

“Oh.”

They nodded. “It’s a lot to take in.”

“I don’t want them to find out,” he said in a pathetic whine.

For a long moment, Clockwork said nothing. If not for the constant ticking of clocks, he would have thought they were frozen. But then Clockwork’s expression shifted.

And they asked: 

“Would you like to know?” 

***

…

……

………

Warbled voices were around him again. Different.

But this time more in focus.

“Sir, Ma’am, if you could leave the room—”

“I will NOT. That is my son, and I am not leaving until someone tells me why there is a HOLE in his chest—!”

And somewhere else, a shriek of sobs.

“We’re transporting him to the hospital, you can’t—”

“I did it,” said that same, sobbing voice. “I shot him. I shot him.”

More people were touching him and Danny didn’t like it oh god no no no —

“—get him on the stretcher—”

“—the hell DID you—”

“—Ms. Gray, you—”

“—no! I want to know why—”

“—securing him, just—”

And now time did slow.

The EMTs lifted the stretcher.

And his face lolled to the side, giving him a clear view of the clock.

The minute hand moved one last time.

Just as:

“I didn’t mean to! I didn’t—he’s Phantom, I didn’t think that it would—!” Valerie, cut off, sobbing. “I’m so sorry, Danny. If you can hear me, I’m so sorry.”

And then there was silence.

Crushing darkness.

***

If he had any last doubts that his secret was out, they were snuffed out when he woke up in the hospital to the pained faces of his parents. Jazz was in the chair to his left, hair mussed up and asleep. His parents’ eyes were red with tears. In his delirium, he also noticed Sam’s backpack discarded in the corner.

How long had—?

“Two days.”

Clockwork appeared before him in their adult form. They swung their staff, looking rather pleased with themselves. Danny then realized the occupants of the room had been frozen as long as he’d been awake. 

“You’re recovering well, all considered.” Clockwork tapped a clipboard on a nearby table. “I will say, I am surprised that we took this route. It is what you might call a ‘spoiler,’ but it’s kinder than most.”

“Is it,” he said, voice hoarse.

Clockwork waited for him to finish coughing up his lungs before speaking again. “They’re handling it as best they can. I won’t say it’s great, but you’re on the way there.”

“I—what happened, again?”

And as he asked, it came rushing back.

Lancer. Valerie.

And paramedics?

Clockwork gave him a knowing smile. “Your teacher called an ambulance. In his panic, he might have let it slip that you were having a reaction because of a ghost weapon, and your parents were looped into the call.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah.”

Danny’s eyes found his frozen heart monitor, time stopped between beats. Below, his mother had tied off the top half of her HAZMAT suit and was wearing a black shirt beneath. He did notice that the contents of her weapons belt were emptied.

He turned back to Clockwork. “How did they take it?”

They shrugged. “Why don’t you ask them?”

“Wait—wait, I'm not ready.”

“How about this? I tell you how much time you have left.” They raised their staff. “Three—”

“Clockwork—”

“Two—”

“Don’t you dare!”

“Time in.”

[nat-space-obsessed]

"I'm 23." "No, You're Not."

Crossposted on AO3!

It turns out to be very hard to get a tattoo when you look eternally 14.

Prompt by @charcoalhawk

"Kid, You're like twelve. That's a fake ID. I'll get in trouble if I let you get a tattoo here." 

"As I said, I am literally 23. I've been 23 for five months now. It is on my ID. I swear to you that my ID is real." Danny repeated for the third time that hour. 

Danny had been going to get a tattoo, his second, actually, and both times so far he had come across one issue: 

His eternally 14 year old face. 

"I told you, this can't be a real ID, you look twelve."

"I look fourteen, thank you very much."

"You realize that doesn't help, don't you?" The girl behind the counter retorted. 

No, it doesn't. 

One thing about being immortal is that you forget that you are immortal. Danny's ID has his birth date and his current photo. It's not his fault that he looks fourteen!

Actually it is. He's the one who died. 

"If I told you it's a health condition, would you believe me?"

"Not without a doctor's note. Either way, kid, even if you are somehow older than 16, you can't get a tattoo even with parental consent. We live in Illinois."

Danny hated being locked out of things due to his perceived age. Even when he was in college, and all of his classmates thought he skipped a bunch of grades to get where he was. Every time he met someone new he had to go through the same spiel. 

'I'm nineteen, yes I look young, it's a medical condition, yes I am in my second year of college' yadda yadda yadda. It had been four years and it only got worse. 

It was worse when he was going to different age restricted places, such as bars and tattoo parlors, which thought that he was a literal kid. 

"Look. I already have a tattoo, isn't that enough??"

"How do I know you didn't have a friend do that for you, huh? I remember middle school with all of the stick-n-pokes."

"Does this look like a stick-n-poke???" No, it doesn't. It was a full color three quarter arm in a neo-traditional style. It was a ghost, because he loves his irony. 

Danny kept staring at the girl behind the counter, not blinking the whole time, as she stared at him incredulously. 

"I'm going to have to ask you to leave if you keep being a problem."

"I'm not being a problem! You're the one who isn't listening as I try to explain my situation!"

"Kid, you aren't going to get a tattoo from this place." She sighed. "Look, I can call my boss and she can make the final call on it." 

"Yes! Please! Do!"

The girl in front of him walked into the back room and called a name that Danny hadn't heard since high school. "Hey! Star!"

Wait, Star? 

"What is it now, Kay?" A familiar voice rang out, in an exasperated voice. 

"Look, there's this kid at the front who says he's 23, he has an ID that looks like it checks out, but he looks twelve. Literally twelve." 

"God, Kay. Just tell him no!" A woman walked out from the back room, and looked at Kay, then made eye contact with Danny.

"Wait, FENTON? Damn, you literally haven't changed since freshman year!" The blonde girl laughed. 

"Star! It's been so long, I can't believe you recognize me!" Danny smiled. "You started a tattoo parlor?" 

"Yeah, after high school, I decided to apprentice at that one parlor down the road from school? Yeah you know the one, right?"

"I got my first tattoo there! this one," Danny pointed to his three quarter. 

"Was it James? I apprenticed under him." Star smiled at Danny. 

"Wait, Star, you know this kid?" 

"We went to high school together. I was a bit of an asshole, but we made up at the end of senior year! We'd all been through a lot together, you know what they say about trauma bringing people together!"

Danny smirked at Star. "You still in contact with Paulina?" He started, "Have you heard about her new girlfriend?"

"Oh yeah! We had a double date not too long ago, you know, me and Kwan."

"I always thought you and Kwan would get together! You guys were always pretty good with each other."

"WAIT, wait wait, so Star, he's not lying about his age??" The girl behind the counter said. 

"Yeah, he's looked that way since freshman year, some sort of medical condition, right?"

"It was a whole thing in senior year, we were comparing yearbook photos, it was so funny to see Dash freak out like that."

Danny and Star laughed at the memory. 

"So, can I get my tattoo now?" 

"Oh for sure! I'd love to get you started on that, do a quick consultation." Star led Danny to her office in the back. 

The girl at the front counter grasped her head in frustration. 

[the-cosmic-blogger]

Vincy's Masterpost

In the year 1805, Vincent "Vincy" Hildin was born on May 7th. Born in a neighboring kingdom to Danny and Kim Hildin, who were increasingly abusive and neglectful the more Vincent revealed his more feminine personality, such as wanting to take care of a stuffed animal. Or anything that wasn't roughhousing or playing with his boyish toys.

When he was six, his father angered a coworker, who later poisoned Vincent with the legendary curse called the Snatcher Syndrome. He transformed the night after, and when he woke up, his parents shunned and disowned him, making him wander the forests from then on.

One day, when he was ten, Subcon Queen Victoria, Vanessa's kind mother, found him in the neighboring forest and took him in, and Vanessa began seeing him as a father figure and her mental state improved as a result.

Good things don't last forever though, as he began to be shunned by the village three years later. And even later, at age nineteen, the village banished him altogether...

Appearance

by @fedoraspooky

by @sleepyywolfx

by @bittybattybunny

Werebeast Form

by @triptych-of-voids

Facts

This AU is inspired by @fedoraspooky​

voiceclaim [He sounds similar to this after all] and also this one.

The curse behaves like a werebeast's, causing Vincent to painfully and reluctantly transform each new moon, and get increasingly sick, pale and tired as it approaches. It's also mindless and monstrous.

The beast needs to eat at least one soul, lest Vincent become even sicker in the morning.

Victoria, on the new moon when Vincent was fifteen, had talked to him about sneaking out to the forest every month; due to the village shunning him, it could be dangerous.

He immediately ran to the attic, and transformed there every time. But the beast, since there was nothing to eat, would turn on itself and give nasty scars, such as the scars on his face and neck, and many others he keeps hidden.

When accepted to a law school, he had to take hardcore meds in order to attend since he was so sickly after missing out on two years' worth of souls.

After Vincent left for law school, Vanessa's mental health began unraveling and she accidentally killed her mother as a result.

When he comes home with mourning flowers, Vanessa nearly kills Vincent by stabbing him through the abdomen with a large icicle after she lashed out at him for leaving. She, out of remorse, promptly tried to kill herself by overdose. And failed.

Vincent takes her to the village doctor and continues mourning in the manor, but he eventually gets driven away and banished from the village.

How he got banished? someone stupidly took a walk through the forest on a new moon night and saw him transform.

A few days after he was banished, Louis found him picking apples and proceeded to take care of the boy discreetly.

Unfortunately, unlike Vanessa, Louis is mortal, and he dies somewhere in the 215 years.

As a result, the man grew paranoid and wary of everyone who entered his life, knowing they will one day leave whether it's by death or by choice.

He does meet Hat Kid, who's an alien stranded on the planet, and she helps him with his paranoia as he helps her find all her time pieces and ship parts.

Eventually, she leaves the planet, but Vincent doesn't let his paranoia take over again.

The curse is active all the time, keeping him alive and making him survive things that would kill an average human.

But light magic, such as healing, can hurt (and extreme light magic can permanently kill) the beast, and Vincent too if he had just transformed back into his usual self and right before he transforms.

He doesn't like hurting or killing people or animals. He loves them, and is overall a very kind, gentle and fatherly soul. So he doesn't hunt.

However, his diet prefers meat above all else.

He ties his cloak around his waist usually before transforming.

His eyes glow in the dark or shade, much like a coyote's.

Writings

New Moon Shade Series

by moi

New Moon Shade RP

New Moon Shade RP II Coming Soon

by me and @madeasubstitute

Warning: As they're werebeast stories, they contain the usual werebeast shenanigans, and also death.

Part One is now very outdated, but it's still here for fun.

Part Two might either be loosely or firmly canon. But canon all the same.

Other Notes

In-Depth Backstory

In-Depth Profile

==========

If you have any questions or wanna talk about this more, you can shoot me a message over Discord or here, or send asks. :D

>>Progenitor: Vin's MasterPost<<

Under the cut is Vincent's scar map.

[kiragecko]

DC Sidekick Age References

Here’s a dump of all the references I’ve found. Know I’m missing a lot, and quite a few were found on other sites that didn’t give me the most precise info.

If you know of anything else, can correct a mistake you see, or want to discuss comic book aging - please send me an ask, message, or reblog!

?? - means I don’t know where the info is from, “quotes” are direct copies of the wording in the comic

-

?? Parents died when Bruce was 8

Detective Comics #27 (May 1939) – Batman introduced

Detective Comics #38 (Apr 1940)  – Dick is (8 when parents killed/9 when Robin) 12 when he becomes Robin, it's Bruce's 3rd year as Batman

More Fun Comics 73 (Nov 1941) – Green Arrow Introduced

1962 - JLA formed

1964 – Dick teams up with Wally and Garth

Teen Titans 1 (Jan-Feb 1966) – Teen Titans form, Donna is introduced (all 5 are 14ish?)

Detective 359 (Jan 1967) – Babs introduced, has PhD, has graduated

Batman #217 (Dec 1969) – Dick graduates high school, enrolls in University (starts 3 months later)

1971 - Roy discovered using drugs by Ollie and Hal in a drug den (he was trading arrows for drugs), retcon has Wally and Dick discovering him at tower and making him promise to get help

Justice League 116 (Mar-Apr 1975) Charley Parker is 16

Batman Family 10 (Mar-Apr 1977) – Dick is teenager, Babs is 25

Teen Titans 53 (Feb 1978) – Dick, Wally, Donna, Vic all started college at same time

DC Special Series: The Flash Spectacular (May 1978) – Wally graduates high school

New Teen Titans 1 (Nov 1980) – Raven forms New Titans, Gar is 16 during run

New Teen Titans 2 (Dec 1980) – Slade meets team, Grant dies

1981 - Dick drops out of university after 1 semester, he never really was interested

New Teen Titans 20 (June 1982) – Vic turns 19, Donna already is

Tales of the New Teen Titans 2 (July 1982) – Raven turned 18 just before forming Titans

Batman #357 (Mar 1983) – Jason’s first appearance

Detective Comics #526 (May 1983) – Bruce adopts Jason, Dick is there and approving

New Teen Titans 34 (Aug 1983) – Terra turns 16

Batman #368 (Feb 1984) – Dick gives Jason the Robin costume, Jason becomes Robin

Blue Devil(84) – Eddie is 11/12

Tales of the Teen Titans (May 1984) – Joey introduced, Author describes him as 17?

