#referenced rape tw

[nerdpoe]

Part three in Coffee, Honey, and Sometimes Hazelnuts.

In Gotham, after Dick learned of Tim's transition from Alpha to Omega in a very badly worded way, how was he handling it before Jason confirmed that Tim was fine? Well, the short answer is he wasn't.

[deadsetobsessions]

Once more the hallucinations hit, and once more I am here writing it out.

My brain is fucking terrifying and I want out, so bad. This came to me in the form of a nightmare.

Also, please don’t take the timeline into consideration, because I have no idea what’s going on. Again, nightmares and dreams tend to not have the best coherency when it comes to plot and timelines. The reincarnation doesn’t have a name, I was too busy feeling terrified. Shit in parentheses was how I experienced the nightmare. Everything else is just me adding sprinkle sprinkle.

——

Ra’s al Ghul.

Talia al Ghul.

Two names that she had been aware of, in the peripherals of her hyper fixation. Two characters meant to enhance the story of the Dark Knight. Side characters, on a good day. Perhaps, a main antagonist on a better day.

On a bad day?

Main characters. Real, living people. Real, living, breathing assassins.

Unfortunately, they’re her new family. One she remembered coming into, bathed in a pool of blood and screams.

She was not a baby.

She is now, a baby. The first of Talia al Ghul’s children. The eldest, once Damian al Ghul was born.

Swaddled in emerald green and gold silks, she was presented to a man with silver streaked hair and a receding hairline. He too, was robed in green and golds.

“A daughter, Talia?” He rumbled, the smooth Arabic flowing out of his mouth failing to hide the acrid disappointment. The child, past the haze of confusion of suddenly being deported from her own adult body into one of a helpless child, felt a stirring of irritation. It’s good she learned the language, because now she knew exactly how Ra’s felt about her. The child grumbled a displeased sound. Not that she would have ignored the fact that her grandfather was Ra’s al Ghul. (He smelled like moth eaten fabric and blood- but I think that was because my cat accidentally scratched me.)

“My apologies, father.”

“Do not tell the young detective of this. Had it been a son, perhaps things would have been different. No, a daughter would only hinder him.”

Talia bowed, hands tightening on her daughter. “May I raise her, father?”

“A resource is still a resource. Go ahead, Talia.”

“Yes, father.” Talia took the dismissal and bowed before leaving.

On her way back to the room with the reincarnation’s crib, Talia al Ghul stroked her daughter’s head.

“I wish you were born a boy, my daughter. I am sorry my beloved will never know of you.”

The reincarnation looked at her new mother. She’s young, the woman-child realized. A teenager.

“You’ll have to be useful, my daughter. Your grandfather is not so kind as to keep the useless. I… do not wish for your death,” her mother muttered.

Great. She got new life and it’s already in danger.

——

She learned to swing a knife. Swords. She learned and devoured the teachings. She learned to be useful.

But then they asked her to take the life of a man who did her no wrong.

Her baby blues clashed with her grandfather’s Lazarus green.

She was still young. A child.

“No.”

“No?”

“He did no wrong.”

“He failed, granddaughter.” Ra’s smiled down at her, patronizing. Cruel. “Perhaps you possess your father’s heart, and you are foolishly sentimental, as women and children tend to be. But in the end, you are an al Ghul and you will obey. Plunge in your blade and I will reward you.”

The reincarnation looked at the man kneeling in front of her, resignation and a hint of pity in what little she could see of his face.

She’s already died before. What did she have to be afraid of?

“No.”

They tried to beat the weakness out of her. It didn’t work.

——

The reincarnation stared at the mirror, left alone in an opulent cage of gold and emeralds and precious stones that meant little to her now.

Her hands traced her back, small fingers finding purchase in soft skin. Her mouth opened fruitlessly, noise refusing to escape. She still felt the burning magic, the brand her own blood had carved into her skin and soul because she refused to kill. The chains her grandfather had shackled around her with magic and cruel amusement.

She had killed him, in the end. Obey, or be punished. Her body had moved without her permission, the reincarnation a prisoner in a body that refused to do as she commanded. The knife swung, a life taken, her hands dipped in red.

She learned a valuable lesson that day.

There were things worse than death.

“This is an order, granddaughter.”

The Magic had flared a searing heat at her neck, forcing her to kneel on broken legs. Ra’s loomed above, authority in his voice. She was bound to obey, regardless.

“You will never speak another word of affection, you will never speak another word to anyone unless I allow it. Perhaps this will teach you of your folly, and your place in this world.”

The loss of her freedom and the fear that came with it was a bitter and devastating lesson.

——

Ra’s al Ghul was so much worse than what little she knew of him.

She was right to be afraid for herself.

Her mother had worried, when she’d withdrawn and refused to speak to her. Even if she could, the reincarnation would not have wanted to. The reincarnation had felt furious, back then, when she thought of Talia. Her mother who refused to protect her. Her mother, who claimed she loved her but refused to see the chains Ra’s wrapped around her neck. She who plied the reincarnation with a supportive hand but forced her into the fighting pits.

But, as the reincarnation stumbled out on bruised and used legs from Ra’s al Ghul’s meeting chambers where he had allowed his business partners to partake in her, she realized that Ra’s was a monster in a human’s body and her mother was a victim of his making.

The lesson Ra’s taught her that day was that if she was not useful, if she did not kill, he would take what was left of her and make use of her.

Hate flared in her heart, and the beginning of Ra’s downfall began the day he let her go from the chambers alive. Injured, but alive. Injured and violated, but alive and furious.

——

She carved her hate and rage and helplessness and fear in the bodies of the people he bid her to kill. Her silenced screams were expressed in the way she splattered blood, the way she covered herself in it. A killing machine first, a stress reliever second, and a child… wasn’t on the list of things she was allowed to be.

His enemies were felled, one after another. He gave her his approval, something she detested.

But still, she continued, bodies racking upwards, tens turning to hundreds, hundreds edging into thousands.

The red in her ledger became ichor and guilt. Her language became violence and obedience.

“You have become a sharp tool, granddaughter.”

She was a genius, after all. And now, she could not disobey. A blade that Ra’s believed will never point towards him. She kneeled. She obeyed.

“Thank you, grandfather.” Her words were only allowed to come out- without searing, terrible pain- when she was thanking him. She tried not to do it as often as he wanted. He thought he broke her when he read the obedience she carved into her body language.

But she never bowed. Never. Not to him. Never.

——

“My weapon could learn much from your granddaughter,” David Cain sat across from Ra’s, wine in their stupid goblets. How she detested the green and blacks he’s seen fit to dress her with. She’s dressed provocatively, not of her own choice. She doesn’t have much of those- doesn’t have much in ways of choices- these days.

She was twelve, and Ra’s al Ghul deserved to die.

“Her combat is a higher form of what my daughter has achieved. How did you do it?”

When Ra’s began to reply, she slipped away.

She found the girl. She found… the cage- the black box- the child was placed in. The child flinched from her when she opened the metal box, fear only easing as the reincarnation kept her body language neutral and kind. (It was pitch black, and about the size of like, a closet. No light. Only from whatever door the box had.) (Cass’ hands hurt from banging on the walls to be let out)

David Cain’s daughter, her mind whispered, the memories of another life once more making itself known.

“Cassandra.” She whispered, regretting it immediately when pain wracked her body. She fell to her knees as the punishment for disobeying an order slammed into her.

The girl looked at her in concern, but did not move closer. The reincarnation stared at this girl and saw a reflection of herself.

David Cain would be here for a month. She will free Cassandra in those days.

——

The weapon stared at the girl in front of her, kneeling in pain.

She did not understand.

-

The girl came back. Water. Food. Kind.

The weapon felt warm. The girl was quiet. No sounds. Good. The weapon knew the girl understood. The weapon thinks that the girl is a weapon too.

-

The girl comes back, again. This time, she makes a sound. It hurt her, but she did it again. The weapon understands when the girl points at herself and repeats the sound. The sound means the girl. The girl expects something from the weapon.

The weapon makes the sound, flinching to see if the owner will come to punish it. The girl purposefully sits, relaxed but vigilant… and protective. Of the weapon?

The weapon relaxed. It repeated the sound, pointing at the girl.

The girl smiles, in pain. But approval. The weapon feels- the weapon is warm, like under the blanket. Approval.

The girl teaches her to make sounds but the weapon communicates without it. It does not like the sounds, does not need them, but the girl seems to think it’s important.

The weapon likes the girl, so the weapon learns. They still understand through no sounds, through reading each other.

-

The girl comes back, silently. Secretly. The weapon does not notify the owner. The weapon feels- does not want to.

The girl- the girl with the sound- she says a different sound. Her body tells the weapon that it’s important, this sound.

And when the girl points at herself and says her own sound, then points at the weapon and says that new sound again, the weapon begins to understand.

The girl had given the weapon her own sound.

“Cass—n- ra.”

“Cass,” the girl said, and Cassandra understood.

“Cass.” Cassandra pointed to herself.

-

The owner wanted- wanted Cassandra to end a life. Cassandra watched the owner kill and gesture to the dead thing.

Cassandra did not want to.

When Cassandra is placed back into the pitch black box, she waited for the girl.

The girl came.

“Don’t want.” Cassandra clung to her, reading the welcome and the sadness in the girl’s body. Cassandra tucked her face into the girl’s shoulder. She is cold. The girl is warm.

The girl hugged her back. The girl understood. Sadness hardened into lines of determination. Cassandra felt… light. Felt hope.

-

Cassandra slipped away from the place, water in her pack for the dessert and money to run from the country. The girl stayed behind, seeing her off. The girl tells her to never come back.

Cassandra did not want to leave the girl behind, but the girl could not go.

“Be free, Cass.” The girl had whispered through the pain. “For the both of us.”

——

Her grandfather knew. He allowed David Cain to break her, not kill because she was of use to him still, as a lesson. She found that she hated his lessons. But, she hated his attention more.

And still, she could not regret. How could she, when Cass trusted her with what fragile hope she had?

So, she lets him beat her, and provokes him with smirks and fearless eyes because the longer he’s focused on her, the more time Cass has to run.

Then, he gets too angry, and insults Ra’s, whose eyes grew cold. Her grandfather gestured and while she usually hated the command that followed that gesture, she could not feel that hatred now.

She got back up, legs broken and arms twisted once more, and attacked David Cain.

Ra’s would not follow Cass. Not when she was not his business to deal with, and not when David Carin’s fury amused him so.

David Cain would not follow Cass. Not while she still drew breath. The reincarnation stood, and threw herself at one of the best assassins of the century.

She tore his throat out with nothing but her teeth. She felt, for once, not like a monster. Not even when Ra’s nodded in approval and ordered for David Cain’s broken body to be cleaned up.

