Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

"Shouldn't you wait for your mom?"

Leonardo can't remember their name (He's not even sure if they have one or not... he could ahve sworn they were referred to by name by a few people, but maybe he misheard?), but that same little kid that beat him earlier today is looking up at him, confused.

"I'm older than you." Leonardo smiles. "I can go out on my own at night. I can even stay over if I tell my mom first." He pauses. "Do you want me to stay over?"

"Oh- uh-"

"Maybe some other time..." Their mother says. "It's getting late, and we haven't prepared for a sleepover. And their other friends have already gone home..." She pauses. "You must be really responsible with the freedom you're given, if your mother really lets you be out this late."

Leonardo nods and pulls out his phone. "It's because of this." He smiles and chuckles. It buzzes and he pauses and checks it.

'Stickers are so fun! I'm glad you met some friends.

I used to pray you'd meet people who could understand you're not a bully at heart.

... Even if you're a bit... rude, sometimes.'

Leonardo grimaces. He, uh... he...

... Yeah, even if he did have good intentions...

"What?" Leonardo asks. "N-No! She's nice, even if I'm not..." His voice trails off and he mumbles that last part as he shows their mother what's on the screen. "I'm sorry I was rude to you and your friends..." He mutters.

"Well, I'm not sure what exactly happened there at the tournament." Their mother says. "But it sounds like you were a really graceful loser there, Leonardo, and you sure have been a gentleman during your time here today."

"Of course I'm a graceful loser- if someone loses, it's their fault because their deck wasn't strong enough to win against their opponent's." He smiles and looks at the kid again. "But be warned- I'll re-optimize my deck and beat you next time!" He says, and he turns around to go home.

(He arrives safe and sound, unlocks the door, and says good night to his mother as he prepares for bed.)

He's fighting them, cards at the ready, and it doesn't look like there's a way out for him, is there?

They've gotten more than twice the amount of stars he has, and that's just from their own chickens- they'll win this round, for sure, if they have good cards in their hand.

They play a card with a trophy and a wizard hat on it, sigh, and pull out their roller.

"Do it! Roll the D100!" Min yells. 

... They call it that? Why?

The roller spits up '67' and his opponent sighs and moves to put it away-

"Wait!" Amit yells. "Leonardo has a parrot token!"

"Ah, right." They chuckle, handing him the roller. "Guess I wasted your-"

Leonardo rolls it without hesitation, and... it's toggled to make noises when it hits a good number. It does not follow the standard rules for what those noises are.

The roller blares out 'WINNER' repetitively as its owner freezes entirely in place. "No." They say at once, as Leonardo turns the roller around to show the number he got. "No..."

The '100' he's flashing at them is a different color, too. Allowed if it is legible, but not required.

They look up at him with a look in their eyes he'd have if he lost like that, too, down to the anger. But they only have themself to blame. Leonardo would never misplay that badly.

"Don't use that sticker." Leonardo says. "It's unreliable and it's a cheap, lucky win if it does work, and it's only worth it if you build your deck around it, and by that point, why not just make a deck like mine?" He chuckles. "You have a good deck, but it's better off without the trophy. Don't you agree?"

"I... I..." They look like they're on the verge of tears. "I hate you!" They snarl. "I hate you, Leonardo!"

"... What?"

"I hate you! You're mean to all of my friends!"

"Again, I'm just trying to-"

"Your stupid deck has a thousand parakeets and cowboy hats and gemstones and chickens and so many chickens and they're just everywhere-" They point to the numerous chickens, chicks, and freshly hatched egg tokens he has. "And you have cats despite telling Elias to throw his cats away like a hypocrite-"

"I said-"

"-And whenever you win, you just go 'See? See? My ace card is still the best! Better luck next time! My deck is optimized! Maybe you should do this! Maybe you should do that! You shouldn't use that sticker, it's garbage! You shouldn't use that sticker, it's horrible!' Doesn't it get tiring having such a stupid deck?"