New Teen Titans #39 (Feb 1984) – Dick stops being Robin, Wally quits being a superhero/the team

Tales of the Teen Titans 50 (Feb 1985) – Terry and Donna's wedding (she got married while 19)

New Teen Titans 10 (July 1985) – Kole says she's at least 18

Crisis on Infinite Earths 7 (Oct 1985) – Supergirl dies in Superman’s arms after mostly destroying the Anti-Monitor, who has to flee reality

New Teen Titans 18 (Mar 1986) – Dick turns 20 (“Dick Grayson celebrates his birthday away from home with a traditional Tamaranean feast.” (While sulking because Kory got space-married))

New Teen Titans 20 (May 1986) – Roy locates baby Lian, Terry Long is 29

?? Roy is 22(when he gets Lian)

Batman #404 - Batman Year One (Feb 1987) – Bruce is 25, spent 12 years training, became Batman at 26, Barbara Gordon is pregnant, her and Jim move to Gotham

Detective Comics #571 (Feb 1987) – we see Bruce’s fear gas induced vision of Jason’s tombstone (birth: 1974 – death: 1986, so he’d be 12)

Secret Origins 13 (April 87) – 15 years ago, it was Dick’s 5th birthday. Soon after tenth birthday, parents are killed. [Set during New TT 18])

Batman #409 (July 1987) – Jason becomes Robin (In Detective Comics, Jason has been Robin the whole time, but is still being wwritten with Pre-Crisis personality)

Flash 1 (June 1987) – Wally turns 20

New Teen Titans Ann 3 (Nov 1987) – Danny Chase is 13 and introduced

Batman #416 (Feb 1988) – Dick in Gotham, meets the new Robin on patrol. Confronts Bruce later, says he was ‘fired’ less than a year ago (since then he was briefly in college), makes Bruce admit he missed him. Dick finds Jason again, expose the drug dealers, and Dick gives Jason his old costume (symbolically, since Jason already has one) and a phone number, Dick was Robin for 6 years

Batman #427 (Winter 1988) – Jason dies

Batman #436, Batman: Year Three (Aug 1989) – 2 years since Dick stopped being Bruce’s sidekick (When he became Nightwing? Or when he quit?), parents died 10 years earlier

Batman #441, A Lonely Place of Dying (Nov 1989) – Tim 13, was 7 when Dick’s parents died

Robin #1 (Jan 1991) – Tim debuts as Robin

New Titans 84 (March 1992) – Joey dies

Deathstroke, the Terminator #15 (Oct 1992) – Rose introduced

Team Titans 3 (Nov 1992) – Robert Long is born

Adventures of Superman 500 (June 1993) – Kon appears and escapes from Cadmus with Newboy Legion, John Henry Irons first appearance, Eradicator and Cyborg Superman also appear for first time

Batman: BTAS: Robin’s Reckoning (1993) - 'Richard 'Dick' Grayson: Age 10'

Detective Comics 668 (Nov 1993) – Tim gets license (because dad is disabled) even though he hasn’t turned 16 yet, gets beat up by Jean-Paul

Flash 92 (July 1994) – Bart aged to 14

?? Shortly after Knight’s End – Tim is 15 and in the 10th grade

Flash 0 (Oct 1994) – Wally is 23

Damage 1(94) – Grant is 16

Deathstroke, The Terminator Annual 4 (Aug 1995) – Rose is 14, “What would that do to a kid? A fourteen-year-old girl whose father is an assassin she’s never met?”

Wonder Woman 105(95) – Cassie is 14

Tempest 1(96) – Garth spends many months in other dimension

Aquaman 20 (May 1996) – Garth aged 3-4 years in other dimension, now older than other Titans

Teen Titans 1 (Oct 1996) – Argent, Risk, Joto, Prysm all turn 16(they were conceived by seed things on same day)

Superboy Annual 2 – to Kon: “Happy birthday, Kid - - number one in a long successful series, we hope.” “He will effectively remain sixteen years old - - forever!”

Green Lantern 82(97) – Robert Long is 3

Wonder Woman 121(97) – Terry and Robert die

Secret Origins Giant 1(98) – Bart is “Three. Fifteen. Depends.”, “you’re almost 15, Tim.”

Titans 5(99) – Donna is 23

Titans(99) – Lian is 4

Sins of Youth(99) – Kon 16, aging normally again

Aquaman 63 (Jan 2000) – Future Garth tells granddaughter Donna about Cerdian being born (think this is his weird birth issue)

Wonder Woman Secret Files (2002) – „Wonder Girl is a precocious outgoing 15-year-old named Cassandra „Cassie“ Sandsmark.“

Bruce Wayne: Murderer (2002) – Oracle says Tim is 15

Batgirl #37 (April 2003) – “Cain said ... today was ... my birthday.”

Batgirl #39 (June 2003) – “I see an eighteen-year-old girl, who’s out of her depth.” (Babs about Cass)

Robin #116 (Sept 2003) – Dana: “Oh, I’m so glad we’ll all be together on Thursday ... !” Tim: “Why? What’s Thursday?” Jack: “Yeah. What’s Thursday?” Dana: “Wait a minute – seriously? Tim: “Yeah. Tell. Us.” Dana: “It’s nothing – never mind. Just leave your schedules open for a nice family dinner.”| Jack: “Dana, what’s – “ Dana: “Shh! Thursday ...  the 19th of July ... ?” Jack: “Um ... oh! Right!” | Steph: “So – Thursday!! Are you excited? Got any ideas for it, yet? ... Tim ... ?” [Tim is asleep.] | [Ives and Steph come over, with pizza that says “Happy B-Day Tim.”] Ives: “Sixteen spankings – get that boy up!!” | Dana says: “I remember when I was in 11th grade.” | he also gets the first ‘clue’ for Bruce’s ‘birthday present.’

Teen Titans 1 (Nov 2003) – Gar is 19, Is this Joey’s return?? (He’s puppeting Slade)

Teen Titans ½ (2004) – Rose’s early years, with a ‘6 years ago’ flashback, she was raised in a brothel her mom ran, tutored, never allowed the outside world, but had relationships with kids her age

Detective Comics #790 (Mar 2004) – Jason’s 18th birthday “he would have been 18 today”

Teen Titans 8 (April 2004) – Raven looks 'barely older' than Cassie

TEEN TITANS #1/2 [2004]: The flashback panels totally sync up with my age theories; Flash to 10 years ago: Dick Grayson’s parents die. Flash to 6 years ago: Rose Wilson is schooled at home by her mother, Lili. Flash to 5 years ago: Ravager I is killed. Flash to 3 years ago: Slade is forced to kill Jericho. Flash to 2 years ago: Cadmus attempts to clone Superman. Flash to 18 months ago: Rose deals with the death of her mother. Flash to one week ago: Bart Allen is shot by Slade.

Identity Crisis 4 (Dec 2004) –(Tim still 16)

Green Arrow 47(05) – Mia is 17

Return of Donna Troy 3(05) – Cassie barely 16

Nightwing: Year One(05) – Dick is 26

Batgirl #65 (Aug 2005) – Cass decides to figure out if Shiva is her mom, Jason and Cass roughly the same age

Flash(05/06) – Wally is 26

?? Robin #136 – Tim still 16 ???

Detective Comics #868 (Oct 2010)– Kate is 32 years old??

One Year Later(Mar 06)

Flash 1(06) – Bart 4 years older(20?)

Blue Beetle 2 (June 2006) – Find out Jaime was in space/a pocket dimension for One Year Later

?? Just prior to 52 (July 2006-July 2007)– told Tim is 17 (long before he’s also  17 in Red Robin, 52 is 1 year long)

Teen Titans 42 (Feb 2007) – Eddie is 17

Final Crisis: Legion of 3 Worlds 3-4 (Apr-June 2009) – Bart and Kon back, same as when died

Batman 677 (July 2008) – Batman over 30

Batman: Battle for the Cowl (May-July 2009) – Damian is 10, Ends with Dick and Damian becoming Batman and Robin

Brave & The Bold 2 (May 2007) – Kara is 17, “You have food in the refrigerator older than her, Hal. Who are you, Ollie? No bad thoughts. She’s seventeen.”

Batgirl #1 (Oct 2009) – Steph starting college

Batgirl #7 (Apr 2010) - Damian is "what happens when you work with a 10-year-old."

Red Robin #12 (July 2010) – Tim spent “a few months” looking for evidence before returning to Gotham, becomes emancipated minor

Detective Comics #871 (Jan 2011)– Mention that Dick and Babs went to prom together

Red Robin #25 (Sept 2011) – Tim “and you are only 17”

The Batman Files (Oct 2014) – Jason was 15 at death (seen on death certificate)

?? Rebirth Young Justice series – Cassie: “didn’t mean to end up back in high school feeling - - like I did back when I went to high school.” Later, she says she’s in Metropolis “Working. Going to school in the fall.” So she’s probably starting college.

?? Bart in some Rebirth comic: “Am I six? Am I nineteen? That’s a really freaky thing, right?”

?? At some point: Donna says shes a little older than Kyle

[solesurvivorpaigeargot]

I wanna hearing about Paige's family with #5.

Super detailed questions about your OCs

5. Do they have any siblings? What’s their names? What is their relationship with them? Has their relationship changed since they were kids to adults?

HOO BOI my friend, you have volunteered for an infodump. I’m putting in a read-more cut to prevent dash clogging.

Paige was the second-to-last child out of five, with three brothers and one sister. 

Isabelle [Bella, Belle] -- the eldest, Paige’s sister and seven years older than her. Basically ended up as built-in babysitter/second mom. Paige calls her Izzy and is the only one who is allowed to call her that [anyone else will get whacked, including Bella’s husband]. Their relationship when Paige was a kiddo was pretty strained; Paige grew up running wild with her brothers whilst Isabelle, the eldest daughter of a very conservative and publicly religious family, was constantly being watched and judged on how responsible she was and how well she was growing into a ‘lady’ as she was expected to do. Meanwhile Paige, as the younger daughter and surrounded by boys, was excused for more wild behavior and often given a flavor of the ‘boys will be boys’ pass when she got into trouble until she hit puberty and suddenly got whacked in the face with more feminine expectations. 

Somewhere in Paige’s early teens, she and Izzy had it out in an honest to goodness, full-on fight, wherein Izzy accused Paige of being a spoiled brat who was incapable of understanding just how hard it was to hold up under everyone’s expectations, and Paige threw it right back by calling those expectations petty bullshit and questioning why Izzy didn’t just toss it all out if she hated being a lady. The two grew apart after that, maintaining some sisterly affection but mostly not getting in each other’s way. Izzy taught Paige how to look after her hair when she started growing it out, taught her how to do make-up, gave her advice on clothes and shoes for interviews, that sort of thing. 

They both ultimately stayed at arm’s length until Shaun was born, at which point Izzy had reached out to try and reconnect. She and her husband had been living in Pennsylvania when the bombs fell. Izzy’s family was well off enough that they might have gotten a spot in a vault, but Paige hadn’t been keeping up with them enough to know whether or not they’d registered...

Ethan -- eldest brother, five years older than Paige, she always looked up to him as her cool older brother. He and his friends had a garage band when he was a teen, but he gave it up when their parents put pressure on him to start figuring out something ‘real’ to do with his life. Music became a beloved hobby, noodling about on his guitar when he could get away with it, but never when their father was home, as he’d threatened to smash it on more than one occasion. 

Like Isabelle, Ethan was often leaned upon to be more adult than he actually was, looking after his younger siblings but with a touch more wiggle room. Where Isabelle was very much considered the one with full parental authority, and thus expected to enforce the rules to their fullest extent, Ethan allowed Paige, Daniel, and Zach to get away with the occasional mischief with a wink and a smile that assured them he didn’t see anything. 

Besides music, Ethan also had a gift of gab that made him excellent at talking himself and his siblings out of any trouble-- something he and Paige shared, and the two would get into deep arguments over tiny things as a kind of sport. At school a teacher encouraged him towards debate club and theater, and he participated in multiple school productions before, again, their parents reminded him that artistic careers were more fantasy than anything to build your life around. Instead, they pushed him towards law, which he fucking hated but attempted to make them happy.

He dropped out after his first year of college, arriving at home with black dyed hair, two tattoos and three piercings he hadn’t had when he left for school, giving their parents the finger, and all but disappearing when Paige was fourteen. Nineteen years old, he was technically an adult, his their parents couldn’t drag him back. Dad doesn’t talk about Ethan, and mom would cry when he was mentioned. Paige worried he died chasing a dream for the longest time, until she left for law school and started getting postcards-- turned out Ethan was still in contact with Izzy, and had embraced his musical career [and all the hardship that came with it] with everything he had. 

Last Paige heard, Ethan had been somewhere on the western seaboard when the bombs fell. She finds it unlikely that he, or any descendants of him, survived... though, if he went ghoul, she wouldn’t be surprised if he was still living the traveling musician life two centuries later. 

Daniel [Danny] -- middle brother, two years older than Paige, and oldest of the trouble trio. Daniel, Paige, and Zach were always the three making messes together as young kids, running wild, exploring the backwoods on the family farm, finding fun and odd ways to get chores done, and generally being kids. Danny was the tough one out of the three of them; easily the biggest out of all of Paige’s siblings and the one who got in people’s faces if anyone was messing with anyone else in the family. 

