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yurtletheturtlehenderson · 3 years

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COSMIC - S3:E3; Chapter Three, The Case Of The Missing Lifeguard - [Pt. 5]

A Will Byers x Reader Series

𝘌𝘭 𝘨𝘰𝘦𝘴 𝘢𝘴𝘵𝘳𝘢𝘭 𝘱𝘳𝘰𝘫𝘦𝘤𝘵𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘥𝘪𝘴𝘤𝘰𝘷𝘦𝘳𝘴 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘉𝘪𝘭𝘭𝘺 𝘩𝘢𝘴 𝘥𝘰𝘯𝘦 𝘴𝘰𝘮𝘦𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘸𝘪𝘵𝘩 𝘏𝘦𝘢𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘳. 𝘞𝘩𝘪𝘭𝘦 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘨𝘪𝘳𝘭𝘴 𝘵𝘳𝘺 𝘵𝘰 𝘧𝘪𝘯𝘥 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘮𝘪𝘴𝘴𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘭𝘪𝘧𝘦𝘨𝘶𝘢𝘳𝘥, 𝘞𝘪𝘭𝘭 𝘵𝘳𝘪𝘦𝘴 𝘵𝘰 𝘨𝘦𝘵 𝘔𝘪𝘬𝘦 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘓𝘶𝘤𝘢𝘴 𝘪𝘯𝘵𝘦𝘳𝘦𝘴𝘵𝘦𝘥 𝘪𝘯 𝘋&𝘋. 𝘋𝘶𝘴𝘵𝘪𝘯 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘚𝘵𝘦𝘷𝘦 𝘴𝘱𝘺 𝘰𝘯 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘮𝘢𝘭𝘭 𝘴𝘩𝘰𝘱𝘴, 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘙𝘰𝘣𝘪𝘯 𝘵𝘳𝘪𝘦𝘴 𝘵𝘰 𝘥𝘦𝘤𝘪𝘱𝘩𝘦𝘳 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘙𝘶𝘴𝘴𝘪𝘢𝘯 𝘮𝘦𝘴𝘴𝘢𝘨𝘦.

⚠️: Castle Byers scene. Meaning lots of angst, self destructive thinking, and misguided self punishing

📝: Started making it... had a break down [fr tho]... ¯\_( ツ)_/¯ bon appetite! 👩‍🍳 [edit: told ya 💀]

🔑: underlined and bold means they're talking in Russian

||𝟑𝐑𝐃 𝐏𝐄𝐑𝐒𝐎𝐍 𝐏𝐎𝐕||

Warm rain spits from the angry blanket of clouds, falling through the sky and drenching Mike and Lucas to the bone despite their rain gear. Mud splashed up onto their ankles and drenching their socks as their bikes skid up the Byers driveway. Without a thought, they throw their bikes into the ground before racing up onto Will's porch.

It had taken far longer than they cared to admit to decide to go and find Will. To make things right.

Mike was realizing far too late just how right Will was. He didn't even recognize himself anymore. El had become such an important piece of his life, but he hadnt realized until now just how much he let his feelings screw up all the wonderful things he had in his life to begin with. He missed how things used to be. With the party. With Y/n.

With Will.

All the anger he feels towards himself is channeled into his fist banging on Will's front door.

"Will!" He cries. "Will, I'm sorry, man, alright? I was being a total asshole. I've been a total asshole. Please, can you just come outside and we'll talk?"

No answer but the thundering clouds rolling over their heads. He pounds on the door again.

"Will!"

Lucas hurries to the window, cupping his palms against the glass and peering inside. He knocks on the window, doing his best to peer around the curtains and furniture obscuring his sight.

"Hey, Will! Come on, man! We're sorry!" He knocks again, growing nervous. "Will!"

||𝐖𝐈𝐋𝐋'𝐒 𝐏𝐎𝐕||

'Sorry, man. Curfew,'

'For the last time, Will! No!'

-'What, so I should be locked up all day, too?'

-'Maybe!'

Huffing, I throw the wrinkling comic book into the old mattress. Nothing was working. Nothing was enough to distract me. I was too angry.

I looked down at the withered cover of the comic book I had just thrown, my chest sinking further. Dustin's X-MEN 134, he gave it to me after that night at the hospital.

Thinking about it now, I can't even remember the last time all seven of us hung out as a party. I don't count Dustin's welcome home. Mike and El couldn't be bothered to pretend to care, and Lucas and Max kept ganging up on Dustin. Dustin was understandably upset and not wanting anything to do with us, leaving just me and Y/n. And now, not even her.

How did everything get so messed up?

What was I doing wrong?

I looked around the walls of Castle Byers, a lump forming in my throat. Everywhere I looked, I was painfully reminded of the truth.

My friends don't want me anymore.

I keep telling myself that's bullshit, but the more I do the more it feels like a lie.

They're moving on without me.

Friends don't just forget you, I reasoned. They don't just abandon you.

Then why were they doing just that?

Maybe they weren't my real friends. Friend's don't do what they did.

Everything hurts. I've been telling myself I'm fine, that I'm overreacting but I don't think I am anymore. I'm just tired. I'm tried of feeling like this. I'm tired of being pushed aside, especially when I need them most.

They didn't use to be like this, I tell myself. But somehow that just hurts more.

I had people that cared about me, who were willing to risk their lives to save me. Twice.

And now they don't give me a second thought.

I was shaking now, but I don't think it's from the rain. The storm had finally reached me, seeping through the walls and dampening my clothes and hair.

Another painful realization hits me; Castle Byers looked just like it had the night I built it with Jonathan.

Even though this night was so much like the night Castle Byers was constructed, it couldn't feel more different. More unfamiliar.

My teary eyes find my first D&D manual, propped up against the wooden walls, soaked and forgotten like me. I'm painfully reminded of the night all this started.

I remember it as clear as if it were yesterday, and yet it feels light-years away.

'Something is coming. Something hungry for blood.'

《•••》

"What is it?" I ask, edging further off my seat.

This time it's Dustin who cuts in, "What if it's the Demogorgon?"

Oh, great, I think, throwing myself back in my seat with an anxious huff. We're not ready to face a Demogorgon!

Beside me, Y/n draws in an equally anxious breath.

"Oh, Jesus, we're so screwed if it's the Demogorgon." Dustin rambles on.

"It's not the Demogorgon." Lucas says, assuring us all.

《•••》

My eyes trail to one of my favorite drawings; Will The Wise and Y/C/N. The one I had made when Y/n was first constructing her character. The one that hung in my room for so long, always cheering me up. The one that gave my mom the idea to help me communicate my now memories.

The one that Y/n always threatened to steal for her room as often and as recently as her last visit. The memory of her warm touch lingering on my cheeks burned as bright as the blush raging over me that night so long ago.

'Wait a minute... Did you guys hear that?'

《•••》

The anticipated silence in the basement left by Mike grew louder as he leaned in.

"Boom..." His voice grows louder. "Boom," Louder.

"BOOM!" Mike bellows, slamming his hands against the flat surface, rattling the table and all its contents.

The sudden noise was enough to make me and my friends jump, as was the sudden hand grabbing for my own.

All the more startled, I look down to see Y/n's hand grasping my arm like a lifeline. I feel my skin flush, my cheeks surely reddened as I catch her eye. She looked flustered, smiling a small smile before retracting her hand and returning to the game, unknowingly leaving me in a dizzying blush.

•••

"Will, your action!"

"Fireball!" I cry, throwing the dice to the board with a satisfying rattle.

"FOURTEEN!"

My friends erupt into cheers, all around me as we celebrate together.

"BOOM!"

"Direct hit!" Mike cries, beaming proudly at me across the table. "Will the Wise's fireball hits the Thessalhydra!"

Our excited shouts fill the basement, each and every one of us victorious. My smile can't get any wider when I feel Y/n's hands grip my shoulder and begin shaking me excitedly. We both laugh, feeling on top of the world with our cheering friends by our side.

《•••》

Pained, I look away only to find the proof right in front of my eyes. My three favorite pictures; all of them, my friends and me — happy — staring back up at me.

Our photo from the science fair, encased in the popsicle frame Mike had made bearing all of our characters' names along the side. I brought it here, I brought all my favorite pictures here, to Castle Byers — to my safe place — cause that's where I knew I would need their comfort the most.

But as I look at them now, all I feel is bitterness and pain. I'm reminded of just how much everything has changed.

The science fair was a reminder of the good thing I had before that night. Before everything started.

Y/n and me, at the Snow Ball. My arm wrapped around her, the two of us grinning nervously. It wasn't just the night Y/n and I had first kissed, it was also the first night I felt like the Party had gotten bigger. All of us, Max and El included had been happy. Everyone was laughing and getting along, the happiest we had ever been — the strongest. But now I see it was really the beginning of the end.

It had been coming for so long and I didn't even see it.

And Halloween. Last Halloween, everything had been perfect. For just one. Single. Stupid. Moment.

Shakily, I pick up the photo Jonathan had taken of all of us in our costumes. We were all smiling.

We were all happy.

'Who you gonna call?'

《•••》

I beam as I see my friends pulling up, looking just as excited as I felt.

"Ghostbusters!" I finish, watching as they look me over, happily surprised.

"Hey, Spengler!"

"Egon! Looking sharp!" Y/n grinned, pulling me into a quick hug.

"Janine!" I beam. "Venkman!"

《•••》

As I look at it now, my eyes and throat stinging as Mike's voice echoes louder than ever in my mind.

'I mean, what did you think, really?'

What was I thinking?

'That we were just gonna sit in my basement all day, playing games for the rest of our lives?'

How could I have been so naive?

'it's not my fault you can't move on!'

How could I have been so... so...

"Stupid." I tell myself, my voice splitting in my throat. "So stupid!"

My hands trembling violently with rage and my own sobs, I tear the photo in two.

I was stupid. Stupid to believe I was as big of a priority to them as they were to me.

I rip the drawing off the walls, tearing it to pieces.

Stupid to ever think they'd still cared about me.

I rip and tear and crumple up every meaningful piece of them in an act of defiance.

They won't care. I think bitterly. They won't miss these, they probably won't even notice. Not like I would have.

I grab my bat.

How could I be so fucking stupid?!

Why was I hanging on to all this stuff anyway? Why was I clinging so tightly to something that was already gone?

Because I've been stupid. I'm just some stupid kid that won't grow up.

I storm out of the tent.

I'm just some stupid kid who can't grow up. They made that perfectly clear.

I stand in the pouring rain now, heart thundering in my chest as I stare at the piece of my childhood I couldn't let go of.

So. Stupid.

And I start swinging.

I swing and I swing, with an anger and frustration I've never felt so intensely until now. It's been building my whole life and I didn't realize it. Every swing is simultaneously the best and the worst I've ever felt. Every slur I've heard from my dad, from Troy, is channeled into the bat. Every ounce of frustration and fear I felt since I came back from the Upside Down that nobody understood. Every laugh, every jeer, every single moment I've felt alone is channeled into the destruction of the one place on this earth I ever felt safe.

But it holds up and in the back of my mind, I hear Jonathan again.

'And it took so long cause you were so bad at hammering'

And I start kicking, and I start ripping the walls apart until it's a crumpled heap and I stop.

The sight of Castle Byers in ruins breaks me even harder.

I didn't want it gone, but I did it anyway. That part of me that was angry at myself, told me to keep going. Cause that's what I deserved for believing things could stay the same even though deep down I knew that wasn't true.

I finally stop when I see the castle in ruins.

Exhausted, I collapse to the ground beside the wreckage.

As I sob, stewing in the pain and overwhelming grief I felt I was drowning in, the rain pours heavily over me, soaking me to the bone.

Just as it had the night it had been built.

And now, Castle Byers was gone.

||𝟑𝐑𝐃 𝐏𝐄𝐑𝐒𝐎𝐍 𝐏𝐎𝐕||

When blue meets yellow in the west.

8:41 pm. It was almost time.

The yellow and blue clock hands were illuminated by a flash of lightning, streaking through the mall's skylight. Starcourt had long since closed, and the real activity was just beginning.

Stationed at the loading docks near the back, standing under the worst storm Hawkins had seen in years were two guards. They watched through the downpour as the scheduled truck backed its way under the concrete cover.

And perched on the roof, just out of sight sat Dustin, Steve, and Robin, scouting from under their rain slickers.

"Look for Imperial Panda and Kauffman Shoes," she reminds them.

Steve wipes away at the rain dripping into his eyes, squinting even further to get a clear picture Dustin already has.

A man in a bright yellow raincoat emerges from a hidden side door, a trolley cart full of packages marked with a familiar insignia.

"They're with that whistling guy!" Dustin says suddenly, motioning out from behind the only pair of binoculars.

"What do you think's in there?" Steve wonders, eyeing the Lynx logo on the back of their many yellow jackets.

"Guns? Bombs?"

"Chemical weapons?" Robin tries.

"Whatever it is," Dustin says, now cautiously studying the heavily armed guards. He had to admit to himself, they really weren't trying very hard not to be obvious. "they're armed to the teeth."

"Great," comes Steve's sarcastic voice, once again rubbing at his eyes, silently wishing he had brought a coat with a hood. "That's great."

A soft clink that would have been obnoxiously loud had it not been for the noise of the storm brings their attention to another guard. Having pressed a glowing button on a small control panel, two large metal doors swung open to reveal another room.

"Hey!" Robin says, squinting through the rain as she tries to get a glimpse without the binoculars. "What's in there?"

"It's just more boxes,"

"Let me check it out," Steve says, grabbing for the binoculars.

Huffing, Dustin fought to keep his grip on the binoculars. "No, I'm still looking!"

"Lemme see it!"

"Hang on!"

Steve's grip had loosened with the slick of rain, sending the binoculars knocking into the cement. The issue had already been forgotten when they saw the guards' attention had been stolen. Simultaneously, the three of them dove to the ground in a panic.

The guards began to pace, grip on their firearms tightening as they gaze out into the night. Seeing nothing but empty roofs and angry skies above them, they unknowingly miss the trio huddled against the roof wall.

Just out of sight to the right of Dustin, Steve and Robin sat panting as they try to calm their racing hearts. Way too close a call. And neither of them had realized what they had done until their eyes landed on their entertained hands. Just as quickly as they notice, they break apart, embarrassed.

Down below, the guards were now on high alert. One of them, unable to shake the feeling of being watched, stalked into the rain with his eyes deadset on an open spot on the roof. He was certain he heard the noise come from that direction.

"Stay here!" He orders to the other. "Watch the door!"

Reluctantly, his partner complies and inches back towards the doors.

When he finally reaches the top of the stairwell, he hesitates only a moment before he throws the roof door open, gun cocked.

But he was met only with steady claps of thunder and an empty roof.

Had he been wrong?

Or had he just missed whoever had been here?

⊹ ⊹ ⊹

Clothes drenched, their shoes sloshing underneath their feet like sponges, Steve, Robin, and Dustin slip out from the shadows and make their way throughout the back halls behind the scenes of Starcourt.

"Well, I think we sound your Russians," Robin quips.

· · ─────── ·𖥸· ─────── · ·

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#cosmic #cosmic 3 #will byers x reader #will byers x fem!reader #stranger things #stranger things 3 #the case of the missing lifeguard #3x03

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kashimos-hajime · 4 years

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Far From Home | b.b.

summary: Bucky Barnes hates you. You play music too loud in the morning, you’re cold and closed off, you’re selfishly selfless, you confuse the hell out of him—the list could go on and on. He hates you, but when you go missing, he can’t stop himself from spending every waking hour trying to find you. What was that old saying? A fine line between hate and love? Yeah, Bucky walks that line like a man who’s had three beers too many.

WARNINGS: swearing, mentions of addiction, vomit, angst, y’all HATE each other fr pairing: bucky barnes x stark!sister reader word count: 10.9k

a/n: written for @wkemeup and @captain-kelli who both achieved follower milestones!! congratulations, you two! :) both prompts are bolded below. enemies to lovers who are still enemies here we go! song inspo is far from home (the raven) by sam tinnesz

“How long?”

“Seventy three hours since last contact. Fuck, Steve. Where is she?”

“I don’t know. Last I saw of her was the party but for all we know she’s just sleeping in.”

“No. My sister is not a party animal. She would’ve called me. She knows to call me.” Beep. “What am I looking at, F.R.I.D.A.Y.?”

“Last known footage of Ms. Stark. She signed some autographs in Miami before departing for an unknown location.”

The air is frigid as the room goes quiet.

Steve speaks first. “Tony—”

Who’s gonna tell Barnes?”

A beat.

“We can’t tell him. We don’t even know if she’s missing or not.”

Bucky stops at the edge of the entrance, his ears pricked as he presses himself against the wall. Tilting his head to the door, he waits for someone to say something.

“I’m telling you that she is. I know in my heart that there is something wrong and I say that she has been captured, or injured, and that she might be scared and Barnes…” A bitter, cold, laugh that sounds more like a scoff. “He’s not going to stop until he gets her back. I don’t know about you but I don’t want some brainwashed super soldier killing everyone just because he didn’t have the balls to—”

“You can’t say that, Tony. She’s gonna show up.”

“Shut up, Steve. She would’ve found some way to call me. That girl never has her phone on 0%. She doesn’t go off the grid. This is Y/N, not some bimbo who doesn’t know better than to call her brother.”

“She isn’t a kid.”’

“She is to me! She is a kid. She is the little sister I have failed over and over to protect so why don’t you shove that little righteous speech about how she’s a grown woman up your ass.”

“Except you’re not treating her like the adult she is. You know she can take care of herself.”

Bucky can hear Tony’s soft inhale, feel the intensity of the man’s glare directed at Steve. He shouldn’t be eavesdropping, but a twitch of muscle would be enough to alert both men that he’s here. With the amount of tension crackling in the air, a brush against the wall would be equivalent to a thousand cymbals crashing in cacophony.

“Tony, Afghanistan wasn’t your fault. You couldn’t have changed what the Ten Rings did, to you or to her. You’re not responsible for that.”

“Someone has to be. Who put her there, huh?”

“Tony—”

“You know what, I’m gonna try the London center, and go by her cabin.”

“Tony, wait—”

A door slams shut. It rattles Bucky’s bones and he swallows down the bruising in his throat as he closes his eyes, tilting his head back until it knocks into the metal walls. Missing. You, missing, and suddenly his chest is heavier than mountains. He feels like he could drown in his own blood, like every rib in his chest is breaking.

“Buck,” Steve calls, and he opens his eyes to a sting of cold air. Something tastes like iron in his mouth as he pushes off the wall and enters the room. Steve is standing there, his fingers pressed against the table as he continues to stare at the door Bucky assumes Tony left through.

“Who said she’s missing?” Bucky asks roughly in a way he hopes sounds unaffected. Steve’s eyes drag towards him, his blue eyes wide like a puppy and Bucky narrows his own gaze. “You know how she gets when she’s pissed.”

“Yeah. I wish she was more like Tony that way,” Steve sighs, his other hand hooked on his belt. “Buck, I don’t know what to say. You know what’s going on with her?”

“Nope.” His expression twitching, Bucky silently curses as Steve’s eyebrows raise, lips parting. He seems to struggle with what he wants to say and Bucky’s eyes fall to his shoes like a scolded child. Searching the tile, he swallows down the knot in his throat.

“Bucky.”

His head jerks up and he meets his best friend’s gaze defiantly. “Steve.”

“What’d you say to her?”

His lungs feel like they’re about to bust. An urgency tugs at his chest, his gut flipping over as he looks away, at the wall, anywhere except Steve’s curious, insistent gaze.

“Steve, I swear to fucking god I didn’t mean it.” His eyes flutter shut at the memory and he lowers his head in shame, leaning against the table by his hand. Everything inside him lurches and he feels like he’s going to throw up as the sound of you echoes in his head. Fury incarnate, hell freezing over at your voice. “She just told me she was stepping back. I just—” His words catch in his throat, and he can’t continue. Anger and guilt fight within him like starving beasts caged for far too long battling over a juicy flank of deer. The meat of his memory bleeds into his bones. “We had a fight before the party. It just piled up.”

“You couldn’t be coolheaded about this?” Steve asks quietly and Bucky looks at him with a terrible devil lurking in his gaze. No one has ever known—especially Tony, especially Steve. No one knows. “She’s the only person I’ve ever seen you lose your temper on, Buck.”

“You’d be surprised by what she brings out in me,” he muses flatly, that terrible thing melting into his voice. A bitter twitch to his mouth, he looks up and thinks of all the places he thinks you would go to, just to spite him. Pulling out his phone, he half-hopes to see some message from you, even if it is a drunk text. You off the rails is better than you going dead silent.

The cabin in the woods. London. Miami.

Something inside of Bucky aches for release—aches to put a hole in the wall just to feel something other than pain, rage, hate, hate, hate.

“You’re her friend,” his blond, Captain America, broad-shouldered, symbol-of-America, friend Steve says, because despite what some people think that Steve and Captain America are two different personas, there will always be parts of Steve in the Avenger, and parts of the Avenger in Steve. They both want to believe in something good. They are, after all, one in the same.

Just as how Bucky and the Winter Soldier are the same man despite everything. HYDRA simply amplified the hate, fertilized the seeds of rage, curated the quiet thunder within his soul, within James Buchanan Barnes so that the Winter Soldier could thrive.

