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[prayerith]

oh god i’m thinking about cloud’s sweet little string motif in crisis core again and how it’s referenced in “the price of freedom” (the track) and it makes me want to yell

[ginnsbaker]

All Of Your Pieces (23 - The First Days of Spring)

Chapter Summary: You spotted them a few blocks from the orphanage, just past an alleyway, Steve’s visit still hanging over your head. Wanda stood stiffly, arms wrapped around herself, her chin tilted up as she talked to her ex-boyfriend. You thought it was just Steve who came to Scotland to talk to you—it didn’t occur to you that they would try to get Wanda back too.

Pairing: Wanda Maximoff x Female Reader Chapter word count: 5.1k+ | Chapter Tags: fluff and minor angst, mentions of child abuse

A/N: And just like that, we’re back in the real world, closer and closer to the conclusion of Part II. Everything from here rolls downhill fast. // More author's notes here.

Series Masterlist | Main Masterlist

Spring was a slow hatchling, taking its time to crack through winter's brittle shell. Patches of green clawed stubbornly out of the thawing earth, and somewhere in the distance, birdsong threaded through the air. You’d almost forgotten about birds. The weeks had been muddy, and today, the sky hung heavy with the promise of rain. Still, you couldn’t help but look forward to sunlit picnics with Wanda—to making her little sandwiches, spreading out a blanket, and reading to her until the light faded into soft gold.

But Wanda didn’t care about the season or the idea of picnics in the park.

She cared about a certain kid.

It was the boy from the orphanage where she volunteered. The one with the hollowed-out eyes, bruises that never seemed to fade, and a never-ending string of “accidents” from the roughest home you could imagine. Wanda had seen his mother once, yelling in the parking lot, yanking his arm hard enough that his tiny sneakers skidded on the pavement.

And now the mother was yelling again, and the child was crying, his face streaked with dirt and tears, and the woman’s grip was so tight it was leaving red marks on the kid’s pale skin. 

Somehow, Wanda had managed to track them to their home, a run-down shack on the edge of the woods, border of the city.

“Wanda!” you called, hurrying across the cracked asphalt. The second you saw her face that morning—heard her say she had something to take care of—you followed. “Hey! What’s going on?”

“She hit him,” Wanda said through gritted teeth, her voice trembling with barely restrained fury. “I saw it, Y/N. She—she grabbed him so hard he screamed.”

The boy hiccupped through his sobs, shrinking back against his mother’s hip. 

“Wanda,” you tried again, taking a calculated step. “You need to breathe.”

The wind kicked up around you, whipping Wanda’s hair across her face. Her hand twitched, her fingers curling ever so slightly. You knew what that meant.

She was seconds away from doing something she wouldn’t be able to take back.

“Wanda, listen to me,” you said, stepping in front of her, blocking her line of sight to the house—of the mother. “You can’t do this. You know you can’t.”

Wanda’s eyes blazed red as she regarded you, your presence clearly not doing anything for her temper. “You want me to let her keep hurting him?” she spat. “Is that it?”

“No, of course not,” you said. “I’m saying we report her. We get someone involved who can actually do something about it.”

“You know we can’t go to the police, Y/N.”

That was true. Over a year had passed, yet your names still sat on Interpol's most-wanted list. If the authorities caught even a hint of your presence here in Scotland, it wouldn’t just be trouble for the two of you—it would put Steve and the entire group that followed him, at risk.

Time hadn’t dulled the relentless pressure of being hunted—it just gave you a breather.

“We’ll figure it out,” you said, voice lower now. “We’ve dealt with worse than this, Wanda.”

She closed her eyes, drawing in a sharp breath as her shoulders rose and fell with the effort to keep herself together. When she looked at you again, the glow in her had vanished, only to be replaced by something that broke your heart to see.

The woman clung to her child like she might never let go. Then, while you tried to calm Wanda, she seized the moment and quietly led her son away, both of them slipping off down the street, not daring to look back.

Wanda stayed rooted in place, but didn’t pull away when you stepped closer and rested your hands on her arms. “You don’t have to do this alone,” you told her quietly. “You can’t save everyone. Not like this.”

Her green eyes were glassy, her lips pressed into a tight line. “I just—he’s a kid, Y/N. He’s just… a kid.” She let herself collapse against you, her forehead pressing into your shoulder as her breathing slowed.

“I know,” you nodded, your thumbs brushing soothing circles against her arms.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered against your shirt.

“It’s okay,” you said, your voice soft. “You care, Wanda. That’s not a bad thing. But we have to be careful. We’ll figure it out, okay? We’ll find a way to help.”

You felt her nod against your chest, her arms wrapping tightly around your waist as if she was afraid to let go.

The storm clouds broke overhead a few minutes later, the first raindrops pattering against the pavement as you stood there in the middle of the empty street, holding Wanda close.

The burner phone buzzed again in your pocket. Natasha had been calling for days, and you’d been ignoring every single one. You kept the phone on you anyway, unable to decide if you were ready to let go of this life with Wanda—or if you ever would be. But you weren’t about to answer now, not with Wanda falling apart in your arms.

—

The anonymous tip didn’t go the way you’d hoped.

You’d sent it carefully—no trace, no connection to you or Wanda. The police arrived at the address hours later, long after the mother and her boy had vanished. The shed was empty, save for a few discarded pieces of clothing and a broken chair. No neighbors spoke up. No one had seen anything, heard anything.

Without a witness, without evidence, the case was marked resolved. A polite way of saying nothing to see here.

You couldn’t bring yourself to tell Wanda. She would blame herself, spiral into guilt and anger for not acting when she had the chance.

The picnic was your way of distracting her, of giving her something to smile about. It was a Monday morning, your lunch break from the library unusually long thanks to a slow day and some traded shifts.

Wanda sat on the checkered blanket, her hair tied back in a loose ponytail, her cheeks rosy from the brisk air. She was opening a container of sandwiches you’d packed when you slid closer to her, a sly grin spreading across your face.

“You know,” you started, leaning in just enough to make her glance at you, “I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone look as good as you do holding a Tupperware lid.”

She rolled her eyes. “You might want to get your eyes checked,” she said, laughing softly as she placed the sandwiches between you.

“I’m serious,” you continued. “You look so hot doing everything and nothing.”

She shook her head, her smile growing as she pushed a sandwich toward you. “If you’re trying to butter me up, it’s working.”

You took the sandwich from her hands, but your appetite had waned. Wanda, bathed in sunlight, laughing softly as she brushed crumbs from her sweater—it was such a simple thing, so ordinary, yet it felt impossibly fragile. Like if you blinked too long, it would disappear.

But then Wanda looked at you, chewing thoughtfully as the corners of her mouth curled into a small smile, and you swore she looked like she belonged in a painting—like something precious and eternal that you didn’t deserve but somehow had anyway.

If you went back to your old lives—if Natasha’s calls meant what you thought they did—this fragile world you and Wanda had built could crumble. She was the one thing that made you feel whole, the only thing that mattered. And if that was ripped away...

“You know,” you said casually, as if you were discussing the weather, “I think we should get married.”

Wanda froze mid-chew, a tiny piece of lettuce still sticking out from the corner of her mouth. Her eyes widened, blinking rapidly as if she wasn’t sure she’d heard you correctly. She swallowed hard, her hand slowly setting the half-eaten sandwich down onto the Tupperware lid.

“What… what did you just say?”

You shrugged, your grin turning softer, more sincere. “I mean it. I love you, Wanda. And I want to spend the rest of my life with you. So, what do you say?”

She stared at you, her mouth opening and closing like she wasn’t sure whether to laugh or cry. 

“Are you serious right now?”

“Dead serious,” you said, your hand finding hers on the blanket. “I didn’t bring a ring or anything. I guess I’m not that great at planning picnics. But I’m serious, Wanda.”

“You’re asking me this now? Here?” Wanda repeated, looking at you like you’d grown another three heads. 

You shrugged, feigning cool but deep inside you were panicking. “Well, the sun’s out, you’re ridiculously beautiful, and I’ve… always wanted to.”

Wanda let out an unrestrained laugh, her head tipping downward as her hands came up to cover her mouth. Her shoulders trembled, and for a second, you worried she was upset—maybe even angry. 

You worried she was going to say no.

“Did you even plan this?”  

The truth was, you had a ring. It had been sitting inside one of your socks in the cabinet drawer for weeks. You’d tucked it away, thinking you’d wait a few years before getting down on one knee. But lately, patience had been wearing thin. You’d been catching yourself imagining that moment more and more often. Timing was never your strong suit, though—and asking? You were even worse at that.

Wanda took your face in her hands, her laughter fading as she looked into your eyes earnestly. 

“Y/N, you realize we can’t even get a marriage license, right?” she began, “We’re living under false identities. We don’t exist on paper, at least not as the people we are now. And that’s just the start. We’d have to fake even more documents, find someone willing to look the other way, and don’t even get me started on what happens if someone decides to dig into our backgrounds—”

She paused to take a breath, but she wasn’t done. “It’s not like we can just waltz into city hall in our wedding gowns with flowers and sign our names on a certificate. I can’t risk that. We can’t risk that. And even if we tried, what happens when someone recognizes us? What happens when—”

“Wanda.”

You said her name softly, but it was enough to stop her in her tracks. 

“What?” she asked impatiently, and you could see her conflicted thoughts still tumbling around in her head. 

You took her hands that were cupping your face and put them on your lap, lacing your fingers with hers. “You haven’t actually said yes yet,” you murmured. “And I’m starting to think you’re looking for a way to say no.”

“Y/N—”

“I know we can’t go sign papers and flash rings in front of a government clerk, but that’s not what I’m talking about.” You swallowed hard, trying to keep the rising knot of disappointment out of your throat.

“I’m saying we don’t need them, Wanda. We don’t need papers or signatures or any of that. We don’t even need witnesses. We can just… do it. Now, or back at home, wherever you want. Say our vows—”

“You’ve written your vows?”

You could feel her eyes on you, but you were not brave enough to look back up. At least, until you’ve gotten everything out in the open.

“Uh, yeah. And I have a ring back at home,” you admitted nervously. “It’s not fancy, but if you want to make it feel more official, it’s there. But if you say ‘I do’ right now, Wanda…”

You let the words hang between you, your thumb brushing over her knuckles. “It’ll be real. For me.”

“You really are serious,” she gasped, her hands flying to her mouth, and the blush on your cheeks deepened.

“I’ve never been more serious about anything.”

For a moment, you thought she might start another rant, might bring up all the reasons this wasn’t practical or why you should wait. But instead, she lifted your chin and put her face close to yours, her breath warm against your lips as she whispered, “Okay then. I do.”

You finally lifted your eyes to hers. “You do?” you said, your voice breaking on a laugh.

“I do,” she repeated, her smile so wide it looked like it might split her face.

The world didn’t stop, but it might as well have. You leaned in, slow and unsure, like it really was the first time. And in a way, it was. The first kiss as people who married themselves. Her lips were soft, a little chapped, and she tasted faintly of ketchup. But the kiss remained perfect in every way.

When you opened your eyes, Wanda’s were shining, watery, like she’d been standing too close to the edge of something and didn’t know how far she might fall.

You didn’t realize you were crying too until her thumb brushed just under your eye.

“So… are we married now?” she asked softly, her nose brushing against yours.

You grinned, your chest feeling impossibly light. “I mean, yeah. In the ways that matter most, yeah.”

“Good,” she whispered, pulling you into another kiss. “Although I still want that ring and vows once we get home.”

You grinned. “As you wish, Mrs. Maximoff.”

You were married. In every way that mattered.

—

The very next thing you did after marrying Wanda in private was buy a property—well, more of a gift, really, since Wanda had no idea you were planning it. You picked New Jersey because it was close to New York without actually being New York, and that felt perfect. It’s somewhere near enough to your roots while still granting you a buffer of peace. Scotland had been beautiful and perfect for your time away, but it wasn’t truly home. It was part of the identities you’d been using to stay off the radar. Home was where you could be Y/N, and Wanda could be Wanda.

So, the day after your spontaneous wedding, you made a call to Clint. He picked up on the second ring.

“Hey, Y/N,” he said, “What’s new?”

“For someone who’s on house arrest you sound happy.”

“I have everything I want here, kid. My family. A farm.”

“That sounds amazing, actually,” you said, into the receiver. “Anyway, I got married yesterday.”

There was a moment of stunned silence, then a throaty laugh. “You never do anything halfway, do you?”

“It wasn’t anything formal. It was just between me and Wanda, but it’s—it’s real.”

“I’m happy for you, kid.”

You smiled, looking down at the ring on your finger, still feeling a little lightheaded from happiness. “Thanks. Listen, I need a favor, and you’re the only one I trust. I want to buy a piece of land in Jersey. Under my real name.”

“Hang on,” Clint said, voice turning serious. “Under your real name?”

“Yes,” you confirmed. “This is for me and Wanda—for our future. No more fake names. I just want to make sure everything goes smoothly and nobody starts asking questions.”

He made a thoughtful sound, and you could practically hear him leaning back in his chair. “Alright. I’ll make a few calls and see what I can do.”

True to his word, Clint came through. Within two days, he sent you a secure link to sign electronic documents for the deed of sale and the lot map. You practically hovered over the laptop, heart pounding as you set your digital signature to something you hadn’t used in what felt like lifetimes: your real name.

It made you strangely emotional to see it there, crisp and official on the deed. A document that said, for better or worse, that you existed—and you were claiming a little piece of the world as your own.

You printed the deed and the lot map, carefully rolling them up. Then you unrolled the map again, pulled out a pen, and scrawled your message in neat handwriting along the side: Where Maximoff will torment me for the rest of my days.

Your heart gave a fond lurch at the thought. Wanda’s teasing, her jokes at your expense, the way she’d get that mischievous glint in her eye. You slipped the map into an envelope, pressing down the seal firmly. 

You set the envelope aside, your mind already spinning with how you’d present it. If you made too big a deal out of it, Wanda might freeze, thinking about all the risks. But if you made it too unserious, she might not realize just how monumental this was for you. You wanted to show her you believed in a future that was truly yours. A future where you were Y/N, and she was Wanda Maximoff, and no one could take that away from you.

Taking a breath, you forced yourself to refocus. There was dinner to prepare, chores to do, excuses to be made for why you were holed up in the study all afternoon. But just for a moment, you stayed with the vision of a little house in New Jersey.

