The Unfortunate History of Clemency the Ladybug
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Summary: AU. Two children and a tryst on the playground. Li'l Joker/Li'l Wendy cutesy shippiness.
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The sun shone brightly, and the cool morning breeze rustled through the newly-green grass of early spring.
Upon one particularly strong and sturdy blade rested a ladybug of entirely average size and appearance, which might have been named Clemency or some such thing, for all the author knows of ladybugs and the rituals, or lack thereof, of their naming.
This ladybug, possibly Clemency, was in a peaceful frame of mind, bordering on languor. Completely content with the mild weather that foretold milder weather in the offing and lulled nearly to sleep by the soft swaying of the blade of grass that made a perfectly serviceable perch for the time being, he failed utterly to notice the decidedly hand-shaped shadow looming overhead.
Until it was too late.
Not until the massive, sunburned hand had closed around both him and his newly acquired post did it occur to him to worry.
But when it did occur, it occurred in full force. Particularly when moist, sticky fingers that smelled faintly of strawberry jam closed around him and his home, and he felt the blade of grass wrenched free and then the sickening rush of being lifted into the air and jolted about as his kidnapper scurried away.
"Oh, no!" he might have howled in horror, as the author has as much of an idea of the secret language of ladybugs as she does of the rituals of their naming. "A KID!"
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"Joseph, look!" a tiny girl clad in a little pleated skirt and her very favouritest red hooded jumper called excitedly, a mass of soft blonde hair streaming out behind her as she trotted toward the sandbox. "I found a ladybug!"
The small, pale boy perched on the edge of the wide wooden beams and turned disdainfully away from sand and toys alike, looked in entirely unimpressed interest through the tiny crack between his little playmate's hands.
"You shouldn't carry bugs around like that, Wendy," he chided, inching away as she opened her hands for a better look. "My mum says they have icky germs and things."
"But it's a ladybug," she protested, eyes wide and wounded. "It's pretty!"
"It's still a nasty bug," he scoffed, brushing a bit of dust off of the knees of his neatly creased trousers.
"But it's pretty!" she insisted, lower lip wobbling a bit.
"If you go carrying bugs around like that, you'll get sick," he told her inexorably. "And if you get sick, who's going to walk to school with me?"
Her cheeks grew pink. Maybe he didn't understand about her pretty ladybug friends, or why her mud pies were so yummy, or why she looked wistfully across the playground at the other girls sometimes, but it still made her feel all warm and happy that a second-grader – especially such a nice, handsome second-grader – liked playing with a kindergartener so much.
"You could go play with Drake," she suggested nevertheless, with carefully affected indifference. She sent a sidelong glance at Joseph's burly little classmate practicing his tackling in the nearby field. Then, as he caught her eye, she looked hurriedly away with a frightened squeak.
Drake, meanwhile, shrugged. Those two were both weird, but that little Wendy kid that Joseph always played with was really weird. Then, with a ferocious bellow, he leapt on his invisible foe and kindly instructed it to die and burn in Hell.
"Well, then," Wendy said with even more carefully affected indifference, keeping her eye carefully on Joseph just to make sure he didn't like the idea too much, "you could play with Yomiko an' Nancy an' Nenene an' Michelle an' Maggie."
"I don't want to play with a bunch of girls," the little boy protested, grimacing. "Girls have nasty cooties!"
He realized his misstep in short order when, upon turning pointedly away from the group of Wendy's little classmates gathered under the slides reading happily, he noticed two big, kinda sparkly blue eyes fixed on him in as foreboding a glare as fluffy blonde hair and a tiny little bunny-rabbit nose could facilitate.
"I'm a girl," she reminded him frostily.
"You're different," he said with a cool, careful dignity. "You're not really a girl; you're just Wendy. It's not a bad thing," he added hurriedly as the waves of impending tantrum rising off of her became nearly palpable. "I don't like girls; I just like my Wendy!"
"Oh. Okay," she murmured, examining the tips of her trainers carefully and flushing brightly pink. Then, as she happened to notice her hands clasped tightly in her lap, her expression changed abruptly. "My ladybug! He's all squished!" she wailed.
Joseph patted her knee comfortingly, trying very hard not to grin.
"It's okay, Wendy. You'll find another ladybug sometime, and then he can give you icky germs and make you sick."
"You're mean!" she declared tearfully, wiping the remains of her new spotted red and black friend off on the edge of the sandbox. "Maybe I'll just go play with Yomiko again!"
"Don't do that," he protested. "We have plans!"
"But why do we need to rule the playground?" she asked, frowning. "Why can't it be everybody's?"
"Wendy, I've explained this," Joseph said impatiently. "It's because—"
But why it was, Wendy was not destined to find out. Again. A split second before the revelation could come, a little girl, one of her classmates, stormed past the sandbox, sending a shower of gravel raining down upon the little blonde pair in her wake.
"Nenene! What's wrong?" Wendy called after the brunette while, next to her, Joseph shook the gravel out of his hair and brushed what he could off of her shoulder.
"You wouldn't understand!" Nenene shouted back, her voice a little wobbly with tears. "You play with boys!"
"I like boys," Wendy said, quite wounded. "An' anyway, Joseph's not really a boy; he's just Joseph!"
