Stitch was watching her intently from just around the corner, his excitable eyes zeroing in on the voluptuous figure of his current caretaker, Nani Pelekai. She was busy making lunch, he could tell by the apron tied around her waist, and also by the very obvious scent of lasagna perforating the air. His elongated ears were treated to the wonderful hymn of her voice as she hummed a little here, sang a little there, her words soft and melodic.
And she was dancing. Ever so slightly, Nani was moving across the kitchen floor, gently swaying her hips, moving her arms to the beat she hummed, which was growing awfully familiar the longer Stitch listened. As Nani performed a graceful twirl on her toes, Stitch realized she was humming the same song that Lilo had once danced to with the rest of her class. The same class wherein she knocked the glasses off this one girl who made fun of her.
Stitch still laughed about to this day.
There was a reason Lilo wasn't here, why she hadn't been home for the past couple of days now, and as far back as Stitch cared to remember, it had something to do with a school field trip to one of the states. Beyond that was a blur, not that Stitch didn't know—because his memory retention was literally otherworldly—but he was far too busy concentrating on the woman in front of him, the one still dancing, oblivious to his presence.
Her exquisitely tanned skinned was glistening under the kitchen light, both naturally and because of the fine layer of sweat she had worked up during her dance. Watching her was a treat for Stitch, it was rare he caught her in such a carefree state as her usual demeanor normally consisted of being about two stringent warnings away from beating the tan off her sister. In the most loving way possible, of course. And while Stitch cherished Lilo more than his own life and would happily obliterate anything that crossed her path in the wrong light, he was glad for these moments where Nani could find some peace, some relaxation.
Because Stitch felt another kind of love altogether for the dancing Hawaiian goddess, the kind that made the fur around his cheeks burn a bright red; the kind that short-circuited his respiratory system; the kind that made this alien from another world so thankful he had crash landed on this planet.
The stove timer went off and Nani paused mid-twirl, one leg aloft, and bent backwards to tap the alarm button. "And noooow, the moment you've all been waiting for," she said to an empty kitchen, righting herself and slipping on an oven mitt. "Let's see if the great Nani P. still has what it takes to make her fabled "Lazzy Lasagna.""
It was a pretty stupid name, Stitch figured, but it was the name that Lilo had dubbed the dish with, so of course it stuck, and as he took a few more controlled sniffs of the air, there wasn't a doubt in his mind that Nani's skill in the kitchen hadn't moved a single iota in the proper direction. The sins she committed when cobbling ingredients together warranted some kind of sentencing but, thankfully, there was something else of an actual edible nature in the kitchen.
Her ass.
Dressed in a blue top that exposed her tone belly and a pair of frayed jean shorts, when Nani bent over, Stitch was treated to an unobscured view of her rear. Subconsciously, his eyes flashed from their rudimentary black shade to emerald, enabling his x-ray vision and allowing him to see through the flimsy fabric of her jeans to the bright pink pair of panties worn underneath. Those precious undergarments were stretched tight against the twin mounds of Nani's cheeks to the point where he could make out the tantalizing divide between them and Stitch, gripping the doorway so hard that it cracked, let loose an unruly amount of drool.
It didn't take long for Stitch to notice that Nani was indeed a woman. For so long he had considered her this tall, sturdy tree of rage and love, mostly rage—but during the times when Lilo was away and she was able to unwind, Stitch liked to watch her, and as he watched, he noticed several things about this Hawaiian queen. He took note that she used to be a very accomplished surfer, that she had this strange addiction to chocolate that she tried to hide from Lilo (probably for fear of ridicule), that she seemed to hate shirts that covered her stomach, and finally, perhaps the most important observation where Stitch was concerned, the fact that Nani had a body that practically screamed for someone to put a baby in her.
Her face wasn't the typical kind of beauty that Stitch saw on the faces of models in those magazines he stole from the stands every now and then, no, Nani had very comforting, angelic features, soft and caring, a face that carried it's own personal brand of pretty that Stitch felt far outstripped those vapid magazine females. Her body didn't match their's either; she didn't possess their statuesque figure, and for that Stitch was grateful. He greatly preferred the athleticism of Nani's form, how her thighs, so thick and soft, held no gap, how her wide hips gave her this coke bottle shape, and that was even before one could lay eyes on that ass, so perfectly rounded and wobbling and malleable like pudding and—
"STITCH! Get your furry little butt out here—it's lunch time!" Nani shouted with trace amounts of annoyance, almost like she were prepping herself for whatever weird thing her resident alien was sure to do when he arrived.
So when Stitch tripped over absolutely nothing, landing noisily on his chin in the kitchen doorway, Nani merely stared down at him with an incredulous glint, tilting her hips with her arms crossed.
"That was… quick," she noted, narrowing her eyes with further suspicion, "almost too quick, actually." With reflexes honed over years of snatching Lilo up by the scruff of her shirt, Nani whipped out a spatula and pointed it at Stitch as he climbed back to his feet, nostrils flaring like a canine's. "Out with it, alien intruder—how'd you get here so fast? Were you…" She took a bracing step forward. "You weren't spying on me, were you?"
Stitch dug up his nose for a few seconds, eyeing Nani and the way she brandished her spatula like a sword, and easily envisioned at least ten different ways to disarm the cute Hawaiian queen that would leave her face down and ass up on the floor. And as tantalizing as the idea was, he only shook his head.
"I was staring at your butt wishing you'd sit on my face," he told her, pulling his claw free of his nostril with a comedic popping sound.
Still looking dubious, Nani sighed and tossed her makeshift weapon into the sink. "Whatever, whatever, you and your alien speak," she huffed, turning toward the two plates she had pulled out. "I bet you'd already smelled the food, huh?"
"That's not what I said," Stitch spoke evenly, already knowing that his words were coming out in the same rushed gibberish that Nani couldn't parse.
"Right, it's Lazzy Lasagna," Nani told him, producing a very beautiful smile aimed at her perfectly foul-tasting confection as she spooned some out. When Stitch scurried over to her side, sniffing boisterously, she patiently rolled her eyes and bent over to pet him between the ears. "I know, I know, you smell one of your favorite dishes—"
"Actually, your food tastes like the backend of something that died and doesn't know it's dead yet. What I really smell is the thick scent of your womanhood… You've been dancing around so much that it's worked up a nice sweat and it smells really tasty," Stitch replied, feverishly licking his lips.
"Right, but just so we're clear, I didn't make it for you," Nani continued with a haughty grin, "I made it because I wanted lasagna, you get me? It's for me, not you… buuuut," she added, dragging the word out playfully, "being the benevolent soul that I am, I figure I can share if you ask really nicely."
"Share?" Looking perplexed, Stitch tilted his head ever so slightly to the side when Nani turned around, leaning forward and teasingly waving a plate full of steaming lasagna in front of him. "You can keep your death lasagna, I want you to share that ass!" he shouted excitedly, making grabby hands at his tanned object of affection. "I'd much rather have you sit on my face until my lungs stopped working—can I have that instead?"
Now Nani looked thoroughly pleased with Stitch's desperate motions, with the way he continued to gab away in the manic gibberish. She could tell he really appreciated her cooking. "Alright, okay, I can see that you're head over heels with my lasagna—"
"—can you flip that ass head over heels onto my face?"
"—so here you go," she told him magnanimously, setting the plate down in front of the little experiment gone wrong. When Stitch didn't immediately begin to eat like a starved hyena being teased by a rabbit shaking its fluffy tail in front of its face, Nani placed both hands on her rather large hips and cocked an eyebrow. "Well? Aren't you hungry?"
Of course Stitch was hungry, he was hungry pretty much around the clock, but he didn't feel like choking down that Lazzy Lasagna and spending the next half hour in horrible agony as his digestive system tried to make heads or tails of it. In short, it wasn't what he wanted to eat right now. He wanted to taste the Hawaiian goddess leering down at him, who was tapping her foot quite impatiently.
Stitch felt his chest tighten. The look on Nani's face, that amalgam of stern confusion and annoyance, he found it utterly intoxicating. Almost as quickly as realizing Nani was indeed a woman, it didn't take long for Stitch to inwardly admit he was infatuated with this tanned vixen, that there was virtually no way she could treat him that his beseeched mind wouldn't twist into some show of affection. Even when she screamed at him to go away (after he had licked at her ankles for the tenth time, or right after she had caught him sleeping in her underwear drawer) it only served to tighten the hold she unknowingly had over his heart.
Hell, if Stitch didn't know any better, based off the way Nani regularly treated him, he would swear he was some kind of masochist, and if he was, then he could solely lay that budding kink at the feet of his creator.
"I love you, you know," he told her before scooping up two pawfuls of lasagna and shoveling it into his maw. "Otherwise I wouldn't touch this heated up sludge."
"You're welcome," Nani proudly responded in kind.
It was endearing to Stitch to know that even when Nani called him a "big-mouthed black hole with the table manners of a down-syndrome afflicted hippo" she still enjoyed his voracious display when attacking whatever she cooked for him. He just figured it was her feminine side exposing itself, the side that Nani rarely let slip. On this planet, Stitch came to understand that the women naturally possessed the instinct to nurture, to shield and help grow, and so such talents shined, however begrudgingly, through Nani in moments like this.
Except food wasn't the kind of nurturing Stitch wanted from her….
"H-hey! Stitch—c'mon now!"
Startled back to the present, Stitch paused mid-chew, glancing up to see Nani, still standing there, except now she was beaming him with the most dazzling scowl he had ever the pleasure to receive. As his gaze slid down, over her tightly crossed arms and lingering slightly longer than necessary on her tone stomach, Stitch saw the rather large splotch of lasagna staining her shorts.
At first, he blinked. Then realization hit that he must have accidentally flung some while lost in thought earlier. He did tend to get messy when unfocused….
When those long ears fell back submissively and he started twiddling his fingers, Stitch looked every bit the picture of apologetic. "Meega soka," he uttered sheepishly.
There wasn't much in Stitch's garbled up alien tongue that Nani could parse into something understandable, but because Stitch was such best friends with causing trouble, he frequently repeated the phrase 'meega soka' whenever he was caught or reprimanded, so Nani took that to mean he was trying to apologize.
She sucked her teeth, fiddling with the button of her shorts. "Tch, it's fine, you little monster, it's fine… these were my favorites though," she huffed, pulling down the zipper.
Time seemed to slow to an agonizing crawl for Stitch as he watched Nani wiggle side to side, struggling to push her shorts down past those childrearing hips. Stitch had to grip his chest. Nani's soft grunts of enervation were the most sexiest thing he had ever heard, followed by that sigh of relief when she finally got them down to her thighs. Then something pulled sharply at Stitch's groin when that sun-kissed beauty lifted her arms and began to belly-dance where she stood; it was this sensual little sashay of the hips that helped slide her shorts the rest of the way down, hands-free.
She was… having fun.
Having fun while Stitch struggled to remain conscious.
One foot at a time, Nani gently stepped out of her stained shorts, hefting them with an annoyed pout at the pasty red mess over the front. "This stain better come out, fuzzball, or you can kiss my Lazzy Lasagna goodbye forever," she said menacingly, but unfortunately, Nani's comical threat went by wholly unnoticed because Stitch had zoned out halfway into her struggle to undress.
Without even realizing it, he had fallen back against the wall, one paw still clutching at his chest as though he were suffering a heart attack. He stared at the half-naked woman before him, taking in everything from her alluring, curvaceous physique to the way her pink satin panties were on full display; his nostrils flared, all but snorting the overpowering scent wafting from between her legs, that dense, overly feminine musk that set fire to Stitch's brain and caused his legs to wobble.
"Hey," Nani called, yet she sounded miles away, her voice barely managing to penetrate the daze her mere presence had knocked Stitch into. "Hey, Mr. Messy, pay attention when I'm talking to you…"
She took a step toward him. Her thighs rubbed against each other with such a tasteful swishing noise that Stitch momentarily forgot how to breathe. Nani cocked a brow, not quite sure why Stitch looked like he had seen a ghost, and she glanced around, wondering if she had missed something, wholly unaware that every single motion she went through caused her hips to sway in tune. It was almost too much for Stitch to bear and he gripped wall behind him harder, his nails digging deep into the wood.
Figuring it was just Stitch being his normal goofy self, Nani rolled her eyes and huffed. "Hey," she called, snapping her fingers, and when Stitch twitched, she took that to mean he was at least listening, even if his eyes remained fixed at a point just below her waist. "I'm gonna go find a new set of shorts since you've ruined these and while I'm gone here's what you're gonna do…."
When she paused, and so gently at that, Stitch was forced back to the present in time to watch as Nani closed the distance between them with those lithe steps of hers. The smell of her was enormous, a heady twang of sweat and her natural pheromones mixing together to form a mouth-watering cocktail of scents that had Stitch about to hyperventilate. Oblivious to the torture she was subjecting her alien roommate with, Nani courteously dropped to her knees, fixing him with a surprisingly teasing smile.
"You, my little furball friend… are tasked to wash these," she told him serenely, and without warning, Nani's shorts fell over Stitch's head. "That's the least you can do after I spent those long, long hours slaving over a stove to feed your bottomless stomach."
It was kind of funny to hear Nani talk about the long, long hours she had spent preparing him food when she initially said she had cooked it for herself—Jumba above, he loved her attitude so much, she was so cute—but there wasn't much time for him to call her out on it because the moment those warm shorts obscured his vision, the moment when the smell embedded in every single one of those threads struck his nose with all the force of a sledgehammer was the same instant Stitch's cognitive skills died.
Along with his ability to stand.
So when he fell over with a rigid thud, looking very much like a taxidermy version of himself, there was little Nani could do but stare down at him, both eyes wide.
"Um… are you okay?" she asked, using a single finger to prod him in the cheek.
Unbeknownst to his tanned queen, Stitch's new position, namely being laid out rigor mortis style on the floor, gave him a clear view between her thighs and he drank in the glittering sight of her panties. They way they hugged against her so tightly outlined her special place with a delicious clarity, so much so that Stitch subconsciously licked his lips.
"Look here, you freak, I'm gonna need you not to drool on my floor," Nani chastised, frowning at the little alien's antics. "You might've forgotten, since you have the memory retention of a flea, but you ate the mop last week."
"My memory spans back to the moment I was born," Stitch told her in garbled tones, remaining ever motionless, "and the sight of your panties is going to stick with me until I die…."
"No, don't try to blame that dog that comes around sometimes, I know it was you," Nani retorted, hearing a wholly different response in her head.
"That's not even close to what I said," Stitch said, beginning to grow lightheaded off her bittersweet scent. Not that it was enough to deter his doggish sniffing, it was just something he noticed on the peripheral of his thought process. "Before you go find another pair of shorts, can you scoot forward just a little bit? I really wanna see if I can get my head caught between your th—"
The rest of Stitch's alien speak came out as a jumbled mess when Nani suddenly stood, snatching her shorts off his head and swiftly replacing them with her foot. The pressure kept Stitch pinned to the hardwood floor, and under any normal circumstance, whatever was crushing him would have been reduced to rinds by now, but he found an ungodly amount of pleasure in being under Nani's foot.
She wasn't wearing any socks either, her bare flesh was mashed against his face; he could feel the entire shape of her elegant foot, from the smoothness of her arch all the way up to the toes squeezing around his bulbous nose. They were so soft, and extremely fragrant, coated with an amalgam of whatever body lotion she had previously used and the sweat she had worked up dancing earlier.
"So you're saying it wasn't you?" Nani demanded, glaring down at the alien trapped under her foot. "Don't think I'm stupid, you little blue nuisance—"
"I don't think you're stupid at all," Stitch struggled to get out with the heel of her foot crushing his lips, "but I can promise you I'm gonna explode if you don't get your foot off me!"
"Uh-huh, surrrrre," Nani muttered, dragging out the last word derisively. "A likely story, Mr. Stitch, but you see, I'm not one to fall so easily to the lies of an alien tongue." She brandished her shorts, dangling them on high while scrunching her dainty little toes over Stitch's face. "You're still going to wash this, get me?"
Control was something Stitch never really had a firm grasp on—control over his actions, over his mouth, over his impulses, over his instincts, he lacked in every area where control was concerned, and this was no different—so when his tongue darted from between his lips and began lashing about under Nani's foot, he reasoned there was nobody to blame for this but her.
His Hawaiian goddess.
"W-what in the… whoa—hey, hey, what're you doing?" Stitch heard Nani ask and he heard the disgust in her voice, felt when she tried to pull her foot free, but Stitch was quicker and gripped her ankle with both paws to keep her still. "W-wait, Stitch, that's…."
Whatever Nani had been trying to say, she never got out amidst the sudden moan that left her lips, surprising even herself and she slapped a hand to her mouth as Stitch's tongue expertly wound itself around her toes, slinking in between each one with a pleasurable deftness that sent shivers up her spine and caused her cheeks to flush.
"You… you perverted alien f-fuzzball," Nani managed to get out, smirking with a taunting flare, flinching whenever Stitch's tongue struck a particularly sensitive spot. Her toes scrunched; she couldn't believe this was happening, that Stitch was actually licking her foot… and so lovingly at that, his motions were almost sensual with the way his tongue moved, gliding and sliding over the balls of her feet. "You're really enjoying this…."
Clearly that was just an observation on Nani's part so Stitch saw no need to respond, only lowering his ears and continuing to shower her foot with masterfully placed strokes of his tongue. He enjoyed whenever the woman standing over him gasped, or whenever a hitched groan escaped; it was all music to his ears and worked to bring more out of her.
If someone had told Nani that her day would consist of watching as an alien from outer space found an addiction in kissing all over her foot, she would have called them crazy… but there she was, trying to keep her balance while an alien from outer space made oral love to one of the most sensitive spots on her body.
"Does it…" she started with uncertainty, giving an awkward shrug, "my foot doesn't smell or anything?"
What a very weird question to ask, Stitch figured. Did her foot smell? Of course it did. It was rich with her pheromones, enhanced by the energy of her dance routine. Probably to anyone else, that would be considered gross, but to Stitch and his acute sense of smell, there was only nirvana to be found with every desperate inhale.
"I guess not… or maybe not in a bad way," Nani surmised when Stitch didn't respond verbally, but rather with an uptick in the intensity of his licking. She winced, inhaling sharply. "E-even between my toes, though…? That can't… it can't be good there—"
Oh, but it could, and Stitch showed her as much by lovingly tracing the underside of her toes with the tip of his slick, pink muscle. The reaction that Stitch's work garnered, namely the breathless gasp that got lost amidst Nani's fingers, was exactly what he wanted to hear.
"You are such a nasty little—unngh… suh-such a pervert," Nani admonished, though she made no more gestures to reclaim her foot, or to even dissuade Stitch from his worship. She stared down at him, those long black tresses flowing over her neck, and he stared back up at her with the one eye that wasn't hidden under her foot.
Wait a minute….That look adorning her face, that flushed yet indulgent expression….
She couldn't have figured it out… could she?
Everything ground to a standstill when Nani blinked. Because that was in no way a normal blink. It was a slow, methodical blink, and Stitch knew what that meant. It meant the cat was out of the bag. The gears in her head were turning, numbers were adding up, previously unexplainable moments of perversion in the past were coming back with greater clarity—yeah, she knew she had power over him now. He could see it glinting just beyond those shimmering brown eyes.
"Blitznak…."
His swear came out strangled under the ball of Nani's foot, and she merely scoffed.
"Right there… this is where you want to be… isn't it?" she questioned in hushed tones, beginning to smirk, and Stitch could feel the pressure of her foot growing with each passing second. She was purposefully stepping down harder. "You like me, don't you, Stitch?"
Well.
Damn.
Why lie…?
Knowing she wouldn't understand his alien tongue, Stitch simply nodded, pausing in his fervent tongue ministrations.
"Ha."
If Stitch had to pick a moment when everything changed, when their dynamic shifted into the deplorable, he would have to say it was when Nani uttered that single little degrading noise… when she awarded his honesty with that simple laugh.
Summary: Clint has a name for their co-operative ventures. Natasha doesn't like it. He says give it time. She says she did and it still sounds like mud backwards.
“That’s a stupid name. And I mean really stupid. I thought we had moved past those, you just said we needed to get serious.”
A glimmer of surprise resonated in Clint’s eye as took a rough bite of his pizza, scoffing at his partner. “I was serious. What, you gonna tell me that it’s not catchy?”
