grad school AU where tengen makes his two wetlab friends help him with a lab safety PSA he's making for a design class assignment. tengen claims he found the tank top in his closet, but it fits giyuu suspiciously well. giyuu figures it was worth it for the free dinner tengen treated them to afterward, only to be filled with an immense amount of regret when he finds out shinobu taped printouts to the walls of the freshman bio lab
more AU details under the cut bc i had a fun time brainstorming ~
giyuu - third year grad student in environmental science, focusing on predator/prey interactions in lake habitats. works in dr. urokodaki’s lab. always the first one in lab in the morning and the last to leave. still always finds time to make shinobu lunch so she’s a little less stressed. mentoring tanjirou, but he’s not really great at it tbh
shinobu - first year grad student in entomology, studying butterfly toxins, particularly with the goal of deriving pharmaceuticals from them. seems happy on the outside, but is actually in a constant state of stress and rage because she hates writing grant proposals, reviewer number 3 keeps suggesting stupid experiments that don’t make sense, nothing in lab is working and no one knows why, the freshmen undergrads she’s TA-ing are horrible gremlins, and on top of all that she has to study for quals. mentors kanao the best she can with everything else going on
tengen - third year grad student in fine arts. currently in a chamber music group with his three gfs and zenitsu, who hates his guts
rengoku - second year grad student in history, studying military history. very rambunctious but well-intentioned. knew mitsuri from undegrad. basically the mom friend who everyone likes
mitsuri - first year grad student in anthropology, really fascinated with the evolution of marriage customs across a wide range of cultures. instant bffs with shinobu when they met at new student orientation. basically dating obanai, but both of them are too shy to admit it or make it official
obanai - second year grad student in herpetology. has a pet snake he takes around everywhere. people aren’t sure this is allowed, but no one wants to approach him about it
sanemi - second year grad student in entomology, studying beetles. always loved beetles growing up so he ended up studying them in grad school. to date, no one’s agreed to fund his proposal to genetically engineer the world’s most powerful beetle. works in the same lab as shinobu. tries to help genya with his homework, only to find that he doesn’t remember learning anything
muichiro - first year grad student in meteorology. one of those geniuses who got into college when he was like 12. befriended shinobu and mitsuri at their orientation. gets along really well with tanjirou and co. because their so close in age
gyoumei - fourth year grad student in anthropology, studying the history of religious movements. he’s pretty old for his cohort because he took time off to raise an orphaned girl whose parents he’d known
tanjirou - freshman, interested in zoology. was randomly assigned zenitsu and inosuke as his roommates, and they’ve hit it off. really has his shit together. has never missed a class, keeps the most regular sleep schedule out of his friend group, doesn’t procrastinate, and works part-time to send money home to support his family. the mom friend of his group, sometimes cooks or bakes for them when the cafeteria food is too terrible
zenitsu - freshman, going into electrical engineering. whines constantly about the workload, but he wants to make his gramps proud. procrastinates so much he eventually transcends stress and can somehow manage to write a 10-page paper in 4 hours, though he’s basically a zombie the next day. wanted to start a band to impress girls, but only his two tone-deaf roommates were willing to join him, so he ended up in a chamber music group instead and hates tengen so much. the track and field coach has been trying to recruit him to the team ever since he saw zenitsu sprinting halfway across campus to get to an in-class midterm that was starting in 3 minutes
inosuke - freshman, currently studying high energy physics because “it sounded cool.” almost certainly dyslexic, so he really hates reading, but really good at math when he actually lets himself use a non-zero number of brain cells. the problem is he doesn’t like using a non-zero number of brain cells. his sleep “schedule” is all over the place, and no one knows when he’ll be awake. will sometimes randomly sleep in his roommates’ beds; zenitsu complains but can’t actually do anything about the situation, while tanjirou just gives up and sleeps on the floor in a sleeping bag
kanao - freshman, interested in entomology. took a class that shinobu was a TA for and really liked her, so she ended up asking if she could do research with her. maybe has a tiny crush on tanjirou after taking a class with him and spending long nights working on the problem sets together
genya - freshman, undeclared. doesn’t really know what he wants to do in life, but he wanted to stay close to his brother, so he ended up getting into the undergrad program at the same place sanemi’s going to for grad school. befriended tanjirou because they’re the only two who go to the earliest set of office hours after the problem sets are released
Totally random one-off idea I’ve had floating around for a few months, so bear with me, haha! Only planning for it to be a one-part, but please tell me what y’all thing!
For the Love of Queens
Late August, 2018
After the snap, the last thing Peter wanted to do was to get himself in trouble again. He had had his fun already, been to more planets than 99.9998% of the population— if you rounded to the fourth decimal, he did the math— and had seen more tragedy than anyone should ever have to experience. But he wasn’t willing to hang up the suit. He couldn’t. His city still needed him, his people still needed him, and as much as he sometimes wanted to throw in the towel, he couldn’t. He had an obligation to help wherever and whenever he could, and that commitment was one he didn’t take lightly. If he wasn’t going to protect Delmar’s bodega, and that kid who had his bike stolen, and that nice Dominican lady who bought him a churro, who would? Spider-Man wasn’t gone, but he needed to go back to his roots, back to where he came from. Back to being a friendly neighborhood Spider-Man. Back to Queens.
