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crankynewt · 4 years ago

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Good for a Weekend (Helmut Zemo)

Masterlist

Summary: You were retired, a disgraced Avenger content living the rest of their life out in solitude. But Sam and Bucky's shenanigans dragged you back into the hero life and you found yourself face to face with the man who'd got you into this mess in the first place. The question is, however, is he really who you thought he was? Or are you just as crazy as him?

Pairing: Helmut Zemo x Reader

Warnings: TFAWS Episode 3 Spoilers, Zemo (he's a warning), swearing, mentions of torture and experimenting (past), drinking, Zemo being semi-protective, I think that's it??

Word Count: 3.41k

Author's Note: Biting the bullet and writing this BEFORE Marvel does something to get us to hate him again. Also, ZEMO AND BLANK SPACE WORK SO WELL TOGETHER OMG.

“You’ve got to be shitting me.” You murmured, looking at the message from Sam flashing across your phone. Although you had stopped dead in your tracks, the chaos of the bustling streets of London continued around you. You pushed your sunglasses further up your nose, them having fallen down as you were peering at the screen of your burner cell.

‘Need your help in Madripoor ASAP,’ the text read. You weren’t daft, you knew exactly what kind of lawless entropy happened on that Indonesian island and if Sam was asking for your help, that meant he was in some deep shit.

‘I’m retired,’ you replied, glancing over your shoulder out of habit. Although you’d been pardoned after the Berlin incident by the government, you were still a disgraced Avenger in the eyes of the world. All you wanted was to live the rest of your life out in peace, a future without the world-saving you began when you left HYDRA with the Maximoff twins.

You hadn’t chosen to become a human lab rat, tortured and exposed to the mind stone until you could suddenly hear the thoughts of others in your head. Telepathy and telekinesis were not necessarily the kind of special skills that employers wanted to see on a resume, but alas, here you were. Thankfully, however, you'd learned to block them out until necessary to violate people's privacy. Fighting aliens and other superpowered entities, including the people you’d once considered to be your family, were in the past.

‘Please. It’s Bucky,’ Sam messaged again. Those three words were enough to make your blood run cold and your heart stop. Bucky was the reason you were in this mess in the first place, and you would be damned if the ex-assassin was going to fall back into the clutches of evil.

With a sigh, you typed back ‘fine’ and began the trek towards your apartment. Your phone was vibrating again immediately, Sam explaining that they would be picking you up at a small airstrip on the edge of the city.

Three hours later, you were walking along a long, concrete runway, the harsh England wind attacking your body as you pulled your leather jacket tighter around you. Your brows furrowed in confusion at the sight of a civilian jet rather than the military-esque vessels you’d become accustomed to. The steps were awaiting your ascent with an older man stood adjacent to the entrance.

“Ms.(Y/L/N),” he greeted. A thick accent laced his tone, one you couldn’t quite determine from the crackling of age in his voice. German or Russian, most likely, you deduced. Attempting to be polite despite your skepticism, you gave him a tight-lipped smile and handshake before the elder man gestured towards the stairs for you. Entering the jet, you turned right to be met with the familiar faces of Sam and Bucky.

“(Y/N)!” Bucky exclaimed, rising from his seat and embracing you in a hug. He held you tightly against his body, almost as if he wasn’t sure you were really there. The super soldier had taken a liking to you when the two of you stayed in Wakanda during your exile, both of you having a certain understanding of the other due to your shared experiences with HYDRA. The sergeant had become somewhat of a brother to you in your time away together. “What are you doing here?”

“Sam messaged me.” You replied, Barnes’ arms immediately releasing you as he whipped around to face Sam.

“You tattled on me to (Y/N)?” He scoffed. If looks could kill, Sam would have dropped dead from the darkness in Bucky’s orbs.

“Wait, if he’s okay then what am I here for?” You said, shifting your gaze to Sam as you raised a brow.

“You’re here to make sure that he stays in line.” Sam snapped, crossing his arms over his chest as Bucky let out an exasperated ‘Jesus Christ’ under his breath.

“Bucky’s fine, Sam.” You replied, rubbing your face with your hand in annoyance as you glanced at the super-soldier.

“He’s not talking about James.” A new voice sounded from behind you, one both vaguely familiar but also strange. Whipping around, you were met with a face you’d only ever seen through a screen. Zemo.

“What the fuck is he doing out of prison?!” You exclaimed, looking between Sam and Bucky in utter disbelief.

“Bucky broke him out of jail!” Sam exclaimed, pointing a finger towards the super-soldier.

“Sam’s the one who pulled me into this mess!” Bucky pointed back.

“You two morons have reached a whole new level of dumbassery!” You exclaimed, keeping a cautious gaze on Zemo in the corner of your eye. “You broke out the man who ripped apart the Avengers out of jail and you let him do it?! The same man who killed King T’Chaka! Do neither of you remember what T’Challa and the people of Wakanda just did for us after we became enemies of the state?! I cannot believe that you would betray their trust and help this monster to escape!”

You paused for a moment, breathing heavily as you looked at the ashamed faces of Bucky and Sam in front of you.

“I’m sorry to-” You heard Zemo begin, you turned to face him with utter rage shining in your eyes. “No! The grown-ups are talking, you can wait your turn.” You scolded him, almost as you would a child but just a tad harsher. Grown-ups may have also not have been the best choice of words to describe Wilson and Barnes.

“I don’t want any part of this suicide mission!” You snapped at the duo, moving to leave.

Thirty minutes later, however, you were still on the jet, glaring into a pair of brown eyes as the four of you flew through the air. Honestly, you couldn’t believe you were still there, but Sam and Bucky knew you too well and pushed just the right buttons to convince you to stay. Sam needed you to tap into Zemo’s mind if need be to figure out if he was planning on betraying them, and you didn’t want two of the last people you trust getting themselves killed if you could prevent it.

Tweedle-dee and Tweedle-dum were sitting across from each other, meaning that you got stuck sitting across from the Baron in silence. He shifted uncomfortably under your gaze, the darkness in your (Y/E/C) orbs not sitting well with the man.

“So, you read minds.” He began, rubbing his hands together anxiously. You noted the nervous tick and couldn’t help but feel amused at his discomfort, but your expression never faltered.

“You don’t need to make small talk.” You bit, your icy tone growing colder in every syllable.

“I’m genuinely curious, is all.” He began, pausing his fiddling to brush his hair back only to resume it once more. “It just seems like for someone with your abilities, you’re often an overlooked member of the team. You’re the most powerful, even more so than Maximoff or Banner, perhaps, yet you were never truly an Avenger, were you?”

“It doesn’t matter, I’m retired.” You muttered, ending your glaring to gaze out the window. The way Zemo spoke about you was unsettling, especially considering how he felt about the Avengers. He seemed not to think that you were part of the team, similarly to Bucky, and that brought you a feeling of unease.

“And why is that?” Zemo pushed, your avoidance evidence that he’d struck a chord.

“Why do you care?” You scoffed, looking back at the Sokovian man, both annoyance and exhaustion present in your tone.

“Because I think you’re like me.” He answered, his tone becoming quieter. Zemo didn’t look at you with the same rage you’d seen in footage from 2016, nor with the amusement that he gazed at Bucky and Sam with. No, it was something different, softer and analytical, perhaps. You wanted to peer into his mind for something, anything to figure out what he was thinking, but he would likely feel your prodding into his consciousness. As of now, he didn’t seem to have any plans to betray you guys, and you wouldn’t be the one to give him a reason.

“That’s enough from you.” Bucky interrupted, rising from his seat to switch places with you, his brotherly possessiveness clear as day.

The rest of the flight was uneventful, and Zemo provided the three of you with costumes for the roles you were to play in Madripoor. Yours seemed to have been designed specifically to be horribly uncomfortable, both in feel and the amount of skin that was exposed in the cool evening air. The three of you were making your way towards the glowing city shining in the distance, the nerves in your stomach rising with each step.

“Only an American would assume a fashion-forward Black man looks like a pimp.” Zemo explained in response to Sam’s protests over his own outfit. “You look exactly like the man you’re supposed to be playing. The sophisticated, charming African rake named Conrad Mack, aka the Smiling Tiger.”

“He even has a bad nickname.” Sam said, looking at the picture of Conrad on the phone Zemo had just handed him. “Hell, he does look like me though.”

“And who am I supposed to be playing, exactly?” You questioned, still unsure as to what role you would be playing in this scheme.

“My partner,” Zemo said simply, an amused smile working his way onto his lips.

“What?! No! Nu-uh, I’m not doing that!” You protested, Sam chuckling at your denial of what was probably inevitable.

“Would you rather the alternative of all of us getting slaughtered the second we step foot into the city?” Zemo retorted, still humored by your resistance.

“Fine, but if you try anything I’m going to break your nose.” You gave in.

"I wouldn't expect anything less."

Soon, the four of you were making your way into a bar, Helmut’s arm wrapped tightly around your waist since the second you exited the car in a mock possessiveness. It was all part of the charade, you had to remind yourself, as the Baron kept your side pressed against his snugly.

Making your way up to the counter, the bartender didn’t look impressed to see the group of you there as he made his way over to you.

“Hello,” He began. “Wasn’t expecting you, Smiling Tiger.”

“His plans changed. We have a business to do, with Selby.” Zemo interjected before Sam could respond.

“The usual?” The bartender ignored Zemo and turned his attention back to Sam, who simply gave a curt nod in response. The bartender turned, grabbing a snake from a jar and slicing it down the underside with a blade. A part of you wanted to cackle, especially seeing Sam stiffen beside you, and you didn’t doubt that Bucky was having to restrain himself as well. Zemo didn’t seem surprised as the bartender pulled who knows what out from the snake and placed it into a glass.

“Smiling Tiger, your favorite.” The Baron commented, the bartender sliding Sam his beverage only to pour two glasses of a different liquor for Zemo and yourself.

“I love these,” Sam said, raising to clink glasses with yourself and the Sokovian man whose arm was still draped around you.

“Cheers, Conrad,” Zemo replied, smiling back at poor Sam. The three of you downed your burning liquor, Sam struggling the most out of the three of you, clearly appalled by the organ at the bottom of his shot. You could see Bucky give a little nod in the corner of your eye, knowing he must be finding this as amusing as you were.

A man soon approached Helmut from behind, tapping him on the shoulder before he turned to face the stranger, shifting you with him. When Zemo felt the little nudge, he immediately pulled you closer to him. You were even tighter against him now, so much so that you had to wrap an arm around him as well to stabilize yourself. It was almost as if he was trying to shield you from the man despite him knowing full well that you can hold your own.

“I got word from on high; you ain’t welcome here.” He spat, getting too close to the two of you for either of your likings. But Zemo kept his air of indifference while you instinctually moved closer into his side. It’s all an act, remember? You have to play the part of the clingy partner who would get frightened at such a rough man threatening you two. Or at least, that’s what you told yourself.

“I have no business with the Power Broker, but if he insists, he can either come and talk to me…” Zemo began, trailing off as he gestured to Bucky.

“New haircut?” The strange man asked Bucky, who merely glowered in response.

“Or bring Selby for a chat.” Zemo finished, this time him being the one to get into the man’s face. Thankfully that was enough to send him away, most likely to Selby or this Power Broker who seems to be Madripoor’s own version of Big Brother.

You could feel Zemo let out a breath that you don’t think he even knew he was holding, giving a quick glance down at you before placing a peck on your temple. For the facade, of course. But what wasn’t fake were the butterflies rise in your stomach, something that you hadn’t felt in a long time. Were you… Flustered?

No, you reminded yourself internally. This was a very bad man holding you close, the same one who killed the former King of Wakanda and ripped your team to shreds. Not only that, but he hated all the Avengers, so why did he seem to like you? It doesn’t matter whether or not he likes you, he’s Zemo. But the more time you spent with him, the more intoxicated you became. He was starting to look more and more like your next mistake, and love is certainly not a game you wanted to be playing with him. Right?

The next thirty or so minutes were a blur. Bucky having to fake being the Winter Soldier to kick a bunch of men’s asses to finally meeting up with Selby, only for Sam to break your cover through a phone call and Selby quickly being shot. The four of you promptly exited the bar, attempting to remain inconspicuous until bounty hunters from all around started shooting at you. Bucky and Sam jumped forward, meanwhile, Zemo darted to the right, dragging you with him as he moved his hand from your waist to interlock your fingers.

You cut through alleyway after alleyway, hiding in the shadows as gunfire echoed around you. Eventually, you managed to catch up with Bucky and Sam, approaching the pair with your hand still in his.

“Well this is too perfect.” A female voice interrupted your mini-reunion, Sharon Carter emerging from the shadows as she ripped down her hood, gun fixated on Zemo.

“Drop it Zemo,” She started, Zemo raising his gun-holding hand before lowering the weapon to the ground. “You cost me everything.”

“Sharon, wait.” You reasoned, raising your hand as you slowly backed up.

“What, are you his lover now? His sugar baby or some shit?” She badgered you, causing your eyes to widen as you only just remembered that you were still holding his hand. You quickly dropped it, raising it to match your other arm as Zemo sent you a look that you couldn’t decipher. Oh, how desperately you wanted to look into his mind, but the little bit of sanity left in you told you to leave it be.

“Someone recreated the super-soldier serum and Zemo had a lead,” Sam explained.

“That explains why you guys are here. And Selby’s dead.” Sharon replied, gun still pointed at your group.

“So what are you doing here?” Bucky questioned the blonde.

“I stole Steve’s shield, remember? I also took the wings for your ass so that you could save his ass from his ass and became a criminal with their ass.” She explained, pointing the gun at each mention of whoever's ass it was that turn. “Unlike you, I didn’t have the Avengers to back me up, so, I’m off the grid in Madripoor.”

“Hey, don’t blow that smoke. I was on the run, too.” Sam rebutted Sharon’s complaints.

“Was. Is. Big difference. I don’t speak to my family anymore - I can’t. My own father doesn’t know where I am.”

“Listen…” You began. “Sharon, we need your help, the former agent only laughing in response. “Please.”

“This isn’t over.” She conceded, shaking her head at you. “I have a place in High Town, you should be safe there for a while.”

Sharon’s place was definitely nicer than yours is now, and you’re not even on the run anymore. She, thankfully, had a change of clothes for you to slip into, the soft material much a welcome relief from the tortuous item Zemo had you wearing.

While you were waiting for Sharon’s guests to begin arriving for whatever event would soon be taking place downstairs, everybody slowly filtered out of the room until it was only Zemo and yourself remaining.

“Can I ask you a question?” You spoke up, breaking the silence from your spot on the sofa as you glanced towards the Baron seated across the room.

“Ask away.” He smiled, taking a sip from the amber liquid in his glass.

“What did you mean earlier, when you said we were the same.” Your voice was quiet now, so much so that you weren’t sure if he’d even heard you. That is until he got up from his seat and slowly walked towards you.

“I never wanted to tear the Avengers apart, not until they killed my family. Destroyed my city… Sure, I didn’t like them, but I didn’t want to destroy them. It was all about vengeance.” He began, sitting beside you on the yellow fabric. “For you, it was HYDRA who ruined your life. You joined the Avengers because it was where the last people you had left were going and it was the easiest way for you to ensure the organization was destroyed. You never wanted the idolization that came with being a hero, and it was clear when your work was done that you had no desire to keep going. Everything that came after the Sokovia Accords was out of survival.”

“I’m not saying you're right,” you began, “but what would that make me, then? Insane? Cause that seems to be the running theory.”

“You’re not crazy, despite how rumors fly. Neither am I, really.” He began, eliciting a small smile from you at the last bit he added. “You’re a fighter, someone doing whatever it takes to get their agenda done. Whether that means breaking the law or joining the Avengers, nothing will stop you once you put your mind to it - it’s one of the things I admire about you.”

You pursed your lips as you focused on the amber fluid floating in its crystalline home, him taking another sip of the burning liquid. Your gaze shifted back to his face, and oh god, look at that face. Maybe it was the liquor in your system already or maybe your last bit of sanity was finally escaping your mind, but suddenly his past didn’t seem to matter anymore. You had plenty of red on your ledger as well, and the more he spoke the more you began to sympathize with him.

“So you admire me?” You smirked, crossing your arms as you tilted your head slightly to the right playfully.

“Why don’t you look into my mind and tell me?” He replied. Reaching out, you gently placed your fingers against his temple as you gazed into his consciousness. Flashes of magic and madness, ideas of a love that could be forever or go down in flames. You didn’t go searching deeper, because your own mind was racing. Would pursuing this be worth all the pain that could very well follow? No, not could, would. You’d be betraying your former teammates, but what did that matter much anymore.

Rather than pulling your hand away, you placed your lips gently on his, tentatively, even. He tasted of expensive liquor and a hint of peppermint, and you found yourself intoxicated. The kiss ended far too soon for your liking, him pulling away so his brown orbs could gaze into your own.

“So… What do you say?” He asked, cupping your cheek in his hand, you place your own over top of his.

“Why not?” You smiled back, reconnecting your lips to his.

“I can make the bad guys good for a weekend.”

Taglist:

@fanfictionedagain @lam-ila @b0nnyzz @haydieenzzibug @cyanide-mustard @duchess-of-new-shire @the-chocoholic-writer @milenadixon @real-fbi @golddenlioness

#i feel so guilty writing this lmao #i hate liking zemo rip #helmut zemo #zemo #helmut zemo x reader #tfaws #marvel #baron zemo #helmut zemo imagine #daniel bruhl #mcu #tfaws imagine #bucky barnes #sam wilson #zemo x reader #zemo imagine

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phoenixyfriend · 4 years ago

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Sugar, Spice, and a Heart to Entice

AKA: Jango Fett speedruns a romance with someone who should be his enemy. (It's okay. We know he makes bad choices.)

Note: Ahsoka uses the pseudonym "Ashla" in this fic. Warnings: slavery, references to drug use, crude sex jokes, undressing of an unconscious person (for medical reasons)

----

The girl that they shove into the chains next to him is... worrying.

(Well, probably a girl--he'll adjust later if it turns out he's wrong.)

She's not that much younger than him, he thinks. It's hard to tell, with the way her skin is taut over muscle and bone, too little water and too little sleep, and probably not enough food for whatever labor she's been doing. He's also, admittedly, not great at gauging ages in the first place, and certainly not for Togruta. Still, he thinks it's safe to say that they're close in age, and that she's probably younger than him.

She's lucky, by some measure. The spice ship is terrible, but it's probably better than the fate tog girls are usually subject to in this industry. They're hazardous conditions, and violent ones, but Jango's yet to see a slave here stripped of their clothing for anything other than a whipping.

He thinks it's probably a matter of money. That kind of violation lowers the profit margins, he imagines. Spice is more lucrative than anything, and pain is a better motivator than... well.

So she's lucky, by that measure, and that measure alone.

They clap her in bindings before he even sees her, even though she's unconscious, and bring her sometime in the night cycle. Jango doesn't have a lot of pity left in him, but some goes out to her. He won't say she's too young for this, because nobody is ever old enough for slavery, nor do slavers have any compunctions about selling babes in arms, but Jango would wager she's already led a hard life.

She's fairly covered, but what little is visible shows enough old battle wounds that he can't imagine she's stayed off of battlefields. He knows how to read a Togruta's markings for stress history, too, and hers tell a story. Her facial marks are thin and delicate, and he'd say they're certainly more complex than the average; the striation on her lekku and montrals is thin and jagged, like marble. It's pretty enough, but it's also a sign of the fact that her life has likely been anything but easy. Some of it might be genetics, and he hopes it is, but with the scars he can see... he doubts it's much.

"Keep that one alive," the overseer orders, eyes on Jango and hand gesturing at the tog girl.

He leaves.

Jango isn't sure what they're hoping to get out of putting her with him. The room is built for four, yes, but they usually don't try to have anyone share with Jango. Maybe they ran out of room, or just assumed Jango was the most likely to know field medicine, or just figured there wouldn't be any trouble until she woke.

As he gets closer, his confusion grows. The tog's got burns all over, ugly ones that aren't going to heal cleanly without bacta. They're going to get infected, as likely as not. He hasn't got much besides water in here, but the overseer's left behind a box of what looks like bandages. If he's lucky, there's burn cream in there.

(He's not lucky.)

He works slowly, careful of every movement. He builds up a story in his head as he does, based on the wounds he finds and what he starts to notice of the clothing. He can't see all the details, not in what little light he has, but there's plenty to notice.

He hadn't realized, with how dim it is, but most of what she's got on as an outer layer is hardened leather, real leather, not synth. There are attachment points for armor at the shoulders and hips, and he thinks he sees signs of wear for vambraces and greaves. She's no Mando'verde, not with how he can see that the fabric at her torso and upper legs is intended to stay light and flexible and uncovered, but the crafting of the leather layers is familiar. He thinks she might have contacts among Mando armorers.

She might even wear beskar, if she's impressed the right person.

The wounds are recent, and unfamiliar, and he thinks she was probably fought into chains, rather than bought in them. She's a captive, not a purchase, or maybe... maybe they just found an unconscious woman, and decided that she was worth keeping.

He thinks she lost a fight, or won but with great injuries, and just... stumbled off and collapsed. He gets the feeling no one on board the ship could have fought this woman, except for himself. It's not based on much, not until he can see her move, but he's got good instincts for that sort of thing.

Jango keeps his assessment of her torso quick and clinical, not even bothering to mentally apologize for stripping her bare. This is medical, and he's not a doctor, not even a field medic, but he's professional nonetheless. Even though there's nothing in the box but bandages, not even the burn cream he'd hoped for, he'd still rather know if there's a broken rib to worry about. He doesn't want to wait for her to wake up and then find out she's got a punctured lung, even if he can't do anything about it. He finds bruising, but... he thinks that if anything is broken, it's hairline at most.

Lucky, he thinks again, in the unluckiest situations.

She doesn't wake that cycle. It's all he can do to get some water in her, dripped into her mouth in a trickle, but it's something.

----

When the Togruta girl wakes up, it's sudden. Jango is wiping down her lekku with a wet cloth in hopes of staving off a fever, kneeling next to the bunk. She opens her eyes, stiffens with a sharp breath, and then twists off the bed. Before he's fully processed this, her legs are up and around his neck, and then he's being wrenched to the side and onto the filthy ground, cheek grinding down into the grit. He feels a bony knee press into his spine, and the growl of a predator.

"Where am I?" the tog girl demands.

"Spice ship," he says, and oh but this place has ruined him for fights; he's having trouble breathing from whatever she's done to him, and she doesn't even have the use of her hands. "Deep space. You're in the slave cells. Don't mess with the collar, it'll explode if you try to remove it."

"Spice refinery?" she repeats, sounding completely baffled. He gives her a second to process, but she blindsides him. "Someone got me in their hands and they went for spice slavery?"

"As opposed to..." he really hopes she gets off soon.

She doesn't answer him immediately, and he can't get a look at her face. He gets his arms out to the sides, plants them to the floor, and shoves back. She doesn't fall off, but she does slide to the side to sit on the floor.

The expression she's got is best described as 'shell-shocked,' he thinks.

"You don't know me," she says, faint and confused. He shakes his head; he's pretty sure he'd have recognized her if he'd known her at all, given the time he's spent cleaning her wounds and trying to keep her alive. She laughs, breathless and a tad hysterical. "You don't--fuck. You don't know me. That's... great. Okay. Okay, I can work with that. Don't know how they missed it, but okay."

"Bounty on your head?" he guesses.

She smiles, thin and unpleasant. "Something like that."

"Thought as much. You're built like a fighter." He intends it as a compliment, but he doesn't think she takes it as one.

"I've never had a choice otherwise," she says, and when she next looks around, it's to find a place to sit. She pushes herself up to the thin mattress of the cot behind her, and Jango mirrors her on the cot across the room. It's not his bed, technically, but it's not like there's anyone to complain. She frowns at him; it's not a rude look, he thinks, but an attempt to put something unfamiliar in place. "What legion were you with?"

He blinks at her. He's been part of an army, but never one that big. "Legion?"

"Were you with special forces?" she tries again. "Or--wait, did you even get off Kamino before--"

"I'm not whoever you think I am," he tells her. "None of that means anything to me. I know what a legion is, but I've never had reason to be part of one."

"But you're..." she trails off, brow furrowed. "I guess just a similar face, then."

"To who?"

"The clones?" she hazards, as if that clears anything at all up. "I have no idea where we are; maybe the war holos never made it out far enough for you to know what they looked like..."

"Which war?" he asks, because he feels like he'd probably have heard of a war that used clones, especially one that had enough holos spread around for this woman to expect him to know what the clones in question look like.

"The... the clone war," she says hesitantly. "With the Separatists?"

None of that means anything to him.

It must show in his face, because her brow furrows, and her eyes go wide in a way he doesn't like. He can't tell if her skin's losing color or anything, but he's pretty sure the curl at the tip of one lek is a sign of anxiety. He's not sure how to help, but part of him already decided he liked this woman, just on the suspicion that she was friendly to Mandalorians.

(It's been a solid year and a half since Jango has had anything approaching a friend. He may be, subconsciously, a little desperate.)

"What's your name?" she asks, voice pitching in discomfort, and tight as a garotte.

"Jango Fett."

She closes her eyes, clenches her jaw, and... he can't see, can't know if she's trembling, but he thinks she is. She lets her head fall back against the wall, and breathes in sharply. It's a shaky breath, and he doesn't like that much, either.

"Fuck," she repeats. "No wonder--fuck."

He gives her a few seconds, but she doesn't elaborate. He asks another question instead. "Do I get to know your name?"

Her eyes crack open, and then she sits up straight and looks him over. Her lips purse, and she comes to some decision, though he's at a loss for what. "Call me Ashla. She/her, if you'd rather stick to Basic."

Fake name. Alright. She mentioned a bounty, so it's probably about that.

"Well met, Ashla."

She laughs, empty and painful. She swears in a mix of Huttese and Mando'a, and a few languages he doesn't even recognize. The Core accent on her Mando'a is strong, but he thinks whoever taught her might have been from Concord Dawn.

"How old are you, if you don't--"

"I'm twenty-one," she says. He was right; she's only two years younger than him. "At least... fuck, okay. What's the date?"

He tells her, and she screws up her brow and mouths something to herself. He's not entirely sure what.

"How long ago was..." she trails off.

"Was what?"

She presses a hand over her eyes. "I don't know what year it is."

Ah. Well, he can help with that much. He tells her that, too.

Ashla drops her hand. She visibly mulls it over, eyes on the underside of the bunk above her. He has no idea what she's thinking.

"Why aren't there other people in this room?"

"Weak ones couldn't sleep because I'm 'too intimidating,' and the rest kept trying to throw their weight around." He shrugs at the look she points his way. "I'm not dumb enough to start a fight with a bomb around my neck, but I'm not letting someone knock me around so they can earn a reputation."

She purses her lips, but lets it lie. "You let me take you down, then?"

"You had the advantage of surprise," he says, and doesn't bother to list every other advantage. She's better fed than he is, has spent less time in spice-suffused air, was unconscious and resting while he was awake to keep an eye on her fever. He's got the feeling she already knows.

When she speaks again, it's low and in fluent Mando'a, heavily accented though it may be.

"You'd get out of here eventually," she tells him, eyes half shut. "But you'll get out faster with my help, Mand'alor."

His stomach twists.

----

"They are either very stupid, or very cheap," Ashla mutters a day later, when he's supposedly helping her change some bandages. It gives him the excuse of leaning in close.

"Probably the former," he says.

She grins, and then stiffens and hisses out a low breath as he pours some of the stolen whiskey over one of the burns. It's not a real disinfectant, but it's the best they've got at the moment. Jango still isn't sure how she managed to get it from the overseers without them noticing, but he's quickly gotten the gist that she's a fair shot sneakier than he is.

"What did they do?" he asks, and she huffs out a laugh.

"I need you to promise you won't try to kill me," she says, and he stills.

She seems to be waiting on his response. Great. "That's not an auspicious start, Ashla."

"Eh, I've survived more than my fair share of people trying to kill me. No offense, bro, but I could take you," she says.

She's probably right in their current circumstances. "Let's hear it."

"I left the Jedi Order when I was seventeen."

The whiskey bottle slips from his fingers.

An invisible hand catches it, and it settles quietly on the floor of their cell. No guards will come running. It's a damning sight, for him.

A Jedi.

A Jedi who--who left.

Jedi committed Galidraan, but she left three years before that, but she was--was--

She has her back to him, trusting.

Or just arrogant.

She phrased it that way on purpose, phrased it so he'd know she left before he--before--

"I was framed by my friend for a terrorist attack," she says, and he can't find his voice to tell her to stop talking. "And sentenced to death by a non-Jedi military tribunal for it. By the time they figured out I wasn't guilty, I'd already been kicked out."

He forces his hands to his knees, grips at the bones that are too close to the skin, and orders himself to breathe.

Ashla turns on the spot, blinks at him. "I'm telling you this because it's how we're going to get out."

"Your people killed mine."

"I wasn't a Jedi when Galidraan happened," she says. There's more she wants to say, he's sure, but she keeps the words locked behind her teeth. That might be a good thing.

"And I'm just supposed to trust you?"

"Only for long enough to get out of here," she tells him. She shrugs, easy as anything. She's done this before, maybe. "Trust me, I have plenty of reasons to hate you, too, but I'm a little more concerned about getting this ship taken into custody, and having all the slaves freed."

"And you can just... make that happen."

"I told you, they're either stupid or skint," she says, with that same disarming grin. "I had lightsabers on me, and they kept them on the ship. They haven't drugged me since I woke up. They put me in normal cuffs, Jango."

He hates the way his name sounds on her tongue.

He hates the fact that he sees her plan already.

"You don't even need me," he points out, resisting the urge to try to kill her here and now. He doesn't have his armor. He doesn't have weapons. He's good, but she's got the Force and thighs that can crush a bantha skull.

"I'm not exactly... legit," she admits with a grimace. "Once you're back in Mandalorian space, you at least have an identity. People that will give you a place to stay. A chain code."

"And you don't."

She smiles, brittle. "Give me a week to scope out what I need and get us out of here, and maybe I'll explain."

A week. Fine.

And once they're out of here, and he has a blaster and a meal and a good night's sleep, he'll handle her.

----

He hates the fact that he likes her, still. People had already noticed, even just one day in. The first time someone notices he's giving Ashla the cold shoulder in the workroom, they joke at him about her not putting out. He's known her one day, and they think--

He stops the thought in its tracks.

Jango doesn't start fights here, but he is tempted.

"Oh, he wouldn't dare," Ashla simpers, sweet as spun sugar. "I bite."

She smiles, every pearly white tooth on display. The fangs near glint in the light. She eyes the speaker, squeezes the tool in her hand. Her tendons strain, but the metal bends with a creak.

The overseer shouts for them to get back to work.

Jango steps closer to her, lets his elbows brush against hers, and glares off anyone that tries to get too close.

"I don't need protection," she mutters to him from the corner of her mouth.

"I keep my word," he replies, hating himself for it.

He said he'd have her back. He may hate what she is, but... she left the Order. She's not a Jedi anymore. If he thinks it enough, he can believe it.

----

There's always a camaraderie in shared suffering. Jango is aware of this, and he feels his fondness for Ashla grow against his better judgment. They're both slaves on a spice ship, and he can't change that. It makes him tolerate her more than he sensibly should.

She acts like a Mando soldier, sometimes. She's not at all like Haat Mando'ade, but she knows some of the jokes that Mandalorians grow up with. She walks like a woman used to beskar'gam. She knows a drinking song or two.

(They don't waste the whiskey. It's for injuries, not intoxication.)

"I had brothers, once," she tells him, late at night. "A lot of them. They had a Mandalorian parent, sort of, but he'd never seen fit to really... let them have the culture. I lost them all, mostly to slave chips, and a few to just normal deaths, but... I learned what I could about Mandalore, after, for their sake. In their memory."

It's not a terrible reason, he thinks.

"Irony for you to end up in chains, then," he mumbles, and she barks out a sharp laugh.

"Tradition, more like," she says, and explains before he can ask for her to keep talking. "My... teacher was born a slave, and I... have a suspicion he ended up back in chains after we lost contact. His teacher was enslaved at least twice that I know of."

"Shitty tradition," he says, because there's nothing else he can think of.

"Could be worse," she tells him. This time, she doesn't elaborate.

----

He likes her more than he should.

----

He likes her so, so, so much more than he should.

----

She steals datachips when nobody's looking, using the Force instead of her fingers. She wraps dismissal around her like a cloak to access computer terminals without anyone but Jango noticing. She slips spice into the drinks held by guards and overseers.

She moves through the ship like smoke, in the dim lights of the false night.

Someone notices. Someone always notices, in Jango's experience, but they have no idea who's doing it. They lock down the cells for the sleep cycle, turn down the temperature, leave all the slaves shivering in their beds.

He pulls Ashla into his cot without hesitation, fits their bodies together to conserve heat, and ignores the rest. They're both soldiers; there's no shame in survival for those like them. The lekku at her back drapes over his neck like a scarf, and he almost wants to laugh.

He's pathetic. His men would be so damn disappointed in him, sharing bunk with a Jedi.

"You're thinking too loud," she mumbles, shifting somehow closer. The chill clings, creeping in through the thin clothes and thinner blanket, but he feels like it's bearable with Ashla here.

----

When they enact the plan, it's so much quieter than Jango would have run it. Ashla holds his hands in the early morning, before anyone is awake, and smiles. When she closes her eyes, sinking into a light meditation, the collar around her neck just... comes apart. Nuts and bolts and curves of metal float about her like a wretched parody of the mobile hanging above an infant's crib, and then land quietly on the nearest cot. When she opens her eyes, hazy and distant, she looks at his throat, and frees him with a thought.

It's a heady thing, freedom.

"Come along, Fett," she goads, almost crooning the words, backing out of the cell with his hands in hers. Nobody is awake yet, or at least they shouldn't be. Her words curl in the air like something cloyingly too-sweet, and he's sure it's her way of trying to piss him off. It's only working a little. "We've work to do."

Said work involves slipping past guards with a Jedi's timing, commanding them to sleep with a whisper and a poke to the forehead, and drugging the ones that she claims are resistant to Jedi tricks. The work is, as such, mostly hers to do. They hide the bodies, but the alarm goes off by the time they get to the weapons locker.

That's fine, because the weapons locker is where they were headed.

"Oh, hell yes," she hisses through a grit-tooth grin, and a matched pair of lightsabers float to her. Jango turns off the energy field by the time they reach her, and she hooks them onto her belt. Beskar plating follows, exactly the pieces that Jango had guessed from wear and tear. It's real beskar, too, not even an alloy, and Jango doesn't ask the questions on the tip of his tongue. She straps it on in practiced movements, without hesitation and almost without thought.

