#i keep forgetting a have a deck now. i can go outside and sit there | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

geddy-leesbian · 1 month

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a while back @highball66 made a post about Leon being a nerd that would probably play MTG, and apparently the concept got lodged in my brain so here's a drabble of Leon and Luis meeting at an MTG prerelease because those two are def nerds like that

I had their twink era RE2 era in mind when writing this, but not sure how much it actually matters

Leon had been apprehensive about coming here, expecting the crowd to be the stereotypical basement dwellers with noticeably bad hygiene. But he still came, because he's brand new to this city and didn't know anyone, or have any other ideas for how to meet people. Well, that's not entirely true. He knows some people, his coworkers. The problem is just that his naive belief that cops are morally upstanding folks that help people has been shattered beyond repair, and he has zero desire to spend any time with them outside of work. (He doesn't want to go to work with them either, but he has to, until he gets another job lined up.)

So it wasn't like Leon had anything to lose coming here, just a faint possibility to gain something.

There were a few of the basement dwellers Leon expected, but there was also something he absolutely did not expect: A very gorgeous man with tan skin, soft gray eyes, and a smile that's just about blinding. He's sitting across the room, and Leon keeps stealing glances at him. He’s clearly very experienced, with how fast he sorts his cards into his piles. Leon looks down at his own cards to sort and when he looks back up the man is already done with his own deck, counting to make sure he had the right amount, quickly sleeving it, and then scooping up the cards he wasn't playing to put them away.

He stands up and starts striding across the room, and Leon has to make a conscious effort to not stare and drool at the man. He's taller than Leon thought. He's got long, lean legs and the most perfect hips Leon has ever seen. And then somehow he's talking to Leon.

“Mind if I sit here?” He has an accent. It's hot. Leon had set his bag on the chair next to him, but moves it so the ridiculously hot stranger can take a seat. “This is your first time coming here? First time playing..?”

“Do I stick out that bad?”

“Not really. It's just that I know I would have recognized you if you'd been here before. I could never forget such a pretty face,” Did this guy seriously just call Leon pretty? In a warm, genuine tone, like it's actually a compliment? Leon is quite used to comments like that, but in a derogatory manner. "Compliments" hurled at him in mocking tones. “But I will admit, you do look a little lost. Do you want help building your deck?”

“Yeah, sure. I've played before, back in high school, but never made any decks. Just played with decks my friends would let me borrow. I wanted to have my own, but my foster parents thought the game was basically devil worship and would've been dragging my ass to the pastor if they ever found cards under their roof.”

Leon worries that might have been a little too personal too fast, but he's not sure Tall Hot Guy was even listening. He doesn't say anything, and seems laser focused on Leon's cards.

“Off to a good start, with your sorting,” In the time Tall Hot Guy made a deck, all Leon managed to do was open all his packs and sort them by color. Tall Hot Guy starts going through the piles, picking out some cards to set aside. “Prereleases are good for beginners. New cards, new mechanics, so even people with experience won't know everything. Besides, you're not even the only new player here. Now, I think you have enough for mono red, so we keep it simple and do that, if there isn't anything else you'd rather do?”

“That's fine, whatever you think is good. You're the expert.”

The “help” is less help and more just him doing everything. But he does talk as he goes through cards and starts laying them out. Leon is fine with the situation.

“Mana curve, it's important. This is your deck laid out from lowest to highest mana cost,” So there is a method to the madness. He figured there was a reason they were laid out the way they were, but hadn't figured it out. “You want variety, because you want to be doing things every turn. You need big win condition cards, but you don't want to just be sitting by idly waiting several turns to get enough mana for them, you need small things too. Of course you can get unlucky enough to not draw your lower cards early, but at least the odds are better if you have a good mix of low and high cards.”

Tall Hot Guy finishes the spells in Leon's deck and gets up to fetch the basic lands it will need from the shop's communal land station, and grabs something out of his bag too. He needs to stop standing up, because every time Leon really struggles to not ogle him. Curse those stupid skintight jeans.

Leon puts away the unused cards, except for one stack Tall Hot Guy made for reasons Leon really can't figure out. It seems so random, cards from every color.

“Hey, what's this stack of cards next to the deck?”

“Oh, those are just cards that I think will maybe be worth something,” After putting the lands on top of Leon’s deck, Tall Hot Guy starts putting the other stack in card sleeves. “These are extra sleeves you can have, to keep these in good shape in case you do want to sell them at some point.”

“Why are you being so nice to me?”

“I've already told you that you have a pretty face, right? I'm a sucker for a pretty face. I want you to have fun playing here, so you come back. Now, let me give you some pointers on what your deck wants to do!”

Leon hadn't expected this guy to actually stay and keep talking. He said Leon wasn't the only new player, so he figured once he got Leon's deck together he'd go over and help out the other newbies. But no. The only thing that Tall Hot Guy seems interested in is just talking Leon's ear off. This isn't a general newbie thing, there's something about Leon specifically. He barely absorbs a word he's saying, he's too busy staring at his stupid perfect face and messy curly hair he wants to touch.

Leon jumps up the second a game store employee calls out that deck building time is up and pairings are ready, because he really needs to get the hell away from this guy that's making him feel things his recent ex-girlfriend never could. He gets a slip of paper with his name and the name of his opponent: Dr. Lewis Serra. He looks around, totally lost, because he doesn't know anyone. Of course, Tall Hot Guy approaches him again.

“Do you need help finding your opponent?”

“First my deck, now helping me find someone, you're a real knight in shining armor, aren't you?” Was that flirty? Doesn't knight in shining armor usually have some romantic connotations? Did Leon actually just flirt with this guy? He's pretty sure he did. Christ. “You know who, uh, Dr. Lewis Serra is?”

“You're looking at him. Your knight just so happens to be your first opponent too. Guess it's just you and me, pretty boy,” The words make Leon's face heat up, but thankfully Lewis turns his back to Leon quickly, to lead him to a table. He just hopes and prays the blushing will have subsided before he sits down and faces Lewis. “By the way, the name is actually Luis Serra. The name on the slip is a stupid nickname that just won't die.”

“There a story behind it?”

“I suppose, depending on how you want to define story. Some idiot I played once thought that my name was pronounced like Lewis, and everyone else thought it was really funny. That's it. Like I said, stupid.”

“What about the Dr. part?”

“Oh, that, ah, that actually isn't a nickname. To toot my own horn, I was a real child prodigy. I got my PhD in biology when I was 16,” Oh great. This guy is tall, hot, and insanely smart. Be still Leon's beating heart. “Normally I'm humble and never introduce myself with the title, I don't want to seem pretentious. And I like to keep my work and personal life separate. It being on the slip is not my choice. I've asked them to stop putting it here, but of course they just think it's funny that it annoys me!”

“Well, there are worse nicknames. My coworkers call me Leon Stupid Kennedy.”

“Wow. Okay. You win, yanqui, I have no right to complain about being Dr. Lewis,” Luis lifts his life die up. “High roll? Or I can just let you go first, since you're a beginner?”

“Such a gentleman, guess I'll just go first.”

Leon's deck is as straightforward as Luis promised. He plays mountains. He taps mountains and casts creature spells that he attacks with. There are some instant and sorcery spells in there too, but not a lot and they're pretty simple, mostly just kill spells.

Luis's deck is complicated, which is no surprise. Just about every single card he plays triggers some combo on cards he already has out, and he's constantly drawing cards, scrying, tapping and untapping things, putting counters on shit… It's impossible for Leon to keep up with. But he doesn't really need to. It doesn't matter what Luis is up to, his deck is meant to just keep attacking regardless of what his opponent is doing. And it… Actually works? He thought he was going to get his ass handed to him, but then he gets Luis down to 5 life…

“You got me. There's no way I can win now,” Luis says, scooping his board up and starting to shuffle his deck. “Game two!”

“Oye, earth to Leon, you in there?” Jesus Christ. Luis played a card that required him to shuffle his library and Leon completely zoned out staring at Luis's hands. At first he was just looking at his rings, but then he was just watching his hands shuffling his deck, thinking about what else those fingers could do… What the hell is wrong with Leon? “It's your turn!”

“Right. Sorry. Just zoned out.”

Game two does go to Luis. Quite possibly because Leon kept swooning over him and getting distracted.

But somehow Leon gets his shit together enough to win game three. Luis goes up to report the result of their match, and then the other players that are done gather around and give Luis some shit for losing to a beginner. Leon's anxiety suddenly kicks into overdrive and he gets hit with a vision of Luis throwing him under the bus to protect his own reputation, saying something about how Leon sucks and Luis could have crushed him if he tried, but he went easy on him, and Leon would spend the rest of the night questioning if he actually knows how to play. Being an outcast among other outcasts would be a new low for him.

It doesn't happen. Luis doesn't even dignify the comments with a response, just wanders away from them to glance at the ongoing matches. Leon is both relieved and disappointed that Luis doesn't try to talk to him again. Not until the end of the night, after prize packs are being handed out.

“So… Will I be seeing your pretty face around here again? You won three packs, you could save them for a Friday Night Magic draft for free?”

“Yeah. Think I will.”

Leon isn't sure what exactly a Friday Night Magic draft is, but he'll figure it out.

#luis absolutely did make mistakes on purpose so leon would win the first game. but it's a secret he'll take to his grave #he just wanted to give him a lil confidence booster so he wouldn't be intimidated against other opponents #and would feel confident playing super aggressive the rest of the night #serennedy #serrennedy #luis serra #leon kennedy

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moon-fics · 1 year

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Hot Summer Night- Simon "Ghost" Riley

A/n: Another repost from my old account :) Please enjoy again!

Summary: Fun moments on a hot summer day won't lead to new feelings, will they?

Warning: Swears, mention of injury

You’re sweating your ass off in the heat, using a piece of paper as a fan. You’re sitting on the porch of an old safe house that the group gathered in. The house doesn’t have air conditioning during summer, leaving it humid and way too hot. You don’t know how everyone is surviving inside, luckily Soap chose to sit outside with you.

“Fuckin’ hell this is miserable.” Soap groans, resting his back on the floor of the porch. You hum in response, too sweaty and uncomfortable to use your words at the moment. You wipe sweat from your forehead even if you’ll just have more in a second.

“Do you think the others passed out from the heat?” You ask, gesturing to the slightly open front door. It’s painfully quiet inside and you can’t figure out why. “Maybe they left us!” You tease.

“They wouldn’t leave me behind.” He taunts back, nudging your arm. You know the others didn’t leave without you, because they need as many hands on deck right now. Even though the mission is on a break to recuperate they still need you and Soap. “I don’ think I can put up with this heat anymore.”

“If you two are as unhappy as ya say you can just go hop into the lake nearby.” Gaz’s voice startles you. You didn’t hear his footsteps and you realize he’s not wearing his heavy boots, making his steps lighter. You finally realize what he’s said, there’s a lake.

“Are you fucking kidding me? You didn’t tell us earlier?” You whine, getting to your feet. Soap does the same with an excited smile, ready to cool off.

“Ya didn’ ask?” Gaz answers with a raised eyebrow. You roll your eyes and ask for directions. Gaz agrees to walk there with you so you and Soap don’t get lost. He heads inside to put on shoes and you peek inside to see Ghost sitting on a chair. He cannot be comfortable in his getup, especially with a mask on.

“Ghost, you willing to join us?” You ask and his head turns over to you. You give him a smile giving a thumbs up that slowly turns into a thumbs down for his opinion. If you were a stranger you’d go running from his mask, but you’ve stared at it long enough to get used to the unsettling proportions.

“Why the fuck would I go swimmin’?” His eyes don’t change from an unamused glare. You're about to ask him if he can’t swim when you realize he’s talking about his mask, wearing it while swimming would just waterboard him. You frown realizing you won’t get to see Ghost relax, although you rarely do. You shrug and turn away from the door seeing Soap stretching his arms after laying down for so long.

“All right, let's go,” Gaz says exiting the house. After a few steps, you hear distant rustling from inside the house, spinning around to see Ghost exiting the house as well. His eyes lock with yours and a chill runs down your spine, you forget how haunting his eyes look sometimes.

“Don’t get your fuckin’ hopes up. I just don’t want to be alone in the safe house.” He grumbles. Even though he’s right about being better in a group you still give him a smile. You’re glad he’s joining so he doesn’t have to be so tense, even though he’ll probably have one hand on his knife at all times.

“I didn’t say anything!” You defend playfully, walking past him. He doesn’t increase his pace but maintains behind the rest of the group.

Reaching the lake was like heaven and Soap was the first to remove his shirt and pants. He quickly entered the lake, letting out a loud sigh of contentment. You decide to keep your t-shirt and shorts on, not wanting to reveal too much. You walk towards the shore of the lake, only letting the water touch your toes. It’s refreshing already. You twist around to see Ghost sitting on a rock near the shore, hand in pocket. Gaz joins Soap and threatens him if he even tries to splash him.

“Not even gonna let your feet cool off?” You ask Ghost, taking another step into the lake. It’s a beautiful scene, honestly. Trees surround the lake making it a perfect spot to stay low.

“Not even for a second,” He responds and you frown again. His eyes soften for a second before returning to their naturally tired state. “Don’t need sand sticking to parts it shouldn’t even be in.” He jokes and your frown disappears. You head deeper into the water seeing Soap and Gaz floating nearby. Both of them have their fronts facing the sky while their breathing keeps them afloat.

You stand on the shore for a while, not wanting to get soaked. You’re about to go deeper when you hear footsteps nearing. They stop right before the water touches his feet, his hands no longer in his pockets.

You think for a second, bending over so your hand touches the water. Without another thought you push the water as hard as you can behind you, splashing Ghost’s legs. He lets out an annoyed grunt before glaring at you.