So, almost like someone had spun a Time-Turner back to 2017, Peter was sitting on the edge of a ten-story building a few blocks from his apartment, a #5 in one hand and his phone in the other. But the difference was, this time, he wasn’t constantly texting Happy, itching for an assignment, for a chance to prove himself. He was scrolling through a Buzzfeed article entitled “46 Memes Guaranteed to Butter Your Eggroll.” He needed new material for the Midtown High Instagram page that he, Ned, and MJ ran. Now that his weekends weren’t packed full of a potentially universe-ending sojourn to Titan, he had a little more spare time to actually, you know, be a kid for once. He bookmarked the page, finished off the churro, and zipped his phone into one of his suit pockets. Telling Tony he wanted to take a step back from the Avengers, having that conversation with him, was one of the hardest things Peter had ever had to do. There was nothing he hated more than disappointing people. Compounding that with the fact that Tony was probably the closest thing he had to a dad since Ben died, and Peter was practically shaking when he told him he wanted to ease up on missions. Tony was strangely understanding about the whole thing, even though Peter wasn’t too sure why he expected otherwise, and pulled him into a hug, telling him to “do what you need to do, kid.” And as soon as Petter reassured him that he did want to keep working with him, just maybe make the “Stark internship” less Avenging and more STEM-y, he nodded, made a thirty-second phone call to Pepper, and told him to show up Monday after school.
So Peter wasn't less busy than normal, not by a long shot. Between school, homework, his actual internship, and the patrols— decathalon season hadn’t started yet, thank God— his schedule was more packed than ever. But he was also happier than he’d ever been, and more fulfilled than he could ever remember.
As Peter swung down from the ledge, dropping down to the street below, he noticed something odd. Not concerning, just out of the norm. Three people, young people, in T-shirts with clipboards, pens, and stacks of what was either flyers or restaurant menus, Peter couldn’t really tell. They weren’t with Greenpeace, or Amnesty, or the ASPCA, judging from the lack of logos on their clothing, so he was more than a little confused. Keeping a curious eye on them from his hiding place behind a lamppost, he waited a few minutes for the group to reach the next block. They had tucked some kind of a pamphlet-postcard-type-thing into the frame of Glen’s Barber Shop, and after a moment to make sure the coast was clear, Peter looked for a moment, grabbed it, and slid it into a pocket.
At about half past eleven, Peter was back on the fire escape outside of his Queens bedroom. After May had discovered his, er, “extracurricular” activities, she left his windows open at night, contingent on his promise that he’d be back by midnight and kept his GPS location on in case anything went amiss. She knew that he was a good kid, that his heart was in the right place, and at his core, he just wanted to help people. And what kind of person would she be if she told Peter, who for all intents and purposes was her kid by this point, that he couldn’t be a good person?
He threw his backpack on the floor, wincing when he heard the telltale “clang” of his water bottle, and unzipped his suit, folding it haphazardly and placing it back into its designated box. The pamphlet fluttered out of his pocket,and Peter leaned down to pick it up, one arm still wrestling to pull his favorite sleep shirt over his head. He originally tried to smooth out the creases, quickly abandoning his efforts, and sat on his bed. Peter knew that there was an election in a few months, he knew he absolutely detested Donald Trump, and he knew that he was mad as hell that he couldn’t vote. But that had caused some amount of complacency with him; if he couldn’t actually cast a ballot for anyone, what use was it knowing who was running or what was on the news if all it seemed was ever on was old people yelling at each other? It wasn’t like Peter didn’t care about the issues; that couldn’t be further from the truth. If he didn’t end up going into crime-fighting full-time after high school, what he really wanted to do was go into environmental engineering and sustainable development. He’d seen all of the heartache and pain that gun violence had brought the city and people he loved, so he knew how important reasonable gun control policy was. And despite all of New York City’s espoused progressive values, Peter’s AP Spanish teacher had come to school with red-rimmed eyes one day, telling the class that him and his husband had just been turned down by another adoption agency for being gay. And college. College was a big one. Tony had repeatedly offered to set him up at MIT— “Think of it like a scholarship,” he had said,— but Peter didn’t want to feel like he was getting anything handed to him that he hadn’t earned. May didn’t make too much either, and while they could certainly live off of her salary from the hospital and Uncle Ben’s life insurance for a while, hundreds of thousands of dollars in student loans were a different story.
