#minute. sometimes when she gets snappy with the doctor it really does feel like someone who has masked so well for so long getting upset

[quietwingsinthesky]

the doctor also wouldn’t call even autistic simply because he doesn’t think about neurodivergence that way, a way that’s all human and categorized down into neat boxes. he references how others label him, like clara saying he’s adhd, with a sort of acknowledgement of it fitting but also a waving away of it as real explanation or an accurate view. even wouldn’t call themself autistic because they don’t know what autism is. (and the master also wouldn’t for the same reasons.) BUT. multiple of the doctor’s companions would pick it up. clara certainly would, clara would say it to even’s face (<- woman who has been masking so hard her whole life and literally doesn’t know how to stop anymore and Needs to point out when someone else isn’t Doing It Too.) donna would notice, too, mention it off-handedly to the doctor at some point like she’s not sure if he’s noticed even having difficulty when he’s already so weird himself.

[dullgecko]

Bad kids headcanons

Riz had been accidentally laid on multiple times, 1) Gorgug, and he never did it again he felt terrible 2) Fabian has done it multiple times but mainly because Riz was laying on his bed or under a pillow 3) Kristen, continuously does this hasn’t learned surprisingly.

Gorgug and Adaine go out of their way to feed the other bad kids, they have everything from apple slices to protein bars, to baked goods.

Fig has playlists for all the bad kids, and surprisingly it’s not all metal, it’s songs that genuinely fit the them. Sometimes they get emotional while listening to them because some of the songs hit hard.

Fabian takes the bad kids to do expensive activities that he thinks they’ll enjoy, he takes Kristen to dance lessons, Riz to an escape room, Gorgug to take a class for a falconry, Adaine to a self defense class (furious fists!!), and Fig to a movie set about doctors who keep making out?? (He had no idea what do for her)

(Junior) Kristen tries to get all of her friends to work out together, so far she’s gotten most of them to participate. Gorgug used to be the only she asked to come so he could spot her. Riz just sits on the treadmill and brings them water occasionally.

The unfortunate instances of the squished Riz

Gorgug had gotten up to go get more snacks while the rest of the kids were watching a movie. He was gone a while because he's the kind of person who enjoys things like cut-up fruit instead of popcorn as his snack of choice. He was holding a plate in one hand and was watching the screen when he went to sit back down again and accidentally squished Riz who had finally arrived after one of his club activities while Gorgug was out of the room.

No one had told him that Gorgug was sitting on the couch before he arrived so he just plopped himself down with the pillows on one end and fully passed out from exhaustion. His nap lasted about four minutes before he got partially sat on by their barbarian, took a shitload of bludgeoning damage, and scrambled free while Gorgug apologised profusely. Gorgug is much more careful about checking where he sits now, even if Riz isnt there.

_~_~_

Riz tends to disappear into Fabians room a lot in junior year when he's a) exhausted all the time because of schoolwork and clubs and b) still having to attend a billion social gatherings at his house in order to help Kristens campaign. The bard/fighters room is always locked during parties but a locked door isnt even a challenge to Riz. He hits his social limit, disappears upstairs, picks the lock and sits in the dark in the partially soundproofed room until he feels like he can deal with other people again without getting snappy.

Most of the time he just passes out for twenty minutes or so on the bed for a power nap before going back downstairs but more than once he's slept so long the party has ended, Fabian has stumbled back to his room drunk and exhausted and not turned on a light and just fully faceplanted on top of the goblin who's curled up in a ball and very pillow-shaped in the dark. Sometimes Riz is too tired to turn the lights off in the room (reaching the light switch involves jumping for someone his height) so he just hides under the ten or so pillows piled on the bed to block out the light and gets flopped on that way. At least Fabian is lighter than Gorgug, and all it really does is startle the shit out of Riz and wake him up. Depending on how drunk Fabian is though Riz might not get to leave until the next day because he cant escape the grapple.

~_~_~

Kristen just doesnt look before she sits or lies down. At sleepovers she'll flop down wherever, not caring if that lump next to Fig is suspiciously goblin sized or not. Full weight flop, unexpected yelping and sometimes biting if she doesnt get up fast enough. She even rolls over in her sleep a lot and will steamroll anyone in her way. Its gotten to the point that if Riz does bother sleeping he has to strategically place himself where their cleric cant get to him easily. Near Gorgugs shoulder or against Fabians side are the safest spots.

He's not even safe when just sitting half the time either. At lunch time he will sit cross-legged on the cafeteria table if not eating otherwise Kristen might try to occupy the same bench space as him because she's paying more attention to her crystal than where she's going.

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

Fig will sometimes just send random songs to her friends crystals too, they always end up getting added to their playlists because they're always a banger. Fig is also responsible for the road-trip dj-ing, she's the only one they can trust to put on songs everyone will like and wont fight over.

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

Kristens dance lessons are mostly because he tried teaching her himself and is now deeply traumatised. Best to leave it to the professionals. She's getting better at things like square dancing but ballroom dancing is off the table. Too many broken toes.

Riz's escape room, all time record beaten. He found all the clues, decoded all the cyphers, found all the hidden doors and panels, put together the narative and was out within three minutes. It was honestly a little scary to watch, Fabian just stood out of the way near the entrance as the goblin went full investigator mode (he did help once by picking Riz up so he could reach something on a high shelf but he doesnt count it as participating). Technically Riz could have done it in one minute but he felt like he had to do it properly so he made sure to follow the proper steps and collect all the clues (he thought they might get extra points that way). Riz gets a little pin saying he beat the room with his time on it and clips it to the collar of his vest.

Gorgug thoroughly enjoys his falconry lesson and even after its finished still sometimes goes back to visit and see how the birds are going. He would have also enjoyed a trip to the zoo but Fabian framed it as more of a 'i would like company at my falconry lesson' rather than a gift for the half-orc (Gorgug was honestly a little surprised that Fabian wasnt taking Riz but some of the birds were very large and he could just imagine one flying off with the goblin so didnt ask questions).

Adaine actually asked Fabian to teach her some hand-to-hand fighting because, even though he has levels in bard now, he is a fighter himself. He decided to bring in a teacher once a week for a month or so at his manor to help the both of them improve their skills so she wasnt doing it alone.

Figs day out was fun but weird. He payed for a full studio tour where she got to meet the actors and watch some filming on set from off to the side. Fig had a lot of fun, mostly because she secretly watches the show and got autographs from her favorite characters.

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

Gorgug and Fabian will join her sometimes, but they can literally run circles around her. The pair of them do help her with her form so she doesnt hurt herself though, or try to put way too much weight on at once. Fig and Adaine fully do not want anything to do with it, not interested at all. Riz will sit and watch, and go fetch water if needed, but he's basically jogging all day every day to keep up with people and doesnt need the extra cardio.

[dadzawa-adopt-dabi]

secret baby ch5

(sorry for the long wait. i rember someone said that they were missing hawks so i tried to put him back in. unfourtanatly he cant really really be here yet, it just dosent fit. suggestions ideas are welcome.)

The first month Dabi is in his apartment is full of doctors appointments and getting used to the silence of living alone.

“Almost 6 months along now, how are you feeling?” Nurse Joy asks him at one of his appointments. She’s spreading a cold gel on him for another ultrasound. This one Dabi gets to take home and put on his fridge. He’s going to have to order some sort of cute stork magnets to hold it on there.

“Tired mostly, I’m also noticing like a tickle? Is that normal? Is she just kicking? I thought that wasn’t supposed to start yet.”Dabi stands up and stretches as best as he can.

“She may be hiccuping! Sometimes that happens as your baby is starting to practice breathing and may be accidently swallowing fluid, it’s fine!” She brings over the wand and starts trying to find his baby girl.

“Wai- holy shit! Are those wings!?” Dabi gasps as the image of his daughter comes up and has 2 small bumps on her back.

“Maybe, if the other father had extra limps then it often carries over to the baby, you might want to consider a cancerian section if those stay.” She continues to move the wand around until she’s satisfied his baby is fine.

“Have you picked out a name yet?”

“Miyako.” Todoroki is a name he doesn’t ever want to hear again or associated with his innocent baby girl.

He has been going to the public library and reading everything about pregnancy and new parents that he can. The neighbors fight and while its not on the level his house was on he still tenses. Waits for the smack sound of the hitting each other or for something to go too far. But they never get too loud and they never throw objects or kick each other out. He hates that he’s waiting for something he knows isn’t normal.

The TV is on a lot to drown them out with white noise, turned on to the news. He’s too tense to focus on anything else. He never does get reported missing.

