Also Despite Everything I Headcanon Apollo As Having To Be Very Careful With His Words, Especially Definitive

Day 17 - Scapegoat / A Repeat of History

Peter, this is Iris. My name is now Cassandra Cain. NOWGO TO SLEEP YOU LIL SHI-

k :D also no- *runs*

yeah im getting kinda tired,what about me screams 'KIDNAP'? *smacks guy who grabbed me from behind*

Guess who's the new Winter Soldier? Its MEE

ohgodscassie no. hydra kidnapped me and strapped me to a ticking time bomb JUST to get back at Mr.Stark and Mr.Barnes. Do not trust them. still. Even if you join them,you're still my friend. so if anything happens,just shout. I'll be there.

TOApril Day 12 - Eyes That Glow Gold

I'll always be a fan of Apollo' eyes looking like Kronos' when he's upset. The father haunts the son who haunts the father and so on and so forth

Shadowed By Light

Fandom: Trials of Apollo Rating: Teen Genre: Family, Hurt/Comfort Characters: Michael, Apollo Given the rollercoaster that's been Michael's life since the Battle of the Labyrinth, he hasn't had much of a chance to grieve his fallen siblings. Not until he takes a wrong turn in the forest - and down memory lane - and it all comes crashing down. @toapril-official TOApril day 7 - Home, Hearth and Grief. Back in one of my familiar/comfort povs, and also my Dawn Rises AU aka the "Michael lives but had amnesia for two years" AU, which is really all you need to know about the setting.

Michael’s bow had been in the attic.  He hadn’t expected to see it again, even though he’d been a head counsellor, for a year.  He knew that the possessions of dead campers ended up in the dusty dumping ground, it just hadn’t occurred to him that his bow would’ve been picked up and brought all the way back from Manhattan.

It wasn’t like the stuff he’d still had in the cabin, or the green-clad flute case he’d passed while scurrying around in the dusty graveyard for things and hesitated next to, only for Will to determinedly not look in its direction and stiffly hunt down the rest of Michael’s things for him.  Still not over Lee’s death, then.

Michael couldn’t blame him.  He hadn’t been over it, by the time they marched for Manhattan, and two years of knowing nothing just meant it had hit him all over again when his memories had come back in that swirl of a nightmare he wished he could brush off as just bad dreams.

I don’t think I ever will, Lee had told him once, when Michael had found him sitting high up in the amphitheatre, glassy tears in his eyes as Dawn performed for camp on her violin.  Lee’s mom had been a violinist, as good as Dawn was, before she’d died.  Michael, back then ignorant to the heart-wrenching pain of losing family – he didn’t have a family, before camp, just a woman that was supposed to love him, and a man and four younger children who definitely didn’t – had asked the insensitive question about if (he might have asked when, if he was honest with himself) Lee would get over it.  It had been almost ten years, by then.

He hadn’t understood Lee’s answer, but he also hadn’t meant to hurt Lee with his question and didn’t ask anything else when he realised the first question had been too blunt, too sharp.

He understood it, now, ducking and dancing through branches in Capture the Flag, following old muscle memory until it brought him up short.

Six years of dancing through the woods before the battle overrode the last blur of a year before the battle and two years of nothing, and his body had brought him back to Zeus’ Fist, once a central hub for the game where one or other team undoubtedly set up.  It was empty and deserted now, once proud rocks rubble where they’d been crashed over the head of Kampê the same way a giant’s club had crashed over the head of his brother-

Michael stumbled out of the tree, barely feeling the whispering touches of the dryad reaching out for him as he all but tumbled to the ground and threw up.  Tremors wracked through his body, and he pushed himself backwards, wiping his mouth with his wrist and then wiping that on the grass.

He hadn’t seen it happen.  He’d seen Kampê but not Lee, not Lee until he tried to find him after the battle, searching for his head counsellor for the next orders, corralling siblings he found in the process until he’d been called on by-  He didn’t remember who had told him.  He remembered seeing the body, though.

Gods, but he was never going to forget the sight.  Not again.  Not without whatever amnesiac bullshit had been pulled on him, and Apollo and Mr D were both convinced it wasn’t natural but no-one knew why, or who.

Whoever it was, Michael hated them.

His hand tightened around his bow, not dropped because he never dropped his bow, not except that one time, and it reminded him of the attic, of the green flute case, and it was hard not to throw up again.

