#but when I look at Mario stuff or pizza tower stuff

[sorio99]

Random, irrational pet peeve of mine: when people place the -a incorrectly in comedy Italian voice writing, so if you were to read it out loud it wouldn’t sound natural.

[docilepillow]

MARCH 2024 MEDIA DIARY 2

I ran out of embed space on the first post i had slotted in for this!!! So i'm making two posts!!!!!!! They belong together!!!! Okay!!!!!!! PIZZA TOWER < this game is soggy goop >

Even though I cleared a good portion of this game nigh a year ago now, i still feel compelled to put it on my media diary now, as i've only just got around to finishing the game properly! I believe the point i dropped off the game before was at Pig City, which, i think , is kinda understandable given how big that level is, but, was probably a real bummer for the whole of my friend group who were super into the game when it was new and i probably missed out on talking about it alot with them... POOP!!!! just because this game is popular enough to actually warrant talking about it with my friends later, instead of saying stuff like how i enjoyed the silly cartoony art stlye and the games general charm, im just going to post a level tier list i made the second i beat the game at like near midnight kinda hazy-minded without thinking on it too hard without thinking too deeply in a way thatll be completely inflamitory bc im mostly satisfied with the experience i had and dont really feel the urge to P rank anything --

The stats are saying my total hours round up to 6 hours 50 and pepinno is pointing at me Aughh

My , , Errr, " CRITISISM " of this game is that the funny pizza man is a little, erm, STICKY? Kinda gross. a little weird. Partially my fault. I'm sowwy. I'm not very good at this game but i absolutely respect everyone's opinion on it . Go watch my friend @shoppncart's speedrun, by the way, it's cool :

Speedy! THE MARIO MOVIE < the bario boooby geheheheheheheh >

this is probably a tired opinion but since i was subjected to this movie for the fifth time in a voice call my take is thaat this is probably more enjoyablel then the safeass illumination film. like. yea. that films probably objectively better but. id rather watch something thats an actual adaptation. like this movie. where basically nothing mario happens outside names . Aw. i honestly think this movie has intrigue to it genuinely maybe im saying this bc its one of the movies ive actually watched repeatedly before, like roger rabbit, but i think the history behind this movie and the old anamocity turned-endearment are what make it worth watching. that and its a little goopy You Guys Wanna See Some MM2 Proggys? not a new piece of media technically but ive been playing a fuckton of MM2 recently still as of the end of the month and its absolutely dominating my time as of late, and i kinda wanna show off a small amount of the progress ive made on it, as much as the world map, at least --

It's a media diary. it exists to document MY gaming life. Deal. anyway in regards to it i'm almost finished with the world 4 castle, which is crazy, because before i hadn't even finished world 2, but now i got all of this creative energy in me... If i finish this soon enough, i'd be able to upload it on NSO, so keep your tumpler eyes peeled, mutrals :J I personally like it because theres a theme of aescending on the world map. The space theme in this looks the best, i think.. THE ALCHEMY OF US - HOW HUMANS AND MATTER TRANSFORMED ONE ANOTHER < what the fuck ????? a book ??????? >

yea thats right im reading books this ones actually pretty good apparently a 2020 bestseller though im not in the habit of reading those often so i'll just have to take their word for it on that aspect. i think lifes all about trying new things so around halfway through the month i picked up this cool book i found at my library and got a library card. After reading through it all, i think anecdotally that this book is a very neat read. theres a few sentences that're a little offputting to my young mind but overall the book is filled with alot of cool insight i reccomend checking out if youre the boooky type of person! i think its very good and im glad i picked it out :) i donnu how many of these will be going onto my media diary in the future or anything , but maybe i will if i end up reading more! I'll have to make it up to a friendd for waiting till now to put up something i read here first before that thing she likes. oops.

Volp. OUTSIDE of the traditional media format again, also, are things i largely started on this month but don't think i'll be making all too much more progress in, or if i'm unsure i'll finish what i was doing all in one month- CASTLEVANIA THE ADVENTURE- REBIRTH

POINT OF DROP OFF - STAGE 4 END BOSS REASON BEING - UMMM SORRY I GOT DISTRACTED AND DIED TOO MUCH

castlevania rebirth is a really really cool game. its really cool and im not typing this as fresh as everything else because it was something i picked up for one big sitting earlier in the month. i probably couldve finished it at any point during the week, but simply was too distracted and wanted to do other stuff. It's very cool though, i love the vector sprite art, and there ARE silly stock sound effects everywhere, which is always a big positive for me . I mostly just like how snug the wii classic controller is , and this is a cool game to play it with considering its one of the only non virtual console or old game collection style games available for wii in this exact style ( Not counting the good handful of games that choose to use the wiimote on its side instead. )

over all ill probably sit down and finish this someday soon i just gotta like find time for it whenever next my wii u is plugged in ( it fights for an hdmi slot with my switch and ps4 all the time...! ), and ill probably end up trying to play punch out wii at the same time, given one doesnt dominate my attention over the other. From my understanding they're both short, though, so it shouldnt be too big a deal or obstacle no matter how long i put this off. RANDOM TERRARIA PLAYTHROUGH terraria playthru 1million

ii just really want to see the new terraria update Waaaah... i stopped having fun because i self imposed myself to not use setbonus armor sets at the part of the game where that stops being acceptable anymore so im stopping i think i did get to make another terraria pet though that makes me happy POINT OF DROP OFF - the mechanical bosses

also the most recent thing is

i got too tense and needed to excuse myself after like an hour 30 i cant take too much tension in movies i was really uncomfortable and had to leave to take a breather bc the main character gets put in a really really shitty situation and it was getting hard to watch for my autistic ass

thats enough i think thanks for coming see you next month lol

[tibli]

New pinned post!

hey there, im tibli but i go by a few different names on here (you can find them if you look in my desc here or on my sideblog). i like to draw and write but im pretty sporadic when it comes to both, sorry about that 🫠

i like kirby, super mario, pizza tower, and a lot of other things, but those three are the most prominent i think!

i try to keep my blog mostly sfw, but i do reblog nsfw jokes and some suggestive art on occasion. they will typically be tagged "#nsfw" (if its got images, like nsfw memes), "#nsfw text" for regular text posts, or "#suggestive" for things that arent really nsfw but would probably be considered a little risque to most.

i want to be clear that when im referring to "#nsfw" its not like, straight up porn or anything its usually just a funny post that references sex or smth.

i just wanted to put this little disclaimer on my blog for people to see. i dont think you necessarily NEED to be 18+ to follow me, but i think if you're under 18, it would be best to blacklist the tags i've listed above. that way you can still follow without being exposed to stuff you might not be comfortable with!

i mentioned this briefly in my desc, but i do not want any proshippers following me. i know the term is kind of broad at this point, but im specifically talking about those that ship minor/adult characters. keep that shit away from me. this also goes for zoos as well, and bigots of any kind. i dont really have the energy to vet my followers like that, so i cant really stop you, but just know that if you fit any of those criteria you are not wanted here.

i think thats it for now! if anything else comes to mind I'll probably just update this post!

[hoagmaster]

September 8, 2024

What's this now? It's been a spell since I posted here. And no rapid-fire catchup? Well, this goes in line with that I've hinted at in past posts.

See, most of them read the same, don't they? "I went to work, things were slow, I played this game, I faced off with this existential crisis." I felt like things were rarely out of the ordinary. And I don't want to just feel like things are dull and repetitive (not when I potentially have an audience), so that's why unless something super urgent or otherwise pops up, I think I'm going to make these weekly now, likely posted on Sunday evenings. That should work better!

In any case, it was a doozy of a workweek. After the holiday it was smack into preparing for the local fair in town and my department had to set up a booth and whole presence there. Figures some staff didn't want to play ball, but I think we still set up a good booth and got a good turnout. It also gave me plenty of time to go check out the sights and eat some of the snacks on show. My feet were killing me on more than one day, but that's fine because it's one of my Apple Watch goals for the month to walk a lot. That definitely helped! The side hustle stuff was also pretty routine, so not much to report there.

So what did I play this week? Here's another area where I could switch things up. Fewer posts of Balatro going forward maybe! Well, I'd say the one that stood out was starting Pacific Drive. It's a game where you...drive in the Pacific Northwest. But because that place is just rife for mystery and intrigue, stuff starts to happen and you're stuck investigating. And you've got to tune up your car for the journey, which adds some nice management mechanics to the mix. Then the act of driving and looking around can be pretty engaging even if I am early on. I'd like to keep playing this one. Elsewhere, there was stuff for the Steam Deck like Fallout: New Vegas and Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3 along with scouting out sales for games I otherwise can't play (the whole reason I bought this thing). Then some Pizza Tower and Mario Kart 8 Deluxe on the Switch.

Then it was a trip up north today to help with some family deals. Yeah, we skipped the first day of NFL stuff but I don't feel like I missed anything. But the college football slate yesterday was rad. #5 Notre Dame went down and messed with the rankings, which I always support. Arizona State held off a late rally. And the overall atmosphere was just more exciting and satisfying than the other sport. Baseball was a mixed bag this week, but there's more of it coming up!

It felt good to do a few things and also get supplies for someone. I'm sure there will be more chances to do so, especially with fall rapidly approaching. And I wonder how much of fall stuff I've missed in past years just wasting away in front of the TV with RedZone. I'm sure football days will still happen, but for now, maybe Sundays will be a mite more productive.

And that's all for this extended version. Hope you have a good week coming up!

[taigaoftundrablog]

blog post numero uno

i have no idea how this whole blog thing is gonna go, most likely ill find another day to post it other than monday (dear god mondays)...

but i feel like ill figure it out eventually, also these will probably be pretty random each week as i quite literally dont have a schedule of any sort so uh lets begin with it

art stuff with taiga

i have been working on this cool little thing which yall will see eventually, its gonna take like forever to make (woohoo 12 million heckin tutorials) but i am making progress, just got the hardest part left

other art stuff ive been doing is just random doodles from time to time like always, but havent been doing much else art-wise

here's some ms paint doodle i made in a minute or two, just for this

taiga does gaming stuff (what a big surprise she does that like every single day!!)

been playing switch games ever since i got my switch about a month ago, i beat mario odyssey like yeah around a week ago i think, i also should be playing breath of the wild more but motivation has kind of been lacking (i realised i have to go look for koroks) so i've just played both mario maker and odyssey, i have around 550 moons in odyssey and im at 130 levels in endless normal in mario maker

ive also realised i should start playing games ive had in my backlog for like forever (have to play thru celeste, pizza tower, half life 2, cuphead, just to name a few) but i think ill be focusing on switch games primarily for a little while

literally everything else

i'm getting a laptop from my school soon when high school starts!! i don't usually get much time to do stuff on pc so i feel like this will open up new opportunities to learn things like programming (i've been trying to get some sort of start with that but its very difficult to get the motivation to spend all the time i have during a day just to learn programming) but we'll see what i'll do

closing thoughts

nothing too much has happened honestly but next week will be more about school as that's starting wednesday (i hope that wont be too bad), mostly ive just been doing what i usually do each day, that being looking after the kids (my two little brothers) and just trying to get some time to get things i wanna do done

i think the next blogs will have more in depth writing which isn't just a mess of spaghetti all around as i just spent probably around maybe half an hour or a little more writing this? i didnt have a stopwatch on okay im not sure

but i will see you all next week in taiga blog (with me yelling about school!!!)

[wooglah]

howdy!

polar | he/him

about | sideblogs | other platforms | art only

sideblogs (under readmore):

“FANDOM” SIDEBLOGS

animal xenofiction books: https://owlsnow.tumblr.com/

(ex: warrior cats, guardians of ga'hoole)

pizza tower & antonblast: https://cinnamonsprings.tumblr.com/

(also whatever the woon thing’ll be)

collect-a-thons and mascot platformer games: https://bentleysglasses.tumblr.com/

(ex: sly cooper, spyro, ratchet, mort the chicken of course

TMNT: https://ghostbearpeppers.tumblr.com/

pretty self-explanatory. mostly rise of the tmnt! currently very inactive, though i still love tmnt.

ARCHIVE OF mario/general nintendo blog: https://spinysurge.tumblr.com/

i moved mario, dk, etc., stuff to bentleysglasses and don’t really use this blog anymore, but i still have it up in case you want to look through. do note that i’ve had this one since like 2016/2017.

AUs

the legend of fire and ice AU: https://thelegendoffireandice.tumblr.com/

an AU/rewrite of the legend of spyro trilogy, with the most notable obvious change being a role swap of ignitus and cyril (named glacious in this AU). combines elements from beta/unused content and my own personal headcanons. i’m actively working on this but i don’t have a lot of non-spoilery stuff to show for it!

rairverse (co-owned with shadow): https://rairverse.tumblr.com/

an AU that i work on with shadow. combines a bunch of rareware and rareware-adjacent games into one universe/timeline. currently on hiatus.

lost factions AU: https://lostfactionsau.tumblr.com/

an AU combining many parts of the spyro franchise’s history with a fanfic idea i had when i was 14. except like, better than when i was a teenager. blog is blank ATM and work on it has paused in favor of TLoFaI.

“if you like it. thanks. if you don't don't. then screw you i spent my ass working on this”

[toomuch-caffeine]

Titles don't matter

AO3 link

Word count: 8726

Summary: First, Happy was dating some mysterious woman. Then his new nephew turned out to be superhero. And now Tony somehow gained a kid.

Rating: Teen

Warnings: kidnapping, gunshot wounds, unnamed bad guy's death

A/N: Reposted from AO3, third fic in a series

---

A big reveal of Spider-Man’s identity and by consequence Happy’s mysterious girlfriend, who was a vigilante’s Aunt, brought a lot of yelling and long conversations in med bay. Said vigilante was a teenager and hid the fact that he fights criminals in his pajamas for more than a year, which made his Aunt mix of angry, guilty and terrified. When the situation calmed down, a couple of days after Peter Parker woke up from the surgery and had a chance to defend his actions, Tony made a proposition to May and Happy. Peter could train in the Tower with the Avengers and also would make a super suit with Tony. A suit that would contain a lot of safety protocols and a way to control young hero’s actions by adults.

