#I have genuinely never had this much formalwear to fall back on in ANY of my runthroughs

[tarmac-rat]

This isn't even a gripe that I have with 2.0 it's more of a humorous observation-- I run a V that is canonically a trash child (i.e. isn't very fashion forward and tends to dress simply and practically) and most of the clothes I had in old run throughs for her were like, tanks and t shirts. Cargo pants and fleets. The bolero jackets or synleather bombers. Maybe the occasional bustier if I wanna get fancy with it. You can still buy most of this stuff at stores and honestly the tweaks they made to the economy in this game aren't exactly leaving me strapped for cash but I have noticed something odd about the drastically reduced overworld finds:

Every time I find a clothes drop I can loot, 80% chance it's formalwear.

Who is leaving all these fancy outfits around. Who shoved a pair of ironed out work slacks into a random backpack in the alley behind Jig Jig Street. Why do the Wraiths in this random camp have 3 different pairs of office pumps. I have 12 different variations of dress shirts tuxedo vests and blazers and I have not found one edgerunner jacket out in the wild. It can't be random if all I'm finding is stuff I'd wear to my friend's wedding.............right?

[safetycar-restart]

I loved your thoughts on sub Fabio getting his medal! Fabulous!

So formal occasions for our lovely motogp boys in ds au...

Obviously, there's the end of year gala. And the boys' collective struggles with formalwear were so delightfully shown in the amazon doc.

So dom dressing them obviously, either in comfort or jubilation? Like it's hours since the last race of the season, emotions! But instead of ties and bow ties, it's formal collars. The kind they can't wear to a race.

Does the champion get a new collar (pick any or all for your choice of champ)? Are the collars sparkly perhaps? Who has a shibari costume (since this is ds au that must be at least minor fashion trend)? Who have the most intricate shibari underneath the costume? Also like other fun things underneath the clothes, so many options.

Who preferred to have a nice spanking between the race and gala?

Who sneaks of during the gala?

Like for the boys dom is coming of course but which boy's dom was surprised by this?

Also after party shenanigans. Who sneaks away as soon as politely possible?

Also re 2022 after party, does Fabio's dom have opinions on accidental drunk setting peoples hair on fire? Like time to take sweetest, drunkest baby boy home and in the morning fuck him dry? And of course cuddle and pet him. But no more fire for him 😁

Who leave the party latest and stumbles back, half leaning on dom stumble back to bed all the while extolling their doms many virtuous?

Who's private afterparty is a week long scene?

Anyway hope you enjoy these and give a shout if you want thoughts on the boys and being wedding guest 😁

Cheers 🏍 anon

🏍 anon you are one of my favourite people on earth oh my god. So firstly, PLEASE share your thoughts on the boys at weddings! This is not a want this is a NEED. And secondly, I love all these thoughts lets discuss!

END OF YEAR GALA:

I definitely think you'd be choosing their clothes! And I love the idea of having formal collars or special collars for formal events? That's so cute and perfect for this AU.

I think for Marc, maybe you gift him a new collar at the end of every season? It becomes a tradition between you two, and maybe the first year that Marc doesn't win a championship he thinks you won't get him a new special collar? But then of course you do and he ends up just sobbing because he realises the collar was never a gift for winning, it was a gift for being your good boy for an entire season, irrelevant of his performance.

For Fabio, you choose his collar, of course. But for the rest of his outfit, it's less you choosing it and more you trying to figure out what fabio secretly wants to wear but won't admit to so that you can encourage him to wear that. Fabio has a pretty out there fashion sense but he always gets shy with formal events, so you have to figure out what he genuinely wants to wear and then encourage that. Even if it's hideous, you still encourage it because it will make him happy.

In terms of coming with them to the gala, I think Enea would be the most surprising? We said that you only became his dom last season when he joined Ducati, and of course he spent so much of that season injured that you were barely on the track with him and instead mostly helped him in his recovery.

You really don't expect to get asked to come to the gala with him, because you've only been his team dom for a year it's not like you've collared him or anything. But for Enea, there's no way he would have gotten through the season without you. It's a no brainier that you come with, and he won't accept no for an answer.

GALA SHENANIGANS:

I definitely think Marc would sneak out as soon as politely possible, he had the season from hell and all he wants now is to finally relax with his dom and enjoy his new pretty collar. He spends the entire gala waiting for it to end and at his first opportunity, he's out of there immediately.

And then the week long post season scene begins. Marc falls into subspace on the plane back to Spain, just so happy to finally not have to worry about racing for a while that just holding him on the plane is enough to make him slip. He stays that way for days, getting the good rest he so desperately needed.

As for who sneaks off during the actual gala... Jorge. It's Jorge. You knew before you even arrived at the gala that you'd have a hand down his pants before you two even got to the car. He's just insatiable, and he blames it on seeing you all dressed up but you know the truth: he's just a horny little bastard.

Bez is the one who ends up leaving last, stumbling and leaning against you. He doesn't just babble about how much he loves you, he shouts it. He's a loud, clingy, happy drunk and you get all of that affection, as does anyone who happens to walk by. Poor Pecco just came to say goodnight and ended up on the floor with bez on his lap, shaking him and babbling about how much he loves you. Oh and he also gets very horny so you have to drag him home before he gets arrested for public indecency. He WILL openly hump you if you don't get him out of there.

The video of fabio lighting the dude's hair in fire is fucking hilarious, it's one of my favourite fabio moments ever. Firstly, I definitely think that when fabio drinks you have to his babysitter. Which is perfectly fine with you because he's your best boy and he deserves to have fun.

But yes once he accidentally set someone's hair on fire it was definitely time to call it a night. And he honestly had no problem with that? Even when very drunk, all fabio wants is to be a good boy so when you tell him it's time to go home, he immediately nods and lets you lead him out because he's a good boy!

Oh and Alex M skips the afterparty entirely. He was supposed to go, but he went back to the hotel with you to change before the party and he just... never came back. He had more important things to do (get fucked into the mattress).

[gohyuck]

my someone

pairing: jeong yunho x reader

genre: angst to fluff, f2l

warnings: n/a

word count: 1.5k

“you’ve been out here all night.”

you startle, not expecting yunho to come up beside you. he’s smiling at you when you turn to the side, one of his hands wrapped around the balcony railing in front of him. the fairy lights strung up overhead bathe him in light, reflecting off of his all-white suit. your best friend looks almost angelic, and the soft, inquiring gaze he has completes the picture.

“for someone so big, you have, like, crazy light footsteps,” you respond, a corner of your lips pulling up as you turn to face him. “didn’t hear you at all.”

“you’re dodging the question.” yunho slides the hand on the railing towards you slightly, and you can’t help but let your breath hitch once you feel the knuckle of his thumb against the thin cloth of your formalwear. you know he’s just being kind, being genuine as he gets closer to you. perhaps he thinks it’s his duty as your date. maybe he counts it as his duty as your best friend.

