#and the ending rings so sad because of it. he's just a grave. a symbol of the life that they left behind them

[ulgapodatkowa]

you know what? I am genuinely baffled. I know that izzy's death made sense narratively and a lot of people were saying that they're worried because they think the writers will kill izzy off. but it comes as such a shock for me because they tortured him so much this season, he was shot, his leg was cut off, nearly drunk himself to death. but he healed and found a family he could belong to. and to take it away it just seems so cruel.

it made sense narratively but they could have made it a different narrative. because I feel betrayed that a series that was the first one to finally make me feel seen as a queer person would be so unkind to the narrative surrounding a broken queer man.

and one can argue that izzy says that he wants to go in the end. but did the creators really thought that izzy had nothing else to give to the show? that they had to reduce him to being a part of blackbeard and only with his death would ed finally be free from that title? because let's face it, that seems cruel. in my eyes they made him a symbol, rather than a person. and i don't know if my heart can find it in itself to forgive that. he fell in love with life again and they took it from him.

#i really rarely critique the creators and i think know what they had in mind here but nevertheless i don't really think it was a good choice #moreso if it was made to rip the viewers hearts out but i cannot know what they thought when writing that #and the ending rings so sad because of it. he's just a grave. a symbol of the life that they left behind them #i don't know i'm fucking mad but that's what i get for attaching myself to a character #ofmd #our flag means death #izzy hands #ofmd s2 spoilers #ofmd spoilers #our flag means death spoilers

[villainofmyownstory]

Blindsided

-> part 2 Anyone else

For @the-californicationist's “Cali’s Nameless Challenge” writing challenge!

summary: You can't get over the breakup and the fact that you were left alone. You keep coming to the place where you last saw him. To, perhaps, finally get some kind of answer. Some solace.

tags: afab reader, hurt, angst, ex lovers, recollection of death, ambiguous/open ending??

520 words

author's note: Cali, congratulations on reaching 500k on ao3! I wish you many, many more hundreds of words written, you are doing a great job! I hope you enjoy it <3

Inspired by the song Blindsided by Bilmuri, the lyrics are italicized and indented

Don't forget to leave a comment guessing who the nameless one might be!

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You're standing on a flat, dark ground. With evenly trimmed grass. You stare at a straight row of stone, light-granite memorials. You spend another autumn afternoon in the same way. Standing huddled, already on the beaten ground. In front of, it would seem, the same headstone as the hundreds here. A row of letters and numbers blending together. Actually meaning nothing. Fake names, made-up dates. Maybe it wasn't the first time.

Was it even ever real?

There were never tears in your eyes. Not even before. Long before. Because, how could you ever cry for someone who didn't exist.

Were you always a liar?

No flowers, no lit candle. No personal item. Emptiness. Simplicity. All in all, such as his life was. Or maybe he was just pretending.

''It's nothing personal. Shit was never real, babe''

Rubbing your tired eyes, you pay no attention to your surroundings. In this foreign country, in no man's land. Among the slowly falling colorful leaves. Another miserable day. Sacrificing everything for one big lie.

I'm not saying I was perfect Why do I deserve this?

Finally, in a fit of another wave of anger at this figure seemingly lying a few feet below your feet, you seize in rage, to remove the gold adorning your finger. Maybe by the cold, or maybe by months of drowning sorrows. The ring refuses to move an inch on your finger. Another blow of cold wind. Shivers appearing on your body. The same ones that probably appeared that April night, when you opened your eyes and he slept by your side as if nothing ever happened. And finally looking at his face, tired after another mission, on which, with each return, more wrinkles and scars appeared. You were beginning to understand this farce, this game he was playing with you, probably from the very beginning.

Did your heart get colder? Did I ever make you feel when your head was on my shoulder?

You should then ask him, pestering him with questions, about telling the truth. When you finally, after many weeks, noticed the absence of that symbol of the vow you both made on his finger.

Make it clear when you forgot that ring Did it weigh down on your hand?

Standing in the cemetery, once again. With so many unanswered questions. He wasn't even buried in his homeland. None of his relatives showed up, except his teammates and a few friends. And you. It was so strange. Nothing made sense about it. That feeling you gave him was buried in that grave. Maybe his body wasn't there. But your heart was there. Definitely.

You left without a word Just to make it hurt

If you hadn't been so immersed in your thoughts, in asking him unspoken questions and shouting resentments in your head. Maybe you would have noticed sooner, that tall and broad figure that stood a dozen steps away, behind one of the old leaning trees. His eyes, darkened from longing, gazed intently at your sad and miserable figure. He was watching you and keeping an eye on you. As always.

"Yours forever, remember, babe?"

#cali's challenge #cali’s nameless challenge #call of duty fanfic #call of duty #cod mw2 #cod mwii #cod #call of duty fanfiction #cod fanfic #fanfic challenge #fanfiction challenge #fic challenge

[bentobarnes]

『𝐟𝐨𝐫𝐠𝐞𝐭-𝐦𝐞-𝐧𝐨𝐭』

note : my requests are OPEN! Feel free to send me story requests

pairings : bucky barnes x reader

word count : 1.2k

request by @pez3639 (thank you!) : Mr.Bucky absolutely PINING over the local flower shop owner and the owner doing the same? 🧡

warnings : tons of fluff and flowers

*feedback is appreciated. please reblog so it can reach more people♡

After the events surrounding the shield, the Flag Smashers and Nakajima Bucky never thought he could find people who can be called family. However, Sam came into his life again absolutely spinning the dynamic around him. He accepted him as a friend, a family he never had since the 40s.

Bucky was walking down the street. He needed to go and get a cake for the party, Sarah and Sam were throwing in Louisiana. He loved that place. It was peaceful and beautiful away from everything. While he was walking and thinking about what kind of cake he needs to get, he saw a cozy flower shop under a cherry blossom tree. He didn’t come here much often but for the first time, he saw the cherry tree and the small flower shop. In front of the showcase, there were placed shelves with all kinds of flowers. You could probably smell them from miles away. “Why not? I can get some flowers for the women.” He told himself and pushed the front door.

The moment he opened the door was also the moment he wanted to never leave this place. It felt like someone brought a garden from a fairy tale and placed it into the shop. He looked around. It was full of flowers, plants he didn't even know the names of, small trees, and plant accessories. He was turning his head from left to right until something caught his attention. A girl was sitting on the counter, arms placed on the open book, eyes full of adoration. She was looking at him, which made him hold his breath.

“Are we looking for a bouquet for the girlfriend?” Your voice was soft like honey and your smile was more deadly for Bucky than everything he had fought during his life.

“Actually no. I’m going to a party in Louisiana and I figured it would be nice to get some flowers for the women.” How he managed to form words while you were looking at him like that, he didn’t know.

“I got it. I would suggest getting more gentle flowers.’’ You stood up from your position on the counter and planted yourself next to him looking in the direction he was looking at. While both of you were looking he turned his face to you. Your side profile was the most beautiful thing he had seen. Your hair was carefully flowing free and in a few places, there were small braids. Just like a fairy. He didn’t remember staring long until you looked at him small smile adoring your features.

“And what are “gentle” flowers?” He asked. He was truly interested. Bucky loved plants in general since he was little but he never got the chance to think about it now that he was free.

“Tulips will be the best for the occasion. They represent perfect love but the yellow ones are a symbol of thankfulness for someone’s efforts.” You turned your head and locked your eyes with his. For a moment, you felt as if you were drowning in them. They were blue like the ocean.

“Why are you staring like this?” He said throwing the most gorgeous smile you could ever imagine. You felt like an ocean wave flipped you over on the sand.

“Sorry. Your eyes reminded me of a flower.” You broke the eye contact feeling slightly embarrassed of your actions.

“What kind of flower?” If he thought, he was interested in the first place well now he was even more.

“It’s called forget-me-not. Back in the 15th century, there was a legend saying if someone wears this flower with them, their loved ones will never forget them. Nowadays most people think they are poisonous because they often mistake them with the Chinese-forget-me-not, which is very toxic. That’s sad. Such a beautiful and pure flower.” A sad tone was painting your voice.

“I want to be her forget-me-not flower.” Bucky said to himself while gaining the courage to make something very dangerous.

“Come with me in Louisiana.” The words echo within the small space. You were standing there for a few moments, which scared him the most because he thought he made a mistake.

“I would love to! But we have to get the flowers first. Come!” You replied after a while. Excitement taking over you while you talked to get the flowers. He was following you after.

At this moment Bucky was entirely pinned in love with you. He wanted to be able to call you family. He knew he would be happy with you. He knew you only knew each other for like an hour but he had that feeling in him telling this is the right thing to do.

You were both in the car listening to some soft 40s music. The sun rays coming from the window made your skin glow under them. You looked at him. He looked happy his eyes gathering all of the bright oranges of the sun in them. “Forget-me-not flowers thrive under the sun, too.” You thought.

“What’s your favorite flower?” Bucky asked breaking the silence. You broke the contact with the window view and looked at him.

“I have two. Lotus and asphodel.” You were happy that he asked you. No one cared about this stuff.

“And what do they mean?” He was curious and it showed.

“The lotus flower means rebirth and enlightenment. They grow in the mud and die at night just to bloom again in the morning. It lives only three days. You should see them on the first day while they are still freshly bloomed, otherwise with each day their petals start to fall and in the end, they lose all of them. The asphodel is the flower of death. People say they are the flowers that cover the endless pastures of Hades. He is the ancient Greek god of the underworld. If you give it to somebody it means that your regrets will follow them into the grave.” There was a reason why these flowers were so special for you and why they had such a tragic meaning.

“You are an interesting woman Y/N. You look happy, you smile and you are kind but hearing the meaning of your favorite flowers makes me realize how much I’m interested in you. We should do this more often, huh?’’ Those eyes were seeing straight through you.

“We should.” You simply told him reaching for his hand, which was placed on the gear shifter.

*a few months later*

“Bucky! Come back here!” You were running after him losing your breath while laughing. Suddenly he came out of nowhere almost crashing your bones when you both fell onto the mattress. You giggled when you felt his breath onto your neck.

“Thank you for everything you gave me and continue to do so. You are my family. My only one.” He whispered into your ear sending goosebumps down your spine.

‘’I love you, Buck. You are my forget-me-not remember?’’ Your nose caught the smell of this cologne. You loved that smell.

He let go of your neck and looked you in the eyes before crashing his lips into yours for a passionate kiss. At this moment he finally felt free. Free to do everything with the love of his life. He remembered the day when you both exchanged promising rings, symbol of your love for each other. They were made of resin and inside them were placed little forget-me-not flowers. Nothing was strong enough to take you away from him.

Tag list: @littlecanadianlani , @lovie-barnes

#bucky barns fanfiction #bucky barnes x reader #40s bucky #bucky fic #james bucky buchanan barnes #bucky #bucky x reader #bucky imagine #bucky fanfic #james bucky barnes #bucky barnes #bucky x female reader #bucky fluff #bucky x y/n #bucky x you #james barnes #james buchanan barnes #fatws bucky #winter solider #sam wilson #james buchanan bucky barnes #buckysam #bucky barnes x you #bucky barns x you #bucky barns x y/n #bucky barns x reader #bucky barns imagine #marvel #bucky barnes x original female character #bucky barns fluff

[captainsimagines]

To Topple A Giant || Chapter Eight

Summary: You had made it your mission to destroy even the smallest evils. When the opportunity arises to finally take down your own family after years of gaining their trust, you reach for it. And so does Steve, the man who represents a symbol of everything you hate.

Pairing(s): Steve Rogers x Reader || Avengers x Reader

Part 8 of 10 ~ Mini-Series

Warnings: This story contains mature themes and discussions such as extreme canon violence, strong language, emotional angst, mentions of Endgame deaths and recoveries, sexual situations, and emotional/physical abuse. This is purely fanfiction.

Warnings in this Chapter: abusive parental relationship; extreme canon violence (gun violence, hand-to-hand, baton use, knives); strong language; mentions of drug smuggling, drugs, and human smuggling; mentions of blood and blood loss; major/minor character death (not the mains, don’t worry!); angst; gunshot wounds; heavy alcohol consumption

Word Count: 14,600+

A/N: Listen... you know damn well I had to put some American Pie lyrics in this. The reader’s and Jackeline’s relationship is not modeled after Nat and Yelena lol it was literally the biggest coincidence. 

~

MedBay - The New Compound, 2024, 1:52 pm     

     “He did what?”     

Bruce smiles sheepishly as he lugs Steve’s practically lifeless body onto one of those beige medical beds. Dr. Cho is pacing calmly around the room, getting her instruments cleaned and ready. She tries to ignore the way you’re crowding her, inspecting everything she touches and in turn is going to end up touching Steve.      

“He took a bullet for someone.”     

“And where is that someone?” you bite. You immediately want to apologize to Bruce for your tone but you’re distracted by the tiny groans of pain coming from the pale super soldier beside you. You have to look away to avoid whimpering yourself, but you can’t exactly make yourself deaf. “Don’t tell me he took a bullet for you.”     

Bruce rolls his eyes and steps to the side as Dr. Cho begins cutting away Steve’s pants. “Everyone else is on vacation. He has no one here to take a bullet for besides. It was a shitty liquor store robbery and Steve was, of course, being a hero.”      

“Where’s he hit?” you ask, heading over to grab a pair of gloves yourself. No one questions it.      

“Femoral artery. Seems like he was plugging his own wound until he could get help.”     

Dr. Cho is right. There’s a massive gash in his thigh that’s leaking excessively and the skin surrounding the wound is raised like Steve’s own fingers had plunged so deeply it left an imprint. Not only that, but his hand is covered in his blood. So is Bruce’s, you realize, because he had tried to plug the artery as well.      

“How is he not dead yet?” Dr. Cho more mutters to herself than to you guys. Steve’s head is lolling to the side and his lips are an awful shade of white. His eyes are fluttering open and closed… open… closed… and he’s still mumbling random phrases. There’s a rough tug at the bottom of your stomach that pulls and pulls and there’s a weird urge to crawl onto the table to keep Steve warm.      

“He needs blood,” you say, even though all parties in the room know that as fact.     

Bruce, however, winces. “Sam’s not even in the state right now and I don’t think we have enough time to fly him-”    

“Is he Sam’s blood type? What’s his blood type? Why can’t Bucky do it? Bucky’s in Brooklyn, he can be here in five minutes if he runs.”    

Bruce starts rummaging through the upper level shelves and freezer cabinets. “Can’t mix the serums. We’ve tried.” He finally finds the blood bags, pulling them all out and spreading them across the clean tables. “It’s - shit - do we not have?”     

Dr. Cho is now covered in blood, working as fast as she can to close the wound. “What’s his blood type?”    

Bruce repeats it out loud and watches as Dr. Cho’s face falls. “I ran out yesterday. The blood drive isn’t until this weekend. I had a patient come in yesterday, I - I ran out yesterday.”     

They seem to be having their own conversation with their eyes and are too focused on each other to see you already stripping your long-sleeve shirt and wrapping that horrible blue rubber band around your upper arm. “Me. Take mine.”    

Bruce immediately shakes his head, stuttering as he tries to remove the rubber band. “Nu-uh, I don’t know if you know this but you’re human. I need two bags, three tops. I can’t just take it all from you right now!”    

“Then get me some cookies and a juice box. I don’t care how much you have to take to make him speak a coherent sentence. Do me.”    

Bruce hesitates but he rushes to the cabinets for the needles, vials, tubes, whatever - “No, do it direct.”     

Your words startle the two doctors but they don’t question it. They hook you up and poke the needle in the first vein they find, attaching the tube instead of a single vial and direct it to Steve.      

“You sure your blood matches?”     

You give Bruce a pointed look as if that isn’t something written on your dog tags or on your weekly personal reports.      

In the end, you’re told that you gave him the equivalent of two pints of blood. Not that you were awake for the second anyway but you vaguely remember Steve’s voice ringing in your ears. You’re not awake as he regains consciousness or to witness his very confused glare at seeing you in the bed next to him.     

He swears he heard small mumblings… ‘If you die because of some highway robbery, Rogers --- I’m never gonna fucking stop bullying your grave --- haunt it’.... ‘Stay --- with me, please’.... ‘---supposed to apologize first’....   

He tests the waters, mumbling a name he only says with annoyance nowadays. But now, it’s gently said. Soft, a whisper that sounds like a fractured hymn. 

Present Day, 2025, 12:05 pm

     There isn’t a set emotion in the world that seems appropriate. What are people supposed to feel when they’re singled out and chosen to suffer a life of pain? Self-hate? Pity for themselves? Anger? Sadness? Remorse? Nothing?

You really don’t know what you’re feeling. In the middle of rubbing vaseline on your newly acquired cuts and scrapes and bandaging yourself up, biting on a belt as Bucky set your shoulder back in place, and lying with Steve discussing everything and nothing all night after your promise - well, what the hell are you supposed to feel? As inevitable as it was considering he had ordered you shot before, the one feeling you know you feel is betrayed. Because even though Ernesto has proven himself evil time and time again, to his own flesh and blood, there was still a small part in your heart that didn’t think any parent truly wanted to inflict pain on their children. And your heart keeps proving itself wrong again and again.

“You just... jumped out of the car?”

Ramirez’s voice snaps you from your inner thoughts. He was let out of custody this morning. He’s currently filling in anyone who asks about the shipment, about Ernesto’s future plans, about the role he thought he had.

“Against my better judgment, but yeah.”

He chuckles and grins like he’s a kid hearing the best story ever told. “That’s what superheroes do. At least, what I’ve seen in the movies. John Wick, Bond, esos tipos.”

“I don’t know if I’ve mentioned this before, Omar,” there’s a teasing tone, “but I’m a fucking Avenger.”

That makes him laugh louder and in turn pulls one from you. “Ya se, ya se. I’ve known you since you were born. It’s weird hearing stories about you saving the world and jumping from bombed cars.”

“Mm, wait until you hear about that time I went into space and landed on another planet. Or time traveled. Take your pick.”

He’s stunned into silence and after a few more praises, he lets you return to typing out your report. There are plenty of other agents around for him to busy himself with. The base is tiny and not at all what you expected, but it’s secure enough to fit Torres, Sam, Bucky, and about fifteen other agents as they prepare for tonight. The plan you and Steve outlined was simple: attend the wedding, butter everyone up, send Steve away to help Ernesto retrieve and move the shipment, Scott and Sam will infiltrate, Bucky would be on standby to help you fight, and the rest of the team at base will begin arrests and sweeps. If everything goes according to plan, at least.

It’s easy to speak negatively about these things - there really were only two ways this could go.

You finish your report and go to stand, only realizing a minute later walking through the base that Ramirez is following you. You send him a funny look over your shoulder and he returns with a small smile of his own.

“Tengo preguntas!”

You stop and let him catch up. “Hmm?”

“Okay,” he starts, motioning his hands wordlessly until he could form them. “Are you and the Captain actually... juntos? Or just Avenger partners?”

“That’s personal, Omar,” you say with a roll of your eyes. “But I guess? That’s weird discussing with you.”

He nods in agreement. “It’s okay, I was just curious. So, him being mad was just an act? He doesn’t really hurt and threaten you, no?” He’s treading lightly, but you can already see the cartel mind turning. He would order Steve’s execution if he had to, even if he believed it to be morally wrong in some situations.

“Never. It was just an act for Ernesto.”

“Ah, Dios. Thank goodness.”

“Yeah, keep your men in line. It’s fine.”

He chuckles at that. “And the other Avengers?”

“They’re my family, Omar,” you grin wide, waking slower for the old man to keep up. “They would never hurt me.”

“That’s good, but not what I was asking.”

“Oh?”

“What are they like?”

Handing your report to one of the agents at a handful of monitors, you laugh loudly. “Do you want to meet them officially?”

“Aye, I know my daughters would like that...”

You raise an eyebrow.

“But I would like to meet them, too.”

“That’s what I thought. C’mon.”

The rest of the team are all relaxing and discussing the past days events in the lounge area, which is really just a glorified break room. Bucky’s still in his morning sweats same as Scott, Torres is already suited up, and both Sam and Steve are wearing their Avenger gear (minus Sam’s wings and Steve’s battered shield). Steve is the first one to notice you enter and he instantly gets up from his chair to greet you with a kiss on the cheek.

“Gross,” Bucky mumbles.

“You’ve been trying to get me a girl for over ninety years, Buck. And now that I’ve finally got someone who likes me back, you bully me for it?”

“Who’s bullin’? I said the same thing when Agent Carter smooched you in the weapon’s room and you thought you were alone.”

You pat Steve’s shoulder. “Think about it, Rogers. When Bucky settles down with someone, you have free reign.”

Steve pulls a thin smile and glances back at Bucky. “I’ll make them hate you.”

“Love and hate are the same thing, pal. It worked out for you two.”

“Okay, we’re done. Everyone, Omar wanted to formally introduce himself.”

Ramirez gives a shy wave. Torres returns it. It’s kind of hilarious to witness. Here you all are, Avengers and some standing over six feet with one of the most wanted drug lords in the world, and the all mighty drug lord is shy. 

“I’m so sorry we got off on the wrong foot.” You notice how when Ramirez speaks to strangers or those he deems good people on his side, his accent is a little thicker. It’s like he wants to speak only in Spanish other than the Spanglish you were all accustomed to. “But it really is an honor to meet you all.”

Scott is the first to stand and shake his hand. “Sorry I pointed my gun at you, man. Habit.”

Ramirez chuckles, “Sorry I broke into your room.”

Steve interjects, “Thank you, though. For telling us what more we’re fighting for.”

Ramirez nods, a solemn look spreading over his face. “The minute I found out, I didn’t know who to tell. I’m lucky you were never truly on his side.”

“And what will you do after all this is over?” Bucky stands. “How do we know we can truly trust you?”

Ramirez sneaks a glance at you and you raise your hands. “Hey, I’ve got the same questions as him.”

Ramirez must know he isn’t getting out of this one because he answers quickly. “Drugs have a market where people choose. I just meet supply and demand protocols. I don’t do the unnecessary violence or blackmail. There is no need to. People will always want drugs.”

There’s a round of agreement throughout the small room. Ramirez continues, “But smuggling humans? There is no choice, nothing moral about it, it’s evil.”

“But people get addicted to drugs. They die from them everyday,” Sam argues.

“I produce and deal what you American’s call weed. Ernesto does the big stuff, as does White. I’m,” he laughs a little. “I’m their weed guy.”

“That is true,” you confirm. You’ve moved and packaged Ramirez’s product before. “Literally just weed.”

Everyone seems deep in thought, like their processing Ramirez’s words and the weight behind them. Ramirez ran with the big boys and was the biggest distributor of marijuana in Mexico and America alike, but he never messed with any other product. Besides producing, selling, and smuggling illegal weed, his only other crimes included conspiring with Ernesto on how to get the product over state lines.

“Okay,” Steve starts. “So how is tonight gonna work? We have to discuss that.”

Ramirez bows his head. “You’ve allowed me safety, you’ve listened to me speak, and you’re saving both my life and my daughter’s. If you must arrest me, then you arrest me.”

“The minute you’re transferred to a prison with less security, Ernesto’s men will get you,” you reason, already shaking your head no.

Ramirez gives a nonchalant shrug, “But you’ll get him and White. That’s all that matters.”

You look over to Steve for some other ideas, but like you he doesn’t have any. No one seems to have any.

Torres matches his shrug and his voice is small as he speaks, almost like his next idea is insane. “We can always put him in the Raft.”

Everyone’s eyes go wide.

“That’s where all the enhanced humans go, no?” Ramirez is stunned. “Do I count?”

“We’ve got no idea,” Steve rubs at his chin, looking at you for confirmation he knows you don’t have. “But it’s an idea.”

     The plan is no longer singular. Fury had sent his best field agents for the job, the ones with the best aim, the ones with great strategic planning. Although you and Steve were still in charge, it was no longer just your mission. Your mission was to arrest the big three, big four when including Seda. That was it.

The plan goes like this: half the team will be focused on the venue itself, hidden in the shadows and monitoring the big three as well as your mics, and will aid you in the physical fight and arrests. Some are on the ground while others in the sky. Afterwards, they’ll sweep the estate and collect stolen property or priceless artworks. The other half is split into two, where one of those halves will be spread out for miles to capture anyone that might slip through, like guests who were on the most wanted list or guests that have helped Ernesto in the past. The other part of that half will intercept the shipment (once Steve radios in the location), save the hostages, and shut down the routes. 

