everything you do shows your hand

a little whimper leaves his lips at the chin grab.

“ in my defence, it's honestly not that big of a deal. they might be self-replicating, but it's just a matter of adjusting the programming and—okay, fine. that lab explosion last week might have been them. but i took care of it! no one got hurt! ” give him some credit. look at his eyes. he's just a friendly neighbourhood spider-guy!

spiderlet. his hold dissolves off peter like pixel dust.

is this going too fast? has he created his little monster, except the victorian parts are a space odyssey bonanza? on a kid.

what’s it matter that he’s unduly proud of pete for scoring 0/2 on the UTI scale in the usual sense of intermingling at house parties and swinging from rooftops under the influence—- spider-‘man’ doesn’t drink. the fun stuff or his own kool-aid, yet. but come on. the bar is teen tony stark. junior has to do better.

Humiliating order. All the more for his ready compliance.

Slowly, Frederick stands. Hand protectively clutching his concealed ostomy bag like a white elderly grandmother’s purse when passing a marginalized stranger. Right palm to ipsilateral thigh—his slightly better side—he pushes off for needed lift.

In his chilled wine cellar, Frederick stockpiles illicit pharmaceuticals: anti-psychotics, general anesthetics, and depressants. Chosen for their ability to disinhibit and subdue. The staircase to the basement is closer than the previously fantasized escape through the backyard glass door. Frederick glances there. This is a short distance heat he could win. If he allots himself an unofficial, undetectable lead. He recalls their last sprint (in this very room): electively, and then (neurons hot-wired, their protective myelin stripped worry-thin like his graying hair) electrically (his heart rate—high—ticks up): FBI agents clotting on his porch, their dim, fuzzy outlines cast through the front door’s frosted glass, his lurching, the unpleasant pang that follows when Hannibal grapples him and his large intestine twists like a schoolboy forearm rug-burn at the stitched hole in his abdominal skin, chloroform and its crisp nasal-sting smell akin to a resort pool bar, Hannibal’s hand pinching Frederick’s nostrils and his chin a firm kickstand to his temple keeping his asphyxiating head from tipping, Hannibal’s voice lowering like sediment as Frederick’s mind sink-shrinks into itself.

Frederick swallows. His esophagus clicks spitty-wet. He pushes the porous memory from his mental view and it seeps out as beady forehead perspiration—hydrophobic-like. (Every week, Frederick rips open a small, square alcohol prep pad when administering Rifat’s intravenous medication. Sensorially activated by the sneezy nose-wring of ethanol, the moment congests his mind each time; he recently restocked his hospital with herbal-scented wipes to fumigate his head: malignant malodor, just as pervasive as the memory—in essence, the essence is ineffective).

He must look busy. Cooperative.

With his middle and index finger splinted together—the leftover two spring-loaded into a circle at the Dantean spiral of his thumb (gesture reminiscent of a priestly benediction)—Frederick gingerly sweeps the roped man’s neck to assess his vitals. His own panicked pulse putters like a red thread jammed in an electric sewing machine, tangled beyond recognition amongst the man’s heartbeat at the seamstress end of his touch.

He retries: out of practice, his hand clumsily clip-clops for the carotid. Seamed between a rope-crossed intersection, the skin there tinted white-pallid-pressure, Frederick’s fingers slip under the nylon. Just below the man’s jaw, hand position poorly placed like a misused quotation mark, Frederick reads his pulse—fat, legible pumps, he notes, that could just as easily be a willful misattribution of his own.

He shakes out his hand (fingers fringe-flicking) to resettle his soldering nerves.

Another method: Frederick’s thumb shucks open the man’s upper eyelid, palm leveled to his temporal plate, knuckled backside helmeting his hair. Dilated pupil. Irregularly responsive. Not oriented. But no signs of permanent or active deterioration.

Frederick exhales, relieved. Posture momentarily softening. At the sculpted point of his shoulders, wool-stiff, his sport coat remains impassively sturdy.

This confirmation of life propels him.

Belated, almost amused: “He did no such thing.”