“you haven’t even asked a question.” you’re still grinning as you meet his eyes, though you’re sure the ache in your chest is easily seen in your expression, no matter how hard you try to hide it. you don’t even know why you’re indulging yunho right now: he’s always read you so easily. it’s doubly bad now, considering that he’s the reason you’ve spent half your prom night out at the balcony of the hotel floor the school had rented.

he’d seemed so happy, so content talking and laughing with the rest of your friends. yunho’d helped one girl with her hair, pulled another guy closer by the waist as they’d both lost it over a joke mingi’d made about jongho and beating the ever-loving shit out of a watermelon in the name of sport. sure, he’d asked you to be his date (“best friend privileges, am i right?” “whatever. you’re buying me a corsage.”), but he could’ve asked anyone and they would’ve said yes in a heartbeat.

you aren’t special.

“figured the question was implied,” he’s smirking now, though his eyes remain ever-so-slightly concerned. once you don’t respond, only continue to smile detachedly at him, he sighs before wrapping his arms around you entirely and pulling your body into his.

“what’s wrong, moonshine?” yunho murmurs his nickname into your hair, and you can’t help but let a quiet, airy laugh out at it. he’d taken to calling you ‘sunshine’ back in sixth grade until you’d had your emo/alt not-a-phase phase in seventh and told him the name made you feel too nice, and that you weren’t nice, you were edgy, among other things. he’d laughed directly in your face before switching to ‘moonshine’, asking you if that was an edgy enough name.

it’d stuck ever since. he’s stuck ever since. his hand rubs up and down your back now as if to soothe you, and you know he’s aware of how tight your muscles are pulled.

your heart aches. you can’t do this anymore: it’s been years upon years of having yunho as your best friend and nothing more, and you think it’s finally, finally taken a toll on you. the ache is intensified by how sure you are of the fact that he doesn’t love you back: you’ve never had another person to call your own, and yunho’s had plenty. He’s cycled through boyfriend, girlfriend, partner after partner since high school had started, never keeping someone for more than a few months. you’d always watched his relationships fall apart like movie scenes you couldn’t tear your eyes away from. you’d always held him in the aftermath, ever the epitome of a good friend.

“i’ll never find love, will i?” you voice the thought aloud, meeting yunho’s gaze with a strength you’d previously been unaware of. it’s as if your question is a challenge, one he can either meet or deny. maybe you still have a bit of hope left in you.

yunho stares back, albeit more confused - and a little saddened - than he had been seconds prior. he says nothing, and the ray of hope piercing your heart breaks in half, like an arrow being pulled unceremoniously out of a dead warrior.

you’ve had enough. you look away. your head hangs.

it’s only when you can’t see him, can only see the white of his suit that you let all of your thoughts fall out, finally convinced that it - whatever it is - is done.

“i just - i… i’ve never had someone of my own. i mean i know that it’s only senior year, and that i have my life ahead of me, but sometimes it feels like i - it feels like the one person i’ve always loved will never love me back.” you pause in your rambling to take a breath, and yunho mistakes you for finished. he opens his mouth to speak, but you raise a hand to silence him, narrowly missing hitting his nose. you don’t care. you forge on. “he’s always with someone or the other - i mean i guess he isn’t with someone now, or whatever, but - god you won’t get it, because you’re like that, you always have someone. he’s always with everyone but me and it sucks because i love you so fucking much that it physically hurts.”

there’s silence, only your muted breathing, and then, as you register what you’ve said - i love you, instead of i love him - there are tears. he knows. all these years, and now he knows.

you turn away to look over the balcony, suddenly having to work hard to keep yourself from gasping for breath. the ache has not dulled, not in the slightest, but at least the pressure is off your chest. at least its made way for a new kind of weight.

before you can mull over - re: cry over - what’s just happened, a warm hand comes up to cup the side of your face closest to it, a thumb swipes one of your tears away. you can’t help but glance at yunho, expecting to see him crestfallen at the ruination of your friendship.

he’s smiling the biggest smile you’ve ever seen.

“i’ve always had someone, yeah, but that someone’s always been you,” he says, words rushed because he doesn’t want you to cry any harder. “it’s always been you. nobody else has ever stayed because none of them have ever compared to you. i thought - i thought you didn’t want me, so i never even tried.”

his other hand rests gingerly against your waist for a moment before he deems it too awkward, instead sliding his arm around your middle fully before pulling you into him again. yunho’s words are still taking root in your heart, still being processed in your mind, and it’s a moment before you’re crying twice as hard in realization. it’s you for him just as it’s him for you?

“i love you, moonshine, always have.” he cements it before you can ask him too many questions, the words mumbled against your hair as he holds you close. yunho is all around you, enveloping you, and your whirlwind of emotions ends in you feeling very, very safe.

you pull away to take a good look at his smiling face, and he brushes all of your tears away before they can stain your face. his mouth is quirked into a smirk, though it’s softened by how kind his eyes and actions are. you can’t help but give him a watery smile of your own, though you can hardly believe what’s happening.

“i think,” you say, words wavering. his gaze is soft, encouraging, and he waits for you to continue. “i think we should talk it over properly in the car.”

“sure,” your best friend (soon to be boyfriend) replies, leaning in to rest his forehead against yours. it feels right. “we can talk all night long. hell, we might have to talk all night long. for now, though, you owe me a dance, yeah?”

as if the universe is listening, the dance pop song in the background fades out just as yunho finishes his question, transitioning to a slower r&b song. you watch as people filter off the dance floor, only a number of couples remaining as they start slow dancing. yunho steps away from you and holds a hand out, and you don’t hesitate in taking it, eyes dried and smile big as your love pulls you from the balcony and leads you to the dance floor.

you have your first kiss with yunho at prom, colored lights illuminating your faces and smooth rhythms backing crooning vocals as a soundtrack, his arms looped around your waist and your own thrown over his shoulders, his mouths slotting perfectly against yours, and it’s magical. it’s as if everything you’ve never said is behind that kiss, every moment the two of you’ve missed before. it’s beautiful, and wonderful, and, more than anything, it’s truly, truly magical.

it’s magical enough for him to mention it in his wedding vows to you, years upon years later.

[kaizokuou-ni-naru]

The Voyage So Far: Whole Cake Island

east blue (1 | 2) || alabasta (1 | 2) || skypiea || water 7 || enies lobby || thriller bark || paramount war (1 | 2) || fishman island || punk hazard || dressrosa (1 | 2) || whole cake island || wano

sanji is such a self-sacrificial idiot. and i know that’s not exactly a ground-breaking statement, but it does define the entire first half of whole cake island, so it may as well be reiterated here: sanji does not value his own life as much as he should, and fails to grasp that other people care about him outside of what he can offer them, which is why he’s so surprised when luffy later comes charging headlong into big mom’s territory.

zou is a really good little arc, and it also mirrors the themes of whole cake island in miniature. the minks collectively make a massive sacrifice and risk absolutely everything to protect raizou, and wci is essentially all about loyalty and sacrifice, whether its sanji giving himself up to protect the strawhats and zeff or luffy and the strawhats facing impossible odds to rescue him to pedro giving up his life to get them all out of there safe.

huge fan of this panel partly just because it’s cute and partly because it’s a great visualization of just how dysfunctional the heights are in one piece.

zou is one of my favorite settings in one piece just for the sheer creativity of it. zunesha is so massive and so mysterious and so strange. and she really looks unspeakably old just from how she’s drawn, looming over everyone and everything, eyes hollow and empty, an entire forest and an entire people growing on her back that have been there for thousands of years. it’s just so neat and so wildly inventive.

