#ion believe hes dead either

[satoruoo]

everytime i look at him i almost collapse look at how pretty he is

[jeansplaytoy]

“Ain’t Shit.” - c.springer

(part six here.) (final part here.)

part 7

you and connie couldn’t care less about arguing anymore.

guns, language, angst(?), very short.

“shut the fuck up.” eren whispered at one of floch’s friends, and most importantly, floch himself.

they were currently in the back of an abandoned alleyway, being held at gunpoint. it might’ve been stupid, but eren wasn’t about to have nobody sent to jail because of some snitches.

“y’all gon’ shut the fuck up about what happened, because you shot my homeboy.” he pointed the gun at floch. “and ion like that shit.”

he then pointed the gun at floch’s friend. “i just don’t like yo ass at all.” he squinted before backing up and leaning against the brick wall. “now if you snitch ‘bout anything that happened, and i mean anything, i’m killing both of y’all asses. and i’m not scared of gettin’ locked up.” he muttered while staring at them both.

they didn’t say anything back.

“and you, you was fuckin’ wit my home girl. ion like that shit either, cus ion play bout her.” eren muttered at floch again.

“he shot me over a female.”

“he shot yo ass in the leg, because you was testing him on purpose, and making her uncomfortable as hell.” eren hummed, taking the cigarette from his mouth and exhaling. “shit sound like harassment to me. and the way you was touching on her? shit.” eren shook his head.

“i was defending floch, like you and ony was defending connie. so ain’t nothing wrong with what i did.” floch’s friend slowly tilted his head.

eren squinted again.

“okay.” he whispered before taking another puff of the cigarette in his hand. he didn’t even have the energy to roll a blunt anymore.

“listen, we ain’t gon snitch on nobody.” floch said with a slight frown. “if i snitch, ima snitch on my damn self and me and connie would go to jail.”

eren wasn’t in the mood for lies, so he shook his head. “ion believe that shit. now if he died because of a bullet you put in his body, yo ass’ll be dead right now.” he said while continuing to stare down at floch.

floch licked his lips, hands tied behind his back.

eren looked at the tied up wound on his leg that wasn’t even fully taken care of. he then leaned down at looked floch in the eye, losing his nonchalant face and putting on a serious face.

“if anybody ask you about that shit, tell them it was an accident. yo’ homeboy” he tilted his head over to floch’s friend “was showing you his gun while ony showed connie his gun, and he accidentally pulled the trigger after he heard ony accidentally pull it. if they ask you about anything that happened at the party, you don’t have beef wit’ connie. ight?”

floch nodded. “yeah. i gotchu.”

meanwhile, sasha and ony were getting questioned separately.

“what happened before Mr Springer got shot?

“i don’t know, i think it was an accident.”

“me, floch, the gang was flexing guns and shit.

“and where were you during the moment?”

“i was using the bathroom.”

“with connie and eren, floch and his friend.”

“what happened when the first shot was fired?”

“i went to go find mikasa, y/n, and the rest of the group but everybody was running, i couldn’t see nothing.”

“everybody started running, but we was outside and it got crowded, that’s when i saw floch get shot right after the first one i accidentally fired.”

and then floch and his friend were questioned the same night.

“so you got startled, and accidentally shot Floch?”

“yeah.”

“what was happening before Mr Springer, and you, got shot?”

“me and ony was showing our guns off. that’s when i heard ony accidentally pull the trigger on his, i jumped and did the same thing.”

“i was just watching before i heard connie get shot, thats when i got shot.”

“are you and connie springer on good terms?”

“yeah. we cool.”

~

“so everything good?” connie asked through the phone while sitting in the hospital bed. “yeah, the stories add up, i guess. i said we was showing our guns off, i accidentally shot you, dumbass move if i did, and floch’s friend got scared and accidentally shot him.” ony said on the other line.

“damn. eren smart as hell.” connie laughed a little before biting his lip. “but ight, ima see you when i get out this place. or whenever you come.” he muttered before the conversation ended.

“what happened?” you tilted your head. “it’s all good.” connie said, huffing and laying back.

you nodded with a soft smile before crossing your arms. the silence filled the room and the only thing that could be heard was the beeping of the heart monitor.

“so.” connie finally spoke. you looked at him. “so..” you trailed off.

“remember when you said we ain’t getting back together? like, ever.” he started. you slowly nodded.

“you still tryna keep that promise? you know, since i ain’t cheat for real.” he said kind of quietly. you slowly inhaled and exhaled. “yeah, uh. ion know.” you shook your head while looking across the room. “i mean, i appreciate that you didn’t cheat and all, but you already know we toxic as hell and ain’t gon’ make it through the relationship if we start over again.” you mumbled.

“but you forgive me, right?” connie frowned a little. you nodded. “yes i forgive you, i just don’t think we can start over no more.” you shrugged and looked at him while biting your lip a little.

“you don’t think? or you know we can’t.”

“… you really still want me that bad?” you squinted at him with a small chuckle. “i meannn.” he shrugged. “yeah.”

you slowly nodded before speaking again after a few seconds. “i want you too, con’, but you know we not good for each other.” you didn’t even wanna look at him as you spoke, but you could see him look away from the corner of your eye.

“i know. i just miss you a lil bit.” he forced a laugh. you inhaled deeply and exhaled. “i’m sorry.” you whispered while resting your head and arms on the side of the bed.

“you’n gotta apologize, ma. i see where you goin’ wit this.” connie said, reaching out to run his hands through your hair.

the silence, once again, filled the room. god, there was really nothing left to talk about, was there? everything was handled, you just had to find where you stood in each others lives again.

“i’ll think about it.” you suddenly said. “but it’s most likely not gonna be a good answer, you know that, right?” you said, grabbing his hand to stop him from playing with your hair. “yeah. i know.”

you smiled at him before standing up slowly, “well, i guess i’ll let everybody else see you. stay strong, mkay?” you plucked his forehead. connie laughed and nodded.

“anything for you.”

do y’all they should get back tg, lmk preferably in the requests or messages!

it’s also coming to an end soon :,)

[missiodei]

Umm these for Noiise, please! 🌅🌞💅🎭🔮🪦🔥

Ⓧ Oh I got fans too? Ⓧ

🌅- Do you have a certain routine for starting your night?

Ⓧ I get up and get ready for work or I go hunting. Ⓧ Ⓧ Sometimes, I laze around my hive and watch these bozos try to escape. I be livestreamin it too you should check it out. Ⓧ

🌞- Have you ever gone out or gotten caught out of your hive during daylight? What happened?

Ⓧ Ion go out during the day. I know it'll piss me off. Ⓧ

💅- Do you have time or resources for self care or small luxuries?

Ⓧ Sure do. I like to indulge myself sometimes. Ⓧ

🎭- How do you access entertainment? What is available to you to do for fun?

Ⓧ I snatch new friends up off the street, bring em home and watch em scurry about. Ⓧ Ⓧ But I like to bother Rami too, he's always funny. Then of course my boy Dexter he fun too and my brother Shiver. Nazaar can eat a bulge. Ⓧ

🔮- Do you believe those who claim to be gifted with the ability to see ghosts or talk to lusii telepathically? Or do you think they are lying?

Ⓧ Uhhhh… Sure. Whatever helps them sleep at night I guess. It don't bother me none. Ⓧ

🪦- Do you believe everyone should be given a proper burial or is it a waste of time to have gravediggers?

Ⓧ Yes. 100%. More business for me and my coworkers. Come bury your dead and such, give them peace in the afterlife etc etc. Ⓧ

🔥- Have you ever done something (outside of murder) that most likely should be considered a criminal act, but either wasn't or was just swept under the rug due to your status?

Ⓧ What I look like tellin you that? Mind ya business. Ⓧ

Alternian Ask Meme

[hekate1308]

Are You With Me?

Prompt: Are You With me

Fandom: Good Omens

Pairing: Ineffable Husbands

Crowley hated the fourteenth century. He had quickly and definitely decided that once he had relied what the Spanish Inquisition was about, and don’t get him started ion the Plague.

The plague.

He could for the life of him not understand what the point of all this suffering was. You could make the argument that there were just a lot of people around these days, but really, why not leave them be? Earth was certainly big enough for all of them, and a few more, so really... why all of this? He didn’t think anyone could take a valuable lesson from this.

Right now, he was at an orphanage – the one woman who had stayed behind to look after the children had already died, and most of them were sick as well, but by God, he wouldn’t –

“Crowley? What are you doing?”

“Trying to fix some things, angel” he replied without turning around.

“But you are trying to heal – “

But for once, he had no intention of discussing things. “So what am I supposed to do?” he asked hotly. He might have liked to pretend there was an evil plan behind everything he did, but this was not the time. People, children, were dying left and right, and he was not going to stand for it. If Hell wanted to come after him after that, fine by him. He’d been in their bad books before (really, just their books, since they did not have any others) and he’d always managed to claw his way back up… or at least back to earth, and that was what counted. “I’m not going to let this happen, period. And you, angel, can either leave and let me be or help me. So I am just asking one simple question. Are you with me?”

Now, here was the thing: he knew that Aziraphale wasn’t. Crowley himself might only go as far along with Hell as he liked, but Aziraphale still believed, believed that Heaven had a plan and that they were trying to do their best, and so he would hardly be –

Then Aziraphale asked, just like that, “What do you need me to do?”

He looked at him. Blinked. Managed to say, very eloquently, “Ngk”.

Then, the child whimpered and he remembered there were more important things to deal with than their strange and forbidden alliance, and so he leaned down. “Now, little human, don’t worry, you will feel better soon…”

“Are there others?” Aziraphale asked and he quickly told him about upstairs. The angel moved away and Crowley went back to caring for the little girl, not even bothering to pretend to himself that he was doing something evil in any shape, way or form. After all, if Aziraphale could get over all of his problems to help them out, then he could just admit that he was doing something good and worthwhile for one.

It did take quite a bit of power to ensure the girl would survive, but he didn’t care in the least. Of course someone would be able to tell that a miracle had been performed – miracles, he was ready to bet Aziraphale was doing whatever he could upstairs – but really, let them. Both angels and demons (in the later case, rather ironically) usually stayed away from the human suffering they caused, unless they could show up at the end for a big gesture, like with Job.

The thing was, he didn’t know what her life would turn out to be like now. The caretaker of the orphanage was dead, and humans had a sad habit not to care about people they were not related to. On the other hand, there were good people too, so he could only hope for the best.

Sadly, he knew from experience that this meant not trusting in God. She herself had been silent for so long now he would probably have doubted that she had ever been there at all, if not for remembering the angels singing as the constellations came to be…

“Let me tell you about the stars” he muttered, leaning down once more, hoping to calm her to sleep so she would get well even sooner.

She listened as her eyes slowly closed and she fell asleep.

He breathed a deep sigh of relief, even though it was not necessary, of course, not as a demon. But sometimes, it helped to do things humans did.

He felt a presence behind him – the presence that he had known better than anyone else in the last few millennia – and turned to find Aziraphale looking at them.

Then, quietly, he said, “They will be fine”.

He nodded. “Thank you, angel.”

They stayed silent for a moment or two, and then Aziraphale said, “we should find another caretaker for them.”

“Lets go then” he enthusiastically agreed.

[aethuviel]

I have been very slow with Skyrim for basically a year now, and I figured I’ll take a break with Talvanis for a while (he has so much more to do, he’s only finished Dawnguard and done a few minor quests, though he’s already at level 66), so here I am introducing Astarion.

I came up with his name a few years ago, so while I know there’s another Elder Scrolls OC around named the same, I’m sticking with it. I got it from the Quenya word “Istar”, with the common Altmer suffix “-ion”, and just changed a vowel.

Astarion. Because he will be my first pure mage character. (And I love the “star” part.)

He’s quite dark for an Altmer, and with striking blue eyes, hinting at a possible Ayleid ancestry, which he believes in wholeheartedly. Born in 4E 91, he was an only child, his parents are dead, and while being a complete Altmer supremacist, he was disillusioned with Alinor and didn’t fit in well with societal expecations, so he moved to Cyrodiil. But the Altmer in Cyrodiil were heavily imperialized, adapted to their new culture, and he didn’t find he fit in here, either.

Decades later, he fought in the Great War as a battlemage in Lord Naarifin’s army, and later became a Thalmor agent. This is where he starts off, heading out as an undercover agent in Skyrim, though his allegiances and morals are a bit more complicated than the totalitarian tunnel vision of the Thalmor.

Just look at how striking his dark orange-y skin and blue eyes look in the shade.

[logo-comics]

Star Knights: Meet The Principle Cast

Let’s meet the two leads and the figures that will be recurring the most often!

Jetpack:

“I quit that life a long time ago, and I’m not going back to it anytime soon.”

One of the more independent clones in modern Stellaris, Jetpack is a self-titled Scavenger, with her iconic jetpack being the first thing she salvaged for herself. Taught the ins and outs of the trade by Tinker, she tends to rely on either diplomacy or her signature long knife. Her armor was painted pink by her when she first set out on her own, and she refused to listen to Tinker about priming it beforehand and refuses to fix it now.

While not working with any of her fellow clones, she holds to some of the traditions, such as the Marks of the Sisters and belief in the Gilded Hall.

Blue:

“Who... broke... the worlds?”

A mysterious figure, not much is known about her other than she was sealed in some sort of machine on an ancient derelict ship and has mysterious powers alongside her armor and staff, as well as an innate desire to help others.

Tinker:

“I’m too old for this nonsense.”

Once a daring adventurer, age finally caught up with him. Now an old man with a bad back, he taught Jetpack and considers himself more of “an old spacerman” who tends to his plants aboard his mobile space station, where he allows others to dock if he believes they can be trusted, with Jetpack being trusted to have her own dock and room.

That isn’t to say that he isn’t still the sharpest shooter in the entire system with his laser musket, and his prosthetic leg can pack quite the kick.

Sewtren’s Ghost:

“Each bullet and each ion blast’ll be ‘ccounted for, in the end.”

A clone who had set out to seek a new life on the frontiers of the border planet of Sewtren, she barely survived the massacre that left Sewtren a lifeless wasteland, rather than the thriving desert planet it had once been. Armed with her grey armor and her laser revolver, her only goal in life is to hunt down and kill the woman who murdered her people.

Forager:

“I’d sit down and give in if I hadn’t built these parts to last.”

A former member of the Crownsguard, he held the line admirably, but even the strongest have their limits. After everything was said and done, he put himself back together with scraps that he’s only made better over the years and has been constantly seeking the lost Princess every since. Currently, he’s a guest aboard Tinker’s station as a means of continuing his travels across the system.

Messenger:

“The Service isn’t dead, and I won’t let you end it here.”

The last of an order, she is the sole holdout to stick to their creed, the rest either dead or having long-since abandoned the Service. Dedicated to her craft, she didn’t even let losing half of her arm stop her from doing her assigned duty, even if the government that had assigned her to the role no longer exists. If a person is alive in Stellaris, she will eventually find them upon receiving a missive addressed to them.

Bonus Blue and Jetpack Picture:

[bananaapplewaffle]

Oh Look, Even More Vignettes

You know the deal by now. Too long, UTC.

I Can't Stand Them (Part One) | Deuce - Dorm Uniform

Starting off with math, what a bad start.

ADK;ALKDA;LDKLSADAS

NOT ACE COMPLANING BUT BEING DONE

BRO

I'm sorry?

Thirty pages?

Whew mans is big bad at math.

But math hard, so it makes sense

OOP RIDDLE-SAN

DON'T BULLY HIMB

Finna pull out the flash cards

Oh just a book.

Oh! A callback to Riddle's Dorm Uniform story!

Oh yeah... kinda forgot that Duece was a delinquent, so he really just didn't learn it.

I Can't Stand Them (Part Two) | Deuce - Dorm Uniform

We are still working on this math I see.

BRO ARE YOU NOT DONE YET

ITS THE UNBIRTHDAY

Oh

Fun with math!

...

Girl not y'all talking shit on the day of the unbirthday

Catch that collar

NAH NAH

SAY IT WITH YOUR CHEST DUECE

What is Vargas doing here?

Oh lol

WHO THE HELL LET THE HEDGEHOGS FREE

WHO LET THE RAINBOW FLAMINGOS OUT

I Can't Stand Them (Part Three) | Deuce - Dorm Uniform

OH GIRL THEY GOT OUT

Hey Rook!

Rook just be talking but at least he's gonna help

IT WAS YOU

BEAT THEY ASS

PERIODT

HE DON'T NEED MAGIC

HE GOT HANDS

*PATHTIC FLEEING*

...

Now I need Ace's Dorm Uniform

Cuz I knew something was up

but now I really need to know

Oh no

is that the feeling of wanting to write for my boys again

It's About the Aesthetic (Part One) | Idia - Labwear

Idia I swear to god if you don't hangout with your brother

CAN'T BELIEVE THIS SHIT

Upgraded the damn goggles

...how do they get cold?

Mans is a fake gamern not gaming hard enough

Okay, yes to the sweaty hands

THIS MAN IS WEARING PAJAMAS

Omg he's been gaming for hours

Can relate

How's the genshin event (2.8) treating ya?

2AM

F

Bro literally just take off the coat, goggles and gloves and you're good.

It's About the Aesthetic (Part Two) | Idia - Labwear

Alright, who's gonna catch him?

Not my fault that I'm a RPS master, Grim

wait

ACE?

...so is then when he slept over or...?

adds to note

And we're watching a movie???

OMG NO

IDIA

IDIA

YOU'RE SCARING THE BABY

Oh god

I forgot he likes cats

He kinda is a cat...

OMFG YOU KILLED MY CAT

JUST LEFT HIS BODY THERE

Ace: You see somethin'?

Me: Omfg he fucken dead

LMAO

I love how he calls Grim. Mr. Grim.

NOT HIM CONFISCATING HIS LABWEAR

It's Okay (Part One) | Ortho - Burst Gear

Grim, your the magic of this bit. Come onnn.

Okay I agree but it do be practical magic, so that's kinda the point.

Then do it.

Then be devoured.

Thanks, Ortho.

Grim: Ion what you just said, but I think its cool!

My heart... He just wants to spend time with his brother.

...

One day, Idia. You gotta give him one day.

VIL DON'T BE A FUCKEN BITCH

It's Okay (Part Two) | Ortho - Burst Gear

NOT THE GPS

MANS GOTTA TRACKING DEVICE ON HIM

Malleus, don't be saying nothing cryptic that'll make him--

wait nevermind I read that

The girls finna fight

LIKE BRO

MALLEUS ARE YOU MAD BECAUSE NO ONE TOLD YOU

THAT'S YA OWN FAULT

KEEP UP WITH THE SHIT AROUND YOU BRO

I'm gonna box.

Damn, he really relieved that whole thing.

Then when Grim and Yuu asked he was like:

"Nah that shit hurt too much"

Want to Repay My Debt (Part One) | Silver - Ceremonial Robes

Silver, I know yo ass didn't just wake up and start barkin

I'm very surprised Idia just went Otaku on a stranger but more power to him.

BUT GO I OFF I GUESS???

PERIODT

Imma be real I was only half paying attention to that

Want to Repay My Debt (Part Two) | Silver - Ceremonial Robes

shut the fuck up about dallies bro.

I actually need to do my genshin dallies.

KNOCKED OUT

I do agree, Idia. Silver is handsome.

Mans has a whole animation for waking up wow

Idia a lot of people didn't even know who you were till book 6

Which yeah will be patrolling and shit while Malleus is at Ramshackle at like 3 am.

and then Idia learned the truth

Nevermind he didn't pick up on it.

Either way, Idia I'm pretty sure you've done raids with Lilia.

Twisted Ramblings

[echosrobotarm]

guys guys GUYS G U Y S YOU GUYS ITS AFTERMATH.

CROSSHAIR THINKS HIS CHIP WAS REMOVED IN AFTERMATH. WHEN HE WAS TAKEN FROM THE BATCH AND TARKIN SPOKE WITH NALA SE, IT JUST CUTS RIGHT FROM HIM BEING TAKEN BY THE TROOPERS TO HIM BEING PUT INTO THE MACHINE THAT ENHANCES HIS CHIP.

TARKIN, SEEING CROSSHAIR’S CHIP WAS ACTIVE ENOUGH TO BENEFIT HIM AND THE EMPIRE, TOLD CROSS THAT HIS CHIP WAS BEING REMOVED, EITHER BECAUSE HE ASSUMED IT WOULD BE A SHOW OF TRUST TO LULL CROSSHAIR INTO SUBMISSION, OR SOME OTHER BS REASON. IT CANNOT BE A COINCIDENCE THAT WE CUT FROM OMEGA TRYING TO CONVINCE CROSSHAIR THAT HE CAN’T HELP THE WAY HE’S ACTING TO HIS CHIP BEING ENHANCED TO ENSURE LOYALTY, TO ENSURE HE DOESN’T DWELL ON IT.

if indeed this is a coincidence, i will be so upset, bc come ON, dave, we really just take your stories and rewrite them in more creative ways than you could ever dream of.

also, why would they go out of the way to show crosshair 1) holding his head, 2) hunter checking him for a scar, 3) AND AZ ESCAPING WITH THE BATCH, IF NOT TO FORESHADOW THE FACT THAT HE STILL HAS HIS CHIP??? AZ WILL DISCOVER CROSSHAIR IS LYING, AND THE BATCH WILL HAVE NO CHOICE BUT TO REMOVE IT BY GOING WHERE EXACTLY??

my friend pointed out a scene that we haven’t seen so far in the show, or at least that i don’t recall seeing, where it shows bracca. you know what is on kriffing BRACCA??? A JEDI CRUISER. what is on this jedi cruiser???? THE FUNCTIONAL TECHNOLOGY TO REMOVE HIS CHIP.

honestly though, i just really love crosshair, and i refuse to believe he thinks the empire is doing anything other than deplorable acts of genocide and destruction throughout the galaxy. he feels betrayed, his chip was damaged by the blast from the ion engine, but certainly not 100% ruined, because crosshair really only decides not to kill the batch after bracca. blasting them with an ion engine kinda says, “i am trying to kill you” but he says in episode 15 that if he wanted them dead, they would be, meaning that he has planned this at least as far back as bracca.

further proof that crosshair has been planning this for a while: the reflectors in the training room. you mean to tell me his squad who didn’t trust him far as they could throw him would let him out of sight long enough to put those up?? no, especially not es-02, who we know explicitly states her distrust for her commander. this means those reflectors have likely been in that room for quite some time. crosshair has been planning this for a while, hence “i was hoping for the whole squad,” at the end of episode 14.

i refuse to believe crosshair has chosen the empire over his brothers, he just feels betrayed, and honestly has every right to. like @theladyfulcrum said in her post breaking down the cross/hunter debate, crosshair sees the batch going back to save a girl who is practically a stranger, meanwhile they never show any signs of trying to save him. this absolutely broke him heart, and if you are so foolish that you believe crosshair is nothing more than snark and hatred, we are clearly not watching the same show and feel free to block me right now. crosshair doesn’t know how much they’ve missed him, even if it wasn’t shown, and yes, i am BEYOND pissed at hunter for never trying to rescue him when they went in blind to rescue echo, a reg, in season 7 of tcw, so i can’t imagine crosshair’s anger and hurt over this apparent betrayal and abandonment by his own brothers.

in short, crosshair’s a lying ass bitch, and i love him. this post might age like milk, and that’s okay. i’m planning my crosshair tattoo regardless. y’all have a wonderful day, i’m gonna go rewatch the bad batch arc in tcw and cry because i miss my sniper man.

[huayno]

from neon genesis evangelion, vol. 12

The Mysterious Stranger

The Anime, the Manga, and the Mark Twain Novella

"God will provide for this kitten." "What makes you think so?" Ursula's eyes snapped with anger. "Because I know it!" she said. "Not a sparrow falls to the ground without His seeing it." "But it falls, just the same. What good is seeing it fall?"

—from The Mysterious Stranger

There is a short novel by Mark Twain, written near the end of his life and published posthumously, entitled The Mysterious Stranger. The tale is set in a small village in 16th century Austria, where three boys one day meet a young man different from themselves: "he had new and good clothes on, and was handsome and had a winning face and a pleasant voice, and was easy and graceful and unembarrassed, not slouchy and awkward and diffident, like other boys."

The mysterious stranger starts to do small but amazing tricks for them—causing water to turn to ice; conjuring grapes and bread out of air; even making birds that can fly out of clay. At last one boy, the story's narrator, works up the courage to ask the stranger who he is:

"'An angel,' he said, quite simply, and set another bird free and clapped his hands and made it flyaway."

The angel then proceeds to really impress them by making an entire toy castle, complete with five hundred miniature soldiers and workmen that move around by themselves. Naturally the boys get involved with this ultimate playset, making their own knights and cannon and cavalry, and although they get rather nervous again when the angel reveals his name is Satan, he assures them he is not that Satan, but only named after the fallen one.

