#sternbild

The fog in your mind seems to recede as your senses return to the forefront, cold air licking viciously at your nose. You bring the dark gray blanket up and over your nose, mind urging back towards the euphoric relaxation of sleep. You sink into the bed, relishing in the plush bed sheets beneath your bare skin.

Risking the barest crack of your eyes, you find the view outside the window. Sternbild still sleeps in the hushed, early morning, blanketed by low hanging slate colored clouds, snowflakes fall towards the ground rapidly, and the large window is frosted with the cold outside. The space of the bed beside you is empty, sheets tucked in neatly and pillow fluffed. Glancing past your coworkers pillow, the small clock illuminates a soft yellow "5:45".

You want to groan, flabbergasted by how he can be up and about so early. Your nose crinkles a bit as a buttery, caramel-like aroma drifts into the bedroom from the kitchen. Rolling over, lazily, you face the door and inhale the sweet roasted scent. Coffee? It has to be.

You want to let your eyes drift closed again, to float in the fuzzy lull of the quiet room, stillness and patience and the cozy bedding embracing you. After long, hard days of danger and pain and buried deep fear, relaxing in a warm bed on a cold morning with the smell of coffee floating around you, it felt like pure euphoria, a long breathy sigh of delight-

The door opens and Barnaby walks through, two mugs in his hands. He steps softly over to the bed, dressed in his black t-shirt and a pair of crisp black slacks. His glasses glitter with the light starting to peek through the clouds behind you, before the rays are subdued by hushed darkness again.

He smiles softly as he sees your open, curiously tired eyes.

"Morning." he whispers, watching as you sit up, slowly, keeping the blanket close to cover your intimates, pressing fingertips into the corners of your eyes to rub the sleep away. He stifles a nervous chuckle, cheeks pinkening just a touch but doesn't look away. He offers you the white mug, liquid steaming deliciously inside.

You take it, gratefully, not doubting that your bed hair and morning breath more wild than he had ever seen you. "Morning." you murmur, blinking blearily down into the contents of your mug. You blow into the dark liquid, then take a sip, sweet and chocolatey with the most subtle hint of peppermint and caramel.

You close your eyes in delight, "I've never had hot cocoa like this before."

He settles on the edge of the bed beside you, "My mother would make this for my Father and I all the time. It doesn't quite taste as good as hers, but. . .I got pretty close." he lifts his own mug to his lips, a warmth blooming in your chest at the vulnerability in his display. You take another sip, wondering how Emily and Barnaby Brooks would have reacted to you, if they would have accepted you.

The warm cup soothes the cold numbness aching your fingers, as you look over at the window. The skyline breaks against the slate gray clouds, shining lights of the Gold Stage, wonderous and extravagant and everything that Barnaby was. While the lights glitter like stars, homes rest behind gates and fences, dogs lifting their legs or squatting in the snow before retreating back into the warmth of their homes, a few cars drive down the highway, headlights illuminating the already illuminated streets.

"You get to see this view every morning?" you whisper, almost breathless.

You can feel his weight shift as he turns to look out the window with you, "Not really. I usually don't give it much mind. The lighting that comes in through that window gets to be really finicky sometimes."

The corners of your lips lift and you quirk a brow at him, "I imagine the sun doesn't listen to your suggestions, either."

"Not yet, anyway. But Kotetsu taught me a thing or two about being persuasive. And stubborn."

You can't help but laugh quietly, and you don't miss the way his eyes soften at the sound. It makes your heart flutter in your chest. "I'll help file your complaints."

Looking up at him, you smile to yourself, settling in to enjoy the cold and quiet morning with Barnaby. Leaning over, you rest your temple against his shoulder as he takes another sip of his cocoa, taking in the skyline for the first time in a long time.

It's a chance for him to breathe, too.

Hello everyone, I know it's not M&P (again), but I've been having so many other ideas that are easy to just throw into a word document, edit real quick, copy, paste, and post. Barnaby is also my comfort character, so I had to post something. It's not as long as I would have liked, but oh well.

