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lokisgoodgirl · 6 months

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Home Truths: The Lakes [Loki x Reader]

The Lakes Masterlist / Regular Masterlist Summary: (4) Loki is given a shake, and the four of you hit up the local supermarket. Warnings: Minors DNI. Ex-Loki. Major Satchelage. Humour. Brotherly/ Domestic fluff. Smut references. Mild angst. Pining. (w/c 4.5k) Recommended Folklore Track: Hoax

The rain hadn’t stopped. You’d spent the next few hours limping between rooms, keeping busy, stealing glances out the droplet-streaked windows where you could.

Where was he?

The kiss had lingered on your lips. The taste of Loki absorbing into cracks of delicate skin like water in thirsty soil. Nobody knew where the god had disappeared to in the early hours, allegedly.

What's more, they didn't seem surprised.

It had been another two hours before Loki returned holding a string of thoroughly deceased rabbits.

He stalked through the front door, turning abruptly into the kitchen and lowering them to the dining table with a macabre series of thumps.

“Holy Moses-” Steve scoffed disapprovingly, folding his arms.

The kettle began to whistle on the stove as Loki paraded to the cupboard. He pulled out a mug sporting a large yellow bear with an eyepatch.

“I saw no reason why our ‘education’ need be stifled by a mild weather-tantrum” he drawled, gesturing to the window before plucking a teabag from the tin. He glanced back to you as you leant against the kitchen doorframe. His eyes narrowed. There was no hint there of what had passed between you only hours before. It made you sad. But not surprised. “Don’t you agree, Agent?” he purred. Thor emerged by your shoulder.

“What the-?” his eyes fell on the limp pile of fur adorning the plastic tablecloth; gasping sharply. “Hodorekorn, brother?” His excitement was electric. Loki shook his head. “Alas, no brother. Rabbits. But much the same to ensnare.” The god tilted his head as he poured from the kettle, throwing Steve a wink. “See, Rogers?” he smirked. “I am not completely useless.”

Thor’s arm stretched above your head, pressing his hand against the frame. “It took you four hours to capture five hodorekorn?” He chuckled wrly. “Rusty indeed, brother.” “Rabbits.” Loki corrected, stirring his tea.

Steve swallowed, eyeing the bundle. “What are we supposed to do with ‘em?” he said, regretting the words as soon as they were spoken. “Skin them, and cook them of course!” Thor’s boom filled the tiny kitchen.

Steve gagged.

You couldn’t stop the smile that spread. Loki’s eyes met yours, giving the smallest nod. “Yeah, we can do that” you said, “good thinking Thor. Steve? How about you take the first one? Dealer’s choice.”

Steve clapped a hand to his mouth, pushing Thor into you in a hasty sprint to the bathroom. Dry wretches followed as the three remaining Avengers descended into laughter.

Tears streamed down Thor’s face while you doubled over, clinging to his forearm. Even Loki’s demure overtures of mirth rumbled across the linoleum, although you were certain that it was the sight of you and his brother that was the cause rather than the captain’s overdramatic heaves. Just like the old days, you thought with a pang. Thor wiped his face, catching his breath while there was a pause in the theatrics from the bathroom. For a moment, silence. And then... ‘Heuuuuuurgh-’

You and Thor looked at each other with simultaneous disbelief, the following whoop of laughter utterly uncontrollable. Loki took a sip of tea before placing it down, walking silently to the table. He tilted the chin of a rabbit towards him, frowning.

“We really should skin these brother,” he said sharply, “they will lose succulence otherwise.” You looked up through misty eyes, the release making you forget everything else. Loki had bristled, his mood altered somehow. Thor caught his breath beside you, panting heavily. “I- I can show you how,” you gasped as you wiped a trail from your eyes. Loki waved a dismissive hand. “No need. My brother and I are not quite as incapable as Rogers would have you believe.” Thor’s brow furrowed, shaking his head lightly in your direction. Don’t mind him, it said. “Outside or inside?” you asked, reaching for your jacket on the hall hook. It was still wet. “Outside,” Loki said with finality. His eyes flew to your hand, resting on the anorak. “Your presence is not required, Agent. My brother and I are perfectly capable, as I said.” He shot a piercing glance to Thor. The blonde swallowed.

“Uhhh...yes. Indeed, yes – brother, lead the way.” Loki breezed between you, stooping gently at the door-frame as a slick waxed Barbour unfurled over his lithe body. It hung to his thighs, the taut curve of his muscled ass shifting. The ghost of his knuckles grazed your palm as he passed. Accidentally, you were sure.

Thor lingered by the coat-hooks, shoving an arm brutishly through the sleeve of a particularly beaten-looking yellow raincoat. The material creaked menacingly as he hoisted it up his biceps.

There’s no way that is zipping closing, you thought – half watching the outline of Loki pacing towards the small hut at the edge of the cottage boundary.

Thor threw a look over his shoulder, checking Loki was out of earshot. He tugged the sides of the raincoat down. The edges lined perfectly with his nipples. Rain fell vertically outside the open door, a gush from the awning gutter pooling around the doorstep.

“He probably wishes to recount his version of what happened last night,” Thor said in hushed tones. Hushed for him, anyway. “What do you-” Thor waved a hand, eyes closed to your protestation. “Sister, please – the neighbours over yonder valley likely heard the commotion my brother’s intransigence provoked. Rogers and I heard everything.” The strap of your backpack hanging on the rack suddenly became very interesting.

“I’m not your sister, not anymore. Never was – technically” you heard yourself say, avoiding his inquiring eyes.

Pursing your lips, you scratched a nail down the strap’s weave. Thor squeaked as he shuffled closer, constrained arms wrapping around your shoulders with difficulty.

Breath heaved from your lungs as he pulled you tight. “You’ll always be my sister, sister” he smiled, resting his chin on your hair.

“If these last decades taught me anything, it is that blood relation is the least important quality.” He placed a kiss on top of your head. “Now, I must depart, and entertain my brother’s lukewarm justification for his boorishness.”

He turned, throwing a ridiculous pointed yellow hood up with a flourish.

“And skin some rabbits, of course” he projected loudly, throwing you a calculated wink. From behind the bathroom door, Steve wretched again.

Loki flung the rabbits on the small bench squeezed in the corner of the hut. A ragged door hung from its hinges. If he wasn’t sure it would disintegrate, he would have slammed it. He didn’t know what to think.

Growth, he surmised, was becoming more trouble than it was worth.

He pushed his hair back from his face, the wet slick that met his hand more familiar now than he would like.

“That was rude, Loki” Thor rumbled, shaking himself like a dog in the doorway. “Hardly,” Loki snapped, casting a disparaging look in the speaker’s direction. He felt a snarl curl at the corners of his mouth at the sight of his brother spilling from the tiny yellow raincoat. “And you look ridiculous.” Loki sat abruptly on the bench, turning his attention to the rabbits. He divided them out. Three for himself, two for Thor. His brother was slower. Always had been. “It was rude,” Thor repeated, squeezing himself to the bench on the other side of the sad bundle. Loki slid a small hunting knife over in silence. Hadn’t used them in years, he realised.

Not years, Loki thought. Centuries.

Perhaps more. The shuffle of fur coming skilfully away from muscle rustled the air.

“You’ll never win her back being like that, you know” Thor murmured, drawing the knife respectfully around the rabbit’s hindquarters. Loki scoffed in spite of himself.

“Who says I wish to win her back?” he huffed, laying the first completed rabbit on a clean cloth by his side. Despite stoic intent, he found himself looking up to meet his brother’s incredulous stare.

“What?” Loki said sharply.

Thor released a theatrical shrug, rabbit swinging. “Oh I don’t know brother-” he started, laden with sarcasm.

“Something about your perpetual hangdog expression, insufferable lovelorn mooning and thwarted midnight attempts at seduction led me to believe there could perhaps be something more at play.” He tapped the half-skinned rabbit against his temple. “Not just a helmet-hold, brother” he drawled.

“It was barely ten pm,” Loki muttered petulantly, busying his hands. They continued in silence, before Thor cleared his throat. “What did you wish to speak to me about, if not that?” “It was that, you cretin. But I wish not to discuss it anymore.” “Your feelings for her?” “They have never been in question, brother. You know that.” “Yes.” “Well.” Loki snapped with finality. “Well?” “Her feelings towards me. Her concerns, the ones that broke us...she was, right.” He faltered, grateful for the pause Thor held while he gathered his thoughts. “She told me I was hurting her, and I cared not. And I know not why. At the time, her protestations seemed unreasonable.”

The confession hung around his neck like a ceremonial amulet. Heavy, powerful. “And now?” his brother probed quietly, concentrating on his work.

“Who am I, Thor?” Loki whispered, peeling the fur back from the delicate soul in his hands before stopping. “Who am I if not who I have been for centuries? Millennia?”

“People change, Loki” Thor said quietly, reaching for his brother’s hand. Loki looked up, brows peaked softly.

“But brother, we are not ‘people’. Are we?” Thor was silent. Sympathy swam in the depths of his eyes, darkened by the gloom of the cabin. Rain hit the roof. Loki was glad of it, filling the empty silence. “I’m trying,” was all Loki could muster.

“I’ve noticed,” Thor replied cautiously. “As has she, I suspect. But the palace of Asgard was not built in a day.” “She kissed me,” Loki hummed quietly, staring at the bundle in his lap. “This morning.” “Ah,” his brother hummed mysteriously.

The blonde drew his hand away from where it sat atop Loki’s. He flipped the knife, inspecting the ornate handle. “Do you remember when father gave us these?” he said thoughtfully, a smile stretching across his face. Loki frowned, gazing at his own knife. “The summer with the-” “- Haugan sisters.” They both paused, sighing simultaneously at the wall. Thor shook his head, waving nostalgia from the air. “Father said that they symbolised our transition to maturity. Protection, sustenance, a connection to our roots Loki.” Loki closed his eyes, summoning the memory. The grass was long that endless summer, a log cabin with a stone chimney that dwarfed the exterior. A cabin that had no right to be where it was – and yet, “Loki?” He opened his eyes, meeting his brother’s. In that moment, they could have been three-hundred again.

The blonde god flipped the knife back to position. “Your problem, brother, is that you spend too much time worrying about what you think you should be, rather than what you are.” “And what am I, brother?” Loki bristled, laying his second rabbit down by the side.

“Someone who’s afraid to be loved” Thor said, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. He pulled the final tug of fur from his charge. “Ah-Ha!” he smiled, turning. “Thank you,” Loki said quietly, cradling the offering and placing it with the others.

��All she wants,” Thor murmured, his concentration fixed on the second rabbit in his lap, “is you. The real you. The one that I know. But maybe one who listens better. And not the mural version, or the lore from battle tales...” He paused, before a sly grin stretched his lips. “Well, perhaps sometimes...if you catch my drift.”

"What if he is not enough?" Loki whispered. He wasn't sure if Thor heard him.

His brother's face had become serious again. He was on a roll. “To feel that your lover sees himself as superior to you in every way? Takes any opportunity to remind one of that? To never try to adapt to a reasonable request? I can see how it can become tiresome.” He shook his head, frowning. “Mother would never have put up with that nonsense. Why should she?”

“Indeed,” Loki muttered softly. He placed his third rabbit to the side as a sigh rattled his chest. His brother was making far too much sense for his liking these days. “Fear not, brother” Thor rumbled as he leant over, a conspiratorial glint in his eye. “I have a cunning plan. A kiss this morning is most welcome news.” “It was a strange situation. She knew not what she did- it would not have ended well, it-”

Loki’s eyes widened in horror, realisation blossoming. “A cunning what-?” There was a knock on the hut door.

Suddenly, Loki realised that the rain had stopped. Your face popped around the corner. Loki straightened, wiping his hands on his Barbour.

“Steve and I are driving into town” you said, casting glances between the gods sitting hunched on the rotten bench. “Want to come?” Thor propped his fists beneath his chin, smiling obscenely. “Oh, please, brother!?” Loki thought about rolling his eyes, before stopping himself. He pursed his lips instead. “Certainly. Although I am surprised considering-” “We’ll be ‘undercover’, obviously” you cut with air-quotes, glancing backwards. “Apparently Steve needs something from the shops. He seems a bit flustered. The nearest one is pretty small but…” Your head disappeared again, only delicate fingers remaining curled around the door’s ragged edge. He had the sudden urge to protect them from rogue splinters. Loki frowned, noting an impish smile had worryingly taken up residence on his brother's face. “-Yes, I’ll...yes I’ll tell them.” Loki and Thor looked to each other warily, before you appeared again. “Steve says wash your hands,” you said, raising your eyebrows. “And lose the yellow slicker” you nodded to Thor.

From the assortment of abandoned jackets hanging bushel-like in the hallway, they had managed to find one for Thor that wasn’t quite as conspicuous. The 3XL puffer jacket spread around him like a navy cloud.

Steve turned abruptly, eyeing Thor and Loki in the back of the Fiat. A hiss squeezed from the puffer every time Thor fidgeted. “Where am I supposed to put my legs?” Loki muttered scathingly. “This thing has gotten smaller since the drive here.” Steve’s eyes narrowed. “Speaking of magic-” he said, taking his time. “It seems that some of my personal items have gone missing.” Loki glanced at his brother, brows peaked as Steve continued. Thor’s gaze wandered out the window, following a passing bird. “We need to pick up some supplies, like bacon – that’s the cover with her,” he thumbed backwards, “since someone ate the whole week's ration.” Steve’s judgemental gaze swung towards a distracted Thor.

“But on the sly, keep your peepers open for some…” he cast a wary glance out the front windscreen, seeing you locking up the cottage. “-Unmentionables.” “Condoms?” Loki quipped factitiously. Steve flushed. “No, Laufeyson” he hissed, tone frantic as you crunched towards the car. “Rogers underwear has mysteriously vanished, brother” Thor chuckled. “One minute they were lined up in the suitcase, all thirty-six pairs. The next-” he made a whooshing gesture. “Thirty-six?” Loki mouthed incredulously. “Christ, Rogers. Did you intend on soiling yourself thrice daily?” The god twisted towards his smirking brother. “What did you do to them?” “Me? Tis not I who suspicion has fallen on, brother” Thor gasped, pressing his fingers innocently to his chest. Loki rolled his eyes, and this time – he meant it. “Well it wasn’t me.” Loki huffed, folding his arms as Steve’s stare pinballed between them. “I have better things to do. And besides, what fetid joy would I gain from such a waste of-”

You pulled the car handle with a jerk, noting all three men inside bristle and straighten in a way that could be considered nothing short of suspicious.

“Everything okay?” you murmured, settling into the driver’s seat. They nodded in silence.

Thor’s jacket hissed.

“That better not be a parp, Odinson” Steve muttered, followed by the low buzz of a lowering window. You adjusted the mirror, meeting Loki’s eyes and quickly looking away. “Okay,” you sighed to yourself. “Let’s do this.”

The comforting Tesco Express sign glowed in mid-afternoon gloom.

It was barely three, and yet it may as well be sundown. Clouds still smothered the sky, hanging low and ominous over the town’s uneven rooftops. You pulled into a parking spot outside, thanking the powers that be it was quiet. Steve cleared his throat, digging into the breast of his raincoat. He produced four mismatched caps, jamming one low on his brow before handing out the rest. “I don’t think I need to remind you to exercise caution. Don’t be suspicious. Don’t draw attention to yourself, and if anyone asks – we’re just four pals from out of town here for some good ol’ fashioned cottaging.” You wrinkled your nose. “That doesn’t mean what you-” “May we begin this expedition so that it might end sooner?” Loki drawled. With no warning, Thor farted.

The captain’s eyes widened. “Get out...get out!” he gagged. It was the fastest evacuation of a hatchback you had ever witnessed. Thor was last, his cheeks pink. “All the bacon,” he explained sheepishly while pushing the seat forward. You took Thor’s arm, letting the puff of his jacket warm your chilled fingers. While the god’s wide eyes inspected the snack chiller inside the door, you saw a non-nonchalant Loki meander straight to the checkout followed by a jumpy Steve.

The captain hung back, picking up a packet of gingerbread men and inspecting it over a pair of sunglasses.

Loki drummed his fingers on the counter, smiling wryly as a member of staff appeared from the back. “Hi, with you in one second-” they said, holding up a finger before disappearing again. Loki murmured pleasantries, adjusting the cap holding the stuff of his hair. “What are you doing?!” Steve hissed. Loki caught a musty waft of his own waxed jacket as he turned, shooting Rogers a perishing glare.

“You’re the one that has us looking as though we intend to rob the place. Hush,” Loki hissed back. Steve snapped back to the nutritional information as the Tesco worker re-surfaced. “Sorry about that,” they said.

Loki released a dazzling forced smile. “Do you happen to have any mens undergarments in this” he raised his palms, searching for an accurate descriptor, “place?” The man on the other side of the counter frowned. “Like, underwear? No...you’d need to go to one of the bigger stores for that kind of thing.” Loki stared at him. “There’s one in Millom?” the man added nervously, making the sides of Loki’s eyes crinkle before his features softened. “I see,” he purred, tilting his head. “How unfortunate.” “Anything else I can help with?” the mortal asked. Loki sighed thoughtfully, rocking on his heels.

“One package of,” he squinted at the shelf behind the counter. “Durex Extra Safe, if you would.” The heat from Steve’s cheeks radiated the short distance from the bakery display. There was the squeak of a shoe, the telling crack of biscuit as the captain’s sensibilities floundered. Behind the counter, the man turned without a second thought, reaching up before glancing back. “Pack of three or pack of twelve?” he asked.

Loki smirked. “Pack of three or pack of twelve, darling?” he crooned to Steve, whose face had flushed an alarming shade of beetroot. He turned back to face the cashier. “Pack of twelve.” Loki winked.

You couldn’t hear what what transpiring at the check-out, but the shade of Steve’s skin gave the distinct impression it wasn’t on script. The oblivious shop worker reached up, bringing down a box and handing it to Loki who parted with a crisp twenty pound note. Where did he get cash, you thought; before realising what the box was. Are those...

“Agent, look-” Thor exclaimed beside you as he held out an oblong package. “Party Rings,” he said smugly, “If ever there was a snack made for I, tis this – surely.” You muttered a quick uh-huh, stalking down the aisle to where blustery Steve was busying himself picking up a random assortment of foodstuffs piled high in his arms. “Steve?” you said warily as you removed three packets of bacon and a tub of yoghurt. It revealed his face, still flushed and sweaty.

“Laufeyson bought...prophylactics,” Steve rasped as his eyes darted around the empty aisle.

“I saw,” you responded sympathetically while the captain shook his head. “In broad daylight too” he added, narrowing his eyes over your shoulder.

The increasingly erotic scent of waxed Barbour jacket filled your nostrils. “Got everything?” your ex quipped. Steve’s lips flapped, forming words that didn’t come. He released a goose-like hiss instead. You quickly unloaded the rest of the groceries from his hands, spilling them into Thor’s basket just as he parked himself beside you. “What’s happening?” Thor said. Crumbs from a ravaged pack of Party Rings clung to his beard. Loki continued, unperturbed.

“I’m sorry they didn’t have your unmentionables, Rogers. But nevermind – not a totally wasted trip.” He tossed the box of condoms to Steve who caught them out of instinct. “Oh, Extra Safe – excellent choice,” Thor rumbled far too loudly. “And a necessity, for my brother and I – nothing else seems to hold the force of our seed without making quite the mess-” he cast a knowing glance to you. “She knows,” he winked. Steve looked between the gods, aghast. Thor produced a chicken drumstick from his pocket, taking a casual bite. “Are you the same, Rogers?” he said, chewing thoughtfully. “I imagine you must be with all that super-whatjit-serum business.” There was silence. “Oh, right” Thor laughed awkwardly. “Well, you never know...this trip might be the one.” He slapped Steve on the back, chortling.

“Stop calling me Rogers…” Rogers whispered. He looked like he was in shock, staring at the pack of twelve condoms in his hands. “Someone might…” Steve’s face paled as catastrophic images fell into place inside his head. A picture of him on the homepage of every gossip site there was, holding a box of French Letters in Tesco Express like a pervert. He stuffed them in his pocket.

“Let’s pay for this stuff and go.” he said firmly.

“Excuse me?” a voice creaked from further up the aisle. The four of you broke your huddle, battle-stances activated.

An old man shuffled closer, the tap of his walking stick echoing on the polished floor. “What should we do, Agent?” Thor muttered out the corner of his mouth. Your face softened, looking the geriatric up and down. “He’s clean, just an old dude,” you said. Steve tutted beside you. “Could be a disguise.” “A disguise?!” you hissed. “Excuse me, are you-” the old man started, before stopping in a haze of coughing. You began to step towards him, but Steve’s arm flew out to stop you. Four sets of eyes watched the man pick up pace, rubber end of his cane tap tap tapping on the floor as his crinkled gaze widened. It swept between the tall figures before him. Recognition. “Code Amber. Breach. Do something normal,” Steve whispered in panic. Without missing a beat, Thor lifted a sandwich carton from the basket and held in front of his face.

You turned, colliding with Loki’s chest. “Follow my lead,” he growled as he yanked you around the end of the aisle.

Before you could protest, he had you caged against a row of toilet paper. Matt plastic packaging cushioned the back of your head while Loki’s forearm pressed against the face of a sweet looking puppy. “This is normal... isn’t it?” Loki breathed, eyes flickering nervously from your shocked expression to where Steve was checking the expiry date on milk.

You stared up at him, fighting the urge to inhale deeply against the hollow of his neck with all your strength. Pine and smoked cedarwood and that fucking wax jacket. Loki's throat bobbed, working anxiously as the elderly gentleman bypassed the strange man holding a sandwich in front of his eyes. He was gaining on Steve. He's actually worried, you realised. “Move, Rogers” Loki grit, frowning as the intruder finally tapped an undercover captain on the shoulder. The god's eyes widened earnestly. It made you want to sink onto your knees.

The bow of Loki’s jawline was strained, veins tight and pulsing like they did when he was about to cum down your throat; his eyes pleading and needy, mouth open and- You swallowed. Letting your fingers clasp around the rough material of his open jacket, you tugged it gently. “It’s just an old man,” you whispered. Loki tilted his head, seemingly just realising the position he had manoeuvred you into. A gulp made his throat stiffen, then relax.

