He was rarely up this early, and even more rarely would he go out this far, but he wanted the morning to himself, away from the tents. The sun was rising in the horizon, basking the first warmth of the day across the morning dew of Karai Bari. Today was a day where Crocodile often would retreat to be by himself. Not that many noticed, as he was a very private man. He would return to the congregation soon enough, but for right now, he would sit against the roots of a dried out, dead tree and light up a cigar.
Crocodile took a drag from the cigar and let it linger in his mouth, tasting that mix of citrus and cloves that only came from a good brand. He only pulled these out for special occasions. Triumphs. Celebrations. Honors. The times when he could bask in the essence of a job well done. Yet, for right now, it was just a comfort. He took the cigar out and held it between his fingers, looking at the end glow in the still purple-black light of dawn, and let the smoke blow out from his mouth. A moment of contemplation. A moment of remembrance. He absently brought his hand up to his stomach, lightly tracing the spot over the layers of clothing and padding he had now acquired, almost two decades later.
A night where everything had changed for him. A night where he had decided that he couldn't stay where he was. A night where he had figured that he could never go back to the man he had once been. Had it been that long?
He took another inhale of his cigar and dashed the ash down along the roots of the tree. He wouldn't crush it. That would ruin the taste. No, maybe he would just sit here, for a few moments more. Just a time to himself, and a time for the man he had been so long ago.
"Heh," he chuckled through a billow of smoke. "Happy birthday, kid."
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@copycaatā mumbled: āToday I find myself thinking about the last place I saw you alive.ā
BLACK MIRROR
SUMMARY: Haku haunts Kakashi after the Bridge battle. He doesn't like what he sees.
There is no such thing as heaven or hell. Your name is Haku Yuki, and you know this as all damned people do: intimately, and with the scars to prove it.
When Kakashiās fist burns a hole through your skin, your sternum collapses under his searing hand like a paper crane in a clenched hand. Your heart, so tender and full of love and hope, does not explode inside your chest. It is like the light in your eyes: there one moment, gone the next.Ā
You stay gone a long, long time.
āāāā
There is no such thing as heaven or hell. But itās dark and quiet here, wherever you wake up.
You do not move; you arenāt sure there is any part of you that can move, or if there is a you at all. The only thing you know is that the hole in your chest still bleeds, raw and red, despite you not having a body to bleed from.
Your pitiful heart bleeds all over you, and the dark is enough to drown in.
āāāā
You start figuring out this place, thisā¦ new existence. Death, you guess; youāre dead. You failed, and your reward is a fitting and abject nothing.
Thereās no escaping where you are now. Youāve worked out that much. This place is a crowded sort of empty: you bump against nothing when there is nothing to bump against. You do not hear voices or feel warmth, but sometimes ā sometimes the silence clogging your ears grows pregnant and heavy the way it does when a mouth parts slightly, unsure of what to say next.Ā
Even in death you crave validation. If you had a body, it would tense and flex with anticipation, feeling the dark air contract around you like a throat. Waiting. Waiting for something, anything.Ā
For, you think eagerly, someone to say your name.
The moment passes. The air tightens; slackens. The ache in your chest bleeds into your extremities. A gust of dry wind rips at your paper-thin skin and presses you deeper into the darkness. You lose yourself again.Ā
You stay lost a long, long time.
āāāā
It gets hard to remember who you are the longer youāre in here in a room full of nothing.
Your name is Haku. You died for someone you loved. It was worth it. You would do it again in a heartbeat. You donāt have one of those anymore, yet the hole in your chest aches when you remember teeth like daggers and the smell of rain.
You wish someone would say your name, just once.
āāāā
Youāre swimming in the darkness, these days, or nights, or ā whenever. Youāve learned you can do that. If you focus less on holding yourself, your essence, together, sometimes the darkness shows you things. You see the light.
Briefly. Passingly. Flickers of someone. Broken fingernails in a kunaiās reflection. Battered sandals in a puddle framed by a blue -- blue! -- sky. You sink your teeth into the color; some part of it fills your empty husk, and thereās a tingle where your fingertips should be.Ā
You catch a snaggle-toothed mouth in a dirty bathroom mirror, and for a moment you think Zabuza?, but the snaggle is all wrong. Your favorite glimmers are in the rare moments when Zabuzaās dog-tags are cupped briefly in a calloused palm, the metal dingy, cheap, worn. The warmth you nearly feel has nothing to do with the hand enclosing you, but when it slips the tags back into a bedroom drawer, the light cuts out, and you are back, alone, in the dark place.