That’s how Tony ended up giving a tour of his workshop. He observed the awestruck teenager in front of him. Peter looked around, lips slightly parted and eyes wide open. Tower’s lab was definitely an update from dumpsters and school workshops. It occupied two whole floors, one of them belonged to Tony, one to Bruce. Sleek holotables and expensive materials were enough to make every nerdy teenager’s knees weak. There was still some clutter in the corner, but Tony had cleaned up a bit, to impress Peter more.

“Come on, kid, that’s your workstation.” Tony showed a big, empty oval table, to a lingering in a threshold kid. Peter’s eyes widened even more, something that Tony didn’t think was possible.

“Wow, seriously?”

“Yeah. And those are Dum-E and U.” Tony didn’t even have to motion at the two robots, as both of them were currently surrounding Peter, trying to get to know the newcomer. Kid petted both of them, laughing and they seemed satisfied. He was seriously endearing. Couple of minutes spent with him and Tony could already tell why he wormed his way to Happy’s heart in no time. He was still shy with Tony and other Avengers, but around May and Happy he acted like a rambling ball of sunshine. He was too polite for his own sake and looking at his school records, Tony could tell, he was brilliant and right now he wanted to test that.

“So, introductions are done, time for fun!” Tony clapped his hands. “You can use everything in here-”

“Oh my god, this is like the best day of my life, Ned, you know, my friend, won’t believe me!”

“-but there are gonna be rules,” Tony continued. Mention of the rules brought all of Peter’s attention to him.

“First of all, FRIDAY won’t let you in the lab without me or Bruce present. You can experiment with whatever you want, but you have to run your ideas by me or Bruce or FRIDAY first. If you set something on fire, Dum-E has a fire extinguisher. Don’t eat or drink anything bots give you, they mix food with motor oil.

“Okay, so for the first project, we’ll do your spider suit together and you will learn along the way what FRIDAY can do, where are the tools and so on.” Tony sat down next to Peter, motioned for holograms to appear. “So, let’s get started.”

~~~

Tony never liked having company in the workshop. Other people were loud and nagging him to do stuff like eating or sleeping. But then came Bruce, who was quiet, could keep up with him and stand his moods. And then Peter appeared. The kid that understood arc reactor technology and Bruce’s papers. Even when something posed a problem to him, explaining was a pleasure, not a hindrance. He actually wanted to teach him all that he could and he already made several notes of what to do with the kid after they finished the suit. Peter’s ramblings replaced his workshop playlist and soon Tony knew all about his friends and teachers, his stories from patrols, as well as his favorite dishes and ice cream flavors. So he enjoyed working with Peter. His teammates might have also noticed that.

~~~

“Keep this up young spider and you will beat me in sparring,” Natasha praised him after the training. Peter, red faced from exertion, smiled and thanked. Then, he quickly grabbed a bottle that Steve threw at him from behind. He opened it and took a sip.

“Wow, I’m so hungry right now,” he stated.

“We have a lunch in an hour, think you will survive ‘til then?”

“Uhh, I don’t know, who’s cooking?”

“Well, it doesn���t matter, because there’s your favorite pizza waiting for you in the lab.” Another voice butted in. The owner of this voice appeared a moment after. “Spiderling! Come on, we’re burning sunlight!”

“But Mr. Stark, it’s not even noon and we don’t need sunlight in the lab!”

“Yeah, but Happy picks you up at 5, come on, come on, we have a lot to do.”

“Stark, stop making excuses to hog the kid just for yourself,” Natasha joked.

“Yeah, it’s been a month and he spent that mostly with you in the lab,” Bucky backed her up.

“Well, maybe because he knows who is best. Kiddo, who’s your favorite Avenger?” Tony shot them all a smile and clapped Peter on the shoulder.

“Well, I don’t know, but Bruce Banner is pretty cool? You know the most renowned scientist of his generation, his work on gamma rad-“

“You ungrateful child. I build a multimillion dollar super suit with you and that’s how you repay me?” Tony mocked outrage and started dragging Peter out of the gym. “We’re going. But maybe take a shower first.”

~~~

“Parker, you’re cheating!” Sam shouted when Peter threw at him another blue shell and won the race.

“I’m not cheating!”

“That’s not fair!”

“Rules allow that!”

“Then the rules are wrong!” Sam threw his hands up in the air. “God, I can’t believe that I lost to a teenager.”

Clint, who came the last, said, laying face first on the carpet, “You never win with kids in those things. Seriously, I have three of them, I know it.”

“Kid? Where are you? You said you are going to eat. Did the fridge eat you?” Tony came shouting.

“I’m sorry Mr. Stark, but Mr. Barton and Mr. Wilson invited me to play Mario Kart with them,” Peter answered beaming.

“And how did you do?”

“I won!” Peter gestured at the screen with the results and two defeated men.

“That’s great. Hey, when you come to the lab, I’ll let you mess with Iron Man repulsors.”

“Oh my god, yes!” Peter’s eyes lit up and he hurried after Tony.

“Wow, Tony stole Happy’s kid,” Sam said incredulously, when they both left.

“Do you think he will hide and lock him in his lab forever?” Clint lifted himself from the carpet.

“Dunno. Wanna go another round?”

~~~

So when the summer break ended, Spider-Man’s suit tested and ready to use, the atmosphere in the workshop changed. Kid started spending mornings at school and afternoons alternating between patrols and spending time in the lab. But the amount of time spent together was significantly smaller and emptiness started annoying Tony. It did wonders to his responsibilities to SI and Avengers Initiative as he was less inclined to lock himself up in the workshop.

~~~

“Tony, did something blow up here?” Bruce entered his workshop and stopped in his tracks, shell-shocked and looking around. He hadn’t been in Tony’s workshop for a long time as he worked mostly in his or small med bay’s lab and it was Tony, who would pay friendly visits to other labs (or come to bother Bruce). Currently, on Peter’s workstation were piling papers and textbooks. Every other surface was covered in post-it notes with Spanish vocabulary.

“I’m helping Peter with Spanish.”

“Tony, do you even know Spanish?” Bruce asked with raised eyebrows.

“I do now.”

“So… You are learning Spanish. For Peter,” Bruce stated.

“I’m learning for myself. It’s just a side effect that I can help him.”

“And it has nothing to do with Nat and Bucky teaching him Russian?”

“Nothing.”

“Sure. Now, do you have a UV lamp? Mine had broken down.”

“Oh, yeah, it’s there.”

~~~

“Soo, Mr. Stark, I have a question, you don’t have to say yes, of course…” Kid said, playing with a zipper.

“Just spit it out.”

“Cannedcometotheworkshopplease?” Peter let out a question in one breath with unbelievable speed.

“Say that again, but slower?”

“Can Ned come to the workshop, please? We have a robotics project for school, an-“

“Jesus, of course you can invite your friend over, you don’t need to stress so much.”

“Thank you Mr. Stark!”

And that’s how Tony ended up giving a lab tour to another teenager, this time a chubby, Asian kid, that gave the gaping fish impression at the first sight of the workshop.

“So, kiddos, what do you need to do for your little project?”

The project ended up with a very angry May Parker yelling at him.

“Stark! Why the fuck school called me to tell me that Peter’s last project was to dangerous to show in class?” Her lips were pressed into a thin line and she crossed her arms.

“Wha- It wasn’t anything that would blow up?” Tony said hesitantly as he didn’t exactly remember what he came up with.

“There were lasers, Tony.”

“Not very dangerous, if you ask me, just for a show.” He was sure that he didn’t let kids put anything that would destroy school in their project.

“Lasers that apparently cut a school desk and a whiteboard in half.” Or maybe he did. “He was given a 3 day suspension for bringing dangerous objects to school!”

“Oh, wow, I mean, that’s bad…” Tony was literally unable to act guilty, because that meant Peter would be out of school, and that meant…

“He’s not going to spend that time with you.” May Parker’s sharp voice cut off his train of thoughts.

“Oh…”

He spent those three days redecorating and personalizing the guest room, where Peter had stayed a couple of times. His actions brought some half-hidden smiles from his teammates and Pepper, but he shrugged it off.

~~~

“Pepper, why did you take my intern?”

“I didn’t take anyone, Tony.” Pepper leveled him with a stare. “Peter came to me, asking for help with English essay for school.”

“Why didn’t he ask me?”

“Because you said that English classes are useless and he should ditch them.”

“What? No! I didn’t! Why would I?” Tony sputtered.

“FRIDAY, pull up the footage, please,” Pepper said with an exhale.

“Okay, FRIDAY, don’t, I did, but I shouldn’t. Kid, don’t ditch school, your education is important.”

“Well, I can always become a full time Avenger.”

“Wha- no! No, you can’t, I forbid, you are going to finish high school, then go to MIT and then work in SI, and you are not going to be a full time Avenger. Over my dead body!” Tony’s speech made both Pepper and Peter laugh.

“I was just joking.” Peter scrunched his eyebrows as some thought just came to him. “Have you already planned my life for me?”

“No?”

“Oookay,” he replied, dragging the o. “Anyway, I just thought, that Pepper has more experience in humanities that you,” said Peter

“So when you are done with English, head down to the lab, because I have some upgrade ideas to discuss with you.”

Tony shot a glare at Pepper and she glared back. Tony decided to do a tactical retreat and leave the room.

~~~

“Tony, wait!” Happy called after him. “Look, I just wanted to talk about Peter.” That grabbed Tony’s attention.

“Is he okay? I didn’t get any-“

“No, no, he’s fine, I just wanted to talk about him. And you.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, I talked with May and she noticed that as well and he spends a lot of time with you.”

“If you want me to stop h-“

“I don’t want you to stop, there’s just a building full of people who also want to spend time with him.” Happy’s words were rushed and he seemed out of breath.

“So what do you want me to do, throw him out of the workshop?”

“Tony, just don’t go around complaining that he’s currently doing something with someone else.” Happy made a placating gesture and continued, “Look, I know you love him, I do too , but you can’t monopolize all his time.”

Tony opened his mouth, but no sound came out. He thought about his interactions with Peter for the past couple of months. Yeah, he liked the kid, liked teaching and helping him, a lot of his Spider-Man’s adventures had raised his heart rate and had given him a few gray hairs, but love? Nope, he didn’t need it and the kid didn’t need it.

He finally found his voice, “I don’t l-“

“God, you are an emotionally stunted idiot.” Happy shook his head. “Everyone sees that. Talk with Pepper.”

“Oh-okay,” Tony replied in confusion.

~~~

Pepper and Tony were laying in bed, the former reading a book, the latter looking at some blueprints.

“Happy said that I love Peter,” Tony dropped suddenly. The woman closed a book and turned on her side to look at him.

“And you don’t agree with that,” she stated.

“Well, it’s not like I don’t agree with it, but…”

“Tony, you literally started learning a new language to help him. And you also do your paperwork, while he does his homework, because you want to set a good example. You also started sleeping and eating regularly, for the same reason.”

“I just want to be a good example.”

“I also know something else.”

“Hmm?”

“Your will.”

“Oh.” Tony had, in fact, updated his will a month before and made Peter his sole heir. Peter wasn’t aware of this fact as Tony waited for him to be eighteen. May, as a legal guardian, and Happy, by extension, were the only ones informed about it. “But you know, he’s clever.”

“Would you do that to every clever kid?”

“…no.” Pepper smiled and picked up her book. Tony stared at the ceiling, thinking. After a minute he said, “He also said that I spend too much time with him.”

“Happy said that?”

“Uh-huh…”

“Tony… He just means that you are fairly annoying, when Peter spends time with the team and you come dragging him to the workshop.”

“I don’t drag him anywhere.”

“You know what I mean,” Pepper responded disapprovingly.

“Okay, okay, I know.”

After the beat of silence Tony spoke again, “You know, we could make our own kids.”

“You already have one.”

“He’s Happy’s and May’s, I just borrowed him.”

“And after we make our own, you are going to give him back?”

“Ehh, no, he grew on me.” Tony blinked, realizing something. “Wait you said after? Does that mean-“

“Good night, Tony.” Pepper turned off the lights.

“But you don’t dismiss the idea…”

“Good night.”

~~~

He did make it weird. They were five minutes into their usual lab time and Tony couldn’t stop staring at the kid and recalling conversations with Happy and Pepper. Peter , currently unaware of the turmoil inside Tony , was sitting at his workstation, chewing on a pencil and focusing on calculus homework. Tony sitting with his own pile of papers moved his eyes to the sheet of paper before him. ‘ Article 5c…' What the fuck am I reading? He looked on the desk, where read pieces of paper were laying. Apparently it was a contract. He didn’t recall its content at all. He looked at Peter again. Still chewing on a pencil.

“Hey, don’t chew on that!”

“What?”

“You’ll destroy your teeth by chewing on pencils.”

Peter scrunched his eyebrows.

“Seriously?” He looked at the pencil and at Tony. “Why are you so weird today?”

“I’m not weird.”

“You are looking at me.”

“Maybe I like watching you.” As soon as those words left his mouth, Tony winced internally at them. Great, now he is a creepy, rich guy, who likes watching teenagers. “Or maybe not.” Peter’s eyebrows raised in question. “But I still like you.”

“You are being really weird,” Peter said, unsure of what he should do.

“Do you like being here?”

“Sure, why wouldn’t I?”

“You are not feeling obligated to do so? You wouldn’t prefer to spend time with Steve right now?”

“I don’t understand…”

“It’s a simple question, Pete.”

