#Then Steve can safely defend freedom

[stucky-headcanon-bot]

🧐

#Now he has to panic #Because WHERE THE HELL IS THAT PU K IF HE ISN'T ALREADY IN JAILL? #Bucky gotta keep his boy safe #He supports Steves righteousness so he does the protecting Steve part #Then Steve can safely defend freedom #steve rogers #stevebucky #james barns #james buchanan barnes #white wolf #chris evans #stucky #bucky imagine #sebastian stan #steve bucky

[xoxosimp]

The Heart Wants What it Wants

Pairing: Biker!Steve Rogers x female clubgirl!Reader

Synopsis: There’s a million reasons why you should give up your feelings for Biker!Steve, but your heart can't help itself. 

Warnings: fluff,angst,smut, Possessive!Steve, unprotected sex (stay safe yall) , penetrative sex, happy ending

A/N: I haven't written anything in two years, so forgive the poor characterization and mediocre writing. Not beta’d, all mistakes are my own. Inspired by “ The heart wants what it wants” by Selena Gomez.

~~~~~~~~

“Steve  is not going to let you leave,” Wanda scoffed as she wipes the counter. 

“ Girl, your pussy is magic. Do you really think he’s gonna let you go?” Lucia stated matter of factly.

You rolled your eyes and crossed your legs. “ Club girls come and go. Once I leave, five more girls are going to jump to take my place.”

Being a club girl to one of the biggest motorcycle clubs had its perks. You had a roof over your head , with zero bills to pay. You had a family that watched your back and the freedom to focus on university. In return, you would consensually sleep with the members of the Howling Commandos Motorcycle Club . The only rules were you were to only sleep with members of the MC and pick up some of the chores around the clubhouse.

You were a sweetbutt. Sweet mama. Croweater. Whatever nickname, to each their own. You were club property. 

Being the President’s,Steve Roger’s  favorite girl had its perks, as well. No one got away with disrespecting you,  which is unusual on its own considering you were no one’s old lady. But for the past year, you’ve exclusively slept with Steve . And cuddled with him. And go riding with him ( which is a privilege on its own, all bikers treat their motorcycles like a temple), and tell him every fear, hope, and dream you’ve ever had. 

If you wanted to leave, you would need to ask the president. You’ve been a club girl for almost two years now, and every single time they’ve asked to leave, Steve granted their request. 

“I can't stay with the club forever,” you say weakly, leaning your elbow on the counter Wanda just wiped. “ I plan on going to grad school out of state.”

“ You mean you don't want to stay with Steve, forever,” Lucia corrected beside you. “ I thought you liked being his favorite,” she asked sarcastically.

You were planning on taking a gap year since you were near the end of your undergrad career. You wanted to travel. Take a vacation. Finally relax , since it's been endless work since your freshman year and it will just be more work once you start grad school. 

You could travel all you want as a club girl. But no matter how far you could travel, your heart will always pull you to him.

But does he yearn for you?

“ I don't think my heart could take much more, guys.” 

“Oh my gosh, you love him,” Wanda stated.

What’s not to love? Steve was a kind, compassionate, and down to earth man. He would put his life down for anyone in the club without a second thought. Steve was sexy as sin, with huge arms and even more sculpted legs to match. He was a golden boy. He was amazing.

And so not yours.

“ There’s only so much my heart can take , Wan,” you took a deep breath to steady your voice. “ I knew what I was signing up for when I became a club girl but I didn't think it would give me this much heartache.”

“You’re an incurable romantic, Y/N. You feel too much,” Lucia stated simply. “ You don't even know if Steve feels the same way.”

Your heart plummeted. Wanda glared at Lucia. “ Don’t look at me like that,” Lucia defended herself, “ I’m capable of getting under someone without catching feelings.”

“ Anyways,” Wanda said curtly, “Luce, don't you have a paper or two to write?” 

She rolled her eyes but nonetheless hopped off the stool and slung her purse over her shoulder. “ I hate that you’re right. I will see you bitches later.” You and Wanda say your goodbyes. 

“ And my break is over, I have budget reports to look at,” Wanda sighed.

“Fun.”

“ Like a hole in the head,” Wanda remarked.

You collected your belongings but Wanda stopped you. “ How about asking him out on a date?”

“Steve?” 

“No, Natasha,” Wanda rolled her eyes, referencing Clint’s old lady.

“ Redheads are not my type.”

You and Wanda share a laugh. “ Ask him,” she urged, putting her hand on your shoulder “ The worst thing he can do is say no.”

Then you’ll have to mend your heart back together if he does. 

Gosh, you can't remember a time where you were so anxious about a guy. You weren't shy about sex, but you sure held back when it came to your feelings.

But a girl has got to try.

~~~~~~~~

You were pacing outside of his door. Gosh, you felt like a middle schooler going to ask out her crush. 

It was a simple “Do you want to get dinner together?”  Or “ Let’s have a picnic!” or-

“ Everything okay, pretty?” a deep voice snapped you out of your rehearsal. 

He was shirtless with droplets of water still very much on his abs. You could see his dick print through his gray sweatpants. Gosh, how were you supposed to ask him out when all you wanted to do was jump him?

“ I could hear you pacing through the door.” he grabbed your waist to bring you closer to him. He tickles your neck with his facial hair, your laughter is music to his ears.

“ I came to ask you something,” you said in between giggles. 

“Ask away, pretty,” he said ,starting to kiss your neck. 

This was your ideal situation. You didn't have to look in his eyes. But with every kiss to your neck your panties got wetter. 

Do it , you coward. 

You laced your fingers in his damp hair and forced him to look at you. “ Will you go out with me?”

His eyebrows raised in surprise. His mouth broke out in a smile. With how nervous you were , you couldn't tell if that was a happy smile or ‘i’m laughing at you smile’.

“What made you ask me, pretty?”

There were a billion reasons running through your head. A billion explanations. A billion confessions threatening to surface like word vomit. But there were a billion insecurities. A billion potential heartbreaks. 

“ I just thought it would be fun,” you said, massaging his scalp with your finger nails. 

You know he doesn't believe you, the detective twinkle in his eye says so. But he doesn't question you.

“ A date with you sounds perfect, pretty one. But I thought I was supposed to ask you out?” he says pinching your bum.

“ Well you were taking too long,” you tease. 

“ Well my apologies, I hate that I kept my best girl waiting. Where are we going?”

“ I was thinking about Ben's?” you suggested. Ben’s was the club’s favorite place to eat. It was frequent after church, or just on a random Saturday because they felt like it.

“ Oh no, our first date needs to be special,” he argued. “ And we go to Ben’s all the time.”

“ But their burgers are so good.”

He chuckles, “But you deserved wine and dined.”

You stand on your tippy toes and press a gentle kiss on his lips.”  Then we'll just have to go to Casa Rustica.” 

“Then I guess we will.” He cups your face and brings you towards his lips.A rush of warmth floods through you, melting away your lingering doubts.Time seemed to stand still when you kissed him. And with every nibble and bite , it made your core clench over nothing. Whenever you groaned into him, you sent vibrations through him, making his dick twitch.

You finally mustered the strength to pull away from his lips. “ How does tomorrow night sound? Five ? ”

“ Sounds perfect, pretty.”

~~~~~~~~

When he’s five minutes late , it’s because the red lights take forever to turn green. So you think.

When Steve is ten minutes late, it’s because he realized he had two different shoes on. So you think. 

When thirty minutes pass, your heart sinks with the realization you’ve been stood up. It isn't until you take your jewelry that your phone chimes with a text message.

I’m sorry that I’ve kept you waiting this long, but I can't make it tonight.

You couldn't tell if that was a “something came up” apology or a “ I forgot” excuse. 

It was like he threw a rock at your glass-paned heart. What did you expect from someone who got the milk for free and isn't interested in buying the cow? 

Your dynamic with him was a unique one of its own. Not a lot of club girls get turned into old lady’s . Not that you were expecting that, but you wanted to try with Steve. Have a relationship with him. Be his proper girlfriend.

Lucia always said you would bring yourself more heartache than you deserve. Guess she was right. 

~~~~~~~~

“You were right.” You slumped down next to Lucia at a table outside of your university’s student union. 

She put down her pencil and raised an eyebrow. “ I’m right about a lot of things, you need to be more specific.”

“ I took a risk and asked him out,  but he stood me up.”

Lucia’s face fell a little, “ Babe, I didn't want to be right,” she rubbed your back.

“ Why did I let myself think he was gonna sweep me off my feet and run off into the sunset together” you ask out loud. 

“ I don't think so ma’am,” she wagged her finger like a mother scolding her child, “ He’s the asshole who decided to ditch you. Did he say why?” 

You shook your head, “ I didn't ask”. She gave you a bitch are you kidding me look. “ No one can question the president, Luce. He’s given me protection and a roof over my head and-” 

“ I don't care if he was the president of the United States,” she said sharply, “You deserve an explanation.”  She opened her palm expectantly.

“No,no,no,” you started. Her eyes pierced your soul, demanding that you give up your phone. You tried to resist but ended up pulling your phone from your back pocket and handing it to her. 

She unlocked your phone and began typing. The goosebumps danced on your skin, hoping that she would say anything disrespectful to him. Lucia shows you the message she has yet to send. 

Hey, is everything alright? You ditched me with no notice last night

Granted, she could have typed out a message in a much more disrespectful tone with a plethora of profanities. 

You take the phone and press send. With every passing minute your palms grew sweaty, until your phone chimed and you opened his messages.

Club Business 

Those two words were every motorcycle club president’s favorite words. Two words that no one could question. Two words that answered but did not fulfill any question.

“ He hit me with the 'club business’ , " you told Lucia bitterly.  Which doesn't make sense considering that Bucky, his Vice President, and Sam, his secretary were both at the clubhouse last night. 

“Okay , screw him,” Lucia exclaimed with no care for the heads that turned. “You just need to get under someone new to get over him.”

“But I’m not-”

“Allowed to sleep with anyone outside the club. I know,” Lucia droned, repeating your usual explanation. “ I never mentioned anyone outside the club. You say it yourself, you’re a club girl, not his girl.”

The prospect of sleeping with someone else churned your stomach. You have slept with other members of the club. But he fucked the memory of anyone else touching you out of your system. 

“I don't think I would ever get with a biker. But Sam? He could get it every day of-”

“Okay, Luce, I get it,” you laugh a little. 

What do you get for falling in love with someone who never gave you a second thought unless you weren't in bed with him? 

~~~~~~~~

You were his. Every birthmark and scar. Every curve and crevice. Every perfection and imperfection. Every hope and dream you’ve ever had.

 You were his.

So then why was Thor’s hand on your thigh?

Steve knows canceling on your date thirty minutes after he was supposed to pick you up was less than gentlemanly. But he had a good reason for his absence, one he has yet to disclose. 

You haven't spoken to him in two days . Granted it’s only been two days, but it’s been two nights without you cuddled to his side in his bed..Two mornings where your hair was splayed all over the silk pillow cases he bought just for you. 

And instead of sitting on Steve’s lap like you always do at club parties, you found whatever Thor fucking Odinson was whispering in your ear was so fucking funny. 

It wasnt until Thor stood up and you fucking took his hand that he had seen enough. Steve released his clenched fist and stood up. His racing heart matched every quick thud his heavy boots made on the hardwood floor.

Your gaze flickered to him for a millisecond. Because you know you’re his,too.

~~~~~~~~

In hindsight, it was a good idea. 

You wore the shortest skirt in your closet and a shirt that made your boobs look fantastic. All club girls were expected to attend Friday night parties (which is short for every biker’s excuse to get drunk and get laid after the work week) with the half hearted intention to get under someone to get over Steve. 

You took a seat next to Thor, who was a part of the club but was one of Steve’s friends, and flirted with him like it was a 9 to 5 job. You sat next to him with the intention of letting him take you to bed, but your true intentions evaporated when you fell into genuine conversation with him. 

A genuine conversation with his hand resting on your thigh and him getting so close you can smell his cologne. Yup, super friendly. 

When you took his hand and offered to go to the kitchen for a drink, you saw him in the corner of your eye. Steve stood tall and proud, and he walked to you.

In hindsight, it was a good idea.

It was still a good idea; since Steve had your thighs pressed to chest, his huge dick stretched out your cunt, fucking you into his mattress. You mewled when he pressed an inch closer so your clit brushed against his pelvis. 

“That’s a good fucking girl, taking my cock,” Steve choked out. Your cunt clenched around him at his praise. 

Your eyes rolled to the back of your head when his dick kissed your cervix in the best way possible. It was a gift that never hurt, whether that was because you liked the way it felt or he knew your body so well he never hurt you. You dragged your nails down his chest so hard there was definitely going to be red marks. 

“Tell me you’re mine,” he grunted out, knowing his high was soon to crash. “ This pussy belongs to me.”

“ Steve, sososo- Fuck!” He thought it was cute whenever you got too cock drunk. Your tits bounces with every thrust inside your cunt. Your left eye was twitching, so he knew you were about to come. Your clit was swollen, just how he liked it.

It was all fucking perfect. You were fucking perfect. 

Steve pinched your nipple which elicited a whine from you. “ Tell me this pussy belongs to me or you can't come.”

You attempted to de-scramble your overstimulated brain with the proper response. “ I- fuck Stevie-”

Frustrated with your disobedience, Steve starts rubbing fast circles in your clit, making your cunt clench involuntarily. “ My pussy belongs to you!,” you moaned “ I need to cum please.”

“ Then cum for me, pretty.”

You released around him in a crescendo, with him following suit. You milked Steve’s cock for all its worth as he pumped your cunt full of his cum with three snaps of his hips. You and Steve laid in silence, allowing yourselves to just feel each other for a few more moments.   

He gently pulled out and got to work with cleaning you up. The way he wipes your messy cunt with a warm towel, how he kissed your thighs and praised you for taking him so good. 

It was all too sweet. But it hardened your resolve nonetheless. Wherever that resolve was.

Steve sat on his bed, downing a glass of his favorite bourbon. As you walked towards him from the bathroom, he appreciated the view of you in one of his Harley Davidson t-shirts.  You don't know if you look into his gorgeous blue eyes and tell your truth.

“Can I ? -”, you and Steve said simultaneously. You ushered for him to continue. He stood up from the bed and took your hand.“ You first, pretty.”

Tell him, you coward, you scolded yourself. “ What am I doing?” you thought out loud.

Steve furrowed his eyebrow in confusion. “ I have feelings for you,” you whispered. “ But it was wishful thinking we could be something more. But it- it wouldn't be real.”

“What do you mean it wouldn't be real?”

“ I’m a club whore, You’re the president,” you said plainly. “We wouldn't have a relationship, we don't have a relationship now! It’s ownership. I belong to the club-”

“ You’re mine,” Steve cut you off sharply.

“It’s the same thing Steve,” you replied solemnly. “ It’s one sided. You- You own me, you control me, I belong to you-”

“ You own me!”  he interrupted. “ You control me, I belong to you. If you want my heart, I'll rip it out of my chest and give it to you. You own every part of me.” Steve brings your hand to his heart so you can feel the rhythmic thump of his heartbeat. “ All I can think about is you. All I see is you.”

“You don't mean that,” your eyes were bright with unshed tears.

“Have I ever lied to you, pretty?”

“ Then what were you doing the night we were supposed to go out? Got cold feet?”

Steve drops your hand and goes to his closet. He shuffles around and grabs something black. Steve holds it out for you to see: A black leather jacket in your size, with the back embroidered with the Howling Commandos insignia with the words Property of Rogers around the symbol.

“The tailor needed a second opinion on the size. I wanted to make sure everything was perfect,” he explained. 

“Is it for me?,” you asked.

“All yours, pretty. Try it on for me,” he commanded softly.

It was a snug fit. A perfect fit. “ What does this mean for us, Steve?”

He cups your cheeks, “ It means that you’re mine and I’m yours. You’re my old lady and I’m your man.”

“Club girl to old lady is kind of a big jump though,” you snided.

“ One day at a time, pretty. A day at a time.”

You closed the gap between you and Steve with a soft kiss. His lips molded perfectly against yours. Maybe it was all a dream and the cruel reality would wake you up. But it was no dream. Steve was real. He tasted like he was yours.

“ You’re mine,” Steve stated. 

“ I’m yours. Are you mine?”

“ With all my heart and song that belongs to you, pretty.”

A/N: I made a Scandal reference, iykyk

#steve rogers x reader #Steve rogers fanfiction #Biker!Steve Rogers x Reader #Steve rogers x you #steve rogers x y/n #biker!Steve

[inutaffy]

guessing st characters fav season (the party: pt1)

mike: he's a winter bitch. he goes alll out to make snowmen and forts (snowball fights are Not his specialty, ask lucas and will.) and wears his lil mittens and scarves (sweater wheelers you will always be famous.) he loves giving and receiving presents <- love language. drinks hot cocoa year round. has those like weird patterned fuzzy socks yk the ones with the ugly plaid. omg him and nancy and holly making gingerbread cookies. mike let's his cookie soak in milk and then drinks it (he's gross)

will: summer, he hates being cold, even before the mindflayer. i think he likes swimming too and he can swim pretty well :). also listen that s3 outfit with the navy blue shirt with the red and yellow accents and his jean shorts.... top 3 gayest will byers looks. his fav drink is lemonade (OMG WHAT IF LIL MIKE WILL LUCAS AND DUSTIN HAD A LEMONADE STAND.) i hc him as someone who hates shoes and socks (same) and walks around his house barefoot. barely uses the ac, he's a electric/ceiling fan enjoyer. he also needs the fan for white noise.

el: i know a spring lover when i see one! she loves flowers and i can see her being a bee defender. (insect lover el??? beekeeper eleven hopper??) i think in later years she might pick up gardening, i wouldn't be surprised if will painted her a flower or a flower patch/field or if joyce got her a plant <3. also she's into the flowy/sun dresses and sneakers scene (leave the quirky lesbian alone) learned to make flower crowns and max braided some flowers in her hair once. will showed her honeysuckles and she loves them. (mmm honey) 100% the person to walk through the woods and try to eat every berry she finds ("el you are sitting in poison ivy", "what is poison ivy?")

lucas: cold weather haters unite! (summer lover.) he seemed so happy in s3 and it had allll his best outfits (i'm a s3 defender, you can pry lumax s3 from my cold dead hands.) his fav drink is iced sweet tea. he likes taking max on ice cream dates, also so they can say hi to steve and so max and bond with his coworker. i can imagine him buying max a floppy sunhat from the mall. like a DORK he wears sunglasses to make himself look cool but max steals them all.

dustin: ok pretentious ass "autumn" enjoyer. yes he would correct you when you say fall. i feel like he would like spring too (also an insect enjoyer), he treats groundhog day like a celebration. anyways back to fall, he's a cardigan kinda person and sweater enthusiast. mike steals his sweaters and then denies it when he gets caught. ("is that mine?" "no?????" and the sweater is literally hanging. it is too big for him.) dustin organizes the group pumpkin patch trip AND the apple orchard picking trip. more love for dustin what would they do without him

max: fall and summer for her! look me dead in my face and tell me she's NOT ordering a pumpkin spice latte. yeah that's what i thought. she loves halloween and of course she loves summer break. she doesn't like spring bc of the excessive pollen and allergies and not winter because she's used to cali heat. summer is just what she's most used to and it gives her a lot of freedom (she's not a morning person.) fall has crunchy leaves and warm fleeces and summer has warm afternoon naps and her favorite fruits. colder weather always comes with the helping of seasonal depression, good thing she has her friends <3 who will always be there for her. unrelated: she believes in the spirit of april fools. no one is safe (i thought it needed to be said)

#how'd i do? #i had to clean it up a lot #this has been in my drafts for a week it was so messy #anyways #stranger things #mike wheeler #will byers #lumax #elmax kinda #lucas sinclair #max mayfield #el hopper #jane hopper #dustin henderson #the party #lesbian el hopper #willel

[theivorybilledwoodpecker]

Abortion pills are a vital option for millions of people nationwide following the Supreme Court’s decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health this summer. But a lawsuit filed by a conservative Christian legal group threatens to dismantle the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s approval of abortion pills. If successful, it would effectively ban medication abortion nationwide — decimating what little access to abortion care is left “It would be apocalyptic,” Illinois state Rep. Kelly Cassidy (D) told HuffPost during a Thursday roundtable hosted by the State Innovation Exchange, a nonprofit organization working on public policy at the state level. The lawsuit was filed in November by the right-wing legal organization Alliance Defending Freedom on behalf of groups and doctors who oppose abortion. It claims that the FDA dangerously fast-tracked the approval of mifepristone, one of the two drugs used in medication abortion, in 2000. Mifepristone, along with the second drug used in medication abortion, misoprostol, is a safe and effective medication that accounts for over 50% of all abortion and miscarriage care in the U.S. A decision from the federal district court in Texas is expected soon — likely in the coming weeks. Although legal experts say the arguments in the lawsuit are weak, Alliance Defending Freedom intentionally filed in Amarillo, Texas, because suits filed there have a 100% chance of drawing Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk, a far-right Trump appointee, according to University of Texas law professor Steve Vladeck. Years of research have shown that medication abortion is extremely safe and effective. When used together, mifepristone and misoprostol are more than 95% effective and safer than Tylenol. The FDA currently approves its use up until 10 weeks of pregnancy, and the World Health Organization says mifepristone can be safely used until 12 weeks. Mifepristone is a “safe, effective and important component of treatment and management for early pregnancy loss ... and induced abortion,” the American Medical Association and the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists wrote in a letter to the FDA in June.

#Abortion #Medication #Health care #mifepristone #misoprostol

[andysbubba]

𝗽𝗿𝗼𝘁𝗲𝗰𝘁𝗼𝗿 - 𝗽𝗿𝗼𝗹𝗼𝗴𝘂𝗲

-> you're used to freedom. but now you have to live with a bodyguard and have him follow you everywhere. well, at least he's pretty nice to look at, right?

pairing | bodyguard! ransom x reader

a/n | no ransom in this little prologue yet, it's just a little intro/starter to this series before I start getting a little deeper.

warnings | bucky and steve are good bros (and they're man-whores) . protective family (not in a bad way)

---

You clicked your tongue, unwilling to accept papa's decision even though it was supposed to be for your own safety. You'd agree to anything, and you'd trust him with everything.

Literally anything but hiring a bodyguard.

There's just something about it that makes you feel vulnerable. And it'll only make people think that you're just a stuck-up spoiled, rich kid who uses Daddy's money and can't even take care of herself.

As if you don't already face enough of that negativity.

"Papa-"

The old man was quick to stop your train of thoughts, knowing his daughter well enough to know what's going on in your mind.

"I need to know that you're always safe, little one." Papa leans back against his office chair, a soft smile forming on his face. One that's reserved for the people he cares about the most. "Let your old man have a peace of mind, will you?"

You've always had a hard time saying no to him. Or anyone in the family. Even if you said no to papa, it'll only take some time before mama or one of your brothers came knocking on your door to convince you otherwise.

"Will Buck and Stevie get guards too?" You knew the answer to the question, but it still didn't hurt to ask.

Papa chuckles, pushing his chair back and standing up. "You know my answer, sweetheart. I'm more protective when it comes to you." He walks over to you and rests a hand on your shoulder. "Steve and James are more than capable of defending themselves."

Before you could even open your mouth to speak, papa only shakes his head and holds a hand up to stop you.