this applies to zou as a whole, but i think it’s really cool how all the little threads that will become important during wano are set up so effectively even before whole cake island starts. we get this shot here of kidd beat to shit and then forget it because so much happens between here and when he shows up again in wano, but then oda punks us into caring about him and killer so much and this retroactively becomes very important.

ever since his introduction sanji’s always been a character basically defined by his adherence to his principles: always feeding the hungry, never wasting food, never hurting women, never using his hands in combat. he’s probably the most firmly principled person on the crew, and that’s more obvious in whole cake island than in any other arc except maybe baratie.

sanji is very stubbornly good, which puts him in acute contrast to his siblings and their general cruel apathy. it’s something i really like about him.

i’m a huge fan of big mom’s introduction, which is also our introduction to tottoland in general. it’s cutesy and colorful and musical while simultaneously being deeply creepy, with lyrics about killing people for ingredients and making jam out of blood, which is a great summary of the core of big mom’s character. she’s an old lady all in pink who lives in a cartoon fairy-tale land- but she’s also a deranged cannibal, and all those singing trees and flowers are animated by the life she steals from her citizens as tax.

whole cake island draws on a lot of fairy tale motifs (especially with brulee), and the contrast that saccharine appearance creates with how fucked up the actual content is is super effective and memorable, i think.

honestly i find most of the content of sanji with the vinsmokes just plain upsetting, which i’m sure is intentional, so i’m not going to go into it a lot here, but i am including this panel of him kicking niji in the face.

sad as this scene turns out, luffy’s absolute thrill at finding sanji and the corresponding bafflement of the vinsmokes as to how the fuck he even got there always kinda makes me grin.

i always love seeing people’s underestimations about luffy get thrown right the hell out the window- because let’s be honest, he’s easy to underestimate, he’s like a five and a half foot tall rubber teenager and not very physically intimidating and all, and then he goes and pulls off the impossible without blinking.

the thing that makes luffy unique as a captain has always been his willingness to rely on his crew, and his willingness to openly admit that reliance, like he did all the way back in arlong park. most of the other contenders for the pirate king’s crown we’ve seen- big mom, kaidou, crocodile once upon a time- have been stubbornly individualistic people who explicitly shown not to care for their crew and allies, generally seeing them as disposable.

luffy is the opposite of all of them, because his crew are everything to him, to the point of being willing to sacrifice his dream for them. and the loyalty he wins from them in return is unmatched, as opposed to big mom and kaidou, who both get cheerfully betrayed not just by their own crewmates but by their own children.

brook is really cool in whole cake island, and honestly it comes at just the right time for him as a character. ever since his introductory arc in thriller bark until this point he hasn’t gotten a ton of focus, so it’s great that he gets to be the mvp here and demonstrate exactly why he’s a strawhat pirate and how much he’s grown over the timeskip.

oda is generally really good at introducing and handling characters contained to a single arc/saga, but i do think he absolutely knocked it out of the park with pedro. he has an interesting backstory, compelling motivations, and basically an entire sub-arc ending in his death that never distracts from the main plot, but only ever adds to it.

pedro really feels like a fully realized character who’s had a whole life offscreen, who we just happened to catch at the very end of his story. i think that’s super impressive.

i really love this moment, because for me, this is the moment where whole cake island becomes a tremendous arc, and where the tides begin to turn and the dominoes begin to fall, one after the other. this is sanji hitting absolute rock bottom. the one ray of light he pinned all his hopes on was a lie, and he can’t even light a fucking cigarette.

but one piece is, very often, a story about picking yourself up even when you feel like you can’t.

i think there’s something lovely about how much one piece emphasizes the value of honestly asking for help. luffy waits for nami to ask for help, and for robin to say she wants to live, and for sanji to admit he just wants to go home, and then says, “okay, i’ll make that happen.”

it just makes me so happy how happy the stawhats are to know sanji’s back with them. it reminds me a lot of how they all brush off robin’s thanks after enies lobby. sure, they’re going to have to crash the wedding and confront big mom directly and might all die, but who cares? they’ve got sanji back. i’ve said it before and i’ll say it again, i love how much they love each other.

i think the gangster outfits are super fun, and i love that oda is committed enough to his aesthetics to come up with an excuse to put them all in formalwear. it pays off, they all look extremely snappy.

i know i just said it in the dressrosa posts but i’m reiterating it here because this is my favorite example of it by far: i love when oda does this split-screen thing with his panels. the contrast between the two halves of pudding is so severe and yet they’re so clearly the same person i honestly just find this pair of panels fascinating to look at.

this panel also kind of gets at my favorite thing about pudding as a character, really. i know she’s a little controversial in fandom, but i’ve always found her entertaining (at least post-reveal), especially in the contrast between her unhinged evil side and her genuinely sweet romantic side and her post-wedding tendency to randomly ping-pong between the two.

i just always like reminding people that sanji is fast enough and his observation haki good enough to dodge a surprise attack, while thoroughly distracted, from katakuri.

sanji in this arc tends to get shit from a certain side of fandom for being ‘useless’ since he doesn’t have a big climactic fight despite being the focus of the arc, which i think is thoroughly missing the point. sanji is still plenty capable in combat, as demonstrated both here and later, with chiffon and oven. it just happens that his strength isn’t what saves the day ultimately, because combat ability isn’t everything, which is the entire point of the vinsmoke backstory/subplot. sanji saves the day just by being kind.

i’ll admit big mom’s flashback isn’t one of my favorites, taken in isolation- there are some parts of it that kind of unresolved (at least as of now- i still suspect they’ll be followed up eventually), and in general, although there is a tragedy to it, it doesn’t quite hit the way many of the other more effective flashbacks do. that said, i do think it does a really good job of succinctly explaining why big mom is the way she is in the present: she’s a child who was never told no, who never grew or matured past the disappearance of her adopted mother. that’s it, and that’s enough.

i’ve always been a little bit in love with how seriously and consistently one piece handles its themes of found family, and sanji outright disowning judge in whole cake island is maybe the most outright they ever get: family is found, not made. you owe nothing to your blood and are never beholden to your abusers.

and i just like that a whole lot.

i do think the tamatebako is one of the best uses of chekov’s gun i’ve ever seen. we’re first shown it at the end of fishman island, it’s revealed it got sent off to big mom rigged with explosives which is a minor “oh fuck” moment, and then it gets forgotten about, because the entirety of punk hazard and dressrosa happens in between! which is a lot!

i remember when i reached the moment in whole cake island where we’re reminded that that bomb still exists and is still waiting to explode, i just started laughing hysterically out loud, because i’d completely forgotten, and now that i remembered i was just delighted to know it was going to definitely go off at some point, almost certainly in a very satisfying way.

pedro is, if i remember right, the first time the imagery of the coming dawn that will become quite important in wano really has attention drawn to it in-text- the recurring motif is there before this, of course, dating all the way back to the names of the first chapter (romance dawn) and first island (dawn island), but this is the first time it’s actively addressed in-story.

in doing so, oda essentially presents a fresh mystery for us, but one that has been set up so consistently ever since chapter one that it feels like it fits perfectly into the world and story.

luffy’s been punching way above his weight class ever since crocodile all the way back in alabasta, fighting enemies who clearly outmatch him but always managing to win anyways, but his fight with katakuri is maybe the clearest the sheer differential in strength ever gets, because katakuri’s powers are similar enough to luffy’s that he can pull off pretty much all of luffy’s techniques, but better. so luffy has to fall back on the two things that have always been his greatest strengths, again all the way back to crocodile in alabasta: innovation and sheer fucking stubbornness.