“Yeah, but I don’t understand why you are asking me that.”

“Just answer it, kid.”

“No , I don’t feel obligated to spend time here. I wouldn’t prefer to spend time with Steve right now” Peter replied, confusion and nervousness clearly visible, with how he started playing with the pencil.

“Yeah, yeah, that’s good, good talk, go back to your homework.” Peter looked at him quizzically for a moment, then he shrugged and went back to calculus. Tony started going through the contract. Except after five lines he lost his focus again and started thinking about Peter again. Emotions were always confusing for him and it didn’t help that everything about a situation was complicated. He couldn’t exactly Google ‘my bodyguard is dating a woman with a kid and I think I kind of love that kid, but I’m not sure what to do.’ Happy and Pepper both said that it’s okay and their only complaint was he tries to keep Peter to himself too much. And he was willing to admit that they were in fact right. But that was followed by the doubts if Peter actually wants to spend time in the workshop or if he just a pressured poor kid, who didn’t feel like he could refuse. Even if he wanted to spend time with him, where would he draw the line ? He had May and Happy as, well, parental figures. So what did it make Tony?

“Why are you staring at me again, Tony ? ” Peter’s voice startled him. He didn’t even notice when he moved his gaze from paperwork before him to kid again.

“I’m not.”

“Yeah, you are.”

Tony moved his eyes to the ceiling and sighted.

“Okay, I am. But I want to talk to you about something and I don’t know how.” Talking about feelings. Apparently a mature thing to do.

“Oh. Did I do something wrong? Because-“

“No, no, no, you didn’t do anything wrong.” Tony quickly denied. “Wait. Why did you think that you did something wrong? Did you?” He stared intensely at Peter.

“No, I just, you know…”

“Okay, never mind, we’ll talk about this later.” Tony took a big breath and started, “I talked with Happy. And Pepper. They both thi-“ A ping from his phone interrupted him, he looked at it and swore. “Okay, looks like we need to postpone our conversation.”

“What’s going on? Is that a mission? Should I-“

“Not a mission, stay there and do your homework, I’m going to be back soon or I’ll send Pepper.” Tony quickly left the workshop and once he was out of hearing range, he said, “FRIDAY, what’s going on?”

“There was a shooting at Central Park. Happy Hogan and May Parker were involved.”

“Are they okay?”

“911 reports say that Mr. Hogan was injured.”

“Send location to the suit, I’m going there. Divert the ambulance with Happy to the Tower, inform Cho and Pepper of the situation.”

“What should I tell Mr. Parker?”

“Don’t tell him anything yet.”

May and Happy had a date tonight, they should’ve been safe. But something happened and Tony had to do damage control quickly.

~~~

There was already the police and an ambulance departing the scene. Tony couldn’t see neither Happy nor May anywhere. He hoped that they were both in the ambulance that he saw leaving. He landed and immediately saw the crowd turn to him. He didn’t have time for fans and questions, ignoring them, he confidently strode towards NYPD officers, the crowd parting like the Red Sea.

“What’s going on, where’s May Parker and Happy Hogan?”

“Excuse me Mr. Stark, but you have to stand behind that tape.” one of the officers pointed with a finger.

“Mr. Hogan is my employee and has close ties to the Avengers and as such, that case falls under our jurisdiction,” he quickly replied, leveling the cop with a stare. It was a young looking man in uniform. His eyes widened and he opened his mouth in shock.

“Okay, I know that you are here to just keep the crowd away. Just bring me to someone, who is in charge here,” Tony quickly added more calmly. This worked, because he quickly found himself in the company of Detective Morrison and Detective Slater. Both of them were tall, unimpressed looking men.

“I understand Mr. Stark that you are nervous, but we are currently questioning the witnesses.” Morrison crossed his arms over the chest. Tony looked at his phone. Steve was trying to get that case handed over to them, but there’s only so much that can be done in five minutes and without any proof that it was an Avengers-level threat. Happy was admitted in the Tower’s med bay, unconscious and with a bullet hole. May Parker wasn’t with him and Tony was currently trying to locate her.

“You don’t understand. I just need to talk to a woman. May Parker. This high, brown hair, wears glasses. She was with Happy Hogan and probably will know what happened here.”

“I’m sorry, but there was no woman matching your description among people on scene when we arrived.” Finally Tony got confirmation of what he suspected all along and could act on that. He unblocked his phone and chose the number.

“Rogers, shooting in Central Park, May Parker wasn’t on scene when authorities had arrived, she’s possibly missing.” Then he turned to the Detectives, “We’ll need the witness statements that you’ve gathered.” He handed them a business card.

~~~

Back at the Tower Tony immediately rushed to the workshop. Peter was still there, having finished homework, he was preparing a web fluid.

“Hey, kid,” Tony started. Peter jumped in surprise and spilled the chemicals. He moved to clean it, but Tony stopped him

“Leave this. We need to talk.”

“Uhh, yeah, you'd said that before you left.”

“About something else, actually.” He placed his hands on the kid's shoulders and pushed him gently in the direction of a lab stool. “Sit down.” Peter complied and turned his attention to him.

“I left, because FRIDAY informed me of… shooting in Central Park. Happy and May were involved in it. Happy is currently in surgery and we don’t know where May is.” Tony decided to be short. As he watched Peter’s expression morph from neutral to disbelief and then pure shock and fear, he thought that maybe being more gentle and less direct was a better idea.

“What? No! That’s not… Please…” Peter’s breath quickened and started coming in short pants. He swayed on the unstable lab stool. Tony caught him by his shoulders.

“You need to breathe, kid or you’re gonna pass out.”

Fortunately Peter was able to get his breathing under control on his own and didn’t work himself into a full-blown panic attack. After a short silence filled only with the sound of his inhales and exhales, he feebly said, “I want to help.”

“Absolutely not,” Tony answered sternly and moved back.

“It’s May!”

“That is exactly why you won’t be doing anything!”

“You don’t understand!”

“Yes, I do! You won’t be able to keep your cool and you will be a liability not help! We can’t afford that!”

“Well, you can’t stop me!”

“Oh, yes I can. FRIDAY, Peter is not allowed to leave the Tower or access any files on the case.” Tony gave his orders to AI and looked at Peter. The teenager was fuming.

“You have no right!”

“If you think I’m the bad guy here, you can talk to Steve, he’s going to tell you the same thing.”

“I hate you!” Peter pushed him and stormed out of the workshop.

“FRIDAY, tell him that he should go to med bay to keep Happy company,” Tony barked out and then sighted, sat down by the desk and put his head in his arms. Somehow he managed to destroy everything in two minutes. Well, at least he knew where he stood. He rubbed his face and got up. Team was waiting for him in one of the conference rooms.

~~~

Avengers got permission to handle the case with the NYPD. So along with the team, there were two disgruntled detectives that Tony had met before. Steve led the meeting. After an hour of talking that had led them exactly to nothing he summed up, “For now, we have first responders and witnesses reports, none of them actually saw what happened, most of them heard the gunshot and saw only the result. Nobody recalls seeing May. FRI (DAY?) is running facial recognition, but to no avail. She’s also reviewing all of the footage from the nearest cameras to the scene and flagging anything unusual.”

At that moment Bruce entered the room.

“I have an update on Happy,” he started. ”GSW to the stomach, although nothing vital was hit. Cho’s using her regeneration cradle, so he should be able to tell us what happened when the anesthesia wears off.”

The team nodded at that.

“How’s Peter, Tony?” Natasha turned to him.

“He said that he hates me, because I didn’t let him help us,” Tony said dryly.

“He doesn’t really hate you, Tony,” Clint reassured him. “He’s just frightened that he’s going to lose the closest thing he has to a mother.”

“You need to talk to him,” Natasha stated.

“Yeah, I need to check on him anyway. FRI, where is he?”

“I am unable to determine Mr. Parker’s location.” Blood in Tony’s veins froze in an instant. The whole room went quiet, you could hear the pin drop.

“What… What do you mean?”

“Mr. Parker left the Tower approximately 30 minutes ago.”

“What?! I told you not to let him out! Track him!”

“The protocol has been overridden. Current protocol prohibits me from tracking him.”

“How?”

“I believe that the current protocol was created by Ned Leeds.”

“Fuck.” Wow, letting the kid’s friend in the lab bit him in the ass for the second time.

“Tony, what’s going on? Who’s-“

“Peter and his friend hacked FRIDAY to sneak out and they added coding that makes it impossible to track him. I’m going to fix that.”

It was a long night. Tony spent hours fixing FRIDAY’s programming. At the end he was seriously considering whether it’s better to kill or hire Ned. Unfortunately after removal of the offending code it was too late to find Peter. He disappeared into thin air. His spider suit and phone were left at the Tower. He had changed his clothes in a back alley nearby and he wasn’t caught by any cameras, so they didn’t have anything to go on. At 4 AM it started sounding a bit surreal. Man gets shot and a woman goes missing in a public place in broad daylight. Teenager runs away and doesn't leave any trace. Everything in the span of two hours. Now they were just waiting for something. Clint and Sam played cards quietly. Steve and Natasha were going through everything they’ve managed to gather for an umpteenth time. Bruce went back to med bay to help Cho. Bucky just fell asleep on the table. The two detectives had left. Tony just stared at the screen no longer understanding what he was seeing, his mind exploring horrifying scenario number 78, where they find two mutilated bodies in a river and Happy dies because Cho missed something.

“Mr. Parker was registered by a street camera near the Tower, five minutes ago.” FRIDAY’S voice cut the silence. “He seems to be heading here.”

“What? Where’s he now?” Tony jumped to his feet.

“Mr. Parker just entered the Tower,” FRIDAY announced. “He’s going to the penthouse level.”

~~~

Tony for the past few hours imagined the lecture that he was going to give Peter when he saw him again. Something that would make the kid regret the day he was born. But when he saw him standing by the elevator, all of the anger had left him and immense relief washed over him. Peter was pale and shaking like leaf, but according to FRIDAY was unharmed

“Thank god!” That was all Tony said before pulling him into a hug. Peter, stiff at first, melted into him and started crying. His legs gave out and they both crumbled to the floor.

“I don’t hate you, I don’t hate you, I don’t-“

“Sh, sh, I know, it’s okay, I know, kiddo, I know,” Tony instinctively shushed him and started rocking them back and forth. He looked up and saw Pepper in pajamas, who was woken up and drawn there by the noise and he shook his head a little. She quickly understood and left for their bedroom.

Tony didn’t know how long they sat there but his legs went numb. Eventually Peter calmed down and said, “I thought you would chew me out for running.”

“I thought too. I’m still going to, after you get some sleep.”

“Hmm…”

They sat like that in silence for some more time. Finally Tony moved and helped Peter up.

“Come on, you still need to sleep.”

~~~

Peter looked better after the shower. Not so pale. Tony pushed him into bed, turned off the light and was about to leave, when the small voice called, “Can you stay?” Tony turned towards the owner of this voice. In the darkness he could only distinguish the lump on the bed and curls peeking out from beneath the covers. He moved closer and sat on bed next to Peter, leaning against the headboard.

“Only until you fall asleep,” he said softly. He didn’t exactly know what he’s doing, comforting someone was completely uncharted territory for him. He remembered something that Jarvis used to do for him, when he was little. He put his hand on Peter's head and started running fingers through the soft curls. Peter sighted and leaned closer.

“I’m sorry for running away,” he mumbled.

“You should be.”

“I just wanted to do something…”

“And what did you do?”

“I just wandered around. I didn’t have any plan and I realized that I won’t help. I was scared that you would be mad, so I didn’t come back immediately.”

“I was mad, I still am, but I was mostly afraid, kid. You can’t do things like that.”

“I know, I’m sorry.”

Peter finally closed his eyes and relaxed a little. Tony thought that he was asleep.

“Do you think you’re gonna find May?” Peter asked quietly, startling Tony, who looked down and saw wide eyes staring at him. ‘ He’s just frightened’, he remembered Clint’s words.

“I don’t know. I hope so.” Peter closed his eyes again and pressed his cheek against Tony’s thigh. Tony kept playing with his hair until his breaths evened out and face and shoulders relaxed completely. He stayed like that for a moment before standing up. He stopped in the doorway, looked at sleeping form and whispered, “Sleep tight, kiddo.”

After that Tony went to the kitchen, where Pepper waited for him.

“How is he?”

“Physically? Good. Mentally? As well as he could be in that situation.” He moved towards a coffee machine.

“I handled CPS. He can stay here, for now.”

“That’s good, good.”

“What are you going to do?”

“Coffee. And then go to the team and see if there’s some progress. Find May eventually. You?”

“I’m going to make sure that nothing burns in the process.” she smiled at him softly.

“FRIDAY will let me know when he wakes up, but can you keep an eye on him?” he looked at her.

“I’ve already cleared my schedule.”

“What would I do without you?”

~~~

When he entered the conference room everyone was a bit agitated.

“What happened?”

“A witness came forward, she saw a van and some men in ski masks near the scene,” Natasha started explaining. “One of the traffic cameras caught a vehicle matching the description. We have a license plate.”

It turned out that their excitement was short-lived. Sam and Bucky found the van in an alley a couple blocks away. Police forensics examined it. They would have to wait for the full results, but for now it seemed that it was cleaned. The only noteworthy thing they discovered were traces of blood, presumably May’s. All of the nearby cameras recorded many other cars at the interesting period of time and it was impossible to tell which one belonged to kidnappers. The owner was a kind old man, named Stan, who reported the van's theft a week before. The investigation on that also hit a dead end. They were in process of reviewing the material gathered by the police and made FRIDAY find footage from the night of the van’s theft, but it didn’t seem to go anywhere. They also found May’s phone, or rather what was left of it. They were working on two theories, first one that someone noticed that she spends lots of time with Happy and kidnapped her for information, second one that she was kidnapped for a ransom. They had thought that maybe Happy would say something groundbreaking, but his story didn’t tell them anything that they already knew or suspected.