——

She’s been granted a mission in New Jersey, once her months of discipline- of torture- ended. She does not get ordered to find Cassandra. She’s fourteen now, and as silent as ever. Her mother had adjusted to her silence by then- long ago, actually, taking it as a quirk her daughter had developed. She hadn’t been a terribly vocal child, after all. Talia praised her for being useful even as a woman- the self degradation something the reincarnation had no doubt Ra’s had insidiously trained into Talia- and for being loyal to Ra’s.

Sometimes, she hates Talia for being- for-

Never mind. She couldn’t afford to hate anyone else.

She killed her targets early, determination and wistfulness urging her movements into sharp . Then, she made her way to Gotham and slipped into the city of darkness- where her father was.

She watched as he hid in the shadows almost as easily as she did. She watched as he flew and glided with the younger Robin. (He was younger than her by a year. She checked.) He was free. They were free.

She wished…

As she turned away, she saw a child tumbling from the edge of a roof. It was an instinct she’d thought Ra’s had managed to bury after the months he’d spent making sure she killed only children.

She hated him.

She caught him, swooping in and tucking him against her side as she plucked him from the air and plopped him back onto the crumbling roof of Gotham’s slums.

“Oh, thank you! So much- are you a vigilante?” The boy asked, looking at her masked face. It’s a good thing she wasn’t exactly dressed like a regular League operative.

She shook her head. Her eyes fell onto his camera, faint memories rising once more. She had an inkling-

“I’m- uh- Tim!” The boy introduced himself nervously, edging away from her silence. “Thank you for saving me…?”

She nodded. She pointed to the camera, tilting her head.

“Oh- you… want to see it?” He clutched his camera closer. Oh, he did have some sense of self preservation. She wondered why a seven year old was allowed to roam these streets… but she did worse at seven.

She held her hand up and back up. The boy hesitated, and then showed her the camera. “Uh- I took pictures of Robin and Batman!”

They sat on that roof for hours, and she let Tim Drake tell her stories about her father and his son. Ward. Son.

She could tell that Tim didn’t have anyone to listen to him.

She didn’t have long until she had to go back or risk severe punishment, but… she could make time for Tim, to listen to him.

She wondered if Cass managed to escape completely. She wondered if her sister all but in name and blood learned how to smile.

——

Tim had never had a friend before!

She listened to him! And gave him hugs the one time he was brave enough to ask! And she seemed to like Batman and Robin as much as he did! No one who didn’t like them would listen to his endless rambling otherwise, right? (Tim was super skinny, like ribs poking out skinny. He looked like a sickly Victorian child and he was kind of cold)

“And then, Robin went like this,” he pantomimed the awesome punch Dick Grayson did on a Joker goon. “And the guys got knocked out just like that!”

His new friend nodded, looking interested.

“Sorry, am I talking too much?” Tim asked anxiously. He didn’t want to make his friend hate him!

She shook her head, and gestured for him to continue.

“Are you sure?”

She nodded.

His new friend was so cool! She even taught him how to throw a punch and to fight!

——

When she had to leave, she prepared Tim for it.

“Do you have to go?”

She nodded and placed a hand on his head, ruffling his hair. Her other hand held a duffle bag with an assortment of weapons she carefully kept from him. (One of the blades still had guts on it, which, ew.)

“Try not to fall off anymore roofs, little photographer.” She said, smiling at his shocked look before leaping away.

“Wait, you can talk?!” He shouted at her back. She smiled a little wider.

——

“A son, this time.” Ra’s al Ghul’s voice echoed in his disgustingly flashy throne room. It rings of approval.

The reincarnation stood behind her mother, eyes cast downwards.

“Well done, Talia. I finally have a worthy heir.”

Damian al Ghul cooed.

The reincarnation was scared. But… she could not allow her younger brother to be trapped like she was. She’s fifteen now, a decade of slavery having worn her down and nearly broken her. But with her brother… no, she could not allow it.

She met her mother’s eyes and knew then that they agreed. Protect Damian, at all costs.

She ignored the sting of envy. So what her mother could not find it in herself to protect her daughter? So long as she protected Damian, it didn’t matter.

Maybe she didn’t matter. Maybe she wasn’t worth anything. Maybe- maybe- maybe.

She also ignored the seed of disgust she had for mother’s actions in conceiving Damian. She couldn’t do anything about it. Talia was also a victim.

A louder voice in her asked if she could really excuse that, when Talia had a choice and she chose to hurt and violate Bruce Wayne like that. She wondered if she could truly ever forgive Talia. She wondered if Bruce Wayne got therapy.

——

She stared at the tome in front of her, eyes blank. (Actually, she had no eyes. Like? Empty sockets, but then later she had eyes???)

The brand- the shackles- the chains could only be broken if Ra’s died. She wasn’t opposed to that. But if he died, so did she. She couldn’t even kill herself to get out, because the chains would be there even if she died. If she was revived- a high chance, thanks to the fucking pits- then the chains would still be there.

Perhaps… she could use the pits?

Her mind turned and turned.

——

“This is your ukht.” Her mother pointed at her. Damian stared up at her, and she melted. Her brother was too damn cute.

“Ukhti?”

She nodded as her mother smiled in joy. “Yes, habibi.”

She was better at hiding the pain, now. She was better at enduring it, too, that fucking burning feeling. She spoke more, but only to Damian.

It would not do for her brother to grow up not knowing how to receive verbal expressions of affection. Not like she did, in this life.

Still, it hurt to speak. But then, she had an idea, based on Cassandra.

She could not speak, but speaking wasn’t the only way of communication. She’ll teach Damian sign language- standard, as commanded- but also her own version. Yes, she could do it. It wouldn’t be hard.

She was a genius, after all, and creating languages wasn’t as hard as people seem to think.

——

Damian copied her, small fingers patting his hand four times.

She did it back to him. “I love you.” She tells him, with sounds and with motions.

He does it back, excitedly, because he had a secret with ukhti!

——

Sometimes, she dared not to touch Damian. She wants to ruffle his hair and give him hugs but the ichor on her hands reminds her to not get to greedy. She did not deserve it.

Not when her hands were stained with the lives of so many people.

——

Another mission.

She was twenty now, and not much closer to escaping her bonds. Though, once she hit her majority, Ra’s lost interest in her in that way. A blessing, even if she had to seduce his “business partners” into giving him better deals more often now.

She stops by Bludhaven. The Robin she watched so many years ago- six, by her count- had grown new wings and moved. She wanted to see if he could fly still.

He could. He flew as free- no, freer than his days as Robin.

She dipped away to complete her mission (nuclear weapon trading, really?) and swings back to see a spider trying to break the former Robin’s wings.

“No.” Nightwing whispered, staring upwards at the cloudy sky blankly. “Please, stop.”

She didn’t need to hear any more. She saw red, and dove feet first straight onto the spider’s head, knocking her out.

She picked up a near-catatonic Nightwing, and helped him to his apartment. She left Tarantula in the rain and felt zero guilt about it.

He changed mechanically, some kind of instinct keeping him from removing his domino, but it was a bit pointless considering she escorted him to his personal apartment.

She watched as Nightwing slipped into an exhausted sleep before leaving. She had a spider to squish, and traces to hide.

——

Dick wakes up, drained and exhausted. He… someone saved him.

He sees a scrawled note, handwriting impeccable enough to be a font, written with his pen. He picked it up from his table, and his eyes tiredly read the message.

“Don’t worry about Tarantula. Or your identity.”- A friend.

He remembered- the mask- the mask of the stranger that saved him vividly. He’d remember. And he’d thank them if they ever came back.

——

She was in charge of training assassins, these days. A year and a half later after Bludhaven, she was back in Nanda Parbat, and she’s devoured every magical tome she could get her hands on. They all say the same things.

Her assassins were trained well, and Ra’s praises her with more responsibilities as he followed the pit in his obsessions. Her mother began to splinter the group, not knowing that as Ra’s began his descent into madness, people looked towards her instead of Talia for leadership. They did not know that her unwavering presence by Ra’s side wasn’t voluntary but it is their true that she became his right hand out of pure skill. And flawless obedience, of course.

Then, someone new joins.

Someone with pit rage and empty eyes that goes rigid when she approaches.

Then again, most of the operatives freeze up when she walks towards them.

Her memories roar. A child.

He bowed, and her eyes followed the streak of white hair at the forefront of his skull.

She gestured at him to follow, and ignored the pitiful eyes the rest of the assassins gave to the kid- they act like her training was hard when she went easy on them (it was)- and led the kid towards the training rooms.

She knew who he was, even if her grandfather and mother didn’t think she knew.

Her… Bruce Wayne would probably appreciate his son being returned relatively sane.

But first, she had to beat the Pit out of him. Then, she could assign body guarding duties to him, in an attempt to protect him.

——

“Grandfather, I will take Damian’s punishment.”

“A whipping girl, granddaughter?” But he nodded anyways. He made Damian watch.

She kneeled and allowed the punishment. She couldn’t always protect him from Ra’s, but this she could do anytime. It’s not like she was unfamiliar with the torture. (The whip had barbs. Rusty. And they sprinkled salt.)

——

“I liked poetry….” Jason Todd tells her after a training session. “I think.”

“Sure. I’ll call you Grave, then.” Pain. But she was used to it.

He tilted his head, eyes going blank once more. She sighed. There went his memories again. (His eyes were blank and glazed. Like looking at someone you love and knowing they’re looking through you.)

——

“I would not trust her,” she says to the air, next to a Red Hood emerging from Talia al Ghul’s chambers. She could see it, the beginnings of Gotham’s new crime lord. But still, “Talia al Ghul is known for her lies.”

She pushed away from the wall. It was up to Grave if he listened. It was out of her hands now.

——

She’s twenty-five, and she’s helping Damian pack for his first meeting with Bruce Wayne.

“You must not tell him about me.” Because he’d come rushing here, and she had worked too hard to save Damian for her fool of a father to come and ruin all of that effort.

“I promise.” Her little brother said solemnly. Ukhti said it out loud, which meant it was important and she expected him to keep that promise.

The only other time he’d heard her speak was to tell him she loved him.

The reincarnation smiled and told him through their special sign language, to treat the current Robin with respect and to try his best to get the current Robin to pass down his title.

‘Robin is earned. They have different rules, over there. Try your best to learn those rules.’

Her brother was sheltered. She loved him, but he was spoilt and sheltered. Of course she was worried. Talia barely mothered him.

“I know. You do not have to remind me so often, ukhti.”

She smiled, and patted his head.

“Be safe,” she whispered. “I will miss you.”

Damian darted in for a hug. “Of course. Goodbye, sister. See you soon.”

She hoped not. It was hard enough to convince Ra’s that Damian would learn more under Bruce Wayne.

(She was locked in a small closet- like Cass- for about a week, because she brought up the idea first.)

——

She found it.