"Even your mother wanted you to have a bodyguard. It was either this, or you move in with your brothers." He arches a brow, as if daring you to go against him.

You visibly shivered at the thought of moving in with Bucky and Steve. The memories of slutty moans and your brothers' obviously pleasure-filled grunts are way too traumatising. It was torture and you never want to live through that again.

It's a fight you'll lose if you even considered fighting. It's four to one, and you're on the losing side.

"This won't be permanent, right?" You mutter out as you and papa walked out of his study to head downstairs for breakfast.

"Just till the situation gets better, little one."

---

You mentally thanked your brothers in your head. If you were going to spend 24/7 with a bodyguard that you reluctantly agreed to hire, you'd appreciate if he at least looks good in a suit and tie. Bucky and Steve interviewed the potential candidates and somehow, they picked someone who looks almost too good in the uniform.

He's extremely handsome, and muscular. But he seems a little too uptight. And you know that there's gonna be lots of problems trying to bend the rules and get away from him.

"Hugh Drysdale, Miss. You can call me Ransom." He offers you his hand.

The grim look on his face makes you wonder why he's even here in the first place. There's a shit ton of jobs out there and he really decided to risk his life for a big company's heir. And he doesn't even look like he wants to be here in the first place.

"Where did Ransom come from?"

"It's my middle name, Miss."

You nod, taking his offered hand and shook it. "Y/n Barnes. And drop the formalities, please. We're gonna live together after all."

"I'd rather keep things professional, Miss."

You almost winced at the title. God, it makes you sound so stuck-up.

You flash him a kind smile. "Very well, Hugh."

Ransom almost grimaced at the name. He knows right then and there that it'll be tough working with you. His job isn't even that tough. Just keep you safe and follow you around.

At least the pay was good.

---

an | TELL ME WHAT YA THINK LOL. i'm actually scared to continue writing thisbz hdbzhsjs. anyways uhm slide into my taglist if you wanna be notified for future chapters!

• 𝐡𝐨𝐧𝐞𝐲'𝐬 𝐦𝐚𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐥𝐢𝐬𝐭 • 𝐡𝐨𝐧𝐞𝐲'𝐬 𝐭𝐚𝐠𝐥𝐢𝐬𝐭 •

#ransom thrombey x reader #chris evans #chris evans x reader #cevans #cevans x reader #chris evans smut #chris evans fluff #ransom thrombey angst #ransom thrombey fanfic #ransom drysdale fluff #ransom drysdsle angst #ransom drysdale angst #hugh ransom drysdale #ransom drysdale smut #ransom drysdale

[midgardianweasley]

Keep you safe

Keep you safe

Natasha Romanoff x Fem!Avenger!reader

Summary: When the civil war breaks out among the team, what happens when you find yourself and your girlfriend on opposite sides of the fight?

Warnings: Extremely minor cursing, angst, injury, ends in fluff

Word Count: 1.8k words

Message/ask if you’d like to be added to the taglist <3

Requests are open!

“Vision, you can’t keep her prisoner here” I announced to what seemed like a brick wall. The S.H.I.E.L.D. meeting was only this morning and already it felt like the team was beginning to drift. Tony and Steve were fighting, not being able to agree on where they stand regarding the Sokovia Accords and whether we should sign our rights away. Wanda, not being a US citizen and having been a big part of the incident in Sokovia, has been put under Vision’s watch for protection. But from what i’ve seen, I think Wanda can protect herself just fine.

“It’s not imprisonment, Y/N, this is for her safety.”

“Safety? She’s fully capable of walking to the shops on her own.”

“I think some members of the team would disagree, Nata-”

“Don’t, Vision. Please.” I sighed, rubbing my forehead, the stress going straight to my temples upon remembering the events from this morning with my girlfriend.

Nat and I had just walked out of the meeting room, thoughts flooding both of our heads. We were exhausted, the emergency meeting not giving us enough time to wake up with a coffee before having to be fully functional. My head was resting on her shoulder, her head on top of mine as we stood in an abandoned corridor, revelling in the peace and quiet. It was a few minutes before one of us decided to speak up.

“You okay, голубка?” She whispered, pressing a gentle kiss to the top of my head before returning to her previous position.

“Mhmm, I think so. My head is officially fried though and it’s not even 9am yet.”

“We’ll get some coffee in us soon.”

“I think we’ve earned it” I mumbled, earning a slight chuckle from the both of us, returning back to the silence for only a couple of minutes before a thought crossed my mind.

“I feel bad for Wanda. She must feel terrible.”

“I know. Hopefully this whole Accords business can be of help.”

“Well, that would be nice, but we’re obviously not signing that.” An airy laugh left my lips, amused at the idea of signing away any freedom we could have for ourselves. I felt Nat’s body go rigid beside me, suddenly feeling tense. I pulled away slightly and looked up to see a frown taking over her features.

“You’re not going to sign?” She spoke, suddenly sounding more awake, albeit still having a gentle tone, but I could feel the disbelief behind her words.

“I wasn’t planning on it, no. Are you?”

“I feel like it would be a good idea. Maybe we need a little more guidance to go about our missions.”

“This isn't guidance, Nat. This is essentially locking us away just without the bars.”

“It’s protection.”

“It’s losing our freedom!” I bluntly responded, almost shocked that we weren’t on the same page about this. We both stood across from each other now, arms crossed and staring into each other's eyes, all tiredness beforehand gone and replaced with fire.

“I need some air” She groaned, walking away towards the exit, signalling the end of that conversation.

“Nat-”

“I’ll see you at home, okay?” Not giving me a chance to respond, having walked out the door before I could utter a word. I guess coffee is the least of my problems now.

Lost in my daydream, I hadn’t even noticed that Clint had walked in and was currently fighting Vision. Wait, Clint?

“Clint? I thought you retired?”

“Ah nice to have you back.” He choked, currently caught in a headlock with Vision. I stood next to Wanda, the two of us sharing a look of confusion. “We need to go, Cap needs us.”

“You can’t overpower me, Clint.” Vision spoke, still holding his grip.

“I know i can’t, but she can”

I looked beside me once again and saw Wanda beginning to use her powers, and before I knew it, Vision had fallen to the ground..and further until we could no longer see him.

“We need to go” The archer rushed, taking Wanda by the hand and leading her outside. I was yet to be clued in on what exactly was going on, but I knew one thing, this couldn’t be good.

---

It was absolute chaos everywhere. Steve, much like Tony, had recruited a small team of his own, some familiar faces, some new, the ant guy was pretty cool. However, there hadn’t been much time to admire the different skill sets and powers that had been brought to the table before both sides had run towards each other. Especially considering seeing the recognisable assassin on the other side had brought on a wave of sickness, fighting her was the last thing I wanted to do.

While Bucky had taken to fighting who I assumed to be Blank Panther and Sam was in the air, I’d stuck to helping Steve, not wanting to get involved in the fight Clint was having with Natasha. This teenager had started shooting webs at Captain, and while I know he was on the opposite side, I had to admit, he was pretty good at fighting.

“He also said to go for your legs” He chuckled, again shooting webs at the supersoldier and holding him back from retrieving his shield.

“Hey Spidey” I called, gaining his attention.

“Hi”

“Might wanna drop the Captain, yeah?”

“I can’t. I gotta impress Mr Stark”

“Look, this isn’t your fight, you don’t know what’s going on” I tried to reason, falling onto deaf ears, or just stubborn, as he then shot his webs at me and tried to pull. His eyes shrunk in confusion as he couldn’t flip me, my power of immobility coming in handy.

“Why-” He groaned, still trying to flip me. I lifted my hands, grabbed the webs and flung him into one of the loading crates that were scattered around, my super strength making the impact a lot harsher, but not enough to cause major injury.

“Thanks Y/N” Steve spoke, a quick nod of approval was shared before I caught a glance of another fight going on. Wanda’s holding a crate, trying to take someone flying above it out, completely oblivious to Vision starting to come towards her. Looking down slightly, I saw who was directly underneath.

“Shit” I mumbled, running as fast as I could towards them, avoiding gunfire and punches along the way.

“Language!”

“Sorry! Jeez” I directed towards the man now running in a different direction.

Vision was much closer to them than I was, no matter how quickly my feet took me. It was no use trying to warn Wanda, I wouldn’t get there in time. I had to go with plan B.

“Nat! Move!”

She quickly turned and caught sight of me, giving me a confused glare that didn’t last long before I pushed her away from where she was standing, out of harm's way.

“What the hell Y/-” She hadn’t managed to finish her sentence before her eyes widened in horror at the large crate suddenly falling from Wanda’s hold and onto me. My arms lifted quickly to hold it, slightly wobbling due to not being in the centre of it.

“Is there anything behind me?”

“Wha-”

“Is there anything behind me?!” I spoke more urgently, not knowing how much longer I could hold it.

“No, no you’re clear.” Natasha responded, I thanked her silently with a nod.

‘Okay. you’ve got this. One. Two-’ I thought to myself.

With the remaining strength I could have gathered, I bent down slightly and pushed, sending the metal hurling upwards while I ran forward. Overestimating how high i’d thrown it, the bitter reality hit me, quite literally as it fell onto my leg, sending me face first towards the ground.

“Wanda!” Was all I could hear before I felt my head placed in someone’s lap and the world went black.

---

My head pounding like a hammer had been a lovely wake up call, followed by a throbbing pain in my leg which I'd looked down to see was lying along a row of pillows. My eyes darted around the room and I recognised the photo on the bedside table beside me. It was a photo of Natasha and I standing in the rain laughing at a joke we can’t remember anymore, but it must’ve been funny according to the huge smiles on our faces. The love in our eyes was enough to make galaxies jealous.

A knock on the door had interrupted my train of thought, opening before I had a chance to respond, Natasha walked in, a guilty look taking over her face.

“Hi”

“Hey. You okay?” I questioned, earning a smile and a scoff to come out of The Black Widow’s mouth.

“Am I okay? Really?”

“I-”

“You ask me if i’m okay when you’re lying there with a broken leg and just woken up from being knocked out, because you decided to throw yourself into danger.”

“You had a tonnes worth of metal about to fall on you. Forgive me if i didn’t want a squished girlfriend.” I defended myself, not entirely certain on how this is turning into being my fault.

“You could have died”

“But I didn’t”

“But you could’ve, Y/N!”

“Love-”

“I can’t lose you” Her voice broke. Only then had I managed to really take a look at her. Her eyes had clouded over, her hair was all over the place, her nose running slightly. A pang of guilt hit me, not knowing that my action had affected her so much.

“Can you come here? Please?” She hesitated, but soon made her way round to the other side of the bed and sat herself down, making herself comfortable in my arms that I held open for her, hands immediately going to run through her hair. Small sniffles could be heard in the otherwise silent room, each one having a kiss pressed against her head in response.

After a couple of minutes, the silence was broken again.

“I’m sorry, moya lyubov, I didn’t mean to scare you. I just wanted to keep you safe.”

She turned her head up slightly to look at me, a small smile playing on her lips

“I know. i just panicked. I want you to be safe too.”

“I’m okay. I’m here. I promise.” I kissed her head again. “How does a bath and a movie sound?” A small sigh left her lips at the suggestion.

“You’ll join?”

“I’ll join”

A small but passionate kiss was exchanged, followed by a few quick pecks before the redhead walked off towards our bathroom, the sound of running water filling the air not long after.

No matter the mission, the fight, the argument or the disagreements, we’ll always protect one another. We don’t need the Sokovia Accords for that.

taglist: @the-dumbass-that-throws-knives

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[thewalkingdead-imagines]

TWD - Negan Imagine ~ “Find Me”

Imagine about the 18th episode of season 10

Summary: Maggie’s arrival in Alexandria puts a strain on Negan and the Reader’s relationship, that feeds off their worst fears and forces them to work through their pain and panic about their future together 

Dusk was falling over Alexandria, lulling it slowly but surely into its mellow, dusty blue light. The sun had entirely sunken behind the treeline by now, leaving the air stripped off its warmth and brisk as it flowed into the small woodhouse by the walls.  Negan had driven his last nail into the planks of the damaged house merely a half hour ago, frowning and unusually quiet since the moment Maggie and her son had walked into Alexandria. He’d barely said a thing since then and neither had you, too tense and shocked even though both of you had known that this moment would come one day or another.  With a deep sigh, you moved in to start and collect the medical utensils you’d just used on your last patient, hoping that preparing dinner back at your house would allow Negan to distract himself a little.  The loud squeaking of the wooden floor planks made you flinch up slightly and shoot your glance towards the open door in a split second as a figure shielded the last light from falling inside. “Hey”, Daryl grumbled as he glimpsed at you and raised his hands slightly in response to your reaction,”Just me.” “Oh hi”, you said, straightening yourself up from your crouched position over the table,”Sorry, I was just surprised. Thought I was the only one left here.” Daryl nodded slightly, his eyes wandering over the table with the last meds that you had to pack back up again before he looked back up. “There’s still someone at the infirmary?”, he asked, shaking his head slightly as you started to look him over, intuitively searching for any injuries or wounds on him that needed need treatment,“Not for me, for the newbies.” Maggie’s group. For a moment, you were a little startled before you caught yourself again and started to nod as you moved in to lay a bunch of bandages back inside the bag. “Yeah, Steve usually takes that shift so he should still be there for some time”, you said, gulping slightly as you tried to act as casual as you could, though this whole situation made you nothing but tense, “It’s only him though. Is a lot of care needed?” “Nah, they’re mostly fine...Maggie just settled ‘em down in one of the houses”, he mumbled with a slight shake of his head, before it got quiet for a moment and the question you’d felt pressing you from within finally slipped out of your lips. “Who exactly are they by the way?”, you asked, glimpsing at Daryl who visibly seemed to tense up,”I’m just curious.” Shifting from foot to foot Daryl looked away from you, his glance bouncing around the room before he cleared his throat slightly. “Her people. Ran into their community years back and lived there till some psychos destroyed it...Came back here to get a new safe place”, he grumbled as his eyes finally landed back on you and he rubbed his hand tensely over his arm, “One of ‘em followed them back here, killed a couple when we were outside until we could get him...that’s why we’ve been out there for longer, made sure that all of ‘me are gone.” You only nodded as you listened to the story, trying by all means to not show how tense you actually were. What had happened out there must have been horrible, and you had never been against taking people into Alexandria, but there was something about this all that rubbed you the wrong way.  Maggie was only back because her old community got attacked and they needed a new place. She left for years and was only back because of these events and directly rolled into the place as if she owned it, as if bringing a bunch of new people didn’t need to at least be talked about with the council, just to clear things up.  Maybe you were being oversensitive when it came to her, maybe not, but the thought that she might try to hurt Negan’s position within this community after leaving for years and only coming back because her new place failed to persevere brought a whole new wave of suspense and a sense of anger over you. “You’re done for the day?”, Daryl asked after you’d become quiet for a moment, visibly sunken into your thoughts. “Yeah I’m just finishing that up and then I’ll get back home”, you said, nodding towards the bag and brushing the tense feelings and thoughts out of the way for a moment as Daryl tilted his head and brought them right back with merely two words. “Negan’s there?”

“Yeah”, you only nodded, trying to act as if you hadn’t heard the slight stinger in his voice. You weren’t in the mood for this type of discussion, especially not now and not with him. ”Finished his work and already wanted to prepare some dinner.” “Things about him aren’t decided yet, y’know that right?” You’d known that he’d say something like this. You’d known it and still it got you more worked up than you already were. “I know that we can use any helping hand to built Alexandria back up”,you said, trying to keep your cool even though you could hear your own voice shaking slightly with suspense ,”And Negan has two healthy and strong hands that are pretty much needed right now.” Just like they were needed to kill Alpha. You suppressed this last part, for now. You knew your half brother more than well enough to know which kind of comments would make him shut down immediately and though there was an urge in you to repeat once more for him what would have happened to all these places without Negan’s help, you refrained from it. You wouldn’t shy away to throw it at him if things got more serious, but this right now was not the place or time. “We didn’t get to have these type of things for all these last years... we’re just enjoying whatever we can get”, you only added, calmer now and a bit more conciliable though that didn’t let the slight frown on Daryl’s face to vanish. “Well”, he grumbled, glimpsing at you through the brown strands of hair that fell into his face,”Do it for as long as you can.” Clenching your jaw you stared at him, growing more hostile with every passing second. That remark wasn’t needed, he could have just kept it for himself, just like you had done it for the sake of the moment. You could feel the anger starting to built up within you, starting to push you more and more back into your defensive mode as you let out a sharp breath. “He’s earned his spot”, you said, throwing in the last salve that had laid on the table into the bag before you shut it and glanced back up at Daryl,”So I hope that we can do it for a very long time.” A mere huff fell from his lips and he only nodded before he started to walk back towards the door and grumbled his last words to you. “See you around.”

The encounter with Daryl left you with even more tense than you already had been since the moment Maggie had walked back into Alexandria, so much that you hurried to get out of the house and walk back home as soon as Daryl was gone. The cool evening air barely helped cooling yourself down as well as the worries that kept on pressing in on you, trying to creep back into your head and turn everything upside down. A thick sigh left your lips as you moved from the grassy underground that surrounded the houses by the wall onto the blacktop of the street and passed by the last few workers who were out here, doing their job. A few of them carried wood towards the other side of Alexandria where the walkers had left a smaller hole in the wall that still needed to be fixed and a few others carried shovels and a small wheelbarrow that was filled with some unearthed wildflowers towards the graveyard that had been damaged by the walking dead as well. A tight breath left your lips as you walked past it, watching the workers move into the back where most graves still needed to be fixed with new or fixed crosses and flowers, and yet it wasn’t any of those graves that made you halt, but one in the front. It was the freshest grave, the cross already fixed and with new flowers already planted by its side and even from your spot on the street you were able to read the name of your friend that was carved into the light wood. You missed him. You barely had time to grieve and process what Dante had done to him, nor had you been able to realize that he was gone.  During the last days, you’d often found yourself turning around in the infirmary, wanting to ask him something only to realize that you would never have the chance to do so again. Things at the infirmary were working fine, but it wasn’t the same, especially because you hadn’t just lost a colleague but a friend, one of the only people who’d never judged or distrusted you because of your relationship to Negan. Someone who you’d been able to talk about to about random things, whether it was about the infirmary and medicine, stuff that was going on in Alexandria or anything that just seemed interesting at the moment.  Now, whenever you seemed to talk to someone it lead back to your relationship, to you having to defend it as well as Negan’s new found freedom, just like with Daryl just now. You were tired of it, of these discussions that were always the same and of the helplessness to not be able to decide what was happening in your life. All you wanted was to live peacefully with Negan in that house and built something up with him.  You didn’t ask for more, just that.  A tight breath left your lips as you glimpsed at the grave again, trying to keep a lump from growing in your throat as your eyes caught the tiny teddy bear by the cross Rosita must have put there with Coco. “Fuck”, you mumbled to yourself, trying to blink the first tears away that had shot into your eyes before you forced yourself to move further down the street, trying to keep your mind from traveling into darker places, places that would tell you that Siddiq’s grave and the graves of all these other people were only proof of how easy it was to still lose loved ones at any given moment. Of how easy it still was for you to lose Negan. Though you only wanted to come home as fast as you could, you took the extra route around the lake in Alexandria’s midst, trying to let the walking and the colder growing air calm your head down and snap back to normal. Unsurprisingly, it only helped semi-well and you still felt tense when you walked up the porch of your home, only held together by the thought to enjoy any time you could get with Negan in here. “I’m home”, you called out as soon as you shut the door with a small thud behind you and felt the scent of Negan’s dinner fill the air. “Hey Baby”, you heard him call back as you found him standing by the stove, frying some vegetables in the pan along with the portion of boar that you’d gotten after a group went out to hunt yesterday.   “Smells good”, you said, letting your bag down to the floor before you moved in to wrap your arms around Negan from behind and peeked at the simmering meal. “Sure hope it also tastes good”, he said, forcing up a smile that broke through the tension that still visibly laid over his face as he turned just enough to press a small kiss over your lips. “I’m sure it will”, you mumbled back, nuzzling your nose into the fabric of his shirt while you could feel his tense body shifting slightly. A small groan left his lips as he flexed his back and shoulders a little, tensed up not only due to the Maggie’s reappearance but also the work he’d done all day. “You wanna go take a bath together later on?”, you asked, peaking up at him as you loosened your embrace around him to stroke your hand softly over his strained shoulders, hoping that the bath could be yet another distraction for the both of you,”can do wonders.” “Yeah”,you only heard Negan say with a nod, no cocky grin or wolfish remark as usual, and even though it was a ridiculously small detail, its absence only showed you more how fraught he truly was. ”I think the food is done.”

