#and it did save them so i left that part out

[swagpeytato]

Yandere!Neglectful Batfam x Batmom!Reader PART 3

With the Batfamily

Everyone had gathered in the Bat cave, surrounding Tim as he looked over the divorce papers. He was struggling. Tim didn’t believe this was real. In fact he thought Y/n was full of shit, and just pulled this little stunt for attention, but he just wanted to be sure. Because if she left the media would get suspicious, and she would disrupt the natural order of the family. 

He didn’t believe it was real…….but it was very very convincing. Almost as if it was real. But it couldn’t be real…right?

Bruce was angry, and worried. He was so enraged that his wife would ever do this to his children-to him. Putting all this unnecessary stress on them, just because she wanted attention. And he didn’t even know how long she’d been gone…..come to think about it, he didn’t know the last time he even spoke to her. That’s what he needed to do!

How could he be so stupid? He just needed to call her phone, and that would be that. Pulling his phone out of his pocket, he scrolled through looking for her contact, only to see the last time it was dialed was 3 years ago. That was a little after Jason came back. How has it been that long? Brushing this aside, he called her, expecting it to be answered immediately, but was surprised when the caller ID said disconnected. This was getting worrisome. The others looked toward him with furrowed eyebrows. When had she disconnected her phone? And what was her new number? Why hadn’t she told him?

As he mulled over these questions, an unknown number called him. Thinking it was his wife, he answered it right away, with his hopes of finding out what was going on skyrocketing. What he didn’t expect was to hear a deep, familiar chuckle. The Joker. It was at this moment that Bruce’s world came crashing down.

With Y/n and the Joker

Y/n woke up with a grunt, the cold steel room being an anchor, bringing her back to reality. She didn't know where she was, and she hoped and prayed that what she did remember was a very unsettling nightmare. She knew, however, that this was false hope as she looked around the room, and saw the Joker leaning against the wall, his goons straying not too far from him. 

“I didn’t think it’d take ya that long to wake up. Although I should expect the Bat never trained ya, huh?” he chuckled darkly, his wide grin sending shivers down y/n’s spine. She knew she was in danger, but she couldn’t help herself from trying to save her case. 

“He won’t come!” she blurted out in desperation. He perked up at that. Seeing that she piqued his interest, she continued. “He doesn’t care about me. He hates me even, they all did, that’s why I was in Jump City……” she hesitated before continuing, “I needed to get away, and I doubt they even knew I was gone. Even if you do tell him you have me, he probably won’t come.”

The Joker was pleasantly surprised. He had already told Bruce, and he seemed to care about Y/n more than anything. He reacted even worse than he did with Jason. So either she was lying, which he doubted she was based on the look in her eyes, or, Bruce realized his mistakes, and was going to stop at nothing to correct it. 

The Joker knew Bruce, better than the back of his hand even, and how Bruce reacted under stressful situations. This however was not just a stressful situation, this was the “love of his life”, and this worried him. Batman had never sounded so angry. While he was lost in thought, Y/n spoke again, voice filled with sadness.

“You already told him, didn’t you?” all she felt was sorrow. She had been kidnapped, and even then, that wasn’t enough to garner attention from her family. She had already lost her parents not too long after she married Bruce, and now she was sure she had no one. “He’s not coming. You might as well just kill me, and get it over with…..” Tears leaked down her face as her voice trailed off.

“I don’t think I will. He seemed to care a lot when I told him I had ya. He was angry.” His smile had widened a significant amount, thinking of all the possibilities to beat Batman. This was going to be fun.

Hope you all enjoy! 😁 😁

@redkarmakai @moonieper @thatpersonnamedrook @madine11-blog @bat1212 @feral-childs-word @resident-cryptid @ch1cky-093 @sweetconnoiseurgardener @sillysealsies @dhanyasri @bloodyboi

[gay-dorito-dust]

I’m obsessed with Beetlejuice now, and the original film came out in ‘88, so that means Ford didn’t get to see it. So what if the reader, after he came back, asked him to the theaters to go see a rerun of it? And ofc he says yes, but it doesn’t click until a little bit later that he basically just agreed to go on a date with you

Halloween was a beloved holiday to the townsfolk of gravity falls, for you however your favourite part about this was that the local movie theatre would host reruns of beloved movies, but not more beloved to you then the movie Beetlejuice.

You’ve watched it countless times and countless times more when the theatre first started doing their re runs, so much so that every summerween and Halloween the employees had come to expect your arrival without fail. You were pretty certain you were single-handedly saving the theatre with your constant visits but you didn’t care, for as long as they kept the tradition of keeping Beetlejuice on their list of reruns, you would be there to throw your hard earned money at them.

So when you found out through Stanley that Ford hasn’t ever seen Beetlejuice due to…certain circumstances that he had just gotten out of, and finding it criminal before deciding to take matters into your own hands as you quickly ventured into Ford’s room; completely forgoing knocking as you found him sat on his bed reading a book…well was before you burst through his door, triggering him into reaching for his gun that he kept on the bedside table out of instinct.

‘Y/n you scared me my dear.’ Ford said in relief as he sets the gun back down on the bedside table.

‘Sorry Ford but I’ve got something really important to ask of you.’ You said as you rubbed the back of your head sheepishly.

Ford sets down his book to give you his full attention as his kind, wise eyes looked deep into your own. ‘Ask away my dear.’

‘So the theatre is playing some reruns of some movies for Halloween, and I was thinking if you’d like to come with me, tonight?’ You asked as you found yourself playing with the hem of your shirt out of nervousness, hoping that you weren’t bothering him by asking or preventing him from doing something important.

Ford on the other hand only smiled wider at your request, feeling a warm, fuzzy feeling within his chest that he wouldn’t acknowledge until after your minor interaction. ‘I don’t see why not, I would love to join you tonight my dear.’ He agrees and your eyes brightened as you exited his room, poorly concealing your excitement, as he heard your celebratory yell of ‘yes!!’ from inside his room. He was happy that you were happy, however you wasn’t the only visitor Ford has that day as soon after, Stanley was stood at his doorway with a smug look.

‘Heard you agreed to go on a date with y/n tonight.’ Stan said, Ford furrowed his brows.

‘A date? When did I-oh’ then it hit him, when you asked him to accompany you to the theatre. He assumed that you meant as a family outing with the kids and Stan, only to remember that you didn’t mention the kids or Stan but only yourself and him. Poor Ford must’ve looked red as a tomato as he buried his head into his book, much to Stanley’s amusement as he cackled, holding his sides while his face became beat red.

‘Have fun on your date! Make sure you give me all the details when you get back lover boy!’ Stan cooed as he left his flustered brother, who was now ripping apart his wardrobe in hopes of finding something nice to wear for your date tonight. ‘Y/n is going to eat him alive.’ Stanley added as he high-fived Mabel on his way towards the living room, the two of them having succeeded in masterfully pulled off the greatest match making of their lives.

[thatonebirdwrites]

Cheating Death Part 2

Part 1 here.

Only seconds after Lena vanished in the portal, the Kryptonite cage melted into the floor. A yellow light pulsed so brightly, Kara had to close her eyes. Light infused her cells and pushed the pain of the Kryptonite away.

Lena's words echoed in Kara's head. How she'd stomped and shouted, the tears on her face, the desperation in her voice. How heartbroken she'd been when she'd said, "No, no you don't get to tell me who I am anymore."

She didn't know what to do. Lena had been hurting and grieving this entire time, and what had she and her friends done? Celebrated her brother's death, ignored Lena's increasingly isolating behaviors, and pretended everything was fine.

It wasn't fine.

Yet, the yellow light. Why had that activated? Was it Lena or the Fortress?

Kara ran through the Fortress to the control panel. She dug into the log and swiftly found Lena's code. It had been programmed to create the cage if Kara asked about Myriad, but then the yellow light was also programmed to heal Kara after Lena escaped. A note was annotated on that section of the code, and Kara's breath caught in her throat.

"I wish I could stop loving you. This hurts worse than death."

Tears dampened her cheeks and she wiped them away. What would she tell Alex? How can she explain any of this?

She didn't want her friends to turn on Lena, and Alex definitely would go after Lena if she knew about the cage. It'd been temporary, and Lena had programed a healing sun-bed equivalent burst for after. That alone gave her hope that she could still reach Lena.

Because even in her heartbreak, Lena did not want Kara dead.

She grabbed the weapon she needed, the same one Lena had used to stop Leviathan from killing Kara, and re-calibrated security. Her tears froze on her cheeks by the time she finished.

Kara flew out of the Fortress and high into the stratosphere. She listened for Lena's heartbeat, but heard nothing at first. Fear clenched her heart. Either Lena hid behind lead, or something terrible had gone wrong since she'd left. She hoped it was the former.

With a heavy heart, she flew to the DEO. Alex waited on a balcony.

"Kara?" Alex said, alarmed. "What the hell happened? Where's Lena?"

Kara held out the weapon. "It works as hoped. Sustained blast will keep Rama Khan down, and then attach the power dampeners."

Alex took the weapon with a frown. "Kara, what happened to Lena? Where is she?"

Kara shook her head. She couldn't voice it. She refused to believe Lena was lost to them. There had to be a way to save her, to bring her back, to repair what Kara had fucked up.

She pressed her hands against her face and flinched when Alex tried to touch her shoulder. "I got to find her," she whispered. "I got to make things right. I got to."

"Kara, I can't help if you don't tell me." Alex's voice held kindness, but Kara knew how quickly Alex could turn to anger. When it came to Kara's safety, Alex might cross a line she'd regret. Kara had done it for Alex a few times.

But with Lena? Kara had no boundaries. Lena held her heart in a way no one else did. She'd talked herself into settling for Mon-el, but it'd never been who she needed.

She needed Lena.

"Kara?" Alex tried again. "Kara, talk to me."

"She's the one who shot Lex." The words felt unreal.

Alex's brow wrinkled. "I thought he died when he fell."

Kara shook her head. "We never found a body or even parts from his suit, remember? If he had a portal watch, he could have gone anywhere."

Alex sucked in a breath. "And Lena was waiting for him?"

Kara nodded. "She shot him to protect us. She's been grieving and hurting all this time, and what have we done? Ignored her grief! Where were we for her pain?" She paced the balcony as fury at herself and everyone around her built up in her sternum. "I hurt her! I hurt her with my lies, and I have to fix this."

"Kara," Alex hefted the weapon. "Maybe let Lena have her space. We still have to deal with--"

"Alex, you didn't hear her!" Her pacing quickened and a groove appeared in the concrete from her superspeed.

Kara should tell Alex, and yet she couldn't. She needed to save Lena from Myriad herself, but to do that, she needed to find Lena. And she still couldn't hear her heartbeat.

She let out a shout of rage, her fist colliding with the wall and shattering the concrete. "I hurt the person I love! I have to fix this. I have to bring her back."

Her rage petered into sobs, and she fell to her knees.

Her, the strongest and fastest on the planet, brought to her knees by a Luthor.

She thinks of all the times she could have told Lena, and how she'd chickened out, afraid of losing her. Afraid of living a life without Lena's presence. Now a Lena-shaped hole had been carved in her chest, and she hurt.

It felt like Kryptonite all over again.

Was this how Lena had felt the past few months? This agony?

And yet, Lena had still helped. She'd still saved Kara's life. Still built devices that helped others. Why Myriad? Why use that monstrous device? Kara couldn't make sense of it. The months of pretending to be Kara's friend.

She should be angry at Lena. Furious at the betrayal, but she felt only grief. She'd started this with her lies, with leaving Lena in the dark. Lena could have helped so much more if she'd been in on it from the start. Then this never would have happened.

Kara sat there, silent, head-bowed long enough for Alex to leave and return with a cup of herbal tea. Rooibos since most other teas were too intense thanks to Kara's supertaste. Her fingers curled around the warm cup.

"I tasked Brainy and J'onn with the weapons. We'll deal with Leviathan." Alex smiled and squeezed Kara's shoulder. "You do what you need to do, Kara. I'm with you, okay?"

Kara nodded numbly. She sipped the tea and slowly became aware of a high-pitched beeping. "Wait, that's the signal watch," she murmured. She put down the cup and listened. It came from downtown. "Lena," she whispered.

Before Alex could respond, Kara blasted into the sky and broke the sound barrier. The crack whipped across the city and shook windows. She landed on Lena's balcony at L-Corp, ripped open the door, and dashed into a dark room. The beeping came from the stairwell.

Horror twisted her gut. She supersped down the stairs, all forty-three flights, until she reached the stairs just below ground level near the door to security.

She threw open the door and the thick scent of iron assaulted her nose.

Eve lay in a pool of blood, no heartbeat. Someone dressed in black lay crumbled near Eve, again no heartbeat. Blood coated the stairs from where Lena must have crawled.

Lena, her Lena, lay motionless, one hand on the top step. For a horrifyingly long second, Kara couldn't hear a heartbeat. She dropped next to Lena and pressed her fingers against Lena's pulse point.

No, there it was.

A faint badum-badum, the most precious sound in the universe.

She could do nothing for the others, but she still had a chance to save Lena. A scan of her body revealed the bullet in her side, how it pierced a lung.

Kara gathered Lena into her arms, and ran through the security sector, hitting each door with her shoulder to wrench it open, until she finally made her way outside.

Lena's blood soaked into her suit, her head rolling in Kara's arms. She held her close and flew as fast as she dared toward the DEO. "Lena, please," she whispered, "please hold on. Don't you dare die on me. Not now. Not like this."

When her feet touched down, she heard Alex's voice shouting about a Rama Khan sighting. Agents poured into vehicles, and the team prepared to leave.

Kara ignored them. She walked through the bustle, and people parted for her.

Alex turned from where she studied Brainy's screens. Her eyes widened. "What the hell...?"

"Please. Help her." Tears clouded her vision.

"Medical now. Brainy J'onn's in charge." Alex grasped Kara's arm and maneuvered her through the mess of the control center. Technicians worked on last minute fine-tuning of weapons, and others manned screens plotting possible vectors. Activity that meant nothing to Kara, not if Lena died.

Not if she couldn't speak her last truth to Lena.

She laid Lena on the medical bed, and Alex ordered her nurses to get an IV in immediately. Kara began to pace, the blood drying on her suit. Alex cut away Lena's shirt and examined the wound.

"She needs surgery now."

"What do I do?" she asked Alex, anguished. "What do I do?"

Alex shook her head. "You can't help with this. Go help J'onn, and wear Lena's anti-kryptonite suit. I'm not sure how long I'll be in surgery."

"Can you save her?"

"I will try my best," Alex said. She refused to look at Kara, and that told her far too much.

Alex didn't think Lena would make it.

"Promise?" the words came out small, plaintive.

"Promise. Now get out of my way." Alex hooked the IV bag to the pole on one end of the bed, and rolled it toward an interior suite. Two nurses followed along with a second doctor.

Kara closed her eyes and listened to the most beautiful heartbeat in the universe -- it faintly hung on, slower and slower with each passing minute.

She couldn't stay and watch the medical team open up Lena. She couldn't.

Instead, she grabbed the anti-kryptonite suit. As it flowed over her, she almost wept again. It felt like Lena hugged her, the suit entirely her design and her nanites.

She flew outside and listened for J'onn. The fight was to the southeast by the docks.

Hadn't Leviathan been targeting Lena? She'd saved her once from them already. Maybe twice if she counted the break-in that had knocked Lena unconscious.

Now Lena was dying, and Kara didn't just want justice for Lena.

She wanted to tear apart whoever ordered that assassin.

The windows shook at the sonic boom, and the ground cratered when she landed.

Rama Khan and another Leviathan member battled J'onn and Dreamer, who had the weapon from the Fortress. Agents, with adjusted weaponry to match the power-disrupting frequency, scattered around the docks.

Kara didn't care about the risk. She didn't care about the Kryptonite weapons the assholes carried.

She crashed into Rama Khan and threw him into a dock building. The wall crumpled. "Did you hire Lena Luthor's killer?" she growled.

Rama Khan laughed and stood with hardly a mark on him and his ridiculous earth-toned suit. "Those who cross Leviathan do not live to tell the tale. Let you now join her, Supergirl." He extended his hand and the ground shook violently.

A blast from Dreamer's gun sent Rama Khan sprawling. Kara sped over and grabbed him by the throat. Her feet she stomped on his arms. "No one hurts Lena and survives," she growled. Her eyes glowed, and she let out a scream of grief and fury.

She blasted him and punched him again and again. Blood gushed from his face, but then he melted into the earth and stumbled into being a few feet away.

Only for Dreamer to blast him again. Kara pummeled him with the rage of a thousand suns. Her vision red, and the land ripped and shredded in their fight. Part of the pier demolished when Kara threw Rama Khan's accomplice into it. Another building fell when Rama blasted Kara into its walls.

Rama Khan slowed, each blast from the gun scrambled his powers long enough for Kara to rip into him until he bled from multiple places. She lost track of the others, so intent on eliminating the one who ordered Lena's hit.

"Kara!" J'onn clamped the power dampeners on the alien. "Kara, we got him."

Kara clenched Rama's neck and looked down to see the cuffs clasped to his wrists.

How much loss could a heart handle? Why did the universe seek to torture her so? Her entire planet, nearly all her friends, and now the woman she loves most -- loss melted through her crevices, filled her with a blinding fury.

She'd fought to keep everyone alive. It's why she needed to be in control, but that obsession of controlling everything, to make sure she never lost, had poisoned her. She couldn't control everything.

She couldn't even save Lena. The thought of Lena dying in surgery, of never hearing her voice again -- even Lena shouting in anger?

Her fingers crunched bone. Rama Khan tumbled from her grasp and hit the ground with a thump, motionless.

Dreamer and J'onn looked at her, but she didn't respond to their words or looks. Agents swarmed around them to secure the site, while Brainy set up the containment unit for Rama Khan and his accomplices. The ruckus roared like the sea in her ears.

She turned without a word and shot into the sky. She flew as high as she could, to where little to no oxygen existed. The fury burned in her, and she wanted to rip herself apart. She deactivated her helmet, turned off its life support systems, and let the lack of air suffocate her and her emotions.

She'd live. She'd always live, wouldn't she? While all she loved died.

She closed her eyes and let herself fall. Air whooshed around her body, screamed in her ears as she hit terminal velocity. For those brief moments, she heard nothing but the shrill wind, the rest of the Earth drowned out in her fall. A moment of release from the endless soundscape.

Halfway to the ground, she righted herself and flew to the edge of Earth's atmosphere. Again she let herself fall. For a third time, she soared high and fell.

Each time she let herself get closer and closer to hitting the ocean. No matter how hard she tried, she couldn't outpace her fury at her own actions. At her failure.

This time she hit the water. She sunk into its depths.

Sea life swam around her, the distant calls of whales rippled through the water. What should delight her brought her sorrow.

No, she couldn't die. Her wretched powers, her curse, kept her alive. Kept her isolated from those she loved. Her careful, practiced control meant even in moments of extreme emotion, she still had to make sure not to hug too tightly. And kissing? How many noses had she broken?

All she wanted was Lena. Even if she could never be with Lena, she needed Lena to be alive. To be healthy and happy. Kara could live with just being on the sidelines, right? As long as Lena was alive.

She burst out of the ocean in a shower of sea water. She hung in the air and watched the waves below her. Her ears tuned to her favorite heartbeat, and there it was, faint, far too faint, but still pulsing.

A slither of hope wove into Kara's wretched spirit. She flew back to the DEO, the wind drying the moisture from the sea.

When she landed, Nia met her at the balcony's doors. "Kara," she breathed out as if she'd been running. "Been looking everywhere."

Kara crossed her arms over her chest. "What do you want?"

"It's Lena. Alex said to let you know the surgery is ongoing and Lena's handling it like a pro." Nia met her gaze, but worry painted across her face. "Don't lose hope yet. She may still live."

Kara said nothing. She heard the rebuke in Nia's words, but she didn't regret her actions. For Lena, there was no boundaries. She'd destroy a thousand Rama Khans if it meant saving Lena.

She followed Nia down the hall, through two intersections, and into the medical bay. Most of the beds were occupied by injured agents from the Leviathan battle. It was the surgery room that occupied all of Kara's attention.

Lena's heart beat still in those glass walls.

Kara walked up to them and pressed a hand against the cool glass. Lena looked so pale. So fragile.

The tears returned. Her chest constricted with a Lena-shaped hole that ached with each beat of her heart.

She didn't move from that spot for the rest of the surgery. Kara held vigil in silence, unmoving. She'd given Lena revenge on those who tried to kill her, and now Kara waited.

Waited for hope to dawn once more.

/end part 2

[loverslodge]

Glitch

summery: you is a broken mutant and Bucky is very adamant to protect her

pairing: bucky barnes x reader

warning: experiments, violence, ptsd, angst, fluff

A/N: finally a bucky baby romance. love him so much i want to cuddle him to death.

You didn't know how to react. You were kissing Bucky Barnes and you didn't know how to react. This was not the way you thought kissing Bucky Barnes for the first time would go.

You joined the team over two years ago. You weren't an agent, you were a lab rat. Well, a lab rat is a harsh way of putting things. You had somehow gained some sort of superpowers. You were attacked during the Ultron takeover and something burst near you that gave you just enough powers that could make you glitch. Many glitches later, you determined that it was the panicked adrenaline that set off the glitches and once you calmed down, everything was ‘normal’. Someone must have found out about you after years so SHIELD came to you. They basically kidnapped you and shoved you in their labs.

