#but that’s something else entirely. anyways someone came up to help me but is notorious for messing things up

[iloveyoumorethansoup]

As a hostess, nothing says you’re good at your job quite like all of the servers being extremely worried about you switching places with someone else and all of them telling you how much they’ll miss you in college and that you should come back over winter break

[rosaacicularis]

Bestie you got so many aus just brewing at all times? Do you ever take a break? /lh anyways I’m gonna feed into the brain rot even more what else is going on in this hero/villain + soulmates au? What was their first civilian interaction? Were they initially tenuous allies at best, mostly using the telepathy to achieve their goals, but overtime something ✨changed✨? -🎶 anon

i try to take breaks and then my little subconscious goes “omg wouldn’t it be cool if grian and scar were tardigrades floating around in the vacuum of space, after being sent off in hopes they could evolve and bring life to another planet” and then i go “omg yeah it would” 

and i am definitely going to ramble a lot because i love this au so much but anyway as for some little fun facts about it <3<3 (and by fun facts i mean the entire plot.. this is literally the entire fic just without any dialogue…. which in my opinion is a little bit quirky of me)

they’d been telepathically communicating their entire lives, so it wasn’t that difficult to realise they were in the same city and arrange a meeting. they were like thirteen and went to see a movie. they made fun of it in their heads, watched it in relative silence out loud while eating their popcorn.

they stayed just friends for a while, not wanting to rush into anything; going about school and university as stolen glances and lingering touches that maybe meant a little more than they were leading on. they could hear each other’s thoughts in their head, they chose to pretend they couldn’t.

the façade came crashing down when they debuted as a vigilante duo. poultry man and the jangler. they weren’t that good or skilled, they hadn’t realised their potential yet—but they weren’t going to let the world suffer—and the jangler got hurt. scar wasn’t going to die without confessing to grian, and grian definitely wasn’t going to let him die after he had. 

they took a break from it, they started training, building connections. they held a lot of resentment toward the heroes for how they hurt scar. one day, and they can’t remember who that it first, they got the idea that one of them would infiltrate the system, reform it or destroy it, just change it so they would stop needlessly hurting the people they’d sworn to protect.

so grian re-debuts as watcher, the untouchable villain. he was fast, could fly, and seemingly unexplainable things happened around him (people can swear they see his eyes go purple sometimes). scar re-debuts as hawkeye, a hero with aim like apollo, and a skill in combat that leaves people horribly envious.

it took a while for them to gain those titles, for them to work their way up, they staged fights between themselves to help. to get on the news, to get their names known and talked about. the snowball of fame turned into an avalanche after hawkeye ‘saved’ the top hero from watcher’s grip.

they both shot up to their respective top spots after that. they didn’t do anything particularly irrational for a while, so they could build up trust. grian got loyal lackeys, and scar got sidekicks and teams. they were in the perfect position to enact a chaotically destructive plan. 

they plant seeds, just little things like scar losing an arrow here, one of grian’s lackeys spilling about dates of illegal meetings there. eventually it all stacks up and comes into play. scar convinces his boss, the head of the hero organisation to go undercover to buy illegal weapons so they can take the group out and study the weapons, use them too, sell them to the military afterwards. scar kills his boss, claiming that the lost arrow was replicated and someone is trying to impersonate him. 

the top heroes have a meeting, and settle on the idea that someone’s soulmate must be working with watcher. that’s the only way any of this would’ve been able to work. they realise that the person may not even realise that their soulmate is working with the city’s most notorious villain, nobody is safe. 

they thoroughly interview everyone’s soulmates, grian passes with flying colours. the heroes are getting a little frantic, they can’t find their leak, their mole. the plan is working flawlessly, but it’s a little bit slow, so watcher walks right into their palms and ‘turns himself in’. 

they arrest him and interrogate him, about his crimes and motives and everything, until they come down to the fated question of who the mole is, the brutus to their caesar. instead of answering, grian drops a little flash drive of information, all the dirt and blackmail material on the hero organisation. 

some of them are horrified, shocked to learn what has been going on under their noses, some look resigned like they were waiting for that show to drop. suddenly the foot they’d had in the door was in their grave. their secrets uncovered, the immoral things they were involved in brought into the light. 

he slips out within the chaos of the heroes fighting amongst themselves. the tension runs deep in the weeks after, to the point where the city starts to notice, starts to lose faith in the people meant to save them. hawkeye makes his public breakaway from heroism by joining watcher and denouncing his old team and boss, telling every news source that will listen about the entire scandal.

every single hero loses their credibility. a few show up at scar’s apartment, demanding answers. he tells them the whole story, how he’d been working with watcher since their conception, and when the heroes ask why he’s confessing now, scar tells them that anyone they’d tell would only see it as them trying to save their skin. 

grian and scar had won.

[thewertsearch]

If you're using the collection I think you might have unlocked some stuff from the time period which Andy was interacting with the Fandom.

I did indeed!

Most of the news posts are pre-Homestuck, but interesting nonetheless. A lot of it's just housekeeping - announcements about donation commands, thank-you messages to contributors, short hiatuses from the comic, etc, but there's also a lot of interesting stuff to highlight.

Turns out Problem Sleuth really was bigger than I thought, enough for it to have millions of hits and a sold-out merch store.

I'd been assuming that Homestuck was Hussie's big breakout comic. Maybe it was, but they had a pretty sizeable following before it ever started.

Really everything that's happened so far [by the end of Act 1] probably serves as more of a prologue than a first chapter.

Hussie talks a bit about Act 1 after it ended, saying that the entire thing is essentially a prologue to the comic proper.

This is definitely the impression I got. The whole Act is just an elaborate tutorial sequence for John, after all.

Glancing backwards, I can't help but monitor my progress. 55 days, 247 pages (with 295 images). That's a little more than 5 images per day, which is almost the exact pace I set with Problem Sleuth over the course of a year.

Their pace at this point was an astounding five pages per day.

This is an average which includes time spent making gifs and Flash animations, so I'm kind of losing it over this. Webcomics are notorious for the exact opposite of this update speed, and there must have been a lot of optimization behind the scenes to make it work.

It's especially impressive considering that they were only updating a couple of times a week back in the Bard Quest days. They seem to have found their rhythm in early 2008, because this is a hell of a jump in productivity.

John's shirt, which of course appears to be Slimer from Ghostbusters, is actually a depiction of an Asian knock-off of Slimer called the GREEN SLIME GHOST. Rose's shirt was once a depiction of a character from a fake cute cartoon show which I totally made up called "Squiddles!". She then went about defacing this shirt to make it look mean!

We get a bit of flavor on the kids' symbol shirts. This newspost predates Jade's introduction by several months, so we finally have an answer for where the name originally came from, which I was wondering about earlier.

A familiar refrain with pages like this I have found is something like: "Is that all? Can I do anything else? Can I kill the imp? Is there an objective I'm missing?" The answer is, what you see is what you get! These are not really fully functional mini-games with the sort of objectives you would expect to see from such things. They are partially interactive pages in a story, leaning on certian traditional elements of gameplay to convey the story-purpose of the page.

Bit of commentary here about the 'playable' pages. They're intended to be interactive cutscenes, rather than actual games. There isn't going to be any 'hidden' content, just obvious beats that progress the story in a format that looks like a videogame.

We get a hint that there's a secret in Jaspers' flash, which apparently is no longer clickable on the website version of this animation. This pretty much immediately destroys my assumption above that these things won't have any hidden content in them.

It's not any secret lore or anything, though, just a cute little animation giving us a look into Rose's head. She really is an animal lover, isn't she?

This archive link to a poll on what items John should have alchemized no longer works, which breaks my heart :'( I'll see about finding it later, I guess...

Anyway, I'll be back here later, when there's more to read.

Someone remind me to check out the Blogspot later, too. It looks super wordy, and I wanna get back to the comic!

[admirableadmiranda]

Debts and balances: or how much does one man have to pay over the course of his life?

Good morning everyone! Today we’re going to be talking about debts, and why Jiang Cheng needs to shut the fuck up on debts because he is the one in the wrong pretty much the entire time.

Let’s start by acknowledging that I am not of this culture so I may perhaps state a thing or two wrong, but I also have several functioning brain cells to rub together and I pay attention so I will probably be more right than most of the “hot takes” I see on why Jiang Cheng is not actually in the wrong here. Because he is. He so is.

So, debts. First of all, there are multiple levels and layers of debts and to whom do you owe them too. So let’s start with the first one where the story is subtle about it and yet both Jiang Cheng and Madam Yu are in the wrong. We know that Cangse Sanren saved Jiang Fengmian’s life at one point when they were young. Life debts are big. To only be alive because of someone else’s actions is a debt that it is possible you will never be able to pay back. There are multiple stories of otherwise good people protecting the obvious villain because they owe that.

Jiang Fengmian’s only way of being able to pay back that debt after Cangse Sanren and Wei Changze die is to take care of their child and raise him how they would have. I.E, as a cultivator. This is not a debt that Wei Wuxian owes to the Jiangs. It is quite literally, the least of what Jiang Fengmian owes him and his parents to do.

Jiang Cheng cannot claim that Wei Wuxian owes them for his life. He is wrong. 

Next debt that even Jiang Cheng does not try to claim, only his ever so pleasant stans, the fucking dogs. The fucking dogs that he does not actually give a fuck about. 

Wei Wuxian does not ask anyone to do anything about the dogs. He is not in a mental state to. He is in a state of triggered phobia where his brain literally goes into run away screaming mode. This is also not funny and Jiang Cheng is a jackass for making fun of it whenever it happens. Jiang Fengmian is the one who decides that it’s better for the dogs to go. Even though Jiang Cheng is upset, he does not actually hold this as a lingering grudge against Wei Wuxian. He lets it the fuck go. And even if he didn’t, the resentment and anger should be aimed at the person who actually made a decision about it. Not Wei Wuxian. He does not give one singular fuck about his dogs later on. Let the fucking dogs go.

Third off: The Fall of Lotus Pier. There are different levels of blame that we can lay on this. Wei Wuxian is not close to responsible for this. Jiang Cheng knows this and elects to blame him anyway.

The first people we can lay the blame on the fall of Lotus Pier is the Wens, who came with ships, warriors, Wang Lingjiao to rile up the notoriously short tempered asshole Madam Yu, and Wen Zhuliu the Core-Melting Hand. They came prepared for battle and they got what they wanted. Madam Yu is the second one we can lay the blame on, for deciding to attack and demean Wang Lingjiao, not for making her do anything she didn’t want to do, because holy hell did she want to whip Wei Wuxian until he couldn’t move and leapt at the chance to do such a thing, but because Wang Lingjiao is a servant who was elevated by her lover and Madam Yu is a classist asshole. This is the only reason she flips out. Wei Wuxian did nothing wrong. Wei Wuxian does not have the blood of Lotus Pier on his hands, he is tied to Jiang Cheng and told to protect him at the cost of his life, a debt he does not owe. 

The four debt he attempts to claim, the only one that might be considered to have some teeth if it weren’t for how much Wei Wuxian gives him back almost immediately. Jiang Cheng goes to distract the Wens from Wei Wuxian and ends up getting captured and losing his golden core. So first off, in this world a golden core is a lot to lose, I won’t deny that. But, first off, Wei Wuxian is only in danger because after being whipped a lot, then strangled, then having to run after Jiang Cheng multiple times because he would rather go die at Lotus Pier than listen to either of his parents and escape, he still goes into town to get them something to eat because otherwise Jiang Cheng would rather lie on the ground and die. Fucking great sect leadership there, huh Jiang Cheng? But yes, Jiang Cheng sees the Wens, sees them notice Wei Wuxian, goes off to distract them and then gets captured and loses his golden core.

Now we’re getting to some of the debts that Jiang Cheng owes and refuses to pay back, because that’s definitely going to get him far in this world. Wei Wuxian in his panic and attempt to find Jiang Cheng, finds Wen Ning, who after some struggles manages to convince him that he can sneak in and get Jiang Cheng back out. In addition, he also retrieves the bodies of Madam Yu and Jiang Fengmian. This is huge. Jiang Cheng now owes him both a life debt for again, saving his life at great cost to his own: Wen Ning is literally committing treason here, and also for restoring the lost honor of not being able to bury his parents properly. Wen Ning gives them a proper burial and later after the war he is able to lie them to rest in the Ancestors Hall so their spirits will be at peace and he will have fulfilled his fillial duties. By all means, the debt he owes Wen Ning in particular is so great that he should have taken in every Wen in those camps and sheltered them because it is as close as he will ever get to repaying that debt. And that’s just Wen Ning!

The next debt he owes and refuses to pay is to Wen Qing, a genius doctor and respected by Wen Ruohan, who uses the prestige and skills she has to protect both him and Wei Wuxian in at this point enemy territory when they are being actively searched for, being the new sect leader and head disciple of Yunmeng Jiang. She hides them and then later uses her skills to give him a new golden core so that he can go and fight back against his people, revitalizing his clan and eradicating hers. This is another debt that could only really be paid back by protecting her people if she came to him. He owes her literally his life, his power and his people.

The third debt he owes and refuses to pay is to Wei Wuxian, who more than overbalances the scales back in his favor by giving him his golden core. He pays his chance at immortality, his power, his strength, his cultivation, everything that he has to his name so that Jiang Cheng won’t starve himself to death over losing his core. In addition, he tells Jiang Cheng that this comes from a once in a lifetime favor from his mother’s master so even before when he didn’t know about the core, this is still a massive, massive debt, a limitless one time favor from an immortal that he uses Wei Wuxian’s chance to get and never actually thanks him. So at this point, his own golden core as a debt starts to seem a little hollow. Either way, it’s been repaid. An action you do in service of someone else is not a weapon you get to hold over their heads for multiple lives.

Moving on! The next debt he would like to claim is that Wei Wuxian apparently has no right to do things he does not approve of. Excuse me? Is he now a computer program that crashed? What the fuck Jiang Wanyin? Wei Wuxian has less rank than him, although Jiang Cheng is so high rank in this society that he only shares his rank with three other people and there’s no one above him so it would be very hard for him to not be, but he is still a person, with his own thoughts, wishes, dreams, hopes and beliefs. He is not an extension of your hand, to make your clan look good and stand behind you as a hammer to smash on people. Wen Qing goes to Wei Wuxian to ask for help for finding her brother, her people because they are literally being tortured to death. This is a debt that by all means, Jiang Cheng should be repaying. See that part where Wen Ning committed treason to help him and restore his family’s honor? See that part where Wen Qing literally gave him the ability to go back to war against her family? This is the point where anyone with honor would recognize this is the only thing I can do. I will throw myself on my sword if I must, but I must repay this debt to them. There is nothing less I can do. But Jiang Cheng has only the honor of a mangy cur and ignores this, and when Wei Wuxian goes to fulfill this debt, he tells him to stop. To him, his multiple life debts are an inconvience to shoving his nose so far up Jin Guangshan’s ass that he’s tasting what he had for dinner that day.

The next debt that he would like to claim is the death of his brother in law. This is a debt that Wei Wuxian would owe to specific people. This debt is to Jiang Yanli, Jin Guangshan and Jin Ling, one of whom is wanting to forgive it, one who is too small to decide at the time, and one who straight up does not give a fuck beyond advancing his power. Jiang Cheng is not one of these people. His sister is fine, she’s not his concern anymore, she’s a part of the Jin sect. The only reason why he died is that Jiang Cheng decided the best way to repay his debt to Wei Wuxian was to throw a temper tantrum and declare him an enemy to everyone, ripping out every support from under his feet. Regardless, Jiang Cheng is an asshole and does not get to claim this debt.

The final one of Wei Wuxian’s first life that he keeps hurling at him is the death of his sister...the death of his sister who chose to leap between Wei Wuxian and a sword. The death of his sister at a battle that broke out because Jiang Cheng has been with Jin Guangshan whipping the cultivation world into a frenzy against the Wens and Wei Wuxian because of power and jealousy. The battle that would have not happened if they’d left them alone. Jiang Cheng has been to the burial mounds. He has seen the farmers, he has seen the baby there. He has decided that rather than do anything to repay these various deaths, he will kill them on other people’s swords instead. Because he is also a coward and won’t pick fights he can’t win. In addition he likes to steal Yanli’s agency, she’s the one who chose to come, she’s the one who chose to get in the way and she doesn’t die with regrets. And she is not his debt to claim. Again, the one who actually gets to claim this death that Wei Wuxian is not responsible for is Jin Ling, who actually shapes up and decides that it doesn’t matter, he doesn’t blame Wei Wuxian for it. He forgives him his role in that space and moves the fuck on, unlike a certain sir stabby grape mcwhipinnoencts.

And then Wei Wuxian dies and any debts he may have still owed to Jiang Cheng, not that there were any, die with him. Jiang Cheng has no claim on him, he was not part of his sect, they were not brothers in any way, indeed Jiang Cheng called him his enemy. Even most people with far more real grudges at this point would let it go. Wei Wuxian is so dead that no one can find his soul, no matter how hard they look. He comes back to life and reaps the rewards of his actions, finding new allies, getting the chance to actually interact with Jin Ling and make his apologies, and in the end, settle down to a peaceful life with an adoring husband and nothing left to be repaid. If there is still a debt he owes, it is only to Mo Xuanyu, who gave up his entire cycle of life to let Wei Wuxian reincarnate early with his memories, a sacrifice he only asked for repayment in the death of his family. He may owe more still, but that is all Mo Xuanyu wanted from him in repayment for this great sacrifice. The cultivation world is in the wrong when they’re trying to persecute him again for the actions of his previous life, he owes them nothing anymore. The debts he carries towards Jin Ling are the ones he chooses to take on, feeling guilty that he grew up without his parents due to the world’s general actions and also no one else taking responsibility for how far things fell. 

That is what Jiang Cheng finally realizes in the temple, crouched on the floor and sobbing like a spoiled child over the golden core sacrifice. Is that he is in the wrong and has been in the wrong the whole time. That there is nothing he can hold onto, no debt that Wei Wuxian ever owed him that he could demand to be paid. He built it all up in his head as he left his honor, his family and his dignity in the wake of his arrogance. And it’s a painful thing to realize, the consequences of your decisions, but all he can do is live with his own ruined reputation, his own loneliness and the fact that no one wants to be around him. He’s blacklisted by multiple matchmakers, his disciples are more like thugs, Wei Wuxian chooses every opportunity to get away from him and even Jin Ling likes him less and less over the course of the book, not forgetting that he seems to prefer Jin Guangyao to begin with as he actually talks to him sometimes and doesn’t hit him. Jiang Cheng refusing to pay his debts gives him exactly what a debt deserter deserves. No one has a reason to trust him. The one bit of positive character growth he does is giving up and not trying to reel him back in by telling him of the sacrifice. At this point, all it would be is just him trying to get another debt he cannot hold because it is long since repaid, never quite made up for what they gave him to make up for it, and worthless in the face of Wei Wuxian’s new life. Wei Wuxian owes him nothing and never has.

Also, just to tally up the relationship between Wei Wuxian and Jiang Cheng on things given between the two of them, Jiang Cheng gives him: a lot of whinging on how unfair it is that Wei Wuxian is a prodigy, and a one time immediately regretted and held over his head sacrifice of a golden core. Whereas Wei Wuxian gives him: many lessons on how to be a kinder person that he ignores, the patience and tolerance of his stinkbug attitude, his love, his affection, his fucking golden core, his reputation, his blood, his livelihood, taking over his debts, trying to keep any of his actions from reflecting on the Jiangs even though if Jiang Cheng had repaid any of the debts he owed, there would have been no problems because if the Jin’s did decide to attack, Wei Wuxian would fight back and he can level battle fields on his own, his honor, his relationships, and even his life in the end, because if Wei Wuxian had ever turned on him like he claimed, he would have been a bloody smeared spot on the ground. And Jiang Cheng gobbles this all up and demands more with Wei Wuxian’s blood and tears dribbling from his mouth. 

Would you give that much for someone who doesn’t treat you well? Would you find that a reasonable price to pay for someone who demeans you at every opportunity, who tells you you deserve your misfortunes and that no one likes you? Why are you surprised that in the end Wei Wuxian would rather walk away with people who care about him, why he gives up, leaves any opportunity for anything in Jiang Cheng’s hands. Wei Wuxian has given more than any person should for almost nothing. It is a sign of triumph and victory, of recognizing his own worth and value in the world and who he wants to be with, that he leaves, that he walks away with his head held high. He owes Jiang Cheng nothing, and Jiang Cheng will just have to fucking live with that.

[itsclydebitches]

The Bad Batch: A Crosshair Analysis

Hello, Star Wars fandom! I have just completed watching—and loving—The Bad Batch, which you know means I now need to dump all my thoughts about the first season into the tumblr void. Specifically, thoughts on the complicated drama that is Crosshair. I have no doubt that the majority of what I’m about to say will be old news to anyone who watched the show when it came out (I’m slow...), but I’m writing it all out anyway. Largely for my own sanity enjoyment :D

I want to preface all of this by saying that the above is not an exaggeration. I love the show and I love the entire cast. My enjoyment in each of the characters is directly connected to my enjoyment of the season as a whole, which I say because I’m about to get pretty critical towards some of the characters’ choices and, to a lesser extent, the writing choices that surround those. Does this mean I secretly hate The Bad Batch? Quite the opposite. I’m invested, which is presumably just what Filoni wants. I’m just hoping that investment pays off. 

But enough of the disclaimers. Let’s start with the matter of the inhibitor chip. I’ve seen fans take some pretty hard stances on both sides: Crosshair is completely innocent because he’s definitely been under the chip’s control this whole time, no matter what he might say. Crosshair is completely guilty because he said the chip was removed a long time ago and he chose to do all this, no moral wiggle room allowed. However, the reality is that we don’t know enough to make a clear call either way. The audience, simply put, does not have all the necessary information. What we have instead is a couple of facts combined with claims that may or may not be reliable. Let’s lay them out:

Crosshair was definitely under the chip’s control at the start of the series.

He was able to resist it to a certain extent, resulting in a pressure to obey orders coupled with a primary loyalty to his squad. See: telling Hunter to follow the Empire’s commands—which includes killing kid Padawans—but not turning his team in as traitors when they did not. It’s an in-between space.

Crosshair’s chip was then amplified to an unknown extent. I’m never going to claim I’m a Star Wars aficionado—I’m a casual fan, friends. Please don’t yell at me over obscure lore lol—but within TBB’s canon, no one else is undergoing that experimentation. The effects of this are entirely unknown, which includes Crosshair’s free will, or lack thereof.

Crosshair then becomes a clear tool of the Empire, hunting down innocents, killing on a whim, the whole, evil shebang.

In “Reunion” he’s caught by the engine and suffers severe burns to his face. One leaves a scar that covers precisely the place where the chip would have been extracted.

Removing the chip leaves its own scar behind. If Crosshair’s was removed, we can’t see that scar due to the burn.

After these events Crosshair seems to mellow a bit. He does horrible things under the Empire’s orders—like shooting the senator—but is still loyal to his squad—killing his non-clone teammates to give TBB a chance, saving AZ and Omega, etc.

Crosshair claims that his chip has already been removed. However, Crosshair is arguably an unreliable source if he’s been lied to or if the chip is still there, encouraging him to manipulate the team.

Crosshair claims it was removed a long time ago, which is incredibly imprecise. As we can see from just some of the events listed above, precisely when the chip came out—if it came out—makes a huge difference.

Hunter realizes this and presses for clarification, but Crosshair dodges giving it. Again, a legitimate belief that it doesn’t matter, or evidence that he can’t say because something else is going on? We don’t know.

Hunter checks Crosshair’s head and finds the burn scar which proves… nothing. As stated above, they wouldn’t be able to see the surgery scar one way or another: its existence or its absence. It’s useless data, as Tech might say. I’ve seen a few fans claim that Hunter was also feeling for the chip with his enhanced senses, but 1. I didn’t catch any evidence of that in the scene and 2. Even if we assume Hunter did that anyway, the chips are notoriously hard to spot. Fives and AZ couldn’t find the chip at first when examining Tup. Ahsoka had to use the force to find it in Rex. TBB themselves couldn’t find it at first in Wrecker. If machinery consistently fails to find the chip on the first couple of tries—it’s meant to be a hidden implant, after all—why would we believe Hunter’s senses could pick it up instantly? Maybe he missed it, or maybe it wasn’t there at all. 

Crosshair appears to be struggling with a headache in the finale, just as he was at the beginning of the season and just like Wrecker was for the first half.

The point of listing all this out is to emphasize how ambiguous this whole situation is. I don’t want to use this post to argue one way or another about whether Crosshair’s chip is really out. I have my preferred theory (the chip’s still in, but only partially functional), but at the end of the day none of this is conclusive. The writing takes us in what I hope is deliberate circles. Crosshair says the chip is out? Crosshair is not a reliable source of information until we know if the chip is out. What other evidence is there that the chip is gone? A scar? We can’t see if there’s a scar. Hunter’s abilities? He only checked once for a canonically hard to find implant—if he actually checked at all. And why would the Empire want the chip out? Well, maybe it has to do with that push towards willing soldiers, but if that were the case, why leave Crosshair behind and have the “clones die together”? By that point he was one of the most willing, chip or not. Did they have to take it out because of the engine accident? Pure speculation. We just don’t know and THAT is the point I want to make.

Because it means the rest of the Bad Batch didn’t know either.

The core issue I have here is not whether the chip is in or out, or even how long it may have been in if it is out now. The issue is that TBB spent 99% of the first season believing that Crosshair was under the chip’s influence… and they didn’t try to do anything about that. They abandoned him. They left a man behind. Does this make them all horrible monsters? Of course not! This shit is complicated as hell, but I do think they made a very large mistake and that Crosshair has every right to be furious about it.

“But, Clyde, they couldn’t have gone back. It was too dangerous! Hunter had a duty to his whole team, not just Crosshair.” True enough and I’d buy this argument 100% if Hunter hadn’t spent the entire season throwing his team into dangerous, seemingly impossible situations to save other people. Crosshair became the exception, not a hard rule of something they had to avoid. They went back to Kamino for Omega, a kid they’d only had one lunch with, despite knowing how dangerous the Empire was. They went into the heart of an occupied planet to rescue not just a stranger, but one belonging to the Separatist government. They helped Sid when she asked and there was plenty of compassion for the criminal trying to take her place. Most significantly, there wasn’t the slightest hesitation to go rescue Hunter when he was under the Empire’s control, in precisely the same place. Every explanation I’ve seen fans come up with—Kamino is too fortified, they don’t know where Crosshair is, they can’t risk Omega being captured, etc.—also holds true for Hunter, yet there wasn’t a second of doubt about needing to at least try to help him. And his rescue was arguably far more dangerous given that TBB knew they were walking into a trap. Going after Crosshair would have at least had some element of surprise.

I think the problem with these justifications is most easily seen in “Rescue on Ryloth” and, later, “War-Mantle.” In the former, we do watch Hunter decide that going on a rescue mission is too much of a risk, only for Omega to talk him into considering it.

Hunter: “It’s a big galaxy. We can’t put ourselves on the line every time someone’s in trouble.”

Omega: “Why not? Isn’t that what soldiers do?”

Hunter: “It’s not worth the risk.”

Omega: “She’s trying to save her family, Hunter. I’d do the same for you.”

The arguments that sway him are ‘Soldiers should help people’ and ‘Soldiers should specifically help their family.’ So… what does that say about their feelings for Crosshair? They’re willing to put themselves on the line for the parents of a girl they met once at a drop site, but not their own brother? That’s the message the writing sends. “But, Clyde, the difference is that they had an advantage here. Hera’s knowledge of her home planet tipped the odds in their favor.” Yeah… and Crosshair is stationed on TBB’s home planet. Even more than them collectively having the same knowledge that Hera does, “Return to Kamino” reveals that Omega always had additional, insider knowledge of the base: she has access to a secret landing pad and the tunnels leading up into the city. That knowledge was given and used the second Hunter’s freedom was on the line, but it never once came up to use for Crosshair’s benefit. 

“War-Mantle’s” mission puts this problem in even sharper relief. Another claim I’ve seen a lot is that TBB only took risky rescue missions because they needed to be paid. The guys have got to eat after all. Yet Tech makes it clear that going after Gregor will lose them money. They’re meant to be on a mission for Sid and deviating for that won’t result in a payment. He explicitly says that if they decide to do this, they won’t eat. They do it anyway. No money, no intel, a huge risk “on a clone we don’t even know.” But that’s not what’s important, the show says. All that matters is that a brother is in trouble. This time it’s Echo pushing that message instead of Omega. When Hunter realizes that they’re about to try and infiltrate an entire facility and they don’t even know if this clone is still alive, Echo points out that they took that risk once before: for him. “If there’s a chance that trooper is being held against his will, we have to try and get him out.”

Yes! Exactly right! So why doesn’t that apply to Crosshair?

“Because he tried to kill them, Clyde!” No, that’s the easy, dismissive answer. A chipped Crosshair tried to kill them. AKA, a Crosshair entirely under the Empire’s control. The only difference between his enslavement and Gregor’s is that Gregor’s chains were physical while Crosshair’s were mental. And again, the point of everything at the start of this post is to show that no one knows when or even if that chip was removed. TBB definitely didn’t have any reason to suspect that Crosshair was working under his own power until Crosshair himself said as much. We might have been able to make that case at the start of the season, but “Battle Scars” removes any possible confusion. The entire team watched Rex reach for his blaster when he learned their chips were still in. The entire team watched Wrecker become a totally different person and attack them, just like Crosshair did. The entire team forgave him instantly and had their own chips removed. So why in the world didn’t anyone go, “Wow, Crosshair has a chip too. He was no more responsible for attacking us than Wrecker was. We need to try to get him out, no matter how hard that might be, just like we had to try for all these other people we’ve helped.”

But they didn’t. No one even considered rescuing Crosshair. They only went back for Hunter and, when they realized Crosshair was there too, they didn’t change their plans to try and rescue him as well. He’s treated as a particularly threatening inconvenience, not another team member in need of their help.

