#my girl never unlearns that. i think its second nature to her. she only chooses like four people not to do that to and even then its still

[lazyveran]

rereading my own work realising i need to make azula WAY more mean and cruel and nasty. sigh. the things i must do for evil women

[imyourliquor-youremypoison]

A Girl’s Best Friend (Peter Parker x OC) - Part 17

Synopsis: Diamonds are man’s best friend- or dogs are girls’ best friends, wait… how does the saying go again?

Warnings: Family issues; Peter has a crush and it’s complicated; mention of assault; good dogs; College AU; aged up! characters; TONY STARK IS ALIVE AND WE ALL LIVE IN A HAPPY PLACE CALLED DENIAL

A/N: Is anyone still there? I swear things are going to happen soon, your pain is nearing the end now hehe (I love writing slow burns)

Word count: 2.7k

Part 16 <<< >>> Part 18

MASTERLIST

               From the outside, a sense of normalcy seemed to have returned in their lives. Peter waited for Emmeline outside the door to her class; Emmeline walked with Peter and Tessa in-between her classes on Fridays; they sometimes ate together before she returned home at the end of the day.

               The outcome of their conversation was certainly not one Peter had known to expect. He had been prepared to wave goodbye to the friendship he had built with Emmeline – and tried very hard not to think about what it would have become if he hadn’t fucked up. Then again, nothing could ever have happened between them as long as she didn’t know the truth about him.

               The first Saturday, when she walked out of the elevator and made a beeline for him in the Stark Tower lab, Peter broke into a grin that wouldn’t waver the entire day.

“Hey you!” she greeted him, returning the beaming smile and joined him behind the desk.

“Hey yourself,” Peter answered, almost twisting his neck when he followed her with his gaze.

               She set down her bag and hung her coat on the back of a chair before coming to stand next to him.

“What are you working on?” she wondered, leaning in to have a closer look. “Is this a miniature motorbike?” Her eyebrows shot so high up that Peter lost sight of them.

“Oh, it’s nothing, it’s just-“ he caught himself right before the lie came out, and just when Emmeline gave him a skeptical side glance. “I mean, yeah. It’s for Hope. It’s got all kinds of equipment and features that normal bikes don’t have, of course. And it’s fast – like real fast.”

“Hope?” Emmeline asked.

               She didn’t point out Peter’s deep blush that he always seemed to sport whenever he said anything related to his work with the Avengers. Unlearning to lie about his double life would take a while, they were both aware of that fact.

“The Wasp,” he explained. He took the motorbike in his hand to have something else to focus his attention on, and try to get his own face in check. It shouldn’t be possible to blush this much. “It’s not its normal size, obviously. Just checking a few things before she tries it out.”

               Emmeline made a hand gesture, silently asking if she could hold it and Peter handed it over very carefully, letting her lift it to eyelevel and examine it from up close. She didn’t say anything, only hummed appreciatively a few times.

“When will I meet the Avengers?” she asked as she put it back on Peter’s desk.

               Peter’s jaw dropped and he stayed open-mouthed and at loss for words a few seconds, until he saw the expression on Emmeline’s face and the glimmer of playfulness behind her eyes.

“You already met two of them. The best ones,” he told her, now standing up.

               He would finish working on Hope’s motorbike later; when Emmeline dropped by, they worked together on his Spider suit. It was the first time they would work on it knowing it was his…

“Oh! Of course, silly me!” she laughed, slapping her palm against her forehead. “Turns out, you’re the most famous of us two! Who’d have thought, ugh?”

               Peter rolled his eyes and turned around, walking backwards as they made their way towards the back of the room.

“I also photograph way better than you,” he teased her before quickly dodging her arm when she attempted to smack his head. “What’s that in your hand?” he asked when he spotted the paper bag and the familiar logo.

“Oh nothing…” Emmeline trailed off, lifting the bag and peeking inside. “Only your favorite muffin from your favorite place,” she announced, holding the bag behind her back and out of reach when Peter tried to snatch it from her hand. She placed a palm flat against his chest to keep him at a distance.

               Not that it could stop Peter, but her mere touch sent him in a state of complete submission and he froze immediately when her hand was over his heart. He dropped his hand.

“No, you didn’t. I stopped there on my way here, they were all out. I say you’re bluffing!”

