#and how it does pair quite well with Oppenheimer actually

[justhugsplz]

Frau Klemm has the chaotic energy of the gang.

[bellarkefanfiction]

suddenly i see (this is what i wanna be)

*click through to read on ao3

written by: Mel | @mellamymake

prompt: "You stepped on my glasses and now I'm pretty much blinded and you have to accompany me everywhere till I can get my new glasses" for anonymous 

word count: 5178

"I can't believe you've managed to hide this for so long."

"To be fair, I wasn't hiding," Bellamy points out, a touch of colour rising in his cheeks. "I just don't like to wear them when I'm out. That's not hiding."

Or, the one where Clarke moves in with Bellamy and is shocked to discover that he wears glasses.

In Clarke's honest defence, she wasn't even aware that Bellamy wore glasses.

"What about beach week two years ago?" she demands, staring at the black frames balanced across his nose. "Did you have glasses then?"

He adjusts them with two fingers, peering at her through the lenses. "I think it's pretty safe to say I've had them ever since I got them, Clarke. Which is, oh, about fifteen years ago."

"But did you wear them?" she persists, her frown deepening. "I'm really sure I would have remembered you wearing them."

He pauses then, his brow furrowing. "Well. I always wear them at the end of the day. Like, right before going to bed. So..."

"So only in your room, then." At his nonchalant shrug, she throws her hands up into the air, huffing exasperatedly. "I can't believe you've managed to hide this for so long."

"To be fair, I wasn't hiding," he points out, a touch of colour rising in his cheeks. "I just don't like to wear them when I'm out. That's not hiding."

"You've been wearing contacts all these years," she mutters, shaking her head. "Those are contacts I've been looking at, all these years."

"It's not like I've been wearing a wig or something," he points out, looking vaguely offended. He pauses, looking at her. "Although, if you happen to come across a face mask made of something that looks a little like human skin—"

"Fuck you," she says easily, stretching her leg across the couch to kick lightly at his knee. Of all the jokes they've cracked between them over the last couple of weeks about moving in together to save on rent, this one definitely ranks near the bottom. "Okay, so why are you wearing the glasses now? Are you going to bed at—" she spares a quick glance at the clock in the corner of the news channel they're watching, "—eight forty-nine P.M.?"

He shifts, the flush returning to his cheeks. "Cute. And no, I'm not going to bed at eight forty-nine P.M. I ran out of contacts."

She raises a brow. "You what?"

He shrugs. "I ran out. I gotta get some more."

She stares at him, forehead crinkled with disbelief. "You've been successfully hiding behind your contacts for the last fifteen years, and all of a sudden you just… ran out?"

"Okay, again, I wasn't hiding," he says, pointing at her. "And, well, sometimes shit happens." At her questioning frown, he gives her another shrug. "Shit like, I don't know, when you accidentally throw out the contacts that were supposed to last you the rest of the year before you get a chance to pick up a new pair."

"You what?!"

He rolls his eyes, but the hue of his skin still looks distinctly redder than it usually does, even under the warmth of their living room lights. "I'll put in an order for new contacts tomorrow. Anyway, it's no big deal. They're just glasses."

Except it is kind of a big deal, for some inexplicable reason she can't quite put her finger on. Something the way those black frames sit squarely across his face just makes her stare, the angle of his jawline and the soft arch of his dark brows all suddenly ramped up to an eleven. Even his lips look fuller than usual, plumper and ever so slightly redder than she can remember them being.

It's like he's wearing the glasses, but she's the one seeing several times clearer all of a sudden.

"Yeah, okay," she mutters as nonchalantly as she can, settling back into the couch to pretend she's watching the news, instead of watching her roommate out of the corner of her eye.

She's just not accustomed to seeing him in glasses. That's all. It’s brand new information; she’s allowed an adjustment period.

Once she gets used to it, everything will go right back to normal.

“Coffee’s on the table,” is the first thing she hears when she flies into the kitchen, bag hanging off her arm and shirt still only half-buttoned.

