#erik at his core is not a good person. he never knew how to love or be loved

[argisthebulwark]

To be loved is to be changed - skyrim men

Includes: Vilkas, Brynjolf, Miraak, Erik the Slayer, Arnbjorn (all sfw)

Vilkas wouldn't feel himself changing. It was gradual, dozens of tiny shifts in how he saw the world. He wouldn't notice the way his tone softened or that constant buzzing annoyance faded into nothing. He wouldn't see what others could - the way his smiles came easier or the distance he'd maintained from others closing. It would finally hit him one night out of the blue. The Harbinger snoozing on his chest and his fingers combing through their hair, a book propped up in his free hand. The gaggle of new recruits would practically fall through Jorrvaskr's doors in a mess of drunken giggles and slurred words wrecking the hall's silence. Vilkas would shoot them all a warning glare as his hand lowered to cover the Harbinger's ear. They'd fall silent, making a show of tiptoeing down the stairs into their quarters when Vilkas realized what he'd done. There were no insults. He hadn't threatened to shut any of them up for good. That old anger that had been his companion throughout the years was gone, replaced by that gooey feeling the Harbinger always left him with. Their sleepy fingers closing around his arm would make him realize just who was at fault for the way he'd softened since their arrival but he couldn't find it in his heart to be angry.

Brynjolf had never known a sense of self. He was a thief, a right hand man, a pillar of support. He was whatever those around him needed to be. He could be a mentor or a student, a shadow or a distraction. He had learned at a young age that the easiest way to belong was to become what everyone needed most. His new recruit was the first person who made him want to be more. When they laughed at his jokes Brynjolf learned he was funny. When they asked about his past or his future they meant him not his place within the Guild. Brynjolf learned that he liked attention when it came from them. He wanted to be a whole person, someone who could reciprocate the love they showed him. Everything would change when the recruit grabbed him by the face, gaze intense when they stared at him and said those words. They shook Brynjolf to his core and he wanted to laugh them off, to tell them to not be silly and finish their drink but something deep down knew he had to change. "You are worthy of my love." Long after Mercer was taken care of Brynjolf would look back on who he had been - empty, no thoughts for himself, no time for anything other than his Guild. His most important lesson was learning how to set boundaries - "sorry, can't be there today. the wife's meetin' me in Whiterun." "I'll take care of it tomorrow." "I'm heading home for the night."

Miraak gave up on being a person ages ago. He became an enigma, a malevolent force to be reckoned with. No matter how much power he accumulated it was never enough. There was always more - someone stronger to take down, books being written with new knowledge, old gods turning their eyes back toward Tamriel. There was always something more. The Last Dragonborn ruined his carefully crafted world without trying. They brought him to his knees and didn't flinch under his gaze no matter how much hatred he flung at them. He wanted them to be scared and run far away from him, to escape before he ruined everything. He hadn't expected his anger to be met with tenderness, his vitriol countered by their kindness. When their hands stripped away his mask and Miraak was laid bare they didn't flinch. "I love you at your worst and I will love you at your best." The rage fizzled out at their words. Miraak allowed the Dragonborn to change him, to tear down the walls Mora had helped him build around his heart. He remembered how to be tender when the Last Dragonborn offered him their hand. They never faltered. Every change terrified him but he muscled through. He was vulnerable with the Dragonborn but he knew they would never attack. He would dig deep for whatever shred of humanity had survived and find joy in his new mortal life.

Erik would gladly welcome every exciting change in his life. He'd follow the Dragonborn wherever they went, soaking up every bit of wisdom he could - they helped him find a weapon, gifted him armor, showed him the world he'd only dreamed of before their arrival. He could hardly believe how strong he'd become during their time together. During the day he focused on his physical strength - precision with his blade and blocking blows with his shield. Once night fell and they sat in front of a crackling fire Erik would slowly gain an emotional strength he didn't expect. The Dragonborn's unwavering confidence in him wasn't something he'd experienced in Rorikstead. "I'm proud of you." They'd whisper against his shoulder and gods, Erik didn't realize how badly he needed them. His dreams of becoming a hero the bards sang of felt silly after his time out in the real world. When he looked at the Dragonborn he wanted nothing more than to be the person they saw in him. He wanted to become someone who made a difference. When Erik and the Dragonborn returned to Rorikstead after so many months away he wouldn't cower under his father's glare. He'd delight in the Dragonborn's hand in his when they regaled his family with tales of all the places they'd gone together. He was thankful for the boy who had dreamed of being an adventurer, the one who'd led him to the Dragonborn.

Arnbjorn was sure he would never love again. Despite Astrid's final betrayal he couldn't overlook the years of love and dedication they'd shared. He would settle into the new Sanctuary expecting nothing - contracts were all the same, after all. He would hate the way the Listener made him feel. He hated them for the way their smile flustered him and the way their laughter seemed to lighten his heartache for just a moment. He detested the knowing look on their face as if they could see right through his hatred to the truth he'd hidden away. The Listener would never approach him. Arnbjorn was infuriated - why did he want them to approach? He told himself that he wanted to rebuff them, a solid chance to draw a line between them. Yet he couldn't stop himself from leaping at any opportunity to bicker with them. Arnbjorn would start small. He stopped leaving the room when they entered and worked his way up - offering them a drink when they entered the kitchen or holding a door for them. The surprise in their voice would only make the guilt worse. When they returned to the Sanctuary shivering and lips blue from the cold he wouldn't think. Arnbjorn would wrap the Listener in his arms, skin overheated from the beast blood in his veins. He would allow them to curl into his body in search of heat or comfort, heart slamming shamelessly into his ribs with every brush of their hands. It took a long time but he opened himself up to the Listener. He would be shocked by how shamelessly they flirted with him after that first night and how much he liked it. He let them in, learning to live with the fact that his feelings for the Listener didn't invalidate the love he'd held for Astrid. He would become someone capable of loving again.

#skyrim #writing #vilkas #brynjolf #miraak #erik the slayer #arnbjorn

[nocturnalazure]

An answer to Echoweaver

@echoweaver - I thought it best to make a separate post again in reply to your comments but we can continue the discussion via PM after this if you prefer?

Your comments:

I don't really have a better place to post this, since it seems weird to put an essay about your story on my blog. I wanted to follow up on this, since I'm sure it was my reaction the prompted your thinking. I definitely had feels about Erik and Gloria's breakup, and I wasn't coherent about them. Mostly I was feeling defensive of Gloria. The first responses seemed to indicate she'd overreacted, and I don't really think she did.

The core of my thinking was that she told Erik she wanted to be his priority, and he didn't answer her. I'm sure his body language gave her an answer at some level, and we all knew what it would be. But he didn't actually tell her until he was leaving, about to walk into danger and leaving her to process alone. That's very different from Romeo and Jamie, where Romeo brought his disclaimers up front and allowed Jamie to decide what he could live with.

I wish Gloria had made a different decision, but with the way Erik forced the decision on her, I would have broken up with Erik too. And of course, Gloria came not only second in Erik's life, but third, since he's in love with his boss. She also came after Laurie as a person, and she was sensing that. There wasn't a lot of Erik left over for her.

I do still have a lot of trouble with Erik/Laurie. Erik's intense way of defining himself by his role in the mob makes it impossible for me to see a route to them having a healthy relationship -- Laurie is Erik's boss, and Erik has no line between personal and professional. In addition, Laurie is very cerebral, and Erik is not a verbal communicator. Erik seems like he'd be better with someone like Carmen (we all marry our parents??).

As a side issue, I've spent decades dealing with friends and fans who compulsively sexualize male intimacy, and I find it frustrating. I really liked Erik and Laurie as platonic partners, and I still kind of mourn it. I love Anh, and I do hope her arc with Laurie, whatever it is, takes her to a good place.

The end.

My answer:

As an author, I haven’t found the right balance yet between leaving the readers have their own interpretation and giving them a nudge in the direction I want. So two sides compete inside of me: the thrill of seeing my characters dissected and analysed, and the frustration when the results are not what I had hoped for. It brings up all sorts of self-questioning about my writing abilities. Is a good writer one who manages to make their characters as universally relatable as possible? Or is it one who simply sparks some thinking? If I were to judge by all the bad books that I have read and that I still remember to this day… I’d rather go with the former proposition. But at the same time, I can’t deny that it is flattering that someone would take some of their time to think about my characters. So thank you for this, sincerely.

I see Erik as a flawed human being. So basically, just a human being. It wouldn’t have struck me as very realistic for him to discuss beforehand with Gloria everything that his job implied. Sometimes, discussions happen when they have to happen, because that is how it goes in real life too. And yes, in Erik’s case, there is more to it than just the job. Maybe he’s not ready to admit it out loud. Maybe he’s afraid to hurt Gloria even more. Maybe he wants to keep his promise to Laurie to keep it quiet. Anyway, you’re right: no, he wasn’t upfront with her when she asked him to be his priority and he didn’t answer for many different reasons. And obviously, she was right in asking that precisely, because that is the core of the problem between them and why it would never have worked. Gloria tried, thought she could do it, but in the end it meant changing Erik and that is asking for the impossible. And to Erik’s credit, he did try too, so much. He threw himself headlong into that relationship, in a very Erik way, and he wanted so bad to make her happy because from the get-go, he was afraid that he wasn’t good enough for her. All things considered, it doesn’t matter if Gloria ends up second, third or even tenth in Erik’s list of priorities. She would not have been first in any scenario. And to be fair, that is also the case for many real-life couples: your partner comes second after work, the kids, friends, even hobbies,… Sure, that is not healthy but many people live like that. I don’t pretend to depict ideal couples either.

Gloria was surely right in breaking up with Erik, since they have different outlooks on what being in a relationship involves. That being said, she was (still is) in love with him and she hadn’t expected him to choose his work (or Laurie) over her if she issued an ultimatum. Right now, the poor girl is devastated and kicking herself for not leaving the door open. It is too late, unfortunately. Something has switched in Erik’s mind too.

From a long time now, I have shown Erik as being loyal to Laurie as a person. Not necessarily to an organization or what it represents. He even says at some point that he has “faith” in Laurie. This goes beyond simple duty, and yes, personal and professional are intrinsically connected. However, I don’t see Laurie and Erik as having a strictly hierarchical relationship. Erik has a disregard for the rules inherited directly from his father, and even if Laurie did use his authority from time to time to distance himself from Erik, he’s never been able to really keep him away. Erik, by default, just does whatever the fuck he wants to do. And that’s also what Laurie likes so much about him.

I see your point, but I don’t agree: opposites attract. I think it is very interesting, particularly in fiction, to explore how two characters with very different personalities and backgrounds can find common ground and how they can actually enrich each other. I am always cautious of making similar-minded people automatically get together, be it as friends or lovers. In real life, it creates a dangerous cognitive bubble. I love to find out how two outwardly conflicting personalities can interact and ultimately appreciate each other. By the way, Anh and Laurie are far from being completely similar. Their brain functions in much the same way but they are both strongly opinionated and will clash inevitably. We either marry our parents, or the complete opposite of them (as is my case).

Finally, I hear what you’re saying about sexualizing male friendships. It is a bit of a touchy subject. I don’t do that in real life, that’s for sure. But I allow more leeway in fiction because a big part of the fun is to explore different aspects of life, including sexuality. I’m a straight person. That doesn’t mean I’m not genuinely interested in other sexual identities. Love is love after all.

I can only say that I’ve never intended to write a gay romance with Laurie and Erik. It did start out as a true friendship. But their relationship developed as we know, and I don’t regret a thing because to me, they make a lot of sense together. It just seemed that obvious and I felt like I had voluntarily kept them apart because I was scared of what people would think. Now my favorite part of their relationship is that they never question their (bi)sexuality. They just have romantic feelings for each other that they cannot help, and neither of them really care about labelling those feelings (very much like Sam doesn’t want to define how she feels for Ash).

Finally, l I want to say that Laurie and Erik’s relationship and my determination to write it as well as possible have been an opportunity for me to learn a lot more about the LGBTQ+ community. That has certainly enriched me.

#text post #replies

[milady-pink]

Together in Hell

Summary: Raoul has not heard from Christin in many days and enlists the help of the Persian to find her, but what they discover shakes them to their core…

Word Count: 1964 | Graphics: @firefly-graphics

Warnings: Graphic depictions of death/ corpse, another character death, post-mortem

Part 1 Part 2

_______________________________________________________________________________

Raoul will never be able to erase the unsightly scene he had stumbled upon, deep within the bowels of the Opera Populair. Thinking back on the smells and sounds of the place made him sick enough to call the carriage driver to pull over, should he be sick. No, those gruesome sights will always be burned into the backs of his eyelids. And that chill! That deathly chill that makes him want to soak in a steamy bath and never leave his manor again.

Not after what they did to the Persian.

It had been three days and Raoul had heard not a peep from Christine. It would not have worried him so much, knowing she would be locked in her music teacher’s embrace, but she had promised to write to him. It brought a smile to his face, remembering how she had so suddenly and sadly told him that she found within herself, not love for him, but love for her teacher that she had been harboring for the past few weeks. Christine had always been so kind when she let people down, making them feel like they should be the one to apologize: and Raoul was no different. After letting her go to him he had also realized that she was right; they didn’t have much in common after all these years apart. Children can make friends with the most unlikely of people, merely because they are not experienced enough to have interests of their own.

So no, Raoul was not too upset that his once childhood sweetheart had admitted her love for another man. In fact, he was quite happy for her; she was adamant they would remain good friends, determined to salvage what remained of the children in their adulthood. After thinking about it longer he also came to the realization that his parents, mostly his older brother Philippe, would never allow him to marry someone below his class. Especially not a performer.

After going three days without any word from her at all, he began to get nervous for her wellbeing. Though Raoul had never met this infamous maestro, he knew better than to doubt Christine’s judgment when it came to musical matters, and he greatly doubted she would choose to be alone with any man who was less than a gentleman towards her or any other girl. He knew that Christine would be going back to the opera house to search for her maestro, but Raoul didn’t have a last name to go around asking for.

That was how he came upon meeting the Persian.

His name was Nadir Khan, once head of police in his homeland of Persia, working directly for the Shah himself when he came upon Erik. Everyone at the Populair called him the Persian because of how his dark skin stood out among the various olive and alabaster shades that decorated the various performers. Raoul had seen him many times when he visited Christine during rehearsals; the man knew every single person in the opera house, from stagehand to orchestra player.

As of right now Raoul the two men were trying to find their way to Erik’s underground home via his many tunnel systems; all of which had been boobytrapped one way or another. Along the way he told the young viscount how he knew ‘Erik’, and his phantom happenings around the opera, along with how his lessons with Miss Daae the new leading soprano.

“I had been meaning to pay Erik a visit,” he told Raoul as they meandered through the dusty catacombs, “he was seeming to me a little too happy. But now I fear that is no longer the case…”

Raoul was about to ask what he meant before trailing off, only to see the same sight as him. They had just stepped into an open area, consisting of stone walls and a gravel shore that fed into the infamous underground lake. What made the Persian lose his voice wasn’t the freezing air, but the wide open door leading into the house on the water. Both men looked at each other before looking back at the door. Raoul had started to move towards the door, only for his arm to be pulled back by his companion.

“We must enter with caution,” the dark skinned man warned the viscount, “we’ve no idea what lies inside there.”

Raoul answered the grave man’s face with his own reply of, “Of course we know what's in there, Christine and her teacher; two people just like you and me.”

The Persian tried to tell the viscount about Erik’s many habits of safekeeping his privacy, including the various traps they nearly avoided on the way down here, and that leaving his front door wide open was more than just odd; it could mean a dangerous intruder had entered and might still remain. Unfortunately Raoul didn’t pay attention to a word of it, too focused was he on the bizarre noises he thought was coming from inside the home.

With great trepidation, the Persian entered the lavishly decorated home, Raoul following close behind. Neither man had a weapon on them, but with a little creativity they both figured a coat rack or candlestick could be easily remedied. Thankfully they didn’t need to use either.

Unfortunately, they would have been no use against what was waiting for them.

The once beautifully decorated Louis-Philippe room, with its extravagant decorations and priceless artifacts collected from years of traveling the deserted world alone, lay in complete ruins. The Persian, no stranger to Erik’s anger nor the proceeding mess it usually leaves behind, tried to put together what may have happened and assess the danger of an imminent threat. Raoul merely looked on in awe of the destruction and chaos the once luxurious room was left in, and if his dear friend had been caught in the crossfires. He was struck from his reverie at the sound of the Persian’s accented voice.

“We should search the rest of the home for any signs of life—“

He never finished the thought, for a low groaning sound coming from the adjoining hallway had interrupted any speech. They looked at each other with the same question swimming in their eyes,

‘What was that?’

All too soon they found the answer.

Slowly, as if dragging the weight of a thousand men, walked in Erik. In no healthy condition was he; his suit was torn and frayed at the ends of his sleeves and pants, his hair sticking up in every direction like he was just awakened from a very long sleep. And his face. Gray skin with blemishes and bruises galore, taking on the appearance of a gargoyle came to life, the most colour on his person was around his mouth; a dark red, blood perhaps, long since dried. His stance was somewhat lopsided, his extreme height forcing his body to fold in on itself with the weight of his torso and lack of muscle in his back. The stench! That awful smell of rotted meat and mildew that only misted the air now assaulted their noses in full force, they both had to raise their hands to cover their senses. Raoul had somewhat prepared himself for seeing the strange phantom without his mask, but he doubted any man would have looked inviting given he too plagued the same sickness that the secret teacher possessed.

The being once known as Erik surprised both Raoul and the Persian by not dragging himself after them, but instead letting out another low groan, a bit different in pitch. Not wanting to alert the creature to their presence too much, Raoul tilted his head towards his companion and asked in a hushed whisper only he would hear.

“Where is Christine?”

But the question would be asked in vain, for on came shuffling into the sitting room was a woman, most likely after being called out by her beloved. Raoul could not believe his eyes, nor the few tears that sprung to them. His childhood friend, once thought future wife, was now nothing more than a husk of a being, dead and yet still alive. He knew from his talks on the journey down here that the former police chief was feeling similar emotions looking at his former friend. A large bite fit nastily into her delicate shoulder, accented with dried blood that once upon a time dripped onto her dress, the sleeves slipping off. The colour of her skin matched the light bluish-greens of the outside body of water, angry veins protruding from her body and face. There was no resemblance, no similarities to the people they once knew and cared deeply for before them; merely empty promises of who they knew, never again to smile or laugh the same way they used to. Those two people were lost to time, and Raoul prayed deep within his soul that they were able to find each other beyond the grave.

The standstill between the unusual quartet was broken the moment the Persian dared to speak out. “We must make our departure as quick as possible.”

The happy, and surely hungry, couple trotted towards them with Erik, being the strongest, in the lead. Tripping over her dress Christine was slower but both were incredibly inarticulate with their movements, hell bent on one thing; food. Acting quickly, the Persian grabbed Raoul by the shoulders and pushed him towards the door, their doom rising as the corpses started to gain momentum.

“I will not be long,” he told Raoul, “I always knew Erik would lead to my demise and I fear this is it. You must, for the better hood of this world, barricade the front door and never let another person walk through. Burn the house if you must, but do not let these things escape.”

“You’re not planning on staying here, do you? They’ll eat you alive!”

“My young man,” continued the dark skinned man, “you have a much longer life ahead of you filled with love and children. I will not allow one such as yourself to sacrifice for an old man like myself. All I ask, in addition to destroying this home, is that you remember the name ‘Nadir Kahn’.” They reached the door, the Persian pushing Raoul through the door, turning back to face the monsters in their home. Before he committed his last act of bravery, he looked back at the viscount to say, “I wish you good health.”

At full speed, hoping to knock them down and give the young man more time to escape, the Persian ran towards the couple, arms wide open. He greeted them halfway, wrapping his arms around each of their necks, effectively molding them to his sturdy body. Unfortunately, his muscular size was the perfect remedy for the couple’s yearning hunger. Unable to look away, Raoul watched in horror as both the maestro and student took bites out of the man, chunks of flesh flying out of their mouths, blood dribbling down their necks. The Persin, Nadir, screamed out in great agony, Raoul’s ears were left ringing from the sound.

Finally coming to his senses after feeding his deep morbid curiosity, Raoul slammed the door and began to barricade it from the outside with the biggest rocks the gravel beach had to offer. After twenty or so minutes, he felt confident that they wouldn’t be able to escape. Still fear stricken and shaking, he stepped into the boat left there by Christine and began to carry himself out of the opera bowels, finding it ended near the Rue Scribe entrance, and quickly called himself a cab to get home.

Never again would he sleep alone, always those yellow eyes and bloody mouths would greet him at night, just like they did Nadir Khan.