Danny and Paige frequently butted heads; they were both stubborn as hell and outspoken, and before Paige was expected to be more lady-like it very regularly came to blows. It’s thanks to Danny that Paige knew how to squirm out of most holds by the time she was an adult, even if the other person was larger than her, and exactly which soft spots to shove her elbows or heels into. This tendency towards brawling changed as they got older, however, as Danny realized that Paige was going to be a petite woman her entire life and went out of his way to teach her some honest-to-goodness self-defense tactics after hearing a few of his friends say a few... off color things about his sister. 

Danny stayed in Minnesota to attend a trade school, finding work in the automation industry; installing and maintaining machines used for mass manufacture. He married almost immediately out of highschool, and the timing of his first kid suggests that his wife was pregnant before the wedding. Paige kept in contact with him, and Danny actually made the trip out to visit her when Shaun was born. While Paige suspects that he’s dead, unless of course he ended up ghoul, she has occasionally speculated that if Danny and his family survived the initial bombing? He had practical skills that might have seen him through long enough to have descendants that survived to the present day.  Zachariah [Zach] -- the youngest, a year younger than Paige and her childhood partner in crime. Zach, like Paige, was kinda on the small side. Unlike Paige, Zach was also intensely shy in a family full of outspoken, opinionated, stubborn mules. It wasn’t that he didn’t have opinions, mind-- rather that he had a lot of trouble putting the words together to express them. Zach would often stick with Paige like her second shadow, because Paige was very good at picking up on what he meant to say to others and saying it for him, or re-iterating when he spoke too quietly and he got ignored. 

That said, Zach was often the mastermind behind what he, Paige, and Danny got up to as little kids-- quiet, but quick witted, and a grade-A prankster. 

As adolescents, Zach and Paige were occasionally confused for being twins despite there being a year difference between them. Their faces were strikingly similar, with Zach having deeply brown eyes rather than Paige’s hazel being the main difference. Sometimes their mischief would play into this, and Paige was allowed to get away with many things as a young teen simply by virtue of being mistaken for her brother. 

When Ethan ran out on the family, Zach was probably the one most deeply effected by it, and Paige did everything she could to support him at the time. They both looked up to Ethan, but Zach even more so because he was also musically inclined and had been learning the drums from one of Ethan’s friends. Sometimes the band even let him do some kind of back-up percussion when they were practicing before their father shut it down, and it was during those practice sessions that Zach tended to really light up. When Ethan left? Zach fell deeply into depression for a long time, and Paige felt like it was her responsibility to hold him up lest she lose another brother. 

Despite being the often-overlooked child in the family, Zach had damn near perfect grades... and yet, their parents appeared to lack specific expectation for him. Rather, the had a vague assurance that he’d simply do well at whatever he decided to do, and Zach confided in Paige that he had no idea what to do with his scholastic success-- that it didn’t feel real to him. That he wasn’t a person, but rather a mass of goo that could just be poured into whatever shape worked best for the people around him. 

Paige still regrets not having any good advice for him. Last she heard, he’d gone to school to pursue an engineering degree, like their father; imitating a ready example. She suspects that he might have gone after something musical, if not for what happened with Ethan, and that his choice paralysis was a form of avoiding even thinking about that kind of rebellion. Like Danny, Zach’s schooling didn’t take him far from the family home, and he still lived in Minnesota at the time of the bombing. He was, at the time, unmarried. Given time to think further on it, Paige actually suspects that Zach might have been some form of closeted due to still being close to the family and their parents intense involvement with the church. Thinking about that always makes her wish she’d been there for him more, that she’d been smarter and figured out what he’d been dealing with and helped him handle it better. 

Like everyone else, Paige is pretty sure Zach is dead... and he’s probably the one she’s mourns the most, because it feels like he never really got to live in the first place. 

[svubloods]

Imagine being the Youngest Reagan: Just the Seven of Us

(A/N: Something different but fun. Just cute really. I hope you enjoy!)

Imagine being the Youngest Reagan: Just the Seven of Us

Staten Island, New York City, New York 1996

Joseph Reagan observed his parents sceptically, to the point he could feel his right eyebrow quirked up in suspicion as he watched them from his position in the backseat. They were certainly acting normally, he thought, as the continued to speak casually to Jamie, your brother, about his high school electives. Everything seemed normal but something was off and Joe knew it. He didn't understand where they were going, why they were being so secretive about it and why they had organised it like this so that they were only ones clued in. Joe’s younger siblings sixteen-year-old Jamie and eight year old Y/N clearly wasn't as curious as he was but maybe that was because as they both still lived at home and going on trips with them on the weekend weren't an unusual occurrence for them unlike Joe, who was now living on the Columbia Campus in the city after starting his freshman year there a few months ago. What was even weirder was that his older sister Erin, a Junior at Columbia, and older brother Danny, a rookie cop, were instructed to meet them at whoever they heading, no excuses. Which meant that unlike him who had decided to catch the train to Staten Island to his parents from the city a day early and stay the night before, they knew where they were all heading.

Though he was naturally curious, he trusted his parents and didn't dwell on it. So he pulled away from his intrigued thoughts and his view of the blurring Staten Island streets through the window to look at his little sister. Who was sandwiched comfortably between him and Jamie in the middle seat at the back seat of the car? He watched amused as she read the book tightly clutched in her small hands intently, her face slightly screwed up in concentration. It was a face that he knew all too well, his Mother and older sister Erin made similar faces when concentrating as well.

He was glad she was enjoying the book. His mom had been telling him that ever since moved out and gave her the book; ’The Ultimate Kid’s Guide to All Things Science’ that she hadn’t put it down. And today was no exception, the book enough to entertain her during the seemingly long trip. Though didn’t need his mom to tell him that she had been enjoying it, she told him every Sunday when he took the train back up for Sunday Lunch back at his parents. He was happy that she was liking it so much, especially as the whole reason he gave it to her was so that on the day he left, she would be too distracted to get too upset. Despite the age difference, Joe shared a very special bond with his baby sister. Unlike Jamie who thought he was too cool and Erin and Danny who were too much older, he loved spending time and talking to her. In fact, he missed hearing about her second grade, well now third-grade escapades. It was either his little sister was a great storyteller or that the lives of eight and seven years olds were vastly more interesting than his own.

Joe leaned into her side gently and bowed his head to whisper to her so that only she could hear.

“Whatcha reading?” He whispered, glancing at the page she was reading.

“How to make a volcano out of paper-mâché!” You whispered excitedly, looking at him with a large grin, “And before it said that inside volcanos there is lava and it's really hot!”

“Lava?” He asked, encouragingly, chuckling to himself as you flipped the page back and pointed at it dramatically.

“Molten rock!” You stated, confidently.

“Woah,” He played along happily, “So you’re enjoying the book then?”

“It’s the best present ever,” You exclaimed, though you were still whispering to each other, “Thank you, Joey,”

“But you still miss me right?” He teased.

You nodded with a playful pout just empathise how much you still missed him and he put his arm around you and gave you a squeeze.

“You’re squishing me!” You squealed, your face pressed up against his torso so it was muffled. 
“It’s because I love you so much,” He jokingly singsonged, keeping you pressed into his side as he rocked you from side to side, the best he could from your strapped down position in the car.

“What’s going on back there?” Your Dad’s voice asked with teasing sternest from the driver’s seat, you both glanced forward to see his fascinated eyes fixated on the both of you in the rearview mirror. “Just the usual,” The nineteen-year-old quipped, acting in a way to arouse fake suspicion and to entertain you,  “Lava, college, our plans for world domination,”

“Is that right?” Your Dad entertained, looking at his eight year old daughter directly, “What will the great Y/N/N dominate first?”

You paused for a second your face contorting in concentration once again before responding.

“Manhattan,” You declared.

“You might want to ask Grandpa first,” He chuckled.

“Why do I need to ask Grandpa?” You whined, looking at him confused in the rearview mirror.

“Well, he’s the Police Commissioner remember? And that means it’s his job to make sure police officers like me and Danny do their job and protect people. Which includes stopping takeovers from tyrannical eight-year-olds,” He explained, purposely.

“What are you going to do if Grandpa says no, Y/N?” Jamie asked, his conversation over now, and his full attention refocused onto your interaction.

“Ask Grandma, she always says yes!” You revealed, “Especially when I make my eyes big like this,”

You widened your eyes with your fingers and pouted playfully which much to your confusion made everyone else in the car laugh.

“Can I know where we are going now?” Joseph asked your parents when the laughter died down.

“Patience, young Joseph,” Your Mother teased, whipping round to smirk at him, “All will be revealed,”

“You and your dramatics Mother,” Joe quipped, rolling his eyes at his mother and her antics, but he couldn't help the laugh that spilt over despite his best attempts to control himself.

“You hear that Frank?” She giggled, grabbing hold of his arm as he drove, “He’s serious, he called me mother,”

“Should we tell him?” Your Dad entertained, his eyes on the road ahead.

“Yes you should,” He interrupted, “Danny and Erin already know, so it’s only fair that I know too,”

“Well, that’s because there is too many of you to fit in the car,” Your Mom shrugged.

“I don’t know where we are going either,”Fifteen-year-old Jamie added, making sure he was apart of the conversation as well.

“Why can’t I know what I’m giving up my Saturday for?” Joe countered.

“Because you should be happily willing to spend your Saturday with us regardless of the exact details,” Your Mom refuted, “And anyway let’s be honest Joey, you didn't have any plans anyway,”

Jamie snorted.

“Hey,” Joe protested, “I had plans,”

“With Tia?” Jamie joked, rolling out her name as Joe’s cheeks went red.

“Shut up!”

“Whose Tia?” Your mom asked, perking up and suddenly eager, “Don’t tell me I have to start helping to plan another son’s wedding,”

“Mom,” Joe groaned in embarrassment, sinking in his seat slightly.

“That will teach you to try and ruin the surprise,” She laughed, “Now Jamie, how was football practice yesterday?”

It wasn’t long after that, that you arrived at your destination. You pilled out the car and marvelled in wonder at was before you as your brothers quickly followed you. Your parents with smiles on their faces grabbed all your things.

“Coney Island?” Joe questioned in disbelief, “You made me travel from Manhattan to Staten Island only to take me to Brooklyn?”

“We didn't make you come a day early,” Your Dad reminded.

“But you understand that this could have been so much easier, right? If you had told me where we were going for this family Day out!” He protested, helplessly.

“But think of all the fun you had on the journey up with us,” Your mom comforted, side hugging Joe tightly which he quickly returned.

“Now, we have to wait for your brother and sister to get here,” Your Dad announced.

“Babe, give Danny a call to see how long they’ll be,” Your Mother suggested, her and Joe circling the car towards your Dad while you and Jamie stood looking hopefully at the entrance, “He said that Erin was coming with him,”

“JJ is that a rollercoaster? You squealed as the distinctive whoosh of it breezed past you.

“Probably,” He nodded, before crouching down beside you, “But I have a feeling you might be too small to go on,”

“Noooo, why can’t I be taller!” You huffed, slamming your small foot adorned with a thin white sandal on the concrete.

“Maybe next year you'll grow,” He shrugged, nervously, suddenly regretting answering your question without backup, rookie mistake.

“But I want to go on now!” You insisted, “Maybe I’ll grow before we get there, lets go and see!”

“Well, how about we do something else together, instead? Because that’s not going to happen” He offered, hopefully.

“Like what?” You demanded, narrowing your little eyes at him and frowning.

“I’ll buy you a hotdog,” He smiled.

“You don't have any money,” You sighed, disappointed.

“Okay, I’ll get Dad to buy us both hotdogs,” He clarified.

“I want two,” You babbled, “I didn't have breakfast, so I'm really hungry,”

“Why not?”

“I wanted to save space for my milkshake,” You answered before grinning and adding, “Daddy said I could have one if I’m good,”

“How did you know you could get a milkshake?” He questioned.

“Because,” You began dramatically, “Mommy told me where we were going yesterday, she said we were going to the beach and they had milkshakes there. And I love milkshakes!”

“Why didn't you say anything?”

“Because if I had told you then it wouldn't be a secret and it was a secret,” You reiterated.

He was about to say something else only to be interrupted by the arrival of your older siblings, twenty-three-year-old Danny and twenty-one-year-old Erin.

“All right, we’re here and now tell us why,” Danny announced after he and Erin greeted your parents and the rest of you.

“Now that everyone is here,” Your Mother beamed, “I’ll explain. Your Father and I thought it would be fun to get all of us together for a proper family day, just the seven of us, because it’s very rare we all get together just us and because this might be our last chance as just seven ever before my baby boy get married next weekend,”

Your Mother finished her explanation by engulfing Danny into her embrace and squeezing his cheeks.

“Ma,” He cried, but he did little to remove himself from her grasp, “So that’s why I couldn't bring Linda, huh?”

“We wanted to celebrate it being just the seven us of us,” Your Dad added, going over and clapping Danny on the back, “Before you start your new family,”

“Well not any time too soon, hopefully,” He cringed, not enjoying both of his parent's undivided attention even if it was only for a few moments.

“A new family?” You whispered to yourself.

“Shh,” Jamie sounded, putting his finger to his lips as your parents continued to speak.

You were too consumed with your own confused thoughts to focus on what everyone was saying. All you could remember was looking up at everyone, everyone was smiling and laughing and your frowning at them all but they didn’t seem to notice.

“So we have dinner reservations at a restaurant for Seven, so if we end up splitting up that’s where we will meet,” Your Mom continued to explain, “But since this is a family day I hope we all be sticking together all day and yes I’m looking at you boys,”

Jamie and Danny protested the statement, your Dad and Joe just laughed.