“Don’t you dare splash me again or I’ll drown you in this lake,” He threatens but he won’t do it. You trust him with your life and you doubt he’ll do anything crazy. So, you move your hand forward, still touching the water. You have the biggest grin on with your eyes locked with his. “Y/n…” He warns. You don’t hesitate to splash him again, this time getting a bigger hit on him. He doesn’t say anything before removing his boots and socks. Your eyes widen at the realization that he’s coming in after you.

You run deeper into the water, hoping he won’t chase after you. You think you’re deep enough when your legs no longer touch the bottom, the other men still unaware of what’s happening. Your relief is gone when Ghost removes his pants revealing long shorts underneath, even removing his shirt. Seeing him with barely any clothes on makes you extremely aware of how attractive his body is. His tattoos catch your eye and you squint to make them out, knowing you won’t be able to once he enters the water.

“You’re fuckin’ dead!” Ghost shouts, pointing at you. He removes the skull part of his mask, leaving the balaclava which you have no idea how he’ll survive within the water. However, his yelling caught Soap’s attention. He instantly understands what’s happening and begs to laugh.

Ghost begins menacingly entering the lake with daggers hitting you. You squeal, diving underwater. You can’t open your eyes without risking infection, so you use your hands to guide you. You can hear the water being splashed and moving. You can stay underwater for a long time because you trained yourself to hold your breath for long periods.

You begin swimming in one direction hoping you get far enough that Ghost won’t be able to get you. You surface after a few minutes to see Ghost is much closer than you wanted. He somehow followed your trail and he’s still standing, that tall fuck.

“Y/n run! He’ll shove a fish down your throat!” Soap cackles. Ghost is still heading towards you and you dive under again. You use a heavy rock to keep you from floating to the surface. You can hear Ghost getting closer, there’s no way he’ll reach you because his mask will get wet and his makeup will rub off. You’re so sure until a hand grabs your leg and drags you closer to shore. You scream out in surprise, inhaling a bit of water.

You’re pulled above water, coughing up anything you can. “Shit, sorry!” Soap’s voice mutters from behind you. He’s dragging you to a more shallow part of the lake. You struggle against him but his grip around you is too tight to escape. “Ghost offered five dollars if I brought you to him.” Soap chuckles.

“You traitor!” You yell out jokingly and decide to accept your punishment for annoying Ghost. Soap tosses you to where Ghost is standing and you splash in front of the tall man. Ghost grabs you by the shirt and pulls your head above water. At this point, you’d rather drown than be pulled in and out of the water.

“This is going to be fun.” Gaz groans, still floating on his back. You grunt gripping Ghost’s wrist for support. With a playful look in his eyes, he shoves you underwater. Unknown to both of you, there’s a sharp rock right where he dunked you. You’re lucky it grazes your leg, drawing blood. You yelp while still underwater, once again inhaling dirty water. Ghost pulls you out, probably ready to dunk you again once you seem ok enough to go under again.

However, your hand is gripping way too tight on his wrist for nothing to be wrong and you’re gritting your teeth. He’s quick to assess you for any injuries, instantly landing on a deep cut on your thigh. He curses under his breath realizing he’s accidentally hurt you.

“Fun is over, Y/n’s hurt.” Ghost informs Soap and Gaz with an annoyed tone. You don’t understand why he’s upset, he didn’t even want to be here and you’re the one bleeding.

“Awww, too bad I’m staying.” Gaz fakes sympathy and Soap shrugs, walking backward into deeper water. Ghost huffs and puts you back on your feet. You’re lucky your foot doesn't hit the rock as well. Without another word, Ghost drags you to shore. Your shirt is clinging to your body and dripping heavily.

“Fuck, slow down!” You whimper, your leg burning from putting pressure on it. Ghost remains silent still but picks you up swiftly. He crouches to grab his clothes and tells you to hold them. You try your best to keep them dry as he carries you back to the safe house.

Ghost gently puts you on a chair to keep you off your feet and you place his lightly wet clothes down. He opens a drawer and pulls out a med kit. He’s laser-focused on grabbing the right items and pulling out disinfectant and tools for stitches. He walks over to you and crouches on one knee in front of you. He pats your leg and you left it so he can get a better angle.

The cut is lower on your thigh making things less awkward. He pats your cut with a cotton swab drenched in disinfectant. You wince at the sting it causes and his eyes flick up to you with uncertainty. You’ve never seen Ghost this gentle, usually, he’s more intense or brooding. His hands are barely gripping your leg and even when you move your leg away as a reflex to the pain he’s soft. He just puts your leg back in place and continues patching you up.

Once he’s done he throws away the tools used. The lack of touch from him makes you wish you had gotten another cut just so he could hold a part of you again. You realize both of you have been quiet this whole time.

“Thank you.” You try to stand up but once you put pressure on the leg you’re hit with a burst of pain. You hiss and grab onto a table to steady yourself. You’re ready to carry yourself to one of the beds in the other room, hoping your leg doesn’t give out before you can reach it.

An arm stops you, seeing Ghost right next to you. Now that he’s not dunking you or carrying you you can finally get a better look at him. His eyes are gorgeous and captivating. There are many stories hidden behind them and you wish you could ask about them.

“Let me carry you into the other room.” He suggests. You don’t object and he wraps an arm around your legs, pulling you into his chest. He enters the room where all the twin-sized beds are for the team and lightly places you on top. You shut your eyes as the soft mattress consumes you. It’s still burning hot but you don’t mind right now, you’re somehow exhausted. “I’m sorry for getting you hurt.”

“Calm down there, Ghost. It’s not like my life was on the line,” You hum and you get no response. “You didn’t mean to, so I don’t blame you.” You assure him. He’s about to walk out of the room when you open your mouth one more time, “You should wear a shirtless.”

Ghost’s body tenses up and you can clearly see all his muscles. Even with his mask on you can tell he’s handsome. You just want to fall asleep in his large arms, but you can’t outright say that.

“Don’t sleep in your wet clothes, you’ll get sick,” You smile while directing his words. It’s his way of saying he cares about you more than just a team member, perhaps a friend. “If you need anything just call my name.”

#ghost x reader #ghost x you #simon ghost riley x you #ghost cod x reader #simon ghost riley x reader #ghost x y/n #ghost fanfiction #ghost mw2 #simon riley x reader #simon riley x y/n #simon riley x you #cod x you #cod x reader #cod x y/n #ghost cod #modern warfare x you #modern warfare x reader

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keru0 · 1 year

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You Are Loved

Hello tk community!! I wouldn't say I'm entirely new to the tk community but I have only just started interacting VERY recently. However, I feel like I need to start posting some of the fics I have in my head, so why not start it off with some lee!Thoma???

Fandom: Genshin Impact

Ships/Pairings: Thoma/Ayato (Romantic)

lee!Thoma, ler!Ayato

Summary: Ayato can't sleep again and finds Thoma sitting outside by himself. Wanting to cheer up his friend, Ayato decides to take matters into his own hands.

Contains: Sfw, Angst, Fluff

Word Count: 2128

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Ayato can't sleep.

This isn't new for him. He's been tossing and turning in bed for the last three hours, and still isn't tired in the slightest. Just like always, he has so much paperwork to go through and event details to confirm that the stress is eating away at him, forcing him to stay up.

Usually he would fight it and try to meditate, but even that isn't working. It's on nights like these when Ayato goes to the kitchen to prepare himself some herbal tea to help him sleep, which is exactly what he's doing now.

Walking to the kitchen in his pajamas, he thinks back to the time Thoma introduced this remedy to him...

* * *

Ayato's stress and insomnia were keeping him up, so he decided to get some fresh air. Going outside, he saw Thoma sweeping the deck. "Thoma?" he had asked. "What are you doing up so late? And outside at that."

"My Lord! I was just finishing up some duties before I went to bed. I'd rather do them now than worry about them tomorrow." Thoma laughed. "May I ask...what are you doing up so late? I would have thought you'd be asleep at this time of night."

"Well, Thoma, I was trying to...but the stress of all of my paperwork isn't allowing it. I thought some fresh air might help." He smiled at Thoma, "And please, Thoma, call me Ayato when we're alone. We're friends, no?"

"Y-yes my Lor- Ayato. Yes, Ayato. Sorry." He laughed softly, happy that Ayato still thinks of him as a close friend, though still a little saddened that he would never be anything more than that.

"If you want," he continued, "I know a recipe for a kind of tea that help with sleep. Would you mind if I made it for you?"

"No, Thoma. It's far too late, I'd loathe having to delay your rest."

"It's fine my- It's fine, Ayato, " Thoma spoke, catching himself, "I don't mind! I want to help you. Its the least I could do."

Knowing Thoma wouldn't take no for an answer, Ayato answered, "Alright, Thoma."

* * *

Now that Ayato thinks about it, Thoma has helped him through so much. If he weren't afraid of his answer, he would even ask Thoma to be more than friends, but that doesn't seem too likely, considering their circumstances.

As the tea leaves and herbs steep in the pot, Ayato looks out the window, suprised by what he sees -- Thoma, outside sitting against the wall, knees to his chest, head in his knees.

He's never seen Thoma look like...this. He looks...sad. Ever since Ayato had first met Thoma, he's always been so positive and upbeat, smiling to anyone and everyone he could. It looks so odd to see him like this. It doesn't feel right.

Forgetting about the tea, Ayato steps outside into the cool midnight air, and walks towards him. "Thoma?" he asks softly.

Thoma looks up quickly, a look of panic on his face. "M-my lord! Um...is everything alright? Do you need anything?" He asks hurriedly. Ayato thinks he can almost hear him sniffling.

Ayato bends down to sit by him, putting his hand on his back and urging him to calm himself. "Thoma, calm down. What are you doing out here?" he asks. Though it was hard to tell because of the dark moonlit sky, Ayato notes that Thoma's eyes look a bit red and swollen. "And what have I told you?" he says softly, "Call me Ayato when we're alone. Okay?"

"S-sorry, m- Ayato. I- I just wanted to get some fresh air before bed. Why do you ask?" Thoma put a smile on his face, but Ayato knew something wasn't right. It doesn't feel like a real Thoma smile.

"Thoma...are you alright?" he asks softly, his hand still on his back, seemingly holding Thoma in place.

"Y-yes," Thoma's smile faltered for a moment, "Why wouldn't I be?" he asked, looking away from Ayato quickly.

"Thoma, what's wrong? Don't try and hide. It's okay, you can tell me." Ayato spoke calmly, making his voice as soft as he could as to provide some sort of comfort to his...friend.

"I-" Thoma doesn't know what to say. Everytime he's ever come out here to cry he's been alone. He's made sure that it was enough so everyone was asleep -- even if Ayato was having insomnia. So why was he out here now?

Unbeknownst to Thoma, while he was silently panicking, silent tears leaked out of his closed eyes, sniffling softly. Ayato heard, carefully putting his palm on Thoma's cheek, turning his head to face him. "Thoma..." he said, thumbing away at his tears, "Hey, its okay. I'm here, its okay."

With Ayato's soft words, the dam that Thoma had tried so hard to hold, broke. Thoma turns into Ayato, sobbing into his shoulder, staining his pajamas with his tears while his friend whispers sweet nothings into his ear while carding one hand through his hair while the other was rubbing comforting circles into his back.

After quite some time, Thoma's muffled sobs quieted to sniffling. Continuing his comforting movements, Ayato whispered, "Do you want to talk about it?"

"Um...I..." Thoma said slowly.

"You don't have to," Ayato rushed. "If you don't want to, you don't have to. I'm just worried about you, is all."

"N-no, it's alright." Thoma started. "It's just that...when I went to Inazuma city today..." he said, tightening his grip on Ayato slightly.

"Yes?" Ayato continued comforting Thoma with his hands, playing with his hair and rubbing his back.

"S-some people...they said that I...don't belong here. They kept going on about how I shouldn't be in Inazuma and that the only reason I work for you is because you feel bad for me. They kept saying how an outsider like me doesn't belong here and how you only keep me around because I do most of the housework. They've always said these things but I just couldn't take it anymore and-" Ayato, noticing how Thoma's breathing and speech is starting to speed up, stops him before any more tears could fall.

"Hey, hey, hey. None of that is true, Thoma." He comforted. "You know that I don't keep you here because I feel bad for you. I keep you around because I..." Ayato paused. On the one hand, Thoma really needs to hear this, but on the other, Ayato's so scared of letting his feelings be known. He's scared that Thoma will reject him right there. However, comforting Thoma is what matters right now, so, continuing what he was going to say, he takes a deep breath, "I love you, Thoma. I love you somuch. So does Ayaka, and Yoimiya, and Itto. Thoma you are so loved. Don't take anything those people say to be true, because they're wrong, okay?"

"O-okay." Thoma frowned.

"Hey, where's that smile I so adore? Hm?" Ayato asked, a playful grin appearing on his face.

"Um..." Thoma tried to smile, but Ayato could still see the hurt behind his eyes.

"Oh come on Thoma, you can do better than that~" He said, playfully dragging a finger against where Thoma's sides meet his back.

Thoma squeeled. He squeeled. 'That was cute.' Ayato thought, becoming flustered for a moment, his sheeks turning pink before regaining his composure and continuing with his playfulness, quietly saying, "Oh? Don't tell me my dear housekeeper is ticklish. Is my dear Thoma ticklish?" Ayato added another finger to accompany the one already dragging up and down Thoma's backside.

Saying Thoma is flustered is a very, very big understatement. 'Did he just call me his dear?' He thought, giggling at the ticklish sensations Ayato's fingers was giving. "N-nohoho! A-Ayato! Wahahahait! Nohohoho!" He giggled, hiding his red face in the crook of Ayato's neck.