During his 2nd month in the apartment Dabi starts seeing the doctors more frequently, constantly monitoring his health and his baby girl’s development.  

“Are you stressed Dabi? Your blood pressure has been high the last couple of visits” Joy asks while she takes his vitals.

“My apartment has thin walls and my neighbors are noisy. It’s keeping me awake and I’m a little jumpy these days. Is it going to affect miyako? Is there a way I can lower my blood pressure?” Dabi twists his fingers in his shirt and scowls when he notices what he’s doing. There’s no reason to be nervous, nurse Joy is just making small talk. He’s starting to doubt he can do this. He’s tired all the time and dreads leaving his apartment to go to his appointments. He’s started decorating and wishes he could show off how far he’s come. 

“Try buying something that reminds you of someone close to you! You’re on your own for this right? It’s probably just stress. Having something that reminds you will probably bring it down and allow you to sleep easier. High blood pressure can cause some problems but it’s not that high yet, we just want to nip this in the bud if we can.” Joy gives Dabi a reassuring smile.

“Yeah, I’m on my own. The other father doesn’t know.” They continue to make small talk and Joy suggests that Dabi start taking prenatal vitamins before declaring him fine and sending them home.

Dabi promises on his way out the door to find a way to lower his stress levels.

He falls asleep almost as soon as he gets home.

Hawks wakes up easily, he knows it and always brushes it off as his feathers are sensitive.

Touya is thrashing around in his sleep, it must be what woke him up. Hawks’ own nightmare has nothing to do with it.

Faint distressed omega scent comes off of him and Hawks tries to mellow his own out before he wakes him. Touya is full on whimpering and giving small aborted growls in his sleep as he starts to smoke. Mumbled words pass his lips but he’s still too quiet to hear what he’s trying to say.

He gently shakes Touya and catches the fist that comes at him as Touya jumps awake.

“Touya, Touya it’s okay, babe.”

Hawks watches him as he wakes up and stretches his wings into Touya’s view. They call a lot of people down when he flies rescue missions but all it seems to do for his omega is send him deeper into a panic. Scent growing more distressed and the blocker fading away so he’s hit with how strong Touya’s distress really is.

“Babe, I need you to call down for breathing pretty fast.”

“Try-trying, can’t.”

Fuck, its not working.

Hawks unlocks his phone and dials Rumi,  belatedly hoping she has a night shift tonight and is awake anyways.

“Hey Rumi my omeg- boyfr- you know what? My omega friend who slept over is having a panic attack and I don’t know what to do.” He practically squeaks into the phone as he tries to get Touya to breath in sync with him.

“Jesus fuck, what did you do to the poor guy? Try giving him your coat. It should smell enough like you that he will automatically calm down. Especially if he’s over enough for you to be calling him your boyfriend.” 

“Thanks Rumi, I’ll talk to you tomorrow morning.” Hawks hangs up the phone before she can attempt to tease him anymore. He sends a feather for the coat and shoves it in Touya’s face.

Touya inhales the scent and starts to slow his breathing as Hawks continues to try and get him to match his breathing.

“You can’t just shove your wings in my face after a nightmare dude.” Touya sits up still holding onto the blanket.

He lets go of Hawks arm. A embarrassed blush on his cheeks.

“Well, they usually comfort people,” Hawks mutters. He gets up to make breakfast for them, it doesn’t happen often but sometimes it does. When him or Touya can’t go back to sleep.

Touya steps into the shower and when he exits he’s wearing just the coat. Hawks sputters and gasps when he sees him but eats breakfast with Touya before he leaves for hero training. He leaves Touya a key and asks to talk when he comes home.

In the dream when Hawks comes home Touya is still wearing just his coat and boxers. Touya moves in with Hawks and Hawks is overjoyed at being a dad to his baby girl.

It’s a nice dream all in all.

Dabi wakes up and for a moment he wishes that the dream was real. He wishes that he had seduced Hawks back to bed like in the dream. That he had told Hawks in person he was pregnant and that Hawks had been overjoyed. He wishes he hadn’t left the key Hawks gave him on the counter. Hadn’t gone home and blocked his number. 

Dabi lets himself spend a few more minutes laying in bed and wishing things had gone differently before he decides it pointless to go back to sleep. He checks his phone, 4am, the store doesn’t open for 3 more hours and he has time to kill.

He rearranges his room and cleans. Buys more baby clothes online and a stroller with birds on it. It’s funny and cute even if her other father will never see it. It’s not weak to want him in her life as long as he doesn’t give in to the urge. One hour until the store opens, he does some light exercises and goes through the motions to get ready.

Dabi goes out, browses the omega and baby section. He does it almost every morning and it’s part of his routine at this point. He looks through baby blankets and swaddles. Dabi ends up buying a blanket made from suede. It’s close enough to Hawks hero jacket, as close as he could find in the store anyways. He didn’t mean to go for something that reminded him of his alpha but before he knew what he was doing he was carrying the blanket up to the register. It reminds him of his dream, what prompted him to leave the house today. 

He buys the blanket and adds an extra lock to his cart to help him sleep better.

Dreams don’t grant Dabi security and all he can do is add locks to protect his apartment and watch the news for a missing person report.

Hawks had never knocked anything around before. In fact he had always taken extra care not to startle Dabi after the first time he did so and got a bunch of his feathers accidently set on fire.

Maybe he had just been worked up, tired from Hero training and the interview? Dabi knew he could be snappy and growly after training.

He doesn’t want to make excuses for that behavior though, he won’t.

Shit, how can he miss an alpha he barely knew?

@ruelukas22

[timeisacephalopod]

Post Averages pre everything else, Tony's having a bad day, 1st the team is crashing at his tower, the media is adding to the rumor mill and to top it off is Arc Reactor if shorting out in the middle of dinner and peppers not around to help him change it out really he just wants to bang his head against the table, knocked himself out and end this god-forsaken day but when the team goes into panic mode over him he can't help but laugh...What is his life, this is apparently.

I’ve got you lol. I threw in a little Tony/Rhodey in regards to the rumor mill part of this prompt mostly because I dislike pepperony (no hate to people who like them!), so there’s that. The team doesn’t really freak out so much as notice that Tony is a frazzeled boi, but there’s team bonding and whatnot! Movie Night cures all :)

*

Tony remembers all those horror stories people used to tell back when he was in college about terrible roommates and he thinks he really lucked out rooming with Rhodey given his situation now. Some of the Avengers, they’re clean, but Clint? The man is a fucking shit storm of mess and Thor isn’t much better. Natasha and Steve are, thankfully, very much sticklers for cleanliness and they mitigate the damage quite a lot but he still had to give his cleaning staff a good raise because he felt bad for them. Cleaning up after him is enough work, cleaning up after Clint should earn them a six figure annual income.

He pulls fuck knows what out of the sink of the shared Avengers floor, staring at it for a moment before he recognizes coffee grounds at least. “Who stuck coffee grounds in the sink? What, am I running a bed and breakfast for a biker gang?” he asks. No one seems to hear his comment and he rolls his eyes. He throws out the… whatever that was with the coffee grounds on it and decides hiding in his lab is a necessary thing for the day.

They’ve got a dinner event later, but for now he can hide with his machines and they don’t leave mess all over that require him to give workers raises and they also don’t leave coffee grounds and other mysteries in the sink. Time off is necessary so he makes his way down to the lab, smiling when Dummy rolls up, claw spinning happily. He’s three steps into the room when JARVIS speaks.

“Sir, there are rumors of you and Miss. Potts dating again,” he says and Tony rolls his eyes. Poor Pep, she deserves better than this.

“That’s not really new,” he points out.

“There’s a picture,” JARVIS tells him. “Doctored, obviously.”

Yeah, obviously, but Tony lets out a long sigh and throws himself in his desk chair. “Call Rhodey,” he tells the AI. Rhodey is off doing… something, Tony has a hard time keeping up given that Rhodey is constantly on the fly, literally, with the suit. He doesn’t think he’d believe any stupid tabloids anyways but its always good to check in.

When Rhodey answers the phone he’s laughing. “How the hell did you convince Pepper Potts to kiss your sorry ass?” he asks and Tony relaxes a little, pleased that Rhodey has maintained his sense of humor.

“I didn’t, obviously,” he tells Rhodey.

Rhodey lets out a small hum. “Well okay baby, but this looks pretty convincing. Does Pepper know yet?” he asks.