Oddly silent you moved over with him to the already set table and got some of the food onto both of your plates and started to eat, though neither of you seemed truly hungry after today’s events.  You tried to get something down, but the suspense that filled the room was so palpable that it closed up your throat and weighed so heavily down on you that you found yourself more poking into our food than actually eating it. It was the same for Negan, he was barely eating and what concerned you more, he wasn’t talking at all.  The suspense-filled silence seemed to take up everything and kept you locked into your spot, unsure of what do do or say while Negan only seemed to tense up more with every passing minute until his voice cut through the silence. “That kid has no Dad ‘cause of me.” Your glance shot up to him the moment he spoke it out, feeling your heart sinking as you watched him gulping thickly without looking up once, he only stared at the wood of the table as if it was the only thing keeping him from breaking. A trembling breath fell from your lips as you slowly moved in and grasped his hand, squeezing it softly as you tried to find the right words without making the situation harder than it already was. “There’s a lot that lead up to that point, it wasn’t just you”, you mumbled, only to see Negan’s eyes shooting up to you while a thick huff left his lips. “Well I was the one swinging the bat, wasn’t I?” “You thought that we’d killed a whole outpost of people just to steal supplies.” Your eyes were locked onto his as you spoke, and though you tried to keep your voice firm you were insecure and unsure of how to go on as well. You were aware of the shit Negan had done in the past, but he’d paid his price and suffered enough having to work through them in these years down in the cell and you didn’t want him to fall into these deep holes again, nor did you want to lose the view for the bigger picture. A lot of things had went down back then, and not only Negan had made mistakes. ”You did those things in that night because of it and you didn’t even know she was pregnant”, you added, giving his hand another soft squeeze, “Not saying it was right but we all did shitty things back then that lead to a whole lot of deaths and destruction.” “Doesn’t change that I’m ultimately the one who made that kid fatherless.” His voice was rasp but harsh as he shook his head and moved his hand out of your grasp, running it down his face as he let out another deep sigh. “I don’t even fucking know how to feel about that myself”, he scoffed as he stared back down at the table,”But I sure as shit know that me delivering the hits in the end is all that counts to them”, “It shouldn’t...we’ve all taken the life of someone who was a loved one to someone else”, you mumbled after a moment of silence, starting to poke back into your food as if it would help you handle this while your voice became more tense,“Don’t wanna know how many kids ended up without a parent because of the things we did at that outpost or anywhere else.” “Well, thats not how anybody out there’s gonna see it.” “Yeah then it would be time to hold up a mirror for them”, you said, feeling the restlessness and anger Daryl had whirled up back at the woodhouse creep back up, “You know what Rick would’ve done with a group if that outpost had been ours and it had been our people  that had been slaughtered in their sleep?” A heavy but trembling breath rumbled through your chest as you looked over at Negan, growing more agitated as you thickly gulped. “He surely wouldn’t have just killed two. Gracie’s only here and grows up to be Aaron’s daughter because Rick killed her birth father. Her mother was likely killed too when they attacked that other outpost during the war. It’s funny how no one ever talks about that”, the words just flowed out of your lips, fueled by the pent up desperation and even fear that had simmered within you, “So if anyone tries to make you look like a monster or whatever I won’t shy away anymore to repeat these things for them...Everybody has done horrible shit. You, Rick, everybody’s who’s inside these walls including me.” Negan didn’t even look up at you, he just kept staring at the table as you placed your fork next to the plate, almost letting it fall with a clatter against the ceramic as you felt the hunger leaving your body once for all, replaced by an upset feeling that was spreading through you and let you heat up. “I won’t just let Maggie or whoever else try to make them turn on you again after you’ve earned more trust”, you said, audibly stressed,”The trust that you deserve after ripping your ass off for them.” A thick sigh left your lips as you stared at Negan, just hoping he’d look up at you while the ugly mix of helplessness, fear and anger crawled further up your body and made pinch the bridge of your nose for a moment as you felt them taking you over. “I’m just sick of these fucking new things that always pop up when things seem to get better”, it left your lips more broken, trembling and yet angrier than before as Negan’s glance finally shot up to meet yours, though the icy stare within them was the opposite of what you had wished for. “Well then maybe you should reconsider being with me”, he scoffed, hitting you with shock and confusion as you furrowed your brows at him. “What kind of comment is that?” “’Cause this is how it’s always going to be”, he snapped, the pent up tension step for step breaking out if him as you still stared wide eyes at him,”We’ll never find our goddamn peace and all these people are always gonna hate me and the fact that we’re together.” “Not everybody hates you”,you quickly retorted, for now trying to push that shitty remark away from you and onto the fact that he was scared too,”There are people who’ve grown to trust you more and my colleagues at the infirmary are all good with you being out and working, and I’ll do my best to keep it this way.” “Well but those who are in higher positions do”, he let out, a bitter chuckle falling from his lips as he shook his head before his cold stare landed back onto you while his voice grew louder ,”Aaron was ready to execute my ass and he’d still do it just given the chance. Same fucking shit with Nora and Kyle. Those who spoke up against hanging me were Siddiq and Laura and they’re fucking dead now too. Maggie’s ready to slaughter my ass and your brother would be just fine with it as well. Things wont’t stay the same as they were during the last fucking days and it sure as shit won’t get better now.” Staring at him you let out another tight breath, still holding onto your last piece of hope despite your own fears as you gulped thickly and shook your head softly. “We can’t say that for sure. Gabriel’s more on our side. Maggie isn’t a member of the council and Daryl is already being more accepting of you than he was before-“ “Goddamnit (Y/N)”, Negan’s booming voice suddenly cut you off, loud enough to make you flinch and stare wide-eyed at him as he rose up from his chair and glared down at you,”Don’t you get it?!” Your heart started to pump harshly against your chest as his loud voice sounded through the room, and you could feel yourself becoming overwhelmed with the situation while you watched the anger in him skyrocketing. “What we had these last few damn days wasn’t real, we lived in that small fucking time bubble of delusion and we both knew it would burst as soon as Maggie’d walk through these fucking gates”, he was yelling by now, his voice so heavy it made his chest shake while you were starting to tremble and felt tears shooting into your eyes as you stared up at him, still too shocked and startled to say anything while his yelling voice hit you again,”This was us pretending. We’ll never have that kind of life.” Tears were blurring your view now as you meet his glance, pumped up with fright, anger and desperation as you let out an upset sound. “I’m just trying to not give up”, you scoffed, though your voice was breaking as you stood up from your spot and pushed the chair angrily against the table as you glared at your husband ,”And don’t you fucking yell at me.” The first tears were rolling down your face as you turned away from him and and stumped towards the kitchen door, trembling breaths leaving your lips as you brushed them off your cheeks, “Screw this.” You were shaking as you rushed up the stairs, your face crunched up in pain and covered with tears that were running down your skin as you could still hear his voice booming through your head.  Negan never yelled at you. The last time you could remember him coming close to it was shortly after he got locked up, when helplessness and jealousy were eating him up. It had never happened again, not for all these years and the fact that it had happened now rattled you. He knew how much you hated being yelled at, he knew how much your past had sensitized you for it and you didn’t know how to handle Negan’s nor your your own emotions right now. You were both strained, both scared and it was your only explanation for his lash out. He could get loud, you’d seen it at the Sanctuary when he shut down Simon but he never lost control of himself during these moments. Not like now. When he yelled, he stayed under control and got back to business right after, so his lash out now, especially despite knowing how much you despised it was only proof of how scared and upset he truly was. This realization didn’t help though that the loudness of his voice and the cruelty of his words were pushing in on you as you let the door of your room fall with a loud thud into its lock and felt your emotions overwhelm you.  Heated up and trembling more and more tears started to shoot back into your eyes and rolled down your face as you rounded the bed and plopped down onto your side, feeling the mattress giving slightly in below you as sniffles left your lips. You were scared, you were so unbelievably scared. Scared of losing everything you’d worked for with Negan, scared of not ever finding your peace and worst of all, scared of losing Negan to a vengeful Maggie who was out for blood. If anything, walking past the graveyard had made this ugly feeling of fright only grow and you could feel the things you’d tried to shut out for the last days rolling over you.  Being scared of losing Negan after he saved Lydia. Living with the fear of not knowing if he was okay or even alive during the time he was gone.  Being nearly poisoned with Dante’s water.  Losing Siddiq. Constantly having to persuade others, especially Daryl, that Negan was up to good out there and wasn’t a threat, even during your time at the Hilltop. Finally getting Negan back and being glad to have him in safety and freedom only to have it threatened again with Maggie’s sudden reappearance merely two days later.  You were exhausted. This all had happened in such a small time span and you were unable to process it properly, nor the fear that you were feeling right now.  You were full on sobbing at this point, shaking and crouched over, with your elbows pressing into your thighs and your head buried into your hands that were practically soaked in your tears You couldn’t have her try to hurt or even kill him now only because he wasn’t in the cell anymore and stuck on the verge of taking his own life. You couldn’t keep on feeling so scared and worried all the time.  You just wanted to find your peace.  Slowly, you felt your body growing too exhausted to keep the sobs coming and instead, sniffles and small whimpers were only falling from your lips as you found yourself staring down at your wet hands, fumbling on them in a desperate try to distract yourself from your cruel thoughts. You weren’t even sure how much time exactly had passed since you’d stormed up here, your only indicator of time was the darkness that had by now taken up the firmament and the lamp on the nightstand you’d been forced to turn on, whose faint light was now falling onto you, your hands and the small diamonds of your wedding ring that glimmered in the light.  You silenced yourself as well as you could for a moment to hear the rustling that was coming up from the kitchen and living room. Negan had been quiet for a whole long time down there and now you could hear him clearly moving around. A shivering breath left your lips, unsure of what you should expect to happen before you started to hear heavy footsteps coming up the stairs, slow but steady as they started to get closer to your room. Gulping thickly you finally heard the creaking of the door as it slowly opened, while you still sat there with your back turned to him as he moved inside and softly shut the door behind him. For just another moment it stayed silent, only the slight squeaking of the floorboards below Negan’s weight was audible before you heard him speak up. ”I’m sorry”, he said, his voice heavy with guilt, so much you could hear a tremble through it,”I didn’t mean to lash out like that...I don’t know what’s going on with me, I-” He broke off, a shivering sigh filling his lips as you could hear him making a few, slow and careful steps towards the bed before he stopped again.  ”You were just trying and I went full asshole...I-...I shouldn’t have yelled at you. That was a fucking dick move...I’m sorry, I really am.” You didn’t look up yet, you were still fumbling on your hands, though you could tell that he meant it, you just didn’t know how to behave either. “I get it if you don’t wanna talk or want me to fuck off”, he breathed out, his voice still slightly trembling as he let out another sigh,”I do, I-” With the shaking of your head he halted quickly, growing silent again as you let out a small sigh. You didn’t want to fight with him. That really was the very last thing. You just wanted to talk it out and get all the shit you both had off your chests. In the end, you knew this all had only happened because you were both scared to death and while you knew that this wouldn’t just vanish you couldn’t have this fear hurt your relationship.  Slowly, you watched Negan round the bed from the corner of your eye, halting shortly before he got to you and gestured towards the spot next to you. ”Can I?” A nod of yours was enough to make Negan sit down beside you, a thick sigh falling from his lips as you could feel his glance swaying over you. The lump in your throat was quick to grow bigger again as you bit your lip and felt tears starting to fill your eyes as you finally glimpsed up at him. “I just want this fucking nightmare to end”, you said, your voice shivering and weak as your glance met his eyes that were bleary and slightly reddened as well ,”once one thing is done the next shit’s waiting for us. I hate this and I fucking hate having to have this goddamn discussion over and over again.” A heavy sigh fell from your lips as you brushed the dampness off your cheeks, sadly sure that you’d soon feel new tears running over them while your voice started to break as soon as you spoke back up again, “I don’t want Maggie to whirl everything back up and mess things up for us.” With knitted brows and sad eyes Negan glimpsed at you, pressing his lips onto one another before a stressed sound fell from his mouth. “I don’t know about the latter one but I’m sure she’s gonna whirl things up again”, he sighed, stroking over his beard while a thick gulp travelled down his throat,”Wish I could say otherwise.” You softly nodded as you could feel the tears in your eyes welling over, just in the very moment Negan reached up to stroke over your back, gently while you could tell that he was trying to hold his tears back. “But she can’t just walk in here and play boss..she’s been through a lot and that’s horrible but as soon as she’s back everybody acts as if she’s the center of the universe. Her pain isn’t more important than the one of others”, you let out, sniffling as you could feel yourself falling back into that hole of fear and panic that made you rattled and got you to all worked up again. “Carol has gone through losing a child far more than once, Michonne lost Carl and Rick, and Judith and to grow up without them”, you said, hot tears streaming down your face as it crunched up in pain and your voice grew shakier with every breath,”I’ve seen my damn family being ripped apart all at once, and you had to watch when that goddamn cancer killed Lucille.” You could see Negan nodding, could see a single tear rolling down your face as you sniffled and breathed sharply in, trying to keep your voice up even though the lump in your throat kept on growing. “Nobody’s expecting her to forgive or forget but she doesn’t get to make decisions about you, not after she just fucked off for six years and just came back cause that other community got screwed over”, you said, trying to keep talking in between the shaky breaths that shook through you before your fear took hold of you once for all and you could feel it breaking out of you as the stinging pain made itself a home inside your head. “I’m trying to see things positive but I...I’m scared”, you breathed out, your face twisting in pain as you felt yourself choking up,”I’m so so fucking scared.” You gasped for air as you could feel the thick lump in your throat keep on pressing in on you, felt the skin under your eyes becoming sore from the tears while Negan moved in, stopping his movements over your back to wrap his arm around your waist and pull you closer. “I’m scared that she’ll try to make them turn on you again and hurt you, I’m scared that I she’ll try to kill-”,your voice broke off, stopped by the sobs that started to shake through you again ,”I’m so scared of losing you, I-“ You broke completely off at that point, only able to cry now and let it all out instead of saying anything more. Negan moved in to hold your shaking body closer, grasp our legs to swing them over his lap and bring you into his embrace. You could feel him shaking too, could feel his heavy breaths and the harsh falling and rising of his chest as he cradled you against his body. You buried your head into the curve of his neck, just for once allowing all the pain and fear to flow out of your body with the sobs that erupted through you. You clung onto him as if you’d risk to lose him if you’d let go, sniffling and crying until your head was buzzing while Negan tightened his grasp on you and pressed a soft kiss against your temple. “I won’t let it come that far”, he mumbled against your skin, his voice strained though he did his best to keep it up ,”I got no damn clue how our life’s gonna turn out but I’m a tough motherfucker, right? I won’t die. I even survived those skin freaks.” He let out a shaky chuckle, audibly trying to keep his shit together for you within these moments though you deep down knew that he’d break down too. Your sobs grew quieter again and turned back into sniffles as you held onto him, desperately trying to believe his words before you slowly moved back, just enough to look at him and see the tears that were also burning in his eyes. Sniffling, you moved your hands to cup his face, stroking your thumbs over his wetted cheeks and his stubble while his bleary eyes ran over you and his arms were still keeping you close.  A thick sigh left his lips as he lowered his glance for a moment, gulping thickly before he glimpsed back up at you and shrugged his shoulders. “I don’t know how to feel”, he mumbled, tears still filling his eyes up to the rim. “I feel so fucking odd...some guilt, I-”,he breathed, stopping as he shook his head and the first tears started to fall down his cheeks again,”I had so much time to think about the shit I did back then, how fucking wrong I saw things, I-...I know we’ve been through this when I hit rock bottom in that cell but...” He pressed his lips onto one another before they fell open with another shivering sigh and his teary eyes fell back on you,”There are still moments when I ask myself how you were even able to fall in love with me back then.” You could feel your heart breaking all over again as you looked at your husband, tearing up again as you stroked the tears softly off his cheeks and gulped thickly. “I already saw the man in you that you are right now”, you mumbled, sniffling as Negan’s brows knitted again and it looked like something hit him just in this moment. New tears started to roll down his cheeks as a small whimper fell from his lips and you leaned closer, sure to have him look at you. “You’re sweet, and you’re loving and protective and the world just screwed with you and made you believe that you couldn’t keep others alive without this shit”, you mumbled, brushing your thumbs again over his wetted cheeks,”But you did your best to get your head on straight.” “I just, I know what it’s like to grow up without a Dad and I-”, he mumbled with trembling lips,”I don’t know what to fuckin’ think or feel or-” “That’s okay”,you said as you could hear his voice break off,”You don’t need to put a finger on that.” Negan slowly nodded, lowering his glance for a moment as he let out a shivering breath and wrapped his arms tighter around you. “But there was no way for you to know”, you added, a feeling within you urging you to make sure that he knew that despite everything,”You didn’t deliberately kill a kid’s father. Fuck, you didn’t go for Rick that night because of Carl.” Negan’s glance was still lowered as you gulped and shifted slightly. “I know what happened was shit, I-”,you started, trying to just keep Negan from falling into that hole again that was threatening to eat him up ,”Regardless of what happened that night, you did everything in your power to show that you’re good at heart. You can’t make the past unhappen but you can change the present, and you have.” A sniffling fell from Negan’s lips as he glimpsed back up at you, yet another tear falling down his face as you leaned in closer to him. “You have”, you assured with another nod, leaning in to press a delicate kiss over his lips, allowing it to linger for a moment and let Negan melt against you before you backed just enough off to look at him and saw the doubt that was still filling his face. “I’m not sure if it’s enough, or if it matters-”, he broke off, his face scrunching up again as you let go of his face and instead wrapped your arms around his neck and pulled him into a hug. Just like it had happened with you before, it was breaking out of Negan now and you could feel your emotions overwhelming you all over again as you heard your husband’s sobs that broke your heart and made that stinging pain shoot through you once more. Holding onto each other you sat on the bed, just letting it all out. Just like the both of you actually needed to. During the past time it had nearly always been either one of you trying to be strong for the other as they broke down and now the both of you just held onto each other and allowed yourselves to feel your emotions hit you with all their force.  It hurt, it hurt like hell but deep down you both knew that you needed this to unburden you, to free yourselves at least from the pressure and pain that had been weighing down on you for too long. It didn’t know how long you sat there like that on the bed, for you long you held on to each other until the sobs and whimpers got silent and you were just cuddled up against one another.  Breathing deeply through you felt Negan cradling you against his body, pressing another kiss against your temple, still remaining quiet for a moment before he spoke up, his voice still strained. “Does that offer for a bath still stand?”, he asked, backing slightly away, just enough to look at you and move his hand up to wipe the last bit of remaining wetness of your cheeks,”I think we could use that.” Slowly, you nodded, taking only another moment before you moved your legs off his lap and stood up, groaning slightly as you needed to feel your body adjusting to standing again after remaining in nothing else but an embryo position for the last while. Negan moved up as well, stretching his long limbs before he grasped your hand and moved it up to place a kiss on its back, giving you another loving look before he lead you towards the bathroom.

Hot water quickly started to pelt into the bathtub and filled it up step by step, while Negan moved towards the cabinet by the sinks, to look for some bath oils or bombs before he looked up into the mirrors and let out a strained chuckle. “Fuck we both look puffed up like a baboon’s ass”, he mumbled, looking from the mirror back at you as you let out a small laugh, seeing your mirror image that looked just like you expected. Your eyes were red and puffy, already a little less swollen than they must have been back at the bed but still more than enough to know how long the both of you had sat there and let your emotions take themselves out on you. Negan let out a small groan as he crouched down to move through the stuff in the cabinet, pushing a couple bottles of shampoo to the side before he got a look at the bathing supplies and eventually pulled a bathbomb out that was a wild swirled mix of blue and purple. “This one’s with lavender”, he said, getting back on his feet as he held it up for you,”Think we could use some of that calming shit, huh?” You quickly nodded, very much agreeing with him on this. Your head was still buzzing, clearly exhausted by all the crying and you could need something as calming as the scent of lavender to soothe you a little. Moving back towards you Negan plopped the little ball into the water, quickly seeing it go out in all of its color variety as it spread through the water that kept on streaming into the tub. “Looks like unicorn puke”, Negan joked, nodding towards the lilac water and the bubbles the spread over its surface and got bigger and bigger with every passing moment. “Yeah, it does...doesn’t smell like it tho”, you mumbled with a small chuckle back, slowly freeing yourself from the shroud of exhaustion the while in the bedroom had put on you. Things obviously still weren’t the way you both wanted them, but you felt a little less bottled up and tense, and most importantly less burdened after giving your emotions the valve they needed. ”And it has surprise bubbles. That’s nice”, you added, nodding towards the bubbles that had by now taking in all of the surface while Negan nodded with a crooked grin and started to peel the clothes off his body. “C’mon let’s get outta that shit”, he grumbled as he pulled his shirt over his head and pushed his pants down his hips while you started to do the same, peeling yourself out of your clothes step by step until you could only feel the warm bathroom air covering your skin. Groaning, Negan crouched a little down and leaned over to shut the tap off and dip his hand into the bathwater, testing it before he looked with a small grin over his shoulder “Don’t wanna burn my dick.” “Yeah I can’t have that”, you teased back, bringing the grin on his face to widen a little and bring some warmth back into you after seeing him so devastated all evening long. “It’s good though, we can get in”, he mumbled before he carefully stepped into the water and let out a satisfied groan as soon as he lowered his body into the tub and stretched his hand out for you to join him. Quickly, you took it, moving in and feeling the warmth of the water surrounding your feet before you lowered yourself to sink in between Negan’s legs.  “This is nice”, you mumbled as the warm water and its soothing scent started to surround you and Negan moved in to gently pull you against his wet chest. His arms wrapped around you as he nuzzled his nose into the curve of your neck and breathed deeply out, cradling you softly while it got quiet again and a silence set in. You didn’t break it, didn’t fall back with him into your usual goofiness that you’d have in these moments but instead, just closed your eyes and enjoyed his closeness, his warmth and the hot water.  That was all that you needed right now, a break of everything that was currently happening around you and a relief of the ordeal you’d both put yourselves through this evening, and for once, it felt like you were truly able to focus and think about nothing else but this bath and the man who was holding you in his arms. You just remained like that with him, only feeling him scooping some water over your shoulders and arms from time to time or drawing small, lazy patterns over your skin with his fingers, though mostly, you just laid cuddled up to each other within the water’s warmth.  You enjoyed it, all of it, Negan’s touches, the soothing scent and the hotness of the water until it started to grow cold and you switched it for the warmth of the bed.  Held by Negan, with your back pressed against his chest and his arms wrapped around you you found yourself laying underneath the sheets, feeling him nuzzling his nose against your neck while your fingers softly and lightly brushed over his arm, just as he liked it. You were still soothing one another, still trying to reassure one another that you’d figure things out along the way, step by step no matter what the world would throw at you, just like you had always done. With a sleepy sigh you felt Negan adjusting himself a little, pressing a delicate kiss against the side of your neck before he interrupted the caresses of your fingers and moved his arm up, just enough for his hand to gently grasp your face and make you look at him in the faint moon light that streamed into the room. “We got each other, always”, he mumbled as his thumb softly stroked over your cheek and his drowsy eyes softened as he glanced down at you,”No matter what happens. No matter who tries to fuck with us...we got each other.”

#Negan #twd #the walking dead #negan fic #negan imagine #twd imagine #negan x reader #the walking dead imagine #negan imagines #negan fics #negan angst #twd 10x18 #negan's network #nts #negan series #twd imagines #thewalkingdead-imagines #negan fluff

[vidavalor]

SamBucky and Bucky's often-misunderstood shield-related meltdown at the start of Ep 2.

I want to talk about Bucky and the shield, particularly at the start of TFATWS, and why I think some people might be misinterpreting his obsession with Sam having it a bit. Consider this some different insight from a trauma-trained trauma survivor here...

It's not all about Steve. It's really about the trauma Bucky's been through and was *still going through* as a result of his situation at the start of TFATWS. Let's talk about this and how it pertains to SamBucky, in particular, as well as the characters individually. Meta/analysis ahead...

The first thing you have to realize is that while the shield is technically the signature symbol of Captain America to the world, it really is, symbolically, the signature symbol of Bucky Barnes. Go back to those pre-serum days in the alleys of Brooklyn and Bucky was acting as Steve's literal human shield. Steve would have died ten times over and never lived to be Captain America without Bucky saving him all those times so, symbolically? That dude who winds up with a vibranium arm is the human embodiment of that vibranium disk that keeps the Caps safe. Bucky doesn't exactly *think* of himself this way consciously but *unconsciously*, he affiliates himself with the shield because both are meant to protect men he's known who have become Captain America. Bucky is very clear on what that means to him and why it's important to him and it's not blind nationalism motivating him.

Bucky follows the man, not the symbol. He followed Steve, not Captain America. That doesn't mean that he doesn't believe in the values that Steve-as-Cap stood for but it means that he knows well that what Captain America is is subject to whoever is holding the shield. This is largely the plot of TFATWS-- two guys who are good men, not good soldiers, just as Steve was, wrestle back this symbol of American patriotism from a man who is the opposite-- a good soldier and a not good man. No matter whatever else you believe about their relationship, Bucky believed in Steve being a good man and that being something worthy of supporting and when Bucky looks back on his life by the time he gets to TFATWS, it's the thing in his life that he's most proud of having done. Bucky is patriotic in a positive, realistic sense; he believes in fighting fascism and defending freedom, in those values that he and Steve stood for. As Bucky tells Karli, though, in TFATWS finale, he signed up to fight for something bigger than himself in doing that but feels that he "failed twice".

He is referring to the two times that he was captured by the Nazis that led to him becoming the complete opposite of everything he stood for-- a Russian-controlled, brainwashed, killing machine-- for decades. This is, objectively, not his fault. Some part of Bucky does know and understand this but we know that he's still working through his guilt over it, as that's a large part of his plot in TFATWS. There is a reason why the show gives us Bucky and Sam's stories separately in the first episode and I think that Sam's tends to land with more clarity by the beginning of the second episode whereas Bucky's can take until Episode 3 to really be more fully understood, which results in fans having kind of a skewed perspective on why Bucky won't stop going on about the shield to Sam in Ep 2.