There was something pitying about the way Nat nodded, as if she felt sorry for Clint’s genuine enthusiasm. “That’s exactly what I’m gonna do, Clint. It’s not catchy, it doesn’t ring any bells—try again, and get above the obvious.”
Now thoroughly indignant, Clint pointed to the red-haired spy across from him with his half-eaten pizza. “I refuse to believe you can sit there with a straight face and tell me ‘Black Hawk’ wouldn’t be the best name for our tag-team work.”
“Seeing is believing, watch me,” and Nat leveled him with a face crafted of marble, emotionless and cold, reminiscent in all the ways to the kinds of looks she used to give Clint himself when he first found her all those years ago. Then, before Clint could begin to grow uncomfortable, her expression warmed and a smile split her cherry-red lips. “Believe me now?”
“I believe you’re full of shit, that’s what I believe, Nat. It’s a great name, fact.”
“It’s unimaginative, better fact. C’mon, arrow-boy, you were in the circus once,” she bargained, reaching out for what Clint noticed was her fourth slice of pizza. There was no denying Nat had a body capable of dropping jaws just as easily as it could break necks so he found her propensity to pack it away yet retain such a figure nothing short of unfair. “I’dda thought that as one of the carny folk, your imagination would be higher than… Black Hawk.”
He grinned. “I can’t help but notice that you’re being mighty contrary for someone not even bothering to throw out a suggestion.”
“Well, if you ask me,” began Nat passively, and she lifted both legs, crossing them comfortably over the table, “I’d go with Black Eye instead. Keeps your elementary name scheme with the added benefit of sounding threatening. See? Miles better already.”
There was something snidely victorious about the way she smirked at him and Clint rolled his eyes. “Miles violent, sure,” he conceded, downing the crust of his pizza and wiping his hands over his chest. “But we’re trying to come up with something more… super-hero-y. Something to inspire hope in the people.”
“Ugh, pig. We have napkins right here, y’know,” Nat reprimanded with an exaggerated face of disgust. “Maybe you should change your moniker to Grease-Eye instead.”
Smirking, Hawkeye pushed himself to his feet with the help of the table. “You’re on your sixth slice of pizza—yeah, I’ve been counting—and somehow I’m the pig?” he questioned incredulously, making his way around to her side. “Spy’s must not dabble in logic, huh?”
“Spell logic,” she shot back with an uncaring shrug before taking a painstakingly slow bite from her sixth slice, then she proceeded to pull back at the same vexingly leisured pace, causing strands of cheese to coat her bottom lip. “Mmmm… sooo cheesy.” She’d all but gasped it out, using that skilled little pink tongue of hers to trace her lip.
As Clint stared down at his partner, there was little he could do in the face of her routine but offer a couple of lingering golf claps. “Ten outta ten, Nat, I’d definitely be surrendering all of my government’s secrets if I was your mark,” he told her with the utmost enthusiasm.
They both knew that Nat’s famed charms had no effect whatsoever on Clint, especially given their past history, so his words did little more than cause Nat to giggle.
“Were you so easy,” she mused with a snort.
“Were I,” Clint agreed and he swiftly bent over, bringing his lips to her cheeks with enough force to ensure he left behind a very sloppy, very pinguid kiss mark, “but I’m not.”
A groan of sincere aversion left Nat as she immediately sat upright, snatching a few napkins from the pile and swiping frantically at her cheek. “Oh, no you did not just—ew, ew, ew, you gross little… I’m so gonna get you back,” she vowed, fixing him with a glare that was one part entirely Black Widow and one part playful. “You’re such an ass.”
“Of course,” Clint agreed again, easily falling back into his chair and throwing his legs up with all the flair of a boss, “but I’m your ass.”
After discarding her eighth napkin and double-checking that she had erased all trace of Clint’s surprise kiss, Nat grunted, the smallest of smiles just barely visible in place of her disgusted scowl. “Hmph. Speaking of asses,” she began casually, returning her legs to the tabletop as well, “did you ever get Laura to agree to do that?”
Something that resonated close to regret surfaced over Clint’s features and he sighed, throwing his head back. “I brought it up, she quickly brought it down.”
Nat sucked her teeth understandingly. “Swing and a miss. What a shame, it’s not like you’re suggesting something outrageous. A little butt-play is fun every now and again,” she said with a supercilious little sniff.
The inclination was all too clear in Nat’s tone and Clint tilted his head so as to meet her gaze, but he found her staring off to the side a little too intensively to be convincing. “Funnily enough, that’s what I was thinking. I mean, you certainly didn’t mind, right?”
If she did, Nat didn’t show it, but she did huff out a sigh and further avoid Clint’s smug leer by staring up at the ceiling. He could see she was using her tongue to prod around her bottom lip, a cute little tick of hers she reverted to when she was trying to be meticulous with her words. “It’s not so much that I didn’t mind, Clint,” she said, filling his name with enough venom to match a real black widow, “it’s that you didn’t really give me much choice in the matter.”
The last slice of pizza was calling Clint’s name and he reached for it. “Right, like the Black Widow would let herself be taken in any way she didn’t want.”
“Tch, it’s so rare that you actually take the reins that I was genuinely surprised, couldn’t really do much about it,” she said, catching his movements and retaliating by grasping the knife at her hip. When they met eyes, the air seemed to shimmer with their intensity, and Nat smirked. “You really wanna risk it all like this, arrow-boy?”
“I risk it all every day I step out with you, Nat.” And while that much was wholly true, as just walking down the street with the Black Widow was taking your life into your own hands, it didn’t stop Clint from snatching the last slice, which led to Nat quite earnestly trying to imbed her trusty knife in the back of his hand. She missed, and it sank into the table instead. “Ha, gotta be quicker than that.”
“Oh, believe me, I was,” his partner pointed out, wrenching her blade free, giving it a twirl, and sliding it back into the holder on her waist. “I just suddenly remembered you need your hands to do your whole archery thing.”
“And other fingery things of equal renown,” Clint said, tearing his slice in two and offering a portion to Nat. When she blinked at him, he edged it closer. “Go on, you know you want it.”
“I swear you’re too soft,” she snapped, snatching the pizza all the same.
“You would’ve done the same for me—” Clint started.
“Not with pizza,” Nat interrupted with a solemn expression, “especially not with extra cheese pizza.”
“—and I don’t think being soft is a problem I’ve ever had,” Clint finished supremely, as though Nat had never spoken. “Straight as an arrow and twice as thick, isn’t that what you used to say?”
Instead of answering, Nat focused entirely on her pizza, utilizing her tongue in a grandiose display that was both highly provocative and completely uncalled for. Still, even as she arched her back and let slip little teasing moans of pleasure, Clint had to marvel at the practiced skill. No one in their right mind could ever say that the Black Widow lacked in the art of seduction.
When you could make eating pizza look triple-x rated, skill spoke for itself.
“You’re new little girlfriend is quite the unexpected prude, though, I must say,” Nat commented offhandedly, holding her crust between two fingers and swiveling ever so slightly from side to side in her chair. “Missionary for the sole purpose of recreation and all that PG stuff… it’s rather boring, isn’t it?”
Polishing off his half and sucking on his fingers, Clint gave an apathetic shrug. “Depends on your definition of boring, yeah? She just needs to be shown other, um… opportunities—and that kinda thing takes time. You of all people oughta know how that goes,” he said, grinning when Nat rolled her eyes. “In the meantime, the stability is there. The love, the care… it’s nice, a little chunk of something I didn’t know was missing or that I even wanted. And hey, she loves doing the naked-apron-while-cooking thing,” he added almost dreamily.
“You wouldn’t even like that if it weren’t for me,” Nat responded, jabbing a thumb at her chest, which was revealing its usual amount of tantalizing cleavage. It was such an everyday occurrence that Clint was more or less numb to seeing it. “I tried to tell you how awesome it was but you were all “noooo, that can’t be, that sounds stupid”,” she said in a mocking yet almost perfect rendition of Clint’s mannerisms. “Then I do it and bam, you couldn’t keep your hands off me.”
“In my defense,” the master archer began, lifting a finger, “you were so unnaturally sexy virtually anything you did led to me being unable to keep my hands off you.”
“Were?” Nat noticed with all the quickness of a cheetah, and her eyes zeroed in on Clint before narrowing into threatening slits. “What’re you trying to say there, pal? That I’m not sexy anymore?”
Beyond the ire that one could almost see manifesting itself into a black cloud around Nat, Clint was suddenly aware of the fact that their ‘after work’ pizza was finished. It was a long-standing tradition of theirs to grab some food after they were done with whatever mission or directive S.H.I.E.L.D had laid out for them to complete. It gave them time to unwind, to get some food in their system, and to just catch up; it was a moment that the two of them had more than once stated was the only saving grace where their jobs were concerned. A little slice of heaven to carve through the darkness and monotony.
“You are one of the sexiest women I’ve ever had the pleasure to meet, romance, and taste,” said Clint with that blunt honesty of his, sharp as an arrow and twice as piercing, and the cloud of rage beginning to rumble above Nat seemingly evaporated. She looked taken aback by his claim, even perhaps a little pleased given the way she rolled her eyes. “You’re just not the sexiest woman I’ve ever had the pleasure to meet, romance, and taste.” He smirked when that self-satisfied expression of hers turned into a funny little scowl. “You’re a firm number two.”
“Fair enough,” Nat said, automatically knowing who rightfully sat in his number one spot. Her eyes fell down to where their extra large supreme pizza had once sat, glorious and steamy, now reduced to a cold, greasy circle. She idly tapped the table with a few fingers, lost in thought, until finally uttering, “Next time… we gotta work harder on that name….”
That wasn’t what she had originally planned on saying… she knew it, and so did Clint, who responded by slapping the table and bringing his legs down. “You’re crazy, Black Hawk is marketable. You’ve even got top billing there, Nat, you should be happy.”
“I don’t want my name attached to such mediocrity, thanks, goofus.”
Climbing to his feet was ridiculously harder the second time around. The adrenaline had yet to wear off from earlier, he’d still been running on high-octane “yee-haw” energy. Now, as his knees wobbled with a desire to sink back into his chair, Clint could feel his muscles beginning to tighten, the bruises that his clothes hid were starting to throb without mercy….
“You’ll come around,” he got out with an affirming nod, “and hey, if you don’t like it, you could always, I dunno, toss something up. Something besides Black Eye,” he reiterated the moment Nat parted those beckoning lips. She crossed her arms looking pouty and he chuckled, patting her on the shoulder. “Don’t do that, you’re too cute for wrinkles, Natty.”
It was never fun, when the pizza was gone, when the laughs were had, and the call to return to their normal lives—if such a term existed for either of them—could no longer be ignored. The only solace to be found was that there would be more meetings, more times to catch up… more opportunities to bask in the others calming presence.
Because despite the fact that Clint had a new girlfriend, one whom he loved more than he thought was possible, he knew his soulmate was the crimson-haired woman currently side-glancing at him through her lashes. It wasn’t a secret by any means, the both of them already knew that if it weren’t for their differing fields of work, the fission that drove them apart would have never occurred.
“But… some things just aren’t meant to be,” Nat muttered under her breath, reaching up to grip him tightly by the forearm.
“Hm? What’s not?” Clint asked, confused.
“That name,” she responded evenly, without a shred of hesitation. “I’m sorry, it just keeps the rounds in my mind, over and over like a broken record.”
There was very little doubt that Nat was lying through her perfect teeth. Clint had known her long enough to be able to spot her lies and deflections with an accuracy that rivaled his skill with the bow. And because she was indeed trying to throw him off, it gave Clint all the clues he needed to parse what she had been thinking about.
“Sleep on it, we’ll get there,” he told her with verve, adding a reassuring squeeze before withdrawing his hand. The action was purposefully slow, slow enough so that his arm slid right through her grasp until they were hand-in-hand, their fingers interlocked. “Love ya, Nat.”
She smirked, shaking her head. “Yeah, yeah….”
After wishing her luck on her next mission, Clint was halfway through stumbling out the door when he heard it, begrudgingly uttered but filled with enough emotion to let him know she meant it:
That was the most recent dour thought to push its way to the forefront of Ino’s frayed mind, and while even she had to admit it was a bit dramatic, the sentiment was no less sincere. As she stared at her reflection in the vanity mirror, noting the way her eyeliner ran in rivulets down her cheeks, the puffiness of her eyes, her cracked lips, and the overall shabbiness of her attire, Ino couldn’t help but wonder… when had everything gone so wrong?
She sniffled, felt her face begin to scrunch up, saw the pain that etched itself into her face—and then she couldn’t stop it. Her mouth split in a trembling whimper that gave way to a dragging cry, one that echoed from the depths of her aching soul, that brought forth a wave of fresh tears to burn through her mascara.
Her shoulders shook, her stomach clenched, she felt nauseous and lightheaded all at once. The noise that burst from her throat could be described as crying to anyone listening, but to a more perked ear, it sounded more… wounded, more scarred and terrified.
There was something deeply wrong with her.
Crying wasn’t helping her heart any, the tears only widened the jagged tear that had been sliced into it. Each heave of her chest hurt something physical, breathing had been a chore for the longest and she had to wrap her arms around her midsection for fear of what she might do with them free.
How much time had passed with her like that, hunched over on her knees with her face shoved into the sheets of her bed, hoping against hope that she would swiftly asphyxiate and be gone from this pain?
When she finally collapsed onto her side, she was still quivering from head to toe, still sniffling and hiccuping, her eyes clenched shut as if trying to deny the presence of some terrifying apparition in her room.
But, unfortunately, she was quite alone within the four walls that was both her room and her prison. Which was worse. She would have loved for some horrible figment of her jaded imagination to be the reason behind her tears—at least that could be fixed—but this…? This ache clawing at her from within, pulling her lower and lower into a cold darkness? There was no solution for that, none that she could see.
The only she could see behind her clamped eyelids was him.
Him approaching her after class….
Him pulling her off to the side….
Him with that charismatic grin on those oh-so-kissable lips….
Him being so gentle, making her think he was about to say something romantic enough to buckle her knees….
Him, saying that it wasn’t working out….
Him, saying that he had found someone else….
Him… walking away without so much as a backwards glance….
The moment she shattered into pieces was the moment when the world seemed to tilt, leaving her dazed and confused. A nervous laugh bounced off his retreating back, she remembered… a nervous little cutesy giggle, because there was no way she had just heard right. So she called after him, called him to come back, really, but he didn’t, he didn’t even acknowledge her voice.
Which was strange, because she had clearly spoken english.
So she called him again, a bit louder. And then again, with more force, thinking this time would surely unlodge whatever had clogged his ears. But he kept on walking, strolling leisurely, until he took a corner and was out of sight.
Not that that deterred Ino, who only proceeded to keep shouting until her throat grew sore and her voice brittle, until she had collapsed to her knees under the crushing weight of what she didn’t want to face: the fact that she had been tossed aside.
That one moment continued to live rent free in her head even a couple weeks later, popping up at all hours of the day and replaying incessantly like some twisted merry-go-round of grief. Every pass broke her down deeper, knotted her stomach tighter—sometimes she couldn’t eat, most times she was just thirsty, and sleep was a distant reprieve that only came to claim her when she was exhausted from crying into her pillow.
And what hurt the most… the thing that picked at her heart with all the grace of a jackhammer was seeing him with her. Oh, she knew their names, of course she did, but she would rather be dragged down to hell before she let those identifiers cross her lips. They were little more than snidely smirking mannequins now, taunting her whenever they laughed together, or ate together, or held hands… just doing all the things that… that she and him used to do.
The promises they had made, the life they had planned out together… all his words of protecting her and taking care of her, telling her she was his main source of inspiration, that her smile brightened him up no matter what he was going through… which in turn just melted her heart, captured her soul, and she endeavored to greet him with a smile as much as possible.
Anything for him.
Anything.
Any-fucking-thing.
The scream that burst from her throat rolled out like a dragons flame, hot and acrid against the tongue and ultimately muffled against the pillow she had smashed to her face. Somehow, someway, there had to be an end to this misery, a way to bottle up all this hurt and suffering and scatter it to the four winds, freeing herself from these charred tendrils doing their damnedest to drag her under. She just wanted to live life again, to go back to the time before she had ever met him and fallen for that shitty grin and those empty promises, a time back when she knew herself—as much as she felt any fifteen-year-old could at any rate. A time before this gaping hole had been torn into her heart with no conceivable way to close—
knock, knock, knock
The eye that wasn’t hidden behind her pillow cracked open, still just as strained and bloodshot, while the rest of her froze. What was that…? Someone at the door? Or had she hallucinated it?
Holding her breath, Ino kept silent, listening intently, though nothing but quiet met her ear and she rolled her eyes. Great. Now she was starting to hear th—
knock, knock, knock
She flipped upright, hair flying everywhere in straggles, and merely sat there, poised like a cat trying to sense out where the danger was doing from. This time she had definitely heard it, that knocking, which now begged the question of just who in the hell would be at her door? She wasn’t expecting no one, no one was expecting her; she had basically turned into a recluse in the span of a few days.
“Maybe it’s billboard brow,” she reasoned a couple seconds later, having dragged herself from the depressing comfort of her room. She stepped with all the grace of a three-legged dog in clogs, not even caring to keep even an ounce of the poise she was quite known to possess, and she truly didn’t care. Her parents weren’t home, she couldn’t remember where they said they were going, because they had definitely told her, it was just the pain rending her heart in two took precedence—
knock, knock, knock
“Okay, okay, Sakura-chan,” she grumbled, reaching the front door and pulling it open, “hold your hor… wuh?”
Oddly enough, it wasn’t Sakura who Ino had been expecting—and secretly hoping—to see standing on her porch, no. It was—
“Naru… to…?” The name passed her lips with a foreign inflection and she blinked a few times, wondering, borderline hoping, that this boy with the bright blonde hair would disintegrate; she would rather think herself going mad and hearing things than deal with whatever annoyance he was undoubtedly waiting to unleash on her. “What… why’re you here?”
Standing there in his trademark orange jumpsuit and silhouetted by the blazing afternoon sun, Naruto didn’t say anything at first; in fact, he didn’t do much of anything for the next couple seconds except hold her gaze. And that right there was almost enough incentive to slam the door in his face because Naruto was never quiet, Naruto was never one to stand still—the Naruto she regretfully knew was always running around yelling his lungs dry about being the next Hokage. Hell, she and him used to make fun of this annoying blonde all the time.
Staring at him now, Ino had half a mind to suddenly apologize for all the hurtful things she had said behind his back, because while he was quite possibly the most annoying soul she had ever come across in her short life, that didn’t give her the right to demean him like she did, laugh at him like she did… spit at his dreams like she did.
“So… how’s it feel?” he suddenly asked, inclining his head somewhat.
The wind picked up somewhat, tossing a few eddies through Naruto’s hair in an impressive way that Ino probably would have never noticed until now as she stood there, staring between locks of her own swaying hair.
And then his question did a second lap through her ears in a way that actually registered and her stomach clenched, causing a quiver to run the length of her spry legs. There wasn’t a need for her to ask him what he was talking about; she knew exactly what he was talking about, what he was referring to with that cryptic question that would have come off vague to anyone else. She knew, and it flipped a switch within so fast that she was lightheaded by the time her lips parted.
“How does what feel?” The question slipped through teeth that were ground together and suddenly, Ino’s face had twisted from confusion into pure rage. “A-are you… are you asking how it feels to be dumped?”
Those blue eyes never once looked away from her own and Naruto hunched a shoulder. “Kinda, yeah.”
“IT HURTS!” Ino screamed almost before he could finish, and her voice cracked, booming around the area, possibly infiltrating the surrounding houses. “It hurts like hell! It hurts being left behind, being discarded like I—like I never mattered, like I was being lied to the whole damn time!” The bile was churning hot in her stomach but she couldn’t stop; the valve had been turned with that single innocuous question and everything was pouring out. “I did everything RIGHT! Everything! I was there! I was supportive! I—I smiled! I d-didn’t deserve… when I was just trying to do my best and—and—”
“—and no matter what you did, which was probably nothin’, how you were treated just don’t make no sense,” Naruto supplied with an even edge, almost like this wasn’t his first time saying those exact words for one reason or another.
It was his response that lodged a wrench in the turning gears of Ino’s rant, which had her voice growing steadily shriller with every syllable uttered. She blinked, taken aback, then was doubly shocked to find that she was outside her house, that she had taken a few threatening steps in the other blondes direction. She stood about a good arms length away, just close enough to get a good punch off, which, judging by how tightly wound up her hand was, it’s probably what she planned on doing before snapping back to reality.