one thing i love about one piece is how no character is immune to being clowned on. absolutely nobody. everybody looks like an idiot sometimes, and it makes everything so much more fun than if the series took itself more seriously. katakuri basically actively tries to avert this by building up a fearsome, flawless, and utterly no-nonsense persona, but it winds up failing hard because it actually only makes the contrast and surprise of his actual personality and vices that much funnier.

i’ve always loved this one panel of carrot going sulong, because she just looks so monstrous, like a true werewolf. the same goes for the shift in big mom’s design when she starts going truly mad with starvation and gets even more threatening-looking (below). i just think oda should let women be monstrously scary more often.

i do really love that the entire climax of whole cake island hinges on the degree of trust and faith the strawhats, and sanji and luffy specifically, have in each other. they’re all facing massive challenges that would seem insurmountable to an outsider- luffy facing down a yonkou’s commander with a bounty of over a billion and sanji remaking a massive cake that took months to plan and make in just a few hours, the others evading big mom’s full forces and big mom herself for a full night- but none of them have even a shred of doubt that the others can manage it.

i wrote a meta post awhile back about one piece’s concept of ‘honor in a pirates’ fight, and what it came down to is this: honor can never be expected between pirates, but the best of them will show it anyways, and it can be a very telling judge of character. nobody would expect katakuri to do this, and luffy even calls him an idiot for it, but he has enough respect for luffy as a strong opponent to do it anyways, and that’s how we know for absolute certain that even though he’s an antagonist, he’s also a good, honorable person.

i really like the gesture of luffy leaving his hat over katakuri’s mouth, especially because until this point, we’re never even given any indication that he’s really noticed it, let alone that katakuri is insecure about it. he never reacts to or comments on it (which is in itself kind of unusual from someone who tends to nickname opponents by their appearances as often as luffy does) one way or another.

and then he does this, confirming all at once that he did fully notice and understand, he just doesn’t care. which i think sums up one of the more under-appreciated aspects of luffy’s character- he’s generally way more observant than people give him credit for, especially when it comes to people, it’s just that he has a very different sense of what’s important and what’s not than your average person.

i love the sheer contrast between big mom’s delighted, rapturous singing as she devours the wedding cake against the violence taking place on screen as her army rains fire and hell down on the thousand sunny. it parallels her initial introduction at the start of the arc perfectly, and is just an excellent way to close out the arc with a bang.

i said it earlier but it bears repeating here, for a different reason: luffy is not very physically intimidating. he’s shorter than most of the other main characters, he’s a lanky teenager, he dresses casually and his most identifiable accessory is a farm hat.

but then there are times when he looks like a captain, like a future pirate king, and it just looks so natural on him. i can never get over it.

i really like that, after spending a whole arc demonstrating just how different (and how much better) sanji is than the vinsmokes, it ends like this- showing us just how similar he’s grown up to the man he’s chosen as his real family, and just how proud zeff would be of him.

[side-shawty]

Burn IX (Stark!Reader)

IX: Collide

Fandom: Marvel (MCU)

Type: series

Prompt/Summary: One night can change a lot.

Pairing(s): Peter Parker x Stark!reader, Tony Stark x daughter!reader

Requested? YES

Editing this took longer than I thought but, as promised, Burn 9!! Thank you all again for over 400 followers, you guys are the absolute best!

Enjoy!

-Duckie

PREVIOUS CHAPTER

•

When the two of you made your way downstairs, hand-in-hand you found Morgan in the middle of almost all the Avengers, Happy, and your father with a stern look on his face.

“Now listen. If at any point tonight I don’t see at least one of you with my daughter, there will be hell to pay,” Tony said, glaring through his glasses.

“Language Daddy,” Morgan said and everyone snickered. 

“Sorry sweetheart. Are we clear?” He asked looking everyone in the circle in their eyes. They all nodded, about to disperse for the entrance when Clint spoke up.

“And what about your other daughter Stark?” Clint said eyeing you and then the hand that was still in Peter’s.

Your father looked to you and did the same, a small smile on his face.