#phantom of the opera #christine daae #raoul de chagny #erik destler #musical fanfic #halloween #erik x christine #inktober #andrew lloyd webber #zombies #the persian #nadir khan #death

[psych333assignment1703782]

The Eriksonian Question: What stage do Taras core issues lie in?

Erik Erikson created a theory of 8 stages; each of these stages represent a specific conflict or crisis which the individual must navigate. It is important to note right away, however, that this theory is often criticised due to the idea that individuals may face the challenges of each stage at different points in life - these may not be the points that Erikson has created within his theory. I think this is necessary to state beforehand, because this is very much the case for Tara. 

‘On one such morning, as I sat at the counter watching Grandma pour a bowl of cornflakes, she said, “How would you like to go to school?”

“I wouldn’t like it,” I said.

“How do you know,” she barked. “You ain’t never tried it.”

- Tara, responding to her Grandmother’s request to take her to school (page 16)

Eriksons second stage is that of autonomy versus shame and doubt, where the individual  begins to question who is in charge, navigating their need to obey their authority figures with their desire to control their own lives. Erikson says this stage occurs when the individual is 3-4 years old. However, Tara navigates these issues way past these years, namely when she is past childhood and in her young teenage years. Prior to this, Tara is actually quite obedient to her authority figures and absorbs information like a sponge. 

'The seed of curiosity had been planted; it needed nothing more than time and boredom to grow. Sometimes, when I was stripping copper from a radiator or throwing the five hundredth chunk of steel into the bin, I’d find myself imagining the classrooms where Tyler was spending his days. My interest grew more acute with every deadening hour in the junkyard, until one day I had a bizarre thought: that I should enroll in the public school.’

- Tara’s growing intellectual curiousity (page 83)

During this stage, Tara feels lots of internal conflict. On one hand, her family is in charge, and wishes for her to follow their traditional lifestyle, devoid of education and interference from the outside world. On the other hand, Tara’s curious and adventurous personality means she wants to see the unseen, and explore what she has yet to discover. While Tara finds comfort in the environment her obedience would give her, she also wants control of her own life. These two desires cannot strike a balance, with how much they conflict with each other.

' …but sometimes I wondered if perhaps school was less evil than Dad thought, because Tyler was the least evil person I knew, and he loved school—loved it more, it seemed, than he loved us'.

- Taras reflection on her upbringing and views on education (page 83)

'I was fifteen and I felt it…I wished it would stop, but it seemed my body was no longer mine. It belonged to itself now, and cared not at all how I felt about these strange alterations, about whether I wanted to stop being a child, and become something else.'

- Taras developing desires and goals (page 147)

Another example of this instance is the following stage, which is initiative versus guilt. Tara undergoes this stage exactly as it’s stated - she fantasises about life as an adult and begins to develop her own sense of right and wrong which is different from simply listening to what her parents tell her. Erikson claims this happens during 3-6 years of life, however, while this happens for Tara in her teenage years. There is a clear pattern here: Tara is going through the stages of Erikson’s theory as they’re stated, but they are delayed for her. This could be due to her familys overbearing methods of raising her, which delayed her proper growth and development. Regardless, Eriksons theory does a good job of describing how she interacts with the different conflicts she faces in her life - the only distinction is that they don’t occur when he states they do.

[fantomal]

erik is, quite honestly, at his core, a DICK,

#he harassed an entire opera house just because he felt like it #it was one of the few ways he could easily amass any power/stature but i digress #he tricked and manipulated christine into thinking he was her angel of music #he's. a dick. he's a dick #oh and he killed THREE PEOPLE #four if you count the lady in the book which i integrate into my portrayal #all because they got in his way/were disrupting his vision #he's a dick. a big big dick. i hate him #doesn't mean he doesn't have a heart/feelings/etc but jesus. christ. #you could have gone about this SO DIFFERENTLY #and THIS IS WHAT YOU DID #meta . #a tiny one but one nontheless #erik at his core is not a good person. he never knew how to love or be loved #so he tried to get love in ways that are Bad

[noctumbra]

❝tension❞

summary ─ “tell me you want it,” he murmured against the soft material of your panties. “tell me you want it,” he repeated, “otherwise i’m just gonna stop and pretend that this never happened.”

pairing ─ ceo!bucky barnes x secretary!reader

warnings ─ smut, +18, office sex, power dynamic, sir kink, choking, oral sex

a/n ─ soooo i have no words but this is l o n g sjkfhggjf hope you like it! please leave a comment if you do! thank you <33

KINKTOBER DAY SEVEN: ceo!bucky + secretary!reader + office sex + power dynamic

You knew that your boss shouldn’t have been looking at you like that since day one. You also knew that you shouldn’t have been thinking about your boss like that.

You were working for a Fortune 500 company as the secretary of James Barnes the CEO. The title of your job was stressful enough, and the way your boss looked at you whenever you were alone did not help to ease the stress.

He was always dressed sharp; his tailored suits were usually black, sometimes all black even the shirt, his hair was long but he’d always put it into a cute bun at his nape and he was usually clean shaved though you had seen him with a stubble once or twice. His deep voice was commanding in a soft way whenever he spoke to you: It sounded like he was requesting rather than ordering. You liked that about him.

His eyes, though, they were telling a whole different story.

The stormy grey-blue eyes were carrying a little amount of innocence kind of spark in them while they were actually filled with mischief. He’d know that you were making excuses and lying about them whenever he wanted to go over the files after hours with one look. When he realized that you were lying, his eyes would get dark and the mischief part in them would increase.

Sometimes you couldn’t help but wonder: What if he really wanted to go over the files? What if this is not something to get you alone with, but work purposes only thing? What if one day he’d fire you because of this? You have lost so many sleeps thinking about it. You knew that you’d have to say yes at one point because you were running out of excuses.

Sighing, you grabbed the file you just fixed with the latest updates on numbers and rose from your seat. You were about to clock out, only ten minutes left, but you had a feeling that tonight was going be long somehow. You frowned slightly as you knocked on his door. You wished that he wouldn’t ask for you to stay after hours because you knew you couldn’t say no this time.

“Come in!” His muffled voice reached you, and you opened the door. James smiled at you all wide and cheerfully. “Ah, the face I needed to see to feel happy at the end of my stressful day,” he joked, his smile getting wider when he noticed you were shying away from him. “Yes, Y/N?”

“These are the latest numbers, sir, and I need your sign on them,” you murmured as you walked around his desk and placed the file in front of him, showing the numbers and their update date. James hummed. His eyes were skimming over the numbers with knowledge. He must have liked the latest news, he hummed again but this time approvingly. He grabbed his pen and started to sign the papers you showed him one by one.

“Would you mind staying in tonight? Rogers and Romanoff are having a meeting about the Asia situation, and I want you there,” he murmured, eyes still on the papers. You cursed to yourself, but you were happy that you wouldn’t be alone with him.

“Of course,” you agreed, watching a beautiful smile spread on his lips. “I can stay.” James nodded, signing off the last paper, he looked at you.

“Can you order some food? Whatever you like, doesn’t matter, and we’ll join them after,” he said, eyes sparkling. You nodded. “Not Chinese, though. I don’t think I can eat something Asia related until we fix this problem.” You chuckled.

“That’s fair,” you murmured, smiling. “Pizza, sir?” James hummed loudly, approving.

“Ask for mozzarella sticks, too?”

“You got it,” you agreed easily as you put the file back together. “I’ll let you know when it comes.” James nodded, playing with his tie until it came loose. You saw him place his tie on his desk before popping off the first few buttons of his shirt. Salivating, you quickly turned your head away from his direction.

You left his room, calling your favorite pizza place and asked for three large pizzas and mozzarella sticks. While you were waiting for your order to arrive, you decided to fix your desk a little. It was messy and you didn’t like it when your desk was messy. Hands moving fast over the papers, you put them in their files, fixed your notes and logged off your computer. You were just finished tidying up, your order arrived.

“Shoulda known that it was you ordering this mess,” your usual delivery guy, Erik, chuckled warmly. You winked at him. Paying for the food with the company’s card, you thanked Erik and let James know that the food had arrived.

“Bring it to my office,” he said, “I have an empty, big desk that we can eat on.” You agreed, making your way to his room again.

James was a funny man outside of work, you had decided on this long before. He was also kind of guy that was nice to have around. The conversation flew very easy with him since you have a lot in common. It was also nice to have dinner with him like this; you were laughing into your mozzarella stick because he was telling you a story from his childhood that included Mr. Rogers and James being chased by his mother because he was being naughty.

“’m not kiddin’ when I say Ma fried my ass after that stunt,” he grumbled in his pizza slice and rolled his eyes. “Stevie got away with it, of course, since he was a sickly little thing.” He rolled his eyes one more time. Your giggle turned into a full laughter and you just couldn’t stop yourself.

“It’s really hard to imagine you like that, sir,” you chuckled. “Held by the ear and being chased around by your mother? Impossible.” James snorted and laughed.

“Well, I was quite the naughty boy when I was little so,” he shrugged, his sparkling dark eyes found yours as he emphasized the word ‘naughty’. You swallowed your bite, taking a sip from your drink, and just smiled. He took a big bite from his slice, smearing tomato sauce all over his chin and the tip of his nose. Grabbing a tissue, you leaned forward to wipe it instinctively.

“You have a little─” Without letting him answer you, or stop you, you wiped the sauce.

You didn’t realize how much you leaned into his personal space, though. Not until he took a hold of your wrist, pulling you in just a bit more. You held your breath when you were nose-to-nose with him, his lips hovering over yours and his breath fanning over them lightly. “Sir, I─”

He slammed his lips over yours, stealing what was left from your breath and your words. His lips were softer than you expected. The way he was kissing you was making you feel things that no other men had made you feel, and maybe that was the reason why you didn’t push him away. Instead, you lifted your skirt up to your thighs and slid onto his lap.

Humming approvingly, James leaned back on his office chair and grabbed your hips lightly. He wanted to kiss you like this for so long. He was having a hard time believing that it was happening right now. Though, he knew that he probably wouldn’t get any other chance to kiss you like this, so he put every single trick he had in his kiss.

You moaned quietly as his hands tightened over your hips, squeezing, and pulled you against him even more. You wrapped your arms around his neck. Your hands were splayed over his broad and muscled back. James grunted into the kiss and let his tongue lick along your bottom lip. You gasped, and he took this as an invitation. Your tongues meeting in the halfway, both of you moaned loudly. Your hips were moving over his slowly, unaware that you were moving them until James groaned and made your grind harder.

“Oh─” You gasped again, and suddenly the scene before you changed.

With one move, you were onto the empty side of the desk that you were eating on. James was looming in front of you; hands roaming your bare legs, skimming over your satin shirt and winding themselves into your neatly made hair, messing it up. His fingers were quick to unbutton your shirt and diving under your bra.

“Fuck, darlin’,” James moaned as he cupped your breasts. “So good, so soft, mmm.” You felt your face heating up, you whimpered slightly. He kissed the valley of your breasts softly, then started to trail kisses to your aching core. “Tell me you want it,” he murmured against the soft material of your panties. “Tell me you want it,” he repeated, “Otherwise I’m just gonna stop and pretend that this never happened.”

Swallowing, your lips parted slightly. You were so wet, you could feel yourself dampening your panties. Your nipples were aching because of how horny you were. You didn’t want him to stop. You’ve been fantasizing about this for so long.

“I want it,” you whispered, pulling on his shirt a bit. “I want this so bad.” James flashed you a dark, predator kind of look and made you shiver under his gaze. He fell onto his knees between your legs and pulled your panties off you. Kissing your ankles, James trailed his way to your wet folds with kisses. You moaned lightly, loving the sensation of his lips on your skin.

James kissed your inner thighs and nudged your clit with his nose playfully. Without letting you beg, or whimper, his mouth closed around your clit and sucked it hard. You screamed. Your hands flew and found his hair. You pulled onto them hard when James continued to suck your clit in his mouth, he’d lap at your folds with his tongue every once in a while.

“Fuck,” you moaned, “Sir, fuck, sir!” James hummed. He loved the way you called him ‘sir’ all the time, but hearing you desperate and moaning under him and calling him ‘sir’? He was in fucking heaven.

Continuing to hum, James slid two of his fingers inside your wet pussy. You were literally dripping into his palm, and James felt like he was going crazy a little. He moaned, vibrations making your stomach flutter and warning you that you were already so close to coming.

“Mmm,” James moaned again, “You’re close…” He kissed your clit and licked a flat line from bottom to top, flicking the tip of his tongue over your clit. You gasped, hips bucking against him softly, you nodded. “Come, sugar. Lemme taste you, c’mon.”

Closing his lips around your clit again, James started to move his fingers in and out of your faster. You moaned, writhed under him and fisted his hair. You were moving your hips, practically riding his face, and he was on his knees, just taking it. You gasped at the thought.

“Oh, fuck!” You moaned loudly. “James! Shit─” You came around his fingers. Your walls clenching around those deliciously thick and long fingers, clit throbbing in his mouth. James kept at it until you calmed down from your orgasm, and only stopped after you pushed his head away a bit. He stood up. His face was drenched with your come; his chin was shiny and his lips were red and swollen. His hair was a mess thanks to your hands messing it up, and his eyes were dark and aroused. Your eyes moved downwards. His bulge was obvious, tenting his trousers, you licked your lips.

James leaned in, lips closing on yours, you tasted yourself and hummed appreciatively. “You? Taste so fucking good, pumpkin,” he murmured against your lips. You felt your face heating up at his words. A soft throbbing made you aware that your pussy was still wet and not tired. You trailed your hand over his bulge, causing him to groan loudly. You let your fingers tease him a bit; squeezing the bulge over the fabric, moving your nails over it softly… James gasped into your mouth, groaned and grunted.

The noises you were pulling out of this man were going to kill, you just fucking knew it.

Your hands found his belt and they were quick to undo it. You unbuttoned his pants, pulling the zipper down and then his pants. The tight black boxers were doing so little to hide his glory. You bit your tongue and ran your nails over the very thin fabric.

“Fuck!” He exclaimed, his hands grabbing your wrists instinctively. His arousal-filled eyes found yours, there was a warning in them, but you didn’t care. “You are being a damn tease, pumpkin.” You smirked.

“Two can play this game, can they not, sir?” You murmured, tilting your head to your side. His eyes narrowed. You knew you were pushing him like this, but you just loved it so much. Loved teasing with him. He flashed you a dark smirk before he grabbed your wrists in one hand and pushed them up.

“They can,” James agreed silently. “So, I’ll play with you.” He kissed your jaw, neck and the valley of your breasts again. “Move those hands from where I put’em, and I’ll never let you come again.” He nibbled on the soft skin of your breasts. “And I’ll make sure that I torture you enough to make up the days that I haven’t.”

“Oh, fuck,” you moaned, not expecting this side of him to this hot. James smirked at you. He pulled your bra off and took a nipple in his mouth while both his hands started to knead them roughly. “Do you have an oral fixation or something?” You moaned out, eyes closed and head thrown back. James bit on your nipple as answer.

Staying silent, he pulled himself out of his boxers and ran his tip along your folds, getting himself wet with your juices. You hummed, bucking your hips against his. James quickly slapped your thigh, placing a hand on your stomach, he stopped you from moving.

“Stay still,” he ordered. Then, he took his erection in his hand and stroked it a couple times before he slid inside of you in one move. You cried out with the fulfilling sensation of his hard cock inside of your aching pussy. James grunted, refusing to move so that he wouldn’t come before he could really fuck you. He leaned in and took your nipple in his mouth again as a distraction. You groaned throatily. Even though you were sort of mocking with him, you loved his mouth on you.

“Please,” you moaned, “Please, sir, move!” He hummed around your nipple and started to move his hips shallowly. His cock was hitting every single hidden soft spot in you, and you were loving it. He pulled off of your nipple, letting the abused flesh go. You whimpered softly. Your clit was throbbing so much─

James stood straight between your legs; he must have unbuttoned his shirt at some point because he was standing with his muscles on display for you. You moaned at the sight, hands itching to touch those muscles, nails begging you to dig in them. You looked at him all begging, but James just smirked. He knew exactly what you were wanting, but he wasn’t going to give it to you.

His hands grabbed your thighs and spread them a little wider, placing them around his waist after spreading them. Then, his hands started to move up. His hips were still moving, slow but a sensual pace he was keeping. His hands skimmed past your abused breasts and one of them came to a rest around your neck.

“Fuck, yes!” You arched your back, baring your throat for him. James groaned under his breath. Curling his hand around your throat lightly, his pace quickened. So much so that you were moving up about an inch or two with each thrust. Moans and groans and whimpers had mixed each other long ago, you felt that tickling sensation in your belly.

“Sir,” you whimpered. James just hushed you, squeezing your throat a bit tighter. You moaned as your eyes fluttered close. James’ already quick pace became even faster like it was possible, and you felt his balls slapping against your wet skin with each movement of his hips. You arched against his hand, wanting him to squeeze it just bit more tightly. He did, fingers now digging into your flesh roughly.

Feeling your airway crushed slightly, you felt a beautiful buzz in your head. “Please, fas─faster, sir.” Your begging must have worked, James suddenly leaned over your body. Your legs were now folded, nearly touching your chest, and James snapped his hips against your harshly. His thrusts were deep and hard and fast and everything you could have wanted.

“Are you close?” He asked, voice deep and raspy. You nodded, tears were now gathered in your eyes because of the lack of oxygen. You loved it. “Good, ‘m close, too, baby.” Panting against your ear, you felt his hips stutter.

It was after three more thrusts, he suddenly let go of your throat. The sudden oxygen filling your breath, you clenched around him and gasped, coming harder than before. James cursed loudly. His tight balls hitting against your slick skin one last time before his hips came to a halt and he emptied himself in you.

You were floating on the desk. You were basking in the afterglow, dancing in the pleasure he gave it to you. You hummed when you felt his hands stroking your hair and all the accessible skin. You were aware that he was murmuring something, but you were too high up in that sweet cloud of yours, you couldn’t pick the words that fell out of his mouth.

You came back to him four minutes later.

“There ya go,” he whispered, a warm smile playing on his lips. His face was shiny because of the sweat that had gathered on his forehead. His skin was flushed pink and you wanted to kiss him. So you did. James chuckled. “How do you feel, pumpkin?” You shrugged as you smiled at him.

“Good,” you answered. “Very good. Fuzzy. Happy.” James chuckled again, kissing your cheek softly.

“Yeah, you were gone on me for a little while,” he murmured, hands tucking the wet hair strands behind your ear. You just continued to smile at him. James leaned in to place a chaste kiss to your lips, hands still stroking your hair softly.

“Will we forget this?” You asked after you felt a little more like yourself again.

“No one can take this moment away from me, sweetheart. It’s etched into my mind like a brand now,” James responded, serious. You nuzzled against his head when he brought it down to stroke your cheek. “I also would like to keep you if that’s possible.” You chuckled tiredly.

“You’ve been keeping me ever since you’ve hired me,” you said. James smiled widely.

“Good, let’s keep it that way.” James poked your nose with his.

You chuckled again and nodded, tired body melting against his strong embrace as he held you against him tightly. You were happy where you were.

Nothing else mattered from now on.

#bucky barnes x reader #bucky barnes au #bucky barnes angst #bucky barnes fluff #bucky barnes imagines #bucky barnes smut #bucky barnes fanfiction #ceo!bucky #kinktober 2020

[phantomnostalgist]

An Interview with Peter Karrie

From “POTO: The Phantom of the Opera Magazine”, Millennium Edition (2000), published by Carrie Hernandez. (This btw is the greatest Phantom fan publication ever made, and if you ever see it on eBay you should snap it up. I don’t even have my copy because it’s with Paul, who conducted this interview with Peter in 1994.)

Enormous thanks to @panto-of-the-opera for typing this interview up for me!

Peter Karrie, interviewed by Paul Day Clemens: 

Since falling under the spell of “POTO” (the day the Original London Cast album (OLC) became available in the U.S.) I’ve seen many fine –  and a few brilliant – Eriks but only two performers have ever made me feel I was in the actual presence of the Phantom himself. One was Michael Crawford – yes, he really was that special  (and you can forget the OLC which is but the palest shadow of what he was like on stage!) – and the other is Peter Karrie.

Commanding, dangerous, elegant, chivalrous and heart rending with an unparalleled physicality and wealth of detail, Peter not only made the role his own, completely, but by some rare and strange alchemy, somehow managed to make me forget I was watching a performance at all.

Thrilled, hypnotized and deeply moved, it was not until visiting with Peter after the show that the full impact of his transformation hit me. How could this warm, funny, soft-spoken, down-to-earth guy possibly be the same man I was watching on stage not an hour before hand?

Therein lies the difference between craft – albeit of a rare excellence – and true inspiration. Dare I even say greatness?