She blows out a harried sigh of relief before flinging her bag into the table to free up her hands, one going straight for the steaming mug of coffee waiting for her, the other swiping up the piece of toast sitting beside it, already slathered with butter. "Have I told you you're my favourite roommate yet?" she says, trying to get in a sip of coffee through a mouthful of toast.

"Not lately, no," Bellamy says idly, squinting at her iPad as he flicks through Netflix. "You’ve got about twelve minutes to get to your meeting, by the way. Checked out traffic while you were in the shower — you're gonna wanna avoid 5th today."

"Fuck," she announces, not bothering to cover her toast-filled mouth. As quickly as she can without spilling everything down her front, she demolishes the rest of her toast within three bites and gulps down half her coffee.

"See you later!" she says, grabbing her bag off the table and dashing out of the kitchen.

"Shoes," he calls from the kitchen.

"I didn't forget," she calls back petulantly, even as she wheels around from the door to grab a pair of flats, stuffing her feet into them and whirling back to wrench the door open.

"Keys!" is all he says in response.

She does an abrupt double take, holding the door open with one foot as she twists round to snatch her keys off the side table. “Bye!” she yells, before slamming the door shut behind her.

--

meetings finally over! think i just booked 2 jobs :D

u eaten yet? want me to

pick up lunch omw home?

???

hello?????

[voice note from Bellamy]

uhhh all i hear is u sayin 'fuck. Fuck, shit' over

and over.. is that supposed to happen

why are u using voice notes that’s so weird

[1 image from Bellamy]

???????

i ask u if u want lunch and all i get is a

screenshot of oppenheimer's wiki page??

Om sajht def

ok u know what im just gonna

get ur usual from the diner

home in 20

--

Clarke kicks the apartment door shut with her foot, working her shoes off with her toes. "Okay, the diner was all out of chicken, so I got you beef instead," she calls, padding into the kitchen to set the large bag of food on the table. "You don't mind, do you?"

She sniggers to herself as she heads over to the tap for a drink of water, catching movement at the kitchen threshold as she turns. "Well, I don't actually care if you mind because beef is what you're getting." She swallows her first hasty gulp of cool water, swiping her hand across her mouth as she turns back around, glass in hand. "Hey, what was with the weird—"

She breaks off, taking in the way Bellamy's standing in the doorway, face all scrunched up as he blinks against the harsh fluorescent light of the kitchen. "What's going on with your face?"

His expression turns wry. "My face? Nothing. My eyes are a whole different story, though."

She frowns, taking two steps forward. "What's wrong with your eyes?"

He pauses, blinking hard. "Well. Actually, nothing. It's, uh— it's my glasses."

At first she's completely lost, brows furrowed in confusion. But then Bellamy extends a hand, his thick black frames sitting neatly in the flat of his large palm, and—

"Holy shit," she says, both brows shooting up high. "What did you do to it?"

One of the lenses is slightly cracked, a hairline fracture running along the side of it. The other one is practically shattered.

"I didn't do anything," Bellamy says dryly, stepping forward carefully. "Your bag, on the other hand..."

"My what? What are you—" All of a sudden, the memory of the way she'd all but slammed her bag onto the kitchen table earlier flashes up in her mind, including the stark realisation that she had been in far too much of a rush to bother checking that the coast was clear. "Oh. Oh, fuck. Did I do that? Shit, I'm sorry!"

Bellamy waves a dismissive hand, and she really shouldn't want to laugh, but the way he's focusing on her chin instead of her eyes is oddly endearing. "No, it's okay. About time I got a new pair, anyway."

"Yeah, well, I'm pretty sure you weren't planning to smash up this pair before you got a new one." She watches as he reaches for the bag holding their lunch, fumbling slightly with pulling out the containers. "That explains the weird replies to my texts."

He pauses, looking up at her (well, sort of). "Oh, yeah. Sorry, I was trying to tell you that I can't see, but I don't know how successful those attempts were."

"You sent me a voice note. Along with what I think is the last photo saved in your camera roll," she informs him with a dry smile, fetching another glass of water for him.

He grimaces, sliding one of the containers across the table to her. "Fuck. How incriminating was it?"