"I- I-" Leonardo's voice wavers, and the air around him feels cold. He holds his cards close to his chest, trying his best to keep from shaking.

"'I hope you're ready, you little fuck-'"

"You can't say that!" A kid yells in the background.

"'- Nobody's been able to beat this deck yet!' 'My SUPER DUPER OPTIMIZED CARDS have zero match!', 'Let's see if you're a noob or not, I'll let my cards do the talking- EASY PEASY! Or maybe not, I actually had to try', 'My super deck is unbeatable, and there's no way you're gonna win with your little baby dinosaurs or your unoptimized music notes, by the way, I watched you fight, do you want to hear everything wrong with your deck before or after you lose?'" They pant as they take a breath.

"What?" Leonardo pauses, and one of the questions swirling in his mind is "Where did you hear that?".

"'Maybe you should combine your cowboys and your parakeets onto one card so that you can steal the effects of your opponent's cards! Maybe you should leave your parakeets all over the board!! Maybe you should focus more on winning than having fun! Maybe you shouldn't have played that card! Maybe you should play nothing but chickens!' Maybe you should have fun with your cards! Maybe you should customize your D100- or at least call it something that isn't a roller! Maybe you should stop giving me unwanted advice every time I lose to you!"

"What?" Leonardo blinks, because this is the first time he's ever fought this person.

Their eyes widen with the realization of what they just said, and they turn around and run off at once-

- The sounds of their feet hitting the ground-

- Everyone chasing after them -

- "I'll tell you everything tomorrow, ok!?" 

Leonardo wakes up, shakes the sleep out of his head, and grabs his glasses from his nightstand.

He gets up, showers, changes into clothes, grabs his phone and goes over to the dining room to eat breakfast.

"Good morning, Leonardo!" His mother waves to him, and for some reason an odd sense of Deja Vu strikes him.

"Morning, mother." He smiles back at her, and takes a seat at the dining table as she scrambles some eggs for him.

"How was your sleep?" She asks, serving him a plate.

"I slept well, but..." Leonardo shuffles a bit. "...I had a weird dream about one of my new friends last night..."

"You made friends?" She asks, smiling at him. "Tell me about them! What are they like?"

"Huh?" Leonardo pauses. "Didn't I already... text you...?" He pulls out his phone to scroll through the texts.

The texts he sent her are... gone...

... The date isn't right...

... Did he go back in time or something? What's going on?

"I-I must have forgotten, Mother." He says, turning the phone off and sliding it into his hoodie pocket.

"Oh, that's alright, Leo!" She smiles. "I'm happy that you've made some friends- I know it's really difficult for you to get along with other kids, so it must make you really happy to finally have some people to hang out with."

Leonardo didn't really get enough time with the other kids before... whatever this was- time travel?

... He's a time traveller now, does that mean he needs to somehow make things right?

"I'm off to go battling today." Leonardo says after swallowing. "My optimized deck seeks its equal. Or maybe even its superior..." He chuckles, thinking about where he could find those kids that weren't his friends anymore. Especially that one...

"Good luck, mijo." His mom smiles at him. "I know you love your card games. Which one are you seeking to play the most today? Yu-Gi-Oh? Pokemon? That one game with the stickers?"

"That last one, yeah." Leonardo says, thinking about Sofiya. She was there with the rest of them at that tournament. Talking to her would probably be important, he thinks. He pokes at his eggs with a fork and tears off another piece to bite. 

"Well I hope you have fun, dear." She laughs. "Make sure to stay out of trouble, ok?"

Leonardo nods, still chewing his food.

Once breakfast is done, he puts his plate in the dishwasher and runs over to his room to get his sloth backpack. He unzips it, digs out his deck, takes a look at the cards, and...

... It's the same as it was the same day he fought that kid. What?

Somehow his deck didn't reset? Even though he got that sticker the day before their tournament and that one a week after 'today' and...

... Well, it was better than losing all of the powerful stickers he spent three weeks working towards getting.

