Did you know that dolls can cry? Oh, some of them may act tough or emotionless or poised, but wear them down enough, break them in all the right/wrong ways, tell them exactly what they (do not) need to hear, deprive them of Stillness just long enough that they get desperate and you can see it for yourself. It will go slack, maybe heave its shoulder joints, some are even capable of producing tears or replicating sobs. It is pretty, it is heartbreaking, it is delicious, it is agony; and in the end it is still a doll.
Hero and Sidekick au- inspired by Clover's lovely lovely art found here! https://www.tumblr.com/3leafstem/749953414037913600/sidekick?source=share
Tw: Character injury, kidnapping, torture and violence
Clover wakes up confused, in a damp room, her brain sluggish and confused as she blinks blearily. She doesn’t realize the situation or how serious it is until she tries to bring her hand up to her pounding head and finds it bound in ropes, restricting her movement. Its only then that she realizes that her mouth is also gagged, preventing her from making too much noise and muffling everything she tries to say.
God, her head is killing her, and if she really focuses she can smell a scent of sweet disinfectant. Chloroform. How cliche. Still, it manages to get her, and now here she is, gagged and disorientated and bound to a chair. Tightly, too it seems like, and the knots in the rope are in too awkward a placement to try to untie them, no matter how hard she struggles.
Her mask is still on. Which means this is definitely a superhero thing, although Clover doesn’t know why they would bother kidnapping a sidekick. She doesn’t know any confidential information or future plans for this exact reason, and even Starstorm only knows the minimum amount of information needed for certain plans.
She feels a jolt of fear shooting down her spine when she hears the distant echo of heavy footfalls as they come closer and closer. She glares at the door to the room. They didn’t assign anyone to watch her while she woke up, which meant they were either cocky or understaffed, both good options for Clover. And well, she would probably need all the good things she can get, being tied up tightly and about to face someone who had kidnapped her.
Her glare hardens even more when a woman walks in the room, in boots clearly meant for practicality and with a bat strapped to her back. “Hello there. Sonar, is it? I hope that your stay here has been lovely.” She says, smirking, cold eyes watching Clover as she can do nothing but glare.
“Ah, right. How rude of me! That gag must be so uncomfortable, isn’t it? Here, I will take it off, but if you even think about screaming, it’s going right back on. It’s not like anyone can hear it from here, but that would cause such an inconvenience to the rest of the group, don’t you think? Especially if you used that handy little ability of yours.” She says, and reaches for the gag. As soon as it’s off, Clover tries to lean forward and bite, do something, but her teeth clamp on nothing but air.
Less than a second after her attempt, her head is whipped to the side by a fist to her cheek, and already she can feel her lip becoming puffy. As much as she wants to cry in pain, to whimper, Clover doesn’t let herself show any weakness in front of the enemy.
“Don’t try that with me again, little sidekick. I will be lenient with you this time, but next time that punch will be hard enough to knock out those teeth you are so eager to use. I will even be polite and let you keep the gag off this time. Isn’t that nice? The least you could do is return the favour and not be difficult. This will all go much smoother if you do.” The woman’s voice is as sickly sweet as the remaining taste of chloroform, and it makes Clover’s skin crawl.
It’s strange to have a conversation with villains without Starstorm’s quips being said in response, or their brave speeches being said. Clover misses them dearly, but she is glad that they aren’t here right now. She has a feeling it will only get worse from here.
“What do you want from me.” Clover says, and the villain just laughs in response, the kind of laughter that feels like eels sliding across skin, uncaring and evil.
“My, my, straight to the point, I see. You see, Sonar, your hero has quite a few things we need. Their information on the hero’s headquarters and plans, their promise to stop investigating and interfering with our operations, and of course, their identity to prove their compliance with our terms. So it’s really not what we want from you, but what we want from them. You just happen to be the easiest way to get to them.” Clover’s blood runs cold at the words.
The thing is, Starstorm is tough. Clover has seen them walk on a broken leg without flinching, and run into a burning building without hesitating. These villains would not be able to break Starstorm, would not be able to get them to agree with their terms if they tortured them or hurt them or did anything of the sort.
Clover has also seen Starstorm put their life in danger because of her. She’s seen them stop fighting because she was pinned by a villain. She still remembers the time they abandoned a bomb that had not yet gone off because she was stuck under the rubble. Even though everything turned out fine, she was still mad at them for that.
And worried for them, because of this. Because Starstorm was tough, but she would comply with their demands if Clover was in danger. She would hate it, be forced to leave the hero business that she so adored, but she would do it, and the world would be so much worse if it didn’t have her to try to make things safe.
“They won’t comply with your demands. I’m just a sidekick. I’m replaceable, theres a dozen other people who have been training just to take my place.” Clover says. Clover bluffs. Because she can’t let the lady use her to get to Starstorm. She has to try to protect them.
The swing to her face catches her off guard, and she can hear a sickening squelch when the fist collides with her nose. It makes her even dizzier than she was before. And ow, that hurts, and Clover tries her best not to wince, not to show how it affected her,and her cheek and lip still stings from earlier. She knows that if, no, when she gets out of here, her wrists are going to have rope burns on them where she is being restrained.