—

When Wanda brought up having kids, you were halfway through your second boba and nearly choked on a tapioca pearl. You recovered quickly, but Wanda studied you for a long moment, her gaze sharper than you were used to—like she was reading every micro-expression, searching for the truth behind your reflexive panic.

You cleared your throat, trying to play it cool. “Yeah, I’m okay,” you said, but even you could hear how unconvincing you sounded.

She didn’t let it go. “Are you sure?”

You cursed yourself internally. If she could see through you this easily, what hope did you have for any real secrets?

“Yeah,” you repeated, mustering a small smile. “I’m fine, really.”

But she was already circling back to her question. “So… about having kids. Did you… want that?”

You blinked, heartbeat stuttering all over again. “Wait—do you mean, like, in general? Do I like kids? Or… did you mean…” You gestured vaguely between the two of you, suddenly aware of how warm your face felt. “Like, us? Having kids. Together.”

There was a brief, awkward silence. You tried to gauge her expression, but she gave nothing away—her tone could have been light, or maybe it was serious.

“Kids in general,” Wanda said, finally, her face unreadable.

You hadn’t lied to Wanda in a long time, and it felt natural—automatic, even—to give her the truth the moment you had the chance.

So you told her, “Yeah, I like kids. And they seem to like me too.” Wanda gave you a good-natured smirk at that, like she wasn’t surprised at all.

“You’re good with them,” she said, and you could hear the warmth behind it. She was probably thinking about all those afternoons you spent volunteering at the orphanage back in New York, letting the kids braid your hair or climb all over you without hesitation. 

You nodded, but after a second, your gaze drifted. “I mean, I think I am. But… I’m not sure if that’s the same as having my own.”

“What do you mean?”

“I grew up in a broken family, Wanda. I don’t really know what good parenting looks like. I don’t know if I’d even know how to raise a kid right, or if I’d be able to love them the way they deserve.”

Wanda smiled at you. “You love me properly.”

You grinned, quick and crooked. “Yeah, but you can be pretty childish sometimes.”

She shook her head, pretending to be offended, but her playful warning was ruined by the way she was already laughing.

The laughter tapered off, and then you met Wanda’s eyes again. 

“So,” you asked after a beat, “why are you suddenly thinking about kids?”

She balked, rolling her straw between her fingers. “What if we adopted?” she said, almost ordinary—except her voice caught on the last syllable.

You went still. “Adopt?” A dozen thoughts went through your head before you arrived at a conclusion. “You’re thinking about that boy again, aren’t you?”

She looked away, then nodded. “Yeah.”

You reached for your words like they might keep the ground from tilting beneath you. “I don’t know, Wanda. It sounds like a beautiful idea, it really does, but… it scares me.”

The words seemed to catch her off guard—like she hadn’t expected you to be so direct, or maybe she hadn’t really considered a flat no was even possible from you.

She didn’t answer right away. And that silence was worse.

You felt yourself scramble to soften the blow, even though you knew you were just being honest. “It’s not a never. I want to have this conversation again. With you.”

Wanda nodded slowly, like she was reining something in. “Yeah. You’re right,” she murmured. “And… we’re still hiding. We’re not…” Her voice trailed off.

“Not exactly living normal lives,” you finished for her.

“Yeah,” she said again.

You didn’t regret your answer, but you hated how uncertain it made everything feel. Was she disappointed in you?

She stood a second later, the motion a little too brisk to be casual. “I, um… I should check the laundry. If I leave it too long it’ll start to smell like rain.”

You didn’t know if you’d just had your first fight, or a pre-fight, or maybe a warning shot of something more.

But whatever it was, it didn’t feel resolved.

—

You were halfway through a battered copy of East of Eden when Steve Rogers walked into the library. You weren’t supposed to be reading—not technically. Your job was to stand near the entrance, smile politely at patrons, and make sure no one smuggled an entire encyclopedia set under their coat. But slow days meant slow rules, and the library staff didn’t mind you leaning against the shelves, book in hand, as long as you did your job.

You were underlining a passage with your finger—“And now that you don’t have to be perfect, you can be good.”—when his footsteps reached your ears. You recognized those boots, that walk. 

Your thumb caught on the corner of the paper and when you looked up, Steve was already walking toward you, hands stuffed deep into the pockets of his brown leather jacket. And though you’d braced yourself for the day someone from that life might walk through those glass doors, you weren’t prepared for the beard.

It softened him somehow, made him look less like the man you’d followed into fire and more like someone who fixed motorcycles for fun on weekends. But it was still him. And you didn’t realize until now that you kind of missed him too. 

“Steve,” you said, snapping the book shut and tucking it under your arm. “You know you could’ve just texted.”

“Would you have answered?” he asked.

Fair question.

“Come on,” you said, jerking your head toward the stacks. Somewhere private.

The two of you walked deeper into the stacks, where the tall shelves swallowed up the view from the front desk.

You stopped near the philosophy section, surrounded by musty-smelling pages and the faces of long-dead thinkers staring out from their book covers.

“So,” you said, leaning back against the shelf. “What’s the pitch?”

“It’s not a pitch,” Steve said.

“It’s always a pitch with you guys,” you said, your lips curling into a humorless smile.

Steve sighed, running a hand through his hair. Up close, you could see the way exhaustion had settled into his features. Just what had he been doing this past year? Most importantly, you really wanted to ask him about the beard.

“Natasha thought you’d take this more seriously if I came instead of her,” he said.

“That’s because Natasha knows I’d block her number before she finished the word ‘favor.’”

Steve almost smiled at that. Almost. You glanced down, staring at the cover of the book under your arm. East of Eden. A story about choices, consequences. How fitting.

“I can’t help you,” you said finally before he could say more.

“Y/N—”

“You know,” you started, crossing your arms over your chest, “you’re the one who told us to do this. You looked us all in the eye and said, Run. Find somewhere quiet, somewhere safe. Build a life. Be happy. And now you’re here, in my library, with that face—like you want to take it all back.”

“That was then,” he said quietly. “Things have changed.”

“What exactly changed?”

“We don’t have all the details, yet, but,” Steve sighed. “I wouldn’t be here if things weren’t… worse.”

You glanced away, frustration simmering. “You can’t just show up here and ask me to… what, suit up again? To leave her? To leave this life behind because the sky’s falling again?” Your voice cracked slightly, and you cursed yourself for letting him hear it.

Steve nodded empathically. You didn’t usually believe people when they said they got it—but with Steve, you knew he did. He’d been here before, more times than anyone should. He’d lost more, had things—people—ripped away from him in ways you couldn’t imagine.

You looked down at your feet, suddenly feeling guilty for saying no to him. “You gave us the order to be here, Steve. And now I’ve built something—something good, something real. I wake up next to her, and for the first time in my life, I’m happy. And you want me to trade that in?”

Steve stood there and took everything you had to give. “I don’t want you to trade anything,” he finally said after a few beats. “You’re right. I told you to run. Told all of you to find something better. You did what I asked. You did everything I asked.”

He put a hand on your shoulder. “It’s really good to see you, Y/N.” 

You didn’t answer. You just stared at the books behind him, your eyes skimming the spines of books about dead men who’d all tried their best.

“And you and Wanda,” he continued, pulling his hand back slowly, like he was afraid you’d shatter under his touch, “take care of each other.”

—

You spotted them a few blocks from the orphanage, just past an alleyway, Steve’s visit still hanging over your head. Wanda stood stiffly, arms wrapped around herself, her chin tilted up as she talked to her ex-boyfriend. You thought it was just Steve who came to Scotland to talk to you—it didn’t occur to you that they would try to get Wanda back too.

You were supposed to announce yourself. Step forward, call out her name, and break up the little reunion. But instead, you hung back, hovering just out of sight like some kind of coward. 

It wasn’t that you didn’t trust Wanda—you did, completely. But Vision wasn’t just anyone. He was… well, he was almost in your place now. If the Accords hadn’t happened, maybe it’d be him married to Wanda. Maybe they’d be the ones in Scotland, sharing that little apartment.

You hid behind some bushes, trying to make out their conversation. You couldn’t hear every word, but you caught enough.

“...It’s always been your fight. Our fight. You know that.”

“Don’t do that, Vision. Don’t make it sound like I’m running.”

“You’re choosing to look away.”

“I’ve chosen to live. That’s what this is.”

“And what happens when living isn’t enough? When the people you love are in danger?”

“You don’t get to talk about the people I love.”

That’s when you decided to come out of hiding, startling Wanda. Vision didn’t seem surprised—if you had to guess, he already knew you were there, listening in on their conversation the entire time. He just didn’t care.

“Y/N,” she said, your name falling somewhere between a sigh and an apology.

But you were more focused on Vision. “That’s enough,” you said, glaring at him. “You can’t force Wanda into anything.”

Vision regarded you with an unreadable expression. Over the past year, without the constant presence of people around him, he’d grown more machine-like, more distant, than he’d ever been back at the compound. 

“I’m not forcing her,” he said evenly. “I’m simply making my case. If it came off as otherwise, I apologize.”

Wanda pressed her lips together, torn. She looked at you, then at Vision, and you could practically see the conflicting emotions plastered across her face. You moved closer, sliding an arm around her waist, quite tempted to keep her behind you like a shield. 

“So,” you said, letting out a shaky breath, “Steve dropped by. Tried to rope me back in.”

Vision dipped his head in a small nod. “Yes. And from what I understand, you refused.” His stare was polite, but the implication stung.

Your cheeks heated. He might as well have said you’re letting the world down for how it sounded. You swallowed, trying not to let the shame bleed into your voice. “I told him no. I have a life here. So does Wanda.”

“I’m sorry to hear that. I had hoped you would be more open to our situation.”

Was he trying to guilt-trip you? Your lungs felt too small for the breath you were holding. “I—” you started, then let it go, tightening your grip on Wanda’s waist.

“I have faith in Wanda,” Vision continued. “Regardless of how the world has treated her—she can still do the right thing. I believe she will do the right thing.”

You felt Wanda stiffen in your arms. You gritted your teeth. Vision knew how to play his cards around Wanda. You hate that he still knew how, after all this time.

“Vision…” Wanda murmured.

You swallowed, turning to Wanda fully. “Do you… do you want to go back?”

Wanda sucked in a breath, her gaze softening as she looked at you. “I want to stay here,” she said quietly. “I want to be with you.”

She wasn’t lying. But Wanda could want two different things at the same time—and she did. She wanted to be with you, to continue this peaceful life, but she also wanted a shot at redemption. Though Wanda’s guilt had lessened during your time together, you knew she always wanted to do something to make up for what happened in Lagos.

“Wherever you go, I’ll follow,” you assured her, reaching out to gently take her hand. “You never have to worry about losing me. You’ll never lose me.”

Just then, a low rumble crawled across the sky.

At first, you thought it was thunder—an early storm rolling in over the rooftops. But storms never formed this quickly, or with this much spectacle. 

Vision angled his head skyward, eyes reflecting the strange phenomenon. “They found us.”

[clementineinn]

before you fade, 2.

abstract: a string of disappearances in a snowbound town pulls the BAU into a chilling case — one that hits too close when the next target is personal. chosen not for weakness, but for the strength that's been buried, hidden away in the depths of a person. as a team races against time, secrets resurface, and the line between subject and survivor begins to blur.

pairing: spencer reid x fem!reader (some usage of Y/N)

genre: angst / fluff

word count: ~7.5k

note: i finally finished up the second part to this story! ill link the first part in case anyone wants to check it out as well :) thank you sosososo much to all of you who liked, commented, reblogged my previous post, it was so heartwarming to see!! thank you, you beautiful community who accepted me w open arms. KISSES tO ALL OF U MWAH!!!! enjoy! :)

She woke to cold metal beneath her skin.

It wasn’t the kind of cold from snow or air — it was worse. The sterile, dead cold of stainless steel. Her head throbbed in pulses, and her limbs wouldn’t move the way she wanted, the way her mind willed them to. Her hands were restrained — not roughly, but with precision. Cuffs attached to the bed. Her ankles were the same. She could flex her fingers, but her strength felt distant. Detached.

Lights burned overhead. Fluorescent. Harsh.

She blinked, once, twice, vision adjusting.

The room around her was wrong. Not a basement. Not a dungeon. Something worse. It was clean.

She was on a surgical table — straps across her torso, her legs, her arms. Her jacket was gone. So were her shoes. She wore a plain, gray hospital gown that didn’t belong to her.

The walls were white. Immaculate. To her left, she saw a counter lined with metal instruments, each laid out in careful rows — forceps, syringes, scalpels – tools that made her stomach flip. To her right, a tray with a notepad and pen. A recorder.

And against the far wall — cages.

Three of them. Stainless steel. Empty. Animal enclosures.

Her heart lurched.

Then she heard it.

Footsteps. Soft. Measured.

A figure emerged from the shadows beyond the door. A man — maybe late 30s, lean, gloved hands. No rage in his face. No glee. Just curiosity. Calm, clinical interest.

He didn’t look like a monster. He looked like a doctor.

“Hello, Agent,” he said gently.

She didn’t speak.

He smiled a little. “I’m glad you’re awake. I didn’t expect to take you this soon. But… you fit.”

He approached slowly, his eyes scanning her face the way someone might scan a page in a textbook. She turned her head away, her jaw locked.

“I know you’re scared,” he continued, voice as smooth as glass. “But this isn’t about pain. I’m not interested in hurting you. I’m interested in understanding you.”

She didn’t respond.

“I’ve read your file,” he said. “Not the Bureau one — not the sanitized version they handed you when you joined the BAU. I mean the real one. The one Interpol tried to bury after Prague.”

Her stomach clenched.

He smiled, not cruel — but pleased. “That got your attention.”

“I know what happened to you there. The explosion. The agents you lost. The three weeks you spent in a burn unit. The trauma counseling. You were broken once — not just physically. Psychologically. But you survived.”

She glared at him now, eyes narrowing.

He leaned closer. “That’s what made you perfect. You know how to fracture and rebuild. That’s what fascinates me. Not weakness. Not fear. Reconstruction. I want to see what happens when all that strength… finally stops holding.”