“There were three men in ski masks and non-descript clothes, with guns. They tried to grab us, one of them shot me. I think they got scared and took only May. I don’t remember much more.”

That left them to wait and look into the enemies' of Avengers, SI and Spider-Man recent activity. Honestly with the amount of material they had, they should have made some progress.

24 hours have passed and they managed to hit a dead end. No one saw anything, no camera registered anything. Tony looked at the clock in the conference room accusingly. First 48 hours were the time when most of the missing people were found. After that chances started to diminish. They’d already used half of that time. Tony should probably go find and comfort Peter instead of sitting and not doing anything, but he couldn’t make himself leave the room in case something happened. Besides, finding May would be probably the most comforting thing they could do.

His train of thoughts was interrupted by an email notification. He looked at the new message and felt his heart drop immediately.

“Fuck! Guys?”

~~~

Everyone in the conference room sat in silence as the video was playing. This time apart from two detectives, there were ransom specialists joining the team. Video featured the kidnappers beating up May and making demands. It looked really bad, with two men punching and kicking her without even looking where. She already had some bruises and what looked like a broken nose. Hits were leaving red marks that would soon turn into bruises. What raised the biggest concern was that May barely reacted. She probably already had a concussion or was drugged.

“Mr. Hogan, we have your girlfriend. In exchange for her, we want 5 million dollars. We are sure that you can get that amount easily from your boss. We give you 48 hours, or we will have fun with her.”

Tony immediately took his phone to organize the demanded amount of money in cash.

“Tony, what are you doing?” Steve asked him.

“Getting them what they want, what do you think I’m doing?”

“I think we should make a plan first,” Bucky joined calmly.

“What plan? They said, what they want, we give them that, we get May back!”

“Excuse me sir, but you shouldn’t do that,” one of the K&R specialists interrupted. “This video doesn’t count as proof of life, so we don’t know if that woman is still alive. A phone call would be preferable. Also, in ransom negotiations the first offer generally should be declined.”

“Am I the only person in this room that actually watched this video? You didn’t hear what they wanted to do? Didn’t see what they were doing?”

“It is not in the kidnappers interest to kill her quickly if they want ransom. They just want to show the power they have over you.”

“Besides, the more we communicate with them, the more we have to track them,” Natasha added. “Also you shouldn’t negotiate. When they get to talk with the billionaire Tony Stark, they are immediately going to raise their demands.”

“It’s also going to be a press nightmare if the media get a sniff on this.”

“Fine!” Tony threw his arms over the head. “Do whatever you want.” He left the room slamming the door.

~~~

Tony went to med bay to inform Happy about the recent development. Peter and Pepper also were there. They sat on plastic chairs, Pepper hugging Peter. Happy laid in bed. He woke up, when Tony entered the room. Tony sat down heavily on the chair in the corner.

“Anything has changed?” Pepper asked. Tony sighted and gave them an extremely watered down description of the video content.

“Those specialists tell me that paying immediately is a mistake and the team says that I shouldn’t get involved.”

“They’re specialists for a reason,” Pepper reasoned.

“I want to see that video,” Happy said.

“Trust me on this, you don’t want to.”

“Tony…”

“You focus on getting better, Hap,” Tony cut him off and turned to Peter. “Have you eaten?”

“Yeah.”

“A sandwich a couple of hours ago,” supplied Pepper.

“You have to eat more with your metabolism, kiddo,” Tony said seriously. “Come on. We’re going to the kitchen and then there’s bedtime for Spider-babies.”

“I’m neither hungry nor tired.”

“Yeah, I’m not explaining to your Aunt, why are you starved and sleep deprived.”

“If you will have someone to explain to,” Peter mumbled under a breath.

“Yeah, you're not talking like that. We’ll get her back and you are going to eat.” Tony put his arms under Peter’s armpits and pulled him up. “If you don’t cooperate, I’ll use a suit to drag you to the kitchen.”

~~~

Tony managed to coax Peter into the kitchen, without dragging and made him blueberry pancakes. (“Pancakes? But that’s breakfast food.” “Yeah, and you are going to eat them at 10 PM.”) They repeated the routine from yesterday. It also calmed down Tony and he started accepting that specialists and the team might be right. He came back to the conference room, where everyone was except for Clint and Natasha.

“FRIDAY tracked the kidnappers, they didn’t cover their tracks well.” Steve’s voice greeted him. “Clint and Nat are doing reconnaissance right now.”

Clint’s and Nat’s intel helped them develop a plan. There were four kidnappers, holding May in a suburban house. They were armed, but definitely weren’t professionals. This didn’t work in the team’s favor, because their lack of experience made them unpredictable. With the hostage present they really couldn’t afford a fight, even though they outnumbered the opponents. So they formed a plan, when they would try to take the criminals one by one.

It was just an ordinary house at the outskirts. The whole neighborhood was peaceful and unaware of horrors currently happening in one of the houses. Well maintained, clean area, small streets and wide sidewalks, a playground nearby. With a shining sun and birds singing cheerfully it looked like a suburban dream. It was really weird, that nobody had heard anything, but on the other hand it was the kind of neighborhood where the residents would leave their homes in the morning for work and come back in the evening.

“It just really creeps me out, this place,” Tony started wondering. “It looks perfect and beautiful, but no one has any idea what neighbors are doing.”

“Do you know what our neighbors are doing, Tony?”

“I have FRIDAY monitoring for any suspicious activity in the nearby buildings.”

“You're a stalker.”

Tony chuckled as he watched people getting to their cars and leaving. They had been observing the house since wee hours of morning waiting for the best moments to strike. Right now any action was out of the question. There were too many people on the street and any Avengers action would attract a lot of gawkers.

“One of the kidnappers went out for a smoke, he’s at the back. I think we could take him out without attracting any attention.” Natasha’s voice carried through the comms.

“Do not engage. Neighbors haven’t already left, we can’t risk being seen,” Steve ordered. “Tony, how’s the front of the house looking?”

“The guy with a nose from the house on the left is having a polite conversation with the fat guy from the house in front,” Tony relayed what he could see from his car.

“Guy with a nose?”

“It’s seriously big, trust me.”

“Seriously, you would think that people at 7:30 in the morning would hurry to work and not engage in conversations with neighbors,” Clint complained. Three yelling children came out from one of the houses.

“Oh and now the guy with a nose is packing his children to the car and the fat guy looks like he’s about to go,” Tony updated and relaxed into a seat. He took a sip of a coffee and choked, when someone suddenly knocked on his window.

“Yeah?” He asked, rolling down the window.

“You can’t park your car here!” a middle aged blonde woman started yelling at him. Peter called those ‘Karens’ as he recalled.

“It’s not a no-parking zone,” he replied.

“You cast a shadow on my flowers.” Tony looked at the sad excuses for plants and immediately thought that they need water more than sunlight. Before he could share his idea, comms cracked and he heard Steve saying, “Tony, do not argue with her, we can’t afford her to recognize you. Just drive around the block, maybe she’ll leave.”

Crazy plant lady didn’t leave and Tony was forced to find another observation spot.

Finally, the neighborhood emptied and quietened.

“That guy is smoking in the back again.”

“Okay, the neighbors have left, you can take him out now.”

Tony looked at the stream from the camera Clint had on himself. Natasha and Bucky moved in complete silence. She stepped behind the kidnapper, and with surgical precision pressed a spot on his neck. Bucky immediately caught the man, before he could fall and make a noise. They dragged him into bushes and hid there.

“One out, three to go.”

“Okay, now we wait.”

Couple of minutes later another criminal appeared.

“Clint, go.”

An arrow soundlessly flew through the air and hit him in the shoulder. Bucky appeared and again caught and dragged the guy into bushes, where Natasha was keeping an eye on the first one.

“He’s out. Two more to go.”

“Attention guys, the remaining two kidnappers moved from the basement to the kitchen.”

“Uh-uh, people on the street,” Tony warned. “Someone with a kid, I think. I can’t see clearly.”

Two NYPD officers in civilian clothes appeared and herded the newcomers to where they came from.

“Okay, all clear now.”

“Good. Nat and Bucky, you are guarding the back door and kitchen window, Tony and me from the front. Clint stays watching those two taken out guys, Sam, survey the area from the air. Bruce, move the ambulance here.”

Tony got out of the car and went to the front door, where he met Steve. He activated the nano gauntlet and leaned on the door. Steve looked around while the lasers from the gauntlet were destroying the lock.

“Okay, the door is unlocked, we’re going in.”

“Copy that.” i

Tony pushed the door and let Steve in first. He activated his whole suit and immediately followed the man. They were in a hallway that opened at the end to the living room, connected to the kitchen. On the right there were the stairs. They moved quietly toward s the living room. Tony gestured to Steve that he wants to enter first and stun both remaining criminals with his gauntlets. Steve nodded. Tony smoothly went to the room and fired at the unsuspecting kidnappers. He hit one of them, standing by the counter, but instead of the other he hit the cupboard full of tableware. The cupboard like in slow motion fell on a criminal, emitting an ear-splitting noise of breaking glass. Cracking and clanking reverberated through the room for what I seemed like an eternity. It made both men stop and just watch in shock what was happening. Steve regained his bearings quicker and ran towards the man buried under the glass and porcelain.

“He’s dead.”

“You sure?”

“Yeah, his brain is on the floor.”

Tony didn’t wait for more. He retracted the suit and ran towards the basement.

“May, May?! Oh, shit…”

May was slumped in the chair, which she was tied to. Her face was covered in dried blood and bruises.

“Hey, May, wake up,” Tony said while looking for a pulse. He jabbed his fingers to her neck and prayed quietly. Fortunately, he felt slow beats.

“Get a medic here ASAP, she has a pulse, but it looks really bad!” he shouted at the comms. “Hey, wake up, Peter’s waiting for you.”

This seemed to do the trick.

“Pet’r?” she slurred.

“Yeah, he really misses you. And Happy’s okay.”

“Mmm…”

After that everything went rapidly . Suddenly the place was swarmed by medics and NYPD officers. Tony was pushed back as they put a collar around May’s neck and an oxygen mask on her face. She was placed on a stretcher and pushed into an ambulance that left soon.

“Jesus.” Tony slumped against a car and slid down, so he was sitting on asphalt. After the stress of the past few days left him, he felt exhausted. “I need a coffee.”

“You need a sleep.” Steve materialized from nowhere.

“Everyone needs that. I need to talk to Peter, Happy and Cho.”

“ The NYPD wants us to stay here. But… Maybe nobody will notice your absence.”

“Steve Rogers, goody two shoes, encouraging me not to cooperate with law enforcement? How can I refuse?”

“Drive safe, Tony.”

“I will.”

Tony got into a car and started the engine. He drank the rest of the now cold coffee and started driving in direction of the Tower. There were still a lot of things to do.

~~~

Couple of days later Happy was allowed to leave med bay on condition that he will have plenty of rest. May was cleared by Cho the day before that as the biggest issue was concussion. Steve and Bucky were preparing a big dinner since everyone finally could participate and even Rhodey managed to leave DC and was joining them. They were very secretive about the chosen dishes and had forbidden everyone from even getting near the kitchen.  Tony honestly just hoped that they wouldn’t set the building on fire. He holed up in the workshop.

The elevator ding announced somebody’s arrival. Tony turned and saw Peter lingering on a doorstep.

“Hey, what are you doing there? Come here.”

Peter looked at the floor, shuffled towards the workbench and stood there awkwardly. Tony got up and approached him.

“Did you forget that you usually sit here?”

Peter sat down and started playing with the hem of his shirt.

“Okay, what’s going on?”

“Before… Before all this, you said that you need to talk to me.”

Honestly Tony hoped that Peter forgot his attempt at the serious conversation.

“You were weird that day and then, you know what happened, and you were nice, but not there, and then again weird.”

Tony cleared his throat and said slowly, “I’m sorry that you felt that way. I spent most of the time with the team, because I thought that finding May was what you needed the most.”

“I mean, it was. I just felt lonely. Happy was on strong pain meds and Pepper is nice, but…”

“Yeah, I get it, I’m really sorry. And for being weird. Happy told me that I spend a lot of time with you and butt in your time with others and I started questioning how you are feeling about this.”

Peter suddenly moved and wrapped his arms around Tony and with a muffled voice said, “I don’t mind, seriously.”

“I know now.” After a moment he added, “You know, I just don’t want to replace anyone.”

“You’re not. You are just Tony, not Happy, or May, or...”

“Just Tony, huh?” Wow, where did the hero worship go?

“Titles don't matter, only that you care.”

I care so much , he wanted to say. I want you to be safe, I want to see you grow and learn. Instead he just said, “I do.” Peter didn’t respond. Tony broke the silence, “You know I’m not good at emotions. Happy called me an emotionally stunted idiot.”

“I know.”

“You little shit. You were supposed to say, ‘You handled this very well, you are great!'” Tony broke a hug and ruffled his hair. Peter beamed at him

“Miss Potts asks if Peter got lost in the workshop and if she has to come and get you to the dinner,” FRIDAY interrupted them.

“Wait, you were supposed to tell me the dinner is ready?”

“Maybe.” Peter smiled sheepishly.

“You really are a little shit. Come on. I’m starving.”

When they got to the kitchen everyone was waiting for them. Pepper, with crossed arms, scolded Tony, “What did you do in that workshop of yours? Everyone was waiting for you and it’s extremely disrespectful to Steve and Bucky!”

“I’m really sorry, Pep, but we needed to have a conversation. And someone-” he looked sternly at Peter- “didn’t tell me that dinner was ready.”

“I’m sorry, really, it just happened,” Peter frantically started explaining himself. Something in Pepper’s face softened.