She stared at him now in a tight-lipped silence, brows furrowed, one hand wringing the bottom of her two-sizes-too-large over shirt. Ino was far from the term ‘stupid’ so she knew that what Naruto had just said, that he was enlightening her in the most passive aggressive way possible that she was explaining his entire existence. She could see that, the parallels there, she could see the fact that her boy troubles didn’t amount to the years of ridicule and mistreatment Naruto had been through—but still… just because he had had it rough since apparently birth, that didn’t make her feelings any less valid, did it? Just because someone else had suffered far worse didn’t exempt one from feeling their own turmoil, right?
“I’ve seen you ‘round the academy,” he continued, taking a step in her direction, one that caused her to stiffen. “When you were with that asshole… and now without him. Heard how you guys used to make fun of me like everyone else… oh, I’m not mad,” he told her when her eyes listed to the side in a chastised fashion, “I’m so far used to it, been called worse by better.”
When he smirked, Ino actively rolled her eyes, sucking her teeth. She really had nothing to say because her mind was reeling with questions now: how long had Naruto known? Was he upset? He didn’t look it but still—and was that why he was here? To get revenge? That had to be it. She and what’s-his-face made fun of him and now… now that she had been effectively replaced and tossed out like last nights trash, he was here to go “nyah nyah nyah now look who’s the loser.” And, honestly? Why the hell not. Karma had been stomping her ass all up and down the street, this was just another fated kick to the gut.
So she stood there, clutching onto her elbow with her shoulders hunched up in wait for whatever vitriol Naruto planned on spewing her way. Because he had every right to. The way she had talked about him before she met that jerk was bad enough, and that was just in passing with Sakura, but it got ratcheted up to a whole new level of complete disregard once she became his girlfriend. Rude didn’t even begin to cover it, because kids could be just as cruel as adults, if not more so.
Hopefully, God willing, this would be the cherry to her fucked up cake of inner turmoil, the last topping before the healing could begin… if he didn’t completely eviscerate her entire existence right now.
When he exhaled through his nostrils, the force of it caused her to flinch. Daring to look into his face, even if it was through her eyelashes, Ino watched as his gaze moved from her face, traveled down her front, ended at her feet, then came back up, leaving her feeling as though she had just been run through an x-ray. He was probably looking for something to point out, something on her to make fun of or use as an excuse for why she had been unceremoniously dumped.
“Go put some shoes on,” he finally told her, nodding at her bare feet.
What he said didn’t even register with Ino at first. She had been so secure in the thought that the first thing out of his mouth was going to be something hurtful that she had already hurt herself mentally, to the point where her lips trembled apart and she tearfully began to yell, “J-Just because I s-said that stuff, that d-doesn’t mean you—” but the moment Naruto’s actual words ran through her mind again, she abruptly stopped. “…W… wait, what?”
Naruto regarded the sniffling girl with a cocked brow, not quite sure where that budding outburst had come from. “Yeah, you’re not handlin’ this well at all.” He pointed down. “Whatever you thought I said, I didn’t say it. What I actually said was go put some shoes on.”
Now Ino was blinking sporadically like she had a tick, struggling to understand. “I… shoes? Wait, but aren’t you gonna, like… weren’t you about to yell at me?” she blurted out, only to have Naruto tilt his head to the side.
“Yell at you? Why?”
“Because! I used to make fun of you, you numbskull—like stupid bad!” And now, for some unexplainable reason, Ino was starting to get annoyed, a feeling that turned visual by the way her hands curled into fists at her sides. “I know you must’ve heard me with Sakura and—and that jerk ass! We were loud as hell! That’s why you’re here, right? You’re here ‘cause I got dropped flat on my ass and now you’re gonna laugh and point and tell me that’s what I get and—”
All it took was one finger. One finger that Naruto swiftly brought to Ino’s lips that quieted her like she had never spoken. The way her eyes widened like Naruto had grown a second head, her entire body froze at his touch, just seized up like he had caught her in a genjutsu. And then neither moved for a few tense beats of Ino’s heart, mostly because her mind was going into shock and she didn’t know what to do, or why she hadn’t slapped his hand away yet.
“You started to sound like me for a second there,” Naruto remarked, “and that’s one road you don’t wanna go down. Well, any more than you already have….”
When his finger fell away, Ino was left in a tight-lipped silence. She didn’t quite trust herself to speak right then; whether she would yell at him, thereby adding more flame to her guilt, or burst out in sobs was too up in the air for an attempt, so she just sucked in her bottom lip and held it.
“The only thing I’m ever yelling about is bein’ the next Hokage,” he went on casually, jerking his head at seemingly nothing, yet Ino knew he was indicating in the direction of the Hokage monument, “and, y’know, the best food ever created: ramen.”
The scoff that left Ino’s lips was perfunctory and she rubbed at her eye with the back of her hand. She didn’t like feeling so sensitive, like every little thing that happened had a direct impact on her heart, on her mind; and the worst part was not knowing how long this would last or what she could do to fix it.
“So go put some shoes on and follow me,” Naruto instructed once more. “We’re gonna get some ramen.”
“Ramen…?” Now Ino’s face contracted with disgust. “Whoa, whoa, wait… you”—she pointed at him so sharply her finger almost went up his nose—“actually want to take me”—she turned that finger on herself—“to get some ramen?”
“Yeah, there’s this new teriyaki flavor that just came out yesterday and it’s pretty good. I’m thinking you’ll like it.”
His reasoning was so simple and genuine that Ino blinked. Never mind the fact that Naruto, the king of brain lesions, was “thinking” at all—which was yet another insulting barb that she mentally berated herself over immediately—but she just couldn’t work out the logistics of why he wasn’t berating her, hurling out verbal insults on par with what she struck him with. Not only was he not yelling, she couldn’t detect a single glimmer of rage or disdain in his eyes, nothing resided in those cerulean pupils… except…
On a whim, Ino stepped closer, breezing into Naruto’s personal space and causing him to tense somewhat; she could feel this kinetic swirl of energy ignite around him and ignored it, focusing instead on his eyes. Bypassing their shimmering, gem-like qualities, she could see something there… something that came across as horribly familiar.
And then she smiled. It started out as a little ‘o’ of surprise that slowly lifted into a genial smirk of affection. Chuckling, she lifted a hand and let it drop heavily over Naruto’s head, almost impacting his neck and causing him to grunt.
“Ino….”
It was like Naruto had never spoken when she ruffled his unruly mop of hair, curling her fingers in his locks. He was shorter than her, not by much, but enough that when she leaned forward, her chin met his forehead. When she threw her other arm around his neck, Naruto was left with very little choice but to awkwardly shuffle forward into whatever embrace this blonde girl was forcing him. Not that he really minded; she was strangely, intoxicatingly soft, and she smelled better than ramen.
Way better.
“So you want to take me out for some ramen,” Ino whispered against him. When he nodded as best he could, giving his neck a quick jerk, she had to stifle a giggle. “And this is becauuuuse… why? You think we’re like, what, kindred spirits or something? Heartbreak partners? The downtrodden duo?”
Every inhale filled Naruto’s nostrils with more of this girls natural scent; it was quickly apparent she hadn’t bathed yet and had worked up quite a sweat since she had stepped outside. It was stifling, somewhat cloying, and somehow maddeningly enjoyable to the point where he had to keep from exhaling through his mouth because he knew that would seem weird.
“Ah dunno,” he uttered against her with a half-hearted shrug.
“Are you trying to make this like… a date?”
Naruto registered those words just fine, he had a good grasp on the english language after all, but they still proceeded to turn his brain into mush and cause his heartbeat to quicken. His breaths turned doggish in response to the lump that had formed in his throat, and maybe it was the rough exhales against the curve of her neck that caused Ino to laugh.
“Can we, um, cool it with the breathing? You’re tickling me,” she admonished playfully.
“Ah wike bweathin’ tho’,” came the garbled response.
“Hm. Okay, that checks out. Breathing is important, I guess,” she agreed almost begrudgingly, and then Naruto let slip a groan of discomfort; the hold Ino had over his hair suddenly intensified, to the point where he felt a few hairs part ways with his scalp actually, and then he knew fresh air when she pulled his head back in a move that was both dominating yet tender at the same time, “but you still didn’t answer my question,” she pointed out casually. “Are you, Naruto Uzumaki, asking me, Ino Yamanaka, out on a date?”
Really, what could said about Naruto that he was finding this situation somewhat enjoyable, the way Ino held him, practically snatching his head so that he had no choice but to meet her inquisitive eye? He didn’t want to dwell on it, seemed like a deep dive into a certain part of his mental psyche that he knew for a fact he wasn’t ready nor prepared to deal with just yet.
“You didn’t know? Eating ramen can heal what ails ya,” Naruto said nonchalantly, lifting an arm and wrapping it around Ino’s lithe figure much like the way her arm was still around his neck. He felt her tense under his touch and smirked somewhat. “It’s been fixing my broken heart for years now. I’m thinking it’ll work wonders for yours, Ino-chan.”
“Ha. So what we’re really going out for is a little heartbreak ramen?” Ino gave her head a pitying shake, admittedly enamored by this blonde’s bold move. “Alright, goofball. Let me go get my shoes… and you’re paying.”
An incredulous look lit up Naruto’s face. “Who’s paying? I get it for free. Me and Mr Teuchi are good friends.”
Ino genuinely laughed, something she hadn’t been able to do for who knows how long, and God above did it feel good. “Oh, you come with perks, I see.”
"No, you're the one who had all the mouth earlier, go on."
"Screw that, you think I'm an idiot?"
"Your entire being is literally based around idiocy—"
“Bite me.”
"—so this right here should be right up your alley."
"No."
"Just do it."
"No! You do it!"
"I have pride."
"You have cowardice, that's what you've got."
When Sasuke shrugged, Naruto could just about punch the Uchiha for his surprising lack of care. The two of them had been standing just outside Konoha's premiere dango shop for the better half of an hour, partly arguing, partly shifting about in wait for the other to make the first move.
"Cowardice is bringing up a plan and then catching cold feet at the starting line," Sasuke said icily, hands buried deep within his pockets.
Naruto adjusted his hitai-ate with a determined snort, glaring his cellmate from head to toe. "Hey, hey, back up—I only made mention of it—you're the one who said "Hey, let's go over there right now and see!' like you had some sort of plan."
"That's nowhere near what I said, you gigantic ass," Sasuke snapped. "What I actually said was we should think of something before just heading over there, which is exactly what you did, and I followed. Because I caught a case of your dumbass-itis."
"All I'm hearin' is "Naruto, I'm a coward who can't find his balls, please help me.""
"I can most definitely help my foot find your ass."
They were in there…the person Naruto and Sasuke had come to see, to hopefully talk to. Finding out where she liked to lounge about during her down time was ridiculously easy thanks to some close observation to what she always seemed to be eating or snacking on whenever they saw her.
"She's in there," Naruto said idly, nodding at the entrance. "Just inside, less than twenty feet away."
"You say twenty, but I swear it feels like half the world away," Sasuke muttered.
"Yeah, right? How does that even work?"
"It's called nerves, dead-last. It can skewer your views no matter how clearly you see things."
Silence reigned between the two awkwardly shuffling genin with nothing but the playful winds and staggeringly loud conversations from the throngs of people around them to concentrate on. Really, anything was better than actually thinking about what they had come here to do.
"Wait…we can go in there, right? Like, it's minor-friendly, isn't it?" Naruto wondered.
There was something pitying about the way Sasuke turned to stare at his cellmate. "Did you seriously just ask that? It's a dango shop, of course it is. It's everyone friendly."
Squaring his shoulders, Naruto nodded and started forward, making a motion at Sasuke who stood stiff, no doubt shocked by Naruto's sudden advance. "C'mon, we're doing this."
And he led the way inside. The interior of the shop was larger than they were expecting given the modest outside appearance, but there were booths lining the walls and a number of occupied stools at the bar. The most delicious, mouth-watering fragrance floated through the air, perking nostrils and igniting stomachs, and the entire place was lit with a hazy orange light from several lanterns hanging from the ceiling. Boundless chatter and conversation ruled every other noise from the throngs within, from the happy, well-fed occupants lifting their glasses and toasting to whatever occasion had brought them here today.
Yet none of it—not the warmth, the smell of food, the strange sensation of being amongst family—none of it compared to the way both Naruto and Sasuke's stomachs clenched when they spotted that familiar tan coat and spiked purple hair in a pixie cut. She was sitting at the bar, unceremoniously tearing into a bowl of fresh dango, her fourth bowl given the three empty ones around her, and oddly, or perhaps wisely, the stools to her immediate left and right were vacant.
That made sense. Everyone in Konoha was privy to the madness that basically coated the chakra belonging to Anko Mitarashi. Everyone knew her jaded background, everyone knew the sordid details of her story…and everyone knew she was not to be trifled with.
So the vacant stools made sense to the smart ones.
"Let's go."
"Right."
Unfortunately, as Naruto and Sasuke took up residence on either side of the infamous kunoichi, smarts wasn't something that they dabbled in.
From left to right Anko turned, glancing from the blonde then to the Uchiha, her cheeks bulging with dango, before she faced forward again, focusing intently on her food and polishing off the entire bowl in a matter of seconds. It wasn't until after she had set down her chopsticks and thumped the countertop twice to signal for more that she finally acknowledged their presence.
"Hmhm…the both of you at the same time, eh?" There was something sinister about the way she smirked. "Alright, this'll be a new one for me, I'll admit that, but hey, Im open-minded. So who's got the front and who's got the back?"
Looking past the manic kunoichi, Naruto shared the briefest of confused glances with Sasuke, receiving only a shrug. "Er—what? What do you mean who's—"
"Ah, so that's not what this is about?" Anko interrupted and she "tsk"ed with some faux disappointment, bringing her hands together in prayer when the wizened yet burly old man behind the bar slid another bowl of dango sticks in front of her. "Itadakimasu….Then do tell, what's the village pariah and the king of angst want with little ole me?"
Puffing out his chest, Naruto thumped his fist on the counter just like Anko had done, and when the bartender approached, he fixed the older man with a very determined, very awkward leer. It didn't last long when the bartender merely glared the genin down, his snow-white mustache twitching over a frown of steel. Naruto seemed to deflate where he sat. "Um…c-can I, uh...what she's eating, I—me too, that bowl there…p-please?"
"I…" Sasuke's hand was in the air, but only partway, clearly not wanting to draw unwanted attention to himself. "I would also like a bowl. Sir."
The bartender ignored Sasuke like he was nothing more than wallpaper to continue glaring Naruto down, even going so far as to lean forward which caused Naruto to rear back and slip off his stool.
Following his heavy collision with the floor came a loud, "OW!"
Glancing off to the side, Anko did nothing but snort, turning to the bartender with a familial grin. "Good show, Kenichi. Go ahead and get these two a bowl, put it on my tab."
With a snort and the barest hint of a nod, Kenichi moved away to fill Anko's order. It took a few moments for Naruto to reclaim his seat, muttering a string of curses as he righted himself, his whiskered cheeks aflame with embarrassment.
"Thanks," he grumbled, pouting.
Anko merely nodded in response, focused far more on coaxing a succulent ball of dango from the skewer using only her tongue. She lapped at the side, swirling it all over the surface and drawing it closer and closer to the tip of the stick. Her movements were agonizingly slow, and her tongue was so pink and slick and dextrous, that neither Naruto nor Sasuke realized they were staring so intensely until the ball disappeared into Anko's mouth and she "Mmmm"d to herself, a hand to her cheek.
"Simply orgasmic," she cooed with a body-quaking shudder. "I swear there's no better place in all the villages that can whip up some prime dango like Kenichi. It's a family recipe, ya know, passed down through the generations and crafted to utter perfection. Half my salary goes right to this place every time I get paid and—"
Naruto had faded before Anko got the third word out, and judging by the way Sasuke's eyes had glazed over, he was right there beside Naruto in Dazeville. The way this kunoichi ate, the way her every action seemed to flow with a sensual flare…it was distracting, the way her tongue worked, the way her lips glistened after being licked clean of the dango's zest….
Something wet, warm, and sticky met Naruto's cheek and he froze like a deer in the headlight, his mind stuttering to a halt. In all his ostracized life, Naruto had never been kissed, he had never known the warmth of another in any capacity—he had never even been on the opposite end of a fond stare, so right now…the sensation of having Anko's lips against his cheek, against his skin, was causing his heartbeat to spike. They were so soft, and this close she smelled so sweet, so much so that the scent of her was all he could take in—and he did, inhaling with force—
CLUNK.
Again, Naruto jumped, and Anko pulled away with a rolling laugh. There was a bowl with four skewers of dango in front of him, the house special. A bowl sat before Sasuke, too, but he was too preoccupied in gawking at Naruto, jaw clenched and eyes wide.
"Enjoy 'em," Kenichi grunted, then moved off down the bar to quiet a drunken pair of Chunin who had just broken out into a rousing, and off-key, chorus of "99 bottles of beer".
"I'm sorry, I'm sorry," Anko was struggling to get out between giggling fits, "it's just—you were so hooked on watching me eat, I couldn't help myself!"
Naruto had a hand over the spot where Anko's lips had graced his skin, face hued a brilliant crimson. Thankful for a distraction, anything to keep his eyes from wandering back to her lips, he turned to his dango, picking up a skewer and hungrily snatching off two balls at once.
This only caused Anko's expression to grow more feline, complete with half-lidded eyes. "Oho…lemme guess." She leaned over until their shoulders touched, smirking when he twitched. "That was your first kiss, wasn't it, kid?"
The choking fit that suddenly overcame Naruto would have likely claimed his life if Anko hadn't thudded him over the back.
"Yeah, that was your first," she surmised easily, and she turned so swiftly to focus on Sasuke that all the little Uchiha could do was pause mid-bite into a dango ball when he was struck with the full-force of her venomous gaze. "What about you, King Gloom? Surely you must get your fair share of admirers, yes? What with such an attractive attitude and no doubt healthy outlook on life."
Naruto scoffed. "HA!"
"I…" Swallowing all in his mouth, Sasuke gave a noncommittal shrug. "There are a few…."
"A few?"
"You gotta understand, Anko-san," Naruto said between chewing, "when Sasuke says 'a few' what he really means is 'throngs', or 'heaps', or 'big ass boatloads'—"
"Thank you, Naruto," Sasuke hissed through clenched teeth. "Like I said, Anko-sama…just a few. I've certainly never kissed any of them."
There was something like contemplation framed on Anko's face, heavy consideration for something she didn't openly say, that was slowly replaced by a snort and a grin. She reached for her little saucer of sake, throwing her head back and downing it in a single gulp. "Woooo, that's the good stuff, damn! …And as for you, Mr. Angst—"
She brought two fingers to her mouth, kissed them, then pressed them to Sasuke's lips, all in a blink, too fast to catch but slow enough that Sasuke was able to glean the barest of aftertastes from her sake.
"Dude," said a stupefied Naruto, so close yet sounding three villages away to Sasuke who would swear his everything had disconnected.
"A reward," is how Anko, now smiling broadly, chose to sum that up, "a reward for that flattering honorific. I'd have preferred Anko-dono but I get it, it rhymes and rhyming sucks, so! There's your first pseudo-kiss from a proper lady."
Her words had adopted a certain flighty inflection, hardly there but most definitely on the edge of her words. No doubt the sake was starting to do its job.
Moving his lips experimentally, as if trying to verify that they were indeed his, Sasuke was left speechless.
"So tell me," continued Anko dreamily, expertly twirling a dango skewer betwixt her fingers, "if you two kunai sandbags aren't here to get me thrown in jail for two counts of drunken statutory, please…enlighten me…what are you here for?"
It seemed everything Anko did, Naruto was bound and determined to imitate to show he was on her level, worth her respect, and so when he wound up stabbing himself in the hand with his own skewer after failing to twirl it correctly, Anko went near ballistic with laughter, arms around her sides and legs kicking.
"Oh my God, oh my God—stop!—STOP!—you're gonna make me piss myself ahahahaha!"
Sasuke had quickly moved to the groaning blonde's side and snatched the stick out, immediately smacking him over the back of his head afterwards. "You idiot! Knock it off already!"
"Oh, right—like I meant to stab myself, you jerk!"
After waving off the napkin Kenichi had surprisingly offered, Naruto jammed his injured hand into his pocket, knowing his internal tenant would take care of it soon enough. He could already feel that healing warmth overtaking the wound and flashed Kenichi a quirky grin. "It's fine—really, I'm alright, thanks—UMPH!"
