#like okay first my dad and I. collide in unprecedented ways

[hobisexually]

x

[captainimprobable]

part two of that thing I posted last week! This is also an unedited first draft, so take it with a grain of salt

~ ~

She arrives in the dead of night, clothes singed and skin burned.

The knock wakes them all, but Hooty is the loudest.  He bursts through Luz’s window, a worm shaped interloper, and announces “HEY LUZ, YOUR GF IS HERE!!!!! SHE LOOKS LIKE SHE WAS DIPPED IN A POT OF ACID, BUT I’M SURE IT’S NOTHING TO WORRY ABOUT.”

Before Luz can even open her eyes fully to focus, he slides back out of her window with a loud “HOOT HOOT”.

Blinking sleep out of her eyes, Luz thinks she might be dreaming, until she hears the knock at the door.  It’s insistent, quick, and somehow a little desperate.

Something is wrong.

She is instantly awake and on her feet, flying down the hallway just in time to collide with Eda, whose hair is sticking up at all angles.  Before she can fall, Eda steadies her, and says “Did I hear Hooty say that Boots is in trouble?”

“I’m not sure,” Luz says frantically, “but we need to get to the door.  Now.”  She’s already running as she’s talking, and finally, finally, she makes it to the front of the house.  She wrenches open the door and standing there is Amity, eyes red rimmed and body shaking.  

Behind her is a sheet of boiling rain.

“Oh my gosh, did you run here in the rain???” Luz asks, grabbing Amity’s hand and tugging her inside.  Amity nods wordlessly, staring at a spot on the floor.  Now that she’s closer, Luz can see the damage; the rain has singed the sleeves of Amity’s dress, and dark, angry burns march up and down her arms.  “Dang, kid, are you okay?” Eda asks, sounding genuinely concerned.  

Something inside Luz tugs insistently, and though she wants to panic, she knows Amity needs her more right now.  So she takes a deep breath and says “Let’s get you patched up, okay?”

Amity doesn’t move.  She’s still staring at the floor with a blank expression, and Luz suddenly has no idea what to do.  She wants to wrap Amity in her arms, protect her from whatever’s going on, but she knows that might not be appreciated, so she decides to ask.  

“Do you want a hug?”

Amity nods so imperceptibly that Luz thinks she might have imagined it, but she nonetheless takes it as a yes.  Careful to loop her arms around Amity’s waist and not her neck so as to avoid touching the burns, she wraps Amity in a loose hug.  For a second, Amity does nothing.  She stands there shaking with her arms hanging at her sides, until all at once, like a dam exploding, she grabs at Luz almost desperately, pulling her tighter as she bursts into tears.   

Luz has never been in a situation like this before.  Eda is sitting on the couch a respectful distance away, watching but not getting involved.  Luz doesn’t know what to do, so she decides to follow her instincts.  She reaches up to stroke Amity’s hair and whispers “It’s okay, you’re okay”.  Amity cries herself out a few minutes later, Luz talking to her in a soothing voice the whole time.  When only sniffles remain, Luz asks “Can we go to the couch? Eda wants to treat your burns.”

“Y-yeah,” Amity hiccups.  It’s the first thing she’s said all night, and something in Luz loosens at the sound of it.  She keeps an arm around her girlfriend’s shoulders as she guides her to the couch.  She doesn’t want to let go, so when they sit down, she instantly grabs Amity’s hand.  

“Is this okay?” she asks Amity.  Amity nods, gently brushing her thumb along Luz’s knuckles in silent consent.  

“Wow,” Eda whistles.  “The rain got you good.  Why were you out in that anyway, are you crazy?”

“Eda-” Luz starts, but Amity holds a hand up.  “It’s okay,” she says.  As Eda begins pulling potions out of the cabinet, Amity says “It’s- it’s my parents”.

Luz goes cold.  She remembers them well.  It’s hard to forget people who tried to kill you.  

She hasn’t had much contact with Alador, but Odalia...Odalia gives her a feeling she can’t describe.  Just the sight of her makes Luz unspeakably angry.  Looking at Amity now, though, she realizes that Alador is just as bad.  Complacency in the face of abuse is just as bad as the abuse itself.

“We had a fight,” Amity continues.  “And you ran away? In the boiling rain? That takes guts, kid,” Eda says, a mixture of impressed and concerned.  