The problem I have with how this all went down is that the team treated Crosshair like an enemy despite all evidence to the contrary. Despite Omega outright saying that this isn’t his fault, it’s the chip, the group seems to decide that he’s gone crazy or something and that there’s nothing they can do. “It’s fine,” I thought. “They don’t really get what the chip is like yet. They don’t understand how thoroughly it controls someone.” But then “Battle Scars” arrives and Wrecker is treated with such compassion (which he deserves!) only for the group to continue acting like Crosshair is somehow different. It’s easy to say, “But Crosshair shot Wrecker” and ignore the easy pushback of, “and Wrecker nearly shot Omega.” Up until Crosshair’s own accusations and Omega’s ignored comments, TBB’s understanding of the chip’s influence and the lack of responsibility that accompanies mysteriously disappears when the show’s antagonist becomes the subject of conversation. This is seen most clearly in how Hunter tries to frame things during his talk with Crosshair:

“You tried to kill us. We didn’t have a choice.”

“Can’t you see that they’re using you? It’s that inhibitor chip in your head.”

“You really don’t get who we are, do you?”

Hunter mentions the chip, but he acts as if it’s Crosshair’s responsibility to overcome it: “Can’t you see…” Of course he can’t see, that’s the entire point of the chip, the thing he currently believes Crosshair still has stuck in his head. But Hunter and the others—with Omega as a wonderful exception—never seem to have accepted this like they did for Wrecker. When Crosshair “tried to kill us” it’s seen as a deliberate act that he chose, not something forced on him like with Wrecker. When Hunter talks about their ethics, he subconsciously separates the team from Crosshair: “You really don’t get who we are, do you?”, revealing a pretty ingrained divide between them. Even Wrecker gets in on the action, the one brother who truly understands how much the chip controls someone: “All that time, you didn’t even try to come back.” What part of he couldn’t try is not hitting home here? Again, for the purposes of this conversation it doesn’t matter whether Crosshair was chipped this whole time or not. The point is that TBB believed he was chipped… and yet still expected him to somehow, magically overcome that programming, writing him off when he failed to do that. He’s consistently held responsible for actions that they were told (and, through Wrecker, saw) were completely outside of his control. Even when we factor in his claim that the chip was removed, TBB has ignored all the evidence I listed at the start. No one, not even Omega, challenges this super vague and strange claim, or seeks out proof because they don’t want to believe that their brother could willingly do this. There’s just this... acceptance that of course Crosshair went bad. Why? Because he was an asshole sometimes? Taking it all as written, it doesn’t feel like the batch considered him a true part of the team. Certainly not like Wrecker or Hunter. As shown, the batch will go out of their way, risk anything, forgive anything, for them. They have a level of faith that was never shown to Crosshair. 

“Severe and unyielding,” Tech says and he’s absolutely right, but I’d seriously challenge this idea that any of the others would have automatically done better if the situations were reversed. It stood out to me that each batch member has a moment of doubt throughout the series, a brief glimpse into how they think the Empire isn’t that bad, at least when it comes to this particular thing. Basically, a moment that could lead to a very dangerous line of thinking without others to stomp it down. Wrecker announces that he’s happy working for whoever, provided they give him food and let him blow things up. Tech finds the chain codes to be an ingenious strategy and is clearly fascinated with their development. Hunter initially wants Omega to stay on Kamino, despite knowing that this Empire has already, systematically killed an entire group of people: the Jedi. Doesn’t matter. She’s still (supposedly) safer there than she would be running with the likes of them.

There’s absolutely no doubt that those three made the correct choice in defying the Empire, but I believe that their ability to make that choice is largely dependent on them having each other. They survive together, not apart, and it’s their unity that allows them to make the really hard calls, like setting out on their own and opposing such a formidable force. But if Tech’s chip had activated and he’d been left behind, would he have muscled through to escape somehow...or would he have gotten caught up in all the new technology the Empire offered him, succumbing to both his chip and the inevitability that if his squad no longer wanted him, why not stay? Would Wrecker have escaped, or been easily manipulated into a new life of exploding things? Would Hunter have been able to push through without his brothers, or would he have become devoted to a new team to lead? Obviously there’s no way to ever know, but it’s always easier to make the right decisions when you have support in doing so. Crosshair had no support. His team left him and yes, they had to in that specific moment, but the point is that they never came back. As far as we saw throughout the season, they never planned to come back. They all talk about loving the Crosshair who existed when life was easier, but they weren’t willing to fight for the Crosshair that most needed their help. When he says “You weren’t loyal to me,” he’s absolutely right. The same episode, “Return to Kamino,” gives Omega two powerful lines that the group rallies behind:

Omega: “[The danger] doesn’t matter. Saving Hunter is what matters.”

AZ: “You must leave.”

Omega: “Not without Hunter.”

The key word there is “Hunter.” Danger, stakes, risk, probability… none of that matters when Hunter needs help. Crosshair did not receive that same level of devotion.

Which creates a kind of self-fulfilling prophecy. The group is upset that Crosshair isn’t rejoining them, but they fail to realize that he has no reason to trust them anymore. He’s not joining the Empire because he’s inherently evil and that’s that, end of discussion. He’s joining it because above all Crosshair wants a place to belong… and TBB has made it clear—unintentionally—that he does not belong with them. The horrible actions that Crosshair took under his own free will (theoretically) came after he realized that doing bad things while under the Empire’s control was, apparently, unforgivable. If it wasn’t, his team would have come back to rescue him. They could have at least tried. But they didn’t, so Crosshair is left with the conclusion that either what he did under the Empire’s control is something the group can’t forgive him for, or they can forgive that (like with Wrecker) and he’s the problem here. He’s the one not worth that effort.

“The Empire will be fazing out clones next,” Hunter says. To which Crosshair responds, “Not the ones that matter.”

He wants to matter to someone and events show he no longer matters to his brothers. So why not stay with the Empire? I mean, we as the audience ABSOLUTELY know why not. Self-doubt and feelings of isolation aren’t excuses for joining the Super Evil Organization. Crosshair, if he is under his own control, is still 100% in the wrong for supporting them, no matter his reasons. So it’s not an excuse, but rather an explanation of that very human, flawed, fallible thinking. He needs to be useful. He needs to be wanted. Crosshair is an absolute dick to the regs and I have no doubt that a lot of that stems from the harassment TBB has experienced from them (with a side of his inflated ego), but I’d bet it’s also due to Crosshair’s intense desire to be valuable to someone. He keeps pointing out the regs’ supposed deficiencies because it highlights his own usefulness. When Crosshair fails to find Hera, the Admiral says that soon he’ll get someone who can, looking straight at Howzer at the door. It makes Crosshair seethe because his entire identity is based on being useful, yet no one seems to need him anymore. TBB seems to no longer want him. The Empire no longer wants clones. Now even regs are considered a better option than him, the “superior” soldier. Everywhere Crosshair turns he’s getting the message that he’s not wanted, but he’ll keep fighting to at least be needed in some capacity, no matter how small. Even if that means overlooking all the horrors the Empire commits.

“All you’ll ever be to [the Empire] is a number,” Hunter says and he’s absolutely right. But to TBB recently, Crosshair hasn’t even been that. He’s been nothing. Nobody worth coming back for. To his mind, at least being a number is something.

I hope that all of this resolves itself into a conclusion that is kind to each side (preferably without a Vader-style death redemption), especially given the still ambiguous state of the chip, but from a writing standpoint I’m admittedly a bit wary. We’re obviously meant to believe that the batch all love each other, but as established throughout this entirely too long post, this season did a terrible job imo of proving that they love Crosshair. Or, at least, proving that they love him as much as the others. If this was really meant to be just a matter of miscommunication, with Crosshair making terrible life choices because he only thinks he was abandoned, then we as the audience would have seen the batch trying and failing to get him out. Or at least establishing a very good reason why they couldn’t take that risk, hopefully with entirely different side-missions so the audience isn’t constantly going, “So you can risk everything for Gregor... but not Crosshair?” I’m VERY glad that Crosshair was allowed to air his grievances to the extent he did, but the end result of that—Hunter continually denying this, Omega walking away from him in their rooms, neither Tech nor Wrecker actually sticking up for him and acknowledging the chip’s influence during at least some of all this—is making things feel rather one-sided. It’s like we’re meant to take Crosshair at his word and accept that he’s this garden-variety antagonist who joins the Empire because yay being on the winning side… despite all these complications that clearly have a huge impact on how we read the situation. It doesn’t help that the show has already embraced an inconsistent manner of portraying chipped-clones. We know every clone has one, we know only a couple clones are aware of the chip’s existence (and can thus try to get it out), we know they enter a “Good soldiers follow orders” mindlessness once activated… yet towards the end we see a lot of side character clones thinking for themselves. Howzer decides that he’s no longer loyal to the Empire, giving a speech where a couple other clones throw down their weapons too. Gregor was arrested because he likewise realized how wrong this all was. But how is that possible? Do the chips completely control the clones, or not? Are these clones somehow exceptions? Are the chips beginning to fail? All of that has a bearing on how we read Crosshair—what were his own decisions, how much he was capable of overcoming the chip, whether that changed at all during certain points—but right now that remains really unclear.

It’s details like that which make me wonder if all these other questions will be answered. Will the story resolve all those ambiguous moments surrounding the chip, or brush them off with the belief that we should have just taken Crosshair at his equally ambiguous word? Will the story acknowledge Crosshair’s points through someone other than Crosshair, allowing it to exist as a legitimate criticism, rather than the presumed excuses of an antagonist? I’m… not sure. On the whole I’m very happy with TBB’s writing—despite what all this might imply lol. Until my brain picks over the season and discovers something else, my only other gripe is not allowing Omega to form a solid bond with Tech and Echo, instead putting all the focus on big brother!Wrecker and dad!Hunter. I think it’s a solid show that does a lot right, but I’m worried that, unless there’s a brilliant answer to all these questions and an intent to unpack both sides of the Hunter vs. Crosshair debate with respect—not just falling back on, “Well, Crosshair is with the Empire so everything he says is automatically bad and wrong” take—we’ve just gotten the setup for a somewhat messy, ethical story. For anyone here who also reads my RWBY metas, I’m pretty sure you’re not at all surprised that I’m invested in going, “Hey, you had one of the heroes suddenly become/join a dictatorship and do a lot of horrific things, but within a pretty complicated context. Can we please work through that carefully and with an acknowledgement of the nuance here, rather than throwing the ‘evil’ character to the proverbial wolves?”  

God knows TBB is leagues ahead of RWBY, but I hope things continue on in not just a good direction, but one that tackles the aspects of this situation that many fans—and Crosshair—have already pointed out. As much as I adore the cast—and I really, really do—it was discomforting to watch a found family show where 4/5th of that family so completely wrote off one of the members and crucially have, at least so far, refused to acknowledge that. I want complicated, flawed characters, but that’s only compelling when the storytelling admits to and grapples with those flaws. We have quite firmly established Crosshair’s flaws in Season One. I hope Season Two delves into the rest of the team’s too.

Aaaand with that meta-dump out of my system, I’m off to write TBB fic. Thanks for reading! :D

[serendipityjxmn]

Mr. President

Chapter 20

TW: Explicit violence, mentions of guns, drugs trafficking, gory killing scene

Words Count: 3k

Link to Masterlist

Link to Chapter 21

At first, you’re more like a property to him. He learned that the only way he can keep something or someone around for a long time, is if he treats them like a property. Because human’s feelings change, and he needs to protect himself from hurting.

Everything that he’s told you, the reason behind the marriage, the purpose of you are all true.

He needs to marry anyway, as one of the stupid ancient condition his old father has set and he knows his father had set it to make him stay grounded.

He scoffs, wondering why his father doesn’t learn from his past mistakes. And that’s why he’s made a plan on his own, to marry someone without a powerful background, one he can easily dispose when it’s time, one who won’t be a liability to him. A tool.

And now that tool is missing. He pinches his temple, eyes shut close. He’s alone in his office, late at night because he doesn’t sleep well these days.

Since his wife had packed her bags, left him and gone missing.

He sighs thinking about the last argument he had with you. It’s your own fault for building castles in the air and mistaking those as his genuine gesture and fall in love with him. And he realises that because he is not stupid. And during that one night, he sees you, fully sees you and he can’t deny the desire it stirred in his mind. This may be a temporary marriage but it doesn’t mean that he can’t touch you. After all, you are his wife. He knows you are beautiful, he’d known it since the first day because he isn’t blind. Yet he knows he can’t touch you without your consent. Although he did slip up because he tends to lose his vigilance around you. And that’s how he came up with another proposal.

Yet the proposal took a very different turn and became your last straw to leave him.

He couldn’t believe that you’re stupid enough to fall in love with him. Don’t you fear him? You know he’s dangerous yet you still confess your love to him and he doesn’t know whether to worship you at your feet or spanks you for it.

He’s never led you on and has never failed to remind what you are to him, simply an object yet you still fall for him.

He lets out another heavy sigh. Because frankly, he doesn’t know what to do. All of these aren’t supposed to happen and you’re not supposed to love him.

He had put up barriers and boundaries around himself and that’d made it very hard for anyone to simply approach him. People don’t approach him unless they want something from him and he’s well aware of it because he knows how the world works. Not to mention the fact that he’s the leader of the biggest mafia gang, notorious for all sorts of services they offer; machinery, assassinations, bribery, illegal weaponry, drugs trafficking and namely everything else. That had made it a billion times more difficult for anyone to approach or him to let anyone in.

And you’re well aware of it.

But you still fall for him.

He just doesn’t get it; how you’re able to fall for him despite knowing who he is and what he’s capable of.

He scoffs thinking how he could easily kill you. You’re too soft, weak and fragile.

Yet you still fall for him.

Despite knowing how easily he could kill you.

And without asking for anything in return.

And Jimin doesn’t find that believable at all. And at the face of such genuine adoration, he doesn’t know what to do. Because who on earth would be stupid enough to do that?

But you did. You are his stupid wife.

And that makes it even easier to kill you, not just by him. And the thought of anyone laying a finger on you angers him. It makes him want to kill someone. Tear their limbs one by one. Burn them alive. There’s just too many options.

But first he has to find you.

He sighs, for the hundredth time. You’re such a headache.

And that’s when his phone rings. A call from a private number.

“If it isn’t Y/N’s beloved husband..”

Jimin could feel his whole body tensing. “Who are you?”

The person from the other end laughs. “Damn, I need to come find you more often so you’d remember. You beat me into a pulp before.. and now I want leverage. You think you can just take my sister for free?“

Jimin’s hand clamp in a tight fist. “Jay.”

“You remember.. not bad. You see, when you take my little sister, you’ve caused me some complications. You can say she’s my source of income. She’s a pretty slut, no denying that. And I could’ve earned fortunes from selling her off. And you-“

“How much do you want?” Jimin cuts him off.

“Ah.. you’re a smart man.” He laughs before his tone turns serious again. “100 million won would do. For now. And don’t bullshit me saying you don’t have money or whatever. I know you have that much.”

“Where should I meet you?”

“I’ll text you the time and place. And don’t think of calling the police or bring your little friends. I have someone powerful backing me. She’s my little sister, but I’m not gonna hesitate to do anything if you don’t listen to my words. Right, little sister?”

A shrieking scream piercing through the phone is the last thing Jimin hears before Jay hangs up. Jimin’s whole body filled with rage and he grips his phone so tight it almost breaks into two.

“He’s not gonna come...” you slur, your vision not entirely clear and your swollen lips making it hard to enunciate words once Jay finishes his phone call to your husband.

“We’ll see about that bitch. And if he doesn’t.. count your time now..” he says in full malicious tone.

You don’t know how long you’ve been knocked out again but you wake up when you hear commotions.

“And the knight is finally here.” You hear your brother’s voice.

You struggle to focus on your vision. Your whole body freezes when your husband comes into view.

There’s no way Jimin’s here.

Perhaps it’s just a hallucination.

It’s a whole level of pathetic, you think. Because even when you’re in this state, he’s all you could see.

Perhaps you’re really nearing the end of your life, and your mind conjures whatever it desperately wants the most.

“Clara, what the fuck do you think you’re doing here?” The person hisses.

And it’s weird because it’s your husband’s voice.

You blink several times.

And there really is your husband, walking into the warehouse alone. He can’t had possibly willingly walks into a lion’s den alone like that? It’s like a death wish.

Clara turns immediately as soon as she sees Jimin. “Ah.. Jimin.. my Jimin..”

Someone comes and pushes Jimin forward and makes him sit on a chair and tie his hands on his back.

You swallow thickly. You still can’t process the fact that your husband is here.

He finally turns to look at you and he stares at you for several moments, just taking in the sight of battered you covered in bruises and blood and you see the clench in his jaw.

You let out a gasp when the guy standing beside him takes out his gun and points the muzzle on the back of his head. You feel anger bubbling inside you at the sight of it.

Gathering all source of strength, you yell, “Leave my husband out of this Jay!”

Jay quickly steps forward and leaves a stinging slap on your cheek. “If you dare hurt him..” you start and earns another slap from him, making you whimper in pain. You cough several times, your throat feels like burning.

Jimin eyes you furiously. “Keep quiet. Don’t make any sound.” He says, jaw still clenched very tightly. “Clara, what the fuck is this? Why are you here?”

She comes and slowly sits on Jimin’s lap. You notice how he doesn’t flinch away or jerk from her touch. “Baby.. we’ve dealt for years.. good business, good sex. And then you’re suddenly married and you just.. I don’t know, changed?” She says as she runs her fingers across your husband’s cheek.

Jimin just glares at her. “Why did you help him?”

She runs her hand down from his cheeks to his jaw and then settles on his chest, palms flat against them. She shrugs then. “I don’t know.. you know I’m a little crazy. I like having fun. And things.. had been boring. Business is boring, you are boring.. and perhaps I’m trying to put you in place a little, you asshole.” She glares at him.

He gives a very murderous look. “I’m gonna make sure you regret this.”

She leans closer. “Awww shh baby.. I’m not gonna hurt your precious little wife..” and closer. You realize she’s about to kiss him and you hastily look away. You don’t want the last memory you have of your husband before you die is being kissed by another woman. She gets up from his lap, fingers still faintly brushing him everywhere. Then she smirks. “But maybe he will.” She laughs and then exits through the door.

“Did you come with what I ask for?” Jay asks and Jimin juts his chin towards a large black duffel bag on the floor beside him that you hadn’t realized. Jay grins. “Nice doing business with you.. brother in law.”

“Now let us go.” Jimin says.

Jay stops inspecting the money inside the bag and turns to look at him. “No, don’t think it’s that easy..” He signals something and one of his men comes forward. “See, perhaps you don’t really know my sister.. but let me tell you this. She is a fucking whore. And I’m gonna let her be a whore. And you.. you’re going to watch every single men here stick their dick into her pussy.”

Your whole body goes numb as soon as you hear that. Desperately, you glance at your husband. He doesn’t look at you but instead just stares at your brother. You’ve never seen him look so murderous before. Your eyes widen in panic when they pull you from the chair and then roughly push you till you’re kneeling on the floor on all four.

“J-Jimin-” you say, voice thick with desperation.

“Sshh.. shh little sister.. don’t worry.. perhaps your husband might even get hard from this. Don’t you want to please your husband?” Jay smirks.

You feel you eyes start to water when your brain reaches an end and think that there’s no way of escaping this.

He calls one of his men and several others starts to approach as well, all wearing the same look of lust. Jay grabs a handful of your hair and yank it backwards, forcing you to look up. “She’s all yours..”

The nearest guy smirks and licks his lips as he looks at you and starts to strip his pants. You look away immediately. You let out a cry when the guy kneels beside you and yanks your jeans down, exposing your bottom.

“No, no please, please-“ you start to beg and Jimin hisses.

“Keep your fucking mouth shut.” He grits. “Don’t beg.”

You look at him and find him staring right back at you.

“Just look at me.” He says and fresh set of tears run down your cheeks.

The guy smacks your behind making you cry in pain and you almost collapse to the ground but he holds your waist firmly, groping each side harshly. Then, you feel a hand slides from your shoulder towards your throat and slowly starts choking you.

Your head starts to spin from the lack of air supply and you want to scream so badly but no words could come out. The pressure on your throat is so immense and your lung starts to ache.

Then you see a knife hovering in front of you.

A moment of realization hits you that you’re really about to die and it suddenly makes it so imperative that you tell something to Jimin.

“J-Jimin- I love-“

But before you could finish your words, you hear people bursting the doors open and people in suits come rushing in large quantity.

You try to focus your vision on your husband.

His face is calm. Too calm.

Your sight moves towards the crowd rushing in again and briefly sees Taeseok among them and a rush of relief runs through you. The guy choking you eases his grip on your throat instantly as he gets distracted and you feel like collapsing immediately as you struggle to breath again.

Everything happens so quickly. Someone rushes to your husband’s side and unties him and then he’s beside you instantly while someone else unties you. You try your best to glance behind you and sees Jungkook frantically untying you after fixing your clothes.

“Y/N oh my god-“

Jimin quickly shrugs his coat off his shoulder and immediately covers you. He looks at you as he holds you tight. His embrace is so warm and you just want to close your eyes and lean against him. “Keep your eyes open, we’re getting out of here.” He says roughly.

You’re not entirely sure with your vision but you think someone gives Jimin a gun and he starts shooting at people and you freeze, sounds blaring so loudly in your ear. You let out a strangled scream and you squirm away under his embrace that he looks down immediately. Then he looks at Jungkook.

“Jungkook.” He says and Jungkook nods and you feel yourself slipping out of Jimin’s hold while Jungkook brings you flush against him.

For a moment, there are just sounds of guns, people screaming and punches being thrown.

Jungkook pulls you to the side where it’s safer but you just can’t shut your eyes when there’s too many things going on. You then try to focus on your husband. He’s a good few metres away from you and you couldn’t clearly see the face of the other person but you think Jimin’s holding the guy that was going to rape you just now. And then he shoots him right in the head without thinking. And then another shot right at his chest even though the guy’s already crumbling to the ground, lifeless.

Someone then comes up and thrusts your brother to Jimin, making him kneel in front of your husband. You don’t see it before but you now notice that he’s holding a knife on his right hand. Jay’s expression turns horror as Jimin nears him. And then slowly, your husband carves his face with the knife as your brother’s inhuman shriek fills the warehouse.

Your eyes go wide with horror as you watch the traumatising scene unfolds. You feel a scream bubbling from deep inside your throat yet they’re unable to escape from your lips. Your throat somehow still feels constricted.

“Holy fucking shit.” Jungkook mutters and you realize his grip on your arms tightens.

It’s slowly getting more quiet in the warehouse as most of your brother’s or Clara Kim’s men are now dead as they were hugely outnumbered by Jimin’s people. You then realize that he’s taking his time with your brother.

“What did you say you’re about to do to my wife? Cut out her face?” He chuckles. “Let me show you the real art.”

He leans close.

And then he carves your brother’s right eye out while he shrieks in pain.

“This is for touching my wife.”

And then he carves the other one.

“This is for messing with me.”

The scream finally escapes your lips.

“Fuck-“ Jungkook says and quickly covers your eyes and mouth.

The screaming doesn’t stop for a few more minutes and you think you’ll remember your brother’s inhuman scream till the day you die.

“Jimin stop it. She’s gonna get a trauma.” You hear someone says. Jin..?

You hear footsteps approaching you and then suddenly, Jungkook’s hand is being yanked away and your husband’s face comes into view. His forehead beaded with sweat and his expression furious.

You look at him in horror, frankly still traumatised and terrified at him.

But he doesn’t seem to notice. Instead, he thrusts a gun into your hand. “Do you want to kill him?”

Your panic immediately and clutched his arm desperately. “No, no please- let’s just go-“

“Ssh.. ssh I’m here.” He takes back the gun. “And we’re gonna get out of here.” He pulls you into his embrace, cocks the gun and fire a shot straight into Jay’s head.

Your entire body freeze. You watch in horror as your brother’s life starts seeping out, his breathing ragged until finally.. it stops.

“Good God- did you really have to shoot him in front of Y/N?” You hear Namjoon says.

“What?” Jimin asks, confused.

“God, you’re so stupid sometimes Park Jimin.” Yoongi says roughly.

Your husband finally turns to look at you and registers the paleness of your face. “Y/N, you okay?” He asks and then makes you stand to your feet. He keeps his hand steady on your waist and you’re thankful because you can’t feel your feet at all.

You don’t know how but from the corner of your eyes, you see someone who’s lying on the floor slowly lifts a gun and your eyes widen when you realize he’s aiming at your husband.

One of Jimin’s bodyguard sees it too and moves to kick the gun away and he did- but not before the guy cocks the gun and all the bodyguard manages to do is change the target, because the bullet hits you instead.

You fell to the ground immediately when the bullet cuts through your shoulder. It’s weird because it hurts so much that you almost feel nothing at all.

Jimin’s eyes widen when he sees you.

For a brief moment, you think you see your whole life flashes by in your mind very quickly.

If you die right now at the hands of your husband.. that you’d fallen in love with.. it doesn’t seem so bad..

You smile.

Then slowly, you bring your hand up to Jimin’s face to touch him one last time.

And then everything blacks out.

A/N: I rarely write post chapter notes because I’m afraid it would destroy your emotions lol but I just wanna thank everyone who had given support since day 1.. the story would not have come this far without the kind words you guys gave me. I feel a little bit emotional because we’re almost more than halfway through with their journey.. haha okay I’ll stop here. see you guys in the next chap! 🥰

Buy me a coffee here! 💜

Link to Chapter 21

Posted on 210516 9:00PM

[holykillercake]

Coin Stealer

Trafalgar Law x psychic!Reader

word count: 3.3k

summary: Law does not believe that you can see dead people, so you crochet him the strange-looking beanie of the strange-looking man that walks around the Polar Tang. 

highlight: ¨I´ll give a chance to the uniform, and I´ll only address you as Captain when you behave as Captain.¨

warning: You are entering Trafalgar´s room. 

notes: Bello, ma people! This is the 3/3 part of a lovely anon request in which the s/o makes them a thing with crochet! This time is Dr. Heart Stealer edition!! I really enjoyed writing this, and it got a little long, but I did not want to cut off important things. Anyway, I hope you like it!

𝐋𝐞𝐚𝐯𝐞 𝐜𝐨𝐦𝐦𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐬, 𝐫𝐞𝐛𝐥𝐨𝐠𝐬, 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐥𝐨𝐯𝐞!

¨Hey, Bepo! Have you seen Law?¨

¨Y/N! I don´t know where he is... I´m sorry.¨

¨Oh, it´s ok!¨ you patted the mink´s shoulder, giving him a warm smile. 

You were never a big fan of his constant apologetic personality, but you couldn´t deny that you missed it during your time apart from the crew. 

The Heart Pirates had parted ways a long time ago when your Captain decided that the time to put his life-long plan in action had finally come. The crew split into three parts, and each one followed a different path. 

After the sudden disappearance of the Strawhats, the Paramount War, the Rocky Port Incident, and Law obtaining his title as a Warlord of the Sea, you were the first to depart, remaining in Sabaody Archipelago, waiting for the owners of the Thousand Sunny to return. You fought alongside a fishman called Hacchin, a weird guy that reminded you of Black Leg and other allies to protect the ship. 

Next to leave was Law, who sailed to Punk Hazard, where he formed a partnership with a crazy scientist bastard. Then the rest of the crew went on their own towards the island where you would meet once the plan was concluded.

The trajectory was not smooth by any means, but you did it, all of you. And now you feasted along with the Strawhats, celebrating whatever it was that you did not understand. Maybe they were like that, or maybe they didn't understand the risks you would take from now on. 

Anyway, the crew seemed to be in need of some music and fun, and you were too busy looking for your Captain to care about that.

In the midst of the evening breeze, the crackling of the fire, and the barrels of beer crashing in celebration, you saw the answer you were looking for.

Of course.

¨If I didn´t love you...¨ you growled as you made your way out of the island to reach the Polar Tang. And let´s face it, that was a detour.

You went straight to your room, where Law would probably be sipping coffee, napping, or just running from the crowds. And just like you, it has been months since he stepped on his own ship and slept in his own bed. 

So maybe you could cut him some slack. 

However, as you approached the room, there was no smell of coffee. No smell of coffee and no light snoring. Just a stillness carried with heavy emotions and your boyfriend, sitting in the dim light holding tight the crochet piece you gave him years ago. You swayed in place, expecting that thing you made to provoke him to be at the sea bottom.

¨Wondering why I kept this?¨ he asked. 

¨Not really.¨ you replied. ¨But I am surprised. Am I disturbing?¨

¨You never do.¨

You jumped on the bed, sitting beside him and resting your head on his shoulder.

¨YN-ya... do you know how he...¨ the question struggled to come out.

¨Peaceful.¨ 

¨Hm.¨ he nodded.

¨I don´t like when he smiles, though. It creeps me out.¨ His body bounced slightly as he joined you in a chuckle. 

¨Remember when you gave me this?¨

¨Of course, you almost kicked me out of the ship!¨ you giggled with the memory.

¨You were really annoying back then.¨

¨Hey! Objection!¨

¨Objection rebuffed.¨ he smirked and moved on the bed, pulling you to lay down on his chest.

You told him to shut up before cuddling in, not falling asleep immediately. None of you said much. Instead, you enjoyed the calming and comfortable silence of each other´s company. 

It has been a while since you had that. 

You remember every moment of your early days as a Heart Pirate. You and Law hadn´t started on the best terms, but he needed you - well, your skills - and you were given a good deal. 

The pivot of your history together began on a chain of coincidences. The first one being both of you docking on the same island. The second one was him finding a rare coin for his collection, the same one you would later slip into your pocket. 

You wandered around towns using the beautiful art of distraction to get anything you wanted from anyone. Watches, necklaces, wallets, and, well, coins? It was all he had in his pocket, and since it was a cute one, you decided to keep it. 

Some called you a thief. Some called you a burglar, and some may even have called you a big son of a bitch. But the thing they all had in common was that none of them knew exactly who they were calling those names. 

The thing is, you messed up the first rule and made eye contact with him. Well, it was more of you not being able to take your eyes off of him. He stood out in the crowd, and you had gotten cocky. So when he later found out about the missing coin, it did not take him long to connect you to it. 

A lot of things went through his mind. He felt frustrated because his Haki failed him, annoyed for the trouble he would have going after you, and intrigued by the touch so light he did not feel at all. 

Or that is what he kept telling himself. 

Yes, he was interested in someone with skills like yours, but maybe there was something else he would not admit. The way you looked at him as if you had deciphered his entire life and found the missing pieces of his puzzle. Even the ones he tried to hide. 

That night he went out for your head. Or better, your heart, literally. 