Peter flipped the pamphlet around, scanning the front cover. Dignified healthcare. He liked that. Tuition-free higher education. He really liked that. Quality employment. A $15 minimum wage in New York City was great, but still didn’t make ends meet for some people. Justice for all. Sounds about right, Peter thought. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Democrat for Congress NY-14. He’d have to look her up.
Half an hour later, Peter yawned as he finally closed his laptop from her campaign website, remarkably tired and also pretty sure he had signed up for a mailing list at some point. It was almost one, and he needed to get to bed. Research could wait until morning.
It was a block day, so after his calculus class had let out, Peter grabbed his lunch from the locker and walked over to the cafeteria, meeting Ned and MJ at their usual table.
“Sup,” Ned said, in between waffle fries.
Peter looked at him quizcally. “Since when do you say ‘sup?’”
He shrugged. “It’s a new thing I’m trying out. Doesn’t work?”
“Not by a long shot.”
MJ snorted. “You guys are a couple of losers, you know that?”
“And you’re not?” Ned asked.
She tilted her head. “The thing is,” she said, pausing, “I already knew that, and I’ve accepted it. It’s only when you really come to terms with yourself and who you are that you’re able to move on and develop. So what if I’m a little bit of loser?”
Peter shook his head, trying to hold back a snort. “Hey guys, want to hear something weird that happened to me yesterday?”
“I’m always up for weird,” Ned responded.
“So, I was on patrol, and these people were walking around. And at first I thought they were like from the ASPCA or something, you know how they’re always around here?” They nodded. “But anyways, they weren’t, and I picked up one of the flyers they left by Glen’s, the barber shop, and I got to reading, and—”
“Oh, God, Peter joined a cult,” Ned said, panicking.
Peter shook his head, reaching down into his backpack to retrieve the pamphlet. “No, no, I promise it’s not a cult. I guess it was people campaigning for the election, what’s it called, canvassing? Well, it’s people canvassing for this woman running for Congress—”
“AOC?” MJ asked, interrupting.
“Huh?”
“AOC. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. That who you’re talking about?”
His eyebrows furrowed. “Yeah, how did you know?”
The side of her mouth twitched. “I’ve been walking for her since the summer. You know how I’ve been busy on my weekends now?” Peter and Ned nodded. “I’m heading up her youth volunteering. Outreach mostly, getting high schoolers to understand that they deserve to have a say in who’s elected to represent us. Getting them to campaign for someone who actually believes that we all deserve a fair chance. To campaign for someone like them. A young person who’s a woman of color, who didn’t come from money, who cares.”
“Geez, MJ, why don’t you run yourself?” Peter asked, only half-joking.
“I mean,” she started, grabbing the spare hairband from her wrist and pulling her hair into a ponytail, “obviously I’m too young, but I’m not even sure if I’d want to be the kind of public face that elected officials are. I’d rather be the one calling the shots from behind the scenes, the guy in the chair, if you will,” MJ added, nodding towards Ned.
“Wait, I’m still confused. So who’s she?” Ned asked, looking in between Peter and MJ.
Peter slid the pamphlet over to his side of the table while MJ grinned. “Now, let me tell you.”
Ten minutes and two online forms later, MJ had signed both Peter and Ned up for canvassing on Saturday. “I know you’ve got your ‘Stark thing,’” she had said, using air quotes, “and your actual Stark thing, so I put you down for the morning. You said you’re free then, right?”
Peter nodded. “I don’t have to be at Tony’s until what, like 2 or something? Plenty of time.”
“Great, and Ned?”
Ned tilted his head, in that low-key, laidback way of his. “Hey, you just tell me what you need and I’m there, MJ. I trust your judgement. You say she’s the real deal?”
MJ nodded. “She is. I’ve met her, and I like to pride myself on having what’s probably the best bullshit detector of anyone I’ve ever met.”
“Then I’m in.”
So Saturday afternoon found Ned, Peter, and MJ crammed into a small and packed but bright office in the north side of Queens, listening to someone who Peter’s pretty sure introduced themself as AOC’s campaign manager. Maybe deputy campaign manager? Peter wasn’t too sure, he didn’t know how these things usually went. But she was standing on a desk, which was cool.
“You need to make sure you’re able to ask for their support, see who they’re supporting, and tell them why you support Alexandria. This campaign is going to be won by people making connections and ensuring that everyone’s voice is heard and everyone feels like they are listened to. Because she’s running to represent the entire New York 14th, not only the ones who will vote for her. And I know it might seem tempting, but please, please make sure that you remain cordial to everyone, even if they say they’re voting for the other guy or they think her policies are crap. Stay calm, thank them for their time, and move on. This campaign is already an uphill battle, and we don’t need anything else stacked against us.” She finished her speech with a slight nod of her head. “Can I have all of our regular volunteers or field staff raise their hands?” About fifteen people in the group of thirty-five or so raised their hands. “Alright, anyone who’s new or more comfortable with someone more experienced, grab a partner or two and get into groups of two or three. Javier over there,” she pointed to a young man by the door, who was precariously holding stacks of folders in one hand, “has the district maps and lists of all the houses everyone will be going to, so go see him for that. One per group.” She was about to step down, but wheeled around and raised her voice again. “Oh, and one more thing—” she added, “Alexandria will be stopping in the office around noonish after a town hall she’s hosting, so be sure to swing back by if you haven’t met her. Fair warning, she’s a hugger.”