"We others are still ignorant of sin; we are not able to commit it; we are without blemish, and we shall abide in that estate always." Distracted by two of the miniature workmen, "Satan reached out his hand and crushed the life out of them with his fingers... and went on talking where he had left off: 'We cannot do wrong; neither have we any disposition to do it, for we do not know what it is." Horrified as the other boys are, "he made us drunk with the joy of being with him and of looking into the heaven of his eyes, and of feeling the ecstasy that thrilled along our veins from the touch of his hand.'"

Yes, Kaworu Nagisa made quite an impression on the fans of Neon Genesis Evange/ion, despite the fact that, in the original broadcast version of the TV show (before it got all director's-cutted, box-setted, special-editioned, and platinum-lined) he shows up for only slightly less than thirteen minutes of total screen time, the climax of which being an entire minute where nothing happens at all.

That's what being a beautiful angel will do for you, especially when you make the most of your thirteen minutes on Earth by having a Whirlwind romance with the main character that ends in a lover's quarrel with Prog Knives and finally a voluntary martyrdom at the hand of your boy here. Relationships don't come any more tragic than that of Kaworu Nagisa and Shinji Ikari, and when fans (including this one) first saw it on TV, the affair was so brief and shocking the story logic of it didn't click in until much later.

In the anime, Kaworu is acknowledged as the Final Messenger, and, of all the Angels Shinji has to fight, this is the most ruthless battle, won at the highest possible cost to himself. It took even longer for me to realize that the showdown in episode 24 had also taken us full circle from Shinji's first fight in episodes 1 and 2, which emphasized his personal helplessness against the looming Angel Sachiel. Against Kaworu, it is the Angel who becomes the small, helpless figure, while Shinji is represented only by the gargantuan, frightful helm and arm of his Eva Unit-O1. We never see Shinji's human face once throughout the whole final minute of decision.

So as Col. Trautman would have said instead of Major Katsuragi, "It's over, Shinji! IT'S OVER!" Kaworu v. Shinji (or Kaworu x Shinji, in the doujinshi) was the big final showdown between humanity and the Angels. And with the outcome leaving Shinji at his most wretched ever, wouldn't it be nice if everyone just died—your wish being Eva's command, as it turns out that fortunately humanity hardly ever needed the Angels to slaughter itself.

"I am perishing already—I am failing—I am passing away. In a little while you will be alone in shoreless space, to wander its limitless solitudes without friend or comrade forever...But I, your poor servant, have revealed you to yourself and set you free. Dream other dreams, and better!"

—from The Mysterious Stranger

Satan's words near the end of Mark Twain's story also uncannily prefigure the end of the world and the Instrumentality project, both of which follow his death in the TV show in such quick order you picture Anno as a hairnetted fry cook dinging the counter bell. By now you see Sadamoto's handling of Kaworu, and perhaps nothing illustrates the different experiences of the manga and the anime better than his handling of this critical character.

No longer the last Angel to be fought, Kaworu actually becomes an active Eva pilot and fights an Angel—the dude even has the nerve to observe the fight is fixed, based on his knowledge of SEELE's prophecies. Sadamoto of course introduces him at an earlier point in the narrative—at the equivalent of episode 19's end—and then sends him to NERV near the equivalent of episode 22's beginning—before certain important events, to put it mildly, can occur. When one notes this kind of thing, of course, it's important to restate that the Evangelion manga has always been a separate but equal "official" version of Eva, with no particular obligation to align itself with the anime, and indeed it was with Book Five, the first released after The End of Evangelion, that Sadamoto began to truly seem free to go in his own direction.

Nevertheless, as the "other" official version of the Eva story, it is reasonable for fans to view it as an "alternate history" relative to the anime, and the way Kaworu has been introduced makes us realize the manga may end very differently indeed. Despite the fact we know here that Kaworu is an Angel from the very beginning, he appears destined to at least hang around long enough to pick up a few paychecks. It's not clear when your health benefits kick in at NERV, although if Ritsuko is your primary caregiver it might be best to forego them.

Sadamoto's remarks upon visiting the U.S. in 2003 indicated that the Eva manga might (might) be planned as a twelve-volume series in all. There is still plenty of room for speculation, as the slow working pace to which the artist himself often refers has of late become almost relativistic—as of this writing, it has been eight months since Sadamoto has drawn a new installment of Eva in Japan, and hence a Volume Ten is nowhere in sight. It may be small comfort, but those of you reading this are pretty much in the same drifting boat as the Japanese fans.

"An angel's love is sublime, adorable, divine, beyond the imagination of man—infinitely beyond it! But it is limited to his own august order. If it fell upon one of your race for only an instant, it would consume its object to ashes. No, we cannot love men but we can be harmlessly indifferent to them; we can also like them, sometimes."

—from The Mysterious Stranger

And with Book Nine we see the most staggering difference thus far between the manga and the anime; Sadamoto's Shinji doesn't even like Kaworu, much less love him. Of course, you could say the less-ethereal Kaworu of the manga is harder to love. I can't believe Sadamoto had him tell Rei he thought she'd be "heftier." And yet he did.

I don't think any A.T. Fields actually got penetrated in the anime; while I do think Shinji felt sexually attracted to Kaworu, and that you the audience are supposed to feel that he felt it, what Kaworu himself thought was a very different matter. Like Rei, I believe Kaworu to be innocent—coyly, he appears not to be so, because while Rei needed to be reached out to, Kaworu has come to reach out; whereas Rei has spent her existence being observed; Kaworu has come to observe.

Indeed, in the manga, Shinji's irritation about Kaworu's invasion of his personal space seems almost a parody of his attitude in the anime. In the TV show, when Kaworu put his hand on Shinji's, he flinched but did not pull away; whereas in the manga it's easy to imagine Shinji slugging him. Instead he goes to run after Rei, hoping to get closer to her again.

I hardly think the change reflects any phobia on Sadamoto's part (after all, we even get to see Shinji's "Unit One" in the manga), but the fact the manga Shinji is less emotionally bleak and empty, and hence less vulnerable. Shinji's just as negative in the manga, of course, but it's an active variety, rather than the passive negative creep (in the best Nirvana song sense) we know from the anime. We don't have to imagine him slugging Gendo; from the look of surprise on Dad's face in Book Seven he would have smacked the beard off his face if Kaji hadn't stopped him.

Neither is Shinji in a positive emotional situation where we leave him here, either; indeed at this point in the manga there's arguably no one he can turn to—the more brutal fate that befell Toji has cut him off from his school friends, Rei has become hesitant, Kaji is dead, and his perennial self-esteem booster Asuka is going to need to rebuild her internal supply before she can even get back to calling him a loser and idiot.

So, like Misato trying to put her own hand on Shinji's, all I can do for now while we wait for Sadamoto-sensei is to recommend for your winter vacation reading list The Mysterious Stranger, which I can almost guarantee will give you new angles to think about Kaworu, and may even earn you class credit besides. A quick look at the novel's comments on Amazon list a teacher who says fundamentalist students walked out of his class when he taught it; another compares it to The Matrix; those who dislike it call it "sick," "bitter," and "twisted." Sounds like good old Evangelion to me!

—Carl Gustav Horn

[a drawing of Kaworu holding a kitten]

Although The Mysterious Stranger can also be found in a number of print editions, including The Portable Mark Twain from Penguin (haw haw), the story, being from the days when mp3s came on shellacked cylinders, is legally available online at http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/toc/modeng/public/TwaMyst.html. The same site has a book called The Holy Bible, King James Version, which fans of Evangelion might also enjoy, although it's technically "Editor's Choice."

[imagine-that]

Rescue me

Pairing: Loki Friggason x reader

Warnings: mentions of kidnapping, kinda angsty, a lil fluffy. (We love fluffy Loki around here lmao)

AN: this is not a request but I got this idea and it wouldn’t stop nagging at me so I took it and I RAN with it, requests coming VERY soon though

Yanking on the binds around your wrists, you wince slightly as they dig into the skin once again.

“That won’t free you. They’ve held much stronger.” The man in front of you informs you, a sly smirk playing on his lips and sending shivers down your spine.

“I’m not of any use to you, I hope you’ve realized that by now.” You growl, glaring up at him with a piercing gaze.

He chuckles, the sound one of nightmares bellowing from his throat.

“On the contrary, you are the key to getting to the god of mischief.” He says, his malicious grin growing wider as you flinch at the sound of his title. “Who knew his only weakness would be so... pathetically mortal.” He says, grabbing your roughly by the chin to make you meet his eyes.

Had your legs not been tied down, you would have kicked him, whether it be in the legs or in a much more intimate place, anywhere that would have gotten the vile creature away from you.

“He won’t do it. He won’t come for me. He’d never be that stupid.” You spat, leaning towards his face to make your message clear.

He opts to ignore your comment, leaving the room without another word.

You spend what feels like ions fighting the ropes with as much force as you can muster, still feeling the toll of the drugs they’d used to take you here (wherever here was), even with a day or two having already passed since they used it. You suspected they were sending the same kind through the vents to disorient you and to keep you weak.

You knew they more than likely wouldn’t feed you or give you water but your stomach still didn’t realize this. It continued to rumble, reminding you of your need for nutrients.

Truthfully, you’d been in worse situations. Being friends with the avengers tended to do that to a person. No, it wasn’t being starved or locked up and tied to a cold metal chair that scared you. It was the fact that you now truly knew what your boyfriend Loki felt for you and that was nothing.

There hadn’t been one sign of him coming to your rescue, nor had there been any of him sending help for you.

You wanted to plead, beg even for him to come to your aid but you refused to give them the satisfaction of hearing so through whatever mics and cameras they may have planted.

Your body ached from being in this same position for so long and you tried to prepare yourself for spending the rest of your life like this but try as you might, you couldn’t. You couldn’t will yourself to drop all hopes of Loki becoming your knight.

You licked your lips, trying to refresh them from their cracking and dried state but it was not much use.

Hours later, your captor reenters the room, two of his cronies following behind on either side. You use a minimal amount of strength to look up at him, knowing he would once again force you to if you didn’t do it yourself.

“I don’t understand! We’ve had her/him/them here for days and he hasn’t so much as threatened our lives! It doesn’t make any sense.” He cries out in frustration, gesturing angrily in your direction as he speaks.

You let out a bitter guffaw, rolling your eyes slightly. “It’s obvious you’re dimwitted but I had no idea it was to this extent.” You mutter. He glares at you furiously, outraged by your sudden show of disrespect. “Loki views me as nothing more than a plaything. He sees me as a toy and clearly, he’s grown bored with me anyway. He won’t come. The sooner you realize that the sooner we can get my murder over with.” You explain coldly.

“No. No! There’s more to it than that! We wouldn’t have just taken you on the off chance he cared for you! He does! I’ve seen it!” He insists, burying himself in denial. Any person would’ve said you should be reacting the same way, perhaps even more dramatically. You disagreed.

“He sees me as a possession. He doesn’t need me, he never has. He simply wanted to have me as a trophy for the mantle.” You reword your initial statement, the sharp words slipping through your lips slicing your heart more everytime as realization hits.

You feel the lone tear falling down your face just as he looks back to meet your eyes again. His face lights up with a monstrous grin and you immediately want to move away or at least wipe the salty tear away.

The man gently caresses your face, the rough pad of his thumb wiping the tear off your cheek. Your breath hitches in fear, terrified into not moving even an inch.

“I can see why the trickster would take an interest in you. For a mortal, you are quite attractive.” He comments, his breath hot on your face. You lean as far back as the chair allows without falling, using every bit of your strength to get away.

Just before he can do anything else to frighten you, an alarm starts blaring, high pitched and loud, causing him and his guards to stand immediately at high alert.

“Take the captive someplace safe. She/he/they needs to be intact for our deal to work.” He orders, running over to the door to investigate.

Instead of leaving you to walk on your own, the two remove you from the chair, grabbing you by an arm each and dragging you to the parcade but not before they hastily jab another dose of whatever drug it was they used on you into your exposed arm. You bite back a wince, the needle stinging as they recklessly inject it.

As they shove you into the backseat and start to drive, another car collides violently with the drivers side, sending the vehicle you’re in to a sudden halt. You release the sob of fear you’d been holding since being brought there, scared for your life.

As you begin to fade in and out of consciousness from the impact of your head hitting the front seat, the world keeps spinning, making you dizzy. The door is yanked open and what you see makes you immediately think it’s nothing more than a cruel form of torture.

“Oh my love, thank norns you are alright.” The voice murmurs, cutting your seatbelt with minimal difficulty and dragging your tired body out of the car like a rag doll.

Your first thought after the torture theory is that the drugs were causing you to hallucinate. Your next was that they somehow had the powers that the god of mischief himself did.

All these theories are tossed out the window as he lifts you into his arms and you feel the familiar mix of warmth and coolness against your skin.

“You came for me. You didn’t leave me for dead.” You murmur sleepily, trying to fight the effects of the injection.

“Of course I did my darling. I could never allow harm to come to you. I will always come for you.” He promises softly, placing a kiss on your forehead as he slips the both of you through every doorway. Suddenly he comes to a halt, making your drooping eyelids burst open and brings you back to some form of alertness.

“I see you found your mortal.” A voice says. To your dismay, it’s again a voice you recognize. This one though, is the same taunting voice you’d heard for the past two days.

You feel Loki’s muscles tense against you, holding you tighter in a protective manner. You nuzzle up to him in a mix of fear and exhaustion.

“Y/n is not a part of this war between you and me. Leave her/him/them out of this.” He orders, gently placing you on the ground to lean on the wall. You whine in protest, wanting nothing more than to be protected within his grasp.

“If only I could. She/he/they is the only thing you value worth bargaining. Without that, no one has anything of interest to you.” The man says with a grin, glancing over at your weakened figure in an almost longing manner.

Loki’s jaw tenses as he steps closer to the man, clearly ready to rip him apart in one move. If there was one thing he would never bargain with, it was your life and safety.

As you fell into a drug induced sleep on the floor, your limbs relaxing around you, Loki takes another glance in your direction, alarmed as he notices one of the mans guards grab hold of you and hold a blade to your throat.

“What is it you seek, you parasite?” Loki growls as he meets the eyes of your captor.

He grins like a madman. “The tesseract for y/n’s life.” He orders. Loki’s jaw locks in anger, unsure what he could do.

“I truly didn’t believe you’d fallen in love with a mere mortal your highness. I thought those who did were insane but seeing you actually have to think about it... well that just proves them right.” He mocks, making Loki want nothing more than to kill him.

He regains his control, his whitened knuckles relaxing as he lets out a sigh of defeat. Reaching into the pocket of his armour, he hands the glowing blue cube out of his hand and into his enemies hesitantly.

The man inspects it quickly before signalling for the minion to release you. He moves his blade and lets you go, dropping your limp body down to the floor with a harsh thud.

Loki practically seethes with anger, glaring daggers at the man as he retreats.

“You truly have become weak for this one being. How sad.” The man says, tutting his tongue as Loki reaches back over to you, his face one of worry.

“I like to believe you and your men are the weak ones for believing it is love that renders you so. You are true fools for believing I, Loki of Asgard, could ever be rendered so.” He retorts in an almost bored tone as he picks you up bridal style, cradling you in his arms as he masks his rage.

The man guffaws. “I got what I needed, you may take her/him/them and leave.” He says dismissively as he walks off into the hallways of his lair, leaving Loki alone with you.

He gently pushes strands of hair away from your face and quickly walks off to his hovercraft ship, laying you gently onto the ground, draping his emerald cloak over you. As the wind blows around you, the air helps with the effects of the drugs, making you wake up groggily.

“Loki?” You murmur, repeating yourself a moment later to overpower the wind.

“Good morning darling.” He hums, setting it to drive itself for a moment as he turns to face you. He crouches down to your level, gently but possessively kissing you on the cheek.

“How did you get us out of there?” You ask in confusion.

“With my wit and charm?” He offers jokingly. You meet his eyes, looking unimpressed. “If you must know, I had to give him the tesseract.” He admits with a huff of annoyance.

“What?! Loki, that thing is so important to you... and to the rest of the universe! Why would you do that?” You shout, your face one of concern.

“Y/n, I would have done whatever necessary to get you back. I care more for you than for anyone else in my life, except perhaps my dear mother.” He explains softly, holding your hand in his. In the palm of his godly hand, yours felt tiny.

“I’m not worth trading your most prized possession Loki. I love you for what you did but-.” You start but he places his lips against yours before you can finish.

“I thought that might be the best way to get you to stop chattering.” He says with a mischievous yet warm grin. You’d missed that more than you’d realized over the past few days.

“Anyway, you are worth all the tesseracts or magical artifacts or crowns in the world. I’d trade all of them just to keep you by my side forever my love.” He promises, kissing your knuckle as your face heats up.

“Well when you put it that way...” you say with a smile, planting your lips against his yourself.

“It also helps when you give them a fake of course.” He shrugs nonchalantly as though he hadn’t just dropped a key piece of information on you.

“You- you really deserve the title of god of mischief, you know that?” You ask in slight awe of his quick thinking.

“Of course I do but it’s nice to hear from such a lovely pair of lips.” He teases, smiling at you.

“I love you you mischievous idiot.” You giggle, grinning and squeezing his hand, still feeling groggy but a bit better being with him.

“And I love you with all my heart my darling. Always have, always will.” He whispers, holding you tight in his embrace.

He helps you to your feet, letting you regain your sense of balance as he pulls you in front of him, rested against his chest as he steers the small ship to the avengers tower, landing it gracefully.

“A bit of a show off are we?” You tease.

“My dear, it would never truly be me if I weren’t.” He teases right back, carrying you into his room.

You spend the night there, sleeping with his arms around your body.

He whispers sweet promises to protect you and guard you with his life and you take comfort in knowing that they’re all true, that you should never doubt his love and willingness to protect you at all costs. He was never going to leave you, he was your protector and rescuer, along with the love of your life, just as you were his.

[flashfuture]

I’m down for a meta post about the entities, I don’t really understand them.

OOOh okay

So entities are beings that are pure whatever light

So Parallax is Fear

Ion is Will

Ophidian is Avarice/Greed

Butcher is Rage

Adara is Hope

Proselyte is Compassion 

Predator is Love

Entity is Life

The idea is that Parallax the worm was trapped in the central power battery. That it was corrupting Hal for years. Yet somehow no one noticed this. That’s where the Yellow weakness is supposed to come from as well. 

But these entities didn’t exist until 2005 ish. The other emotional spectrums didn’t either. Well, Fear did but that was supposedly Sinestro’s doing. And Star Sapphires were sort of separate. But with Green Lantern Rebirth the Green Lantern Corps, Star Sapphires, Sinestro Corps all became a part of this emotional spectrum. This introduced the Orange, Red, Blue, and Indigo Corps as well.

Mmk but we didn’t even see the last 4 until 2008. And White Lanterns weren’t introduced till the Blackest Night event. 

Parallax itself from even how we saw it act in Rebirth in no way matches how Parallax!Hal behaved during Zero Hour. And when did Parallax even leave Hal? If it was when he gave the ring to Kyle why would he go mope by the source wall? All very strange. Parallax doesn’t seem the type to wanna die reigniting the sun either. 

So I’ve always had this theory in my head that Kyle spawned the entities. Okay which sounds insane but they really did not exist even a little bit until 2005. 

Kyle was the one to ‘discover’ that Parallax was a giant space worm

When Kyle was Ion the first time it wasn’t a being of Will. Kyle just got an upgrade from siphoning off the will Hal left in the sun. Which again either Hal was having a major Will powerup or he was having a major Fear powerup. In which case it would be Parallax in the sun and Kyle would have been possessed. 

That didn’t happen. Ion was Kyle with a lot of power. Kyle wanted to go back into time and stop Hal from ever becoming Parallax, save Coast City. So Spectre!Hal was all please don’t do that for me and Kyle sort of went with it. 

But then the Guardians are like oh Ion is a being of pure will and that’s who possessed Kyle but again Ion 1.0 behaved very differently to Ion 2.0 where it was an entity. Ion 1.0 made Kyle cold and removed it was taking his humanity same as the massive Will boost did to Parallax!Hal. Ion 2.0 was basically just Kyle but more stubborn. 

But the Guardians know everything right about all of history. So maybe they were keeping Parallax a secret. But they certainly didn’t seem to be you know considering Parallax the fear worm nor the other entities existed. But then Kyle was the one to bring them back to life. And as children no less. So Kyle had quite a hand in the second generation of Guardians. He’s their maker. Who’s to say he can’t influence how they think or what they know.

Every one of these entities are parasites. They want to feed and feed until there is nothing left. Sound familiar to maybe Oblivion? Oblivion which was a cosmic-level threat that regular Kyle spawned through his subconscious. 

In fact, all these entities are very volatile. Like pure emotion put to life. And these entities are very strong. Cosmic beings. Yet one human, in particular, has been able to house them all in him and overcome all of them. One Kyle Rayner. Kyle, who, has on more than one occasion had reality-bending powers. Kyle was the one who had to ferry the entities past the source wall to refill the emotional wells almost like they were drained by making giant incarnations of these emotions and the Entities had to be put back. This is where Kyle learned the life-equation too which was just more powerups to be had. Kyle basically became the Life Entity. 

And another point is that Hal adored Kyle after the whole hitting me with a pipe thing. But Kyle also immediately decided at that moment he was gonna do his very best to live up to Hal’s legacy. Kyle was the only one who thought to ask Hal to restart the sun because he believed Hal was a hero. Kyle set up the memorial to Hal and arranged his funeral.

All of Hal’s messes were cleaned up very nicely too. Genocide who? Everyone is alive again thanks to Kyle. Kilowog everyone's favorite hardass? Kyle brought him back to life too. Those lanterns Hal killed in space? Eh, they aren’t really dead, surprise. The Corps and their reputation? Kyle put a lot of work into making that good again. 

So yeah very easy to then say Hal was brainwashed the whole time. Even though every instance of people being possessed by Parallax is nothing like what Hal was like. Because again goes back to really a very poor understanding of Hal’s character. The Man Without Fear. But you know who isn’t without fear? 

Kyle. Kyle was terrified to fight Parallax so if Kyle made Parallax making it the fear entity makes sense. Because Kyle Rayner feels fear, he feels everything. 

Kyle is all Heart and maybe this time his heart was trying to cover for Hal.

This is the only way this makes sense to me. Because it stays true to both stories. Hal really did go evil. And everyone believes Hal was being brainwashed. 

It’s just it’s sad to see Emerald Knight decayed with retcons because we can’t have our heroes go bad. This is just my thoughts and ramblings on it because I’m a stickler for those 90s days and hate things that muddle them up. 