He nearly fell off his stool for a second time when Anko threw an arm over his and Sasuke's shoulders, bringing them in until they were all cheek to cheek.
"I knew the two of you were standing outside for the longest time," Anko revealed with a toothy smile, able to feel how both genin under her tightened up. She expelled a lofty giggle, purposefully shifting her weight from foot to foot so as to bump them with her hips. "How did she know, you must be wondering…right? Simple. The two of you have some very distinctive chakra, and I'm a very sensitive woman, I'll have you know…." She nuzzled her cheek against Naruto's. "You, whiskers, have one of the most bleakest chakra signatures I've ever felt, you just kinda ooze this festering miasma that I find most comforting."
A spasm of terror rolled down Naruto's spine, leaving him bereft of air, his eyes widening to reflect the horror those words had struck him with. Did…did she know? About the Nine-Tails? She couldn't have possibly gleaned that simply from—no…no, he was overacting, she was just…nothing but a coincidence…..
The nuzzling had switched and now Anko's cheek was making friction with Sasuke's. "Mmmmyeah…as dark as the day your entire world was flipped on its head," she sighed, and Sasuke became very still, so still that the sound of his beating heart was nearly audible. "It's pitch black, almost like tar, but smoothed—you've got it controlled but your blatantly sanguinary desires are permeating it like a poisonous exhaust. Absolutely heartwarming to me."
While a sort of euphoric shiver shook Anko from head to toe, Sasuke quickly found Naruto's eye; the blonde looked rather sickly and pale and Sasuke knew he could not have looked much better given that impromptu chakra analysis—but the two of them nodded regardless.
If there existed any doubt before this moment, it had been swiftly snuffed out and now they were absolutely certain.
"A-Anko-san," Naruto stuttered.
"Anko-sama," Sasuke called.
When Anko merely smiled to let them know she had heard and was indeed listening, Naruto and Sasuke swallowed, gathering their nerve.
"We want you to train us," they said in unison.
The smile that began to distort Anko's face was ostentatiously clown-like, and she slowly began to lift her head, the faintest thrums of laughter reverberating in her throat.
"I thought you'd never ask...Although, what about the third wheel to your fucked up tricycle, Sakura Haruno?"
The shrug that Sasuke offered was perhaps his single most coldest act to date, followed by words just as equally frigid, "I...don't care?"
"This was sort of a rush decision, to be honest," Naruto admitted in tones suggesting that, like Sasuke, he couldn't care less. "Didn't have much time to tell her but she'll probably jump on board once she finds out her precious Sasuke-kun is in."
Before Sasuke could retort, Anko playfully ruffled their hair. "Ooooo, a threesome, then! You two are just bringing me all sorts of surprises!"
Before the harrowing events spearheaded by the thankfully late Judge Doom, the existence of a such a place might never have been conceived, but the ending to that debacle, the ending to a coupe to virtually 'kill' all Toons, had led to something of a renaissance, an uprising, a rippling wave that encouraged and reminded every single Toon that they had a voice and that they were just as important as their human counterparts.
Perhaps the most affected by all of this was none other than notorious sex symbol, Jessica Rabbit, who felt her talents were being wasted at the Ink and Paint Club. True, the money was good and she never wanted for much—especially not when she had all that she could ever desire in the most wonderful husband that ever existed.
Goofy, cute, soft, warm—all perfect descriptions of her husband, Roger Rabbit, a comedic master of laughs.
Even thinking about him now was enough to get her all flushed and bothered, and she loved it. She loved him. Which was why after they both survived Judge Doom's dreaded Dip Machine, she knew she had to leave the Ink and Paint Club. She knew she had to get out there and make full use of her bodacious talents.
She confided these aspirations with the one man who always had her back, her husband, and not only was Roger supportive of her wishes, he even told her to take as much time off as she needed to get her affairs in order. In fact, she could have just became a stay-at-home wife at that point if that's what she fancied, since her husband was a very wealthy household name, but sitting around like a sexy bump on a log didn't sit well with Jessica even in a hypothetical way.
The drive was there, that uncontrollable yearning to be great, to rise above the tawdry societal expectations tacked onto one with her sinful looks… she just needed the perfect idea to bounce those urges off of.
And then it hit her in the most unusual way.
Ever since quitting her previous job, Jessica spent the next couple of months merely perfecting her already mythical cooking skills and gaining a taste for the role of the 'doting wife', and since she loved her husband, oh, it fit her like a silk glove. She loved cooking for him, greeting him at the door in whatever outfit he wanted, she loved the whole thing.
She remembered it like it was yesterday. Roger had called her from work on his break, like he normally did, only this time, she could tell he was a bit bothered, stressed out really, and she knew why. The movie he was filming with Baby Herman was going through all sorts of development hell from funding disagreements to constant script changes. Her poor little rabbit had quite literally pulled himself bald numerous times over it….
"Can you feel that, darling?" she had whispered to him through the phone, spurred on by a sudden wave of inspiration.
"I feel Baby Herman's cigar j-juh-jammed halfway up my b-butt!" Roger responded with a lengthy groan of pain. "That baby's got some real emotional problems!"
Most anything her husband said caused Jessica to spontaneously laugh, and this was by no means an exception, but her need to help him outweighed her weakened giggle-box and she leaned in closer, closing her eyes. "No, my little carrot cake… can you feel me? My hands? I'm giving you a shoulder rub, darling… nice and slow, just the way you like it."
There was silence on Roger's end for a couple seconds—but then he let loose a drawn out sigh laced with relaxation, and Jessica's heart fluttered. He was going along with it!
"Oh… oh w-wow, pattycake, that… that feels so good…."
"I know, darling, I know," Jessica responded, feeling her cheeks flush as an excited tingle ran the course of her spine, "but I need you to listen, okay? Listen to nothing but the sound of my voice… because now my hands are sliding down your back—"
Roger audibly shuddered on the other end of the line.
"—lower and lower, you can feel my fingernails dragging against your fur… and now my hands are sneaking around your waist, darling, oh yes… I'm flattening one hand flush with your stomach while the other keeps heading south, fiddling hungrily with your zipper…."
By the time Jessica hung up the phone, Roger had gone twenty minutes over his break, but he'd also cum in his suspenders. And he wasn't only one. Chest heaving, and with her crimson hair framing her face in limp straggles, Jessica sat back in her chair, wincing as the last throes of orgasmic pleasure made rounds through her shivering body. She couldn't believe it, that she'd actually just had phone sex with her husband….Up until that point, she'd no idea that words could invoke such raw emotions. The things she had whispered to him were so filthy, yet so hot, and the way Roger responded back so earnestly, perfectly in synch with his lustful wife….
The gentle sound of her essence dripping over the edge of the chair brought Jessica down from her orgasmic high just long enough for her to remove the hand wedged between her thighs and lift it up. She grinned at the fluids that thickly coated her fingers and brought them to her lips. Roger wasn't the only one who found the taste of her nectar to be addictive and she lashed at her fingers with her tongue, making sure not to waste a single drop.
"I know now," she uttered breathlessly, and she bit down on the knuckle of her pointing finger when a particularly strong wave of pleasure caused her toes to curl. "I know exactly what I'm going to do…."
Shortly thereafter, with Roger's help and a little bit of patience, the Cottontail was born. Marketed as a phone sex business comprised of an all Toon staff, they catered to both Toons and humans alike. Being the first of its kind within the relatively family-friendly confines of Toontown, no one had any serious belief that the Cottontail would survive for more than a few weeks, a month if it was lucky. Many assumed because of its openly risqué nature, the embarrassment of using such an establishment alone would be enough to ward away potential customers. While many told Jessica she was out of her depth and should go back to her job at the Ink and Paint, the rest merely laughed.
Oddly enough, some ten months later, the only one left laughing was Jessica as she rode the elevator of the Cottontail up to the top floor, her managerial suite. She was on the phone with Roger, unable to keep from giggling as he told her how he tripped, took down the whole set, and that somehow left Baby Herman with his head stuck up Yosemite Sam's rear.
"I swear I dunno how that happened—or why they all think it's my fault—but jeepers, that don't look too fun," he was saying frantically, and Jessica could tell her darling husband was in the midst of running for his life because she could hear an irate Yosemite in the background firing his pistols and threatening to make rabbit stew. "G-g-gotta go, pattycake, I love you!"
The line buzzed off with a comedic click and Jessica lovingly shook her head. "I love you, too, darling," she said softly, stowing her phone in her purse.
As the elevator continued to climb, Jessica pulled out a little mirror and glanced at herself. Her hair was perfect, her make-up was flawless, and her lips were as plump as ever, coated in her favorite shade of scarlet lipstick. While it was natural for Jessica to present herself as the goddess her doting husband revered her as, she also just liked looking the best that she could. She was drawn with the intention of causing men, and women, to swoon, to break their necks for a second glance, to have them drooling rivers… she was drawn to have every single other soul around her under her heel where they belonged.
And sometimes, she loved to honor that.
That's why she also took calls at the Cottontail. Because she enjoyed it. Because not a day went by that she didn't engage Roger in some form of verbal sex, whether through the phone or while they sat across from each other in the living room. She absolutely loved coming up with new ways to twist her words, new verbal pitches and sentence structures, whatever she could do to draw the most pleasure out of her husband, who was more often than not reduced to a puddle of his own fur afterwards.
"Y-you… you gotta lead the way with this, carrot cake," he had told her after one particularly passionate session that left him half on the couch, half on the floor and struggling to breath. "Your voice is great… really, really, really stupendous! You gotta set that standard for all the Toons who wanna work for you!"
At first, Jessica didn't like the idea of anyone else hearing her voice in that way outside of Roger, but he was adamant, more adamant than she had ever seen him; she would have thought he was trying to clear his name of murder again so great was the resolve in his bleary eyes.
He told her to be the bullhorn, the leader, the queen she was drawn as. She alone had the power to ensure whether this venture of hers soared or sank.
"And unless you're leadin' the boat, pattycake, it's gonna crash into some iceberg lettuce," he told her.
So, after laughing herself silly at his innocent mixup, she agreed, on the stipulation that the first call she took each and every day was his, to which Roger readily, happily, agreed.
The elevator came to a smooth stop with a 'bing', followed by Jessica's own voice saying, "Top floor, Mrs Rabbit."
Every time she heard that embarrassing greeting, she made a mental note to change it, but then she would remember that her husband had wanted it that way so he could further hear her voice when he visited, and then she'd just give a patient sigh of defeat.
"Only for you, my love."
The door opened and she stepped out into an office as grand as her stature: marble floors polished to a fine, reflective sheen, walls painted the same color as her hair and lined with service awards and trophies, while pictures taken with staff and previous employees sat upon shelves that Roger had personally made (which meant they were lopsided and constantly on the verge of falling, but Jessica loved them).
With a content little nod, she dropped her purse off on the hook next to the door, then sashayed over to the desk and took a delicate seat in the plush armchair. In front of her was a desk-wide calendar filled to the brim with shift schedules, public meetings, upcoming birthday parties, customer retention levels—all the things the CEO of a company was expected to keep track of.
"And don't I love it," she said wistfully, turning to her signature red phone.
As she waited, the crimson-haired vixen had to giggle. During the infancy days of Cottontail, rumors quickly began to fly that the CEO, that Jessica Rabbit herself, sometimes answered calls. In fact, so many men swore by this that the intrigue hit a fever pitch and was the main cause behind Cottontail's meteoric rise in popularity. Word of mouth really was the best advertisement. Not to mention the cheapest.
Naturally, once it seemed that the media would tear itself apart trying to find the truth, Jessica eventually revealed to them that, yes, even though who a caller linked up with was entirely random, sometimes a patron got lucky enough to have their ear graced by her seductive whisper. She mostly did it for quality control and to show newcomers the ropes, like how to say the introduction with just that right amount of spice, tips to break the ice, some visualization techniques—just all the little tidbits to ensure both the caller and operator enjoyed themselves to the fullest. Because, really, where was the joy in this if neither party was having fun?
"Here at Cottontail, we believe a relaxed and comfortable atmosphere is paramount in making sure both sides are able to cut loose and sink into their fantasies."
Despite that, despite taking her time with each and every Toon that Jessica hired who fit her extremely high standards, Jessica herself was consistently, without fail, voted as the Cottontail's best operator due to her tone, her mannerisms, her vocal artistry—many times the word 'flawless' was used to describe her sessions. And really, that only made sense. Not only did her previous job yield itself to her new line of work, but as Roger mentioned earlier, Jessica was quick to become a touchstone, the pinnacle of regality that her employees were all too eager to strive for and surpass.
"So what're you gonna call it, love cup?" Roger had asked her once she had the initial blueprints ironed out.
The normally sharp edge that twinkled in Jessica's eye softened considerably. All of a sudden, her office melted away like paint running down a canvass and she was thrown back in the past to the exact moment Roger had asked that question. She remembered it well, it still came to her in her dreams even… her adorable husband was on his knees before her, one hand cupping the heel of her foot while the other delicately painted her nails a fantastic shade of carrot orange.
At first, she had no answer. It was the last piece of the puzzle to her masterpiece, and it had her more stumped than Roger when he ran out of carrot juice. She had just opened her mouth to say she hadn't the foggiest what to call it when she noticed Roger's tail… it was wagging back and forth sporadically, and that made her smile. He was always at his happiest when he could pamper her, always smiled his hardest when she was relaxing due to his ministrations… just, God above, sometimes she forgot how truly blessed she was to have such a supportive and loving partner at her side.
"You and your silly little cottontail," she had mused out loud.
And then her eyes widened… her jaw dropped ever so slightly….
That was it!
"Oh, honey bunny!"
Just thinking about all the naughty things she had done to him that day under the feverish joy of finally having a business name was enough to get Jessica rubbing her thighs together in anticipation of her first call. She began drumming her fingers, eyes trained on her special phone, all the while struggling to ignore the urge to plunge two fingers deep into her throbbing honeypot.
"Come on, carrot cake," she urged, borderline whined, beginning to twist and turn in her chair. She was starting to get that itch, the burning tingling that started between her thighs and continued to fan out like a flame, engulfing her entire being in its erotic heat, and she never liked to be left in such a state for too long. It had the tendency to cloud her judgement, transform her from the soft-spoken yet ironclad Jessica Rabbit, owner and CEO of one of Toontown's most successful ventures, into some sort of husky-voiced, sex-starved addict who's only goal in life seemed to revolve around hungrily wringing as much tangy zest from her husband as she could like she wanted to use it as salad dressing.
It didn't take long for Jessica to find there was only way to stop her cravings when her mind started to play games like that, when all she could envision were things like covering her naughtier areas in whipped cream in anticipation for Roger to get home… yes, there was only one surefire solution—
—so when her specialized phone suddenly began to ring, a subtle smile curled the corners of Jessica's lips and she cleared her throat, reclaiming her air of dominance and regality. "Hello, my dear, lovable husband," she uttered longingly after picking up the receiver, and when she heard Roger swallow quite audibly, she graced his waiting ears with her erotic giggle, "it looks as though you've dialed 'J' for Jessica… are you ready?"
"Yes, p-pb-p-pleeeease."
That stutter of his was so cute, and he sounded as though he were clenching the phone for dear life, hanging on her every word, completely wrapped around her finger.
And she planned to honor that trust. She was going to give him the best session he had ever had, and then top that tomorrow, and then go even further day after that; it was going to be an endless cycle of pants-ruining pleasure for her husband, because he deserved it, because she loved seeing him that way.
She inhaled with a seasoned sexual flare, then puckered her lips for a wet "mwah", one that caused Roger to let slip a shuddered groan.
"I used to think that, I really did, but as we keep going… I've come to realize that the scary part about trying is actually succeeding."
"Succee—what? You're gonna have to explain that one to me. I was with you, for a good while, up until this point… I mean, I sorta get it—no, I get it… I do, I get it, I just wanna see where you're coming from with it. Just so we're on the same page. You and me. I. You and I…."
When Sokka glanced over at that the boy sitting next to him, the boy with the resplendently bald head adorned with a blue arrow tattoo, he could tell by the Avatar's quaint expression that his smooth talking had just bought him some time to figure out just what in the hell Aang was talking about.
The true fear of trying was... success?
How?
In what world?
The last he had heard, the last life had taught him, how he had been raised all throughout his short yet noble life, success was the manifestation of boundless trying, numerous attempts. The concept of being fearful of trying because it might—and should—lead to success was baffling.
More baffling than Katara still attempting to waterbend even at this late hour.
The sky was a twinkling landscape marked with stares and other wonders that seemed close enough to reach out for yet far enough to wish upon. Below that cosmic carpet, Toph had been the first to fall asleep, having crafted the most majestic castle along the shoreline, a castle with four bedrooms, one of which Appa occupied quite naturally, a built in jacuzzi, and this weird little effigy of Sokka that sat in the main hall that looked absolutely nothing like Sokka. The poor earthbender was knocked out, having been lulled into an early sleep by the sound of Katara relentlessly practicing a new waterbending maneuver.
Admittedly, the sight of Katara, free of her hair tie and bathed in the pale light of the moon on high, was an impressive one. Every one of her attempts at trying to combine twin ropes of water into one that would then split into four other tendrils was amazing, especially when she failed or lost focus and the water exploded into glistening sparkles so much like diamonds.
A few feet back, Sokka and Aang sat, previously in silence before the sound of Katara's enervated grunts and growls propelled them into subdued speech. Conversation that was by no means important or worth repeating, just something to break up the tension while occasionally yelling out an encouraging word or two.
An hour ago, Sokka had suggested calling it a night—"We're gonna need our strength for tomorrow, it's the biiiiig move, and we don't wanna take forever getting to Ba Sing Se and"—but after Katara whipped a lance of water at him, both he and Aang summarily decided that Ba Sing Se could probably wait another day or two.
It was part of the Earth Kingdom, after all; it wasn't going anywhere.
"Being taught by Master Pakku really lit a fire under her," Aang continued softly, observing the delicate yet fierce way Katara's arms flowed through every stance she stepped into. It was almost like witnessing a performance, one in its infantile stages to be sure, but the promise of something great was there, shining underneath all the sweat and failure.
Shifting somewhat on the boulder Aang had brought forth for them to use as a chair of sorts, Sokka scratched at his nose. To say Aang's words were an understatement would also, in itself, be an understatement; his sister might as well have turned into a firebender for all the flames he could see flickering just beyond those normally docile pupils of hers. There was unmistakable drive there, a hereto unforeseen degree of determination that was on full display tonight as they watched Katara step and shift and pivot, upsetting the ocean before them into a frothing, bubbling mass.
To tell her to stop now would be tantamount to ending his own life, he felt that much was certain.
Of course, Sokka knew he was stronger than his younger sister—everyone knew it, as a matter of fact—but even he knew better than to disturb her when she was focused.
"She wants to be better than the best waterbender," Sokka responded in a drone, legs drawn up and elbows to his knees. He swished a pine needle between his lips. "What's that got to do with what we were talking about, though?"
"How many times do you think she's gonna fail on the road to being a waterbending master?" For the first time in a long while, Aang adverted his gaze away from Katara's intricate dance and observed the sky. Despite the sparkling darkness above, it was a truly humid night, perfect for stargazing. "Becoming a master isn't something that comes in the span of days... or months... or even years. The title comes with decades of practice, combining wisdom and technique and power..." Something tight settled into his eyes, furrowing his brow. "How many failures is that?"
"How many...? Uhh..." Sokka glanced at his hands, flaring his fingers several times before his head started to hurt and he gave up with an exasperated shrug. "I... Aang, I don't know, probably a lot... a bunch of a lots, why?"
"Because..." Aang gripped himself by the shoulder, squeezing under his knuckles cracked. "Failing is... it's pretty easy."
"You're kidding." Sokka looked affronted and leaned in closer. "How is failing easier?"
"It really is, especially when it's something like this," and Aang indicated toward Katara, who was picking herself up off the sandy shore and brushing grit from her clothes for what seemed like the tenth time, "because nothing is for certain. When it comes to exploring new territory... learning something new... you don't know what you're doing, do you? There's no ingrained roadmap, it's not like you jump outta bed one day and you suddenly know every technique and every hand movement. It takes time."