“Not exactly.  They, um...they kicked me out.” 

“WHAT?”

“It’s not forever,” Amity hastens to say.  “Just for the night.  My mom said she...she said she can’t even look at me right now, and my Dad just agreed with her.  Like he always does.”

Luz’s grip on Amity’s hand is tight as steel now.  She’s ready to get up and give the Blights a piece of her mind.  She wants to take them down, and make them pay for what they’ve done.  

“So,” Luz says in a low voice.  “Your parents left you alone in the middle of the night in rain that can literally kill you?”

“Yeah,” Amity says bitterly.  “They’re not the best parents.”

“I’m going to make them pay for this. I’m- I’m going to go over there, and I’m going to-”

“Luz,” Amity puts a hand on Luz’s shoulder.  “No.  You can’t- I don’t want you in the same room as them ever again, okay?” Amity sounds scared.

Luz remembers the abomiton that tried to kill her, and the disappointed look on Odalia’s face when it didn’t succeed.  She also remembers Amity’s righteous anger, and the steely eyed glare she gave her mother.  

“I can’t have you hurt again,” Amity says, sounding almost frantic.  “I just can’t, okay?”

“Okay, okay, shh it’s okay,” Luz assures her, cupping a hand to her face.  Neither of them have the energy to be embarrassed about it right now, but it’s probably the most romantic gesture they’ve shared.  Amity leans into Luz’s hand, breathing deeply.

“This might sting,” Eda says from the other side of the couch.  Both Luz and Amity jump, having forgotten that she was there.  Sheepishly, they part, still holding hands.  Eda smirks at Luz and gives her a wink that Luz hopes Amity didn’t see.  She gets the feeling Eda is going to be talking to her about this later.

Eda dabs a bit of blue potion onto Amity’s arm, and Amity hisses, breath whistling through her teeth, but she doesn’t flinch.  “Is it- ow- is it okay that I came here?”  She asks Eda, looking at her shyly.  

Eda snorts, like it’s the stupidest question in the world.  “I practically take kids in for a living, now,” she says.  “What’s one more?”

“It’s just for the night,” Amity hastens to assure her.  “I’m going home tomorrow morning.”

Luz shakes her head.  “I hate the idea of you living with them.  I can’t believe they treat you like this and just get away with it!”

“I’ll get out of there eventually.  When I join a coven…” Amity trails off, and an awkward silence ensues.  They haven’t talked about the whole “Amity’s biggest dream being potentially crushed by the Emperor being evil” thing.  

“Well, the point is, it’s not forever,” Amity finally finishes.  

“Aaaand done,” Eda says, wrapping the last bandage around Amity’s wrist.  She stands up, knees creaking in an entirely unnatural way.  “And now it’s bedtime,” she yawns.  “You two get some rest, too.”

“Thank you, Eda,” Amity calls, and Eda gives her a lazy wave over her shoulder as she leaves.  

The adrenaline is wearing off, now, and Luz suddenly realizes she has no idea what she’s doing.  She glances at Amity out of the corner of her eye, and the image of her cupping Amity’s face floats into her brain.  She flushes a deep scarlet, and suddenly, she needs to be doing something, anything else.

“Well, okay,” she says loudly, standing up abruptly and walking towards the closet.  “Let me get you some pillows and a blanket, the couch is old and creaky, but it’s comfortable.”

As she’s rummaging through the closet, she hears Amity say “Luz”.

“Yeah?”

“Would you- I mean, if you wanted to, could you- could you stay with me for a little while?” She sounds so scared, and so sad, and it’s so unlike Amity that Luz melts immediately.

“Of course,” she says.  “Here, scoot over.”

Amity moves a few inches, wincing at the pain in her arms.  Luz sits down next to her and drapes a blanket over the both of them.  They sit there awkwardly for a few minutes, and Luz is absolutely freaking out.  She has no idea what to do now.  Before she can agonize over it any further, Amity’s head lands on Luz’s shoulder.

This is unprecedented.  

Nobody ever told Luz how scary the beginning of a relationship is.  Nobody warned her that every little thing Amity does could change her mood instantly, or that every time she touches her she can swear to god she feels electricity.