You were enjoying the comfort of your hotel room, eating some snacks, and playing with your new commemorative coin when he materialized himself by the bed. You instantly knew something was about to go down.

Oh, fuck.

That situation got pretty tense pretty quickly, both ends asking things, and no one willing to offer any answers. The stakes were high, glares cutting the air like blades. It did not help to ease the mood when in the sway of his hand your heart popped out of your chest. 

Long story short, his plan was never to drag you to the Polar Tang. Law wanted you to go willingly, joining his crew in exchange for your heart. However, the unfortunate variable he did not consider in the equation was that you would not go down without a fight. So by the time he reached the ship, he noticed the gentle fresh breeze ruffling his hair. 

You know, since his hair was usually covered by the hat. 

...

THE FREAKING HAT!

The next morning when he returned, you were waiting for him with a satisfied smirk bending your lips, the hat on your head, and the coin dancing between your fingers. 

At some point, you had stolen it, and once again, it passed unnoticed by him. That was not a good night for the Heart Pirates. And that was also the night Trafalgar Law realized a couple of things. The first, he needed you on his crew. And the second, you were going to be the death of him. Or maybe the aneurysm of him, he would not give you such credit. 

¨You´re late.¨ you said, amused, and his grip tightened around the sword.

¨What´s your name?¨ he repeated the question you dodged several times during your last encounter. 

¨What´s with the dog?¨ you pointed at the tall, white polar bear wearing a uniform. Law pursued his lips, breathing heavily through the nose.  

¨I am B-¨

¨Bepo-ya don´t talk to he-¨

¨Your name is Bepoya?¨ you ignored the man, bumping into his shoulder as you walked towards the mink ¨Hi, I´m Y/N! Nice meeting you.¨  

The polar bear looked back and forth at you and his Captain, not knowing how to behave in this situation, so he apologized and stepped farther back. 

¨Alrighty, now that we are all introduced, shall we go?¨ 

¨What?¨

¨Come on, Law, focus.¨ you snapped your fingers multiple times, teasing him. ¨You came here to pick me up, right?¨

¨No. I want my hat back.¨ He tried to grab it, but you ducked in time, holding the hat on your head with both hands. It was so soft. 

¨How about a trade? The coin for the hat.¨

¨How about my hat for your heart? Do this, and I won´t...¨ his words died in his mouth as he clutched his pockets. 

¨Looking for this?¨ You held your heart, wrapped in a cold and gelatinous box that you retrieved when you bumped into him minutes earlier.

How could you fool him again? He kept seeking answers that explained why it was so easy for you to outwit him, and his expression showed. 

¨You´re getting close, Law. Put your little trash can to work.¨ you tapped your temple, smiling mischievously at him. 

¨YN-ya, you know I can kill you, right?¨

¨Yeah, but you won´t.¨

¨How do you know?¨

¨I got a sixth sense for these things.¨ 

The rest of the conversation did not take long to come to an end. Amid sarcastic comments and threats to each other's lives, what should have been the pinnacle of the moment became a random passage in the Heart Pirates´ logbook.

¨So, YN-ya, do you want to join us? You´re gonna have to wear a uniform and address me as Captain.¨

¨I´ll give a chance to the uniform, and I´ll only address you as Captain when you behave as Captain.¨

Law sighed, giving himself a carotid massage ¨Ok. Let´s go.¨

He walked a few steps ahead of you and Bepo, wondering why he spent so much effort on an arrogant thief that wouldn't even call him Captain.

You quickly became friends with the polar bear, even apologizing for calling him a dog. He strangely apologized for your apologies, culminating in what would almost make the notorious Surgeon of Death suffer a stroke.

¨What the hell is that?!¨ you shouted when the Polar Tang entered your field of vision ¨That´s not a ship!¨

What if I am claustrophobic?

The ya thing is a schtick?

Death? That´s a little borderline controversial for a doctor.

Trafalgar more like Trafraude!

On occasions like that, Law wondered how peaceful and quiet would be the sixth level of Impel Down. From a current perspective, your initial interaction served as a vaccine, creating the necessary antibodies Law would need to deal with future pirate alliances. 

The crew got attached to you very quickly. Your adventurous spirit, your stunts, and street trades fascinated them. Losing bets against you seemed acceptable, your card tricks and the thing of guessing the numbers they thought was like fuel for a good day at work.

Law didn't seem to mind that much. After all, you wouldn't get him on his nerves if you were busy with them. However, one day, you let slip something that caught his attention. 

¨YEAH! That´s exactly what she looked like! How did you do this?!¨ 

Law heard Shachi´s roar, followed by a wave of surprised ´ooh´s coming from the kitchen, where the majority of the crew hunched around the dinner table. 

The doctor leaned against the door, silently observing what could possibly be more important than keeping the ship working. He had been drowning in files all night, and now he decided to have a coffee break. That mess early in the morning did not make him happy. 

No one seemed to be too intimidated when he cleared his throat, announcing his presence. Everyone greeted him with smiling 'good mornings' and turned their attention back to you.

 ¨What is going on here?¨

¨Captain did you know Y/N can see dead people?!¨ 

The coffee left a bitter aftertaste on his mouth.

¨What?¨

¨Yeah, Captain!¨ Shachi yelled on Law´s face, earning a death glare ¨She just described my mom!¨

¨Really, Y/N-ya? Now you´re a magician and a psychic?¨ he asked, taking the seat across from you. 

¨The perks of being me.¨ you shrugged. 

¨Do you see more dead people here?¨ 

Yes

¨No. But you sound a little skeptical, Law.¨ 

It was way too early for that discussion, but your biological clock didn't seem to care. Whenever Law came with his teasing, you would be ready to strike back.

He gave everyone a lecture about empathic accuracy and how good you were reading cues communicated by words, emotions, and body language. Or some crap like that. 

¨Ok, let me see if I got this right.¨ You shifted in the chair, hands moving in the air ¨You can pull organs out of people´s bodies, cut them in pieces without killing, switch their souls, but you do not believe that I can see dead people?¨

He tilted his head, but not giving you an exact answer.  

¨Do you wanna know what I think?¨

¨No.¨

¨I´ll tell you anyway. I think you have something you don´t want people to know, like a soft spot or a tragic past.¨ you sought the answer in his eyes ¨I´m guessing a loved one who died?¨ 

Overall, he was not wrong. You were a master in reading people´s body language, but you were not a jackass. So when the slight twitch of his mouth cleared up your doubts, it was time to stop. 

You knew how it felt, soft spots, tragic pasts, or late loved ones. There was no need to go further and throw more salt on his wounds. Hopefully, that taught him a lesson. 

An awkward silence ensued while everyone watched the scene, uncertain how to act, fearful that an extra spark would make everything explode into massive destruction.

¨Whatever.¨ he sighed ¨Show´s over. We´ll be reaching land in a few days, and we should be preparing to dock.¨ 

When everyone left the kitchen to go about their businesses, you remained alone with the figure that constantly wandered the submarine. He didn't do it in a creepy way. Despite his extravagant makeup and the intimidating aura, he was not a bother.

And it wasn't like he was there all the time, definitely more than anyone else. His passages were guaranteed on the days when Law was more sensitive. For bad or for good. He would look after him from the distance like a parenting figure. 

¨Who are you?¨ you murmured under your breath. 

For the next few days, Law made sure you were too busy to foster discussions about dead people or paranormal abilities.

When your services stealing rare supplies or getting answers to your Captain's questions you weren't required, you would help him with mountains of paperwork.

Only this time, he had outdone himself.

He managed to assemble the annual check-up of the crew, the inventory packing list, and the update of the logbook at once. This last one could easily wait until after you docked. But that freaking workaholic sadistic surgeon would not let this opportunity slip. So you pulled several all-nighters writing, signing, and stamping, all without exchanging a single word.

When you emerged, a few miles from land, you barely enjoyed the fresh breeze and sunlight. The crew hopped around, getting ready to put their feet on the continent as you sat in the kitchen profusely grouchy.

Your brain was fried, burnt, carbonized. 

¨You´re not coming?¨ Penguin asked, and you shook your head. ¨It´s been a while, Y/N, you should come.¨ you shook your head again. ¨I guess you´re not buying anything for the Captain´s birthday as well.¨

An incohesive question came out of your exhausted being. Penguin couldn´t help but feel sorry for you. ¨By the time his birthday comes up, we will be underwater, so everyone is preparing.¨ 

¨Do I have to?¨

¨No!¨ he chuckled ¨He doesn´t really like it, but we still buy him something.¨

¨Why?¨

¨´Cause he is a good Captain!¨ he said and sprunt out by the voice of someone calling him, waving goodbye at you. 

 It wasn't that you didn´t think Law was a good Captain. It was just an inherent nature of yours to clash every time you looked at each other. 

But on such occasion, you could combine the useful with the pleasant. After all, you were grateful because he gave you friends. Of course, he was the unfortunate by-product that came with them, but you could handle him. 

So fighting against your will to stay and sleep, you forced your way out to the solid ground, hoping to find the most random store someone could wish for, a haberdasher. 

Much to your delight, you did it. You picked a burgundy color wool and the first hook you put your eyes on and returned to your soft bed. 

The chances of you having scared your crewmates by staring at the blank for hours were high. In reality, you wanted to memorize and come up with a pattern for the strange-looking beanie that man wore. 

It had no pompom at the top like Penguin´s. Instead, two long pieces of fabric ran down from each side with heart-like things hanging.

When the sixth day of the tenth month arrived, Law´s desk was cluttered with presents. You had decided to wait until you were done with work and heading to bed to give it to him. 

After conquering that task, you locked yourself in your room, where you stayed until you had it finished. For some reason, you bothered to buy a box to put it in. Whatever.  

On the sixth day of the tenth month, Trafalgar Law could not focus on work. Every slight movement of yours, every bathroom break got him jittery, rehearsing words that wouldn´t make you hate him more. 

Not that you ever hated him, but you didn´t talk, so he didn´t know. After some time starting small talks and being ignored, you just gave up trying. 

By the end of that night, he had given up too. So when you placed the golden-yellow box on his desk, he couldn´t vocalize his feelings. It became just another silent night. 

Chests tight and hearts clogged with unspoken words. 

Law did not work for the next couple of days, and if he left his room, no one saw. The gifts on his desk were not even opened. Everything was left the way it was. 

Maybe you had crossed a line. 

As you marched up to the room at the end of the hall, several paths popped into your mind. You could act like you didn´t care, so what if you left? You had been alone for so long, it wouldn't make any difference! Still, something was begging you to apologize. To ask to stay, because being there was good, everything you never knew you wanted.

You were ready to pack your bags and have your title as a Heart Pirate retracted when you woke up one morning, finding a note on your desk telling you to meet him in his room. Your nails dug into your sweaty palms. Where did this tightness in your chest come from?

When you set foot in the room, your eyes hovered around. It was the first time you saw Law's room. It was exactly how you thought it would be.

Keeping your gaze locked on his was more difficult. He was sitting in an armchair near the foot of the bed. From afar, his appearance remained neat, as always, but as you approached you saw the circles under his eyes even darker. A thing you didn't think was possible.

For the first time, you didn't know how to read his expression. And seeing him vulnerable like that made your stomach drop. So you prepared yourself for the worst. However, to your surprise, all he did was ask you questions. 

No snarky remarks. You just talked.    

That day something changed. And from that day on, Law had found someone to help him carry the unbearable weight he had on his shoulders, and you found a place to call home. 

                                                             ...

¨Y/N-ya.¨ he called you, who was a cuddle away from sleeping.

¨Hm?¨

¨Before you left, in Sabaody...¨

¨Uhm.¨

¨You stole the coin again, didn´t you?¨ 

You giggled and pulled the commemorative coin from your back pocket, snuggling closer to his body and feeling the vibration of his chest as he chuckled.

Extra notes: I hope you had enjoyed it! It came out a little too long, but I have been feeling like I´m limiting myself when it comes to the number of words... I don´t know, I´m confused. 

Anyway, is that pink and red that I see on the horizon?

[krappykawa]

Okie so Can I request some headcanons for atsumu tsukishima and kuroo who has an s/o who's more reserved and likes to read and often likes to just be comfertable like they climb into their lap while reading or using their laptop because they feel more comfortable that way in public or not,and the s/o has really dry humor and makes jokes about some of there classmates but in a super subtle way that makes you have to really think about what they said.1/2

ATSUMU, KUROO, AND TSUKISHIMA WITH A S/O THAT LIKES TO READ

atsumu x reader, kuroo x reader, tsukishima x reader

genre. fluff

warnings. language

word count. 2k

part 2 of the ask

note. there was a lot of stuff in this request so i hope i got most of what you were asking for!!

ATSUMU

— you two met because you were reading at the park when suddenly a ball came flying over your head

— like straight up WHOOSH (probably could have taken your head off lmao)

— you were just trying to finish this book you were reading, and so you were really irritated when this blonde guy runs up to you

— “oh shit sorry! did ya get hit anywhere?”

— now, of course you knew who he was because how could you not when this dude is notorious for being an asshole at your school

—you’re not really one to really judge until you meet someone though, so you didn’t immediately tell him to go away

— you mumbled something like “does he usually almost murder people on a daily basis?” under your breath

— atsumu heard you and had the nerve to smile

— “i’d never attempt to murder someone as pretty as you, darlin’”

— you had to stop yourself from rolling your eyes

— you ignored him and he was like “whaaa??” cause this dude could get any girl to talk to him and you just ignored him

— at that point, he’d picked up the volleyball and was just watching you as you went back to your reading (not in a weird way or anything lmao)

— you knew he was staring, but you refused to look up

— “whatcha’ readin’?”

— “don’t you have anyone else, like literally anyone else, that you can be bothering right now?”

— he smirked and then shrugged “no, not really”

— you ended up looking up at him and then back at your book before standing up and leaving him where he was standing without saying another word

— oh man, this doof is whipped from then on

— let’s just say he warms up to you because you find out that he’s actually kind of funny (like he’ll make jokes about the classmates that he knows don’t like him and you have to fight a laugh because this man has absolutely no shame and says what you’re thinking but are too afraid to say out loud)

— you know you should be telling him off for doing so, but you agree in your head so it seems hypocritical to tell him to stop

— he’s funny in other ways too

— like he straight up guffaws with this ugly laugh and you have to wonder why exactly it is that this guy is so popular with the girls

— well it’s this guy that wormed into your heart, so really you can’t be talking

— he’s also strangely interested in your books? he never reads them, but he genuinely listens when you rant about this character or this ending that you don’t like because he likes how you don’t have a filter when absolutely bashing a character or book

— when you start talking about how annoying a character is and how you wish they’d fallen into some sort of pit ... atsumu’s on the floor with laughter

— he gets all heart eyes when you talk about something in the book that you do like because you have that cute little smile on your face that you never show him otherwise

— so when you eventually start dating him, he fully understands how much you like to read (he doesn’t mind it either because you’ll sometimes go to his practices and just read on the sidelines, or when he doesn’t have time to spend time with you because of volleyball he doesn’t feel as bad because you were gonna catch up on your current book anyway)

— LOVES it when you climb on his lap and curl up against him while you read

— he’s like a giant tsum tsum (pun intended)

— if he’s not doing anything while you’re on his lap, sometimes he’ll lay his chin on your shoulder and read along with you (which he turns into some kind of game because he has to read extra fast so that he can read the whole page before you turn the page)

— you eventually catch on to what he’s doing so you make it your personal vendetta to read faster than him

— one day he catches you reading a book on the couch while wearing his sweatshirt

— he thinks it’s the cutest thing in the world

— he’s already taken a picture of you and made it his lockscreen before you even notice what’s happening

— he may or may not also have that picture on his wall just so he can smile at it before falling asleep

— this guy hates paying attention in class, so when you send him a text about how something just happened in your book in the middle of class, he eagerly responds right away

— has absolutely no clue what you’re on about because he doesn’t really pay attention to what’s happening in your books, but he’s genuinely interested in you talking about them because he likes the way you get so excited

— will text like “what?? no way” or “hell yea get him!!”

— basically really short texts because he’d much rather read about you ranting than actually contribute to the conversation

— sometimes you’ll send him updates about your book while he’s at practice or while he’s sleeping so he can’t answer right away

— he absolutely crashes no later than 12 AM because he’s tired from practice, so he doesn’t read your 1 AM screaming session until he wakes up in the morning

— he’ll laugh at his phone because there’s just this stream of messages about you freaking out over something

— osamu hits him with a pillow sometimes when he starts loudly laughing at 6 in the morning after reading your texts

KUROO

— THIS MAN IS A STRAIGHT UP NERD

— like he literally reads chemistry books for fun (i know he does. you cannot fight me on this. he does.)

— he’s best friends with kenma so he already knows what it’s like when someone he cares about is super engrossed in something that they don’t want to be bothered with

— he’ll come over to your house just to do homework while you read

— sometimes if his hand starts to cramp up while writing he’ll plop down right next to you and try to get a look at the page you’re reading

— you literally have to fight the urge to swat him away

— because HIS HAIR

— HIS HAIR GETS IN THE WAY

— like you’ll be reading and suddenly this big mess of black hair obscures your vision

— one time he did that right as you were about to get to the really good part of the story and you almost took scissors and cut all of his hair off right then and there

— after the first time he does it he realizes it annoys you

— so naturally he does it as many times as he can

— you started to catch on after he did it a few times, so now every time he gets off his bed while you’re reading, you literally sprint to your bathroom and lock yourself in

— cue his hyena laugh

— will literally stand at the door of your bathroom and bother you until you have no choice but to come out (you glare at him when you do and he thinks it’s so cute so he does this a lot)

— to get back at him you start to climb into his lap while he’s doing homework and refuse to budge

— at first it’s just for revenge purposes, but he is literally the most comfortable pillow

— you take any chance you get and crawl into his lap after that

— you stole his shirt once because it was a graphic tee of this character from one of your books

— kuroo’s eyes nearly fall out of his head when he sees you wearing it

— “take my entire closet. take it. you can keep anything forever because you look so good wow.”

— one time he was doing homework when you slammed your book shut and screamed into your pillow

— he just stared at you for a good minute while you did that

— when you stopped screaming he waited a little bit to ask what was wrong because he was kinda scared to ask

— when you told him it was because of your book he practically melted

— “literally marry me right now oh my god???”

— sometimes you’ll text him in class about the book you’re reading, but he won’t read it until after the class is over because he actually pays attention in class (which you tease him for)

— after class though he’ll greet you by asking about what happened in the book because he is literally invested in anything you text him about when it comes to what you’re reading

— like he literally yelled “WHAT??” in the middle of the gym after one of his practices because he was so distraught over you texting him to say that his favorite character died

— everyone on the team thought they got in trouble or something, so when this absolute nerd goes “oh shit sorry *insert character name here* just died in this book Y/N is reading” the team loses their shit

TSUKISHIMA

— you two met because you sat next to him once in the library

— he doesn’t usually spend time in the library, but yamaguchi was out sick that day so he decided it was his best bet since he wasn’t keen on talking to anyone that day

— he practically glared at you when you pulled on the chair across from him and sat down

— at first, you thought he was glaring at something behind you, so you turned around and there was nothing there

— you realized that he was glaring at you, but you were not phased in the slightest

— “are you alright? you look like you’re envisioning a very slow and painful death for me.”

— he actually almost smiled at that. almost.

— after that, he stopped glaring at you, but he didn’t say a word in response

— you didn’t mind because you were just there to read in silence anyway

— he came to the library more often after that

— he told himself that it was because he didn’t want to give kageyama or hinata the chance to corner him for homework help, but really he was there because of you

— he always sat at the same table and you always sat in the seat across from him

— it became like a little routine between you two

— one time he was doing his homework and you were reading when you caught him sneaking glances at you

— you kept quiet about it though because you knew he’d deny it if you asked

— after a few months of only seeing each other in the library and never talking, he’s the first one to break the silence

— “do you … do you read anywhere else?”

— at first, you’re offended

— but then you look closer and see the little blush on his cheeks and suddenly you realize what’s going on

— you don’t look up from your book when you say, “i read at the bakery down the street sometimes. i think i’ll be there this saturday at noon”

— low and behold he actually shows up at the bakery that saturday

— he’s sitting at one of the tables with a plate of strawberry shortcake and he’s picking at it like he’s angry with it

— “gee, what did the poor shortcake ever do?”

— he looks so nervous when he looks up and you think it’s the cutest thing ever

— you both consider that day in the bakery your first date (spoiler alert: it actually went really well)

— after that, you would meet at the library and one of you would state a place and a time where you would be and just hope that the other shows up

— he always shows up to yours. you always show up to his.

— you two never really have a talk about making it official, it just sort of happens??

— dates with him after you two become a “thing” consist of you reading while he watches weird documentaries about insects

— he just likes the feeling of having you around so it doesn’t bother him when you don’t want to watch the documentary with him

— you two will sometimes sit at the park during a date and just make weird assumptions about the people walking by and each assumption becomes an inside joke between the two of you (“i bet he went to a culinary school but can’t cook” or “she probably has three cats at home that she knits little sweaters for”)

— he is not very keen on physical affection (even when you’re alone)

— but he eventually warms up to you. just a little bit.

— it takes you a long time to convince him to let you sit on his lap for even a second so the second time that you decide to crawl into his lap while he’s watching another documentary he goes

— “what are you doing?”

— you’re kind of a little shit so you just smile to yourself and say “reading.”

— you can practically hear the gears turning in his brain

— for a second you think that he might actually push you off

— but then he relaxes

— he doesn’t put his hands anywhere on you while you’re in his lap but you already know that him letting you sit there for longer than a minute is one of the longest showings of affection you’ll get from him so you just snuggle further into him and he relaxes

— you also send him a lot of texts about your books

— literally his number might as well be saved as goodreads on your phone because his number is like a review dump for you

— i’m talking full-on paragraphs of analysis and little reactions that probably span as 15 messages in a row

— sometimes he replies and sometimes he doesn’t

— when he doesn’t reply, he’ll ask you about the book the next time you see each other though

— he might say it’s annoying but you know that he secretly loves it when you text him your reviews and reactions

— when he can’t sleep he’ll text you at 1 AM and ask you how the book you’re reading is going

— he falls asleep with a smile on his face after he basically gets a whole novel worth of text messages from you

requests are open!!

[shutupanddance]

“I can’t believe you don’t like hugs.”

@girloncorneliastreet​ requested more Sam Seaborn and who am I to turn that down? Sorry if this is super choppy. I had a great first draft, and then lost it to the post editor, so this is the best I could salvage. I also have a Sherlock request that is next on my to-do list!

Meeting an old friend at a charity event was a mistake.

It wasn’t like you planned it, anyway, but still a mistake because your coworkers were there. And no one is nosier than the West Wing of the Whitehouse.

She had run up, excited to see you, and squeezed your arm.

“Don’t worry, I won’t hug you!” She said, and you both laughed. The conversation went on about other things for awhile, but as soon as she left, your colleagues pounced on you. They wanted to know why she wouldn’t hug you.

After some relentless questions, you said that you didn’t like hugs, and your friend was just respecting that. That’s when the West Wing really blew up.

You’d think you had announced you were becoming a Republican with how people talked about it. They were completely offended that you didn’t like hugs.

You finally managed to escape into your office, and were putting work together so you could finish at home, when you heard Sam Seaborn at your door.

“I can’t believe you don’t like hugs.”

You groaned.

“Can we do this some other time?”

He didn’t respond, just looked at you through furrowed brows. He was standing in your way of making an exit.

“Alright, move, Socrates.”

He smiled, just like he always did when you called him that. But thankfully, he moved. You took your coat off the hanger and made a break for it.

You got about four steps away before Sam started following you.

“What is it about hugs that you don’t like?”

You tried to ignore him. The only problem was, the man can talk an ear off.

“Is it the warmth? The squish? Do you just hate people?”

You got as far as the lobby before you blew a gasket. You whirled on him.

“Just drop it, okay!?”

He looked shocked. A little hurt. But mostly regretful. That sad puppy look in his baby blue eyes…

“I’m sorry.” He swallowed.

You didn’t know what else to say, so you nodded. You left him standing there.

You felt bad for yelling at Sam. Even if he deserved it a little. But you really didn’t know how to bring it up, and you HAD asked him to drop it, so you decided to drop it as well.

Lucky for you (but not so lucky for the cleaning staff), some kid had projectile vomited near the Oval Office, and the West Wing was crashed, meaning everyone was more concerned about the crash than your “I don’t like hugs” statement of last night. Business went on with everyone navigating their jobs around the crash.

You saw Sam several times during the day, but you pretended nothing ever happened. Sam must’ve felt pretty bad, because he went along with it.

“Hey, Plato!” He called, and you turned from your spot in the bullpen. Once you had started calling Sam “Socrates”, he decided to refer to you almost solely as “Plato”.

“What?”

“Leo wants us to run these down to Legal in the basement. Says we need to be briefed by Ainsley about something?” He shrugged. “I don’t really know.”

You nodded, took some from the stack he was carrying, and followed him downstairs.

There wasn’t much talking involved, not like you could be distracted while navigating the Whitehouse. It takes an individual’s entire brain power to figure this maze out.

You were almost to Ainsley’s office when the halls were flooded by Secret Service agents. They were like a swarm of bees. One of them, Agent Daniels, grabbed you and Sam.

“Mr. Seaborn, Mx Y/L/N, we need you to step into this office and not leave. The crash has escalated a level.”

He shoved you roughly into an abandoned office.

“Hey-” you began, but the door was shut quickly. You huffed. “What, did the vomit kid try and assassinate the President now?”

Sam laughed, and you smiled, making eye contact for probably the first time since last night. It felt good to be normal friends again.  You surveyed the office, with its empty boxes, a desk, and a couple chairs. You strolled over to one and sat down with a sigh, knowing that this crash could last for awhile. Sam joined you.

“So, what do you think it is this time?” He asked. “Biohazard, fire, maybe someone jumped the fence again?”

You leaned back, staring at the yellowing ceiling. “Who knows.”

It was then that Sam’s cell began to rang. He answered it, but all you could hear from the conversation was a few yes and no’s.

“So?” You asked, raising your head.

“Biohazard it is. Apparently the vomit kid had some sort of respiratory infection on top of whatever stomach bug made him turn the office into a postmodern art gallery.”

You laughed, but scrunched your nose in a disgusted expression. You could vividly remember the puke painted on the walls.

It wasn’t much longer until Agent Daniels came to retrieve you both, saying the crash had been resolved. This was business as usual at the West Wing, but you were glad it happened. It had given you a chance to repair your relationship with Sam. You went on your way to Ainsley’s office, but she wasn’t there. She must’ve been stuck in some other corner of the Whitehouse.

Unfortunately, it was freezing down here. You hugged your arms close and shivered. Ainsley’s office was notorious for being either jungle-hot or tundra-cold, with very little imbetween. Of course, Sam noticed you shivering.

“Aw, would a hug help?” He joked, and you could tell he was trying to make light of what happened last night. But you saw your chance.

“Actually, yes. A hug would help,” you said through chattering teeth, and he nearly did a double-take.

“What?”

“I said I’d like a hug.”

Sam looked a little confused, but he took a few cautious steps forward, and you met him in the middle. You leaned up against his broad chest, head on his shoulder, and he wrapped his arms around you tentatively.

You snuggled just a little closer, and he took that as his cue to hold tighter. Sam Seaborn was a great hugger, you realized.

“So, you DO like hugs?” He asked.

You sighed.

“When I was in college, I got a lot of creepy guys who would try and hug me in a *friendly* way. I had a really hard time telling them ‘No’, so I just started saying to people that I really didn’t like physical contact. I kept the story because it made it easier to avoid being too close to people I don’t like.” You chuckled. ““I like hugs as long as they’re from a person I also happen to like.”

Sam let his face rest in your hair, and you could feel him smile and his arms pull you just a little tighter.

“Okay.” He said.

It was a silly answer, but you were enjoying being so close to him, so you didn’t care. You just hoped he cut his answer short because he was enjoying being so close to you as well.

Just then, Ainsley returned.

“Do y’all need a room or something? Cause there’s an empty office just down the hall.”

[nightowlfandom]

Min Yoongi- Humiliation Looks Good On You

Hey there! SO ANON ASKS

Hi I want to make a request with the prompts 10, 109, 110 with Yoongi please. I have a story in mind. Yoongi is a pretentious nerd, the best in college but also has some kind of hate relationship with y/n he really makes sure to make her feel humiliated cuz he gets turned on by doing it. but then he tries to make a move on her. Thank you.

So y’all just wanna be bullied by Yoongi, now? Ight bet! Damn Masochists! I like it tho-I’m assuming you want a happy ending to this, so that’s what I’ll be doing.

10-  I think I’ll keep you as a pet! You’re fun to mess with.

109-  Are you crying because of me? Hm…I didn’t realize I have that effect on you.

110-  That’s daddy to you, sweetheart.

CHECKOUT MY MASTERLIST HERE!

Leggo!

Also hi yes, I used the name is kpop stars for your friends names,

Also humiliation, daddy stuff...IF ANYONE TREATS YOUY LIKE THIS YOU BETTER BREAK THEIR FUCKING FACE I SWEAR TO-

 ...

“Hey guys!” You greeted your friends as your rushed into the classroom. 

“Hey babe!” Momo waved you over. “We saved you a seat! Irene was just telling us about her date last night!”

“Thanks.” You acknowledged Lisa and Hyuna who were also sitting. “What’s up?”

“Hyuna decided to be a mom and ruin my date!” Irene scoffed. “She scared him off!”

“You’ll thank me.” Hyuna waved her off, not bothered in the slightest.

“Sure.” Irene shook her head. Everyone laughed while you mustered up a sideways smile. “Y/N? Everything okay?”

“Oh..Y-yeah!” you shrugged. “I’m alright.”

“Bullshit.” Lisa scoffed. “I saw her hiding from Min and his cronies.” 

“Min Yoongi?” Momo asked. “He’s still bothering you?”

“No! You guys it isn’t like that!”

Oh yes it was. The college golden boy who was both an academic genius and promising young performer. He thought because he was intelligent that everyone was beneath him. His plan A and plan B would more than likely workout. 

“Y/N, do you need us to-”

“No!” You cut Hyuna off. “Don’t get involved or you’ll make it worse. Can’t we talk about the party tonight?”

“Ah, the biggest turn-up of the year!” Irene danced in her seat. “I have the entire house for the weekend.” 