"It was a screenshot of Oppenheimer's wiki page," she says, switching the containers so they're getting the right meals. "Very racy stuff."

"Juicy," he agrees, stabbing a plastic knife into his side salad.

She tries to smother the snigger that bubbles up, but it's a half-hearted attempt at best. "Fork's on your left," she offers helpfully, popping the plastic top off her own container.

"Don't laugh," he grumps good-naturedly, waving his knife at her. "I'm blind."

--

For the most part, Bellamy doesn't seem all that bothered by his temporary handicap.

All the same, Clarke feels too responsible for his predicament to just leave him be. She spends the rest of the afternoon reading his texts and emails to him, and narrating her way through their Netflix queue when he wants to change shows (he can't quite see what's going on, but his sense of hearing is sharp as ever. Plus, he can almost sort of make out what's going on when he squints at the TV, especially once she turns the screen brightness up).

At five o'clock, she drives them both to the mall so he can order a new set of glasses, taking his arm in hers so he doesn't walk into a pillar or a glass door.

Upon reaching the optical store, she halts in her tracks, groaning in dismay. "They're closed."

Bellamy stops obediently when she does, turning slightly towards her with her arm still looped around his. "I thought it looked a little dark, but then again, I figured I'm probably not the best judge of that right now. Does it say if they're open tomorrow?"

She peers at the notice on the glass front, shaking her head ruefully. "Nope, closed on Sundays. Can you call your order in, or email or something?"

He cocks his head thoughtfully. "I can try. But I'd still have to come in to show my prescription."

"Shit," she groans, squeezing at his bicep. "Fuck, I really am sorry."

His other hand comes up to cover hers. "It's okay, princess. It was an accident. You don't have to keep apologising for it."

She starts them towards the Dairy Queen kiosk that's just around the corner. "I feel like I have to. If I didn't totally crush your glasses, you wouldn't have walked right into the bathroom doorframe earlier."

"True," he agrees easily. She jabs her elbow into his ribs, and he laughs, tightening his arm against his side so that she's pressed even closer, her mobility limited. "It's fine, Clarke. Seriously. Plus, I've never had an escort before. S'kinda cool."

"For you," she pretends to grouch, digging into her bag with her free hand. "All right, come on. DQ Blizzards on me."

--

"This is new," Miller observes when they arrive at the bar three hours later, arm in arm.

"This is a necessary precaution," Clarke corrects wryly, guiding Bellamy into one side of the booth with a hand on his arm and one on his back before sliding in after him. "We've got some news, guys. Bellamy's blind."

Jasper practically spews beer nut fragments all over the table. "Bellamy's blind?!"

"I'm not blind," Bellamy says loudly, as a tidal chorus of what's and Oh my God's start surging up around the table. "I'm not— Jasper, I'm not blind! I just don't have any contacts in right now. Or glasses. Or any sort of seeing aides that, uh, you know. Aid me with seeing."

Raven frowns, raising an arched brow at him. "You wear glasses?"

Clarke throws out an exasperated hand at her, turning towards Bellamy. "Thank you! See how well you've hidden this little factoid?"

"Okay, again," Bellamy says, blinking hazily at her forehead, "not hiding."

"Wait," Monty interrupts, face pinched with confusion. "I don't get it. What happened to your glasses?"

Bellamy heaves a melodramatic sigh. "They put up a valiant fight, but ultimately, even they couldn't stand up to the weight of having Clarke for a roommate."

"It was an accident," Clarke says with a roll of her eyes, grinning despite herself. "There was a thing with my bag. Anyway, the point is that Bellamy's blind now."

"Not blind," he argues lightly. "Just very, very myopic."

Clarke ignores him, deliberately elbowing him aside as she leans forward. "So if you've ever wanted to make a rude face or gesture at him," she continues, "now would be the time, people."

Raven and Miller instantly both hold up two completely different hand signs, each one just as vulgar.

"I don't know what that is," Bellamy says warningly, pointing vaguely in their direction, "but I can tell exactly who it is that's doing that."

Jasper somehow produces a Sharpie out of thin air, already breathless with excitement. "When do we get to draw on his face?"