“She’s currently in Japan so probably not, no. She isn’t going to be happy,” he says. She’s forever annoyed that people can’t seem to accept that sometimes women can be good friends with men and have no desire to sleep with them. She claims that she’s spent too much time cleaning Tony’s messes to find wanting to become one of his messes appealing. Tony knows that doesn’t really matter if someone is interested thanks to Rhodey not that people really know about their relationship. Its been an on again off again thing for years, since they were kids really, but after Afghanistan something changed.

And really, the media deciding Rhodey was just a good friend after risking his entire career to spend three months tracking Tony down? That’s probably one of the biggest romantic gestures Tony has ever seen and somehow people managed to ‘no homo’ it. Pepper finds that annoying too but mostly only because people have made her the love interest. At first Tony thought it was kind of funny because he used to have a bit of a crush on Pepper. Now both he and Pepper find it annoying but Rhodey still keeps a sense of humor about it. Maybe its because of all that time spent in the military or something- Tony knows he’s had to deal with a lot of shit and he tends to use humor to do it. Not as much as Tony, but his endless optimism is one of his finer qualities.

“Well,” Rhodey says, “guess she will also be unhappy to hear about your summer wedding.”

Tony sits straight up and lets out an irritated noise. “People are fucking seriously saying we’re engaged? Are you fucking kidding me?” he asks. So much for his day getting better.

“Aw, don’t be like that baby. We can get married in the summer if you want to,” Rhodey jokes.

Neither of them would want to sweat their asses off in a suit in the damn summer so absolutely not.

*

After dealing with the social media mess on both his and Pepper’s end Tony figures maybe, maybe the food will cheer him up. Yeah, maybe Steve is being more annoying than usual and yeah, maybe Clint chews with his mouth open and it makes Tony want to crawl back into that worm hole his nerves are being grated so hard, but food is food. Its comfort and it tastes good, can’t go wrong there.

That lasts all of five god damn minutes when he feels that familiar loss of energy around his heart and fucking great. He’s got three hours before the reactor dies out completely and half that time would be spent getting back to the lab. And Pepper isn’t around to help him change it out either so… well fuck, he doesn’t know.

He excuses himself to the bathroom so he can try and figure something out or, hell, he has no idea. He’ll burn that bridge when he gets to it.

He’s there for five seconds when he turns around and jumps when he finds Natasha there. “Did you not notice the lack of a dress on the door’s stick figure?” he asks.

Natasha rolls her eyes, “I know where the women’s bathroom is, and I also happen to know you’re probably not likely to hang out in there so here I am. What’s going on?” she asks.

Like she cares. He bites back the snappy response though because its not really helpful right now. “The reactor is dying, I need to swap it out in the lab except I’m pretty far away obviously and I don’t have small enough hands to replace it anyways so I guess I’ll die,” he says. It’s over dramatic and ridiculous but he’s tired, okay. Its been a shitty day.

“I have small hands,” Natasha says, holding up hands that might actually be smaller than Pepper’s.

“No offense but I don’t want you near my heart. You might rip it out,” he says. There’s no real malice in his voice and sure, after the stunt she pulled he’s not overly trusting, but its Natasha’s general personality that drew him to that conclusion rather than their past.

“Please, Stark, I have bigger fish to fry. Lets go, you don’t have a whole lot of time to get that thing replaced,” she says.

He considers saying no but beggars can’t be choosers.

*

Natasha is subjecting him to some Russian shit when the rest of the team gets home. Clint looks a little sheepish, Steve has got that ‘aw shucks’ look on his face, and Bruce looks a little constipated. Basically, as far as Tony can gather, they look like they feel bad but he has no idea why. He decides to ignore them in favor of watching his heart for any signs that Natasha somehow tampered with the reactor for funsies.

“I’m not guaranteeing that stuff won’t end up in the sink,” Clint says, shuffling a little awkwardly. It takes a moment for Tony to realize he’s talking to him.

“Clint, what the fuck is this?” Steve asks, holding up what looks like an honest to god squirrel. Frankly the fact that Steve has resorted to swearing speaks volumes.

Clint examines the strange sink object and then shrugs. “Dunno.”

Steve throws the mystery object back in the sink. “No wonder Tony is pissed off at you,” he mumbles.

Tony frowns at this and Natasha lets out a soft laugh, “Stark, you’re not subtle. clearly something has been pissing you off all day and it wasn’t hard to look through the camera footage.”

When the hell had she done that? He’ll ask JARVIS later and make it harder for her to get into his systems. “I’m not pissed off at anyone,” he mumbles. Its mostly true, he’s just frustrated because he’s had a bad day. If they were mostly the ones to cause it, well. Okay so today it was mostly Clint but still.

“Are so,” Steve says, “you’ve been avoiding us all day.”

He has not. Which he tells them but even Bruce looks confused. “This morning you gave us all a bunch of dirty looks and then went and hid in your lab to call Pepper,” he says.

Tony squints, “why would I call Pepper?” he asks. Actually he has to call her to find out how her meetings went but she’s better at remembering these things than him so for all he knows she’ll call him before he gets around to contacting her.

Steve frowns, “well, you’re you know… together,” he says, turning a little red as he says it.

He opens his mouth to tell them all that no, he and Pepper are not together but Natasha speaks instead. “You two are horrible at reading romantic cues. He’s with Rhodes, not Pepper,” she says.

Tony narrows his eyes at her, wondering when the hell she figured that out because he damn well knows he hides it well. For Rhodey’s sake mostly- the military might be a lot less homophobic now but its hard to forget what that oppressive environment is like and also Tony doesn’t want to ruin Rhodey’s career over something so stupid.

‘What?” Bruce asks, frowning. “When did that happen?”

“Why are you looking at me, Bruce? I don’t know,” Natasha says.

Tony opens his mouth, shuts it, and then sighs. “Please stop leaving questionable objects in the sink, Steve clean the fucking work out equipment- you might be attractive sweaty but the damn equipment isn’t. Natasha, stop using all the coffee and not replacing it and Bruce, stop putting the milk back in the fridge empty. I have had people do literally everything for me my entire life, if I don’t have any of these bad habits you can all be broken of them,” he says. He doesn’t mention the fifteen years Rhodey’s mom spent breaking him of the same habits minus the work out equipment.

“I maintain no guarantees with the sink,” Clint says.

Steve gives him a look, “there will be no more road kill in the sink. Its unsanitary,” he says like that should be the primary concern.

*

Bruce and Steve are fighting over the empty milk carton when the elevator makes that irritating dinging noise that Tony, for some reason, thought it was a good idea. He turns and finds Rhodey standing there grinning at him. “Hey,” Tony says, walking over and, mostly out of habit, dragging him away from prying eyes.

“You know the easiest way to solve the Pepper Problem is to just… tell people we’re together,” Rhodey tells him and Tony stops.

“What?” he asks. “Wait, when did you get to America?” As far as he knew Rhodey was overseas. 

Rhodey snorts, “for a genius you’re always slow to pick up on things. I flew here, obviously. Suit’s faster than a plane,” he says.

Yeah, Tony knows. Neither of them have ever been fond of planes and travel time so he’d purposefully made the suits fast. Also he likes going fast. “I… you… what’s with the change in heart?” he asks and Rhodey frowns.

“What change in heart?” he asks.

Tony frowns, “you’ve never wanted to come out with our relationship,” he says and Rhodey gives him a funny look.

“Baby, I’ve always wanted to be out with it. I thought you didn’t.”

Tony rubs his temples because his day has been long and not good and apparently now its ending with a fucking twenty year long miscommunication. “And the military problem?” he asks.

Rhodey snorts, “we’re actual ass superheroes and if they want access to that suit, and they do, they need me. No idiot will fire me for being bisexual no matter how much I know a few will want to.”

Okay, good point. “Well, that’s the reason I thought you wanted to keep things quiet. You’ve worked hard, seems like a shame to ruin it all over a stupid relationship,” he says.

He knows he’s said something wrong when a few beats of silence go by. He sighs, guessing this is his day taking another turn for the worst. “Tony,” Rhodey says softly. “I don’t think this relationship is some kind of stupid fling and I know you don’t. I love you Tony, have for most of my life,” he murmurs.

Tony smiles and presses his face into Rhodey’s chest. Usually he resents being so short, but at times like this its kind of nice to be the small one. Rhodey wraps his arms around him and they remain like that for a moment. “You know what sounds a lot better than ‘we’re dating’? ‘This is my fiancee, stop acting like I’m dating my assistant’,” he says and Rhodey snorts.

“Is this a proposal, Stark?” he asks and Tony nods, pulling a ring out of his pocket and Rhodey’s eyebrows shoot up.