Obviously, Bucky personally thinks that Sam is perfect for it and would and does back him up when he decides to do this but what Bucky is trying to say to Sam is that he's upset that Walker has it for a variety of reasons, some of which are the same as Sam's and one really important one that is different and Sam won't really understand fully until the police station part of the plot. The reason why we had to have an episode of them apart is so that we can understand how they are *both* in their own heads when it comes to what they think the other is saying at the start of the reunion scene in Ep 2.

When Sam says that Bucky isn't going to come in here in his overextended life and tell Sam what his rights are, Bucky blinks because he hadn't meant what he was saying like that-- and Sam realizes that. Two seconds later, they're literally bantering about The Hobbit. The same guy who just flipped on Bucky as much as Bucky was flipping on Sam is, a heartbeat later, beaming with pride at "a sorcerer is a wizard without a hat!" because he's not really upset *at* Bucky, just as Bucky isn't really upset *at Sam*. They're both pissed off about Walker because this is another case of the government having let them both down. This is a Black man from Katrina-wrecked Louisiana and a soldier who was left behind enemy lines for seven decades here. Neither of them are naive but both of them are always at least hopeful and this is now a problem they know they both have to fix and they aren't sure how to do that or what will happen to them when they try. They're *worried* about one another and about the consequences of Walker having the shield, which is why Sam proceeds to tell Bucky exactly where he's going and Bucky follows him on the plane. This is all in *the same scene*... the fighting, the flirting, the mock-bickering they don't mean that they keep up as a kind of front and a bridge to the beginning of their relationship with one another, and the concern and need to protect each other.

So, why then is Bucky still like SAM THE SHIELD WE HAVE TO FIX THIS NOW IM GONNA DIE IF WE DONT NOW NOW NOW? lol Two reasons:

1. What Bucky is proud of having done in his life-- the things that keep him from blowing his brains out most days and are keeping him going in the face of trying to deal with the aftermath of his Winter Soldier years-- is fighting against the fascists during the war and backing up the ultimate anti-fascist symbol in their universe, Captain America. He's proud of his relationship with the good man who wore that uniform and carried that shield. It's less about *Steve himself* than it is about how this is something Bucky was a part of in his life that makes him feel worthy of still being alive and hopeful that he's not a totally terrible person and can find his way back to doing that kind of good again.

and, the bit that Sam doesn't fully understand until Ep 3...

2. The shield is power. That power was just handed over to someone who will abuse it. Bucky is being abused and is, as a result, powerless.

Let me explain this a bit more. Bucky knows it was not Sam's fault that Walker got the shield. It wasn't like Sam handed it over to Walker and Bucky doesn't see it like that. He knows that Sam did what he thought was right and tried to preserve a legacy of what Steve and the shield meant, gave it to the Smithsonian, all that. It isn't Sam's fault that he didn't foresee that Trumpy elements within the government would then turn around and try to warp it that symbolism for their own fascist agenda (paralleling our own real world and, darkly hilariously, the MAGA idiots who do not understand that Captain America is the definition of anti-fascism & has been since its first comics were written.) Bucky agrees that it isn't Sam's fault. It's also noteworthy that Bucky didn't go running to Sam to bitch after Sam gave the shield *to the Smithsonian*, he only shows up upset when *the shield ends up with Walker* and even though he's saying "you had no right", he doesn't mean it and Sam knows that. He rolls his eyes and is like "great, our mutually iffy communication skills are going to make this morning fun." (Note that Sam entirely knows that Bucky doesn't mean that. He shuts it down with the "my rights" comment but he is flirting with him a heartbeat later. He gets what Bucky is trying to convey because he's upset about it all, too.)

We understand why Sam snaps at Bucky with the "my rights" comment and then looks like he regrets it a bit because he knows Bucky doesn't think like that because we just watched Ep 1 and Sam's story and met Sarah and learned about the family business and had the bank scene and we get that Sam's motivation for giving up the shield is, in part, motivated off of his experiences of being Black in America-- that his conflict over love of a country that has continuously failed people like him is a fundamental part of who he is. He's especially sensitive to it at that moment because he's been living in Sarah's world for awhile between missions, he's failed to get that bank loan and feels like he's failing his family and is angry about it and, to add icing to this awful cake, these assholes then turned around and gave the shield to the anti-Steve.

He knows, though, that Bucky wasn't trying to tell him that he wasn't within in his rights to decide what to do with the shield-- the end of Endgame would prove that any day. But because Sam is understandably thinking about his decisions regarding the shield from just his own perspective, he fails to see that Bucky is coming at it from a place of fear that is making him fixate and lash out about it as a result of trauma he's suffered and is still suffering. Bucky, for his part, is not an idiot-- he knows there are plenty of reasons why Sam wouldn't want the shield and that many of them have to do with his experience as a Black man in America. He's limited in thinking about them in that moment because, like how Sam is only coming at the conversation from his perspective and not seeing the full weight of what is behind Bucky's motivation, Bucky is not seeing the full weight of Sam's motivation because he, too, is coming at it from his perspective.

Bucky is nothing short of panicking in this moment and it's not just because it hurts to see some asshole carrying the shield that belonged to their friend and it's not even just the untold amount of damage this could do to America and the world. Bucky is panicking because his already tentative grasp on control over his life is now going to completely unravel as a result of who is in power.

Jump with me to the police station sequence. This is where Sam really begins to understand that Bucky's sense of freedom is far more limited than Sam realized. Everyone has been telling Bucky that he's free, right? He's not brainwashed anymore, he's not a fugitive. He can live in his hometown of Brooklyn. He can do what he wants. Except, we slowly realize this isn't the case. His pardon is only going to be continued if he follows rules put into place by the same people in government who are behind John Walker's ascension to Captain America. His schedule is controlled by mandated therapy appointments with a therapist he cannot choose, who weaponizes his past (threatens to write in a book when he was controlled by one for years) and controls his present (checks his government-issued phone). Sam is completely floored by a police encounter in a black neighborhood that results in *Bucky* being the one in the back of a squad car. It all comes to ahead when Walker arrives and Sam sees the truth of it in a single scene: Walker controls Dr. Raynor and he's the one with the power to get Bucky out.

Not Sam, not the therapist... the asshole with the shield.

The one who then calls Bucky, to his face, an "asset" that is too important to be "tied up", knowing full well about Bucky's history of being a brainwashed, weaponized asset against his will and using language that evokes his torture and imprisonment.

It's at that moment that Sam realizes that Bucky, back at the start of Episode 2, wasn't just pissed off and concerned for the country-- he was completely and utterly terrified of being forced into being something that was out of his control again, in a way that would have been way worse because there was no brainwashing this time. Just a government-- Bucky's *own*-- treating him inhumanely and like a prisoner.

It's why Sam lays it down so hard with Walker in the parking lot after they leave the station in the scene that I privately think is secretly the most romantic one in TFATWS (yeah, even more than holding hands and gazing into each other's eyes in Ep 5)...

He tells Walker to go pound sand in that calmly badass way that Sam can achieve because he knows better than to rock the boat at this point in time but he does it by specifically saying that they won't work with Walker and Lemar because all that government red tape is for Walker to wade through and it wouldn't make sense for them to team up since he and Bucky? "We're free agents."

*We* are *free* agents.

Sam makes it abundantly clear that it's not just him who is a consultant for the military at this point-- not just Sam's own consulting for the Air Force that he's referring to-- but that Bucky, in Sam's mind, is also not within the jurisdiction of the government in any way. It's Sam's way of saying "listen, asshole, if you ever speak to my husband like that again, you won't like at all what comes next" and Walker knows it. It's what prompts the whole "then get out of my way" and the real sense of war between them, of Walker stopping trying to play the Walker version of nice.

It's also a good portion of why Sam is especially soft with Bucky after the police station. That has another layer as well of how he thinks he stepped out of line during Raynor's mandated therapy session but that's another, connected analysis, really... but notice how Sam tries to keep the bitter mocking banter up when Bucky meets him outside with the whole "well, I feel better" and Bucky is just "I feel awful" with complete, if dry, genuineness and Sam backs it off. He realizes Bucky doesn't want to mock-snipe-fight anymore-- he's tired and feels terrible and wants to be real for awhile. So, after Sam tells Walker to go fuck himself, he and Bucky are just walking together and talking about the next move and Sam listens to what Bucky's idea is.

Bucky's idea is Zemo. The reason why Sam goes along without much issue with Bucky's Zemo plans-- from the idea of it in the first place to accepting that Bucky broke him out of prison-- is because Sam recognizes how much Bucky hasn't been able to really own his own life and recovery from all of this ever since Sam has gotten a glimpse at how trapped he's felt. He's letting Bucky drive the car, metaphorically-speaking, because he sees how much Bucky has still been being controlled and is horrified, so he's trying to be supportive and give him room to deal with his trauma. He's treating Bucky like a person and a partner.

Sam also clearly admires the way that Bucky basically said okay, so, if we're doing this, there's really only way through to solving this problem and that's to go meet with the asshole who tortured and mind-raped me and I'm fully willing to go do that. Sam goes along with that, in part, because he's blown away by how brave that is. This is where Sam's experience with trauma personally and as a therapist (NOT BUCKY'S THERAPIST but just as a therapist in general having treated cases like this) really helps him to understand what Bucky needs. He offers support and lets Bucky choose of it what he feels he needs. Notice how he goes with Bucky to the prison and offers to go in with him instead or alongside him and lets Bucky choose what he feels comfortable with. Bucky, for his part, doesn't want Sam near Zemo as much as possible and needs to do the first confronting of Zemo himself. Sam respects that. Obviously, he's not thrilled when Bucky breaks Zemo out of prison but Bucky knows Sam well enough and knows that Sam trusts him enough that he'll get over it because, for the mission's sake, it actually was the only strategic move to play. Sam folds and goes along with it with barely any fuss because he knows and trusts Bucky and Bucky loves that. He's gone from a person being treated as a prisoner of his own government back to the respected partner of a man who loves him and doesn't have an issue with him having a sense of free will in the span of an episode. He feels safer, which empowers him then to go run the gauntlet of other challenges to his trauma throughout the rest of the season.

The point is that, at the beginning of Episode 2 when Sam and Bucky reunite, they're both still stuck in their own traumas as a result of having been separated for a bit but it's very clear that neither has any desire to let any of it get in the way of their relationship with one another. The same scene that has them bicker-fighting has them switch to flirting and then Sam tells Bucky all about the mission he's going on that he won't admit aloud he's now nervous about, especially after realizing there's a faction of the government who screwed him over about Walker, and Bucky immediately follows him on the plane, insisting on coming with him to protect him. That this is all the same scene just shows you from the very beginning of TFATWS that these two love one another and know one another enough to see through to what each other is really trying to say behind whatever scared, angry thing is said in the moment.

What Bucky winds up showing Sam is that the shield is power. It's transformational power. The thing about TFATWS is that if you look at it closely, you notice that these two guys who seem to have wildly different plots are really having the same paralleling issues within those plots. One of those issues is a pervasive sense of feeling powerless to change their situations. For Bucky, that was tied to the government control we discussed. For Sam, it was about dealing with the aftermath of a government that didn't do enough-- his family's struggling business, the legacy of that alongside the legacy of the shield, the weight of feeling like he was pulled between his family and his country all the time. Sam ultimately chose to retire the shield to the Smithsonian because he didn't see it as something entirely of his world. He told Steve that it felt like it was "someone else's" when he was given it and I don't think that feeling left in the six months of trying to decide what to do with it and how to honor his friendship with Steve and Steve's legacy in the process.

Sam was split even during those six months-- partly consulting for the government, for the Air Force he quit before meeting Steve, working through a lot of trauma related to that or trying to. (The Captain Vanzant mission at the start of Ep 1 is him successfully moving through Riley-related trauma, much like how Bucky gets to do similar things with The Winter Soldier in Madripoor later on.) When he's not on a mission, though, he's in Delacroix, with his sister, feeling guilty about the years she's been alone, trying to save their family business whose struggles financially are no doubt rooted in part from the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina years ago and trying to survive that. He's up to his eyeballs in every trauma that he's suffered related to his family-- the losses of his parents, his brother-in-law and I'm willing to guess, his and Sarah's older brother. He's been dumped into a new world where he's a surrogate dad to two young boys he's just really getting to know.

Atop all of that, he's a bit introverted, still full of more anger and trauma than he has been able to fully process, and he's not sure that makes him the best messenger for the ultimate symbol of what America can be. (It actually does but he wasn't sure of that.) I'm also sure that one of his reasons for turning down the shield was, ironically, Bucky himself, even if they weren't really communicating about this. I think that Sam wouldn't give up Bucky for anything, no matter what the nature of their relationship is at any given point, and he felt like Bucky deserved privacy to work through his issues and some peace and quiet after everything and didn't want to shine a spotlight on him by becoming Captain America.

He decided that the shield needed to die with Steve and become part of the museum exhibit and what I love about this is that the setting for all of this at the Smithsonian proves that this is actually impossible-- they leave the shield in the same exhibit that features the still-living, still-trying-to-thrive, human-shield-symbol Bucky Barnes. Instead, the end of the story will go back to the Smithsonian exhibit and see Sam impacting it in a different way by adding Isaiah, making it more balanced and fair and true to a more fully realized sense of history. It's symbolic of recognizing a true past by putting Isaiah into the exhibit but taking back from the exhibit the still present symbol of the shield.

Ultimately, TFATWS give us a love story about two guys who are obsessed with empowering the other one to see themselves the way the other sees them. Taking back the shield from Walker isn't just taking back the sociopolitical power that comes with it-- it's not just impacting the U.S. and the world on that level-- but it's about Sam and Bucky each helping one another to take back their own personal sense of power. Sam helps Bucky get free of the government's grasp enough to really work through his trauma on his own terms. Bucky helps Sam to see that the shield isn't a symbol of the past but a tool for the present and that leaving it behind was just the same as Bucky running in place with his own trauma-- it was giving in to a feeling of powerlessness, instead of claiming what power he had and using it to enact the changes he wants to see in his own life and the world around him.

On the journey through that, they protect one another at every turn and do their best to try to show one another they understand what the other is going through. They aren't perfect at it. Sam gets snappy and impatient and regrets it. Bucky gets snide and angry and regrets it. They know one another well enough to know what to let slide and what the other needs to hear and how to show up for one another. Sam needed Bucky to show up and help him feel less overwhelmed by everything he was dealing with at home. Bucky needed Sam to tell him he sees him as he is and not as an extension of Steve and that he loves him in his own right (which is really what that tough love is all about). What's touching about Sam and Bucky is how much they try for one another, how much effort they put into supporting each other -- how they were thrown together in the world's most traumatic meet-cute and have just been choosing each other, over and over again, ever since.

So, yeah. It's not just Bucky yelling at Sam that he should have taken the shield, it's really about why Bucky's so scared at the idea of a shield that is not with Sam or in the Smithsonian, how that would make him even more of a prisoner of his own government and how that would derail the thing he considers the best thing he's ever done, which is backing up and fighting fascists alongside Steve's Captain America. It's fear and trauma, not racism and intentional aggression, and Sam can recognize that as he's segueing the fight into The Big Three conversation within seconds so I think maybe more of us need to consider it from that perspective, too.

#sambucky #sambucky headcanons #sam wilson #bucky barnes #tfatws #captain america #the winter soldier

[nattikay]

So I saw this post while browsing toa tags the other day. While I don’t think being obsessed with the school mascot automatically makes Toby a furry (though it is funny to joke about lol) since “being a furry” actually just means “being a fan of anthropomorphic animals” and doesn’t necessarily require any form of costuming or interest in such, it did get me thinking, hmmm...if he was a furry, what would his fursona be? 🤔 And from there I started wondering what Jim’s and Claire’s would be as well because y not ¯\_(ツ)_/¯  

BUT WAIT, I hear you say--haven’t you already drawn the trio as werewolves and wolfwalkers etc.? Wouldn’t those be their fursonas??

Well yes....but actually no.

I guess it’s a little hard to explain, but there’s a nuance between “[person] but as an animal” and a proper “fursona”. While a fursona is an animal character used to represent its person, it doesn’t have to physically resemble them at all as you would expect [person]-but-as-[animal] to. For example, if you were to design me but as a cat, you’d probably give it light brown fur and green eyes like I have irl. But my fursona, unlike my human self, actually has blue fur and purple eyes. You can give your fursona matching physical traits to your own if you want to, and some people do, but most use only a pinch of their irl appearance, if any at all.

The choices people make when designing their fursonas vary wildly from “it looks like me irl” to “it looks like who I want to be”  to “I just really like this color scheme” to “this particular color/marking holds deep personal meaning to me” to “this particular pattern represents a particular defining moment in my life” to “idk it looks cool and i vibe with it” etc. etc. etc. Everyone has different reasons of varying depth for the decisions they make in designing their fursona.

Therefore, to design a fursona for Toby etc., it’s less a question of “what would this character look like as [insert species here]?” and more of “how would this character choose to present himself with his own [animal] character?”

And that’s a much trickier game than just transferring a character aesthetic to a new species. ^^; We have to kinda dive into the characters and makes some guesses about how they, if given infinite creative freedom to design an animal avatar with no rules or limits, would choose to present themselves.

So all that said, here’s what I came up with:

Starting with Toby because he’s the one who inspired the post. I think Toby might choose a wolfdog fursona. A lot of people who choose wolves as fursonas consider themselves to be overwhelmingly loyal to their friends, a trait that fits Toby very well. However, while Toby likes to be “cool”, I don’t think he really thinks of himself as much of an “alpha” type--he’s more of a sidekick, and he knows that, and he’s ok with that. He’s the wingman. So what better way to incorporate that than to add dog into the mix? Man’s best friend=Jim’s best friend. Sociable, humorous, and unwaveringly loyal. Wolfdog it is!

With the species decided, we can move on to the design itself.

I can’t imagine any form of Toby in anything other than warm colors. This is extra emphasized by the flamelike patterns on his legs and tail, which both speaks to his desire to be totally awesome-sauce as well as acts as an allusion to his flaming warhammer. It’s fairly common (not universal, but common) for people to give their fursonas a more “ideal” physique than the person actually has as a sort of way to live by proxy physical goals or fantasies they’ve been unable to attain irl for whatever reason. Given that we’ve seen Toby struggle with fitness from time to time, it wouldn’t shock me to see him take this route. His wolfdog self is still relatively short and stocky, but it’s all muscle, babey. 

This fursona is strong, fun, boisterous, and generally just kicks butt. Concentrated awesomesauce flows through his veins. Just don't mess with his friends, or you’ll feel the flames!

.

Moving on to Jim. Jim was the hardest to nail down, and most definitely the hardest to keep my personal biases out of oof. Which I may have failed to do anways because yes, ok, I made my favorite character a blue feline, sue me ¯\_(ツ)_/¯  But hear me out first!

For Jim I ultimately settling on a cheetah/lion hybrid.

Cheetahs, in a way, are sort of the underdogs (er...cats?) of the feline world--at least, in their local ecosystems. They are built wholly for speed, not strength--and as such, just about every other large predator in their environment has them beat when it comes to raw strength. Remind you of a certain Trollhunter? plus the long lanky legs. don’t forget those lol

However, because of this disadvantage, cheetahs...usually surrender. They know it’s not worth it to defend their kill from larger, stronger opponents, so they’ll give it up and just catch something else. This aspect doesn’t quite fit our protective, selfless protagonist all too eager to risk everything to save his loved ones--so a pure cheetah may not be the right choice.

So what animal is brave and protective? That’s where the lion part comes in, of course!

Why not just make him a pure lion? Well, a little similar to making Toby a wolfdog instead of a pure wolf. A straight-up lion feels a little too “chad” for our sweet Jimbo. Too much of a jock. 

Jim has the humble underdog nature of a cheetah as well as the bravery and fierce protective drive of a lion. Cheelion? Leetah? idk, but let’s design it!

Like Toby and warm colors, I don’t think I can possibly associate Jim with any color but blue. While it’s never directly stated, given that we’ve never really seen him wear any other color (with the exception of the Eclipse armor), I think it’s pretty safe to assume that that’s his favorite. Blue sweater, blue jeans, blue shoes, even his backpack and bedsheets are blue. So naturally, his fursona would be predominantly blue as well! Plus some yellowish accents to (somewhat) match the natural colors of his chosen species(s).

I imagine he originally designed the character without horns, but then added them after becoming the Trollhunter, since it became such a major and impactful aspect of his life.

His lion’s mane also continues down his back in imitation of the “mantle” found on baby cheetahs. This youthful feature could subtly represent the fact that he’s been forced to grow up too fast and take on so much responsibility so young--so his fursona can still be young and carefree as long as he likes even while his real self struggles with the weight of the world on his shoulders.

This fursona is relaxed, calm, and confident. He’s not just cool--he’s crispy!

.

Lastly but not leastly, we have Claire. Out of the three, I think Claire was actually the easiest to choose--or at least, I had the clearest idea of what I thought she might go for.

Claire is a bit of an interesting duck, because while she’s shown to be fairly popular at school, she’s definitely far from the stereotype of The Popular Girl™. Yes she’s smart and pretty, but she’s also a little spunky or even a bit quirky--she’s a theatre kid, she’s a huge fan of hard rock band Papa Skull, and while I wouldn’t quite call her “rebellious” per se, she’s certainly willing to bend some rules if she feels the situation calls for it (not telling her parents that she was going to the concert with Steve, literally sneaking into Jim’s basement to try to find out what was up with him, etc).

That said, I think Claire might go for a hyena fursona--something a little out of the box, but not totally out of left field. (she also shows a slight Gurl Power™ streak here and there “the staff was not meant to be wielded by man--” “I am not a man!!!”) and if you know anything about hyenas...well, yeah lol)

I think Claire would lean into her punk-rock “rebellious” side with her fursona design. This character is completely free of the pressure of being the councilwoman’s daughter and having to maintain her mother’s public reputation, and thus allows Claire to express a less restrained side of herself. She has a bold semi-edgy color scheme with bright accents (and some earrings to match her person’s hair clips) while still remaining feminine and (her own brand of) fashionable. 

This fursona is spunky and sassy; she’s spicy and sweet all rolled up into one. She knows what she wants and she’s not afraid to chase it down. She lives her own life and she’s dang proud of it.

.

....sooooo yeah there’s my take on what Toby’s, Jim’s, and Claire’s fursonas could hypothetically be. And I guess since this post was inspired by a joke about Toby’s infatuation with the school mascot, here’s just some quick thoughts on how they might approach fursuiting to end us off:

Jim I don’t see as much of a suiter. He might try it once or twice if given the opportunity, but at the end of the day it’s not really his cup of tea--he’d rather act as the “handler” for his friends, if anything.

Toby and Claire, on the other hand, I could definitely see as suiters. In fact, with her interest in acting, Claire would probably particularly enjoy it--she’d be one of those suiters who really gets into character, absolutely refuses to break the magic publicly (outside of any actual medical emergency), and popular at cons because she just performs so well. 