This time, the cold seeps in twice as deep. And in the dark place, everything hurts.
āāāā
Slowly, the flickers come more regularly, showing you a life in motion. You meet the man these flickers revolve around in pieces. A dark eye reflected in a kunai. A limp chuckle bouncing off a windchime. A man with white hair and a crooked wolf spine moving through the world with his head down, his eyes dead, his fingers never far from a blade.Ā
Hatake Kakashi. The man who killed you ā Haku, yes, thatās your name. Kakashi tucks Zabuzaās dog-tags against your old scarf, tucked in the back of his bedroom drawer, but he never says your names.
āāāā
You donāt hate Kakashi.
There is some jealousy, sure; he killed you when you were fifteen, so you never got to outgrow your teenage envy. But the professional in you knows your death was just business, nothing personal. Every battle has a victor and a loser. You are one until you become the other.Ā
You do not know why you see him, and only him. You wish the darkness would part and show you anyone else. Zabuza. Suigetsu. Mei. Chojuro, even. But itās only ever Kakashi.Ā
Your chest tightens. The hole through your sternum stops bleeding, and when you stick the hand-you-do-not-have into it, your fingers curl into the exact shape of his hand.Ā
āāāā
You grow accustomed to the light the more you see Hatake. The darkness around you fizzles and snaps into light piece by piece, like shattering glass. Suddenly you are present for every major event, catching the drama from a forgotten seat in the back of the house, watching the world āĀ Kakashiās world āĀ wax and wane and disappear in fissures: Sasukeās defection. Narutoās departure. Sakuraās growth. Kakashi gets paler, thinner, worn out; he walks more like a dog than a man. You float around him, the light in his headband, eyes, the incense holders he lights at so many, many graves, and scream. He hears nothing. Why would he? Youāre just another ghost at his back.
āāāā
Time hurries on.
The world changes without you in it. The worst part is no one living notices the things you do.Ā
The shocking about-face of the color of the trees makes your wound weep in delight. The tiny wrinkles and hairline fissures that appear in familiar faces. The spoon Kakashi dropped behind the kitchen sink last month ago. Reflective surfaces begin to pull on your essence, and you find yourself appearing in strange places: puddles of rain water children splash through, a glimmer of dew on a cactus in Wind Country, blood-dulled swords in the Land of Iron, shattered beer glasses in dive bars and alley ways, memorial photos, house keys, bracelets, funeral plaques, mirrors, mirrors, mirrors. You see everything in fractals, bits and pieces of other peoplesā lives, a shattered web of people Kakashi has effected in some way or another, directly or indirectly.
You see a lot of funerals.
Time passes. Naruto returns. Sakura burns inside her own skin. A war happens, and many of the mirrors crack, fissure, shatter, go dead and cold. Their breaking snaps something small inside you, and for the first time in a long time, you feel . . . something. Something red.
The hole in your chest sprouts glass teeth. It gnashes and grows more each time you return to the dark place. Everything is mirrors here, now; whether you have made them or he has or no one has, you do not know or care. The only thing you do is watch him. Carefully. If you had eyes they would burn.Ā
The hole in your chest does that for you.
āāāā
It is only after you find yourself watching Kakashiās pulse as he sleeps fitfully in his rumpled bed, his mangled hand tangled loosely in several dog-tag necklaces around his neck, that you realize you are waiting for something.Ā
āāāā
One morning, Kakashi stands for a long time in front of the bathroom mirror, toothpaste drying at the corner of his lips as he stares blandly at the Hokageās hat in his hands. He looks terrible. This is not a new thing, merely the most recent occurrence.Ā
You think, mildly, that you may hate him, for living like heās already dead, for being too stubborn to kill himself and let you rest. Because you can feel you arenāt the only being hanging around him. Watching. Waiting. For him to do something else. Ā For him to say your name.
ā¦what is your name?