“The team will find me,” she said, voice raw but firm. “And when he— they do—”

“I’m counting on it,” he replied brightly, his expression almost gleeful now. “I want them to see what happens to the unbreakable ones.”

Then he pressed record on the tape deck.

And turned off the lights.

Time didn’t exist in the white room. Not in any way that mattered.

There were no windows. No clocks. No day or night. Just the endless, sterile glare of fluorescent lights that never dimmed — a brightness so constant, it began to erode the edges of thought. Shadows didn’t shift here. Time didn’t pass. It hovered, oppressive and still.

The hum of electricity behind the walls was constant. Not loud, but invasive — a subtle, vibrating presence that crept under her skin and coiled in her skull. The air was dry, recycled, and carried the faint, inescapable scent of antiseptic and metal. It wasn’t cold enough to kill — he’d made sure of that — but it was cold enough to numb. Cold enough to make her body forget how warmth felt.

Everything in the room was curated. Precise. White walls. White floor. Stainless steel. The kind of blankness that invited madness. That erased identity.

She didn’t scream — that would’ve given him too much. She didn’t beg — that’s what he wanted. She didn’t cry — not because she didn’t want to, but because she wasn’t sure she could anymore. The tears had dried up somewhere between the restraints and the silence— and the bruises.

They covered her jaw, her ribs, the tender skin at her temple where his knuckles had struck hard and fast in the dark. He never hit her with rage. Never while yelling. No warning. Just methodical strikes — knuckles to cheekbone, heel of the hand to sternum — meant to test reflexes. To study how pain shifted the body’s defenses. How silence buckled under pressure. Every hour that passed was another test of will, another slow-motion sparring match with a man who didn’t want chaos — he wanted collapse.

And she had spent years learning how to outlive collapse.

She focused on the details. The click of the lock before he entered. The shuffle of paper. The faint scent of latex. She counted them like lifelines, cataloged them like patterns. Because patterns meant control. And control — even the illusion of it — could mean survival.

Ben Milburn entered the same way every time.

No wasted motion. Clipboard in hand. Gloves already on. A white coat worn not for warmth, but for theater.

He didn’t look at her like a person. He looked at her like a subject. His gaze was clinical, dispassionate — the kind of stare she’d seen in war footage, in documentaries, in predators. And when she didn’t respond, when her defiance lingered too long behind swollen eyes, he would lean close and, in that same gentle voice, say, “Let’s accelerate the variables.”

Then he’d strike.

One night, it was a fist to the temple — sudden and sharp — that left her dazed, blinking blood from her eyelashes. Another, he backhanded her hard enough to split her lip and knock her head sideways into the metal frame. When she coughed from smoke in her lungs, he struck low, right below the ribs, to hear how breath sounded when it shattered.

He watched her every time. And he wrote it all down.

“I notice your sleep cycle hasn’t reset,” he said after being gone for — she didn’t know. A day? Maybe less. The lights never changed. Time bent strangely here.

She didn’t know how long it had been since the last blackout — since he turned off the lights and struck from the dark, his fists meeting bone and skin in clinical rhythm.

“You’re still trying to control time. That’s interesting.”

She didn’t respond.

“You’re still regulating your breath rate, too,” he mused, circling the table. “That’s a primitive defense. Mind over body. But eventually, that’ll crack, too.” A wicked smile played on his lips, the corner of them twitching as if trying not to laugh, and his eyes looked far away, as if he was reliving a distant memory. “It always does.”

Her face throbbed. The skin under her left eye was tight and hot. A bruise swelling beneath it like a second heartbeat.

Still, she kept her eyes on him. Calm. Steady. She refused to give him the sound of pain.

“It’s fascinating,” he murmured, gaze drifting down her body like she was a medical scan. “I’ve read your file. Childhood trauma. Strict self-regulation. Authority issues. Emotional isolation. But still… you became someone. Highly functional. Brilliant, even. Your pain made you exceptional.”

He circled slowly, his steps soft on the tile. A man who lived in silence. Who fed on it.

Her lips curled — not into a smile, but something sharper.

“Yours,” she said, voice low and razor-thin, “just made you boring.”

He stilled.

Just for a moment.

His hand paused above the tray of instruments — a needle halfway to its case. He didn’t react violently. His expression didn’t twist with rage. That wasn’t his nature. But something shifted. A flicker in his gaze. The illusion of total control cracked.

It was the smallest tell. And Y/N saw it.

She filed it away like a weapon. Because she knew now — he wasn’t unshakable.

The injections were mild sedatives. Nothing paralyzing — just enough to loosen the mind, distort time, make fear crawl more easily under the skin. He was too careful for brute force. That wasn’t his style. He wanted surrender, not obedience. Collapse, not compliance.

But he underestimated her.

Every time she drifted under the haze, she forced her mind to focus — on Spencer’s voice, on the rhythm of profiling exercises, on the feel of her badge in her hand. Anchors. Things that tethered her to herself.

She noticed patterns. He entered every hour. Always from the left-hand door. He avoided the cages when she watched. There was something beneath the floor — once, when he left, she heard machinery start humming under the metal table.

This isn’t a basement. It’s something else. A lab? A clinic?

The third time he brought food, she noticed the smell: antiseptic, animal dander, faint but distinct.

Veterinary clinic.

Old. Repurposed. Out of sight.

She tucked the thought away like a blade in her pocket.

He sat in the corner that time, not looming or circling. Just sitting. Like they were having a late-night conversation in a quiet study. Like this was something intimate.

Y/N lay still on the table, one wrist still cuffed, the sedative fading from her bloodstream in slow pulses. Her mouth was dry. Her face throbbed. But her eyes — bloodshot, bruised — stayed locked on his.

“You know,” he began, his voice calm, “they’re searching. The way your team always does. Brilliant minds. Cracking timelines. Profiling patterns.”

He tapped the pen against the clipboard — rhythmic, idle.

“They found the old facility on Claremont Road. The one with the rotted subfloor and the leftover cages. I knew they would. That was intentional.”

Her breath hitched.

He smiled, small and patient. “They think that’s where I brought you. That’s where they’re focusing now. Grids. Maps. K-9 units.”

She clenched her jaw. “They’ll find this place. They always do.”

He tilted his head slightly. “Eventually, maybe. But this clinic isn’t in any current zoning records. No satellite imagery. No listed utilities. You don’t stumble on this one unless you already know it exists. It’ll probably take them days.”

He leaned forward now, eyes glittering in the light.

“Only locals know this land. People who were born here. People who remember the vet that used to run this place — back when it was a roadside barn before the county paved the forest around it.”

He said it almost wistfully, like he was recounting folklore.

“I used to come here with my father. We’d bring in raccoons, injured strays. I remember the smell of iodine. The way the walls would sweat in summer. It’s always been quiet here.”

Y/N swallowed hard.

“You planned all of this.”

“Of course I did,” he said, almost offended. “You don’t trap someone like you without planning every inch of it.”

Her pulse spiked. He glanced toward the monitor and smiled.

“You see, Agent, they’re close. But not here. And that’s what makes this perfect. You’ll still be alone… right up until the end.”

She didn’t flinch. Didn’t speak.

But inside, her brain raced.

Claremont Road — that’s where they were. But this wasn’t Claremont. He’d led them there. On purpose.

And unless she found a way out, they wouldn’t find her in time.

Milburn entered in silence this time, no clipboard, no syringe. Just a chair in hand.

He placed it beside the table and sat like they were about to begin a therapy session. His gaze moved over her not with hunger, but reverence. The reverence of a man studying a masterpiece.

“You’re stubborn,” he said quietly. “It’s admirable. Most subjects began showing cracks by the first 10 hours.”

Y/N didn’t respond. She’d learned that silence provoked more than resistance.

“I imagine the team thinks they’re close,” he continued, almost conversational. “I left enough in the decoy site to suggest activity. Staged prints. Traces of sedatives. A broken monitor. The perfect crime scene for a partial timeline.”

He glanced at her, waiting for a reaction.

She blinked slowly. “The Claremont Road clinic.”

His smile widened, pleased that she knew. “Exactly.”

“You wanted them to find it,” she said.

He leaned in, tone soft and smug. “Of course. Letting them believe they’re closing in — that’s part of the breakdown. Hope, then disappointment. Over and over. The mind eventually lets go.”

She tilted her head, blood still dried on her lip. “You always this theatrical?”

He let out a soft chuckle. “I like design. I like when things fit.”

“And you’re sure they haven’t figured it out?”

He looked faintly insulted. “This property isn’t in any active database. The original veterinary license expired before digitization. No power grid, no plumbing registry, no road signs. Just a gravel trail locals used to know. They’d have to know this land the way I do.”

Y/N swallowed, keeping her expression neutral. “And you’re fine with dying here?”

“If it completes the study,” he said, voice low and even. “If it finishes the arc, yes.”

She let the silence stretch.

Then, with deliberate care, she said, “You know, I’ve profiled men like you. Not exactly like you — but close. The ones who claim they don’t need an audience… always want one most of all.”

His jaw tensed. Subtle. But there.

“I think,” she added, shifting slightly against the table, “you want them to see what you did. Not read about it in a case file. You want your final subject to be found. Otherwise, it’s just… wasted data.”

Milburn’s expression flickered. Not rage. But doubt.

And she smiled through the ache in her jaw.

“Maybe you’re not as certain as you pretend to be.”

He stood slowly.

He didn’t speak.

But he walked out without administering another dose.

And for the first time, she felt him slip.

The room was humming now. A different kind of hum — not the sterile buzz of lights or the faint static from the speaker, but a pulse. Mechanical. Deep.

Like something buried beneath the floor had woken up.

Y/N sat hunched on the edge of the table, one wrist still cuffed, lip split from the last blow, eyes locked on the glowing red light in the upper corner of the ceiling — the camera. Her breath was shallow. Her limbs were shaking. Not from fear, but from calculation.

She knew she’d only get one shot. Flashes of his previous victims flashed through her brain, grimace coming on her face as her lip quivered. Charred bodies, burnt all the way through, only recognizable through dental records. 

The lights had dimmed, but she could still see — just enough. The tools were gone – in fact, it seemed like the room had been sterilized again. Everything reset. Everything perfect.

Except her.

The loop of her own voice still echoed overhead.

He watches them fall apart.

Over and over. Warped now, slowed like a vinyl melting.

She yanked again at the last cuff, teeth gritted, blood now wetting the strap from where she’d cut her wrist on the metal. Her hand limped to her side, strength quickly depleting, hopelessness starting to kick in every time she tried to take a breath through her nose only to be met with a clogged, bloody mess. 

Then — a different sound.

A relay snapped. Mechanical. Below the floor.

And a low, rhythmic beeping began.

She froze. That wasn’t part of the sedation system. 

Her eyes snapped to the vent in the corner — a faint plume of smoke, barely visible in the dim light. Chemical, not fire. But spreading.

The speaker cracked to life, the static sharp against the hum of failing vents.

Then his voice came through — calm, steady, disturbingly warm.

“I always knew I’d be caught.”

A pause. Just long enough to make her blood chill.

“People like me don’t get away with it forever. That’s a myth. The smart ones, the ones who study—they know there’s no such thing as forever. There’s only timing. There’s only design.”

His voice moved with a strange rhythm, like he wasn’t just speaking to her — like he was reading aloud from a thesis only he understood.

“I’ve seen how it ends for others. Reckless monsters with blood on their hands and panic in their veins. They get sloppy. They get loud. They get stupid. They burn out in chaos.”

He paused again, then continued, even more softly.

“But I… I never wanted chaos. I wanted clarity.”

Another relay snapped behind the walls.

“You weren’t supposed to die in rage or fire. That’s not what this was for. I brought you here because I believed you’d last. I believed you’d show me the precise moment where resilience fractures into surrender. I wanted to see you break — slowly. Completely. And maybe you would’ve. If I had more time.”

The smoke thickened in the corners. The beeping quickened.

“I always planned for this. Every subject was a step. Every cage, every dose, every silence — all of it leading to you. The perfect profile. The cleanest mind. You don’t scream. You calculate. And I thought, maybe... if I could break you, then I’d understand how it all ends.”

His tone shifted — brighter, almost breathless.

“And now it does end. Not because I lost. But because I chose it. I’ve seen what happens after they catch people like me. The cage. The headlines. The slow rot of purpose. No thank you.”

The beeping was constant now. Almost shrill.

“This way, the story stays mine.”

Then one final pause.

“And if you survive this, Y/N — if you crawl from the fire — then you’ll live knowing that I got inside your head. That I chose you as the last page. And that everything after this moment... belongs to me.”

The speaker went dead.

And the door unlatched.

The lock gave a soft, mechanical click — almost casual.

The kind of sound you could miss if you weren’t listening for it.

But she heard it.

And she moved.

Y/N surged upright, her world a blur of blood and smoke and failing light. Her legs nearly gave out as her bare feet hit the freezing tile. Her right wrist was still shackled — the torn flesh around it slippery with blood — but she didn’t hesitate. She gripped the metal base of the restraint with her free hand and ripped, screaming through clenched teeth as she tore the cuff off the rail with brute force and adrenaline.

The torn metal edge sliced deeper into her wrist, hot blood spurting down her forearm. But the pain didn’t register. Not really. It was just another noise in the growing cacophony.

The hallway outside the room was blinding white — too clean, too bright — but the air was already sour. Smoke poured from the vents in ribbons now, curling along the floor like fingers searching for skin.

Beep. Beep. BeepBeepBeep.

The emergency lighting strobed red overhead — a pulsing countdown that painted her body in flashes of panic.

She stumbled forward, one arm pressed to her chest, the other swinging wildly for balance as she bolted down the corridor. Each step burned. Her right thigh screamed with every movement — the wound he had carved there was now a deep, wet gash. Her lungs convulsed. Her skin felt like paper.

She slammed into the wall, rebounded – kept going.

Every door she passed was shut. Sealed. Designed not to open from the inside.

She reached a T-junction in the hallway — and for a second, she froze.

Left? Right? She turned right.

A gust of heat struck her — the fire had reached the lower floors. Somewhere in the building, structural integrity had begun to collapse. A ceiling tile fell behind her with a crash. Smoke turned black.

Then she saw it — the red glow of an EXIT sign through the haze.

A steel door. No lock. No keypad. Just a crash bar.

