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faofinn · 1 year

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DAY 1: touchstarved

@febuwhump

Fao hadn’t been living with the Daniels very long, but they’d made things feel like home almost immediately. He’d clicked with Sheila pretty much straight away, and Finn felt like the little brother he’d never had. Fred was… more difficult. Obviously he didn’t remember his Mum, and he’d never had siblings, so it was easy to let Sheila and Finn in. When it came to Fred, things were harder. He’d been so close with his Dad, he’d lost him so soon, and it was really hard to see Fred as anyone other than someone trying to replace him. He knew he wasn’t, he knew he was just there to support him and look after him. They were only foster parents, for crying out loud, of course he wasn’t replacing his Dad. But it was still difficult, to see a father figure like that. And then, considering the last man in his life had been Tomas… he was still unlearning a lot of stuff. Fred was kind, and caring, and always made Fao laugh. He was nice, and Fao just had to learn to let him in.

Sheila was out with Finn that evening, some appointment somewhere that Finn didn’t want to talk about and Fao wasn’t about to ask about. Fao had been struggling with his head all day - all week, if he was honest. The bad thoughts kept creeping in, the urge to hurt himself to make them stop, the urge to get away from it all. He’d tried to take a nap before dinner, to get rid of the thoughts, but he couldn’t sleep. He’d not slept that night either, save for an hour or so, and college had completely taken it out of him.

He’d ended up in tears on his bed, frustrated and overwhelmed and fed up of everything. He knew he had to do better than that, knew he had to at least try and get his head on straight, before he hurt himself. Forcing himself up, he roughly wiped the tears away, grabbed his Dad’s lighter and his stashed cigarettes, and headed downstairs. Maybe a smoke and some fresh air would help.

He crept downstairs, not wanting to disturb Fred, and headed out of the back door. His cigarette between his teeth, he lit it carefully, and savoured the first drag. It didn’t fix things, but for a moment he felt ever so slightly better.

Fred had heard the kid crying from his office, and though it felt so, so wrong, he left him to it. After everything he'd been through, it would be odd if he wasn't crying.

He'd just been about to make the pair a cup of tea when he heard him emerge, and head to the back door. The routine was familiar enough with Fred that he knew he was smoking, so waited a few minutes before following.

He made sure to shut the door loud enough that Fao would hear him, and then headed through to the kitchen.

Fao heard Fred come into the kitchen, but at least he knew now he didn’t need to stop. He carried on, sniffing and trying not to cry. He hated feeling like this, feeling so low. He just wanted to curl into a ball, and do nothing else. He tapped the ash from his cigarette, finished it, and then headed back inside. He crept in, aware of Fred boiling the kettle.

"I'm making tea. Want me to bring one up for you?" He asked gently.

“Oh.” Fao said softly, startled by Fred’s voice. “Uh…”

"Or we can stay on the sofa, if you want company."

He sniffed. “I don’t know.” He admitted, his voice shaky.

"Hey, it’s okay. Go sit in the living room, I'll bring you a hot chocolate. Are you okay with marshmallows and squirty cream?"

He nodded. “Yeah.” He replied softly.

"Good. Go get comfortable."

He did as he was told, disappearing off into the living room. He curled up on the sofa, hugging one of the blankets close to his chest.

Fred wasn't much longer, and he carefully walked through, mugs held out. "Here you go, kid."

Fao looked up, taking it from him. “Thank you.” He mumbled, looking down again.

"Want some space? Or can I sit by you?"

“You can sit.”

"Thank you." He said gently, settling on the sofa.

“I didn’t disturb you, did I?” Fao asked, after a moment or two in silence.

"No, I was getting a coffee anyway. My lecture plans are driving me mad."

“Oh.”

"If you ever want some help going to sleep, let me know. You can read them." He joked.

“I’m sure they’re not that bad.” Fao mumbled into his mug.

"Oh, they are. They put half my students to sleep."

“Mm.”

"Look, kid." He spoke after a moment. "I'm not going to force you to do anything, but you know I'm here if you need anything, right? I know you usually go to She, and I'm just kinda in the way, but I've been through some crap too. I know what it's like when you're fighting your head all day."

“You’re not in the way.” Fao said quietly.

"I'm not as useful as She."

“Different.”

He hummed. "I think you're just being polite."

“No.” Fao insisted. “You let me smoke.” There was a hint of a smile on his lips, for just a split second.

"I know what that's like too."

“Yeah.”

"No point making this harder for you."

Fao shrugged. “Could still stop me.”

"That would just make us moth miserable."

“Mm.” He sipped his hot chocolate. It was really good, sweet and hot. He had to admit how nice it was, Fred obviously had taken care to make it.

"Not that I'm condoning it or paying for it, but do you have enough?"

He nodded. “I’m okay.”

"Just let me know, yeah?" He gave a small shrug. "Same with everything, really. If you need anything, just ask, yeah?"

“Yeah.”

"How are you getting on at college?"

Fao shrugged. “Okay I guess.”

"Are they going easy on you?"

“Not really.”

"I'll give them a call. They should know better."

“Please don’t do that.” Fao said quickly, voice worried.

"Okay, I won't."

“I jus’…” He trailed off, unable to find the words.

"It's okay."

Fao sighed. “It’s been hard.”

"I think that's an understatement."

“Today… was hard.” He admitted.

"You get days like that."

“Feels… Feels like every day is like that.” He whimpered.

"It probably will for a while."

The sobs came back so quickly Fao couldn’t stop them, putting his mug down. “I d-don’t know if I c-can keep doin’ it anymore.”

Fred quickly put his own down, leaning closer. "Hey, hey. It's okay. It’s okay to feel that way. You've been through so much, but you're safe now. It's gonna bring things to the surface."

Against his better judgement, Fao threw himself at Fred. He buried his face into his chest as the sobs wracked his body. He was just so overwhelmed, and so desperate for contact. It had been so long since he’d had anything.

"Oh, okay." Fao surprised Fred, but he wasn't mad. He wrapped his arms around him, rubbing his back. "That's it, let it out."

It had been such a long time since he’d had soft touch. Fao didn’t realise how nice it felt until Fred wrapped his arms around him, his hand rubbing over his back. He just couldn’t stop crying, it all just so overwhelming and far too much.

Fred just held him. The kid didn't need anything else, he just needed someone there for him. He was more than happy being that guy.

Being held by Fred made him feel infinitely lighter. He stayed pressed against him as the tears refused to stop, clutching his top.

His hand found its way to Fao's hair, gently stroking through it. He’d never replace his dad, and he had no desire to. But, that didn't mean Fao wasn’t his son, or that he was just going to ignore his pain.

Fao’s tears eventually slowed and then stopped, as they always did. He didn’t make any effort to move, still pressed against Fred.

"There we go. It's okay. You're gonna be okay."

“Sorry.” He whimpered.

"You have nothing to apologise for. Nothing."

“It’s been so loud.” He said. “My head. An’ I couldn’t get it to shut up.”

He rubbed Fao's back. "I know that feeling. Sometimes talking can help quieten it down a bit."

“Mm.”

"Sometimes it doesn't, which is shit, but okay."

“‘M sorry.”

"Why?"

“For this.”

"There is absolutely no reason for you to be sorry."

“I am though.”

"You don't have to be."

“I should be.”

"It's the furthest thing you should be."

“Can we stay like this for a bit?” He asked, enjoying the contact.

"Let me shuffle a bit." Fred hummed, getting comfortable. "I'm getting old, kid."

“You’re not old.” Fao mumbled. “But thank you.”

"I'll always be here for you, Fao. Please don't forget that."

“You… You’ve been amazing.”

"Don't forget the work you've done." He said softly. "Don't put yourself down."

“I know, but… Thank you, Fred.”

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hailing-stars · 3 years

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@febuwhump day 28 “you have to let me go”

juice pops and soup

summary

“Peter?” he asks. “Shouldn’t you be locked up in school?”

“Don’t feel so good.”

“We’ve talked about that phrase, Pete,” says Tony.

“Sorry.” The kid’s voice sounds truly miserable. “Can - Ccan -” Peter stops talking, and Tony’s ears are assaulted by the loudest sneeze he’s ever heard. “Can you come over? I need soup. And Gatorade. I think I’m dying.”

Tony is sad after dropping off Morgan at school for her first day. Luckily he gets distracted for a bit looking after Peter when he’s sick.

“Daddy,” says Morgan. “You have to let me go now.”

Tony continues holding her, as he watches her fellow kindergarteners hug their parents goodbye and run inside the classroom.

“You know, Mo,” says Tony. “You can always take a gap year.”

“Tony,” says Pepper, lightly touching his arm.

“Ok fine.” Tony puts Morgan down in the school hallway. She looks so small under her Spider-Man backpack. Way too tiny to spend the day without her parents.

“Bye!” Is the only farewell they get before Morgan zips out of their sight and into the classroom.

Tony turns his head towards Pepper. “I don’t like it.”

“We’ve met her teacher,” says Pepper. She’s already starting to walk away from the open classroom door. “And you like her.”

Tony has to admit Morgan got the best teacher in the elementary school. A regular Miss Honey, but that still doesn’t mean he’s ready to leave his daughter behind.

“Wait, Pep!” calls out Tony, but she’s already turning the corner.

He sighs, and takes a peek inside the classroom.

Morgan’s sitting at a table, excitedly talking with two other kids with the biggest smile on her face. It brings a sad sort of smile to his own face, and he sluggishly follows his wife out to the car, abandoning his baby to the school system.

The penthouse is quiet when it’s just Tony. He doesn’t like it, and his mind dwells on Morgan not being there and about how one day she’ll leave for college, about how she’s growing up. Time only speeds up the older he gets. He’s sure one day he’ll blink and she and Peter will be completely grown.

He’s dwelling on these thoughts when his phone buzzes. Seeing Peter’s name flash on the screen fills him with joy, but also gives him pause.

“Peter?” he asks. “Shouldn’t you be locked up in school?”

“Don’t feel so good.”

“We’ve talked about that phrase, Pete,” says Tony.

Tony stands from the couch. “Sure thing, kid. I’ll be there in a jiffy.”

“Thanks,” he says, though it sounds more like tanks.

He hangs up his phone, and heads to the drug store, where he buys way more shit than Peter had asked him for. He figures if Pete had wanted someone who won’t overact, he would’ve called Happy.

Tony has so much stuff, some he bought and some he brought from home, that he struggles to carry it up to May and Peter’s apartment in one go. He manages it, though, and his heart melts when Peter unlocks and opens the door for him.

His kid has a blanket wrapped around his body. His face is pale, and there’s absolute misery leaking out from his eyes.

“Oh, kid,” says Tony, stepping inside the Parker apartment, and setting his bags down. He shuts the door behind him. “You look terrible.”

“Tanks,” he says.

Tony looks around, and takes in the chaos of the apartment. There’re used kleenex all over the floor in the living room. Empty Gatorade bottles. Hoodies, and mountains of throw blankets. And it’s wrong. May usually keeps Peter contained to his bedroom when he’s sick.

“Why does your entire living room look like a dumpster fire?” asks Tony. “Where’s May?” There’s no way she’d allow Peter to turn the apartment into the mess it is currently. Not even when he’s sick.

“She had that - um - she that had -”says Peter. Tony puts his hand on his forehead, and nearly burns himself, he’s so hot. “Conference. She’s at a conference.”

“You’ve got quite the fever.”

“Yeah.”

“Should’ve called me sooner,” says Tony. He puts his hands on Peter’s shoulders, and directs him back towards the couch, forcing him to lay back down.

“I knew it was Morgan’s big day,” says Peter, burrowing under the blankets Tony throws on him. “Figured you were stressed enough. How are you taking it?”

Only Peter Parker would ask how someone else it’s doing while he’s sick and disgusting. Tony smiles fondly. It’s part of the kid’s charm.

“Like a knife in my heart.”

Peter laughs, which is a mistake, because his chuckle turns into coughing fit.

Tony looks on with pity, then springs into action. He busts out the dehumidifier and plugs it in, and then works on making the kid’s drink. He cracks open a bottle of Gatorade, and puts into a bendy straw, one that’s printed with small Iron Man cartoons.

Peter rolls his eyes when he sees it, but accepts the drink anyway.

Now that that’s settled, Tony puts the juice pops he bought in the freezer, and begins making the brat’s soup. Peter has dozed off by the time it’s finished, with just his left arm hanging out of the blanket, his fingers barely brushing the carpet.

Tony sets up a TV tray, and brings over the steaming hot soup and crackers, before sitting on the edge of the couch and gently nudging the kid awake.

He blinks a couple of times, yawns, and eventually sits up. “Mmmm thanks Tony.”

“You’re welcome, kid,” says Tony. “I’m surprised you called today, with the amount of grief you give me about my, uh -”

“-helicoptering,” finishes Peter, while he slurps down a spoonful of soup. “And, um, Pepper told me to call you.”

“What?”

“Well May must’ve let it slip to Pepper that I was here sick,” says Peter. “Cause Pepper texted me today and told me have you help me out. She said you really needed the distraction.”

“Oh did she?”

“Yeah,” says Peter. “But I’m glad she did.” Peter looks down at his soup. “I actually don’t mind all the fussing. I just don’t want you to know that I don’t mind it.”

“Good thing you just told me, then.”

“I’m on a lot of cold medicine, Tony, I’m not really in control of what I’m saying.”

Tony laughs. “We can just forget this conversation happened.”

“Good.” Peter takes another soup full of soup. “Did you get juice pops, too?”

“Of course I did.” Even though he hadn’t asked for them. Tony doesn’t mention this part.

“Good.” He repeats.

It clicks in Tony’s mind in that moment, that if this nearly grown superpowered teenager is willingly to ask him for juice pops and soup, that maybe it’s impossible for children to outgrow their parents. That their relationship might change, but they will still call when they need soup or breakdown on the side of the road.

Hell, that’s enough for Tony.

Peter finishes eating the soup, slurping every single mouthful. Tony takes the empty bowl, rinses it, and loads the dishwasher. He brings back a juice pop for him, but the kid is already tuckered out again, buried under a mountain of blankets and barely visible.

He puts the popsicle back in the freezer. He lets Peter rest.

Tony’s car is first in the pick up line.

He’s aware that it’s annoying for other parents to get out of his car, but he doesn’t care. He’s waiting for his daughter.

She runs to him when her teacher allows her too, and Tony kneels down, hugging her.

“Did you have fun?”

“Yeah!” says Morgan. “I made so many new friends!”

“I bet you did.”

She sighs, and bites her lip. “I missed you, though.”

“I missed you too,” says Tony. “But you know what?”

“What?”

“I’m always gonna be here at the end of the day, or whenever you call me.”

Morgan smiles, gives him another hug, and climbs into her booster seat.

There’s light contentment in Tony’s chest, and there’s a scratch in the back of his throat. That damn kid and his slimy germs. He coughs as he drives away, but he doesn’t have any regrets.

#febuwhumpday28 #irondad #irondad fic #Peter parker #sick Peter parker #Tony stark #Morgan stark #sickfic

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ninja-go-to-therapy · 3 years

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Febuwhump 28: "You Have to Let Me Go"

@badthingshappenbingo

I legitimately didn't think I was ever going to finish this, so seeing that I finally have is fricken awesome. I'm so excited!

Welcome to the newest branch of The Family Tree — similar but not related to Decadent — Delusion!

Prompt: bthb - the collector ; febuwhump - "you have to let me go"

Fandom: Ducktales 2017

Characters: Huey, Dewey, and Louie

Summary: Doofus wants to have more than just one friend-present. He gets his wish.

Trigger Warnings: burning, torture, kidnapping, possessive whumper, drowning, and once again Doofus Drake needs his own warning

2377 words

“What do you want with us?” Huey asked, cautious.

Doofus smiled, like he was thrilled to have been asked. “Llewellyn is so lovely, and he just makes such a wonderful friend-present. It only makes sense that I should have the full set.”

Dewey raised his eyebrows in disbelief. “The full set? What are you, some rare Barbie collector?”

Doofus narrowed his eyes, but didn’t respond immediately.

“Dewey,” Louie warned.

Dewey, like the reckless idiot he was, waved him off.

“As I was saying,” Doofus continued, “I wanted the whole set, so I got the whole set.”

“Ooh, do we come with accessories?” Dewey asked, leaning forward like he was really interested. For all Huey knew, maybe he was. Dewey was like that.

“Shut up,” Louie hissed, glaring at Dewey. Huey shared the sentiment. He didn’t know what Doofus would do if they annoyed him enough.

“What is he gonna do, sick his butler on us?” Dewey asked, rolling his eyes. “This is child’s play.”

Huey resisted the urge to point out the fact that they were, in fact, children, making his point meaningless, but it didn’t seem too helpful right now.

“Dewey, stop,” Louie insisted.

Doofus glared at Dewey, but Dewey wasn’t even looking at him. He was way too relaxed about this whole thing. They didn’t know what Doofus was capable of. Dewey was just seeing this another fun adventure where they got kidnapped by some guy who was all bark and no bite for like, thirty minutes maximum. Which, to be fair, did happen quite often, but this felt different.

“You’re not being a very good friend, Dewford,” Doofus said, looking legitimately disappointed in him. “I expected better of you.”

“Yeah, I get that a lot.”

Huey looked at him, concerned, but Dewey didn’t acknowledge it. It seemed like there were quite a few things he wasn’t acknowledging, actually.

“I think you need a little trip to my honey bin,” Doofus said, and though Huey had no idea what that was, the threat was clear.

Dewey cocked his head to the side. “You mean money bin.”

“No, I don’t.”

Louie went pale, and that was enough for Huey to intervene. “He didn’t mean it!” he cried, nervously glancing between a continuously carefree Dewey and the rich psychopath.

“Too late! Come, dear Dewford,” Doofus said, releasing him from the bracelet’s hold and grabbing him firmly by the arm. “You can think about how to be a better friend while you’re in there.”

Dewey turned to point a finger-gun at his brothers, clicking his tongue.

“He’s going to get us killed,” Huey mumbled illy.

Louie shook his head, tugging at his bracelet as he did so. “He won’t kill us,” he mumbled miserably. “It will be worse.”

Huey looked at him in alarm, but Louie didn’t opt to explain further.

“Okay, we’ve got to get out of here,” he said decisively, a new energy coursing through him now that they weren’t in the same room as their captor. He squirmed, trying to get his wrist out, but just like Louie, he had no luck. “Do you by chance have any butter?”

Louie stared at him. “Butter.”

“If we get all buttery, we might be able to get the bracelets off without dislocating our thumbs!”

“Oh, of course. Yes, Huey, let me just grab that butter I carry with me everywhere!” Louie said, sarcasm dripping from his voice.

“It’s the only plan I have!” Huey cried, doing his best to stay calm. They had no clue what was happening to Dewey right now, and based on everything that had happened since they’d been captured, he got the feeling Doofus was seriously unstable.

He was scared, and he didn’t think well under pressure.

Very, very faintly, they heard Dewey scream.

“Oh god,” Louie whispered.

“We need to help him!” Huey shouted, frantically yanking at his arm, like the whole thing would just come loose if he tried hard enough. His arm was already getting sore, but he ignored it. “This thing has got to have a fault somewhere! Or an off switch!”

“The only off switch is the remote that Doofus keeps on him!” Louie said, grunting as he tried to get free.

“And we can’t break them,” Huey panted, slumping over as he caught his breath. “What are we gonna do?”

“You won’t be doing anything.”

Huey froze mid-yank, slowly lowering his arm again. Doofus was standing in the doorway, Dewey beside him.

Dewey didn’t look so lighthearted anymore. His feathers were all disheveled and sticky looking, and he was just staring into space blankly. Huey had no idea what the hell Doofus had done, but he definitely didn’t want to know. It was hard to shut Dewey up, even when his life was threatened.

Actually, maybe he did want to know. Anyone who hurt his brother was going to pay.

Dewey was placed with a level of great care, much like a doll, or an action figure, back where he’d been before, between Huey and Louie. Both of them shuddered.