You met The Avengers. The new recruits as well. Including the famed Winter Soldier. You have seen him work, when he was under control. Actually, they had exchanged conversations. He did save you from an enemy, the one he was supposed to assassinate. But he was beat so you had nursed him. You had left the next day, you were on the run after all. And now, here you were again, meeting him. He didn't remember you and why would he? You were nobody with whom he shared a passionate kiss as Winter Soldier. He made her a promise that he'll come back for you but you knew you weren't going to see each other again.

He stood on the other side of the glass and was talking to Captain America and Iron Man about something. He kept on glancing and pointing at you. You also saw the Eye Patch Man join the discussion. Winter Soldier was getting angry, frustrated maybe, you couldn't really tell. Captain America put a hand on his shoulder and patted his back. He huffed in frustration and left the room.

Bucky saw the state you were in. none of the avengers were allowed in that facility till two years later. He was shocked to see you, a person, like him, treated like a lab rat just like he was. Something about you seemed familiar but he couldn't put a finger on it. He got angry. They told him she was going to be part of the team and yet she was trapped in a glass cage for everyone to look at. She had wires attached to her. She seemed unbothered, unfeeling even. It broke him a little, to see you give up. He used to be like this, then he got friends and they helped but you had nobody. He had Steve. He argued with Tony and Fury but they said you needed more time. He knew what that meant. They were willing to keep you in there till they had control over you. He didn't like that. All of them walked in the conference room where the rest were. They all put out points. Wanda saw his point and agreed, so did Natasha. They finally agreed to have her roam free in the compound but she would be engaged in the lab with Banner. She would be his helping hand and might also be part of experiments that will help her. They explained to Bucky why you needed to be experimented on. You had become part mutant which was not good for you. Either they can help you be a complete mutant or take away the powers and turn you human. Till they find the root of it all, they couldn't even give you options. Bucky agreed. He just wanted you not tied to the wires.

You got your own room. To your right was Wanda, to your left was Natasha and across you was a huge room of Winter Soldier, whom you now know as Bucky Barnes. You were introduced to almost everyone. Others later, once they came back from their missions. They were so nice to you. Especially Wanda and Natasha. But you knew, they had you close because they were supposed to watch you. Make sure you dont glitch on the compound and if you do, drag you straight to the labs. Sleep was evasive. You would wake up glitching because of nightmares. You would not sleep with water because it gave you a reason to walk to the kitchen and settle your glitch. Every night you would meet Bucky there. You didn't talk but both of you shared a silence. He kept your glitches a secret from Fury. and that made you want to look for a solution even harder. You didn't want him to be in trouble because you were sure it was because of him you roamed free.

You avoided Tony’s parties. But your window provided enough entertainment of these parties. You would gaze down and see people buzzing. Sometimes you had tears in your eyes and sometimes you glitched. Bucky knew you were watching. It was obvious. He felt eyes on him and he could hear your little squeaks when he looked up at your window. He liked having you around but he didnt know how to help. So he would stay silent. He followed your schedule. He knew you had nightmares. He also knew you liked to go to the kitchen to grab water because it took your mind off. He started to wait for you. The moment he would hear your door lock after you after you returned from the kitchen, he would go back to sleep as well. He wanted to keep you safe, he doesn't know why.

It was the Fourth of July. It was also Captain Rogers’ birthday. You loved to make small desserts so you thought this was a good time of showing the team that you were grateful for inclusion. You gave the first piece to Steve and he very graciously accepted. He loved it so much he asked you to bake some more for him whenever you had time. You blushed. He nodded vigorously and bumped into Bucky. He insisted you call him that. You offered him your dessert. He didn't have to say he liked it, his face and eyes talked for him. You felt your heartbeat rise and you ducked away from them, yelling ‘happy birthday steve’. That was the loudest he had heard you. He loved your smile. He loved your voice. Even though none of it was directed to him, he still soaked them in.

You started to open up more. Not a lot, just enough for people to interact more casually with you. You started to spend more time in the kitchen. It started relaxing you. You did glitch sometimes, if startled, but over all, you were getting ‘better’. Dr. Banner had taken your blood samples and had been working on reconstructing your cells. He said something about broken threads needing to be sewed but you wouldnt understand. You were more of a stenographer in the lab, everything Banner said was written down. You were happier, more relaxed. Even tried to step outside the compound once but someone saw you glitch and you ran back to your room. You spent more time with Bucky too. He said he could train you and you had said yes. Twice a week was your schedule with him. He would make sure you both were alone in the gym and so, even if you glitched, he would be there to calm you. His presence did that to you. Calmed you so much that even the tiniest glitch disappeared. Just like it did when he had kissed you way back.

There was a part of this though. You were very scared of fireworks. It reminded you of your lonely years and attacks. You had been dealing well because New York had been protected by The Avengers. You rarely hear fireworks too. Just during the New Years this year but they were muffled because FRIDAY had turned on sound blockers after seeing you flinch, glitch and shiver.

The celebrations began. You were in your room again, looking down the window. Your eyes were following Bucky. Again. He was enjoying his drink with Steve and Sam. he glanced up and you squeaked and slid down to hide. You still weren't aware that people couldn't see you from down there but Bucky loved it. He loved that your eyes followed him everywhere. But then he heard Tony say that he had bought shit-ton of fireworks this year to celebrate Steve. He tensed. He weaved his way to your room. You were unaware of this blasting development and gazed down at the people. Bucky knew you feared fireworks. FRIDAY told him after the first time. He was vigilant and made sure nothing startled you but he would always startle you. He was very stealthy after all.

He was seconds away from your room when the fireworks started. You jumped and glitched and screamed. He heard you. He ran. He asked FRIDAY to open your door. He saw you glitching and quivering under your blanket. He rushed in. He held you tight and covered your ears. The sound blockers were not working. You grabbed his shirt. You think you tore it a little but it didn't matter. You were holding onto him for your dear life. You were hyperventilating.

“Can't… breathe…” you huffed, trying to regain your pulse.

“Breath with me, y/n. Here, feel me. See, I am breathing well, yes?” he tore off his shirt and placed your palm on his heart. It did calm you a little but not enough. You tried to concentrate on his breathing but the loud fireworks riled you up even more.

He had read that stopping someone’s breathing for a few seconds would help with hyperventilation. He could choke you but you were a blubbering mess and he didn't want to leave marks saying he tried to kill you to save you. So he did the only logic that spun in his head. He pressed his lips against your. His hands were cupping your face and his lips firmly against yours. He felt your breath hitching to a stop and he sighed. He held for a few more seconds to actually feel your body relax against his. But something unexpected happened. Your lips moved against his. Now his breath hitched. You were kissing him. You angled your head for better access and he registered that. He immediately pulled you on his lap and moved his lips. You opened your mouth and his tongue went right in. you moaned. The familiar feeling of kissing him was back and you didn't want to let him go. Your hand moved from his chest to his neck, pulling him closer. His hand held your waist tightly against himself and the other cupped the back of your neck.

Suddenly he was transported to his Winter Soldier days. One day to be very specific where he had almost become Bucky just because he shared a heated moment with a girl. That familiar touch, that moan and those lips. They were the same. He latched onto you even further. He remembered you. He went back to look for you but you were long gone. Then shit went down and he came back to be Steve’s best friend. He had forgotten about you, almost, till this very moment. He cradled your head and tried to pull back to let you breath but you caught his lips again. As if you were thirsty. He chuckled and started caressing your head. He slowed down the pace of the kiss and you calmed down. You slowly pulled away and looked down. Your face was on fire. The fireworks had died down.

He cupped your face and tilted it to make you look at him. “It was you, the one who almost pulled me out of my insanity. I have you back in my arms.” he sighed and kissed your forehead. “Are you okay? I will talk to Tony to not schedule updates on fireworks days.”

“I thought you didn't remember me.” your voice came in whispers. “I'm okay. Now. I didn't mean to pull you away from Steve’s party. I, uh, waited for you. A bit. Back then. But I had to run.”

“You didn't pull me away from anywhere, doll. I came to you myself. I always found you familiar but it was your kiss that reminded me that you were the one I had lost back then. Now you wont run, will you?” He asked, looking at you. You shook your head and he pulled you to his chest. You could hear his heartbeat clearly. You breathed deep. You were exhausted after the episode.

“Let’s get you to bed.” he stood up and carried you to his room. Your blanket was still wrapped around you. He lowered you down on his mattress and went to change out his clothes. You nestled deeper into his bed and tried to keep your eyes open. He trudged back in the room and got in bed beside you. Your arms immediately went for him and he let you pull him to you.

“You will not let me go again, will you?” you asked softly.

“Never. You are holding on to me forever.” he wrapped his arms around you and you both snuggle to sleep.

[wolfstarwereinlove]

honestly even if izoch didnt become canon, i think they still had the best conclusion out of any relationships. the last climax of the final war was their talk, izuku basically calling ochako his hero and holding her hand? meanwhile we havent even gotten an actual talk between bkdk and izuku didnt even acknowledge anything bakugo did for him. thats why many people think hori chickened out from confirming izuoch and just left it soft canon/implied at the end.

i disagree with u, but i respect your opinion, i will show why i disagree tho

first:

izuku and ochako are definitely important to each other this is canon and is beyond love relationship, they are friends first, like everyone in class 1A, this is the canon part that is not implied. Obviously if some people view more as love it’s ok too!

but now let’s talk about the importance of the acknowledgment of the hero thing and the hold hands in mha!

calling someone hero there is to show how this person is important, it’s not romantic at all. Izuku is kota and eri’s hero and obviously this is not romantic, it’s a way to show to that person how much their existence impacted on them. (and shoto also said something similar about izuku being he’s hero) And izuku calling ochako hero there make total sense, why? because she was struggling because she didn’t save himiko, that’s way he said that ochako was he’s hero, because even tho he couldn’t say that she was himiko’s hero deku needed to show her that she is important as a person, not as a friend, not as a lover, as a hero.

and i love this part because shows a lot about uraraka’s development! and i will also say the importance of him calling her by hero and not heroine, as her japanese VA said, uraraka is a hero so she is a woman that goes there and worked for her own things as a HERO, she recived and sacrificed herself for that work, if hori used heroine so this would make them being implied because heroine is the love interest, the girl who is a hero but is always saved, and kidnapped, and used as a weapon of torture, to disturb the hero

and who recived that cargo? katsuki.

now the hand hold, this is way more symbolic because it’s like a izuku’s thing and iz//chas used that as the biggest reason just because the hand hold has more history with bkdk than with anyone else 💀, but in mha holding a hand is to support someone or/and asking if they are by someone’s side, just because someone hold the others hand this doesn’t imply nothing and i say that for bkdk too! Iida, kirishima, ochako, aoyama, tenko, all of them had their holding hand, kiri with katsuki and the rest with izuku and this just shows the importance of the “hold hands”

but why this is important for bkdk? because katsuki rejected. Again this doesn’t mean that they are a romantic pair! BUT ITS MORE SPECIAL BECAUSE ITS THEM. the thing is the whole bkdk development was around that fucking river scene with the no hold hand, so the importance of this to bkdk is to show their development and their relationship, but not to say like omg they are canon, if was just because of this so half of mha would be canon. And the problem is that iz//chas misunderstood that and made this as the final point, but there was just two friends talking about how ochako was sad because of himiko (who i dare say had more impact in ochako’s life than deku did, because she showed to uraraka her importance and made uraraka understand more the villans and watch them with another eyes)

and obviously the reaching for izuku’s hand is one of the biggest reasons why the hold hand with bkdk is important in another level, this represents katsuki accepting izuku and he’s friendship, it’s when he decided to be different, to be better and be with izuku for the rest of their lives

second:

i’ll be sincere to you, i also missed a scene with a bkdk talk. But i do not agree when u said that izu//ocha had the best conclusion, because mha is about izuku and katsuki. The manga started with them and ended with them (and all might). Platonic, romantic, whatever they are, they had the best conclusion because the show revolves around them, without one there would not have the other.

All katsuki’s development was around izuku and he’s relationship with izuku, everything he did was to izuku or for izuku, he grow up, he died, he cried, he trusted, he changed because he understood through his relationship with Izuku.

And izuku didn’t have to acknowledge anything because he already trusted katsuki even from the beginning and izuku called katsuki he’s hero a long time ago, AND izuku saw katsuki crying because he lost he’s quirk so he knows.

they know eachother more than themselves so has no need to do such things.

third:

izu//cha was not implied at all in the final, they didn’t even talked in the time skip, while bkdk talked before and after so, has nothing implied there is actually about iz//cha

but kacchan spending years saving money with their classmates and all might (with him being the heart of it) and working harder everyday so izuku and him could be heroes together for the rest of their lives? oh this is a romantic thing to talk about

and he finally reaching his hand back? i dare say CINEMA

[runabout-river]

Thoughts on JJK chapter 270 (spoilers)

Before I write my thoughts down, I have to confess that they've been tainted by a post I read I after reading the chapter. I decided to write the first part of my review as I had initially wanted to but the second part will discuss the things I read afterwards.

We start the chapter with a beautiful scene of a grave belonging to Tsumiki but my first thought was... what about Tsumiki's soul that had prevented Megumi from killing a girl?

If this is what Tsumiki's end and Megumi's final reaction to that would be, why did Gege bother including her soul as an active character into the story?

I also tried to find the raws to see what exactly was written on her grave. Only her surname? And was it also in English?

After that we get to Tengen and what happened to her and it was exactly here where my thoughts of this chapter went a big 🤨😵🧐🤬🤪

So Yuji just punched her out? And nothing more happened to her? The Culling Games are over? How did that happen? And through which remains would she stay stable? There was nothing left of Sukuna, at least nothing that had gone through Kenjaku's ritual. The only place she would be stable would still be inside Megumi. Her barriers are magically stable as well.

What a... neat ending to all those plot threads...

Then we come to Maki finding her past helpers and telling them that all the reincarnated sorcerers would be separated from their hosts by Yuji soon and...

That's against established canon. We already had the discussion that the souls of the host's can't be saved because they've been pushed down to complete darkness. Choso couldn't feel the soul of his host anymore and that was how the narrative absolved him from any wrongdoing because now he didn't have to give his body back for ethical reasons and he hadn't made an unethical deal to be reincarnated either.

Only Megumi was said to have a chance of being saved and no one else.

So now I'm here and scretching my head thinking... was Gege so desperate or time constipated to end the manga that he threw that point out? Or is sth else going on here...

We get Takaba back and he has a suspicious looking partner now, with whom he can do more comedy.

Now I don't think that's the real Kenjaku there. It's more likely that Takaba simply imposed that hairstyle on his new partner because he's missing his short time best friend.

For an actual Kenjaku comeback, he wouldn't have Geto's body anymore. Imo, Kenjaku did have spare bodies lying around he could've fled to at the last second though.

We get more loose ends being tied up and for Higuruma it's clemency. This is another point in the "everything turns out perfectly good for the good guys" part we have been bombarded with in this chapter.

I'm like, Gege, isn't this too much? Wasn't JJK darker than this? Even Shoko gave up her smokes. The military plot is just "we'll deal with them" and there's no mention of JJ societal instability with the clans falling apart.

Either he really wanted to wrap every loose end up... or

Gege forgets Megumi's scar on a pretty big panel and we get an anime love complication with one chapter remaining. It was funny though.

Then we come to the end where we're set up to believe that life of the first year trio will go on as it should've been without those major Shibuya/Shinjuku complications.

Just going on missions and living life like that.

Now, one could accept that kind of ending (why isn't that in chapter 271 though?) But it comes off as so... lackluster and mended with fire after big chunks of the plot were cut off.

After I had finished the chapter, I was the most disappointed at everything that had to do with Tengen and the CG. So Gege sets up that the sorcerer life will continue afterwards. Even without wanting a Part 2, just ending the CG and Tengen's story like that is... unnecessarily boring and wasted space for nearly everything that came before that.

But then I read @thepersonperson post on how the last 3 chapters of JJK could possibly have been an induced dream sequence this whole time.

Induced by Yuji through his ability of creating fake memories right before defeat/death. His own DE is an application of this and Sukuna's strangely similar ability of talking with freshly deceased people in a dreamscape.

When Yuji had first expanded his domain, I went on such a ramble at the time about these strange abilities of them both. What I said back then was that Yuji wasnt an active/aware participant of them but by now he had acquired Sukuna's CT and again a DE.

This could mean that his induced dream sequences could've evolved enough that he became aware of them instead of only pushing them into someone else. In other words:

Yuji is dreaming of his best happy ending.

And here truly experiences that but he can't tell until now that it's a dream. He might very well be lying on the ground now about to die.

The post I linked adds more details to this theory like inconsistent character placements and "mistakes" like Megumi's scar suddenly missing, which would be commonplace in a dream.

That last picture up there with the guy who's supposed to be cursed but it was actually his girlfriend who had her perception of reality altered as well as the name of this chapter, would be the final hints about the last few chapters having been another glitch in perception.

Now only one week is left then we'll get our final answers to JJK. If this dream theory is true, then Gege will establish himself as the biggest troll, either with a JJK 2 or with a tragic ending.

(And if this really comes true, then I don't think I'll manage to escape the spoilers)

But whatever might come and even though I'm meh about the end (as it's presented to us right now) I still love JJK and immensely enjoyed reading, watching and engaging with it 😄

[regretsofaghost]

Survival May Be the Hardest Part

part 1- I Couldn't Give What It Cost Me

ao3 link- here

Danny couldn’t focus.

He needed to focus, to save, to keep something, with Batman. From Batman?

                Danny kept looking in his peripherals, images of white suited men, teal and bright orange HAZMAT suits, people that left before he could get a clear look at them.

                He needed to know for sure.

                He couldn’t.

                Phantom stepped away from Batman, unused to the feeling of wind on his bare face as he flew up. He hoped the other man was okay, but he had a feeling that he wasn’t. Whatever he saw when Phantom had removed his mask had shaken the older hero.

                Phantom could power through most things, he had to.

                Phantom was the only thing standing between ghosts and the living.

                The only thing that wanted both sides to be safe.

                Was Scarecrow ready for a real ghost?

                A real manifestation of fear, of the dead? Something so otherworldly that you could just barely comprehend it?

                Phantom didn’t really understand what he did. All he knew for sure was that he didn’t want anyone hurt, including Scarecrow.

                He couldn’t give into his urges like he had with Freakshow.

                Danny liked the stars; he liked them a lot.

                It’s one of the reasons he loved Amity Park so much, the night sky was so clear that he could see distant stars and planets, some nights the Milky Way looked close enough to touch.

                It was one of the only things he could think of while under Freakshow’s influence, his stars. Danny couldn’t remember much other than his stars, how odd it was that they were tinted ever so slightly red, his eyes drifting to the sky at every opportunity.

                Sam liked to say it was that reason she knew she wouldn’t die from her fall off the tightrope. If Danny could remember his stars, if he could seek them out and lose himself to them like he normally would, he would remember Sam and Tucker.

                Bruce had been keeping an eye on the new meta in Gotham, a mysterious figure who wore a black HAZMAT suit, complete with a gas mask which obscured their face. Of course, Batman had wanted to meet this figure, but the Family was having trouble setting up a meeting.

                Their abilities made tracking them near impossible, new powers seemingly appearing every week. Or perhaps the meta refrained from using their full arsenal, it was impossible to tell. Intangibility made them impossible to contain, flight made them harder to catch, invisibility made the Family lose track of them regularly. That was ignoring how the meta messed with their technology, much of it shorting out when they got close enough to detect them.

                It was like they were dealing with a real ghost.

                Running the meta’s appearance through reverse image searches lead the Family to social media, where Barbara was able to get past a fire wall surrounding a small town. Phantom was their, or rather his, name. He was a hero, or a vigilante, or a villain, depending on who you asked. He appeared to exhibit villainous behaviour at points, however with how rare it was, mind control in those instances was not ruled out.

                Amity Park had a ghost problem, and it seemed that they received a ghost savior in the process.

                Bruce didn’t know what to think of that.

                Danny remembered stars.

                He kept looking up, hoping to see the tiny specks in the distance, the moon should be full.

                The smog was too thick to see through.

                He wanted to see his stars.

                It was dark. There was a thunderstorm happening, flashed of bright light followed by booms of thunder every few minutes. Just enough time for Danny to relax, never enough to feel safe.

                He forgot about those fears. Those childish fears of the dark, the ingrained fear of electricity.

                Maybe that’s why the lightning looked more green than white, like it should.

                He had to protect them. He had to find Scarecrow.

                Target the ghost, the perpetrator, help deal with the fallout afterward.

                Danny’s face was wet, he didn’t realize rain could touch a ghost.

                Scrodinger’s cat, neither dead nor alive till you opened the box, both dead and alive till you lifted the lid.

                Danny didn’t want to open the box.

                Phantom drifted upward, eyes scanning for Scarecrow, recognizing the dissociation for what it was.

                If he didn’t register the white, teal, and orange, he could do it.

                Bingo.

                Scarecrow was in front of him, taunting? The rain was too loud, the lightning too distracting. Phantom couldn’t tell, couldn’t see his mouth, the mask over the other’s face.

                Phantom lifted a gloved hand, sending a weaker ghost ray towards the man. Scarecrow was still sent back into the building behind him.

                Maybe he wasn’t as present as he thought.

                Fear gas was still thick in the air, Phantom could still see the Fentons in the corners of his vision, gloves bloody and suits damaged, he didn’t hurt them. Did he? He wouldn’t, he couldn’t.

                Phantom stood over Scarecrow, tilting his head at the odd energy surrounding the man. He hadn’t seen ghosts react like that before, the way they seemed desperate to get away, only to be pulled back in, like the man was a drain they couldn’t escape.

                Danny thought of a mixture of red and green going down the drain.