The answer to pit rage laid in an old, all but crumbling tome from Atlantis- answers “from a ghost.”

——

Bruce Wayne died. Months after Damian came to live with him. That- irritating- she sighed and worked with her mother to turn Ra’s al Ghul’s attention away from Gotham, lest he called Damian back in Bruce Wayne’s absence.

The little photographer caught grandfather’s attention. She stood vigil as he played chess with Ra’s. His interest in Damian wavered. Anticipation blurred in her veins.

She saved his friends. Her assassins. She let them go, telling them to wait for the little photographer’s plan. (Y’all miss girl had fucking bloody handprints on her pants like someone tried to grab it.)

The first few people who had an inking she might not be loyal to Ra’s… and it was them.

When her other assassins attacked Red Robin, she cut them down before they could touch him, helping him with a furious League of Spiders or whatever operative. She hated spiders.

“What…?”

“You’re a lot of trouble, little photographer.” She sighed. His jaw dropped.

“It’s you!”

“Go,” she cut him off. “Blow this place up. I left a surprise for you outside.”

——

“Owens?! Z?!” Tim trembled, exhaustion and shock and wonder hitting him at once.

“Heya, boss!” Z chirped. Owens helped Tim up while Z helped Tam. Pry walked around them, looking out for further threats. “The nightmare trainer let us go. She knew you, I think.”

Tim smiles, all shark teeth and zero hero. (In the background, the song zero to hero from Hercules 2, played in reverse.) “Tell me more.”

——

Damian grunted, bracing himself for the magical creature’s attack.

“Robin!” His father barked out, panicked. Damian hoped he’d survive-

Shhhlk!

He looked up and there stood his ukht. She bounded forwards, using the odd fauna of the magical plane to bolster her movements as she sliced the creatures apart with her swords, magic humming brightly as she cut through them… and the magicians attacking them.

“What- what are you doing here?” He asked. She greeted him, three fingers curled over her shoulder.

‘My question is,’ she signed. ‘Why were you here without a magical weapon.’

Damian sighed as father stepped in between them.

“Who are you.”

“Batman. Cease your excessive worry. I trust her with my life,” Damian snapped. He stepped around a shocked Batman, looked him in the eyes, and unsheathed his katana. He handed it over to his ukht, who took it with amusement.

‘See?’ His eyes seemed to say. Father tensed when his sister unsheathed her own blade and handed it to him.

‘Are you here for a specific reason?’ His sister signed to him.

“Uh, you gonna introduce us, little man?”

Damian sent the Flash a derisive look and ignored him.

“We’re looking for a magician. He set a squadron of demons loose into D.C. last night. He has a tower.” Damian added.

“Robin,” Father growled. “Who is this.” Damian shot him a look and turned back to his sister.

The reincarnation tilted her head. ‘Tower… it’ll have to be that way.’

“Could you take us there?” Damian asked. Truthfully, he could find the way himself. But he wanted more time around his ukht. She nodded and Damian straightened.

“I feel like we should be concerned that Robin’s friend just murdered a bunch of people.”

His sister glanced back and ignored them.

“Silence, incompetents. Speak another word against her, and Batman’s no killing rule will be applied creatively.” He hissed. (The fucking surroundings hissed with him y’all what the fuck)

He turned when his sister ruffled his hair (Superman muttered a super shocked “what the fuck.”) and Damian allowed it. He had missed his sister.

——

[queermentaldisaster]

Rumor has it that the Riley family is cursed. First, their youngest son, kidnapped under mysterious circumstances. The nephew? Hit by a motorcycle that just happened to roll off the road. The oldest and his wife? Crashed into a tree that was in the middle of the asphalt. The father? Murdered in his hospital bed. The mother? Overdosed on pills she'd never had.

Task Force 141 knows the rumors. Who in the UK doesn't? One day, 141 is sent out to help a team in Las Almas called Los Vaqueros. Apparently, the Las Almas cartel is having a territory dispute with the neighboring city's cartel, the Zaragoza cartel. While Los Vaqueros is handling the Las Almas cartel with Gaz and Roach's help, Price and Soap go to handle the Zaragoza cartel. They go undercover, and discover someone with brown eyes and blond lashes, wearing a balaclava, being passed around like many of the blunts in that room.

Soap manages to get his hands on this person, who's clearly out of it. After some finagling, he manages to get them outside, wrapping them in his coat to provide them with some decency.

When they wake up, they're in a bed in the Los Vaqueros base. Soap asks them for their name and pronouns, and he introduces himself as Ghost.

[ogachukwu-the-freak]

QUIET PART OUT LOUD QUIET PART OUT LOUD QUIET PART OUT LOUD

Validating to actually experience this utter shitfuck take with my own two eyes, add it to the list. Someone @ rainystudios or one of their mutuals so if they want they can add this one to the archives cause this is literally exactly what they had been talking about.

[barbiegirldream]

Anyway I feel like people really forget if a drunk person can't consent that always goes both ways. If two people are drunk and have sex. And nobody got anybody drunk on purpose for the sake of sex. Then that's just not a situation any outsider can possibly give an opinion on. And it's not helpful to share because we can't know. If neither party was mentally capable of consenting well what now. Under Title IX and many laws it's incredibly specific to each individual case in the event both parties were drunk. Like if you accuse someone of rape and the situation was you were both intoxicated/under the influence the court has to assess the case with scrutiny to figure out if there is any way to say for certain the party you're accusing was any more lucid than you were. If there isn't then the case has to be dismissed because it's not a fair metric. I've heard stories of punishments being dolled out both ways on college campuses for the lack of clarity. It's just tricky

[madmanwonder]

Prompt

Crossover AU x yandere AU

Fandoms: fairly oddparents x helluva boss.

Timmy wakes up... but not on his bed. He was in a king-sized luxurious bed... with certain stalker naked hugging him by the side.

That's when he knew, his grand escape was only a dream.

Timmy eyes fluttered up and looked at the ceiling with a blank look on his face, simply lying there on a king-sized luxurious bed with a naked woman hugging him by the side...

"...wait a damn minute." He looked to the side and there was Stella, or Stella Turner naked and hugging him with a cute wholesome smile on her lips as she let out a content sigh.

Timmy realized that his grand escape was a dream and he was married to this insane stalker who made Tootie look sane and reasonable by comparison.

[legends-of-time]

Strength of a High and Noble Hill (Outlander Story) - Masterlist

Timelines:

19th and 20th Centuries

17th and 18th Centuries

Fraser Descendants (family tree)

Warnings:

Major Character Death, Minor Character Death, Period-Typical Homophobia, Period Typical Attitudes, Period-Typical Sexism, Period-Typical Racism, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con

Summary:

May 1744

He wriggles his toes, feeling his environment. He quickly realises how much his surroundings are constricted, his legs are tightly bound and he is being cradled in someone’s arms. He opens his eyes and sees a woman leaning over him and realises she must be the one holding them. She’s humming softly with a warm and happy smile. He can see that her skin is clammy and there are bruises under her eyes, the eyes that are amber, golden-brown as well as smoky topaz, but that doesn’t dim her smile as she gazes upon the person in her arms. She’s white and her brown hair surrounds her face in messy curls.

——

What if Claire and Jamie’s first baby survived and what if it had been a boy. How will the story change?

Chapters:

Chapter 1: Birth

Chapter 2: First Months

Chapter 3: Peaceful Family Life Disrupted

Chapter 4: Goodbyes

Chapter 5: New Beginnings

Chapter 6: A Fish Out of Water

Chapter 7: Conflict

Chapter 8: Sister

Chapter 9: Returning

Chapter 10: The Truth

Chapter 11: The Loss of Hope

Chapter 12: Coping with Change

Chapter 13: Finding Him

Chapter 14: Moving to the Past

Chapter 15: Loss

Chapter 16: Lost Family

Chapter 17: A New but Old World

Chapter 18: Reunited at Last

Chapter 19: Big Brother

Chapter 20: Coming Together

Chapter 21: Fathers

Chapter 22: Dreams

Chapter 23: Fathers and Their Archaic Ways

Chapter 24: River Run

Chapter 25: A New but Old Face

Chapter 26: Caught in the Act

Chapter 27: Family Time

Chapter 28: New Beginnings

Chapter 29: Waiting

Chapter 30: Old Dreams

Chapter 31: Inferiority Complex

Chapter 32: Community Swelling

Chapter 33: Purpose

Chapter 34: First Sight

Chapter 35: Is it Happily Ever After?

Chapter 36: Gifts and Awkward Conversations

Chapter 37: Unravels

Chapter 38: Lay Up Trouble For Yourself

Chapter 39: War Wins Land, Peace Wins People

Chapter 40: Life Goes On But The Threat Looms

Chapter 41: Building Arsenal

Chapter 42: Romeo and Juliet

Chapter 43: Baggage Weighs You Down

Chapter 44: Misunderstandings

Chapter 45: Should auld acquaintance be forgot?

Chapter 46: Jesus H. Roosevelt Christ

Chapter 47: Best Not To Tell

Wattpad access

fanfiction.net access

Ao3 access

[serickswrites]

Kingdom Collapse IX

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6 Part 7 Part 8

Warnings: referenced captivity, drowning, cpr, rape, hospital, hurt/comfort, hurt/recovery, hurt/aftermath, caretaker and whumpee

“CARETAKER!” Teammate Two shouted as they and Teammate Three ran across the snow-covered ground to Caretaker. They could see Caretaker leaning over something. Someone. Whumpee. 

Caretaker didn’t respond to Teammate Two’s call. They were too focused on their compressions. How long has it been? Doesn’t matter. I have to keep going. Have to save Whumpee. Hang on, kid. I found you. I’m right here. Please, kid. Please. 

Whumpee moved each time Caretaker pressed onto their chest, head lolling with each movement. They were pale–paler than their usual pale, their skin almost translucent–lips the lightest shade of blue, and they were completely boneless in Caretaker’s arms. 

Please, kid. Please, God. Give me them back. God, please. I’ll do anything. ANYTHING! Caretaker begged and pleaded with God as they never stopped their compressions. Never stopped moving. 

Caretaker heard boots behind them crunching on the snow. A gloved hand gripped their shoulder. “Caretaker, how long?” Teammate Three’s voice was a quiet murmur in their ear. 

They ignored Teammate Three. They’re not dead. They’re right here. I’m right here. They can’t be dead. Whumpee, wake up. Please. 

Teammate Three’s grip tightened. “How long, Caretaker?”

“Doesn’t matter. They’re coming back. You’ll see,” Caretaker panted, never stopping their compressions. 

And still, Whumpee didn’t stir. Didn’t sputter and cough. Didn’t gasp for air. They remained completely silent and unmoving. Save for the pumps on their chest from Caretaker. 

Teammate Three’s grip turned bruising. “How long, Caretaker?”