“Oh, not for me, baby, they aren’t,” she bragged, wiggling her eyebrows and walking past him, bag still out of his reach. “And since you’re so mean to me, I might eat it myself. If you want one, try going there in your Spider suit!”

“Isn’t that abuse of power?” he wondered, though seriously considering her suggestion. Nah, if Tony found out, he would confiscate the suit, and then wouldn’t he look smart scouting the streets of Queens in his old, DYI suit?

“You kids having a good time?” Mr. Stark’s voice suddenly asked, coming out of nowhere. Emmeline and Peter looked around but saw no one. “Cameras, guys. They are everywhere. Microphones too. Just casually letting you know, in case you decide to get naughty because you think I can’t see you.”

“Ah!” Emmeline exclaimed dramatically, raising both hands in the air. “Here goes my plan for the day!”

“Keep it in your pants, this is a workplace, we only do work-related stuff and nothing fun whatsoever,” Stark said, unable to sound even remotely stern. Then he switched on some music, blasting AC/DC in the lab. “Now get to work, I don’t pay you to slack off!”

               He seemed to tune off and only the background music remained, but Peter frowned and shot Emmeline a confused look.

“Pay? He doesn’t pay us?” He said it like a question, wondering if he was being paid this whole time and didn’t realize. “For my fake internship?”

“I don’t know about you, but I got a legit internship. So yeah, I’m getting paid now.” She shrugged and Peter picked up the clue.

“What? Since when? Why haven’t you told me?” he questioned, feeling a little offended that she kept that from him all this time.

               She winced.

“It’s pretty recent…” she trailed off, biting on her lip. “Tony came to my place shortly after New Year’s Eve,” she started and Peter immediately knew what was what.

               Tony Stark, ever the match-maker, decided to take matters in his own hands and help Peter out after he confessed that Emmeline found out about his secret identity. Or maybe he was simply desperate to get Peter to stop mopping around in his lab.

“I thought he came to plead your cause so I told him to go fuck himself at first,” she then told him. Those words pulled the brakes on Peter’s train of thoughts.

               He stared blankly at her for a second or two or more.

“You said what to who now?” he asked dumbly, blinking slowly while she rolled her eyes at him.

“It’s true,” Tony’s voice came again. It seemed it came out of the same speakers through which F.R.I.D.A.Y spoke. “I have the recording, if you want to hear it. And see? She calls me Tony!”

“It’s very rude to eavesdrop on other people’s conversations!” Peter snapped before remembering who he was talking to. “Can we have a little privacy, Mr. Stark?”

               Only a faint chuckle answered his request, then it was only Back to Black again. He could only hope he wasn’t listening anymore. For being such a busy person, Tony sure had a lot of time on his hands if he spent it spying on him whenever his crush was around.

               Peter was pulled out of his internal musings by Emmeline’s laughter.

“You’re too cute, you know that?” she simply asked, not expecting an answer but chucking him the muffin. “Anyway, long story short: he didn’t come to beg me to forgive you on your behalf, but he offered me an internship.”

“A real one? A legit, normal internship?” Peter felt the need to ask for clarification.

“No, I’m actually a superhero too now. Code name’s Captain Sarcasm,” Emmeline replied with a smirk.

               She crossed her arms over her chest while Peter glared at her through narrowed eyes, not appreciating the jokes she made at his expense.

“Don’t you make that face at me, Peter Parker!” She held out a finger and poked him in the chest. “I bought you the best and also last pecan and white chocolate chip muffin in all of New York City, it’s a debt you’ll never be able to pay off, so you better be nice to me.”

“I saved your life! Twice!” he pointed out.

               He didn’t really think about what he was doing when he grabbed her finger – he just wanted to make her stop poking him accusingly in the chest. But then he was holding her hand against his own chest, and she still didn’t move it, and he was ready to melt on the floor right then and there. Where was Tony when he needed him?

“Who’s counting?” she simply said with a smile.

               Without letting go of his hand, she walked the last few steps to their workshop, dragging him along.

 *

                 Emmeline hadn’t left town to avoid Peter; she didn’t hole herself up in her room and left all other rooms of her penthouse in the dark to throw him off. No, Emmeline hadn’t done that.

               What she had done, though, was blackmail her own parents into getting her out of her big, empty penthouse and allow her to gain some kind of autonomy. After the events of December, she had something to hold against them, something that would sink her father’s political career faster than the Titanic: they had left her behind.