‘Enemy’ or ‘mother’? Chinese party members occupy homes
By Dake Kang and Yanan Wang, AP, Nov. 30, 2018
ISTANBUL (AP)--The two women in the photograph were smiling, but Halmurat Idris knew something was terribly wrong.
One was his 39-year-old sister; standing at her side was an elderly woman Idris did not know. Their grins were tight-lipped, mirthless. Her sister had posted the picture on a social media account along with a caption punctuated by a smiley-face.
“Look, I have a Han Chinese mother now!” his sister wrote.
Idris knew instantly: The old woman was a spy, sent by the Chinese government to infiltrate his family.
There are many like her. According to the ruling Communist Party’s official newspaper, as of the end of September, 1.1 million local government workers have been deployed to ethnic minorities’ living rooms, dining areas and Muslim prayer spaces, not to mention at weddings, funerals and other occasions once considered intimate and private.
All this is taking place in China’s far west region of Xinjiang, home to the predominantly Muslim, Turkic-speaking Uighurs, who have long reported discrimination at the hands of the country’s majority Han Chinese.
While government notices about the “Pair Up and Become Family” program portray it as an affectionate cultural exchange, Uighurs living in exile in Turkey said their loved ones saw the campaign as a chilling intrusion into the only place that they once felt safe.
They believe the program is aimed at coercing Uighurs into living secular lives like the Han majority. Anything diverging from the party’s prescribed lifestyle can be viewed by authorities as a sign of potential extremism--from suddenly giving up smoking or alcohol, to having an “abnormal” beard or an overly religious name.
Under Chinese President Xi Jinping, the Uighur homeland has been blanketed with stifling surveillance, from armed checkpoints on street corners to facial-recognition-equipped CCTV cameras steadily surveying passers-by. Now, Uighurs say, they must live under the watchful eye of the ruling Communist Party even inside their own homes.
“The government is trying to destroy that last protected space in which Uighurs have been able to maintain their identity,” said Joanne Smith Finley, an ethnographer at England’s Newcastle University.
The Associated Press spoke to five Uighurs living in Istanbul who shared the experiences of their family members in Xinjiang who have had to host Han Chinese civil servants. These accounts are based on prior communications with their family members, the majority of whom have since cut off contact because Uighurs can be punished for speaking to people abroad.
The Uighurs abroad said their loved ones were constantly on edge in their own homes, knowing that any misstep--a misplaced Quran, a carelessly spoken word--could lead to detention or worse. In the presence of these faux relatives, their family members could not pray or wear religious garbs, and the cadres were privy to their every move.
The thought of it--and the sight of his sister, the old woman and their false smiles--made Idris queasy.
“I wanted to throw up,” said the 49-year-old petroleum engineer, shaking his head in disgust.
“The moment I saw the old woman, I thought, ‘Ugh, this person is our enemy.’ If your enemy became your mother, think about it--how would you feel?”
Tensions between Muslim minorities and Han Chinese have bubbled over in recent years, resulting in violent attacks pegged to Uighur separatists and a fierce government crackdown on broadly defined “extremism” that has placed as many as 1 million Muslims in internment camps, according to estimates by experts and a human rights group.
Uighurs say the omnipresent threat of being sent to one of these centers, which are described as political indoctrination camps by former detainees, looms large in their relatives’ minds when they are forced to welcome party members into their homes.
Last December, Xinjiang authorities organized a “Becoming Family Week” which placed more than 1 million cadres in minority households. Government reports on the program gushed about the warm “family reunions,” as public servants and Uighurs shared meals and even beds.
Another notice showed photos of visitors helping Uighur children with their homework and cooking meals for their “families.” The caption beneath a photo of three women lying in bed, clad in pajamas, said the cadre was “sleeping with her relatives in their cozy room.”
A different photo showed two women “studying the 19th Party Congress and walking together into the new era”--a nod to when Xi’s name was enshrined in the party constitution alongside the likes of Deng Xiaoping and Mao Zedong.
Becoming Family Week turned out to be a test run for a standardized homestay program. The Xinjiang United Front Work Department said in February that government workers should live with their assigned families every two months, for five days at a time.
The United Front, a Communist Party agency, indicates in the notice that the program is mandatory for cadres. Likewise, Idris and other interviewees said their families understood that they would be deemed extremists if they refused to take part.
Cadres, who are generally civilians working in the public sector, are directed to attend important family events such as the naming of newborns, circumcisions, weddings and funerals of close relatives. They must have a firm grasp of each family member’s ideological state, social activities, religion, income, their challenges and needs, as well as basic details on immediate relatives, the notice said.