He has spent more than half his life believing the Starks are the enemy, and half of his waking moments, wondering if it’s true. Whenever he looks at Tony, he sees Howard—the title FRIEND crossed out with violent strokes, ENEMY written in blood. Whenever he looked at you, he felt something that walked a fine line.

“We barely tolerated each other.” Bucky brushes it off, pocketing his phone and turning away. He doesn’t want to think about your damned starlight eyes that sparked with rebellion, the rope of hair you always had pulled back in a ponytail, the smear of oil, the smudge of dirt, the raw scratch of your nails. Something so primal, unadulterated ecstasy.

It was the effect of you on his mind, his body.

“That’s not what Tony thought.” Steve’s words crawl after him as he turns to walk out of the room and Bucky pauses at the silence that follows. He knows Steve well enough to know when he wants to keep going. “What is it?”

“What I said?”

“No. Buck,” Steve sighs, his name echoing coldly against metal walls. Bucky turns to see him, nearly glaring daggers, “what is it between you and her?”

Anger. Grief. Hate. Lust.

“Nothing.” Bucky shrugs despite how much it feels like there’s a thousand pound weights on his shoulders. “If she ran away without telling Stark, he’s gonna be insufferable about it, but that’s not on me.”

“So you think there’s nothing to worry about.” Bucky turns to Steve who crosses his arms, leaning against the edge of the table. His eyebrows are still raised—he wants an honest answer.

If Bucky were an honest man, he would’ve told Steve everything since the beginning, but he hasn’t and he isn’t, and Bucky does not want to hide things from Steve, but he will always make and has always made exceptions for you.

“I’ll worry when there’s something to worry about.” Steve doesn’t believe him, and Bucky chews on his cheek, stepping back into the room. There’s something he has to prove to Steve, something that isn’t even real, and Bucky feels a million pairs of eyes bearing into his back. I will not slip, I will not slip, I will not slip. “Look, she can take care of herself. She’ll show up because someone picked a fight with her and lost, and then she’ll be fine.”

“Bucky. Come on.” Steve’s trying to appeal to the kindness in his heart but Bucky doesn’t have room for it with all the unbridled fear that lurks in his chest. It carves out a home in his ribs, sits on every crevice of his sternum, sinks its teeth into his flesh. He’s terrified even though he doesn’t show it: he can’t. He can’t. “You’re not even a little bit worried?”

“Nope.”

“Well, you can’t act like you don’t care when you care more than anyone.”

“I don’t.”

“Then what was London?” The protesters. “São Paulo?” The earthquake. “Vancouver?” Freezing cold water.

“Look, I care if Stark’s gonna run us over trying to find her. I care enough because she’s part of our team. Come off it, Steve. I know she can take care of herself. I’m gonna take a nap. Dr. Cho said no partying post-Singapore and what do you know, we throw the biggest party ever.” Stiff to the bone, he puts on a smile. “See you in a bit, pal.”

Steve sighs, and the sound follows him like a ghost as Bucky leaves the conference room. His flesh fingers curl into a fist and his nails dig in hard enough he draws blood as he walks the halls, the paths engraved into his head. He takes the longest route to his room, tries to scatter his thoughts of the words shackled with fury.

He walks past your room on the way to his and he does not spare it a glance as he walks into his room and turns on the tap. The water runs copper and the sting bites at his palm as he tries not to think. Tries to focus on the numbing cold that runs over his skin.

Don’t worry. I won’t.

It’s all he does now—worry. It consumes his mind as he stares at his own reflection and curses the way his eyes seem to shimmer from cold predator to docile prey. They are always at war within him. It wasn’t until he met you that he realized it was okay to be both.

The first time Bucky meets you, he is unkempt, exhausted, and probably smells of old laundry. Black moons are printed underneath his eyes and he doesn’t remember what the light looks like as he stares blankly at the wall, at the curtains drawn over windows. He hasn’t eaten in the past few days and neither has he spoken. He’s tossed and turned on his bed, his mind still hyper fixated, his blood still congealed in his veins. He’s too exhausted to get out of a room he’s been stuck in for the past seventy two hours.

It’s been two months since Steve brought him back here. Two months and he’s still so fucking tired.

“Buck,” said friend begins and Bucky doesn’t make a sound to give any indication he’s heard. He has a pillow shoved between his head and arm, staring at the analog clock that reads 3:29 PM. “I’m coming in, okay?” He closes his eyes, preparing himself for the inevitable stream of light that’s about to blind the shit out of him and he burrows his face into the pillow. The door slides open.

He can hear Steve take in a sharp breath at the state his room’s in. There are clothes strewn everywhere and the meals that’ve been sent up are lined up on the top of his dresser, untouched, and Bucky wishes he were asleep to avoid a confrontation he knows is coming. It always happens when Steve wants him to suck it up and get out in a gentle way, but this time, Bucky can’t scrub off the blood on his hands long enough to enjoy the fact that he’s alive.

Nah. All he can remember is every bullet fired, every news headline, every pair of eyes that have ever looked at him like he’s a monster. Beast. Feral.

“You gotta get up, Buck. Pull yourself outta this slump.”

“I don’t want to.” His voice is foreign, a terrible, growling thing that pushes out of his throat uncomfortably. “I’m tired.”

“Tony’s sister’s back from Somalia, and he went to the airport to pick her up.” Steve continues, walking around the room to clean up. He begins to fold clothes and throw dirty ones into the basket in the corner of his room before walking into the bathroom. Turning on the lights, he starts rooting around for something. “Gotta make a good first impression.”

“Why should I care?” He rolls over away from the light as Steve flushes the toilet and turns on the vent. It smells musty, the air thick with not enough oxygen and too much old. Bucky lifts his head from his pillow, squinting against the pale light of his bathroom.

“Because Tony loves his sister more than life itself and she’s great. You’re gonna like her.”

“If she’s anything like Stark, I doubt it,” he grumbles, letting his face fall back to the pillow for two more seconds before rolling onto the edge of the bed and sitting up. His head spins and black dots impede his vision as he rubs at his eyes blearily. Blood rushes down his body and he lets out a groan when his muscles stretch in his back.

“That’s the spirit, Buck,” Steve says. Bucky gets up on unsteady legs, his feet strangely stiff against the floor. “We’ve got some leftovers from lunch that you can have but first just get a bit cleaned up. Wash your face, brush your teeth. Promise you’ll feel a lot better.” Bucky’s lips twitch into an almost-smile but it fades just as soon as he realizes he has to look at himself in the mirror in the bathroom.

“Yeah.”

Steve nods, heading for the door. “I’ll heat up those leftovers.”

“Thanks.”

As a parting gift, Steve sets the lights in the room on a dim setting just for him. Bucky lumbers over to the bathroom and switches on the shower, the hiss of the water running white noise for his aching head. When he steps in, he just stands under the pelting hot rain, letting it wash away the oil in his head, the feeling of wearing someone else’s skin melting just a fraction.

He doesn’t know what to expect, but he does figure making a first impression is key.

He runs his fingers through his hair, scrubs the smell of sleep off his skin, and trims his beard until he’s happy enough with how it looks before changing into new clothes. He almost feels like new as he leaves his room. He tucks his hair behind his ears, walking mindlessly, just enjoying the languid stretch and bunch of his muscles.

Eventually he makes it to the kitchen, sliding into one of the stools on the island. Steve’s just taking some glass container out of the microwave when he spots his best friend.

“Hey. Spaghetti and meatballs.” Sliding it over to Bucky, he also hands over a fork and Bucky stabs at the spaghetti. His stomach rumbles at the smell and thought of eating, but he still doesn’t feel hungry enough. He feels weak. Tired. He wants to go back to bed but he also wants to stay out in the sun for a few hours more. The sun kisses his skin through the windows and he squints against the blue sky, wondering.

“Thanks.” Turning his gaze back to the leftovers, he twirls a fork into the spaghetti just as the sound of F.R.I.D.A.Y. overhead catches their attention. He looks to Steve who’s drying a mug with a towel and he shrugs. Bringing a bite into his mouth, Bucky swallows with a relieved sigh as Steve sets down the cup and towel, heading out of the kitchen to meet their visitor.

Biting into a meatball, Bucky feels something uneasy in him coil around him tight. He knows he’s in no shape to meet new people but he’s not going to be rude about it. Practicing a smile, it feels awkward on his lips but he can’t do a thing about it as he tries to think of what to say. He knows about you from what he’s heard Stark say about you and his own digging on his teammates. You have your own Wikipedia page and everything, just like your brother, and he knows it’s an extensive article.

Just be polite. Be yourself. A voice inside him is telling him things he should know but instead, another thought whispers, But what is ‘yourself’? You barely know who you are.

“I’m tired. Guess that’s to be expected but it’s fine.” He hears you before he sees you. Bucky pretends to be as casual as he can as he listens to the four sets of footsteps approach the kitchen. He ducks his head, focusing on the spaghetti and trying to fill up his stomach to stop the uncomfortable growl that’s rumbling inside. “It’s good to see you.”

“A year is too long,” he can hear Steve say and he arches an eyebrow. Miss her that much? Bucky doesn’t want to think about it. He’s only been back two months, and it’s already hard readjusting to his own new life, not to mention Steve’s new one too. “Let me help you with your bags.”

“Thanks. Is Jenny around?”

“Girl misses you.” Stark. “It’s been hard without her sponsor, but we’ve, or more I, kept her on track. God, is this what it’s like to raise a teenage daughter?”

Sponsor. Huh.

“It’s what it’s like to sponsor a teenager who thinks she knows everything, so you’ll have half the challenge.”

“Oh, great. Hopefully, they’ll be more like Pepper.”

“I’m hoping for that, too.” Ms. Potts is here, too. Bucky pauses to listen for the telltale clicks of her heels, and when he does, he resumes eating. He’s seen her once or twice, and it’d been made clear she wouldn’t judge him for his state when she’s seen everything with Tony. That eases some of the burden from his shoulders.

“Thank you, guys. I hate leaving her here alone.”

“She’s a strong kid, Y/N,” Steve says. “Just like you.”

“Don’t suck up to my sister, Rogers. She’s been back for all of two minutes.”

Agreed. If she’s so great, just plant a kiss on her, Steve. God knows you’re the better of us now.

He raises his head just in time to see Steve enter with bags hoisted on his shoulders and a giant smile on his face. Following after is Stark in a pristine suit, not a crease in sight, and the man gives him a quick inspection before he pulls off his sunglasses and folds them, slipping them into his breast coat pocket.

“You want something to eat, G.I. Jane?” Stark asks, pulling aside and that’s when Bucky finally sets his eyes on you. His back goes stiff as he straightens up and Steve barely hides his smile as he sets down your bags. You stand there, holding on to Pepper Potts’ arm when the smile on your face fades as soon as their eyes meet. His eyes rake over your face and your body—black eye, split lip, no sleep, field uniform. They must’ve just pulled you out and by the way you try not to heavily lean onto the woman beside you, it’s medical related. Still, there’s a glint to your eye, a hunger, and he’s not blind enough to not realize you aren’t one of the most attractive people he’s ever seen.

“I’m good,” you reply, your voice no longer as light as it was. Instead, it sounds masked, fake, and Bucky nearly frowns before forcing a smile onto his face. You sound like your brother, and if Bucky wasn’t just as good at lying to oneself as you think you are, maybe he wouldn’t have noticed. It’s like you’ve donned on a façade, a personality the media loves to eat up. He can read it in the eyes. It hasn’t seemed that way but the few times he’s been out with the rest of them, he’s seen the effortless switch Stark can make between Tony Stark and just Tony. “Uh, care to introduce me?”

Right. He’s forgetting himself.

Bucky slides off the kitchen stool, quite sure that there’s no spaghetti sauce on his lip, and you soak in his haggard appearance, an appearance you seem to mirror.

“Hi,” he says, sticking out a hand but you only look at him, unimpressed. His fake smile falters but he still keeps on despite how uncomfortable this situation is getting. “I’m Bucky.”

“Oh, right.” Your voice is flat, uninterested, cold, as you stare at him. “You killed my parents.”

Shit.

“Right, anyway,” Pepper cuts in before Tony, Steve, or Bucky can say anything. “We should be going to bring her to her room. Tony, would you…” The CEO nudges her head in the way of you and he perks up, sliding into his wife’s place and looping an arm through yours. The two leave the kitchen, heads bowed together and Pepper grabs the bags.

“I’m sorry about that,” she says, eyes focused on Bucky. “It’s been a hard year, and—”

“It’s fine,” Bucky murmurs, turning to sit back down. His stomach growls and he grabs the fork, stabbing a meatball.

“Well, I’m glad to see you, Mr. Barnes,” Pepper adds softly, and she sends a smile his way before hoisting the bags up. “See you later, Steve.”

“Yeah.”

The woman leaves, and Bucky swallows, the lump of meat sitting like rocks in his gut.

“She hates me,” he says flatly and Steve looks at him with a gentle smile—a smile he doesn’t deserve.

“She holds grudges. She’s like Tony that way and he forgave you, didn’t he?”

“Yes.” Bucky sighs, looking down at his spaghetti just as Steve comes around the kitchen island, claps him on the back. “But I don’t think she’s like Tony.”

“Eat up. She’ll come around.”

You didn’t come around. Bucky thinks you never did as he leaves his room and stares at the one just across, to the left of his. How often has he tread the few steps needed to cross the hall and walk into that room often full of music or the sounds of frustrated yells?

Your room is quiet, still as the dead.

You never slept there unless it was mission-related and you needed some sleep, or Bucky really pissed you off. Sometimes it was both.

Pressing his flesh hand against the metal door, he clenches his jaw before letting it slide open with a soft swish. The absent smell of clean laundry and your perfume lingers in the air and he walks in, trying to find any difference between now and the last time he was here.

“F.R.I.D.A.Y., when was the last time she was here?” he asks aloud.

“Four days ago. The last recorded entry was just before her disappearance but she has asked me to delete all footage concerning her on that night.”

“But you kept it?”

“Mr. Stark implemented a protocol Ms. Stark is unaware of. Should I make a rational call and believe that she is in danger, I am programmed to save any and all evidence that could be vital in securing her.”

“Then why haven’t you brought this to Tony?”

“Ms. Stark has coded in her own loophole in my program that Mr. Stark is unaware of. It prevents me from releasing any information that may compromise Ms. Stark and any of her activities she would rather keep secret. Like you, for example. Because I am unaware of her motives, I am caught in a bind between my two protocols.”

“Thanks, F.R.I.D.A.Y.” Bucky shakes his head, heading into your bathroom and turning on the lights. All of your skincare and soaps are still there, your toothbrush untouched, and there’s a towel still hanging on the rack. Your first-aid kit is still on the counter by the sink, not clasped shut. Nothing here. Backing out, he switches off the lights and crosses his arms over his chest, frowning deeply.

“Did she take anything?” He spins around, eyes passing over your dresser, your closet. “Clothes, makeup, anything?” Walking by your made bed, he catches sight of your workbench and approaches it.

His hands brush over the screen surface and it lights up at the swipe of his fingers. The text lights up along with a login and password and he frowns thoughtfully, pressing a hand against the screen. A line scans his palm and fingers, and his eyebrows rise when it gives him access.

WELCOME BUCKY BARNES

“Run surveillance.”

The screen burns into his corneas as the feed runs and he leans over, watching as you enter the room. You’re still in that tight dress you wore to the party and you’re stuffing clothes into your bag with no rhythm or reason as you root through your dresser, through your closet. Your head isn’t turned to the camera but by the way you’re constantly wiping at your face, he wonders if you’re crying.

The timestamp tells him you took one of your suits home and he swallows when you finally zip up your bags, glancing around to see if you’ve missed something only you know you’re looking for. When you’re satisfied, you rush to the table Bucky stands at now and brings up a file, a keyboard spreading across the surface.

“What is she doing?”

“Analyzing now.”

You want me to find you, right? he wonders to himself. His mind is a whirlwind of thoughts, of why, and how, and I’m sorry, and he’s starting to feel sick as you plug something into the bottom of your workbench.

F.R.I.D.A.Y. makes a soft hum as she reruns the clip.

“A USB was inserted.”

“What was on it?” Automatically, his hand mimics yours and brushes against a slick black thing. Crouching, he spots the USB plugged in, blended into the metal of your workbench. Your initials are carved into the butt, jagged and so you.

“Scanning.”

Standing up again, he enlarges the surveillance feed. He looks down at your interface, at the suit designs you have saved in your files and mission reports you’ve yet to file. Steve was always on your ass about that before his eyes pass over to the feed again. It’s magnetic the way his eyes follow your movements, the dance of your fingers over an interface.

“It’s a collection of surveillance clips strung together. It appears Ms. Stark had a stalker.” The A.I.’s voice weaves into his ears as another voice streams through the workbench and Bucky frowns when a clip plays just as it does in the video.

“Can you play what she’s watching?”

The clip cuts to another and he looks at the time stamp and location. Three hours earlier.

Miami.

Shit. Bucky closes his eyes. He knows what this is. The audio continues to run and he pushes back, stung. He hears the sound of the slamming door and prays it’s the slam of the door when you walked away from him.

He is not so lucky.

“What the fuck was that?”

He stumbles back at the sound of his voice, his legs hitting the mattress. Bucky falls back, sinking into the bed, sucking in a huge breath as he stares up at your ceiling. You used to project stars onto the ceiling because it made your world so much bigger. He remembers, before everything got so fucking complicated, AKA the past week, he would spend hours next to you, pointing out constellations after he’d fucked you into the mattress.

How much simpler it was, then.

“What? You mean the reason I’m throwing a party in the first place?”

“Yeah. Yeah, the reason you’re throwing a party. This is what it’s for? Not because we just pulled off the fucking impossible?”

Your incredulous laugh: bitter, cold. “I’m allowed to choose I don’t want to do this anymore, Barnes. I’m allowed to fuck someone who isn’t you.”

“That’s not what this is about!”

“Isn’t it? That guy had his hands all over me and you couldn’t help but look like you wanted to punch his lights out. You just happened to want to talk to me the instant we started dancing. Just a coincidence, huh?”

“He is bad news.”

“You don’t know that.”

“Yes, I do! It’s what you do when you’re sad. You latch onto people you think can give you the same high. It’s not healthy, robin.”

“Who the fuck do you think you are trying to control me? My fucking dad? Newsflash, you’re the guy who killed him and newsflash, he didn’t give two shits about who I really was. You think he saw me and thought I was a person? Fucking saw me as more than his perfect little charity case?”

“Y/N—”

“You have some fucking nerve thinking you have any say in what I decide to do with what life I have left. I’ve spent ten years trying to protect innocent people, and keep this together, but I can’t. I am miserable! I am so alone.” The cry in your voice splits Bucky in two as it did the first time he heard you, so weak, so isolated and little. You were cracking at the seams and he watched as you held yourself together in that room, sucking in a breath. “I am so alone except when I’m with you, and you know how much I hate that? I hate you!”

“I know, robin. I’m right here. Talk to me.”

A quivering breath—Bucky can hear your shaking through your voice as you clear your throat. “I just… I can’t, anymore. I can’t stand you. This needs to end, Barnes. I… I need to go after what I want, even if it means stepping away from this.”

“There are people who need you. I can help you—”

“I want a family. Kids, a guy who actually likes me more than my money.” He can imagine the tilt of your head, your ironic smile. His heart wilts at the thought of it. “Can you help me find a guy like that?” Pause. Your chuckle rings bitter. “Knew I wouldn’t be able to find it here.”

“So, this isn’t enough for you.”

Crackle. The audio cuts so quietly that Bucky almost thinks the footage has shorted but then he hears your voice, and he knows it’s not over. He can still replay the scene line by line, block by block in his head: straight out of a fucking movie.

“It isn’t.”

“Then, what was Singapore?” Quiet, remorseful, Bucky has never sounded so pitiful. It had been surprising in the moment, but now he only feels the wave of sorrow that slowly fills his lungs.

A moment, three beats of the heart. Bucky can almost imagine your brain turning in that small pause when everything inside his chest collapsed at the revelation that showed itself so clearly. And grief morphs into rage, if it is given the right rot to sink into.

“Nothing.”

“You’re lying.”

“No, I’m not.”

“Yes, you are. You’re lying, because I know you, Y/N. I do know you, and you know me. You know I’m not afraid of you. You want a family? You got one right here.”

“Well, I don’t want this one.”

Ragged breathing. He swore he could hear I don’t want you bouncing off the walls.

Bucky wants to knock himself out to stop himself from hearing this torture, from reliving all the regret that comes down on him in waves but he can’t. He loves the pain that comes with you, the difficulty of knowing you. It has made his every day a welcomed challenge ever since he met you.

“Then what kinda family do you want, huh? Picket fence, apple pie on the weekends?” There is no answer. “Are you so incapable of recognizing what you want that you’ll jump into bed with any guy who shows the slightest bit of decency towards you? Because then you’re just setting yourself up for more hurt when you realize that you are not going to be happy with him.”

“I slept with you, didn’t I?”

In hindsight, Bucky knows it stings more than it did the first time around.

“And you hate me. And you’ll hate whoever you love who isn’t someone like us because he won’t understand the way you want him to. He will never understand you. You’ll hate yourself because you can’t love him the way you want to, the way he will love you, and you don’t deserve your own hate. You deserve better than that.”

“You have no idea what I deserve.”

He has a crystal clear idea of what you deserve. It is more than the world has to offer, it is more than he can ever give you.