"See anything better than what you got off the guards?" she asks him. "Or did they all take the best blasters for themselves?"

"The latter," he says.

(His eyes trace over the armor she wears, and while she does wear it well... he's jealous.)

(He misses his armor.)

(Envy is unbecoming of anyone, but he thinks he can be afforded a little leeway.)

There are people in the hall by the time they exit, a dozen blasters at the ready.

The people in the hall are... not a problem.

Ashla had called it the Sword and Shield maneuver, when walking him through her experiences working in a Mando/Jetii team. He'd laughed, because the saber was the shield. She'd smiled at him, and he'd cursed himself for it.

If he'd had his armor, they'd have been able to move forward as a pair of unstoppable monsters. As it stands, they're... still doing that, really, just a tad slower.

"You're a Jedi!" one of them shouts. "You're supposed to be diplomats! You're not supposed to kill!"

Jango could laugh at that horrible, horrible lie.

"I am no Jedi," Ashla says, and the words cut through the air like something she's said a million times, and will say a million more.

Jango could do a lot with that line, tucked away in his memories for later.

There's a moment, though, where they're stuck at one end of a hallway, and the door to the bridge is just on the other side, and Ashla grins at him, a challenge in every inch of her body, and asks, "You wanna see something cool?"

He can't help it.

"You planning to show off, Jedi?" He can say the word without flinching, and it's... absurd. It's absurd. What in all the hells is she doing to him?

(He's been told that war makes for strange bedfellows, but he's long known that trauma does the same.)

He takes cover when she moves, and oh, does she move.

Ashla's a whirlwind, dangerous as anything and beautiful in her careful, precise violence. She knocks people out, more often than not, but there's more then one dead body left in her wake. It appeals to something in him. She flips and twists and throws people with the Force. She slices and kicks, and smacks people across the face with the blasters she lifts of their comrades. She headbutts at least two people, and then jumps to bounce off the ceiling and back down so she can land feet first on an enemy.

He hopes he'll get his common sense back when he's had time to put himself together, because the sight of those sabers doesn't make him flinch. After all he's been through, after all his nightmares, it really should. The sound alone should have him shivery and shooting.

Maybe there's just too much spice in the air.

A head drops to the floor in a different direction from the body it had previously been attached to. Jango's throat goes dry in response.

When Ashla stands at the end of the hall, a saber in each hand and the floor behind her littered in both bodies breathing and bodies bereft of life, she looks back at him over her shoulder. She deactivates her swords, and smirks. She's smug, and she makes smug look very, very good.

"So," she says. "Verdict?"

Fuck.

----

The bridge is easy enough to handle. They land the ship on a Republic planet, one with relevant authorities and at least some reputation for actually handling things with a degree of kindness and transparency. Ashla does the talking, letting Jango lurk behind her. She lies.

"Half-truths," she later tells him, in a low voice. The smile she wears is amused and self-assured, just a twist at the corner, and the slightest of pouts. He can't see it, when she leans in to murmur in his ear. "I certainly used to be a Jedi. They don't need to know this wasn't an officially-sanctioned infiltration."

Her breath hits lightly against his ear, and he wants--he wants--

"Have a comm code for any old friends?" Ashla asks, stepping away. Her face twists unpleasantly. Frustration, he's sure. "I've got credits, but no contacts."

He eyes the little pack she's got around her waist. "Stole that from the slavers?"

"We'll consider it payment for services rendered," she tells him, with an impish grin Jango wants to kiss off of her face, because apparently he's kriffing suicidal and wants to bed a Jedi. "I'll give you most of it, if you want. Call it the two years of backpay they owed you."

He snorts before he can stop himself. "Just one year, sorry."

"Oh, it's hazard pay," she insists, blinking innocently. "Dangerous conditions having been what they were, of course."

She presses a comm--probably also stolen--and a few credits into his hand, then loops her arm through his. She sets off at a lazy walk, ignoring the people who stare at them with distaste and disgust. "We'll find a hotel. We'll shower, with real water, and fancy soaps, and a little sonic just for the clothes. I'll run out and get you a basic outfit, and then we can go shopping, and once that's done, and you've had a chance to comm a companion, we can reunite you with your buddies, and you can go hunting for your armor, and I'll split and--"

"Stay."

She tilts her head at him, though she doesn't stop walking, and he feels his face burn. He hopes it's not visible. She hums lowly. He can't learn anything from it. "You hate Jedi, though, and I might not really be one anymore, but I'm still more Jedi than not."

"You wear beskar and speak Mando'a," he says. "You helped the Mand'alor. You're halfway to being one of mine already."

"One of yours, huh?" she mutters, eyes somewhere distant. He doesn't know what it is that she's seeing, but he's gotten used to it. "Alright, let's have this conversation again after you've had some sleep and clothes and a good meal, yeah?"

He can take that compromise.

----

"What do you mean, you're from the future?!"

#Jangosoka #time travel #Jango Fett #Ahsoka Tano #slavery tw #drugs tw #Phoenix Posts #I wrote this on a whim a few days ago but didn't get it edited until today #anyway have a nonsense

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gguksgalaxy · 5 years ago

Text

Personal Space | JJK

›› AU: Friends to Lovers ›› Genre: Fluff ›› Rating: PG-13 ›› Word Count: 1.7k ›› Prompts: Small space + First kiss ›› Jungkook Snuggle Drabbles

That time when Jungkook's shower got interrupted.

Rapping your fist against Jungkook’s door, you pull your soft lilac robe tighter around your body. The dorm building’s hallway is cold and you forgot to put on socks. What even is he doing this time of night? It’s just past midnight on a Wednesday, he has a 9am class tomorrow. The only reason that you know this is because you also have a 9am class, and you two usually walk together.

You knock again, louder this time, switching weight from foot to foot in an attempt to stay warm. It’s not like him to not be home at this time. He didn’t even pick up his phone when you called him, because you have some courtesy to at least not show up unannounced at his dorm in the middle of the night. But this was a real emergency and you need him to open the damn door.

Just when you’re ready to knock again, the door opens and your spit just about goes down the wrong pipe. Coughing, you double take Jungkook standing in the door in nothing but a towel—hair and body dripping wet from a shower. Tattoos and muscles on full display, you shake yourself and meet his unreadable gaze.

“You never shower at night.” The words tumble out of your mouth before you can even think about what you’re saying. You sound like an absolute fool. Why again is it that you’re crushing on him? Oh yeah, because he’s your best friend who also happens to be the sweetest, most loveable person in the world. And he looks like half a god.

He raises an eyebrow. “You never show up at my apartment at night wearing nothing but a purple robe, either.”

You look down at yourself, cheeks turning red. “I’m wearing something under this! It’s an emergency,” you say, pushing past him so that he can close the damn door. It’d be a nightmare if someone caught the two of you like that.

“What kind of emergency?” he chuckles, flicking his damp hair out of his face. Water splatters everywhere. Jungkook peers down at his own body, realising he's still soaking wet. “You know what, let me finish my shower and you can tell me.”

Jungkook disappears into his bathroom while you make yourself comfortable on his lounge chair. Unlike you, he has a solo dorm. You have to share yours with your friend which is currently the reason that you are here. This is more like your second dorm, even if you can’t remember the last time you spent the night here. Probably before you realised your feelings for Jungkook were getting out of hand.

You remember how comfortable his bed is, how nice it is to just lie cuddled up in it. It’s not that you stopped doing that, but it’s definitely been a while since you slept here. You miss it, but it’s hard to be around him knowing he doesn’t feel the same way.

“So,” he says, exiting the bathroom, shirt still halfway up his chest. The fabric falls down, hiding his chest from view. “What is it you need rescuing from so badly that you didn’t even get dressed properly?”

Sighing, you play with a pen on his desk. “You know that awesome mission where we succeeded in getting Taehyung and Kat together?” Kat being your roommate, and Taehyung being Jungkook’s soccer teammate.

“Yeah?”

“Well,” you mumble, “I think Kat forgot that I was home and when I exited the bathroom I saw things I wish I could scrub off my eyeballs.”

Jungkook laughs, doubling over. “I would say that I can’t believe they would do that but, I know Taehyung better than that sadly. I’m sorry on his behalf.”

You huff. “Can I wait them out here? I don’t really want to go back there just yet.”

Your best friend’s eyes dart to the clock on his desk. “You want to go back?”

“I mean, at some point yeah. I need to get some sleep.”

“Let’s sleep then,” Jungkook states, throwing back the sheets on his bed as if he’s inviting you.

You just give him a look.

“Oh come on, I don’t know what’s been up with you lately. Have you bought an expansion pack for your personal space?”

“What?”

He smiles, walking over to you. With one hand on the desk, he leans into you. Your body betrays you immediately, leaning back, cheeks flushing. “Why are you so shy lately? You never used to have a problem with proximity.”

“I—I,” you stutter. “I’ve just been feeling self-conscious about it.”

Jungkook frowns, sitting down on his chair. “In a bad way?”

“Is there a good way?”

He purses his lips, stilling your hand where you’re tapping his pen. “I hope that it’s not because of something I did? You’re important to me, and I want you to be comfortable around me.”

“Oh.” You think over his words. You’re important to him, but you’ll always just be his best friend. It’s something you get reminded of enough, even Kat has mentioned that you and Jungkook have been awfully disgusting. That you act like a couple, and that you shouldn’t make yourself so obvious. “It’s not that, I’ve just been overthinking everything. Someone said it’s weird that we’re so close.”

“Why would it be weird?” His face holds genuine confusion that edges on a smile. “I know people who are just friends who are way more disgusting.”

Your eyes widen. And so do his the second he realises what he said.

“You know what,” he says, getting up and trying to shake off his previous words. “This is a no overthinking zone. Take off that ugly robe and let's get into bed.”

Jungkook plops down onto his single mattress and you stare at him for a second. He’s not wrong. Regardless of whether he means that you are more than friends—which is unlikely—or just best friends rather than normal friends, there are people who are worse. You shouldn’t overthink being with him. You shouldn’t let your feelings for him get in the way of being with him.

“Fine, because you asked so nicely.” You shrug off your robe and settle down into the bed with him. It’s way too tight of a space for two people, especially with Jungkook not being the smallest person you know. He takes up an unnatural amount of space in a bed. Even when he curls up he’s somehow pressed against you.

He turns to face you. “You’re okay though, right? We are?”

You nod, pulling up the covers. “We’re good Jungkook, don’t worry.”

It takes you five entire minutes to realise that this would be harder than you thought it would be. You twist, bumping into his body in an attempt to find a comfortable way to sleep without being pressed against him. An impossible task.

Jungkook stills you by throwing an arm over your waist. “Can you lie still?”

You snort. “Can you move over?”

“I’m with my back against the wall.”

“I’m with my ass on the edge.”

“Seems like we’re at an impasse. You have no choice but to just scoot over.”

“I could sleep on the floor,” you retort.

He snorts. “Get over here, silly.” Jungkook being much stronger than you, pulls your body towards his on the bed. One of his legs over yours, his hand splayed over your back. Even in the dark you can see the way his eyes shine. You hold your breath.

His expression changes, just barely. Tongue darting out to lick his lips, he seems a little tense under the touch of your fingers against his chest. Your heart starts racing at the proximity. The familiar scent and feeling of him around you. A strange thought passes your mind; What if he does have feelings for you in some non-platonic way?

Before you get the chance to refute that idea, Jungkook grabs your cheek and presses his lips to yours. You let out a gasp, fingers tightening into the thin shirt that he’s wearing. Is he…kissing you? Jungkook’s kissing you. Why would h—

“Stop overthinking,” he mumbles against your mouth, moving his hand to your neck.

You let out a shaky breath. When he kisses you again, all the tension in your body seeps away. You kiss him back, closing your eyes and leaning in. Bodies slotting together, Jungkook twists his body so you lie over top of him, lips gently moving against yours.

His hands tremble, just like yours, where he holds your waist. You’re just as nervous yet you’re overcome with a feeling of euphoria. Finally, after so long, you’re kissing him. Lips moving together, parting and deepening. Just for a moment. Your stomach swoops as you feel his tongue flick over your bottom lip. It ends way too soon.

Jungkook parts, opening his eyes and meeting your hesitant gaze. “I meant what I said earlier.“ He keeps his voice hushed, only for you to hear. The moment is so warm, yet it feels fragile. Trembling like you. “I feel like there’s more to us.”

“I feel that too,” you whisper, almost giggling when he pecks your lips.

“Let’s talk about it tomorrow, okay? I really just want to hold you for now.”

You nod, lying down with your head on his chest. There’s so many words swimming through your mind, worries and concerns, but also excitement and relief. After all this time of worrying that Jungkook wouldn’t feel the same, he’s been waiting for you.

With one arm slung over his waist, you snuggle up to him. Finding that familiar spot where both of your bodies are entwined and your mind just relaxes. It’s a safe space. He is. You can still feel his lips on yours—you want that again, but you can wait until tomorrow. For now, you let your lips brush over his exposed collarbone. Feeling him shiver, you smile. Maybe you should thank Taehyung and Kat for violating your dorm. Just maybe.

Thanks to: @yoongs-jeontae Requested by: Anonymous + Anonymous

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gojoscloset · 4 years ago

Text

Damaged goods

Suna Rintarou x Fem!Reader Pt. 1

Suna confesses to reader who still dwells on their trauma

WARNINGS:

Brief mentions of Sexual trauma

Bad words

Not edited

Mayhaps really out of character

Self indulgent

Angst

Word count: 3k+

☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆

“Her?!”

“Yeah, her.” Suna confirmed, sharp eyes watching your expressions change as you interacted with your friends quite a few lunch tables away.

“Ha! Yeah, good luck Rin. I heard She’s prude as fuck” his friend patted Suna’s shoulder in a rough yet playful way. “I‘ve been school mates with her since intermediate, no good. She’s never dated anyone, rejects any confessions thrown her way, and immediately rejects people’s advances. You’re booking a room at the Heartbreak hotel if you’d ask me.”

“I didn’t ask, but thanks for looking out.” He didn’t expect his friend to react so negatively, immediately he changed the topic, no longer wanting to speak of you if it wasn't praise. Either way,Suna couldn't care less about who you rejected and why they got rejected. At the end of the day, they weren't him, and they didn’t know you.

___

You unknowingly planted a ‘parasite’ in Suna’s mind, as he likes to call it. He recalls the exact moment in which you were no longer blurred in the background, but right in his face the whole time; a small act of kindness that rotted his brain away with how much he thought about it.

He started noticing how frequent you two run into each other after the first ‘encounter’, now he quietly and stealthily looks your way in hopes of possibly catching you doing another kind act. Much to Suna’s surprise, he had the privilege of witnessing your integrity on multiple occasions which only made him want to be closer to you.

Of course he never initiated anything, nor did he make the effort to speak to you. He felt there really was no proper way to approach you without it being awkward in his eyes. What was he supposed to say? How was he supposed to initiate conversation?

“Hey, I have seen you do kind things for others and now I want to get to know you?”

“Hello, I saw you pay for someone’s items one time and now i can’t stop thinking about you, i’m Suna Rintaro”

Thoughts that kept him up sometimes. Thoughts that took up the free space in his mind until they started to affect his little day to day routines. It scared him to see himself willingly want to do things for you that were completely out of character. You. A person he only got to see a glimpse of, maybe that's what kept his infatuation burning. To think that the light that radiated from you was just what seeped through the cracks, a sample of who you really were, he only got a little taste and he was feening for more.

Suna was a quiet man, but he could only keep his head in the clouds for so long before someone noticed.

“So, what’s been on your mind?” Kita pulled him to the side after practice one day and that’s when he spilled everything to Kita. Kita himself was surprised yet honored to see this vulnerable side of Suna.

With a little encouragement from his teammate, he decided to tell you how he felt. He of course asked Kita and Aran for assistance,as they were the most level-headed members of the team and his friend group. They suggested the letter method opposed to the DM method Suna insisted would ‘be a lot easier’ to do. But they weren’t going to let him be a coward. “Things such as romance shouldn’t be done half-assed.” Kita damn near scolded him and reluctantly Suna obliged.

Somehow the twins caught wind of the plan, and decided they would be there while he confessed, in hiding of course. And after dragging Kita and Aran along, despite their protests and mentions of violating Suna’s privacy, the gang was somehow all there.

——

He practiced this very moment countless times in his head even preparing for rejection.

“Suna-San..'' you looked up from the envelope he handed you, you stared directly into his eyes, various forms of negative emotions displayed on your own face causing his anxiety to shoot through the roof, but the smile you gave him afterwards alleviated it just a tad.

‘Heartbreak Hotel…’ His friend's words repeated in his mind and Suna wondered if maybe he made a mistake, even if he barely said anything, did his actions come off too strong?

“...I am flattered, I really am…” You chuckled a bit, hiding the lower half of your face with the letter, slightly embarrassed but really flattered.

Oh how He wished you hadn’t done that. He wanted to see how you beamed because of him, even if the rejection would follow afterwards, he wished that smile reached him.

“But please don’t waste your time on me.” You laughed, examining the envelope, not looking at him while your fingers traced the large red heart sticker that sealed the confession.

He took the hit like a man, understanding that not everyone was going to like him in that way and rejection in life was inevitable, but he wasn’t going to let this go so easily, not when it came to you. Not when you called it a waste of time.

You were grateful that Suna didn’t do this in front of everyone, like all the others, Blissfully unaware that the devils were in the details and said devils were actually listening in and cheering for Suna silently on the other side of the lockers.

There were a million things Suna wanted to say but he couldn’t choose what to say in time before things went awkwardly silent. You couldn’t look at him for long before you shyly turned away, once again covering your face as you laughed.

“Thank you though.. but yeah… I’ll see you tomorrow in class?” You took a step to the side to walk past him, but before you managed to get away he took a step in front of you, stopping you in your tracks.

He gave you a serious look once he finally grasped onto something to say , there wasn’t any hidden anger in his gaze, much to your relief.

“Pursuing you isn't a waste of my time.” He said plainly, his cool demeanor never wavered but internally his heart was doing flips. You were not expecting this kind of reaction honestly. Everyone else you had rejected always took it like a bitch, utterly offended and of course left you hurt with the slew of insults they used to mask their pain and to get back at you on their way out.

But not Suna, he had patience and was understanding. It hurt you that you had to reject him, but you couldn’t do that to him, not when you were still… fucked.

“That’s ‘cause you don’t even know me.” Your laugh was a pained one, and your fight or flight senses kicked in, he was stretching the moment as much as possible and it made you nervous.

“I know enough to know I want more.” he replied.

“And that’s a mistake on your end.” You snapped but you didn’t mean to. Your hands began to shake and your voice was beginning to crack under the pressure. You knew he meant no harm in prying, but you wished he would have reacted the way all the others have since It would have been easier to escape the situation.

His heart was heavy, but obviously not as heavy as yours.

“Look, Suna” you began, exhaling deeply. Your eyes finally met his. “I’m what they call damaged goods, okay? I won’t be able to give you what you want. Relationships require things that are difficult for me to give, and I think it’s best you trash the idea.” Your voice was small but the meaning behind your words was not.

“What is it that's required?” His hand rubbed the back of his neck, the nerves finally hitting him breaking his chill character. “Y-you never know..M..maybe you don’t have to give it to me...”

Your brows were knit together, confused at how oblivious he was. Did he really not get it? Or was this all an elaborate prank?

You opened up your mouth to speak but before you could mutter anything out, Kita came from around the corner, immediately you shoved the letter into your back pocket. Little did you know the letter was their doing. Well, Mainly Aran and Kita.

“Oh, there you are Rin. I hope I’m not intruding in anything, but we can’t start practice without you.”

Kita gave you a nod and a small smile, you returned the nod, and attempted with the smile, but it didn’t reach your eyes as it normally would.

Suna had a confused look on his face, but he played along. “Right…. “ He muttered, turning to look at you. You stared back at him but you were the first one to break eye contact

“Do your best at practice..I’ll see you around.” You whispered and quickly saw yourself out.

——

Atsumu, Osamu, and Aran stepped from the other side once Kita gave them the cue.

They rushed to Suna’s side, immediately bombarding him with praise and encouragement, and Suna hated it. He didn’t mean to feel this way, but Suna knew the praise came from a place of pity, it was etched on their sad smiles. It left a bitter taste in his mouth, even if he knew they were just trying to help.

Practice went on as it normally would, Suna was quieter though, as expected. He let his mind wander, the scene replaying in his head, trying to ping the exact moment where he messed up.

Kita pulled him to the side once again after practice.

“You are no coward.” Kita gave him a reassuring smile, Suna couldn’t return it though.

“It feels like I am.” He took a seat on the steps outside, Kita following suit.

“It’s understandable why you feel that way, romance is nothing easy. But you did what you could out there, you should be proud of yourself.” Kita threw in another one of his smiles but Suna wasn’t even looking his way, his mind everywhere but here.

Kita continued, knowing Suna was probably not going to say much to him. “ But the reason I pulled you aside today was to explain why I intervened. It seems that what she said went way over your head and I couldn’t continue to listen to you unknowingly pry.”

With those words Suna was thrown back to planet earth. He snapped his head in Kita’a direction, visible uncertainty in his eyes.

“It was when l/n talked about being ‘damaged goods’ and about what she couldn’t give you in a relationship.” Kita looked at Suna, searching his eyes to see in case the lightbulb finally flicked on. But it didn’t so he continued.

“I’m in a place I don’t belong, but Rin, I’m pretty sure she was referring to trauma...whether it be sexual or not, I suggest you refrain from prying.”

The cogs in Suna’s mind finally began to spin. He was able to put the pieces together and see the entire image for what it was. It made him sad to think that you referred to yourself as ‘damaged goods’ because of your past. He wanted to doubt the possibility, but the pieces to the puzzle fit all too well for it to be anything else.

Not only that- Kita, being as intuitive as he was, was usually never wrong about these kinds of things, nor would he lie to Suna. Especially about something like that.

He then remembered the ‘warning’ his friend gave him that one day. A wave of disappointment rushed through him knowing that his ‘friend’ made assumptions about you whilst being completely oblivious to the truth.

All of these things ran through his mind at a million miles per second. “Are you okay?” Kita snapped him out of his trance, he didn’t realize he hadn’t moved or said anything since he put it all together.

“Yeah.” He stood up and walked down the remainder of the concrete steps, Kita following his lead. “I’m heading home. Uhh...thanks for looking out, even if things didn’t go as planned” Suna rubbed the back of his neck and turned to watch Kita walk down the remainder of the steps

“And thank you for confiding in me, even though somehow the twins caught wind of it all.” They both chuckled at the last part.

“I’ll see you tomorrow, and chin up. You did your best” Kita waved him goodbye and headed home. Suna gave him a wave and headed home himself. Even though he got his feelings for you off his chest, he still felt like he couldn’t breathe. Like somehow the weight on his shoulders had increased.

—-

Reading the letter fucked you up. Of course it made your heart skip a beat, but it also made you hate yourself for familiar reasons.

Paragraph after paragraph of nothing but praise. You hated how you couldn’t see any of the things he said in yourself.

You fucking hated how being touched by someone without consent changed your entire life. You hated how much influence your past had on your future.

Moments like these and confessions like this made you question if you would ever live the life you wanted.

The concepts of marriage, children, sex, and almost all forms of physical intimacy made you cringe and shiver in disgust.

Things you once desired became things you hated, all because someone else fucked them up for you.

—

“Are you okay?...” your best friend, Hanako, asked as she looked up from the envelope you opened cautiously so as to not mess up the sticker.

You nodded, no longer having the energy to speak after all the crying. You didn’t even look at her while she asked, you just sat on your bed, staring at the wall mindlessly playing with the fur of one of your blankets.

“Your feelings are valid, I hope you know.” She rubbed soothing circles on your back and again you nodded, wiping your eyes again.

“It just sucks ya know? Because I want this so bad, but who the fuck is going to want to wait around for me? Imagine getting in a relationship with someone you can’t be intimate with because they’re scared. Like great, what a waste of their time.” You shook your head and went back to playing with the fur.

“None of those things are true, and the real world is wayyyy different. There are people out there who are patient and understanding and there is more to love than what you know. Trust me, take it from someone who’s graduated and has a little taste of real life .” She placed a hand on your shoulder and shook it playfully, trying to get you out of your funk.

“It doesn’t feel that way.” You muttered under your breath

“You feel this way only because you haven’t fully healed. And I don’t blame you y/n… the things you underwent require a lot of healing so please take as much time as you need and go easy on yourself.....” she grabbed your hand and gave it a gentle squeeze.

There wasn’t much left you had to say, but Hanako stayed by your side a while longer, watching a movie she knew was your fave to try and ease the pain. She had been here with you many times before and she would do it again and again because she loved you and wanted you to love yourself.

Hanako left long after the sun had set, she would’ve spent the night but she knew you had class the following morning.

But you couldn’t go to sleep, instead you reread the letter. Reading the paragraphs that made you feel like you were actually worth someone’s time over and over again.

‘There hasn’t been a day since that you don’t cross my mind. What started off as curiosity became something more. Your kind heart connected with that smile, that laugh, that face, It became too much for me to bear, I couldn’t go another day without telling you.’

Tears fell onto the paper, and you were quick to use your shirt to dab away the tears, not wanting to mess up the effort he put into it. After rereading the letter for what seemed to be the thousandth time, you decided it was time for bed.

After doing your routine you headed for bed, but as soon as your head hit the pillows your phone buzzed multiple times.

‘@2501Suna Sent you a message request’

‘Hey I know it’s late but’

‘It didn’t register to me what u meant by damaged goods until way after’

‘I’m sorry I’m kind of a dummy’

‘I didn’t mean to pry’

‘or make u uncomfortable’

‘And forgive me if I’m speaking in a place I’m not welcome’

‘But if what I think happened, happened’

‘I still stand by what I said in the letter’

‘And u are still deserving of love’

‘Have a Goodnight and see u tomorrow (^:’

He seemed to press enter with every Sentence causing your phone to buzz continuously.

You read the messages as they came in real time and just when you thought you’d stopped crying, fresh tears seeped out again.

You didn’t have much to say so all you did was double tap the messages, little hearts appearing at the bottom of each one, your way of showing your appreciation without having to say anything.

It was crazy to think that you had plagued someone's mind like Suna claimed you did. Even in the late night he still thought of you and considered your feelings, and even if you did reject him, Suna didn’t look for ways to kill the ‘parasite’ in his brain. If anything it fed it more.

You couldn’t help but smile at the messages, even if the horrendous self doubt clouded your mind, it was his efforts and his own kind heart that parted the clouds for you, you basked in the feeling, even if it was just for the moment.

A/N:

Trauma does not define you

Trauma does not get to influence your choices

Love is real

& Love is out there for you

☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆

#haikyuu!! x reader #haikyuu!!#haikyuu suna #suna rintaro fluff #suna x you #suna x y/n #suna x reader #hq imagines #haikyuu imagines #suna rintaro headcanons #hq!! x reader #hq headcanons #suna rintaro angst #rintarou x reader

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hopelesshawks · 4 years ago

Note

If you're still doing it, and if you feel inspired with the character : Bakugou Katsuki and the song "From Now On" from The Greatest Showman.

You can write with another character if this one doesn't inspire you!

Send me a song and a character (still open)

Ohhhh I love this!! Pro hero!Bakugo who let all the fame of being number 2 get in the way of his relationship me thinks. Thanks for sending this in 🥰

Bakugo used to love the fame and attention that came with being a top hero.

He used to love the way people would scream his name with stars in their eyes when they saw him; the way the idiots in suits over at the HPSC would congratulate him on his incident resolution rate; the way the press would sing his praises; the way his name sounded after the words Number Two Hero even though he’d much rather hear it after number one. He loved it all.

But you?

You fucking hated it.

You always said it was the worst part of hero work. The fans, the paparazzi, all of it grated on you. You hated that since Bakugo had cracked the top 10 you two couldn’t go on date night without getting blinded by cameras. You hated going to HPSC galas in an expensive outfit you’d never wear a second time, sipping overpriced champagne even though you’d be just as happy with something a tenth of the price. You hated that you couldn’t go on social media without seeing speculation about your relationship and your sex life literally everywhere or even worse hundreds of people all stating exactly why you weren’t good enough to be with the Bakugo Katsuki. But what you hated the most was the way Bakugo loved it; the way he preened under the praise, his chest puffing up with pride, ego absolutely blooming under all the superficial attention; the way he’d kiss you in front of paparazzi just so the headlines would be filled with mention of you being his. The rest you could deal with but it made your skin crawl how much he’d change when the public’s watchful eye was on him. At home he was the man you fell in love with, but the minute you left he regressed to the obnoxious asshole you’d first met during your first year at UA.

It was a recipe for disaster and in retrospect Katsuki really should’ve seen the break up coming. He can barely remember what had set off the argument in the first place, probably another gaudy headline or crude Twitter trend about the two of you. You’d been upset about it, raving about invasions of privacy and feeling violated and he’d been dismissive, the way he always was when it came to these things.

“It comes with the territory, just fuckin’ get used ta it already,” he had scoffed.

“The issue is you encourage it Katsuki! You care more about the fame and how good it makes you feel than you do how that added scrutiny makes me feel!” you fired back.

“Why can’t you just fucking deal with it??”

“I shouldn’t have to!”

“Well maybe if you did your fuckin ranking would be better!”

It was a low blow. Bakugo knew it then and he still knows it now. You try so hard to be the best hero you can be, but at the end of the day popularity plays a nontrivial role in the ranking system and being the “““just average””” significant other to one of Japan’s biggest rising stars isn’t a recipe for popularity.

“Get out….”

Your voice had been dangerously low. He’ll never forget the way it managed to sound both terrifyingly lethal and devastatingly heartbroken.

“Shit, wait (y/n) I didn’t mean that I-”

“I said get out!” you had yelled, voice quaking with pent up emotion as you started shoving him out the door. If he really didn’t want to move he could’ve easily resisted but at the time he’d been too shocked to even try, reeling backwards and letting you force him back into the hallway of your apartment building.

“Talk to me when Bakugo Katsuki comes back, I’m fucking sick of Pro Hero Dynamight,” you had said before promptly slamming the door in his face.

In the month that followed Katsuki threw everything into his work, taking longer shifts and pushing himself harder so that by the time he got home he was too beat up to feel the aching pain in his heart and too exhausted to notice his apartment didn’t feel like home the way yours did. He ignored the pitying looks from his friends, brushed off their concerned words and sympathetic gazes with grumbled “I’m fine”s and eye rolls. He filled the hole you left in him with the praise and admiration of the adoring public.

And then came the day you’d been warning him about since he first became a household name.

“The Cost of Victory: Pro Hero Dynamight destroys city during villain chase”

The story matched the headline, tallying up all of the damage he’d caused to buildings and other public property while trying to apprehend someone’s half ass attempt at recreating nomu. As shoddy as the thing was it could take a fucking hit and there was no denying the collateral damage was decently expansive. What the article failed to mention, however, was the amount of damage done before Bakugo had arrived on scene. It made sure to comment on the number of casualties in the incident but conveniently left out how much larger that number would be had Katsuki spent more time worrying about some stupid hunks of metal over catching the damn monstrosity and saving civilian lives. He guesses “Pro Hero Dynamight does his best despite being out gunned and having zero back up at his disposal” isn’t as catchy or clickworthy of a headline.

The very same websites showering him in praise just a day or two before now viciously rip into him. He can’t take a step outside his apartment without seeing article after article shredding him to pieces or getting a camera shoved into his face asking for comment on the criticism. His Twitter feed is full of former fans deriding him for falling short of perfection, calling him a narcissist, a showboat, a fucking menace to society as if he’s the sixteen year old kid chained up at the sports festival all over again. So he stops leaving his apartment entirely.

Kirishima is the one who finally gets him out again. The bar they go to is small, further away from the downtown area than most people are willing to stray. Between that and the fact it’s still relatively early in the evening, they have the place to themselves. The only other soul is the owner/bartender who seems entirely uninterested in the fact that Red Riot and Dynamight are patronizing his establishment. It’s perfect, giving Bakugo the space he needs to rant to his best friend. And rant he does. He lets it all pour out while he paces: the frustration, the rage, the disappointment, the guilt, until there’s nothing left in him except an aching sadness that has nothing to do with the fake fans and shitty headlines. “Y’know what the worst fuckin’ part is?” he rages, face red from bellowing for the past lord knows how long and tears already welling in his eyes at what he’s about to admit. Kirishima barely has time to ask what the worst part is before Katsuki is choking out around a frustrated sob “I wouldn’t even give a shit if I still had (y/n).”

Kirishima is out of his seat and pulling his friend into a hug in an instant. He lets Bakugo shake apart, doesn’t mind the tears soaking into his shirt or how tightly the other man is gripping onto him. He stands solid and firm, the same way he always has and always will for Katsuki until the sobs turn to hiccups. “They’re worried about you, you know,” Eijirou finally tells him. “Yea? How the fuck you figure that Shitty Hair?” Bakugo grumbles miserably into his shoulder. “They’ve called me every day since the article came out to check on you,” the red head admits and it’s enough to make Katsuki stiffen in his hold, scared to hope. “Really?” he asks, voice gruff but quiet. “Really. So are you gonna go to them or what?”

You’ve been staring at your phone for at least an hour, debating whether to call Bakugo or not, when a knock on your door snaps you out of your pained contemplation. You pull the long sleeves of the hoodie Bakugo gave you for your birthday down over your hands as you move to answer the door. Imagine your surprise when the very man who’d been plaguing your thoughts is the one standing outside your door. He looks rough. His hands are shoved into his pockets, back hunched over, face red and puffy, and even though he hasn’t looked you in the eye yet you can tell his are red rimmed. He’s been crying, you realize, and it breaks your heart a little. “Ya just gonna stand there or can I come in?” he asks and it snaps you out of your thoughts again. “Right yea sorry come in I guess,” you say, stepping out of the way to let him in.

He’s almost twitchy, like he wants to make himself comfortable the way he always used to but can’t. You wince a little when you realize it’s the correct assumption to make. Still he doesn’t say anything, he just stands there looking somehow simultaneously out of place and like he never left. “What are you doing here?” you finally sigh. “You said talk to you when Bakugo Katsuki came back and he—or I—or whatever did,” he mutters and a pang of something that feels suspiciously like guilt hits you at the words. “Oh… Is—is that all you wanted to say or?” He glares at a distant point over your left shoulder, presumably collecting his thoughts, before he finally meets your gaze. “Look I-” he breaks eye contact again, growling a little in frustration at himself as he continues to struggle to find words. You don’t say anything though, knowing he needs to work through it himself. “Things have been pretty shit for me lately,” he finally admits. You can’t help but scoff at the comment although one look at him and his pained expression has you regretting it. You clear your throat awkwardly. “Sorry, yea, keep going.”