"He's blind, Jasper," Monty reminds helpfully. "Not passed out."

"I'm not—"

"You're not blind!" Miller finishes mockingly. "As for 'passed out', well. The night has only just begun, my friend."

"You're not passing out," Clarke tells him once Miller and Monty head off to the bar to fetch the first round of drinks. She turns in the booth to face him, leaning in so he can hear over the buzz of the bar and the sound of Jasper and Raven fighting over the last of the beer nuts across the table. "I can make sure you don't walk into lampposts. I cannot carry you home all by myself."

Bellamy grins, and just for a moment or two, they're close enough that he can focus in on her eyes properly, their gazes firmly locking on each other. "What a good escort."

She rolls her eyes, punching him lightly in the shoulder. There's practically no force to it at all, so she just ends up pressing her knuckles into his arm, their faces mere inches apart. "Yeah, well," she manages to say, "don't get used to it."

She hopes that the way her throat goes dry at the end isn't audible in her voice.

Bellamy merely smirks, his mouth curving in that crooked way that used to piss her off like nothing else back when they'd first met. "Wouldn't dream of it, princess."

--

The thing is, someone does get used to it.

Funnily enough, that someone is her.

For some reason, it feels far too natural to be this close to Bellamy, looping her arm in his every time they're on the move, leading him over to the bar, or the pool table (to trash talk Miller from the sidelines), or the darts corner (so he can squint at the board and pretend like his vision's 'not that bad, I think I can make out the general bull's-eye area' and then proceed to punch three tiny holes into the wall before hastily giving up).

When his friend Harper from work stops by the booth to say hi, it feels far too natural to get up with Bellamy and walk together over to the table where three more of their co-workers are situated, her arm staying loosely interlocked with his even as they come to a stop. (There's a slight snafu when he introduces her to his colleagues. One of the group — Murphy, she thinks it was — raises his brows before saying "Oh, so you're Clarke." She's about to ask exactly what he means, but then Harper interrupts to ask Bellamy something about a meeting on Monday, and the statement just kind of gets buried under the ensuing conversation.)

She even feels disappointed by the couple of times she's not able to walk with him to the bathroom, watching Miller and then Jasper guide him off with a faint but distinct throb of envy.

She's never enjoyed the walk home as much as she does later that night, one hand neatly tucked into the crook of his elbow, the other wrapped lightly around his forearm in what's practically an embrace.

It's just to be safe, of course. They've both had a few beers. They're not unsteady by any means, but she doesn't see any harm maintaining a little closer contact than usual, especially with his shortsightedness exacerbated by the darkness of night.

He's familiar enough with their apartment that he can handle a shower without supervision (not that she was expecting otherwise), but she can't resist checking in on him one last time before going to bed.

He's already under the covers, but he props himself up on his elbows, smiling tiredly at her. "Thanks for looking out for me today." A soft snort. "Literally."

"Funny," she deadpans, smiling back despite herself. "Goodnight, Bellamy."

"'Night, princess."

--

Clearly, being (almost) blind isn't enough to convince Bellamy to stay within the comfortable confines of home, because by lunchtime they're heading towards their favourite taco stand that's two streets over from their apartment, arm in arm once again.

"I mean, it's Sunday," Clarke pretends to grumble, pushing slightly into his side to avoid an oncoming passerby, a large German shepherd loping before him on a leash. "That should be more than enough reason to, you know. Stay home."

Bellamy steps slightly to his right and away from the dog-walker, pressing his arm in against his body to pull her even closer. "Exactly, it's Sunday.A.K.A., the best day for tacos." He shrugs, not bothering to relax his arms outward even after the dog and his owner are well behind them, keeping them pressed flush against each other from shoulder to elbow. "It's just science, okay? Why are you trying to argue with science?"

She snorts. "Science, right. More like your greedy gut." Twisting her arm slightly in his grip, she pokes her index finger at his middle through the soft cotton shirt he's wearing.

He laughs, releasing her arm completely to grab at her hand with his. "No, it's science. Trust me, I'm a teacher. I would know."

"You're a history teacher, " she says in disbelief, letting her fingers curl around his.