“Oh,” You Mother cried, before pulling all five of you into a bear hug, you only reached her hips so once again your face was squished, “I can’t believe I get to believe I get to spend all day with all five o my babies,”

“Mom, don’t cry,” Erin said above you.

“I might not survive the day if you keep crushing my windpipe,” Danny spluttered.

She quickly released everyone before commenting playfully, “Sorry, for loving you all so much,”

“Come on let’s get going,” Your Dad instructed and with that, you made your way.

From there the seven you made your way around Coney Island. Constantly stopping and starting again, as everything seemed to grab the interest of at least one of you. None of you had realised how much you all had to catch up on with each other, everyone had something going on in their lives that they hadn't mentioned yet or fully explained. Your mother adored having all of you together and the fact that all of you were so close despite the large age differences. It was something she always worried about and the fact that sometimes he felt like she was always being pulled in five different directions which meant at least one of you was always left out. It was much easier when you were all together. Everyone was talking and enjoying themselves, happy. Just by simply being together.

Everyone except for you of course. You couldn't enjoy yourself as much as everyone else. Being the youngest meant that you couldn't participate in the rides that Joe and Jamie wanted to go on or a lot of the activities your Mom and Erin went off to do. So for a good proportion of the day you were on the sidelines with whoever was designated to take care of you. Not that you minded at that point, you were too upset but no one seemed to notice and it would fluctuate when you were distracted. Everyone was too distracted with enjoying themselves to notice that you weren't always. A lot of time to save time someone carried you round so that you wouldn't get too tired too quickly.

“What do you think, rockstar?” Your Mom asked bending slightly to meet you, as you stomped out of the dressing room of a kids clothing store that you, your mom and older sister Erin.

You frowned at the new denim dress that Erin had selected for you, which to you looked exactly like on you already had. You also shook your head to wobble the big red bow that Erin had put in your hair because she said it would match the new red shoes that your mom had selected.

“Well, that isn't a promising look,” She chuckled, grabbing your face in her hands and pulling it closer to hers, “What’s up?”

“I don’t like it!” You insisted.

“But you look so cute in it, well cuter than usual,” Your Mom winked at you with a reassuring grin, “What do you think Erin?”

“Y/N, you look adorable,” She complimented, playing with your mass of curly hair before straightening your bow.

“But I don’t want to be adorable,” You sighed.

“Then what do you want to be?” Your Mom questioned.

“A big girl,” You smiled, “So I can go on the rollercoasters,”

You Mom just chuckled while Erin who was at least a foot taller than your mom at that age knelt down beside you.

“You look like a big girl in that outfit,” she said.

“You’re just saying that because you picked it,” You frowned, narrowing your eyes at her suspiciously.

“No, I mean it,” She promised, “Look we’re matching,”

She gestured to the white and navy striped dress she was wearing and the shirt she had picked for you to wear under your new denim dress. Also white and navy.

“We are,” You beamed, your eyes lighting up before frowning again, “But you don’t like it when Mom tries to dress us the same,”

“I’ll make an exception for today,” She sighed.

“Really?”

“Only today because you look so amazing,” She teased, poking your ribs playfully and sticking your tongue at you.

“Is the lady satisfied?” Your Mom teased, shooting Erin a sneaky wink.

“Indeed,” You played along before you all left the store to meet the boys who were all waiting outside for you to finish.

“Can we go to the rides now?” Jamie asked as soon as you returned to the group.

Your Mom and Dad shared a look before looking down at you, knowing that you were too young to go on anything in that area. They seemed to interact telepathically, coming up with a plan without saying a word to each.

“All right boys, let’s go,” Your Mom responded as Jamie and Joe ran ahead.

“I’ll go too,” Erin added, walking alongside your mom.

Which left you, your Dad and Danny at the storefront. You looked up expectantly at your Dad, purposely ignoring your older brother.

“Hey kiddo, how about we try out some carnival games?” Danny asked.

“No,” You stated, ducking behind your Dad’s legs.

“No?” He repeated, taken aback.

You nodded before grabbing hold of your Dad tightly, his hands flying down to steady you.

“Oh okay,” He nodded.

“Why don’t you go catch up with everyone Danny,” Your Dad suggested pointedly leaving it as just the two of you.

He gathered you up in his arms and held you tightly against him.

“Are you sure you don’t want to go to the Carnival?” He asked, studying your young face.

“Let’s go,”

Fifteen minutes you were happily throwing beanbags and even though you weren't making any progress on the towers of steel cups, you were having fun. And your Dad seemed to be having fun just the two of you as well. He eventually stepped in and helped you win a prize, a toy money that was almost as big as you were.

“A monkey for my little monkey,” He grinned handing you the prize almost causing you to topple over.

“You hold it,” You squealed, shoving it back into his arms as he laughed at you.

He put the monkey over one shoulder and grabbed your hand as you continued your way through the carnival.

You babbled happily to him as you went and even though he engaged with you, usually as happy, he watched you with a curious eye. Not forgetting your interaction with your older brother as well as your mood throughout the day. You were in the middle of telling him the story of your day at school the day before when he bumped into a cop that he knew. Your Father soon became distracted by the conversation enough that you eased your hand out of his. You knew that your Dad loved to talk to other cops and that it might take a while. You looked around for something to do but trying to make sure that you stayed close. You knew better than to wander off. You looked around suspiciously about to give up before you heard some frustrated sighs from a booth beside you.

Curious as ever, you wandered over to see what was making the boy so upset. He was tall and skinny boy, only a couple of years older than you with really blonde hair and bright eyes. You watched for a few minutes as he kept failing to aim the water gun correctly, so he kept on missing his target. He huffed in defeat, turned around and noticed you.

“Oh,” He said in surprise, “Are you waiting to play?”

“No,” You answered much to his confusion, “I was watching you,”

“I’m not very good at this game so it probably wasn't very interesting,” He blushed, shoving his hands in his pocket awkwardly in embarrassment.

“If you want I can show you how to do it,” You offered, brightly, “This is my favourite game,”

“Okay,” He nodded, sceptically, stepping out the way for you.

“You have to do it like this,” You instructed, repeating how Danny had once taught you when playing with water guns in the backyard.

You raised the water gun up with two hands, and aimed it in the right position, keeping your eye on the target before pressing the lever and hitting the bullseye exactly. You kept your hand steady until the tank filled up and the bell rang, indicating that you won a surprise. Once it did and you were handed your prize, a keychain this time, you turned back to look at the boy.

He had been watching you with his mouth open.

“Here you go,” You insisted, giving him the keychain.

“But it’s yours,” He said.

“And I’m giving it to you,” You smiled, “Do you think you can do it yourself now,”

He nodded, “You’re really good at it,”

“My brother Danny showed me how to do it,” You informed brightly before frowning again.

“What’s wrong?” The boy asked.

“My brother is leaving!” You cried.

“Why?”

“He’s getting a new family,” You said, sadly.

“That’s too bad. You’re like the coolest sister ever,” He comforted.

“Really?”

“Yeah, none of my older sisters know how to shoot a water gun,” He sighed, “They just talk about girly things like clothes and boys,”

“Boys are gross,” You shuddered.

“Hey,” He protested, offended.

“Not you,” You corrected, “You’re my friend,”

“I am?” He grinned.

“Yeah,” You nodded. “I’m Dominick, but everyone calls me Sonny,”

“Like sunshine?” You giggled.

“Yeah,” He shrugged, bashfully.

“I’m Y/N,” You breathed, reaching to shake his hand, “Nice to meet you,”

You shook each other's hands vigour-sly before bursting into giggles. You continued to chat about the game as Sonny had another go himself. But you were soon interrupted by your Dad calling for you.

“I have to go now,”

“Bye,” He waved.

You waved back before running back over to your hug who bent down to greet you with a hug.

“Where did you run off to?” He inquired, bopping you on the nose.

“Over there playing a game with my friend,” You pointed, giggling as he shook you around playfully.

“You just make friends everywhere don’t you?” He chuckled as he clasped your hand and you continued to walk up the pier.

“That’s because it's easy,”

“Not for everyone,” He informed before you stopped and sat on a bench that looked out over the seafront, “Do you want to know a secret, Y/N?”

You nodded, turning to look up at your Dad.

“Your Mom and I sat on this very bench on our first date,”

“Really, it’s that old?” You asked.

“Must be,” He laughed, “I took your mother here for our very first date and after we spent all afternoon playing carnival games we came and sat here for hours,”

“And you didn't get bored?”

“I could never be bored when I’m with your mother,”

“Do you get bored of me?” You inquired, curiously.

“No, of course not. I could never get bored of you,” He promised, pulling you into his side, “You’re my baby girl,”

“Is Danny bored of us?” You continued, widening your eyes up at him.

“Why are you asking that?” You Dad returned, clearly concerned.

“Because he’s leaving and starting a new family,” You began to sob, your eyes filling with tears.

“Hey,” Your Dad comforted, wiping away the tears that spilt down your face, “Danny isn't leaving the family. He’s always going to be your brother and apart of this family, all of us will always be.”

“Then why did Mom say, it was last time?” You demanded.

“Because when Danny gets married next weekend, they’ll be eight of us,” He clarified.

“Eight?”

“Well won’t Linda will be one of us?”

“She is?” You exclaimed.

“She’s going to be a Reagan, just like you and just like me,” He reassured.

“I love Linda,” You grinned before lowering your voice, “Sometimes more than Danny,”

“I know you do,” He smiled, hugging you tightly before pulling you away at arm's length, “Now should we go find Danny so you can say sorry for being mean to him,”

You nodded reluctantly before your Dad carried you to the other end of the pier where everyone else was. As you approached, you saw Danny standing with your Mom as your other brothers and Erin rode a ride that was going faster than you had ever seen before. As soon as you were in reach, you made your Dad put you down and you ran up to Danny, slamming into his side with so much momentum that you almost knocked him over before you hugged him.

“What the…Y/N?” He said jumping in surprise before steadying himself.

“Hi,”

“Oh, are we speaking now?” He probed, looking down at you, “You’ve been frowning at me all day,”

“Because I thought you were leaving me” You pouted, “But I know you aren't so we’re friends again,”

“What if I don’t want to be friends with you?” He countered.

You felt your face crumble as you gazed up at him.

“All right, all right, we’re friends,” He insisted quickly, finally hugging you back, “Just never look that upset again, promise?”

“Promise,” You nodded before whispering, “Hey Danny?”

“What’s up kiddo?”

“I’m really happy that Linda is going to be a Reagan,”

“Me too,” He smiled, poking at your dimples as you smiled back at him.

For the rest of evening, you stuck by Danny’s side, sitting by him at dinner and letting him carry you on the beach when all seven of you took a final stroll on the beach before leaving. You don't remember saying goodbye to Danny, Erin or Joe. The next thing you remember is waking up in the car, it was dark outside and Jamie was asleep beside you while your Dad snored quietly in the passenger seat. Your Mom who was driving and had noticed you stirring.

“Did your Dad’s snoring wake you?” She whispered to you.

You shook your head stifling a giggle as your mom motioned for you to be quiet.

“Where are we going?” You asked.

“We’re heading home now,” She informed, “Did you have fun today?”

You nodded eagerly at her, “It was the best day ever,”

“I’m glad you had fun,” 

“Did you Mommy?” You inquired.

“It was best the day ever,” You smiled, repeating your sentiment.

“What was your favourite part?” You questioned, intrigued as much as you could be in your tried state.

“Spending time for you, of course,” She insisted before adding, “And going back to the pier with your Dad,”

“Because that’s where you had your first date!” You reasoned.

“How do you know that?”

“It’s a secret,” You breathed, putting a finger to your lips.

“Uh huh,” She nodded sceptically, “Or your Dad is a blabbermouth,”

[h50europe]

McDanno AU - Playing With Fire

Steve was on his way home from a thirty-six hours shift with the Honolulu Fire Department when a red Gran Torino on the shoulder of the highway caught his eyes.

The hood was propped, and steam wafted up from the engine. He looked around but saw no sign of the owner or a tow crew. He frowned as he passed the classic car and shifted into gear as a stir of energy spun through him. What would he give to call a car like that his own? He glanced in the rearview mirror, watched the drool-worthy car disappear as he drove around a curve. Steve gave a loud sigh and shrugged. He returned his eyes to the road, and his heart slammed into high gear. A guy walked on the side of the road, just in front of him. He knew this guy. It was Danny Williams, who worked as a doctor at Queen's Medical Center. Steve jerked the steering wheel hard to the left, swerving just in time to avoid clipping Dr. Williams. Heart thumping, Steve pulled to the highway's shoulder and released another heavy sigh. He raised his gaze to the rearview mirror, this time looking for the doctor. The first thing he noticed was that the man was limping. The second thing he saw was his scowl.

Guilt pricked Steve as he shifted into Park and climbed from the truck. "Is everything okay with you, sir?"

Steve let his gaze take in the guy's ragged jeans and the sweat-dampened shirt that clung to his muscular body as he limped closer while brushing strands of blond hair from his flushed face. He was in pretty good shape for a doctor. Steve thought. The late-afternoon sun lit his face with a warm, golden glow. Damned, despite his frown this guy was quite attractive, and Steve's cock took notice.

"Do I look okay to you?" he grumbled.