“How long have you have that on you?” he asks.

He grins a little and looks away. “Sine ‘98,” he admits. Thankfully Rhodey thinks its funny and takes the ring.

*

“No horror movies, I do not like those,” Steve tells Natasha, looking somewhat like a frightened golden retriever.

“I’m with Cap,” Rhodey says fast. Natasha looks at him and Tony wrinkles his nose.

“Not for me,” he says. Steve looks shocked that they’ve agreed on something but he doesn’t know about that time he and Rhodey thought dropping acid and watching Nightmare on Elm Street was a good plan. They might both be geniuses but they aren’t fucking smart, that’s for sure.

“All of you minus Tony a little bit have been in wars but you’re afraid of horror movies?” Clint asks, shaking his head.

“Wars don’t involve demonic possession, Clint,” Rhodey says, shaking his head.

“Well, some of those Nazi experiments… Horror movies are creepy,” Steve settles on, changing the subject before things got overly awkward. “We should watch Matilda! Sam says its good,” he says.

Rhodey wrinkles his nose, “no. We should watch James Bond, any Bond will do,” he says.

“We should watch The Sound of Music,” Clint says and Bruce gives him a look.

“No, we should watch Gravity. Sandra Bullock was good in that,” he says.

“We’re watching Sharknado,” Natasha says and Clint lets out a noise of excitement as the rest of them wrinkle their noses.

“Natasha, I forbid that,” Steve says, apparently throwing out a desperate bid for leadership over movie choices.

“Eat my ass,” Natasha tells him. “JARVIS, play the movie.”

Rhodey sighs, “I should have stayed in Egypt for the layover,” he mumbles.

[rotzaprachim]

trouble in the heartlands

(On AO3 : https://archiveofourown.org/works/14893509 0

November, 1975

There’s really nothing in the world that says single and lonely like standing in the check out line on Thanksgiving evening with a flat pack of dried ramen, a bottle of Jack Daniels, and a frozen turkey dinner.

(The instant ramen is his usual Thursday purchase, but the frozen turkey dinner is for festivity, and the alcohol is because of how goddamn sorry for himself he feels right now.)

He’s counted out the change in his pocket three times, done the mental math of the tax before he reached the check out because god damn, there’s been enough times in his life when he’s been short at the end of it, scrounging for pennies in his pockets.

He thought he could count on solitude at 6:30 pm on Thanksgiving day, but someone comes up behind him and throws a solitary bag of marshmallows on the till.

Someone with a very familiar set of hands, perfectly manicured nails and all.

“If it isn’t the famous Lando Calrissian.”

“Ham Solo!”

Lando is impeccably dressed, as always, wearing dark jeans and a button-up shirt with a fall leaf design and some kind of a massive, almost cloak-like, knit cardigan that would look ridiculously terrible on Han but on him just works. Like everything does.

(Han’s wearing a different flannel shirt than yesterday. He thinks. Hopes.)

Lando’s eyes flit over Han’s shopping. He tries not to notice Lando’s eyelashes. Or his lips. Or .. . . anything else about him.

“Nutritionally balanced, I see.”

“Hey! The only thing you’re buying is a bag of marshmallows.”

“These are for my mother’s famous sweet potato casserole, if you must know. Lilah and Janie stole the first bag and now she’s sans marshmallows for her annual cookoff-slash-cage match with my Aunt Tia. And so I must play the part of the dutiful son,” he finishes, over dramatically tapping the bag of marshmallows.

Han vaguely remembers that Lilah and Janie are two of Lando’s nieces. The whole situation’s domestic enough that it stabs at his insides in a wierd, uncomfortable way. Like he has feelings.

The guy in front of Han finishes paying for his approximately million rounds of ammunition- god bless America!- and the cashier starts to ring up Han’s shit.

“3.85.”

“Wait a minute. It’s supposed to be 3.35.”

“3.85. If you can’t pay, put something back.”

He does’t have the extra fifty cents. What he does have is a bent coupon book he shoves at the cashier.

“3.35. Look, the noodles are on sale.”

“The Sizzling Shrimp Surprise and the Rockin’ Wasabi were on sale. The Picante Beef, as a premium flavour, are not.”

Han’s about to fight past the overwhelming wave of humiliation at having this drama play out in front of the ex-boyfriend he has not, in fact, gotten over yet emotionally, and swap the Picante Beef for a case of Rockin’ Wasabi, when Lando places two quarters on the till.

“Should cover it.”

“I don’t need-“

“It’s fine-“

“I don’t need it.”

“Jesus, Han. You don’t have to live your entire life in some kind of fucking self-impost "lone gunman" exile. That’s not the way that humans work.”

And suddenly they’re back in a slightly different argument in a very different place, and Lando is folding his stuff to leave and Han is saying things he will never, ever, stop regretting.

“Thanks,” he mumbles, and shoves his stuff into a plastic bag to leave.

“Hey,” Lando calls after him, “you looking for somewhere to spend Thanksgiving?”

It’s a question and an invitation and Han doesn’t which is the worse coward’s way- ignoring it, or taking it up and letting the disaster start all over again, this time with bigger stakes and sharper knives and deeper wounds.

He chooses the former, and trips over a display of fake plastic pumpkins on the way out.

December, 1981

Sometimes, the entire story of the disaster can be spread out on the conveyor belt: gauze, burn cream, disinfectant, and Lando Calrissian’s ex-boyfriend, standing and looking sheepish under the glaring supermarket lights, with a splotchy red hand he keeps waving around periodically.

(Sometimes, another story is spread out beside it, on the other side of the divider, on Lando’s side of the conveyor belt. Breath mints and a box of condoms and a small bouquet of those supermarket roses.)

“You’re sure you’re fine, Han?” He doesn’t even bother with wildly mispronouncing his name. “Because whatever happened to your hand, that looks like it needs actual medical attention. Not whatever shit you’re going to try.”

“I’m. Fine.,” he insists through gritted teeth, and given how overdramatic Han usually is, his forced placidity tells Lando that it hurts like hell.

“What happened?”

“The usual badass stuff, you know. Got into a fist fight with some guys next to a tortilla chip factory, things got ugly, had to take it to one of the vats of boiling oil-“

“Calm down, friend.” Lando does some quick mental math. “Fifth night of Hannukah, yeah?”

“Yeah.”

(“Not like, a major holiday or anything,” he remembers Han saying, “but it’s the only one that’s got my name in it- well, kinda, sorta, if you really mispronounce the first ch- plus there’s fried stuff and culturally sanctioned gambling.”)

“You burn yourself frying?” He has to laugh, just a little. “What’s changed?”

“SOLO!,” a voice screams across the mostly deserted row of check out stations. The voice belongs to a fair, pale woman, wearing a long white skirt and a distinctly annoyed expression. “The pharmacist said that only an idiot could mess applying this stuff. Your hand should be fine. Probably”

She wedges her way past Lando, slams a small box with a long medical name on the till, and then snaps her purse open.

“I can pay-“

One look of her narrowed brown eyes and Han shuts up.

“Y’think I can get a robot hand like Luke’s?”

“Luke lost his entire hand as a combat injury. You lightly burned yours trying to copy some trick you saw Julia Child do once because you couldn’t find a spatula.”

Han waves his hand in front of Leia’s face. “What part of this looks lightly burned? It hurts like hell.”

“Yeah, well, so do breakups and periods, but you don’t hear people asking for robot appendages to make up for those.”

There’s something familiar in the way they bicker, but also in the way Leia wraps her arm around his shoulders and buries her head against his neck while she laughs, even though she’s still also clearly pissed about the magnitude of idiocy involved in the latke incident. Lando decides not to overanalyse it, because even on the surface level it’s enough to stab him in the heart.

When Han introduces them they swap business cards. Leia Organa, City Councilwoman. Lando Calrissian, CEO, Bespin Industries. They’re the kind of people who’d meet at a dinner party or a networking event, somewhere with crudités and boxed white wine in little glasses where they’d take turns schmoozing and cutting at the stuffed shirts and pretentious titles. That’s how, Lando swears, he and Leia Organa were meant to meet. Not here, not in a harshly lit convenience store with massive displays of fake snow and gingerbread-flavoured candy canes, and not both a little in love with Han Solo.

February, 1983

He’s not sure there’s a clearer visual representation of “single-and-recently-heartbroken” than renting a pile of romantic comedies and buying cookie dough ice cream, but it’s 2 AM and at this point he feels like the only person alive.