Too long. Far too long. They can’t be gone. I can’t lose them. I can’t have failed them again. I’m right here, kid. I’ve got you. I’m right here. Come back to me. I found you. Whumpee. Please. I have you, right here. In my arms. Please, stay with me. Stay, Whumpee. Please. 

Caretaker’s cheeks were warm with tears as they started to cry. But they didn’t stop. “I-I should have been faster. They were right here. RIGHT HERE. I wasn’t fast enough,” Caretaker sobbed, their movements starting to slow. 

“Take a break, boss,” Teammate Two murmured as they knelt in the snow on Whumpee’s other side and started compressions. 

Caretaker sobbed harder as Teammate Three wrapped an arm around them. “You did everything you could. Sometimes–”

“I didn’t! I didn’t! I thought they were dead. I didn’t look for them for two weeks. Two weeks at the hands of Whumper and their crew. Two weeks of,” but Caretaker couldn’t finish. Their voice broke. “Whumpee couldn’t wait for me to find a way across the ice. They couldn’t go back up to the house. And I wasn’t fast enough to stop them.” They pressed their forehead to Whumpee’s icy one. Please, kid. Please come back. I found you. I’m right here. Please, God. Give them back. 

Teammate Three squeezed Caretaker’s shoulder tighter. Teammate Two never relented on their compressions. “Come on, Whumpee. Come on.” They looked up at their two friends, both living, warm and breathing. Seeing Caretaker’s tearstained face and swollen eyes, they renewed their efforts. They looked back down at Whumpee and their breath caught. Whumpee was cold, so cold, and still. And completely breathless. And….dead. Their heart sunk as they realized Whumpee could not have waited. They had to get away from Whumper and their crew. Teammate Two had seen enough of the scene to piece together what Whumper and their crew had been doing to Whumpee for two weeks. 

“We all failed Whumpee, Caretaker. We all thought they were dead. None of us were looking. We’re all equal in this.” Teammate Three kept their voice low, soothing. 

“Please, Whumpee,” Caretaker murmured into Whumpee’s hair. “Please come back to me. We’re here. We found you. We have you. Come back.”

Just as Teammate Two was about to give up, hope completely destroyed, they felt Whumpee convulse beneath their hands. “Whumpee?” They asked as they stopped their compressions. 

Whumpee gave a sputtering cough as water poured past their lips. Teammate Two flipped Whumpee on their side, thumping their back hard. “There you are.”

“Oh Whumpee!” Caretaker pulled Whumpee into their arms, holding Whumpee tightly. They closed their eyes as they held Whumpee close, feeling Whumpee’s sharp staccato breaths against their neck. I have you. I’m here. We’re here. 

“I’ll go get the medics,” Teammate Three said and they raced off into the dark and snowy night. 

Whumpee groaned and started to pull away, but Caretaker held them close. “You’re ok, kid. We’ve got you. I’ve got you.”

By the time the medics had made it to the lake’s edge, Whumpee was wrapped up in Teammate Two’s jacket, with Caretaker holding them tightly. They shivered violently, but were awake. And alert. 

“I don’t need them to look at me, Caretaker,” they whispered around their chattering teeth. 

“Kid, you were in the water for I don’t even know how long, and you were…out for even longer.” You were not breathing. You had no pulse. You were dead. I almost lost you. I’m not losing you. I have you, kid. I’m here. 

Caretaker lifted Whumpee onto the gurney before Whumpee could protest further. Whumpee immediately thrust their hand into Caretaker’s. Caretaker squeezed their hand tightly as the medics evaluated Whumpee. Squeezed it as they loaded the gurney into the back of the ambulance. Squeezed it through the ride to the hospital. Caretaker only let go when the team of doctors and nurses told them they had to. That Whumpee was safe and they just needed to run a few tests. 

By some miracle, Whumpee was relatively unscathed from their near watery grave. They were horribly bruised, their shoulders were in terrible shape, and they had a few cracked ribs. But the worst was hearing Whumpee having to tell the doctor about being raped. Over and over. 

Caretaker knew that when they found Whumpee chained up and naked that the likelihood of that having happened was high. But hearing Whumpee’s flat voice as they said they needed a rape exam almost broke them. Seeing Whumpee’s eyes filled with tears, their face oddly flat as they spoke filled Caretaker with rage. Prison was too good for Whumper and their crew. 

By the time Caretaker was allowed back in the room, Whumpee was curled on their side in the hospital bed under three blankets, hand fisted to hide the tremble. 

“Can I come in, kid?” Caretaker asked tentatively. They wanted nothing more than to take Whumpee in their arms. Hold them close and reassure them that everything was going to be ok. Reassure themself that Whumpee was alive. That they were breathing. But they didn’t want to push Whumpee. 

“I wish you would,” Whumpee whispered, not looking up. 

Caretaker climbed onto the bed and wrapped themself around Whumpee. They held Whumpee tightly as Whumpee began to sob. Caretaker held them tightly until Whumpee fell asleep. Held them tightly as they slept. Caretaker was never going to let go. I found you, kid. I’m here. I’ve got you. 

Tags: @appleejuice @whump-a-whump-whumpshop @st0rmm @pigeonwhumps @ghostfacepepper @watermelons-dont-grow-on-trees @unrestrainedclown-whump 

[ashintheairlikesnow]

The Same Bed: Lost (And Found)

CW: Trauma recovery, healing internal and external injuries, references to noncon and choking, brief suicide mentions at the beginning, references to past pet whump, consensual spice between survivors, brief masochism funtimes

The Same Bed: Part One: Jake | Part Two: Krista | Part Three: Chris | Part Four: Vincent | Part Five: Antoni | Interlude | Part Six: Nat | Part Seven: Owen | Part Eight: Tonight | Part Nine: Reunion | Part Ten: Too Late | Epilogue: Lost (And Found)

(using the “Lost” prompt for @whumpmasinjuly day 2 for this! Loosely interpreted, but still...)

-

“Hey.” Jake drops the stack of folders, stuffed with paperwork, onto the table. “I brought these by for you to look over. I think I have it all taken care of, though.”

“Cool.” Jenna doesn’t look at him, sitting with her chin in her hand, watching a TV in the corner. Jake follows her gaze to see the chyron running along the bottom of the screen, a news anchor talking animatedly. The volume is so low he can’t hear it, but the subtitles are on. 

NOTED FORMER CHILD STAR OWEN GRANT FOUND DEAD IN APPARENT SUICIDE…

Jake takes a seat across the table. “Suicide? That’s what they went with?”

“That’s what I paid the coroner to go with, yeah,” Jenna says, leaning forwards a little. She’s cut her hair short, to her chin. It suits her. “Figured it’d be better to have open-and-close suicide case then a bunch of cops looking for a murderer they’re not gonna find. Cops hate that shit, but they love getting to wash their hands of something and say it’s not their problem. And that Grant asshole doesn’t have any living relatives to push for it to be a crime, right?”

“Right. He just had his mom, some distant cousins that hated him as much as everyone else did.”

“Good. Yeah, the coroner’s going to find that Owen went a little off the rails after losing his mom. It’s believable.”

“Yeah. He definitely went off the rails, anyway.” Jake hesitates, and then offers, reluctantly, “Thanks, Jenna. For your help. I know how you feel about Kauri-”

“You know how I felt about Kauri,” She answers breezily. She sits up, then, pulling one of the folders in front of her, opening it up and looking over what she sees inside. “It’s been years, Jake. He’s not who he was then, and neither am I. Plus, I don’t like the idea of people fucking with us after we’ve started to really get better. It wasn’t that big of an ask.”

“Jenna.” Jake barks out a laugh. “I asked you to drive around with a dead body in the trunk to help Antoni get rid of it, that's not a small ask!”

“It is,” Jenna says, almost primly, “When I don’t mind doing it. I didn’t mind following him to make sure he went to that house like we thought he would, and I didn’t mind helping Antoni out with the body. Besides, I used Vincent Shield’s money to bribe a coroner to say Owen Grant is dead by his own hand, you can’t tell me that’s not some poetic fucking shit right there.” She sighs, looking over at him. “You can always ask me for help, Jake.”

“Can I? Since goddamn when? You’ve been calling Kauri a whore for a decade-”

“Nah, I haven’t done that in a while. Since I decided to stop like five years ago. Since, you know, I realized… I was just taking out on him what I wanted to say to the other pet in the house I ran from.” Jenna sets the file down again. A frightened young woman’s face looks back up from a printed out copy of stolen WRU records. Someone new to hunt for, someone listed as ‘assisted walk-in’, an abduction in flowery language. Someone they can save and if they make it public, WRU can’t try to take them back without running afoul of the law again.

“Jenna, I don’t-... I don’t understand-”

“People change. I changed. Just… let me have changed, Jake. I was scared, and pissed off, and just… lost… for years. I was angry at her for nearly getting me killed, and Kauri reminded me of her, so I took it out on him. But, years back, that little one, uh, your brother-”

“Chris.”

“Right. Years back, Kauri called me for help with him. And I helped, because I’m not a complete asshole, just like seventy percent of one, and after that… I don’t know. Kauri really stepped up for that kid, and I could see how scared he was. Kauri and I are never going to like each other, but that doesn’t mean he’s not one of us.”

“Well… yeah, okay. Thanks. I won’t push you on it anymore.”

“Welcome. And thanks. Congratulations on the marriage, by the way.” She waved at the ring on Jake’s finger. “Good fucking luck with that. Marrying two people sounds way worse than marrying just one.”

“Nah.” Jake shrugs, and opens a file himself. He circles what he sees - ‘referred by foster mother, assisted walk-in’. “It’s way, way better. They’re pretty cool to be married to.”

“If you say so. No marriage for me, thanks. Too much like being kept all over again.”

“That’s fair. Live the life you want to live, right?”

“Right.” She smiles, then, looking around the little kitchen in the small brick ranch she lives in. “Damn straight. Live the life you want to live, all yours, on your own damn terms. Okay, so I say we start with this one, she’s part of a bonded pair. We can get them both.”

“Where are they located?”

“That’s the best part. They’re handler’s pets. They’re local.” Jenna grins at him, sparkling and full of mischief. “Ready to break into a handler’s house and fuck some shit up?”

Jake can’t stop himself from laughing. “Clearly not as ready as you are.”

“... so yes or no?”

“Yeah, Jenna. Let’s do it. Let’s plan a raid.”

“Cool. So how do you feel about setting his house on fire?”

“... I might know someone who can help us with that.”

-

“She’s said sorry like seven fucking times.” Jameson lays on his side on his bed, his back pressed to the wall. “If she says it again, I might lose my goddamn mind, Allyn.”

“She just feels bad.” Allyn smiles at him, laying a hand against the side of his face, their thumb rubbing over his cheekbone, over a small scar. He shudders, closing his eyes as sparks seem to light and dance down his skin, buzzing just under the surface. When they move their hand away, he can still feel the weight of it, the ghost of pleasure. 