“You have to let us go,” Huey said, hoping to God he could reason with him. “You can’t just keep us here!”

“But I can,” Doofus replied easily.

Louie gave Huey a desperate sort of look, like he was trying to silently project his own thoughts into Huey’s brain. He tried to focus on it, on the off chance that twin sense was real, but he wasn’t getting anything. Huh.

He turned his focus back to Doofus. He knew he was on thin ice, but Doofus was just a kid, like them. “Come on,” he said, “we would be happy to be your friends!” he ignored the quiet “no we wouldn’t,” from Louie, plowing forward anyway. “You don’t have to kidnap us to get that! Don’t you think you may be overreacting just a little bit?”

“Overreacting?” Doofus shouted, overreacting.

“No! No, I didn’t mean you were overreacting!” Huey cried, attempting to backtrack. “Even if you are kind of crazy — no wait I didn’t mean that!” Oh boy, he was only burying himself deeper and deeper with every word he spoke. Why couldn’t he have been born with Louie’s smoothness?

Doofus did not look happy, and Huey let out a tiny squeak, looking side to side like a magical exit would appear before them.

Dewey snapped to life, purposefully placing himself in front of Huey. “Don’t touch him,” he growled.

“Dewey, no!” Huey said, doing his best to shove past him. “I’m not letting you get hurt again!”

“And I’m not letting you get hurt at all!” Dewey insisted.

“How sweet,” Doofus said, and Huey honestly couldn’t tell if it was supposed to be mocking or sincere. Doofus was… well, he was Doofus, and he had a very… interesting way of going about things. “You’re coming with me,” he continued, ignoring Dewey entirely and leading Huey towards the door.

“No!” Dewey begged.

“I’ll be fine, Dew,” Huey said, smiling as best he could in an attempt to reassure him. It didn’t seem to be working well.

Doofus pulled him from the room.

“What’s the honey bin?” He asked, tripping over himself as he tried to keep up.

“Oh, you won’t be going there,” Doofus said dismissively. He looked like Dewey did when he was trying to hide some silly secret, and Huey didn’t like it.

They ended up outside, at the top of the treehouse.

“Servants!” Doofus snapped. “Prepare the gravy bath!”

Huey stared at him blankly. “The gravy what now?”

“You’ll see,” he replied gleefully. Not a normal type of glee, of course — Huey was quickly learning that there was very little about this kid that was normal (and not in the type of way that Huey wasn’t “normal”, either). It was worrisome.

“The gravy bath,” the butler echoed hauntedly. Huey, his concern growing, could only look at him in confusion.

“The gravy bath,” Doofus began, “is one of my favorite pastimes.” Well that couldn’t be good. “And if it doesn’t work, I’m sure there are… other methods of teaching you how to be a better friend.”

The maid and butler dragged out a bathtub (from where, Huey had no idea), scurrying away the moment it was (presumably) in place.

“Seriously, what is a gravy bath?” Huey asked nervously. He would have tried to back away had Doofus not been gripping his arm so tightly.

Said duckling shoved him into the empty tub, and Huey grunted in pain as he landed. Still, this was an open tub, which meant it might have been his only chance to flee.

He flailed about, nearly throwing himself over the opposite edge of the tub. The butler forced him back in, but Huey didn’t stop struggling, even as his bracelet activated. Doofus grabbed his free hand tightly, pulling a second bracelet from his pocket and slipping it over Huey’s wrist.

With both of his hands now glued to the bottom of the tub, Huey was stuck.

The two adults then proceeded to wheel out what looked like a giant… gravy boat. And when he said giant, he meant giant. It looked big enough to function as an actual boat. He was pretty sure he, Dewey, Louie, and Webby could fit in there if they squeezed.

“Wonderful! Servants, you’re dismissed.”

They all but ran to the elevator, barely missing a beat. As scared as he was, Huey couldn’t blame them.

“What are you going to do?” he asked again, looking up at the boat nervously. Was that steam coming off of it?

Doofus’s beak twitched into a smile, and he pulled out a small blue remote.

Huey began squirming again, his stomach churning in anxiety for what could be coming. Doofus wasn’t actually that crazy, was he?

He got his answer when a small beep sounded from the remote. The gravy boat tipped, and something hot (very, very hot), poured over Huey’s head.

He shouted, fighting against the restraints with every ounce of his willpower. It burned. And it was spreading, a continuous stream of the stuff (was this actual gravy?) raining down on him.

It was splattering onto Doofus’s clothes, but he didn’t even seem to mind.

“Turn it off!” Huey begged, crying out at the pain. It was a thousand times worse than any other burn he’d ever received, and there was nothing he could do to get away.

It began to pool around him, burning his hands. He couldn’t. Get. Away.

“Please,” he sobbed, breath hitching and unable to stop the tears.

It was like the time one of his particularly horrible bullies had attempted to shove him into the fire at a Junior Woodchucks camp out, but so much worse.

Not only was this actually successful, but he would have been pulled from that fire in seconds had he actually been pushed in. This was constant, never ending pain, thick liquid fire pouring over him like molten lava.

It was in his eyes, now, blinding and burning and pain pain pain.

A hand grabbed him, and suddenly it was tenderly wiping the fire from his eyes, jerking him forward so it streamed down his back instead.

Huey cried even harder.

All he could taste was the gravy, burning his feathers, his tongue, his everything.

It hurt. So bad.

The tub was nearly filled, the lower half of his body completely submerged in the stuff. Finally, after what must have been eternity, the stream dripped to a stop.

He let himself hope, for a meager few seconds, that it was over. But hope was hard to come by when one was literally sitting in a tub of burning gravy.

Doofus placed his hand on Huey’s head, tangling his fingers in Huey’s hair for a moment — wait. When had his hat come off? — before abruptly gripping it so hard that Huey couldn’t keep another sob in. His head was shoved violently down, and suddenly his entire body was on fire all at once.

He couldn’t breathe. He was choking on the stuff. No air. No nothing. Just heat, just pain, just the hand forcefully holding him under.

He didn’t know how Doofus could stand to have even his hand touching it.

His head went blurry. Was blurry the right word? He couldn’t remember. Everything was heavy and floaty and — he was dragged back up.

Huey coughed and sputtered, taking in as much air as he could manage. Everything hurt.

The bracelets must have been released at some point, because then he was being lifted from the tub, gravy spilling over the side. He was too weak to even attempt to fight back as Doofus dragged him back inside.

Distantly, he wondered who was going to clean up the gravy that was getting all over the carpets. Probably that maid and butler. He felt kind of bad for them.

The gravy that still coated his feathers, at the very least, wasn’t too unbearable anymore. But the burns he’d received were, and he had the suspicion that he wouldn’t be receiving medical attention. He sniffled.

He felt so gross, so… wrong.

“Wait,” he gasped, still struggling to breathe properly. “My — my hat,” he said, “and my guidebook, can I have them back?”

“Oh, those? I’m afraid the gravy ruined them,” Doofus replied, in such a casual manner that it took Huey a moment to actually process it.

“What?” he choked out, his heart dropping in his chest.

He was dragged through the door, his mind reeling. Louie and Dewey audibly gasped at the sight of him. He could only be thankful that the gravy managed to cover the burn marks that would no doubt be underneath.

“What did you do to him?” Louie asked nervously as Huey was placed back in his spot.

Doofus smiled. “Don’t fret, my sweet,” he said, wrapping his arms around Louie in a way that made Huey want to vomit. “He’ll be fine. And as for you… well, I have something special planned for you.”

It seemed, thank goodness, that he didn’t plan to act on whatever it was right now, because with that, he released Louie, spun towards the door, and left them alone.

Huey wiped his eyes with his free hand. They needed to get out of here.

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starryknight09 · 3 years

Text

Surprise?

Febuwhump Day 27: identity reveal

Read on AO3.

________________________________________________________

“Hey do you want to come over tonight?” Ned asked as they stood at their lockers, shoving their books into their backpacks.

“I can’t. It’s a Friday remember?” Peter said, feeling kind of bad. He knew he’d been neglecting Ned lately with everything that was going on in his life. Juggling decathlon, school, homework, Spiderman, and his internship made it seem like there was just never enough time in the day, or week for that matter, for all the stuff he needed to get done.

“So?” Ned frowned.

“I have my Stark internship on Fridays.” He reminded him.

“Oh right.” Ned nodded as they walked down the hallway toward the school doors. “So, are you going to tell Mr. Stark about you know what today?”

“Um no.” He winced. He’d applied for the Stark internship on a whim a year ago and had actually gotten it. The day he’d found out he was going to be interning directly under Tony Stark, he’d almost wet himself, but after almost a year of working with him, that had definitely faded. As Mr. Stark would say, he sassed him more than he complimented him now.

When he’d gotten bit by the radioactive spider six months ago, he’d thought about telling Mr. Stark about his new powers, but by then they’d grown close enough that he was worried Mr. Stark wouldn’t allow him to keep being Spiderman if he found out. And then Ben had died. And thoughts of anything else had gone out the window.

“Peter.” Ned chastised. “It’s been weeks. You should just tell him. He’s going to figure it out soon anyway.”

“Not necessarily. Spiderman’s been around for the last six months and Mr. Stark hasn’t figured it out yet.” Peter hedged. Ok, so realistically he knew Mr. Stark would eventually figure it out, but he’d been extra careful ever since the man had started up his hunt to find out who Spiderman was. Besides, Peter had an advantage. He worked directly with his enemy, so he was always one step ahead of him and Mr. Stark had no idea.

“Yeah he’s been around for six months, but Mr. Stark has only been looking for him for the last three weeks.” Ned argued. “He’s getting closer and you know it.”

Peter did know it. On Wednesday Mr. Stark had shown him a clip of Spiderman swinging into an abandoned alleyway to change. His mentor had been so sure he’d had him, but then a garbage truck had driven by the entrance of the alleyway just as Peter was leaving in his street clothes, luckily obscuring his identity. Mr. Stark had sworn up a blue streak and Peter had made a mental note to be much more cognizant of city cameras whenever he was getting in and out of the suit.

“But if I tell him who I am then it’ll take all the fun out of it for him.” Peter smirked. He’d known Mr. Stark long enough to know that as much as he kept complaining about ‘this webhead’ he was enjoying the challenge of it. Peter didn’t want to spoil it for him. At least that’s what he’d been telling himself the last few weeks ever since Mr. Stark had told him he wanted his help to find Spiderman.

“You’re playing with fire dude.” Ned warned as they passed through the school doors to outside.

“Why? What’s he going to do to me if he finds out?” Peter said with false bravado. “Ground me? He’s not my dad.”

“Does he know that though?” Ned joked. “Didn’t he pack you a lunch for school when you stayed over at his place last week?”

“Yeah.”

“And didn’t he spend all day watching a Star Wars marathon with you last weekend when he doesn’t even like Star Wars?”

Peter made a face. Ok, so Ned kind of had a point.

“And don’t him and your aunt have like coffee dates every month now just to talk about you?”

“Ok ok I get it.”

“So how do you think he’s going to react when he finds out you’ve been keeping this from him?” Ned asked.

“He’s going to be pissed.” He decided.

“Right.” Ned nodded. “And do you think he’ll be more or less pissed if he finds out on his own instead of you telling him about it?”

“Definitely more.” Peter agreed.

“Ok so you agree you should tell him today.”

“No.”

“Peter!” Ned shook his head. “You’re hopeless.”

“It’s all a moot point anyway. He’s not going to find out.”

“Hopeless and in denial.” Ned said.

Peter rolled his eyes.

“Whatever dude. It’s your funeral. Just don’t say I didn’t warn you.” Ned clapped him on the shoulder and turned to start walking home. “Text me if you want to hang out this weekend.”

“I will.” Peter said and made his way toward the nondescript Audi waiting for him.

“Hey Happy.” He greeted the man behind the steering wheel as he crawled in. Or as he liked to think of him, not-so-Happy.

Happy didn’t respond to his greeting as he started driving away, but Peter still liked to think he was slowly growing on the man.

“Guess what we did in chemistry today? Our teacher said—”

“I’ll give you this snickers bar if you don’t talk for the next ten minutes.” Happy interrupted, holding up said candy bar as proof.

“Really?”

“Yes.”

“Ok.” He stared out the window. The man was bringing him candy now. He was definitely growing on him.

**********

Ned was wrong. Mr. Stark didn’t figure out Spiderman’s identity that week. Or even the week after. Or the week after that. Although Peter did have another close call with a traffic camera he didn’t know was installed nearby when he’d taken his mask off to deal with a bloody nose. In the intervening weeks, he’d thought more seriously about coming clean to his mentor because Mr. Stark was getting a little obsessive and it was making Peter’s life a lot harder. He had to completely avoid the area near his apartment now because Tony had come up with an algorithm to track where Spiderman was sighted and he was using it as a tool to try to narrow in on his possible residence. Admittedly smart, but super annoying for Peter because now he had to walk at least ten blocks home every night after Spidermanning. And his mentor had even figured out the components of his web fluid, although he hadn’t been able to successfully reverse engineer it yet. Part of Peter felt a spark of pride at that even though some of his Mr. Stark’s failure might’ve been his fault. He’d been trying his hardest to slow him down. But now that his mentor knew the web fluid materials, he was looking for people who had bought large quantities of those exact chemicals. At least Peter was safe in that regard, he still mooched everything from his chemistry class. But by now even Peter had to admit it was only a matter of time before Mr. Stark thought of something even Peter couldn’t foresee or deter.

Ned had been on his case the past week about telling the man and Peter was seriously considering it for the first time.

“Hey Mr. Stark!” He greeted as he walked into the man’s lab, feeling his usual flash of wonder. After a year, having access to Tony Stark’s private lab still hadn’t gotten old.

“Hey Mr. Parker.” His mentor said, spinning in his desk chair to face him. “How many more times am I going to have to tell you to call me Tony?”

Peter shrugged. Honestly, he did it now solely because he knew it annoyed him. “What are you doing?” He asked, sidestepping the question and pointing to the holoscreens Mr. Stark had pulled up over his desk.

Mr. Stark narrowed his eyes at him as if trying to decide whether or not to push the name thing, but after a moment he twirled back to face the screens, letting it go. “I’m hacking into a bodega’s security camera.”

Peter walked over to him, dropping his backpack on the ground next to the desk with the weight of the knowledge that it held the suit of the very vigilante Mr. Stark was looking for. He stared at the screens over the man’s shoulder. They looked oddly familiar. “Why?”

“Because I’ve finally got the little pipsqueak.” Mr. Stark said with eager excitement.

“What are you talking about? Because you’re starting to sound a little supervillainy...” Peter joked.

“Spiderman.” Mr. Stark answered. “I finally got him.”

Peter’s heart leapt into his chest as he asked nervously, “You did? Um h-how?”

“He repeatedly patrols around this area.” Mr. Stark explained and pointed to the corresponding area on the map of Queens. The part right by Mr. Delmar’s shop. Oh shit. He hadn’t thought of that and he thought he’d been so careful. “Ever since I realized it, I’ve had FRIDAY continuously scanning the traffic cameras and we got lucky. She caught him going into this alleyway here.” Mr. Stark pointed to the alley on the screen. “Now watch. A minute later someone comes out.”

Peter watched himself exit the alleyway with his navy hoodie pulled up over his head to obscure his face. He breathed a silent sigh of relief. There was no way you could tell that was him.

“Now, I know you can’t see his face, and I couldn’t get a good enough angle from any other cameras in the area, but I managed to follow him the next three blocks to this bodega. I screened the footage from outside of it for the previous hour before he goes in, and if I’m right, it should be completely empty except for him.”

Yeah, that tracked. No one had been in there when he’d visited Mr. Delmar and Murph yesterday.

“So?” He asked, sensing Mr. Stark was waiting for him to do so.

“So my young grasshopper, whoever this guy is goes in with his hood up, but when he comes out ten minutes later, look.” Mr. Stark pointed to the screen. “His hood is still up but the strings around it aren’t pulled tight anymore which means…”

“He took it off in the store.” Peter mumbled in shock. He had taken it off in the store. He’d thought he was safe, and he hadn’t wanted Mr. Delmar to think he was being a weirdo punk.

“He took it off in the store.” Mr. Stark repeated with satisfaction. “So, if I can hack into the bodega’s security footage, I can finally figure out exactly who this little twerp is that’s been evading me these past couple months.”

“Uh huh.” He said distractedly as he tried to figure out a way out of this, but no ideas came to mind. Shit. He never should’ve stopped for a sandwich yesterday during patrol. It didn’t matter how hungry he’d been or how good they tasted.

Mr. Stark continued typing away and moment later declared, “Ah ha! I’m in.”

“Um Mr. Stark, there’s something I need to tell you.” Peter tried to nervously interject, but his mentor was in the zone. Peter could’ve been screaming he was on fire and Mr. Stark wouldn’t have heard him.

“Get ready to be amazed kid.” Mr. Stark said, cocky as hell as he brought up the footage from the camera behind Mr. Delmar’s counter. “It’s finally time to see exactly who you are Spiderman.”

“Uh…” He really needed to say something or do something or—

Too late. The feed from Mr. Delmar’s camera came up on the screen. He froze. There was Mr. Delmar, and Murph lying on the counter, and there he was walking in with his hood over his head. Shit. His hand moved up to his hood. It was a lot like watching a train wreck in slow motion. And his hood was off. His profile wasn’t very descript, but he knew any second he’d turn toward Mr. Delmar and be facing the camera straight on. And yep. There he was. In all his idiot glory.

“Wait.” Mr. Stark frowned and leaned closer to the screen as if he didn’t believe his eyes. “That looks like…”

Peter winced and a split second later Mr. Stark whirled to face him, face showing absolute shock.

“You.” Mr. Stark accused and then said in disbelief. “It’s you.”

He fake shrugged, holding his hands out, palms up. “Surprise?”

“What the f—”

“I’m sorry!”

Mr. Stark stood from his chair so fast it fell over backward. He pointed a finger at him. “You’re Spiderman? This whole time I’ve been looking for him and he’s been in my own lab? My very own intern?”

“Um, it looks like it?”

“Don’t be cute. Yes or no.”

“Yes.” He nodded, backing up as Mr. Stark slowly advanced toward him. Peter’s eyes widened. “I was going to tell you! I was! But then I just…didn’t?”

“You were helping me look for him!”

Peter made a considering face. “Well, I was pretending to? But really I was trying to stay one step ahead of you.”

He bumped into his desk chair and fell into it. Tony stood over him, arms crossed, still looking more than a little angry.

“How. Did. This. Happen?” Tony ground out.

“Um, remember that field to Oscorp that I went on about six months ago that you said I shouldn’t go on?” Peter asked nervously.

“Yes.”

“Turns out you were right.” He said as he nodded.

“What?”

“I uh got bit by a radioactive spider, and it made me so sick I thought I was dying, but then I woke up and I was this.” He gestured at his body.

Mr. Stark’s eyes narrowed at him.

“Oh. Um.” He lifted his shirt so Mr. Stark could see his perfectly chiseled six pack abs.

“Jesus kid.” Mr. Stark shook his head.

“Oh and I lied about getting contacts. I didn’t. I just don’t need glasses anymore. The bite fixed all of that. And I don’t have allergies or asthma anymore either, so you can update that on my employee form if you want.”

“Yes because that’s what’s important right now.” Mr. Stark scoffed.

“I’m sorry.” He repeated although it seemed like Mr. Stark’s anger was cooling. He didn’t look like he was about to have an aneurysm anymore. “I should’ve told you when you started looking for Spiderman. I know I wasted your time.”

“No! You should’ve told me six months ago when it first happened!” Mr. Stark yelled. Ok, so maybe he was still pretty mad. “You thought you were dying and you didn’t tell anyone? And then you woke up with superpowers and you still didn’t tell anyone?”

“Yeah, that’s the gist of it.” He grimaced.

Mr. Stark put his hand over his face as she shook his head. He took a deep breath and let it out slowly before dropping his hand and meeting Peter’s gaze to ask, “So no one knows?”