Chastened, Steve cocked his head and winced. "Sorry about the near miss. I was distracted by your Gran Torino. I'm assuming the beauty around the bend is yours?"

"It is. Apology accepted." Danny waved him off with a flick of his hand.

"You're not the reason I'm angry." He squinted at him, shielding his eyes from the sun that was about to vanish behind the trees. "Hey, I think I know you," he snapped his fingers as if trying to recall his name. "Aren't you Steve McGregor from HFD?"

"McGarrett," Steve corrected him.

"Right, McGarrett. You were injured a few months ago when the Leilani Tower collapsed. How are you doing?"

"I'm back at work for about five weeks or so. Everything is fine thanks to the great doctors at Queen's Hospital. And you are Dr. Williams, aren't you?"

"Yes, yes, I am. Call me Danny." He chuckled and gave his head a little shake. "Sorry. I am a little distracted by my car and other things." He flashed Steve a dirty grin.

The latter was confused for a moment, then his face brightened. "Oh, I return the compliment. So what's wrong with your car? Is it the Radiator?"

Danny nodded briefly. "I think it's damaged. It won't hold fluid anymore. It is leaking." His cock throbbed in his jeans.   Shoving his hands in his back pockets, Steve cast a glance down the road. "I'd love to take a look at it. See if I can help." Yes, their conversation was definitely heading in a particular direction if they kept on talking like that.

Danny hesitated briefly. "Are you a mechanic?"

"I'm more the Fire Department's go-to guy for car troubles. My Grandpa owned an auto shop. When my parents were at work, I used to join him. He told me a lot about cars." Steve nodded toward Danny's leg, "what happened to your foot?"

"Accident at work." He laughed. "Are your conversations always like this?"

Steve frowned, "Like what?"

"Zigzag," Danny replied.  

"Considering some I have with my five-year-old nephew, I'd say yes. Want to start over?"

"I have a much better idea. You can give me a ride to the next gas station. There I can call my cousin. My phone's battery died this morning."

Steve grunted, "How did it happen?"

"Um … I was on a secret mission." Danny's impish grin told Steve he knew he's been asking about his ankle and was yanking his chain.

He tugged up the corner of his mouth. "Okay, you were up to do an open-heart-surgery on a warlord and were tackled by his bodyguards," Steve played along.

"No." Danny glanced down at his ankle, and his scowl was back.

"Rough landing during a base jump."

Steve barked out a startled laugh and wiggled his eyebrows, "I knew you must lead a secret life. You're way too good in shape for a doctor. CIA? FBI? DEA? ATF? Oh, wait … Don't tell me unless you want to kill me."

Danny snorted, "How about the ride?"

"How about Dinner at my place?" As soon as the words left Steve's mouth, and he saw Danny blink in surprise, he realized how this invitation sounded. "That came out wrong. I'm … I'm not asking you for a date." Danny's wry face made him scramble for words again. "Not that you're not my type of guy. You are."

"Thanks … I think," was Danny's short reply.

"Ah, fuck," Steve mumbled, scrubbing a hand over his face. "I mean … you're looking great. Hot, your abs are like ... but ..."

Danny raised a hand, "Calm down. Don't hurt yourself backing up. I get it. You have a wedding band on your finger. You're married. I can tell you; I am not looking for a date. Just a ride to the next gas station."

"Widowed." Steve grimaced inwardly. Why in the world had he felt compelled to share that with Danny? Yes, it was the truth. However, telling it to him made it sound as Steve was advertising his availability which wasn't his intention at all. And yes, in his heart, he was still and always would be married to Mick.

Danny gave him the pitying frown of sympathy he has grown used to over the past months. "Gosh, I'm sorry. I didn't know that."

Steve returned an awkward nod of acknowledgment. "Thanks."

"Was her death recent?"

"His," Steve corrected. "It's been a year."

"Uhm, that counts as recent. I'm so sorry."

That's where the conversations always stalled because people were usually too shocked by the fact that Steve was married to another man or too polite to ask how Mick died. Despite the morbid curiosity that was plain in their eyes. Before the silence grew even more awkward, Steve rubbed his palms on his jeans and jerked his head down the road. "How about we take a look at your car?"

"Why not?"

He hurried ahead of Danny to the passenger side to open the door for him. "So you sprained your ankle base jumping?"

Danny limped to the truck and shook his head, "I wished. A drunk waltzed into the ER last night and confused it with a toilet. I slipped on his pee. It was not one of my glorious moments."

Steve barked out a laugh. "Well, now I know why you made up the story about the secret mission. It sounds much more exciting."

Danny slid onto the front seat, "So you consider me boring, now?"

"Nah, don't worry," Steve closed the door and jogged back to the driver's side. As Steve fired up the engine and executed a U-turn, Danny cleared his throat. "I'm sorry. I thought you were still married, the wedding band … you didn't wear it when you were at the hospital last time."

"I don't wear it at work. I leave it in my locker. Honestly, I don't know why I'm still wearing it. It's like a bad habit. I should probably …"

"It's okay, Steve, really." Danny chimed in, "you're still grieving and if you think it helps you, wear it."

They drove in silence until they approached the Gran Torino. They got out of the truck, and Steve studied the body shape and markings. "Nineteen seventy-four?"

Danny blinked and returned a surprised smile, "You do know your cars or was that a lucky guess?"

"As I told you, I started tinkering with engines with my granddad, by the time I was nine. He let me work on my own, by the time I was seventeen."

Danny nodded, "Why didn't you make it a career, then?"

Steve shrugged, "One of my dad's friends was a firefighter. I could listen to his stories forever. He told us about the comradery and their determination to walk into a blazing fire to save other people's lives. I was fascinated by it."

Danny tipped his head in acknowledgment, "As long as it makes you happy …"

Steve forced a smile. Yes, he loved his job. However, he hadn't been truly happy since Mick's death. Happiness seemed like a betrayal of his late husband.  

"Okay, now what?" Danny's question pulled him from is dark thoughts.

Steve rubbed his hands together and faked another smile. "Mind if I take a closer look and poke around your engine?"

"Holy Moly, Steven," the blond doctor said with a teasingly flustered expression. "We just met. I am not that kind of guy."

The heat of embarrassment along with lust sent warm shivers down Steve's spine and made his cock twitch in anticipation. He rubbed his five o'clock shadow as he floundered for a reply.

Danny chuckled and gave Steve a playful nudge into the side. "Poke away. The old lady is not going anywhere without a tow truck or some expert's attention."

The sly smile he slanted at Steve said he intended the sexual overtones of his statements.

Steve was delighted by the notion that the good doctor was flirting with him. Since he had had only eyes for Mick, he was inexperienced in dating let alone flirting. Steve could not deny that he was fond of Danny. He was the first man who aroused not only his interest since Mick's death. He huffed a sigh as he felt a ripple of guilt in his heart. Mick had just been gone for a year. Why was he even looking at other men? Flirting with another man?

Steve whistled as he passed the driver's door of the Grand Torino and took a closer look at the interior. "You've kept it in excellent condition."

"I haven't changed a thing. She belonged to my dad. After he had died, I inherited her and tried to keep her in top form, as best as I could. Dad would have expected it."

"She?" Steve furrowed his brows, "Let me guess. You named your car?"

"Plenty of people name their cars," Danny stated dryly.

"True that." Steve sat on the ground in front of the Torino and thumbed over his shoulder, "I just thought it would be polite to know her name before I put my hands on her."

"You're such a gentleman," Danny quipped. "My Dad called her Isabella. Isabella, this is Steve. He's going to take care of you. Now say 'ahhh.'"

Chuckling, Steve lay on his back and wiggled his way under the front end of the Ford. The steam from Bella's overheated radiator billowed around him. He poked around for a moment, then called, "Can you do me a favor?"

"Anything," the undertone in Danny's voice was unmistakable.

"There is a flashlight under the driver's seat. Can you get it for me?"

"Copy that."

He heard his truck's door squeak open then close. A moment later, Danny's face appeared under the car. "Here you go."

Steve took the flashlight from his hand. Next thing he knew, Danny moved from his knees to his back and scooted under the car next to him. "How's the patient doing, doctor?"

"You're such a goof," Steve muttered while he flicked on the flashlight and aimed the beam at the radiator, searching for evidence of damage. He paused when he spotted a thin crack and slow drip of yellow liquid. "There it is. You were right about the leak."

Sighing like a Drama Queen on stage Danny asked, "Can you repair it or does Isabella need a replacement?"

Steve turned his head to face him. His pulse quickened. His cock did the fandango in his jeans because being so close up and personal to Danny, and only inches apart from his beautiful lips was more than he could bear. He had to clear his throat, scared that his voice would not obey him. "Your dad would want the radiator replaced."

Danny rolled his eyes in frustration, "I knew it. Fuck. It will cost me a fortune."  

"Well …" Steve scratched his stubbled chin.

"Is there even a replacement? I mean … this car's from 1974. How on earth …?"

"I've made many contacts through the years, and I think I know someone who could help you. For a price."

"Of course, for a price," Danny muttered and scrunched up his face.

"And only If you are willing to let me do the repair work," Steve added.

"You would do the repair for free?" Danny gave him an astonished look.

"Yeah."

Danny got suspicious. "Why would you do that?"

Steve gave a casual shrug. Being so close to Danny had his heart still racing and his mind spinning. "Because I love old cars, and I haven't laid my hands on a dream car like this for ages." And it would keep me sane, and from dwelling on Mick's suicide, he thought in a silent addendum. Steve swallowed hard. He didn't want Danny to see his longing or the desperation that was written all over his face.

Danny chewed his upper lip and stared at the steaming engine.

"That is a very generous offer. Nevertheless, um …" His voice trailed off as he considered.  

"Danny?" When he turned his head, their eyes locked. Steve's pulse stumbled once more. "It's hot under here, what do you say we continue this conversation up top?"

The blond doctor's tongue darted out to moisten his lips, but his eyes remained unblinking, fixed on Steve's. Steve moaned inwardly. How in the world could he not kiss this man right now?

"Okay," was Danny's too quick response as he wiggled his way back from under the car. It was getting hot in here, too hot indeed.

[daresplaining]

What are your thoughts on Ward Meachum in Marvel's Iron Fist? & also... Is he not coming back for The Defenders?

    We were pleasantly surprised by Ward! We mentioned in our analysis/review that there are two Iron Fist characters we’ve always loved to hate, because they are giant screw-ups with little-to-no redeeming qualities. Those characters are Davos and Ward… both of whom were developed to be wonderfully, shockingly sympathetic and compelling in the show. (Davos actually made one of us cry!) We’re not gonna pretend Harold’s “last words” to Ward didn’t make us do this:

    But we still enjoyed– and even sometimes rooted for– this version of his character.

    To address your second question first, before going into more detail: No, Ward has not yet been confirmed to appear in The Defenders. The only Iron Fist characters we currently know we can count on seeing are Danny, Colleen, Jeryn Hogarth, Madame Gao, and almost definitely Bakuto. However, that doesn’t mean he won’t show up. Since the initial round of character announcements went out before Iron Fist aired, they may have decided to not include Ward because some people wouldn’t have known who he was. (Plus, it would have spoiled his survival– which was uncertain, to say the least.) We’re guessing Joy and Davos won’t reappear until Iron Fist Season 2, since they’re away somewhere plotting their revenge… but Ward, as Danny’s business partner, has a chance.      

    (That said, Foggy didn’t show up in Iron Fist despite his new partnership with Jeryn, so it’s not a guarantee. We wonder if the next Defenders trailer will focus on the secondary characters, since there are so many, and the first was so main protagonist-heavy– in which case, we might get a definite answer sometime soon.)

    In the tradition of (almost) all of the Marvel Netflix antagonists, the Iron Fist writing team did their absolute best to add a level of human complexity to Ward, and to build upon the character presented by the source material. In this case, they didn’t have much to work with. Comics Ward is pretty much a one-note villain: Harold Meachum’s scumbag brother who schemes and connives and tries to look cool in front of actual, competent villains, before finally getting himself killed by the Super Skrull.

Ward: “…Now you know he’s dead, and your pretty little reunion plans are all just smoke in the wind. I wouldn’t worry too much though, Misty love. It won’t be long before you and the Rand brat are reunited– at least, if you believe in any sort of afterlife.”

Namor, the Sub-Mariner vol. 1 #18 by John Byrne and Glynis Oliver     

    Really, MCU Ward had nowhere to go but up, and a lot of smart writing decisions went into making this version of the character a bit more nuanced.

    One major factor we think worked really well was the removal of his power– in several different capacities. By de-aging him and generationally shifting him from Harold’s brother and Joy’s uncle to Harold’s son, he loses the inherent sense of authority that comes with older characters, and automatically seems more vulnerable and fallible in the face of anyone older than he is. The show also goes out of its way to emphasize this. In at least one of our trailer analyses, we talked about the costuming and styling choices used to make Danny look youthful, both calling back to his young age (nineteen) in his introductory comics appearances, and visually invoking his naivete upon returning to New York. But both Joy and Ward are also infantilized– not visually in this case, but by their abusively overbearing father, whose inherent power is magnified by his violence, his self-assured manipulation of everyone around him, and the fact that he is literally magically enhanced to be undefeatable. Harold clings to images of his children when they were young, and treats them as such– and Ward’s continued insistence that he is “not a child” only makes him seem more childlike. Harold is not just a parent, he is a Parent– and all of his interactions with Ward emphasize the immense power differential between them.  