They instruct Ramirez to call Ernesto and to ask him if there’s a vegetarian menu offered. Ernesto responds with only a muttered groan and in a wild turn of events, asks if Ramirez can call you to make sure you arrive earlier than expected to make sure Jackeline walks down that aisle. He’s completely serious. Not only does Ramirez play along, but Ernesto doesn’t give any indication that he knows about the car bomb. So the team makes a judgement call: this was only Seda’s doing.

Ramirez is then told that the Raft is not an option; both the US and Mexican government want him and the only reason he hasn’t been arrested is because he still has many cards to play. The more he helps, the less time he’ll get. 

One thing is known: this is the biggest mission anybody has been on in over two years. 

      Bucky remembers things in bits and pieces. Sometimes he’ll be minding his own business, enjoying this new world and the countless amenities it offers, and remember exactly where he was on the hottest day of the year in 1936. He remembers the blistering heat, boiling his once pale skin and giving him that beautiful olive he was now known for. He remembers the way his tongue dried almost instantly the moment he stepped outside and how he asked his next door neighbor, Ms. Kranshall, for a cup of water before work. He remembers her massive square glasses and how they nudged the tip of her nose as she nodded sweetly at him. He remembers her high but smoky voice and the way she patted his shoulder as he drank the cup down. 

The first time he remembered Natalia was around the same time he remembered Steve. He sees a flash of ember in strands, speed almost matching his, and he sees those panicked green eyes he was once all too familiar with. 

She was twelve when he first met her, forced to throw her around like a ragdoll until her ribs were bruised and her spirit broken. He went again and again, and when he wasn’t forced he would teach her how to fight properly and how to shield her most vulnerable areas. Scared as she was, she never showed it in those private moments, and decided to follow his lead in most things. And she learned to be fierce, no matter how hard he hit, and he still remembers the look in her eyes and the pull of her young face as they yanked him away for cryo before he could congratulate her on winning her first fight. 

The first time he remembered you was when you leapt onto T’Challa’s back as the chase neared, tackling the young prince become king, and watched with sad eyes as both him and Steve climbed onto the jet for Siberia. He remembers your clumsy punches when you fought him with half his brain and how he kicked you so hard you flew. He also remembers how when you took that kick for Steve, the sound of his wail almost deafened the soldier. 

Everytime he remembers something, a memory, no matter how strangled it may arise, the twinge in his chest is good. He’s remembering. He’s James Buchanan Barnes.

He feels that same twinge when a face full of freckles greets him at the entrance, documents raised above her head in a show of selfish glee, and a pep in her step that tells him she remembers him too. 

“Sergeant Barnes!” Maribel gives a toothy grin. “Never thought I’d see you again!”

Bucky tilts his chin up and rests the tip of tongue between his incisors. “What? Hydra wasn’t enough for you, you gotta infiltrate the Mexican cartel, too?”

She scoffs playfully, “Other way ‘round.”

He snatches the documents from her hand and leads her inside. “I hope you got something here. Steve put a lotta faith in you.”

“Don’t you trust me?”

“Y/N does. That’s enough for me.”

Rolling her eyes, she snatches the documents back to turn the pages herself. “Follow me. We need to chat in private.”

“Shouldn’t we get-”

“I’d rather you know, and you tell them later. No audience.”

This causes Bucky to tense. He follows her in further and closes the door behind them both. 

The left side of her face had less freckles back in 2012, he remembers, and now she’s covered in them.     

Bucky remembers things slowly, but he remembers them. 

      It’s cold outside, air bruising your skin, and there are hundreds of goosebumps now erupting. You joke with yourself that in the end, you’ll most likely have to ask Steve for his jacket and ruin your overall look but hey, you’ll be warm. The wedding doesn’t start until five in the evening and it’s one’oclock right now, and there are white clouds in the sky instead of gray and the songs of some desperate birds searching for their lunch near your ears. It at least drowns out the constant noise of the agents hammering away at each other and preparing for tonight.   

It makes your stomach roll: these agents are putting their lives at risk because of you. 

     You stepped through the discarded papers and tried not to leave your footprint anywhere important. His office was empty, left in a state of purgatory, and his lamp was still on. It’s like he stepped out for a minute.

You picked everything up: pens, computers, books, chairs. Under everything, there was dust. 

He really did die.

As much as you wanted to step on his remains and spit on him, you couldn’t. The gash in your heart was still open and bleeding for everyone else and there was no room left for anger. You were indifferent, for lack of a better word. Frustrated?

A paper crumbles outside his office. No one had followed you in - a week after the snap and every single person on earth was still searching for loved ones or running from something - so no, no one else was supposed to be here. Mexico had been hit hard, it’s government shattered, and every cartel was picking up pieces or tearing the world further apart. There was no line anymore. 

You twisted around and aimed your gun at the door, immediately lowering it when you saw Natasha raise her hands. She had this embarrassed smile on her face like she knew she had been caught.

“I meant to say hi over your mic. But you turned it off.”

You sighed deeply and dramatically shrugged your shoulders. “Well, I’m here. Guess who’s not.”

Natasha only nods and steps further into the room. She looks over the same things you did. “He’s gone? Good, good riddance.”

“But his death means nothing if trillions of others died also. It’s so fucking typical of him. If he’s going down, he takes everyone else with him.”

“He didn’t take them, Y/N.”

“I want to be happy,” you spit out through clenched teeth. “I want to feel relief. The fucking bastard is finally gone and I can’t even enjoy it properly.”

Natasha takes one more look at the hallway before letting her guard down almost completely. She envelopes you in a hug, squeezing tighter each time your breath hitches. “Hey, listen to me.”

“He’s gone.”

“I know,” Natasha’s voice is low and reminds you of the gentle hum of record static. “He’s gone and he can’t hurt you anymore.”

“But everyone-”

“No,” she pulls away and places both her palms over your neck. “He’s gone. He can’t hurt you anymore.”

It takes a while before you’re nodding along, repeating her words gently.

“You’re more than the pain he inflicted. You’re more than his name or crimes. You’re worth more than his impact ten times over. He can’t hurt you anymore. I know everyone’s gone, and we’re going to fight like hell to bring them back, but in this little moment, this little thread you can pull - pull it all out - he can’t hurt you anymore.”

She’s all muscle and bone and blood and real. What would you do without Natasha?

     The grass beneath your bare feet calms you down. It’s tendrils are a little ticklish and there are droplets of silver morning water fog melting as they touch your skin. Focusing on the feeling isn’t enough to get you out of your own head and for a wild second, you think the God of Thunder is going to come up behind you and hold your hand. It’s peaceful out here, but what you wouldn’t give to see him again. 

The day before Steve and Carol returned the stones, he had been here. He did as he promised: the second the flood of happiness extinguished like a Christmas candle, he found you settled in the mass of pillows with only instrumental music playing. He left for two cups of tea, sat in silence with you as you both drank, and whispered a strangled ‘I’m sorry’ as if you weren’t meant to hear it. Apologizing for someone who did come back, and you for someone who didn’t. 

‘You know I don’t regret what we did. We brought everyone back.’ 

‘Don’t try and justify your sadness. Not at all, not with me.’ His voice was stern and his eyes serious.

‘I’m sorry he didn’t come back.’

His eyes had closed, as if he was expecting that apology, and he looked out the window where the sun was just barely rising, shining on him and him alone. ‘I’m sorry, too.’

There are footsteps, though. Heavy ones, footsteps that announce his upcoming presence on purpose so as to not startle anymore. Bucky was too generous for his own good. 

“Had a visitor.”

You remain silent as Bucky sits next to you, looking up from his spot and expecting you to sit as well. “There’s water on the grass.”

“There’s water in the air in this godforsaken state, now sit down.” A push of laughter escapes your lungs but you follow his instructions anyway. 

You sit in silence for a few minutes, admiring the way the pine trees bend slightly with the gusts of wind and how the birds have changed their pitch. You expect Bucky to speak first so you occupy that time by playing with the strands of wet grass. 

“In 1997, I was taken out of cryo for a mission.”

You wince on accident. This wasn’t how you expected the conversation to start. 

Bucky continues, “There was this man south of the border.” He points south to prove his point. “Hydra wanted to take him out because he was interfering with the drug routes they were monitoring.”

“Hydra controlled drug routes?”

“Hydra had their heads in plenty of places. They didn’t control them, but they did monitor them.”

You shake your head in understanding. “And this man?”

Bucky sighs heavily. His eyes are focused on the gentle yellows behind the trees instead of you. “He was told to take out another man traveling through and out one of these drug routes. He made a different call.”

“Who was your visitor?”

“Maribel.”

“Wha-?” You go to stand but Bucky gently pushes your left shoulder back down. “Why are you telling me this and not her?”

“She wanted me to tell you. And I guess, in turn, you tell Steve and the rest of the team.”

“Bucky,” your voice trembles on accident. “Tell me.”

“The man I was ordered to take out was Maribel’s brother.” He chuckles at your frantic shuffling and pushes you down again. He continues, “Hey, it’s okay. She never knew him and she doesn’t hate me for what I was.”

You don’t really believe him. But his face isn’t telling you otherwise. You're stuck between wanting to dig for more information and giving him a giant bear hug. “Did you… succeed?”

“The soldier ever rarely lost.”

Your face contorts. “Bucky…”

“He disobeyed orders, Hydra didn’t like that since it disrupted the drug routes, and so I was sent to help. Hydra didn’t seem to care about the man he let go, though.” Bucky shrugs and starts playing with the grass behind your hand. “The thing was, Maribel’s brother had been doing this a long time. Ernesto was on Hydra’s radar but in a good way. Maribel’s brother was also given very specific orders from one other person - their mother.”

The story pieces are all discarded haphazardly, pieces that are from different boxes and don’t seem to entangle properly. 

“She told him to let the man go. Because this man was an American, and killing an American on Mexican soil was something that was impossible to hide from the claws of the law. So, this American made it back on US soil safely and was never heard from again. Until 1998, when he tried to re-enter Mexico under a false name but with one purpose. To see his newborn baby girl.”

The yellow behind the pine trees fades into orange. 

“Are you saying-?”

“Maribel’s mother kept everything your mother left her when she tried to cross the border herself. Your real birth certificate, her real birth certificate, you.”

Bucky looks over finally, sad smile and all. “Maribel thinks, and now I think, that Ernesto isn’t your real father.”

There are so many questions formulating at the base of your skull that you don’t really take the time to absorb the news. “What did she bring you? What was in those papers?”

Bucky seems startled that your reaction wasn’t one of shock. “Like I said, Maribel’s mother kept a lotta things.” He pauses momentarily before speaking again. “Blood results was one of them. Still trying to authenticate them.  The American was a doctor, after all.”

“A doctor,” you whisper. 

“A doctor. He changed his name but he’s alive. Maribel’s checked.”

“Why would she tell me this now? Why now just hours before the wedding? Isn’t that why you guys didn’t tell me about what was really in the shipment?”

Bucky winces and his expression tells you he’s sorry. 

You continue, “Why now? Why does it even matter anymore?”

He inspects you quickly, scanning your features for any signs of discomfort. “You’re okay? I thought this would surprise you more.”

The chuckle you release is dry, kind of harsh. “It actually answers a fuckload of questions. Like, number one, why he fucking hates me.”

His eyebrows scrunch together. “You think he knows?”

“If he doesn’t, then he’s a super fucking asshole instead of just a fucking asshole.”

Bucky pauses again and smiles up at the sky. The clouds are white and extra large today, and he suddenly remembers the taste of that mini popcorn he had bought and shared with his little sister Becca… Becks… while watching Snow White and the Seven Dwarves at the theater. The salt and butter had stuck to Becca’s fingers and she had wiped them on Bucky’s sweater. He remembers scolding her for that but giving her a napkin in between his giggle fit. He feels the same swell in the meat of his heart listening to you. “We don’t deserve you. You’re like the moon. Always there, shaping yourself into what that person needs, crater after crater beat into you and yet, you move the tides.”

The little snort that leaves your nose hurts a little. “That’s pretty damn poetic for this moment of ‘you’re not the father!’”

Bucky bites his lip and smiles toward the yellow and orange hues. “Like the moon.”

      The hotel had replaced the door, no questions asked. The reason Sam decided to bust open the door instead of using the very functional key you had given Torres? No one knows. But the poor receptionist was told that you couldn’t possibly change rooms because this was top secret business and you absolutely wanted to slap Scott upside the head for worrying her. So they fixed the bolts and gave you all new keys. 

Didn’t matter much anyway since you weren’t sleeping here tonight. You had already packed and made the beds. 

You lay your dress and Steve’s dress attire on the respective beds. The dress sent over was a backless red silk, spaghetti strapped and slit on the left side - you’ve wanted to wear it since it arrived when Scott did. 

Steve knocked before entering the room. You almost laughed at the gentlemanly aspect of it. “Thought for sure they’d have kept you for another hour at least.”

“I gotta change sometime. That your dress?” Steve shrugs off his uniform and climbs on top of his freshly made bed.  

“That’s my dress. Sort of skimpy for a wedding, no?” You hold it up to show him the front and back.

“Does ‘skimpy’ mean bad?”

“Means slutty.”

He gives you this disappointed look, like he’s judging your vocabulary. “I wouldn’t use that word. So no.”

You silently apologize and move the dress over to the end of your bed. Everyone else was also getting ready for tonight. Agents were posing as local police, many infiltrated the wait staff, suits were being double-checked for any malfunctions. There was so much going on, but all was relaxed in your room. Steve smiles at you from his bed, head resting in his palm as he leans up to stare at you. It’s impossible not to blush under his stare, so you move to climb into his bed. You lay down with your feet to his head, the sides of your hips pressing together; just two upside down puzzle pieces. He chuckles and goes to lay on his back, right arm coming up to lay rested on top of your right thigh. 

“All this week I thought I wasn’t ready.” You’ve had no more nightmares. “But I am. I’m ready to end this.”

He runs his fingers delicately along your thigh. “I’m ready to help.” He sighs deeply and cranes his neck to try and meet your gaze. “We’ll make sure they get maximum time.”

“You know that’s not our call.”

“Still.”

You rest for another few minutes, gentle touches calming you. His body is so warm, emitting sweet thoughts like the beginning of spring heat, and it’s impossible not to curl up into it. Steve breaks the comfortable silence, “What are you thinking about?”

You suck in a breath and tell him the truth. “That in the matter of like… five days, you and I are basically lovers now.”

“Lovers?”

“Lovers.”    

He laughs out loud and goes to sit up.  “I intend on taking you out when we get back home.”

Lifting your head, you rest on your elbows and grin at him. “Oh? And where are you planning on taking me?”

He thinks for a second before pressing his lips together and giving up. “I have to ask Peter or Wanda. I have no idea where you go during the day to eat.”

You laugh, “Seriously? I could’ve sworn you tagged along once or twice.”

“Nope. I always refused.”

You frown slightly, “Riiight.” Not wanting to rehash the reasons why, you try to soften any wrong feelings about what that implies. “I’m sure you’ve been, though. I take Bucky places, too. Ask him.”

“Mmm, I have my pride. Can’t have Bucky thinkin’ he knows more about my girl than I do.”

You smile largely now and hope no lipstick rubbed off on your teeth. “Your girl?”

Steve averts his eyes like he’s just now asking for your name and if you’d like to go dancing. There’s a beautiful scarlet glow painting his pale cheeks. “Like I said, I’m taking you out and asking properly.”

“We’ve already surpassed third base. I remember it vividly.”

His smile falls comically and he turns to grab a throw pillow to smack you with it a couple times. “Crude! Crude as always. Goddamn.”

“I’m sorry! Hey, I’m sorry!” 

He stops his attack and pulls you into his chest. He warms your back instantly. “So, you’ll let me take you out?”

“I really, really like french fries,” you hum lightly and tilt your head back to lean into his shoulder. 

“That narrows it down, thanks.”

You chuckle due to his sarcastic tone. He rubs his hands up and down your arms. An idea formulates while in the warmth of his body. “You know what I really want to do after we finish with this?”

“What’s that?”

You tell him honestly. “Rent a cabin. Spend a Christmas there, maybe. Catch some fuckin’ fish. Experience the snow properly.”

His eyebrows furrow like he’s dissecting such a claim. “I… wasn’t expecting that.”

You shrug, “Sounds cool though, right?”

“Got room for one more?” He looks down to meet your gaze and there’s a glint of hope shimmering in the blue of his eyes.

       “Nat… Natasha.”

Natasha took in a sharp exhale as she lifted her head from the desk, left cheek numb and pink. Steve shot her a funny grin and continued shaking her shoulder until she fully opened her eyes. She slaps his hand away with a huff of laughter. 

“Come here to do your laundry? You know, there’s only so many times I can help prevent shrinking shirts.”

Steve scoffs, “I used to do laundry by hand. I can figure out a few buttons.”

“You would think.”

Steve rolls his eyes and bumps her shoulder with the palm of hand before speed-walking into the kitchen. “It’s one of those days.” He opens the high cabinets and pulls a few vodka bottles. 

Natasha pushes down whatever was starting to eat at her. She calms her deep breaths and rises from her chair. No words needed to be exchanged. She makes her way over to pull two glasses from the same high cabinets. 

Steve watches her a little hesitantly, but she has that lopsided smile that pinches through only one cheek and her eyes are the slightest bit swollen from her power nap, and Steve breathes a sigh of relief. She tilts her head to the other side of the kitchen, that lopsided grin gracing her bare feet. Steve fumbles through a few cleaning supplies and some plastic bags before he finds the bottle. 

“I hid it after… after Thor had that meltdown a year ago.”

Now, he was second guessing. It was a small bottle, only half left, but half a bottle of Asgardian liquor was enough to knock the God on his knees. For Steve, a few sips would do the same. But he needed it, he needed it, god help him. It’s been four years, he needs it. “Be my designated driver?”

“How about you spend the night? Y/N wanted to start a new show anyway.”

“I’ll be passed the fuck out during the opening credits.”

“But you’ll be here.”

Steve sighs and pops open the bottle. Natasha puts her hand up to stop him from pouring, “Check under that sink again.”

His eyebrows pinch together but he does as instructed. More cleaning products… more cleaning products. He tilts his head to look at the corners and there it was: a small, pink paper airplane taped mid-flight. Steve hunched his shoulders to grab it and crawled out carefully. “You know, you’re not supposed to tell me where you hide them.”

“Well, I felt bad! I’ve found like fifteen of your blue ones and how many do you have of mine?”

“That’s besides the point-”

“Say it. You’ve found six.”

His cheeks turn hot. “I’m not here all the time.”

“Excuses.”

“I leave mine in good spots. You probably got better eyes or something.”

Natasha laughs, loud and from her chest. “Sure. But hey - I’ll promise you somethin’.”

Steve pours the Asgardian liquor into his glass and straight vodka into Natasha’s. “What do you have in mind?”

“You find more than me by the end of this year, and I’ll take that vacation.”

Steve takes his first sip and tries not to pull a hard face. “You’re on. But what if you win?”

Natasha raises her glass and clinks it with his. He wants to apologize for forgetting to toast but her eyes are playful and forgiving. “You come with me. I’m not the only one who needs it.”

“So, I win regardless?”

She takes a sip and pulls a funny face. “Easiest battle, don’t ya think?”

They’re off their right minds twenty minutes into drinking and the common area is chaos. Pillows are thrown, the TV somehow ends up with dozens of fingerprints, and they’ve broken a couple flower pots. The cushions of the couch know Natasha’s bare feet and Steve’s boots; the walls fail to constrict their loud singing; Rhodey has already snuck past them to get himself a snack undetected. 

‘And so I cry sometimes when I’m lyin’ in bed, just to get it all out what’s in my head!’

‘Hit the high note, Rogers!’

‘When you do, I will!... I scream from the top of my lungs-’

‘What’s goin’ on? And I say, ‘hey!’ ‘hey!’ I say ‘hey!’ What’s goin’ on?’

Steve’s still clear-headed enough to twirl Natasha around. She’s flexible enough to climb onto his shoulders.

‘I pray every single day - for a revolution!’

She’s starting to slur her words and Steve wonders if that blond streak in her hair was there last week. 

‘The story of my life! I take her home, 

I drive all night to keep her warm and time, 

Is frozen!

The story of my life, I give her hope, 

I spend her love until she’s broke inside!

The story of my life.’

She can longer feel her toes but seeing Steve let go makes her so incredibly happy and breaks her heart. I needed this too, she thinks.

‘So, bye-bye, Miss American Pie

Drove my Chevy to the levee, but the levee was dry

And them good ol' boys were drinkin' whiskey and rye

Singin', "This'll be the day that I die

This'll be the day that I die!”’

She’s all muscle and bone and blood and real. What would Steve do without Natasha?

     “You wanna come?”

“Sure. I’ll cut down the trees for wood. Have a real fireplace.” He’s serious, you realize. Like, really truly serious. 

Your heart swells with excitement and some other feeling you can’t quite place. But it’s good, like really good. The sigh you release is full of sweet wonder. “A real Christmas tree.”

Steve tightens his grip around your arms. “December’s right around the corner. Trees should be ready and standing tall.”

It’s almost too much to imagine. You have the sudden urge to talk specifics, to plan out this vacation. A beautiful, rustic cabin with only a coffee maker brought from the outside century, knitted quilts, real snow, Steve’s body heat, Christmas lights… inviting Sam, Scott, Wanda, Peter, and Bucky down for Christmas dinner and presents. A whole sleepover filled with ghost stories, candle burning, board games, Christmas movies. You’re up and tucking your knees under yourself to look down at Steve in an instant. “You’d throw on that checkered shirt, grow out your beard even more, and chop down a few trees for me? With me?”

“There’s nowhere in the world I’d rather be,” Steve says, eyes crinkling. For a second, he’s worried you’ll realize that he’s quoted your letter. But that same moment, you’re giggling with excitement over your future plans.

“Well, we lasted a week here without killing each other. The holidays always hold a few surprises.”

Steve picks up another pillow.

       Business is not conducted during the church service. It feels normal, with half the guests attending the service and watching the happy couple exchange vows, while the other half only arrives for the party. 

Jackeline’s dress is modern with a mix of vintage - simple, with long sleeves of lace and fabric that isn’t entirely white but with hints of beige; the dress dips lower in the back than it does in the front, and it’s tight near the waist but loose as it drapes down her long legs. Her hair is left loose and her make-up is heavy, and she illuminates under the sun rays that burst through stained cathedral glass. You don’t even pay mind to Ernesto and Seda seated in the aisle in front of you - not when Jackeline looks the way she does. 

As the service ends, Steve tells you to wait until most of the guests exit. The priest eyes him warily, inspecting his young face and build and obvious persona. He says nothing, but he places a gentle hand over the cross on his chest as he follows the guests out. Steve stands, and out of respect dips his fingers into the holy water provided near the heavy wooden doors. He signs the father, the son, and the holy ghost and dips his fingers in again to sign the same on you. With a silent thank you and tender wipe to your forehead, you don’t question it. He’s not Catholic, or at least you don’t think, but you know he does it for what’s to come. No matter your beliefs, he just wants something, someone, to protect you. You turn back to the cathedral and grip the door as you bend down to one knee and tip your head. 

       Everything is grander, that’s for sure. The decorations are tripled; the violet lights are reflecting like diamonds off every marble and glass surface; the chandelier’s are no longer gold sculptures but diamond; the clay flowers hanging from the ceiling yesterday are now a part of the centerpieces, squeezed in with the largest bouquet of roses and violets; the live bands (because of course there are two) are each still setting up as everyone is getting seated; and there are about fifty round tables circling the large dance floor. There’s still a nice view of the lake and the pine trees ahead, and the tarp was abandoned as there was no rain in the forecast. All in all, and there were a thousand other things you could focus on but didn’t have the energy to, everything was beautifully put together.

Jackeline wasn’t lying when she said half of Mexico was attending. Besides family, there were celebrities in attendance, famous musicians who were simply guests and not performing, family of some of the other biggest drug lords from both countries (minus Europe), and a couple politicians who dipped before the new couple even walked through the doors after seeing Steve. But Steve worked his magic like he had yesterday and had everyone eating out of the palm of hand in pure amazement. He even had a famous actress hanging off his shoulder in under three minutes. Walking away to go congratulate Jackeline, Steve doesn’t miss the quick, sarcastic flick of your middle finger aimed in his direction.  

“You’d tell me if you needed my help, right?” Jackeline asks after a while, bottom lip dripping champagne. She wipes it gingerly, careful not to smudge her pink lipstick. 