                The Bats were busy, Batman was closer than he usually got.

                Batman still had Phantom’s mask on.

                Batman could still see Danny’s face.

                “Do you know fear?” Phantom found himself asking, looking down at the Scarecrow. His voice sounded so odd without the muffling of his mask, that was until he remembered that his voice was not coming strictly from his mouth. It was also coming out of the speakers in the area, a damaged store’s intercom, a police car’s siren, com links. It made his voice crackle, high and low frequencies cutting in and out.

                It nearly sounded like he was borrowing others’ voices.

                The Scarecrow struggled to answer, which was odd. Phantom didn’t want to know why he struggled.

                “I think you think you know fear, Scarecrow,” Phantom breathed out, the crackle worsening in the speaker closest to him, “you know it’s not simply what goes bump in the night.”

                Phantom walked closer, white, teal, orange, orange, white, teal, orange.

                There was a boom of thunder in the distance, a flash of green lightening illuminating Danny’s face.

                White, teal, red, red, orange, red, white, green, white, teal, orange.

                “Phobias are easy. The best way to scare someone is with rational fears. Something that can, and will, harm them.”

                White, teal, orange.

                “Are you afraid of ghosts, Doctor Crane?”

                Phantom kept looking up at the sky. Bruce wasn’t sure why.

                There was almost longing in his young face, jaw still soft with age despite the malnourished way his cheeks sunk in. His green eyes were hazy, never truly focusing, even as he searched for something he seemed to struggle to find. His white hair whipped around his face, shaggy in a way that suggested it was kept short but had grown out.

                Phantom was young, younger than estimates suggested. Why was a child wearing a HAZMAT suit? Why did he seem so proficient in engineering?

                Phantom asked Scarecrow if he was afraid of ghosts.

                What killed a child in a HAZMAT suit?

                What prompted Phantom into giving Bruce his mask?

                Phantom wasn’t reacting like one normally would under fear gas, but Bruce knew it wasn’t because he was immune.

                Maybe it was because he was a dad, but he knew when a child was scared, and Phantom was terrified.

                Danny remembered searching for the stars, before he was diving to save a Robin from falling.

                Freakshow never really learned, he was human, but he was the same as the ghosts he took over. Never really learning from his mistakes.

                Or maybe he thought he figured Phantom out.

                Danny could remember holding Freakshow over the ledge, his staff broken below them.

                He could remember the feeling of Freakshow’s suit jacket in his hands, the rubber of his gloves just barely slipping.

                “You got your sequel, I’m not letting you make it a trilogy.”

                His hand let go.

                Phantom let Lady Gotham take Freakshow, leaving before the Bats could arrive.

                Phantom was standing over Scarecrow.

                He was so small, how did they ever think he was older than 18.

                Scrodinger’s cat, dead and alive.

                Phantom had a civilian identity.

                “Oracle?”

                “B-zzzzzz-t’s? C-zzzz-me? -zzzzzz- get a-zzzzz-al.”

                No luck, it’ll have to wait.

                Batman was slow to approach.

                There was no need to scare the kid further, with what he’s seen so far, Phantom wouldn’t hurt him, but fear gas was powerful.

                “Phantom?”

                The ghost turned towards him, and Bruce had to breathe deeply as his body tensed, chills running down his spine, his palms went sweaty.

                All precursors to fear that Batman was used to ignoring.

                “We’ll lock him up. Let me take him.”

                Bright green eyes, hazy, hands loose at his sides. Phantom was terrified, but he didn’t act on it. Strange.

Phantom’s eyes darted back and forth, trying to catch something that wasn’t there. His breath was coming out in puffs of mist, despite the temperature, though Bruce couldn’t complain, the mist meant he could tell that the child was hyperventilating.

                Scrodinger’s cat, both dead and alive

                Bruce hoped his comment about fear wasn’t from experience. He knew it was.

                “Phantom, let me take Scarecrow,” Bruce put a bit more of a demand behind his words, taking a small step forward. He held his hands within view, making it clear he had nothing in them, and wasn’t reaching for anything.

                Phantom watched him so closely, he probably forgot his face was exposed. He let Batman get close though.

                The fear gas was slowly dissipating around them. Good, they had Scarecrow, the others had taken care of the gas, and now, Bruce was within ten feet of the mysterious meta who had managed to avoid the full force of Gotham’s vigilantes.

                Phantom watched as Batman cuffed the Scarecrow, the masked villain never letting his eyes leave the ghost.

                Phantom looked towards the sky again, seeing a glimpse of the night sky, a single star, before there was a shooting pain through his side.

                The ghost came crashing to the ground, the pain a terrifying familiar feeling, Danny struggled to keep his transformation up, even as his eyes darted around the crowd, white, white, white.

                Teal, orange.

                White.

                Phantom was gone.

[hollowwrites]

Blindsided

Part 17

Ominis x MC

Summary - After learning new information about the next Trail, preparations need to be made and confessions must be told.

I just wanted to say now as I did in my last bit of spice that it isn't my thing normally so sorry if its hastily written and bad. Also, they're virgins, i wanted it to be a little awkward so sorry if you're not into that

Warnings - Spice (Oral, Mutual Masturbation(ish), unprotected P in V, mild pain from being virgins, mildly clincal talk about sex from research) Biting, Praise Kink, all characters aged up 18+

Word Count - 9389

~

“Ominis…you’re making it rather difficult to walk” she complained softly wriggling against the awkward way his elbow joined with hers.

They had decided the safest and best course of action would be to hole up in the Undercroft till the end of the day.

Both to avoid Sebastian and any of the Tri-Wizard organisers waiting to pounce.

The Room of Requirement may have worked, but Professor Weasley knew of its location. And if faculty knew…those who organised the trials would most definitely know.

So the Undercroft it was.

It worked out well. That was where Ominis had hidden that Tri-Wizard history book, and there were a few passages that he’d like Sebastian to read through…

…before Ominis’ inevitable apology for his outburst in the Library.

“Sorry…” Ominis smiled shyly as he released her from his grip momentarily, instead opting to snake his hand around her torso, settling at the small of her back “…but I’m not letting you out of my sight until this second trial is over.”

As they rounded the corner by the Undercroft a gaggle of younger students loitered about, awaiting the lesson about to begin above them. Evelyn took the opportunity to pull Ominis aside as they waited patiently for the corridors to clear, and they could safely descend to the depths of their hidden space.

She tugged softly on his arms till she was backed against the wall a gentle smile on her lips as she covered his eyes.

“I’m afraid that’s quite difficult for you” she teased delicately, earning a slight chuckle as he pulled her hands to his mouth.

“It is an expression…” he whispered against her finger tips before placing a chaste kiss to her knuckles “…one that I find quite apt. Because I can see you-”

His eyes shot towards her, locked with hers somewhat unknowingly. He could hear her breathing, talking. Just above that, hear the subtle sighs leaving her nose. So above that…must be her eyes. He focused in with an almost eerie accuracy, her features mapped in his mind, always.

He tapped her nose, then the triangle of moles across her cheek, drawing a line between each before bringing his hand to her jaw. His thumb settled over the apex of her chin, tilting it up as though staring into her very soul.

“-and I am not letting you out of my sight” he continued pointedly.

Evelyn gulped.

The vaguely intimate way in which he touched her had garnered a few looks from the students now filtering up the stairs. It didn’t help, of course, that she’d pulled him to the wall, her own fingers toying with the edges of his robes.

She could hear them whispering, and based on the slight narrowing of Ominis’ eyes; so could he.

“People are looking…” she whispered, the sound barely carrying on her breath as it washed over him.

“I am quite aware…” His voice came through the filter of his teeth, As was the norm when he was annoyed...or feeling protective. She wondered what they were saying, what Ominis had heard. But based on the flexing of his jaw she assumed perhaps it best not to ask.

They remained locked against the wall, his arm encasing her possessively until the students eventually filed into class. The Defence Against the Dark Arts tower was once again left empty and silent, save for the distant sound of the enchanted instruments playing tirelessly down the hall. This peaceful rift in time, between classes, had become the perfect time to skulk off together. Students busy learning. Professors busy teaching. Their only concern was Peeves and Black. Peeves they had managed to avoid his ire, luckily, and Black didn’t care enough to leave his office most days. Although that didn’t stop the taboo feeling that she was doing something wrong, welling in her stomach each time they opened that clockwork cabinet.

But she was with Ominis.

Safe.

~

Once again, Evelyn was struck by the obvious influences of the trio.

As normal, Evelyn’s corner remained untouched and perfectly polished. Every little detail placed perfectly for both ease, comfort and Ominis to avoid bumping into.

Sebastian left a small trail of destruction in his wake, the latest of which was a toppled over stack of barrels that had been left strewn across the room. He had been practising new spells, new curses, new everything, and this time the victim was the barrels…and a pile of quidditch equipment.

Had Sebastian brought Imelda down here?

And then there was Ominis.

He had adopted the space underneath the Triptych. The sad looking pile of blankets thrown underneath it was standard but since her last visit to the Undercroft, he had added much more. Made it more…homely.

With great insistence from Evelyn he had gained a mattress. A rather dilapidated looking one but it was a mattress nonetheless. It took a full afternoon of whinging but eventually they transfigured a couple of crates into the now comfortable bed. And though he would never admit it, Evelyn could tell he was grateful for her…nagging.

He’d stopped moaning about his aching back at least…

The mattress itself almost looked inviting with the multiple plush throws and blankets that adorned it. A scatter of pillows and cushions were tossed around with abandon but it was cosy. Lived in. Perhaps too lived in, considering he hadn’t slept in an actual bed in well over a month now.

He had also sheltered himself away, enclosing his space with bookcases, chalkboards, barrels. Anything he could get his wand on, he’d pulled towards him, building walls and dividers. She didn’t quite understand why until she stepped between them and into the makeshift room within a room.

It was immediately…warmer. Less drafty.

She smiled softly at these additions, though this home away from home just reminded her of why he was down here in the first place…

The Tournament.

And with the revelation of the second trial came yet another reason he couldn’t return to the boys dorms.

“Looks like you’ll be down here for a while longer…if the boys dorm is now not only covered in spider webs but damp too…” Evelyn remarked with a heavy tone of dismay.

As happy as she was that he was warmer, his nightmares were still…present. He hadn’t had one in a while but he could. And the idea of him being alone when they could occur was too much. It reminded her of her own twisted thoughts. Of him sleeping alone at Gaunt Manor.

No one to help him.

No one to be there for him.

No one to…love him.

“It’s not all bad…” he said, rather pleased with himself “…I haven’t heard Sebastian’s snoring in weeks”

Ominis’ cheeky grin almost made her forget herself. He happily manoeuvred his way into his den, wand blinking away as he cleaned up after himself. Shifted a blanket back onto a chair, a book onto a shelf, a teacup from the settee.

“Yes but…I don’t know. Something about you being down here alone-”

“Stay with me then” he said casually, continuing with his homely chores. His wand trailed over cover after cover till he found the Tri-Wizard History, throwing it atop the desk with a huff.

Sebastian would get an earful about this, no doubt about it.

“You mean sleep down here with you?” She asked incredulously.

Ominis didn’t miss a beat. He heard that sharp intake of breath, the tone in which she spoke. And if it was anyone else he’d be worried he’d said something wrong…

Well that’s a lie.

If it was anyone else he wouldn’t care to ask in the first place.

But this was Evelyn.

And they had already slept together multiple times. Shared a bed once.

So this development he simply found…amusing.

“Why not?” He chirped turning towards her and leaning back against the little chest of drawers his uniform stuck out of haphazardly. His prim and proper accent simply accentuated the teasing behind his words. It wasn’t really a question.

More of a dare…

And that alone set Evelyns skin ablaze.

Why not, Evelyn? It’s just sleeping…

Her own mind reasoned with her in a hushed whisper, almost like she thought Ominis could hear.

You’ve slept with him before. It’s fine nothing will happen.

…unless you want something to happen. Then you need only ask.

Remember he said it’s all he could think about?

Stop it.

You’re all he can think about.

“I…well…it’s…” she stammered and Ominis didn’t need sight to know she was blushing.

“You’re adorable when it comes to matters of the heart. Do you know that?” He smirked and crossed his arms.

“I am not…” she responded with a pout, crossing her arms in a similar fashion to him, only much more…sulkier.

“And so expressive. Thank Merlin! Sometimes I don’t even need my wand to know your mood” He threw his arms out, gesturing his aforementioned wand wildly in her direction. His smirk grew wider, lips parting to reveal the pearly white fangs at either side of his mouth.

It had been just over a week since she was last down here.

Since they had…been alone together.

But the air still felt thick and intimate. And as she noticed his lips parting she realised…it wasn’t the room making her feel this way. It wasn’t the rooms fault her breathing had become laboured and the air difficult to take in.

It was him.

His lithe frame that leaned taught. His forearms that flexed gently as he recrossed his arms. And that smirk. That arrogant and self important smirk. Why did that make her stomach knot?

Her sudden and, unbeknownst to him, lustful silence must have been just a second too long for his liking, his concern for upsetting her resurfacing. Ominis’ features softened and his frame relaxed, taking a confident step towards her to cup her face.

“Stay with me down here…” his soft tone presented the statement as a question this time “…I can make it warm, comfortable. I just need to know you’re safe”

And once again, her mind wondered to more sordid activities whilst he remained as sweet and as caring as he always had. A familiar guilt ate at her insides, shifting her eyes away from him and down towards the floor.

He was offering her a haven. And she thought only of how they could use it.

“I’d need clothes…pyjamas at the very least” she mumbled, blinking her thoughts quickly away as her eyes kept pulling towards the bed. Thoughts of what the sheets would feel like against her bare skin…what he would feel like.

“Not tonight, I don’t think” he whispered back as his boyish smile twisted quickly into a smirk. “Tonight…you can wear mine and first thing in the morning we can gather some necessities”

And once again he held himself in the most gentlemanly of ways, making her guilt even stronger. He pulled her closer, planting a chaste kiss against her forehead and beamed down at her, a genuine smile pulled across his hollow cheeks.

“You say this like it’s a permanent change”

“Mmm…” he hummed as his lips brushed down her temple and across her cheekbones “…I could keep you…”

They weren’t so much kisses as they were…caresses. His lips mirrored that which his finger drew out on the opposite side of her face and she shuddered.

He’s just touching me and I can’t help myself.

Then he laughed softly, the air expelled from him brushing the small hairs at her ear away.

“I don’t know how you put up with my…possessiveness” he chuckled breathily again, his fingers finally finishing their journey at her jaw, cupping her cheek within his palm.

“I’ve had practise…” she whispered sweetly “…what with how close we were last year. All that’s changed really is the occasional kiss”

Ominis huffed a small breath of laughter as he twirled a strand of her hair around his finger.

“I don’t really know where it came from…” he started quietly, like he was truly speaking his mind…freely…

“When Sebastian started down…that path…it triggered something within me I have not been able to satiate. I wanted to control everything. Every little aspect of his life -

“It’s why we clashed so often. Still do. I love him…like he was my own brother and I can’t stand idle as he suffers. Whether it’s to his own stupidity or any external force -

“Same with Anne. When she was cursed it felt a little like a part of me was cursed along with her. Because I love her. She treated me the same as Sebastian from the moment she met me -

“And you -

“I have never known anyone like you. You are a…beautiful contradiction, my love. Both the most deadly and caring person I have ever met. Kind and loving yet harsh and volatile. Sweet…and at times a little bit sour.

“And I love you…” he whispered softly, barely loud enough to hear. But down here…it seemed to echo around the room. Bounce around her mind.

“I’m in love with you. I’m not entirely sure when it happened. I just wanted you around in the beginning. All the time. But…at some point last year that want became a need. And I couldn’t imagine my life without you”

Words failed her as she looked up into the far away gaze of his glassy irises. He had a way with words. Always had. Each one like the note of delicate symphony. And it was music to her ears.

She had to blink away the tears that threatened to spill from her lashes, lest he think he had upset her. And she couldn’t bare to break his heart…even if it was just for a moment.

“I-“

“You don’t need to say it back. I just…wanted you t-“

“I love you too!” she beamed, the words falling fast as though she’d been holding them back. And in many ways, she had…

“I don’t know when either. Sometimes it feels like I always have. But at the very least… from the moment you offered me help in that window…I have been yours. And I love-“

She didn’t get to say it a second time…

His lips captured hers immediately. If she had been paying attention instead of concentrating on the stream of words that tumbled from her, she would’ve noticed the way his fingers untangled themselves from the hairs at the nape of her neck, and glided closer to her lips. As she spoke, his fingers honed in, so he could encapsulate her lips with pinpoint accuracy.

Strange how one little phrase can change everything.

Change the way someone can hold you or kiss you.

He had embraced her many times in many different ways. As a friend. A protector. With affection and with anguish. Yet there was something about this embrace that reminded her of the first time they kissed. Desperate, pleading and unyielding. Like a dam had burst.

But she could feel his love. Feel it pouring into her like warm waves lapping against a shore.

It was passion in every meaning of the word.

Needy, wanting but warm and reciprocated.

Ominis’ lips moved slowly at first, compensating for the speed in which his mouth collided with hers.

And though it was slow and gentle, he didn’t break. The only time permitted for air was as he tilted her head back and his position shifted slightly, towering over her.

He shrugged his arms past hers, manoeuvring his hands to her lower back. As he held her tightly, he pressed her into him more, forcing the air to come gasping from her lungs.

With her hands now relegated from their original position, she was forced to be bold.

Not that she was against being bold. Not with him.

She wound her fingers around his neck, holding him loosely against her. A gentle reminder, should he pull away, that he would not be going far.

But he took that as more of an invitation.

As he stepped forward, shuffling along the floor with desperation to get closer, he brought her almost completely off her feet, her gasps filling his mouth. His fingers tightened around her waist as he supported her, trailing down the fabric of her shirt till he felt the divot of her hipbone beneath the material. The trembling of his fingers betrayed him, a clear sign accompanied with his busy lips, that he had an insatiable hunger for her.

Without knowing, they had stumbled across the room and against the mattress on the floor, tumbling to the bed over a stray blanket. He held her tight to his body as his knee hit the mattress, cradling her against him and protecting her from the fall. A breathy laugh left them both, neither wasting another second as their lips crashed eagerly against each other again.

At first he gently tested the waters. His tongue lapping at her pillowy bottom lip like a snakes might, a thought that made Evelyn giggle, though the noise was lost amidst his greedy lips and gentle tongue.

Not even that was enough.

Roaming hands covered the landscape of her torso, kneading and poking, gripping and digging into her flesh. His hand ran up her side, fingers dancing over her ribs like the keys of a piano, slowly but surely untucking her shirt from her waistband. The cold of the Undercrofts stagnant air nipped at her skin and as his hands quickly replaced the fabric he had discarded, the backs of his fingers were greeted with the familiar braille of her goosebump pocked skin.

The corner of his lip curled, trying with all his might not to smirk as she murmured softly beneath him. But it was too late.

He didn’t want to seem cocky, but he couldn’t stop the twitch peeling at his lips. He merely observed the effect he had on her and found irrefutable evidence of her longing, he can’t be faulted in finding pleasure in her…well…pleasure. Can he?

She could feel his satisfaction, his lips becoming thin and his kisses becoming sharper as he grinned. All teeth and sharp canines.

There was no way he was getting all his own way this time.

Obviously she enjoyed their last…dalliance. It had haunted her mind many times over the last few days, that same knot he had undone skillfully, tying itself back up each time she thought about it. And with each time the knot grew tighter. And larger. And more complex. Till not even her own fingers could help her anymore.

She wanted him.

So when he felt the dimples of her skin, a smug smile threatening to spill from his lips, her own hands palmed against his chest, feeling the ever quickening beat of his heart under his shirt. She revelled in the fact his smirk faltered, a sharp inhale hissing through his teeth as her finger hooked around the knot of his tie, slipping easily between the silken material and pulling it apart. Pulling him down further along with it, the material quickly ripped from his neck.

Merlin…

There was something about his neck that got to her.

The clenching of his jaw when he absentmindedly ground his teeth.

The flexing of the tendons as he turned his head.

The bob of his throat when he swallowed.

Even the constellation of moles that waterfalled down his neck. Everything pointed, guided, coerced her further down. Led her eyes down to the chest her hand currently pressed against.

And when she pulled the tie from his lapels and the crisp white folds of his shirt fell open, he gulped, pulling away just a fraction.

Perhaps he shouldn’t have been surprised she was so forward. She was honest. Unabashedly so. At times it bordered on blunt. After all, it was her who first took his arm in Hogsmeade. Her who asked him sleep next to her in the Common Room. Her who first kissed his cheek just a few weeks ago.

Now her fingers undid button after button, exposing his skin to the cool air of the Undercroft.

Though he was surprised at her forward action, undressing him slowly, it wasn’t completely unwelcome. But it didn’t stop a note of panic from rising in his throat like bile.

He hadn’t seen himself naked, and yet all signs seemed to be leading to her seeing him first.

She had seen him once in the dark of her home. Deep under the cover of night and the guise of friendship stopping any lewd thoughts from completely taking over.

He remembered how she gently explored the scarred landscape of his torso. How she gasped in horror at the initial sight, yet embraced him moments later with no care to how he looked.

He could feel her tiny fingers trembling, her breath catching and the tiny sounds of her teeth nibbling at her lip.

She was having this reaction to him.

Sebastian often told him scars feel worse than they look and that he had nothing to fear.

And it was only now he truly believed it.