Yeah, I dare. For Mr. Karrie’s Phantom is simply one of the greatest portrayals by an actor in the musical theatre that I’ve ever had the privilege of experiencing.

I had the great pleasure of interviewing Peter at length in December 1994 in Toronto as he was getting ready for the Far East tour of “POTO” and what follows here are never before published excerpts from the interview. – Paul Clemens

Paul Clemens: Do you find that the role of the Phantom makes enormous demands on your voice, in terms of the wear and tear of doing at night after night? If you had a sore throat, for instance, would you be able to get through the show?

Peter Karrie: Yeah.  You learn I guess. All professional singers in theatre have to cope with colds and sore throats. Otherwise you’ll be forever off ‘cause it’s a breeding ground of germs. And you develop your voice for stamina over a period of time where you’re doing eight shows a week. You have to. You have to survive it.... So, basically, yeah.

You take the angel [scene] for instance where [the Phantom is] absolutely broken. I’ve had very, very bad laryngitis and I’ve sung that and it sounded great! Simply because you’re breaking down in your voice is all kinds of scuffed up and cracky, you can enact it. But the show takes horrendous wear and tear on the body. It really does. You end up playing mind games with the role.

PC: That’s interesting. How so?

PK: Well, it’s such a powerfully written piece for the actual Phantom. You have to portray a person who’s schizoid, psychotic... and it all sounds very grand and technical. But the actual emotion of it can cut only come from the inside. And so you continue fighting with it.

 [Note from Christine posting this in 2021 - Erik isn’t actually schizoid or psychotic (not that either are “bad” things). I know this is pedantic of me to point out, but I pointed it out at the end of Ethan Freeman’s interview from the mid 90s so I’ll point it out here too.]

PC: I imagine you found a core within the character of identification, something you had an understanding of and could feel a great deal of sympathy toward.

PK: Yes. You have to put yourself through the gambit of it. You have to be the Phantom emotionally for that time, and then it comes out quite naturally. You don’t have to think about it.

PC: Do you find, after all the times you played the role – first in London and now in Toronto – that the emotions are still immediate for you?

PK: Oh, yeah. But as I say, there’s wear and tear. When the mind gets tired then you find you get into problems.

PC: How do you keep the role fresh?

PK: There are all types of hand holds all the way along, from the time you start ‘til the time you finish. I guess the majority of it is set in the rehearsal room where you rehearse at a certain level into a certain standard, and it becomes automatic. But each show will always be different because you have a different audience, different weather conditions, you have different musicians playing in the pit, you have different people you’re playing opposite. So you will always get a variation on the theme. And so that, coupled up with what you’ve put together in rehearsal so you get a fairly high standard of performance every night, merges together. And so you do get a different show every night. But, as I say, it’s a very wearing role. More so than Jean Valjean, where you’re virtually on stage for three and a half hours. But I find the Phantom far more draining.

PC: I can imagine. Whenever you’re on stage you’re at peak intensity and you run the emotional gamut. So that, combined with the vocal demands, must make for one walloping experience.

PK: Exactly.... That, coupled with the exposure. You’re so exposed on stage. Whenever the Phantom does appear, it’s either him on his own, or it’s him with Christine, and something powerful and moving is happening. He doesn’t appear with the chorus – barring the “Masquerade.”

PC: For that reason, a number of the actors who have played the role have complained about a sense of loneliness and isolation. I wondered if you felt that way about it?

 PK: No, I haven’t felt that. But I’ve always mingled with the rest of the cast and crew. I can’t abide all this keeping the door shut. So we open the door and play rock and roll music.

PC: Do you ever feel hampered by all the makeup involved?

PK: You get used to it. Totally. In fact, there are times when you forgotten you’ve got the mask on in the wig lady has to ask you for it. And you think ‘What? I’ve already given it to you!’

PC: That’s right – you wouldn’t be able to feel it, would you? Because it’s actually touching the appliances rather than your face.

PK: You feel it slightly. You know, if you first put it on you’d know it’s there. But after a while... But the wire band ‘round the head lets you know it’s there! And the edge of it catches you sometimes. But no – it becomes part of you. And as for the lip which is built up top and bottom ‘round your mouth, you get used to that as well.

PC: Has it ever come loose during a performance?

PK: Oh, God yeah! We’ve had some great moments where it’s been hanging off. That’s a bit gross. And the bald cap’s come loose in the back, so you do the Second Lair with one hand ‘rounds the back of your head holding your bald cap in place? [laughs] Yeah, you’ve got some good moments.

PC: How did you find the voice which is so distinctive?

PK: Well, that, once again came from the feeling inside. It was like once you had all that stuff on, and I discovered the walk, and kind of latched onto his intention, the voice just followed.

PC: Your interpretation of the line “You try my patience“ is unforgettable. So chilling. I was wondering how that evolved.

PK: Well, I felt that was the climax of the man. That, literally, for me, is where he turns ‘round and he’s at the actual peak of his hate, his frustration. I knew I had to find something which made that moment special. It was set to be special by the music and the way it was directed. That was the key to the man.

PC: It’s as if your voice came from some deep well – as if it bubbled up from some deep, dark place.

PK: That’s right! That’s exactly how I felt it. And then when Christine kisses him it’s like he can’t believe it. “I’ve won!” That euphoric feeling... “She can suffer this face! I think I’ve got her! I think, yes, she does love me!” And then, as he reaches out to touch her... a moment.... He’s taken in the scene of Raoul hanging as he went back to her... and then, all of a sudden, it struck a chord.... “Hang on....” And then the realization hits him: “She’s just doing it for him. She’s literally giving me her self to save him. She loves him... She can never love me the same as she loves him.” And it’s all a kind of mental game there. And you’ve only got split seconds to get the audience in on it, so he has to be kind of demonstrative in his actions.

PC: After the kiss, there was a moment where you sort of winced, pulling away from her twice like a wounded animal, your right arm almost becoming spastic... there were so many levels, all going simultaneously.

PK: He’s coming to terms. All these thoughts are rushing through his head and he’s off balance. Everything has shaken him and he’s lost his façade of “everything-under-control.”

PC: And the body is breaking down.

PK: That’s right. He’s been stripped of everything just by having to face himself – and face the truth. That one clear moment where he realizes this is wrong – this is all wrong – this is not how it should be.

PC: And when the phantom cries “GO NOW AND LEAVE ME!” – you built each word into a series of escalating crescendos which was tremendously effective, I thought. Very powerful.

PK: It’s all the process of him actually coming to terms with himself. It’s as you say – one after another, one after the other – then finally she’s gone and he’s left.... This is after she’s given him the ring and she’s gone... And he looks... and he sees the empty throne. And he knows that’s all his life is.

PC: That’s very moving. Do you ever find that the final words – “It’s over now the Music of the Night” – are difficult to get out with all the emotion you’re experiencing?

PK: I did at the beginning, yeah. Sometimes I used to get caught up in it, which is a dreadfully dangerous thing, ‘cause then everything tightens up and you get the proverbial lump in your throat.

PC: It’s sort of walking a bit of a tight rope, isn’t it?

PK: Yeah! [laughs] That’s right. And then there’s a moment where I can get space to subdue all that and concentrate on doing the last bit. That’s where he’s got the veil in his hand and she’s in the boat comin’ across the back singing with Raoul and I say “Christine I love you” very, very quietly, and very broken, and then I can take some breaths which calm it all down and get myself kind of poised for the last bit. ‘Cause that’s gotta be kind of the statement: “You alone can make my song take flight.” That is the statement of release. It’s like a rhetorical statement – you will always be the music of my life. And therefore I can’t change it.” It’s that feeling he’s got in his body. He bends over backwards. And then the final moment is where he turns around and wipes it clean. And he does it in a far stronger attitude than anything else he does... “It’s over now the Music of the Night.”

PC: I’ve read that you feel he’s starting a new life at that point.

PK: Yes! Yes... When I’m walking to the chair, I let the veil just drop behind, and I think to myself “It’s over. Now what else is there? There must be something else... It’s over.” And you do it with such a final flourish – the cape and everything – you’re back in control of yourself. You’ve had the osmosis. You’ve come out of the one period of your life which actually threatened to ruin you, and you’re now standing on the threshold of another one.

PC: Oh yes. It’s wonderful to hear what’s going through your mind as you’re doing the scene. And the impact of that final scene is tremendous. Do you have a favourite scene in the show?

PK: That would be it.  ‘Cause it’s only six minutes long, that Second Lair. And in that six minutes you literally travel from one end of the emotional spectrum to the other. It’s a whole journey.

  MORE BELOW... Keep reading, it’s a long interview, with plenty more thoughts and content about Phantom, including some really funny classic mishaps.

PC: The show obviously touches a universal cord in many of its audience members, sometimes to the extent that a bracket (sizable) number of people see the show again and again. Men and women openly moved to tears by the play are common sight in Phantom’s audiences. And yet, paradoxically, a substantial number of critics have charged the show with having no heart.

PK: I think they’re being very unkind. There are some Phantoms – just as there are leading men and women in any show – who do not commit themselves quite as much as they should do.

PC: I’ve seen that it does make a difference in the overall impact of the show.

PK: It makes a big difference, yeah. ‘Cause eight times a week to commit yourself to it to it as it should be done is hard work. But once you get used to it and once you get into it you can’t do it any other way. At least I can’t. They said to me many times, like when you’re feeling rough or whatever, “Can you mark it a little bit? You know just take it easy. You don’t have to give one hundred percent.” But you see, it’s not a question of giving that. That’s just the way I do it. If I start altering that, I am altering a lot more than just singing a lift show. You’re altering a thought process which I can’t control. I wish I could mark it. It would be a lot bloody easier! But you can’t. You have to do it as you do it when you do it, and that’s it.

PC: I believe you hold the record for the most injuries sustained by any actor playing the role.

PK: Touch wood it’s never been completely death-defying! [laughs]

PC: Is it true that you asked if you could actually ride the chandelier down to the stage at the end of Act One?

PK: Yes. But I’m afraid the insurance people did not exactly share my enthusiasm for the idea.

PC: The stories about technical mishaps are legion. Can you relate some of the more memorable moments along those lines that you can recall?

PK: Well... there’s been so many of them now. There’re many, many boat stories. And the same thing happen to Colm, has happened to Michael, has happened to ‘em all. The boat has a life of its own. The monkey also has a life of its own. That can be very temperamental... I’ve had some excitement in the Angel, where people have tripped over wires and tipped it up while you’re inside it, and you’re hangin’ on for grim death... I fallen off the proscenium, yeah...

PC: [laughs] you say that so cavalierly.

 PK: [laughing] Cracked a couple of legs and so forth. And the Star-Trap, the same thing. I’ve fallen down that the wrong way... In London one day, the Star-Trap didn’t open at all. So you did the “Your chains are still mine – you will sing for me,” and threw the cape – I always threw the Cape up to make a trail as you go down the Star-Trap. So the trail came down and I hadn’t gone anywhere. In the cloak – they had a bigger cloak for the Masquerade then – and it just piles on top of me. And I couldn’t get it off because you’ve got the mask on. So it ended up with the two managers having to lead me off! [laughing] I mean, here you’ve got this dreadful creature saying [puts on a creepy voice] “Your chains are still mine – you will sing for me!” And then, all of a sudden, the managers are saying [whispers] “Come on! This way, this way!”

PC: [laughs] In one of the U.S. Touring Company performances, the Punjab lasso failed to work, and so Raoul just fell to the floor and lay there writhing as if he were in the grip of some supernatural force.

 PK: [laughs] many times things go wrong with a bloody lasso! One time I was over here in Toronto, Byron Nease [Raoul] all of a sudden acted like an invisible hand had gripped him ‘round the throat – the noose was nowhere, it was on the floor many miles away from him – but he’s going [Karrie makes some strangling sounds] and it was as though he was being thrown—forced backwards! And he got to the grill and his hands came outstretched and he was like held there by and invisible force...

PC: Yes – the “magnetic grill!“

PK: Yeah! And I just looked at him and I started laughing. it was like a three act play to get him to the back of this grill...! But I think the funniest thing is words. The things people say. Quite innovative and inventive. I remember when I was in the wings doing the “seal my fate tonight...” and sometimes your mind wanders. It’s that mind-game I mentioned about concentration. You have to keep focused all the time – blah blah blah. And so I’m saying “seal my fate tonight... I hate to have to cut the prisoner short...” Prisoner short? Prisoner short? And I thought, no, that can’t be right. And I’m thinking that while I continue singing... And the words have gone ‘cause I’m singing “but the ducks warring in...” And I said “ducks warring in??? – By now I’ve turned away from the monitor ‘cause I’m singing on an off-stage mike – and  I’m lookin’ at my dressers. And I’m waving to them as if to say “Tell me the words! What are the words??”  And now I’m singing “Let my destiny ride, ‘cause my music’s afire!” And I sang it as though I’d been singing those words all my life! Loud... And of course I’m falling around. And the conductor – I can see on the monitor – he’s laughing and waving! The baton had gone to hell!!

 PC: [laughing] That’s marvelous!

 PK: But what was the funniest thing what the poor people on stage! ‘Cause you had the managers and everybody else all walking ‘round in this trance – like, floaty, floaty choreography. And all of a sudden, as soon as I got to “ducks warring in” – by all accounts – they as if on cue, turned up stage; all of their backs to the audience! And they all walked to the back of the stage! And they’re all laughing and laughing, ‘cause it got it worse and worse. The more I was singin’ the wrong words the more they were laughing! ...And when I came on for my bows that night, all the course we’re going “Quack, quack!” ...So the next night I got changed I did my sound-check, and all of a sudden there’s a call over the tannoy for a meeting in the greenroom. And I went there, and I thought, well, somebody must be coming down to see us. And all of a sudden, over the gentle hubbub in the greenroom, I could hear on the tannoy my voice doing this “cut the prisoner short, but the ducks warring in...” and everybody started laughing. And then all of a sudden, the company manager showed up and presented me with a cassette – they record every show, you see – and the company had the words printed up and framed, and they presented it to me with the cassette. And that’s how I know the words so well!

PC: I’d love to hear that sometime!

PK: I learned from a very early age that if you’re gonna sing the wrong words, sing them as loud and convincingly as possible. And everyone in the building will think you’re right and everybody else is wrong.

PC: Of course. Because that if they haven’t seen the show before, they’re not going to know.

PK: That’s right. It’s so true, because I had people in that night for that magic moment, and they didn’t know anything was wrong at all.

 PC: [laughs] Be honest with me – are you tired of the music after all this time? For example if you’re in an elevator and you hear a song from Phantom do you just want to scream?

PK: No. I get out of the elevator. You do try to escape from it after doing eight shows a week... A number of times we’ll go into a restaurant ,] my wife Jane and myself, and we’ll sit there. And all of a sudden you’ll hear the music come on – Phantom. And you think, oh God! You don’t want to be reminded of it when you’re out enjoying yourself. But I’m not tired of the music when I’m performing it.

PC: You’re about to take Phantom to Singapore and Hong Kong. I understand that their audiences tend to be rather formal. I believe it is considered disrespectful to make too big a display of appreciation. That will be quite a change for you. How do you think you’re going to handle it?

PK: I did a satellite link up the other day with about forty reporters from the Far East, and the same questions came up then – “How are you going to cope with the way Singaporean and Hong Kong audiences show their appreciation?” And I told him as long as they enjoy the show, I don’t care... It’s quite funny actually, because when I started off working in Britain, I used to do clubs in the Northeast which is the hardest area prefer performer to work in. [laughs] The miners – it’s a big mining area – and they didn’t used to applaud. They threw ashtrays onto the stage.

PC: [laughing] Ashtrays?!

PK: That’s right. You do a Sunday lunchtime and they’d all be sitting reading the Sunday newspapers. You walk onto the stage and there’d just be a sea of newspapers. And at the end of the number, if they liked you they drop one hand onto the table, pick up the ashtray and throw it onto the stage as a mark of respect. Or are they’d just bang the table with one hand two or three times. But still, never, never, did they come out from behind the newspaper. Not unless the performer was of the female variety.

PC: [laughs] Your rock band – Peter and the Wolves – how long did that last?

PK: About four years, I think.

PC: Are there any records available?

PK: I doubt it. What records were made have probably long since been turned into ashtrays!

PC: To be thrown on stage by miners, no doubt! ...Well ,a final question: in Phantom, when you’re up in the Angel, do you ever feel a mad desire to plunge headfirst into the audience?

PK: No. Quite the opposite.

PC: Not a serious question, but I appreciate the answer nonetheless.

PK: The desire to jump off is never further from my mind.

PC: Sometimes I wonder the way you move around up there!

PK: [laughs] It does get a bit hairy up there sometimes! But it depends on which way it swings. If it swings left to right, you’re okay, but if it swings front to back then ya’ got trouble!

PC: This has been a delightful interview, Peter. Thank you.

PK: My pleasure.

-  Paul Clemens

#peter karrie #poto #phantom of the opera #the phantom of the opera #classic phantoms #phantom legends #musicals #musical theater fandom #musical theatre

[pinkoptics]

Would You Catch Me If I Fall?

aka Cherik Fallen Angel fic

Part 2 of Chapter 2

(Previous parts now on Ao3)

Erik is going to do everything he can to make sure Charles is taken care of. Charles saved his life. That’s why. Right… right???

*

“Mr. Olsen, I believe you will do exactly as I’ve asked.”

Mr. Olsen opened his mouth, to protest most likely, but Erik was well practiced in speaking in a way that left no room for interruption. “You will, because you are aware of the exact amount my firm has donated to your hospital this year and every other before it.”

Mr. Olsen was turning an interesting shade of red. It had nothing on Azazel, but the flush beneath his skin was making a concerted effort.

“You are also aware of what it would do to this hospital’s reputation for being at the forefront of mutant medicine if my firm were to very vocally withdraw its support and place it elsewhere, say... Johns Hopkins?”

“Mr. Lehnsherr—“ Still red, but now also sputtering. “You do not have the authority. Shaw would never—“

Erik smiled in such a way that Olsen cut himself off. Erik’s smile, though the word hardly applied, very early in his career had earned him the nickname ‘The Shark.’ Only used when he knew his prey was very much backed into a corner of their own making and it was time for the kill.

“If The Incident were to suddenly appear on social media again, with a narrative much closer to the truth...”

Red became purple. “We have an NDA! You can’t—“

“When information is out it is out, Mr. Olsen. Non-disclosures only hold weight if the parties involved care about the consequences. I could give a fuck. Besides, whether this hospital is guilty or innocent, reputations once ruined are terribly hard to salvage, aren’t they? Once, tried in the court of public opinion...”

“Shaw would— you’d be—“

Erik simply raised an eyebrow.

Olsen was right. Erik didn’t have the authority to stop donations, Shaw would have his job and his ass if he ever went to the public about any of the firm’s cases. Moreover, he would probably lose his license to practice. None of those things mattered however, not because Erik truly didn’t care, but because Olsen only needed to believe he was serious. If Erik couldn’t sense the man’s weaknesses, and couldn’t exploit them, he would hardly have been the best lawyer at his firm (no matter what Emma said to the contrary). The seed of doubt, once planted in a weak mind, was notoriously difficult to weed out.

“Fine,” Olsen ground out. Looking like he was very much sucking on a lemon.

Erik levitated the paperwork he had prepared by its staple. It was accompanied by one of the disgustingly expensive fountain pens the firm utilized to perpetuate its reputation. It hovered in front of the sour countenance and Erik felt the same sense of satisfaction he did after a particularly shrewd cross examination.

Threatening Olsen in this way was beyond overkill.

However, Erik knew of nothing else that would resolve Charles’ situation as swiftly. As Olsen scratched out his signature nearly hard enough to tear paper, Charles’ need for insurance, identity, and anything else he did not have, vanished.

Besides, he’d never liked this man or this hospital, so if he got to have a little fun while getting Charles what he needed, all the better. The faster he could get Charles out of here unscathed the better. He owed him that much, possibly more. There were few people insane enough, selfless enough, to throw themselves in front of a car for a stranger. Erik had made it his life’s work to protect people who couldn’t protect themselves. Charles had more than earned that same protection until he was back to his former self.

T’s crossed and i’s dotted, Erik left Olsen to fume, so he could share the good news with Charles. The words that had been leaping forward died on his lips when he took in the state of Charles’ room.

“. . . Did you rob a florist?”

Charles graced him with a much less hysterical, much more pleasant sounding laugh than he had any time previously.

“Aren’t people just lovely? This one is from the nurse on call, Ben. He has the most adorable little boy. Teething at the moment, which is trying of course, but he’s so precious one can hardly be cross. I’m sure Ben would be happy to show you the photos too. This one is from Dr. Yousef, whom you’ve already met. She detests flowers, personally, as she’s never home consistently enough to care for them properly. This one is from Saima...”