“Two old men,” he hummed, mirth warming his eyes. You smiled, and so did he.

Loki shuffled closer, his breath mingling with yours. He glanced towards the scene unfolding one aisle over, wetted lips hovering dangerously close to your own.

“Update,” he purred playfully, “the decrepit man has asked Rogers to get something from a high shelf. He has obliged.”

You pursed your lips with an approving nod, hoping Loki couldn’t smell the adrenaline seeping through your pores. “And my brother is still the village madman.”

A giggle escaped you, before the pad of Loki’s index finger smothered it gently. He leant close, your foreheads touching conspiratorially as silent laughter made his chest shake. His mouth creased in a soft smile, rolling the bottom lip beneath the top. “Shhh, you’ll get us in trouble,” he murmured in a way that made your soul leave your body. You wondered if he was hardening beneath his trousers right now. He would have, before. Maybe – if last night was anything to go by. But your awkward kiss this morning flashed back with frightening clarity, the hard look in his eyes as he said the only word that ever seemed to matter. Go. Don't be an idiot, you thought bitterly. Your hands slipped from their rest on his jacket, catching briefly on his belt. Loki watched them fall.

“Me in trouble,” he corrected, face stiffening. You stared at each other for what felt like an eternity before Thor’s face peered around the corner, a half eaten ploughman’s sandwich in his grasp. “Time to leave before Rogers goes into cardiac arrest,” he chuckled, nudging his head towards Steve loitering jerkily by the door.

“Can you pay for these?” Thor said, holding out the basket. Empty packets lay nestled amongst the survivors. “You’re the least famous.” You rolled your eyes, nodding up towards Loki. “That sounds like something he would say,” you quipped without thinking. Loki’s brow furrowed. He let the protective arm resting above your head fall without a second glance, striding the long way around towards the exit. Thor took another bite of sandwich. He shrugged, before following his brother. But he didn’t, you thought with a stab of guilt as the three of them disappeared into the street.

The glow of the Fiat’s lock lights flashed. He didn’t.

--> Continued in Chapter Five, A Cunning Plan

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bucky-bucky-bucky-bucky · 1 year

Text

Glutton for Punishment | Bucky Barnes x Reader

Hello, hello! I am back back back again. My life has been busy, y'all. School is kicking my ass. But this fic has been like 94% complete for like a month, and I finally got to finish it! yay!

wordcount: 8939

Warnings: angst, self harm, Bucky's trauma

Bucky collapsed onto the bed with a defeated huff. The mattress rippled under his weight and jostled the computer resting on your thighs. His chest rose and fell with another dejected sigh. His meetings with Fury never went well- but they weren’t always bad. Sometimes, things between them were cordial. Neutral. This was not one of those times. Bucky wanted to sink into the bed and never come out. He wanted to dissolve into the earth and disappear. The only thing anchoring him to reality was, as always, you.

“Hey, how’d it go, babe?” The comforting lilt of your voice floated through the air. Maybe drenching your words in overt positivity was too much, but it seemed necessary. Maybe if you could coat your voice in optimism, it would fix whatever plagued Bucky. But you knew it was useless to hope.

He didn’t answer. He just stared up at the ceiling, a blank expression on his face. Coming home to you after a bad day or a shitty meeting was always his saving grace; being near you brought him peace. But he hated bringing the shame home with him.

“That bad, huh?” you ditched your laptop and laid next to him, propped up on one elbow. “What happened?”

Silence. He didn’t tear his eyes from the ceiling. Didn’t even blink. He just gazed upward- hopeless.

In the quiet, your fingers traced up and down his arm. You pressed kisses to his shoulder. He always had a way of shutting you out before allowing you in. It wasn’t personal; it was just his process. He opted to suffer without your help until the pain ate away at him. And when there was almost nothing left, he tore down the walls and welcomed the onslaught of comfort.

“He said it was my fault.” Bucky tried not to sound too pathetic. He knew you worried about him- a lot. Knew that his misery always hurt you. Seeing him in pain brought you nothing but heartache. But his efforts did nothing to hide the anguish in his voice.

You didn’t want to make him repeat the whole ordeal, to relive whatever messed up shit Fury said to him- but you needed context. Your words were soft, your voice gentle. “He said what was your fault, baby?” Bucky didn’t deserve more blame, more guilt. Though none of what he did was his fault, a lifetime of remorse rested heavy on his shoulders after his Winter Soldier days. You wondered how much unjust blame he could carry before it crushed him.

Bucky sighed, “All of it. Everything that went wrong on that last mission- the explosion, all those agents getting hurt-”

“What? You weren’t even the lead on that job- how is any of it your fault?” Heat rose in your chest. Your heart pounded against your ribs. Defending Bucky was your first instinct, your first priority. And while he accepted the shame with which Fury saddled him, you immediately turned to protection. To rage.

Bucky shrugged, “he said I’m the most experienced, so I should’ve known better than to let the lead take our team into the lab.”

“Wait- he said you should’ve argued with the mission lead?”

Bucky nodded.

“But didn’t he reprimand you last month for that exact reason?”

Again, he nodded.

“What the fuck?” Wrath sizzled beneath your skin. No one was allowed to treat Bucky this way- not even Fury. He contradicted himself and put his hypocrisy on full display, knowing Bucky hated himself too much to argue.

“I can-” Bucky’s voice came out hollow. Empty. Guilt had him in a chokehold. “I can see where he’s coming from…”

“No, don’t do that.” It wasn’t a reprimand- but a reminder. You laced your fingers with his, “You know it wasn’t your fault.”

He refused to make eye contact. “I mean, I could’ve spoken up-”

“You weren’t even with them, were you? Didn’t Fury tell you to hit the warehouse on your own?”

He nodded.

“So how is any of it your fault, Buck?” Fury sent Bucky into a tailspin with almost no effort. He knew exactly which buttons to push, which wires to pull. Fury made him his puppet, his scapegoat. He made Bucky work harder than anyone else and never delivered the praise he deserved. Instead, he met Bucky’s efforts with tongue-lashings and bitter insults. With blame.

“I don’t…” he shrugged. “I don’t know- but it feels like it’s on me. A lot of people got hurt and I am the most experienced. I should’ve said something-”

“But if you did, Fury would’ve called you into his office to tell you that you’re arrogant- like he did last time.” A deep breath filled your lungs and calmed your system; anger wouldn’t help Bucky. You needed to channel that energy into comforting him, easing his mind.

You softened your tone, “You know you can’t win with him, Buck.”

“Maybe because I tried to kill him… twice.” Finally, he looked at you, “And I can handle being called arrogant- those agents got hurt, doll. That’s different.”

“I know it’s different. I’m just saying… you weren’t involved. You did what you were told- what Fury told you to do.” Your hand cupped his cheek, he leaned into your touch. “And if he wants to get mad at you for that, he’s a piece of shit. He knows he fucked up, and he’s pinning it on you.”

Bucky pulled you close. He curled in on himself with you at his center, his head resting against your chest. The logical part of his brain believed everything you said. It disregarded Fury’s false accusations and willed the blame to dissipate. But the rest of him took Fury’s every word as gospel. It rejected your assurances, categorizing them as obligatory kindness from a significant other. Shame feasted on his soul. He didn’t want to feel this way, but it came easily. By now, it was second nature.

“Thanks, doll…” He lifted his head and brought his face to yours, “I appreciate you.” He meant it; no one ever supported him like this. But you always listened. You were always there for him, even when he was too ashamed to look you in the eye. You showed him patience and kindness and led him out of the dark more times than he could count.

He dotted a few soft kisses to your lips, “I’m gonna take a shower.”

“Wait-” Your hand caught his as he tried to get up, “I love you.”

A shy smile pulled at Bucky’s lips. He once again met your lips with his, needier this time. “And I love you.”

He stripped off his shirt and, immediately, your eyes landed on it. By now, you knew better than to stare. But sometimes, you couldn’t stop yourself.

The first time it caught your eye, you couldn’t avert your gaze. You noticed it right away- how could you not? It drew your focus the first moment Bucky removed his shirt in front of you. You didn’t think anything could ever distract you from his perfect body- but you were wrong.

A massive bruise splashed across Bucky’s skin. The cluster of broken blood vessels was dark at the center- nearly black. It exploded into by purples and blues that stained his right shoulder and eclipsed his chest. Sometimes, an angry, red haze leaked from the edges like a wine stain. Greens and yellows- signs of healing- colored the border every now and then. But no matter how many times you bore witness, they never seemed to overtake the tones of violet and navy.

For whatever reason, this thing refused to heal.

On more occasions than you could count, you asked Bucky about this large indigo mark. And he always had an answer:

“Ran through a wall”

“Jumped out of a plane”

“That John Walker asshole hit me with Steve’s shield”

He did, indeed, have a dangerous job and a penchant for peril. For taking risks. But no one else on the team ever seemed to have a bruise like that. Even you received your fair share of stitches and broken ribs, but never anything as persistent as Bucky’s bruise.

Wasn’t he a super soldier? Wasn’t he supposed to heal fast- really fast? His other injuries disappeared like they’d never happened; why did this bruise stick around?

“I think you need to get that looked at,” you told him once, “it can’t be good that it never heals...”

Bucky shrugged it off with a smile. He kissed you on the forehead and thanked you for your concern. But he didn’t get it checked out. He downplayed the massive bruise eclipsing his body and moved on, just like he always did.

“What are you lookin’ at?” Bucky quirked a brow at you, his shy smile making another appearance.

You shrugged, “Doesn’t it hurt?”

“It’s not- it’s not that bad,” Bucky did his best to hide his bruise with his vibranium hand, but the colors extended far past what he could cover. “I’m used to it.”

Something had to be wrong with him, right? Something inside his body had to be out of order. The first time you saw it- the first time you saw him without his shirt- was six months ago. How long could a bruise last? And how long did he have it before he showed it to you?

Why hadn’t the serum fixed it by now?

Bucky was well past his expiration date. He lived more years than the universe intended, and his body suffered enough trauma for a hundred lifetimes. He was strong, he was a survivor. But every time you stole a glance at the inky spot on his skin, anxiety blocked your airway. Part of you wondered if this mark signaled his end. There was a chance that his body already started breaking down, that all those years of abuse caught up with him. Maybe his bruise was a harbinger. Maybe his days were numbered. Maybe he was dying.

Maybe you were about to lose him.

Those kinds of thoughts pushed bile into your throat. You shoved them into the darkest corners of your mind and did your best to lock them away, but they reappeared from time to time just to hurt you. Taunt you. Bring you to tears. And while Bucky made his way into the bathroom and turned on the hot water, you remained fixated on the inky spot. On his demise.

Bucky did his best to let the shower cleanse his mind. He told himself he’d let it all go- all the guilt and the blame. He knew he didn’t deserve it. But his shame didn’t run down the drain. It didn’t wash away with the warm spray of the shower. No, he remained coated in it, dripping with it, no matter how hard he scrubbed. And though it wasn’t an unfamiliar feeling, he never welcomed its reemergence.

A sliver of levity wriggled into his chest as he emerged from the bathroom. He found you reading in bed, your brows knit together in that cute way he loved. But your focus shattered when he stepped into the bedroom. He watched you dogear your page and shut your book as he climbed into bed.

“You don’t have to stop reading because of me, doll-”

“I was only reading while I waited for you,” you extended a hand in his direction and tugged him closer. He didn’t need to know that you only opened your book to distract from your crippling anxiety about his condition. He didn’t need to know that you read the same paragraph over and over and over without retaining a word. “Now that you’re here, I don’t need any other form of entertainment.”

“Is that so?” He narrowed his eyes at you and gestured to the book resting on your chest, “I’m better than Dracula?”

“Way better. So, the guy drinks blood and sleeps in a coffin-” You shot him a wink and knocked your book to the floor, “big whoop.” A dramatic eye roll and a quick laugh accompanied your comments about Bram Stoker’s masterpiece. But a sudden seriousness banished your playful tone as you gave Bucky a once over. He didn’t look any better- not that he ever looked bad. But the hot shower did nothing to help him relax. All his muscles remained taught. His brow still furrowed. The tension in his jaw seemed to turn to concrete. He was hurting.

“How you doin’, Buck?” A gentle hand smoothed over his shoulder and slid down his arm. “You okay?”

A manufactured smile spread across his face. His shoulders rose and fell in an all too casual shrug. “I’m fine- I’m good.” He couldn’t seem to maintain eye contact for more than a few seconds.

Another tug of his hand brought him closer. “You don’t seem fine…”

“No, really. I’m okay,” he brought your hand to his lips and pressed kisses to your palm. He was the farthest thing from okay; it was written all over his face. And though he did his best to put on a façade for you, you saw through the cracks. A heaviness lurked behind the grin he wore. A deep sadness darkened his gaze. You knew he probably spent the entirety of his shower replaying Fury’s words and berating himself within an inch of his life.

An extra helping of guilt dropped upon Bucky’s shoulders as he studied you. One of your nails dug into the cuticle of another. Your smile remained tight and tense. He could practically see the anxiety surging through your nervous system. And it was all his fault. You were worried about him, upset about him. How could he do this to you when you brough him nothing but peace?

He found it in him to take a deep breath, to let his shoulders fall a fraction of an inch. “It’s just gonna take a little time for me to get out of the shitty headspace Fury put me in. I’ll be alright-” He pressed a kiss to your cheek, “I promise.”

Fucking Fury. He seemed to allow everyone else chance after chance; he granted grace to every other member of the team. Everyone but Bucky. “You wanna get some sleep, then?” you cupped Bucky’s cheek, “hopefully, you’ll feel better in the morning.”

Bucky nodded. He reached over and flipped off his bedside lamp before giving his pillow a few adjustments. He got settled under the covers and waited for you to do the same- but you didn’t. You laid there, watching him.

“You gonna turn your lamp off, doll?”

“Not until you’re all situated.”

Bucky looked down at his perfectly arranged covers and then back at you, “I’m um, I think I’m settled, baby.”

You quirked a brow at him, “Are you though? Come on-” you found his hand under the covers and pulled him closer. “Assume the position, Barnes.”

He let out a labored, tired laugh. “Baby, thank you, but I can’t. My hair’s still wet, you’re gonna be cold-”

“I don’t care- you had a rough day.” You could practically see the war raging within Bucky’s psyche. He was dying to crawl into your embrace a disappear into your warmth. But he couldn’t- not tonight.

“It’s okay, doll. You don’t have to, it’s-”

“Come onnn, Buck. You knowwww you waaaant toooooo.” You gave your chest a few light pats, beckoning him to you. “I know it always makes you feel better.”

Of course, he wanted to. Something about resting his head on your chest, listening to your heartbeat, and feeling your hands in his hair eased his soul. Even on his darkest, most soul-crushing days, he found solace with you. But guilt still gnawed at him; Fury’s rant played on a constant loop inside his head. And after what he’d supposedly done, he didn’t feel as though he deserved your love.

“Baby, I know you feel bad; And I know you’re trying to deprive yourself. But guilty or not- which you are not-” you gave his hand a squeeze, “you deserve comfort.”

A touch of heartbreak colored your voice. You were desperate to help Bucky, nearly begging him to grant himself some grace. Some care. In his attempts to hurt himself by staying far from your embrace, he’d hurt you instead. He’d made you sad, filled you with worry. He wondered if he’d ever be able to do anything right.

In an instant, he did as you asked; he’d do anything to make you feel better. His head rested against your chest, his wet hair dampening your shirt. It sent a rush of goosebumps over your skin- but you didn’t care. A deep sigh left Bucky’s chest as he melted against you. He often swore his body was made to fit yours, that he only existed to touch and be touched by you.

“See? Isn’t that better?”

“Mhmm…” he sighed, “much.”

You ran a hand through his wet hair, “Good. Now, let’s get some sleep. Okay?” You flicked off your lamp and wrapped your arms around Bucky, willing every ounce of your love into his body. He’d feel better in the morning- you knew he would. He just needed time and rest and a little love. And you gave him more than he ever dreamed of.

But around two in the morning, a strange sound vibrated on the edges of your consciousness. The dense ‘thud’repeated endlessly, like an eternal metronome. It resounded inside your head, mixing itself in with your dream until it finally woke you.

With your face still smushed into your pillow, you muttered Bucky’s name. The sound stopped- maybe you imagined it. Maybe it really was just part of your dream. Silence settled over your room once again and lulled you back to sleep.

But only a few minutes later, that sound woke you once again.

Your words came out sloppy, heavy with sleep. “Whass tha noise?”

No answer.

“Baby,” you said, more alert this time, “You hear that?”

Bucky didn’t respond.

With a groan, you forced your eyes open. There was no sign of disturbance or struggle; nothing out of the ordinary caught your eye. Everything was in its place- except Bucky. And when you pressed your palm against his side of the bed, the sheets lacked any remnants of his warmth.

This wasn’t like him- not anymore, anyway. Back when you first got together, Bucky left the room when he woke from a night terror. He’d slip out of bed and escape to the living room, forcing himself to withstand his panic attack all alone. But one night, you found him on the living room floor- desperate for breath. He clutched the corner of the rug and gritted his teeth, willing the anxiety to receded.

He flinched when you touched him; he didn’t hear you approach over the pounding in his ears. But the second he saw you, he reached for you. His sickly white knuckles regained their color as he released his fists and collapsed against you. He dropped his head into your lap, falling forward with the weight of his trauma. And he allowed your voice to soothe his racing mind. He let you guide him out of the agony.

Of course, he apologized for waking you. For inconveniencing you. Of course, you wouldn’t hear it. And when the panic finally subsided, he let you walk him back to bed. He buried his face in your chest and thanked you a million times over. After that night, you made him promise to wake you when these things happened- no matter what time it was. You made him promise not to suffer in silence. And he agreed.

You didn’t know he had his fingers crossed.

“Buck?” the anxious pounding of your heart boomed in your chest. “Baby?” You kicked the blankets from your body and abandoned your bed. Slivers of light made their way through the blinds and splashed across the floor, allowing you to search through the darkness. He wasn’t sitting on the floor or in the armchair near the window. Nor did you find him in the en suite bathroom.

“Bucky?” The hall was empty and the office void of Bucky’s presence. And while you searched for him, the sound refused to cease. It echoed through seemingly every fiber of the apartment. It haunted every space. Unfounded worries threw themselves at you, fighting to topple you to the ground. What if Bucky was hurt? What if he was gone?

No- he was fine. Of course, he was. Right? He had to be. The home you shared was safe. Nothing here could hurt or harm him in any way.

Well, maybe not nothing.

The thudding of your heart grew loud in your ears, nearly eclipsing the mystery sound all together. Part of you even doubted the existence of the noise- maybe it was just your anxiety getting to you. Maybe Bucky was in the kitchen grabbing a late-night snack, perfectly safe and happy.

But when you rounded the corner into the living room, all doubt fell away. Shards of your heart did the same as you stood in shock, watching the source of the sound reveal itself.

Bucky sat on the floor near the window, his back resting against the couch.

His metal fist hammered against his right shoulder again and again, beating the flesh a sickly blue.

The utter shock stole your breath, forcing it violently from your lungs. A burning erupted from your chest and spread through your every cell like wildfire. The floor seemed to tilt and ripple as a wave of dizziness sent you nearly collapsing into the closest wall. And through all of it, the sound persisted. The sickly thud of metal striking skin, striking bone.

But there was no time for your shock or sadness or heartbreak. Bucky needed you.

“Buck? Hey-” In only a few strides, you made your way to his side. But he didn’t look at you. He didn’t meet your eyes when you sat down in front of him, nor did he stop his assault. “Bucky, baby, can you look at me?”

He didn’t. He simply forced his hand against his chest over and over, no matter the pain.

“Bucky,” you didn’t recognize your own voice. It came out more strained, more desperate than you’d ever heard it. The sight of Bucky doing this to himself almost made you sick, the sound covered you in goosebumps. A flood of saliva rushed into your mouth, warning you of the impending threat of vomit- but you forced it down.

Every time you asked about it, every time you wondered what caused that bruise- you never imagined it was self-inflicted.

“I need you to stop, okay?” Your words came out frantic, “Can you- can you just look at me for a second?”

His hollow gaze remained fixed on the floor. Anguish twisted his features, pulling his face into a pained mask. But his eyes held no life.

“Please-” your palm landed on his bruised shoulder mere seconds before the next strike. The force of his vibranium fist was sure to shatter your hand, but you didn’t care. You’d do anything to stop him from hurting himself. Anything to ease his pain. And if you couldn’t make him stop, maybe you could soften the blow.

But just as his fist once again neared his shoulder, he stopped. “Move,” his voice was low, almost timid.

“No.”

“Doll,” his eyes remained downcast, “I need you to move your hand.”

You refused. “I’m not gonna move, Buck. I’m not gonna let you hurt yourself.”

Finally, he dragged his shame-filled gaze upward. His despondent look sliced through you, cutting right to the bone. This was worse than the vacant stare he wore moments ago; this was utter misery. “Please…” his voice caught in his throat, barely pushing its way past the tension. “Move.”

But your hand remained; you’d keep it there until the end of time if you had to.

Warm, salty tears breached your lips as you spoke, and only then did you realize you were crying. “Buck, why are you doing this?”

“Because I know you won’t.” He clenched and unclenched his metal fist in a never-ending cycle, itching to resume his efforts. “None of you will. Not Sam. Not Hill. Not ever Fury. So, I have to.”

“Of course, we won’t. Why- Why would we?” It was an unfathomable thought.

“I need- I deserve to be punished. I deserve to face consequences for my actions.” The words fell from his lips in what resembled a recitation, like he had a script to follow. Like he’d said this before. “There are always consequences…” Again, he pulled his hand into a fist; the vibranium whined under his strength. “There have to be consequences.”

“There were consequences- your meeting with Fury? That was the consequence.”

He shook his head, “It’s not enough- people got hurt.”

“It’s more than enough…” With your free hand, you reached for Bucky’s cold fist. He resisted at first, almost scared to be without his method of punishment. But he never could resist your touch. One at a time, you uncurled his fingers from his tight fist. You pressed his cold palm against your chest and held it there, allowing the beat of your heart to vibrate through the metal. “Especially because you didn’t do anything wrong. People got hurt- but it’s not your fault.”