“I would if there was anything wrong,” you respond truthfully. She pauses to swallow her sip and squints. She follows your gaze to Steve, whose right arm is being tugged by a girl who looks about twelve with five multi-colored bows trailing down her french braid, and who is also trying hard not to blush at the very attractive actress he can’t seem to get rid of. 

“You’re going to stop him, aren’t you?”

You glance to your left, but it isn’t really a question. Jackeline knows. “Yeah.”

She nods and tilts her chin up, eyes still on Steve. “Make him watch as you burn it down.”  You know she’s referring to Ernesto. She continues, “Every last bit of it.”

Smiling down at your feet, you raise your glass at nothing in particular. Just to salute the night air and whoever is watching. A few seconds pass as you both watch the guests enjoy the music and appetizers. Jackeline shuffles in her heels but she doesn’t seem to want to leave your side just yet. “You run, you understand?”

She’s only momentarily startled by your words. “Okay.”

“I never meant to leave you here, Jackie. I just had to find a way out first.”

“You found a loophole,” she chuckles, but the next moment she’s serious. “There is no way out.”

“Might not be,” you admit, downing your glass in one shot. “But I know this. He can’t hurt you anymore.”     

      You don’t exchange more than a few words with Steve before he’s called by Ernesto’s men and motioned toward those massive dry lava rock doors; doors that don’t muffle sound but are strong enough to withstand a bullet wound. You watch him leave with them, and he shoots you a smile over his shoulder to simply look at you. Your eyes swell only slightly, burning the corners and blurring everything. He’s bright and brilliant, walking head first into Hell and shining like the bolts of Zeus.

Steve has faced giants before, from all backgrounds and all worlds. He has blocked their punches, taken near mortal injuries; stared them in the face with every ounce of anger and determination his cells could produce. There was always this whispered voice in his head that warned him of the last day he would pick up that shield. In 1945, the voice was loud and raging as he drove that nosediving plane into the Arctic. Over the last few years, however, the voice had quieted and let Steve ponder his fate himself. Steve swears the voice, or rather his own conscience, is getting tired. 

He listens intently, responding only when spoken to, and prays his mic is picking up every bit of this conversation. Ernesto commanded the room as he screamed orders in both English and Spanish. His men fell in line; some as determined as the old man, some quiet, some bothered. Didn’t matter what the orders were. Steve noticed the few who would glance at one another and speak their distaste with their wandering eyes. And when Ernesto would speak directly to Steve, the same men would pinch their lips into a thin line and glare. 

The shipment had arrived mid-conversation and as men were sent out to do their jobs, Ernesto kept Steve behind. I need you to stay with me until the shipment is secure and can be moved - you’re my bodyguard, Ernesto had told him, confident and only slightly bending his back in discomfort from the weight of the day. Steve agrees, and hears Bucky mention how they have eyes on the shipment from the sky. 

Steve stays by Ernesto’s side even when Ramirez is called in. He’s prepared for a bloodbath, for two big men to cement their graves in this tiny office, but it doesn’t happen. Or at least, it doesn’t happen yet. Ernesto regards Ramirez as an old friend and finally trusts him enough to tell him what the shipment contained. Steve isn’t surprised, however, when Ernesto takes nasty satisfaction at Ramirez’s horrified expression. Because even though Ramirez had already known, the confirmation adds a multitude of terror. Steve can feel his palms sweating. 

As expected, Ernesto tells Ramirez that he plans to use his lands for his gain. The safe thing to do would have been to agree, to nod along, and to live in the knowledge that the shipment most likely wouldn’t head out. But Ramirez, for some reason Steve can’t fathom, stands up and says no. 

Steve understands now; the odd shaking of your shoulders even when your face was completely blank and emotions calm. He watches the beads of sweat drip from Ernesto’s forehead onto the tip of his nose; he watches the way his chest heaves as his voice becomes louder; he watches until he can’t take anymore and he enlarges the shield with Scott’s tech and tells Ernesto to move away from the other man. Steve understands now - the man really is scary, even if he wants to admit it or not.

      “You really are a phenomenal actor.”

Swaying slowly, you try not to step on Seda’s feet as he guides you across the dance floor. The music is calmer than it was five minutes ago, the guests are enjoying dinner and conversing, and Steve had told you fifteen minutes ago that he would be right back. Ernesto had sent you a malicious wink, but you knew better. Steve’s name was written in blue and Ernesto’s real target had to be you. 

“Acting with what? Acting that I enjoy this dance? Acting like I respect you?” Your upper lip twitches into a teasing smile. “Or acting like I don’t know it was you who planted that bomb?”

He matches your smile, looking down at you with a glint in his eyes. His grip around your waist tightens. “Acting like you’re really on our side.”

Lowering your voice just a fraction, you lean in, top of your head level with his chin. “I’m on Ernesto’s side. You almost had me and my Captain blown up.”

His left hand is settled on your shoulder and he uses the opportunity to dig his nails in. All around him, his men are watching. “How did you get away?”

You give a dry laugh. “You think that was my first bomb? It was childsplay.”

Seda scoffs, “You speak of this Avenger business like I don’t know who you are. You’re still that scared little girl who hid in her room when alien’s fell from the sky.”

“I may be. But there’s a difference between you and I. I actually stared them in this face and won.”

“The second time, maybe”

Sticks and stones, but goddamn did those words always hurt. Blame goes a long way but you and your team are used to keeping it close to home. “Why do you want me dead?”

His scowl deepens and the wrinkles by his eyes crinkle over each other as he squints down at you. “The Avengers are not secretly on our side. Tony Stark never was but Ernesto loves to tell people otherwise. Same about your Captain. You’ve been playing us for years.”

“What evidence do you even have? For years, we’ve done nothing but clear the roads for you,” you say, shaking your head in disbelief. 

He unwraps his arm from around your waist and sets both hands around your upper arms. He’s pressing down as hard as he can but still loose enough not to draw unwanted attention. He breathes a sharp exhale, and the puff of air hits your cheeks. “I don’t know what happened to my men after you got what you deserved. They were good men and just like that, erased.” He smirks. “I know you had something to do with it.”

A guest with bright red hair laughs loudly to your side as she is twirled around by her partner. It’s not as vibrant as you’re used to, but you still imagine that lopsided smile you hadn’t seen in forever. “Does it matter? You know what they did, so why is my hypothetical revenge chastised?”

“Tell me right now that none of your Avenger friends did your dirty work. Tell me your Captain’s hands are clean.”

“I promise you, my Captain is clean.” Seda doesn’t show any signs of believing you. Still, your mouth twitches into a mocking smirk. “But our once mutual friends Tony and Natalia tell another story.”

“Am I supposed to believe that two people who are dead are responsible for this? Ironic,” he grits his teeth.

You repeat, clear and true. “My Captain is clean.”

He fakes a tiny gag but you know he means his disgust. “You turned over so quickly for him. For the heroes who destroyed the world. Pathetic.”

“You really need to stop underestimating me,” you practically order, voice full of warning and annoyance. 

Seda continues, “Following orders from a fascist. Following orders from a country that only does harm.”

He turns you around as the dance instructs, a half-hearted waltz that didn’t have a beginning, middle, or end. You take that second to scan your surroundings and weigh your options. “I agree about the country part. But I don’t follow orders from the country, I follow them from my Captain.”

You’re facing him again and in those hellish eyes you see truth. “No, he’s a symbol of everything we hate. Of everything we need to destroy.”

“Touch Steve and I’ll blind you.”

His feet stop mid-step, as do yours. His eyes widen only a little, but it’s all the ammunition he needs. “I knew it.”

It’s barely a whisper, a tickle from a single strand of hair, but you catch it. No longer keeping it a secret, or rather a secret you didn’t care that you let slip, Seda now knows it was all a lie. All this time you had never referred to Steve as anything other than your Captain.

You feel the blunt head of a .22 press against your abdomen as Seda laughs, “You never could get a mission right.”

Twisting his arm and knocking the gun from his loose grip with your wrist was easy. So was catching the gun mid-air and elbowing him in the ribs. Seda falls to the floor in a state of shock, instinctively gripping his chest. You aim the gun at him and like you’ve seen in the movies, place the tip of your heel just below where his belly button would be. He releases a sharp breath and his eyes are challenging, practically begging you to dig deeper and get on with it. 

You can hear the screaming and frantic murmuring from the guests surrounding you and the leveling of guns from Seda’s men. But you’re focused on the man trying so hard not to quiver beneath you, his nasty grin spreading wider. 

“You’re alone,” he bites. “Your Steve is helping Ernesto right now, no? You’re alone.”

Your grin forms slowly, and you’re counting down the seconds you have until his men start firing, but you lean your upper body down slightly to make sure he hears you. “That’s never been a problem before. Don’t you remember?” You click back the safety as discreetly as possible. “I was trained by the Black Widow herself.”

You quickly raise the gun to shoot the closest of Seda’s men in between his collarbones, effectively starting the bloodshed. You jump out the way in a flash, rolling across the floor and behind a table. Tipping the table over is easy and it seems like a smart idea at first, until you realize the tables are all glass. The tablecloth had covered that detail, which sucks like hell, because now the bullets are shattering through and you’re forced to kick yourself away and run behind the pillars instead. The heels are kicked off at the same time you’re fishing underneath your dress. 

A stray bullet hits the pillar’s side making you squeal. It makes you work faster, though. 

Once you find the secure nano-tech ‘button’ (as Scott liked to call it), you strip as quickly as you can and slap the button on your bare shoulder. The nano-tech spirals and threads into itself as intricately as frost spreads on a window, shielding you in both metal and kevlar. 

When a storm of bullets hits the pillar and cracks the marble, you’re forced to crouch and hope Seda’s .22 and the myriad of weapons you’re now equipped with are enough. Before your thoughts can creep into a ‘last man standing’ mode, a roar of wind sweeps across the estate and between the cracked pillars, causing your loose hair to slap your face and blind you for only a second. Quickly putting your hair up and pulling the metal batons from the back of your suit, you’re met with the best sight - one that was a little late, in your opinion. 

“Kind of you to show up!” 

Sam ignores your quip as he flies into three men at once, feet first with his wings extended with the might of a guardian angel. He immediately shields runaway guests who were caught in the middle. He takes the ones on his left, you take the ones on his right. 

You let them swing first. They’re fast and pulling their punches and are clearly aiming for the end result of sticking you to the ground. But you’re quicker and deflect the punches. You manage to deliver a solid punch upward to crack the nose of one. As he reaches up as instinct, his ribs are open season. 

He falls out cold easily after your batons do their damage and the next man isn’t nearly as fast as the first. He doesn’t move enough to his right to avoid the harsh kick to his sternum. Each ambitious kick to the chest seems to demolish the man’s protective wall he’s trying desperately to keep intact, but once you give your legs a break and switch back to the batons, he doesn’t stand a chance. There are bullets raining across the venue, but Sam is shielding you and deflecting them elsewhere. It allows you the freedom to rip into whoever you think deserves it. 

You’ve got two men on your tail and after knocking their weapons from their hands, it seems like a fairer fight. The first doesn’t step back far enough to avoid your roundhouse kick and he falls hard on his ass, gasping for a lick of air. The second is closer, however, and manages to wrap you in a chokehold. Releasing yourself to fall deadweight for only a second, gravity tricks him and you use the momentum to kick up and fly over his shoulders. It’s hard to do without a wall to propel yourself off of. But your abs and thighs are clenched and you don’t quite think you’ll actually end up on this guy’s shoulders but you do. You don’t dwell on that moment of personal pride, though. Tightening your thighs, you use your upper body weight to lean downward and wring his neck. Once he’s down, you sweep your leg around across the floor to trip the other man who was just barely standing back up. With the .22, you fire point blank. 

Detaching yourself from the gore has never been much of a challenge. Eyes rolling back and clouding, limbs dangling limp after having just been full of life, bodies thumping against the floor after eating your bullets - you don’t so much as grit your teeth anymore. 

Sam is dealing with his own mess closer to where that poor cake is now destroyed, vanilla filling exposed and now two stories instead of four. The other cakes are no better. Sam pulls the trigger once more at someone charging at him and he averts his eyes. Sam, however, clenches his jaw. 

“Where’s Seda?” you shout, firing at men who are jumping out from behind tables but giving away their location before they even surprise you. 

“Lost him. I think he’s heading over to Steve!”

You look over the room and pray everyone got out safely. There are no civilians lying in their own puddle of blood, no guests begging for help, but you can never know for sure. “We need more hands. Where the hell are Scott and Bucky?”

A storm of bullets starts crashing into the tables and pillars beside you. Trying to duck doesn’t work and you’re grazed in the left arm. Sam tackles you behind the stage, wings extending further and out bending around you. 

“I’ve been shot!”

Sam can’t help the laugh that erupts from his throat because of your dramatic tone. “You’ve been grazed. The nano-tech has already rebuilt itself.”

“I don’t care, I hate being shot. It’s not nice. I’ve been hit.”

“Dramatic.”

“Y/N?” a harsh whisper sounds from under the stage tables. Watching your eyes bulge paints a mournful expression on Jackeline’s face. Julian is right beside her, pistol out but not shooting. You wonder if he knows you’re the invader.

“What in the hell are you still doing in here? I told you to run!”

“I’m sorry,” Jackeline squeals as bullets continue firing. “Everyone crowded. I was scared so I just got down.”

“Sam.”

Sam nods, already reading your mind. You had to find Steve; you couldn’t stay here. But there’s bullets still blazing in your direction and you find yourself hopping on your ass slightly each time a bullet connects to the ground beside you. The nano-tech does great in deflecting the lead but it really isn’t an invitation to get shot more times. The graze on your arm is already starting to burn. 

“Sam is going to guide you both out of here, alright? Julian, cover her. Sam will cover you.”

There’s a war going on behind Julian’s eyes. His face does a thousand things at once as he hears your orders and the scream of guns combined, but he nods. He grips Jackeline’s waist and pulls her in close, but before they can begin crawling Jackeline turns back to you. 

“Mátalo. Okay? Para nosotras dos.” She’s got this fierce determination in her eyes and her accent is as thick as can be. 

“Okay.”

Sam relays his location over his mic and who he has behind his wings, but before he can safely guide the married couple down the stage, a new wave of men enter and open fire. Sam’s wings can only take so much, and even though they’re vibranium, his suit is not. Ducking behind the table and reloading your gun, you then lift your head over to view the scene. It’s a mess and you could surely take them down hand-to-hand if you were close enough, but you’re stranded with your batons and seven bullets and a world of automatic machinery pointed at you. 

The storm of bullets pauses and every single person looks up to the sky. You thank the Gods for no rain today because the absence of a tarp allows for the quinjet to settle over the chaos and create a much needed distraction. Sam takes his leave, wings still wrapped around your sister, and you do the same. Running from behind the stage with batons lit up and tazed, you knock out the closest men. They fall in a strangle of electricity, vibrating and convulsing as each shock travels through their veins, ultimately paralyzing them for however long it turns out to be. This gains the attention of almost everyone else but before they can train their weapons back toward you, the back of the quinjet opens. There were a few tables still standing and it seemed the super soldier liked them better than the flat floor. 

The glass shatters from the impact of Bucky’s weight, glasses of champagne and plates with unfinished meals folding onto the shards. He’s dressed in his tactical gear and a dark navy blue jacket without a trusty sleeve. Even if the arm was covered and his hair was long rather than the short length it was now, the men would certainly know who just fell from the sky. Almost immediately, the men scatter. Bucky takes them down one by one, shot after shot, and decides to use his knives for the ones who don’t run. It’s tricky, but he manages to lodge his knives in the base of the spines of those who later changed their minds. 

He catches your eye after you manage to snap the neck of one of the runners. He tilts his head toward the left and watches you run to give Steve the backup he needs. 

     The mansion seems longer, wider, just generally bigger as you rush through the rooms and halls to get to Steve. The stuffed exotic animals follow your gaze and you can’t ignore them for long. There are men following you and men leaving Ernesto. You duck behind the standing polar bear and wait until the footsteps sound farther. Checking the amount of bullets in your gun, just in case, you finally flick the safety off and run.

There’s really only one thing of importance floating around the padded confines of your skull - get Steve out. Another thing you two had in common: both sacrificial idiots. But there wasn’t any way that you would give up the chance to save his life, as he would yours. Didn’t matter if the man you were protecting him from was your father or not. It hadn’t really settled, hadn’t truly digested, and you didn’t think it ever would. Because for years, this man was your father. He was the only man with that title. He wasn’t fatherly, far from it, but he had the label and that’s what you were going to focus on. It made no difference. 

You push the office door open and start stuttering over your words. You want to ask what happened, why there’s so much blood, whose blood it is, but all that comes is a fractured series of what the hell’s? The last syllables push through with necessary force, hardly intelligible, but exhaled at last. 

Ernesto is kneeling with his head hanging low and his hands behind his back, defeated. But it isn’t Steve who’s holding a gun to the back of his head - it’s Seda. 

No, Steve is in the corner clutching at his right hip and gritting his teeth, a wild look on his face that tells you he too was blindsided. He’s hurt. He’s gasping and wincing at the slightest of movements and it ignites the flame you’ll use to burn this world to the ground. It’s splitting your fucking ribs apart. 

“Don’t move!” Seda yells, gun still locked on Ernesto’s head but eyes on you. “Put the gun down.”

“Seda-”

“Put the fucking gun down!” 

Biting your tongue, you flip the gun in your hand so it’s facing downward and move to gently place it on the table. Flicking your eyes to where Steve is, you get your answer as to why he’s been so easily shot. His massive body and shield are draped over Ramirez, who is also disarmed and pissed. 

The self-righteous idiot, you think, he’s always gotta save the little guy.

“We’re gonna talk about this like the gods we are, yeah?”

Your face pulls awkwardly, “Seda, what is happening?”

“Don’t act like you’ve been on this asshole’s side the entire time now,” Seda bites, shoving the head of the gun harshly into the base of Ernesto’s neck. “Go on, tell him.”

“The shipment was intercepted,” you tell him. But you’re not just telling Seda, no, it’s the first Steve is hearing the good news and it allows him to feel a bit of relief. “You’ve both lost.”

“What have you done?” Ernesto screams, cheeks vibrating and face red with anger. He pays no mind to the gun and dares to glare at you. “Tell me!”

The top of your lip greets a run of tears and snot and it isn’t until then that you realize your hands are shaking mid-air and your throat is closing. “My mission.”

Blood or not, this man had the power to tie your thoughts into knots. He only had this power at precious moments and sadly, this was turning out to be one of them.

Seda bites out a laugh - it’s wet and bloody and scares you half to Hell. “I’m not the only one here who wants to kill you. But I’m going to beat her to it. She brought you back, I can’t have that.”

“No!” You curse inwardly at your involuntary hiccup. “We’re not here to kill you!”

“Oh?” Seda raises the gun at you. “What’s the endgame? Que mas necesitas?”

“I don’t need anything. The shipment is intercepted. The estate is on lockdown. Your routes are down. You’re cornered. It’s over.” You let your shoulders drag just a little. “For both of you.”

Surprisingly, Seda doesn’t pull the trigger when Ernesto charges toward you. He doesn’t pull it when Ernesto wraps his hands around your throat, either. 

It’s instinct for you to hold out your hand to stop Steve from doing what he does best. He’s already halfway up and wincing with each push to help you, to rip Ernesto from your capable body, but Seda clicks the gun in his direction. Steve watches the way your arm extends, all five fingers spread in a hopeless plea of ‘don’t you sacrifice yourself for me, don’t you dare’. 

“I have done nothing but help you! I put food on the table and clothes on your worthless back! You spent my money!” Ernesto’s eyes are practically bulging and his thumbs are almost crushing your windpipe, but his placement is off. You can still breathe air, no matter how bruising his grip may be. “This is how you treat me? I should have killed you all those years ago. I should have ripped you limb by limb until your cries bled!”

“Please,” you whimper out, hand still extended toward Steve and the other attempting to push Ernesto by the chest. 

“Please? Please? Te voy a matar aquí, ahora, porque siempre te lo mereciste!”

You let out a strangled scream and are about to fight back. To save yourself and to end Steve’s suffering of watching you suffer, of watching his newfound hope dwindle right before him, when a gunshot erupts. Everyone screams, ears ringing, and there’s blood splattered all over your cheeks and neck, spots and leaks that trail down into the collar of your bodysuit. A heavy weight lands on you and knocks you back into the shelves. You hold Ernesto’s now limp body as best you can, knees locking painfully. There’s a massive hole where the top of his head should be and for the first time in years, you have to look away to keep from throwing up. 

“Dejalo.”

You open and close your mouth but regret it when the taste of copper lands on your tongue. You follow Seda’s order and drop Ernesto to your feet, the thud sending a shiver up every single one of your vertebrae. 

“Por qué hiciste eso?” you ask him, voice small. You choke on another hiccup. 

“Don’t lie to me and say you weren’t going to do it yourself.”

You look over at Steve. His eyes are just as wide as yours and the same red specks, now turning brown, are tainting the flush pink skin of his beautiful neck. 

“No,” you whisper. Steve hears your lost accent returning and it clutches at his heart. 

“It was for the best.” Seda marches over to grab Ramirez by the tie, ripping him up from the ground and pointing the gun to his head. Steve lunges forward and Seda fires another bullet into the same hip. 

“No!” Your throat is raw, scratched, and Steve hits the floor in another heap of muffled groans. Seda returns the aim on Ramirez. 

“Imagine my surprise when I saw this one confronting Ernesto with your Captain. Imagine my fucking surprise when I tried to find all our passports, all our files, and nothing was here! Imagine my surprise when I saw that fucking idiot White being taken away by one of your agents!”

“Seda, please.” You were never much of a negotiator. It was always go in and let the others do the talking. Steve was the talker, he was the negotiator, but he was out of his element. He was always the enemy to Seda. He could never convince him otherwise. 

“You’ve given me new purpose,” Seda grins and Ramirez is rather calm in his arms, like he accepts this. “Look at the crime scene. I’m using the gun Ramirez got from your team. My men are still loyal.”

He pauses and smiles with all teeth, blood in between most of them. “You shot Ernesto. You shot your Captain. You shot Omar.”

The frightened look on your face seems to fuel him even more. He continues, “We’ll never stop hunting you.”

“Try it,” Steve manages, standing up again and vaguely registering the flash of light to his right. His shield is no longer there. “You’ll have to kill me to win. You’ll have to kill all of us to win. Me, Y/N, Omar, Sam.” He breathes in deep but smiles. “The Winter Soldier.”

You swear Seda’s face pales but his grip around Ramirez’s waist only tightens. “Easy.”

“It won’t be,” you finally say, voice no longer wavering. There’s no plausible way Seda could win. But one thing is fact: whether they’re Seda’s or Ernesto’s men, they’ll never stop hunting you now. “You lost, Seda.”

All stills but there are shouts and the ring of gunshots still echoing near the lake. 

“No,” Seda looks to you and to Ernesto’s body. “I didn’t.”

He aims the gun at you and fires. 

Steve’s wail is grease to the fire in your soul and you accept whatever pain might hit. There’s space and then there isn’t. There’s emptiness and then there’s a space being filled by that horrid but lifesaving shield. There’s no one and then there’s Scott, blown up to his regular size with shield in hand and in front of you. The bullet bounces off the shield easily and hits the wall. You’re pushed into motion and in about two seconds, you’ve grabbed your gun again and do not hesitate to fire. The bullet hits Seda in his exposed chest and Ramirez fumbles to get the gun from him. Seda hits the floor and no one else follows. 

The shot hits its target perfectly. Seda doesn’t so much as stutter. 

“God,” Scott grumbles, eyes trying to focus on anything other than the pools of blood. “Was I late?”

You don’t pay any mind to Scott and rush over to Steve, where he’s barely holding himself up with his hip tilted on the edge of the desk.  “Steve? Steve. Did he hit anything important?”

“Besides the fuckin’ meat of my stomach?”

There isn’t a way to see beneath the kevlar, but your fingers have a mind of their own as they try to dig in. “You know what I mean.”

Steve huffs a laugh and gently slaps your fingers away. “No, but motherfuck me Christ, I get shot way too much and it hurts no less.”

“Was the shield not enough? You had to sacrifice your one-hundred year old hips? Are you hit anywhere else?”

“I was caught off guard. What about you? I heard over the mics that you were shot and-”

“Are you two done?” Scott interrupts, clearing his throat awkwardly but half a mind still paying attention to his own mic. 