“I know, but I already told her, I don’t mind hurting for her. I didn’t mind. It wasn’t even that bad, I’ve been hurt worse than that!”

Between them on the bed Trash Cat lays curled in a contented little ball, eyes closed. Her ear flicks whenever Jameson speaks, as if listening to him, keeping track of the emotion in his voice. Reading it for potential trouble. 

“But she never wants to hurt you. She never wants to hurt anybody. I get it.” Allyn’s hair falls in loose red waves over shoulder and neck and lays against their face. He tucks a little of it behind their ear, watching their freckles shift as they smile at him, flashing white teeth against pink lips, sparkling gray-blue eyes. 

He listens to their voice, tastes the rainshower that comes with it. 

“I don’t mind hurting,” He repeats, but softer this time. “If it’s the right person hurting me.” There’s an unmistakable flirtation in his voice, then, although it’s tentative. He’s never sure how to start this, now that he isn’t having to guess at a master or owner’s mood, read the tension in the air and break it down by handing his body over to the whip and the cane until they are both bonelessly satisfied. 

No, this is… something else.

Something honest.

Something equal. 

If Allyn hurts him, he knows, it will be because he asked to be hurt. Not because it’s his place. The idea feels like wandering in a new landscape. Touching unfamiliar trees that at least still have bark and leaves, but wondering at colors and shapes he’s never seen. Lost, even with map in hand, because the place he is in is so like but not at all the same as the world he knows.

Jameson shifts forwards, as best he can, back curving a little so he can kiss them. Their lips are warm and soft and his own are a little rough and chapped. For a second they go still, and then they’re kissing him back. It’s perfect, at first, too perfect, and then both of them drop the instinctive training and the kiss goes clumsy and they both laugh as they bump teeth.

Trash Cat chirps, lifting her head to look back at them, and then slowly stands up. She stretches in a perfect arch before stalking down to the end of the bed.

“She’s giving us our space,” Allyn whispers against Jameson’s lips, and giggles. The sound of their laughter sends warmth down his spine, and he moves closer, until they’re touching from collarbone to knees, even their feet twining together. His bandaged hand moves slowly up their side, feeling the slight curve, nearly an angle, from narrow waist to larger ribcage. His thumb is so, so close to their chest, and they inhale in a soft hitch. 

“She just doesn’t want me to push her off the fucking bed in a minute,” Jameson answers, a little breathy, and he hates his hoarse voice - can remember he had a normal voice, with Nanda, before Brute and Robert made him scream until it was gone over and over until it stopped coming all the way back. 

“Can I-... can I try something?” Allyn asks in a whisper, and when Jameson nods, they give a little smile and reach up, taking his hand from their face and holding it in their own. Their soft sotto voice is like subtle droplets on Jameson’s tongue, a burst of the way the air taste just before it really starts to rain. He watches them, meeting their eyes with his own, as their thumb settles just over the center of his palm. Beneath that, a healing cut, where Nat had jammed a GPS tracker as deep as she could get.

And Jameson hadn’t screamed.

He knew how to hurt.

“Can I push down?” Allyn’s eyes search his. “While I kiss you, can I… push down on the cut a little bit?”

His mouth goes dry. Jameson’s body is a lightning rod, and he stares at the storm and wants to beg for the roll of thunder that follows the strike. He nods, a little jerk of his chin. “Yes,” He breathes.

Their lips are on his own, again, opening to slide their tongue against his, and he hums into the kiss, pressing his body to theirs. Warmth stirs deep in his stomach, his body waking up, answering the firmness of their kiss.

Then they press down, pain racing down Jameson’s arm and into his body, and he moans, unmistakable and louder than he means to be. He’s rolled onto his back with Allyn pressing into his hips before he can think, and Allyn’s mouth is on his neck, teeth bearing down on soft skin as they roll their own hips against his, and he moans again.

The front door closes, muffled downstairs.

Allyn pulls back, startled. Then they burst out laughing, leaning over until their forehead touches Jameson’s. “Oh, no, I forgot she was home.”

Jameson breathes in soft gasps, and laughs, too. He tips his head back, baring his neck. The place they were biting is cold where air and the remnants of drying saliva meet. “She’s not home anymore,” He offers.

Allyn leans down to bite again, and presses their thumb into his hand at the same time. 

“I love this,” Jameson groans, eyes fluttering closed. His hips move to meet theirs right through their clothes. It doesn’t occur to either of them to take them off… not yet. “I love, love this-”

“I love it, too,” Allyn murmurs, nipping at his earlobe.

Neither of them says what they really mean. Both of them have loved men who could never fully love them in return. Both of them know the words have always been hollow. But both of them think it, if not consciously, then with every inch of skin where they touch.

I love you.

-

“Antoni.” Kauri’s voice, still hoarse as he heals from the hands that had tried to choke the life from him, is laced with a kind of affectionate irritation. “I don’t need it.”

“You do.” Antoni sets the mug down on the side table next to the bed. The tea within is faintly pink, see through, not marked with milk. Kauri can look down into it and see, a little muddied, the image of a cat face painted on the bottom. He sighs and looks up at Antoni, whose eyebrows raise. “You do,” He repeats. “Tea is good for sore throat.”

“Yeah, for like… when you have strep or the flu or some shit,” Kauri groans, but he pushes himself slowly up to seated, back cushioned by approximately eleven million pillows Jake and Antoni have both insisted on keeping near him at all times. Not that it isn’t really, really nice to have one to sit on when he leaves the bed and ends up in a chair like a dumbass. “I was choked, Ant, it’s not the same. Not even the first time I’ve been choked. Not even just Owen! There was this one guy I went home with once…” He smiles, but the laugh dies in his throat before it comes out as he meets Antoni’s dark eyes.

“I remember,” Antoni says. “I remember that night.”

“Of course you do.” Kauri sighs, and pats the bed beside him. Antoni sits, just at the edge, as if he might flee at any second. Like he wants to run from the pain still marking Kauri’s skin. 

Kauri leans over, and places a hand over his. Long fingers that have been slightly cool for so long are warm from too much tea and time under the covers. His ring glimmers in the light, back on his finger where he plans to never ever take it off again. It overlays Antoni’s own. 

“Ant,” He says, softly. “For the thousandth time. It isn’t your fault. I knew what might happen when I went into that room. I was… I was ready for it.”

I was ready to die.

“I should have been inside faster,” Antoni says, and he leans slowly over until his head rests on Kauri’s shoulder. The soft, messy nearly-black hair tickles Kauri’s cheek and he smiles, pulling Antoni’s hand to his mouth to kiss his knuckles, gently, one by one. Bruised knuckles, torn and bloodied the night of the rescue, now healed but still scarred. “The fight with the other one was not supposed to take so long. We had a plan, and we nearly-... you could have been dead-”

“I’m right here,” Kauri says, voice low. He turns and breathes deep. Antoni’s hair smells like tea-tree and mint shampoo, and there’s always something of a kitchen around him. Smells like flour and baking things and sweetness. “I’m right here, Ant. I am alive, I’m right here, look, I feel like a flip flop left out in the mud but I’m here.”

“If not for Vince-”

“Then you would have saved him.” Kauri smiles, and he keeps that smile in his voice. “And that’d be something, wouldn’t it? Secret runaway pet saves multi-millionaire movie star…”

“It would not matter. It would be nothing, if Jasha and I lost you.” 

“You would still have had each other-”

“It would be nothing. You are the… the piece of puzzle that holds two others together. You are color, we have none without you.”

“Bullshit.” Kauri’s smile widens, though, and he flushes a little at the praise, at being told he is needed. Not just needed but wanted. That, at least, he’s never quite lost, and he wonders if that was inherent in Liam Harker, the man who once walked around in his skin. What parts of him have survived within Kauri? 

Maybe just a need to be loved, and wanted, and needed. 

Maybe Liam had that, too.

“Kasha, I love you,” Antoni whispers. It’s hard for him to say the words. Kauri kisses his forehead. Then the tip of his nose.

He pulls back. “I love you, too, Ant. You and Jake and I… we’re forever.” They sit in silence for a few minutes. In the background, a soap opera plays, which both of them are entirely ignoring. Then Kauri says, softly, “Antoni… will you go get my phone? I forgot it in the bathroom and I don’t think I have the energy to go get it on my own just yet.”

Antoni stands, retrieving the phone where it lays on the bathroom counter. When he comes back, he climbs right into the bed, lying on his side under the blankets, near to Kauri without quite touching him. Kauri doesn’t push, this time. 

Antoni offers touch, when he wants it.

“I’ve been thinking,” Kauri says, taking it and tapping idly on the screen, listening to his fingernail click against the shining black. “About a lot. Since I, uh, didn’t die. Lots of time to think when your partners won’t let you leave the fucking bed.”

“Mmhmm.” Antoni doesn’t take the bait, but he smiles a little, pleased with himself. “What do you think about?”

“I think I should call my mom.” Kauri says it all in a rush. He barely gets the words out, even so. The old drumbeat begging him to run from what’s behind him is still so strong, it nearly drowns him out inside his own mind. But he clings to this thought, because he needs Antoni to either encourage him or talk him out of it. “Well, Liam’s mom. I was thinking, if I had died… she’d been trying to get ahold of me, but what if I died and like, she found out Liam was alive and then I got his body killed anyway? Before she could see him?”

“You are Liam, Kasha,” Antoni says. He watches Kauri with inscrutable eyes, looking up at him from where he lays propped up on one elbow. 

“Yeah, but… what if I’m too different, and she hates me for stealing him? What if she thinks Liam is lost, and Kauri is what came back from the dead?”

“You cannot do this,” Antoni says, shaking his head. “Steal him. WRU stole, and he is not lost. You are him. I think it is a good idea to call your mother.”

“But… what if she hates me?”

“Then you never speak to her again, and she can go fuck herself.” Kauri’s eyebrows nearly raise to his hairline, and Antoni laughs, low and soft and deep. ‘What? You think I can’t swear?” He takes Kauri’s hand, and presses warm lips to the back, right in the middle of blood vessels and nerve-endings, making Kauri shiver pleasantly. “Call her. Kauri Grant is brave, and strong-” He kissed again. “Smart, and good. I think that Liam Harker would like this Kauri Grant. So I think Liam Harker’s mother will like Kauri Grant as well.”

Kauri swallows. “Are you-... are you sure about that? I’ve done some pretty seriously fucked-up shit to this body, Ant. Remember when I spent like a month straight on ecstasy?”

“I do, yes.”

“Plus, there have been, like, seven orgies…”

“Sssshhh. Kasha. Listen to me. She will love you. She loves you already, she is Liam’s mama and that means yours. And also… it will probably help if you do not talk to her about the orgies.”