“I don’t think the Spider will be leaving her side tonight,” Thor said and you could see Peter blushing from the corner of your eye as a shy smile played on your lips.

~~~

In true Stark fashion, the night began with a red carpet so the majority of the press could have their pictures and then leave you alone for the rest of the night. A select few would stay for speeches and such. 

As you took your turn with Peter after your parents and Morgan you could feel him tense immediately under the flashing lights and questions. His arm tightened around your waist and a tight smile playing at his lips when you looked over at him. 

You did the only thing you knew would calm him down and leaned up slightly to place a light kiss on his cheek. Peter immediately looked at you with shock and adoration in his eyes before giving you a genuine smile.

You couldn’t help but smile back and before you knew it the two of you were heading into the venue. You were a bundle of nerves as you tried to calm yourself before you gave the opening speech of the night.

Peter sensed this as he stood with you greeting guests at the entrance and placed a hand on the small of your back.

“You’re going to be amazing Y/N/N. You could give this speech in your sleep,” he reassured you in your ear.

“Thanks,” you said as Shuri walked in and you hugged her excitedly.

“Peter, Y/N, you both look incredible,” she said smiling brightly.

You both said your thanks and walked to the table you shared with her as your father came up to finish greeting the rest of the guests. 

After you flawlessly delivered your speech the night had gone by rather smoothly. All hiccups seemingly out of the way and you found yourself actually enjoying the time you were spending with Peter and Shuri. That was until one of the younger diplomats whisked her away onto the dance floor to talk about who knows what.

You and Peter followed shortly when one of your favorite slow songs came on and you tugged him to his feet.

Dancing with him felt natural and easy. Peter was everything you didn’t know you needed and you had never even known it.

“Y/N?” He asked quietly as the song began to fade out.

“Hmm,” you hummed, lifting your head from its place on his chest.

“Can I ask you something?” 

“You just did,” you relied cheekily and he blushed.

“I mean something else,” he said and stopped dancing entirely.

“You can ask me anything Pete,” you said and he grabbed your hand.

He glanced around the filling dance floor, “Not here,” and with that, he guided you to one of the secluded balconies. The early May nights were still a bit too chilly for most people to hang around outside for more than a minute.

His change of location and sudden nerves made you worry, “Is everything alright Peter?” 

“Yeah,” he said giving you a reassuring smile. “More than alright I would say,” he squeezed your hand.

“What is it you wanted to ask me?” You questioned before the two of you could get lost in each other as you did in the bridal suite.

“I—um, well I was wondering if maybe,” He began his words falling over each other. He heaved a sigh and you gave him a warm smile.

“Y/N,” he stared again, with much more confidence, “Will you be my girlfriend?” He asked and your eyes went wide, which made him panic.

“I mean, I don’t want to push you into anything. I know you might not be over Harley and that’s okay, I can wait — not in a creepy way. Just like you’re—“ you cut his ramblings short, pressing a soft kiss to his lips.

You remembered Pepper’s word from earlier and said:

“I would love to be your girlfriend Peter,” at that he gave you a megawatt smile before pulling you in for another kiss. 

Once again you found yourself lost in the young man before you. You raked your hands up his chest before wrapping them around his neck and into his hair.

He broke away, smiling, to say, “I’m so happy right now,” before grabbing you by your waist to capture your lips again.

Kissing him was like a drug that you were happy to be high on every second of every day. You smiled into the kiss hoping desperately that this moment would last forever. Peter was your boyfriend and you couldn’t be happier.

Your moment ended far too suddenly, however, as Peter all but threw you off of him as something landed full speed on the ground between the two of you. 

Dazed and confused you only found your footing because of years of training as you quickly cleared your mind as taking note of the threat in front of you. 

You weren’t Peter and Y/N anymore, you were Spiderman and Pyro.

You could hear the screams inside the venue and the beginnings of evacuation as the silver pod that dropped in front of you began to move. Peter had already removed his suit and was pulling on his mask as your dress was tossed aside and the nanobots covered your body.

You began to break down the situation. Protocol meant that the only people leaving would be civilians and Clint and Sam, to protect your mother and sister. Shuri would be an extra set of hands and would probably help with evac with your father and Steve. Everyone else would be accounted for.

The Avengers were out on the balcony now in a mix of formalwear and weaponry.

The pod beeped rapidly before fully opening up and breaking into four androids that immediately began to fire on you and the others. You took cover quickly, retreating into the now empty ballroom.

Thor was the first to attack after they entered in after you at a much slower pace than you had expected. Thor, Bruce, and Bucky followed. 

You, Peter, and Natasha were about to attack from behind when another pod broke through the ceiling and introduced four more androids into the mix. 

Your father and Steve showed up then and the five of you took on the new androids. In the midst of the battle you took in their appearance and tried to analyze their weaknesses. They had glowing red chests with Hydra symbols in the middle of their faceless heads.

As you took one of them out with a well-placed ball of fire you heard someone yell. 

“Behind you,” but before you had a chance to turn around you heard someones blast go off and looked back to see Shuri, armed and ready, a destroyed android at her feet.

“You’re late,” you said, smirking.

“Had to change, my mother would’ve killed me for messing up that dress,” she said and you chuckled before you both continued to fight.

A third pod landed in the room when there were only two androids left but this one was different. It had a glowing green top and sprung to life quickly.

It was only one android but it stood at least ten feet tall and as almost everyone turned their attention to it, it scanned the room, as if it was looking for something and stopped on you as two more of the pods from before fell to the ground behind it and continued their assault. 

You, your father, and Thor directed your attack on the big one. You tried to melt its feet to halt its movements but it didn’t work. Thor tried to hit it with Stormbreaker but it blocked his hit with far too much ease before throwing him clean through the wall.

Your father tried cannons, lasers but it seemed like nothing more than an inconvenience for this monster. You focused all your power and set your body alight with blue flames as you threw everything you had into your attacks. You were angry and it was beginning to show. One night that was all you wanted. You couldn’t just be a normal girl for one lousy night.

The android lost its footing as you threw a flying uppercut at it. On its journey down, however, it grabbed you around your abdomen and a panel opened on its neck and shot a needle clean through your armor and into your shoulder.

Your vision blurred slightly as you pulled it out before attempting to free yourself as it stood back up. You looked around and saw your father trying to take cut the androids arm off but it seemed impossible.

“Daddy?” You called out weakly as you tried to reach for him. He began to reach back before he was swatted from the air and hit the wall.

You felt like all the fire in your body was being snubbed out at the speed of light but you fought to keep your eyes open. 

“Y/N!” Someone yelled out but it was hard to decipher who. Your dad? Peter maybe?

You weren’t sure as your vision became littered with dark spots and then you were weightless.

•

NEXT CHAPTER

[iwaxpoetic]

fic: like you’d get your knuckles bloody (betty/archie, riverdale)

fandom: riverdale pairing: archie andrews/betty cooper, barchie There were so many choices that felt so small at the time. It seemed as if she blinked while getting a refill of her milkshake at Pop’s and woke up in a forest, covered in her boyfriend’s blood. She had been so many Betties between them - in a bunker, at the farm, chasing down a masked killer, in a black wig, holding Chuck Clayton’s head under water —

Standing beneath her porch light, her heart in her throat while Archie Andrews said, “I can’t give you the answer that you want.”

Was that the end of the beginning or the beginning of the end?--

Betty Cooper, before-and-after.

Her sense of narrative structure made her wish it was as easy as a before-and-after.

There was such clarity in a defining moment, in being able to spot the time when everything changed. There was a Cheryl before and after Jason died; a Jughead before and after he slipped on the Serpent jacket; the Breakfast at Tiffany’s Veronica before she turned In Cold Blood.

There was no clean before-and-after for Betty Cooper. There were so many choices that felt so small at the time. It seemed as if she blinked while getting a refill of her milkshake at Pop’s and woke up in a forest, covered in her boyfriend’s blood. She had been so many Betties between then - in a bunker, at the farm, chasing down a masked killer, in a black wig, holding Chuck Clayton’s head under water —