“I guess it’s fine, you two really needed it, but next time maybe find a better moment, okay?”

“Okay, okay!”

They finally sat down at the table. Steve and Bucky really put a lot of effort into the meal. The main course was salmon with asparagus. They also prepared garlic bread and a salad as side dishes. They even chose the right wine for a fish, but Tony suspected Natasha’s or Pepper’s help here. Conversation flew freely and they made their way to the dessert, in an amiable atmosphere. Pepper started conversing with May, which brought his attention.

“You know, maybe you could move to the Tower.”

“I don’t know really…”

“Peter and Happy spend most of their time here anyway and you too were here a lot, even before.”

“Plus, you know, Happy already has an assigned private floor, so it’s mostly a question of packing and moving stuff from your apartment,” Tony joined them. “And you would have the help of superhumans and Pepper Potts to plan everything.”

“Oh, the last thing makes the best argument. How’s wedding planning going anyway?”

“Well, it would go better if Tony listened to me. We have a cake tasting scheduled next week.”

“You know, we could just take Peter, feed him cakes and ask him which one he likes best. It would be faster. I swear his stomach has no bottom.”

“What?” Peter turned towards them at the sound of his name.

“Only if you are dealing with his sugar high, Tony,” May chuckled

“Hey, guys, I can hear you!”

Before they could continue they heard Steve clearing his throat. He got up and looked like he was about to give a speech.

“Last week was very hard for all of us,” he started. “We are very pleased that everyone important is able to be here. Me and Bucky have some important news to share and we are glad that you are the first to hear that. Without further ado, we decided to get married.”

Cheers and questions erupted immediately. Everyone congratulated and the toasts started.

Tony looked at the large table. Maybe titles didn’t matter. But the only thing that he could think was that after all these years, they became a family somewhere along the way. Big, loud and unconventional, a patchwork family, that wouldn’t make sense to a stranger. There were still a lot of issues that needed to be solved in the long run, but at that moment they were the happiest people on Earth.

[maggyme13]

Fictober: Ring- Loki

AN: So I love the idea of Inktober, though i wanted to do it a bit different. like writing a short fic and then draw a picture to it using the officially prompt list. But i had to cut that idea because of time. So I now try and write short snipplets and stories to every prompt. I know I might end up doing this far over the boarders of October, but who cares?

Those stories will be about  Loki, Azog, Happy, Bane, Deadpool or Bucky, and a friend helped me add prompts and characters by rolling a dice.

So I hope you have as much fun reading them as I have writing them :)

Here we go:

Wordcount: around 800

Warnings: Cursing

Prompt: Ring

Masterlist

“What so special about that thing? It looks like it came out of a bubblegum dispenser.”, your soon to be ex-friend Sam Wilson cursed.

“Because it was!”, you shouted back, ready to throw a punch, which was evident in your voice.

“Then why are you going crazy like that? DSit down and play a round of Mario Card with us.”, Sam´s partner in crime Bucky Barnes laughed, “ THere is a dispenser a dfew blocks down from the Tower.”

“Fuck you Barnes and Fuck you WIlson! I got it from a friend of mine when we were kids!”, you cursed at thdem, tears of anger in your eyes and aiming a couch cussion at the males.”FRIDAY, can you do another scan? Please.”

“I already scanned the twoer six times. I fear the results won´t be any different from those.”, the AI dsighted (?) at you.

“Thank you none the less, “ you answered, “ I will jkust go back to my quaters. And please, don´t feel the need to disturb me.”

“Damn, she get´s pissy. She better find that thing soon or I am gonna lose IT.”, was the last thing you heard Barnes mumble.

__

Tears soaked your pillow not five minutes later.

“Stupid Bucky! Stupid Sam!”, you sobbed, “Why can´t they understand how important the ring is for me?”

“Maybe you shoudld tell them?”, a male, you didn´t thought you would hear, said.

“WHat do you want Loki?”, you hissed, though your voice was muffled by the soaked pillow, “You want to make fun of me, too?”

“Right the opposite. I want to help you and return something to you.”

Retu- “You found my ring?!”, you happily exclaimed, literally jumping off the bed.

“If this is your missed jewelery , than yes!”, the god of mischief  smiled, opening his hand.

And indeed, in the male´s palm laid your missed ring.

“Where did you find it?”, you asked, your voidce muffled  from the way your head was burried into his chest from your hug, “Thank you soooo much.”

“My pleasure. ANd to answer your question: I saw it laying on the flooe during our last mission. It seemed familiar, so I took it with me.”

“Thawn hwu.”, you hugged him even deeper, “bwt how dwu you want two wlp me?”

“I will make soemthing they hold very dear disappear.”

At least the will fear the same as me.

“Please leave Steve where he is. I dont want to be responsible for the third world war.”

“As you wish.”, he chuckled.

__

A few days later:

“Where is it? I can´t find it! It can´t just disappear?!”, you heard Barnes grumble, litteraly lifting the coach to search beneath.

“Buck, have you seen Redwing I? I can´t find him and I start to get worried.”, Sam called from the the other side of the room, just as frantic as you had been only days prior.

“Not that it´s any of my business, but wasn´t that knife all rusty and dull? So, why don´t you just buy a new one? And Redwing the first, really? You have six more of them, Wilson. TOny is propably buying you a seventh one just as we speak. Chill out.”, you shrugged sounding annoyed, giving just as good back as they had done before, all the while sitting down to watch TV with some popcorn on your hand.

“-It´s important to me.”-”He is important to me.”, the men exclaimed at the same time, only to look at each other and then team up to glare at you.

“And? No need to get all pissy and better find that thing soon. Or I know at least one person who is gonna lose their shit.”. Using their own words against them felt good, and you couldn´t suppress the proud smirk when you noticed them realize waht you had just said; they at least looked ashamed of themselves.

“We were total Assholes-” “-weren´t we?”, they mumbled

“Yes.”

"We are sorry.”, they exclaimed at once.

“Good.”, you answered with a nodd.

“SO, where is our stuff?", they asked carefully not to anger you into not telling.

“I have no freaking clue. Tell me when you found them. Maybe my ring is there as well.”, you shrugged, not even glancing at them.

“Oh come on. you know something!”, Sam groaned.

“Maybe. But why should I tell you? You were pretty dbig Assholes.”, you asked with squinted eyes, finally looking at them.

“Because we are sorry-”

“-and learned our lesson?”, they smiled with their best puppy-dog- eyes.

“Fiiiine-”, you answered, “ I will get your stuff. And you two can oder pizza. As part of your apology.”

“As usual?”, the man with the metal arm asked.

“As usual.”, you nodded, “And get some pizza sticks with aioli as well!”

AN 2.0: So let me know what you think :)

Permanent:

@jadepc@pacifyhxlsey @thankyoukarenclifford

@thankyouforanonymity  @punkrockhufflefluff

@scarletraine

@ambrosialyn

 @markusstraya

@graveyard-groupie

@buckycaptspideypool

 @markusstrayya @randomgirlkensy @the-soulofdevil

MCU:

@yknott81    @banner-and-bucky-are-life @forext20 @dyanlzbb  @so-finster-die-nacht @emmii4 @caplansteverogers @bitchwhytho @ladyofmyst   @jilldsumner @momc95

[vernonfielding]

Life Writes Its Own Stories

Chapter 5! (And AO3, of course.)

Amy had entertained the idea of becoming a cop for a while in high school. She’d been in her sophomore year, when all of the Real Life conversations were just starting at school: The AP kids were obsessed with the PSAT and everyone had to go to mandatory career fairs and Amy had even started getting a few college brochures at home. Amy’s plans – though thoroughly detailed and organized – only went as far as getting into a really good college, and then figuring out the rest from there. But she’d spent a lot of time imagining herself in different jobs, and her fantasies had carouseled around becoming an internationally renowned cancer researcher, the next Sonia Sotomayor, or the youngest captain in NYPD history.

(She’d occasionally daydreamed about life as a journalist, maybe working overseas somewhere. But an actual career had seemed profoundly unrealistic. Until, one day, it wasn’t.)

She’d eventually ruled out the first two careers – scientist and judge – because science kind of bored her, if she was honest, and she didn’t have the gravitas or the social intelligence to be a leader like Sotomayor. So by default she’d leaned into the captain fantasy.

At the same time, she started to notice how many late nights and weekends her father worked, and how some nights he came home with such a deep weariness in his shoulders that her mom just hugged him and held on. She saw, too, how cops were treated. Sure, there were the folks in their neighborhood who greeted Victor Santiago by name, who were proud to have a cop in their community. But she also heard the slurs shouted from passing cars and the hissed insults when she walked with him down the street. She knew what her friends in school said about cops. Some of their hate and distrust was earned – not by her father, but by other cops – but it still upset her. Victor Santiago was a kind, decent man, in a difficult, often thankless job.

Now, sitting at her desk at 10 p.m. on a Friday night, she felt angry on his behalf as she pored over the papers she’d been studying all week. Her father – and Jake, and other good cops – worked so hard for the people in this city, and these dumbasses in corrections were just blithely stomping all over people’s rights.

The irony of it, Amy knew, was that when her story ran most readers wouldn’t know, or care, that these jerks weren’t representative of all cops – they weren’t even part of the NYPD. Which meant that the good guys would get dumped on all over again. And there wasn’t anything she could do about it, other than write the truth.

Sometimes, Amy thought, this job sucked too.

The newsroom was quiet at this hour, the crackle of her police scanner unnaturally loud. Amy tipped the sound down a bit and stretched, lifting her arms over her head and looking around. Charles was the only other person in the newsroom, typing furiously. She assumed he was working on his personal food blog because the city desk deadline had passed an hour ago. Holt’s door was closed, the office dark beyond the blinds he’d left up. Amy sighed and flipped to the next page. There was another code she didn’t recognize so she added it to her growing list of numbers to look up later.

Beside the stack of papers, her phone suddenly vibrated, and Amy instantly smiled to herself. The screen lit up with a text from Pineapples: “OMG I have a killer story for you, literally killer. Call ASAP.”

Amy laughed out loud before she could stop herself, and slapped a hand over her mouth. She replied: “Stop it! You know I can’t write anything right now.”

“Oops sorry. Hold on, texting the Times.”

“Don’t you dare,” Amy wrote.

Jake replied with a shrug emoji, followed by a devil emoji and then a series of farm animal emojis.

Amy glanced at the time on her phone, and then the stack of papers in front of her.

She wrote: “What are you doing right now? I need dinner.”

“It’s 10 p.m.”

“I know,” Amy wrote. “Been a long day.”

She realized, belatedly, that she was acknowledging that she was working at 10 on a Friday night, and also that she had no friends to ask to dinner.

“Never mind,” she quickly typed. “I’ll grab something on the way home.”

“Meet me at Mario’s on Dekalb.”

Amy turned off her computer and stuffed her papers and her notebook into her purse and was out in three minutes. She called a goodbye to Charles over her shoulder but if he replied, she didn’t catch it.

Jake was leaning against the brick wall outside the pizza place when Amy walked up, slightly out of breath. He stood up straight when he spotted her.

“Hey,” she said. “Thanks for meeting me. You probably have way better things to do on a Friday night than talk to an annoying reporter.”

He grinned. “Usually, yes. But Rosa and I spent all day on a missing dog case for one of the Vulture’s gross frat bro friends so I haven’t eaten since- actually I don’t remember when.”

Amy gaped at him and said, “Is the Vulture a person?”

“Oh yeah, he’s our captain. Pembroke,” Jake said. “He’s the worst.”

“And Rosa is-”

“My partner.”

“The one who thinks talking to me is a terrible idea,” Amy said.

“That’s her,” Jake said, still beaming. “Shall we?”

He led Amy inside the pizza spot and up to the counter, where he tried to convince her to get the all-meat pizza that somehow had five different kinds of sausage on it. Amy opted for veggie instead. They took their slices the couple blocks down to Fort Greene, where they climbed a play structure, cold and empty this late at night, and ate with their feet dangling over the side of the slide tower.

It was an unseasonably chilly night, and Amy zipped up her jacket. Jake, she noticed, was wearing a leather jacket over his hoodie now, and for some reason the contrast made her grin – like he couldn’t decide if he wanted to be cool and sexy or cozy and sweet.

“What’s so funny?” Jake said, when she ducked her head to hide her smile.

“Nothing.” Amy took a huge bite of pizza, and Jake watched in what could have been alarm or awe as she chewed – and kept chewing – and finally swallowed. “This is really good pizza.”

“That was kind of disgusting,” Jake said, “but also impressive.”

“Thank you.” Amy made a show of dabbing her lips daintily with a napkin and Jake laughed. “Did you really have a tip for me tonight, or were you just messing around?”

“Totally messing with you.”

“Thank god,” Amy said. “This story is killing me.”

She droned on for a bit then, filling him in on the reporting so far. Holt had just that day given her another two weeks to work on the story, which Amy desperately needed and was grateful for, but it also added even more pressure. When she told Jake she was compiling a list of penal codes she still needed to look up, he offered to go over it for her to save her some time. Amy hesitated, because she didn’t technically need his help for that kind of work. Eventually she told him she could handle it, and he shrugged and focused back on his pizza. She got the sense he was disappointed.

“Everyone’s been really supportive at work, at least,” Amy said. “I was worried that they’d all be mad at me, since the other reporters have to pick up my slack while I’m busy with this stuff. But even Gina’s been leaving me alone, mostly.”

“Linetti?” Jake said.

“Yeah. You read her column?”

“Sometimes.” Jake popped the last bite of crust in his mouth and balled up the wax paper the slice had come on, tossing it toward a trashcan at the edge of the play area. “We grew up together.”

Amy grinned as the paper neatly landed in the trash. Then she frowned and said, “Wait, what? You know Gina? Gina Linetti?”