Emboldened by her want for him and the tiny hesitation her fumbling fingers demonstrated, Ominis reached down and looped his arm under her back, pulling her up and throwing her against the pillows with a barely suppressed growl from deep within his throat.

The combined gasp squeal that left her only encouraged his behaviour.

His fingers dug into her side, keeping his arm around her, her back arched, pressing flush to his almost completely exposed chest.

He didn’t want her to move. Didn’t want her going anywhere. When he said he wouldn’t let her out of his sight, he meant it. If that meant keeping her down here like this, so be it. Especially if she kept pressing into him the way she was, lips urgent and desperate as though if they stopped they could never be this way again. Every movement and murmur to be relished and remembered.

He leant in further, his knee nudging her legs apart and sliding up her thigh. It settled between her legs, her body lowering subconsciously, seemingly searching for any friction she could find.

Ominis felt the way her hips bucked against his thigh, tiny murmurs filling his mouth as his teeth bit softly into her lip.

He tried to remain a gentlemen, he honestly and truly did. But her noises, and soft skin, and hot, warm breath, and-

It was all too much.

He could feel his jaw working as he got progressively more and more wound up, taking all of his willpower to resist the urge to rip at her clothes.

He knew what lay just beneath the surface, could only imagine what her breast felt like as he listened to her breath, heavy and panting. All he had to do was reach out-

Suddenly, He pulled back with a sharp intake of air, his eyes holding a dangerous concoction of love, true love, and an untamed want.

Whether it was the new position they found themselves in or something else…but he could feel himself about to snap.

“I’m sorry…I shouldn’t push so hard. You’ve already given me so much”

The soft indents of flesh along her side quickly rushed with blood as his fingers relinquished the hold on her waist.

“No please…take. Take what you want…take me” Evelyn practically pleaded, immediately chiding herself for allowing someone to have this effect on her.

“Be…” he inhaled again, through his nose to clear his head, controlled and calculated “…Be very careful how you word things to me”

“I know what I’m saying. And I mean it. Take me”

Her own voice sounded foreign to her.

And yet didn’t to Ominis.

He recognised the breathy, airy sound of her arousal. The way each inhale took just a second too long as it caught in her throat. The way her breath was hot against his lips. And there was a husk to it he knew only he had heard.

He’d heard it when she woke in a morning, mind caught between slumber and reality. Vulnerable and soft.

He’d heard it when he kissed her, the first word afterwards always carrying the barest hint of a croak.

And he’d heard it when his fingers roamed between her legs. Every murmur, every moan that very same ache to her voice.

It was a privilege to know her this intimately. To be the only one to ever know her this intimately.

And that he was so close to more. More of her.

All of her.

An act he should be terrified of…but wasn’t.

If Ominis was being honest, and rather pessimistic with himself, he never expected to get this far. With anyone.

From his early teenage years he assumed he’d never kiss anyone. Never feel the touch of someone’s skin and it mean anything more than an accidental stumble or at best a gesture of friendship.

And then he met her.

Evelyn and her perfectly smooth voice and fingers that sought him out. No accident needed.

“Are you sure?” He asked as he pulled away from her, propping himself up with one arm, the other holding her waist as though holding something precious and delicate. The heat had melted from his voice, leaving only concern and worry behind. It wasn’t that he no longer wanted her, that couldn’t be further from the truth. He wanted her to be certain.

“I’m…sure…”

Suddenly it felt real…

Panic. Clear panic bubbled in her throat…there was still doubt.

Not with him. He would be perfect, as always…

But since Ominis and Evelyn had gotten closer, she had made the mistake of researching. And her discoveries were…less than appealing.

Every muggle novel or article described her experience as a violation. An abomination of her virtue and destruction of her self worth. The words ‘whore’ and ‘harlot’ jumped from the pages. Combined with what she had heard people say of her own mother as a child…a single mother out of wedlock…it simply didn’t seem worth it.

And the Wizarding World wasn’t too much better.

Yes, Sex was much less frowned upon amongst her fellow witches and wizards. But the almost clinical way that it was described left her feeling no better.

‘A sharp shooting pain can be felt during a woman’s first time as the hyman tears making it an uncomfortable and sometimes painful experience’

That sentence alone bounced around her head.

Pain. Whore. Tear. Violation.

No where, except the fantasies of romance writers, described the ordeal as anything positive. Joyous. Fun.

They were supposed to make love…yet no where even uttered the word.

“…I’m just...” she started, voice shaking just as much as the fingers she clung to him with “…I’m scared…”

“I’d be worried if you weren’t…” Ominis chuckled softly, cupping her cheek and running his thumb across the soft expanse. “I am too in truth…We can take things slowly. And we can stop at any moment. You need only say…”

“I’m not worried about that. It’s going to hurt…” she stated, matter of factly

“I…” he swallowed thickly, but continuing on with a tenderness to his voice “…have heard that can be the case…I’ll be as gentle as you need me to be…but you may be right. It could hurt…”

Evelyn squeezed her eyes closed, taking a calming breath in and blowing back through her lips. The cool air fanned over Ominis, a concerned albeit soft smile tugging at his lips.

“I want it to be you…” she whispered, hastily looking at the gap between them and tugging her skirt up. He quickly snapped up her hand, stilling her movements.

“It doesn’t have to be now or-”

“No let’s just…get it over with” she muttered wriggling in his firm but gentle grasp

“Evelyn…” he held her wrist loosely, making sure not to hurt her, eyes hard and face stoic “…I mean it. It doesn’t have to be now. Or ever if you don’t want to. I love you…not your body.”

She blinked.

No where had she read about this.

“Do you mean that?”

“Stupid question really…” Ominis scoffed, his hand releasing her wrist and trailing up her arm. His hand journeyed slowly up to the side of her neck, slowly tracing across her moles on her cheek pointedly before placing his palm against her neck. “…considering I hadn’t touched you properly for the first two years of us knowing each other and yet still fell in love with you”

His fingers travelled softly across her neck, feeling her heart hammering against the soft flesh below her jaw.

“Well…yes but-“

“But nothing, Evelyn” he interrupted “What you say goes. You want to continue? I will oblige. You want me to be forever at your side and never touch you again? I will oblige”

He laughed through his nose, hanging his head a little lower as though telling her a secret “I can’t say I wouldn’t miss your lips…” he murmured as his thumb diverted to run along her lip “…but I would do anything to make you happy”

Evelyn once again found herself at a loss for words though she knew the course she wanted to take.

With her words failing her, she did the only thing she could think of, leaning up to place a soft gentle kiss against his lips.

“Just…take it slow” she whispered against him, falling back against the pillow as a gentle rumble left his throat.

“With pleasure” Ominis murmured before pulling himself away from her.

She almost whined, protesting against his sudden absence, when his eyes darkened.

The way he knelt above her, as though he could see the fast rise and fall of her chest sent shivers down her spine. Shivers she was convinced he could feel, because his hands chased them.

They traced, slowly and methodically, down from her cheek to her waist. They stopped at every juncture that caused her breath to hitch.

The sensitive spot below her jaw that he brushed against, pulling the emerald green ribbon from her lapels.

Her stomach as he skillfully and methodically unbuttoned her shirt.

Her collarbone that his nails grazed, peeling her blouse back.

He almost entirely ignored her breasts, though they heaved and settled as he removed her clothing. It almost made her…needy, wanting to demand he touch her and pull those soft whines from her like he did before.

She soon realised why he avoided that area…

He had other plans.

Like a distraction, his fingers played over the scar along her side, tracing the swirling gnarled skin and finding beauty in it. Beauty in the marks that littered his own body. Beauty in her soft skin and enduring nature.

Then he suddenly yearned to taste that soft skin, head dipping quickly to encapsulate her soft peak in his mouth.

She gasped, harsh and loud, back arching and eyes going wide as her body grew warmer, the familiar buzz tingling its way between her legs..

Ominis simply chuckled, grinning whilst his mouth was full, his warmth breath fanning across her chest. As he grinned, his teeth scrapped across her small mounds, another harsh gasp making her push into his mouth further. Obviously, he did not complain, nipping at the tiny bud at the peak of her breast, tugging it between his teeth.

His fingers didn’t cease in their journey either. After exploring their shared scar, his nimble digits fell like rainfall to her hips and thighs.

Unknowingly, or more likely knowing exactly what he was doing, his sightless eyes looked up at her, his grin wide, her flesh tucked between his teeth. He tugged again gently, earning himself another sinful gasp before chuckling darkly, releasing her breast from his torment and continuing down…

Down…

Down his kisses trailed. Along the ever quickening rise and fall of her stomach, over the boney divots of her hip bones.

He rose on his knees just enough to tug her skirt down and off her legs, feeling the tremble of her thighs as he did.

Thats when he listened. Heard her soft shaking breath. Felt the quake in her body. Heard the way her hands slid over her skin, covering anywhere exposed.

He discarded her skirt with a flourished wrist and turned his attention back to her fully. He felt out her wrist and pulled it away from her chest, holding it loosely away from her.

“Darling…” he whispered, his tone full of accidental amusement “…I’m blind”

“Well yes but…” Evelyn choked out a nervous laugh, squirming beneath his non existent gaze “…instinct I suppose”

Ominis sighed, the jovial tone now lost.

Using her wrist and hooking underneath her knee, he lifted her with ease, pushing her just a little bit more up the bed. Her back now propped against his pillows, leaving her no choice but to look down at her almost completely nude form.

“You have nothing to worry about” he said softly, sitting up between her legs, his fingers idly tracing over her thighs, carefully and slowly dipping below the band of her underwear.

“You are beautiful” he stated with no room for arguments.

He deliberately took his time removing her underclothes. If at any point she wished to stop him, his movements would cease and her virtue remain intact.

But she didn’t.

She simply clung to the sheets below her, staring up at the man above her treating her like fine China.

Once again as her underwear came away, he felt the shake of her leg. Her nerves were understandable but they simply would not do.

Before he allowed her leg to drop down, raised high as he removed that last shred of clothing, he gripped her calf with barely contained want and brought it up to his lips. He pressed along her smooth skin, peppering along her leg till he reached her knee.

“You’re so soft. So warm” he murmured against her skin lowering himself to reach her thighs. He positioned her leg over his shoulder, almost burying his face in the pillowy flesh of her thigh.

“You have no reason to hide…from anyone” he whispered inching closer and closer to the apex of her thighs.

It was only when he placed a kiss against a particularly sensitive patch of her skin that she shook herself from her haze.

Her hand flew forward, grabbing him by the hair and pushing him away.

“What are you doing?” She panted, her voice filled with fear.

She didn’t anticipate that doing that would elicit such a reaction from him.

With her hand still knotted in his hair, his neck craned backwards and his milky eyes seemingly foggier than normal, he looked…sinful. Lips parted and wet from his constant kisses. Jaw flexing in anger from being ripped from his conquest. A dark smile revealing sharp teeth as he chuckled.

“I was enjoying you” he groaned, fingers digging into her hips as he held back “I can stop…but this will be so much easier if you’re ready”

“I am ready” she argued, gulping back the idea of his face buried…there.

Ominis rolled his eyes and couldn’t stop the sarcastic chuckle that left him.

“Please…” he scoffed indignantly, fingers relinquished their grip on her hip to slide under and trace her folds.

Sometimes his memory annoyed him. How he could recall, in detail, every minor inflection someone had in their voice in an argument. How he could still remember the texture of Bubotuber Puss against his skin after yet another catastrophic potions class.

But right now…his memory served him well.

Every divot and fold of her core ran through his mind. He recalled how her fingers pleasured herself and exactly how he could replicate it. The way he had memorised her, gave him a pinpoint accuracy for her desire and the slickness that awaited him.

“You need to-“ his breath caught and his eyes widened when his fingers dipped between.

As before, her need was evident.

He couldn’t help but gulp, his own arousal straining against the confounds of his trousers at this…revelation.

Oh she was indeed ready.

But this little discovery only made him more eager to have her…to taste her.

“Just trust me” he tried to whisper but instead his voice came out as a rough growl. He hoped it didn’t scare her, cursing himself for his thinly veiled want.

“It’s just…” her fingers tightened in his hair and he let out a sharp hiss, his hips flexing against the mattress and sending a shiver up his spine “…it seems so…wrong”

“Is it so wrong to want you to come apart?” He asked as softly as he could manage. With his gentle tone her fingers relaxed, still tangled in his pale locks but no longer holding him back like a rabid dog.

“No but-“

“And is it so wrong for it to be me who does that?” He whispered, slowly lowering himself giving her all the time in the world to stop him.

“No…” her voice broke

“Then do not deny me, love”

He allowed a silent beat to pass between them before he lowered further.

…Then his tongue replaced wherever his fingers had been.

Evelyn couldn’t deny that the feeling was…beyond her comprehension. She gasped loudly and rolled her head back against the pillow, his tongue working to relax every muscle in her body, as though each and every one of her nerves were being stimulated. She felt a heat course through her body.

Strange how an act can be so arousing, so utterly tempting that it winds the spring in your core tighter…and yet also work to immediately satiate that need.

As she gasped and groaned, Ominis did the same, her noises fuelling every flick of his tongue. And he found that each time he hummed or murmured his approval, she shivered and pressed herself down further onto his waiting tongue.

Unknowingly, His nose bumped against that bumble of nerves each time she bucked and moaned beneath him.

And soon it became more of a battle than a slow dance.

His hand strained against her hips, trying and failing to suppress her eager mewling. Until eventually he had enough, looping his arm over her leg, forcing it down as his hand crept up her torso. He gently coaxed her back down, flat against the mattress, feeling each moan vibrate from her chest.

He almost growled, though he contained his grimace against the sensitive area he now resided.

He lapped greedily, like a man starved. And though he was obviously blind, Evelyn noticed as she looked down his eyes were squeezed shut, delighting in every moan he pulled from her.

His tongue, flat and wide, travelled up her form. From her core to the sensitive nub atop, he replaced any wetness with his own.

“You are…” he interrupted himself, another feverish lap up her folds, his nose buried deep against that little spot again “…you taste…”

He flexed every muscle against her, a desperate attempt to stop himself crashing into her like a tidal wave. To trap her beneath him and dine upon her for hours.

Because he was not lying.

His condition made him sensitive to everything else around him. And her warm scent and sweet taste were a perfect addition to her already beautiful symphony of moans and sensations.

“…perfect…” he groaned, his tongue voraciously seeking any point that made her tremble.

He was almost angry for a moment that he could have been potentially deprived of this. Just another layer of her person that he knew and no one else did.

Another facet being just how…needy she was.

He knew this from her guiding him against her before but now…

As he spoke, she pushed softly on his head coaxing him back down even from his brief reprieve…

“Don’t…stop…” she panted, her back desperately trying to arch off the bed yet being held firm by his long arm snaking up to her chest.

And he obliged, diving eagerly back to lap, suckle and nip at her with an increased passion and intensity.

His focus became unwavering against her clit. His attention undivided as he felt her hand grip at his hair as though keeping him in his place. His tongue flicking over and over again groaning from the cacophony of sensations he could feel from her. And the delicious vibration of his tongue made her almost weep.

The ache in her stomach fell lower and lower, her mind reeling that she had almost stopped this.

And now he emphatically dined upon her, keeping her teetering on the edge. Torture in its most blissful form.

“Ah-“ Evelyn whispered before a sharp whimper cut through the otherwise silent room.

Because in her reverie, she hadn’t noticed his other hand move from her hip…and press against her entrance. His fingers curled inside her, filling his ears with such pretty little noises.

A breath caught moan seized in her throat, the only oxygen permitted being sharp little inhales as his finger left and married with another.

Her vision muddied as she bit into her lip, trying and failing to ease her need for him. Everything longed for him. Her stomach ached for more. Not more fingers, not more of the same. Him.

But she was so close.

And not a few seconds later, his fingers beckoning her and his lips locked over her, tongue fluttering…she sank. Sank into the sheets, fingers sinking into his hair, knees buried in his side.

With a loud whimper, nullified through her teeth, she found her release. The tension and fear surrounding the whole ordeal seemed meaningless now as she lay swimming in a hazy soft buzz.

Ominis simply smiled, a purr of satisfaction leaving him as he removed himself from between her legs. He could feel the heat radiating from her. Feel her slick against his nose, lips and fingers. Feel the tremble of her thighs as he situated himself between them again, pulling and spreading her apart.

“We can stop at that…” he murmured, his voice a much lower register than normal, leaning down to kiss along her neck.

It wasn’t completely a lie.

He would happily leave their evening at this, leave her to recover and snuggle into his side. Listen to her soft breathing as they fell asleep.

But even Evelyn, as naive about these affairs as she was, knew he wanted more.

If it weren’t for the brief glimpse of his darkened eyes, it was the hard and throbbing length pressed against her lower stomach as he leant down.

She tried to silence the gasp of shock as it pressed against her but failed. The noise itself sending him into overdrive and taking every shred of his willpower to resist the urge to rut against her.

“No…” she panted “…I want all of you”

Suddenly, she felt as though there were a time limit. As though every second not touching him was wasted time. Her hands sought him out, pushing the folds of his shirt off his shoulders whilst her other hand fumbled with the buttons of his trousers. And once again he encapsulated her wrists in his long fingers.

“Let me take care of you. I just need you to…” he bit his tongue, not really knowing how to phrase such a thing “…are you sure?”

Evelyn nodded feverishly, the haze of her climax still clouding her mind

“Certain…”

With her confirmation, he once again sat up on his knees, tugging at his trousers and underwear and releasing his throbbing member.

It was though the act of seeing him fully for the first time wiped clear the warm fuzzy feeling of her release.

And she gulped.

Because though she hadn’t seen a man naked before, she’d seen diagrams and pictures in books…that looked...large

Its leaking tip glistened in the low light of the Undercroft and the pale pink of it seemed so much darker against his alabaster skin. Almost angry.

“Is…something wrong?” He muttered, gripping the waistband of his trousers, brows furrowing.

“Fine!” She blurted out hoping her lack of breathing hadn’t given him a complex.

She had forgotten for a while…this was his first too.

“It’s just…” she murmured, not being able to take her eyes of it as it swung low. Without thinking, she reached forward, curious to see its comparison to her own fingers.

The moment her finger brushed against the wet tip, it twitched violently and Ominis hissed sharply through his teeth.

“I’m sorry. Did that hurt? Did I…I just wanted to see…” she stammered, pulling her hands back against her chest, retreating away from it as though looking at it could harm him.

“No just…a little warning next time” Ominis said softly, that same nervous cadence to his voice from earlier. The same nervous energy she had displayed not minutes ago…

“Can I-” Evelyn murmured, her hands reaching forward again.

“Yes…” he breathed, sucking in a breath sharply and keeping it in his throat.

This time when she touched him, he didn’t flinch. She marvelled at how soft it was. She didn’t know what to expect when it had been described as ‘hard’ in so many books. She almost expected it to be like stone. Or like tree bark. But it was smooth like silk.

Until she squeezed and realised just why it was described that way. Not only was it much bigger than her fingers but it somehow seemed harder than bone.

A thrill shot up her spine as she watched him.

His eyes fluttered closed as her hand closed around his girth.

His cheeks tinged pink, flushed and flustered unlike she’d ever seen him before.

Lips pursed and wet from her, his teeth biting into himself as she had.

Head rolling back and throat bobbing as she jumped softly away at him, almost out of instinct.

Was he feeling how she felt?

There was no way he wanted her like she wanted him? Yet it seemed that way. She gazed upon a perfect mirror image of herself in the throes of passion.

And she was…elated.

A sick tingle worked its way up her spine as she wondered, truly, how similar their attraction was.

What noises could she pull from him?

She quickly found out as her pace increased around his length and a deep groan left his chest.

Evelyn paused.

She did that…

An almost predatory grin split her face whilst her hand continued before being halted by the bucking of his hips and a desperate, shameful whimper tumbled from his lips.

“E-Evelyn…please” Ominis begged, his stomach clenching almost doubling over as he pulled himself from her grasp.

“Am I hurting you?” She asked, almost embarrassed. She thought she was doing well…for a complete novice.

“No you’re…” he shuddered and bought himself back down to her level, nuzzling into her neck “…you’re perfect. Perhaps too perfect” he laughed against her neck, teething at the skin along her collarbone.

Though the intimacy had taken several steps back, it somehow felt more heated.

Not a moment before she held him gently between her hands, the evidence of her own arousal glistening on his flushed face…

…now he just gently nibbled on her neck.

But something about that alone made her arch and moan into him, earning those same noises from Ominis.

His hips flexed and she felt the twitching and, somehow, harder length rub against her lower stomach. Her soft yet lustful moans were sending his body into overdrive. It was becalming an increasingly difficult task to stop himself losing it and rutting against her as hard as he could. Out of pure primal instinct, she lifted her legs and knotted them around his waist, his member falling to brush softly against her folds.

They both gasped, Ominis pulling back to gaze sightlessly down at her.

“Are you sure about this?” He asked, his brows furrowing, forehead crinkling with concern.

Evelyn struggled to hear him over her own heartbeat, hammering in her ears.

“Yes…” she breathed, tilting her hips down towards the twitching arousal at her core.

Ominis sighed, his warm breath fanning over her face. He rocked to the side slightly, leaning his weight on one arm, his other disappearing below. Evelyn watched until his hand was between them, following the cascading moles on his body, the flexing of his muscles and tendons underneath ivory skin. She followed the movements of him looming over her until she reached his eyes, staring off to her right somewhere…

…and they still carried that same concern. That same worry.

As though he could sense her curious eyes trying to read him like a book, he laughed nervously and bit his lip.

“You may need to…guide me” he murmured, voice heavy with something she couldn’t quite identify. Shame? Anxiety? Embarrassment?