While Charles no longer appeared to be in a state of hysteria, it appeared to be Erik’s turn, and he became suddenly, hysterically deaf. Had he misplaced a day? Or two? More? Was he the one with the head injury?

“Did you— I mean, do you know them?”

Charles cut off his still in-progress monologue about his sudden and inexplicable well-wishers.

“Oh no. We’ve just met. Nancy would like to get coffee when I’m better though. I believe that is a cultural expression of friendship, is it not? Or does coffee equal sex? It’s so hard to keep track of these things as humans rarely say what they truly mean. Why do you lot insist upon speaking in code? A code that changes every generation no less. Regardless, I’ve never had coffee. Given how utterly obsessed with it you all are I’m rather excited to find out what all the fuss is about.”

Erik didn’t know what part of that to address first, if at all.

Ben, Yousef, Saima... who the fuck was Nancy?

Sex?

Never had coffee?

“Oh Erik, I’m sorry. You look so confused again. I forget myself. I would much rather have coffee for the first time with you of course. At that diner you speak so highly of. I believe diners generally serve coffee.”

Erik blinked. Did that mean Charles wanted to be his friend or have sex with him? Or, did never having had coffee actually mean never having had sex? No. Wait. What in the fuck were they talking about?

What came out was, mercifully, “You make friends quickly.” This was something he and Charles certainly didn’t share.

“Do I?” Charles shrugged. “I love people. All people. They’re so fascinating.” Something else he and Charles certainly didn’t share. In his experience, most people were dull or cruel or both. Except Charles. Charles had been the exact opposite of dull or cruel right from the first. Crashing headfirst into Erik, literally and figuratively, and smashing all his expectations of what people did or didn’t do for one another. It might have also been the head injury/amnesia mitigating the dullness, making him say the most ridiculous things that Erik had ever heard and couldn’t even begin to sort out, but Erik didn’t really think so. He read people extremely well and Charles intrigued him. No one intrigued him.

Shoving the friends/coffee/sex equivalency conversation aside, Erik patted his briefcase. “I’ve sorted out everything with hospital administration. You won’t have to worry about insurance, bills... if there’s anything you need, just ask. They will be sure you get it.”

“I won’t ask how you managed it.” Charles’ look became conspiratorial. Almost as if he did know Erik’s methods. There was no way, of course, that he did unless he was a telepath, which Erik had already briefly mused on. “You really needn’t have troubled yourself, though I appreciate it, you, all the same.”

There it was again. The strange gravity his words seemed to possess. Erik flushed, not something he ever did, feeling that appreciation to his core. Charles’ smile deepened and somehow held the same weight as his words. Looking at it was almost too much, like looking straight at the sun, it warmed parts of Erik he hadn’t even realized were cold.

“You can stay with me,” Erik said, apropos of nothing, then flinched, his own words surprising him. It wasn’t the offer he had intended to make. The Firm put people up all the time for various reasons, and Erik had planned to slip Charles in to one of his current cases with no one the wiser. The doctor felt certain it wouldn’t be long until his memory returned, based on her previous experience of such cases.

Charles’ astonishment seemed to match his own. “Erik, that’s too much. You’ve done so much already.”

Erik rubbed at the back of neck, avoiding Charles’ eyes, which were comically, anime-wide. While he hadn’t meant to make the offer, he also found now that he had, he also had no sense of regret. His flat was large, he practically lived at the firm, so it would hardly be an inconvenience and the less he abused his position, the less tracks he had to cover.

He coughed, “There’s always Nancy.” Erik hoped the joke would break the sudden tension. “You could take her up on her ambiguous offer.” Charles laughed. Success.

“Coffee, and whatever else it may suggest, is a far cry from living together. Besides, I don’t even know Nancy.”

“You don’t know me either. You may have unwittingly saved a sociopath the world would be better without.”

Charles shook his head. “Don’t be absurd. You’re a good man, Erik. Better than you know.”

Everything about this was absurd.

“It’s settled then, when they discharge you, you can stay with me until we figure out who you are.”

Charles’ face, which Erik was already beginning to realize was nakedly expressive, came over suddenly unreadable.

“I—“ Charles hesitated, eyes flicking away from Erik to the window. Erik supposed coming to live with any stranger was enough to give anyone pause, especially someone who was as disoriented as Charles must already be. He was about to shift back to his original, much less awkward, plan when Charles’ gaze focused back on him. “All right. Until... until then.”

“Until then,” Erik echoed and they both fell suddenly silent.

He was inviting someone to live with him when he had never lived with anyone besides his mother his entire life. Roommates? Please. Erik had never had to, but would have rather lived in a squalid apartment than have to share a living space with anyone, even when putting himself through the extraordinary expenditure of american law school. Yet, here he was. Here they were. It felt right. Perhaps he had an overabundance of gratitude and quid pro quo to sate. It was the only thing that made any sense in the face of something that made absolutely no sense.

He’d probably regret it the instant Charles was in his space, but he also wasn’t someone who went back on his word, so he was taking in this stray whether he came to regret it or not.

Mama, at least, would approve.

*

Now on Ao3

Thanks for reading!!

#cherik #cherik fanfic #erik lehnsherr #charles xavier #fallen angel fic #pinkoptics fic

[wcnderlnds]

where do broken hearts go / peter maximoff x reader

Pairing: Peter Maximoff x Reader Description: You and Peter used to be inseparable but now he can’t bear to be around you. Warnings: sad peter??? Word Count: 1601 A/N: okay full disclosure i dont usually write angst i’m usually a fluff/humour type of gal but i’m trying to delve into the world of pain so go easy on me. gif is from google bc... lazy.

You never thought you’d be back here but fate had a funny way of rearing it’s ugly head. It had been two years since you’d left Xavier’s School for Gifted Youngsters. It hadn’t been an easy decision but you couldn’t stay there. After everything that had happened with Apocalypse, you realised that wasn’t the life you wanted to live and made a run for it. You wanted a normal life — not one where you could be attacked at any given moment for being different. So, you’d headed back to your family. Thankfully, there was only one person who knew where you lived these days and Charles knew better than to try and convince you to come back. Once your mind was made up, that was it. You were one stubborn person. That didn’t mean it didn’t break your heart to leave because it did. There was so much you’d left behind — your friends, your mentors and, most importantly, Peter Maximoff.

The moment you and Peter had met over ten years ago you’d instantly clicked. Charles had needed yours and Peter’s help with something. That something was breaking out Magneto from a high security prison but you didn’t really like to bring that up much. That was when you and Peter had first met and from that moment on you’d been inseparable. You’d decided to stay at the school to learn to control your abilities while Peter had gone back home but you’d stayed in touch the whole time. There had been so many times when you’d tried to talk him into coming to the school but he wanted to be with his family. Whenever you could, you met up and that had eventually turned into the two of you dating. You’d officially been together for three years when everything changed.

After Peter had showed up at the school and saved you (and everyone else) from the burning building things took a wild turn. Apocalypse had happened. It had shook you to your core. As much as you loved Peter, as much as you loved the people you were surrounded with on a daily basis you couldn’t take the risk of that happening again. So, you’d left. There was no goodbyes because that would’ve been too painful so instead you’d left your favourite silver haired speedster a letter. There had been so many times when Peter had tried to get in contact with you but you ignored him. If you were going to even have the tiniest bit of a normal life then you had to leave everything behind including the love of your life.

Now, here you were stood outside of the doors to the place you’d vowed to never return to. Your abilities had taken a bit of an unexpected turn. You had tried to keep it under control by yourself but when you’d almost accidentally hurt a family member you knew it was time to get some real help. If there were any other place you could’ve gone, you would’ve but only Charles, Erik and everyone at the school could help you.

With a deep, shaky breath, you pushed open the doors to the building you hadn’t seen in a while. Students were rushing around making their way to their next class. It was Hank who spotted you first. Quickly, he dashed over to you pulling you into a bone crushing hug. “(Y/N)!” He exclaimed. “It’s so good to see you! Charles told me we’d be expecting you.”

“Kinda need to breathe here, buddy,” you gasped, patting your friend on the back as he released his hold on you. “It’s good to see you, too. Does… uh, does Peter know I’m here?”

Hank frowned. “Not as far as I know but I think you should talk to him first before anything else. The last thing we all need is for things to be awkward around here.”

A heavy sigh passed your lips. He was right, like always. The last thing you wanted to do was waltz in and make things weird for everyone so you were going to have to be an adult and face Peter no matter how much it was going to hurt. 

After chatting for a little with Hank and a few others — Jean, Scott and Jubilee — you sought out Peter. Nerves were bubbling up inside as you wandered through the corridors hoping to get a glimpse of the speedster. Your palms were sweaty as you rubbed them together, a stress headache slowly but surely making its presence known. Maybe coming back here wasn’t such a good idea. Maybe you should’ve just isolated yourself and gone into hiding. It’d be better than having to do this.

It was then you finally laid eyes on him. He was leaning against the wall, looking at his watch as impatiently as ever. There was a brief pause while you had an internal pep talk with yourself then you made your way to him.

“Peter?” You said meekly.

At the sound of your voice, he looked at you. Before you could even open your mouth to say anything else he was gone.

*****

Since then you’d tried for three days to talk to him but every time he would run off or try to avoid you. Admittedly, it hurt but you knew you didn’t have the right to be hurt. He was acting this way because he was hurt. You deserved it but that didn’t make it any less painful. So, you asked Hank to help you out.

Impatiently, you waited in the danger room. Hands on your hips as you paced up and down in the empty room. The plan was for Hank to ask Peter to come and run through some scenarios with him then once he was in the room Hank was going to lock him in there so he couldn’t escape. At the sound of the door opening, you froze hoping this would work.

“Give me a second. I need to go make sure everyone knows we’ve got the room for a bit.” Hank patted Peter on the shoulder before quickly exiting the room and locking it. Peter hadn’t noticed you yet, a confused look on his face as he noticed the door locking.

“Hank, what the…” He banged on the door.

“He’s not going to let you out,” you said from where you were stood at the other end of the room. Peter spun around to face you.

“I have nothing to say to you,” his tone was brash — something you’d never experienced with him before.

“I know but, Peter, I really need - “ you started with a step closer to him.

“And I really needed you!” He exclaimed throwing his arms in the air with an exasperated sigh. “I broke my leg and needed you but instead I was handed a letter by Hank telling me you were gone. So, I don’t really care what you need. You bailed on me when I needed you the most.”

“I’m so sorry. I’m so, so, sorry,” your eyes began to brim with tears. 

“It’s too late for that. You broke my heart and I don’t think I’ll ever be able to forgive you for that.”

“I was selfish and… I didn’t think. I was thinking about myself and that was wrong. I know that now. I’m sorry for leaving you. It was the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do. I thought about you every single day. I loved you, Pete. I still love you and… I’m just so sorry.”

Tears had freely began to fall down your cheeks. It was taking all of Peter’s will to not close the space between you and wipe them away. No matter how much he was angry at you, he still loved you too but he couldn’t bring himself to get hurt again. 

“Everyone told me I’d forget about you and move on but it’s two years later and here I am still wanting to make you feel better instead of myself,” he looked at the ground. It hurt to look at you especially now that you were crying. “You broke me, (Y/N). I just….” He paused, shaking his head. “I still love you too but… I can’t. The trust is completely gone. I’m not willing to give you my heart again when you were so careless with it the first time.”

“I know,” you sniffed. Your sweater clad hand moved to rub at your eyes but was stopped mid way when Peter grabbed it, lowering it. The pads of his thumbs moved to gently wipe the tears from your cheeks which only made you cry more.

“I need time. I need to learn how to be around you again. I need to learn how to trust you again and then… maybe we can….” He trailed off unable to bring himself to say it. He didn’t need to give himself false hope. By now his forehead was resting against yours, his eyes closed as if it was physically hurting him to say his next words. “But, for now, I need you to leave me alone. Please.”

You nodded, taking a step back to put space back between the two of you as you shouted. “Hank, open the door.”

In mere seconds the door unlocked. With one last look and a sad smile Peter left the room leaving you alone. If there was one thing you knew, it was that you’d do anything to make Peter Maximoff happy again. If space was what he needed then you’d give him it. No matter how long it took — he was worth it.

#peter maximoff x reader #peter maximoff #quicksilver x reader #peter maximoff imagine #quicksilver imagine #fics.

[sebastianshaw]

Because I want wholesomeness and love for you only, you deserve it.

What does Shaw "being there for" Magneto look like? In this scenario of Wanda dying.

You could not erase memories and emotions any more than you could blood ties. Oh, Erik knew that telepaths could do the former, reality warpers the latter. Someone could sneak into your head and make up into down and black into white and you believing that’s how it had always been. It was why he’d had this helmet---or some variant of it---for so long. And he knew there were mutants with powers so vast as to rewrite genetics or time itself. But no one could rewrite the truth. Wanda was his daughter. And right now. . .right now, she was dead. And as impermanent as death seemed to be for everyone else, even himself. . . the dead, for Magneto, stayed dead. Magda. Anya. Wanda. The women of their little family, together in death. Was there some poetry to that? If so, it was a perverse sort, a mocking limerick dedicated to his fail--- “Oh good,” said the last voice he wanted to hear, “You haven’t left yet. I was worried I might not catch you in time.” Shaw. There were mutants that Erik despised more than Shaw, but few---besides Cortez---who disgusted him as much. The man was proof that an X-gene did not an ally make. And while there were enemies that Erik could respect, Charles chief among them, Shaw had no such worthy qualities. He was a bloated parasite, a scavenger forever ready to set upon the spoils of either side, no loyalty or principles beyond the further lining of his pockets. Even the likes of the vile Von Struckers at least had an ideology, but Shaw? He was just a greedy, gaping void. One that Erik had little patience for at the best of times, let alone. . .let alone now. Erik turned, a pre-emptive snarl on his face, like an animal caught in a trap about to lash out at whoever had come upon it. . .and was shocked to see no mocking sneer on Shaw’s own visage, no goading grin, no voracious glee at catching him in a moment of weakness to exploit for some avaricious scheme or another. . .but. . . Was Sebastian Shaw sad?

"I wanted to offer my condolences," Shaw said, his tone. . .respectful. Like one would use at a funeral, much as Erik hated to think of it. He clutched the side of his helmet, as if trying to hold his temple through it.

"How dare you," he uttered.

"Erik?" Shaw started to step forward.

"How dare you?!" Magneto burst out, and Shaw stepped back immediately, as if blown backwards by the force of the other man's grief that permeated his voice like salt does seawater.

"How dare you try me NOW, Shaw?! Have you not a SCRAP of soul inside that hollow shell?!" Pink energy gathered around Magneto's hand, his fingers curled like claws, "How dare you see my daughter's DEATH as an OPPORTUNITY for you to EXPLOIT! You vulture, you ghoul, you---"

Erik stopped. He had never seen Shaw look so. . .bewildered. As paradoxical as the idea was, his confusion seemed genuine. Not that of a man caught in a lie, but a man who didn't understand why he was being accused of one. It gave Magneto pause, just for a moment, to consider the impossible.

That Shaw might be being sincere.

Stranger things had happened. And yet, this alone seemed truly shocking to Erik. However much the world might change, he believed, people never did. That was the core of his conflict with Charles, after all. Charles would argue Erik had changed. Erik would say he had not. He wanted what he had always wanted, and he would do what he always would the achieve it---anything.

Even working with the likes of this scum before him.

Scum that looked so concerned, so---

"You're upset," Shaw said, his voice the verbal equivalent of a man trying to pick his way uncertainly over stepping rocks in a rushing river,

"I. . .understand. I, too, often resort to anger when I am--"

"What could you possibly understand?!" Magneto snapped. He almost WISHED now that Shaw had approached him with a blatant agenda or even just to harass him, because he found this approach far more disconcerting. “How it is to lose someone,” Shaw said, “Especially a child.” He stepped forward once more, and placed a hand on Magneto’s shoulder, staring in Magneto’s brilliant blue eyes with his own deep dark ones. Deep dark ones that, beneath that ape-like brow, truly did look. . . sad. Sincere. Sympathetic, even. Had something gone wrong in Shaw’s resurrection, Magneto wondered. After all, how else could he explain such behavior, such emotion, from such a man as this? And then remembered something. “Shaw,” he said, removing the other man’s mighty paw from his person, “ “Didn’t YOU kill your son?” Shaw paused, shrugged, and said, "Well, not the most RECENT time." The moment ruined, Magneto turn and began to levitate away, ". . . have a good evening, Sebastian."

#shawneto #fic #writing

[dreamingofmilk]

SugarBabe

Word count 2.1k

Summary: What would it be like if Erik was your boss and you were both stuck in a really tough spot.

This is for @marvelmaree and her birthday challenge.

Another email buzzed into your phone, your fingers anxiously twitched around it desperate to answer and solve all your problems. But it was never that easy.

You were a headstrong and independent woman who always strives to take care of yourself without the help of anyone. You didn’t need anyone to take care of you, but the situation you were in right now made you consider otherwise.

You made phone call after phone call and nothing was working and soon you would be flat on your butt with nothing but your dream job to keep you up. But it really didn’t matter because in the end you would get everything figured out and back on your feet.

For right now you’d focus on your boss and helping him shop for his upcoming business trip. You were supposed to meet your boss Erik Stevens in the watch shop about ten minutes ago but you were a bit weighed down with all the bags you were carrying.

You stopped to rest on a bench, you had a few work calls to make anyway. A loud sigh of relief escaping your lips when the weight of the back. You were just catching your breath when you heard a chuckle come from the stand in front of you.

“It’s okay to ask for help. There’s no reason a young lady like you should be carrying all those bags by herself.” The older man smiled kindly at you. You smiled back and quickly got up from the bench, you didn’t have to explain yourself to anyone. Erik offered to join you to pick up his online orders, but you assured him that his time was better spent on the conference call that he wrapped up ten minutes ago, and that the bags wouldn’t be too much for you to handle on your own.

Eventually you make it to the watch shop, and made eye contact with Erik as you entered the shop loudly with all the bags in your petite hands. Erik’s eyes roll over your form, his jaw clenching as he sees the amount of bags in your possession. He quickly marches over to you and snatches the bags from you. Picking them up effortlessly he bends down to whisper in your ear.

“Next time, we go together.” His anger is thick and understandable, you quickly look away from his eyes and nod. Silence seems like the best response at the moment.

You stand behind Erik to watch him pick out another sharp looking watch. It was his obsession, he loved his watches. Sometimes he would send you to go get them cleaned or fixed but most times he’d rather go himself, regardless of how busy he was.

As his personal assistant he demanded you tag along, especially when times were busy like today. Most of the time he liked having you around for the company, but also because he says having a beautiful girl like you on his arm warded off the desperate attempts some women took to shoot their shot.

Erik was a well known CEO of a huge engineering firm, frequently recognized by business magazines and publications, he easily became one of the western world's most sought after bachelors. So it’s no surprise that women recognized him sometimes and approached him when they felt necessary.

Erik held conferences, did interviews, and held charity galas all the time, working for him paid well, and he treated his employees with respect and cherished anyone who worked hard with him. You admired him and truly enjoyed working for such a determined man.

Erik finished up with the clerk and got his items wrapped up. While waiting he watched how you nervously kept checking your phone. The nervous tick of biting your bottom lip was a dead giveaway. After 5 years of working together Erik knew you well. He could tell when things were bothering you, he trusted you to tell him the truth about his company and a lot of the decisions he made. So any look of unease had him on alert as it usually signaled something that could be a problem with the company.

Annnnd he had a bit of a crush on you, he knew you had a crush on him too, but it was quietly determined that the two of you would not pursue it. The mutual attraction was obvious between the two of you, but you worked hard to bury it deep. Mainly because you worked so well together.

Erik grabbed your chin gently, his thumb forcing you to release your bottom lip. You looked up at him with your eyes wide as saucers. The grip on your phone tightened when you noticed Erik lick his lips staring down at you.

“What’s the matter?” Erik nodded towards your phone. You were a bit shook and quickly pulled yourself out of his grip and closed your phone pocketing it and smiling up at your boss.

“Nothing! Are we ready to go?”

Erik’s eyes squinted at you and nodded as he held up his packaged watches. You lead the way out of the store and towards his car. He put the bags in the trunk and you quickly hopped into the passenger seat after he opened it for you. You quietly murmured thank you and pulled out your work phone to see what was next on the agenda for the day.

Erik has a huge business deal coming up that required his travel to Singapore. Normally you’d travel with him for deals as big as this one, but this one was so important that he would be gone for about 2-3 weeks, maybe having to be back and forth a bit longer if everything went really well… or really bad. This trip required a lot of preparation on his part and yours and he left in two days, so it’s imperative that he complete his travel shopping today.

Erik climbs into the driver's seat and pulls off from the curb.

“Okay you have an appointment at Grisham Mall for those suits, then-“ Erik cut you off and held his hand out for your phone.