Kakashi takes the dog-tags from the bathroom drawer again, like he has more and more frequently, and stares at them, flipping them over in his mangled hands as new, faded mirrors appear in the dark place around you.Ā
You realize, with a start, that you resent him for making you look at this, over and again. The names of the dead, members of his old team(s), Zabuza. As if living miserably is how he mourns their deaths and pays penance for his own survival.Ā
In your dark place, the room as dark and cracking as the fist that punched out your heart, the mirror fractals start humming. You do not notice. Your body-that-isnāt is pressed against the glass watching Kakashi, all of you an eye. The mirrors shift focus, every pane focused on him from every reflective surface in his apartment.
You watch his lips part from fifteen different angles. You know, in one terrible swell of intuition, what he is going to say. The humming drones louder. The hole in your heart grows wings and begins to beat.Ā
āToday,ā Kakashi says to himself in the bathroom mirror, which is really to you, every broken part of you, which is really every person he has ever touched and shattered that much more for knowing them, āI find myself thinking about the last place I saw you alive.ā
Trapped in the dark place, the darkness in your chest throbs, and the dark room around you echoes it, thumpthumpthump. The pulse turns to light, the light to glass, the glass to a surface cold and intoxicating under the hand that forms against it. Your hand, rendered in ice and glass shards, shimmering with a red-flicker-heartbeat you havenāt felt in years.Ā
You press your hand against the glass, shivering at the cold, and step through the mirror.
One moment you are nothing trapped in Nowhere; the next you are a Something freed in a million pieces, exploding towards Kakashi like a mirror shattering in reverse.
Your throat is dry and full of dust. The light hurts your too-many eyes. Your body is not quite a body, not quite human anymore, yet it ripples and fills the room with your disdain as you hit Kakashi like a cannonball. Through plaster. Through wooden beams. You sink your claws into his chest and do not let go until his back hits the kitchen floor and your feet grind into his chest. You feel Kakashiās ghost screaming at your neck and spine, but they canāt touch you now. You arenāt like them anymore. Youāre something much worse.
You rip the dog-tags from his neck. You will not be another ghost. You want to live, painfully, desperately. And if he will not live on behalf of the dead, the dead will take over his duty. You hook your fingers into the chest of this miserable man and lift him into the air, staring into his eyes with your hundred-thousand-compound eyes.Ā
āYOU....ST...OLE.....MY HEART,ā Ā you creak. Your glass skin glitters like myriad icicles, never quite showing all of you, save for the burnt, cracked panes where your heart would be. The shimmering claw braced over Kakashiās heart flexes, flattens, tightens into a point. āI WILL HAVE IT BACK.ā
Swan!reader who is delicate, high-maintenance without saying a word, with a face too pretty to ever hear the word āno.ā She's cold to most people, polite but distant, always dressed in soft cashmere, silk, pearls ā the kind of girl who looks like she belongs behind glass. Rafe is obsessed from the first second. Her silence, her sadness, her elegance ā it all drives him insane. He chases her hard, reckless and intense, until she caves and lets him in. Around others, sheās still graceful and untouchable; around him, sheās a quiet, needy thing, clinging to him like a prayer. Their relationship is toxic-sweet: he spoils her, worships her, but owns her violently too. Sex is desperate ā he handles her like she might break, but he still leaves bruises where no one else can see. She cries during sex sometimes ā overwhelmed, too fragile ā and he *loves* it. He kisses the tears off her cheeks, whispers that sheās his perfect little thing, his swan, his baby, no one elseās. She lets him ruin her lipstick, tear her lingerie, mark up her throat ā because deep down, she doesnāt want to be perfect anymore, she just wants to be his.
yeah sorry i don't have anything pretty to write here right now. i wish i did, but all that's on my mind is knight!simon chewing up that duchess coochi like it's her last meal š she's got munch in her veins i swear! i hope you're not too much of a fan of those hand - woven damask silks because she will have you ripping them to shreds before dawn breaks. . .
if you're not following my main blog (which you should, i make funne joek sometimes lol) then you should know that my kitten massacred my charger cable to the laptop and i've yet to get a replacement.
in lieu of an update, here's a concept piece about how you would've met maluset for the first time in game. it's scrapped now for something better (hopefully) but it's still an okay piece of writing if i do say so myself. think it was some sort of a fever writing so let's not look too close okay.