Standing beneath her porch light, her heart in her throat while Archie Andrews said, “I can’t give you the answer that you want.”

Was that the end of the beginning or the beginning of the end?

——

The old Betty, wherever she began and ended, was characterized by her discipline.

Every day, she suited up in her prim cardigans and slick ponytail, ready for another day as the dutiful daughter, the doting sister, the star student. She could handle any pop quiz, any turbulence in the Cooper household, any pressing deadlines at the Blue and Gold. When the pressure got to be too much, she would clench her fists and breathe through it.

And every night, she looked out her bedroom window at what she really wanted. Second floor, second window from the back, calling to her like a lighthouse. Archie’s window was lit up at all hours of the day and night, whether he was strumming his guitar or dozing off with a movie on. It was her nightlight. She fell asleep to its comforting glow, knowing their time would come one day.

She had to be disciplined, because she was hungry. Sometimes it scared her, how strongly she felt. There was a bottomless pit of want inside of her and she tiptoed around it, testing the edges but never letting herself fall in. Betty didn’t want to be the kind of person who was dragged around by her id. She wanted to be the person that other people thought she was. Sometimes that meant sleepless nights helping Polly learn her cheer routine, piling more volunteer hours on top of her already packed schedule, turning the other cheek to another Blossom insult.

Season five Betty Draper, Cheryl had once called her, as if she knew the half of it.

——

Betty had never thought Archie would love her in the exact way that she loved him.

She knew that love took different shapes in each container. She could see the way her mother and father fit together, pushing and pulling but ultimately a team, making each other better - a real laugh, in retrospect. One of her favorite memories was being eight years old, when Alice had just broken a big story. The pride lit her up from the inside and Hal’s beaming face reflected it right back. But she had also watched from next door as the Andrews fell apart. Fred and Mary lost something that seemed sweet and steady and kind, and then Fred puttered around that big house alone.

She thought about what that love might feel like, when it finally came.

Archie was all sweetness. Being his girlfriend would mean never walking to school alone, sporting his letterman jacket at games, and dancing together at prom. It would be afternoons working on a jalopy in the garage and nights cuddling together on the sofa. He would write songs about her and she would proofread his college essays and they would move to New York together after graduation.

It would be an awful lot like being his friend had been since they turned 13 and their parents had put a moratorium on sleepovers, except that she would get to touch the abs that had been taunting her. The heart that beat under those defined pectoral muscles was pure gold and it was an even better prize.

Something murkier lay beneath the surface for Betty. Sometimes she wondered if she loved him or if she coveted him. She wanted to know every thought in his head, every dream in his heart. Long before the school hallways had started to echo with Archie got hot!, she had been daydreaming about ways to get his hands on her. There were no dibs on a person, but she saw him first and had seen only him since.

Betty had never thought that Archie would burn for her, but she basked in his steady glow. Archie lived closer to the surface - he wore his heart on his sleeve and an easy smile on his face. That was one of the things she loved about him. They would be so happy together, but his devotion would never match hers.

It wasn’t until she was standing at the edge of a shallow grave, looking down at his terrified, resolved face with a shovel in her hand and a gun to her head, that she realized they may have misjudged each other.

——

A dam had broken in Betty Cooper earlier that fall.

It could have been one thing or any number of things —  Veronica Lodge sweeping into town, Polly’s mysterious disappearance, Jason Blossom’s body washing up in Sweetwater River. It was an unusually active September, especially by Riverdale’s sleepy standards.

For Betty, it felt like the foundation had been cracking. With one firm tap, it was gone.

You are so perfect. I’ve never been good enough for you, I’ll never be good enough for you.

The careful balancing of what she should want versus what she did want is what had kept her in check for all these years. No one else seemed to have the same qualms. Betty couldn’t imagine Cheryl or Veronica denying themselves a thing. In fact, she knew they wouldn’t. Veronica had talked a big game about turning over a new leaf, but after less than a week in Riverdale, Veronica had seven minutes in a closet and Betty had a box of Magnolia cupcakes.

Only Betty had the discipline to decide to be something and then become it. It had gotten harder for her to see how that was a good thing.

— —

Jughead’s interest in Betty was both a balm and a sting.

Boys had never been interested in her. She wasn’t sure if it was because word of her strict parents preceded her or because her crush on Archie was so obvious that it was not worth getting their hopes up. Whatever the reason, she had made it sixteen years without being asked to the drive-in, having a note slipped in her locker, or having rocks thrown at her window by someone who wanted to date her. She did all those things with her best friend and had become aware that it was not the same.

Until Jughead crawled through her window and gave her her first real kiss, she didn’t realize exactly how different it was.

Being on the other side of the equation was a revelation. It was amazing to think that there was someone who liked her more than anyone else, who thought about her when she wasn’t around, who wanted to kiss her and hold her hand and maybe more one day. Jughead was a good person - he was cute and smart, with a wicked sense of humor that tickled at the dark side she kept such a lid on - but what made him special is that he thought she was special. Betty had never come first to anyone before and she dove into intimacy with the same enthusiasm and determination that she put into any task.

But it was her way to acknowledge the cloud even while she focused on the silver lining. Besides her, Jughead was Archie’s best friend in the world. If other boys had avoided her due to some unspoken claim, surely he would find her to be even further off limits. If Jughead liked her, it was because Archie never would.

Somehow it was more devastating than the rejection itself. A dramatic showdown in formalwear still fit with the narrative that she had imagined for Archie-and-Betty. Power couples faced obstacles. Even after homecoming, even after Melody, even after Veronica, a part of her still though she should be patient. It was the utter lack of drama in her courtship with Jughead that made it real. There was nothing to be dramatic about.

She made her peace with it, first with her nails dug into her palms but then genuinely. The pieces of her heart felt like they were rearranging. Jughead had burst his way in and made his home right in the center. The part that housed her feelings for Archie was smaller, but the scars had made the walls thick and tough.

She would always love him and now she knew what shape it would take. She felt lucky to have enough love in her life that she could feel the difference.

It took a few months, but Betty started to think Jughead might be her soulmate. They both felt a personal obligation to clean up Riverdale’s seedy underbelly, loved books and old movies, and, most importantly, they hated the same things about her. On his lips, “perfect” was scornful. After all of those years pursuing perfection, she wasn’t too fond of it herself.

——

People gave you a wide berth in the aftermath of a showdown with a killer.

Betty was distracted and distant in the weeks following the altercation with Joseph Svenson. People around town stared and whispered even more than usual, but they looked at her with pity and awe in their eyes. Even her mother and Jughead gave her space, assuming that she was reeling after weeks of cat-and-mouse.

When she was alone, Betty didn’t think about Joseph Svenson at all. She thought about Archie Andrews.

It wasn’t about the kiss, although it was hardly the one she had scripted for them long ago. She thought about the way that he had grabbed her hand as she put the pieces together and started to spiral, the only thing tethering her to this earth. She thought about how instantly he had responded to Get in the coffin or I’ll shoot her in the head right now.

To be willing to die for someone was the kind of sweeping statement of love and dedication that was easy to say because it was so unlikely to be tested. It was reserved for the most important people in your life, the ones that you would do anything to protect. When she was in danger, Archie hadn’t batted an eye. When she closed her eyes, all she could see was him lowering himself into a coffin for her. She had been looking at that face for years and years, had known it when it had a beaming smile of mismatched baby teeth, had admired its changing angles. His jaw was clenched but his eyes were as warm as ever when the lid closed over him.

It was unbelievable to think that only weeks ago, kisses and milkshakes had made her feel special. It wasn’t fair to hold up a high school romance against the ultimate sacrifice, but the tectonic plates of her life had shifted again. It was a secret humming under her skin. It was heady to know that there was someone in the world who would do anything for you.

