When Duke Needs Backup In A Fight He Uses His Powers To Blast Bat-signal-esque Signs Into The Sky To

Content warning for death, blood and description of injuries

Another slice to my throat. More stains running down my armour, rivers feeding the nutrients I no longer need into the ground. You stand frozen, gaze blank. You always do when we die. Blue already lies, eyes vacant and staring, neck angled horribly wrong. I can’t see Yellow’s face. Their back took the worst of their injuries, as they tripped and did not get back up.

My knees crumble, throat gasping out one last time. I didn’t see Green go down, I heard them like I can hear myself. Their cry cut off, because their brain was targeted. Not their throat. My brain is still stuck trying to make broken vocal cords work.

I blink for what should be the last time.

It won’t be.

“Everyone understand?” Purple looks around at us, all jostling in the belly of the plane, trying to break the tension before our last mission. “We only get one shot at this. We’re counting on you.” They look directly at you as they say that, before turning to where the doors will open.

I don’t know why we don’t get one shot. I don’t know why the gods keep rewinding the clock. You’re the only one that initiates change, so you have to know. I think you’re the only other one who does. The fifth try, you took out a guard I hadn’t spotted. They killed me last time. The seventeenth, you found another way in, after the previous one kept leading to traps and dead ends.

I don’t know why I’m granted so many second chances, and I know I’m alone in remembering what came before. I tried to mention it to Green once. It distracted them, got them killed earlier. I stopped talking after that try. I didn’t want to mess anything else up.

We’re getting close, we have to be. I don’t know what try we’re on, but you get better, stronger every time. Sometimes there’s a stupid mistake from one of us, or a weirdly placed guard, but generally, we’re improving.

Out the airplane, land on the roof, take the fire escape to the fourth floor even though it goes down to the third because there’s too many guards on the third, sneak through the vents, avoid the alarms, climb into the lift shaft and into one of the lifts, ride it down to the basement.

Yes, I can feel it. The death by gravity as I was pushed down the empty shaft. Bones crunching, not able to move my legs. Internal bleeding got me that time. A shot through the window of a corridor, so quick I didn’t have time to be surprised. The phantom pains following me into the next try, aches where my body expects to still find snaps.

This try, we get all the way down the final hall to the vault before the tripwire catches you out. We can still make it, we’ve made it past this point before. Footsteps rumble like thunder above as we dash towards the vault door, weapons and equipment flickering through your hands as you search for something we can use. The vault door creeks as it begins to swing slowly, a ticking clock for our team. Blue makes it in, sliding their backpack off immediately to search for the lock picks they will now need. Yellow whoops as they make it in, keeping an eye on Blue while taunting the guards and hurrying us up. The vault door gets closer to shut. Green makes it in, preparing to take up cover fire through a narrowing field of vision. You’re right behind, squeezing through the shrinking gap. The vault clicks as it closes, Purple slamming into it unable to stop their momentum, and me skidding to a halt beside them.

There’s a small glass window through the vault door, and you walk right up to it, staring at us while you try to slam anything into the door. Looking for a trigger to open the metal lock. Running to get Blue or the others to help, but they shake their heads, already moving on. You return to the window, and I smile back. It’s ok. You might be able to make it this time. This could be the one. You could do it.

The door we came through shatters open as guards pour in. We ready our weapons for a fight, turning away from you, who has gone so still. You never stop moving, not unless one of us is dead, but you can’t do that now. You can make it, you can complete our mission and save the world. We signed onto that, weeks of training and trusting each other before we committed to our shot. Helping people, or die trying.

The stench of blood taints the air as Purple and I engage, holding back the guards to give you as much time as we can. Every second gives you more of a chance to make it. Please, you have to make it. You can do this. Dodging a knife and twisting away from the action, I see you, still frozen on the other side of the glass. A jolt in my back, my breath catching and your blank express do the rest.

I blink.

“Everyone understand?” Purple looks around at us, jostling each other. I smile at you, because you are already moving, already checking weapons and ammunition and equipment again. You could have made it that time.