Frederick strolls two cautious, coordinated steps near the man’s tucked legs—nearer Hannibal and nearer, by true design, the shallow basement stairwell. As if the reason for his meager migration, Frederick tickles the sole of the man’s foot—his toes curl: the plantar reflex; his body can feel, he can feel his body.

His attention politely ignores the scrotum, the penis—large—the posterior—larger—the groin scrawled full with ink-black pubic hair, many layered cursive coils like fine, monoline penmanship. Conscious, visible avoidance—starting now.

A coward observing power from a misleading enough radius will assume he’s partaking in it. Frederick is excited by the prospect. Hannibal has yet to assign if this sensual excitement is also sexual.

’ Shibari, ‘ he snips the man out of the lacework, which pops at its tensest like abused buttons. His layers inhale. ’ A practice of enforcing or forfeiting control, has long been enjoyed by the structured and the sexually deviant alike. ‘

If Frederick is having trouble locating himself on that spectrum, Hannibal’s knowing look is free of charge and as well of respect.

Hannibal is where he wants to be not by simple human coincidence, but by biological pre-destination; design. He’s free already. He hears no imaginary ticking compressing his chosen leisure activity linearly from the sides like time, or from the ceiling like ambition. ‘Like’: these invented extortions can’t exercise him into action. Only a real stimulus could. He still has Frederick’s overdressed business card and a casserole dish.

He capitalizes on the Pisan lean of the man; all it takes for him to topple onto the custard of his hands is a neutral measure of persuasion. He splashes as if an unhooked frozen torso were keeping center under the concentric ripples. There’s no foil underneath to repel his sweat. The first salt came from a body.

He watches Frederick’s pupils. In his presence, Frederick notoriously uncontracts—game eyes, or, counterintuitively, involuntary physical relaxation into distress that is smooth-muscled familially to the uterus, the stomach, the rectum; a doe before she softens in soup, edible floating fear. It’s submission as the preferred state.

The knife glances. Its face is waxed well to flash Frederick a reflection of himself as Hannibal coerces the hilt into the oily heart of his palm and conjoins their hold.

’ Firm grip. ‘

And gall. He teaches the angle smoothly, blade to the bellied swallowpoint of permanently cutting off a pulse.

dove's eyes follow her path until sofia clouds them, oracle-smoke, and she turns, blinks, tries to expel the vision. the bulbs of her shoulders protrude from the limp ring of draped fur, overly round. it's not quite sheep's clothing ⸺ this is pearl mink ⸺ but all the same, the outline of dove's body rises from the pelt and shows as something defiantly taut within something downy.

"i'm familiar."

by virtue of that, sofia falcone,

Penguins are birds. Now, guess what her last name means.

“Dove” looks anorexic in the right, hot way Sofia could never crack and looks on at with stomach-acid jealousy now that her hair’s started falling out and needs layers to hide it; they’re perfect polarities. Dove looks... like something deserving wings. Sofia’s raw want for plucking foams up. She thought she was past it.

Even at the service she imagines for Oz, nobody will be able to summon the pity to call him good-looking. Would be too funny at a funeral.

❛ Relax. I don’t wanna fuck you. Tell me something about yourself. ❜ ‘Sell yourself.’

and maria hates being detected. it was a good thing that she was a better commander than she was an operative. 'course, that didn't mean she didn't have her time in the sun, but even just as the voice in her agents' earpiece had driven her to that level of paranoia.

maria couldn't have predicted what she'd do if she has a romanoff-level history. maybe she wouldn't have cared that much; you survived an authoritarian regime that stripped you of your identity for most of your life and experimented on your body. maybe that'll give you some sort of an immunity against these things.

hm. something to ask her for saturday brunch.

— if she survives this.

❝болят ножки?❞ like madame b. used to condescend to her to make her better, as a slice between two presses of glass.

fifty-five more hops en pointe with her big toenails leathered loose, that was a relief until they started growing back each cycle, then growing in along the sides.

madame b. would have her take out her toe spacers when she seemed affected and do it bare, swirl a ribbon of her blood into the gray dust floor her handlers, heavy men, walked in outside boots. the girls could get sepsis, but got told the strong ones wouldn’t. that was pain back then, the kind she misses. if madame b. saw her now, she’d say america had cheapened her pedigree.