Toby, meanwhile, would be the more chill type--uses his normal voice in-suit, isn’t really too stressed about “breaking the magic”, just kinda hanging around like he would normally except “look I’m a talking dog, cool right?”. 

also while I was typing this it occurred to be that since Eli is canonically a cosplayer then he could be a fursuiter as well; in his case i imagine he actually made his own suit it’s a protogen and it’s full of little LEDs and other electric gadgets, it’s not the prettiest thing ever as sewing is not his forte but boy did he try!! good for him. good for him

#so anyways I put way too much thought into this...enjoy I guess? #trollhunters #tales of arcadia #toby domzalski #jim lake jr #claire nuñez #furry #my art

[kenzieam]

About Last Night - Chapter Two

@jewels2876  @moonbeambucky  @jeremyrennerfanxxxx123  @iammarylastar@captstefanbrandt  @badassbaker  @pinknerdpanda  @oliviastan17 @mizzzpink​

I know I’m forgetting people, sorry. If you want in, hit me.

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Rating: M

Warnings: Language, general nuttiness, smut, major angst, drama

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FEEDBACK IS LIFE, Y’ALL!

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Lev wakes up the morning after a wild night at the Compound and realizes she hasn’t spent the night alone. The fact that the man unconscious beside her is her most trusted teammate is besides the point, he’s also her best friend and

NOW WHAT THE FUCK DOES SHE DO???

*********************************************************************

Okay, this chapter is just shameless angst and self-pity, mixed in with a healthy dose of Lev’s incredible stupidity and my absolute favourite... cliffhangers.

You’ve been warned....

********************************************************************

Too late, sugar. He’s found someone else.

No. NO.

And there’s nothing you can do about it, her mind sneered.

A cold rush went through Lev and it was all she could do to not leap from the table and run.

She was becoming her mother.

She was letting love cloud her mind, dictate her actions.

No. She wouldn’t give in, she was stronger than that, baptized by the blood of the damned, literally.

If asked later how she managed to stay seated at the table and remain semi-functional, Lev wouldn’t be able to say. She’d become talented in hiding her emotions, stonewalling the therapist her father briefly tried sending her to, and disguising the true depths of her rage and sorrow as she grew from a teenager to hot-headed adult, but even she couldn’t kid herself into thinking she was successfully acting tonight.

Conversation continued without her, for if anyone noticed her discomfiture, they kindly chose to ignore it, not bringing up the fact that every single person at the table, with the exception of Bucky, Lev and Lilly, had fully expected and had in reality placed bets with each other on when their two friends would finally wake up to the attraction between them, knowing that something had gone down after the party, but not what.

Bucky’s new woman was questioned relentlessly, the guise friendly inquiry, covert ‘what the fuck, man?’ glances sent Bucky’s way whenever her attention was diverted with answering and he glowered back defiantly, refusing, with the exception of one scorching glance, loaded with too many emotions to sort out, to look at Lev.

And she felt her skin tingle every time he touched Lilly, rested his arm on her shoulders, brushed her cheek or tucked some of her long blonde hair behind her ear. If he was acting he was doing a hell of a job, there seemed to be a genuine draw between them, especially in the way Lilly would gaze at him, like he’d hung the fucking moon and, as soon as it was polite, Lev excused herself, the few bites of dessert she’d managed to choke down sour in her stomach.

Why the hell was she so upset? SHE’D WANTED THIS! SHE’D WANTED TO MAINTAIN DISTANCE, but not like this, anything but this.

And she hadn’t truly wanted distance, not really, not in the deepest parts of her heart. Once the static had cleared in her head, she’d heard the message loud and clear. Love was dangerous, love was terrifying and made fools of us all, but she would have been safe with Bucky. He wouldn’t have hurt her; he wouldn’t have let her fall. He wouldn’t have passed off lust as love and then thrown her away, driving her to insanity in the form of hysterical suicide.

He would have treasured her the way she always secretly wished to be and, at the first offering of that, she’d slashed with razor claws, wounding him perhaps permanently.

She wished for more Mead, but there was none and she instead spent the night cross-legged on the floor of her quarters, headphones secured to her ears, blasting her most angry and rage-filled death metal playlists, hoping to drown out the tears.

She shouldn’t have left her room the next morning, she wasn’t fucking hungry anyway. But she had, and the punishment had been swift and severe. Giggles preceded her arrival in the kitchen and, if she’d been listening instead of continuing to stew, she would have recognized the deep answering chuckles.

There had only been a few times in Lev’s life when she could honestly say she was breathless with shock. The first had been with her mother, slipping and sliding in her lifeblood as the woman screamed and slashed even more at her shredded forearms; the second had been when Lev had awoke disoriented under blinding lights, agony like hellfire crawling through her veins, a multitude of strange, lab-coat wearing men standing dispassionately above her, the sudden and cold realization that she’d been taken and changed, that her issues had blinded her to life’s bigger dangers and she’d fallen in with the wrong crowd, selected by HYDRA for an experimental program due to her lack of family and the extremely large chip on her shoulder and she was never going to be the same.

The third was when she had been discovered by accident and rescued by the team, half-mad in that underground bunker; her shadowy surroundings suddenly lit up and blinding her like the sun, fevered confusion and disorientation, dangerous-looking strangers all around her, their grunts of pain and surprise when she fought their hands, struggled to understand a language she’d not heard in so long. Fear and animal instinct to defend had taken over, her enhanced body too much for all but Steve and Bucky to restrain and her first real memories of freedom from that hellish cell where she’d languished, cold and slowly going insane had been of strong arms, gentle hands stroking her face and tangled hair, masculine spice and a deep, soothing voice, speaking words she no longer recognized but in a tone that calmed her nonetheless.

The forth, and final time was now, when she turned the corner into the kitchen and stopped dead, like she’d been slapped by the very hand that was currently caressing Lilly’s breast through her half-buttoned shirt, a shirt Lev recognized instantly, even in her shock, as the one she’d bought Bucky months ago because she’d loved how it matched his eyes. Lilly was gasping and mewling, their bodies moving in a sensual, unmistakable rhythm, Bucky’s eyes flaring with heat as they rolled upwards when her lips, hidden by her face tucked into his throat, nibbled in return for his touch and it was devastatingly obvious what they’d spent the night doing, what Lev had probably unintentionally spared herself from hearing all through the dark hours by keeping her headphones on.

What they were still doing.

Lev could smell it on them and there was no way two bodies could twine so close together if they weren’t already connected in the most visceral and primal way possible. His hand fell from Lilly’s breast, but only to drop to her hip, curling around the curve and pulling her closer still, lifting her thigh to hook around his. His eyes raised finally to Lev’s, banked lust making them look like a beast’s eyes, and his jaw clenched, teeth baring as he growled harshly. Lilly moaned as he turned his head to bite at her throat, eyes staying locked on Lev’s almost defiantly, returning the nips with an intensity that made Lilly’s hips roll against his, made her cling even tighter to his body and ratcheting up the sexual heat that was already so thick between them. Seeing Lev seemed to push him to move harder and faster, as if with each heavy thrust of his hips he was snarling at her ‘like what you see? This could have been you.’

Bucky was fucking her against the counter, her ass smacking the edge while he glared coldly over her shoulder, eyes locked with Lev’s, each heavy grunt as he thrust further driving the nail deeper into her heart and something inside her, something that cracked as she’d watched her mother die and had only continued to yawn wider with each successive hit in her life, shattered completely.

*************************************************************************************   “So, you’re volunteering to take this mission? The one I haven’t been able to bribe, cajole or threaten anyone else to take on?” Tony raised a brow at Lev, half his attention still directed to a tablet in his hand, feet resting on the edge of his desk, chair tilted back.

“Yes.” Lev waited until Stark reluctantly pulled his eyes from the screen and focussed fully on her. Understanding softened the quizzical lines on his forehead.

“You know, kid… what Barnes is doing, bringing that new girl around-”

“Doesn’t matter, he can fuck whomever he wants.”

“Yeah, but after that party we all figured you two would finally-”

“You know… that shit would have been a little more helpful before all of this. I didn’t realize Bucky felt that way, I didn’t realize I felt that way.”

“Is that why you pushed him away? According to Cap you broke his heart.”

Lev flinched. “I didn’t push him away, okay? I was scared shitless and thought we should stay friends.”

“A man doesn’t look at someone the way Barnes looked at you, if they just want to stay friends.”

And the hits just kept coming. “Again, might have been a little more helpful to me before.”

“Why were you so scared?” Tony changed subjects, tilting his head. “I mean, the Manchurian Candidate isn’t my cup of tea, but he’s never hurt you, even when you were trying so hard to kill all of us in that bunker; if anything, he’d be like a pain in the ass puppy, always loyal and trying to get in your lap.” Understanding dawned. “This have something to do with your parents? You told me their divorce was ugly.”

And then some.

“Nah, their divorce was the standard train wreck, it was what came after; when the guy left her, she uh…. Well, she didn’t take it well.”

Tony arched a brow, waiting patiently and Lev was so tired of holding the weight of her burdened past by herself she gave in and opened her figurative vein.

“When uh…. When the new guy took off, she…. I found her after school one day, blood everywhere and the razor still in her hands. I was trying everything I could to stop the bleeding, to stop her, but all she wanted to do was keep cutting and keep screaming into the phone at the guy, over and over again, ‘is this what you wanted? Are you happy now?’. She… she died in my arms, her last words for him, still yelling at him. I’m not even sure if she knew I was there.”

Tony stared, stunned silent, which was quite a feat for him, and Lev swallowed uncomfortably. She’d not told anyone the whole story, not even her dad or the therapist and she felt her adrenaline beginning to rise as the spectres from her past rattled their chains and threatened to break free again.

“Shit… Lev. You need to talk to someone about that-”

“I need to go on this mission.”

“You need help.”

“The mission.” Lev repeated stubbornly. “Just the mission, Tony, okay? If my mother’s suicide taught me anything, it’s that love is the most dangerous fucking thing out there and if I hadn’t learned it then I sure as fuck did when Bucky showed up with that fucking supermodel. That’s all the help I need. Let me get out of here, clear my head and still be fucking useful as I do it. Please?”

Tony gazed at her, such pain and sympathy in his eyes that Lev was forced to look away, chew hard on her lip to keep from breaking down.

“Okay,” he finally murmured. “I’ll send you out on this one but we’re in on this together, you and me, got it?”

Lev squinted at him, not understanding.

“I’m not going to tell anyone else, but you and I are going to talk, regularly, while you’re out there. I’m keeping an eye on you, kid and when you get back… you gotta talk to someone trained in this, okay? That’s not anything anyone should have to carry alone.”

Lev snorted, trying to disguise how touched she was with more sarcasm. “I’m not carrying it alone; it can haunt your nightmares now too.”

A faint smile, but Tony’s eyes stayed troubled.

“Okay,” Lev conceded. “Now can I go?”

Tony nodded slowly. “Yeah, I got everything set up, if you’re ready now, let’s go.”

“I’m ready now.”

***********************************************************************************       Lev exhaled slowly, fighting the urge to doodle on the notebook in front of her and closed her eyes until the itch passed, then opened them again, squinting as she peered through the scope mounted in front of her.

Forty-three days now of reconnaissance, observation, stakeout…. Boring.

Although it had been in the back of Lev’s mind as the reason why no one else wanted to take this mission, meaning Tony had been about a day away from volun-telling someone they were going, it hadn’t truly hit her until now how epically draining this was.

She had nothing but time now, to think, to analyze and consider.

The communication was iffy, limited, hence the need for someone to stay here and watch the comings and goings of the suspected HYDRA affiliate; setting up remote surveillance simply wasn’t possible, nor feasible to complete the set-up of without drawing suspicion. And rotating teams wasn’t ideal either, so Lev was stuck here, admittedly exactly where she’d asked to be, and she was getting a lot of thinking done.

She had been wrong to push Bucky away, that thought was clear as crystal now after weeks of distilling in her mind while she observed and noted each movement of her quarry.

Even if she’d genuinely wanted to simply stay friends with him, wrong, she had gone about that completely ass-backwards too. There had been happiness in his eyes that morning, the smile on his face hopeful, and she’d squashed it like a bug, squashed his heart like a bug, according to Steve; no wonder he’d returned her pain so cruelly, so harshly. He’d been open and vulnerable in front of her, thinking they’d turned some corner in their relationship, holding out his heart to her that morning and she’d clumsily slapped it to the floor, stomped on with her curt announcement that the magic that had passed between them the night before was a mistake.

God, did she wish she could go back in time.

She’d slap her past self silly in that bathroom, grab her shoulders and order her to not be so fucking stupid and scared, to be the fucking hero she played at being and take that leap of faith, knowing Bucky had already taken the leap and was waiting to catch her on the other side.

It’s too late now, her inner voice whispered.

“Shut up.” She hissed back.

9:32 am – subject takes out the garbage…

************************************************************************************     “So, how’s it going?” Tony asked from the monitor, head tilted to the side. The connection wasn’t the greatest, static crawling across the screen and pulling at his outline, but his voice came through clearly enough.

“I’m bored.”

He snorted, shaking his head. “Dude, why do you think everyone else passed?”

“I know, I know, it’s just…”

“Too much time to think?” Tony offered quietly.

Lev exhaled heavily. “Yeah.”

“I know all about that.” Tony continued softly. Usually at this point he would lead Lev into talking about her issues, not start baring his own demons.

“You too?” Understanding hit her like a truck. “Wait, your parents too, right? I forgot about that.”

Tony nodded. “Yeah, I didn’t walk in on my mother having a psychotic break, but they’re both gone.”

“And Bucky…” she couldn’t finish, shocked that she’d managed to put away this detail and forget it for so long.

“No, The Winter Soldier.” Tony clarified. “I’ve made my peace with that, HYDRA killed my parents, not that lovesick sap I see dragging his sorry ass around the compound all day.”

“Wait, what? Dragging his ass around? He’s got Lilly now.”

“Not anymore. Not sure what happened, but she left a couple weeks ago… not long after you took off, actually.”

“Huh.” Lev pondered this, her confusion deepening. What the hell did that mean? Was it just no fun fucking his girlfriend anymore without Lev standing there watching? “And you just decided to mention it now?”

Tony smiled faintly. “Today’s the first time you’ve even mentioned his name too, kid.”

“Touché…. Wait, you just needed me to stay here and finish the job!”

“Why? Would hearing about Lilly leaving make you want to come back and talk to the guy?” Tony challenged evenly; brow raised.

Shit… it did, didn’t it? That’s exactly what she was steamed about, wasting her time here instead of falling on her knees in front of Bucky and begging for his forgiveness. Still, she hated to let Tony know he was right, he could be such an arrogant prick sometimes. “So. What if it did?”

Tony snorted again, chuckling. “You two, Jesus Christ… Still, I’d appreciate if you could stay a bit longer out there.”

“You owe me, Stark.”

“I do? You volunteered, and now you’re trying to bail? Tough, kid.”

Lev stuck out her tongue, chafing mildly at this responsible adult nonsense.

“Brat,” Tony commented mildly. “Another week, Lev. Please?”

“It’s good to hear you say please.”

“It’ll be even better if you stay there like I asked and then come back and talk to that therapist I set up for you.”

Lev clenched her teeth, debating her response. Knee-jerk told her snarl and tell Tony off, to mind his own business, she’d made all sorts of progress just talking with him, but a deeper part of her knew it was time, she needed to confront and drain this wound, she couldn’t let it’s poison taint her life any further. “Yeah, okay.”

“Don’t sound so damn happy. I’m paying top dollar to keep the best grief counselor on the East Coast on retainer.”

“Thanks.” Lev injected true appreciation in her tone and his expression softened.

“Brat.” He repeated fondly. “I gotta go, talk to you in a couple of days, alright?”

“Yeah,” Lev replied softly, offering a real smile.

*************************************************************************************    Lev tried not to hurry, jostle the pack on her back and maybe make too much noise. Nobody was following her, that much she was sure of, but she’d managed over fifty days of surveillance without being discovered and didn’t want to disrupt her streak. Nearing two months in a depressing tenement in a dying Eastern European town had been all sorts of boring, staring out through faded old curtains to the building across the narrow alley, but she’d managed and now it was time to go home. Tony was waiting, with a quinjet, at a site a dozen miles out and Lev was eager to see the man again.

He’d passed on her messages to the team, for Lev had left so furtively and quickly that she hadn’t told anyone else, not even Steve, and he’d relayed their messages back due to the constraints in their communications, but she was eager to see Stark, hell, anyone, in the flesh again. There was only so many games of Solitaire you could play on a dingy tabletop as you kept one eye on the window and Lev had discovered that limit long ago.

But… Bucky.

She still hadn’t spoken to him.

She’d not told him she was leaving; hell, he probably hadn’t even pulled out of Lilly yet by the time she was heading for the jet and there’d been no message from him in the ones Stark had relayed, not that Lev had expected any.

He probably hoped she didn’t come back, and a part of Lev was tempted. But no, she was a part of the Avengers, whether he liked it or not, and she could function as a member of said team even if she no longer had any meaningful contact with the Winter Soldier again. She’d have to figure out a new strategy for when her nightmares tore her from sleep and there would be no more Bucky to save her, as well as what she was going to do now when his nightmares echoed down the halls and she wanted to run to comfort him, but that could be solved easily enough. She could switch floors, sleep with earplugs or just plain gut it out, go cold turkey until the impulses faded, until Steve or Sam or, most likely, nobody’s presence took the place of comfort and support when their mutual nightmares grew to be too much in the dark.

But she’d miss the softness of his voice in the dark as her heart raced, miss the gentle way his hand would stroke across her forehead, thumb rubbing at her cheekbone; his bright, earnest eyes locked on hers as he talked her down, helped her match her gasping breaths to his steady ones.

She’d miss the way he’d cling to her when he was trapped in his own hells. The faint tremble in his massive frame that would start to cease, begin to relax as soon as he sensed her touch, the way his arms would band around her and hold her close, his body wrapped around hers like a shield but his face buried in her neck like a child’s while he grounded himself again. The way he’d murmur her name over and over again like a mantra, soothing himself back to sleep or, more likely, to the faint drowsy, dreamy, pillow talk stage, laying next to each other for hours as night died, talking about everything and anything that seemed too fragile to hold up and not shrivel under day’s harsh glare.

How had she thrown all that away? How had she not seen what everyone else apparently had? Actual physical love and sex had been about the last boundary they’d had, they’d been intimate and close in every other way possible and yet Lev had deluded herself into thinking, no… into telling herself stubbornly, that it was only friendship, that the way she’d sometimes catch Bucky gazing at her were nothing, only projections of the way she sometimes would watch him.

What a fucking idiot.

Christ, she was going to take a hellacious long bath when she got back to the Compound and compose a doozy of an apology to match her depths of remorse.

She glanced at her GPS, saw the jet was mere dozens of feet away now, in a clearing so well hidden she, even so close, still couldn’t see and picked up her pace. Hopefully, Tony brought some of those Cow Tales caramels she was such a whore for like she’d asked.

Pushing through the last break of trees, Lev paused, just admiring for a moment the stark (tee hee) splendour of the sleek jet amidst the woods. With a muted hiss, the ramp descended, and Lev turned her attention to the pilot.

“Tony-” her voice died in her throat.

#bucky #bucky barne #bucky barnes fanfiction #bucky barnes fanfic #bucky barnes angst #au bucky #au bucky barnes #au bucky barnes fanfiction #au bucky barnes fanfic #au bucky barnes angst #bucky and lev #bucky and levi #bucky barnes drama #bucky barnes romance #bucky the morning after #bucky mixed signals

[sophielovesbarnes]

Longing

Pairing: Bucky Barnes x Reader

Warnings: Angst and a bit of smut

Request: Hiya 😊 I'd love to request something with Bucky please! When they held him captive at Hydra he saw another prisoner (the reader) but he was still in the WS mindset, like not really caring. But once he escaped he started to remember her and he goes back to save her because he felt somethingforher? If that makes any sense lol thank you so much in advance ❤

Author note: Hey! I’m so sorry this took so long, but here it is, i hope you enjoy it,let me know what you think.

Requests are open. 

It’s the fifth night in a row he gets woken up by the same nightmare. He is back in Hydra. He’s on the chair, and his nightmare is filled with screams. The thing is that the screams he listens to are not his, they are someone else’s. He recognizes the screams; he knows he has heard them before, every time he replays them in his mind the memory of y/e/c eyes and soft y/s/c skin floods his mind.

Suddenly he finds himself longing for someone he barely remembers, and it steals all his concentration, he can’t focus, he can’t eat, or sleep, or aim, and it is driving him crazy.

How can he feel something so intense for someone he doesn’t know? 

He goes to the kitchen because he knows for a fact that he won’t be able to get any more sleep, so he drinks, because he hopes that vodka will numb the way he feels his chest rips apart, leaving a bleeding hole behind.

He has to find her; she has got to be real.

“I’m starting to believe you don’t sleep man.” Sam takes the bottle from his hands and stares at him. “Isn’t it a bit early to drink?”

Bucky snatches the bottle back from his hands and gives him a death glare.

“Piss off, shouldn’t you be sleeping?”

“We could ask you the same thing.” Steve adds.

He hesitates but after a few moments he gets to the decision that speaking about it may make things better.

“Can’t sleep.” Steve sits next to him and looks at him with attention. “I keep having the same nightmare, I’m with Hydra and I hear a girl scream, they are torturing her and I can’t do anything about it, and I want to do something, I really do, but I can’t.”

“I just keep thinking about her...” He takes a sip straight from the bottle and then continues. “What if she is real? What if she is not a product of my mind?”

“I hear you man, but we have wiped out every single Hydra facility, there was no girl.” 

“Yeah, I know.” He puts the bottle down, and he rubs his face. “It’s just, she feels so real.”

“Then let’s look for her, maybe she escaped, I mean, you made it out, maybe she did as well.” Steve adds.

“How do we find her?” 

“Same way we found you, we look into their files, we ask around, we find a trail and find her, what do you know about her? Name, age, anything?”

“No, I don’t remember anything, I remember her face, her eyes, but no name.”

“We’ll find a way, Buck, we will.” 

***

Your name comes to his mind one night, and it hits him the same way that waves hit rocks in the open ocean, it drains all the air from his lungs and leaves him heaving desperately trying to recover himself from it.

Y/N Y/L/N.

It echoes in his mind, over and over, the gale of emotions hitting him over and over again mercilessly.

Y/N Y/L/N. 

Y/N Y/L/N.

He remembers your name, he remembers everything, he remembers how fiercely you fought every day, how you never gave up, he remembers your y/e/c eyes filled with fear every time they dragged you to the chair, he remembers how you looked at him, begging for help, he remembers how he did nothing and just stood there watching them torture you. 

He remembers everything, and he has got to find you.

He will find you. 

****

The hardest thing of being a runaway is not being able to have a home, the idea of having strings and a place to call home felt unreachable, every day you are haunted with the memory of soft blue eyes, torturing chairs and echoing screams.

You are filled with rage; they stole your home, your childhood, your innocence; Hydra took everything from you, and you were going to make them pay.

You are a mutant, with the ability to heal any wound and learn everything about any person with just touching them, that’s why they took you when you were only ten.

For years Hydra used your gifts to get information from their enemies and heal the Winter Soldier after his missions.

He was the one who took you away from your home; the Winter Soldier, but your hate has never been directed towards him, you knew his story, you knew they took as much from him as they took from you. 

For some reason you always felt attracted to him, like a magnetic force was calling you, as the years passed your attraction did nothing but grow; until he disappeared after the Triskelion incident, leaving you alone and heartbroken.  

And you stayed there, until the base where you were being held captive was attacked, giving you the chance of escaping, while everyone; including the Maximoff twins, were too busy defending the base you were able to take down the few guards that stayed behind and finally find your freedom. 