Bucky ached to maim himself. He needed to feel pain. Needed to get what he thought he deserved. But he couldn’t bring himself to tear his hand from your chest. And though you blocked his bruise and made punishment impossible, he liked the way your palm felt against his black and blue skin. It was the one part of him you always shied away from for fear of hurting the already tender flesh. But your touch soothed the deep ache.

“Baby, how…” you swallowed the lump forming in your throat, “how often do you do this?” You weren’t sure you wanted the answer; just the thought of Bucky doing this to himself day in and day out filled your chest with storm clouds. But you needed to know.

His words held a deep shame, “Whenever I deserve it.”

“Buck, you’ve had that bruise for at least six months...”

He shrugged, “I deserve it a lot.”

Everything inside you burst into flames. You wanted to tear Hydra apart, to destroy them for what they did to Bucky. They altered his sense of self so violently, so irreparably, that they changed who he saw in the mirror. He viewed himself only as a vehicle for destruction, a receptacle for other peoples’ wrongs. They drilled into him an acceptance of abuse, of pain, of torture. And now, he didn’t know how to operate without it.

“No, you don’t- you don’t deserve this.” A small quiver forced its way into your voice, “even if this whole thing was your fault- which it wasn’t- you wouldn’t deserve to be hurt.”

He stared at you for a long moment. Sometimes, he didn’t understand. He couldn’t comprehend the sentiment that he didn’t deserve pain and suffering; that he wasn’t always to blame. It was almost like you spoke different languages. Shuri may have eliminated the Winter Soldier programming and rendered his trigger words useless, but she couldn’t remove his shame. His guilt. His instinct to assume blame.

“I can’t do anything right-” His right hand gripped the edge of the rug. He needed some way to release his tension, his anxiety. The fabric bunched inside his fist and twisted with his every move.

“It seems like no matter what I do- or don’t do- someone ends up hurt. That says something about me, doesn’t it?”

“No. It doesn’t.” You slowly removed your hand from his metal wrist and found his right fist. He eased the tension in his grip with your help and released the corner of the rug. It fell crumpled against the hardwood, struggling to regain its shape. “Buck, you always say that you blame yourself because you think you’re a bad person. But I actually think you blame yourself because you’re a good person.”

He gave a small shake of his head.

“You’re willing to shoulder whatever guilt or blame other people put on you- regardless of whether you deserve it- because you’re not selfish.” He was, in fact, the least selfish person in the world. He’d set himself on fire to keep you warm. Would move heaven and earth to make you smile. He was loyal, devoted. He cared about you, about his friends, without ever putting himself first.

“And you haven’t buried yourself in ego or pride like some of the other guys we work with.”

Bucky let out a soft laugh.

No, he didn’t bury himself in ego; he had no ego. His self-image wasn’t inflated or overexaggerated. He just wanted to do his best. To help. To offset with light some of the darkness he caused.

“And maybe it’s your way of seeking redemption- not that you need to be redeemed,” you gave his hand a squeeze. “But maybe part of you feels like if you accept enough responsibility, it’ll make up for the things you were forced to do as the Winter Soldier.”

He let out a sigh from somewhere deep within him, somewhere he didn’t know he had. It seemed to him like he’d been holding on to this truth, this breath, since the day he escaped. And here, in the darkness, he released it. “I just… I don’t want to be the bad guy anymore.”

“That’s the thing Buck,” you gently stroked a few fingertips across his massive bruise, “You never were.”

His forehead fell against yours. The two of you sat there, motionless, for what felt like forever. Cars moved on the streets below. Thunder rolled through the sky. Rain drops tapped against the large windows. But neither of you noticed.

“If I move this hand-” you tapped your once again fingers against his bruised shoulder, “are you gonna do it again?”

He shook his head.

With great hesitancy, you removed your palm from the evidence of his self-inflicted punishment. It looked worse in the eerie 2am lighting, like a black hole formed on his skin; you feared it might envelope him completely if you let it. Your lips replaced your hand, leaving the softest of kisses across his skin. Bucky let loose a small sound- something like a whimper- as you traced the bruise with your mouth. He let a few tears slip down his cheeks.

“Thank you…”

You took a moment to drink him in. He was stronger than humanly possible. Hugely muscular. Nearly indestructible. But in the middle of the night on the floor of your living room, he looked so small. So fragile. His shoulders caved forward, and his read remained bowed. His voice wavered. His right hand shook ever so slightly. He was a man haunted, possessed by his past. Fearing the future. He was hurt. Broken. Lost in others’ perceptions of himself. He lay trapped under his need for validation from those around him. He sought approval from people who never dreamed of granting it.

You wondered if he’d ever be free from his ghosts, or if they’d follow him until he became one himself.

“You don’t have to thank me,” you pressed a kiss to his forehead. “All I ever want is to be there for you when you need me.” The tremor in your voice matched Bucky’s. Pure hurt rendered the air around you thick and heavy. You ached for Bucky, and he, in return, ached to be anyone but himself.

“What do you wanna do? We can go back to bed. Or if you don’t feel like sleeping, we can hang out in here and watch some tv.” You ran a hand through his sweat-dampened hair, “Up to you.”

Bucky’s mind still raced. His brain sat stewing in a deep pit of sorrow and anguish. But he was tired- exhausted. And while his mind wanted to stay up for a while, he let his body decide. His chest and shoulder screamed with pain. His skin stung. Each breath forced a sharp agony into his consciousness; he knew he must’ve cracked a rib. “Let’s-” he grimaced as an inhale filled his lungs, “let’s go back to bed.”

As gently as you could, you helped Bucky from the floor. He smiled when your hand found his as you led him in the direction of the bedroom. The two of you shuffled down the dark hall in silence with no clue what to say. Bucky wanted to apologize; you wanted to drown him in promises of your love.

Bucky stopped short when you paused, almost running into you. You turned to him suddenly, eying his bruise in the dim light. “You go ahead, okay? I’m gonna grab you an ice pack.”

“Doll, thank you, but I’m fine-”

You narrowed your eyes at him, “does it hurt?”

He shrugged; the motion made him wince. “I mean, yeah. But it’s-”

“Exactly.” You pushed up on your tip toes to press a kiss to his cheek, “I’m gonna get you an ice pack. You get your ass to bed- I’ll be there in a second.”

Bucky whispered a ‘thank you’ and headed in the direction of the bedroom, leaving you alone. But just as he turned the corner down the hall, guilt wrapped around his ankles like a ball and chain. He was stuck; his need to apologize rendering him frozen. He watched you turn in the direction of the kitchen and wondered what he did to deserve you. “Hey, doll…” he called after you. “I’m sorry for waking you.”

“Nothing to apologize for. I promise.”

“But I-”

“You’re doing your best. You’re coping in the only way you know how. That’s not something to be sorry for.”

Bucky shrugged, winced, and disappeared into the bedroom, eager to escape your line of sight. Everything you did, you did for him. And though that knowledge should’ve eased Bucky’s soul, it only added to his guilt. He marked yet another tally to the long, long list of ways in which he didn’t deserve you.

The walk to the kitchen wasn’t long- but it provided a sliver of extra time for you to cope in private. If Bucky knew just how much this upset you, how heartbroken you were, he’d never forgive himself. He, instead, would add that knowledge to his ever-growing mountain of shame. He’d adopt a new method of self-punishment, something more subtle, easier to hide. And he’d never express his guilt or shame to you ever again, all to save your feelings. You couldn’t do that to him; he deserved an outlet, a sounding board, a space to vent. You’d never dream of robbing him of that.

“Alright, here we go,” you pushed open the bedroom door. “I got you one of the big ones, cause that thing is massive, and-” If you didn’t look up at the right moment, you would’ve crashed right into Bucky.

He stood near the foot of the bed, just inside the door, almost vibrating with anxiety. It rolled through him in waves and placed tremors in his hands. He didn’t stand a fighting chance.

His massive frame looming in the darkness almost blocked your path completely- and scared the hell out of you. “Shit-” You tripped over your own feet and stumbled backward, but Bucky wouldn’t let you fall.

He caught you in the nick of time, snatching you from the air and righting you on your feet. “Oh, hey- I’m sorry, sweetheart.”

Without a word, you pressed the towel-wrapped ice pack to his skin. Though he detested the cold, the sensation awarded him much needed relief. A deep sigh left his chest as his pain receptors deadened and the constant, months-long throbbing subsided. This was the first thing to put his pain on pause in- he couldn’t remember how long.

You searched his face for any indicators of discomfort, “How does that feel?”

All he could do was nod. The two of you stood there a while as Bucky drank in the relief. The muscles in his shoulders released their tension, his breaths came a bit easier. But something dark lurked beneath his quiet surface.

“Such a gentleman, waiting for me to come back before getting in bed,” you threw him a wink.

Bucky’s attempted laugh came out broken, disjointed. To his credit, he tried to laugh for real. He wanted to put this whole night behind him and slide into bed with you. Under the covers, surrounded by your body heat, nothing could hurt him. The skeletons of his past couldn’t claw out of the ground and wreak havoc on his psyche. But a nagging dread yanked at his heart.

He couldn’t pretend things were resolved. He couldn’t forget his troubles and intertwine his body with yours like the knit of a well-loved sweater. The crushing weight of Fury’s blame sat atop his shoulders, growing heavier by the second. But he couldn’t find it in him to tell you, to ask you for help.

“Come on, let’s go back to sleep. Okay?” You tucked the ice pack into Bucky’s hand and started toward your side of the bed, “I know you’ve gotta be exhausted.”

But Bucky didn’t follow. He didn’t join you, didn’t even nod. He stood there, stuck, his feet anchored to the floor. The cold pack ate through his nerve endings until his hand went numb. And no matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t fill his lungs. They felt shallower, somehow- like they lost all capacity.

His deadened fingers fell open, allowing the ice pack to fall against the floor. The sound pulled your focus, halting your efforts to right the sheets and blankets.

“Buck?”

He didn’t answer.

“Hey…” Quick steps brought you face to face with his empty stare. “Is everything-”

His knees met the hardwood as the weight of his anxiety forced him into submission. He fell against the cold floor with a sickening thud, his body shaking with the force. His head bowed; his spine curved forward. Ragged inhales forced their way into his ever-constricting lungs.

“Please-” he begged through choppy breaths, “if you won’t let me do it myself, I need- I need you to.”

“Buck, I’m-”

“I need you to hurt me.”

His words gutted you.

“Baby, no.”

He begged over and over for punishment. For pain.

Bucky fell against you the moment you joined him on the floor. His head lay buried in your neck, his sharp breaths fanning your skin. He begged through the tears, through the torment, for pain. And you refused. Instead, you gave him the lightest, softest affections you could manage.

Under different circumstances, your gentle touch would’ve saved him. It would’ve brought him comfort in his moment of distress, grounded him during a bout of panic. But he didn’t want kind hands. For the first time, your soft touches prolonged the agony. The light circles you rubbed against his back filled him with impending doom. With misery. He wanted torture. Agony.

And even if he were dying, he’d willingly sacrifice his last breath to ask for punishment.

As carefully as you could, you helped Bucky lay down on the floor. How his body continued to run remained a mystery to you. He was drained, physically and emotionally. He was hurt. Panic ravaged his nervous system and pumped him full of cortisol. He was running on empty.

“Let’s try to relax a bit, okay? Let’s try to breathe-”

He shook his head against the rug, “No, I need- I need it. I need you to- can you…” His words came out weak- but desperate.

Your hands raked through his hair and massaged his knotted muscles. Over and over again, you swore your love to him. You showered him in assurances and words of kindness. And though he was grateful when sleep won him over, it didn’t stop his efforts. Even as he finally dozed off, he begged.

“P- please…” he sighed, his eyelids fluttering. “Need you… need you to.” His hand twitched, his brow furrowed. “Hurt- hurt me.” Hearing it didn’t get any easier.

For what must’ve been the millionth time, you refused.

And while Bucky slept in your arms, you remained wired. Every cell in your body swam in a cocktail adrenaline and cortisol. You wondered if you’d ever sleep again. Just when you thought Bucky’s story couldn’t get any darker, it seemed to do just that. His life was all shadows and wormholes wrapped in an inky abyss. No stars, no moon. Just shapeless, unsettling, endless night.

He deserved better.

The sun rose as you fell asleep. Your mind shut off; your body gave out. Thinking yourself in circles while Bucky slept in the safety of your arms depleted your every ounce of energy. Worrying this much didn’t seem healthy; you didn’t think it was even possible to feel such deep concern. You never knew how taxing crying could be. But Bucky was worth it- hands down.

No part of you wanted to fall asleep; Bucky couldn’t be left unsupervised. But a biological need for rest demanded you get some shut eye. And while you slept off the gut-wrenching night you’d spent with Bucky, anxiety seeped into your dreams. Images of Bucky maiming himself flashed behind your eyes. You saw him bloodying his body, abusing himself. His bruise haunted you.

Waking in bed threw you for a loop. Only a few hours ago, you’d dozed off on the throw rug covering your bedroom floor. But when you opened your eyes, you found yourself snuggled under the duvet with Bucky’s body under yours. His arms held you tight, your face nuzzled into his neck. This was how things were supposed to be.

It was then you realized- your head lay against his bruise. Even in your sleep, you did your best to protect him from himself. He wouldn’t dare strike his shoulder and risk hurting you. But the weight of your skull had to hurt him, didn’t it? He was sore, miserably so. Just the pressure of your palm resting against his bruise the night before made him wince- surely, your head was too much. With the utmost caution, you pulled your head from his chest.

“It’s okay- doesn’t hurt,” his voice was weak, full of exhaustion. You didn’t know he was awake.

“Oh. Okay, good. I, um,” you looked around for a few seconds. “I don’t remember getting in bed.”

“We didn’t- well, you didn’t.” He couldn’t believe that after everything he put you through the previous night- all the pain, the heartache, the worry- he let you fall asleep on the floor. It was selfish of him, inconsiderate. He should’ve insisted that you get in bed. He should’ve done what you asked and crawled under the covers with you. He failed you- again. “I didn’t want you to sleep on the floor…”

Your lips met his skin in a chain of soft kisses, “You know I don’t mind.”

“But I do,” he returned every kiss you granted him.

He woke nearly half an hour after you finally dozed off and found you curled up against him. Your head rested against the cold hard wood; the itchy rug left marks against your skin. A small shiver rattled up your spine and pushed you closer to Bucky’s warm embrace; it was too cold for you to sleep without a blanket. His body begged him to go back to sleep, but he couldn’t- not yet. He lifted you from the floor, his shoulder aching with the effort, and tucked you into bed with all the care in the world. Only then could he fall asleep once again.

“I’m sorry about- about all of it,” he said. “Last night was-”

“You don’t have to be sorry,” you pulled your face from his chest, “I just wanna know what that was about.”

Bucky hoped that acting innocent would save him. “What?” Maybe if he pretended like he didn’t know what you were talking about, you’d move on. Maybe you’d tell him to forget it and save him the explanation. You didn’t.

“When you asked me to…” you gave a small shake of your head, “to hurt you.” The pain in your voice sliced through Bucky. He wondered if words could make him bleed.

“Oh. Yeah. That was… I was out of line,” his jaw tensed. “That wasn’t okay. I know I made you uncomfortable- I’m sorry. I never wanna upset you. I was being stupid. And selfish. It wasn’t fair of me-”

The shame practically dripped from Bucky’s lips. You could almost see in running down his chin, staining his skin. He expressed his remorse for things that weren’t his fault, for things he couldn’t control. He told you how sorry he was for his trauma responses and the anxiety that held him hostage. Maybe one day, he’d believe you when you told him he didn’t have to apologize. Today was not that day.

“I’m just worried about you, Buck. And I wanna help in any way I can-” you took a deep breath, “I just can’t help in that way.”

“I know.”

“Can you maybe tell me- can you help me understand?”

He remained silent for a long while. If he stayed quiet long enough, he could avoid any further distress on your part. With his silence, he could provide solace. But no. You had a penchant for knowing what made Bucky tick, no matter the pain it caused you.

Your unflinching stare drilled through him until he couldn’t take it any longer. “I needed you to hurt me because that’s what I’m used to. I’m used to punishment,” he finally said. “Because when I fucked up at Hydra, there were consequences. They’d beat me within an inch of my life to get the message across.”

Of course, this was a sad truth you already knew. But hearing it aloud- from his lips- gutted you. The image of a cowering, broken Bucky sent bile rushing up your throat. You could see him lying in a cell somewhere, his blood staining the concrete as Rumlow tore him apart. And of course, he’d never fight back- he couldn’t. Not unless ordered to.

“And now, that’s what I’m accustomed to,” he rested a hand against his bruise, almost on instinct. “I don’t know how to operate without it. I thought I’d be happy to never experience it again but… I feel like I need it.”

Showing Bucky kindness and understanding sat atop your priority list- but you couldn’t grasp his perspective. It didn’t make sense. He lived a life so foreign to you, so utterly other, that the things he said often left you confused. While the two of you had many similarities and things in common, some experiences would simply never be relatable. Some stories could never be shared.

And similar to how Bucky couldn’t understand your flagrant disregard for locking the front door, you couldn’t fathom why he’d beat himself blue.

“Why, Buck?” It wasn’t that you wanted to know. No, the truth could only serve to hurt you. But you needed to understand. You needed to untangle every knot within Bucky’s psyche and help mend his frayed edges. In order to help him, you had to first grasp his perspective. “Why do you ‘need’ it?”

“Because I know I deserve it.” The words came out course, almost aggressive. Bucky shot you a sheepish look, his method of a wordless apology. The next time he spoke, his voice was softer, his tone more even. “I’ve been conditioned to expect it. And waiting for that pain is- it’s torture. It’s almost worse than the punishment itself.”

He thought back on all the beatings he received as result of fucking up missions. On one occasion, they broke all twelve of his ribs in one sitting. Another time, they turned almost his entire body blue with bruises. But the times they made him wait it out were far worse than any bloodshed. He jumped at every sound, lost the ability to think. To sleep. To breathe. Every moment fell prey to the anticipation of agony. Bucky shuddered.

“I keep expecting pain. I feel like I have to look over my shoulder.” The urge to tear himself apart scratched at the inside of Bucky’s skull. If he could just deliver his punishment- if he could just get what he knew was coming- he’d be okay. By destroying his body, he could soothe his mind. But with you so close, staring at him with your blood shot, heartbroken eyes, he was stuck. “It’s like this sense of impending doom that doesn’t end unless I get what I know is coming.”

Things fell quiet as you thought over his words. Anxiety was an old friend you knew well. It accompanied you through everything, never leaving your side for more than a few days. But what Bucky described- that was the stuff of nightmares. That was misery.

“Hang on,” you tripped over a detail in his story, “then what happened last night?” You didn’t mean to sound skeptical- it wasn’t like that at all. You believed every word Bucky said. One part, however, didn’t quite make sense. “Last night, you got your punishment. You got the pain. Why did you ask me to-”

He sighed, “Last night was different. You caught me. I had to stop- I’ve never done that before. I’ve never stopped right in the middle. I was only out there a little while before you found me.” His vibranium hand pulled into a fist and slowly released. He did this time and time again as the urge hurt himself gnawed at him. “I didn’t do enough. It felt like holding in a sneeze or something. And when we came in here to go to sleep, I still had this sense of looming pain, an impending punishment. And I knew you wouldn’t let me give it to myself. So, I asked you to do it.”

The far-away look in his eye dissolved as he came screeching back to the present. Guilt dragged his features downward into a near scowl. “But I shouldn’t have done that. I’m so sorry.” The remorse weighed more than he could shoulder. If he thought he knew what guilt felt like before, he was wrong.

“It’s okay, Buck.” You knew the memory of Bucky begging you for punishment would haunt you forever. It took up prime real estate in your mind and cut you deeper each time you paid it attention. But he couldn’t help it; this was part of his journey. When you started dating Bucky, you knew he wasn’t a ‘regular’ person. Darkness and demons followed him wherever he went, filling his mind with horrors most people could never imagine. Of course, there were going to be speed bumps and rough patches on the road of your relationship. But he never did anything with malice in his heart. He was simply trying to survive. “I know you’re just doing your best-”

“My best is pretty shitty.”

He was always so callous with himself, so unforgiving. It wasn’t fair. “Baby, you’ve made a lot of progress.” He was a completely different person than he was a few months ago. He’d worked hard every day to wade through his trauma and find himself on the other side- all while saving the world. “But it doesn’t all have to happen at once. You can’t heal from everything in one fell swoop. It’s not linear. It’s a slow process-”

“Really slow.” He let out a huff and pressed the heels of his hands against his eyes. Part of him wanted to run; he couldn’t believe he’d subjected you- the kindest, most loving person on earth- to this corner of his awful reality. But he knew being without you was a fate worse than death. Worse than Hydra.

“I don’t want to do this-” he motioned toward his bruise. “I don’t want to hurt myself. But I don’t know how to stop. I don’t know how to heal the part of me that’s always looking over my shoulder for a punishment.”

You smoothed his hair back and let your hand drift down his cheek, “You don’t have to do it on your own, Buck. Maybe you should talk to someone-”

He shot you a pointed look.

“Not Dr. Raynor. Someone else. Someone with empathy.”

Bucky gave a firm nod and a quiet laugh. “Okay, yeah. That works.

“And in the meantime, whenever you feel that impulse, I want you to tell me, okay? I want to help you through in whatever way I can.”

He tried to protest, but you silenced him. “I’m in this with you- full stop. I’m with you for all the hard stuff and the things you hate about yourself. I’m always in your corner.”

He snaked his arms around you and pulled you as close as possible, relishing in the feeling of your heart beating against his skin.

“This is a pain-free household, okay? We don’t do punishments here. We don’t hurt ourselves, and we don’t hurt each other.” You wiggled a hand free and offered Bucky your pinky, “promise?”

Not hurting you was a given; Bucky would never dream of causing you pain. But refraining from hurting himself was another story. The need sometimes possessed him, drove him to harm himself when the guilt grew too heavy. The look in your eyes, though, pushed him to promise you. You held such love for him, such adoration. And he knew you meant every word you said. You were going to help him through, to support him, no matter what.

He linked his pinky with yours, “Promise.”

“Good.” You pressed a quick kiss to his lips before pulling away, “hey, do you have Fury’s address?”