She sprinted, half-limping, half-collapsing with every step. Her ears were ringing. Her vision dimmed at the edges. The beeping was almost constant now — so fast it became one unbroken shriek.

She hit the door with her shoulder.

It didn’t budge.

She hit it again — harder. Her body screamed.

Then she threw herself at it with everything she had.

The latch gave. The door burst open.

And she flew forward — into snow.

She tumbled face-first into the ice, her breath wrenching from her lungs in a broken sob. Cold air shocked her lungs, crisp and clean and real. Finally real.

She scrambled up, hands sinking into the drift. Her legs collapsed again — but she crawled.

Three feet.

Five.

Ten.

Behind her, the clinic trembled.

And then — it erupted.

The explosion hit like a living thing.

The entire back wall of the building lifted first, bricks and steel shrapnel exploding outward in a wave of orange fire and debris. The shockwave followed — concussive and furious.

Y/N was thrown like a rag doll. The world tilted sideways.

She hit the ground hard — skidded across the ice, body twisting midair — then slammed into the base of a snowbank, the breath knocked out of her in one violent rush.

Everything went silent.

For a few seconds, she didn’t know if she was dead.

Ash began to fall like snow.

The sky flickered, flames roaring behind her. She blinked slowly, her left arm twisted under her. Her shoulder was dislocated. Her thigh oozed blood. Her face was burned — just barely — along the temple and jaw.

But she was alive.

The air was sharp and frozen and she breathed it.

The explosion had blown Milburn’s empire into dust.

And somehow, she had crawled out of it. His words replayed in her mind, foreboding and haunting: “And if you survive this, Y/N — if you crawl from the fire — then you’ll live knowing that I got inside your head. That I chose you as the last page. And that everything after this moment... belongs to me.”

The SUV skidded to a halt on the icy road, tires crunching through snow and ash.

The roar of the explosion still echoed in the trees. Flames licked at the sky from the collapsed roof of the old clinic, casting long, flickering shadows across the snow – as if trying to burn the stars out, setting the sky aflame. Debris crackled in the wind. The smell of scorched chemicals, wood, and something acrid hung thick in the air. Smoke bloomed up ahead like a black wound in the trees. The remains of the clinic glowed in the distance — not just burning, but obliterated. The structure was gone. Collapsed inward. 

Spencer was out of the car before it fully stopped.

“Y/N!” he screamed, boots slipping as he tore across the snow.

Morgan followed fast, radio in hand. “We need medics now. Structure’s gone. Repeat — the clinic is gone. We’ve got fire and active ground collapse.”

They crested the ridge behind the ruins just as the wind shifted — and Spencer saw it.

A shape. Small. Slumped. Barely a shadow against the snow.

“There!” he shouted, voice cracking. “She’s there—Morgan, she’s there!”

He dropped to his knees beside her, sliding the last few feet. Her body was twisted at the edge of a snowbank, half-covered in soot, her skin streaked with blood and ash. Her right arm was limp. Her leg was slick with deep red. Her lips were cracked and blue, and one side of her face was bruised and blistered.

But her chest rose, even if barely. 

“Y/N,” Spencer said, voice shaking as he leaned over her. “Hey—hey, it’s me. You’re okay. You’re safe now.”

Her eyelids fluttered just a little. Her lips parted — but no words came out. Just a sound. A raw, rasping breath.

Morgan slid in beside them, pulling off his jacket and pressing it over her. “She’s in shock. We’ve gotta stop the bleeding. Pulse is weak, but it’s there.”

“I’ve got you,” Spencer whispered, brushing damp hair back from her face. “We’re right here. You’re not alone.”

She blinked once — slow and painful — and focused on him. Recognition hit like a gasp of air underwater. She tried to speak. Her mouth moved.

He leaned in.

“I made it.”

It was nothing but breath. But he heard it.

And then she passed out.

Fifteen minutes later, the sirens pierced the silence.

A wall of red and white light cut through the trees as the first ambulance skidded onto the scene, tires fishtailing slightly on the packed snow. EMTs leapt out before the vehicle had fully stopped, rushing toward the figures crouched near the base of the ridge.

“She’s here!” Morgan called, waving them over with one hand while the other remained pressed firmly to Y/N’s thigh, trying to slow the bleeding. “She’s in shock, multiple lacerations, third-degree burns on her left side, possible dislocated shoulder—”

“Airway’s clear,” another medic confirmed, kneeling at her head. “Breathing is shallow but present. BP’s dropping.”

Spencer barely registered the shouts and movements around him. His focus never left her face.

She was unconscious now. Still. Her skin ghostly pale beneath the smears of ash and blood. Her hair was damp, matted to her temple. Her lashes were dusted with frost. Every rise and fall of her chest felt like a war waged by her body to keep going.

He held her hand in both of his — fingers cold and shaking — and kept whispering her name, over and over, like he could keep her tethered just by saying it.

“Y/N, stay with me. You’re almost there. Just a little longer, please—”

They moved fast.

An IV line was secured with shaking, practiced hands. The EMTs slid a mask over her nose and mouth, oxygen hissing softly into her lungs. A cervical collar was fixed around her neck. One of them wrapped her bleeding arm with quick, efficient pressure while the others readied the gurney.

“We need to move now. She’s crashing.”

Morgan helped them lift her.

Spencer didn’t let go.

Even when they strapped her in, even when they wheeled her toward the back of the ambulance, even when the medic had to gently tap his arm and say, “Sir—we need space.”

He only released her hand when the doors closed.

And still, he stood there, staring after her like he could follow her with just his breath.

Hotch came to stand beside him, silent.

The fire behind them had begun to collapse inward — a thunderous groan of bending metal and concrete giving way. Sparks cracked into the sky as another wall folded in on itself. The building was all but gone now — reduced to flame and ruin.

“She survived him,” Spencer said, his voice raw, barely audible.

Hotch didn’t look away from the wreckage. “No,” he said. “She beat him.”

And together, they watched the last of Ben Milburn’s empire dissolve in fire.

All that control. All that calculation.

Reduced to ash. Swallowed whole by the dark.

36 hours later, the world came back slowly.

First sound — a low, rhythmic beep. The quiet hiss of oxygen. Distant footsteps. The soft hum of fluorescent lights that didn’t buzz like the ones in the clinic.

Then feeling — heavy limbs, warm blankets, a dull ache in her leg, her arm wrapped in something stiff and unmoving. Dry lips. A throat that burned from breathing in smoke.

Then finally — light.

She blinked once. Twice.

Everything was white, but not like his white. This wasn’t sterile silence. This wasn’t a cage.

It was a hospital. Safe.

Her heart rate monitor chirped a little faster.

“Hey—hey, it’s okay.”

The voice was gentle. Familiar. Real.

She turned her head — slow, careful, her neck protesting, every nerve stiff — and found Spencer sitting beside her bed. His tie was askew. His hair a mess. There were faint smudges under his eyes — the kind you only got from worry and no sleep. His fingers were wrapped around hers, careful but unrelenting.

“You’re awake,” he said softly, voice frayed at the edges.

Her lips parted. It took her a second to find her voice, to summon the breath. “Spence,” she rasped, trying her voice for the first time by saying his name – her mantra that kept her alive through the cold, desolate clinic. “You stayed.”

“Of course I stayed,” he said quickly, as if the alternative had never occurred to him. His voice was quiet, but still, the end of his sentence cracked.

She closed her eyes briefly. A tear slipped down the side of her temple, vanishing into the pillow. 

“It’s over.”

Spencer nodded, but his throat tightened. “You got out. You saved yourself.”

“I knew you guys would find me,” she whispered.

He leaned in slightly, his hand brushing hers on the blanket.

“There was a moment,” he said, his voice rough, “when we found the cruiser. Your phone was gone. The snow was already covering your tracks. I thought—” He stopped, swallowing hard. “I thought I was too late.”

Her fingers moved. Slow, trembling.

But they curled into his.

“You weren’t,” she murmured.

And they sat like that — hand in hand, hearts syncing in the quiet — not as agent and profiler, not even as survivors, but simply two people who had almost lost each other.

She was the first to speak again. “The others?”

“They’re okay,” he said. “Hotch and Rossi are working with local PD to clear the site. JJ’s been here every few hours. Garcia’s already set up a 24/7 alert on every case with a similar profile. And Morgan’s…” Spencer chuckled faintly. “Pacing holes into the floor of the waiting room.”

A weak smile tugged at her lips. “Tell him to stop. He’s going to hurt those precious muscles of his.”

Spencer laughed — hoarse, but real.

Then his expression shifted, suddenly, so fast even she couldn’t place exactly when it had happened. Darkened.

“He was going to kill you.”

“I know.”

“He wanted to take you with him. End it on his terms.”

“I know,” she repeated, more softly this time.

There was a pause. Then her fingers pressed a little tighter around his.

“But he didn’t,” she said. “And that matters.”

Spencer looked at her for a long time, and in that silence, she knew he saw it — all of it. The pain she hadn’t shared. The fight she’d endured. The scar tissue behind her voice.

And still, she wasn’t done.

“Before anyone else asks. Before someone digs it up. I know you guys are aware of my general backstory, but I haven’t told you guys everything.”

He straightened slightly, sensing the shift in her tone.

“I wasn’t just some profiler who fit the behavioral sketch,” she said. “He picked me for a reason.”

“You don’t have to—”

“I do,” she said. “You deserve to know everything.”

Spencer stayed quiet. Open.

She took a breath that rattled. “Before Quantico… I worked with Interpol. Undercover intelligence. Blacklist operations. I was embedded for over a year with an Eastern European trafficking network. A weapons cell. It was brutal. I made it out during a final sting — barely. There was an explosion. Two agents died. I was inside when the roof collapsed.”

Her voice cracked, but she pushed through it.

“I crawled out over one of my partners’ bodies. Spent three weeks in a burn unit. Three months in trauma counseling. I was broken. Physically. Mentally. They sealed the records before I transferred to the BAU.”

Spencer said nothing, but his hand never left hers.

“He found them,” she continued. “The unsub. Milburn. He found pieces of the files — enough to know I’d already been through hell. That I’d survived it. He wasn’t just picking women who fit a profile. He was choosing survivors. Ones who wouldn’t go quietly. He wanted to see what happened when people who already crawled out of the fire… were pushed back into it.”

Spencer exhaled like he’d been holding it since the moment she started.

“You weren’t meant to break,” he said. “You were meant to end.”

“I think he wanted to study that moment,” she said. “Where strength breaks. Where pain rewrites people. And I was the perfect study.”

“But he failed,” Spencer said. “You didn’t breaks. You held on.”

She blinked slowly. “Only because I had something to hold on to.”

Their eyes locked.

“You,” she whispered. “You were my anchor.”

Spencer’s own eyes welled, but he didn’t look away. Didn’t blink.

“You’re not allowed to scare me like that again,” he said quietly, a shaky smile tugging at the corner of his mouth.

She let her eyes close, the weight of exhaustion finally overtaking her. But her grip on his hand didn’t loosen.

“I’ll try not to.”

They both knew it wasn’t a promise she could keep. Not in their line of work.

But for now — for this moment — it was enough.

She was alive.

And he was still holding on.

The elevator doors slid open on the sixth floor with a soft ding that echoed through the corridor like a memory.

Y/N stepped out slowly.

Her shoes met the polished tile with quiet, deliberate weight — not hesitant, but grounded. She wore her long coat, the collar turned up slightly, and her badge clipped at the chest, just where it used to be. Outwardly, she looked the same.

But something in her was different.

Not diminished. Not broken. Just heavier.

Each step down the hallway was familiar, but her body felt new inside it. Slightly off-axis. She could feel the line of scar tissue beneath her shirt tug with every movement of her shoulder, where pins and plates still held healing bone. Her left thigh ached subtly with each shift in weight — a dull reminder of shrapnel buried and removed. And in her chest, behind the steady rhythm of breath, lived a quieter wound: the memory of a room built for her to not survive.

And she had.

The overhead lights buzzed faintly. A printer churned somewhere in the bullpen. A phone rang twice and stopped. It was all so normal. So mundane.

And then—

“HEY!”

Garcia’s voice rang out like the sun breaking through clouds, full of warmth and sugar and uncontainable emotion.

Y/N barely had time to inhale before she was engulfed in a hug that smelled of citrus and lilac and safety. Garcia’s arms squeezed tight around her middle — careful not to jostle her shoulder — her voice a rush of words against Y/N’s temple.

“Oh my God, you’re actually here, I didn’t want to text because I didn’t want to push but I’ve been counting down the days and oh my God you’re really here—”

Y/N let out a breath that trembled at the edges, and her arms came up slowly to return the embrace. Her fingers clutched Garcia’s shoulder, a little tighter than she meant to.

JJ appeared next, quiet as always. She waited for Garcia to step aside before reaching out, pulling Y/N in with gentle arms. The hug was softer — but no less fierce. JJ’s hand pressed lightly against the back of her head like a mother with a child returned home.

Y/N didn’t realize she was holding her breath until JJ whispered, “It’s good to see you.”

Then it released. Just a little.

Morgan stepped up next, towering and warm, his expression unreadable for a moment.

Then he gave her a single clap on the back — light, but firm — and held her at arm’s length just long enough to look her in the eyes.

“Good to have you back, warrior.”

She offered him a faint smile. “I missed you guys.”

Morgan didn’t say anything else — but his jaw flexed. His eyes lingered on the fading bruise along her jawline. The slight wince when she moved her shoulder. He saw all of it.

Then he nodded and stepped aside.

Across the bullpen, Hotch stood in the doorway to his office. His arms were crossed, his expression as composed as ever — but even that cracked slightly when his eyes met hers.

“We cleared your desk,” he said. “You have full discretion over when — and how much — you take on.”

Y/N gave him a quiet, grateful half-smile.

“Thanks, Hotch.”

His gaze softened, just enough to register.

“Take the space you need,” he said. “But know that we missed you.”

She nodded.

Her throat tightened, but she held it down. She hadn’t cried in weeks. She wasn’t ready to start here.

Then, as the laughter and chatter faded around her, she glanced down the hall.

Her eyes searched, almost involuntarily.

But he wasn’t there yet.

And somehow, she already knew he would be.

She didn’t hear him at first.