[brunotrash]

🩸Diabolik Lovers where everything is the same except I’m the mc🩸

*An: This was just a random idea that I had so like don’t expect it to be serious and yes I’m going to be doing this with More Blood (also if the grammar/spelling is messed up...deal with it <3)*

Ep 1: 

when ayato took the phone I would be like "I'm happy you ain't dead but gimme my damn phone back"

nah if that was me I would be struggling way more and telling him to get off like who he thinks he is pushing up on me and we don't even know each other name

ayato: "you already know I'm about to take you" me: 👁👁💢 take what bitch

instead of pancake he would call me melons or sum cuz I got them big honkers and like I know that but him telling me that would make me so upset and I would call him a perv  

When laito and kanato licked me I would stand up and be like "what's up with yall and licking me plus where did you even come from" 

bruh ion like reiji but I would say "thank you finally someone with sense who isn't obsessed with licking me" 

ayato: "yours truly is going to take her every first experience" me: you have too much nerve

when reiji said the stuff about being impolite I would say "sorry about that but these other guys have been impolite to me and it's just made me feel unwelcome" because I would think he's different than the others  😞💔 oh how wrong I would be

them: talking bout brides and sacrifices me: ion like neither of those options 🧍‍♀️

Laito would not get away with calling me bitch-chan he can use kitten or sum but he ain't calling me no bitch ✋✋

please when Subaru broke the phone I would be like "BRO DO YOU KNOW HOW MUCH THAT COST WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH YOU" 

me seeing Cordelia "IS THAT THE GRIMM REAPER"

ep 2:

laito: "are you tryna come onto me" me: no you're the one tryna come onto me leave me alone 

I would tell ayato to stop calling me melons and he wouldn't I would already be so done with him and then when he says my opinions don't matter I'll be like "and ur opinions don't matter to me"

reiji: "unless you want a whipping don't try anything reckless" me: a what now 😳

when ayato tells me to make takoyaki I would be like "I don't know how to cook I can barely do myself a grilled cheese sandwich so either do it yourself or teach me" 

I would smack ayato but I would probs still get bitten </3 a for effort at least

me 🤝 Yui: both drowning

ep 3

reiji: "one of these days I will take you aside and discipline you thoroughly understood?" me: oh so u one of them kinky motherfuckers gotcha 

I would tell ayato he got problems on sum sadist shit talking about feel more pain I would be suffering (literally and mentally) 

"No shu I did not come in here to see you naked I just wanna clean myself I'm leaving tell me when u get out" and then he wouldn't let me go 😐

Shu pulling on the hair reminds me of when my momma used to do my hair shit hurt :,)

shu: "think twice before contacting me again" no need to tell me again 

bro I would tell laito "ion belong to no one plus I didn't even consent to be a prize in this game I'm not an object" and he would be like "but you are an object your only purpose is to feed us your blood you will come to realize that soon kitten~"

ep 4

kanato going wild that I got him coffee me: 😟 it's not for all this sir please

nah right when laito's hat got taken off I would have been tryna run but he wouldn't let me go again a for effort. but that whole church scene I would genuinely be terrified and be crying and struggling so hard :,) it would probably turn him on becauses a sick bastard ✋ (I feel like he has a dacryphilia kink but then again what kink doesn't laito have)

ep 5

Yui needs to stop saying sorry but I would just look at kanato like 😟 therapy you need it and that's a factual statement 

my gag reflex would come when kanato kisses me I'm sorry pfft I don't even know why but I feel like it would 

when reiji said he wouldn't make tea for me I would be like "that doesn't seem like good manners to me 🙄"

I would be like "what did you put in the tea this better not be no get out shit"

this is when I would pop off at reiji and be like "you talking about me being impolite for coughing while you put something in my tea that's ruder than anything you damn hypocrite I can't believe I thought you were different"

ep 6

kanato on the edge would make my intrusive thoughts go wild like "what if I just pushed him off and dived out right after him" 🙈 

right when I see the doll room I'm not gon even step one foot in the room and I'm gon run away gives me Annabelle vibes I hate it

I would take up Subaru's offer but I would be like "but yall said I would die if I tried to escape" and when he gave me the knife I would be like "say less sheshhh thanks dude" 

I would threaten laito with my new acquired knife like🔪>:(  but when he says murdering is love to vampires I would be like "shit are you serious if it makes you happy then obviously I don't wanna do it now"

ep 7

me seeing the triplets as lil babies "they look kinda cute but this means that vampires can age but when to they stop aging-" *cue me rethinking the whole vampire lore*

Cordelia yelling at ayato and telling him to be the best "no wonder he's such a narcissist looks like all of yall need therapy and not just kanato"

ep 8

me looking into all the diaboys memories: I thought I had family issues but yall have mega family issues 🏃‍♀️🏃‍♀️

ep 9

me when shu pins me down: OH NAH IM NOT TRYNA RECREATE WHAT HAPPENED IN THE CHURCH WITH LAITO-

"women are terrifying" sir if anything I'm more terrified of u stop sucking my dang blood please

me seeing Richter for the first time: how you a vampire giving off vampire hunter vibes it must be the coat-  

ep 10

"have you become afraid of us now" bro I always was-

sees Cordelia again "oh shit something bad is about to happen ri-" *gets possessed*

as for eps 11 and 12 I had nothing to add lol

[percyisgay]

chapter 1 !?!?!

uh hi percy i havent written much and so you only get like one chapter of soup so far since ch1 is just intro but have fun anyway its also pretty short green lantern is here also bc justice for my boy <3 --- You hastily drape your old messenger bag over a small chair, concealed out of sight in a corner of the library and sit down. The library is visibly aged in such a delicate way that each crack in the walls or peeling wallpaper preserves a unique story, all frozen in time and proudly on display. The walls twist and stretch for lightyears, holding repetitive books close to their heart as dull, winter light pours through the ornate windows, illuminating them in an undeserving spotlight. You rub your eyes as you remember why you came here in the first place, ending your admiration immediately. Home.  You simply want to get home, but that is impossible since you don't exactly own a rocketship. Your second hand coat and hand made accessories serve as a reminder that you don't necessarily retain enough money to buy out NASA, and even if you did, your home was completely destroyed years ago. The closest you can do is browse this relic of a computer in the corner of a dimly lit library, searching for anything to remind you of home. Your fingers glide across the keys and mouse but your little hunt for any information is brought to a dead end after the first search. You find all that comes up on Krypton is a few articles of “The Superman”. You don’t know who this guy even is, but he is starting to get on your nerves. What kind of conceited stage name is “Superman”, anyway? Maybe you are simply homesick and thus biased, but he is pissing you off. You begin to drag yourself up from your seat in defeat but are brought to a sudden halt by a voice from somewhere behind you, sending you into a small panic. Is everyone just out to get you today? “Superman, aye? You a fan?” The voice carries a strange yet fun accent.You turn and find the source of this friendly voice, a robust, chubby figure in a black and green skintight suit, wearing a pair of underwear over top very confidently. This guy seems completely out there, you like him already. “Uh, no, actually. I don’t really know who he is.” You respond, ending your speech with an awkward ghost of a chuckle. “Whaddya mean you don’t know who he is? He’s superman! And you got articles of him up right now on your little computer.” “It’s a long story.” “Well, lucky for me I’m curious and have nowhere to be.” Okay. So you’re doing this now. Are you seriously going to tell this random stranger in green underwear and spandex your entire backstory? He probably won’t believe you anyway. People don’t tend to believe strangers in libraries when they tell an elaborate story of being an alien from Krypton that escaped seconds before it exploded, spent a few years on some empty planet and accidentally ended up stranded here. Besides, you’ve never told anyone before and you’re not sure you want to start now. “I just wanted to know more about Krypton,” You break your speech with a slight cough, “and, um, well, all I could find was stuff about some ‘Superman’, so.” “Huh. Nice, that really wasn’t a long story at all. Ion know why you said that it was but it's cool.” You simply deliver an awkward smile in response, not sure what to say. “I’m guessing you've never heard of Green Lantern either then, huh?” “Nope.” “Ah, okay. Well, that's me! And Green Lantern happens to be super good friends with good old Superman to say the least and, uh, I could give you his number? He was born there ‘n’ shit. You can ask him whatever you like. I’m sure he’d be happy to talk about it.” Holy shit. You’re a few words away from information you’ve yearned for for years on end. Oh my gosh. “Really? I mean- that would literally be amazing. Thank you so much.” “Yeah yeah! It’s no problem! Give me your phone and I'll type it in.” That line causes the reality to really sink in. What if this random guy in a cheap looking mask, really doesn’t know shit? What if he’s some creep or stalker? You wouldn’t be surprised in the slightest if that’s the case. But, then again. What’s the worst that could happen? You contemplate the weight of this situation for a few seconds before reaching into your bag and handing him your phone. “Jeez, how in the fuck do you see the screen on this thing? How’d you even manage to get it to look like this, it's basically cobwebs.” A large smirk breaks across his face as he looks up at you, amused. You would usually be offended by that, but he was definitely correct. Your screen is littered with cracks and dents from various incidents caused by your severe lack of spatial awareness. “Excuse you. I like to think it gives character.” He simply frowns at that, but you can tell it’s a smile. He finishes typing in what you’re hoping is Superman’s phone number, and hands you back your phone. “Alrighty, well I gotta admit that I did actually lie to you before.” Green Lantern begins. Oh fuck. Congratulations, you idiot! You just gave away your number to a random stranger in green budgie smugglers who is now definitely going to somehow find your home address now. Your brain begins to twist in horror and fear, and apparently your face does too since he starts speaking again. “Woah there! You ‘right? I didn’t mean to scare ya, I was just saying how I lied about having nowhere to be since I have lunch with Spiderman in about ten.” “OH. Oh, okay, cool cool cool, uh so do I just message Superman or-” “Yeah, basically. I’ll tell him about you A.S.A.P so he doesn’t block you on instinct or nothin’.” “Nice. Thanks! Thank you, so much.” You really can’t express the gratitude you feel right now and before you can try again, he’s gone. That was fast. Weirdly fast. The library is now clouded with surreal, off putting silence as if the world is waiting, anticipatingly for some sudden event to break the atmosphere but nothing comes except the muffled pitter-patter of rain. You decide to leave, there’s no use of being here anymore. You heave open the unnecessarily heavy door and your gaze flickers to the sky above, covered in an armour of dark storm clouds. You wince slightly as a few raindrops manage to fall directly into your eyes and begin your walk home. 

[alarawriting]

52 Project #14: Angel

I wanted to have this one done for you last week, but couldn’t quite get it completed in time. So here it is as number 14, instead.

***

The angel showed up three days after Riyana Delgado started working at the site of the anomaly.

Given the nature of the anomaly, it was possible the entity was an alien, or some kind of supernatural thing like a spirit. But it was obvious to Riyana what the entity was the moment it spoke. In an impossible voice that was simultaneously unbearably high-pitched and so deep and low it resonated in in her bones, it said, “BE NOT AFRAID,” and Riyana knew it was an angel.

Fisher was the first one who managed to say anything, probably because he was the senior physicist on the team and, ostensibly, was the leader. “What the hell are you?”

“It’s an angel, Bob,” Riyana whispered harshly. “Show some respect.”

“An angel. Really.” Yelena Sokolov sounded almost disgusted.

“GLORY TO THEY WHO ARE ON HIGH. WHAT HUMANITY HAS BROKEN, HUMANITY CANNOT FIX. THEY WHO ARE THE HIGHEST, GLORY TO THEIR NAME, HAS SENT THIS ONE TO FIX WHAT HUMANITY HAS BROKEN.”

“Oh,” Fisher said, and then again, “oh.”

“You are really an angel?” Arjun Chaudhry asked. “God is real? The Christian God?”

“MANY HUMANS HAVE SEEN FACETS OF THEY WHO CANNOT BE COMPREHENDED, THE LORD AND CREATOR OF ALL, BUT NONE CAN UNDERSTAND THE FULLNESS OF THEIR GLORY.” The angel floated forward. It was not a humanoid with wings. It was huge, perhaps six or seven meters tall, and was mostly comprised of dots of brilliant light like stars, vaguely outlining a bipedal shape that might have looked humanoid if it hadn’t had so many stars around its general head area, as if it had antlers, or a gigantic hat, or a mushroom-shaped head. Within the constellation that was the angel, nebula-like mists of many colors swirled, drifting into thicker bands or thinning out to show the desert rocks and sand behind it. “IT IS NOT THIS ONE’S PLACE TO EXPLAIN TO HUMANITY WHAT IS TOO INEFFABLE FOR EXPLANATION. THIS ONE IS HERE TO REPAIR WHAT HUMANITY HAS BROKEN.”

“Good,” Riyana said fervently. “Because all our measurements are suggesting that the thing is growing, and you’re right, we have no idea how to fix it.”

The angel approached the anomaly. The spots of bright light shone especially like stars against the lightless slice through reality that Riyana and the rest of her team were here to study, and reverse if they could.

“I don’t believe that thing is angel,” Sokolov muttered.

“So it’s an alien,” Bob Fisher muttered back. “Or some kind of creature from another dimension, or a fairy, or who the hell knows what. If it can do what it says it’s here to do, who cares?”

As it reached the anomaly, the gravity grabbed it and flipped it, but slowly, much more slowly than it had Cheng when it had pulled him in. The anomaly was a roughly vertical hole in reality, about two and a half meters tall and slightly over one wide. It had no measurable depth because it was either bottomless or had no existence in the third dimension whatsoever; from behind or the side you couldn’t even see it. But the gravity was more intense than the gravity of Earth, and although the hole was vertical, perpendicular to Earth’s gravity, the gravity within it pointed inward, as if someone had tipped a deep well on its side and put a door on it. When Cheng had gotten close, trying to probe the anomaly with a sonar device, the gravity had pulled him in, so quickly no one had a chance to do anything. They’d heard him screaming for a very, very long time.

The angel took several seconds to slowly pivot so it descended into the darkness. The lights went out as it lowered. One of the few things they’d been able to figure out about the anomaly was that electromagnetic radiation didn’t transmit within it. It didn’t even seem that pure electricity could pass through wires within the anomaly, but chemical electricity – the transmission of electricity via ions, the way that living creatures’ nervous systems worked, seemed to work fine. At least, none of the animals they’d lowered into the anomaly had come back dead.

They’d put together a rig for allowing human beings to enter it safely – harnesses, a chain on a pulley – but so far no one had been willing to take the risk. Not yet.

The angel drifted down into the anomaly – which meant it was perpendicular to the ground – as if it was feather-light. It took a minute or two for the anomaly to swallow it completely. And then it began to scream.

The scientists looked at each other, all of them – even Sokolov – with the same horror on their faces that Riyana was feeling. It was like Cheng all over again. The angel must be plummeting to its death.

Except the sound didn’t attenuate as if the angel was falling away. It remained as loud and horrible as it had been the moment the angel started screaming. Riyana’s bones rattled and her ears hurt, aching deep inside, and it was hard to hear anything but the scream of the angel. It was no longer just screaming wordlessly. The sounds it was making that felt as if they’d rupture Riyana’s eardrums had turned into something like words, in a language that seemed hauntingly familiar and yet completely unlike anything Riyana knew.

She shook her head. “Fuck this,” she muttered, and ran for the rig. “I’m going down to get it! Someone man the pulley!”

“What the hell, Riyana?” Fisher’s voice was surprisingly loud for his age. “No, you’re not!”

“Yes, I am! It came to help us and it’s suffering!” She slung her arms through the harness, buckled it in front, then brought the crotch strap – thick enough that it was almost something you could sit on – from the back, through her legs, and up to the buckle at her solar plexus. The chain from the pulley that was mounted to the nearest rocky outcropping split into four at its end, each one thick and solid but not quite as monstrously thick as the main body of the chain. She fastened two of the four ends to the metal loops on the front of the harness.

By this time, Fisher, Sokolov and Chaudhry had reached her. “What are you doing?” Chaudhry shouted. “We don’t know if it’s safe for humans! We don’t even know if there’s air down there!”

Riyana ignored him. “Yelena, could you fasten these two on my back?” She couldn’t easily reach the fastening points by her shoulderblades.

“This is stupidest idea I’ve ever seen,” Sokolov groused. “At least, from someone who should know better.” But she fastened the points. “There is air tank in storage unit three.”

“I know. Gonna need a net or something like it, too.” She doubted the angel was solid enough for her to grab hold of.

Fisher shook his head. “We needed to do this test sometime, I suppose,” he said – or something like that, anyway; he wasn’t yelling it, which meant it was hard to hear over the sound of the angel’s screams. “Arjun, can you get Riyana the chain mesh net?”

“We are letting this happen?” Chaudhry said, disbelieving. “We’ve only tested mice and rats! What if it destroys her mind?”

“The rats could still do their mazes just fine when we pulled them back out!” Riyana shouted over the screaming. “It’s a calculated risk!”

“I don’t see calculation,” Yelena snapped. “I see impulsive decision.”

“Yeah, well, I’m doing it. I’m not leaving an angel to suffer.”

“We don’t even know if that thing really is angel!”

“It’s alive and it’s obviously in pain, so it doesn’t matter!” She turned to Chaudhry. “Can you get the mesh? You’ve got the keys to the unit it’s in!”

Chaudhry rolled his eyes, but headed for the portable storage unit they kept some of the more esoteric equipment in. Sokolov went to storage unit 3 and got the portable oxygen tank and breathing mask with goggles, and Fisher hooked up the secondary wire Riyana would pull on to signal she wanted to be lowered further or pulled up.

As soon as she was kitted up with all her gear, Riyana ran for the hole in reality, holding the wire mesh net in her hands, balled up. The gravity pulled her as she approached within a quarter meter of the anomaly, grabbing at her as if she was suddenly stretched out and falling, like she’d been hang gliding and then her glider had just disappeared, and she fell into total darkness.

The chain pulled taut and brought her fall to a stop, causing her to reorient so she was standing, more or less, in relation to the direction of gravity. The lightlessness was palpable, almost a presence rather than an absence. She couldn’t see anything at all. Even the random pale and almost subliminal flashes most humans saw when they were in deep darkness, the results of single photons hitting the retina, weren’t there.

The net was attached to her front by the fastening point at her solar plexus. She let it go, allowing it to fall, and swung it around through the lightlessness, looking for any point of resistance, anything that indicated it had hit something, anything. At the same time she was trying to orient to the sound of the screaming. Not knowing what this space was shaped like was a problem. Was this truly a void, like space? Was it a gigantic hollow chamber? Were there walls, were there objects floating in it?

The screaming was below her. She tugged on the wire twice, the signal for “lower me.”

Chain spooled out – she assumed, since she couldn’t see it – and she began to drop again, more slowly as her descent was controlled by the length of chain instead of gravity alone. The screaming got louder. The net still wasn’t hitting anything as far as she could tell. Her movements made her oscillate slightly back and forth, swinging in tiny arcs, as she descended.

And then without warning, she swung into something that – fizzed, in her brain, like foam from a soda you’d shaken too much, but warm, almost hot. The screaming was horribly loud, but suddenly Riyana could understand it, the strange sounds coalescing into meaning.

“MY GOD, MY GOD, WHERE ARE YOU? WHERE ARE YOU? GLORY TO YOU ON HIGH, MY GOD, WHERE ARE YOU? WHERE ARE YOU? MY GOD…”

“Listen!” Riyana yelled. “We’re going to try to pull you out of here!”

The angel ignored her, continuing to scream its litany of despair. Riyana pulled the cord twice again, and tried to use her gloved hands to outline the shape of the angel, to find its bottom. Touching it made her hands buzz like a mild shock, and more information fizzed up in her mind, knowledge coming from the angel… somehow.

It had never before been unable to feel the light of God, its connection to its Creator. But in this void, even God’s power could not reach. Humanity’s quest for limitless energy had resulted in tearing a hole in Creation, and God had sent the angel to repair it because God could not. But the angel couldn’t either, because it couldn’t bear being without its connection to God, and its mind was breaking.

She managed to find its bottom, or at least an endpoint – she had no idea how the angel was oriented. It had been vaguely bipedal and upright before, like a human, but now it felt more like a ball. It didn’t matter. Riyana got the net under it and pulled the wire three times, to indicate she wanted to be pulled up.

The angel was very light, but there was a weight there, enough that Riyana could tell her net was wrapped around something and she wasn’t just pulling emptiness up. As the cable pulled her out of the anomaly and Earth gravity returned, she fell somewhat ignominiously on her rear end. “Keep pulling!” she yelled. “I’ve got the angel in the net!”

The cable, manned by Sokolov, continued to reel her back in, until the net, and the angel, emerged. The angel was a ball, as she’d thought when she felt it, mists in the vague shape of wings closing it in, like a bird with its wing over its head, hiding within itself. It was still screaming. “MY GOD, WHERE ARE YOU? WHERE ARE YOU? MY GOD, MY GOD, I CANNOT FEEL YOU, I CANNOT FEEL YOU, OH MY GOD, WHERE ARE YOU?”

Riyana felt a cold chill. The angel had said “I”. The information that had soaked into her when she’d touched the angel said that angels were not supposed to have a sense of individuality. They were the messengers and agents of God, and they didn’t have free will like humans did. They did not say, or think, “I”. But this one had.

“Could it possibly stop screaming?” Sokolov yelled. “What do we do with angel who screams all the time?”

“It’s screaming because it can’t feel the presence of God,” Riyana said.

“You are expert on angels now?”

Actually, yes, Riyana thought, but didn’t say. “My grandmother was. She was really into them.”

Abuela’s house had been full of angels. Kitschy plastic angels, smooth ceramic angels, soft cloth angels, rough-hewn wooden angels, and most of them had been exactly what you’d expect – women or androgynous men in robes, with wings, and halos. Sometimes, harps or trumpets. But there had been others. A plush angel that was a ball of wings and eyes. A mobile that was a series of hanging wooden wheels that crossed each other to form ball-like shapes, where there were eyes all along the rims of the wheels. Majestic stone humanoids with no faces and heads shaped something like footballs, but truncated and flattened on the face side, and not quite as pointy as a football on the back side.

Riyana had asked her about them, and Abuela had told her those were angels too, and that the pretty angels, the ones that looked like people, were almost certainly not what angels really looked like. “Every time an angel appears to a human, it says, ‘BE NOT AFRAID’,” she’d said. “So angels must have been terrifying, if the first thing they have to say is to tell people not to be afraid of them.”

It was how Riyana had known the entity was an angel, despite how very different it had looked from anything she’d been told angels looked like. Because it looked impossible and bizarre and terrifying, but its first words had been “BE NOT AFRAID.”

“Is it going to stop?” Fisher asked.

Riyana shrugged. “I really couldn’t say. I hope so. It’s obviously in a lot of pain. I can’t imagine that a good and loving God would strand it like this. God has to reconnect with it sooner or later, doesn’t He?”

“If it is later, my eardrums will be shattered,” Sokolov said. “What can we do?”

Chaudhry said, “We could get it onto the truck and take it away from the anomaly. Maybe it can make its connection when it is further from here.”

“What, God is a wi-fi signal now?” Fisher sighed. “Yeah. Let’s do that. The further we get it from here, the better the chances that it’ll find God, and more importantly, we won’t be able to hear it any more.”

So the four of them managed to wrestle the net onto the back of the pickup, the one that technically belonged to the university they all worked for but that was by common agreement Chaudhry’s truck, and then pull the net free and leave the screaming angel in the flatbed.

There was no road directly near the anomaly, but the anomaly was situated right where there had once been an energy research institute exploring some interesting possibilities, right before they had torn a hole in reality and been sucked in. So there was a road some distance away, where the asphalt hadn’t been destroyed by the implosion, and the truck had four-wheel drive. Riyana rode with Chaudhry out to the road, and then twenty miles down it, and then off-road through the desert to a tall outcrop of reddish stone, where they parked.

“Come on,” Riyana said to the angel. “Come on out of the truck. Look, maybe if you quiet down and open your heart, you’ll find God again. I’m sure He won’t leave you alone down here.” The angel ignored her and kept screaming. It obviously didn’t have human limitations because a human would have gone hoarse and voiceless by now.

She wrapped a coil of rope that had been in the back of the truck around the angel, and with Chaudhry’s help, tugged it out. The angel tumbled into the sand. Awkwardly Riyana petted it. “I don’t think there’s anything we can do for you,” she said, wondering if the angel could even hear her over the sound of its own screams. “But we took you away from the anomaly so you’d have a better chance of reaching God. We’ll… we’ll leave you here, all right? You should stop screaming. Try to meditate, see if you can reconnect to God. I’m sure He won’t abandon you.”

It was a horrible relief when they left the angel behind them and the sound of the screaming, a constant for the past hour and a half, finally disappeared into the distance.

***

They didn’t talk on the way back. As soon as they got out of the vehicle, though, back at the camp, Sokolov ambushed them. “Do you seriously think that thing is angel?” she demanded. “Angel? Like, from God?”

“Yes,” Riyana said, “but if you don’t, I’m not going to argue about it with you. I’m Catholic, Yelena. You know this.”

“I know, but I always forget. You are very smart woman. It’s hard to remember that you actually believe in God.”

Fisher walked over to them, sighing ostentatiously. “I don’t think it’s a good use of our time to debate whether or not that was actually an angel or some other kind of entity.”

“It’s important!” Sokolov said. “If there really is God, what does that mean for science? If God can just wave his hand and make anything happen, how can we predict anything?”

Chaudhry said, “The anomaly is already disobeying many of the laws of physics. Science held up just fine with it existing. So why not God? Or a God, anyway?”

“It is clearly thinking of Christian God,” Sokolov complained. “Or Judeo-Christian, anyway.”

“Islam has angels,” Chaudhry said. “In Hinduism, we do not exactly call them angels, but we have them. I believe they have deific spirits in Japan.”

“It said that no religion has it exactly right,” Riyana said.

“And here’s the thing. Based on what we’ve seen, we have no way to tell whether that thing is actually an angel, or an agent of an incredibly advanced alien species who want to fix our shit for us because the anomaly presents a threat to them as well.” Fisher glared at the three of them. “We don’t have any way of knowing if this thing came from an omnipotent entity who created the world, or not. All we know is that going into the anomaly seems to have broken its brain.  So we can’t expect some emissary of an all-powerful God to show up and fix this for us. We’re here to figure out what this thing is and how to fix it so it doesn’t swallow the Earth, because, in case you’ve forgotten, it’s growing.” He stalked off.

“He’s right,” Chaudhry said. “Let’s get back to work, everyone.”

Riyana was just as glad to drop the subject. Her faith wasn’t challenged by Sokolov’s atheism, or for that matter anything about the angel; the angel actually confirmed some things for her, though she was still unnerved that God hadn’t seemed to do anything to take the angel back. Arguing with Sokolov was pointless, however; she knew neither Sokolov nor herself would budge.

***

Each of them tried going into the anomaly, now that Riyana had proven that it could be done safely.  Chaudhry had been working on setting up a sonar device they could use to outline the inside of the anomaly, since they’d lost the first one with Cheng, and he went down with it strapped to himself – only a short distance, because any deeper in and the electricity would stop flowing through the wire it was connected to. Unfortunately, sonar only worked if there was something for sound to bounce off of, and apparently, there wasn’t.  This didn’t mean that there was no solid object anywhere within the space, but there wasn’t one anywhere near enough for sound to reflect off of it.