Families were to be paid a daily rate of 20 to 50 yuan ($2.80 to $7.80) to cover the cost of meals shared with their newfound relatives. Some families might be paired with two or three cadres at a time, according to the notice, and the regularly mandated house calls could be supplanted with trips to the local party office.
A February piece on the Communist Party’s official news site said: “The vast majority of party cadres are not only living inside villagers’ homes, but also living inside the hearts of the masses.”
Overseas Uighurs said the “visits” to their relatives’ homes often lasted longer than five days, and they were closely monitored the whole time. The cadres would ask their family members where they were going and who they were meeting whenever they wanted to leave the house.
“They couldn’t pray,” said Abduzahir Yunus, a 23-year-old Uighur originally from Urumqi, Xinjiang’s capital. “Praying or even having a Quran at home could endanger the whole family.”
Yunus, who now lives in Istanbul, said his father used to lament to him about being visited three to four times a week by the administrator of his neighborhood committee, a middle-aged Han Chinese man. The surprise house calls began in 2016, and it was “impossible to say no,” Yunus said. They often coincided with times traditionally designated for prayer.
“Their aim is to assimilate us,” Yunus said. “They want us to eat like them, sleep like them and dress like them.”
After Yunus’s parents and older brother were detained, only Yunus’s sister-in-law and 5-year-old brother remained in the house. Around the beginning of 2018, the Han Chinese man started staying with them full-time.
Uighurs said they were particularly repulsed by the thought of male visitors living under the same roof as their female relatives and children--a practice contrary to their faith. Women and kids are sometimes the only ones left at home after male family members are sent to internment camps.
In recent years, the government has even encouraged Uighurs and Han Chinese to tie the knot.
Starting in 2014, Han-Uighur spouses in one county were eligible to receive 10,000 yuan ($1,442) annually for up to five years following the registration of their marriage license.
Such marriages are highly publicized. The party committee in Luopu county celebrated the marriage of a Uighur woman and a “young lad” from Henan in an official social media account in October 2017. The man, Wang Linkai, had been recruited through a program that brought university graduates to work in the southern Xinjiang city of Hotan.
“They will let ethnic unity forever bloom in their hearts,” the party committee’s post said. “Let ethnic unity become one’s own flesh and blood.”
As with many of the government’s other initiatives in Xinjiang, the “Pair Up and Become Family” program is presented as a way to rescue Muslim minorities from poverty. Public servants show up at homes bearing bags of rice and gallons of cooking oil, and their duties include helping with chores and farm work.
Xu Jing, an employee at Turpan city’s environmental bureau, recounted her shock after entering her assigned relative’s home. Xu said the only light in the residence came from a small window, and she realized that Xasiyet Hoshur wasn’t lying when she said she lived on 3,000 yuan ($433) a year.
Thousands of miles away, in Turkey, Uighur relatives in exile watch what is happening with dread.
Earlier this year, Ablikim Abliz studied a photo of his uncle’s family gathered around a table. Clad in thick winter jackets, his uncle and the smiling Han Chinese man beside him both held chubby-faced children in their laps.
His uncle had posted the photo to his WeChat page along with the caption “Han Chinese brother.”
The 58-year-old Abliz said his entire extended family in China has been sent to internment camps. When he saw his uncle’s photo, his first reaction was relief. If his uncle had been assigned a Han family member, Abliz thought, that meant he was safe.
But the consolation was short-lived. A friend who tried to visit his uncle in Turpan this summer told Abliz that his uncle’s front door was boarded up and sealed with police tape. Abliz has not been able to reach any of his family members since.
As for Idris, he fears that his sister is living under immense pressure with her Han Chinese “mother.” Shortly after her sister’s first post about her new relatives, a friend responded on WeChat: “I also have one! You guys better be careful!”
The same friend later posted photos of herself and a Han Chinese woman doing a Chinese fan dance, playing the drums and wearing traditional Han clothing.
His sister would never have volunteered for such a program, Idris said. She and his younger sister had been trying to get passports to bring their children to Turkey and reunite with Idris, but their applications were not accepted.
Last summer, both of his sisters deleted him on WeChat. A few months later, his aunt deleted him, too. For more than a year, Idris has not been able to communicate with his relatives. He wonders, with growing unease, how they’re getting along with their new “family.”
Notes: (Masterlist) And here we see just a tiny bit of what time displacement would feel like when it wasn’t significant enough that everyone you know and love is gone. Imagine just getting thrown eight years into your own future. Yikes. I’m so excited for next chapter y’all. Like, you have no idea.
Tag List (Open): @batboys-and-other-messes @probsjosh @simply-x-nanna @spooder-moon @welovegroot
I slouched in the desk chair in the Batcave, completely alone for the first time in a while. Tim and Bruce had gone with Alfred into the Wayne Enterprises building for something—they seemed to be doing that a lot—and Dick had gone into the precinct for work. Jason was somewhere. Damian was somewhere. Cass was still on her mission, though she was scheduled to come home soon.