It’s like you’re snapped back to reality. There’s not only Steve but others, alive and dead, and the smell of copper is all too familiar.  “Sorry, I’m still in shock. I don’t really know how to proceed from here.”

“Y/N-” Scott tries, but you resume.

“We were supposed to arrest them. Just arrest them.”

“Okay, I think we should get you outta here,” Steve acts like he’s the one guiding you, but his weight is falling. You faintly register a phone ringing in the room but Steve, ever so persistent, is still acting like he is holding you up. He lunges forward with a sharp wince, and your hand immediately goes to his hip. 

“Captain.”

Ramirez lowers his phone, call ended, and he wears an expression Steve recognizes immediately. It’s an expression that looks all too similar to Dugan’s when he relayed the news of enemy forces breaching their base. “...How many?”

“They’ve already sent the news to their men in Mexico.”

“Have they shut down the border?”

“It wouldn’t make a difference.”

“They don’t know two of their men are dead, so we can-“

Scott shakes his head, shield still in hand with specks of blood drying on the blue stripe. “They know White was arrested. That’s all they need. They’ll assume the rest, the worst.”

You sigh, “Seda was right.”

Scott literally pouts and he looks like he wants to wrap you in his arms. “No, don’t send yourself there.”

Steve, however, agrees with you. “If they know about White, then they know about Omar. Seda had time to tell his men.”

“Then we make sure he’s arrested and taken to a secure facility. We can keep an eye-” Scott starts, but you shut him down quickly.

“He’s wanted by the US government, not the Avengers. We can only transport him. We can’t guarantee his safety.”

Ramirez gives a small smile. “Mija, voy estar bien. No te preocupes.”

“I don’t know.”

Scott looks between the three of you. He places the shield against the wall near the door. He raises his eyebrows at Steve and looks to his wounds, but Steve waves him off. Reluctantly, Scott nods. “I’m gonna go check on Sam.”

There’s a pool of blood near your boots. You don’t want to know if it’s from the dead or from Steve.  

“Doll, what are you thinking?”

He can’t hurt you anymore. “That I need you to go, too.”

Steve forgets about the pain in his hip and focuses solely on you. “What?”

“Go. If there’s one more thing you can do for me and my reckless family, go check on Sam.”

“You know I can’t leave you here alone with him.”

Your voice is steady and calm and it’s scaring Steve. It’s scaring him. “I promised myself that you wouldn’t be hurt by this mission. I stand by it.”

“I promise, Captain, I have no resentment. Whatever she does, I will follow,” Ramirez speaks, and Steve doesn’t even pay him a glance. 

“I can’t just go.”

“Steve,” you interlock your fingers behind his neck. “Please. Listen to me.” He looks so confused, a million questions flying through his mind and almost escaping those sweet pink lips. Fierce, you whisper for only him. “He can’t hurt me anymore. He can’t hurt me anymore.”

He relishes the feeling of your soft hands behind his neck. They’re bloody, but yours. His neck is bloody, but you don’t seem to care. “Two minutes.”

“Two minutes,” you confirm.

He pulls from your hold and turns to leave. He picks up the shield. Before he leaves, he grips the doorway and looks over his shoulder, eyebrows pinched and jaw tense. “Two minutes, I swear to Almighty Christ, Y/N. I’m coming back for you.”

You smirk, the dim light from the office lamps creating nothing short of a sparkle in your eyes. “I don’t expect anything less, Rogers.”

Steve hesitates for a moment and then he walks away. Once his footsteps are no longer heard, you turn back to Ramirez. There’s a voice in your head telling you this was a bad idea and that you were an idiot to have your back turned on him for so long, but Ramirez is simply leaning on one of the chairs and grimacing at the bloody scene before him. 

“Remember when Ernesto bought you that car when you were thirteen? And then another when your brother crashed it?”

Your nose pinches, “I don’t feel like reminiscing when he’s lying right there.”

“Do you remember what you told me when he bought you that second car? The sports one?”

You sigh. Ramirez was clearly going to continue speaking. “‘No lo quiero. Soy una niña. Get rid of it.’”

“And I did.”

“You did.”

He smiles, and for the first time you notice all the gray hair dusting his head, the most by his temples. There's a limp in his step too but you can’t remember if he had before or after the wedding. “I’ll get rid of this.”

“What?” you blink, unsure if you heard him right.

“I’m already a traitor. If I spin this, you can continue the mission. You can arrest even more of his men. They’ll come after me instead of you.”

It’s what he’s been trained to do. It’s what he’s done since he transported his first shipment. It’s what he’s done time and time again for Ernesto, for Seda, for some of his own careless men. He’s numb to it, just as you were a few days ago, but now you can’t stop thinking about the aftermath. Where would he put their bodies? Would they be buried here or back in Mexico? Would people really care if Ernesto was dead? They didn’t seem to care when he was snapped out of existence. But Ramirez has this sag in his shoulders that tells you he’s already calculating the best way to wrap the bodies and how deep he plans on sending them… or burning them. Burning them was always easier. 

“They’ll come after your family. Your daughters.”

He shakes his head, “I’ve ensured their safety. They’re safe.”

Against your better judgement, you tap your mic discreetly and turn it off. “I can’t let you take one for the team.”

He chuckles, “I’m a part of your team? I’m an Avenger?”

You can’t help but laugh with him. It’s not a light moment, but it’s a moment nonetheless. “Sure, Omar. But we don’t trade lives.”

“I had this coming.”

“No, you didn’t. You don’t.” Straining your ears and shutting your eyes, you mumble a quick prayer in hope that this plan of yours worked. You pass Ramirez your own gun and speak low. “Go.”

He’s shocked and he stutters. “Que haces? Que esta pasando?”

“There’s no one on the east side right now. All the guests were moved to the front. It’s clear. But not for long.” Pushing him to the door, you make sure he’s not leaving any bloody footprints behind. He’s clear. “Go.”

“This will kill us both.”

“But it will give us a head start.”

“No puedo hacer eso! No quiero hacer eso.”

“Omar, they’re not going to protect you once you’re charged. I can’t protect you then. So I need you to go.” You reach into your suit and pluck that random Roman coin you had stolen just a few days earlier. It was a token of good luck but you didn’t need it anymore. You avoid looking at the carving for fear that the likeness to Steve will make you change your mind. You place it in Ramirez’s hand and clench his fist shut.  “If there’s one thing you can do for my stupid, anti-hero mentality, go.”

“Que hago con esto?”

“No me llamas. But let me find this.”

He looks at you with pity. It’s so much pity and understanding for your situation that you have to look away. “I owe you my life.”

Eyesight now on the wall over his shoulder, you offer him a thin smile. “You wouldn’t be the first.”

He stumbles at first, unsure if this is really happening, and finally passes by. “Y/N.” 

You figure it’d be pretty rude not to answer. You turn slowly. He continues, face somber and head shaking with so much pity. “The amount of Hell that’s coming...”

It’s funny, really. You shoot him that famous smile you were known for. It tricks him like it’s supposed to. “I’m already going to Hell for the lives I’ve taken and the crimes I’ve committed. But the journey to my fate has been worth it.”

     The estate is being swept as quickly as possible. There are agents dressing wounds, reading rights, snapping photos, on the phone, etc. It’s organized chaos and there’s so much happening but it’s never impossible to catch Steve’s side profile in a crowd. His nose is pinched up and he’s dealing with his wounds himself. No one is even looking at him. 

Speed walking to him, you hook your arm in his and turn him around. He’s too tall, and your toes strain as you rise on them, but you wrap your arms around his neck anyway. He returns the gesture and squeezes you as hard as you’re squeezing him. After a few seconds, he whispers quietly.

“Where’d Ramirez go?”

If he saw your eyes, he would know you were lying. You keep your arms in place. “He got away.”

He tries to push you away but fails. “Y/N.”

“He got away,” you repeat. Slowly, regretfully, you pull back.  “We should go.”

There’s a horrible crease in between his eyebrows and he knows he’s caught you in a lie, but he also knows that if there was one thing he knew most about you, it was that you were just as stubborn as he was. Quick with wit, always asking to be punched, and stubborn to the point it made strangers worry. So he doesn’t question it, and turns with you in the direction of the jet.  “Maribel has the safehouse set up. Montana.”

“You sure you can make it to the jet? Should I get Bucky to come with us?”

The quinjet is empty except for a few supplies, a medical bag, and Friday. There are only two seats and by the way Steve’s bending over to show his true pain, you’d be flying it. Once you land, you can fish out those bullets.

“No one else.” Steve bites. He can’t risk anyone else - hell, he doesn’t even want to risk you. “I’ll protect you.”

You board the jet and watch as the trees sway in rhythm to the movements of everyone doing their job. It’s dark, and you push the fact that you’re so horribly night blind to the back of your skull, and it’s starting to eat away at you that the mission didn’t really go as planned. No one seems to notice yet that you never brought them the two main players they were hoping for. It only makes you close the quinjet faster. You sit Steve down in one of the seats and kneel before him. “And I you.”

If anyone asked, Steve would lie and say he was tearing up because of the bullets piercing his skin in half.  To protect and be protected. 

“Let’s go.”

~

TAGLIST: @dumb-ass-writer @justab-eautifulmess @supraveng @mycosmicparadise @missnighttigress​

#steve rogers x reader #reader x steve rogers #avengers x reader #reader x avengers #Steve Rogers #steve rogers fanfiction #to topple #a giant #by Moni #captainsimagines #mob fanfic #trigger warnings listed #enemies to lovers #friends to enemies to lovers #mini-series #part eight #chapter eight #marvel fanfiction #marvel masterlist

[friendofhayley]

I’m back after my hiatus from fanfiction, to give y’all the best multifandom recs of the fics I read this month. Shoutout to all content creators who helped us live to see the close of this year. This fic includes 15 fics for Sterek, Larry, Winteriron, and Geraskier. The starred ones put me through heaven and hell *chef’s kiss*.

Sterek (Teen Wolf)

1. Six Letter Word for Romance by @troubleiwant | domestic kink - omg there’s only one bed - soft Derek - oblivious idiots in love - 6k

Stiles definitely starts off thinking it’s fucking hilarious that Derek-sourwolf-Hale does crosswords and cares about scuffs on his furniture.

But at a certain point, and he can’t pinpoint exactly when, “fully functional adult couple” somehow becomes a massive fetish of his. Derek in sweats and bare feet, nudging his glasses up his nose while he does the Sunday crossword? Unff. Derek filling out forms to get some renovations on his property approved? Oh God, yes. Derek putting away groceries and bitching that the corner store was out of the right type of Greek yogurt? Take me now, Stiles thinks, worrying at his lower lip with his teeth.

This can’t be normal.

2. *Dirty Little Secret* by @isthatbloodonhisshirt | Cora & Stiles bffs - no one can resist the Stilinski charm - celebrity Derek - human au - 91k

“Holy shit, this is a date!” he blurted out, turning back to Derek wide-eyed. “This is a date! You intended for this to be a date, this was supposed to be a date!” He figured if he said it enough times, maybe he would believe it, but so far, no dice.

Derek was scowling again—seriously, did he want wrinkles?—but he just reached into one of the bags and pulled out a burger, checking what was written on the foil in sharpie before handing it over to Stiles.

“Of course it’s a date, what did you think this was?”

3. Can You Feel A Whole New Part of Your World? by @isthatbloodonhisshirt | i genuinely don’t look at authors names i just click i am sorry for spamming you but you write too good - neighbors Sterek - emotionally mature Stiles - the ideal fluffy world you’d want to live in - 53k

Can you hear me singing in the shower?” Stiles blurted out, because he had to know, now. If one of his neighbours had slid that note under his door, then it meant Parrish as another neighbour could hear him, too! He had to know if this was all a huge joke and one person had walked by and overheard him and decided to fuck with him.

Parrish gave him a weird look at the question, but answered anyway, making Stiles’ plans to leave the country speed up in his mind.

“Of course I can. You’re actually not bad. Though you have been singing a lot of Frozen lately, getting kind of tired of the soundtrack.”

4. Theory of Overprotective Canines by @petals42 | derek can turn into wolf - oblivious Stiles - future fic - mutual pining - 11k

Stiles is totally looking forward to living alone in his super cool apartment off-campus. He is. He is also very excited to bike to school every day, ready to set up an awesome game room, and definitely over his crush on Derek Hale. Completely over it.

Or at least he is until Derek decides he's moving in with him. And then turns out to be the perfect roommate. And then starts attending all his classes. As a wolf.

This is not going according to plan.

Larry (One Direction)

5. **The Changer and the Changed** by @homosociallyyours | literally the best fic of all time i want to live in there - girl direction - NYC ‘70s au - trans Zayn - the girls are so lovely - 59k

It’s the spring of 1977 and Harry Styles has just moved to New York City after graduating college. She knows she’s a lesbian. She just needs to figure out how to meet other lesbians.

Louis Tomlinson works at a popular women’s bookstore in the Lower East Side, Womon’s Direction, where she spends her days reading feminist literature, writing poetry, exchanging friendly barbs with her boss Niall, and dreaming of finding someone to love.

When Harry and Louis meet, their connection is instantaneous. Slowly but surely, Louis welcomes Harry into her community of women. Stonewall veteran and old school butch Niall; Liam, a land dyke who’s moved to the city for love; and Zayn, a lesbian musician who’s been ostracized by a vocal part of women’s community for being trans, welcome Harry with open arms, ready to help her find her place in New York City’s bustling lesbian scene.

6. others i’ve seen might never be mean (but they would never do) by @cherrylouvol6 | aaaaaaaa it’s lesbian When Harry Met Sally !!! - rom com - girl direction - coming out and first times - really great sex - 20k

Louis sighs.

“Do you remember what I said to you the first time we met?”

“That I’m naive and neurotic and would be hard pressed to ever find someone who could put up with me?” Harry snaps.

7. some things fade (some never do) by @so-why-let-your-voice-be-tamed | aaaaaa this story took me apart and back together again just like Louis and Harry - urban fantasy au - second chances - exes to friends to lovers - hurt/comfort - 25k

Matching tattoos. He’d never thought he’d be the type for tattoos to begin with, let alone matching or magical ones, but once Harry had put the idea in his mind it had never quite managed to disappear. And it had made sense. With their relationship a long distance one, this was simply another way of feeling close to one another. Of knowing where the other was, how they felt. It had made so much sense.

Back then.

8. we can take the long way home by @eleadore | i usually don’t rec my porn but there’s so much feels in this one - canon-divergent - kink discovery - friends to lovers - this was written in 2015 as a future fic but it felt like it was taking place now so good job - 27k

“Fertile,” Louis says, and then laughs because it sounds stupid to say out loud. He hasn’t ever really thought of himself in those terms. Baby-making terms. It’s just one of those things his body can do, like exercise, or go without tea. Doesn’t mean he will.

Winteriron (MCU)

9. **Dig No Graves** by @missaphelion | Tony finds out about his parents right after winter soldier au - Tony Stark has a heart - Bucky heals with bots and lots of sugar - slow burn - 142k

"I'm here to kill you, Terminator," Tony said slowly, "does that compute?"

The soldier looked up at him with wide blue eyes and no expression. "Okay."

Tony froze. "Okay," he echoed. "I tell you I came here to kill you and your response is 'okay'?"

10. A Rifling Matter by Penndragon27 | Winter Soldier has such a big crush on Tony’s weapons, he escapes Hydra au - identity porn - pining Bucky - fluff and angst - Winter Soldier is a fanboy and it’s cute - 37k

All the Asset knows is fighting, killing.

He also knows a good weapon when he sees one and Stark Industries... they make some great weapons.

11. *Winter is Coming (aka Fifty First Avengers Dates)* by @tisfan & @everyworldneedslove | enemies to friends to lovers to 50 first dates - pining Bucky - Tony gets amnesia - no Steve bashing but he’s a little bit of an ass - mental health issues - 109k

Bucky Barnes is still mostly The Asset, and he's pretty sure Hydra is going to come back for him soon, so in the meantime he's just going to keep an eye on the Avengers for them. But then Clint spotted him hiding in the shadows, so Tony came out and dragged Bucky back to the Tower, threw him in the shower, and fed him cheeseburgers.

Now The Asset is having anomalous feelings. In his pants.

Geraskier (The Witcher)

12. *no reason to run* by @yoursummerfrost | different meeting au - only one bed but camping - cursed Jaskier - soft Geralt!!!! - poly negotiations - 61k

"You'll change your mind one day," says the innkeep. "The road can't love you back."

What a strange way to flatten something so beautiful, Jaskier thinks. What a small way to love.

13. *He Fell into a Faerie Ring* by @geraltnoises | Jaskier gets bardnapped after the fight au - non-human Jaskier - soft Geralt - Jaskier encourages people to be kind and becomes a god - emotionally mature Geralt - 57k

Traders are a gossiping sort. If there was a scandal within the noble houses of Posada, you’d hear about it in Cretegor by the end of the week. So, the quick spread of a rumor about a little village in the Kestrel Mountain range was not at all surprising. What was surprising was the story that the traders wove. They said that Luibhtorrach, a sad, ghost of a farming town, had miraculously become a hub for trade, as if overnight. Their lands unbelievably fertile and brimming with crop. Even stranger, each and every one of Luibhtorrach’s people professed that their good fortune was the work of a mysterious beast they’d claimed as their personal deity. Most recent news foretold of their plans to throw a midsummer festival celebrating this newfound god. In preparation, silken blue banners were erected in every corner of the town, each bearing the symbol of their new patron: A delicate dandelion wrapping around a golden sun.

14. Barking Up the Wrong Tree by KHansen | 5+1 things - I’m worried about Geralt’s skills - non-human Jaskier - monsterfucker Geralt - crack treated seriously - 11k

Geralt is 100% certain that Jaskier is a vampire.

He's 100% proven wrong.

15. Bardic Idyll by Lisztful | fake relationship - Geralt is soft and oblivious - pining - fluff and angst - Jaskier you can’t show your emotions mainly through song! - 13k

Jaskier is certain he can win the Continent's annual bardic competition, but he needs to be accompanied by a dashing romantic companion in order to enter. Enter Geralt, who is definitely, for sure, only interested in the free food, and not at all in staring lovingly into Jaskier's eyes.

#monthly fic rec #fic rec #sterek fic rec #larry fic rec #winteriron #geraskier #larrie hijinks #witcher #mcu

[whirlybirdwhat]

crown the king (with bloody flowers) - chapter 31

Hanahaki au drabble series, in which Luffy is in love with the sea.

  Ao3

chapter 31 - hibiscuses - makino

Makino used to keep a vase of hibiscuses at the bar. Pretty and pink, they brought life to her little workplace, when the day was slow and it was only her behind the counter.

A gift, from a woman long ago, a woman who Makino had only seen once, tall and beautiful and sorrowful.

(“Keep them safe for me,” She had told Makino, pressing the flowers into her hand.)

They used to stay on the edge of her counter, never wilting, never drooping, vibrant and constant. Every day, when she first opened the bar, Makino used to brush her fingers over the petals. 

They were always soft.

Hanahaki flowers, Makino knew they were, from their immortality and beauty. They were a rare sight here in the East, but then again, the mysterious woman wasn’t from the East.

(She strolled into the bar to watch the Pirate King die on the Den Den against the wall. Makino’s mother had covered her eyes as the swords plunged into Roger’s heart, but she will never forget the way the woman gasped, as if she herself had been stabbed. 

No one who loved the Pirate King was from the East. The East was too quiet for that, too ordinary, despite the Pirate King being birthed from his deathbed’s very shores.)

A treasure, Makino had thought the flowers as. 

Luffy liked them too, always reaching for them when he saw them, playing with them, their petals invincible to even his rough child’s hands. Makino braided them into his hair sometimes to match hers, when he went too long without a cut.

(When the woman had stepped into the bar, her freckled face was framed in flowers. They were threaded into her hair, like little declarations of love, pink and passionate, just as shining as her golden locks. 

When the Pirate King died, she took them out. She gave all but one to Makino. 

Keep them safe for me. She had said, and so Makino did.)

They had always put them back in the end, the bar feeling too empty without the presence of the flowers

(And make sure they are able to see the world, alright? The woman had asked, sincerely, eyes watering and dripping down onto the flowers. A bar is a good place for that.)

They used to always face the bar, hanahaki petals gleaming in a silver vase.

Not anymore.

Now, Makino buries the flowers in her closest as she listens to Luffy choke into his idol’s arms in the guest bedroom next door.

Hanahaki, she curses, tears rolling down her cheeks, Why did I ever think it was beautiful? Why? WHY!?

Luffy had eaten that fruit, that simple, simple fruit sitting right next to the flowers. He had eaten and choked and cried, flowers blooming in his lungs and Makino had never felt so much rage and terror in her life.

The flowers get buried where they can no longer see the sea or the sun or the world, and Makino is breaking a promise but Makino is not a pirate.

Her loved ones mean more to her than some stranger’s flowers.

(The woman had threaded a flower through her hair as well, and she was kind, and she had led Makino through tide pools and held her hand, and acted more as a mother to her than her own mother did in all of Makino’s eight years.

Rouge, she had called herself, and tapped Makino’s nose, but it’s a secret! 

Makino had laughed at the woman with flowers in her hair, who wasn’t much of a stranger at all, and loved her just a little, then.)

She knew Luffy loved the ocean. She knew it. 

He would always look out and play in the waters and smile when the sea breeze hit his cheeks. 

When he was tinier than now, he would ask Can we go to the beach today? Every day, rain or shine, and always went no matter the danger.

The sea was his own.

And now, the ocean hated him.

Hanahaki - unrequited love.

Luffy would never stop loving.

Luffy would die.

Makino trembles there, staring into the dark closet, and sobs. 

(Luffy is not her child. But he clutched her finger like she was a lifeline when he was just a babe,  and she was the one to bandage his bruises and scrapes, she was the one to show him the ocean for the first time.

He was her child in every way that counted.)

Luffy was going to die.

She slams the closet door shut, and does not think about all the immortal flowers that will soon have to be swept out the door of the Party Bar.

She doesn’t.

(Later, Luffy says I’m going to become King of the Pirates! With blood smeared across his lips, and Makino wonders what the Pirate King looked like when he choked up the hibiscuses in her closet.

Because really - who else could love that fiercely, but the man who would be king?)

She brushes the tears out of her eyes, after a minute, and sweeps into Luffy’s temporary room with the force of an avenging angel.

Luffy is there on the bed, held in Shank’s arms, both of them bloodied, and Luffy’s face a grimace of pain. Shanks has an armed wrapped around Luffy, one hand buried into his hair and one rubbing soothing circles into Luffy’s back. He’s murmuring, quiet and soft, as Luffy says It hurts - 

And Shanks looks at Makino, and her tears are reflected in his. 

They sit together, holding a child who loved so fiercely he was hated, and do not think about the future they will not have together.

Luffy is going to die.

How could she have thought that those flowers were beautiful?

(The woman had left with a single flower in her hair and her face towards the rising sun. A hand rested gentle on her stomach as her freckles danced across her cheeks, feet soft and sure across the sand.

Farewell, she had said to Makino, and it was the last time Makino had ever saw her. Thank you.

She had been the most wonderful person Makino had ever met.)

How could she? 

-

Luffy disappears to the mountain, and comes back with two brothers and only a few petals stuck to his clothes.

Makino almost cries there, again, because she knows Ace’s face.

She knows it.

Portgas D. Ace, he says, and Makino trembles. Luffy’s my little brother!

She hears Rouge, and It’s a secret, and remembers the way the woman placed her hands on her stomach.

Oh, Makino thinks, oh.

That night she digs the flowers out of her closet.

They are still perfect. Still pristine. But as Makino sets them out on the bar again, facing the world, they perk up a little more. 

She’s not a pirate. She keeps promises but not all the time.

She feels sad that she broke this one. 

-

There are twenty hibiscuses in the jar on the bar counter. Makino gives one to Ace before he sets sail, and tells him, keep this safe for me, so very soft, and make sure it’s able to see the world, alright? A pirate ship is a good place for that. 

There are tears in his eyes as he threads the flower carefully into his hat. He looks happy, Makino thinks, he looks proud.

He looks like Rouge should have, trodding off into that rising sun, victorious and free.

That night, Makino threads her own flower into her hair, and awaits the first bounty of Portgas D. Ace.

-

Ace dies.

Ace dies and it hurts.

Ace dies, and Makino didn’t keep them safe, but he had a flower in his hair as he died, according to the pictures. 