Fuck.  Michael had thought he’d be done with grieving Lee, had five other siblings still waiting to be grieved when he could find space away from his still-surviving siblings to do it without breaking down on them.

A year of being head counsellor hadn’t erased muscle memory of going to Zeus’ fist, but the instilled need to always be the strong one had sunk in just fine.  He wasn’t even head counsellor anymore, had left that to Will – and sometimes felt guilty about that, but Will was managing fine, actually knew their siblings – but he was still the eldest, still the older brother.

Will dealt with grief badly, packing it up into a little box and trying to erase everything about it from existence, and Michael wasn’t a good enough brother to pick that apart and turn it into something healthier.  Who was he fucking kidding, he probably wasn’t a paradigm of healthy grieving, either.  Still, that meant he absolutely could not show signs of breaking around the little brother that just got him back.

The others, he didn’t know well enough.  Loved, because they were his younger siblings and at some point camp had changed him from hating younger kids that shared a parent with him to throwing down his life if it would keep them safe, but he didn’t know them well enough.  None of them could hold him up.

He sat back on the grass, trying not to stare at the pile of unruly rocks but unable to tear his gaze away, and felt pressure building in his eyes, warm and itchy and bordering on painful.  It was the middle of Capture the Flag, he was supposed to be fighting, providing aerial cover for the blue team, but he was shaking and crying, and apparently grief had decided now was the time to surface.

It didn’t care that it wasn’t a good time.  There was no good fucking time, and at least it had waited until he was alone, he supposed.

Almost alone.  Trees whispered around him, ones he knew well from the years of slipping through their branches for Capture the Flag before the game had shifted elsewhere and left them alone and abandoned, because they couldn’t just move away like that.  On some level, the noise was comforting; trees had always been there for Michael, since the first day he’d climbed one, in the back yard of the house he’d grown up in, and his dreams had whispered to him the night before to always ask before climbing a tree.

Apollo’s advice had changed Michael’s life, given him a safe place to hide before he could fight back, and given him a way to even the odds when he could.  Dryads appreciated being asked, and Michael was certain there’d been a dryad in that first tree, because he’d always been able to climb as high as he needed, and no-one else could get onto the lowest branch.

He felt exposed, sat on the grass, and every instinct inside him was screaming for him to get up, get back into the trees where he could break and hide, but his body wasn’t moving, was still shaking and trembling as pressure built up and up and up in his eyes.  His fingers flexed around his bow, supple yew-and-horn warm to the touch, but he couldn’t pick it up, either.  Couldn’t move.

If the Labyrinth entrance opened again and let any more monsters in, he’d be toast.

That thought wasn’t enough to get his body to fucking move, and maybe his breathing hitched a bit, a thread of panic worming its way through the pressing weight of grief that had landed on his shoulders when he wasn’t looking and had morphed into something heavier than Sisyphus’ boulder.

At least Sisyphus could move his boulder.

Sunlight filtered down through the leaves, kissing his skin, and the whispers of the trees faded out behind the new song, the sound of light as it settled on and around him.

It did nothing for the weight.

Apollo sat in front of him, cross-legged on the grass.  Not quite blocking his view of the rocks, but there.  Not demanding his attention, but breaking the line of sight anyway.

Once upon a time, Michael had seen Apollo every night, without fail.  Before camp, before he had a family rather than a household that didn’t want him there, before he knew who Apollo was, he’d seen him in every dream, always with kind words, affirmation to counter the crushing insults, advice and tips and tricks, and one day directions on where to go that wasn’t there.  He’d faded out once Michael made it to camp, once he knew who’d been in his dreams, once Michael didn’t need family in his dreams because he had family when he was awake, and his more occasional visits had been silly things, terrible poems and worse songs, the same his siblings got.

Then there’d been two years with nothing, but Michael hadn’t known what he’d been missing the same way Apollo hadn’t known he still could.

The Apollo sat in front of him, silent except there was always music around him, floating on the breeze almost imperceptivity, wasn’t the Apollo from his camp dreams, the goofy loser that they’d all known.

He was the Apollo from before, childhood dreams that needed a family because gods knew that was the only time he got one.  Apollo the comforter, Apollo the present.  Apollo the parent.

Michael couldn’t break down in front of his siblings, certainly not in front of any other campers, but Apollo was a god, had seen him during the worst of his childhood.  Apollo was his father, and sometimes that actually meant something.