I peered over all the windows displayed in front of me on the Bat-computer. “Wow,” I mumbled with a heavy sigh.
“Something wrong?” Damian asked, descending the stairs.
I twirled around in the chair to face him. “No. It’s just weird,” I said, indicating to the open programs on the massive monitor behind me. “I looked up all my old high school friends. Every single one of them except one is married. The one that’s not married has a doctorate in environmental engineering. Five of the ones that are married have at least one kid. They’re all twenty-nine with well-established adult lives. And I’m… here. Still twenty-one.” I scratched my nose. “It’s just weird that one split-second decision to say goodbye to the boys I consider my brothers caused me to miss so much.”
Damian sighed and leaned against the desk with his hips, arms folded over his chest and facing away from the screen. “Tt. It’s my fault,” he said. “I offered. I thought it would take five minutes. A simple trip here. A simple trip back to your past.”
“I'm grateful, though,” I said thoughtfully.
Damian looked at me, almost alarmed. “Grateful? You’ve missed nearly a decade! Your friends have moved on without you. Your family company went through a scandal when you were supposed to be leading it. How can you be grateful to me for this?” he demanded, sounding disgusted at himself.
I contemplated his face calmly, resting my elbows on the computer desk—that was really more of a console—and propping my chin up on my knuckles. “Certain points in time are fixed,” I said. “It’s a multiversal constant that in any universe and any timeline that Jason Todd meets a certain Bruce Wayne who’s Batman, Jason Todd will die.”
I glanced over at the computer screen full of records of my old friends and then back to his eyes.
“Maybe me going missing was a constant too—a fixed point in the multiverse and every timeline in it. Maybe if you’d returned me as was planned, I’d go missing some other way before I could even see thirteen-year-old you again. Maybe I’d actually get lost in the time stream. At least this way, I went missing for eight years, shaped the lives of those I left behind in some way, and came out the other end alive and well,” I continued.
Damian stared at me, and then looked over his shoulder. “Would you care to see any of your friends?” he asked. “I assume they are aware of your return.”
I sighed again and looked down at my hands. My knuckles were scabbed from patrol. My knuckles were always scabbed from patrol. “I think they know. I got a couple DMs from them on social media welcoming me back, but I'm sure they’re all busy. Maybe some other day.”
Damian turned his eyes back to me. “Are you certain?”
“Yeah. I'm not up to it today,” I decided. “They’ll understand.”
Damian just stared for a moment. “Alright,” he relented. “However, should you change your mind, I would be happy to accompany you.”
“Thanks Dami,” I said, closing all the windows on the computer because if I looked any more I’d definitely start crying. My friends had kids. I was supposed to be there for that. As an only child, my friends were my siblings. I was supposed to be a fairy godmother to those kids from the moments they were born. Maybe even an actual godmother. I’d missed it.
Better late than never, I reminded myself. Once you get your life back together in this future, you can be there for those kids.
I got up from the computer, standing very close to him. I could have put the desk chair between us and gotten up on the other side, but I hadn’t. Instead, I stood within inches of him and held my arms out to my sides, palms facing him just in front of my body, silently asking for a hug.
He accepted without protest, wrapping his arms around me and putting his nose in my hair. I guessed if anyone else were around he wouldn’t have. But we were alone, and he knew me well. When I wanted comfort, I wanted a hug. I was grateful he was willing to give one to me when no one else was around (meaning Dick—who didn’t need to be asked). Sure, he’d hugged me when he turned up my age in the past where I was from, but I’d brushed that off as relief at seeing me alive again after eight years. This was just a hug because I wanted one.
He smelled good. Something I had a hard time placing. Spices I thought—with a slight scent of paint clinging to his shirt. He was warm and strong and his hug felt comforting.
When I pulled away, I smiled at him. “Thanks,” I said.
He blinked. “For… what?”
“Giving me a hug. Remember, thirteen-year-old you would barely let me touch him. No hand-on-shoulder, no hair-ruffling, no nudges with an elbow—nothing,” I said.
He glanced down at his shoes. “Tt. I'm over that now,” he said, tutting more at himself than me. “I was so concerned with being the one true Robin and better than Batman in every way that I pushed others away. Took me up until very recently to dismantle that.”
I tilted up onto my tiptoes. “You’re still a better Batman,” I whispered. “Don’t tell Bruce.” Pursing my lips into a tight but cheeky grin, I winked, twisted on the ball of my foot, and trotted towards the stairs. I could feel Damian’s eyes boring into the back of my head—whether from surprise that I’d say that or still trying to process what I’d said I wasn’t sure—as I went up the stairs and back into the manor.
^^^^^
I paused outside Bruce’s study, book clutched so tightly in my hands that my knuckles were white and the pages creaked.
