strange magic,

Magic. It was something she’d never truly understood, even with her long-term friendship with someone as powerful as Zatanna. But Dinah had grown desperate for any chance to try and understand all that had happened to her in the past months. More than that, there was a part of her that was afraid that one day she would look over at Ollie and find that she’d outstayed her welcome. He was distant. Rightfully so, but seeing the way he looked at her now – like he didn’t even know her anymore – was slowly tearing Dinah apart.

“I wouldn’t ask if I didn’t trust you,” Dinah said softly. Her eyes looked away, almost embarrassed to reveal just how much she needed this to work. “Whatever happens, just – if you feel the least bit uncomfortable, you need to stop. Promise me that. Please.” I don’t want to hurt you again.

Trust. That was something that Sofia wasn’t sure if she deserved. After reading a few pages of the Darkhold, after letting herself fall into that temptation... was she worthy of that still? Sofia looked Dinah in the eyes and slowly nodded her head. “Okay,” Sofia said in a quiet voice, before nodding her head more confidently. She wasn’t sure how much warning she could to give Dinah without making it sound like she was trying to talk her out of the spell. “I’m not worried about me being uncomfortable, I’m just... I’m not sure what reaching in there will do to you. And if we hit a dark spot... a bad memory...” Sofia’s voice trailed off. “I don’t know how to prepare you for what you might see.” Or what the truth might be. Maybe Sofia was scared that those dark moments over the last few months were Dinah and she wasn’t ready to face that possibility. “If it gets bad... I’ll pull the plug. For me or for you, okay/” 

Nora frowned at Sofia’s answer and what she was sensing from her, she hadn’t noticed anything when she first met her, then again she had been struggling with her magic back then. “Sort of?” She asked slightly confused. “How did you sort of get your magic back?”

Sofia wanted nothing more than to give Nora a disinterested shrug and send the other woman away, but she forced herself not to. The more she pushed people away, the crazier things that she did... the worse it was. The more that people noticed that something might be wrong. “I’ve just been.... hitting the books hard.” It wasn’t a lie really, the Darkhold was a book after all.

It should’ve been easy for Tony to believe in heroes. After all, he had been part of an initiative explicitly designed to bring extraordinary people together to fight the battles that no one else could – what could be more inspiring than that? People screamed his name and assumed that was what he lived for. Others saw his journey and assumed it was nothing more than a journey to atonement, or a broken man trying to resolve his own issues by playing God. Maybe they had a point. Sofia, though – she had never looked at him like that. There was never the impression that she was anywhere other than right in front of him, judging him on what he did rather than what he had done. “Better than you showing up five years from now as a super-villain because I offended you,” Tony replied with a grin. “Believe me, that’s happened a few too many times now. It wouldn’t be out of the realms of possibility.”

She was deflecting. Tony knew the dance well. Duck under the compliment, especially if it regarded something close to the chest. Add in a joke, get people off the topic, make them feel more comfortable talking about literally anything else. “She’d probably deny knowing me at all,” Tony replied, the path of least resistance. “When I said I wanted to thank you, Jess suggested an all expense paid trip to wherever the hell you wanted. How did you guys meet, anyway?” The specifics had been lost – after all, Trish had just returned from the dead. What else did they need to discuss? “Standardised testing is bullshit,” Tony said, leaning forward in his seat. “Filling in those little bubbles gave me anxiety. I only got my act together with Dad’s persistent motivation.” Howard’s own twisted form of motivation, but that was beside the point. “The question is what not to study. I was fifteen when I went to MIT. It’s cliche, but they were the best years of my life. It wasn’t about writing answers on a page anymore, you know? The brightest minds in the country all coming together to create something new. You’ve already brought a woman back from the dead. I wouldn’t say it’s a stretch to push the boat out to whatever the hell you want.” Tony grinned. “Pun intended. Come on, if you could do anything in the world and know you would nail it, what would it be?”

Sofia smiled and shook her head. There was a time where she hadn’t thought she would dark magic… and then Trish died – so maybe there was a chance for a future where her life kept spiraling downwards and she ended up a super-villain. Maybe opening the Darkhold was the first step in that direction, but, even with her magic feeling less controlled, less reliable... but then there were moments like this where she could see where she started. See the person she was before she came to New York and the person she wanted to be when she was younger. “Well, I mean there is still time for all of that. We’ll have to revisit that in five years.” Of course, that assumed Sofia stuck around that long. Staying in one spot more than two years wasn’t something she did, ever. But the idea was starting to have its appeal. 

But long term had implications that Sofia wasn’t ready to deal with yet.