It's cold. The mansion is always cold, of course, but this feels unnatural. Like the sun itself blotted out, a chill that seeps into your bones, a freeze after submerging in icy water.
No. You stop your steps and scan your surroundings. The mansion is quiet as well, void of the hustle and bustle of the maid always scurrying around. Something has shifted.Ā
"What the fuck is going on," you hear the voice from atop of the grand staircase, the keeper of your chains aggravated as they tie the sash around their bathrobe. "What the fuck did you do?" They hiss, each step down the staircase filled with anger, theyr eyes on you in accusation.
But you didn't do this, did you? A cursory glance at your hands, and they're shaking. Why? Why can't you stop them? A tug at your heart could be anything; fear, exhaustion, panic, but those are emotions you've long buried. No, there is something else too. A familiarity, a longing, you felt it for the first thousand years, but it has since lain dormant.Ā
"I-" you begin, interrupted by the rumble you feel underfoot. It's minimal at first, barely there for you to sense, but it grows stronger, stronger, until a vase perched on a side table crashes into the floor.Ā
The heir grabs onto the bannister and curses. Another figure falls against the bannisters upstairs, a familiar, exhausted visage now with frantic eyes looking across the room, eyes meeting yours in question.Ā
It peaks and recedes, slowly, shakes becoming tremors, and tremors becoming subtle vibrations. The heir stomps up to you with a finger raised, but they get no word out before Rami is down the stairs and grabs their arm. "Wait, do you see -"
"Rami, you're my brother, but I will break every single one of your fingers if you so much as touch me aga-" and he does, grabs them by the head and turns them to look at the front entrance, the massive windows that show an opulent garden outside.
Or they should, but there is nothing. Only darkness.Ā
Oh. You feel the realization creep up your neck like a soft desert breeze, warm in midst of the cold that has otherwise settled. It cocoons you like your mother's hugs, protective, adoring. Alive.
"What the fuck," the heir offers eloquently yet again, bare feet stomping to the door and yanking it open. Light that should spill out from the open door sits still at the threshold. "That's not normal," Rami mutters, but you can only stare into the abyssal darkness.Ā
At the sand collecting at the porch, grains coming together to form a vortex before it solidifies into a figure.Ā
The heir stumbles back with a cry, landing on their behind as they scurry back. You stand still, hands ny your side, but you want to reach. You want to welcome an old friend, but you get no chance.Ā
He's here. After so many years, he's here. The robes fall effortlessly over his shoulder, the moving glitter of starlight the only differentiating element from the darkness beyond. A divine vision clad in shadows, the human features swirling as if not keen on being in that form. You see the galaxies in his eyes consolidate into an iris, the full weight of it set on the heir sprawled in the ground.
"Ashar tehk nuįø„ senet akhet."
Your breath stutters at the inhale. It's been so long since you heard your tongue spoken, the words like an old-forgotten hymn you thought you'd never hear again.
I have come to retrieve the one you have stolen from me.
You could think he came for a relic, or anything else of material value. The spark of hope you've nursed flares to life when he turns his eyes to you, the vastness behind them softening as he takes you in, his shoulders easing only a fraction. Another gust of a warm breeze flows over your cheek.
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taaia in this universe first encounters galactus, her child, above earth as the lifebringer during the final conflict against the black winter. she sees the force that ended their universe destroyed, poetic justice the silver surfer would say, only to then see galactus fall. golden life energy fading into the cold expanse of space. he falls to earth. but there is no devastating impact, as the fantastic four are ready, sue using her abilities to cushion the fall. laid to rest within a lake beneath the warmth of the sun. the last time taaia set eyes on galan was when he was a young child a handful of years ago. for galan it has been billions of years. time never dulled their love of their mother, however. emotions only buried in the deepest recces of the once mortal heart.
she screams her child's name, weeps for him as the waters around his dimming colours ripple with little movement. norrin attempts to ease her with a gentle touch & word that he still senses life, yet even he cannot contain his concern. the knowing of what is to come. they are both upon him attempting to rouse from unconsciousness.
