because i get sidetracked sometimes a lot.

warnings: AU - Fateverse. sci-fi. references to Aki's 'special approach to parenting.' some Rule63/het. language: pg-13 (for f*** and g**damn).

pairing: Lester/Akiko (Bullseye/Daken).

timeline: sometime around Domestic; maybe as soon as a couple of days later?

disclaimer: marvel owns all the characters, i just made more alternate universe versions of them.

notes: 1) this is a 'good guys are bad, bad guys are good' AU. the Avengers roster is full of Thunderbolts. 2) the "i wanna goggie" "no" argument has probably been going on all day, if not all week. little boys can be remarkably persistent on certain subjects. 3) i picture Karla here as being like Sharon Stone from Basic Instinct, but more buxom. she's skank and proud, lol. 4) their daughter's name is Itsuko Helena, but Aki for some reason always calls her Helena. don't ask me why, because she won't tell me. 5) Norman as a good guy would be a Gilderoy Lockhart kinda guy, flashy and posing and presumably beloved by all whether he deserves it or not. 6) it'd be more fun to say that she hasn't let anyone feed Norman to the lions, but the Central Park Zoo doesn't actually have lions. i could make this universe have lions at the CPZ (like Madagascar), but snow leopards are pretty mean, too, so i figured they'd work.

The Picnic

Akiko hates a great many things. She hates her father. She hates Songbird's awful taste in clothes. She hates happy fluffy baby kittens.

She hates Karla Sofen in her tacky, slutty little minidress and her cork wedges and her J-Lo shades with her Beyoncé extensions, wiggling her ass over to them from the picnic tables full of corporate superheroes…

"I wanna goggie."

"No."

"I wanna goggie."

"No."

"I wanna goggie."

"No." Aki unwraps a sucker and stuffs it in her son's mouth.

"Ah wan' oggie," he mumbles.

"Don't talk with your mouth full."

Karla arrives in a bouncy cloud of Chanel, looking like a white Nicki Minaj trying to wear something she stole out of Paris Hilton's closet. She could save a lot of time and effort if she just walked around nude with a sign around her neck that said 'will fuck 4 lulz.' "There's our little Avenger-in-training!" she coos, crouching down and pinching Helena's cheeks.

Aki wants to claw the bitch's hand off.

"Hello, Auntie Karla," Helena says politely.

"Aaand the little man," Karla adds, reaching for Michael.

Michael avoids being pinched by promptly taking the sucker out of his mouth and smearing his face with it. "I wanna goggie," he announces before sticking the sucker back in his mouth.

Karla smiles up at Aki with her bleached teeth and her streetwalker lipstick. "How sweet! You should get him one, honey. A pet is a great way to teach a little boy some responsibility. Get 'em trained early, right?"

Aki doesn't so much smile as show the pointed tips of her eyeteeth. "Children, why don't you go find Uncle Norman and see if he has any presents for you?"

"Unca Norman!" her children cry, and scamper across the manicured lawn toward the rest of the party.

Karla stands up and brushes imaginary dirt off her skirt. "Your first company picnic," she says in a sickly-sweet tone. "I hope you didn't bring pasta salad."

"Ah, one of the cardinal sins of picnics," hums Aki. "Right up there with marshmallow Jell-O. No, Karla, I had the taste to bring two varieties of potato salad and two apple pies—one sugar-free for diabetics and a certain hypochondriac."

"Oh, how thoughtful," Karla says. "Mac loves apple pie, but blood sugar spikes do make him terribly excitable."

Lester comes back from carrying their dishes to the table set out with food. "Hi, Karla," he says.

"Long time, no see, handsome."

Aki turns to her husband. "Precious, go and fetch your daughter before she cons Norman out of half his assets."

Lester grins—for some strange reason, he's always been inordinately proud of Helena's ability to charm every man she meets. "Itsuko, honey, let's go meet Bob's little girl."

Karla waggles after him. Skank.

Norman carries Michael back to Aki. Damned baby-kissing Congressional poster-boy, Ward Cleaver meets John F. Kennedy. Somehow, he's completely free of any transferred candy smears, even with a cream cardigan tied around his shoulders oh-so-Presidentially. "Akiko, I'm glad you and your family could make it."

"Believe me, Norman, if there were any way to blow this off without losing face, I would've fed the invitation to my son. Like Mac, he'll eat anything once, and several less-than-edible things more than once."

Norman apparently ignores her. "Little Mikey here tells me he wants a dog." Political smile, twenty-four karat campaign poster gold.

Mikey. Like a goddamn cereal commercial.

"His name is Michael," Akiko corrects.

"I wanna goggie," Michael says.

"We've discussed this. You are not getting a dog."

"I wanna goggie, I wanna goggie."

Norman seems to find this amusing. "Come now, Akiko…the responsibility of caring for a pet is an important step in the development of a growing boy. Teaches him how to be a man."

Aki hates male authority figures, hates being told how to raise her children, hates archaic ideas of gender roles.

Fucking Norman fucking Osborn. Probably thinks Aki should be at home in a pretty dress and an apron, cooking and cleaning and smiling her day away like a fucking Stepford Wife. If the chauvinistic bastard weren't technically her boss, she'd shred his balls and wipe that self-assured Captain Kirk smile off his stupid face.

She liked Norman a lot more when he was Lester's boss instead of hers—when she was 'Lester's charming wife, how enchanting,' instead of 'Lady Wolverine, you do understand that I have to pay for collateral damage' (and Aki considers the codename tacky, a knock-off of her stupid yakuza father).

"Mr. Osborn," she says. "My son still accidentally drowns himself when he washes his face. I will not inflict him on an animal that requires occasional baths. He'll start with something stupid and low-maintenance, like hamsters. When the hamsters stop being crushed, lost, eaten, or starved, then I'll consider an animal that can remember cruelty for longer than five minutes."

"Oh, how noble," Norman says mildly. "I didn't realize you were such a proponent of animal rights."

If a wild bear appeared just now, Aki would be a great proponent of its right to maul Norman. He's not the only one who can smile on command—Aki puts on her best Julie-Andrews-is-amused-by-your-idiocy smile. "But I love animals, Norman. You'll notice I haven't let anyone feed you to the snow leopards at the zoo. Rich foods disagree with felines."

Norman takes the jab with good humor. Wink, grin, superhero chuckle. "Ha-hah, I see what you did there. Very witty, Akiko. Ah, it looks like Robert's taking some hot dogs off the grill… Shall we?"

"Hoddog!" Michael cheers.

Aki hates hot dogs. "Fuck Mommy's life," she mutters to herself for the tenth time this week.

.End.