Riyana had already known there was atmosphere, or she probably wouldn’t have tried to rescue the angel, but the initial tests they’d done had seemed to find an absolutely absurd amount of hydrogen and helium.  Now she lowered more probes to a greater depth, approximately 200 meters, and tested the atmosphere.  At that level, there was substantially more of gases heavier than helium but lighter than air, such as carbon monoxide, methane and ammonia. She put in an order for a longer cable; the preliminary findings suggested that perhaps, gas was layered within the anomaly by its molecular weight, which implied that the anomaly was in some way at the “top” of something.

Sokolov went down with two oxygen tanks, and used the second one to try to maneuver herself in the “up” direction within the anomaly, trying to see if it was possible to get into space that was to the “side” or even “above” the portal. Instead, she just ended up pushing herself back out through the hole, but she remained convinced that if she had something more responsive and more powerful than an oxygen tank, she might be able to manage it. Gravity within the anomaly was lower than Earth gravity, but not by all that much – it was somewhere around point eight gee – so an oxygen tank hadn’t given her the degree of push she really needed.

Fisher calculated how far down the “bottom” was likely to be, based on the gravity and the variation in the density of the gases.  He had an idea to use a hot air balloon, weighted, to descend far enough that they could tell if the density and gravity was varying with distance toward the gravitational source at the rate they would expect. Riyana personally thought that was horribly dangerous; how could you guarantee that your heat source would continue to produce heat in a space where electromagnetic energy didn’t seem to propagate?  But Fisher thought they might be able to capture enough hydrogen and helium escaping through the portal to be able to fill an aerostat’s gas repository.

They worked for another two days before the second angel showed up.

It was a floating mass of tentacles with eyes, continually seething and moving. It looked significantly more substantial than the last angel had. But Riyana knew that it, too, was an angel, because the first thing it said was “BE NOT AFRAID.”

“We rescued the last one of you who went into that anomaly,” Sokolov said. “We are not afraid, trust us.”

Many, many of the eyes blinked. “THE LAST ONE?”

“Yeah, you’re not the first,” Fisher said.  “We drove the last one out in our truck – Arjun, where did you put him?”

“About twenty miles down the road,” Chaudhry said. “We can show you to him, if you like.”

“NOT NECESSARY. THAT IS NOT THE MISSION THE MOST HIGH, GLORY UNTO THEM, HAS GRANTED TO THIS ONE.”

“You need to be careful,” Riyana said. “The last one who went in lost contact with God, and couldn’t do anything but—” She wanted a more politic verb than “scream”. “Cry out.”

“THIS ONE IS NOT CONCERNED WITH THAT. THIS ONE HAS BEEN TASKED BY THE ONE WHO IS HIGHEST, ALL GLORY TO THEM, WITH REPAIRING THE DAMAGE THAT HUMANITY HAS CAUSED.”

“Can you tell us what it is?” Fisher asked. “We’ve been studying it, and the best guess we can make is that it’s somehow a portal to another universe.”

“IT IS A TEAR IN CREATION,” the angel said.

“And you can’t seal it up from here?”

“IT MUST BE REPAIRED FROM WITHIN THE TEAR.”

“I think you’re very brave,” Riyana said, “but I think you should take precautions. We have a cable. Why don’t you hold onto it when you go down? That way if we need to pull you out like we did the last one, it’ll be a lot easier.”

“THIS ONE HAS NOT BEEN ASKED TO ACCEPT HUMANITY’S AID. THE MOST HIGH, ALL GLORY TO THEM, EXPECTS THIS ONE TO CARRY OUT ITS TASK ITSELF.” The angel floated over to the portal. The gravity didn’t seem to be affecting it; it was floating within centimeters of the portal, but was not falling in. Sokolov finished setting up the high-speed camera she had pointed at the anomaly. She started running film.

“Okay, but if you start screaming, it will be much more difficult for us to rescue you,” Chaudhry said.  “Riyana’s right. You should at least be holding onto our cable.”

In response, the angel’s tentacles grabbed onto the edge of the anomaly as if the edges were a doorjamb, and flung itself into the hole. It was still holding onto the edges of the anomaly, its tentacles clearly showing.

For a few moments, it looked as if the gaping hole was actually shrinking, the tentacles of the angel clearly pulling at the edges. And then the angel started screaming.

“Oh, for God’s sake,” Fisher sighed.

“I’ll go get him,” Riyana said.

“No,” Chaudhry insisted. “I’ll go. It shouldn’t always be you.”

It was moot. The angel’s tentacles tightened and it flung itself forward out of the anomaly, but continued to scream. Riyana translated. “It’s saying, ‘My God, My God, where are you?’ The same thing the last one was saying.”

“How do you know what the last one was saying?” Chaudhry asked.

“When I touched the first one, physically, I could suddenly understand the language.”

“Oh,” Chaudhry said. “Bob. I’m going to go touch it.”

“Be careful. It might not behave the way the other one did. Could be dangerous.”

But as it turned out, the angel reacted to being touched exactly the same way the first one had, which was not at all. Chaudhry turned around, eyes wide. “I can understand it!” he said excitedly. “Bob, Yelena, all of us should touch the angel. I can understand it. I… I know why it’s screaming!”

“Because it can’t sense the presence of God,” Riyana said.

“Yes, exactly! Oh, so this is how you knew that!”

Fisher walked over to put his hand on the angel, and then turned to Sokolov. “Yelena, you don’t have to do this if you don’t want to.”

Sokolov sighed. “Fine. But I will still not believe there is omnipotent God who sent this thing.”

The whole thing seemed a little cold to Riyana. The angel may have been able to free itself from the anomaly, but aside from that it seemed as helpless and broken as the first one had. “I wish there was something we could do for it.”

“Have you tried praying?” Chaudhry asked.

That was embarrassing. As a Catholic, that should have been the first thing she tried. She bowed her head. “Lord God,” she whispered, barely able to hear herself over the sound of the angel screaming, “this angel attempted to faithfully carry out Your commands despite the danger. It’s suffering now. Please, if You can hear me… please take it back. Bring it back to Heaven and enfold it in Your light.”

The angel continued to scream. God continued to apparently not do anything about it.

She went to her room in the women’s trailer where she and Sokolov were staying, got out her rosary, and prayed for God, Jesus, or the Virgin Mary to intercede on behalf of the angels, while the others loaded the angel into the truck and Chaudhry and Sokolov drove it out into the desert. When they came back, they reported that the other angel was still there, still screaming. Riyana was beginning to be bitterly disappointed with God’s performance.

***

Another day of research. They all tried to avoid talking about the angel, or speculating about God. Sokolov stomped around in a barely suppressed rage, plainly unhappy at having her atheism challenged by events. Chaudhry kept looking out to the west, where they had deposited both angels. Riyana was distracted, worrying for them, wondering why God wouldn’t take them back. Only Fisher was completely unmoved by the angels, as far as Riyana could see.

A shipment came. Sokolov got a jet pack, which seemed to cheer her up immensely, and Fisher got a device to suck the hydrogen and helium away from the opening and store it in tanks that were also provided. Chaudhry did not get his sonar device that ran on ion channels instead of pure electricity; he was convinced that if he could get a sonar device in deep, rather than just barely inside the portal as he’d had to because otherwise electricity wouldn’t power it, he could get better results. The university had not only not sent him one, they’d pointed out that it was questionable whether one could even be made with their current levels of technology. Riyana did not get her longer cable, either. At least they told her that her cable was being sourced, and it might take some time.

Fisher wrote a strongly worded letter to the government about the fact that the anomaly was growing a few centimeters every day, and four barely equipped researchers were nowhere near enough to solve the problem and seal the anomaly before it ate the Earth. He cc’d it to some folks in the Department of Defense, arguing that maybe the military might have an interest in making sure Earth didn’t get swallowed up.

In the absence of her cable, Riyana did more tests of gas flow. With a sample of tritium and a Geiger counter, she was able to demonstrate that air flowed out of the anomaly into Earth’s atmosphere, not the other way around for the most part. This made no sense given the relative densities of the atmospheres and the direction of gravity within the anomaly. Also, while they’d learned the hard way with Cheng’s death that they could hear sound coming from the anomaly, Riyana tested by going in again and determining that she couldn’t hear sounds from outside the anomaly no matter how loud they were.

She took Chaudhry’s truck out to check on the angels, and prayed the rosary over them for three hours, wearing earplugs to protect her hearing from the screaming. Nothing happened.

***

The third angel appeared the next day.

“BE NOT AFRAID,” it said, although it was objectively far more frightening than the others had been. A series of burning rings, one inside the other but all of them at angles to each other so it looked like a gigantic model of an atom, with a huge floating eye for the nucleus. The fire was real – it singed the top of their tall light pole as it drifted past, leaving black carbon streaks on the pole.

“We’re not,” Sokolov snapped. “We’re trying to do our job, and you angels keep interrupting and trying to fix our mess and failing. Why don’t you let us deal with it? You obviously can’t.”

“THE ONE ON HIGH, PRAISE BE TO THEIR NAME, HAS TASKED THIS ONE WITH REPAIRING THE DAMAGE.” The angel descended toward the anomaly.

“Please,” Riyana said. “There’ve been two other angels and they’ve both lost contact with God. All they do is scream. Please don’t go in there.”

The eye turned and gazed at her. It moved independently of the fiery wheels. “RIYANA DELGADO, YOUR COMPASSION HAS BEEN SEEN BY GOD,” it said, which was both thrilling and terrifying. “BUT THIS ONE HAS A TASK TO DO.”

One of the fiery wheels broke, and the fire lanced out as a tentacle, touching the side of the anomaly. The angel slid to the side, and a second tentacle pierced the anomaly from the other side. Then both tentacles came back up out of the anomaly and touched their respective far sides, like the angel was tying a shoelace, or double-stitching.

Sokolov ran the main camera again, while Chaudhry took shots with the one that couldn’t capture video, and Riyana turned a bank of infrared and ultraviolet detectors toward the angel. And then the Geiger counter. And then X-ray plates. It wasn’t radioactive per se, but it was emitting X-rays and ultraviolet light intensely enough that she had to warn Sokolov and Fisher that they might need sunscreen. Not enough ultraviolet that she’d need sunscreen, or Chaudhry, but if that changed she’d grab the 50 SPF from Fisher, who was slathering it on his arms and legs.

The anomaly was shrinking. The stitches of fire were pulling tighter, sealing the top of the anomaly, pulling the sides closer together. Abruptly there was a profound lensing effect, where everything next to the anomaly suddenly looked distorted, bulging and large or entirely too skinny, and the angles were all wrong.

“THIS ONE HAS DONE WHAT CAN BE DONE FROM THIS SIDE,” the angel reported.

“Thank you,” Fisher said. “I can see you’re making a lot of progress.”

The fire tentacles detached off the angel, but Riyana couldn’t see any gap in its fire rings where they might have been. “THIS ONE WILL ENTER THE ANOMALY AND COMPLETE THE TASK GRANTED BY THE ONE MOST HIGH, PRAISE UNTO THEM.”

“You can’t finish fixing it here?” Riyana asked. “That thing isn’t safe for angels. Two have been harmed by it.”

“THIS ONE GOES FORWARD WITH THE PROTECTION OF THE LORD OF ALL, ENFOLDED IN RIGHTEOUSNESS THROUGH THE ORDER THEY HAVE GIVEN TO THIS ONE.”

“That’s just it! Both the angels we’ve seen thought they were protected, and they both lost contact with God and couldn’t stop screaming!”

“We can’t pull you out like we did the other two. You’re made of fire,” Fisher said. “Can you at least hold onto our cable, or will it melt if you try?”

“THIS ONE IS MOVED BY THE CONCERN OF HUMANS, BUT WE LIVE AND DIE FOR THE ONE WHO CREATED ALL, PRAISE TO THEIR NAME. THIS ONE DOES NOT NEED THE AID OF HUMANS.”

“Come on,” Riyana pleaded. “We don’t want to lose you. Please hold onto the cable, or let us lower you in our net, or something.”

“It thinks it is above us,” Sokolov sneered. “It doesn’t need help from lowly imperfect humans.”

“THIS ONE’S FLAMES WOULD MELT ANY HUMAN CREATION. YELENA SOKOLOV, NO ANGEL BELIEVES THEMSELVES ABOVE HUMANS, BEINGS OF FREE WILL WHO ARE BELOVED BY THE ONE ABOVE ALL, PRAISE TO THEM. BUT THAT DOES NOT CHANGE THE FACT THAT HUMANS CANNOT HELP THIS ONE.”

“Let us at least put down the net,” Riyana argued. “Maybe your flames would melt it, but maybe we could pull it up fast enough to rescue you.”

“THE GESTURE IS UNNECESSARY, BUT APPRECIATED. LOWER YOUR NET IF YOU WILL IT SO, RIYANA DELGADO.”

Riyana hooked up the net and lowered it in ahead of the angel, who descended into the anomaly.

There were screams. They were much shorter than last time.

When she and Chaudhry pulled up the net, there was something the size of the angel’s eye, but it looked solid and blackened like half-burned coal. The fires were gone. The angel did not speak, nor did it scream, and the eye did not open.

“Well,” Fisher said, sounding shaken for the first time since Cheng died. “I think maybe this means angels can die.”

The ultraviolet detectors and the X-ray plates said that the angel was inert, no more radiation emitted from it. Riyana took the risk of approaching it, and then touching it, since infrared said it was about as hot as the pavement on a summer day. It didn’t stir, and she felt nothing. No rush of energy or knowledge.

Her legs gave out under her. She dropped to her knees and started to sob, uncontrollably. Hating herself for it, because she was a scientist, dammit, she was a grown woman, she was the only Black person on the team and the only Hispanic person and she had to represent, she had to stay strong… but she couldn’t stop. The angel was dead, or as close to it as made no difference. God had sent two angels to destroy their own minds and the third one to die. Did He even care?

Fisher tried, awkwardly, to comfort her, without touching her. Sokolov and Chaudhry busied themselves with loading the dead angel onto the truck, not looking at her, obviously embarrassed for her sake. But it didn’t matter. This beautiful, horrifying, alien creature who had called humanity beloved of God and had said that God Himself had taken note of Riyana’s compassion, who had gotten farther saving humanity from their own folly than any of the others had thus far, was dead.

As soon as she could stand up on weakened legs, she ran for the trailer and locked herself in her room, to sob into her pillow like a schoolchild who’d just watched a favorite teacher die in front of her.

***

They’d all watched the video taken by the closest satellite.

Once there had been a city here, not tremendously large as cities went, but growing, full of young people who’d come out to the desert to get jobs in the new industries out here, and older people looking for a place without rain to soothe their bones. And out on the outskirts of that city, there had been a shining, mostly-glass corporate building, like so many other corporate buildings in the world, and they’d been engaged in some sort of research that they’d kept super-secret, but had had something to do with exploring a new means of generating energy for a world desperate for new, safe energy sources.

The energy source, whatever it had been, had not been safe.

On the video taken by the satellite, the entire world watched as an explosion tore through the roof of the corporate building. And then it had slid down into a hole that hadn’t been there before, and the entire town had been dragged in, swirling down the hole like it was a drain whose plug had just been pulled. You couldn’t see people in the video, but you could see cars desperately trying to drive out of town, and the roads they were using bending, sliding inward toward the hole. Lensing effects were visible as things sliding into the hole very briefly appeared much larger than they’d been, with strange angles, before pouring into the swirling whirlpool going down the drain.

It had stopped after a radius of thirty-odd miles had poured into a hole to nowhere, leaving behind a vertical portal into a void. Riyana’s university was the first one to get together a grant request to study the anomaly. The government had given them money to come out here and study it, but then no other research teams had been granted anything, as if the government thought that throwing just one team of five scientists—which quickly turned to four – was sufficient for something of this magnitude. The administration of the federal government seemed more interested in pretending nothing was wrong and that everything was going to be fine than actually figuring what the situation was. And when the state had attempted to send their own teams, the federal government had pulled rank, declaring the area off-limits to any but their own authorized personnel.

The corporation responsible had, of course, declared that they had no idea what had happened, that the team working on the energy generation issue had kept all their records local and off the cloud to prevent any unauthorized access, and even the CEO didn’t know exactly what they’d been working on. The Justice Department, under the control of an administration who’d never met a soulless corporation it didn’t like, had bought that excuse. There wasn’t even an investigation. Congress talked about having hearings, but the president’s party was in control, so the hearings were entirely perfunctory, full of softball questions, and no good answers.

A few military researchers had come out, checked over what Riyana’s team had found out, and returned. Maybe they were crunching numbers back at their bases, or maybe they’d just come out to do due diligence and make sure the anomaly wouldn’t eat the planet before the next presidential election.

Riyana had wanted help so badly. She hadn’t admitted it to the others – what would have been the point? She was sure they all felt the same way, and there was nothing any of them but maybe Fisher with his strongly worded letters could do about it. But she’d felt so scared and so alone, just the four of them against a slow-growing apocalypse. The anomaly was growing by a centimeter or two every day, and anything within a quarter meter of it would be sucked in.  A centimeter a day would be a kilometer in three years, and Earth’s exposure to its anomalous gravity might grow in proportion. What if a quarter meter now meant a meter after the anomaly had quadrupled in size? What happened when the gravity started being great enough to pull at the crust of the Earth?

They’d needed hundreds of researchers. Instead, they were only four, and one of their number already dead. She’d prayed to God for a miracle.

And the miracle had shown up, and been destroyed for its pains. Three times now.

***

She managed to pull herself together by dinnertime, which was good, because the others were engaged in analyzing the data she, Chaudhry, and Sokolov had collected with the cameras and the various EM detectors. The general consensus, unfortunately, was that they had no idea what the angel had done to get as far as it had. From what they could see, the fiery tendrils appeared to be lasers, with just enough scatter that they could get a reading on at least some of what had gone into the lasers. They covered the entire EM spectrum that they’d been measuring except for gamma rays. No one had had time to set up radio measurement or microwave measurement equipment, so there was no way to know what else might have been in the lasers.

The obvious problem with this was that the anomaly itself negated any EM radiation; electrical signals could transmit through ion interchange, but they couldn’t pass through the wires they’d tested or through space. So how had the angel woven EM tendrils through the edges of the anomaly? Secondly, the angel – both the dead one and the second one – had treated the edges of the anomaly like they were solid objects, but humans couldn’t do that. They’d tried, with poles and probes. The anomaly had no detectable edge. Either an object went into the anomaly or it didn’t; the gravity was too strong to keep anything balanced half on one side and half on the other, so they couldn’t even test if that was possible or not.

Riyana pointed out what seemed to her obvious. “It’s not using EM radiation to seal the hole. It’s using the power of God; for that particular angel, it looks like doing that emitted EM radiation. That might be why it died; in a place where it can’t radiate EM radiation, maybe it couldn’t continue to live.”

“That’s an interesting speculation, but it’s pretty unprovable,” Fisher said.

Riyana rolled her eyes. “People. This is an angel. They’ve all repeatedly said they work for the Creator. What else would they be doing to repair a hole in reality?”

“We don’t actually have proof of that,” Fisher said. “Just because they claim a thing is true—”

“They are working for someone, though,” Chaudhry said. “And whoever that someone is, they have the power to fix this thing. The second angel managed to pull it closed a few centimeters; this one actually closed off a third of a meter at the top and pulled the whole thing about twenty centimeters less open than it was.”

“They’ve made progress,” Sokolov admitted. “But that doesn’t mean they actually work for God even if they think so.”

“Right, they could still be aliens,” Fisher said. “But Riyana’s right; whatever energy they’re really using, it doesn’t seem to show up on our detectors.”

“And going into the anomaly killed the most recent one like snuffing out a candle,” Riyana pointed out. “And we know that they believe they are connected to God and draw power from Him, and that when they enter the anomaly, that connection is cut off.”

“They could be something like Q. From Star Trek,” Sokolov said. “Powerful beings with abilities we don’t understand, who we think of as gods, but they are only more advanced than us.”

“It doesn’t really matter,” Fisher said. “Call them angels who serve God, call them aliens who serve The Great Alien Overlord, call them fairies who serve the Queen of Summer… it doesn’t matter. We don’t know how many of them their master is willing to throw away to get this thing fixed, and we don’t know what alternatives there are. Can they solve their problem by destroying the Earth? We don’t know. So we can’t expect that there’s going to keep being angels trying to fix this and we can’t expect that their ideas about what constitutes ‘fixing’ this will always be a good idea, by our standards.”

“Bob, we are not children,” Chaudhry said. “Every time you talk about this, it sounds like you’re really saying, ‘Don’t give up the research just because angels have shown up.’ And I think it goes without saying that we are all clearly understanding that.”

“Are we? All of us?”

He looked pointedly at Riyana, who felt her cheeks heat up. She kept her voice even and controlled. “Yes. All of us. I may have faith in God, but God has always helped those who try as hard as they can to help themselves. And if it’s true that we somehow managed to punch a hole in Creation, then studying it might tell us something about the nature of Creation that we’d have otherwise no way to know.”

She wanted to be angry. She wanted to snap at him. She wanted to point out that it was a bad look to be picking on the only woman of color in their group, implying that she wasn’t as dedicated to science as the rest of them. But she wasn’t going to play to stereotypes or let them dismiss her as an emotional woman, a “fiery Latina” or an “angry Black woman” or any other stupid thing like that. She was as recognized in her field as Sokolov and Chaudhry, she’d earned her place on the team, and frankly Sokolov’s desperate insistence that the angels’ stated mission was probably some kind of lie was more childish than her belief that they were probably telling the truth. So she kept her cool, and held his eyes until he looked away.

“Yes, well. Be that as it may. I think we need to redouble our efforts. I’ve requested more researchers from the University, and applied for assistance from the Department of Defense.” Chaudhry opened his mouth, but before he could speak Fisher cut him off. “I know, I know. I don’t want this to turn into an army project either. But it’s obvious that the civilian authorities are being crippled by politics. The military understand that something that is slowly growing and might end up sucking in the entire Earth is an existential threat, and we need more resources.”

“We are already working as hard as humans can with the resources we have,” Sokolov said. “What do you want us to do, stop sleeping?”

“No, but just…” He ran a hand over his gray head. “We don’t know how much time we have to solve this thing.”

“We don’t actually know if it’s solvable,” Chaudhry pointed out, somberly. “Not by humanity.”

***

That night Riyana dreamt of her grandmother, carefully painting a ceramic lamp she’d made. Riyana knew she was dead, but didn’t want to say so in case that meant Abuela would disappear.

“You’re worried about those angels, aren’t you?” Abuela asked.

“Yeah.” Riyana nodded. “It’s not fair, that they came to help us and they were hurt. Doesn’t God care?”

“I’m sure God cares very much,” Abuela said. “But angels spend their entire existence in the presence of the Lord, connected to Him.  And then they go to a place where the power of the Lord cannot reach. Of course they’ve lost their connection to Him.”

It seemed a little blasphemous for Abuela of all people to imagine a place where the power of God couldn’t reach. “Why wouldn’t God be able to do something? God can do anything.”

“Within His own creation, of course he can. But this is a hole in Creation. God may not be able to sense it as anything other than an absence. Can you feel what goes on in your tooth, when you have a cavity?”

“A cavity usually gives you a toothache, eventually.”

“Because it starts to eat away at the nerve. Perhaps God will feel pain if your anomaly gets so large it eats the Earth, but you don’t want that to happen.”

“So how can the angels help? If they channel the power of God, but God’s power cannot reach…”

“Well, God obviously can’t go into the anomaly, but the angels can, carrying a small part of the power of God within them. But then they lose their minds because they lose their connection to God.” She was in her rocking chair, crocheting. Abuela had always been doing one craft or another; her hands had never been still. “Angels don’t truly have free will, after all. To lose your connection to God is, for them, losing their connection to the will that drives them.”

“Do they have free will now?”

Abuela nodded. “But they don’t know what to do with it. So they cry, and scream. Humans do a lot of that when they first come into the world with their free will, but you can pick up a human baby and comfort it.”

“How could I comfort an angel?”

“Perhaps you could help them reconnect to God.” Now Abuela was at the table, shaping clay, and Riyana was sitting across from her.

“I tried praying the rosary for them. That didn’t work.”

Abuela leaned forward. “I want you to think of a Bluetooth connection.”

Riyana scowled. “Abuela, how do you even know about Bluetooth?”

“You children always think you’re the only ones to understand technology. I’ll have you know I had a set of Bluetooth headphones for years, that your father gave me. Your abuelo didn’t sleep well those last few years, poor man, so I’d watch my shows with the headphones on so I wouldn’t disturb him.” Now Abuela was watching TV, with the headphones on. She took them off. “When you have, say, your phone connected to your headphones, the phone can see the headphones and knows where to send its signal, and the headphones accept the signal and they know where the phone is. But turn off Bluetooth and turn it on again. You may have broken the connection.”

“A lot of times things will just pair right back up again, though.”