“Well, um, Ned knows because he caught me sneaking into my room as Spiderman, and now…you know.” Peter answered.

“May doesn’t know?”

“No.” He shook his head vehemently.

“Of course not.” Mr. Stark scoffed. “Because why would you tell a responsible adult you’re going out at all hours of the night to fight criminals. Jesus.” Mr. Stark shook his head again in disbelief. “You’re going out at all hours of the night to fight criminals. Well that ends today.”

“No!” Peter shot to his feet and raised his chin as he faced Mr. Stark unflinchingly. “I’m not going to stop! And you can’t make me!” He knew the wording made him sound like a petulant child but he didn’t care.

Mr. Stark raised his eyebrows at him in challenge and Peter had to force himself to stand tall and not wither under his gaze. Sometimes he forgot Mr. Stark was Ironman, Tony Stark, but at times like these, getting stared down by the man, he remembered.

Mr. Stark shook his head and said, “You’re fourteen years old.”

“I’m fifteen! And I know you know that! You got me a birthday present.” He accused. “Besides, I’ve been doing this for six months and I’ve been fine. I’m not going to stop now. And this is exactly why I didn’t want to tell you! I knew you’d go all nuts about it!”

“Yes because not wanting to let a child run around in the middle of the night fighting crime is nuts.” Mr. Stark rolled his eyes.

“I’m not a child!”

Mr. Stark frowned and the next second he suddenly spun on his heels and marched over to where he’d left his backpack, lifting it up to his desk and opening it.

“Hey that’s mine!” Peter protested, hurrying over to him but it was too late. Mr. Stark fished out his Spiderman suit from the bottom of it and held it out.

“This? This is what you fight crime in? It’s a onesie!”

“No it’s not.” He frowned. He’d put a lot of work into making that. He didn’t appreciate Mr. Stark making fun of it.

“What is it then?”

“My super suit.” He smiled.

“We are never watching The Incredibles again.” Mr. Stark shook his head. “And what are these?” His mentor asked, holding up his goggles to his own eyes. “How the hell do you even see anything through these?”

Peter snatched them from his hands. “They help. Ever since I got my powers all my senses are have been dialed to eleven. There’s way too much input. Those help me filter it out and focus.”

Mr. Stark frowned, looking at him in a way he never had before, like there might be something wrong with him, which didn’t make any sense. He’d never once looked at weak, little, half blind, asthmatic Peter Parker the way he was now looking at Spiderman. Peter didn’t like it.

Mr. Stark dropped his suit to his desk with a sigh and pinched the bridge of his nose. “So let me get this straight, you got bit by a radioactive spider, almost died but didn’t, woke up with super powers and then decided to sew a onesie and start swinging around town fighting crime?”

“Um, yeah.”

“Tell me why. Why are you doing this?” The man ordered and Peter could tell this was important.

“Because…when you can do the things I can and you don’t and then the bad things happen, they happen because of you.” He explained solemnly and tried not to think of his uncle lying limp on the concrete, bleeding out.

Mr. Stark sighed and dropped back down into his desk chair, resting a fist over his mouth as he examined Peter.

Peter tried not to fidget under the scrutiny.

“If I let you do this, we’re doing it my way.” Mr. Stark finally spoke.

“Yes!” Peter thrust his arms in the air and then threw himself at Mr. Stark to hug him. “Thank Mr. Stark! Thank you!”

Mr. Stark patted his back awkwardly. “Yeah. All right. All right. Don’t thank me yet. There are going to be ground rules. A lot of ground rules. And a curfew.”

“Aw come on.” Peter complained as he pulled away.

“And I don’t want to hear any sass about it, because you can say I can’t stop you all you want, but you and I both know I can.” Mr. Stark held a finger up at him in warning. It was true. He did know. “First of all, I’m going to make you a suit.”

“Really?” His eyes went wide.

“Really. You’re in dire need of an upgrade. I can’t let you keep swinging around town in this.” Mr. Stark poked at his super suit as if was a stinky pile of garbage.

“It’s not that bad…” He argued but the thought of having a suit built for him by Mr. Stark made him want to jump up and down in excitement.

“And I’m telling May.” Mr. Stark said.

“No! Please Mr. Stark, you can’t tell her!”

“She needs to know kid. You’re her responsibility and you’re out there risking your life.”

“Risking my life is kind of an exaggeration. I mean I don’t do that many dangerous things. I’m more like the friendly neighborhood spiderman.”

“I saw a video of you webbing up bank robbers last week. They were shooting at you. Very real bullets. Very real life risking danger.” Mr. Stark said, not amused. A second later he frowned as he stared off in the distance at the wall behind Peter, looking like he was deep in thought.

“Uh, Mr. Stark?” Peter prompted.

“Just replaying in my head all those videos I’ve seen of you doing stupidly dangerous stunts.”

Peter rolled his eyes. “They’re not that bad.”

Mr. Stark arched an eyebrow at him.

“Please don’t tell May.” He pleaded. “If she knows she’s going to freak out and then I’m going to freak out and she doesn’t need this kind of stress right now, not after…” He trailed off, not wanting to talk about his uncle’s death. He could tell Mr. Stark understood though because he made the face everyone made whenever Peter mentioned Ben these days.

Mr. Stark ran a hand down his face and nodded. “Ok fine.”

“Thank you!”

“But I reserve the right to change my mind at any time.”

“Fine.” Peter didn’t like it, but it was better than the alternative.

“So.” Mr. Stark sighed and slapped his thighs before standing. “That web fluid. You made that yourself?”

“Yeah.”

Mr. Stark smiled, and Peter didn’t think he was imagining the pride in his eyes. “Where’d you get the supplies?”

“Chemistry class.”

Mr. Stark snorted. “Of course you did. You want to walk me through how you make it?”

Peter grinned. “Sure.”

Huh. Maybe Ned had been right. Mr. Stark finding out hadn’t been as bad as he’d thought it would be.

#febuwhump2021 #febuwhump #irondad

19 notes · View notes

raineydaywrites · 3 years

Text

the drought was the very worst

Febuwhump day 26: recovery

Fic Summary: Time heals all wounds. But a little friendly competition can maybe help speed it up.

Or, the story of the first day that Taako and Lucretia spend alone together after the Day of Story and Song.

All three of the reapers were currently on an extended mission. They expected to be gone for a few days "four, at most" according to Krav. They'd blown open a whole network of necromancers, and hoped to eliminate them before they started whatever creepy ritual they were planning for the next week. Nothing too complicated, but apparently time consuming.

Taako was not worried about them. They could handle themselves. But he certainly was put out over the temporary displacement from three of his favorite people.

It didn't help that Magnus was super busy with his dog school and Merle was super busy with his earl duties and Davenport was off on another exploration, and meanwhile, Taako's school was on harvest break. It had been nice, for the first few weeks, and Taako was usually glad to get time to relax and chill, but he had to say that it would have been nice to have something else to do while most of his family were busy.

He probably ought to get dressed and get going for the day. He didn't feel like laying around all day, and moping around about this would eventually just make him miserable.

He picked over the offerings in the closet. They'd gotten so used to sharing/stealing each others' clothes over the century they'd spent together that they didn't even pretend to need separate closets when they'd built this place. And anyway, it was just easier to clean and hang everything in the same room.

Taako didn't feel like getting himself into anything too complicated, so he found a relatively simple sundress and slipped it on, before tying his hair up into a loose bun. Best way to look great without putting much effort into it.

He probably ought to make himself something to eat, but without anyone else to cook with or for, the biggest reward of cooking breakfast was gone. Maybe he'd be more into the idea by the time lunch or dinner came around.

Usually, Krav, Lup, and Barry would come home in the evenings when they could. Sure, they didn't actually need to sleep or eat to keep going, but they usually would choose to. It was uncomfortable to know that they wouldn't this week, to be so reminded to the fact that they were- not like him anymore. Taako would never say that out loud, but it was.

He left the closet, determined not to think about upsetting but irrelevant shit anymore, and made his way the main family room. Lucretia was there. She was settled on a couch, flipping through a book. Taako tilted his head in surprise to see her.

"I thought you would be at the Bureau today," he said. Lucretia jumped, as if she hadn't realized that anyone else was here either, which was ridiculous. Both he and Angus were on break, and he, at least, had nothing else to be doing. He was pretty sure Angus wasn't working on any cases right now anyway, so he should be knocking around here somewhere too.

"No. Avi and Killian have suggested that I'm 'overworking' myself, and arguing with them has started to be more trouble than it's worth," Lucretia said simply. Taako snorted.

"They're not wrong, Creesh," he said, flopping down on the other couch. "I'm more surprised that they convinced you to take a day off than I am surprised that you need one."

Lucretia scowled half-heartedly at him, but she was self-aware enough to know that he was right. There was silence for a moment.

"Huh. Is that my dress?" Lucretia asked, furrowing her brows as she took a closer look at Taako's outfit.

Taako glanced down at it, assessing. He really wasn't sure who had bought it originally, but yeah it easily could have been Lucretia. It was a cut and color that she liked, and it looked just about her size.

"Probably. Is that a problem?" Taako gave her a challenging look, daring her to say something.

"No, of course not," Lucretia scoffed. "I just didn't realize we were so close in size."

It was a fair point. They didn't use to be able to fit each others' clothes as well as this dress fit Taako. But it had been a while since he'd last stolen anything of Lucretia's or she'd stolen anyth- any of his clothes. They didn't have a huge overlap in style to begin with, and it had only been a few months since the whole group of them had moved into this place together.

Taako just shrugged. They'd never been too caught up in how well the stuff they took fit. The only times it was even mentioned were if someone ripped anything or when the size difference was particularly noticeable, like the times when Merle would show up to breakfast wearing Magnus' t-shirts as pajamas.

"Have you had breakfast yet?" Lucretia asked, hesitant.

Taako firmly didn't think about any potential reasons that the clothing discussion could have prompted that question.

"Nah. Just woke up," he responded.

"So you're going to make something soon?" Lucretia pressed.

"Why do you ask? So you can steal some without asking?" Taako shot back. Lucretia tensed but didn't quite flinch the way she used to when he said stuff like that. Which meant it was nearing its end as a useful manipulation tactic, and he should probably find a new one.

"I- I'd appreciate having something, yes. I haven't eaten yet today either," Lucretia said. She was manipulating him right back, and Taako knew it, but he still heaved himself up off the couch, sighing.

"Gods, Lucretia, you'd think someone as responsible and in-control as you would remember that living people have to eat things," he said.

He took the book out of her hands and set it down with the pages still open, snickering when her expression twisted in distaste at the improper positioning. When she reached out a hand to correct it, he grabbed it and yanked her upright, startling a laugh out of her. He pulled her along behind him to the kitchen.

"If I'm going to make something for you, you're helping with the boring shit," Taako announced. He let go of her hands to start washing his own, and started thinking about what to make. Nothing sounded particularly appealing at the moment, so he'd probably just stick with something basic.

"Okay? Like what?" Lucretia asked, washing her hands as well. Taako nodded approvingly. It was great when he didn't have to remind idiots -cough, cough, Magnus and Merle, occasionally Barry- about basic shit like sanitizing your hands before shoving it into something you were cooking for other people.

Honestly, Taako wasn't sure. He mostly just wanted to keep her from wandering off and forgetting to eat for longer, or getting bored and giving up on it himself, and, as an added bonus, he knew it must be driving Lucretia crazy knowing that her book was, at this very moment, sustaining damage to the spine and pages. And yeah, there she went, tossing an assessing look back toward the family room, probably trying to figure out if she could hurry back and correct the book without him noticing.

He grabbed some fruit and a knife and set them on the cutting board nearest Lucretia.

"Just cut that shit up. I'm making eggs. Eggs and fruit is a breakfast, right? I'm not in the mood for anything complicated, especially not for just you and me." Taako hoped playing it off as laziness would stave off any concern. He used to want to cook all the time, and he'd used to take any opportunity to do so.

Lucretia just hummed agreement, but Taako got the feeling that she still saw through it. After all, she hadn't always fed herself properly back on the Starblaster either, and 'Lucretia forgot to eat' used to be an opportunity that he always took, because he liked cooking and it was a great way to not have to admit to worrying about her, way back in the beginning, and a nice way to spend some time with a friend later on.

They were quiet for several long moments, just letting the sounds of cooking fill the room. The silence made Taako anxious, but he wasn't quite sure how to break it. He glanced over at Lucretia, to check on her progress with the fruit, and saw her staring off into space blankly. He went back to cooking the eggs.

When the eggs were ready, he salted them with the No Sodium salt shaker, knowing that they were good, but knowing that there would be just the tiniest tendril of worry tugging at his mind throughout the meal if he didn't.

It was ridiculous, really, that he needed that. He had never made a fatal mistake in the kitchen, and it had been a long time even since he thought he had. And this meal didn't even involve transmutation. But the thoughts that maybe he'd mess up in some different way could get stuck in his mind for hours sometimes. It could take hours, after all, for some illnesses and poisons to even show their symptoms. At Glamour Springs, it had happened pretty quickly, but if he messed up here, made some mistake of a different sort than pissing somebody off, then who knew how long it would be before symptoms would show themselves?

He shook himself, forced his mind away from the thoughts, and set the plates next to Lucretia's fruit. She didn't respond to his nearness, and when the plates hit the counter, she moved her head to look at them only after several long seconds.

Taako snapped his fingers in front of Lucretia's face a couple times, eying the knife she was almost cradling. Probably shouldn't have left her to cut stuff up when he'd realized that she was so out of it. She could have hurt herself. But, whatever, the moment had passed, and it didn't look like she was bleeding, so it didn't matter.

The snapping got her moving at a quicker pace, but she still didn't seem like she was all there yet.

Taako started to hum under his breath, hoping the sensory input would wake her up a little. She'd always reacted well to that in the past.

Lucretia finished cutting the fruits in front of her, setting the knife down and swaying back and forth a little to the humming. She plated the fruit and set it next to Taako's eggs. She made a humming noise in the back of her throat, a thanks without words, and washed off the knife.

Taako still didn't really feel like eating, but the food was made, and it would do no good to waste it. Besides which, if he ducked out of eating, then Lucretia could too, and he didn't want that. She had a bad habit of not eating when she felt bad, which always ended up with her making herself feel worse.

If they had to play Fantasy Chicken with their meals to get her to eat right, then he could play Fantasy Chicken.

They were both stubborn people, and neither was willing to back down, so the food got eaten, and the dishes got washed, and Lucretia snuck back to her book when Taako wasn't looking, but she came back with the book and a board game that he hadn't realized they still had.

"Look what I found the other day," Lucretia said, brandishing the box proudly.

Taako grinned at the Fantasy Clue box- they'd all played a lot of games together on the Starblaster, but some games had been more embraced by some of them than others- like Merle and Davenport with their modified euchre rules once the rest of them tired of playing along.

For him and Lucretia, it had been Fantasy Clue, and yeah, they'd had to modify it pretty hard to make it work with two people, but they had made it work nonetheless.

"Do you want to play?" Lucretia asked, hesitant.

Taako refused to let himself hesitate in his response, "Hell yeah, let's break that bad boy out."

Lucretia smiled widely, a smile he'd missed, that told him that he'd made the right decision.

They set the board up on the floor in the living room, so that they could spread out as needed, and started to play.

The game was intense, both of them competitive and stubborn and smart as hell, but it was fun.

They lost track of time as they played, until Angus peeked in at them curiously.

"What are you playing?" Angus asked, eyeing the board curiously.

Taako met Lucretia's eyes, both of them thinking the same thing, not needed to say a word to get their point across.

Do we really want to try to take the World's Best Detective in Fantasy Clue?

The answer was 'no,' for sure, but they decided to do it anyway.

He trounced them, of course.

The rest of the family made sure to come home at the end of the week, as they each realized that they'd left Taako and Lucretia alone with just each other (and Angus, but he was a kid) for the first time since the Day of Story and Song, and they'd accidentally done it for an entire week.

Anything could have happened.

But when they got there, the only thing they found out of the ordinary were the many scoreboards that had popped up over the week, as Taako and Lucretia refused to be outdone by an eleven year old, no matter who he was.

While Lucretia and Taako discussed strategies to take down the new champion, Angus grinned smugly at the rest of them, and silently accepted his well earned money from the 'who can get them to get along again' betting pool.

#taz balance #the adventure zone #taz lucretia #taako adventurezone #taako taaco #lucretia adventurezone #febuwhump #febuwhumpday26 #angus mcdonald

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whumpinggrounds · 3 years

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Febuwhump Day 9: “I Can’t Lose You, Too”

doing a substitution for today cuz i just wasn’t really able to work with buried alive so here goes :) more backstory for the story that (almost) no one is reading but I Don’t Care Because I Like It

CW: mentions of pet whump, mentions of institutionalized dehumanization

By the time Mara gets back to her apartment, she’s in a bad way. She’s already called Violet, her closest friend in this city, because she knows she shouldn’t be alone right now, but she couldn’t get the story out, just sobbed garbled words into the phone. Even breaking the speed limit, Violet can’t come fast enough. When Mara shuts her eyes, she sees Jude’s tear-streaked face. In the silent elevator, Jude’s screams are ringing in her ears. It’s twenty minutes before Violet knocks on her door, and by then Mara’s in a state – pacing around her apartment like a caged animal, tears running down her face, on the verge of tearing out her hair.

Violet is hardly in the door before Mara starts talking. “It’s Jude,” she chokes out, and she can’t help noticing the way her friend’s face falls, just a little.

“Your ex, Jude?” That’s just like good old Violet, careful to sound appropriately concerned instead of disappointed. Good, because Mara doesn’t have the time or energy or ability to think about Violet’s feelings right now.

“She’s – she’s – Vi, she’s a trainee at WRU. At my…she…I saw her at work today, Vi, they’re, she, they have her.”

The horror in Violet’s face validates all the fear Mara is feeling in the worst of ways. “Oh my god.”

Nodding, Mara screws her face up against the oncoming tide, but her resolve doesn’t last. She flings herself forward, wrapping her arms around the diminutive girl in her kitchen, making Violet take a step back. Before she was weeping, now Mara sobs. “What do I doooo?” she wails into Violet’s bouncy black hair. “What can I do?”

Gentle as she can, Violet guides them both over to the couch, sits Mara down so she can properly fling herself into Violet’s arms. “I’m so sorry, Mara,” she says, and underneath her hands, Mara’s shoulders hitch almost violently. “I’m so, so sorry.”

For a few minutes, the only sound is Mara’s snuffling as she desperately tries to control herself. “There must be some way I can help,” she finally manages. “Some way I can, can get to her, or get her out, or, or, or…” She looks up at Violet beseechingly, but Violet won’t meet her eyes. Instead, her friend brushes Mara’s hair away from her face, rubs a firm hand along her spine. The contact is soothing, but Mara doesn’t want soothing. She wants something to do.

Stubborn, she prods at Violet. “C’mon, Vi.” Her voice is shaky, wet. “C-come on, do you think…do you think we could get some of the locals on it? B-break her out of the facility, maybe? Or, um, or-”

She gets no reply, just Violet avoiding her desperate eyes. “Seriously, Violet. What…who can I call? Who should I call? I need to call someone.” Mara pushes herself off the couch, off Violet’s lap, and into action. Now that the initial wave of panic is past, now that she’s sobbed and hyperventilated and there’s someone here to help, a kind of manic energy overtakes Mara. “Let’s, okay, so maybe Simon will help – he likes me, at least, and he has space in his safehouse. And I know Louise doesn’t like me but maybe she’d do it for a Box Babe-”

“Mara, I really think you should sit down and focus on breathing.”