               The mayor and his lady wife had fled the scene of the shooting, ignoring all their supposedly natural parental instincts that would have made them stay until they knew their daughter was safe. The city was still recovering from the event, it would be the perfect timing for Emmeline to go live on TV, telling everyone what terrible parents they were.

               They had spent her entire life forcing riches onto her as if it made up for everything else that lacked in her life. She chose to take this as a fair retribution. She told them to sell the penthouse, that she never wanted to set foot there again, and instead to buy her a reasonably sized place of her own choosing, in a quiet and not so in-your-face neighborhood, a place normal people with a decent income could also afford, and not only the wealthy 1 %.

               The new place was in her name, entirely paid for. All she asked of her parents now was to cover her expenses until she had a steady job of her own. In exchange, she would keep her scandalous family secrets to herself, continue to play pretend when they needed to appear as a united family, but not have any other ties to them. She was legal after all, the only thing still tying her down was her lack of money.

               She did have a pretty hefty amount of money in her trust fund, but she wouldn’t have access to it for another few years, and she was petty enough to ask her parents to pay for everything a while longer – they liked to buy her affection so much, she figured buying her silence would be the same.

               The new place was radically different, in all aspects. Peter liked it a lot, and he had told her so many times. She didn’t keep anything from her old apartment, expect one object.

“I can’t believe you kept this, of all things,” Peter mused, throwing the glasswork in the air and catching it behind his back.

               He did this now. He showed off. Emmeline noticed a few subtle changes in his behavior since she found out he was Spider-Man. He didn’t hold back anymore now that he didn’t have to pretend to be an average young man, he allowed himself more liberty around her. She liked that.

“It has a certain sentimental value, you see,” she had told him, taking it from him and setting back on its stand. “Couldn’t leave it behind.”

               Peter chuckled and continued to explore the place. It was a typical open space apartment in one of those old buildings that get restored every ten years. This one had a particular charm, and the lighting was great. She had done marvelously well with the decorating.

               The wooden floor that creaked in some places was her favorite thing, she told him. The walls were a warm dark red color on the side where her bed proudly stood, and the rest of the apartment was painted a dusty orange. Only warm, rich colors, with wooden furniture, lots of small lamps to creates a cozy atmosphere.

               He hadn’t truly measured how impersonal her previous place was, how unlike her. It was obvious now that she hadn’t had a word to say in the decoration of the penthouse, while everything here had been her choice. Every book on her shelves, every plant hanging from the ceiling, and every cushion lined with fringes.

“You’re unusually quiet,” she commented when Peter still hadn’t spoken a word after ten minutes of looking around. “Do you hate it?”

               Peter spun around, hand in his front pockets, a little smile dancing on his lips.

“It’s great. I love it.”

“But?” she pressed him.

“But there’s no balcony.” He pouted, but Emmeline’s frown turned into a smirk. “What? Is there?”

               She lived on the first floor, she couldn’t have one.

“Come with me,” she said, gesturing him to follow her.

               They walked past the bed and the kitchen area and to a narrow backdoor that he had assumed led to an inner courtyard, or a private parking space. But it wasn’t that.

“Wha-“ Peter couldn’t believe his eyes. “You have your own garden in New York City?” he asked, fighting the urge to touch the grass to make sure it was real. It was small, but real.

“Even better than a balcony, ugh?” Her smirk grew even wider. “Thought it was a nice touch, and Bella loves it.”

“I can imagine,” Peter replied distractedly, picturing Tessa playing here.

               He stopped himself right there. He couldn’t let himself wander on such slippery slopes right now. Why would his mind even go there? Emmeline had only just let him back into her life, two weeks ago he thought he had ruined everything between them. He couldn’t think about how much Tessa would enjoy having a bit of open space instead of living in a small student dorm.

               He especially shouldn’t linger too much on the homey feel of her place, of how hard it hit him that he would love to live in a place like this. He simply couldn’t think about her the way he did.

               There was much to rebuild before he could even think about making a move again. Whatever small step he had taken when he asked her out was in the past now. Since then, he had taken a hundred steps backwards, and now he had to fix what he broke before thinking about picking up where they left things off.

               Trust, among other things.

               He had to unlearn his automatic response to inquisitive questions, become used to tell her the truth when he had to disappear at random times of the day, something for a few hours, sometimes for days. He hadn’t realized how many white lies he told within a single day before he started telling the truth.