“Sounds like her,” Sofia replied. She wondered what Jessica would say about Tony if she asked her, if Jessica would outright deny that she knew him or if Jessica would end up giving her another pep talk (maybe this one revolving around talking to strangers, despite who they were). An all expense paid trip would have been nice but this was better. Even if Sofia wasn’t outright saying it. “A rooftop,” Sofia said with an awkward laugh. “I had just come to New York and... nothing panned out the way I thought it would. The monks at the sanctum were less than friendly so I took off to clear my head and ended up watching a silent movie with Jessica.” Of all the things that Sofia thought was solid in her life, she never thought a random stranger she met her first night in town would end up being one of her most important people. 

a limited starter call for sofia!

please be specific with which character you want the starter for (otherwise I’ll just roll a dice and pick one LOL) 

For every “Trope” I get, I will post a TV trope for my muse.

( Drowning My Sorrows ) — This trope is characterized by characters who use drinking as a crutch to forget their problems. In television, these characters / moments like this are generally used for comedic relief and only become serious or angsty if paired with mentions of alcoholism. Or the drinking is only introduced in order to garner sympathy for the character and so they do something to make the character feel better in the moment but it’s a simple “treatment of the symptom not the condition” imo. Did you come here for me to grumble about the trope first? No? Too bad Stef.

For every “Trope” I get, I will post a TV trope for my muse.

Sofia had offered to try and use her magic in order to help Dinah differentiate between herself and what she was forced to do. What was mind control and what was Dinah. Their last conversation had ended with the confession that Dinah was scared that she’d hurt Sofia again – and that the things she had done before, she wasn’t sure who was behind the wheel. She felt like she had wanted to do those things and Sofia… she couldn't accept that. Dinah was the kind of person who would come in and help Sofia at a moments notice, the kind of person who helped others, the kind that gave Sofia a home, a roof, even when she didn’t deserve it. 

Sofia brought a chair closer to him so she didn’t leave his side and he kept his hand on hers. Wrapping his fingers around her own. “How could I be upset with you?” He asked, his voice much more quiet then it normally was. “It was self defence, wasn’t it? My dear. When we were children, Jerome-” He paused, taking a second before he continued the story. He couldn’t feel too much, even thinking about Jerome when they were kids. “Jerome used to take beatings, sometimes for me. He’d protect me. In that sense, I felt- back then, like I loved him. I was safe with him. Until one day, as I was picking out the glass Uncle Zach managed to get into his arm. Jerome decided that it wasn’t fair anymore. He declared because we were twins, we should match. He took that same shard of glass that was covered with his own blood and wrapped part of it in my filthy shirt. I begged him, I cried for him to reconsider but every time I did it would only make him angrier. He took my arm and he found that spot where I’d just bandaged up for him, and he plunged that filthy shard of glass into my skin, and when he was done, Jerome picked me back up. He dried my tears and he told me wanted to go off and play. Like everything normal.” He described. 

“I’m telling you this because if he did that to me, his own mirror image. His flesh and blood, when he was a child. I can’t imagine what he could have done to you. As a grown, dysfunctional adult. He may have been my brother, my dear… but he was a monster.” He said, as though he was trying to justify her actions. “I don’t want you to feel sorry for it. I want you to feel pride in the fact that you did what had to be done. You put your own life first… and I wouldn’t have it any other way. Out of the two of you, I think you know who I prefer.” 

Sofia had been about to tell Jeremiah that he should have been angry with her because it was his brother, his twin, she never really understood their relationship and now that Jerome was dead... she probably never would. She had heard some of what had happened in their childhood, but it always seemed to change. The twins had very different memories of what had happened, and the way Jerome was -- and the chemical exposure Jeremiah endured, Sofia wasn’t sure which was the truth. And now? She was sure she’d never know the truth. Was she at peace with that? No -- she had too man questions to accept that she’d never know... but she didn’t have much of a choice. “I’m sorry, Jeremiah,” Sofia whispered to him.

They walked down the hall, and into the bathroom. Jessica remembered showing up at Trish’s doorstep, bloody knuckles and dirt under her fingertips. The way she’d shaken as her sister led her to the bathroom to clean up. How hollow she felt, for hours and hours, the numb shock broken only by intense waves of emotion that would hit out of nowhere, leave her screaming and sobbing. I didn’t want to, but I wanted to. I couldn’t – I had no choice!