    With this lack of power comes a sense of danger– which makes Harold a key secret weapon in the show’s blisteringly awesome pacing and unrelenting narrative tension. By making Harold this powerful and this frightening, you are instantly concerned for the safety of everyone around him. And 90% of the time, the person who’s around him is Ward, who– what’s worse– is sometimes accompanied by people who don’t know that Harold is dangerous. It’s easy to feel sorry for Ward when he is forced to again and again to allow himself and others into the company of someone who could– and given the right whim, would– kill without a second thought.

    Another factor in this powerlessness– and possibly the aspect of MCU Ward that we enjoy the most– is the continual shower of trauma and chaos dumped on him, and the fact that he is emotionally unequipped to handle it. One result of this is that he often serves the role of everyman/audience stand-in, reacting to the strangeness and horror around him with a genuineness that makes him relatable. While Danny lives and breathes strangeness, and both Colleen and Joy are quite resilient and good at adapting, Ward simply cannot deal with it (and he is forced to deal with oh, so much). And that’s a fun character trait (…for us, anyway. Not so much for him).  

    Of course, the darker side of this element of Ward’s character is the isolation it creates for him. Because of the looming Hand threat and his father’s abuse, Ward must handle all of his trauma entirely on his own, all while being forced to present a healthy, sane appearance to the rest of the world. He is unable to either confide in or explain himself to Joy– the one person who really cares about him and who he still has the capacity to care about in return– and he isn’t even allowed to run away and leave it all behind. This is the ultimate manifestation of his powerlessness– his inability to live his own life, or to do anything to escape the horrors constantly being inflicted on him by his father. One of our favorite Ward scenes is in episode 7, when he is forced to dump the bodies of the Hand mooks that Harold has killed and mutilated. It’s a flavor of psychological horror that we were not at all expecting out of Iron Fist– amped up by lingering shots of Ward maneuvering the bodies into his car, and focusing on his desperate struggle to somehow cope with what he’s doing.    

    It’s a scene that emphasizes how utterly, horrifically out of his depth he is, and helps justifies his breakdown and (first) patricide later in the episode.

    However, we’re also grateful that while Ward is a sympathetic character due to all of the pain heaped on him by the narrative, he’s still not a great guy. Making him completely likable would have felt like a cop-out, and we were relieved that they didn’t take that route. Yes, we are given many reasons to understand why he might be a little bit unfriendly and mean in general, but there are still scenes where the viewer genuinely hates him. This tends to come through in his interactions with Danny. While Ward is generally able to keep his anger and frustration inside, with the help of the occasional drug and some… therapeutic embezzling, he is quick to use the newly-returned Danny as a scapegoat and outlet for all of his aggression. Motives aside, this version of Ward maintains a level of nastiness inherent to his character, and his verbal and emotional abuse are extra sources of pain within Danny’s already traumatic story arc.

    For this reason, we have our doubts about the future of the Danny/Ward corporate partnership– because the only time Ward actually seems to give a damn about Danny is when he realizes they need to team up to take down Harold. Danny is eager to make friends and quick to forgive, but Ward is one of those dangerous people who only sees Danny as a means to an end.

    At the same time, this all presents an interesting rearranging of Ward’s status as an antagonist. Whereas in the comics he’s a genuine villain, going after Danny because he’s a jerk who places himself in the service of more powerful jerks, in the show he fits into the most basic definition of an antagonist: someone who happens to be working at cross-purposes with the protagonist. Ward’s main goal isn’t to “get” Danny. We don’t think they ever would have become best friends, and clearly, Ward was a jerk long before his father first died, but circumstances are the main culprit here. He and Danny just happen to bump into each other at a time and place where they will be nothing but detrimental to each other. Danny is an unintentional threat to Ward’s delicately balanced life. His presence disrupts things at Rand, plays with Joy’s head, stirs up trouble with the Hand, and makes Harold extra active and extra crazy– all of which comes back to hit Ward in the face. And thus, while Danny wants nothing more than to find a family, reconnect with people who he thought cared about him, and try to rebuild his life, Ward reacts by rejecting him, treating him like garbage, and repeatedly trying to kill him.  

    This is one factor that we consider to be a weak part of Ward’s characterization. Despite his horror at his father’s homicidal behavior, and his claim in episode 2 that he doesn’t “do that kind of thing”, he literally spends the first two episodes trying to murder Danny– even when Harold tells him not to! This, his snap decision to shove Danny out the window at the end of episode 3, and his two successful attempts to kill Harold, suggest that he’s not quite as squeamish about this sort of thing as he pretends to be… and we wish that had received more development.    

    Overall, though, we think the writing team did a great job with Ward– turning him into a compelling and complex character with a gripping story arc. We loved his relationship with Joy, we appreciated the balance of likable/unlikeable that they managed to strike with him, and we were delighted that in the end, he got the honor of killing Harold once and for all.

    We were not expecting him to survive this season, but since he did, we’re interested to see where he’ll go from here!

[just-another-busy-fangirl-writes]

Laura’s Reading List: Jensen x Jared

Let me know if you have any other fic recs for me to read & put on this list!

[awesome list]

{another list}

Out of the Darkness by aelia (on LJ) ***Comp   Towards the end of Supernatural, Jared and Jensen are slowly drifting apart until there is nothing of their friendship left and they literally go separate ways. When they coincidentally meet eight years later, Jared finds his former best friend not only pysically changed but also mentally hurt. Can Jared and Jensen find each other again? And can Jared help Jensen to leave behind the darkness that has been encasing him ever since that accident has changed his life?

Got me so blind I can’t see by @ashtray-thief, NC17, 20k ***Comp   Jensen has loved Jared ever since he came to court. But Jared is the king’s half-brother and Jensen is just a commoner. There’s nothing Jensen can do but focus on his career in the military and bury his feelings. But when the king sends him to protect Jared on a diplomatic mission and Count Amell pursues Jared with intent, Jensen can’t hide his feelings any longer.

The President’s Man by dont_hate_me01 (on AO3) ***Comp   When Jared’s father died ten years ago, Jared became involved with drugs and bad friends. Luckily, he had more than one person in his corner who looked out for him. Things started to look up, but the past became the present and left Jared in more danger than what he thought possible.

It Never Gets Easier by fatebegins (on AO3) ***Comp   Jared’s not so happily married. He married Jensen young, and had kids before he was ready. Before Jared knows it his life isn’t his own. Pushing down his own feelings, Jared makes a mistake that will change his life forever- maybe for the better.

Claret and Clarity, by firesign10, 3k and 15k, NC17 ***Comp   Jensen is a vampire who hasn’t been hungry in a very long time. Danni brings a very special treat to tempt him.

The Love that Remains by lulyls (on AO3) ***Comp   It’s a story about loss. About an 11 year old boy who falls in love with a boy with blue hair at a summer camp. This is a story about how both boys part ways too soon, but change each other’s lives forever. This is a story about dreams. About how, years later, a guy meets a homeless man, is drawn to him in a way he can’t explain, and feels an inexplicable need to help him. A story about how the heart knows, even when the eyes don’t. This is a story about destiny. There’s a boy named Jared and there’s another named Jensen, and this is their story. How they lost and found each other, and how they must battle their inner demons, have faith in themselves and in one another. This is the story about two boys fighting to finally have the happy ending they’ve been dreaming about their entire lives, and to find their own definition of happiness. It’s a story about love.

Screw You, We’re From Texas by makeit_takeit (on LJ) *** Comp   Everyone knows the story - Jensen had plans to enroll at Texas Tech and become a Physical Therapist, Jared was heading for the University of Texas to become an Engineer. Instead, they both got against-all-odds breaks in Hollywood and ended up on a totally different path. This is the story of what could have happened if fate twisted differently, if they never got those big Hollywood breaks, and instead ended up living the lives they grew up expecting to lead.

Faint Stars and Bright Satellite Skies by marishna (on LJ) ***Comp   It’s a story made for Hollywood- a chance encounter between a regular, down-to-earth guy with his whole life planned out for him without a second thought and a well-known, popular movie star turns into something far bigger than either man could ever anticipate. Neither Jared Padalecki nor Jensen Ackles expect or want the complications that arise in their lives from their fast friendship- especially when it develops into something neither anticipated. While Jared accepts and tries to deal with his growing feelings for his famous friend, Jensen fights it every step of the way until his strictly controlled life, hidden behind a public persona, spins out of control.

A Supernatural Love Story by MsImpala67 (on AO3) (Ch 10 5/12)  The story of how Jared fell in love with Jensen, how Jensen was already in love with Jared, and what happened after that.

Beautiful Disaster by nyxocity (on AO3) ***Comp   Rock Band AU. Jensen’s the lead guitarist in the number one rock band in the country. Justin’s the lead singer, and they’ve been doing this together since middle-school, been together since just after high school. As on top of the world as they are, Jensen’s starting to become disillusioned with the lifestyle and his crumbling relationship with Justin. And then he meets a new roadie on the crew named Jared who’s got a voice like an angel and a heart to match, and everything starts to change.

Homework Verse by nyxocity (on AO3) ***   Jared’s eighteen and in his senior year at a private school in San Francisco. He’s coasting pretty on his parents generous school donations—until his seventh period Physics teacher gets replaced with the maddening, infuriating, gorgeous Mr. Ackles. Jared’s gotten by all his life on his money and his charm, but Mr. Ackles seems to think he needs some… lessons in self-control. The journey their relationship eventually takes them on turns out to be far more than either of them ever bargained for. ((Toppy!Teacher!Jensen in glasses and Student!Jared in private school uniform included))

It Takes Two ‘Verse by ObsidianRomance (on AO3) ***Comp   Jared and Jensen first meet when pro wide receiver for the Dallas Cowboys Jensen decides to improve his game with some ballet lessons from famous Polish ballet dancer Jared. Jared thinks Jensen is brutish and Jensen thinks Jared is prissy, but you know what they say- opposites attract.

Alpha Mates by sanshal (on AO3) ***   What happens when two rival alphas are forced into a mating bond?? In a world where alphas hold power and mated-betas are naturally submissive to their alphas, two business competitors are compelled into accepting the other as their life-partner. In spite of the inevitable clash of wills and egos, the duo manage a fragile peace…but will the others’ secrets shatter the careful truce they managed? And will the two rivals ever manage to attain domestic bliss?

Honey, Flower, Apple, and Lime by veronamay (on LJ) ***Comp  The year is 1855. Jensen is the scion of a wealthy Dallas family, heir to a ranching empire that stretches across the American Southwest. Until now, he has led a life of carefree abandon, charming his way into boudoirs and out of entanglements by dint of his silver-tongued wit. After his father’s sudden death, Jensen is sent to London by his stepmother to acquire a wife during the Season. Threatened with disinheritance should he make an unsuitable match, he arrives on the doorstep of his friend Welling’s household prepared—reluctantly—to do his duty. Everything changes, however, when he lays eyes upon the Wellings’ newest footman. Padalecki is tall, strong, intelligent and beautiful—everything Jensen admires in a man. From the moment they meet, Jensen is willing to risk everything to gain the gorgeous Texan’s love. But Padalecki wants nothing to do with Jensen … or does he?

Phoenix by Xenodike, NC17, 111k ***Comp   It’s a nineteen hour drive from San Francisco, California to Evergreen, Colorado. When Jensen drives out of the roundabout and onto the compact dirt road leading towards the two thousand four hundred and fifty-six acres of The Phoenix Ranch, it’s nine o’clock in the morning and he’s been traveling for twenty-three hours straight. Coming home to the ranch Jensen left ten years ago, he has to face his past, present and decide what he wants going forward. All while juggling a baby, a broken relationship, his grandpa, dad, part-time stepmom, four uncles, a cousin, the mother who abandoned him and Jared fucking Padalecki. It’s complicated…

Of Princes and Prophecies by Zubeneschamali, NC17, 44k ***Comp   Jared has lost everything thanks to the usurper High King. He can’t take any of it back, but he can strike out the only way he knows how: kidnap and ransom. The High King’s fiancé is riding across the country and through Jared’s forest, and wouldn’t he be a fair prize?Jensen has not quite resigned himself to the fate of being the High King’s second spouse when bandits strike. If he can get away from them, it might be his only chance for a life of his own. But once he finds out who the bandits’ leader really is, everything will change, for himself and for his kingdom.

Guilty series by Theboys on Ao3. Jared/Jensen. J2 AU.  Burn me once, shame on you, burn me twice, shame on both of us, because we let it happen. Jensen and Jared are both guilty. The only question that remains is whether or not they’re willing to do anything about it. (parts 2,3 and 4 have Daddy Kinks)

You Are My Hero by A_Touch_of_Hope on Ao3. Jared/Jensen. J2 AU.  Jared’s finished school, and it’s finally the summer. He plans on spending it with his best friend Chad. Jensen, Chad’s father is going through a rough breakup–Jared never expected that listening to Jensen berate himself would hurt so much. Feelings develop, and he feels like he needs to get away. But Jensen finds him. “I’m thirty-nine. Not getting any younger. If you want me, let this happen. If you don’t, stop me, and I promise you that I will never make an advance on you, Jared.”

I’ve Got A Jared Waiting At Home For Me by A_Touch_of_Hope on Ao3. Jared/Jensen. J2 AU. Jensen needs to be with Jared, not stewing in his cubicle, just waiting for the clock to strike five. Yes, Jared had given him mind-blowing head as a wake-up call birthday present, and then proceeded to ride him like a cowboy—it had been fucking spectacular—but not enough to grant him the patience to remain here, when it’s the last place he wants to be right now.They have stuff to do, no time to sit around.