within the mind of galactus a small form of what once was sits within a white sea of encroaching darkness. echoes from beyond come & go & stir no response. what a terribly cruel thing fate can be. to be born into a dying universe & fail at saving it, to be its sole survivor, only to consume the next ... all in the name of the ever frail universal balance. there was never any resentment. grief? tremendously so. for what else could anyone who cherishes life feel? at the dawn of galactus's existence there had been a whispered tale carried from the last, & the time before that, & the time even before then. that one day the devourer of worlds would give back to the universe far more than ever taken. this was a tale his mother once brought to life with such joyous tellings as a child ( before she was never seen again ). the ancient story of lifebringer one & the anti-all of the third cosmos. the first hero against the darkness. all this to say ... there was always hope.
then the day dawned at the beginning of the eighth cosmos when the lifebringer was born. a necessity for eternity. the weight of quintillion souls never grew any lighter ... but there was a kind of relief, of knowing the screams & cries of life would no longer be the final sounds heard from worlds stepped upon. nor would the agonizing pangs of hunger haunt near every conscious moment. for a time galactus felt happy. no longer simply surviving, but existing. as he used to be. but it could never last. still, this drop of life in an ocean of eternity had felt ... like an eternity. there could never be any resentment. not to the All who had chosen him, & certainly none toward the universe they have come to cherish very much.
but galan was tired. so very tired.
would it be so terrible of him to remain here? to allow the self to be consumed by what begins again to feel so enticing? would that be so selfish?? he could not fail eternity. the echoes from beyond grow louder & they sound familiar, one of them painfully so ... truly, his mind must be close to collapse. but then all falls silent & a silvery hand is upon his shoulder. the bond between herald & master is a close one, intimately so, for just as galactus could sense the mind & heart of those bestowed with a portion of his essence, so could they of him. the silver surfer could feel his anguish. they sit & talk for a time. they talk of life, what must be. of the past & what is to come. norrin would not abandon him during such time of need. nor would someone else who has longed to find him ever since stepping foot in this universe.
beyond the mental realm, norrin & taaia are sat upon the armoured chest of galactus linked by hands. the power cosmic allowing connection. within, galan lays eyes upon his mother for the first time in billions of years. tears fall from her as her child far older than she is pulled into a hug. words lost to the tides of emotion. from taaia there is only sobbing, from norrin a sad little smile as he stands in silence, & from galan ... the child who lost his mother billions of years ago falls into the embrace.
when taaia had discovered what her little galan was to become some years past in an adventure with the defenders, there was tremendous grief. if she were to return to their own cosmos all would be forgotten. to forget would be to abandon him ... to stay would be the same. in her stay on earth & meeting the fantastic four, they had spoken of galactus & his nature, & of past encounters. johnny, who had once been a herald & so touched his mind, spoke of the science master galan had become & his efforts to save taa. to say taaia was proud would be an understatement. so she would remain with little guilt, knowing her child would grow into a good person.
she would stay with him as he becomes the devourer once more. aureate armour peels away to reveal old magenta & blues. as would norrin radd, who vows to continue as herald. after many an hour the lake in which galactus rests begins to ripple & wave, & then slowly ... galactus rises without word. only the sound of raining waves & ancient creaking metal lifting into the evening sky. norrin & taaia soaring closeby on a silver board. below, the fantastic four watch with sorrow in their hearts. civilians scurry away in fear. for a moment galactus remains a floating form still without word. his expression impossible to read. taaia looks to norrin, who has no words for how heavy the grief he feels emanating from his master.
then, as the pangs of hunger begin to return, galactus is gone. returned to his ship. with him ... two precious souls who would travel the ever expanding & wonderous cosmos with him. taaia, who would share his burden & learn more of her child & all the unfamiliar stars of this universe. marveling at the scientific expanse of taa-ii. & norrin, who would guide the devourer once again to worlds of nourishment ...
there is a balance to all things. where there is great pain, so something good must happen. & what greater good is there to be reunited with a long lost loved one.
td:lr : Hank is the only person selfless enough to ask Greer what she needs. Hank is the only person to ever quiet the beast.
Alright itās the 70ās ā Greer barrels into the Avengers team while Yellowjacket is being a massive cock. We know the history. We know what happened. Greer hates the fucker.
Fast forward to WCA ā itās the 80ās, Hankās taken a ( forced ) break from the Avengers. Greerās finding her feet, trying to figure out her place on this new team. Hank joins, adamant that heās gonna just be Jarvis 2.0. She can tell something is different: this isnāt the insecure macho man she came to associate with Hank Pym. This man is a storm of emotions but heās kind & sweet & generous & actually kind hot, wtf? She pounces, coz what she wants, she gets. Tosses Simon to the back-burner for now, coz damn, this nerd is intriguing af.