Nobody told her how bittersweet it could be to have Amity Blight resting her head on her shoulder, exhausted from a horrific night of what can only be called abuse.  

Her internal alarms are going off, she’s losing her mind, and she hopes Amity doesn’t notice.  In the midst of this emergency, Amity calls her name sleepily.

“Hey, Luz?”

“Yeah?”

“You’re my favorite person.”

Oh.  Oh wow.  Oh. Wow.

This is a whole new level of scary.  She feels a mixture of nerves and elation swirl through her, and she can’t help but smile, and she feels a little bit like crying but she doesn’t know why.  She doesn’t know what to say, so instead, she does something even scarier: she kisses the top of Amity’s head.  

She freezes, hoping that was okay, hoping that Amity doesn’t feel weird about it, but before she can ask, Amity starts quietly snoring.

She’s fallen asleep.  Luz breathes a sigh of relief, marveling at the fact that Amity felt comfortable enough, after an awful night, to come to her house and fall asleep on her shoulder.  How did she ever get so lucky?

After awhile, Luz yawns and checks her watch.  Four forty two am.  It’s definitely time for bed, but she doesn’t want to wake Amity up by leaving, so she decides that she’s going to stay up all night, watching over her girlfriend and making sure she’s okay.

Two minutes later, she falls asleep, resting her head on Amity’s.  

When they wake up in the morning, it’s all apologies and blushing and everything Luz has started to get used to.  But Amity has a small smile on her face despite her blush, and Luz has to admit: it’s the best nap she’s ever had.  

[miraculouspaon]

Where Have All The Heroes Gone And Where Are All The Gods?

Chapter Thirty-Eight: Emma

AO3

“What are you doing?” Emma asked, poking her head into the safe room.

Jonathan looked up. “You’re back,” he said, surprised. “That was fast, you just-” he glanced at the time on his phone. “Oh. Never mind, I just lost track of the time. How’d it go?”

Emma walked up to her uncle’s desk and sat on the edge of it, looking at his work. “Great,” she said. “Turns out locking up the Chief of Defense in a prison camp for months and then offering him the chance to help liberate it is a recipe for an amazing Champion. He kind of took a lot out of Dani, actually. She’s sleeping it off now. And Louis wanted to get started on scouting for potential successors to Mom and Dad, so he’s out.” Emma leaned over. “What are you doing?” she repeated. “I thought you were sure you couldn’t get anything more out of working on the spell that grabbed Mom and Dad.”

“This is the other spell,” her uncle replied. “The barrier spell that’s keeping the rest of the world from coming to help.” He scowled at it. “How the hell are they still powering it over four months later?” He sighed. “I don’t know why I’m bothering, I have much less to work with than I did for the other spell. I’m not going to figure out where the power source is. I just… can’t think of anything else to do with myself after four months of this, I guess.” Jonathan closed his book and leaned back in his chair. “So when does the Resistance take back the city?”

Emma shrugged. “Everyone from the camp is still getting settled. I think Aunt Alya wants to start strategizing first thing tomorrow morning.” Jonathan nodded. “You want to be there?”

Jonathan hesitated. “Just remind her that I’m a magic consultant and she can call me if she needs one,” he said. “I don’t want to oversell my usefulness here. I can maybe give some insight into dealing with magical defenses, but the Order is unpredictable. I never know when they’re going to be brilliant and when they’re going to be completely incompetent.”

Emma frowned. “How do you mean?”

“Well,” Jonathan gestured behind himself to the spell printouts taped to the wall, “these are a work of genius, and I’m not just saying that because I can’t crack them. Original, ruthless, elegant, efficient. As horrifying as they are in application, they’re a masterpiece of spellcraft. But on the other hand, the Order seem totally incapable of predicting big picture level issues.”

“Like what?” Emma asked.

“For starters,” Jonathan said, “did they really think the people of Europe wouldn’t resist, just because our militaries were caught off guard and we lost our superheroes? What, we were all going to just go along with living in a fascist regime that intentionally cut us off from the rest of the world?” Emma shrugged. “And that’s another thing,” Jonathan continued, “the superheroes. The Order was completely blindsided by the superheroes that arose post-occupation. They clearly had no plan in place for dealing with them. In Paris the Order has only just started figuring out how to fight you kids effectively, and it doesn’t sound like they’ve been doing much better in other cities, either.”