Bucky cocked his head to the side, “Uh, yeah. I think it’s in my notebook in the office. Why?”

In one swift motion, you slithered from Bucky’s arms and slid out of bed. “Oh, no reason,” you sighed as you headed for the door, “I’m just gonna egg his house.”

———————

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free-and-to-none-accountable · 2 years

Text

Posted on September 30, 2022 by Jay Bettencourt

In an uproarious interview with Vice published in 2013, the philosopher Slavoj Zizek describes a dynamic all too familiar to many workers today. He says, today “a typical boss no longer wants to be a boss.” He goes on to describe how, in the postmodern workplace, workers are forced to pretend their employers are their friends. You have to be overly polite, give the boss a hug, “exchange vulgarities,” and so on. The whole time both parties act like this is a relationship of friends and equals.

Management sometimes goes to absurd lengths to keep up this illusion. They will go out for after work drinks or parties with workers, engage socially during off time, invite workers to funerals and weddings, and even try to position themselves as on the side of workers, really. I cannot tell you how many times I have heard my manager say, “I’m on your side guys. I asked the owner for a wage increase but he said no and there’s nothing else I can do.”

This game wears you down fast, especially if you work a low-wage job. Management or HR expects you to maintain a good, polite mood and passion for your job while making your life materially miserable. Some even deploy a line like, “this is a very chill workplace, I try not to be too hard on you guys” as if it were a benefit like decent healthcare or ample vacation time, which are usually missing. All the while, consumer price inflation leaps ahead, wages stagnate, and working conditions steadily decline.

On the flip side, this dynamic can lead to some workers trying to overperform to impress the boss or play into favoritism to secure preferred treatment and respite. Management’s intrusion into the off-hours social lives of their workforce can also act as a form of social surveillance and conditioning on the workers – you can’t talk frankly or even safely vent about your issues if your management is there. Or, if you do, management can easily use that to bribe, isolate, or otherwise retaliate against workers. They threaten to stop being nice.

When you dispense with the niceties and pull back the curtain, the whole sham reveals itself as a classic divide-and-conquer strategy. Employers set up pay structures and work conditions that pit workers against each other in productivity competitions. But to keep workers from cutting each other’s throats, management’s “door is always open” for workers to vent to a friendly ear if they want. Management wants workers to have good social relations only with them. Snitching and ratting out are encouraged, every worker is expected to be a teacher’s pet, and the only way to get any relief from poor working conditions is to play into a manager’s favoritism.

The late Mark Fisher touches on this form of working class isolation in his hard-hitting 2009 book Capitalist Realism. Like Zizek, he hones in on the postmodern workplace and argues that this pervasive structurelessness serves to both alienate workers from each other and break our will to fight. He illustrates this with a point about discipline; during the earlier parts of the 20th Century, workers were regularly subjected to rigid discipline directly from capital, the state, or their agents. Today, workers are socially conditioned to have a “good work ethic,” practice “self-discipline,” and “hustle” to increase labor productivity instead of withstanding discipline meted out by the employer. Management hardly has to intervene.

Furthermore, Fisher argues that this state of affairs conditions working class resistance to capitalism into useless individualized channels like consumer activism. Without knowledge of a class structure (and capitalists pretending to be Just Like Us), there is no clear target to force into giving us what we want. And thus, the problems of capitalism feel as though they have no beginning and no end, intractable as the movement of the planets around the sun.

Unfortunately, Fisher does not offer us much in the way of practical advice for moving forward. Luckily, the IWW is full of battle-hardened class warriors who have learned many hard lessons over the years. In my personal experience, the “nice employer” has proved one of the toughest barriers to getting a union drive off the ground. I generally see management organizing after-work socials, happy hours, and events much more than workers themselves. In my own workplace, managers join workers for game nights and often accompany workers on outdoor activities like biking or camping. It seems they will do anything to make workers forget that the labor relationship is anything besides fundamentally economic in nature.

Management’s deep tendrils in workers social lives tends to make workers reluctant to take actions that may jeopardize their friendships. Organizers must know who is close to whom in the workplace in order to avoid this trap and prevent management from turning workplace leaders and other workers against an organizing effort early on. In our Organizer Training 101, we teach new Wobblies this, what we call Social Mapping, as one of the very first steps in a budding union drive.

In that section, trainees learn that the workplace is already organized. Only, it is organized by management with the capitalist’s interests in mind – usually for maximum labor productivity and profit extraction. I see management’s efforts to infiltrate and structure (or isolate) workers’ social lives as a deliberate way they organize the workplace. It is the organizer’s job to clearly see that and start to break management’s structure down. But organizers must know the lay of the land first if we are to make effective strides toward collective action.

Once the organizers are armed with a good understanding of the social structure and who the leaders are in the workplace, they can start building relationships and pulling workers away from management toward the nascent union with Agitation and Education, or even before that starting to “socialize the workplace;” i.e. developing relationships with coworkers outside of management’s view. This step may be increasingly necessary to counteract the growing alienation and isolation of the modern workplace and getting workers to care about each other and be a bit more involved in each other’s lives. This is the raw material that class consciousness and class conflict is built on, but it can take time and effort to grow.

While Fisher is a bit nihilistic about our prospects, Zizek goes on to say in his interview, “the first step toward liberation is to force [the boss] to really behave like a boss.” He is a bit glib, but his point is a good one. In today’s muddy waters where class organization has been suppressed almost to nil and everyone is forced to act as if they are an “independent contractor” who works for the passion of it, even drawing the lines clearly seems like a radical step. But it is a necessary one that can cut through the confusing fog of modern existence and lay the groundwork for a brighter, revolutionary future free of capitalist exploitation. As the old labor saying goes, “united we fight, divided we beg.” I, for one, am sick of begging.

We must be able to bring our coworkers together to see past management’s superficial niceness in order to fight for that future. I teach new Wobblies in Organizer Trainings that one of the most important and powerful parts of Agitation and Education is helping our coworkers slice through the propaganda to see the world for how it really is. In this case, management’s politeness comprises a small tactic in a much larger strategy on the part of Capital to delude workers and maintain labor peace. We must help our coworkers stand firm for ourselves, together, against management. We can’t be afraid of not being nice –in fact, we can use it as a weapon just like they do.

Furthermore, in many workplaces management remains the sole puppetmaster of workers’ social lives. Modern management theory seems to have recognized the fractured state of the working class and seeks to prevent our organization by relentlessly trying to mediate, filter, and prescribe workers’ social lives. I think this is a key to building an effective organizing committee; sometimes even before having one-on-ones, IWW organizers must build up some on-the-job social life to pull workers away from management. Meet up for coffee and chit-chat. Have small group events with no managers. Having a stake in each other’s lives is a crucial building block toward effective one-on-ones and toward the trust necessary for taking collective action.

Slow, steady building will pay off in the long run. Take the time to build some friendships and other long-term relationships in the workplace. Agitate and Educate coworkers effectively. Over time, we can build strong worker committees that can finally drop the curtain of politeness, make clear demands, and take collective action to materially improve all our lives. Just don’t fall for the bait.

Jay Bettencourt is an Organizer Trainer with the IWW. Read more about the history of the IWW Organizer Training program here.

Contact the IWW today if you want to start organizing at your job.

#iw #useful #organizing

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griffin-girl-r · 5 months

Note

Blackhill requests you say? Dw I got you covered!

Natasha and Maria are both happily married with an 8 year old daughter (r) when r’s dad enters the picture (r was conceived in the red room so he’s a bad guy who Nat had a one night stand with at some point idk)

She's mine

Created: 11.11.2023

Finished: 16.11.2023

Edited: 17.11.2023

Age: 8

Word count: 2,935

Warnings: Homophobia , Mentions of sexual assult , Abandonment , Misogyny

Anymore let me know

Request: Yes (Tumblr user) (@ravensinthedaylight)

Pairings: BlackHill, Natasha Romanoff x Lev Ilyin (Original!Evil!Character) (Past mention)

—

Natasha and Maria were quietly sitting on the couch in their living room, snuggled closer to each other as their 8-year-old daughter, Y/N, was sandwiched in between the two women.

'Lilo and Stitch', Y/N's favorite movie was playing on the TV and their little girl was absolutely fascinated about everything that was happening in it as if she wasn't seeing this movie for the millionth time.

Natasha had to buy 40 new DVDs with the movie, in the last 7 years since its release, because Y/N watched them so often that they quickly got scratched and, therefore, almost useless.

Natasha could only blame her wife for introducing their daughter to this movie.

Now, truth be told, Maria wasn't actually the other biological parent of Y/N.

Years ago, when Natasha was still a young mere prisoner of her own life, she was forced by the organization that had taken care of her training to have intimate relationships with a man she didn't even know.

More of like, being offered against her own will by the Red Room to one of their men but that is all in the past.

She was ready to keep living with everything that happened to her as long as the only good thing that came out of everything, her daughter, was by her side.

A knock at the front door interrupted Y/N's innocent giggles and the little family looked confused towards the door.

Who could be at the door at this late hour?

"I'm coming!" Maria shouted, carefully moving Y/N's sleepy body, who was using Maria as a pillow, away

"I'll get it." Natasha quickly placed her hand on Maria's arm, stopping her

Maria looked at Natasha for a second and the agent wanted to protest but the reassuring smile the redhead was wearing was too tempting.

"As you wish, my love." Maria smiled back

"I'll be quick." Natasha quickly peaked her wife's lips, then stood up, making her way towards the front door

—

Natasha opened the front door, unaware of the darkness that was lurking just on the other side of it.

A sickening smirk formed on the face of the man who was standing just in front of the red-headed woman.

"Hello, Natalia." He said "Long time no see. Did you miss me?"

Natasha froze in place for a moment as she took in the sight of the man she never thought she would see again.

Memories of a long-forgotten time had resurfaced in her mind.

She shook her head "No..." Natasha whispered "What are you doing here?"

"Well, you know..." The man began "I came to take back what's mine."

Natasha looked at the man, her eyes widening in shock.

"You are not going to take my daughter away from me!" She protectively declared

"Our daughter, my darling." The man corrected her "Oh, and what makes you think that I'm here just for our daughter?" He chuckled "I am here for you as well, Natalia. You are mine just as much as our daughter is." He stated as a matter of factly "How is she, by the way?"

The man took a step forward, walking uninvited inside Natasha's home, and looked around.

"I bet she grew up a lot in the time I haven't seen her." He added when Natasha hesitated to answer his question

"Leave her alone, Lev." Natasha raised her voice "She's innocent. She doesn't have anything to do with all this madness. I thought you were busy planning the world's dominance. How come you have come for us after all this time? How come that HYDRA let you leave their safe prison."

"How?" Lev chuckled "I was never a prisoner at HYDRA, to begin with, unlike you. I am one of their highest-ranked agents. Why do you think they offered you to me out of all people?" He explained "Now I am here to claim what's mine. And this time, neither you nor our little girl will run away. I will find you anywhere."

Anger raised inside of Natasha just as much as fear built inside her.

She couldn't believe her eyes. She couldn't believe that after all this time, the man who hurt her and took advantage of her body was here to claim something he never took part in.

More specifically, in the raising of Y/N, which he had no right over.

"Just leave us alone." Natasha shouted

"You wish!" Lev laughed sadistically

From inside the living room, Maria's ears picked up on the raising tone of her wife's voice, and her instincts kicked in, telling her to go and check what was happening.

"Stay here, baby." Maria kissed your head "Mom is gonna go and quickly check if Mama is okay out there and see who is at the door."

"Okay, Mom." You replied distracted as your attention was fully focused on the movie

Maria stood up and with one last ruffle of your hair, she made her way towards the front door.

"Honey?" Maria called Natasha confused, as she took in the sight of the unknown man sitting in front of her wife "Are you okay? Who's is he?" She pointed to the man "Were you expecting someone?"

"So this is that so-called wife of yours I've heard about." The man smiled "Well it's nice to meet my replacement but we have to leave, Natalia."

Maria looked confused between Natasha and the man for a second.

"What do you mean you have to leave?" Maria asked "Babe?" She turned her head towards Natasha, waiting for her answer

Natasha looked up from the floor, directly into Maria's eyes and the brunette could see the tears that were present in her wife's eyes, causing Maria's instincts to heighten immediately as a surge of protectiveness overflowed her senses.

When Natasha begged Maria to help her just with one look, Maria pushed Natasha behind her with a swift move.

"I don't know who you are." Maria said, her muscles tensing "But I'll have to ask you to leave. Nicely." Se ordered the man through gritted teeth

"You have no right to tell me to leave." The man laughed "I am here to claim what's mine and you, weak woman, will never be able to make me leave."

Just then, Maria's brain clicked on what was happening and she understood who the man that was standing in front of her was.

"You monster." Maria whispered angrily "I know exactly who you are."

"Well..." The man raised his arms, proud of who he was "It took you some time to figure that out." He sang "I expected you to be smarter than this."

"This is the last time I am asking you nicely to leave this house. That unless you want to have some serious problems." Maria said once again

"Oh, come on." The man chuckled sarcastically "You don't expect me to be afraid of a woman and especially of you, don't you?"

"Well, I wouldn't say the same thing if I were you." Maria tilted her head "I am ready to do anything to protect my family."

"Your family?!" The man shouted "They're mine! I am going to take my belongings and leave."

"They are staying here." Maria protested "You don't even know how my daughter is named, let alone have any right over her. I raised her ever since she was a five-month-old baby. I was the one who changed her diapers, checked for any monsters under her bed, and loved her, not you." She hissed "And the same goes for my wife. She's mine for a reason."

From the corner of her eye, Maria saw some movement right behind her, and she saw the man's smirk growing wider.

"Aha, my sweet girl!" The man cheerfully exclaimed "I finally came home. Are you excited to see me?"

Y/N silently peeked at the man from behind her moms.

"Mama?" You called shyly "Who's that?" You pointed towards the man

"No one, baby." Natasha quickly tried to make you leave "Just go back to the movie, okay? Me and Mom will be there very soon."

"Mom?" Lev raised his eyebrow "There is no such thing as another mom. I am your other parent, sweetheart." The man tried to tempt you in a sweet tone "I came here so you could have a normal family. I am your Dad." He declared

"Dad?" You asked confused, looking up towards Natasha "I have no dad. I have Mama and Mom. I already have two parents."

"Well, your parents must be a mom and a dad, not two moms." Lev tried to turn you against your mothers

"But, I love my moms." You innocently declared "They love me and we're always having fun. And Mom always carries me on her shoulders and buys me ice cream, while Mama reads me bedtime stories and gives me the best hugs in the world."

But just before you got to finish your sentence, the man snatched you away by your arm and forcefully held you in place.

You let out a terrified scream as tears quickly made their way down your cheeks.

"Mama!" You screamed out in fear, begging Natasha to help you

"Leave her alone!" Natasha screamed as she tried to grab you back from the men, but she didn't manage to "My baby!"

"Leave my child alone!" Maria threatened "That's my daughter you're holding there. You just don't get it."

"These two girls are mine! And she's coming with me." He pointed towards you

"She's mine!" Maria shouted as she grabbed your other arm quickly and pulled you towards her with all her force, causing the man to loosen his grip on you "They are both mine!" Maria declared as she quickly shoved you behind her to shield you from anything, just as she has done with Natasha "I don't know what's the reason behind your actions and what your evil plan is, but you must leave right now!"

Lev, in a fraction of a second, lifted his arm and punched Maria in the face.

Natasha let out a horrified gasp, her hands instinctively flying to her mouth to cover it in order to muffle any sound.

"Mom!" You screamed, afraid that your mom was badly hurt

"It's okay, kid. Mom is okay." Maria reassured you as she looked towards the man "So, you want to fight?" She nodded, taking a deep breath "Alright then, that's what you'll get."

And just like that, Maria delivered a punch back towards the man and a fight started.

Natasha wanted to help her wife, but she also knew that you needed protection and reassurance as she took two steps backward, shielding you with her body.

Kicks and punches were thrown around from both sides and just as the fight was getting more violent, a blowing sound was heard and the door of their house was slammed open.

"S.H.I.E.L.D., get down!" A deep voice shouted as agents armed with weapons burst inside their home

—

"This won't end like this!" Lev shouted as he tried to fight his restraints, just as S.H.I.E.L.D.'s agents escorted him away

"We'll see about that, Lev Ilyin!" Maria shouted behind him before she quickly turned her attention back to her wife and daughter "You're okay." She said in a rushed but reassuring voice "Everything is okay now, my sweethearts." The brunette woman pulled you and your mama in her arms "No one's ever gonna be able to take you away from me, I'm here and I will always protect you, you both are mine and no one else's."

Your small whimpers broke both Maria and Natasha's hearts.

Natasha held you tightly in her arms "It's okay, baby, it's okay. You're okay." Natasha kissed the top of your head and you hid your face in her stomach

Your cries slowly turned into quiet sniffs as you basked in the protection you felt from both your mothers as Maria protectively held you and Natasha closer to her.

"You're both okay." Maria whispered "We're all okay."

Natasha raised her head and looked at her wife's face, a gasp escaping the redhead's lips.

"Masha, you're hurt!" Natasha worriedly looked at Maria's bruised face and raised her hand to touch her wife's cheek

Maria tenderly grabbed Natasha's hand, stopping her from touching her cheek.

"It's okay, my love." Maria reassured "It's nothing. I just need a little bit of care from you and our little princess and I'll be all healed in no time."

"I'm sorry." Natasha whispered on the verge of crying "I never expected to see him again."

"None of that!" Maria sternly declared "You have no fault in this. Okay?"

"But Maria..." Natasha began before sighing when she saw the look on Maria's face and the spy changed the subject "How did the agents show up just on time?"

"Well, I kind of activated the alarm I have on my bracelet and they were alerted when I realized who Lev was." Maria shrugged her shoulders as if it wasn't such a big deal

"You sneaky agent." Natasha chuckled, a gleam of proudness shining in her eyes

"Well, what can I say?" Maria tried to sniffle her laughter "I am prepared for any situation."

But just as they hugged again, the sweet moment of the small family of three was interrupted by Nick Fury, who walked inside the room holding a file in his hand.

"Agent Hill. Agent Romanoff." He nodded, greeting the women "I want to thank you for catching one of the most wanted criminals on S.H.I.E.L.D.'s list.

"Well, you know..." Maria turned annoyed towards Fury, angry that he disturbed their moment "He kind of messed up with my family. I had to do something about it."

"As a thanks, I have a very special mission for you both." Fury stated "I need your help and you have just proven to me that you're both fit for this mission."

Natasha sighed, rolling her eyes "I knew there was something about you showing up here, Nick, not just because of Lev Ilyin."

"You know me, Agent Romanoff." He stated unimpressed, extending his hand towards them, offering them the file "Ilyin is just another trophy to our collection."

The couple grabbed the file from his hand and Natasha opened it, looking at the name of their next target that was written on the first page with big, bold letters.

"Tony Stark?" Maria asked confused "Isn't he that annoying, reckless man who thinks he's smart just because he has money and who wears sunglasses at parties that take place at night?"

"You couldn't have described Stark better, Agent Hill." Fury nodded "That's why I need Agent Romanoff to infiltrate inside his company. You have all the information there. You're getting a new alias and your mission is to protect him as danger is too close to him right now. We need to take action or the next events will have a turn for the worst if we don't intervene in this." He explained before adding "For the whole globe, not just for Stark."

"Consider it done." Natasha nodded, accepting the mission

"I promise you both, you won't regret helping with this mission." Fury looked in between the two women

"We hope we won't, Sir." Maria squinted her eyes

And just like that, Fury turned around and left without adding any other word.

Maria peeked at the page where all the details about Natasha's new identity were and quickly scanned the page with her eyes, reading the important details.

"Well, I see he didn't think too much about a new name." Maria said teasingly "Come on! Natalie Rushman? He could do better than that. And you were supposed to be a model?" She chuckled "No way!"

"Oh, shut up." Natasha playfully smacked Maria's arm "Let's just leave the mission for another time, okay? I have enough time later to study this role."

"All right, Miss Rushman." Maria laughed, wrapping her arms around Natasha's shoulders while taking a gentle hold of Y/N's small hand "I think we had a movie to watch."

"Stitch!" You cheered excitedly

"Yeah, baby, Stitch!" Natasha lovingly smiled down at you as you all made your way back to the living room

—

That night, Maria lay awake in the bed she and her wife shared.

Natasha and their daughter were sound asleep as today's events drained them out of energy.

The brunette agent turned on her side with a sigh and scanned the faces of her two loves in the darkness.

"No one will ever be able to take you away from me." Maria whispered "I promise you both that we will forever be a family regardless of our past or of what other people might think about us."

Maria slowly leaned closer and kissed your cheek.

"You're so loved, Y/N." The brunette whispered in your ear "And so are you, Tasha." She also pressed a gentle kiss against Natasha's cheek "You're my blessings and I'm the luckiest woman in the world to have you both."

What happened today, helped not only Natasha and Maria, but also you, to realize how lucky you were to have each other and on how much love your small family was actually built on.

Maria vowed to fight until her last breath, just so she could keep you and Natasha safe, as her love for her girls knew no bounds.

And just as Stitch has said.

'Ohana means family. Family means no one gets left behind or forgotten.'

And a true family is built on love, not blood.

—

Permanent taglist: @lizlil , @mmmmokdok , @natsxwife , @lovelyy-moonlight , @observeowl , @froufrousnowman , @youralphawolf72 , @halstead-severide-fan , @daggersquadphantom , @circe143 , @ravensinthedaylight , @darkstar225 , @dannipotatoo , @justarandomreaderxoxo , @theunchosenonee , @cherlenovix

#mama nat #natasha romanoff #natasha romanoff x daughter!reader #natasha x daughter!reader #natasha's child #natasha's kid #natasha romanoff x teen!reader #natasha x teen reader #natasha x baby!reader #blackhill #maria hill x daughter #maria hill x daughter!reader #maria hill

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smytherines · 1 month

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Fuck it, here's an Agent Mega dissertation

Alright since I have such elaborate headcanon for my beloved precious Owen Carvour, I guess I should do it for Agent Curt Mega too. Sigh.

So, going off of the last big one, if Owen is born in 1928, then I'm gonna say Curt was born in 1930. I'm forever won to the Texan agent mega headcanon, but I think it's safe to say that Mrs. Mega is not from Texas, probably more like New York or I've seen people say New Jersey.