He’s feeling the same as I am

As though that wasn’t clear from the shaking of his hands.

Evelyn bit the inside of her lip, suppressing the relieved smile that threatened to expose her. Her hands snaked up to cup his face, his eyes immediately fluttering closed at the comforting gesture.

“Of course…” she whispered before she felt the dull poke of his arousal at her core. Her breath caught on the lump in her throat, his tip swiping up between her wet folds.

Even that, and that alone, made a gruff grumble vibrated through Ominis. And again a sick thrill shot up her spine.

I haven’t even done anything and-

“There!” Evelyn squeaked, immediately humbled as he pulled himself back down to her core.

“Ready?” Ominis asked a final time, as her shallow breathes became faster. She nodded and he simply laughed, despite himself… “You need to talk, love. I don’t know what that rustling of hair means”

“Sorry…yes…I’m ready…” she breathed so quietly even his ears had to strain to hear.

“Okay” he pressed his lips to her forehead before pushing his hips forward.

…

It was like…the worst cramp she had ever experienced.

And it somehow travelled up her spine and down each limb.

She arched her back silently, almost to retreat away from the ache, only to push him further inside with a high pitched yelp.

And Ominis felt guilty immediately.

Because she was so warm. And so wet. And so welcoming. Even with her nails digging into the sides of his head.

It took all of his willpower to halt, cease his movements and feel more of her silken walls.

“Are you okay?” He croaked, all of his energy going into stopping himself from driving into her deeper. Torture in its finest form.

She didn’t respond.

But he could hear, actually hear each individual heartbeat that hammered against her ribs. And it was fast. Scarily…fast…

“Evelyn?” He said almost sternly, all traces of the previous restraint gone, replaced with immeasurable worry. His hand darted to the side of her face, trying to feel for any indication of her wellbeing.

“I’m fine…” she muttered cautiously, her back relaxing against the mattress.

The steadying breaths she inhaled through her nose and out through her mouth allowed her time for her body to adjust. And though the initial snap was sharp and painful, she could now feel herself moulding and conforming to him.

And he felt…almost good.

She opened her eyes, a few tears trickling down the side of her face and looked up at him.

And giggled.

And her walls clamped around him impossibly tighter.

So whilst she was giggling and relishing in the moment, Ominis struggled. Which only made her giggle more, his face contorting with pleasure as she did.

“T-that’s not fair” he panted, his sharp cheekbones turning a pretty pink.

“I’m sorry…” she whispered through barely suppressed laughter.

“You’re okay though, yes?” He asked with increased panic as the tears that leaked from her reached his hand.

“Right now…here in this moment, with you…I’m perfect” she reassured, her thumbs running across his cheeks.

Ominis froze, his features melting to a soft and gentle smile. A smile reserved only for her.

“You’re always perfect…” he murmured, lowering his body down to hers and nuzzling into her neck. His lips danced over her skin softly, earning himself a pleased little hum from her throat. Just the noise itself made his cock twitch inside her and that ‘pleased little hum’ morphed into a sinful whimper.

Which he revelled in…drank it all in, committed it all to memory.

Memorising every noise she made, every whimper and moan and delicious breath that he caused her to choke on.

Noting every touch of her skin and every point of contact. Her soft breasts heaving against his own hard chest. The bones of her pelvis that dug into his every time he pushed into her.

Her soft delicate hands that dropped from his face to his shoulders and dropped further as his pace quickened.

The scorching lines her nails left on his back with each slow, sensual thrust into her.

And he could feel his resolve breaking.

Feel himself drowning in her.

And quickly at that.

Which he expected. Sebastian had told him, he wouldn’t last long.

But now that he was in it, he yearned for more.

So his pace quickened further. His length plunged deeper. Hips slamming harder.

He wanted to feel more. Feel all of her. Couldn’t get enough of her. And with time working against him…he’d have to make the most of it.

Evelyn, was simply happy the pain hadn’t lasted long. And now she could fully experience him with none of the negatives.

And there were no negatives.

He seemed to fill her completely, in a way she didn’t know was possible. An image of his swollen member flashed across her eyelids and she was impressed she was managing to take it.

With every grind of his hips, she felt her core throb. It was a pleasant ache, like the soreness of your jaw after eating too many sweets. And she could feel herself coming undone.

“E-Eve…” Ominis panted, dampening the skin of her neck.

No…just a little longer

She could hear his groans turning softer and his hips stuttering.

And with presumably very little time to discuss it, she forced her hand in between them and quickly ran her fingers over her sensitive and throbbing nub.

The knot in her stomach loosened incredibly quickly, the combination of his girth and her quick little fingers filling her with an untold level of pleasure.

And unlike normally when she reached her climax she couldn’t feel herself clench and tighten.

But he did.

He felt her pulse and tremble around him. Felt her tighten and her back arch and her loud moan that seemed to vibrate through him. She seemed to pull him deeper, an uncontrollably and irregular contraction that consumed him.

And with a guttural rasp, he found his own release, his arm looping around her raised waist and squeezing her tighter.

Whereas, Evelyn did the opposite. Her arms fell limply back to mattress as she felt him empty inside her, the pleasant buzz of her climax once again filling her body.

Ominis clung to the feeling, to her, afraid that it may have all been a dream. It felt like a dream.

The woman he loved, beneath him, wanting him.

His mind spiralled, a clarity running through him and filling him with doubt.

And as usual, as though she were expert it Legilimancy, she felt his swing toward the negative and brought her hands around him. Her fingernails traced delicately down the heaving expanse of his back soothing his buzzing mind.

And he hummed, his body finally relaxing and almost drowning her under his weight.

Evelyn simply laughed, a refreshing and light noise that filled Ominis’ chest with warmth.

He could feel her body calming similar to his, though her heart still raced and her skin was still radiant.

“You’re so beautiful like this, all flushed skin and breathless” he mumbled into her neck, his lips brushing against her collarbone as he spoke, his voice a much lower register than normal.

He rolled up onto his elbow, his fingers unwrapping from her waist and travelling to her face.

He was greeted with the soft smile he associated with her. The face he kept stored for her at all times, only she had a glow about her he couldn’t quite pinpoint.

And she took the opportunity to finish the sentence that started all of this.

“I love you” she whispered, leaning into his palm.

“I love you too”

Masterlist

[whataboutsimple]

Wanted to put some coins into whole Romeo conversation,

Bassicaly I saw some people speaking of how in the world Romeo could lost his powers and in my personal opinion.. he didn't. He simply tricked us, Jesse and the player.

Let's put some logic here: there's no way someone as powerful as Admin would've just let a human, Jesse, wander around the Sunshine Institute without watching them. No way he wouldn't hear or see Jesse flying around with elytra. NO WAY he wouldn't put Xara in the freaking Bedrock cage.

So what? Imma about to tell you: he played it. All of it. Fred never created the gauntlet, Xara never left the institute, they never took his power away. From the very begginig and till the very end he was playing with us.

Let's say, for example, admins don't need a gauntlet to took each others powers. Then why would Fred create one? Well, maybe in case Romeo would took Xara's powers as well (which he did). But did he really expected Xara to go all the way through all the puzzles without Romeo noticing she's doing something strange? Nah, bro, I ain't belivieng it.

Plus, if Xara knew about gauntlet, why didn't she just teleported there to took it just in case Romeo would took her powers away, so she can use it the moment he'll do it?

And if Admins do need the gauntlet as well, it raises two questions:

How did they found out about this?

Why Romeo didn't destroy the gauntlet the moment he put Xara in Sunshine Institute?

Either way this whole "gauntlet" thing is too suspicious to be truth.

Sure we didn't forget Romeo didn't kill Jesse the moment he felt they are too dangerous for him. He IS the Admin. He can do whatever the heck he wants to. Unless.. it's all part of the plan.

You see, he surely got bored. From Xara's anger, from Institute, from just watching. So he decided to put up a little play. How could he throw away his past life in a beautiful way? Of course he needs a strong Hero to defeat him! That way it won't be embarassing! But.. no one can truly do this. He is the only Admin left and it's too risky to give Xara her powers back. So let's create a little story about the gauntlet and took World's most famous Hero: Jesse!

It's all simple, trully. Make Jesse angry, make them break the rules. Send them into Sunshine Instutite and let Xara activate alarm system, so they would knew about her. Put a bit more anger in them and their friends and leave to have a bit of fun pretending to be Jesse, while he learns the "story of the mystic gauntlet that Fred left".

Let them do all the funny puzzles, put a little show with glitching and stuff. Okay, now you are "defeated". Will they save you? Doesn't matter, you can teleport. Either way he gets out of there and what now? He can start all over agian. Maybe he'll go to portal Network to visit other worlds he had no access to. Maybe he'll find some new people to manipulate, it's always fun, right? Maybe Xara will stop being a bitch and will finally accept his friendship again!

Doesn't matter. He may seem deafeted, but in the very end he's always the winner. Admins can't loose. Real Admins can't loose.

[knight-dwx-09]

The New Admin

Jaune angrily open his bedroom’s door and slam it as hard as he can before storming into his bed and face plant on his pillow.

Jaune: Stupid Dad! Stupid Mom! Stupid Sisters! I did managed to save Jeanne from a Grimm so why can’t I become a huntsman?

Alexander: And that almost cost you your life

Jaune stop for a moment at the echo of his dad, turning his body to the roof and showing tears in his eyes. All the frustration and anger has left his body, and now, the only thing left was sadness and pain as he speak in a defeat tone.

Jaune: Why didn’t you believe in me dad? Am I really that talentless that you wouldn’t give me a chance? I just want to make you proud… make everyone proud…

He want to curled up to himself and go to sleep, hoping that it was just a nightmare… but a part of him still want to become a hero, even if his family didn’t believe in him. Then out of nowhere, a blue screen materialize in thin air with message on it.

It was…

Jaune: Huh? “Welcome to the system, Developer”? What is this?

[This is the developer’s Semblance]

Jaune: *Tilted his head* And what is a semblance?

[System level is too low to provide the answer]

Jaune: *Titled his head even more* huh… is there anything I need to know?

[The system will help the developer to grow stronger and reach the dream developer has]

[Aura are needed to open up the system]

Jaune: So I need this aura to keep whatever this is going?

[Incorrect]

[System will always be active even without aura but required it to access the system]

Jaune: And what is an Aura?

[System level is too low to provide the answer]

Jaune frowned at the exact same answer it had given to him.

Jaune: Then can you tell me at least how I can increase the level of the system?

[By gathering enough point through killing monster and change the story for the better then invest it to the system]

He began to piece some stuff together and from what he can gather, this system feel like some RPG game where you grow stronger by gaining experience and level up from beating the enemies and completing quests.

Then, he can become a huntsman even if he was talentless and this immediately brighten up him as a smile creep onto his face.

[Please chose one person to become your player]

Jaune: Huh?

[Developer can have one player to begin with. Having a player under the system will help the Developer to grow at higher rate]

Jaune: And how does that help me to grow?

[System level is too low to provide the answer]

At this point, that sentence had become really annoying to hear.

Jaune: Fine, as long as this can help me to become a hero

[That is correct]

[When Developer grow strong enough and have mastery over the system. New features could be added to benefit both Developer and the players]

Jaune simply nodded his head as he read the message.

[So please, choose one person to become Developer’s player]

Then a list of names appears on the screen which some he knows like his family, and lots of he doesn’t know.

[List of potential players]

- Ruby Rose

- Yang Xiao Long

- Lie Ren

- Pyrrha Nikos

- Weiss Schnee

- Juniper Arc (Locked)

- Alexander Arc (Locked)

- Trivia Vanille

- Ozma (Locked)

- Zwei

[Press here for the next page]

[Developer may choose only one player for now]

[Warning: The player will be given the choice if they want to accept to become Developer’s player. If they decline, Developer will be unable to pick them for 3 years. But don’t worry, Developer can choose another player immediately]

After reading all of that, this cause him to become extremely nervous at who he will choose since he could only have one at first. He want to pick the names he recognize but…

Jaune: Why even bother showing me my parents if I can’t choose them?

[System level is too low to provide the answer]

His eye twitch in annoyance.

[crypt-void]

So I have this bit, right? It's been a while since I've done it, but if I bring it up with my friends, they can still easily understand or remember the joke.

It's called the Dan Rules. It's often comedically egotistical and vain and was made because out of our little group, it was a joke that I am (as an act) an eccetric (maybe enigmatic if I'm feeling fancy) person who does whatever the hell I want.

If people thought to question my behavior, it was often quickly followed with a "that's just Dan" from my friends and easily dismissed. Sure, some of my boldness was probably left over from my middle school years, where I felt I had to lean into my weirdness completely so people would see me more as a joke than a freak.

But then I found myself in a safe, accepting environment, one where the need to bite and snarl and run away never came. I waited a while for it to arrive for me to feel the need to play the part of the fool for my newfound companions entertainment. It shocked me when I was left with genuine love and compassion. I leaned out of self-deprecating humor and completely into the (very obviously joking and fake) role of an egotistical short and angry ruler. For fucks sake we still have the name of the group chat as "Dantopia". I still did the bit to entertain my friends, to keep them laughing at my antics. But this time, it was accompanied by my own laughter. I enjoyed a new sense of freedom it brought.

The Dan Rules came out of when we were messing around, and I'd lean into this foolish king role, and I would proclaim something insane or childish. A popular one was, "Dan is never wrong." Often followed by a warranted scoff.

But the second rule is a good one, I think, one that really shone through as a reminder that I am not now who I was before.

"I do what I want."

I hadn't had much freedom before I met my current group of friends. I was quiet and kept quiet at times. I felt muzzled and chained, and as if I was a dog because someone forced a collar around my throat and pulled me on a leash.

It wasn't only that I didn't have the choice of self-expression, though. I'd also seen what happened to people who gave too much into reckless. I grew up with the weight of their actions carried on my shoulders, and while I have always been bold in my identity and beliefs, I was quiet and still when presented the opportunities to escape from situations where people kicked me down for who I was. I feared what would happen if I left my old group. Ironically, this fear led me to be isolated.

I found myself almost completely alone in the pandemic, and my only saving grace was a new school with new people. New people who didn't tell me to shut up or that I was ugly or that I needed to stop acting like an animal or they'd treat me like one. Instead, I met friends who handled me gently and taught me it was okay to hug just as it's okay to bark, and they welcomed me. I felt at home. I felt as if I knew myself completely.

So, with the second rule, which I still follow to this day, I added a private note.

"I do what I want. Because I can trust myself to."

Know thyself

I can trust myself to bark or scowl or growl just as much as I can to love and kiss and hug. I can stay aware of what is and isn't good and how much or how little I can trust someone. I can be bold and loving all at once and welcome others with open arms and flashing fangs.

I am in complete control over myself, and even when I am doing something so I can see my friends laugh, I am also doing it because I can, and I do what I want.

[thatonebirdwrites]

Cheating Death Part 3

Part 1 and Part 2 Doctor Alex Danvers and Karen Starr moved in perfect symmetry, as they worked to extract the bullets.

Kara had sensed the one that punctured Lena's lung, but another had been hidden by her spine. Her stomach rumbled, but the granola bar Nia had dropped off sat uneaten in Kara's pocket. Instead, she kept her vigil, her stomach knotted at the sight of Lena's still form. Alex had been stiff-lipped about the prognosis. Each second, minute, hour, Lena still breathed, unconscious, while the doctors sewed her body back together. Machines hummed and beeped, and Kara took to pacing a groove into the floor. Nia had tried twice to convince her to come eat with the others, but Kara couldn't leave Lena.

If she did, she'd do more dangerous stunts, testing the edge of her powers, just to not feel the intense shame, fear, and worry that throbbed through her muscles.

One of the nurses rushed out of the room. "Rh-null blood!" she shouted to one of the technicians, further down the medical wing. "We need another batch!"

"That's our last one!" the technician called back. "Ms. Lena Luthor was our only donor."

"What do you mean Rh-null blood?" Kara asked, anxiously.

"Need it to prevent hemolysis," the nurse said. "Her blood type is one of the rarest, compatible as a donor with any human blood type, but only able to receive Rh-null blood in return."

Dread curdled through Kara. "When does she need this?"

"As soon as possible," the nurse glanced back at Alex and the other doctor.

Alex leaned over Lena's bed with her tools, her body blocking the spine region from view. They'd propped Lena up on her side with a thick pillow on the other. Her skin was pallid, deep shadows under her eyes, and her body limp against the body pillow. A terrifying sight for Kara.

Kara clenched her jaw. She pushed past the nurse despite the nurse's protestations. "Alex! Does she need another transfusion?"

Alex waved a blood-stained glove at her. "Kara, don't interrupt, and yes. Nurse --"

"We're out of her blood type. Nurse said it was super rare, is that true?" Kara ached to reach out to hold Lena's limp hand, but she didn't want to disturb the delicate surgery.

Alex looked up. Even with the mask, she looked haggard. "Well shit. And yes. i wouldn't even know how to begin to find it. All the stock we had is what Lena herself donated. She's one of the few Rh-null donors in the world."

Kara grimaced. "Then what about synthetic blood? I could make some in the Fortress if I had a sample of her blood."

"Synthetic? Would her body reject it?" Dr. Karen Starr glanced at Kara, her eyebrows scrunched. She held a scalpel in her hand, its edge gleaming silver in the florescent lighting.

"Not if it's an exact match. I should be able to replicate down to the atomic level, but..." Kara nibbled on her lower lip and the urge to weep nearly overcame her. "I could only do a small amount. It takes considerable time and energy to do larger batches. Maybe enough for one or two transfusions."

She didn't want to admit that it had been years since she did any science of this magnitude, and that had been with Kryptonian blood, which differed slightly from human. The protocol for working the synthesizers was the same regardless.

One of the monitors beeped. Alex cursed again. "She's dipping again. Starr we may need a breathing tube if she continues to dive." She stripped off her gloves, tossed them in the bio-waste, and replaced them. "Kara, if you can pull that off, then we need it as soon as possible." She used the IV to pull a small vial of blood. She handed it to Kara.

"I'll be back in a jiffy." She dashed out of the room, leaving a gust of wind in her wake.

Again the sonic boom rattled the windows of National City. The blood vial she held close to her chest.

Returning to the Fortress so soon left her feeling ill.

Here Lena had saved her from Rama Khan. Here Lena and her had fought. And here, Lena encased her in a Kryptonite ice cage. The horrifying truth was Kara could have broken free, it'd been painful, but she had the strength. Instead, she'd stood there, stunned.

If Lena had decided to kill her, Kara would have let it happen. There was no doubt in her mind; she could never fight Lena.

But Lena hadn't wanted to kill her. She'd done all she could to make sure Kara recovered fast. That seeded Kara's wrecked heart with a wild hope.

Turning down a side corridor, she raced for the medical wing of the fortress, the area she had not taken Lena. Inside a massive tube took up much of the room, with several medical instruments, machinery, and a control panel covered in Kryptonian glyphs.

She keyed the command for the synthesis of blood, a program coded into the Fortress long ago, likely when Kal's father sent it on its way.

She flipped open the side panel and inserted the tube. Now Lena Luthor's blood would join her own and Kal's in the archive, along with all of Kara's and Kal's family.

A three-dimensional DNA strand appeared in the air, along with various imaging of the cells contained in the blood. She keyed an analysis against her limited database, then keyed the command for a replica of the blood.

A red alert appeared requesting more material. Kara scowled, of course. Can't synthesize a larger amount from nothing.

She recalled a vague lesson from her father. How he'd used raw ingredients from plants to show her how any ingredients worked for synthesizer as long as it held the correct set of elements.

So, okay, raw ingredients could come from anything. So why not herself?

All that mattered was that the final product exactly match Lena's blood.

"Kara Zor El?" Kelex floated up to her. "Do you need assistance?"

She glanced at the floating robot. "Yes, actually. I need you to take my blood and put it in the synthesizer. It's low on ingredients."

He flew closer to the medical control panel. "This is human blood you are synthesizing. Are you certain you wish to do this?"

Kara rolled up her sleeve and held out her arm. "Yes, do it." She closed her eyes and tensed for the pain of a kryptonite needle. Kelex worked quietly. The soft slosh of blood in the tubing he'd hooked into the synthesizer rang with the hum of the machine.

She opened her eyes to see the data from her donation form on the other side of Lena's blood imaging. She watched in fascination as her blood was broken down into its smallest components and reassembled with Lena's parameters.

The entire process lasted fifteen minutes, but it felt like a lifetime. Kara kept shifting and nearly dislodged Kelex's needle from her vein twice.

When the signal rang for completion, Kelex applied an coagulating agent to her wound and gathered up the tubing. "This will be destroyed per protocol. Do you wish to destroy the original sample?"

Kara tugged the larger container free from the synthesizer. The smaller vial still sat in its slot. "Yes. Thanks Kelex. I got to go."

The entire flight back her head swam with dizziness from the blood draw, the night sky not at all conducive toward recovery. By the time she stumbled into the surgery room with the container, it'd been nearly twenty-five minutes.

"Please tell me I'm on time," she said.

Alex stared at the metal container. Several monitors beeped alarmingly in the background. "Yeah, yeah, how do I work it? Because she needs it now."

She showed Alex the set of controls and where the tube could be inserted for the transfer. "I tried to make enough to last awhile."

Alex swiftly hooked it up to Lena's IV. "All that from a small sample?"

"Well, not exactly." Kara rubbed the back of her neck. "I used my own blood as raw ingredients so the synthesizer could reformulate it for Lena."

"Shit." Alex's hand hesitated on the clip that would start the transfusion. "Are you sure it's safe?"