He puts his deck back in its sloth-themed holder and slips it into his hoodie pocket, zips up his backpack, puts it on, and runs out to the world, waving goodbye to his mother right before he walks out the door.

Now, where does Sofiya's band practice during summer again?

They go to the same school, but he's never actually paid that much attention to any of the clubs... except for the card game tournaments, of course.

He walks up to a random man. "Do you know where the local highschool band club practices during the summer?" He asks, pulling out his deck.

"No, and I don't play card games, leave me alone."

Leonardo deflates and puts his deck back in his hoodie pocket, before turning around and walking off.

... It did not take that much walking, however, before...

Sigh... Sofiya sat on a bench, idly playing her guitar, looking down at the ground.

"Sofiya!" Leonardo perks up and runs towards her.

"...Leonardo?" Sofiya asks. "...Here to talk about how my deck is 'unoptimized' again? Whatever that word means?"

"No, I-" How recently was his battle with Sofiya from her perspective? "-I have realized that not all people optimize their decks and I was being really mean by giving advice for that even if I meant well." He says. "I didn't realize why you weren't listening to my advice until I learned it wasn't what you wanted." His voice sounds fake.

"...You won't rant about how 'unoptimal' my deck is if you win another battle against me?" Sofiya asks. "...I couldn't really understand what you were saying that first time... just that you thought my deck was bad."

"I-It is bad! Competitively!" Leonardo says. "If you ever want to enter a big tournament like I do all the time you'll need my help to build a deck that won't lose round one- but since you're just playing with your friends you don't need to optimize your deck." Leonardo taps his hands together and hopes Sofiya doesn't get mad at him.

"...I'm glad you understand that now." Sofiya sighs. "...if you want to know where my clubmates are, I can text whoever it is and tell them you're looking for them."

Leonardo pulls out his deck. "Actually, I was looking for you! I want to know where that kid with the dinosaur shirt is-"

"They're battling Daniel, I can lead you to the playground, but please don't challenge them to a battle." Sofiya says. "... You'd win, anyways. Against me or against them, whatever..."

"..." Leonardo pauses. "What if I handicap myself? Like I quarter the amount of stars I have at the end of the turn before we calculate fav-"

"...Even with that..." Sofiya sighs. "...You'd win regardless, wouldn't you?"

Leonardo opens his mouth to respond- to come up with another handicap idea, maybe?- but closes it. She's right. His deck is turbo-optimized. He crushed an entire tournament the day before he fought that kid. He has no idea how they won against him, with their-

Sports deck? Their roller made such annoying sounds...

Fish deck? They had over a hundred fish on the board...

Plant deck? No, there's no way he lost to that!

No, he remembers now. They had a music deck, alongside a strong crocodile card to play on him.

Leonardo puts his deck back in his hoodie pocket and Sofiya breathes out a sigh of relief, then gets up and gestures at him to follow her.

"I left all my good stickers in my treehouse! I'll be back!" Is the first thing Leonardo hears before Daniel runs right into him, knocking his glasses off of his face.

Leonardo drops to the ground at once, feeling around the blurry grass until- oh! he found them!- then putting them back on his face. He turns around to see Sofiya helping Daniel up, the latter with tears in his eyes.

"Ow..." Daniel mumbles. "My chin hurts..."

"Leonardo!" That kid yells out, causing him to swivel around. "What are you doing here?"

"He asked where you were." Sofiya says. "I told him not to challenge you."

"Besides, we all know who'd win! Your tiny little music deck wouldn't even compare to my optimized tournament deck!" Leonardo says, pulling out said deck as his glasses shine white... Right, he needs to say something nice to balance that out-

"Music?" Daniel asks. "Do you have them mixed up with Sofiya? They use a vehicle deck like Sam does."

"What?" Leonardo blinks, the shine vanishing from his glasses in an instant, and whatever Daniel says next is drowned out purely by one fact:

That kid is staring at him with a look in their eyes just like the one he saw in his dream.