“It’s…”

               He couldn’t find his words anymore, suddenly too overcome with emotion to speak. It was a daunting task to try and mend the broken limbs of their fragile relationship, and the weight of his own lies and mistakes felt heavy on his chest. It would take time, patience, effort, resilience.

               However, when he turned around to meet her expectant smile, waiting for him to finish his sentence, it didn’t seem that impossible, and more than anything: he realized it would be worth it. She was worth it; and if he had been head over heels for her before, he realized he had another thing coming, because now that she was freer than ever, she would truly begin to shine and blossom in a way she couldn’t until now.

“It’s perfect.”

.

.

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Reblog to save a writer

Taglist: @of-virtuoso @justanothergenzkid @the-freefeather​ @complete-trash-101​

[esperanzacboronial]

Title: On Tides, and Other Changing Things Characters: Niki, Fermet, Czeslaw Summary: In some ways, hope has taught Niki fear.  Warnings: attempted suicide, drowning, & physical abuse referenced pretty heavily.

… 

When she is nine she tries to drown herself.

Back then she swears she can breathe water. 

Her lungs are filled with soot and smoke, and when the sea rushes into them she feels cleansed more than choked. The current wraps her in its warm embrace and draws her closer than any person ever has. The ocean is almost motherly, she thinks, though she does not have a mother to compare it to. She doesn’t struggle — she doesn’t even feel the need to. The pain of beatings is bright and burning, but this darkness offers something else entirely. Salt seeps into her wounds, stinging but cleansing; cruel for the sake of being kind. The ocean is motherly, and loves lost children the most; it holds her in its quiet depths and cradles her to sleep, and Niki could swear she breathes water more freely than she has ever breathed air. 

It’s when they pull her out that it hurts. The slap that awakens her does not spare any force, and when she opens her eyes the sunlight burns in ways that the saltwater hadn’t. She spends an hour hacking up water that she is sure belongs in her lungs and listens as her master tells her it will hurt more later — the nerve of it, he yells: the nerve of his own property to dare try to break itself. Drowning would have been easy if she had only sunk beyond his reach; the ocean had offered her a way out, and his hand only offers her more of the same. It’s not a mercy. Neither of them would think of it as a mercy. He hadn’t cared about rescuing her; she’s simply an object it would be a hassle to replace. 

She gains fresh bruises and a lesson: death is not her harshest keeper. 

At nine she had tried to drown herself. It had been an escape. There are not many places that welcome runaway slave girls with open arms, but the ocean had — death had; death welcomes indiscriminately. It had been an escape, and she does not regret seeking it, but ten years later she has found that she no longer has anything to escape from. 

Death does not call her name the way it used to. The voices carried by the breeze now are the less familiar ones of the living, and she fears how her fondness for them grows. 

“Miss Niki,” She looks down at the tug of her sleeve. Czeslaw will be nine in a few months time, yet even as she sifts through her memories she cannot see anything of herself at that age in his childlike innocence. He is not the most outgoing boy, still shaken by the loss of his family, but there is a distinct difference between his shyness and her emptiness. “I want to swim.”

There is a distinct difference: he points to the waters and asks to swim where she had only thought to drown. 

“I don’t see why not. It’s lovely weather,” another voice chimes in before she can respond. She shakes her head slowly. 

“I’m sure it is, Mr. Fermet —”  “Please, Niki, Mr. Fermet sounds so formal.”

She does not have anything to escape from anymore, because her new masters — no, they would not have her call them that. Czeslaw is far too young to impose such authority, and Fermet, acting in his place, does not choose to; he addresses her as a friend and confidant. He pays her fairly and never raises his hand or his voice. She is daily unlearning years of considering herself an object, a part to be bought or sold; she is daily being taught what it means to be a person. It’s a steep learning curve.

“Fermet,” she corrects herself, owing the fluttering in her stomach to the strangeness of it. “It would be dangerous for Czes to swim by himself. The waters are calm right now, but they turn quickly this time of year.”

She does not look him in the face when she speaks; it’s not something she has ever learned to do. Fermet has told her it’s considered polite in higher society, that it fosters personal connection, but she is not, and never will be, a part of that society. In her walk of life polite means keeping her head down, averting her eyes whenever possible — polite means existing as little and as mutely as she can. She does not look him in the face when she speaks, keeping her eyes on Czeslaw as he continues to gesture meekly to the sea, but she glimpses a smile out of the corner of her eye. 