We know nothing about Agent Mega's dad, but I imagine he was kind of a loser and low level con artist and moved his pregnant wife down to Texas to do scams around the bustling oil industry, and then soon after Curt was born a scam collapsed and he ran off. It's either that or an Aladdin 3 situation where he was secretly a spy the whole time and had to go into hiding.

So we've got mama Mega, raising a VERY hyperactive (read: ADHD) little boy on her own, in a place where she doesn't have any support, and he just becomes her entire world. But she has to work a lot, so Curt becomes used to taking care of himself, and most importantly- keeping himself busy so he doesn't lose it.

In this headcanon Curt would only be 15 when WWII ends- not old enough to fight, but definitely old enough to have personally known a lot of kids from his hometown who come home in caskets. I just truly think of WWII as a formative experience for both these guys. For Curt it just feeds into that inferiority complex.

Now anybody who has ADHD knows that you already spend a lot of your life feeling inadequate, feeling self-conscious about not being able to be the person other people want you to be (*especially* if you're queer). You get defensive, especially when criticized. You also get restless.

I headcanon Curt as growing up in Abilene, Texas, mostly because I have a friend who grew up there and I've visited and the vibe is right.

I don't know if anybody has ever seen The Last Picture Show, but its a film set in small town Texas in 1951-1952 (so a little late for our timeline but still) and it's (more or less) about two high school seniors essentially trying to escape this suffocatingly small, dying town before they become doomed to spend their lives trapped there.

That's definitely what I think about Agent Mega too- this gay, ADHD teenage boy climbing the walls of this little town, never being able to fully be himself. But he's got a lot of energy (and more than a little anger) to burn off, so he does sports. It's Texas, so football for sure. Maybe wrestling too. Perhaps wrestling is even where he has his gay come to jesus moment.

And when he isn't doing sports, he's home, alone (mama Mega is working so hard), out back drinking a beer (or two, or three) and teaching himself how to shoot. I think he becomes hyperfixated on becoming an expert marksman, because with all of this shit he cannot control, all the stuff he is supposed to be but isn't, this is one area where it feels like he has the power here.

What starts off as "kid drinking beer to feel cool and rebellious" starts to morph into a lifetime dependence on alcohol. Substance use is a big issue for a lot of ADHDers for the same reason I think it would be for Curt- it calms him down. It eases that constant restlessness in his bones. It softens the edges of other people's criticisms of him. It makes him care a bit less what others think about him.

In a vicious cycle, he drinks to avoid feeling those big feelings (especially as a man, especially as a gay man, especially as a gay man in Texas), but the drinking leads to more criticism, which leads to more drinking to numb the emotional response to that criticism.

But his hyperfixation on learning to shoot pays off. Let's say he becomes a junior state champion trapshooter (did I look up trapshooting competitions from the 1940s? yes I did). He's good, especially when he hits the sweet spot of drinking just enough to calm his ass down but not so much that he's useless. Maybe this is how he comes to the attention of the A.S.S.

And he fully believes that these skills he cultivated, the ability to hit hard and run fast and shoot accurately, his ability to escape when it doesn't feel remotely possible, is why many years later he just kinda rolls his eyes at Owen for insisting that they do things carefully and methodically. Careful didn't get him out of small town Texas. Careful didn't get him the exciting non-stop life he has now, a life where he *almost* gets to be himself a lot of the time.

When Owen "dies," and its Curt's fault, he naturally turns to drinking to numb that pain. But its a lot of pain, so it takes a lot of alcohol to kill it.

I'm sure I could go on, but as always I have rambled a lot here so I'm just gonna leave it.

#spies are forever #agent curt mega #saf headcanon #SAFtistic

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ssa-atlas-alvez · 9 months

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cowboy reader comes across a crazy ex gf or partner. like not murder crazy but crazy ass bitch yk?

Description: Dana, an old 'friend' of reader turns up at his work place and decides to make a scene.

Warnings: reader gets slapped, crazy ex girlfriend, she insults JJ, she calls her a sl^t and wh0re, she also tells reader to 'burn in h3ll'

Taglist: @xweirdo101x@xdark-acadamiax@ara-a-bird@heidss@chubbyboyinflannel@pendragon-writes@migwayne@bigolgay@technikerin23@supercriminalbean@honestlycasualarcade@caffeine-mess@1s3v3n1@oddmiles@kevyeen@stealing-kneecaps@criminalskies@woodandwaxwings@wizardmon3@aphroditeslovr@ducks118@azeal-peal@13thdoctor-run@introvertpan84@goth-boi-atlas@iliketozoneout

"Hi, is there something I can help you with?" JJ asked, approaching the woman.

"I'm looking for Agent (Y/N)," The woman responded.

JJ nodded, "He's right this way," She said, the pair of them walked, silence filling the air. A million questions racing through JJ's mind about who this woman was. "So, how do you know (Y/N)?"

"He's my boyfriend," She said, "We've been dating on and off for about five years now. We met in college and it was love at first sight. But with the long distances, we kept calling it off for a while. But we always find our way back to each other."

You tried to bite back a sigh when JJ walked in with Dana. You really, really didn't have time for this. A six year old boy was missing. This couldn't have been any worse timing - it probably could have been, but right now, it didn't exactly feel like that.

"Hey baby, can we talk somewhere in private?" She asked when he approached you, running a hand down your chest.

"I can't talk for long, three minute max," You said. She sighed but nodded and you led her just a little bit away from the rest of the team, wanting to be close by in case they found anything interesting in the three minutes you were talking to Dana.

Dana immediately launches into 'flirt mode' - more than she already was. She's twirling her hair, staring at your lips. And, to be frank, you're not a fan. And you have better things to be doing.

"Dana, can you- can you come back another time? I'm in the middle of a case, I can't do this right now." You said with a sigh as she walked closer to you, the team could very clearly hear everything going on (for a team of profilers they were not good at acting subtle).

"Seriously?" Dana laughs as she swoops down to grab her bag, "You know what? No. We can't do this later, fuck you!"

"Dana-"

"What? What do you want, (Y/N)? Huh?"

"I- I told you, I'm at work right now, I can't do this here, this is important," You said.

"And I'm not?!"

"Dana, that's not what I said, but we're trynna find a boy right now and I can't do this,"

"You're saying he's more important than me?!" Dana scoffed loudly.

"Dana, I'm trynna do my job," You tried to reason. You knew it was useless. But you had to at least try.

"So you're saying he is more important than me!" She exclaimed.

"Dana, he's a missing six year old boy, you're here for a - n excuse my language - a booty call," You said.

The slap sounds through the room and in its wake is the deafening silence of the team and the tingling on your cheek. You drew in a deep breath, trying to stay calm as the team stared in shock. Giving Morgan a small shake of the head when he instinctively reached for his cuffs. "Dana, I need you to leave. Now." You said sternly, "We are not datin', I've not given you that impression and I need you to leave so I can do my job and find this little boy."

"You know what? Fine! Fine, do your little job! With your colleagues! With that slutty blonde! I see the way you look at her!" She points angrily to JJ as she continues to yell.

"You need to fuckin' leave. Now." Your voice is low as you step closer. "You can insult me all you want, but the second you insult her? Insult my friends? Either you walk out that door now or I get security to remove you."

She stared at you, huffing loudly as she turned around. She glared at JJ, "Whore." You ground your teeth hearing that, stepping towards her again.

"Dana, leave. Now." You voice is deep and you ignore the shocked faces of your team when you addressed her. Instead, she turns to glare at you again.

"Burn in hell."

"Get a life," You muttered bitterly, pointing at the door. She huffed once more before leaving.

#criminal minds #aaron hotchner #derek morgan #criminal minds fanfiction #spencer reid #emily prentiss #jennifer jareau #david rossi #x male reader #x cowboy reader #bau x cowboy reader #cowboy reader #bau x reader #bau x male reader #bau #bau team #male reader #male!reader

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buckybarnesss · 9 months

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Bro, the noise I just made. I literally cannot stand the fanon for Stiles or Derek. It is so so soooo bad, I think these people literally have only seen the 2 hour sterek compilation. Every day I am like "who fucking told you people that Derek never smiles and has no sense of humor?"

Stiles gets turned into this big eyed, kitten twink who wouldn't dare to misbehave because he's the sheriff's son (the kid who gets drunk in the WOODS, and gets his dad drunk so he can steal casefiles!!)

Derek like... He is either completely useless and cannot dress himself for a date without fanon!Laura (do not get me started) telling him what to do, or he is so emotionally repressed and damage that he can barely handle someone kissing him without him falling to pieces.

LIKE. Derek smiles. Derek makes jokes!! Derek laughed at Stiles right before the pool scene. Derek knows how to use a cellphone and a laptop. Derek is a goddamn millenial, he knows what grumpy cat is. He knows he's hot, he has a mirror!!

Also... the man lived in New York fucking City. He's not afraid of crowds or talking to people or making out, he uses sex to get his way (Erica and the deputy at the front desk!!)

i know.

like, there's a period of fics that are usually from the s1-2 period that lean pretty hard on derek's dark, brooding and grumpiness from season 1 but of course he was like that. he was going through The Horrors during season 1. he was grieving laura, he was being retraumatized by kate and dealing with scott, stiles and fucking jackson.

he wasn't one dimensional though. his anger was a mask for all the fear, confusion and trying to be in control.

do you know how many fics i've read where people have stiles think about all the apparent physical violence derek has done to stiles as if he's always slamming him into surfaces? way too many to count and it's incorrect. off the top of my head i can count 3 times derek did something like that to stiles. the shove into the wall and slam into the steering wheel in wolf's bane both of which had a point to them. whether or not it was a good emotional response doesn't matter. what matters is that they were not random or part of derek's personality. he didn't just shove stiles into things every time he saw him. the wall shove in s4 with de-aged derek was a deliberate call back to that very instance in wolf's bane. it was literally coupled with the whole cousin miguel bit.

fandom doesn't like to acknowledge that derek hale isn't particularly violent over the course of the show. he hardly even wins the fights he engages in and he is often forced into fights knowing he cannot win.

our boy mostly ends up on the fucking floor.

derek also does make jokes. dry ones usually he thinks they are hilarious too. he thinks he's a funny guy. his dad joke game must've been off the charts, sorry eli.

he and stiles trade barbs a lot and he thinks stiles is funny. stiles amuses him and he indulges it a few times. he shows off to stiles too like a loser.

he likes to fuck with scott and stiles and enjoys taking the piss out of peter. he genuinely enjoyed fucking with liam in s4.

he's not a luddite either. he has a cellphone and we see him use it. i bet he plays games on it. i bet he plays candy crush and words with friends.

and fanon evolved to strip away that stiles is an asshole. he a violent little freak. he threatens people, he expresses regularly his desire to kill people or have them die, he cares about a very small selection of people in his life and if you're not in that circle than god be with your ass because stiles most definitely won't.

he loves and respects his father but this doesn't mean stiles respects the law which is why i don't know why the law enforcement route was chosen for him. stiles hates rules and boundaries. he chafes at them.

stiles casually helps kira and scott break into evidence to get her cell phone. he tells scott's fbi agent father to fuck himself. he got his dad drunk to get access to case files. he copies people's keys. he's a nosy shit.

the whole show started because stiles was a nosy punk kid who wanted to see a dead body.

but i digress.

fanon stiles had a lot of scott's characteristics projected onto him so they could bash scott. i know there's a lot of people who don't like scott which is fine or whatever but there are so many that do it so they can make a pinata out of a character they've extracted all the good points from and give to their favorite little white boy fav.

stiles "i will beat you with a bat" stilinski is a freaky little shit who will bite you.

do you know how hard i laughed when in s3 stiles and isaac genuinely just like could not stand each other? they couldn't be in the same room with out insulting one another and it was the complete opposite of stiles being oh so sensitive to isaac's past and history than straight up in 3b stiles the epitome of insensitive says to isaac something about still milking it (his abuse). stiles is a dick.

i also genuinely have umbrage with the pack mom trope that stiles gets saddled with. the way fandom has oft feminized stiles leaves a bad taste in my mouth too.

derek and stiles are both assholes and i love them very much.

#my blog #teen wolf #thoughts on teen wolf #sterek #derek hale

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bau-drabbles · 8 months

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mafia hotch finding out he has a soft spot for the reader and being confused and slightly angry about it 🥹 (i love our man finding out he’s in love and mafia version?? 😵‍💫)

i love mafia hotch sm 🥹❤️‍🔥 this is so soft and sweet :")) feel free to request anything with mafia hotch! <33

i haven't really worked out the details for this so just pretend for now he's a double agent 😩 also might be ooc 🥲

hotch looked up from his desk, his hands paused as they flipped to the next page. it was utterly useless, he couldn't get much further than a few lines. he was too much in his head as he sighed and slammed the case files down, unable to concentrate on anything.

tonight was a big mission, he couldn't afford to lose his head so easily. he knew his team would be on the case which would only make it that much more harder, he couldn't afford to slack yet the only thing he could think of was you.

the frown on his forehead was unmovable, his face was unreadable as he moved his files away and reached for the half empty tumbler. he let the burn of the alcohol swirl on his tongue, inhaling a deep breath as he sank further into his seat.

hotch never claimed to be perfect, he knows his hands are scarred with the blood of many people. he knows his horrible path, he's manipulative and cruel and sly. with a flick of his wrist, he was able to have a person down in seconds. he was never a good guy, he never claimed to be.

but there you were, your annoying presence lighting up his day. perhaps that was why he never liked you

you saw him.

you saw your unit chief fight bravely for every case, working to the bone every night when everyone had already left. true, you didn't know the real reason why he did those things. but his mind liked to indulge in fantasies every so often, liked to think that you could possibly accept him for what he was. maybe you'd be the belle that tamed the beast? maybe this time someone would see the real him and stay? but love was for fools, he had to remind himself.

he hated you, he needed to.

you and your annoying presence, something he thought he could do without. being in the mafia was hard enough, living a life as a double agent was already risky. adding pleasure to the mix was a surefire way to death.... yet despite that all he couldn't seem to understand why he missed your presence?

a strange feeling entered him, something foreign. something he hadn't felt in years, a promise. promise of hope, promise of companion around this time. only the last time time he was this vulnerable to someone, she ended up being the biggest thorn in his side. so he forced it down, forced it to not rear its ugly head ever again. he promised himself he could never fall for another person, not like this. he would never put himself through that again.

hotch leaned back on his chair, his hand around his glass of whiskey. his head was ever so gently tilted to the right, his eyes sparkling under the lights. his heart thumped with an emotion he hasn't felt in years. he noticed something different about him in the last few years, a genuine smile.

oh.... oh

#asks #aaron hotchner x reader #criminal minds fanfiction #unsub!hotch #unsub!hotchner x reader #mafia!hotch #mafia!hotchner

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aprocessionofthoughts · 24 days

Text

GIW

part 4 of To Find Rest ao3

It had been three months. Three months! Since the kids had left and Babs could still not find anything on them. She couldn’t even find where they lived!

She had planted trackers on them, because… Well, she had done it, but it had proven useless. She had been able to track them to Wellsburg where the tracker stayed for approximately fifteen minutes before it went offline and hse hadn’t been able to get the signal back since.

She had looked into the towns around Wellsburg but the only one that was about an hour from there was Elmerton and the kids weren’t on any of their school’s records.

She’d tried looking into the kids themselves, but that had also proven unsuccessful. Nothing came up when she searched their names, not in any database. It didn’t even look like they had social media!

It had gotten to the point where she had asked Tim for help, but he hadn’t even been able to find anything. And now he was curious about why she was looking into a pair of kids. At least he had agreed not to tell Bruce.

Babs sighed, she didn’t understand why trying to find two random kids was so difficult. She needed to find them. The longer it took the more worried she became. What if something happened to them?

Her comm buzzed in her ear.

“Oracle.”

“What’s up, B?”

“I need you to look into some information on an organization I’ve come across. I discovered some men dressed in white trying to break into Wayne Enterprises. They were able to get away, but one of them left behind their badge. I need you to look up anything you can find on the GIW.”

“You got it, B.”

She’d do this, and then she’d keep looking for the kids. She just hoped they’d be safe for a little while longer.

—-

These stupid GIW were hard to find. She could only catch glimpses of the name in hidden governmental documents. She couldn’t even find what the acronym stood for! All she could find was that it was an organization that was created during Luthor’s term as president. That raised a lot of red flags, but she couldn’t do anything about it until she could locate one of their bases.

Hopefully, one of the agents would be spotted again so that they could be followed back to their headquarters or at least questioned.

The corner of her screen glitched. Babs frowned. What was— Her entire screen went dark.

She cursed. This wasn’t good. And then it got even worse as a messed flashed across her still dark screen.

‘STOP LOOKING’

Well shoot.

Then her computer started smoking and sparking before it started melting. She could only stare open mouthed as her computer and her entire set up melted into lumps of metal, glass, circuitry, and wires.

What. In. The. World. Just happened?

She reached up to her comm, but all she could hear was static. She took a deep breath before wheeling herself over to a side table that held her laptop. She worked quickly pulling up the program to reroute the comms through the laptop instead of her Oracle setup.

She winced as loud voices came through.

“What happened?”

“Can anyone hear me?”

“Hello?”

“Oracle!”

“Quiet!” she said and blessed silence fell over the comms. Unfortunately, it only lasted a moment.

“Oracle wha–”

“What is the mea–”

“Why did the comms–

“What’s happen–”

“Silence!” Batman said and the comms went silent once more.

“Oracle, what happened?”

“It will be easier to explain in person. Everyone who’s able should come to the Clocktower. Actually,” she paused, glancing at her melted setup. “We should probably head to the Batcave. The Clocktower might be compromised.”

“Do you think the Batcave is compromised?” Batman said his voice level.

“I don’t think so, but I haven’t had time to check, and I’ll need the Batcomputer to look into it.”

“Fine. Is everyone able to head to the Batcave? Robin and I are already on our way and I’ll have Agent A get Signal.”

“Spoiler and I are on our way.” Dick said.

“Heading there.” Cass said.

“I’ll be a few minutes, I need to break up this attempted robbery first.”

“Hood?” Babs asked.

“What do you need me for?” Jason grunted, followed by the sound of gunfire.

“I’m pretty sure everyone is going to want to know what happened, and I can’t be sure what’s been compromised until I check the Batcomputer.”

“Fine. I’ll be there in a few.'' Then he turned his comm off.

She sighed. “I’ll be there in a few as well.” She looked one more time at her melted set up and took a few pictures to show the bats, she wasn’t sure if the footage from the cameras in the Clocktower would still be viable, then she left.

It looked like the GIW were a bigger threat then she’d initially assumed.

#batfamily #batman #dcu #Danny phantom #dp x dc #dc x dp #dp x dc au #giw #oracle #barbara gordon #barbara gordon is oracle

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charliedawn · 1 year

Note

What if the readers pregnant, but it's not noticeable yet and they're meeting their parents or family members and they don't like the reader.

When they are not around their parents/family, trash talks the reader alone, say how useless they are, and how they wonder how did the slashers marry the reader? And the reader the trys to prove themselves to the family members while pregnant, but no matterwhat it doesn't work. (But they don't know that the reader is pregnant)

Then they reader slowly started to get depressed and stops being affectionate, and after months, it gets to the point where the reader sadly ask them for a divorce, saying their not good enough for them.

The slashers are sad but confused? Then they find out why and go off on their parents/family members. The slashers finally tell them that the reader is pregnant, and then the family members feel so bad, but there's nothing they can do. ( and their baby but is VERY noticeable)

(I know you love angst, so this is for you)

Hannibal Sr. warned your family he wouldn't tolerate any cruelty towards you.

But your family hadn't listened and even though he was the psychopath in the straight jacket, they still found a way to blame you.

To the point where you had to run out of the room in tears.

Hannibal Sr. didn't appreciate it. At all.

"Now, ladies and gentlemen. I may be in a straight jacket and surrounded by heavily armed guards, but don't doubt for a second on who is trapped with who."

Suddenly, Hannibal Sr. stood up and sighed before showing your family that he had never been tied to the chair in the first place.

"See, Y/N had something very important to tell you, but you just had to make a mess of our plans and open your rude mouths. They made the effort. They thought it would make things smoother between us if you thought you were in control, but it seems I wasn't the one they had to worry about ruining their big announcement.."

He theatrically cuffed up his sleeves before turning back towards your family members with an unhealthy smirk.

"Now, who wants to go first ?"

When Michael saw you leaving the house in tears, he was tempted to run after you—but his other half urged him to find the reason for your sadness.

When he came in and found your family all gathered around the main table, tea spilled on it and a shattered tea cup on the floor...He immediately understood and his initial incomprehension was replaced by irrepressible anger.

He slowly looked up at them and gave them his coldest glare.

"...You should have accepted the damn cup of tea."

For once, Michael Myers was agreeing with himself on one thing. He didn't even blink before getting his knife out and grazing your father's neck with it.

"We're going to hurt you. Each of you. And we expect apologies after we do"

They tried to apologize before they even started, but Michael Myers had been triggered, and there was no stopping that bullet..

Since it was their first meeting, you had asked Pennywise to stay outside.

Pennywise hadn't understood why it was necessary but, you still had insisted on him staying hidden until you were ready to introduce him to the rest of the family.

He had eventually agreed in order not to embarrass you or scare them to death.

However, things didn't go as planned as your family started insulting you and blaming you for leaving.

You couldn't handle their constant rudeness, so excused yourself and went to the bathroom—unbeknownst to you that Pennywise had heard everything.

He cracked his neck and suddenly, his whole glamor disappeared and he appeared in the middle of the living room.

He made sure to make the room soundproof first, so you wouldn't hear their screams of terror.

He then grinned widely and introduced himself.

"Hello, shitty family ! Shitty family meet Pennywise. Now that introductions are over, let's start over, shall we ? I ain't no real estate agent. I do not own a car or a house..But, guess what ? Congrats.

I fucking own all of your lives now."

Your family didn't understand at first, not until Pennywise raised his hands and suddenly, your family members started dancing uncontrollably—as if they were being pulled up by invisible strings and Pennywise cackled.