"There's that smile~" Ayato cooed, sneaking his other hand under Thoma's shirt and lightly scribbling at his sides. "Your laugh is so cute Thoma. It never fails to make me happy, and thats because whenever I see you happy, I instantly become happy as well. Does this tickle? Does it tickle here, Thoma~?" he teased.

"Ahh! Nohohoho! Plehehehease nohohot THAHAHAT! AYATO WAHAHAHAIT!" Thoma laughed, Ayato's other hand sneaking into his shirt and lightly clawing at his back. With the tickling and Ayato's teasing and complimenting, Thoma might actually die. Death by tickling. Actually, if it was because of Ayato, it doesn't sound too bad.

Thoma forced his mouth shut and smushed his red and overheating face against Ayato's neck even harder, trying to muffle his laughter while his eyes were screwed shut. "Mph! Mhmhmhmhmhehehe! C'mon stohohop!"

Ayato only smirked more. "Oh? Playing hard to get~? Well then, up we go!" Ayato laughed, easily picking up Thoma bridal style, one hand tickling behind Thoma's knee while the other was still working on his bare side.

"AHH! Ayatohoho nohohoho! Put me down! Ahahahaha! Nohohoho" Thoma hid his face against Ayato's shoulder now, not wanting to wake anyone up so they could see this...embarrassing...situation.

Tickling and carrying Thoma, Ayato walked them to his own room and carefully lowered Thoma onto his futon, straddling his waist, never letting up on his attack for even one second.

After he got on top of Thoma, who now seemed to flush even brighter, Ayato took both of his hands in one of his own and pinned them above his head, lowering his free hand to Thoma's armpit, not tickling, but just wiggling his fingers above it, teasing him.

"Hehehe noho! Dohohon't!" Thoma giggled, hiding his face against his arm.

Ayato lowered his face so his mouth was against Thoma's ear, smiled and whispered, "What? Don't what, Thoma?"

"Tickle me! WAIT-" With that, Thoma fell perfectly into Ayato's trap. Ayato lowered his hand into Thoma's armpit and lightly scribbled against it.

Thoma lost it. "NOHOHOHOHO! WAITWAITWAIT IHIHIHI DIDN'T MEHEHEAN IT! NOHOHOHOT THEHEHEHERE!" He is sure that his laughter woke up some of the servants, but Ayato doesnt mind -- he'd rather see Thoma happy and have his workers woken up by his laugher than seeing him how he was just a few minutes ago.

"Not here? Hmm...? What about here?" Ayato teased, stopping his attack on Thoma's armpit and instead lowered a finger into Thoma's bellybutton, exposed by his shirt that has ridden up his chest.

"No! Nonononono plehease! Nohot thehEHEHERE! AYATOHOHOHO! NAHAHA-" Thoma's laughed turned silent as Ayato swirled his finger around his navel. Tears of mirth were now flowing down his face instead of the sad tears of earlier.

As Ayato was still wiggling his finger in Thoma's seemingly most sensitive spot, he felt a tapping on the hand pinning Thoma's hands, and he stopped, releasing Thoma's hands and asking, "Are you okay? I didn't go too rough did-" Ayatos question was cut short as Thoma leaned on his forearms and kissed Ayato. Ayato kissed back.

Oh.

Suprised and smiling after they pulled apart, Ayato stuttered, "T-Thoma! Hehe...uh..."

Thoma panicked, thinking Ayato was upset about what he had just done but didn't want to show it. "O-oh! I'm sorry my Lord! I- I didn't mean to-" He was cut short by Ayato himself.

"No! Nonono Thoma, don't be sorry! I...I liked it. Dont worry. I liked it." He said, cupping Thoma's face and kissing him again, smiling through the kiss and as they pulled apart. "I've liked you for so long. When I saw you outside I was worried that something had happened. I...I said I love you. And I meant it, Thoma. I do love you. And many other people love you too. You deserve to be here. Don't let anyone tell you or make you think otherwise."

Getting up, Ayato decided that he was going to bring that tea he started steeping and share it with Thoma. "I'll be back in a minute. You can change into a pair of my pajamas. Theyre in the closet. They might be slightly large for you, but they should be fine." he smiled, stepping out and shitting the door behimd him, making his way to the now lukewarm tea and pouring two cups.

Returning to his room, he was greeted by the sight of Thoma already asleep on the futon, softly snoring on his side. Not wanting to wake him, Ayato gently and quietly set the teacups on the table and went to get the blanket out of the closet. Blowing out the candles, he layed next to Thoma, settling the blanket over the both of them.

Wrapping his arm around Thoma and nuzzling into the back of his neck, Ayato sleepily said, "I love you Thoma. I'll see you in the morning." smiling against the nape of Thoma's neck, breathing in Thoma's sweet scent, both of the men drifting into a peaceful rest, cuddled together.

End.

This is actually the first fic I have *ever* published so please let me know how yall like it!! And feel free to leave suggestions for other fics or critiques!

#lee!thoma #ler!ayato #genshin tickles #angst #fluff #i hope this is good #sfw tickling community #sfw #genshin impact #i wrote this like an hour ago #its 5 am #genshin tickling #genshin tickle

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oh-surprise-its-me · 7 months

Note

Mmh...let's make our favorite dummy definitely dehydrated, shall we Mac? 😗

(... I actually understand how he could forget to drink. I mean, the tea bottle is staring at me, I'm considering putting a angry face on it tho...cause it's staring really angrily)

Ah I completely understand how the dummy gets dehydrated… my aunt gently yelled at me last summer for that…

But here we go!

In Ron’s defense he was drinking things. Just not water. He’s on his third cup of coffee of the day. Really all he’s had the past week and a half is coffee.

He’ll drink the glass of water at dinner but otherwise? Nope. He’s running on straight caffeine.

Ron has been outside all day. He helped Chris fix the one part of the fence so the horses couldn’t leave. Helped Tom plant the trees he bought last weekend. Pushed Jake on the swings until Jake thought he was going to flip over and ran inside for a ball.

He feels tipsy. Not drunk tipsy. But like he’s going to pass out tipsy. Jake comes running back out of the house, behind him the four dogs follow. Chris likes to say it’s a dog for each of them. Ron knows it’s just the everlasting need to have animals around.

Jake skids to a stop in front of Ron. The ten year old has been on a energy trip all week. They can barely keep up. Especially with their deployment looming over their heads. They leave in three weeks.

Ron knows Jake doesn’t hate them for it but god. When they have to leave him and Chris at the airport it’s like something inside of him dies.

“Pa? Did you hear what I said?”

Ron blinks at him. He hadn’t. When did it start getting dark out.

Fuck.

It’s not dark.

That’s his vision going.

“Chickie I’m going to be fine but go get your dads right now.” Ron collapses forward and catches himself on the deck.

Jake stares at him for a second before taking off.

He knows that tone. That’s the I’m being so serious right now one. He sprints off towards the barn where dad was working. Tata is probably with him. “Dad! Tata! Pa passed out!!”

Chris and Tom come running out of the barn before Jake can even get there. They sprint by him. Ron’s dog is licking his face when they reach him.

“Baby?” “Hey come on wake up Sunny.”

Jake is standing to the side. “Do I need to call uncle David and Lucas?”

Chris looks up at their kid. “No baby. He’s fine. Probably just dehydrated.” Tom slaps Ron’s face.

That gets a reaction.

Ron gasps awake. He tries to sit up but Chris shoves his shoulder back down. “Stop it. Lay there. Let everything come back.”

Jake looks like he’s trying to not cry. He’s holding the smallest dog. A chihuahua mix he found in the yard last summer. “Pa? Are you okay?”

Ron sits up again. Chris makes a noise of annoyance but allows it knowing that Ron will do anything to make sure Jake is okay. “Fine chickie. Just forgot to drink water all week.”

Tom stares at him. Ron can practically feel holes being burned into his head. “All week?”

“Pa you ain’t supposed to do that. That’s a terrible idea. It’s how you get hurt!”

Tom snaps his fingers at Jake, “baby you know ain’t isn’t proper grammar.”

Chris points a in Jake’s direction. “What the ten year old with more sense then you said.”

“Come on dummy. Let’s go inside and put you on the couch. You’re gonna drink so much water.”

Tom pulls Jake under his arm. “Common kiddo. That means Batman and reminding your pa to drink for you.”

Jake let’s out a whoop. He likes being able to tell people what to do. Chris likes to say he got that from Tom.

In bed that night Ron looks a lot better. Less pale then he was earlier in the day. They didn’t realize it but apparently he was really not okay. Tom is curled up on top of him. Chris is laying behind Ron so he has a way to sit up.

There’s a water bottle on the nightstand that they keep passing over to him.

“Jesus Christ okay enough are you two trying to drown me?”

Chris pinches his shoulder, “you’re not allowed to complain. You passed out.”

Tom tilts his head up to look into Ron’s eyes. “I will ask Lucas for an IV don’t think I won’t.” Ron sighs. He pets a hand over Tom’s head. “Oh Tommy I know you would.”

There’s a beat where they just listen to each other breathing.

“I am sorry though. Really didn’t mean to scare anyone. Thought I was fine.”

There’s a sigh from Chris this time. “It’s fine you know it just be more careful.”

Tom pinches Ron’s nipple. He gets a hiss in response, “if you do this on the carrier I will end you.”

“Love you too baby.”

“I love you too you fucking idiot.”

“I’m not going to call either of you names and I’m just gonna say I love you both.”

#ron slider kerner #chris seresin #ron slider kerner x chris seresin #tom iceman kazansky #top gun #tom x ron x chris #ron x chris x tom #tom kazansky x ron kerner #chris seresin x tom iceman kazansky #young jake seresin #slider is jake's dad au #there’s a reason why Jake has anxiety. one of those reasons is his father(s)#mac writes top gun

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lxvenderdreamy · 10 months

Note

would you be able to do a soul X m!reader X Death the Kid one shot (or the bullet points, idk what theyre called sorry!) (its up to what u would prefer btw! :) ) where the male reader play flirts with them a lot and soul and kid decide to get back at him? 🍓(and if u want to 🍋)

thank you!!!

Another request! When I saw this notification I immediately jumped up. Thank you for requesting!

🍓Soul x Male! Reader x Kid🍓

The three of you were an…interesting pair. But hey sometimes interesting is good and I stand by that.

Soul is that laid back kind of guy in the relationship, Kid is calm and collected but more mature…well sometimes.

And there’s you.

You are a WHOLE nother story. You are a flirty type of guy.

Your flirting is cheesy and can be able to make them flustered. Classic playful flirting.

But here you go doing it on the daily..adding in your very own small twists while your at it.

To be honest, you just say it at random times. It can be anywhere, anytime, any day. They’ll never know in til you say it.

Kid is over here stressing about the damn stripes on his head that Liz had pointed out. Like his world is crumbling all around him til he hears,

“I hope you know how to do CPR, because you just took my breath away!”

Soul could be laying on the ground after getting his head decked with a damn book by Maka and all he hears is,

“Are you a parking ticket? ‘Cause you’ve got ‘fine’ written all over you!”

Just random. Every time you say your cheesy flirts..it’s just out of the blue.

Doesn’t matter, hell you can say it to both of them if you want. Don’t care, doesn’t matter, you have no shame. No shame at all.

“So last night, I was reading the book of Numbers and I realized I don’t have y’all’s.”

…

“God turned water into wine, but i just want you both to turn in to mine.”

Just stop at this point.

You know that Soul and Kid need to pull up with their very own plans too. They smushed their brains together to get back at you. It’s simple, playing by the same rules and teaming up on you.

It’s not that they are annoyed by your flirting (well..), they just want to come back at you with a little heat.

When you were just sitting down, doing absolutely nothing. Pure silence, minding your very own business. Basically, in your own little bubble. Here they come, they sit on each side of you, silent.

Right now your getting a bit suspicious..but you keep minding your business. Maybe they just wanted to be next to you all of sudden?

… It’s quiet for a little bit. Not to mention how they are using secretive (not really) morse code right next to you.

(They are trying to get one of them to say their line. Kid is backing out which is SO NOT COOL.)

“Uh…Y/n, You so fine you almost made me forget my pickup line.” Soul said awkwardly. You gave him a side eye that was confusing. Then Kid joined in.

“They say that kissing is a language of love, so would you mind starting a conversation with me?” Kid said with a smirk on his face.

To their surprise, your face gets a little red. Your wondering why their acting like this all of sudden. Usually it’s you that does the flirting, but now it’s just..so weird.

“Are you an exam? Because I have been studying you like crazy.” Soul added on.

“Soul..you don’t even study-“

“Are you my homework? Because I’m not doing you, but I definitely should be.”

“Damn, if being sexy was a crime, you’d be guilty as charged!” Kid added.

By the time they’re at this, pulling out every pickup line they saw on a website out of their ass, your red in the face.

You have to take a minute, you walk outside to get some fresh air and cool off.

Kid and Soul have achieved their beloved goal. Surprisingly it went smoothly despite Kid trying to back out of it and Soul basically getting exposed for not studying or doing his homework.

#soul eater x reader #soul eater soul #soul eater dtk #soul eater evans #soul eater liz #soul eater #request #[🍓]#oneshot #soul eater oneshot #fluff #soul eater fluff

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aimwigs · 2 months

Note

i love ur dadwig writings sm 🤧

THANK YOU!!!! you sent this a while ago but here's a little more ft middle aged lud dealing with teenagers

“Mr. Ahgren, we’re calling because your daughter has been suspended and we need you to come to the school to meet with the dean regarding her behavior.”

He closes his eyes and pinches the bridge of his nose. Shit.

“I’ll be right there,” he says before asking for any details. Unfortunately, he doesn’t need them.