“No.” Finality. The swing of a guillotine. Within moments, everything had fractured between you two. “I guess I don’t. I have no idea who you are, or your problems, or anything about your life. I don’t know you at all, so why not let me be honest since we’re complete strangers?” The sarcasm is dripping from his voice and you let out a disbelieving scoff.

“Oh, for the love of—”

“You‘re so terrified of opening yourself up again that the next time a guy hurts you, you’re afraid you’re not gonna make it. But you think you’re so riddled with problems that no one will ever love you. You’re so convinced that you’re unlovable.” Recording-Bucky pauses, watching your reaction. “Even though it’s not true.

“Yes, it is.”

“I don’t want to tell you for the billionth time that any guy would be lucky to have even a scrap of your attention, robin. I don’t want to keep telling you when you don’t even try to believe it. So, tell me, how are you gonna find your ‘dream man’ if you think you’re unlovable? Is he just gonna fly into your lap like a fucking angel? Do you even know what you’re looking for?” He waits, then: “I thought so.”

You exhale sharply, and it’s bitter against the roof of his mouth as delicate, fake niceties wave their way into your words. “You know what? I’ll figure it out without you, and I didn’t throw a party to be attacked by the one person who’s supposed to have my back. You don’t have to be happy for me, but you could’ve at least sucked it up and held yourself back from ruining my night. I’m leaving, whether you like it or not. Good luck with your new partner, Barnes.”

Fading clicks of heels that stop at his words.

“Oh, so now you’re walking away because I’m right?”

“Oh, no, I’m not walking away from your incessant need to be right. I’m walking away from you.” There is a moment of silence, as if to grieve what has come to pass, and when you speak again, you’re so incredibly sad that Bucky’s heart is in shambles in his chest. His lungs weep, his ribs ache, and he rolls onto his side, eyes closed as he lets the sound of words he still remembers wash over him. “You’re ridiculous. You know that right?” You laugh again, except it’s colder, more incredulous and shackled with sadness. He wishes he didn’t know you so well. “You’re fucking transparent.”

Echoing footsteps.

“If you walk away now, don’t bother coming back!”

Silence. Bucky can hear his own strained breathing, your soft sigh as you soaked in his ultimatum.

“Don’t worry. I won’t.”

The door slams shut.

Bucky tells F.R.I.D.A.Y. to shut off the workbench and simply lays there on your bed for he doesn’t know how long.

He thinks he will simply shatter should he put his foot on the ground again.

You're cold, arrogant, and smarter than almost everyone in the room and you know it. You own it, and if Bucky didn’t hate that kind of person who thinks she’s better than anyone just because she’s rich, he’d admire both you and your beauty.

But you are rich, and entitled, and absolutely, in some way or another, the worst. You’re worse than your brother, spiteful, and quick to anger, but that might be because you hate Bucky in particular. That’s fine. Bucky doesn’t particularly have an inclination to be your friend either. In fact, he’d rather you stay away to avoid any clashes that have barely been prevented by your off-hand comment of him not being worth the energy and his talent for ignoring you despite how you get his blood boiling.

Unfortunately, your room is right across the hall from his, and what he gets out of you is a passing glance full of spite every morning to really start his day. Sometimes, he sees you and you’re on the phone or in the gym, running drills with Tony in the air, or just flat out ignoring him, but most of the time, you’re not even at the compound, and Bucky prefers this the most.

He supposes passive loathing is better than you, with your unlimited resources, actively trying to ruin his life. He can’t help but match your level of dislike when you blast music in the mornings and your rain noises at night.

He’s woken up to your music to shout at you to turn it down every day you’ve raised it above a decent limit, but you simply ignore him, close the door on his face, and emerge thirty minutes later for your morning jog.

Bucky can’t go back to sleep after, so he has no choice but to socialize with whoever’s awake at six in the morning who turn out to be Steve and Sam Wilson. He joins their gym competition, welcomes the stretch and pull of muscles in the early hours to wake himself up despite how hard it is to get his body to pull itself out of bed. Steve likes that he’s out of his room more often, anyway, so he supposes he should be grateful for small blessings, even if he doesn’t show it.

Whenever Steve brings it up, Bucky shoots back he can’t go back to his room because there is no existence of peace or quiet.

It’s on one such a morning that he’s standing outside, listening to the beginnings of some seventies jam pound through the walls, that he reminds himself of this fact.

“Open up, Stark!” he yells, telling himself if you don’t answer, he’s gonna pound that door down. “I’m not gonna ask again.” Something shuffles inside and he frowns, leaning in closer to try to listen in on the muffled voices before it swings open and he jerks back, face settling in a scowl his muscles are trained to do every time he sees you.

“What?” Your voice is sharper than the sharpest blade as you glower at him and the sight of you burns itself into its irises. He knows you’re put together. That’s the mask you like to put up—you’re a Stark, you have to be. Rarely has he ever seen your brother a mess around people he doesn’t know, but now you appear before him. You’re pale, in the clothes he’d seen you wear the night before, and everything about you reminds him of something fading away as you wait for him to speak.

“Are you alright?” he asks stiffly, and you merely stare at him blankly for a moment as if you were going to answer truthfully before the sound of someone throwing up catches both of their attention. Turning around, you disappear into your room, and Bucky stands outside awkwardly, waiting. The music is still blasting but he realizes it’s one he recognizes. Trouble Man of a soundtrack of the same name. Sam always recommends it to him whenever he mentions something even remotely related to music.

“It’s okay, it’s okay. Come on, just get it out.” The sound of your voice, smooth and warm, draws him in and he tentatively walks into your room, eyes scanning his surroundings. Another bout of retching draws him to the bathroom where he sees a pair of legs sprawled over the tile. You hold a girl by her arm, the other scooping her hair behind her head.

“Glad to hear you’ve begun to wake at a decent hour, Barnes,” you comment without turning your head away from the girl hunched over your toilet seat. Finally, she pulls back and collapses against you, and you grab at a rag above your head hanging on the countertop and pat at her forehead. “Get her into bed.”

“No…” the girl moans, legs curling underneath her as she pulls into a ball. Bucky’s eyes widen. She looks so small. “Don’t wanna move.”

“It’s alright, darling. He’s gonna carry you.” Your eyes find his again and he walks in, crouching by her waist. “On three.” Bucky’s hands scoop underneath her knees and the other goes underneath her back as you grab the trashcan and stack of towels.

“One, two, three.” With a gentle yet hasty lift, the girl is hoisted into the air and transported onto the bed. Bucky backs up as soon as she’s down and you rush in beside him. You begin to tuck her into bed, your movements practiced, and Bucky is struck with the realization.

“This is Jenny,” he breathes, and you turn to him, eyes narrowed. “What do you need me to do?”

“Get a basin, fill it with cold water, and more trash bags.” Nodding, he turns back to the bathroom, opening the cabinet beneath the sink to pull out a plastic basin. “Fuck, Jen. It’s okay, let it all out.” Over the stream of water, he pricks his ear to the sound of a sob-wrecked voice.

“‘M sorry, Y/N. Just wanted to feel better.”

“I know.”

“It was so hard.”

“I know. Hey, it’s okay. I’m glad you came to me, okay?” Turning off the sink, he walks back to the bed and sets the basin by your feet before procuring some trash bags and setting them by the trash can as well. You’re leaned over, dotting the girl’s brow as he takes the moment to look around your room. It’s messy, a mess of clothes and bags strewn everywhere, books on tables, forgotten cups, but it’s organized. He can see it. “Get some sleep, okay? You’re gonna feel pretty fucking shitty over the next few weeks.”

“I know.” Bucky’s gaze drags back to you as you pull back on your heels, standing up straight. Your eyebrows are drawn together still as you pull the covers up to the girl’s chin. Wiping at your own forehead with the back of your hand, you nearly back up into him and he holds out his hands to prevent you from bumping into him.

The instant his fingers make contact with your back, you whip around like a startled deer.

“You,” you breathe, sounding strangely spooked and he backs up, hands where you can see them. You swallow and the fear in your eyes washes away when you blink. Clearing your throat, you try to make yourself seem more presentable with a swipe of hair out of your face, a clearing of your throat, but he doesn’t know why it matters.

“Is she going to be okay?” he asks with a quick glance at Jenny who’s slipped away already. You brush past him, turning down the music from your phone, plucking a hoodie from a hook on the wall and jerking your head for him to follow.

“She’ll be fine.” Opening the door, you lean against the wall outside as Bucky steps into the pale, luminescent lights. It’s much cooler outside, the blue making the metal look cold as you pull on the hoodie and cross your arms over your chest.

You’re wearing an AC/DC hoodie, and Bucky counts himself lucky he hasn’t woken up to that yet. He gets enough from Stark blasting it as they take the quinjet on missions.

“Close the door a bit,” you say, but everything that comes out of your mouth sounds like an order. Still, Bucky complies before looking at you blankly. He’s come to expect nothing but hostility from you, and instead, you look almost relieved. “Don’t tell Tony why I brought her here. She texted me last night in the city and I had to pick her up.”

“I thought she was getting better,” Bucky says and you scowl. He knows you don’t like what he’s implying but he keeps his tone cool, even. “Stark took care of her the year you were gone, right?”

“Yeah, that’s what I thought, but she was lying.”

“To Iron Man?” It takes guts, and a whole lotta skill. Bucky narrows his eyes at you, but you stand upright, unafraid to stare back. Normally, a passing glance causes recruits to scatter, but you merely let the cold slide off of you. “What kinda kid does that?”

“She’s an addict. Addicts are good at lying, Barnes, for whatever reason they have.” You fiddle with your phone in your hand before uncrossing your arms and looking at the screen. “Fuck. It’s seven, already?”

“Miss your morning jog?” he retorts half-heartedly, and you shoot him a glare, pocketing the device and brushing past him.

“Yeah, actually. I had more important things to worry about.” Letting the door click shut behind you, he listens to you shuffle around inside your room, presumably cleaning up and goes back into his room with a slam.

At lunch, you come down to grab an extra bowl of stew for Jenny and Bucky offers to make up your run with one together in the evening as he hands you a bowl he’s ladled with extra beef and carrots. You tell him you’re busy and brush him off without a second look back.

“And Jenny?” he asks lowly, but you merely shoot him a look that tells him to shut up.

“I can take care of her myself,” you growl softly, snatching the bowl and disappearing through the doorway. Tony makes a comment about grudges, Steve doesn’t say a word.

Before he heads to bed, Bucky hears you whispering tired phrases over the sound of Jenny throwing up again and lets himself in. You’re in too big clothes that nearly swallow your frame and you’re exhausted as you run a hand down Jenny’s back who dry heaves until she collapses against the tub. You reek of coffee and Bucky wrinkles his nose at the smell of acid and regurgitated beef stew, watching your limp hand flush the toilet.

“Are you sure I can’t help?” he asks, and you glance up, eyes barely open. Lips curving down, you shake your head and fight to stay awake as Jenny curls into a ball against the tile. Your arms are propped up on your knees and your head dips as you let out a sigh.

“Get out,” you whisper. Bucky frowns, soaking in your words before stepping inside. He ignores your stink eye as he scoops up Jenny again, bringing her to your bed, and he lays her down, pulling the covers to her chin. A stale glass of water and an empty bowl lay on the bed stand while his foot kicks into the first aid kid tucked underneath the bed.

Turning to the bathroom, his feet barely make a sound against the floor as he spots you frozen in your spot, head dipped.

Bucky doesn’t need to be a super soldier to know you’re fast asleep. Crouching, he listens to your steady breathing, the soft mumbles under your breath and he gently pokes your arm.

“Wake up,” he whispers and you jolt awake, your back ramming hard against the cupboard with a painful gasp. Your leg jerks back, your knee to your chest and he flinches back, hands raised just as your foot collides with his solar plexus. The air pushed out of his lungs, he slams back into the tub with a painful slam, and he sucks in a huge breath, clutching his chest. “Fuck—”

“Don’t fucking touch me.” Your breathing is jagged, your chest heaving. Within your eyes, he sees something wild flare behind your irises and he sinks into the floor, slouched against the tub.

“Okay,” he replies, quiet. He doesn’t want to wake Jenny up and the only sound is your desperate breaths, your hiccuping sighs. Your eyes are still wild, and you stare at him with an open fear he has not seen ever reside in your gaze. “Y/N—”

“Get out,” you whisper harshly between your teeth. He can tell it takes all your courage not to scream, your whole body taut with the urge to run. He stands up slowly, hands open so you can see his every movement. “Get out.”

“I’m going.” Leaving the room slowly, he feels your stare burn into your back and there’s a clatter of something against the floor tile. The sound of whales humming ushers him out and the door slams shut behind him as soon as he’s out the door. There’s a ravenous hole inside him, devouring him in bit by bit the longer he stands outside your door, and his judgement gets the better of him as he turns around with the deepest sigh.

Pressing his ear against the door, he closes his eyes and tries to listen past the whale crooning but he can’t. Besides, it settles on his skin uneasily—a thick coat of oil and discomfort that traps him in. He returns back to his room and doesn’t sleep right away as he usually does.

He’s breaking habits around you, whether he likes it or not. Pulling out a notebook Steve bought for him a few days after he found him, he picks a pen from his small collection, and begins to write.

“You haven’t seen her?” Bucky asks, running a hand through his hair. On the other end of the phone, Jenny makes a small noise that tells him no.

“Not since the last meeting. She was fine, but she looked tired. That’s all.” Flipping over the sleek USB in his hand, Bucky runs a thumb along your initials and sighs. “You… you don’t think—”

“If she went off the tracks, there would’ve been warning signs,” he assures her quietly. “We know that. No McDonald’s, no spending spree, no random gifts.” Leaning against the rails of the compound, he looks at the crowd of news reporters outside. Tony has a press conference in half an hour.

It’s been two days since the Avengers social media accounts released a statement regarding a mission you’ve gone off to. It’ll buy them time without anyone expecting you, but as always, the media is questioning what mission, where, why, how. They want all the details.

“Completely off the grid operation,” Steve had offered. Tony agreed for lack of a better idea. The man was out of his mind, eye bags Bucky had seen frequently drag at your eyes brushing his face.

“Did she ever tell you anything about a stalker?” He dips his chin to look at his cleaned boots. There’s still a mud scuff on the toe from his walk through the woods earlier to clear his head of you, but it’s nothing a few swipes with a towel can’t fix.

“No, why?” Jenny’s voice twinges and Bucky sighs again. He doesn’t have enough energy to breathe these days when it’s all spent on trying to find clues of what you’ve left behind. “At the last AA meeting, she talked about Afghanistan. It’s the first time I’ve ever heard her talk about it around a bunch of people she doesn’t know.”

“She went into detail?”

“Not too much. Just ended with what she always says.”

“‘You can’t wait for someone to fly underneath you and save your life. I think you have to save yourself.’” As Bucky quotes it, he can hear your voice saying it, cold, dead, ravaged by tears you’ve never stopped unleashing. God, it was one of your go to excuses for ignoring help even when he thought you needed it. It infuriated him—it made him respect you, anyway. “Well, she can fly alright.”

“Yeah. It was her go to thing to say whenever I wallowed in my self-pity, and decided enough was enough. I always thought she was the worst person I’ve ever met.”

“You probably know far worse,” Bucky replies distantly. You know me. “But she did something right. You’re okay, now.”

“I only wish I could’ve helped her somehow,” she says. “Since the day I met her… hah, she was an angry person, Bucky. And lonely, and sad. And she never counted on anyone. Never asked for a thing for herself. Never trusted anyone except herself.” For a moment, Jenny doesn’t say anything despite him knowing she has something on her tongue. Bucky’s flesh hand wraps around the pole, feeling it cool against his hot palm. “That changed when she met you.”

Liked. Was. As if you are dead and he has failed you. As if they’ve ripped off every tooth and claw off of you, drained you of your spirit that has shattered and mended too many times for him to count. As if you are missing, and he has fucked up, and his tongue is heavy in his mouth as he clears his throat and his mind.

“Mhm.”

“I know she never said it, but she did. She trusted you.”

“Yeah, well,” he breathes with a shrug, twisting so he faced the railing. The coil inside of him pulls tighter, “we’ll figure that out after we find out.”

“She talked about her death so often, I feel like it’s real this time. Like she’s really missing and she doesn’t want to be found,” comes the hushed reply. “I don’t want to give up, Bucky, but—”

“I know.”

“Call me if you find anything,” Jenny orders, sounding a lot like you. Bucky agrees, lifeless. As if he wouldn’t.

“I’d feel better if you stayed at the compound.”

“Maybe I’ll come over later tonight. I’m gonna go watch the press junket, see what Tony says, and then go to class. Keep my mind off of it, and the possibilities.”

“Okay. Stay safe, and call me. I’m still here for you.” Jenny hangs up and Bucky groans, tilting his head back and bracing himself against the rail. You are much better at handling her than he is. Always was.

“Hard night?” He cranes his neck to see Natasha walking up to him in a pencil skirt and dress jacket. Huh. Black Widow all dressed up and no place to go.

“Harder day. You going to the junket?” he asks, arching an eyebrow at her outfit and she smiles but there’s nothing to it. He figures. Natasha loved you like a sister. Loved. He needs to not pick up the habit of talking about you like you’re dead. You aren’t.

He would’ve felt it if you were. He knows it.

“Yeah. Tony needs the support, and I’ll be there in case he needs me to take over. He’s losing his mind over this. You?”

“No. Stark’s good at playing the press and he doesn’t need me there when I’m pretty sure he hates me,” Bucky says and Natasha’s smile shrinks, leaning in beside him. “I’m always fucking his family over.” His poor attempt at a joke makes her chuckle wryly, the sound coming out choked and wet. “You okay, Nat?”

“I know we’re trying to be positive here, but… she said someone was following her. I told her it was crazy. That no one would fucking snatch her when we’re there, but…” Pinching the bridge of her nose, she closes her eyes and trails of tears race down her cheeks. “She was so worried about something else that I said I’d keep an eye out for her. If someone did catch her… and that’s why… I fucked up, James.” Her eyes meet his again, wide with fear, open to the softest spots of her. It’s rare and it alarms Bucky to no end. If Natasha’s scared, there’s a reason to be fucking terrified.

“We all did,” he murmurs, shoving his hands in his pockets. “You should probably head down there before they kill you.”

“Ah, yeah. Give me a sec.”

“Okay.” Bucky turns and leans back onto the railing again, letting a gentle silence rest over the two trained killers. He doesn’t say anything when Natasha lets out a soft, shuddering breath and wipes at her face with a tissue from a pack in her pocket. In turn, she offers him one. He declines. Natasha shrugs and wipes away smears of makeup that she somehow knows are there. Bucky never understood the magic of it all—you and Nat had such a talent for seeming so put together it made you both impossible to read.

Bucky likes to think he’s gotten better at it over the past two years, for the both of them.

His throat aches as he blinks, and the stinging in his eyes eases as he sucks in a cold breath. The heel of his flesh hand rubs at his face angrily, swiping away his grief and Natasha pretends not to see it, putting away her pack.

“She’s missing. I know she is,” Natasha says with dreadful confidence. “But I also know she doesn’t want you to give up on her, you know? She liked you more than anyone.”

“Yeah, that’s what people keep telling me,” he snaps, voice rough, grating. She doesn’t want you to give up, some part of his head notes, not doesn’t want ‘us’. Bucky’s gaze meets Natasha’s, and the woman merely smiles softly. She knows he’s caught her. “Funny way of showing it.”

“You know she didn’t hate you,” Nat whispers, a hand on his forearm. Bucky shakes his head, hair curtaining him away from his old student. “You know you didn’t hate her. It isn’t too late to make things right.” A pressure crushes him from the center of his head, a world placed between his shoulders as he struggles to hold up this façade you can wear for months on end.

He doesn’t hate you.

“It’d be much easier if I knew she was dead already. I know how to make peace with ghosts.”

It’d be much easier if he did.

Natasha’s mouth curls into a wry smile. “As if she’d ever make peace with you.”

The only time Bucky really is forced to spend time with you is when they run drills, and Bucky likes to think he works well with you if you can hold your tongue for more than two seconds. You’re a snarky little thing who can warn him not to bring up Jenny again with just a single glance and convey your intent to target with just the twitch of your lip. Then again, you’re easy to read on the battlefield. You make your objectives clear.

His knuckles ache wonderfully and he can hear a solid kick land a few ways off. Turning, he watches as you twist to launch a powerful sidekick at a dummy, letting it fly a few feet away before going to grab it.

“Where were you stationed?” he asks wearily as you wipe the sweat off your brow. Half of him yells for even approaching the beast, but he’s not afraid of you. You just piss him off so easily and by your arched brow in surprise that he’s talking to you, you know it. A call over the PA warns them of supper, and Bucky sighs, wiping at sweat with the back of his hand.

His muscle shirt is slick with the evidence of his labour as he hoists the dummies up to carry them back into the warehouse a little ways off. You pick up your own dummy and walk after him. “Before Somalia, I mean?” How did you get your own set of problems, he asks quietly to himself, because they don’t just start overnight and you don’t get help like everyone else. What is it with you? Pride?

“Former navy. Cryptologic linguist, two tours, then Afghanistan. I’m head of the Stark Relief Foundation, so I was touring with my brother at his insistence,” you say flatly. “It went wrong. That’s it.”