"DANCE, YOU RUDE LITTLE PIGGIES ! DANCE ! AND YOU'LL KEEP DANCING UNTIL Y/N AND MY CHILD RECEIVE THE APOLOGIES THEY DESERVE !"

Jason didn't understand the whole fuss behind meeting your parents.

He thought parents were supposed to love you unconditionally and that they would be like his mother..

He was wrong.

"WHAT IS THAT SUPPOSED TO BE ? A MONSTER ?!"

Your sister shrieked upon seeing Jason and he froze. He was used to people insulting him, but he then looked down at you and saw the anger in your eyes.

You had never talked back to your sister.

But, she had crossed a line.

You took a step forward and slid your hand in his to give it a light squeeze—as if he needed reassurance.

"The father of my child.", you then disclosed confidently and your sister stopped laughing.

"Abominations they'll turn out to be..Have you seen him ?", she eyed Jason with a small mocking smirk and you trembled with rage.

How dared she ?

You had never been anything but kind to her all your life...And she dared stand there and so openly make fun of your love and your child ?

You wanted to speak up, but she didn't let you.

She only scoffed before walking out of the cabin with one last disdainful look at you.

"You have fallen so low...I can't even look at you anymore."

She then stepped out and got into her car.

Suddenly, Jason came back in your shared bedroom and you thought that would be the end of that.

You were surprised Jason had handled it so well, until he came out with his axe.

Jason then threw it with impressive precision on your sister's car.

You saw the car slightly deviate from its trajectory and the screams of your sister as one of her review mirrors was torn off and deep dents were now certain to be left for days on the door of her car.

She cursed at the both of you so loud, you could hear it from where you were standing.

You couldn't help but burst out laughing.

Jason hadn't acted earlier, because he knew she was somehow important to you..

But if she hadn't been, he wouldn't have hesitated before chopping her head off.

Penny looked like he was amused by the whole situation, but the way his claws tear through the fabric of his gloves to dig into the arms of his chair didn't go unnoticed by you.

He was pissed.

And you knew what that usually meant.

"Penny no."

"Penny yes."

They may have put you on this earth, but he'll gladly take their lives for disrespecting you.

Penny would scare them good and make them understand just how much of a mistake they have committed by disregarding you.

He would take their most horrid nightmares and cackle while seeing them shriek in sheer terror.

You glared disapprovingly at him and it made him stop, but not before warning them.

"Y/N is my favorite creature and they are carrying my child. They might as well be the most important human in this poor excuse of family and since I'm now in it, better be prepared for things to change..You will apologize. You will show my love the love they deserve. And if even one of you acts disrespectful towards them again ? Consider yourself dead meat."

And he would. No begging or apology would make him come back on his word.

They would never mistreat you again.

Freddy had made the effort of cleaning up and looking presentable for you.

He genuinely wanted your family to like him, but hadn't expected your own family not to like you.

He had had to stay silent while your family was making fun of you at dinner and even though he had succeeded in clenching his teeth during the whole time.

One of them had to snap his last nerve.

"Say, Y/N. I know you couldn't afford any better, but did you really have to introduce us to your boyfriend ? Like...I didn't need any more reasons to be repulsed by you.."

He didn't know if it was your uncle or brother, he had had more than enough. He suddenly stood up and felt great relish in the way they screamed when his own flesh melted away—leaving only deep angry red scars behind.

"She's my wife, bitch.", he spat and your uncle/brother didn't dare reply.

"Freddy. Please.", you tried to calm him, but he snapped his head towards you and and grabbed you to pull you against him.

"Shut up and kiss me, sweetheart."

"What...?!", you exclaimed—not understanding his intentions until he kissed you deeply and passionately in front of your entire family. He then turned his face back towards your family and hissed at them.

"Now that I had my tongue down their throat and they got my kid in their belly, they're mine.", he claimed before grabbing your hand and dragging you to the exit. "Sayonara losers, we're leaving and expect us never coming back to your shitty place !"

He then flipped them off and didn't even look back to see their dumbfounded or shocked expressions.

He had met them. He had told them what he ought to.

And now ? They could all go to fuckin' hell.

When you had received a phone call from your parents, you hadn't actually expected them to ask for a meeting.

It had been at least two years since the last family gathering, and you had no Brahms Heelshire to worry about back then..

And now, you were looking through your shared wardrobe for something decent for him to wear.

Not that you didn't like his usual sweatpants and dirty white top, but you doubted it would impress your parents.

"Dress up good. We're meeting my parents.", you said while throwing whatever you thought would pass at him.

He barely had the time to catch them before agreeing. He didn't want to protest, especially when you seemed so stressed.

And, he acted perfect at first.

He stayed silent and polite.

He smiled when it was needed and even though he felt the tension in the room, he thought it came from the fact that you hadn't seen each other in a long time, but he quickly understood his mistake when you spilled your drink on the table and your mother scoffed.

"Even after all this time, you are still as clumsy as ever..What a disgrace."

You tensed and Brahms' eyes widened.

His hold on the knife in his hand tightened slightly and his smile vanished.

You picked up a rag to wipe the stain out and Brahms could see the tears in your eyes.

You wanted to tell them about their upcoming grandchild, but it was too hard and Brahms gritted his teeth at your humiliation.

He wordlessly stood up before suddenly grabbing your father by the back of the neck and slamming his head against the wooden surface.

Your mother screamed while you were too shocked to react as he spat.

"Apologize. Right now."

When you father finally did, Brahms looked up at you to see if you were alright and when you nodded, he smiled.

He then unceremoniously threw your dad outside of the house and when he looked at your mother, she knew better than to stick around.

She ran out of the house and grabbed your father on her way out.

"Never come back.", Brahms told them, but they were in such a hurry��you doubted they would have come back anyway.

And with that, he slammed the door behind them.

Norman was a perfect gentleman through and through.

He greeted them at the door.

He talked politely and addressed them courteously.

He even pretended not to notice the way they were talking to you, until he leant forward towards you and whispered in your ear.

"Dear. Could you please go and fetch us some special cookies from the kitchen ? I would do it myself, but I think I and your parents should get more acquainted..wouldn't you agree ?"

You frowned and was about to protest when you saw the warning look Norman gave you, one he only ever used when it was important.

You gulped and quickly agreed.

He smiled and kissed your cheek affectionately on your way out.

"Good girl/boy.."

His smile didn't falter when you turned to leave—not until you were out of the room anyway. When he returned his eyes to your family, your father scoffed.

"Finally, they're gone. I really don't know what you see in them..Just another useless piece of trash that one."

Norman tilted his head to the side and started scrutinizing your father until he felt uncomfortable.

"Thank you.", he then said and your family seemed surprised and even shocked at Norman's thanks.

But, it quickly made sense when he explained.

"Yes. Thank you for being so rude to them. Thank you for acting so shamelessly in front of us both. Thank you for making the next few steps so easy for me. That way. You just gave me a perfectly good reason to break my promise."

Your mother shifted uncomfortably on her chair and laughed rather nervously as she asked.

"What promise ?"

Norman regained his smile, but it was cheerless.

"You see, I promised Y/N two things tonight. First off, that I wouldn't be the one telling you about the pregnancy."

The first news took them aback, but then your father asked.

"And, the second one ?"

Norman wordlessly stepped up and aimed for the door, but only to close it gently—in order not to alarm you.

When he turned around, his smile turned dark and threatening.

"You're about to find out..."

#fandoms #imagine #fanfic #pennywise x reader #slashers #michael myers x reader #freddy krueger x reader #pennywise 1990 #pennywise 2017 #brahms heelshire x reader #jason voorhees x reader #norman bates x reader #hannibal x reader #hannibal sr.

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jgmartin · 10 months

Text

THE TALL THINGS ARE WATCHING

We can’t leave the house.

They’ve boarded up our doors and windows, started shooting people trying to break free. There are things in the streets. Tall things. I see their shadows sometimes as they run past the wooden boards. I hear the rumble of their feet.

I don’t know what they are. None of us do.

They cut our access to television and the internet when the lockdown began. They even took out the cell tower. Anne said they didn’t want us communicating with the outside world, telling them about what’s going on out here. I think she’s right.

It’s been two weeks since the men in suits came by. They said they worked for government intelligence and that they were looking for a terrorist. They didn’t strike me as government types, personally. They looked distracted. Spaced out. More like Scientologists than CIA agents, but then I’ve never met a Scientologist or a CIA agent, so who was I to tell the difference?

Either way, they said it would be over soon, and they sounded official. More importantly, they had guns. “We’ll need to search every household,” they explained. “We can’t have anybody leaving before we’ve cleared their property, so we’ll have to board you in.”

It made sense, I guess. In a twisted dystopian nightmare sort of way. It made sense all the way up until the end of the fourth night, when the Tall Things started roaming the streets. They were dressed in long raincoats. Hooded. The way they moved gave me the chills, all jerky and snapping, so I stayed away from the windows.

Anne didn’t mind though. She was fascinated by them. Her and our gun-nut neighbor, Old Ty, exchanged theories written on pieces of cardboard, holding them up to the glass of our windows. GOVERNMENT EXPERIMENT, she wrote on hers. ALIEN INVASION, he wrote on his.

At first, it seemed to just be a bit of innocent, morbid fun. Finding some humor in a bizarre situation. Then Anne watched one of the Tall Things kill somebody, and everything changed.

It was an elderly man in our cul-de-sac, Mister Douglas. Anne watched him open his door, hammer down the boards as one of the Tall Things walked by. He shouted at it. Told it to get over here so he could see just what kind of unholy bullshit his tax dollars were being used to fund.

Next thing you know, there’s sirens in the streets. Soldiers rushing his home. There’s a megaphone shouting at him to get back inside. All of it is useless. All of it happens far too late, because the moment Douglas starts yelling at the Tall Thing, it starts to twitch and jerk like it can’t control its own behavior. Like a predator hungry for a meal.

It snaps its head toward Douglas, then tears across his lawn and snaps him up in its long, spider-like hands. It lifts him off the ground. Then, he screams. He screams and he screams until the Tall Thing lowers the hood of its rain jacket, and then Douglas goes pale as a ghost. Silent.

According to Anne, that’s when the skin of his face started to bubble and pop. That’s when he started hissing out steam, smoking as his flesh sizzled beneath his clothes, as if he were boiling alive from the inside out. Next thing you know, he’s dripping onto the pavement. Dripping and dripping until there’s nothing left of him but a puddle of flesh and clothes.

Nobody tries to step in. Not any of the soldiers, not Anne, and not even Old Ty and all his guns. Everybody watches in stunned silence as the Tall Thing finishes its execution and saunters away.

The soldiers roam with them. The soldiers and the people in long white clothes. Anne says they’re lab coats, and the people are researchers studying the Tall Things as experiments, but I think they look more like robes– like clergymen. All of them wear helmets with tinted visors. It’s as though they don’t want to get a good look at the things.

After Mr. Douglas, more people on the block decided to make a break for it. Maybe they realized this was worse than they thought. Maybe they started wondering what the point of keeping us locked away like this was– were we food for these creatures? Were they trying to turn us into them?

None of us knew. All we could say for certain is that the killing didn’t stop with Mr. Douglas. I woke up one morning to see several of my neighbors shot dead in their yards, their lifeless eyes gazing back at me from the grass. Nobody came to pick them up. They were left there to rot, picked apart by birds and stray dogs.

Soon, gunshots were ringing out at all hours of the day. People wanted out, but the soldiers wouldn’t let them leave, and so the bodies began to pile up. Eventually I think Anne and I were the only two left alive in our cul-de-sac. Even Old Ty had seemed to vanish. Probably shot dead in his backyard.

I’d rarely known death in my life, and now the sheer volume of it was numbing me. I couldn’t process it. I didn’t know how. But then, almost out of the blue the government had a change of heart. Or maybe they just shifted tactics. Suddenly they began letting people leave.

I saw it first with a house at the very end of the road. I watched the woman who lived there break out with a baby tucked in her arm and a grade-schooler holding her hand. The three of them darted across their lawn, jumped over their father’s corpse and piled into their minivan on the street.

The entire time, a soldier and white-coat stood only meters away, quietly observing. It didn’t take long for the rumbling to begin– that telltale sound of approaching death, of one of the Tall Things coming to claim its prize. The van started up, backfiring a plume of exhaust into the air. I listened as the woman shrieked for joy, but I knew the joy would be short lived.

See, from my vantage point at the end of the lane, I saw something that she never could. The boot locked around her rear tire. The van rode forward as she pressed the gas, and then clunked to a stop. My heart broke. The look on her face, the desperation wasn’t for her– it was for her children in the back.

The rumble reached a crescendo, and in the blink of an eye a Tall Thing crashed into the van and knocked it over like a diecast toy. I couldn’t make out much beyond that. Nothing but the sound of the monster tearing into the roof of the van and pulling the crying children out one by one while their mother begged for mercy.

If I were a better, stupider man I may have kicked down my door and tried to save them, but I wasn’t. I was a coward. Instead, I fell to my living room carpet and cried. I laid there and listened as their flesh popped and sizzled, as their skin fell to the pavement in long, heavy drips.

It’s a sound I’ll never forget.

The next day, things got worse. The soldiers no longer cared about enforcing the lockdown or even keeping people safely indoors. Now they were breaking them out. Like hungry wolves, they tore down boarded-up doors and kicked in living room windows, dragging families out onto their lawns for slaughter. If the screams were horrible before, now they were unbearable. You couldn’t ignore them. Anne and I cranked our sound system to the max, but it only served as background static. The dying cut through everything.

That night we barely slept. Anne tossed and turned beside me, while I stared blankly at the ceiling fan above. There was an understanding between us. We had been abandoned. There was nobody coming to help us, nobody coming to arrest these monsters and save the day. We were alone.

How long until her and I were dragged out of our home? How long until we became the next experiment chained to our fence, waiting to be attacked by one of those creatures? Maybe tomorrow. Maybe next week. Neither of us knew, and somehow that made it all the worse.

I woke up to sunlight peeking through our boarded-up bedroom window. Anne was missing. I looked all over the house for her before I found her note on the kitchen counter, scribbled quickly.

I know you’re afraid, the note read, but I have to leave. You might think we’ll make it through this, that once they’ve had their fill of guinea pigs they’ll let the rest of us go free, but I promise you they’ll come for us soon. This might be my last chance. Since you won’t come with me, I’m going alone. I wish I could have said a proper goodbye, but I know you’d try to stop me.

Love always,

- Anniebear

She left through the basement hatch. I know this because I spotted her corpse some five feet away through our kitchen window. She gazed back at me, a look of shock painted across her pale face, with a small red dot where the bullet pierced her skull. I couldn’t even muster the courage to step out and bury her. Instead the racoons and dogs took care of her, one piece at a time.

She was right, though. Eventually they did come for me.

It was over a week later. By then I didn’t have the will to resist. I waited patiently at the kitchen table, drunk with a glass of whiskey as soldiers and white-coats dragged me from the house. When I’d seen it happen to other people, it seemed to occur so quickly. Now, it happened in slow motion.

I heard every word from the soldier's mouth. Every command. First, he patted me down and ensured I was disarmed, then he told me this was all routine and nothing to worry about. Together they took me out into my yard. The white-coat asked me if I had lived a good life, if I had been a man of faith. I didn’t know what to say. Maybe I was simply too drunk, or maybe I truly didn’t care anymore.

“It’s not as bad as it looks,” the white-coat assured me. “You’ll be at peace once it’s over, brother.”

In the distance came the growing rumble of the monster’s feet. Of the Tall Thing coming to claim its bounty.

“How many more after this?” the soldier asked the white-coat, his hand painfully gripping my shoulder.

“Sixteen.”

“Then us, sister?”

“Then us.”

The rumbling deepened. The Tall Thing was getting closer, and soon my heart was beating in sync with its stampeding footfalls. Memories flashed in my mind. Memories of Anne, of my dead neighbors, of the mother who lived at the end of the road and her children, now puddles of flesh on the pavement. My hands became fists. Indignation and fury grew inside of me, stoked by whisky fumes.

“Why do this?” I growled. “Why not just put a bullet in my head?”

“Because we love you, brother,” said the white-coat. “You waited patiently. You had faith, and for that you will be rewarded with salvation. You will be raptured.”

The Tall Thing rounded the corner, its legs slapping against the ground in great strides. Its frame eclipsed the moon, casting a shadow across me and stealing the breath from my lungs. It slowed down as it reached my lawn, sauntering this way and that.

“What are they?” I whispered.

“The ones that made us,” the white-coat replied. “Those that gave us life.”

I shrank away as the Tall Thing neared, but the soldier shoved me forward. “Be strong, brother. Show it your conviction. We were brought to this planet long ago, but now our time is served and we’re finally going home. Don’t you want to go home?”

The Tall Thing reached up to its hood. As it did, the soldier’s grip loosened and both he and the white-coat stepped to the side, away from the creature’s view. I would not scream, I told myself. No matter what, I wouldn’t give these monsters the satisfaction of my terror.

It pulled back on its hood, and something grotesque looked down on me. It was as if a hundred different faces had been stitched together, fused into an abomination that seemed to smile from fifteen mouths. “We come in peace,” it said.

My teeth bit into my cheeks, clenching them closed. A whimper escaped me, a whimper and a groan as my stomach filled with a soup of boiling horror. I would not scream. No matter the pain-- I would not scream.

Its long, spindly hands gripped my face. It cocked its head to the side, a hundred different eyes blinking back at me. Then it tugged at the bottom of my mouth.

But I wasn’t going to let it have its way. I clenched my jaw, holding it closed. The creature blinked at me. Then it repositioned its grip.

Crack.

It snapped my jaw like cardboard. I roared in agony, my lower mouth hanging limply from my face. Tears fell from my eyes in a torrent.

“Shh,” it whispered, slipping a finger down my throat. I choked and gagged. It fished its finger around as a hundred different eyes rolled back, and fifteen mouths began muttering an alien language.

I struggled against it, pulling at its arm but it was useless. The monster was too strong. Then a gunshot rang out.

And another. The Tall Thing wheeled around, dropping me onto my lawn as the soldier began shouting into his radio. The next second, a bullet found the soldier in the head. The white-coat shrieked, fleeing around my fence as a round caught her in the shoulder. The Tall Thing shot up to its full height, standing level with the street lamps and then sprinted toward the shooter.

Toward Old Ty.

He’d set up a killzone on his roof, surrounded by rifles and ammo. He’d waited for a moonless night to do his business, and now he was raining lead onto the creature like a blizzard of death. “What are you waiting for?” he bellowed. “Get moving, dipshit!”

I did. I stole away, hiding in shrubs and behind sheds, watching as Tall Things came roaring down streets, jumping over houses and knocking over cars as they tried to reach Old Ty. He only lasted a few minutes. That’s when the shooting stopped, but it was enough time for me to get away.

Maybe enough time for others, too.

It took me three hours to hike through Debby Forest and make it to the next town, and once I did I breathed a sigh of relief. There weren’t any soldiers. No white-coats. Most importantly, there weren’t any Tall Things melting people in their clothes. Just quiet stillness, the thing early mornings were meant for.

I made my way to the sheriff’s department to blow the whistle on what was going on. To explain that people were being shot, that Tall Things were melting people on the street and that we needed to get our ass in gear and call in the National Guard– no, scratch that. We needed to call in fucking NATO.

But as I got to the door of the precinct I stopped. Something gleamed in the corner of my eye, catching my attention. It was there, at the edge of the curb. A puddle.

Strange thing was, it hadn’t rained in weeks.

#creepypasta #writeblr #writers on tumblr #writerscommunity #writerslife #writers #writing #creative writing #writing community #original writing #horror #writblr #writer things #short fiction #short story #sci fi horror #jgmartin #the tall things

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solanumofthestars · 1 year

Text

Got a Light?

AN: I don’t know how or why this happened. But I do know that I need to post this. Apologies for any mistakes, and I hope that if you read, you will enjoy.

Rating/Warnings: T, light swearing, smoking, kissing.

Pairing: Leon S. Kennedy X Luis Serra

Word Count: 1.6k

Summary: Leon and Luis decide to have a smoke (Luis POV).

---------------------------------

The rain was cold and unpleasant. They were lucky to have found shelter, and even luckier that the cigarettes had not gotten too wet.

“Mierda, hace frío,” he cursed.

“What?” Leon asked. The American was sitting on a worn out couch, shoulders slumped, a weary expression painting his face.

He waved him off, not bothering to explain what he had said. “You should sleep a little, like our lady over there.” His eyes wandered over to the young Ashley, who was curled up in a ball on an old bed.

“No, we have to go soon anyway,” Leon said.

Unfortunately, he was right. It wasn’t safe, and the only reason they had stopped was because the thick rain made it impossible to see any incoming danger. That, and they would be useless if they all caught pneumonia.

He sighed. “Then, may I suggest we warm up a little?” He held out a cigarette, offering Leon one. Not that cigarettes would do much in terms of warmth, but hey, it was something.

But of course, Leon tightly shook his head in response. “I told you I don’t smoke. It’s poison.”

“Friend, you are an American agent taking part in missions that would make a regular soldier jump off a cliff, willfully.” He sat down next to Leon with a grunt. “I think one cigarette pales in comparison to all the hard, traumatic work you’ve been doing.” He paused for effect. “And are currently doing.”

“No.” Leon unholstered one of his guns and began obsessively checking it, despite the fact that he had done so a few minutes ago.

“I don’t like when you’re so tense, blondie-”

“-don’t call me that.” His words cut through with ferocity. Man was he grumpy.

But that wasn’t going to stop him. “As I was saying, you’re too tense. And if you’re tense, you are easily stressed. And when you’re stressed, you make mistakes.” Once again, he held out a lone cigarette, this time with a lighter.

That got Leon’s attention. With a sigh, he put the gun back into his thigh holster, and took the cigarette, lighting it and inhaling with such ease that it was all but obvious that he had smoked in the past, and frequently too. “Got a drink?” Leon asked.

He tsked. “Sadly no, I would go for some wine or…anything stronger, really.”

“Whiskey?” Leon asked. He was already taking another drag.

He shook his head. “No, too woody. Bourbon is better.”

The American cocked his head and slowly nodded. “You have a point there.”

He smiled. Leon was talking, which meant the cigarette was already working. He enjoyed watching it move back and forth between those ridiculously soft-looking lips.