During the drive over, he ponders what the fuck Lucy could have done to get suspended. She’s always been pretty spirited and combined with ADHD that they’re struggling to get formally diagnosed due to this stupid notion that girls don’t get it as much, the school hasn't let them forget how much of a distraction she is in the classroom, with afternoon and Saturday detentions for shit as simple as repeated tardies and cracking jokes that aren’t quite appropriate for school. He blames himself for the latter, honestly, because it’s something he would do.

Still, he has no fucking clue what she would do to warrant getting suspended. You have to do some serious shit to get suspended, and nothing Lucy has done has ever warranted even a warning about that.

Except, when he meets QT at the school and they find Ryan’s best friend, Marie, sitting outside the office with her parents with an ice pack on her face and tissues shoved up her nose, they seem to realize in unison that this is not what either of them fucking expected at all.

“They should have told us the specifics,” QT hisses as she knocks on the door to the office, a look of panic in her eyes. “I’m not fucking prepared for this shit!”

The door opens, revealing the dean standing there with a grim look on his face and Ryan sitting in one of the chairs behind him, arms crossed over her chest and gaze firmly fixed toward the window.

“Thank you for coming so quickly.”

He shakes each of their hands and they do introductions before sitting down with Ryan between them. Since Ludwig is sitting closer to the window, he can see now that her eyes are rimmed in red. He knocks their knees together and gives her a half-hearted smile in an attempt to cheer her up, earning a glare from QT. Right. She punched another girl in the face.

The story they’re told is very one-sided. Apparently, Ryan came up to Marie during the passing period and decked her so hard that she broke her nose. Lucky for Marie, the nurse was able to realign it and she probably won’t need surgery. Lucky for Ryan, Marie and her parents aren’t pressing charges.

The dean doesn’t explain any reason for why the fight might have happened, which makes sense because Ryan hasn’t opened her mouth once since she got here. He has a feeling that she wasn’t feeling particularly talkative before and if Marie did do something to warrant getting punched, it’s not like she’d going to speak up and tell people she deserved it.

The dean tells them that she’s lucky she didn’t get expelled and that if it weren’t for her impeccable record, there would be more than a two-week suspension on the table. He also reminds them that while UC Berkeley probably won’t rescind her admission, another offense like this one may make them reconsider. At that last part, Ryan does bristle a bit.

The dean offers to reduce her suspension to a week if she apologizes to Marie but she tilts her chin defiantly and keeps her mouth shut. Ludwig wishes that she would at least have it in her to lie for her own good.

When they leave the office, QT is fucking fuming. Rightfully so, honestly. She tells her that she she needs to control her temper and try to maintain some level of peace, and reminds her that neither of them can help her if she doesn’t tell them anything. She reaches out for her car keys and says that she and Slime will pick it up tonight and that she’ll be going home with Ludwig today since she has meetings this afternoon. Then she kisses the top of her head and tells her that she loves her for good measure.

They walk toward the car in silence and he ponders what approach to take with this. He’s been a parent for more than 18 years now and he still has no fucking clue what he’s doing. His instinct is always to be nice but it’s definitely not fair to make QT the bad guy when this is a serious fucking situation that probably necessitates a firm hand.

“You’re lucky they didn’t press charges,” he finally says as he pulls his car out of the school parking lot. “You’re an adult, Ryan. You could go to jail.”

Just like that, the levee breaks and she starts sobbing, face falling into her hands as she tries to turn away from him.

He winces a little as he glances over at her, reaching out to pat her arm lightly. He can’t be firm about this if she’s crying. To be fair, he thinks that QT would probably soften up if she was here too.

“Do you wanna tell me what happened?”

“No.”

He sighs. “Ryan, your mom is right. There’s nothing we can do for you if you don’t tell us what happened.”

She wipes at her face with her arm but still doesn’t meet his eyes. “There’s nothing you can do for me anyway.”

Even though she’s probably right, he could at least provide some comfort. “Let me try?”

Ryan lets out a bitter laugh. “If you can go back in time and stop Marie from kissing Damian behind my back then sure, I guess you can help.”

He frowns. Damian is Ryan’s boyfriend of three months whom every single adult in her life has been pretending not to hate the entire time. He’s rude, ditches her constantly, and in Slime’s words is “a serious fucking rat but not in a based way.” Even Aiden can’t stand him, and he’s Aiden. So him cheating isn’t exactly surprising. It being with Ryan’s best friend since kindergarten is.

“Did she kiss him or did he kiss her?”

The glare she gives him is enough to tell him that the distinction isn’t something that matters.

He nods. “Well, that’s a shitty thing to do but the reaction isn’t appropriate. You two have been tight since you were five. You should have tried to talk it out, even if she fucking sucks for doing that to you. I hope you dumped Damian, by the way.”

“Obviously, I fucking dumped him,” she crosses her arms and turns toward the window. “I don’t regret punching her, though. She’s a fucking bitch.”

Considering that she knowingly kissed his daughter’s boyfriend, he isn’t totally inclined to disagree even though she’s previously been a pretty nice girl.

“That doesn’t mean you resort to violence.” This he firmly believes. Sue him, he’s always been a lover and a forgiver, even if that makes him naïve.

“I knew you wouldn’t get it, considering you used to fuck around on Mom.”

He’s so taken aback that he nearly slams on the brakes in the middle of the highway. That’s out of fucking nowhere and not strictly true, though not strictly false either. Shit was complicated in his twenties, and he never slept with anyone but her then.

“Did she tell you that?” Her saying that about him would be completely out of character. Weirdly enough, he feels like he has a better relationship with QT now than he did when they were dating.

Ryan scoffs and rolls her eyes. “Your life is public record, Dad. Everyone knows that you were kissing your current husband when you were still with Mom because you said it.”

“That was different,” he tells her even though he knows that isn’t the complete truth. He knew he liked kissing Aiden and he knew QT didn’t like it, he was just convincing himself it was fine because it didn’t really mean anything even though it clearly did, based on the gold band wrapped around his finger.

“I’m sure.”

He pauses for a moment, taking in her line of logic. “Do you think it would have helped anything if your mom punched Aiden in the face for kissing me instead of having a conversation with me about it?”

She shrugs. “Maybe it would have saved her a few years.”

“You and your sister literally would not be alive,” he reminds her, knowing that she can’t argue otherwise. “And considering that your mom seems to love you guys a lot, I doubt she thinks of our time together as a total waste.”

Ryan slumps down in her seat and doesn’t reply.

“Look, kid, I’m not exactly proud of how that went down. Your mom and I had a massive fight over it and I was inadvertently leading Aiden on when I wasn’t ready to be with him yet. I fucked up. But all three of us get along pretty damn well today, and I guarantee you that a violent altercation would probably mean that our lives look very different now for a lot of reasons. You’re right when you say your mom would probably be easier to talk about this shit because I know she keyed some girl’s car for the same reason but I also know she regrets it. Using your words is always the best option to sort out this kind of thing and if that’s not working, you get the fuck out of there.”

She inhales sharply. “I just don’t get why she’d fucking kiss him.”

“I don’t either. But maybe you should ask her. Fuck, if she doesn’t regret it already, she will. You guys are best fucking friends. Don’t let some fucking loser boy ruin that for you.”

“But what if I love him?”

Ludwig grips the steering wheel a bit tighter. “Well, you could try talking things out with him too.” He can’t keep his tone from becoming stilted despite being pretty damn practiced at controlling his reactions in front of an audience.

Ryan smiles slightly. “I’m messing with you, Dad. I was gonna dump him after prom anyway. He only ever talks about himself. Guess I’ll just have to find a new date now. Honestly, I was more pissed at Marie for the principle of it than caring about Damian himself. Is that dumb?”

“That’s not dumb. She betrayed your trust.” He meets her eyes through the mirror. “But that doesn’t mean that you punch her in the face.”

She snorts. “Got it, Dad.”

“You’ll talk to her?”

“I’ll talk to her,” she promises. “But I’m not fucking apologizing until she does.”

He laughs. “That sounds fair enough.”

And maybe parenting teenagers is about twice as hard as parenting younger kids but he thinks that he handled this pretty well, especially a few weeks later, when he has the privilege of taking pictures of her and Marie side by side at prom, whatever beef between them squashed.

#wrote this on my phone in a haze today waiting for my PI to be available for a meeting all day #dadwig #ludwig #my fic #answered #anxietyriddenblue

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jungle-angel · 1 year

Text

“It’s Been a Day” (Harrison Knott x Reader)

Summary: One hell of a day leads to one of the best nights of your life

Tagging: @sebsxphia

Maui, HI

May, 2022

Harrison had just finished reorganizing the last of the cassette tape box when he felt his phone in the back pocket vibrating. As soon as he pulled it out, he answered the call that read your name across the top in big bold letters.

“Hey baby, what’s up?” he asked cheerfully.

“Any chance you can come home early?” you asked him.

A pang of worry welled in his chest when he heard your voice, knowing you were probably close to tears. “Yeah, it’s almost closing time,” Harrison answered. “I’ll be home in fifteen. Everything ok?”

“It’s just......it’s just been a day.”

“Ok, ok,” Harrison said, trying to keep himself calm. “I’m coming home right now. I’ll see you in a few.”

You both said your “I love yous” before hanging up. Harrison quickly set aside the milk crate full of cassette tapes before shutting off the lights and locking the doors as he went to the parking lot at the back of the building, dialing the number for one of your family friends.

“Aloha dipshit,” said the familiar voice at the other end.

“Sup ding-dong,” Harrison chuckled.

“Well, you wouldn’t have called if you didn’t need anything.”

“Jonah, we’ve been best friends for how long?” Harrison asked him.

“Alright bruh, what’s your business?” Jonah asked him. “What do you need?”

“I might need you to come get three little ghouls,” Harrison answered. “Possibly four.”

“Ight, I’m off at three-fifteen, then I gotta run to the halau to drop something off for my aunt,” Jonah replied.

“Mahalo my friend,” Harrison replied. “You guys are awesome.”

As soon as he was able to hang up, Harrison started up the truck and headed out for home. He turned up the radio as Bob Seger’s “Rock n’ Roll Never Forgets” started playing, yet the whole while, Harrison had begun to dread what sights awaited him when he got back to the house.

He pulled up fifteen minutes later, just as he had promised and went up the deck stairs to the front porch, heading inside upon hearing little voices coming from the kitchen.

“Stop it Dakota!” whined a little girl’s voice.

“You messed it up Audrina!”

“No I didn’t!”

Harrison poked his head around the corner to find his oldest son, Dakota, his oldest daughter Audrina and their youngest sister, Chloe, all covered in a mess of flour and one strange and alarming looking piece of dough in the glass bowl on the counter. Poor Chloe was not only covered in flour, but in a mess of egg goo that her brother had probably gotten all over her.

Harrison folded his arms when their heads turned and met their father’s. “What’d I say about cooking while I’m gone?” he asked sternly, raising his eyebrows and giving them that look.

“To not to,” they all chirped.

“And what are you guys doing right now?”

Two of them meekly turned their gazes down while Chloe babbled something in her little toddler voice.

“That’s what I thought,” Harrison said. “So guess what? You guys are gonna go outside by the shower and wait while I go and check on Momma. After that, Uncle Jonah’s gonna come and get you guys for a two day sleepover.”

“SLEEPOVER!!!!!!!” Dakota and Audrina blurted out.

Harrison helped Chloe down and shooed her off with her big brother and sister, hurrying upstairs to see how you were doing.

When he poked his head in through the door, he saw you sitting up in bed with the newest addition to your family, Ryan, attached to you. “Baby?” Harrison asked. “Baby you ok?”

You answered with only a tired nod, the dark circles noticeable under your eyes. “M’so tired,” you groaned. “This one’s been up since the kids got home from school.”

“Ok,” Harrison answered, kissing your cheek. “Let me get the older ones settled first and I’ll come help. Jonah’s gonna come and get the older kids and I think his aunt’s gonna come and get Ryan.”

“Oh, Harrison.....” you groaned.

“Hey, Auntie Lilo offered to take him since she doesn’t have her granddaughter for the week,” Harrison told you. “I tried to talk her out of it, but she insisted.”

You smiled a little as Ryan fed away, draining your tits of the soreness that had become increasingly common since you had been pregnant. As soon as he had finished and the rest of the business had been taken care of, Harrison made sure you were comfortable before heading outside.

“Daddy’s something else, isn’t he little man?” you said to Ryan.

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

Harrison shook the large bottle full of gelatinous red shampoo that smelled of pomegranate and mango, unscrewing the cap and upending it before a large glob of it ran onto the heads of the older kids. All three of them had been lined up and stuck into an oversized laundry bucket full of bathwater from the outdoor shower.

“Scrub those heads babies,” Harrison told the older ones.

Dakota and Audrina laughed and giggled while Harrison took care of Chloe, scrubbing all the dusty flour and sticky smears of egg from her hair. The kids had the time of their lives when the familiar sound of a vehicle pulling into the driveway caught everyone’s attention.

“What’s this? Are we having a party back here?” Jonah asked as a huge smile formed on his face.

Dakota and Audrina leapt from their “baths” and ran to their uncle as wet spots had begun to form on his camo uniform, squealing with happiness before Chloe crawled out and ran to him herself.

“You good to go Harrison?” Jonah asked.

“Yeah I just gotta have them rinse off with the hose and get some clothes from the house.”

Jonah helped Harrison hose the kids off before letting them dry with their beach towels and letting them switch into a change of clothes. Jonah loaded them all up in the truck with their backpacks, waving goodbye to them as Jonah pulled away.

He went straight into the house, following Ryan’s cries up the stairs and finding you trying to put him back to bed. “Baby, here, let me take him,” Harrison insisted. “I want you in that bath in five minutes, you got it?”

“Got it,” you said before you gave him a quick kiss.