Teach Me, Daddy by littlefirefly31 on Ao3. Jared/Jensen. J2 AU.  Prompt: Hey, man! I’ve missed your stories so much, I’m glad you’re back! I have, yet, another request - Age difference J2 with younger, bottom!Jared and lots of daddy kink? (ages 11 and 21)

[marvellousheroesrpg-blog]

DANNY RAND --- a.k.a. the IRON FIST --- OPEN!

“I am the Iron Fist. I hold back the storm when nothing else can.”

Daniel Thomas Rand, also known as Danny, was born to Wendell and Heather Rand and was born into a rich family. Danny’s parents owned and ran Rand Enterprises along with their friend, Harold Meechum. Rand Enterprises was incredibly successful and it was assumed that Danny, along with Meechum’s children Ward and Joy, would take ownership of the company some day and continue the success story. However when Danny was 10, he and his parents were involved in a terrible plane crash. Both of Danny’s parents died and Danny was stranded in the snow covered mountains in China. Danny was rescued by some monks who took him to K’un-Lun, a secret and ancient city, where he became an apprentice of martial arts under the monks’ tutelage.

When Danny was nineteen, he had the opportunity to become the Iron Fist, protector of K’un-Lun and enemy of the Hand, an ancient clan whose main objective is to destroy the world. Danny had to complete harrowing trials in order to prove himself worthy of the title of Iron Fist, but he succeeded. He was gifted with new powers including the ability to channel chi into his fist, making it glow and nearly indestructible. He was also given the Mark of Shou-Lau on his chest, which looks like a tattoo of a dragon. Danny began his vigil over K’un-Lun but in his heart he still felt empty, as if being the Iron Fist and staying in K’un-Lun was not enough for him. After seeing a hawk fly overhead and out to the mountains that surrounded the city, Danny decided he needed to go back to New York City in search of the answers he needed.

When Danny returned to New York City, he struggled to reintegrate himself into his old life. Rand Enterprises, his father’s company, was now being run by Ward and Joy, and the board of Rand were not willing to accept that Danny was who he said he was. After all didn’t the real Danny Rand die in a plane crash with his parents? Danny persisted in proving his real identity (including a brief stay in a mental institution) and eventually was allowed to work at Rand. However his attention was quickly pulled away from the business when he discovered the Hand were using his company to smuggle drugs into the city. 

Danny risked and lost his position at Rand Enterprises for not adhering to the board’s wishes but Danny believed he was doing the right thing in going after the Hand; it was his mission as the Iron Fist to eradicate the Hand. During his mission, Danny was put through turmoil that made him question everything he knew and the loyalties he had with people he had considered his friends. Danny fought through his doubts and defeated the faction of the Hand that was using his company, but found out that while he had been distracted by the events in New York City, the Hand had found a way to get to K’un-Lun and the portal to the ancient city had disappeared. Danny must now regroup and find a way to destroy the Hand once and for all.

Abilities:

Iron Fist Punch - he summons and channels chi into his fist, making it inhumanly powerful and resistant to damage.

Master martial artist and expert in meditation and chi energies.

Peak human physical conditioning and master acrobat.

FC: Finn Jones

[melbynews-blog]

May Diary: The Forever War, The Diverse Army, And The Vanishing White Male, Etc., by John Derbyshire

Neuer Beitrag veröffentlicht bei https://melby.de/may-diary-the-forever-war-the-diverse-army-and-the-vanishing-white-male-etc-by-john-derbyshire/

May Diary: The Forever War, The Diverse Army, And The Vanishing White Male, Etc., by John Derbyshire

This month of course ended with Memorial Day, when we remember those who died serving in our country’s armed forces. The Derbs got a more forceful reminder at the very beginning of the month.

Around noon on Tuesday, May 1st my son Danny came into the study to tell me a soldier from his former unit had been killed in Afghanistan the previous day.

The fatality was Spc. Gabriel D. Conde, killed April 30th by small-arms fire in a district northeast of Kabul “while providing security for a U.S. Special Operations unit.” A second U.S. soldier was wounded in the same operation.

Spc. Conde was serving with the 3rd Battalion of the 509th Parachute Infantry Regiment. That was Danny’s unit too, until his four-year term ended last year. They were actually in the same company (though different platoons). Danny knew Spc. Conde quite well. The unit has since been deployed in Afghanistan.

Spc. Conde came from Loveland, Colorado. He was the second U.S. combat fatality in Afghanistan this year, the first having been Sgt. Mihail Golin of Fort Lee, NJ, killed on New Year’s Day while on patrol near Jalalabad in the far east of Afghanistan.

If military schedules had been different by a few months, that could have been Derb, Jr. under fire April 30th. As parents we have the obvious parental feelings about this. What his feelings are, I don’t know. He has maintained a proper soldierly reserve. In any case he mainly keeps his feelings to himself, like his Dad.

What Spc. Conde’s parents are feeling, I think I can imagine. Our heartfelt condolences to them in their grief, and to all who mourn loved ones on Memorial Day.

It’s hard to read of Spc. Conde’s death without feeling anger at our damn fool stupid brainless politicians.

Military.com ran a headline that tells it all: Gabriel Conde Was 5 When the War That Took His Life Began. It Shows No Signs of Ending. [By Richard Sisk, May 3, 2018] From the article:

Army Spc. Gabriel D. Conde’s short life spanned the history of U.S. involvement in Afghanistan since Sept. 11, 2001, from the euphoria over the fleeting early successes to the current doubts about the new strategy to break what U.S. commanders routinely call a “stalemate.”

When Conde was six years old, then-National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice said the Taliban had been defeated and the Afghan people were now free “to create a better future.”

[There follow eight more paragraphs of cheery uplifting talk about light at the end of the tunnel from Donald Rumsfeld, George W. Bush, Barack Obama, and Donald Trump.]

Last week, the Taliban announced the start of its 16th annual spring offensive.

Politicians are of course necessary to the functioning of an orderly nation. No doubt most of them are decent enough in their private lives. Some appear to be quite intelligent. Plenty of them are clearly trying to do the best for the country, each by his own lights.

There are times, though, there are times when the only thing you want to say about politicians is: God damn them all to Hell.

“I beseech you, in the bowels of Christ, think it possible you may be mistaken.” I’m always ready, in a spirit of proper epistemic humility, to yield to Oliver Cromwell’s beseechment. So in that spirit I ask: Is it possible that I am wrong, that the war in Afghanistan is not a futile waste of American lives and money?

One approach here is to seek out commentators whose opinions you generally respect, to see if any of them makes a plausible case for the opposite of what you believe.

OK: here was Daniel Greenfield, who I agree with much more often than not, posting at FrontPageMag.com on Memorial Day. Title of the post: “How Can We Honor the Soldiers of an Endless War?.”

The era of wars that began and concluded neatly, with declarations, speeches, rules, objectives, deciding battles and signed peace accords, ended before the oldest active duty soldier serving today was born.

The men and women who fight and die, leaving their families never knowing if they will return, and in what form, serve not in wars, but endless police actions, peacekeeping missions, terrorist pursuits and nation building exercises …

The Islamic resurgence has placed us in a state of permanent war. We may debate over which fronts that war should be fought on, but only the left can deny that the conflict itself is inescapable. We may fight it in Iraq or in New York, in Syria or in Sweden, the front lines may shift, but the war won’t go away.

And yet, paradoxically, this form of fighting takes us back to the origins of our military.

The heritage of the US Army goes back to the provincial regiments that fought in colonial territorial disputes with the French and defended the colonies against Indian raids … If you think the Afghanistan and Iraq wars are endless, the Indian wars arguably went on for 300 years …

That’s not much of an argument. Those wars that “concluded neatly” did so because we applied massive and relentless force, to the point where the enemy knew they were thoroughly beaten. We don’t do that any more. Rubble doesn’t make trouble.

I’m obliged to Greenfield for permission to “debate over which fronts that war should be fought on.” Here’s my contribution to that debate.

Let’s stop all Muslim immigration and require all resident Muslim non-citizens to leave. We may still have issues with our own Muslim citizens, but I see no reason those issues couldn’t be handled by ordinary law-enforcement procedures under our Constitution.

ORDER IT NOW

As for “the Indian wars arguably went on for 300 years” Well, yes, arguably they did, because they were conflicts over the ownership of territory. Were North American lands to be settled and farmed by Europeans, or kept as the hunting and tribal-war preserves of the indigenes?

Are Americans clamoring to be allowed to settle and farm in Afghanistan and Iraq? First I’ve heard of it.

Daniel Greenfield is a smart guy who writes a lot of thought-provoking good sense. This piece, though, is a turkey.

Still on the military beat: Last month I commented on some recruiting pamphlets a friend had showed to me. He passes by a recruiting booth on his way to work every day, and, although much too old for service himself, has developed an interest in the esthetics of these brochures.

This month he passed on some more.

Exhibit A: LEADERS FOR LIFE: The Making of an Army Officer. This is a beautifully-produced sixty-page booklet showing on the cover a white female, an East Asian male, and a black male.[Abridged PDF here.]

To be fair, the interior illustrations aren’t as distorted as that. I counted an actual majority of white males, 65 to 43; and that is not counting the scattering of historical photographs from the World Wars. The two-page spread on Special Forces (pp. 46-47) shows nine soldiers, every one of them a white male.

There is some slight discounting needed for the care with which the booklet’s publisher lets us know, by showing uniform name patches, that some of the white guys are Hispanic (Alvarado, Martinez) or Arab (Farid).

Exhibit B: A 34-page U.S. Army Education Program Guide. On the cover, a female who I think is East Asian. Of the 48 people I could identify on a quick scan through, only twelve were white males. Females were an actual majority: fourteen white, twelve black.

Exhibit C: The Making of a Soldier, a light 24-page introduction to the Army. The cover shows a black male. White males are comparatively well-represented inside, though: I counted nineteen out of thirty.

My summary: While the interior illustrations to these publications are merely unbalanced, the cover art is flagrantly, unashamedly anti-white-male.

As with Mars, so also with Venus.

The Mrs and I had the idea to take a weekend break at one of those adults-only hotels in the Poconos. You know the kind of place: heart-shaped jacuzzi, view over a lake, a bowl of strawberries dipped in chocolate waiting in your room, that sort of thing. Yeah, yeah, I know it’s corny. We’re an old-fashioned couple; corny works for us.

I accordingly went on the internet and googled “romantic weekend getaway poconos.” There they were, a good choice of hotels. Heart-shaped jacuzzi, check: view of lake, check: chocolate-dipped strawberries, check.

The thing that struck my eye, though, in the promotional websites for these places, was the extraordinary numbers of photographs showing a black man with a white woman. I put together a montage without trying very hard at all. (Looking closer, I think one of the ladies there may be high yaller; but she’s still way paler than the guy.)

I have nothing against miscegenation — how could I have? — but do they really have to bang us over the head with it like this?

And perhaps I shouldn’t pick out the love hotels for special scrutiny. It’s like this all over. Audacious Epigone tweeted this the other day:

Taken from too far away and observation’s blasé but as I walked the dog tonight I did a census on the posters lining the outside of the Walgreens down the road from home:

4 black women 2 black men 2 white women 1 asian woman 1 hispanic woman 0 white men

City is 80% n-H white btw

Louis Farrakhan, tweeting on May 27th, called for an end to white men. It looks like the people who prepare advertising and promotional displays are way ahead of him.

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As mentioned in Radio Derb’s royal wedding coverage, I have been reading Ed West’s book 1215 and All That. It’s great fun; a sort of grown-up version, with a good bibliography, of the Horrible Histories my kids used to enjoy.

West is very good on how boozed-up the Later Middle Ages were. Writing about the reign of King John (1199-1216), he tells us that:

As a basic rule, everyone in medieval Europe was drunk most of the time, with the typical English peasant consuming on average eight pints of beer per day. There was often no clean water to drink in cities, and it was not until the seventeenth century that coffee and tea brought alternatives to slowly getting off one’s face all day long. Besides which, few people had jobs that required intellect and sobriety and life was pretty awful when sober.

The actual process of getting drunk eight hundred years ago doesn’t sound like much fun.

Beer at the time would have been absolutely disgusting, close to the texture of porridge as it wasn’t until the fourteenth century that hops were introduced from the Low Countries … Not even the most daring hipster has ever tried to recreate thirteenth-century ale as a statement of irony or quirkiness.

The upper classes at least had wine to drink, though, right? Well:

Peter of Blois wrote of the wine at Henry II’s court that “it turned sour and moldy, thick, greasy, stale, flat and smacking of pitch … I have sometimes seen great lords served with wine so muddy that a man must need [to] close his eyes and clench his teeth, wry-mouthed and shuddering …”

Hoo boy. It would of course be annoyingly Pinkerish of me to observe that we are very fortunate to be living in 2018 rather than 1918, or 1618, or 1218.

And possibly, on the gripe homeostasis principle, the general level of human dissatisfaction with life has not varied much through history.

Possibly. I can report, though, that after reading Ed West’s book my dinner-time glass (all right, glasses) of supermarket Pinot Grigio seemed strangely to taste better than before.

Our thirteenth-century ancestors may have endured wretched lives in a drunken stupor, but surely they had the consolations of faith, didn’t they?