“I’m breathing fine Violet, let’s, um, okay, so maybe we can call some of my old college contacts and figure out some sort of, some way to get to her, and they’ve only just started on her so-so-so-”

Mara makes the mistake of looking back at Violet, and Vi’s brown eyes are filled to the brim with long-suffering patience, and a little bit of pain, and something that looks too much like pity. Growling, Mara backs away from her. “Don’t look at me like that, Vi. Don’t-don’t-don’t-”

“You don’t,” Violet counters, firm as ever. She glances down at her lap, as if gathering her resolve, and then tips her chin up and meets Mara’s eyes with steady surety. “Don’t do this to yourself, Mara. You know better than this.”

“Don’t do what? I know better than what?”

Pursing her lips, Violet regards Mara for a long, tense moment. “Don’t…think that you can help.” The words are delivered softly, but Mara staggers back as if she’s been struck.

“I-what-how could you – I can help!” Mara’s not shouting, but with the tone in her voice she might as well be. “We can help – we know people, you know people, I, I’m not just going to give up, Violet-”

“Mara, sit down.”

“No! I’m not just going to, to write her off! I won’t do it! Just because you’re scared-”

“Mara, please sit down.”

“No! No, Violet, I’m not going to sit down and I’m not going to give up and I’m not going to listen to you tell me why there’s nothing I can do-”

“Mara, I said sit down.” Violet’s voice doesn’t grow louder, and it doesn’t grow angrier, but she’s staring Mara down with a steady, serious look that Mara can’t keep running from. Glaring fit to kill, Mara throws herself down on the couch, arms folded across her chest. Looking into her furious face, Violet heaves a sigh and rubs a hand against her temple. She looks sad. She looks exhausted. A better person would reach for her, but Mara’s too stubborn, and far, far too angry.

“I don’t think I’ve ever told you how I got into lib.” Violet’s voice is quiet, calm.

Snorting, Mara rolls her eyes skyward and directs her question to the ceiling. “Is that really relevant right now?”

“Yeah. I think it is.” Violet takes a breath, presses her palms down flat against the tops of her thighs. “I was, um, fifteen. My cousin signed up. To be a pet.”

Mara swallows. Suddenly it’s a lot harder to glare at Violet. “Oh.”

“Yeah. He struggled with a lot of things. Mental health stuff, and debt, and some bad choices. I don’t know. He…he probably did it voluntarily. I guess I’ll never know.”

Nodding, Mara twists her hands in her lap, feeling subdued, newly stunned. “Were you…um, close?”

Violet smiles just a little. “We were, sort of. More so when we were little. He was older, and cool. I idolized him.”

“Vi, I’m so sorry.”

“Me too, Mara. And I’m really, really sorry for you, and for Jude.” Her voice grows serious, and she draws in another deep breath. “I’m telling you because I went through it, and I saw my family go through it, and I need you to understand.” Dread building, Mara waits.

“I know you love Jude. I know you miss her. I know you can’t imagine this happening to her.” Violet swallows and says the words as clearly as she can. “And she belongs to WRU now.”

“But-”

“No buts. Maybe it wasn’t done legitimately. Probably it wasn’t done legitimately. But it was done. Is done. Is being done…” Violet swallows again. “Is being done right now. And I know it sucks to hear, but I’m going to tell you anyway, because it’s true. There is nothing you can do about it.”

“But, but Violet, come on-”

“I’m being straight with you because you need to hear it. There is nothing you can do.” Her voice is calm, methodical, unassailable. “That’s not how pet lib works. We don’t do break ins. We don’t rescue people. We have a hard enough time caring for the rescues we can find.” Mara’s face is cracking into simple desperate misery, and still, when Violet pauses to take a breath, Mara’s obstinacy rears its familiar head.

“I’m going to do something, Vi. I have to do something.”

“Mara, please listen to me. I know what I’m talking about. I saw my cousin’s family fall apart after he signed up. His dad left. His mom got addicted to prescription painkillers. His little sister…” Violet’s voice fades out, and she heaves in air and forces herself to finish the sentence. “His little sister signed up too. One week after she turned eighteen. I think…I think she thought it would make her feel close to him. She was a year younger than me. I didn’t even know she was thinking about it until…until after it was done.”

“Jesus,” Mara breathes. “Jesus, Violet, I’m so sorry.”

“Me too!” Violet shakes her head. The tears make shining tracks down her stricken face. “Me too. But listen to me Mara, please, really, listen. I’m telling you this because I learned it better and harder than most people. This business eats people alive. WRU does, we all know that, but so does lib. It grinds you down and wears you out and you lose people, Mar. You do.” One of them sniffles, and by now it’s hard to tell who. “You lose people all kinds of ways. Yeah, this is one of the worst. But…you can’t…you can’t throw yourself after them because it hurts that they’re gone. If you try to interfere, if you try to stop this or somehow save Jude, that’s all you’re doing. Throwing yourself after her.”

“But…but I…I can’t just do nothing, Violet. I can’t…”

“There are people who don’t get a choice,” Violet tells Mara, looking into her face, unashamed of the tears. “There are people who don’t have a choice in getting lost. You have a choice. It’s not a choice between helping and doing nothing. It’s a choice between losing someone you love, and losing her and yourself, too. I…” Finally, Violet drops her gaze, looks into her lap. “Look, you’re…important to me, Mara. You’re important to a lot of people. I’m asking you…I’m asking you not to do this. Not to throw yourself after someone. I’ve lost people that way. I can’t lose you, too.”

“But…but…” Mara’s voice comes out thready, high and needy. “But Violet, I can help her. I can. I know I can.”

Violet nods, putting an arm around Mara’s shoulders. The other woman leans into her gratefully. “No,” she tells Mara softly. “You can’t.” Her friend shudders at the finality of her words, but for the first time since Violet arrived, she doesn’t argue.

#febuwhump #febuwhumpday9 #i can't lose you too #pet whump #angst #lost cause jude

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emachinescat · 3 years

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Does It Count as Eavesdropping if You’re Comatose?

A Psych Fan-Fiction

by @emachinescat

@febuwhump day 28 / alt. 3 - coma

Summary: They say people who are comatose can still hear what is going on around them. This is what Shawn heard.

Characters | Relationships: Shawn, Henry, Gus, Juliet, Madeline, Lassiter, Jack, Despereaux, Buzz, Woody, Chief Vick | Shawn/Juliet

Words: 3,898

TW: coma

Note: I really hope you enjoy this piece. It was one of the most emotionally taxing, cathartic, and fulfilling pieces I’ve written in a long time. I hope that comes across when you read it.

Keep reading here, or on AO3!

If you enjoy, please consider liking, commenting, or re-blogging, and you can follow me for more content like this! :)

Shawn?

Where’s the doctor? I need to speak to him. Busy, my ass! My son is in a coma. I get that you’re just doing your job. Just… find me someone who can give me an update. … Please.

Hey, bud. I, uh –

Shit.

Shawn, for the love of – what the hell did you think you were doing? Going off on your own like that, not telling anyone where you were going or what you were doing. You knew these people were dangerous, and you still… I know I taught you better than this.

Why, why do you never listen?

***

Hey, Shawn. Don’t think that just because you’re in a coma right now that we’re going to let this go. You’ve pulled some stupid-ass stunts in your time, but this … this takes the cake. And you know you’re supposed to share any cake you get with me. Fifty-fifty split.

We’re partners, Shawn. Why did you go in alone?

Well, all I have to say is that you better wake up soon. The doctors say they are cautiously optimistic that you’ll have a full recovery if you will just wake up. We’re all well aware that you are the laziest time-waster in Santa Barbara, but just this once, will you prove us wrong?

…

Please, Shawn. You’re my best friend. I … I can’t lose you. Just. Just come back, okay?

***

The doctors said that you might be able to hear what we say to you. In my experience, doctors always say that, but, I don’t know. It seems a little weird, don’t you think? I mean, the thought of you lying there, so still that you might be … you know. Anyway. To think that you could actually be hearing everything I’m saying right now is…

It’s actually a little bit embarrassing. Gosh, why do I always ramble like a moron when I’m nervous? This is worse than the movie theater, the first time I asked you out. Remember that? Now that was humiliating.

I know your dad and Gus have probably already given you enough lectures to fill up a novel, so I won’t yell at you for being an impulsive, stupid idiot. Not yet.

For now, Shawn – his hand is really cold; is that normal? Should I call the doctor? No? – just know that I love you, with all my heart.

And that if you don’t wake up soon, I’ll kill you myself.

***

Mr. Spencer.

Shawn.

I… I apologize for not coming to see you sooner. It’s no excuse, but we’ve been really busy. God knows how you did it, but you somehow managed to still get us the evidence we needed to take these guys down, even on death’s door. These monsters have been tormenting a lot of very good people for far too long, and until you… did what you did, our hands were tied.

I suppose what I am saying is thank you.

It was incredibly stupid, and I – we all – wish you had never done it, but… thank you.

Wake up soon. That’s an order.

Oh, hi, Henry – I was just stopping by for a moment. How are you holding up? Yes, I –

***

Hey, Goose.

I would have been here sooner, but I was stuck in New York. I was in for a conference, and my flight got delayed because of snow, but… but you don’t really want to hear about that, do you?

You look good, considering. From the way your father talked, I thought you’d be wasting away. But your color is good. You don’t have that gray pallor I’ve seen so often in those who have given up.

That means you’re still fighting. And that’s good.

If you’re wondering where your dad is, don’t worry. Juliet and Gus dragged him to the cafeteria for some actual food – or as close as you can get to real food in a hospital. Your father… That man, Shawn, I just don’t think you know how much he cares about you. Not that it’s your fault. Henry has never been good at showing how he feels.

Sometimes I wonder if that’s why I married him, so long ago. Maybe I thought I could fix him. But you can’t really fix people, can you, Goose? Not the way you’d like to.

The doctors are doing everything they can to fix you, Shawn. So don’t give up.

Oh, here comes your father –

He’s fine, Henry – did you eat something? Gus, did he actually eat something? What did he eat? Henry Spencer, coffee is not food! Good grief, I’ll be right back...

***

Oh, Guster! I… I didn’t know you would be here. I’ll just… I was in the wrong room, that’s all. Yeah, I was just visiting an old friend of the family. Who? None of your business, actually. Just a friend, who is not Spencer.

What do you mean, I should stay since I’m already here? Guster, I have important things to do, cases to solve, people to see! Well, I suppose… Just for a minute, do you understand me? This is ridiculous… Spencer butts his nose into my case, breaks the whole thing open, and damn near dies in the process…

Guster – where the hell are you going? You can’t leave me alone with Spencer! … What do you mean, talk to him? Are you insane? I don’t want to talk to him when he’s awake, why would I –?

You don’t have to shout. I’ll stay while you step out.

But I won’t talk to him.

…

Well, Spencer, this is a fine mess you’ve put yourself in.

I mean sweet justice, man, do you ever think about what you’re doing? About how it will affect other people? The people who love you?

Not me, of course. You know I could care less about you. But my partner, your girlfriend, for some unfathomable reason, has chosen to be with you. To like you for – man, this is hard to say – to like you for who you are. I mean, have you met you? That’s something that should never have happened, especially not after all the stupid stunts you’ve pulled over the years.

But it did. She… Juliet, she cares about you. A lot. If you could see just how much she’s hurting right now…

Spencer, I once told you that if you hurt my partner, I’d kill you. Well, you’ve gone and done it. But I’m a fair man. Well, I can be a fair man if given the right circumstances. Okay, fine, I’m not exactly fair, but I do care about Juliet, so I will give you an ultimatum: If you go ahead and wake up, if you put a smile back on her face, then I will let you live. But you’ve got to do it soon, got it? No lollygagging like you usually do. Just…

Guster! You cannot just sneak up on a man like that! No, I wasn’t talking to Shawn, don’t be ridiculous. I’m on the phone with someone … Bluetooth.

What? NO! My eyes are not “misty.” Good lord, man, not everyone is a crybaby like you. No, I’m not staying any longer! Dammit, Guster, I don’t care –

***

Hey, Shawnie!

Look, this is a little awkward, I know, especially since I haven’t really been in touch since the whole Buchard’s treasure incident, but when your father finally got ahold of me, I rushed right over. Bygones, and all that, am I right?

Anywho… I brought you a penny. I know it’s not much, but this one’s special. It’s a 1943 bronze Lincoln. One of the rarest out there. I’ve been holding onto it for a while, but I thought you could use a little luck. Well, a little more than a little, but…

Anyway, kiddo. I hate seeing you like this. I’m getting ready to go cliff diving in Peru, but I’ll be here with you in spirit, you got that? Don’t do anything stupid while I’m gone.

Or do. I guess if you’re doing something stupid, then you’re not sleeping anymore.

Damn it. I’m not good at this stuff.

See ya around, kid.

***

Hey, Shawn, my man! Long time, no see, huh? Do you mind if I eat something while we chat? Want a bite? It’s your favorite…

No? Well, more for me, I suppose.

Hmmmm… your color looks less gray than last week. Maybe the doctors are right, maybe you really are recovering, but… I don’t know. Gah, I really wish they’d let me take a crack at you – ah, I mean, examine you, just in case, but… Apparently “someone who spends all day with the dead isn’t the right person to diagnose a living person, blah blah blah.” Between you and me, friend, I think they’re hiding something from us. It’s a conspiracy. … Not like the Chief Vick is actually a time traveler conspiracy, mind you. A real one.

Ah, whatever. Whatever happens will happen, am I right, Shawn? I have to say, you’re excellent company today! I do miss your witty retorts, but you’ve got that comforting presence I’ve come to expect from my friends in the morgue. They only get chatty when I haven’t slept for four days straight.

Huh, you normally would’ve laughed at that.

Anyway, keep on keeping on! Whatever happens, whatever direction this thing ends up going, just know I’ve got your back. And if you don’t make it in this world, well… let’s just say I picked out the perfect body bag to carry you into the next. Spoiler alert: I embroidered this one myself!

Oh, and don’t forget! I’ve called dibs on your autopsy, should it come to that! Gosh, I can’t stop wondering if your heart really is going to be two sizes bigger than most. I know it’s scientifically improbable, but you just love so damn much…

Ah! Oh, Henry, you scared me! I was just – no, I don’t have the body bag. Promise. Cross my heart and hope to – well, you know. Little joke of the trade, hehe. You’re not laughing – Shawn would have.

Okay, okay, I’m getting out, I’m leaving! But if anything happens, you know that I – OW! Okay, okay, yeah, got it. Geez Louise, you’ve got a tight grip. Did you arm wrestle in high school?

***

Hey, Shawn. How’s it going?

I mean, you’re in a coma, so I imagine it’s not great, but… I dunno, maybe it is. Maybe it’s nice, wherever you’re at.

Say, I wonder if you’re in the place your psychic visions come from. When you wake up, do you think you’ll be even more psychic than before? That would be so cool…

Oh, Franny and Mrs. Pickles say hi. She wanted to bake you a pie – Franny, of course, not Mrs. Pickles, he’s a cat – but I told her you were on a feeding tube, so she made me a pie instead. It was blueberry. One of the best pies I’ve ever tasted. She told me to tell you that if, I mean when, you wake up, she’ll make you a pineapple upside down cake. A whole one, just for you.

You’ve just got to wake up first, Shawn.

I … I really hope you wake up soon. I miss seeing you around the station. Heh, I even think Lassiter’s missing you. He doesn’t say it so many words – or any words at all, for that matter – but he’s different. Angrier, and I wasn’t even sure that was possible! And he keeps glancing over at the front doors, like he’s expecting you to come waltzing in at any moment.

Or, I dunno, maybe he ordered a pizza, but I’m betting he’s missing you, deep down.

We’re all missing you. Get better soon, okay, buddy?

***

Well, kid. It’s been five weeks. You’ve always been a slowpoke in the mornings, but this is getting ridiculous.

I’m running out of things to talk about. Bet you’re not too broken up about that, huh? Never did like to listen to what your old man had to say. Still… you listened when it mattered. Sometimes.

I’m thinking about retiring again. Karen’s trying to convince me to stay. She says that she’s always got a place for me, that they may be bringing in a couple of temporary consultants in the next few weeks, to help lighten the caseload. There’s a criminal profiler, a young woman who really knows her stuff, but Karen’s been holding off on hiring her. Honestly, the girl’s good at what she does, but she doesn’t hold a candle to what you do.

Then again, she’s not an attention-seeking moron who runs head-first into danger without thinking of the consequences, but… she’s still not you.

Anyway, I told Karen I’d think about it, but I don’t know. I’m getting old, kid. I thought I wasn’t, I still felt pretty young, but recently… I don’t know. The world just has a little less color in it than I remembered, and that’s what growing old looks like, isn’t it?

If I retired, would you wake up? If you didn’t have me “hovering” over you all day at work, would you finally come back? I mean, I accepted the job in the first place to keep you safe, and that went to hell in a handbag. Maybe I’m not so good at that job, after all.

Anyway, kid, you need to get off your lazy ass and wake up.

Believe it or not, I’m really starting to miss hearing your voice.

I love ya, kid. And I want you back.

***

Shawn, you will not believe what came in the mail today!

Seriously, guess.

Come on…

Dang it. I really hoped that would get you curious enough to open your eyes.

Anyway… something really did come in the mail. Well, sort of. I found it on your desk in the Psych office when I came in to check on things. I’ve been advised that it might be a good idea to stop paying rent for an office I’m not using, but that feels like letting you go, like I’m giving up on you, and I’m not ready to do that. So I’m going to keep paying that bill, okay?

But as I was saying, this envelope was just sitting on your desk! Just your name on it, too. At first I thought you were finally getting your Hogwarts letter, because it’s in a really fancy envelope. It wasn’t, by the way. Damn, I’m really rambling today. Sorry. I’m just … tired. But I wanted to read you this letter before I head out to see a few more clients. Here we go:

Dear Shawn,

It has come to my attention that you have been gravely injured and are in a coma in Santa Barbara Hospital. My contact has informed me that you’ve been in this state for nearly two months now. I am devastated to hear about this, and hope that by the time this letter finds you, you have awoken and are back to your normal self. If not, then I can only hope that your friend Mr. Guster will be kind enough to read you this letter.

I regret that I was unable to visit you myself, but as I am currently wanted in no less than four countries, I thought it best to stay away from any place that is crawling with police officers. I don’t know if you are aware of this, but between your lovely lady friend and her grumpy assistant, along with all of your other friends at the SBPD, you have an officer of the peace in your hospital room nearly around the clock. And I know what you’re thinking – I made my name sneaking in and out of impenetrable places. You would be right. Perhaps I cannot face seeing you in such a terrible way with my own eyes.

You must recover soon! I stole a lovely Van Gogh in your honor, but there was no way I could have mailed it to you without its being confiscated by the authorities. I do think of you every time I see it upon my mantle.

Sincerely,

Pierre Despereaux, Gentleman & Art Thief

Did you hear that, Shawn? Your iffy role model Despereaux is even worried about you. I know that you would – for some reason – do anything to make that man proud. So what do you say? You ready to wake up yet?

…

Dammit, Shawn. I don’t know how much more of this I can take.

***

Hey, there, Goose.

I know it’s been a while since I’ve visited, but I’m actually on a conference tour right now, and your father is keeping me up to date on all developments. You look nice today – your father just gave you a shave, and though it’s not the most even of cuts, it makes you look more like yourself.

So, your father called me yesterday in near hysterics. He said that you had shown the first signs of waking – when your nurse took your blood, you pulled away. For the first time since all this started, you reacted to something in your surroundings. Of course, I flew right in.

You haven’t responded to anything since, though. Shawn, I –

You know I love you, right? I realize that I’ve never been the best at this sort of thing – at being a mother. I know I didn’t always make the right decisions. Even now, I…

I miss you, son. If you can hear me at all – and I know that you can – please, please, just… whatever is trapping you in your own mind, whether it is fear or trauma or pain or … please, just. Come back to us. I –

Oh, Henry, when did you get back? No, you don’t have to leave, I – No, no, I’m fine, I told you I’m fine, I –

– It’s all right, Maddie. I’ve got you. You don’t always have to be strong, you know. –

***

Okay, Shawn, I know I normally try to keep things light and positive, but I don’t think I have it in me to do that today. I’m sorry, I just…

Today sucked, you know? Like, really sucked. Well, if I’m being honest, the past seven months have sucked. But today was extra special.

