#i'm always nervous about showing stuff i hoard and don't write in one sitting lol

[themarcspector-a]

wip day

tagged by: @blissfulalchemist & @blackreaches (thanks for tagging me, y'all!)

tagging: @gothamrains / @bondgirl / @thelittlestspider / @outfromthesea and whoever wants to do it.

i've been working on two things on and off and i can't decide how i feel about them

the first one is a claudia x elektra thing, but i might edit it more cause i've only recently got into writing elekt/ra and i've honestly written matt and fogg/y longer? elektra is a bit....reactive but i love her sooo, she'll be less reactive over time.

then the second is like, a more angsty piece about bb!cloud being interviewed by a detective prior to someone trying to capture her while she was being baby sat during a walk. it's for a prompt dealing with 5 important memories. tw for death and drowning. i've had this in my head since reading in 'br*ken h*rbor* like a few years ago - rhi knows this ksjfkdsf - and just never wrote down her reaction to it. it works for the m*rvel verses but like also in general her original story.

homegirl's just been on my mind lately skjfhjdsf

1.

tw: canon typical violence

Typically she’s a shadow at big parties like these. Due to her upbringing with the Daviaus' and Delphine's assistance growing up, she’s always had a way with being able to blend in to the point where she’s unnoticed - unseen - even when she’s dressed to the nines. 

The fact that she and Elektra are working together on this makes it hard though, since Elektra has a habit of working off script and doing what she wants in order to show her dominance. They’ve gotten far enough in this investigation due to both of their connections, but the issue is, now that they’ve got their man, Elektra is playing by her own rules and not by Claudia’s. 

It’s annoying because Claudia’s always been one for talking before she does anything unnecessary, because typically talking gets answers. But Elektra is no bullshit and right to the point. Which means Claudia has to rework her entire way of doing things, and it reminds her of why she typically does stuff like this alone. It also reminds her that she's typically the one in Elektra's shoes, and Matt's typically the one in hers, telling her not to run before she walks.  And well, she hates that.

And when Cloud’s finally had enough of her and Elektra's differences, she pulls the long haired woman to the side, and before she even gets the chance to say anything, Elektra gets on the defensive. ❝ It's like I ruined your birthday party or something. Stop with the faces. I'm not the bad guy here. You said this man’s part of an organization that’s kidnapping people and experimenting on them…I should be doing much more than roughing him around a little and making small threats,❞ Elektra stated, well practically spat, rolling her eyes at Claudia before taking Claudia’s hand off her arm. Claudia was unaware of Elektra's past, so she didn't really empathize with her all that much at the moment and was more-or-less just annoyed with her.

“I never said you were the bad guy. I just have a way of doing these things - a process. Talking first, then other...stuff.” Claudia looked over her shoulders to see if the man was still there as she did air quotes at 'stuff'. He was there still, thankfully. “I don’t think you’re the bad guy, okay? If you're the bad guy, I'm the bad guy, too.”

Elektra doesn’t respond, just gives another roll of her eyes before turning away to walk towards their man. 

For a second Claudia thinks she’s going to let her do things her way, because Elektra is speaking and the man is speaking back to her. But then, well, then - Elektra kills him right in front of her of her eyes.  

Claudia gasped and squinted, as though she's never seen a murder in her life. “We were supposed to get answers...” she bit.

"We received answers," Elektra protested. "And it's not like you weren't eventually going to kill him. You should be thanking me, not berating me."

"Why does everyone think I'm going to kill whoever gets in my way?" Claudia countered in French.

"Weren't you? Wasn't that the plan? Why you brought me and not my Matthew?" Elektra said back in perfect French.

Those few words make Claudia stare at her blankly, not having any words to say. As much as she's fascinated by Elektra, she's incredibly frustrated with with her, too. People typically don't have a fair read on her, but this one, even if Claudia hates to admit it, is a pretty close read. She did have ulterior motive. Of course she did.

2.

mentions of death, drowning.

“Do you remember what happened?” A detective asks her, head tilting to the side as she scribbles down notes into her long polka dotted notepad. The detective is beautiful, has curly brown hair and looks empathetic enough. She smiles appropriately and places her hand on Cloud’s shoulder, squeezing it before Cloud shutters and pulls away. 

Quite honestly, Cloud doesn’t trust anyone with a notepad after having been to a therapist that tells her mother everything that she says to her. And honestly, she does not wish to speak to anyone for a long time. She wants to keep her silence, because she fears what’s to come if she breaks it. The word 'freak' etches into her mind.

So, she just chooses not to talk at all - chooses to take ‘her right to remain silent’ as she’s seen in all the detective films she watches and the books she’s read. 

The woman leans forward, tries to make eye-contact as Cloud shifts her gaze away from her, but still mimics her body language. She shutters again, feeling the heaviness of the water in her chest all over again, and then she closes her eyes a moment and opens them. 

“Anything at all? Do you remember what happened to Ivan? Do you remember anything about the man who tried to drown you?” she says calmly, making Cloud squint, despite the woman’s kindness. 

As much as Cloud wants to say that the person who attempted to drown her, and had succeeded in drowning her older brother - her protector - was a woman, she does not.

Her throat dries up and a tear falls down her cheek instead. But she sits with her elbow on her knee like the woman does, and when the woman lifts a brow, Cloud copies her because she's a brave woman, and she wants to be brave, too.

“If you don’t want to talk that’s fine, but I know you can. I know it will make you feel lighter if you talk.” The woman pushes a piece of her own hair from her face and Cloud copies her. She does not say anything else.

Instead, she takes the notepad from the detective’s hands, and surprisingly the detective does not take away the notepad from her. So Cloud begins to draw a woman, a woman in a button up and slacks, because Cloud burned out the thought from her memory other than that and what happened to the woman later on.

Freak.

Immediately after she adds the final details to the sketch, and hands the notebook back to the detective. The detective smiles softly at her, says “Thank you” and walks away, leaving Cloud in her hospital bed wrapped in a blanket. 

What Cloud doesn't tell her was the woman was after her, and that she was long past dead - little bits of dust in the wind around them by the time the police arrived. Cloud had done it, too. With her hands and...powers. That would make her an even bigger 'freak' than she already was, and she did not want to be made into a circus show, so she didn't express what had happened. She just knew she had done something 'bad'. Something so bad that she could feel her cheeks burning just thinking about it.