“Right, right, keep a lid on the orgy talk. Got it.”

“Oh, one more thing.”

“Yeah?”

“Don’t talk to me about the orgies, either.”

Laughing hurts, but Kauri discovers that once he starts, he can’t quite make himself stop. 

-

“And… and, and then they… laugh at me.” Chris sits with his knees pulled to his chest, the heels of his feet just barely balanced on the edge of the chair, arms wrapped tightly around his calves. He won’t look at everyone else, keeping his chin tipped down so the shimmering light purple of his hair hides his green eyes. “And, and, and say, um, you-you wanted me to, and when I, um, when I say I, I, I-I didn’t, they, they, they… get angry.”

He has a silicone feather pendant on a small cord stuck in the corner of his mouth, slightly muffling his speech. 

“They say then, um, then why did you you you sign up? Like… like they, they don’t already know that, um, that I didn’t, and… and then they, they say, let’s go again, and I start… I, I, I start crying, because, because they sound just, um, just like… like my-... like him. And they, um, they put me on my, my my my my, my, my… on… on m-my… stomach…”

There are tears in Chris’s eyes, running down his cheeks, but no one moves. No one speaks. Not yet. 

“And, and, and then… I wake up.”

There’s a breath of silence, and then a man to the left of Chris leans towards him, putting a hand to his back. “I have dreams like that, too.”

Chris looks over at him, resting his head on his knees. His eyes are red-rimmed, wreathed in shadows. “You, you do?”

“Yeah. I’ve been married for, like, what, three years now?” The man gives Chris an encouraging, soft smile, rubbing at his back a little. “And free for ten. And I still, sometimes, I wake up just gasping for air because I remember how it felt. And sometimes I dream that my wife is the one hurting me like he did. Probably-... probably all of us have nightmares, right?”

He looks to the rest of the group of twelve, seated in a circle of folding chairs in a small side room in a community building they rent for these meetings. The others, men and women from their early twenties through their late forties, all nod. 

“It just… it goes with getting better, is that-” The man’s eyes flicker to the therapist ostensibly in charge of this meeting. Dr. Francis just nods, gesturing with one hand for the man to continue. He has a cup of bad, bitter decaf coffee in his hands, slowly warming the styrofoam cup, with powdered creamer stirred in and bits still floating a little on the top, refusing to fully dissolve. “That your brain doesn’t always know that you’re safe. And nightmares are just… how your mind tries to, to put together the two parts of your life.”

“It’d… it’d be, be, be be-be nice if it could, um, could do that some other way,” Chris mutters, and there’s a scattering of soft laughter, kind and well-meaning, from everyone else. 

“It would be,” The man says, and gives Chris a final pat on the back before sitting back. “But that’s not really how brains work.”

Dr. Francis clears his throat. “Isaac is correct,” He says, and moves to take his own seat, sipping his coffee and steadfastly making no expression at the awful taste. “It is, indeed, more common than not to have nightmares, and for many those nightmares can last for years. But they are just that - nightmares. They are your minds working inside of you to put together a life of subjugation with one of freedom, and struggling to reconcile the details. But that doesn’t mean you aren’t doing that. It’s only that our brains must adapt in order to survive at a lightning speed. But… it takes so much longer, doesn’t it, for our brains to realize those adaptations are no longer necessary.”

More nods from everyone around the circle. 

“It… it, it does help,” Chris offers, without uncurling himself. “To know everyone else, um, does, does those dreams, too, that it it it doesn’t… they wouldn’t ever, um, hurt me… they wouldn’t.”

Dr. Francis nods. “But someone did. And our bodies and minds catalog those hurts, and hold on, because they are trying to prepare you for that pain to start again. Your body is trying, as hard as it can, to keep you safe. Let’s take a moment to close our eyes, and just-... you can do this silently, everyone - just say thank you to your body for keeping you alive, and safe, to get this far. Just a quick thank-you. All that fear and pain, that was adapting to survive. Let’s thank our bodies for those adaptations.”

There’s another silence, heads bowed and eyes closed. It looks like a prayer. Some of their lips even move, but no one here is thanking God, not really. Instead, they’re whispering a prayer of thanks to nerves and bone and blood that bruised and broke and sent screaming pain signals to brain cells that rearranged, rerouted, made new pathways of survival where none had previously existed. They are giving their gratitude to lungs that fought to expand even with hands around their throat, to a heart that refused to stop beating even as it broke again and again, to hands that slapped and punched, feet that kicked out, lips and tongue that held desperately to the memory of words they weren’t supposed to say.

Words like fuck you and I don’t want this and stop touching me.

Words like we did not sign up for this.

Words like no.

Dr. Francis ends the moment of silence by clearing his throat again. Some of the men and women in the circle have glimmering eyes when they look back up, rubbing just under them in ways they think are subtle, but which everyone recognizes and no one remarks on. 

“Now,” Dr. Francis says, “We have someone new here tonight, and he would like to tell his story. Would it be all right if I call him in? Remember that there is no wrong answer here. And he won’t be listening to any of your stories, just telling his own.”

Some of the group meet eyes, and then they look back to the doctor and nod. Some carefully, others more enthusiastically. A few even smile, kind and soft, agreeable. 

The doctor stands and steps out of the room.

“It’s the guy who came with you, right?” A woman asks Chris, and he nods without uncurling, chewing on the silicone feather. He starts to sway, just a little. “I wondered why he didn’t come into the room right away. He’s one of us, right?”

Before Chris can answer, the door opens again. Dr. Francis steps in first.

Vincent Shield steps in after him.

He moves with a slow, slightly shuffling step, showing the aches that haven’t quite faded in a body still working hard to heal itself. His movie-star megawatt smile is subdued, simply lips pressed together. The shadow of a bruise still wreathes his eye on one side, another clings to a cheekbone. Finger-shaped bruises are finally fading enough from his throat to not be immediately visible for what they are. 

“Hey, Chris,” Vince says, voice low and slightly rough. Chris hums a greeting. There’s a whisper from a few of the circle participants, people who have seen his movies. Their eyes are wide, surprised, but no one comes at him. No one even stands.

They respect the circle, and the people within it.

“Okay, Vince,” Dr. Francis says amicably. “The circle agreed to hear your story tonight, and welcome you to our meetings from here on out. Gang, let’s make some room for Vince to sit down.”

“Uh, Dr. Francis-”

The doctor looks over at a woman in her thirties, while others are shifting their chairs with soft scrapes along hard floors so Vince can unfold a new one and put his own into the empty spot, slowly sitting down, looking around and smiling with a nervous shyness utterly at odds with the empty friendliness he has on the red carpet. 

“Yes, Trin?”

“He’s… he’s not a Romantic, though,” Trin says, glancing to the side. “Sorry, Vince, no offense.”

There’s a bit of low laughter, not unkind, from the participants. “It’s not exactly something anyone should apologize for not being,” Isaac says, good-naturedly. Trin blushes a little and looks down and away, shrugging, smiling a little uneasily. “But she has a point, Dr. Francis, this is group for Romantics only, isn’t it?”

“Normally, yes. But Vince’s story is a little different. He’s been seeing me for a couple of weeks now, and I think it’s worth all of you hearing it. So many of you struggle with feeling separate from the world, and that’s because of the laws and societal isolation, of course, but… I want you to hear this. Your stories, your experiences, they are connected with the experiences and stories of people outside of WRU, outside the system. I think it could help to see that you are not set apart in that way. Vince, if you wouldn’t mind?”

Vincent Shield sits back. He doesn’t look like a movie star - his hair is shaggy and unwashed, he’s wearing an old Nirvana t-shirt he borrowed from Nat and sweatpants, a pair of sandals that don’t even match. You’d never know who he was, if you saw him on the street.

You might wonder if Kauri Grant was having a bad day, but looking at Vince, you’d never see the movie star beneath the real man. 

“Hi, um. Hi everyone.” Vince smiles. “Dr. Francis asked me to talk to you all tonight. He thought it might help, and I’ll… I’ll talk about my, um. What happened to me, and then you can… I’ll step out and you can vote if you want me here. If you don’t, no harm no foul, I totally get it. I’m not sure I even want me here.” He laughs, but there’s no humor in it. “I’m… I’m really lost, if I’m honest. I’m totally lost at what to do with… everything now. I have this entire life and it’s just… hollow. I’m just doing what everyone told me I wanted to do, but-...”

“But it’s not what you want,” Trin suggests. 

“It isn’t. I’m not sure it ever was, or if I just… was told so many times…”

“They tell you that you want it, the way they treat you.” That’s another young woman. “They tell you you’re a flirt, but they make you flirt to get everything, to get food, to get a place to sleep. They make you… they make you pretend, over and over, and tell you that you’re not pretending.”

“They call, they, they call you a slut,” Chris whispers. “And, and, and if you say you’re not, they, they, they say you’re so good at acting that, that, that you must really be…”

“Right.” Vince clears his throat. “Shit. I didn’t know that I would feel… I told myself for forever that what everyone told me was true. But I can’t… I can’t lie to myself any longer. I just can’t. It’s been eating me alive for so long, and I don’t know what it’s like not to feel that way, and… I guess we’re going to find out. But Nat suggested… therapy, and… maybe not lying to my therapist so much this time.”

“You lied to Dr. Francis?” A third person, a man Chris’s age, asks in a scandalized hush.

Vince smiles - it’s a real and sincere smile. He shakes his head. “No, my old therapist. I’m not seeing her any longer. I wanted to start over. I’m… I’m starting over. So. Uh, where… Dr. Francis, where should I start-”

“Anywhere you like,” Dr. Francis says, voice low and gentle. 

“Uh, okay. I’ll, uh, I’ll start kind of like I start when I go to AA, if you all don’t mind?”

“I go to AA,” Isaac offers, a kind of hand outstretched, in words if not in gesture. “Every week. I’ve been sober for two years.”

“Congrats,” Vince says, sincerely. “I’m, uh, it’s been… a few weeks, but after I got to Nat’s I kind of, I fell off the wagon. I wasn’t sleeping, every time I closed my eyes I saw him... what happened. At the end. Drank until I blacked out and woke up on the floor with Nat’s, uh, that Jameson guy pouring water on my face. Then I got so sick I could barely move, turns out when you stop drinking and then start again, your liver gets really angry… it doesn’t matter. I’m starting over. So here’s to… three days sober, I guess?”

“Here’s to three days,” Isaac says, and smiles. “Three days is a start.”

Vince looks up, then, letting his eyes drift over the ceiling. He shifts and his chair creaks beneath him, as if castigating him for pausing for so long, for letting the silence draw out. Then he takes in a deep, deep breath. He fills his lungs with the oxygen until it burns, lets it slowly, slowly push out again.