I won’t burden you with all of the details, but work was difficult today. Lassiter and I got assigned a tough case, and, well, it didn’t end up the way we’d hoped. Long story short, we uncovered a dirty cop. It was, um… do you remember Lawson? He worked in narcotics. Turns out he’s done some things … hurt some people. He wasn’t always accountable out in the field, and some things came to light. Anyway. It’s a mess.

And then there’s this whole thing with you. I just … every time it looks like you’re making improvements, you just … you just retreat back into yourself, and I feel like I’m losing you more every day. I promised you when this all started, on day one, that I would wait for you, that I would be patient, and I’m trying, but…

It’s not that I want to leave you or anything. Not at all. My patience is just wearing thin, and I can’t sleep and night and every day I wake up terrified to look at my phone, because what if I have a message that you’ve woken up, but that you don’t remember me at all? Or worse, what if I get a message that you’ll never wake up again?

Our bed feels empty. I sleep with Mr. Snuggles every night, though – do you remember Mr. Snuggles, you know, the bear you won me at the fair when we started dating? He’s soft, but he’s wearing a bit thin. I guess holding a stuffed animal like it’s a lifeline every night for over half a year will do that, but I’m afraid he’s going to break soon.

I think…

I think I’m already broken, Shawn, and I can’t –

I’m sorry. I’m sorry, I don’t mean to… I just miss you.

Did you know that I kiss you every night before I leave? Nothing fancy, just a single, light kiss on the lips. Sometimes I pretend that you’re the damsel in distress and I’m Prince Charming, and I almost manage to convince myself that when I pull back, your eyes will be fluttering open to look at me, like Snow White or Sleeping Beauty. But every time, you stay asleep.

Maybe this time, you’ll wake up. Can you do it for me, baby? Please?

…

Well, it was worth a try. I miss the way you used to kiss me back. I’ll try again tomorrow.

I’ll never stop trying.

I love you, Shawn.

***

I just don’t get it, Mr. Spencer. The doctors say he’s recovered from his injuries almost perfectly. Even the head injury, on the surface, has healed. Why isn’t he waking up? It’s been eleven months!

If I knew, Gus, I’d be the first to tell you, but I have no idea what’s going on inside that thick head of his.

I’m sorry. I know you’ve got a lot on your plate right now, too. I shouldn’t be –

Gus. Just like I told Jules, we have to be here for each other. That’s all we can do. That, and be here for Shawn when he wakes up.

If he wakes up.

Don’t say that, Gus. You know Shawn. He’s the most stubborn person either of us knows. He’ll wake up. He’ll make it through this.

How long are we going to keep telling ourselves that? He’s been comatose for almost a year, Mr. Spencer. Every time he shows signs of coming back, he just… doesn’t. How long do we keep waiting? Two years? Five? How long until we’ve reached the point of no return? Will we even know it when we see it?

Gus, the point of no return doesn’t happen until he stops breathing, and that’s not going to happen, okay? We stick by Shawn until our prayers are answered or are no longer necessary. Got it?

You’re right, I’m so sorry. Of course I’d never give up on Shawn, I’m just so tired –

Shhhh!

I am pouring my heart out here! I let you cry on my shoulder yesterday, and you won’t even let me –

First off, I wasn’t crying, and even if it was, I wouldn’t be doing it on your shoulder. Secondly, I could have sworn I saw – yes! He’s moving! Do you see his hand, Gus? Gus!

I … I dunno Mr. Spencer. Could be another false alarm.

Maybe, but… this feels different. Shawn? Shawn? Can you hear me, bud? Can you open your eyes?

He’s stopped moving. His heart rate’s normalizing. I think –

“D-dad?”

Oh my – thank GOD, Gus, get a doctor, get a nurse – call Jules – Shawn, Shawn, can you hear me?

“Dad?”

I’m here, Shawn, I’m here. Open your eyes for me – there you go. Gus has gone to get the nurse. He’ll be back with someone in a second.

“Jules?”

She’ll be here, she’s just outside. Thank God you’re awake, I –

“I h-heard, Dad.”

What?

“I heard. Everything.”

You did, huh?

“Yeah… do you a-always sound like a dying lawn mower when you cry?”

Dammit, Shawn, can’t you let me enjoy having you back for one second before you ruin it?

“L-love you, too, Dad.”

…

Welcome back, son. It’s good to see you smile again.

“Yeah, you too, dad – weird… But good.”

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pixieposts · 3 years

Text

Febuwhump Day 3

AO3

For day three I decided to do one of the alternative prompts! I went with alt 6: "I can't lose you too".

Specific tags for today:

Implied attempted suicide

Past suicidal ideation

Past self harm

Drinking?

“Cay?”

Beaus heart was pounding, and though she couldn’t quite put her finger on why through her wine soaked haze, she knew she had come looking for him. There he was, Caleb, her brother, standing at the edge of the rooftop and leaning a little too hard on the rusted railing. The sun was just beginning to set beyond him, silhouetting his thin frame.

“Cay, c’mere” she slurred, beckoning him over when he turned to look “just like... c’mere”

He seemed to consider her a moment before taking a deep breath and walking over.

“Beauregard?”

Her pulse was still too fast, so she tugged him down onto the pile of old blankets and pillows their friends had been using that afternoon. She eyed the scars that ran all along his wrists and shivered, wrapping an arm around his shoulder.

“Just... railings are shit”

“In general, or these specifically?”

She flicked him lightly, the sass.

“Are you worried I will fall... or that I will jump?”

She didn’t look at him, she didn’t need to really, she knew what expression he would be wearing. A mixture of curiosity, fear and a little shame. She didn’t need to see it in order to feel it.

“Sometimes” she answered, too honest as always after the wine “sometimes I am”

He leaned against her now, his head on her shoulder and a few strands of hair tickling her cheek.

“I do not want to, anymore... not-not lately anyway”

She nodded, he wouldn’t lie to her, not about the important shit.

“I believe you, I just-” she took a breath, she had never been good at this stuff “just... talk to me if you- if you change your mind yeah? I can’t lose you too man, just can’t”

They sat quietly for a while, trading swigs of the cheap wine while the sun set. Eventually he stood, tugging her up and into a stumbling hug.

“I will try my best, I- I don’t want to lose you either”

They held each other then, until he finally pulled away and tugged her towards the stairwell door.

“The others will be looking for us by now”

They would be, she knew he was right, but it was the small smile that played across his face that mattered to her

“I can’t lose you too”

#febuwhump2021 #febuwhump day 3 #empire siblings

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set-phasers-to-whump · 3 years

Text

“you have to let me go”

prompt: “you have to let me go”

whumpee: kurt wallander

fandom: young wallander

hi! welcome to my last febuwhump fic!! very happy to have done the whole month :) and like. a Lot more young wallander than i intended lmao. anyway i hope you enjoy this fic!!

“You have to let me go,” Kurt pleads tearfully. “Please. Let me go.”

“No, Kurt.”

“Why not?”

Mona’s hand presses to his forehead. He flinches away, coughing into his elbow. “You’re cold,” he protests.

“And you have a fever. You’re not going anywhere today.”

He crosses his arms and stares her down, though she’s a little blurry, so he can’t be sure if he’s actually staring at her or not. “I have to go to work.”

“No, you don’t.”

“Yes I do. What if there’s a new case?”

“Then they can manage without you for the day. And anyway, I already called your boss and told her you weren’t going to be there today.”

“That’s not fair,” Kurt grumbles. He wants to go to work. But he also kind of wants to go to sleep…

“That’s it,” Mona says, and he feels her hands guide him back so he’s lying down in bed again. “You just go to sleep. I’ll leave some things for you next to the bed, okay?”

Leave things… ”where are you goin’?”

“I still have work today,” is Mona’s reply, and Kurt pictures himself flying up in bed and looking at her disbelievingly. He’s too tired to actually do that, though.

“You get to go to work?”

“I don’t have a fever. What I do have is an important event this weekend and a deadline to meet. So I’ve got to leave you, yeah? But I’ll be back in a few hours.”

“Kay,” Kurt decides. “Bye.”

“Bye, Kurt,” Mona says softly, pressing a kiss to his forehead before leaving. He falls asleep shortly thereafter.

He wakes up and he is so, so hot. He throws off the blankets, struggles his way out of his sweater, pulls off his socks, and finally gets out of bed altogether. He nearly collapses the second he stands up, so dizzy he can’t see, but he gets his bearings eventually, then promptly loses them in a coughing fit that sends his head spinning again.

He braces himself against the wall and thinks as best as he can. He needs to go to work. Mona had told him no, but she’s not here now, so there’s no one to stop him. He’s going to go to work.

He puts on some work clothes, struggling rather horribly with the task of buttons and zippers and laces, and takes a single look at himself in the mirror - not too bad, is his verdict - before heading off to work.

It’s a bit of a blur regarding how exactly he gets there - he just knows that by the time he arrives, his legs are shaking beneath him and his head is spinning and he feels really bad and maybe this wasn’t such a good idea after all. He sinks down onto the ground outside the building and waits for his head to clear.

“You alright, man?” someone asks, walking past him on the sidewalk. He gives them a jerky nod and decides that’s his signal to get up and get inside. He just about falls over while standing up, but manages to stay on his feet. He can do this.

Kurt gets through the door and for a second just looks around, not able to think about anything like where he should be going. Everything is lights and sounds and movement and it’s dizzying and overwhelming but he needs to be here, he needs to come to work. So he grits his teeth and keeps his eyes trained on the ground and walks until he reaches the Major Crimes office. Once he gets there, he forces himself to look up and around, so nobody will think there’s something wrong. He makes his way to his desk and sinks down heavily into the chair with a sigh and a sniff.

He’s so tired. And dizzy. And generally miserable. Why, exactly, had he thought it was a good idea to come in to work? He can’t remember. He puts his head down and tries to take deep breaths, tries to think of things to distract him from how shitty he feels.

Someone approaches him, speaking on the phone. It takes a while for Kurt to realize it’s Reza, and even longer for him to make out what it is he’s saying.

“I’ll come by after work today, yeah. As long as he’s not contagious or -”

Reza cuts himself off. Kurt would raise his head to see what’s startled him, but that requires more strength than he currently possesses. He just kind of groans instead and hopes the greeting will suffice.

“I gotta go. I’ll call you back in a minute.”

A second later, there’s a hand on his shoulder. Kurt startles at the contact, finally raising his head from the desk. He looks around blearily until his eyes land on Reza.

“What the hell, man?” Reza asks. “Mona said you’re sick.”

Kurt shrugs.

Reza reaches out a hand and presses it to Kurt’s forehead. It’s wonderfully cool against the heat of his own skin, and he leans into it until it’s pulled away.

“Jesus, Kurt, you’re burning up.”

“Yeah.”

“You’re supposed to be home and resting.”

“Yeah.”

“So why aren’t you?”

Kurt sighs. He can’t really explain it...he’d just wanted to come to work. He hadn’t thought it’d be a big deal.

“Well, you’re not staying here,” Reza says. “Don’t need you spreading your germs all over the place.”

Kurt manages to find the strength to be offended. “I am not spreading my germs all over the place. I’m barely even sick.” He cuts himself off with a cough, which definitely doesn’t do much for his argument.

“Sure you’re not. And you just happened to wake up this morning and decide mismatched buttons and untied shoes were the way to go, did you?”

Kurt looks down at his shirt, which is indeed crooked, and his shoes, the laces of which are long and dirty. Ah.

“You’re sick, Kurt.”

“Okay, okay. I’m sick.” His sentence is punctuated by a sniff, and Reza gives him a half- fond, half-exasperated smile.

“Do you want me to drive you home? I don’t have a lot to do at the moment,” Reza offers. Kurt shakes his head vehemently, making himself dizzy again. He doesn’t want to leave, not now that he’s here. Now that he’s not alone in his apartment.

“Don’t wanna go home. Nobody’s there.”

“How’s the break room couch sound, then?”

Kurt coughs a few times, harshly, as Reza’s speaking, and Reza waits for him to finish before repeating his question. “Break room couch?”

Kurt nods. The break room couch is by no means the best place to rest, but at the moment it may as well be a bed in the nicest hotel in the world. He thinks about lying down, closing his eyes, sleeping…

“Okay, hold on, don’t go falling asleep yet,” Reza says, and he taps Kurt on the side of the face. Kurt opens his eyes back up. “We’ve still gotta get you to the couch.”

It’s a bit of an ordeal, since Kurt’s limbs don’t really seem to be in the mood for cooperating, and since his head spins every time he so much as takes a breath, but they make it there in the end, and finally he’s on the couch and lying down, completely uncaring of anything else.

Reza pulls off his shoes for him, says, “suppose you made this easier for me when you got dressed earlier.” Kurt makes an mmph noise, now too tired to bother speaking. He’s so close to falling asleep now, falling asleep and having all his aches and pains fade away.

He hears Reza leave for a moment, and then return. He places a cold, wet cloth on Kurt’s forehead that immediately starts him shivering, but then covers the rest of him in a blanket, which balances out the cold nicely. Reza himself sits on the edge of the couch, a comforting presence, and says something which Kurt can’t quite focus on enough to understand.

He understands well enough, though, when he feels Reza get up to leave. He reaches out a blind, heavy hand and mutters, “don’ go, please.”

“You have to let me go,” Reza says. “I got stuff to do.”

“Reza,” Kurt complains, drawing out the name. “Please.”

His best friend relents easily. “Okay, fine. But if someone comes yelling at me because I’m not doing my job, I’m blaming you.”

“Kay,” Kurt agrees. “Sounds good.”

He can actually hear Reza roll his eyes when he sighs and says, “sleep, Kurt.”

He sleeps.

aaaaaa thank you so much for reading this!!! and for reading any of my other fics that you may have read this month! i had an excellent time doing this and i hope you enjoyed my writing!

#febuwhump2021 #febuwhumpday28 #you have to let me go #young wallander #kurt wallander #sick #fever #cared for #i say things #my writing #a soft fic for you at the end here :)

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a-whumpy-place · 3 years

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Febuwhump day 7: Poisoning

this... has a bunch of stuff before getting to the poisoning? but it’s what came out, so, yeah. Takes part after day 2: I can’t take this any more but there’s stuff missing in between.

Content warnings: Mind control, slavery, death threats, knives, blood, poisoning ----

Kay was not alarmed when Willow closed the door to her room behind them, but when she recited a few Workings that would keep it locked and strengthen it, he could not help wonder if she had something in mind that might motivate his friends to try to break it down. Letting her Keep him for a day, letting her experience the Bond from the other side, still seemed like a good idea in principle, but maybe he should have taken more time to convince her properly, instead of counting on being too obnoxious to deny.

He gave her a cocky smile, anyway. “What would my mistress want from me?”

“Sit.” She pointed at the chair at the square table.

Kay, of course, obeyed. “I can shake hands and roll over, too.”

“Shut up. Put your hands flat on the table,” she ordered while approaching. She had shuttered her expression, seeming mostly cold. Definitely trying to hide or control anger or at least irritation, but it was hard to tell how much. After pausing briefly to add a slightly less flat and neutral “Stay!”, she went to rummage for something in the bed.

Unable to comment or ask, Kay craned his head a little. She was pulling something from under the mattress?

When she returned, she said, “I will allow you to speak again, with a condition. You must be quiet. Try for not loud enough for someone just standing outside the door to understand. No raising your voice, no screaming. No Workings. Do you understand?” Whatever she’d had retrieved from hiding, it was small and she was holding it palmed low at her side.

Kay nodded, with an uncomfortable feeling like his stomach might be growing spines.

“Then you may speak.”

After a deep breath, Kay said, “You seem like you have something planned?”

“A little something. We might both learn from it.” She brought her hand up and looked at the thing she had retrieved, giving Kay time to take it in. A small, carved stick, was one way to put it. A small, wooden knife was another. The not-pointy end was wrapped with plaster tape from the first aid box.

He may have miscalculated badly. “What exactly—”

“Rowan.”

Kay’s next inhale was shaky, and his next words came out on a nervous chuckle. “You got yourself a rowan shiv.”

“Yep.”

“Do you know what that does?”

“Yes.” She leaned in close and whispered, “I do not like being prodded and poked for sport, you know.”

“Please, Willow, I really meant to help.”

“And you will help me seeing how it feels, like you suggested. Take it! Don’t do anything with it I did not order.” She offered the weapon to him grip first, holding it delicately between two fingers.

Kay took care to move it so the bare wood did not touch her skin.

“Now tell me, what might happen if I ordered you to drive this through your eye into your brain?”

“Ah, I’d try to not follow that one.”

“Can that work?” Willow watched him closely, brows knit, and Kay wondered if she was playing with him or really did not know.

“It’s very difficult. And it might drive one insane. But a straight-up ‘kill yourself’ order, I think that’s a good candidate.” He was trying to pay close attention to his current Owner, but his eyes kept being drawn back to the tip of the shiv. “You’re not really going to…?”

“Hm. Do you know enough to cut yourself without hitting an important blood vessel or nerve or tendon?”

“Yes.” Maybe she was just bluffing.

“Give yourself a cut on your left forearm. Something between one and two inches. A bit deeper than just the skin.”

Kay did not fight the order as such, because doing so would just mean his body would move on its own, with a little less control. But while lining up the cut, he asked. “You’re not worried about what Niobe will think?”

“That is a problem for later.”

Shit. She didn’t stop him, so he went through with it, cutting into the thick part of the muscle close to his elbow. There was a trick to making a wooden blade hold and edge, but getting a sharp one was easy. “Shit.” Kay closed his eyes so he did not have to watch the blood trickling from the cut, and the skin along the edge losing colour. Burning pain radiated outwards, spreading farther with each heartbeat. After a moment, he looked up at Willow. “How far are you going to take this?”

“A bit farther still. Give me the knife.” As soon as she has picked it out of his grip, she said, “Hands flat on the table. Leave them there. Hold still.” Her voice was very calm. Cool.

Kay stared at the tabletop between his hands, a little puddle of his blood forming around his left elbow. The cut— he didn’t want to know what it looked like, and closed his eyes. He did not want to imagine Willow driving her shiv through one of his hands and into the table, but it was what his mind suggested. It’s probably not hard enough for— He choked on a startled cry her order to be quiet would not let him voice. She’d cut into his upper arm, adding a warm of blood running down the back of it and adding to the pool. “We might… we might need a towel.”

The cuts themselves felt like something was eating into his flesh. The burning pain spread an intensified, making him shiver with the effort to hold still. Thinking became as blurry as his vision, and he closed his eyes again. His voice was barely louder than breath, and the only thing he had left to say was “Please…”

#whump #febuwhump #febuwhumpday7 #poisoning #knives #mind control #Fae Apoc fanfic #Willow

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sylvanfreckles · 3 years

Text

If You Love Me (FebuWhump 28)

Fandom: Supernatural Summary: Jack brings Dean some good news: Castiel has been resurrected and wants to return to earth. To do so he has to voluntarily give up his grace, through one thousand selfless acts that will eventually earn him a place in heaven. But selflessness isn’t easy...sometimes it’s downright selfish.

Prompt: “You Have to Let Me Go”

(It’s Destiel, it’s fluffy, it’s angsty, it’s everything I wish the finale had been. Canon divergent from before the boys head to the pie festival.)

(I don’t understand formatting on here too well, this is a little cleaner over on AO3)

* * *

This is gospel for the fallen ones

* * *

Dean's dreams were dark places lately. After losing so much...after Cas and Jack and the way the world just seemed to slip apart at the seams around them, there just wasn't much to smile about. So it was unusual that he fell asleep and found himself in a quiet meadow. It was just the kind of thing he used to dream about when Cas needed to dream-talk to him (he can't be gone he can't be gone).

It was...nice. The sun was warm on his face, reminding him that he hadn't really left the bunker in a while except to walk Miracle. Maybe...maybe this could be a message. There was still warmth and brightness in the world if he knew where to look for it. Maybe he should drag Sam to that pie festival in Akron, get some fresh air and a change of scenery.