On the verge of arguing, Sokka lowered the finger he had lifted and instead placed it on his temple. That... made sense. A little. After all, he was a bonafide master with his throwing hatchet—able to knock whatever food Momo had stolen from him right out of those greedy little paws—but as awe-inspiring as his talent was, Aang had a point. It took a lot of effort, many tosses, many fails, many lumps on the backs of the heads of the people from his village...
"Okay, I get that," Sokka started slowly, lifting that finger once more and prodding Aang in the cheek. "So... that's where success comes in! And there's no way that's a bad thing! It means you reached the goal you were striving f—GUH!"
A ball of concentrated water burst over Sokka's face and he flailed about, nearly toppling off the rock.
"Wh-what in the—"
Katara stood stock-still before them, leaning forward as though caught in a breeze and glaring out into the ocean just with one her arms aimed behind her, palm face-up and fingers joined together like that of a spear.
Scrunched up like he had been struck, too, Aang was wide-eyed, staring at the back of Katara's head.
"I need to concentrate," was all she ground out, through gritted teeth even, and neither Aang nor Sokka dared breathe until she had picked up her routine again, elegantly flicking her wrists and summoning great ribbons of water to her call.
"Your sister's pretty crazy, though," Aang whispered, lowly, behind his hand, and Sokka frantically nodded.
"You're telling me this like I wasn't raised with her," Sokka retorted under his breath, wringing out his sodden shirt. "Let's just keep it down, I don't wanna get lassoed into the sea..."
"Agreed."
The two waited for a few more tense moments, once more getting lost in the elegance that resonated from Katara's every move, before picking up their earlier conversation.
"When you fail, nothing really happens," Aang sighed, "except you get to learn. You get to learn from what caused you to fail... if you're lucky. You can take a misstep, a wrong chop, a mixed hand movement—you can take all of those things and smooth it out. Every fail is jagged until it's smoothed out with success."
"Exactly my point." Sokka spoke so lightly that his lips didn't move. "Success is easier because once you're there... you're there."
"Except... that's when everything changes, like when the fire nation attacked," Aang continued, almost as if Sokka hadn't spoken. "When you fail, okay, cool, you know what's going to come next. You're going to try again—"
Sokka nodded stoutly, wondering how much longer he would be able to take sitting on their borrowed boulder until his butt went completely numb.
"—but when you succeed, when you become that master? A whole list of new responsibilities open up like that"—Aang pantomimed snapping his fingers—"and nothing's the same."
Exhaling all the tension that came from anticipating Aang snapping his fingers out loud and suffering another strike from Katara, Sokka slouched forward, letting his arms dangle. "That's... but that's kinda how things go, isn't it?"
"I dunno. I think I'm figuring that out as we go," Aang admitted with a nervous grin. "I just know when you succeed, things can't be like how they were when you failed, can they? Like, look at Katara... she's failing pretty hard right now—"
"—but we know she's gonna make it. Course she is, she's Katara." It was barely noticeable, the soft smile that lifted the corners of Aangs mouth, but Sokka didn't miss it. "When she does, she's... there's gonna be expectations. With that knowledge and power, people are gonna wanna learn from you, they're gonna want you to teach, and lead, and—and help prosper. They're gonna come calling, near and far, everyday, looking for your services. That's... that's a lot to deal with, ain't it? More than just failing."
Beyond that smile, Sokka could see the trepidation settling into Aang's stare.
"It's just... when you fail, nobody expects nothing, you can keep on going like you were, semi-sorta free? The moment you succeed, though... you can't go back. You can't unlearn what you've mastered, you've got to... your road changes and you gotta walk it."
The night air was powerfully refreshing, and more than a little chilling while Sokka sat there in damp clothes. He stared out at his sister, silently observing... tracing her every step to memory. "I can see that," he said, pulling the pine needle from between his lips. "Yeah, I can see why that would be kinda..."
"Scary," Aang supplied hoarsely, bringing his own legs up and wrapping his arms around them. "I don't fear failure, Sokka. I fear success. I fear making it exactly where I need to be... and not being enough to stay there."
Of all the fears Sokka struggled with, known and unknown, a fear of success had never been one of them.
Until this very moment.
The grating splashes that signaled another failure on Katara's part were growing noticeably infrequent. If Sokka was developing a chill then Katara, weighed down by her waterlogged garments, had to be downright frozen, but she didn't drop her arms, she didn't relax her fingers or allow her aching legs to fold. Every breath she drew in was ragged and every exhale came out as a puff of visible air; she blinked like she had a tick, paying no mind to the streaks of sweat curving down her face, dripping off her chin; she paid no mind to the roaring fatigue settling into each of her limbs, invading her thought process, begging her to give in, to try again tomorrow—
"We're not a species meant to bask in failure," Sokka said, sporting a grin when Katara lifted her trembling arms up high, "that's not our style, it's not in our nature, Aang."
Growing wide-eyed, Aang watched as Katara flexed her fingers, once more drawing a great swell of water to her command before sharply shifting her body, bending it with her.
"Failure is... well, you're right. It is easy," Sokka admitted, feeling anticipation twist at his insides, knotting tighter and tighter as the rivulets of water under his sister's control shivered and twirled. "Which is why we can't settle there. We have to strive for success and all the terrifying new roads that it opens up for us... 'cause those roads will open up new roads for others who will go on to open even more roads. And yeah, success might lead to new opportunities to mess up, that's the cycle, ain't it? At least one thing's for certain..."
He suddenly threw an arm over Aang's shoulder the moment before Katara slammed a foot down, flexed her fingers, and made an intense tearing motion, one that caused the giant water whip overhead to lash apart into a flurry of thrashing tendrils.
"You won't be alone, Aang. We're gonna fail together and succeed together. A lot."
Almost immediately after its birth, the wild creation lost its form and fell apart into a torrent of water that splashed back to the sea. "YEEEESSSS!" A prideful cry left Katara in the same instant feeling left her knees and she hit the ground. But she didn't fall over. She refused.
"I DID IT! I REALLY, REALLY DID IT!" Face smeared with sweat and grime, Katara whirled around on her knees to the boys behind her and somehow, despite having no energy left, managed to punch the air with a tightly coiled fist. "Did you guys see that? I DID IT!"
"She did it!" Sokka cried, latching onto Aang. "Oh thank God, she did it! Now we can finally go to sleep!"
"Congratulations, Katara!" Aang yelled, thoroughly impressed while trying to shove a weeping Sokka off, and he would have showered the beaming waterbender with more well-earned praise if the boulder the two of them sat on hadn't suddenly been violently snatched out from underneath them.
As Sokka and Aang collided with the unyielding sand, Toph poked her head out the front of her sand castle, groggily rubbing sleep from her eye. "HEY! It's way-too-late-for-this-mess o'clock! Shuddup and go to bed!"
"Th-that chick has some serious anger issues," Sokka groaned, trying to untangle his limbs from Aang.
Katara just giggled tiredly, "I'll agree with you there...," then she fell out.
A/N: The pains of writing a one-shot... so many ideas come out of it that you gotta kill 'em quick before that one-shot becomes a 15-chapter journey with added epilogue.
The Fox and I
The boy wasn't even sure how he had come to be here... wherever here was. All he remembered was being chased by a group of angry villagers, a normal, daily custom, except this time... they seemed even more upset than normal. Lanes and byways passed by in a blur; his chest burned, the screams of the villagers had mashed together into a deafening roar—he didn't feel the pitchfork that speared him through the ankle, pinning him in place, until he had already jerked forward, crashing to the ground. Before the cry of pain could fully leave his mouth, sake bottles came raining down like a meteor shower... many of them missed, smashing into a sea of glittering grit over the road that nearly blinded the boy... then one shattered over his temple and sent him spiraling down a wave of darkness until he landed... here.
"Weeeirr—ouch..." He could a throbbing ache where that pitchfork had tore flesh and yet, looking down, he couldn't see not one mark. "That's... kinda odd... maybe here...?" Reaching up, he tenderly traced his prickling forehead for the gash that had to have been carved into his flesh. "My head hurts really bad but there's... there's nothing there," he muttered.
The gigantic fox before him, the one on the other side of those wrought iron bars, bars that looked both easily breakable yet capable of withstanding the test of time, kept an unusually stringent, wide-eyed leer aimed at the boy.
"You're bleeding rather profusely from the forehead out there in your domain."
The words that met the young boys' ears sounded diseased, festering with a madness dredged up from the darkest corners of the universe where no light had a prayer of reaching, where all manner of nightmares danced and gave birth to unspeakable horrors...
"How're you talking without moving your lips, Mr Fox?" the boy asked, craning his head back in a futile to hold the vast fox in his sights. He saw the furry face, it loomed out of the darkness in a way that bent his senses, and those terrifyingly wide, hunger-riddled eyes were trained on him. "Do you smoke? You sound like you smoke. If you do, you shouldn't," he said, wagging a scolding finger, "smoking's bad for—"
"I do not smoke," the fox rumbled.
A disturbingly thick, miasmic fog spilled out through the bars holding this fox, a fog that covered the ground, and the little boy lifted a foot, partly surprised to find it soaking wet.
"Did you pee back there?" he asked, confused. "'Cause there's a looootta water around here, and it's really warm and—"
The sudden gust of wind that nearly knocked the boy of his feet didn't distract him from the paralyzingly huge claw that tried to gut him like a fish before being caught between the bars. The low metallic twannnng that followed nearly burst his eardrums; the water around his ankles shivered and splashed—
"Figured, but worth the try. ...Well done, Minato."
The little boy grinned, then reached out a hand. "That's not my name, but good guess, Mr. Fox! My name's actually Naruto, what's yours?" he asked brightly, trying to shake the gigantic claw before him.
The effort was futile, Naruto couldn't even get his fingers around it, but the claw did move up and down slightly, enough to widen the smile on the blonde's face.
"My name is Kurama," the fox growled pleasantly, though the eyes staring down its snout at the small child still radiated with deadly intent. "Do you need my help?"
When the words hit Naruto's ears, and after he flinched again like he was struck by the vibration alone, he glanced up at the fiery eyes glaring down at him. "Do I... need your help...?" The smile that split his lips was genuine. "No, I think I'm doing okay, Mr. Kurama."
For the first time, the fox blinked, upsetting the young boy's footing through force alone. He stumbled back, nearly tripping, but caught himself before he fell over. "You could very well die within the next ten minutes... and you claim you do not need my help?"
Naruto nodded, merrily splashing through the water back up to the incomprehensibly big claw jutting through the bars. "I'm good now!" It was the kind of happiness only a child could exhibit, a happiness that didn't know of the horrors the world had in store for them as they aged.
To the fox, to Kurama, none of the little boy's words made sense. "Why are you okay?"
"Because I'm gonna die," Naruto answered blithely.
Nonplussed, Kurama wiggled its protruding claw. "And why is that a good thing? Should you not strive to live? You are young; your kind tend to live several decades."
Answering Kurama's question wasn't very high on the list for Naruto, who seemed far more enamored in the claw before him, watching it bounce up and down in time with his shakes. He had always dreamed of something like this... having a place where he could be by himself, that was safe. And while this long, sewer-like corridor with the giant fox at the end wasn't exactly like how he had planned, it was miles better than where he had come from.
"It's good 'cause I heard that once you die, you don't feel any pain... that's what the villagers keep telling me, and it must be true 'cause I don't feel anything right now!" Naruto nodded vehemently, furrowing his brow and caressing the spot on his head where he had been struck. "Whenever I get hit, there's lots of blood—"
"Yes, I know."
"—but right now, look... see?" He extended his hand palm up toward the bars. "There's nothing there." Naruto smiled. "It must mean I'm dying, which is great."
In a motion that caused the wind to swirl about threateningly, Kurama lowered his monolithic head, skating his chin over the water-logged floor. Those haunting eyes fixed themselves upon Naruto, who waved with the hand that wasn't still shaking Kurama's claw.
"It is not great," Kurama breathed.
Quirking an eyebrow, Naruto started stamping around in the water, send droplets flying in all directions. "I'm here," he said, pointing down, "and not there." He pointed back down the darkened corridor, toward where he knew led back to Konoha... back into the hands of those who hated him. "That's... here's gotta be better, right?" He looked up into Kurama's furry face, and could feel his own beginning to scrunch up. "Any... anywhere's g-gotta be better..."
Instead of answering, Kurama softly exhaled a gust of wind from his snout that ruffled the boy's clothes, if the three-sizes-too-big shirt with the blood stain and the extra baggy, extra frayed pants could be considered clothes. When the child laughed, it wasn't Kurama's first time hearing it, but it was his first time listening it, actually taking note of the voice that came out of the boy's mouth.
"If you were to die, then those monsters wrapped in human flesh win."
Pausing in the act of hitching up his pants, Naruto blinked, turning his head up at the fox. "They... win? Win what? I didn't know we were playing a game," he said, tying the drawstrings together with a sloppy knot that would no doubt come undone in the next five minutes. "Is it supposed to be painful...? Do I have to play?" There was a note of pleading in Naruto's voice as he returned attention to the eldritch fox. "Can't I just—I wouldn't mind if they won... I don't wanna play their stupid game anyway!"
"It's not something you have a choice in, I'm afraid," Kurama rumbled, watching as the little blonde's face fell. "Your domain is out there, among them—"
"WHY?" Naruto exploded, sounding for the first time upset. "Why do I gotta be out there with them? They don't even like me!"
"And why don't they like you?" Kurama wondered.
"I dunno!" Naruto shrugged, sounding truly lost. "I haven't done anything! I don't… at least I don't think so! I don't know their names, b-but they know mine, so… I thought they were friends, that they wanted to be friends but…."
"You will come to learn very quickly that everyone who knows your name, they do not wish to have anything to do with you," Kurama told him, and when Naruto stared up at him, confusion prominent amidst the pain resonating in his face, the fox went on, "You are very special—"
Naruto's eyes sparkled. "I am?"
"—and things that are special, they often garner fear, misunderstanding… distrust. The people of your village realize this, they know what you are, and that frightens them." A hard gust of wind blew from Kurama's nostrils, powerful enough to almost send the little boy flying. "They fear that one day you will grow out of their control, beyond their grasp... and you know what? They have every right to fear. What you are, not a soul breathing in that village can even fathom."
Kurama could almost see the gears turning in Naruto's head, struggling to make sense of the ethereal words bouncing around the corridor.
Then the blonde looked up. "But… what am I?"
And there it was… the question that Kurama had been waiting to hear since the young one's appearance, the question that caused the most sinister smile to peel through the great fox's lips.
"You are me."
Naruto stared, then broke out into laughter. "I'm not you, silly… you're a fox!"
"No, little kitten…" Kurama inched his head closer, so close that his snout poked through the rusted bars and right up against Naruto's chest. "We are one."
"I am now sitting down with one... Namikaze Minato, Fourth Hokage to the Village of Fire, spouse to Kushina Uzumaki, and father to Naruto Uzumaki. Is this correct?"
"Um, yes. To the best of my knowledge, that's correct. ...So do I just pick any chair or...?"
"Any will do, yes...Great, there you go. Before we get started, would you be so kind as to state your name for the record? Voice recognition and all that there."
"Oh, uh, sure. Ahem... my name... IS... the legendary Minato Nami—"
"If I could stop you right there to ask what you're doing? With the whole voice thing and the menacing smile…?"
"…Welp. Now I'm feeling kind of dense but, uh… it was something my wife suggested. She said I lacked the kind of presence that kowtows others instantly, doesn't really think I'm a very intimidating Hokage compared to the others before me, which is… arguable, I'll give her that, so she—"
"—so your wife doesn't see you as fit to run the village, does she?"
"Oh, ha! No, no, on the contrary—she honestly believes I'm the best to ever hold the title. Personally, I think she's lost her mind on that one but I double dog dare myself to say that to her face…."
"Your wife believes you to be the best suited Hokage… in a hallowed line that includes the likes of Hashirama-dono and Tobirama-dono."
"Yuuuup."
"Is she perhaps on drugs?"
"Not that I know of, no."
"Ah."
"Mhm…."
"And where do you think you sit on that scale, Minato-san?"
"Me? Hm... Now that's a tough one. Where do I see myself, where do I see myself…? Well, honestly, I don't like to think in terms of strength—far as I'm concerned, nobody's topping the Godaime and even then, you can't really brute force your way into governing people—buuuuut… overall? I'd put myself somewhere in the top three, at least. I might not have had the longest tenure but what I did manage, I'd like to think made a big difference."
"You say the top three… including who else?"
"Whoever else fits the other two spots. You pick."
"My thoughts on that are superfluous, aren't they? As a previous Hokage, the only input that matters should come from y—"
"As the Yondaime, one thing I learned even before I took the mantle was that the thoughts and viewpoints of those who look to you for advice are just as important as any lone thought you might have on your own. A man who rules without guidance is doomed to fall under himself, but a man who takes in many perspectives expands his gaze beyond the stars."
"…That was surprisingly wise for one so young."
"I have my moments. Like I said, strength alone won't get you far as a Hokage, there has to be some sort of light on upstairs."
"Indeed. And do you think you filled the position as adequately as your wife feels you did? Or could?"
"As good as Ku-chan thinks I could have? Not even close, but her standards are ridiculously high. Perfectionist, loud, commanding—I could live three lifetimes and still not match the greatness she sees in me. Bring it down to normal standards, though, and I don't think I did too bad…."
"Any regrets?"
"More than you or I have the time to go over."
"I imagine so..."
"Better to only imagine than live with it, I say."
"Are you scared of Kushina-dono?"
"Question outta left field there, but am I? Yes."
"That… was a surprisingly quick response."
"You asked a surprisingly easy question."
"I—well, normally, most would hesitate, not really want to answer one way or the other, but you…."
"Ha, my wife is scary as all hell, that's just facts. I fear her more than any enemy I could ever cross kunai with on the battle field. At least I know I stand a chance at beating them. My wife? Naw. Might as well call it done."
"Are you really saying that a Hokage cannot defeat his own wife in battle?"
"What I'm really saying is by default of her being my wife, she automatically wins. I was defeated in all the ways the moment I said 'I do' as far as I'm concerned. That's what she said and I don't even mind."
"Interesting…."
"Just a course of life that I've learned to lean into, really. My wife is adorably headstrong, I want her to be the best."
"And what about your son?"
"What about Naruto?"
"We have a staggering amount of questions here, mostly from fans, some from interested third parties, who want to know your true feelings on his treatment at the hands of those belonging to the village you pledged to defend?"
"Ah… my honest feelings…."
"Yes, if you could honor us with such a thing."
"…Once you become Hokage, I remember the Third telling me… it's like every single one of Konoha's citizens, they become your child. Yours to protect and guide and nurture. Sometimes, it's a trying thing… to watch as your children squabble and hurt one another, especially when most of that ire seems aimed at one of the children you quite literally created. Then, it becomes something different… your views get twisted, nothing makes sense anymore and all you feel is this undying, all-consuming rage coursing through your veins.
"In the beginning, it really hurts, that rage… it's probably best to be by yourself during the first few waves because it's not something anyone should ever let influence their moves. I was… lucky, to be gone. Extremely so. Over the years, watching him, watching them… ah, I'd be lying if I said it got easier. It never did. Did it become tolerable? Not really. In fact, if I'm honest, as you've asked me to be, I still hold a great deal of loathing in my heart. More than I'm comfortable with carrying—more than I thought I was capable of carrying.
"Eventually, in the end, it was my child who saved me from my own anger. Kinda odd when I think on it because… normally, subjecting someone to that kind of brutality for so long, they would naturally want to seek some sort of revenge, right? But Naruto never did. He took all that hate and… and he gave them shelter. That… I would swear he wasn't my child at times because I don't know where in the world he got kind of strength. To this day, I'm still confused, ha. Like… such a small human that I made—me—and well, wife included, but still—and he just… without any guidance… he didn't let any of that hate change who he was, you know? He had every right to, every inclination, and yet…."
"Minato-sama… are you okay?"
"Hm? Oh, yeah… yeah, I'm… just thinking is all…."
"About what?"
"How truly blessed I am to have had a kid like Naruto."
"I think most would agree with that sentiment now."
"Yeah…."
"Were you excited to see him learn the Rasengan?"
"Was I? And in a little over a week? That's the point where I was like 'my son is a prodigy'! Well, I always figured—Ku-chan, too—but that right there, just wow….Took me three years, took him less than ten days. Amazing…."
"Do you wish you could have taught him your Hiraishin jutsu?"
"Every single day, yes."
"Cute. Did your wife ever want to learn it?"