There was no mind control at play here. Sofia had killed Jerome the same way Jessica had snapped Kilgrave’s neck on the docks. “You made a choice,” Jessica said slowly, taking the medkit. She set it aside for a minute. “You made the only choice you could live with. And I know how hard it was, believe me,” she whispered. “We’re gonna clean you up okay? I’m gonna help you, I just need you to stay with me a little. I’m usually not big on emotion, but if you need to cry or scream or hit something, that’s okay. I’m not going anywhere, I promise.” She pulled the shower curtain back, and turned on the water. The sound of the tub filling, the faint steam already rising in the air was soothing. 

A choice. Was it a choice? Hearing Jessica say it was... it made her feel better, in a way at least. For once, it felt like the power was in Sofia’s hands and she hadn’t been robbed once again. Though, she had lost something in that warehouse. Part of her humanity perhaps. But even that was too much for Sofia to admit. That was like saying that Jerome had won something there when he lost his life. And she didn’t want to think that in his final moments.... he got something out of what had happened. What she had done -- the choice she had made.

Jessica’s voice tore through Sofia’s thoughts and she blinked. If she tried hard enough, she could forget the feeling of his hands or the cool concrete of the warehouse, but Jessica’s voice was keeping her in the present and it was so much harder to get lost in a daydream when she was looking at the blood on her hands and clothes. Everywhere she looked was another reminder of what had happened. Sofia nodded her head, her mind too fragile to even ask Jessica what she meant when she said she knew how hard this was. It felt like one of the things that Sofia didn’t need to know - or maybe she just didn’t want to. Not now, at least. 

[text: Sofia]: I went for a walk this morning and came back very much alive. Shocking I know! [text: Sofia]: I’m a bit tired, but hardly think it would kill me to go out again [text: Sofia]: I very much appreciate this, Sofia. What you’re doing for me. Helping me, it’s all very lovely of you [text: Sofia]: But Sofiaaaa  [text: Sofia]: I need somethgknf [text: Sofia]: dfg [five minutes later] [text: Sofia]: I’m fine [text: Sofia]: I stood up a little too fast [text: Sofia]: Remind me to get heated floors in the next house [text: Sofia]: You may be right about the couch :p 

Tony, contrary to popular belief, had always been a philanthropist. Even as acting CEO of Stark Industries, he had dedicated just as much time to intelli-crops and medical advances as he did creating things that went boom, but as he had soon discovered, the bad you did, especially if that bad shed blood, far outweighed the good. He was still living with that red on his hands, and now the time that he had to wash it down the drain had depleted substantially. Iron Man was a good start, but now that the timeline had been expedited, he needed to make definitive changes – and as any intelligent person knew, the future began at home, or at least in the immediate vicinity of it (Tony had made sure that his home self destructed right before he moved out of the Tower on a permanent basis).

“Sofia, I don’t have to do anything. That’s kind of part of my charm,” Tony said, leaning back on his chair, fingers tapping against the side of his glass. The world was dull, partly because he had his sunglasses on to hide the damage from the night before around his eyes, but even at that he could tell this had hit some part of Sofia that he hadn’t expected. He just wanted to give her the step up that he had as a teenager, with Howard Stark as his father. It didn’t seem like something massive, but Tony was more than aware of the fact he had no idea how people reacted to things like this. Tony took his sunglasses off, folding them and slipping them into his top pocket, leaning forward on the table. “This is weird, right? You don’t need to take it. Don’t feel pressured to take it.” He waved his hand, shaking his head at her words. “Don’t say anything. I know what you did.” He looked at her for a beat. “You brought Trish back,” he said, voice lower, though he had ordered the most private table in the place anyway. Celebrity paranoia continued even now. “She … she means a lot to me, and she’s my best friend’s sister. Believe me, a stint at MIT isn’t nearly enough to make up for that. Plus, you’re smart. You deserve to be there, simple as that.”

There was a small smile at the corner of her lips because she knew that Tony didn’t have to do anything. But Sofia wasn’t sure how to say thank you without sounding -- pathetic? Awkward? She wasn’t sure what she was afraid of but somehow thank you didn’t feel like enough. She had spent most of her life hiding who she was because of Vesper’s guidance. She wasn’t supposed to use her magic. She moved once every couple of years. College was... well, it was (for basic education) a four-year stint in one place and Sofia had never done that before. Stability? Long term? Those things never existed for her before New York and even now... she was waiting for it to all come crashing down and end. Dinah, Jeremiah, and Jessica were the only real constants in her life and things were always complicated between herself and those three people. They probably always would be. “I know, I know... I’m just offering you a friendly reminder.” Or an easy way out. Sofia had thought about college when she was younger, she had dreams of being a detective and a thousand other hopes and dreams that had died along the way. 

[ 📲 • sms ] —— wanna go catch a movie tomorrow?