Hannibal was a taste he had reluctantly but steadily acquired. Although he had the autonomy to choose, it was certainly not without a particularly relentless influence imposed on him. He thinks it would be dishonest to say he would not have gotten here if not willed into existence by Hannibal’s dexterous hand. What had been shattered, now rectified in the memories of teacups and cognizance, remained true between them.

The scar was something he never forgot was there. The itching discomfort of regrown skin, healed over and swollen, darkened against the pink of his underbelly. Sensitive under the rough pull of his shirt, stitched together with a resounding regret, all marred flesh spelling out his forgiveness.

It’s pretentious. They’re both. — but the truth remained abiding, Will did not know himself as well as he knew himself with the other. An even more reluctant truth.

“You were not at the nativity of my awareness,” Will says, almost a laugh. Bitter with himself, bitter with everything. “My genesis does not start with, or end with you, despite the impression you might have gotten.”

Hannibal declines the orchestrated offer, approving of its coming to fruition as predicted. The scissors’ jaws split light. What Will has truly passed along is his scent, now cohabitated by notes of Hannibal’s.

’ Impressions are volatile in nature. So are impressionists. ‘

When Hannibal found him, Will was as solid as a drop of ink in water.

Long-term couples habitually report smelling the same, to their blunted knowledge, all of it anecdotal in reality—only genetic relatedness produces olfactory equals, and that’s why desiring one’s blood sibling or parent sexually is considered a pathology. Inbreeding leads to defects.

Long-term couples, more accurately, perform social scent-marking. When asked, they overstate each other’s imprint to reassure a potential intruder and themselves in turn there’s absence of exploitable boundary. No space for a third, as it were.

’ Jack was happy to exploit the dark parts of you when it suited him. Frederick Chilton told you who you were in hopes of another surrogate pet. Alana bargained for you to be who she idealized you to be.

’ I let you show me, ‘ with increasing urgency.

There's a practiced line for BRUCE WAYNE to balance ; precariously boorish or incorrigibly uncomfortable. Often, it's the other person that decides. Not him.

Tony seemed to graze it thoroughly well compared to others.

Why? Even for THE WORLD'S GREATEST DETECTIVE it's a little difficult to ascertain. Outside of the obvious, Bruce didn't find their mindset to be too familiar.

[ ₁ ] He was THE INDUSTRIALIST. [ ₂ ] Bruce was Bachelor Number One.

" Is the distinction in the contract? " He asked, smiling. Visibly still entertained. Maybe from the specificity. Maybe from the discomfort. He'll let Stark decide. " I suppose I haven't read of any of those on the news lately. "

But it didn't really take a genius to guess what could be there. At least it was good to know, there was some restraint behind the PLAYBOY BILLIONAIRE rouse.

Eyes latched onto the millisecond of hesitation. Brows furrowed in consternation before he pulls back the smile to his features before the other's notice. " I'm thinking some fresh air might be good. "

and rearresting whatever development, professionals would say if uncompelled to keep cashing in their checks. but here’s the thing, he feels a-okay. he’s winning this round. his high-wire act has lost the wobble and gained—- ground, right. he doesn’t care if he’s crashing a ride bruce intended as a getaway. he snatches another flute for a magic trick goodbye gift and gives the empty one to bruce.

Homelander understands. Understood? No—understands. Solar Flare hasn't lost faith so quickly, so impulsively. Homelander knows what it's like when they try to contain you and constrain you and brutalize you and belittle you and degrade you—like you're one of Jacky Hayes's mice, like you're subhuman, when, in reality, what they did was make you better than them, and now they should suffer the consequences. Live in that reality. Even if it kills them.

Solar Flare is wondering who will have to die once he can think straight and get his bearings when he suffocates on sprayed dry chemical. He scrapes his hands down his face, choking and gasping and swearing—or, rather, attempting to swear. He shakes his head wildly. His eyes are no longer glowing as he blinks at a frantic pace. He can't see.

His hands no longer radiate heat. He has the conscious realization that he can feel the air against his skin again and that he is no longer drowning. Still, if he can't see where he's aiming anymore, he could hurt more people than he would know how to forgive himself for. And what if Homelander is still here, looking out for him? What if Homelander thought that Solar Flare wanted to hurt him? He doesn't.