The buzz of the bullpen had resumed — Garcia chattering excitedly about reorganizing the “entire sparkle-driven filing structure” of the case board, JJ subtly blocking Morgan from sneaking one of the cinnamon scones she’d brought back from her morning run. Everything was soft chaos. Familiar.

But Y/N felt it before she saw him.

That shift in air.

The way the sound around her dulled — not in volume, but in focus.

She turned — slowly.

And there he was.

Spencer stood just beyond the corner of the corridor, leaning ever so slightly into the threshold. He hadn’t said a word. He didn’t need to. His eyes said everything.

He looked different. Not in the way clothes or hair changed someone, but in the way grief and fear etched themselves into the quietest places of a person. His tie was loose. His curls slightly disheveled. And his eyes — those eyes — were full of so much relief, she had to look away before she drowned in it.

He stepped forward, cautiously, like he didn’t want to startle her.

“Hi,” he said softly.

She blinked. And smiled — tired but true.

“Hi.”

The distance between them was ten feet. But it felt thinner than breath.

He didn’t rush her. Didn’t reach out. He just stood there for a second, watching her like she might disappear again. Like the smoke and flame and snow might reclaim her.

“I didn’t want to interrupt,” he said. “I just… needed to see you here. In this hallway. Alive.”

Her chest tightened.

“I wasn’t sure I’d ever walk it again,” she admitted.

Spencer nodded, his throat working around words he hadn’t yet found. “You did,” he said eventually. “And it’s different now. But that’s okay. You’re allowed to come back different.”

She looked at him.

Really looked at him.

And this time, the silence between them felt sacred. Not hollow. Not strained.

He stepped closer — just one step — and then hesitated.

Y/N met him there. Two more steps forward. Not quite touching, but almost.

“I’m glad you’re here,” she said, voice low.

His response was immediate. “I never left.”

Her breath hitched.

But instead of speaking, she reached for his hand — quietly, without a word — and he took it, like he’d been waiting every hour since the fire for that moment.

No theatrics.

No declarations.

Just presence.

And that was enough.

Rain whispered against the windows in soft, steady waves — the kind of rain that quieted the world, smoothed the edges of thought. It blanketed the city like a hush. Like the kind of silence that asked not to be filled, only felt.

Y/N stood at her kitchen sink, rinsing out her tea mug with one hand, the other resting lightly on the counter to ease the pressure from her still-healing leg. The ceramic clinked gently against the basin, hollow and distant. The candle on the table flickered, casting the living room in warm, golden light that painted soft shadows on the walls.

Her apartment was calm. Clean. Almost peaceful.

But inside her chest, something stirred.

Then— A knock.

Soft. Hesitant. Two beats. A pause.

Not the knock of someone making a delivery. Not a neighbor. It was careful. Intentional.

She already knew.

Y/N moved to the door, her heart beginning to beat a little faster beneath her ribs. She paused, just long enough to press one hand to the wall beside her — a grounding touch — then unlatched the deadbolt.

Spencer stood there.

His coat was damp from the rain, curls clinging in ringlets to his forehead. His glasses were slightly fogged. His cheeks were pink from the cold, but it was his eyes that stopped her. They were soft, tired, and filled with something he didn’t know how to name. Something quiet and aching.

He looked like a man who had walked through a storm he didn’t fully survive.

“Hi,” he said, voice low. Again.

She stepped aside, her voice matching his. “Hi.” Again.

He entered without a sound, toeing off his shoes as if even the sound of rubber on tile might shatter the fragile quiet between them. He stood just inside the entryway for a long second, fingers still buried in his coat pockets. He looked around slowly — the dim lamp, the steaming tea, the blanket folded over the edge of the couch. The evidence of her living. Surviving.

“You’re walking better,” he said quietly.

“You’re still worried,” she replied.

A soft smile tugged at his mouth. It didn’t quite reach his eyes. “I wasn’t sure if I should come. Or if it was too soon.”

“You’re always allowed to come here,” she said gently, her voice barely more than breath.

He took a shaky breath and stepped forward. “I wanted to tell you something.”

She turned to face him fully now, watching him carefully. “You kind of already did. In the hospital. In the snow.”

His gaze met hers.

“This is different.”

She didn’t move. She waited.

Spencer’s voice wavered, just slightly. “When we found the cruiser and your phone was gone… there was a moment when I thought we were too late. And all I could hear was this voice in my head screaming I never told her. Not really. Not the way I wanted to.”

He stepped closer. Not invading. Just near enough that she could feel the change in air between them.

“I’ve spent months—years, maybe—waiting. Telling myself it was too complicated. That work made it dangerous. That maybe you didn’t feel the same. So I stayed quiet. I watched you be brilliant and brave and haunted and I told myself I could live with loving you from a distance.”

She blinked slowly, breath caught in her throat.

“But I can’t,” he said. “Not anymore.”

His voice cracked at the edges now, the words spilling out like something that had built behind a dam too long.

“When we thought you were gone, something in me broke. Because I didn’t just lose you in theory. I felt it. I imagined every second I hadn’t said it out loud. Every smile I hadn’t kissed. Every moment I wasted thinking there’d be more time.”

He stepped forward again.

“I care about you. So deeply I don’t think I even know where the caring ends and the love begins. I think I’ve been in love with you longer than I’ve known how to admit it. And it scared me. But not saying it scares me more.”

Silence.

Then—

“I love you,” he said, a little louder now. “I love you, and I don’t want to spend another day pretending that I don’t.”

Tears welled in her eyes, sudden and unbidden. She didn’t try to stop them.

She reached for his hand.

Her fingers slid into his — warm, familiar, grounding.

“You didn’t wait,” she whispered. “You showed up. You always show up.”

He smiled — but this one was real. Open. Vulnerable.

And then, without hesitation, she stepped forward and kissed him.

It wasn’t urgent. It didn’t need to be. It was slow and trembling, the kind of kiss that was built from pieces — of fear and relief and every unsaid word that had finally found its way to the surface. His hand curled around her waist like he was afraid she might disappear, but she pulled him closer, breathless and solid and here.

When they finally parted, their foreheads pressed together, and she exhaled against his mouth.

“It’s okay now,” she said softly.

And it was.

It was raining again.

The steady kind — soft against the windows, more of a hush than a storm. The kind that wrapped the city in gray light and made the world feel a little slower, a little closer.

Spencer stood at her kitchen counter in socked feet, brow furrowed slightly as he read the instructions on the side of the French press. He’d made it perfectly for weeks now, but he still double-checked — out of habit, out of reverence.

Behind him, Y/N sat curled on the couch, one leg tucked beneath her, a well-worn copy of The Secret History open in her lap. A fleece blanket draped over her shoulders. She wasn’t reading, though. Just holding the book. Listening to the rain. Watching him.

It had become a rhythm.

Sundays were slow. Their safe place. No work. No trauma. No unfinished case files or briefing folders or hospital check-ups. Just the two of them, in borrowed stillness.

“I think I used too much water,” Spencer muttered.

Y/N smiled softly. “You didn’t.”

“I always use too much water.”

“You also always say that. And it’s always fine.”

He glanced over his shoulder. Her eyes were tired but warm. The scar on her temple had faded into a thin, pale line. The gash on her thigh still ached on colder mornings, but the limp had almost vanished.

Emotionally, she was still healing. Some nights she still jolted awake at sounds no one else heard. Sometimes the quiet pressed in too close.

But she had found something steady in Spencer’s presence. Not safety, exactly — because she didn’t want to be protected. Just seen. And he did that, without asking her to hide anything.

He brought her coffee and crossword puzzles and hand-scrawled notes about obscure philosophers. He sat beside her when the nightmares left her breathless. He didn’t fill the silences — he just waited in them.

He walked with her. And never ahead of her.

Spencer poured two mugs and brought hers over, setting it on the table beside her book.

She looked up at him.

“I never thought I’d feel normal again,” she said softly, as if the words surprised her.

He didn’t sit immediately. Just studied her.

“You’re not normal,” he said. “You’re you. That’s better.”

She smiled. This one fuller.

He sat beside her, their knees brushing. She reached for her mug but didn’t drink it — just wrapped her hands around the warmth.

The rain kept falling.

Their fingers found each other again — naturally now, without ceremony — and neither of them spoke for a long time.

Because some love stories didn’t need declarations or dramatic moments.

Sometimes, they just needed two people who chose each other. Again and again.

Even after the worst had passed.

Especially then.

@maisyyyyyy @theredvelvetbitch @alexistexas21 @blackbirdbella

[codemerything]

A structured way to learn JavaScript.

I came across a post on Twitter that I thought would be helpful to share with those who are struggling to find a structured way to learn Javascript on their own. Personally, I wish I had access to this information when I first started learning in January. However, I am grateful for my learning journey so far, as I have covered most topics, albeit in a less structured manner.

N/B: Not everyone learns in the same way; it's important to find what works for you. This is a guide, not a rulebook.

EASY

What is JavaScript and its role in web development?

Brief history and evolution of JavaScript.

Basic syntax and structure of JavaScript code.

Understanding variables, constants, and their declaration.

Data types: numbers, strings, boolean, and null/undefined.

Arithmetic, assignment, comparison, and logical operators.

Combining operators to create expressions.

Conditional statements (if, else if, else) for decision making.

Loops (for, while) for repetitive tasks. - Switch statements for multiple conditional cases.

MEDIUM

Defining functions, including parameters and return values.

Function scope, closures, and their practical applications.

Creating and manipulating arrays.

Working with objects, properties, and methods.

Iterating through arrays and objects.Understanding the Document Object Model (DOM).

Selecting and modifying HTML elements with JavaScript.Handling events (click, submit, etc.) with event listeners.

Using try-catch blocks to handle exceptions.

Common error types and debugging techniques.

HARD

Callback functions and their limitations.

Dealing with asynchronous operations, such as AJAX requests.

Promises for handling asynchronous operations.

Async/await for cleaner asynchronous code.

Arrow functions for concise function syntax.

Template literals for flexible string interpolation.

Destructuring for unpacking values from arrays and objects.

Spread/rest operators.

Design Patterns.

Writing unit tests with testing frameworks.

Code optimization techniques.

That's it I guess!

[dcdreamblog]

i Just Have To Ask

is That One Of Them ManHunter Bots? and If That Is A ManHunter Bot Why Was It With The All Star Squadron?

No but the color similarity is both as intentional and as sinister as it seems. Manhunter had a bad habit of stumbling into situations like that

(The clearest file photo of Paul Kirk as Manhunter, background cleaned, circa 1942)

Paul Kirk II was born to a relatively wealthy family in Empire City and spent most of his time searching for distraction. He traveled, he honed his body, he hunted big game on the African continent until the thrill just no longer appealed to him.

It was during a travel searching to dispel this ennui that he stumbled into the orbit of the mysterious Cult of the Manhunter, a group of fanatics focused on hunting the guilty and destroying them. Their uniform, which Kirk modeled his eventual costume off of was based on the visage of their robotic masters who planted the seed of the cult on every world where they lay dormant. Though of course Kirk did not and could not have known that the masters of this freakish holy order were fascistic alien robots.

During a return to his native Empire City a friend of his was murdered by a deformed gang leader called The Buzzard. Using his skills to bring the criminal to justice Kirk found the rush he had long since been missing on the hunt. So he became Manhunter!

(He could not have known that former police office Dan Richards would then pick up the name less than a year later, also in Empire City a squabble that left the two men rather poorly disposed to one another for their entire lives and makes historical records VERY fun to parse as you can imagine)

While Kirk did join the All Star Squadron he was rather quickly scooped up by the nascent OSS to run black ops missions behind enemy lines, often alongside fellow agent Tex Thompson AKA Americommando. He did not enjoy the experience of being a spy, it was morally dirty work and far too subtle and quiet for a born hunter. He retired as soon as the war was over and returned to Africa.

When a charge by a Cape Buffalo left Kirk mortally wounded he was discovered by "The Council" a shadowy think tank with aims of world domination, natch. The healed Kirk, enhancing him genetically and altering his mind. They placed him at the head of their enforcement thugs which they staffed almost entirely with clones of Kirk himself. An Interpol strike against the group that somehow included Gotham's Batman managed to shake Kirk loose of his altered perspective long enough for him to bring the base down around the Council, killing the original hero in the process and seemingly all of the clones. Two of the clones however, survived.

Kirk DePaul was a member of the Los Angeles based hero business Power Company until his mysterious murder in relation to a string of murders related to those carrying the Manhunter identity. Currently the legacy is survived by Paul Kirk III, who currently works for the "HEROZ4U" hero rental app, which gets a bad rap on premise but I've heard nothing but good things about.

[leiawritesstories]

EPILOGUE: UNTIL PROVEN GUILTY

Word count: 2.2k

Warnings: swearing, graphic torture, scheming, horny Rowaelin

Masterlist

Read on AO3

A/N: you guys....this is the end 🥹😱😭😭😭 (or is it mwahaha) thank you thank you THANK YOU for letting me share this work with all of you!! it is the biggest fanfic project i've ever taken on, and I'm both awestruck and deeply sad that it's finally reached its end. but!! keep your eyes open ehehe, there might be a little something *else* coming!! ;))

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Three Months Later

The early spring night was cloudy and crisp, a biting breeze curling in from the mountains and slicing into Aelin’s bones even through the layers of her clothes, her protective vest and thigh guards, and the almost ridiculous amount of weapons concealed on her body. She narrowed her eyes and shot a withering glare through the thick darkness, her vision cast in stark green lines through the night-vision lenses built into her helmet. 

“How much longer do we have to freeze our tits off?” she muttered into the mouthpiece. 

Rowan’s husky chuckle crackled through the earpiece. “It’s not that cold, Fireheart.” 

“You soldiers and your stupid cold tolerance,” she griped. “Not all of us are built to stand around in the mountains for hours on end.” 

“Not all of us are built for climbing around rooftops in the middle of winter either,” he drawled. 

“Fair enough.” A smile flickered across her face, concealed beneath the helmet and half-mask. A moment later, something shifted in the corner of her vision, and she turned her head slowly to catch the movement. In the half-hidden cabin tucked into the forested foothills, a door cracked open, and a male figure stuck his head through the space. He waited, and after a tense, breathless stretch of silence, he opened the door all the way. 