"Not initially, no, but once I put a mark on her so I could teleport to her side if she ever needed me, she saw that side of the technique, how powerful it was on the protection angle, and wanted to learn it just so she could come to Naruto for the same reason. Obviously… that didn't really come to happen…."
"Unfortunately, no, although I daresay your wife probably would have driven that newfound ability into the ground."
"Pft, that's an understatement. It takes a fair bit of chakra control to orchestrate but the Uzumaki's are known for their near bottomless chakra reserves so she would've been teleporting all day and night and you know what? Actually, on second thought, her not learning my technique is probably the single best outcome out of all of this."
"Would you say that in front of her?"
"Absolutely not."
"Ah. Well… I think that'll just about do it for now, um… yeah, we got through a lot of questions—definitely not all of them, but we'll save some for next time, yes?"
"You like it, I love it. This was okay, I'm glad Ku-chan pressured me to do it."
"Then so am I. Does that mean you'll be open to more questions in the future?"
"Of course. As the former Hokage, I am in service to those who need me."
"Excellent. Well, until next time, this has been… an interview with Namikaze Minato-sama."
"Well, erm, not to be rude or anything but I'm just gonna teleport out of here, okay?"
Recuperation (a Teen Titans story) Summary: After a gigantic battle, the Teen Titans are completely worn out and the only capable of picking them up again is... coffee!
It was the third time he had slipped into that beckoning darkness, the one that loomed so invitingly just behind his eyelids, and damn did it feel good. With each blink, he could feel his aching limbs growing lighter; with each blink, he felt the strain over his chest, so much like a stubborn brick, ease off just a bit; with each blink, all the purpling bruises that gleamed that badges of honor just underneath his clothes seemed to lose their sting.
Never, in all his life, had Beast Boy wanted to pass out so badly before.
Alas, every time he blinked for a second too long, the blasted order bell rang, along with an accompanying shout from the barista behind the counter, and he was jolted back into consciousness.
"C'mon, man, can I just… five minutes, that's all I need," he grumbled, holding his cheek in his hand, "just… five… measly... minutes…."
When he started to fade for the fourth time, it wasn't the order bell that woke him up, it was when his head bobbed a little too hard, slid out of his palm, and collided with the table. He jumped up like someone had zapped him with a cattle prod, hastily wiping drool from his bottom lip. After a quick glance around, he saw that nothing had changed… the cafe was still packed to the gills with customers who, just like him, were having their nostrils tickled by the scent of energy-fueling coffee. The line at the front counter was crazy long and Beast Boy sighed. Knowing the popularity of this place, he had planned to get here as early as possible, like crack of dawn early, and while it was technically still early morning, his battered body hadn't been up to the task of holding onto a transformation long enough to secure a safe, quick flight. So he took the bus, then fell asleep by accident, missed his stop—twice, stopped to help get this old woman's cat out of a tree—it was like some twisted 'everything can go wrong' montage from a cartoon, and the primary reason why he was still waiting thirty minutes later for his ticket to get called.
"This is nuts," he whined. "How long does it take to make five stupid cups of—"
DING-DING!
"Ticket twelve! Order twelve is up for a Misterrrr… Garfield?"
"Oh, finally!" Beast Boy exclaimed, and he pushed his way to the front, eagerly holding out both hands to the familiar server. "Man, I thought you guys were picking the beans back there yourselves!"
"Well, well, well, if it isn't my favorite green looney toon," the barista said with a smile that was just as sarcastic as it was friendly. "How ya' holding up, eh?"
"Like a rickety bridge.
"You look it, sugar."
"Oh, gee, thanks," he snorted. "And you?"
"Fairly meddling, fairly meddling," she replied blithely, grinning as she handed over one cup at a time. "Saw the news this morning, though. You guys had quite the battle yesterday from the looks of it. Felt the shockwaves all the way across town where I live!"
Unsurprisingly, even mentally dwelling on the what he and the others had barely managed to survive caused Beast Boy's body to give an unholy throb in protest and he grunted, nearly dropping his drinks. "Yeah, the, uh… the villain contingency decided to throw us a little party. You know how it goes…."
"Oh, I'm sure, I'm sure." She drummed a couple fingers over the marble surface before finally asking what he knew she had been inching toward: "Did you win?"
"You're still alive, right?" There was an unmistakable edge to Beast Boy's tone as he grabbed a four-pronged drink holder. When she nodded at him, he hunched a shoulder. "Then, yeah, we won. You're welcome, by the way."
"Much appreciated, green one, I do so enjoy living," she responded evenly, the snark in her tone easily heard even over the store's commotion. "So," she casually glanced side to side, "where's the rest of the squad? Robin and them?"
"Back at the tower, where I wish I was."
"Tired, eh?"
"What, me? Tired? Psssh, nope. Beast Boy never gets tired, not when the city needs him," he boasted, yet even as he said that, the exuberance he tried to puff his chest out with quickly deflated leaving him looking more exhausted than ever. "I'm not tired, I'm just… just—"
"Sporting fifty-pound bags under your eyes because of all the effort you put into leading your team through that battle," the barista supplied, her eyeteeth showing with the smirk she flashed him. "Obviously, right?"
"I'm glad you know," he said with a weary laugh, struggling to fit each cup into place. "Ain't easy being so awesome, lemme tell ya."
"Oh, I'm sure," she agreed genially, and without a word she spun the container in a full circle, effortlessly fitting a cup into every hole. "There you go, Mr. Hero," and she lifted her hand.
A very grateful smile grew over Beast Boy's worn face and he slapped her a congratulatory high-five. "Thanks, Jules."
The barista, whose badge read Julian Spears, snapped into the most casual salute Beast Boy had ever seen. "Hey, just doing my civic duty, hun." Then she made a shooing motion. "And you should be off getting intimate with a bed right about now, might be needing you later for round two with those villains."
Once the sun was up, the concept of rest didn't exist for Beast Boy, or any of the other Titans, really. Hence the coffee. Without any prior sleep, it was going to be a very long, very arduous day ahead, and God help them if the alarm went off for any reason, but she didn't need to know that. A big part of superheroism was putting on a brave front even when the urge to fall over was nigh unbearable.
Picking up the fifth drink, Beast Boy gave her a two-fingered salute then forced an enervated grin.
"You can count on me."
"I knew we couldn't count on him," Robin slurred, lying slumped over the kitchen counter. He had only gotten as far as pulling on his pants and his mask askew with one shoe on and one shoe off. Looking at him you wouldn't be able to tell if he was trying to get dressed or undressed. He pointed a feeble yet very accusatory finger at Cyborg. "I… blame… you."
"What, me?" The look of shock that flashed over Cyborg's face only lasted for a blink until it subsided into the pain that raged all throughout his circuitry and he sank back into the chair he had unknowingly risen from. "It wasn't my idea to send BB—it was Star's."
"That is the lie," Starfire replied groggily, and unlike the others, she was half-hanging off the back of the common room couch. Through sheer force of will, she managed to lift her head and fixed Cyborg with a bleary-eyed scowl between her curtain of red hair. "I did not suggest Beast Boy to go because I was taking a short coma."
Robin snorted against the countertop while Cyborg actively chuckled. "That was the quickest coma I've ever seen anyone fall into and get out of," he remarked with subdued awe. "You Tamaraneans are something else."
"What is this else you speak of? Am I not the flesh and blood?" Starfire wondered with sincere confusion, her head falling limp before she could finish.
"No, no, that's just—" Cyborg caught himself mid-sentence, deciding it wasn't worth the energy to explain the phrase and just nodded. "You sure are."
It was rare that Raven ventured anywhere without her hood and cape combo, mostly because how else was she going to bathe her face in the calming darkness that kept her emotions in check, so to see her now, seated at the kitchen table alongside Cyborg with half her face resting in her palm, sans her concealing garment, was almost picture worthy. Like the others, she hadn't slept a wink since last night and, also like the others, her body pulsed with an agony that made sleep a moot point anyway.
"Robin," she called in that droning monotone, "this coffee of yours… I hope it has the effects you so heartily claimed it does."
Somehow, after placing his palms flush against the counter, Robin found the strength to push himself up, showing them a self-assured grin even while his arms wobbled like jell-o. "Trust me, Raven. You don't even know what it feels like to wake up fully refreshed until you've had this."
"Whenever BB decides to come home, you mean," interjected Cyborg, reclining so heavily in his chair that it audibly began to strain. "Oh, don't you wimp out on me now, chair. Dig deep, push through, c'mon now."
Starfire lifted a thumbs up but otherwise said nothing, leaving her haggard wheezing to fill the silence of actual words. Not that anyone could blame the alien girl; each of them was struggling at the moment, whether with injuries, the fatigue, or just trying to fully wrap their heads around what had transpired. Because it really made no sense. No one could have predicted a full-frontal attack of such magnitude to kick off like it did, without warning or time to prepare—and that had instilled a very disturbing spark of anxiety within the Teen Titans. This time they were lucky, one of Cyborg's alarms had gone off only minutes prior, which gave them just enough time to get their gear together.
After that… it was chaos, a bitter struggle that lasted the better portion of three hours. Robin led to the best of his capabilities, and some onlookers might saw it was due to his leadership that they didn't get completely overwhelmed, but it became a team effort around the two hour mark with everyone splitting off to handle different objectives. The cohesion they exhibited during the entire fight was something that exceeded even their best test runs and practice simulations: orders were relayed with a single glance, team-attacks flowed as easy as breathing, where one fell short another was there to pick up the slack—they were, for lack of a better word, flawless. Erratic, but flawless.
When it was all over, when the last of the foot soldiers had either been beaten back or else was in the process of being thrown into a patrol car, the last thing Robin felt like doing was standing tall for the the influx of paparazzi or entertaining the several questions the police chief had. But he did it anyway, with his team behind him.
Because being a superhero meant working well into overtime.
"You ever think about just… I dunno…." Robin grunted as he shambled his way around the counter toward the table. "What it'd be like to be… normal? For like a day?"
In unison, Raven and Cyborg stared at Robin with varying degrees of disdain; even Starfire tilted her head so as to get a really good look at her teammate, because there was no way their leader had just asked such a stupid question.
"Riiiight," said Robin with a light chuckle, easing himself tenderly into an empty chair, "because what's normal about a trans-dimensional cross-breed, a bright-blue cyborg, a girl from another planet—"
The front door suddenly began to open and everyone seized up—Robin's hand shot to his unbuckled utility belt, a hostile green glow sparked to life around Starfire's eyes, Raven lifted a very flexed hand that swam with a miasmic black aura, and Cyborg's entire left arm made the shift into his sonic cannon—but the tension bled away just as quickly as it came when Beast Boy stumbled through, beaming triumphantly.
"—or a green-skinned shapeshifter," he finished lethargically, lurching his was over to the table and bypassing the fact that the rest of his teammates had been seconds away from flaying the skin off his hide. "I mean, we just have so many choices for normal up in here I'm surprised we picked superhero as a career path."
You can find the rest at: https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13206109/1/Recuperation
Summary: The kiss Naruto got from Tsunade after their fight against Orochimaru and Kabuto was so enlightening that he wants another. And, honestly, who could really blame him?
The day couldn't have kicked off any worse for Tsunade than if she had awoken to find her secret stash of sake stolen. Again. Which reminded her, she still owed Anko a severe ass beating for stealing a couple bottles last week—and the bitch even had the audacity to leave behind a professionally signed 'I.O.U', which Tsunade was quite sure the spiky-haired kunoichi had no intention of ever honoring.
"So that's basically like signing your own death warrant, then," the revered yet wholly bored Hokage uttered to an empty room. It was nothing to her, really, just another soul prematurely shuffled off its mortal coil.
Planting her elbow firmly on the arm of her chair, Tsunade rested her cheek on the knuckles of her hand and stared out at the numerous stacks of varying height that peppered her desk. There was no helping the scowl that scrunched her face. It was just… so much, and so much of the same tired routine, the same kind of forms she had filled out yesterday, and the day before that, and two weeks before even that. Sometimes, it wasn't even the amount of fuckery she had to pour through and inspect and stamp with her special seal of approval—it was the redundancy.
Judging by the warmth streaming through the window behind her, it was probably around midday. She sucked her teeth. Too early to open a bottle just yet and with Shizune's little snitch of a pig no doubt snooping around, there was no way she would be able to enjoy more than a sip before it was summarily snatched from her grasp.
"Okay, prioritize… lessee, here…." Deftly, with skill honed over countless botched card games, Tsunade flicked through stack after stack, gleaning what each one was about. She had to look at recommendations, approve building permits, there was that festival coming up in two weeks, a couple of her Jonin wanted vacation while a handful of Chunin had accomplished enough missions to earn a higher rank….All standard, nothing too hard, she decided with a stout nod. "So quite naturally that means I can skip off for a few hours and let my future-self deal with this mess," she concluded happily, perking up.
If her future-self could have manifested itself in the present right then and there, Tsunade felt sure she would have gotten her ass kicked. Unmercifully. The hoops she forced her future-self to jump through in order to complete her workload on time bordered on the inhumane. Granted, this was all self-inflicted but still, long as she didn't have to deal with it now then it wasn't her problem.
Figuring the hot spring would be a nice reprieve from the hellish enclosure of her office, Tsunade had just popped open the secret compartment of her desk that led to her sweet, sweet sake when a commotion outside in the hall caused her ears to twitch.
"OUTTA MY DAMN WAY!" yelled a young, irate voice that was all too familiar.
"Look here, you little bastard—the Hokage has a full day of keeping the village running! That's enough to deal with without you interrupting her!" one her ninja responded just as testily, and it was clear from their enervated tone that they were struggling to hold back the louder voice. "Leave this area at once!"
"I'll leave once I do what I came here to do!" the boy replied stubbornly and now Tsunade could hear the physical sounds of a brawl, of blows missing and landing in equal measure. "Move it or lose it!"
"You imprudent brat!"
Normally, one needed to pay for entertainment like this, but for Tsunade, she only opened a bottle of Juyondai brand sake, poured herself a saucer full, and leaned back with a contented smile as she envisioned the chaotic scene sparking just beyond her door. From what she could gather, both sides were surprisingly evenly matched despite the obvious age and height difference. She heard a lot of different techniques being used—at one point she would swear the younger ninja's voice had multiplied—but it all came to an abrupt end a few drinks later when a "sexy"-something jutsu caused her guard to let loose a goofy scream and apparently pass out.
After all of that, when her doorknob began to turn, Tsunade figured he deserved to see her, having gone through all the trouble. So she wasn't surprised when the door was summarily kicked open and in the frame stood a genin with blonde hair wearing an outrageous orange jumpsuit. His forehead protector was hanging from his neck while the rest of him looked as though he had gotten mauled by a pack of dogs: scratches and cuts adorned his arms and neck, whatever flesh wasn't covered by his clothes actually, and he housed a bruise that was fast purpling under his left eye—though none of that stopped him from snorting defiantly as he marched up to her desk.
"And to what do I owe the pleasure, my favorite little blonde," Tsunade wondered sluggishly, the affects of her drinking binge evidenced by the blush in her cheeks. The way she leered at Naruto almost gave the young genin pause—he certainly blinked at her a couple times—but then he banged a fist down between two bottles of sake and everything quivered.
"I want another kiss!" he shouted as if she were two villages over.
The surprise that lit up Tsunade's face at his demand only carried enough impact to lift her eyebrows; the rest of her face was still slurred with a comfortable buzz. A lopsided smile split her lips over the next few seconds and she held the battered genin's eye with a rumbling giggle. He was trying so hard to keep his gaze from sliding the length her neck down into the mountain of cleavage she had to be showing that it was adorably noticeable, add to it his jaw was clenched from the effort.
What a gentleman….
"You take out my guard and interrupt my work… for a kiss?" she mused, leaning forward on her elbows and intentionally bolstering her chest into greater view. The effect she desired to see was immediate, the way Naruto visibly gulped, his pupils, still trained on her face, beginning to quiver. "Are you stupid?"
"Baa-chan, we both know you're not working–you never work," Naruto responded bluntly, nodding his head at the bevy of sake bottles glinting between the stacks. "You were prolly just about to cut out when I showed up, weren't you?"
It was no shocker to anyone who actually paid attention to Naruto that his intuitive skills were reasonably high for a genin, so his accurate assumption did little more than cause Tsunade's grin to expand. "Who's to say?" she responded lightly, lifting another saucer of sake to her lips. "The only thing that should matter to you is that I'm still here, no?"
Scoffing when she threw her head back, downing the sake in one hearty gulp, Naruto stomped around the left side of her desk, placed a hand on the arm of her chair, and spun her around to face him. "You are," he said firmly, "so gimme another kiss." He pointed to his forehead, between his hanging blonde locks. "Right here."
There was something stimulating about being forcibly—almost roughly—turned around in her own chair that sent an enjoyable trickle of pleasure gliding along Tsunade's spine. Her cheeks flushed a deeper red, her grin deepened into something voracious; this boy clearly did not know what he was doing.
So, as long as he was arbitrarily here for this kiss and providing a much needed distraction, the urge to tease him was growing stronger and stronger the more she took in his cutely determined expression. He had probably practiced acting this way, dialogue and all, hoping to strong-arm her into giving him what he wanted.
"Right where again?" she questioned teasingly, glancing at different points of his face. "Sorry, I'm seeing double right now."
It was obvious her response had thrown Naruto off his game when he blinked, grumbling a bit before jabbing again with his thumb. Before he could speak, Tsunade slowly uncrossed her legs, lifting one leg higher than necessary with definitely more flare than necessary, but she reveled in the way Naruto's gaze seem to urgently follow the heel of her arching foot. Since she was at her desk, she didn't feel the need to wear her usual black sandals so her feet were bare and free, and held Naruto's attention until she placed it on the ground. The soft thwump seemed to snap him out of whatever reverie he had fallen into and he hastily tried to fix his face back into what it was before.
"I-I said here, on my fore—"
All it took was a single beckoning finger to silence her precious little genin, the act of which greatly enticed Tsunade, the clear amount of power she had over him. Whether he adhered to her out of natural respect or some wanton attraction that he himself wasn't quite aware of yet, it didn't matter, she was quite enjoying the struggle that flashed over his face as he glanced from her curling finger to the spot between her legs. She could see he was smartly putting two and two together, coming to the conclusion of where she wanted him. Again, he swallowed, quite audibly, and Tsunade giggled to herself as he took a hesitant step forward, followed by another, and another…
…until he was situated right between her hugging thighs.
Link to the rest: https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13180435/1/Baa-chan-s-Kiss
I’ve Always Wanted To Do That (The Incredibles fanfic)
He wasn't actually sleeping, more like lounging. Lounging on the living room couch on a lazy Saturday with a magazine resting on his face and virtually nothing to do. His homework was finished, the chores were done, and the house was vacant. Since turning eighteen, Violet had taken to enjoying the slight slack in the leash that pertained to dating that kid Tony, who she was miraculously on her third year with; Jack-Jack was at Aunt Edna's, being treated like the surrogate son he so obviously was to her and no doubt being forced into a bevy of different costumes suited for his powers; and Mr. Incredible, free to be himself to a certain degree, was out with Frozone.
Being a teenager was really no different than being a kid. So he was fourteen now. Big whoop. Literally nothing had changed besides the length of his flyaway hair, his school, and the suffocating amount of homework he was given every day. He and the rest of his family were still under witness protection while the government dragged feet in weighing the exact worth of Supers against a cost analysis following the destruction they were sure to cause 'saving the day'. The fall of Supers in no way meant the fall of villains—an occurrence that should have been painfully obvious from the onset—and so certain ones were being allowed back into the line of duty to combat the increasing wave of unrest.
Slowly but surely, Supers were being accepted again.
Winston Deavor was still a prominent figure in the integration of Supers, from back when his sister went rogue to this very day, and the betrayal at the hands of his own flesh and blood had only spurred him on further. The process was plodding as hell to be sure but not without its benefits. His mom, Elastigirl, was still the face of the program, and she was making extraordinary strides toward proving that 'saving the day' could be done with as little collateral damage as possible thanks to her elegance and natural battle tact, and it didn't hurt that she had a massive fanbase backing her.
Back in the day, Elastigirl was already considered a household name, but now? Four years later? She was virtually infamous. Everyone knew her, people all over the world loved her, countries wanted her to make guest appearances, there were parades and parties, endorsement deals and sponsorships, she had apparel everywhere knickknacks were sold—there was even an Elastigirl videogame called Elastigirl: A Stretch In Time. To this day, Dash still found that to be the most stupidest name attached to the most stupidest gaming premise ever. Why they chose to make his mom this time-hopping superhero, he would never know.