Not all of them. Ed West:

Peter of Cornwall, prior of Holy Trinity, Aldgate, complained in 1200: “There are many people who do not believe that God exists, nor do they think that the human soul lives on after the death of the body. They consider that the universe has always been as it is now and is ruled by chance rather than providence.”

King John was likely one of those people.

He apparently did not take Holy Communion after childhood, nor did he receive it at his coronation, which was considered shocking for the time. He openly ate meat on Fridays and hunted on feast days, blatantly breaking religious rules. Like his father, he found attending church unbelievably boring and he didn’t even pretend to make an effort.

I have nursed a mild personal resentment against King John since my schooldays. It seemed unfair that the only English King with whom I shared a name was such an unprincipled rogue, which indeed he was. We all knew A.A. Milne’s lines:

King John was not a good man — He had his little ways. And sometimes no one spoke to him For days and days and days.

Subsequent Johns in the British royal line haven’t fared well. There have been very few Johns in line of succession to the throne since the thirteenth century. John of Gaunt (1340-99) was the only really noteworthy one. He never made it to the throne, but he begat the Lancastrian line of kings that provided Shakespeare with so much material.

In recent centuries there have been few royal Johns. The present queen’s father had a brother John, but he was an epileptic and died aged 13. The Windsors seem otherwise to have shunned the name John.

The New York Times may be vexed by John supremacy but royalty-wise, we Johns are an under-represented minority.

Say what you like about medieval life, there was plenty for everyone to do.

Medieval Europeans were traditionally placed in one of three classes: those who fought, those who prayed, and those who worked. The lords and knights didn’t go fighting every day, and not many of us would think of praying as work. Women mostly minded the house and raised children. Only peasants and artisans did work-work — work as we nowadays understand it.

Here’s a new book that poses the interesting question: How much of the work we do today actually has any point?

Some of it does, of course. Cops, surgeons, farmers, and plumbers do things that need doing. David Graeber, however, the author of Bullshit Jobs: A Theory, thinks a great deal of today’s work is pointless. Graeber[Email him] is Professor of Anthropology at the London School of Economics.

From the Amazon blurb:

There are millions of people — HR consultants, communication coordinators, telemarketing researchers, corporate lawyers — whose jobs are useless, and, tragically, they know it. These people are caught in bullshit jobs.

I haven’t read Graeber’s book, but I read the summary in the May 20th New York Post and didn’t find much to disagree with. Here are the top seven bullshit jobs according to that summary:

Compliance workers in banking and finance.

Student-paper writers. “Writing essays and term papers for college students is now a huge industry in the United States, with agencies employing thousands of paper writers.” Really? I honestly did not know this.

Telemarketers. “I don’t know if I’ve ever met a single call-center worker who didn’t both hate their job and felt everyone would be better off if no one had to do it.” This I believe.

Middle management. “Most middle managers secretly feel they might as well be digging holes and then filling them in again all day.” Never been one but I’ve reported to several, and … yep.

Corporate lawyers. Only corporate ones?

Movie executives. Huh?

Academic administrative staff. “There are hosts of new provosts, vice chancellors, deans and deanlets and even more, who all now have to be provided with tiny armies of assistants to make them feel important.”

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The only surprise to me in that list is that college administrators are at number seven. If there is any place in our society where the sheer density of bullshit jobs is high enough to warp spacetime, it surely has to be the administrative buildings of an average college.

Is there any institution of higher education anywhere in the U.S.A. today that does not have a Dean of Diversity and Inclusion with a raft of Associate Deans, Sub-Deans, Directors, Assistant Directors, Administrative Assistants, and Deputy Administrative Assistants to keep the place flawlessly diverse and inclusive?

I’d argue in fact that the contribution these jobs make to the gross national well-being is not merely null — you could say that of a lot of jobs; if you wanted to be unkind, you might even say it of mine — but actually negative. If they were all laid off tomorrow, we’d be a better country.

In last month’s diary I included a segment titled “Heard around the house,” in which I played back some idioms and catch-phrases I heard from my parents’ generation when I was a child.

Here’s one I missed. It came up in the news this month. An English gent, name of Jim Booth, 96 years old and a veteran of D-Day, was attacked by an intruder.

Joseph Isaacs, 40, knocked on Jim Booth’s door and offered him a good rate on roof repairs on November 22 last year.

When Mr Booth refused, Isaacs launched his attack, hitting the veteran with a claw hammer on his head and arms while shouting “money, money, money.”

The reason it’s just now in the news is that Isaacs was sentenced on May 25th: twenty years for attempted murder.

What got my attention was Jim Booth’s philosophical attitude to the attack: “Worse things happen at sea,” he told reporters.

That was my mother’s stock reaction to minor household calamities: burst pipes, broken glassware, childhood scrapes and bruises: “Worse things happen at sea.”

I’ve used it around my own household. For some reason my daughter, born 1993, took a strong dislike to it.

Thump! or Crash! as someone or something fell or broke.

Me: “Never mind, honey. Worse things happen at sea.”

She: “Da-ad! Don’t say that!

Is this a generational thing, I wonder? Are we geezers better attuned to the fact that life includes an irreducible portion of small misfortunes? Do youngsters, on the other hand, derive some kind of psychic nourishment from indignation or resentment at the world’s imperfections?

Do they? It might be so.

The Daily Mail frequently posts a brainteaser. Most are trivial; this one is comparatively challenging.

On the coast there are three lighthouses.

The first light shines for 3 seconds, then is off for 3 seconds.

The second light shines for 4 seconds, then is off for 4 seconds.

The third light shines for 5 seconds, then is off for 5 seconds.

All three lights have just come on together.

When is the first time that all three of the lights will be off together?

When is the next time that all three lights will come on at exactly the same moment?

John Derbyshire [email him] writes an incredible amount on all sorts of subjects for all kinds of outlets. (This no longer includes National Review, whose editors had some kind of tantrum and fired him. ) He is the author of We Are Doomed: Reclaiming Conservative Pessimism and several other books. He has had two books published by VDARE.com com:FROM THE DISSIDENT RIGHT (also available in Kindle) and FROM THE DISSIDENT RIGHT II: ESSAYS 2013.

The Unz Review: John Derbyshire Quelle

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Fanfiction “Free Falling” Chapter 4

Time passed exceedingly fast for Dani. She didn’t see Steve every day. It seemed that she jumped around to whenever he would need help, either emotionally or against somebody with whom he’d picked a fight. Sometimes that would be in two consecutive days, and once the gap between was nearly a month. But the two grew closer with every event. Bucky’s suspicion lingered, of what, Dani didn’t know. But he seemed to trust he for the most part, regardless. The fact that she regularly beat up Steve’s assailants or helped him escape them made her wonderful in his eyes. He eventually opened up to her as Steve had.

His family was significantly richer than Steve’s, which bothered Bucky significantly. What really frustrated him was that the smaller blond wouldn’t take help unless he really needed it. Dani knew firsthand how that was. Every time she wanted to take them to go eat something, it was an ordeal to convince Steve. She had eventually told him that she was homeless by choice and that she had enough money to support herself, which made matters a bit easier. She didn’t want to live with anyone because she never knew when she would wake up and find she had missed days, and figured it would be easier to hide it if she just lived in the park in the crate.

Bucky’s other main trouble was that he couldn’t get a girl. Dani thought this was hilarious, given how he was in the first Captain America movie, but decided to help him out. She directed him to learn to dance, what to say to a girl and what not to say, and very quickly he had a new girl on his arm every other week. Dani wasn’t sure whether she thought that it was funny or not. She’d created a monster.

Four years had passed for the boys since she had met them, making them both fourteen. For her it had been four months. More often in recent weeks, she had started jumping through time during the day while she was awake. It felt exactly like it did the first time she had jumped, and it was terrifying, but she had about a one minute warning now before it happened. It was funny some of the time, trying to end a conversation with Steve so she could leave and time-jump where he couldn’t see. This was unsurprisingly stressful.

The constant state of alert made her lose weight, which helped to create the illusion of aging as it made her face more gaunt. She had pretended to be thirteen when she met them and pulled it off, which meant that she would be about seventeen now. She had to use makeup, found in her bag, to make it look like she had stubble. Lowering her voice proved to be a difficult but necessary and effective way of creating the impression that she was older. She only hoped that they wouldn’t think to question why she never grew vertically.

XXX

The years zipped by. Her time with them became more infrequent, going as long as six months once. Steve’s mom died. Steve got a job drawing on commission, which really didn’t pay well, but his physical health wouldn’t allow for a better job. Bucky lived off his parent’s money, going to college for a business degree. Both were just entering their early twenties. Dani, according to her app, had only been in this dimension for ten months, making her just over nineteen. The two believed her to be twenty-three, which was difficult to portray, given her physicality. Steve was only an inch shorter than her, and even he had broader shoulders than she did. Everywhere they went, Bucky was teased for hanging around two weaklings. Thankfully, he didn’t seem to mind. There was also the fact that Dani was pretty good at beating people up when it was really necessary.

She had discovered that whenever Steve’s life was in danger, that initial extra strength she had gotten while swinging the punch that first day returned. An increased level of agility accompanied that strength, making it ridiculously easy for her to take down Steve’s attackers. Unfortunately, Dani only got those boosts if Steve’s life actually was in danger. The remainder of the time, if she stepped in she was pounded into gravy alongside him. In spite of this, she seemed to have gotten along mostly unscathed until the present.

Life before her dimension-jump seemed ever increasingly like a distant bad dream. She missed her family, that much was true, but never had she felt this happy, wanted, included and independent, even if all her necessities did come out of a temperamental and unreliable bag. She found herself wishing that she wouldn’t be done with her assignment in this dimension anytime soon.

XXX

This had to be the end.

Dani found Steve being whaled on in a very familiar alleyway. This should be right before he became Captain America, at the beginning of the first movie. She didn’t want this to end.

Sighing, she ran in and rammed her shoulder into the small of the attacker’s back. He was barely effected. Dani prepared to get her butt handed to her yet again as he turned around.

Steve whacked a garbage can lid on the back of the man’s head as the taller attacker hauled back a fist, undoubtedly preparing to smash her face in.

As he turned around to face Steve again, Dani kicked him between the legs in a moment of stupidity. The man froze, huffing out of his nose in pain. Then, slowly, he turned to face Dani.

Suddenly, she was being held off her feet by a strong hand at her throat. Her vision blurred as she pulled and beat at the unyielding arm and Steve panickily showered the man’s back with punches. A quick backhand knocked the tenacious blonde to the ground. Bucky, where the hell are you!? Dani mentally screamed as she felt herself slipping unconscious. Right on cue, Bucky heroically stalked into the alley and pulled the brute off of her. As he ran the attacker off, Dani gasped for air and grabbed at her sore throat.

“You know, Danny, it’s hilarious how you can beat up guys four times your size one day and then get completely pounded the next,” Bucky chuckled. Dani couldn’t help a wheezy laugh at that comment. “Are you ok?” She hoarsely replied in the affirmative. The two hauled Steve to his feet.

Dani tuned out during the whole conversation. She already knew that Bucky was going to be deployed the next day and that they were going to the expo. I’m not ready for this to end… I can’t even warn them about what’s gonna come. She glanced guiltily at Bucky, knowing what his fate would be.

“Come on, Dan, you’re upset that I’m getting deployed too? I’m gonna save America!” Bucky joked, seeing her sad face and misinterpreting its cause. Dani pulled herself out of it and walked with them down the alley, wordless.

XXX

“You two are about to be the last eligible men in New York,” Bucky grinned at the two as they walked through the expo. “You know, there’s three and a half million women here.” Dani snorted.

“Hell, I’d settle for just one,” Steve retorted, only half joking.

“Good thing I took care of that,” Bucky casually commented as he waved a group of girls over.

There were THREE girls, not two like in the movie.

With dawning horror, Dani realized that one was for her. They didn’t know that she was a girl herself, as straight one at that… she leaned over to Bucky.

“…I have a girlfriend,” she whispered in wide-eyed panic, not knowing what else to say to get her out of this. Bucky jumped, clearly startled.

“And you never told me this?”

“I… uh…”

“Holy cow, Danny!” was all he could say. “…Just… hang out with her for tonight, ok?” he requested. “You don’t have to do anything with her, just be friendly.” Finally, Dani nodded. This was going to be a long night.

XXX

It was all over. Bucky had gone home to get some rest, Steve had gone off to try to enlist… she would cry if it wasn’t for Victoria.

Victoria was the girl Dani had been stuck with. She was the clingiest person Dani had ever known or could ever hope to know. She was currently hanging on to Dani’s hand with a death grip and talking her ear off. This wouldn’t do at all, Dani needed time to mourn the loss of her friends.

“Victoria.” The girl continued to chatter incessantly. “…Victoria.” She said, a little more forcefully. “Hey!” Finally, her tormenter stopped to breathe, and Dani cut in. “Look, you wanna go back to my place? It’s just a crate in an alley, but it’s really homey.” That did the trick. I should have thought of that sooner, Dani thought as she watched Victoria sputter and then run off. Sighing, she reached into her bag to check the time with her phone. Her hand brushed against a bundle of papers that hadn’t been there earlier.

The light of the streetlamp revealed them to be… enlistment papers. Approved enlistment papers, with her name on them. The division was the 107th… That was Bucky’s division!

Her heart simultaneously soared and dropped as she realized that her time with her friends was not over… but she would have to go to war. Tomorrow, bright and early. Hallelujah…