Harrison listened for the sound of the water running in the bathroom while he did what he could to put Ryan back to sleep. You could hear Harrison’s voice quietly singing “I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For” as he rocked Ryan in his big arms, the little one slowly falling asleep at the sound of his daddy’s singing.

“I have climbed, the highest mountain

I have run, through the fields

Only to be with you

I have run, I have crawled

I have scaled, these city walls

These city walls

Only to be with you......”

You could sense Harrison looking up at you as he sang, a smile forming on his face as your gazes met and those familiar words brought back your earliest memories together.

Harrison didn’t stop until Ryan was completely asleep in his arms and a squeaky little coo the only sound he made. Jonah’s aunt stopped by to take him for a few hours, leaving just you and Harrison.

You sank into the bath, reveling in the feeling of the hot water washing away your stress. “My God this feels so good,” you sighed heavily.

“Oh it’ll feel even better in a few minutes,” Harrison chuckled.

“And why is that?” you asked mischievously.

“Cause I’m coming in!”

You laughed as Harrison stripped off his clothes and practically jumped into the bath with you, the water sloshing and almost spilling over the sides. Harrison didn’t hesitate to mix in a little of the Irish Spring body wash, letting it foam up and filling the whole bathroom as Harrison pulled you close to him. You felt something stiff and throbbing rubbing against your ass, something you knew of a little too well at this point.

“Harrison, I swear if Ryan ends up with an Irish twin......”

“Oh baby don’t you worry,” Harrison chuckled, his breath warm against your neck as he littered it with soft kisses. “We’ve got a long time before we think about another one.”

You laughed, enjoying the closeness with your husband as the hands began to roam and the kissing grew more intense. Even if the kids were with family the next two days, you and Harrison vowed to enjoy every second of it.

#press play #harrison knott #harrison knott x reader #lewis pullman #lewis pullman x reader

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sopejinsunflower · 2 years

Text

2022.001.003: Nice to Meet You

You haven’t been back since.

Hoseok holds back on a sigh, looking down at his feet as he massages the bridge of his nose. A week has passed since the day you saw them in their semi-opaque state, screamed your head off and had run for the hills and there is no way for any of them to check on you or find out what happened.

He misjudged you, made the mistake of putting you side by side with Soon-hee. She had screamed, too, that first time but it only took her a few minutes to compose herself before casually asking who they were. She was sceptical but rational, even thrusted her hands through Jungkook who was still materialising, causing the kid to yelp. It’s very uncomfortable when that happens, especially when sensations are coming back. It’s the same feeling as when you feel your stomach drop.

But you were the total opposite - surprising them in the process, too, because as much as he doesn’t want to admit it, they hadn’t expected that reaction - and he doesn’t think you’ll be back anytime soon. The girl has ghosted the ghosts. Ha! Hoseok chuckles to himself but without much mirth. He finally lets out the sigh he’s been holding back, rubbing a hand over his face. It’ll be a few more decades until the next girl, he guessed. And that’s being generous.

Namjoon is standing over a desk, staring intently at the book placed on top of it, the book that he had been reading the night before. He keeps one eye on Hoseok across from him, reading his friend perfectly well, but his frustration on not being able to read his book is only growing. He lost track of time last night, nose buried in the pages when the sun had risen and now he’s stuck at a cliffhanger and he’s dying to finish it. In his panic, he had accidentally shut the book, a rookie mistake that he shouldn’t be making in this day and age. They can pick up smaller things like a deck of cards but books require more energy and if he could just flip the cover-

“It must be that old housekeeper!” Jimin exclaims from the window, hands in his pockets, scowling at something he’s staring at outside. Namjoon loses his concentration and sighs exasperatedly. He goes to sit down, letting Jimin rant. “She must have stopped her from coming back. Soon-hee should’ve gotten rid of her a long time ago like we told her to.”

“You mean,” Jin says from the sofa, “like you told her to.” Jimin pulls a face but doesn’t respond. “Relax, she’ll be back.”

Hoseok perks up. “You think so, hyung?”

Jin just shrugs his shoulders noncommittally. “Mhm. Just a feeling.”

~~~

I am never going back there. Ever.

Even if there is a zombie apocalypse and the attic is the safest place to be. Nope. Not in this lifetime. Not even if my late grandaunt rises up from her resting place, claws her way through cement (yes, she’s buried in a family mausoleum from what I’ve been told) and tells me that I’d have to go back to the attic if I was to inherit everything. I would rather walk out of this house for good, take the money already in my account and just leave. Graduate, migrate, find a job and just forget about everything that happened.

I spent Friday simmering about how to explain missing classes by being sick without a doctor’s note but by the end of the evening, I resorted to sending an apology email to my lecturers and gave them half-truths; I had an anxiety attack and needed time to recover and in this pandemic and being in the middle of nowhere, I couldn’t get to a doctor until I was already feeling better, which by then, no doctor would grant me any sick note. I mean, it’s not really a lie. A couple of lecturers were very understanding, one didn’t buy it at all but since I was generally a proactive student on Zoom with a full attendance before, decided to dismiss it, and two others who gave me short assignments to make up for the lost attendance. Problem solved.

Now onto the main problem: the ghosts in the attic.

My first thought is that if there are ghosts in the attic then they must be everywhere! Thankfully, the month I’ve lived here has been quite uneventful until last week. I mean, if the house is haunted, shouldn’t I be warned, at least? A cryptid letter with a dozen rules and instructions on what to do or not to do? An offering to help them find peace, move on or whatever they say that ghosts do? I don’t know. I didn’t think they existed until now!

And then I had another thought, a more horrifying one: what if they are the souls of those who died here in this house? Isn’t that how ghosts manifest? Trapped forever until someone set them free by finding their bodies or helping them solve whatever unfinished business they had? Holy fuck, there might be dead bodies somewhere in the house! What kind of life did my grandaunt live?!

Or maybe it wasn’t her but the employees. It’s a big house, anyone could easily sneak past the very busy landlady and commit heinous crimes without being undetected. Which one? The gardener who hardly ever spoke a word to me but is always with a smile and a polite nod? The cook who I see glimpses of, a gruff-looking man with that french-looking moustache, which is a little out of date, who always seems to be frowning? The grumpy, old housekeeper who insists I never go up to the third floor and who doesn’t like me much? She seems more likely but I could be biassed.

The manor ground is large and wide. Anyone can easily hide a body in the woods behind the house if they wanted to and easily get away with it. Or cemented in the walls of the house. What the fuck. Okay, I should stop. Breathe. In and out. This is not productive.

As I’m taking deep breaths to calm myself and rid of all the dark ideas creeping into my head, I’m suddenly reminded again at the bizarreness of my situation. A grandaunt I’ve never met willed everything to a kin she never even bothered to get to know nor even visited in the time that she was alive with the condition that I live in this creepy, mysterious manor house for a year until everything is released to me. A little suspicious, no? I don’t want a haunted manor, by the way.

I gaze out the window. First thing’s first: I should find out more about the house and the acres of land it came with. I hit up Google but it yielded nothing, not even Google Map could find it. It could locate the area but the house is basically unmarked. Anyone could just travel up to the area and have no clue that it’s actually private property. I remember seeing the signboards miles down the road from the main gate, warning people not to go in further lest they want to be fined for trespassing.

Then I searched up my grandaunt, Lee Soon-hee. The main result isn’t anything that I didn’t know before; a renown historical archeologist under a local university with quite the rapport among the industry. But what I didn’t know is that she had also been a freelancer in archaeomythology. Interesting.

I dig deeper, going through a few pages of the Google search to find anything related, clicking on any articles that have any mentions of the name Lee that’s connected to archaeology or history. By the second hour of pouring through websites upon websites, I learn that as much as she was a respectable historian, she was very much under heavy criticism regarding her involvement with pseudoarchaeology; a nook of “archaeology” that is driven by people’s crazy, unproven, mostly over-exaggerated conclusions of the past. It’s where the theories of Atlantis and the whole world-is-ending-in-2012 thing stemmed from. That study area.

I’m neither religious nor superstitious but I do think that there are some things that you can’t explain or prove, and the whole thing with pseudoarchaeology is compelling enough for it to have that many people dedicating their lives for the cause. Grandaunt Soon-hee, however, was more involved with the darker side of the subject, specifically cult archaeology. The more I read about her, the more the items I found upstairs make sense. Or not make sense, depending on how you look at it. She wasn’t just dabbling; she was neck-deep in it.

And still no picture of her.

That’s the oddest thing. All these articles and reports on her work, both professionally or not, never included her picture. It’s not like I can look up her LinkedIn profile either; she was ninety-three when she passed, to my knowledge. I don’t think the whole LinkedIn thing is her generation. The pictures I did find were mostly those horrible black and white, tiny panel ones that you can barely make out any features or ones where she’s turned away from the camera, almost at the last minute so her face is blurry or completely hidden behind a book or a paper or whatever that was in her hands. It’s almost like she was careful not to show her face.

Who was she?

A smattering of articles mentioned that she came from old money, which explains the manor, but there was no mention on who her family was or where they or the money came from. Just this one lady with not much of a background, who happened to be interested in the dark arts as a hobby. Even her obituary wasn’t impressive for a woman of her stature in her field of work; one paragraph, less than fifty, very bland words, like they didn’t know what to say of her now that she was dead compared to when she was alive and kicking. It’s all a little strange. She was a known archaeologist, they could have at least talked about her contribution in that field.

Huh, that’s strange.

I enlarge the screen of the obituary, zooming on the date of death. The clip is a scanned picture from an old newspaper so some words are hard to decipher and I had glimpsed over a few while reading through. If I read it right, the date of death is the year I was born, exactly forty-nine days before my birthday. That doesn’t sound correct. If she was already dead, why was she listed as my next of kin my whole life? This means she didn’t recently die, either, and that a dead woman’s name has been listed as my only living relative growing up. Was I lied to? Was there a mistake? What the hell is going on?

There’s a knock on the door and I look up to see Mrs Oliviera hovering by the doorway. I’m lying on my front on the bed with my laptop in front of me and she’s glancing at the screen. I snap the Macbook shut.

“Dinner’s ready,” she says tersely. “Since you’re feeling better, I’ll set the dining table.”

I nod but don’t move, waiting for her to leave so I can go back to my little research.

She doesn’t budge but says, “You should come down soon or dinner will be cold.”

I nod again. “Okay.”

She takes the hint and walks off, her face tight. She really doesn’t like me, huh.

I reopen the laptop but a message pops up.

It’s from Ha-ri. Have you started the media report yet?

I hit reply. No, not yet. It’s due in two weeks, right?

Want to hop on a call and discuss work division? I have some time before I have to cook dinner and Ryan’s napping.

Ha-ri is a stay-at-home mother with a one-year-old son, which means partnering up with her entails dividing up the work, doing the work individually and then compiling them together before submission, hoping that somehow it all blends cohesive enough. I didn’t mind it. It’s hard to align everyone’s schedules in a postgrad course so this is the best we can do.

I agree to the call and a few seconds later, the phone rings. We finish in twenty-five minutes, the longest call so far we’ve had in regards to assignments, and I finally get up from the bed. My dinner is probably already cold and sticking to the plate by now and I will suffer yet another disapproving look from the housekeeper for waiting too long to come down and her having to reheat everything, which she seems to be opposed to because the food is no longer ‘fresh’. Okay, but you’re not the one eating it. And why can’t I use the microwave myself? Because I’m not allowed in the kitchen.

I leave my room, walking down the hallway quietly as I keep my eyes glued to the screen of my phone, typing up a sort of summary of our workload to Ha-ri so we can refer back to the text rather than having to call again.

Ring, ring, ring.

I pause, tilting my head as I strain my ears to hear. Silence. I could’ve sworn that I heard a bell ringing somewhere. I try to focus on any sounds but the ringing has stopped.

Maybe I heard wrong. Maybe it was one of those phantom sounds you sometimes hear and mistake it for your phone ringing. It’s honestly a disease of our tech-dependent generation. I continue walking, pausing again at the top of the stairs when I hear noises. This time I’m sure it’s not some phantom noise. It’s coming from upstairs, the forbidden floor.

I tiptoe up the stairs, careful to avoid the creaky spots. I can somewhat hear the tinkling of plates against each other and the typical sound of when someone is carrying a bunch of silverwares in their hands. And then I smell the food. Odd. The kitchen and dining hall is towards the back of the ground floor and the smell of cooking usually doesn't carry this far up. It doesn’t make sense but my curiosity is piqued.

I take a few more steps up and crouch down by the bannister, keeping myself low and hidden in the shadows as I lean forward to see down the hallway in the direction I heard the noise. At this point, I’m convinced the house is haunted but the logical part of my brain thinks that there is an explanation. An unclosed window and the wind blowing in, a draft, mice. But what I’m seeing as I squint through the darkness is both a relief and a shocker. Mrs Oliviera is partially up the attic, her bottom half standing on the ladder. A cart with a few plates stacked on top is waiting below.

What the hell is she doing in the attic?

I can hear muffled voices. Is she talking to herself? No. The voices are deeper and…multiple? I’m growing more and more confused. I creep closer, sticking close to the walls to stay hidden. The third floor, as it is supposedly a no-entry area, is not lit and the only source of light is coming from the window at both ends of the hallways, which is why I can see the housekeeper’s activities pretty clearly.

The voices are still audible and it’s clear now it’s not hers, but males. Are there people upstairs? Did we get guests when I was down with the fever? Why wasn’t I inform and most importantly, why the fuck are they put in the attic? We have plenty of room on the second floor, well-kept with comfy queen beds instead. Is she boarding people secretly? Broke students? Runaway teens? Her errant lovers? I scratch that last idea quickly, shaking my head. Fugitives? We’re in the middle of nowhere, it’s the best place to hide from the law.

Suddenly, she reappears, face as white as a sheet, lips pursed so hard they’re gone. She hurries down the ladder as the trapdoor closes above her, softly. She crosses herself and mumbles a long prayer before starting to push the cart down the hall. I panic, too late to run back down towards the stairs because she’ll definitely catch me.

I consider coming out and pretend to be all annoyed that she could be up here when I can’t and ask her about the attic, wracking my brain for an excuse to be in the shadows and obviously spying on her. But before I can come up with anything, she turns a sharp corner and disappears. Just completely vanishes into what looked like a wall.

I wait in the dark, counting to twenty before hesitantly getting up. I follow close to the wall, keeping to the shadows, and approach the area she was last seen. I take a few steps back, standing in the middle of the hallway trying to look at it from a wider perspective. What Harry Potter shit is this?

There’s a soft thud from above and I look up. It’s coming from the attic. I’m still a little perturbed from what happened last time, replaying in my head the things I saw but, with time and the human brain’s ability to suppress, the image seemed blurry and it’s almost like my brain has been trying to purge the memory as soon as possible. The memory itself, or what’s left of it, feels unreal. Like a dream you think you remembered but don’t really.

Time to find out.

I dawdle at the bottom of the attic door, staring at the dangling rope as if it will suddenly jump to life and start attacking me like a snake. I lick my lips, waiting for something to happen that I can use as an excuse to walk away now, even half-hoping for Mrs Oliviera to yell my name from downstairs. But all is quiet and the house seems to be slowing into a slumber.

“Come on, don’t be a chicken,” I whisper to myself. “Once and for all.”

I pull the string and the ladder drops down, silent as usual. I climb up and place one hand against the trapdoor. I take a few deep breaths. “Just do it,” I say under my breath. “There’s no such thing as ghosts.”

With one strong push that throws the trapdoor back on its hinges, I burst through. “There’s no such thing as-”

~~~

Dinner, the only food they can eat in a day.