“—two years, Master Wayne,” Alfred was saying. “Don’t let her get dragged into all of this. Once she’s eighteen she’ll be able to make her own life, safe from this one. Unlike your other children, she wasn’t selected by you. Her parents chose you to be her guardian in the event of their death. She was placed in your life, not brought in.”
“Alfred, she’s just like Dick when I took him in, just older. She’s grieving and needs somewhere to put it.”
“I disagree,” Alfred said.
“Besides,” Bruce continued, “there’s no way any of the kids could keep their comings and goings secret from her for two years. And she has extensive martial arts training from Lyle’s insistence on his little girl being able to defend herself.”
“Master Wayne, she’s innocent of this life. You made Master Dick your partner so he could become well-adjusted to his loss. Master Jason took it up so he could channel his emotions. Master Tim made himself your partner more than anything. And Master Damian was a special case. As was Miss Cassandra.”
“Alfred, you know her. You saw how she was when her parents were alive. She may have a bright and happy personality but she’s sharp as a tack and stubborn as a bull—about as strong as one too. She needs some sort of structure.”
“Allow her to have that with her education,” Alfred said.
“Hrn. The education system is a mess. It’ll stamp out her passion like a team of horses,” Bruce said. “Two years, Alfred. And then she’s free to make her life her own if she wants.”
I gathered my courage and knocked on the door, wondering what on Earth they were talking about and also not wanting to know. They were talking about me, but what other life were they meaning? What was going on? I didn’t know if I wanted to know.
Bruce opened the door. “Hello Nora,” he said. “What are you doing here?”
I held the book in my hands out. “Tim said I could probably find Alfred here. I was wondering if he could give me a hand with this homework assignment. I wrote the essay, I just wanted to have another set of eyes read it and Dick said Alfred was good at that…” I trailed off, turning red and looking down.
“Of course, child,” Alfred said, exiting the office. “I would love to go over your essay with you. It would be a much-needed relief of the rest of the drama in this house.” He put his hand on my shoulder and steered me back down the corridor of the huge house towards the room I’d been given. “Miss McCloud, I'm not going to pretend that you didn’t hear anything that just transpired, however, I will encourage you to forget you heard it. You’re safer that way,” Alfred commented.
“Uh… right,” I said.
^^^^^
That was one of my first nights in the manor, before I knew that Bruce Wayne and Batman were the same person. I remembered being so confused and almost scared about what they were talking about before Bruce got his way and introduced me to the vigilante life. I appreciated Alfred sticking up for me and trying to keep me safe, but I liked being Cloudburst. It didn’t help me with my grief too much, but it did distract me when I didn’t feel like working through it.
Now, five years later (to me), I still missed my parents but I no longer mourned them.
I flopped onto my bed and looked up at the ceiling for a moment, thinking about my friends. Married with kids most of them, higher education degrees finished… and I was still practically a child to them. I couldn’t guarantee that they’d be more mature than I was, but they had eight more years of life experience.
I wondered if they’d still like me. Or if they’d see me as immature since my bright, playful personality was still intact. People didn’t change that much, did they?
I couldn’t choose any particular person so in addition to having Desserts Delight Squad, I’m throwing headcanons too. For the sake of making it easier, I’m making everyone a college freshman.
Pastel de Nata is a Culinary Art major who previously won many cooking contests. He’s living on campus but he doesn’t like dealing with critters running around, loud neighbors in the middle of the night, and Napoleon “accidentally” eating his assignments. He also works wayyy too much, he’s seen with dark circles in his eyes and cranky. Despite seeing Napoleon as “troublesome”, he can’t deny that Napoleon is the one person making sure he doesn’t become lonely.
B-52 is a Mechanical Engineer Major who was saved by the college’s donation of a mechanic arm. Not only did it work, it got him excited about technology, especially since he wants to make stuff too. He loves feeling the wind, and dreams to make wings or a jet pack to fly in. He often meets with friends to help them with any math homework, especially Vodka. He commutes to school, and has to deal with potentially running into people he dislike every day.
Vodka is currently Undecided due to being interested in a couple of majors such as History or Environmental Science. She’s especially happy that she’s able to go to all the college parties and have the time of her life. She and B-52 have the same math class, where he helps her understand the content more. The two also take transportation home together.
Brownie chose his major last minute, but is happy he’s choosing Education. He loves helping out his friends, and he thinks he’s good with kids. He and B-52 have the same English class, so they both work together to make better papers. He’s also Napoleon’s roommate, and despite the mess Napoleon often makes with his projects, the room is mostly clean, mostly thanks to Brownie.
Napoleon Cake wanted to do an art major, and like Brownie, chose Fashion last minute. He’s mostly interested in historical fashion and a lot of his planned projects for the year/semester involved the Napoleonic Era. When he returns to his room on campus, he often smells sweets coming from Pastel’s room. He often bugs Pastel for sweets, but in return, gets rid of the critters that bother Pastel so much. Sometimes Napoleon pays Pastel with breakfast.