“Hello.”

He spun around and was wrapping his arms around Jack before his mind really caught up what he was doing. Jack hugged him back, a little awkwardly (like Cas had...not Cas please, god, not Cas). “Damn, Kid, it's good to see you,” Dean huffed out, pulling away enough to get a good look at Jack's face. “Apotheosis looks good on you.”

At Jack's puzzled look Dean slapped him on the shoulder. “Hey, I can look stuff up, too.”

“Right. Um, anyway, this is a dream.”

“Yeah, I got that.” He wrapped one arm around Jack's shoulders. “So, any reason you're popping in here and not visiting us in the bunker? Not that it's not great to see you, but Sammy's missing you, too.”

“I had something important to ask you,” Jack explained. “Just you...I don't think Sam needs to know until you wake up.”

Dean's eyebrows shot up. “Well, I'm all ears.”

Jack's mouth opened for a second, like he was going to contradict Dean (“I was never in...your...” why won't it stop). “Castiel is back.”

For a second, Dean was sure this wasn't a dream. He must have died in his sleep and gone to heaven, or been taken by a Djinn in a hunt. Or...or this was hell. Or a nightmare. There was no way the real Jack was actually here saying this.

“It's true,” Jack continued. He'd slipped out from under Dean's arm and stood facing him. “There's just...a problem.”

A problem. Of course. That made more sense. “What, uh, what's up?” Dean asked. His voice was cracking but he ignored it, focusing all of his attention on Jack.

“I had to close heaven,” the young entity explained. “It was better this way...between the remodeling and the new fledglings, it would only endanger earth if angels were still allowed to pass back and forth unhindered.”

“Whoa, whoa, wait,” Dean held one hand up. “You...remodeled heaven?”

Jack nodded. “Everyone's together now. As it should be.”

Well, hell, that sounded a lot better than before. He hadn't really been looking forward to an eternity in his own private holo-deck anyway...a big, giant party sounded like a good deal. “So what's the problem?”

“Well...Cas wants to come back to you.”

Suddenly, the field around him was far too bright. Dean swallowed and looked away, fighting back the tears that prickled at the edges of his eyes. There it was...this was the nightmare again. Things like this didn't happen to Dean Winchester. He didn't get a happy ending.

“Dean,” Jack's hand on his arm pulled him back. “He can only return to earth if he gives up his grace.”

Oh. Dean swallowed and nodded. Of course. If Cas gave up his grace he'd be human again. That hadn't exactly gone well in the past. “So, what, you want me to tell him to stay up there?”

“It's not that simple.” With a sigh, Jack turned away from Dean and there was suddenly a park bench in the middle of the field. A simple, black iron thing that hadn't been there until Jack wanted it.

He sat down and awkwardly patted the bench for Dean to join him. “You see...if he stays in heaven he'll remain an angel. But if he returns to earth and loses his grace, he still wouldn't have a soul.”

Right. Angels weren't given souls. “So you're saying...”

“If he doesn't have a soul he'll go back to the Empty at the end of his life,” Jack explained.

Dean felt his heart sink. For one brief, shining moment he'd had the vision of growing old with Cas. Retiring together, maybe running the phones and lore the way Bobby used to, training up younger hunters to follow after them. But he couldn't ask for that, not at the cost of Cas's eternal peace.

“There's one thing, Dean,” the young entity interrupted before Dean fully lost it. “We don't have an Occultum, and he never had a soul to begin with, but there is a way for him to earn one.”

He met Jack's gaze, staring into the light blue eyes that still seemed so young. “How?”

“If Cas can perform one thousand selfless acts before he dies, he'll have earned an eternal rest in heaven. He'll lose his grace gradually, until he's nothing more than a mortal, but he would gain a soul in return. The question is...do you want him back under those conditions?”

He wanted Cas back under any condition. Angel or human, pissed-off demigod or nerd in a trench coat. Any version of Cas, any fraction of him...but this couldn't be about Dean. “What does he want?”

Jack's face relaxed in a smile and Dean could have sworn the kid winked at him. “I think you know.”

Dean felt his cheeks grow hot and cleared his throat, trying to cover his embarrassment. “Well, y'know, if this is what Cas wants.”

“Dean,” Jack's hand on his shoulder left a tingle like static electricity racing through his body. “What do you want.”

He had to look away. The shining earnestness in the kid's face, so much like Cas's. The horrible, bright, unbearable hope that was suddenly burrowing up in his chest. This couldn't—good things don't happen. Not like this.

But Jack was waiting for an answer, and Dean realized he couldn't edge his way around this question anymore.

“Yes,” the word rushed out in a sigh. “I wish I could...I never...and then he was gone and I couldn't...and I've give him my soul if that meant he could just come back. Just...even just for a second.”

Jack's face split in a beaming smile, revealing the gap in his teeth that made this almighty ruler of the universe look like a twelve-year-old kid. “Then let it be so.”

* * *

This is the beat of my heart

* * *

“Okay,” Dean shuffled the papers into a loose stack and tucked them under one arm. “So, me and Sammy'll go check out the woods, and Cas can head back to the hotel and do some more research, sound good?”

“Dean.”

“No arguments,” Dean held a finger up in front of Cas's face. “You've only been back for a few months. Still need to get your sea legs.”

A flicker of confusion crossed his...his Cas's face. Sam interrupted before another episode of 'The Dean and Castiel Show' started (as he called it). “We don't even know if there's anything out there,” he countered. “The hikers who disappeared were all traveling alone, we'll be fine if we stick together.”

Dean kicked at his brother to shut him up, but Sam knew it was coming and side-stepped it. “Still, I'd feel a lot better if someone stayed back to keep looking into this. Might find something we missed.”

“Then it would be best if Sam stays behind,” Cas suggested, with a nod toward the younger Winchester. “He's the most experienced with computer research.”

The way Cas said computer like it was a dirty word brought a smile to Dean's face. Even after all this time, his...his Cas didn't quite have a handle on technology.

But no. That was a terrible idea. “No, I need Sammy with me to help me track,” Dean replied.

“Dean.” Cas was shooting him his I used to be an angel-of-the-lord and I dragged your soul out of hell, I can handle this measly human task look. Except this wasn't doing the laundry or buying road trip snacks. This was a real, dangerous hunt.

“Why don't we all go together,” Sam broke in, apparently realizing that the other two were more than willing to stare at each other until someone broke down. “This thing has only attacked people who are alone anyway, we'll be safe as a group.”

Well, he clearly wasn't winning this one. Dean let out a long-suffering sigh and dug in his pocket for his car keys. “You're staying in the middle,” he warned, pointing at Cas.

* * *

But they haven't seen the best of us yet

* * *

“Morning, Sunshine,” Dean smirked over the rim of his coffee cup. As an almost-human, Cas had the most magnificent bedhead first thing in the morning. It reminded him a little of when they'd first met, when Cas had that crazy, windblown look like an angel who'd never heard of a comb. “How'd you sleep?”

Cas slid into the chair across from Dean and rested his elbow on the table to prop his chin in his hand. “I'm afraid sleeping is still an adjustment.”

“Yeah, well, you'll get used to it,” Dean said with a smile and shoved the coffeepot over. “And there's always caffeine.”

“Or I could sleep in your bed.”

Dean had been in the middle of swallowing when Cas made that statement, and he spluttered the coffee right back up into his mug and all over his hands. “Cas, that...I thought we were....” They were taking it slow. There were a crap-ton of issues to deal with, between Cas's less than fond memories of the last two times he'd been human and Dean's own dump truck load of shame. While Dean never had any doubt that Cas had meant everything he said before the Empty took him away, there was the very real issue that Cas hadn't expected to survive that confession.

Where did that leave them now?

In the midst of his panic Dean finally noticed the mischievous smile Cas was trying to hide behind his own coffee cup. “You little sneak!” Dean dipped his fingers into his cup and flicked lukewarm coffee at the other man.

Cas laughed and held a hand out to block the droplets of Dean's coffee. “My apologies,” he said, though he didn't sound the least bit sorry. “I didn't expect you to be up so early.”

“Had to get into town to grab the morning post,” Dean announced. He proudly slapped his hand on top of a stack of newspapers, pulling the topmost one off to unfold in front of Cas. “The society pages are a great place to find all kinds of charity events and stuff. Hey, did you know Lebanon has a soup kitchen once a month? They take donations all the time, then provide a hot meal and bags of groceries for people in need.”

“That's...wonderful, Dean,” Cas, face screwed up in confusion, craned his neck to see the print Dean was gesturing to.

“Wichita has a bunch of stuff coming up, too,” Dean added as he piled another paper on top of the first. “There's a fundraiser for an animal shelter—I know you don't really have money, but they're also asking for help running the phones and stuff. There's, like, three nursing homes, and I know they never get enough visitors. Oh,and they're always asking for help at the adult education center. You'd be great at that, most of those guys are just looking for some encouragement.”

“Dean,” Cas lunged across the table to rest his hand on top of Dean's, stopping him. “What are you talking about?”

“Selfless acts.” Really, it should have been obvious. “Jack said a thousand selfless acts, right? What's more selfless than charity?”

Cas smiled, affection softening his eyes. “I don't think it counts if I do it like this.”

Dean twisted his hand just enough to brush his thumb over Cas's. “You don't know that for sure.”

Sighing, Cas pulled his hand away and took one of the papers off of Dean's stack. “I suppose it wouldn't hurt to try.”

* * *

The fear of falling apart

* * *

They'd gotten maybe a dozen yards into the woods at the edge of town when they found fresh tracks. Then a dark shape darted across their path, and they were after it.

“Werewolf?” Dean called over his shoulder. He and Sam were desperately trying to keep Cas between them, to protect the former angel from harm, but they hadn't counted on Cas having better stamina than either of them.

“The tracks are too canine,” Sam replied. “Skinwalker?”

“It ran on all fours,” Cas added. “Look,” he added, crouching next to a track on the path. It was definitely a canine track, about as large as a man's hand.

Dean let out a whistle. “Big dog.”

“Some skinwalkers get that big,” Sam suggested. “Did you bring silver?”

Dean patted the stock of his rifle. “Always come prepared, Sammy. Cas?”

Cas held up his angel blade.

“Dude, come on,” Dean groaned. “I gave you a gun.”

“I left it behind. This is all I need,” Cas insisted. When Dean groaned again his face hardened and he set his jaw. “I haven't lost all of my grace yet, Dean. This is sufficient for me.”

“Yeah, well, we're setting you up with a nine millimeter and some practice targets when we get back,” Dean countered. “Come on, let's move.”

The prints were becoming more frequent now. Dean desperately wanted to send Cas back to the car, especially knowing he was only armed with his blade. But that meant either sending Cas back by himself (and this thing was taking out solitary hikers), separating the brothers so one of them could take Cas back (again...solitary hikers), or all heading back together (leaving this thing to keep picking off hikers). The only option at the moment was to keep Cas with them and just watch his back.

Dean held his fist up to halt the others and backed off the path toward the undergrowth. He could barely see the shadow of something ahead of them...something big and dark moving around in the bushes.

He peeked over his shoulder at Sammy and jerked his head toward the shadow. He braced the rifle to his chest with one hand, and with the other gestured for Sam to move to the other side of the path to get a different view of it.

Sam, who'd been furthest back, crouched low to hurry across the path to the faint shelter of the trees on the other side. He eased forward, shotgun braced against his hip, while Dean tracked his progress, ready to aim and fire if this thing charged at them.

There was a bellowing roar from the path ahead of them. Sam scrambled backward, firing his shotgun from the hip in the direction of the creature charging. Dean heard the thing yelp as Sam's shot hit, and he was rolling into the path, coming up to one knee, sighting down his rifle for the dark shape moving through the bushes.

It charged him, fast, and Dean was barely able to get a shot off before he was bowled off his feet. The bullet thudded into the creature's shoulder and it let out another shriek of pain before a massive, clawed paw was swiping at Dean's face and chest.

Then Cas was there, still preternaturally fast despite how mortal his blood was these days. He caught the beast's swipe on his angel blade and easily parried, his strength still so much greater than a normal human. Dean scooted away to bring the rifle around again, but the creature knocked Cas aside and took off down the path.

“Don't!” Dean started, but Cas was already taking off after it. Dean shoved himself to his feet to follow, Sam on his heels, and they burst through the shadowed depths of the forest path just in time to see Cas tackle the creature on an old suspension bridge.

“Oh my god...” Sam's voice sounded numb with horror, and Dean had to agree. Cas was fighting a thing that looked like a wolf, but only if a wolf was bear-sized.

And Cas was...winning. He scored a few harsh slashes up the creature's chest and carved a furrow across its face. The wolf-thing snarled and leaped for him, but Cas ducked under and caught the thing in the stomach with his shoulder, heaving it up and over the side of the bridge.

“Cas!” Dean pelted forward, slinging the rifle over his shoulder. Cas glanced over at him...just as a paw shifted into a large, meaty hand to seize him by the wrist and drag him over the side of the bridge.

Dean could vaguely hear himself yelling as he ran onto the bridge, ignoring the way it shook beneath him. He could just see Cas's fingers twisted in the rope that ran across the bottom of the bridge, and he slid onto his belly to stick his hand through and grab Cas around the wrist. “Hold on!”

The skinwalker still had a hold of him. It had fully shifted now, to a large, muscular man with a feral gleam in his eyes. He had both hands wrapped around Cas's wrist and was swinging back and forth under him, as though to use the former angel to get the momentum to swing back onto the bridge.

Cas met Dean's eyes, face set in a determined line. “Don't you dare,” Dean snarled. He dug his fingers in and squeezed as much of himself through the gap between the bridge's railings as he could. “Don't do this to me again.”

“Dean. You have to let me go.” Cas's voice was calm, too damn calm for this. “It's all right.”

“No,” Dean shook his head. “No, I—I need you.” I love you.

Cas smiled. “I know.”

Then he was pulling out of Dean's grasp and falling down, down, down to the river below.

* * *

Don't try and sleep through the end of the world

* * *

“Come on, man,” Dean coaxed. “This one's really good, I promise.”

Cas let out a tired sigh and twisted to stare at Dean. They were huddled up on the library couches, Cas with an ancient illuminated text open on his lap and Dean poking through Sam's laptop for some kind of extra-selfless deeds they could do. Maybe if it was good enough it would count for three or four.

“I appreciate the assistance, Dean, but I believe your plan is flawed.”

“Yeah, well, how do you know?”

In reply, Cas held his hand out. Just a few days ago they'd taken a simple salt-and-burn near Kansas City (after handing out water at the mini-marathon to support the children's hospital), and the ghost had been powerful enough to send a shard of glass straight through Cas's hand. Any normal human would have needed medical intervention and weeks of recovery, but the wound had slowly closed up until there wasn't even a scar left.

“Jack said I would lost a fraction of my power for every selfless act,” Cas explained gently. “I'm still very much an angel, Dean.”

Dean stared at Cas over the top of Sam's laptop, before gently closing it and setting it aside. He chewed his lip for a moment while he considered what to say. “A thousand is a lot, man. Maybe...maybe you just haven't noticed.”

“It's just going to take time,” Cas replied, resting his hand on top of Dean's. “We have plenty of that now.”

“So, what, you gonna hear a bell or something? When you're all done, I mean.”

Cas shook his head. “I'll know when I haven't heard the voices of my brothers and sisters in over a year.” Catching Dean's puzzled glance, he went on. “The last thing I'll lose is Angel Radio. Some of the other angels have agreed to contact me periodically, and when I can't hear their voices anymore is when we'll know I'm fully human.”

Dean stared down at their hands, watching Cas's thumb move back and forth over his knuckles. “I still think we should keep trying. I mean, all this charity stuff is pretty selfless anyway, right?”

To his surprise, Cas threw his head back and laughed. “Selfless deeds for a selfish reason? Is that what you're saying?”

Dean had to grin, too. “So we're selfishly being selfless?”

Cas's smile grew more affectionate. “How selfish of us.”

* * *

‘Cause I won't give up without a fight

* * *

“Sammy! Take that side!” Dean waved his brother back and stumbled the rest of the way across the bridge. The river wasn't too far down...the water was deep...the current wasn't too strong. Cas was still partially an angel. He could survive this...right?

“Cas!” Rifle bouncing along his back, Dean shoved his way through the undergrowth, trying to reach the river. The suspension bridge had only been twelve or fifteen feet in the air, mostly just a shortcut for people who didn't want to take the longer path down to the footbridge.

He ran along the riverbank, stumbling through the mud, eyes open for any sign of Cas or the skinwalker that had dragged him over. Sam had reached the riverbank on the other side and was moving parallel to Dean, calling Cas's name as he went.

The back of his mind was racing through scenarios. How cold would it get at night this time of year? What kind of wounds could Cas get from falling into the river? Could the skinwalker have survived, too?

“Dean!” Sam's voice broke through his thoughts.

“I see it!” Dean called back. There was something on the riverbank ahead...something big and dark. Slinging his rifle around into his hands, Dean slowly approached, ready to take a shot if it was the skinwalker.

It was big and hairy and naked. And not moving. Dean risked a glance across the river at Sam, who shook his head. No ideas. He slid forward carefully and nudged it with his foot. It didn't move. He pushed harder and the thing rolled over onto its back, sightless eyes staring up at the sky, a diamond-shaped hole in its chest.

Cas had gotten the skinwalker. Dean let out a sigh of mingled frustration and relief. At least they knew this thing wouldn't be hunting down any more hikers, but it didn't answer the question of how far their missing angel had gotten. Or what kind of shape he was in.

Sam was already moving down the river and Dean picked up his pace. If the skinwalker had been washed ashore here, maybe Cas wouldn't be too far away.

Dean saw him first. Around the next bend of the river the bank on his side smoothed out into a kind of beach area, where sand and silt had been washed down the river and collected in the curve. There was a figure sprawled on the gritty sand, half out of the water, still recognizable even in the second-hand hunter's threads they'd been giving him.

“Cas!” Dean ran through the mud, dropping his rifle when his shaking hands wouldn't loop the strap over his shoulder. He crouched down and grabbed the former angel under the arms and hauled him out of the water, then collapsed on the beach to cradle Cas's head and shoulders against his chest.

“Come on, Sunshine,” Dean murmured. He wiped at the mud smearing Cas's face, rested his hand against his neck to feel his pulse. “Please...”

Cas's pulse beat strong against his fingers, and Dean let out a sigh of relief and lowered his head until his forehead was pressed against Cas's. “You said you wouldn't leave again, man,” he whispered. “You promised.”

Cas stirred, his eyelids fluttered. Dean pulled back just enough to watch those bright blue eyes squint open. Dean let out a sigh of relief. “Never thought I'd be glad you're still mostly angel,” he muttered.

His...his Cas...managed a weak smile, his voice breaking in a whisper. “I must be too selfish.”

* * *

If you love me

* * *

And thus ends this year’s FebuWhump! I hope you all enjoyed, and I’ll be compiling the master list shortly.

(And if you have the song stuck in your head now, imagine how the last two months have been for me)

#febuwhump #febuwhumpday28 #you have to let me go #supernatural #dean winchester #jack kline #castiel #sam winchester #canon divergent/alternate ending #angst #fluff #grief #destiel #jack is new god #everyone lives #happy ending #human castiel

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stevie-steven-stevington · 5 years

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Febuwhump Day 7: imprisoned

Fandom: MCU Characters: Peter Parker, James Rhodes Category: Gen Rating: T Warnings: racism, homophobia, mentions of slurs Words: 1.5k

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there’s no rule on how loosely i’m allowed to interpret prompts and i think that’s beautiful

“It wasn’t my fault,” Peter says.

The look Rhodey gives him is somewhere between amused and withering. He’s wearing loose sweatpants and an MIT sweatshirt that Peter is pretty sure belongs to Tony, and Peter already regrets calling him and interrupting the very little time the Colonel actually has to relax.