You, Hyuna, Lisa, Irene, and Momo were someone of the popular (but also super kind) girls. Every Semester you all hosted a party. You guys were notorious for throwing the best parties and this semester was no different. 

“This is gonna go down in history!” Lisa smirked at the thought. “But if that tool starts something-”

Lisa didn’t like Yoongi....Lisa despised him with a passion. Mostly because he bullied you so much.

“Namjoon said that he’d behave.” Hyuna sighed. “Don’t know how much that means to you babe.” she put a hand on your shoulder. 

“Speak of the devil.” Momo sighed, staring at the door. 

Everyone knew than Yoongi tormented you. There was an endless array of mixed reactions.

“Hey Y/N.”

Don’t answer, don’t answer, don’t answer.

“Yo, leave her alone.” Hyuna warned. 

“You gonna let your friends fight your battles?”

That alone made you whip your head around. “I don’t let anyone fight my battles!” you snapped, drawing the attention.

Before anything could go down, the teacher came inside.

“Hello class! Can anyone tell me what we were focused on last class?”

“We were getting into cliches and niches in romance novels.” You answered aloud. “We were talking about the Bully to Lover Archetype.”

“Very good Y/N.” the teacher praised you. “Now can someone tell me why we- and I would like to hear from the women on this...Why do you as women hate such a stigma.”

Your hand instantly shot in the air. “Yes Y/N?”

“Because it promotes the stigma that if a boy or man bullies you, it’s because he likes you. Which is extremely toxic to those with love self esteem because it makes them feel like they have to be ridiculed to be loved.” you said. “In my opinion any man who feels the need to degrade a woman is festering garbage.”

“Hm, interesting! Yes Mr.Min did you have something you wanted to add?”

“Yes, what my dear acquaintance Y/N fails to realize is most women actually like being teased-”

“Teased, not tormented you imbecile.” you snapped your head in Yoongi’s direction.

“Unless she’s a masochist.” he winked at you knowingly. ‘We don’t know why the male characters bully the females.”

“Because they have nothing better to do!” you replied as calmly as you could.

“...Well, women love the bad boys.”

“Women. Love. Respect.” you seethed.

“OOh a spicy debate!” the teacher noticed the tension. “In a way, you two are very similar to the characters we will be discussing!”

“Huh?” you turned back towards the teacher.

“Yes! The male bullied the female out of jealousy and spite and the female who is very outspoken, doesn’t allow herself to be insulted.”

“Out of spite, maybe. Jealousy, never.” Yoongi laughed.

What a smug bastard.

...(Later in another class) 

“Good going Y/N” Yoongi walked up to your table where you were sitting with your friends. “Now the teacher thinks we have something going on.”

“None of that is my problem...mkay?” you raised an eyebrow. “Any other stupid comments and or questions you have for me?”

“Sure.” Yoongi scoffed. “Is it true that you had to work at one of those sleazy bars to pay off your student debts?”

“So what if she did?” Lisa seethed.

“Hm, maybe if she was smarter she could have gotten a scholarship. Unless the superintendent is one of her sugar daddies.” He laughed. “It’s amazing what some people will do for money So is it cash or connection?.”

That comment made everyone fall silent.

“You don’t know me Yoongi.”

“Oh but I do. That’s why you’re my pet...Do you want me to keep you as a pet, Y/N?”

“No.” your voice wavered. 

“Are you crying because of me? Hm…I didn’t realize I have that effect on you. “

Yes, you had to work in a shitty bar as a waitress on some days and a bartender on other days. It wasn’t because you liked the attention. It was because those dirt-bags tipped you just for winking in their direction and you needed to pay off your debts.

But to insinuate that you had a sugar daddy....not that you judged anyone who did...the way he meant it...most likely meant something completely different.

“THAT’S IT!” Hyuna lunged from her seat and attempted to jump at Yoongi, age be damned. “IRENE LET ME FUCKING AT HIM.”

You didn’t notice the tears streaming down your face. In the midst of every boy in the classroom attempting to calm Hyuna down, you rose to your feet and exited the classroom. As soon as you were far enough, you bolted down the halls. 

You kicked open the doors to the school and ran home. You would face the consequences later.

...(Meanwhile, back at school)

“Hey! I was just joking!” Yoongi burst out laughing.

“Not to us, it isn’t!” Momo barked, her bubbly and cheerful spirit was gone. “Y/N is struggling to make ends meet as it is and she doesn’t need you COMMENTING ON IT!”

“Not to mention, she’s one of the smartest girls in school!” Lisa sneered. “I bet she’d score circles around you if you actually looked at her test scores.”

“Its bad enough she won’t let us help her out, but now she sure as hell won’t let us help her now, no thanks to you!” Irene sighed. 

“Oh Come on! You guys act like Y/N is some Miss Perfect!” Yoongi crossed his arms. “Is she really all that great?”

“If she wasn’t, why would you waste your time trying to bully her?” Hyuna finally calmed down. “You’re lucky that you’re friends with my boyfriend or else I swear you wouldn’t set foot at any of our parties.”

“Maybe the teacher was right. You’re just so jealous that Y/N wouldn’t give you the time of day that you turned to making fun of her to stroke your disgusting guy ego.” Momo crossed your arms. “I’m gonna go after her, she probably went home.”

“I’ll come with.” Lisa rose to her feet.

“I’ll get you guys the homework.” Irene nodded the two friends off. “And make sure Hyuna doesn’t kill someone.”

Momo and Lisa ran out of the school while Yoongi was standing there dumbstruck. For the first time, he was speechless.

...

“You guys, I really don’t wanna be here.” you sighed as the loud music deafened you and everyone within a five foot radius. “I don’t really wanna party...”

“You’re one of the hosts!” Irene sighed. “Enjoy your night! Come on! I heard Seokjin was just waiting to dance with you!”

Seokjin, the beautiful teaching assistant that any girl would kill to get their hands on. University life...Speaking of which, he must of sensed you were thinking of him because he sauntered over looking handsome as ever. He stared at you, a warm and friendly smile gracing his angelic face.

“Hey Y/N.” he smiled. “You look great.”

“Oh...Thank you Jin!” you smiled. 

“I’ll leave you two to it.” Irene nudged you before sauntering off, belting the song at the top of her lungs. “WHOSE READY TO PARTY!”

You were left with Jin who was smiling knowingly at you. “Hey...I heard about today.”

“I don’t have a sugar daddy and I am NOT a sleaze!” you cut him off sharply. “If that’s what you’re here for, then-”

“Hey Y/N!” he put his hands up in defense. “I was just gonna say what he said about you wasn’t cool at all. Everyone is giving him hell for it.”

“Oh...thanks I guess. Sorry.” you looked down sheepishly.

“Hey...You wanna dance?” Jin motioned over to the dancefloor. He noticed your hesitance. “Come on...it’ll be fun. If anyone gives you trouble, just focus on me.”

You nodded, allowing a smile to cross your face again. You grabbed his hand and ran over to the dancefloor.

From a distance, Yoongi was watching. He was drinking a beer. He glared potholes at Seokjin who had his arms protectively wrapped around your waist. You looked genuinely happy. It made him mad. Since when and why were you and him so chummy?

He decided to do something about it, so he put his drink down and marched over. 

“Yo! Jin! Hyuna said she needed your help with something school related.” he made up some lame excuse. Knowing Jin, he’d probably believed it anyways.

“Oh...Okay. Be right back Y\N!” he smiled at you which you returned. Your smiled was quickly replaced with a frown when Yoongi and you were left alone. He perked up an eyebrow and held out his hand.

You would have slapped it away, but Promiscuous By Nelly Furtado suddenly began playing. 

“Come on....” he winked. You begrudgingly took his only only to be yanked towards him. Unlike Seokjin, when he wrapped his arms around you it feel uneasy.

“ I think I’ll keep you as a pet! You’re fun to mess with. “ he whispered in your ear. His body felt hard and cold, yet you moved so effortlessly with him. 

“I’m nobody’s pet.” you snapped. 

“You’re mine.” he leaned forward and whispered in your ear. “Otherwise you would have killed me by now.”

“Still debating.” you laughed dryly. “You’ll always be a pain in my ass...”

 You broke away from his embrace to dance on your own. Working at a bar, the other girls taught you how to dance. The only positive to come out of working at a shithole like that, plus the tips you got just for smiling at someone. Yoongi took note of this. What happened to the timid little victim he loved to poke fun at.

You almost looked like you could hold your own.

“GO Y/N!” Momo yelled while dancing with her own date. 

As you turned back around, getting closer to Yoongi again, your eyes met. Things fell silent between you two as you took a step back. You had to get out of there before you did something you would regret. 

You wound up running into a random room in the mansion, struggling for air. Absolutely not! No way! You were not falling for Yoongi.

“Jin is so kind and sweet and Yoongi is the reason I don’t wanna go to school. Hell no.” you seethed.

“Is that how you feel?”

Yoongi stood at the door, raising an eyebrow at you. 

“Yes! I hate you!” you could feel everything welling up inside you as you met his gaze again. “I hate you so much that I wish you would-”

“Wish I would what? Drop dead? Drop out of school, leave you alone?” he cut you off with a harsh tone. “Tell me how you really feel!”

“Make your move or shut the fuck up!” you gave your answer.

You knew good and well Yoongi had a reason for doing this, you just figured you would give it your best guess. This caused Yoongi to raise an eyebrow. You almost regretted opening your mouth when Yoongi stormed over and grabbed you by the waist. He crashed his mouth over yours, claiming you in a kiss.

You felt him tangle your hair in his fist, keeping you in place. You tangled your hands in his hair.

Imagine, the schools bully and the girl he’s tormented since he met her, in such a compromising position.

You were two focused on Yoongi pinning you to the bed to worry about it though. 

“You are such a-”

“ Ah ah ah~...That’s daddy to you, sweetheart.”

[justapoet]

mary all those prompts are 👀👀👀 can i get 33 + tarlos please?

I'm so glad you like them, Jamie! Of course you can, and I truly hope you like it! ♥

33. "It hurts to breathe..."

Send me a prompt! | Prompt list

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read on Ao3

tell me your secrets (and ask me your questions)

TK had always been a curious person.

Since he was a child, he would ask questions about every single thing he saw around him. From why a window is called "window" to where we go after we're no longer beating, and it never changed throughout the years. His curiosity only grew as the answers didn't exist, and TK would always find himself making questions he would chase after answers that didn't exist.

TK would wonder why the stars shine, or why the sky is blue ― and who named it "sky" anyway? How are the same thing called in different languages, and none of them is wrong? Why does the fire burn, and how do we feel the heat? Who chose the name of the sea, and who was the first person to ever decide that fishes were edible?

His parents would say that, as a baby, he would touch everything he could and be mesmerized by anything new that would come to his sight. They would say they knew he'd be trouble once he started walking, for his hands wouldn't fear touching a single thing, and TK would only laugh at how right they were about that.

As a kid, he would ask too much until his mother ran out of patience, and Enzo had to come to the rescue, taking him to the nearest bookstore or library so he could have a source of both questions and answers. As a pre-teenager, he would ask his teachers, and some of them would be thrilled to be challenged with their knowledge, while others would just say they weren't an encyclopedia.

As a teenager, his doubts and curiosity would lead him to periodic obsessions that would keep him awake at night, or it was just something he used as an excuse to stay awake. Anyhow, it was an escape from his twisted mind and fucked up head ― so, for what's worth, his curiosity had kept him alive when the bare facts didn't want to do so.

When he became an adult, his curiosity was never left behind. His questions changed, though, and he essentially wanted to know how it felt not to feel as down as he did and how it would be if someone ever loved him the way he had always read about in books and fiction. TK would wonder why the world wasn't as bright as he used to see it and how he could just disappear, even if for a little while.

Wondering why it was something TK was better in than anyone he knew.

He never wondered why it was like that, though.

With his curiosity, TK also learned he had to be patient and observe the world around him, which led him to know people from a different angle. He would notice their movements, word choices, and how their eyes moved in each situation ― he would read into people as he would read into books, and it was pretty nice to know how to do that.

He wished he had done that better, though, when it came to Alex. But he read into himself around that time, and he knew that he was desperate for any type of love and affection ― TK wanted the love his younger self always questioned if his older self would get and didn't think twice before jumping into the change he'd have that.

It was entirely his fault; TK knew it.

And he was determined not to make the same misjudgment twice in his life ― because he feared he wouldn't have a life to get right if it happened again.

When he got to Austin, TK was still mad at the world and at himself for being so stupid and losing everything he had achieved through the years. His anger took the best of him for most times, and so did his sadness ― but it opened his eyes for a few new lenses, and he found out it was pretty cool to have more than one set of eyes to read people and situations.

Judd, under his red vision and bitter analysis, was just someone too mad at life to realize other people had feelings, too. He was hostile, had anger problems, and was a pain in the ass ― not that it was entirely wrong ―, and TK would never ever be friends with someone like that.

Under his blue vision and heartbroken analysis, though, Judd was just someone who needed some space and time to find the way back from the place he had gotten lost. He was sad, and melancholic, and seriously in need of help.

And, under the vision that didn't require lenses, Judd was a big-hearted man with a few pieces falling from his soul. He was kind, had horrible jokes, and was profoundly in love with the woman he had gotten married to ― and it was the kind of person TK desperately needed as a brother in his life.

Marjan was a badass firefighter with strong opinions and more feelings she'd let slip out of her sleeve, not to mention how sweet she could be towards those who'd allow a mask to fall without any judgment. She was strong, fearless, and should be a bit less acid to those who were only trying to help ― but she was a best friend TK had missed in his life.

Paul was a riddle, and TK suspected that was what he wanted people to think about him. He was observant ― a little too much ―, alarmed and always had good advice on the tip of his tongue, even if he'd rarely follow someone's help that didn't come from Grace or Carlos. Paul was attentive, patient, and wise ― and TK was a little scared of it but wouldn't trade a best friend like that for the world.

Mateo and Nancy seemed to get along well, for both of them had unending jokes for every situation and never won from Marjan on any of their video games. TK had no clue about how it happened, but suddenly Mateo just revealed he was a Broadway fan, and Nancy let it slip that she had watched every single Marvel movie and series so far ― and it was the end of the peace around the firehouse.

TK wouldn't trade them for anybody else, to be honest. But he would, for sure, lock Nancy in the ambulance in revenge for eating his piece of the pie Grace had baked.

And then, there was Carlos.

In the first moment, TK didn't want to read into him enough to regret his choice of not wanting something serious. It was notorious, almost like a fact known to all humanity, that Carlos had kindness hanging out from each one of his words and movements. His words were nothing but sweet, and every single one of his actions seemed to be careful and calculated.

It was surprising, really, when Carlos had invited him to dance on that first night after a shift at the Honky Tonk. He didn't touch TK at any moment, only doing it when he approached first ― and Carlos seemed to always give him a second to think and rethink if he really wanted to go all the way.

Even if it was the bare minimum of respect, it was rare to find it around.

From the beginning, TK also noticed how patient Carlos could be and how he would never pressure anyone into doing anything. He was dedicated to his friends ― since they've met, TK lost count of how many times he would stop by the firehouse to give Michelle something she mentioned he wanted to eat or offer her a ride ―, and to his job, being a damn good cop.

He was good with kids, and any call with one would get him a bit sad afterward. Even so, TK had seen him countless times sitting with them in the ambulance, telling them a story or a joke to distract them from the needles and exams. It was heartwarming for whoever would see it.

From the beginning, too, Carlos would be a mystery TK didn't really know how to begin to solve. Unlike everything TK could've predicted or expected, Carlos didn't seem to want him just for his body or pretty face ― he seemed to want to get to know him, and that was something TK really couldn't wrap his mind around.

Not only that, but he was a mystery, too, to everyone in the firehouse. Judd had known him already from a distance, his friendship with Michelle bringing him around for years, but nothing more than cordialities and the usual kindness that evaporated from the man. Grace had known him from calls, as well, and only knew that he was a good cop, a good man, and really cared about those he was trying to help.

Other than that, no one knew much. Paul could tell Carlos was someone who really respected his privacy and didn't talk much when he didn't seem comfortable or didn't have to, being quiet even when going out. He didn't drink much and was absolutely punctual, and Paul somehow knew that Carlos loved giving small gifts to people.

Marjan said that he would always listen and give full attention to what anyone was saying, and Mateo couldn't get over the fact Carlos had a Mjölnir autographed by Chris Hemsworth ― and he would never tell how he got that.

Being curious about Carlos, then, was inevitable.

Getting to read and decipher him, though, was a choice. And a choice that TK would never regret taking.

He wasn't fluent just yet, but TK would spend as much time as necessary to learn every single word Carlos had to say, imply, or erase. It was a book, a whole universe, that TK was willing to find out more about.

Turns out Carlos never touches anybody without their complete consent, but he loves to be hugged and held whenever he can. He never complains, and on hard days, he almost purrs to any skin-to-skin contact.

TK loved to know that because he loves contact just as much.

TK also found out that Carlos is quiet most of the time, not only in public, and only gets to speak a lot when he's incredibly excited over something new. He found out through some night hours when, after TK had arrived back from his shift, he had started to talk excitedly about Einstein's Theory of Relativity and everything that involves the whole thing.

He was sure he fell in love again as each minute passed.

Carlos was punctual, but finding out he got ready for every appointment about an hour earlier was surreal for TK. And Carlos loved giving gifts to people just to make their day better ― TK had cried when, after a shift from hell, Carlos offered him a single dandelion, telling him to close his eyes and make a wish.

TK had kissed him deeply before blowing the dandelion.

And out of all the details TK could've learned about Carlos, one that would always be in red letters on the back of his mind is that Carlos could be quiet not only for his comfort but for the comfort of others. And, although it had been transparent with all of the mess and pain in Carlos' eyes when they talked after the meeting on the Farmer's Market, TK had noticed it on small moments through the days.

Carlos wouldn't speak up about his feelings or open up to anybody. He would be in pain, miserable, and silent, not wanting to bother or worry anyone around him.

He had gotten so used to it through the years that TK wasn't surprised when Carlos seemed shocked that he had noticed something was up.

The thing is that TK paid attention. To Carlos more than anyone, indeed, he had learned a few details that he knew Carlos himself didn't know, like how the cop would talk to himself when he thought no one was looking. Or how his lips would tramble a little every time he was going out, or how he would bite his tongue when the concentration was taking over his worries.

There was also that permanent wrinkle on the top of his nose that would deepen whenever he was confused and even more when he was worried. His eyebrows would follow the movement when he was emotional, and he would press his lips together when he got speechless ― and TK loved to kiss it away and watch as his face melted under his touch.

TK was lucky enough to say that he knew Carlos behind all the quietness and politeness ― he knew the lows, the fears, and the clever jokes.

That's why he knew something was wrong when they were driving back home from Judd and Grace's house on a Saturday afternoon, the sun already setting on the horizon.

Carlos hadn't drunk, not a sip, and seemed to be enjoying the company, the talk even if he was quieter than usual, and the kids ― the Vega twins really had fallen in love with him after the sandstorm. Yet, the man had given TK the car keys as they were leaving the house and didn't say much before walking around the car and taking the passager's seat.

Carlos loved to drive, and TK usually only took the wheel when his boyfriend chose to drink on their night out. He didn't do questions, though, and got in the car, taking Carlos' hand in his and pressing a kiss to his knuckles.

The cop smiled at him, almost thankfully, and then looked out his window.

It was a thirty-minute drive, which had never been a problem for the both of them for some reason, loved to take car rides whenever they could. Ten minutes in the vehicle, though, TK noticed that Carlos was moving quite too much, his hands gripping his pants and his leg bouncing against the floor. His brown eyes wouldn't focus, either, and he would swallow dryly more times in a minute than anyone should.

He wanted to ask if everything was okay, but Carlos beat him to it.

"Stop the car," he asked, his voice seeming to be stuck on his throat. TK frowned worriedly at him but did as he was asked, turning the wheel and parking the car on the curb and watching his boyfriend as his mind seemed to race, and he didn't know what to do.

TK didn't have to wait a second until Carlos was opening the door and walking away from the car, crossing the flower field they'd stopped beside and not looking back at TK, looking too scared to do that. His legs seemed to work automatically, and TK quickly snapped out of his worried state to realize what the hell was going on when Carlos walked towards the empty gazebo further on the field.

Carlos kept walking, his palms feeling sweaty and his feet seeming to work mechanically. He didn't stare at anything around him, his eyes were unfocused, his mouth seemed to have dried up, and he couldn't even hear anything but the thin, high-pitched whistle inside his ears.

The cop found himself walking towards a little empty gazebo, groping the air unconsciously to find the small gate and then opening it and not even bothering to close it before he placed himself against the wall, leaning almost vainly on it. He took a few deep breaths, the warm spring air entering his lungs and seeming to hurt, but he didn't really care.

Carlos closed his eyes, feeling the world and his head spin a few times. His brain could only say "too many people, too many people, too long," but Carlos couldn't utter a single word or move.

Not even when he noticed a movement next to him and could assume that someone was stooping down. He wasn't sure, and he couldn't be sure at that moment. He didn't want to think about it or anything else in the world.

It was when the person sat down next to him, also leaning their head against the wall, that he could connect the dots to the smell of perfume his boyfriend always wore. The other man didn't say anything, just bent his knees and put one of his arms over his legs, and looked straight ahead.

TK knew him well enough to figure that he hated to be seen in such a vulnerable situation.

"I..." Carlos muttered, swallowing hard and looking breathless. "A lot of people, I..." he interrupted himself, feeling the tears that hadn't been falling fill his eyes and roll down his cheeks.

His lips trembled, and he felt frustrated then. Carlos threw his head back, knowing that it would hit the wall. It was then that TK finally faced him and placed one of his hands on his boyfriend's hand that was still on the floor while the other seemed to pull at his hair.

"It hurts to breathe..." Carlos said, then sobbing. TK's grip on his hand got more solid, and Carlos wouldn't stop crying even if he wanted to ― he felt pathetic, overwhelmed, and he hated to be facing that fact about him in front of someone else.

TK inhaled deeply before saying anything.

"You're on a gazebo," the man began, his voice sweet. "There's nothing here but the two of us and a plant I don't know the name of, but you should," he said, and Carlos could hear a small smile in his voice. His hand let go of his hair, and he began to breathe slowly. "There are only the two of us here. And the stars."

Carlos took a deep breath. Once, twice, three times― just him and TK. Just him and TK. It was all right. Everything was fine.

He held his boyfriend's hand weakly, and TK made sure to squeeze it a little. He was there, just him, and everything was fine. He could breathe, there was air, and there was nobody else but him and the man he loved right beside him.

TK didn't say a word, his thumb caressing the back of Carlos' hand and his eyes analyzing each one of his breaths as he breathed just as slowly. His heart was pounding on his chest, and he had a few questions, but it was alright ― everything was fine, and they had time to talk about it.

The minutes went on like this, quietly, until Carlos, a little calmer but still with a knot in his throat, opened his eyes, swallowing hard and analyzing his surroundings warily. His brown eyes seemed alarmed, rimmed, and his breathing was still shaken.

"Allamanda," he said, then, his voice weak and hoarse. His breathing was smooth now, and TK smiled as he noticed it, even though he hadn't understood what Carlos had said until he gestured toward the flowers with his head.

TK chuckled quietly, amused that his boyfriend actually knew what the flowers were, and leaned his head against the wall again. They stood there for some time ― Carlos couldn't tell how long ― until his breathing returned to normal, and his ears were whistled low enough that he could hear around him.

"Sorry," he said, and TK turned his head, still leaning against the wall. "For this. I had no reason and― and I just..."

"Carlos," the paramedic called in a low voice, interrupting him before he could blame himself or try to explain what he wasn't ready to. "It's all right. You don't have to apologize or justify anything. It happened, that's fine," TK said, confident. Carlos swallowed hard. "It's okay, babe. I promise."

Carlos nodded but didn't seem too confident in agreeing with TK's words. TK looked at some spot in front of him again, and Carlos let his head fall until he was staring at his lap, his hand over his stretched legs and his mind racing with wild thoughts. He inhaled deeply, closed his eyes, and threw his head back, leaning on the wall.

"I've never told anybody," Carlos said, then, all of a sudden. TK turned his head in his boyfriend's direction, bending it a bit with the piece of given information. "About this. The disorder or the crisis," he explained, and TK frowned with worry. "Not even Michelle."

TK waited, not wanting Carlos to shut down with any questions. After a minute or two, he spoke up again.

"I feel pathetic," Carlos said, a humorless chuckle leaving his closed lips. "I know I shouldn't because it's perfectly normal and everything, but..." Carlos swallowed dryly, his lips twisting in some shade of sadness. "I'm an adult. I should've left this in my teenage years, shouldn't I?"

TK didn't answer but thanked God it was a rhetorical question. He didn't quite know what to say.

He couldn't help but ask, though.

"How long you've been hiding these crises?" he asked, and Carlos chuckled humorlessly again. It caused TK's stomach to wrap.

"Since they began," he replied, and TK closed his eyes as if it was a painful truth to face. He squeezed Carlos' hand, and the other man just shrugged. "I was going to tell my father, even before I came out to them, but I heard a conversation over some documentary about mental disorders," Carlos said, and TK didn't like his tone. "I should really stop listening to what he and mom talk about. It would save me mental health," he joked, and TK bit his tongue.

Carlos wanted to cry, but he didn't think he could.

"I don't think they realized, you know? I mean, everyone makes jokes about it," Carlos said, then. "They didn't mean harm, I think. But they were laughing," he told TK, turning his head and not really looking around. "It was― eating me alive, and..." he chuckled again. "They were laughing."

TK squeezed his hand.

"So you figured that would be their reaction," TK supposed.

"Theirs and anybody's," Carlos said. "The only ones who take mental health seriously are the ones to whom it's lacking."

And TK didn't have an answer for that because there wasn't one. He could see what Carlos meant when he said that his parents meant no harm ― mental disorders were only a thing if you knew well enough to understand that sick people didn't want attention or were being dramatic; they just wanted peace.

And it was only genuine when someone that mattered hurt themselves over it, and TK knew that. He had experienced it himself, his mother being usually too skeptical to believe that someone wouldn't have control over their feelings.

Until TK had lost control over himself and his heart had lost the strength to beat for the first time.

Carlos had skepticism surrounding him when it came to taboos such as mental disorders ― and having one wasn't quite the solution to deal with it. His family didn't think it was something more than some drama or lack of control over emotions, and even the best-intended comments could hurt when they were only meant to be seen as a joke.

And TK couldn't see how it must have been to Carlos to feel like it for over a decade ― like a joke. Like who he was and the problems he had were too much, inconvenient, uncomfortable for someone he loved to deal with.

From cover to cover, Carlos had felt like a burden to his family. And although it wasn't their intention to make it like it, the fact they didn't seem to be open enough for Carlos to come to them still twisted something inside TK's soul.

"Hey?" Carlos called beside him, and TK lifted his eyes to find his boyfriend's sad face and closed eyes. "Does anybody else need to know about it?"

TK caressed his thumb over Carlos' skin.

"Not if you don't want them to," he replied. Carlos sighed.

"But?" he asked, and TK's heart swollen with how much he knew how to read him.

"It would be nice if you talked to Mitchell," TK said. "So she can have your back at work, you know?" Carlos sighed. "I know you've dealt with it all your life, babe, but someone has to have your back. Especially in our field," TK explained, and Carlos knew he was right. It didn't make things easier. "You know no one would laugh, don't you? And no one would ignore it, either," the paramedic continued, and Carlos weighted his head forward again.

"That's what I'm afraid of," Carlos said, then. "I've been prepared for the laughing and the ignoring my whole life; what do I do when it doesn't come?" he asked, and TK felt his heart clench inside his chest. "Besides, letting people know just..."

"Makes you feel a weird thing you can't really name?" TK guessed. "Something between guilt, regret, and stupidity and not the relief they've promised you?"

Carlos chucked again, and TK followed him. The cop nodded, and his lips trembled a bit.

"Yeah," he agreed. "Something like that."

A beat of silence, and then TK asked.

"Do you regret that I know it?" he said, and Carlos only closed his eyes again. There was no judgment or expectation in his boyfriend's voice, which is much more comfortable to answer.

"Honestly?" TK nodded. Carlos sighed. "Yes," he said, and TK pressed his lips together in a sad smile. "But I, uh...―" Carlos babbled. "I'm glad I can ask you for a hug now," he said, and TK widely smiled when he noticed the words. Carlos turned his head up to him, smiling expectantly, and the paramedic didn't lose a second before hugging him close to his chest.

Although Carlos was taller, TK knew he loved to be held close to someone and be involved in their arms as if he fit in them. Which, when it came to the two of them, the affirmative was nothing but correct ― Carlos fit in TK's arms seamlessly.

They stayed there for a while more, with Carlos breathing slowly against TK's neck and feeling his heartbeats and TK caressing his fingers through Carlos' curls and nape.

When they got back to the car, Carlos was almost sleeping on the passenger's seat with his head pressed to the window, and TK smiled at the cuteness of the scene and the peace on Carlos' face. He didn't say much, not to say anything, all the way back, sniffing a bit and taking some deep breaths.

TK could relate if being honest. Sharing such a personal thing, that something that should lift the weight out of your shoulders isn't as pretty as people make it seem. It's excruciating, tiring, and it feels like all the power you once had over your lack of control vanishes for a while.

It isn't exactly about being vulnerable, but about how much you can pretend something isn't real if no one else knows about it. And, when someone else does know, it feels a bunch more genuine than it was before ― even if the pain was already breathtaking.

As soon as TK parked in front of their house, he took Carlos' hand in his, squeezing it lightly to wake him from his superficial sleep. The cop opened his eyes a bit confused, breathing in deeply before looking out the window and then turning to his boyfriend, who smiled sweetly at him.

Wordlessly, the pair got out of the car and made their way to the front door, Carlos always a step behind him as they went up the stairs. TK couldn't point out if it was Carlos' habitual protectiveness towards those who he cared about or some kind of embarrassment over the things he wished he didn't mind about, but TK decided it wasn't something he shouldn't ask. Not then, at least.

They walked around their house silently, taking their shoes off before walking to the living room, where TK put his cellphone and wallet over the coffee table. Carlos seemed scared, hiding in the shadows around the corners, almost unsure of what he was doing there ― and, damn, it hurt TK to see that. Even if the paramedic knew it had nothing to do with him or the two of them, seeing the man he loved so out of place in their own house was a dagger to the heart.