"Who's friends with science teachers," he says, slowly and clearly as if for her benefit. "Hence."

She shakes her head, shifting a little closer as they let their still-joined hands drop down to their sides. "Ridiculous."

Well. It's a nice change from having her arm half-raised like that, she supposes. Probably better for her blood circulation, or something.

--

He eventually caves into her nagging and calls in sick to work on Monday.

"Even though this really doesn't count as a sickness," he grouches for the twelfth time, getting up to pour himself more coffee.

She's already in front of him, grabbing the empty mug out of his hands as she pushes at his shoulder in a silent command to sit back down. "Yeah, because not being able to see definitely doesn't affect your job. Not like you need that to write on the board, or grade homework. Or, you know.Teach."

"All right, all right," he says as she sets his refilled mug in front of him. "Point taken."

Later that afternoon, they're at the mall putting in an order for Bellamy's new glasses when they run into Monty.

"What are you doing here!" Clarke says, surprised. "You're not at work today?"

For some reason, Monty seems a little… off. Fidgety, almost.

"Had a late lunch meeting with a client," he says. After a beat, he lifts his thumb, jabbing it over his shoulder in the direction of the food court. "We just… had lunch."

Bellamy seems completely unperturbed by the way Monty's shoulders are rigid, the shorter man practically bouncing his weight from one foot to the other. (Then again, his nonchalance probably has a lot to do with the fact that he can't actually see Monty.) "Oh, okay. Good meeting?"

"Yeah. Yeah, good." Monty seems downright on edge at this point, his gaze constantly shifting between them. "I should go!" he finally blurts out after an awkward pause. "See you guys!"

"What was that about?" she wonders aloud, tugging on Bellamy's hand to get him to start walking again.

He shifts his grip slightly so that their fingers are more comfortably entwined with each other's. "What was what about?"

"Monty. He was all… weird."

"Maybe he's just late getting back to the office or something."

"Yeah, maybe," Clarke says as she leads them into the optical store. "Okay, where's your prescription?"

--

On Tuesday, Bellamy goes back to work, but only after Clarke makes him promise he's not going to try to write or read anything.

"You heard the optician," she lectures on the drive to his workplace. "No straining your eyes. You're only going to make them worse."

"Yes, I know," he says dryly. "Might have slipped your mind, but I've been going to eye doctors for slightly longer than you have, princess." He pats his messenger bag, balanced securely on his lap. "Besides, I've got a good six or seven documentaries in here to keep all my students occupied for the day. Don't worry about it."

"Easier said than done," she mutters, but she can't help smiling when he laughs at that.

She arrives to pick him up at exactly ten minutes past two, undoing her seatbelt and dashing out of the car when she spots him and Murphy emerge from the front doors.

She shoves down on the surge of protective concern, swallowing down the barrage of worried questions already on the tip of her tongue. "No visible bruises, I see," she says instead, taking his arm in hers.

Murphy rocks lazily on his heels. "Wait till you get his shirt off tonight."

"He's kidding," Bellamy says, mistaking her arrested flinch for distress. "I only hit, like, one thing today. It was the trash can. And I only sort of hit it. With my foot."

"So you… kicked a trash can," she supplies dryly. "Well done."

"Yeah," Murphy intones. "Usually, it's a kid."

They drive straight to the mall to pick up his glasses and a small box of disposable contact lenses, for him to use while he's waiting on his regular soft contacts to arrive.

"Does anyone ever work here," she grumbles when they arrive at the optical store to find the lights off and a sign taped to the door, with the words 'Back in five!' scrawled across in thick blue marker.

He shrugs, tugging on her hand as if to stretch out the rigid set of her shoulders. "That's okay. We can go grab lunch first."

They end up choosing a small Thai restaurant that serves up a mean green curry, splitting a small dish of mango sticky rice for dessert. They linger for far longer than is really necessary, sharing an extra glass of iced sweet milk tea between them as they enjoy the easy conversation and the relative emptiness of the restaurant, given the awkward post-lunch, pre-dinner timing of their meal.

"This is it," he says when they're back in the store, waiting on the optician to fetch his order from the back room. "As soon as those glasses get on my face, this prince turns back into a frog."