She likes him, a lot, but sheās a mess & for the first time in a long time, she gets introspective. She knows heās really struggling, like really fucking struggling but she just went through hell & back ( literally ) & now sheās got a fucking tail. She canāt help Hank coz now sheās gotta learn a new way to sit down. Thank God Bonita was there.
She likes him: heās lamely funny & his smile is warm like sunlight but now theyāre going to Hungary coz his dead wife might not actually be dead ( & wow wouldnāt that be nice, maybe, if Bill wasnāt actually dead & this was all some crazy fever dream & she woke up with black hair & pale skin & she went back to university instead of agreeing to become a fucking housewife ). Hankās come a long way: heās more confident & joyful & the she swears that she catches him staring at her from across the pool sometimes.
But Marc is there to distract her because damn heās even more of a tornado than Hank was & she doesnāt know the reason ( spoiler: itās Khonshu ) but she cannot for the life of her get a read on him & the curiosity got the cat, & theyāre at it like animals. Literally.
& then the team blows up & all the boys are ganging up on Bobbi & fuck that because okay maybe she hasnāt killed anybody ( yet ) but neither did Bobbi. Bobbi just let that cunt Slade fall off a cliff just like Greer let that cunt Donalblain put a bullet in his head. Marc sides with them, obviously because heās the worst of all of them. They go their seperate ways.
They come back eventually but everything is different. Marc doesnāt stay, Janet is there now. Which is cool, she likes Janet ( who doesnāt? ) but Hank doesnāt look at her anymore. Simon is looking at Wanda. Sheās on her own, probably for the best.
Years go by ā theyāre teammates but theyāre not friends, her & Hank. Itās not effortless between them like it is with Steve or Tony or Jim or Clint or Simon. She doesnāt know why. They used to talk & fuck & laugh together. Sheās not sure why it stings.
Now everything is fucked. Friends are becoming enemies; they were hunting each other. They lost Marc & Steve & now sheās in fucking Arkansas of all places. At least Jim is there. She never thought anyone would see her as a mentor, but all the good ones were already taken, she supposed.
When Hank showed up she couldnāt keep the smile off her face. Heās different, though. Heās more confident ( quietly, always quietly ) & heās more sure of himself & oh my god is he flirting with her!?
Itās so easy ā itās so damn easy falling back into bed with him. They laugh & he cooks her dinner & he eats her out until sheās a shaking mess & the next month is bliss, even between the military style training & the constant travelling & all the tangled string sheās caught herself in.
& then heās on the TV & sheās two weeks overdue for her period & thereās fucking Skrulls everywhere.
She shuts it out & canāt stop thinking about it at the same time. It was all a lie. It wasnāt him: it was a fucking alien. She goes over everything; dissects every memory of him & her together & wonders when it all started. Why didnāt she see? Why didnāt she notice? Why didnāt anybody notice?
She has the baby & heās fucking perfect thank the Cat Gods thank every fucking God out there because that means everything is all worth it. Vance asks her to be a part of a new Avengers Academy & sheās said yes without even really thinking about it because itāll keep her busy & if sheās busy then she doesnāt have to deal with all the fucked up shit that sheās been through in the last six months.
Oh but ā heās there. Hankās there. Headmaster Ant-Man. Fuck they even smell the same. He knows, right? He must. Everybody knows. Not about little William but about her & the Skrull. Of course he knows, look at the way heās looking at her. Wait but thatās not sympathy ā well some of it is but itāsā¦ remorse. Regret. For what? He didnāt do anythingā¦
She tries not to be alone with him. More for his sake than hers ā if the animal in her gets set off sheās liable to murder. She wouldnāt even be able to stop herself if she tried. It wasnāt him. But theyāre alone in the faculty lounge & he plonks a coffee mug in front of her with her usual cream & 2 sugars ( he remembered : so not all of it was false ) & he offered himself up to talk whenever she was ready to.
Yeah, right. Sheās not a talker. Sheās an ass kicker. But then those fucking kids find that fucking video & sheās got no choice. Hank holds her tight as she shakes with rage & shame & then they talk & talk & talk.