I intentionally left the state of the relationship ambiguous, whether it's the first time you and Barnaby were intimate, an ongoing relationship, one night stand (I can't imagine it being a one night stand, but again, interpretation).

Hope you enjoyed,

"But Kura, the creators literally said it's in New York and—" yes they did, this part is very much true and the aerial shot we see of Stern Bild is always around Tribeca/Manhatten area with a really nice shot of the Hudson, but that's not the point (though it does make it much easier to chart the various districts, more on that coming soon)

Something we know about Tiger & Bunny is that it is set in an alternate universe New York, and never once is the United States mentioned by name. In fact, there isn't much about world nations mentioned in general in T&B—the one time I can think of off the top of my head where "country" is even mentioned is in Dragon Kid's flashback of her parents sending her off to Stern Bild, where they tearfully say she is going to become "the pride of [their] country," so I guess we at least know the concept of countries exists. But is Stern Bild in a country? Is Stern Bild a country?

Actually, all evidence points toward Stern Bild being a city-state. It meets all three qualifications of being such: it's an independent, sovereign city that is "the center of political, economic, and cultural life" over its surrounding territories. We see these qualifications met across all three seasons, first and foremost starting with something you've heard characters talk about pretty dang often but probably never thought too much about: the Stern Dollar.

The Stern Dollar (SBD from here on out) has to get its name from somewhere, and the most likely candidate is Stern Bild itself, which means that Stern Bild mints its own currency. Often shortened to "dollars" by the characters, it's used even in neighboring towns like Kotetsu's hometown (i.e., Muramasa charging him "two dollars" for a whiskey in season 1.)

We also know Stern Bild has a very localized culture based on the events of The Rising and a few character scenes in S2. In The Rising, the backdrop to the story is the time leading up to and the day of the Stern Bild holiday of Justice Day, which celebrates the time our lord and savior Jesus Christ appearedunto man in crab form and was unfortunately eaten, resulting in the Goddess bringing her wrath down on the ancient people of Stern Bild. (hello mutuals who haven't seen Tiger & Bunny and are reading this anyways, THIS IS CANON I'M NOT MAKING THIS UP THIS FUCKING HAPPENED, CRAB JESUS) This is a holiday that is, again, celebrated outside of Stern Bild, as Kotetsu's family celebrates Justice Day despite hailing from his hometown. By extension, it's likely the same goddess is worshipped in the territories surrounding Stern Bild.

We also know based on S2 that other cities have their own hero programs, all of them ran wildly differently. However, again, we look to Kotetsu's home town—no mention of other heroes. Just Hero TV heroes. Both the religious and secular mainsteam culture are exported from Stern Bild to its outlying territories.

And finally, political life: the politics of Stern Bild are interesting af because we know basically that we have the mayor and the mayor's cabinet, which includes prominent industry figures and judges from the Justice Bureau. We typically only see them making decisions about the governance of Stern Bild, and it's true that politics exist at all levels in a nation, but the reason why it seems to me that Stern Bild is a center of political life is (SEASON 2 SPOILERS LOOK AWAY LOOK AWAY NOOOWWWW)

Well, mostly it's because of the concentration camps, which seem to exist decidedly outside of Stern Bild's city limits. Stern Bild proper is always shown to be a bustling megalopolis. It's very dense and doesn't have a lot of extra wide-open spaces laying around. However, the mayor of Stern Bild was able to have these NEXT concentration camps set up on short notice in seemingly the middle of nowhere.... Which would very likely be an outlying territory, again, like Kotetsu's very rural hometown. This one's a little bit tricky because we can't be absolutely certain, but for all intents and purposes it seems to me that Stern Bild has some political relevance to its surrounding territories.

So, is it TECHNICALLY POSSIBLE that Stern Bild is in the United States? Yeah, sure, it could be I guess. But it's much more likely that it's an independent city-state, especially since it mints its own currency.