He huffs before continuing and even though he still won’t meet your eyes you can tell how difficult this all is for him.

“Look things have been pretty fuckin’ shitty lately with everyone and their goddamn cousin in Japan hatin’ me but it’s made me realize some shit. I’ve been so fuckin’ focused on chasin’ the fame and the fans or whatever that I kinda forgot about the important stuff…”

He only trails off for a moment, steeling himself for whatever he’s about to say next. It’s almost funny how much it reminds you of him right before a big fight.

“But from now on,” he starts, finally meeting your gaze, puffing out his chest as if daring you to challenge whatever’s going to come out of his mouth next. “From now on I’m not gonna let all that stupid shit blind me alright? I promise, from now on I’m only focusin’ on the real people in my life, not the goddamn extras. Ok?”

His eyes are blazing as he finishes and it literally takes your breath away.

“Ok.”

“Ok, then….” he trails off, his eyes slide away again as his confidence wanes, “then can I come back home again?”

Your heart shatters and forms anew at the words as you find your feet moving before you’ve even told them to. You throw yourself into his arms, pulling him close, the jagged edges you both left in each other the night you broke up re-aligning and mending themselves. “Of course you can Katsuki, I’ve missed you,” you sigh, each word wrapped in relief and joy. “Fuckin’ missed you too dumbass,” he huffs back, although you don’t miss how wet it sounds. When you pull back it’s only a fraction and only so you can reel him in for a gentle kiss, pouring every missed I love you into it so there’s no room for doubting if you’ve truly forgiven him.

It’s a promise. A promise to do better from now on. And Katsuki means every single second of it.

General Taglist: @ahtsuwu @oikawaandkuroostan @oliviasslut @black-rose-29

#hhrequests #bakugo x y/n #bakugo x reader #bakugo katsuki #bnhacity

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thosewickedlovelies · 4 years ago

Text

AND THEY WERE WALLMATES: Brownies (part 4)

Pairing: Javier Peña x F!Reader

Rating: E for Explicit!!!

Summary: Javier reveals his knight-in-shining-armor side when Reader is in danger. Then Reader bakes brownies, and he reveals...something else ;)

Tags: Attempted mugging at knifepoint. Javi points his gun. Swearing. Inappropriate or maybe completely appropriate use of chocolate. Male masturbation. Exhibitionism if you squint.

Word Count: 4,634

A/N: Okay but consider: Javier has a competency kink.

Masterlist

The last three days had been exhausting. Long shifts at the hospital with your intensive-care patient had worn you out, but it was worth it to watch them steadily get better. Tomorrow somebody else was on duty in the morning, and you were greatly looking forward to sleeping in. Knowing that you wouldn’t want to leave your pajamas before your afternoon shift, you had plodded through the grocery store on your walk home tonight.

You breathe deeply, gratefully of the fresh night air as you turn into your building’s driveway. With the all-day shifts and your lack of motivation to do anything but sleep after them, you hadn’t been outside as much in the past few days. Idly you wonder if it’s too soon to ask Javier to take you to that bakery.

You glance reflexively up at his front window as you stop at the base of the steps outside. A light turns off as you rummage through your purse for your keys, but it’s far too early for him to be going to bed. Maybe he’s going out.

You set down a grocery bag, your keys evading your slightly constrained reach. With your head down and your vision narrowed to the inside of your purse, you don’t notice the man until it’s too late.

A rough grip where your neck meets your shoulder, thumb digging painfully into the muscle, and the cold press of steel against vulnerable skin- a knife blade, you register dimly. Every alarm in your body blares as a voice scratches in your ear: “Give me all of the money you have, and I will not use this.”

Adrenaline burns through you, and your hands tremble as it fights the fog of tiredness that had been smothering you. The man scrapes the blade of his weapon along your neck to make his point, then shoves you forward, into the metal bannister of the staircase. The breath whooshes painfully out of you.

Your skin flashes hot and cold with panic, but you force yourself to breathe through the pounding of your heart. You slowly turn around.

Your aggressor is a skinny, unassuming young man, like any other you’d pass on the street, but his eyes are hard, his hold on the knife unwavering as he points it at you. “Your wallet. Now,” he demands, eyes flashing, and you know he meant his threat.

The streetlight above gleams on the blade, a foot from your face. Your tongue feels thick and clumsy in your mouth. You can only nod, trying to communicate placation, that you’ll comply with his request. Your eyes never leave him as you gradually close your hand around your wallet.

Just then, the building door opens, and everything happens very quickly.

Light splashes on the man’s face. “What the- HEY!” Javier’s anger blasts over you, the sudden whip-crack sound of it the loudest you’d ever heard from him. He lets out a rattling stream of Spanish, but your mugger appears unconcerned until a second later, when you hear a sharp click above you. Alarm dashes the arrogance off his face as he flinches. Javi has a gun.

In his moment of distraction, you lift your foot and ram it into the man’s stomach, propelling him backward. He stumbles nearly onto his ass, wheezing, and in an instant Javi is in front of you, gun pointing at him. He shouts something else too fast for you to make out.

The man answers, cowering with his hands up, and Javier spits out one final statement before telling him to leave, jerking his gun in emphasis. Your would-be mugger doesn’t look back.

Javier holds his stance for another tense moment. You tentatively touch your fingertips to his shoulder blade, feeling the strength holding his muscles taut. He nearly shudders at the contact, bringing him back to himself.

He turns to face you, tucking his gun away against his back. “Hey, are you okay? Did he hurt you?” His voice urgent, his eyes still dark and tense with rage. He holds his hands palms out, showing you he’s safe, begging you to believe him.

Adrenaline still vibrates beneath your skin. You look at him with wild eyes, shake your head. Abruptly your knees wobble, and Javier springs forward. “Whoa, hey, it’s okay, you’re okay now, Vecinita.”

One arm encircles your waist while the other props you up along your spine, broad hand splaying, fingers pressing into you with desperate relief. His rough voice smooths your lingering tension, the closeness of his body new but comforting. You let his warmth erase the other man’s violation of your space. Your hands clutch at the lapels of his leather jacket, a sigh shuddering out of you.

“Vecinita. Let’s get you inside, okay?” Javi gently prompts you into moving, keeping one arm wrapped around you as he guides you up the stairs. He directs you to lean against the wall just inside the door.

“Here, put those down, all right? Stay here. I’ll get your other one.” He eases the remaining bags off your shoulder and onto the floor, then disappears out the door, only to return in a flash with your second grocery bag in hand. He sets it down by the others.

You watch him, your head resting against the wall as you battle the exhaustion that had returned full force, aided by the rush of adrenaline and the subsequent crash as it left your system.

Javi approaches you again, worry clear in his face at your limp posture. “Vecinita? You okay?” His hand comes up as if to brush a stray hair at your temple, but he doesn’t touch you. His arm drops.

But you reach out for it, sliding your hand down his wrist to entangle your fingers; the touch as much a comfort for you as it is for him.

Surprise flares in his eyes at your gesture; something indescribably like longing crosses his face. He squeezes your hand.

You smile faintly at him. “I’m fine, Javi. Just...shaken. And tired,” you admit. “I’ve had long shifts at work the past few days.” Your feet ache just remembering, but you make no move to leave.

“Oh yeah, Connie told me,” Javier says without thinking.

Well, that was news to you. You look at him with sudden, sly interest. “Oh yeah? You two ladies talk about me?” Giving his own words back to him, from the second time you went over to check on his leg. It could have been a lifetime ago for how different things are now.

Javi looks dumbfounded for a split second. A helpless chuckle spills out of him, unconsciously swaying forward as if only this, your familiar teasing, had convinced him that you were fine, that he could finally let go of his own tension.

His face is so unguarded; you’re delighted to see his eyes crinkle with laughter. They’re so brown, so beautiful this close up, a rich spiral of shades that you could stare into for hours and still not find the right words to describe.

You smile fondly up at him, not minding his nearness in the slightest. You’re conscious, suddenly, of how overwhelmingly glad you are that you got to know Javier. Of how grateful you are for his company, his protection just now.

For once, you are the conflicted one, a thoughtful expression puzzling your brow. Because it’s your turn to consider how you could possibly thank him for what he’s done. What could be enough to communicate the depth of your gratitude?

Javier knows that you are okay, really. That he should get you inside your own apartment, let you sleep off the past few days. But he is utterly captivated. Held in place like an animal caught in the wrong trap, at the mercy of the hunter to decide its fate. Would you put him out of his misery by telling him that you’re not interested? Or free him from the trap of his clumsy uncertainty, grant him the clarity of your feelings so that he may choose his own course?

The press of your hand in his gives him hope, intimate and promising in all the right ways. He doesn’t want to let go, but this is unquestionably the wrong time to make any kind of move. He’s already standing too close to you, unable to resist your draw in the relief of the moment.

Time seems to thicken as your smile fades. He wants to smooth the furrow in your brow, chase off what’s troubling you. Of course, it could be me, he thinks sardonically. Despite his best efforts, his eyes flick rapidly down to your lips.

And he watches your expression shift again, those lips parting, and if Javier didn’t know better he’d think you wanted him to kiss you- but that can’t be right, you’re just in shock. His moral compass gets him into trouble at the best of times, but it’s swinging wildly now, leaving him utterly spun.

His tongue pokes forward unconsciously, just wetting his lips...but before either of you can move you hear a crash from Steve and Connie’s apartment above.

The spell is broken. You start, your head automatically turning in the direction of the sound. Javi straightens, putting some air between you, but his gaze never leaves your face.

“Sounds like they’re fighting,” he says. “Come on, let’s get you inside before one of them storms out.” He lets go of your hand only to slide his arm around you again. You let him help carry your bags, your limbs revolting at the idea of further movement.

Javier guides you into your apartment as far as the kitchen. He’s reluctant to let you go, but darts anxious glances at the back hall, not wanting to overstep (despite what had just almost happened outside).

He unwinds himself from you once he’s sure you’re holding yourself upright. Before he can leave, however, you grab his arm again.

“Javi!” You seem...afraid, but like you’re furiously trying not to be. “...What did you say to him?”

He’s not convinced that was your original question, but he answers. “I asked him who he worked for. He said no one, he just needed some money...you were a random pick, Vecinita, in the wrong place at the wrong time. He won’t come back.” A bitter taste fills his mouth at the memory, the sight of that motherfucker pointing a knife at you. But his rage softens when he sees the anxiety haunting your face.

“Hey. You want me to stay here tonight? I’ll sleep on the couch. Guard the door.” His attempt at levity sounds half-hearted, but your lips twitch upward in response.

“I..can’t ask you to do that, Javier,” you mumble, gaze shifting- until you remember something. “You were going out.” You look back at him questioningly.

He barely remembers his original plans for this evening. Drinks with coworkers? Javier shrugs dismissively. “Nothing important. Don’t worry about it. Come on- I’ll stay here tonight and drive you to work tomorrow. Deal?”

You bite your lip. “I don’t work until the afternoon tomorrow.” Another feeble attempt at protesting. He waits.

Finally you concede. “Thank you, Javi”, you whisper, nearly inaudibly.

Instead of speaking, he takes your hand again. Bringing it to his mouth, he presses a soft kiss to your knuckles, without a trace of his suggestive intentions from the first time. “Que duermas bien, Vecinita.” Sleep well.

You wake naturally the next morning to sunlight streaming through your curtains. You forgot to set your alarm! Your first thought has you sitting bolt upright, heart pounding; then you remember that you have the morning off. Your heart rate slows only marginally as the events of the previous evening return to you, including- Javier slept on your sofa.

Your pulse rockets right back up, flushing your whole body with nervous energy. Damn it, it’s too early for this. Your sleep-clumsy thoughts are tumbling and manic as you try to decide on a course of action.

Right, first- check your clock. Ten a.m.?! You stifle a groan. Who knows how long Javi has been awake by now, just waiting in your living room? Assuming he stayed- you wouldn’t blame him if he’s gone to his own apartment for food by now.

Wait, speaking of food- you frown, lifting your nose toward the door. Is that coffee you smell?

So Javier’s awake, then.

Abruptly overcome with giggles, you cover your face with your hands, grinning like a fool. Javier had stayed, and made himself coffee in your kitchen.

Well you couldn’t just leave him out there. You take a deep breath, willing yourself calm. Time to stop acting like a giggling mess with a crush. The thought makes you pause, wide-eyed. Holy shit, did you have a crush on Javi?

I mean, he did save your ass last night, you reason. Very superhero of him. And you kept finding more attractive things about him, and you’d spent some real time together now, and he...he had kissed your hand last night. After definitely almost kissing you in the hall. Mierda. You giggle to yourself again. So much for being calm.

Well, there was nothing to be done for it. You throw a light robe over your pajamas and pad to the kitchen.

Butterflies burst in your chest at the sight that greets you. Javier is sitting at your dining room table, a mug in front of him. Chin in hand, lost in thought, hair still adorably mussed from sleep.

You only have a second to appreciate it before he hears you approach. He stands with a start, guilty eyes flitting from his coffee to the kitchen before settling on you, hands fidgeting like he doesn’t know what to do with himself. He clears his throat. “Morning.”

His voice is even raspier this early in the day, like a match striking heat inside you. A reaction you will definitely have to process later.

“Morning,” you return, smiling sheepishly at him. You go to the sink to fill a glass of water, opting to stay at the counter to drink it. “How long have you been up?”

His gaze flits to the clock on the microwave. “About an hour. I, uh. Made coffee. Hope you don’t mind.” His hand flies to his head as if only just now remembering the state his hair could be in, hurriedly smoothing errant curls (to your disappointment).

Javi’s shirt is rumpled, and you feel guilty as you realize he would have slept in his clothes. You’d been so dead on your feet last night, you don’t even remember if you gave him a blanket. “Not at all,” you reply. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to sleep this late. I didn’t even offer you pajamas or anything last night...” You’re about to continue apologizing when he cuts you off.

“Don’t worry about it, Vecinita. I’m not sure yours would have fit me anyway.” A teasing grin uncurls as he eyes the short pajama shorts under your robe, in a way that’s wholly different from how he might have looked at you before you fixed his leg (a time designation you find yourself referencing more and more often lately: Before-Leg and After-Leg). Now he’s earned such familiarity, and although unexpected, it’s not unwelcome. You still nearly gape at the joke and his once-over, feeling decidedly warm.

Oblivious to your internal temperature rising, Javi continues. “I could do with a shower though. What time do you have work?”

Right, work. “Twelve,” you respond. “Um, I can make breakfast? While you run home and shower. If you want. How’s pancakes? And I think I have bacon.”

Javier looks relieved to have a plan. “You had me at bacon,” he confirms. “I won’t be long.” He starts for the door, scooping up his jacket as he goes.

“No hurry!” You call after him.

True to his word, Javi is barely gone fifteen minutes before he’s back at your dining room table, a fresh mug of coffee cradled in hand. Conversation doesn’t come as readily as it did during your movie night, but the silence in between feels...comfortable.

Javier hesitantly brings up the night before, but only to compliment the form of your kick to the man’s stomach. “Self-defense classes before traveling,” you explain, which led to a continued interest in fighting skills. Your neighbor looks impressed and...intrigued, maybe. Something speculative in his eyes, like he’s reassessing his idea of you.

He drives you to work later, and arranges for Steve to pick you up.

“Heard you had to kick some ass last night,” the blond drawls in greeting.

Well, it was nice of Javier to tell such a flattering version of the story. You roll your eyes, even as you preen the tiniest bit. “Yeah, that’s how it happened,” you grumble. “It wasn’t just Javier swooping in to save my ass like fucking Batman with a shiny gun.”

Steve guffaws at your description. But neither man makes light of the incident. Steve drives you to or from work at Javi’s request when he’s busy, until after a few days you insist that you’re fine, plenty confident that Javi scared off your attacker. Even so, he walks with you to the grocery store the next time you go, swearing up and down that the timing is just a coincidence, that he needs a few things too.

Secretly you’re grateful for that. You feel safe with Javier, and it’s a nice feeling, being protected. You’re just as capable of watching out for threats, but you could never replicate the swooping, shivery feeling low in your belly when his guiding hand brushes the small of your back. Ever since you took his hand that night, he’s been slowly getting bolder with small, casual touches. And every time you let him, his eyes brighten a little more, his breath loosening like he’s afraid you’ll reject each one. As if you’d reject proof of his affection, or the glow of pleasure that smolders in you with every glimpse of it.

At the store, you mentally flip through your cookbook, tilting your head thoughtfully at the cocoa powder.

Javier doesn’t remember inviting you over to bake in his kitchen, but he’s sure as hell not complaining. Watching you competently twirl about the room, sifting and stirring and tasting things in various bowls, is stirring in ways he hadn’t anticipated. The graceful lift of your arms, your eyes narrowed in concentration. He almost wants to interrupt, just to see how you’d react.

He drifts over to see if he can help, when his senses are powerfully overwhelmed by the smell of chocolate.

You stand in front of him, the source dripping suggestively from a spoon in your hand. “Want a taste, Javi?” You lick the spoon slowly, holding his gaze as you close your mouth around it, cheeks hollowing with the effort of sucking it clean.

Javier swallows hard at the dizzyingly tempting scene before him, all but floating toward you.

You smile coyly at him, meaningfully lifting a chocolate-tipped finger. He doesn’t dare move. His lips part as it nears, not knowing what you intend but knowing that he desperately wants it. His breaths come quick and shallow. You trace your finger lightly along his lower lip.

The touch sizzles through him, the taste of your skin far more vibrant than that of the chocolate. Javi can’t help but flick his tongue out to chase it, catching just the tip of your finger before it retreats, and suddenly you look as lost as he feels, staring at his mouth as he works to clean the silky sweetness from it.

As if in a trance, you lift your hand again, your own lips parting. “Want another?” Your voice breathy and uneven. A fingerprint smudging your lower lip, you lift your chin-

And Javier is on you, sucking your lip into his mouth, tasting the chocolate on your breath, wanting more. He groans as you arch into the kiss, devouring you, sliding his tongue against yours. You clutch at each other like this is everything you’d been waiting for.

Javier loses himself in you. Just the sounds you’re making have him harder than he’s ever been, he’d let you lick chocolate off whatever you damn well want-

He jolts awake.

Gasping and sweating and so painfully hard he instinctively presses a palm to his crotch, choking on a groan. What the hell?

He is completely disoriented. The smell of chocolate still pervades his senses. He registers the muted sound of- music? Your singing.

He’d fallen asleep on the couch; the scent in his dream was you baking again. Maybe you dropped something and it woke him up. He can’t focus on anything else right now besides his absolutely throbbing erection.

His breathing is harsh in his throat as he shoves at the zipper of his pants. He wraps a hand around himself, his head dropping back and his mouth open in a soundless moan. His hips buck upward, head still full of you, you-

He snaps in less than a minute.

His release spatters hot over his hand and shirt. He slumps back down into the cushions, panting, spent. As the haze clears, he has only a single thought.

Fuck.

The sunlight is too bright for Javier’s thoughts the next morning. It dazzles him on his way to work, making it even harder to focus when his mind is still full of you. The softness of your lips, your sighs of pleasure, all of it conjured up by his apparently lust-addled mind- whose desperation would only increase the more he longed for a taste in real life.

It’s an immense relief when he finally arrives to the familiar office smell of musty files and weak coffee.

He’s here before Steve today- a rare occurrence, but he had to get out of the house. There’s some fanfare going on when he finally does catch a glimpse of his partner’s blond hair across the floor.

Steve is- holding something? Handing out something? As he makes his way over, the sounds of appreciation from colleagues grow clearer, but it doesn’t sink in until he’s nearly reached the door.

“Man, Steve, you gotta bring this neighbor of yours to the next office party so we can show our appreciation!” The agent’s chortle dies as he catches sight of Javier, who makes no attempt to regulate his steadily souring expression. “Peña.” The man gives him a quick nod and says a last farewell to Steve.

His partner sets the tray he’s holding down on his desk and slowly turns to face Javier. Steve’s gaze lingers over the look on his face, the way he’s zeroed in on the dish, lips puckered like he can’t decide if he should speak.

“Well good mornin’ to you, Javi,” Steve drawls, in that too-knowing way he sometimes had. “Brownie?” He gestures to the tray.

The smell reaches him then. Chocolate. Thick and rich and- a chocolate-coated finger hovering before his mouth, your eyes twinkling innocently up at him- Javier’s jaw clenches.

“What,” he grits out, demanding an explanation with the single syllable.

“Neighbor-lady dropped ‘em off last night. Said they were for us to take to work today. Apparently she tried you first, but you weren’t home.”

Right. Because after staining his shirt with thoughts of you, he’d barely taken the time to throw on a clean one before stumbling out the door, sucking in deep breaths of fresh air as he walked to the nearest dive that served whiskey.

But- you had brought them to him first. Not Connie, or Steve, or anyone else. Him.

“Huh,” he replies distantly.

It’s all too much for Javier to process. He stands abruptly and stalks out of the office, making a beeline for the restroom.

His mind clears a bit after splashing some water on his face. He manages to be cordial once he returns to his desk, but it isn’t long before the emotional impact of his revelation fades, leaving him once more occupied by daydreams of the physical confirmation he craves.

It doesn’t help that apparently the entire fucking building was told about the brownies. Every time someone new comes in he gets a fresh whiff of chocolate, remembers dreaming of sucking the taste off your tongue and the needy noises you made when he did.

For the next several hours he glowers at the tray, perched innocuously on the corner of Steve’s desk. His skin feels hot and tight. It’s possible he smokes a few more cigarettes than usual in an effort to numb his tastebuds, or his olfactory sensors, or whatever the fuck keeps registering fucking chocolate.

Steve eyes him curiously. “You okay, man? You’ve snapped at nearly every person who’s come in here for a brownie. You allergic or somethin? I can move ‘em…”

Javier nearly snarls. “No, I am not allergic,” he says very calmly, the words clipped.

He manages to escape a little while before Steve, citing his early arrival as an excuse to head home. As he pulls into the drive, however, he passes your familiar figure on the corner.

His head thunks against the steering wheel. Steeling himself, he gets out of the car as you walk up.

“Hi Javi!” You beam at him, and his heart nearly beats right out of his fucking chest.

Tiredness lines your face from a long hospital shift, but it doesn’t stop you from looking all caring as you take him in. He doesn’t even want to imagine what you see: his shirt wrinkled from constantly shifting and tugging at it all day, his face pinched from scowling.

“Are you okay, Javi? You look flushed.” You bite your lip in a concerned frown.

It’s a struggle to hide his aggravation. “Long day at work,” he mutters, fumbling with the building keys, trying not to look like he’s hurrying.

Luckily you don’t seem to notice his temper. “God, me too. I’m gonna go take a nap. All I’ve been thinking about all day is getting back in bed.”

The mention of you and getting in bed and Javier about bursts into flame. He stutters out an excuse, all but bolting for his door. The lock clicks firmly behind him.

He stomps through the apartment to his bedroom, shedding clothing as he goes. His shoes and jacket dropped by the couch. His shirt yanked off and flung over a dining room chair. His jeans shoved down at the foot of his bed.

He stumbles to the wall you share, breathing ragged, resting one hand flat against it as the other finally wraps around the hard-on he’s been nursing for hours.

His lip nearly bleeds with the force he bites into it to stifle his groan. Every inch of his skin feels exquisitely sensitive, his blood racing hot in his veins from thinking of you all day. From thinking of you now, just on the other side of this wall. Shedding your scrubs, sliding amidst your bedsheets, unaware of the state you’ve put him in. Or maybe you are aware. Maybe you can hear him panting, strangling sighs of your name as he imagines your lips on his skin, your hand squeezing his cock. Encouraging him sweetly while he strokes himself higher and higher-

And comes harder than he ever has on his own. Shaking and gasping, there’s no way you don’t hear the sound which escapes him then. For a second he feels light-headed.

When his eyes open again, he grimaces at the mess on the wall. As his heart rate settles, his expression further contorts imagining the potential consequences for what he just did. For what you could have heard.

Maybe...he should do something about this.

Post A/N: Sorry for the negative implications about Steve and Connie’s marriage, I promise they’re fine! I’m just a simple writer in need of storytelling devices <3

Also someone pls tell me if I used the wrong form of the verb ‘to sleep’

Fic Taglist: @din-damn-djarin, @thirstworldproblemss, @remembertoreadthese, @knightowl247, @pamguini

#javier peña x reader #javier peña x you #narcos fic #narcos #javier peña #pedro pascal #pedro pascal characters

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hlizr50 · 4 years ago

Text

Revelations Chapter 2: The Rise

Hawke tells Kieran that plans have changed. To what? Well, he still has to figure that out. But an attack on the Rise bring even more realizations to light about the Maiden, and Hawke isn't sure whether he should be astounded by her bravery or appalled by her recklessness.

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Hawke eyed the amber liquid in the short crystal glass as he turned it in his fingers. Two candles flickered on the mantle, casting the slightest glow into the shadows of the room. But the dimness mattered not: he could see every woodgrain and knot in the walls as well as if it were midday. He didn’t look up when the door opened, mind spinning with his new revelations and shoulders heavy with the burdens of leadership he had to bear.

How the fuck was he going to figure this out?

“Godsdammit, Hawke. Not that look again.”

He knew if he looked up his amber gaze would be met with ice blue, hallmark of the wolven. He imagined Kieran was running a large palm down his face, exasperated with his prince’s ever-evolving scheme. So he kept his eyes fixed on the stiff drink in his hands, but couldn’t help but tip up a corner of his mouth.

“And what look is that, Kieran?”

“That broody one. Where you purse your lips and narrow your eyes and think loud enough for all of Solis to hear the damned gears working,” Kieran growled, stalking over to join Hawke at the small table. The Atlantian only then looked up through a loose mess of dark waves, finding his brother spinning the chair to sit with the backrest to his front and resting his forearms lazily across the top. “So tell me what your idiotic new plan is so I can then tell you how idiotic it is, and then you can proceed to not listen at all and insist that it is not idiotic and that it is, in fact, the only reasonable course of action.”

Silence permeated the space, blanketing the room in tension – the same room in the Red Pearl where he had first met the Maiden. Penellaphe.

Poppy.

Poppy, who carried that dagger of bloodstone and wolven bone and had managed to stab Jericho during his ill-fated kidnapping attempt. Poppy, who was quick-witted and kind and beautiful.

Poppy, who was beaten on what seemed like a regular basis. Poppy, who had said that the Duke had touched her. Poppy, whose punishment seemed to warrant the presence of the lord whose reputation was so vile that it was common knowledge around the castle that one did not want to catch his attention, good or bad.

He was staring at his glass again. A harsh laugh escaped his lips as he realized the absolute madness of the words that rose to his tongue.

“We can’t give Poppy back to the Ascended.”

Hawke could feel his brother bristle at that, and he couldn’t really blame his bonded wolven for the reaction. It was absolute, utter insanity.

“Poppy. Poppy? We’re on a nickname basis now, Hawke?” Kieran spat his own nickname at him before pushing himself out of the chair. Hawke’s eyes followed his pacing, gaze trained on his dark features, made darker by the night’s shadows and his own frustration. “I don’t know what you’re thinking, but I can already assure you it’s a bad idea. She’s not like the other ladies. You can’t just seduce the Maiden for a particularly impressive notch on your bedpost –“

“That is not what I am doing.” Red rage sang through his blood at the implication, knowing the suffering that Poppy had experienced. But Hawke reminded himself that Kieran didn’t know – had no way of knowing that the Maiden may have been as much a prisoner as he had been. He felt eyes on him and turned his head to meet that ice-blue stare. Kieran’s gaze was shrewd, questioning. He could likely feel the ire billowing off of the prince, thick black smoke from a fire stoked with malice.

“Then what is it, Cas?”

Hawke’s shoulders slumped at the use of his name, his true name. The two of them rarely used it, the need for his absolute dedication to the role of royal guard Hawke Flynn overriding all else. But the name and the quiet desperation in his brother’s voice… he felt the resolution solidify in his chest. He didn’t know what they would do, but the Maiden was leaving this place and she would not come back. Freedom from her current torment was paramount, but the implications were far-reaching. What about Malik? How could they barter for his freedom? And how could he guarantee her safety, in Solis or Atlantia? If she were found in Solis she would be immediately returned into the abusive custody of the Ascended, but if she were found in Atlantia…

She would be killed, without question, and probably not quickly and painlessly.

He hadn’t realized that his stare had grown distant and cloudy until the warm brown of Kieran’s skin entered his periphery. Blinking, he refocused and saw that there were hands – his brother’s battle-worn hands pressing into the ashy wood to his left. Amber eyes traced up his arms and met that pleading gaze. Kieran knew – he always knew – that he was unsettled. Hawke just hoped that he would understand and accept why things had to change.

“Today I had to deliver the Maiden to a summons from Duke Teerman.” He gestured for Kieran to return to his chair, not wanting to explain this whole mess with the wolven hovering menacingly. “When I approached her and her lady’s maid to fetch her, they both seemed to be seized with distress. I could see that her maid was alarmed, but of course I could not see the Maiden’s face.

“I dismissed it as we walked. She didn’t say anything and, looking back, that should have been the second indication that something was wrong. But when we got to the door she stopped and just… she seemed to stare at it, as if she were frozen. She waved me off when I asked about it and then she went inside.”

Hawke pursed his lips and exhaled through his nose, leaning back. He caught Kieran’s eyes flickering with impatience. “I know, I know, I’m getting to the point.”

“I didn’t say anything,” the wolven shrugged with a grimace, winning a dramatic eye-roll.

“Anyway. I stayed outside the door and when I listened it seemed like an ordinary lecture, and over ridiculous things. I assumed the Duke just liked to listen to himself talk and flex his authority. But then…” Hawke sucked in a breath. Heat coiled inside of him, a burning weight of anger and disbelief. And the pressure looming over him – the promise to free his brother, to raise Atlantia from the ashes – grew ever heavier, more confounding. But still he knew he could not abandon her to this fate, no matter what Kieran or the rest of his men or his country might argue. “He beat her, Kieran. And not a violence born of frustration in the moment. This was calculated and sadistic. With a cane. And he has been doing it for years.” Eyes trained on the fluttering candlelight, Hawke took two calming breaths. His companion had not moved or spoken – barely reacted at all.

“All I could think about was Carsadonia.” That got Kieran’s attention.

Kieran: friend, bonded wolven, brother. Hawke had suffered greatly during his time in captivity, but the wolven had also lived five decades of sickness and uncertainty. Those piercing light blue eyes flared and a muscle in his jaw twitched, and the Atlantian knew that his brother hadn’t expected this.

And then Kieran surprised him.