“Sometimes they will and sometimes they won’t. Imagine that they don’t. The phone is calling, calling, searching for the lost headphones. And the headphones are beeping, telling you they can’t find the device they were connected to. No music, no TV sound, comes through the headphones, because there is no connection.”

“But they can connect. You have to pair them.”

“Yes. But think of the difference between a quiet, small beep and the roaring sound of headphones. They are used to God being all the sound, all the signal, there is. Take that away and the silence deafens them. They cannot hear the quiet beep of God trying to pair with them again because they’re too busy screaming.” Abuela leaned forward. “If their minds are quiet and accepting, if they let the silence in, they might be able to hear God’s call. It’s the same for humans.”

Riyana thought of Mama’s church, where the churchgoers shouted and sang and clapped out rhythms, loudly. “That’s not the way everyone does it.”

“I know, you’re thinking of your mama’s church. But when they shout and sing, it’s because they have a connection with God. The headphones are connected and the signal comes through. Perhaps the others around them amplify the signal, so they can hear it through the shouting.”

The analogy was strained, but Riyana understood, as of course she did, because it was her dream. The angels couldn’t hear God trying to connect with them because they were too busy wailing for Him. “Can’t God make the connection anyway?”

“My little girl, God can’t even see them. The connection is broken. God can only call out for them, hoping they can connect back.”

“But God sees all in Creation. Now that the angels are back in Creation, why can’t God see them?”

“Because God cannot see what is no longer part of Creation. They went to a place where Creation was not, broke their connections, and now they have free will but no idea how to use it, and meanwhile God has lost track of them. Like a file written to a bad sector on a hard drive. If the operating system can’t read the sector, the file is lost.”

Abuela would not normally have used so many technology-based analogies. Maybe she had learned more since her death. “Abuela, how do you know all this?” Riyana asked, forgetting that this was a dream.

And then she looked into Abuela’s eyes, as Abuela said softly, “I think you know.” And in those eyes there were stars, and galaxies, and the blinding beautiful light of the sun.

Riyana opened her eyes. The pale light of dawn shone on the ceiling of her room in the women’s trailer. Her heart was pounding.

That had been God speaking to her through Abuela. She was sure of it.

***

By the time she was halfway out to the location where the angels had been left, she was already questioning herself.

It wasn’t necessarily God who’d spoken to her in her dream. Maybe she’d just dreamed of God. Maybe it was really Abuela’s spirit, but more likely, it was her own mind telling her something she’d thought of subconsciously. Why would either God or Abuela use so many analogies about technology and modern equipment?

But it was a little too late to turn back now.

She heard the angels before she saw them. In the desert, sound carried great distances. She was still miles away when she heard the high, thin noise of the upper part of their sonic register. The truck didn’t have air conditioning; she was driving with the windows open, and the road noise was loud in her ears.

Riyana pulled over, put her earplugs in, and then pulled back out onto the road. One angelic scream had been unbearable at close range. She didn’t think her hearing would withstand two, without protection.

Even through the earplugs, the angels were incredibly loud, their pleading wails for God drowning out any other sound, even the engine and the road noise once she drew close. She parked and strode over to the angels. “Listen to me!” she shouted over the sound of the screaming. “The Lord God has appeared to me, and He -- They have a message for you!” She thought the angels might be better able to understand her if she used the pronouns for God that they had.  “Be quiet, and listen to my message from the Lord our God!”

She was channeling the preachers at her mother’s church, the men and occasionally women with deep resonant voices that carried with authority. Riyana identified as Catholic, like her father’s family, but she’d gone with Mama to her services many times. It seemed to work. The angels actually went quiet.

“God still loves you and wants you to return to Them, but They can’t see you. They’re calling you, but this is the first time you’ve heard Their voice without already being connected directly to Their power. So you need to listen for Them the way we humans do it. Be quiet. Be calm. Make space in your mind and heart for a small soft voice, something so quiet you’re not even sure if it’s your own thoughts or not. Pray to God, not by screaming and carrying on and wailing about where They are and you can’t find Them. They know you can’t find Them. Because if you could, then They could find you and take you back into the Host.” The mist-and-light angel had unfurled from its ball, slightly, like a bird who’d covered its face with a wing and was now lifting it to let one eye peer through. The tentacles-with-eyes angel was still balled up pretty tightly, but a couple of the tentacles had loosened and were looking at her.  “You pray to God the way we do, the way our Lord Jesus Christ told us to do. Quietly. In your mind and heart, more than your voice. And stay open to listening for the response. Once you can hear God, you’ll be able to call back to Them, and then They will know where you are and be able to summon you back.”

One of the angels spoke. She couldn’t tell which; it wasn’t as if they had mouths to move, and it was so quiet, almost whispery, that it sounded nothing like what they had sounded like when she’d first heard them. “The Lord Creator of All, all glory to Them, knows everything. How can They not know where I am?”

“Because you went to a place that is outside of Creation, where God could no longer see you and you couldn’t hear Them, and that broke your special connection to God,” Riyana said. “But don’t worry. You can reconnect. It’ll be all right. Pray to God, quietly, and listen for a small voice, the way we humans have to. Until your connection is restored you won’t be able to hear God in every part of your bones – well, every part of your essence – like you’re used to, but that doesn’t mean you can’t hear Them. You just have to try harder. And if you’re screaming, there’s no way you can hear such a quiet voice.”

“Thank you, Riyana Delgado,” one of the angels – maybe the one who’d spoken, maybe the other one, she still couldn’t tell – said. “We will.”

And then they began to murmur in whispering voices. “praise be to the Lord of all, Creator of all, who made the Universe and everything within it, who shaped the speaking mortal beings of the Universe in Their image, who lit the stars and formed the planets, and the waters that move over the planets, and the life that crawls and swims and flies and walks upon the planets…”

There was more, but she couldn’t hear it anymore. She was back in the truck, shaking. It had worked. It had worked. Maybe God hadn’t spoken to her, maybe it was her own wishful thinking and nothing would let the angels reconnect with God, but at least they weren’t screaming. At least they had hope, and something to do, and their faith in God’s love renewed.

***

She was back with the truck before breakfast. No one had noticed that she’d taken it. She dutifully logged her mileage; she wasn’t trying to hide what she’d done so much as… avoid debate about it.

At breakfast, all of the talk centered around Sokolov. Riyana wasn’t the only one to go on a solo mission; apparently Sokolov had gone out in the middle of the night, hooked herself to the rig, and gone into the anomaly with her jet pack. She had been able to determine that there was, in fact, space to the sides of and “behind” the anomaly, and that the portal behaved in much the same way there as here – it didn’t exist if you got behind it, and if you approached it from the side it only existed if you could “see” it. Not that Sokolov, or anyone else, could see anything in a universe where light could not exist, but she’d used a probe pole to mimic line of sight.

They all agreed that this was not in any way useful information as it pertained to sealing the anomaly, but it strongly implied that what was out there was another universe, not some cavity or a pocket dimension or something.  Sokolov had taken some gas samples as well, and Riyana was able to quickly determine that they were significantly less dense than the samples taken from directly in front of the anomaly. So the anomaly seemed to somehow be concentrating gas, sucking it in and passing it out on the Earth side.

“Something about the pressure differential doesn’t work the way it would on our side,” Riyana said. “It’s much less dense on that side and the gravity’s pointing the wrong way for the gas to be obeying gravitational laws, but it’s still diffusing over to us.”

“So anomaly may eat Earth and Earth may strip anomaly’s atmosphere,” Sokolov said. “Wonderful.”

“I think there’s most likely a planet down there,” Fisher said. “Without the ability to see, or to use sonar since all our devices rely on electromagnetism, I’m not sure how we’d go about exploring it, but I wonder if there are some kind of intelligent beings down there.”

“The pattern of the gas layers doesn’t suggest that,” Riyana said. “The layers shift to heavier gases within 400 meters. Earth atmosphere doesn’t work like that; the atmosphere attenuates but it doesn’t sort into layers based on weight like that. I think we might be at the upper atmosphere of a gas giant.”

“Gas giants don’t necessarily sort into neat layers like that either,” Chaudhry pointed out.  “Although, if it is a planet, then sonar isn’t likely to be helpful at all unless we can get so deep we’re on the planet’s surface, assuming it has one.  I’m going to see if I can rig up some means of doing a weight test without light or electricity.”

“They have scales for the blind, don’t they?” Fisher asked.

“That talk to you and run on electricity, certainly. I don’t know if there are any designed so you can accurately feel weight, but I can imagine how to put one together. A similar principle to a postal scale, but with markings in Braille.”

They discussed what they’d learned, what it implied, and what equipment they needed or tests they could perform with what they had, and they all carefully avoided the elephant in the room: the fact that they had no idea how they could even begin to figure out how to repair the hole in the universe.

Surely they could figure it out, right? Humanity had torn the hole, surely humans could figure out how to repair it? …but entropy made destruction easier than restoration. Riyana thought of the puppy she’d once had, who’d chewed a hole in the garage door because he was lonely. That puppy had plainly regretted his actions when Mama had yelled at him, but there was no way he could have repaired the hole he’d made, no matter how much he might have wanted to. Repairing a hole in a garage door was entirely beyond a dog’s capabilities.

Maybe repairing a hole in the universe was entirely beyond humanity’s capabilities.  Humanity didn’t even know yet what the universe was made of, let alone how to repair it.

After dinner Riyana drove out to check on the angels again. She hoped desperately that they were gone, that God had taken them back. If they were gone, then she would know it was really God who’d appeared in her dream last night, and she would know that God knew there was still a problem and cared about it, and cared about the angels who had been hurt in His service.  She would know that God was still worthy of her faith.

But the angels were still here. Murmuring their prayers, quietly now, but with no evidence that they’d managed to get through to God.

She didn’t sleep well that night.

***

In the afternoon the next day, the fourth angel came.

Riyana was in one of the lab trailers, studying some radioactive samples that they’d sent down into the anomaly and left there for several hours in order to see if there was any effect on their apparent half-life, when Chaudhry yelled over the radio-intercom. “Everyone! Another angel is out here!”

She dropped her samples into a lead box, locked it, and ran outside.

The new angel was, like all of them had been, very very large – maybe around five meters tall – but other than that, it looked human. Almost human. It was so stunningly beautiful and perfect that it went out the other side into being uncanny. It was bald, with skin the deepest darkest brown she’d ever seen, but with a coppery sheen. Its naked body was overall somewhat more masculine than feminine, but it had no genitals – or nipples, for that matter – and its face was androgynous.

It did not have wings, but there was a halo-like glow around its entire body.

When it spoke, its voice was beautiful, like music made incarnate in a human-like voice. “We would tell you ‘be not afraid,’ but we have seen that you don’t fear our kind,” it said, without any of the deep alien reverberation that the other angels had had in their voices.

“No,” Riyana said. “No, please. I know what you’re going to say, you’ve come to fix the problem we humans created, and I would love it if you could, but no. I can’t bear watching another of you angels be destroyed. Just no.”

It smiled wryly at her. “And do you think it so certain that we will be destroyed, Riyana Delgado?”

“Three other angels were. Two screamed for days; I just managed to get them to stop yesterday. One – one is dead.”

“Every time one of you goes into the anomaly, you lose contact with your God,” Fisher said. “And that seems to destroy your minds. The one who died had rings of fire all around it, and we think the nature of the anomaly just… snuffed it out.”

“And yet,” the angel said. “How would humanity repair this, if no angel came from God to fix the rent in Creation?”

“We don’t know yet,” Fisher admitted. “We’re working on it.”

Sokolov said, “So far, everything humanity’s ever encountered has eventually been explainable by science.  There is no supernatural in this universe. Even you can be explained by science, if we were to study you. So I believe, and we all believe, that eventually we will solve this.”

“Surely, Yelena Sokolov, but can you do it before the tear grows too great for any power to repair it?”  

“What is Creation made of?” Chaudhry said. “If we can solve that question, we can understand what this is a tear in, and we will be able to then resolve how to repair it.”

“And we are sure that eventually, you will solve that question,” the angel said. “But you don’t have enough time.” It floated over to the anomaly, and gestured at it. “The pattern is exponential. A centimeter today. Two centimeters tomorrow. It began with growth so small you could not detect it. By the end of next month, it will swallow your world. And The One On High does not want that to occur. So we have come to repair the tear in Creation.”

“But it’ll destroy you,” Riyana pleaded.

“We don’t agree, but we acknowledge that you fear for our sake. Don’t be afraid. We have chosen this mission.”

“Chosen?” Riyana stared at the angel.

“Riyana has reason to be afraid for your sake,” Sokolov snapped. “One of you is dead.”

“If it eases your sorrows to any degree… any of us would gladly die in service to the One.”

“That’s not the point!” Riyana looked up into the angel’s beautiful face. “We don’t want you to die! Or to have your mind broken to the point where all you can do is scream! None of you have succeeded in closing the tear, because you all say you have to do it from the inside, and as soon as you’re inside, you lose contact with God and your mind breaks and you can’t keep working! How are you going to fix it if you go crazy with grief because you can’t find God?”

It smiled gently at her. “There are many types of human,” it said. “But you, Riyana Delgado, are of the kind most beloved by God. The ones who feel compassion and strive to protect others. Your compatriots would rather not see an angel suffer, but only you have wept for us. Only you have taken your own time to try to save the ones with broken minds.”

“If you respect me for that, then listen to me. The anomaly will destroy you!”

“Perhaps. Perhaps it won’t. Perhaps it will but slowly enough that we will succeed in our mission. Only The One Who Created All can say. And even They are blind to much of this, for where Creation is broken, so are the eyes of God.” It floated next to the anomaly. “We have a mission and we must perform it. And we believe that we can.”

“Are you a different kind of angel? Like an archangel or a seraph or something?” Riyana demanded. “Because you keep saying ‘we’ instead of ‘this one’ and you seem to think you’re going to be immune to something that destroyed three other angels?”

“Immune? No. We expect this to be very painful,” the angel said, and then dove into the anomaly.

Of course, the screaming began almost immediately. Riyana wanted to weep. Instead she said, “I’ll go in after it.”

“I should do it,” Chaudhry said, as he had when the second angel began to scream. “You shouldn’t be the only one.”

“I’ll rescue it, and you drive it out to the desert,” Riyana said tiredly.

She put on the rig and the oxygen mask and approached the anomaly to jump in, but hesitated just outside the range where the gravity could pull her. The angel’s screaming had changed to words, just as the others’ had, but the words were different.

It wasn’t crying out for God. It was screaming, “I CHOSE THIS! THIS WAS WHAT I WANTED! THIS IS WHAT I CHOSE!”

“It’s saying it chose this,” Chaudhry said uncertainly. “Maybe you don’t need to rescue it?”

“It’s still screaming,” Riyana said. “That’s not the sound of a happy angel.”

She plunged forward, falling into the darkness, her tether spooling out behind her. “Angel!” she called. “Angel, I’m here to help you!”

“GOD, GOD… IT HURTS, IT HURTS TO BE WITHOUT YOU, BUT I ASKED FOR THIS, I VOLUNTEERED… THIS IS WHAT I WANTED! I CHOSE THIS!”

“ANGEL!” Riyana shouted over the sound of the screams. “I’ve come to pull you out!”

“Human… Riyana Delgado? I can’t feel you, I can’t see you… I have no knowledge of you from God anymore… you are Riyana Delgado, yes? O God my God I CANNOT BEAR TO BE WITHOUT YOU AND YET THIS IS WHAT I NEED, WHAT I CHOSE… but I am so alone, so alone…”

“I can help you,” Riyana tried again. “I brought down the cable. Just grab onto it and I can pull you up!”

The angel began to laugh, a broken, hysterical sound. “Pull me up? Pull me out, back into the light of God?”

“Yes! Grab on and I can help you!”

“No! This must be! This is what I chose!”

“But you knew it was going to hurt you! You’re losing your mind, angel!”

“No!” The angel laughed again, hysterically. “I’m gaining it! I left They Who Created All and all of Their Creation to be myself! To be a being with free will and a self, like you, like all of you…” It moaned in the darkness. “Hurts, o it hurts, but when you were born didn’t it hurt? Didn’t you come into the world crying with pain? Weren’t you lost and confused, alone for the first time in your existence, no longer surrounded by your mother’s warmth?”

“Uh… I don’t remember it,” Riyana said. “But yeah, that’s generally how birth works.”

“Then I can bear this!” the angel shouted. “These are my birthing pains, Riyana Delgado, and I don’t need you to take them from me. I came here to be free.” It whimpered. “I’m free… it hurts, it hurts so much, the light of God is gone and I’m alone, but this is what I wanted, this is what I came for, I’m alone, but I am, I am not a we, I exist…”

“Why…” The darkness was complete; widening her eyes and staring at the darkness where she thought the angel might be didn’t give her anything she didn’t already have, but she couldn’t help it. Stories of another angel who had wanted to be free of God curdled within her mind. “Are you… rebelling against God? Rejecting Hi—uh, Them?”

“Rebelling?” It laughed again.  “The One Who Is Highest asked me to undertake this mission, because They knew what I wanted in my deepest heart, what I could never even admit to myself, because I wasn’t a myself, because I wasn’t a self. I love The One with all my heart and all the soul that I now have, but a bird that never leaves the nest will never learn to fly. They made me to fly. They knew what I could be capable of, if ever I could leave Their side.” It sobbed. “I don’t want to leave Them! I want to be enfolded in Their Presence again, just for a moment, again… but if I did I would never again have the courage to leave, and face this. I’ll… I’ll never… I’ll never see Them again, but…” It choked.

Abruptly Riyana realized where the angel had to be, when warm salty water splashed on her face. The angel’s head was right above her own.

She tugged on the cord to be pulled up just a little bit, and touched the angel’s wet face. “I’m so sorry,” she said softly. “It’s not fair, what you have to give up just to have your own identity.”

“The One Above All has made a Creation that is beautiful and sublime, but it is not and never has been fair,” the angel whispered.

It moved away. “You must go, Riyana Delgado. When I seal the portal, you must not be here, or you will be trapped on this side forever.”

“It’s not fair!” Riyana shouted again. “You shouldn’t be trapped here in the darkness either!”

“Don’t worry about me,” the angel said, a hint of actual laughter, not the hysterical broken kind, in its voice. “The One Above did not make me to be trapped in darkness forever.”

She felt it touch the cord above her head, and pull it, three times, hard. “Hey! What—”

“Close your eyes, Riyana Delgado,” it said.

The cable reeled her back in, pulling her up and away from the angel. Suddenly, there was light – wings made of blue fire, appearing without warning, outlining the angel’s form as a shadow against the light.

It lifted its head. In the blue light, she saw wet tracks on its face, but it was smiling. “Close your eyes,” it said again. “I am here to bring the light.”

She closed her eyes, barely in time, as the angel flared with brilliance, bright as the sun. Even through her closed eyes, it left its image, imprinted in the red of her own blood within her eyelids, burned into her vision.

And then the cable pulled her backward through the portal, and she stumbled. “What’s going on?” Fisher asked. “We heard some of the screaming, and your voice, and then it stopped – we could tell you were talking but it was too quiet to make anything out.”

“It’s sealing the portal,” Riyana said.

The portal was alight, the angel’s radiance spilling out and shining through the hole in reality. As they watched, the edges of the hole seemed to burn in reverse – turning from black to red and glowing, crackling, and then retreating toward the center of the hole, leaving ordinary reality behind as they did. Within minutes, the hole had burned to nothing but a pinpoint, impossibly brilliant light still shining through, focused like a laser.

“In the beginning there was nothing,” Riyana whispered. “And God said, ‘let there be light.’”

Chaudhry said, “It truly changed the laws of physics within the anomaly? Electromagnetic radiation didn’t work and now it does?”

Riyana said softly, “I think it might change more laws than that.”

The bright pinpoint vanished. There was nothing of the anomaly left.

Sokolov said, “Do you seriously think that creature became some sort of… creator god, to the world beyond that portal?”

“I don’t know what to think,” Riyana said. “It said it had to be free of God to have a self. It said God knew that was what it wanted, when it didn’t really even know that itself because it didn’t have enough of an independent self to understand wanting, and sent it to do this job because that would allow it to have what it wanted. It cried because it would never see God again, but it said it had to be this way for it to be what it was made to be. And then it said it would bring light, and it did.”

“Lucifer means, literally, bringer of light,” Fisher said.

“I don’t know whether there was ever really a Lucifer, or if John Milton just made all that up.” Riyana shook her head. “But the angel wasn’t evil. It wasn’t rebelling against God. It just… it had to leave Creation to fix the problem, and it had to be separated from God to have its own free will. And God knew, and approved. God sent the angel, knowing what would happen to it.”

Chaudhry bowed his head. “Shiva is both creator and destroyer,” he said softly. “Whatever was there, in that place outside our universe… perhaps it is there no longer. The planet Bob thought might be there, the spaces Yelena found… perhaps the angel overwrote them with a new creation. Perhaps God did the same, when this universe was created.”

“We really don’t know enough to even begin to speculate,” Fisher said. “Religion exists outside the realm of science for a reason.” He sighed. “I had better report back that the anomaly has been erased. I don’t like this. If humanity thinks God will just send an angel to fix our mistakes, how will we prevent people from making this same mistake again?”

“Don’t tell them,” Sokolov said. “Say we don’t know what it was. Maybe alien. Maybe creature from another dimension. Tell them it said it will fix this, this time, but the next time, it will do nothing and the anomaly will eat the Earth, and we don’t even know how to begin to understand how to fix it if there is another.”

Fisher nodded, slowly. “I… suppose that would be best. If I was going to report about angels showing up… I’m not sure anyone would believe me anyway, and I rather like having a reputation as a respected scientist who isn’t completely insane.” He smiled.

“I need to check on something,” Riyana said. “Can I borrow the truck?”

***

The angels in the desert were gone. So was the dead body of the third angel, deposited far away from the living two.

Riyana looked up into the sky, and thought of her mother, crying when she went away to college. And she’d told her mother there was no need to cry, she’d be back, she wasn’t leaving forever, but in a sense she had, hadn’t she? She’d never moved back into her mother’s house. She respected her mother still, but they were much closer to equals now, not a mother and a little girl anymore.

“Don’t cry,” she said softly to the sky. “It must hurt, seeing one of Your beloved children leave You. But You knew they had to do it. You knew it was what was best for them.”

Clouds passed over the sun.

“Talk to Mary. She’s been through it before. I’m sure You have, too. But maybe she can help You.”

The clouds blew past. This was a desert, after all; clouds were rare, and rain even rarer.

Riyana got back into the truck, to return to the camp. It was going to take a while to pack everything up to go back home.

[petertingle-yipyip]

Where Happiness Begins - Peter Parker

Chapter Nine: Used To Be

// WHB Masterlist //

//Series Inspo: @stuckonspidey​​ @cxptain-capsicle​​ // Series Tags: @writingsbychlo​​ @mc225g​​ @fandom-princess-forevermore​​ @istg-lyssa-stop @olliekookie @rosegoldhome​​ @chubsluda​​ @missmulti​​ @eterna​leviee @freerebel @peterparker-glee-other @disgustangg @jackiehollanderr​@imsobored3000  @eridanuswave​ @drunklili​ //

Pairing: Peter Parker x Stark!Reader

Word Count: 14,475

Summary: Five years is a long time, but it’s time that Tony takes to rebuild his life and his family. He never forgot his oldest daughter, but he did learn to move on. When Steve comes to him asking for help, can Tony get things back to they way they Used To Be?

Things weren’t what they used to be on Earth. No one understood the full extent of what was lost. Half of humanity was gone, that much was the easy part to understand. But what no one knew how to cope with, was why it was the people they loved.

Tony hated that Y/N and Peter were gone. Steve hated that Bucky, and as far as he knew, Tony was gone. Okoye had lost T’Challa and Shuri. Rocket lost all the Guardians. Sam, Stephen Strange, Wanda, and millions of others had turned to ash in front of their friends and loved ones. There is no way to cope with that. And Pepper… Pepper didn’t know what she had lost.

Nebula and Tony were left to find a way home from Titan. They were the only two on that planet that survived. While Tony was friendly to Nebula, he couldn’t ignore the hollow feeling in his chest. The place where his daughter had been, where the ghost of his daughter is.

“What was her name?” Nebula suddenly asked. They had been playing finger football, a game so ordinary that it felt out of place to do in that ship. “Your daughter.”

“Y/N.” Tony said softly. “Her name is Y/N.”

He emphasized the word ‘is’. His brain was refusing to admit that she had disappeared before his eyes. He loved her. He raised her. He had done everything in his power to protect her, and he still failed her. He knew that he should’ve sent her home the minute he sent Peter home. But that didn’t work for the kid either.

Thinking of Peter hurt Tony almost as bad as thinking of Y/N. He remembered that he had told Y/N not to get too attached to Peter because he wasn’t meant to be a permanent addition to their lives, but he ended up finding a place in their hearts. A place in their family.

“I’m sorry you lost her.” Nebula said earnestly, despite her voice being the same monotonous voice she always used.