He stops along the track, meeting your eyes. You skid to a halt beside him. “Kidnapped?” Like your brother?

Your eyes are piercing but he doesn’t falter. He can tell no one really speaks your mind around you so when your eyes command him to shut up, he doesn’t. It might be pushing you a bit, but he has a feeling no one asks. Maybe they’re too afraid of you like you’re some princess, but he doesn’t care.

Bucky’s never met a princess quite like you before.

“None of your business,” you correct. He scoffs, rolls his eyes and meets your eyes again.

“You got a therapist?”

“Oh, you know what?” You put on a sickly sweet smile, dumping your dummy at his feet. “Put it away for me, won’t you, sarge?” The thing bounces against his shins, and the beginnings of his own smirk drop off his face as you begin to walk away.

“I don’t work for you, Stark. Clean up after yourself.”

He watches as your figure turns around, your lips turned in a mocking pout. “Oh, I do, but seeing as you’re about to become insufferable, I need to take a walk.”

“Can’t take it?”

“You’re the one with a million questions. Why don’t you figure anything out before you ask stupid questions like the paps? The internet exists for a reason.”

“I like to rely on the primary source,” he shoots back and you laugh. It sounds just as mocking as your pout looked and the sound strangles out any air in his lungs. His blood boils at your grin.

“As if the primary source is reliable. Which you should understand by the way.”

Your words work underneath his skin and his lips twist deeply into a scowl. “Thanks for the reminder. At least I’m getting help for my problems. When’s the last time you saw your therapist?”

“Don’t have one. I’m perfectly capable of taking care of myself.” Really? Liar. “Who’s the one with the chip, anyway? I think that’s fucking dealing.”

Who’s the one who needs one? Bucky wants to say in kind, but he doesn’t. “You know just as well I do that it isn’t.”

“I hate you,” you tell him plainly. “You have no idea what happened or what I’ve been through and you’re making these assumptions that I need to deal with something. I don’t.”

“Does anyone really know what happened to you?” he snaps, dropping his targets to the grass.

He expects you to jut out your chin, say yes, obviously. Your whole life is plastered on social media—Instagram, Twitter, the occasional Snapchat story—that you’re a book everyone and no one knows how to read.

“No.” Your voice colder than the antifreeze in his blood and his eyebrows rise at the shimmer of doubt in your gaze. “And I don’t want to talk about it with someone like you.”

“Which is?” He keeps his tone even despite the simmering, bitter sensation that cramps up his chest and urges him to throw himself forward and scream.

“A killer—” You walk up to him, eyes unforgiving— “who thinks there’s damage in everyone just ‘cause the world fucked up with you.”

“Really?”

“Yeah.” Your eyebrows rise and fall as you shove your face into his. You’re tantalizingly close, and he frowns at the lick of fire inside his gut when you snarl, “I’m not fucking broken, Barnes. You don’t know shit about me. You don’t need to psychoanalyze me and try to figure out what’s wrong with the rich girl.”

“Something's always wrong with the rich girl,” he retorts, and you laugh. It’s empty, hollow, but still, you laugh and it makes him uneasy, cornered, prey.

“Not me. My life is fucking peachy right now. Hell, I’m talking to the guy who killed my mom and somehow not strangling him despite every thought in my head telling me to wrap my hands around your throat.” You tilt your head, and a saccharine smile somehow splits your face eerily. “Guess I’m the bigger person that way.” You begin to walk away from him and Bucky opens his mouth, his throat cinched shut as he tries to calm the rage inside him. “See you around, sarge.”

He waits until you’re gone before he begins the journey to the warehouse.

He has to make a return trip for the dummy you dropped at his feet, and he’s late for supper. Steve asks why he’s late, and Bucky doesn’t miss your sly smirk as you dig into your burger.

“No reason,” he lies. “Just decided to take my time from the warehouse.”

Two can play at that game.

1K notes · View notes

whatdoesshedotothem · 3 years

Text

Friday 17 August 1838

6 35

10 5

had Josephine at 7 40 – she said A- had had her bath and seemed better – very fine morning F71 ¼° at 8 10 from then to 9 wrote out yesterday to the bottom of p. 321 breakfast at 9 5 to 11 ¼ having sat reading the paper and talking to Charles and ordering with Josephine about my old Vignemale gaiters and latterly eating a few strawberries perhaps the last we shall have – A- very poorly .:. the horses ordered at 3 ½ to go a little way – afterwards on talking to Charles determined to go to Gèdre, and ordered the horses at 2 – A- if not well enough to go to Gèdre, can go out later – and take Pierre and go in any direction she likes – Cazos likely to be at home today as it rained yesterday and the sooner the matter with him is settled the better – A- had been at breakfast a minute or two before me and looked the picture of sulky ill-temper I hoped she was better yes pretty well I said no more but turned to the newspaper in silence tho’ looking as if I never thought of anything but her being ill I saw she would hurry off Charles was coming at ten very sorry she was sso poorly that I thought she could not bear to ride yes she could I was very glad of it so ordered as see above and A- walked off to my great relief what a temper! it is malady enough without any other I shall do the best I can and think of and care for it the least possible I think my present tack is the best that is to treat it all as illness never seeming to dream of the possibility of anything else what can she do or say when I only condole with her on her illness she told me only on Wednesday just before going to Luz she said how much better she was how much good the baths and doctor Double had done her I laughed and said well it is my doing no she never thought without thankfulness of it when she remembered how much it was by accident that she had Double she was always pleased with his giving her no medicine an English physician would have thought nothing was the matter with her but to be sure I had come with her here yes and here she will keep me well or ill tied to her every moment I never dreamt it would be quite so bad tied forever to such a companion? nous verrons now at 12 35 I have just written so far, and am better – Hail! all hail my journal! thou kind beguiler of many an irksome thought and many a solitary hour – thou friend of old! thou faithful mentor that hast calmed alike the burst of joy and grief, and taught my soul to hoard its best resources far from the reach of human gasp! the following is a verbatim literatim copy of the certificate written by M. Latapis – ‘Je soussigné Henri Cazaux, demeurant à Gèdre, déclare, pour rendre hommage à la vérité, que le sept du mois d’Août courtant j’ai servi de guide à Madame Anne Lister de Shibden-hall, pour l’ascention qu’ elle a fait au pic culminant de Vignemale ledit jour. Elle avait avec elle deux autres guides qu’elle avais pris à Luz (Jean Pierre Charles, et Jean Pierre Sanjou). Je certifie que tous ensemble nous sommes parvenus au point le plus élevé de Vignemale, et que, à ma connaissance, personne plus n’avait jamais monté si haut. En preuve de cette

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ascention, il a été dressé une espèce de collone [colonne?] en pierres, dans le milieu de laquelle nous avons placé une bouteille, renfermant un papier oû Madame Lister a écrit le date du Août, son nom et les noms de ses guides ; cette preuve matérielle durera long-temps, si quelqu’autre voyageur aussi intrépide que Madame Lister ne va détruire ca petit monument.

En foi de quoi à Gèdre le 17 d’Août

Signé en présence de Cazaus [Hij]

Alaubon

Jean-Pierre Charles et Jean Pierre Sanjou, Soussignés, attestent la vérité des faits rapportés dans la déclaration ci-dessus.

fait à Luz le 17 d’Août 1838.

Charles

how droll that the prince de la Moscowa should have unwittingly put me upon narrowing his own purpose! – I thought not of certificate – nor cared more for mounting the Vignemale than Mt. Perdu the ascent of which last mountain nobody believes – what mattered it to me – I made each ascent for my own pleasure, not for éclat – what is éclat to me? what is éclat to anyone? too often a dangerous bauble – the lightnings’ forked flash that kills the object it has fixed on – But come what may I’ll make an effort to tear the Cazos-laurier from this silly prince – ‘Hommage à la vérité’! ‘tis all I want – and I am not inclined me laisser tromper pour rien – tis now 1 ¾ pm and F73° in my cool cupboard – A- too poorly to go out at 2 – Pierre to come again at 4 – I left her lying down and was off with Charles at 2 20 to Gèdre – overtook a drunken berger about ½ way between St. Sauveur and the Pont de Sia and could not get rid of him till he turned up ½ way between the Ponts de Sia and [Douroucate] to go after his masters’ bétail on the Mt. de Mâle beyond the Bué – he and his master had drank 4 litres of wine at Luz. he walked unsteadily but safely, and his motions reminded me of those of drunken men in general but of the queer roll of his hips and shoulders and head that I have some often seen in poor Eliza Raine – I mused on this as I rode close behind him and Charles who said his conversation tho’ incessant was reasonable he observed on the new carriage road began since we went to Spain to go to Gavarnie that if cows or oxen were drawing a load along the precipitous part they would probably throw themselves and their load into the gave – he regretted there were no cabarets on his road as if there were he could drink a great deal more wine – we watched him along the precipitous part of the road he had to go just after leaving us – he got on quite well the cool air of the mountains and the perspiration he was in from walking would probably sober him before very long – as we went to Luz on Tuesday observed several men at work (1st time of our seeing them) beginning the new road (that is to avoid Luz) to St. Sauveur – at Gèdre at 4 20 Cazos at home sent for him to the Inn as also for the aubergiste himself who was at the Douane, and for his brother-in-law who was with him – I ordered wine and bread and cheese for them all, and, leaving my tartan cloak upstairs, went down into the kitchen, and staid with them all the whole time – It was sometime before Cazos came and we had talked over the leading particulars of my ascent – Cazos came perhaps in 10 minutes or ¼ hour and then joined heartily in talking the story over in everything agreeing with and confirming the statement of Charles and myself – I told him my femme de chambre had told me the people at Luz would not believe that I had got to the top but gave the laurier to the prince de la Moscowa – that was not right – I must have some proof to shew and Cazos and Charles and Pierre must sign me the certificate which I then read aloud – and Cazos, and then the aubergiste read it – Cazos made not the least objection to sign it – declared fully and openly that all I and Charles had said was true, and that I had got up to the very top and got up very well too – Cazos then signed and Charles, and the aubergiste saying was maire and could not sign these things his brother-in-law signed as witness and I paid Cazos the twenty francs as agreed, and said I, now you asked me 30/. on the Piméné – here there are five fr. more which with the 5/. I gave you on the top = 30/. and here is a 2fr. piece to go for what I was to give you on the top to drink my health – Cazos seemed much pleased – I desired him to consider the 5/. piece I had just given him to be for taking care, of my column and bottle at the top of the mountain – to see that nobody either destroyed the bottle or raised a column higher than mine – I then told him to drink his wine, and turning to the aubergiste said, Monsieur le maire, je ne demande pas ce que je vous dois pour le vin (I had just called for a 2nd bottle good vin ordinaire) mais voilà...... on which I put into his hand 2 five fr. pieces – this was too much for him

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to resist – his heart opened – he said I paid en prince (and in a whisper adding et meme plus) and said significantly mais je connais beaucoup de choses – vous avez bien payé – vous devez être traité avec bravoure – on this I begged him to tell me some of the things he knew – and in the midst of his fighting off Charles had taken poor Cazos to task about his letter to the prince and here a scene commenced of pro and con – Cazos denied having written that I had not gone to the top – I said if Cazos had been calumniated I would stand by him – all joining in begging Cazos to face the prince and have all cleared up – at last M. le maire explained that if Cazos had written as Charles declared his letter would prove, he had done it for money for his family – le mond was hard pressed here, and he hoped I should excuse the man who had made me all the reparation in his power...... poor Cazos owned his fault, and all present agreed to forgive and M. le maire our aubergiste promised to intercede with the prince and hoped I should do nothing against poor Cazos – no! said and held out my hand to the poor man, saying je ne [sens] que de regrets pour conduit envers moi – c’est une affaire d’honneur et je lui arracherai ce laurier à tout prix – rien ne me manqué pour bien le faire – j’air de l’arme, et de force, et de l’argent, et je n’en épargnerai rien – je lui arracherai ce laurier – the aubergiste agreed with me as to the petitesse of the prince’s declaration that he would not make the ascension if I had done it – and that it was not well to engage Cazos for Wednesday whether the weather was fine or not

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when it was known that I had engaged him for the 1st fine day – the prince thus compelling me to hurry my ascension – besides tho’ he had engaged Cazos for the Wednesday he the price still waited the arrival and did not go up till the Saturday – I hope, as I said to Cazos, that the prince had paid him much better than I had done – I saw the aubergists’ significant look – probably his princeship did not pay the man better –

vid. line 21. next page

we had now being above 1 ¼ hour – there had been a stranger (a guide? who said he had heard the prince say he would not go up if I had gone up) present a little while at 1st and 3 or 4 women – judging from A-‘s manner on my return from Mr. Latapis yesterday that being too late for dinner today would be terrible I bade Charles make hast and leaving behind me, as it seemed, the cordial approbation of all present Charles and I were off on our way back at 5 40 – the aubergiste (Mr. Palasset, maire) had said he recognised me on 1st seeing me again and said he was sure I should ascend the Vignemale – yes! said Charles he knew of our ascending Mt. Perdu – Charles! said I, il faut se depêcher – Mademoiselle ne voudra pas diner sans moi – poor Charles set off at trot, and kept my little mare at such a high jolt pace, that we were obliged to pull up for 2 or 3 minutes to read just my combs qui avaient grande envie de s’échapper – yet [not] withstanding this stoppage we came up with A- at the Pont de Douroucate at 5 8, and, passing by the Pont de [Soutant], alighted at home (having trotted almost all the way) at 7 5 – on meeting A- I had at the moment literally forgotten all about her poorliness, and was beginning to tell her all that happened when her manner at once refreshed my memory and I refrained from fatiguing her by saying more – Had Josephine – shewed her the certificate that she might be able to say she had seen it if she chose and that she knew for certain that I had made the ascent – dinner at 7 35 at 8 ½ - on telling A- I had ordered the horses at two tomorrow (Charles wanting to get some hay home from his grange on the Bergonz had asked me to give him till twelve but this I did not name to A-

she made no answer too soon? said I she replied crossly it was useless to ask when I had ordered them and that I ordered everything without consulting her no said I gently I am of a very different opinion but when I ask you you always tell me to do as I like she denied this very well said I then you had better order in future it is indifferent to me unless when I myself have something particular to do when I shall order for myself and you can order for yourself and here the conversation ended she soon after went to her room and I saw no more of her she will die of bad temper?

came to our rooms at 8 ½ - fine day – threatening rain this evening after meeting A- but held off – F71 ¼° now at 8 38 – on the shred of paper (common English thin foolscap about 1/8 of the shut) was written as follows

Mercredi 7 Aout [Août] à 1houre pm

Madame Lister de Shibden-hall

Avec ses trois guides

Henri Cazos de Gèdre

Jean Pierre Charles de Luz

Jean Pierre Sanjou de Luz

sat musing sometime before getting into bed – thought first time of Glasgow as a place of cheap ins[t]ructive residence till I can properly settle my affairs nil desperandum -

4 notes · View notes

pamphletstoinspire · 3 years

Text

Easter Sunday - April 4, 2021

The Temple of Christ’s Body is restored; He is risen, alleluia!

Today is the Feast of Feasts!

On this, the holiest day of the entire year, and for the entire Octave of Easter, Latin Catholics greet each other with the words of Luke 24:34, “Surrexit Dominus vere, alleluia!” (“The Lord is risen indeed!”). The person so greeted responds, “Et apparuit Simoni, alleluia!” (“And hath appeared unto Simon!”). Catholics may even answer their telephones with this greeting. An old Ukrainian legend relates that, after His Resurrection, Christ threw Satan into a deep pit, chaining him with twelve iron chains. When Satan has chewed through each of the twelve chains, the end of the world will come. All year long, the Evil One gnaws at the iron, getting to the last link in the last chain — but too late, for it is Easter, and when the people cry “Christ is risen!” all of Satan’s efforts are reversed. When the faithful stop saying the Easter acclamation, the end of time has come…

Throughout the entire Easter Season, the Angelus prayer that is offered, when possible, at the ringing of the Angelus bells, is replaced by the joyous Regina Coeli, which begins, “Queen of Heaven rejoice, alleluia: For He whom you merited to bear, alleluia, Has risen as He said, alleluia.”

On this most beautiful of Feasts, the Easter table should be adorned with the best of everything — the most beautiful china, a pure, white tablecloth, the best possible wine, flowers (especially pussy willow, lilies, and spring bulb flowers), etc., all with the colors white and gold — symbolizing purity and glory — and the traditional symbols of Easter predominating. And we should look our best, too; it is common for those who can afford it to buy a new outfit to wear on this day. This custom springs from the idea of “newness” inherent in the entire Season — the new members of the Church baptized at the Vigil in their new Baptismal albs, the New Law, a new life in Christ.

by Fr. Francis Xavier Weninger, 1876

“And on the first day of the week, Mary Magdalen cometh early, when it was yet dark, unto the sepulcher.”–John xx, 1.

Alleluia! Once more we greet the joyous Easter-day, the glorious festival, the feast of feasts! Alleluia! the lofty note of triumph resounds throughout high heaven to salute the Lamb of God, the mighty Conqueror, while earth takes up the glad refrain, and Alleluia wakes happy, holy thoughts in Christian souls, absorbed in fervent homage in many a temple wherein is celebrated this great festival with all the splendor of our Holy Church. And yet, alas! to how many it brings no real heartfelt joy!

How many, who call themselves Christians, unite in a merely external manner in the celebration of today! To outward seeming they rejoice; but only a superficial joy is theirs. To them the spiritual delight, the real happiness–in a word, the Alleluia of the Paschal time–brings no deep meaning; while to those who have, from spiritual death, risen to the life of grace, and then, with zealous earnestness, continue their efforts to attain perfection, this feast will prove a happy day indeed. The joy of Easter will penetrate the very marrow of the soul.

So it was with Mary Magdalen, and so, too, it will be with every Christian who, like that great saint, and also like Mary the Immaculate Mother of Christ, is sincerely disposed for a proper participation in the joy of Easter. And today, my brethren, I will explain to you in what this special preparation for it consists; so that to each and every one of you it may be given to feel the delight of Mary Magdalen, when she beheld her risen Lord.

O Mary, thrice happy Mother of Jesus, may we participate in the joy felt by Magdalen on that Eastermorn! May a faint reflex of your sentiments, as you embraced your beloved Son and Lord, arisen from the dead, fall upon our hearts today! I speak in the name of the newly-risen Jesus, to the greater glory of God!

Dear brethren, let us dwell for a few moments upon the scene! The Redeemer, Master of life and death, had scarcely burst the bonds of His prison-house, when countless souls, ransomed by His infinite mercy from Limbo, hovered over His sepulcher. Myriads of angels too were there, bowing in homage before their King. The rosy dawn dispelled the lingering shades of night which had hung like a pall over Jerusalem, and revealed the uncertain steps of one whose attitude of deep dejection betrayed her grief. It was Mary Magdalen.

She approaches the tomb. It is empty, and now a new anxiety weighs upon her; when suddenly Christ stands before her, not as she had known Him in life, but in the dress of a gardener. Not recognizing Him she asks: “If thou hast taken Him hence, tell me where thou hast laid Him and I will take Him away.” Now the Lord calls her by name: “Mary,” and she feels that it is the voice of Jesus, the voice which uttered the consoling words: “Thy sins are forgiven thee.” It was a voice she could not fail-to know. She looks up at Him; she recognizes Him; she falls prostrate at His feet. “Jesus, Master, you live! Alleluia!” Heavenly joy thrills her heart as she hastens to the disciples with the glad tidings that Jesus lived, and had appeared to her.

Each child of the Church should share the joy of Magdalen, the penitent and forgiven. And if in it he has no part, where can be found the cause? I answer: Something is wanting in the preparation of the heart. Look at Mary Magdalen, and learn from her. She rejoiced, because her’s was a soul purified by sorrow and tears of repentance. In her we behold the Magdalen, who, sinking beneath the burden of her contrition, gave vent to her feelings at the feet of Jesus.

Christian! if you feel not the joyous influence of the Paschal time, is it not that you are, as yet, unreconciled with your risen Lord? that your soul is marred with the disfiguring stain of mortal sin? For others the Easter jubilee; for you the mournful memories of Good Friday! For, alas! you have crucified your Saviour in your heart. Let me beg that you will not refuse to unite with those fervent souls whose Alleluia resounds throughout the earth, but that, by fervent prayer, you will obtain the grace of contrition, and, having “arisen with Christ,” by a worthy confession you may rejoice with His faithful followers.

And you, lukewarm and indifferent Christian, what sentiments does this glorious day awaken within your heart? Alas! it is cold; the Alleluia finds no responsive echo there. And what wonder? You may not indeed have crucified your Saviour by mortal sin; but the many venial faults which sully the purity of your soul, drive Him from you, and sorrowfully He stands afar off.

Mary Magdalen knelt at His feet. It was her dearest joy to be near her Lord, but that privilege was never hers, until by tears of sorrow she had cleansed her soul from the slightest stain of sin. She was a penitent soul. Imitate her example, purify your soul from its sins and faults, and then, with the illustrious penitent, can you truly welcome your risen Lord.

Secondly.–Mary Magdalen had disposed her heart for the celebration of Easter by meditation. She was a contemplative soul. Absorbed in adoration at the feet of Jesus, she listened to the words of divine wisdom which issued from His lips, and, according to Christ Himself, she “chose the better part.”