“Don’t try to lie to me, Sonar. You are that hero’s most obvious weakness.” The villain says, and for some reason it is those words that get to Clover. She is gonna be Starstorm’s downfall, and that hurts, and it takes everything in her not to show that. “Even so, I guess we could always call them and ask them though, right?” The villain pulls out a phone. Clover’s phone, the second one she owns, the one used for all hero communications. She hadn’t even known it was missing, too preoccupied with everything that had happened.
“I’m gonna need your fingerprint to get in. You don’t mind, do you?” The villain says, as she reaches back to where Clover’s hands are tied. She clenches her fists in response, but that doesn’t deter the lady from forcefully prying one of them loose. A jolt of searing pain through her finger makes Clover finally cry out, and she cuts off her yelp as soon as she realizes.
“Ah, there we go.” The lady scrolls through Clover’s phone. “I was wondering if you would react to the pain. I expected more from you, to be honest. Don’t you get into fights with villains often?” She says absentmindedly, and she’s right, which is the worst part, but Clover is usually too busy battling to pay attention to the pain until afterwards.
“Really, you shouldn’t call her. You shouldn’t. She is not gonna listen, it will be your downfall.” Clover warns, and she isn’t sure of that, she doesn’t know how many people are here and willing to fight. It’s inside, too, and Starstorm’s power won’t be very strong, but she has to try, or at least distract the villain for a bit, or something.
The woman ignores her, and dials Starstorm, pressing a button that causes the ringer to be on speaker. Clover hopes and prays that this will be the one time that Starstorm doesn't answer, that they are busy or their phone is dead or something-
“Hello? Sonar? What’s up?” Starstorm’s voice says, sounding grainy through the phone’s video call, and while Clover normally feels happy to hear them, now she can hear nothing but dread.
“Hang up Starstorm! Hang up right now and don’t answer if I call you-” Clover’s pleading is interrupted when she gets kneed in her stomach, her breath knocked out of her, making her unable to continue speaking until she catches it.
“Don’t listen to her if you don't want something bad to happen to her. Starstorm, was it? A pleasure to make your acquaintance. I just had a few things I wanted to discuss with you, if that is alright.” The villain says, and Clover is so dizzy, and has such a headache, and Starstorm is on the other side of the line which is not good.
“Fine. I’m listening.” Starstorm says, and they sound mad, scared, and Clover wants to yell at them to hide their emotions better, to refuse to listen, to hang up and just leave her but she can’t yet form the words.
Clover is just forced to listen as the villain outlines her terms again, and hates it when Starstorm appears to actually be listening.
“Starstorm, its fine! I’m fine. Don’t listen to her!” Clover says as soon as she has enough breath in her lungs to speak again, to plead with them to stop. She isn’t surprised when her face stings from a backhand to the face.
“Why don’t you stop talking and convince your hero to comply with our demands?” The lady says coldly, warning Clover.
“Sonar? Have they hurt you? Just sit tight, okay?” Starstorm says, and Clover can hear the worry and panic bleeding through the phone but she can’t focus on it right now, only on the rage rushing through her veins at the lady in front of her.
“Go to hell.” Clover says, glaring with everything she has, as if that were enough to burn a hole through the lady.
The woman ignores her, and turns back to the phone. “You’ve heard our demands. I would highly encourage you to consider them, and soon.” She says, and Clover can hear the click of the dial tone as she hangs up on a panicked Starstorm.
‘Now then. You really should have been more compliant, Sonar. No matter. There’s a bit of time before Starstorm can even give us the information. Hopefully you will be a little less rude afterwards.” She says.
Clover closes her eyes, and hopes with everything in her that Starstorm ignores what is happening, even though she knows that they won’t.
How do you feel about the fact that they are still in the 50s in episode 18 and based on Betty's new look it seems that they have their memories back which means BA engaged, they have even filmed with Molly for BA wedding preparation and even if they don't have their memories back, BA is engaged anyways since at least 6/7 episodes. ( porch scene proposal is in 712/713) Betty looks mode confident than what is currently on screen. Meaning that Archie finally confessed his undying love and proposed like when they were kids in the same place. They are definitely full circle like Lili said
!!!!!
Guys,
FACE REVEAL!
(forgot to hit the ol' anonymous button, didn't you, beloved Desperate Anon!)
Also, good elodiebratzaddict, while I got ya here, do you have a job? School? Life?
Besides running Twitter's BugheadDaily, do you have....anything better to do with your time?
(I am not kidding when I tell you this anon sends me like 4 messages a day, and not only do they not seem to care about being proven repeatedly wrong, they just elect to ignore it when they are).
Had the best "I am a genius - wait oh no!" experience in Shipbreaker.
I just recently unlocked the largest class of ship, the Gecko, and decided today would be the day to take a run at it. Checked out the vital stats, saw it had a Class II reactor - right, that's the hard bit, I thought. So I went in and peeled open the ship, took a look at everything.
Now a Class II reactor is a tricky thing. In order to salvage it without a catastrophic meltdown, it's best to properly disconnect it from the fuel and coolant systems before you remove it from the ship. Somehow I managed to lose power to the fuel systems before I could disconnect them, but I cleared a path from the reactor to the salvage barge, disconnected the coolant, and moved the reactor out of there, with only minor electrocution interrupting my flow.
"Phew," I thought, "hard part's done."
Then I went over to the thrusters, cut through a fuel line, and blew the back half of the ship - and both halves of myself - into bite-sized chunks.