& sheās a little lighter for it. & she gets lighter every time they talk. She asks him to test her sonās DNA. He agrees ( even though he knows the outcome ). William is ā genetically ā his. Sheās relieved because that means Norman Osborn has nothing on her & he wonāt come after William because he has no Skrull DNA. But sheās also scared because Hank has problems, big scary mental problems that sheās ignored because they were never really her problems, were they?
& he didnāt want kids because of that reason & sheās telling she doesnāt want anything from him because ā Williamās not anybodyās son but hers. Heās relieved she can feel it but heās sad, too. She doesnāt know why.
He comes in one night & wakes her from a nightmare: the Skrull coming to take her baby away. Itās taken his shape again, & she pounces, she pins him against the wall & sheās the most animal sheās ever been & she almost tears his jugular out with her teeth & he doesnāt even try to stop her. & something registers & she realises that this is Hank Pym ā the one she met in Palos Verdes who had a storm inside him & almost succumbed. She knows it wasnāt all a lie.
Itās a bit easier after that. They talk & they help the kids & they save the world & each other & theyāre all a weird family. Heās fantastic with the kids even though he doubts himself. He lets William climb all over him even though she told him not to. He fixes her her morning coffee & lingers in the door of her classroom & tells Humberto & Brandon off for making jokes about her bikini.
& she managed to convince him to throw a party & she invites all her Initiative crew & she dresses up & he tells her sheās gorgeous & means it. Everybodyās having fun & laughing & Melati smuggled in some booze but she doesnāt care because Hankās asked her to dance & theyāre close & his heart is jackhammering & sheās nervous & excited & she tells him she doesnāt blame him because heās just as much a victim as she is & oh Christ somethingās stirring & she needs him now & he needs her too & they slip away.
Itās not like it usually is: itās timid & shy & almost virginal ā the way they slowly strip each other, the way he asks permission, the way she checks her strength, the tenderness of it. Theyāre interrupted of course & she regrets not taking the alcohol from Melati now but damn, did she need it. She needed the control back, she needed the choice back.
Thereās lot of teasing after that. Sheās swinging her hips on purpose when sheās walking in front of him & sheās staring at him from across the teacherās lounge & sheās making a meal of her coffee but everything is moving so fast & oh now their school is destroyed & theyāre living in a hotel room in Chicago & her dad hasnāt even called her. Her dad doesnāt even know that heās a grandfather.
Sheās so angry: she had to lie to the kids & she told them whatever it takes without ever really thinking about the consequences because sheās let bad people die before & sheās never had to think twice about it because they deserved it. But Ken & Maddie are in turmoil & now sheās thinking ( knows ) sheās a terrible person for even giving them this awful idea in the first place. What kind of mother is she being? Hank is a balm: he takes her in his arms & pets her hair & tells her she did the best she could under the conditions & not to doubt herself ( & she can feel it eating away at him too, heās shouldering the blame because thatās what he does, itās what he thinks he deserves ). She has good instincts, he reminds her. Not always, she wants to say but she stays present: she stays in his arms & his words ring true. It feels right, being in his arms. Maybe it shouldnāt but it does.
A few of the kids leave, so does Vance. They canāt stop them as much as they want to. Where else can they go? Nostalgia hits one afternoon as theyāre watching the kids play in the hotel pool ā the old Wackos compound is all but deserted. They could fix it up, make it new again. Make it home again.
Itās hard work but Pietroās a whizz & sheās super strong & together they make light work of it. The quinnjet ride is light, full of all the excitement that second chances bring. Hank tells her he admires the woman sheās become & that sheās a hero & a great mother & he loves her & oh my godā¦ she loves him too. Probably always didā¦
The fresh start is just what everybody needs. New students & new friends, even visits from old ones. Clint comes in for a bit & makes jokes & burgers & lewd comments as she sits in Hankās lap. Itās like the good olā days.
Hank moves into her old bungalow with her & William. He cooks dinner because god knows sheās terrible at it. They cuddle up on the couch as she reads to her son ā their son. Hank teaches Will how to properly stack his building blocks so heās got a solid foundation. He watches from the shade of a tree as mother & son climb as high as they can. Who would have ever thought either of them could build something so wonderful?