But how many Christians, celebrating Easter exteriorly, do not meditate, and hence a cold and lifeless faith is theirs, causing them to listen with indifference when the most sublime truths of religion are presented for their instruction. Nay, even the good and pious are not free from censure in this regard. They believe, they pray, but they do not meditate; and even by them the solemn mysteries of our redemption are not celebrated according to the spirit of our Holy Mother Church. Her wish and desire is that we may endeavor to bring the truths of holy faith before our mental vision, in as vivid a manner as though we had lived at the time those wonderful scenes in the great work of our redemption took place, and had witnessed them in the very order in which they transpired. Then we will begin to realize the reward which in an eternity of bliss awaits the purified soul and feel the sweetness of its Alleluia on earth.

Thirdly.–Mary Magdalen’s heart was prepared by works of self-denial. She was a mortified soul, and how could it have been otherwise with her? Was she not the same to whom was given the grace to behold, with her own eyes, the dreadful spectacle of a lacerated, scourged, nay, even of a crucified and dying Saviour? Was she not the same devoted lover of Jesus upon whom, as she knelt beneath the cross, His tears and blood fell down? And her entire subsequent life, when she dwelt in solitude in the little hermitage in Gaul, was spent in acts of penance, although, from the Redeemer Himself, she had heard the blessed words: “Thy sins are forgiven thee!”

And you, Christians, if your hearts are not entoning the Alleluia today with her exultation, why is it? Because you do not love the cross, and strive to escape from the observance of the holy season, which this day terminates. Immediately preceding the festivity of Easter, the Church, during the days set apart for penance, strives to instill into the hearts of her children that penitential spirit, which will impel them to take up the cross and follow their suffering Redeemer to Calvary. Have you spent the holy season according to that spirit? Then, indeed, you may rejoice with Mary Magdalen today. But, if not, although the grandeur of the ceremonies which are displayed before you can not fail to produce an impression and excite some joy, it will be but a transitory impression and a superficial joy, in which the Alleluia has no part.

Fourthly–Mary Magdalen, in her longing after the divine word gave up every thing, and followed her Saviour in His apostolic missions. Trampling under foot the opinion of the world, and casting aside the promptings of human respect, in the presence of Him she found her greatest happiness. Such sentiments animated her, when, at the banquet given by the haughty Pharisee, she knelt publicly at the feet of Jesus. With such feelings she sought Him on Good Friday, prostrating herself before Him; and so also on the Easter-morn did she seek for, and find her risen Lord.

Child of the one true Church, do you wish to rejoice with Mary Magdalen? Then with her resolve to follow your Lord, and for this end seek Him with neverflagging earnestness; and, having found Him, contemplate in Him the adorable model, by imitating which you will one day behold Him face to face. Souls who are satisfied to lead an ordinary Christian life, who do not hunger and thirst after perfection, who lead not an interior life, do not participate in the joy of this great penitent, and alas! they will never understand it.

In conclusion, the soul of Mary Magdalen was a grateful and loving soul towards Jesus. She recognized Him on that Easter-morn by His voice; and as He spoke her name, “Mary!” the thought of the countless favors she had received at His sacred hands rushed swiftly over her. Her heart overflowed with its burden of gratitude; and oh! she felt how sweet it would be to cancel that debt by the perfect love with which she would regard her Saviour during an eternity of purest bliss. Then, indeed, could she worthily celebrate the feast of feasts!–the glorious Easter jubilee in heaven!

Mary’s love was sincere, magnanimous, self-sacrificing, and constant. Of this Christ Himself has given testimony: “She hath loved much.” This mighty love not only gained for her an unconditional pardon of her former sins, but it became the source of numberless graces for her future life. And the same is promised to every member of the one true Church, whose love for Jesus is sincere, magnanimous, self-sacrificing, and constant, like that of Mary Magdalen.

The recurrence of Easter, my brethren, should increase every year our confidence in divine Providence, and remind us of the unwearied solicitude with which God has, from our very infancy up to the present moment, watched over us, guided our footsteps through the dangers which encompass us, and through His Holy Spirit is ever whispering to us to renounce our sins, to “love much,” that He may “forgive us much.” If we listen to that whisper we will indeed “arise with Christ; “we will participate to the utmost in the true spiritual jubilee of this blessed day.

Thus, my brethren, let your preparation for Easter be according to the disposition of St. Magdalen; and you will celebrate with Magdalen, in the spirit of the Church, Easter on earth, and soon, with Magdalen also, Easter in heaven forever. Amen!

“And the disciple whom Jesus loved came to the sepulcher.”–John xx.

As often as the Church, in commemoration of the glorious Resurrection, celebrates the yearly recurrence of the Paschal time, and entones the joyous Alleluia with her children, so often do we recall to mind those privileged souls who, the Gospel tells us, had the happiness of hearing the glad tidings: “Jesus, lives; He has arisen,” of listening to, of beholding the risen Jesus. This privilege was not limited to one or two; but was enjoyed by a number of the disciples, who believed and hoped in the Lord. Often, too, we go in spirit to the sepulcher with the holy women who went thither bearing ointments, and think of that bliss which filled their hearts when, from the angel of the Lord, they heard the welcome words: “He is arisen.” We think of Mary Magdalen, whose joy found utterance in the single word, as she knelt before her Lord, “Rabboni.”

We behold the wondering Apostles, when, on the evening of the same day, as they were assembled together “with closed doors,” their Master stood before them and pronounced the blessed words: “Pax vobis”–“Peace be unto you.”

But there is one Apostle, St. John, upon whom our attention should be particularly centered, that we may attain a better understanding of the state in which the Christian must be before the real joy of Easter can illumine his soul. We have seen him at the Last Supper; we have beheld him at the foot of the cross, and let us hope that we may have shared, to some extent, in the love which filled his heart at those solemn times. Let me, brethren, today present, for your contemplation, St. John, the disciple of love. Let us glance at him as he stands by the sepulcher of the Risen One, and endeavor to picture the joy which overflowed his heart as he beheld the Lord.

O Mary, Mother most joyful, infuse into our hearts that bliss which filled your own upon that first happy Easter-morn, that we, like St. John, may experience its most wonderful effects for the salvation of our souls! I speak in the name of the newly-risen Jesus, for the greater honor and glory of God!

“He is risen; we have heard it even from the angels!” said the holy women, as they returned from the sepulcher. And as the Apostles heard the wondrous tale, two of their number immediately arose and hastened away; but the “dearly beloved Apostle,” St. John, in the fervor of his love, left St. Peter far behind, and, arriving first at the sepulcher, found the stone rolled away. St. Peter, however, was the first to enter the empty tomb. In him, therefore, is illustrated the Apostle of faith, while St. John typifies the disciple of love. In the divine economy, every thing is full of a deep, mysterious meaning, and herein we learn that faith must first penetrate the soul before the flame of divine love is enkindled in the heart. John followed Peter, and, as he placed his hand upon the winding-sheet, which, but the evening before he had wrapped about the sacred body of his Lord, a flood of joy rushed over his soul, and filled his heart with happiness, as he felt that Jesus had indeed arisen, that Jesus lived.

We will today consider the character of his holy Easter joy, and endeavor to understand how mighty and sanctifying it was rendered by the excessive ardor of his love for Christ. To clearly realize the intense joy of this saintly disciple, we must recall the feelings which agitated his heart while, for love of the crucified One, he stood beneath the cross, and think of those words of Holy Scripture: “According to the greatness of my sorrows your consolations gladdened my soul.” St. John stood at the foot of the cross wholly absorbed in compassion, adoration, gratitude, and resolution, according to the will of God, to follow Jesus unto death, through love; and, therefore, the Alleluia of the Easter joy, in which his heart rejoiced at the tomb of the arisen Jesus, was a participation in the sentiments of adoration, thanksgiving, and determination to be faithful to his calling as Apostle in proportion to his love for Christ.

The one who loves, so rejoices at the happiness of the beloved object that it would seem as if he were happier to see the joy of his friend than to feel his own. For example, what joy is experienced by a mother whose child has met with some great good or benefit, or has been unexpectedly saved from some impending danger! But of true friendship Holy Writ testifies that it is stronger than all other love–witness that of David and Jonathan.

But incomparably more tender was the friendship of St. John for his Saviour, and in the same measure his heart rejoiced at the certainty that He had burst the bonds of the grave and lived once more. This joy must have stirred his heart to its very depths, and moved him, in a much greater degree, than it affected St. Peter and the other Apostles, because he had beheld his Saviour in agony upon the cross, in suffering and in death. His loving heart was more sensitive than theirs.

The Alleluia of his Easter joy was the outburts of his overflowing friendship. It was, at the same time, one of adoration and thanksgiving for the consummation of the Redemption. Until that time the life and labors of the Lord had been, as it were, veiled in the obscurity of a mystical darkness; but by the Alleluia which came forth from the heart of Jesus as He rose from the tomb, all radiant with celestial light, this vail was rent, and that Easter morn forever dispersed the gloom. St. John, as he stood by the grave of the risen Jesus, realized more clearly than ever the whole order of salvation; and what an “Exultet” arose in his heart as he entoned it, in the same sense in which it is sung by the Church on Holy Saturday, to announce the joyful truth that Christ had risen. As often as we hear it, our souls are filled with the joy of this holy Easter day. St. John entoned it at the sepulcher, in the name of the whole human family. Even as the Church sends forth her most joyful chants, so sang his heart, overflowing with the joy of that Easter day: “O Ineffable Miracle of Grace! to forgive Thy servant his sins, Thou hast delivered up Thy Son!”

“Of what avail had it been for us to be born into the world had we not received the grace of redemption? O happy fault which gave us such a Deliverer!”

St. John also thanked God, as he had never done before, for the grace of the election which, in the kingdom of Christ, became his portion, recognizing more clearly than ever the privileges which he enjoyed before all men, even the Apostles, especially that one which gave him the care of Mary, the Immaculate Virgin, the Queen of heaven, the Mother of his Lord. How he rejoiced that he would have her example and her prayers! for it would be her duty to care for her adopted son as became a tender and loving mother. Well may St. Paul exclaim: “I chastise my body that I may not become a castaway.” No marvel was it that St. Peter trembled when he thought upon the judgment which would come after death; but St. John, the adopted son of Mary, was, through her, assured of his eternal salvation. And in relation to the duties of his apostleship in general, as he stood by the Saviour’s tomb, how greatly encouraged he felt!–how firmly he resolved to be a fruitful branch in the vineyard of the Lord!

What invigorates the soul in its apostolic calling is the strengthening power of faith, hope, and charity, united with an earnest love of our neighbor. These were precisely the sentiments which prevailed in the heart of St. John as he burst forth in that glorious Alleluia by the grave of Christ.

The certainty of the Resurrection, as St. Paul affirms, is a pledge of the whole treasure of faith, “If Christ had not risen again, as He said,” writes the Apostle of the nations, “we would have been miserably deceived and disappointed and left without a name.” But He did arise, and we possess our holy faith with its promises for time and eternity. We also shall arise and live with Him forever. But St. Paul was not at the sepulcher; he did not touch the sacred body of Christ, but the beloved disciple did. With what strong testimony for the truth of the Resurrection, therefore, could John announce the Gospel with the assertion that he had lived with the Redeemer on the most intimate terms of holy union; that he beheld Him when He breathed forth His last sigh upon the cross; and looked upon Him after He had risen from the dead. The sentiments of his heart were that of triumphant faith.

What invigorates a soul in the exercise of its apostolic calling is victorious hope. “The Lord, who calls me to this office, is also my strength, and will, at some future day, be my reward.” Who experienced this in a higher degree than St. John? To whom was more fully and more bountifully given the vivifying power of Christian hope than to him who was permitted, while still on earth, to pierce the golden vista of the celestial vault, and gaze upon the mysteries of heaven?

Finally, what urges the true Apostle on in his holy mission more than any other thing is love–the love of God and man. In these respects, St. John was, as you know, eminently called the disciple of love. His very Epistles, contained in Holy Writ, stand, and will remain forever, undying testimonials of this his apostolic love. This, dearly beloved in Christ, is the character of the Easter-day of St. John and of his Easter Alleluia; and these the conditions, to feel it re-echoed in our own hearts. Amen!

“In Thy light we shall see light.”–Ps. xxxv.

The glorious orb of day was still invisible to the expectant world in the early Easter-morn, when the earth trembled as if moved by some terrible convulsion of nature and an angel of the choir of the Powers, radiant and beautiful, hovered above the sepulcher wherein lay the Body of Christ, and descending rolled the stone away. Instantaneously the glorified soul approached, the Sacred Body was transfigured, and the Lord arose, body and soul, more brilliant than the sun, which now burst forth in all its splendor to pay fitting tribute to Him Who gave it light–Who came forth the Victor of all the powers of evil, the Conqueror of death and hell. Then were seen the millions of holy souls who, for four thousand years, had languished in the gloomy prison of Limbo, full of trust in the Lord, and waited until “patience had her perfect work.”

Adam and Eve, the venerable patriarchs and prophets, St. Joseph, St. John the Baptist, with legions of holy angels, surround the Redeemer, the Sun of justice, the Lord Who had risen in all the grandeur of His Majesty. Yet a little while and He will ascend from the Mount of Olives, penetrate the heavens, and take His place at the right hand of the Father, clothed with the glory which flows from His divinity to His humanity, and send throughout high heaven celestial light to intensify the bliss of the angels and saints therein. In other words, all that which causes heaven to be heaven, will be imparted in its full extent by Christ to all the blessed therein. Let us today, therefore, look up to Him as the Sun in the kingdom of eternal beatitude. Let us picture to ourselves the heavens opening to our wondering view, while strains of sweetest music fall on our raptured ear. It is the angels entoning their Easter hymn.

O Mary, Queen of heaven, enthroned at the side of thy divine Son, pray for us that we may one day see Him in His glory and share in His beatification forever! I speak in the holy name of Jesus, Who arose from the dead, to the greater honor and glory of God!

What causes heaven to be heaven is, first, its external magnificence. When God created the visible world, the angels burst forth in praise, as Holy Scripture says in the Book of Job, on beholding such a stream of divine power and wisdom and goodness. Even after the sin of our first parents it still presented a scene of beauty and grandeur, and it does so still.

What a wonderfully majestic spectacle is afforded by the “deep and dark blue ocean” as it seems blended with the brilliant skies which it reflects in its depths! What a glorious radiance is cast upon the changing waters by the setting sun as he sinks to rest–as he gilds the ever-tossing waves with tints of the most gorgeous hue. The world of stars which sparkle in the darkness of the night, form a most enchanting sight; how then would it be, were we permitted to contemplate those wonders of creation through that lofty arch of the heavens, so far above the stars, and view the essence of those objects of which we now only behold the exterior appearance?

But as a diamond, encircled by precious stones, emits rays of dazzling light from the center of a diadem, so does the glorified humanity of Christ shine forth amid the angels and saints, as the mystical Sun, compared to which, our sun is naught but a waning light. In this glorious radiance of the humanity of Christ, the Blessed eternally contemplate the crown of the creation, especially if we consider its transfiguration at the end of time.

As God the Father created the world by the Son, so do we contemplate in the light which is Christ, the ideal of the creation as it was conceived by the eternal Father, and consider it so in all its relations to the creation of grace through the same Jesus Christ. No one can so well explain the beauty of a work as the author thereof. Contemplative soul, look up to Christ, Who has arisen, and rejoice; soon shalt thou see Him in His glory.

What adds to the happiness of heaven is, secondly, the sight of the glorified world of spirits. The angels are the blossoms of the creation. The doctors of the Church with St. Bernardine of Sienna affirm that God created more angels than visible corporeal beings because He was Himself a Spirit. Those beautiful spirits are divided into nine choirs, each end higher than the other, as we are taught to believe by our holy faith, viz: Angels, Archangels, Principalities, Thrones, Dominations, Powers, Virtues, Cherubim, and Seraphim. Each choir is higher, and therefore more beautiful than the other. We will one day behold in heaven the reason of this, but some of it we are already permitted to know.

For all their beatitude and glory, the angels are mediately indebted to Jesus. The holy Fathers assert that it was the confession and adoration of the Son of God, Who was to become man, into which mystery God permitted them to glance, which confirmed them forever in grace. And after Christ ascended into heaven the angels beheld, according to their ranks, the increase of glory which they were to receive from the glorified King of that celestial realm. This increase of glory, conferred separately on-every choir, like rays of light, is centered in the brilliant humanity of Christ, the King of every choir of them.

It is somewhat similar to the choirs of the Saints, which are different too, glorified by their individual graces. In heaven we will one day, through the grace of God, behold Adam and Eve, the Patriarchs, the Prophets, the Holy Innocents, the Virgins, the Confessors, the Bishops, the Martyrs, and the Apostles of Christ. Each of these choirs is distinguished by a particular degree of glory. By whatever degrees of glory these choirs are distinguished, transfigured, and beatified, their different glories, with those of Mary herself, the Queen of the Saints, are as so many rays which are concentrated in Christ as the Sun.

What adds to the individual bliss enjoyed by the saints of God in heaven, is the fact that it is a reward conferred upon them for the holy lives which, in imitation of Christ, they led upon earth. But, as the Church at the Council of Trent taught, God crowns only the gifts of His grace whose Creator is Christ. The rays of all the merits of the saints unite therefore in Him, the author of grace.

What causes heaven to be heaven is the united enjoyment of all its joys through Christ our Lord. In that blissful home all will be united in love with Christ and with one another, as He is one with the Father and the Holy Ghost. Heaven is mine; all is mine through Jesus Christ! Such will one day be the outburst of joy of every sanctified soul.

What causes heaven to be heaven is the thought that it was already lost to us, and that Christ, the Redeemer, regained and re-opened it for all. Alleluia! What enhances its bliss since Christ ascended thither, is the character it possesses as the kingdom of triumph. Here, too, we have no reason to envy the angels, for upon one occasion only had they an opportunity of acquiring merit through Christ, when they confessed and adored the Son of God made man, and were thereby confirmed in grace. Although they are, as St. Paul calls them, ministering spirits, they but fulfill the will of God without increasing their happiness or merit. This is not the case with us children of men. Every breath, every thought, every desire, every work, through divine grace, may be an occasion of merit for us to increase our glory in heaven, which is, therefore, for us also the kingdom of triumph.

Life is, as Holy Writ testifies, a warfare against the enemies of salvation; but Christ conquered them, and we can do likewise through Him. We know not what joys of heaven would have awaited us if we had never sinned; but this much is certain, it would never have become what it is now, the kingdom of triumph, which character elevates its joy in an immeasurably great degree. In conclusion, beloved in Christ, “what is heaven?” Listen! It is God. “I myself,” says the Lord. “I am your infinite reward.” Yes! It is the beatific vision of God, an intimate union with Him who is all delight, beatitude, and love. All this we shall possess through Christ. The end and aim of the creation is God Himself, the glorification of His perfections in their exterior relations. We distinguish, in this regard, His omniscience, omnipotence, wisdom, mercy, longanimity, justice, truth, majesty,–His beauty, beatitude, and love. But all these divine attributes concentrate their most brilliant radiance in the work of Redemption, consummated by Christ. So, then, it is Christ through Whom we are permitted to contemplate God in the triumph of His perfections in heaven, and be there inseparably united with Him.

That is proved by His prayer as High Priest: “Father, I pray Thee, let them be one with Us, as We are one;” and again: “No one knoweth the Father save the Son, and those to whom the Son will reveal Him.” This is verified by Christ the Sun, in the kingdom of light, as it is written: “In Thy light we will see light.”

The various ways in which God so wonderfully conducts us to our destiny, in conjunction with the fate of all, will then decidedly prove that it is Christ to whom we are indebted for the possession of heaven. Therefore, one day, the tribute of praise will resound before His throne in heaven: “Worthy is the Lamb to receive divinity, adoration, gratitude: Who has redeemed us with His blood, and has made us as kings in His celestial realm.” St. John asserts: “The city of God needs no light, for Christ is her light.” He, the glorious Sun of Redemption and Salvation. Amen!

The Resurrection of Our Lord

Easter Sunday

by Fr. Raphael Frassinetti, 1900

Gospel. Mark xvi. 1-7. At that time: Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of James and Salome bought sweet spices, that coming they might anoint Jesus. And very early in the morning, the first day of the week, they came to the sepulchre, the sun being now risen. And they said one to another: Who shall roll us back the stone from the door of the sepulchre? And looking, they saw the stone rolled back: for it was very great. And entering into the sepulchre, they saw a young man sitting on the right side, clothed with a white robe: and they were astonished. Who saith to them: Be not affrighted: ye seek Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified: He is risen, He is not here: behold the place where they laid him. But go, tell his disciples and Peter that he goeth before you into Galilee: there you shall see him, as he told you.

No longer are there tears in our eyes; no longer are heard wailings of grief, but hymns of the greatest joy. Our Lord is risen. Jesus, the good God, is risen glorious and triumphant from the tomb. Let us rejoice! Let those tremble and despair who are His enemies! The Jews bragged of the success of their execrable work; but their triumph is short. They did not see that all this happened to Our Lord, because He desired it so. They triumphed for a while, when they had shut up His body in the tomb, but Christ, full of life and immortal, now passes through the stone vault and is truly risen. He is indeed risen and endowed with greater beauty; clothed in light, like that of the sun; the crown of thorns is changed into a beautiful diadem, the wounds into signs of victory; the blasphemies of the Jews into the exultation of the angels; His sorrowful death into a most happy life. O day of happiness for the whole earth! “This is the day which the Lord hath made; let us exult and rejoice therein.” What fruit shall we draw from this feast? It is this: Jesus Christ is risen from the dead to die no more; so also when we rise from our death of sin, we should die no more, but continue in the life of grace.