There are flowers on his grave.

Ace was loved.

They won’t last long.

She digs herself out of her tears, and as Luffy rings in a new era, she sends a bouquet of hibiscuses to Shanks, for her child’s, Rouge’s child’s grave.

One remains in her hair. 

(Just like Rouge. 

 Keep this safe for me, and make sure it’s able to see the world, alright? A bar is a good place for that.)

She brushes it, every day, petals still soft even after almost 20 years, and does not cry.

-

When her child is born, his hands play with the hibiscus stems just like Luffy did.

It makes her smile.

(Her child will always be loved back.)

-

hibiscus: meaning, delicate beauty, beauty is vain, consumed by love, or fleeting glory. When worn behind the left ear, it symbolizes that the wearer is taken. The pink hibiscus symbolizes all types of love, familiar or romantic, but all hibiscuses are typically short lived. Ironically, this flower if ingested can cause negative effects on pregnant women.

#happy birth makino time for me to pass out #op #one piece #whirlywhat #whirlywrites #opau #hanahaki #crown the king #luffy #monkey d luffy #makino #shanks #portgas d. ace #portgas d. rouge #rouge #ace

[yellowmagicalgirl]

A Ring, A Blade, An Ornament, A Wreath

Ilia would like to one day propose to Blake using Faunus customs, but she doesn't know which ones.

Years later, Blake makes an assumption about the type of proposal Ilia would like.

This was originally written for the 2021 Rare Pairs Exchange over on AO3. It takes place both pre-canon and post-Volume 8 due to a time skip in the middle.

CW: References to past character death as well as canon-typical anti-Faunus racism.

AO3

FFN

In Mantle and Atlas, they used rings to propose. It was a human tradition, yes, but it was one perpetuated by Faunus as well. Ilia still remembered her parents wedding rings, woven out of discarded wires. They weren’t much in terms of expensive materials as proof of being able to provide for each other, but they had been handmade proof of her parents’ love for each other. She hadn’t gotten them back with the rest of her parents things when they had died. In a best-case scenario, her parents’ rings had been thought to be debris from the cave-in. It was more likely that humans had taken them, though whether out of mockery of Ilia’s grief, wanting to claim some sort of repayment with precious objects, or mockery of the materials used Ilia would never be sure.

Ilia and her parents had been cowards, and she didn’t want to emulate them or the human-supremacist society she had grown up in. She especially didn’t want to emulate them when she proposed to Blake. She promised herself that she wouldn’t give Blake a ring… after Ilia figured out how to confess her feelings to Blake, of course.

Faunus had many different proposal traditions, but theirs had been stamped out as they tried to assimilate with humans. The scholars of Menagerie were trying to piece together older cultural traditions, and Menagerie had many different proposal traditions as a result. Ilia wondered what type of proposal Blake would prefer. Out of all the traditions Ilia had heard about, she found she preferred the ones where she would have to make something for Blake. It was what her parents had done, and it felt purer than all those stuffy girls at Ilia’s prep school daydreaming about getting an expensive gem-encrusted ring of fine metals.

One of the traditions Ilia liked was one that had originally come from one of the deserts of Anima that she liked most. It had started with some of the Faunus tribes that had inhabited the area and then having spread to humans because it was a useful tradition, only to become frowned upon as one of the pre-Mistrali kingdoms tried to colonize the area with religious fervor. And yet, the tradition had survived to make it to Menagerie, with happy couples giving each other small, intricate blades no bigger than a hand.

Ilia had made Lightning Lash herself, so maybe she would be good at making a blade for Blake. Granted, Blake had made Gambol Shroud all on her own, so it wasn’t like she needed a blade from Ilia. Then again, the blades didn’t look like they were useful. Well, maybe they were useful for things like cutting small, thin vegetables or spreading butter, but Blake deserved a blade she could defend herself with. Not that she needed Ilia’s help with that, since Blake had always been an amazing fighter with a strong, defensive semblance.

Perhaps Blake would prefer the traditions originally held by the Dacia, a nomadic Faunus community that originated in southwestern Sanus. They used hair ornaments, worn at the end of braids. Granted, Blake didn’t braid her hair, and she didn’t wear any hair ornaments aside from the bow she used to hide her ears whenever she would go into a human settlement for supplies. Ilia didn’t like that part about Blake, how she hid and tried to blend in with humans. Still, Blake was doing a lot better than Ilia had in that regard. Even when they went to get supplies, Blake wouldn’t stand back when they saw a non-passing Faunus being harassed.

Ilia sighed. Blake was so cool and beautiful, and she was wasted on Adam. Maybe Ilia would finally tell Blake that when Blake came back from the train mission she and Adam were going on tomorrow morning. Maybe. Ilia wasn’t sure how she would be able to do so.

New Mantle had become rather prosperous compared to the refugee camp it had been eight years ago. Granted, it helped that the Grimm were finally defeated less than a year after the fall of Atlas. Ilia had felt strangely sad, hearing the news that the cities she had grown up in were both gone. She had hated both of them, symbols of her own cowardice as a bystander, and yet they had both held good memories, no matter how tainted they were. Her parents’ graves and the house she grew up in had flooded; her prep school would have been smashed with the impact. And all that strange anguish she had felt at losing places she hadn’t planned on ever returning to had only gone up exponentially when she learned that Blake was dead. Or, more specifically, she had fallen. She was technically missing, as no one expected to ever find a body.

Blake hadn’t been Ilia’s first love, but she had been Ilia’s greatest love.

And then she came back. She had changed; she was the first Faunus with magical powers who was not a maiden or a bearer of silver eyes.

And finally, finally, she was looking at Ilia the way that Ilia had always hoped Blake would.

Things had changed in the years since. Ilia and Blake were dating, and Salem had been defeated. The world was not at peace, but it was far closer to it than it had been during Ilia’s childhood. The two of them had settled down together in the outskirts of Vale, but right now they were visiting friends. Tonight, they would be meeting up with Neon, Coal, and their daughter Irida for dinner, but that was hours from now. Right now, they were walking through one of the street markets. They had grabbed a light lunch from one of the Atlesian-Vacuan stalls and were now looking for a trash can to dispose of the paper wrappers.

“Oh hey, look!” Blake said, pointing. Ilia turned her head, expecting to see a trash can but instead she saw a stall.

A ring maker’s stall. The rings were done in the style of Atlesian engagement rings. It was a temporary stall, which made sense. The spring equinox was coming up, and it was an old Mantle tradition to propose at the start of spring and marry at the start of summer. Ilia still remembered being so shocked when her prep school classmate talked about having attended a winter wedding; the tradition hadn’t carried to the city in the sky that promised freedom from Grimm, hunger, and the bitter cold.

Blake looked at Ilia, smiled, blushed, looked away again, and took a breath. “What’s your ring size?”

Ilia blinked and then dropped Blake’s hand so that Ilia could put both hands in front of her mouth. “I, are you –“

“No, no, not yet. I’d do something at least a little fancier than just picking out rings together and calling it a day. But, we’ve been dating for years, and I think that it’ll be time, soon. And, since you grew up in Mantle, I thought you’d like to follow the ring tradition.”

“I mean, if you had asked me a decade ago, I would’ve been insulted by it. Now, I’m not too sure. How did your parents get engaged?”

“My mom’s family is from Mistral, so my dad proposed to her with Mistrali traditions. And, since it’s a woven wreath of flowers, and our family name is from a flower…”

“Oh, no, he didn’t.”

“Yeah, he proposed with a wreath of poisonous flowers. Obviously, my mom accepted his proposal anyways, but I wouldn’t want to recreate my parents’ proposal.”

A woven wreath of flowers, though not of conventional materials. Made by Ghira’s own hands to show his love for Kali.

“How would you feel about a non-poisonous wreath?”

Blake smiled at her. “You still haven’t told me your ring size.”

#rwby #ilia amitola #blake belladonna #catmeleon #my writing

[warm-starlight]

Hello eve i know that you're trying to move on from aot but just hear me out pls cause i have no one else to talk to about this🥲 i know that you actually liked the original ending but one of the things that really bugged me about it was how easily annie and riener were forgiven i mean sure they saved the world but the rumbling was happening outside of paradis they never paid their dues to the people of paradis then how were they accepted as peace ambassadors? They did nothing for paradis

Hello, i have no insights to share with you really. None of the things you are upset about really bothered me, but your oppinion and feelings are also perfectly valid. That said, i think people (including me) took this series not for what it is and way too seriously. In the end the things people thought was foreshadowing something meant nothing. We can accept being wrong about it and move on.

I accepted that in the end i don't understand SnK completely, or maybe there is nothing to understand really. Maybe Isayama just wanted to write a cool "horror story" that has no message just like "the mist".

That said, i personally don't think Reiner and Annie were "forgiven too quickly". The main point about Jean, Connie, Hange and Armin is that they let go of their hatred. Besides, they had a previous bond with RA so for them it was easier. It's not like Paradis forgave them. Isayama never showed us how their lives ended so you can headcanon they were all just executed as traitors if you want.

Zeke's actions i interpreted as a sort of coping mechanism. He distanced himself from his victims completely and it looked like he enjoyed killing them. We also have to take into account that he felt as if he was saving them and their children that would be born from the world of suffering, so it's no wonder he showed no sadness over their deaths.

As for Eren, i guess i don't mind the "everything is predestined" part. It seems like the guy who wanted freedom most, had none of it at all.

I think to me the cringiest part was the whole Mikasa Ymir situation and the whole romance twist. In the end he portrayed Mikasa as being able to "get over her love" by killing him and setting an example for Ymir, freeing her from shackles of love. Ok that's fine... Flash forward and lo and behold... The only thing he focuses on is Mikasa still being bound to Eren, visiting his grave, placing symbols of love on it year after year after year until her death. She does not look happy, her face is obscured from us and her face does not look happy even when she is lying in her burial site with that damn scarf (that was a symbol of an engagement ring) on her neck... So basicaly while Ymir took her killling Eren as an ultimate move of setting yourself free for Mikasa she did what Eren Asked her to (when he told her he is in the mouth) and didn't really Choose it herself. In the end she is still bound to Eren until death.

I am sure hardcore EM shippers will love it, like "Look! Look! She got married with kids but she never forgot her one true love 🥺🥺🥺" , but for me it's just disgusting portrayal.

Paradis being destroyed years later also sends a gross message that the Yegerists were Actually right. Eren should have finnished the rumbling and wiped out the Entire outside world instead of leaving it to exist. Of course people will say "we have no idea why Paradis got destroyed, ot could be that there was a civil war!". Sure, we can interpret it, you know why? Because Yams did Not explain a Thing about this new war. He just drew the panel and said Nothing about it.

However, the fact that that city was leveled to the ground and never rebuilt shows us that the intention was to wipe them all out. I suppose this is the "Jurassic park" ending where the dino island is completely destroyed, but in the end it is implied some of the dinosaurs survived, which is portrayed with the kid in a weird post apocalyptic gear and a new Titan tree.

The implication that the titan powers may resurface again is the Worst for me. It really renders the entire story pointless and the message is "Why even try if things will turn out the same".

They had 100 years of peace inside the walls. They should have just lived it in peace and died when the time came. Why struggle and throw your life away if you are gonna die anyway and Paradis will still get wiped out in another 100 years?

This is the nihilistic message that i hate the most.

In the end i could take nothing positive from this story.

In the end he wrapped it up without answering a single question and raising more.

Sure, Yams said for him the best stories are the ones who tremendously hurt him, but is it really good when you remember a series just as a tremendously disappointing peace of work?

That's not really the kind of sad endings i like.

Anyway, i rambled on too much!

What i wanted to say is, just let go of the series and move on. In the end it wasn't what all of us thought it was. It's ok, it happens. :)

Thanks for the ask!

#snk #aot #anonymous

[ashintheairlikesnow]

The Rescue, Part 3

I finally got the final part of the Rescue edited and ready to post! This is the third and final part of the series on how Danny and Nate got out of the cabin in Canada. Please read The Rescue, Part One and The Rescue, Part Two for context and to maybe have a refresh! 

CW: STRONG dissociation (it’s a main theme of this piece and is vividly described), references to noncon and torture. Muzzling. 

@whump-it, @finder-of-rings, @bleeding-demon-teeth, @spiffythespook, @burtlederp, @whumpywhumper, @18-toe-beans, @pumpkinthefangirl, @special-spicy-chicken, @whale-whumps, @swordkallya

The Rescue Part One || The Rescue Part Two

Nate Vandrum had a plan, but it took him most of a month after the day he was allowed to bring Danny back up from the dog kennel in the cellar to figure out where Bram hid the drugs.

Once he found them - in a small wooden box under a loose floorboard in the back of the bedroom closet, a place Nate and Danny never went because it was where Bram kept all his things that caused pain or worse - he began to pinch, just a little at a time, from each little bottle or bag.

Ketamine, ecstasy, rohypnol - this and that, the things Bram used sometimes when he wanted Danny to be fucked up and foggy for days, or affectionate and touchy, or just to knock him out. He didn’t use them any longer - Danny with the thing on his face day in and day out was obedient and blank-faced, an empty body that breathed and ate and moved in the bed, did as it was told and nothing more.

Danny was someone else, twenty-four hours a day, and Nate had waited too long trying to find the courage to save him but he wasn’t going to wait much longer. It was already becoming clearer every day that he was running out of time entirely before Danny was gone and didn’t come back.

By mid-November, the leaves had long since changed and fallen off the trees - the ground already hard and frozen - and he had all of it he would need. A mix of powder and crushed-up pills, every fucking drug Bram kept here. Not enough missing from any one stash that it would be obvious, but hopefully enough to buy Nate some time.

He has a plan. He would wait until mid-December, and he had one month to have everything ready.

He had his own hiding places, spots Bram didn’t know about because Nate had never had anything really worthwhile to hide. Danny never spoke any longer so he couldn’t tell on him - and Bram couldn’t see everything, could he?

Sometimes, Nate thought he could read minds. This time, Bram never showed a single sign that he knew Nate was up to anything at all.

After midnight, Nate would sneak out, put on a movie like in the days before. He moved Danny onto the couch where he would stare, blank-eyed, at a screen he didn't ever seem to really see. Sometimes he sat with him, rubbing at the places where the thing hurt the most, trying to calm the pain in his jaw for as long as he could.

Every time he touched along the edge of the muzzle, Danny would lean hard into the touch, using the pressure of Nate’s thumbs to soothe himself, all with those empty eyes, with all the core of Danny absent and only the body left behind. This Danny did not feel pain or fear unless he was actively being hurt. This Danny only sat where he was placed, cooked meals, made drinks - all of it with nothing behind his eyes.

With each passing week, that initial burst of rage on Danny's behalf cooled in Nate, set and hardened into a hatred that overrode every ounce of love Bram had forced him to feel. 

What had been a forest fire became coal. What had been coal became a diamond

Bram could not see it.

Nate wanted Danny back, and watching him drift like a ghost doing whatever he was told had eaten away at him, day by day, until all that was left was the determination to get him the fuck out of here.

The mix of drugs, a handwritten note with all the directions he could remember Bram turning when he drive into town (left, straight for a long time - counted to 200 at least three times, turn right, more straight, turn left after counting to 75, left again after count to 50), a match here and there - Nate squirreled it all away, bit by bit, in the bookshelf behind his collection of leather bound Tolkein - a gift from Bram after one supply run, one of the most wonderful things the monster had ever given him. He didn’t dare to hollow anything out - he loved these books, that felt like sacrilege - but he slid little things here and there behind them, his black-handled knife with the silver stag engraving down into the loosening spine of the Silmarillion, and if he was careful, no one saw him but Danny.

Danny, still trapped in silence inside his own head, didn’t even seem to notice, not even when he was staring directly at him as he did it. He knelt on his mat, quiet and dazed, his eyes following Nate’s movements with a total absence of comprehension.

It was the eyes that drove Nate on, those empty fucking eyes. Bram never took the fucking thing off, and Danny - funny and sarcastic and kind of sweet Danny, who he'd taught four kinds of dance by now and who could do all the lines to Casablanca and who sometimes hummed music he remembered while he scrubbed the floors - never came back.

Even Red, nervous and eager-to-please and always trying harder, trying to be so good, didn’t come back. Watching a muzzled Danny move was like witnessing a walking corpse searching for a grave to fall into, simply waiting for permission to decay.

In October and November the leaves went bright and brilliant and then fell just as rapidly, the nights cooled and then shifted to icy winter, and Bram spent his days outside preparing for the snows that would all but shut them in here until spring. He knew something was different, he had to, but Nate smiled and stuttered said I love you and was everything he wanted in bed and did everything just right to hide the chorus of I'm going to save him, you fucking bastard that sang inside his head.

Nate took his chances when he had them, and he was careful. He asked for a book he remembered, and Bram brought it back to him and never even looked through it.

Which was good, since it was a book with a very detailed description on how to hotwire a car.

Although in the end he didn't expect to need that, Nate wanted a backup plan. You always had to have a backup plan. Bram had said it all the time -and Nate had learned every lesson either Bram or Ashley had to teach.

He knew how to steal, and kill, and bury the bodies, and he knew how to be a fucking monster, too, now.

Once he had everything, he waited until Abraham needed to use some old machinery and came back from a supply run with an extra four full canisters of gasoline more than he usually kept on-hand for trips to town.

He only needed one to fill the tank for the truck, just to get them to the nearest town with a police station.

The other three…

Well.

Nate settled in to wait. He was the perfect black-haired prince, Abraham Denner’s true love. He was everything Bram could ever have wanted him to be. And while he was all of those things, he watched the actual man he loved kneel, empty and broken, on the floor and eat scraps from Bram’s hands... and he planned a murder.

***

“I came back awake when he was ready to go,” Danny told Ryan, one night when he couldn't sleep. They were sitting at the kitchen table - Ryan had asked him to sit in a chair - and Danny let his fingertips trace a pattern in the woodgrain, little squiggly symbols that could have meant anything, or nothing, or everything.

Nate was still asleep, and part of Danny wanted to curl up on the floor and be there with him, maybe ask to earn the bed so he could sleep right next to Nate, but he didn't have to do that anymore - and when he asked to earn the bed, the sadness in Nate’s eyes hurt to see.

I'll sleep on the couch, Nate said almost every night, and every night Danny said, no, stay with me.

Nate stayed.

“What do you mean?” Ryan tilted his head, watching him with the soft honey eyes Danny had never forgotten, never stopped dreaming about. Here, and real now, and Danny always smiled a little bit every morning when he got to see Ryan again.

“When Nate got me into the truck, he took, uh, he took it off,” Danny said, rubbing at the bridge of his nose absently, soothing a phantom pain there. “He took it off my face. The first thing I remember is turning to look and he was throwing it into the cabin and the cabin was on fire.”

“On fire? The cabin was on fire when you woke up?” Ryan's eyes were wide.

“Yes. Before that, I was, um… I was gone, still.”

Someone else had been in the body for months. It wasn’t Danny - it was some distant thing that moved his limbs and ate the food it was given, but it wasn’t Danny in there. It wasn’t Danny in control the night that Nate set a fire.

No, someone else had knelt like a good dog with its head in Abraham’s lap, took scraps of food straight from his fingers with the muzzle off just long enough for dinner - not quite long enough for Danny to try and come back. Someone else had taken the constant movement of cold hands with grateful whines and whimpers for the affection.

Someone else stayed kneeling, not noticing its feet going steadily numb, as the two voices that made up its entire world chatted and talked. There were sounds, in the bedroom, while someone else sat on the mat and thought about nothing at all.

Then there was, for a while, silence.

Someone else heard the sounds of scraping and rustling and thumping and ignored them. Sounds meant nothing to dead bodies and that's all it was, now. A dead body that still, inexplicably, kept breathing and eating and hurting on command.

This other person, wearing Danny’s face behind the muzzle, stayed still as one of the others walked back and forth, pulling things from bookshelves and talking to himself. Someone else was very, very good and had been told to go to the mat, and so someone else stayed there.

Someone else tried very, very hard, and was very, very good and did not notice the heavy scrape of a sleeping body dragged outside, the thunk of the cellar doors pulled open. The time that passed as someone else sat alone in the cabin.

Danny Michaelson was far, far away, letting the other person live uncomplainingly without a voice while within himself, he never stopped screaming.

Someone else registered, as though through a distant fog, a voice that told them it was almost time to go. That someone else stared dumbly down at their ankle as hands unlocked the chain that tied the body to the wall - the body was chained again, because otherwise someone else would get up and walk around sometimes at night and it bothered Abraham to see it - and someone else thought, I will be ordered into the bed now.

That person raised hands to touch the hips of the one who would hurt them, only to have their hands gently pushed down and away, cupped their face around the muzzle, pressed it just a little at the jaw where it felt so good, it felt so soothing, and someone else closed their eyes and whined, deep in their throat.

"H-Hate that sound. We'll g-g-g-get the last b-bit off later," A deep voice said.

Someone else knew the voice, and moved towards its sound instinctively. The deep voice came with soothing touch, gentle words, no pain. Someone else wanted more of that voice. "We n-n-n-need help to g, to get the ankle cuff off. Th-the cops will help, I'm s-sure. Good th-th-thing it's been raining all month so the forest w-w-won't burn, too.”

Someone else did not care about the forest, but only about the hands attached to the soft voice, the good voice, the voice that did not hurt. The warm forehead that pressed lightly to its own. The thing that wore Danny’s face tried to put their hands up to the metal grid still locked in place and stopped, an inch away. Never touch the fucking muzzle, Red.

Someone else made a pleading sound, someone else begged without words in an animal's whine, take it off, I'll be good now, please take it off.

"Ssshhhhh, once we get out of there," The good deep voice said, and it didn't stammer at all. "The k-key to the lock on the b-b-back is in his truck. I've g-got you now, just trust me, okay?" The voice wasn't afraid, and it seemed like a good voice. It was his favorite voice.

Someone else relaxed.

It trusted the voice.

***

“I don't understand what any of that means,” Ryan frowned, putting his hands up over his face, as Danny tried to talk his way through it. “You were there, the someone else was you. Why do you keep saying it like that?”

He only shook his head. “Dr. Rosa calls it dissociation,” he said. “It's normal. She says it's normal, that- that I'm not… I'm not broken because of it, and it could take a long time to stop-”

“It's okay,” Ryan said, and reached out to grab his hand. Danny's skin still crawled at any touch he hadn't asked for, but he didn’t pull away. It seemed to make Ryan feel better, anyway. It made Danny feel disgusting, like a thing anyone could touch whenever they wanted. You can make my body do whatever you want. “You're okay. I'm sorry, I pushed when I didn't mean to. Keep talking. I want to know everything.”

Danny nodded, slowly, and took a deep breath.

***

Someone else had taken the offered hand and stood, walked with a slow, stumbling gait through the kitchen and out the door. Someone else shivered in the frigid air, until the owner of the voice slid a heavy woolen coat over their shoulders, clad only in a thin, torn-up T-shirt and even thinner pajama pants.

“S-Sorry, I forgot to g-grab a sweater, and it’s k-k-kind too late, now.”

Someone else wrinkled their nose at the smell of gasoline, overpowering and heavy, that filled the air and floated around, settled deep in their lungs. Someone else was led to Abraham's truck and put inside. Someone else listened to sounds they did not recognize. Someone else smelled the smoke.

Red hair, already long and shaggy because it was winter and Abraham liked his hair better long in winter, fell over empty blue eyes as someone else curled up against the early shivers that came with the frigid cold, pulled the wool coat more tightly around themselves, buried their body in it as best they could.

Someone else heard the driver side door open and close.

Green eyes met theirs, and someone else blinked, and for one moment Danny looked up at Nate and the strange, stricken expression on his face. Eyes wide, and his hair was mussed-up and messy, and he was wearing his sweater inside-out. He smelled like gasoline, too. Then Danny tried to speak, and felt the harsh bite of the muzzle cutting deeply into his jaw, and Danny slipped back away.

Someone else thought, puppies aren’t allowed in the truck. Puppies don’t go to town.

"I d-d-did it," Nate said softly, his voice shaking.

Did what?

Someone else had been dimly aware of a hand sliding around behind their head, the click of the key in the lock and the thump as the little lock dropped onto the floorboards.

Danny’s heart jumped at the sound of the lock falling. Someone else felt less, as Danny felt more.

Warm, loving hands were undoing the buckle that was always too tight. He felt the sudden lift of the pressure and pain that had become all he ever felt anymore, winced at the sting of fresh air against skin, the trickle of fresh blood as removing the muzzle pulled wounds back open that had been trying like hell to heal around it.