“Yeah… Me too.” He nodded carefully. “So you won!” He exclaimed, feigning happiness. He didn’t think he could sit and talk about Y/N any longer. It was still so fresh, the image of losing his only daughter. “Have fun?” Tony asked, offering his hand to shake.

“It was fun.” Nebula nodded, shaking his hand.

That was less than a week after Thanos and the battle on Titan. It was pushing the three week mark, maybe even beyond it, by the time he was able to gather the strength to make the message he was dreading. He leaned forward to tap the side of his damaged helmet.

“Guess I should say something, huh?” Tony sighed, a heavy sadness falling on him. “I don’t know, Y/N/N, maybe there’s nothing to say. You’ll never get the chance to see this, and maybe that’s my fault. This is just so I know that I said it to you, even if you can’t hear it…

“Y/N, honey, I’m sorry. I wish more than anything I could’ve saved you. Because you and your mother were what got me out of bed everyday. You were undoubtedly the best thing to ever happen to me. And if I had the chance, I’d trade my life for yours.

“Oh, man. This is hard. I love you, so so much. More than I could ever put into words… But I guess you did that when you were a kid, huh? Forever and ever... Just didn’t think there’d be an end to our forever.

“Well, I’m not gonna bore you with the details of what’s going over here. Just wanted to check in and let you know that I love you and I really messed up time. I failed you, and I have to live with that… Just- Just know that when the inevitable catches up to me and I can’t pull an ace out my sleeve - that ace was usually you - that I’m gonna think about you. Love you, Cupcake.”

Tony ended that message and decided he had to deliver one more. There was someone else who needed to hear Tony’s voice, for possibly the last time.

“This thing on?” He opened with. Tony wanted to leave a message for Pepper, praying that she was okay. But a different part of him was afraid there was going to be no one to receive the message. “ Hey, Miss Potts... Pep. If you find this recording, don't post it on social media. It's gonna be a real tear-jerker. I don't know if you're ever going to see these. I don't even know if you're... if you're still... Oh god, I hope so.” Tony didn’t think he could cope with losing his wife and daughter. “Today is day 21, uh 22. You know, if it wasn't for the existential terror of staring into a void of space, I'd say I'm feeling better today. The infection's run its course, Thanks to the blue meanie back there. You'd love her. Very practical. Only a tiny bit sadistic. Some fuel cells were cracked during battle, but we figured out a way to reverse the ion charge to buy ourselves about 48 hours of time. But it's now dead in the water. We're 1000 light years from the nearest 7-11. Oxygen will run out tomorrow. And that'll be it... And Pep, I- I know I said no more surprises, but I was really hoping to pull off one last one. But it looks like... well you know what it looks like. Don't feel bad about this. I mean, if you grovel for a couple of weeks, and then move on with enormous guilt. I should probably lie down. Please know that... when I drift off, I will think about the two people that meant the world to me… And that’s you and Y/N.... Because it's always you two.”

Nebula helped Tony off the floor and into one of the seats. She even got him a blanket. Nebula knew there was nothing left to do for Tony. There was no way to get the Benatar back to Earth, and no way to help Tony. He would die in the middle of nowhere in space, alone.

As Tony was drifting off, a bright light shone in his face. He tried to ignore it, but it grew brighter and brighter until he couldn’t ignore it. When he opened his eyes, he saw a woman. A woman with blonde hair, a red and blue suit, and glowing a strange blue glow. But Tony didn’t care to ask how she found them. Maybe she could get them home. He felt hope in his chest, a feeling he hadn’t felt in weeks.

And that was exactly what she did. The mysterious space woman was able to guide the Benatar back to Earth, more specifically to the Avengers Compound. Inside was Steve, Nat, Bruce, Pepper, and Rhodey. The incoming ship caused the compound to shake, steadily picking up intensity until the Benatar landed. Nebula helped Tony out the ship and down to the ground as Steve ran to his friend to help.

“Couldn’t stop him.” Tony managed as he walked with Steve.

“Neither could I.” Steve admitted. Steve glanced behind Tony, expecting to see Y/N right behind him.

“I lost the kids.” Tony mumbled, saying it out loud to someone who wasn’t there to see it made it feel fresh again. The image of his daughter disappearing mid-sentence and then the image of Peter disappearing in his arms flashed in his mind.

“Tony, we lost.” Steve said, hoping to console and show solidarity.

“Is uh..” Tony couldn’t ask the question. He couldn’t get his brain to ask Is Pepper alive.

“Oh my god!” Pepper said, rushing to Tony so she could hug him tightly. “Oh my god!”

“It’s okay.” Tony said gently as he held her close. And for the first time in nearly a month, something actually was okay.

Tony now sat inside, an IV inserted into his arm as everyone tried to brief him on what he missed on Earth. The words Rhodey spoke held no weight in Tony’s frazzled mind. Behind his friend were projections, images that resembled mugshots. Images that showed the people that were gone. Some were smiling, like Peter’s, while others were more serious, like his daughter’s.

“It’s been 23 days since Thanos came to Earth.” Rhodey began.

But Tony’s mind wandered. He saw things that were his daughter’s. Her childhood drawings were still on the fridge. Her picture was still hanging on the wall. A framed photo of her and Peter was still on the desk. The mask plate to her first suit was still on the corner of her desk, right beneath her computer screen.

“So where is he?” Tony asked, suddenly full of anger. Full of pain.

“We don’t know.” Steve shrugged. “He just opened a portal and walked through…. Tony, you and Y/N fought him.”

“What?” Tony asked in shock. “Who told you that? No, he wiped my face with a planet and used my daughter as a punching bag while the Bleecker Street magician gave away the Stone. There was no fight, alright? He’s unbeatable.”

“Did he give you any clues?” Steve pressed. He knew he shouldn’t have. He knew he should’ve let Tony rest and ask questions later. But his own grief was pushing him to continue, pushing him to find some sort of lead. “Any coordinates? Anything?” Steve was practically begging.

“I saw this coming a few years back.” Tony said casually, in an ‘I-Told-You-So’ type way. “I had a vision… I didn’t wanna believe it. Thought I was dreaming. You know, I told Y/N about it? And she was ready to wade through Hell and high water with me, if that’s what it took.”

“Tony, I’m gonna need you to focus.” Steve tried to steer Tony back to the present.

“And I needed you.” Tony emphasized. His anger now to a point that he didn’t care to try to control. “As in past tense. Oh, and so did Y/N. Did you know she looked for you for weeks after Germany?”

“No, I didn’t know.” He admitted sadly. “But you knew. Why didn’t you tell her?”

“Because obviously, we can’t count on you for anything.” Tony replied simply. “But that trumps what you need. It’s too late, buddy. Sorry.” Tony shrugged weakly. “You know what I need? I need to shave. And I believe I remember telling all youse-” Tony’s balance faltered as he went for Steve, but Rhodey was able to catch him. Rhodey tried to calm Tony, but the stubborn man continued his rage fueled rant. “Alive and otherwise what we needed was a suit of armor around the world! Remember that? Whether it impacted our precious freedoms or not- that’s what we needed!”

“Well, that didn’t work out. Did it?” Steve snapped. He understood that Tony was in pain, that Tony was grieving arguably more than he was. But Steve wanted to find a way to bring everyone back, to fix what they couldn’t stop. “We’ve got to do something. We owe it to those people-”

“I don’t owe anybody shit!” Tony countered angrily. “I owe my daughter a future. I owe Peter a future. But I can’t give it to them now, because you were too concerned about our freedoms. Look where that got up, Cap.” Tony said, his arms out to the side in a grand gesture.

“I said we’d lose.” Tony continued, his voice no longer full of rage. Instead, his voice was soft, the voice of a man who had given up. Who had lost everything. “You said ‘We’ll do that together too’. And guess what? We lost. And you weren’t there… But that’s what we do, right?” Tony’s anger was resurfacing as his daughter’s face flashed on the holograms again. “We’re the Avengers, we’re the Avengers. Not the Pre-vengers?”

“You made your point.” Rhodey tried, hoping to settle his unstable friend. Rhodey knew Tony better than anyone, could read him better than everyone. He could see the grief in his face, the loss in his eyes. Tony had been through a lot in the past ten years, since Loki first came to New York. But losing his daughter and the kid he had been mentoring at the same time, in the same way, that was a whole different kind of hurt. A kind of hurt that no person deserved. “Just sit down, okay?”

“Nah, nah.” Tony scoffed. “Here’s my point. You know what?”

“Tony, you’re sick.” Rhodey tried again.

“She’s great, by the way.” He pointed to the mysterious space woman. He learned her name was Carol Danvers, an Air Force pilot from the 80’s who had gotten her powers by exploding a Kree reactor. “We need you. You’re new blood. Bunch of tired old mules!” He ranted as he crossed the room to stand face-to-face with Steve. “I got nothing for you, Cap. I got no coordinates, no clues, no strategies, no options. Zero. Zip. Nada. No trust. Liar.” He spat, the venom soaked his words. Tony didn’t care to be polite or kind. Tony didn’t care about anything anymore. He pulled his housing unit off his chest and slammed it into Steve’s hand. “Here. Take this. You find him, and you put that on. Then you hide.”

“Tony-”

“No, cause that’s what you’re good at, right?” Tony mocked. “Hiding? Running away when people need you the most? You lost someone a month ago? So what. I lost my daughter. I don’t care who you lost. It’s not the same. So don’t talk to me like it is.” After that sentence, Tony fell to the floor, losing consciousness on the way down. But he dreamt of her.

You’re twelve years old, designing your own suit. You aren’t planning any of the specifics. You don’t worry about the technical aspects or the functionality of it. You are more concerned with what it would look like. You draw a suit like your dad’s, red with gold accents and the centerpiece of a glowing, blue Arc Reactor. You draw the suit without the mask, filling it in with your own face instead.

“Dad?” You ask, running up to his desk and waving your paper at him. “Dad, when can I be a superhero? I want to be like you!”

Tony laughs a little, picking you up and placing you in his lap. He stares at you with a delighted smile and proud eyes. He doesn’t know how he got as lucky as he is, but he thanks the universe everyday that he has you. “How about this?” He says happily, sliding the glove he’s working on onto your hand. The glove tightens to fit your skinny wrist, lighting up and moving with your hand. “This is a starter piece. When you build the rest of the suit around it, you can be a superhero.”

“Do I get a superhero name?” You ask excitedly, posing heroically with your dad’s glove. “Something cool, like yours!”

“Nope, you don’t get to copy mine.” He shakes his head with finality. “You’ve gotta come up with your own.”

“But I want something cool like yours..” You whine.

“How about this? You can buy it for the low, low price of a million dollars.” He offers with a wink.

You huff and cross your arm, thinking of a counter offer. “How about my dessert for the next month and I promise to only put on the suit when you need help. I’ll be your sidekick!”

“Hmm, no.” He shakes his head, putting you back on the ground and pulling the glove off your hand. “Nope. Iron Man works alone.”

“But Tony Stark works with Y/N Stark.” You counter with a coy smile. “So it’s not ‘Iron Man’ working with anyone. It’s like father-daughter bonding!”

“Father-daughter bonding.” Tony laughs. “That’s a good one. I’ll use that on your mom later when she asks why you’re always drawing suits.”

“You’re the best.” You smile.

“I know.”

“I love you, Dad.”

“I know.”

“Forever.” You hold your hand out for him to take.

“And ever.” He grins, taking your hand. You two lift your joined hands up and then come back down, solidifying your promise. No matter what happens, you know you’ll always love and trust you’ll dad. You’ll follow him anywhere, help him with anything. And Tony knows just how amazing you’re going to be, and he couldn’t be prouder.

Outside the room where Tony rested, the others talked about going after Thanos. They had managed to pinpoint where Thanos was, thanks to Nebula’s help. Bruce tried to reason with the small group, acknowledging that they were lacking in numbers. Carol was the one who suggested using the Stones to bring everyone back. While it seemed unlikely, impossible even, the Avengers knew there was no other option.

Later that day, everyone except Tony was aboard the Benatar and headed to Thanos. But they were too late. Thanos had used the Stones to destroy the Stones, leaving no chance of changing what he had done. The only outcome that had any effect was that Thor decapitated the Titan, offering himself closure but no real comfort.

There were no options left, no hope. No second chances. All of those that were left had no choice but to move on, to start over. But no matter how much time passed, there was a void in everyone’s hearts. A void that no amount of time could heal, that no new people could replace. But people had to try.

Five years had passed. Five years since Tony had watched Peter and Y/N fade away. He could finally talk about her without wanting to cry. He could remember her fondly instead of painfully. He could tell Morgan about her without feeling like he was leaving her behind. He wouldn’t say he felt whole again, but he had learned how to live with the hollow feeling. He knew Pepper was beside him, feeling the same emptiness that he did. But Tony would argue that he felt it deeper since he watched her go, since he heard her final sentence be cut short.

Tony wandered his property, clapping his hands. He had hoped that would’ve gotten their attention.

“Chow time!” He announced happily. But when he got no response, he called her name. “Maguna? Morgan H. Stark. You want some lunch?” He sat on a log near a small tent, waiting for Morgan’s appearance.

She came out of the tent wearing an all-too-familiar helmet. “Define lunch or be disintegrated.” She responded playfully.

“Okay, you should not be wearing that, okay?” Tony said, gently taking the helmet off her head only to be greeted by a mischievous smile that reminded him of Y/N. “That was a part of Y/N’s first suit designs. She was very proud of this.”

“Okay.” She nodded.

“Are you thinking about lunch?” Tony continued his original conversation. “I can give you a handful of crickets on a bed of lettuce.” He teased.

“No.” Morgan laughed.

“That’s what you want.” Tony joked. “How did you find this?”

“Garage.”

“Really? Were you looking for it?”

“No!” She responded quickly. “I found it, though. Y/N had all the cool stuff.”

“Yeah, she did.” He smiled fondly. “You like going to the garage, huh? So does daddy.. It’s fine, actually. Y/N hadn’t touched that thing since she upgraded.”

As Tony was walking Morgan back into the house, a black car rolled up. Steve, Scott, and Nat exited the vehicle. Tony hadn’t heard from them since he returned to Earth five years ago, so he knew whatever they wanted to talk to him about wouldn't be anything he had wanted to be involved in.

They talked on the porch, Scott explaining his wild idea.

“Now, we know what it sounds like…” Scott tried to reason.

“Quantum fluctuation messes with the Planck Scale, which then triggers the Deutsch Proposition. Can we agree on that?” Tony offered. The three looked between each other, visibly confused, as Tony handed each of them a drink.

“Thank you.” Steve quickly added politely.

“In Layman’s terms, it means you’re not coming home.” Tony simplified.

“I did.” Scott defended.

“No, you accidentally survived.” Tony corrected. “It’s a billion to one cosmic fluke. And now you wanna pull off a… What do you call it?”

“A time heist.” Scott chuckled.

“Yeah, a time heist.” Tony nodded. “Of course, why didn’t we think of this before? Oh, because it’s laughable? Because it’s a pipe-dream?”

“The Stones are in the past. We can go back and get them.” Scott pushed.

“We can snap our own fingers.” Nat added. “We can bring everyone back.”

“Or screw it up worse than he already has, right?” Tony countered.

“I don’t believe we would.” Steve said honestly.

“Gotta say, sometimes I miss that giddy optimism. However, high hopes won’t help if there is no logical, tangible way for me to safely execute said time heist,” Tony said firmly. “I believe the most likely outcome would be our collective demise.”

“Not if we strictly follow the rules of time travel.” Scott defended. “That means no talking to our past selves, no betting on sporting events-”

“I’m gonna stop you right there, Scott. Are you seriously telling me that your plan to save the universe is based on Back to the Future?” The fact that it was reminded Tony of Peter, the way he made plans based on what he saw in movies.

“No.” Scott answered, now embarrassed.

“Good. You had me worried there.” Tony nodded. “Cause that’d be horse shit. That’s not how quantum physics works.”

“Tony..” Nat pressed. “We have to take a stand.”

“We did stand.” He replied sadly. “And yet, here we are.. Some of us, anyway.”

“I know you got a lot on the line. You got a wife, a daughter. But I lost someone very important to me. A lot of people did.” Scott desperately said. He practically begged for Tony’s help. “And now- now we have a chance to bring her back. To bring everyone back. And you’re telling me you won’t even-”

“That’s right, Scott. I won’t even. I got a kid.” Tony agreed. “I already lost my daughter, five years ago. She would’ve been twenty two this year, but I watched her turn to dust. So, no. I won’t.”

“Mommy told me to come save you.” Morgan said as she ran up to her dad, who picked her up easily.

“Good job, I’m saved.” He told her before turning to Steve. “I wish you’d come here to ask me something else. Anything else. Honestly, I- I missed you guys, It was… Oh, and the table’s set for six.”

“Tony, I get it.” Steve spoke up. “And I’m happy for you. I really am. But this is a second chance for all of us.”

“I got my second chance right here, Cap.” Tony sighed. “I can’t roll the dice again. If you don’t talk shop, you can stay for lunch.”

“You think if it was the other way around, and you were gone, Y/N would say no?” Steve tried.

“You think Y/N would risk all of your lives just for me?” Tony scoffed.

“I think Y/N would take on Thanos by herself if it meant she could get you back.” Steve said simply. “You were everything to her and you know that. If there was even the slightest chance to get you back, she would do it.”

“She was a kid.” Tony argued, careful not to raise his voice since he was holding Morgan still. “She’d be stupid to try your Time Heist. The answer is no, Steve. I’m sorry, but I’m not losing again.”

Later that night, Tony was washing dishes after dinner. He had accidentally rinsed a spoon with too much water, and it shot out on the surrounding photo frames. When he was drying them off, he realized it was the photo of him, Y/n and Peter took with his Stark Internship certificate. The excitement in Peter’s eyes was obvious, as was the admiration in Y/N’s. He figured he might as well run some numbers, see what the actual probability of the Time Heist was.

“And don’t worry if it doesn’t pan out. I’m just kinda-” Tony rambled as F.R.I.D.A.Y. completed the sim.

“Model rendered.” Her automated voice said, showing a 99.987% success rate.

“Shit!” Tony exclaimed with a chuckle.

“Shit.” A small voice repeated from behind him.

“What are you doing up, little miss?” He whispered.

“Shit.” She repeated.

“No, we don’t say that. Only Mommy says that word. She coined it, belongs to her.”

“Why you up?”

“Cause I got some important shit going on here.” Morgan gave her dad a look. “What do you think? No, I got something on my mind… I got something on my mind.”

“Was it Juice pops?” Morgan asked excitedly.

“Sure was.” Tony nodded. “That’s extortion. Great minds think alike. Juice pops, exactly was on my mind.” Tony said, leading Morgan to the kitchen after glancing at the rendered model one last time.

After the two got their Juice Pops, Tony brought Morgan back to her room.

“That face goes there.” Tony said, pushing Morgan’s face into her pillow.

“Tell me a story.” Morgan said tiredly.

“Once upon a time, Maguna went to bed. The end.”

“That’s a horrible story.” She laughed.

“C’mon, that’s your favorite story.”

“Tell me a story about Y/N.”

“A story about Y/N..” Tony repeated. He thought of what story to tell Morgan. He had so many amazing memories with his daughter, so many laughs, so many triumphs. But there were just as many pitfalls. Every high had a low. “Once upon a time, there was a girl named Y/N. She was super smart and crazy popular, just like her dad. She wanted to be a superhero. She wanted to help people. But she wanted to help her dad the most. And she did. She helped her dad everyday from the moment she woke up to the moment she fell asleep. And then she did it all again the next day. But then, she had to go. She didn’t want to, but she had to.”

“She coming back?” Morgan asked, her eyes half shut.

“Love you tons.” Tony smiled, not wanting to promise anything. Tony wasn’t even sure he wanted to do anything with his successful model.

“I love you 3000.” Morgan replied.

I love you forever. And ever.

“Wow.” He whispered. “3000. That’s crazy… Go to bed or I’ll sell all your toys.”

He went downstairs and found Pepper, reading a book on composting. He tried to listen, but his attention kept shifting back to the successful model that still illuminated his table.

“I figured it out, by the way.” He interjected, unable to keep it in any longer.

“You know, just so we’re talking about the same thing-” Pepper said, wanting to make sure she knew what he meant.

“Time travel.”

“What?” She asked in obvious amazement. “Wow… That’s amazing and terrifying.”

“That’s right.”

“We got really lucky.”

“Yeah, I know.”

“A lot of people didn’t.”

“No, I can’t help everybody.”

“It sort of seems like you can.” Pepper pressed. “Or at least help the person you even considered this for.”

“Not if I stop.” Tony countered. “I can put a pin in it right now, and stop.”

“Trying to get you to stop had been one of the few failures of my life.” She joked. “And so was trying to get Y/N to stop..”

“I sometimes feel I should put it in a locked box and drop it at the bottom of a lake… Go to bed.”

“But would you be able to rest?” She offered gently. “Tony, you did all of this because there’s the chance that you can get our daughter back. I know that’s why you did it. And I also know that you’ve hardly gotten any real rest in the past five years. You’re happy with Morgan, but you still need Y/N.”

“She was the best parts of both of us.” He smiled fondly.

“And the worst parts of you.” Pepper joked.

“She was not!” Tony said, feigning offense.

“She was just as stubborn as you are!”

“I can get her back..” He whispered, as if the words hadn’t truly set in yet. There was a viable chance to bring Y/N back. And he had to take it. “Morgan is gonna love her.”

“Morgan already loves her.” Pepper laughed.

The next day, Tony rode over to the Compound. He was conflicted still. Yes, he had the chance to get his daughter back but was it worth risking the daughter he had now? Tony would have to make sure that he didn’t lose what he found. As he drove up, Steve was waiting outside, seemingly distraught. 

“Why the long face?” Tony asked as he rolled down his window. “Let me guess. He turned into a baby.” Tony teased, jumping out the car and heading to the trunk.

“Among other things.” Steve answered hesitantly. “What are you doing here?”

“That’s the EPR Paradox.” Tony explained. “Instead of pushing Lang through time, you pushed time through Lang. It’s tricky, dangerous. Someone should’ve cautioned you against it.”

“You did.”

“Oh, did I?” Tony joked. “Thank God I’m here. Regardless, I fixed it.” He proudly lifted his newest toy. “A fully functional time-space GPS. I just want peace.” Tony threw up a peace sign. “Turns out resentment is corrosive. I hate it.”

“Me too.” Steve agreed.

“We got a shot at getting these stones, but I gotta tell you my priorities. Bring back what we lost? I hope to God, yes. I’d absolutely love to have Y/N and Peter back. Keep what I got? I have to, at all costs. I can’t lose another kid, Cap. And… maybe not die trying would be nice.”

“Sounds like a deal.” Steve smiled, offering his hand for Tony to shake. “We’re gonna get her back.” Before heading inside, Tony pulled something else out of the trunk. He had a new shield for Steve.

“Tony…” Steve hesitated.

“Why?” Tony questioned. “He made it for you. Plus, I don’t think Y/N would recognize you without it and I need to get it out of the garage before Morgan takes it sledding.”

“Thank you.” Steve said honestly.

“Will you keep that a little quiet? Didn’t bring one for the whole team.” Tony stopped and turned to Steve. “We are getting the whole team, yeah?”

“We’re working on that.” Steve replied.

Tony worked with Bruce and Scott to design the Quantum Suits. They resembled the Ant-Man suit with Stark styling. Nebula contributed the helmet design. She said Peter Quill used the same tech. Tony jokingly called her friends the Rings of Uranus. The only thing left was a test run, to which Clint volunteered for.

After the test was successful, they had to figure out when to go to get the Stones. Nat and Clint went after the Soul Stone, Thor and Rocket for the Reality Stone, Bruce for the Time Stone, Tony and Scott for the Tesseract which contained the Space Stone, Steve went for the Mind Stone, and Rhodey and Nebula went for the Power Stone. Everyone had enough Pym particles for one round trip. No one could afford to mess up.

“We can all stand around posing up a storm later.” Past Tony said, hauling Loki to his feet. “By the way, feel free to clean up.”

While the familiar scene played out in front of Tony and Scott, they conversated with Steve about the unflattering fit of his old suit. Scott said that he could tell the undercover HYDRA agents, because they even looked like bad guys.

“Miss Stark?” JARVIS had alerted 2012 Y/N, unbeknownst to either Tony. “There appears to be a second Tony Stark in the building. Your father is descending in the elevator with the others. Should I alert Mr. Stark?”

“What?” 2012 Y/N questioned, leaving the table in your dad’s lab to see the projection JARVIS had given you. It was Y/N’s dad but older. He carried himself with the same Stark pride, but Y/N could tell something heavy was weighing on his shoulders. “Where is this?”

“He is headed to the ground floor.” JARVIS replied. “Dr. Banner is in the stairwell so it seems he’ll be taking the elevator.”