"Hundred percent match to the original sample. Do you have a choice?" Kara crossed her arms. "You said her blood type is rare."

"Nearest hospital with Rh-null stock has only a quarter of what we need," Dr. Starr said. She worked on the final stitches to Lena's spine surgery. "We've had no other replies on the network."

"Fine. Let's hope this works." She flicks the clip and breathes out a long sigh. "As for you," she pointed to Kara, "great work. Now shoo and go sit under the sunbed. You look pale as fuck." Alex waved her hands toward the door. "I'll let you know when she wakes."

When. Alex said when.

Hope dug its roots into Kara's heart for the first time that day. *** Light danced across her eyelids. Whispers echoed in her ears. Soft fabric lay across her skin. Pain melded with the aggravating thirst and pulsing headache.

If she was dead, then the pain would cease.

Which meant she was alive.

Her eyes slowly opened to a small room of mostly glass walls. She lay on a bed, and a sheet and blue blanket covered her body. Someone dressed in a white lab coat and black pants fiddled with the IV bags. Or rather one metal container that had a tube connected to her IV, its contents blood-red.

The red hair cropped short rang with familiarity. "Alex?" Lena rasped. Speaking hurt her throat. Her mouth way too dry.

The woman turned with a smile of relief. "Hey, the sleeping beauty finally awakes." She turned and lifted the blanket to adjust the blood pressure cuff and examine the IV needle in her elbow. "Maybe now my sister will stop bothering the hell out of me."

"Kara?" Lena struggled to comprehend what happened. "How? What is that? Why am I..." She tried to lift her finger to point at the container, but she seemed to have misplaced her strength on the stairwell.

"The signal watch." Alex lifted her head to study Lena, her eyebrows furrowed. "You're lucky. A few minutes later and I'm not sure even surgery would have saved you. You lost far too much blood. It's a good thing you donate blood a lot, as we had to do several transfusions. When our stock ran low, Kara raced to the fortress to synthesize more."

Lena struggled to parse Alex's words. "Synthesized?"

Alex shrugged. "I'm no expert on Kryptonian tech. That's Kara, Kal, and Brainy. All I know is she used her own blood as ingredients to craft a replica of yours."

"Her own blood?" Lena repeated, stunned.

But why? She'd raged at Kara, trapped her in a Kryptonite cage, deceived her for months, and yet Kara saved her? And why was Alex helping her? If Alex knew about the Kryptonite cage, she'd be more likely to shoot her or throw her in a cage to die. Not save her life.

Hot brands swept through her neck and back, and she hissed, her eyes briefly closing. The machine hummed next to her like an irritating bee. Each pump alleviated some of the dizziness, but the pain burned with a dogged persistence.

Alex reached over her to dim the lights. "Look, I get the whole being reluctant to use the watch. But for that situation? You should have used it sooner." She fiddled with a tablet. "Those bullets did some nasty damage."

She gave Lena a faint smile. "You also don't have to worry about Leviathan assassins any further. Kara took care of them."

"Took care of them?" She felt like a parrot, repeating words that made no sense to her. "But why? We -- we fought."

Alex hesitated far too long, her smile tight. "Ah, she just took care of them. They won't bother anyone going forward."

It dawned on her slowly. "She killed them? But..."

Alex understood her trailed off sentence. "I know," she said, softly. She grasped Lena's hand and squeezed gently. "It's against her code to kill, but you've always been her exception."

This was a dream. It had to be a dream.

Tears blurred her vision, and although she tried to hold them back, they burned on her cheeks. Her body throbbed in agony, her condition atrocious, and this information overwhelmed.

She had been prepared to die on the stairs. Any signal watch activation had been only for a last goodbye.

Kara should have left her there. Moved on and found someone better. Not save Lena, who out of bitterness and heartbreak hurt Kara and deceived her for months.

With a tenderness she didn't deserve, Alex wiped away the tears with a kleenex. "Take it easy, Lena. You're safe here." She gestured to a cup with a straw. "Want a few drops of water? Can't have too much but it'll at least eliminate the dry mouth."

"Alex..." the urge to confess simmered, but the words clogged her throat and came out as a strangled sob. She wanted to curl up in a fetal position and cease existing. She should have died. Why couldn't Kara let her die? She'd lost everything.

"I don't deserve this..."

"Nonsense." Alex smoothed back Lena's hair. "You deserve it more than anyone." Her smile held a hint of melancholy. "And I'm sorry I wasn't as supportive of you and Kara. No matter what happens, we're here for you, Lena. And I want to make up for my mistakes to you."

"Don't!" The word erupted in a coughing fit. "Please, don't. Alex, I hurt Kara. Don't you see? I'm not good." Her tears burned with shame. Her thoughts fixated on the Kryptonite cage, the pain of seeing Kara in it, the urge to free her, how it'd taken all her willpower to walk through that portal. How she'd collapsed into tears on the other side. She loved Kara, and yet still hurt her? What kind of monster did that?

God, she loved Kara. She loved her so much it hurt. Now she was broken on bed, trapped with the knowledge she was capable of hurting Kara. "You shouldn't have saved me."

Alex frowned. "Lena, we all make shitty mistakes. I fuck up and hurt Kara sometimes, and we talk it out and fix it. You doing it doesn't mean you deserve death."

"Shitty? Shitty doesn't cover this." She felt loopy and out of control. Her emotions bubbled and frothed, her head spun, and the pain crawled through her spine. "I killed my brother for her. And... and he showed me she was Supergirl. I didn't know what to do. So I went to all of you, and you were celebrating and playing games." The pain with each breath, each word spoken ripped through her. But she had to get it out. She had to make sure Alex knew she was not worth this care.

"Lena..."

"No! Let me finish!" She tried to push herself upright, but her arm wouldn't handle her weight. She collapsed onto her side, wheezing. "Was I just the Luthor on a leash? No more a friend than a cat with a rat? I wanted Kara to feel my pain. I deceived her, used her, and I do not deserve this care--"

"Lena," Alex interrupted, sternly. "Lena, listen to me. You are hurting yourself with this." She gently pushed her back against the mattress and readjusted the blankets. "I am a trained doctor, and one thing I know, that it doesn't matter what a person did. If they come to me needing medical assistance, I give it. Want to know the best thing you can do right now?"

Lena sucked in a breath, still trembling from the pain and exertion.

"Rest. I mean it, you've been through hell. Your heart stopped during surgery, okay?" Alex's voice shook with an emotion Lena couldn't decipher. "I had to call J'onn in to hold Kara back from doing something very stupid. We almost lost you." She breathed in sharply. "Now is not the time for confessions and blame games. As your doctor, I order you to rest."

She picked up the cup and held it out. Reluctantly, Lena took a few short sips. Her head fell back against the pillow in exhaustion. She closed her eyes, but all she saw was the Kryptonite cage.

***

She woke next to voices whispering by her bed. One she recognized as Kara and the other took her a few seconds. Nia? She hadn't interacted with the girl much. She kept her eyes shut, the pain too much to handle speech.

She wished they'd go away. Leave her to mope in pieces.

"Kara, you need rest too. Lena will be okay. She's under Alex's supervision."

"I'm not leaving her side. I can't." Kara's voice sounded uncharacteristically wild. "She died, Nia, she died for almost twenty seconds. No, I have to make sure she's okay."

"I get that, okay? It scared all of us too. We can take shifts or something. Make sure someone is always at her bedside." Nia shuffled further from her bed. "Didn't you say we were stronger together? El Mayarah?"

Kara breathed in sharply. "Using my family motto against me?"

"Hey, just using my full arsenal here. Like you taught me." Nia paused and sighed. "I didn't want to say this, but Andrea has been on me today about our articles. The only reason we even have this extension is because it's Lena in the hospital. Don't make the situation worse."

"Maybe I'll just quit."

"And never be a reporter again?"

"Lena is more important."

"Oh my god, Alex wasn't kidding. You're like a steel mountain. Not budging. Do you think Lena would want you to just throw away everything you've worked for?"

"Lena is more important than anything."

"Even your life?"

"Yes."

"Jesus, Kara."

"No!" Lena winced at he pain from her outburst. Both Nia and Kara turned to her. "No, god no, I'm not more important than your life."

Pain arced down her back, and she blinked back tears, but still they crept free anyway.

"Yes you are!" Kara shot back. "I'm nothing without you, Lena! I just can't. I can't lose you again."

Lena growled deep in her throat, and gathered up every once of energy she had. If she had to walk out of here to prove her point, then fine.

Except, no matter how hard she tried, her legs refused to respond. In fact, she felt only a vague tingling, more in the thighs and not anything below.

She pushed herself upright, which sent pain shooting down her back. Her hands gripped her legs. They were definitely there, but she couldn't get them to move.

"Lena! You shouldn't be moving yet!" Kara said, frantically. "Please, rest." She moved to push her hand against Lena's shoulder.

In response, Lena pushed back, but that succeeded in collapsing into Kara's arms. "Kara," she growls, "if you don't go out there and do your job, I will verbally berate and flay you alive."

"Um, Andrea already does that," Nia said.

"She's too soft," Lena grumbled.

"That sounds a bit like you're telling on yourself," Nia said. When Lena shot her a glare, Nia took a step back. "And I'll just be getting Alex, bye!"

The door swung shut behind her.

Kara gently laid Lena back in the bed, and to her dismay, she didn't have the strength to protest. "I'm going to stay here until you're better."

Lena wanted to yell at Kara. To get her to stop whatever this was. But the pain crackled through Lena's body, and she couldn't think coherently. Instead, to her horror, she wept, her only intelligible words, "I can't, I can't, I just can't."

Kara tenderly held her through it, her hand smoothing back her hair. She didn't say anything, just stayed there, until Lena, exhausted, tumbled back into blessed unconsciousness.

***

Time held no meaning. Depending on the culture, it either flowed like a river in one direction, or it flowed in a circle. Even cosmology couldn't decide if the universe was cyclic -- a big bang, expansive era, then the big crunch -- or ever expanded in all directions endlessly.

Lena felt trapped at the center of some sort of timeless hell. The pain left her short-tempered, and the fact Kara refused to give up on her also grated on her.

"Why can't you see the truth?" Lena shouted at one point. "My body is broken, Kara! I'd rather be dead!"

Kara had stared at her, but then she clenched her fists. "Don't you dare speak ill about yourself." Her voice dropped to a dangerous low tone that did more for Lena's libido than it did to intimidate. "You are beautiful. Gorgeous. And you're hurt and healing. You deserve life, and I will always fight to save you."

Lena didn't know what to say in response.

Because Kara had an alarming point.

She had fought to save Lena over and over again. No matter what her family threw at them, no matter how many assassin's sought her death, no matter the attacks on her person, Kara had been there. Or she'd send Supergirl, which had actually been Kara.

"Was it really you flying me when I was poisoned?" She asked instead. Her voice came out weak, irritatingly timid.

"Yeah. Yeah, it was. I -- I was terrified. Had to use ice breath on you to induce hypothermia to give Alex's medicine time to work." Kara slumped in her chair. "I almost told you then when you said you remembered the flight."

"Why didn't you?"

"James was shaking his head ..."

"I didn't ask about James, Kara. I asked about you. Or do you not make decisions for yourself?" Irritation crept into her voice.

"That's the problem, Lena! Don't you get it?" Kara threw her hands in the air. "I didn't trust myself, all right? So yes, I did rely on others to make decisions, especially about the whole Supergirl identity. I can't afford to mess up. I can't afford to lose anyone else. I just can't."

Lena struggled to parse Kara's words. The pain ricocheted up like it always did before Alex or a nurse came and swapped IV bags for new ones. "What do you mean you didn't trust yourself?"

"Do you know what happened before you came to National City? The attack by my people? That was my Aunt." Kara said bitterly. "My Aunt and her husband wanted to -- Rao, it doesn't matter. I trusted her, and I was wrong. People got hurt. So many died. Alex had to kill my own Aunt because I couldn't do it. Nothing stopped her and Non. And then, and then..."

She shot to her feet and began to pace. "You're not the only one who can make kryptonite, okay? Max Lord did it first but he made red."

"Red? What does--"

"It was horrible. I -- I got infected and it shut off my inhibitions, it made every bad thought, every intrusive nightmare, come to life. I acted it all out, and people got hurt. I almost killed Cat Grant. Alex and J'onn used every Kryptonite they had to capture me."

Lena blinked. She didn't remember reading that in the papers, but then she'd been very distracted by shit in Metropolis at the time. "Were you in control?"

"I don't know." Kara dropped back into her chair and put her head in her hands. "It haunts me to this day. I hear the word synthesized Kryptonite and I start to have flashbacks. I can't let that happen again."

"That's why you acted that way during the worldkillers crisis." Lena didn't ask it as a question.

Kara's shoulders slumped. "I had to be in control. That way no one could get hurt. No one would die. And that was out of my control. But I was trapped back in the Red-K nightmare, and I didn't realize it at first. I -- i was wrong. I shouldn't have acted out my trauma on you. I'm sorry for that too. It hit home how bad I fucked up in the elevator when we were on our way to comfort Sam."

No wonder Kara had looked so upset when she said she'd never trust Supergirl again. She sighed and rubbed her fingers against the IV line. "I tend toward dramatics and can be terribly petty," she said finally. "You tried to talk to me as Supergirl to fix it, and I refused to listen. So as Sam likes to remind me, two wrongs don't fix anything. I'm sorry too."

Kara tentatively touched Lena's hand. "Thank you for this conversation. How are you feeling? Are you in pain again?"

"Alex mentioned internal bleeding once and you're hovering again?" Lena grumbled.

Kara winced. "I just want you to be well."

Lena sighed. "I know, Kara. And yes, I'm in pain. How about you get your sister, and read more of your book out loud?"

She wasn't sure what started that activity, but listening to Kara read soothed her far more than she'd like to admit.

"Okay." Kara shot to her feet. A breeze whipped Lena's hair into her face, Kara vanishing.

Still not used to it, but she was getting closer at least.

***

Two weeks and four days after she woke in Alex's medical ward, Lena was examined by Alex and a Doctor Starr. Part of that exam required her to sit in a wheelchair, which hurt far more than Lena wanted to admit.

Alex's checked her reflexes with her little hammer, while Starr listened to Lena's lungs.

It was irritating, but she was slowly accepting this was her reality now.

At least, the odd Kryptonian container had been used only once since she first saw it. She had a stress induced bout of hemolysis, which didn't surprise her. She knows she's prone to anemia. Kara's frantic reaction had Alex banning her from the room for two whole days.

It should have brought relief, but Lena missed Kara by day two.

As the doctors conferred, a startling thought hits Lena. "Alex, has Kara ever had a loved one in a condition as bad as mine?"

Alex turned and crossed her arms. "When I got sick from Pestilence, I'm told Kara was uncharacteristically erratic. But I was only sick a day or so. So I guess, no, not for this long."

"Hmmm." Lena turned the thought over in her head. "I think I know how to calm her down."

"Oh?" Alex had adopted a neutral tone since Lena's high-on-pain-meds confession. "And what wonderful idea does my patient have today?"

"Take me around wherever we are. Let her see me outside this room." She attempted a smile. "Yes, I'm in a pain, don't ask. Just let her see visible progress."

"I'd advise against..." Dr. Starr started to say but Alex held up her hand.

"No, she's right. Kara needs to see progress. And you are progressing, it's just not really that visible right now." Alex stepped closer and leaned over Lena. "But I need full honesty. Are you positive you want to do this?"

Lena nodded. "Yes. If it helps Kara, then yes."

"I'm not asking about Kara. Will this help you?"

Lena tilted her head puzzled. "I suggested it to aid Kara not myself?"

"Oh my god." Alex threw up her hands. "Do you see what I'm working with here?" She said to the other doctor. "They're both idiots."

Lena sniffed a trifle offended by that statement.

"I mean, yes, you have a pertinent point." Dr. Starr chuckled. "Maybe just indulge her?"

"Not you too. Go right the report." Alex flicked her wrist at the other doctor. "And you," she pointed to Lena. "Tell me immediately if your pain increases. Or else."

Lena knows an empty threat when she sees one. She gives a half-shrug. "Sure. Now shall we?" She waves her good arm toward the door.

Alex grumbled under her breath and pushed her through the door. A certain satisfaction warmed Lena's heart. She'd won against Alex, which was not an easy feat.

The hallways outside the medical room were all a dull grey. The austere architecture painted this place as the DEO. Ah, so that was why she was under Alex's care.

"Lena?! Alex!" Kara skidded to a halt near the door to the control room. Lena can hear the voices of agents and machinery beyond it. "Oh gosh, should... should you be up? Are you okay, Lena? Do you feel any pain? Oh Rao, Alex, what if she's in pain?"

"Kara..." Alex started to say, irritation in her voice, but Lena cut her off.

"Kara, listen to me." Lena held up her hand. "I suggested this. Needed some fresh air. I'm fine. Honest." Yes, her pain has increased a bit, but honestly, she needed out of the medical room.

Plus, this served a dual purpose of showing Alex that perhaps she could go home to rest and do outpatient or whatever happens next for recovery.

Kara wrapped her hands around Lena's, holding it gingerly like she's glass. "Are... are you sure?" She looked so pathetic, that Lena relented.

"Kara, darling," Lena said, gently, "If we're going to get through this, I need you to trust me. Can you do that?"

Kara nodded. "Anything."

"Then trust me when I say I'm okay. Don't assume what I need. Always ask. Can you do that for me?"

"Yeah. Yeah. I can do that." A hint of relief coated Kara's voice.

Lena realized an important fact about Kara that day. When dealing with a situation Kara couldn't control, Kara needed tasks to do. Even simple ones worked.

She tested this hypothesis the next three days. Her conclusions confirmed her hypothesis correct. Kara truly did a lot better with tasks.

If there was one thing Lena excelled at, it was crafting a list of tasks. Whether she got them all done in a day? That was another story.

On the fourth day, Alex stopped in for the usual check-up. "So, you've really figured my sister out, huh?"

Lena studied Alex carefully, uncertain if the question was in good faith or not. "I'm reconciling all parts of her in my head. I can't say that means I have her figured out."

"No, I mean, you solved it." Alex gestured to the building beyond the medical ward. "She has calmed down by a million percent. I no longer feel the need to kick her off the planet twenty times a day."

Lena couldn't help but chuckle at the image of Alex's boot knocking Kara into orbit. "That annoying, huh?"

"God, yes. I get it, I do. You really scared us. All of us. Even Andrea Rojas has been in my business. And now Sam demands to know when she can visit." Alex scribbled her vitals onto the chart by her bed. "So now Kara is dealing with them. Using your phrases too. 'Don't assume, ask Lena.' I can actually do my duties for once."

"About Andrea and Sam..." Lena leaned back in the bed, fatigued by the act of sitting up. Which was incredibly annoying, but fine, that was her life now. "It's been a few weeks. How are you handling those businesses? I only spoke with Jess once."

"I'm not giving your phone back yet," Alex scolded. "I can't trust you with it. You'll try to solve world hunger or something."

"I was merely answering my emails and..."

"Nope, no work. You can't heal if you're working." Alex capped the marker and stuck it to the board.

Lena rolled her eyes. "Alex, I am dying of boredom. Answering emails won't kill me."

"You weren't though. You were heads deep in programming, and then wondering why your pain was so bad, you couldn't move for a whole day." Alex shook her head. "Can't trust you. And I'd like to."

The way she said those last few words had a seriousness that contrasted her slightly playful, scolding tone from earlier.

"How do I build up that trust then?"

"Prove to me you're serious about this." Again that sense the conversation had a double meaning. Something more than just her health. "I need to see you acknowledge your limits."

Lena frowned. "This conversation isn't just about me, is it?"

Alex put her hands on her hips, oddly similar to Supergirl, except Alex held far more authority in the stance. "Perceptive. Yes. I asked Kara about your confession. It wasn't easy. She finally told me everything. You put her in Kryptonite, Lena."

Lena looked at her hands. "I know," she said, softly, "I remember. I had hoped it wouldn't come to that. It's why I programmed in the sun burst."

"Which is great that you did that, but Lena, can I trust you to never trap Kara in Kryptonite again?"

Lena clenched her fists. "Yes." She met Alex's gaze, resolutely. "I love Kara, Alex. I recognize I fucked up. I lashed out exactly how Lex wanted. Played into his hands again. So as a big fuck you to my brother, I'm going to stick by Kara's side, and do what I can to aid her."

Alex studied her silently for a long moment. "Okay."

Lena raised an eyebrow. "Just okay?"

"Yes, just okay. Geesh, want a rambling speech, ask my sister." Alex walked to the door but paused, her hand on the doorknob. She looked back at Lena. "You're good for her, Lena. Kara has never been as happy than when she's with you. Please don't fuck this up."

"I thought you didn't do rambling speeches?" Lena smirked at Alex's raised middle finger.

"Oh, before I forget, you feel up to start physical therapy?"

"Is this where I prove to you I will honor my limits?" Lena asked dryly.

"You could say that. So a yes?" When she nodded, Alex smiled. "Great."

After the door shut, Lena sat in the semi-darkness and wondered if she could trust Kara and Alex. Could she trust any of them?

She raised her blankets and looked at her legs. They tingled now, but moving them caused pain bursts at the base of her spine. She didn't trust Lilian to help her with this. She did trust Sam, but after ghosting her and not answering her calls for months?

She dropped the blanket and laid down. She needed to trust them, and that scared her far more than any promise to a prickly sister of a Superhero. Trust was not something she did well. It tended to backfire on her, and yet, what else could she do?