The supermarket’s a ghost town, something vaguely macabre about the boxes of Captain Crunch and cans of corn at this hour of the night (morning?) Jesus, he used to be a party boy. This used to be the time that the night got going and the really wild shit started to go down. This used to be the time of night that he waited the rest of the day for.

Now he’s an adult. Now he’s a respectable adult with a successful energy business and a possibly mayoral bid. When the fuck did that happen?

Now he puzzles over wether to add in a box of Lucky Charms for the morning, before deciding fuck that, he’s an adult now, bread, eggs, and Bloody Mary fixings.

It ends up being a pile of stuff he’s going to have to schlep home. Taxi? But at this time of night? He forgot to bring a reusable bag. Plastic bags? He can practically hear Elle yelling at him.

He’s still in a hazy mood as he drops his stuff onto the conveyor belt, taking care so that the Smirnoff doesn’t roll over the side, when he notices the only other guy in line with him.

Fucking hell, the universe can be weird and cruel.

"Yeah, Leia, I got it, I got it, I'm in the checkout line, anything else you need? Saltines or anything. A pause. "No, of fucking course not! I didn't mean to suffest- Well I got it and we'll get home and we'll talk and- and yeah Yeah. We'll talk." He's mumbling into his .. . cell phone? Since when does he have a cell phone? "Yeah. I love you too."

"Hen Yolo. Imagine meeting you here.”

Hen Yolo looks even more dazed and stunned than Lando does. He doesn’t even have some snappy but clearly inferior comeback, which is the sign that something really big’s gone down.;

Lando’s eyes flit to the one item Han’s buying, a small shiny box that Han keeps drumming his fingers against tunelessly. Anxiously.

Shit. Something really small, then.

“Oh,” says Lando, because even he can’t really think of how to respond to running into his fucking ex-boyfriend at 2 AM in a convenience story buying a fucking pregnancy test.

(He notices, right then, that Han still has the remnants of the burn scars across the backs of his hands, his knuckles. They look almost floral.)

“Hey,” says Han.

Instinctively, his hand snatches over to cover the test, eyes darting like cornered prey.

(It’s not beyond Lando’s notice that Councilwoman Leia Organa has become Senator Leia Organa since the last time they met. And who can forget the months of tabloid buzz over her being the secret daughter of President Vader, either?)

(Also: at some point those tabloids are going to get ahold of Han and have a field day. He looks like a doctored-ly terrible paparazzi photo most of the time anyway. And however this current situation plays out, there’s a high likelihood Han’s going to be pulled from the shadows as something more than Senator Organa’s secret boyfriend/occaisonal driver.)

“My lips are sealed, Solo.”

Han nods, distracted, almost bouncing off the balls of his feet, more nervous teenager than the 30-something man he is. He’s projecting enough rays of nervous energy to power an entire city.

The cashier doesn’t spare a glance at what Han’s buying as she rings him up. “Cash or credit?”

“Credit.”

He pulls a sturdy-looking leather wallet that Lando’s never seen before from his jeans pocket and takes out a fancy silver card.

Lando pretends to be shocked. “Credit? Han Solo with a credit card? What are you, moving up in the world? Respectable?”

He ignores Lando, shoves his purchase into a paper bag, and stalks out the door.

Maybe it’s because he’s a goddamn idiot without any sense of self-preservation either, or maybe it’s because he actually goddamn misses the man who was, for years, his best friend, but Lando makes a split decision and dashes out after Han, leaving his place in line and all his groceries still on the till.

“Solo! SOLO! HAAAAN!”

Childish, maybe, but it’s enough to make Han slow down. Not turn around, but slow down, and when he reaches his car, stop.

“What do you want?”

Because they’ve lied to each other enough times before, Lando decides to be honest.

“My old friend back.”

“Fucking hell, Lando, it’s too late for you to come pulling me back into your-“

“Not as we were, clearly. It’s far too late for that.”

“Yeah. Yeah, it definetely is.”

More awkward silence. Lando notes that the Falcon now has a bunch of Leia’s campaign stickers on it and that Han’s done. . . well at least a cursory job at cleaning the inside of it out. He’s taken some of Chewie’s fur off the seats, at least. He’s still got the gold dice.

“Hold out your arm,” Lando finally instructs.

“Why?”

“Because I'm giving you my new number and this is the only way I now you won’t loose it.”

Lando pulls a Sharpie out of his pocket while Han reluctantly rolls back a sleeve. He writes his number on Solo’s arm with big, mildly humiliating strokes, and then scrawls - Calrissian, CEO Bespin Industries, future mayor- on his wrist, just for slight irritation’s sake.

(If you got rid of of ten years, the pregnancy test, and the parking lot, and added in some terrible pounding music, a disco ball, and some terribly v-cut shirts, this could almost be the first time they met.)

“Thanks. I’ll call you.”

“I’ll hold you to it.”

“Who knows? Maybe I’ll send you an invite to one of Leia’s Shabbat dinners. They’re pretty great. All three senator Organas, her brother and whoever his current boyfriend is, her eldritch abomination of a biological father-“

“Really?”

Lando’s one experience with President Vader can only really be quantified as soul-shaking terror, but the image of him sitting down with Leia and Han at a dining table is almost hilarious.

“Nah, he’s serving a life sentence. But come anyway.”

Who knows? It’s a long life. Maybe he will.

“How’r things going for you? The mining thing really took off, didn’t it?”

“Sustainable energy, Solo. It’s made me more money than you could ever dream of-“

“Hey-“

“So I’ve been thinking about what to do with it. Sports car, mansion, creating a network of mentorship opportunities for kids in tech, sustainable development, politics, capes, paying off special interest groups. You know, the usual.”

Han smiles and bites his lip. “Have you changed at all?”

“Yes. Like I said, I’m rich.” He claps Han on the shoulder, just enough to shake the man slightly. “Enough on me. You gotta get home. You gotta get back to Leia.”

He nods and jumps into the Falcon, which rumbles as argumentatively to life as it always does.

“See you around.”

Lando watches the Falcon drive off. He decides that rescuing his groceries from the check-out line isn’t worth it, pulls out his phone, and calls a taxi.

[condensed-theorem-shop]

today i went to the campus mental health center

(if you have missed my litany of complaints so far: i am depressed and trying to get help and it turns out this is much more impossible than the posters lead you to believe, i called a therapist and he wasn’t in and i left a message and several days later he called me back late in the evening so i missed it and the next day i called him back and he was out and his receptionist said i could leave a message and he’d call me back in half an hour but he never did so then i tried a different clinic and they told me i needed to call their psychiatric department which was closed for the weekend already so on monday i tried that and they said they would call me back within three days for processing and they never did that so finally i gave up and decided to just show up at the campus mental health center)

and they made me fill out some paper forms and then fill out some electronic forms and then they made me an appointment for december 4th, which if you’re counting is a month from now, and i have already been trying to get help for like a month and honestly ‘there are better options’ sounds much less snappy as a thing to say to suicidal people when the better options expect you to spend two months doing things like making phone calls that are nigh-impossible in the first place

(and they also said they’d put me in touch with their guy who helps students find long-term therapy options, but he was out right now, but they would send an email and get him in touch with me and he would help put me in touch with some other therapist, which is great and totally unlike the last five times someone has been all ‘we’ll just refer you to this person who is out right now and will refer you to someone else who will fail to call you back’)

and then they had me talk with a “post-clinical doctoral student” (or something but I’m pretty sure it translated to “no idea what she’s doing”) for the mandatory “are you going to kill yourself” interview

and that, like, sucked. a lot.

for one thing she was like the bad stereotype of a therapist. the conversation kept going like this:

me: “i am just so frustrated with this whole process, i am trying to do the responsible thing and get help but people keep being out and referring me to people who are out and saying they’ll call me back and not doing that”

her: “it sounds like you’re frustrated”

me: “yes. that’s because i’m frustrated”

her: “and that’s a reasonable thing to feel”

me: “yes i just explained all the reasons to you”