The police station is quiet - surprisingly enough, Peter’s the only person in the holding cell tonight and the officer behind the desk stopped talking to him as soon as he told her that someone was coming to pick him up. It’s late and exhaustion hangs in the air, tugs on Peter’s eyelids, makes his limbs heavy. The adrenaline wore off a while back, and now he’s just…tired.

Rhodey doesn’t respond, just walks over to the desk and starts talking in hushed tones to the officer - Captain Milburn, if Peter’s not mistaken. He tunes out the conversation as best he can, head too fuzzy to focus on whatever’s being said, and leans forward on the bench he’s been sitting on for the past hour. Folds his arms on his knees, careful of his bruised knuckles, and rests his forehead against them, more than ready to just go to sleep right then and there.

He closes his eyes and waits.

He thinks maybe he should feel stupid. Or at least guilty. But he is Spider-Man - protector of the little guy and all that.

He’s also stuck in a holding cell, but, well. Collateral.

Peter doesn’t tune back into reality until the door to his cell has been unlocked and Rhodey is kneeling in front of him, saying, “Kid, come on. Let’s get you to an actual bed, yeah?”

“Mhm,” Peter hums softly, letting Rhodey tug him up by his uninjured hand. As he follows Rhodey out of the holding cell and through the police station, he says, “Mr. Rhodes?”

Rhodey stops, abruptly, in the middle of the station, Peter just barely avoiding walking into him. “Are we back to that now?”

“What?”

“The whole ‘Mr. Rhodes’ thing. You don’t have to go back to being all formal just because I’m picking you up from jail, Pete.” Peter frowns, shifts his weight back and forth as Rhodey stares at him over his shoulder, gaze scrutinizing. It’s not the point, he knows, but Peter still finds himself saying, “It’s not technically jail. Just a police station.”

Rhodey snorts, waving to Captain Milburn as he starts toward the door again, pulling Peter along with him. “Because that totally makes it better. Damn, you sound like Tony.”

Tony’s words from the car ride after Germany ring in Peter’s head.

Don’t do anything I would do. And don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.

Would Tony have done this? Peter likes to think he would have.

It really wasn’t even his fault. The guy had it coming.

Peter voices this to Rhodey when the Colonel slides into the driver’s side of his car after opening the door for Peter, as if he couldn’t have done it himself (which, granted, is not that wild of an assumption to make after he nearly passed out in a holding cell a mere two minutes ago). Rhodey twists the key in the ignition, but doesn’t make any move to actually drive.

Fuck’s sake. This is what he’d been trying to avoid when he called Rhodey instead of Tony or May. The lecture about being careful, about not picking unnecessary fights in his civilian clothes, about not using his powers as Peter Parker unless he’s attacked.

Which he didn’t do, but will surely hear about anyway.

Rhodey is silent for a long moment. Peter taps his foot against the car floor and feels like his mental state is on a pendulum, springing back and forth from one end of the spectrum to the other. Agitated to drowsy and back around to anxious.

“So let me get this straight,” Rhodey finally says, and Peter has to bite back the urge to crack a joke about his wording. “You punched a man on the street, got arrested for assault, and then called me, of all people, to come pick you up from a holding cell when, lucky for you, the guy decided not to press charges.”

It’s spot-on. Blunt, maybe, but spot-on.

Peter sighs, leans his head against the passenger-side window. “Yeah, pretty much.” “But it wasn’t your fault.”

Remnants of the anger that had panged through him just an hour and a half ago thrum in his bloodstream. “No. It - it wasn’t.”

Rhodey grips the steering wheel in front of him, tilts his head back, and takes a deep breath. “Okay. Okay, Peter. Tell me what I’m missing here, then.”

Peter presses his fingertips into his thigh and closes his eyes.

A shout. The crack of bone against his knuckles.

“He, uh - there was this boy walking down the street, he was probably sixteen or seventeen, and he had on nail polish and makeup and stuff. The man - the one I punched, I mean - he called the boy the F-word.” He doesn’t want to say it.

“The F-word?” Rhodey prompts.

Peter casts his eyes over to him, quirks an eyebrow at the Colonel. Understanding dawns on his face and his jaw goes tight, fingers tightening around the steering wheel until his knuckles go white. Peter’s right hand throbs, scrapes and bruises that will heal within twenty-four hours wanting to ache as much as they can for as long as they’re allowed. Rhodey shakes his head minutely, and his eyes are sad.

Not angry. Just sad.

“I’m really sorry you had to hear that, Peter,” is all he says. Peter looks away.

“I - I know I shouldn’t have punched him. Especially when I have super strength and could probably capsize an airplane with one punch. I just…I saw the boy’s face and he was - he was so scared, Rhodey.”

And it hurt.

“And my whole thing is about protecting the little guy -”

And it hurt.

“I couldn’t - I couldn’t just -” Fuck, he didn’t want to cry. He told himself he wasn’t going to cry over this, over some asshole on the street who thought it was okay to throw slurs around like it was the 1940s.

The man hadn’t even said it to Peter, but it’d felt like a punch in the gut anyway.

“I once knee’d a guy in the balls for calling a friend of mine the N-word,” Rhodey says, making Peter’s head jerk up. His tone makes it sound like it’s just any old story, but the words hold so much weight. “All three of us worked together and we were out at a bar for some - some bonding shit our supervisor suggested. I already didn’t like him, and then he and my friend got into an argument over something or other and he - he decided it was alright to call her the N-word because he disagreed with her, so I knee’d him in the balls.” Peter snorts - it’s gross and snotty, and if this were most anyone else, he’d be embarrassed for weeks. Rhodey just leans over to open the passenger-side glove compartment and dig out a pack of tissues, which he wordlessly hands to Peter.

Wiping at his nose, Peter breathes in, holds for six seconds, and then releases.

It’s not the same thing, of course. No two slurs are exactly alike, no two forms of intolerance cut the exact same way. But there’s still something to be said for shared trauma.

Slowly, quietly, Peter says, “It took me a really long time to figure things out. To - to understand what I was feeling and be… comfortable in it. I couldn’t say the word bisexual in reference to myself for ages. And it’s just - even if the guy wasn’t talking to me -”

“It still hurts you,” Rhodey finishes.

Peter nods, eyes fixed on the AC vent on the right side of the dashboard. “Yeah.”

Rhodey hums. “Yeah, I get that. It was the same for me. Is the same for me.”

His hand still hurts and his chest is still tight with pain and fear and anxiety, but the air in the car feels...cleaner.

Rhodey lays a gentle hand on Peter’s shoulder. “I know you were expecting a lecture about your powers and how it’s dangerous to use them outside of the suit and all that, Pete - and to be honest, you might still get one from Tony - but I’m proud of you, kid. You stood up for that boy and for yourself, and I’m proud of you for it. And Tones will be, too, once he gets past the bit about the holding cell.”

Peter’s laugh is short and watery, but it’s still an improvement over the tears.

“Alright, Peter.” Rhodey pats his shoulder once, then removes his hand to put the car in drive. “Let’s go home.”

Peter leaves the police station parking lot feeling lighter than he has in months.

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hailing-stars · 3 years

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@febuwhump day 14

meddling kids

summary

“Ned, you’re a genius,” says Peter. “We’ll just play some cupid, get them together for real, and they’ll be so distracted we can go back to movie days at the Tower.”

“Because that plan doesn’t have the potential to turn into a big, fucking disaster,” says MJ.

“It’ll be fine,” says Peter. “It’ll be good. It’s almost Valentine’s Day. Even they deserve to be happy.”

Peter attempts to meddle in Sam and Bucky’s relationship, and Flash meddles in Peter’s and MJ’s.

Rain hits the windows of Avengers Tower, and Peter pulls MJ a little bit closer. His eyes are glued to the TV screen, where it’s also raining, and where the two leads in the cheesy, rom-com Ned had switched on argue in the midst of the downpour. It isn’t long before the argument turns to kissing.

“That’s so romantic,” says Peter. That’s really what he’d rather be doing. Kissing MJ in the rain.

“Dude,” says Flash, shoving a fist full of popcorn in his mouth, from where he sat on the floor. “You’re such a sap.”

Peter scrunches up his face. “I’m not a sap.”

“Kind of are,” says Ned.

Peter turns to MJ for help, and their faces are so close, their noses almost brush up against each other. Forget the rain. He’d rather be kissing her now, in the common room, on the Avengers favorite couch.

“You’re totally a sap,” she tells him. “But you’re my sap.”

“You two are disgusting,” says Flash. “Just get a room and let Ned and I finish watching this in peace.”

Peter doesn’t think that sounds like such a bad idea, and he’s about to say so when he’s startled into sitting up straight.

“Parker!”

He turns his head and sees Sam and Bucky entering the common area.

“Oh,” says Peter. He and MJ scoot to opposite ends of the couch, as if it mattered and they hadn’t already been seen. “Um, hey Sam. Bucky.”

“What is this?” asks Sam, gesturing to the common room. “What have we told you about using the Tower as your own personal clubhouse for you and your school friends?”

“That I’m definitely welcomed to do it?”

“Well that’s one interpretation of hell no,” says Bucky.

Peter could strange both of them right there on the spot. They’re the annoying big brothers he never wanted, and he hates how they only ever agree with each other when it disadvantages him in some way.

“Take your Scooby Squad and scram,” says Sam.

“We’re not the Scooby Squad,” says Flash. He doesn’t take his eyes off the screen, and his hand stays in the bowl of popcorn. “We’re the FlashMob, don’t forget it.”

“We’re not the FlashMob,” says Ned. “We’re the FOS gang.”

“FOS?” questions Bucky.

“Friends of Spider-Man,” answers Ned.

“Meddling kids seems more appropriate,” says Sam. “Parker. Get them out.”

“If we’re the Scooby Squad you’re the grumpy old men,” says Peter, with a sigh. He stands, snatches the bowl of popcorn from Flash, and orders Friday to switch off the movie.

Peter, MJ, Ned and Flash file out the room, listening to Sam and Bucky as their bickering turns towards each other. Apparently Bucky’s chosen spot on the couch was where Sam sits, apparently the throw pillow Sam claims actually belongs to Bucky, and so on.

“I swear,” says Peter. “They bicker more than Mr. Stark and Gerald.”

“Gerald?” asks MJ.

“He’s going through a phase.”

“Well it’s obvious why they bicker,” MJ tells them.

All three stare at her.

“..It is?” asks Ned.

“Come on, guys,” says MJ. “It’s classic. They’re in love.”

All eyes turn back to the couch. They’re both sitting at opposite ends and they both take turns telling Friday to switch the channel on the TV. Doesn’t seem like a very productive war. Peter develops whiplash from just standing off in the background, watching the TV screen flip back and forth between Jaws and some old timey black and white film.

“I bet they just kicked us out so they could be alone together,” she continues.

“Enemies to lovers?” asks Ned, still staring at them, with a tilted head.

“I’d ship it,” says Flash.

“Wish they’d get a room, or an apartment,” says Ned. “So we could get back to our movie day.”

“Ned, you’re a genius,” says Peter. “We’ll just play some cupid, get them together for real, and they’ll be so distracted we can go back to movie days at the Tower.”

“Because that plan doesn’t have the potential to turn into a big, fucking disaster,” says MJ.

“It’ll be fine,” says Peter. “It’ll be good. It’s almost Valentine’s Day. Even they deserve to be happy.”

MJ kisses him on the cheek, and links his arm with hers as they march off towards the elevators.

“You really are such a sap,” she tells him, a fondness in her tone that causes Peter to realize he doesn’t actually mind being a romantic so much, not when MJ was the one saying it.

Peter leads Bucky down the season aisles at Target, and figures he’s really on his last shot of this cupid business.

He hasn’t exactly been subtle over the last couple of days. Bucky’s already wondering why Peter had insisted on him tagging along on his trip to Target with him.

They pass by heart shaped boxes of candy, and Peter digs through the bin of cute stuffed animals until he finds a unicorn. When he squeezes it, it’s teeth turn pointy and it’s eyes turn mean. It’s perfect.

“For MJ?” asks Bucky.

“No way, man,” says Peter. He turns his attention to the chocolate boxes with cartoon characters printed on the front, and grabs the one with “I got her presents months ago. This stuff is for Morgan.”

“How’s Stark handling Valentine's Day as a father, anyway?”

“He loves it,” says Peter. “He’s a little bit obsessed, actually. He wants Morgan to pass out the best Valentine's cards in her class, so he stayed up all night designing them online and he’s having candy delivered for some fancy chocolate shop in Germany.”

“I don’t think kids really care about fancy chocolate,” says Bucky, and Peter watches as he eyes the boxes of chocolate. His eyes go back and forth between two different brands.

“They don't,” says Peter. “But they do if you bribe the chocolate makers into molding the chocolate into the replicas of famous Avengers.”

Bucky doesn’t respond. All his focus is on the candies.

“What kind of chocolate do you think Sam likes?” asks Peter.

Bucky snaps his head around and narrows his eyes at him. “Why would you ask that?”

Peter shrugs. “I dunno. Maybe we should get him some. It’d be nice.”

Bucky stares at him, and Peter shuffles his feet around, dying to come out with his suggestion that he and Sam should just go out already. That they’ll be a lot happier together, way less grumpy.

“How do you know?” asks Bucky.

“How what?”

“Don’t play dumb.”

“I don’t have to play dumb,” says Peter. “I really don’t know what you’re talking about!”

“Come on,” says Bucky. “What’s the deal with you crawling around on the ceiling hanging mistletoe above wherever Sam and I are standing? Or that night you made us dinner and set the table with candles and rose petals?”

“I was just being nice. Who doesn’t like roses?”

“I know you know about me and Sam,” says Bucky. “So quit harassing us, and keep your mouth shut about it.”

“Wait…. You and Sam… are already together?” asks Peter, with a gasp of disbelief. “I was trying to set you up!”

“You didn’t know?” asks Bucky. “We thought you knew and were being an asshole about it.”

“Holy shit,” says Peter. He shifts Morgan’s presents to one hand, and pulls his phone out of his pocket with the other. “I gotta tell MJ.”

Bucky swipes his phone. “You can’t tell anybody. We’re keeping it a secret for now.”

“Fine, fine,” says Peter. “Secret safe with me.”

“No secret is safe with you, Parker,” Bucky tells him, before marching past him, and to the next aisle where he continues looking for Sam’s present.

Peter frowns. He’s got no clue why people think he’s incapable of keeping things secret.

Peter manages to keep Sam and Bucky’s relationship to himself, until the day of the Midtown High Valentine’s day dance. And it’s not exactly Peter’s fault. He isn’t exactly to see the two of them in his school’s gym, with linked arms, wearing identical grins.

“You two cannot be here,” whispers Peter. His eyes darted around the gym, at all his classmates, somehow forgetting no connection could realistically be made between Peter Parker and two Avengers.

“Sure we can,” says Bucky. “We’re chaperones.”

“And I’m Captain America. I can go anywhere.”

“I hate you both,” says Peter.

Sam claps him on the shoulder. “Consider this revenge.”

“For what?!?”

“For being annoying,” says Bucky.

“And young,” adds Sam. “And for torturing us with mistletoes.”

“Oh, look,” says MJ, emerging from the crowd of students on the dance floor. “I was right. Who’s surprised?”

“Yeah, congratulations,” says Sam. “Now take your irritatingly observant selves over to the refreshment table, get yourselves some Scooby snacks and leave us to our chaperoning.”

Peter doesn’t need to be told twice. He’s ready to put so much distance between himself and the old, grumpy chaperones. He and MJ are crossing the dance floor when they’re favorite song starts to play, but it’s something else that grabs Peter’s attention.

It’s Flash, standing on the bleachers, holding a lighter up to the smoke alarm.

“THIS IS FOR YOU PENIS PARRKKKERRRR,” he yells across the gym, just as the smoke alarm blares to life.

He’s confused, until sprinklers on the ceiling turn on, and water begins to rain down on the entire student body, soaking dresses and suits and splashing into the probably already spiked punch bowl.

“I guess you were right about something too,” says MJ, with a small smile. They’re standing in the middle of the dance floor, while most others run and duck for cover under chairs or in the hallway, while Bucky and Sam chase Flash around the gym. “This is kind of romantic.”

“I can start an argument with you,” says Peter. He hooks his arm around her waist and pulls her closer. “If you want it to be like the movies.”

“Nah,” she tells him. “We can skip that part.”

She brushes his soaked hair out of his face, and they kiss. It’s every bit as romantic as it is in the movies.

#febuwhumpday14 #my fic #spideychelle #flash Thompson is a good bro #kissing in the rain

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hailing-stars · 3 years

Text

@febuwhump day 24 memory loss

some kind of dad

summary

Tony walked over and opened the balcony door, just as his suit landed with Spider-Boy in its arms.

“Peter,” said Tony. “There was glass there.”

All he got was a muffled groan filled with pain.

Tony directed his suit to lay Peter on the couch, where the boy ripped off his spidey mask and revealed a head full of blood caked hair.

“Jesus, kid, did you really hit the window that hard?”

Peter interrupts Tony’s peaceful evening at home with some blood and a head injury.

Tony kicked his feet up on the coffee table, and nursed a glass of scotch. His eyes lingered on the fireplace. Logs crackled under the pressure from the flames, and it was incredibly relaxing when paired with the scene outside of his penthouse window, the New York City skyline peppered with giant, puffy snowflakes.

He took a sip of scotch and savored the moment. A moment of peace was a rare oddity in the life of Tony Stark. Even rarer after acquiring an intern with zero self-preservation skill and an annoyingly large and burdensome sense of responsibility.

Tony had to enjoy the tranquility while he could. It was sure to be short-lived.

So Tony wasn’t shocked when it happened. When his peaceful night was disrupted. Actually, he saw it coming. Literally. He took his eyes off the fireplace, and glanced at the window. He saw a blue and red blur quickly approaching his penthouse.

He was wondering what kind of trouble this visit would bring when Peter hit the penthouse window like an insect against a windshield. Peter began to fall, and with a tired sigh, Tony told Friday to have a suit fly down and catch him before there were spider-guts all over the sidewalk.

Tony walked over and opened the balcony door, just as his suit landed with Spider-Boy in its arms.

“Peter,” said Tony. “There was glass there.”

All he got was a muffled groan filled with pain.

Tony directed his suit to lay Peter on the couch, where the boy ripped off his spidey mask and revealed a head full of blood caked hair.

“Jesus, kid, did you really hit the window that hard?”

“This happened before the window, actually,” he muttered with a grimace.

Tony figured that it made sense why he hadn’t noticed the glass and had smacked right into it. He’d already obtained a pretty gruesome head injury.

“That glass is hard,” whined Peter. He stared straight up, at the ceiling, and Tony felt his face crease with worry.

“Yeah, genius, it’s bulletproof.” It was more than bulletproof, actually. It was strong enough to withstand most blows. After aliens visited your planet, you didn’t take chances on home security.

“And Spider-Man proof.” He sounded

Tony sat on the edge of the couch, and rested his hand on his leg in some foreign and awkward attempt to provide some comfort.

“How’s the pain?”

“Awful,” said Peter. He wiggled around on the couch, getting blood all over the cushion, while he tried and failed to get comfortable. “Downsize of fast healing is that it hurts like hell.”

“Better let me have a look at it.”

“No way,” said Peter. Tensing up.

“I’m just gonna look and see if it’s bad enough to warrant a trip to the medbay.”

The look of disgust and annoyance that flashed across Peter’s face was purely teenager.

“Either that, or I can just have Helen get a bed ready for you without me checking.”

“Fine,” said Peter, with a huff. “Just be… careful.”

“You act like I’ve never had to do this before,” said Tony.

The Avengers were prone to hurting themselves. Not even on missions, but in everyday, mundane situations, like that time Bruce slipped and hit his head in the lab, or when Clint had gotten stuck in the ceiling vent.

Tony stood above him, while Peter watched him warily. He gently swiped some of Peter’s bloody hair to the side to get a glimpse of the nasty gash on his head.