"Joke's on you," she deadpans, elbowing him lightly. "You've been a frog all along."

He laughs, his hand tightening reflexively on hers. "Harsh, princess."

It's really not that big a deal, or any notable size of a deal at all, but she finds herself holding her breath when the glasses come out of their shiny new case. There's an extra minute or so where the optician gives them a last polish, prattling on and on about all the lens fit and the design of the frame, but then finally, he's handing them over to Bellamy, and—

"Whoa." Bellamy blinks, the dark brown of his eyes looking even glossier through the clear lenses. "Let there be light." He spreads both hands slightly, his inky black curls curling against the top of the thick frames. "Well? What do you think?"

There's a lump in her throat, and she has no idea how it got there. She swallows hard.

"Oh, yeah," she says, a little weakly. "Definitely still a frog."

They walk back to the car like they always do; separately, hands at their sides.

--

The next three days are oddly uncomfortable.

Everything goes right back to normal. She holes up in her home office to work on her projects, Bellamy goes to school, they have dinner on the couch every night, with a bubbly sitcom or a quirky dramedy playing on the TV.

Even though nothing's really changed, she can't help feeling like everything's been knocked slightly out of alignment. Like the lines and shapes and colours that make up the world around her suddenly aren't quite as clear or bright as they used to be.

"What?" Bellamy says when he notices her staring one night. He lifts a hand, touching his fingertips to his thick black frames. "Look that bad?"

He'd originally planned to wear the disposable ones for the rest of the week, but on the first day wearing them, he'd popped them out within the hour, complaining that they just don't fit like his usual pair.

She rolls her eyes. "Oh, yeah. Nowhere near as pretty as your other pair," she says with a grin. They're both fully aware that these new frames are more or less identical to his old ones.

He shakes his head, mouth curved with a wide smile. "Well, you can quit worrying about it. My contacts should get here tomorrow." He taps at his glasses. "Say bye to these."

She's struck by the sudden realisation that she doesn't want to do that. She likes the glasses. She likes how much softer they make his structured cheeks and jaw look, how much fluffier his hair seems to grow, how much more relaxed his entire body seems to become.

"We're having dinner with Raven and Miller tomorrow," she says instead. "Don't forget."

--

Dinner is a loud affair, even with Jasper and Monty passing so they can attend a mutual friend's housewarming party.

Clarke's not sure what it is exactly about the night that makes it so enjoyable, but something about Raven's sharp snark and Miller's lazy sarcasm just seems to turn everything about twelve shades funnier than usual. The little Mexican bistro Miller's chosen for dinner is relaxed and comfortable, with great food and even better drinks, and for the first time in three days, she feels herself loosening up, smiling easier and laughing harder than she has in a while.

She drinks slightly more sangria than she'd originally planned to, but the light giddiness that seeps into her system is definitely borne of genuine joy rather than any hint of drunkenness.

"Raven's funny," she says as she and Bellamy start on the walk back home. "Miller's funny, too. We should hang out with them more often."

He chuckles, his head tilting sideways as he looks over at her. "We hang out with them all the time."

"No, I mean, like, just them," she insists, grinning helplessly. "Without Jonty and Masper."

He squints at her, expression teasing. "You drunk, Clarke?"

She laughs, shaking her head. She really isn't. It just feels like an invisible weight's been lifted from her shoulders. It feels good. "No. Just… happy."

He nods, seeming to consider her answer more seriously than she'd expected. "Good. That's good, princess."

Now she's the one cocking her head, squinting at him. "Are you happy?"

He laughs, but there's an unfamiliar edge to the sound that rings distinctly bittersweet to her ears. "With you? Always."

On sheer impulse, she reaches out, slipping her hand into his. "Good."

It's only when his hand curls around hers, big and warm, that she really, properly gets what it is that she's doing. It's all fine and dandy to hold her roommate's hand for the purpose of guiding him about while his vision's impaired, but—

"Oh." Forcing herself to loosen her grip, she works up a tense laugh. "Sorry. Force of habit, I guess."