The pressure behind his eyes reached critical and then it burst, hot water spilling down his face.  A dam breaking, restraints shattering.  Michael’s hand left his bow and wrapped around his knees instead, drawing them up to his face and burying his head in them as sobs tore themselves from his chest.

He was supposed to be helping the blue team win Capture the Flag.  The oldest demigod, possibly the most experienced in camp despite the past two years.  Right then, he couldn’t even imagine being anywhere else, pretending to be fine and laughing with his siblings and the other blue-plumed helmets as they routed the other cabins and stole their flag.  Not when he was here, in the clearing by Zeus’ fist, in Apollo’s presence as the grief of everyone he’d lost crushed him.

Lee was the main one.  Lee had been the trigger, the one that had died here, brutally and suddenly with no warning and probably no time to even realise he was dead - that, at least, was a small mercy.  Lee hadn’t deserved to suffer.  Lee had been the first family Michael ever knew, the older brother that took him under his wing despite being the next-youngest kid in the cabin, back then.

Lee wasn’t the only one, though.  Michael remembered Nathan’s death, looking back to see hellhounds tearing apart their prize, shrieks of terror and pain coming from his once-confident, arrogant, younger brother.  He wished he didn’t, because if Lee’s death had been instantaneous, Nathan’s had been anything but.  He remembered seeing Elias and Sally blown off the bridge behind him, too, but he didn’t know if that had killed them, not when Alice and Kayla had fallen, too, and they were still here, somewhere else in the forest wearing blue-plumed helmets and routing their red-plumed adversaries.  He had no idea what had happened to Joy or Robyn.  They’d been alive, been safe, for a given value, when he’d fallen.

But their names were on that bead around his neck, and their photos had disappeared from the cabin because Will’s idea of dealing with grief was pretending there was no-one to grieve.  Michael wasn’t the right person to tell him that didn’t work, but no-one else had told him, either.  Or if they had, he hadn’t listened.

Some people called crying cathartic.  Michael disagreed.  Crying was stressful and frustrating, and fucking gross when his eyes and nose streamed everywhere.  He didn’t want to cry, but there was a hole inside of him, a whole in the group he called family, and he hadn’t found a way to fill it.  Wasn’t sure he wanted to fill it, although tears and snot seemed to be trying really fucking hard.

And they weren’t stopping.

He found himself curled into a ball - a tighter ball - clinging to the fabric of his pants with aching fingertips and the back of his neck feeling like it had forgotten how not to be stretched forwards, curled in almost towards his own stomach.  It was like he was hiding except he was on the ground, in clear view of anyone who dared approach.

No-one did.  Even the dryads kept their distance, even though he could hear their whispers as leaves rustled in a breeze he couldn’t feel.  Apollo didn’t approach, didn’t say anything, but Michael could tell he was still there, still sitting and providing company that Michael would’ve told to fuck off if it’d been anyone else.  But it was Apollo, and Apollo was different.

Apollo was his Dad, and he’d lost them, too.  Apollo understood - although even if it hadn’t been siblings, hadn’t been people they both mourned equally, Michael suspected he would’ve let him stay anyway.

He felt lighter, as the avalanche of grief passed.  It wasn’t gone, would never be gone  - I don’t think I ever will - but there was less weight, a relief that felt like he could unfurl again, raise his head and let go of his pants.  Take a breath, and then another, and reach for his bow.

Apollo didn’t move until he stood up, fluidly finding his way to his own feet and taking one, single step forwards.  Just one.

Michael closed the rest of the distance, almost, not reaching out, not touching, but in the shadow of his father, and also bathing in the light that always surrounded him.  Only then, when he came tohis own slow stop, did Apollo say anything.

“May I?” he asked, a hand half-raised towards his face, asking with actions as well as words.  The motion reminded Michael that the skin of his face was still tight, his lips drawn and saggy all at once, that his eyes were sore.

That he no doubt looked like he’d been crying, an ugly cry that would worry his siblings and catch the attention of everyone else, besides.  Michael had had quite enough of worrying his siblings, and more attention than he could stand from the rest of camp.

“Yeah,” he said, although it was more like a croak.  He didn’t say please, but Apollo wasn’t asking for it, either.

Warm fingertips danced across his skin, slow and lingering.  Apollo’s face was drawn into one of soft concentration, taking the permission seriously, and Michael appreciated it.  Physical touch was something he endured for others, siblings who needed a hug, worried people seeking reassurance.  Only rarely did Michael himself want a hug, and his dad had always known that, always respected it.