He doesn't.

Solar Flare collapses to his knees. He shakes himself out like a wet dog; dry chemical splatters.

He looks up.

He can see.

A jar is big when you’re this helpless. The walls are transparent. Big Brother, aaalways... watching.

“I would never let anything happen to you.”

You know, another him, mirror-him watching back from a bathroom fragment at Maeve’s after he couldn’t get it up, once reminded himself, that thing where they’d pull your foreskin back as a kid so it wouldn’t get baked in, you remember that? You’d always get hard as a rock in front of all the white coats. Get it the fuck together.

He’s detecting two heartbeats less. Well. There were gonna be lay-offs regardless.

Knock knock. Who’s not all there? There’s Sage knocked out cold in a pile, her worst angle yet sponsored by Ben&Jerry’s ft. body positivity. There’s no arm Spanx for all that on his green earth. All those Vought-billed late-night pig-outs on Taco Bell end here. Her brains are leaking s’mores-pink and unspecial like anyone’s. Biggest mind in the world, but she couldn’t think herself out of a rookie mistake?

What would happen if he forced a nail in through her ear and sewed the hole shut?

His eyes slowly roll on that thought back to Solar Flare. The air smells like barbecue. Homelander touches Solar Flare’s face, but not before making sure the break of dawn back-frames him. That’s the moneymaker shot. That’s how Barbara would come to him as a boy, a softened punishment, until she stopped bothering and stuck to the hard shell he so desperately wanted to crawl inside of.

It’s how Madelyn used to look to him when she rode him. Solar Flare being naked soothes him. Feels right in a sea of wrongs.

running.. he'd tried it. he'd tried fighting. all avenues had landed them here, the wall at his back and his pulse lurched up into his throat. there's no calm to be grabbed, just empty air that swells uncomfortably hot and an old ache in his shoulder that won't quiet down for how he keeps on swinging. this time it's an already busted recliner. the soldier cuts off the captain's path but it isn't stopping it.

" i said stop ! " and this time his voice cracks with the demand. it's as broken as the rest of him, old wounds refusing to heal and his eyes impossibly wide, unblinking despite ruptured blood vessels and all the evidence he'd not stopped since their last encounter.

three breaths and the fourth loses its shudder. he's slowing down.. not quite calm, but not on the verge of an assault, either. tired knows him with intimacy. it sits in the dislocation of his bones. it's mixed into the blues that won't flinch away from a face that still feels wholly ghastly under these lights. a specter he can't remember the source of, there to sit in his shadow and make promises it can't keep.

i'm not gonna hurt you loses its meaning after a while.

Bucky comes off off-putting, eyes like glow in the dark stars. They’re so clean from head-on, you’d think there’s nothing behind them. For the first time, he thinks maybe this was the wrong call. It’s none of Steve’s business to corner someone before that someone’s decided who they are, he knows damn well. But he can’t just let it go. He’s done it once already, back on the train.

He is bargaining for his life. Kraven might kill him accidentally—how things sometimes break when you don't really mean for them to. Dmitri's body might be like those things.

Dmitri is fragile, like this. Inscrutable and unremarkable. often means more fragile than should, would be practical. His hair is greying. Is Sergei's? Would Elsie know?

"I can't."

Not on purpose. Not compelled.

And then soul-sucker wisps of smoke are the least of his concerns when the more acute, more consolidated problem is the

surprise

fist

jawbone

He tastes blood where his lip catches between teeth. A yelp and a growl and something guttural, something immediate, and

his knee on Malfoy's chest, eyes watering, and almost, almost, almost, he wants to see his hands around the bastard's neck and he towers over him and his mouth–

–his mouth drips blood.

This is maddening.

His palm is shaking against Potter’s mass. His ribs weigh down in the middle, elastic where they shouldn’t be. Potter is heavy. Off his rocker. Does he have his wand? What will he do? Draco feels like a rabbit under a wild beast let off its chain.

What separates an Auror from a Death Eater, his father used to say, is the Sorting Hat and the fortune of common sense.