Never mind that it's been three whole days since she'd last held his hand. Never mind that they'd really only spent three days before that even holding hands at all, which is nowhere near long enough to form a legitimate habit.

Bellamy blinks, making no moves to let her hand slip from his. "No, it's— it's okay. I mean, I don't mind."

It's fucking embarrassing to admit, but her breath hitches in her throat — actually hitches. Like she's a character in a cheesy romance novel. "Oh. Okay. As long as you're sure."

She's expecting some sort of wry crack, or maybe a dry, deadpanned reassurance that 'I've survived Jasper and Monty's homemade moonshine, princess. Holding hands with you is hardly going to kill me'.

The last thing she's expecting is for Bellamy come to an abrupt stop, tug firmly on her hand to turn her towards him, bring his free hand up to cup her face and kiss her.

She's kissing him right back before she can even quite grasp what's happening, her free hand twisting into his shirt, the other shifting slightly in his to pull him even closer.

After a long, glorious minute, he pulls back, pressing his forehead to hers. She can't quite tell that fiery warmth blazing between the point of their contact is coming from his skin or hers.

"I'm sure, Clarke," he says, smiling against her lips. "I'm absolutely, completely sure."

--

"See, I told you I was sure!" Monty cries when they walk into the bar the next day, one of his fingers pointed right at their joined hands.

"Holy shit," Jasper says, eyes wide. "Are you guys for real dating now?!"

Clarke pauses, frowning slightly. "Well, we weren't— this is new, it didn't happen till—" She sighs, giving up as the entire table predictably erupts into cheers. "Yeah, okay," she says, grinning at Bellamy. "We are, all right?"

"Told you love was blind," Miller says, sloshing his beer dangerously when Jasper shoves him in excitement.

Bellamy groans. "For the last time, I'm not blind!"

[ourimpavidheroine]

So there is a scene, in Book 4, Episode 6, The Battle of Zaofu, where Varrick and Baatar Jr are discussing the spirit vine energy while on Kuvira’s command center train. (This is after Kuvira has declared Varrick, Bolin and Zhu Li traitors.)

Varrick walks over to the table and grabs a pair of pliers, demonstratively showing them to Bolin, before continuing his work on the stasis capsule. Baatar Jr. walks in a little closer, eyeing his work.

Baatar Jr: Walk me through what you're doing. I want to know every detail of your work.

Varrick: [Puts a hand on Baatar Jr.'s chest and slightly shoves him away.] You know, when I started working with the vines, the point was to find a clean, unlimited source of energy, not develop some spirity death ray.

Bolin: Clean energy! Sounds great! Who doesn't like that stuff? Let's do that instead!

Baatar Jr: Quiet! You're here to help, not talk. [Back to Varrick] And you of all people, should realize that once a discovery is made, it is our responsibility as scientists to pursue it as far as we can. Wherever it leads.

Varrick: How would you know? You couldn't discover a wolfbat if it was building a nest in your butt.

Baatar Jr: You're pathetic. Wolfbats don't build nests.

Varrick: Ooh. You got me there, Dr. Science. You'll never know how it feels to give birth to genius, only to have it kidnapped, and raised by fools!

Baatar Jr: Are you done with your rambling, or do the guards need to encourage you to continue your work? 

Varrick: Okay, okay. The last time we ran the current through the vine we couldn't control the power, so I'm trying something new to see if I can direct it.

There are three things that grab my writer’s attention in this scene.

Baatar’s pedantic answer to the whole wolfbat nest thing

Varrick completely dismissing Baatar’s worth/usefulness as a scientist

Varrick truthfully admits that he hasn’t figured out how to either control or direct the spirit energy (as in, he’s not just saying that to put Baatar off, he really doesn’t know)

Baatar’s need to address the incorrect statement that Varrick makes about the wolfbats is, of course, played for laughs. It’s used to set Baatar up as a fool to the audience; we are supposed to be on Varrick’s side at this point (never mind that we already know from previous seasons that Varrick is a criminal sleaze who has zero moral compass). Nothing funnier than making fun of the stiff jerk who can’t take a joke, right?