Jin watches fondly as the others dig in, exchanging food either between plates or straight from one’s plate to another’s mouth. It’s almost ingrained in them now to share every morsel, sometimes feeding others first before they taste their own food. Jin, especially, has a habit of dividing whatever is in his plate to the three younger ones, like a mother bird feeding its offspring. There are times when he thinks he’s being sneaky by giving Jungkook extra but the others know. They all know how much the kid eats; they do the same, too, when they think no one is looking.

Jimin is taking his time with his food, carefully rolling the pasta on his fork just to savour the taste when it’s in his mouth. He doesn’t like Ollie very much but he’s aware of how much care she took to deliver the food to them every night, making sure Jean’s, the cook, plating isn’t ruined in the process. Friday nights are the best; the food is usually a little more luxurious. Today is pasta with steak. Jean even added a couple of extra slabs. That man may not look it but he’s a softy.

While they eat, they talk. Taehyung is insisting he knows exactly how long the steak was grilled for but keeps looking at Yoongi for confirmation, who is just nodding absentmindedly. He wants to correct Taehyung but thinks it’s better to just let him be, he’s not far off. Namjoon is speaking with Hoseok, talking about a book he read while the other nods along, occasionally asking questions. Hoseok is not one to read all that much but he tries to get into it. Jungkook, on the other hand, eats quietly, face contorted in pure concentration, hearing nothing but the sound of his own chewing.

That’s when the trapdoor swings open with such ferocity the seven of them stop dead in between mouthfuls of dinner, whipping around, eyes wide in alarm.

There, sticking out of the trapdoor, is the one they have been waiting for, looking like you are ready to yell out a war cry. Both you and them stare at each other, eyes as big as the plates the boys are eating out from, neither party saying a word or even breathing.