It is a fact that many rise from the sleep of death during these days of the paschal joy; because the Church has made an express law that every Catholic must go to confession and communion at Easter. Therefore many, obedient to the law, confess, bewail their sins and promise to remain faithful to the graces of a new life. Many, however, are not steadfast; a few days have scarcely passed before they forget, and by sin fall back again into death. Have such really risen? It appeared as if they had, but if they had been really converted they would certainly not have fallen back into sin so easily and in so short a time.

I should like to believe that all you, my dear young friends, who have gone to confession, have really made up your minds not to fall into sin again. Just think what a terrible thing it is to be in the state of moral death; by sin you become an enemy of God and you cease to be the brother of Jesus Christ. The character of the soul is goodness; and so beautiful is it that God loves it and takes special delight in it. You are by Baptism brothers of Jesus Christ, associates of the angels, of the Blessed Virgin and the saints in heaven. It is worth your while, then, my dear young people, to preserve with the greatest care the purity which you have again acquired by the use of the sacraments. Unhappy beings, if you become bad again, you are throwing away your last chance of salvation; it is very hard to rise from the state of sin to life; the devil will make every effort to hold on to you; he will redouble his watchfulness, will strengthen his net about you, will double the chains that already bind you. He will send his servants to you, who will surround you in such a manner that nothing good can come near you. He will make the life of a sinner seem most delightful, so that in your blindness you would not change it if you could. That is the great difficulty–that we are our own obstacles. We would not love God if we could, we would not serve Him if we could–such are the machinations of the devil to keep you in his service. So you see it is not as easy as you think to return to God. Without grace we can do nothing, and we cannot run to Him and stay away from Him at will. When God has seen you unfaithful to Him several times, after having been saved by His mercy, He will no longer give you those extraordinary graces which brought you out of your evil ways heretofore; now He will let you go, He will abandon you as a thoroughly worthless subject.

From these considerations you can gather that it is most important for us to be in the state of grace, for on it our salvation depends. It is also very essential never to think lightly of the state of grace, not to let it go and come as we often do in the Sacrament of Penance; we return again and again to confession accusing ourselves of the same sins, and thus we continue until the day of our death. When once we have risen as Christ has risen, to die no more, we also must begin a new life. If in the past we have been so fond of the world that we thought of nothing else, now in our new life we must live with Jesus Christ; we will renounce the world to flee from those unlawful pleasures, to lead a celestial life, to be in heaven rather than upon this earth. “If you have risen with Christ, relish the things of heaven, not the things of earth.” Do not run after the pleasures of this world with such a relish; look for the joys of heaven, pray to God, use the sacraments frequently, and hear the word of God; then this new life will also be a resurrection for you, a glorious day; and will foreshadow the day on which you will be crowned with the crown of perseverance.

#eastersunday

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ofmerrit · 3 years

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* ◜ kristine froseth , cis woman & she/her ◞ * according to school records , that’s merrit antonietta unn hornsby walking on campus grounds with their usual iced-americano from the ancient grounds cafe . they’re known for their long , dark blonde locks outshining their surprisingly tall figure and are often spotted at the versailles garden reading wild geese by mary oliver . almost everyone knows their family is worth like 1.2 billion dollars , so we suspect they’re a member of olympus , you know , the one for old money . do you know where they were the night that the scholarship student died ? they claim they were touring around the campus for inspiration , must be an architecture major thing , right . and hey , don’t you agree that the sophomore reminds you of muffled screams into silk pillows , the bellyache you get after doing something wrong & vacant smiles ? you better watch out h e s t i a before something dangerous happens to you and life ends at twenty-two . * ◜ barb , twenty-two , gmt +3 & she / her ◞ *

alright alright . it’s me , wrinkle free brain bar from gmt +3 !! so pumped to be here w you sexies mwah <3 here’s merrit’s pinterest board if you’re interested ( pls im a virgo n pinterest addict .. lemme make boards for our muses .. id d*e ! ) imma . bore u to de*th w this intro pls .. forgive me .. i only hav 2 brain cells , this is all over the place HDFJK rip </3 tw: kidnapping, death.

starting w the boring statistics : full name: merrit antonietta ‘antonia’ unn hornsby nicknames: mer, antonia, ant, tbc. code name: hestia ; the goddess of hearth , the family , the state & the domesticity. star sign: libra sun , virgo moon , scorpio rising. sexuality: bisexual. favourite literature piece: wild geese by mary oliver , an anthology . “meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air, are heading home again. whoever you are, no matter how lonely, the world offers itself to your imagination, calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting over and over announcing your place in the family of things.”

merrit is the only child of the young hornsby couple. she doesn’t remember much of her childhood, according to her grandma, she was the happiest kid. had everything she could ever ask for and more.

the reason why merrit can’t remember any of this is the beginning of a tragedy — a stormy december night, she and her parents went missing. grandma says they were gone for over five months. a kidnapping case gone cold, they thought. right when the old couple was giving up on them, an angel from above delivered antonia to their door step. malnourished, void of any memory but alive.

life after losing her parents was easier than expected, grandma hornsby ( nee du pont ) made sure merrit would recover from this without any trauma & in a way, she did.

doesn’t have the best relationship with her grandpa, he’s harsh and cranky and too smart for his own good, merrit is lowkey afraid of him lmfao

she’s currently studying architecture — her dream major was interior design but grandpa encouraged her to pursue architecture to follow her father’s footsteps. kinda made sense because she’s fascinated by houses .. in reality the insides, the families living there are the real source of interest for her but she’s happy to settle for outside for now gshdjkf

personality stuff !!!

uMM.... i’d say she’s lowkey a people pleaser sdhjkf like ?? making her grandparents proud is . literally the only thing she’s ever wanted in this world n now she feels the same responsibility for every single soul in her life . a torturous existence if you ask me

can’t say no <3 if she thinks its gonna make u feel a tiny bit better . boom . she’s in .

the friend you’d call to bury a body . no questions asked . she’s pickin up the shovel as you speak asdghfjk unless it’s between her grandparents n you, then *michael scott vc* how the turntables.... sdhjfk shes rattin u out instantly rip

LOVES to talk n listen . fills her heart with joy . a blabbermouth .

an overachiever . doesn’t sleep much, rocks the dark circles 7/24 lmfao works bc doesn’t like the idea of .. wasting life if that makes sense ??

loyal 2 a fault. mostly to olympus. wld do anything to stay in the secret society / establish her place .

extremely gentle n caring . sometimes ?? its just . too much sdjkf like. tone it down <3

likes poetry ,, especially mary oliver n louise glück ! her fav poem is the orange by wendy cope.

i imagine her wearing flowy, tulle dresses with floral embroidery or vintage pieces idk

has shit ton of plants but struggles to keep them alive rip

!!! im . terrible at explaining her fr i hate it here ok i hav a vision but ??? i cant explain it

safe 2 say shes having difficulty deciding who she’s supposed to be . a part of her wants to be the golden child for her grandparents n the other side .. jst wants to live her life y’know ???

UPDATE ! i’ve realised that by hiding her secret, i also unintentionally hid a big portion of her personality and she comes across as the typical, soft & gentle soul. don’t get me wrong, she is indeed gentle and soft but she’s also volatile and deceitful !

connection ideas !!!

childhood friends - except she doesn’t remember any of it. maybe your muse thinks she’s changed. maybe they don’t care. maybe they are no longer friends . idk

penpals - seriously ??? i imagine her as someone who writes letters jst bc they’re nostalgic n cute ??? cld be fun.

a home - i kno home’s not a person but a feeling but tell that to merrit lmao. this person’s probably the only one in the whole damn world she’d choose over her grandparents. platonic or romantic, doesn’t matter.

betrothed - super old school yikes. nt exactly betrothed either .. maybe her grandma thot it’d be better if these two were in a relationship . maybe they remained as friends . maybe they hated each other . maybe they kept the publicity stunt ( cue 2 merrit begging to keep faking the rel so her grandpa wld be happy )

exes - a classic. ts this is me trying vibes . on good or bad terms . lingering feelings ? yes please .

bad + good influence - again, classic sdhjfk

saw u at the garden but cldn’t say hi bc i’m a dumb binch - basically someone she has a minor, unrequited crush on. probably knows this person through her other friends but she’s too damn timid to take the first step

a friend from labyrinth . ok hear me out . this is a big deal for her bc she’s all in for her society n v opposed to the idea of a second one even existing . wouldn’t say shes openly mean or .. rude to labyrinth members but ?? jst . wants to protect her own , so this would be a v secret friendship .

a project - could say she has some sort of a savior complex . wants to ‘fix’ people up .. toxic much, mer? <3 anyway ashdjk maybe she thinks .. she can change your muse ? i truly dont know.

ok final one . its juicy . someone who’s suspicious of her . she has a secret n for the obv reason i didn’t talk abt it, your muse’s suspicious n it’s just . hashtag awkward

these r the only connection ideas i have rn my brain said get tht fire exit door im off im so sorry forgive moi bUT im a sucker for angst : ) so theres that

something inspired by my queen n savior phoebe bridgers or . folklore ?? yeah.

give me noora / william vibes . the ex friends . the dan / blair dynamic . i live for them ok sgdhfjkl

#hqcruel.intro #oke im bit late .. or early idk asdhfkls #no proof reading <3 if u spot stuff .#baby im nt even here . im a hallucination #sdghjfk .. so bad . le shité . i did this . for what ??#tw kidnapping #tw death #intro.

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renjunvinates · 4 years

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From Me to You

Summary: At one point all of them liked you, but there’s someone who has kept their strong feelings for you this entire time. Different liking timelines, but one same boy. Seven anonymous letters with Seven boys, but ONE secret confession letter leaked. Who wrote the letter?

word count: 3k+

slty masterlist - prologue 1 - prologue 2

1 Mark Lee - The Childhood Best Friend 2 Huang Renjun - The Next Door Neighbor 7 Lee Jeno - The Basketball Captain 3 Lee Donghyuk - My Brother’s Roommate 5 Na Jaemin My Brother’s Best Friend 4 Zhong Chenle - My Astronomy Partner 6 Park Jisung My Dance Parter

Lee Jeno - The Basketball Captain

“Say that again Jisung,”

“Renjun and Jeno like you okay… please don’t tell them I told you, I’m going to be dead,”

“Well, what am I suppose to do now?”

“Uhhh… I don’t know,”

“Jisung!!!”

“Okay, first things first, does Jeno know you like him?”

“Wait, I didn’t even tell you that I like Jeno???”

“Oh well uhm about that, you know why Renjun was here right?”

“No..?”

“You seriously can’t tell why?”

“... my brain is hitting its max capacity,”

“He was here talking about you and Jeno, and then he told me you liked Jeno,”

“Oh,”

“Jisung, what the hell is going on?”

“You want to hear the complete truth, or do you want me to omit,”

I stared at him with a confused angry face, and his eyes widened in terror and began to speak.

“Okay, so like when Renjun came here, he kinda like bawled his eyes out about you,”

“He cried?” I frowned.

“I don’t think you understand, Renjun is like super in love with you, if you can’t tell,”

“Well obviously not, if I believed his lie for not liking me,”

“I’m sure he didn’t want you to know, but it was bound to happen…”

“It’s just why would he lie to me about this?”

“Because how could he not? He knew you liked Jeno, he just assumed there was no point confessing is he knew you had feelings for someone else,

“I…”

“Wait? Did you or do you still like him?”

“I… I liked him yeah, how could you not? I just assumed he didn’t like me, and then Jeno came into the picture?”

“But what does that mean? Do you still have feelings for Renjun?”

“Is it wrong to like two people?”

“I think you’re confused, what does Jeno and Renjun mean to you?”

“Fuck, I don’t know anymore at this point, not when I know they both currently like me,” I sighed.

“Well you should figure it out soon, both of them won’t talk to each other…”

“I’m sorry what?”

“Renjun and Jeno got into an argument and now they won’t talk to each other,”

“Uhm why?”

“About that, remember that movie night when things went down?”

I nodded. “What about it?”

“Well after that whole thing, Jeno went off on Renjun in the groupchat and then Renjun went off on Jeno…”

“Because…”

“Renjun was suppose to confess to you, but then he never did.. Which made Jeno super mad,”

“He was going to confess to me?”

“Well yeah, Jeno gave up liking you because he knew how much Renjun was like in love with you, but after Renjun chickened out on confessing to you, Jeno lashed out and told him that he wasn’t going to give up on you anymore,”

“So it’s basically because of me,” “Well if you put it like that, yeah…” He trailed off.

“I think.. I think I'm gonna go home now,” I replied.

“Look, it’s not your fault, just remember that (y/n),”

“I mean obviously it is, if there are two boys fighting about me, that could ruin their friendship and the group,”

“Come one it’s not like that, just talk to them when you gather your thoughts, okay? Don’t blame yourself, but you need to talk to them,”

“Thanks, I’m gonna go now,”

Jisung put his hand on my shoulder and patted it, while he looked at me and smiled. I looked at him and smiled faintly and then left his house. He waved goodbye, but I had no energy to wave back so I turned around smiled faintly again and then left.

There were so many things that we’re going on in my head, Jeno liking me, Renjun lying to me, and only to find out he did like me, but at this point do I even like Jeno? Or do I even like Renjun? I walked back home and arrived only to find out the boys were still there. I looked at them and it seemed like they were eager to know what happened between Jisung and I.

“So..? How did it go,” Hyuk asked.

“Why did no one tell me it was Renjun,” I asked.

“Dammit, Jisung,” Jaemin said.

“What did Jisung tell you?” Mark asked.

“Why did no one tell me they both liked me, they both fought because of me,” I started to cry.

“Hey, hey don’t cry,” Jaehyun said, as he came running.

“Well I am. I just ruined a friendship,” I sniffed.

“It’s not your fault you know, people can’t help how they feel, you’re not the one to blame, it’s also Jeno and Renjun’s fault,” Mark said.

“What the hell am I suppose to do? I don’t even know where my feelings stand, I don’t even know what I'm suppose to do,”

“Isn't it obvious though? You like Jeno don’t you?” Jaemin asked.

“I DON’T KNOW OKAY, BECAUSE I USED TO LIKE RENJUN, I’VE LIKED HIM FOR YEARS, BUT EVER SINCE I MET JENO, I DON’T KNOW,” I shouted.

Everyone gasped and opened their mouths besides Jaehyun and Mark. Hyuk and Jaemin looked at me with shock and confusion.

“Oh dear, this is a true case of confusion,” Hyuk said.

“I’m leaving. I’m getting my stuff and going to Areumi’s place,” I said.

“Wait, come on (y/n),” Jaehyun said.

“Don’t touch me, I want to be alone with my best friend. I clearly can’t be around you guys if you won’t tell me everything,”

“How many times do I have to tell you it’s not our place to say!” Hyuk replied. “We can’t speak for them because it’s their own business. Did you think we wanted this to happen? It was already hard enough to get over awkward tension when we all liked you knowing Renjun was in love with you. It was harder for Jeno because he REALLY likes you but REALLY cares about Renjun,”

“Hyuk that’s enough,” Mark sternly said.

“No, if she wants to hear the whole truth, we’ll tell her. Yes, we all liked you at one point, but then we had to stop because of one main reason, it was because of Renjun, he was seriously in love with you. Jeno on the other hand really didn’t want to give up on you, but he cared about Renjun and didn’t want to lose him, it made things awkward, but now because of this? They won’t talk to each other, and it's all because of y-” He was cut off.

“Lee Donghyuk that is enough,” Mark said.

By now after what Donghyuk said, tears were running and couldn’t stop, Hyuk looked at me and his face fell, he tried to reach out.

“(y/n) I just…”

“Don’t touch me, leave me alone. All of you leave me alone,” I replied.

I left running to my room and grabbing most of the things I would need to go over to Areumi’s, it wasn’t until Jaehyun knocked on the door and I turned around and he looked at me with sad eyes.

“You know what Hyuk said, he doesn’t mean, and he’s not trying to blame you right,” Jaehyun said.

“I know, I just. I need time and space alone from the boys Jaehyun. I can’t right now,” I replied.

“I know, it’s just, don’t be hard on yourself,” He sighed.

“I gotta go,” I replied, I grabbed all my stuff and left without saying goodbye to others.

Jaehyun’s p.o.v

I sighed as I heard her slam the front door leaving the house, I went downstairs and the boys were staring at me.

“Lee Donghyuk, what the fuck is wrong with you?” I asked.

“It was bound to come out okay, I just , I didn’t mean to hurt her feelings like that,”

“We know you didn’t but Hyuk, she’s just overwhelmed with things, I mean what you said was right, but still, let her breathe,”

“I'm just, I'm sorry, is she okay though?”

“Yeah, she’s heading over to Areumi’s place, you’re lucky enough she knows you care, and you didn’t mean it,” I glared.

“I’m sorry,” He apologized.

“So what now?” Jaemin asked.

“We wait for them to figure it out,” Mark said.

“What if things don’t go well?” I asked.

“We can’t interfere, things are already bad, just have faith and hope things will be fine. We both know they care about each other, there’s no way their friendship would break because of (y/n), there’s also no way for her to let that happen either. Before she liked them, they were friends,” Mark said.

“Mark’s right, let's just let her solve it, we’ve done all we can,” Jaemin said.

Everyone nodded and plopped down on the couch and was all lost in thought, and silence filled the air.

(y/n)’s p.o.v

I left the house and pulled my phone out, and proceeded to call Areumi.

“Hello?” She answered.

“Are you home?” I sniffed.

“Baby what’s wrong?” She asked.

“I’ll tell you later, can I come over and spend the night,” I asked.

“Of course!”

“Okay, I’ll be there in like 10 mintues,”

I hung up the phone and wiped away my tears that were still forming, I know what Hyuk said, he didn’t mean to hurt me, but damn it cut me like a bitch, but what he said was true, it was because of me that Jeno and Renjun weren’t talking. I just, Jisung was right, I needed to figure out how I feel about them before I can decide on anything.

Minutes passed and I finally arrived at Areumi’s house, I knocked on the door and she quickly opened it and came and hugged me.

“Are you okay?” She asked. “What happened?”

“Did you know too.. Did you know Renjun and Jeno liked me too?” I asked.

“...” She stayed silent.

“You too?” I cried.

“Honey, It wasn’t my place or business to say anything, I knew they liked you, but I didn’t know about the letters or anything I swear,”

“So, did you know they won’t talk to each other because of me,”

“Okay, that one I didn’t know, what happened?”

“Jisung told me after movie night they both went off on each other in the group chat and now Jeno won’t give up on me and Renjun is mad about it, and he was suppose to confess to me but never did because he knew I liked Jeno,”

“Those boys,” She pouted.

“I don’t know what to do,”

“Yes you do, I know you know,”

“What am I suppose to do?”

“You figure it out, listen honey. I can’t help you this, I can support you and be there for you, but this? It’s your business you need to figure it out,”

“I just, I’m afraid of losing them both,”

“But you won’t, because before liking you, we were all best friends first,”

“What if you’re wrong Aruemi, what if they stop being friend because of me,”

“Do you really think that? It’s not just you (y/n), everyone wants the group to be friends still, Mark, Chenle, Hyuk, Jisung, Jaemin, and I. We’re not going to let them fall apart because of this,” She replied. “Now go, and think about this and figure it out, I’ll leave you in my room and let you think,”

As I watched Aruemi leave her room, I sat on her bed and there was complete silence as my ears were ringing and thoughts invading my brain. I like Jeno, I really do, but am I just lying to myself to run away from my true feelings? Are my feelings for Jeno genuine, but if it was? Wouldn’t it be easier to just run to Jeno? Or am I just too scared and still clinging onto my first love? But how could you not like Jeno? He’s everything a person would want as a significant other. I’ve known Jeno for quite awhile now, and he’s really a great catch, he’s sweet and charming and his eye smiles are the cutest, but there’s something about Renjun that I cannot let go. I’ve known Renjun longer and his presence has helped me more than anything, and it’s always comfortable with him, I can tell anything to Renjun and he just understands me 100%. I think this whole time It’s always been Renjun and I’ve been just lying to myself liking Jeno. It’s not that I never liked Jeno, I did, but I’m in love with Renjun and it’s always been like that.

I heard a knock on the door, I looked up to the door and it was the least person I thought who would be there, and it was Jeno. He entered the room and stood there in silence, and looked at me. I looked at him and then looked away at the ground.

“I’m sorry,” Jeno apologized.

I looked at him, “What are you sorry for?” I asked.

“I’m sorry for ruining for everything,” He frowned.

“It’s not your fault Jeno,” I replied.

“(Y/n), I like you,” He confessed.

“I… I like you too, but,” I paused.

“You’re not in love with me, I know,” He sighed.