“Oh yeah,” Jake said. “All the way back to kindergarten. I actually sublet her apartment now.”

“How is that even possible?”

“Subletting isn’t that weird,” Jake said.

“Shut up, loser,” Amy said, when Jake grinned at her. “How is it possible that you are friends with Gina and I had no idea?”

Jake shrugged dramatically. “I guess you’re just not that good of a reporter?”

“Jerk,” Amy said, but she actually couldn’t help but feel a little bit like an idiot.

Gina was nosy as hell, and she’d known for a long time that Amy had a source in the NYPD who was based in Brooklyn. That she hadn’t let it slip that an old friend of hers was a detective at the Nine-Nine seemed like a deliberate omission. There was no way Gina would have been able to resist not lording that kind of connection over Amy.

She was also a little annoyed that Jake hadn’t said anything, though she wasn’t going to let him know it.

“Hey,” Jake said, contrite. “I was kidding, obviously.”

“Right, I know.” Amy tried to sound casual.

“Look, I would have said something but it didn’t even occur to me.” Jake leaned back against the play structure and stuffed his hands in the pockets of his jacket. “Gina and I never talk about work – or my work, anyway. To be honest, I’m not sure she even remembers that I’m a cop.”

“That’s crazy,” Amy said, scooting back so she was sitting beside him.

Jake shot her a cynical look. “When she got her first reporting job, I told her that from now on everything I said about work was off the record. And she said, and I’m basically quoting here: ‘Fine, but you can’t talk about work anymore because it’s boring and I’m not going to be bored if I can’t even write about it.’ So I stopped talking about work. Like, ten years ago.”

Amy tried to process that but finally just shook her head. “Yeah, still crazy.”

“Well, that’s Gina.”

Amy didn’t get the sense that he was bothered by Gina’s lack of interest in his professional life – which was awful, because the line between personal and professional was incredibly blurred for most cops, to the point where it basically didn’t exist. In other words, if Jake was like almost every other cop she knew, his badge was his identity. It was everything.

But she supposed that indifference-bordering-on-negligence was a known hazard of a friendship with Gina. And Amy didn’t want to feel sorry for Jake.

Still, Amy wasn’t Gina – and she wasn’t bored.

“So, a missing dog case?” Amy said. “Really?”

“Oh yeah, it was such a waste of time. The Vulture’s always trying to give me and Rosa worthless cases but this one might have been the dumbest. The dog looked like a rat, Amy!”

Amy laughed, and Jake laughed with her, and then he launched into the Case of the Rat-Dog – capitalization noted – which had a surprising number of twists and turns, including a foray into a gelato shop that was really a mob front, and ended with the dog having simply run away to live with a better family than the Vulture’s frat-bro friend. Amy was in tears by the end and actually whooped in celebration when the dog found his forever-home.

“I can’t believe you spent your entire day tracking down a happy dog,” Amy said, wiping tears from her eyes. She was sitting cross-legged on the play structure, huddled into her jacket.

“I guess they can’t all be super cool undercover assignments,” Jake said with a sigh.

“You’ve gone undercover?”

“Sure, all the time. Once I spent six months with the mafia. But that story will wait for another night,” he said, and stood up, hissing and shaking his right leg as he got to his feet.

“Leg fell asleep?”

“Yeah,” Jake said. He pulled out his phone and his eyebrows shot up. “Which is what happens when you sit on a playground for two hours. Good lord.”

“We’ve been here that long?” Amy pulled out her own phone to check.

Jake nodded and held out a hand to her, and she took it and let him haul her to her feet. His hand was warm from his pocket and the touch sent a spark up her arm, making her shiver in a way she wasn’t sure was from the cold. He didn’t let go right away, and when Amy turned toward the stairs to climb down from the play structure, he tugged her in the opposite direction.

“You know we gots to slide,” he said, jerking his head that way.

“Jake, we’re too big-”

But Jake was pulling her in front of him, and he manhandled her onto the top of the slide and said, “Ladies first!” and gave her a shove. Amy screamed as she slipped down, surprised by how fast she was moving. She hit the lip at the bottom and toppled off, just barely managing to stay on her feet.

A second later Jake yelled, “Yippee ki yay, mother fucker!” He raced down, and when he hit the bottom he flew right off and slammed into Amy, knocking them both back into the sand.

Amy grunted as she landed hard on her back, surprised more than hurt. She felt Jake on top of her, and looked up to find his face inches from hers. She stared into his wide eyes, her heart pounding, and then he rolled off and scrambled to his knees at her side.

“Oh my god, are you okay? I had no idea that was going to happen, usually the kids’ slides aren’t that fast.” Jake’s hands hovered over her, like he thought he should be checking her for injuries but wasn’t sure if he should touch her. “Oh god, you’re hurt, aren’t you. Should I call someone? I should call 911. No, I can take you there myself. Can you walk? I can carry you to my car, I’m only a couple blocks from here-”

Amy bit the inside of her cheek. “Jake-”

“No, don’t talk-”

“I’m fine,” Amy managed before she broke down, laughing so hard she was practically wheezing.

Jake went quiet, and Amy sat up and tried to say something encouraging but just ended up collapsing into more laughter.

“I hate you,” Jake said, obviously fighting a smile. “Sincerely.”

“If you have a car,” Amy said, breathless, “could you give me a lift home? Or would you rather carry me?”

Jake smirked at her, then stood and brushed the sand off his legs before offering her a hand again.

+++

Late night dinners became a regular thing.

Jake got the feeling that Amy had reservations about how much time they were spending together, though she never said anything directly. She came armed every time with a question or request for him: a penal code she didn’t understand, his thoughts on something another source had told her, where she might track down some key piece of information she was missing. He helped when he could, but they inevitably ended up chatting about personal stuff after a few minutes.

He didn’t mind. They were both surprised to learn how similar their jobs could be, once they looked beyond who carried a gun and had the power to arrest people, and who actually knew how to use a semicolon and had the power, in theory, to take down the president of the United States.

They both regularly got phone calls from people who swore that airplane contrails were really secret government vaccination programs. They both had at least old person who sent them literal letters – like in envelopes, with stamps and everything – offering unsolicited advice on their jobs. Amy had an old woman who called her once a week to correct her grammar (“It’s not my fault! The copy desk is supposed to catch that stuff!”) and Jake had an old man who called every Tuesday to complain about the trash cans blocking his driveway after the garbage trucks came through (“I don’t know why he doesn’t call sanitation. Am I supposed to arrest the garbage man? Or woman?”). And, it turned out, both of them always answered those calls and listened and agreed that yes, their grandchildren should call more often.

“She just seems kind of lonely,” Amy said one night, as they shared a basket of deep-fried pickles at a bar all the way out in Bushwick. They tried to avoid the neighborhoods around the newsroom and the precinct and either of their homes, and though Amy didn’t always love the commutes, she had to admit it was kind of nice to shake up her routine.

“Yeah, Fred too,” Jake said. “Sometimes I wonder if he isn’t putting his own trash cans in the driveway just so he has an excuse to call me.”

They also shared somewhat pathetic dating lives. When Jake asked one night if she had a boyfriend, Amy shook her head and said she was determined to focus on her job for the moment. “I get it,” Jake said. “The NYPD doesn’t play very well in most relationships.”

They texted every day, and met up two or three times a week. Every now and then one of them would turn down the other’s invitation – they did have friends, or he at least assumed Amy did – but they usually made up for it in a day or two.

Only once did Jake hesitate with his reply, when Amy texted him late one Thursday afternoon. He’d had a rough day and he wasn’t sure if he could be his usual charming, and admittedly silly, self. After an hour, though, he texted back a thumbs up.

Amy had picked some weird sausage-based restaurant for this meeting, and Jake was relieved he didn’t have much of an appetite. He smiled when he saw her and gamely ordered a beer.

“You have to at least split a sausage platter with me,” Amy said. “My coworker swore this place is amazing but he has very questionable taste and I am not going into this alone.”

“Yeah, a friend of mine actually recommended this to me once but I couldn’t go through with it,” Jake said.

Amy ordered the platter and while they waited for the food she filled him in on the progress she’d made on the detention center story. Jake listened and nodded along, quietly drinking his beer. When he ordered a second pint, Amy looked him in the eye and said, “What’s up, Jake?”

He frowned and thought about saying nothing, nothing was up, but he didn’t really feel like lying. Instead he just shrugged, which felt passive-aggressive and pathetic but he wasn’t sure what else to do.

“Look, you don’t have to tell me anything,” Amy said, voice dropping as she leaned forward. “But you’ve obviously got something on your mind, and if you want to talk, you can.”

Jake was dismayed to feel the prickle of tears in his eyes, not from any particular grief or sadness but from the gentle tone of her voice, from the kindness she was showing him. He took a deep breath and turned away from her, willing himself not to cry. The waiter arrived then, setting a truly horrifying pile of sausage between them, and Jake couldn’t help but laugh. He blinked a few times, and his eyes were dry as he faced Amy again.

She answered his grin with a small smile of her own that didn’t reach her eyes. But as she picked up a fork and stabbed at one of the sausages – the look on her face could only be described as equal parts terrified, disgusted, and stubborn – Jake blew out a breath and decided to go for it.

“It’s not that big of a deal,” he said, opening his napkin and spreading it carefully over his lap just to have something to do with his hands. “One of my CIs died today.”

“That’s awful, Jake.” Amy dropped the fork, the sausage landing halfway on her plate and the table. “I’m so sorry.”

Jake shrugged, feeling a little like an asshole for coming across so callous, but he really didn’t do well with emotions. “He hadn’t been an informant for all that long, like three months maybe.”

“Still, you get to know them and rely on them,” Amy said. “They’re like your sources. Oh my god, I’d be devastated if something happened to you.”

Jake looked up at her and stared, feeling a little gut-punched.

“It’s not like that,” Jake said, softy.

“Not like what?”

Jake held her gaze, trying to ignore the tension that seemed suddenly strung between them, like a physical thing. He could feel his breathing coming too fast, could feel the slow flip of his stomach.

“Not like us,” he said.

He quickly looked down at his plate, coughed and cleared his throat.

“I mean, informants have a pretty short life expectancy as it is,” he said, trying to shift the subject. “They’re usually criminals, more often than not they’re talking to the cops just to keep themselves out of trouble or get a competitor off the street.”

“Right, of course,” Amy said. He glanced back up to see she was focused on her sausage again, cutting it up into bite-sized pieces but not actually eating. “Still, I’m sorry. Do you know what happened to him?”

“You mean, did he get nailed for snitching?” Jake said. Amy snapped her head up in alarm, already protesting, but Jake held up a hand and smiled faintly. “It’s okay, it’s the first question we ask. In this case, no, I don’t think so. He was found dead of an overdose.”

“Oh, that’s- good?” Amy said, flustered.

“Better than being shot, but that’s also an occupational hazard,” Jake said. He realized he felt hungry, for the first time since learning about his CI that morning, so he stabbed a sausage too. “One interesting thing, it looks like he OD’d on that new drug, Jazzy Pants.”

“Whoa, wait, new drug?” Amy said. “What’s this?” She was already digging into her purse, presumably for her notebook and pen.

Jake laughed and waved her off. “I swear, I don’t know anything else about it. The Vulture won’t let us investigate it because the Seven-Eight has a task force.”

“The 78th,” Amy muttered to herself as she wrote it down.

“Um, one more thing,” Jake said. Amy put away her notebook and looked back at him expectantly. “You won’t write about any of this, right? Like the CI, or, whatever?”

“Of course not.” Amy looked truly surprised. “Jake, this was personal. I would never do that to you.”

Jake let out his breath and nodded once. “I know. I know you wouldn’t. I just-”

“I get it,” Amy said. “Reporters have a certain reputation. But we’re not all vultures.”

Jake actually laughed at that. “Trust me, I know you aren’t a vulture.”

Amy rolled her eyes at him, but she also gave him a fond smile. They were both quiet for a while, a comfortable silence falling between them as they finally got to work on the sausages.

Jake realized after a few minutes that – despite the sausage already heavy in his stomach and the emotionally charged conversation they’d just endured – there was a lightness in his chest and his head that he couldn’t identify. It wasn’t quite happiness or relief, but something close to peace. He looked across the sausage mountain at Amy, and he smiled.

CHAPTER 6

[classic-rock-roller]

1. You and Kevin come home one day to see Bonham lying on the couch with her eyes closed, a saxophone sound coming from the speaker on the table. It sounds somewhat familiar but  you can’t place it. “What are you listening to?” Kevin asks. “Jazz Mario,” Bonham responds without opening her eyes. Kevin wrinkles his nose, “That’s the dumbest shit I ever heard of.” How do you and Bonham respond?

Bons shoots straight up off the couch and goes, “It is not!”

Me: I do my homework to it. It’s great study music. 

2. Bonham is playing the Super Mario Galaxy soundtrack for you and Kevin and Rudy when the ‘Galaxy Birth’ song. Rudy says, “This is cute.” Bonham says, “I don’t know, it kinda makes me think about death.” What do you and Kevin think of it (song available on request or on youtube) and what do you say?

Me: It does kind of remind me of death. But it’s also putting me to sleep. 

I close my eyes and rest my head on Kevin. 

Kevin: Can we change the song please? I really don’t want her drooling on my shoulder at two o’clock in the afternoon.

3. You’re hanging out with Kevin and Bonham one day when Vince calls you out of nowhere. No hello or anything, the first thing out of his mouth is, “I know marriage is for better or worse but how much worse is it gonna get?” You’ve got him on speakerphone, so how do the three of you answer him?

Bonham: Much worse. Much, much, much worse

Kevin: It’s not so bad..as long as you find the right person. 

And then he looks over at me which makes Bons gag. 

Me: I mean you’ve already been married one time before you married Sharise so shouldn’t you already know?