“To be fair,” Emma said, “there’s been almost thirty new ones in only a few months. It’s unprecedented.”

“Unprecedented, yes, but it’s still predictable. What did they think was going to happen when they took all the current superheroes out of circulation, that there just wouldn’t be superheroes anymore? Magic abhors a vacuum, and for better or worse superheroes are currently a natural part of… I don’t know, whatever the magical equivalent of an ecosystem is. You can’t just get rid of them and not expect any backlash.”

Before Emma could think of a response, she heard her grandmother shouting her name. With a quick wave to her uncle, Emma hopped off the desk and rushed out of the room, following the sound of her grandmother’s voice. She eventually found both grandparents down the east wing, in the room containing all the main controls for the security system.

“What’s wrong?”

Adele and Gabriel were both frowning at the feed of a security camera. “Maybe nothing,” Adele said cautiously. She pointed to the screen. “There’s somebody at the country manor.”

Emma leaned forward, studying the footage. Now that she was looking closely, Emma recognized the front door. She didn’t, however, recognize the middle-aged man standing in front of it, ringing the doorbell repeatedly and trying to look through the drawn curtains of the front windows.

“Is he Order?” Emma asked nervously.

“Unlikely,” her grandfather replied, scowling. “If the Order had traced the Resistance back to that address, we’d all be in custody right now. They wouldn’t send a lone agent to walk right up to the front door and ring the bell.”

“Our best guess is that he got the address from someone you smuggled out of Paris,” Adele said.

“But we never let anyone know where the manor was,” Emma said. “I just teleported people in and out of the room in the basement.”

“Someone must have violated our clearly stated protocol and left a cell phone on with GPS tracking,” Gabriel replied, his scowl deepening.

“He must need to get in touch with the Resistance,” Adele said. “It could be terribly important, Gabriel.”

“It couldn’t be as important as the measures we take to ensure the children’s anonymity,” her husband replied angrily. “This idiot may very well be endangering the lives of Adrien’s children.”

“Well,” Adele said, “if that’s so, we’ll deal with it. It’s already done. We might as well see what he wants.” She looked at Emma expectantly.