Jimin, sitting closest to the door, struggles to get his mind turning, forgetting how to even speak, much less say hi, a stray pasta hanging from his lips. Before he can say anything, you call out. “Who the fuck are you?”

~~~

“Who the fuck are you?”

My mouth is hanging open. There in front of me sat seven drop-dead gorgeous men that I have ever seen in my life, staring right back at me, looking like they had been caught doing something they shouldn’t. The one nearest to me, with a pasta strand hanging from his mouth, blinks a few times before he slurps up the noodle. He runs his left hand through his blond hair, pushing it back before standing up. He uses the back of his hand to wipe his mouth.

“Hello,” he croaks out, cheeks blushing.

I stare dumbly at him as if he spoke a different language. He takes a cautious step forward, looks back once at the others then takes another so that he’s now standing over me. He holds out a hand. “I’m Jimin.”

a/n: I know that these first three are short chapters so I hope you are patient with meee T_T I'm also trying to maintain a regular once a week update on this series and will do my best to gradually make them longer at at least 5k words. Anyway, lmk your thoughts in the comments and feel free to ask me anything! xx

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blankdblank · 2 years

Text

The White Dove Pt 31 - Cooking With Riot

The White Dove Masterlist

...

“Alright, Eldfalls, you’re going to have to give me a sort of warning to help me out, and please no over confidence in your status, if it needs replacing could you flame up or buzz or something?” Gradually bit by bit of the unintelligible engine was tapped and checked to be marked off in self proclaimed stunningly near mint condition as you managed to recall what Elliot had shared on the other models similar to this one. Much like human bodies regenerated its own atoms in a cycle of decades remake its own engine parts to keep the star core stable.

The damage to the rudder both inside at mounts and outside for days had your hive slowly printing out in the Asgardian metal was next. The new parts for a video, that blurred out the flame on the adapted welding torch, recorded the new trio of exposed fins you had showed off to duplicate the same pattern etched into it as the original. Sanding and scrubbing next came to smooth out the new connection points ended by a filmed clamber onto the deck to use the rudder control that had each of the repaired fins to move properly.

An alarm however had you off for a promised father son night out with Riot and Venom contained within their Others. With care you locked everything up saying goodnight to Eldfalls, pausing at turning off the light to answer your phone at Eddie’s call. “On my way back now.”

“Don’t forget, the dress code. Women wearing dresses and all that…”

“Why is there a dress code for a cooking class?”

“It’s a Cordon Bleu five star Michelin place with a top chef who wants to have a Julia Child sort of black and white shoot after.”

“Not very fair when you all just have to add suspenders and a tie,” you said making him chuckle.

“I know Sis, see you after.”

“I’m still wearing tights no matter what they say, I refuse to have anything splash on my legs.”

“Good, rhinestone ones? I can wear my rhinestone tie to match.”

“Yes, got my pinstripe dress ready upstairs just have to do something with my hair too. I refuse to have it down.”

It didn’t take long for you to freshen up and ease into the pencil skirt navy pinstripe dress, folds of the off the shoulder straps came to rest over the tops of your ribs to accentuate the bust without flashing cleavage or inhibit lifting your arms. Down the front two rows of black buttons matched the row down your left leg to help the constriction of the skirt. Tights that were sheer to above the knee darkened to black with rhinestones to really pop with your black tall heeled wedges with colorful blue ribbon to tie them. Both sides of your hair were braided back into a zig zagging bun that would not be hindered by your helmet. And due to the tightness of your skirt hindering instant access to your weapon holsters a few more bees than normal were secured in your hair to match the two daggers and grappler chord reachable in between your shoulder blades.

“Now that is snazzy,” Eddie said making you giggle and accept his offered navy and white checkered jacket to pull on for the ride that matched his checkered slacks. His pale blue shirt rested under black suspenders matching the shade of his rhinestone accented tie and polished dress shoes.

“We didn’t have to match, I know you got pressured into buying that suit by your Mate.”

And he held up a finger, “Hup, hup, hup, we are matching, even Riot’s Other is matching us, it is family night and we are going all out since you have to wear a dress. He bought Oxfords and is going full under vest as well.”

“You two are wild, all to keep people from cyanide poisoning,” you said in a shake of your head making him chuckle and guide you to his bike. Two buttons on your skirt were undone to flash enough leg to sit without tearing your skirt as he adjusted his pant legs to do the same while you secured the buckle on your helmet.

Just as he said over a half hour later out of a sports car Riot’s Other smirked in adjusting his vest and crossed the space from where he parked to where you both were waiting. “Now we’re definitely underdressed, forgot my,” he said and chuckled at Riot stealthily easing over his arm to pull the rhinestoned bow tie out of his inner jacket pocket, “Nope, I didn’t. You said rhinestones and pinstripes, all out.” With a giggle you watched him fasten the bowtie in place to the flow of more bodies due for the course dressed more for yachting or the Kentucky Derby.

All of the women at least seemed to be in their silver years and like the famous picture of Sophia Loren and Jayne Mansfield where the latter was getting side eyes from the former. While you weren’t flashing anything, the fact you had on a pencil skirt opposing their longer flowing or layered skirts and higher heels had them cast some serious shade your way. At least until one of the older gentlemen tried to nudge the elbow of Eddie in wait at the front door of the lavish hotel the eatery was located inside of the ground floor luring his eyes to the man who stated, “Clearly you found a nice night out for your arm candy. Hear they’ve got ample wine for tasting to really spoil her from wandering to your friend there.”

Quite casually to the statement Eddie replied proudly, “My baby sister here is nobody’s arm candy and far too young for wine, so no tasting for us tonight.”

The title for you had his wife look you over again, almost in a new light and ask herself, “Did your parents dress you alike as children?”

“Just us for a decade now and there was a dress code so we all decided to go all out so it’d be fair with the enforced skirt,” he answered.

“You seem so at home in a dress,” another wife stated and chuckled out in addition, “You can’t tell me you’re a tomboy.” The elevator doors opened and you remained silent in being led inside with them to be rested in Eddie’s arms against his chest to grant more space to the others.

“I can’t eat anything on this menu,” you muttered to Riot’s Other, who was at the shared counter, while Riot had his hand lifting every knife available from the offered wooden block for his use in sheer amusement. The guiding chefs chattered away on the details of the ingredients’ rare origins tripling the price of them to the point of exclusivity for their usual clientele.

Eddie stepped closer to allow Venom to say through him, “We’ll do the tasting,” after having heard the instructor that each of you would be forced to taste what you make before sending it to assigned people in the dining room who would grade you on them.

Cleaning shrimp was an unpleasant task to begin the makings of a surf and turf meal for the first course. Just a portion of Wagyu steak would be drizzled with a garlic based sauce, and the still bleeding things you were asked to serve medium rare had you grimace in a turn back to the station to finish off the sauce. “Now slap the knife,” you were instructed to crush the garlic clove making you shake your head.

To yourself you muttered, “Not happening.” And simply pressed on the blade rested atop the clove you then grated a section of it into the sauce simmering on top of the burner, that in a spoon you raised to mime a taste for the look of the chef. Then dropped it low to your side so Venom out of Eddie’s side could taste as you offered one of the shrimp from your skillet to Riot, the both of them who sent their comments through their Others that refused to taste theirs either to not trigger a reaction in you later on. Even though you only got reactions from ingesting your allergens when it came to food all the same they didn’t want to risk it, same with the foods like shellfish or filter feeders that simply upset your stomach and didn’t make your throat swell shut.

However they did get some amusement at your being able to sample the naked freshly cooked pasta for the next course and few morsels of rice in the one that followed. For dessert afterwards a bit of a scene had to be made.

By means of touching a still hot cast iron skillet by Riot’s Other, to have the chef glaring at each person intently as they tasted their nut based course follow the man feigning a burn his Other was already trying to bubble out to heal inside the curled fist of the man taking a few steps away. “Just a tap, I’ll just rub some butter on it, right as rain,” he said and the chef snapped his eyes to you as the dish was carried to your waiting judge to hear through you the praising comment Venom had whispered to you seconds after he slithered out behind the counter to sample the ridiculously priced treat.

“Come,” he said with an ordering clap of his hands. “Now we taste the wine, you will drink first.”

“I’m 16,” you said and in a sweep of his eyes over you he made the slightest of scoffs.

“Come, time to learn.”

Nine bottles of rather expensive wine by a waiter were poured and offered to you to smell try and break down the elements of the wines only irritating him more at your being able to detect various things. Just like when you got to the fifth and narrowed your eyes saying, “Smells like someone added raspberry syrup and vermouth to this rose,” instantly causing his neck to grow in patches red up to his ears at your learning some secret additive of the house wine.

“I don’t taste that,” one of the other guests said in a growing conclusion you were deemed wrong for the favor of the chef who now only had one person who knew the house wine secret.

All the same to the end of the miserably held lesson you stuck it out and then went back to the vehicles to go and find someplace with something actually edible to eat and kinder wait staff. Just to help cover the group discussion between yourself, the men and their Symbiotes, to help Riot and his Other grow more settled in their newfound fondness for the possibilities of culinary lessons to become a chef. A career world where one who stabbed their unruly employees if angered wouldn’t be too unbelievable to have happen in case he lost his cool and slipped to harm someone in their new hopeful dream job.

*.*.*

Dinner over the presentation of a hopeful space station project for Reed Richards amongst a great deal of Airforce personnel and scientists alike found Rhodey halfway listening to both Reed and his chosen pilot for the mission, Benjamin Grimm, who was sharing about his run in with the famed creator of the Blackhowls Rhodey had piloted.

Stark on his right however drew random glances as the stubborn billionaire continued to look over newer prints on the Goliath system overhaul after the first set became too obscured by his own notes to read the code anymore while full on ignoring the reason he had been invited here. “Still can’t believe you get to fly those. Now I’m gonna be in space for four months and training for the next year before that, no time at all to slip in a test run or ride along.”

Rhodey smirked at the fellow pilot and said, “Are you going to be in California day after tomorrow still?”

“I’ll rent a new room or sleep in a lot on the base if I have to,” Grimm replied making Rhodey chuckle.

“Have to make a run to Antarctica for a supply drop off to a research team there. Not much fun,”

“Oh it sounds like a party bus to me. I don’t care where you have to shove me.”

And Rhodey nodded, “I’ll add your name to the passenger list, one of the Privates always complains in the cold so you’ll have to help unload.”

“All for earning my way.”

And across the table a representative from Harvard supporting a fellow alumni in attendance squirmed again in his seat, as he had the whole time they had been talking over the aircraft and how Grimm had met the inventor of it. Just bursting to ask, “Okay, sorry,” he said luring eyes to him, “Have to ask, why Columbia?”

“I’m sorry, what?” Grimm and Rhodey asked together in Stark’s stolen glance up over the enhanced glasses he hoped to help pick apart the code to not break out his phone and be called entirely rude.

“Why’d she pick Columbia? She was top of our short list and she picked Columbia of all places over Harvard!” Rhodey’s eyes narrowed during the man’s panting exhale to keep himself from growing too excited in his taken slight to his alma matter.

“She lives in New York.” Rhodey answered.

But Grimm said, “Not to mention one of the scholarships she got was limited to New York schools.”

Rhodey and the man asked, “What?” causing Tony to look up again, but this time at his friend in the hint of tension in his tone at the fact that was news to him.

Grimm clarified, “Someone in the scholarship departments she applied to after the press released the news on the Blackhawks got a price tag on them and they turned her down. Largest one of the few she got out of the stack she applied to had the rule to keep it to New York schools. Said she took it bit hard being turned down for so many, but a teacher knew a guy in Columbia and they helped book a private tour and it’s close to home and work so she went there.”

“Why’d she need a scholarship at all? Those aircraft are a couple mil a pair.” The man asked.

Rhodey answered as his mind reeled, “Military only paid her base Engineer salary up front and put the rest in trust funds, in fact they wanted it all in trust until I went after them once she told me she was the only one working on them that wasn’t being paid.”

Tony said plainly, “Bit sexist,” and Rhodey looked at him, “I was sixteen when I sold my first idea to the military and they paid me in full.”

“What I told them,” Rhodey replied, “But you had a team looking after you is what they said.”

“That’s a terrible copout. What they’re afraid she’d buy too many beanie babies or something fun with that money?” Tony replied and looked back at his papers to Rhodey’s shift on his seat.

“So you’re telling me the military press leak on those aircraft ruined Pluto’s chances at going to any college in the world?” And Grimm nodded, “She could have gone anywhere!” Rhodey scoffed to himself.

And the man from Harvard said, “She could have gone to Harvard.”

Making Tony butt in blindly, “She could have been a TA at MIT with work like that and the OWLS by now.” Turning the page and bringing out the stylus in his pocket to write electronically to be only seen by his glasses notes to look back on later in his lab on the array of screens and room sizable projector Jarvis could help him bounce ideas around to get to the root of this unreadable language.

And the man spoke again, “And she graduates this year?”

“Next year, has to repeat after that midterm vote raised school core requirements.” Grimm clarified, only making Rhodey flop his hands onto his lap.

“I’ll let the guys in enrollment know to get a fund package ready. None of the other schools said anything either about a trust issue.”

“Why didn’t she say something?” Rhodey asked Grimm.

“Didn’t want to cause trouble,” he replied.

“That’s not causing trouble, I could have made some calls to the scholarship boards, explained it. And now she’s got to repeat a year…” making him all but cross his arms mid huff.

“She is a magnet for chaos,” Grimm added with a smirk repeating what you had told him. “Same happened to me,” the Harvard man already was on his phone emailing the others to let them in on the news to get ahead of other schools. And even with needing a fund to aid in studies on their campus they would be more than willing to offer full for what the world could only imagine the teenager capable of even in just the near future.

“I’m talking to her about this, I told her we’d have her back after that leak.”

Rhodey said only making Tony say, “And that’s why she didn’t tell you. She got into Columbia without any degree. Wrote this whole damn code without one too. Degrees are just a bumper sticker to that talent.” He said with a grumble in his tone. “Not even code this bit, all weird bubble symbols, like shorthand?” bringing the page a bit closer to his face to turn the page to the side.

“Have you tried Swedish?”

“I’ve tried every language known to man, this bit is half a line of the original code then it’s twelve symbols and it breaks into what look to be light sequence checks? There is no logic in this.”

“There overlap?” Grimm asked making Tony look up at him flatly, “Like a 4d map?”

“Map of what? The console light bulbs the next line orders to blink in a pattern?” making Rhodey chuckle at the latest failed try to uncover what the logic of it could be.

*.*.*

Lively the burger and steak centered eatery had colorful lights, music and decorations everywhere you looked. While fun everyone who came here always seemed to dress up and at the back balcony booth you could see why, one of Kingpin’s main men owned and ran the place settled upon his makeshift throne to look over people sending money straight for his pockets. Still the match of your clothes had more than a few people look your way upon entering, namely the owner and a disguised duo of Agents here to watch a chosen target.

The uncomfortable shift of the bun in your hair that had caught on the neck strap of the apron from cooking found you a new sort of subtle spectacle in just undoing a few braids. Atop Eddie’s shoulder however and reflected off a mirrored wall by the door your bees were recording all angles possible after your notice of the Agents in the back of the place.

A simple fluff of your hair that cascaded down your chest, face and back was all it took and in a glance back at the man along the wall in charge of allowing who was taken as strangers inside the establishment a nod was given to an easy attractive face to lure more men inside.

Two fingers were used to wave you back by the Hostess who turned as you lifted a hand to cover the rest of the bees moving from your palm back to your hair they would keep that side back out of your face.

“Cocktails?” The Hostess said in an offer of their specialty drink list for this week, her eyes directly on you knowing by the kind of nod given you were the reasoning to be welcomed in.

“She’s sixteen,” Riot’s Other said, “I’ll take one of the Flaming Bangers though.”

“We have mocktails for each of them,” subtly implying to you that you had to choose one that had you look at the list.

The third on the list had you giggle and say, “Catatonic Grasshopper, please, and can I have a raspberry tea to follow?” A secondary drink that also could be fancied up to resemble a mocktail as well.

A grin eased across her lips and she nodded, “Absolutely.” And looked to Eddie who said, “Uh, one of the Eroded Blue Lagoon mocktails so she won’t have to carry me home,” making her chuckle to his grin your way.

Pictures and shared comments of your mint green blended drink inside a martini glass and the tall blue fizzy drink with fruit liquors, juices and Sprite he let you taste joined a picture of what a Flaming Banger was to add to your social page. Alongside images from the cooking outing and a piece of the clip of you letting down your hair with a comment on a relax of your scalp now your braids were out after getting snagged earlier.

Out of possible meal choices chicken for you was chosen with noodles, veggies were to come after the opening course of mini stromboli’s and bruschetta you all wanted to sample out of the opening course options you could eat without risk of reaction. Dessert was last to add and then you were free to talk without groups to overhear or interrupt at least for a time. Riot’s Other asked, “There’s a question I’ve been wondering since you shared on your necklace, your ancestor had all those kids, it can’t just be you.”

“Um,” you said lowering your mocktail from another sip, licking away a bead of the liquid left on your lower lip to answer him, “I have an aunt, maternal, but she’s a competitive Ice Dancer on tour, doesn’t want kids. That turned me a bit off writing to her dad, he’s got some standing in Denmark. And an uncle, paternal, who is in a monastery, he um, well he sort of lost it when dad went missing, went to go find himself and didn’t take my first letter very well.”

“First letter?” he asked and looked to Eddie who held up five fingers and mimed a swipe of those fingers across his neck making Riot’s Other look at you again.

“He thought I was lying, but I sent him my social page and he was able to see I have his hair and eyes. He’s still seeking one-ness, but he wishes me the same.”

“He’s five apples short of a Fig Newton,” Eddie said lifting his own drink making you giggle.

“I think he’s on opiates, Dad’s notes say he’s had issues before, like his other brother out in Nevada who is detoxing himself with sunshine and blended cacti.”

“You can’t eat cacti,” he said and you nodded.

“Hence the lack of contact, he loses breaks of time so he’s mentally unfit to have me either way.”

“Oh I’m not asking on a matter of custody, you aren’t leaving New York or Eddie. None of us will let that happen. But, no more relatives than that?”

“I have some older cousins from the cacti uncle in Norway, they comment on my videos a lot. Their mother sort of hates me though by association to him. They work with welding in art and mechanically to make their livings so they send tips.”

“And the ice dancer? No letters?”

“She sent me a poster, but last time we talked she said I look too much like Mom. Mentioned cousins of hers that she lost touch with as kids,” five hints that the Agents were in debate on coming over to interfere with your meal and you let the comments from the guys cover a slip away to the bathroom. Those buttons on your skirt came in handy to not have to take off the dress entirely to relieve your bladder, yet halfway through washing your hands the door opened and Grant Ward slipped into the bathroom locking the door behind him.