4. Bonham’s showing you, Kevin, and Rudy a jazz record, and it’s pretty good. A nice bari sax solo comes on and Bonham kinda moans a little and says, “I’d marry a bari sax.” “A player?” Rudy asks. “No, the actual instrument.” She says, and she sounds serious. How do the three of you respond?

Rudy: I mean you could. 

Kevin: Whatever floats your boat. 

Me: As long as you don’t want to marry pizza. I don’t want to see oral sex with pizza again. *shudders* 

5. Rudy asks Kevin what his favorite song is one day, and Kevin totally blanks. “How can you forget your favorite song?” Bonham asks. “Shut up, I have jamnesia.” Kevin says. How do you and Rudy respond?

I roll my eyes, “Jamnesia isn’t a real thing, Kevin.” 

Rudy: Actually it’s a surf camp.

6. You’re sitting with Kevin and Bonham one day when she cringes at a news article. “Some guy got arrested for going around to hotels and filming himself jerking off when the housekeeping staff came in. OH SHIT and get this, one of the guys that caught him gave him a blowjob. Do people just blow each other nonchalantly, like, what the fuck?” How do you and Kevin respond?

Me: When they’re high and drunk enough they do. 

I look pointedly at Kevin. 

Kevin: WHAT?! I never did that!

Me: Uh-huh 

7. You’re at a small get-together with Bonham, Kevin, Rudy, Carlos, and Crue. At one point when you’re sitting with Bonham and Nikki, Kevin comes up to you and says in a deep British voice, “I fancy you.” Before you can say anything, Bonham asks him, “How much have you had to drink?” How do you and Nikki respond?

Me: Too much. He always gets the British accent that sounds kind of like Ozzy when he’s had one too many. And the he usually throws up in. Three...Two...One

Nikki: Aww, seriously dude. These were brand new shoes too.

8. You and Kevin are walking down the street one day when a stranger shouts, “Oh my God! You’re Kevin DuBrow!” Kevin smiles a little and says, “Yep, that’s me. Always glad to meet a fan.” The stranger looks completely awestruck and shouts, “YOU ARE A GOD.” Kevin recoils a little bit and says, “I’m not, I’m just a guy.” How do you respond and what does the stranger do?

The stranger tries to hug Kevin which makes him recoil more and then I get between them. 

Me: Ok, buddy. You’re being very rude. Take social cues and realize Kevin doesn’t want you touching him. We’ll be happy to sign something as long as you don’t act crazy.”

9. You’re at a party with Kevin, Rudy, Bonham, Carlos, and Crue. When it’s time to go, you and Bonham are collecting the boys when you come across Tommy. He’s standing in the only path through the house, dancing. “Move,” Bonham says. Tommy doesn’t even turn around and cheers, “Fuck youuuuu.” Bonham slaps him on the ass to get him to move. He turns around and just leans over, towering over her, and you can’t tell if he’s pissed or turned on. What does he do and how do you and Bonham respond?

After a bit, I realize his pupils are dilated which means he’s really turned on. Since he’s way taller than both of us and extremely drunk we don’t have odds in our favor. Bons is trying to slip past him but he won’t let her. I quickly say, “Hey Tommy, Pamela is waiting for you out by our car. Why don’t you go get her?” “Pamela! Where?!” And he sprints out to the car. 

Bonham: Quick thinking. Now let’s round up the others. Mick’s getting Nikki and Vince. 

Me: And once we get back, we’re locking Tommy in his room. 

10. You’re doing tequila shots with Bonham, Kevin, and Rudy one day. After you’ve all had a few, you’re getting playful. You lick your hand, lick off the salt, and take your shot. You’re cringing, and you say, “Where’s the lime!?” (if you want I can explain how you take a tequila shot, if you don’t already know). Kevin giggles, and sticks it out of his mouth on his tongue. “You want it, take it.” He says around the lime. What do you do and how do Rudy and Bonham respond?

Well of course I’d take it. I pull him in and kiss him to get the lime and since we’re both drunk we end up making out. 

Rudy, who’s has had the least to drink, pulls the bottle off the table and caps it before saying, “Ok, that’s enough for you guys.” 

Bons gags and goes, “At least wait till Rudy and I aren’t in the room before having sex. Christ.” 

11. Bonham gets back from work one day before a show and it’s cold. She brings her sax in from the car and says, “Bertha needs to warm up, so I brought her in while I get ready.” You don’t think anything of it, and Kevin comes downstairs as Bonham goes up. He goes into the kitchen and then comes back out and sits with you. Bonham comes rushing down the stairs and stops into the kitchen before leaving, but when she gets in there she screams. “Who put my saxophone in the oven!?” Kevin shrinks into the couch a little bit as she storms out of the kitchen. “Who put my antique saxophone in the oven and melted her!?” Kevin mumbles, “I thought that would warm it up faster.” How does Bonham respond, and what do you say? Do you defend Kevin?

Bonham: How can you be so fucking stupid?! It can’t go in the oven. It’s like if I threw your stupid iron man toy in the oven

Kevin springs up and goes, “No! Don’t throw him in the oven! I’ve had him since I was a kid! That’s genocide!

I don’t like that the two most important people in my life are fighting so I get between them and calmly go, “I’m not siding with anyone but Bons, Kevin was only trying to be helpful. And you know how stupid he can be. And Kevin, try to use the brain that god gave you.” Before I slap him upside the head. “Also you will be paying for Bertha to be fixed or you will be buying Bons a new Sax.” 

____________________

1) You come home from work one day to find your singer laying underneath the Christmas tree. You drop your stuff and go, “What are you doing?” She doesn’t even look at you and says, “I’m thinking.” You join her underneath the tree and go, “I don’t know how you find this relaxing.” She’s about to say something when you hear Kevin go, “What the fuck are you two doing?” What do you and your singer say and how do Kevin and Randy respond?

2) Your band is on tour with Crüe promoting the joint album that had just released. Baby Mal is with you because QR is on their own tour and your singer and Kevin didn’t have anyone to watch him. One night, your singer is putting Mal to bed when you get a call from Kevin. You step outside of you and your singer’s hotel room to answer and the first thing you hear is, “I’m going to kill him! How can he take my wife and child away from me like that? I’m flying to your next venue so I can beat his ass!” You pull the phone away from your ear and go, “Whoa, whoa, whoa. What are you talking about?” “Didn’t you see the article in the latest gossip magazine?” “No, I didn’t. Hold on.” You hang up and go down to the nearest convenence store to pick up the latest gossip magazine. Sure enough, you find your singer and Tommy on the front with your singer holding Mal. The headline reads, “Breaking news! War Angel’s singer has left Kevin DuBrow to raise their son with Tommy Lee!” What do you say when you call Kevin back, do you tell your singer, and what does Kevin do when he shows up at your next concert?

3) Your band is in a slump for your new album. Your band, Kevin, and Randy are in the studio trying to figure out what to do. You all take a break to go get lunch, although your singer stays behind. When you come back, your band, Randy, and Kevin find your singer in the recording booth singing along to The Wild and the Young. She doesn’t notice you guys at first until Erik says into the mic, “Hey, that’s pretty good. Why don’t we cover that?” How does your singer respond and what do you, Daryl, Linus, Randy, and Kevin say?

4) Daryl has recently been getting on your nerves a lot more and he is being really creepy towards your singer while working on your next album. One day, You, Kevin, Linus, and Erik come back from getting lunch to find your singer pinned against the wall trying to get Daryl off her. He didn’t do anything but he was close to it. Once he’s off her, she goes, “I don’t care what we do, but I want him out. I don’t feel safe. If you don’t want him out, I’ll leave. But right now...I need to get air.” You can tell she’s holding back tears. Once she leaves the room, what do you, Kevin, Erik, and Linus say to Daryl?

5) Your singer and her and Kevin’s kids have been staying with you and Randy since Kevin hit her when he was drunk. She says she won’t move back into their house until he gets help or goes into a program for his alcohol and drug use, “I’m not raising my kids around a raging addict.” One day, you’re watching the kids while your singer is at work. You hear the doorbell and you pick up Roxanne to get the door. When you open it, you find Kevin, he looks at you and then to Roxanne. He tries to grab her from you but you pull her closer to your chest. “Please just let me see my kids and my wife. I miss them so much. Please. Can you just tell her to move back home? I need them.” How do you respond?

6) It is the day of your singer and Kevin’s wedding. You’re helping her get ready (since you’re the maid of honor) and the other bridesmaids, her sister, Ash, and Christina, are helping as well. She’s just put her veil on and she turns around to look in the mirror. The four of you gush over how beautiful she looks, but she looks nervous. She sits on a chair and goes, “I don’t know if I can do this. I love Kevin so much, but I don’t know if I can go through with this.” She’s getting cold feet. What do you, her sister, Ash, and Christina say?

7) You come home from work one day to find your singer curled up in a ball on the couch with a box of tissues. You ask her what’s wrong and she goes, “Kevin just broke up with me because he and Randy have to go on tour for the first time.” How do you respond and what do you do about Kevin?

8) You band has decided to fire Daryl after he almost raped your singer and are now trying to find a drummer to replace him before going on tour. You and your singer have been auditioning people for weeks. She’s almost give up hope finding a good replacement when a young kid comes in to audition. He’s about eight years younger than you and the rest of the band, so you and your singer are a bit skeptical. He auditions and he’s phenomenal. Once he’s finished, you go, “What’s your name?” and your singer says, “That was amazing!” He smiles sheepishly and goes, “I’m Sean. I have always been a huge fan of you guys and modeled my playing after Daryl.” Sean has just turned twenty while the rest of your band is twenty-eight and older. Do you decide to hire him as the new drummer or do you decide against it because of his age?

9) You band has been around for about eight years and on the cusp of 1990 (it’s 1989) you go on tour. You bring along a burgeoning young act from Seattle called Nirvana. When your band and Nirvana meet for the first time, your singer goes to Kurt and says, “It’s so great to meet you, Kurt,” before sticking out her hand. He takes it, but while he does he says, “War Angel is an over-bloated, over-produced band that is just in it for the money. You only make music for the money.” How do you, your singer, Linus, Erik, and new drummer Sean respond?

10) You, Kevin, and Randy are sitting at the kitchen table when your singer comes bursting through the front door. Her hands are full but she drops her bag in the living room and is having a conversation wither her mother on the phone. The three of you are staring at her and when she gets off the phone, she goes, “What?” Kevin goes, “Where did the kid come from?” “Oh, this is my cousin Weston. Bons and I have to watch him this weekend. Did I forget to mention that?” She then hands you the baby, “Here Bons, can you hold him while I go get the rest of his stuff out of the car?” How do you, Kevin, and Randy respond and how does you weekend with Weston go?

11) Since Kevin broke up with your singer several months ago, she has moved on to date Duff McKagan of Guns N’ Roses. You’re still dating Randy so you and your singer still see Kevin a lot. Your singer most of the time just ignores him because she’s still very hurt at what he did to her. You, Randy, your singer, Duff, and the rest of QR (Kevin included) are hanging out at a bar. Your singer and Duff are being really cute. She’s sitting on his lap and he has his head resting on her shoulder and he occasionally kisses her neck or cheek. Kevin has been quiet and will glance over at the two of them occasionally. Your singer soon stands up and goes to you, “I’ll see you back home. Duff and I are going to a movie.” Before she grabs his hand and they walk out of the bar. What does Kevin say after they leave and how do you and Randy respond?

12) You got into a bad car accident and had to go into surgery. When you come to in the hospital bed, you feel someone holding your hand and murmuring. You open your eyes to find your singer at your bedside. She’s kneeling and holding your hand in hers and she looks like she’s praying. Just then Kevin comes in and goes, “You know praying won’t help, right?” How does your singer respond and what do you say? How do your singer and Kevin react once they realize you’re awake?

@osbournebemydaddy your move, Bons :)

[theurbanologist]

When Summer Gets Windy

Good morning. 

Out the window, grey abides. It’s pasty, punctuated by a green foliage that remind me of my childhood in Seattle. In November, the grey came to the Emerald City, opened up an ample steamer trunk and said “Thanks for having me. I'll be staying until May, maybe June, with a few side trips to Grays Harbor County”. 

My mother grew up in Grays Harbor County on the Washington coast and she remembers it as an active, bustling place with the timber and fishing industries providing an abundance of employment to people in Hoquiam, Aberdeen, and other hamlets. I knew it a different way. That's another story. I don’t mind the grey, though growing up I found it grating by April. Even they I knew we had two months to go, and sometimes there would be guest appearances in July or August, as if somehow Seattleites might have forgotten this so-called “neutral” color. Maybe it is neutral amidst the color wheel. In my heart and head it is not an emotional Switzerland. 

Summer in Chicago is a vastly different experience than a Seattle summer. A Venn diagram of the two would reveal shared contours, such as ice cream, the appeal of water (saltier out West), and more time outdoors, at least given the possibility of reasonable temperatures. 

I will let you decide how to define reasonable temperatures.

With all of that in mind, I’ve asked some Chicago friends, writers, and other characters for their thoughts on what makes a Chicago summer compelling. 

 1. Happy Village. I try to make at least one annual summer pilgrimage to Happy Village, where I drink High Lifes in the twinkle-lit beer garden and relive my early 2's when I first moved to Chicago and lived in the Ukrainian Village. Of course, I go far earlier these days because I'm old. My companions and I take breaks from the stickiness by ducking inside for a quick round of Ping-Pong.  

2. Water taxi to Chinatown. I haven't done this yet, which makes this second activity aspirationally fraudulent. But my goal this year is to grab an early Sunday AM water taxi from Michigan Ave. to Chinatown where I will promptly stuff my face with dim sum at Phoenix.   