“So what do we need to do?”

~~~

Hawke scowled, leaning against the wall across from the heavy wood of the Maiden’s chamber doors.

Poppy. Poppy’s chambers.

She hadn’t left in two days. And even though she had warned him that it would likely take that kind of time to… recover… the time still ate away at him. The rage at such injustice ignited something in his chest that he wasn’t sure he understood. The fierce jolt of protectiveness was completely unexpected, and not something he truly needed right now. But he’d be damned if he was going to deny it.

At the very least Poppy was the Maiden – outwardly a symbol of the Ascended, their dominion, their twisted version of history and tradition. At the very least she was a girl who was put on a pedestal for the kingdom but was kept in a pretty gilded cage, forbidden to participate in life and forced to endure whatever torments and violations the royals deemed necessary to ‘ensure her dedication’. He had yet to discover the depths of those depravities, but he would. At the very least she was an innocent girl who only knew what she’d been taught and still had the courage to question it, even with the threat of harm ever-looming. Who she was, at the very least, would have earned his respect.

But she was more than that. Hawke knew. She was so much more, and he had known that since that first night. She was beautiful, with luscious red lips and soft supple curves. Her wit was quick, and those eyes and lips so expressive that he couldn’t help but try to frustrate her. She was just so… adorable when he had been able to push her buttons just so. And now… Gods, now? Now that he knew the stakes she was facing every time she even thought to move even her little toe out of line he couldn’t decide if he was in awe of her bravery or if he was frustrated by her recklessness. If he had wanted to save the Maiden, a girl who was only a victim of her upbringing, then his urge – his need – to rescue Poppy eclipsed that want. Tenfold.

All of his plans had exploded in his face and now lay in ashes.

And so Hawke stood there, on guard, staring at her door.

Two days. She hadn’t come out in two days. He should be thankful, as it gave him time to try to figure out a way to save both Poppy and his brother. He was working on that, but he found his mind coming back to the ‘lesson’ he had witnessed. The evil that had been thrust upon her. And while he’d gotten the answers about the Duke, about the cane, about how long it had been happening and how it had affected her, there was one looming problem that he had yet to completely understand.

Lord Brandole Mazeen.

There was a part of him that didn’t want to know his role in Poppy’s abuse, knowing the reputation that followed in his wake. Why had he been in the office with Duke Teerman? Hawke hadn’t heard anything other than the Duke’s drawling condescension and the sound of the cane cutting the air and striking flesh. But he had no idea what happened in that room – things that he wouldn’t be able to hear. Poppy had said that the Duke looked at her, touched her. Obviously, the Duke’s proclivities matched Mazeen’s sadistic streak. Maybe it was just a pastime they enjoyed sharing. Maybe it was a power dynamic they delighted in, knowing that Poppy would be unable to deny them their entertainment.

Fucking disgusting.

Growling, Hawke pulled a dagger from his boot. He needed to figure this out. Currently his strategy was to push Poppy’s curious, intelligent mind as far as he could and simply hope that she realized that things weren’t the way she had been raised to believe. He’d probably never had a more ridiculous, faulty strategy in his life, but there was something in him that whispered that she might just be willing to leave. She might even be looking for a way out. That would make their exit from Masadonia much easier than he would have initially anticipated.

He scowled down at his dagger, using it to pick under his fingernails. Getting out of the city and to New Haven was the easy part. But what if she did agree? What if she understood the wrongs of the Ascended and chose to come with him. What would happen when she found out who he was? Surely she wouldn’t just accept that and move on. And what of Malik? He couldn’t give Poppy back to the Ascended, but that also meant his bargaining chip for his brother was no more. Years of planning – ruined. Was it worth it? Was Poppy worth it? Something nagged at his hardened heart, telling him that she was. But how could he be sure? He barely knew her, could hardly know enough to care –

Horns blared and he jerked his head up. He returned the dagger to his boot and pushed away from the wall. The air shifted and, if the horns hadn’t been indication, the tingle of awareness that crept down his spine told him all that he needed to know.

The Rise.

He was already running when the horns called a second time and he barely noticed the tremor that ran under his feet. The entrances to the castle would be sealed within minutes. Hawke’s pace slowed slightly as he wondered for a moment if his priority was supposed to be the Maiden or the Rise. But he kept moving toward the exit. Poppy hadn’t left her room for two days, and the horns would signal to her and her lady’s maid to stay put. He was of more use on the front lines, making sure the invasion never even made it to the castle gates.

Some of his men would question his actions, his choice to assist in the defense of the Rise. But none of the men on the battlements were Ascended – of course they never chose to trouble themselves with the effort it may take to defend their cities, even if their strength and speed could account for that of ten mortal men – and he would not leave the mortals and potential ‘Descenters’ to die in the wake of their leaders’ indifference. And so he drew his short sword as he emerged into the chill of the night, stepping into mist-filled air. So it was craven. The clanging of steel, screams of men, demented howls of the hollow creatures that used to be men – they filled the night, wafting like the mist into the star-flecked sky.

Dispatching the craven outside the Rise was relatively quick work, the mist allowing for him to be much more lax about keeping his strength and quickness in check. Adding that to the fact that many had tried to scale the wall, he found himself with few of the ravenous, soulless creatures left. They had to have been newly turned, lacking their usual hollowness. Hawke took a moment to breathe, offering a brief prayer to the gods for even more souls lost to the Ascended. Perhaps one day he would learn their names and carve them in the wall – the only monument to the lost since the fall of Atlantia. He carried those names with him, carved into his very soul. He had known too many of them, and too well. The loss of each was like a brand, burning inside him.

Hawke stalked back within the protection of the wall, scanning the battlements for wayward craven that had not been taken care of. He caught sight of a cloaked and hooded figure, launching bloodstone arrows into the night – into craven. With impressive accuracy. Narrowing his eyes he studied the archer, spying pale fingers and unprotected arms. Whoever it was, they weren’t wearing the armor of a guard. They weren’t wearing armor of any kind. Hawke swiftly made his way – sword still in hand – to the short ladder that led to the parapet and marveled at what he saw.

It was no guard.

The fingers and arms of alabaster had not prepared him for the well-muscled leg that stretched out from under the cloak, balancing the woman who had crouched to a knee for the benefit of stable aim. Hawke didn’t need his enhanced Atlantian eyesight to appreciate the sheer… perfection of what was before him, from the top of that delicious, milky thigh down to those lovely delicate…

Slippers?

“You must be the goddess Bele, or Lailah, given mortal form.” He was absolutely reverent, and absolutely confounded. The figure before him spun on her knee, arrow trained straight at his head. He couldn’t see inside her hood, but gods did he want to. The arrow aimed at his face was a small bit concerning, however. “You are,” he breathed, sheathing his sword. “You are absolutely magnificent. Beautiful.”

He grinned wolfishly when he saw her body twitch, as if she was not expecting to be worshipped. But how could he not? With that spectacular leg and that spectacular aim. “The last thing I expected was to find a hooded lady with a talent for archery manning one of the battlements.” Hawke extended his hand to the warrior goddess. “May I be of assistance?”

The woman didn’t speak, but she did lower her bow and shift it to one hand. A relief. She gave him a motion, signaling him to back up. He placed a hand over his heart and bowed, still curiously awed by this mystery goddess. She climbed down the ladder but never turned her back to him. He was impressed at her vigilance, knowing not to give her back to a potential foe. When she reached the bottom of the ladder she slung the bow over her back. She flinched, almost imperceptibly, at the contact.

Hawke narrowed his eyes. “You’re… aahh…”

Staring into the darkness under the hood he could make out the swell of red lips, the gleam of emerald eyes. And the peek of shimmering white under the cloak – combined with that tiny twinge when the bow hit her back – drew all the puzzle pieces together. He knew that nightdress. He had touched it. He’d had his mouth on it.

This warrior, mystery archer manning the battlements, was Poppy. What in the name of all the gods…

She moved to make a swift exit and he blocked her path.

“What are you doing up here?” he demanded, cursing himself. She hadn’t left her room in two days. Two days. And the horns signaling a craven attack had acted not as a warning as he had hoped, but as a fucking invitation. Poppy tried to brush past him, but he caught her arm. He still had the upper hand. She had no idea that he knew who she was. He was bristling at her recklessness, but he wasn’t so frustrated to deny himself the fun of seeing this situation play out. “I think-“

Poppy spun in his grasp, twisting under his arm. Then she kicked her leg out low and swept his legs out from under him. He had to let go of her to catch himself before hitting the stone face-first.

That was… unexpected.

Hawke bent and retrieved the dagger from his boot. The Maiden… warrior? Poppy was running on the inner ledge of the Rise. He gripped the blade of the dagger and let it fly, catching the corner of her cloak. He felt a smirk forming as she was jerked back, and he stepped purposefully toward her.

“That wasn’t very nice,” he scolded. His eyebrows rose as she wrenched the dagger out of the wall and then flipped it in her hand, cocking back to send it flying back at him. “Don’t.” He warned, but she would not be swayed. The dagger flew at him – at his face. He turned sharply and caught it by the handle, giving her a condescending ‘tsk’. Spinning, she made her run toward the stairs, but Hawke was… not mortal. He jumped up to the narrow ledge at the top of the wall and used his stealth and quickness to sprint ahead of her, dropping down in her path. Poppy skidded to a stop, arms flailing, before landing on her hip with a painful-sounding thud. He inwardly winced, knowing that her back was still sore and that fall likely hadn’t done much to make it better. He would have to apologize for that later. And be more careful.

“Now that really wasn’t nice at all.” He grinned again, noticing how Poppy looked up to the ledge he’d toed and then back to him. Disbelief glowed in those eyes, shining under that hood. “I’m aware that my hair is in need of a trim, but your aim is off. You should really work on that since I’m quite partial to my face.”

Poppy kicked at him again, in his lower leg. She was quite the fighter, wasn’t she? She got to her feet, spinning to her right, but he blocked her, so she tried to sweep to the left. When she couldn’t get past him she kicked out again. He caught her ankle, getting another good, long, hard look up and down that delectable leg.

“Scandalous,” Hawke teased, but his voice was sensuous and dark. The warrior maiden growled and he couldn’t help but laugh. She was particularly enticing when she was frustrated. “And such dainty little slippers. Satin? And silk? They’re as finely tailored as your leg. The kind of slipper no guard of the Rise would wear. Unless they’re being outfitted differently than I am.”

He dropped her leg, but before she could react he grabbed her arm and pulled her against him. She took a ragged breath against his chest. Gods he could feel her against him. “You know what I think?”

Only then did he feel the blade at his neck. How had she managed that? Still, he didn’t let go of her, and was rewarded with her pushing the tip further into his flesh and drawing blood.

“Correction.” His laugh was breathy, ragged, but amused. She was absolutely the most intriguing, distracting, brave, reckless woman he’d ever encountered. “You are an absolutely stunning, murderous little creature.” Hawke glanced down, peeking the weapon that had nicked his flesh. His grin turned feral, knowing that she had revealed her hand without realizing.

“Nice weapon. Bloodstone and wolven bone. Very interesting…” He returned his gaze to those shimmering orbs under that infernal hood. “Princess.”

Poppy’s hand jerked back, pulling the blade from his neck. Perfect. He caught that wrist in his free hand. “You and I have so much to talk about.”

“We have nothing to talk about.”

“She speaks!” Hawke widened his eyes, feigning shock. “I thought you liked to talk, Princess. Or is that only when you’re at the Red Pearl. You’re not going to pretend that you have no idea what I’m talking about, are you? That you’re not her?”

“Let me go,” Poppy commanded, tugging on her arms.

“Oh, I don’t think so.” Hawke turned them and pushed the Maiden against the Rise, trying not to agitate her healing back, and pinning her wrists against the stone. “After all we shared? You throw a dagger at my face?”

“All we shared?” she scoffed. “It was a handful of minutes and a few kisses.” Oh, no, she was not going to brush it off like that. He could have written off that evening in that manner, but not her. Not the Maiden, who had snuck out and let him touch her, taste her… who had asked him to help her live.

He lowered his voice a register. “It was more than a few kisses. If you’ve forgotten I’m more than willing to remind you.”

“There was nothing worth remembering.” Her retort was scathing, and he had half a mind to rip that hood off and kiss her until she took it back.

“Now you insult me after throwing a dagger at my face. You’ve wounded my tender feelings.” But the Atlantian smirked. She may be quick-witted, but he had over a hundred years on her. He could banter and quip for hours on end, but he would enjoy watching her grow more and more infuriated. He loved the way her chest was growing rosy with heat in the peeks of skin he could see behind that stupid cloak.

“Tender feelings? Don’t be overdramatic.” But… she did play the game well.

“Hard not to be when you threw a dagger at my head and then cut my neck.”

“I knew you’d move out of the way,” Poppy argued, but there was a hint of sheepishness in her response. She had hoped he would move out of the way.

“Did you? Is that why you tried to slice open my throat?” he countered.

“I nicked your skin. Because you had ahold of me and wouldn’t let go. Obviously, you haven’t learned anything from it.” Poppy’s answer was matter-of-fact, and he wondered how she could be so obstinate. He wanted to take the time to appreciate her skill with a weapon, to admire her bravery, but she was so damn stubborn – trying to keep a secret that he had known since that night in the Red Pearl.

Trying to keep a secret that, if it got back to the Duke… Gods, he didn’t even want to imagine. If seven lashes with the cane was an appropriate punishment for not doing her embroidery and looking at him wrong, what would the punishment be for sneaking to a brothel and, furthermore, participating in pleasures of the flesh?

“I’ve actually learned a lot, Princess. That’s why your hands and your dagger aren’t getting anywhere near my neck.” Hawke slid a thumb over the velvety skin inside her wrist. “But, if you let go of the dagger, there’s a whole lot of me I’ll let your hands get close to.” She had already slipped once, and he was determined to make her slip again. He knew he could wield innuendo to get under her skin.

Poppy seemed to choke on air. “How generous of you.”

“Once you get to know me you’ll find that I can be quite benevolent,” he purred.

“I have no intention of getting to know you.”

Oh, he knew that wasn’t true.

“So you just make a habit of sneaking into the rooms of young men and seducing them before running off,” Hawke scoffed.

“What? Seducing men?” Poppy sputtered. That had taken her by surprise. He gave her a glance. This close he could definitely see that pale skin inside the hood and the feral gleam of her beautiful eyes.

“Isn’t that what you did to me, Princess?” His voice had softened as he stoked a thumb across the inside of her wrist again. How he wished the gloves weren’t between his fingers and her skin.

“You’re ridiculous.” Her arguments were sounding more and more desperate, and he felt a spark of desire burning deep within him. She had surely taken him by complete surprise.

“What I am,” Hawke breathed, “is intrigued.” Poppy pulled against his arms, groaning. Her strength was surprising, and had he not had the benefit of enhanced strength she might have been able to move him. Not enough to free herself, but perhaps enough to catch him off guard. He snickered at that. He liked that.

“Why do you insist on holding me like this?” the Maiden demanded.

“Well, besides what we went over already, which is the whole being partial to my face and neck thing,” the Atlantian paused, feigning a thought, “you’re somewhere you’re not supposed to be. I’m doing my job by detaining and questioning you.”

Poppy huffed a bitter laugh. “Do you typically question those on the Rise who you don’t recognize like this? What an odd method of interrogation.”

“Only pretty ladies with shapely bare legs,” he teased. He would definitely bring up those legs as much as he could. He wanted to trace his fingers down the length of them, feel them wrapped around him, dip his tongue in between them. He leaned in against her, feeling the rise of her breaths against his chest. “What are you doing up here? During a craven attack?”

What are you doing up here, putting yourself in danger when you didn’t have the strength to leave your room for two days? Putting yourself in danger not just from the craven, but from the Duke’s wrath should you be caught?

“Enjoying a relaxing evening stroll,” she spat. He felt his lip curl up, a sardonic grin. Gods, she could be insufferable.

“What were you doing up here Princess?” Hawke demanded.

“What did it look like I was doing?”

“It looked like you were being incredibly foolish and reckless.” And that was the gods-honest truth, regardless of the little game that was currently playing out between them. She was being incredibly brash.

The flame of challenge in her eyes wasn’t necessarily unexpected, but he found himself surprised by the ire in her voice. “Excuse me? How reckless was I being when I killed craven and-“

“Am I unaware of a new recruitment policy where half-dressed ladies in cloaks are now needed on the rise? Are we that desperately in need of protection?” And it wasn’t that she hadn’t put on an incredible show. He had compared her to goddesses, after all. But she was also in a nightgown and slippers, and while seeing her in that nightgown – again – was also quite magnificent the protective instinct within him flared at how ludicrously unsafe it was.

“Desperate? Why would my presence on the Rise signal desperation when as you’ve seen I know how to use a bow? Oh, wait. Is it because I happen to have breasts?”

Oh. Oh, far from it.

“I’ve known women with far less beautiful breasts that could cut a man down without so much as blinking an eye. But none of those women are here in Masadonia,” Hawke’s voice seemed to grind out, and he knew his body was reacting to his thoughts. Those legs, the fighting, those lovely breasts. “And you are incredibly skilled, not just with an arrow. Who taught you to fight and use a dagger?”

Poppy didn’t answer, but knowing who she was and the company she kept he figured it could only be one person. She had only two royal guards, and he had certainly not been training her. Her aptitude came from years of practice, and only Vikter had been by her side that long. “I’m willing to bet it was the same person who gave you that blade.” He paused again. “Too bad whoever they are didn’t teach you how to evade capture. Well, too bad for you, that is.”

Vikter would not be happy to learn that she’d been caught. But he shuddered to think what would have happened if any one of the other dozens of guards had been able to corner her.

Smart and brave and unexpected and, apparently, without even the slightest sense of self-preservation.

And that stubborn girl brought her knee up, hoping to wound a very important and very sensitive part of him. He shifted his legs, blocking her with his thigh, and he had to fight hard not to let his grin grow wide enough to reveal his fangs.

“You’re so incredibly violent.” He murmured. “I think I like it.” Gods, he didn’t think. He knew.

“Let me go!” Poppy growled at him.

“And be kicked? Or stabbed?” He shifted his leg between hers, further pinning her and preventing her to take any more shots at the area where the leather of his breeches had grown significantly tighter. “We’ve already covered that, Princess. More than once.”

Poppy bucked her hips off the wall in an attempt to push the guard off of her and oh that did not go the way she expected. He smirked inwardly, feeling how her breath caught and the friction of his thigh between her legs, and he wondered if the top of her thigh had grazed the ever-hardening bulge in his pants – if she knew what she was doing to him. His body was tense, their chests colliding with their sawing, uneven breaths. Hawke let the silence drag, let her feel the intimacy of this moment while fixing amber eyes on that luscious pink mouth.

“I came back for you that night.” Her eyes closed at his confession and he could feel her shudder beneath him. “Just like I told you I would I came back for you, and you weren’t there. You promised me, Princess.”

“I… I couldn’t.” Could he hear a tinge of regret in her answer? Had she wanted to stay? He’d known she would probably run as soon as he left the room – was honestly glad that she had now that the Duke’s violent discipline was known. But still… he had wanted her.

“Couldn’t?” He lowered his voice, a whispered purr he rarely used outside of the bedroom… or wherever. “I have a feeling that if there’s something you want badly enough, nothing will stop you.” Like learning to fight, and using those skills to help protect the Rise. He would have to ask her why. Women in Solis were never trained to fight, were not valued for much more than their appearance and their progeny.

Hawke frowned at the bitter laugh that she spat out. “You know nothing.”

“Maybe.” He released one of her arms and reached inside the hood, finally giving in to the urge to touch her. He stroked his thumb along her cheek, earning a gasp. Poppy tried to draw back, but there was nowhere to go. He gazed into the hood, features dark but still clear for him to see – surprise and uncertainty and… fear? “Maybe I know more than you realize.”

Hawke bent his head down, his cheek grazing the soft leather of the hood, until his mouth was where he figured her ear would be. “You really think I had no idea who you are?” he murmured, and felt the Maiden grow impossibly more tense against him. “You have nothing to say to that?”

He lowered his voice to barely a whisper, finally putting an end to their game.

“Penellaphe.”

He had expected a reaction – perhaps something more subdued and anxiety-riddled. But her response was one of anger and frustration, and she tried to lash out with that sharp tongue. “Are you just now figuring that out? If so, I’m concerned about you being one of my personal guards.”

Hawke chuckled. Give her another century and he had not doubt that smart mouth might actually knock him off-kilter. “I knew the moment you removed the veil.”

“Why… why didn’t you say something then?” she asked softly, and it was like the fight had gone out of her in that moment. She had expected him to address this with some level with authority. Maybe she still expected that.

“To you? Or to the Duke?”

“Either.” He had to strain to hear it, her voice no louder than a breath. And where her fire had cooled, his reared and writhed to the surface.

“Gods, I’m fucking glad I didn’t tell the Duke after what happened the other day,” Hawke growled. Fuck, he couldn’t describe how relieved he was that nobody had found her out. “I wanted to see if you’d bring it up. Apparently you were just going to pretend that you’re not the same girl who frequents the Red Pearl.”

“I don’t frequent the Red Pearl,” Poppy retorted, that simmering annoyance boiling up to the survace once again. “But I hear you do.” Ah yes, he much preferred feisty Poppy to the demure maiden.

“Have you been asking about me? I’m flattered.” He shot her a winning grin.

“I haven’t.” She insisted. His lips tugged downward.

“I’m not sure if I can believe you. You tell a lot of lies, Princess.”

“Don’t call me that.”

“I like it better than what I’m supposed to call you. Maiden,” Hawke scowled. He hated the title, the veil, all of it. “You have a name. It’s not that.”

“I didn’t ask for what you liked.” It was like she couldn’t let him get the last word, even though she was fighting a losing battle.

“But you did ask why I didn’t tell the Duke about your little explorations – and Gods, knowing what I know now I’m even more thankful that I didn’t. But I didn’t because I’m your guard. If I were to betray you, then you wouldn’t trust me, and that would definitely make my job of keeping you safe much harder.” And that was all true. But that didn’t account for the new situation – something that her other guards had never saw fit to address. “Although… it would seem that the Duke is also someone that I need to protect you from.”

“As you can see, I can keep myself safe,” Poppy sighed, the tautness easing from her muscles. “At least out here.” It was obvious, with her skill, she could take care of herself. But inside that castle using that skill was an impossibility.

“Yes, outside the castle walls, I see that you can.”

Hawke furrowed his brow, hearing the booted footsteps of someone approaching. He pulled away from the cloaked Maiden, one hand still keeping a firm grasp on her wrist, and the chill night against his chest made him ache for her.

“Hawke?” A voice called from below, although he couldn’t place his name. “Everything okay up there?” He peered into the hood, found those glimmering green eyes shining back at him, wondering what she was thinking he would do.

He looked over his shoulder and called, “Everything is fine.”

“You need to let me go. Someone is bound to come up here.” Poppy tugged on her arm, still caught in his hand. He raised a brow.

“And catch you? Force you to reveal your identity?” he asked wryly. “These are the things you should have thought about before you stepped a slippered foot outside your room tonight, Princess.”

She sucked in a breath, and he felt a twinge of guilt at the small shimmer of panic that flickered under the cloak. “You know what he would do. It… It would be worse than the last time.”

She didn’t have to tell him who he was.

“How can you be so reckless? Knowing what he does to you? Over nothing?!” Hawke hissed. “I never would have imagined I’d have to worry about you sneaking out to fight the craven, or to meet random men in places like the Red Pearl. And who knows what else you do when all believe you are safely ensconced in your chambers. Have you no sense of self-preservation?”

He was only met with the sound of her breathing, heavier with that hint of fear of what might happen if the Duke ever learned of this escapade. She was right. He had to let her go, to get back to her room before someone came calling for her. Although, he supposed, that someone would probably end up being him.

This conversation was definitely not over.

He looked down at her and then released her, taking another step back. “You better hurry back to your chambers, Princess. We’ll have to finish this conversation later.”

He watched the realization dawn over her features, that he wouldn’t keep her here or report her. His chest lurched a bit at the thought that she might think that he could do that to her – could send her to that monster for more torture. He had promised her that the Duke wouldn’t hurt her again, and he’d be damned if he went back on that.

Poppy turned and fled toward the stairs.

And Hawke stood and stared after her until long after she disappeared from his sight.

#fbaa #fbaa fanfic #poppycas #poppy x casteel #fanfic #fanfiction

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9worldstales · 4 years ago

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MCU Loki Ep 1 “Glorious Purpose” intensive analysis

So, I’ve seen the first “Loki” episode and, of course, I couldn’t stop myself from talking about it.

Beware about spoilers!

We start in New York 2012 and that part is merely “Avengers: Endgame” albeit they changed a bit the visual so there’s more focus on Loki. We’ve close up of Loki when he is ‘Captain America’, when he says by to the Hulk in the lift and so on.

It’s a good choice because he’s basically the only character the visual seems to focus on (the only other character who gets a close up is the Hulk yelling ‘No stairs!’), subtly telling us the story is about him.

On a sidenote though, in “Avengers: Endgame” you might see Loki walked vaguely near 2022 Tony Stark and we also have Scott Lang asking Tony if he wears Axe body spray, which he confirms. In “Loki” we don’t see these scenes but keep them in mind, they’ll be relevant later on.

Anyway as everyone knows Loki picks up the Tesseract and disappear.

We get the Marvel opening but without the usual ‘heroic’ music, this time it’s more ominous? Or maybe it’s just me. “Marvel studios” also gets written in green and gold on a black background.

It’s not the first time Marvel changed how it presented, in the first episode of “WandaVision” for example it was in black and white instead than in the usual red and silver but it’s still a nice touch.

So we resume… with the visual showing us an insect walking through the desert. Then the camera shows us the full view of the desert, informing us it’s the Gobi Desert in Mongolia.

Rather high in the sky a space portal opens for a moment and the next we know is that Loki is lying flat on his back on the ground among clouds of sand which, I guess, were raised due to him falling into the desert. Loki is without the chains holding his wrists (did the power of the Tesseract destroy them? The fall?) and easily pulls away the muzzle Thor put on him and from his confused expression as he sits up and see people coming close to him, I get the feeling he didn’t exactly plan to fall there and in such a way.

So I guess maybe this is his first attempt at using the Tesseract and he didn’t quite gave it a direction on WHERE he wanted it to take him? Because really falling from the sky flat on the ground in the middle of the Gobi desert among people who didn’t even talk his language doesn’t seem the sort of thing one would plan.

Anyway, despite being in an unfamiliar situation Loki finds a rock to stand over and introduces himself:

“I am Loki of Asgard. And I am burdened with glorious purpose.”

Which yes, it’s how he introduced himself to Fury in “The Avengers”.

The people there have no idea of what he’s saying and asks him who he is in their own language (Mongolian). It’s unclear if Loki gets what they’re saying.

In the comics all Asgardians, can speak every language thanks to the ‘Allspeak’ or ‘All-Tongue’, in which what they say is understood by every species in their own native language.

In “Thor” earlier script though there was this dialogue:

Darcy: So, how can you speak our language? Volstagg: Your language? Ha! Silly girl, you're speaking ours.

In an interview Ray Stevenson (Volstagg) and Joshua Dallas (Fandral) discussed that bit.

Part of this seems to be set in a world where you guys fit in perfectly and the rest is very much on Earth. Ray: Yes, but on Earth we started it all, you see. This is just one of the realms. This is where all the legends come from. All the ruins have gone into myths and Norse mythology. It’s all us, love. It was all us before that. They’ve forgot their place, really. They think, “Oh, you speak our language?” and it’s actually, “No, you’re speaking ours.” Joshua: We invented it. [Ray Stevenson (Volstagg) and Joshua Dallas (Fandral) On Set Interview THOR]

The implication seemed to be that there was no Allspeak, they just spoke the same language because Asgardians invented it and Midgardians learnt it.

We also have this bit from “Avengers: Infinity War”:

Rocket: You speak Groot? Thor: Yes, they taught it on Asgard. It was an elective.

This implies it’s not that Thor was magically granted the ability to understand Groot, he had to study his language.

So well, I would say that no, so far Asgardians didn’t have Allspeak in the MCU, hence, unless Loki studied Mongolian or his magic powers granted him Allspeak, he can’t get what whose people are saying to him. So really, I don’t think he wanted to end up in Mongolia, he should have thought he wanted the Tesseract to just bring him somewhere very far from New York City. That is unless it’ll turn out someone managed to interfere and have him fall there for some purpose.

But, back to Loki.

As I said he doesn’t really get to talk with those people because a door opens up out of nowhere and near to the Tesseract which is lying forgotten in the sand and people in an armoured suit and carrying weapons start to appear.

Loki is kind of confused but he recovers fast.

Putting up a tone of confidence he orders the guy not to touch the Tesseract, thinking they aim at getting it. Another door opens up out of nowhere and we get another person in armour. To save time I’ll say the woman is supposed to be Hunter B-15. I wonder if she’ll get a name beyond this or not.

The situation of the people at the TVA isn’t exactly great but I’m running ahead.

Now, I think Loki preferred to deal with the Mongolian people because although he can understand what Hunter B-15 says, it clearly makes no sense for him.

Honestly I’m not going to blame him.

“Appears to be a standard sequence violation. Branch is growing at a stable rate and slope. Variant identified.”

This isn’t the kind of sentence that makes sense in a conversation, if you aren’t familiar with the TVA.

Hunter B-15 doesn’t care what she says doesn’t make sense to him and wouldn’t make sense to any other normal person. She calls him ‘Variant’ and talks as if everyone should know and respect the Time Variance Authority as an authority to defer and obey to.

I love Loki’s reply here:

“It's been a very long day, and I think I've had my fill of idiots in armored suits telling me what to do, so, if you don't mind, this is actually your last chance. Now get out of my way.”

He had a very bad day, he’s probably still bruised and sore due to his ‘meeting’ with the Hulk and his fall from the sky, he might very well be exhausted and he’s clearly confused but he acts as if he’s in control and won’t let himself be intimidated. I love him.

As he moves close Hunter B-15 hits him and informs him although he’s moving at 1/16th speed he’s feeling all the pain in real time.

Now… from when “Loki” trailers had started going around there had been a debate if the TVA is the good guys or the bad guys.

I’ll jump a bit ahead and tell you they clearly believe they’re the good guys.

But just from this bit you can start to question the idea they’re good guys.

They aren’t just acting as Vigilantes but they’re claiming an authority that no one on planet Earth gave them and demanding submission, not hesitating to beat people when they do not complain.

I know, some of you are thinking that Loki is a bad guy so serves him right but that’s not really the point because they aren’t even beating him for what he did to New York but for a crime he didn’t know he was committing, acting with an authority no one on Earth gave them. They just took it. And they would have taken it if the one picking up the Tesseract and ending up in Mongolia were to be a random person that out of bad luck had picked up the Tesseract and had ended activating it by accident.

This is not about Loki, this is how the TVA operates and it’s scary.

I don’t know if “Loki” will want to dig into police brutality and I honestly don’t dare to hope in it but it would be an interesting turn.

Hunter B-15 seems to be enjoying her work. I won’t call her evil yet, it’s clear she thinks she has the authority to do so, that the TVA enabled her to think she’s doing a good thing but she doesn’t seem to have… hesitation in doing so. One can still do his duty and not enjoy beating up people and causing them pain, yet the dialogue gives me the impression she’s very cool with beating up resisting Variants who has no idea they’re Variant and causing them pain.

Maybe it’s just me, maybe she’ll prove she’s actually a gentle soul but, for now, she doesn’t look as such. We’ll see.

Anyway she straps a collar around Loki’s neck and then, finally, she let him fall at normal speed before two of the men with her grabs him and carry him away while she picks up the Tesseract and orders to ‘reset the timeline’, which, at first I thought would mean they use that sort of mechanism to send back the time, erasing Loki’s appearance from the timeline. I’m not sure now. It might as well erase everything there. Loki turns to see what this mechanism does and from the look on his face it doesn’t seem anything good.

I hope not but well, in a way, sending everything back of some minutes erases lives that could have possibly be lived differently so yeah, in a way they erased lives. It’s the dilemma of changing time after all.

Whatever, Loki is dragged through the door that opens out of nowhere and appears at the TVA. The door disappears behind him and he has no idea where he is.

Now I guess it’s a good point to point out how people had been wondering which kind of Loki this one was, if he was based on the Loki on “Thor”, the one in “The Avengers”, the one in “Thor: The Dark World” or the one in “Thor: Ragnarok”.

In itself he can’t really be based on neither of them.

Loki’s characterization in “Thor” is split in two, there’s Loki prior to discovering the truth, and there’s Loki after discovering the truth, mad in shock and grief until he realizes his father would never accept him and let go of Gungnir.

This Loki can’t obviously be the Loki pre-truth but he can’t even be the one post it, as in that one the pain was still too new and raw and mixed with the desperation of denial and the attempt at ‘fixing things’.

So, can he be “The Avengers” Loki?

Marvel’s site confirmed that during “The Avengers” unknown to Loki, he was influenced by the sceptre as well. Very likely he wasn’t influenced in Clint Barton or Erik Selvig style, as the site says:

“Gifted with a Scepter that acted as a mind control device, Loki would be able to influence others. Unbeknownst to him, the Scepter was also influencing him, fuelling his hatred over his brother Thor and the inhabitants of Earth.”

Basically the sceptre on Loki works in a manner similar to how it worked on the Avengers when they started arguing in the Helicarrier. It warped his perception to the point he might have seen them as his most hated enemies, making difficult for him to see Thor was extending his hand to him or that the people were actually just scared but it didn’t make him a mindless, loyal servant. A different type of control on him but one that’s no less dangerous. Anyway I’ve talked at length about it while replying to a post so I’ll just link it here.

Loki is now very far from the sceptre so the mind stone shouldn’t be able to influence him any longer. As a result he’s probably more in control of his emotions.

So… “Thor: The Dark World” Loki?

Close enough but not quite, as that Loki had to go through Odin telling him some pretty awful things and spending a year forgotten by Odin and Thor in a jail.

Even more clearly he can’t be “Thor: Ragnarok” Loki as that one lived a huge chunk of things he hadn’t lived yet… never mentioning Waititi wanted “Thor: Ragnarok” to be his own thing, not a continuation of “The Avengers” and “Thor: The Dark World”…

“I was lucky enough they didn’t force me to acknowledge things- there were certain things in the film, like the play, which makes fun of the scene in The Dark World where Loki dies, but there’s a point to that play, sort of to recap what happened, but also to tell the audience, “This is not what you think it’s going to be, this film is not going to be a continuation of that. It’s its own thing, and what you think you expect from this film ends at this play.”” [Empire Podcast Spoiler Special: Thor: Ragnarok with Taika Waititi]

… while Loki is an alternate continuation of “The Avengers” so it has to be more “The Avengers” compliant than “Thor: Ragnarok”.

In short this Loki is his own Loki… or a Loki we hadn’t seen yet because we weren’t really shown much of Loki post sceptre influence, pre one year of solitary confinement.

Back to the story two things are interesting to point out.

One is that there’s a Variant Skrull as well in the TVA.

The other is that once there the Tesseract lost part of its shiny light as if it powered down.

Last but not least, instead than a futuristic look the TVA has the look of midcentury modern aesthetic as if, instead than going in the future ore remaining in the present, we’ve gone back in time.

Anyway, as another prisoner is dragged into the room, Loki tries to escape and discovers that Hunter B-15 can rewind his time so he’s back where he started. She then gives the Tesseract to a man at a desk, telling him to log it as evidence.

The guy, I’ll spoiler you and tell you his name is Casey, has no idea what it is and it’s Loki who has to explain him it’s the Tesseract and one should be very careful with it. Casey merely find it sounding dumb.

This is our first clue that to the TVA the Tesseract doesn’t matter at all. We’ve finished Phase 3 with the infinity stones raised at the level of immensely powerful artifact but, for the TVA, they’re nothing.

This is the first blow that the “Loki” series gives to the MCU as we previously knew it.

On a sidenote it’s nice Loki explained what it was to the unsuspecting desk man. If this weren’t the TVA he might have ended in the Gobi desert as well just by handling it carelessly.

Hunter B-15 drags Loki to a door and Loki tries to threaten her only to be showed inside that door.

Have you noticed how no one read Loki his own rights so far? That’s because he has none and the story is about to make it even more clear.

In the room there’s a robot of some sort (which I find slightly creepy despite its smile) which would like for Loki to undress. At Loki’s refusal accompanied with a comment that “This is fine Asgardian leather” the robot, without any warning, merely disintegrates his clothes.