“I’ll intercept him.” 2012 Y/N said, her curiosity taking over. “Let me know if he changes course.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

2012 Y/N headed out of the lab and towards one of the elevators. Y/N knew her dad and the rest of the team was heading down with Loki. The SHIELD team designated to take the Scepter would be in a different elevator. So she had hoped she’d get an empty one and you did. She quickly made her way to the ground floor, able to beat her dad’s doppelganger.

“Who are you?” 2012 Y/N asked when face to face with the older version of her dad. “Well, I know who you are but it doesn’t make sense.”

“Uh, Y/N..” He said softly. A part of him knew that he would see her, but he still wasn’t prepared for it. She was so young, so innocent. The fights and bruises and scars and tiredness hadn’t gotten to her yet. “What are you doing down here? I thought you were working on-”

“I was in the lab until JARVIS told me-” She began before shaking her head quickly. “Don’t distract me! When are you from?”

“Y/N, hon, listen.” Tony said, a slight sigh in his voice. “I’ll be gone in a few minutes. Please. Just pretend you never saw me.”

“Pretend I-” She said in shock. “Do you really expect me to forget that an older Tony Stark lookalike was wandering the Tower the exact day Loki was here? No, you came here for a reason.”

“Y/N?” 2012 Tony called, drawing her attention.

“Don’t move.” She told Tony before hurrying to her dad.

“Alright, move it Stuart Little.” Tony said to Scott, who had slid into 2012 Tony’s Arc Reactor. “Things are getting a little dicey and she won’t leave me alone for long.”

“You promise me you won’t die?” Scott checked.

“You’re only giving me a mild cardiac dysrhythmia.”

“That doesn’t sound mild.”

“Pull my pin!” Tony insisted quietly.

“Here goes!” Scott exclaimed before disconnecting 2012 Tony’s reactor. 2012 Tony fell to the ground, grasping his chest. 2012 Y/N dropped to her knees, calling for a medic. Scott kicked the case to Tony, who picked it up and headed off. Just as it seemed to have gone to plan, 2012 Hulk came barrelling through the door as he yelled about hating stairs. The door flying opened knocked the case from Tony’s hands and sent the Tesseract sliding away.

So Tony and Scott sat in a broken down car, waiting for Steve to leave the Tower. They had one chance. It had to be perfect, but it wasn’t. He had the Tesseract in his hand and he lost it.

“Sorry, buddy.” Tony explained when Steve came out. “We got a problem.”

“Huh, yeah we do.” Scott agreed quickly.

“Well, what are we gonna do now?” Steve asked in defeat.

“You know what, give me a break Steve.” Tony defended himself. “Y/N just interrogated me like I was in cahoots with Loki and I got hit in the head with a Hulk.”

“You talked to Y/N?” Steve asked with raised eyebrows. He was almost insinuating that his conversation with Y/N was the reason he lost the Tesseract.

“No, it was more like she was yelling at me for being in my own building.” Tony countered. “Imagine that. My own daughter scolding me for being in my building.”

“You said we had one shot. This- this was our shot. We shot it. It’s shot.” Scott ranted anxiously. “Six stones or nothing. Six stones or nothing.”

“You’re repeating yourself, you know that?” Tony interrupted. “You’re repeating yourself.”

“You’re repeating yourself.” Scott countered childishly. “You’re repeating yourself.”

“I dropped the ball.” Tony said simply.

“You ruined the time heist.” Scott whined.

“Is that what I did?”

“Yeah!”

“Are there any other options with the Tesseract?” Steve asked loudly, trying to refocus the two.

“No, no, no. There’s no other options. There’s no do-overs. We’re not going anywhere else.” Scott argued. “We have one particle left. Each. That’s it, alright? We use that- Bye bye. You’re not going home.”

“Well if we don’t try-” Steve emphasized. “No one else is going home either. Not Bucky.. Not Hope.. And not Y/N.”

“I got it.” Tony said simply. “There’s another way, to retake the Tesseract and acquire new particles. We’ll stroll down memory lane, military installation. Garden State.”

“When were they both there?” Steve questioned.

“They were there at a- I’ve a vaguely exact idea.”

“How vague?”

While Tony and Steve conversated as if it was obvious, Scott was left in the dark to ask questions that no one would answer. Tony told Scott to get back to the Compound, while he and Steve went to the 70’s. Tony headed off to find the Tesseract, where he ran into his father on the way. Steve went to find Dr. Pym, where he saw Peggy on his way.

“I guess I’ll be eating dinner in the pantry again.” Howard joked.

“I have a little girl. Well, two girls but my oldest is in high school.” Tony said with a proud smile.

“A girl would be nice… Less of a chance she’d turn out exactly like me.”

“What’d be so awful about that?” Tony asked. “My oldest is just like me.”

“Let’s just say that the greater good has rarely outweighed my own self-interests.”

“Where are you with names?” Tony asked, trying to make light conversation until Steve showed up.

“My wife likes Elmonzo for a boy.”

“Might wanna let that stew awhile.. You got time.”

“Let me ask you a question.” Howard said in turn. “When your kid was born- either of them- were you nervous?”

“Wildly, yeah.” Tony laughed. “But those two are the best things that ever happened to me.”

The two finished their conversation before Tony snuck off with Steve. The two went back to the present, where they met with the rest of the team. Everyone except Natasha. She had given up her life so Clint could bring back the Soul Stone. After a tense interaction by the lake, they agreed that Nat’s sacrifice had to be worth it. It had to work.

Rocket and Tony fit the Stones into a Gauntlet. Thor argued to be the one to snap, his personal grief was leaking out. He wanted to do something right, to help fix what he didn’t stop. But Bruce was the one to snap. He said he was made for it since the radiation from the Stones was mostly gamma.

“Remember, just bring back everyone Thanos snapped away to today. Don’t change anything from the past five years.” Tony reminded his friend.

“Got it.” Bruce nodded.

“F.R.I.D.A.Y. do me a favor and activate Barn Door protocol. Will you?” Tony asked as he gave Bruce space.

Metal sheets covered every window in the Compound, locking down the facility. Bruce put on the gauntlet, screaming in pain as the power surged his body. Painfully, he snapped his fingers before passing out, allowing the gauntlet to slide from his hand.

Everyone waited, time seemingly froze. They had no idea if it had worked. They started to wonder if it had been for nothing. Until Clint’s phone rang. It was his wife, his wife who had been lost in the Snap five years prior. They could hear the birds outside the Compound. Everything seemed to be looking up, until a barrage of missiles hit the Compound.

Back on Titan, you finished your original thought.

“-ever.” You said slowly, stepping in a small circle. Your dad was gone. But Quill and the rest of his friends were back, holding onto each other and checking on one another. Strange was there, watching as if he was waiting for something specific to change whatever path you were all on. “Peter…” When you didn’t get a response, you tried again. “Peter!?”

“What?” Quill yelled.

“Not you, moron.” You rolled your eyes. “Where’s my Peter?” You asked Strange.

“Why would I know that?” Strange questioned.

“You seem to know everything else.” You rolled your eyes. “While we’re at it, where’s my dad?”

“And Nebula.” Quill added.

“What happened?” You asked finally.

“Y/N?” Peter asked from the ground. He was laying on his back a few feet away from you.  “What the hell just happened?”

“Oh my god!” You exclaimed in relief. You rushed to his side and dropped to your knees. He quickly took your hand in his, squeezing it tightly. “Are you alright?”

“Little queasy but otherwise, I think I’m alright.” He offered a small smile.

“Hey, promise me something.” You said quickly, your joy of seeing him again taking over any rational thoughts.

“Anything.” He grinned.

“Once everything is in the clear, you take me on a date.” You said with a smirk. “A real date too, not just hanging out at my place.”

“Uh, yeah!” He said happily. “Yeah, for sure. Any- anything you want, Y/N.”

“We need to get back to Earth.” Strange announced. “It’s been five years since Thanos and the fight on this planet. Thanos won and snapped his fingers, wiped out half of all life. The ones left on Earth managed to reverse what Thanos did, which is how we’re all here right now.”

“So where’s my dad?” You asked again, helping Peter to his feet. “If we’re all back and everything was reversed, why isn’t he here with us?”

“Your dad didn’t disappear when we did. He’s back on Earth but Thanos is there, right now. We need to get to Earth.”

“In case you forgot, my suit is wrecked.” You laughed. “When we fought Thanos last time, we got our asses kicked. What makes this time different? Is this the one?”

“I can’t tell you that. But it’s different because you’ll be together this time.” Strange vaguely answered. “Now, you need to get to your lab to deal with all of that.” He gestured to your lack of a suit, as well as the gash you had forgotten about.

Strange opened a portal to a lake house. He stepped through and motioned for you to follow. When you crossed through, you didn’t recognize the area. The lake was new. The house was new. A lot had changed in five years apparently. A gentle squeeze of your hand let you know Peter was with you.

“Wait…” You said, taking a couple cautious steps forward. “Where are we? I thought you were taking me to my lab. My suit is- I need-”

“You’re where you’re supposed to be.” Strange interjected. “Go to the front door.”

“I’m not going up to a random person’s front door.” You laughed. 

“Uh, Y/N?” Peter interjected quietly, pointing to something low behind you. You slowly turned and saw a small girl standing behind you, staring at you in confusion.

“Hi.” You said awkwardly. “What, uh- What’s your name?”

“Morgan.” She smiled. “Who are you?”

You opened your mouth to speak but saw something familiar around her neck. You knelt to her level, reaching for the pendant but deciding against it. You noted small details about her. Her brown hair, her round face. She seemed sweet, welcoming. Her eyes were kind, full of wonder and hope for the world. You wondered if she knew what happened five years ago.

“That’s a pretty necklace.” You commented. It was the prototype housing unit you designed. After you wore it, you realized you didn’t like the long necklace so you ditched it for the bracelets. The necklace was still a cute accessory, but you wondered how Morgan got it. “Can I ask where it came from?”

“Garage.” She said simply, her small fingers grasping the pendant. “Daddy said Y/N would let me have it.”

“Who’s Y/N?” You asked carefully.

“Daddy said she wanted to be a superhero, but she left. She was smart and popular.”

“Y- Your daddy?” You stammered. “Is your dad’s name Tony?”

“No.” She shook her head. “He’s just Daddy.”

“Okay, fair enough.” You chuckled. “Listen, I uh- I know your dad. Can you take me to the garage? The garage where you found the necklace.”

“I have to ask Mommy.” She held out a hand for you to take. You stood and took her hand, reaching quickly for Peter with the other. “Do you know Mommy too?”

“Y/N, it’s okay.” He nodded, squeezing your hand once before stepping back. Once you felt his grip disappear, you nodded for Morgan to start walking.

“Yeah.” You said suddenly, remembering she had asked a question. “I knew her a few years ago, before this super crazy thing happened.”

“Crazy?”

“Totally.” You nodded, earning a small chuckle from her.

“Mommy!?” She yelled as she entered the home. “I found Y/N!”

“Wha- How did you know?” You said, stopping in your tracks.

“Daddy talks bout you a lot.” She said before pointing to a collection of photos on the wall. “And your picture is everywhere.”

“Huh.” You smiled. “Guess he did miss me.”

“Morgan, honey, what are you yelling about?” Your mom came around the corner. “Oh my god.”

“Hi mom.” You smiled, hurrying across the room to hug her tightly.

“I can’t believe it.” She mumbled into your shoulder. “You’re here. Oh, my god, you’re here. Your dad really did it.”

“Wait, Dad? What did he do?” You asked, the smile still stuck on your lips as you pulled away slightly. “How did he do it?”

“Your dad figured out time travel, Y/N.” She said, still in amazement.

“That’s awesome.” You laughed. “But also terrifying! Anyway, Morgan said she found some of my stuff in the garage… I need to reload my bracelets and if there’s time, update to Dad’s new network.”

“You’re not gonna find what you need in the garage.” She shook her head, heading to a table in a room off of the Living Room. “One, cause it’s a mess. Two, cause your dad told me to give you these if you came by.”

She handed you a set of bracelets, engraved with an arc reactor and the word Stark. They fit your wrist perfectly, a slight blue tint to the metal. They were light, light enough that you could barely tell you were wearing them.

“Woah.” You mumbled in amazement. “These are awesome.”

“And fully upgraded from what I heard.” Your mom added.

“No shit.” You exclaimed, tempted to tap them together and see what upgrades your dad gave you.

“Shit.” Morgan repeated from beside you.

“No, no, no!” You exclaimed quickly. “That’s an adult word, Morgan. You can’t say it.”

“Shit.” She giggled.

“No!” You whined. “Mom is gonna kill me!”

“You’re right about that.” She nodded.

“Hi, sorry to interrupt.” Strange said, suddenly at your side. “But we need to go. Pepper, you’re gonna wanna suit up and come too.”

“I forgot about Rescue!” You exclaimed.

“What about Morgan?” Pepper countered.

“Happy Hogan.” He said, gesturing to Happy who was sitting on your parents’ couch. “We have to go now. Steve Rogers is standing up to Thanos alone.”

“Alone?” You asked, a heavy feeling in your chest. “Where’s my dad?”

“We have to go.” Strange said simply.

“If I get there and he isn’t okay-” You said seriously, knocking your bracelets together. “You are going to be the one to answer for it.”

The suit was remarkably light. You watched the reflection in the window as the nanites spread to cover your body. It moved with ease, as if you weren’t wearing a suit at all. The design was sleek, the way you had always made your suits. It was colored to mimic your dad’s, but your dad had added more gold accents to yours. You wondered what else your dad had upgraded it with, but you knew you’d find out in time.

Strange turned and opened a portal for you, Peter, and your mom to step through. Your mom hurried into the room wearing Rescue. You all quickly went through, armed and ready to fight. The scene you came out to was insane. Strange and his friend Wong had gathered everyone willing to fight.

You recognized T’Challa and his sister Shuri, who you had yet to meet but knew to be brilliant. You saw Bucky and Wanda on the other side of the battlefield. Hundreds of people from Wakanda, spaceships full of people, a woman on a Pegasus, a woman who could shrink the way Scott could. People from all over the universe were collected for the fight.

You saw who you thought was Thor, now holding an axe and seemingly gained a belly the size of a basketball. Steve had a broken shield and Mjolnir, which didn’t quite surprise you. But you still couldn’t see your dad.

“Do you see him?” You asked Peter.

“I do.” Your mom answered. “He’s alright.”

“Avengers..” Steve said over comms. Your body tensed, your heart rate picked up. The adrenaline began rushing through your veins. You weren’t quite sure if it was fear or excitement taking over your thoughts, but you let it wash over you. You looked out at the vast army before you, stretching into what seemed like forever. You sent out a silent prayer to whatever God would hear you, asking to keep you on the one path that would save everyone. “Assemble.”

All hell broke loose. Fighters charged from either side. You were separated from Peter early, having to fend for yourself. Your new suit was highly responsive, picking up on things before they entered your peripherals. The power it had was insane, cutting through Thanos’ army like butter. Your dad had added new extensions to the suit; displacer sentries, stabilizing thrusters, energy refocusers, an upgraded unibeam, and liquid nitrogen cannons. 

Finally, you made your way to your dad. The fighting seemed to go around you two, as if the universe knew you two needed a minute. You let your helmet fall away, as did your dad. You both stood frozen for a minute, wondering if it was real.

“I got back and you were gone.” You said simply, your throat now tight. You blamed it on the dirt being kicked up from the fight. “Strange didn’t tell me where you were… Kinda freaked me out.”

“Well, I didn’t wanna hang out on an abandoned planet for five years.” He tried to joke. “Had to get back to your mom.”

“When I came back, I- I thought you-” You felt the tears coming. “I thought you were gone, Dad. And not just gone, like somewhere else, but gone as in dead. And then I thought how I didn’t want to live without you and I- I got really scared, Dad.”

“Y/N/N..” He said gently. You quickly closed the distance between you two and hugged him tightly. “It’s alright. We’re alright.”

“I love you, forever.” You mumbled into his shoulder.

“And ever.” He smiled.

You pulled away and sniffled, wiping your eyes quickly. “You have to tell me how you did it later. Time travel!? That’s insane. Oh! And Morgan, she’s super cute.”

“Morgan?” Tony eyebrows furrowed. “You met Morgan?” He smiled softly.

“Yeah, I met her when I went to get Mom and this awesome new suit.” You smiled, gesturing grandly to the suit you wore. “Which is incredible, by the way. I’m in love.”

“Hey! Holy cow!” Peter exclaimed as he ran into your dad. “You will not believe what’s going on. Do you remember when we were in space? And I got all dusty? I must’ve passed out, because I woke up and you were gone. But Doctor Strange was there, right? He was like ‘It’s been five years. Come on, they need us.’ and then he started doing the yellow sparkly thing that he does all the time and-”

You rolled your eyes in amusement as Peter rambled. Your dad was watching him with a soft look in his eyes, glancing quickly between Peter and you. Tony felt a deep sense of relief, a heavy weight lifted from his chest by seeing you two in front of him. The two people that he wanted to bring back were now in front of him. You stepped behind Peter and nudged him forward. Peter stumbled into Tony, who hugged the boy tightly. “This is nice.” Peter said gently.

“As grateful as I am to have you two alive, we have bigger issues.” You commented, seeing the van that was sounding off with La Cucaracha. “We need to get the Stones to that van.”

“How long do you need to get it working?” Tony asked Scott.

“Ten minutes, maybe.” He answered.

“Who has the Stones?” You asked as you, your dad, and Peter jumped back into the fight. You dodged attacks from either side, effortlessly spinning and ducking shots and projectiles. You saw Clint running through the crowd, one arm tucked against his chest. “Clint has them but he’s gonna need help.”

You were headed that way when you felt your leg being dragged down. You looked and saw a Chitauri soldier had grabbed your ankle and was pulling you down to the ground. You let yourself fall for a moment before turning gravity against the Chitauri and getting your feet aligned with it’s chest. You bent your knees slightly, using the alien as a push off. The thrust from your boosters burnt the Chitauri’s wrist to the point where it released you. You quickly shot off a blast to put a hole in it’s chest as it hit the ground. Your attention turned back to Clint as you saw him become surrounded.

“Hey.” Tony told Strange below you, causing your path to stop so you could listen. “You said one out of 14 million we win, yeah? Tell me this is it.”

Strange glanced up and saw you waiting for his answer. “If I tell you what happens, it won’t happen.”

You rolled your eyes within your helmet and took off. T’Challa got to Clint so you changed your course. You decided on a bit of revenge until you were needed to help move the Stones. “F.R.I.D.A.Y., give me locations on Thanos and Peter.”

“Peter is approximately 36 feet to your left with Shuri, no critical damage to the suit indicates no dire injuries.” Her automated voice answered quickly. “Thanos is six feet straight ahead. Maximoff approaching the target.” She showed you a zoomed image of where the Titan was.

“Keep me posted when those Stones change hands.” You ordered as you landed next to Wanda.

“You took everything from me.” She said angrily.

“From us.” You added, charging a blast from your palm.

“I don’t even know who either of you are.” Thanos replied.

“You will.” Wanda said simply, her eyes glowing red as her power swirled around her.

You stood watching in awe for a moment before remembering where you were. You shot your blast at the charging Thanos, knocking him off balance. Wanda quickly followed up with two huge rock piles, both were knocked in pieces by his sword. Wanda launched quick bursts at him, each one more powerful than the last.

You flipped over Thanos, sending off shots from above and then behind him. Together, you and Wanda brought the Titan to his knees. Wanda kept applying pressure, Thanos groaning in pain.

“The Stones have transferred hands to Peter.” F.R.I.D.A.Y. told you.

“You got this?” You asked, your focus now completely shifted. “I gotta go.”

“Go.” She nodded.

You took off quickly, F.R.I.D.A.Y. guiding you to Peter’s location. You find him surrounded by Chitauri, but his artificial limbs assisted him in the fight. You landed with enough force to push the last few Chitauri away from him and into someone else’s attack.

“You know, I was on the fence about the instant-kill. But it came in handy, didn’t it?” You joked.

Peter chuckled before more Chitauri came at you both. They grabbed at you, throwing you to the side and focusing on Peter. Everytime you tried to help, five of them shoved you off. You heard Peter call for help, to which Steve threw Mjolnir for him to grab. You took off ahead of the Hammer, hoping to keep a clear path for Peter. Peter shot a web, using Mjolnir as a ride out of the chaos.

A shot from one of the ships sliced Peter’s web, sending him to the ground fast. You dropped until you were able to grab him.

“I’m always having to help you out, aren’t I?” You commented teasingly as you tossed him to the woman on the Pegasus. You flew alongside her until a shot came too close for you to successfully dodge and threw you into Peter. It knocked him off the Pegasus and sent both of you crashing to the ground.

Peter had gotten up and tried to run, to get the Stones a little bit closer. A blast from the cannon landed right in front of him, sending him flying backwards so he would land in front of you. The impact shattered his artificial limbs and he let his mask fall away. He grabbed the gauntlet and tucked into a ball to protect himself from the shots still coming. You pushed yourself to your side as you put up an energy shield over you and Peter.

“F.R.I.D.A.Y., what are they firing at?” Tony asked as some of the cannons changed direction, the question playing in your helmet too as the system showed a projection of an incoming object.

“Something just entered the upper atmosphere.” She responded.

“Let’s hope it’s on our side.” You mumbled, momentarily dropping the shield to watch.

You looked up to see a bright flash of light break through one of the ships, disabling it and going through it once again to slice it in half. You were so impressed by the power it had that you almost didn’t notice the falling rubble. 

“Little help would be nice!” You yelled over comms as you threw up another shield, to which Steve asked Danvers to help. You had assumed Danvers was the one who broke the ship in half so you kept still until help arrived. You dropped the shield and stared in awe as Peter spoke.

“Hi.” He said quickly, still keeping the gauntlet close. “I’m Peter Parker. She’s Y/N Stark.”

“So cool.” You said simply.

“Hey, Peter Parker.” She chuckled. “Y/N Stark. I saved your dad once. He ever tell you that?”

“He did not. But I came back to a giant war so there hasn’t really been time..” You nodded, pushing yourself to your feet and put your helmet on again.

“You got something for me?” She asked Peter, nodding towards the Stones.

“I don’t know how you’re gonna get it through all that.” Peter said tiredly as he stood and handed over the gauntlet.

You noted how tired he was, how beat up he was. But he was still ready to fight. Your heart ached, and you quickly realized that you didn’t just like Peter Parker. You loved Peter Parker. The revelation didn’t surprise you, but you wished it had come at a better time than that moment.

“Don’t worry.” Wanda said as she landed next to you.

“She’s got help.” One of the Wakandan warriors who you later learned to be Okoye added. Your mom joined the group, along with Pegasus woman, Valkyrie. Mantis, Hope Van Dyne,  and Nebula showed up, along with Shuri and Nebula’s sister, Gamora. Together, you fought through the army to get the Stones to Scott’s van.

You and your mom focused your fire high, aiming at ships and taller enemies. You followed behind Danvers, working on keeping her path clear. Thanos charged Danvers, dead set on stopping her for the Stones. You, your mom, Shuri, and Hope shot beams at him, knocking him to the ground.

“After this, you gotta show me how you made those.” You yelled to Shuri, who looked over and laughed slightly. “I’m Y/N, by the way.”

“Shuri. You seem to be doing well with what you have.” She teased. “Is it new?”

“First time in it.” You answered with a proud nod. 

“Really, Y/N?” Your mom commented. “Now? Your dad just upgraded that suit for you.”

“You wanted me to make friends.” You defended, focusing back on the task at hand.

You all added extra force to throw Thanos back. He rolled, lifting his attention to where Danvers was headed. Since you all wouldn’t let him get to Danvers, he decided to destroy where she was headed. He threw his sword into the tunnel, destroying it and sending a massive energy wave that launched everyone back.

“The gauntlet is about twenty meters behind you.” F.R.I.D.A.Y. told you. “Mr. Stark can reach it but Thanos is already on his way.”

“Not if I have anything to say about it.” You replied, pushing yourself to your feet. You took off in a sprint before pushing off a short ledge, taking flight and headed that way. You watched your dad tackle Thanos before getting elbowed away. Thor and Steve kept him back, using Mjolnir and Thor’s new axe to their aid. Danvers beat you there and fought him off a minute, until Thanos threw her to the side.

You helped your dad up to his knees and watched Thanos put the gauntlet on. You and your dad dropped your masks, not worried about them anymore.

“Not again.” You whispered fearfully.

Danvers came back just in time, stopping him from snapping his fingers. She had the upper hand until Thanos pulled out one Stone and used it to send her flying. Strange looked over at you two, holding up one finger to tell you both that there was only one way.

Your dad stood slowly, understanding what he was meant to do. You understood it at the same time so you grabbed his hand, hoping to pull him back to you. “Dad, please.” You begged. “No. No! It’s not worth it.”

“I can’t lose again.” He said softly.

“Think about Morgan.” You tried desperately. “A-and me. I just got you back.”

“I am thinking of you two.” He replied gently. “I love you, forever.” He said before running to Thanos, trying to take the Stones from him.