(yes i did actually say those things to her, i was getting pretty short on patience by the end)

but she really did just keep responding to everything by saying “it sounds like you feel very frustrated right now” which was like -- yes?? i just told you that. and i am frustrated because you are not helping me and the way to respond to this is not to observe that i am frustrated it is to help me

and then the second way in which it sucked was that she really really wanted to commit me

like, really. and i am pretty upfront with therapists at this point, okay, as soon as they get started on the “do you have a plan” questions i say “look i want to give you useful information but i also worry that if i accidentally phrase something the wrong way it could be misinterpreted and you could end up thinking i am a danger to myself, which i absolutely am not, and committing me, which i absolutely do not want to have happen and would find actively harmful”

and most decent therapists deal okay with this? and i can usually do okay with framing my answers correctly, like, they say “do you think about killing yourself” and i say “not in the sense of considering it as an option, never, but for the last eight years it’s been the case that when i’m having a depressive episode i sometimes have thoughts about it, which i would never act on and have never acted on, because i wouldn’t do that to my family and because i have things i want to do in life, and i have techniques for coping with and managing those thoughts”

and usually this goes over okay! like, most therapists have ever encountered the concept of having thoughts one does not intend to act on. but this one was not buying it. she said “do you have a plan,” which is normal, and i said my normal thing which is “absolutely not in the sense of planning on doing it, but i mean, at some point in the past eight years i have thought about specific methods, yes”

and again this normally goes over fine but i think she was going down her Therapy 301 checklist or something because i could practically see her doing the hawk-circling thing and she was like “and what methods have you thought about”

and this i do not normally get, and it was like a flashing DANGER DANGER sign because i am not an idiot okay i know the checklists for “imminent suicide risk” and she was assessing whether it was a method that would work that i had access to and if the answer was yes this was bad

(and of course the answer is yes i always have a plan that would work that i have access to just like i have a plan for what i would do if the house caught on fire, okay, i feel safer if i have plans for in case i need them, that doesn’t mean i’m planning on setting my house on fire)

so i was like “hmm can you explain to me why it’s helpful to you to know that” and she gave this super hedge-y answer that amounted to “yep i’m assessing whether to commit you”

(which i do not think much of, btw, the hedging that is, good therapists will be straightforward with you when you ask)

and i was like “yeah so it seems to me like that information isn’t helpful to you in any actual therapeutic way, and given that i know commitment would be actively harmful to me, i am not convinced the incentives here are for me to answer that question”

and she was like “well that makes me more worried” which, uh, fuck you, i am being honest with you, i could have just lied, i will just lie if it becomes necessary, i don’t like lying to my doctor but when they refuse to let me not answer a question and threaten me with involuntary commitment if i don’t then i will have zero qualms about lying up and down through my teeth

so at this point i had pretty much given up on getting any actual benefit out of the conversation and was just going for “leave without getting myself committed” so i just gave her a bunch of entries for her Therapy 301 checklist, like, it has been eight years and i have never attempted suicide and i have never harmed myself badly enough to leave a scar and that not in three years and i have a supportive family and &c &c

and surprise surprise that got her to drop it. like ffs i have been doing this for eight years that is almost certainly longer than she has i am not an idiot i know how this works

but she still totally wanted to commit me, which, again, fuck that, but she kept trying to talk me into it despite the fact that i had been very clear and firm and even explained reasons that it would be actively counterproductive

at one point she started on the “you know, mental hospitals don’t actually look like...” spiel and i lost my temper and interrupted her and said “i know, i know, it has been eight years, i have heard this before, i have done my research, i told you this is not an irrational fear this is a reasoned preference i know the difference, i have seen actual photos of psychiatric wards i know they do not look like the hollywood thing, i have read actual accounts by doctors who work there and by patients who’ve been confined there and i have come to the considered conclusion that this would be extremely harmful to me i am not an idiot okay”

and she was like “okay but have you considered: involuntary commitment! awesome!” (okay that one was not a direct quote but she kept trying to push it ffs)

and at that point i was just. done. so i said “hard no” and kept saying it until she let me leave

so that sucked!

and beyond those two main aspects of suckiness, the it-sounds-like-you-feel and the super-wanting-to-commit-me, it sucked in a whole bunch of other little bonus ways

like when i was this far from strangling the stupid doctoral student and spent a good two minutes getting myself under control and then she got all chirpy and went “those were some GOOD DEEP BREATHS” and was lucky not to be punched on the spot because seriously

or how she kept avoiding the word “suicide”, like, she would say “how do you think about harming yourself” and i would be about to answer and then think about context and be like “....wait do you actually mean self-harm or do you mean killing myself” and she would be like “.......uh, i mean .... [tiny voice] suicide” like idk if she thought saying the word would give me the idea?? or if she just couldn’t bear to utter it??? but seriously grow UP woman i LIVE with this you can handle SAYING it

or how she gave me their card with their stupid crisis line on it and was like “if you start having those thoughts again call this number!! it’ll give you the police and they’ll put you through to us and we are HAPPY TO HELP!!!” and i was like “yes because suicidal students calling the police has worked out so well for them at this university historically”

(earlier this semester a suicidal student called the university police who proceeded to shoot and kill them)

and she was like “.....uh well there was that one incident. but we help LOTS AND LOTS of students! every night, lots of calls!”

(i narrowly refrained from saying “but you fuck one goat...”, admire my self-restraint)

anyhow eventually i left having been given no actually helpful help whatsoever. and hid in the bathroom and cried. and i would just like to say that i feel that if students are hiding in the bathroom outside your counseling center crying then this is probably a sign that there is something seriously wrong with your systerm

so, like. fuck them. fuck everything. fuck the fact that i do in fact have reasons to keep living, this would be so much easier if i didn’t. fuck all this. i guess i get to continue doing this on my own. i am depressive and barely functional but i am still better at this than she is.

on the upside i complained to my dad about the involuntary commitment part and he was like “if it helps the first thing we’d do if they tried to pull that would be get a lawyer and get on the first flight there”

which, uh, does in fact help a lot, i had not previously been at all sure they would side with me on that one. so that was nice to hear.

fuck the mental health care system.

[passionate-hedgehog]

HOW WE CAME TO BE pt 1

Prompts #43  “Is that blood?” “No?” “That’s not a question you answer with another question.”

A/N: This was requested with another prompt, but I planned it to where the other prompt meshes with someone else’s. You know what it’s like to get something in your head and not be able to go back on it, right? It’s a force.

 Remember that these are all sort of connected together. You could read them as stand-alone, but that’s up to you. So the timeline may not be in order but just imagine it like This Is Us (unless you’ve never seen an episode of that show or just have never heard of it.)

 As I’m doing my finishing touches and edits, I’m just starting season 6. I found “Sigh No More” by Mumford and Sons after writing this. I’m just putting that info out there. Do what you want with it. This is approx. 2360 words. Oh, my goodness.

There’s no way this is happening,” you thought to yourself as you looked at the stick in your hands. “Holy ice cream, Batman.

The stick hadn’t given a response at that point, but you knew. There was no doubt in your mind, you knew. There were so many things that should have been going through your mind. But you couldn’t actually form a coherent thought. You thought maybe you were afraid, maybe not. Maybe you were worried about how Spencer would take it, maybe not. Maybe you were concerned about what you would do about money, but then maybe you knew it would all work out. Everything was a maybe, no actual concrete feeling.

“Oh, gosh.” You placed a hand on your head and sat on the edge of the toilet in your bathroom. YOUR bathroom, because you and Spencer hadn’t even been living together.

You gathered yourself after staring into space holding the test in your hand for more than a few minutes. You got up from your seat on the tub edge and tossed the offending plastic into the trash, you didn’t need to see the results. You needed Haagen-Dazs. You wished you could blame all of your Haagen-Dazs cravings on a baby.

By the time you got your gray pea coat buttoned and went to slip on your black ballet flats, your phone was ringing. You heaved a great sigh and fished it out of your pocket. You answered it without looking at the ID.

“Emotionally Drained and* Sorta Dead Inside, speak.”

“Uh, Y/N?”

Your eyes grew as big as The Grinch’s heart after he discovered the true meaning of Christmas. “JJ?!?”

“You okay? You’re not usually so melodramatic when you answer the phone. Okay, I take that back, you’re not so out of it and melodramatic when you answer the phone. Is everything alright?” Your boyfriend’s co-worker’s voice called through the other end.

“What? No...yeah- I’m fine. I’m- Is everything okay on your end? You don’t usually call in the middle of the work day.” You stood in your doorway, unsure if you were going to be putting your shoes on or not.

“Well,” JJ sighed. “Look, I know it’s your day off and so does Spencer.”

“What’s wrong?” You fingered the set of keys in your hand and slipped your shoes on. There goes my Haagen-Dazs.

The woman stalled for a few breaths. “JJ.”

“Spencer had a small accident. It’s nothing major-”

“What? If it were nothing major, you wouldn’t have called or started this conversation the way you did.” You opened the door and closed it quickly behind you, completely forgetting to lock it. “Which hospital is he at?”