“Give it to me.” His voice is deep and rough. You go to hand him your work phone confusion etched on your face. “The other one.” His eyes cut towards you. “I’m not playing with you.” Your brain shorts. Stuck between a rock and a hard place, you were used to Erik’s moods and for the most part they turned you on more than anything.

“Why! It’s not that deep Erik.”

“Then give me the fucking phone so I can see what’s got you so nervous. Or you could just tell me.” Erik’s face was serious, he could always tell when you were trying to keep things from him.

You sigh and hand over your phone with the email detailing your eviction from your apartment.

Erik’s face got tighter as he read the email, his jaw clenching and unclenching.

“How did this happen?” He glanced briefly at you.

“I think someone stole my identity.” The words slip from your mouth, you’d been trying to handle it on your own this entire time, but things were worse than you perceived them to be.

He pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed deeply, his frustration clear. "How long has this been going on?"

"About a month." You shrunk a bit under his intense gaze, embarrassed to give him the answer.

"You've been dealing with this for a whole month and didnt say anything?" Erik knew you were headstrong and independent, he just never knew how deep that went.

You shrugged, "I'm handling it. I just need to talk to my leasing office and ask for an extension on rent. It's nothing to worry about."

Erik chuckled, mocking you under his breath. “Nothing to worry about” Erik grabbed your wrist, "The hell it is." He reaches into his back pocket and pulls out a black Amex card.

"Here, pay your rent and everything else with this. I'll get Marcus on the phone and have him figure out who stole your identity." He flicked the card at you like it was a $10 Walmart gift card. You instinctively tried to push it back to him, but thought better of it when you saw the glare on his face. It's best to pick your battles with Erik and now was definitely not a good time to argue with him. He hates when you hide big things from him.

You grabbed the card and gave him a small but genuine smile, the relief and frustration fought for domination on your face. "Thank you so much Erik. I promise I'll pay you back."

"Don't worry about it. It's nothing."

You shook your head vigorously. "Bullshit! I'm paying you back one way or another."

Erik rolled his eyes, but he didn't argue. You made your way to the mall. Erik was on the phone giving Marcus a rundown of your situation so he could get started. The two of you made it to the next mall to pick up the suits. Shortly after he hung up, his phone rang again.

He greeted them with a simple "Erik." You couldn't help but eavesdrop, hey some could say it was part of your job, especially when Erik's face quickly morphed into shock.

"How the hell am I supposed to do that?" He said.

There was a bit more conversation. “Why the hell did no one see this being an issue earlier. I specifically asked what were their core values!!” Erik's face grew more frustrated as it continued before he said a quick goodbye and hung up.

"Is everything ok? Did something go wrong with the Singapore trip?" You waited a few moments before asking.

"That was Jeff. He was able to do the values and moral eval on the owners and it's about what we expected, except for the part where they truly believe a businessman needs to be married and involve his wife in the processes of the business. They like the idea of a family guy basically.” Erik rolled his eyes. “Some bullshit about how there might be another competitor with values that line up more. Jeff's suggesting I need to find a fake wife for the trip to stay in their good graces. How the fuck am I going to find someone suitable in 2 weeks?" Erik pinched the bridge of his nose, his nostrils flaring in frustration.

You immediately started racking your brain sifting through all of the women you knew who could maybe handle the job. It had to be someone who knew their way around a company, even better if they had experience in the types of mergers Erik did. They had to get along with Erik- which was pretty difficult once he got to know them- enough to convince the owners that it was a real marriage. They had to be free during the 2-3 week period he would be in Singapore, and be able to do all of this under short notice. Not to mention all of the other factors like facilitating business meetings, building rapport, etc.

Erik suddenly stopped walking, and you were so deep in thought that you ran into his broad back, almost knocking yourself to the floor.

He quickly wrapped an arm around your waist to steady you, pulling you close to his side. He smelled so damn good!

"That's it! I don't know why I didn't see it sooner!" Erik smiled brightly.

"See what?" You tilted your head in confusion. He smiled softly and moved a few pieces of your hair back into place. "You can be my wife. You know everything about the company, we've been working together for years so we won't have to worry about that. It's perfect!"

The thought of it alone brought a euphoria you've never felt before, which was terrifying. There's no way you'd be able to handle pretending to be Erik's wife! You barely held it together working alongside him these past few years.

You shook your head, "Erik, I'm sure there's someone else who would work better for this. Plus someone is going to have to handle your day to day operations while you're gone."

He smirked, "I'll have Gina take that over, no problem. Besides, weren't you just talking about how you were going to pay me back? Do this for me and I'll consider us even. Think of it as overtime."

Damn, he had a point. You would just have to guard yourself during this trip then. You can't allow yourself to get caught up. He was right though. He's done so much for you, it'd be nice to be able to help him out for once.

You looked into his eyes and nodded.

"Ok. I'll be your wife."

Taglist:

@aislinnsilver @marvelmaree @wawakanda-btch @chaneajoyyy

[diaryofabeautyfiend]

Small Time Witch (28)

The TVA or Time Variance Authority is an organization who monitors time lines and the multi-verse. Since you created a minor disturbance, Mobius was sent to set the timeline back on track. Their methods were harsh yet effective ranging from working for them for several hundred years to erasing you completely using the Retroactive Cannon. Mobius was not here to bring you in. In fact, you have now screwed things up so badly that he was charging you to correct your mistakes.

“I would love a drink. Thank you Y/N. May I call you Y/N?”

“You can start by telling me who you are.”

“Of course.” He drained his glass and set it down. You poured him another. “Mobius M. Mobius. I’m here representing the TVA. We monitor the multi-verse. You have made a mess of things and we want you to fix it.”

“I’m sure I don’t know what you mean.”

He sighed heavily letting his head fall back onto the chair. “Yes, you do. Wife of Loki, witch from Earth here to save her husband from his certain doom. Am I leaving anything out?”

“Nope. Sounds about right. So are you here to arrest me?”

“Arrest you? Heavens no. We want to recruit you. Contract employee. 1099 you at the end of the month for tax purposes. Listen, we love that you’re going after Thanos. You’ll save so many lives except one. Tony Stark. He has to die.”

The floor fell out from under you. The whole purpose of this was to save your friends. You hadn’t even wanted the Avengers to be involved.

“I can’t do that.”

“Here’s the thing, you have to. He has already created civilization destroying weapons. He was supposed to be snapped. Thanos went rogue from the plan.”

“Wait! You sent Thanos?!”

“No. We merely offered him something to kill Stark. Instead, he thought it would be more poetic to let him suffer for five years. And to top it off, he had a child. She’ll continue with his work creating the worst weapon yet. If you take him out now, there will be no Ultron. Sakovia will be safe.”

“But no Vision.”

“Wanda is young. She’ll meet someone else. Good for her though, her brother will still be alive! Good news for everyone. If you succeed, as a thank you, we will restore your husband’s memory. If you refuse, I’ll erase you from existence.”

You couldn’t hurt your friends. You wanted to say no but Mobius M. Mobius was a smooth talker and knew just how to play to your weaknesses. “Tony Stark didn’t have a problem attempting to kill you when he thought you were a threat. Didn’t he poison you? Am I getting that right?”

Your face heated at the memory. You didn’t answer. You both knew he was right. But Tony was also given incomplete and downright false information. “How can I trust what you’re telling me?”

“Have I been wrong about anything else? You don’t have to trust me. In fact, you shouldn’t be so trusting. Thanos already knows what you’re doing. He has spies everywhere. Even on Vanaheim and Asgard. I wouldn’t trust the man who was under Thanos’ thumb just days ago. He’s already betrayed you once. The chamber maid?”

You were heated. Fact was he was right. Loki wasn’t healed from the affects of the stone yet he already knew your plan. Thanos could have still been listening.

“As a sign of good faith, Princess, I present to you the power stone. The Nova Corps is entrusting you with it. You will save Xandar from certain doom. Fun fact, you can expel any of the stones at any time. That should be helpful when you meet with the Ancient One. Be careful with this stone. It bites.”

You cast a protective bubble around you. When you crushed the stone in your palm the pieces crawled under your skin to your core. Once again the light spilled from you holding you in suspension for several minutes then dropping you. You let down the barrier to Mobius clapping. “Three down, three to go. Here’s your plane ticket to Russia. The Maximoff twins already had their brush with the mind stone. You won’t be robbing them of anything. Oh and remember to bring yourself a buddy on Vormir. I’ll be waiting for your call.”

He left a card in the credenza and vanished. You called down to the desk to have more scotch sent up and to extend your stay. You also called up to Heimdall to let him know you do not wish for the princes to disturb you for the next few days.

——————————————————————

Loki awoke the next morning excited to hear of your experience with the reality stone. When he arrived to breakfast you weren’t there. In fact, no one had seen you since you left the previous morning. He didn’t see Thor either. Maybe you had not yet returned.

When Thor came strolling in alone around dinner time Loki was concerned. “Brother, I trust everything went to plan on Midgard.”

“It did! I was able to spend the night with Jane. I should thank your wife for that. Will she be joining us for dinner?”

Now Loki was panicked. “She didn’t return with you?”

“No. She sent Jane and I off. I left her with Erik Selvig and Darcy. She healed him by the way.”

Loki looked away ashamed. His concern for you outweighed his embarrassment. “I haven’t seen her all day.”

“Perhaps she’s still angry over the chamber maid.”

Loki’s face blanched. How on earth did you know about that? “Nothing happened really. Just a flirtation. Who told her?”

“Brother the young lady answered your bedroom door when Y/N went to say goodbye. She is not an idiot. She was able to figure it out.”

Loki was mortified. Old habits truly died hard. You could not blame him. He had only known you to be his wife for a week. You couldn’t really expect him to give up everything. He felt like a fool. You were risking life and limb on his behalf, on behalf of his people and this is how he treats you. A cad and a scoundrel indeed.

He had to see you to apologize. He would throw himself at your feet and vow never again to stray. Beg for you to forgive him. Plead for mercy. And if none of that worked he would buy you something pretty. Though, if he knew anything at all, he would bring you snacks.

Thor called for Heimdall. Unless you cloaked yourself he would be able to find you.

“I know why you are here. The Princess has demanded that she not be disturbed, and I quote, ‘by those two fools’. You see you are the fools.”

Loki sighed in exasperation. “I believe I’ve cracked it. Thank you, Heimdall. Do you know where she is?”

“Yes, your grace.”

Loki closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose, “And where is she?”

“London. At a hotel where she wishes for quiet before she flies to Russia to retrieve another stone.”

“Brother, we should be with her. She already absorbed two stones....”

Heimdall cleared his throat, “Three. She took in the power stone last night.” He stopped speaking for a moment and Loki realized he was listening to you. “Please, Princess. I do not wish to repeat...yes, ma’am. The Princess says, again I quote, ‘I’m stronger than both of you. Leave me alone or it’s over for you bitches when I get back. Also leave Heimdall alone.’ Please forgive, your highnesses.” He twisted the sword and sent Thor and Loki back to Vanaheim.

Loki was furious. Fuck groveling. Loki wanted to march right into your hotel room and demand you apologize. How entirely rude of you to just pop off without a single care for him. And over what? A smack on the bottom of a nameless servant? How actually dare you treat him this way? You won’t see him? He is a prince and your husband. You don’t have the right to refuse his company.

Thor, on the other hand, was terrified. Leave it to Loki to pick a fight with the most powerful witch in the known universe. He thought it best not to antagonize the pissed off witch possessing the power of three infinity stones. He came up with a possible solution. He proposed Valkyrie accompany you to Russia just in case something happened. You were powerful enough to level Midgard. Best have someone who can keep you in check.

At first Valkyrie refused. It wasn’t her job to babysit the princess. When Thor promised she could use Midgardian weapons she was in. Heimdall refused to send her at first. Loki promised you probably wouldn’t kill him. Very reluctantly he complied. Little did Loki know, Hilde was just the girl to make you all better.

——————————————————————

Hilde knocked politely so she would not scare you. You were operating on a hair trigger as of late. She really didn’t want to die. To her surprise, when you saw her in the hall, you began to giggle uncontrollably. “They sent you to bring me back? Idiots.”

“Actually, they asked that I accompany you to Russia. Just in case.”

“Fun! First drinks though.”

After several shots of tequila and one failed margarita attempt, the two of you were pretty sloshed. It had been a really long time since she had this much fun. Equally as long since she allowed anyone to call her Hilde. Only her sisters called her that. You made her laugh with your drunken college stories. When you told her about your emo college boyfriend having a chronic twitch she damn near peed herself.

After polishing off some snacks from room service the two of you collapsed into bed together still giggling. You finally worked up the courage to tell her about your affair.

“You know, in the future, you and I are really close. Like super close.”

“How so?”

“Well I know you have that heart shaped birthmark on your left thigh and when I kiss it it makes you stupid. I also know you like being called daddy in bed.”

She belly laughed at the notion that you two were together. “Does Loki know?!”

“Nope.” You both lost it.

“Norns! Can I be the one who tells him?!”

“Future you asked that I take a picture of his face when he finds out. I’m glad you’ll get to see it in person.”

“Oh hi Prince Loki! In the future I bed your wife.” she mocked.

“Hilde. Would it be weird if I asked you to spoon me? It’s been a while since I shared a bed with someone who actually wants to be around me.” Without hesitation she pulled you close to her body and nuzzled your hair.

The next morning you left for Russia. Normally a whole team would be required to infiltrate a Hydra base. You didn’t really need the back up. Hilde watched your six while you dismantled their security system. You could feel the stone pulling you in its direction. No alarms sounded so you got to the stone and slipped it in your pocket. You heard shuffling from some corner of the room and pulled Hilde closer to you. Wanda’s magic illuminated the darkened room.

“Give back the stone and your friend lives.” Pietro had Hilde by the throat. She had her hand on the hilt of her sword but you singled her to wait.

“Wanda, I know you don’t know me but, in the future, we are great friends. Closer to sisters. I’m not here to hurt you. I’m going to free you. I know a place where you can go.”

“That’s funny. You must not really know my sister.”

“I can prove it, Wanda. Please?”

She was behind you now. When she placed her hands on the side of your temples she showed you your worst fears. All of your friends and family were dead at your feet. Your hands glowed with power. Your skin spattered with their blood. The stones had overpowered you. Where they ended and you began was unclear. You felt yourself sinking but not for long. You regained control and maneuvered to grab her.

You held her with little effort and showed her your friendship. She still didn’t trust you completely but she relaxed some and told Pietro to let Hilde go.

“How did you break free of my magic?”

“Because I’ve practiced with you. Studied your magic. We did it together. I can help you. Please.”

“You can take us out of here?”

“Yes. To a safe place in New York. We don’t have much time. I can take you there right now. No planes. I can open up a portal and we’re all there. What do you say?”

“Pietro? What do you think?”

“Anywhere is better than here.”

“Good. Take my hand.”

You jumped to Charles Xavier’s School for Gifted Youngsters. If there was ever a safe space, it was here. The Professor greeted you all.

“Hello, Y/N. But you are not our Y/N. This much I can tell.”

“Do I look old?”

He laughed, “Nonsense. You look powerful. Come in. All of you. We can have some tea and Wanda and Pietro can show me their talents.”

The twins felt immediately at ease there. Ororo showed them around and helped them get settled. You introduced Hilde to the faculty. She insisted on staying by your side when it was time to take in the next stone.

You went to the medical unit with Jean and the professor. They hooked you up to some electrodes and put you in a padded fire proof space. While you did your thing, they waited far behind a glass.

Just as before the pieces of the jewel cut through your body. Light spills from the open wounds and you fall to the floor writhing in pain. “Don’t let it control you, Y/N. You are stronger than the stone!” The Professor calls out to you. Finally you are calm. All of the monitors attached to you are flashing and ringing. Xavier and Jean come in to examine you. They are extremely concerned. You raise your hand to heal yourself but he stops you.

“Y/N, you understand that every time you take in a stone you are irradiating yourself with gamma rays? You are doing irreversible damage to yourself. There is a reason mortals cannot wield all six of the stones. You have taken in four. I’m not sure you can survive two more.”

“I can. I have to, Professor.”

“Or what, Y/N?” Jean asked.

“Or the time police guys are going to erase me and Tony Stark’s kid will make a weapon capable of destroying planets. Please. I have to finish my mission.”

The Professor and Jean order you to rest for a few days while they figure out how to treat you. You sent Hilde back to Vanaheim to let everyone know you were ok and being cared for. You stayed in the medical ward and the Professor put you into a medically induced coma. He monitored your brain activity to ensure you wouldn’t be a danger to anyone in your unconscious state.

You dreamt in vivid colors. What Wanda put in your head, you couldn’t shake. The stones were possessive of you. They fed off of you draining away all that you were. Eventually you would become the power. Everything seemed to be more alive. Even in suspended animation your muscles ached. They were growing and changing just as every other cell in your body mutated. On the outside you remain unchanged save for your hair color. You kept hearing Mobius’ voice reminding you that you could expel the stones at any time. The stones made you feel bound to them. You would be nothing without them. Wandering around your psyche you fought them for control.

When Hank brought you out of your coma you took a breath and your lungs burned. You coughed and sputtered grabbing at the air for anything to hold. To connect with something. Your vision was too blurry to see who was on the other side of the hand who held yours. Wanda’s soft voice filled your ears, “Open your eyes, Y/N. We’re here.” You nearly jumped out of your skin when you saw Hanks sharp toothed grin.

“There she is.” Hank said softly.

You pulled Wanda closer to you and embraced her. You were unsure if you could trust what you were seeing to be real. You fought a battle for control of your mind, your body, your energy, your perception. Four down and you didn’t know if you had the strength to take the last two.

Once everyone was satisfied with your recovery you asked for a meeting. You explained your journey and what Thanos planned to do. They would support you. For the next stone, you had to go back to Manhattan to meet with the Ancient One. You purposely saved the soul stone for last. You couldn’t comprehend whom you would even sacrifice. It had to be a sacrifice though. Someone you loved. Someone you cherished. You set it aside for now and headed to 177 A Bleeker.

#loki laufeyson #loki x reader #marvel #marvel witches #mcu x reader #loki angst

[masterofmagnetism]

they put me in the ground (but i’m back from the dead)

They took my life but it isn't the end They put me in the ground but I'm back from the dead

Oh, I'm the World Ender baby and I'm coming for you

WHO: Erik Lehnsherr, Scott Summers @firstxman, Jean Grey-Summers @jeaniegreysummers, Bruce Banner @hulkout. Mention of @mistressxfmagnetism  WHERE: Stark Tower’s CRADLE lab. WHEN: February 21, 2021 WHAT: Jean and Scott get Bruce’s help resurrecting Erik. Erik comes back and is Not Happy. WARNINGS: Reference to past major character death, abuse, murder, assorted mental health issues, grief, ptsd. WORDS: 11k

JEAN: Erik crossed a line. No matter how she cried over his body, no matter how empty she felt when he was lowered into that grave (and she felt it, the shift in the earth, felt the ripple of emotion that came from the funeral even as she curled up in the rain under a tree in the park, even as she flicked through annotated poetry anthologies, a German dictionary propped open beside her), she knew they’d made the right decision. The only decision. Because Genosha was meant to be a place of safety, of respite, somewhere to escape from centuries of persecution and war. They’d already declared their strength with the siege. Anything after that was nothing more than malicious.

More than malicious. Genocidal.

Jean tried to tell herself it was the Phoenix. She told herself that if she could wake up in the morning with moon dust on her knees and blood under her nails and not remember any of it, that maybe the same thing was happening to Erik. Maybe he was overcome like she was on that lawn. But Erik didn’t ask for help. Erik didn’t hesitate, didn’t have a moment of outward remorse, didn’t let her into his head to see if there was an instance of it even internally.

Didn’t trust her, at the end of the day, despite his promises, despite his love. Despite everything they’d been to each other for all these years, Jean still wasn’t enough to break through. Her other father made that same mistake, out on that beach all those years ago. He made the same mistake every time he sent children to fight an old friend he wasn’t entirely sure would pull his punches

But that still didn’t give her the right to kill him.

After all, it was Jean who put the Phoenix into him. It was Jean who split the Raft, Jean who helped orchestrate the siege, Jean who encouraged the alliance between Erik and Scott. It was Jean who was fundamental in the unlocking of Lorna’s memories, Jean who indirectly led to the assault on Julio Richter.

Jean at the epicentre, as always, for once a driving force in her own narrative and hating every goddamn minute.

She killed Erik Lehnsherr, and it was the right thing to do, but him staying dead was a decision she couldn’t swallow. Asking the Phoenix for help was impossible. There were forces at play there she could never understand. Science was the only way forward, and there was something there when they exhumed the grave (Lorna would kill her, if this didn’t work. Jean would let her). Erik didn’t feel dead. He didn’t feel gone. He felt like he was … frozen. Waiting.