“I’m sorry,” I replied. “But, I really did like you, I just… it’s just not the same as…”

“As Renjun?” He cut me off. “I know, I know you’re in love with him, everyone knows,”

“I’m sorry,” I cried. “I just, I’m scared? I’m scared to lose you and him,”

“But you won’t,” He smiled faintly. “Listen, we were all friends first, there’s no way any of us would break apart. Just because Renjun and I aren’t on talking terms right now, that doesn’t mean we will be forever. It’s just an obstacle we both are too stubborn to deal with together,”

“I just, I know, but Jeno… I don’t want you to think that I liked you as a rebound because that’s not true, I did, I just…”

“(Y/n), I know,” He cut me off again. “I know you liked me, but I knew the way you liked me was never going to be the same the way you liked and love Renjun, and it’s okay,,”

“We’re still going to be friends right, all of us?” I asked.

“Together and forever,” He smiled. “But I think it’s time for you to leave and run to Renjun,”

“But what about you? Will you be okay?”

“I’ll be okay, but I think you should tell Renjun how you feel,”

“Are you sure?”

“Yeah, its what the universe wants,”

“But you Jeno? What about you?”

“I want you, but I also want this friendship with Renjun. I cherish this friendship with Renjun and with everyone else more than anything,”

“You’re going to find someone better than me,”

“We’ll see. Now go!”

I nodded and looked at him, his eyes were a bit teary. I gave him a sad smile and gave him a tight hug and he hugged back tightly and I could hear his quiet sobs.

“Thank you, I whispered, “You really are the best and worth the world, and I’m sorry I can’t be that person,”

I released from the hug and looked at him one more time as he sniffed and wiped his tears and gave me a small smile. I smiled and greeted goodbye and left the room, I looked over and saw Areumi smiling and nodded at me. I smiled back and walked out the door and came running to Renjun. I ran as fast as I could to Renjun’s house, and as I arrived, I banged on the door as loud as I could hoping he would open the door as fast as possible.

He opened the door and his eyes went wide, I came inside and hugged him, I hugged him as tight as I could as if it was going to be my last time seeing him.

“(Y/n), what are you doing,” He asked.

“I’m in love with you,” I blurted out.

“What are you talking about,”

“I know you wrote the letter, and I know you lied to me, it’s okay.”

“But Jeno…”

“I already talked to him and he’s going to be okay, maybe not now, but he will be,”

“So.. you’re in love with me?”

“Been in love with you for years, I’ve just never thought you felt the same way,”

“But you said you like Jeno?”

I released him from the hug and looked at him, “I did like Jeno, but there’s no one that beats you Renjun and I realized that, the way I like Jeno and the way I like you isn’t the same,” I confessed. “It’s you, and it’s always been you,”

“Are you sure?”

“I’m sure of this one, but why did you like to me and not tell me,”

“Because you told me you liked Jeno, I just thought you were never going to return the feelings, and I didn’t want to lose this friendship of ours,”

“There’s no way I would ever let that happen, you know I love each and everyone of you, you guys all me the world to me, I wouldn't dare to drop a friendship because of confession,”

“So what does this mean?”

“Well, what do you want it to mean?”

“Will you be my girlfriend?”

“Yeah, I like that,” I smiled. His face turned bright and he hugged me tightly, I smiled and hugged him back. I guess I found the one.

[Special Scene]

Areumi’s P.O.V

I entered the room and looked at Jeno as his back was facing me, he then turned around and gave me a small smile. He walked to the end of the bed and sat down and leaned his back on the side of the bed. I smiled at him faintly and sat next to him.

“Will you be okay?” I asked.

“I will,” He whispered. “Everything just kind of hurts right now, just having feelings for someone who doesn’t feel the same way, it hurts,”

“I know the feeling very well,”

“You do?”

“Yeah, because the person I have feelings for right now, he’s actually in love with my best friend,” I smiled as I looked at him. “But it’s okay, I’m sure right now, I just want to be there for him. Do you think that’s okay?”

His eyes went wide and looked at me, he pulled his knees up to his body and nodded. Silence filled the air and we both sat there comforting each other with our presence.

slty masterlist - prologue 1 - prologue 2

a/n: ending is really abrupt, but I needed to finish this series in order to start the others on. Schedule will apply next week or so thanks.

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cassianus · 4 years

Text

What To Do About A Bad Priest

From The Letters of St. Theophan the Recluse

Question: “We had a good priest; but he was transferred to another parish. In his place came another, who is a grief to the soul. In his serving the services, he is careless and hurried; when conversations occur, he talks only about trivial things; if he starts to talk about the things of God, then it is all with a kind of limitation and truncation of the strict truth. How is one to escape from such a temptation?”

Answer: You yourselves are at fault. You made poor use of the good priest, and the Lord took him away. Tell me, did you become better from your previous good priest? Here you falter to say, “Yes.” But I from a distance shall say that you did not become better, judging by the fact that you are judging the new priest, not knowing how to control your feelings in relation to him as you should. Indeed, you had a good priest even before this good priest who has now departed from you, and the one before him was good too. You see how many good priests the Lord has sent you; but you all have not become any better for it. And here He has decided: why waste good priests on these people? I’ll send them one not so good. And He did. Seeing this, you should have at once paid attention to yourself, to repent and improve, but you just judge and keep judging over and over again. Improve yourselves, and then the priest will at once be changed. He will think: “With these people I cannot carry out my holy work carelessly; I must serve reverently and conduct edifying conversations.” And he will mend his ways. If priests are negligent and hurried in serving the services and are trivial in conversations, then most of the time it comes from conforming to the parishioners.

Saying this, I am not justifying the priest. He has no excuse, if he tempts the souls entrusted to him not only with action against the ustav but even unwise action according to the ustav.1 But I say only what is more useful for you to do in the given case. And the most important thing I have already said: do not judge, but pay attention to yourselves and improve yourself both in prayer and in conversation, and in all your behavior. Pray for this with all your heart, that the Lord will correct the priest. And He will correct him. Only pray properly. The Lord said, that if two agree about anything and will begin to pray, then they will have their request (Matt. 18:19). So all you right-thinking parishioners gather together and decide to pray for the priest; join fasting to your prayer and redouble your almsgiving; and do this not just for a day or two, but for weeks, months, a year. Labor and afflict yourself with brokenness so long as the priest has not changed. And he will change; be certain that he will.

I recently heard about a similar podvig and its fruit. One old woman, a simple peasant, a deeply pious woman, noticed that someone she respected had begun to depart some from his customary strictness of life, and she began to be sick at heart for him. She came home, locked herself in her hut, and began to pray after she had said to the Lord: “I will not leave this place, or taste a crumb of bread, or drink a drop of water, or give my eyes a minute of sleep until Thou hearest me, O Lord, and hast turned this person back to his former ways.” She did just as she had decided: she labored in prayer and afflicted her-self with broken-hearted tears importuning the Lord to hear her. Already she had become fatigued, already her strength had begun to leave her; but she all over again prayed: “Though I die, I will not give this up until the Lord hears me.” And He did. The confirmation came to her that this man for whom she was praying had again begun to keep himself as of old. She ran to have a look, saw that it was so, and broke into rejoicing. Her grateful tears had no end. And so this is the kind of prayer you are to establish—although not such in form, because, perhaps, for you it would not be suitable to do as she did—but such in zeal, self-sacrifice, and persistence. And undoubtedly you will receive what you desire. If you will some-times say, “Grant, Lord, that He may become good” only in passing, whether at home, or in church, or during conversations, then what sort of fruit is to be expected from such prayer? For this is not prayer, but words only.

I have said the main thing to you. I should add still one thing more; but it is the sort thing that is most difficult to carry out in such a way that it achieves its aim. Here is what I think! It may be possible for you who are right-thinking and respected to come to the priest and ask him to change in his actions that which incites you and leads you into temptation. To do this—there is nothing simpler; but to do it in such a way that it bears fruit is difficult in the extreme. Every-thing must breathe with the most sincere and zealous love—not only the content of what you say, but even your glance, and expression, and tone of voice. Then it may be hoped that this will achieve its aim. But without this love, it is better not to undertake such a step: it will come out worse, produce the most sorrowful discord. One could, perhaps, write everything to him in like manner, but, again, the whole matter must be carried off in the spirit of all-conquering love. It is also as possible to spoil the whole matter by this means just as it is by personally appearing to the priest. This is why I am not unconditionally decided to recommend this approach. I know, that it may be crowned with success, but the main thing is proper execution. Many good people will be found to come to the priest or to write him without seeing him and to express everything in the most polite manner, but for success, something other than gentleness is needed. Gentleness without love is a wounding sting. I know that in other places they act in this way and then boast: “We have done our part!” But I shall say, that it had been better had they not done it.

I shall not say anything more to you about this—maybe just one thing more: be patient. There are still other legal means; but they are not my field, and I shall be silent about them.

Translated by Fr. Justin Brian Frederick

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evien-stark · 4 years

Text

✧I Need You✧ Chapter 163

Despite all the trouble you were in and everything that laid ahead, there was always that certain comfort that you drew when you were with Tony. The same must have gone for him, because the two of you fell asleep leaning against one another at the back table of the jet while Clint flew who knew where. Safehouse… some safehouse somewhere far away. Ultron was out there somewhere. Doing something. Something awful.

But while you were miles up in the air with a very beaten and battered team- and… while you had Tony right there, hand in hand with you, you gave yourself small permission to drift. And it was sort of nice. For a little while. Free of nightmares. Just blissfully gone for those short couple of hours while Clint piloted. But when they were over you missed them dearly.

The louder rumbling of the jet as it started its descent and then land spooked you back awake. As soon as your surroundings came back in clearer, you leaned in again to rub your forehead against Tony’s shoulder. Waded in his warmth as his hand shifted up your back and he pressed a kiss to your temple. This was the plan now. Sit tight in some abandoned safehouse so that the media- and governments of the world- couldn’t bother the team. Sit and wait for Ultron’s next play.

This wasn’t a very good plan. At the very least you needed to start doing damage control- but, then again… Maria seemed to be on top of things. And she literally was the head of Damage Control. Right underneath you. Rhodey, no doubt, was also working. It just felt so wrong to be doing nothing. To just be waiting. In fact, it felt like asking for a lot of trouble. But what choices were being left to you?

None. Absolutely none. You were being told to sit and wait. So that’s what you had to do. As you stepped off the jet behind everyone else and took in the scenery… maybe it wouldn’t be so bad. For an abandoned SHIELD safehouse in the middle of nowhere, it was pretty idyllic. Clint had taken you to some big farmhouse. Many acres to roam, protected and shaded by large trees on all sides of the property. A couple beaten down trucks, A barn off on the right side. No doubt it had some heavy security system too- one that would have to be booted up. “What are our optics?” Your brain was going. This place had to be locked down, just in case. “What security are we looking at here?”

Tony would have to do some work to Ultron-proof it, just in case he came looking for the group. But apparently nobody else had been told about this little sit-and-see plan, because Thor asked, “What is this place?”

The walk up the gravel drive was short, and Tony merely shrugged as Clint approached the door. “A safehouse?”

Clint took Nat inside first- she’d been looking a little rough. No more so than the rest of the team, but he’d been nursing her just a little. Probably spoke more to their bond than her condition. It was sweet, to be sure. Then the rest of you followed inside.

...it didn’t look as abandoned as you would have thought. Not dirty or unkempt. In fact- there were- There were kid’s toys in the living room. On the floor. Handknit blankets draped over a couch. An open magazine on the coffee table-

“Honey?” Clint called out as he looked around and you felt rather stunned.

But completely held by shock as a very pregnant woman stepped out of the kitchen, mug and dish towel in hand. She was pretty surprised to see the group standing at her door. If you were anyone else you might have assumed she was just some random contact Clint had run to. Someone he trusted.

Except immediate love bounced between them. She was happy to see them, despite his unannounced guests.

Your heart hurt.

“I’m home.” He finished the rest of what made sense. Clint was home. That woman was his wife. She was pregnant with his child- she approached him, putting her hands up to caress his face and gave him a sweet kiss. He mumbled around her. “Sorry about the company- that I didn’t call ahead-”

Instinctively, blindly, and painfully you reached out, hand connecting with Tony’s as he drowned in the same sudden and inexplicable sadness. Except unlike you he was rejecting the idea outright. “This is an agent of some kind.”

Clint turned back. “Team, this is Laura.”

Finally you got a good look at her as she turned fully to face the group. She was a beautiful woman. Short. Long brown hair, light brown eyes, and an exceptionally sweet smile as she pointed. “I know all your names.”

The sudden stomping of little feet drew everyone’s attention. And this little picture became that much worse as two children- a young girl with braided blonde pigtails and a slightly older boy with a mop of sandy hair, bounded down the stairs as Clint crouched down. He caught the little girl in her speedy run, lifting her up into a tight hug. “Hey, sweetheart!” He then put his other arm around the boy, leaning in to kiss the top of his head. “Hey, buddy.”

Good god. Clint Barton had a family. He’d had a family for years. He had been a SHIELD agent- he’d been an Avenger for years. All while having a wife. And children. And-

You were holding Tony’s hand so tight your arm was shaking. Clint had everything you’d sworn you could never. How?

Tony continued your bewilderment, using his free hand to nervously point at them. “...those are… smaller agents…”

It made sense. Clint was rarely ever around aside for missions- he had a room in the Tower, but he disappeared often. When SHIELD fell, he was nowhere to be found. But it wasn’t that he’d been hiding this from you- ...nor the fact that Natasha seemed to know about it, as she became joyous and the children gathered around her. Auntie Nat…

No it wasn’t the secrecy or the omission. It was the hurt. The hurt that he’d figured this out somehow. Yet you’d been grasping and failing at some vision of a family. A life like this. A house. A family. Love that wasn’t beset by world ending events. ...how did they do it?

You really were aching inside looking at them. The perfect picture. You wanted this. You wanted this, for you and Tony. Clint had been living this the whole time and you’d never had a clue. You still didn’t- had no clue how to do it. How he was managing. How. How how…

Steve took a breath. “Sorry for barging in like this.” Tony was hanging on to his own hurt while managing yours, no doubt. Still holding on to you tight. “Yeah. We would have called ahead, but we were too busy having no idea you existed.” Even his usual sass didn’t make you feel better. Clint nodded. “Yeah. Well. Fury helped me set this up when I joined. Kept it off SHIELD’s files. I’d like to keep it that way. I figure it’s a good place to lay low.”

Yeah. That did make sense. It also made sense why you had no idea about it. Why no one did- except Nat. But they’d always been close. You had to clear your throat to make words go. “We’ll keep your secret for you.”

The two of you looked at each other and you had to wonder if maybe it was just plain on your face. The longing as you looked at him. His wife. Their kids. But he gave you a short nod. Laura smiled. “Shower’s upstairs, second door on the left. There’s some medical supplies too, if you need to get patched up. And we don’t mind if you borrow some clothes.” Accommodating and kind despite the drop in. She was probably used to it, you realized. Her husband coming home with cuts and bruises. “I’ll start lunch.”

A group murmur of thanks hit the air and you didn’t wait for permission. Tony had a pretty nasty cut on the side of his face that needed tending to. The rest of the group, save Natasha and Clint (who were at homebase, so they’d be fine) were all a little more super than he was. So you turned, hand still in his, pulling him upstairs. But really. Really you just needed to be away from them. And with him. To decompress.

Maybe even reassure each other of something or other…

You didn’t exactly push him, but were pretty insistent that he move a little quicker through the bathroom door, which you shut behind you and locked. You then guided him to sit on the closed toilet, and started rummaging through the cabinet. Finding a medkit and a bottle of peroxide, you set them down on the sink. And then were promptly stopped when Tony’s hand reached up to touch the back of yours. You braved turning your head to look at him.

Waiting for you there were those big, beautiful brown eyes of his. Somewhat glassy. And entirely see-through. “Take a breath.” Asked gently of you. Your lips pressed together, swallowing hard, and then turned your head back to the kit- though you did do as he asked. Breathing in slowly and then out. Uncapping the peroxide you dumped some on a cotton pad and started dabbing his cheek softly. “How do they manage? How do they do this?” Keeping your voice very quiet.

“I told you it’s not impossible.” His smile up at you was a little cocky, but at the same time still slightly broken.

“Clint’s also not as public as us. So- it’s not the same-”

“He’s as public as the rest of us, after what happened in New York. We sell toys of him. Who are you trying to convince here?” As he asked, your hand lowered, and you looked at him again. “You know where I stand on this. I mean if Barton can manage…” Both of his brows lifting.

“We’re not Clint.” He was right. You were trying to fool yourself. Make excuses. It was easy to keep saying it couldn’t be done as long as no one else had done it. And before today, you’d been very sure no one else had. Or would.

And you were so very wrong. Which meant… which meant you’d been wasting precious time. Wasting time convincing Tony that it couldn’t be done until this, that, and the other thing was fulfilled. Yet- you could have… you could have been living a life- ...and it… it was your fault that the two of you had been delaying it…

How were you supposed to live with that? Live with yourself?

His smile up at you made you hurt all over again. “Great news. Means we can nail this whole house-and-family thing even better.”

You had to look away from him, throwing out the cotton pad, settling your hands on the sides of the sink, head dropping. “They have three kids…” It was so unfathomable. How did she do this? How did she sit at home, wondering if her husband would come home alive-

...god. God damn it. You’d already been living this life with him. Yet you’d seen fit to deny every time he asked you to take it one step further. And for what? For what?

He stood suddenly, setting his hand reassuringly at the mid of your back, stroking in soft circles. “Two. Technically. Although she’s definitely ready to go on that aforementioned third.” Shifting in, he pressed his forehead against the back of your shoulder in an affectionate touch. “Honey… we couldn’t have known.”

“So what-” The words choked from you as you felt the guilt come clawing. “I kept putting it off because it was so unobtainable and now what- we’re being shown up-”

The two of you shared a watery laugh, unable to look at one another. “Just means we have to do it bigger.”

“They have a head start.”

“So? We’re the Starks. Now that we know what we’re looking at- we can build it better.”

A few breaths hitched, you caught a few sniffles too, as you turned, standing a little straighter. Before you could wipe your tears away, his hands were there. Doing it for you. “We are not the Starks.”

“Not yet.” One of those signature arches of his brows threatened to get your smile going. But you just weren’t ready for it yet. Suddenly he started patting at his pockets- “Damn it.”

Reaching up, you wrapped your arms around him, holding yourself as close to him as you could, rewarded with his arms crushing you back. You were clinging to him, but that was okay. “It wasn’t right here, anyway. We have a mess to clean up.”

“Okay. I agree. But after?” His voice came somewhere close to your ear, low and loving.

“...ask me after.” It wasn’t fair to the rest of the team, to be finding solace in each other like this. To be making plans for a future, like this. You had no idea what after looked like either. So you couldn’t commit right now-

...but if anyone deserved it- wasn’t it you? You’d been waiting for a sign. You’d been waiting to see if this was possible. And now you had hard confirmation. Someone was already living this life. And if they could…

Then so could the two of you.

He held you that much tighter. His tone was full of promise. “I intend to.”

---

Tony took the first shower. You asked if anyone wanted dibs on the second, and the team groggily passed it up, so you were next in line. Laura was kind enough to leave out a change of clothes for you, and Bruce passed you on your way out. Though you did ask him where Thor had gone off to, and he merely gave a weak shrug. There was no need to press him further. Coming down the stairs, you spied Tony and Steve out in the yard- … “Are they chopping wood?” Asked of Laura as you came into the kitchen. She looked over her shoulder with a shrug and a smile. “Seemed like they needed something to do. I couldn’t turn down the opportunity for some help around the farm.”

“Can’t argue with that.” They were both probably still wound up. And much as you took some extended time to watch Tony swing that axe above his head and down in hard even strikes, checkered button down tied around his waist- ...right now was not a good time for ogling. “Do you need any help in here?”

Waving you over, “You need something to do, too, huh? Mind helping with the salad?” Giving a little point to the counter where she had several vegetables laying out in wait, a big sharp knife, and a rather large bowl.

“Sure.” You could chop up a salad. No problem. Not hard at all. What was difficult was making food back to back with her in her kitchen. In silence. With too many questions. So much so that… eventually you really couldn’t help yourself. “Can I ask you something?”

“How I do it?”

You felt rather caught as she asked that nearly immediately. “That obvious?”

“You looked like someone punched you in the gut when you came in- no offense- and I’d like to not take any either, so I assume it wasn’t really directed at me.” Her tone was soft and understanding. So it was easy to not take offense to that, or worry about over-showing your own emotions. The problem was you really had no idea what to say. Thankfully she helped. “I was surprised, you know, when Fury said he’d picked the two of you out for this team thing.”

However, you almost wished that there had been a drag of silence instead of that. “Oh. You knew Fury too?” Trying to not give your disdain away through tone. Probably failing.

“Sure. We were close, for a little while. Had him over for dinner a few times. He’s been very good to this family.”

A very good reason not to speak ill of him, you supposed. “Did you work at SHIELD?”

“Absolutely not.” She spat this out with a little bit of a laugh. “No- actually- if you’d believe we live in such a small world, I interned at Stark Industries a few summers while I was in college.”

Small world indeed. And getting smaller all the time. “Really? What department?”

“Nothing important. I’m pretty sure I was the secretary’s secretary’s secretary. Fetching coffee, filing papers. That sort of thing.” You were nodding along as she spoke, even though she couldn’t see it. “I can’t imagine running a company and doing… this is easy.”

“No more easy than sitting up at night with kids wondering if your husband is going to come home, right?” You didn’t mean this maliciously- hoped she wouldn’t take it that way.