Leon. What an interesting fellow. A face that would make any model envious, paired with a body that screamed professional fighter, nay, warrior. His eyes, however, betrayed a tiredness he had seen only in old men, or people who had gone through unspeakable hardship that had permanently scarred them. Given that Leon did not look above thirty, he’d wager a guess that it was the latter. Although in this world, who could know?

Right, he needed a cigarette too. He pulled one out of the box, but just as he was about to ask Leon to pass him the lighter, a bold idea came to his mind.

“Can I use your cigarette to light up?”

Leon looked down at the lighter in his hand and then gave him a puzzled look, but didn’t outwardly protest, or say no.

Good enough.

He leaned in, not waiting for Leon to pass him his lit cigarette. Instead, he moved in close, so close that his forehead just barely brushed against those silky, blonde strands. The tips of the cigarettes touched, and as he held the cigarette between his fingers, he inhaled, slowly, deliberately, stealing the embers from Leon’s cigarette while looking into his pretty, blue eyes.

Curious. Here he was, obviously flirting, and yet Leon didn’t so much as push him away or complain. No, in fact, somewhere, behind all that sadness and tension, he saw a flicker, a spark, a little twitch of interest. It meant that there was something to work with.

He moved away, and took a long, satisfying drag. The smoke spreading through his lungs felt good. “So Leon, you look like a man who has lived a full life.”

Leon didn’t reply. But he didn’t scoff at him either. In fact, he was looking at him with an odd expression. All he did was continue smoking, blowing a puff of smoke into the air.

Not a problem, he could continue talking. “Anyone else in that life? A woman?”

Ah, a hint of a smile. There was someone. “Not really,” Leon lied in between drags.

“I see, I see. I myself am also without a partner. For now.” He let the cigarette hang between his fingers. Leon was nearly finished with his.

“Ah, looks like you’re done. Another?” He offered.

It was amusing to watch him hesitate before taking another one. To his disappointment, Leon didn’t light up in a similarly intimate manner, although he did audibly exhale and throw his head back ever so slightly when he took the first drag. It was a nice sight.

It also told him that Leon was getting more and more relaxed. “Either way, as I was saying,” he continued, “I do not have anyone now, but I would just kill for a beautiful person to give me a kiss. And sit on my lap.”

Yeah he was laying it on pretty thick, but he didn’t give a shit. The clock was ticking, and the mood was just right. Pouring rain, a cozy, dilapidated, wooden farmhouse, and even some atmospheric lighting courtesy of the candles the cultists left all over the place.

“I’m not sitting on your lap,” Leon dryly responded.

He nearly choked on the smoke he was inhaling. “Hermoso, I never said you were beautiful,” he drawled with what he hoped was a flirty smile.

“Stop calling me names, Luis.”

Oh, Leon didn’t know what hermoso meant. Well that line fell fucking flat. What, did this man not even try to read some dumb “How to pick up chicks in Spanish 101” before he came here?

With a sigh, he threw his hands up. Leon was nearly done with his cigarette, and something told him he wouldn’t have another one. Got to be more direct then. “I am just saying, despite our dire situation, I’d kiss someone.”

��Then kiss me.”

He had just been about to take a drag, but his hand froze mid-way to his face. “Huh?” He turned to look at Leon, who had taken a final drag before dropping the cigarette butt on floor and grinding it under his heel.

“Go ahead and kiss me then,” Leon repeated. He was resting his head on his hand.

Luis scoffed, looked to the side, and then looked at Leon again. “Do not get me wrong, you look like you need a kiss, but this isn’t one of those things where I try to kiss you and you use it as an excuse to shove me, or punch me-”

“No.” There was a tinge of amusement in his voice. “You’re clearly coming on to me, I feel I could make it worth your while.”

Fascinating. And a little condescending. “I take it you like men then, Leon?”

A shrug. “I don’t mind them.”

It was amusing how casually he was trying to play this off. But he could see the signs, oh yes. For instance, Leon’s body was now turned towards him, and his eyes were looking right at him, not off to the side, or onto the ground.

Well, it seemed like a kiss was in order then. He threw his cigarette on the ground and leaned in, risking a light touch to Leon’s cheek and brushing away a few strands of stray hair, before tilting the man’s chin up with the tips of his fingers.

He started with a soft, chaste kiss on the lips, lips that were indeed as soft as they looked, and then pulled back a hair’s breadth to see if Leon would lean back in.

He did.

So he parted his lips and slipped in a bit of tongue, happy to give something more. And Leon seemed happy to reciprocate.

Soon, his hands were snaking in closer, one resting on Leon’s cheek, the other on his lower thigh.

Leon, sadly, did not move to touch him, his hands still firmly planted on his knees (he peeked); however, he had tilted his head further to the side and opened his mouth just a touch wider, making sure to slide his own tongue in deeper.

Blissful moments passed, them moving apart only to kiss from another angle, or to readjust their lips. The kiss was a little sloppy, but it felt good, and electrifying. He just really fucking wished Leon would put his hands on him- in a nice way, of course.

Unfortunately, they had to stop, not only to catch their breath, but also because it was starting to get too much. If that kiss had gone on any longer, he would have been crawling into Leon’s lap.

“That wasn’t bad,” Leon said, sitting back as if he hadn’t just shared a long, wet, borderline passionate kiss with someone.

“You sound surprised- I kiss well, you know.” He ran his thumb along his bottom lip. He had liked the kiss more than he cared to admit. Fuck.

Leon gently laughed. “You do.” His eyes had lit up.

Oh now what the fuck was he supposed to say? “You wanna kiss again, Leon?” He internally cringed at how quickly he blurted out that question.

Leon opened his mouth to answer, but then, there was a distant scream, and Ashley began to stir.

Leon jumped up, his entire posture stiffening “We need to move.”

“Right, right,” he agreed, hoping his disappointment had been masked sufficiently. Leon was right.

Which is why he was once again taken by surprise when Leon patted him on the shoulder. “Raincheck,” he said with a slight grin, and he was off.

He smiled. “Raincheck indeed, blondie.”

#resident evil 4 #resident evil 4 remake #resident evil 4 remake fic #re4 #re4 fic #leon s kennedy #luis sera #leon x luis #serennedy #elafic

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anika-ann · 4 months

Text

Back and Forth - part 2

Part 2 - Flashes Back

Type: series; agent!reader, inhuman!reader

Pairing: Steve Rogers x reader Word Count: 8100

Chapter summary:

In which you have some time to reminisce and do so even when the time isn't right.

Series masterlist

Warnings: canon-typical violence, mention of gunshot wounds, hints of unhealthy relationship to pain, references to A+ parenting (bad bad parenting) and consequential unhealthy mindsets, a bit of angst

A/N: ALWAYS MIND THE WARNINGS; dividers by @firefly-graphics 💕; moodboard is for the vibes and does not necessarily reflect reader’s appearance

A/N2: As you might have gathered from the warnings and the title of the chapter, our ‘reader’ will be getting some backstory. My ‘readers’ in longfics always have them. To me, that allows for greater depth of the character and their behaviour. If that bothers you, this story might not be for you. Thank you for understanding and enjoy 💕

Steve Rogers’ idea of punishment for disobeying orders was not of the most appealing to many, but it sat quite well with you.

Naturally, it wasn’t that you adored going through mountains of documents with plenty of useless and a few useful words, nor you liked the idea of being benched and having to sit in a corner as if you had been bad when all you had tried to do was your job; that you did not like one bit. But conveniently, being assigned to paperwork also meant you got a reprieve from physically taxing missions. Given the fact that the first three days after having been shot – even if not – were always the most exhausting, particularly when having to hide the pain for long hours, you certainly welcomed it. To a point anyway.

Unsurprisingly, a week later, you were still feeling significant echoes of the ache in your stomach; and yet, you cherished every physical activity where you could feel the tugging on the edges of your spectre’s wound. You didn’t revel in the pain itself, but you welcomed its presence nevertheless, because being without pain was addicting; it was the sweetest calling many people would answer to happily. But you knew better; the withdrawals would have been brutal and unforgiving, and most of all, inevitable, once you’d return to the field.

You tried not to dwell on the luxury of resting you had been provided, but that didn’t mean you didn’t appreciate the assignment given.

Isolation, even when it whispered of being the persona non grata and with the invisible threat of never being chosen for another mission with the prestigious team hanging above your head, still offered some relief. Whether you deserved the reprieve was questionable, but you tried not to ponder over that too much, knowing that the direction the scales were tipping towards to was not in your favour.

Would you rather be in the centre of action, trying your best to fix what you had messed up? Absolutely. One hundred percent. But the punishment was convenient; so convenient for you that you would have even wondered whether Natasha blabbed on you, hadn’t your training schedule remained unchanged. You had a feeling that if she had revealed your secret, you wouldn’t be allowed to as much as throw a single punch. That and Mr. Captain America would have pulled a two-hundred-slide presentation about why not telling the team, fighting when not being entirely fit and being reckless in his eyes was a terrible idea. That was, if he would have even cared.

It did not look like he cared at all.

He certainly didn’t seem to care about the fact that you had missed the opportunity to retrieve intel about whatever fuckery Hydra had been working on to neutralise the all-things-American man – or at least he hadn’t confronted you about it. In fact, all of the Avengers seemed to shrug off the threat to Steve, as if it was just another Tuesday for them. You supposed such nonchalance came with years being an idol inspiring as much hate as adoration, but you couldn’t say that it helped you sleep easier at night.

In all fairness however, this nonchalance didn’t mean that your discovery was ignored completely.

You had had at least three sessions with Doctor Banner who attempted to make sense of the pieces of intel you had seen and was able to recall. You might have remembered barely anything, your brain too busy registering the sudden pain piercing your abdomen, but Banner’s genius was able to come up with options after you had shared the scraps, which in return helped you build on a little bit more, some of the graphics he constructed familiar. The most plausible option now seemed to be that the stupid Nazi worshippers had somehow got their filthy tentacles on Steve’s medical data and were on their way to develop an antiserum – a chemical compound with a to-be-known catalyst that would reverse the effect of Erskine original formula. Apparently, the lazy bastards had just given up on trying to replicate it – and deciding that when they couldn’t create, they’d at least destroy. Fucking typical.

You had no doubt Steve had been presented with this information; the whole of the Avengers probably had been. You were rather sure you had seen Barnes hover by Steve’s side a little more than usual, probably suspecting a leak of classified data from the Tower, thus seeing a potential traitor everywhere. Yet, no one came raining holy fire on your head for missing the golden opportunity to gather all the intel; least of all the man himself.

Steve Rogers, irritatingly enough, was being perfectly civil. Of course, he was; he was meant to be perfection personified, after all. He nodded in hello politely when he met you in the hallway. When you encountered him in training, he acted indifferent, treating you just like any other recruit who joined the Avengers ops with varying frequency. He fixed your stance quietly if needed, moving on as slowly or as quickly as with anyone else, no lingering angry or disappointed glares.

Steve Rogers was a damn master of a poker face. You wanted to scream; you wanted him to be angry with you. You wanted him to be pissed, to yell at you again and then give you the opportunity to fix your mistakes and prove that you were able to do better than you had. You wanted to get back to the field. You wanted to jab your index finger into that chest of his, looking so ridiculously firm, and do something. Anything.

Obviously, after the very public incident, you wouldn’t dare as much as to say a single word against his commands. The fact that you were terrified it would be the last drop to his tiny yet enormous goblet of patience with you and you’d be out for good played a significant role in that behaviour of course; but in all fairness, you hadn’t felt the need to speak up.

In the end, you accepted the creeping feeling of gratitude to him for just sweeping your screaming match and the failure itself under the rug, hoping it wouldn’t blow up the next time you would disagree. When he told everyone that they had done a good job after a training, meeting gazes of each recruit, he met yours the last. The sincerity in his eyes and words didn’t diminish as he did so.

Captain Rogers pulled you out of the time-out nine days after your colossal failure he himself had had a hand in; you learned as much from Natasha’s message inviting you to the grand meeting regarding the next dangerous op that was too much for the Avengers to handle alone. Why? Because they expected too many unpredictable unfriendlies: the children of New York.

The mid-May sunrays warmed your cheeks as you walked at steady pace, eyes vigilant in the face of laughter, squeals and endless chatter, colourful lights and rivers of people pouring over the lawn and paths of Central Park. The breeze already carried the heat of summer, but not unbearably so, a gentle touch on your skin and in your hair, along with the scent of water, blooming flowers and barbeque. For most people, the combination equalled the epitome of leisure, a nice weekend with family or friends. Good. That was what you assumed you had all aimed for today.

Today being The Avengers’ Day.

You had only known the basics of how this day had come to life. When senator whatshisname, trying to push his agenda and boost his campaign for re-election, had first came up with the idea, he had inspired as much approval as blatant hate among people, the controversy involved evident. The Avengers’ themselves didn’t shy away from the ambiguity of their work. Their statement regarding the suggestion – no doubt prepared with the aid of a whole team of publicists – spoke of gratitude and futility at once, of honour and accountability in one breath. It was the honesty, you supposed, what actually tipped the scales in the favour of naming a day after them after all – the acceptance of imperfection, the acknowledgement of destruction which was to some more visible than the heroism that every single one of them had displayed during the Battle of New York.

And so 16th May became The Avengers’ Day, a celebration of heroism and a way of giving back to those who believed in heroism the most, to those who regarded them with the least critical eye, too young to truly understand all implications of their work.

Since the eventual acceptance of the celebration could reek of narcissism, the Avengers had decided to spend the larger part of 24 hours by giving indeed. Children loved it, parents were grateful, and the Avengers got to see that despite some workdays dragging on for weeks, their work not only made a difference, but also inspired others to be better. Win-win-win.

The feast started in the morning and lasted till the sun started to set in late afternoon; and the generous time the heroes graced the public with was filled with games and fun, not unlike many events hosted on the World’s Children Day would have. Except this one had all the Avengers – original ones and associates – to join the party, spreading joy and hope.

The reason why you and tens of other agents walked the park through and through with alert gazes was simple: a joyful event like this came with its dark side. With as many high-profile targets in one place, the security measures were off the charts. Any agents working for the Avengers Initiative aligned with SHIELD who weren’t on the most time-sensitive mission was roaming the crowds, Stark’s drones were in service, and FRIDAY had been keeping an eye out for any chatter on the dark web and various forums months before the planning of the specific event even started. Anyone who was able to contribute did so; because frankly, the images Avengers made for were too precious to pass on.

Captain America playing frisbee with a group of kids as another fifty of those waited in line; Black Widow leading gymnastic class and offering to hold up guards for any brave-enough opponent to try and kick and punch, with enthusiastic fans for both parties; Thor teaching Asgardian minuet to anyone who was old enough to walk, a circle of children forming around him any time he started to hum a tune as old as time in a language that made children giggle and appealed to something ancient in the soul of every adult; Bruce performing so-called ‘science magic’, facing the sea of curious eyes with slightly uncomfortable smile but undeniable warmth; Hawkeye surrounded by targets with various non-threatening weapons, from foamy soft balls to arrows with suction cups at the end; Iron Man, mostly parading around in full armour – bless the man, he had to be so hot in it– in charge of the music, fireworks and all wonders of technical progress, capturing attentions of little brainiacs and admirers alike.

The newer additions to the official team didn’t stay behind either, with Winter Soldier handling waterguns battle, shy at first, but ecstatic at the squeals of joy from children running back and forth, with generous crowds of young male-attracted audience who were not blind to the fact that someone had the brilliant idea to put one of the supersoldiers in charge of water while he was wearing a thin t-shirt only; the Scarlet Witch entertaining crowds with her actual magic and no tricks; Vision, while thoroughly distracted by her, trying his best to explain riddles and puzzles to whoever had found their voice in the face of an actual humanoid slash artificial intelligence; the Falcon in charge of various monkey bars and improvised parkour playground, sometimes involuntarily becoming a monkey bar himself for several kids at once; the War Machine, bless his heart, handling the drawing competition in which there were only winners, because wow, doesn’t this look just like me if I had my armour repainted with flowers to blend in better?

Every single one of them made you smile despite your better judgement. Each of them had their own way of interaction with the little admirers, but all of them made it work somehow. With humour, gentleness, surprising humbleness – most of the time anyway – and an easy compliment or words of encouragement on their tongue, depending on whether their fans had done really well or not so much. There was enough of both – but they handled it with grace or at least with dign-

The sudden sniffle in the sea of laughter had you automatically snap your head to the right, just in time to see the first tears roll down the girl’s reddened cheeks. You remembered seeing her at Natasha’s station a few moments ago; she couldn’t be more than 7-8 years old, but she had been excellent, earning a first bump from the spy and a cherry flavoured lollipop when she had managed to touch her toes and had put her ankle on the high bar with ease.

By the looks of it, she hadn’t done so well at the shooting range, her arrows lying scattered all over, not one having stuck in the target.

It wasn’t your place to try to cheer her up, even as Clint was busy with another five children, you reasoned; but your gut twisted a bit at the sight, your feet having a mind of their own, lips arranging into as supportive smile as you were capable of.

A strong arm wrapping about the girl’s shoulder, words of comfort already spilling from the man’s lips – the father, you assumed – had you freeze mid-step barely seven feet from her.

The gentle timbre on his voice, the hug coming as a second nature, the little huff of quiet laugh without a single trace of malice. The large teary eyes, soon hidden in the man’s shirt as she squished her face into his shoulder, a little yelp with a tiny giggle as he lifted her off the ground with quite some effort, even as barely any showed on his face.

Your insides clenched tighter, nausea tugging at your stomach that had nothing to do with your injury over a week ago.

“Yeah, we’re gonna practise at home for next year, yeah? You’ll get the lollipop next time, I’m sure. You’ll be as great as the Eagle-eye himself!”

The girl let out another watery laugh, pulling softly at his ear. “It’s Hawk-eye, dad!”

The feigned confused expression on the dad’s face told everyone in the ten-mile radius he was very well aware and was only trying to cheer his daughter up, but she seemed oblivious. “Really? Wow. My memory… good thing I have you!”

“Yup!”

“So, I forgot… where were we heading next, can you remember?” he asked in all seriousness, confusion deepening and the enthusiastic high-pitched scream of “ICECREAM!” nearly ruptured your eardrums as the father walked past you, your feet having taken roots in the ground.

“That’s right!” you heard in reply, the sounds suddenly distant as your own breath and the pulsing on your own heart filled your ears.

It was wrong; it was so so wrong and you had no right and you had no time for that, because you had a job to do here, quite important job requiring your full attention, but the following cry of “MAMA!” flooded your veins with envy and pierced your heart through and through. The sun shone too bright all of sudden as your gaze unwittingly traced their path, the simple soothing kiss on the girl forehead sending a shiver through your body, goosebumps rising on your arms.

Potential enemies.You were supposed to scan the crowds for potential enemies and threats, not to watch happy families or let your mind wander. You weren’t supposed let yourself ponder over what it was like; loving arms and distractions awaiting even in the face of a failure instead of a cold shoulder and ignorance. A sweet smile and conspiratorial looks exchanged when fake-arguing about the acceptable number of scopes of ice-cream as a reward. Free affection given instead of a free lesson in the form of shattering the illusion of unconditional love. Living in the blissful ignorance, believing in the second biggest lie fairytales had fed us all, postponing the harsh encounter with reality. What was it like to believe in those lies at that age still, maybe even after that? Did it hurt more or less when reality came knocking later on?

The good did not always win.

And love and affection were earned.

They were earned through rivers of sweat and spitted and spilled blood, through swallowed tears and well-masked pain. And only, only when it all led to success. To perfection. To the impossible standard you all so desperately clawed at, unaware you clawed at your own flesh instead, passing the need to win the most important race of your lives on and on for generations.

Your own father hadn’t been perfect; he was far from it and perhaps that was why he was so appealing to your mother, the rising star of the biochemistry field. Too young, too foolish, too easily seduced by the idea of an average man who would simply reflect her blinding glow instead of overshadowing it.

Getting pregnant robbed her of the job opportunity of a lifetime; the chance at leading her own team in a prestigious laboratory at Harvard. With the pregnancy marked high-risk from the start, you sentenced her to turning down the offer; and another never came. She could have shined like a full-time mother instead and dedicated homemaker then, some would argue, since her goal in life was exceptional excellence in its very essence; except she had never got pregnant again, not for the lack of trying as you later learned. An average worker; an average mother. Her worst nightmare with one common denominator: a problematic daughter. How could she have pursued her career with having to deal with a child like that? The kid was always getting into trouble, leaving its mother to sacrifice everything.

It didn’t matter that your mother’s ‘extremely problematic daughter’ had the GPA of 3.91. It didn’t matter that the very same daughter regularly fought tooth and nail to compete in world championships in gymnastics and succeeded, had been enrolled in ballet class as soon as she could stand and walk straight, only having to switch to box and jiujitsu when she didn’t look soft and elegant enough during her performances. It didn’t matter that all the time her mother spent with her at home happened to take place in separate rooms. It didn’t matter that the daughter was, for a lack of a better term, much more of a daddy’s girl.

Because she was exactly that. You were. Mommy was always busy in her office or her lab and you soon understood that she didn’t like you; but daddy, daddy cared. He cared, he found time and a kind word and a warm hug, always celebrated your victories – a little strict and profoundly disappointed when you failed. But he was there for you despite his extremely important job at the agency protecting the whole world, protecting the whole universe even. SHIELD.

To make a part of such prestigious organization, one must work hard; the hardest, your dad had always said. But you had the potential. You had so much potential to help keep humanity safe. You only needed to avoid distractions. You only needed to drop dead weight in the shape of people who’d rather play and laughed over silly magazines and videos a little too often. You only needed to do well, so well it was the best. And so you did. A dedicated student; a dedicated sportsgirl. Like your dad liked best.

Some might ring alarm bells at that point, but you were a much happier child than some. You had a loving father. You had friends. You had a dog, a lovely border collie named Sadie, so smart and curious and so damn hyperactive it took you at least two hours a day of running to wear her out. Your dad adored her, always praising you for taking such good care of her.

Until your care for Sadie took up too much of your time. It had to, since you got a B. Or perhaps you had spent too much time with friends outside of the study room…. Whatever it was, it eventually led even to a C.

That was the last drop.