Yeah. You know what, though? Pretty much every person in my life I’ve met who was pedantic was either diagnosed on the autism spectrum or is someone I’d guess probably was on it sans diagnosis. Pedanticism is one of the Big Autistic Traits; it’s our calling card, as it were. It was right at that very moment when my headcanon that Junior is autistic was born. 

(And yes, it is a cheap fucking shot towards Autistics but most people are, for the most part, pretty ignorant of what autism is and so there are lots of cheap shots taken at us that way. I don’t for one second think that Bryke is doing it intentionally, of course.)

Now, Varrick’s always been played as a narcissist; in fact, although we do see in Book 4 that he has some basic knowledge with tools and such (the EMP he creates, for example) we rarely if ever see him actually working on anything but shooting off his mouth or making deals which leads to money. We see Zhu Li working, for damn sure. But Varrick? He talks a lot, and he’s clearly brilliant and full of ideas, but I’ve never been convinced that he implements most of those ideas. Which is why it’s even more insulting that he dismisses Baatar as a scientist when he’s just admitted he can’t figure out how to make the spirit vines work.

Baatar Jr: So I see how the current interacts with the vine, and here is a kind of directional tube, but that is baffling here at the base. It looks like that would only redirect the energy back where it came from. And what's that piece of equipment you're fiddling with now on the power source?

Varrick: [To Bolin, without looking.] Hand me the ... screw-turn-thingy, would ya?

Bolin: Ugh, I can't believe you're helping them, you know this isn't right. 

Varrick: Funny story, Bolin. I first got the idea for harnessing spirit power when I watched that giant Unalaq-monster attack the city from my jail cell. That giant monster set me free!

By the way, I call a big pile of steaming bullshit all over the idea that Varrick was planning anything altruistic at the end of Book 2. He was not planning on making clean energy with that stuff, unless it was something that he could charge people a hell of a lot of money for. He was doing all of this with the spirit energy to get even richer from it, let’s face it. He’s not a good guy, despite his half-assed redemption arc in the second half of Book 4. Come the fuck on.

Baatar is misguided when he says that scientists have a responsibility to follow every scientific lead they get. (Something which plenty of scientists - Alfred Nobel for one, J. Robert Oppenheimer and Albert Einstein, for another - came to quite severely regret.) But it is clear, from what he says, that he wants to figure out the spirit vine energy because of SCIENCE. Not because of the weapon; he’s doing that for Kuvira. For him, it is all about the science.

Varrick was always about the money. Always.

Baatar’s desperate need to see the science through is at the core of his redemption arc for me. And something I am thinking about a lot as I am writing.

So what he does is take his observations of what Varrick has done and rebuild the entire thing completely from scratch. He has to - Varrick blew up the train car where all of his notes and equipment and even the spirit vines were. (Which is why he and Kuvira have to go and get more of them from the Foggy Swamp.) Not only does he do this, but he manages to make it work in an incredibly short amount of time - we are talking from the time Kuvira imprisons his family to the time when his sister, aunt and grandmother rescue them. He figures out how to not only direct and control the spirit vine energy but also how to use it in a completely new and completely unheard of weapon that he’s invented. We are talking what, a week? Maybe two? At the very most. 

Meanwhile, it’s been three years and Varrick hasn’t figured it out yet.

Is Zhu Li helping him? She is, yes, and we can assume she had more than a working knowledge of what Varrick was doing, that’s for sure. She’s probably able to help him replicate a lot of the blown to pieces experiment. She’s also sabotaging it at the same time, of course. He still manages to do it, sabotage aside.

But let’s not forget the part where while he is building the weapon and getting the spirit vine energy to work with Zhu Li’s assistance he’s also, at the same time, building the Colossus from the dismantled domes of Zaofu and he’s doing this without Zhu Li’s knowledge. He builds that damn thing lickety split, too! 

So in the space of 2-3 weeks Baatar not only figures out how to control and direct the spirit energy and make it into a functional weapon but also builds the Colossus from scratch and completely on his own and uses the spirit vine energy to make it functional as well. 

Now who’s giving birth to genius?

But sure. Let’s laugh at how pedantic he is, shall we?