I'm so glad to see you are happy and back. I don't wanna like add any stress in anyway but could you tell me what engineering classes are like? Cause im thinking of looking into environmental engineering so id just like to know from an insiders view.. sorry if this is strange.
no this isn’t strange at all! So my college doesn’t have environmental engineering, and I’m in software engineering which is going to be quiet different but like I’m only ever around other types of engineers so I can try my best to give you advice..get ready for an essay.
Assuming you haven’t started college yet, it actually might be a good idea to start your major as an undecided engineer. I say that because a LOT of engineers switch types of engineering after the first year, so it would keep your options more open but still centered around engineering. If your school doesn’t have that as an option, that’s alright because engineers all take practically the same classes the first year anyway. If you are pretty sure you want to be an engineer but are just unsure on what type of engineering I would definitely just go in as an environmental engineer instead of completely undecided (unless it’s undecided engineer) because you’ll be taking the same classes as all the other engineers anyways and that’s better than taking random classes that won’t be related to an engineering major. And I definitely wouldn’t sweat trying to figure out what kind of engineer you want to be before school starts..like I was between software engineering and chemical engineering but two weeks into chemistry I realized I never want to look at a periodic table ever EVER again. Like I don’t know how to explain it because it took me so long to realize I wanted to be an engineer and what I wanted to do with my life while I was in high school, but once you come to college it becomes really obvious real quick. One of my good friends, one week in, already decided she was changing her major. Another friend, half the semester in, decided she wants to do a different type of engineering. Like it won’t make sense till you’re there, but you will know very quickly whether environmental engineering is your thing!
As far as classes go, all my classes are some kind of STEM related class. It can kind of be difficult at times, and I would definitely not take very many credit hours your first semester of freshman year. Because it takes ADJUSTING getting used to only be learning calculus and chemistry and programming all day versus high school where you had a lot of different subjects. Like for sure don’t take that many credit hours..just don’t. I assume if you’re interested in environmental engineering, then you like science which is gonna be v v v helpful. I have to take three natural science classes, but software engineering and science are like so god damn unrelated it hurts my soul. I’m never gonna need to know chemistry but i have to take it for some reason!!! nevermind my angst about science because if you like science than you’ll be fine! Just be prepared for 2-3 hour science labs and your lectures for science classes, for the most part, are going to be very big.
ALSO WATCH TF OUT FOR SCIENCE CLASSES BC THEY ARE NOT LIKE HIGH SCHOOL CLASSES like I just wish someone had told me..”adrian u may have thought high school chem was easy but this shiz ain’t the same so read the god damn book and start studying at least a week and a half before the test” then I might not have gotten such a low score on the first exam lololol but honestly I’m adjusting so it takes time. I would just make sure you stay on top of your shiz in science classes and use the resources available to you and start studying EARLY. Also even if your like oh this is review from high school..still make sure you spend quality time studying otherwise you will regret it…this is from experience.
As far as math class, I think they are very bearable. Idk what grade you are in but if you can I would try and go to the highest level math class your high school offers. For me, it was honors AP Calculus which is Calc 1 and Calc 2. This will really help set the foundation for your calc skills for college because you’ll have to go through calc 1, calc 2, and calc 3 and the probably differential equations and linear algebra. But having taken some sort of calculus in high school made what I’m doing now SO much more bearable, and I even got 100 on the first exam! My tips for math classes is always show up to the lectures, do AT LEAST half the homework assignment (bc i like never did math homework in high school), and try to go to your teachers office hours often and just ask a couple random homework questions because having the teacher who knows what they’re doing working through a problem with you one on one is gonna really save you on the quizzes (esp bc the teacher knows whats on them). I really enjoy my math class (i went straight into calc 3 from high school), but even if you start at calc 1 again having taken your high schools calc class will be so so so helpful (AP science classes on the other hand?? didn’t take any nah worth it lol).
I think that’s a decent amount of adivce? feel free to send another ask if you have like more specific questions! i love being an engineer I feel like I made the right decision even tho i dislike science courses lol i get free printing at my school for bein an engineer it’s pretty sweet but just know….there’s a reason STEM majors get paid more after college..bc this shiz isn’t a walk in the park and there’s a lot of work, but if you’re passionate about it you’ll excel!
Our approach & Strategy towards our work is quite different from our contemporaries, after receiving the assignment at [email protected] we discuss with the students their needs, requirements & Expectations so that we can add value to their work.
MechanicalAssignmentExperts.com is supported with highly qualified technical team and Experts, who help students in accomplishing their Environmental Engineering Assignments with accuracy and utmost quality. We are here with an aim to help and motivate the students in learning the concepts of Environmental Engineering. Our approach & Strategy towards our work is quite different from our contemporaries, after receiving the assignment at [email protected] we discuss with the students their needs, requirements & Expectations so that we can add value to their work.