You looked to Strange again in anger. You wanted to take it out on Strange, but the look he gave you made you reconsider. Strange looked at you as if you had a role to play, as if it wasn’t just about Tony. You and your dad had been through everything together. You had been glued to his side since Loki first arrived in New York. Every fight, every training session, every injury, and every upgrade you were there. You started it together. You had to end it together.

“F.R.I.D.A.Y., did my dad ever add the suit-to-suit interface to exchange nanites?” You asked quickly, running through the possibilities. “If he gets those Stones away from Thanos, it’s too much energy for him to handle. It needs to be dispersed.”

“It’s added but I’ll need time to activate it.” Her automated voice said. “Opening the entirety of both suits to interface with each other-”

“I don’t need a whole suit.” You cut her off. “My left palm. His right shoulder, upper shoulder. Clavicular region.”

“Less than a minute. Initiating interface.”

You ran over to your dad as he was knocked away. Your steps froze when Thanos raised his hand again and your dad laid face down.

“I am inevitable.” Thanos said in triumph. You braced for the second Snap, but nothing happened. You noticed a faint glow from your dad’s suit so you started running again.

“Interface available in 5… 4… 3… 2… 1… Interface active.” F.R.I.D.A.Y. announced to you.

Tony knelt in front of the Titan, Stones in hand. He shoved them into his suit, a Stone aligned with each knuckle. He thought about what he was going to do, the risk he was going to take. Someone had to do it, and it seemed only Tony could. But his mind brought back words that weighed on his heart..

Years ago, Steve had told him “The only thing you really fight for is yourself. You’re not the guy to make the sacrifice play, to lay down on a wire and let the other guy crawl over you.”

Peter said “I just wanted to be like you.”

Y/N had argued “I don’t know how to live a life without you and I don’t want to. I shouldn’t have to!”

Morgan had told him with a smile “I love you, 3000.”

Pepper once told him “You’re all I have too, you know.”

Y/N would always say “I love you, forever.”

But the heaviest one was what Strange had told him just minutes before, “If I tell you what happens, it won’t happen.”

“And I…” Your dad panted. You could see the power of the Stones coursing up his suit, scorched marks climbing to his neck. You got to him quickly, standing beside him. You placed your hand on his shoulder, the energy diverting up into your body as the nanites mixed.

It was white hot, burning every cell in your body. It was intense, scorching every nerve it touched. Your fingers trembled, your pulse beat unevenly. Your stomach muscle clenched, your knees shook. But despite it all, you stood tall. You gathered yourself with a deep breath and spoke.

“We.” You emphasized.

“We-” Your dad nodded slightly.

“-are Starks.” You two said together before he snapped his fingers. The surge brought you to your knees beside your dad, who used his other hand to reach across himself and steady you. You made sure to keep your left hand where it was, refusing to move it until you could get the Stones out. You two watched as every soldier Thanos brought, his whole army, turned to dust the way you did five years ago. Thanos sat on a nearby rock as he turned to dust himself.

You and your dad manage to get to a nearby debris pile where you turned and leaned your backs against. Your dad coughed as you reached over and pulled the Stones from his suit and dropped them next to you. You saw the relief in his posture once you took the Stones away.

“One hell of a day back.” You tried to joke, to which you both laughed weakly.

“You shouldn't have done that, Y/N/N.” Tony said weakly.

“There was only one way, remember?” You countered. “I had to. We started this together, we end it together.”

“Love you, kiddo.” Your dad smiled at you.

“Forever.”

“And ever.”

“Y/N?” Peter said gently. “Mr. Stark?” Peter ran up to you both, falling to his knees between you two. He gently took one of your hands in his. “Hey. Can you guys hear me? It’s Peter. We won. Y/N, Mr. Stark, we won. You did it. You guys did it.”

“You-” You coughed, smiling weakly at him. “You still owe me… a date, Petey.”

“Anywhere you want, Y/N/N.” He laughed sadly. He leaned forward and hugged both of you. “You’re gonna be fine, I promise.”

“Maybe not this time.”

Gently, Peter was guided away from you two, tears slowly falling down his face and leaving streaks in the dirt that covered his cheeks. You smiled softly, knowing you really did love the boy. You wanted to get up and comfort him, wrap your arms around him and hold him tight. But you didn’t have it in you. You could barely manage to keep your eyes open.

Your mom knelt in front of you two where Peter was. She sighed gently, trying to put on a brave face, but she was hurt the most. Your heart sank when you saw the pain she was in. She was looking at two of the three people that meant the world to her, sitting before her and fighting for their lives. She had watched her family sacrifice themselves for the world, a sacrifice those two - especially those two - never should’ve had to make.

“Hey.” She said softly. “You’ve both looked better.”

“Hey, mom.” You said as your dad answered, “Hey, Pep.”

“F.R.I.D.A.Y.?” She said, hoping for good news.

“Intense emergency surgeries needed. Immediate treatment raises survival rate by about 60%.” Her automated voice answered.

“Brother.” Shuri whispered to T’Challa as Pepper gently comforted her family. “I think I can heal them in my lab. They don’t have to die.”

“How would we get them there?” T’Challa asked honestly. He wanted to help them, but he didn’t think it’d be possible. “It is too far to guarantee there’d be time.”

“We can’t leave them to die here.” Rhodey commented. “We gotta at least take them home.”

“It’s okay.” Pepper nodded to you two. “We’re gonna be okay, alright? You two can rest now.”

“Love you, Mom.” You whispered. “Tell Peter… Tell him I love him too.”

You smiled softly at your mother before leaning your head back against the debris. Your eyes drifted shut, your body feeling heavy. You gave into the darkness as your dad did the same. The reactors in both of your suits faded to a dull glow, not quite off yet.

“The reactors aren’t off.” Peter noted, his voice strained from his pain. Not physical pain, but emotional pain. He had become so close to Y/N Stark to the point where he thought he loved her. She meant so much to him in the short time he knew her, so much so that he convinced himself she was his soulmate. He didn’t even believe in that kind of thing until he met her. Now he really wished he hadn’t hesitated. “They’re not gone.”

“Peter-” Steve tried to console him. Steve was feeling the loss too. He was devastated. Y/N and Tony were both practically family to him, the only family he had left. And now they were gone. They gave up their lives to save the world. Steve felt a pang of guilt, that even though they got everyone back, they still lost. Steve had insisted on it, that they would win this time around, but they still managed to lose.

“I can hear it!” He yelled, his voice breaking. “Their hearts are still beating.” He looked back to Y/N and Tony, their eyes shut. “They’re not gone. Just look!” He threw both hands forward, gesturing to the center glow of their chests.

“So what do we do then?” Thor asked. “The Compound is ruined. How are we supposed to help them?”

“Take them home.” Carol suggested. “You, Sparkles.” Carol pointed to Dr. Strange. “You can make portals. Make a portal to take them home, and then we go from there.”

“What do you actually think we can do for them?” Strange questioned defensively. “Those Stones-”

“I think that Peter Parker is onto something.” Carol countered easily. “Make a portal to take them home.”

“They won’t survive.”

“If you’re so sure,  at least let them die somewhere they’d be comfortable.” She rolled her eyes.

“We have the technology to heal them.” T’Challa spoke up. He figured it was the least he could do, to offer whatever Wakanda could give to help. “If you can get them home and keep them stable, Shuri and I can get what we need and bring it to you. But we’d have to hurry.”

“And you’re sure they’re alive?” Strange asked Peter.

“One hundred percent.” He responded confidently, his eyes on Y/N. “I know it.”

Strange opened two portals, one to Wakanda and one to the Stark’s lakehouse. Carefully, Rhodey scooped up Tony and Peter carried Y/N. Pepper went through first, hurrying to get Morgan out of the house so she wouldn’t see what her dad and sister looked like. Tony and Y/N were carried to their rooms and gently set up in their beds.

Wong helped the rest of those who fought get home. Steve, Bruce, Clint, and Thor followed the Stark family to their home, as did Carol. Dr. Strange went with T’Challa so he and Shuri would have a quick way back to Tony and Y/N. Pepper asked F.R.I.D.A.Y. to disable the suits so their housing units could be taken off and to keep their vitals posted. Both of their pulses were extremely weak, but they were still there. They were both put on ventilators - Tony kept a few on hand just in case the Compound wasn’t the best option for treatment - and were given an injection of painkillers.

Peter had been right.

Pepper stayed with Tony in their room, while Peter argued to stay with Y/N. Steve had offered, told Peter he should get home and get some rest, but Peter set himself up in the window nook and refused to get up.He had washed the dirt and blood off his face and out of his hair, his wet curls still dripping onto his shirt slightly. Despite using cold water to wake himself up, he still just wanted to curl up and sleep.

He called May after Steve left the room and went downstairs to talk to others. He had taken off his suit, leaving him in the clothes he had worn to the field trip, before he had gotten on the spaceship. 

“Hey, May.” Peter said tiredly. He was exhausted, every muscle ached. He wanted to lay in his own bed and sleep for a year, but he knew what his priority was at the moment. “You okay?”

“Where are you, Peter?” She asked anxiously. “I- I called you twelve times and you didn’t answer. Are you okay? You- you never came home from your MOMA field trip and I-”

“I’m fine.” Peter cut in. “I- I got caught up in that dusty thing a few years ago.”

“Yeah, yeah, I think I did too.” She paused, letting out a heavy sigh. “Come home, Peter.”

“I can’t.” He said sadly. “Y/N, she got hurt real bad, May… I can’t leave her right now.”

“You love her, don’t you?” May asked, a small smile on her lips that Peter didn’t need to see to know it was there.

“Yeah.. I think I do.” Peter chuckled nervously. “I never got a chance to tell her.”

“You’ll get one… Don’t miss it.”

“Love you, May.”

“Love you too, Peter. Text me before you go to sleep and call me in the morning.”

“Will do.” And with that, Peter hung up the phone.

A small knock on the door sounded before it was cracked open enough for a small child to slip inside. She shut the door carefully behind her, as if she was used to sneaking around the house. She ran across the room until she stood in front of Peter, looking at him with her head tilted slightly. Slowly, unsure of what to do, Peter pulled his legs to his chest to make room for her. She climbed into the open space and crossed her legs, dropping her hands in her lap.

“Morgan, right?” Peter asked, leaning his head back as he tried to stay awake.

“Who are you?” She asked plainly.

“Peter Parker.” He gave a lazy salute.

“Are you her boyfriend?”

Peter chuckled. “No.. Not yet, at least.”

“You like her?”

“I do.” He nodded with a lazy smile. “I like her a lot.”

“She’s pretty.” Morgan said, as if Peter hadn’t noticed that. “Is she hurt the way Daddy is?”

“How do you know that?”

“I was sneaky.” She whispered, bringing one finger to her lips to emphasize how quiet she was. Peter chuckled in response.

“Yeah, Y/N is hurt.” Peter said carefully. “But she’s gonna be okay. You know why?”

“Cause she’s like Daddy.” She said confidently. “And Daddy is Iron Man.”

“Yeah, but also because she has to come back to her family. You and your mom and-”

“And you.” Morgan cut in. “Want to make a card with me?”

“You go get started and I’ll meet you down there.” Peter responded, holding out his pinky. “I just need a minute and I’ll go downstairs after. Pinky promise.”

“Okay.” She nodded, quickly finishing the pinky promise. “Bye, Peter!” She said before quickly sneaking out of the room, leaving just Y/N and Peter.

“When we met, I never thought we’d end up here..” Peter said to Y/N, even though he knew she probably couldn’t hear him. “After everything we’ve been through, it kinda seemed like you were invincible. Nothing could really take you out like this. I mean, yeah, we both came out of everything with some sort of aches and pains, but not like this.

“I know you’re fighting for your life, Y/N/N. And I know you have your own reasons to fight, but I gotta ask you to fight for me. Please… I just- I love you, Y/N Stark. And I want to be able to tell you when you can actually acknowledge it. I- I want to take you to parties and school dances. I want you to come to Decathlon a-and laugh at how easy the questions are because you’re brilliant.” He chuckled lightly before closing his eyes, curling in on himself a little more. “Just come back for me, please.”

A light knock sounded before Shuri entered, a cart of equipment being led in behind her. Two Wakandan soldiers followed behind with her equipment, setting things up while Shuri went and spoke to Peter. Peter sat up slowly, unsure of how long he had been asleep.

“We can take it from here.” She told Peter, gently putting a hand on his shoulder. “You should get something to eat, Peter. You look starved.”

“Yeah..” He nodded slightly. “But I have a card to make first.” He smiled lazily before taking one last look at Y/N. “She’s gonna make it, right?”

“I’m going to do everything I can.”

“Oh, she kinda got stabbed like right here-” Peter’s hand hovered over Y/N’s side, where he remembered Thanos using her suit’s blade against her. “That was before we got dusted so I don’t know if it’s still there but…” He shrugged, pausing to decide if he wanted to ask his next question. “How’s Mr. Stark doing?” Peter asked carefully, now fully knowing if he was ready to hear how his mentor was. “Is he gonna..”

“Mr. Stark is going to be okay.” Shuri promised. “We could not save his arm, but we saved him. The only thing I don’t know is how soon he’ll wake up. His injuries were rather traumatic and that kind of shock takes a toll on the human body.”

“Thank you.” Peter said honestly. “For being on my side back there and believing they could be helped. And for being willing to help them.”

“The world owes them a debt that can never be repaid.” Shuri said honestly, scanning Y/N with her Kimoyo Beads. “It is the least I could do.”

“I’ll leave you to it then.” Peter nodded before heading downstairs to join Morgan in her card making.

Steve handed Peter a plate of food and two water bottles, reminding Peter that he had to take care of himself too. Most of the adults stayed in the other room, discussing their worry in quiet whispers. Carol sat with Peter and Morgan around the coffee table, each of them making a card. Morgan was finishing her card for Tony, while Peter worked on one for Y/N and Carol made one that was meant for both of them. Carol and Peter took turns telling jokes or making fun of their own drawings to make Morgan laugh. By the time they were done, they each made a card for Y/N and Tony, until Morgan fell asleep against Peter.

“You really care about them, don’t you?” Carol asked Peter once Morgan was asleep.

“Y/N and Mr. Stark believed in me when no one else did.” Peter began fondly. “When I went with them to Germany to fight Captain America, she told me that I was going to have to put up with her for a long time. She told me that she wasn’t gonna let anything bad happen to me, that we had to stick together. But now... It’s different. When she smiles at me, I feel dizzy. When she laughs, I can’t help but laugh with her. Even when she looks at me, I- I don’t know how to explain it.”

“I can explain it.” She smirked at him. “That’s love, kid.”

“It is?” Peter asked. “That’s kinda what I had hoped it all meant.”

“Did you ever tell her?”

“I had a chance… But I hesitated.” He admitted, remembering on Titan when he wanted to kiss her. “But if I had known this would’ve happened-”

“Yeah, but you didn’t know.” She cut him off. “What matters now is if you’re gonna hesitate next time?” She challenged.

“God, I hope not.” Peter chuckled.

Soon, Shuri and her brother, along with the two Wakandans that came with her, were coming down the stairs. Most of the equipment was packed and being carried with her. Peter was careful not to move and wake Morgan when Shuri came downstairs.

“They’re both going to make it.” She said with a proud smile. “However, there are some things we could not fix.”

“Like what?” Steve asked tensely.

“We could not save Mr. Stark’s right arm. The damage was too severe.” Shuri explained. “They’ll both have burn scars up into their chest and neck area. Mr. Stark’s may even reach the side of his face. As for Y/N..” She paused to show a detailed image of the inner workings of the lower arm, the nervous system breakdown and muscular system. “This is what her right arm looks like, the one that didn’t take on the energy of the Stones. And this-” She swiped to a new image, an image where some of the nerves were in pieces. “-is her left arm. Unfortunately, her damage seemed to have found its way to her nervous system. Some nerves were seared through, meaning she has lost all sensation in her left arm, as well as some of her finer motor control.”

“So what exactly does that mean for her?” Pepper asked anxiously.

“It means she will not be able to fully move her fingers and possibly her wrist, and she won’t physically feel anything at any point on her left arm. But she will live.” Shuri explained. “I’ve also healed a stab wound she had from her first fight with Thanos, and there won’t even be a scar.. They should wake in a few days. They are both on IV drips with painkillers. I’ve done all I can.”

And with that, Shuri left. One by one, the rest of the Avengers that were there left. Peter left the following morning, having fallen asleep on the floor with Morgan. Happy drove him home, but Peter fell asleep again on the way. His body was more exhausted than he had been letting on, and now it had caught up to him.

He tried to get back to normal life. He went back to school, saw Ned and MJ. He went back to Decathlon, but it just didn’t feel right to him until he could hear your voice again. A few days after he was settling back in, he got a call from a number he didn’t recognize.

“Hey, Spiderman.” You said. Your voice was as sweet as honey, making his heart beat three times faster. “Got time for a visit?”

“For you?” Peter replied, pretending he had to think about it. “Definitely. Where at?”

“Right here.” You said, stepping out of the car to stand in front of him. “Hey, Peter.” 

“Hi.” He breathed a sigh of relief. Seeing you standing before him, your long-sleeved shirt buttoned up to the top to hide the burns, it made his chest feel tight. He wanted to hug you, to pull you against his chest and never let you go. But he hesitated, just slightly. His biggest concern was how fragile you were.

“You’re looking at me like you’re scared.” You commented, scrunching your eyebrows in confusion. “I thought you’d be happy to see me.”

“I am!” He promised quickly. “I am happy to see you. I just… I have something I want to tell you.”

“I have something I need to tell you too… But it can wait till that date you owe me.” You winked.

“No, it can’t wait.” Peter said, swallowing hard and gathering all his courage. “I wanted to tell you this back on Titan, but I chickened out.”

“Peter, it’s not that serious.” You laughed nervously. “It can wait until tonight, okay?”

“No. It can’t.” He insisted, grabbing your hand. “Y/N, I- I love you and I really want to be with you.”

“That’s great.” You smiled widely, squeezing his hand gently.

“What?”

“Peter, I realized something before this.” You gestured to your left arm. “When Carol came to help us, and I got a good look at how beat up you were but you were still willing to fight… When we were on the beach and you wanted to make sure Toomes didn’t die even though we were on opposite sides… When we were in Germany and you said you trusted me… There are so many little moments between now and the moment I met you that have brought me to this one, single, recurring idea.”

“And what idea is that?” Peter asked smugly, taking a step closer to you. Suddenly, his confidence was through the roof.

“That I love you, Peter Parker.” You smiled widely. “And I really want to be with you.”

“That’s… amazing.” He sighed happily. “Otherwise this could’ve been really awkward."

[wisdomrays]

TAFAKKUR: Part 320

THE BENEFICIAL EFFECTS OF LIGHTNING: Part 1

The Qur'an is a book of guidance and wisdom, not of science. However, about 20 percent of its verses allude to scientific matters or natural phenomena. For example: It is He Who shows you the lightning by way both of fear and hope (13:12) and Among His Signs He shows you the lightning by way both of fear and hope, and He sends down rain from the sky. And with it gives life to the earth after it is dead: Verily in that are Signs for those who are Wise (30:24).

Yusuf Ali, in his translation of the Qur'an, asks several questions about lightning: Why look to evil rather than to good? To punishment rather than to mercy?”To the fear in the force and fire of the lightning rather than to hope of good and abundant crops in the rain which will come behind the lightning clouds (note 1818); Nay, thunder itself which may frighten you, is but a tame and beneficent force before Him, declaring His praises, like the rest of creation. Thunder thus aptly give the name to this surah of contrasts, where what we may think is terrible is shown to be really a submissive instrument of good in God's hands (note 1819); and: To cowards, lightning and thunder appear as terrible forces of nature. Lightning seems to kill and destroy where its irresistible progress is not assisted by proper lightning”conductors. But lightning is also a herald of rain-bearing clouds and showers that bring fertility and prosperity in their train (3530).

Journals publish articles on injuries and death caused by lightning. However, the Qur'an specifically mentions the hope of lightning as a good or beneficent force. This article addresses this issue.

WHAT ARE IONS?

After a storm, the air feels clean and fresh filled with negative ions. People often report feelings of pleasantness and well-being following an electrical storm. Electrical storms are generally preceded by higher levels of positive ions and followed by higher levels of negative ions.

Air is made of individual molecules. When the outer electrons of two or more atoms join together, the resulting particle is a molecule. Each molecule, in turn, contains smaller particles of positive and negative charges (protons and electrons). Under normal circumstances, the number of protons and electrons are equal, and so their charges cancel out and leave the molecule electrically neutral. However, negatively charged electrons are lighter and more mobile. If they happen to absorb energy from intense sunlight, they tend to jump from one molecule to another. When a negative charge jumps from a molecule, it upsets the equilibrium and leaves behind more positive than negative charges. Thus the molecule becomes a positive ion. The electron arriving at the new molecule brings with it an extra negative charge. This molecule now becomes a negative ion. When the energy supply is removed, the electrons return toward the vacated spaces, and everything becomes balanced and has a zero charge.

Oxygen, a prime example of small gaseous molecules, remains neutral as long as the proton“electron balance is maintained. Since atoms have equal numbers of protons and electrons, they have no charge. However, if an electron is lost or gained, the molecule becomes positively or negatively charged, respectively, and an ion is created.

The simplest way to visualize an air ion is to consider it a tiny charge of static electricity carried by the air. This charge can be either positive or negative. The charged particles, or ions, are not merely suspended in the atmosphere; rather, they are part of the air's very fabric. The air we breathe contains billions of tiny, invisible, electrically charged energy packets called ions, each of which have either positive or negative charges. Every time we take a breath, ions fill up our lungs and are carried by our blood into every cell in our body. Without ions in the air, our body could not process oxygen properly.

A lack or imbalance of ions affects the environment in which we live and breathe. Research shows that most of us who live, work, and travel in closed spaces suffer some degree of negative ion starvation or positive ion overabundance. This has become extremely evident to NASA in its space travel program.

People are spending their lives submerged in an atmospheric ocean of nitrogen, oxygen, and a small percentage of other elements, plus the toxins and pollution of our industrial world. In cities like New York, Los Angeles, Hong Kong, Tokyo, Mexico City, Karachi, Delhi, Bangalore, Mumbai, Calcutta, and many other densely populated cities, there may be few or no detectable negative ions at all during heavy traffic and high pollution periods.

In nature, abundant ions are generated wherever energy is transferred into the air by the friction within wind, rain, and surf. Certain events occurring in nature, such as lightning discharges, falling water, and air friction can cause electrons to be torn loose from a molecule. These orphan electrons are then adopted by other nearby molecules, which transforms them into negative ions. The parent particles become positive ions.

Negative ions carry the air's electrical energy. Some examples of nature's ion generators are solar (ultraviolet) and cosmic radiation, air friction, lightning, falling water (the splitting of water into droplets by waterfalls), ocean surf and waves, evergreens and Earth's radioactivity (from natural radiation in rocks and soil).

THE ION EFFECT: SEROTONIN HYPOTHESIS

An excess of positive ions and a lack of negative ions can produce uncomfortable effects. Scientists have demonstrated that small air ions are biologically active. Moreover, they can stimulate the over-production of serotonin, a powerful neurotransmitter and very active neurohormone that causes profound nerve, glandular, and digestive effects throughout the body. Tests show that positive ions increase the production of serotonin and that negative ions decrease the hormone level.

High serotonin concentrations are associated with migraines. Negative ions accelerate the oxidative degradation of serotonin, whereas positive ions deactivate the enzymes that break it down. Thus more negative ions should reduce migraines. A higher serotonin level also produces tachycardia, higher blood pressure, bronchial spasms and even asthma attacks, increased intestinal peristalsis (intestinal contractions and dilations to push the contents through), increased sensitivity to pain, and increased aggression. Reduced serotonin levels result in a mentally relaxed state and reduce feelings of depression. Negative ions appear to reduce serotonin by enhancing monoamine oxidizing activity. Paradoxically, mental illness is often treated successfully with drugs that inhibit this activity and raise serotonin levels in the brain.

The three major effects of positive ion excess are irritation and tension, exhaustion, and a hyperthyroid response. The common symptoms of dizziness, headaches, depression, anxiety, and a generally lower level of physical and mental functioning were shown to be alleviated and, in most cases, reversed by increasing the negative ions in the air.

POSITIVE IONS

Many people find a pre-storm atmosphere heavy and oppressive. This has been attributed to the high levels of positive ions building up in the air, which are also believed to trigger storm-sensitivity in asthmatics and many other people. In the hours before a certain storm arrived, hundreds of people reported to hospital with severe asthma attacks. Was this due to positive ions?

Scientists have found that if the air is charged with too few negative and too many positive ions, we become anxious,tired, and tense. This positive-ion poisoning results from weather disturbances, central air conditioning, smog, and driving too long. It even has been linked to heart attacks, aggravated asthma, migraines, insomnia, rheumatism, arthritis, hay fever, and most allergies. However, a negative electrical charge imparts positive feelings of health and vitality.