“Right,” Emma said, trying not to feel too apprehensive. “Rajji, feathers out.”

~~~

The man at the door had turned around and started to head back to his truck by the time Gabriel opened the door. “Can I help you?” Gabriel asked, his voice ice cold.

The man turned around, surprised. “Oh!” he said brightly. “Gosh, I could’ve sworn this place was abandoned. The lights are out, there’s no car, the-”

“If you thought there was no one here, why did you ring the doorbell?” Gabriel interrupted impatiently.

“Oh, just putting off disappointing the lady, I suppose,” the man said easily. “She seemed like she’d been through a lot, I wasn’t really looking forward to waking her up and telling her-”

“What lady?”

“Well, I didn’t ask her name and frankly I don’t want to know it,” the man replied, his tone still friendly. “I’m not really looking to join the Resistance or anything, you understand? But when I run right into someone that needs my help, well,” he shrugged, “what else is a guy supposed to do?”

Gabriel glanced over at the man’s truck. Emma did her best to follow his gaze, but both her grandparents were blocking the doorway and keeping her behind them rather insistently, so she couldn’t get a good look. “And this woman who needed your help, she asked you to bring her here?” Gabriel asked.

“Well at first she said Paris, but I told her getting in there would be impossible, what with the checkpoints and her obviously being an escapee from one of those resistance prison camps. I mean nobody’s supposed to know where they are, of course, but I’d heard a rumor there’s one somewhere near where I picked her up. Anyway I explained, so she asked if I couldn’t bring her here, instead. And it was only an hour out of my way so I-”

“Would you mind trying that again?” Adele interrupted harshly, crossing her arms. “I’m very good at telling when people are lying to me, and I don’t appreciate it.”

The man raised an eyebrow. “Okay, you caught me, it was more like five hours. But don’t tell her that, I don’t want her to feel like she’s a bother or anything, you know? Girl’s in rough shape, and I might not be Resistance material but I’m happy to help a patriot however I can. I was happy to drive her here, even if she did fall asleep five minutes after I picked her up.”

Gabriel sighed and turned to Adele, dropping his voice so the man couldn’t overhear. “No deception?”

“No,” Adele replied. “But we’d still better find out if the woman told him anything else dangerous.” She looked back at the man and raised her voice. “Did this woman say anything else?” she asked him. “How she knew about this house, perhaps?”

The man looked confused. “She said it belonged to her mother-in-law,” he told Adele. “I assume that’s you?”

For a second, all three Agrestes stared at the man in complete and utter shock. It was Emma who snapped out of it first, shoving forcefully past her grandparents and running for the parked truck as fast as she could.

After four months of teleportation, the ten seconds it took Emma to reach the passenger side door of the truck felt like an agonizing eternity. Every frantic footfall felt to Emma like she was taking it through molasses, and she could feel each quarter of second distinctly. Finally, finally she reached the door, colliding into it with a loud bang. Marinette’s eyes flew open as Emma flung the door open.

“Mom!”

There was a half-second of disorientation before Marinette woke up fully. “Emma! Oh, sweetheart!” Marinette threw her arms around her daughter and hugged her tightly. “You’re safe? You’re okay?”

Emma nodded. “Yeah,” she whispered, her voice breaking.

“And Dani? Louis?”

“We’re fine, everyone’s fine, we just-Oh, Mama, we missed you so much, we were so worried! We tried so hard to figure out where you were but we couldn’t, and-” Emma stopped mid-sentence, practically gulping air, trying desperately not to trip over her words through the tears.

“Shh, baby, it’s okay,” Marinette said, pressing her daughter’s head to her chest and stroking her hair gently. “It’s all going to be okay now.”

Emma nodded, and took a few seconds to slow her breathing down to a normal rate. “Dad?” she finally asked, in a nervous whisper.

Her mother sighed. “He’s alive,” she told Emma, who sighed in relief. “We couldn’t both make it out, though.” Marinette glanced over towards the manor, where the man who’d picked her up was watching them, along with Emma’s grandparents. She looked back at Emma. “I’ll tell you everything once we’re inside, okay?”

Nodding, Emma stepped back to allow her mother to exit the car. Marinette swayed as she stood, and Emma immediately put a supporting arm around her mother’s waist. “Sorry, sweetie,” Marinette said, leaning on her daughter. “I… the last few days have been rough, I guess they took more out of me than I realized.”

“It’s okay,” Emma said, trying not to think about how light her mother felt as they both walked back to the manor.

~~~

The second they were all safely back in the manor, there was a high-pitched squeal of excitement and a small blue figure launching itself at Marinette, landing squarely on her nose. “You’re back, you’re back!”

“Rajji!” Emma snapped, annoyed.

Gabriel reached over and calmly pulled the kwami off his daughter-in-law’s face. “Rajji, we just got the woman back, it would be a shame if you suffocated her now,” he said dryly.

Marinette smiled. “It’s alright,” she said. “It’s nice to see you again, Rajji.” Rajji beamed at her from Gabriel’s grasp.

“Adrien?” Adele asked. “Is he-”

“He helped me escape,” Marinette said, leaning against the door. “Adele, Gabriel, I’m so sorry, if there’d been any way we could have both gotten out-”

“Oh!” Adele covered her mouth with her hand and she started crying. It took Emma a second to realize the tears were happy ones. “Our son is alive,” she whispered. “Gabriel, our son is alive.” Gabriel put an arm around his wife, and he didn’t cry or even smile but the relief on his face was obvious.

“So if Rajji’s here,” Marinette said slowly, “I’m guessing you’ve all just come from Paris, and Dani and Louis are back there waiting?” She looked at Gabriel. “Why did you bring Emma?” she asked.

“Ah.” Gabriel glanced at his granddaughter, then looked back at Marinette. “I’m afraid it would be inaccurate to say that I brought Emma.”

Marinette blinked in confusion for a moment, and then her expression fell as she looked at her daughter. “Oh,” she said softly. “I see.”

“I’m sorry,” Emma said immediately, without thinking. Marinette’s eyes widened.

“Oh, no, baby,” she said quickly, hugging Emma, “I’m sorry, that wasn’t-I should have reacted better, don’t think I’m disappointed, I couldn’t be prouder, honest, I did hope you’d get one, I just-oh, I wanted to keep you safe first! Until you were an adult, not until after you’d had a normal childhood, that’s all.”