In a way, the showdown with the Black Hood was the most romantic night of her life. That was Riverdale for you.

— —

Betty stopped thinking about Hal Cooper almost as soon as he was locked away. She had spent so much time pouring over the Black Hood and puzzling over her family secrets that when she tried to align the man with the father, none of the pieces fit quite right anymore. After the loss of Hal and Polly, the Cooper family structure coalesced neatly around Betty and Alice as if it had always just been them.

Compartmentalizing and moving on was another discipline that Betty excelled at. Most of the time, anyway.

She thought about Fred Andrews all the time. The lights were out in Archie’s room for the first time that she could remember, but she knew that he was home. The loss was unspeakable, so she never tried.

— —

Even for someone good at compartmentalizing, it could be hard for Betty to separate the way she felt about Veronica from how she felt about Veronica Lodge.

The simple truth is that they were friends because Veronica had decided they were friends. Betty had been skeptical but a little bit flattered. She had written Veronica off at first, sure that she would move on and nestle in at Cheryl's side like two rich bitch peas in a pod, but she had persisted.

No one had ever wanted to be her friend that desperately. Despite what her frilly pink sweaters might imply, she had never been much of a girl’s girl. Her only real friends were Archie and Kevin. That had always been more than enough for her, but there was something to be said for having Veronica in her corner.

But the only person better at compartmentalizing than Betty was Veronica Lodge. Veronica could claim that she was destined to be Betty’s best friend while snatching her lifelong crush out from under her. She could disavow her family’s shady business dealings, then join Lodge Industries and keep quiet about their plans for the Southside. She could love Archie, then sit by while her father destroys his life.

Betty had been tap dancing around questions of morality for a while. One did not get to make too many principled stances when their boyfriend was a gang leader who once partially skinned a woman, and she tried not to throw too many stones from inside a house where she had once blackmailed Cheryl Blossom into testifying on behalf of FP Jones. As she started to shed more and more of her Nice Girl persona, Betty thought she had become more understanding of all the gray in the world.

In a sweltering court room after Labor Day weekend, Betty had found the thing she could never forgive. She watched stupid - noble, self-sacrificing, stupid - Archie jump at a plea deal for a crime he had not committed, all to spare them another trial. Veronica had cried and dropped her head into her hands, but Betty could still see flickers of her in Hiram Lodge’s satisfied smile.

Betty held her friend as she cried and clamped down on her latest intrusive thought - none of this would be happening if it weren’t for you. From learning to read to wrestling him from Ms. Grundy’s clutches, there had never been a problem Betty could not solve for Archie until he crossed Hiram’s path. There was nothing Betty wouldn't do for Archie, but there was nothing she could do for him now, so she averted her teary eyes and tried not to let in the darkness that always seemed so close to the surface now.

Meeting Veronica Lodge was the worst thing that had ever happened to any of them.

— —

When Betty used to dream of Archie as the leading man in every romance, she had imagined kissing him with a frequency that made her blush to think about even now.

She had been inexperienced and was not even sure what she was longing for. In her mind’s eye, she saw him in everything -  the foot pop at the end of The Princess Diaries, the foggy window in Titanic, on the dock in The Notebook - hell, even Spiderman dangling upside down in the rain. It was a collage of images that she could not quite attach a sensation to, but it made her blood run a bit hotter.

When Betty tried to flesh out her fantasies, she relied on a few tangible things she did know - the smell of his cologne, which she had picked out; his increasingly hard biceps, flexing under her fingers when they linked arms on the way to school; the way his hair felt when she playfully ruffled it; the slow drag of his fingers across her back and stomach, when he was winding up to tickle her.

It was almost like an out of body experience when she flung the microphone to the ground. Betty was somewhere else in the garage as she and Archie sang, circling the microphone, their traded glances growing less playful and more searching, until he swung the guitar behind his back and reached for her.

The touch of his hand was like it had always been, the tether that held her to earth and made sure she didn’t miss a thing. Betty had never been more present. After all those years of patience and restraint, she couldn’t get close enough.

— —

There was no clear before-and-after for Archie Andrews.

He had come a long way from being the boy-next-door. He had been the star football player and the sensitive musician. He had been groomed by his music teacher and apprenticed at the foot of a mobster. He had started a youth center for the underprivileged and shattered his hand pulling Cheryl Blossom out of a frozen river. It felt like a lifetime ago that it had just been Betty and Archie in a booth at Pop’s, but Betty didn’t feel like he had changed at all. When she looked into his eyes, she saw the same person staring back at her that she always had.

When there was such a bone-deep understanding, how could she ever feel like he was different? With every step he took, she was right there too.

It dawned on Betty that maybe her before-and-after had happened long before she started looking for it. There was a Betty Cooper before she loved Archie Andrews and she had been living in the after since she was 11 years old.

She flipped through her diaries, years and years of little choices. Her next one felt big.

[kickstillkickin]

Klance Month 2020 Day 1 - Royalty

"You have to go," Shiro insisted. "You're the Prince of Marmora."

Keith continued hacking at the dummy, unbothered. "If I'm a prince, how can anyone make me do anything?"

"We are the hosting country!" Shiro cried out. "The ball will take place in our very own castle, and you can't be bothered to attend?"

"That's correct," Keith shot back, effectively ending the conversation.

The guard ran his fingers through his hair. He'd all but assured the queen he could get her wayward son to attend in her place. If only he could turn back time to that very moment and tell himself the inevitable truth: no one but his mother could get the prince to do anything he didn't want to do.

Unless...? A stray thought crossed his mind. "Your Highness, I have a proposition for you."

"Shiro, I'm not-"

"Best me in a duel," Shiro challenged. The hesitation in the prince's features gave him the courage to push forward. "If you can best me in a duel, I'll drop it."

A third party might describe Keith's answering grin as scary. "Deal."

"You haven't even heard the full terms," Shiro chided.

"Don't need to," Keith scoffed. "You said you'd leave me alone after I win."

Shiro glared at him half-heartedly. "If you win. If I win, you attend the ball and I don't hear another complaint until after it's over."

"Thorough," Keith quipped.

"I've learned what happens when I'm not," Shiro shot back with some meaning.

The prince shrugged. "I won't apologize for my success in dodging my princely responsibilities."

"Heaven knows I wasn't asking you to," Shiro muttered. "Shake on it?"

"Thorough," Keith repeated a bit more wryly, grasping his friends hand. "Here you are, my good sir." He tossed a wooden sword to Shiro.

The guard nodded his thanks and took a fighting stance. He understood where Keith's confidence came from. As they struck and parried, trading ground and feeling each other out, Shiro recalled the great number of times he'd been knocked on his ass while sparring with the prince. He was getting better every day.

But Shiro had been around a little bit longer, and had the good sense to fear the consequences brought about by defying Queen Krolia. He stumbled and cried out, holding on to his arm.

"Shiro? Shiro!" Keith dropped his sword and ran to his side, kneeling down next him. "Are you okay? What happened?"

Shiro sprang to his feet, putting a knee in Keith's chest and holding the wooden sword to his throat. "Looks like I win. You have a ball to get ready for."

"You bas-"

"Ah, ah, ah," Shiro scolded as he stood and dusted himself off. "We shook on it. I recommend running a bath. You look awfully roughed up."

Keith gave up his protests before he could voice any of them. His bodyguard had quite thoroughly put him in his place. No amount of loopholes and technicalities could get him out of this one. He let his head fall to the ground and stared up at the sky. This was going to be a long night.

. . .

The Marmoran prince made his appearance several hours and one bath later. He emerged from his chambers with a permanent grimace. At the sight of his personal guard waiting for him in the corridor, he turned around in the doorway.

"Oh, don't be like that," Shiro called after him. "Between you and your mother," he said with a shrug, "sorry. Your mother's far more frightening."

"Believe me, I'll be having a few choice words with her the moment she returns," the prince muttered, stalking down the hall.

Shiro rolled his eyes as he kept paced with him. "You look handsome, by the way."

"I feel ridiculous," Keith scoffed. "These clothes are ridiculous. This ball is ridiculous."