“Now,” Aelin hissed into her mouthpiece, not waiting for Rowan’s confirmation before she uncurled herself from her crouch and darted across the clearing, little more than a shadow bouncing between the towering pines under the cover of the thick darkness. In a handful of seconds, she was at the cabin’s steps, Rowan at her side, and the two of them charged up and burst into the cabin and came face to face with the barrel of the smuggler’s gun. 

He was a small man, barely Aelin’s height, and the shotgun aimed at her face was nearly half as heavy as he was, if the shaking strain in his arms was any indication. “Down,” he snarled, lips peeling back from his teeth in a vicious parody of a smirk. 

“I don’t fucking think so,” Aelin crooned. In a single swift instant, she’d buried a blade in the smuggler’s thigh, causing him to howl sharply in pain and drop the shotgun with a rumbling clatter. 

“Bitch!” the smuggler swore, following it up with a string of swearing in his native tongue. 

Rowan kicked the man in the back of his injured leg, sending him crumpling to the floor. “Watch your filthy fucking mouth around my wife.” 

Aelin smirked, pushed her helmet back, and tossed Rowan the coil of rope that had been looped onto her belt. “Is now a bad time to mention how hot that was?” 

Her husband made quick work of tying up the struggling, cursing smuggler, pushed his own helmet back, and shrugged. “I didn’t mind.” 

“Gods almighty, you two!” a different voice groaned. “I’m gonna need to scrub my eyes out with bleach.” 

“Oh, calm down, Cass,” Aelin snorted. “Ro and I have both seen how you are around your wife.” 

Cassian Ilnair, special agent with Prythian Interpol, grinned wryly. “Touché.” He turned his attention back to the now-compliant smuggler tied up on the ground, Rowan’s boot still pressed into his back. “Evening, Koschei.” 

If looks could kill, Koschei’s murderous glare would have put Cassian six feet under. He garbled out something unintelligible through the gag stuffed into his mouth and flailed as best as he could with his limbs restrained. 

“I’m sure he’s happy to see you too,” Aelin said dryly. “Did you find the stash?” 

“Follow me.” Cassian turned on his heel and headed into the back of the cabin. 

Rowan and Aelin shared a look, and Rowan hoisted Koschei over his shoulder and followed Aelin and Cassian. They went down to the cabin’s basement and found a plain black steel box sitting on the concrete floor, and when Aelin opened it and catalogued its contents, every carefully packaged sheet of SecondSkin was intact and in place. 

“All in order,” she said. She gazed thoughtfully at Koschei, whom Rowan had placed in the single chair in the basement. “I should’ve known you Middengard bastards would be the first ones to try and steal my tech when it went public.” 

Koschei spat the gag out of his mouth—Rowan had loosened it—and jerked his arms vainly against the very secure knots. “You fucking bitch,” he spat. 

Aelin’s eyes cooled to icy steel. “Cass, we’ll take it from here.” 

Cassian closed the box with a crisp click, stood up, and nodded. “The delivery was recovered successfully. No further notes.” He closed the solid, fireproof door to the basement behind him as he left. 

“I’m starting to think you could use some new vocabulary,” Aelin mused, tipping her head to the side as she leveled an assessing look at the smuggler. “Ro, love. If you would?” 

“Of course.” Rowan handed her a pair of black latex gloves, and she snapped them on over the flexible leather gloves already on her hands. 

“I thought I was clear,” Aelin began, slowly circling the chair, “when I said that SecondSkin would never be used for evil.” She clicked her tongue. “Not even two months later, some tricky little bastard steals a case.” Koschei’s mouth formed the start of something nasty, and she struck, dragging a slender, wickedly curved little blade down his collarbones, slicing his dirty shirt open and raising a bright little trail of blood. 

He let out a shuddering breath. “You…you say this?” 

“Of course I did.” Aelin sketched an elaborate bow in front of the smuggler. “Haven’t we been introduced? My name is Celaena Sardothien.” 

Koschei’s eyes widened in sudden, fearful recognition, and Aelin chuckled darkly as she slid that blade down his stomach, just barely breaking the skin. “Boss,” he gasped, his skin going ashen. 

“That’s me.” 

His glare was venomous. “You kill my top supplier, Arobynn.” 

Aelin raised a brow. “Supplier? That’s a nice way of describing what Arobynn trafficked, you slimy piece of rat shit.” 

“Heartless bitch,” Koschei snapped. 

Aelin exchanged her blade for a scalpel and drove it into Koschei’s knee, just below the joint. His face went white, and he yelled out something garbled. She jerked the blade out and slid it into the other side of his knee, slicing through the tendons with a tidy little flick of her wrist. “Nobody ever said anything about the Boss having a heart, smuggler.” 

“And nobody gets to call my wife that,” Rowan added, slamming his brass-knuckled fist into Koschei’s side. Deep blue bruising bloomed out from the impact, and Koschei howled. 

Aelin smirked at her husband over the smuggler’s thrashing body. “Should I mention how turned on I am right now?” 

Rowan raised a brow. “We’re in the middle of something, love.” 

“I can fix that.” She walked one gloved hand up the side of Koschei’s contorted face, grabbed a fistful of his hair, and jerked his head backwards. “You got lucky, smuggler.” His mouth opened to bite out a question, but she silenced him with a swift, precise slash of her knife across his throat. 

Two muffled gunshots cracked through the suddenly still air at the same time. 

“Was that really necessary?” Aelin drawled, releasing the smuggler’s limp head. It tumbled forward, hanging loosely over the blood still spilling down his front. 

Rowan shrugged as he holstered his gun. “You can’t be too certain.” 

“True.” She stripped the bloodied gloves from her hands and tossed them into the corpse’s lap, then tapped one finger against the tiny device nestled into her left ear. “You there, Con?” 

After a moment of crackling static, Connall’s voice sounded. “Took you long enough, Boss.” 

“Smartass,” she grumbled. “We’re bringing up the smuggler’s worthless corpse now, if you care.” 

Con chuckled. “I’ll be outside the cabin.” 

Rowan cut through the zip ties around Koschei’s body’s limbs and almost effortlessly kicked the body from the chair into a black plastic tarp spread out on the floor. He made quick work of wrapping it up, and he threw the whole bundle over his shoulder. “Ready, Ae?” 

“Yeah.” She finished tucking the blades she’d sanitized into various sheathes on her vest, and she followed him up the basement stairs. At the top, she picked up the hose that was coiled up next to the door, turned it on, and doused the whole concrete-walled basement in the bleach solution they’d loaded into the tank that the hose connected to. “All clean,” she said after the flow to the hose dribbled to a stop. 

“Good.” Rowan led the way out of the cabin, pausing once he got to the door to scan for any signs of backup. 

“Is he always this paranoid?” Con mused, appearing from behind a cluster of pines. 

Rowan scowled and flipped off the other man. “Dick.” 

“He calls it being vigilant,” Aelin snickered, enjoying the irritation that flickered in the corner of Rowan’s jaw. 

“And it’s saved my ass multiple times,” he added dryly. 

“Sure,” Con agreed sardonically. He turned and started walking through the forest. “This way.” He led them to a waiting helicopter stationed in a wide clearing, and he shoved open the side door and retrieved a box filled with heavy rocks. “We’ll dump the body over the bay,” he said, and he helped Rowan and Aelin load a number of rocks into the zipped-up tarp bag. 

They climbed into the helicopter, and Con settled into the pilot’s seat, secured his headset, and had them lifting into the air within minutes. He flew low over the bay, and when he gave the nod, Aelin placed one boot on the smuggler’s body and kicked it out the door. It tumbled into the bay with a heavy splash, immediately sinking far below the surface. 

“Rot in hell,” she muttered, and she shoved the door closed with a satisfyingly final thud. 

The rest of the flight passed in silence, and Con brought the helicopter expertly down at the Interpol airfield next to the seaport. Aelin and Rowan had both changed into clean, non-bloodied clothes during the short flight, and Aelin strapped her vest back into place, comforted by its weight. Under the cover of the darkness, which was just beginning to edge towards dawn, the three of them crossed the airfield, entered the seaport docks, and wove their way across to a nondescript steel transport ship. Rowan went up to knock on the boarding door. 

Aelin ducked under a barrier, grabbed a rope ladder swinging off the side of the ship, and swiftly scaled it, landing on the main deck. “Morning, pirate.” 

Rolfe rolled his eyes. “If you’d just waited ten seconds, you could go through the boarding door like a normal person.” 

“Ah, you forget, Lord Pirate Rolfe.” She chuckled. “I’m not prone to waiting or normalcy.” 

~

Two weeks after returning from the Prythian op, Aelin left the Staghorn labs at the very end of the day and inhaled a massive, relieved gulp of fresh air. As much as she loved working as a chemical engineer, the labs got stale and monotonous after such a long day, and she needed Orynth’s crisp breeze in her lungs. 

She drove through the darkening but blessedly traffic-free streets, left the city, and rolled down her windows as she headed towards the Oakwald. Towards her home. The scent of pine curled into her car, and she grinned, her heart full and light. It was only a short time before she turned down a now-familiar gravel path and followed its gentle curve up to the house. Golden warmth spilled from the wide windows, and she caught a glimpse of Rowan’s form moving around in the kitchen. She parked, locked up her car, and slipped around the side of the house to enter through the side door. He was absorbed in his cooking, and she successfully crept up behind him on criminally silent feet, released a tiny blade from her sleeve, and hooked a leg around his waist and tucked the blade against his throat in one smooth, swift movement. 

He froze, the spoon clattering from his hand to the tile floor, and she felt him stiffen in his pants. “Hi, Fireheart,” he whispered, his throat barely moving against her blade. 

She brushed a featherlight kiss against the back of his neck. “Hi, love. Miss me?” 

“Always.” 

“As do I.” Aelin retracted her blade, and she barely had time to draw in a breath before Rowan spun her around and caged her in against the counter. 

“Welcome home, love,” he murmured, dipping his head so his lips were a breath away from hers. “Did you have fun making my heart almost jump out of my chest?” 

“Of course I did.” She grinned. “I thought your supersoldier reflexes would catch me, though.” 

“I seem to have a blind spot for you,” he said, mirth softening the heat blazing in his eyes. He kissed her slowly, savoring the taste of her lips, and she sighed into it, curling her fingers into the soft fabric of his shirt. 

“I love you,” she whispered against his lips. 

“I love you,” he returned. “To whatever end. Crime record and all.”  

