r/whoosh

a.k.a. the stuff I mentioned in this post.

Surprise, Duke actually really enjoys sparring with Jinx (she kicks his butt) and bantering with her (she keeps getting flustered when he smiles at her sass it’s cute) and the kid’s all of maybe seventeen but she’s got really pretty ankles (hard not to notice when she keeps driving those pointy heels into his ribs ow) and she smells nice so whoops there he goes feeling like a dirty old man when he’s just barely hit twenty-five.

Spoiler alert that nothing’s gonna happen until she’s closer to twenty, when she sits him down for a talk (more like ties him to a tree) about how she’s actually been running her clan for the last three years and working as a ninja for longer so maybe he should just get over that age-gap thing?

Pro: she’s cool about his bromance with Ripcord and Flint-the-ex passive-aggressively trying to get him back.

Con: her two deadly ninja brothers are breathing down his neck 24/7.

Then Tomi starts wondering what it is about these Joes that his sibs find so attractive. First Snakeeyes and Scarlett, now Jinx and Duke. Naturally, this leads to him showing up at Nicky’s door with a half-assed (but expensive; he’s a classy kind of asshole) bouquet of flowers and reservations to a very nice restaurant. The T-Rat is all set to nope on out of there because he is still the one Joe in possession of a working survival instinct (and also maybe possibly still a little hung up on Snow Job, who turned out to be straight as the day is long in summer in the Artic) but Tomi bribes him with the aforementioned reservations. (Did I mention how nice the restaurant is? It is Very Nice.)

They have dinner. It's… not entirely terrible? They bicker the entire time and Tomi doesn’t invite again, but next time he sees the Joes (he’s tagging along with Snakeeyes for whatever reason), he makes stilted small talk with T-Rat while Snakeeyes and Scarlett go all googly-eyes at each other over pooling the latest intel on Cobra.

After that, Tomi always has a Very Good Reason for just-so-happening to encounter the Joes—but somehow T-Rat is always the most convenient person to pull the ninja reveal on and get/give information before vanishing like a mysterious shadow (so Tomi thinks) back into the night.

(Nicky lets exactly none of Tomi’s crap stand. His reasons for putting up with the ninja are therefore unknown—and Tomi has zero idea about how to feel about being unsure of his place in regards to someone else.)

(Don’t tell Tomi, but when someone like Storm Shadow has his back, then Nicky doesn’t have to be always looking over his shoulder. He can finally relax.)

So Nicky and Tomi kinda hang out but they are officially Not Dating.

(They’re totally dating).

Subplot about the very Chinese Mrs. Lee feeling unsure about a Japanese man being her de facto son-in-law? Maybe.

@afterthatpatroclussy