Stasis. A pause, rather than a full stop.

Jean chewed at the inside of her cheek, arms folded against the white of her lab coat. “We’ve run the preliminary tests more times than I can count,” she said. Scott would recommend, no doubt, that she slept before they tried this -- but she hadn’t slept properly in weeks. She couldn’t, until this was resolved. “We don’t know what frame of mind he might be in when he comes out, so we need to be prepared for anything.” Including killing him again, if necessary. This time, it would be her dealing the final blow. Marriage was all about equality.

SCOTT: When Scott was a child, his father was a retreating back. He always seemed to walk out of the door more often than he walked in it, always seemed happier leaving than staying. Scott remembered carrying a child’s anger in tiny fists, remembered a heart pounding against a ribcage in a way he wasn’t yet familiar with, remembered asking his mother on the days when she felt well enough to leave her bedroom why his father never seemed to want to stay. ’This is supposed to be his home,’ he’d said, ’and people are supposed to want to be home.’ And his mother went quiet, looked down at her hands, tried to think of something to say, some way to explain away anger too big to fit inside a body so small. ’People do things sometimes,’ she told him, ’Not because they want to. Because they have to. Because some things need doing. Your father does important work, Scotty. He does what he has to do.’

He learned to hate that phrase over the years. He does what he has to do. Even after his father died doing what he had to do, even after he took Scott’s mother with him, the phrase lingered. It was one Sinister used in that basement lab, one he hummed as he poked needles into veins and pulled memories from an already fractured mind. It was one Winters sneered when he kicked Scott in the ribs so hard he heard something crack. It was one Erik clung to with missiles pointed at a city full of people Scott loved.

And it was one Scott used when he took off his glasses and painted the whole world red.

Erik wasn’t very different from the rest of the fathers who’d let him down over the years. Scott knew that now. He wasn’t entirely separate from Christopher Summers, from Nathaniel Essex, from Jack Winters. They all clung to the same excuse, all hurt people and offered themselves an easy out in the process. Erik wasn’t very different from them at all. But neither was Scott.

If he voiced the concern to her, Jean would reassure him. Scott was sure of as much. She’d tell him that he’d saved lives doing what he did, remind him that Erik hadn’t offered much of a choice. She’d tell him everything he needed to hear, and she’d make him feel better in the process. That was exactly why Scott hadn’t told her his thoughts aloud. Jean would comfort him, and Scott wasn’t sure he deserved comfort. He wasn’t sure he deserved forgiveness. And redemption, he knew, wasn’t an option at all. You couldn’t be redeemed from a thing like this. Once that blood was on your hands, it stayed there. You could never get it out from beneath your nails.

But… Jean was offering him a chance to come as close to fixing things as was possible. Bringing Erik back sans Phoenix wouldn’t undo the damage that had been done. Scott knew from experience that raising the dead didn’t heal the wounds they’d left behind, but it was something. And god, he couldn’t keep doing nothing. Anything was better than that.

So he was here. In a lab he felt fundamentally uncomfortable in, with a man he hardly knew, planning on doing the impossible for someone he’d killed himself. His palms itched and his chest ached and his eyes were heavy with all the sleep he’d missed since Erik’s death, but he was here. And he hoped that could count for something.

“Can you restrain him, if necessary?” He looked to Jean, nervous energy flittering in his chest. “He may need time to… calm down.” There was every chance he’d be angry, when he came back. Scott certainly had been, and there was a letter in the Bugle to prove it. And Erik…

Erik had always done anger better than anyone.

BRUCE: Assumptions disappointed and killed more people than anything else in the world. When Bruce was young, he thought it was because disappointed weighed you down like boulders tied to your ankles in quicksand, but as the scientist had aged, he found that it wasn’t because the feeling was so heavy - it was because assumptions were akin to hope. Hope spread like a disease: clogged your arteries, confused the mind, and chased happiness down like catfish in a barrel.

Hope, on its own, could save lives. Could bring a dead man back to life under the skilled hands of a mutant and a man who belonged nowhere - could salvage what little tenderness resided in a heart made of stone. And in the very next second, it could slit the wrists of the person wielding it. It starts as a small trickle of blood that eventually bleeds you dry without you knowing, Bruce thought, large hands pulling open a gaudy blue menu, full of numbers and operations that, with hope, man could understand.

Bruce didn’t know the X-Men very well. Knew Logan from the few times they were forced to cross paths in laboratories just like this one, but not much else. Knew what he’d read in the papers and knew how Erik Lehnsherr should probably stay dead.

In his apparent all-mighty knowing (that he’d likely adapted from Tony), he also knew what assumptions did to good people who were just in the wrong place, at the wrong time, doing the wrong things for the right reasons.

While he hadn’t seen Scott and Jean very often, Bruce couldn’t imagine they looked this exhausted all of the time. While hero-ing and saving and destroying often took a toll on your mental and physical health, the look that they carried said ‘I’m pleading for hope, and this is the last place I have left to look.’ Bruce thought, for just a moment as he booted up the core CRADLE systems, that he’d probably worn that look too many times in his life too. Half-naked in the streets of Harlem, showing up in the rain on Tony Stark’s doorstep, visiting his mother’s grave with a clenched fist and flowers she would never get to see, or on the faces of the other monks at the Phuktal monastery in Zanskar when they finally learned of his story, who Bruce Banner really was.

Yet, he continued to hope that somehow things would change. That someone would bandage his wrists and tell him he could stop bleeding for the sins of others - do the right things because they felt right, sleep at night because it was OK if he stopped to rest, eat because it was alright to have something in his stomach other than regret.

People always assumed Bruce Banner was always battling for control, hoped that he wouldn’t let go of himself. Bruce always wondered if tomorrow would finally be the day he wouldn’t wake up again.

Staring down at Erik’s lifeless, bio-illuminated face inside of the CRADLE vault, Bruce wanted Erik to wake up. Whether it was for the right reasons or not, he wanted Erik to wake up. Licking his lips, Bruce gave Scott a somewhat sad smile, brows furrowed, “I think if things get out of control, I’ve got it covered.” We have it covered, his ridiculously sardonic brain reminded him unhelpfully. Even his mind and body were not his own - out of his control.

The stillness within the lab seemed almost clinical, if it weren’t for the fact that they were about to scientifically reconstitute living cells in an organically preserved carcass of someone they all considered a friend. “To be fair to Erik, I’d probably be pretty -“ Happy, “- mad if someone I trusted off’d me too.” The joke fell flat between them, and the chemical hiss of the CRADLE as it began to pre-register every input that he had settled into the machine filled in the silence for him. “I would say ‘ready when you are’ but I’m not sure I’ll ever be ready, so. It’s more ‘ready when you go because I have to be ready,’ haha.”

JEAN: Everything about this was a bad idea. Jean had fought between her head and her heart for as long as she could remember, and right now her stomach was squirming and her mind was screaming at her to stop, to leave well enough alone, to leave because Banner was a master scientist, but he needed their energy levels to make this work. She wrung her hands together as she looked down at the CRADLE and thought about that night, the couple of minutes that changed their lives completely. Erik stood there, argued with them that genocide could be an option. He turned into the very monster he’d been fighting since he was a child, and he saw nothing wrong with it.

Some people may say that was just Magneto. Jean knew better -- she had to know better. If she loved that man as much as she had, if she trusted him, then that meant there was something good in him, something worth protecting. That meant it was the Phoenix that caused him to stand there, thumb hovering over the metaphorical trigger. It was the Phoenix that almost had him killing her friends, her former students, even mutants who still resided on the other side of the bay.

He wasn’t thinking straight. He wasn’t thinking like himself. And when he came back, just as when she came back from Zatanna taking her out on the lawn of her childhood home, he would understand that. He would thank them, for doing what was necessary -- because he was the one who taught her how to do that.

Sentimentality had no place in war, Jean knew that, but she did what she did for him. She wouldn’t have his legacy tarnished by one final decision made in the heat of a cosmic flame.

“I can hold him,” she said. She was confident in that much. There was a reason why she wasn’t taking the risk of using the Phoenix, even if it was a tried and true method. She would stop it from fracturing into him again -- or anyone again -- if she could help it at all. “No,” Jean countered, turning around to Bruce. Softening her voice, she repeated, “No. You’re here as a scientist -- to help. If he’s going to lash out at anyone, it’ll be us.” Me, she thought to herself. If anyone touched a hair on Scott’s head, she’d never forgive herself … and chances were it would go a lot more south than she intended when she was trying to repair bridges.

She touched against the top of the CRADLE, ran her eyes quickly over the calculations flying across the screen. “There’s a reason I asked you, you know,” she said to Bruce. “Because I knew you’d understand it was more than just offing someone who was inconvenient. It was…” Mercy? The word itself seemed like an insult. “I thought of all people,” she continued, “you’d understand why we needed a Plan B.”

It wasn’t a personal secret. It had been broadcast over the TV, radio, newspapers. The self loathing that followed after Banner and the Hulk was comparable to that of Scott and Jean themselves. They’d never had pride in what they were unless they were trained to -- conditioned to. And from what Jean read in Stark’s mind, she knew Banner had contingency plans. The Hulkbuster armor, a series of arrows, certain poisons that would at least slow him down if not kill him if push came to shove.

“Erik didn’t know what she was doing,” Jean said, and her voice was far firmer on account of looking at Scott when she said it than she thought herself capable. “He doesn’t deserve to die for someone else’s mistakes.” A beat passed, a breath taken, and Jean nodded. “Start the process.”

SCOTT: Even without the Phoenix, paranoia ate at Scott’s gut like a disease. He’d never been a trusting man, not after a childhood wracked by grief and betrayal, and after everything that had happened since… Without a little doubt clinging to his fractured mind, he wouldn’t have made it as long as he had. He wouldn’t be alive now if not for his healthy dose of uncertainty.

(But was he alive at all? Did this count as living? He was clay and bone, an inanimate thing Jean had breathed life into, a body the Phoenix had claimed. Was living the proper word for what he was doing, or was it one assigned to him because no one knew any better term? How many times could a dead thing die? Maybe they were about to find out.)

This paranoia made him tense at Banner’s presence, made him uncertain and uneasy, made him shift and tighten at the reminder that the room was not occupied by his family alone. It was Scott, it was Jean, it was the empty shell of the man they had loved and killed, and it was Banner. It was them, and it was an Avenger. And they needed him, Scott knew. They needed him to ensure that this wasn’t a repeat of Jean standing over Scott’s grave on Valentine’s Day, needed an outside influence to ensure they wouldn’t repeat the same mistakes and call it a solution, but Scott was uneasy all the same. .

Banner swore he could handle it if Erik got out of control… but Scott looked to Jean anyways, didn’t relax until she confirmed that she would be able to hold him if she had to. The ease of tension didn’t last long before Banner spoke again and Scott tightened all over, wound tighter than a spring ready to take off. “If you’d rather have let him kill eight million people…” His voice was tight and sharp and unnecessary. It had been a joke, Scott knew, a poorly timed one, perhaps a tasteless one, but still a joke. But Scott Summers wasn’t known for his sense of humor.

(Scott Summers wasn’t known for anything decent at all. He hadn’t been for a long time now, and he was aware that it was a perception that predated the Phoenix’s reign of his body. He’d never been a good person. The things the Phoenix talked him in to doing only cemented a fact everyone else had always already known.)

Glancing to Jean, Scott let his lungs deflate, let the breath that was caught there escape in a quiet sigh. Erik didn’t know what he was doing. She sounded so sure of it, so positive, but… Scott had known what he was doing, with the bird ravaging his mind. He had known every step he took, been aware of every word he said. And maybe he wouldn’t have said them without the firebird insisting they needed to be said, but he would have thought them all the same. Maybe he wouldn’t have written a letter to the Bugle or killed police officers who stood in his way or participated in an insurrection against the government of a country he’d only ever wanted to belong to, but he wasn’t sure he would have thought those things were wrong, either.

It wasn’t entirely fair to say that Erik hadn’t been himself, but Scott wouldn’t argue it, either. He wouldn’t tell Jean that he wasn’t sure the bird absolved Erik of his sins, wouldn’t admit that he didn’t believe it absolved him of his, because doing so would mean saying that Jean wasn’t free of hers, either. And Scott loved her far too much to breathe that sentence to life, even if it might have been true.

“He deserves a second chance,” he said, because he believed that, if nothing else. Erik deserved a second chance because everyone did, because Scott had gotten more than his fair share and this was what he’d done with them, because Erik had suffered so much and worked so hard and he’d deserved a better end than the one Scott gave him. “So let’s give him one.”

BRUCE: It took a lot, for someone like Bruce to keep their comments to themselves. Even with the thought of his father barreling him down with a glass whiskey bottle, Bruce still piped up when it was not his place. He’d watched plenty of curses take the lives of people who didn’t necessarily deserve it - but Bruce knew from personal experience, just like the other people in that room, that Erik knew what he was doing. Likely deserved to pay some sort of penance for his actions. But Bruce also thought, calibrating the machine, that maybe knowing what kind of monster lurked beneath the skin was enough of a punishment in itself.

“I won’t say I understand,” The scientist started, initiating launch sequence, a loud hiss coming from the chamber beside them, hearing an echo of Tony’s voice in his head. Yeah, buddy. I’ll strike you down in cold blood if need be. Tony waving him off a moment later to talk about some sport neither of them gave a damn about. How hard had it been for Jean and Scott to make the decision to put Erik down? “But I get it. How much you want it, I mean.” How much you want the monster to be imaginary, he thought.

The hissing grew louder, echoing off of the metal room within the lab, numbers flying across Bruce’s panel and a loading bar appearing for the sequence duration. The ominous glowing green had Bruce shutting his eyes tightly for a moment, remembering the day the bomb went off. The gamma seeping into every fibre of his being - the excruciating pain he felt the first time Hulk entered his mind. Bruce wondered if maybe a piece of Erik would be missing too, when it was all over. If the Phoenix would gauge a hole in him that nothing could ever fill again.

“Go, Jean.”

ERIK: He’d been fifteen when Shaw had conducted the experiment that changed his life. Strapped to a table in the middle of the man’s lab in Auschwitz, leather strap between his teeth, Erik had been terrified by the manic look in the doctor’s eyes as he readied a syringe. The other doctor had been there, too, the one everyone in the camp knew only as Nosferatu, the one who never had his subjects come back to their bunks. Erik was scared of Shaw, but that one had his adrenaline pounding extra hard, noxious fear making his mind spin as he struggled to watch the two men out of the corner of his eyes.

He hadn’t realized he’d been shaking the metal table beneath him until Shaw turned to him and clicked his tongue, and Erik made a concerted effort to rein his powers back in—from the table, from the needle, from everything, because the last time he’d lost control, Shaw had pinned him down and broken his arm in two places.

Shaw finished his prep work and rolled over to the side of the table, the other man at his shoulder, watching with a detached gaze that made Erik feel like a butterfly pinned to a board. Shaw had brushed his hand through Erik’s hair as if he were trying to calm a spooked horse, shushing him as he readied the needle.

“This is my gift to you, Max,” he’d smiled. ”So you can be like me. Like us.” And then he’d slid the needle into his arm and pressed the plunger, and everything felt like it was on fire. He’d discovered later what the man meant, what ‘gift’ he’d bestowed on him in those labs.

Life. Too much of it. He’d been 93 years old, facing off against his children in the silo, and he’d scarcely looked into his forties. His cells aged slowly the way Shaw’s had, and he’d hated it, hated that the man couldn’t simply be relegated to memory.

When Scott had flipped the visor, Erik had died. But his cells hadn’t quite done the same—had sat in stasis through his burial, through his exhumation, through his settling into the Cradle and the tests that led up to the flood of energy that finally sparked his neurons back to life.

His heart beat once. Twice. His chest heaved as he dragged air into his lungs for the first time since the silo.

They tell you that your life flashes before your eyes when you die. They don’t tell you that it does the same thing when you come back.

Over the years, Erik had carefully constructed mental walls to keep unwanted memories at bay. Charles had once remarked that his mind was one of the most organized he’d ever been in, neatly linear and uncluttered by anything except The Goal and The Plan.

You wouldn’t know it, now.

The first thing he was aware of was that his mind felt empty, somehow, like he was missing a limb. He’d had a cosmic force that devoured worlds tucked in alongside his own consciousness for so long that its absence was jarring. Almost as jarring as the realization that all those walls were so much rubble.

Erik opened his eyes, saw a lab, and those memories of Shaw that should’ve been locked away assaulted him all at once. Terror, not helped by the realization that he was contained.

Get out get out get out get out.

The top of the Cradle slammed open, and Erik sat up, powers already stretching around the room, wrapping around whatever metal was in reach. Natural, unbidden, just reaching, leaving pens and tools hovering in the air above where they’d been resting. Defensive instincts long-honed seizing on anything that could be a weapon before he could even identify the threat.

And then he saw them.

“I love you, but I can’t love this.” Jean’s face, stone cold.

“You’ll be grateful I stopped you, later.” Scott’s fingers, perfectly steady on his glasses.

Betrayal from two of the people he loved and trusted most. ( But he should have expected that, shouldn’t he? Shaw’s voice, warning him that “sentiment will be the death of you if you let it, my boy.” Magda running away, Charles turning on him, sending an army of children after him—He should have known, always, and yet. )

Fury reared its head, as it always did, and Erik felt the beginning brushes of Jean’s mind against his and realized that those walls were gone, too, and no. No, no, no, no no.

<<Get OUT.>>

The sentiment was punctuated by the hovering metal around the room all flying toward the couple at once as Erik hauled himself out of the Cradle.

Jean didn’t even need to interfere, because the second his feet his the floor, a wall of exhaustion slammed into him. The Phoenix had been able to keep him going through almost no sleep for months, but without its energy in his mind, all that time putting off his body’s needs crashed into him at once.

His legs gave out from under him, and the airborne metal hit the floor at the same time he did.

Someone else was at his side, moving to help, and Erik snarled before he even realized who it was. “Don’t touch me.” Banner—it was Banner, and he was safe-ish, wasn’t he? Erik didn’t know if anyone was, couldn’t relax—stopped, hand halfway to his shoulder, and Erik curled his fists and shook his head as he tried to get the flood of memories clamoring for attention to settle.

“Make them leave. Get them out.” He was in no condition to be dealing with them—mind too loud, powers too weak. Maybe once, that wouldn’t have been a problem.

But he didn’t trust either of them. Not. One. Bit.

JEAN: Bruce wasn’t going to forgive them. He could say he understood a part of it, while distancing himself from the darkest aspects of what they had done -- the darkest aspects of the forces they were playing with now. The Phoenix remained silent in the back of her mind, though it was never true silence. That would imply some degree of calm, and Jean hadn’t known what that felt like since … God, since she was ten years old, maybe before. The Phoenix’s absence from this occasion said all it needed to about her stance. She thought Jean should’ve asked her. She thought they could’ve worked together, that Jean would turn to her and beg, that she’d regret what she’d done.

Regret that Erik was dead, perhaps. Regret over the actions she had taken to prevent something worse … not exactly. Charles drummed into her since she was fourteen years old that to be truly useful in this world, you needed to protect the downtrodden. To be truly good, you had to defend those who couldn’t defend themselves, defend those who would never forgive you for making yourself bleed on their behalf. The city of New York had done nothing for Jean Grey but rip her apart and refuse to put her back together again. The people hated her, splashed her husband’s face in graffiti, treated her father like a lunatic in the press.

But that didn’t mean she’d let them die. It was the same principle she extended here, standing over the CRADLE, watching the mechanisms begin to shift. (Did Stark know they were here, she wondered? He trusted Banner, she’d picked up on that much -- but from what she understood of Iron Man, he was a pragmatist. A logistician, at his core. He would say this was a terrible idea. Jean understood where that impression could come from.)

Everyone deserved forgiveness. The Phoenix had hurt, had ripped them apart, made them commit so many atrocities -- but this was the first step in giving a second chance, in piecing together the things Jean had broken.

But, again, that didn’t mean Jean was blindly trusting. Her intelligence wasn’t the first thing people thought of, when they thought of her (and she knew, of course, courtesy of hearing every goddamn ‘compliment’ that went through every person’s head), but it was something that only grew with experience. The CRADLE burst open, and Jean already had protective shields formed around Scott, around Bruce, and a split second later, around herself.

The metal dropped, though. The invisible shields remained in place, even if she knew Erik would assume their presence. The CRADLE hissed, smoke still rising from the chamber. The lights flickered, the walls shook, electricity in the air made her hair go static—

And Erik was standing in front of her. Erik was standing in front of her, eyebrows furrowed, jaw clenched, hands curled into fists by his side. Chest moving, breaths heaving. He was angry, always angry, angrier than she’d ever seen him -- but he was alive.