TK wanted to suggest something, but Carlos seemed so stuck in his head that he wasn't sure he would be heard. So, he went to the bathroom downstairs silently, taking more time than necessary to wash his hands just so he could see if Carlos would move. When he went back to the living room, his boyfriend wasn't there anymore.

Knowing that he probably needed some space to deal with what happened and with the fact that TK knew about it all, the paramedic found a few things to do downstairs. Putting more water in a bottle to put in the fridge, wash the pair of plates and coffee mugs they've left there in the morning, answer a few texts on their group chat and some others from Grace asking if they've made a safe ride home.

He also checked all locks and windows before taking his phone and slowly climb up the stairs, turning off the lights as he went to their room. There, Carlos was still in the bathroom, and TK plugged his charger before taking off his shirt and pair of jeans.

As he laid down, he could hear the shower on and smiled a bit that Carlos had enough disposition to let himself relax around warm steam. TK sighed, sinking under the covers and closing his eyes for a second to let his thoughts settle around his head.

A second might have been longer, though, when he opened his eyes to the turned-off bedroom lights and the only light source being the semi-open bathroom door from where he could see Carlos' reflection moving a bit. His heavy eyelids wouldn't let him sit up or even move too much, but he used all the strength he had to stay awake and stare as his boyfriend left the bathroom and turned that light off, too.

His head was down as he walked to their bed, and he seemed to hesitate for a second before swallowing hard and turning his body a bit, his direction changing from his to TK's side of the bed. The paramedic waited, just to see how carefully Carlos took the blankets off his body and then moved to crawl up the bed.

The mattress deepened, and TK inhaled sharply ― which made Carlos realize he was awake but didn't stop him from doing whatever it was. TK tried to see something in the dark, but Carlos' warm hand over his naked waist caused every nerve to relax, and his eyelids fell heavy once again. He was a little more alert, though, his worried side speaking loudly.

Carlos put himself between TK's legs, his body half over his, and wrapped his arms around the paramedic's waist, sighing heavily and placing his head in the middle of TK's abdomen. Instinctively, TK's hand was in Carlos' curls, and the cop felt like he could cry just with that touch again.

"Am I hurting you?" Carlos whispered in the dark. "Do you want me to move?"

"Nah," TK grumbled. "You okay?" he asked, and Carlos just stood quiet. TK didn't pressure him into saying anything, perfectly comfortable with whatever Carlos wanted to talk about.

The cop closed his eyes for a second and then exhaled wearily against TK's stomach. He moved his legs to tangle it with TK's and the blankets, the coldness of one bringing relief to his racing nerves.

"Not quite," he said. "I'll be."

TK hugged him the best he could manage to in their position, caressing Carlos' bare skin in comfort.

"Don't rush yourself into it," TK murmured. Carlos closed his eyes, ignoring a bit of a headache on the side of his temple.

"Won't," Carlos said, and TK knew he was telling the truth.

Because Carlos was kind, sweet, loving, and the easiest person to love. He's the kind of person the paramedic tried to avoid because TK simply knew that he would fall in love with him ― it was Carlos, after all, and TK knew better than trying to fool himself with the premise he could only do casual.

TK searched for questions without answers, and Carlos had all the answers TK wanted to find the questions to. He was pretty sure he could discover why the sky is blue in the brown of Carlos' eyes. He could find out why the languages change just by kissing his lips. The reason fire would burn would be written over Carlos' skin, and the sea could be explained but never compared to how deeply Carlos felt things.

TK was curious, indeed, but he didn't mind waiting for the answers if it meant he would discover Carlos page by page, breath after breath.

Carlos, deep down, couldn't wait to be deciphered, too. And he knew things would be better and would be good if he tried to see himself through somebody else's lenses. It would take time, effort, and much more talking than he liked to think about ― but it would be alright.

Because they didn't have to wonder if they'd be alone while trying to be better.

Because they didn't have to wonder what it would be like to share some of the weight.

Because the answers weren't written, and they could always wonder what they were.

Because, for now, it didn't hurt to breathe.

[high-warlock-of-brooklyn]

would things be easier if there was a right way? (honey there is no right way) (Ao3 link)

@thehuntersmoondiscord Masquerade Exchange for @valinphatombeliver (Hope you like it!)

Ships: Magnus Bane/Alec Lightwood (Alternate universe: This World Inverted) 

Summary: After that fateful party at the Institute, Magnus's magic is not the only thing that comes back. His soulmark feels alive again, and this time, Magnus is not alone. 

Alec feels like an idiot, betting his heart like that, especially after the sting of an almost rejected soulmark pains him worse than a broken heart. So he does the only thing he knows the best, he throws himself into work. 

Little do they know that the universe doesn't make mistakes, and will keep pulling them together till they both truly see the truth for themselves.

Alec feels sick.

He’s planned exactly one hundred seventy events in his career, big or small. He’s got a stellar reputation, his own party planner business, his schedule is booked for the next five months in advance, and he’s put the full deposit down for his own apartment in the middle of the city, all at the mere age of twenty seven.

And yet, every time, those words are like a punch to the gut he would never admit out loud to anyone. It’s his own fault, he supposes. That he has to hear it so many times in just a week. And that every time, it’s a false alarm.

Well, all but one.

This one seemed different. This one felt different. At least for Alec.

But then, at the end, another one bit the dust.

Isabelle had warned him, when he showed her the words the day after his eleventh birthday. She’d looked so sad when he first told her about the career he’s chosen. Alec never understood why, until he heard those words for the first time at the first ever event he planned, a small, intimate birthday party for a Manhattan socialite.

Check it again, I’m on the list.

It had felt like he’d been electrocuted, and Alec had dashed outside to the door as fast as he could, pulling down a tablecloth with him as he went, the groans and yells of the restaurant staff unheeded by his heart. But it had been the grandfather of the birthday girl, and a voice in Alec’s heart told him to wait a little bit longer for his soulmate.

That voice had died down entirely after his eighteenth event.

Until this evening at the party at the Institute. Until he felt compelled to let that man in. Until Magnus.

And now, standing here, helping his crew clean up after the party, Alec feels his guts twist in a flurry of emotions he is too tired to process.

Fuck this . He’s just put on the most unique and successful party the business world of New York has ever seen. He deserves a break.

Alec grabs a bottle of whiskey on his way out.

-------------------

The first time the words appeared into his hands, Magnus didn’t understand them.

It had been in a strange script, the letters so different from the ones he’d only started to get acquainted with. But by then he’d been part of something stranger, and started to live with a green-skinned man with horns and white hair who called himself a ‘warlock’, and had told Magnus that he was one too. So knowing his soulmate might be from a strange distant land didn’t seem as jarring as it would have been.

Then he’d lived through times that would have seemed as dreams in his childhood. He’d lived through his travels in the wonderful country of Peru, then had fallen in love with Imasu knowing he wasn’t the one, and had gotten his heart broken. Axel hadn’t even given him a chance, and from what Magnus saw peeking out of the cuffs of his shirt, he’d already found his soulmate in the French court.

The words didn’t lose their effect through the centuries however. Every time he heard someone say ‘ what seems to be the problem? ’, Magnus could feel his pulse racing, his heart swelling, his mind going berserk at the possibility of being united with the one he’d been destined to be with.

It wasn’t the case any of the times. Often it was a Shadowhunter, trying to maintain their precious Law so that no so-called troublemaker Downworlders wouldn't disrupt the precious ‘peace’ they insisted on withholding. Sometimes it was a particularly demanding client, and Magnus delayed more just to piss them off.

One time though, it was a Mundane who came to his rescue to smooth things over when the guard at a bar took offense at Magnus’s general existence. Etta had been a beauty both inside and out, and Magnus had been genuinely happy for her when she left once she found her actual soulmate.

It didn’t make him sad to lose her. She was a friend more than anything else, and her story gave him hope to hold on longer.

After that there was Camille. A force to be reckoned with. Camille, with her sharp edges and sharper fangs. Camille, who made him believe in a love through the ages, only to be betrayed brutally. Camille, who he was ready to beg to so she’d come back to him. Camille, who never told him that her soulmate died the day she was turned, which Magnus found out on his own the day after she cheated on him. Magnus had felt hollow, and empty, and felt like a fool for holding on to hope.

The day he finally closed hell off permanently, he’d lost more than just his magic. Magnus had given up on hope entirely.

Then there was that one boy at a party Magnus wasn’t even invited to. Alec had said those words, looking at Magnus with eyes devouring every single aspect of him. Magnus had half expected himself to turn around and leave. But then Alec had surprised him, and made him come inside.

But then there was a demon attacking Clarissa and the blond boy, the first demon in almost a century. And Magnus had almost forgotten about the boy with those hazel eyes by the time he rushed home, magic singeing the inside of his coat pocket.

It must’ve not been meant to be, Magnus thinks as he nurses the same glass of Rosé for almost an hour, the once warm bathwater now running cold. He pauses for a moment, thinking carefully about what he’s about to do.

Magnus waves a finger, the movement graceless, halted. But the sparks come out anyway, the bathwater warming, turning light pink as Magnus focuses on summoning a bath bomb from his collection in the cabinet near the sink.

Magnus smiles. His soulmate doesn’t want to find him. But that’s okay. He’s got his magic.

Everything’s going to be just fine.

--------------

Alec is, most definitely, not doing fine.

“I need this banner yesterday.” Alec rubs his temple letting out a tired sigh, “I literally needed that last night so my team can finish setting up, and now you’re telling me it’s still not ready?”

“I’m sorry, I don’t know what else to tell you. Our primary printer caught on fire and we had to unplug all of them to manage the fire before it went out of hand, and all our orders were cancelled from the queue.”

Alec scrubs his face with the back of his hand, and groans, “My assistant put in the request almost two weeks ago. This is for a dinner party at a multinational company, Andrew. And as we both know, the one of the only things those people spend ridiculous amounts of money on is the banner. I can’t throw a party without one.”

“I’m sorry, Mr Lightwood.” Andrew’s smile is genuinely apologetic. “There’s really not much we can do. If it helps, there’s another customer in booth number three whose banner we were printing when it caught on fire, and he’s been on the list for almost over a month.”

“Eesh, poor guy.” Alec winces.

“Tell me about it.” Andrew tsks. “And he’s a really sweet guy too. Some customers throw a hissy fit if we’re ten minutes late in delivering a order they’ve put in maybe an hour ago, and he’s really understanding and patient. But it’s for his psychic shop and he’s checking in maybe the tenth time now. Kaelie was just telling me that we might lose that account for good. I wouldn’t be surprised.”

Alec nods, then looks down as his phone pings with notifications from his team about going over swatch cards. “Andrew, is there nothing you can do? Is there no back alley super shady banner maker somewhere?”

“They make something vastly different than banners, Mr Lightwood.” Andrew chuckles good-naturedly, used to the antics of his long time customer. “Well, I could run to the place near 34th and Wilshire. My cousin works as a temp there. The price is way higher, but they can do a quick job.” Andrew taps away on his phone for a second. “Oh good, Artie says they’re open for another five hours at least.”

“Money’s not an issue.” Alec lets out a relieved sigh, and brings out his credit card. “You’re a lifesaver.”

“I know.” Andrew offers him a bright smile. “I’ll inform you as soon as it’s done.”

“Thank you.” Alec nods, before a thought flashes. “Oh, and, Andrew?”

“Yes, anything else, Mr Lightwood?”

“Yeah. I was thinking you could take the other guy’s order there too?” Alec jerks his head in the direction of the other booths in the shop, the silhouette of another customer visible through the blurry divider between the counters.

“That’s a good idea. I’ll ask him.” Andrew gets up to approach the man, but Alec stops him.

“Don’t tell him anything, just put the extra fee on my card.”

“But-”

“It’s okay,” Alec smiles.

Andrew shakes his head, his golden curls shaking with the motion. “You’re a good egg, Mr Lightwood.”

“Just paying it forward.”

---------------

The fire alarm goes off after the second time. Magnus groans as the noise threatens to invoke a migraine. At least he can use his magic to soothe it this time.

The same magic that caused the fire he’s been scrambling to put out for the past thirty seconds. For a small cauldron fire, the sparks are notoriously hard to douse. Being dormant for almost a century, and then suddenly trying to make a magical banner for his kinda-sorta psychic business would do that to a warlock’s magic, he supposes.

Maybe he should consult a spellbook or something. Only there’s no precedent for a banner making spell because graphic designed banners didn’t exist by the time magic was last used.

Well, first time for everything.

The doorbell rings, and Magnus sighs, trying his best to smooth down the no doubt wild hair he’s got from running his hand over and over through it. Pardon him, it’s been a very stressful day.

“Mr Bane? This is Sananda from the Banner Emporium. I have a delivery for you.”

The girl with a neon green streak in her braid hands him a large roll of paper, which Magnus holds up with more than a little difficulty.

“Sign here please.” The girl says, chewing gum disinterestedly. Magnus puts the banner down before taking the signing sheet.

“I thought the shop printer broke.” Magnus returns the sheet. “Did you guys fix it already?”

“No clue, I just work as delivery.” The girl shrugs. “My boss told me to make two deliveries only today, one to you and another to some party planner office. Guess they did some fixing, huh?”

Magnus smiles, tipping the girl a twenty. The girl offers a mock salute, and walks away humming the tune of a pop song. Magnus closes the door behind her, a smile slowly spreading on his face as he uncoils the banner.

Bane: Psychic and tarot card readings

It looks perfect. But Magnus doesn’t get long to marvel at it, because the phone rings. His old landline, which means only one person could be calling.

“Hello Ragnor.” Magnus answers, happy to talk to one of his oldest and closest friends after such a long time.

“Magnus, why didn’t you call me? I had to hear from Catarina that you might have met your soulmate?” Ragnor goes right to the point, tone accusatory.

Magnus takes comfort in the fact that while the whole world might change, Ragnor Fell, ever the a wonderful friend, never will. “I’m not even sure myself, how was I supposed to tell you? I’ve heard a thousand of those Ragnor, you know that better than anyone.”

“Still, Magnus.” Ragnor’s voice comes out tinny, “You don’t have to have the perfect relationship, because there is nothing like that in the world. All we can do is take a leap of faith, and hope that it’s not an abyss. But you have to keep taking that leap.”

“Why are you giving me relationship advice at what is supposed to be early morning at yours?” Magnus asks, eager to change the subject.

“Because I never needed mine, and I’m happy that way, yet I know how much you’ve waited for yours. One of these days, you’re going to have to seize the opportunity no matter what, and take a chance upon love.”

By the time Magnus hangs up, it’s been almost hours. Ragnor’s phones are a rare commodity, the warlock ever so averse of technology, and they do have almost three years worth of conversations to catch up on. Magnus is exhausted, and even though he hates admitting it, Ragnor is right. He could’ve stayed at that party, checked up on Clarissa and her boyfriend, made sure their memories didn’t resurface.

He could have stayed and danced with Alec too.

But he’s been so freaked out, he tells himself. He’s been out of his mind with worry for the demon attack and his magic and different worlds and his probably shoddy memory spellwork.

And maybe he’s also been afraid. Afraid that if he went after Alec, he’d risk everything, his life, his secrets, his meticulously prepared facade that he’s totally fine, especially with the explicit probability that he might not be Alec’s soulmate, even if Alec is his.

Ugh. Magnus scrubs his face with the back of his hand. What a mess this is.

Chairman struts his way into the drawing room, fresh up from a nap, and rubs his face into Magnus’s calf demanding pets. Magnus picks him up, scratching him under his chin. The cat purrs happily, and Magnus makes a decision.

---------------

“One honey macchiato with extra whipped cream please.”

Jace turns to see the man on the other side of the counter, a small frown on his face as he tries to place the face somewhere in his memory. Magnus shuffles from toe to toe, lips pinched together tensely. Jace regards him closely, and doubt rises in the back of Magnus’s mind.

Did he do a sloppy job?

It’s not an exact science, to be frank. Memory magic hardly ever is. It’s not quantifiable like potions, and definitely not by the book like a summoning. Memory magic is, at its root, intuitive. Blindly stumbling about in another person’s mind and hoping as hell that you didn’t erase some developmental memories.

And if anyone knows anything about Magnus, it is that he really isn’t a coffee man. Not anymore anyway. He used to be, once upon a bygone era, when waking up after a night of partying and starting the day with another bout of partying had to be connected with the help of a magically summoned cup of coffee. But those days are far gone, and Magnus mostly prefers his jasmine tea with a touch of honey. Which is why he came to Java Jace to check up on the blond. He’s no more his old self than his magic is controllable.

Still, he’d hoped that it would’ve come back like riding a bicycle.

That hope seems pretty bleak now, as Jace crosses his arms, narrowing his eyes at the man in a white cardigan in front of him. “Is this his way of apologizing to me after he criticized my barista skill yesterday?”

“Uh….what?” Magnus asks confusedly.

“I told him that honey macchiato is my least ordered item and literally he’s the only one who orders it and that’s why I have to keep an entire thing on the menu, and get honey from the supermarket too.”

“Sorry, I have no clue what you’re talking about.” Magnus winces.

“Wait, you don’t know the Lightwoods, do you?” Jace nods gravely, “And I just accused a customer for no reason at all, what a dumbass I am.”

“Don’t worry about it.” Magnus waves it off.

“No, no, seriously. Sorry man.” Jace goes to make the drink with a practiced hand. “But I have to say, you seem awfully familiar. Did I see you somewhere before? Maybe in college?”

“Uhh….” Magnus chuckles nervously, panic rising steadily in his heart, “I don’t think so. Unless you went to school in Indonesia.”

“That’s a no. Born in London but grew up here.” Jace nods. “Sorry, I can just really picture you and Clary inside a basement, I was there too.”

“Um-”

“Oh god that sounded so creepy. I swear it wasn’t something weird or anything, I can just remember feeling really scared all of a sudden. Maybe I should stop drinking from my own shop, huh?”

Jace’s casual grin does nothing to soothe Magnus’s nerves, and he smiles along politely, and sends wisps of magic through the minute contact between them as the barista hands over his order. Jace jolts immediately, looks down, curling and uncurling his fingers over and over.

“Everything okay?” Magnus asks tentatively. Jace throws an unsure smile his way.

“Yeah, just, almost burnt my fingers I guess. Hazards of working in the food industry, right?” Magnus doesn’t answer, instead brings out his card to pay, till Jace claps his hands loudly. “I knew it! I knew I remembered you from somewhere.”

Magnus’s heart sinks faster than lead in water, and he racks his brain for any spell that could come in handy for a quick memory erasure. Except it’s been over two centuries, and his memory is definitely not what it used to be when he used magic regularly.

“You’re that psychic right? The one Luke went to? You know, Luke Greymark? He owns a bookshop on the crossing of 22nd and Richardson.”

A breath of relief punches its way out of Magnus, shoulders sagging visibly. “Yes, I remember him. He’s a very good man.”

“He is.” Jace nods. “He’s my girlfriend’s godfather, actually.”

“Oh.” That’s all Magnus says, afraid to shake the still brittle effects of his spell. “Thanks for the coffee.”

“You’re welcome.”

---------------

“Dude, I almost lost a customer because of you today.”

“What?” Alec asks, half of his attention on his phone where his assistant’s been sending him swatches for their latest event. “No no no, pink’s all wrong.” Alec mumbles as he types, “Go for lilac, much more elegant.”

“Here you go, one honey macchiato with chocolate drizzle.” Alec reaches for the cup bindly, but is met with blank space. He looks up finally, only to meet with Jace’s unimpressed glare. “What? I’m arranging a gala for a very, very, very moody client. I mean ‘changes the guest list every three minutes’ kind of moody.”

“Ugh, whatever.” Jace hands him his coffee finally, wincing as Alec takes a sip of the still hot drink. “Seriously, how does that not burn your throat?”

“I’ve had a lot of practice.” Alec throws a lewd wink his way, making Jace throw a bunch of stirrers at him. Alec finally puts the phone down after a bout of rigorous texting, and looks up at Jace. “Now, what is this customer you were telling me about?”

“Just some psychic dude, came in and ordered that godforsaken drink you make me make you every morning. I half thought he was joking and you sent him.”

“I didn’t.” Alec shakes his head.

“Yeah, he told me. It’s all cool,” Jace shrugs. “Funny thing too, he seemed really sweet, and with a sweet tooth like yours. You would’ve liked him.”

“Uh huh.” Alec says off-handedly, already busy texting back to his team.

-----------------

The last gala Magnus went to was in 1903.

It’s been a hell of a time. Quite literally too, since a hellmouth opened in the middle of the dance floor. It had taken all the warlocks present to close it, and even then they couldn’t have done it without the Shadowhunters pouring in with weapons drawn.

It had also been the last time Magnus ever used magic in battle.

It seems that way now, bringing out the outfits that found their way in the back of Magnus’s closet, unused and unneeded for decades after decades. Magnus had lost touch with his magic, all warlocks did, but for someone like Magnus, someone breathing and living in magic day after day, needing it like air in his lungs, it had been drastic.

Magnus had cut ties with almost all of his old friends. It hadn’t been intentional, for most of the cases. Just seeing those warlocks ready and accepting eternity without magic made him despair far more than the actual reckoning of it. Catarina still comes around every few weeks, more often if she’s exhausted after an especially gruelling day at the ER. Ragnor still sends letters every few years aside from his phonecalls, his horned friend adamant on keeping the beautiful traditions of penpals alive by his sheer force of will.

But somewhere down the road, Magnus had stopped being the man he once was.

The clothes of an era bygone stare him in the eyes as he brings them out one by one- shirts, pants, breeches, boots, accessories that museums would give a limb and a half for.

The reason for all this, lies heavy at his desk in this other room.

Malcolm Fade was a wild man while he had magic. After losing his soulmate to the whims of the Nephilim, he’d grown almost mad it had seemed, until he lost his magic as well. Magnus had visited him a few times in the past, while everyone was still reeling from the loss of the Shadow World. Malcolm had seemed like his older self, more cheerful, more present in general. Magnus had been glad to see his old friend coming back to himself, and hoped this change will continue to be good for him.

It seems that his love for extravagant parties has not changed however.

The pale lavender envelope was hand delivered almost two days ago, making Magnus lose enough sleep over it already. What does it mean to have been invited to a gala, while his magic is back and in such a precarious way?

Magnus had stayed up staring at the invitation for hours, until he had decided to go at precisely 3:47 am, and to conceal the return of his magic until absolutely necessary.

Malcolm may be a friend, but he's a friend who suffered the loss of a soulmate, who Magnus last remembers having the Black Volume necessary for necromancy, and who isn’t above violence to get his Annabel back, if history is witness.

It’s better to bide his time. Learn to control it better.

And there's still a tiny part of him that thinks this is all temporary, and that this too will pass like a phase of the moon.

Magnus doesn’t pay any attention to that part, instead gathers up some clothes to take to the tailor nearby for a quick fitting.

---------------

“Holy fuck.” Alec gapes at the fabric lying on the fitting table at David’s tailor shop. It’s practically Manhattan’s worst kept secret at this point, that while a big name company may provide you a great designer dress or suit, you always come to David and his wife Genya for fitting. He’s seen them work wonders with his most nitpicky of clients, and for all the business the Lightwood name brings, he practically has an open access to the place.

The fabric’s unlike anything he’s seen before, the threadwork in gold and the artistically arranged deep brown buckles might seem too much, but yet it all ties perfectly together somehow.

“Is it the fabric you’re making my waistcoat in? Please say yes!” Alec tries to make a pleading face, but Genya hits his slouching back with the back of her measurement board.

“Stand still. Or I can’t work on you, and you can go wherever you’re going in this weird bulging state.” If it had been anyone else, Alec would’ve had a comeback, but Genya is a force to be reckoned with, and that eyebrow quirk is sure to leave his gambit backfiring. So Alec keeps his mouth shut, and the ginger hums appreciatively.

“This isn’t ours, sorry Alec.” David answers him with an apologetic smile.

“All good.” Alec offers, standing as still as possible, so as to not anger the seamstress currently working on the seam of his cuffs.

“That’s actually from one of our oldest clients.” Genya says, her voice muffled as she turns to work on Alec’s pants. “He came in and said his great grandfather had this made from us in the early 1900s. Said he’s going to a themed party and needed a refit.”

“Funny, the party I’m arranging is also themed around the early twentieth century.” Alec nods, before rolling his eyes. “Though honestly my client has made it into an hodgepodge if you ask me.”

“I’m sure you’re gonna do a wonderful job either way.” Genya offers, David nodding along with his wife.

They always seem such an odd couple, Genya with her fiery heart and strong smile and eager to talk to everyone, and David with his quiet sketches and always busy doing something . Alec has never seen two people so opposite, yet so in love.

His soulmark itches in the corner of his ribs, and Alec moves involuntarily, making Genya tut loudly. He doesn’t have time to think about wherever his soulmate is, whatever he’s doing.

He can’t.

That’s why he took this gig, after so many of his friends gave up trying to coordinate with Malcolm Fade’s- ahem, eccentric- choices. They all warned him about it, about the insufferability of it all, but he needed something, anything , after that day. Because no matter what he did, those kind brown eyes would come back to haunt him in his sleep, the smile in them so cruel, so mocking.

Genya taps on his shoulder, shattering his thoughts for the time being, and Alec’s grateful for the little intervention before his thoughts could turn dark like they’ve been for a few days now. Alec understands it, has heard of it. It’s the lack of the bond while coming so close to his soulmate. The bond is snapping forward, trying to find its twin, only to meet with emptiness.

Alec wants to rip it out of himself.

“Everything’s going to be okay, Alec. You’re going to be okay.” Genya says, not unkindly. She’s always had the uncanny ability to understand exactly what goes on inside someone’s head, and no matter how much Alec tries, it works on him nonetheless. It used to unnerve him, now it just feels familiar.

“I’m going to be more than okay,” Alec jokes, trying to lighten the mood, “I’m going to be fabulous in this suit. You’ve truly outdone yourself, David.”

The man in question only smiles a little, while Genya looks over her husband proudly, love shining in her blue eyes. Alec looks away from them, the bond screaming all alone in his chest. It’s too painful to look at people so clearly in love.

“When they come back to pick it up, tell them I said they have excellent taste.” Alec spares one last glance at the cloth lying on the table, before walking out to the counter.

---------------------

Magnus is late to his first proper gala in over a century.

It’s really the Chairman's fault, he sighs to himself. If the cat hadn’t decided to be an absolute arse today, he would’ve been out the door to get his waistcoat at least an hour earlier. It’s a miracle he’s not missing the party entirely.

Well, a miracle and maybe a little bit of magic.

Okay, maybe more than a little.

It’s dangerous to try out portalling at such an early stage of his magic’s comeback, Magnus knows. The theory has also been proven multiple times as he stumbled across a petting zoo in France and an abandoned ruins of a church in Rome for the past hour. It took him three tries to finally get the location right. At least, knowing New York traffic, he’s still earlier than it would’ve taken him in a taxi.

Maybe he shouldn’t have uninstalled uber so soon.

The doorman regards him closely, and Magnus feels himself stiffen under the strict scrutiny. He feels like an actor playing pretense, his clothes and makeup all done in the hands of a man he no longer is. But, it’s still fun to see so many familiar faces under the same roof.

Whoever planned this party did a wonderful job of it, Magnus thinks. The chandelier is reflecting all the disco lights currently hanging from the ballroom, a swath of artifacts and activities from several different decades all in the same place, as is Malcolm’s taste, Magnus remembers.

But there’s still order in this chaos, a type of organized mess of a beauty, and Magnus can appreciate it. His thoughts flow, unbridled, as he takes a glass of soda on the rocks from the bartender, about a similar party he went to not too long ago, and how everything changed since then.

His moment of tranquil appreciation is soon interrupted by a pink-skinned phouka slamming into him. Magnus loses balance at the collision, and the world flips the centre of gravity in a blink of an eye, his drink spilling everywhere.

“Shit.” Magnus swears low in his throat.

“Can’ye see w’er y’er goin’?” The phouka yells in a deep accent, startling Magnus.

“I’m sorry.” Magnus apologizes, knowing full well it was not, in fact, his fault. It’s not in his nature to cause conflict. Even if he’s the one drenched in soda.

Even if his magic is crackling at his fingertips for a retaliation.

“What seems to be the problem?”

Magnus feels his magic going into overdrive, his skin feels too tight- too hot- too everything . He’s feeling like he’s seeing the whole party from a different perspective, the colours feel more vibrant, the chandelier a little sparklier, the sweet stench of the spilled drink a little stronger.

He feels drunk without having a single sip of anything.

“This nothin’ nobody’s tryna ge’ in the par’y for a quick sip, I reckon. I doubt he’s even in the list Mr Fade gave’em.” The phouka gives him a dirty glance. Magnus considers baring his eyes- his true eyes- for him to see exactly who this ‘nothing nobody’ is.

He decides against it at the last moment, instead pulls himself to his full height, towering over the barely four feet tall fae. Magnus juts his chin out the way he’s seen his best friend do every time he asks Raphael for a movie night, puts his mask away, and buttons the open jacket, regardless of its now drenched state. “My name is Magnus Bane. Check your damn list again.”

“Magnus.”

----------------

Alec feels like he’s dreaming.

This party is a dream in itself, the setting is done deliberately to emulate a sort of dream like chaos. He’s chosen his own outfit accordingly, a white a black ensemble, with an elaborate angel mask that covers his cheekbones in what looks like wings.

He looks divine and he knows it.

He was ready to be a professional tonight, making sure everything goes off without a hitch, half because Mr Fade is late to his own party, and half because he had to be, because staying cooped up in his apartment with netflix and pizza sounds a lot less appealing than whatever happens here.

Even though his mind is swimming with pain from the almost rejected bond.

Even though the pain of it seems imprinted on his very soul.

But then there’s a disturbance, one of Malcolm’s tiny bouncers yelling at a man who smells like the kind of expensive soda Isabelle likes. A man wearing the same jacket Alec saw on David’s table only a few hours ago.

Alec had been delighted, ready to make conversation with the man wearing the jacket he’s been so fond of- the same man in that simple yet elegant black and white handheld domino mask, until he’d noticed his eyes.

Until he’d said those words.

Alec feels the floor tilt from under him, every inch of his body screaming to go up to him, to introduce himself, to dance with him until they can’t anymore. It seems like a different sort of madness, and Alec’s not sure he’s objecting.