"I'm a boy!" that same Joseph protested hotly.
"No, you're just Joseph!"
"You're both stupid," the tiny budding authoress scoffed before continuing with her huff, which seemed not to have suffered at all by being cut off just when it had really gotten going.
"What's wrong with her?" Joseph asked, glaring after her.
"She's sad because Yomiko only plays with Nancy now," Wendy replied, gazing sympathetically after Nenene before peeking under the slide at the two little dark-haired girls huddled comfortably together, reading from the same book.
"But they all just read all the time anyway."
"But Yomiko used to just read Nenene's stories, an' now she reads the books that Nancy brings her, too."
"So?"
"Nenene thinks that Yomiko likes Nancy better than her," Wendy paraphrased, slightly exasperated at the amazing skill of boys to just miss the point.
"How do you know?" Joseph asked, his pale green eyes narrowing accusingly. "Were you playing with them while I wasn't looking?"
"No! Girls just know," she replied airily before swinging her book bag around into her lap.
He watched for several bewildered moments as she rooted around, her forehead wrinkling with concentration. Finally, she hauled out a lumpy brown paper bag.
"I made a samwich!" she said brightly, unwrapping something that more resembled a car wreck on bread than anything else. "It's peanut butter and strawberry jam! Do you want some?"
He was on the verge of a rather disgusted refusal of his little playmate's offer, when his stomach gave a rather polite reminder, in the form of a soft gurgle, that he had neglected breakfast that morning in favour of more cartoons.
"Thank-you," he said, taking the sticky wad of sandwich gingerly between two fingers.
Wendy beamed.
"I made it all by myself," she informed him importantly. "I'll go fetch you some tea to go with it!"
Before Joseph could get his mouth completely open to explain to his silly little friend that there was no tea on the playground, she was off and running. He shrugged, and went back to his sandwich. It tasted alright, if he just closed his eyes and took big bites.
He finished the last bit, and turned to survey the playground and its many inhabitants. Someday, all this would be his. He would rule with an iron fist as Supreme Overlord of the Playground, his faithful little follower by his side. And hopefully bringing him stuff. He liked when she did that.
"Here's your tea!"
He looked up, startled, as a high-pitched, happily excited shout cut through his attempts to not think about what that sandwich had reminded him of. Wendy was scampering back towards their special play-place, a chipped, mud-splattered teacup clasped tightly in grubby hands. The boy quickly wiped the last vestiges of sticky strawberry jelly from his hands and moved to catch his tiny playmate as her shoe caught on a particularly dangerous bit of gravel.
"Sorry," she whimpered, brightly pink again. "But at least I didn't spill your tea!"
"Oh…good," Joseph said with a painfully forced smile that sailed utterly over the little girl's head as they climbed back into the sandbox and settled back onto the edge.
"Here! Drink it! It's yummy!"
He accepted the mug reluctantly, and hid a grimace as he peered into the murky depths of what looked to be rain water drawn from the puddle at the side of the football field. Then he looked back up at Wendy, and groaned inwardly. Her hands were clasped behind her, eyes wide and expectant.
There was no help for it. He would have to deliver the disillusioning blow that would come from finding out that people didn't really like mud pies and various other delicacies in the medium of mud.
Unless…
"Wendy, look!" he gasped, pointing behind her. "It's a puppy!"
"Puppy!" she squealed excitedly, clambering over the edge of the sandbox and trotting away in the direction he had indicated.
He hastily dumped the contents of the teacup at the side of the sandbox, and carefully covered the little puddle with his shoe.
"I think puppy ran away," Wendy sighed sadly as she approached again, drooping dejectedly.
He handed her the empty teacup.
"Mmm, that was good tea."
She brightened.
"Do you want some more?"
"No, no," he hastened to reply. "I'm full."
"Okay," she replied cheerfully before applying her attention to the other half of the sticky lump of bread. "Shall I bring another samwich tomorrow?" she asked thickly around a mouthful of peanut butter.
"If you want," he shrugged indifferently.
Her smile was a wide, fragrant, bright red strawberry jelly grin.
"I will, then. I'm glad you liked it."
She looked down shyly, tucking her hands behind her back again.
"Because I think I might kind of maybe sort of like you a little bit, you know."
He blinked, rather bewildered as to exactly what significance this was supposed to have to him – because after all, if she didn't like him, why would she be hanging about to play all the time, even during the summers when he wanted to go to the park or somefin', but had to forego that small pleasure because she was too little to leave the street?
The next moment, his bewildered blinking became a startled protest as Wendy climbed nearly into his lap.
Mere seconds later, he flushed nearly the colour of the sticky patch of strawberry jelly on his cheek from her shy, sloppy kiss.
"Don't do that when you have a sticky mouth, Wendy," he admonished with a stern frown.
She pouted briefly, then thought carefully, then nodded, her smile firmly reinstated.
"Okay!"
"Where are you going?" he called after her as she trotted towards the school.
She came to a halt, and turned, hands tucked behind her back and the toe of her shoe scuffing against the ground.
"I'm going to wash my face!"
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End Notes: Awkward as all heck, but I did nearly pass out from the cuteness of Li'l Joker and Li'l Wendy plotting to rule the playground. XD