He watched - Danny watched - as Nate got back out of the truck, holding the muzzle by the straps in his good hand, his jaw set in a grim line.

The cabin was on fire.

Flames licked orange somewhere inside the living room, and Danny could see straight through the kitchen door to where the fire was racing along the lines of gasoline that had been splashed around. Smoke poured upwards into the sky, the opposite of the rainstorms Danny had been locked out in so many times. The big doors to the cellar were flung open, and Danny looked carefully away from the darkness there and back at the brightly shifting, dancing light that lit the clearing with a sickly glow.

He watched Nate walk with purpose close enough that he must feel the heat trying to push him back and throw the metal and leather muzzle as hard as he could through the open kitchen door, where it thumped to the ground and then skidded along to a spot where the flames lit the inside of the cabin so brightly Danny’s eyes couldn’t bear to look.

The muzzle was gone.

Danny went away again. He didn’t know for how long. He came back to someone shaking him. He heard Nate’s voice, low and worried, soft against his ear. He was whispering, "Pl-please, please, I wasn’t too late, I w-w-wasn’t, please, please come b-back to me, D-Danny, please…”

He remembered shaking his head, still far away, because it had hurt to come back, he didn't want to any longer. His jaw throbbed, his nose ached, there were spots across his body that lit up with new pains when Danny stepped back up to feel them. Then Nate's hand slid up around his jaw, cool fingers over the cuts that burned hot, and Nate's mouth was on his, and Danny… felt.

Warm, and soft and desperate, tasting lightly of the whiskey they’d been drinking, he and Abraham. Danny opened his mouth for Nate, because that was what you did - but it wasn't like before, this was different, and he closed his eyes, hesitantly kissing back.

"Oh th-th-thank Christ. W-Wake up," Nate begged, in a voice ragged and hoarse and half-gone from breathing in the smoke. "Pl-please, please wake up, there h-has to be something l-left of you to s-s-save, Red, please, please t-t-tell me I wasn’t too late, pl-please..."

"W-we're not allowed in the truck without Abraham," Danny said hoarsely, his disused voice like gravel in a sore throat. Freed from the metal grid, his skin ached. Burned and bled in the cold air. "You'll get in trouble."

Nate laughed, a half-crazed sound of relief, and turned with wide, white-rimmed green eyes to start up the truck. "F-fuck trouble, Danny.  I got you out, I did it, we did it."

"You're not allowed to touch the keys," Danny said, almost plaintively, but it was sinking in, and his eyes were starting to widen. "Wh-where's Abraham? He's, Nate- he's going to be so mad when he finds us in the truck-"

"He w-w-won't care about th-that now," Nate said, voice firm and steady. "He d-d-doesn't give a shit about anything right now, Red. I hope he fucking chokes on his g-g-goddamn lying t-t-tongue.”

Nate shifted gears, and the truck roared to life as they jerked forwards and began to move down the gravel-lined dirt tracks through the woods.

“I'm getting us the f-f-fuck out of h, here."

***

“Where was Abraham? What happened?” Ryan had let go of his hand but Danny still felt the touch like spiderlegs and he pulled his hand back to himself, looking down at the tracks of scars along his veins, swallowing against the panic that threatened around the edges of his mind when people touched him.

“Nate gave him ketamine,” Danny said, and felt himself starting, slowly, to smile at the thought. “And some, um, some other stuff. “Got him too high to move and chained him to a bar Abraham had in the ceiling for-... for me, and left him to, um… to die.”

“Chained him…?”

“Handcuff Year.” Ryan winced, the memory of that conversation its own special torture. That first Christmas, Nate staring with an awful, resigned look of familiarity at the leather and metal cuffs in the box Danny had opened. “Nate found them and he… he tied Abraham up in the cellar with them to die.”

“But he didn't die. He's, he's on trial.”

“No, he didn’t. He was still… still alive when they found him, not even burned. Just smoke inhalation.”

Ryan whistled. “Lucky son of a bitch.”

“Blessed,” Danny corrected nervously, and watched Ryan's answering blank stare with a spike of guilt for not being better already. “His, um, he served a, a god, he said. We were blessed he loved us.”

“He was a fucking lunatic if he told you that bullshit. He didn't love you.”

“No.” Danny frowned down at the table. “You're right. Not me. He loved Nate.” And Nate had loved him back, right up until he didn't any longer.

Right up until he had to choose between them.

***

Danny and Nate drove away in the truck, and Danny saw the woods around him for the first time in months.

Had they always been so pretty? All the leaves were gone by now, bare branches everywhere reaching fingerlike towards them across the dirt path to the real road. There had been snow, but it had mostly melted with some sunny days while someone else sat outside in the thin, weak sunlight soaking up whatever it had to give, muzzled face tilted up to catch the warmth.

"Do you, um, know where we're going?" He asked, and hissed as his face hurt, his jaw too long held shut to keep speaking so easily again. His voice still sounded so weird, like he wasn’t meant to have one, and he barely managed to speak above a whisper.

"No," Nate said, and shrugged. "Other than we t-turn left and then there are s-s-signs. We'll find c-cops when we get to town."

He drove with one hand and reached the other out. Danny took it, and it was something solid, and real, something that anchored him to this side of his head and not the side that just went away.

Behind them, the cabin burned, a pretty orange glow against the pitch-black night sky.

When they made it to the road, Nate sat for a second, letting the truck's engine rumble as he and Danny looked at real, honest to God pavement.

Danny hadn't seen a road in four years.

"Red."

He turned, and Nate was looking at him, intensity in his face. Danny shrank away from it - expressions like that never boded well. "What?"

"N-No one's g-g-going to do th-that to you eh, ever again. Ever. Again. G-Got it?"

Danny nodded, slowly, but he wasn't sure he believed it yet. Not until Nate smiled, slow and a little shy, the way he used to smile before Abraham brought them here, and kissed one of the scars on the back of his hand.

"H-Here we go," Nate said, and turned the truck onto the road, the two of them driving away from the burning cabin to find a town, a police station, and hope.

***

“So by the time we got to town and the cops went back, everything burned down, but they found Abraham in the cellar, still alive. They found, uh, a lot of the… the things he used on us, too. They found the… for my face.” Danny shuddered, a little, phantom aches breaking out like a line of fire along the scars. “The leather burned a little but the metal part…”

“You don't have to talk about that. What about the bird?”

Danny blinked at Ryan's question.

“The bird?”

“The, the raven thing up on the wall. That you threw the beer bottle at. What happened to it? Did it burn?”

“No. Yes. Maybe.” Danny's heart skipped, just thinking of its pink eyes and empty dead glare, the way it seemed like it was always staring at him from its perch above the doorframe. “Nate said it wasn't in the house. The cops s-said they never found any sign of it, either.”

Sometimes he was sure he'd look out his window and see it staring back in at him, with that look in its eyes, waiting for him to go somewhere - anywhere - alone. Which was why Danny never did. He stayed with Ryan, or Nate, and he never, ever was alone.

On the worst Red days, Danny tried to come up with a plan for what he would do if Abraham came for him - even though Nate and Ryan told him nobody walks out of a maximum security prison.

It didn’t really matter.

Abraham would come back for him, eventually, and even if Danny didn’t want to think about it, Red knew.

Danny kept a notebook in the closet, and he wrote down everything he could think of, and he tried to make a plan for just in case, because he had been someone else for nearly half a year and he never, ever wanted to be someone else again.

When he was scared, at night, he curled into a ball next to Nate in the bed and he closed his eyes and dreamed about the rumble of the truck, Nate’s warm hand grasped so tightly onto his - the softness and ferocity in the kiss that brought him back to life…

And he dreamed of a cabin on fire.

#whump #escape #escaped whumpee #Daniel Michaelson's story #tw: dissociation #original fiction #horror fiction #caretaker #caretaker and whumpee #whumpees #broken whumpee #recovering whumpee #trauma recovery #trauma recovery whump #tw: drug mention #tw: forced drugging #but of the whumper sooooo #tw: vaguely referenced noncon #tw: noncon reference #pet whump #dehumanization

[a-lil-perspective]

Remember Me/Holding On (For Dear Life)

A/N: When I tell you I wept... I wept while creating this chapter. Here’s a bit different than what I normally write. Brother time. Verd’ika/Reader is not featured in this tidbit below. As much as this is her storyline post Order: 66, this is also very much the Bad Batch’s, and I’m alternating. I’m so happy to be bringing Echo into the mix, but this is incredibly sad. This chapter/scene is set less than three months after TCW episode ‘Victory and Death’... I’m sure you can guess where we’re going with that here. [Warnings: Angst, Mourning] @starflyer-104 @thegoodbatch @obiorbenkenobi @kriffingunlucky @karpasia @halzore @mangoberry43 @fxndxmxnxce @everyonehasanindividuality (Tag List is open:))

Chapter 2

Post-Imperial Proclamation

PIP Rotation Number: 79

Destination: Planet of Unknown Origins

Documentation: Scouting for Relics. Will update with any pertinence.

—Signed by Mar-4

~***~

“Well... at least the atmosphere is breathable,” Tech optimistically supplied as a small bank of snow catches in the winds from the Northeast and sprays the engineer in the face.

“Sure, but that wind is something else,” Wrecker mumbled, involuntarily shivering from a particular gust. Even the largest member with the toughest resilience to natural elements is rapidly discovering that his shield of plastoid is no match for the chilled temperatures.

“This planet seems to be nothing but a wasteland... but sometimes, not everything is what it seems,” Hunter wisely mused, keeping a few paces ahead of his crew. While the Sergeant was thankful for the stagnant and largely desolate atmosphere demonstrating hospitality to his heightened senses thus far, Hunter couldn’t shake the sinking feeling that something out there was amiss.

“Hey Cross, anything yet?”

“Negative, Sarge,” the sniper briskly informed before quietly retreating back to his task of visual scanning via HUD.

“Echo, are you absolutely certain this is where those supposed Republic relics are? I’m still not picking up anything on my own scanners—”

“We’re definitely in the right place, Tech,” Hunter assured. His face scrunched and brows fused together in fervent concentration. He took a long whiff of the atmosphere, and stray icy specks slithered underneath the Sergeant’s helmet, swirling in his nostrils whenever he inhaled. Hunter’s senses become further rapt the closer the proximity. Therein, a wide range of sensations Hunter could make out in the immediacy: the scent of weathered but mixed alloys, and wet snow blanketing them. Occasional sparks from decrepit tech still spouting some juice. Weak pulses—of engineering components, that is. Definitive proof of remains; hopefully Republic. Hunter takes another measured breath and hones in further.

It was nothing of technological frequencies coursing through his veins this time. Instead: a distinct scent that assaulted the perceptive Sergeant. A scent too distinct and too familiar in a time of waxing chaos.

The smell of death.

“Markers. Markers in the distance. About two klicks out, directly ahead,” Crosshair suddenly informed, a sense of urgency coating his estimations.

“What kind of markers?” Hunter didn’t appreciate the way his tone failed to match his usual semblance of composure.

“Can’t tell. But they seem makeshift. All clustered together,” Crosshair supplies.

Like grave markers.

“That sounds really deliberate,” Wrecker muses aloud. “You think it’s a sign of some kind?”

“Only one way to find out,” Hunter murmured.

~~///\\\///\\\///\\\~~

Only one way to find out.

Echo wishes he never would have.

But it’s better he did.

Closure.

Yet painfully open-ended.

It’s cold.

Echo is hot.

The tears that flow down his face, streaming underneath his helmet, are hot.

Yet Echo is as numb as his cheeks, barely stinging from the cold.

Names to faces. Facing each name. Empty helmets, not one the same. Lifeless eyes through tinted black. Buckets staked, just want them back. Acknowledging then, blue and white. Honorable men, once shining lights.

Brothers.

A graveyard of brothers.

Brothers of the Five-Oh-First.

Oh, Fives.

Jesse stares directly at Echo, devoid of any emotion. The latter falls to his knees in front of, begging for forgiveness, and requesting that Fives’ sacrifice be enough. The raw snow molding beneath his cybernetic knee caps is the only thing that cushions and supports the man; a broken shell of someone he once was. A broken shell; a denotation tragically befitting when situated alongside shrapnel of a Republic Cruiser. Littered about, it menacingly encircles the man. The Cruiser becomes a crude background accessory. Everything is broken, cracked, shattered, lifeless... including the bodies bunkering six feet underneath.

Jesse is not here. Rex and Cody are not here. Fives, Hevy, Droidbait, Cutup—the Dominos are not here. Names flash rapidly behind Echo’s eyes, countless brothers all secured in Death’s cold embrace. He was too late. Too late to save them.

Oh, brother.

I hope I’ll see you in another.

You’ve been gone for more than a few.

But know I will always love you.

“I’m sorry,” Echo weeps in the wind and bows his head. His anguished cries and apologies are unworthy offerings, but it’s all he has to give in the land of the dead.

Endless rows of them...

The minute Echo dwells on just how many corpses he’s in the company of, he near forcefully expels bile.

Echo screws his eyes shut. He wonders what his helmet would look like staked in place of Jesse’s, or any of his brothers’. To see himself staring back instead.

Some vode used to say that the helmets have lived a thousand lives before a Clone has lived even one. It’s certainly survived that many, but there’s more to it. The brothers used to claim that the inanimate helmet of plastoid totally embodies the man underneath, taking a life of it’s own even after the trooper passes. Echo had always remained rather neutral on the matter, at least until Fives became the superstitious type.

Until Echo was directly faced with an army of deceased brethren, graves marked solely by their helmets. Until he could feel their deep contempt with every fleeting moment he gazed further into the visor of each. He wondered if their cold blood boiled with hatred for him. For the way no one saved them, for the way no one redeemed their poor unfortunate souls. Did they cry out? Were they fearful? Or were they impassive because that’s what they were programmed to be.

When they were programmed to execute Order: 66.

So many questions. So much guilt. So much pleading. Pleas that fell on deaf ears, for one can’t raise the dead. Many more tears because of.

Echo can only hope his brothers exited this life swiftly and peacefully. He prays to whatever higher power that they experience freedom in their eternal state of rest. That they’re dancing in the cosmos, traipsing along the stars with a euphoric pep. Maybe they’re singing a favorite. Maybe they’re dreaming. Maybe they’re doing both. “Dream A Little Dream Of Me...” A favorite tune.

Fives especially could sing that one beautifully.

The settled snow eventually shifts and dips slightly as a thin man sinks down beside. Crosshair wordlessly slings his arm around Echo. The sniper averts the imitated eyes of the dead men, but the unique patterns of their helmets have already been etched into memory. Tech gingerly sits off to Echo’s right, studying the emotions of the despondent man—not really studying, but watching for a sign; to ensure that it’s okay if he reaches out to comfortingly rest a hand on Echo’s arm. Wrecker is moving from behind to wrap Echo tight and give him a grounding squeeze. Hunter’s breath hitches because for a millisecond, he imagines seeing his baby brothers’ helmets staring back at him and suddenly Hunter can’t breathe.

It’s profound. On the desolate moon, midday turns to dusk even though the skies remain gray. The five men remain huddled together, each one in the same state of reflectiveness as the next. The frigid elements ease up if only somewhat, respectfully lenient in granting the quintet their quiet memorial.

Brothers. That’s what they are. That’s what they remember. One in the same. Same heart, same blood. There’s no such thing as Kaminoans or Cloners. There’s no such thing as ‘Regs’ or ‘Defects’. There’s only brothers. Each man remembers that day: that they were just pawns, never created to be individuals. But each man learns that day: that to still possess their individuality—their very life—is a luxury. It’s worth fighting for. Freedom is worth fighting for. And each man will fight on behalf of the brothers, of the men, who never became acquainted with the prospect before their last directive condemned and reverted them to nothing more than a number.

Numbers? The only numbers relevant are the ones The Bad Batch will do on the Empire. Over and over, and relentlessly. Blow after blow until all one can hear is the sound of Freedom ringing. And ring loud it will.

The day will come, and soon.

The Empire? They’d better watch their backs.

The Cavalry Has Arrived.

~***~

Post-Imperial Proclamation

PIP Rotation Number: 79

Destination: Planet of Unknown Origins

Documentation: Scouting for Relics. Will update with any pertinence.

—Signed by Mar-4

Update: Today I cling to the remains of fallen brethren. For the sake of anonymity, names will not be disclosed. But my heart sings with all of them. It sings, and it weeps. Some days, it will do both, for heavy is the weight. But the graveyard of men is revered; a symbol of strength that our enemies cannot defeat us all. We will prevail, because we are:

Nu kyr'adyc, shi taab'echaaj'la.

Not gone, merely marching far away.

March easy, ner vode.

—Signed by Mar-5. Echo.

#star wars #The Bad Batch #Clone Force 99 #ahh I am a sobbing mess :’D #feedback is always appreciated :) #my writing #it’s a Lil thing

[five-wow]

i’m watching 10.21!!! [insert excited but apprehensive noises]!!!

by the time you’re reading this i’ll be done watching, so as always, thoughts under the cut:

i opened up the episode, steve’s voice said “previously on ha-” and i paused it because i actually need some food before i do anything right now.

food (and coffee that is 90% milk) acquired! the previously on is just the last few seconds of the previous episode, and oof, it reminded me how hilariously evil this micheal claypool sounded with that intense british accent they gave him (surprise twist: the h50 finale is actually the new bond movie), but now he just showed up on steve’s doorstep and he looks like a really kind somewhat older man, gosh.

steve: “please uh, come on in and make yourself at home.” danny, wherever he is right now: “NINE YEARS. I HAD TO WAIT NINE YEARS AND THIS GUY JUST SHOWS UP AND-”

mr. claypool comes in, sits down, hands a still standing steve a letter and then gathers his coat and briefcase and is immediately back out the door, fdjkfd. also, omfg, i don’t like that doris is still causing drama from the grave, but i have to say, it’s impeccably in character, at least.

steve looks a little disbelieving and unhappy about the contents of the letter, which is not great. it couldn’t have been just a nice “hello my son, sorry you’ve had to live without me for these past four months, i wanted to tell you one last time that i love you and hope you’re doing well”, could it? (for that matter, does mary get a letter??? it always feels like mary either got out in time by not going into anything like law enforcement and therefore not getting pulled into her family legacy of dangerous shit all the time, or like she’s just been outright rejected by their parents who keep building all of their mysteries around steve.)

okay so now we’re watching a woman and her son being held hostage by two criminals who probably killed a cop and want her to stitch one of them up, and obviously they’re bad guys, but one of them just said “think bus boy’s got a thing for you” about the dude who just rang the doorbell and hand delivered a toy the kid had forgotten at a diner and yes!!! i agree!!! and it looked super cute so maybe you could just put your guns away and let them fumble around each other for a little before one of them finally asks the other out on a date and then they end up as a really cute little family.

oh SHIT crush guy just burst into the apartment and really, really seems to know his way around a gun and how to hold his own in a fight against armed criminals. oh! ohhhh, this is the new character they were going to introduce that would potentially have become a cast member if the show had continued without steve, isn’t it? ahhh. that makes sense.

while the woman calls the police, crush guy (who heroically saved her and her son and got shot in the process) just. leaves. that’s not suspicious at all!

the intro!!! feelings!!!

we’re at the cemetary where john mcgarrett rests so i expected to be shown steve, but instead we get?? danny rolling up in the camaro to look at steve crouched by the grave? oh my gosh. ten times better.

danny is SO WORRIED. and he is RIGHT because steve is acting very unlike steve.

fdjkfdjk OF COURSE doris’s message is a bunch of symbols. doris!!! you do not write goodbye messages to your son in wingdings!!! be a good mother for maybe once, perhaps, my gosh!!!

!!!!! steve telling danny he just doesn’t think he really cares anymore and wants to be done with doris’s whole thing is !!!!! very good!!!! i am using too many exclamation points and very aware of it but !!!!!!

i just. look. i just. steve has SAD FEELINGS and he TALKS ABOUT THEM with DANNY and this is pretty much a dream come true. YES. not the sad feelings, i’d rather have happy feelings, but after everything these characters have gone through they need to acknowledge that there are sad feelings before happy feelings can be had.

also, omfg, i had a brief heart attack because steve says joe’s name but he says it with an abandoned “and” kind of tacked onto it, a little mumbly, so it sounds like “losing joe’n- and mom” and for a long moment i was like, losing joan?? what?? because that would not be okay, holy shit, no.

on a lighter note, steve: “i’ll drive.” what a suprise!!! truly a shocking turn of events. :p

yes, steve, antagonize the scary-looking dude who is grieving over his dead brother while standing over the dead brother’s body in the morgue. i’m sure that’s a brilliant plan.

wait what, we suddenly see adam and junior who are talking on the phone because junior called adam to give him an update, and then adam goes, right, but the bad guys don’t know the address yet, and we do! and it turns out he is. standing in the apartment both parties are looking for right at that second. uh. communication, adam, dear lord.

there is some team organizing in hq around the case and then they all disperse and danny looks ready to follow steve into his office but then he gets distracted by tani asking to talk to him for a minute, and then they go out onto a BALCONY that i don’t remember ever having seen before? omg. secret headquarters balcony.

tani asks about steve!! she is worried too!! i’m forgetting about the balcony betrayal and having intense feelings again.

fdjkfd danny tells tani that steve has been running non-stop and is getting burned out and tani asks “alright, well, what are we gonna do about it?” and with absolutely zero hesitation danny goes “i’m gonna force the issue.” i don’t even think that’s a bad plan per se! but the quick and determined way he says it has me laughing anyway, like danny’s been daydreaming while the team was talking about their case and thinking, hm, what can i do to help steve? i know! i’m going to push him in a corner and keep him there and make him FEEL his FEELINGS. danny’s solution here is to throw a grenade at steve, but like, one full of love and caring and hopefully pancakes.

danny is telling tani that he’s seriously concerned about steve’s functioning on the job at the moment and meanwhile steve is out with junior interviewing a guy with an axe. fdjkfd.

okay so steve and junior catch the bus boy crush heroic rescuer guy (whose name is cole) and he won’t talk, and then junior arrives back at hq and tani comes out of her office to talk about steve again, ahhh. she is so worried! and junior is extremely uncomfortable because he feels like he has to defend steve and he ends up saying that steve will deal with things in his own way and oh junior, no, sometimes being hurt and pushing it away is not the best thing. even MORE reasons why steve needs to work through this in a healthy way: he’s setting a very destructive example for junior.

meanwhile steve is chilling on the floor of their rendition room “interviewing” cole all on his own, which seems to boil down to psychoanalyzing cole in a way that sounds suspiciously like steve’s pulling apart pieces of his own mind but attributing all of the problems to cole because that’s way safer than admitting that maybe most of these are his own issues, too, that he’s giving voice to for probably the first time ever.

steve to himself cole: “you’ve been here in this hole since [name of place where tragedy happened]. you‘ve put yourself there.” SUBTLE.

fdjkfd i paused at the perfect moment because immediately after that sentence cole goes “you know, something tells me i could say damn near the same thing about you” and uh, yes. thank you for making my point in-universe, cole, gosh.

steve: [gives a hard stare for a second and then switches back to cole’s current situation without addressing cole’s comment at all]

ahhhh there is a shot that starts with lou, tani and quinn around the tech table analyzing a video that shows our Bad Guys of the moment holding the poor diner lady and her kid hostage (again!) and then moves smoothly through steve’s glass door into his office where he and danny are having a heated discussion about the case and twirls around them. that was very cool!

so the bad guys want cole or they won’t release their hostages, cole wants to do it, danny wants him to do it and convinces steve after multiple little scenes of them disagreeing about it, and then military police comes in and takes cole away, preventing them from actually carrying out their plan. oops!

and THEN cole escapes out of a vehicle with three men guarding him, hah. i’m definitely seeing the heavy handed parallels with steve they’re throwing at us, omg.

danny about cole to steve: “i think this guy might be crazier than you.” i kind of love that every time a new intended team member shows up (tani, junior, i'm pretty sure quinn too?), danny has to compare them to steve in some way. it’s a rule. every time anyone says something vaguely snarky steve physically can’t stop himself from saying “ah, did you know you sound just like danny williams?” and every time someone does something ill-advised yet heroic, danny is obligated by the universe and the wiring of his own heart to go “ugh, you remind me of steve.”

cole gets a pass because he did good stuff and is a war hero, steve and cole make friends, and then cole says he noticed the cypher on steve’s desk and we’re back to the thing i thought this episode would focus on way more heavily.

steve HAS been doing research to try to crack it! danny was right about steve not being able to let this go.

cole knows a guy who’s good at cracking codes! i guess that’s a neat way to connect him to steve’s finale plot and move it along at the same time, haha.

steve is still at the office when his phone rings and it’s danny and then steve walks onto his beach where danny is waiting for him in their two chairs with two beers, and i love that, especially because we don’t hear danny’s side of the phone conversation but it was a very short scene so what did he say, exactly? “come home, i’m lonely, i have beer”?

steve: “what’s the face, you got a face on, your face” fdjkfd. eloquent!