“Magnus?” He asks, hope blossoming like ivy under his skin.

“Alec.”

His name on those lips is what leaves Alec undone. All his professionalism, all his suaveness, everything Alec Lightwood ever is or ever will be, concentrated on those two syllables from the man Alec has waited a long- maybe too long- to meet.

Alec starts forward, a step taken almost unconsciously, his words warm against his ribs. Magnus has put his mask down minutes ago, and as he looks at his face, Alec feels like he’s falling into a never ending tunnel of love.

Those simple strokes of metallic eyeliner, like starlight bathed in gold. And in between them, the kindest, most beautiful eyes he has ever seen.

“Magnus.” Alec chokes out again, unable to say anything else. Magnus stretches a hand out for him to hold, and Alec takes it like a drowning man being offered a raft.

It takes him a moment to realize that the words have stopped hurting, as if a simple touch from Magnus have doused the burning flame into cool waves of calm.

---------------

Magnus takes a leap of faith.

Alec’s voice feels choked, like it hurts him to breathe anymore, and Magnus feels his whole life flash in front of him, all eight hundred years of it. It’s been too long, far too long, since he’s taken a chance on love. He’s gone cozy in his little comfort zone, happy to stay unrejected.

But he doesn’t want to do that anymore. So he offers a hand, a simple gesture masking a thousand words.

I’m sorry it took me so long.

I’m sorry I ran away.

I’m sorry I didn’t look for you.

I’m here, and I’m not going anywhere else.

Alec catches his hand, holding him close like the only hope in his whole world, and Magnus feels like he’s weightless, floating on clouds.

“Dance with me?” Alec asks, the question more of a request than anything else.

Magnus doesn’t find it in himself to say no, and quite frankly, he doesn’t want to either. So he smiles, eyes crinkling with hope and happiness and possibility. “I thought you’d never ask.”

------------

The fast pop music changes into a slow waltz as the two of them go down to the dancefloor, a round ballroom stretching almost fifty meters every which way. Alec pulls Magnus right underneath the enormous chandelier, the reflected golden light painting them both in halos. They sway together, happy to just be close for the moment, and Alec is grateful. He doesn’t have it in him to talk right now, not when everything feels too perfect and too much like everything he’s ever wanted.

Finally, the music ends, and Magnus looks at him for a long moment right in the middle of the dance floor. Alec feels uncharacteristically nervous, everything he is laid bare in front of his soulmate. But he doesn’t shy away, instead he meets his gaze head on, before Magnus grabs his hand. Alec lets himself be led out of the ballroom, away from the crowd, finally stopping at the adjoined balcony, away from prying eyes.

“I’m sorry about the other day.”

“I thought I’d never see you again.”

Both men speak at the same time, before pausing to comprehend what just happened. A small smile graces Magnus’s face, and Alec wants to live in it, revel in it, spend his forever in it.

“I’ll go first,” Magnus says, “I’m sorry I walked out on you abruptly that day. There was an emergency and I had to leave.”

“Emergency?” Alec asks, concerned, “Is everything okay?”

“Yes, of course. Everything is fine.” Magnus assures him. “Just- I told myself I left for that reason only, but the truth is, I was scared. I’ve heard those words a million times before, and every time they scarred me like a blade. I was so scared- scared of everything that I would be taking a chance on- afraid what I would be risking. I’m sorry. Really really sorry.”

“You don’t have to apologize,” Alec stops Magnus, clasping both his hands with his own, “I could have looked for you, tried to understand why you left, why you didn’t talk to me. I’ve heard my words too, over and over and over again. Until they hurt like a million paper cuts at the same time. And- and after you, I was so caught up in my own hurt, I didn’t stop to think there could be a second explanation.”

“I’m so sorry.” Magnus lowers his eyes, guilt overflowing his heart.

“Don’t be. Please don’t be.” Alec brings up Magnus’s hands, kissing them both, “You came back to me, that’s all that matters. I’m so so so happy to see you again.”

“This whole time I’ve been running up and down the whole city, trying to forget you somehow , but it’s like the more I tried to forget everything, the more the world just pulled me towards you.” Alec lets out a surprised chuckle. “I tried to plan a corporate party, but the banner place fucked up, and I had to get it done from somewhere else, and they told me about this other guy who’d been the same kind of bindup like me, and that he’s sweet and polite and that he’s been trying to get his banner for weeks, and all I could picture was you, and I just- I just couldn’t not help him.”

Magnus feels recognition hit him full force. “You’re the one who told Andrew to get my banner done in time?”

Alec stares at him for a full minute before speaking. “Oh god. Please don’t tell me it was you who went to Jace’s to get the same order as me.”

“You know Jace?”

“Our parents are high school friends, we practically grew up together.” Alec explains. “Honey macchiato?”

“Honey macchiato.” Magnus smiles, the two sharing a secret between just them under the night sky while the party rages on inside.

“And you were at David and Genya’s,” Alec says half to himself, before smiling mirthfully, “I told them to tell the owner of the jacket that they have great taste.”

“And?” Magnus goads him on.

“And I’ve decided that the owner has amazing taste, especially in soulmates.” Alec winks. “Though their taste is not enough to rival my own, because my soulmate is better, prettier, more amazing, than everyone else in the world. Brighter than all the stars in the sky.”

Magnus sputters for a second at the compliment, splotchy blush blooming on his golden cheeks as he ducks his head. Alec can’t stop grinning.

“Can we get out of here?” Magnus says in a stroke of sudden confidence, the surety in his voice evaporating as soon as the words leave his lips.

Alec makes an exaggerated gesture of being surprised, and Magnus can’t be annoyed with him even if he wanted to. “Mr Bane. Oh my. So forward.”

“You don’t have to.” Magnus adds quickly. “I get it, this is your event, and we can leave once it’s over. It’s okay.”

“I didn’t say that, Magnus.” Alec practically bounces the way to the reception, and signs off on a few papers, before explaining some things to his assistants. All the while holding Magnus’s hand in his own, like it’s his second nature by now.

Magnus feels like he’s walking on sunshine.

-------------------

Later, Magnus and Alec stumble into his shop-in-apartment in Brooklyn, tangled together with limbs and mouths and hearts and bonds, losing touch with the reality of where one begins and another ends, words of love and promises whispered into every kiss.

I love you.

I’m not going to leave.

We’re together.

Everything’s going to be alright.

----------------

[lady-literature]

for us to collide (part 4)

anyway who actually expected me to end this thing in 4 chapters lol

rip me ig

Read on Ao3 | part 1 | part 2 | part 3 | part 4 | part 5 (final) | deleted scene

After the not-so-impromptu interrogation courtesy of her friends (because there was no way they hadn’t planned that, it was too coordinated) Robin doesn’t stop by for two weeks.

Which is… fine. Marinette is plenty busy anyways. The extra time she has free now that she isn’t entertaining a bratty vigilante, goes to more productive uses of her time. Like watching bad horror movies with her friends and jeering at the horrible acting and special effects.

(Red Hood stops by in the middle of watching Grizzly Rage and proceeds to rant for twenty minutes about ‘shitty, unrealistic blood splatters’. Marinette has long since passed the point of being worried about it.)

So, yeah. She doesn’t see Robin.

But Damian, oddly enough, seeks her out.

It’s early, and there isn’t anyone else in the studio right now which means Marinette has her music blasting and she’s humming along as she hand paints silk for Clara’s dress. It’s loud and she’s in her zone, so it’s only by Tikki warning her that she realizes someone entered her sanctuary.

Her eyebrows raise when she sees who it is.

“Uh, bonjour Damian," she greets confusedly, reaching over to lower the volume on her speakers. "I hadn’t expected to see you here. Is there something you need?”

He stops before her workstation, only slightly bigger than the ones the rest of her staff use due to the sheer amount of open commissions she normally has. She has an actual office on this floor, but Chloé uses it more than she does. Marinette likes the open space and being around her designers more than she likes the privacy.

His eyes catch on the two bouquets of flowers she’s yet to take home, neither of which have even begun to wilt—and likely won’t. (She’ll have to take them home soon before people start asking questions.)

“I was called here by Father, but he’s currently indisposed. I’ve been told to wait.”

She waits a moment for him to continue, and when he doesn’t, she asks, “So you came to visit me?”

“Yours is the only tolerable presence to be found.” His lips purse, and he crosses his arms. “And that includes that imbecile Drake who is no doubt still in his office like the pitiful insomniac he is.”

Her tongue is already halfway around a joke about excuses—she didn’t befriend Felix for nothing, okay? She knows how people like Damian work—when she realizes what he just said.

“Wait. Tim’s been here all night?”

Damian snorts. “He certainly didn’t return to the manor.”

She’s out of her seat in an instant, frowning and muttering up a storm as she rummages through the storage cubes pushed up against the far wall. She has a blanket, pillow and plain cotton shirt in her hands before Damian registers that she even moved.

“I’m going to kill your brother,” she says simply. “Would you like to come with?”

She’s gotten closer to Tim since working in Wayne Tower. He’s a notorious recluse and rarely leaves his office when he’s in the building, but Marinette makes it a point to visit him during lunch and before she leaves for the night.

He isn’t one of her Waynes, but he is a Wayne and her Waynes love and care for him so there’s not much of a difference really. She does like to think they might be something close to friends at this point though. And if the way Tim comes down to visit whenever he ventures out of his office means something, she might even be right.

Another thing that should be noted, is that Marinette is very much a ‘ride or die’ kind of person when it comes to the people she cares about. She will ruthlessly bully her loved ones into taking better care of themselves on threat of death because she is the semi-hypocritical mom friend and damn proud of it.

Damian looks her up and down, eyes lingering on the items in her hands and the determined set to her jaw and says, “Of course.” Then he’s plucking her things from her hands, offering her his arm and saying, “Shall we?”

Marinette laughs as she loops her arm with his. “We shall.”

***

She spends ten minutes scolding Tim before wrangling him onto the couch in his office and wrapping him up in the blanket so tightly he’d need to be an escape artist to get out of it. He tries to struggle anyway, but Marinette has too much practice at this and he doesn’t stand a chance in hell.

Damian stands at her shoulder and smirks the entire time, eyes dancing with amusement as she forces the CEO of Wayne Enterprises to take a fucking nap. Then, she’s treated to the sound of his surprised laughter as she begins switching out all of Tim’s regular coffee for magic-decaf—not that Damian knows it’s magic.

(By the devilish smirk playing at his lips, she’s starting to think that maybe Damian really is just as sadistic as Duke and Jason say he is.)

***

Damian starts dropping by more often after that (read: starts dropping by at all). Not that Marinette minds. She quite likes his company, actually.

He normally stops by first thing in the morning when Marinette is the only one in the workshop, walking in like he owns the place. For the first couple days, he asks about Ladybug and the rest of Paris’ Court, claiming that he’s curious about them.

She answers them, but only as far as she’d answer them for any reporter and is careful not to give away any sensitive information not known to the public. He gets a bit frustrated at one point, complaining that she must know more, but she stays stubbornly silent about it and, sometimes, steers the conversation deftly to the Great Bat and his Flock instead.

He eventually stops asking about the Parisian superheroes and instead their morning conversations turn to a thousand random things. Complaints and anecdotes and a silly back and forth between the two.

Marinette’s never been much of a morning person but having Damian there to keep her company is… nice.

She almost finds herself looking forward to mornings now.

***

When her Waynes learn that she’s started a food kitchen and makes a habit of spending her weekend there, they immediately insist on joining her, despite her protests.

“You guys really don’t have to do this,” she says even though the three of them are already in their aprons and Cass is eyeing the boucher, Vivian, and her collection of knives with glittering interest.

Duke grins at her, “We know, M. But we want to.”

Jason finally turns back to her from where he’s been staring at the kitchen with something just shy of awe on his face. “You’re downright incredible, you know that?” he waves a hand out at the seating area, and then at the people in the kitchen assembling the healthiest and cost-efficient meals she and Felix could find after days spent researching. “I would’ve killed for something like this when I was on the streets.”

“It’s not just me who’s got this up and running-” she tries protesting but then Fiona, the woman Marinette actually put in charge of this place, is at her side and all but shoving the four of them into stations.

Marinette ends up by the pastries, like always, and she can see Jason making sandwiches. Duke's been roped into making eggs and bean casseroles and Cass, by some grace, actually ended up by Vivian and is having a blast cutting up all the meats as fast as she can.

They don’t stop until lunch, all four of them helping prepare meals for the upcoming week in bulk. After, they all go out for ice cream by the pier and Jason smears chocolate on her nose and Duke carries her around on his back when she complains about being tired.

Cass takes pictures of it all and later, Marinette gets them all printed out.

It ends up being a really good day.

***

The buzz from the charity gala and all the press regarding her and Damian’s non-existent relationship had calmed down weeks ago. There was still the odd article about Marinette being seen with her odd assortment of Waynes and the newspapers still called her ridiculous names when they got a picture, but it was about as close to normal as she gets.

The quiet lulled her into a false sense of security.

Ice Prince and Sweetheart Finally Seen on Date: Fairy Tale Romance or Publicity Stunt?

The ‘date’ in question was a coffee and lunch run for her designers and also Tim (because kwami knew he'd work through lunch if allowed).

Damian normally didn’t stay past Lilliane arriving in the morning (the poor dear was chronically late and always the last to arrive) but he hadn’t shown up until after she came that day and overcompensated by hours—which she hadn't minded. He kept to the fringes of her workspace and didn't distract her, instead focusing on his own thing. She wasn’t quite sure what he was up to, but she knew he was switching between his computer and sketchpad every so often.

(She's pretty sure he was hiding from Dick for some reason. He’s the only Wayne brother who doesn’t visit her at work, seeing as they have their bi-weekly gymnastic sessions; recently, with the addition of Mar’i, who still calls her ‘twin’ and whom Marinette still adores.)

And then lunch had rolled around, and it was Marinette’s turn to go out so she brought Damian with since he was still there.

They were out together for forty-five minutes. Tops.

“Why me?” she whines into the surface of her desk.

Damian, the asshole, just laughs at her and she can’t even be mad about it because he’s only just started laughing around her and not hiding behind so many of his walls. He laughs and Marinette knows it's precious so instead of shooting him the glower he deserves, she finds herself having to hide the smile slowly creeping on her face.

***

They’re splashed across the papers again less than a week later, only this time she has her Waynes there too.

Marinette's wearing her bright red sundress and she's somehow convinced Damian to wear a jacket with elaborate crowns and snowflakes embroidered up the sides. Because, as Chloé says: if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em.

They see the camera this time and the photo splashed across the page the next day is of Marinette laughing with Jason’s arm slung across her shoulders as both he and Damian flip off the camera. Meanwhile, Duke and Cass stand just far enough in frame to capture their expressions of pain and amusement respectively.

(Marinette makes a mental note to order apology gift baskets for the PR department.)

There are a lot of headlines the next day about Marinette’s ‘harem of Waynes’ and how she’s a ‘horrible influence on such bright children’. She spends about ten minutes trying to decide whether she should be horrified or laugh at the sheer ridiculousness of it and eventually decides on both.

Adrien, the little shit, sees the headline and immediately prints it out to hang in her kitchen.

It reappears every time she tries to take it down.

***

Gotham does not smile upon daytime heroes.

Not to say that Gotham really smiles on anyone, but it’s especially vicious to those that think they’re owed anything. She’s heard the way Gothamites talk about Superman and The Flash—it’s not exactly what one would call adoring.

But Ladybug's been a daytime hero her entire career and it is not difficult to see that there's something distinctly different about the way daytime heroes and Gotham’s vigilantes operate.

Something more vicious, maybe; something more restrained.

Without the light of day and without the people’s eyes watching them at every moment, the Gotham Bats have become something else entirely.

Signal, their Daytime Protector, is especially strange.

A bat who's meta, straddling the line between day and night. The Day Patrol, trained by the night.

Sometimes, when she and Signal talk about heroing, there is such an odd type of disconnect that it throws her. Nothing horrible or major, but little things she’s sure she wouldn’t notice if she wasn’t so intimately familiar with it all herself.

They don’t always talk about heroing though. After two months, Ladybug is proud to say she seems to be worming her way past his outer shell nicely. He tried so hard to keep his distance from her, but Ladybug’s always liked a challenge, and it isn’t long before she has him relaxing around her. 

Well, for a definition of relax anyway. He's still a bat after all.

But then, it’s pretty easy to get past Signal’s barriers when she’s already had practice breaking through the more stubborn bats like Robin and, to an extent, Hood. Not that Signal, or any of the bats, know that.

Which, speaking of the bats, isn’t it a bit weird she’s only met three spread across two of her alter egos? As Ladybug, she’d expect to be hounded by a few of them but the only one she’s met is Signal. She can’t decide if it’s because he’s the only one that operates in the daylight, or if they just don’t want to spook her into running or something.

Either way, they’re going to start giving her a complex. She’s heard so much about the rest of the Batfamily, and not one of them even wants to meet her? Either her?

(Maybe Marinette should ask Robin and Hood what’s up with that? The way they talk about how nosy Red Robin is, she’s surprised he didn’t drop by months ago and- is it weird that she’s offended by vigilantes not prying into her private life?

…Probably.)

***

Marinette blinks, stopping dead in her tracks.

Damian's on her fainting couch, sketchpad in his lap as he waits for her.

“Why are you wearing a beanie?” she blurts out instead of greeting him like a normal person. "You never wear beanies."

Luckily, Damian scowls at her question rather than at her. It’s a subtle but very important difference.

“Sorry,” she apologizes anyway, putting her bag down. “I haven't had coffee yet.”

He hums, then nods to her desk where she finds a steaming to-go mug. Her face lights up and she quickly snatches it, breathing deeply the lovely aroma. “You’re a godsend.”

That brings a quirk to his lips, closer to a smirk than a smile, but progress nonetheless.

After a moment, where she sips at her overly sugary monstrosity—just the way she likes it, when had Damian even noticed that?—and he continues sketching she asks again. “Okay but, I actually am kinda curious. What’s up with the hat?”

He sighs heavily, closing his pad. “It’s… better than the alternative.”

Marinette snorts. “Alternative to what? A top hat?” But instead of snapping back like she expects, he just continues to frown. Immediately, her lips turn down into a concerned frown. “Is there something wrong?”

“Yes,” he grounds out and Marinette puts her coffee down. She’s just about to open her mouth and say something else when he reaches up and rips the beanie off his head.

For the second time in less than five minutes, she stops dead.

Marinette opens her mouth. Closes it. Blinks, but the scene doesn't change.

His hair is still blue.

Damian Wayne's hair is blue.

Damian Wayne’s hair is vibrantly electric blue.

Her hand shoots up to cover her mouth as she tries to stifle her giggles.

Damian’s scowl deepens. He moves to shove his ridiculous beanie back on his head but her hand snaps out before he can.

“No! No, I’m sorry I just-” she giggles again. “You looked so upset by it and you took me by surprise. I like it!”

He glares up at her, still sat on the fainting couch so it’s her who has the height advantage for once.

“Don’t patronize me.”

She rolls her eyes, the hand that wasn’t settled on his arm reaching up to touch the bright strands. It's slow enough that he can stop her, but he, surprisingly, makes no move to.

His hair is a lot softer than she expects it to be. But she supposes he didn’t use that gel stuff today, planning on keeping his hair under a hat the whole time.

“It looks good on you,” she says softly.

He snorts disbelievingly and she smacks his shoulder lightly. “It’s true! I swear you could look good in any color.” She clicks her tongue longingly. “I wish I had your skin tone. I’m too pale to wear pastels like I want.”

He wrinkles his nose at her. “Pastels?”

“Oh you hush,” she quips, finally pulling her hand from his hair. “Anyway, if you don’t like it, why’d you dye it blue in the first place?”

“I… lost a wager with Todd.”

She laughs, starting to move around and get ready for the day. She doesn’t have any meetings scheduled, which means she gets the whole day to create. She’s pretty excited about it.

“I should’ve guessed it was Jason’s doing.”

Damian shrugs, settling back into the cushions. He drapes himself across them in a way that’s effortlessly elegant and like he’s ready to be photographed for a magazine cover or something. Must all her friends be so pretty? It’s playing hell on her self-esteem.

“But blue is your favorite color, right? So there’s that at least.”

Damian hums. “Todd had threatened to dye it pink or some other equally garish color.”

“Hey!” she exclaims in mock outrage. “What’s wrong with pink? I’ve been wanting to dye my hair pink for ages.”

“Nothing. It’s just simply not a color I appreciate.” He makes a face. “Like orange.”

Marinette huffs, but there’s a smile on her lips. It's quiet for a moment, for long enough that she thinks the conversation's been dropped. But then-

“Why don’t you?”

“Huh?”

“Why haven’t you dyed your hair?” he repeats. “Your friends—Couffaine and… Kubdel? They both have colored hair.”

Marinette shrugs. “I dunno. Never got around to it I guess. I suppose I could do it now. Dye mine in solidarity,” she jokes. “Oh! We could match even! Wouldn’t that be fun?”

“I thought you wanted pink?”

“Well, yeah. But blue is nice too. Besides,” she smiles wryly over her shoulder, “you just said pink was ‘garish’.”

Damian frowns slightly, shaking his head, “On me, perhaps. But I think you’d look very fetching in pink.”

“Oh,” Marinette pauses, feeling her face grow warm at the sudden compliment. “Well- Uh, pink it is, then.”

***

(Damian watches the blush rise on her cheeks as she turns away to try and hide it. Yes, he can’t help but think, fetching in pink, indeed.)

***

Luka insists on being the one to dye her hair, citing that he’s the one who had dibs all these years, but Alix and Jason both all but demand to be there too.

Her bathroom is not big enough for all four of them to sit in.

Not a single one of them cares.

Cass and Duke ask for progress pics along with Uncle Jay, and all her Parisian friends cycle through standing at the bathroom door to see how it's going.

The constant stream of people looking at her makes her feel not unlike an animal at a zoo. (When she wryly tells this to Alix, all she gets is her friend cackling on the ground.)

But, after all the bleaching and conditioning and waiting, she stares into the mirror with soft pink hair the color of bubblegum and thinks, yeah, it was worth it.

She thinks it again when Damian walks in the next day and almost trips over his own feet.

(She’s also wearing her Robin themed sundress, complete with hood, matching boots and personal touches not found on the mass-produced version—but Marinette doesn’t know why that would be relevant.)

Her favorite reaction to her new hair color though is, by far, Mar’i’s.

Marinette doesn’t see the young Grayson until a week later when she’s invited to the monthly family dinner Alfred insists all the Waynes attend—which includes her now, apparently (she tries not to show how pleased she is by that).

She arrived with Damian, who was kind enough to pick Tim and her up from work, and Mar’i takes one look at Damian and her standing next to one another before she starts babbling excitedly about Lilo and Stitch and Angel. A character who is—apparently—Stitch’s girlfriend and the complimentary pink to his blue.

Marinette is momentarily surprised, but Mar’i’s enthusiasm is contagious and it isn’t long before the rest of the Waynes are teasingly calling them Angel and Stitch. Marinette thinks it’s all very funny and adorable.

Damian, on the other hand, most certainly does not and threatens everyone who calls him that ‘ridiculous nickname’ with graphic depictions of bodily harm.

‘Angel’, oddly enough, sticks for Marinette. She finds she kind of likes it.

***

Later, Damian asks her about nicknames.

Well, he calls them ‘asinine titles’ and doesn’t so much ask as demand she explain why she allows anyone to call her by them seeing as she has a ‘perfectly serviceable name,’ in his opinion.

Ignoring the fact that she’s heard Dick call him multiple nicknames he hadn’t protested to, she says, “Well, I guess it’s that everyone uses Marinette. A nickname is something… special. A little more personal, I guess. And, I dunno. My parents named me Marinette, but it’s nice to share something between other people. And it shows they care.”

Damian looks confused after she’s done, but also thoughtful. He doesn’t say anything to that and Marinette doesn’t really expect anything to come of it.

She's proven wrong when, a week later, Damian calls her Starling instead of Marinette.

(And the transition from Dupain-Cheng to Marinette had been enough to make her beam—this is just ridiculous.)

***

When Robin disappears a second time, Marinette doesn’t get the chance to notice his absence on her own. He’s only stopped showing up four days ago—which is longer than normal, but not unheard of—when she hears unfamiliar voices on her balcony.

Looking out, she finds three semi-familiar individuals clustered around the plate of treats she leaves out for Robin and Hood.

Nightwing and Red Robin are both stuffing their faces full of the fruit tarts she had made while Spoiler glares at them and seems to be cursing the fact that her mask covers her mouth the same way Hood always does when she makes those raspberry scones he likes.

The scene is… odd. For many reasons but most pressingly that their arrival has come out of nowhere.

“Well,” Nightwing explains when she asks, “We wanted to visit ages ago, but baby bird threatened to stab us all if we tried.”

“He’s very… particular about you,” Red Robin tacks on while Spoiler nods sagely like she hasn’t crafted some strange straw monstrosity just so she can drink tea while still wearing her mask. Red Robin has one too, but his for the aesthetic rather than out of necessity.

Marinette stares at the three of them. “That… does not explain why you are here now.”

“Robin can’t stop us now, obviously,” Red Robin says casually, like he hasn't just kicked her heart into high gear with a few words.

“What? Why?” she demands, trying very hard not to sound panicked. “Is he okay? Was he hurt?”

Red Robin blinks, going quiet in that way Hood and Robin do when they’re judging her just a bit. She hates this family.

“No, he’s… fine.”

“B’s just benched him for the time being,” Nightwing helpfully supplies, amusement flickering at the edges of his lips. “He’s a little too… conspicuous at the moment.”

Marinette’s shoulders relax even as her brows furrow. Conspicuous? What in the world is that supposed to mean?

“Does that mean he won’t be coming around for a while?” she asks before she can think better of it.

The three vigilantes in front of her share a look before Spoiler says, “Probably. But the gremlin’s never been one to sit still so who knows?” she smiles, eyes crinkling at the corners as she leans toward Marinette conspiratorially. “But don’t worry. We can keep you company in the meantime!”

“We’re much better company than the demon anyway. Certainly less insulting.”

“Oh, he’s not that bad. He’s an ass, for sure, but you can tell when he means it and when he’s just stumbling over himself.” Marinette smiles fondly, “For someone so dignified, he trips over his tongue quite often.”

Now the vigilantes are really staring at her. She’s starting to feel pretty uncomfortable about it all when Nightwing beams at her, jumping up from his seat to sweep her into a hug. It startles her, but she doesn’t push him away, instead laughing at the sudden affection.

“Oh you really are perfect!” he exclaims, setting her down and still grinning like an absolute lunatic.

She’s smiling, because Nightwing’s joy is infectious, but she's even more confused than before. And then, before she can ask what he means, Red Robin’s wrist computer lights up—and damn, isn’t that cool? Marinette wonders if Tikki could do something like that for the Ladybug suit—and the three are moving to swing back out into the night.

She waves them off and they all promise to visit again.

Marinette shakes her head before going back inside with the empty pastry plate and four empty mugs.

***

Damian knows of Marinette’s friends of course. It'd take more effort not to when she talks about them every chance she gets and tells him all the wild stories about their escapades and misadventures.

(They also all came up in the background check he ran on her when they first met.)

Most of her friends are exceedingly normal oddly enough. Well, they’re all mildly famous and the leaders of their various fields, but they’re just civilians.

The only exceptions being, Bourgeois, Agreste, and Graham de Vanily.

Bourgeois is a former hero like Marinette, only she doesn't seem to still be in contact with the Parisian Court. All the articles he could find spoke about how Queen Bee was deemed unfit for her mantle and later replaced by the new bee hero, Ambrosia. Agreste was caught up in the scandal of his father being Hawkmoth, but he was found innocent and ignorant of his father's crimes (something Damian made sure to confirm). He now works at and is being groomed to own the bakery Marinette's parents run, seeing as their daughter has little interest to do it herself.

And finally, Graham de Vanily, Agreste's cousin, has a history of causing trouble wherever he goes. Nothing villainous, and rarely even malicious, but there's something about him that makes the hair on the back of his neck stand up. Not everything is as it seems with the Graham de Vanily heir.

Besides those three outliers, Marinette's friends seem to be untouched by the vigilante life. Which means he thinks they must be utterly boring.

Only, when her friends start coming around to visit and drag her out for lunch or some other random outing, Damian keeps finding himself baffled by each of them.

They act strangely and with a dangerous air none of them should possess, except for Tsurugi. The questions they ask him are strange and the jokes they make have no sense. He's been warned about how he better treat Marinette so many times, he's started to lose count. (Which is ridiculous. He treats her just fine and would never intentionally harm her. What are they trying to insinuate?)

But, by far, his most memorable encounter is with Lahiffe. A veritable wolf in sheep's clothing.

Marinette is excitedly babbling about her newest idea for her summer collection, pressed up against him on the chaise and practically shoving her sketches in his face as she demands his critique and thoughts.

Her hands are waving every which way and, on more than one occasion, he has to quickly lean back so she doesn't hit him in the face.

He’s focusing on what she’s saying so much—because she has a habit of forgetting things if she doesn’t write them down and needs someone to remind her of the ideas she had at a later time—that he doesn’t even realize Lahiffe is there until he clears his throat.

Marinette jumps, almost elbowing him in the stomach. “Nino!” she shouts, springing up and flinging herself at the other man who catches her like this is something she does often.

“Heya, Nettie.”

“Wait- what are you doing here? You’re not-” she jolts back to look at Lahiffe’s amused expression. “Oh kwami, is it time already? Shit. I wasn’t paying attention. I’m so sorry! I have to give this one thing to Publishing but then I promise we can go, okay? Like, just five minutes!”

She's already moving before she finishes speaking, sweeping up papers and rearranging files and putting things away with all the swiftness and agility of a speedster. Damian watches her go about her routine, occasionally handing her something she’s dropped or pointing out a thing she’s missed, weaving around her chaos with practiced ease.

Then she’s sweeping out of the office with a distracted “be right back!” and he’s alone with Lahiffe.

The second Marinette leaves, the man’s attention swings onto him with a strange weight. For a long moment, he doesn’t say anything and Damian’s hackles raise with every passing second.

He doesn’t snap at him though, because he’s one of Marinette’s friends. Insulting him would only serve to make her upset and that’s something Damian's been trying to avoid causing as of late.