Some assumed it was played for laugh but the music doesn’t suggest it, and Loki is clearly upset as he stutters when he speaks again. In real life, when you’re arrested, in many states your belonging are confiscated but they will be returned to you once you’re released or they’re returned to your family.

The TVA destroys them.

A trap door opens below Loki and he finds himself in another room, dressed up in TVA uniforms for Variants.

There’s something I think I need to mention which is I love how the show is characterizing TVA desk people.

The guy we’ve met before had his own character which we could guess despite the few lines and moments in which he appeared.

This new guy is also characterized.

He has a kitten in the room, which moves away slightly as Loki appears, probably scared and a mug with the image of a kitten. It’s tiny details but they made him a person instead of merely something that’s there.

He pushes in front of Loki a huge stack of papers telling him to sign to verify this is everything Loki said. Loki’s two following comments get printed and he’s demanded to sign them as well.

It’s another aspect of the TVA that’s actually unpleasant.

The amount of paper is huge and it would take a lot to read it all in order to check it but… the truth is the request is impossible. People isn’t made so that they can remember everything they’ve said, exactly as they’ve said it and it gets even more troublesome if there isn’t the other half of the conversation but just what we said.

So it’s not even a point to discuss if Loki really said just that stack of paper and nothing more or that stack of paper is too small, or if maybe there’s more paper he’ll have to sign or if that stack of paper only cover his time as a Variant and not the time in which he followed the Sacred Timeline.

The request doesn’t just make the TVA look like a bureaucratic place but shows it demands impossible tasks from its victims.

Oh, another interesting thing I noticed is that the camera is at a slightly lower point when it is on the TVA guy, so, despite the guy being seated, it gives him the impression of being higher than us viewers. On the over side when the camera is on Loki, it’s far from him, with the result of making him look small.

It’s a fine detail that gives us a certain subconscious impression.

The TVA guy stares at Loki as the latter gives up and start signing. It seems he only signed one paper, without even trying to read them all. I wish they had let us see how Loki signs. I wonder if he writes his name with runes, since the inscription on Thor’s hammer was in rune.

We’ll see, we’ll find out Loki knows how to write in English so he might use it to sign.

Anyway as soon as he finishes signing another trapdoor opens below him and he finds himself in another room.

So far the TVA is reminding me more and more of “The House that sends you mad” from “The Twelve Tasks of Asterix”. Well, of a very dark Variant of it to be exact, a Variant that reminds me of something way more unpleasant, but we’ll get there. In the next room Loki is asked:

“Please confirm to your knowledge that you are not a fully robotic being, were born an organic creature, and do in fact possess what many cultures would call a soul.”

Loki just asks if there are many people who don’t know if they’re robot and this is taken as a confirmation at which he’s urged to move through it. At Loki’s question he’s told if he actually were a robot and didn’t know it, the machine would melt him from the inside out.

Before thinking the situation is absurd let’s remember Vision exists in the Marvel universe and he’s a robot and he could have been programmed so that he wasn’t aware of this or might lose awareness of it due to a malfunctioning.

So if a Vision variant unaware to be a robot where to show up at the TVA they would just melt him from the inside out, no big deal.

The machine turns out to be a photographic machine, which doesn’t take Loki’s mug shoot but photograph his temporal area, which Loki has no idea what is and no one bothers to explain him.

Again, through the whole procedure there’s no request of consent nor explanations, Loki has no rights for the TVA, he’s merely supposed to comply.

Loki ends up in another room with another ‘convict’. They’re both demanded to take a ticket. The first convict refuses, Loki complain there’s just two of them so it’s useless but complies and put it in his pocket. Loki clearly has better manners or has figured out there’s no point discussing and is bidding his time to when arguing or rebelling might be worth something.

As Loki complains...

“This is a mistake. I shouldn't even be here.”

...we’re introduced with Miss Minute. Miss Minute is a cartoon watch which is supposed to FINALLY help people catch up before they stand to trial for their crimes. We’ll find out that Miss Minute is there not for the convicts’ benefit but for us viewers’ benefit as it explains us the origins of the TVA.

If we want to stretch things it might be there also for the TVA benefit as it might give them a sense of legitimacy.

Anyway Miss Minute’s speech feels like Odin’s speech at the beginning of “Thor”.

Is a self glorifying narration in which they paint themselves as the heroes and something that exist for other people’s benefit.

But it only paints the TVA in an even darker light because when it explains how one becomes a Variant it says:

“But sometimes, people like you veer off the path the Time-Keepers created. We call those Variants. Maybe you started an uprising, or were just late for work. Whatever it was, stepping off your path created a nexus event, which, left unchecked, could branch off into madness, leading to another multiversal war. But, don't worry, to make sure that doesn't happen, the Time-Keepers created the TVA and all its incredible workers. The TVA has stepped in to fix your mistake and set time back on its predetermined path. Now that your actions have left you without a place on the timeline, you must stand trial for your offenses.”

A break here.

From this little bit we’re introduced to the idea there’s only 1 timeline because each time another timeline could be born, the TVA erases it. This begs the question of how we’re supposed to judge this bit in “Avengers: Infinity War”

Stephen Strange: [Panting] I went forward in time to view alternate futures. To see all the possible outcomes of the coming conflict. Peter Quill: How many did you see? Stephen Strange:14,000,605. Tony Stark: How many did we win? [Dr.Strange stares intently at Tony for a moment.] Stephen Strange: [Pause] One.

If there’s only 1 timeline, it seems impossible there could be 14,000,605 futures… but actually the key might be that there could be 14,000,605 futures… but the TVA erases them. The time stone might show those futures who had the possibility to be born… and that the TVA squashes under their feet, all for the sake to make canon their favourite future, while all the others have to cease and desist. If this is true I do wonder if the actions of the TVA can be undone, so that we can have “Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness”.

Back to “Loki” and to what Miss Minute said, which is pretty worrisome and not at all uplifting.

I mean… we can speculate who starts an uprising might be someone bad (which is not necessarily the truth, what about the people involved in the French Revolution or the American Revolutionary War or the Resistance in WW2?) but a poor guy who’s just late for work?

They don’t really see the difference between him and a guy starting an uprising because for them the matter isn’t what they were trying to do or which kind of people they were, just that they created another timeline, a crime they clearly weren’t aware to commit as no one warned them about how this was forbidden by this self imposed authority.

Loki clearly finds all this idiotic but then he hears the previous guy arguing with some sort of guard who demands his ticket. Now the previous guy is clearly a dumb liar, as insists he asked for the ticket but wasn’t given one, when he was loud enough and alone enough everyone in the room could notice he was the one refusing to take a ticket.

Anyway at this point the guard vaporizes him. In short they just murdered him, without trial or anything for the terrible crime of ‘not taking a ticket’.

Loki is appropriately shocked and hurries to get his ticket.

Something that’s also worth mentioning is the whole TVA is clearly structured to make people feel powerless.

There’s no explanation, they’re forcefully dragged in an unknown place by people claiming authority from an unknown structure, they’re forced to comply, they’re stripped naked against their will, dressed all the same, handled like objects who’re not called by their name but ‘Variant’ with even assigned a number, threatened to be melted if they don’t know they’re robot (and what if they know? They don’t take their picture or they just melt them?) and subjected to an explanation in form of a cartoon that feels absurd and that merely has the point of legitimizing the TVA as heroes and them as criminals.

Anyway Loki finds his ticket and shows it in a scene that reminds me of “Indiana Jones and The Last Crusade”. Do you remember when Indy and his father board a Zeppelin to leave Germany and Indy tosses a Nazi out of the window and explains his actions by saying the guy was without ticket so everyone shows his ticket at him?

Anyway at this point we’re shown the title, “Loki" with a filter that makes it look like an old movie and the letters changing font.

Okay, I’m a bit late but I should probably mention that, form when Loki go to the TVA the colouring had a huge abundance of yellow and brown with basically no blue (except a little in the Miss Minute cartoon) which gives an idea of this being like an old movie. The music is kind of creepy and there’s a clock tickling as we see it.

Which is an interesting idea. Even though the TVA seems so modern, furniture and the structure of the place felt all but modern. Even the robot that stripped Loki felt as if it just came out from a very old and outdated idea of how a futuristic robot would look like.

We resume the story but this time we’re at Aix-En-Provence, in France in 1549.

We’re in a beautiful gothic church and one of the TVA agents, explains that the corpses on the ground belongs to some Minutemen (the name for the TVA agents who do field work apparently) who responded to a routine Nexus event. As soon as they arrived someone jumped on them.

Mobius is there as well, and he’s apparently playing the part of the detective as he’s studying the corpses.

Hunter U-92, another poor guy who apparently has no name but just a number clearly suspect of someone and tells so to Mobius who agrees as the stab wounds look consistent with the previous, the Minutemen were hit on surprise and the reset charge (remember? The stuff that erase the deviation from the timeline) is gone.

Oh we’re also told this is the 6th attack in the last week THAT THEY KNOW OF. I hope for them it’s Saturday, because this would mean ‘only 1’ attack each day. This would be rather terrible if they were just at Monday since the day hadn’t even ended yet.

Now… remember when I was comparing the hunters of the TVA to police and wonder if the show would dig into police brutality?

Well, we’ve this scene in which someone enters in the place and Hunter U-92 is immediately ready to attack him with the wand they used against Loki or some other similar TVA weapon.

Only the one who got in is, apparently, just a kid, not the dangerous variant they’re searching and it’s Mobius who has to stop Hunter U-92 from attacking a kid who, for all they know, is completely unrelated to the crime, a kid that’s far from them and weaponless.

I don’t want to know what would have happened in Mobius hadn’t told him ‘Wait, stand down! Stand down’ (note how he has to say ‘stand down’ twice) and had physically stopped him in his track with his arm.

Mobius approaches the kid, speaking gently in French, apologizing for Hunter U-92’s behaviour, saying he’s just an imbecile.

Hunter U-92, annoyed by his comment, reminds him that he too can speak every language on the timeline, and that in short he can understand what Mobius is saying. The sentence though is more for our benefit, telling us those men can use the TVA version of Allspeak or whatever the “Loki” series wants to call it.

There’s a lovely visual showing us the kid and Mobius met in front of a beautiful stained glass window which depicts Satan.

To get the boy to talk Mobius draws a stick figure on some sort of small tablet he has and then passes it to the boy, telling him to tap on it. The boy does and the figure becomes a walking holographic projection which causes the boy to smile instead than assuming it’s witchcraft and running away screaming.

Okay, we are in 1549 and not in middle age, but that would still feel like magic even at the end of Renaissance age. But whatever, boys sometimes can put aside their fear for something that amuses them and this one had no troubles dealing with the guy killing all those TVA agents.

Anyway Mobius asks the boy if he knows who did that and the boy conveniently does. He points to the figure in the glass stained window, a horned demon, likely Satan. We might think it’s symbolic, that for the boy whoever kills someone is a demon… but… wait a moment.

Anyway Mobius says the boy shouldn’t worry because that devil is afraid of them and that they will put the boy back to where he belongs.

The boy smiles and Mobius notices his teeth are blue. It turns out that the ‘devil’ has gifted the kid with some… candies? Bubblegums?

I’ve no idea if those ‘Kablooie’ are actually some kind of American food, sorry about it but it’s clear although the kid has pointed to a devil, he wasn’t so scared by him to turn down his gift or to not try it out. And a devil giving him a gift doesn’t really feel like someone who wanted to harm him, despite the boy seeing him.

I get this feeling this ‘devil’ is targeting specifically TVA hunters only instead than the timeline or people inside it. He leads them somewhere and then attacks and dispose them. If he’s doing so because the TVA hurt him or because he wants to control the timeline that’s up to speculation.

We’ll later be said this guy is another Loki variant, and in this scenes we were given clues to figure out ourselves, like how he stabbed the TVA agents and how the boy pointed to a demon or, more specifically, to a horned figure, and we knows Loki wears horns when in his full Asgardian attire.

Anyway Mobius takes the ‘candies?’ ‘bubblegums?’ away from the boy and orders Hunter U-92 to run the candies for sequence period and temporal aura… not that Hunter U-92 thinks they’ll find anything but he’s worried because the branch is nearing red line and they need to go. In my understanding if it reaches the red line it could risk creating a multiverse.

Mobius sends the boy to play outside while Hunter U-92 orders to set a reset charge.

Again we aren’t explained what a ‘reset charge’ works.

However we’ve seen the cartoon with Miss Minute and in that one there was a reset charge and when it activated it didn’t rewind the timeline… it erased it. So the creepy things is it could be this reset charge just… destroys everything, erases all the lives in that alternate timeline because, in a way, they’re all Variants, and the TVA disposes of Variants.

Well, I hope I’m wrong because otherwise it means each time the TVA resetted a timeline they basically killed each life living in that universe, which would make Thanos, who ‘only’ killed half the population once, a rather tame mass murderer.

Anyway before the timeline is resetted another TVA person joins Mobius and it shows him a file about the just apprehended Loki. Maybe nobody except me cares but they had previously shown an image of a Loki file and in it there were question marks on where the race was. Now they’ve written ‘Frost Giant’. Either the file shown was for another Loki Variant or they managed to remember Loki was a Frost Giant and fix the file.

It could be the file for another variant though, as his height in it is given as 6’4” while in this file he’s 6’2” (1.88m) which is Tom Hiddleston’s true height (for who’s curious 6’4” is Jeff Goldblum’s height… not that I think the Grandmaster is walking around pretending to be Loki because well, this would be weird…)… or they messed up Loki’s height as well. We’ll see.

As I know some have wondered about it, Loki’s eyes are given as blue and not as green… which is correct as Tom Hiddleston said:

Loki is a sexy villain, but that’s not part of his ambition, is it? He doesn’t seem to be interested in love or sex but he has this sexuality about him, maybe it’s his lust for power. What do you think of Loki as a sexy beast? Tom Hiddleston: [Laughs] That’s the first time anyone has ever used that phrase about Loki. It’s fascinating isn’t it? I don’t know because it’s not a part of the conscious construction. I take relish in playing him. I think there’s a physical self-possession about him, a self-acceptance. Of course I’ve been very exacting about his physicality. You know, I was born with very blonde, curly hair, and a mixture of Scottish and English genes, and my complexion is very ruddy and healthy. In making him with this raven black hair and blanching my face of all color, it changes my features. Suddenly my blue eyes look a lot bluer, which lends a severity to my face. And even my own smile has a distorted menace to it. Whatever comes through me naturally is distorted. It’s almost like a filter on a light. ['Thor: The Dark World’: Tom Hiddleston on boom times for evildoers]

Which implies he never wore green contact lenses to play Loki.

Whatever, we’ll go on.

We’re back to the TVA and Loki’s trial starts.

He’s taken in front of the judge Ravonna Renslayer who addresses to him as Laufeyson. Except for a small comic later retconned in “Thor: The Dark World”, this is the first time in the MCU Loki is called Laufeyson… which is a little sad as he never identified as such (the closest he goes is to say he’s Loki of Jotunheim when he tries to trick Malekith) yet meaningful as well as the TVA evidently never recognized Odin’s ‘adoption’ as valid. For them he’s not Odinson, he’s Laufeyson because that’s what he’s born. ‘Loki Odinson’ in his file is labelled as an alias same as ‘God of Mischief’, nothing more.

But well, they aren’t really interested in his name, for them he’s ‘Variant L1130, AKA Loki Laufeyson’. Renslayer informs him he’s charged with sequence violation 7-20-89 which can mean everything and nothing at the same time as, to us, and to Loki, is just a collection of numbers, and asks him how does he plead.

Loki tries, as it’s his habit, to put up a polite yet confident front.

He claims a god doesn’t plead and has been a very enjoyable pantomime, but he'd like to go home… and boys, we know he would really like to do so. He’s putting up a front because we saw how uncomfortable and scared he was through his permanence at the TVA.

In an old interview that’s sadly no more available Tom Hiddleston said:

“The thing with Loki is that, if he’s afraid, he won’t show it. He’s been highly trained, through the experience of his slightly traumatic life, to shield his fears.”

Why didn’t we see him scared in “The Avengers” even though he took risks in it too while now we’re allowed to catch glimpses of his fear here and there?

“The Avengers” had to paint him as the big adversary, the great obstacle the heroes have to overcome.

Are we going to feel that bad for you in this movie, or are you gonna – ? Tom Hiddleston: Yeah. He does some pretty nasty things. On one level, it was like, I knew I had to up the ante because there’s seven superheroes that make up the Avengers, and, in order for the film to work, the film is the most redemptive, feel-good, kind of fist-pumping story. And, in order for the audience to be pumping their fists for Iron Man, and Hulk, and Thor, and Captain America, they need to overcome a really big obstacle. And, unfortunately, that big obstacle is me. [LAUGHS]. I hope I have retained a sense of his kind of emotional damage [like we saw in Thor]. There is a lovely scene with Chris Hemsworth where you see a glimmer of his — his vulnerability, but… he’s yielded to the dark side, you know? [Interview With Tom Hiddleston AKA Loki]

In this episode the Loki we met isn’t the adversary, he’s the main character, so we get glimpses of his true mind. He’s afraid or confuse, yet he reacts to all that by putting up a front, by presenting himself as confident and in control. It started from when he found himself in an unfamiliar situation, facing the Mongolic people and it continues and will continue and mind you, it’s a good and popular technique to hide your fear.

By presenting yourself as confident, your opponent might believe you might have some reason to be confident and be more careful and hesitate in attacking you, and sometimes this is all the advantage you need.

Renslayer remains unfazed, as she likely knows Loki has no advantage over her. She knows he’s powerless, in an unfamiliar environment he knows nothing about, forced to wear a collar that somehow controls his time, submitted to rules he knows nothing about and surrendered by enemies.

Loki isn’t the first who was carried in front of her and she knows he won’t be the last. The system is unjust and the trial a farce but she’s persuaded for it to be righteous and the right way to deal with ‘Variants’ as this leads to the greater good of avoiding wars into the Multiverse so justice and fairness are clearly not something she has to care about.

Anyway she pressures the issue and, understanding she won’t let go, Loki shifts the blame on the Avengers, pointing out how he came into possession of the Tesseract because THEY traveled through time, according to Loki in a ‘last-ditch effort to stave off his ascent to God King’.

So yes, even though he was soundly beaten by them and he’s in a bad spot Loki still tries to play highty and mighty and not cower up in fear. But how did he know about the Avengers travelling through time? We saw he noticed the whole thing with the case, but how did he knew the Avengers were involved and not some other guy?

Remember how I mentioned that “Avengers: Endgame” had Loki walking vaguely near 2022 Tony Stark and we Scott Lang asking Tony if he wears Axe body spray?

Well, Loki clearly has a fine nose because he recognized the Axe body spray coming off from 2022 Tony Stark and figured out he was a future version of 2012 Tony Stark.

It’s kind of a pity they hadn’t kept these bits in the series but whatever, I get why they might have cut them.

Loki, like most of the fandom, blames them as the Time Criminals and suggests if Rendlayer were to provide him a taskforce he could eliminate them for her.

As he spoke we see Mobius intruding in the trial and sitting down as it carries on.

Back to Renslayer, she isn’t interested in the Avengers, claiming they were supposed to go back in the past but Loki wasn’t supposed to grab the Tesseract and escape.

Loki laughs at the absurdity of the statement and demands to know who decided this.

The answer is the Time-Keepers who dictate the proper flow of time so that Renslayer can dictate the proper flow of time according to their dictation.

And you start to see the horror of this system.

The Time-Keepers arbitrarily decide which is the proper flow of time and impose it on everyone. They basically make the rules according to what they like the most… and, of course, they don’t inform anyone of which ones the rules should be.

When Loki picked up the Tesseract and escaped there was nowhere a big warning sign saying ‘if you do so you commit a crime’. He didn’t even know there were Time-Keepers and a sacred timeline and the TVA did nothing to fix this.

While in many countries you’re supposed to know the law and pledging ignorance is not an excuse, the TVA is a self imposed and not recognized Authority of whose existence nobody knows anything which dictate rules according to the Time-Keepers’ tastes.

There’s the risk of total annihilation due to a multiverse war?

Fair worry but then why they get to decide how the sacred timeline should be? Which are their criteria for it? Why the Avengers going back to time was okay?

Although they saved lives, the whole things was incredibly messy as discussed in “The Falcon And The Winter Soldier”… and that series only touched the tip of the iceberg.

But whatever. The Time-Keepers, which Loki defines gods because that’s basically how the TVA paints them, at the moment remind me of the gods of gods in the “Loki: Agent of Asgard” comic and with them the whole idea everything is a tale.

The Sacred timeline feels like nothing else but the tale the Time-Keeper enjoyed, their canon, as if they were Marvel. Everything else is a fictional Au written by fans that gets a ‘cease and desist letter’ and is erased from the net.

Anyway Loki is feed up. He decides to plea ‘guilty’ but not of the crime they’re trying to pin on him but of… using his magic against them. Only his magic doesn’t work.

Hunter B-15 is probably the first who realizes what’s going on and, chuckling, explains it to Renslayer who’s not catching up. As Loki gets angry for not managing to use them, Renslayer explains magic powers don’t work at the TVA, which might explain why she didn’t recognize what Loki was doing while Hunter B-15, used to fieldwork, did. Renslayer might have never seen people using magic powers but Hunter B-15 might have done so.

Only no, because in an interview Gugu Mbatha-raw said about her character:

“She had a history of a hunter and a more military role like Wunmi’s character” [Many Sides of Loki | Marvel Studios' Loki Cast & Creators]

So, no, I’ve no idea why she didn’t catch up. Was she playing dumb? Has she been so out of the field she didn’t recognize the signs? Or, despite being the judge at Loki’s trial she hadn’t read his file and didn’t know he could do magic? It can be, as I said the trial is a farce so she might not have cared to document herself beyond a certain point.

Hunter B-15 is still laughing. She’s enjoying this.

Anyway she decides Loki is guilty and sentenced to be ‘reset’… you know, like the timelines.

Note again how Loki had no rights in this. He had no lawyer, he wasn’t explained things, he was just asked how he pled but that one was more a pro-forma than anything else. They had already decided he wasn’t allowed to do what he did and therefore guilty.

The trial was a farce to give the TVA a semblance of justice but it’s all a show.

Back to Loki, he has no idea what they mean with ‘reset’ and they didn’t even have the courtesy to explain it to him. Angrily he says:

“You ridiculous bureaucrats will not dictate how my story ends!”

To which Renlayer replies:

“It's not your story, Mr. Laufeyson. It never was.”

So yeah, now they’ve started with the references to stories which are another subtle jab at the “Loki: Agent of Asgard” plotline.

By the way, keep in mind Renslayer’s reply.

As Loki complains they have no idea what he’s capable of and tries resisting being taken away Mobius speaks up.

Fundamentally Mobius wants Renslayer to pass Loki to him as he has a plan.

There’s clearly a story behind the relation between Renslayer and Mobius, they aren’t just professional to each other, they’re closer than that.

Renslayer agrees although she says he’ll get the blame for whatever goes wrong.

Mobius looks at Loki, Loki stops struggling and asks him who he is and Mobius smiles in a satisfied manner and doesn’t reply.

The scene shifts to them walking through the place, Loki threatening to burn the place to the ground. Mobius clearly doesn’t take him seriously, saying he can start from his desk.

The fact is… Loki is powerless and Mobius knows. We know too, we’ve seen how the trial went. However there might be more at play. Mobius knows the whole of Loki’s life which as far as we know, included only episodes of violence post discovering who he was and during his permanence on Earth.

To him Loki’s statement might feel more an expression of frustration than a sincere threat.

As they walk Loki happens to see the world outside the place he’s in from what looks like a window. He’s surprised and Mobius encourages him to have a look.

Loki points out he though there was no magic there. I’m not sure if he’s saying so because he sees car flying and assume it’s magic.

In “Thor” and “Thor: The Dark World” magic was compared to science so maybe that’s what he’s saying, that the world he sees seems to advanced.

Mobius insists there isn’t magic there so Loki says that’s not real.

They exchange some more lines in which Mobius continues to play on Loki’s declaration he’ll burn the place down.

I’m curious.

We know Mobius is actually chasing another Loki Variant, one who killed many TVA agents (we’ll see some of them got burned down too).

He’ll later claim this Loki is not dangerous, but what’s the difference between this Loki and the other? What makes the other dangerous? And can’t this Loki get dangerous too?

Is Mobius doing the same that Loki does?

Acting confident and joking about Loki burning down the place because he actually fears he might have the potential to just do so if not handled correctly?

We’ll see.

Once they’re on a lift Mobius decides to introduce himself as ‘Agent Mobius’ and offers him his hand to shake… and I’m reminded of this scene from “The Avengers”.

Natasha: But you figured I'd come. Loki: After. After whatever tortures Fury can concoct, you would appear as a friend, as a balm. And I would cooperate.

The TVA doesn’t see what they’ve done as torture or even as ‘wrong’… but many states wouldn’t approve of some sort of vigilante capture a person for something THEY labelled a crime, force him to undress, destabilize him to the point he’s not even sure if he’s a human or a robot, put him through a mock trial and then threaten him to be ‘reset’.

It’s in dystopic universes you find authorities who can just arrest you for breaking laws they made up without your knowledge and then decide of your life.

Mobius might not be looking like Natasha but, after all this, someone acting like a friend would make him automatically more cooperative and, in a way, it does.

Hunter B-15 had to drag him where Loki just follows Mobius more or less quietly.

Anyway, back to the story.

Mobius decided to introduce himself in a friendly manner and I would want to remark Loki asked him who he was when they were at the trial so this is a rather late introduction which he might be doing right now because we just hear Loki sighing as he’s clearly unnerved.

Mobius is playing the role of the good cop in a way, trying to gain his trust.

Loki doesn’t handshake, he’s not going to make friend so easily, but asks him if he’s taking him somewhere to kill him.

Mobius says no, that’s where he just was which, if it’s not a lie, means that resetting Loki would have meant to actually kill him. So again… what about the timelines that get resetted? All the people in them get killed? The place gets razed to the ground? Disintegrated? What?

Mobius’ reply might be truthful but it’s also clever because he’s setting himself up as Loki’s ‘saviour’. Others wanted to kill Loki but he? He just saved him which begs the question of ‘shouldn’t Loki be a good boy and comply with Mobius’ requests and trust him and all the stuff?’

Now… I know that people feel like Mobius is a good guy because he saved Loki but the story will make clear he didn’t do it out of the goodness of his heart… but merely because he needs him.

We’ve seen Mobius with the boy before, he made him comfortable so that the boy complied and gave him info, which is one of the many interrogating techniques.

That’s what Mobius is doing here.

Anyway we proceed with the best known scene of “Loki” as it was in the very first trailer.

I remember people discussing Mobius’ words about Loki liking to talk, as in the first movie he was often silent and quiet.

Well, to be honest if the movie had been left in his original cut Loki would have surely talked more, but what stuck with me watching “Thor” wasn’t so much that Loki was often quiet, but that many times he attempts to speak but he’s silenced.

On the Rainbow Bridge Volstagg asks him:

Volstagg: What happened? Your silver tongue turn to lead?

…which means Loki normally was skilful at persuading people to believe what they say or to do what they want them to do, which doesn’t necessarily makes him a chatter, but surely someone who knows how to talk. And we see that in “The Avengers” when nobody is there to interrupt him he allows himself to monologue. It’s an interpretation, of course, with whom people can disagree.

Anyway Loki decides to talk with Mobius. It’s not a stupid decision. Mobius is clearly not seeing him as a threat but he’s not being overly hostile either. Loki is completely a fish out of the water so it’s in his own interest to play along with Mobius, talk with him and find out more information about the place. In fact the first thing he asks is how long Mobius had been there, because this is tied in how much knowledge he could have.

In fact, the more he’d been there, the more he might know.

Mobius though remarks since time passes differently at the TVA he has no idea… which is a convenient reply as it only confuses Loki and explains nothing. In fact he could have said not the exact time he’d been there but give an approximation like ‘a lot’ or ‘very little’, instead, by giving out a vague reply he gives Loki an info he could do nothing with (time passes differently) and no real info about himself. At the same time, by giving out an answer, he again seems amicable, like how, when Loki asks what his answer means, he says Loki will catch up, as if he’s not withholding information, it’s just ‘complicate’.

Loki resorts to check the information Miss Minute gave him in her cartoon, which Mobius confirms because he has nothing to lose.

Loki laughs and tries to spark a response by being rude in defining the TVA system.

“The idea that your little club decides the fate of trillions of people across all of existence at the behest of three space lizards, yes, it's funny. It's absurd.”

Note, ‘little club’, ‘three space lizards’, ‘funny’, ‘absurd’.

He’s mocking the system, likely in order to get a response, but also in order to gain some measure of control.

It’s something he has done during the trial and is something he did in “Thor: The Dark World” facing Odin… or in “The Avengers” when he was held captive. But in “The Avengers” and “Thor: The Dark World” he had some understanding of what to expect. Here he’s blind flying, trying to test Mobius to see what he can get out of him while still trying to hold a façade of control.

On another note Loki says rather often how all this is absurd. To him this is a world of nonsense, like the one Alice found when she ended up in Wonderland (and it’s ironic how “Alice in the Wonderland” also contain a mock trial about the stealing of tarts in which rules are made on the spot as well as Alice here and there questioning her own identity or discussions about paths…) but I think having him repeat ‘it’s absurd’ so often it’s also for us viewers, to drive home we’re in a dystopic universe.

The TVA isn’t good, it’s absurd, with its rules that don’t make sense, a huge bureaucratic world and we might laugh at it if it wasn’t that’s also an organization that kidnap people from their timelines and subject them to their rules, rules they follow without questioning, like religious fanatics.

Who says what the Time-Keepers chose it has to happen is better than something else? They don’t know but, what’s more, they don’t care.

But let’s go on.

Mobius don’t fall for Loki’s provocation, he just retorts

“I thought you didn't like to talk.”

Which is a convenient way to answer Loki without giving Loki any answer.

They enter in a room which, Loki comments, looks very much ‘like a killing-me kind of a room’.

Mobius turns the situation by shifting the blame on Loki. It’s not that the room looks like a killing-him kind of room, it’s just that Loki is not big on trust. Because Mobius is totally deserving Loki’s trust because he saved him and was nice to him and acted like the perfect good cop so Loki really, should trust him. If he’s not doing it then it’s because he’s lacking in the trusting department.

But Loki had had his fill with trusting people and then discovering he wasn’t his parents’ son nor an Asgardian. His answer his moved by all the pain that discovery caused him.

“Trust is for children and dogs. There's only one person you can trust.”

Mobius’ reply again doesn’t take Loki’s words seriously, as if they were just something to slap on a shirt. He’s being passive aggressive in order to force Loki to question himself and keep control of him. The more Loki is unsure and question himself, the easy for Mobius is to manipulate him.

A break here.

It’s not that everyone has only one person they can trust… actually sometimes you can’t even trust yourself, while some other times you’ve plenty of people you can trust.

The idea you CAN’T trust in anyone is as damaging as the idea you should blindly trust in people but, in Loki’s situation yes, he should definitely only trust in himself, everyone in that situation should do it, trauma of being lied through your whole life or not, because Mobius isn’t doing all his out of good will but out of his need to use Loki.

So he’s not to be blindly trusted, he’s to be assessed so that one can see up until which point Mobius can be of some aid, so as to turn the exchange one of reciprocal benefit. If Loki were to hand himself in his hands, instead, only Mobius would get a gain for it, while Loki would risk to be used and then disposed once he has ended his purpose.

As Mobius is fiddling with a round thing that apparently control a projector, Loki questions him again, but with those words he has raised the bar a little.

If Mobius wants him to trust him, he has to start giving more clear answers.

“If the TVA truly oversees all of time, how have I never heard of you until now?”

Mobius is still good at diverting the attention as his reply irritates Loki and causes him to lose track of the conversation.

Mobius: 'Cause you've never needed to. You've always lived within your set path. Loki: I live within whatever path I choose. Mobius: Sure you do.

There are two things from the exchange.

One is that Mobius ends up confirming that the TVA is sort of a secret organization that decides for others, that’s ABOVE OTHERS. They don’t let you know which rules you’ve to follow, they decide which rule you’ve to follow and then let you blind fly until you stumble into a rule you didn’t know exist and break it. And then they come to punish you. And that’s when you learn they existed.

The second is that again Mobius, while not openly disagree with him, is dismissive of Loki. He has made him defensive by pushing him to say ‘I live within whatever path I choose’ then he hadn’t outright said ‘no, you don’t’ but by the way he replied he hugely implied it in a manner that sounds more like he had said ‘oh, you naïve child, and your delusions, of course you don’t chose your path’.

As Mobius invites him to sit down Loki tries to attack him since Mobius gave him his back but Mobius uses what we’ll learn is a Time Twister to loops him and send him standing back where he was. Then Mobius very calmly insists for Loki to have a seat, again driving home the point that Loki has no choices and is powerless.

Loki complies and sit down.

We can argue if he should have or not but the truth is there was no real point in resisting beyond making things difficult for himself because if there’s something true here is that he’s powerless and he should just bid his time and search for a weakness, instead than resisting.

Of course this is all well and good for Mobius, as things are proceeding in the way he wants.

Loki crosses his arms, which, in body language, hints that he’s feeling anxious, resistant, tense, insecure, afraid, or responding to distress. Arms crossed indicate also defensiveness, unyielding attitudes, and perseverance working as an act of self-comfort.

Long story short, Loki is not comfortable or willing to cooperate and he’s physically putting a barrier between himself and Mobius… and letting Mobius know of this.

Mobius is unfazed.

“If looks could kill.”

It’s a simple sentence that let Loki know that yes, he gets the message Loki isn’t going to go down to this willingly, but also reminds him of Loki’s powerlessness and of how Mobius is unafraid and in a position of power. ‘If looks could kill… you would kill me, but looks can’t kill so you’ll have to sit there and do as I say. Your resistance is futile. Amusing even.’

Loki doesn’t play along, making clear he doesn’t plan to cooperate. At least not easily. Mobius doesn’t believe him.

“Really? Even when you're wooing someone powerful you intend to betray? Come on.”

It’s an interesting sentence for Mobius to say, because he’s lampshading Loki isn’t using with him the same technique he used with Thanos and the Grandmaster. Since the story knows Loki should act more cooperative and obedient according to his previous records, I wonder which point they’re trying to make. Is the idea that Loki started to act as such after his one year imprisonment in Asgard, understanding opening defiling Odin got him nowhere and that he should have instead played along, therefore this Loki hadn’t gotten to that point yet?

Or is the idea Loki is deliberately choosing to act like this because he has already figured playing along with Mobius wouldn’t work?

We’ll see.

The answer could as well be a Doylist one, the audience expects him to act a certain way, the author is aware Loki normally acted in a certain way but they wanted him to act differently for… reasons.

We’ll see.

Mobius continues to make a show of his power. He is specialized in the pursuit of dangerous Variants but not like Loki, Loki is just a pussycat… only it’s EXACTLY like Loki… as it’s Loki he’s pursuing. Another version of him. He’s not telling him that though, exactly because the whole point of the discussion is making Loki feel small so that he can control him.

Credits when it’s due, Mobius is playing a dangerous game because the Loki he’s pursuit and this one might be two different Variants but they’re always Loki and this one has all the potential to become the same as the other, if he’s not already and just keeping it buried inside himself.

Anyway, the fact that Loki is so contrary, forces Mobius to act as if he were willing to make Loki some concessions for his cooperation. A reward for good behaviour if so we can call it.

“You answer them honestly, and then maybe I can give you something you want. You wanna get out of here, right?”

The truth is I genuinely doubt Mobius can grant him that, or, at least, not that in the way Loki might intend it. The TVA erased the timeline he came from. He has no more a place outside of the TVA. The most ‘getting out of there’ could mean is what will later happen, make him a worker for the TVA. He won’t be allowed to go back home, he’ll just have to serve them in exchange for having them not delete him.

Mobius though shifts cards and pretends it means he can go back to where he was, asking him what he would do, should he return.