SCREAMING. “you think lincoln is my new bff? yo, no one can replace you, you’re my danno!” i am. oh my gosh. this is steve reassuring HIMSELF, not danny, but it is also incredibly sweet and YOU’RE MY DANNO. now THAT’S the kind of content i want. yes. good. holy shit.

danny says to stop doing “that”, by which he means deflecting, and steve just goes “okay” and looks uncomfortable but starts talking anyway and i LOVE THEM. this is a good, healthy friendship.

steve: “i kinda feel like i’ve been protecting everybody except for myself, does that make sense?” YES. YES, STEVE, IT DOES, and i am VERY GLAD you’re saying those words with your own mouth.

i am making very high pitched noises at the moment. a) steve says he can’t take a break “here” because there are too many memories and that SCARES ME because he SHOULD NOT LEAVE THE ISLAND but also really really validates a fic idea i’ve had for ages in a way that i love, b) steve says “i will say this is how i thought it would end for us, couple old guys, sitting on a beach, watching sunsets” and YES oh my gosh, and c) then DANNY GOES, “i mean that sounds great to me, we can still do that” and HELLO YES it is SO GOOD to hear them VOICE these things that they’ve obviously both wanted for literal years and which we’ve been shown through steve’s clinginess when danny wanted to retire and danny’s bringing steve in on the restaurant thing and danny’s literal dream of him and steve sitting on that very beach as old men with steve telling him he loves him. just, my gosh, this is all those things but put into words that they are saying and it is very validating and sweet and necessary and scares me very much about where this is going, but for the moment i adore it.

the episode has two and a half minutes left and i’m kind of feeling like this is enough. let’s just end it here. happy end, guys, let’s all go home! except steve and danny, who are already there, obviously, and should do the opposite of move, ever.

OH. OHHH. steve tells danny he doesn’t know anymore and danny looks sad and then steve continues about how he’s been trying to distract himself with stuff like “a bunch of dating, which was nice, but didn’t help” and the RESTAURANT gets a mention though i’ll admit it’s one that’s very confusing because steve says “when it closed”, which... it didn’t, as far as we had been told until now? isn’t kamekona still running it? i always assumed he’d have turned it into a very successful bussiness venture.

danny looks UNHAPPY ABOUT THINGS STEVE IS SAYING and i relate, while i’m at the same time weirdly very very proud of him for saying these things? i don’t want him to feel this unsure about everything (particularly whether he can stay in hawaii, because it seems that’s what he’s talking about and that’s Bad), but it is a needed breath of fresh air to have stuff that happened and that he’s been bottling up for ages actually impact him emotionally.

okay, fjdksfdjslfs, danny suggests steve should GO TO JERSEY and says that steve has NEVER BEEN and i get that this is mostly kind of a joke but actually YES, STEVE. GO THE FUCK TO JERSEY. that would be perfect! danny can subtly follow you under the guise of an extended visit to family and you can spend time there together exploring danny’s home state instead of steve’s and you can come back home to hawaii when you’re ready and it would be beautiful and a very nice, symbolic way to end the show. we start with danny moving to hawaii to find a home there, and we end with with steve moving to jersey to realize where his home is.

this argument though, it’s giving me life. steve when danny starts suggesting other places, angrily, for no good reason: “now i HAVE to go.” danny, both giving and getting up: “i’m gonna get another beer.” steve, calm again: “okay, i’m gonna go to jersey.” danny: [walks away while steve yells after him about all the recommendations he’ll need for when he’s in jersey]

danny is inside to get the beer, hears a noise, finds a burglar at steve’s desk, fights him, destroy half the living room and is found by steve who also heard noise from the house and suddenly keeps saying “yo” to danny a lot this episode.

of course the burglar was there for the cypher that doris sent steve, because she can never just pop up in steve’s life in a way that isn’t  somehow dangerous to him and everyone around him. it was good, though!!! a very nice cliffhanger.

final thoughts: VERY GOOD, VERY INTENSE EPISODE. i liked cole more than i expected for a character that gets introduced as potential main cast in the last two episodes of a show that’s by now already been cancelled (that could have been problematic, but i think the writers handled it well by brick-to-the-face using him to explore steve’s issues) and i love danny being so worried about steve and tani following his lead and wanting to talk to everyone close to steve about how worried she is, too, and everything steve says has ME worried about how they’re going to end this, but so far, it’s also amazing A+ perfect fanfic fuel, holy effing shit. EMOTIONS. FEELINGS. STEVE HAS THEM. it’s literally that easy to please me, fdjkfd.

and i will say that while i’m worried about him and he’s clearly hurting and there are ways the show could take this that i won’t like (steve leaving the island at the end of the show while danny stays, mainly, which would be kind of horrible in all kinds of ways), i do somewhat love seeing steve deal with the fact that he’s older than he was ten years ago, he’s never really worked through all of the incredibly horrible shit life kept heaping on him, and he’s just getting really damn tired of everything. old, tired steve is a good thing; it’s the start of a new chapter, one where he hopefully doesn’t keep clinging to that endless denial of hurt and his tendency to put the job above everything including his own mental and physical health. i just hope, hope, hope that this last chapter that we actually get to watch play out on screen will be one that ends in a place that feels right, because this could either end perfectly or so, so badly. 🤞

#h50 #10.21 #h50 spoilers #i am now VERY SCARED but also VERY HYPED for that last episode next week #*

[not-close-to-straight]

Fairest of Them All (Prologue)

MASTERLIST HERE

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

A child born of iron

Marked by the stars fall

An Omega to end to the Winter

The Fairest of Them All

“Tell me a story, Jarvis.”

“And what story do you want to hear, Little Prince?”

“The one about the witch!”

“Tony, you have been hearing that story every night for years now! You have it memorized! Surely a big, seven year old boy wants to hear about dragons and adventures, not witches and spells.”

“No no no! Tell me the witch one! And about the prince born when the stars fell!”

“Alright then.” A creak as the elderly Beta settled into the chair next his Prince’s bed, and a fond sigh as the child gathered covers up to his chin so only his nose and big brown eyes were peeking out. “Are you ready?”

“M’ready.”

“A long, long time ago,” Jarvis began. “In a kingdom far far away, a very evil Alpha made a bargain with a very wicked witch. You see, the Alpha  wasn’t content to be the King’s assistant, he wanted to be King himself and asked the witch to use her magic to make it so.”

“And she agreed, but only if they bound their souls so he could never turn against her!” Tony blurted excitedly. “So they made a blood pact!”

Jarvis frowned. “Who’s telling the story, Tony?”

“Sorry.”

“Now then, where was I? Oh yes. The witch was wise, and knew that all men who craved power eventually turned against those who gave it, so to secure her own future she bound her soul with the Alpha’s in a blood pact and told the evil man that if any ill befell her, it would befall him as well, that if she died, he would die, that if he turned against her she would reduce his soldiers to dust and strip his power away before leaving him to the peasants he so cruelly treated.”

“The Alpha was too greedy and too impatient to argue, so he agreed to the bond and together the Alpha and the witch turned the kingdoms against one another, grew their armies until the might of the Ten Rings was known even over the mountains. They spilled blood on holy lands, cut down anyone who dared to stand in their way and gave no thought to the innocents they slaughtered.”

“And Nature herself rebelled.” Tony added. “Even Nature hated their cruelty.” 

Jarvis nodded, “As the witch’s power grew and the hatred in the Alpha’s heart turned his soul black, even Nature herself rebelled. Summers were shorter and winters were longer. Flowers bloomed less and less and the nights seemed to last longer and longer until finally, the Kingdoms fell into a cold, silent winter and one by one, the people lost hope.”

“Get to the part about the good witch!” Tony was nearly bouncing up and down in excitement. “The good witch Margaret! Tell me about her!” 

“The good witch Margaret.” Jarvis smiled at the Prince’s glee. “Margaret knew the wicked witch had grown too strong to be defeated by just one person, so instead she placed a curse on the bond between the witch and the Alpha. The evil Alpha would only succeed in his war mongering until a royal child was born beneath a star fall, and the witch’s power would falter the day she met the fairest of them all, an Omega so pure of spirit and heart that Nature would rally, the winter would break, evil would lose its hold on the land and good would prevail once more.”

“But the witch and the Alpha are linked, so it’s the same person they are searching for.” Tony’s eyes lit up. “The royal child born beneath a star fall and the Omega that is the fairest of them all is the same person!”

“That’s right. So the Alpha pays close attention to every royal birth, searching for a child born beneath falling stars and every single day the witch asks her magic mirror—“

“Mirror mirror on the wall.” Tony whispered. “Who’s the fairest of them all?”

“The good witch Margaret told all who would listen that the Omega would come bearing the mark of starlight over their heart, would be so lovely that flowers would be jealous, would sing so sweetly the birds would hush to listen, and would capture the hearts of both hunter and prince alike. So even now, the people wait and wonder and hope for the day to come when a Royal Omega will be born and put an end to the evil that holds them captive.”

“A mark like mine!” Tony pulled aside his sleep shirt to display the odd birthmark over his heart. “Mine looks like starlight, doesn’t it?”

“It does indeed.” The Beta allowed, grateful for the flickering candlelight that hid the grief in his eyes. “Perhaps you are the mysterious prince, Tony. Wouldn’t that be grand?”

“I’m seven years old, Jarvis.” Tony rolled his eyes as only a child could. “Not a baby, I know these stories are only make believe!”

“My mistake.” Blandly, the Beta offering the young Prince a sip of water. “And since you are so very grown, I suppose you don’t want to hear the rest of the story?”

“I want to hear it!” Tony objected. “I’m not too old to hear it! Tell me how the witch and the Alpha will try to break the curse.”

“The only way they can hope to beat the curse is by claiming the heart of the fairest of them all.” Jarvis said with a sad smile. “But no one knows what that means. Do they have to love the Royal Omega? Will they have to cut the Omega’s heart out? No one will know until the child turns eighteen, because that is when the prophecy will begin to unfold.”

“Where’s the child?” Tony asked, already knowing the answer.

“No one knows.” Jarvis replied gravely, his hands shaking just a little as he tucked the blankets around the Prince a little tighter. “Everyone hopes that they have been spirited away in the care of someone who will keep them safe until they are eighteen and can end the winter.”

“I’m sure whoever is taking care of the child--” Tony yawned, his jaw cracking. “-- loves them very much.”

“I’m sure they do.” Jarvis whispered. “Goodnight, my Prince.”

“G’night, Jarvis.”

The boy had been asleep for several minutes before Jarvis slipped from the chambers and closed the door tight behind him.

“One day soon he will realize it's not a story.” Ana said when Jarvis joined her down in the kitchen. “You cannot tell Tony tales about a Prince with a star on his chest without him eventually wondering if he’s the one the stories talk about.”

“Tony thinks I created a fairy tale with him as the main character.” Jarvis drew his wife close for a hug. “He laughs at the idea of it actually being real. There is no worry of him discovering--”

“You are tempting fate, my love.” Ana shook her head. “What happens when he realizes the stories are true, that the wicked witch walks among us and the evil Alpha is--”

“Hush.” Jarvis glanced around as if someone was watching. “The walls in this castle have ears, my darling. We must watch our words.”

“Heaven help us.” Ana held her mate tighter. “And heaven help our Prince.”

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

There was a secret door In another part of the castle, a hidden spring built into a wall, a winding staircase few people knew existed, a chamber at the top of the steps with only one window and very little light.

The witch stood in front of the mirror on the far wall, her eyes glazed and head tilted as if listening to voices only she could hear, fingers tracing runes into the magic glass that served as her reach into the spirit world.

“You are worried.” She said absentmindedly, the first she’d spoken since the Alpha at her table had come through her door nearly an hour earlier. “You think that old fool is filling the Prince’s head with ideas.”

“Jarvis and Ana are the only ones left who know the truth of the night Tony was born.” Baron Obadiah Stane said gruffly. “The official birth announcement said he was born eleven days after the star falls, not the night they happened. The butler and his wife are the only ones who know for certain.”

“So be rid of them.” The witch lifted a shoulder in a careless shrug. “As you were rid of the Iron King Howard and his Queen. Simple.”

“Twould be suspicious.” the Alpha argued. “First the King and Queen and then their loyal servants just a few years later? All suspicion would turn to me and not even your magic is enough to full the minds of neighboring Kings who would come asking questions.”

“Have my Huntsman do it, then.” She inclined her head towards the figure in the shadows, a beast of an Alpha with ice blue eyes and long black hair, a soldier snatched from the battlefields and forced under a spell to do her bidding. “It will be no more than an accident, another death attributed to the winter ice and cold. The Prince will be free of all other influence, and you can mold him the way you wish. We have many years until the curse comes to fruition, many years to ensure his heart is yours.”

“I am too old an Alpha to win his heart.” he countered. “And there is no guarantee he will present as an Omega anyway, what if he is an Alpha and the prophecy isn’t about him?”

“The child was born the night of a meteor shower and he bears a birthmark like starlight.” the witch said impatiently. “He will present as an Omega on his eighteenth birthday and unless he loves you as family or—“ she raised her eyebrows meaningfully. “— as Alpha, my power will wane and the winter will break and you will fall, do you understand? Margaret’s curse is brilliant in it’s simplicity but we have a way to break it so long as you do your part.”

“And if he doesn’t love me?” Obadiah asked. “What then?”

“Then the morning of his eighteenth birthday, I will cut the Prince’s heart from his chest and claim it that way.” Sunset’s green eyes flashed, her power flexing in the air between them. “You are too sentimental towards the child Stane, but I have no such failing. Do not force my hand.”

The Alpha left her chambers without another word and the witch turned back to her work.

Her fingers drew familiar symbols on the sacred mirror, the familiar spell she used every evening clouding the glass until the fog formed into a eerie face, empty eyes staring back at her.

“Mirror mirror, on the wall.” Sunset tossed her hair over her shoulders, her red lips curving in a wicked smile. “Who’s the fairest of them all?

#ncts fics #snow white au #stuckony #omega tony stark #alpha bucky barnes #winter soldier bucky barnes #prince charming steve #alpha steve rogers #obadiah stane #sunset bain #fairy tale au

[thewildthewarlikeandthewoebegone]

Damn though, the devs of Dark Souls know full well how to tell a tragedy that respects the humanity and the struggle of the character experiencing the suffering.  

The environmental storytelling that guides a player to Artorias is in awe of him.  We’ve got an expensive key, an impressive door, a covenant dedicated to him, a grandiose grave site, and a boss fight that consists of a loyal companion fighting off trespassers in his honor.  The storyline of the DLC is about covering up (!!) a failure that’s no more scandalous than simply not being strong enough to win, and after you kill him another character shows up and asks you for his soul as a keepsake, because in addition to being a warrior of legend he was also cherished by the people who knew him personally.  Artorias’s story is ultimately about someone who fails and dies, but the way the story is told emphasizes what a great person he was and insists that he didn’t deserve his fate, going so far as to change how the story is remembered as a pithy measure of justice.  You’re only disturbing his grave at all to save the world, otherwise you’d probably agree with the measures taken to protect it.  Sif is the boss that makes everybody sad.

So when other characters’ struggles fall by the wayside, it’s a conscious choice, a judgment of value.  If the game isn’t mean to everybody, it’s a choice when it’s mean to some.  

The Bed of Chaos was an accident after an attempt to do exactly what the player character may be trying to do, link the fire.  The Witch of Izalith did about as much as Artorias, if not more, in terms of intent and effort towards a good cause (her failure led to the destruction of a city, but Artorias didn’t succeed in protecting Oolacile on his own merit either).  But the shameful failure of her ruined city overrun by demons is left viscerally exposed.  Here, the environmental storytelling guides you through ogling the wreckage of her life and killing some of her children as they suffer in fascinating but perhaps unsympathetic ways (Ceaseless Discharge, for example, is scolded for foolishly dropping his ring in text that could have empathized more with the pain his transformation caused him).  While Quelaag’s sister is an explicitly sympathetic and even heroic figure, she’s presented as an interesting character related to a boss you just killed (because of course you did!).  The final insult is a boss fight that pits you against what’s become of the Witch of Izalith herself, a fight which is a drawn out invitation to crawl into a hole between her legs (surely not symbolic of anything in particular!) and destroy her with violence there.  

In the base game, Artorias’s legacy and dignity was so important that you don’t even see him or his shame, you fight a loyal stand-in champion who challenges you on his grave after a lengthy and grandiose journey to reach it.  The Witch of Izalith is not only dragged into the harsh light of day to be fought in all her depravity, you are required to defeat her in perhaps the most degrading way possible.  Artorias tried and failed, and your job is to respect his effort and make it better.  The Witch of Izalith tried and failed, and your job is to punish her failure and make it worse.

There’s, of course, an obvious conversation you could have about the role of gender in the question of why Artorias was praised by the story and the Witch of Izalith was punished by the story when they both failed the cities they strove to protect.  But the main thing I wanted to personally take a stab at is this idea I’ve seen floating around that being upset about a character’s fate in a tragic story is oversensitivity and a misunderstanding of tragedy, the idea that if you wanted to see ‘good things’ happen to a character you’d better pick a different genre.  And it’s just that some stories with tragic ends are poetic and respectful, while others are vulgar and degrading.  It’s not meaningless sensitivity to not find value in a narrative that isn’t any deeper than reveling in violence against, and the degradation of, a human (etc.) life.  And when a character you find meaningful is subjected to that kind of tragic narrative, it’s an attack on the meaning that you found, plain and simple.  It is possible to content me with a sad dead favorite character...but the standard is a giant wolf with a sword guarding their grave in a sealed forest glen.

#long post #rape tw #wtf @ the bed of chaos boss fight

[themoonandotherslikeit]

The Daughter of a Righteous Man- Chapter 2

*SEQUEL TO THE LOOK IN HER EYES*

After her husband is drug to Hell, Ava Winchester and her brother in law Sam try their best to do right by Dean and raise her daughter, only to find that good intentions aren’t always enough. Loving someone isnt always enough.

Chapter Two, To the Ends of the Earth

Ava

"This is Sams phone, leave me message." Beep.

"Sam it's me." I began. My forehead was pressed against the cold window. It was snowing. It had been two weeks since I'd seen Sam. Two weeks since Dean died. I was still stuck in the hospital. My blood pressure was borderline, and if it got any worse I'd have to be induced. "I know this is hard. Trust me I do, but please come back." My voice was shaking. It took everything in me to keep it together, and I was failing. "Please come home." I hung up the phone and tossed it onto the hospital bed.

Deans ring hung on a chain around my neck, safely between my breasts. Right over my heart.

"You tryin to put a spell on me, Ave?" Dean asked me, as he examined the symbols on his wedding ring.

"Yup. A love spell." I wiggled my eyebrows.

"I knew it!" He pulled me against him.

"I guess you're stuck with me."

He leaned down and pressed a kiss on the tip of my nose. "How will I survive a life that horrible?"

"You won't survive." I said simply. "I'm a black widow. I'll eat you for supper."

He raised an eyebrow and grinned widely. "Promise?"

"Dean Winchester!" I gasped, smacking his shoulder.

He shrugged. "You said it, not me."

He ran his fingers down my back, causing me to press against him. "I did."

I met his eyes. Green, with a taste of Tennessee whiskey flooding the center around his iris. "what?" He asked quietly, his breath on my lips.

"I just can't believe I married Dean Winchester."

"I can't believe I ever got married." He grinned widely. "And to a freaking fox."

I felt my cheeks heat up. "Whatever."

"You didn't just marry me because I knocked you up, right?"

I rolled my eyes. "Did you marry me because you knocked me up?"

"Would that be a problem?" He asked mischievously.

He was trying to rile me up. To get my heat boiling. I narrowed my eyes. "We haven't consummated the marriage. I can still get an annulment."

Dean grinned and scooped me up into his arms. "Well let's remedy that." He pressed his lips to my jaw and kissed up to my ear. "I'm not letting you get away that easily, Detective."

I moved away from the window. It had a circle of fog from my breath. It felt ethereal out there. The world was in a blizzard, and I was stuck here inside a sterile bubble.

A swift knock came to the door. "Come in."

A young blonde woman in a stocking cap came thorough the door. She wore dark lipstick and carried a leather bag. "Are you Ava Winchester?"

"That's me." I said, waddling to her. I extended my hand and she took it. "You must be Maggie."

She nodded with a smile. She took off her cap and scarf. Her neck was covered in tattoos that rolled down into her sweater. Her skin was a canvas for the stars.

Maggie was a witch. I had it on good accord that she was very powerful, but she didn't practice dark arts. I needed her help.

"How can I help you, Ava? I can see your aura." She frowned. "It's very muddy. You're not in good physical or mental health. I can see if I can help with that..."

I touched her hand, causing her to stop cold. She met my eyes. "I need help with something else. I hope you can help me."

She looked me over. Her deep mahogany eyes bore sadness. "You have so much pain within you. It's radiating off of you. It isn't good for a child."

"Maggie, please."

"How can I help you?"

I heard she was a powerful witch and a psychic. She claimed to be an empath, and to be able to pick up on people's emotions. I must've been a whirl wind for her. I knew I was a mess. No amount of concealer could hide the circles under my eyes and the constant puffiness they held.

I was experiencing a loss like I never had. My whole family fell through my fingers like water.

I hadn't just lost Dean, but Sam was lost to me too. I was completely alone.

"My husband was taken to Hell. I need him back."

Maggie sat up a little straighter. "I don't think you understand what I do."

"I do. You're a witch. There has to be a way to pull him from Hell. I've tried every contact I can think of... I'm running out of options."

The witch sighed and shook her head. "I can't pull him from Hell. Even if I was willing to try, which I'm not, I couldn't. I don't know of a witch that could. Not even the grand coven could get their fingers into something like that. I'm sorry, Ava. I really am. I see the pain you're in, but once a soul is in Hell it stays. Forever. There is no escape from that."

She wrapped her scarf back around her neck and put her stocking cap over her ears.

"Please." I begged, reaching for her. "I can't live without him."

She took my hand. "You can. I see strength in you. Anyone else wouldn't be able to handle the pain you have. Just hang in there."

"Hang in there?" I asked, pulling my fingers away. "That's all I get? What is the fucking point?" My heart rate leapt on the monitor. "What's the point of any of it if he is dead?"

"Ava, I'm sorry." She said as she buttoned her coat. She took her bag and left my room, once again leaving me alone.

I fell back on to the bed and I wept. Tears flowed out of me like a burst fire hydrant. I cried out in pain. This was nothing compared to what I felt before. The complete loss of hope was devastating. There was no moving on from it.

I glanced up, wiping my eyes and caught sight of the date. December 23rd. I met Dean exactly one year ago. He was with me for less than a year before he died.

Something got me up. I tore the monitors off of me. I slid into my snow boots and wrapped myself in my coat. It didn't close because of my large stomach, but I didn't care. I wrapped my scarf around my neck and walked right out of the hospital into the storm.

"Excuse me mam."

"You're excused." I said, examining my papers. I was working a case and it was troubling me. I couldn't put my finger on it. It was on the tip of my tongue.

"Mam my name is Special Agent Carter. Can I ask you a few questions?"

Agent? Are you fucking kidding me? That's the last thing I need. I shut my folder and turned to him. My annoyance was halted when I saw the man in front of me. He was tall and strong. He has these hypnotizing green eyes, and a matching green tie to boot. His skin was sun kissed, and his hands looked rough. He was young, around my age. He wasn't like any agent I'd ever seen. But still an agent, Ava, get it together. "Special agent, huh? Can I see your badge?"

He handed it to me, our fingers brushing. I examined his badge. He had a pout in his picture. A lip that was begging to be bitten. I swallowed hard. It had been too long. "Agent Carter, you're a little far from home, aren't you?"

"Yes mam." He smiled widely at me, making my heart thud in my chest. I had a feeling he knew he had that effect on women.

"What are you doing in my little town?"