(Was that all that mattered? Rictor said, once, she over-simplified it. Breathing alone wasn’t enough to keep a person alive, but it was the first step. It was the foundations. Jean always had faith that could lead to something else.)

There was a beat of relief, a wash that went through her chest and relieved the tension that had curled into it (she could tell Lorna she brought her dad back), and then a moment where she realised it wasn’t dad she thought when she looked at this man. It was something else, something foreign, like looking at a stranger.

She’d mourned him, Jean reminded herself. She’d sat, curled in his seat, looking around at the books in his office. She’d taken a blanket from his home during the funeral, tried to find his smell under whiskey and cigar smoke. She’d mourned him, she’d loved him, and the first words that left his mouth…

Well, she had expected it. She had expected it, but there was a part of Jean that hoped, against all odds, just as there had always been.

“Last time we left,” she replied, coolly, keeping her hands stiff by her sides and her feet firmly on the ground, “you almost caused the Third World War. I’d like to make sure that’s not going to happen again.” If that meant Bruce and Scott remained wrapped in a telekinetic shield, if it meant she took the brunt of the flames, so be it.

Jean was used to the fire.

SCOTT: The process, once it happened, wasn’t a slow one. It was strange, watching it play out. Scott had never been present for this part before. He’d watched people he loved die so many times that the images were etched on the back of his eyelids, playing out like a movie projected on a sheet. He could rewind, pause, fast forward, take it from the top. Those moments were a part of him. And he’d had people come back to him, too, of course. Jean walking up to the Institute doors with her hands clasped together so tightly her knuckles were white, like a prayer and an answer all at once. Illyana showing up again years after she’d died, breathing and wild-eyed. He watched people die and saw them lowered into their graves, watched them walk back through the door after the dirt had settled, but this? The only resurrection Scott had ever been present for was his own, and there had been nothing miraculous about that. Nothing good, nothing incredible.

This was different. This wasn’t the Phoenix, wasn’t a cosmic force that described a curse as a blessing. This was some hodgepodge mix of science and telepathy that Scott doubted he’d ever entirely understand. Part of him hadn’t expected it to work at all, had thought the most they’d do was desecrate the corpse of a man who’d more than earned his right to rest, but he’d gone along anyway because Jean had asked him to and Scott had been bad at saying no to her since she took his hand on that park bench decades ago and asked him to stay. The Phoenix was like playing with fire, but this? This was more akin to trying to shape water into something tangible. Scott’s expectations hadn’t been high.

But they should have been. He should have understood that Jean Grey (Jean Summers) never failed at something she’d put her mind and heart into, should have remembered that she was the same girl who’d convinced a sullen, quiet boy that he was a thing worth loving, should have understood that she would move heaven and earth for the people she loved and that Erik, for all his faults, was one of them.

The Cradle slammed open. The metal in the room began to hum, hovering free of gravity. A familiar shield engulfed him, invisible and protective. And Erik Lehnsherr was revived the same way he had died --- suddenly, violently, and with a love so great that there was room for little else besides it.

There was a moment where the world stood still. Everything hung motionless. Scott held his breath, swore that his heart stopped beating for an instant, swore that the blood stopped pumping through his veins as the world waited to right itself again. And then it did, and everything came crashing back down in an instant. The anger slammed into the room like a train obliterating everything left on the tracks, like a car crash of rage and betrayal and grief and defeat. Erik was alive, and he was angry. Scott couldn’t blame him for that, couldn’t fault it. If not for Jean, he would have accepted whatever punishment felt necessary, would have let himself be skewered for his sins.

(“You don’t have to be a martyr,” Warren told him once. ”You don’t have to shoulder every mistake. You’re allowed to forgive yourself, Scott. You’re allowed to move on.” And he might have tried that if anyone had ever told him how. He might have done it if it hadn’t seemed so impossible, so unreal. How could you get out from under something that stretched the length of the whole sky above you? How could you get away from something that was a part of you? It only sounded easy if you’d never felt it before.)

But Jean was there, was shielding him, was protecting him no matter how little he deserved it. The metal dropped to the ground, and the shields stayed up. The anger remained. And with it, the guilt. The grief. The betrayal.

Scott stayed quiet, eyes darting away from Erik and back to Jean. She was hurt. He could feel it through the bond, see it in her posture. She wasn’t surprised, but she was hurt, and he ached with her. He’d wanted a happier resolution to this, a better end, but it had been a fool’s dream. Jean forgave Zatanna when she took the Phoenix down, just as Scott forgave Logan when he ended his suffering on that grassy knoll in Central Park. There were people, he knew that were easy to forgive. There were people good enough, decent enough, that forgiving them came as simply as breathing, as blinking, as turning your head. There were people who were easy to forgive because they were easy to love, because you wanted them in your life no matter the cost.

Scott had never been one of them.

BRUCE: Bruce wasn’t sure what he had been expecting. If there was one well-known thing about Erik Lehnsherr, at least to the public, it was that he was very focused. For good, for bad, he had the insight of an owl and the determination of a bull. Apparently, even in death, in exhaustion, he was equally so. He wondered if he would ever get to feel death. If it would always elude him like many other things in life; happiness, a home, a family, somewhere he felt safe.

He thought, for a moment, maybe he had been a little jealous of Erik. That Jean didn’t have the right to take that away from him, no matter how much he would be missed.

Jean’s protective barrier didn’t seem to move him. Emotionally of course, because her raw power was enough to match Erik’s, and he could take the static in the air like the Kansas plains right before a tornado came through. How many people would he stand beside who were more convicted than him? What kind of hurts did they hold, and why did they hurt enough to bring Erik back? ( Why did he bring Erik back? )

“Hey, buddy - it’s — hey. Let’s not do anything drastic,” Like accidentally murder someone else, haha — “I know you’re angry. Totally get it,” Bruce slowly approached with scuffed dress shoes, each click of their rubber soles sounding like a gunshot in the suddenly too-quiet room. He couldn’t imagine having that kind of power - to make everyone notice when he was there and also when he wasn’t. “But you’re going to be really dehydrated in a hot minute if you don’t let me help you up, okay?”

Bruce spared a look for his two companions, and maybe Jean was right. Maybe he was someone who could understand what they’d been through. That if someone had to save Bruce from himself, he would at least want it to be someone he cared about. Clint, Tony, Steve. He would never ask Nat to do it - she’d been made enough times to be a stone-hearted killer, Bruce wouldn’t add to that.

Although he didn’t really know either of them well enough, he could tell when somebody cared enough to still be there after you’d disappointed them. Jean thought Erik would be disappointed, stayed anyway. Would anyone care enough to stick around for him too?

Gently, as if approaching a spooked animal, Bruce placed calloused fingers on an expensive funeral suit, surprised when he electricity in the room didn’t shock him on contact. The ever-present scientist in him placed that interesting tidbit of knowledge in a file for future examination. Maybe because Hulk’s skin was like reinforced rubber? Was he a grounding material? Could that be something helpful in the future, like making schools safer during storms, or for severe weather shelters for the homeless—

“If you want them to leave, they’ll leave,” Bruce promised, not looking back at the couple again. He supposed the situation really wasn’t about them.

ERIK: Everything was too much. His mind felt like it had been ransacked, left in tatters as his previous cohabitant had rifled through memories and motivations alike to trim down only to what was useful. Tweaking perceptions, ramping up the paranoia.

Not paranoid enough, some part of him noted wryly.

Bruce's fingers wrapped gently around his shoulder, tone and stance reminiscent of the way they used to handle shell-shocked soldiers. He stiffened under the touch, knuckles going white against the floor, but he didn't shake him off. Reached up and dragged himself to his feet again, even if he swayed, even if the room spun a bit around him and wavered black at the edges. He needed food, he needed water, he needed sleep.

More importantly, he needed to get out of the presence of the two people who had murdered him before he lost control entirely. Scott was standing there in silence, expression torn between surprise and guilt, and there was none of Erik that had the capacity to feel anything but disgust for the man right now. It didn't take a genius to put together who had led the charge in the silo, who'd been calling the shots. Scott was a good little soldier. A good little husband. "Bird got your tongue?" Scott didn't have the Phoenix anymore, that much was clear--guilt wouldn't be anywhere in his face if it was. But the point stood regardless, and Erik didn't care that Jean always got tetchy when he so much as breathed a negative word in Scott's direction.

(Somewhat hysterically, he wondered if he'd make her mad enough to kill him again. Maybe he should--the time between his death and now was rapidly flitting away from his mind, but he remembered warmth, remembered family, and part of him wanted to claw it back.)

Jean's words had him choking on a laugh, and Erik nearly snarled at her across the Cradle, fingers pressing dents into the metal. "If that's what you're worried about, why am I back?" he hissed. And oh, there were other questions that came crashing on him, then.

"FRIDAY," he said, because he wasn't sure he could trust anyone in this room except the machine he could feel thrumming in the walls around them. "What's today's date?"

"February 21, 2021, Mr. Lehnsherr."

February. Two months. Two months.

Scott Summers had been resurrected a week to the day from his death. Jean had been so grief-stricken, so heartbroken, that she had moved heaven and earth and death itself to bring him back after just a week without him.

Two months. He hated that there was a part of him that was wounded by that fact almost more than the murder itself. There had always been two reasons that he was kept around, two reasons that people kept him close: love or use. She hadn't brought him back because she missed him or because Lorna did, which meant she must need him to do something—

Lorna.

The world constricted once again, because Lorna wasn't here. Her father was being resurrected, and she wasn't here. Erik knew his powers could scarcely reach across the room let alone the bay, but g-d if he didn't try anyway, breath caught in his throat. He felt the room tip at the exertion before he stopped, kept upright only by the tight grip on the Cradle and Bruce's hand at his back.

"Where is Lorna? Where is my daughter?!"

If she was dead, and they'd brought him back to a world without her, he would drag them all back to the grave with him.

JEAN: She’d never been the kind of woman who lived on an island. Her mind was tattered, splintered into pieces that could cut intruders like knives, ever since the Phoenix rushed into her body so many years ago and refused to leave. Jean never made sense, she knew, to the people around her. She burned too bright or not at all. She went hot or far too cold. She was capable of almost pathological compartmentalisation, or she saw everything at once so the picture was too damn big for anyone else to understand. She loved and loathed in equal measure, and she was, above all else, not the kind of woman who was easy to digest. Easy to adore, perhaps, but so many people desired to get close to the fire before they truly knew what it meant to be burned. There were so few who saw the worst of her and stayed.

Scott was one of them. If anyone touched a hair on his head -- even someone she considered family, someone who was more blood than anyone else on the planet -- she would rip them into a thousand pieces and scatter them to the wind without hesitation, without guilt, without grief. But there was another person who looked at her in all her chaos, in her fear, in her self hatred and mania, and who said, this girl is worth trusting. There was another person who approached her in the wreckage of other people’s lives and said it wasn’t her fault, that she held a great gift inside of her, and the only way to control it was to refuse to control it, to embrace it instead.

Erik had been that person. Erik knelt down in front of a child and he reached to her even when the rest of the world was pulling back. He gave her a safe place to rest, gave her logic, pragmatism, gave her a path that she followed long after he was gone. And then he was on the other side of a battlefield, throwing buses at her friends and threatening everything the X-Men were fighting for, and she was told to defeat him at any cost.

Perhaps this was inevitable. Perhaps there could only ever be Jean alive or Erik. Maybe having them both here at once, occupying the same space, defied some kind of cosic deity -- defied the Phoenix. Because as Jean looked at Erik, her chest tightening and her throat burning, the Phoenix was conspicuously silent. Conspicuously void of opinion, for one of the first times in living history.

Then Bruce opened his mouth, and the bird came back to life. We could kill him next, she offered.

“We’re not killing anyone.” It took a breath, just a second, for Jean to realise she said those words out loud, that she’d turned her head to the side as if a friend was standing right there -- as if Maddie was beside her (why was she thinking of Maddie, now, as if she was a shadow? As if she was someone lingering, constantly, even when she wasn’t here physically? Was it because they’d done it together, the three of them, and so it made sense to picture her now?) Jean collected herself, levelled a look at Erik as her eyes burned, too.

She wouldn’t cry. She refused to. But God, it would be so easy to let those tears spill, to fall to her knees, to run towards him like she was an eleven year old girl who’d lost everything that mattered to her in the world and he had all the answers.

But he was insulting her husband. He’d threatened the safety, the peace, of their entire people. He messed with Kara’s head, threatened Rictor, almost started another World War. She couldn’t forget that.

“I didn’t want you dead, Erik,” she said, as simply as she could. There were a hundred other things she could say. She could tell him how she knew the Phoenix felt in him, how it twisted everything, how it made things so simple and so complicated all at the same time. She could vindicate him, could say this wasn’t his fault -- but the way he was looking at her now…

(Maybe there was always meant to be one, in the end.)

She knew where his mind went, when he asked for the date. “I didn’t want to use her,” she said, because he deserved something of an explanation. “I couldn’t.”

You could have. Haven’t I helped you before? Haven’t I made things so beautiful—

“We needed you back,” Jean said, “not someone else. I found another way. It took some time, but …” It worked, clearly. It worked so far as there was breath in his lungs now and color in his cheeks. If that was the definition of life, they’d succeeded -- but Jean knew it was far more complicated than that. “Lorna’s alive,” she continued. “She’s safe, and she knows we’re here. I wanted to make sure we were … that she stayed that way.”

The Erik she knew would’ve wanted her paranoid, if it came to Lorna. He would’ve wanted her to take every precaution when dealing with something as unpredictable as life and death. Yet, as she stood there looking at someone who felt as much like a stranger as he had on that very first day they faced off in the middle of New York City, she wasn’t entirely sure he would see it like that now.

SCOTT: Banner’s voice was like radio static, something there-and-not-there in a way Scott had grown accustomed to as a teenager when the world became like a television with no static and he began to understand why his mother locked herself in her room for days at a time, why she spent so many afternoons in bed. It shut out the world sometimes, made him his thoughts and nothing else. Banner was there. Erik was there. Jean was there. And Scott wasn’t. Scott was in a silo, in a hospital waiting room, in a grave. Banner was promising he’d leave as if he knew how, Jean was throwing a shield around him as if there was something left to protect, Erik was---

---Erik was speaking to him. The realization dawned slowly, like a wave lapping your feet on a beach, covering them with sand slowly and quickly all at once in a way you didn’t realize until the pressure was there cementing you to the ground. It took Scott’s mind a moment to catch up with his ears, a moment for the words to register. It always did, when he got like this. When the world was radio static and his mind hopped from one place to the next like Kurt’s teleportation, like a superpower that took him to every place he’d never wanted to be.

Bird got your tongue? The words came to him, slow and deliberate, and for a moment he felt like he was twelve years old, like he was standing in Essex’s lab with his arms stiff at his side and his eyes locked to his feet, like fingers would come in at any moment to grip his chin and force it upwards, force eye contact. (Essex was the last person he’d looked in the eyes before the world went red and a pair of lenses separated him from everything he saw. He thought of that sometimes, what it meant. What it said.) For a moment, there was an echo of another man’s voice, decades ago but just as cold, just as disgusted. Come on, Scott. You’re so much prettier when you smile.

He flinched. He didn’t mean to, but he did. And it wasn’t fair, he knew. Scott was not a victim here. (And maybe he hadn’t been a victim back then, either. Maybe Essex had never done anything he didn’t have coming. Maybe if he were better, smarter, easier to love, things could have been different. Maybe - ) Scott had killed Erik, had opened his eyes and turned the whole world red, and maybe Erik was angry now but he had a right to be. Scott Summers was not Zatanna Zatara. He was not Logan. He was not a person who had done a favor for a friend, not someone who was only doing what his would-be victim asked him to do. What he did was his choice, his decision. No one forced him. No one made him. And maybe he’d only damned himself to save Erik from the same fate, but that didn’t make him any less damned. Did it?

Scott stayed silent, and the world kept moving around him. Time went slower, he’d found, without the Phoenix coloring it. The loss of immortality made every moment a mountain, every second a marathon. He watched realization dawn in Erik’s eyes in slow motion, watched anger turn to grief turn to fear. And Jean spoke, but it wasn’t---

It wasn’t to Erik. It wasn’t to Banner, it wasn’t to Scott. It was to someone else. Scott could almost feel her in the room, like a phantom limb. The Phoenix. Had Jean ever spoken to her aloud before? (He had, towards the end. He remembered it. Pacing in his room, muttering to himself. It was one of the things that made him realize the line had been crossed, one of the things that made him realize he was going, going, gone. His heart dropped into his stomach and his chest felt tight. Jean had a handle on this. She had to. She had to.)

He tuned back in to the conversation, listened as Jean insisted that they’d done what they’d done to ensure they resurrected Erik and not something else. A strangled sound escaped from the back of Scott’s throat at that, and he cursed himself for drawing the attention back to him. Given the opportunity, Scott had always preferred to exist in the peripheral. To be seen and not heard, the way he’d been taught by his father, Essex, Winters. “If we’d taken shortcuts,” he said, because the attention was on him and if he didn’t make it seem like he had something to say then it might stay that way, “we wouldn’t have solved any problems. Take it from me, that isn’t… It’s not how you want to come back.” An apologetic glance to Jean, the echo of a statement he didn’t dare repeat. Maybe we were better off dead. “Lorna’s safe. You’re safe. Genosha, New York… It’s all safe. We just wanted to keep it that way. That’s all.”

BRUCE: Every word Scott breathed made Bruce’s chest feel tighter and tighter. Safe, like Erik wasn’t capable of controlling himself. Safe, as if something really got out of control, they couldn’t handle it. Couldn’t handle him.

If Erik had needed to be put down because he was a danger to society and he hadn’t even hurt anyone yet, then what did that make Bruce?

Unbeknownst to him, lost in his thoughts, Bruce’s skin under his lab-coat began to turn an eerie shade of green, spiderwebbing out from under his sleeve and onto the fist that gripped Erik’s suit, holding the man up like he was Bruce’s lifeline. “Don’t talk to him like that.” The words sounded echo-y and far-away, like someone had smashed pots and pans together beside his ears and just let them ring. His throat felt full, like he’d been drooling for days and had forgotten to swallow. If they loved him so much, then they wouldn’t have killed him when it became inconvenient.

Would they have?

Hulk roared in the pit of his stomach, startling him into a barely noticeable jump. Gripping Erik tighter, green creeping into the corners of his vision, Bruce managed a not-so-controlled, “I’ve got it from here. You guys’ve done enough, right?” He hated, how much like his father he sounded when his ridiculous Dayton-Ohio-accent came out with his words.

Hated feeling like a monster, in front of judgmental eyes. Bruce may not have known Jean or Scott very well, but he couldn’t trust them any farther than he could throw them. As Banner, anyway. “I’ll make sure he ‘stays out of trouble.’” The words dripped with poorly hidden malice, maybe some misguided hurt, and he couldn’t hold eye contact with either of them anymore. Instead, he focused on Erik. Fed off of his exhaustion and hoped that maybe they could trade places. That maybe the next person that came knocking could put him down instead.

“FRIDAY? Can you make sure my floor is set to 75 degrees? He’s probably going to be a little cold, as tired as he is.” Licking his lips, Bruce cocked an eyebrow, still staring at the ground as if to say ‘Anything else?’

ERIK: Lorna's alive. It was buried in their responses, between excuses and explanations and lies he didn't care to hear, but it was there, nonetheless. Lorna was alive, and some of the panic that had filled his lungs like cement dissipated. Lorna was alive.

With that assurance, it was easier to focus on the rest of what they said. Safe, safe, safe, safe, safe....

(Alles ist gut, alles ist gut--)

And that was funny, wasn't it--absolutely hysterical, and the laughter bubbled up out of his chest before he realized it was coming.

We needed you back. Not someone else. (And it was needed, wasn't it, not wanted--)

It's not how you want to come back. The metal groaned under his fingers, lights flickering for as his voice rose. "What made you think that I wanted to come back?" he snapped, voice cracking for a moment. Just a moment.

Get it together. He cleared his throat, shook off the edges of black tinting his vision, marshalled his focus into staying on his feet. Don't show weakness. (Too late, too late, too late--)

"It doesn't really matter, does it? Because you needed me. And here. I. Am. My life was a problem. My death was a problem. How long do I get the floor this time, Jean?"

He stared across the Cradle at Scott, expression stuck in a strange space between anger and pity. "It was all for keeping everyone safe, hm? Is that what she told you to help you sleep at night, Scott? That you were making the world safe? No, no, no. You stopped me to keep everyone safe--fair enough. Can't begrudge you that. But that's not why you killed me. You killed me because you were angry. Because your chest was burning over Ric, over Kara, over Lorna, over all the failures of your fathers, and because you could take something in recompense. And because she told you to. Good soldier, good husband."