I particularly enjoy this dialogue.

Mobius: You wanna be king? Loki: I don't want to be, I was born to be. Mobius: I know, but king of what exactly? Loki: ( Scoffs ) You wouldn't understand. Mobius: Try me. Loki: Midgard.

The ‘I don’t want to be’ echoes what Loki said to Thor in “Thor”…

“I never wanted the throne! I only ever wanted to be your equal.”

…and ties in with what Odin told him as a child…

“Only one of you can ascend to the throne. But both of you were born to be kings.”

Which is something Loki hints at in “Thor: The Dark World” as well.

Frigga: You know full well it was your actions that brought you here. Loki: My actions. I was merely giving truth to the lie that I had been fed my entire life, that I was born to be a king.

“The Avengers” suffers of a huge plot problem in this regard, which is the jump between Loki in “Thor” and Loki in “The Avengers”. In the year that went between the two Loki is deeply changed but “The Avengers” refused to explain why, it just shows us a different Loki.

To search for an explanation we’ve to read interviews:

“And in the time between the end of Thor and the beginning of the Avengers, Loki has explored the shadowy highways and byways of the universe – and he’s met some terrible, terrible people and probably had some awful experiences, which he has survived and overcome. So by the time he arrives in The Avengers, he knows the extent of his power – and he’s unafraid to use it. And more importantly, he’s unafraid to enjoy it.” In Marvel’s The Avengers, Loki sets out to remake Earth as his personal kingdom. “That’s his motivation. Thor has his own kingdom in Asgard. Why shouldn’t Loki have his own? As Loki sees it, planet Earth is a world at war with itself. All of these races and tribes are fighting each other. And if they were united in the reverence of one king, there would be peace. It’s not that he plans to attack Earth. It’s that he plans to ‘restructure’ it as a new kingdom of which he will be the head. Loki feels that it’s his birthright. He feels that he was born to rule. And he sees the human race as an incredibly weak people who actually were made to be ruled. And, in his mind and in his opinion, the human race functions better under rule.” [The art of The Avengers]

“I think he went, like with everything else, to—Joss Whedon and I discussed it—to a sort of… it was just, like, the worst place imaginable. I think he went to, sort of, all of the darkest recesses of the universe. I’m sure he had a brush with—several brushes with death. I think he ran into the shadiest characters you can find in the Nine Realms. I think he had to rely on his wits to protect himself. It was really, really, really unpleasant, I think. I don’t have any frame of reference for that, except for imagining what it might be like to be kidnapped by a terrorist or something and have to survive a very, very frightening and precarious existence. But whatever it was, it was important when Loki came back for The Avengers, that whatever compassion he had left was absolutely shriveled to a minimum because of the experience that he had. Harrowing, I think, and scarring for life—in a way that Thor and Odin and Frigga find very, very difficult to understand.” [Tom Hiddleston - live on stage Q&A: Popcorn Taxi - part 2]

And in the end we stumble into this:

“Well, I can’t tell you exactly what went on because it’s this dark, dark secret that I didn’t make up yet. But, the other day, I had trouble with that because he had this very passionate Shakespearean tragedy thing going on in Thor and then I needed a villain who’s not only capable, but ready and willing and anxious to take on all these heroes. For me, he just basically went on some horrible walkabout… That was pretty much as far as I got.” [Joss Whedon told Comic-Con the question he doesn’t want us to ask ever again ]

So fundamentally “The Avengers” didn’t know what happened to Loki that changed him, they just went with the idea something bad happened, which of course should have happened since Loki met up with Thanos, who’s famous for torturing his daughters. They also tossed in that while on Midgard he was under the influence of the Mind stone.

Ultimately though, what happened is never stated nor explained.

When Loki wants Asgard’s throne it’s clear he’s doing so because he associates it with his father’s love. Who gets the throne is the son Odin’s love.

“To prove to Father that I am the worthy son. When he wakes, I will have saved his life. I will have destroyed that race of monsters. And I will be true heir to the throne!”

But Midgard? Midgard is chosen by Thanos, because he needs the Tesseract, which is there. Did Loki wanted it too? Or was it Thanos who chose for him? Hard to say but “The Avengers” still ties Loki’s wish for a kingdom to his father.

THE OTHER: You question us? You question him? He who put the scepter in your hand, who gave you ancient knowledge and new purpose when you were cast out, defeated? LOKI: I was a king! The rightful kind of Asgard! Betrayed! THE OTHER: Your ambition is little, born of childish need. We look beyond the Earth to greater worlds the Tesseract will unveil.

It makes sense. When Loki is told his whole life is a lie, his first action is try to erase the truth by erasing Jotunheim. That was as much personal as practical (they were at war with Jotunheim). Becoming a king might have been another attempt at still erasing the truth. He doesn’t attempt to become king of Jotunheim, as it would be his birthright, but of something else, Midgard. He’s imitating Odin.

Loki: I went down to Midgard to rule the people of Earth as a benevolent god. Just like you.

All this to say that Loki’s reply ‘I don't want to be, I was born to be’ is actually a lot more layered that it sounds is actually a lot more layered that it sounds and that’s why he doesn’t think Mobius would understand it and gives him a simple answer, something he thinks he could understand. A location over which he could rule.

At the same time the irony of the situation isn’t lost on me. A moment ago Loki said he ‘live within whatever path he chooses’ yet he claims he was born to do something. This wasn’t a choice, this was predetermination. Or letting Odin dictate his path.

Anyway Loki claims he would then move to conquer Asgard and the Nine Realms and agree when Mobius suggests him to go for the space… and honestly I think here Loki is just playing a part. He’s giving Mobius the answers he thinks Mobius wants, an evil Loki. “Loki” clearly is not going to retcon “Thor: Ragnarok” and we’ve seen that in that movie once Loki had the throne of Asgard he didn’t start a conquering rampage but just contented himself with it.

So, no, Loki doesn’t want to rule the universe, he just wants to prove himself something he was told was true.

Mobius don’t take him seriously, either because he knows Loki doesn’t aim to universe domination or because this is convenient for him. He says something interesting though, albeit misleading.

Loki: Mock me if you dare. Mobius: No, I'm not. Honestly, I'm actually a fan. Yeah. And I guess I'm wondering why does someone with so much range just wanna rule?

With ‘I’m actually a fan’ I don’t think he means he supports Loki, I think he’s subtly hinting he’s very interested in Loki. The other Loki, the Variant he’s trying to catch and that holds them all in a stalemate. Kind of like Sherlock Holmes might have appreciated Professor Moriarty’s intellect. This Loki and his other Variant might have a shared past… which makes this Loki interesting as well.

Then Mobius lead Loki in a loop in Loki’s reasoning. Loki is big on how he decides what he does. He values his own freedom. A huge part of why he reject the TVA system is because they want to dictate what he can and can’t do.

Yet in “The Avengers” he said:

Loki: I come with glad tidings, of a world made free. Fury: Free from what? Loki: Freedom. Freedom is life's great lie. Once you accept that, in your heart...[Like a gunslinger, Loki turns to face Selvig who's standing behind him and places his spear against Selvig's heart. Selvig's eyes glow black.] Loki: You will know peace.

and

Loki: Kneel before me. [The crowd ignores him. Three more Loki's appear, surrounding and blocking the crowd from escaping.] I said KNEEL! [While the crowd quietly kneels, Loki embraces out his arms with a wide smile] Is not this simpler? Is this not your natural state? It's the unspoken truth of humanity, that you crave subjugation. The bright lure of freedom diminishes your life's joy in a mad scramble for power, for identity. You were made to be ruled. In the end, you will always kneel.

It’s unclear how Loki came up with those ideas, albeit the fact he came from Asgard, which is a place where Odin rules as a supreme ruler and humans are viewed as inferior…

Odin: She does not belong here in Asgard anymore than a goat belongs at a banquet table.

…this might be another result of Odin’s awesome parenting, and not necessarily the result of Thanos’ manipulation… though the two might have superimposed so that it’s hard to say where one stop and the other begins.

Loki confirms this view here as well.

Loki: I would've made it easy for them. Mobius: People like easy. Loki: The first and most oppressive lie ever uttered was the song of freedom. Mobius: How's that one go? Loki: For nearly every living thing, choice breeds shame and uncertainty and regret. There's a fork in every road, yet the wrong path always taken.

On a personal note I think Loki wants to see himself above of this, but it’s clear that he too had to deal with choices that breed shame, uncertainty and regret, never mentioning he believes he was seen as inferior by Odin and deprived of his path.

Loki: So I am no more than another stolen relic, locked up here until you might have use of me.

The fact he thinks Odin would have never put on the throne of Asgard a Frost Giant (a monster and therefore even more inferior in the Asgardians’ opinion than humans) no matter what and that he thinks this got confirmed when Odin told him he couldn’t do it, which pushed him to let go of Gungnir.

Loki wants to be above… he wants to be the master of his fate after instead he was forced to dance on other people’s strings (Odin, Thanos) but deep down he’s drawing from his own experience the downsides of freedom. He just wants to overcome them.

Mobius then says he’ll show Loki a sampling of Loki’s greatest hits… which are basically the end of the battle of New York.

It’s fundamentally a close up of how he was beaten and how he asked for a drink, which Mobius mocks further offering him a drink, which Loki refuses pointing out he remembers that scene.

We kind of stumble in a problem the series has. Mobius says:

“It's funny, for someone born to rule, you sure do lose a lot. You might even say it's in your nature.”

The problem here is that the sentence is misleading. Loki at the moment has two big failures on his shoulders, the one in “Thor” and the one in “The Avengers”. It doesn’t make a lot and note that in “The Avengers” he also had minor successes. He walked away from SHIELD’s facility with the Tesseract, he managed to have Clint Barton steal the Iridium, he let the Avengers capture him so that he could let the Hulk lose, which worked and he could recover the scepter and escape, he managed to open the portal and let the Chitauri in. Basically, since he let himself be captured and even Steve knows, Loki won all the battles except the one who decided the war. Which yes, was a big loss because it was the one that mattered the most but still it shows Loki’s losing record isn’t as big as Mobius makes it look like.

Loki ends up bringing up Coulson. To prove his point that Loki isn’t really good at winning Mobius could bring up the fact that Coulson was resurrected in “Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.” but no, he prefers to say the Avengers came together to literally avenge him by defeating him.

Now yes, Coulson’s death played a big part in all that, they felt guilty and sorry for him, as they all were tied to him one way or the other and this made what Loki did personal enough they could easily put away their differences… but I’m not overly fond of this theory because it implies if Coulson hadn’t died the Avengers would have never came together, would have never overcome their difficulties and would have lost.

Which, I guess, might be a possibility “Loki” might want to explore, we saw in a trailer an image of New York completely destroyed�� but it’s something I don’t particularly like because it paints the Avengers in a pretty dark light.

If they didn’t have a common grief, they would have never cooperate for the common good.

Of course it’s not that Mobius care, this explanation is convenient for him, an Augustinian view of evil in which evil collapse its evil’s own doing. Because Loki killed Coulson, Loki set up his own defeat. Evil loses because it’s a snake that bites its own tail… which is an interesting view, really, but, in this case, it put a huge shadow on the Avengers.

Whatever, let’s go on, Mobius’ point is to make Loki feel small, not to explain him why he lost.

But still… he would manage to make a better point if the series weren’t forced to use only the footage from the movies. But well, I guess they had no other choice.

I enjoy the next bit of discussion. Mobius asks Loki:

“Do you enjoy hurting people? Making them feel small? Making them feel afraid?”

Which is exactly what he’s doing to him. There’s a huge irony in the whole discussion. They both think they’re in the right doing what they’re doing/what they did and that this excuses their actions.

They set up a moral motive, Loki sees himself as a liberator, Mobius sees himself as the saviour of the sacred timeline so they are above others, they came make them feel small and afraid and don’t have to feel guilty for it.

They get to a stalemate, although Loki isn’t looking at the screen, which is our clue he isn’t enjoying what he’s seeing, the people suffering. He didn’t like to look at them in “The Avengers” either, not looking when he ‘freed that eyeball’ as Mobius put in. Even when Thor forces him to look at the attacked city he shows he’s distressed. Loki however enjoyed being at the centre of the attention, it’s that what got him to smile, not hurting that man.

But whatever, to try to compensate, the series shows us some unseen material from Loki’s past, namely when he played the role of D.B. Cooper.

On a sidenote this hugely confirms my theory Loki used to hang out on Earth since he could play that part. Among the other things which the series didn’t show Cooper appeared familiar with the local terrain; at one point he remarked, "Looks like Tacoma down there," as the aircraft flew above it. He also correctly mentioned that McChord Air Force Base was only a 20-minute drive (at that time) from Seattle-Tacoma Airport. He asks for 2 bourbon and soda, paid his drink tab (and attempted to give flight attendant Tina Mucklow the change). He even offered to request meals for the flight crew during the stop in Seattle This makes Loki someone who knows very well how things work in Midgard… contrary to Thor.

Mobius introduces the whole thing saying

“You're really good at doing awful things, and then just getting away.”

And yes, it was awful. Although Cooper is described as extremely polite I can’t imagine that the crew who knew he had a bomb onboard felt comfortable with dealing with that situation. The worst part though is that he did it because he lost a bet with Thor.

Now they don’t exactly dig in what the bet was, but Heimdall was likely watching his every move and Thor asking him to do something similar as penance for losing a bet paints Thor also as pretty awful.

The best part though is that Loki excuses it by saying ‘he was young’. The whole thing took place in 1971, in short, 41 years before “The Avengers”. 41 years are a lot for a human, enough to make them say ’41 years ago I was young’, but Loki is at least 1047 in “The Avengers”. We don’t know how fast exactly Frost Giants and Asgardians age but, unless they do an abrupt jump, if Loki was young 41 years ago, he probably still is, which would match with the fan theory he’s actually around 17 in human years.

Now we can take Loki’s sentence as something a young person would say, as in a span of a short time they effectively grow and change a lot so their slightly younger self might feel a lot younger to them, or he might be talking in a more metaphorical sense.

Discovering the truth about himself and what followed forced him to grow faster. Now he wouldn’t do such immature things… which is a rather sad though.

At Loki’s request of where was the TVA back then, Mobius replies they were right there with him, just surfing that Sacred Timeline. Loki asks then if that has the Time-Keepers' seal of approval.

He scores one on this one as Mobius can’t reply, he just says not to think in terms of approval or disapproval.

Let’s remember something else that had the Time-Keepers' seal of approval was Thanos wiping away half of the universe but not just that. There’s also Thanos travelling through time to get to that future and stop “The Avengers” from undoing what he did with the infinity stones, which means they approved Tony Stark’s death in order to stop him.

Awesome people, don’t you think? More similar to writers who’ve to sell a good story than to people who care and wants to protect the people who lives in the timeline.

Anyway Mobius says they’ll go back to Loki’s escape and to a little psychobabble, which tells us not even Mobius sees this as a psychology session or therapy or whatever you want to call it. This interrogatory’s aim isn’t to let him know Loki better, he believes he knows him already. He’s trying to shape Loki into a willing collaborator because that’s his goal, not heal Loki or whatever.

Mind you, I think he’d like to get to know Loki in the sense he’s trying to catch a Loki and knowing Loki better might help him in his work… but so far he really hadn’t asked anything he didn’t know already so no, this isn’t a big ‘let’s get to know Loki’, though he might find some interest in seeing what makes him tick in the conversation, this is just a ‘let’s manipulate Loki into cooperating’.

Loki wants to stand, Mobius uses the Time Twister to loops him ‘back in his cage’. Because don’t mistake the situation just because he’s not being aggressive or physically abusive, Loki is in a cage and Mobius makes a show of showing it to Loki. He can’t stand up without Mobius’ permission and Mobius further remarks it by saying he ‘can play the heavy keys, too’, in short that he can play the role of the ‘bad cop’ that slams back the prisoner in his chair when he tries to move.

Or should we assume Mobius feared Loki was going to attack him?

Maybe, as I said Loki and Mobius might be more similar than it looks like, both acting in control and high and mighty to hide they are actually in a tight spot. Mobius isn’t a hunter, he might not be strong, he might not know how to fight beyond waving that Time Twister and the TVA wand, while Loki knows. We don’t know from which race Mobius is, but Asgardians and Frost Giants are naturally very physically strong, much stronger than humans, and Mobius might belong to a race that’s just not the same.

But still the scene works conveniently for Mobius, because it’s another chance to drive home how he completely control Loki.

Loki’s reply, regardless of it being sincere or not, is good because it says Mobius just overreacted as Loki merely wanted to make a point.

After an exchange in which Mobius gives him permission to stand and Loki remarks he’ll do what he wants, which in a way he did since ultimately he stood, he asks him what he wants.

Mobius says

“I want you to be honest about why you do what you do.”

Loki calls it a lie and he’s probably not completely right but neither completely wrong. Mobius likely doesn’t care about why Loki did what he did in the past, that’s not a time he has to deal with, but he cares about forcing Loki to be honest. Loki has to trust him and cooperate with him and this includes that he has to open up. Mobius has to already know the answer to his questions, otherwise he could never know if Loki is being honest and he knows them because he knows Loki’s future, how he evolves, how it pained him to see Frigga die, how he saved Thor even though it lead him to be stabbed, how he didn’t aim for space domination when he was king of Asgard, how he came back to save Asgard, how he died for his brother.

So Mobius is not lying when he says he wants Loki to be honest… but that’s not because he cares about the answer, which is what Loki figured and why Loki called him a liar. It’s a matter of control and Loki can see it.

Loki: I know what this place is. Mobius: What is it? Loki: It's an illusion. It's a cruel, elaborate trick conjured by the weak to inspire fear. A desperate attempt at control. Now, you all parade about as if you're the divine arbiters of power in the universe.

And Mobius claims to be sure to have such a role which again, it’s an awesome irony because they both play the same game, they act as if they’re superior than others.

Mobius shows him his speech about freedom, which of course feels like a slap on his face because now it’s turned against him and his mad scramble for power.

Loki catches up and insists on his freedom, on how he’s the one in charge of his destiny who will win because HE did it, not because it was supposed to happen or was allowed by the TVA.

Mobius tries to bring him down again informing him if he hadn’t picked up the Tesseract he would have been taken to a cell on Asgard… or, you know, he might have been out there killing TVA men staging the 7th attack in the last week that they know of. But let’s not tell this to Loki at this stage. It might give him ideas about not being completely powerless against the TVA.

Mobius shows him the scene of his return to Asgard, which Loki rejects as a trick as ‘it never happened’.

Mobius agrees, it didn’t happen TO HIM, but it would have because they know also how his future was meant to be and that he should think of it as ‘comforting’. Which is not considering how his life was meant to be.

Note how Mobius is showing him only Frigga. How she was there for him when he came back, how she asked him if she wasn’t his mother and how he rejected her, hurting her. Loki doesn’t know what the argument was about or what pushed him to say so, all he sees is her being there for him and him hurting her and as he watches he moves closer.

Then Mobius explains how Loki believed to send the dark elves to Thor and instead sent them to Frigga… only he’s conveniently overlooking Loki had no idea they were Dark Elves or that there was a Dark Elves attack. Loki assumed the Kurse was just another Marauder arrested by Thor.

The Marauders were a collective of loosely affiliated alien pirates composed of many different races. When the Kurse is captured no Asgardian figured out what he is, they’re all persuaded the Dark Elves are dead, exterminated by Bor. For all Loki’s know this is a prison uprising, the Dark Elves’ ships hadn’t even appeared yet and started their attack when Loki sent Kurse on his way.

Mobius is cherry picking facts so as to shape them the way he wants.

Loki is shocked at seeing Frigga’s death which Mobius knew would have happened because he knew how he reacted when this happened.

He tries to rationalize what he saw by thinking they captured Frigga and forced her to play that part, while Mobius insists that’s the proper flow of time and that’s what has to happen because it has to and the TVA makes sure of it. However, although the TVA ensures Frigga’s death, he tries to make it all Loki’s fault. He caused it, and now Mobius wants to know if he enjoys hurting people, as if he could not know how devastated Loki was when Frigga died. He asks him if he enjoys killing people like he did with his mother.

He knows the past time Loki felt completely responsible for it, he’s trying to get him to feel the same even if Loki actually never meant to kill Frigga.

On a sidenote, he’s trying to send him on a vulnerable loop to get his collaboration like Thor did that time… but it’s a dumb move. Let’s assume Loki swallows they could send him back to his time and accepts to submit to being jailed. The TVA would still ensure he would direct the Kurse to Frigga so that she’ll die because this is the proper flow of time for them.

Although I doubt he meant it, Mobius actually isn’t giving Loki reasons to cooperate with him permanently, just to think harder to a way to avoid that future.

I don’t really know what Mobius is thinking but he seems so sure that he can come out as so overly powerful and righteous he can both bend Loki to his will by saying he’s to blame for Frigga’s death and, at the same time, that he should do nothing to prevent it.

Anyway at this point Loki attack him and is looped again. He ends on the ground with Mobius apologizing, BEFORE PUTTING THE TIME TWISTER IN HIS POCKET, saying it because the Time Twister just loops him, not the furniture… but he actually meant it, because Loki had been standing by a while and he could have looped him to just standing there.

Mobius goes on trying to make him again feel even more smaller.

“You weren't born to be king, Loki. You were born to cause pain and suffering and death. That's how it is, that's how it was, that's how it will be. All so that others can achieve their best versions of themselves.”

In short he was born to be used by the sacred timeline to create heroes. But it’s a ridicule argument, in itself, because every living being create pain and suffering in his life, albeit sometimes in smaller measure than Loki or for better reasons. And the idea that people become better only through pain and suffering and death… is scary because somehow it legitimize it. It makes right to kill Coulson because then the Avengers can be born. It makes right for Thanos to wipe away half of humanity because so the Avengers joined forces again.

It’s a damaging and wrong mindset… that Mobius is of course pushing forward because that’s the narrative the TVA spins. They don’t save people, they just decide who lives and die according to their taste… which works if you’re a storywriter but it’s awful if you’re talking of real people.

Loki calms down and asks again what is that place. Mobius offers him his hand in a classic stick and carrot game. He wants Loki to obey. Loki complies and they’re interrupted by Hunter B-15. Mobius is forced to leave with her but not before telling Loki:

“Don't go anywhere. It was just getting good. Spirited.”

In short he was enjoying making Loki feel miserable, which I don’t think he does because he’s a jerk but just because that’s his job. Like Hunter B-15, they’re very motivated in doing their job to the point they don’t realize the other isn’t just ‘a variant’ but a person with feeling. They think they’re doing the people a service by murdering the extra.

Kind of like how Thanos saw himself as noble when he murdered half of the people in the universe to save the other half and expected people to feel grateful to him.

By the way, do you think that Loki is complying too easily?

Not really, do check the way he let Mobius pull him up and how he then moves his left hand for a moment inside his pocket to pull it out immediately afterward. We’ll come back to it in a moment. For now let’s follow the plot that has Hunter B-15 claiming that talking ‘to that Variant’ is a mistake as he should just be reset, read, if Mobius had been honest, killed.

For Hunter B-15 Loki is not a person, he’s just a Variant, a Variant to destroy. Actually it’s not even because the other Loki Variant is killing their units, because Mobius says she thinks all the Variants should be reset.

And remember about how Loki could be in a jail or plotting the 7th attack in the last week that they know of? Well, that’s just what the other Loki variant did as they just lost another unit.

I know I should be cheering for this Loki but I’m also really cheering for that other Loki variant. Go burn the TVA to the ground.

Mobius goes back to Loki and… discovers he disappeared. Because when Loki let Mobius pull him up he caught his chance to stuff his hand in Mobius’ pocket, steal the Time Twister and put it in his own pocket. That’s what Loki was thinking when he calmed down, a plan to get out of there, a chance to take the Time Twister.

Now… don’t the TVA know in advance what happens in the TVA? What the Variants would do once they’re captive? Because Mobius seems genuinely surprised and they’ve to search for Loki so for all their bragging about knowing everything and controlling everything maybe they actually don’t. They can’t control the Variants, which is why the other Loki Variant can attack without them knowing in advance. Their sacred timeline doesn’t cover it so they’re blind to it.

Of course it’s possible he let Loki take it on purpose but I want to think against it.

We see that Loki has looped himself in an early point of his entrance in the TVA and has noticed Casey, the guy at the desk who has taken the Tesseract. He follows him, clearly planning to get the Tesseract back and, with it, to leave the place.

Mobius and Hunter B-15 search for Loki, giving each other the blame for his disappearance. Hunter B-15 would like to catch this chance to dispose of Loki but Mobius rejects the idea since he believes he can still help.

Loki tracks Casey down. Casey recognizes him and he forces him to kneel behind the desk. He asks him his name and once he has it he tells him in his most threatening tone to give him the Tesseract or he’ll gut him like a fish.

Only Casey wants to know what’s a fish because he wants to know what he’s being threatened with, before complying and he has spent all his life behind a desk so he has no idea what a fish is. I guess he also doesn’t know what it means gutting.

Loki can’t imagine not knowing what a fish is… which is kind of weird because he should know for example humans never head of bilchsnipes… but maybe due to his name he’s thinking Casey is human. Honestly the whole TVA staff seems human. Can I say I don’t like it?

In the comics though, the TVA staff was made by people cloned. They literally were made by the TVA. I wonder if this is Casey’s situation.

Anyway Loki clarifies he’s threatening him with death. It doesn’t unfazed Casey much (do people die INSIDE the TVA?) but, to Loki’s relief, he complies, opens his drawer and give him the Tesseract whose light is still mostly turned off. Loki feels a moment of relief before noticing that in the drawer there are assorted infinity stones.

At Loki’s confusing Casey explains they get a lot of those, enough to use them as paperweight. I guess the infinity stones influence might allow people to do different choices and become Variants as they can influence them.

Something inside the TVA though, turns off their power.

Loki is confused as he picks up a green one, which should be a time stone. We hear the sound of stones moving but we can’t see if he placed it back where it was.

Loki is utterly confused as he walks away with the Tesseract in a daze looking at the sacred timeline and wondering if the TVA is really the greatest power in the universe. Behind him, Casey nods.

The elevator opens, Hunter B-15 tries to hit Loki but Loki uses the Time Twister to disappear again so she misses him completely and almost hits poor Casey. Note that the blow would have been fatal for either Loki or Casey.

Hunter B-15 didn’t care of how Mobius said no pruning or resetting, we can see that the cart, which gets hit instead of Loki, disappear.

This time Hunter B-15 didn’t go for physical pain, she went for the kill.

Loki is back in the interrogation chamber where he put the Time Twister on the table and watches on the projector his future. First Frigga’s death, as if to try to accept it, and he’s almost in tears, then he lash forward to Odin telling him and Thor that he loves them and that they should remember that place. This too touches him emotionally. He sees Thor telling him how he thought the world of him and he sees them fighting side by side against Hela and then telling him maybe he’s not so bad. He smiles at seeing that, laughing sadly but then… he sees his death at the hands of Thanos. It’s obviously traumatic but, I hope, when he can think at all that in perspective, he’ll be able to see the truth.

He wasn’t born to cause pain and suffering and death. He also saved lives, his brother’s specifically but also the ones of some Asgardians.

And, at the same time, he could see, he could learn his father and brother did love him, or at least that was the intended message of those scenes (I won’t dig into them portraying it correctly or not).

The file about him ends.

Loki gives into a slightly hysterical chuckling and the door behind him opens. It’s Hunter B-15 who asks him what’s so funny.

Loki replies ‘Glorious purpose’ which can mean all and nothing. According to the file his glorious purpose wasn’t to become king, but not even to cause pain and suffering and death. At the same time it’s not a particularly uplifting message the one that file gave him. The moment he could start again with Thor, Thanos killed him. In the end, even if he tried to change, his life would be one of pain and suffering until his death.

Loki and Hunter B-15 fight and somehow she doesn’t have anymore her murdering wand nor the men following her.

She’s alone and disarmed but she’s clearly a trained to fight and rather strong. Loki is smarter though. As soon as she slams him on the table he grabs the Time Twister, unlatches his collar and wraps it around her neck. Then takes on her his revenge for having been looped way too many times that day by looping her a lot until he makes her disappear. Where to I’ve no idea but I hope for him far enough. He was clearly taking out on her all the abuse he suffered from her and Mobius. In the end he tosses the Time Twister again on the table.

Meanwhile Casey is retelling his misfortunate meeting… evidently finding the idea that Loki would turn him into a fish much worse than the idea Loki threatened to kill him and then complains about the hunters showing up and pruning his cart.

Really, it makes me wonder if the TVA doesn’t use the world ‘dead’ in conversation. It’s all ‘reset’ or ‘prune’. I’m not saying they don’t know of it, just that they don’t use it to define what they do because it would make them look bad. You murder a living being. You reset a timeline, prune a branch. There’s a psychological difference that allows them to see Variants not as living beings but as objects.

As he speaks Hunter B-15 appears in front of him so that’s where Loki sent her.

Meanwhile Loki has remained in the room in which he was. He seems worn out as he sat on the floor against a wall, his face in his hands and the Tesseract set next to him.

Mobius, who gets into the room holding one of those TVA wands, finds him like that. Mobius rubs in he has nowhere left to run.

Loki states how he can’t go back to his timeline, then decides to comply with Mobius previous request. He tells him he doesn’t enjoy hurting people, he does it because he has to, because it's part of the illusion. It's the cruel, elaborate trick conjured by the weak to inspire fear. And claims to be a villain.

Is he being sincere or just telling Mobius what he wants to hear?

I like to think he’s being both. In “The Mentalist” Patrick Jane once tried to teach Teresa Lisbon how to gain someone’s trust. His first suggestion was to ask that person for a favour, so that they would feel more powerful, when this didn’t work he told her to get that person to lower their guard she should lower her own. I get the feeling Loki is doing this. He’s lowering his guard, giving Mobius what he wants, so that Mobius will lower his guard too. Like when he accepted his hand only to steal the time twister.

There’s a power in being sincere as well, which is to make Mobius feel more powerful by giving him power and therefore push him to underestimate Loki.

Mobius, who previously told him

Now saying him that’s not how he sees it.

He’s either giving him the carrot in his carrot and stick game or he’s just remarking one of the main characteristics of the TVA. The TVA is neutral, they don’t approve or disapprove actions, people has no choice, they’ve to follow a path and Loki’s path was to do what he did so that others could become better. The TVA doesn’t really seems to care of the moral axis of Loki’s alignment… or their own or everyone else, they only care of the ethical alignment.

Now, as I’ve seen fandom discuss this, in roleplays people created character alignments to give an ‘ideal’ for a character to live up.

This caused the birth of two Axis, the moral axis (Good, Neutral, and Evil) and the ethical axis (Lawful, Neutral, and Chaotic).

The alignments of the moral axis are pretty easy to figure out, so I’m not even discuss them, but the one of the ethical axis are basically meant to tell if a character follows the law or not.

The TVA is clearly lawful aligned, they blindly follow their rules as if they were a dogma, a faith. Hydra is lawful. Steve Roger is lawful, as he wants to follow rules.

Loki in a good part of the movies doesn’t follow the rules, we saw it from the start, in “Thor” he decided to act to interrupt the coronation, which was against the rules of Asgard, and then he tricked Laufey, which is against the rules of war. In “The Avengers” he let himself be arrested so as to unleash the Hulk. In “Thor: The Dark World” he pretended to join forces with Malekith so that he would remove the Aether from Jane and then stole from Odin the throne… and so on. He’s not the only one though, Thor himself as moments in which he’s chaotic, like when he invades Jotunheim against his father’s order and how later will invade that SHIELD facility, or how he’s challenge his father again in “Thor: The Dark World”.

Actually all the Avengers here and there had been chaotic… and here and there had been lawful.

Loki’s situation places him more on the chaotic axis because he has no other master but himself. In short he doesn’t respect anyone else’s rules, sometimes not even his own as he claims Frigga isn’t his mother when he clearly feels she is and fights to avenge her… but he too had his own moments of being lawful.

That’s because people aren’t roleplay characters and they wouldn’t feel realistic if they were just sitting on one alignment.

But whatever, let’s go on.

Loki picks up the Tesseract, and Mobius asks him if he tried to use it.

“Oh, several times. Even an Infinity Stone is useless here. ( Scoffs ) The TVA is formidable.”

And here we’ve Loki trying on ‘wooing someone powerful he intend to betray’, to put it with Mobius’ words. I wonder if Mobius can realize it or he’s so sure in his idea he’s powerful he misses it.

Either way he has gotten what he wanted, Loki acting this way means he has acknowledged they’re powerful enough he has to play along with them.

Mobius tell him:

“I can't offer you salvation, but maybe I can offer you something better.”

And here I feel an echo of Thor in “Thor: The Dark World”:

“I did not come here to share our grief. Instead I offer you the chance of a far richer sacrament.”

I wonder if Mobius is trying to play that same game to get Loki to cooperate. Loki though has seen the video. Maybe he knows too. And well, at least Mobius came out more honest because he told him he can’t offer him salvation. Remember when he babbled about what Loki could do if he were to go back to his timeline? It was all a pourparler, words that weren’t meant to turn true as Loki is not meant to go back to his timeline. Ever.

That timeline doesn’t exist anymore it was reset.

But at this point Mobius has to be honest and give Loki something back, the reason why they’re interested in him… which is the dangerous Variant they’re hunting is HIM, or better another Variant of himself.

Meanwhile in Salina Oklahoma, 1858 Hunter U-92 and his men are checking on something. They find an object from the early third millennium but discover there’s oil on the ground and think it’s just someone who found himself a time machine and came back here to get rich. Hunter U-92 thinks he’s not worth the paperwork of searching for him and that they should just prune the timeline. Then they notice a figure in a black cape.

The figure has a oil lamp which they drop on the petrol covered ground. The fire spread to the Minuteman who start to die by arson. Hunter U-92 tries to crawl to the reset charge but someone grabs him and pulls him back. Then a hand, clearly not his own, picks up the resect charge.

And either this is the story sharing with us the 7th attack or the other Loki’s Variant has just managed to make the 8th attack in the last week that they know of. Really, I would say for the TVA it’s better to hope it’s not Monday.

As for me, I’m sorry for them but I hope it’s Monday there.

I’ve no sympathy for bureaucratic regimes who views people who don’t complain with their wishes as things… pardon, as Variant, and implement on them the “Final Solution” under the guise of pruning or resetting them.

This doesn’t mean everyone at the TVA is necessarily evil… but they’re dangerous, they’re fanatic who live in a regime that elect them at judges of other people’s lives. Judge Ravonna Renslayer dictates the proper flow of time according to the Time-Keepers dictations without bothering to question them, or the justice of it. At the TVA no one asks himself if it’s right or wrong, they just do it, they don’t know any other way to do it.

It’s not that they want to be evil, they actually want to be noble and just, they believe in the propaganda that’s all spread on the creepy posters around them and think they’re incredible, courageous and dedicated workers and don’t question their work or their lives at all.

They’re just many little Adolf Eichmann mostly bereft of initiative, cultural and moral depth; the latter did not go beyond the conditioning that had been given to them by society.

They lack empathy for what they destroy, for what they prune or reset and so they won’t stop thinking at what they’re doing.

Long story short, we should be grateful the TVA doesn’t exist because, really, that’s a creepy organization that pulls out the worst from people empowering them to murder others and telling them they’re doing something good.

Mobius, Casey, Hunter B-15 are brainwashed by the TVA worldview. It’ll be interesting to see if prolonged interaction with a Variant, Loki, might open his eyes or not. For now they’re like children who can’t distinguish good from bad because they buy a wrong narrative in which they’re above it.

I’m curious to see if they will ultimately eat the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of the good and the evil or if they’ll remain ignorant and dedicate executors of the TVA. We’ll see.

Well, this was long. Thank you to all the people who remained through this long, long episode study of mine. I can’t wait to see the next Loki episode!

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colorfulbard · 5 years ago

Text

Highschool Hijinks

Summary: Just as the title suggests this is a lovely AU of Hawks experiencing Highschool with friends and you. Start of this takes place in Senior year, the only good year of Highschool cause it's the last one.

Pairing: Keigo Takami (Hawks) x Reader

Genre: Highschool AU

Words: 1.4k