Trusting no one but an AI had gotten her exactly nowhere. Other than more heartbreak and stuck in the medical ward, disabled from waist down for who knew how long. She truly did want to get better, but was she hiding from the world by half-assing this recovery?

Kara didn't know the extent of her treachery, or how she'd used the DEO to test the mind-control she'd uncovered from the Martian. Yes, that test had helped Andrea, but it also showed that her programming had a troublesome flaw. One she never quite ironed out. Hope's calculations had been her last ditch effort.

It led her to the same question that had haunted her since she woke up here: why were they helping her? Only her own paranoia answered that question, which wasn't helpful.

She closed her eyes and let the darkness of pain pull her out to sea.

***

When she next opened her eyes, the light was muted even further.

A person snored softly in the chair next to her bed. She turned her head to see Kara slumped there in jeans and a purple button-down shirt. Her blond hair spilled in loose ringlets around her face, and a book perched in her lap.

It was the book she'd been reading out loud to Lena: Poseidon's Wake, a fascinating science fiction romp about aliens, human's hubris, what constituted sentience, and sentient elephants.

On the table just behind Kara's chair, a vase with flowers sat with a card in front of it. She picked it up, the paper rough against her skin. Inside and decorating every page was kind 'get well soon' words from Nia, Brainy, Kelly, and all of Kara's friends.

The people she'd deceived in her single-minded quest of revenge. Her stomach twisted with nausea. The card slipped from her fingers to fall onto her stomach. A small card sat taped to the vase, and that one just read, "From Sam and Ruby."

She sucked in a sharp breath and winced at the pain in her left side.

Kara flinched and sat upright, her eyes blinking sleepily. "Lena?" She focused on her bed and smiled in relief. "Hey, how are you feeling?"

The question bubbled out of her before she could stop herself. "Why is everyone helping me?"

"What do you mean?" Kara reached up to fiddle with her glasses, but she wasn't wearing them so the gesture became tucking hair behind her ear instead.

"I deceived all of you. I hurt you." Lena's voice turned bitter. "Alex said she wants to trust me. That I'm good for you. I knew Kryptonite hurt you and I did it anyway. Why don't they all hate me? Why am I here?"

Kara shrugged. "The cage dropped as soon as you left. Then came your lovely sun bomb thing. I saw the code you used. You programmed that. So that means you never meant to hurt me. And I think you needed to get that all out. I -- I'm sorry it took me so long to understand. So, don't worry, it's okay."

"Okay? Just okay?" Lena couldn't believe her ears. "Kara, I need you to be honest. Why am I your 'exception' to your rules? Why is Alex giving me the shovel talk? What are we to each other?"

Kara sighed. Her fingers drummed against her knee. She took a deep breath and seemed to come to a decision. "Because I love you. I didn't realize how much until our fight. Until I almost lost you." She briefly closes her eyes. "I nearly lost myself to rage. Dunked myself in the ocean to try to calm down. And I couldn't let you die without telling you my last secret."

"Last secret? I -- I know you consider us friends..." Lena had heard Kara say 'love you' before, but this moment felt charged in a way the others did not.

She smiled, sadly. "It's not friendship love. Lena, I love you. Everything about you. I want to be with you in whatever way you'll have me. And if you don't want me around? Say the word and I'll vanish. Well, maybe still save you when needed but only in a professional way I guess."

"Be with me?" God, she was being a parrot again, but the words from Kara's mouth felt unreal. "You love me? And yet deceived me for years?"

Kara slumped in her chair and pulled at a thread on the cuff of her sleeve. "I'm sorry, Lena. I really am."

"Yes, you've said that many times," Lena said. She sighed and picked at her blanket.

For a long moment, she struggled against an absurd urge to cry. Fatigue lined her body and soul, and truthfully? She didn't want to fight Kara or enact revenge any more. Her retaliation hadn't helped her feel better; she'd felt worse instead.

No, maybe she should try the harder road. Talking. God, what would Lillian think of her now? She was going to discuss her feelings instead of of manipulating the universe.

"Did you ever trust me?" Seemed a good place to start.

"Yeah!" Kara nodded. "In most things, and I wanted to trust you about Supergirl. I just." She leaned her head back with a growl of frustration. "At first the DEO pressured me to tell no one, especially you. But then it became about me wanting to be just Kara with you."

"The whole not trusting yourself come into play there?"

Kara nodded. "I let others convince me that not telling you was good. That if I told you, I'd be selfish and ruin a good thing for you."

"Wait, did someone actually advise that?" Lena wrinkled her nose. "Because that's shit advice."

Kara winced. "Mon-el did."

"I see. From now on if someone says lying to me is better for me and honesty is selfishness, just punch them for me, okay?"

Kara blinked at her before bursting into laughter. "Oh Rao, okay, sure, I can definitely do that."

"Great." She imagined Kara punching Mon-el, and it definitely brought more satisfaction than anything she did the past few months. "Do you trust yourself now?"

"I..." Kara hunched down in her chair. "I don't know." She breathed out roughly and a piece of ice formed on her knee. She flicked it to the floor. "When I -- I found you? I lost myself in rage. I killed Rama Khan and his allies. I don't really regret it, but... can I trust myself? Because if you're hurt, I -- I probably should be restrained."

Just as she suspected, guilt threaded through Kara's voice. Lena shifted to the good side, her pain ever present a minor ache from the pain meds. "Will it help to know I trust you?"

Her own words surprised herself. And yet, it was true.

She did trust Kara.

Kara looked up and smiled faintly. "It does actually. I wasn't sure you ever would again."

"Kara, even when I was angry and hurting, I still trusted you with my life. My heart?" She ran a hand through her hair. It needed washing again, which meant asking the evening nurse for help, something she dreaded. "That I couldn't trust you with. But!" She held up a finger to stop Kara's words. She shut her mouth. "I think I'm ready to try. I know this won't be easy. We're both headstrong, but when I'm working with you, I'm a better person. I'd like to find that again."

Kara smiled, tears shining in her eyes. "You feel like home to me. I feel I'm a better person with you too. Even if I'm a bit dramatic about injuries." She rubs her hands on her jeans. "I just, I don't know. I was so worried."

"I know." Lena reached out and touched her wrist. "You've never had someone you love taking this long to recover. A rather intense introduction to mortality, eh?"

"You died for twenty seconds, Lena," Kara whispered.

"Are you focused on that or on the fact I'm alive?"

Kara tilted her head and stared at Lena. "What do you mean?"

Lena waved her hand impatiently, then winced. Her side ached at the movement. "If you focus on that fact and not on the present moment of me, recovering, then you become trapped in the past. You can't move forward, can't plan, and your actions become only reactions. Never a conscious, informed act."

"Oh." Kara tapped her fingers against her leg. "You know, that's a good point. Death has made you wise."

Lena shrugged. "Maybe. I need the reminder myself sometimes."

For a moment, both listened to the drip of the IV.

"I didn't have these powers on Krypton," Kara said suddenly, "I was just a normal kid, well, as normal as the first thirteen year old inducted into the Science Guild could be." A slight smile tinged her lips, but it faded into melancholy.

"You were a scientist?" It surprised her a little.

Kara nodded. "Bred to be so."

"Wait, I'm sorry, bred?"

Kara smiled. "The birth matrix is how we reproduced. It was very rare to have a natural birth like Kal's parents. Usually parents like to edit the child's genes. I was modeled to be a scientist like most of the El family."

Lena hummed thoughtfully. "I'd love to hear more about Krypton, Kara. If you'd like to share." She definitely had questions, though she' wasn't sure how best to ask.

"Thank you." Kara reached out to grasp her hand. "No one has every really said that to me?"

"Seriously?" Lena frowned. "Then consider the offer standing. Whatever you wish to share, I will listen."

"And the same for you. I want to hear what you have to say. Your thoughts. Hopes, dreams, random ideas, anything."

Lena smiles, but one last question still haunts her. "One last question. You've said 'just Kara' a lot. You've always been just Kara to me. Did you think I'd treat you differently if I knew?"

Kara winced visibly. "Yeah? Everyone does. I mean, look at Winn as an example. I wasn't just Kara to him anymore, and he became obsessed with superhero stuff. James knew thanks to Kal. Nia treats me as her superhero mentor. It's just over and over people failed to see me. They saw the cape, and either wanted to be like the cape --"

"James," Lena murmured, thinking of his guardian stunts.

"Or helping the cape. I wasn't just Kara, and I could be that with you, and it felt so good. Like coming home. It's why I can't stay away. I want to make this right, Lena." She yanked the thread free of the cuff. "So, uh, that's why I'll help you with your Myriad plan if you want."

"What?" Lena stared at Kara. "You don't know what it is yet."

Kara shrugged. "So? It's you. I want to help you no matter what. If I have to hang up the cape and go undercover to do it, then fine."

None of Kara's words made any sense to Lena. Her head ached again, and a faint scent of peaches wafted from the pain meds. She tried not to think of her legs.

"The project is dead," Lena said, flatly. "You might as well take Myriad back. It won't happen any time soon. Especially not with this." She waves a hand weakly toward her legs. "I can't feel them yet."

Kara reached over and grasped Lena's hand. The warmth sent a shiver down Lena's spine. "Then I'll help you recover. Whatever you need."

"Kara..." Lena sighs. "What if I hurt you again?"

"I hurt you first," Kara said. She winced, "I mean, not to make a contest of it. But yeah, we hurt each other. So that's a thing we did. But here we are, both of us alive despite it all. And yeah, we might hurt one another again, but I think you're worth it. You're beautiful, Lena, outside and inside. That hasn't changed. I want to work on us if you're game."

Lena recalled her words at the Fortress, said in anguish, "You don't get to tell me who I am anymore." But that had been a lie. She'd wanted so bad for things to be real with Kara. To be loved by Kara. To not have it all snatched away.

She'd wanted to fix it all, but it had not occurred to her she could just talk it through with Kara.

For several long minutes, she quietly breathed and sorted her thoughts. The pain simmered annoyingly, but she wasn't ready to sleep again. Not yet.

"This isn't easy for me," Lena said, carefully. She winced at the pain along her side, but she wanted to get this out. "I wanted to fix the pain. To somehow stop others from hurting one another."

"With your project?"

Lena sighed. "It doesn't matter. Hope was lost and she's needed to run the calculations. And would it have stopped the pain? I don't know. I didn't have time for proper tests. It wasn't ready, but Leviathan kept accelerated my timeline."

"So you sought to end all pain?" Kara tiled her head. "Isn't that kind of... mind control?"

Nausea swirled in Lena's stomach. Those words reminded her of Lex's journals, of his experiments, of his experiments on her. God, Lex really had played her, hadn't he? He knew she'd read his journals, knew she'd turn on Kara for her lies. "It's for the best," she whispered, "that it failed. Lex manipulating me by driving a wedge between us." She fiddles with the strings on the blanket's edge. "He has a habit of snatching away all the good in my life. He tried to destroy what we had. Like a fool I fell for it."

"No, well, maybe for a little while. But we're still here, and we're being honest." She lifted Lena's hand and gently kissed her knuckles. "I understand you might not believe me now, but I'll prove it."

Lena sighed. She wasn't sure what to say to that. The medicine dulled her thoughts, drew back the pain, but now fatigue corded through her body. "You already are. And I want to work on us too." "So where do we go from here?" Kara asked.

Where did they go from here indeed? She knew this was a stupid idea, that she shouldn't allow it, but with the Fortress fight, the assassin, almost dying, surgery, long recovery, and now this?

Lena weakly tugged on Kara's hand. "Ask me later. Right now... can -- can you hold me? I don't want to be alone." Her words came out small and shaky. This asking for things scared her as much as it thrilled her.

"Of course." Kara graced her with one of her winning smiles. She gently moved Lena just enough for her to slip onto the bed next to her. Her arms wrapped around Lena, and warmth embraced Lena from head to toe.

She buried her face in Kara's shirt, and breathed in her vanilla scent.

The anger and pain that had fueled her for months no longer simmered in her gut. Part of her feared giving Kara another chance, but at the same time, her traitorous heart shouted in relief at being in Kara's arms. The hurt hadn't full gone away, but its edges had softened.

"You've always been her exception," Alex had said.

Maybe starting tonight Kara could be her exception. Instead of more revenge plots or running, she'd stay and work on whatever this was between them. No matter how hard it became. Maybe someday soon she can say the words out loud, that she truly did love Kara.

Because even in the fires of hardship and pain, a rock could still become a gemstone.

Epilogue incoming

[clowningaroundmars]

thanks to the amazing @starcut-sand for the inspo, i now present to you all... a new multi-chapter adventure! this time featuring our beloved gwen stacy and miles42 :)

no, it's not a ship fic lol but i hope to keep you all entertained nonetheless

this one will update much faster since i've plotted it all out and have drafts written already. so stay tuned for new updates coming soon!

general content warnings: canon-typical violence, mentions of blood, kidnapping, drugs, poisoning, death, bullets and explosions, teenagers being teenagers

without further ado, let's get into it!

part 1 of 4 >>

Gwen woke up in a small, dark room not knowing how much time had passed since she was knocked out cold.

And she knew she was knocked out cold, of course, because even she knew never to take a cat-nap in the middle of a mission.

That she was on currently… if memory served her correctly.

Slowly, painstakingly-- with knives in her ribs and her left shoulder still sore from her earlier encounter-- she sat up. Flicked through her watch to make double-sure that the migraine throbbing in her brain wasn’t tricking her into a vivid hallucination of some kind.

Earth-42 stared right back at her, bright green digital letters dancing and blurring in and out right before her very eyes. When she reached up to touch her forehead in a spot that itched, her glove came away with a bit of dried blood on the white fabric.

Shit.

Gwen could not let Jessica down under any circumstances, especially since this was her first mission since… well, since Miles Morales from earth-1610 came in and single-handedly caused the collapse of the Spider Society as everyone knew it.

Which wasn’t really a bad thing in the end, but it did mean that poor Jess had to step up as the leader shortly after Miguel was forcibly dethroned.

“I’m the interim leader right now,” she would say to anyone who called her “boss” or “CEO” or any variation of the word. The poor woman already had enough on her plate as it was with a newborn and a new family life to tend to, so Gwen understood 100%.

It was also why the pressure was on her shoulders to complete this one tiny, manageable task that was given to her.

Gwen wasn’t stupid. She knew she was on a sort of probationary period after her first blunder on earth-1610. And the fact that she turned her back on the Society to break a couple of rules, help Miles, save the multiverse... well, all of that didn't help matters much.

She ignored the looks cast her way every now and then by other Spiders when visiting HQ, but she knew. She tallied up those glances whether anyone knew of it or not.

But then there was also the stupid feeling of… sentimentality hanging in the air, keeping her chained to the Society when most of her other Spider friends had already abandoned the group.

Yeah, her relationship with her father was… repaired, for the most part. But damn it if she didn’t take a liking to Jessica Drew, too! Sue her.

So here she was, on a mission to visit earth-42 and investigate an anomaly that seemed to threaten the very fabric of space and time. Again.

Gwen was already starting to regret her very dumb, not-very-well-thought out decision to volunteer for this one, though.

No time to complain right now though. We’ve got a problem to solve, Gwen mused, forcing her annoyance, frustration, and panic deep down for the moment.

Her aching brain switched over to Work Mode once again, and she immediately slid into compartmentalizing and sorting every bit of detail that she could manage to remember in the present moment.

Her head was bleeding and throbbing, which meant she sustained a brain injury of some kind. She wobbled unsteadily to her feet, wiggling them and checking on her balance. Her head complained louder, but she seemed to be able to walk just fine.

Okay. Good. It wasn’t a bad injury-- and if it was, it seemed her enhanced healing factor already took care of the majority of it in her sleep.

Alright, time to examine her surroundings now.

While she did so, she found it pretty irritating that while her injury didn’t put her out of commission, it seemed to wipe her entire short-term memory instead.

She eventually sat down on a crate in the corner of the room that she was imprisoned in and with her head in her hands, started sorting even harder through her mental files.

… Nothing.

Well, nothing past the memory of flying through the designated portal she opened back in Jess’s office shortly after receiving her mission assignment. And then landing on top of a familiar-but-not-so-familiar building on earth-42's Brooklyn.

She vaguely remembered the late evening sunset, almost choked out by the various plumes of smoke reaching up to the heavens from the fires that still raged on in parts of the city.

... And then? Nothing else.

Gwen remembered how it was like when earth-1610’s Miles-- her Miles-- ended up in this strange world for the first time, a time that seemed like it was eons ago to Gwen, but couldn’t have been more than a few months ago. The fires were much more numerous, news helicopters everywhere and crime seemingly never-ending.

She couldn’t speak on the crime rates per se, but the place looked a little bit less like the mess she and her Spider Band stumbled into at first.

She distinctly remembered thinking to herself-- before swinging down and heading towards the reports of the anomalies-- that she was glad that the Prowlers seemed to get some things under control. If it was them battling the crime in the first place, that is.

But now there was no time for such thoughts. Wherever the Prowlers happened to be now, they were most likely nowhere near her location. Calling Miles-42 up on her watch would be… distasteful, especially this early in the game.

Especially when she had no idea if he was even available or not. Hm. Maybe she should’ve let Jess ping him and let him know of her arrival as per the usual protocol, but. Oh well.

Too late for that now.

So she stood up again, massaged her shoulder and rolled her neck, and blinked the stars out of her eyes. Time to get to work, for real this time.

She eventually happened upon a door that seemed to lead to the outside, which was really well-hidden against the four walls that enclosed her inside.

The room she was held in wasn’t very big, but it was dark. There was only one tiny little window high up near the ceiling that offered a glimpse up into the night sky beyond.

So it was well past sunset… better than not knowing anything at all, right?

The exit was seemingly hard to get out of, unfortunately. Try as she might, Gwen’s strength alone couldn’t get the giant metal door open. She pushed and pulled on the edges, tried sliding it left and right, tried kicking at it. It didn’t budge.

Whoever trapped her in this… storage closet seemed to know exactly what they were doing, who they were dealing with… whoever they happened to be.

Sinister laughing echoed in the back of her mind as she recalled her run-in with the bad guy but… couldn’t for the life of her remember who he was! So frustrating!

Still, this was earth-42. The baddie could’ve been anyone at all, anyone from the Sinister Six Cartel that she knew still held power on the streets here.

Even with their power slowly slipping from their collective grasps, it wouldn’t be out of the realm of possibility that one of those assholes still owned a high-security compound out in the middle of nowhere. It also wouldn't be out of the realm of possibility for one of them to have enough tranquilizers to knock out ten elephants, and use that drug on her to drag her out here.

For all Gwen knew, she was probably miles and miles away from Brooklyn, too. Just great.

No time to despair. Time to concentrate.

Okay, so she couldn’t really get past this gigantic metal door that seemed to be made of some titanium alloy or whatever. That left the small space up high on the wall that probably served as ventilation for the room, only sporting thick metal bars to prevent things from getting in… or out.

Gwen quickly scaled the wall and eyed the dimensions of the space before deciding that if she got the metal grating off of the concrete wall, she might be able to squeeze her shoulders through and possibly achieve freedom.

Assuming as well, of course, that the security in this building was easy to get past.

But she would rather take her chances with evil police-drones and bumbling goons than sit another minute in this prison waiting to see who exactly captured her.

Gwen got to work, using her super-strength to painstakingly detach the grates corner by corner, trying to stay as quiet as possible. She bent a few bars in the process, but what was a little property damage to a Spiderperson? No big deal.

If the bad guy who kidnapped me wanted his compound to be spotless and damage-free, he shouldn’t have kidnapped me in the first place, Gwen reasoned.

After what felt like hours, the grating was off. She was free! Now all she had to do was--

Gwen’s heart almost leaped out of her throat and into her mask when glowing purple and white eyes suddenly came into view. They narrowed into slits.

“Jesus Chr--!!! What the…” her brain fully booted up this time, taking a second to stare right back into the glowing eyes of...

“Miles?” She gasped, once it hit her.

The glowing eyes blinked once before finally nodding at her. He raised a metal claw to his mask’s mouth in a universally-recognizable gesture.

Shhhhh.

Gwen’s own giant white eyes blinked back at him before shifting out of the way to allow Miles to extend a begauntleted arm into the room through the window and shoot out… something.

A spark of purple lit the room up, and shortly after, a clattering of glass and plastic resonated through the room before the place fell deathly quiet once more.

“There was a camera in there with you, most likely recording audio, too,” Miles offered as an explanation.

“… Oh. Well, thanks.” Gwen said awkwardly.

So she was wrong. Somehow, in the middle of the night in this odd prison she woke up in, Miles Morales happened to find her anyhow.

She wasn’t used to… this other Miles, and they hadn’t spoken much after their first meeting months ago.

He would join the Spider Band on their own missions sparingly. As far as she knew, only 1610’s Miles hung out with him with any sort of regularity. The kid was a complete mystery to everyone else otherwise, and whenever he was brought up around 1610, the topic was usually brushed off as casually as possible.

Gwen had no clue why 42’s Miles didn’t seem to take a liking to any of the members of their little motley crew. She figured he probably had a hard time keeping up with super-powered heroes and just left it at that, even though from what she could see of their encounters-- however far and few between they were-- the kid seemed to have talent. He was able to keep up with them on most days without barely breaking a sweat.

So all in all, a total mystery to her. Even if this guy shared the same face as her best friend and ally Miles Morales, he... moved differently. Acted differently. Like Miles Morales, but in a different font.

He started to shimmy his shoulders into the room to get past the tight constraints of the window. Gwen stared at him with a cocked head the entire time.