Sighing, Emma hugged her mother back. “I understand,” she said. “But Dani and Louis might take it personally, so maybe get your disappointment out of your system first, before I take us all back.”

“Don’t worry, sweetie, I can hide it,” Marinette told Emma.

“Um. Well, no, actually, you can’t,” Emma said. “Not from Dani, anyway. Not anymore.”

There was a pause. “I think maybe I’d better sit down for a second,” Marinette finally said.

“You know, I would have brought them if I’d known it was you,” Emma said as her mother eased herself onto a nearby chair, “but the security camera only faced the door, so we didn’t realize-and Dani’s exhausted from her last Champion, and Louis-” Emma gasped. “Shoot, Louis! I’d better-” she pulled her phone out of her pocket and frantically texted her brother.

“Don’t say anything about-”

“No kidding,” Emma interrupted her grandmother impatiently. “I’m just telling him to come back to the mansion, that’s all.” Emma noticed her mother’s look of confusion. “The Order reads everything,” Emma explained. “We have a warded burner phone for communicating with the Resistance, but if we warded our phones and the Order wasn’t able to read our messages they’d get suspicious, so we just let them and don’t send anything incriminating.”

Marinette nodded slowly. “And… and the Order is…?”

“Oh,” Emma said. “Right. They’re, um, the guys who kidnapped all the superheroes. They’re kind of, uh, running everything at the moment. Like… government-wise.”

“I see.” Marinette took a breath and let it out slowly. “What’s your brother doing?”

“Uh. Well, actually, he’s kind of out scouting for your replacement,” Emma said apologetically.

Marinette frowned. “Why?”

“We didn’t exactly know you’d be breaking out, dear,” Adele said. “Things have gotten a bit more urgent lately, and we thought an inferior Ladybug might still be better than none at all.”

“No,” Marinette said slowly, “I mean why is Louis out scouting?”

There was a moment of hesitation, and then Gabriel sighed. “Because managing the Miraculouses and selecting holders is now one of his many responsibilities,” he said.

Marinette closed her eyes and took another deep breath. “Where’s Fu?” she asked, her tone overly controlled.

“Nobody’s seen him,” Adele said, annoyed. “The kids found their boxes in your kitchen the day you and Adrien disappeared.”

“Unbelievable,” Marinette muttered. She opened her eyes and looked up at her daughter. “I can only imagine how much more there is to tell me,” she said, “but let’s go home first, okay?”

~~~

“Dani!” Emma shook her sister roughly.

Still half asleep, Dani groaned and swatted her sister away. “Quit it,” she mumbled.

“Dani!”

Dani finally woke up enough to register her sister’s emotional state, and then she sat up immediately. “What? What is it?” She frowned at her sister. “Why are you transformed?”

Instead of answering, Emma grabbed her sister’s hand and teleported them both downstairs, to where their mother was waiting. Marinette jumped a little, but stayed seated on the couch. “Hi, Danielle,” she said. “I’m sorry, I’d get up, but since the escape I’ve been running on adrenaline for the past few days and it’s all kind of catching up to-” she stopped talking as Dani launched herself at her mother, hugging her and sobbing wordlessly. Marinette hugged Dani tightly and closed her eyes as she kissed her daughter’s forehead.

“How,” Dani finally managed to say, “How did you…”

Before Marinette could answer, they heard the front door open. “Guys?” Louis called from the foyer.

“In here!” Emma shouted.

“What’s going on?” he shouted back, his voice getting closer. “What’s so important that you-” Louis stopped talking abruptly as he entered the room and saw his mother.

“Hi, Louis,” Marinette said. For a long moment, Louis just stared at his mother, frozen, as though he were looking at a ghost. “Are you okay, sweetie?” she asked gently.

Slowly, Louis nodded. He walked towards her as Dani wiped the tears from her face and pulled away to give Louis space. He bent down and hugged his mother tightly.

“Oh, sweetheart,” Marinette murmured, kissing Louis’ cheek, “I missed you so much!”

“I missed you too, Mom,” Louis whispered back. He scrunched up his face and a few tears escaped his eyes. “And I’m really, really sorry about this.”

Marinette frowned. “Sorry about-”

Before she could finish the question, Louis had touched his mother’s temple. Her eyes closed as she fell back onto the couch, unconscious.