“Man,” Lahiffe says at last. “Alix wasn’t kidding about the whole besotted thing, huh?”

Damian rears back, straightening up to his full height. “I beg your pardon?”

Lahiffe laughs and waves his hand about like that’s supposed to mean something. “Ah, no need to be embarrassed about it, dude. You’re far from the first of us to fall for her charms.”

“What.”

“Yeah, we've all been there. I think over half of the Paris crew crushed on her at some point, including myself. None of us are into her like that anymore, so as long as you treat her right, you got nothing to worry about."

“I’m not- I'm not interested in Marinette,” Damian tries to protest but Lahiffe just calmly steamrolls over him.

“Nah. Everyone loves Nettie. It’s universal law or something. First, there was me and Adrien, then Luka—who she actually liked back for a while there but are now practically siblings. Chloé liked her in collége, but she hadn’t really come to terms with that at the time. Alix might’ve, but she’s pretty grey-ace and fluctuates on the romance points, so who knows.

“Oh! And Nath. He also snagged a date with her, but he was an Akuma at the time so I’m not technically sure that it counts. And he’s with Marc now anyway. Thinking of adopting a kid, last I heard. Anyway- my point was: everyone loves Nettie. And don’t bother trying to fight it, because it only makes her pull of gravity worse.”

Lahiffe then claps him on the shoulder like their talk amiable and not the most confusing speech Damian’s ever heard.

And then he doesn’t even get to say anything to that because Marinette is sprinting back through the door, grabbing her jacket and bag, telling him goodbye, and dragging Lahiffe out to who knows where.

Damian stands there longer than he cares to admit trying to make the world make sense again.

***

A week and a half after she learned Robin was benched, Damian catches her staring off into space as she doodles tiny robins in the margins of her sketchbook.

He gives her an odd look when she scrambles to hide them, blushing hotly and babbling about how she’s “Just fine! Nothing to worry about! I’m just, maybe, perhaps, a little worried for a friend even though I shouldn’t be, because his family says he’s just fine and-”

He looks contemplative when he leaves that day, but he didn’t ask about her outburst, so she extends the same courtesy to him.

***

That night, Robin returns.

“What,” she says around the laughter threatening to bubble out of her throat, “are you wearing?”

Robin scowls from behind the full cowl he has on that she’s pretty sure belongs to Red Robin. It makes him look a whole ten years older and she can’t get over how ridiculous he looks. If he keeps doing stupid things with his face while wearing that monstrosity, she is definitely going to laugh at him.

“What are you wearing?” he shoots back petulantly.

She blinks in confusion, then realizes she’s still wearing her Red Hood inspired jacket right now. Tan colored fake leather with fuzzy, red inner lining, done with all the same pockets, buttons, and zippers Red Hood has on his own jacket. It looks almost exactly like the jacket she fixed for him all that time ago, except she's also added a soft, crimson hood and his own personal bat symbol stitched across her shoulder blades.

As far as things she's designed goes, this is one of her simpler ones. It's nothing like the elaborate creations she makes for the Ambrosia or Ryuko themed items.

But Red Hood was a simple kind of person, and she likes that it’s reflected in her work.

Robin doesn't seem to agree if the poorly concealed disdain on his face means anything.

“What?” she asks teasingly, “You jealous?”

He scoffs and looks off to the side. “Of course not. I simply do not understand why you’d want anything to do with that simpleton. Especially not when I know you have clothing articles referencing far superior individuals.”

She snorts good-naturedly, "What 'individuals'? You mean you?"

The way he raises his nose self importantly is answer enough, and she can't stop herself from rolling his eyes. "Well, it's certainly a start. But I'm not the only one."

"Oh, yeah? And who else is marvelous enough to stand on the same level as you?"

"Multimouse."

Her mouth goes dry, and she can tell Robin is pointedly not looking at her.

“Come inside,” she blurts in lieu of all the things she really wants to say—which are mostly just embarrassing variations of I missed you. “I can, uh, make us tea. If you want.”

It's the first time she’s ever invited him inside and she can see the small bit of shock on his face—well, what she can see of it anyway—before he schools it.

“Yes,” he says in a tone of voice that implies it was his idea in the first place. “That sounds… good.”

She steps aside, allowing him to pass her by into the flat. Only instead of just walking past her, he stops halfway through the doorway and stares at her. She’s about to ask what’s wrong when he reaches out with his hand to gently grab a lock of her hair.

“Pink suits you, by the way.”

She quirks her lips, “Yeah? You don’t think it’s… too much?”

The corners of his mouth turn down, “Absolutely not. You look…” he trails off, mouth flattening into a line and dropping his hand.

She blinks at the odd behavior. “Nice?” she offers tentatively.

He nods, but it’s a little jerky and strange. But before she can ask about it, he’s already turning to enter her flat like he owns the place, remarking about her choices of tea and if she’s finally acquired an ‘adequate teapot’.

She shakes off the moment and goes in to follow him before he wrecks her kitchen in his careless search for tea supplies.

***

MinnieMouse: COME GET YALL JUICE

and by juice i mean me

I still do not have an american license

JaneAustenStanAccount: what do we get out of it?

MinnieMouse: ???

the pleasure of my company??

also youre literally the one that invited me to watch megamind

JaneAustenStanAccount: and??

daisyduke: shut up jay

we all know youre soft for M stop tryin to play tough

MinnieMouse: this is why duke is my favorite

he’s a living callout post

swanlake: :(

MinnieMouse: second favorite

im so sorry cass ily

swanlake: :)

daisyduke: i aint even mad

JaneAustenStanAccount: I AM

guys wtf

MinnieMouse: you brought this on yourself

maybe you should be nicer to me

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

daisyduke: ‘get fucked jason’ -marinette 2k20

btw im omw for you now

MinnieMouse: thnx ur the best

also im bringing scones as movie snack

daisyduke: noice

swanlake: !!!

JaneAustenStanAccount: FUCK YEAH!!!

MinnieMouse: you dont get any Jay

JaneAustenStanAccount: >:(

i hate it here

***

Marinette doesn’t know a lot about Robin’s past, which she assumes is by design. Secret identities don’t lead well to handing out details and concrete information about one’s personal life.

But, she thinks, one would have to be blind, deaf, and dumb to not see that whatever facsimile of a childhood Robin had was about eight different levels of fucked up.

It’s in the vague allusions to ‘training’ and the scorn filled way he says the word ‘mother’. It’s in the not-quite-confusion—because whatever family he has is better now, at least—of Marinette telling him about her own parents. About the happy memories she’s shared with them, of learning to bake bread and croissants and macaroons under the loving guidance of her father and practicing delicate designs and frosting techniques with her mother.

So, yeah. She knows he’s kind of messed up and definitely checks off the childhood trauma box that’s apparently one of the requirements for being her friend.

So when Robin suddenly decides to go against everything she’s learned about him up until this point and actually share something about himself—and when that thing he shares just so happens to be a story from his childhood—well… Marinette wouldn’t say she’s prepared, but she’s not- prepared.

He’s in her kitchen, because Marinette has learned her lesson about bleeding vigilantes on her couch, and she’s pretty sure he could’ve gone back to the Cave for this, but he came here for whatever reason. (Was closer, he said. Marinette doesn’t know if she believes him.)

She’s cleaning the knife wound on his arm, and she has his cape laid out across her island. There’s a hole in it she plans on sewing back up after she finishes sewing the hole in her reckless vigilante back up.

“You need to be more careful,” she scolds. “You’re lucky this didn’t nick something important.”

“It's hardly the worst wound I’ve ever acquired,” he tells her in a tone of voice that he probably thinks is reasonable. “At seven years old I had to dig a bullet out of my side in the middle of a Himilayan snowstorm while still making it back to base with time to spare after having successfully assassinated a Russian ambassador.”

Marinette pauses where she’s smoothing the gauze onto his bicep. Her eyes flick up to his, and she sees the exact moment he seems to realize what he just told her. He’s gone utterly still beneath her hands, with terror or worry or the effort it takes not to bolt out the window immediately, she doesn’t know.

“That’s horrifying,” she tells him as she finishes securing the obnoxiously bright bandage, “Never tell me that story again.”

She then drops a kiss onto his bicep, subtly imbuing it with enough luck that it will keep off any infection—the wound was filthy when he came in, seriously, was he in a sewer?—and pats his cheek warmly before moving to clean up all her supplies.

She feels his eyes on her the rest of the night, but every time she turns to him, she can’t tell what he’s thinking. All she knows is that he seems… softer, in a way.

***

Three days after Marinette’s unexpected look into Robin’s past, she finds a box on her desk. It’s a jewelry box, and the only reason she doesn’t immediately freak out is the fact that it lacks any of the miracle box markings.

Still, she opens it hesitantly, and inside, she finds a necklace. A completely normal, non-magical necklace that’s simple and pretty and very much shaped like a tiny toy mouse.

There is no note.

***

(Lahiffe was right.

The Earth spins around the sun. The sky is blue.

Everyone loves Marinette.)

***

The necklace is obviously supposed to be a reference to her Multimouse days, but that doesn’t exactly narrow down who could have left it for her.

Or well, it does, but all the people it narrows down to don’t make any sense.

Multimouse is a badly kept secret, but it’s still a secret. Most people outside Paris don’t know about her and the people in Paris didn’t exactly recognize her off the street either.

Her Court knows, obviously, and so do the Waynes and the bats. But her Court wouldn’t leave her mouse themed gifts, they tend toward ladybugs or their own animal motif as a gift (the amount of cat and bee themed items she owns is ludicrous).

Which leaves the Waynes and the bats.

But her Waynes wouldn’t leave the gift on her desk, and they certainly wouldn’t forget to put a note, so Duke, Jason, and Cass are out.

She must stand there thinking about it too long, because then Jeremy's walking in, just as bright and early as ever.

He sees her holding the box and his face turns a strange mix of curious and outraged. “Is it your birthday? I swear, Boss if you didn't tell us it was your birthday-”

“No, Jeremy,” she says, amused despite her confusion. “That’s not for a while yet. I found this when I walked in,” she shakes the box slightly for emphasis, “but there wasn’t a note.”

“Oh.” A smile slowly spreads across Jeremy’s face. “Oh?” he purrs, waggling his eyebrows at her. “Does the boss have a secret admirer?”

Marinette blinks and- what?

“What? No. I can’t- That doesn’t-” she splutters but Jeremy just laughs and walks over to his station to start setting up for the day, leaving Marinette to her breakdown.

Because this can’t have been left by a secret admirer. That’s just crazy.

There are exactly two people who could’ve left this for her and neither of them would be an admirer of any kind. And she wouldn’t want them to be anyway because that would be stupid and ridiculous and weird.

She doesn’t like Robin or Damian like that…

Right?

***

(It’s impossible not to love her, he realizes, mostly by accident.

She loves, wholeheartedly and unafraid and so much more than Damian had ever thought one person could. She loves with a ferocity and passion no person deserves or can match.

And Damian, foolishly, loves and wishes to be loved by her anyway.)

***

There are roses on her desk the next day, potted and still healthy.

The day after that, there’s a box of expensive chocolates. Like, the kind only Adrien, Felix, and Chloé buy without a second thought. The gossip has spread far enough that all of her designers know about the gifts and probably-admirer.

On the fourth day, there is a box full of high-quality pencils and a new sketchbook, one with nice thick drafting paper, but small enough to fit in her favored bag. Her name is embossed across the front, along with her personal motif of delicate apple blossoms.

On the fifth day, she shows up to find there is only a drawing, which should point to it being Damian, but drawing-her is holding a robin in her cupped palms which cannot be a coincidence. Drawing-her also looks serene and beautiful with her mouth curved slightly and her eyes gentle and soft and Marinette is as touched by the image as she is frustrated by it.

There are hair sticks on the sixth, and delicate pins shaped like flowers on the seventh. Another stunning drawing of her on the eighth, a bottle of wine older than Master Fu on the ninth, the softest cashmere blanket on the tenth, a basket of sweet floral lotions, a glass statue of a bird in flight—she gets so many gifts, Marinette has to stop keeping count.

It’s somewhere around day six that her designers must’ve ratted on her to either Felix or Chloé because it’s not long after that, that all of her friends learn about the gifts and start being terrifically unhelpful about the whole situation.

They each try to give her advice, which would be sweet if it wasn’t all equally terrible and conflicting.

They’re also placing bets on who they think her admirer is, Damian or Robin. They’re trying to be discreet about it—which means they’re failing miserably.

Marinette, admittedly, never expected any different from them.

***

Marinette begins watching Damian in the mornings with a newfound interest.

The gifts are always there before she arrives, which means they're also there before Damian arrives, so she’s in a prime position to catch his reaction.

Or, she would be, if he ever reacted. He barely glances at them and never says anything unless the gift is particularly obnoxious, like the giant stuffed mouse she found sitting in her chair last week. (It was almost as big as she was. Adrien, Nino, and Alix had ended up on the floor from laughing so hard when they’d seen it.)

Damian almost never comments on the gift she received that day, but whenever she uses or wears something that her mysterious admirer had gotten for her, he makes sure to compliment her. Which would be  very suspicious except that Robin does the same thing.

It’s just- they’re both so frustratingly silent about it all! Marinette is this close to just grabbing one or both of them by the shoulders and just shaking until they tell the truth.

It’s driving her insane! Before the necklace appeared on her desk, she didn’t even know that she liked Robin and Damian.

And now she’s overanalyzing their nonreactions. She hates it.

It feels too much like she’s back in collège, trying to sort out her feelings for Adrien and Chat. (Who ended up being the same person—which was just very inconsiderate of him, really. The least he could do is let her angst have meaning dammit!)

And- ugh. What if she doesn't even like either of them? What if her mind is just making her think she does because the idea of them liking her was presented? What then? Or what about the fact that the two boys are also ridiculously similar when she thinks about it. What if she only likes one and is just projecting her feelings onto the other because her mind associates the two?

Oh, she doesn’t like that thought. That thought makes her feel upset and like she wants to cry into a tub of ice cream.

Nino happily indulges her and doesn't even complain when she eats her way through his stash of mint chip as she dramatically complains about stupidly confusing boys.

Honestly, she may as well be back in lycée.

***

(What Marinette does not realize in the midst of all her careful analysis of his reactions, is that it’s not the gifts he’s focused on.

When she wears the necklace and hair sticks, she misses the way his eyes linger on the slope of her neck. As she cares for her roses, she doesn’t notice the way he follows the easy nimbleness of her fingers. She uses her sketchbook and eats the expensive chocolates and doesn’t pay attention to the way he steals glances at her lips. She doesn't see the way his hands twitch when she ventures just near enough to touch.

(She exists next to him, in any form or light, and he is captivated by her very presence.)

Marinette looks, but it is in all the wrong places.)

***

Strangely enough, it’s Signal who helps her with her internal crisis—completely unintentionally and in a very roundabout way—but he helps all the same.

He’s taken an… interest, she supposes, in her magic. One that is entirely his own and has very little to do with that Bat from what she can tell.

His abilities and hers stem from different origins, but she would be lying if she said his weren’t oddly complementary to her own. His precognition abilities stemming from his photokinesis has been useful on more than one occasion regarding the experimental spell matrices she, Tikki, and Nooroo have been testing out.

The magic is normally invisible to people without a Miraculous, but Signal seems to have little trouble seeing what she’s doing, even if he can’t interact with it the way she can.

(There is also the fact that she seems… more when he is around. Days that he spends watching her do her work go by faster and smoother than when he is away. Her magic is easier, and her mind spins with ideas and creations faster.

It’s an odd phenomenon and Ladybug is looking into it.)

There has been more than one occasion where Signal had warned her of the matrix’s imminent collapse with enough time for her to prepare herself for its blowback.

The version she’s working on today is their fifth iteration. It’s supposed to pull the miasma out of the building, filter it through her and Tikki’s own magical energy, before flowing back into the brickwork. Marinette had thought of the idea while talking with Nooroo.

If she can get it to work, it will shift the misfortune into good luck and order and release it back into the environment. Then she’ll only need to cleanse strategic portions of the city in a lattice network, and the creative and destructive energies will mix from there, balancing themselves without much input from her at all.

Of course, that’s only if she can actually get it to work. It’s been almost a month and this is the fifth version and it’s already collapsed on her three times in the last hour. Signal must see the frustration on her face and has taken to trying to distract her with small talk.

She’s very thankful for it, actually. If he wasn’t doing that, she would probably start screaming right here and now, on this random rooftop in the residential district. Which would just be very startling and embarrassing for everyone involved, so. You know. Glad she doesn’t have to do that.

Eventually, she asks him, apropos of nothing, “You’re a detective right?”

He pauses, and blinks at her, likely trying to follow the train of thought that led her to that question. She assumes he did not find it because when he speaks, he still sounds confused.

“Yes? I guess that’s technically what I am.”

“So you’re good at figuring out who’s behind a crime?”

Signal only looks more confused. “Yeah? But Ladybug, what-”

“Great, so. Hypothetically, if you had two suspects for a—well it’s not a crime. A… thing? Situation. How would you figure out which one of them is actually behind the… situation?”

Signal’s lips quirk, just a bit despite his confusion. “I think I’m gonna need a little more to go on than just ‘a situation,’ LB.”

Ladybug purses her lips and stares down at the light weaving intricate patterns in the space between her palms. Slowly, carefully, she tells him, “There are items being left where a person can find them. But the identity of the person leaving them and their intentions are unknown.”

“Are the items dangerous?” he asks worriedly.

Ladybug shakes her head. “No. They're more like gifts.”

“Are the gifts unwanted or creepy? Unsettling? Threatening?”

Another head shake. “Just confusing and… thoughtful.”

“Someone is leaving you thoughtful gifts and you're worried about that… why?” Signal asks, slowly and disbelievingly. 

“It’s because I- wait! I’m not the person!” she panics, causing the magic to spark dangerously in her hands but she barely notices. “The person doesn’t even exist. It was a hypothetical question!”

Signal stares at her. She can’t see his eyes or the top half of his face, but she just knows he’s raising his eyebrow judgingly at her.

“Stop that!” she snaps. “Stop being perceptive! I have enough perceptive people in my life so knock it off!”

Signal laughs like the horrible person he is. “But don’t you need me to be perceptive? That’s like, a requirement to be a detective.”

“Stop it,” she says again, mulishly and very childish.

And isn’t that an odd thought to have? Ladybug being childish.

How novel. Ladybug has never once been childish. She can’t afford to be, because when she is behind the mask, she is all the most important parts of herself. She is the Grand Guardian, is the one who must be in control at all times because she has an entire team to keep safe and alive.

Behind the mask, she’s all of her greatest responsibilities.

But here, in Gotham and with Signal, she is none of those things to him. She is simply another hero, that is his age and very much like him in ways so few are. Ladybug, in the moments she spends with Signal, is probably the closest she has ever been to carefree while in the mask.

It’s as comforting a thought as it is terrifying.

Signal raises his hands in surrender, but his lips are still quirked in amusement. 

Ladybug regrets starting this conversation.

She regrets it even more when, five minutes later, Signal manages to pull the rest of the story from her… along with a name.

She realizes her mistake a second too late to stop herself, and then all she can do is watch.

She watches, with ever-growing horror, as Signal slowly puts the pieces together. She watches, as her whole secret identity starts unraveling around her for the first time ever. She watches, stricken, as Signal opens his mouth to speak.

And then she grabs both sides of his head and Orders him to sleep.

***

The second Marinette bespells him, she regrets it.

She was panicking, okay? And Marinette panicking is very different from Ladybug panicking and truly, she creates messes just by existing.

Nooroo flies out of his hiding place to make distressed noises at the now unconscious Signal with her, which is… actually kinda soothing, if not exactly helpful.

At least she knows she’s not the only one upset right now.

“Oh no, oh no, oh no!” Nooroo frets, flitting around her head with agitated wings. Hers aren’t much better, if she’s being honest. “What are we going to do, Guardian? He knows who you are! This is bad.”

Marinette worries her thumb between her teeth, shifting her weight from foot to foot. With a thought, she's back in her civvies and Tikki is perched on her shoulder, blinking at the scene she’s suddenly a part of.

“Well,” Tikki says, sounding far too calm for the situation. “This isn’t ideal.”

The laugh that escapes Marinette is on the edge of hysterical. “You think?”

“It’s not ideal,” Tikki repeats firmly, “But neither is it a disaster.”

Nooroo lands on her other shoulder as she kneels down beside Signal to rearrange his limbs to not be so uncomfortable. “But he's unpredictable!” he argues, curling into the side of her neck like she will hide him from the world. “We don’t know what he’ll do with this information!”

Tikki hums thoughtfully. “Then we will have to ask. There are far worse people we could have been revealed to. We're lucky it was a friend rather than foe.”

“You think so?” Marinette asks softly, voice barely louder than a whisper.

She knows the Bat’s flock are good people. Many of them are her friends, or people she hopes to call friends soon.

But she doesn't know if these people Marinette calls friends could be Ladybug’s allies.

The bats hoard secrets like black holes, and perhaps they would keep hers just as well, but they could just as easily use it against her. Batman barely tolerates her presence, she can tell by the way Signal talks sometimes, and it is no small stretch of the imagination that he would use this to try and kick her out of Gotham.

Marinette cannot, as a Guardian, leave Gotham.

But more importantly, she doesn’t want to leave Gotham. It’s… her home now. Her friends are here. Her family is here. Robin and Hood and the other bats are here. Damian and all her Waynes are here.

Leaving Gotham would not only make her sick and jittery at the imbalance, but it would break her heart.

If, when Signal tells Batman, he reacts poorly, there is so much that Marinette is set up to lose. And that terrifies her.

Some of that thought process must show on her face—or perhaps Nooroo has just picked up on the turmoil in her chest—because the two Kwami are pressed on either side of her face, nuzzling and hugging as much of her as they can reach.

“We’ll make it through this, Marinette,” Tikki says firmly, no room for argument. “Don’t worry so much. Both of you. Everything will turn out just fine, you’ll see.”

***

@bluesimani @how-to-fuction-properly @chocolatecatstheron @mystery-5-5 @nickristus-dreamer @mochegato @thenillabean @animegirlweeb @novaloptr @darkdaysandfakesmiles @optimistically-pessimistic0524 @clumsy-owl-4178 @g-arya @undecisioned @smolplantmum @blackmagicforever @i-wanna-be-a-ninja @wannajointhecrabcult @paintedhope7 @redscarlet95 @roselynfey @ira-sairain @lozzybowe @tumbling-down-hills-and-stuff @2confused-2doanything @pepelachanel @too0bsessedformyowngood @miraculouspenta @itsmeevie01 @corabeth11 @jalaluvsu

[lovelyirony]

@rhodee for you

When Tony had gotten back from Siberia, he hadn’t been able to see anyone for a long time. 

But people had been to see him. 

He wasn’t expecting Rhodey to come and see him for a variety of medically-related reasons, but he was hoping for an email or a phone call, at least a message about Tony being a “dumbass.” 

And then he asked Pepper how Rhodey was doing, and she tenses up. 

Pepper has never been a good liar to Tony, not since they got drunk together for the first time and she told him every single tell she had for lying. They could never hide from each other after that. 

“He’s...knocked out, still.” 

Tony raises his eyebrows. 

“So, he’s not knocked out, something happened to him.” 

“Tony, he...he doesn’t remember.” 

“What, the fall? I wish I couldn’t remember that either, but I’m betting that that’s not what you’re talking about.” 

“He doesn’t remember any of us. He doesn’t remember anything except for his freshman year of college. All of this information is...overwhelming for him.” 

Tony freezes. 

He and Rhodey didn’t live together freshman year. Hell, they didn’t even know each other freshman year. They became sort-of-friends near the beginning of sophomore year, and that meant... 

Oh god.

Rhodey wouldn’t remember three important things: 

1.) He’s bisexual.

2.) He’s an accomplished man who has achieved much in his lifetime and has grown comfortable with himself with years of help.

3.) He married Tony. They’re married. 

For a long time, Rhodey didn’t really want to admit that he liked guys. It wasn’t something he ever talked about, nothing he ever wanted to discuss. He didn’t mind that Tony had an attraction to men, but he always seemed to put himself at a distance when Tony brought someone over for dinner or a study session. 

Rhodey didn’t want to come to terms with it at first. He was very adamant that he would marry a nice girl and settle down, and Tony hadn’t contested it, hadn’t challenged him on it. That could have very well been the situation. 

It wasn’t until the end of sophomore year--into the summer, actually--that Rhodey even wanted to tempt to talk about what attraction would even mean for him. 

They had gotten together senior year, and Tony has a picture framed in their bedroom of Tony dipping Rhodey into a kiss (and dropping him after the picture was taken) after graduation. 

“They had to take off his wedding ring for the surgery, but I wasn’t sure what to tell him. The doctors said to avoid bringing up any information that would surprise them, and I remember that you talked about it once...” 

“Yeah,” Tony says thickly, his chest hurting from more than just a frisbee-toss gone wrong. “Okay. Yeah. Let’s, uh...let’s just transfer him over to the headquarters. I’ll just...I’ll figure something out.” 

He can’t tell Rhodey he has a husband. He can’t. The reaction alone would be terrible, if he’s knowing what he knows. 

-

So he doesn’t. 

Tony welcomes Rhodey into the compound after taking down every single romantic photo, briefing everyone who still lived there that Rhodey had lost his memory, and praying to whoever would listen that Rhodey didn’t find out until he was comfortable with it. 

“I don’t go by Rhodey,” was the first thing off of his lips. Not a hello, not a smile. “I go by Jim.” 

“Right,” Tony says, smiling in that flashy way that Rhodey usually told him to stop, because it creeped him out because he knew what that smile was actually all about. “Jim. Nice to see you back.” 

“I wish I could say the same, but I’m not exactly sure I remember you. Your face looks really familiar, though.” 

“Well, that’s what nearly twenty-five years of knowledge can do to somebody,” Tony says quickly. “Let me show you to your room. Sorry about the lack of decorations, we didn’t really want to overwhelm you with anything.” 

“I’m fine,” Rhodey says, clearly annoyed. “It’s just weird knowing that I’m way fucking older and apparently I graduated college and managed to make something of myself and I can’t remember any of it.” 

“I can’t say I understand, but I can say that it sucks,” Tony says. “But, lucky for you, I kept some of your stuff.” 

“A friend kept my stuff?” Rhodey asks. “Why?” 

“Because I’m annoying and you pretend like you hate me, when I am the best thing that happened to you,” Tony says, smiling. 

He then turns when he can see Rhodey’s--Jim’s--expression turn sour. 

“Ah, anyway,” Tony says hurriedly. “You just...keep stuff sometimes.” 

(He’s not going to mention that it’s because they shared an apartment. Or a house. Or a room. Or, on occasion, a bank account.) 

“Dinner is gonna be at seven, feel free to come down,” Tony says, smile wearing thin. 

- 

Jim doesn’t come down. 

Or he did, but he came down early. 

Because he doesn’t want anything to do with Tony. 

“It’ll just take time,” Pepper tells Tony over the phone. “Give him some space.” 

So Tony does. 

But it’s hard giving your amnesiac husband space when you’ve never done it before, not really. 

Tony has always been around Rhodey, always been invading and crawling into his space, and Rhodey really only complained when Tony’s hands would sneak around his chest when the nights were dark and cold. 

Now they’re at a distance, and Tony doesn’t know how to bring up any facts about their life. 

So far, all Jim’s been doing is catching up on history. 

“We fought Captain America?” he asks, gaping at the article about finding Captain Rogers in an iceberg. “Why?” 

“He likes putting his foot in his mouth a lot.” Tony says. “And both sides have been notoriously bad at keeping their cool.” 

“Oh. So we just...I  fought him? Because I’m just friends with you?” 

“Yeah,” Tony says, quite uncomfortable with the insertion of the word “just” in that sentence. 

“...weird.” 

“The future’s crazy, honey-bear.” 

Jim looks up. 

“Why do you call me that?” 

“Call you what?” 

“Honey-bear. It’s weird.” 

“Inside joke we have,” Tony says, chest tightening. “We thought those couples that have the lovey-dovey nicknames were ridiculous.” 

“Oh. Gross.” 

“Yeah, it is,” Tony says. “But kinda funny. One time you called me ‘sugar-tits’.” 

Jim laughs at that one. 

“Oh god, that’s...rough. What else did I call you?” 

Baby. Honey. Love of my life. Darling. 

“Uh...” Tony says, pretending to think. “I think love-muffin was also an option.” 

Jim throws back his head and laughs. 

“How did we...how did we become friends?” 

“Well, it all started with a dining hall and you trying to steal an entire painting without getting caught, and my valiant rescue...” 

“Why do I get the feeling that that’s not true?” 

“Because it isn’t,” Tony grins. “Just making sure your bullshit-detector is working again. It is. We met because we weren’t supposed to be roommates but they fucked up and the rooms filled up, so you dealt with me as best you could.” 

“Oh,” Jim says. “What do we do for fun?”

Go on date nights. Talk about how stupid we were as kids. Debate who asked out who. Cook together. 

“Uh, we used to...shoot hoops.” 

“You don’t seem like a basketball kinda guy,” Jim says. 

“Oh believe me, I wasn’t,” Tony responds with a laugh, “but you were, and you always liked kicking my ass on the court.” 

“Good to know that I can still probably do that,” Jim says, smug and self-satisfied. “Hey, where did Pepper go?” 

“Oh, she’s busy with a contract this week, what do you need?” 

Jim puts his hand on the back of his neck in that nervous habit he always got (that Tony only knew about because every single time he would walk into the room after he realized he liked him in that way, Rhodey would do that). 

“Um, just want to ask her something. About my life.” 

And Tony can’t breathe. 

He doesn’t know and that’s...that’s everything. 

“She’ll be back for dinner,” Tony says. “In the mean time, I’ll be in the lab working on some stuff, feel free to do whatever.” 

“Thanks, man.” 

- 

Pepper stares at Jim, who for so long has been one of her best friends and is now asking if he had anyone who he was involved with romantically. 

“You...what?” 

“Did I have a girlfriend or anything?” Jim asks. “Because, um, it’s going to kind of suck if I didn’t.” 

“You had a girlfriend sophomore year,” she answers carefully. “That lasted for about three months or something. You’d have to ask Tony more about it, he knows more about you than I do.” 

“And you said we’re...friends? We didn’t date?”