“It doesn’t look that bad, actually,” said Tony.

“Easy for you to say,” said Peter, through gritted teeth, and with closed eyes.

“Well running into a glass window probably made it worse.”

Peter popped a single eye open. “Does this mean I don’t have to go to medbay?”

“Yep.”

“Good.”

Tony chuckled. “I have no idea why you hate it so much.”

“Overexposure.”

“That’s a fair point.”

He felt the strange urge to give him a lecture about being careful. Felt parental. Felt like something he’d promised himself he’d never do again again he’d wagged his finger around at the boy after that ferry incident, like he was somebody’s dad.

“Okay.” He clapped his hands together. “Medicine time.”

“I need the special -”

“Specially strong stuff for strangely superpowered kids,” finished Tony. “Yes, I know. I keep them stashed all over the place. With how often you get hurt, it’s like I have a damn pharmacy in my kitchen.”

Tony strolled over to the kitchen, and unlocked the cabinet he kept the pills in. He’s about to search for a bottle of water, when Peter started shouting requests from the couch.

“Got any ice cream, Mr. Stark?”

“You have a head injury and you want ice cream?”

“Sure,” said Peter. “It’ll give me brain freeze, and it’ll make my head injury so numb, I won’t be able to feel it.”

Tony rolled his eyes, though he wished the world worked according to Peter Parker’s logic.

“That’s what the medicine is for,” said Tony. He handed Peter the bottle and two small pills, and watched as he struggled a bit to sit up, ignoring Tony’s offer of assistance.

“No ice cream?” asked Peter, with the puppy dog eyes.

“Medicine first,” said Tony. “Then we’ll see if you feel like eating ice cream.’

“Fine.” He threw the pills in his mouth, and gulped down some water to wash them down. “Still think ice cream might’ve been more effective than pain relievers.”

“Yeah, maybe in a movie,” said Tony. “What were you doing out in a blizzard anyway? Don’t the weirdass villains you fight take snow days?”

“Wasn’t fighting a villain,” he grumbled. “I slipped on some ice outside of Delmar’s.”

“You make it a habit to go and get sandwiches dressed in your Spidey suit? And in the middle of a blizzard?” Tony didn’t think he could stress the blizzard part enough.

“That was just a pit stop,” said Peter. “You know, May’s stuck at the hospital for an overnight shift, and the apartment was kind of empty, so I just figured we could hang out? If you didn’t already have any plans -”

“I’d love to hang out, Pete.” Tony cut him off, stopping the kid mid-ramble, when it clicked that the kid got injured on the way over to see him, and that he wasn’t just coming to see him because he’d gotten hurt. “Besides, you’ve already bled out on my couch. It’d be just rude to leave now.”

Peter laughed.

“How’s the head feeling now? Double vision? Memory loss?”

“No,” he said. “I’m - I’m good.”

“Good,” said Tony. “Think you can manage changing into PJs without falling over? And cleaning some of that blood out of your hair?”

Peter’s nod was slow and uncertain enough to convince Tony that he definitely couldn’t manage it on his own.

Tony helped him to the guest room, where Peter had his own drawer of clothes. It didn’t strike Tony as odd until that moment.

His penthouse had changed in small, but significant ways, since Peter Parker had crashed into his life and made himself at home. The guest room might as well be called Peter’s room, the stashes of extra painkillers, the textbook Tony had pulled out of his couch cushions just a week earlier and had to deliver to Peter while he was at school.

He thought about this while Peter sat on his bed, and while Tony searched the drawer for something comfortable for him to wear. He stopped. Took another glance at the kid.

“You trickster.”

“What?” asked Peter.

Tony didn’t elaborate. He went back pulling out t-shirts and pajamas pants, mentally mulling over the fact that Peter Parker had turned him into some kind of dad, forever cancelling out any chance he ever had at a bit of peace and quiet, and he actually didn’t mind it that much.

Peace and quiet was overrated. Tony lived for the interruptions.

#febuwhumpday24 #irondad #irondad fic #my fic #injured Peter parker #head injury

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starryknight09 · 3 years

Text

One last good-bye

Febuwhump Day 15: “Run. Don’t look back”

Read on AO3.

________________________________________________________

“Run. Don’t look back.” Rhodey pushed him forward. Peter stumbled, looking at the man in shock.

“Go!” Rhodey yelled. This time Peter listened. He knew he’d be useless in this fight. And Rhodey could fly. Peter couldn’t. Sure, he could swing, but only when there was something to stick to, which didn’t exist in the middle of this rocky wasteland.

He took off, sprinting as fast as he could in the direction of the Quinjet, not looking back. They’d wandered far enough away that the Quinjet was out of sight, so he hoped he was going in the right direction.

“Helping Dr. Strange will be fun, you thought.” He mumbled to himself as he ran. “Yeah right.”

He could hear the repulsors firing from the War Machine armor but the sound was barely audible over the stampede of all those things running at them. He wanted to glance back to make sure Rhodey was ok, but he knew he couldn’t chance it. He didn’t need his super hearing to hear the creatures gaining on him. Rhodey could take care of himself. He was a big boy. A louder bang sounded in between repulsor blasts. Rhodey must be pulling out the bigger fire power.

Run. He thought to himself. Don’t turn around. Don’t turn around.

Why had they ever agreed to help Dr. Strange in the first place? This was way beyond his pay grade. Some other evil wizard was messing around with bad sorcery and now Peter was running from weird spooky undead creatures.

“Karen.” He gasped. “Any luck with the comms?”

“I’m sorry Peter. Something is still jamming my communication abilities.” Damn.

They never should’ve split up. Whose bright idea had that been anyway? Right. Sam’s. Peter hadn’t known him before, but it seemed like the whole being Captain America thing had kind of gone to his head.

“The enemy creatures are gaining on you.” Karen warned.

“I’m aware!” He tried to run faster but he didn’t think it worked. He knew it’d be bad news bears if any of these things bit him. Dr. Strange had been clear enough about that. His only consolation was that he was in the Ironspider suit, so if bullets couldn’t pierce it, he was pretty sure these ugly things teeth couldn’t. But he wasn’t absolutely 100 percent sure. Besides, the suit wouldn’t save him if was overrun by these things. The sheer number of them would crush him. Not a great way to go.

They were getting so close he could smell them and the pungent smell of rotting flesh and garbage made him want to gag.

Must run faster. Must run faster.

Finally, the Quinjet came into view. Oh thank god.

“I recommend you increase your velocity. At this current pace you will not reach the Quinjet before you’re overrun.” Karen informed him.

Shit.

“Help!” He screamed, hoping another group had returned to the Quinjet and would hear him. “A little help!”

A growl sounded behind him. Way too close. He turned around. And immediately regretted it. Man, they were as ugly as they were stinky, and he only had about a thirty foot lead on them.

This was not good. This was so not good.

In the split second he glanced backward, he tripped. He flew through the air before crashing to the ground and rolling across the rock laden dirt terrain.

I’m going to die. This is how Spiderman goes? Really? He thought as he tumbled.

The instant he stopped, he rocketed back to his feet and started running again, even though he knew it was pointless. Those things were right behind him. He didn’t want to turn around and look. He didn’t want to know when death would be coming.

But then from one second to the next, he had an idea. He didn’t know why he hadn’t thought of it before. Sure, he didn’t have firepower and he couldn’t fight these things hand to hand, but he still had his webs. Just because they couldn’t swing him anywhere didn’t mean they were useless. He spun back around, trying not panic at the fact that the creatures were only like ten feet away as he shot his webs out across the entire line of them, sticking them together.

They fell and that caused their comrades behind them to trip over them and fall as well like a line of dominos. It wasn’t a definitive solution, but it’d bought him some time. The Quinjet was getting closer, and now he could see people running down the ramp toward him. Sam and Bucky. Wanda and Clint. Scott and Professor Hulk. Dr. Strange.

He wasn’t going to die after all!

And then the other wizard guy showed up.

Ok. Maybe he’d spoke too soon…

Dr. Strange glided through the air to meet the other wizard guy in a collision of colors. Peter thought his gold sparkle transporting rings looked cool, but whatever spell he’d just cast put them to shame. Multicolored glitter sparkles fell from the sky like rain, landing on his skin but not hurting him. They rested there for a few seconds before fading away. A moment later he realized the noise behind him had greatly decreased. He risked a quick glance backward and gaped. Any creature touched by the glitter stuff started gradually fading away until they disappeared altogether.

It took him another few strides to realize he didn’t need to run anymore. Nothing was chasing him. Dr. Strange had eradicated the entire undead creature herd with one spell. Wow. There was definitely something to be said about the magic or mystical arts or whatever the man called it.

“Kid? You ok?” Sam asked, reaching him a few seconds after he’d stopped. The man clapped a hand on his shoulder and looked him up and down.

“Yeah.” He answered as he tried to catch his breath. “I’m good. So…now what do we do?”

Sam glanced up at Strange fighting the other wizard guy, the two of them periodically clashing in the air as they both fired colorful spells. If it’d been dark out Peter could’ve almost made believe he was watching fireworks.

“Hell if I know.” Sam admitted. “I draw the line at street magicians. This wizard shit is beyond me.”

Peter huffed out a laugh.

“Hey, where’s Rhodey?” He hadn’t seen the man since he’d ran and hoped he was ok. He couldn’t imagine the man hadn’t gotten away with the War Machine armor. He took a few steps back in the direction he’d came, searching the horizon.

“Don’t worry. He’s right there. See?” Sam pointed up in the sky where Rhodey was flying toward them.

Right. He didn’t know how he’d missed him. His heart rate slowed. Mr. Stark’s best friend was fine. Peter hadn’t been able to save his mentor, but he wasn’t going to let anything happen to his family, not if he could help it. And Rhodey was definitely part of Mr. Stark’s family.

“Watch out!” Sam yelled, but the warning came too late. He’d been so focused on Rhodey he hadn’t been paying close enough attention to the wizards battling. His spidey sense flared in warning, but too late. He tried to dive out of the way, but the range of the spell’s blast heading toward him was too large to evade. The globe of red light enveloped him, and everything went black.

Peter’s eyes snapped open and he sat up before he was even fully awake, the adrenaline from the battle still churning through him. He’d been hit. Where was he hit? He ran his hands over the front of his body and looked down at it, but he didn’t see any blood. And nothing hurt. But…wait. What? Why wasn’t he wearing his Spiderman suit?

“Ok. What the hell.” He mumbled to himself, holding his hands up in front of his face as if they could tell him. But they were bare. And he had on jeans ith one of his science pun t-shirts, which was the outfit he’d been wearing before he’d put on the Ironspider suit earlier. Weird. Last he’d checked he’d left his clothes in the Quinjet. Maybe someone had changed him out of his suit and into his clothes? He frowned. That made no sense.

Where was the Quinjet anyway? Everything was a lot quieter. He glanced around, taking in his new surroundings, and his face slackened in shock. Because he definitely wasn’t in the barren rocky wasteland where they’d been fighting that wizard. In fact, his surroundings didn’t look like anything he’d ever seen before. Was he even on Earth?

“Oh shit. Toto, I’ve got a feeling we’re not in Kansas anymore.” He muttered.

The ground he sat on looked like water, but its surface was solid. He slapped his palms down and watched as ripples expanded outward from them, like what would happen if you dropped a stone into water. But he wasn’t wet or sinking. Ok. This was officially freaky weird.

“Where am I?” He whispered and stood, doing a full circle to try to orient himself. It didn’t help. Everything looked the same. The weird blackish blue ground he stood on stretched out as far as the eye could see. No other pieces of landscape pierced it. The line of the horizon was only perceptible because the blue of the air was just a shade lighter than the ground. The whole aesthetic was dizzying and kind of trippy.

And then he looked up.

“Holy shit.” His heart leapt into his throat. The sky was a dark expanse of stars and galaxies. And he could see a few large planets that looked almost close enough to touch. It was terrifyingly beautiful. He reached out and tried to poke at one of the closer ones, a red giant with rings. It was too far away to actually touch, but the spot where his finger poked made the air ripple out in the same way it had on the ground, like the atmosphere was composed of gelatin that jiggled when touched.

“What the hell...” He definitely wasn’t on Earth. What kind of spell had he been hit with? Had he been transported somewhere? Banished? Was it reversible?

“Underoos.” Came a voice from behind him.

Peter stiffened. He hadn’t heard that voice in months. The last time had been on a rubble strewn battlefield, fighting for his life, and the life of the entire universe. Terror gripped him. He was afraid to turn around, and at the same time, he’d never wanted to do anything more in his whole life. He turned. And there he was. Mr. Stark. Standing there without a care in the world, hands in his pockets with sunglasses on and a characteristic grin on his face.

“Mr. Stark.” He whispered, unable to believe his eyes.

“Hey kid.” The man’s eyes softened as he took him in.

Peter just stared, brain unable to comprehend that this could possibly be real. He didn’t know what to say. He’d imagined so many times what he’d say if he ever saw Mr. Stark again, but now he could barely make his mouth move to form words.

“But— How—” He stammered, not even sure what he was trying to ask, and then a thought struck him and his eyes widened as he asked, “Am I dead?”

“No.” Mr. Stark reassured him then clarified, “Well, not technically.”

“What does that mean? Not technically dead? So, am I not technically alive either?” His tone got higher pitched even as he tried not to panic. He knew there were more important things to talk to Mr. Stark about, but he couldn’t think about anything else until he knew what was happening to him.

“You’re in the in between.” Mr. Stark explained.

He frowned.

“You’re not supposed to be here.” The man said, face showing his disapproval. And Peter couldn’t help the small smile that cracked across his face. He’d missed those looks from Mr. Stark.

“Then how do I go back?” He asked.

Mr. Stark shook his head. “There’s nothing you can do. We just have to wait.”

Not the most comforting answer. “But if I’m in the uh in between, how are you here?”

“It’s too complicated to explain, but let’s just say I’m here to keep you company.” Mr. Stark smiled again.

And Peter finally let himself enjoy the fact that he was standing there with Mr. Stark. Something he’d wished for more than anything. He wasn’t going to waste it even if his own fate was uncertain. In the next second, he crossed the distance between them and threw his arms around the man. He was substantial. Whole. Mr. Stark wrapped his arms around him and hugged him right back.

Tears welled in his eyes, and he didn’t know how that was even possible, just like he didn’t know how he could hug his mentor since supposedly neither of them had bodies right now, but it was happening all the same.

“I missed you.” Peter whispered into the man’s neck.

Mr. Stark brought a hand up to the back of his head and tangled it in his hair. “I missed you too kid.”

Peter didn’t know how long they stood there hugging. Not that it mattered. Time didn’t exist in this place. He didn’t know how he knew that, but he did.

And Tony didn’t say anything. And he didn’t pull away. He just kept holding him. For as long as Peter wanted.

Peter tried to soak it all in and memorize every detail of the moment. The smell of Mr. Stark’s aftershave, the scratch of his beard, the warmth of his embrace, how absolutely protected and safe he felt. He tucked away every sensation and feeling so when he needed to in the future, he could close his eyes and recall it. Because he knew he’d never get another chance at this.

“It’s not fair.” The words came out before he’d even decided to say them.

“I know.” Tony agreed.

“I wish you could come back with me.”

“You know I can’t.”

“Do you…do you regret it?” He whispered his question. One of the things he’d always wondered.

“No.” Tony answered without hesitation.

“Why?”

“Because there was no other way.”

That was true enough. Dr. Strange had told Peter something similar. If Mr. Stark hadn’t snapped, they would’ve lost and everyone would’ve died.

“But do you regret inventing time travel? You could’ve lived a full life with Pepper and Morgan.” Peter had always felt like he’d been partially responsible for taking that away from him. The way everyone had told the story, he’d been the catalyst for Mr. Stark inventing time travel. And now he got to have this time with Mr. Stark when Morgan or Pepper never would, and that made him feel even more guilty.

“No I couldn’t have.” The man said pulling away so he could cup Peter’s face in his hands. “Because I didn’t have you.”

The tears in Peter’s eyes slid silently down his cheeks. “I wish you wouldn’t have done it.”

“I don’t. I had to. No regrets.” Tony smiled at him and Peter marveled at how it could be so soft and so sad at the same time. “I love you kid.”

“I love you too.” He said back and fell forward back into a hug. After another long minute or so, Peter gathered enough self control to pull away again. He couldn’t stay glued to the man forever. No matter how much he may want to right now.

As Mr. Stark let him go, he kept his hands resting on Peter’s shoulders, and Peter remembered another thing he wished he’d gotten the chance to say when Mr. Stark had been alive. The man had done so much for him. Had become something of a father figure to him. And he’d never verbalized his appreciation in any way.

“I uh I never thanked you.” He said.

“You never had to.”

“Still, I want to. Thank you. For everything.”

“You’re welcome Pete.” Mr. Stark smiled. “But no thanks are necessary.”

“Is there anything I can—"

“I don’t think we have much time left.” Mr. Stark interrupted with a frown.

“Oh.” A short burst of panic hit him. He didn’t want to leave Mr. Stark. “What-what if I want to stay?”

“No.” Mr. Stark answered firmly. “You can’t.”

“Why not?”

“It’s not your time yet.”

“So I can’t choose to stay?” He asked, but even as he did, he knew he never would. He couldn’t do that to everyone he loved at home no matter how much he missed Mr. Stark.

“No. That’s not how it works. And you wouldn’t really want to stay anyway.” Mr. Stark said in his typical all-knowing fashion.

“I know.” He said sadly and then asked, “Can I ask you a question?”

“You just did.”

Peter rolled his eyes.

“Shoot.”

“What’s it like here?”

Tony gave him a peaceful smile, eyes twinkling as he answered, “Wonderful.”

It didn’t fix anything, but it was a small consolation at least. A weird feeling started somewhere near his belly and spread, like a buzzing, tugging sensation.

“Time to go Pete.” Mr. Stark said, his smile turning sad.

“Mr. Stark.” He whined and leaned forward to give him one last hug. He hated the feeling of being torn away from him. Hated how similar this whole thing felt to getting dusted on Titan.

“I know.” Mr. Stark shushed as Peter clung to him. “But it’s ok buddy. It’s going to be ok.”

Peter gripped him tighter, but he could tell it was a battle he was going to lose.

“Bye kid. I love you and I’m so proud of you.” Mr. Stark whispered.

“I love you too.” He said frantically, worried any second he’d be torn away and unable to finish what he wanted to say. “And I miss you so much.”

He tried to hold on, but in the next moment, he was finally ripped away.

“No.” He protested desperately. “Tony!”

“Tony!” The man’s name was still on his lips as his eyes snapped open.

“Hey, you’re ok.” Rhodey said from where he was crouched down next to him.

“I…I…what?”

“That wizard guy hit you with a spell, but Strange finally figured out how to reverse it.” Rhodey explained.

Peter blinked and looked around, recognizing his surroundings. He was lying on a couch in the Sanctum. It all came back to him. The fight. The other wizard guy. Getting hit by the red spell. Mr. Stark.

“I saw Mr. Stark.” He blurted out and Rhodey’s eyes widened.

“I did. I saw him.” He insisted, worried the man wouldn’t believe him.

Rhodey looked up at someone behind Peter’s head. Peter craned backward and noticed Dr. Strange standing there, a neutral expression on his face.

“It’s possible.” Dr. Strange said. “The spell sent him somewhere where he was neither alive nor dead.”

“Mr. Stark called it the in between.”

Dr. Strange nodded and Rhodey looked like he’d seen a ghost.

“Interesting that Stark was able to cross over into that place.” Dr. Strange said. “You must have a strong connection with him for that to have been possible.”

Peter nodded, a lump forming in his throat as he remembered all that they had said.

Rhodey kept staring at him, his mouth open like he wanted to ask something but couldn’t figure out what. If it’d been him, Peter knew what he’d want to know, so he answered the man’s wordless question.

“He’s ok.” Peter said with a small smile. “He’s happy.”

#febuwhump2021 #febuwhump #irondad

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