It was easy to find your way out of Sokovia, and after that you never stopped running, not even when the Earth was attacked by aliens again, not even when half of the world was turned to dust. 

But then one day people started to come back, families were reunited and the earth seemed to go back to normal, which meant that the last bits of Hydra that were scattered around the world were back as well. 

So you went back to running, changing looks, country and identity every couple months, that seemed to become a routine until one day you saw him on TV, the White Wolf, the companion of the new Captain America, Sam Wilson.

It was him.

The Winter Soldier. 

So he made it out, he is free now, and the fact that he was willing to show himself on open TV meant one thing and one thing only, every single last bit of Hydra was taken down and he had broken down their programming, gaining himself back.

You grabbed your backpack and filled it with the few things you had, getting ready to leave yet another city, you throw the bag over your shoulders and leave the tiny apartment with a mission on your mind.

You had to find James Buchanan Barnes.

***

Since he remembered your name he hasn’t been able to take you out of his mind; out of the sudden he finds himself drowning in your memory, kind eyes, soft skin and plump lips, one day it hits him.

He is in love with you.

He is desperately and irrevocably in love with a woman he barely remembers; he is in love with a ghost and he is willing to do anything to find you.

All they have been able to find is a file, left behind on a Hydra base, there isn’t much, just a log of your reaction to the chair and a picture of you, that he cherishes as his most valuable possession. Every single system Stark owns is now programmed to locate you, Stark created an algorithm (whatever that is) that is supposed to catch any move you make. 

When that happened he would get alerted of your location and finally he would be able to find you.

He was scared of course. 

After all, he was the one who kidnapped you, he stood there watching them torture you, he abandoned Hydra without ever doing anything to rescue you.

So with all of that, what if you hated him? 

Of course you would be entitled to do so, but he knew he wouldn’t stand the hate in your eyes; so he makes a decision, when they find you he won’t do anything to approach you, he just wants to know that you are alive, safe and sound, that will be enough.

“You know that staring at the screen won’t make it work faster, right?” His train of thought is interrupted by the voice of his best friend, he gives a huff in response without taking his eyes away from the monitor. “When was the last time you slept?”

“I don’t know, Tuesday?” He answers absentmindedly.

“Buck, it’s Friday, you have got to stop, this isn’t healthy.”

“I have to find her Steve, I hurt her so bad, and I just need to make sure she's fine.”

“We don’t even know if she is still…”

“If she is still what? Say it Steve.”

“We don’t even know if she is still alive, you were in Hydra for 70 years Bucky, for all we know she could be long gone.” 

“Until the opposite is proven, she is alive, I know she is, I can feel it.”

“Okay Buck.” Steve says softly. “We’ll keep looking.” 

“Captain Rogers.” Announces a robotic voice that Bucky has learnt to identify as F.R.I.D.A.Y. “Thor, Bruce and the Maximoff twins are back from their mission.”  

“Thank you F.R.I.D.A.Y. any updates on the search?”

“Nothing yet, I will inform you as soon as there is a match.” 

Bucky barely registers the interaction, he is lost in your eyes, they scanned the picture and it is now displayed on real size on the screen, he longs to touch you, to trace your soft cheeks and to join his lips with yours. 

“That’s Y/N.” That single comment snaps him out of his train of thought, he turns around and sees Wanda standing on the door. “Why are you looking for her?” 

“Wait, you know her?” He jumps out of the chair and goes to her. “Wanda?

“Yeah I do, she was kept on the Sokovia base with us, she used to heal us after Hydra’s experiments.” Wanda replies. “She was the only kind person in there.”

“How long ago was that?” 

“I’m not sure, but she was still there when Steve and the rest of the team took down the base.”

“Steve?” He asks, with desperation in his voice. 

“We checked the base Buck, she wasn’t there.” 

“Are you sure, maybe they took her with them?” His heart is racing so fast he feels it might escape his chest. “Maybe she was still there and you didn’t see her?” 

“There was no one there Buck, I promise, but this is good, it gives us a place to start.” 

“We have to go there, there might be a clue or something that can lead us to her.”

“Let’s go then.” 

Fifteen minutes later he is in the Quinjet, together with Sam, Steve, the twins and Natasha. He can barely breath and he is so nervous he feels he might throw up, this is the first real clue they have, and even though he is trying to stay positive his mind can’t help but wander around the worst case scenario. 

You could be dead.

He shoves the thought away and takes a deep breath. 

Soon he will see you. 

***

After a lot of meditation you make a decision you are probably going to regret.

You are going to the Avengers compound.

It’s the first place that comes to your mind, if James is working with Captain America again he has got to be there, or at least a clue of him.

It’s a risk of course, you know for a fact that they have very tight security protocols, especially after Thanos’ attack, number two, they probably relate you as an Hydra agent and it can be troublesome to prove the opposite.

You know that it’s your best shot to find him, even if you are not sure if he wants to see you.

But right now your main concern was getting there, without a passport or any kind of document to prove your identity there was no way you could get out of the country, leaving Sokovia wasn’t hard, you had left during the raid and hotwired a car, you spent the next few years traveling from one place to other, eventually your path lead you to Spain, once you were there it became easy to blend in.

But getting out of Spain was a complete different issue. 

First things first, you had to get documents, you also had to plan your escape in a way that went unnoticed by Hydra or any other organization that had you as a target. With the Sokovia Accords the mere fact of being a mutant became a dangerous situation. 

Getting the documents wouldn’t be so hard, you knew that Rodrigo; a habitual customer of the coffee shop you worked on, who later became one of your only friends; had a money laundry business, and that he was well connected with people that could make excellent forgeries, the tricky part would be getting him to trust you enough to tell you. 

But he was the only person you knew that might have that kind of connection, so you had to take the risk. 

So the next day you go to work determined to talk to him, at ten o’clock in the morning he crosses the door and orders his usual cappuccino and a spanish ham tapa. 

“Okay Y/N, it’s now or never.” You whisper to yourself and put a fake smile on your face. 

“Buenos días Rodrigo.” Good morning Rodrigo. You ask with an almost perfect spanish accent.

“Hola Lidia, ¿como estais?” Good morning Lidia, how are you? Lidia was the name you had chosen as an alias, and it was still hard to get used to it.

“No tan bien, he tenido algunos problemas.”  Not so well, I have a problem.

“Lamento mucho oír eso, sabéis que podes contar conmigo para lo que sea.” I’m sorry to hear that, you know you can count on me for anything. 

“De hecho, eso quería hablar contigo, quería pedirte un favor.” Actually, I wanted to talk about it with you.  You sit on the chair in front of him and sigh.

“Lo que sea.” Anything 

“Necesito salir del país, mi abuela se encuentra muy mal.” I need to get out of the country, my grandma is very sick

“¿Necesitas dinero?” Do you need money?

“No, no es eso.” No, it’s not that.

“¿Entonces?” Then?

“Lo que sucede es que no tengo papeles, ni pasaporte, ni visa, ni nada, todo lo he perdido cuando salí de Sokovia.” The thing is that I have no papers, no passport, or visa, or anything, I lost everything when I left Sokovia. His face hardens and he looks away. “¿Conocéis a alguien que pueda ayudarme?” Do you know anyone who can help me?

“No se que te hace pensar que tengo ese tipo de contactos Lidia.” I don’t know what makes you believe I have that kind of connection Lidia. He says with annoyance.

“Por favor Rodrigo, te lo ruego, te juro que no se lo diré a nadie.” Please Rodrigo, I swear I won’t tell anyone.  You beg, he takes his keys and stands up. “Por favor.” Please

“Busca a Gary Rydell, estará en España por poco tiempo, se hospeda en el Royal Hideaway, si alguien puede ayudarte es él, decidle que vais de mi parte.” Find Gary Rydell, he will be in Spain for a couple days, he is staying at the Royal Hideaway if anyone can help you is him, tell him I sent you.

“Gracias Rodrigo.” Thank you Rodrigo.

“¿Y Lidia?” And Lidia?

“¿Si?” Yes?

“Ni una palabra de esto con nadie.” Not a single word of this to anyone. He takes the last sip of his cappuccino and leaves.

That very same day you are at the hotel he indicated, based on his memories Gary Rydell was a tall white man with the bluest eyes you had ever seen, you recognize him walking by the side of the pool, you decide that a straight approach is your best option, you walk towards him and he smiles. 

“Well hello.”

“Hi.” You smile back and run your fingers through your hair. “You are Gary Rydell.”

“That I am, you seem to know my name but I don’t know yours.”

“Lidia Aguilar.”

“Lidia, can I buy you a drink?”

“Sure.” You both go to the bar and order straight scotch for both of you.

“So, Lidia, what can I do for you?.”

“I have a problem, Rodrigo Ballesteros said that you are the right man to help me.”

“Straight to business, I like it, how can I help you?”

 “I need to go to the United States, but I don’t have any paperwork, let’s just say that Lidia is just a couple of years old.”

He takes a sip from his glass and gives you a coy smile.

“What you are asking for can be tricky to get, you need an American passport and ID and those aren’t easy to get.”

“I am ready to pay anything it takes.”

“It would be ten grand.”

“Dollars?”

“Euros baby girl.” He corrects, you knew it would be expensive, but thanks to an Hydra account you had managed to hack, money wouldn’t be an issue. 

“Alright, you got it.”

“But I’m afraid we might need to kill Lidia, it’s easier to get what you want with a name that already exists.” 

“Okay, that’s fine.” 

“Very good Lidia, we have a deal.”

Two weeks later you have assumed a new identity, Gary managed to get one that had your real name, you are now Y/N Talbot, a Californian girl that spent the last few years traveling. You have a one way plane ticket to New York. 

****

The trip to Sokovia ended up being useless, there was no trail of you.

Wanda had managed to find the cage where you were kept in, there was a chair, similar to the one they used on him, the cell was made of three concrete walls and a glass one to keep you monitored. 

Being this close to Hydra made him want to throw up.

The worst part was that he had hit yet another dead end, he was back to square one. 

On the way back to New York, Bucky stays silent, even with Steve’s and Sam’s effort to cheer him up and make him speak. 

When they get to the compound he goes straight to the room where they had all the monitors and a glass board where he had pinned all the clues they had on you and starts to take it all down.

“Buck, what are you doing?” Steve asks with concern.

“This is pointless, we will never find her!” He knocks the board down and it shatters when it touches the floor. 

“You can’t give up.”

“We have been trying to find her for almost six months and we have nothing! We are as close to her as we were at the beginning!”

“Sergeant Barnes.” Says a robotic voice. “There is a match on Y/N Y/L/N.”

“What? Where?” Then an image is displayed on the screen. 

And it’s like he can breathe for the first time in years, you are alive, safe and sound, and more beautiful than he remembered, his memories never did justice to the real you.

He is so excited to see you, that it takes him a while to realize where you are. 

You are on the entrance of the compound. 

****

When you see him a part of you it’s brought back to life, like the final piece of the puzzle finally fell to place. 

He walks slowly towards you, like he is afraid of something. 

You close the distance and look him in the eyes, and then you know it. That you love him and you would do anything for him.

“It’s you.” 

Author note: I hope you guys liked it, let me know if you want a part two 

#bucky barnes #bucky barnes x reader #bucky x reader #bucky x you #james buchanan barnes #james buchanan barnes x reader #marvel fanfiction #marvel x reader #bucky barnes x y/n #marvel x you

[jacob-harger]

“Devoid of any commitment to liberty”: How the CRG’s condemnation of the PM’s COVID-19 policy misses the point

Liberty. It’s a word we hear a lot in politics, usually in the context of it being defended from some perceived threat, and rarely with regards to a situation where it really is under attack. It’s beyond ironic that in the week that saw the House of Commons vote against legislation that would allow the High Court to determine whether a country was engaged in genocide in order to prohibit trade deals with it, an internal message from Steve Baker to the COVID Recovery Group (CRG) accusing the government of not having “any commitment to liberty” in its Coronavirus strategy surfaced. Baker, the mastermind of the ERG which sought to represent the hard brexiteer wing of the Conservative party, apparently saw no irony in criticising the government for its lack of interest in liberty, even as he supported its stance essentially to ignore the grave attack on Uighur liberties taking place in China, as to acknowledge it would compromise Britain’s ability to strike trade deals post-Brexit. It would appear that Baker is just as uncommitted to liberty as he argues the government’s pandemic policies are. It doesn’t matter that millions of Uighurs and other minorities are being identified, rounded up, and reportedly tortured and sterilised, because the good people of Britain are being kept indoors all day and only allowed out for a jog or to go to the shop, and that of course is a far graver assault on liberty than the fate of ethnic minorities, under a one-party dictatorship, on the other side of the world. 

The CRG did largely support the latest round of government restrictions, in light of the emergence of a new, far more infectious strain of the virus in December, but as with all previous restrictions, have warned the government of the need to outline a roadmap out of them, keen to stress that their support is by no means guaranteed in future votes. Following the emergence of the internal message, despite explicitly arguing for Boris Johnson’s position to be considered at risk if their concerns were not heard, Baker issued a statement in support of the PM on Twitter, perhaps an indication that he realised the political toxicity of proposing an internal power struggle over the need to ease restrictions whilst daily death tolls were in excess of a thousand. Yet, this won’t be the last time that the idea of liberty is leveraged as a way of criticising the government’s COVID policies. More dangerously, it taps into the sentiments of fringe conspiracy groups on both sides of the political spectrum which see COVID as a hoax, are sceptical of the vaccine, and instead believe they are witnessing the formation of some kind of fascist dictatorship. These groups urge people to be sceptical of what they read and hear, instead sharing disinformation through social media in a phenomenon that could be described as the UK strain of a disinformation pandemic which has been devastating the political fabric of the US for some time. To have politicians with the kind of undeniable influence as Steve Baker, owing to his position at the helm of these factions of disgruntled Tory backbenchers, mirroring the language of these fringe groups in his attacks on government health policy is not just thoughtless, but irresponsible. By framing their critiques in the terminology of liberty and freedom, MPs will only further the cause of those outside mainstream politics who have been arguing that these are the things under attack by a ‘hoax’ pandemic. Spending as much time on social media over the last year we all have, it’s become unavoidable that there are an uncomfortably significant number of individuals who, to differing degrees, have expressed views that vary from mild scepticism to absolute denial toward COVID-19. Ideas of protecting liberty and freedom therefore don’t just give ammunition to extreme fringe views, but also feed into a more common sentiment that COVID isn’t serious enough to warrant draconian measures - something which was also fed enormously by both the Eat Out to Help Out scheme and the disastrous tier system which respectively disarmed and fragmented the public’s view of the pandemic. 

However, not only does this obsession with grand ideas of liberty under siege undermine the counter-COVID effort by feeding into both disinformation and apathy, it also totally misses the crux of the problem with the government’s haphazard response to the crisis. Baker’s message gets close to the problem but fails to really engage with it when he writes that “nothing seems more certain to break the public than giving hope before taking it away, and doing it repeatedly.” This is absolutely true; the EOTHO scheme and accompanying relaxed messaging from the government about the virus over the summer was quite literally an exercise in behavioural science, designed to disarm the population sufficiently that they would go out, spend money and revitalise the ailing economy, especially the particularly decimated hospitality industry. The argument was that, so long as social distancing was enforced and changes made to how hospitality premises functioned, the sector could be saved from the brink and the economy could begin to heal. It worked - millions of us went out and relished the opportunity to recover a bit of normality which had been so sorely missed in the preceding months. It was easy to ignore voices of concern that the NHS was still facing an unparalleled winter crisis when you could catch up with friends over a half-price meal out at your favourite restaurant. It was, with hindsight, a strategy which instilled a false sense of optimism that proved difficult to withdraw from when, just as had been predicted by scientists for some time, cases began to rise again in the autumn. It also goes some way toward explaining why the government clung onto a ridiculous tier system for so long: both consumers and businesses were understandably unwilling to let go of the freedoms they had been granted earlier by the government. 

Fast forward to the third national lockdown on the back of two periods of tiered restrictions, and it can safely be assumed that, in Baker’s words, the public has indeed been broken. Yet that’s not simply because they have been robbed of their freedoms, but rather because of the chaotic way in which restrictions have been put in place. The government used the grace period during the summer to encourage us into a new normal rather than highlighting its temporary nature sufficiently, and in the meantime totally failed to build effective infrastructure for contact tracing or mass testing which would have substantially cushioned the transition to the challenges posed by the coming winter. Even as it became clear following the emergence of a new variant prior to Christmas that drastic measures were required to save lives, the government believed it more important to give people the hope of spending Christmas with their loved ones (a luxury it didn’t afford numerous other religious holidays prior), than to act decisively based on the grave dangers it knew faced the country. The consequence has been death tolls that dwarf the first wave at precisely the worst moment for the NHS, which has been thrown into crisis as hospitals countrywide reach capacity.

So yes, Steve Baker is right, the country’s spirit has arguably been broken, but not because it’s been robbed of its liberty, but because as he points out it has time and time again been given false hope which has been nurtured by a government unwilling to take decisive action until events overtake it. However, when he seeks guarantees that a lockdown won’t be on the cards next winter, and that the government should have a clear roadmap out of the current restrictions in the spring, Baker and the CRG are a part of the very problem they are seeking to address, pursuing an optimistic narrative of relaxed restrictions at the earliest opportunity at the very same time as thousands are paying for a prior false sense of hope with their lives. This is the crux of the problem with the government’s COVID strategy, but it is something that the CRG’s obsession with liberty at all costs has helped happen. 

#brexit #politics #uk politics #freelance #article #covid virus #COVID19 #lockdown #coronavirus #uk #boris johnson #government #uk government #policy #opinion #journalism

[reading-writing-revolution]

Heather Cox Richardson

August 31, 2020 (Monday)

A bird's eye view of the country today sees a president seeming to slide off the rails. Trump is exaggerating the violence in cities to the point of caricature, while his supporters outright lie to try to advance his candidacy. On Thursday, Trump advisor Kellyanne Conway tipped the president’s hand on “Fox and Friends” when she said that “the more chaos and anarchy and vandalism and violence reigns, the better it is for” a candidate running on “law and order.”

In the wake of the Republican National Convention, which failed to boost his candidacy, Trump has been tweeting at an intense pace. Between 5:49 am and 8:04 am on Sunday, he tweeted or retweeted 89 messages, many of them inflaming the conflicts between protesters and his supporters. He retweeted a post from One America News claiming that “According to the mainstream media, the riots & extreme violence are completely unorganized. However, it appears this coup attempt is led by a well funded network of anarchists trying to take down the President.”

Yesterday, the president called the participants in the Portland “Trump cruise rally” “GREAT PATRIOTS!” and today called them “peaceful,” despite the fact they were shooting paintballs and pepper spray and driving vehicles into crowds. Today the president condemned what he called “the radical left,” but refused to condemn Trump supporter Kyle Rittenhouse, the seventeen-year-old who allegedly shot and killed two people and wounded a third with a friend’s AR-15 rifle (meaning Rittenhouse had it illegally) in Kenosha, Wisconsin last week. Trump suggested Rittenhouse, who has been charged with homicide, was “very violently attacked” by demonstrators (video does not indicate this). Trump supporters, including Fox News Channel personality Tucker Carlson, have also defended Rittenhouse.

This afternoon, Trump claimed that Portland, Oregon “is ablaze.” Josh Campbell, a CNN law enforcement correspondent on the ground in Portland and a former FBI supervisory special agent, called this "a lie."

Campbell told CNN: "Portland is not a city under siege. Today, I went to a Starbucks downtown, ate lunch at one of the city's famous downtown food trucks, and bought a new pair of shoes at the mall. As I write this, I'm looking out of my hotel room at a bike tour riding by outside on the downtown street…. To be sure, there have been protests -- peaceful during the daytime, and some turning violent at night -- for over 90 days, but the rioting has largely been confined to one city block downtown near the federal courthouse. Last night, protesters showed up at a police precinct a few miles from downtown and were dispersed by police after some protesters started throwing eggs and rocks at police cars. There has been periodic, localized violence, but nothing widespread."

Portland firefighter Lt. Rich Chatman agreed: “WE ARE NOT ABLAZE IN PORTLAND,” he texted to CNN reporter Daniel Dale. “There is a very isolated pocket of demonstrations that have involved fire… none of which have been substantial enough to need more than 1 fire engine.”

Trump’s vision of the world is getting more and more conspiratorial. Tonight in an interview with Fox News Channel personality Laura Ingraham, he claimed that “people that are in the dark shadows” are controlling Biden. He claimed this weekend there was an airplane full of “thugs” in “black uniforms,” out “to do big damage.” When Ingraham pressed for more information, he said: “I’ll tell you sometime but it’s under investigation.” Ingraham said: “That sounds like conspiracy theory.”

To push these ideas, Trump and his people are deliberately constructing a false narrative.

Trump’s YouTube channel is now home to a video featured at the Republican National Convention on Monday, showing rioting and a city in flames and implying those scenes are America in the past several months. In the film, one sister tells another that “This is a taste of Biden’s America,” as photos and videos of violence play. “The rioting, the crime. Freedom is at stake now and this is going to be the most important election of our lifetime.” In fact, the video is from Barcelona, Spain, in 2019.

Twitter has had to begin displaying warning labels on videos that have been “quote tweeted” (meaning users don’t simply retweet them, they add their own words, first), after leading Republican officials have circulated deceptively altered or edited videos, designed to hurt Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden’s candidacy.

House Minority Whip Steve Scalise tweeted a video that spliced together footage from an conversation between Biden and progressive activist Ady Barkan, who speaks with an artificial voice because he has ALS. The video added words to what Barkan actually said to make it sound as if the two were agreeing to defund police departments (in fact, Biden has proposed to increase police funding to include more money for “social workers, psychologists, people who in fact can handle those god-awful problems that a cop has to have four degrees to handle”). To the video, Scalise added "No police. Mob rule. Total chaos. That's the result of the Democrat agenda."

Barkan tweeted to Scalise: “These are not my words. I have lost my ability to speak, but not my agency or my thoughts. You and your team have doctored my words for your own political gain. Please remove this video immediately. You owe the entire disability community an apology.” Josh Marshall of TalkingPointsMemo was angry on Barkan’s behalf: “[Steve Scalise] you’re a disgrace. Who even imagines the depravity of doctoring the words of a man robbed of his voice by ALS let alone stoops to do it” he tweeted.

Twitter labeled the tweet with a warning and, under pressure, Scalise took it down, but not before tweeting: “While Joe Biden clearly said 'yes,' twice, to the question of his support to redirect money away from police, we will honor the request of [Barkan] and remove the portion of his interview from our video."

Today, White House Deputy Chief of Staff for Communications and Director of Social Media Dan Scavino also posted a manipulated video, this one supposedly showing Biden falling asleep during a live television interview. But it was a mix of an old video of singer Harry Belafonte, apparently napping before an interview while technical glitches were worked out, and Biden looking downward for a moment. Twitter had to break out another warning, and Belafonte simply said: “They keep stooping lower and lower. A technical glitch in an interview I did nine years ago now becomes another one of their lies, more of their fake news. I beg every sane American: please vote them out. I knew many who gave their life for the right to vote. Never has it been so vital to exercise that right.”

The Trump campaign wasn’t done yet, though: on Monday it also tweeted a clip of Biden saying “You won’t be safe in Joe Biden’s America.” But in fact, when he said that, Biden was quoting the president and vice president. The full quotation was: “Trump and Pence are running on this, and I find it fascinating: Quote, 'You won't be safe in Joe Biden's America.' And what's their proof? The violence we're seeing in Donald Trump's America.”