Still, beyond all of that, beyond the numerous press releases and public events and award ceremonies, not a single soul outside of her family, Mr. Dicker, and Winston knew Elastigirl's true identity, which was a testament to the statute of secrecy concerning not only her but some of the other high profile Supers in the field. Mostly because trying to figure out Elastigirl's true identity had reached astronomical levels of interest, to the point where people adamantly theorized on who it might be based on hair length, eye color and other characteristics. Not that his mom cared—she found the whole fascination over her ridiculous—she only cared about creating a better, villain-free world for her family. She didn't care to relieve the 'glory' days that she consistently tried to talk his dad into letting go. Her only priorities pertained to being a devoted wife and raising her children; Super'ing around the world was just an unwanted side-effect to accomplish that.
On the other glove, Mr. Incredible was over the moon with the steady integration of Supers and gladly took on whatever jobs his wife didn't want to, even the ones that led him to other continents. Occasionally, after some extreme begging and pleading, Helen would relent to letting either Dash or his sister join in, depending on the severity of what needed to be done; sometimes they even went as a family. Those journeys turned out to be the perfect bonding adhesive, the stories told between them, the laughs shared, the dangers crossed….
It was fun, being able to just be themselves every once in awhile. Being bottled up as an ordinary citizen was no longer such an arduous task thanks to frequent outings that let everyone stretch their wings.
And that meant the most annoying aspect of Dash—always whining about not being able to be free, to be himself—melted away, leaving behind a far more levelheaded speedster.
"Ohhhh, Daaaaash…."
The sweet songbird-like tones of his mother calling tickled Dash's ears and he felt his cheeks begin to burn.
Damn it….
It was no secret that Dash loved his mom. Leaving the shoes of a kid behind and stepping into those of a globetrotting teenage Super had given him a new appreciation for this auburn-haired woman who had taken care of and loved him even during his most unbearable moments. Whenever his dad stepped out to handle Super business tailored to him (that Winston figured wouldn't yield too much cost damage-wise), Dash would self-proclaim himself as man of the house, and he took that role to heart.
His mom, Violet, Jack-Jack—even if they were all accomplished Supers in their own right, save for his little prodigy of a brother who everyone already expected to herald the end of villainy when he grew up, Dash placed their well-being over whatever trouble the world at large happened to be suffering through. Not that any of them took him seriously: Violet nearly pissed herself from laughing, his dad gave him the most patronizing pep talk about responsibility and knowing ones role, and his mom… well… she'd called it the cutest thing he had ever done, bar none.
"Awww, look at you, momma's little hero," she had said back then, eskimo kissing him into a void of embarrassment. "Well then, I'll be counting on you to keep me safe, okay?"
That much went without saying. It was a pledge Dash carried with him as he grew, year by year, remaining ever vigilant. So there was no denying that puberty was a bitch—all the growing, the danglings, the new bells and whistles—especially when surrounded by others going through the same awkward motions and having to deal with the unending comments his schoolmates made concerning his mom whenever she came to pick him up and actually got out of the car. Not only did his mom have the entire male populous unknowingly under her finger, there were quite a few girls who were quite keen to get to know her as well, even going so far as to try and invite themselves to his house under the pretense of dating or needing a study-buddy.
Contrary to popular belief, Dash was well aware of just how unrelentingly sexy his mother was; he had to deal with it every blessed day he saw her walk around in pajamas, in shorts, even in a bathrobe. He knew that for a woman in her very early forties, her coke-bottle figure was nothing short of perfection. He knew that if he looked up the term 'slim thick' he would see a picture of his mom due to the way her pinched waist opened into a pair of succulent hips that she loved to playfully bump him with. He knew all of that and more, and eventually, he grew sick of others using his mom in their weird fetishes.
It only took about three major fights for the message to get across that Helen Parr was off limits for anyone to so much as speak about in his presence. Since his super speed basically guaranteed that he could doge every hit, in order to keep his identity a secret, Dash allowed himself to be struck a couple times just for the sake of appearance.
"Dash, are you in the living room?"
When she called out a second time, Dash lazily replied, "I sure am, mom," but didn't bother removing the magazine from over his face. He still wasn't ready to 'do things' yet; it was too nice, the warm, natural lighting streaming in through the glass roof. He was more than content to spend the rest of his weekend right here glued to this spot. If the other family members didn't mistake him for just an oblong shaped couch cushion he would be highly surprised.
Though not nearly as surprised as he was when something incredibly soft and plush nudged the arm he had hanging over the side.
Did she just…?
"Wakie, wakie, my little super hero, I need your opinion on something," she chorused, and if her previous hip bump wasn't enough to bring about a barrage of suspicion, her suspiciously energetic tone certainly was. When he made no immediate effort to give her attention, she hip-bumped him again. "Come on, Dash, I need your help here."
Wondering when and how he had fallen under his mother's thumb as well, Dash very hesitantly began to lower his Super's Monthly magazine just far enough for his pupils to peek over the edge.
Oh dear Lord….
Another thing about his lavish mother that Dash was having some trouble dealing with was the fact Mrs. Parr didn't put much stock in her figure—none—she mostly considered herself to be quite average despite the numerous compliments and fansites devoted to her, despite the vocal minority that downright worshipped the very ground she walked on. It was the most innocent display of immodesty that Dash had ever seen; she cared so little that she frequently, obliviously, showed it off in the most provocative ways.
Like now, as she nervously shifted weight from one foot to the other in this lavish white blouse with a plunging neckline and the tightest pair of yoga pants Dash had ever the pleasure to see wrapped around her body. That apprehensive stance clearly showed the effort she was putting forth to be eye-catching was new to her, but her naturally lustful figure seemed right at home being on display; it was this perfectly tantalizing mixture of timid and precocious. His eyes were tracing her curves before he could even begin to stop himself, rolling over those criminally wide hips, those thick, creamy thighs, and that ass….It was only thanks to her that Dash even paid attention to that part of a female nowadays.
Not even trying to being subtle, Dash sank deeper into the couch, making sure to keep the magazine firmly just below his eyes. There was no way he could let her see his face; he was blushing far too hard, it practically invited teasing.
She cleared her throat. "Well, since you're the man of the house while your father's away, I wanted to get a man's opinion on these," and she gave the most beguiling smile, that kind that effortlessly coerced Dash into doing whatever she wanted.
"I—me?" he blustered. "Really? D-don't you think Violet would be a better choice—"
The ease at which she cut him off was as simple as lifting a single finger, her smile growing coy. "That's why I said I needed a man's opinion, buster. C'mon, your honest take—does your momma look good in these?"
A hearty "yes!" was the obvious answer but Dash was summarily left with his jaw hanging when Helen twirled on her heel to give him a full, uninterrupted view of the back. Never had he seen her rear so perfectly rounded, so magnificently framed—it jiggled ever so softly as she continued to shift from foot to foot, almost as if she could physically feel his eyes probing here, prodding there, taking it all in. Every wobble of those perfectly rounded twin cheeks caused Dash's breath to hitch, his grip over the magazine subconsciously increasing to the ripping point. The outlines of whatever dark pink panties she had chosen to wear underneath were excruciatingly visible, hugging her ass tight and admirably keeping both cheeks contained.
"Well?" she questioned, twirling back around. "Thoughts? I'm really feeling the blouse—my chest can breathe, but personally, I'm not a huge fan of lycra. Good fabric and all it's just kind of tight around the, uh… around the back region, don't you think?"
Thinking wasn't really a function that Dash was capable of at the moment so he remained silent, and his lack of an answer caused Helen to glance down at herself, curious to see what had so thoroughly captured his attention.
Then her eyes widened, followed by a very short chuckle. "Annnnnd, dang… did not realize they were see-through…."
Of course she hadn't, and Dash could wholeheartedly believe it, given how her cheeks lit up like a Christmas tree and she brought her hands to her face, probably wishing she had Violet's power to vanish at a snap. Honestly, it was the cutest thing, watching her shrink in on herself, the way she tried squeezing her thighs together like that was in any way going to hide the fact that her very visible panties had a bear face print on the front.
"Mom…pft, what in the—"
"Shut up, just… shut up," she ground out, peeking at him from between her fingers and, wow, was the blush riding high. "Dash, I swear, if you even so much as breathe a word about this…."
It came out as threatening, albeit the embarrassed quivering marred the effect somewhat, and Dash was quite keen to hear her finish that sentence, to hear what she would do to him, but when she fell silent, he couldn't help but grin, fully lowering his magazine and running a hand through his hair.
God above, if the world loved Elastigirl then knowing the woman behind the mask would likely cause heart-attacks all around. Whatever arousal her figure had shamefully brought out of Dash, much like it always did, was bowled over with an all-consuming urge to protect. He needed to protect this 40-something-year-old woman who apparently still wore printed panties.
"I really hope you don't wear those when you're out as Elastigirl," he chuckled, patting the spot next to him invitingly. "Imagine bending over and splitting a seam—bam, secret's out."
The glare Helen leveled him with as she approached didn't sting as much as it could have thanks to her smirk. "Excuse me, Mr. Man, but you aren't insinuating I have a big butt, are you?"
Dash's reply was as quick as his running speed. "I was insinuating that accidents like ripped clothing and Supers go together like white on rice. How many times has Auntie E had to repair dad's suit? A dozen? Couple dozen? Pictures of his underwear are still circulating the internet, God knows why."
She sat down next to him with a scoff, crossing her legs. "I'm impressed, Dash, you said that so smoothly I'd almost believe you thought it up on the spot."
"Well, when you're a pro at sticking your foot in your mouth like I am you learn to have certain replies loaded up," Dash admitted with a shrug, and the sound of her giggling was still just the sweetest thing.
"And he's funny, folks," Helen quipped, idly kicking her aloft foot and brushing back her bangs. She regarded her son like a newly found specimen, staring him up and down appraisingly, moving his hair about, then finally gave his cheek a teasing pinch. "Ah, you make me sick."
The insult was said so lovingly that all Dash could do was chuckle.
"Sorry?"
"You should be. I still can't believe you don't have a girlfriend yet, I figured I'd be beating off girls left and right by now, honestly. It's one of the few things I was actually looking forward to as you grew up."
"Er, well… you know how it is," he said, clearing his throat.
There was a very good reason why Dash didn't have a girlfriend, but it wasn't a reason he was mentally prepared to share with his mother just yet. Diligence required sacrifice, and the rise of villains as of late was beginning to eclipse the speed at which Supers were being allowed to do their job. Elastigirl might be a verifiable symbol of peace for now, but she was still only one Super and the world was rife with nefarious individuals who were beginning to see that she couldn't be everywhere at once.
"You get your looks from your father, you know—the both of you are just riddled with handsomeness. That's how you trick us girls, get us to lower our defenses; you just flash a smile and we go all weak in the knees. It's not fair," she joked, winking. "I swear, to this day I'm almost certain that's the only way your father got me to marry him. The big idiot… the big handsome idiot…."
Chewing on his thumbnail, Dash barely heard a word his mother said; he was beyond lost in thought, his brow furrowed intently. The growing villain contingency had long since filled him with unease and it seemed to worsen every time he turned on the set, which was primarily why he had chosen to read his magazine today. Just once he wanted to go a day without the same question running laps around his mind: how long until her identity was blown? He had seen more than his fair share of movies and shows, mostly as research material, to know how that particular scenario played out and he would be damned if he let some random girl, who was almost guaranteed to be more interested in his mom anyway, distract him from protecting his family.
"It's… I guess it's just not my time yet," he said after a few seconds' silence, rubbing behind his head. "Truthfully, I'm not in any hurry to see you hospitalize whichever girl I bring home."
"Oh come on, sweetheart, look at me—would I do that?" she asked with a faux look of hurt.
Dash stared at her and she stared back.
And then they both started laughing.
"You'd slingshot her across the city!" he said, clutching his sides.
"Without a moment's hesitation," Helen agreed, patting her lap with an inviting glance at her son. When he merely stared at her, confused, she rolled her eyes and sucked her teeth, grabbing his head and bringing it down onto her legs. "There we go."
Even before the cushiony soft sensation of her thighs could fully hit home, Dash was bombarded with the sweet, almost ambrosial scent wafting from his mother's skin. He didn't know if it was some sort of perfume or if that's just how she smelled naturally but it was having an immediate effect where he didn't want it to.
"Um, m-mom? What're you—" he started, trying to push himself back up, but she shushed him, running a hand through his hair.
"Sweetie, I know you don't feel like talking about what you're going through, but… I wouldn't be much of a mother if I didn't say something," she started softly and Dash froze, eyes widening, growing numb to the soothing dance of her fingers.
There was no way she could be hinting at… could she? No, of course not, how could she know? Outside of the usual mood swings, Dash had made sure to be as discreet as possible with his mission in life. He left no stone unturned, erased any tracks he made—there was nothing for anyone to catch, much less his mom.
"If you're talking about that pair of panties, I can explain," he started hastily.
"I really don't think any son can explain how a pair of their mother's underwear wound up under their mattress," Helen began inertly, and it was the evenness of her tone that caused Dash's jaw to tighten. She didn't sound at all like how he'd figured—hoped—she would have, she didn't sound upset or confused or disgusted; she sounded like someone who had seen through his plan, and easily at that. "I've been in the game a long time, Dash, so I know a decoy when I see it. If your plan was to throw me off, you should have grabbed a dirty pair—that's what the true perverts do. After all, what good are panties with no scent?"
Okay, wow.
So many questions slammed into Dash's mind following that statement that it almost hurt trying to decipher them all and so he remained silent, barely breathing, taking in only the faintest whiffs of her natural aroma.
"I know you've probably got a dozen other distractions lined up to keep suspicion low but I'm your mother, Dash," she said matter-of-factly and he could feel those maternal, all-seeing eyes boring into him. "The least I can do is tell when one of my kids is pushing themselves too far, and you, kiddo… you've been pushing yourself too hard for too long."
It flew out of Dash's mouth before he could stop it: "We're safe, though, aren't we? You, dad, Violet, Jack-Jack… we're all safe."
"Yes, honey, we're safe, but it's not like we've got danger lurking around every corner either," Helen argued gently. "You're only fourteen, you should be out there enjoying yourself, living life, making mistakes and crying back to me for help—look at your sister," she said with a snort. "The moment she was old enough to drive you'd think the car was her natural home."
"Vi's not all there in the head, we all know that," Dash said, making a swirling motion with his finger. "I'm different from her—I have goals, I have people I need to protect—"
Helen nodded understandingly. "And don't think we don't appreciate it, honey. All I'm asking you to do is to just… let us adults shoulder most of the burden, okay? It's why I took up this whole Super deal in the first place, to give you and Violet and Jack-Jack a better life than what your dad and I had, a more carefree life."
When she took him by the chin, Dash allowed her to steer his gaze upwards so that he was staring directly at her, so that he could fully see the concern in her eyes.
"Let me be the parent, okay? I don't care about the love of all those people out there, or the Superhero initiative, I don't care if this whole operation goes or blows, I really don't," she said genially and Dash found it astonishing how true her words came across to him. "Like I told Winston, like I told your dad… and like I'm about to tell you now: I only care about keeping my kids safe. So let me do that, okay? Let your mother do her job. Your only job is to be a kid for as long as possible."
The firm pout Dash had fixed across his face broke away into a groan when she kissed him over the nose.
"Don't pout, I find it adorable," she said.
"Awww, mom—c'mon," he fussed, rubbing at his face. "I'm fourteen, what teenager still gets kissed on the nose?"
"You do," she said easily, and gave him another, smiling at the way he turned deeper into her thighs to hide his face. "And so does your sister. She gets at least two a day. And Jack-Jack? Until he shifts into another dimension. Resistance is futile, you know, you all might as well just give in to the momma kisses—they always win."
"Maybe I've been protecting us from the wrong side since you're clearly the most villainous thing around here," was what Dash tried to say but it came out a muffled mess against his mother's thighs, and he caught the way she shuddered against him, no doubt feeling the rumbling vibrations his stifled words caused.
When his mother's hand came down over his head, he tensed, half-expecting her to give him a good thumping. What he didn't expect was for her fingers to wind their way back through his blonde locks again. "Any time you want to get your face outta there would be fine with me, buster," and her tone was full of a teasing mirth even as she playfully squeezed her legs together, "before I start thinking you stole my underwear for another purpose."
Dash sat up so quickly he nearly went tumbling off the couch and Helen laughed, watching him scramble to catch himself. "Calm down, calm down, Dash, sheesh—I was just kidding," she chuckled, waving a dismissive hand his way, "but now that your secret's out, feel free to put them back, those are one of my favorite pairs."
Pushing that little tidbit to the farthest reaches of his mind, Dash's perked up like a dog sensing danger when the doorbell rang. When he made to move, the palm that met him squarely on the forehead kept him seated. "Relax, it's just the door," said Helen, standing in his place. "I got it. Here, you take care of this." She picked up the remote, picked up his hand, and joined the two. "Find something fun for us to watch on TV when I get back. I'm gonna start making sure you enjoy yourself, buster."
The idea of enjoying himself did sound like something pleasant, if wholly foreign, Dash figured as she strolled from the room, unknowingly taking his gaze with her, but he also knew it was something he would never allow. Despite what his mother said and the way her calming words offered a much-needed sense of tranquility to his frayed nerves, this was the path he had long since chosen. There was no alternative so long as the villain contingency continued to thrive on the lack of Supers.
Still… watching something together….
"That… that'd be okay, right? Yeah, course—but just for a little while," Dash told himself firmly, and he nearly leapt out of his clothes when the phone rang. "Not cool, Dash, c'mon…." Grumbling, he dove to the other end of the couch and snatched up the cordless. "Parr residence, Dash spea—"
"DASH—Dash, listen, it's Dicker—" Instantly, Dash's breathing faltered, his stomach clenching with dread. Mr. Dicker hadn't contacted them for quite some time, and whenever he did it was never anything good. "Listen to me, son, you have to leave your house—right now!"
"What? Why?" There was a panic in Mr. Dicker's voice and it transferred to Dash, setting his heartbeat into overdrive. "What's going on—did something happen?"
"There's no time!" the older man yelled and for the first time in a long time, Dash was afraid. "Evelyn Deavor escaped prison during a riot and we think she's making a beeline straight to your position—we don't know exactly when she escaped but it's highly possible she's not alone—she could be bringing accomplices, Dash—you have to get out of there!"
The phone clattered to the ground, everything was suddenly very dreamlike.
No….
It was the slowest Dash could remember ever going even as he pushed his legs past the normal limits of his ability. He didn't know how… he didn't know what could have possibly pierced him with this overwhelming feeling of loss, but he could feel his eyes beginning to blur with tears, he felt his mouth opening in a scream that didn't reach his ears he was running so fast.
No, no, no, no—
The force of his halting skid left blazing scorch marks in the carpet and he rounded the corner just as Helen pulled the door open.
"Mom—WAIT!"
Two hooded figures stood in the frame, silent and still—and Dash was in motion before his brain could give a command. It seemed the larger of the two figures was waiting for precisely that and flung out a hand comprised oddly of stone. The floor underneath Dash liquefied itself and he gave a surprised yelp when he began to sink, first his feet, past his ankles, up to his knees; it wasn't until the one with the hand of stone snapped their fingers that the floor solidified again, causing Dash to pitch forward and bash his forehead against the tiles, cracking several.
No, no, no, no, not now—
Everything was happening so wretchedly slow it was like a switch had been flipped. Breathing was problematic, Dash's head was throbbing unmercifully, each pulse sending a trickle of warm blood splurging down his face, but the pain was lost on him as he struggled, desperately reaching out for his mother.
"MOOOOM!"
The second figure pulled off their hood and it was over before the yell could fully leave Dash's throat.
Looking every bit as unhinged as she had four years ago, Evelyn Deavor struck out a hand, gripped Helen by the back of her head and snatched her forward, roughly mashing their lips together. It was a terrible kiss and the shock that contorted Helen's face only intensified when Evelyn rammed something sharp into her stomach.
It was a new type of terror, one that Dash never thought he would experience, one that robbed him of everything as he watched Evelyn drive that blade deeper and deeper still into his mom, holding their kiss until it was buried to the hilt. And when Evelyn broke their embrace, her mouth was smeared with blood; it was dribbling without end over Helen's lip, the sounds of her strangled gurgling causing the bile to churn hot in Dash's stomach.