She beamed up at him. “To whatever end,” she echoed, voicing the words engraved into their wedding bands. “And as for that record, don’t you remember? Mrs. Aelin Ashryver Whitethorn Galathynius was pronounced innocent…until proven guilty.”

~~~

TAGS:

@superspiritfestival

@thegreyj

@wordsafterhours

@elentiyawhitethorn

@mariaofdoranelle

@rowanaelinn

@house-of-galathynius

@tomtenadia

@julemmaes

@swankii-art-teacher

@charlizeed

@booknerdproblems

@earthtolinds

@goddess-aelin

@sweet-but-stormy

@clea-nightingale

@autumnbabylon

@llyncooljones

@silentquartz

@renxzs

@anarchiii

@sirius-blacks-official-girl

@mysterylilycheeta

[the-perverse-library]

Officer carmelita Montoya jugs Fox

Damn the Contessa did a number on her

Carmelita Montoya Fox had stepped on the toes of Klaww Gang one too many times. Thwarting their heists and the pin jobs with her masterful investigative talents and quick wits. But all her smarts and skills meant nothing to the power of hypnosis. And there was no one better at it than Contessa. By the end of the week, Interpol's prized officer was reduced to a mewling, squealing mess barely able to string words together.

Nowadays, Carmelita roams the city streets permanently lost in a daze of lust and airheadedness, all while playing at still being a cop. Performing searches on citizens and always finding a thick, long, and hard weapon in their pants and 'discharges' their weighty 'guns' in a back alley from sunset to sunrise. Sly is one of Carmelita's favourite regulars and she will always pull out all the stops to make the raccoon thief cum as long and as hard as possible.

[s0upjuice]

Could you tell us more about the association Ponkan works for? Or is that a spoiler?

Thank you again for the ask! Always love talking about DOL.

Special Agent Ponkan, the little nugget below, works for the PMDverse equivalent of Interpol (currently unnammed lol), dedicated to bringing the biggest and baddest crimes to justice. Local police forces can ask for their help or they can carry out independent missions as their intelligence department sees fit.

Ponkan specializes in criminal arrests, so she's the force the 'coppers' send to apprehend already identified criminals. She's pretty smart on her own, but her speciality is her sheer strength and stamina (if you've played with Ogerpon competitively, you know this little ogre packs a punch).

Currently, in the DOL story, this Interpol is investigating the string of crimes caused by a famous gang led by the wicked Babyface, who is the baddest loan shark of the Sand Continent. His lackeys had been selling poisoned mochis to small towns to brainwash its residents, leaving the town looted and in shambles by the end. Why they're doing this isn't exactly known, but Interpol suspects it may have something to do with bringing back Dark Matter by spreading negativity once more. Other crimes are also being investigated with a similar hypothesis.

For now, Babyface's three enforcers, Pretty Boy, Wise Guy, and Big Fella have been caught and sent to the maximum security penitentiary where only the most heinous criminals end up: The Alabaster Citadel, located at the very tip of the Mist Continent. They'll undergo interrogation and maybe we'll be a little closer to figure out what's going on.

A bonus for you: the Alabaster Citadel is run by its Master Warden, Rimes. He'll show up in the story eventually.

Thanks again for asking, have a great weekend~

[allbornscreaming]

i was tagged by @glorious-blackout & @restedlimbs to shuffle my on repeat playlist & list the first 10 songs that come up! (thanks so much for the tags!! <3)

been stellar - pumpkin (fontaines d.c. has the best taste in opening acts ever)

sasami - for the weekend (sasami forever <3 flash warning for this video!)

bbno$ - two (this WILL be stuck in your head for ages. his stuff is so catchy & he's a super nice person who does lots of charity work!)

the marías - back to me (the fact that the drummer is the ex she's singing about?? wild. love them)

fontaines d.c. - before you i just forget ("decapitate the shine cause people like that / pretend that i'm fine cause people like that" 🚬😮‍💨)

gesaffelstein - opr (thanks to lady gaga for introducing me to gesaffelstein's stuff!)

djo - crux ("get back...to your heart..." 🥲)

japanese breakfast - picture window (the interpolation of the fake plastic trees melody in the chorus! in a different key of course. no clue if that was intentional but i love it)

the royston club - cherophobe (life changing song i'm not even kidding. the lyrics. the chord progression. the vocal delivery. the strings. in a church...)

yeule - evangelic girl is a gun (the vibes are unmatched. need yeule to get more popular immediately)

tagging: @applysome @atearinspaceairlock @ballion @c0wboyjunkie @daddy-long-legssss @ladyfauxhawk @uhbasicallyjustmilex @virginiavvoolf @yonceknowles (no pressure as always, & no need to add commentary about each song if you don't want to btw! i just felt like it lol)

[kaitokitty19]

Pandora AU: Home pt. 2

Part 1

This is a Hakukai fic. Kaito found Pandora but became immortal while everyone around him aged. Full synopsis here

Warning: WoT, (physical) age gap, angst

-- Kaito woke alone. The other side of the bed cold as he stretched over, tried and failed to fill the empty space. He remembered going to bed alone last night, too. 

There were two unopened messages in his inbox from Saguru, telling him it was a case and not to wait up. Kaito liked the messages belatedly while brewing a pot of coffee. He was already asleep when they were sent; he wondered since when had he stopped waiting up for his lover.

Lately, Saguru worked overtime a lot. If it wasn’t shareholders meetings at the Hakuba Corps then it was consulting with local and international law enforcement. Not that Kaito didn’t understand. He had watched Aoko wait for her dad enough times to know that patience is always a necessity being around people like Inspector Nakamori and Saguru. And more than anyone, Kaito understood the need to spread his wings unhindered. The older Saguru had gotten, the more responsibility he shouldered. His family business needed him. MI6 needed him. So did Interpol and the Mets. He just thought that… 

Kaito huffed, blowing on the steam rising from his mug. He didn’t even like the taste of coffee, but Saguru did. He missed the essence of him in the morning. 

Well, whatever it was, he was sure it would tide over quickly.

------ “This point of the investigation is most crucial,” Saguru cracked up from poor signal on the other end, his voice apologetic over the speaker, but not enough to quench the bitterness that had started to creep into Kaito’s ribcage, spreading fast like poison. His trip to Prague with MI6 would extend to three weeks instead of just the one – if he was even in Prague at all, so classified was the nature of his work. This hadn’t been the first business trip extension, either. And next week was February 23rd.

“I see,” Kaito echoed from a faraway place, straining to stamp down the need for a screaming match. He was at work, he reminded himself, and the Collection Care and Research department at the Lourve isn’t the most bustling of places – Madeleine from one desk over had already piqued up sensing gossip. Besides, how could he point an accusatory finger at Saguru proclaiming the man heartless when he was out there saving people? He dusted off his poker face and put on a smile, even though Saguru couldn’t see it: “Tough case, huh?”

“Yeah,” Saguru returned, before bidding him a speedy goodbye and ending the call. 

Kaito didn’t hear from him for an entire week afterward.

Ah, just like high school, Kaito thought, returning another day to a dark, deserted apartment, endless strings of days waiting for a presence that is forever absent. He tossed the phone onto his pillow and threw himself onto the bed to look at the gorgeous ceiling moldings, gorgeous tall windows, and gorgeous view beyond the glass panels. Gorgeous and lonely and not much else. 

Kaito had free rein of the house, of course. Even Hakuba's beloved Aston Martin, his unlimited black card were here, liberatingly under his disposal… But the man himself was never around anymore. It was almost insulting. Kaito had started to feel more like a piece of collectible ornament than someone’s partner.

February 23rd came and went. For their anniversary, Saguru sent him rare gemstones and an ancient sculpture he didn’t care for, cakes and sweets he had no one to share with, and a teddy bear from Prague that he wanted to strangle. 

Kaito tried to be understanding. After all, just like Ekoda, Saguru would always come back to him… right?

One month passed. Then two months. At the three-month mark, Kaito sent Saguru a curt text, took an absence from work, and traveled. He bought one-way tickets, hopped from one continent to another and then back again, flying first class, living lavishly, determined to max out Saguru’s stupid credit card – that had to at least get his attention! 

To his dismay, he found the task seemingly insurmountable. And all his provocations received from Saguru was a lackluster “Do as you like.”

------

Kaito ended up where he had avoided for so long: Tokyo. And though he had notified no one of his visit, the moment he stepped through baggage claim, Kaito was greeted by one Koizumi Akako. 

"Not only had your body not aged but you stayed a child mentally,” She scoffed at him from across the table, over her cup of tea. One red, sharp fingernail tapped a slow rhythm onto the ceramic rim. “You really do stay true to your name. Just a KID after all." 

Kaito darted his eyes around, alerted. But Akihabara was as crowded as he remembered it; no one would mind a stranger’s conversation. The corner of Akako’s mouth stretched into a glossy, amused smirk in deep rouge as she watched him fidgeted. Over the years, she had aged gracefully. Youthful skirts and flats traded in for elegant pearls and stiletto. Her outfit simple in details but bold in its cut and its shade of scarlet. There was hardly any pepper in her hair, but he could see faint lines where she smiled. The enchantress was as intimidating as ever.

Kaito, too, had aged himself appropriately with prosthetics. But Akako always had her ways of knowing things. He frowned:

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"You are here to run.” She accused cryptically, leaning over into his personal space and narrowing her eyes, “He’s drifting away from you, isn’t he?”

Kaito backed away, crossing his hands over his chest, defensive.

“It’s good to see you, Akako. But I don’t know what you’re talking about…”

Akako pressed on as if he hadn’t spoken:

“Why are you waiting? You have nothing tethering you back anymore. No more secrets. Why haven't you run after him?” Suddenly, she pulled back. With her petit teaspoon, the woman stirred her cup of Darjeeling tea once, twice. The swirling liquid barely had time to settle before Akako reached over and dumped the tea into his half-empty cup of hot chocolate.

“Hey!” Kaito yelped. 

Akako ignored him to keenly observe the bottom of her cup. She clicked her tongue and spoke without making eye contact.

“You might have all the time in the world, Kuroba, but the rest of us don’t. Especially him, your White Knight."

A thousand horrid scenarios flashed across his mind. Akako might be a cryptid and an occasional sadist, but he had never known her to joke around with people’s lives. Finally, it was fear that made Kaito bite:

“What am I supposed to do? He won’t talk to me! I don’t know what I did wrong.”

His old classmate looked at him like he was stupid before that crease between her brows eased into an exasperated look. She placed both elbows on the table and laced her fingers before resting her chin on top:

“My, my; are you saying that the legendary KID had no way of garnering the attention of one detective? How awfully out of practice you are.”

Something inside Kaito clicked. A lightbulb lit up. He stood at once, almost clumsily knocked over his chair. 

"Sorry, Akako, I have to go. And thanks!"

He simultaneously apologized and thanked her before beating a hasty retreat. Kaito had meant to check in on the Nakamoris, but it seemed reunion with Aoko would have to wait.

Looking out the window at his disappearing form, Akako could only huff:

"Idiots, the both of them." 

------

The Heist note was sent in two nights before the full moon, to the National Palace Museum of Korea. Kaito spent time making sure the note was perfect, that there would be no chance it could be disregarded as a mere prank, and went through the building blueprint five dozen times. The note’s arrival didn’t cause as much ruckus as he would have liked – people have grown skeptical during his absence. He couldn’t blame them; it had been nearly three decades after all. But, as the saying goes, the show must go on. He just hoped the Black Organization, too, belonged to the group of skeptics.

The target this time was a royal jade seal carved in the shape of a dragon. Once obtained without much challenge from the Seoul Metropolitan police, as a habit, Kaito raised the object toward the moonlight. The moon only cast a dim halo around it. The taste of disappointment was one Kaito found familiar.

Just when he was done putting the gem back, a troop of officers burst into the chamber. Kaito smiled at them and yielded himself over without a fight.

------

The officers didn’t know what to do with him. His ID, fingerprints, and passport were all legit in the immigration database, but his look didn’t match that of someone halfway over forty. He technically had yet to commit any major crime, and, as a legal alien, he was entitled to representation before they could proceed with the investigation. In the end, they threw him into one of those interrogation rooms with a one-way mirror to await further instructions from higher-ups.

He was slouching uncomfortably on his creaky metal chair when a Korean officer unlocked the heavy metal door. In walked Hakuba Saguru, tired and sleep-deprived, but dignified. He still donned that long, tan trench coat, and his height towered over that of the attending police officer. 

Their eyes met. They had not seen each other in half a year at that point. 

At the nod of his head, the officer went to uncuff Kaito. They were led out via the back entrance. In the hallway, Saguru put a black cap over Kaito’s messy mop of hair. Kaito wanted to reach up and take his hand; he didn’t. Instead, he was guided into the back of a nondescript black car while Saguru and the inspector in charge of the case chatted. Before long, they shook hands. His detective entered into the car next to Kaito, and tapped twice on the glass to signal their chauffeur to “drive”.

Just like that, Kaito was bailed out. He was half impressed, honestly. With his affluence and his various connections in the intelligence world, Hakuba Saguru wasn’t a man one could say no to. Kaito bet all the records and footage, too, had been wiped clean.

Their ride from the Seodaemun police station was quiet.

"Well?” He started. Saguru shot him a questioning look, “Say something." He urged.

"What do you want me to say?" Saguru gruffed out; he sounded tired. This was one of those rare moments when he looked his age to Kaito. Sometimes, he often forgot that everyone else around him had aged; Saguru was no exception. They stewed in that silence for long enough that the car stopped before a fancy hotel lobby. Kaito waited until the two of them were alone in the elevator before continuing.

"Oh, I don't know; ‘How did you gain access to the vault?’ ‘Why did you do it?’” He mimicked that sickly sweet voice to the T, “Isn't that what you detectives do? Prodding?"

Saguru breathed out a sigh. Kaito knew that sound. Just when he was about to be rejected and an end was put to their conversation, the elevator stopped, admitting two hotel patrons. They stayed in the background while the two American tourists chatted loudly, the tension thick and palpable.

At the forty-seventh floor, they emerged. Saguru made a beeline for the presidential suite. Kaito followed.

"Why did you do it?" At the door, Saguru’s curiosity finally won over. Kaito felt himself bodily piqued at an opening.

"I was waiting for you to show up.” Saguru had finished unlocking the door and turned to pass him a look of utter bewilderment. “My turn, where have you been."

“This isn’t ‘twenty questions’, Kaito,” Saguru groused, his temper rising, but he did not slam the door behind them, no. Hakuba Saguru is too well-bred for one such action. The door closed with a muted ‘click’. “What if they had shown up? We don’t know the extent of their reach. What if they had got to you while under custody?”

“Hmm… should have been ‘twenty questions’,” Replied Kaito impertinently, “So? Where were you?” 

Saguru gave up.

"All over North America. Argentina. Germany. Then… England, mostly."

"So you've been at home while I..." Kaito bit his tongue. Bit back the hurt. "Why are you avoiding me?" That part came out more of an accusation than a question.

Did I do something wrong? Was left on the tip of his tongue, unsaid.

"I don't know, Kaito, I thought I was giving you space. I don't want to... suffocate you," Kaito’s own word said carelessly months ago was suddenly thrown back at him, ringing in his ears like a piercing slap in the face.

"What the actual fuck, Hakubastard?!” He bellowed, “Is this all this is about?”

"You said it yourself, it’s suffocating building your life around another person. You don't need to feel indebted to me or anything. You owe me nothing.”

“Are you fucking serious?” Now it was Kaito’s turn to be bewildered. Saguru couldn’t meet his eyes. “Fuck, you are!”

“I'm not the same wild-eye high schooler when we met, Kai. I have aged much and I am weighed down by my commitments; you have the privilege of youth and you need your freedom, I get it. I’ll only hold you back."

Kaito barked out a hysterical laughter:

"And whose fucking fault was that? Who wished on Pandora? Who turned me into this freak of nature?"

Saguru cringed away as if burned.

"That's not entirely fair, Kaito."

Hah! Fair! Kaito turned around, found the nearest breakable object, and threw it on the floor. It was a fine ceramic vase. Looked expensive, but he didn’t care. Months of pent-up hurt and frustration were finally let loose and Kaito wanted to go to fucking war. Fuck Saguru. He can afford it. Kaito stomped away. He couldn’t even look at that idiot right now.

Kaito’s tantrum only served to aggravate Saguru further. The man was hot on Kaito’s heels into the next room instead of letting it go like Kaito had become accustomed to him doing.