Biden accused Trump of “fanning the flames of hate and division in our society and using the politics of fear to whip up his supporters.”

Apparently trying to link Biden to a radical left, Trump continues to demand that Biden must condemn “the Anarchists, Thugs & Agitators in ANTIFA,” and Senator Josh Hawley (R-MO) has tried to tie Biden to “the Marxist Left.” It would be a stretch to link the famously moderate Biden with any sort of far left in America in any case, but, in fact, Biden has repeatedly condemned violence across the board. “I condemn violence of every kind by anyone, whether on the left or the right,” he said Sunday. Today he added: “I want to make it absolutely clear…. Rioting is not protesting. Looting is not protesting. Setting fires is not protesting. . . . It’s lawlessness, plain and simple, and those who do it should be prosecuted. Violence will not bring change, it’ll only bring destruction. It’s wrong in every way.”

Trump's America

The message that Trump is responsible for the unrest in the country is resonating with voters. A Military Times poll showed that almost 74% of active duty military personnel opposed Trump’s desire to use them against civil unrest in urban areas, while only 22% supported that idea. That opposition seems to be translating to voting preferences: 41.3% of active duty military personnel support Biden in the upcoming election, while 37.4 support Trump.

[darkficsyouneveraskedfor]

Happy Together : 12

Amor condusse noi ad una morte.

Character(s): (deceptively) dark!Steve

Warnings: this is a dark!fic, it contains non/dubious-consent elements. It goes without (and with) saying that this is 18+.

Series Synopsis: The reader is stood up while awaiting a blind date, instead finding herself keeping company with the restaurant’s famous owner; Steve Rogers. After that night, she tries to forget her humiliation but she just can’t shake one thing about that night: him.

Masterlist

Chapter Summary: The reader finds herself back where she started.

Notes: Well, this chapter gets a bit dark; a bit intense, but we get a little peek into Steve’s delusions and more of his fragile temperament. I hope you all enjoy this. And please, brace yourself for this chapter. I don’t wanna spoil it but it’s creeping up on the dark.

Thanks to everyone who reads and as always, I looked forward to hearing from you in the replies/reblogs/tags/asks. <3

- 

Cuffed. Caged. Caught by Steve Rogers. The room seemed to shrink as he he entered. You looked to the officers on either side of him. Why were you the one in custody? Interrogated? Your heart raced as you realized your dire mistake. You should have known. Had trusting the man before you not taught you anything? There was nothing, no one in this world you could depend on.

"I apologize for my fiance's behaviour." He turned and shook Gowon's hand, then the other officer's. Her badge read Dawson. You scowled and pressed yourself against the table. "With your permission, I'd like a moment alone…" He lowered his voice but you could hear him still. He wanted you to. "She's stressed. She just needs some comfort, you know?"

"Of course, Mr. Rogers," Dawson was more than happy to agree and Golon gave a sympathetic look. 

The former saviour of New York and defender of humanity still wore his mantle of charity. Why look at him; he loved a madwoman. Tore himself away from his work just to bail her out. You were speechless. What could you say? What was your word against his?

You chewed the inside of your lip as the officers left you alone with your personal villain. Delivered you into the hands of the man you had sought refuge from. The door closed, a loud click sealed your fate. His smile slowly faded. His jaw squared and he rolled his shoulders. His cheek twitched and he stepped toward you. You flinched and he put on a show of softening his movements. You stared up at him defiantly as your teeth gnashed. You couldn't let him know how afraid you truly were.

"It's okay, honey, come on and sit." He turned you back to the metal chair and pushed you down by your shoulder. He took the chair across from you and pulled it around to sit next to you. He draped his arm over your shoulder. From the window, he would seem doting; protective even. "You know people are real worried about you."

He fumbled around in his jacket pocket. He pulled out a familiar item. Your phone still wore its holographic shell. He unlocked it and held it before you face. Your Facebook was open; your timeline active despite your forced disconnection. He slowly began to scroll through the well wishes. Talia, several friends you hadn't talked to since college, your mother even. Mixed in were a dozen congratulations until finally he paused at a photo you had never seen. A photo you had never taken and yet there you were, smiling happily beside Steve Rogers; a perfectly blissful couple. Below was a message written in your voice but not by you.

‘To all my friends and family, I must apologize. For the last year I have been distant; standoffish. I could blame it on work or other everyday obligations but I think it better that I come clean. 

One year ago, I met Steve and the connection was instant. We fell in love entirely and were selfish as we dove head deep into each other. It's gone fast but we can't wait any longer to announce it. We're engaged!

To you all, I thank you for standing by me. It had been a very big secret to keep and I have found planning the whole affair very stressful. That being said, I will be stepping back from my work and online to focus on keeping myself healthy as Steve and I put this all together. 

We will announce the date soon and invitations will follow!’

"What did you do?" You recoiled in disgust; disbelief. With your arms bound, you nearly fell right of his grasp. "You're insane!"

He visibly bristled. He blinked and raised the phone once more. He opened up your texts and thumbed through them. "You're mother sends her regards. She was rather upset that you didn't tell her sooner but I cleared all that up."

Your eyes widened as his veneer of calm barely withheld the anger beneath. "Do it," You challenged in a hiss. "I can tell you want to. You want to spank me again, don't you? Hmm? You can't control yourself can you." 

You sneered at him, waiting for him to snap. Hoping. If he bent you over and smacked your right here, surely the police would never let him take you. The tic in his jaw flared and his arm tightened around you. He leaned in so that his lips were right beside your ear.

"You're in big fucking trouble." His whisper made you shiver. He leaned back and reached up to touch your hair as he raised his voice. "It's okay, sweetheart. Let's just get you home and safe. We can push the wedding back."

He rubbed your back as he stood and crossed to the door. He knocked and Dawson reappeared. 

"I hope she didn't trouble you guys too much. I know you work hard out there. I'm real sorry, she's stressed… she's sick. If it's permissible, I'd like to just take her home. I don't think another trip to the hospital is necessary."

He was lying through his teeth and he was oh so good at it. You hung your head in defeat as you listened to his elaborate fabrication. He had imagined a whole life with you and even printed receipts. You were fucked. 

"Of course, Mr. Rogers. You've done this city an amazing service," Dawson preened, "We only wish you were still out there with us."

"When the time comes you just know. Can't be an Avenger and a husband." He said humbly, "Not a good one at least."

"You can take her." Dawson said softly. "Really, we understand. No harm, no foul."

You felt a tug at your wrists and the cuffs were freed with a twist of the key. Steve was once more at your side as he helped you to your feet. You shot him vilest look you could muster.

"Take care of yourself, dear," Her tone was laced with sickly honey. You kept your jaw set and ignored her as Steve ushered you past.

His arm went around your back as he marched you through the station. You felt as if every eye was watching you. Each person a witness to your betrayal. You were tense against him as you stepped out into the sunlight. If not for the situation, you would've basked in it. 

How long had it been since you had felt natural warmth? Why had you not enjoyed it earlier? Why had you been such an idiot?

He led you to a car in the enclosed garage attached to the station and opened the door. You drew away from him and he caught your wrist. "Get in." He growled. You twisted your wrist and he tightened his grip. "I won't hesitate to put you in the trunk. So get in. Now!"

"I hate you." You snarled. "I hate you." You brought your fist up and it bounced of the bottom of his jaw. "Let me go!" 

His winced just slightly and grabbed your other wrist. He raised them over your head and released them. He bent and scooped you up. He draped you over his shoulder. He held you with one arm and reached into his pocket, the doors and trunk clicked. He rounded the back of the car and opened the trunk. He dropped you inside, your head barely missing the metal. 

He snapped closed the lid and you beat against it desperately. You heard his footsteps and the door; you felt his strength as he slammed it shut. The engine kick-started and you clawed at the interior until your hands stilled in futility.

You dropped your head, squished into the tight box. You grunted in frustration and your eyes burned. This couldn't be happening. You had gotten out. You'd gone to the police. You had felt freedom on your lungs. All this and you were to be dragged back to where your started.

-

When the trunk opened, you kicked out only to have your foot caught. You were torn from the car as Steve seethed. His hot breath surrounded you as he forced you across the tarmac. You struggled, heels scraped on the pavement as you neared the knobless door. You tried to keep yourself from within as you kicked your legs out but missed the doorframe. He shoved you through and you barely caught yourself from falling down the stairs as he released you. 

As the door closed with a deafening clang, you were snatched off your feet. Steve had you over his shoulder once more. Your stomach leaned heavily against his shoulder as he descended. You reached for the railing, the walls, but your fingers slid over them helplessly. The door at the bottom was open still, the knob on the floor. He had not yet been home.

He carried you through the hall and into the dining room. He grumbled as he passed through the kitchen and saw the disjointed window. He entered the bedroom and slammed the door with only his foot. He dropped you onto the bed and you bounced so violently you bit your tongue. Before you could rise, he was on top of you. You batted at him with your hands but he seemed not to notice your struggles.

He grabbed the front of your dress and tore it open, the buttons flying across the room in all directions. “Get off!” You grunted as you tried to stop his hands. His eyes were dark; endless. He straddled you so that you couldn’t move, his breath hot and heavy as he pulled your dress down your arms. When it was at your waist, your hands were trapped in the fabric as his began to explore your bare stomach. “Steve! Stop!”

His hands settled on your breasts and he kneaded them roughly. He tweaked your nipples through the seamed brassiere and ground his pelvis against you. He groaned, a shiver rose through him as the bulge in his pants grew. You whimpered as helplessness weighed you down and lifted your head. You dropped it heavily with a sigh. His hands stilled just beneath your neck and he stared down at you with seething breaths.

“Stay!” He pointed at you, his finger almost touching your nose. His other hand pressed against your throat and threatened to squeeze. “Don’t move, honey.”

As he climbed off, you realized how terribly you were shaking. Your entire body trembled and you couldn’t have moved if you tried. You had never been so entirely terrified. The door opened and he wasn’t gone more than a minute. You looked up just as he returned and he held a large black chest. He set it down on the plush love seat and opened it. He pulled straps from within and your blood surged.

You sat up and untangled your hands from the dress. As he neared, you  rolled across the bed. You knew exactly what he meant to do. You didn’t make it to the door as he blocked you from it with his broad figure. He reached behind him and slammed it again. He walked towards you wordlessly until you were forced to retreat and the back of your knees hit the bed. You fell onto it once more and he grabbed your ankles.

He flipped you easily, your body twisting painfully as you tried to resist. He wrapped a strap around your left ankle and secured it to the bedpost. Next he tied your right, then your wrists. He reached under you and ripped open the rest of your dress. He bunch it up and let it fall to the floor as he stepped back, admiring your form spread-eagle and face down on the bed.

You turned your head as he returned to the chest and reached within once more. He revealed a leather whip and you cursed. He slapped it across his palm as he faced you. 

“I told you, there will be punishment for misbehaviour,” He growled. He rolled your panties down around your thighs as far as they would go. He rested the leather against your ass. “Now, you will take it and learn to be a good wife. And after, you can think on your lesson.”

He lifted the whip and it came down with a poisonous bite. You yelped and the tears rose instantaneously. He repeated the action, again and again. You couldn’t have kept count if you had tried. You sobbed into the bedspread as you gripped the straps that restrained you. He stopped as your ass and thighs were raw. You were certain there was blood too.

You heard the whip fall to the floor. You opened your eyes and watched as he unzipped his pants. He pulled out his cock and began to stroke. You closed your eyes, the sounds of his self-pleasure rising in groans. The bed slouched beneath him as he knelt on the mattress beside you, his cum spilled onto your ass and you turned your face to the bed.

His large hand rubbed his cum into your tortured flesh and he purred. He pulled your panties up over your damp skin and patted your ass. He untied you, your limbs falling limp against the bed. He moved your body for you. He dragged you across the bed and stood you up. You swayed as a sear went through your ass and legs. He supported you with one arm as he angled you around the room.

He grabbed the back of the sofa and pushed it aside so that it faced the bathroom door. He kicked the rug away with his foot and bent to lift the concealed hatch in the wooden floorboards. You began to panic as he guided you down the stairs ahead of him. A small room was hidden beneath with shadowy forms; a narrow bed, a sink, a small toilet. A cell worse than that at the station.

“Go, or I’ll let you fall,” He snapped. You looked at him in shock. “Go on, dear.” All his false affection, his delusional love, had gone.

You peered back down into the secret room and he let you go. You barely kept yourself from slipping down the stairs. You descended a step at a time and looked back up at him as you reached the bottom. He frowned and shook his head.

“You did this to yourself,” He said as he closed the hatch and all went black around you. 

The locked clicked and you heard his footsteps as he walked away. You held onto the steps and slowly sank to your knees. You screamed until it caught in your throat and hung your head. You wept until your head pounded and your chest knotted. 

What had you done?

+

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#happy together #steve rogers x reader #dark!steve rogers x reader #dark steve rogers x reader #dark steve rogers #dark!steve rogers #dark!fic #series #au #fic #mcu #marvel #steve rogers #dark fic #dark!verse #darkverse #captain america

[the--sad--hatter]

Game Of Survival (Bucky x Reader)

FANDOM - MARVEL

PAIRING - BUCKY X FEM!READER 

WARNINGS - SMUT, VIOLENCE, ANGST, GRAPHIC BLOOD AND GORE, SWEARING, DRUGS AND ALCOHOL

DESCRIPTION -

“If you do bad things for a good reason, they’re still bad things.”

When a serial killer decides to save the world, who can she turn to for help? You went to the people who supposed to be the professionals, the experts, the heroes. You should have guessed they would try to save you as well. 

When you were a young girl, you were taught that love was a weakness, a failing of the human race, an anomaly in your biology designed to keep you weak and the only way to be strong was to train yourself to never succumb to it. It was a lesson you learned well, because you had no other choice. You were a creature incapable of love, incapable of loyalty. And on your eighteenth birthday, with a stolen gun from the top drawer of your father desk, you proved just how much you had learned. The weight of the gun in your hand was a small price to pay for the weight lifted from your soul when you pulled the trigger.

“Goodbye papa.”

 You never forgot the look in his eyes as you fired the gun, nor the way it felt when his blood splattered against the pristine walls. It was freedom, and it was divine.

 You never stopped pulling the trigger after that day. Your goal was righteous, your methods were not.

 For a scared child who cowed at the crack of a belt, you pulled the trigger.

 For a young girl ripped away from her home and stowed away in the dark, you pulled the trigger.

 For the young boy enticed away from his family and his veins poisoned and soul stained, you pulled the trigger.

 For the parents who would never hold their child again, you pulled the trigger.

 Your price was non-negotiable, a promise. To be better. Better than the one who had hurt them, better than you.

 But you weren’t a hero, no matter the good you had done for the world. Nobody ever called you a hero. They wouldn’t even call you a vigilante.

 They called you what you were.

 Serial killer.

 Drug lords, crime lords, kidnappers, sex traffickers, abusers, rapists, murderers…. They were your victims.

 Your methods were brutal, unmerciful, terrifying in their violence, downright sickening in the satisfaction you derived from the heinous acts.

 Nobody felt a shred of pity for those who died by your hand. Nobody ever outright condemned you for what you did, but you were just too far over the line for anybody to defend you out loud. But behind closed doors, in hushed voices, they would say it. Whenever the news showed another monster in the world, the whispers were there.

 “I hope The Executioner gets them.”

 Natasha Romanov had met you only once, and not a word had been spoken between you. She had pushed open the door, gun at the ready. Her mark, the man Fury had sent her to take in, dead or alive was lying on his bed. If it weren’t for the gash along his chest, from Adams apple to groin, he might have been sleeping. Moonlight streamed through the open window, glinting off of the silver blade you carefully wiped on the edge of the bedsheet. You turned your head to look at the Russian Spy, your red lips curled into a feral smirk as you raised a blood stained hand to your face, holding a finger to your lips. ‘Shhh’ you gestured, blood dripping from your fingers.

 Natasha nodded once, a short but firm tilt of her head. She knew who you were because she knew who he was. A despicable man who called himself a doctor, she had seen the pictures of his ‘patients’. Or what was left of them. You turned away from her and walked out onto the balcony, disappearing from view.

 Had that interaction happened a few years earlier or later, Natasha might have reacted differently. But it didn’t, and she let you walk away. Clint understood why she’d done it.

 Clint had met you as well. But he had spoken to you.

 You had a gun pressed to the temple of the woman Shield wanted to speak to regarding a string of unethical and dangerous experiments. Biological warfare, her victim was a small town in France. Hundreds dead, thousands more in danger.

 “Put the gun down.” He ordered.

 “Give me a reason.” You demanded coolly.

 He thought it over before he answered because your tone wasn’t mocking or challenging. It was genuine. If he gave you a reason, you would stand down.

 “She’s the only one we can get to in time to stop the next attack.” He said.

 You raised the gun and pointed it at the ceiling immediately.

 “Tell them what they want to know. They will put you in a cell, you’ll be safe from me.” You told her.

 You walked away, right past him as if you didn’t think he would stop you.

 “Wait…” He said.

 “No.” You replied firmly as you continued walking.

 “You can be better than this, you just proved that. Don’t you want to be a part of something bigger than this? To actually make a difference, a real one. What you’re doing, you don’t have to do alone.” He offered.

 “Not interested.” You said dismissively.

 “I can’t let you leave.” He warned you.

 “Then stop me.” You told him without turning around as you walked out of the door.

 He wanted to, but Fury told him to stand down. Clint had always wondered how you found your victims. Now he knew.

 Sometimes when Nick Fury wanted someone dead, executed, a file always found its way to you. You were smart enough to know Fury was manipulating you, he was smart enough to know you didn’t care.

 Contrary to what the rumours said about you, you weren’t a vengeful ghost, you weren’t a righteous demon or a dark avenging angel. You were human, an as such, you made mistakes. You were flesh and blood, and when you were cut, you bled, when you were shot, it fucking hurt.

 The steady drip of your blood splattering on the floor was loud in the otherwise silent room. It wasn’t a heavy enough flow for you to bother staunching it, you wouldn’t die from blood loss so pressing something against the wound would just be unnecessary effort and pain.

 Better to let the blood flow.  Words you lived by.

 But even lonely serial killer sometimes needed somebody to dig out the bullets and stitch them back together. Sometimes even someone who was used to working alone knew when they were in too deep.

 You didn’t bother turning around when the door whooshed open.

 “You.”

 “Hello Clint, nice to see you again.” You said.

 “Uh, who the hell is this and why is she bleeding all over my clean floors? You, creepy lady, stop bleeding on my floor.” Tony Stark instructed you.

 You turned around, smirking at various The Avengers who had all gathered to hunt down the intruder. You held up the flash drive you’d almost died obtaining and tossed it at them. Clint was the one who caught it in his fist.

 “Would somebody mind digging this bullet out, I’d do it myself but I’m about four and a half minutes away from dying so I don’t really have the time.” You said sarkily.

 “I’m waiting for a reason we aren’t cutting that time short, Clint?” Tony sassed back.

 “What’s on the flashdrive?” Clint asked you.

 “Seven and a half billion reasons not to let me die. Saving the world is your thing right? Or have I broken into the wrong place?” You asked them.