And then, for a moment, some of that anger edged back, some more of the pity filtering in, because Erik knew what it was like to love someone enough to do anything. "Did you realize you said almost the same thing she did, just now, hm? Did she notice?" A brief glance at Jean, before he looked back at Scott. They'd been sharing minds for years. Might be doing so now, even, and that had been the reason he'd never quite let Charles do the same--the fear of not knowing where your thoughts ended and theirs began.

"You and I both held the Phoenix, Scott. You know what it does, what it's like. How long has she been talking to it out loud? Do you feel safe, right now?" His head was starting to swim, the room growing more distant through the tunnel that was starting to settle in front of his vision, and Erik reflected absently that perhaps it wasn't the wisest of choices to be using so much oxygen on talking when his legs were barely keeping under him.

(You don't know when to quit-- oh, he owed Ric so much...)

He felt Banner's shift starting behind him, felt the radiation in the room spike, even through the dim grip he had on his powers at the moment. The man's voice, when it came, was strained, his grip tightening at Erik's back, and he would be lying if he didn't say it wasn't more than a little vindicating to hear the disdain with which the Avenger spoke to Jean and Scott.

He didn't quite get to express that, before the black won out.

JEAN: Jean had been angry her entire life. She’d been angry at what she wasn’t allowed to do, what she was, how she could go against the natural order of things and nothing ever seemed to come of it -- not until later, at least -- not until the sum of all her mistakes came crashing down in one fell swoop and she was left drowning at the deep end. But there was always someone who dove in, whether it was a backyard pool or the ocean during a raging storm, and that was Scott. Scott, who changed the world for her. Scott, who she changed the world for. Scott who killed a man when Jean asked him to, who would live and die for her, who promised to spend his life by her side regardless of whether she was beside him at the breakfast table or six foot under in a cemetery.

“Don’t speak to my husband like that,” Jean said, taking a step in front of Scott when Bruce shot him a glare. She didn’t come to the other scientist to be judged. She didn’t come here to be treated as the villain when she knew, deeply and instinctively, what the Phoenix was capable of -- how it changed people, twisted them up inside, changed them. She came here for one reason and one reason only, and he was standing in front of her now.

He was standing in front of her angry, but Jean knew him far too well to expect anything else, even if there was still a sickening disappointment swirling in her gut. “Because I always did,” she said, her voice quiet. Because she always would want to come back, regardless of what horrors were awaiting her the second air filled her lungs once more. Life would forever, constantly, be preferable to the lingering emptiness on the other side. “Because I thought--”

You didn’t deserve this. She wasn’t sure if he would hear it, if she was broadcasting it, if the feelings were leaking out of her like water from a cracked dam. “Because I’ve always needed you.”

Because it was her fault. The Phoenix wouldn’t be a part of their lives if it wasn’t for her decision on the shuttle at eighteen years old, a stupid child playing at being a god, a woman so desperate for approval from anywhere that she’d take sycophancy whispering in her head and preach it like gospel. “It wasn’t you, Erik. It wasn’t you any more than it was me on that lawn.”

He didn’t see that now. Maybe he never would. But Jean knew there was no other option, no other choice. Erik would admit himself there was nothing that could stop him from accomplishing his mission unless it was death. He was a man forged by soldiers’ cruelty, but he shared their pragmatism, their single-minded focus.

And then he kept talking, and the Phoenix roared to life in her mind -- almost laughing. Yes, it was laughing. It was bitter and cruel, but it was laughter, genuine amusement.

Oh look, she whispered, you brought him back insane.

“We were angry,” Jean said. “Of course we were angry. You violated the very principles we founded Genosha on when you threatened one of our own in a public place, for all to see. We were meant to be peaceful, a sanctuary. We were meant to be safety, and you turned it into your own personal battleground where you were judge, jury and executioner. You ripped apart the sanctity of a woman’s mind who is good and kind and honest in more ways than we could ever be, and you pointed a gun at the head of every citizen in New York and tried to justify it in a way that didn’t make you sound like Shaw.”

Because yes, that was in the notes she’d collected. Yes, that was in the memories he’d shared with her. Yes, she knew all about it -- and she knew that, if it came down to it, Erik would never become the monster that had ripped him apart and put him back together different than was ever intended. He wouldn’t wanted her to stop him. Her father would’ve wanted that.

Maybe this man wasn’t her father.

Bruce spoke again, and this time Jean let out a bitter huff of almost laughter. “Right,” she said, “because the Avengers are such a safe place for mutants, always have been. Remind me of all you did for our kind while you were parading the streets after your great victories and we were still hiding in backalleys, getting murdered for how we were born.”

(Jean never had a personal problem with the Avengers. She never understood why Scott burned with resentment towards what they represented, even if the people themselves weren’t to blame. She did now. Bruce stood there, on a pedestal despite his mistakes, looking down on them as if they were to pity. Like they were the monsters.)

“Erik, you belong at home. You belong in the place you helped to build. You belong in your own paradise. Come home, and we can be there or we can leave, but don’t--”

Don’t push us away. Not just Scott and Jean, which was inevitable, but the entirety of mutantkind that resided in the streets he’d pieced together. Everything he’d worked for, everything he’d sacrificed, and the Phoenix had torn it apart.

And then Erik hit the ground, and Jean was beside him in an instant, fingers going to the pulse on his neck as her other hand squeezed his arm.

Breathing? the Phoenix enquired. Jean nodded. How unfortunate. I thought we’d get to work together, again.

Jean looked back up at Bruce, at Scott, and slowly rose to her feet. Reluctant to leave him when the experiment was so new, so uncertain, and reluctant to leave him because everything within her screamed that was her family hurting, on the floor, aching.

“Take care of him,” Jean said to Bruce, reaching for Scott’s hand to intertwine their fingers together. Flames flickered, orange and purple at the tips, and formed a circle -- a circle she could see through, right back to their sofa and fireplace back in Genosha, right back to home where Rachel would no doubt be making cocoa in the kitchen. She’d never done that before.

Cosmic travel? Of course we have. You just forget. The human mind can only bend so far.

Jean squeezed Scott’s hand once more, knuckles white, and past the burning in her chest and throat she took a step into the portal, unsure whether she’d just healed a wound or created a new one.

#( adding a little bit of spicy doom tones at the beginning for *drama* ) #f: discord #d: back from the dead #c: scott summers #c: jean grey #c: bruce banner #tw: murder mention #tw: abuse mention #tw: grief #tw: ptsd #tw: mental health issues

[writerbee-ffs]

Playing Grounds....

Part 2

Two weeks had gone by since the run in with Erik and her petty ass was honestly still livid. How dare he dismiss her with that “aint worth shit” comment. He was the one that wasn’t worth a damn, well maybe a good time, fine, brown skin god of a man but that meant nothing. She’d tried convincing herself that she was glad he didn’t attempt anything anymore. A complete fucking lie.

Erik hadn’t even noticed her nor had he spoke to her since. (Y/N) spent a few extra minutes in her car mirror everyday for the past two weeks making sure she looked drop dead gorgeous just to be seen.

“Kill! Mama com’mer!” That familiar thunderous voice echoed through the park as the clumsy puppy scooped up the ball heading towards him.

(Y/N) watched from the swings as Erik flexed his muscles, without intention, continuing to throw the ball at the pup. Damn was he fine. The way Erik paused to take a sip of his water allowed (Y/N)’s mind to turn. She’d imagined his lips attached and sucking from her honeypot instead of that stupid plastic bottle.

“Mommy! Look I’m flyin’!” Zeke shouted from the very top of the swing knocking her from the inappropriate thoughts brewing in her mind. (Y/N) fixed her slim fitted scrubs that clung to her body perfectly.

“I see baby.” She smiled watching her son in a fit of giggles. “It’s almost time to go though. Let’s go grab your bag.”

Zeke hopped from the swing’s set taking off towards their belongings on the bench. He’d been in a good mood all afternoon since (Y/N) worked while he was in school meaning they were going home to spend the rest of the night doing whatever Zeke concocted in his 4 year old mind.

“Doggy!” Zeke ran towards the parking lot as (Y/N) watched him right on his trail.

“Babe! Slow down!” She hummed making her way to the car as he waited for her to unlock the door. “Get in and eat your snack.” She smiled closing the door to the back. “Shit!” Clutching her imaginary pearls at the sight of the midnight colored puppy standing at her trunk. Killa watched (Y/N) every move intensely as she attempted to make it toward the drivers side.

“Kill?!” That voice. The sound of irritation bounced into the air. “Killa! Baby girl where are you?” “Kil-“

“Erik! Get your fucking dog!” (Y/N) squeaked out as Erik made his way towards her harnessing Killa with the leather leash. “I thought you said she was nice?” She rolled her eyes riddled with fear.

“She is.” A devilish grin spread across his face. “When bitches are nice to me...” Erik tightened his grip on Killa turning around.

Hearing the word made her bubble at her core. This patchy beard ass negro! “Bitches?” Her pace picked up moving towards him. “Fuck you, Erik!” (Y/N) screamed slightly above her regular voice catching the attention of a few parents. “I.ain’t.shit? Her hands smacked together in his direction with each word. “I ain’t shit but you wanted to get to know me?” She scoffed.

His bottom lip wedged between his teeth replaced the sinister smirk as Erik watched her become the brat he knew she was. “You done?”

“Am I done?” (Y/N)’s head snapped to the side. This nigga was really testing her again.

“Yea.” Erik closed in on (Y/N)’s personal space. The minty fresh breath, saddlewood scent and those intense dark eyes paralyzed her momentarily. “Grown ass women out here acting out.” He chuckled licking his lips. “Sounds like a brat to me.” Her breath hitched taking in the factual insult as he got closer to her ear. “I’ll straighten your lil ass out.”

“Typical niggas.” She turned around going back towards her SUV. “Kiss my ass!” She shouted before throwing up her middle finger.

“I plan to, princess!” Erik chuckled watching her ass jiggle in her scrubs while she strutted back to her car. “Keep that same energy when I do!”

“You could never handle me!” She called from her car window pulling off.

——-

The sterile smell of the hospital filled Erik’s nose as he walked through the halls on the hunt.

“Sir may I help you?” A women at the NICU nurse station stopped him on his hunt for her.

“I’m looking for (Y/N) (Y/LN).” He smiled letting the gold glisten from his mouth as her gave her full name. Smiling the nurse paged (Y/N). “Tell her it’s her man.” He winked.

“You can have a seat.” Erik took a seat waiting for her to come. He questioned what exactly he was doing. Why was he so intrigued by her? Erik knew who he was and he knew he could have his pick of any women yet here he was interested in a single mom with a whole fucking attitude. Why was he popping up to her job on some stalker shit?

“Hey Leah.” (Y/N)’s sweet voice made Erik’s heart flutter for a quick second. “Did you say my man?” She laughed slightly. “Or was the radio going out because I def-“

“What’s up, princess?” The plum scrubs complimented her chocolatey smooth brown skin. Her plump lips shined slightly from her cherry lipgloss. Of course (Y/N) looked beautiful and of course Erik couldn’t stop the part of him that wanted her no matter how many times she acted fucking bratty.

“What are you doing here Erik?” Her eyes looked shocked and most of all surprised. “How did you even know my name- no, how’d you know where I worked?” (Y/N) fired of questions to Erik as he stood there still in awe of her beauty. The fuck was wrong with him.

Brushing his fingertips across the badge against her chest, “Your badge, princess.” A slight smile swiped across (Y/N)’s face.

“So not only are you rude ... I can add stalker too.”

“Told you I wanted to get you know, princess.” He winked as his right hand found its way on her hip.

“I have to commend you for you efforts.” Her lips spread from cheek to cheek showcasing her pearly whites. No one had ever been so dedicated to get to know her ... not even Zeke’s dad.”

“When I like it” That familiar intense gaze watched her. “I get it.” The roll of her eyes only fueled Erik more. “Don’t act like you didn’t want my attention, (Y/N). I noticed the extra time you spent in your car at the park or how those scrubs started to show that ass even more.” Erik gripped the other side of waist pulling her warm body closer to his whispering in her ear. “Bratty ass needs to be taught a lesson.” His soft lips grazed her ear with each word. Any outsider would assume the two were a lovely couple talking intimately.

The slight moan escaped (Y/N)’s mouth. “Uh- I- mmh...take this.” She scribbled down quickly on one of her prescription sheets. “I think maybe we got off on the wrong foot.”

After watching her walk off down the hallway, Erik looked down on the sheet to discover her phone number. “Got that ass.”

#mbj ff #michael b jordan ff #writerbee #michael b jordan x reader #erik killmonger x reader #erik kilmonger #black panther fandom #black panther fic #erik stevens

[ladyloveandjustice]

Shadow of the Batgirl: A review type thing

I just read the graphic novel Shadow of the Batgirl by Sarah Kuhn and Nicole Goux, which reimagines the superhero origin of Cassandra Cain.

It was overall good and EXTREMELY cute! If you want an awesome story about a teenage assassin running away from her shitty dad and finding a neat library, a community of cool ladies and the hero within herself, AND WHY WOULDN’T YOU WANT THAT, definitely get this! 

It’s a standalone Batgirl story completely accessible to all and with none of the weird baggage and the complicated continuity of the regular Batman universe! it’s appropriate for younger teens but still a good read for adults, the art’s colorful and great, it’s packed to the brim with joy and hope.

And on top of all that, it gives a great character who’s been traditionally horribly neglected by mainstream comics for some reason (*cough its because she’s not white cough*) a spotlight and a chance to shine (and get written by an Asian American author for once!)! This also features one of my other faves, who had her disability and adult identity erased in the main universe, but not in this comic, hurray!

SO YEAH, if you like superheroes at all, highly recommend this!

NOW for a more detailed review, calling on all my expertise as a Cassandra Cain superfan and going into pros and cons. This’ll be long, but I’ll do it as a list to break it down.

Let’s start with the good stuff, there’s a lot of it:

- This story takes place in world where Barbara Gordon as Oracle (and former Batgirl) and Cassandra Cain as Batgirl exist, but Batman and The Killing Joke do not appear to. That is honestly transcendentally great to finally see this as an officially realized concept, Batgirl allowed to stand on its own as a legacy of powerful women, with all history of these characters being victimized for the sake of manpain erased. I am elated.

-The art was adorable, the designs were great, the clothes and Cass’s costumes were super cute, the setting was vibrant.

-Jackie was a really fun character and mentor figure for Cass. Loved her snark and how she and Babs basically become Cass’s two Moms and an awesome team in their own right. The relationships in this were just heartwarming. Loved the range of characters in general.

-Cass basically lived in a library aka my life dream. I mean, she did it because she was homeless and on the run from her assassin father, but like.

-Cassandra FINALLY knows her own race, (she’s half-Chinese) and gets to have a goddamn connection and basic feelings about it (Jackie bringing up what the bat means to Chinese culture), etc, god it should not have taken this long for this to happen.

(And it’s really important to have a version of Cass’s story where, y’know, the positive inspirational figures in her life include other Asian people, they aren’t just white people. it wasn’t until I read this it fully dawned on me how screwed up it is she never had that before.)

-For the first time in her entire existence, Cassandra Cain got to be in a canon romance that wasn’t fucking awful, can you believe it. Her love interest Erik was adorable, and him being a budding romance writer was an especially sweet touch- and I think there’s an implication/hint his dad’s the Bronze Tiger? Which is really cute Easter Egg for Cass fans, considering she had a strong friendship with the dude in her original series!

-The idea of Cass liking to draw and expressing herself through art is really fun and fitting. Her being visually focused, it makes a lot of sense.

-Cass extending her body language ability to sort of being able to guess at people’s underlying emotional problems from how they carry themselves is a really neat idea- it could have been implemented a little more smoothly but I like the concept.

-Cass going after the “evil-doers” in the library after becoming a hero was one of the best things I’ve ever seen. Deserves to be framed. I love what a huge nerd Cass got to be in this.

-The comic understood that core of Cass’s character is compassion and empathy, that how she reaches out for people, refuses to harm, and really believes in people and embodies change, rebirth, hope. THAT’S IT, THAT’S MY GIRL, THAT’S MY HERO..

-I’ve read a ton of comics with Barbara Gordon and this is the first one I’ve come across where she discussed her relationship with her mother having any sort of influence on her interests and personality, she isn’t even the main character of this and her mother matters more in it than every other comic I’ve read with her combined how sad is that

-I liked Babs just casually making gadgets and stuff all the time, and loved that she expressed she honestly preferred doing this and that was why she was giving Batgirl to Cass. MADE ME WANT TO SCREAM FUCK YOU DC ALL OVER AGAIN.

-Compared to the original Cass Batgirl comics, this story is obviously more accessible as a standalone, but it’s also just overall more appropriate for a wider range of ages since the darker elements of Cass’s story are way toned down. I was a young teenager when I read Cass’s series and was fine, but there are young teenagers that DON’T want like, graphic onscreen deaths in their comics, so it’s good there’s a lighter Cass story for them. It was just a really sweet, affirming story.

Now for some cons, none of them damning:

The romance was cute, but wish it’d had room to breathe. Ideally, it didn’t need to be happening alongside Cass’s origin, I think it would have been better if it was just hinted at and then was allowed to fully play out as an after-she-became-Batgirl thing, but I can get that Kuhn didn’t know if this would get a sequel and there were probably a lot of good reasons she wanted to include it.

-I think this came from Kuhn being used to writing as a YA author rather than doing comics, but it was weird to read a Cass comic with so much narration and the way it was used really detracted from the potential power of the story. We’re told through Cass’s super chatty narration she’s not a normal teen, she TELLS US that she barely knows how to read and speak and TELLS US she’s better at reading body language-but we never get a sense of this, not even at the beginning, because the story doesn’t trust the reader to take in the visuals without narration, and then she’s able to talk like a normal teen pretty much right off the bat.

 I’m okay with Cass becoming a chatty girl, and her voice in this comic was fun- I know “silent Asian” has a lot baggage and Cass’s original character leaned into some stereotypes- but the first chapter/part would been far more powerful if it had her world be a little more silent and fully emphasized the visual, for her interactions with people and words be garbled and confusing, and if it gave us more of a sense of the world she comes from and how her perception of things differs from the average person. Cass’s original debut and the beginning of her original series did a really good job giving us a sense of this, and took great advantage of comics as a visual medium, and I missed that.

-Cass learns to read and talk SUPER EASILY and it just comes off as unbelievable. I do like the idea of her camping at a library, eavesdropping, and teaching herself, but I would have liked to see her actually struggle like a person would. Moreover, while I know the presentation of it was very flawed, Cass basically had a learning/language disability in the original series. I was kind of hoping this comic would lean into that, and actually give a more realistic and nuanced representation of that kind of disability (it could have been presented as something she always had that was exacerbated by how she was raised, not caused by it!).

 Honestly, I think her romance with Erik would have been far more interesting and meaningful and tied in better if she’d actually struggled to read, maybe even discovered she was dyslexic and couldn’t quite read the same way he could. That could have been a source of development between them.

-David Cain’s a super flat as a character in this comic, he doesn’t have much presence, menacing or otherwise, and Cass’s complicated feelings and relationship with him is not nearly as painful as they were in her original series.This is partly because there wasn’t a lot of a space for it though, and that’s fine.

-Overall, the main thing that hurts the story is that we don’t see all that much of what Cass’s life was like as an assassin, and her life with David Cain was like. It’s harder to invest in Cass’s transformation into a hero when we don’t really have a sense of who she was before,it’s hard to appreciate her breaking free when we can’t get a sense of what kind of cage she was even in. How much language DID she know? How much of the world was she exposed to? What was she really deprived of? I hope if there’s a sequel we can see more of this.

-Babs isn’t the main character of course, so this isn’t a real complaint, but I did miss her cynical and angry edge. She’s pretty much just a chipper nerd with no sign of her own baggage in this, and it makes her relationship with Cass less interesting. It’s implied that her “accident” did affect her and she just managed to work through a lot of it before she met Cass, but I missed the element of their relationship where they both were hurting from losing  “the world they knew” and working through it together, sometimes clashing, etc.

-I read one of Sarah Kuhn’s YA novels in anticipation of this, and while I’m relieved this is better about it than her first book was (I expected it to be, writers improve, I definitely know how messy a first book is) there’s still some cringe-y ideas of how “average” teens talk creeping in, occasional clunky pacing etc.

But all in all? It was a really nice little story that did a lot of cool things, and I really want a sequel and want more of this version of Cass and her universe. As someone who was driven away from DC comics in part because of how badly they treated Cass, Oracle and the Batgirl legacy. it’s really like a salve on old wounds.

#cassandra cain #batgirl #shadow of the batgirl #oracle #barbara gordon #sarah kuhn #graphic novels #dc comics #my reviews #reviews #batfamily #nicole goux