“I trust your say on it. After all, you’re more accustomed to the area than we are,” She expects there to be something biting in his tone — if she had contradicted any of her former masters so brazenly offence would have been the least of her worries, but she reminds herself again that Fermet does not contend to own her. When he speaks it is with a new intonation which she is told is called respect. “The children don’t swim at all this time of year?”

“They do,” she answers, tracing lines in the sand with the toe of her shoe. “But children also drown.”

She forgets, for a moment, that Czeslaw is so distinctly different than she had been at his age; she forgets that he is not numb to such realities until she feels his hand grip hers a bit tighter. 

“Not often,” she lies. The sea has taken a thousand nameless souls in her short life; in towns like these people disappear every day, and only the waters themselves known the details of each tragedy. Czeslaw’s fears calmed, she turns her head to watch the waves. “But it happens.”

She recalls one summer a boy from the workshop, luckier than she, had succeeded where she had failed. When he visits her in her dreams his hands are icy and wet, and he tells her that if she takes them he can lead her somewhere better but they slip through her grip every time. 

“Of course,” He nods. “Still, I don’t want to disappoint Czes. Surely he’ll be safe if you’re with him.”

“If I’m..?” She pauses. The tide drifts out just far enough to kiss the soles of her shoes, and she remembers being swept away by it. She wonders if she could ever breathe water; when she imagines drowning now it is aching lungs and a tightening airway. When she imagines drowning now it is just drowning. This isn’t the place she wants to die. 

“I don’t know how to swim,” she admits, more easily than she anticipates. He tends to have this effect; things she never expects to say aloud are spoken unprompted in his presence. 

“You were never taught?” “I was never taught much.” She narrows her eyes, but not at him.  “What a shame.” 

He is silent, and for a second she thinks he may offer to teach her, but she dismisses the thought immediately; what good would it be for her to know? There isn’t anywhere for her to escape to. 

(There isn’t anywhere for her to escape from.) 

“Does it scare you?” he asks instead. He has stopped walking, and so she stops too. 

“The water?” It doesn’t bother her to be around it, which, she supposes, is what he wants to know. She enjoys these walks with the two of them, and Czeslaw seems to enjoy the ocean — she wouldn’t want to prevent either. The simplest, most pertinent answer is no. 

Yet he has a certain effect on her. He brings out a certain need to divulge truer truths than she herself usually acknowledges. The simplest answer is no, and she does not say it. 

“It never used to,” are the words that come out in no’s place. 

He smiles at this. 

She does not know what to call the emotion behind that smile; she only knows that it is far enough from the pity she usually sees to savour it. Perhaps it is respect — she cannot say, but it is enough to make her forget again that more sensitive ears are listening to her, too. 

“I wasn’t afraid of death, so why would I be afraid of water?” Her shoulders lift into a shrug. “If I drowned no one would have missed me. Someone else would have taken my place, and everything would keep going like it always has. At least it would have been over for me.”

She barely registers when Czes tugs on her sleeve and asks in a small voice: “Um… Y-You’re… not going to die, right, Miss Niki?”

She opens her mouth to say something, but she does not know what. The natural response is of course. Of course she’s going to die. She’s known that for as long as she can remember. But something stalls her. 

“No, Czes,” Fermet answers for her, ruffling the boy’s hair gently. “You’ll notice that was all in the past. I’m sure Niki doesn’t feel that way now.”

He always speaks so confidently, even on matters she questions every second of every day. He has never claimed to know her better than she knows herself, yet he speaks as though he does, sometimes. She does not know how to respond to this certainty in the wake of her doubt. 

“Isn’t that right, Niki?” 

She isn’t scared of drowning — but then why had she faltered? She moves her feet away when the tide reaches them, no longer desperate for its embrace. At nine she had tried to drown herself, and now she will not set foot in the ocean; then the sea had seemed motherly, but now her own motherly instincts keep Czes far from it. She does not listen for death calling her name any more; she listens for him. 

“That’s right,” She nods slowly, though she cannot decide whether she is lying for the sake of soothing Czes or coming upon some new truth.

Fear had been a foreign concept to her when she’d had nothing and wanted only death; now she has more and wants more, more than even she knows she wants. Does it scare you? Her eyes never leave the ocean. Waves rise and crash, and she clings to all the certainty she has left: it never used to.