Hands cupped his jaw, holding his face like it was the most precious thing in the world, and Apollo’s thumbs lightly swiped under his eyes.  The skin relaxed in their wake, tears and all their tell-tale signs literally erased by his father’s touch.

It didn’t take long.

“There you go,” Apollo promised, stepping back and letting his hands fall away from him entirely, not lingering longer than they needed to.  “No-one will know.”

Michael supposed that probably wasn’t healthy, the same way Will’s coping mechanisms weren’t healthy, but it wasn’t like no-one knew.  His father knew, and the silent watchers in the trees that had always offered him safety and security, and no-one else needed to, least of all his own siblings.

“Thanks,” he said, because he appreciated it, appreciated the support and the way he was enabling him, helping him keep it secret.

“Anytime,” Apollo promised, and he meant it.  Michael knew he meant it.

He looked back the way he’d come - away from the pile of rocks and the nightmarish memories it threatened, and towards where the game was going on, was probably still going on.  He was going to have to find an excuse for vanishing on them, maybe say he was biding his time and remind the older campers how much of a reputation he used to have for staying hidden. Maybe they’d remember that of their own accord and he wouldn’t have to say anything at all.

“The game’s probably fucking over,” he muttered, more to himself than his audience of god and trees, but Apollo replied anyway.

“Not yet,” he said with a fond smile, and pointed in a slightly different direction, still away but further away from where the blue team had started.  “If you’re quick, you’ll get there in time to make the winning shot.”  Blue eyes gleamed gold slightly, his father the god of prophecy, too, and Michael grinned.

“Sounds good,” he said, checking his quiver of blunted, camper-friendly arrows once before going, not bothering to look back as he slipped back into the trees, feeling the reassuring, helpful brush of dryads urging him forwards.  He didn’t need to; he knew Apollo would be gone, no longer needed there and then but watching them from the chariot anyway.

Time to prove Apollo right, and make that winning shot.

I WAS BORN THIS DAY! (does that make me a jedi?)

Happy Star Wars day! May the Force be with you! @swsource Star Wars Week: Day 6

I might do this

HeadCannon of Peter being a sick child

Not in the sense of "Peter is sick and Tony has to take care of him", NO!

It's the kind of "I've had migraines for so long I don't even care about the pain anymore" or "I get colds so many times in the week that I don't know how is the feeling of DON'T HAVE a runny nose"

So Tony go ask him one day like

Tony: Pete, your nose is bleeding!? ARE YOU OKAY!?

And Peter takes a set of wet wipes from his bag calmly wiping his nose saying

Peter: Oh yeah, it happens sometimes, so about the design of the new Falcon wings...

AND HE DON'T SAY ANYTHING ELSE AFTER!?

Tony is already pulling his hair out wondering why Peter suddenly passes out sometimes and Peter goes like

Peter: Oh yeah, about that, I have anemia and low blood pressure, sometimes my blood sugar drops and my blood pressure drops and then I passes out, nothing to worry about 😊

Tony's heart almost stops and he's already like "god I need to put this kid in a bubble to protect him..."

One day Tony turns to Peter and asks if he wants something to eat or drink and Peter says

Peter: Ohhhhh, THAT'S why my vision is blurry the whole afternoon, hahaha

Tony:... uh?

Peter: I forgot to eat

Tony: WHAT!? IT'S 12:45 PM!? YOU HAVEN'T EATEN ANYTHING ALL DAY!?

Peter: Yep, ops haha, I'm gonna drink a glass of water

Tony: THIS IS NOT EVEN NEARLY ENOUGH!?!?!? I'M ORDERING 3 PIZZAS AND YOU'RE EATING THEM!!!!

Peter: But I'm not hungry...

Tony: !?!?!?!? HOW!?

Since then, Tony forces Peter to eat something every time they meet, Peter thinks this is excessive, Tony thinks that if he doesn't do this Peter will die-

I turn to Ares.

Thanks to Tyler Miles Lockett who allowed me to draw inspiration from his ARES piece for page 2! Look at his etsy page it's SICK

⚔️ If you want to read some queer retelling of arturian legends have a look at my webtoon

trying to get your story together like:

lol, I just checked and the way we met and became moots is cuz i asked you to write a fic with no smut! Good times. Also, Anthony is a little mad at us, cause of the suit-hack thing. *Disappears*

*sweating,loks at drafts* right...wit wha