“Alright little girl, you’re gonna tell me everything.” To the side you moved to collect one of the hand towels offered to dry your hands looking up at him once it was in hand in his move closer. “Who do you know and why no one comes after you or sends you on any missions, even reports I’ve personally filed have vanished physically and digitally. Tell me, now!”

He came to tower over you and you answered back calmly, “Must be so exhausting being a double agent who is so terrible at both sides of the aisle.” Wide open his jaw dropped and you blindly let go of the hand towel through the opening marked for their return and heard his breath hitch in the ignition of your hair and eyes luring glowing spots into his eyes as you tapped his mind. “You want to change that unimpressive record of yours, when you complete today’s tasks you are going to book a flight to Russia and show them exactly how Bucky Barnes is being held.”

The order was given and silently he turned like a good soldier and didn’t speak a word. Completing his report for the evening details discovered from sleuthing and then went home to pack and book a flight. First thing he was off leaving simply a message behind for his team he caught a lead on how to find Barnes, only to be seen on surveillance footage to have been snatched up off the street. But for the furious star spangled Avenger and Fury alike every detail of his life was being torn apart to find some clue on how he found that location.

Cooper eyed the recorded message his niece was watching once again of her ex said, “Now you have your treasure map,” only turning her head to look at him. “Pluto said you don’t teach your soldiers to think like dead men,” and he pointed at the screen, “You have your tracking beacon.”

“You think they took him where Barnes is? To that Ice place her videos talked about?”

“I know she told you to go to Russia.”

Fury butt in, “Ward went to Russia and got snatched off the street.” Beginning to pace.

“Have you read any of Black Widow’s file reports?” Cooper asked back making Fury turn to look at him.

“Your point being?” Fury asked flatly.

“Common denominator between the files.”

That had Fury turn his head to the looped footage of Ward being snatched up, “Get captured and interrogated.” And he looked at Cooper again, “It’s not a where, it’s where the people who know where Barnes is.”

Steve Rogers cross armed against the wall said, “That makes no sense. She doesn’t dislike me enough to go tell me to get myself snatched off the street.”

Nat cut in, “No she told you to send me to get captured.”

“That-,” Steve tried to talk but was cut off.

Fury said pointing at the screen, “There’s a way to track him. Under his skin, his clothes, drilled into his damn jaw bone, I don’t care, the kid knew we didn’t have a weapon to break in but a way to track him.” He shook his head, “Not about finding any location but a person,” and he looked to Stark who sat up more wondering how he could help, “She told us how to find you, got to be something there.”

He nodded and said, “I’ll get with Rhodey on it,” climbing to his feet to leave the room to find his friend with others in another end of the floor to give them their task.

“I want details, his socials, phone log, messages, bills, even the receipts he uses as bookmarks. There’s a tracker on him we have to find a hint of it.” Fury said and bodies left seats to go and follow his orders, yet still Cooper remained in place behind Fury who asked him lowly, “He’s gonna be dead when we find him isn’t he?”

“He was a terrible double agent anyways,” Cooper said turning Fury around wide eyed to see the former Winter Soldier.

“Who is gonna be on the other end of this rabbit hole?”

“Most likely, more bodies and some useful clues. Just keep Rogers from going beserk he might ruin the wrong wall or piece of furniture before you can look it all over.” He turned and said, “For now, Pluto has a night shift and I’m on watch.” He paused in the doorway to say, “She gives me hope, helps me sleep at night knowing she’s out and about.” His hand patted the doorframe in leaving the confused Agent in place until he turned back to the footage to start taking notes to uncover some sort of clue once added by more and more details.

“We got bodies,” Clint said and with a tongue depressor and mini flashlight from a pocket he got to checking tongues on the single female found outside a ring of cryo tubes, one of which held Ward clearly shot in the head. “Not much else,” seeing the place had been emptied and splattered with blood smudges. Rage was palpable in the air even days after the fight that brought about the end of the Winter Solder trainees here, and what sadness was felt in the sight of more teen girls the brands under their tongues binding them to the bloody freed soldiers found with neck kill switches activated.

Tony inside the space said in a gesture of his hand around the room, “Jarvis says they all had hidden kill darts in their bodies, and there’s traces of gas in the air.”

Nat spoke up in her pass through the space to an emptied out file room with a fist warped and bloody door, “Hydra instigates a frenzy and when they want it to end they flip the switch. We need infrared scans, black light, everything you got on you Stark. If a clue is here it’s buried in plain sight.”

Pictures of faces were next to be taken by Clint, who when he crossed Tony’s path said, “I imagine those eyes of yours could be more helpful looking for clues, we’ll take care of the kids in a bit. They’ll understand if we look around first.”

“They’ve been abducted from their homes, the street and hospitals Tony. If they’re here it’s because no one was able to find them, clues can wait three minutes.” Pictures all were uploaded into the database for Fury to run through facial recognition systems only to fill in the rest of your missing dance class students and then some.

The ping from the device as Clint had helped to look and more agents came to load up the jet with the bodies they would take back for proper autopsies and burial had him stop and bring out his phone he turned sideways and sighed at the image the girls were from. “Oh you got to be kidding me,” promptly Rhodey’s side was found and he lowly shared with him the heart dropping news, “Look who they knew.”

“So the girls got snatched up by the same ring, she got out as they got raided by Hydra. That is fucked up.”

Rogers across the room moving a cabinet aside asked loudly, “Any faces get recognized?”

“Ya Steve, they were Pluto’s friends that got snatched from Russia when she left.” Instantly that had eyes not on him dart to his deeply exhaling self in need of a corner to go walk to, “Need a minute,” he said doing just that.

Once there however his eyes and head drifted up to see flashes of yellow light and he could only have his suit shine a light on the ceiling to find a tiny hole apparently inside a pattern of dashes and dots beginning in the corner to branch outwards. “What the hell is that?” Morse code was obvious, but what took hovering up there and breaking the hole larger a small transmitter no bigger than a lemon they would add to their nonexistent sack of clues to inhibit waves out or in to keep from being tracked themselves until they could dismantle it to learn its secrets.

“Alright?” Eddie asked with a smirk as you climbed back into your seat elegantly and as effortlessly as possible, “Managed to get out and back in I see without tearing a seam.”

“You know, while a nice silhouette these are rather impractical, have to nearly take the whole damn thing off in the bathroom if you have no buttons.”

“Not an all day dress,” Riot’s Other said. “Wore one all day at a Rights March and they are wildly uncomfortable to wiggle out of but you do get a fair bit of looks.” Making you giggle to yourself. “More a two hour stunner then have a buddy wiggle you out of it type of cut.”

“I didn’t think this place had such an exclusive feel to it.” You said making him smirk and nod.

“I like it, even if they try to keep me out half the time, me and the big bird up there go way back just likes to pretend he’s playing favorites but he usually slips me in the back room when he needs the place packed with ladies. See, you can only have so many guys in a place before it changes the whole feel of the place. Too rowdy or noisy and ladies tend to make it a mellower vibe and the female staff get treated better and tips go up as the guys want to make good impressions as big shots. All works out, and the drinks help to keep it from being just another burger and steak joint. Halfway between fancy and jersey central on sports days.”

“Sounds very particular,” you giggled in another sip of your mock tail.

And he lifted a finger a moment, “Never shut up about the place back in school. Whole year could quote back and recognize the place just passing by most likely. He dreamed big and he caught it.” His smirk widened, “All thanks to the first purge, dropped on the market for cheap.” Luring a smirk across your lips that eased in the arrival of your first course.

When she left amply thanked you answered. “I suppose everything comes with its positives.”

“Ooh, we have a few more names for the next one, some of the hive moved onto greener pastures to get some heat off thanks to our big red guy.”

“And we can’t do anything?” You asked, “Won’t that bring the King Knull guy here?”

Eddie answered that, “No, latest we heard Knull is facing off against some world absorber to keep Klyntar neutral. Something about Death and that Thane guy messing with things now has his dad moving around and I can’t ever hear more out of that as they all just start screeching back on Klyntar and I can’t make it out.”

“Out of curiosity, what happens if Knull dies?”

“Someone has to claim the black throne,” Riot answered through his Other.

And Eddie added in, “Huge war, all would have to plan a planet to head to so they can fight it out, that is if the others don’t accept the absorber as their new King. But that’s where the screeching comes in,” he cut off Riot in his urgent hiss, “They wouldn’t, and the few who would are being drowned out and reminded eating the planet with the King on it doesn’t count as killing the King.”

“Plus I suppose being part of the hive would be preferable,” you said making them both nod and join you in selecting a snack from the steaming platters of food.

Food now had the main focus of the conversation while inside your hair your bees minded the growing chatter outside and in the front came in the open and close of the door allowing the noise and source of it all inside.

Identical to a fault young Johnny Storm, who was almost a mirror image of Steve Rogers entered the place. A bit more slender but no less toned, with shorter hair and longer hints of sideburns to go with the stubble around the lower half of his face to prove he wasn’t the man with the shield. And just like Rogers his blue eyes and smirk shifted your way, though in the same waitress also manning his table his try to send a new alcoholic cocktail your way had him smile boldly at her mention of your being a minor.

Even over the music and noise of his group of friends he brought with him you could hear him ask, “Purple eyes?” She barely had to answer and he gave his order he chose without much of a care to what it could be in a flash of a glance at the menu and stood to walk around her back, leaving her to take the rest of the table’s orders as he crossed the floor to your booth.

“I can’t go five days without hearing your name and finally I run into you.” He said making your puffy cheeked self mid chew hold a hand in front of your mouth widening his smile upon the fall of your eyes in him. “And if you weren’t still a kid I’d invite you to one of my parties just to show off to the rest of the team. Grimm’s an inch from begging to be on a Blackhowl team before we launch.”

Under the table your foot tapped Eddie’s as you were still chewing and he said for you, “Ya, we heard you’re doing that trip to the station Reed and that Doom guy came up with.”

His head tilted to the side and Storm replied, “Rather be riding my bike cross country testing out all the nightlife scenes I can for half a year but I suppose going up to space could only improve my brag game when I get back down,” and he said to you with a wink, “And you’ll be closer to 18.”

You pointed at him, finally able to answer him after swallowing the still scalding food your throat was now healing the sensitivity from. “Women of my line were won with deeds and honorable hearts not winks from the town whore.” That had him laugh aloud at your answer and nod in respect for that stance, “Besides I’m certain you could find more fun pieces of arm candy for such frivolous outings. I intend to be rather boring.”

“As you should be, someone’s got to keep putting Reed and Doom in their places. How the hell did you shut them up with that code you gave them?”

“Simply said in their argument of who had the broadest horizons of intellect should know what the code is.”

And his smile crept wider asking, “What is the code?”

“Firefly genetic code,” you said making him laugh again and point at you.

“Oh that is brilliant! Going in the vault,” he said miming a key locking across his lips. “Reed has been pouting about it pouring over every physics book he can find assuming it’s got to be with aviation. He is never gonna look there.”

A call from his table had him glance back and nod and then ease onto the booth beside you and hold his arm out starting a small video, “Look who I ran into! Reedykins, Doomybear, I know what the code is, and you’ll never guess it!” His brows popped up and you couldn’t help but giggle to yourself as he mentioned his shimmering silvery blue suit and angled his arm to show the guys with you saying, “Dress code’s blue tonight boys, flash some class and come down to Krinkle Plummet. You’ll never guess who’s been hiding away in the back if you don’t drop in.” He angled back to show just him and you and said, “And now I know who rode in on that stunning tankless bike outside, just maybe I might have the third of this firecracker’s exclusive custom motorcycle line. Drop in on you later guys.” He said signing off the video he added to his social pages and added a slew of tags even finding your page and Eddie’s to tag, adding one for his earlier video circle of his bike in the garage for this place he parked his own bike next to. When his eyes were on you again he said. “I really do want a bike of yours, how well do they run on fuel?”

“Solar and have a kick start momentum setting for cloudy days near empty,” Eddie said dropping his jaw, “Can run days and its great on mileage and off roading too, had it all through our summer trips through the Americas and Africa when our van wouldn’t fit on the roads.”

“How much?”

“Um,” you said and he lifted a finger.

“Okay, what body can you build one on? Saw you fixed a killer one with ape hangars for Johnny Blaze. How much he pay?”

“Any you would like I could alter it, after it’s cleaned out. He gave me 25k to go for my school books and garage costs for a boat I’m fixing.”

“Saw the boat,” he said pointing at you, “Like I said I’ve got training, so I’ll send you some pictures of the model and find the body, one in decent shape, and when I get back l’ll give you 35. I’m a bit picky on paint jobs so I’ll send some ideas for that too.”

“Okay,” you said and he shook your hand in a rise up to head to his table leaving you to begin feeling buzzes from your clutch resting against your thigh. To Eddie you looked making him chuckle at the pop of your brows up to fall back down again. “I can’t decide who I find more cocky, him or Rogers.” You said making the guys chuckle.

“I like how he asked to film us,” Riot’s Other chimed in for his Symbiote making you all chuckle again, “Such a gentleman flashing cash and smiles all around.” Eddie simply stole a quick pat on your lap knowing you were debating to have your bees keep up with the social page issue right now or to just let it pass by and keep calm for your shift you’d have to change for after this.

“We have more in the back,” you said approaching the same young woman who had been lingering in the book shop for weeks now on your shifts closer and closer to closing until approached for help by anyone else who would go to talk to her. She wasn’t confused and mainly you ignored her stares as a patient gesture you weren’t going to approach her first. But today having heard of the talk of calling someone in security for the strip mall about her you broke your rule.

A few years older than you the young woman shifted on her feet adjusting the grip she had on the dangling tassles from the cross chest purse strap still in a loss for words. You knew exactly who she was, in fact you knew her mother, aunts, and both twin grandmother and great aunt who had taken turns to flow into your path from Brooklyn. Jamie Barnes, named after the lost Barnes in place of a son unable to be conceived to hold the promise of continuing the name each generation since he was marked as presumed dead by the military.

From the first moment they had been told by Steve of the social page containing proof James was alive electronically and physically when possible one of them was there as if to not miss a single hidden clue if any sort as to where he could be found. And just maybe to bring his only known student into the fold if they just had the nerve to speak to you.

Out of your back pocket, having fetched it from your bag, a Manila envelope the size of 4x6 photographs was brought out to hand over. “Here. I would have posted them, but wasn’t sure if I should, nipple ban online and all,” you joked, and turned to get back to your cart of books to put back in place after people changed their mind in lines or after reading them in the offered sitting section. “And you’re gonna have to buy something,” you said making her stop with hold of the photographs still inside the envelope she’d opened hastily, “They’re talking about posting your picture up for security.”

She nodded and then brought out the pictures, blindly collecting a book on what would be found to be emus to lay under the envelope and captured images of her shirtless one armed great uncle at your side in a shallow wading pool helping to strap gauges on your wetsuit coated legs and arm for the upcoming diving lesson.

Over her mouth her hand moved to cover her trembling lips at the rough meeting point of flesh and metal around his shoulder joint.

In the next image of him with a rod of some sort lodged in his other arm and hold of your ankle by his metal arm, miming you were a caught swordfish, like the one strung up behind you with the other half of the clear harpoon he was shot with. Bringing up more questions on the injury an also bleeding and bandaged Cooper was seen to be binding off above it to contain the trickle of blood spilling out. A confusing but also partly adorable picture of your tiny self they were sure to be keeping calm by adding humor to the event. All to hide the reason of being atop a ship you had overtaken and snuffed out the whole unseen upper crust fishing trip by country officials within neutral waters then to be faked as a boating malfunction the coast guard would find wreckage of months later after extensive searches by their families.

Five images from outside in waterfront locations, to one where he was seen pulling the chord on a chainsaw as you held a broken shovel against your shoulder and a bag in your other hand. Without hint of what you were up to in that tree filled clearing where you ambushed a group of officials on a hunting trip and were now readying a landslide worthy explosion to conceal their real cause of death.

Followed by one where you were clearly seen with screwdriver in hand installing his new metal arm’s neural pathways as he looked on rather calmly atop a kitchen chair sipping on an iced drink. Only adding more questions but also proof he was alive and more than bonded to this strange teenager they never knew about for a good span of your childhood and for Steve more reason to find his now known to be one armed best friend before any more injuries could be gained in time apart.

She didn’t say goodbye, merely bought the book and tipped it like a cheers one would with a drink on her way out having noticed you looked her way and she was off to wake and spread the news amongst her family who would then call Cap to fill him in.

*.*.*

“So, how’s school?” May Parker asked her nephew with a spreading grin.

“Alright,” he answered pretending to be distracted by picking at his food.

“You should come do laundry with me this week,” she said making him look up knowing who she meant for him to run into.

“May,”

“Oh come on, you could ask Pluto over for a study date.”

“Uncle Ben make her stop!” He pled to the man who chuckled adding another plate of food to the table off the skillet he’d just left to cool.

“Now you know I can’t do that.” Sitting down across from the teen stealing a kiss in her cheek as he did. “My May loves to stir the pot.”

“I can’t ask Pluto on a date!” Peter fired back.

“Group then, sheesh you know what I meant. Have Ned too and some more of the kids from your team.”

“Not my team,” he muttered and shoved a forkful of food between his lips to chew in a pouting sort of way that had the couple glance at one another.

“You’re friends come on, she could help you out with school and making a solid footing for yourself. I mean you said you joined the robotics club too and you were on the fence about that.”

“You have lunch together,” Ben chimed in off what he’d been told making Peter hastily chew then swallow.

“She eats with the marching band, they’re pretty nice.”

“See! Made friends already,” she said smiling wider only making him huff.

“Don’t be nervous, she seems to like you.”

“We’re not gonna date!” Peter fired back.

“I never said anything about dating,” Ben replied and held back his smirk as May did the same. “You could be great friends, just study group, think about it.”

“Fine, study group, but I’m not going to laundry, that would be creepy, meeting her at school and asking her while we wash things.”

“Just hide the fun boxers,” Ben joked making him stare pointedly at his now chuckling uncle due to the look he got. “Fine, ask at school, neutral ground sans undies.”

Pt 32

@devilishminx328. @theincaprincess, @lilith15000, @jesevans, @jiminapickle

#Escaped Child Assassin #Eddie Brock #Venom #Riot #Riot's Other #Grant Ward #Johnny Storm #Rhodey #Benjamin Grimm #Tony Stark #Peter Parker #May Parker #Ben Parker #Marvel #Cooking Lesson #Terrible Teacher #Dinner Event #Secrets Shared #Pictures With Bucky

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