"I'm looking into the suspicious deaths that have happened in this town." He said, leaning closer to me. "I don't suppose you knew anything about that?"

My breath hitched in my throat as I smelled the beer on his lips. Suddenly the attraction melted away, like I had broken his spell. "Why would I?"

"I don't know, mam. That's why I'm asking. Listen, we can do this the easy way or the hard way."

I laughed out loud. He was so infuriating! "You feds are so squirrelly. What? You're not used to getting your way. Can't intimidate a girl so you're getting your panties in a bunch." I handed his badge back.

"Listen Miss..."

"That's Detective Langston, to you, agent." I said sliding out my own badge. I couldn't count how many times men underestimated me and my position in the force. I worked my ass off and I wouldn't have some hot shot in a cheap suit under-mind me, no matter how fuckable he was.

"A little young for a detective."

"I could say the same thing about you, agent. I know for a fact my office didn't call you down here. So why does DC have a concern about some missing locals?"

"Listen, sweetheart."

That was the last straw. I exploded. "God, that's just typical. Isn't it? Sweetheart? Listen, you condescending asshat." I stood up and pressed my index finger against his chest. "I want to speak to your supervisor, agent."

"Mam?" The cab driver asked, trying to get my attention. "We are here."

"Thanks." I said, handing him some cash.

"Stay warm out there!" He called after me as I shut the door.

I stepped into the snow. It was unearthly quiet. The cab drove away, leaving me in a blanket of white, staring at a single wooden cross. A pathetic grave marker.

I stepped through the snow, slowly approaching the marker. I stood in front of it and slowly fell to my knees. I pressed my palm to the freezing wood. "Dean." I gasped out. "I'm so sorry I'm late." Hot tears rolled down my cheeks.

Images from him lying dead in my arms, to smiling at me in the bar were flashing along my vision. I tried to focus on his smile, but I felt like I was falling. The images tripping through my mind in a landslide.

I yearned for his hand on my shoulder to ground me. I held tighter on the cross instead.

"Peanut is okay. Although I can't call her that forever."

"Peanut is a real name."

"Maybe I can." I said defeated. The snow was coming down rapidly around me, covering me.

"How am I supposed to do this without you?" I pressed my forehead to the cross. "I came to say goodbye, but I don't think I can. It's not in me... I'm not strong enough."

I closed my eyes and tried to manifest him. I needed to see him one last time. I needed to bring him home to me.

I could see him in my mind, crouching next to me. He would smile and push my hair away from my face. Don't be sad for me sweetheart.

"You know I hate that."

No you don't. You can't hate anything I do.

"I hate that you left me alone."

You're not alone.

My temples pounded. The rough wood from the cross felt softer. My forehead was against his.

"I am alone. You left me."

You have Peanut. You have Sam.

"Sam left me too. Everyone leaves me. Everyone..."

I'm here. I'm always with you.

"I love you." I gasped out, my breath a puff of fog.

I know.

I was dizzy. I didn't feel the cold anymore. It felt nice, like I was in his embrace again. Maybe if I could just sleep I'd feel better. Maybe I'd wake up and this would all be a dream.

Sam

I sped through the storm. I finally checked my messages and there was one from the hospital. Ava left with no warning. I just hoped that when I found her she would be okay. That her baby would be okay.

I've been an idiot. Selfish. As if sending demons back to Hell would make a difference. As if that would help my brother.

I pulled up to Deans grave and flung the door open to the Impala. I jogged to the grave. Through the snow I could see a form laying at the base of his grave. She was covered in a blanket of snow, but even under the white I could see her black curls sprawled out around her.

"Ava!" I shouted, running to her. I pulled her into my arms. "Hey, Ava." Her lips were blue but she was breathing. "Shit!" I picked her up. Even with the pregnancy weight she was light.

I laid her in the back seat and drove to the hospital, fighting against the storm. I was so fucking stupid. I should’ve never left. I had to save her. I had to save them.

—————-

The last hour was a mess. She was warmed up, but the situation had her blood pressure through the roof. She had still been out of it, but her doctor insisted that we deliver. If she wouldn't, they would have to do an emergency C-section. I knew she didn't want that.

I sat next to her bed side, like I had a year ago after her attack. I held her hand and rubbed circles on the back of her hand. Her skin was warm, when only an hour ago I worried she would never warm up again.

She was so much more than just my brothers wife. She was my best friend. I loved her. I didn't want to lose her.

"Sam?"

"Hey." I said, perking up.

"I've been calling you." She complained softly.

"I know, I'm sorry."

"He's gone." Ava's lip trembled, and I pulled her against me. She cried into my chest.

I wrapped my arms around her, and I tried to be strong. To hold her together. "I know." I said, burying my face in her hair.

My brother was dead. It was never supposed to happen like this. It was supposed to be Dean and I together. Live together, die together. Dean was gone, and it was so fucking unfair.

"Ava listen to me." I said, taking her face in my hands. "You can't do something like that again."

"I just wanted to say goodbye."

I wiped her tears with my thumbs. "I know. I'm sorry we couldn't do that. I'm sorry that I left. I won't do it again."

"You won't?"

"No, Ave. I'm here. I know I'm not Dean. I don't want to replace him... But if you want me here, I'm here."

She burst into tears again.

"Shit, I'm sorry!" I stumbled over my words. "I didn't mean to make you cry."

"You... didn't. I'm happy you're back." She looked down at her belly. "Is my baby okay?"

"She is, but your doctor wants to deliver. I'm sorry Ave."

"No, no, no! She isn't ready." Her breathing started up rapidly and she held onto me.

"Hey, Shh. Stay calm. It's okay. I'm here. I'll be here the whole time." I paused and met her eyes. "Well until you kick me out."

She bit down on her lip and tried to breathe. "Sam Winchester, I will not be kicking you out. I won't ever let you walk out on me again."

—————

Chapter Three, Eleanor Mary Winchester 

Get caught up!

Tag List:

@xjamiedennettx

#supernatural #spn #supernatural fanfiction #fic #fanfiction #writing #mine #the look in her eyes #chapter 2 #dean winchester #sam winchester #deanxofc #dad!dean #sam!dean #samxofc #love #otp #romance #angst #smut #pregnancy #baby #au

[operation-hbd]

Always With You

Of Ladybugs, Past and Present

Section 1: Akumatization

Catrina lost her parents only a few months prior and is now staying with aunt and grandma

Elena was ready to go off on the little brat. Nothing she did was good enough for Catrina. Taking her in and pretending like she was ready to be a mom just so Trina would stay with family? ‘I don’t want you – I want my parents!’ Getting a more expensive, family-friendly apartment in Paris? ‘I miss Guadalajara – I hate this place!’ Making fresh soup for dinner despite being fucking exhausted after work? ‘I don’t want it – I only like the way Mami makes it.’ She took it all in stride. It was fine, Catrina’s just a kid being how kids are, she’d tell herself. But not today. No, today she’d come home to find glass on the floor. That snot-nosed little monster had broken all the picture frames she kept at the entrance. The pictures were left lying around carelessly. She remembered Catrina calling them ‘tacky’ before, but this was Elena’s house and, goddamnit, if she wanted to have a wall full of family photos then she was going to have her damn wall with family photos and no six-year-old would change that. Elena marched to her niece’s preferred hiding spot and shoved the coat closet’s sliding door aside, ready to take out all her pent-up frustrations on the girl. She glared down at the usually hostile child but her fury died out as she looked into those big brown eyes. Her sister’s eyes. She looked so... small. Huddled in the corner of the closet, eyes brimming with tears, and a scrunched photograph held tightly to her chest. Elena’s heart shattered at the sight; she knew that photograph. I was of Monica and Fernando back when they’d first announced their engagement. Fernando hugged Moca tightly to him with a big stupid grin spread over his face; her smile was adorned by a blush as she held up her left hand to display an elegant diamond ring. In the corner sat Orejas, Fernando’s shaggy mutt with ears too long, too wide, and too floppy to have any right to be on a dog. Elena wasn’t sure what hurt more, the picture of Monica or the way Catrina clutched it like a lifeline.

“Trina?” At that, the little one’s tears finally broke free. “Shhh, shhhh,” she murmured as she dropped to pull Catrina into her arms, “no llores, amor. You just need to give it a little bit more time. You’ll see. The wounds will heal, you just–”

“Stop it! You know that’s not true!”

“What’s not true?” Elena asked the small girl in front of her.

“Time! You say time will make it stop hurting, but the more time that passes the more I miss them. And when I think about all the time that’s still left– all the years I’ll go through without them... I just- I really miss them,” she rubbed at the tears spilling down her cheeks, “and time won’t make it better because it won’t bring them back. It won’t let me be with them.” Her small shoulders started to shake as her lungs filled with sobs. “I j-just –– w-wa-nn-nt –– t-t-to b-be –– w-i-thh th-them!”

“Oh honey, but you are! They’re always with–”

“Th-at-t’s –– n-not ––  wh-at-t I –– m-meant!”

 She sighed; of course that’s not what she’d meant. Elena had known what she meant because she wanted it too. Because she missed her big sister too and no amount of time would change that. She missed Monica and her stupid jokes and her stupid nagging and even her stupid husband, who could always bring out Monica’s stupid smile after her and Elena had gotten in some stupid argument. But what the hell else was she supposed to say? ‘You’re right, kid, time won’t bring them back and nothing will ever get better. You’ll be filled with grief for the rest of your life because my sister is a rotting corpse underneath some dirt back in Mexico and all she left you with was me.’ Psh, yea right. She doubted Monica would approve of that response. Elena groaned, rubbing her temples as she tried to think of some way to comfort her crying niece. She wasn’t ready to take care of a kid. She wasn’t ready for any of this. But she had to at least try.

“Listen–  shhh, Trina, just–  just listen for a sec, okay?” she pleaded with the child, stroking her hair until she’d calmed down a bit. 

SOME STUFF ABOUT DÍA DE LOS MUERTOS AND SETTING UP OFRENDAS TO BRING MONICA AND FERNANDO TO PARIS. 

Catrina, who is taking all of Elena’s words very seriously, says the graves are in Mexico and how will they possibly know to come here

Elena, happy that Trina finally stopped sobbing and taking victory in the small amount of hope sparkling in her eyes, tells her they’ll just need to put up a whole bunch of marigolds because those are what guides the spirits when they cross over.

...

Happy for a few weeks, Trina is excited about setting up the ofrenda with her aunt and wants to make it the best one ever. 

Elena begins to suspect this whole thing may be going a bit too far and finally realizes Catrina thinks they’ll really appear when she mentions being excited for her dad’s big squishy hugs again and her mom’s gentle singing when she put her to bed... but Elena can’t bring herself to tell Trina that it’s all just symbolic when the little one is finally happy.

Elena puts it off too long and it’s November 2nd and no parents have appeared.

Catrina refuses to accept that she’s really never seeing them again after having built up so much hope; instead she convinces herself it’s because they could only get pot marigolds instead of the big Mexican marigolds.

Catrina runs away, getting into random metro before Elena can get to her; it’s night and the trains are more sparse so she ends up alone and scared and very very sad. 

Cue: Hawk Moth. 

TRINA IS AKUMATIZED INTO CEMPASÚCHIL, A VILLAIN NAMED AFTER THE MEXICAN MARIGOLDS PUT ON OFRENDAS WHO LOOKS LIKE A MARIGOLD-THEMED CALAVERA CATRINA  (yes... the skeleton ladies are called Catrinas... and yes... that’s why I named the kid Catrina) WITH THE POWER TO BRING FORTH THE SPIRITS OF DECEASED LOVED ONES BY BLOWING PETALS FROM HER BOUQUET OF MARIGOLDS/WHOOSHING THEM OUT. 

Her tears are marigold petals; when the tears fall any ghosts that have been summoned get glowy orange eyes and do her bidding.

TRINA’S GOAL IS TO FIND ELENA AND HIT HER W THE PETALS SO SHE CAN SEE HER PARENTS.

THE GHOSTS ARE MORE LIKE MEMORIES THAN SOULS THOUGH BECAUSE "it would take a lot more than Hawk Moth to bring back the dead, even if it were just temporary” so THEY ARE EMOTIONALLY NUMBED - WHICH IS WHY THEY’D ALL ACTED AS CEMPASÚCHIL’S MINIONS.

THE GHOSTS CAN RECALL SOME THINGS BUT MOSTLY LIMITED TO THEIR SHARED EXPERIENCES WITH THE PERSON HIT. 

The ladybugs will be present in full because they’re brought about when Tikki is hit & Tikki is a deity that had fused with their souls before (+ Kwagatama stuff)

...

Tikki’s POV: Mari’s out coming back from doing some more designs for Kitty Section. Tikki scolds her for being out so late because it’s dangerous and she’s gonna miss her curfew. Mari is trying to shove stuff into her purse, while holding other stuff, while trying to keep the stuff inside the purse from falling out (while tikki floats and judges but like loving judgment). She’s walking back when Cempasúchil sends a wave of glowing petals her way. Marinette jumps out of the way and manages to dodge it all but her stuff falls. When Cempasúchil is out of sight Mari hurries back to the pile of petals, which are no longer glowing, covering her purse / papers / notes / TIKKI / pencils / phone. Tikki says she’s fine but has a bit of a headache. They hurry after Cempasúchil. Tikki starts to get brief flashes of memories of her past Bugs, but tried to ignore it. When they find Cempasúchil, Mari asks if Tikki’s sure she’s ready to transform. Tikki says yes. “Alright then, Spots On!” Last comment is Tikki getting flooded with the presence of her past Ladybugs, feeling all of their memories from all their lifetimes in a single moment as Marinette transforms. Once inside the earrings, Tikki blacks out ... too much “interference” for her to be consciously present during the fight despite her growing bond with Mari; though she has been fusing much more harmoniously with Marinette recently, this time it feels like she’s being pulled in too many different directions and can’t focus on Marinette. 

Section 2: Akuma Fight

Marinette feels the transformation is different. She can’t feel Tikki’s familiar presence but she can feel power. Her head starts hurting too when she tries to mentally reach out to Tikki so she stops trying. Lucky Charm still works though and she’s stronger/has more energy. 

It’s not a long fight. Though that’s entirely because of Mari. Chat seems distracted... he moves slowly. She has to pull him out of the way a few times and he apologizes for being in a daze. After he basically reaches out for the glowing petals and she has to lasso him back with a yoyo, she snaps and asks if he wants to get hit or something. He admits that he’s tempted... Says he just needs to know... Ladybug asks what it is he needs to know but he won’t meet her eyes.

*** hitch, switch, or ditch? He admits he needs to know if his mo- if someone important to him is dead or not. Ladybug tells him that she can’t have him even more distracted and that if the person did appear it would only be a shadow of them, not the real them. He’d just end up even more emotionally compromised. Also, if the person did die does he really want to learn about it like this?? He basically just stays in the spot for the rest of the fight, looking at the petals with longing. Without needing to be watching out for him, LB finished off the akuma pretty fast cuz she has enhanced energy. 

*** hitch, switch, or ditch? When she casts the cure the ladybugs seem to linger near her, as if confused. They don’t try to fix her cuz she didnt get hurt, but they’re clearly trying to fix something. They keep bumping into each other as they circle about and then finally one lands on her hand and fades into pink light. The others fly off to take care of all the damage from Cempasúchil.

*** hitch, switch, or ditch? For some reason her earrings aren’t beeping after summoning Lucky Charm or after casting the cure? Chat points it out and says that they can hang out for once. Since he didn’t have to use cataclysm and her powers didn’t start the countdown for whatever reason. This just puts Mari on edge cuz she remembers Tikki got hit and is worried something is wrong. 

She hurries back so she can detransform, to Chat’s displeasure cuz “you’re not even out of time though!”, and check on Tikki. 

When she asks Tikki what was up the little kwami shrugs. “It was weird... I got a flash of memories and then I think I slept through the fight? I feel fine now though!” 

*** hitch, switch, or ditch? When Mari tells Tikki about the weird way the ladybugs acted, Tikki says her head doesn’t hurt anymore so maybe that’s what the ladybugs were doing. Clearly the cure must have worked - but she’s still starving.

Marinette laughs and hands her a cookie, giving Tikki a kiss on the forehead and promising her an entire box of macarons when they get back home.

Section 3

Section 4

Section 5:

Section 6: Closing* the Portal

Written in: 3, 4, 5, or 6 parts because @frostymoon11 and I have a lot of thoughts... also depends on whether @ozmav still wants to write for this and, if so, how much. Otherwise it’s how much Frosty and I can undertake on our own. Sectioning it into 6 above but we can combine sections if we wanna have less parts.

Part Titles (with alliteration)

Liars and Lessons // Liars and Legends // Liars and Loopholes

Marigolds and Memories // Mourning and Memories

Partings and Promises // Payback and Promises // Promises and Perseverance // Punishments and Promises // Bonds and Balance 

Revenge and Revelations

Spirits and Stories

Vengeance and Vows

Feel free to edit this post directly.

[i-am-your-dragon]

Its time to meet the King of the dragons: Bio Roark

Human form:

Popsugar

Dragon form:

mywishlist.ru 

Name: Roark

Species: Dragon

Age: over 600 years old

Gender: male

Sexuality: Straight

Looks:  Roark is a 6'0"tall over 600 years old dragon.

In his human form he is a bald muscular man around 50 with wide shoulders, six-pack(Face claim is Bruce Willis) His eyes are bluish green with brown spot in his right eye, his nose is straight, his face masculin and his lips full. He clad his body in suits red, black sometimes grey without a fly or tie. His only jewelries are three massive golden rings with his kingdom sign and a ring with a drop of the a lock of his queen in it a gift to his 500 birthday.

His dragon form has three heads, three personalities, one is calm and polite it has ocean blue eyes, one is wild and rough one eyes dark golden and one is neutral and the leader of both deciding wich head to listen to has green eyes. Kinda like Angel and Devil on shoulder.

Scars: He has many scars from many battles with humans and other enemies. The worst is decorating his back after he was struck by lightning as child thought.

Clothing: Like said above he is wearing mostly suits and casual clothes like button up shirts, shirts and mostly long pants.

Weapons: He fights with one sword a gigantic one because if he fights he fights in his dragon form. Not that his human form is any weaker but he likes to scare his enemies with his gigantic sword and dragon form.

Personality: Roark is a strongwilled fair and calm ruler. He who would do all for his family and folk. He loves children and is popular with the kids on his island. Beside his age he is still a modern man and likes the inventions of humans. Even thought he rarelly leaves his castel to see them for himself because he need to keep an eye on his folk.

Relationships: He only fell in love once with his queen and had two daughters and three sons with her. Sadly the queen and princesses died on the virus who is killing the female dragons.

Thats why he is forced as the young male of his folks including his sons to search for a bride in his case a queen to safe his race.

Likes: -Roark likes fruits he has a weakness for sweet fruits like strawberries.

-He is satisfied when his folk is happy and trys his best to please them.

He loved his queen over all and his daughters and visits their graves every day.

-He likes to go climb the mountains on his island, it keeps his body beside the training with his much younger royal gards healthy.

-He is a romantic deep hidden inside and enjoyed to go on walks under the starlight with his queen or have picnicks under the moonlight.

He loves children and is a protective, strict big teddy bear father.

-Roark loves music and sometimes sings with his folks at little festivals. His voice is and and raspy voice makes the female dragons falling in love with him.

-He prefers baths over showers mostly using them at the evening to relax and think over the day.

Dislikes:

-The king of dragons dislikes lies! Honesty is important for him even if the truth could be rough. He would never lie.

-In many battles he surivived he took lifes but he hates to kill and only does it if there is no other way.

-Roark hates hunters and he knew they are still out there trying to find his folk.

-He dislikes any violence against woman and childrend punishes it mercyless.

-He cant stand it if someeone calls him old king. He does not feel old and always tells them to wait until he is over 1000. He does not planning to die anytime soon.

-Roark hates traitors and knows no mercy for them. Traitors are in his eyes are dragons who hurt humans who didnt started the battle. Killing out of hate who is sadly still living within the hearts of many of his people.

-Hurt one of his children thats how he sees his folk and you will feel his wrath. Mercyless he will hunt you down no mattr where you hide he will find you and take revenge for his child.

Background Story:

Roark was born over 600 years ago by Queen Regina as the youngest son of King Seoras. His older brother Neacal who was born to become king over the kingdom sadly was killed by dragon hunter as Roark turned 2 years. To soon his childhood ended four years later as his father left their kingdom for war. His days where endlessly filled with many lessons and hard training to make a strong king out of him. Only his mother took care of it that he sometimes could be a child and took him out on walks through his kingdom to be closer with the folks and learn from them as well. With eight years old he was almost killed by lighting striking him as he run away from the castle after a fight with his teacher. To his luck and all of his folks, he could be saved but a scar where the lightning hit him was decorating now his back. The young dragon king met his queen Rhiannon as teen when he was sixteen. She was one of the lady’s daughters who where friends with his mother. He just saw her and knew she was it. But she had eyes for another dragon at that time. That didn’t stop Roark to fight for her heart. First he tried to impress her with this title and spoiled her with gifts. But soon he realized the red haired beauty was not touched the slightest by it. Only as he showed her his true wild, kind hearted self he managed to win her over and after his father return he asked for the blessing by his and her parents. Three years later he married her and was pulled in to his first battle. He disappeared for one and a half year missing the birth of his first son prince Alasdair. In the war he lost many of his loyal men. It hardened him and almost filled his whole heart with hate. Only his queen Rhiannon could save him from it by introduccing to him his son Alasdair and only two years later making him the gift of twin boys Keane and Seoras. He soon began to teach them how to read, to fight and climb. His three boys are his pride. Alsadair is more like his mother while the twins come after their father. As the war with the humans became worse the dragons made horrible decision what still haunts Roark until this days. They find out that a human bride who was burn to ashes while giving birth made the dragons become stronger.

But the horrible act made the humans fight back with wizards and witches. Making Roarks father their traitor through mind control spell. His father and he had to fight but it ended as the father broke out of the spell and attacked the hunters. King Seoras found it end through their hands as many dragons.

Arman a dragon who kept his bride alive showed the dragons too late that human and dragon could live in happiness together. This made now King Roark decide to save the rest of his folks by calling one of the first dragons for help through a old wind ritual, after all was said that the soul of a dragon became one of the many colors fo the sky and can be seen carried by the wind. The dragon appeared in his dreams that night and showed him a island made grown on his bones and told him old forgotten words of a spell to hide this island from humans and any other beings. After he woke up in the deepest night he ordered his folk to build ships. He worked side by side with them driven by the hope in a better future for his kind. From over 40 big ships only 34 arrived safely at the island. Where Roark immedatly put on the spell like the old dragon told him letting his kind disappear for the rest of the world. Many, many years later the queen gave birth to his two daughters: Jovia, and Junia. The kingdom was blessed the folk started to grew more and more. But the king didnt liked how they where cut out from the rest of the world and decided to send young brave dragons out from time to time to visit the human world and keep an eye on them. Soon he danced on the weddings of his twins and after them his oldest son finally find his mate. It made the much older dragon King happy to see his family grow and his folk with them. Roark also decided to give festival every year for the many human brides who where killed so horribly by his kind. It was build a statue of the last bride who was killed in such a way and beg their forgiveness with flowers, salty pastery as symbol for the tears and red wine for the blood that flown. Sad songs will be carried through the whole island on this day. Also to remember how they forced the human to give away their beautiful virgins they have a special wedding ritual the dragon man is waiting on the island while the bride with her family is on a ship prepared clad in her white dress traditional jewelry. She is put in to boat to lay down and sing a song. An old song who humans sang to call the dragon in to their village to take away his bride. The bride and her family will sing it and the dragon male will take her with the boat in his dragon from to the island there they will be awaited by the priest. Roarks kingdom was growing through the inventations his spions brought to it and it seemed like he really brought his kind in to the perfect paradise... Sadly a few years ago a horrible virus started to take away the female dragons lifes. His heart broke as his queen and daughters fell to the virus. He himself carried them alone in his dragon form to their family grave to put them to rest beside his mother. Who was one of the first dragon women who fell to this horrible invisible death. As he saw the hate growing inside his young dragon men and his sons hearts, the dragon king decided to send them out in the world to find their happiness and see the human world for themselves. He gave them three months to find a bride or the cure for the virus.

But after almost the end of the third month he grew tired of waiting and decided to visit the human world himself.

To may find some help for his kind and a new queen.

#oc roark #face claim bruce willis #bio still working on it #pics google search