"Do I need to lend you a dictionary?"

Keith glared at him. "What's it even for? So the royals can congratulate themselves for being great royals? Believe me, it's not that hard of a job."

"No. The ball is in celebration of our continued good relationship with Altea," Shiro explained. "Most Alteans expected the treaty to fall apart by now. We're proving them wrong."

"Why didn't you say something sooner?"

The guard shrugged again. "You weren't planning on attending. Why would it have mattered?"

"I would have planned on it if you had just-" Keith stopped walking. "Then what was that in the courtyard? Challenging me to a duel?" He demanded.

Shiro offered the world's most genuine smile. "I knew you'd be going no matter what. How I got you to realize that was just for me."

"I should fire you," Keith threatened.

"You've only been threatening me with that since you were eight," Shiro replied, an edge of sarcasm in his voice. "Now, if we don't want to be late, I recommend we keep moving, your highness."

Keith chose to save what little face he had left by storming off without so much as a word. Shaking his head, Shiro followed closely behind. "For politic's sake, you should probably spend a few minutes with Altea's crown princess, Allura."

"Whatever. You can point her out to me after I've had a glass of wine," Keith sighed. "You've tricked me into coming to this blasted ball. I'll play along with your politics. Can I at least sneak in without being announced?"

Shiro wished he could let him have just that one. "If we weren't the hosting country. . . Sorry, Keith."

"No, it's fine," the prince muttered. "Did you really think I expected you to say yes?"

The pair came to a stop outside the double doors leading into the ballroom. "Announcing Crown Prince of Marmora Keith, and his personal guard Takashi Shirogane," Shiro informed the attendant.

The doors opened and Keith cast his gaze around the room. A sea of people--strangers--stood before him. In the narrow space between his entrance and his being announced, he laid eyes on a sight that took his breath away. An Altean, draped in the finest silks, had linked hands with a young girl. The two of them spun to the beat of the music. Keith swore he could hear their laughter from where he was standing. His warm brown skin seemed like it was breathing life into the crowd. As if his obvious joy was infectious.

Two loud knocks happened somewhere in the back of his mind. Some part of him acknowledged them as drawing attention to his entrance. But they were muffled. Unimportant. The Altean and his dance partner paused and looked up. Even across the dance floor, Keith could see the vastness of the ocean, the blueness of the sky sitting in his eyes. He knew they were announcing his name.

For the first time that day, Keith cared what he looked like. His hair was braided neatly down his back. His crown sat carefully atop his head. His clothes were the simplest formalwear he owned. Dark trousers and shirt under a blood red tunic. He couldn't have looked less like a prince.

Shiro subtly cleared his throat, and reality came crashing down upon him. He was supposed to bow as a greeting to the guests. Keith bowed and wondered if he was supposed to say a few words as well. He looked over the crowd again, but he'd lost the Altean. Another quiet cough and he started walking. A glance over his shoulder told him that had not been the right thing to do. Keith would have to explain at a later time that, tongue-tied as he was on top of his aversion to public speaking, this was the correct course of action.

The music resumed and the ballroom returned to its normal volume. Galran nobles and visiting Alteans nodded their respect as he walked by. Keith suddenly realized several moments too late that his guard had been speaking. "What?”

"Is something the matter with you?" Shiro whispered fiercely. "I've never seen you like this."

"I'm just- I-" Keith tried and failed to find the beginning of a sentence.

Shiro could have strangled him. "We walk into the ballroom and the moment you lay eyes on the Altean royalty, you turn into a political nightmare."

"There's more than one Altean royal attending?" Keith asked.

"What does that matter? What's going on with you, Keith?"

As he tried to find the words to explain, his eyes wandered. There! Warmth and laughter radiated from the stranger. He truly was captivating. "Who is that?"

Shiro had to follow his gaze. "That is the second Prince of Altea, Lance. His older sister, Crown Princess Allura is just next to him."

"Lance," Keith repeated.

All the color drained from Shiro's face. "My God, you're lovestruck."

"What?"

Letting out a sigh, Shiro took a wine glass from a passing tray. "Just go talk to him. I'll take care of politics tonight."

"Talk to him?" Keith repeated, snapping out of his daze. "Are you insane?"

Shiro placed his empty glass on another tray. "Probably," he said, linking arms with the prince and pulling him toward the Alteans. "Let's go."

"Princess Allura, Prince Lance, may I say what a pleasure it is to have Your Highnesses with us in Marmora," Shiro introduced as he approached. He elbowed Keith in the side.

"Pleasure," Keith mumbled, altogether too focused on his shoes. He felt his ears warm under the gaze of this mysterious Prince Lance.

Allura laughed. "Why, the pleasure is all ours. Please, don't bother with stuffy titles. This is a ball to celebrate our friendship, after all."

"Quite right," Shiro agreed with a smile. The music slowed, and he saw his chance. "Prin- Allura, would you do me the honor of a dance?"

"Of course!"

The two of them moved toward the dance floor. Keith tried to keep his breathing even and not make a complete fool of himself.

"How about you?"

Keith looked up and realized it had been Lance to ask the question. His voice sounded like warm honey. "What?"

"Would you like to dance?" Lance inquired, holding his hand out.

"Yes," was the only word Keith trusted himself to say.

Lance led him toward the dance floor. A gently hand appeared on his waist. Without meaning to, Keith flinched. "Sorry. Do you mind if I lead?"

"Probably a good idea," he admitted. "I'm not much of a dancer."

"You're a prince," Lance told him, cocking his head to the side. "What kind of prince doesn't know how to dance?"

They swayed to the music, waltzing across the floor. "I never said I don't know how."

"Just that you aren't very good?" Lance finished. The humor in his tone was obvious. It sparkled in a way that had Keith enraptured.

"You have the ocean in your eyes," Keith found himself saying. The words spilled out of his mouth without so much as a second thought. He regretted them the moment he said them.

Lance laughed, spinning Keith out. "And you have the stars in yours," he said when his hand returned to his waist. "Was that a friendly compliment or are you flirting?"

"I'm attempting to," Keith replied. "Is it working?"

"It's not not working," the other prince said with a wink. "You could stand to talk a bit more."

Keith racked his brain for interesting conversational topics. Not only did he draw several blanks, he was faced with the stark realization that he does not talk to nearly enough people to have any solid knowledge on the subject. Lance was waiting for him to say something. He panicked.

"I can throw knives blindfolded."

Lance blinked a few times. "Okay, not what I was expecting, but also I don't believe you."

"I can too!" Keith insisted. The song ended. Dancers bowed to their partners. Keith and Lance glared. "If you really don't believe me, I'll prove it to you."

"I'd very much like to see it, since I don't think you can," Lance countered, following him out of the ballroom.

The pair of princes marched down to the armory, unnerving the soldier stationed there, and emerged on the practice field. Knives and blindfold in hand, Keith brought Lance over to the targets. He rightly proved the bratty Altean prince wrong over and over again, all the while Lance insisted that it shouldn't be possible. Each brought up personal feats which qualified them in their own opinions. Keith was right because he'd been training since he was a child. Lance was right because he could actually dance.

They bickered, and they talked, and when a petty fake-argument got out of hand they wrestled a bit. It was certainly a fake argument because both of them laughed as they rolled around in the grass. And, when the night was over, they said their farewells. Keith offered a proper farewell to Princess Allura (as proper a farewell as a prince could manage, with an off-kilter crown and grass stains on his tunic) and a lingering look to her younger brother.

Keith went to bed to bed that night feeling lighter than he ever had in his life.

. . .

The next morning at breakfast, Shiro gave the young prince a knowing look. Keith, however, was so unbothered that he was actually smiling. "I assume things went well last night," he commented.

Keith let out a sigh, completely ignoring his breakfast. "I have a diplomatic mission to Altea in a few weeks. He promised to write."

"So I guess it was a good thing that you attended the ball," Shiro went on, a rare self-satisfying smirk on his face.

"Shame I didn't end up staying that long," Keith replied as he stirred his eggs around his plate.

Shiro shook his head. "Yes. It's a real shame."

For the first time in his career as Keith's personal guard, he actually had good news to report to Queen Krolia. The prince hadn't completely massacred his appearance at the ball, and Shiro had covered for him well enough after he'd disappeared. But the real good news was in his own unfounded fears. The Alteans were only a little insulted, and Keith had all but ensured their continued alliance for years to come.

Good news, indeed.