He used his sneakers to cling onto the wall for a little bit, reaching right back out of the window once inside. He pulled in a backpack through the opening and promptly dropped down onto the cold hard floor of the room.

“Uh, hi? Wait. Weren’t we supposed to both escape through that window instead of you, y’know, coming inside?”

Miles-- well, 42--shook his head as he threw his pack back on in one swift motion. “I checked the perimeters, and we’re a long, long ways away from the city. Even if we managed to get past the millions of goons and cameras everywhere, they got dogs doing night shifts out in the woods.”

Gwen’s heart sank. Shit. Her earlier thoughts were coming true. They were far away from Brooklyn, which complicated their escape plans even more.

“I mean… ugh, I-- we can climb the trees! Right? If we just--”

“The guards, Gwen. They got guns loaded up with bullets. But you know what I got? A plan.”

Gwen blinked back at 42 yet again. “You do?”

42 took confident steps back as he put some distance between them and then triple-tapped the side of his mechanical mask. Gwen watched with awe as the front of the mask sectioned itself up and off of his head, revealing a laser-focused expression on Miles’ handsome face-- er, his regular, normal, totally-not-good-looking face!

From somewhere on his mask, a bright purple hologram was projected between them, suspended in mid-air. The lights cast the entire room in a hazy purple glow.

The hologram projected a 3D blueprint-like map of the entire building-- all 5 stories of it. Each floor was meticulously detailed, down to the various entrances and exits and relative dimensions of the many, many rooms the building held.

42 tapped his mask again, this time on the chin, and a maze-like structure materialized, all of it hovering on top of each other and weaving themselves in between the floors… a maze-like structure that seemed very, very familiar.

“Vents!” Gwen snapped her fingers once she recognized them. “You have the blueprints of all the ventilation shafts in the building!”

42 nodded, the projection bobbing along with his movements. “Yeah, I do. I’m a Prowler, right? We always stay prepared.”

Gwen squinted at him. “I guess...? How’d you get stuck in this place if you’re always prepared, then? Did you get kidnapped too?”

“Nah,” 42 answered easily, a corner of his mouth quirking up for a split second, “I followed you here.”

Gwen blinked at him for what seemed to be the umpteenth time. "What."

42 sighed. “You got knocked out by this dimension’s Doctor Octopus. He threw you into the back of a van and ordered his goon squad to bring you back up here, to a secret location he’s got surrounded by energy dampeners and signal blockers. Most likely? He knows you’re not from this dimension and wants to experiment on you. But me? I’m here ‘cause me and my uncle have been lookin’ for this place for months. It’s… top-secret, this compound. Classified.”

“Oh. How did… how did you know he’d bring me to the place you and your uncle have been looking for this whole time? What if he brought me to another building?”

42 smirked, the purple lights of the holograms twinkling in his eyes. “Doc’s assets are being… uh, slowly compromised by us with the underground resistance. Not many places for him to throw his unwilling science experiments into nowadays.”

So it wasn’t just Gwen’s imagination. This dimension really has been steadily cleaned up by the Prowlers and their freedom-fighting allies. Well, that was good to hear. Still didn’t provide much relief for their current situation considering this was Doctor Octopus they were talking about here, but it was still nice to know.

“Well. That’s great to hear, then. What’s the rest of your plan, after ducking out of here through the vents?”

42’s mask re-formed back onto his face and the glowing purple and white eyes came back online. “We’re not ducking through the vents. Well, yet. I came here on my own mission and I gotta complete it before leaving.”

Gwen sighed softly. “Which would be...?”

Getting the whole story out of this version of Miles was like pulling teeth! Was it always going to be like this? Because if so, this wasn’t going to be a very easy mission to pull off after all.

“I can get you out of here first, if you want,” 42 glowered at her, voice distorting behind his mask’s voice-changing technology. His tone seemed impatient, too. “I can stay behind ‘til I’m done.”

Gwen shifted her weight onto one leg. “No, not a chance. I have to stay here and make sure Doc Ock doesn’t turn you into minced meat. Plus, you’re the one who has all the blueprints and cool glowing tech thingies. I’m sticking with you until we can both get out of here!”

This seemed to satisfy 42, because he gave her one unreadable nod in her direction. “… If you’re sure, then let’s go.”

He moved swiftly, much more gracefully than Gwen was used to seeing a Miles move. He walked almost silently, crouching down near one side of the wide metal sliding door thing that Gwen was trying to unsuccessfully pry open earlier.

He reached back into his gear that was saddled on his back and pulled out what seemed to be a small metal object with tiny purple lights on the outer edge. It attached itself onto the door and then 42 was sliding a hidden panel that Gwen had completely missed.

Gwen eventually sidled up to him and clasped her hands behind her back. “I see we’re sticking real well to the branding here. Purple lights, purple holograms… very cool,” was her lame attempt at lightening the mood.

“Yeah, it’s a family thing,” 42 muttered as he worked on… what seemed like some electrical circuitry built into the door. It glowed a soft green. “Been passed down for a couple of generations.”

Gwen hummed. “Oh, I see.”

A beat of silence as 42 continued his work.

Gwen checked her watch once more as she leaned on a wall. “Soooo… should I be doing something while you… y’know…?”

“Yeah, you should be quiet.” 42 answered.

“Ouch.” Gwen replied back as flatly as she could. “Look. I don’t wanna step all on your toes or anything while you do this whole… Prowling thing, but we’re a two-man team here! I’m at the very least trying to make conversation,”

“Okay, sure,” 42 replied easily, never taking his eyes off of his task. “Why are you in my dimension in the first place? Since you like to talk so much, maybe you can tell me that.”

Gwen sighed loudly. Great. Here she was trapped in a bad guy’s compound in the middle of who-knows-where, with the meanest Miles in the entirety of the multiverse. Just her luck.

“I was sent here on a mission. By Jessica. You know, the other other Spiderwoman? Who’s now in charge of the Spider Society, by the way? Yeah, we detected anomalies here in this dimension and she sent me to check it out. But… well, I kinda already screwed that up so I guess I can go and kiss my Society membership goodbye for good this time. Happy?”

42 glanced up at her then, his mask as unreadable as ever, the darkness enshrouding much of his body language. He slowly stood up and backed up, silently gazing at Gwen all the while.

She stood there glaring at him with her arms crossed.

“Yeah. Yeah, I’m happy.” 42 finally replied coolly. “Now keep quiet, we don’t know if there are guards out here on patrol. My mask is still calibrating its infrared heat sensors so I can’t see ‘em yet.”

Infrared heat sensors? God, is this kid packed to the teeth with high-tech spy gadgetry or what?

Gwen begrudgingly did as she was told, taking a couple of steps back as 42 lowered the brightness of his mask’s glow.

The door rumbled open with a mechanic hum, and that’s when it hit her; Gwen couldn’t have possibly gotten the door open by herself, because it wasn’t just locked… it was hooked up to a main power source and sealed that way.

Damn. Looks like she really did need to rely on this guy to escape this place, after all.

Well then.

They poked their heads out of the dark room and quietly surveyed the expansive maze-like hallways of the compound. Pipes running the entire length of the ceiling as far as they could see told them both everything they needed to know.

42 took a quick step back to update his mask’s digital blueprint and map out exactly where they were.

Gwen glanced back at him. “What’re you doing now?”

“I'm marking where we are...” He then drops his voice to a near whisper, eyes still methodically scanning the area around them. "This compound's built into the side of a steep hill, which is how I climbed in. We must be on the north side, then."

He tapped his mechanical claws on the tip of his chin and started thinking aloud. “Which means… what I’m lookin’ for has to be underneath the ground, towards the south. I’m lookin’ for a room not on the blueprints. And... and I think I know exactly where to start.”

“You think you know? I thought you had a plan!”

“I do,” 42 threw back. “An escape plan. But you’re stickin’ with me, so now we’re gonna do some Prowlering. Unless you changed your mind?”

Oh, right. This game. Well, this kid wasn’t getting rid of her that easily, that was for sure.

“Oh no, no. Just making sure you’re capable of getting out of here, is all,” she offered innocently.

42 might’ve rolled his eyes behind his mask, but it was hard to tell.

Together, they moved through the halls as silently as possible, straining their ears for any sign of human life-- or robot life, really-- as they quickly made their way down several wide corridors.

All of the halls started blurring together since they all looked completely identical to Gwen, save for the numbers on the various doors they passed by changing and getting smaller as they advanced.

After several minutes had passed, Gwen wanted to open her mouth and ask 42 where exactly they were heading to since it didn’t seem like their trip was even coming anywhere close to an end, when he suddenly grabbed her and pulled her around a corner they had just walked past seconds earlier.

Gwen made a slight noise of confusion and then sucked in a breath when the sound of metal clanging and machines whirring echoed all around them. 42 was closest to the corner, head turned over to where she suspected the intruders were coming from.

Sure enough, a pair of heavy work boots stamped gracelessly down the halls and the casual back-and-forth between the men that suddenly came into view could be heard more clearly.

“… Can’t believe he’s got us down here working doubles now, man! Sucks,” one of the men grumbled as they made their way past the two vigilantes and opened yet another giant metal door with a keycard.

Gwen’s vision zeroed in on it as the man reached behind him to tuck it back into his pocket, and her split-second reflexes allowed her to time her web just right.

She snagged the card and held a breath as the door whirred shut right behind the men, both of them none the wiser.

“Whew,” she said after a second of tense waiting, and smirked at 42 who held a metal claw out for the keycard. “Look who’s got a plan now! Aren't you glad I stuck around?”

42 chuckled, the sound warbling slightly under his voice modulator. “Yeah, that was pretty cool. I can admit that. Now that we got this, we might be able to use it to get into the room I wanna get into once we find it.”

“Right,” Gwen pipes up once they continue their descent deeper into the bowels of the compound, “about that. You never told me what it is that you came here to find. In fact, you’ve been pretty cagey this entire time. Like, about everything.”

42 made an undecipherable sound. “Uh, yeah. This is my recon mission, not yours. You’re not even from this dimension, this doesn’t really concern you.”

Gwen grunted. “Gee thanks. If that’s how you feel, then I’ll be having my keycard back!”

42 shook his head and laughed. “I didn’t mean it like that, man. I meant… just don’t worry about it. It’s info we’re looking for to eventually take down Doc Ock. If I said it out loud here, it might jeopardize this whole thing me and Aaron have planned. I'm in work mode right now, I'm sure you get it,”

Gwen relaxed a bit more. In a way, she did get it. She even understood 42’s hesitance to have her aboard to work with him, since working on group projects wasn't exactly on her own list of top ten favorite things… especially when the project itself concerned the very fabric of the space-time continuum.

Gwen was a solo hero, and maybe since 42 was here on his own, he finally graduated into being a solo hero, too.

Actually, on that topic…

“Does your… does your uncle know you’re here, then? If he does, maybe he can help us get out of here?”

42 helped himself to a healthy pause. “Yes, and no. Aaron’s not… here, near the compound. But he does know I’m out on a mission.”

Gwen stared at him. “Sooo… call him? I’m sure he can get past security, right?”

42 laughed yet again, shaking his head. “Guess you didn’t hear me back in the other room when I told you there are blockers all over this compound, huh.”

Gwen cocked an eyebrow at him and their lenses met.

“What I mean is,” 42 continues, “tech down here doesn’t work very well due to all the interference the Doc’s put up to conceal this place. Again, top secret. Super classified. My own mask took a little while to come back online, and some stuff is still… coming back online. Kinda."

“And your communicators wouldn’t happen to also be on the fritz, would they?” Gwen asked, fully knowing the answer she was going to get.

“Mmnnyep, communicator’s offline. I dunno what the hell Doc’s got this place running on, but it’s not electricity. I’m not too concerned about the details, though,”

Here, they came up to a wide metal door marked in bright caution-tape stripes with several warnings plastered on its surface.

“... ’Cause I got my eyes on the prize,” 42 finished, swaggering up to the door’s keycard panel and successfully getting the thing to slide open.

They both fell into fighting stances in case anything behind the door leapt out at them and attacked, but… there was no one and nothing in the spacious cave-like room beyond it.

Nothing except… a humongous collider!

Gwen gasped as she lowered her fists and advanced forward, making her way over thick wires and past computers to get closer to the giant dimension-ripping machine in the center of the room.

It looked… not quite as high-tech as the one in her dimension, or Miles’-- er, 1610’s collider, that is-- but it was completely unmistakable. The form never changes, neither through space nor through time. It was indeed a collider built by none other than the infamous Doctor Octopus, even if it didn’t quite look as close to being complete.

There were still various wires draped on ladders near the edge of the lab, scissor-lifts located below the platforms parked for the night, and several components were missing that seemed to lay underneath odd-looking bulgy sheets on top of several tables nearby. Gwen made her way over to a computer and woke it up, balking at the password-locked screen in front of her eyes.

Damnit. Damnit! It wasn’t just an anomaly that the Society managed to detect… it was the energy signals from this collider, most likely having gone through some initial tests before advancing to this final stage of construction.

If this was it, then Gwen needed to get back to Jess with this information ASAP!

She fiddled with her watch a bit, but it still looked to be on the fritz somehow, not letting her switch to any other dimension or access the other features Hobie had installed into it. Weird.

She straightened up and glanced behind her, hoping that 42 had some kind of tech or knowledge that would help crack this computer open so she could take a look through the files to gauge just how far along this little pet project was… only to find that she was alone.

... Alone?

"Miles?"

Silence. Her heart jumpstarted a bit and started hammering away in her chest as she hurriedly made her way past rows of tables, science equipment, and computer screens of all sizes, only to find a pair of legs sticking out from underneath a weird car-shaped machine set aside in the corner of the gigantic lab.

She stood there for a bit with her hands on her hips, quieting her thoughts and watching as 42 tinkered away at whatever the hell he was tinkering away at.

She eventually kicked a purple Jordan gently and smiled bemusedly at 42 shuffling his way out from under the machine.

“Having fun down there?” She said as casually as she could manage.

42’s mask was off slightly, still framing his face, but now Gwen could see his slightly exasperated expression in full view.

“Yeah, actually, I was.” He gave her a full view of his snarky attitude too, while he was at it.

He laid back down and pushed his way underneath once more.

“Is this gigantic collider in the middle of this room not a huge concern to you at all?”

“Not really.” 42 answered from under the machine.

“Can I ask why? You do know that if the Octopus gets this thing done and booted up, that your entire dimension is at risk of collapsing just like every other dimension that’s had a collider in it before?”

“Really? Ya don't say,” 42 replied sarcastically, clinking and clanking away. The machine rattled a bit. “That’s nowhere near done right now and I gotta prioritize my priorities. I’m getting to root cause of the problem rather than just climbing in here and smashing stuff up.”

“… Are you now?” Gwen deadpanned.

A mighty metallic scraping sound jolted its way through her eardrums suddenly, making Gwen jump slightly. After a second or two, 42 slides out once again with a big sunny grin plastered onto his face, holding up what looks like a small motherboard with a bunch of metal wires still attached to the metal casing it was screwed into. He only wore one gauntlet, she noted.

He quickly took his pack off and got to work inlaying the computer part into a panel in his pack that she had never noticed before.

A total tech marvel that thing was, really. Even Gwen had to make a noise of approval when with a few purposeful jabs and swipes, the whole pack disengaged and unfolded itself open, much like his mask. No tools required.

He made quick work of the task at hand, using one metal gauntlet as a makeshift toolset, his other gloved hand working to set the entire component into the rest of the pack’s inner workings.

Once that seemed to be done, all of the circuitry glowed purple for a beat before going dark once more. 42 tapped at his gauntlet, bringing up more info on the inside of his wrist, which he seemed to approve of.

“All set?” Gwen probed, still standing a little ways away from him, watching as he seemed completely engrossed in his little side-mission.

He reached back under the machine and pulled out his other gauntlet, springing back up once it was in his hands.

“Yeah. Better than all set, ‘cause now my pack’s online! I can use my climbing gear again.” At this, 42 unlatches a reel of rope from behind him, his grappling hook dangling on one end as he swings it in circular motions through the air. “Hell yeah,”

Gwen stared at him once again. “Your climbing gear wasn’t working? How did you climb into my window, then?”

42 gave her a bit of side-eye. "I got other gear besides my rope, you know that, right?"

Gwen huffed, clearly annoyed. "No, actually I don't. I've been following you this whole time and you haven't really been saying much at all,"

42’s mask slid back into place as he rolled his shoulders and readjusted his pack. “You ask too many questions,”

“You don’t provide too many answers,” Gwen bit out dryly. “Seriously, dude, we are in the middle of giant evil lair of some kind with no way to communicate with the outside world and you’re swaggering through this whole ordeal like it’s a walk in the park,” she huffs. “Why can’t you just tell me like, anything?”

They’re both face-to-face now, mask-to-mask, very obviously frustrated with each other if the electricity in the air was as thick as it felt.

Two teenagers butting heads in the middle of a giant lab, trapped in the lair of their greatest enemy… it would embarrassing if it wasn’t so absurd, but here they were, glaring each other down anyways.

“I am telling you things, you just don’t listen! Probably ‘cause you think your powers make you all-powerful and omniscient or something, that you think you don't need to listen to a word I'm saying,” 42’s words dripped with venom. “Seriously, staying with me to make sure I don’t get myself killed? Gimme a damn break. If sticking with me is soooo boring and you know more than I do, you can get yourself up out of here, then.”

Gwen bristled. “Listen here, jerk. I never said that I was better than you. Kinda telling on yourself there, don'tcha think?” She jabbed a finger in his direction. “I was perfectly capable of letting myself out before you fell in here and got us all turned around! I had it on my own, I could've gotten myself out of here ages ago!"

“And who’s stopping you?” 42 threw his hands up in the air. “Use your little spider powers to bust up out of here, and just leave!"

Gwen stepped back, seething. With fists clenched by her sides, she shoots 42 more daggers his way, hoping her mask’s lenses would convey the message.

Wordlessly, she turns around and shoots a web up to one of the ventilation grates high up in the cavernous room, sticking to the wall.

She works the grating off while 42’s Jordans pace right out of the room and into another side room, leaving the lab completely silent.

Fine. If that was how things were going to be, then fine. This was hardly the worst situation Gwen’s ever found herself in, and it most likely wasn't going to be over anytime soon. But she’s gotten herself out of stickier conundrums on her own, so this was just going to be yet another one of life’s little tests. Just a bump in the road.

A small, insignificant little bump.

As Gwen quietly seethed and crawled her way through the ventilation shafts (completely blindly, since she didn’t really bother to memorize the absolute maze that was whatever 42 showed her earlier) she came upon a vent opening that overlooked a room filled with monitors and… guards.

It looked to be a security room not too far from the collider room, and the men inside were armored to the teeth, only slipping off their helmets and masks to chat some shit over takeout containers and coffee cups.

The rest of the room was covered in tv monitors that showed various different CCTV camera feeds, all of them stationary. Most of them were pointing to the outside, though, hardly any of the screens showed views from the basement level’s numerous corridors, curiously enough.

Gwen doubted 42’s earlier claim that this building ran on some other form of power, since she didn’t think it would be very economic on the Octopus’ wallet to buy so many cameras and monitors and computers that ran on alternate power sources.

Maybe… if he was wrong… then maybe she could even use her watch to open up a portal in an empty room somewhere and just peace out!

Tell Jess what she found, because by now she’d pretty much done her job. Leave the rest to a more capable task force put together by the Society and just go back to her normal, boring, definitely not eventful life.

But then… as tempting as the thought was… she’d be leaving 42 behind. 42, sure, but a Miles nonetheless… a friend.

From what she could gather, the poor guy had very few friends, if any at all. If he wasn’t communicating to her properly, maybe isolation from his vigilante work was to blame, rather than a fault of his character.

Gwen propped up her chin in one hand and ruminated on all of these thoughts, arguing with herself over whether she should stay or go. She glanced at her cobbled-up watch, a permanent reminder of her best friend Hobie Brown, and laid on her back to mess with it one more time.

Her thoughts sunk down into the bottom of her stomach as she fiddled with it, continuing to get error messages as she tried to scroll through the various dimensions she knows she’s saved to her little watch, coming up with nothing even when she dared to try and open a portal in the middle of the vent shaft.

Nothing, nada. No dice. No portal whatsoever happened to materialize. It gave small sad beeps instead, really hammering home that… she really was on her own this time.

Damn.

Gwen didn’t know why, but this thought kind of depressed her.

At least on previous missions and patrols in her dimension, she was always acutely aware of how much rested on her own shoulders. She always went in with confidence and some sort of game plan, content enough to just let her quick thinking and powers get her out of any fight, any problem.

But ever since landing here on earth-42, she seemed… discombobulated, not entirely in her element. Everything in this dimension seemed to work against her at every single turn.

She’d have to bring that up to the other Spiders, ask if they’ve ever felt anything like she was feeling before.

If she could get out of this building in the first place, that is…

A loud, jarring alarm jolted her violently out of her wandering thoughts, and she almost hit her head on the ceiling of the vent, rolling over quickly to peer down into the room below her.

The guards were pulling helmets and masks on, scrambling up from their previous positions and pouring out of the security room door as quickly as they could.

In the midst of the sudden chaos, Gwen’s wide eyes honed in on one particular screen, which was pointed directly at the collider room’s interior…

... And directly at earth-42’s Miles Morales himself.

[waywardted]

(x)

[buttercupshands]

wait a minute

stop.

stop it.

[unloneliest]

the problem of the matter is i did internalize so much of what ex friend believed about me. even though i knew he was wrong and knew what was happening and tried to stop it and if i took more action to stop it would have been abusing power i held in a way i couldn't live with myself for.