“See that’s the thing, Y/N, he’s not. He opted out. He’s not in any immediate danger, but you know we have rules and protocols. I’ve never seen him refuse medical attention like this before. At least not when...”

“Right, the Dilaudid.” You fast-walked down the sidewalks towards the closest bus stop that would get you to your destination the fastest. “I’m going to assume y’all are back at your building?”

JJ sighed in relief. “I can have someone come pick you up?”

“I’m already at the bus stop. The bus will be here in about,” you checked your phone for the time. “Half an hour. Ugh.”

You scrunched your nose at the oncoming nausea making its way through your system. This was NOT the day for all the...hullabaloo. Maybe if I can convince Spence to go to the hospital, I can sneak off for a minute. Do I need a prescription for prenatal vitamins?

“Sometimes you do, why?” You heard JJ say, quickly remembering you were on the phone with her.

“What? Why what?”

“You asked if a prescription was needed for prenatal vitamins. It depends on what you need. Why would you ask, Y/N?”

I need to stop saying inside things on the outside. “No, I didn’t.”

“Y/N...”

“You said you could get me a ride? That’d be awesome. You can find out where I am from my phone’s GPS, right? Cool. I’ll see you guys soon.” You quickly ended the call and took a deep breath.

You were screwed.

Penelope Garcia, your favorite cousin of a friend to ever exist, was the one to pick you up. She had located you via GPS and was very quick.  She didn’t say anything that led you to believe that JJ had relayed to her what you discussed earlier. All that was mentioned was that Spencer and a suspect had gotten into a small...tiff… and your boyfriend was refusing to go to the hospital.

When you made it to the bullpen, it was empty of the team. Penelope walked away after surveying the room, and you followed her into the conference room. Spencer, you found, was sitting in a chair surrounded by his co-workers. You didn’t see Derek Morgan, but you could feel it the second JJ laid her eyes on you. Hotch was explaining to you in detail what had happened. Spencer wouldn’t look you in the eye, and you wondered if it were because he knew you’d want him to go in. You, however, were busy making sure that JJ’s eyes wouldn’t catch yours. For some reason, the shame in the room was palpable, but you didn’t know why. What was Spencer so upset about? And why were you so scared about JJ knowing the truth?

“Is that blood,” you asked while looking at where the collar of his shirt met his skin.

Spencer rolled his lips inward. “No?”

“Spencer! That’s not a question you answer with another question!” You fingered the cloth and gently pushed it out of the way so you could see what the injury better.

“Will you please tell Pretty Boy that he needs to go get checked by the actual doctors at the actual hospital?” Garcia had one hand on her hip and stared her co-worker down.

“I am a-” Spencer began but was silenced when her finger wagged in his face.

“Don’t even.”

Spencer heaved a sigh and then looked at you, almost pleadingly. He played up the puppy dog eyes, and it would have worked, had it not been for the cut under his eye and bruising along his cheek and nose. Looking down you could see some of his button up undershirt had been torn, and there were some cuts under that, too.

“Get your stuff. We’re going. No arguing.” You raked your fingers through your hair, still trying to fight off the nausea. “I’m sure you’re completely fine and a-OK, but if you don’t go in, I’m going to pull my hair out from getting it from your co-workers. And then I’ll have to go to the God-awful salon and listen to them nit-pick everything about me, and I’m not about to deal with that.

Someone softly cleared their throat, and you blinked a few times and sighed. Hormones off the charts, check. Next thing I’ll do is barf over everything.

“Are you feeling OK? You’re looking a little green. Someone can take Spencer instead if you feel you need to lay down.” Your boyfriend’s supervisor asked.

You closed your eyes and took a deep breath. You leaned on the chair sitting in front of you and then looked up shaking your hair out of your face. “No, I’m fine. I just...had a crazy morning. I can take him, it’s not an issue.”

“Y/N...” Your boyfriend looked up at you almost in worry.

“Spencer, I’m fine. It’s nothing to worry about. Let’s just get you checked out and take you home, hmm?” You leaned towards him and gave him a gentle kiss on his cheek while grabbing his coat.

Looking up, you accidentally caught JJ’s eyes and you had a silent and brief conversation. You knew she’d be calling you later, but you also knew she wouldn’t say anything to anybody. She had gone through the same thing. You were grateful already.

When you and Spencer were situated in the waiting room of the hospital, he kept eyeing you. You knew he could tell something was off. You also knew that there was no way he would be able to figure it out so soon. He’d been so busy lately that he hadn’t been around to really see any of the signs.

The second he grabbed your hand and interlaced your fingers, you relaxed. You sort of leaned against his arm and laid your head on his shoulder, trying not to irritate any of his injuries. Feeling his breathing was soothing you and you wondered if there was something biological about it because your nausea cut down. Maybe that was going to be a positive sign for the future. Although, no one could make you feel the way Spencer could.

“I love you,” you blurted with your head still tucked in the crook of his neck.

Spencer squeezed your hand and hummed “I love you, too, Y/N.”

It had taken about 15 minutes before the two of you got called back but eventually, you were shown to a room. Spencer sat on the examination bed and you sat in the chair over in the corner. It was silent for a few minutes while you waited for the doctor to come see you. But just because it was silent didn’t mean the room was loud with tension, thick with it.

Oh, Spencer could definitely tell something was up. You wouldn’t meet his eyes, and you knew your snappiness back at the bureau was completely out of character. You might be able to use the “no sleep” excuse with him, but the second you’d voice it he’d want to come home with you. He’d want to be somewhere close to keep an eye on you. The thing was, was that if he did that, then you wouldn’t be able to hide the morning sickness that you knew was coming.

“Are you going on ‘Spencer Watch’ when we get out?” He wasn’t looking at you, and he was fiddling with his sleeve cuff.

Maybe it’s not me I should be worried about.

A few seconds passed, and he still wouldn’t look at you. You were about to get up and try to figure out what was wrong when someone walked into the room. You’d hold it in until you were on your way back home.

Spencer had been cleared by the doctor after the cuts and bruises were deemed superficial. He didn’t need any stitches, just some R&R. He was driving while you studied his profile. His demeanor was still wary.

“Were you worried that you would have to be on painkillers? Is that why you were so ashamed and afraid to go get checked out?”

Silence.

You grabbed his hand and held it tight. “I believe in you, Spence. Believe in yourself, huh? Believe that you’re going to be okay. I’m here for you, and I’m not going anywhere.”

Spencer let out a breath and gave a delicate smile. “Yeah, I know. Same goes for you.”

Uh-oh.

You forced your eyes to look out the windshield and away from him. There was no way he could have figured it but you knew deep down that it was entirely possible that he already did. The guy was a genius. A profiler for the FBI. He didn’t get to where he was by accepting things at face value. He was better than that.

“You shouldn’t be afraid to tell me things, Y/N. You know all of my secrets, deeply hidden or not.” He put the car in park and turned as best as he could still in his seat belt. “What’s going on in my favorite brain?”

You giggled as he playfully ruffled the hair on top of your head. Running your fingers through your locks to set everything back in its place, you thought it over but ultimately came to a single conclusion.

“It’s work. We’re prepping for a new resident and it’s off-putting for the ones that are there, and it’s a whole new schedule and process and...it’s just all so much. We haven’t had an official meeting yet, and it just feels like everything is closing in. For some of us workers, it’s the first time adjusting to a new resident. I don’t know...It’s just...a lot of stress. And I’m not entirely sure I’m over losing my first one. We weren’t close, but she was still a human that I took care of.”

You didn’t dare look him in the eye. You were lying through your teeth, and it was eating at you.  I am the worst person ever.

Spencer tucked some of your hair behind your ear, and he studied you. When you eventually looked up, you could see it in his eyes. He accepted your words, but he didn’t believe them. Not for a second.

I’m so sorry, Spencer. “Things just feel like they’re getting out of hand.

He looked away and lightly nodded. He licked his lips, and you felt nausea again. You never hid anything from him and now he knew you were holding something big. Things were going to change, and you didn’t think it was going to be for the better.

But I can’t tell him yet.

“Do you want to stay and order some Thai?” Please. Please don’t leave yet.

“I should head back to the office and let them know I’m in one piece. Plus the doctor said to take it easy while I can.” This time it was Spencer that wouldn’t look at you while he spoke.

“Right.” You unhooked your seat belt and gave him a kiss on the cheek. “I’ll talk to you later, then?”

A nod.