And the thing was, both basis of your failure had easy solutions, truly; you came home one day to a house without a single trace of a dog having ever lived there. You could run to keep fit without it, after all – such was her sole purpose, you had realized too late. You were eleven years old.

Grounded with no phone, you could focus fully on your studies to improve the horrendous GPA. SHIELD academy didn’t accept anyone with a GPA worse than 3.98 after all; your mother only nodded along to your father’s flat voice reminding you. Her disappointment was nothing new, but your father’s was. His warm hand on yours, gently squeezing, a sharp contrast to his clinically cold voice, was like a lifeline for you to grip at, even at the age of sweet thirteen. He knew you could do this, if you’d get your head straight – you had the potential. He was so sure of it, he had so much faith in you. You needed to make him proud. And after screaming bloody murder and crying your eyes out in the shower, after punching so hard your knuckles bled, you did.

You had only managed to improve to 3.96 by the time you were seventeen, but you enrolled to the academy still, one of the youngest students in history, with whispers following you for the first months of your father’s involvement nevertheless. What did he do for living that he had managed to sneak you in? Oh, right, just an ordinary analyst, one of hundreds. He got his wife a post as well, in one of the labs at The Hub no less, so one had to assumed he was good at rubbing elbows with the right people, they said. These whispers were silenced fast however. And you graduated with honours and a reputation and got hand-picked by Agents Coulson himself.

And yet…

Your father scoffed. Why not the Avengers? Whispers might have been that Coulson’s team was the A-team of SHIELD, but half of your accomplishment had surely been built on the fact that half of SHIELD revealed themselves to be actually HYDRA, thus paving your road to the prestigious team by eliminating the competition. The night you shared the news was the first time you cried in years, having been so excited to tell your parents, to prove yourself at last, only to be remade into a disappointment all over again.

But working on Coulson’s team brought you genuine joy and a sense of pride; and in a way, the underground base and the jet felt more like home than your own. You were not blind to the fact that the team was like a dysfunctional family in its own right, somehow still functioning better than your own. Coulson, the father; May, the mother; Daisy, the prodigal daughter, the beloved sister to all. Many nosy protective siblings and aunts and uncles. You weren’t sure how you fit into the picture, but you supposed that in a way, you did. A distant cousin perhaps.

“We protect our own. We protect everyone. We leave no one behind. We have the opportunity to be a part of something bigger and we take it.”

It did feel good to be a part of something bigger.

Then, terrigenesis.

The nightmare of alien genetic engineering crept up on you slowly and then hit you full force, even as your mother was fascinated by it. It was the irony of fate that the exact thing your mother had been researching tore your family ties all together. You and your father both had been in the lab where your mother worked, with her, when the Inhumans misled by Jiaying attacked, throwing terrigenesis crystals everywhere.

Adapt or die, whispered the mist from the broken enriched minerals: but it was up to your genes to make that decision, not up to your will. Your father’s genes weren’t compatible, the mist killing him. When you woke up on a stretcher, your mother dryly informed you of his passing with a hint of accusation in her voice.

And yes. How dared you to survive when he didn’t? It was funny, really, when the answer revealed itself to be written in the genes she had passed on you. You both survived thanks to her; except where your DNA merged seamlessly with the new macromolecules, hers didn’t, not truly. Just enough to let her live, not enough to give her powers – another embodiment of her worst nightmare of averageness, because there was a flaw in her code. It was a strange kind of healing that. Receiving a genetic prove there was a fault in her and not you, as you had been made to believe your whole life.

She cut all ties when it took over two weeks to figure out what your power was.

In the span fourteen days, you had your world turned upside down. Lost both your father and your mother. And while you had questioned at times whether you had actually ever had them, the pain of loss burned so sharp it left no doubt.

Yes, it was true that you never had what the cute girl with elaborate braids and dedicated parents had; but you had still once had a family. Once, you had joined a strange found family as well, if only for a few months.

What could you do but wonder, like many times before, about where did you fit now?

The sudden chill running up your spine had your hair standing on the end, snapping you from your musings, making you realize your cheeks were damp; but your tears mattered little now.

You had good instincts – you had to. One didn’t survive as long as you did in a business as insane and brutal as this without them. And that was how you knew.

Something was off. Something, somewhere, someone.

Your eyes subtly scanned the crowd as you continued walking, unmistakably landing on Sam’s station. The sight would have made you grin, three different kids climbing him as if he was a part of the monkey bars installation again, but something was amiss--- no.

Natasha’s station, right behind Sam’s, her attention on a cute redhead dressed in all black like the spy herself. A figure reaching to the back of his pants under his hoodie blindly, eyes trained on his price.

Your blood ran cold, your heart thundering.

Oh no you don’t.

He was too far from your reach. There was no choice to make. You squinted your eyes and took in as much as you could in the split second; the unforgiving pavement and soft mattresses, a flowerbed of peonies to the right, a group of teenagers to the left. The five feet eight man in jeans and an oversized khaki hoodie, piercing gaze settled on Natasha’s figure ten feet away.

You squeezed your eyes shut, opening them to the barrel of a gun with a whisper of a released breath.

The second-long shock in the man’s face was more than enough of time to grab after his wrist and twist it, gunshot ringing and the bullet whizzing by your leg. It lodged in the firm pavement by your feet instead, your ears echoing the loud noise that turned several heads.

Time seemed to slow down, the blur of faces with mouths open in screams registering faster than the screams themselves.

Your fingers curled around the handle of the gun firmly as you spun your back to the attacker and elbowed him in the face with a satisfying crack, his legs buckling when your foot in tactical boots collided with his knee.

A smudge of crimson and more screams, one pale face shockingly calm in the heart of chaos.

Another shooter.

The gun got knocked out of your hand in the split second you shouted ‘Sam’s three o’clock!’, the punch to your gut almost as powerful as the relief flooding your veins when you caught a glimpse of the suddenly child-free Sam lunging after the other perpetrator.

Even as you doubled over in pain, the man missing your spectre’s past injury by a whim of fortune, years of training drilled into your bones had you kick out and squeeze; your leg closed around the man’s neck, thigh and calf trapping his head, your hips twisting, full weight of your body pulling him down.

The encounter with the concrete was harsh, your abdomen pulled at with sharp pain, but it wasn’t nearly as harsh as for the man finding himself on the ground with his windpipe between your thighs, struggling for a single breath. Before his arms could swing after you, you were releasing him and elbowing him hard in the face again. Knee digging to his gut, you grabbed his arm and used his weight to roll him over, his wrist locked to his shoulder blade with a groan of curses that were not for polite company.

You panted as you straddled his hips, grasping after his other helplessly flapping arm and curling it to his back with notable effort; bastard was still trying to put up a fight, even if an aimless one, relying purely on his advantage in strength. Too bad for him; you had knowledge of physics and anatomy play in your favour.

“Stay down,” you hissed through your teeth, gaze quickly lifting to look for someone with more official power that came with handcuffs.

You didn’t have to wait long – three blue uniforms appeared in your field of vision, one with distinct red and white stripes that had nothing to do with NYPD. Great. This guy.

The mass under your legs moved with vigour, having you automatically turn your attention back; and to twist the man’s arm further.

“Aghhh--- you bitch-“

“Gun,” you pointed out flatly as one of the uniforms approached, a subtle nod in the direction towards where you remembered seeing it last when it had got knocked out of your hand. A pair of handcuffs were passed over, allowing you to ease some of the pressure and rise to your feet as another officer took over your responsibility and hauled the man up. “Thank you, Officer.”

“Agent,” he nodded at you before his attention turned to the Captain, addressing him as well – but Captain Steven Grant Rogers wasn’t looking at him.

Your stomach somersaulted as you met his eye; his lips were set in a firm line, a furrow to his brow, probably due to disappointment in humanity and concern for the civilians. But that wasn’t the reason for your unease – because that much you had expected. What took you aback was the smile briefly passing his lips as he utterly ignored his rank being called and instead kept looking at you – was that a hint of pride on his face?

“Good job, Spectre,” he said firmly. “Thank you.”

You only blinked, lips parting, breaths still quick from the slightly unexpected exercise – but from his words as well. It wasn’t that Steve Rogers never voiced appreciation where it was due, because he did. But a thank you? For doing your job, the literal reason why you were there?

The ‘thanks’ left your lips unwittingly, but your posture straightened with purpose as you finally escaped the trap that his gaze had seemed to set for you.

“Captain,” the officer insisted, Steve’s gaze flickering to the man, his frown returning, most likely at the sight of the bloody mess you had done on the attacker’s face.

You instinctively looked to your right, where a similar scene was taking place only a few feet over with the man’s accomplice, under Natasha’s and Sam’s watchful eye. A smile passed over your lips as well, as small as it was.

She was okay and so was he. Good. It was time to go.

“You’ve got this, Captain Rogers?” you asked, turning back to Steve.

He nodded, slight confusion twisting his face. Cringing internally, you realized it sounded like you doubted he could. Well. You weren’t perfect. What else was new.

“Good.”

Closing your eyes, you snapped back at last, the scene suddenly in a distance.

And as if you snapped your fingers, Rogers’ whole demeanour changed. His head whipped right and left, eyes searching the crowd almost frantically; the distain which you were no stranger to was back in his expression, his lips a thin line. Despite yourself – because it shouldn’t, it shouldn’t matter – you felt the spark of satisfaction and relief at the rescue die out in an instant. Rogers looked angry. Very, very angry, and as his eyes locked on you, he rose to his full height, body turning to you, looking ready to stalk to you and give you a piece of his mind.

You gulped, hand curling into fist on an instinct, nerves firing along with a flare of outrage. Was he angry because you projected in front of all those people? Was he disappointed in the amount of blood you drew in public indeed? But you-

A heavy metallic hand landed on his bicep from the front, stopping him in his tracks.

Rogers’ gaze snapped to his best friend, a deep frown spoiling his handsome face; Bucky’s expression, on the other hand, you couldn’t read, but whatever he said to Rogers had him frown harder.

Yet, he turned back to the officers handling the two perpetrators, having your shoulders sag in relief.

You had already got one scream-down in front of the SHIELD and the AI audience; you’d happily take avoiding hitting replay in front of the general public. You made a mental note to thank Barnes with a t-shirt with a nerdy pun he seemed so fond of wearing for trainings or something.

“Saved by Buckaroo it seems,” a voice hummed nonchalantly behind you, making you literally jump, your wildly pounding heart spasming in your chest in fright.

Your body acted on instinct, ready to neutralize the threat, muscle memory faster recognition – you spun on your heels, a round-house kick in full force aimed at the attacker’s head, fists up and ready to strike.

You hissed as your shin hit metal, the impact vibrating through your tibia as the barely covered bone met Tony’s glove mere inches from his surprised face.

Shit. That was going to bruise like hell.

“Easy, Casper! Was here to make sure your real form doesn’t get blasted while your head’s in the clouds, not to scare you to death,” he quipped, the surprise on his face quickly replaced by a smirk. “Huh. Guess I’m more efficient than Pepper keeps telling me. My job here is done.”

He released your foot, your hands falling to your sides as well, stance easing as you let the familiarity wash over you. Just Tony Stark. Billionaire, former playboy, philanthropist. An easy smirk to his lips, a joke on his tongue and… a faint trace of concern in his eyes.

It was the last emotion you registered that made you pause, realization slowly dawning to you.

He was there to protect you. He was there to keep you safe, because you didn’t have the time think about your own safety with the threat on Natasha and Sam being imminent. Tony was right, even if his truth was waved into a snarky remark; you could have easily been hurt while you were out of your body. Yes, you were used to it and the danger was likely minimal, but you hadn’t even had the time to think that through and do the calculations.

Someone could have taken your gun. Had anyone been interested in that – which, since you weren’t as high-profile of a target here as others, wasn’t all that likely, but still possible – you could have not only been hurt, but technically also killed.

And yet, this understanding didn’t stun you nearly as much as the next one.

Yes, you could have been killed – except that you couldn’t have and you weren’t. No one stood a chance. Because Tony had noticed the situation. He protected you; just like that, with a small curl to his lips, as if it was no biggie.

You were more than bewildered, thoughts whirling in your head over and over in a bizarre loop.

He had quite literally stood by you. He should have gone for Sam and Natasha – they were the real Avengers. They were his friends. They had been in danger, which was the reason why you left yourself vulnerable in the first place. But he went to you, because suddenly, you were the one exposed. He came to protect you.

Blinking and coming back to your senses much slower than an agent should, your gaze zeroed on Tony’s relaxed face with his smirk having blended into more of a smile.

You didn’t have time to examine the kind of Twilight Zone you had entered. Instead, you licked your lips, your words as sincere and unshaken as you managed them.

“Thank you, Tony. Really.”

He shrugged, his smirk making a grand return, even as his eyes remained warm. “No problem, Slimer.”

“Did you just compare me to a green slippery monster?” you blurted out before you could stop yourself, an involuntary grin tugging at your lips.

Tony’s eyebrows shot up before his mask clicked back into place, two shiny slits somehow watching you with similar amusement Tony was capable of.

“Honestly, I’m just shocked you know who Slimer is. What were you, minus fifteen years old when the movie came out?” he trailed off, disappearing to the crowd with several kids already following him, excitedly shouting for autographs.

You allowed yourself a brief moment to grin, a warm feeling – dangerously warm – curling in your chest. Most of Tony’s sympathies for you, when he showed them, probably stemmed from the fact that much like him, you were sometimes in opposition to Steve. But you’d take it. Just because he didn’t mean it in a particularly friendly manner, simply being this way with everyone, you couldn’t say it didn’t feel nice for a few moments to joke around as if you were friends indeed.

You should have known better; you did know better. Thinking like that was dangerous – a different kind of reckless than Captain Rogers had called you out on – but dangerous nevertheless. And yet, your lips stayed in a tiny smile as you shook your head and went to return to patrolling the park.

‘Went to’ with emphasis on never finishing your journey.

“Holy shit! That was so cool!”

You snapped your head to side to the girl’s voice, surprised to find a twelve-year-old – or a ten-year-old, or maybe fourteen, you had never been great at guessing once they got past a certain age – with a backpack on one shoulder looking at you with her mouth hanging open.

The image was so unfathomable you probably mirrored her expression despite your training to maintain a poker face in any situation.

“You can fly?!” she gasped, watching you with eyes so wide you would have worried if she was high had you had the capacity to worry.

“I--- uhm, technically, I can--- I can barely levitate-?” you stuttered, perplexed.

Hadn’t Iron Man, who could fly because he had literally built a suit in a cave just walked past? What was… why was she-

“And you glowed and then you were there kicking ass and then here—holy shit!” Language, your brain unhelpfully echoed, instead of aiding you to make sense of what was happening and to string together a full sentence in response. “I didn’t know any Avenger could do that!”

Was she distracting you? What was in that backpack? The easiest answer was schoolbooks, since The Avengers Day was a bit of a big deal but not enough to spare children a day at school, but what if it wasn’t—oh she was pulling it off her shoulder now. You straightened your posture, not having realized that you eased it and never fully returned to it after your encounter with Tony, fingers twitching towards your gun on instinct, nerves on fire.

Fuck, if they were recruiting children again-- what kind of an evil bastard you have to be to-

She pulled out a well-used notebook with various doodles on its cover, shoving it your way with an almost shy smile, a sharp contrast to her earlier vernacular.

“Can I get an autograph?”

For the second time in the past five minutes, your reaction was nowhere near as sharp and distinguished as an operative’s should be in the face of an unpredictable situation.

Get a damn grip, shouted a voice in the inside of your head, while the other one whispered this was some sort of a trick. How is this a trick?!

You forced a smile to your lips, trying to hide your uncertainty. Just a girlasking for an autograph. You faced aliens before for god’s sake. You had Kree macromolecules in your own damn DNA for crying out loud! You could handle a… fan?

“Sure, but… I don’t have a marker on me, I didn’t expect to--- give autographs,” you admitted, aiming for nonchalance and hopefully only missing by a half and a full mile.

“You kidding?!” the girl whisper-yelled incredulously, leafing through the notebook before shoving it into your hand and diving back into her backpack now sitting on the ground. You tensed briefly again, before she pulled out a black marker, holding it out as she shook her head. “Crazy… sorry, here.”

‘Crazy’ does not cover it, girl, believe me, you thought, wondering what the hell you should do. Should you just sign your name? Should you… write her name first? What was her name?

“Should I… write something like, for you, or…?”

“Yeah! That’s be cool! It’s… Daisy,” she said, slight annoyance creeping into her voice.

Despite your better judgement, one corner of your lips rose higher, this time sincerely.

“That’s real pretty name,” you commented as you wrote it down, earning a shrug.

“If you say so.”

“I have a… friend named Daisy. She’s pretty cool,” you hummed, swallowing against the lump in your throat as you called her a friend. Could you call her that?

“Can she fly or levitate too?” the girl asked, sounding a little snarky – ah. Definitely a teenager then.

Should try to make your name readable or scratchy, as you usually write? Actually, should you write your name or simply Spectre? Probably the latter. She wouldn’t even know your name, poor girl would probably be disappointed later.

You wrote your codename then, replying to her absently.

“I’d say, yeah. She controls vibrations with her hands-“

“You know Quake?!” Daisy cried out, making your gaze snap back to her, her eyes lighting up even more than before.

Despite the bite of jealousy – because of course she would adore Daisy Johnson, the Quake herself, many people did, hell, you admired her too – you had to supress a smile. For a teenager, Daisy was awfully open about her emotion. Cringe was dead to her – she let herself express her excitement freely and unwittingly added herself on the list of people you could admire and envy.

“Yeah, I know Daisy… Quake. She’s pretty great, huh?” you said, closing the marker and notebook at last, handing it to her, watching her put it away and shrug.

“Yeah, I guess… Can’t all be as cool as her, huh?”

The drop of sadness colouring her voice blue had something in your snap. Uh-huh, no. Not today. No unreachable standards for her. Not to mention that Quake’s coolness also came with a lot of crap. This was not happening, not on your watch.

This girl, this Daisy, was open in her emotion still – and it was beautiful. She was beautiful. She was so damn precious that the instinct to protect – the same oh no, you don’t – that had flared up upon seeing the attacker earlier lit up your chest and your brain finally caught up to being a damn grown-up as the girl shrugged her backpack back on.

“Hey… I know you probably hear that all the time, but even though you share a name with her, you can be awesome in a completely different and totally your own way.”

“Yeah, sure. Thanks for the autograph,” she said, a hint of a smile playing in the corner of her mouth. And not thanks for the unsolicited advice, you could practically hear her thoughts screaming. You just became another boring adult.

Well. You might as well do it properly – because this was important. Truly important.

“I just want to say that you really made my day, hell, probably my week, just by asking for an autograph. And by being nice,” you said, as sincerely as you could.

And you meant it – whatever had just happened felt like a fever dream. You had genuinely had no idea what she had wanted when she first addressed you. You had honestly believed it was some kind of a trick, another attack in making, as messed up as that was. She’d deserve an award for not saying whatever after your strange reaction. And another one for not turning on her heel when you realized you sounded like one Captain America a few moments later. Still standing there, listening to whatever crap you had to say to her.

“Sometimes you don’t need to have actual superpowers that can cause an earthquake to move Heavens and Earth. Just being a good person can make real miracles. And don’t let anyone tell you otherwise, okay?”

She watched you with an expression on her face that spoke clearly of just how unconvinced she was by your words – and how she was feeling the infamous teenage cringe now. But hey, you tried. Speaking of which.

“’cause they’re just full of bull,” you added.

Daisy snorted at last, one corner of her lips twitching up a bit, her irises sparkling in amusement and you called that a victory.

“Right. Thanks for the autograph. See ya ‘round.”

“Sure, Daisy. It was nice meeting you,” you replied as she beckoned her chin in a hi and spun on her heels, walking back into the sea of people without looking back, disappearing from your sight.

Shaking your head, wondering whether you actually got hit in the head before Tony got to your actual body to protect it and were now suffering a concussion and hallucinations, you finally stepped out, ready to roam through the park and continue monitoring for potential threats – because that was your purpose here. That was your task. The Avengers had theirs and you and other agents had your own. You were here to serve as a part of the security team managing this event; the Avengers were here to inspire. You were nowhere close to being an Avenger the same Steve, Tony, Natasha or Sam were. You weren’t a symbol.

And yet, it was… nice to feel like you almost could, at least for one person. The feeling was strange, doubts already creeping in, a voice telling you to me much humbler and more realistic, but still. It wasn’t an entirely unpleasant experience, not at entirely awful feeling. You weren’t exaggerating when you told Daisy she made your week.

As your attentive gaze scanned the crowd, tuned to more danger specifically, you overlooked the tall broad figure with his head slightly tilted to side still, as he had been focusing his enhanced hearing to your past conversation. You missed the little smile that curled Steve’s lips upon doing so too, blissfully ignorant of the lecture about self-preservation he had had on his tongue when he had originally made his way to you, but swallowed it in order to let you have your moment.

Reckless or not, you had saved lives today – he couldn’t argue with that. You saved lives of his friends. He wasn’t above being grateful; and he wasn’t entirely blind to the fact that besides reckless, you had also showed again that you were selfless, which appealed to him a lot more.

As he returned to his station, Natasha having dealt with the attackers’ transfer, he was still smiling, anger and worry having evaporated completely.

Next chapter

Series masterlist // S.R. masterlist

Thank you for reading 💕 This was a long one, but you made (me to you AND me)... let me know your thoughts 💕

I hope December had been kind to you 🥰

Sidenote: For those who haven't watched Agents of SHIELD and weren't satisfied with the amount of info in the chapter: The exposure to the Terrigen Mists, or Terrigenesis is a process allowing Earth Inhumans to inhale the Mists obtained from the use of the Terrigen Crystals, in order to activate their Inhuman genes and ascend as meta-humans. (https://marvel.fandom.com/wiki/Terrigenesis) Given the presence of the genes, onyl descendants of certain lineage are able to ascend; they are descendants of humans who were experimented on thousands of years ago by the Kree race visiting Earth and trying to create an army. Those without these genes present in their DNA are killed upon exposure.

#steve rogers x reader #steve rogers imagine #steve rogers x you #captain america x reader #captain america x you #captain america imagine #steve rogers #captain america #inhuman reader #shield agent reader #back and forth #anika ann

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