~~~

The day seemed to drag on as if its intention was to last forever. You swore you were just about to collapse and take a nap on the floor. Not only were there tons of quizzes from all your teachers, but it seemed as if every student you ran into was adamant about breaking the dress code today. You supposed you should be blaming yourself considering you had told Fuyumi you would take care of any dress code violations today. Such was the life of the student body vice president.

Finally, it was time for lunch and you could take a break. You made your way to the roof of the school and laid down on one of the benches there. Just as you were beginning to close your eyes, you felt a hand tap your forehead. "Huh?" You groaned in annoyance. At the sight of one of your best friends, Rumi Usagiyama, you closed your eyes again.

You heard her let out a disgruntled sound and felt another tap on your forehead. "Hey, don't close your eyes on me!" She complained.

You continued ignoring her until you felt her hands pinching your cheeks. You whined and snapped your eyes open. "Hey! Quit it-!" You slapped her hands away and rubbed your sore cheeks. "What was that about?" You questioned as you sat up.

"Don't you know it's rude to ignore one of your bestest friends?" She sassed, ignoring the harsh glare you were giving her. Rumi got comfortable in the space next to you and rested her arms behind her head.

You huffed and took a quick look around the rooftop. "Weird," you mumbled and turned to her when she rose a brow, "I don't see any of my bestest friends around here." You stuck your tongue out at her with a smirk.

Rumi rolled her eyes and nudged your knee with hers. "Shut up, ass." After a peaceful moment of silence, she spoke up. "Anyway, what's up with you? You look sleepier than usual." She poked at the sunken eyes.

You held in a chuckle. Leave it to Rumi to notice those subtle differences. There was no point in hiding it considering she would just keep pestering until you explained. "Today's just been more stressful than usual," you conveyed, slowly leaning your head on her shoulder. You continued on by ranting about violated dress codes and annoying quizzes.

Rumi whistled once you were finally done. "Sounds like you need a break," she stated.

You rolled your eyes, "gee, really? I haven't noticed," you replied sarcastically.

Just as you were expecting, you received yet another nudge from her. "Well, I was going to take a break until someone-" you finally nudged her back- "interrupted me." You ignored her noise of disbelief and began to close your eyes again. Maybe you'd be able to drown her voice out and take a quick nap.

That was the plan until she started moving her shoulder around. You groaned and sat up to glare at her, "what's up with you?" You asked, "you never had a problem with me doing that before!" You tried your best to ignore the irritation rising to your chest, but Rumi definitely wasn't helping.

"Just wanted to ask a question before you fell asleep." She cheekily grinned at your irritated expression.

"What?" You deadpanned.

"Wanted to know if you wanted to come to tonight's baseball game with me," she stated.

You scoffed and laid your head back on her shoulder. "No thanks, you know I'm not into that stuff."

"Come on, please~," she whined, "don't you have any school spirit?"

You cracked an eye open and gave her a look. Just because you were apart of the school council didn't mean you were super into school spirit. If you were being honest, the only reason why you were in the council was that it looked good on applications. However, it was hard to ignore that pleading look in her eyes.

You closed your eyes once more and groaned. "Ugh, fine," you relented, "but you owe me." With that said, you got comfortable while leaning against her and began to fall asleep.

"Of course," she replied, resting her head on yours.

Regret began to set at the moment you met Rumi near the field. As expected it was humid and loud. The noise made sense considering how many people loved sports in your school. Everyone's excitement was going to reach an all-time high considering the school's pride and joy was playing tonight, the baseball team. Of course, one can't forget the team's star player, Hawks, otherwise known as Keigo Takami. His skill on the field wasn't the only thing that made him stand out, his bright red wings made him easily distinguishable.

You didn't know him personally, all you knew was that everyone in the school adored him and he was an exceptionally good player. Speaking of being adored, you were also aware that he had a fan club, one that you have yet to meet even if you did review the proposal for it as a favor to Fuyumi. Either way, if anyone were to ask your opinion, you didn't have one. Although you had to admit, he was easy on the eyes.

Being so lost in thought you hadn't realized the game was starting. The crowd's cheers swelled as the game they were anticipating had finally begun. You plugged your ears and watched as the first player stepped up to the plate. You caught sight of the back of his jersey which read, Dabi? You assumed it was a nickname, did all the players just have nicknames instead of their actual names?

"Hey, you doin' okay?"

You looked to Rumi who had asked the question. She must've noticed your hands cupping your ears. How was she so unbothered? Weren't rabbit ears more sensitive to this noise? Nonetheless, you nodded in response and waved her off. She rose a brow and shrugged before turning back to the game.

It was kind of impossible to unplug your ears because as soon as the cheers stopped, they started again. You didn't think the noise could get any worse until the star player stepped up to the plate. You sighed and tried to drown out the noise as best you could by closing your eyes. Then, out of nowhere, their cheers turned to gasps as a loud crack resounded throughout the field.

You opened your eyes at the sound of silence, they proceeded to widen when you caught sight of a baseball hurling towards an unsuspecting student.

You hadn't even realized what you were about to do until your feet were moving on their own. Just moments ago you were next to Miruko, then, next thing you knew you were running towards a stray baseball. Call it cowardly, but as of now, you were ignoring the fear of attempting to catch it. Hopefully, you wouldn't end up catching it with your face.

Without giving it another thought, you stuck your hands out and closed your eyes. After what felt like the longest seconds of your life, something hard landed in your hands. You stumbled back with a whimper. When you finally opened your eyes you looked to see the baseball fitted snugly in your hands.

You let out a deep breath you hadn't even realized you were holding in and almost slumped down to the floor in relief. You managed to hold yourself steady and turned back to the student you had saved. "Hey, are you okay?" You asked, holding out a hand to help them out.

They perked up at the sound of your voice and opened their own eyes to see their savior. They quickly nodded at your question and grabbed your hand. "Thank you so much," they said, "I don't what I would've done without you there."

You nodded at them with a smile and walked back over to Rumi. Similar to everyone else in the crowd, she had a bewildered expression on her face. She snapped out of it once you handed to ball to her throwback towards the team. "I think I'm gonna head home." You didn't give her a chance to respond and walked off. This day had ended up being more exhausting than you realized.

Rumi watched as you walked away and then turned to the man who accidentally started the whole ordeal. "Hey, birdbrain!" She yelled, preparing to throw the baseball back, "watch where you're hitting next time!"