Noticing the dismissal for what it was, you eased yourself out of the car and walked up to your apartment and unlocked the door. You kept an eye out of your peripheral and watched as he drove away after making sure you got in OK. You tossed your keys into the jar on the side table and leaned against the door. Tears followed the deep breath you released and you tried to keep the sobs inside.

What have I done?

[stratosphericinterference-blog]

Questionnaire #1

What foods do they love, and what foods do they refuse to eat? - She loves Green apple taffy, caramel corn, and pulled pork.She’s not a super picky eater, but she won’t touch —  roast beef? Clam chowder, artificial cheese flavoring - all your ‘itos’ - doritos, cheetos - the fritos with the chilli cheese on them. And hot dogs. An irrational dislike for hotdogs. And a suspicion about street food.

What is their weapon of choice, and what weapon do they dislike using the most?  - She doesn’t really use weapons, so this isn’t particularly applicable - but in a more esoteric sense she does dislike using her telepathy to meet her own ends or get the better of people - though it does help her out of harassment/potential danger pretty often. She’s not a paranoid person - she knows what people are thinking. She has a dislike of knives, though. They’re the most unpredictable weapons - the ones you get the least notice with when it comes to people holding onto them in concealed fashions.

What is their preferred method of transportation?  - She can ride the subway, as long as she has headphones. Her *preferred* method, however, is driving. Alone. No traffic.

Who did they look up to the most as a child? Who do they look up to as an adult?  - As a child, her older siblings, the twins. The twins. As an adult? It’s her little sister she probably admires most. Though she’s come to

What kind of weather makes them happy, and what kind makes them sad? - She likes fretfully cold days - and loves rain. Rain is the thing that makes her feel most like she’s at home. Thunderstorms are rare in the city, but she enjoys going out in them.

What languages do they speak? Do they have any idiosyncrasies or identifiable patterns of speech, word usages, etc? - She speaks English and Pidgin - but very little Native Hawaiian.  Pidgin words slip into her usual conversation - words for things that exist in her household. She very notably has a “general american dialect”, and when she does speak, she, stereotypically and to her perpetual annoyance, always *sounds* relaxed, even when she decidedly is not.

What clothing do they like to wear, and what do they wear most often? - She’s a tank top-cardigan kind of girl, think. She dresses well when she’s leaving the house and is often wearing more layers than strictly necessary  She gets cold easily. She likes wristlets - bangles and the like. There’s a leather anklet with a charm on it that she always wears/takes very good care of. Her grandmother gave it to her.

Do they eat a healthy diet? A varied one? -She really enjoys fruits, but is impartial to vegetables. Eats mostly a pescatarian diet, though has been known to eat bacon now and then, so you can’t really call her an anyhting-tarian

As a child, what did they want to be when they grew up? Did they realize their dream? - as a kid, Al wanted to be a pilot. she’s really not doing anything remotely related to that now, for obvious reasons. Before she knew about her powers, she also wanted to be a Detective, a spy, an astronaut, a jazz singer, and a professional tennis player.

What makes them feel safe or secure? What makes them feel insecure or unsafe? - she feels safest at home, with her family and her two dogs. when everyone is at home in the same house. also, her family doctor makes her feel comforted? In new York, she feels safest when she’s got a clear head - meaning she’s wearing headphones and listening to music. she likes to be at the center of rooms and houses when at all possible - probably one of the only people that likes places that don't have windows or a view of outside - her bed faces away. She feels insecure around manipulative people, strangers - a lot of new Yorkers, actually - and when made to speak more than she is willing to volunteer to speak. She likes being able to control her thoughts - and has to concentrate to feel focused a lot of the time.

What do they do when they need comfort? Do they seek out a person, a food, an activity, etc? - As above - big headphones and a piano. She’s got a stuffed beanbag fox she hangs onto that lives on her bed. Sometimes she’ll call home and talk to her little sister - hear about her day.

Do they sing or play any musical instruments, even if just for fun? How well? - She does and can sing pretty well. She plays the flute and can survive on a piano, but it’s really something she’s teaching herself as a coping mechanism.

What decision in their past did they most analyze and fret over after the fact? - the first person she ever told that she thought she had powers. (to expound upon)

What are they like when they are drunk?  - she’s a very *honest* drunk, I’ll say that. giggly - and this is a very rare occurrence, because she tends to respond to things that people aren’t saying, only to freak out about what she’s revealed later on.

Where in their body do they keep stress or tension?   - her neck, the small of her back, and her toes - she curls them in her shoes - crossing her arms in fornt of her sends all that stress to her extremities. she’s prone to headaches.

What do they think about where they currently live? If they could move elsewhere, would they? - she’s unsure about new york as a whole, but something is telling her that she was meant to be here. She wouldn’t move - or so she tells herself - but she can’t, really, so it’s kind of a non starter.

Do they have any pet peeves or petty dislikes, and how do they react to encountering them? - dishonest and lecherous people - but that isn’t petty, is it? Hm…People who clip their nails in public. People who talk too much.  Pen clicking. Excessive planning.  She’s a very cerebral person, so there are things she doesn’t notice  -  people who talk on their cell phones while driving. Gum chewing. just the sound it makes. Her general response is, realistically, not to say much at all, but admittedly she does judge those people in her head.

What foods do they eat most often? Do they enjoy it? - citrusy fruits. I don’t know that she enjoys it so much as it is a habit. She also *really* likes altoids.

What is their favorite texture? - natural wood grain. fresh linen. She also really enjoys jello. Not necessarily to eat. But as a concept.

Do they like to travel? How do they pack and prepare? - she packs really lightly and usually takes a small detergent with her? shes got a small hardsided suitcase that she keeps pretty much ready. airports overwhelm her so she doesn’t like them much, and vacillates between getting there wildly early to miss the rush (When there isn’t usually one) and getting there at the very last minute so there’s no wait.

How well do they take criticism? How do they react to others noticing their flaws? - Someone noticing her flaws is is not something that happens often. She plays her cards pretty close to the chest. But her general reaction is to at first react with surprise, and yet more guardedness - I feel like she gets pretty quiet - when one of her siblings does it, it cuts her to the quick - she actually doesn’t take criticism super well, and it makes her clam up and put up various walls to keep the unveiling from continuing. Note to self to explore how she feels about herself.

What are they like when they get sick? Do they have a particular system (ears, lungs, etc) that illness gravitates to? - Al gets earaches a lot. She’s pretty snappy when she’s sick, and often succumbs to it fairly suddenly, while her outward appearance will not change. She has a tendency to bury herself and become really needy and vulnerable - and being physically sick - running on less processing power brain wise- intensifies the upper range of her abilities.

What is their favorite drink? - orange juice. or red wine.

How do they react to being physically injured or undergoing medical treatment? -everything goes quiet when she’s hurt. IT’s like her body has a separate defense mode that incapacitates her powers. She had a short stint of experimentation with self-harm as a youngster - 12-13 because of this, but was caught by her elder sister one day and soundly scolded before they got her help. In times of extreme duress, she considers this.

What do their hands look and feel like? - -small. she’s got piano fingers. they’re not soft in a way that suggests she never uses them for anything - the feel like the hands of someone who likes playing outside. She’s got two lines on the backs of each of her hands, long faded and unrelated to the above question.

How much do they eat, and how often? Do they drink appetite suppressants (tea, coffee, etc)? - she’s a BIG eater. drinks a lot of water and juice, no coffee. Likes tea in evenings or early rainy mornings.

Do they have children? Do they want children? What names would they choose? - NO CHILDREN EVEr. She’s got a little sister, though, who’s nine, and hasn’t displayed any sort of ability yet that she knows about. Al is terrified of the idea of having children.

What is a gift that they have received that was especially touching or significant? -the anklet she wears all the time - the charm is a crescent moon. and the conversation she had with her sister after the aforementioned self harm accident. note to self to explore this. Also, her flute, which came from her grandmother, whom she misses all the time. At the time, her family couldn’t really afford to buy her one of her own, she played the one at school and after a recital her 8th grade year, her grandma bought her one.

How do they arrange or decorate their living space? - lots of pictures - not a lot of frames. She doesn’t do well with clutter and doesn’t have a lot of “Stuff” - fairly minimalist in this regard. She has as lot of specific containers for specific things which are probably labelled but not always - she does a lot of laundry. has a lot of candles and incense and decorates in neutral tones and white. She likes being outside, and that shows.

Do they have any allergies or chronic conditions? - she’s allergic to polyester/specifically synthetic leather. she thinks she’s allergic to new york city, actually.  and she’s prone to broken bones/twisted ankles, for some reason. Tries to get in as much calcium and vitamin C as she can.