It’s happened quite a bit. Your chance for freedom, for success, very clearly in reach. But then Yellow will get taken out as a warning that we’ve been spotted. Green succumbs to previous injuries. Blue can’t break the locks in time. Purple gets caught in a triggered trap. I stay behind to buy more time. It resets every time. And although it hurts, and the hollow pain in my stomach has me checking the wound really did disappear like they do everytime, I will smile at you. Because you are going to get us through this. You’re going to make sure one of these times, everybody lives. Every death, every injury, is nothing compared to losing any of us.

It may be selfish, and painful, and at times threatens hellish hopelessness, but whenever it gets too much, whenever the danger gets too close, I know you will save us. You will stay with us, and I know you will keep doing so until one try, we all make it out ok. And I would rather that ending than any other.

Player keeps reloading trying to save every ally in a mission, one of their allies remembers every attempt.

Robin, anytime they can’t get into something: I found a key.

Robin: *holding a big rock*

Steve, supportive best friend: No worries, guys! Robin found a key.

Hopper, whose car is locked: No she did not!

a comic about different types of storytellers

Arthur: Do you really love me?

Merlin after almost two millennia waiting for him to return: You know, it's because of people like you that the Power Rangers announced their colors out loud.

How to celebrate Pride from withIN the closet

big fan of steve calling eddie out for his high school bullshit. all that ranting and raving about forced conformity just to hate all jocks? like, steve, who tries his actual hardest to be better than he was in high school, is going to throw hands if eddie says one more thing that reinforces the dumb jock stereotype in the kids' minds.

like i just imagine eddie stopping someone from joining hellfire because they were on the basketball team or tripping someone in the hallways because they were wearing their letterman.

i need steve to take eddie by the shoulders and tell him that yes, eddie was bullied in high school, but he was also a bully and i think that eddie's prejudice is a topic we need to look more into. like, i have no doubt that eddie would make sure steve knows that he's not dumb, but i need wayne to be watching sports on tv which causes eddie to be like, "I can't believe you watch that shit. just a bunch of dumb jocks tossing balls into laundry baskets." and instead of just leaving, i need to see steve go, hey man, not fucking cool? like let people have their interests.

every time steve calls eddie out in a fic i go nuts for it. do i think that steve would have more emotional responses to some things? absolutely. do i also think that king steve, bitchy steve, would put eddie in his place? yes, yes i do. that is a hill i would die on.

Steve, raised since childhood on a strict diet of tax forms, utility bills, and neatly labeled folders, handles Love with capital L the only way he knows how—logistically.

So the moment he realizes things with Eddie are serious-serious, he doesn’t make a big speech or even breathe a word.

He just quietly opens a joint savings account.

Then a trust fund.

Lists himself as Eddie’s emergency contact.

Buys a gold ring (simple, tasteful, suspiciously the right size). He knows Eddie likes silver, but that's not what it's for. Gold is in any case an investment in the future, if something happens.

And—because, well, they’ve survived four apocalypses—he updates his will.

Steve wrote it after Apocalypse #2.

The BMW had been bought with his money and, should anything happen, was legally designated to go to Dustin.

Everything else—his personal savings, the shared funds, and whatever compensation the government might cough up for the next end-of-the-world scenario—was to go to Eddie.

Nobody knows this but Steve. It’s filed in a folder marked “just in case”.

Eddie, on the other hand, doesn’t do paperwork.

When he realizes things are serious, he gives Steve his favorite band t-short. Then changes the tires on Steve’s BMW from summer to winter without being asked. Fixes the bookshelf Steve’s been threatening to burn for a month. And starts making him sandwiches in the morning — the kind his mom used to make for him, with just the right amount of mustard and that one slice of tomato Steve always forgets he likes. Uses his entire vocabulary of cute nicknames on Steve and comes up with a couple of new ones.

Miraculously, it works.

Because Eddie gets this strange, unfamiliar feeling of being safe. And Steve? Steve finally feels understood. And cared for, in a way he didn’t know he needed.

they're so grown now

as an aroace, im particularly dangerous, because i wont fuck or marry. i only know how to kill.

I hc Dick will be non-verbal for a bit when Bruce first adopts him