3. Cubs game/two Chicago doggies. Despite Wrigleyville's disconcerting transition into Rosemont, absolutely nothing beats a summer day at Wrigley Field. This is baseball for the baseball lover—minimal gimmicks and visual distractions—just timeless organ jams, manual scorekeeping on the ole' green board, snappy Chicago doggies and ice-cold Old Styles (now only securable at a few kiosks—our preferred being on the 500 level behind home plate). Not to mention a lot more hits by the Lovable ... Winners. 

Maggie Hennessy writes about food and other matters for TimeOut Chicago and other outlets. 

Be a salmon in any Chicago summer: that is, swim upstream against the current.  Avoid the Lakefront and its crowds—bike the Boulevard system and check out the inland parks from Jackson Park all the way up to Logan Boulevard.  

Before or after a Sox game (you can ALWAYS get a ticket, just go on spur of the moment) go to Palmisano Park (the former Stearns Quarry)on a field trip to Bridgeport, where you can also get the best hot dog or mother-in law sandwich at Johnny O’s at 35th and Morgan, before quenching your thirst at either Maria’s Community Bar or Bernice’s. 

Go to Ping Tom Park and then get dim sum any Sunday morning in Chinatown—be sure to dig the Confucius statue on 22nd Place and the Chinese-American Veteran’s Memorial on the SW corner of the intersection of Archer, Cermak, and Princeton.  

Go to Humboldt Park and experience our one inland beach, as well as the endless selection of comida boricua in Chicago’s Puerto Rican heartland. Don’t ride the Lakefront Path, go hit the path along the North Branch/canal, all the way to Wilmette from K-town.  

Summer is made for biking, do it. 

Bill Savage teaches at Northwestern University, among other pursuits.

Sipping a Negroni while thumbing through a book in the Chicago Athletic Hotel's Drawing Room Eating Quartino's pizza and discussing the hot Chicago topics of the day at Tweed Thorton's Four Star Lunch Moseying over to Old Fashioned Donuts with my mom in our neighborhood (Roseland on 112th/Michigan) 

Any trip to my alma mater includes mandatory stops at Two Asian Brothers and Hot”G”Dog (vegetarian Chicago Style hot dogs)  Grabbing a Chicago Mix at the Garrett Popcorn Shop in O'Hare for my co-workers in the HBS Initiatives.

Rayshauna Gray is a writer currently working on a book about her family’s history.  She is an honorary Boscagoan. 

I spend much of the summer looking up. Walking east along Lake Street in the morning, I like to look up and watch El trains chug east with the morning sun behind them. In the evenings, I'm on my back in Millennium Park listening to the Grant Park Orchestra. But in the middle of the day, I make time to look down. I sit on the steps along the Chicago River, just north of Michigan Avenue, and look down at the water at the boats, kayakers, ducks and critters that might float by. I bring my lunch, often with friends and can't believe this bit of nature is in the middle of the city. 

Shia Kapos is a journalist based in Chicago who writes for a number of outlets. 

Ride one of the CTA train lines all the way to the end and then see how far from there you can walk back toward where you started from.

That kind of drifting walk is magical, revelatory, entertaining and free. 

Kathleen Rooney is a poet and writer.

Fellow flaneurs will enjoy her latest book immensely.

My favorite thing to do, hands down, is to be near or on the water. Whether it’s on one of my friend’s boats or in my kayak, being on the water is cathartic for me.   

Being near the water does the same. Being active along the lakefront (although not on those god forsaken bike paths, more like beach volleyball) is key. But then again, so is just sitting on my ass at a lakefront of riverside bar throwing back a Chicago made pint of beer or a non Chicago made glass of rosé. Every year I very much look forward to neighborhood street fairs.

I grew up in old town so the Old Town art fair is near and dear to my heart. Nothing beats grilling out with friends on a blissful, firefly ridden summer night.

And last but not least, Cubs games. Duh. Although if I have to be 100% honest, I prefer watching those in October ;) 

Liz Garibay is a Chicago historian, beer expert, and an honorary Boscagoan.

In early August, a few weeks before summer winds to a close, just when I’m starting to panic about Labor Day looming and school supplies lining the shelves at Target, my son’s flag football season begins.

The teams play on Friday nights at Sheridan Park in Little Italy, a stone’s throw from Mario’s Italian Lemonade. Siblings flood the playground to the south. Parents stake out spots with blankets and lawn chairs and coolers filled with beverages to share. (It’s where I first experienced wine in a can. You drink it with a straw.) 

Dusk starts to set in around half-time. The park lights go on. The Willis Tower looms to the east, catching and reflecting the last glimmers of the August sun. It’s a lovely little square of chaos and joy and diversity --- kids come from Bridgeport and Logan Square and Bronzeville and the South Loop and Lincoln Park to play in the league. 

After the games, we congratulate our kids on their successes (or dry the tears from their losses) and head to Taylor Street for Italian lemonade. Then we head home and start counting the hours until next Friday night. 

Heidi Stevens writes the “Balancing Act” column for the Chicago Tribune.

There’s a pretty on-the-nose trope that we put up with the indignities of Chicago winter just to experience the few, fleeting months of summer. Chicago’s summertimes feel earned in the way a warm day in Los Angeles never could (it’s also why some of us scoff at snowbirds who decamp to Florida to wait out the winter). 

Two of my favorite activities in the city that really only happen in the summer take place on or near the water. After early memories of enviously watching scullers on the river near Lincoln Park and downtown, I eventually picked up a practical and portable inflatable kayak. I sneak into undisclosed put-in points around the north branch of the river and slide into the water (usually with a buddy and a small cooler of drinks in tow). 

There’s a fascinating river culture that, if you walked by the very same houses from the sidewalk, you’d miss entirely. The ecosystem feels richer, but you never forget you’re in a city. Hawks and night herons and turtles co-mingle with groaning steel bridges, train tracks and graffiti. 

When I want less isolation, I ride the southern part of the Lakefront Trail and stop off at the 63rd St. Beach. There could be an impromptu gig, pre-planned live music on the lawn and a water playground that I can run through with my summer clothes on (I’ve never been a fan of the beach proper).

If I’m feeling especially motivated, I’ll keep going south until I hit Calumet Fisheries. My reward for a long ride with be a sack of smoked shrimp and salmon that I can eat in the grassy embankment outside that little shrimp and fish shack or on the rickety picnic table that overlooks the 95th St. bridge -- and the lazy barges that float by. 

Kim Bellware is a Chicago journalist whose work has appeared most recently in Rolling Stone, Chicago Magazine, and Teen Vogue.

Though I ride my bike year-round, there is something particularly magical about riding my bike during summertime in Chicago. All the cold days fall away and you are left with sunshine and the warm breeze along the lakefront trail and city streets. It is a beautiful feeling that always makes me fall in love with Chicago again. 

There are very few things comparable to the energy of summer street festivals in Chicago when all your friends come together to enjoy music, food, or a movie. 

For that period of time, the streets become ours. 

Lynda Lopez is a reporter for StreetsBlog Chicago and she recently appeared on TV to talk about dockless bicycle initiatives. 

What's my favorite Chicago summer activity? This.

[trekswithchels-blog]

How I Spent 24 Hours in Seattle

We flew into Seattle, Washington very early on a Thursday morning. We left Jersey around 6:00 AM but with the time difference we arrived at 9:00 AM which gave us the whole day to explore Seattle before heading out to the National Parks the following day on an 11-day hiking road trip. Seattle is a very quirky city and we really enjoyed its energy. The first thing that we did was check out the Museum of Pop Culture (MoPop). We went mainly for the section of the museum that they have completely dedicated to horror movies (we are huge horror nerds) but they also have a fantasy, gaming, sci-fi, Marvel, and ever-changing special exhibits as well. While we were there they had Nirvana, Jimi Hendrix, and Pearl Jam exhibits. There is truly an exhibit for every kind of nerd! Two of my other favorite things included the Super Mario wall and the giant tower of guitars. We bought our tickets in advance online for $26 per person but you can also buy them at the museum upon arrival. 

TIP: There’s also a great photo op of the Space Needle outside of the museum. If you don’t feel like paying the money to get to the top, just stand in front of it and take a picture like we did.  The outside of the MoPop building also makes for some pretty great pictures too! 

Funko Headquarters

Our next stop is mainly directed at Funko fans only, those who are interested in what Funko is, or families with kids. Funko is a toy company that makes tons of things, but they are mainly known for their Funko POP figures which are little figurines of just about any person or character you could imagine. They are adorable, affordable (at about $10 per toy), and addictive as all hell once you buy one. My friend Sam and I both have collections of these, so when she found out the headquarters was a measly 40 minutes away in Everett, Washington we had to go check it out. Naturally, we bought tons of stuff and had a great time doing it! The store itself also makes for some pretty cool photo ops with Disney, Marvel and DC displays.

Pike’s Place Market

One of the things I was most excited about in Seattle was Pike’s Place Market. I heard great things about it and in doing research it seemed like there was tons of cool places to check out. We spent a lot of time walking around going in and out of shops, checking out the flowers and fresh produce, and spent some time overlooking the water. If you like enjoying a beer and staring at water like I do then I highly suggest you check out the Old Stove Brewing Co. It’s a great little beer spot with a good amount of tasty beer options as well as good pub snacks, like soft pretzels (my personal favorite).

After we warmed up with some beer and snacks we decided to check out Alibi Room for what we heard was some great pizza. If you are a “Shameless” fan this is somewhere you will recognize from the show. It’s a quaint “divey” type of bar but we loved it. We decided to do the build your own pizza and opted for grilled chicken, fresh garlic, arugula and basil. Being from Jersey we are very picky with our pizza and it is rare that anywhere else that we travel is comparable to our NJ/NY pizza. With that being said, Alibi Room has some of the BEST pizza I have ever had. This place is a MUST for any fellow pizza lovers.

Right outside of the Alibi Room is the famous “Gum Wall”. It’s awesome and disgusting all at the same time. Best tip that I can give you is to make sure you buy bubblegum BEFORE entering into Pike’s. We had a tough time finding some and were lucky enough to run into two great people that gave us the rest of their roll of bubble tape. Executing the bubble blowing picture was not as easy as it looked, and it took many tries. It’s also difficult to stick the gum to the wall without touching other people’s gum and without it falling off. Who knew this would be such a difficult task? Definitely makes for great photos though!

All in all, I thought Seattle was a pretty cool city. I’m sure there are tons of other things to do and see, but I thought our experience was just perfect. As always, any questions feel free to ask and don’t forget to follow @trekswithchels on Instagram! Happy travels!

[sunshinykittens-blog]

Weekend Tower Highlights

Pepper thought the first week with Sunshine + Kittens Cleaning went relatively well. She hadn’t gotten any calls or found any notes from them about the conditions or any problems. And Tony hadn’t mentioned any complaints either. But she wasn’t sure that he would say anything bad, since he knew she would only say she told him so about hiring people on a whim. And then she would say that the contract was binding, he would be stuck with them for the year.

She had to admit, though, the Tower did appear to be cleaner than usual, with them coming in nightly. The routine chaos that ensued after completion of a mission had disappeared after the two arrived; normally it took a few days to get the 23 pizza boxes down to the recycling bin. Perhaps Tony had done the right thing in hiring a couple of humans. A few minutes later, she questioned that thought as the elevator doors opened to a yelling match. And it was only Friday.

Clint was yelling at nobody in particular. Something about a coffee cup. Natasha was sitting at the island counter, seemingly unperturbed. Steve looked like he was trying to figure out the best way to calm Clint down. And Tony was standing to the side, arms crossed, waiting somewhat patiently for Clint to finish his rant.

Pepper approached Natasha. “What’s going on?” she asked quietly.

Natasha mumbled, “They washed his coffee cup.”

Clint whirled around, his face an interesting shade of red. “Nobody is supposed to touch my coffee cup! Look at this! Do you see this?” He turned said cup over to show her the inside. It looked pretty nasty to her, dark brown rings at various levels stained the ceramic.

She made a disgusted face. “Oh, god, that’s just nasty.”

Clint frowned. “What do you mean? It’s CLEAN!” he whirled around on Tony. “You better do something about this. If they touch my cup again, Tony, so help me!” He stomped off towards the lounge. Minutes later the sound of Mario Cart was blaring from the back of the floor.

Tony shrugged and rolled his eyes. “Maybe he’ll stop leaving his stuff lying around now.” He looked at Steve, Natasha, and Pepper in turn. “Well? Anyone else have any complaints?”

Steve went to the fridge and opened it up, pulling out a bottle of water. “I’m good. It’s nice to have fresh towels in the training room on a daily basis.”

Natasha swallowed her drink. “Only that they consolidated Clint’s leftover pizza with the cheese one. That smell bleeds over.”

“OK, good,” Tony said. “I have work to do in the lab. Somebody go let him beat you at that game, make him feel better.”

   On Saturday, there were no towels by the pool. Tony was sure that there were more towels somewhere. He wasn’t going to go counting them though, especially since they had been used. He wondered if the others were taking the towels back to their apartments. Deciding not to ask, he called and ordered more. The new towels arrived that afternoon. By Sunday evening, he was looking forward to the housekeepers being back. The new towels were also gone.

  Tony was exasperated. Last week, when the others had asked him the names of the new housekeepers, he had been at a loss. He couldn’t remember their names. He called them the Quiet One and the Lippy One; he didn’t see any reason that the others couldn’t do it as well. It was obvious which one was quiet and which was lippy. But no, they wanted to know actual names. So he had come up with a solution. He had brought in a white board and asked them to sign in. They hadn’t. But someone had been a smartass. Under the words “sign in,” someone had written, “yes, it is.” Tony was convinced it was Rhodey. But then others had started writing their names underneath. At first it was just first names. Then full names. And then nicknames. Tony looked at his watch, then back at the white board. He decided to just leave them up. Maybe the Quiet and Lippy Ones would get the idea.