"I've always wanted to do that," Evelyn cooed with a sickening tenderness, continuing to grip the wobbling Super tight by the hair. She inched closer, placing those filthy bloodstained lips next to Helen's ear. "Tell me, Elastigirl… what do you do when you want to destroy the very fabric of the people's nerve?" she whispered gently.
His legs were broken, Dash knew that much, he could feel that much, but that didn't stop him from struggling; he clawed at the ground like a trapped animal, gaining purchase over nothing, fingers slipping, tearing his throat to shreds with the strength of his yells.
Yet Evelyn's deadening voice conquered all. "The answer's simple: you take away their symbol of hope."
And Dash was rendered mute when she forcibly snatched the knife from his mother's stomach, spilling a copious amount of blood down her front, over the floor, splattering droplets in an arch that flew from Evelyn's blade.
It was relatively easy to pinpoint the exact moment Dash felt his heart die. He had stopped breathing, stopped thinking, stopped feeling—eyes unblinking, he could only see, could only watch as the woman he had sworn to protect fell… and fell… the shock never quite leaving her face….
When she collided with the ground, it was the most painful scene of Dash's life, watching as his mom brought hands to her wound, hands that shook, hands that were instantly saturated in blood, hands that were, even now, determined to shield Dash from what he knew was there. She didn't want him to see it, she didn't want him to see the wound causing the unbridled agony distorting her face.
"Don't worry, Dash," said Evelyn softly, bending down to wipe her knife over the front of Helene's blouse, further staining what was once such a beautiful and pristine white, turning it into a scarlet mess, "when your mom dies, and when they find her… she'll be regarded as a true hero. You should be proud."
His mom was gasping horribly, struggling to hold on even as blood continued to spill through her fingers; she paid no mind to Evelyn, that wasn't important… her eyes found his, they found her son's, and she didn't look away. "D-Dash…."
Like a baseball through a window, Dash felt all of his willpower, all of the strength and resilience he had built up over the years, shatter into nothing. Hearing his name gurgled out with so much pain from the one person he thought would never fall had instilled something terrible in his heart—and he started crying, he started crying like he had regressed back to his toddler years, the days when his mom would drop whatever she was doing and come running to him.
Except now she couldn't, and the hollow realization of that caused her face to scrunch up, caused tears to well in her eyes….
Sighing, Evelyn made the climb back to her feet, the look lining the sunken groves of her face displaying just a flicker of regret. "I… don't think I thought this through well enough," she admitted with a tired shrug. "This sort of thing might just galvanize the people instead of break them apart." The revelation of her actions didn't seem to be cause for worry, on the contrary, it was like watching withered parchment paper crinkle when her lips curled into a sinister smirk. "If anything, I probably just accomplished in three minutes what every Super has been trying to do for the past four years. I should be thanked, right?" She snapped her fingers at her larger companion. "Let's go. We've sparked the flame… now it's time to watch it all burn down."
Wiping his eyes on the back on the back of his hand, Dash watched them go, he watched them stroll uncaringly through the puddle of blood pooling out from his mom….
"Dash…." His eyes shot to her the moment she inhaled, the very act of talking causing her mouth to form a painful rictus. "Sw-sweetheart, I… I'm s-sorry…."
No matter how hard he swiped at his eyes, the tears wouldn't leave him be, they constantly blurred his vision, blurred his mother. "Mom, don't talk—please, just… h-hang on, I just gotta get my legs free and then—then I can get help, I swear, if I can just…."
His voice shook so bad he could hardly understand the words tumbling out of his mouth as he tried to move his legs, but he already knew he was hopelessly stuck; the floor had reformed around his knees, it'd take a construction crew to get him out and he'd be lucky if his legs survived.
Not that cold reality prevented him from struggling his absolute hardest.
"C'MON! Stupid—please, please, why won't… I can't get… m-mom," he fumbled, turning to her for guidance, and it scared him at how quickly the light was fading from her eyes. "Mom! No, no, no—damn it, c'mon! Don't leave me! I'm coming, if I can just—it's my legs—I can't get them… I can't get them free, I'm trying!"
Her smile was so soft, and so weak. She understood, she knew he was trying his very best, and that was enough. "I'm s-sorry, Dash, I…" She winced, inhaling sharply. Every word lanced her body with pain; every syllable only caused more blood to pulse over her bottom lip. "I…I tried… I wanted you t-to… to be happy…."
"Don't talk, please!" Dash begged, and he reached out for her, stretching his arm as far it could go.
The last time Helen had cried, in front of him at least, was a couple years ago after Jack-Jack had bumped his head on the coffee table and cut himself. That one moment had been the deciding factor to Dash committing himself to the protection of his family. The look on his mother's face, those heart-wrenching sobs as she cradled Jack-Jack and apologized over and over… he swore to never see her like that again.
"I… I couldn't do my job as… as your mother," she whispered to him, and the tears glittering down her cheeks, the regret that poisoned her smile… "I'm sorry, sweetie…."
The ground around Dash's legs gave an ominous crack, almost as loud as the one that he felt reverberate somewhere in his shins. He was pulling with all the might he possessed, grasping out for all he was worth, but it still wasn't enough to reach her. "HELP!" he screamed shrilly, blistering his throat. "SOMEBODY—ANYBODY HELP! PLEASE!"
When something soft grazed his cheek, he jerked, momentarily stunned into silence; his mother had stretched out one of her hands, past his own, and was busy brushing away a tear. He instantly nuzzled into her, ignoring the crimson fluids that caked her fingers, unable to keep his sobs at bay long enough to shout again. "D-don't leave me, momma… p-please…."
"It's okay… it's okay, sweetheart," she told him, her voice growing weaker, fainter, "I'm f-fine… I'm not… I'm not going anywhere, I'm st-staying right…."
He heard her exhale, then nothing.
"…Momma?"
The sudden silence pried Dash's eyes open and he saw his mother staring back at him. Except… she wasn't blinking; her fingers had fallen still, she wasn't moving, she wasn't… she wasn't breathing. She stared back at him with eyes that had lost their light, with a smile that was barren.
"N-no…"
The world seemed to drop away into nothingness leaving only Dash and the woman who had shielded him since birth. He didn't want to believe, he didn't want to accept the fact that his mother was gone, but it was her expression… that loving smile… she was telling him that it was okay, that everything was going to be okay, even if she wasn't around for it.
And that made him cry. He buried his face in the warmth of her palm and cried, grabbing her fingers with both hands. The grief hurt, it burned from the bottom of his soul, it gave fire to his sobs until he had no more tears to give, until his throat was too hoarse to make a sound, until all he could do was collapse, worn with pain and broken with sorrow.
He didn't know how much time had passed when he heard it… voices… a multitude of voices on the peripheral of his hearing. They were coupled with the sounds of rushing footsteps—Dash didn't know what was happening and he didn't put forth the slightest bit of effort in figuring it out; so long as he kept hold over his mother's hand then nothing else mattered. Perhaps Evelyn has seen the folly in letting him live and had returned with more flunkies to finish him off?
Please. I'd be grateful for it….
The voices were coming in clearer as Dash's hearing gradually returned.
"KEEP THOSE PEOPLE BACK! I need a perimeter shut down—RIGHT NOW!"
"Dash! Dash, wake up! Is he okay? DASH!"
"Please, stay back—he's alive, he's breathing—"
"HELEN—is she… she can't be…."
"WE NEED A FUCKING AMBULANCE!"
"Clear a path, clear a path, what's happened? What's the… oh my God…."
Who was talking? Better question, why were they talking? Nothing said could undo what had happened, nothing could—
Every nerve in Dash's body sparked to life when someone tried to pry his hand away from his mother's and a piercing yell burst from his throat. He swung without thought and felt his knuckles collide solidly with someone's jaw, knocking whoever it was to the side. Tears blurred his vision, he couldn't make out a single person from the swarm surrounding him; they were moving too fast, nothing but hazy, faceless mannequins; all he could do was growl, increasing the hold he had on her, daring a soul brave enough to step forward. They would have his life before they took—
"Dash…."
He froze. That last voice sent a familiar shudder down his back and he turned in its direction, frantically reaching out with his other hand. A wave of sobs erupted around him but Dash paid it no mind, continuing to reach, gasping when a larger, rougher hand took his own and held on tight. "Dash, it's okay. We're here… you can let go, son, we're… we're here…."
Dash sniffled, fervently shaking his head. "I… but if I do, she'll… th-then she'll really be gone," he choked out and there was a massive shift as several people moved to hug him at once. He felt it, he felt their warmth, their pain, he felt it all and hung his head, shoulders trembling with the urge to cry again. "I can't… I c-can't lose her again, I—"
Another cheek, slick with tears, mashed itself against his and the hug tightened. "You won't, Dash," he heard Violet gasp and she sounded stricken. Her entire body shook but she clutched him like a life raft. "Sh-she's still here—I s-swear she is." She nodded as strongly against him as she could, her jaw firming. "It's okay, it's g-gonna be okay…."
Many voices, many recognizable voices, were echoing in agreement, several that Dash could immediately place a face to and several more that existed only on the fringe of his tired mind. They were all telling him that he was safe, that it was okay, that he could let go….
And when he finally did, when he reluctantly relaxed his grip and felt her fingers slide away, there was no force on earth that could have kept Dash from passing out. Her touch had been the last pillar keeping him conscious and he quickly went limp without it, succumbing to the darkness that had been steadily, incessantly, tugging at him; and as he mercifully began to sink into that nothingness, he heard a hurricane of furious yells from his dad, from Mr. Dicker and even Winston, all three of them shouting to get his legs freed immediately.
My legs…? If Dash weren't so dangerously depleted, he would have laughed. He didn't care about his stupid legs. Whether they managed to pry him free or not, whether he woke up whole or to a pair of bloody, bandaged stumps—it was the farthest thing from his mind. Everything was growing startlingly dark, the ache that gripped his body was slipping… and then he felt it.
A hand so soft yet so warm rustled his hair, soothing him in a way he knew he was never going to experience again. Her touch hurt… it hurt so bad, the most excruciating pain of his short life, but he couldn't help the way her loving motions caused the corners of his mouth to quirk up in a silent smile. It was for her, only for her… and it was probably the last genuine one he would ever give.
I hope… wherever you are, I hope you're safe, mom. He couldn't speak it, he lacked the energy, the motor skills; this was nothing more than the last few synapses of his mind firing off into the gloom. You were the light of my world and I… I…
He struggled against himself; it was all fading so fast but he desperately fought to hold on. The warmth of Helen's hand moved from the top of his head to cradle his cheek, giving him the strength to finish.
I'll always love you, mom….
XXXX
Sixteen months later, the world was a very different place. The news of Elastigirl's death spread like wildfire throughout very major news network across the globe, and the reaction was deafening. Elastigirl monuments were erected, marches were held, it was nearly a collapse of order as the public found blame against those who had previously dragged their feet on allowing Supers to do their job. Due to their rampant negligence, the world had lost its brightest symbol of hope to evil—and it was a day that would forever be a blight against justice.
Not long after, there was a major seat-shuffling in the government—several people resigned, many quit, and some vanished without a trace. It paved the way for a new era, one spearheaded by Winston Deavor, who, after severing all ties to anything related to his sibling and her existence, was quick to give Supers back the power that they should have had years ago.
The name of the operation was 'revenge', pure and simple. There was no point in hiding it, no one even tried to suggest otherwise—contrary to being crushed spiritually, the populous was ablaze with rallies against villains that numbered in the thousands and persisted faithfully to this day. The entire world knew what had to be done, any other plan of action was unthinkable. One of the most loved souls to ever protect had been taken from them… and a heavy price had to be paid.
The nations came together to organize a strike team comprised of some of their most prominent Supers to hunt down Evelyn Deavor and bring her to justice. It was unanimously decided that Mr. Incredible take the helm and he accepted the role with a blazing resolve, leading them from one lead to the next in a flurry. The public was on their side, the government was giving them aide, the resources were near limitless—it was only a matter of time before Evelyn Deavor was found, before the world could rest.
Before he could rest.
Hands in his pockets, Dash trudged up a hill he had traversed more times than he cared to remember. He could have made the journey blindfolded, letting his legs lead the way. They were what brought him here after all, that familiar throbbing in his knees. When he was excavated from the ground all those months ago, they told him a normal person's legs would have been reduced to mush, but due to his power and his unnaturally granite-like leg muscles, he would make a full recovery pending a few months of physical rehabilitation.
And that… was certainly good news, good enough at least to bring Violet to tears since she had been worried sick over him, but even as his dad cheered and snatched him up in a rib-cracking hug, what was there to really be happy about? So his legs weren't a lost cause, did that bring her back? Did that somehow retroactively make him able to save her life? Or did it just remind him that he was alive while the one he failed to protect wasn't?
The frustrated tears he shed that day, smothered under his dad, went by unnoticed.
The further he walked, the more he allowed himself to enjoy the day. Clouds dotted an otherwise marble blue sky while the sun laid down an enjoyable haze of warmth. Gentle drafts of wind rustled his hair and he almost smiled as he carefully stepped between the graves of fallen Supers. Some of them he knew, others he didn't, but all he respected.
So many of them had died within the past half a year—so many had gladly thrown themselves in the line of fire if it meant getting them one step closer to finding Evelyn Deavor, and Dash would forever keep their names with him until it was inevitably his turn to join them on this hallowed hill.
Before his mother was taken from him, Dash always figured he would follow the typical motions of life: get a wife, have some kids, adopt a dog, live a full life spoiling his grandkids, the whole nine yards. With her gone, he got the feeling that path had been lost to him—not that he cared much, it was just obvious that her death had thrown him onto an entirely new track. He didn't expect to live very long, not with how he planned to eradicate villainy, so if he somehow saw the age of twenty then he would take that as a nudge from his mother to keep living. And if he didn't… well, that would be less time wasted wondering this world aimlessly, wouldn't it?
By medical standards, so long as his heart continued to beat, then Dash was deemed alive, but he had never felt so taciturn, so disconnected from the everything; and oddly enough, it was a feeling that comforted him as much as it tortured him. He welcomed the trauma that woke him up so violently he had to clutch his mouth with both hands to keep from screaming, and he reveled in hearing Evelyn Deavor's snake-like voice erupt from whatever shadow he passed, whispering the very line that was forever seared into his brain: I've always wanted to do that.
Even now, it brought his blood to a boil without fail and his walk turned into a forceful march.
Metroville Super Graveyard was where Dash spent a majority of his time whenever he wasn't at school or being forced to endure therapy for his night terrors. It was a specially crafted graveyard that existed in secret, away from the public, where only Supers both alive and deceased were allowed. It helped conceal the identity of the heroes who perished in the line of duty—to protect their friends and family, mostly—while also ensuring they received a burial befitting their service.
It was the weirdest thing... the first time he was called to publicly speak about his mom, only he couldn't be seen as Dash Parr, no, that would have been the equivalent of painting a big red target over himself, his family, and anyone who knew them. He—all of them—had to appear in their Super suits, the anonymity of which made the entire thing feel disgustingly impersonal, so much so that halfway into his prepared speech, Dash just walked off stage, leaving his father to quickly blame his abrupt leave on the grief. It was a necessary precaution to keep their family safe, Dash knew that, but from where he stood, it was also a stupid one, at least where his family was concerned. Evelyn Deavor already knew them pretty well beyond the costumes—hell, he was genuinely surprised she hadn't ousted them to the public yet or sent some of her flunkies to knock down their door.
Maybe she was enjoying the chaos that followed killing his mom… or maybe she knew that breaching the statue of secrecy surrounding Supers would immediately get her the death penalty. Oh, how he wished she would be so brave… but so far, aside from a few personally written letters threatening more deaths and a couple glimpses through pictures, Evelyn herself might as well have become a shadow in the world of villainy, a shadow that stretched far and consumed whatever it touched.
The grass crunched under Dash's shoes as he came to a stop in front of a massive statue depicting Elastigirl in one of her trademark hero poses. Commissioned by Winston and crafted by some of the most talented sculptures money could buy, it was a marvelous feat, filled with all the love everyone held for the fallen hero. Even now, as Dash noted the little distinguishing features he had noted a million times before—like the separate strands of hair or how lithe her fingers were—his chest tightened to the point where breathing was a chore, but he forced a toothy smile.
It was a quivering one to be sure, lined with the tears that trickled down his cheeks, but still, he smiled.
"Hey, mom."
A watery chuckled left him and he sniffled. Already, he could hear her scolding tone, wondering why he wasn't in school since it was technically a weekday. Not that it mattered. Despite a surprising uptick in his grades, Dash regularly skipped classes, or, like right now, the entire school day. It got to be such a problem that Mr. Dicker, while wholly sympathetic, couldn't take anymore and decided to get one of his subordinates hired at Dash's school so they could deliver a mind-altering flash whenever it happened. The only stipulation was that Dash's grade had to maintain themselves, and they did. Originally, Dash had planned on going to school, if only to get his sister to quit nagging him, but when he woke up with his old leg wounds throbbing, any plans on receiving a higher education went out the window—he knew where he was truly needed.
When he took a knee next to the headstone, his eyes traced the gold lettering that spelled her name and he had to swallow hard to keep himself composed. He bowed his head for a moment of silence, then looked up with a smile. "Um, hey, look what I got…took a lotta effort but I still did it," and he pulled a crumpled piece of paper from his jacket pocket. After some smoothing, he lifted it up high. "See? Remember that English test I had? Well, bam! Took Vi' forever to drill the basics into my thick head but I passed!"
It was always painful, the silence that followed, the lack of reaction, but he was well used to it and, after stowing the test sheet back in his pocket, plowed on ahead with what his morning consisted of. He told her how Violet had burned his eggs (again) and how when Jack-Jack stubbed his toe he let loose a screech that wound up summoning a plethora of eagles.
"—so we're not sure but that's probably 'beast tamer' added to the list now," Dash continued, shaking his head with a simple shrug. "I dunno how many powers that kids gonna have but whatever, as long as he doesn't get super speed then we'll still be best bros'. Can't have my little brother edging me out on my own territory, ya know?"
When he laughed, he imagined her laughing with him. It helped keep the encroaching loneliness at bay.
"Oh—OH—and I almost forgot! Today marks a full month since my leg—"
His lips continued to move but a series of sharp beeps had drowned him out and Dash immediately froze. All at once his stomach dropped into a void and he started to tremble where he stood. His throat was suddenly very dry, too dry to swallow, and he slowly glanced down the front of his shirt. Around his neck was a necklace made of some of the toughest alloy the world had to offer, and on it dangled a silver pendant in the shape of a heart.
Frantically, Dash pulled it free, hardly daring to believe. The beeping had subsided into a flashing red light like that of a fire truck, a beacon easily spotted regardless of distance.
Really…?
Paralysis wiped the feeling out of Dash's legs and he hit the ground on his knees, pursing his lips together to keep silent. He clutched the pendant in both hands until his knuckles turned white and lurched forward, slamming his forehead to the dirt. He knew he was crying, the painful sound of his uneven sobs carried far in the surrounding silence.
Two weeks after burying Elastigirl, Winston Deavor had approached the Parr family with a set of specially crafted pendants, each one tailor made for them and only them. He felt that before anyone else, they should be the ones to receive closure concerning their loss and told them that on the day their pendants were activated, it would be the day that Evelyn Deavor had been captured.
Relief and elation flooded Dash so quickly that he grew lightheaded. Somewhere, he knew the pendants of the rest of his family were going off as well. What were they doing? How did they feel? Were they like him, numb with joy? He fought to breathe properly; every breath came in with a rattle and left as a wheeze. All over again, he felt as drained as he did on the day his mom died, except this time he punched the earth with a fist, refusing to stay grounded.
"C'mon, Dash, get up….It's not over yet," he muttered shakily to himself, making the arduous climb back to his feet and wiping under his runny nose. Standing as straight as his trembling form would allow, Dash narrowed his eyes in the direction of his home. Right now, he knew everyone was racing there, from his family to Winston to Mr. Dicker—it was the rendezvous point for this exact moment, the moment they had all been waiting for….
Tensing his leg muscles to a dangerous degree, he glanced back up at the statue of his mom, still standing over him, still protecting him, and smiled as wide as he could.
"I love you, mom, but I gotta go, alright? There's some, uh… unfinished business we have to take care of, but don't worry. I'll be back soon," Dash promised, and he blurred out of sight.
A/N: Great way to begin the new year, yeah? Hahahaha....
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