 You were betting you hadn’t. You were betting your life on it.

 ~~~~~~~~~~The Next Day~~~~~~~~~~

 When Bucky was a young man, he’d been what nowadays was referred to as a player. When the war came and he shipped out he was torn between wishing he had someone to go home to when it was over, and thankful that there was nobody he might leave behind. Then came the fall and he didn’t think about things like love anymore. When the hellicarriers went down and Bucky started to regain control of his own mind, there was no space in his fractured mind for something like love. When he was in Wakanda, relearning how to be human again, he realized that someone like him wasn’t ever going to be able to find love. Then Tony Stark reached out and brought the lost Avengers home and Stark’s forgiveness went a long way to Bucky being able to start to forgive himself, but still, there was something in him that just knew love was not in his future.

  Or so he thought.

  It happened in a split second, on an unremarkable day. He had just returned from a mission with Steve and Sam. He was weary, bruised and tired. All that melted away, forgotten when he heard her before he saw her. A loud, unrestrained laugh, brimming and overflowing with joy. Bucky’s feet led him towards the magical sound automatically, like a siren call. He turned the corner and it was like he’d only been seeing the world in muted colours his whole life without even realising it. She had her back to him and as she turned around, hair flying out behind her, he saw the wide smile across her face, the twinkle in her eyes and everything snapped into place with an earth-shattering finality.

 She was the one.

 “Buckinator, come meet this delightful creature.” Tony called, waving him over.

 Bucky didn’t hesitate, it wasn’t confidence, it was desperation to speak to her.

 “Hi.” He breathed out, in awe of the shining beauty who was now smiling right at him. For him.

 “Hello.” She said and her voice was just as melodic as her laugh.

 That was the day he fell in love.

“This is The Executioner, one of the most prolific Serial Killers in the world.” Tony announced. 

Her lips curled up at the edges and like a magic trick, she went from sunshine to sinful. 

Unfortunately for him, she was still the most beautiful thing he had ever seen. 

A/N - This is a teaser/tester. I kinda just want to write a story where the reader character is not the good guy, but she’s not the bad guy either. She’s in a very moral grey area, like Natasha would have been when Clint first found her. 

However, I don’t know if it’s something worth writing or should just be one of the ones that only lives inside my mind. 

#hattersmarvelverse #Bucky x Reader #Bucky Barnes #Bucky fic #The Winter Soldier #Winter Soldier x reader #Bucky x You #Bucky x Y/N #Bucky x OC #Tony Stark x Reader #Avengers x Reader #Platonic Avengers #Captain America X Reader #Steve Rogers x Reader #Steve x Reader #Wanda x Reader #Vision x Reader #Sam Wilson x Reader #Black Widow x reader #Natasha x Reader #Hawkeye x Reader #Clint Barton x Reader #Spiderman x Reader #Peter Parker x Reader #Wade Wilson x Reader #Deadpool x reader

[blancheludis]

Tagging: @tokky231

Fandom: Marvel, Avengers Characters: Tony Stark/Steve Rogers, James Rhodes, Pepper Potts, Bruce Barton, Steve Rogers Chapters: 15/?, Words: 83.004

Summary: Tony meets his soulmate under the worst possible circumstances. It is not just a kidnapping gone wrong. It turns out Steve and his gang picked him on purpose and they want some personal revenge. If only he had managed to say the words written on his soulmate’s arm before they threw him back out into the streets.

---

The information about Thor Odinson appears to be accurate. He has a spotless record, was recommended by several less shady sources and, at least on paper, sounds like a good guy.

Pepper arranges an interview with him in one of the conference rooms in the tower, so Tony does not have to venture out on the streets nor invite a stranger into his home. Also, JARVIS will be able to monitor them at all times.

Still, Tony does not feel good about it. Current events, the new direction of the company as well as the disappearance of its CFO, mean that Tony has to be visible in the coming weeks. He is Stark Industries’ figurehead. If he does not want to completely destroy it, he will have to stand up, hold some speeches, give interviews, make his board of directors believe in him. It is all so blissfully removed from his personal grievances and the possibility of someone still trying to kill him that Tony dives almost eagerly into the task. He just cannot step out of the tower without protection.

The conference room has glass walls, so Tony can see his guest before he has to enter. He thought that would be a good idea to assess the man, but he did not think that Odinson would sit with his back to him. All Tony can see are broad shoulders and blond hair.

Tony’s steps falter. Tall and muscular and blonde. Odinson has been vetted and JARVIS has checked him the very moment he stepped into the tower. Still, Tony expects him to turn around and reveal himself to be Steve.

With the way his brain short-circuits, it would make sense. Steve is constantly going on about protecting Tony. He has recommended Odinson. He could have fooled them, could have slipped in without them noticing, without JARVIS –

The man turns his head, looking at the door, which reveals his profile and that his hair is hanging past his shoulders. This is not Steve.

When air rushes back into Tony’s lungs, it appears ridiculously obvious. Apart from the impressive shoulder line and the hair colour, Odinson looks nothing like Steve. Tony’s brain has just played a prank on him. As he begins walking again, he decides to ignore the faint trace of regret echoing inside him that he is sure originates from the soul bond. This is not about Steve and any possible relationship with him but about Tony’s safety.

Plastering a smile on his face to mask his nerves, Tony goes into the conference room. Odinson notices him immediately and gets to his feet. He is taller than Steve, too, but Tony does not feel intimidated. The man has a kind face and smiles at Tony with a brightness that just screams innocence.

“Mr. Odinson,” Tony greets as he comes closer.

“Mr. Stark.” Odinson shakes the hand Tony offers him, his grip firm but not crushing. “Call me Thor.”

Tony is aware that he is looking for signs of something – and that a simple smile and handshake will not help him decide on the nature of anyone. He of all people should know that, practised as he is in navigating the intricate dances of high society. It makes him feel infinitely safer, however, to cling to appearances no matter that they have failed him so spectacularly before.

“Tony, then,” he offers right back. “Do you need more coffee?”

While coffee intake is not an appropriate tool to measure a stranger’s character either, it puts Tony at ease to share something this simple with Thor. It also gives him the opportunity to stall for another minute while he picks up the coffee pot and fills their cups.

When they are both seated, Tony wonders how to start. He has never actually interviewed anyone in terms of security. They have reviewed all the information available about Thor Odinson. His records, his documented abilities. Apart from a demonstration, Tony is not sure how he should verify that Thor is capable of what he claims to be, much less whether he will turn out to be someone who sells Tony out at the first opportunity.

There is only one question that Tony is really interested in getting an answer to.  

“What do you know about the Avengers?”

That takes Thor by surprise and he does not try to hide it. He sits up a bit straighter, cocks his head to the side, and looks at Tony with a bit more interest than before. He does know something, that much is obvious from the way he hesitates

“I’m sure neither of us should know anything about them,” Thor answers in a measured tone with no trace of judgement. He does sound slightly curious as to what Tony knows and why he brought it up.

“So Steve lied and you are affiliated with them,” Tony sighs, almost disappointed that he will have to send Thor away again. Someone of that stature would have been helpful in keeping people at bay, even if he did nothing but stand glowering in Tony’s back.

It feels like a punch in the gut, knowing that Steve lied to him again.

“I am not,” Thor says firmly before Tony can wallow in his disappointment or end the interview prematurely. “We ran in to each other several times during our time in the military and later during jobs. While they are interested in bringing the guilty to justice, I merely keep people safe.”

All this talk about justice and doing the right thing, Tony is tired of it. This is not the right place or the right person to discuss the Avengers’ policies. He should talk to Thor about what kind of duties he would have, how high the danger level is. These kinds of things.

Instead, Tony keeps his eyes fixed on Thor’s face to not miss any reaction, and says, “You sound like you don’t approve.”

Tony so desperately wants an ally instead of another problem that he is willing to talk about this with a stranger.

Thor watches him right back. Behind his impressive physique sit two very intelligent eyes that tell he is not the type to hit all his issues until they go away.

“It’s not that easy,” Thor answers, sounding pensive instead of protesting. “In our world, guilt and innocence have a lot to do with how much money someone has or what colour their skin is.” He hesitates shortly and a brief smile tugs at his lips before he continues. “My brother is a lawyer. People are willing to pay a lot for their freedom. Our justice system is flawed but that does not mean it should be disregarded completely.”

That is the kind of smooth answer that leaves Tony wondering what Thor really thinks about the Avengers. Recognizing that the justice system is flawed does not equal being all right with vigilantes wreaking havoc in their midst.

Tony decides to just jump right in. He does not have anything to lose from asking pointed questions, other than to have to look for a new potential bodyguard. “Why not do something against them then?”

Thor cocks his head to the side, studying Tony with an intensity that has Tony wishing he had some sunglasses nearby. Pepper always tells him that his eyes betray him.

“They mean good,” Thor says slowly as if testing the waters. “They do their research. They –”

“Or not.” It is stupid, but Tony is disappointed by this man he has known for all of five minutes. “They listen to the first angry voice whispering false information in their ear and act on it with fists. All in the name of justice.”

The interview is over. Tony has had too many discussions like this with Steve or himself, about good and bad. He does not want to hear about people making mistakes and that Tony was a woeful exception to the rule.

“Humans are not creatures of reason,” Thor says, then raises a hand in front of himself when Tony makes to get up. He looks apologetic. “Ah, don’t think I am defending them when I don’t know how they have wronged you. What I mean is, I know Steve and he is driven to do good. We just don’t always end up doing good, no matter our intentions.”

That is not an excuse, Tony wants to yell. Then again, he is not looking for excuses. He already knows the Avengers’ reasons, even knows about Steve’s regrets. What he is really looking for, he supposes is absolution for himself because he keeps going back to Steve despite knowing better. He does not want them to be evil.

“So that’s it?” Tony snaps and does not know who he is irritated at the most here. “I should just forget what happened and forgive them?”

He wonders what he is doing here, unloading on a stranger, spilling his fears and secrets and actually hoping for answers. How far he has fallen. To give Thor credit, he does not look too spooked. Curious, certainly, but not like he is going to have Tony admitted the minute he gets up from the table.

“Nobody should dictate you what to do,” Thor then answers. It sounds practiced in a way but no less honest for it. Just as if he has been repeatedly telling this same thing to someone else already. “If you are hurt then it is your prerogative to withdraw.”

That might be what does it, Thor saying that, since Tony is hurt, it does not matter which intention the Avengers had or have now. He can just leave but does not have to. It is up to him, not what others tell him to do.

Tony leans back in his chair and it is mostly a sign that he is willing to continue the interview than an attempt to get more comfortable. He is too tense for that. Talking about Steve is always difficult. Waiting for Obadiah to jump out of the shadows does not actually help with keeping himself calm.

“My godfather is selling weapons on the black market,” Tony announces without warning. He does not believe in easing into things like this. There are no explanations that can make this topic easier. “He knows that I know and he has tried to kill me twice. He has vanished somewhere, but I’m sure he will try again.”

Across from him, Thor’s jovial expression has frozen somewhat, but his attention still rests solely on Tony. He nods once to show he has understood and does not make a move to interrupt.

“If you take the job, I need you to keep me safe from whatever goons my godfather hires next, and -” Here, Tony hesitates, wondering whether he can simply admit his fears. “And from the Avengers.” He does not think they will come after him, but he is not going to take any chances with that.  

“Of course,” Thor says as if it is as simple as that. “You point, I shield.”

An earnest nonchalance clings to Thor that does wonders to put Tony at ease. And the way he appears so utterly comfortable in his own skin separates him from Steve, who always appears driven, needing to take one more step, one more fight.

Usually, Tony trusts his gut instinct. That is what made him trust Rhodey at MIT and hire Pepper. Where Steve and the Avengers are concerned, the soul bond has made things difficult because he is not quite sure what exactly he feels. Now, however, he thinks Thor is a catch, no matter who recommended him.

Smiling, Tony says, “All right, you’re hired. Care to start right now?”

Thor is visibly startled, and the curiosity in his eyes becomes more intense when he looks at Tony. “As far as job interviews go, this one was rather unusual,” he says, slowly as if testing the water. “You did not ask me a single question about my abilities.”

“I did my research.” Tony shrugs. Facts are easy to check. Morality, on the other hand, is more difficult. Trying to lighten the mood a bit, Tony adds, “And incompetent people don’t look like you do.”

Tony does not exactly mean Thor’s physique, although he is nice to look at, but the calm he radiates, the simple determination.

Thor takes it with good humour, smiling in a way that makes him appear even safer. “Do you mind if I quote that in my resume?”

They shake hands before Tony calls Pepper in who will do a much better job of discussing schedules with Thor. Tony does not necessarily need anyone following him around in the tower, but he will have to get out in public far more often than he is comfortable with just to do some damage control where the company is concerned. There is nothing more counterproductive to appearing calm and competent in an interview about Stark Industries’ future if Obadiah keeps creeping up in the back of his mind, making him wonder when he will be stabbed in the back next.  

Much to his own surprise, Tony feels like a weight has been lifted off his shoulders. He has never fancied the idea of a bodyguard, loving his independence too much and being too prone to get into stupid situations, and perhaps too stubborn to let anybody help.

This could be all right, though. It is only temporary. And it will keep his friends off his back, will allow him to leave Happy at home, who would otherwise never agree to let Tony go anywhere unsupervised.  

On the way back up to the penthouse, Tony takes out his phone and sends a text to Steve.

Got myself a bodyguard so you can call your goons back home.

He is not sure why he does it, especially since he does not think that Steve will really stop looking out for him. It is another olive branch, proof that he listened to Steve’s concerns. Few people are in his corner, and he feels like he needs to keep them close.

His phone chimes when Steve’s answer comes in. I only want you to be safe.

That is what Tony thought. It does not matter. With some luck, Natasha’s services will not be needed again. People are looking for Obadiah, so he will not be able to hide forever.

Tony’s task now is to get his life back on track, to make something worthwhile of this mess. Perhaps he should invite Bruce over to pick his brain a bit. Tony is tempted to try to miniaturize the arc reactor again. Having another brilliant mind on board would surely help. Bruce has also seen him at a very low point in his life, so Tony feels like he does not have to pretend so much with him. He needs a break, he knows that. Since he cannot afford to just shut everything out for a while, he needs to do the next best thing and gather his allies close.

In the end, he puts the phone away. Bruce is not his friend, and right now, Bruce’s loyalty still lies with the Avengers. Once Tony does not have anything to fear from them anymore, when Obadiah is behind bars and the company is under Tony’s control again, he might invite Bruce over, offer them a platform to interact with each other that has nothing to do with their history but with what they can do with the future.

For now, he has to put his mind on putting the pieces of Stark Industries back together. There is no time for experiments. The arc reactor is a dream, but Tony needs facts. He has to sell his board of directors on the public on something more substantial than the possibility of green energy in the far future.

Tony is smart, though. If he can get his mind to stay off Obadiah and Steve for long enough, he will figure something out.

---

It is never quiet anymore in the tower. Just a few days have passed since they have opened their doors to the police, but it already feels like Tony’s territory has been taken from him. Even when he does not see any officers or tech specialists, he is met with wide-eyed or questioning or angry glances from his own employees. And that is ignoring the board, which has more or less loudly wondered about Tony’s state of sanity for throwing out on of their own like that.

Perhaps Tony simply feels strange because he is usually more invisible than this, perpetually locked inside his workshop instead of being out and about in the tower, actually meeting with people himself and being on time for it. It is not as bad as he always made it out to be, mostly because it helps to take his mind of the personal issues following this crisis and because he is far too restless to allow himself to fall into an actual working binge in the workshop. He needs to build, but he cannot deal with the rather vulnerable mental state he is in when he stumbles tired and hungry to his bed after a day or two of working nonstop.

His office, which he has never used much, has a nice view, too, although Tony does not have much time to look at the city below. He has never been one for paperwork. Even that is better than telling the same people the same things over and over again. Everybody seems to be out for blood right now and Tony cannot get his wounds to close.

A knock rips him out of his thoughts. It is late, already dark outside, but Tony guesses he has never explicitly told anyone he does not want to be disturbed.

The door opens and Thor sticks his head in. He should have gone home already, but he never does before he has not delivered Tony safely to the penthouse, even though he knows that JARVIS never stops watching inside the tower.

Informing Thor about JARVIS has been a necessity, but Tony thinks he is not going to regret it. It also makes Thor’s job marginally easier.

“Agent Coulson wants to speak to you,” Thor says, keeping his tone carefully neutral. His expression, on the other hand, seems to say that he will get rid of the agent if Tony wants him to.

A small smile steals itself onto Tony’s lips. Only a few days into their acquaintance and he is already certain that it was a good decision to take Thor on.

“Send him in.”

Coulson is with the FBI. Tony is not sure when they got involved, but the fact that Obadiah, on top of less interesting charges like embezzlement and bribery, sold weapons to enemies of America apparently makes this a matter of national security. That means that even more watchful eyes are combing through every aspect of Tony’s life, but for now he does not care if that also increases their chances of finding Obadiah.

Thor sends the agent in and, after a questioning look at Tony whether he should stay, closes the door behind him and leaves Tony to be picked apart in another interrogation.

“Agent Coulson,” Tony greets and gets to his feet to offer his hand. Then he gestures at the visitor chair and waits until they are both seated again. “Did you find anything?”

“No,” Coulson replies. In that mild-mannered tone of his, he adds, “I just have some more questions for you.”

Coulson looks like he has been born in that suit and that bland expression of polite disinterest. Contrary to most of his colleagues, he does not wear a visible weapon, does not posture or appear dangerous. He still exudes an aura of authority. Tony is not sure what to make of him, but he knows he will have to watch his words.

“We’ve already gone over everything,” Tony says, swallowing his impatience. There is too much he needs to keep secret to be comfortable with being questioned. “And Ms Potts is your official liaison for the duration of this investigation.”

Tony wonders how he can speak so calmly about the matter. He guesses years of having to act in public have some advantage. Inside, however, he is still raw, hurting constantly.

“Ms Potts isn’t going to be able to help me with this.” Coulson’s tone does not change, but Tony’s back automatically stiffens a bit. A promise of danger lies in the air. That Coulson circumvented Pepper and came here after dark, when it is more likely that Tony is alone, speaks of more problems coming his way.

“I have a meeting coming up,” Tony lies and keeps his face neutral. “So we need to make this quick.”

The corner of Coulson’s mouth creases into a small smile, gone again very quickly. Tony cannot even begin to question whether that is a good sign.

“I’ll be blunt then,” Coulson says, his gaze growing sharp. “Last week you were in the hospital. Why?”

Tony grows very quiet for the fraction of a second, even while clinging to his slightly bored expression, hoping his hesitation is not visible. Whether or not he visited the hospital should not be object of this investigation. It has nothing to do with Obadiah. Well, it does, but the police do not know that, and for good reason.

“We filed a report,” Tony says and cocks his head to the side dismissively. “There was an accident. A hit and run.”

For a moment, Coulson does not say anything but simply watches Tony. Then, with the same nonchalance as before, he asks, “That was the evening before you submitted your evidence against Mr. Stane to the police?”

“Yes,” Tony answers. He does not like where this is going.

“And it was also just a few days before you hired additional personal security?”

Tony stares. “Yes.”

Across from him, Coulson nods like he has known the answer all along but is still satisfied to have gotten it.

“Do you fear for your safety?” he then asks, the perfect picture of innocent professionalism like he has never had any ulterior motives for coming here. This still comes too close to an accusation for Tony to let it go.

Tony leans back in his chair, shoulders squared but arms open, showcasing that he does not have anything to hide. “I’m going to be in the spotlight quite a bit. People didn’t like me when I was making weapons.” He shrugs like he does not care. “They like me even less now that I’ve stopped and they know why.”

Rumours have gotten out. Of course, they have. A thing like this is impossible to keep quiet. A rogue CFO selling weapons to terrorists? Tony Stark, who the media loves to hate even without a fresh scandal, being possibly involved? Everybody wants a slice of that cake.

Coulson nods like he accepts that very reasonable answer. “Is there a more personal reason?” he then asks with deceiving calm. If Tony did not know better, he would think there is a glimmer of amusement in Coulson’s eyes.

“Like what?” Tony barely keeps himself from snapping. He is too close to the matter, to prone to making mistakes.

Shrugging, Coulson takes his time, although it is obvious he is ready to pounce. “It just seems too much of a coincidence. The accident, your godfather going rogue, a new bodyguard.”

He trails off, not quite expectant but very sure of himself. It is tempting to give in. Tony could just admit that he does have reasons to be afraid of Obadiah because an attempt on his life has already been made. Two, even. While it would certainly be satisfying to tell them exactly what kind of person Obadiah is, it would also raise questions Tony is not willing to answer.

Tony cannot quite tell when protecting the Avengers has become part of the plan. In the beginning it was merely a decision not to report the kidnapping. Now, however, he is actively keeping any and all information about them out of the reports. He likes to think that is not just because Steve is his soulmate. He owes Natasha, too. He does not want to harm Bruce. He has become far more entangled with them than he could have foreseen.

“What are you insinuating?” Tony questions, straightening in his seat just enough to show his displeasure about Coulson’s line of questioning. It still feels like Coulson can see right through him.

“Are you afraid that Mr. Stane is going to harm you?” Coulson rephrases his question, gives it a completely reasonable note as if he is not digging for things Tony has not told them but is honestly concerned for Tony’s safety.

Tony does not trust just anyone. Even less so now. He does not believe that Agent Coulson does not have a hidden agenda here. They probably think he has been involved in the weapons trading. They want him to compromise himself. Perhaps they are already impatient about not finding Obadiah and want to at least get him.  

“It is clear that I don’t know at all what he’s capable of,” Tony says, allowing some regret into his tone. He never takes his eyes off Coulson, though. “But no. I don’t think he’s waiting for an opportunity to sneak in here to kill me.”

Not missing a beat, Coulson says, “He could hire someone to do it.”

The breath gets stuck in Tony’s lungs as his heartrate climbs suddenly. His outward reaction is as practised as it is unfazed, a slight raising of his eyebrows, a small shrug, not a muscle twitching out of place.

Inside, he wonders what Coulson knows, whether they have unwittingly betrayed something. He has not even told Pepper and Rhodey any specifics about the Avengers. No names, not that he has the means to contact them and has done so. If Steve thought they were compromised, he would have surely called, either to warn Tony or to lay the blame at his feet.

Coulson cannot know anything. So Tony breathes, giving no sign how hard it is, and says, “I like to think that he wouldn’t.”

Coulson’s expression remains jovial, not at all surprised. He is not done, Tony knows that before he even opens his mouth again. “The hospital record says that you had several broken ribs pre-dating the car accident.”

This time, Tony does not suppress his reaction. He leans forward abruptly, not enough to appear spooked but showing his agitation. He is allowed to be angry at a violation of his privacy. Tony himself is not under investigation here. He has never had any illusions that they would not look into him too, but his medical records have nothing to do with smuggling.

“You have no right to access my medical history,” Tony says sharply. Full cooperation is apparently not enough when the national security is in question. If not for JARVIS, he would be worried about what other information the FBI might have gleaned from Stark Industries’ servers or his personal ones.

“It is if it pertains to the case,” Coulson replies, still sounding unflappable. Tony’s accusation does not seem to bother him at all.

“It doesn’t,” Tony says, intent on pushing back. Since he does not want them to dig even deeper, though, he adds, “It was a lab accident. It shouldn’t surprise you that I like to blow things up.”

Lab safety has never been much of a concern for Tony, but the truth is that, if he got injured, it was mostly during nights out with too much alcohol and too many strangers wanting a piece of him. Or, before that, thanks to Howard’s carelessness or bullies at school. Tony knows what he is doing in his workshop, and he has JARVIS and the bots watching over him. Coulson does not need to know that, however.

“Do you often get caught in the crossfire?” Coulson asks in a purposefully gentle tone, almost as if he cares.

Some part of Tony will always want to give in to that, but he knows better than to trust an FBI agent charged with sniffing around in his business.

“I appreciate your concern,” Tony says in a dry tone that makes it clear he does not, without ever changing his polite expression. “But I would prefer if you kept working on finding Stane.”

It still hurts to call Obadiah that, but Tony forces himself to whenever he is talking to the police. It would not do to give them reason to suspect he is still too attached to the man they are prosecuting.

A small smile appears on Coulson’s face, climbing all the way up to his eyes. It is as much a show of amusement as it is an acknowledgment.

“We simply want to make sure that you are safe.”

“I am,” Tony responds firmly, the lie rolling off his tongue easily. When he senses that Coulson does not believe him, he adds, “I’m the one who came up with most of the weapons Stane sold illegally. It would make no sense to kill the golden goose.”

Spite, revenge, defiance – Tony can come up with a dozen reasons why Obadiah would want him dead without even considering their personal relationship. He keeps that to himself though, not thinking for a moment that Coulson is not considering the same. He did not think Coulson would be so blunt to say it, though.

Yet, Coulson keeps his eyes on him, his mouth still slightly upturned. “The game is up now,” he says, not making it sound like a threat but a simple fact. “He doesn’t have much to lose.”

Privately, Tony thinks that freedom is a lot to lose, but he simply shrugs like it has not occurred to him that he is in danger. “He would have to come out of hiding to kill me, so I’ll trust you to notice and stop him or whoever he might hire.”

It will not be that easy, but this is the best he can offer the FBI at the moment. Or ever, really. He will be glad to see them go once this is over.

“We will,” Coulson says and gets smoothly to his feet, although he looks like he did not want their conversation to be over already. Then he reaches into his pocket, and Tony blames it on his tiredness that he winces at the movement. “Let me leave you my card so you can call me in case there is something you want to talk about.”

Coulson noticed his almost-flinch. There is no way he did not, considering that his eyes narrow briefly, and he slides the card over the surface of the desk between them slowly.

Picking it up, Tony studies it to avoid looking up at Coulson. What was he thinking? That Obadiah bought out the FBI and Coulson was coming in here to shoot him right in his office? He really needs all of this to be over.

“Thank you for your efforts, Agent Coulson,” Tony says, managing to sound nonchalant.

They shake hands again, and Tony accompanies Coulson to the door. It is unusual, but he wants to make sure that Coulson actually leaves instead of lingering or talking to Thor. Their conversation consisted of a lot of unspoken things and Tony will have to go over it again once he is alone to make sure that the FBI is only suspicious and does not know things that are none of their business.

Outside, Thor perks up the moment the door opens. He manages to look genial and attentive at the same time, as if sitting outside Tony’s office is not boring.

Together, they watch Coulson leave. Only when they are alone does Thor speak up. “Are you all right?”

If Tony attempted to smile right now, it would probably come out mangled, so he simply nods. “Yes.” A look at the clock makes Coulson’s visit appear even more suspicious, considering it is long after normal business hours. “You should go home now. And I should probably try to sleep.”

Thor stands up and gathers his things, shrugging on his jacket. “Let me escort you upstairs then.”

Tony wants to protest, to say that he can find the way to the elevator and his own home just fine on his own. Thor was hired for a reason, though, and Tony, judging on his reaction to Coulson simply reaching into his pocket, apparently does not feel safe in his own tower, even if he would not admit it out loud.

With a nod, he starts walking. “Let’s go.”

Exhaustion is tugging at him, making his legs heavier than they should be. Maybe he will even manage to sleep a night through for once.

#stony #marvel #fanfiction #leave the gun on the table #soulmate #mob boss #angst #slow burn #thor #phil coulson #tony stark #steve rogers #my writing #ao3