“My name is Vincent Shield, and I’m an alcoholic. Sorry, just. That bit’s habit. Anyway… When I was twenty-one,” He starts, still not looking at anyone. His voice shakes a little. It’s thin and strained, pushed out past twenty years of keeping secrets and bruised from Owen’s hands. His throat wants to close around the truth, the way it has always wanted to close. The way he allowed it to close over and over for so, so long. His hands find the sides of the chair and grip, white knuckled. “When… when I was twenty-one, my best friend - my only friend, really, kind of my only real family, my parents had already stopped talking to me by then - told me he loved me.”

The room is silent, except for the soft hissing crackle of the coffeemaker and the hum of air conditioning blowing cold air through vents. 

“I told him I didn’t… feel that way about him. He said okay. For a little bit, things were okay. I thought it was fine… and then he-... he acted normal for a while, but… but then he drugged my drink. And when I woke up, I was tied to a bed.”

Vince swallows.

“Naked.”

Perfect silence, nodding heads. They’ve been tied to beds, they’ve woken up naked, they’ve faced down what had felt like such a unique horror to Vince. A terrible thing that it felt like didn’t happen to other people, and here is an entire room of people for whom it was so commonplace they were told their entire lives revolved around it.

Here they all are, with new lives, hobbies, friends. Things they do that aren’t pretending to be someone else, or being… or…

“I was raped.”

It comes out all at once, a single breath of air, a slur of syllables. Iwasraped.

The next words, somehow, harder to say. He forces himself to speak more slowly. He makes his mind dwell on each and every single word. On what it means, on what it’s always meant, on what damage it’s done. He fights not to cry.

Vincent Shield confesses someone else’s sin.

And grants himself absolution.

“Owen Grant raped me… and it wasn’t my fault.”

-

@burtlederp @finder-of-rings @endless-whump @astrobly @thefancydoughnut @newandfiguringitout @doveotions @pretty-face-breaker @gonna-feel-that-tomorrow @boxboysandotherwhump @oops-its-whump @cubeswhump @whump-tr0pes @downriver914 @whumptywhumpdump @whumpiary @orchidscript @nonsensical-whump @outofangband @eatyourdamnpears @hackles-up @grizzlie70 @mylifeisonthebookshelf @keeper-of-all-the-random-things

[i-butter-not-be-a-bot]

A is for Anubis (part one of my alphabet whump)

Ah yes my strange urge to whump gods is banging on my door. There is a whole big story behind all of this but since nobody really cares nor do I feel like typing it all out... Have a whumpy one-shot without context.

Note: Mentions of rape so if you'd like to avoid that...

Anubis lets out a small sob as he is yanked forward by the leash attached to the dog collar he was forced to wear. Martain tied the leash to his desk and started to put his pants back on. Anubis just curled up and cried, shivers wracking his spine. He feels so dirty, so used, and so so tired.

He desperately wants to go home, he doesn't care which one. The cool stone walls of his castle in the underworld, where he has lived for hundreds of years. Or the cozy brick house next to the field where he found safety and hope for a little while.

A bitterness spread through his head, he ruined it all by accepting that duel so far back he barely remembers. He ruined it by coming when the puppeteer summoned him. By accepting the duel. By allowing her to torture him, to take away his powers. He ruined his second home by being there at all. It was his fault Jade is dead. It was his fault that the house was burned down by the puppet master. The guilt is still overwhelming.

Meanwhile Martain is done putting his clothes back on. He lets out a deep satisfied sigh and grins darkly, "So Morte, do you regret lying to me now?" Anubis shudders, "I wasn't- I wasn't lying, master. Really," he shakes his head rapidly. This time the circus master seems to finally understand that Anubis isn't lying. For a second Martain looks hurt, hurt that his brother will truly never come back but that expression disappears almost instantly as he grabs Anubis' neck. "If you're not going to say anything useful then how about you keep it quiet or maybe," he slams the former god into a wall, "just sound like the filthy animal we both know you are." Martain is still grinning madly. "But master-" Anubis shuts up immediately as Martain's fist hits his face.

"You heard me, now be a good boy."

[deadsetobsessions]

Spider in Gotham AU- Pt.2

[Pt.1]

Peter’s no stranger to memories that comes as nightmares. There’s something different to them, the taste of terror that’s tinged with a feeling of “that’s happened.”

Flashes of Aunt May, dying as he stood next to her while choosing the city over her? Old hat. Inky darkness surrounding MJ falling as Peter reached for her, over and over again? Been there, seen that, didn’t even get a sick scar out of it. Racing against the clock to defeat some bad guy or an unknown threat? That’s his Thursday.

But this?

This isn’t his. It’s real, Peter could tell that much. Sure, it’s wrapped up in silk hisses and heart crushing terror, but Peter could always tell whether a nightmare was a nightmare or whether it was a memory.

This was a memory. Not his. His. It’s complicated.

“Your father, papito, he-,”

Then, it’d be the ruffle of his hair, brown eyes. It reminded him of his mom. But the crease of these eyes were different. Hardened, mean. Even towards him.

“Well, he said no, but I knew what he really wanted.”

The base of Peter’s neck always crawled when he remembered that line. His spider-sense warned him that whatever he’s remembering, he would not like.

“Ey, Peter.”

“Huh?” Peter blinked, looking up from where his arms were elbow deep in wires.

“Don’cha need gloves with that?” Frank asked, munching on some jerky. They were sitting in the living room, repairing a TV and a washer Frank had somehow managed to lug back to the apartment. It’s a toss up between Frank’s network of orphans (Peter included), street rats (these things are not mutually inclusive), or his own slightly higher than average strength. Not that they needed to thrift broken things, considering Peter’s funneling money from offshore bank accounts belonging to this America’s 1%. They just made it so easy! He and Ned had been hacking into government bases in middle school back on his world. This world? Not even a challenge. Regardless, this was kind of like… Frank’s version of those fancy sensory boxes for Peter.

“Oh, no. It’s not plugged in, see?”

“How’re ya gunna know it works then?”

“Plug it in after I’m done. Turn it off and on, you know?”

Frank stared at him, then rolled his eyes towards the ceiling.

“If you burn down that portion of the house, at least we’ll be warm for a bit.”

“Thanks. Your confidence in me is astounding.”

“You talk like an old man.”

“I do not! Excuse you! If I’m old, you’re the expired knock off cup ramen in the back of a convenience store!”

“Yo, shrimpy, that’s rude, ya hear?” Frank snickered, impressed at the quip. The Alley kid turned brother stood up to plop next to Peter.

“So… you gonna go…?” Frank made a whooshing sound and held his hand in a web shooter position.

“Tonight? Prolly. Anything I should look out for?”

“You’re gunna get yourself killed, but yeah, heard the gang’s back up north.”

Peter flashed a smile, dimples coming out. “I’ll try not to. Thanks, Frank.”

“Anytime, Spidey.”

Frank, though little (to Peter), was a good friend. Then again, considering Peter saved his ass both in mask and out of it, it’s to be expected. One would think that after eight years of hiding his identity, Peter would be better at it. Then, he got punted into a different world and got made by a child.

To be fair, the circumstances all but screamed Parker Luck, so Peter’s not counting this instance.

See, the first few days of this sudden cohabitation, Peter had asked Frank to find them furniture. Both because he was getting real sick of eating on the floor and because Peter needed to fix his suit to match his much younger body. Then, once he readjusted the shrinking nanotech and the spider legs to fit him in a way that wouldn’t break him, Peter had promptly swung out of the building and went patrolling. He stuck with the wandering Frank, taking out muggers and robbers and everything in between and past that around the area where Frank is.

Looking back, Peter realized how lucky he was when he decided to go on the “helping joyride” at the beginning of the evening. His spider-sense activated way later in the night, the moment where he began seeing and sensing the cameras that kept pointing towards him. He ducked and dodged out of the way, and eventually, the feeling left. Somebody was watching. And he doesn’t know where they stood on the moral side of things.

Anyways, it happened after three weeks and a half of going out and just… settling into life in Gotham. He had already been struggling to find a way home, scouring the libraries around Gotham on any subject that would aid in his multiversal travel. Peter would like to know which emo kid named this city.

Eventually, Parker Luck decided to strike once more.

“Get back, freak!” The lady brandished a wicked knife.

Talk about deja vu.

“Oh no! Knives! My greatest weakness!” Spider-Man yelled, sticking to the shadowed windows as he let his voice echo in the alley. Gotham had a lot of nice hiding places. Spider-man dropped down on her head like a bat out of hell and webbed the knife out of her hands. He webbed the mugger up onto the alleyway above normal reach, and told the man to call the police.

Frank screamed, just as Spider-man wrapped it up, loud enough to reach his enhanced hearing.

“Wait-!” The man tried to stop him, but Peter, small, trained, and having readjusted his reach, slipped away.

“What’s your name?!” The guy he saved yelled at his back.

Spider-man, distracted, yelled back, “SPIDEY!”

He shot webs upwards and used them to slingshot his way towards where Frank was. And… car! Peter used his webs to swing up, up, and let himself fall to gain momentum. At the last moment, Peter shot a web to the top of the car and pulled himself to it.

Shit, shit, shit. He’s stupidly attached to the kid, and he was stupid enough to let Frank go out into Gotham looking both well-fed and well clothed.

The world slowed as he locked eyes with a terrified Frank, who was getting dragged into a car.

The world narrowed to speed and Spider-Man landed on top of the car roof, sweeping his leg out and thankfully remembering his much shorter reach. His foot collided with the kidnapper’s face with the equivalent force of a grown up, slightly annoyed Peter Parker who’s letting his strength go a bit unchecked. Basically, they went flying, blood spewing out of the undoubtedly broken nose Spider-Man had just given them.

Standing on business, the shorter webster promptly flipped down wards as he all but glued the would-be kidnapper to the curb.

“You alright?”

“You’re- You’re that new mask.” Frank whispered, scuttling away from the car where he’d been dropped.

“Yeah, man. You okay?” His voice modulator came in clutch.

“Fuck. Fuck, I gotta-” Frank stumbled. The kid looked like he was one bad break away from snapping. Peter hated it when kids got that terrified look on their faces, it reminded him of himself, helpless as Ben bled out because they should never have to fear something that much.

Something’s wrong, though. As much as Peter wished otherwise, Frank was a Gotham bred and true alley kid, through and through. These kids don’t spook easily. Peter already stopped a couple of kidnappings and at least two of the kids had yelled at him to stay out of the way before unloading a rain of nut kicks on their kidnappers that left Peter wincing for days in sympathy. Frank being this spooked? Something’s going on.

“Woah, easy there, I’m not gonna hurt you,”

Frank shot him a half hysterical, half condescending look. Yeah, that’s more like it.

“Ob-obviously. I have to go before more of them comes,” Frank muttered.

“More of them? You know what they want?”