“Yeah, we are friends, no we didn’t date,” Pepper says. “We get lunch on Thursdays if you’re in town.” 

“I’m in the army, right?” 

“About to retire, too,” Pepper says with a grin. “You were really happy, you were planning on taking Tony on a trip.” 

“I was?” Jim asks, frowning. “We’re...that close?” 

“Well yeah, you’re-” Pepper pauses for a moment. “You’re best friends. You always like spending time with Tony.” 

“Oh,” Jim says. “Okay.” 

He knows that they’re lying to him. He gets why: if he learns too much, it could cause some sort of damage. And according to Friday, “Colonel Platypus” (whatever the fuck that means) keeps his personal life intensely private. 

He doesn’t know why he’s done that. Why he’s kept everything so private. It’s not because of his military status, he thinks. Unless, of course, they put him on all sorts of secret projects. That could definitely be a thing. 

Tony keeps almost calling him Rhodey. It’s a weird nickname. He doesn’t know why he apparently loves it. It sounds...stupid. Weird. Jim works just fine. 

Pepper also said they were just friends. And she sounds like she means it. And Tony says they’re just friends, but he doesn’t sound like he means it. 

But that doesn’t mean...? 

No. Of course not. There would be pictures and rings and all of that sappy, gross shit that comes with weddings. 

...would there be? 

“Hey Friday?” he asks. 

“Yes, Colonel Rhodes?” 

“Um. Is gay marriage legal?” 

“Yes, Colonel Rhodes, it is. Would you like further articles about the decision?” 

“Uh...sure. I guess.” 

He keeps reading articles (with reading glasses) and learns a lot about what’s been going on. 

He’s just interested, obviously. In current events. 

- 

It’s a week later when he asks Tony about it. 

“So...did you remember the whole legalization of gay marriage thing?” he asks Tony, who pauses at his coffee. “I, um. Read an article where they said you were bi, so I wasn’t sure if you-” 

“No, I am,” Tony says. “I remember it really well. I celebrated well that day.” 

he grinned as he looked at Rhodey, and swore to rent out the entire metropolitan museum of art, just for him. he would do anything for him, anything at all-

Jim looks at him. 

“What did you do to celebrate?” 

“Well, there were quite a lot of people at gay bars. We danced. I drank a glass of champagne. And then we danced again.” 

“Someone was with me?” 

“You were,” Tony says. “You were here when it happened, and it was...it was a good day for us.” 

“I’m not gay though,” Jim says with a frown. 

“Doesn’t mean that you can’t celebrate,” Tony says, eyes holding something in them that makes him look like he might cry. “Some people’s triumph can be a momentous occasion.” 

It can the occasion where your marriage is finally recognized everywhere. It’s where you get the iconic photo of mashing cake in your partner’s face, and all of the guests are grinning and you’re happy, and--

Tony shakes himself out of that train of thought. 

“Yeah, I guess,” Jim says. “Just...please tell me that you didn’t get any embarrassing pictures.” 

“Oh I did,” Tony replies, grinning maniacally. “Would you like to see yourself in a feather boa or a flamingo floatie?” 

“Oh my god,” Jim moans, throwing his hands to the dinner table. “No...” 

“You looked a dream, gorgeous,” Tony teases. “And I have the pictures to prove it. I’ll get them out another time, I promised Dum-E that I’d help him pick up his mess.” 

“Who is he?” 

Tony grins. 

“He’s our baby, metaphorically speaking. We built him on a half-drunk, half-dare kind of situation,” Tony says. “He’s a disaster.” 

Jim thinks about it for a moment. “Can I...can I meet him?” 

-

Dum-E hasn’t seen his dad in forever. He’s wheeling around Rhodey, beeping and nearly running over his feet. 

“Great, your return has pushed back any build-up coordination training we did,” Tony scolds, although his tone doesn’t sound serious at all. “Dum-E, your father and I agreed to help clean, although methinks that Jim will be a great surveyor for us.” 

“What’d you spill?” Jim asks. 

“Couple of glass stuff,” Tony says. “He’s been really into stained glass recently, I think he was trying to make his own.” 

“He can think?” 

“Yeah,” Tony says. “His coding, by the way, was like sixty percent you. That’s why he’s so damned stubborn and also why he puts motor oil into smoothies, genius.” 

“Hey, that most definitely was you,” Jim says. “You didn’t grocery shop that day, so I was weak and malnourished.” 

Tony stills. 

“You...remember that?” 

Jim pauses for a moment. 

“You...you were supposed to go grocery shopping and I made a list,” he says, smiling fondly. “And you didn’t take the list because you said you had an eidetic memory, but you still forgot the lemons, so I don’t believe you.” 

Tony throws back his head and laughs. 

“Glad to have a memory for you, Rho-Jim. You want a glass of water or anything?” 

“Water sounds fine.” 

Jim watches as Tony works around Dum-E, obviously used to his quirks and mannerisms as he banters and threatens with nothing backing up that threat. 

He smiles as he wheels himself over, grabbing a dust pan on his way over. 

“Figured we’ll need this,” he offers. Tony accepts it with a smile. 

“Thanks Jim.” 

“You can-you can call me Rhodey. If you want.” 

Tony looks at him for a moment. 

“But is that what you want?” 

Jim pauses. 

“Yes. For now.” 

“Okay,” Tony says, smiling. He’s not showing how fucking happy he is, how ready he is to leap for the moon and bring stardust down on his way home. “Thank you.” 

Jim nods. 

“I think I’m gonna turn in for the night.” 

“Have a goodnight, Jim. Let me know if you need anything.” 

-

He lies awake in bed that night. 

“Hey, Friday?” 

“Yes, Boss?” 

“I...I’m not being told everything, am I?” 

“Information can potentially be triggering to the current state you are in, Colonel Rhodes.” 

“Are you being paid to say that?” 

“I don’t get paid,” Friday says. “Although if I did, I would not want to take the money.” 

“So I am missing something,” Rhodey says. “I just...I don’t know what.” 

“It will come with time, Colonel Rhodes.” 

“And if it doesn’t? If I have to relive life all over again?” He asks, growing agitated. “If my memory doesn’t come back, Friday...I’m not sure they’ll ever tell me anything.” 

“It is already a good sign that you remembered Dum-E. He was missing you quite terribly.” 

“Can I...can you show me a picture of me with him?” 

“Sure thing, Boss.” 

- 

Rhodey has a sharp intake of breath. 

Right there. 

Right on his left hand. 

A wedding ring. 

And then he looks at Tony, Tony who is looking fondly as Rhodey and Dum-E are reenacting some stupid thing, and there’s a-

A ring. 

On the left hand. 

That wasn’t there before. 

Shit. 

[crystalessenceswrites]

When We First [Chapter Two]

Boba Fett x fem!reader Rating: G (subject to change) Warnings: brief mentions of violence, mention of injury, swearing and alcohol  Summary: How were you to know the role Boba Fett would play in your life when you first crossed paths? A series of firsts between Boba and his partner as their lives and the galaxy unfold before them, an expansion on my one-shot, We Never Stopped.

[Masterlist] [Chapter One] [Chapter Two] [Chapter Three]

When we first started did you know we’d never stop?

When you first let me in did you know then I’d never want to leave?

You had seen Boba step in to end brawls on more than one occasion, seen his hand rest over the grip of his blaster, a deadly threat to anyone who dare oppose him, but you could not truly appreciate his skills until the first time Jabba sent you out on a hunt together. He was a force on the battlefield. Deadly. Precision unlike anything you had ever seen before. A master of his craft. Flawless. It sent chills down your spine to watch him work. The stories whispered in darkened corners of cantinas about his prowess could never capture the true power Fett wielded. He was a testament to the strength and skills of the Mandalorians, to the legacy of his family. You had heard of the reputation of his father once, the legendary Fett that came before Boba. An old, retired guild member had recounted the tales of his jobs with Jango Fett to you not long after you earned your way into the business. At first you had simply been humoring the geezer, but it did not take long for him to have you hanging off his every word. Now you stood and watched his son with the same rapt attention as if the whole world around you had slowed to a halt.

Fighting by his side was something else entirely. Neither of you uttered a word yet you fell into step with each other, as if you had spent a lifetime on the battlefield together. You’d never had a bounty hunting partner you could trust to protect your back. As you watched your last target fall, chest smoking from Boba’s well placed blaster bolt, you thought Boba could be the one exception to that rule.

The two of you silently gathered up the bodies Jabba had requested, depositing them into the cold hull of his ship. At first the silence had been unnerving. Jabba did not usually direct his hunters on who to work with and Boba was a notorious lone wolf. You assumed Jabba’s orders for you two to work together on this job had come across as an insult to the infamous hunter’s skills. While you had been growing your own reputation since capturing Vale, you were still relatively new to the underworld scene. Insinuating Boba needed help from someone so green could not have gone over well. On your way through hyperspace, you’d half expected Boba to either snap or just drop you out the airlock, yet neither had occurred, leaving you confused but content. As you had both gathered info on your targets it became more apparent Boba existed in his own silence. He did not waste time or effort on unnecessary words. Direct and to the point, cutting an imposing figure as he struts around in his beskar. Most folks do not linger near him to chat anyways. So, as you two prepared for the trip back to Tatooine the last thing you expected was to hear the rough crackling of his helmet’s modulator.

“I’m sorry?”

“I asked if you needed the med kit,” his visor is trained on you standing in the entrance to the cockpit, helmet tilted ever so slightly, “you took a good hit to the shoulder out there.”

A sniper had caught you both off guard and managed to clip you in the shoulder. Considering you still had use of all your fingers the damage could not be too severe. While you did not don blaster proof beskar, you were decked out in some decent, and pricey, body armor.

“I guess we’ll see,” you shrug. Settling down into the copilots chair you discard your cloak before peeling off the top layers of your armor. Your shoulder piece now has a serious new dent, but it’s not pierced all the way through. Rolling up the sleeve underneath reveals a growing bruise nearly the size of a dinner plate. Boba hisses for you at the blotchy skin before wordlessly passing you the med kit. “Well not too bad, considering.” You were luck the sniper had not been using a high enough caliber to cut through your armor. The armor had distributed the harsh impact, leaving you bruised but in one piece.

Boba nods, turning back to the ship’s controls. “Nothing bacta can’t fix.”

“Praise the Maker, or whoever else, for that.”

You swear he chuckles under the helmet, a static sound from the modulator cutting through the silence. A long moment passes as you maneuver a bacta patch onto the darkening bruise one handed. Boba navigates the ship into hyperspace with practiced ease. The stars speeding by the only indication of time passing you two by.

“You’ve got a question, ask it.”

Wide eyed you stare at the back of his helmet, “what are you a kriffing mind reader too?”

“No, but I can hear you thinking from here.”

You scoff, “bantha shit.”

“Whatever helps you sleep at night.”

Was that a sense of humor hiding under all that metal and ego?

“You’re not wrong though, I have plenty of questions.” How could you not?

He chuckles, “what is it they say, “curiosity killed the loth-cat”?”

“Like to think I’m not so easy to kill.”

“You did prove that today.”

And you were proud of it. Maybe that is why you bite the blaster bolt and ask anyways.

“Do you ever take the helmet off?”

You’d only ever seen him in Jabba’s palace and now his own ship. Considering the rabble that frequented the Hutt’s company being perpetually prepared made sense. Blaster fights were not infrequent in the belly of the old temple and plenty were not above a viroblade to the back if it so suited them. Yet here in the safety of his own ship, and he was just as stiff, helmet firmly in place.

Fett shakes his head, another huff of static crackling through his helmet. You can imagine you were not the first to be curious about what sat underneath the olive-green helm, and there was no way you were the first to ask.

“Why?”

“Why do I want to know?”

The bounty hunter nods, his visor now squarely trained on you.

You shrug, “seems like it gets annoying after a while. Fresh air is nice and all, plus you’ve got to eat eventually, right?”

Boba just shrugs back, spinning around in the pilot’s chair to return his attention to the ship’s controls. Your unanswered question sitting heavy in the air between you.

.

Jabba is satisfied when the two of you return with his targets in tow. Or rather what’s left of them. Their bodies are strung up as a grotesque warning against all those that dare cross The Jabba the Hutt. A reminder even to favorites like you that no one was beyond his reach in this lawless corner of the galaxy.

After a series of acclamation and lauding from Fortuna on behalf of his slimy master you’re paid handsomely, even after having to split the credits with your helmeted companion. The party returns to full swing as Boba motions for you to join him at the bar. You never could understand why he frequented that spot when he never bought any drinks for himself. He had no problem buying them for you though. He slides a glowing fuchsia drink into your hand as you slip into the space next to him.

“To a job well done?” You pose as you tip the bright liquid back, the surprisingly smooth cocktail leaving a pleasant warmth in your belly.

He grunts before dropping a chit key onto the bar top, “to another job, hopefully going just as smoothly.”

You roll the plastoid piece between your fingers, sending a questionable look to the hunter. Boba worked alone. The only reason he had tolerated you had been to appease Jabba’s orders. Right?

“Imperial big-wig wants some skeletons taken care of. High roller, plenty of payout to split.”

“And you want my help?” You can do little to hide your shock at his proposal.

He sighs, “could use another body.”

Figures the man could not admit he wanted help. If you weren’t so thrilled at the idea, you probably would have given him more crap for it, but you wanted this opportunity too badly now.

“Count me in.”

He nods as you pass the chit back into his waiting palm. “Now we drink to a job well done.”

Confused you watch as he flags down the bartender, ordering a refill for you and a spotchka for himself. As the rodian wanders away to fulfill the request you nearly miss the quiet hiss as Boba lifts his helmet up, depositing the precious metal onto the bar top between you. For the first time your eyes drift across smooth bronze skin, dark ochre eyes and a mop of ruffled dark curls. You know you’re staring but you don’t give a flying fuck as you try to memorize every minute detail of his features, of his expression, of the man behind the mask.

Huh, maybe that’s why he doesn’t take the helmet off.

[imagine-a-life-like-this]

Forget Him (P.JM)

Warnings : partying, mentions of sex, swearing, punching

Synopsis : her relationship with notorious fuckboy Kim Taehyung is over, but she can’t seem to move on. her best friend tells her the best way to get over someone is to get under someone else, so she takes his advice. little does she know, he’d do more than just help her get over Taehyung.

Word Count : 3703

When my eyes met his I could feel my heart break all over again. It’s not that I expected to never see him again, we go to the same university. I just didn’t expect to see him with someone new so soon. I thought I meant more to him than that, but he warned me from the start.

           “I hope you’re not looking for anything serious.” I looked up from my plate of food, curiousness prevalent on my features, even I could tell without seeing my own face. “I like you, but if you’re looking for serious I’ll just break your heart.” A smile took over my previous curious expression.

           “I have thick skin; you’ll have to try really hard to break my heart.” I joked before taking another bite of the food he paid for. “Besides, I’m way too busy with university to be serious.” It was his turn to smile at me and I had to calm my heart. I could do casual, it’s for the best anyway. I don’t need any distractions. But at this point, who am I trying to convince?

           I was telling the truth when I said he’d have to try really hard to break my heart. I’d been hurt in the past, it took a lot for me to open up, but it seemed as if he made it his mission to do exactly that. He was perfect, for me and just in general. And the girl currently wrapped up in his arms, smiling up at the man I never meant to fall for, is nothing short of perfect as well. There was no doubt in mind moving on would be easier for him than it would be for me, but did he really have to rub it in my face like that?

           “You say you hate the guy and yet you can’t take your eyes off of him.” The familiar sound of my best friend’s voice tore my attention away from the sickeningly sweet couple. He draped his arm across my shoulders and dragged me away from the scene. “You know the best way to get over someone is to get under someone else.” I playfully slapped him.

           “Only you would say that to me.” I shook my head and rolled my eyes. When I met Hoseok, I was immediately drawn to him. He made it so easy to open up to him and to fall for his energy. I’d never gotten close to someone as quickly as I did with him, and for good reason, but he never made me doubt my decision.

           “Just come hang out with me and my other friends and stop looking so pitiful.” I rolled my eyes, but I wouldn’t protest to being as far away from Taehyung as possible. “Jimin, Namjoon, this is my best friend Y/N.” He quickly greeted when we approached two guys standing off in their own little world. “Can you watch her so I can go get us drinks?” I wasn’t someone who needed to be watched, but I appreciated the sentiment.

           “Any reason you need to be babysat?” Jimin chuckled as he took a sip of his drink. I rolled my eyes at the cockiness that he exuded, so similar to Taehyung’s, but I trusted Hoseok’s judgment of his character and refrained from punching him.

           “My ex is here with his new girlfriend.” Could I even call him that? Were we ever actually dating?

           “You look stunning.” He said almost breathlessly, reaching out to take one of my hands in his. “How did I get so lucky to have you by my side?” His smile was genuine as he looked down at me, slowly wrapping his arms around me and pulling me closer to him. I wrapped my arms around his neck and pulled him in for a kiss.

           “I should be the one asking that, Tae.” We spoke so softly, as if we were afraid others would hear and pull us out of this bubble we created for ourselves.

           “Well we should get going. I have something special planned for our 100th day.” My heart skipped a beat at the thought that he put together something special just for me. If he still wanted casual, he wouldn’t go out of his way for something so minuscule as the 100th day, would he? I didn’t let myself dwell on it too much as got into the car when he opened the door for me. He held my hand the entire drive to what I thought was a restaurant, but instead he stopped by a field. In the distance I could see a small table for two set up, candles adorning the table.

           “You did all of this for me?” I asked when we approached the table. I looked at what we’d be eating and saw he had made my favourites.

           “You’re my princess, and I wanted to show you that.” We said casual, but neither of us really meant it, did we? I couldn’t help the smile I wore the entire night, looking across the table to see the man I was falling in love with without even realizing it.

           “Here, let’s get your party on.” Hoseok placed a red solo cup filled with who knows what in my hand. I thanked him and tried my best to forget everything.

           The next morning I could feel the headache before I even opened my eyes. The night came back to me in flashes as I tried to piece together how I could have gotten so drunk. It wasn’t until I felt the bed move as a body next to me rolled over that I wondered just how drunk I was. “God what a night.” He groaned as he opened his eyes and smiled at me. Park Jimin was in my bed staring at me with a smile. “Good morning, angel.” I chuckled at the nickname Hoseok gave me our first year here. We were paired up for a dancing project and he told me I resembled an angel to him when I danced.

           “Good morning, Jimin.” I smiled back as the night continued to return in flashes. The images of rough kisses and tossed clothes hit me suddenly. I had to clench my legs as I thought of how the rest of the progressed, suddenly wanting to feel it all again while sober. Hoseok was right, the best way to get over someone is to get under someone else, but I wasn’t about to tell him that.

           “About last night..” Jimin started as he slowly started to sit up, the blanket falling from his bare torso, allowing me a good look, a look I’d remember.

           “Want to do it again?” He looked at me with wide eyes before smiling and moving closer to me.

           “I thought you’d never ask.”

           Being with Jimin felt easy. I didn’t have to open up about past heartbreak or try to be a proper lady. We didn’t pretend that we were anything more than fuck buddies. There was no fancy dinners or empty promises. Just take out and crumpled bed sheets. “Let me watch you at dance practice today.” He said as he hovered over me, placing a kiss on my nose. I pushed him off of me as I stood to get ready.

           “And why would I do that, Park Jimin?” I made my way to my closet, not bothering to cover my currently nude body with a blanket, it wasn’t anything he hasn’t seen.

           “Because Hoseok goes on and on about how hot you look while dancing.” He was soon behind me, his hands on my shoulders as he kissed the back of my neck and slowly made his way around to my lips, bringing me in for a deep, needy kiss.

           “Really, Hoseok called me hot?” I didn’t believe that for a second. Hoseok flirted with me in the past, that’s not something we’ve kept a secret. But not once in the three years I’ve known him has he ever called me hot. Stunning maybe. Ethereal definitely. Especially when it came to my dancing. The only person I knew who could beat me in a contest was him, but it would be pretty close.

           “Okay so he didn’t say hot per se, but the way he describes you, I need to see it for myself.” I could see the pleading in his eyes and decided to cave to his puppy dog eyes just this one time. What’s the worst that could happen?

           “Just this once, but you’re buying food after.” His smile widened as he quickly agreed and helped me pick out an outfit for practice.

           I could feel his eyes on me the entire time I was dancing. It almost made me stumble a few times, but I was able to keep my composure as if he wasn’t even there. By the end of practice, Jimin was jumping up from his spot, spewing out about how good it was, trying his best not to let Hoseok in on the fact that we’ve been sleeping together.

           “I told you, she looks like an angel!” Hoseok added onto the nonsense that Jimin was spewing. I couldn’t help but laugh and roll my eyes at the two of them. “Don’t laugh when you know it’s the truth. You could make it in the big leagues, I just know it.” I playfully slapped him.

           “As much as I love the two of you complimenting me, and trust me I love it, Jimin promised dinner.” I smiled over at him to see he was already smiling at me with a look in his eyes that reminded me of Taehyung.

           Six months. We both said it would be casual and that no strong feelings would be involved, but I couldn’t help myself. I didn’t think we’d last this long. I could do casual for a couple of months, but we’ve been together for six months now. Every time I look at him, he’s looking at me with a look in his eyes that reminds me of a lovesick child. It’s the same look I give him, I’m sure.

           “Why are you looking at me like that?” I let out a little laugh as I covered my face. He reached over and took my hands from my face.

           “Because you’re so beautiful.” He kissed me before I could say anything. My heart was threatening to beat right out of my chest, and I could swear he could hear it, but he didn’t say anything. The words were burning in my throat, dying to come out, but I knew that would ruin everything. So I swallowed them down and pretended I didn’t fall absolutely head over heels in love with him.

           “Should we text Namjoon to join us? I don’t want him to feel left out.” I pouted at Hoseok and Jimin. Since I met the two of them at the party a month ago, I’d actually grown quite close to them, Jimin more so than Namjoon for obvious reasons, but I’ll be forever grateful to have the two of them in my life.

           “As if I didn’t already text him.” Hoseok jokingly rolled his eyes. “I know you love him more than us.”

           “Not true and you know that Hobi!” I said as I jumped on his back. His hands immediately wrapped around my legs to stop me from falling. “No one loves me the way you do so you’re my favourite.” I kissed his cheek as I usually do. I could sense the difference in atmosphere after looking over to Jimin who was staring at us with an unreadable expression on his face.

           “Still offended I wasn’t invited to watch dance practice.” Namjoon huffed when we met him at the restaurant. I pouted up at him and told him he could come to the next one if he wanted to.

           “How did you even convince Jimin to buy you dinner?” Hoseok asked, looking between the two of us. “I’ve known him for years and he’s never offered to buy me anything!” I stifled a laugh at that fact.

           “I’m cuter than you, what did you expect?” I joked, wrapping my arms around the arm Jimin had resting on the table. He looked over to me with a wide smile and placed his hand on mine.

           “Damn I see how it is. I’m not a pretty girl so I got to buy my own food.” Hoseok shook his head.

           “Don’t even pretend like you don’t always buy my food too!” I joked back, unwrapping myself from Jimin as my food was placed in front of me. Just as I was about to dig in, I heard a familiar voice from behind me and I immediately lost my appetite.

           “Hey, I didn’t expect to see you here.” He exclaimed with a wide smile and a pretty girl tucked into a side, a different girl than the one at the party. She glared at me with a look that could kill, but I didn’t pay her any mind as my eyes couldn’t move from Taehyung, standing there dressed in all black looking like some sort of god.

           “Well I’m here.” I replied, trying my best to hide the hurt in my voice. I couldn’t let him know he hurt me.

           “I think it’s time we go our separate ways. This already went on too long.” I blinked back my tears and gave him a smile, telling him I agree.

           “We said casual. A one-year anniversary is too serious.” I chuckled as I took a sip of my coffee. “This was fun though. You were a good distraction when I needed it.” He chuckled and shook his head.

           “Yeah, you were too. I’ll see you around.” He stood from the table and I watched as he walked away. I just sat there, staring in the direction he left long after he was out of view. After I finished my coffee, I went back to my apartment and stared at the gift on my table. Something I found that would have been perfect for Taehyung. I wasted my money even though I knew it was all casual. I fell in love with a man who didn’t know what love was.

           “Why are you standing there like we’re going to ask you to join us?” Hoseok snapped, anger prevalent on his features and I couldn’t help but smile at my best friend.

           “Awe come on, we’re friends, right Y/N?” A small laugh came out of my mouth when he said that.

           “We’ve never been friends, Taehyung.” Namjoon and Jimin seemed to put two and two together that Taehyung was the ex from the party a month ago. I could see it in the way their faces changed from confusion to anger. Jimin wrapped his arm around me.

           “Should we get this to go, love?” He asked me softly. I looked away from Taehyung and met Jimin’s eyes. He seemed to always have an unreadable emotion in his eyes, and I just wish I could read him as easily I can Hoseok.

            “No that’s alright, babe.” I played along with the prettiest smile I could muster while Taehyung’s eyes were still on me. “I’m not going to let irrelevant people ruin our good day.” I looked up at Taehyung who rolled his eyes.

           “So much for not having time for relationships.” He muttered just loud enough for the table to hear as he walked away, the girl asking him a million questions. I chuckled at his annoyed expression and the way he all but pushed her away.

           “You did not tell us that the notorious Kim Taehyung was your ex.” Namjoon said when the two were out of earshot. Jimin removed his arm from around me and just stared at his food while he ate.

           “Not something I like to brag about, Joonie. Besides, it wasn’t anything serious.” Hoseok scoffed at that.

           “One year isn’t casual, Y/N.”

           “You dated him for a year?!” Jimin basically shouted at Hoseok’s words. I rolled my eyes and shook my head.

           “We weren’t really dating, guys. Really it’s not a big deal.”

           “It was a big enough deal that we had to babysit you at that party.” Namjoon added and I rolled my eyes and just let the conversation drop. It wasn’t something I wanted to talk about. Falling in love with Taehyung wasn’t my finest moment, and I’d rather forget we ever had something.

           A few days after the incident at the restaurant, I found myself sitting at a café, my drink sitting on the table getting colder as the minutes passed. He was always good at making me wait, and I began to wonder if he was even showing up. After sitting there for almost 30 minutes, I reached for my drink and got up to leave. “Hey! Sorry I’m late.” He ran in, out of breath and sat down across from me.

           “It’s not new. I should just stop showing up on time.” I said as monotone as I could.

           “I’m sorry, Y/N. I’ll try to be better; I promise.” I furrowed my brows at his words. “I want to try again. I miss us. I was stupid to think things could be casual with you.” I crossed one leg over the other and sat back in my chair, my thoughts a jumbled mess. “I know you’re dating that guy, but I also know that you still love me.” I thought back to Jimin and how he distanced himself from me these last few days. I tried texting him and calling him, but it seemed as if he was ignoring me, ever since he found out about Taehyung.

           “I love Jimin.” I told him simply and went to stand when my eyes met Jimin’s, sitting across from a girl who seemed completely oblivious to her surroundings. Taehyung turned to see what I was staring at.

           “That asshole.” Taehyung seethed, standing from the table and storming towards Jimin. Jimin stood before Taehyung reached him but that didn’t stop Taehyung from grabbing the collar of his shirt and yelling at him. I knew I needed to stop him before anything else happened, but I was frozen in spot. The other patrons looked on, wondering what was happening at this usually quiet café. It wasn’t until Taehyung threw a punch that I was running over to them and throwing myself in between them.

           “Stop!” I yelled as I put my hands on Taehyung’s chest. He looked down at me and his features softened. “It’s okay, Tae. Jimin and I aren’t dating.”

           “What?” He asked, looking between the two of us. “But you just said you love him.” I nodded and took one of Tae’s hands.

           “I did say that. Let’s go somewhere else to talk.” I turned towards Jimin and the girl he was with. “I’m so sorry. I’ll call you later, please answer.” Jimin just looked at me with tears in his eyes, but I wrote that off as pain from the punch Tae threw. Taehyung and I walked out of the café hand in hand, and it brought me back to the days we were okay.

           “Tae can you stop walking so fast.” I said when we were outside. Just as he stopped, I felt another hand wrap around my wrist, and by the way Tae’s eyes widened, I knew it was Jimin before I turned around. When I looked up at him, he let go of my wrist and cupped my face before pressing his lips to mine. The kiss was different than the others we shared. It wasn’t needy or demanding. It was soft and filled with passion. Butterflies filled my stomach, and I couldn’t help but kiss back, my hand dropping from Taehyung’s.

           “I love you.” He whispered, hands still cupping my face. I said the words to piss Taehyung off, knowing I couldn’t allow myself to fall more in love with him. I couldn’t get back with him knowing how fast he moved on. Deep down, I knew he just wanted me back because he couldn’t have me. Because I wasn’t letting myself be hurt over his absence.

           But as I stared into Jimin’s eyes, I thought back to all the moments we shared, in and out of my bedroom. How he never thought twice about protecting me, without even knowing the truth. The way he looked at me when he thought I wasn’t looking. The obvious jealousy at me and Hoseok that I wrote off as awkwardness about Hoseok not knowing about us. How he would always bring me snacks when he knew something was wrong, even at 3 in the morning. He was always there, little by little kicking Taehyung out of my heart.

           “Please don’t go to him.” Jimin added when I didn’t say anything, his hands dropping from my face. I turned towards Taehyung, seeing he was just standing there, fuming as he watched us.

           “How can you say you love her when you were just in there with another girl?” He yelled, taking a step towards Jimin. I stepped in between them, hoping Taehyung wouldn’t throw another punch.

           “How can you say you love her when you’ve been sleeping around since you guys broke up?” Taehyung scoffed and rolled his eyes.

           “You don’t know anything.”

           “You’re right, I don’t. But I know you don’t deserve her!”

           “And you do?”

           “Can you two just shut up!” I yelled. “Tae, I don’t want to be with you. There’s nothing between us anymore.”

           “You can’t seriously tell me you’re choosing him.” Taehyung took a step back and crossed his arms over his chest.

           “My love life has nothing to do with you, not anymore. Jimin, can you please take me home.” I looked up at his bruised face and he nodded, draping an arm across my shoulders and took me away from Tae. “Thank you.” I whispered as we walked. “And I’m sorry. I never thought he’d act like that.”

           “I meant it you know. I love you.” He was already looking down at me when I looked up.

           “Me too.” I didn’t when I said those words to Taehyung, but I did now.