Rumi's words fell to deaf ears as Hawks was too busy staring at you walking away from the bleachers.

~~~

I hope everyone enjoy this! I honestly have no idea how many chapters this will have, but I still numerous ideas thanks to a certain post on tiktok

#hawks x reader #keigo tamaki #keigo takami x reader #hawks x you #hawksbnha #high school au

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mypoisonedvine · 5 years ago

Text

The Bruises We Give Each Other - dark!Bucky x Reader (chapter 2)

(read chapter 1 here)

Warnings: non con smut, some violence, drugging

Word Count: 2.3k

Taglist: still just @hnryycvll @onceiwasanun and @badwolfbadwolf lol

Wandering Star

You’d learned to trust your intuition. So, when you felt eyes on you while you were standing in your apartment, you knew exactly who it was.

“I didn’t think you’d come back,” you said, turning to face him where he was crouched in your window. He must have opened it while you were in the shower-- you felt the draft coming in now, somehow you hadn’t noticed before.

“Neither did I,” he responded simply.

His voice was lower than you remembered. He hadn’t spoken at all when you’d seen him last, two weeks ago when he’d violated you on the floor. You felt filthy even just remembering it.

“You can come inside, if you’d like,” you offered, though you regretted the wording. “Not that you need my permission for anything.”

He silently jumped down from the ledge and into your living room. It was odd to see him in your home, when you’d only ever seen him inside the compound where you had worked before he so inconveniently killed everyone-- everyone except you, of course. That part still made you feel very confused. You figured he felt strange seeing you in a robe and not your work uniform.

Yes, he certainly did have a reaction to the robe, because the first thing he did was step towards you and pull the waist-tie until it was undone. You froze under his touch, feeling goosebumps ripple over your skin, emanating from where you could just barely the warmth of his touch on your waist through the terrycloth.

Metal fingers guided the fabric off your shoulders, and they were fucking freezing-- no wonder, with the winter weather outside. He never seemed to mind it, never wearing much heavy gear for the cold when he was on a mission. But he wasn’t on a mission now… was he?

You felt less uncomfortable than you expected to as you were naked before him while he was still clothed. Even if he hadn’t seen you naked before, you got the sense there wasn’t much you could hide from him.

His hand reached up and cradled your face, and his thumb ran over the bruise on your cheek where he’d punched you. He said nothing, but lifted his shirt to show the bruise on his gut where you’d kicked him when you tried to crawl away.

He winced as he pressed two fingers against the mark.

"Don't hurt yourself," you instinctively requested. Why you wouldn't want him to hurt was a mystery even to you.

"Makes me think of you," he shrugged.

Pain made you think of him, too. You had been sore all over for a long time… the marks had only just started to fade. And though you didn’t know why he was here, you were pretty sure you would have more before he left.

His arms wrapped around you and pulled you closer. You squeaked a little, unsure of his intentions, but then he scooped you up and carried you to the sofa. You felt awkward and small and very confused as you were folded in his arms in his walk across your living room before he set you down. The cushions were sort of scratchy against your bare skin-- amazingly, you usually weren’t naked on this particular piece of furniture. As he laid you back, his lips ghosted over where your neck met your shoulders and his stubble made you itchy. Then he bit you, and you yelped.

“Warm,” he whispered against your skin as he held you, and it was so much softer than he had any right to be. For the first time, you really regretted the life he must have lived… or rather, the life he wasn’t able to live, because of you.

Fingers trailed down to your legs, which he pulled apart-- gentler than you’d expected, mainly because you put up no resistance. Two fingers prodded between your legs, and he didn’t even need to pull your underwear aside to make his next observation: “Wet,” he murmured.

You blushed, wishing you weren’t so sensitive to him. You accepted that you weren’t afraid of him, because it couldn’t get much worse than it had already been, but you wished that you weren’t aroused by him.

Two fingers, this time skin and not machinery, pressed into you. You hissed, still sore from his intrusion before. He must have found that sort of thrilling because you saw his jaw clench. Not that you were watching his face. You’d seen that damn face every day for years, and then two weeks without it and you were wondering why he looked so different.

As two fingers twisted inside you, his thumb pressed into your clit. He watched you with an intense stare as your back arched and your eyes fell shut. Closing your eyes made your heart race with fear, as if being able to see him would do anything to keep you safe. He was strong enough to do anything he wanted to you, and you were tactical enough not to resist it. You could choose to watch it happen or choose not to.

You hated how wet you were. You could feel it. You could hear it.

His fingers slipped out of you and circled your clit, only to press them back in a moment later; it stung just as much as the first time, and you groaned.

“So tight,” he cooed, and you felt your face getting hot.

You looked away when he began to open his jeans and free his cock. It was all too fucking much. He didn’t seem to mind, stroking himself with his hand, the fingers that had been inside you providing some slickness.

You instinctively flinched away when he began to lean down, but gasped when he sucked a nipple between his lips and toyed with the bud using his tongue. It was actually a delicate movement, and yet your sensitivity was heightened such that it made shivers run up your spine. He moaned, ever so lightly, against your skin.

Teeth grazed you and you yelped a little. It was at that moment that he pressed his hips against yours, his length flush against you as he began to move and rub over your swollen clit. His mouth left you and you watched as his head fell back in pleasure, and the sight made a series of unwanted feelings flood your brain.

He rutted against you with a litany of groans as his cock slid through your folds, which happily supplied lubrication without much encouragement. Just as you hoped he would finish soon and leave again, you felt his hand reach between you to guide himself to your opening.

“No more,” you whimpered. “I can’t. Not again.”

“You can,” he encouraged.

“I can’t,” you assured.

“You will,” he insisted, darker than before. You whimpered but resigned yourself not to resist.

As before, your self-preservation instincts kicked in unexpectedly when he pressed the head of his cock inside you and it stung, awakening old wounds and forging some new ones as well. Your hands flew to his chest, trying to push him off of you, but of course it was useless-- his hands wrapped around your wrists and pinned them to the armrest above your head. He looked down at you and he didn’t seem angry or vindictive. His face was stoic, if not a little hurt or even dejected. You weren’t sure what to make of that. What did he expect from you, after everything?

He pressed further into you, slowly. You got the impression that the pace was not about easing your pain but prolonging it, and he watched your expression morph as you tried not to cry out. You bit your lip and forced your eyes shut, suppressing as much of your responses to his movements as you could.

He was moving so slow and there was so much of him to take, it began to feel like it would take forever. When he finally pressed his hips against yours, he let out a little gasp before pushing against you just enough to painfully brush your cervix.

“Fuck!” you yelped, though you didn’t realize at first you’d said it in Russian. Sometimes it slipped out.

Nothing had ever been so deep inside you before, and you felt a headache coming on from the sheer intensity of it all.

He pulled back just as slowly as he had pressed in, shuddering before starting the process all over again.

“S-sergeant Barnes,” you pleaded.

“Hm?” he prompted.

“More, please,” you whimpered.

“Oh, you want me to fuck you harder?”

“I want you to get this over with.”

His metal hand flew to your neck.

“Stop acting like you don’t love it. I know you do,” he hissed.

You didn’t even attempt to speak, just focusing on breathing as best you could with his grip around your throat.

He hooked an arm under your leg and pulled it onto his shoulder; he was so deep in you now that you yelped.

The hand on your throat moved to your jaw and gripped your face, wrenching it until you were looking up at him.

“Beg,” he commanded.

“Never,” you barked back.

And then he was fucking you, so fast and so hard and so needy, and your voice was too lost to scream so all you could do was gasp and choke.

You lost track of time at that point. You let yourself run away into your mind until you weren’t even sure what was happening anymore. You retained a few key moments: he wrapped his arms around you and you thought it was strange; you came twice, once right as he spilled himself inside you; there was a long silence afterward, and you might have fallen asleep at some point, or maybe you were just spaced out.

You were stirred back to reality at the sound of a kettle hissing. You realized you were still laying on your couch, and sat up to see Barnes in your kitchen, taking the kettle off the stove and pouring some hot water over a tea bag.

You stood up onto wobbly legs and slipped on your robe from where it was discarded on the floor.

You watched him for a minute. You’d never seen him do anything like this. You didn’t even know if he’d had tea before.

“I hope you don’t mind,” he said suddenly. “Yeah, you using my kettle is the least of my concerns,” you sighed.

He smirked a little, grabbing some milk from your fridge to add once it was done steeping.

“Least you could do is make me a cuppa,” you shrugged.

“Milk?”

“Sugar,” you answered instead. “It’s by the toaster oven.”

You sat at the little table just outside the kitchen, waiting for him to come back with the steaming mugs of tea, which was only a moment of waiting. He picked for you the one you got for supporting the local opera house. He picked for himself a plain, dark blue one.

As he sat across from you, you expected him to say something-- he seemed like he had something to say, since he was still here. But as he slid the cuppa over to you and took a sip of his own, he said nothing, and you two were plunged into silence.

“Is there… something you want me to say?” you asked quietly.

“If there was, would you say it?” he returned with a raised brow.

“Depends on if it’s true,” you admitted.

“I’m curious if you have any regrets,” he relented. “I was wondering if you would ever… apologize.”

You nodded. “I guess that’s a reasonable thing to want. But no, I’m not going to apologize for what happened to you--”

“What you did to me,” he corrected.

“--in the facility.”

“Why not?”

“Everything I did to you, I did for a reason,” you explained.

“I could say the same thing,” he replied darkly.

“Well, my reasons weren’t quite so selfish,” you scoffed.

He scoffed. “Don’t you dare tell me that you were ‘just doing your job.’ I heard that about a hundred times that day.”

You considered that for a moment. “I wasn’t just doing my job, but I was doing a job, and I was very good at it. You were good at your job, too.” You sighed. “But, that’s all over now.”

“You chose to do what you did,” he shuddered. “I never had a choice.”

You’d never really understood his obsession with choice, with freedom. A side effect of his flamboyant American sensibilities, you presumed. But you got it now, at least a bit better.

“I have a car downstairs,” he explained as he drank the last of his tea. “We’re going to get in it, and I’m taking you to the lab.”

“The lab? It’s destroyed.”

“I’m taking you to what’s left of it then.”

“To do what?”

“You’ll see,” he shrugged. “Are you going to make this difficult?”

“No,” you answered quickly.

“Maybe I should use this anyways,” he proposed, pulling a syringe from his jacket-- how long had that been there?-- and brandishing it, “in case you struggle.”

“I won’t,” you promised, but you were already getting anxious, and you knew he could see it.

“You always say that,” he recalled, “but then you try to fight me.” He stepped closer to you, and popped the cap off the needle. You willed yourself to relax but you knew he saw the fear in your eyes.

“It won’t hurt,” he promised, “it’ll calm you down. Keep you docile.”

“No, wait--”

It was already in your neck. Just like he predicted, you were fighting, but against sleep this time rather than him. Logically, you knew you couldn’t will yourself to resist a drug’s effect on your body, but still a part of you was clawing at consciousness as your eyes fell shut.

#dark!bucky x reader #dark!bucky barnes #avengers fanfiction #marvel fanfiction #bucky barnes x reader #bucky x reader #bucky barnes smut

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yourcoffindoor · 5 years ago

Text

Bulletproof Heart Pt. 3

Pairing: Gerard Way x Reader

AN: Without further ado, here’s part 3! Sorry if there’s any typos that I missed, I kind of speed edited this one. I have one more part planned for this series, so the end is coming up soon. Hope you enjoy!!

From city to city, crowd to crowd, the tour continued on, and you went on with the show, your unwelcome encounter with Alex only making you more tenacious, more determined to outperform every band there.

You put on an unaffected front, making it seem as if you couldn't care less that he was playing Warped tour as well. Gavin was the only band member who knew about your history, and he fluttered about you like a mother hen ready to offer comfort or homicide at the drop of a hat. He would regularly attempt to gauge your feelings, but it only served to make you withdraw deeper into yourself, denying that could ever be shaken by his presence.

But the truth was you were shaken. You were scared. Scared that you would one day see that face smirking at you from a crowd and freeze, unable to ignore a presence so heavy and halting like a storm cloud threatening a downpour.

And then there was Gerard. You hadn't seen him since your first show, but your thoughts turned toward him again and again. What must he have thought that day, when Alex forced his way between you? When you stormed off alone? If he had tried to come and speak to you since that day, you hadn't heard anything. Did he think that there was still something left between you and Alex?

It was that thought that caused the most pain every time it crossed your mind, and you hated yourself for it. At night when you were alone your thoughts went around and around in the same infuriating cycle, from not caring what anyone had to think about you, to anxiously wondering if Gerard had someone else he was sharing that crooked smile with. You never let the words cross your mind or leave your lips, but your heart beat constantly with the hopeful thought: Please don't think that I could have feelings for anyone else.

Meanwhile, the Parties never ended--in fact they seemed to grow in boisterousness, picking up attendees like a tornado gathering wind. Your band mates went every now and again to socialize, but They held no value for you. Primarily because the chance of running into Alex was far too high-- You knew he would never miss an opportunity to get shit faced, and he would probably be skulking around in hopes of seeing you there, ready to latch on and torment you further. But beyond that, the chance of running into Gerard was likely to be less than zero.

That didn't stop your band mates from encouraging you to loosen up, hoping to pop the contemplative bubble that you'd encased yourself in for weeks.

"I'm gonna head out. What are you up to tonight? You should take a break from everything." Gavin suggested before heading out one night, despite knowing full well you'd die before you'd agree.

"I'll find something to keep me busy."

"I'd tell you to come with, but I know a certain someone you're crushing on won't be there."

"Oh really?" You flipped through a book on the table in front of you, playing dumb and failing miserably at it. "I do not know to whom you are referring."

"Yeah poor guy. Frank told me that there's too much pressure to drink here, so he's always in the bus alone. Bored. Desperate for human contact."

You gave Gavin the side-eye. "Alright alright, we get it."

He laughed. "Their bus is five down on the left. Y'know, if you feel like it. Thank me later." He said, darting out the door before anything could be thrown at him.

You rolled your eyes and flipped through the book, trying to read and forget the information that was just dropped in your lap. You remembered when you and Gerard had last spoke, how shy he looked when he attempted to invite you over before being cut off by Alex's sudden arrival.

Maybe a quick stop wouldn't hurt, you thought to yourself. He was in the middle of asking me to anyway...

Before you knew it you were on your feet, flinging on a jacket and taking a step outside. It would be the nice thing to do after all, since he can't leave the bus...

It took a bit of searching, but you finally found a bus with My Chemical Romance painted on its side in large black letters. Your heart did its familiar flutter as you walked up to the door, raising your hand and giving a rapid succession of knocks.

You heard a slight shuffle from inside, and after a few moments Gerard answered, his face changing from one of confusion to a soft smile as he shook the hair from out of his eyes.

"I hope this isn't a bad time," you said sheepishly, "I was told I could find some good comics here."

He flicked his spent cigarette to the ground, blowing smoke from the corner of his mouth. "Is there ever a bad time for comics? Come on in."

You followed him inside, and he stopped suddenly. "Aw shit." he muttered.

"What is it?" you asked, concerned.

"I just realized we're fucking slobs."

He wasn't wrong, you observed with a laugh. The interior of the bus was divided into piles of organized chaos; clothes tossed into piles on the floor and empty chairs, makeup left open and scattered amongst soda cans by every available counter space. A few stray guitars sat soundless, happily resting until their next performance.

Gerard was obviously a bit embarrassed by the state of the place, as evidenced by the faint red blush that clouded over his nose and cheeks.

"Yeah, so its not exactly Buckingham Palace in here..." he joked, one hand anxiously running through his dark hair. His bashfulness only endeared him to you further.

"Well my bus actually IS Buckingham Palace, and it looks just about the same so don't feel too bad."

"Perfect. Anything to make you feel more at home." He mused, relocating some crumpled clothes from a small sofa nearby. "Have a seat, your majesty."

"I haven't seen you around in awhile." You noted as he hastily shoved things into cupboards.

"I've basically turned into a hermit when I'm not performing. Since I can't step outside without seeing a bottle, I don't really have much choice."

So Gavin was telling the truth. Hm.

"Well, the hermit lifestyle is probably underrated anyway."

He laughed softly. "Oh for sure. And I'll show you whats been keeping me busy this whole time."

Gerard shuffled to the back of the bus for a moment before returning with an armload of comic books, laying them proudly on the table in front of you. "These are some of my current favorites," he began after taking a seat beside you, close enough for you to admire the look of sheer happiness in his expression as he spoke. He was clearly in his element. "This one here has some of the best coloring I've ever seen."

You must have stared at him for a bit too long because he caught your affectionate glance and paused.

"What is it?"

"Nothing," you said, immediately breaking eye contact as heat flooded your cheeks. "Its just nice to hear you talk about them. You're so passionate about it."

He laughed. "Well its also nice to talk about them with someone who gets it."

You felt like you could fly right out of your skin. Everything about him made you feel a sense of belonging that you hadn't found with anyone else before.

"Hey when do I get to see that comic you said you were working on? I think you mentioned that the last time I saw you."

"Oh you remembered! Uh, one sec, I'll pull it out."

He wandered back into the unknown void that was his bunk, and came back with a folio filled to the brim with concepts, sample panels and character sketches.

"I'm pretty proud of this. Its a work in progress so uh...be gentle."

You knew Gerard was talented, but you were taken aback at the skill and creativity that had gone into this endeavor. Here he had created a world entirely his own and you were drawn in immediately.

"Gerard this is fucking fantastic! Seriously I need a full length comic right now."

"Right now? I'd rather talk to you."

You and Gerard talked as if you'd known each other forever. You found him to be witty and charming, but most importantly sincere; and the conversation flowed with ease.

"You know I'm a little surprised. I wouldn't have expected a guy like you to be alone in his bus on a big tour like this."

He laughed. "What do you mean?"

"I mean there's a lot of bands here that seem like they're only motivated by the attention they can get from girls. You're not like that."

"Its never been about that for me. I find those guys just as annoying as you do." He paused for a moment, hesitating as if he was unsure if he should continue. "Speaking of annoying...That guy, Alex--"

"Oh, yeah, sorry about him. I didn't even know he was gonna be on this tour since I haven't spoken to him in ages. I'm doing my best to avoid him."

"You seemed pretty upset when I saw you last. Just wanted to make sure he wasn't bothering you or anything."

You paused for a moment, replaying his words in your head to process them. Gerard not only noticed your reaction to Alex, he remembered and was concerned?

"So you guys aren't like...a thing anymore?"

"NO," you said a bit too eagerly. "I mean no, definitely not. I'd have to be crazy."

"Good," he replied softly, "I mean, I'm glad as long as you're happy."

You realized you had been making eye contact with his lips, the pair of you inching closer to each other with every syllable.

Your breath slowed, and you tucked a strand of stray hair behind your ear. "And...there's no one that you're involved with?"

"No," he confirmed without missing a beat, "but there is someone I have in mind."

If there was a speed limit for heartbeats, you would have been violating the law. Your next words came out almost as a whisper. "And who would that be?"

Hazel eyes flashing, Gerard cupped the side of your face with one hand, and you instinctively moved closer to meet his lips. The kiss felt like it was part dream, too good to be true as endorphins flooded your veins, a heat kindling in your stomach. You couldn't begin to tell if it lasted seconds or minutes, but still when your lips parted, it felt too soon.

"Oh." was all you could say, and the pair of you merely grinned, satisfied to be silent in the aftermath.

You caught a glance at your watch. 1:05 AM.

"I can't believe I have the willpower to do this," you began reluctantly, "but If I don't head back now I'll end up living here."

"I don't see the problem." he remarked, and you punched him in the arm.

"Thanks for a great night." you pecked him on the cheek, and before he had time to react, you jumped up and made your way towards the door.

"Come back anytime for more talk about comics!" he called after you with a laugh.

Your cheeks were buzzing and a warmth spread through your veins, giddy from your night with Gerard. You paused outside of your bus door, taking a deep breath to try and steady your heartbeat. You didn't want to rouse any suspicion from your band mates-not yet anyway. You just wanted to keep this moment to yourself for awhile.

After you cooled down, you quietly opened the door, hoping nobody would notice you sneaking in and that you could hop straight into your bunk. Instead you were met with Gavin and Liz sitting down on the sofa, looking very concerned.

"Hey," you said with hesitation, "Everything alright?"

They shared an uncomfortable look.

"Y/N, I'm not sure how to put this..." Liz began, fumbling with her fingers in an attempt to find the right words.

"What's going on?" you felt the blush from only moments ago drain away into cold dread.

"Its Alex," Gavin explained, "He and his band have been going around with a camera getting girls to flash them in exchange for backstage passes..."

You rolled your eyes. "So he's still trash. What does this have to do with me?"

"Well, the thing is, he's been telling people he has video of you. And him. Together. And that its gonna be included with the rest of the fucked up footage they're recording."

Your pulse started racing, erasing your giddy buzz from only moments before. You slumped into the nearest chair, trying to gather your thoughts.

"I never even knew I was being filmed..." you said softly. Nausea bubbled in your stomach as you were unwillingly dragged back into your intimate memories, a place you had successfully moved on from in recent years but whose impact you could never truly erase.

"Are you ok?" Liz asked, her voice low and gentle as though she was afraid you were about to shatter. Those words were all you needed to be set off.

"No. No I'm not fucking okay." You stood up suddenly from your chair, pacing. "Do you know how hard it was to leave that situation? Do you you know you much I struggled to make a life an a name for myself? How I had to rebuild myself after him? And now this?" You were shaking, your voice trembling with pent up emotion. "This was supposed to be an amazing, once in a lifetime experience. The beginning of everything for us. So why can't I just be left the fuck alone!"

Your band mates called after you as you stormed to your bunk, pulling the curtains tight behind you and burying your face in your pillow. For the first time in a long time, you let yourself break down, your unhindered sobs turning your pillow into an ocean.

#gerard way fanfic #gerard way x reader #gerard way imagine

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vicarfelix · 5 years ago

Text

Honest Intentions

Vicar Max x Fem. Reader

Warnings: Language. Smut.

A/N: GOD okay so I wrote this awhile ago and I cannot write smut to save my life. I suck so bad at it, I can’t ever seem to make it long enough, but this was so angsty good that I just couldn’t not post it.

Word Count: 2,155

“The question is, after all this, do you still trust me?”

If she had been in a cartoon, she was sure there would have been a gray, swirling cloud above her head to display her irritation. She couldn’t believe that he had lied to her. A lie. A betrayal of truth. A fib. A dishonest statement. And for what? Just to ensure his chances of her taking him to see some scholar that he didn’t even like? What was the point of that?

She never expected respect from her crew. She didn’t expect it from anybody. However, when she had earned the respect from someone, she expected full honesty in return. This was a total blow to her respect as a captain and trust as a girlfriend. She was unbelievably angry at him, confused even as of to why he wasn’t upfront about his desires. Truthfully, she was really hurt.

Max had lied in order to get her to take him to see Reginald. A former colleague of sorts of his that he needed to see to have his book translated from French. It wasn’t until they found Reginald that it became clear as of to how they even ended up there. Max claimed he couldn’t risk her not bringing him there to find him. He immediately sensed that she was upset. She had every right to be. The sickness in his stomach as a result of the guilt was a testament of that. She had convinced him to leave Reginald Chaney in one piece, refusing to let him lay a finger on him. They got what they needed out of him and left.

The silent trek back to the ship was seemingly everlasting. Her footsteps were heavy on the grounds of the Monarch wilderness as they returned back from Fallbrook. She needed some time to calm down and cool off before speaking to anyone. She was of no use to anybody being this upset. Last thing she wanted was to take her anger out of someone who didn’t deserve it. Max followed a bit further behind than usual, giving her as much space as possible without getting separated. No one said a word on the journey back to The Unreliable. Even Ellie didn’t even try to poke fun at the vicar who would be sleeping in his own quarters for now. It wasn't Max's reaction she was afraid of. It was the captain's.

They finally arrived at the ship long after nightfall, stars dotting the dark night sky. They would be spending the evening in route to Groundbreaker to get supplies and other materials in the morning. She entered the ship first, ADA greeting the returning space adventurers as always.

“Welcome back, Captain.”

She usually smiled in relief upon hearing her voice that signaled a safe return, but she was in no smiling mood. Everybody else had gone to their bunks for the night, which prompted Ellie to go as well. That left the captain and Max in the bay of the ship. The only sounds were the clanks and tinkers as she put away her belongings into the lockers. She couldn’t look at him. She was afraid that she just might lose it. He came up next to her, his voice low and quiet;

“Captain, I-”

“I don’t want to talk.”

He sighed. He wasn’t surprised at her response. He couldn’t figure out if she was speaking to him as his boss or his girlfriend...or both. She whisked away from the lockers and headed to the stairs leading up to her quarters. She just wanted to be alone for a little while and give this some serious thought. She planned on discussing everything with him in the morning. However she realized this was an impossible wish when he followed suit, desperate to get his message across to her;

“If nothing else, please know that I am sorry,” He pleaded, entering after his lover into her room; “I’m aware that I have put a lot of unnecessary stress on you today.”

She scoffed and shook her head incredulously. He didn’t seem to understand how the trust she had put in him had been seriously violated. That’s what made her more upset than anything. It was clear that he wasn’t leaving until this issue was resolved. So, she went off.

“You lied to me, Max. For personal gain,” she hissed; “I don’t like being lied to you.”

She was leaning against the frame of her bed, arms folded over her chest as Max was leaning against her desk. Her demeanor was tense and cold...not a pretty sight to see.

“I know. If it’s any consolation, I lied before I began to care for you...before I loved you. It wasn’t an attempt to break your faith in me.” He admitted.

A surge of energy went to her head, her cheeks heating with rage;

“That doesn’t make it any better. So, you didn’t lie to me as your lover? Fine. You still lied to me as your captain,” She snarled; “At the end of the day, Max, I am still your captain.”

He didn’t want to fight with her He didn’t want her to be angry at him. All he could do was continue to express his apology and hope she'd forgive him. He wasn’t lying when he said he cared about her. About how he loved her. The two of them had each said it once before, so she had to admit it made her heart beat a little faster hearing him say it again.

With this being said, he still had a rampant temper. Regardless of any situation, he didn’t like being talked to this way. He got defensive when others used an unpleasant tone with him. His pleading for forgiveness was beginning to mix with a sear of anger bubbling up in him.

“You are my captain, you will never witness me denying that. I don’t know what you wish for me to do other than tell you, honestly, that I’m sorry.” He replied, his voice getting rather scary; “But might I add that you weren’t so fucking honest at first either.”

All the blood in her body seemed to rush to her face and rapidly back down to her feet. She knew what he was talking about. The fact that the crew went months thinking she was actually Alex Hawthorne when she actually wasn’t. She hadn’t been upfront in the beginning and had lied about her identity. She would always feel a sense of culpability for that.

“I know that. I know that I didn’t tell anyone who I really was, but that was for the sake of my safety as well as everyone else’s. I lied because I had to,” She spat; “You lied for personal reasons. You lied to intentionally distress me and deceive me into doing something for you.”

He rolled his eyes dramatically and the veins in his arms were prevalent as he gripped the edge of the desk. He now felt like she was blowing this out of proportion.

“I wasn’t intentionally trying to hurt you. I would never do that,” He responded; “I lied because I didn’t think you’d take me all over Halcyon just to find some man that might have the answers I was looking for.”

She rubbed her temples with her fingers, feeling as if this conversation was going absolutely nowhere;

“That’s another thing,” She fired off; “What’s going to happen when we get to Scylla and the book gets translated? Will I no longer be of any use to you? Is this going to be over once you find what you're looking for?"

In an instant, his anger lifted and his heart seemed to stop at her words. She watched as a normal color returned to his face. His narrowed eyes and furrowed brows morphing into a softer, borderline concerned look. He stood from the desk and took the half step down from the desk to where she was standing. If there was one thing Vicar Max would never do, it would be that he would never lie about the way he felt about someone.

“Captain, darling, I wouldn’t ever lead you on that way. For any reason whatsoever.” He breathed out gently.

His sudden change in expression ultimately calmed her down as well. She sighed heavily as her judgement cleared. She knew why he really had lied. It wasn't to upset anyone. He had spent his whole life taking roads trying to find answers that ultimately led to a dead end. He was frustrated and disappointed. She could relate to that.

“I just want you to trust me. I want to trust you,” You admitted; “I would’ve taken you to him regardless of who he was. You didn’t have to lie.”

His hands cupped her face, she instinctively cocked her head to further rest her face in his hold.

“I trust you. I always have. I never intended for you to doubt how I feel, because I have been nothing but honest about it. I care about you and I love you.” He confessed; “The question is, after all this, do you still trust me?”

She did. 100% she trusted him. It would probably take a hell of a lot more than him lying about some sketchy prison dude to completely break her faith in him. However, she felt her devious side begin to bubble to the surface. She could totally use this situation to her advantage. Maybe she could get a little bit of a rise out of him in a positive way.

“I don’t know,” She said in an overly teasing tone; “I think a certain vicar is going to have to redeem himself somehow...”

His pupils dilated and his hands that had been by his sides were now slowly fumbling with the button and zipper on her pants.

“Is that so?” He purred in his captain’s ear; “I think I’ve got some ideas.”

In a matter of seconds, she was sprawled on the bed, pants discarded, and his kisses were hot on her neck. She moaned deliciously as his right middle and ring finger dragged across her heating sex, his left hand pinning her arms above her head

“Max...” She breathed out.

Oh, he loved when she said his name. It sent a fiery sensation all through his body. His strong, independent captain begging for him and only him. He was the only person who ever got to see her this way. She managed to break one of her hands free, reaching to unbuckle his own pants. However, he withdrew his hand and stopped her;

“This is all about you, Captain.” He growled.

His lips detached from her skin, he let go of her other arm as well and placed him face just in front of her. Her legs were draped over his shoulders as his tongue licked a heavy stripe and her desperate whimper filled the room. He sucked and kissed as one of her hands was steady on his head to prohibit him from going too far, while the other was pressed against the headboard behind her. It felt like electricity was crackling all through her body as he mercilessly pleasured her.

“Oh, fuck...you’ve got quite the mouth for a preacher,” She tried to laugh, but it came out as another moan.

Obviously this wasn't the first time she had ever been in this situation with him. But it still surprised her every time.

His chuckle vibrated against you, his voice muffled slightly;

“You better fucking believe it.”

He knew her backwards and forwards, which why he put his arm over her waist to keep her from squirming too much. He smirked as he felt her muscles contract against his hold. It was a damn hot sight to see. His face buried between her legs, his tongue and lips working wonders on the woman he adored so much. Normally, he’d hold off on letting her come undone. He’d slow his movements to tantalize her and make her beg. But she deserved what she wanted after today.

“Max, please...” She said feeling her legs begin to shake.

“I’ve got you, love.” He spoke.

Her head fell back onto the pillow as a flash of white covered her vision. Her legs tightened on his shoulders as she crashed over her high. He continued to suck her and work her through it. His name fell from her lips once more as she felt yourself settling back to normal. He grinned once her breathing attempted to slow, he returned to her side. She supposed that she owed him now, but that’d come later.

“Okay, yeah. I forgive you.” She huffed out once her heart slowed.

He laughed genuinely, falling onto the mattress and pulling her close. He was relieved that she was here with him now and that she hadn’t kicked him off her ship. He knew one thing for sure.

He would never lie to her again.

#vicar max #vicar max x reader #vicar max fanfiction #vicar x reader #the outer worlds

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thejakeformerlyknownasprince · 5 years ago

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Disability and Loren

@zarohk asked for my thoughts on a Disability Studies/Media Studies perspective on the disability depictions in Animorphs. Which was foolish, because I’m teaching an entire dang class on the subject of superheroes and mental health, so I have Many Thoughts. [PLEASE NOTE: I am nondisabled, so if I err, please tell me so.]

Loren’s role in #49: The Diversion does a lot of things right, and a lot of things wrong. She incurs a traumatic brain injury that results in memory loss and blindness a couple of years after Tobias is born, and lives with said injury for about ten years before Tobias finds her and gives her the ability to morph, which restores her sight but not her memory.

A few places where I commend the depiction of Loren:

It gets into the massive underemployment of disabled Americans. Loren is smart, canny, athletic, compassionate... and working a call center job in exchange for state benefits. Said state benefits do not afford her a decent standard of living; Tobias notes that she has few possessions and almost no time for leisure activities. Americans with disabilities are twice as likely to be unemployed as those without, and those who do have jobs are ten times more likely to be paid less than minimum wage, e.g. in sheltered workshops.

It shows how inaccessible a lot of systems are in the U.S. Tobias notes that Loren accidentally grabs an expired quart of milk — because nothing on the label is printed in Braille. Putting raised text and/or Braille on food packaging is a health and safety issue, one that the U.S. ignores even though it violates its own laws (e.g. the ADA) because companies tend to do what they want and “what they want” is usually not to spend more money on packaging. The call center and bus system are both marginally more accessible, especially when Loren has Champ to help, but they’re still clearly spaces set up for sighted people that don’t take blind users into account very well.

It shows some of the workarounds that help deal with accessibility problems. Loren’s house is set up so that there are clear paths to and from all of the relevant spaces. She’s doing that to allow herself to move around comfortably in that space, because she’s made it accessible for herself. She memorizes the layout of the local store, and uses that to get around as well. All of those details help show that she’s adjusted, and actively interacting with her own circumstances.

It drives home the difference between service dogs and pets. This distinction is extremely important, and it gets ignored all the time by entitled ableists who want to bring their pets into stores. Tobias and Marco both assume from the outside that it can’t be that hard to become a service animal — just do what Loren says to do, right? — but it takes Tobias 0.02 seconds to realize that it’s not that simple and that he cannot imitate Champ’s lifetime of training on the fly. He says that he manages to get his mom home in one piece, and that that’s about all that can be said for his sad performance as a guide. Champ has skills like ignoring interesting smells and applying exactly the right amount of pressure to the harness that most pets don’t have and also most pets can’t learn. Champ is not a pet, at least not while he’s in that harness; he’s a gainfully employed expert assistant.

It rounds Loren out as a character, and definitely does not just make her into a lesson or problem for Tobias. Loren is gently humorous, tolerating her coworkers’ teasing and Ax’s attempted juvenile delinquency with an eye-roll. She’s compassionate, listening to other people’s problems on the phone with genuine concern and not swatting flies if she doesn’t have to. She’s tough-minded and stupidly brave, chucking rocks at Visser Three’s head and flying at attack helicopters as a three-pound bird. She’s fallible, unable to support Tobias emotionally even when he asks her to do so and unwilling to check in on him after leaving him with her sister. She’s a fully rounded person, one whose personality is informed but not defined by her disability.

It talks about some of the unromatic aspects of a Traumatic Brain Injury. Too often in other works of fiction, we see a person get bonked over the head and wake up with no episodic memory but all other brain functions intact (*cough* Rachel in MM1 *cough*). Loren actually gets into the fact that she forgot huge chunks of language, forgot how to brush her teeth, forgot how to walk across a room. She obviously lost her sight as well, and she mentions lifelong balance and coordination problems. Even her amnesia isn’t absolute — she has some traces of recall, but can’t make anything coherent of her impressions. Her injury isn’t 100% realistic, but it’s more so than many TBIs we see in fiction.

It focuses on the intersection of disability and social class. Tobias notes that Loren is under a compounded threat because of her inability to move to a more secure neighborhood and her obvious vulnerability. He feels a lot of disgust with himself when he and Marco and Ax are harassing Loren, because it’s so clear that this isn’t the first time she’s been harassed. Tobias understands that his experience with poverty as a nondisabled male minor is different from Loren’s for those reasons.

A few places where Loren falls into the common traps of implied ableism creeping into fiction, as written about in Narrative Prosthesis:

She gets “cured.” Loren falls into the “kill or cure” dichotomy, like most of the other disabled characters in Animorphs. In her case, it’s that she gains the power to morph and in the process regains the ability to see. It isn’t a complete cure, true — she still has no memory — but it means that she’s no longer blind for the rest of the series. Having the occasional character no longer be disabled sometimes isn’t automatically problematic; having every disabled character get either “fixed” or killed off inherently treats the disabled body as a problem that needs to be solved, through sci fi nonsense if no other way is available.

She implies that she’d rather die than continue to be disabled. When injured by dracon burns, Loren initially refuses to morph out even though Tobias tells her she’ll die if she remains a bird, because (they both assume) to morph out is to return to her blind human body. This moment buys into the stereotype that it’s better to be dead than disabled, again inherently devaluing the lives of actual blind individuals.

There’s a certain amount of mystery around how she became disabled. It’s interesting that we never actually get a definitive answer on that one — Loren says she was told it was a car crash, but there’s also an implication that she was attacked by controllers, and we don’t know for sure. However, the fact of her disability is treated as an aberrant state that needs to be explained, the book inherently asking “why are you like this?” By contrast (for instance) she doesn’t ask Tobias “why are you in the body of a hawk?”

She views herself as a burden, and the narration doesn’t do enough to contradict her. Loren says that she couldn’t possibly be expected to raise a child while also blind and coping with a TBI. Real blind people raise kids all the time, however, including blind single parents, and it’d be nice to see some evidence in the story that Loren’s assumption is wrong. Loren also apparently assumes that she can’t begin to play a role in Tobias’s life even now that Tobias is more self-sufficient, again because she views herself as relatively helpless and non-contributing due to her disability. There are some hints that she’s wrong, but we don’t really see her either begin to contribute to the resistance or build a relationship with Tobias until after she’s become un-blind.

Tobias’s view of Loren is often pitying. As much as Loren doesn’t initially view herself as a potential maternal figure to Tobias, he doesn’t view her as a potential mentor either. He repeatedly expresses horror or sadness at her life circumstances, and assumes that her life must be barren due to the spartan nature of her home. (Of course, that begs the question of why the hell a blind woman living alone would ever bother hanging pictures on her walls or putting doilies on her coffee tables, but Tobias doesn’t consider that angle.) Again, Tobias is allowed to assume that her life must be meaningless if she’s disabled, but it’d be nice to see some contradictory evidence in the form of her having close friends or inane hobbies or some other proof that to lead a disabled life is not to automatically lead a lonely one.

Loren expresses bitterness and desperate desire to be nondisabled. Again, it’s fine for any character to say “I wish my life was different,” and it’s a common consensus among blind writers/bloggers that being blind is often a pain in the butt. However, views as extreme as “you need vision to have a fulfilling existence” or “vision is part of what makes us human” are ableist crocks of shit. Loren doesn’t go so far as to espouse those extreme views, but she also doesn’t seem to view herself as having a well-rounded life in spite of her disability. It’d be nice to see Loren talking about sight as handy or enjoyable or a thing that the designers of 99% U.S. environments assume everyone must have, rather than a necessary precondition for a minimum standard of life.

Loren’s disability is somewhat medicalized. Same caveat as above: disabilities are by definition medical things that some bodies do or have that other bodies do not. However, discussing disability primarily through “this is how your body is different from Implied Normal of Nondisabled Body” and focusing on doctor’s notes, diagnoses, physical differences, etc. can serve to disconnect the lived experience of the individual from their body. It also tends to focus on the ways that the body is “the problem” rather than focusing on the ways that environments and attitudes are problematic, which then prevents anyone from asking hard questions about the environments and attitudes. Loren’s doctor’s note, discussion of scarring and loss, and repeated physical descriptions are somewhat more medical than social. It’d be nice to see a little more emphasis on the social factors that make blindness a disability (e.g. improperly labeled milk), and less on “your eyes are different from those of Implied Normal Nondisabled Person.”

#animorphs #animorphs meta #long post #loren fangor #ableism #disability studies #disability representation #accessibility #social model of disability #animorphs criticism #blindness representation #49 #the diversion

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phantom-le6 · 4 years ago

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Episode Reviews - Star Trek: The Next Generation Season 5 (4 of 6)

Time for another round of episode reviews from season 5 of Star Trek: The Next Generation.

Episode 16: Ethics

Plot (as given by me):

During an inspection in the cargo bay, Lt. Worf is hit from above by a falling cargo container, and he awakens later in sick bay to learn he has been paralysed by the accident. With no cure for the condition immediately to hand, Worf asks Commander Riker to assist him in a ritual suicide known as the Hegh’bat something all Klingons do when faced with such injuries. Riker is appalled by the idea, and Dr Crusher likewise refuses to give up on the idea of Worf recovering, bringing aboard neurologist Dr Toby Russell to consult on the matter.

Riker seeks advice from Captain Picard, who asks him to consider the matter from Worf’s perspective; as a Klingon, Worf is part of a warrior culture that, by its very nature, would disdain physical infirmity and cannot abide life with a disability as humans can. Eventually, Riker finds a way out of assisting Worf by noting that the ritual should be performed by a family member, namely Alexander, and when Worf tries to use Alexander’s age and part-human heritage as excuses, Riker calls him on it, accusing him of being afraid to fight for his life as many of their fallen comrades have done.

Meanwhile, Dr Russell notes that Klingon anatomy is heavily over-designed, possessing a redundancy for every vital physical function to ensure that if a primary organ is damaged, a secondary one can always compensate. She suggests using a genetics-based replication therapy that could create a new spinal column for Worf, but it is still experimental and Russell has only a 37% success rate in holographic simulations. Dr Crusher suggests they’ll stick to conventional methods, but when these prove insufficient for Worf, Russell offers him her experimental treatment. Later, the Enterprise assists survivors from the transport ship USS Denver, which has been damaged by a Cardassian mine. When Crusher learns Russell tried an experimental treatment on a patient who subsequently died without considering the use of conventional medicine, she has Russell relieved of duty.

Worf ultimately opts to undergo Russell’s procedure against Dr Crusher’s advice, and Picard has to convince Crusher that while normally her normal medical philosophy would be the more valid option, in Worf’s case a high-risk operation is better than either a life being disabled or ritual suicide. The operation initially appears successful, but Worf goes into cardiac arrest moments after his vital functions are taken off life support, and he apparently dies. A heart-broken Dr Crusher has to break the news to Alexander and to Counsellor Troi, who Worf named as Alexander’s guardian if he should die during the operation. Alexander insists on seeing his father, but when he does, Worf shows signs of life. It turns out Worf’s brain has a back-up for his synaptic functions in the same way that his body has multiple back-up organs.

While Dr Crusher is thrilled that Worf will recover, she condemns Dr Russell for putting her research efforts ahead of the lives her patients, pointing out that proper medical research takes time and intensive study, and that Russell is ‘taking short-cuts, right through living tissue’. Meanwhile, Worf begins his recovery and allows Alexander to help him, having previously tried to keep the boy away during his paralysis.

Review:

This episode is one with a very apt title, as there’s actually not one but two issues of ethics being tackled. The first is around the idea of euthanasia of the permanently disabled or terminally ill. For me, this is the least well-handled of the two because it’s being tackled via a character from a warrior society, and those tend to be the most barbaric around the differently abled. Consider the film 300, and what that showed us of how the ancient Spartans would kill at birth any child who was not physically ‘perfect’. For all that it makes sense from a strictly tactical and militaristic perspective, assuming you’re only looking for physical prowess on the battlefield, the idea of trying to get anyone to kill themselves over a bum leg or deformed arm or anything like that is discrimination and murder, pure and simple. To put someone out of their misery when facing a painful degenerative illness with no chance of a cure before the end whatsoever, that is one thing, but to euthanise the disabled just for being disabled? That is simply barbaric and inhuman, and frankly an attitude no one on the Enterprise should have been trying to endorse. Frankly, I lost some respect for Picard and gained a lot for Riker looking at how they acted; Picard is all but giving an all-clear to his tactical officer topping himself, and Riker is the only one trying to make Worf fight for his life like a real warrior.

The other ethical debate revolves around the question of medical ethics, and whether the end justifies the means when it comes to short-cuts and other unsound research methods. In this, it’s clear Crusher is the one in the right, because the validity of Russell’s argument is founded on the idea that Worf is from a culture where the high-risk experimental operation beats the immediate alternatives. If, like me, you see Worf’s attitude as typical of the regularly abled acting like spoiled, whining babies because they’ve been made part of the differently abled community, then Russell’s arguments cease to carry weight. Research should take time where it needs to, especially in case you’re proceeding from a false supposition that the research actually disproves. The biased results of improper research into vaccines and autism resulting in autistics being vilified as a result of vaccine science when they’re actually nothing of the sort is by itself reason enough that improper research should not only be banned, but treated as a criminal offence.

Perhaps the biggest undermining element of this episode, however, is that it centres on something happening to a main character of the show and not a guest character. Anytime issue exploration on an issue like this involves a main character, especially on a show like Next Generation which doesn’t really do overall story arcs even by this stage, you know the character will somehow recover and all will return to status quo. Had the show done this with a guest character, they could have gone a different way and perhaps avoided potential advocacy of some very, very morally questionable stances on these issues. It’s great drama and good issue exploration, but I think the show should have been more opposed the idea of killing off the disabled just for being disabled than it appeared to me. For me, the episode only gets 6 out of 10, and it’s lucky I don’t mark it down more than that.

Episode 17: The Outcast

Plot (as adapted from Wikipedia):

The Enterprise is contacted by a humanoid race called the J'naii, who as a species have no gender. They ask the crew for help in finding a shuttle which has gone missing. It is theorized that the shuttle disappeared into a pocket of null space, a type of space which drains energy rapidly. In short order, a rescue mission is planned, for which Riker volunteers to pilot a shuttle to retrieve the shuttle crew. A member of the J'naii named Soren insists on accompanying Riker, acting as a co-pilot. Soren proves to be a good pilot. Riker and Soren share a meal and become more comfortable with each other. They are interrupted by another J'naii, and Soren leaves quickly.

While the pair is charting the null space, the shuttle is damaged, and Soren is injured. While being treated by Dr Crusher, Soren asks her several questions about female gender identification. While Soren and Riker work on the shuttle, Soren confesses that she is attracted to Riker and states that she has a female gender identity. Soren explains that the J'naii are an androgynous species that view the expression of any sort of male or female gender, and especially sexual liaisons, as a psychological perversion. According to their official doctrine, the J'naii had “evolved” beyond gender and thus view the idea of male/female sexuality as primitive. Those among the J'naii who view themselves as possessing gender are ridiculed, outcast, and forced to undergo "psychotectic therapy". This is a form of conversion therapy meant to remove any desire for gender-specificity and allow acceptance back into J'naii society.

The affair between Riker and Soren grows and eventually is discovered. Soren is put on trial, but before she answers to the charges, Riker bursts in and attempts to take the blame for the situation. Soren foils his attempt and proceeds to passionately defend herself and express her outrage at what their society does to those who express male or female identities. J'naii diplomats force Soren to undergo psychotectic therapy, citing reformed citizens' newfound happiness and desire to be normal. Riker's emotions and love for Soren grow and he decides that he cannot leave Soren to this fate. He tries to explain the situation to Picard, who is sympathetic to Riker but says that he cannot sanction a rescue mission as it violates the Prime Directive, not to mention Riker throwing away his career. Worf visits Riker in his quarters and offers to go with him on an "unannounced visit" to rescue Soren, since he is unwilling to let Riker face the task alone. When Riker and Worf beam down to the planet to rescue Soren, he realizes that the therapy has already been performed. Soren refuses to go with him, claiming that she is now happy and was “sick” during her affair with Riker. Soren apologizes to Riker, who returns dejectedly to the Enterprise with Worf.

Review:

‘The Outcast’ is one of those episodes where Trek aims to represent one thing, misses by miles and hits something else issue-wise instead. The idea of the episode was to finally remedy the fact that homophobia and same-sex relations had never been dealt with by the franchise. Apparently, this is something Roddenberry had very much been in favour of, as he was a big believer that 24th century humanity wouldn’t have the same kind of prejudices we have now around non-heterosexual relationships. As such, the intended premise of this episode was to tackle the issue through the metaphor of an alien race.

However, the race in question is one that abstains gender, and for whom picking a gender such as male or female is seen as a kind of deviancy by the wider society. As a result of this, and the alien Riker falls in love with choosing a female identity, the homosexuality metaphor is very much weakened. Instead, the episode becomes of an allegory about transsexuality and transphobia, which is even less well-tackled by the entertainment industry than concepts of homosexuality. As such, Trek inadvertently went a bit ahead of its time.

It’s great seeing Riker honestly try to get his head around the language issues that can be brought up dealing with someone who doesn’t apparently identify with a binary model of gender, but at the same time apparently lacks easily understandable substitutes. In many ways, that’s probably one of the key reasons why it’s so hard for film and television to effectively deal with gender identity concepts. How do you right about the many genders that apparently exist beyond male and female when they’re often not fully defined and perpetually being redefined? Physical sex and the societal construct that is gender get over-simplified and baked into the mainstream of our society at a very young age, and we’re leaving the wider scope of both out of the picture until too late in the lives of many people. If we are to make society more inclusive to people from the LGTBQ+ community, I think that over-simplification needs to be reversed and the simplification process adapted so that all gender constructs can easily be taught at an early age and then built upon. Unlike some, I don’t believe that gender itself is a problem, but how we let it be defined and taught is.

This episode apparently got a lot of LGBT criticism back when it initially aired, mostly around the belief that the show was somehow condoning the conversion “therapy” Soren was being subjected to. Looking at it from the objective perspective of an LGBTQ+ ally who knows his TNG, that’s not what the show was doing at all; otherwise, Riker would never have tried to rescue Soren from that fate. The fact is that in any exploration of how the LGBT community was treated back then, and still is now in many parts of the world, you can’t always paint a rosy picture of how things should be and be done. Sometimes you also have to show the reality, and the reality is that conversion therapy was still something that was forced on people back in the 1990’s. The fact that this practice is now going to be banned in the UK makes this episode now a cautionary tale of what we could revert to if we’re not careful. For me, this episode is a good episode, worth about 8 out of 10. It would have got higher had it actually tackled the issue it aimed for, or dealt more directly with transgenderism.

Episode 18: Cause and Effect

Plot (as adapted from Wikipedia):

The viewer is shown through the episode that Enterprise is caught in a time loop (referred to in-universe as a "temporal causality loop"). The loop begins with the senior members of the crew playing poker and continues for about a day when they discover a spatial anomaly. While studying the anomaly, a ship suddenly emerges from it. Commander Riker suggests decompressing the main shuttlebay to move the Enterprise out of danger, while Lt. Commander Data advocates using a tractor beam to push the other ship out of the way. Captain Picard chooses Data's option, although the tactic does not succeed and the other ship strikes one of the Enterprise warp nacelles, causing a critical warp core containment failure and the destruction of the Enterprise moments later, at which point the loop restarts.

Initially, crew members are unaware of the loop. However, Dr Crusher begins to hear noises before she goes to bed following the poker game. Having a sense of déjà vu during the poker game and able to predict the cards Data will deal during a subsequent loop, Crusher takes a tricorder with her to her room, records the voices, and later Data analyses them to discover they are the panicked commands and broadcasts of the crew. The senior staff work out that they are stuck in the loop; the voices they are hearing are those of themselves from the previous loop just prior to the destruction of the ship. They evaluate the voices to determine that the loop is restarted due to the collision of the two ships but do not know how to avoid that collision in the first place. Data suggests that his positronic brain can be used to send a short message to himself in the next loop which may help them to avoid the collision. When they arrive at the anomaly, and after the collision, Data sends the message.

On the following loop, Crusher again has a feeling of déjà vu during the poker game, but when Data deals the next hand, all the cards are threes, followed by a hand where all players have three of a kind. The number 3 begins appearing throughout other parts of the ship's operations while, again, they determine they are stuck in a time loop. When they reach the anomaly and the ship appears from it, Data suddenly realizes that the 3 stands for the number of command pips on Riker's uniform, and realizes that Riker's original tactic (decompressing the main shuttlebay) will work. This allows Enterprise to safely clear the oncoming ship. The anomaly disappears and the time loop ends, and the crew realizes they have been trapped in the loop for over 17 days, while the other ship, the USS Bozeman, has been missing for over 90 years. Picard welcomes the Bozeman's crew to the 24th century.

Review:

While the concept of the loop in time would be made famous more generally through the Bill Murray movie Groundhog Day, this episode of TNG was written, produced and aired well before that, and if the TNG staff are right in believing such an approach to time travel hadn’t been done before, then this episode is quite ground-breaking. It’s certainly not one that would have been easy to make, as Riker actor Jonathan Frakes directed the episode and was under orders to direct each pass through the time loop differently. In essence, the episode uses a combination of alternate camera angles and changes in the events of each loop to try and avoid any appearance that you’re watching the same act multiple times. Now I say try because apparently when the episode first aired in the US, a lot of viewers phoned in to report a possible broadcast problem.

Watching with the benefit of advance knowledge of what the episode is about, it’s much easier to appreciate that you’re not just watching the opening act multiple times, and it gets more interesting on the later loops due to the crew’s growing awareness of what is happening. However, I think we could have done with just three loops, as by the fourth one, we’ve worked out what’s happened and I think an extra loop at that stage is almost redundant. It’s also a shame that Ensign Ro has so little to do in her recurring guest role this time round, as does Kelsey Grammer right at the end. It would have been a much better idea if they could have saved a guest appearance by Grammer for something with more substance and less of a techno-babble problem episode. Still, all in all it’s a good episode; I give it 8 out of 10.

Episode 19: The First Duty

Plot (as given by me):

As the Enterprise returns to Earth for Captain Picard to give the year’s commencement address at Star Fleet Academy, the Academy Superintendent Admiral Brand informs Picard that an accident involving Wesley Crusher has occurred. Picard subsequently relates the news to Wesley’s mother Dr Beverley Crusher; apparently, Wesley has by now become a member of Nova Squadron, a much-revered part of the Academy flight team on campus lead by cadet Nicholas Locarno. The squad had been practicing a flight demonstration for the commencement event at the Saturn flight range when a collision occurred, resulting in the death of squad member Joshua Albert.

Picard puts the Enterprise at Admiral Brand’s disposal if it should help the subsequent investigation, and while visiting the Academy Picard also looks up the groundskeeper Boothby, who once gave Picard some hard advice as a cadet that helped him out of a problem of his own. Picard tries to thank Boothby, but he notes that Picard having turned his life around well enough to become captain of the Enterprise is thanks enough. At the investigation hearings, Locarno claims the crash resulted from Joshua panicking due to his being a nervous flyer, but satellite footage of Nova Squadron’s flyers reveals a discrepancy between the squad’s account and what actually occurred. Picard later talks further with Boothby about the squad, who reveals what a high image they’ve established for themselves and the influence their leader Locarno has over them.

An analysis carried out by Lt. Commanders Data and La Forge suggests the squadron were trying to ignite their plasma trails; combined with the squad formation depicted by the surveillance satellite, Picard deduces that Nova Squadron was attempting a different manoeuvre to the one they claimed; specifically, a Kolvoord Starburst, which involves the ships passing within metres of each other at a central point before igniting their plasma trails. The manoeuvre has not been performed at the Academy in over a century because the last time it was, an accident occurred that killed the entire squad trying to perform it. Picard confronts Wesley with his deductions, and when Wesley refuses to answer, the captain tells him that a lie of omission is still a lie, and the ‘first duty’ of every Star Fleet officer is to the truth.

Faced with an ultimatum by Picard to either admit the truth himself or be turned in by the captain, Wesley goes to Locarno, who refuses to even consider joining Wesley in abandoning their cover-up. To him, the team comes above everything, and tells Wesley he should resign from the Academy if he can’t live with getting away with the accident via cover-up. As Admiral Brand brings the investigation to a close, noting that she cannot prove any dishonesty on Nova Squadron’s part and preparing to give them a minor punishment, Wesley speaks up and admits the truth. Initially, Locarno says nothing, but it is later revealed to Wesley by Picard that Locarno makes a plea to take full responsibility, noting that he abused his position as squad leader to not only make the squad attempt the prohibited stunt, but also to cover it up. As a result, Locarno is expelled while the rest of the squad will have all of their academy credits for the past year suspended, preventing them from advancing with the rest of their class.

Picard warns Wesley he will have a hard time ahead now the whole Academy knows the truth, and Wesley thanks Picard for his advice as the pair bid each other farewell.

Review:

While Data episodes tend to be my favourites among TNG episodes, I honestly believe this is probably one of the show’s most iconic episodes, if not the most iconic Trek episode ever. It’s Wesley’s second guest appearance since actor Wil Wheaton left TNG, and to date it’s his best appearance, but it’s also the episode where we get to meet Boothby, who is a remarkably influential and iconic character for the series despite his relative lack of appearances. Through in future Voyager cast member Robert Duncan McNeil playing Nick Locarno, and it’s well on its way to be being a very good episode before you factor in Patrick Stewart delivering some truly iconic acting as Captain Picard, especially the Ready Room scene with Wesley that makes the episode so iconic.

Now apparently, executive producer Michael Piller had to do some pushing back against the original intentions of this episode’s writers to get us the episode in its final format. Apparently, the original idea was that the incident was far more serious, and by not owning up the whole squad would have been kicked out of the Academy, with Wesley remaining silent to honour his word to his friends. However, Piller didn’t like the idea of Wesley doing something that severe, and as a parent he wanted to push for Wesley to be responsible and eventually admit the truth, to correct his mistake in the end by owning up even if it meant making things worse for himself and his friends.

In both versions, the character conflict remains the same; to stand by one’s friends or by one’s duty to be truthful. Now granted, there will be other occasions where the circumstances require discretion and loyalty to one’s friends simply because most people would misunderstand the truth. However, in most cases I think admitting the truth is the best thing to do, even if it does mean you and others close to you may get in a bit of trouble, and this is for two reasons. First, true friendship means being willing to call your friends out if their behaviour is morally wrong, and making sure they do the right thing.

Second, we’re all human and we all make mistakes; that is a simple, irrefutable fact of life, and most of the time if we do make mistakes, we can stop ourselves from repeating them by learning from them. However, in some cases people can’t learn from their mistakes if they avoid taking responsibility for them, and some people may not take that responsibility alone. Sometimes they need help, whether through being called on it like Picard did for Wesley, or owning up on behalf of those involved like Wesley did for his squad-mates. Moreover, a ‘friends before authority’ attitude backfires in other areas; it’s how bullying gets to be so prevalent in schools and work places, and it is why concepts of ‘playground’/’locker room’ honour codes should be systematically obliterated from our society.

Friendship, true friendship, is not based on secret codes of silence that enable bullying, encourage lying and that are dishonourable and despicable to say the least. It is based on honesty and trust, including the trust that your friends will hold you to account if you betray yourself and that you will do the same for them if they need it. True friendship means sometimes being a bit harsh, a bit tough, and any friendship that can’t stand such tempering probably isn’t really friendship to start with. Overall, I give this episode 10 out of 10.

Episode 20: Cost of Living

Plot (as adapted from Wikipedia):

Lwaxana Troi arrives on the Enterprise, announcing that she will be holding her wedding there with a man that shares many interests with her, as judged by a computerized matchmaking system. Captain Picard, initially wary of Lwaxana's plans, is relieved that all she wants from him is to give her away as the bride. Privately, Counsellor Deanna Troi talks to Lwaxana about the marriage, and while she is happy that her mother is marrying again, she is surprised and concerned that she will not follow the Betazoid custom of being a naked bride at the wedding. Lwaxana informs her that such customs offend the groom and his people. Deanna notes her decision to abandon her own custom is strange given the pride she normally takes in her Betazoid heritage and the high rank that she holds in their society.

Meanwhile, Lt. Worf is having difficulties in getting his son Alexander to complete his obligations such as homework and chores. Deanna offers the idea of creating a contract that would allow Alexander to have time to play after completing his tasks. While this initially seems to be acceptable to Alexander, Lwaxana arrives and downplays the idea. Lwaxana makes friends with Alexander, taking him to a holodeck simulation of the Parallax colony despite Worf's orders. Lwaxana encourages Alexander to be a free spirit, but Deanna believes that Lwaxana's message is confusing Alexander.

Eventually, Campio, Lwaxana's husband-to-be, arrives at the Enterprise, and Lwaxana finds that he is not as perfect a fit for her as the computer match suggested, being stricter and more demanding than she was led to believe. She evades Campio by taking Alexander to the holodeck. There, Alexander reiterates some of the advice she had previously given him. Taking it to heart, Lwaxana arrives at the wedding naked as per Betazoid custom, and Campio, offended, leaves her at the altar. Lwaxana winks at Alexander, who smiles in turn.

During these events, the Enterprise becomes infected with an undetectable parasite that feeds off nitrium, a component used in most of the starship's materials. Though initial system failures are attributed to normal wear, they become concerned when warp and life support systems begin to fail. The crew is able to identify the parasite, and as life systems fail and cause the crew to pass out due to lack of air, Lt. Commander Data, who is able to function without oxygen, navigates the starship to a nearby asteroid field rich in nitrium and coerces the parasite to move there. Ship systems are quickly restored to normal before the wedding.

The episode ends on an amusing note with Lwaxana relaxing in the Holodeck simulated Parallax colony mud-baths with Deanna, Alexander, and Worf. Lwaxana admits she made a mistake with Campio and thanks Alexander for helping her out. Meanwhile, a confused and irritated Worf asks, "You're just supposed to sit here?"

Review:

As ever, throwing Lwaxana Troi into an episode proves to give us a rather poor showing, because the character is so over-the-top in her supposedly comedic antics that you end up feeling as annoyed by her as most of the Enterprise crew. It’s only when she’s forced to drop that façade that you get anything of worth out of the episode’s main plot. Basically, Lwaxana is trying to re-marry out of a desire to avoid loneliness, and ends up trying to live vicariously through Alexander because her intended husband is the total opposite to her. It’s not the best approach to the situation, nor does the B-plot about parasites endangering the ship fit in well with that, or with Worf trying to teach Alexander about responsibility. A better use of these elements would have been to have the intended couple each having trouble accepting the other’s perspective on life, and so they’d each take sides in the Worf-Alexander dispute to try and indirectly keep the argument going. Worf might then be convinced to give his duties a rest for a bit to see things more from Alexander’s point of view, only for said dereliction of duty to endanger the Enterprise. Getting through the danger, father and son would see the value of compromise and balance, and in so doing demonstrate the idea to Lwaxana and Campo, who would follow suit. As it is, the episode is just another cringe-worthy instalment more worthy of the show’s earlier seasons, and I can only give it 4 out of 10.

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