"I... You...” his words stumbled, anger rendering such a man inarticulate, “What would you have me do, Kaito?! You were shot. You fell from a seven-story building. You were a bloody mess on the pavement. I couldn't even touch you for fear you would crumble under my fingers. The red staining your white regalia still haunts my dream to this day. No medic could have saved you. What would you have me do, Kaito? Watch the person I love die?"

"And now I get to watch mine die? You get to live the rest of your life with the person you love. What about me? I've been 17 for 28 years! Even when you pass away, I'll likely still be 17. And even before that you're already leaving me!"

Saguru staggered. 

“I’m not abandoning you. I’d never…” And just like that, all the fights were drained from his person. Saguru sat down on the edge of the bed, defeated. He was at once very weary: weary of the long flight and the time difference, of keeping himself away from Kaito, of this fight… and now the guilt he carried since that incident decades ago had finally done eating him up. "I didn't know about Pandora then. I'm sorry. I'd have happily traded my life if it meant you could continue living as you were"

"Don't. You. Dare." Kaito grunted out each word. Suddenly, Saguru was seized by the collar of his shirt and Kaito’s face was inches away from his. Blue sapphire alight with furry. He growled, "You made me this way, Hakubastard. You're not allowed to leave me. Ever."

And suddenly, Saguru was being kissed roughly. He hesitated for one millisecond but quickly found that he had no choice but to kiss back. Kaito tasted like desperation on his tongue, and he chased that acute flavor until it mellowed down into neediness. Kaito’s fingers half tangled, half tugged painfully on the hair at the base of his neck; and Saguru looped his arms around Kaito to steady him when he climbed onto his lap. What an intertwined mess they were, physically, emotionally.

Kaito bit him, and Saguru thought he sensed the tangy note of copper. Very well. Served him right for putting his Kaito through what he did. Somehow he always managed to make the wrong decision around Kaito. Logic seemed to escape him when it came to the man he loved.

They detangled at last. Both flushed and gaped for air. But Kaito immediately clung onto Saguru’s neck and tip them over onto the bed. He made no move to remove their coat or adjust them both into a more comfortable position. Right now, he just wanted to hold Saguru and be held. Saguru traced small circles onto his spine. Kaito shuddered.

"I'm sorry.” Saguru whispered lowly after a moment of silence, “I won't do it again. I just thought..."

"Shut up. For a world-renowned detective, you really are just a hebo Tantei."

"Sorry," Saguru chuckled and repeated himself.

Another quiet minute went by before the detective spoke again.

“Since you are so opposed to the idea of us ever leading lives independent from one another again; hypothetically, if I ask you to marry me, would you say yes?”

“Hypothetically?”

“Hypothetically.” Replied Saguru, trying not to think of his family heirloom ring he had kept in his pocket for 25 years, never finding the right time nor enough courage.

Kaito put on a show of deep contemplation – a fact that Saguru knew yet did not help his nerve one bit – before he took pity on Saguru and said:

“Then, hypothetically, I’d say yes.”

[my-heart-beat-for-anime]

Hi. If you are interested, please write about Chase/Carmen.

There are several ideas here, you can choose all, one or nothing.

1. It's been a few years since the end of season 4. Chase got into a car accident and lost his memory (he only remembers the first season of the animated series) and forgetting that Carmen is his wife. But Carmen does not despair, she spends the whole day with Chase and tries to remind him of important moments in their relationship.

2. Chase discovers Carmen in his apartment when he returned home after work in the evening. Carmen is studying his board with interest with notes about finding V.I.L.E. They talk and Carmen tells him about her past. This is after the end of season 4.

3. After a joint mission in Egypt, Chase turns out to have Carmen's phone number. Chase mostly sends questions about her, jokes, and old memes for Carmen. They begin to communicate often and Carmen's mom jokes that her daughter has a fiance.

Thank you for your request. I choose the topic number two, and I hope i didn't disappoint you.

If anyone has any idea about fanfic i would be happy to write it for you.

With love your author.

Chase Devineaux pushed open the door to his apartment, his body aching from another grueling day at Interpol. He could feel the strain of the day etched into his muscles, the relentless chase for V.I.L.E. operatives ever-present in his mind. With a sigh, he loosened his tie and tossed his keys on the counter, making a mental note to have a glass of his favorite scotch before calling it a night.But as he walked into the living room, he froze.

There, standing by the large bulletin board plastered with notes, photos, and strings connecting various V.I.L.E. agents and operations, was Carmen Sandiego. She stood confidently, her iconic red coat and fedora silhouetted against the dim light of his desk lamp. Her gloved hands were clasped behind her back as she studied his board with a keen interest.

"Carmen Sandiego," Chase said, his voice steady, hiding his surprise.

"What an unexpected… intrusion."Carmen turned around, a smirk playing on her lips. "Bonsoir, Devineaux. Nice to see you, too." Her tone was light, almost teasing. She glanced back at the board.

"You've been busy, I see."Chase's eyes narrowed as he tried to understand what game she was playing.

"How did you get in here? And what do you want?"She shrugged, a casual gesture that seemed to be her trademark.

"Getting in wasn’t too hard. You should consider upgrading your locks" She turned fully to face him, her expression becoming more serious.

"And as for what I want… I’m here to talk.""Talk?" Chase echoed, crossing his arms.

"You’ve never been one for small talk, Carmen."Carmen chuckled softly.

"No, I suppose I haven’t. But tonight is different. I’ve been thinking… about V.I.L.E., about my past, and… about my future."Chase raised an eyebrow.

"Your past? Why would you—""I wasn’t always Carmen Sandiego, the master thief," she interrupted.

"I was once a student, like anyone else, though perhaps more… impressionable." Her eyes flickered with a distant sadness, a shadow of old memories.Chase uncrossed his arms, curiosity piqued.

"Go on."Carmen took a deep breath and began to share her story. She spoke of her time at V.I.L.E. Academy, the deception, and the moment she realized she didn’t want to be what they had trained her to become. She spoke of her decision to leave, to fight back against V.I.L.E., to become someone who could right the wrongs in the world, even if it meant operating outside the law.Chase listened intently. This was a side of Carmen he had never seen before—vulnerable, introspective.

"You chose to become something different," he said slowly. "You chose your own path."

"Yes," Carmen replied softly. "But I can’t do it alone anymore. V.I.L.E. is still out there, still causing havoc. And I think… I think we might have a common goal after all.

"Chase felt a strange mix of emotions—confusion, intrigue, maybe even admiration.

"You want to work together?" he asked, almost incredulous.

"Something like that," she said with a faint smile. "At least for now. I need someone I can trust… someone who knows how they operate."Chase studied her for a long moment, weighing her words. Then, with a slow nod, he extended his hand.

"Alright, Carmen. Let’s see where this goes."Carmen shook his hand firmly, her eyes meeting his with a newfound understanding.

"Deal."As she turned to leave, Chase called after her. "Carmen… you know you’re still on Interpol’s most wanted list, right?"She glanced back, that trademark smirk reappearing.

"Then you’d better keep up, Chase." And with that, she slipped out into the night, leaving Chase alone with his thoughts—and the start of a most unexpected partnership.

[canmom]

loss vs reward & what it means for interpretation of language models

this is a point that i believe is well known in the ai nerd milieu but I'm not sure it's filtered out more widely.

reinforcement learning is now a large part of training language models. this is an old and highly finicky technique, and in previous AI summers it seemed to hit severe limits, but it's come back in a big way. i feel like that has implications.

training on prediction loss is training to find the probability of the next token in the training set. given a long string, there are a just a few 'correct' continuations the model must predict. since the model must build a compressed representation to interpolate sparse data, this can get you a really long way with building useful abstractions that allow more complex language dynamics, but what the model is 'learning' is to reproduce the data as accurately as possible; in that sense it is indeed a stochastic parrot.

but posttraining with reinforcement learning changes the interpretation of logits (jargon: the output probabilities assigned to each possible next token). now, it's not about finding the most likely token in the interpolated training set, but finding the token that's most likely to be best by some criterion (e.g. does this give a correct answer, will the model of human preference like this). it's a more abstract goal, and it's also less black and white. instead of one correct next token which should get a high probability, there is a gradation of possible scores for the model's entire answer.

reinforcement learning works when the problem is sometimes but not always solvable by a model. when it is hard but not too hard. so the job of pretraining is to give the model just enough structure that reinforcement learning can be effective.

the model is thus learning which of the many patterns within language that it has discovered to bring online for a given input, in order to satisfy the reward model. (behaviours that get higher scores from the reward model become more likely.) but it's also still learning to further abstract those patterns and change its internal representation to better reflect the tasks.

at this point it's moving away from "simply" predicting training data, but doing something more complex.

analogies with humans are left as an exercise for the reader.

[speeps-highway]

hiya speeps! love your mods and videos, they have fueled my sonic hyperfixations very well! anyway, in one of your older videos you briefly mentioned how sa1 having cutscenes play over top of gameplay was why characters could "make faces" in that game but not sa2. could you go into more detail as to why this is?

In SA1 the cutscenes are done like an RPGMaker event, it has a library of event-specific functions to control characters/objects etc. and forms a list of them as one big script.

Here's an example from one of Sonic's events:

Here's what a few of them do:

EV_MovePoint2: Move a character to coordinates with specified speed and acceleration. There's also a simpler, less used version called EV_MovePoint that does the same thing but at a fixed speed.

EV_SetAction: Give an object an action (Model+Animation) and textures. You can also specify the speed of the animation, whether it loops and (if another EV_SetAction is playing) how many frames to interpolate to this animation from the previous one. (Think every time Sonic moves his hands around while he says "Ah Yeah this is Happenin'", that uses it)

EV_SetFace: Give a character a list of preset facial animations to do (Each letter in the string corresponds to one) . It only works on Sonic, Tails, Knuckles, Amy and Tikal - no other character has faces. (Except for Big, but the game will do an out of bounds crash since he only has 6 faces instead of 20)

EV _Wait: Pause the event thread for X frames.

Here's some others that aren't in that image:

EV_CreateObject: Creates a blank object, usually used for props by giving them an appearance with EV_SetAction.

EV_PlayPad: Plays back recorded user input, Sonic Team used this whenever they wanted Sonic to jump or do a spindash.

While this way can make everything look stiff at times, it's pretty flexible and easy to play with in a mod. It's also why the game has 8 character slots and why Eggman, Tikal and event ZERO are technically player characters.

The best part about it is that the two aren't mutually exclusive, you can call anything from an event in during gameplay and vice versa, the game does this itself a few times too, like setting a flag that keeps the hint monitors active for the Twinkle Park scene.

The faces are part of the characters themselves and they'll switch to them at any time if the relevant values are changed, so I managed to figure out how to do it in the Dreamcast version in 2017. (Funnily enough, also August).

As I said above with EV_SetFace, there's only 20 faces to hold up the entire game's dialogue with (even fewer in actuality given the ones either reserved for blinking or unused) and they seem to be focused more on expression than speaking, at least for Sonic and Knuckles, which is why a lot of people find them goofy.

There's only one situation the game uses the animations for outside cutscenes - when the player gets hurt, they'll do one of their screaming animations for a few frames. (There's also a funny issue where Sonic does it after hitting Knuckles in his boss fight)

Anyway, you can call any event animation, any face and even spawn event objects (such as Chaos event actors) whenever you want in that game. Usually the only thing they need is their textures loaded.

Here's a few things I did when I first figured out how to do it:

SA2's cutscenes are full 3D animations (like Blender) in the game's event folder, everything in them is entirely separate to the gameplay stuff, so the in-game characters have no mouths or cutscene-specific animations to play around with.

It meant they didn't need to deal with gameplay limitations (like player physics) and were easier for them to test as they have a fixed timeline rather than relying on in-game sequences to fall into place.

They also had much greater control over character expressions. The mouth and head are separated and they aren't limited to the list of 20 faces. Here's a bunch I dug out a few years ago for Amy's brow alone:

They used to be really annoying to edit (I had to use a Hex Editor) but I think the SA2 Modding community has had breakthroughs since. Still, I suck at 3D modelling so I prefer SA1's.

I decompiled all of SADX PC's event scripts a few years ago so if you want to learn exactly what they do (and change them, as it's in mod form) take a look:

[peppermint-chocolate-cherries]

Tell me about the fic you liked to write the most!

Okay, first of all, how dare you make me choose!!!

Second, I have a variety of plot bunnies in various states of don't-quite-want-to-abandon-just-yet-because-maybe-one-day-I'll-figure-out-how-to-fix-some-problems.

The four that permanently live on my Trello board with the links to my Google Drive so I can access them at work are:

THE GHOSTS OF THE BRAGINSKI ESTATE

Escaping an abusive relationship, Madeline buys an old estate manor in the middle of nowhere for dirt-cheap from the estate of an old man who had no children. She quickly learns that there are two ghosts living in the house, who cannot yet find their eternal peaceful rest. One ghost is a man who was murdered in the bedroom on his wedding night. The other is his murderous bride.

MURDER IN MONTE CARLO

Inspector Ludwig Bielschmidt of INTERPOL takes on a mission in Monte Carlo, when a string of assassinations is targeting high-profile socialites. As the death toll keeps rising, and some unexpected guests arrive to stir the pot, Ludwig finds that all the signs point to his host, Alfred Jones.

HAVANA LUNARE

In a world where humans might turn into vampires or werewolves in the moonlight, the vampires and werewolves have been trying to kill each other for centuries. Matthew and Ludwig both find a sanctuary where vampires and werewolves have learned to live together, but the outside world does not like that idea.

THE CLOCK'S TICKING

Soulmate AU where everyone has a timer on their wrist that counts how long it's been since they last made physical contact with their soulmate. While other nations have increasingly found their long-distance soulmates in the modern era, Canada's wrist says it's been over 280 years since he last interacted with his soulmate. When Matthew's forced to spill the beans, the other nations plot to find Canada's soulmate.

The newest addition to the board is what's on my head right now, it's a mashup where a Cinderella tale turns into Orpheus & Eurydice. We have several Hetalians cast as the Greek gods, with the focus on Natalya as Persephone. Seychelles is our Cinderella/Eurydice, Switzerland is our aroace Prince Charming/Orpheus, and you know having America as our Apollo and nyo!Canada as our Artemis will bring the chaotically queer shenanigans on the side.

[divinewithadrag]

🌞 Welcome to the Temple of the Sun!

an interpolation of the greek god apollo | portrayed by ncuti gatwa | independent, indie and selective | can fit within the greek mythology and percy jackson universes

About Apollo | Rules & Guidelines | Headcanons | Backstory & Timeline | Playlist | Relationships | Tag Directory | About the Mun

main RP blog: @moonlitwoven

I am Apollo,

The god who paints the sky with gold, whispers through the strings of the lyre, and burns with a brilliance unmatched. But don't worry, I’m not all fire and grandeur -- there’s plenty of warmth to go around.

Here, you’ll find a glimpse of the divine:

Prophecies and musings that span centuries.

Drama worthy of the gods themselves.

Glimpses of my many… artistic endeavours.

So, whether you're a mortal seeking my wisdom, a fellow god ready for rivalry, or just someone who appreciates the sun’s warmth, pull up a seat. The stars are waiting for you. 🌟

This is just the beginning. The journey is bound to get a little golden.

[aurelium-of-gallifrey]

❝ WELCOME TO THE SPIRAL . ❞

an interpolation of the master from bbc's doctor who. portrayed by rege jean-page. independent, selective and indie. mainly focused on the fifteenth doctor's adventures.

They call me Aurelius. Born from fractured timelines and forged in the fire of cosmic ruin. A shadow in the glow of the Fifteenth Doctor’s light. The architect of necessary endings and whispered revolutions.

Here, in the depths of time’s unravelling, I watch. I wait. I pull strings in the silence between moments.

This is no sanctuary for the faint-hearted. This is the place where paradox blooms, where hope burns, and where chaos dances with destiny.

Step lightly, traveller. Ask your questions -- if you dare. But know this: in my world, every word echoes in eternity.

Welcome to the spiral. Will you be the spark that sets it ablaze?