Frank stared at him, looking up and down at his blue, red, and gold ensemble.

“I can help,” Peter promised.

“What’re your thoughts on metas?”

Suspicious.

“Uh, they’re fine? Depends on the person, why?”

Frank sighed. The skinny teenager, barely 14, tugged at his hair. “They’re traffickers. Meta kids, mostly, so the Bats don’t do nothing. I- uh, I got caught.” He held up a thin wrist, showing Peter his new accessorie, a think metal bracelet that was beeping red.

Peter cursed in his head. Fuck, of course he’d stumble into a-

“Caught? You’re a meta?”

Frank nodded. “Strength. This is an inhibitor, illegal kind, you know?”

Well, that explained how he got all of those furniture without struggle.

“Right. Hey, don’t stress, kid, I’m a meta too.”

Frank blinked.

“What?”

Peter walked up the side of the car and did jazz hands.

“You’re a meta?! But- but you’re a mask operating in Gotham!”

“Yeah…? Is that weird?”

Before Frank could reply, Peter’s sense screamed and Spider-Man shoved Frank away from the spray of bullets.

“Move, Frank!”

Peter flipped away, vaguely aware of Frank’s gaping realization. He took down the shooters in quick succession, stopping the speeding car with his bare hands and some webs.

“Shooters, no shooting!” He yelled, liberally applying force he tended to keep under wraps. Frank was like a brother to him, and there is no universe where Peter Parker would hold back when his family was in danger.

When he got back to Frank, who had oddly stayed instead of running, Peter found out why the kid stayed.

“Peter?!” Frank hissed lowly, looking more pissed off than terrified. “Are you fucking insane?! Why are you running ‘round as a mask?!”

“Shhh!” Shit, he got made. “Come on, get back to the apartment and we can talk there. I’ll get rid of this-”

Peter casually snapped the bracelet in half, tearing the tracker out, and tucked it away to study later.

“Fuckin’- shit, fine, but you’re explaining everything, motherfucker!”

They split, Peter guessing correctly that he was in another lecture of a lifetime.

——

“Your vigilante name is Spiderman?”

“Hey, I can hear you say it without the hyphen! There’s a hyphen in there!”

“You’re not a man! You’re a twerp!”

“I’ll show you twerp, you-”

Five minutes of tussling later, in which Peter did not try to bite Frank’s arm off, thank you very much, Frank leaned back on the couch.

“Besides. People in the streets are calling you Spidey, anyways.”

“Spidey?”

“Some dude you saved from a mugging said you told him.”

Peter slammed his head on the floor where he was laying face down.

“Ughhhh.”

——

“He could have been great. I saw his potential.”

Anger. But he shouldn’t be afraid. The woman loved him.

“Hey, Peter. You’re up here again.”

“Hi.” Peter stayed curled up. His mind had refused him sleep for the last three nights, causing dark circles to appear underneath his eyes. The memories of what he assumed to be this world’s Peter was merging with his. What he’d seen so far did not fill him with confidence of a happy childhood. Flashes of wielding weapons, the sterile smell of a metal dissection table, and hundreds and hundreds of spiders crawling over him, getting startled into biting down. Plus, the stress of tracking down the meta trafficking circles in Gotham was no joke. He doesn’t know Gotham nearly as well as he knew New York, and he had to be extra careful running around and trying to catch every bit of the circle before making any moves. Frank was helping with his network of homeless Meta kids, but the traffickers were everywhere except for Crime Alley.

He should be dead. They sold his body to an organ harvester who dumped his venom filled corpse on the side of Gotham. At least he didn’t have to worry about killing his alternate version.

“Everything all right?” Red Robin clambered down to sit next to him, cowl hiding the concerned scrunch of his brow. He’s never seen Peter like this.

Peter grumbled, staring down at another alleyway. He knows his alternate died. His shit excuse for another sold his body to an organ harvester, when he seized on the operating table, who dumped his venom filled corpse on the side of Gotham. At least he didn’t have to worry about killing his alternate version. He does, however, have to worry about missing vital organs.

“I… remembered something.” Peter remembered a lot of things. And pretty much none of them were good. This Peter suffered a lot in his short life.

Red Robin nodded. The issue of Peter’s spotty memories had come up in their discussions over the past month.

“Ah. Something unpleasant?”

Peter thought back to the voice who, despite all of the other, highly traumatic memories, haunted his brain like nothing else.

“He didn’t live up to it. He refused to kill. So I made the decision for him.”

“Yeah. Not for me, but unpleasant that I know about it.”

“Yeah, I get that. You wanna talk about it?” Peter hid a small smile. Even though Red Robin kept his tone light, the concern still bled through. Warm. It made Peter feel warm. Even if it appeared that the Bats don’t really care about the trafficked meta kids… maybe Red Robin would come save normal kid Peter if he got kidnapped. A backup plan to consider. For now…

“Sure,” he said. Red Robin waited patiently.

“I think, I remember someone. Maybe, maybe my…” Peter grimaced. “My mom? She… told me something. And uh, I think I’maproductofrape.”

“Oh,” Red Robin said, so awkwardly that Peter had to crack a small smile despite the gravity of the topic. “I’m sorry.”

“Yeah. Me too. Not myself, but for…” Peter waved a hand. “You know.”

“Yeah.”

“She wasn’t a good person,” Peter whispered and hated how he missed the browns of her eyes- her middle name was Marie, and god, Peter wished he hadn’t known that because he gets why her eyes reminded him so much of his own mother- and she besmirched everything Mary Parker stood for.

“You have our combined potential, Peter. Make sure not to be like him too much and live up to it, papito.”

“It’s okay, to love her even if she hurt other people,” Red Robin said, gently ruffling his greasy hair. Peter’s spidey-sense tingled and he ducked away. Red Robin withdrew his hand. “Because you can’t really help that. Trust me, I’ve tried. You just have to make sure they don’t get the chance to do what they did again.”

Cold, cold voices and his voice gave out from screaming. “You really are your father’s son. Never being able to do what’s necessary.”

And Peter wondered what happened to Red Robin and who hurt him. Peter would just like to talk. Red Robin reminded him of himself, way back when being Spider-Man meant finding out Harry became Green Goblin. Pained. Tired.

“Yeah,” Peter agreed. But that’s not really a problem, considering the last thing the organ harvester said before dumping him in an alley. “She’s dead in a ditch in Siberia or something. I’m not really worried she’ll do it again.”

“Uh.”

“It’s cool,”

“Right. Have you… remembered your dad?”

“Yeah. He’s in Gotham,” Peter unfurled a little.

“You want help tracking him down? I’m good at that kind of thing.”

Peter glanced at Red Robin. “I think you just admitted to being a stalker.”

“Vigilante,” Red Robin shrugged, like it explained everything. And yeah, it kind of did. Peter snorted.

“Nah, it’s okay. I don’t want to meet him anyways.”

“Why not?”

“He doesn’t know about me,” Peter ticked off his fingers. “I’m a literal walking, talking, breathing reminder of his trauma. And I don’t need a dad.”

Red Robin looked at him silently. Peter doesn’t think about it.

He never wanted to see his parents suffer. An alternate version of his dad, hurt so irrevocably by an alternate version of his mom?

Peter hated that this Catalina dirtied his mother’s name, and went against the most fundamental parts of what the spider symbol was meant for. And considering he’s been doing this longer than her, he had first dibs on defining it. He’ll look after his dad, as long as he’s stuck in Gotham. It’s only right.

“His name? Oh, my son, it’s Richard Grayson.”

——

Peter, who Trusts his instincts: no head rubs?? awwwww

Tim, who’s been trying to get a dna sample for the last month: how does he keep evading me?? He must be a genius or a spy or- *spirals down the conspiracy board*

——

Tim: I’ve connected the dots!

Peter: you’ve connected jack shit

——

Listen, the moment I learned Catalina Flores’ middle name, the pieces clicked, okay? Like legos. It’s like, former FBI agent in this one and former CIA agent in Peter’s home universe? Wow. Middle name Marie? Mary Parker? Incredible. Spider themes run in the blood apparently?? They both have brown eyes!! Trying to do good with no qualms about murder!! (I’m assuming since Mary Parker was SHIELD and I don’t think SHIELD cared much for the sanctity of human life if it threatened the country or something)

[greensaplinggrace]

the way genya holds herself resonates with me so much. it makes me want to hug myself. it makes me want to hug her. god

[the-best-kung-fu]

HEY GUYS!

Here’s the first fic of @jotarosbigbooty​ and I. It’s an omegaverse Jotakak! 🍒⭐️ A HUGE thank you to @therainisnotclear or being our beta!

Cover by me!  🇺🇸 English version: http://archiveofourown.org/works/46057486… 🇧🇷 Versão em PT-BR: https://www.spiritfanfiction.com/historia/heavens-on-fire-24761126/capitulo1 

[silvercaptain24]

O_O

...c-can I hear about all three???

XD

sure!

First up: random baby

which is a lot what it sounds like. Fierce finds a random baby in the woods, goes "Is anyone claiming this child," And lasts a fair amount of time before he just goes "Mine now." There's also the version of this one where the baby is actually not a baby but a wizard-cursed-teen, too...

(I was bored okay.)

2! little sister! like 3, ambiguously not zelda but not quite modern, wherein Fierce ends up running away to keep his baby sister safe, ending up at Time and Malon's ranch.

3! possibly my favorite. (also this is where you want to heed the tags if you might get triggered.)

in which Fierce didn't want to be with a girl but she forced him, and nearly a year later her dad shows up on his doorstep and drops off a baby. He falls in love with his little girl immediately. Unfortunately, the mother starts spreading untrue rumors about him, and he ends up getting run out of town, ends up in Time and Malon's barn, and gets taken in by them.

[madmanwonder]

Prompt

If they had kids

Tatsumi x esdeath

Name: Angus the Iron Bear

Gender: Male

General Appearance: Angus shares the same physical characteristics of his deceased grandfather but with his father hair eye color and hair color.

Personality: kind-hearted, caring, charismatic, idealistic and benevolent with a slight sadistic and dominating attitude.

Special Talents: Indomitable Willpower, Master Horsemanship, High Pain Tolerance

Who they like better: His Father

Who they take after more: His father with a slight bit of his mother.

Personal Headcanon: Angus never knew his mother and never cared much about it due to the less than fortunate circumstances behind of his birth.

Face Claim:

[artfulacrostic]

whumptober begins!!

flying headfirst into fate

Dick let go. He'd fallen farther before, he was sure, but in the moment, as his grapple gun snagged on one of his gloves and sent him tipping sideways, he couldn't remember when.

OR: Five times in Dick Grayson's life that there was no safety net, and one time that there was.

+

Whumptober 2023 Day No. 1: “But now this room is spinning while I’m trying just to fill in all the gaps.” Safety Net