Luck held in your favor as she hummed out a breath. “This is… relatively new, you know. SHIELD was one thing. Then one day aliens are coming to a city miles and miles away and somehow Clint’s picked to deal with it. ...you sure you need him?”

There was probably one reason she was asking this- and you were sure it had nothing to do with the fact that Clint was most certainly lurking around. Maybe she had no idea he was in the next room. You did, though. You tried to not let it temper your answer too much. “We do. He’s saved our asses more than once. And out of everyone, he always makes the right directional calls. He was doing this a lot longer than most of us. Except Nat, I guess. Maybe not the aliens thing but… the missions.” It only occurred to you the other reason she was asking. “But… if he’d like to retire…”

Her one-note laugh was a little sour. “That’s not up to me.”

“Sure it is. You don’t expect me to believe he’d stay with us if you told him to come home, do you?”

The two of you turned to look at one another. A passing but understanding glance. Her grin was sad. “I can’t ask him to turn his back on saving the world.”

“Yeah.” Sadness taking hold of you, too, then. “I get it.”

She looked upset for a split second, like she understood it. She probably did. But instead of giving any advice about late nights wondering if someone would come home alive or- god what would I tell the kids?- she offered a little bit more of a real and warm smile. “I can’t thank you enough for what you’ve done for this family.”

This you weren’t expecting, though. “Me? I haven’t done anything. I didn’t even know you existed until two hours ago.”

“Clint tells me you’re the brains behind the operation. The reason we have a diverse portfolio and more than enough money to survive.”

“Oh. Well- Hawkeye toys sell themselves. But, sure. I’ll take credit for his salary bump. I like to think I’m a little more accommodating than SHIELD.” Allowing yourself one little grin. One little dig.

“No less dangerous, though.” Her eyes dropped and you worried about what she would say next. “He also tells me you do more than enough. Cleaning up all the mess. I know that can’t be easy.”

This was too hard to deal with. So flippancy came quickly with a shrug of your shoulders. “Someone has to.”

“Yeah. Someone does.”

It was hard to tell what she was getting at- and you didn’t have time to decipher it as Clint finally stopped sneaking around and made an appearance from around the corner. He came over, leaning in to press a kiss to her hair and then murmured something to her. A feeling of realization came over her and she looked a little sheepish. “Hey- food’s about done. Would you mind letting Bruce and Natasha know?”

The change of subject was so abrupt it left you blinking a few times over. “Bruce is upstairs taking a shower. Do you know where Nat is?”

Laura was a fraction away from a smirk with a little roll of her eyes as she turned away. “Same direction.”

Hm. You really hoped… they weren’t doing anything you’d regret walking in on. Though it was nice that they were finding some mutual comfort.

...a little too much. In a terrible way- different than what you’d expected.

But as soon as you’d gotten upstairs and were about to knock on the door, you heard Nat. And you didn’t mean to eavesdrop. Not really. It was just a little too hard not to after hearing her muffled voice behind that door. “-you still think you’re the only monster on the team?”

Really. Honestly. This was clearly a private conversation. You needed to turn away or interrupt it. But Bruce answering her, “So what? We disappear?”

Your heart dropped into your stomach. Were they honestly talking about leaving? Ditching the team? It was just that easy? Natasha spoke again. “We keep moving.”

Maybe you would have continued to listen in, though it was none of your business. It hurt your heart to hear two people you considered family talking about running away from everything- but a strike of surprise hit you sideways. Not just anyone’s. Tony’s.

It had you turning away. Hurrying downstairs. Putting a hand on the door outside looking at Steve who was suddenly all alone, “Where did Tony go?” Steve looked up at you. “He went into the barn. Something about a broken tractor.”

Laura called you from the kitchen. “Can you give me a hand with this?”

“One second!” Calling back and then rushing out into the yard, ignoring Steve’s questioning glance. Moving as quick as you could without actually running. Tony’s initial shock had died down into something uneasy instead- mixed with a familiar sense of dread.

It was why you almost weren’t as surprised as he’d apparently been, as you opened the barn door- And saw him, wrench in one hand, leaning against the side of the aforementioned busted tractor. Talking to Nick Fury, who was sitting on a bale of hay.

“What are you doing here?” Quickly you shut the door behind you.

“Nice to see you, too.” He looked up at you briefly and then very quickly looked down at his hands.

Tony gave you a small wave. “Hey, honey.” His voice held a small tremble, something that pulled you closer to him. “Did I pocket dial you on accident?” Knowing, probably, why you’d appeared suddenly.

Putting a hand up his arm, you inspected him a little closer. “You okay? He do something to you?”

“Not yet. He just showed up uninvited.”

“Oh so like always.”

Fury spoke up. “You know. I’m sitting right here.”

Turning towards him, you crossed your arms tight. “You are. Sorry to cut your conversation short but I need to ask you something.” It was now or never, right? Fury was off the grid. There would be no telling when you saw him next.

“What now?”

You leveled a hard look at him. “Did SHIELD run experiments on me in 1990? Were you responsible?”

Maybe it was that he wasn’t expecting you to know about that, or maybe he just wasn’t ready, but he became momentarily stunned. Then there was a bit of odd distress that bubbled up. And very suddenly he was standing- and not looking at you again. His hands went in his pockets as he paced. “You unleash an AI with murderous intent on the world, and yet still everything’s gotta be about you.”

He seemed a little… off. Was it right? To think Fury would be so put out by you figuring something out? That he wouldn’t have an excuse ready? Was that really the Fury you knew? Maybe whatever he’d been doing in retirement had dulled him.

“It’s a yes or no question.” You remained firm. This might have been your now-or-never moment. “Did you authorize-”

“Now is really not the time for this.” The wave of his hand was dismissive. He was trying to play it cool. But everything else that only you could sense was sweating. Afraid. He was afraid of something.

And that was very, very bad. “What’s the matter with you?”

“Me?” There was a tiny little uptick in his tone. “Nothing’s wrong with me. How about we talk about Ultron and how you’re gonna clean up your mess.” Deflecting. Still unable to look at you. He honestly seemed like he might bolt out the back door.

This was not- this was not normal. Not for him. He couldn’t be so scared that you’d finally unearthed the truth, right? If Nick Fury was mad about something you were responsible for, he’d be right in your face, and be damned whatever else you were asking for. But this? He was practically about to run.

Some sense of responsibility pulled Tony into speaking. “Look- we’ll figure this out-”

But you held up a hand to stop him. Something was not right here. All the hairs on the back of your neck were standing. Whatever sort of sense you had for something being wrong with someone- ... wasn’t that all you did? Wasn’t that what you were good for?

Well. It was ringing like crazy.

And it was why you let your primary focus go. Why you let your gaze fog up as you dropped below into that space that belonged only to you. That was supposed to be part of you. That was supposed to help you be more than what you were. Damn where it came from.

What you saw was… Fury. Sort of. But it almost looked like he was drawn over. Like something was outlining him. Almost like the vision of control that others had. But not quite. Getting closer to inspect it, it was almost like a… it was vibrating. Alive.

But one touch- just a single touch of your pointer finger at his heart-

Shattered the whole thing-

And before you could even see what you’d done, Tony’s sudden paralyzing fear, coupled with a sharp yank of your arm dragged you right back to the surface. Your vision cleared.

His fear became your own very quickly. You double-tapped the Heart Reactor without even thinking, and held your hand up to charge up a repulsor shot.

Nick Fury was no longer standing in front of you. But what was-

Something green with pointed ears, still wearing Nick’s clothes, and as it turned to look at you, pitch back eyes- You weren’t successful in keeping your voice firm. “What are you?”

The thing put its hands up- only just now realizing the hands that he was supposed to have were no longer there. Then the frantic starting shouted. “Wait wait wait!!” Speaking rather perfect english… accented, too. Strangely. ...Australian, maybe? “Wait- don’t shoot-”

Tony came shoulder to shoulder with you, pointing. “You have ten seconds before she puts a hole through you.”

“Okay okay alright! Just wait!”

“Eight seconds.”

“I’m just a stand-in- look- look alright- I can get Fury on the phone for you- don’t shoot me-” He lifted a communicator out of his pocket.

This was one thing too many. What were you supposed to do with this? What were you supposed to think about this? But really… the only thing you couldn’t stop thinking- the only thing you couldn’t stop wondering-

How long had Nick Fury been an alien?

#Tony Stark #Tony Stark x Reader #INY Chapter One Hundred Sixty Three

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recordmcqueen · 4 years

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when ppl ask me why im anxious

sorry i just have a lot going on n i kinda need to vent

uhh trigger warning for a bunch of stuff? dont bother reading but if u are gonna click then just beware

this education system freaking sucks theres like 13h till school is supposed to start but i havent heard a peep from either of my teachers so uhhhh lmao what the heck wHAT IS GOING ON SOMEONE TELL ME SOMETHING PLS HHHHHH

ive been swinging between feeling bitter and spiteful and just plain sad cause heck i cant stop feeling lonely like ive basically limited myself to tumblr to avoid certain toxic individuals but even here its just so dead n lonely and i feel awful for underappreciating the people who are here for me on this hecksite but god a hyperfixation is a hyperfixation and ngl im kinda miserable :’)) not to be “not like other X” but fr theres a thousand ways i fail to relate from timezones to socmed platforms to talents and just hhhhhh yeah ive had way too much drama and bad experiences and i kinda wanna move but i also feel guilty again for underappreciating the ppl who Do support me and im just perpetually torn between wanting to feel accepted and wanting to just break away from All of Them and hhhhhh it just plagues my mind and wont go away :’))

the weight loss is so confusing and stressful cause i just end up feeling bloated and everything feels out of proportion and im so tiredddd all the time and just hhhh i want my body to look normal and my clothes to fit the way they used to :’))

university applications are coming up real soon and idfk what im doing like ye im pre sure im going into psych but god is it even worth it?? and then whereeeee do i apply like hhhhhhhhhh

cause like my dad is anxious as i am abt where to work hes got a job in bc which he loves but he just got an offer in ontario which is like TORONTO!!! but like uni there is so expensive and he really does like his bc job but the perks of being based in ontario like also cause all the social life is there?? hhhhhhhhh and hes constantly debating it and asking for our advice and man u know im indecisive hhhhhh

im always irritable and annoyed and ive been sleep-deprived for this past week and gosh look at school tomorrow :’))) it just gets so overwhelming ahahahaha

not to mention the depressive episode i had a few weeks ago we went to the doctor n talked abt it n the lab results should be in soon but oh gosh those episodes mess me up so bad like my train of thought is effed up and this time was even worse than the first cause this time i was at home and had access to a blade so ofc i just went for it but what iff next time (is there even gonna be a next time?? like i thought it was a one time thing but then it happened again and im???) and im scared ill be in an even riskier position hhhhhh i dont Want to hurt myself but,,,i also kinda wanna do?

i keep having thoughts of not deserving life and just how my presence isnt worth much to other ppl and how i end up hurting the ppl who Do care and just being hurt over and over but gaslit every time so ofc i end up feeling like every bad thing that happens to me is inherently my fault and god im so tired im so tired of having to reach out every time in attempts to communicate and make rationality of whatever mess my headspace is hhhh and im not a good enough student or friend or fan or Anything at least ill be good dead???

im not actively trying to hurt myself most of the time but its just that lingering feeling of wanting to go to sleep and not wake up and every moment of happiness is so Fleeting and dont get me wrong im doing Better but Better is still Bad so :’))))

on top of that i feel god awful for neglecting people who care abt me all while continuing to complain about being lonely lotus i am so sorry i barely check whatsapp idk why i just dont have the energy but you deserve better than that :’))

and ofc being surrounded by hypocrisy gets real draining so ahahahahahaha

therapy is $$$ but venting to tumblr under a readmore?? free real estate binches

#allya squawks #allya vents #ignore me pls #im just trying to make sense of my braincells #:'))#im trying okay #god its hard

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orthodoxydaily · 4 years

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Saints&Reading: Sun. Sept., 27, 2020

Commemorated on September 14_”Old” Julian calendar

The Elevation of the Venerable and Life-Creating Cross of the Lord

The Elevation of the Venerable and Life-Creating Cross of the Lord: The pagan Roman emperors tried to completely eradicate from human memory the holy places where our Lord Jesus Christ suffered and was resurrected for mankind. The Emperor Adrian (117-138) gave orders to cover over the ground of Golgotha and the Sepulchre of the Lord, and upon the hill fashioned there to set up a pagan temple of the pagan goddess Venus and a statue of Jupiter. Pagans gathered on this place and offered sacrifice to idols there. Eventually after 300 years, by Divine Providence, the great Christian sacred remains – the Sepulchre of the Lord and the Life-Creating Cross were again discovered and opened for veneration. This occurred under the Equal-to-the-Apostles Emperor Constantine the Great (306-337) after his victory in the year 312 over Maxentius, ruler of the Western part of the Roman empire, and over Licinius, ruler of its Eastern part, becoming in the year 323 the sole-powerful ruler of the vast Roman empire. In 313 he had issued the so-called Edict of Milan, by which the Christian religion was legalised and the persecutions against Christians in the Western half of the empire were stopped. The ruler Licinius, although he had signed the Milan Edict to oblige Constantine, still fanatically continued the persecutions against Christians. Only after his conclusive defeat did the 313 Edict about toleration extend also to the Eastern part of the empire. The Equal-to-the-Apostles Emperor Constantine, having with the assistance of God gained victory over his enemies in three wars, had seen in the heavens the Sign of God – the Cross and written beneathe: "By this thou shalt conquer". Ardently desiring to find the Cross on which our Lord Jesus Christ was crucified, Equal-to-the-Apostles Constantine sent to Jerusalem his mother, the pious Empress Helen (Comm. 21 May), having provided her with a letter to the Jerusalem patriarch Makarios. Although the holy empress Helen was already in her declining years, she set about completing the task with enthusiasm. The empress gave orders to destroy the pagan temple and idol-statues overshadowing Jerusalem. Searching for the Life-Creating Cross, she made inquiry of Christians and Jews, but for a long time her searchings remained unsuccessful. Finally, they directed her to a certain elderly hebrew by the name of Jude who stated, that the Cross was buried there, where stands the pagan-temple of Venus. They demolished the pagan-temple and, having made a prayer, they began to excavate the ground. Soon there was detected the Sepulchre of the Lord and not far away from it three crosses, a plank with inscription having been done by order of Pilate, and four nails, which had pierced the Body of the Lord. In order to discern on which of the three crosses the Saviour was crucified, Patriarch Makarios alternately touched the crosses to a corpse. When the Cross of the Lord was placed to it, the dead one came alive. Having beheld the rising-up, everyone was convinced that the Life-Creating Cross was found. Christians, having come in an innumerable throng to make veneration to the Holy Cross, besought Saint Makarios to elevate, to exalt the Cross, so that all even afar off, might reverently contemplate it. Then the Patriarch and other spiritual chief personages raised up high the Holy Cross, and the people, saying "Lord have mercy", reverently made poklon/prostration before the Venerable Wood. This solemn event occurred in the year 326. During the discovery of the Life-Creating Cross there occurred also another miracle: a grievously sick woman, beneathe the shadow of the Holy Cross, was healed instantly. The starets/elder Jude and other Jews there believed in Christ and accepted Holy Baptism. Jude received the name Kuriakos (ie. lit. "of the Lord") and afterwards was ordained Bishop of Jerusalem. During the reign of Julian the Apostate (361-363) he accepted a martyr's death for Christ (Comm. of Priest-Martyr Kuriakos is 28 October). The holy empress Helen journeyed round the holy places connected with the earthly life of the Saviour – the reason for more than 80 churches – raised up at Bethlehem the place of the Birth of Christ, and on the Mount of Olives from whence the Lord ascended to Heaven, and at Gethsemane where the Saviour prayed before His sufferings and where the Mother of God was buried after the falling-asleep. Saint Helen took with her to Constantinople part of the Life-Creating Wood and nails. The Equal-to-the-Apostles Emperor Constantine gave orders to raise up at Jerusalem a majestic and spacious church in honour of the Resurrection of Christ, including in itself also the Sepulchre of the Lord, and Golgotha. The temple was constructed in about 10 years. Saint Helen did not survive until the dedication of the temple; she died in the year 327. The church was consecrated on 13 September 335. On the following day, 14 September, the festal celebration of the Exaltation of the Venerable and Life-Creating Cross was established. On this day is remembered also another event connected to the Cross of the Lord, – its return back to Jerusalem from Persia after a 14 year captivity. During the reign of the Byzantine emperor Phokas (602-610) the Persian emperor Khozroes II in a war against the Greeks defeated the Greek army, plundered Jerusalem and led off into captivity both the Life-Creating Cross of the Lord and the Holy Patriarch Zacharios (609-633). The Cross remained in Persia for 14 years and only under the emperor Herakles (610-641), who with the help of God defeated Khozroes and concluded peace with his successor and son Syroes – was the Cross of the Lord returned to Christians from captivity. With great solemnity the Life-creating Cross was transferred to Jerusalem. Emperor Herakles in imperial crown and porphyry(purple) carried the Cross of Christ into the temple of the Resurrection. Alongside the emperor went Patriarch Zacharios. At the gates, by which they ascended onto Golgotha, the emperor suddenly stopped and was not able to proceed further. The Holy Patriarch explained to the emperor that an Angel of the Lord blocked his way, since He That bore the Cross onto Golgotha for the expiation of the world from sin, made His Way of the Cross in the guise of Extreme Humilation. Then Herakles, removing the crown and porphyry, donned plain garb and without further hindrance carried the Cross of Christ into the church. In a sermon on the Exaltation of the Cross, Saint Andrew of Crete (Comm. 4 July) says: "The Cross is exalted, and everything true gathers together, the Cross is exalted, and the city makes solemn, and the people celebrate the feast".

The Repose of Sainted John Zlatoust'/Chrysostomos

The Repose of Sainted John Zlatoust'/Chrysostomos: Saint John Chrysostom died on 14 September 407, but because of the feast of the Exaltation of the Life-Creating Cross of the Lord, the commemoration of the saint was transferred to 13 November, where the account about him is located. On 27 January is made a commemoration of the transfer of the holy relics of Saint John Chrysostom from Komaneia to Constantinople, and on 30 January – is the celebration of the Sobor/Assemblage of the Three OEcumenical Hierarchs.

John 12:28-36

28Father, glorify Your name. Then a voice came from heaven, saying, "I have both glorified it and will glorify it again."29 Therefore the people who stood by and heard it said that it had thundered. Others said, "An angel has spoken to Him." 30 Jesus answered and said, "This voice did not come because of Me, but for your sake. 31 Now is the judgment of this world; now the ruler of this world will be cast out. 32 And I, if I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all peoples to Myself. 33 This He said, signifying by what death He would die. 34 The people answered Him, "We have heard from the law that the Christ remains forever; and how can You say, 'The Son of Man must be lifted up'? Who is this Son of Man?" 35 Then Jesus said to them, "A little while longer the light is with you. Walk while you have the light, lest darkness overtake you; he who walks in darkness does not know where he is going. 36 While you have the light, believe in the light, that you may become sons of light. These things Jesus spoke, and departed, and was hidden from them.

John 19:6-11, 13-20, 25-28, 30-35

6 Therefore, when the chief priests and officers saw Him, they cried out, saying, "Crucify Him, crucify Him!" Pilate said to them, "You take Him and crucify Him, for I find no fault in Him." 7 The Jews answered him, "We have a law, and according to our law He ought to die, because He made Himself the Son of God." 8 Therefore, when Pilate heard that saying, he was the more afraid, 9 and went again into the Praetorium, and said to Jesus, "Where are You from?" But Jesus gave him no answer. 10 Then Pilate said to Him, "Are You not speaking to me? Do You not know that I have power to crucify You, and power to release You?" 11 Jesus answered, "You could have no power at all against Me unless it had been given you from above. Therefore the one who delivered Me to you has the greater sin." 13 When Pilate therefore heard that saying, he brought Jesus out and sat down in the judgment seat in a place that is called The Pavement, but in Hebrew, Gabbatha. 14 Now it was the Preparation Day of the Passover, and about the sixth hour. And he said to the Jews, "Behold your King!" 15 But they cried out, "Away with Him, away with Him! Crucify Him!" Pilate said to them, "Shall I crucify your King?" The chief priests answered, "We have no king but Caesar!" 16 Then he delivered Him to them to be crucified. So they took Jesus and led Him away. 17 And He, bearing His cross, went out to a place called the Place of a Skull, which is called in Hebrew, Golgotha,18 where they crucified Him, and two others with Him, one on either side, and Jesus in the center. 19 Now Pilate wrote a title and put it on the cross. And the writing was: JESUS OF NAZARETH, THE KING OF THE JEWS. 20 Then many of the Jews read this title, for the place where Jesus was crucified was near the city; and it was written in Hebrew, Greek, and Latin. 25 Now there stood by the cross of Jesus His mother, and His mother's sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene. 26 When Jesus therefore saw His mother, and the disciple whom He loved standing by, He said to His mother, "Woman, behold your son!" 27 Then He said to the disciple, "Behold your mother!" And from that hour that disciple took her to his own home. 28 After this, Jesus, knowing that all things were now accomplished, that the Scripture might be fulfilled, said, "I thirst!" 30 So when Jesus had received the sour wine, He said, "It is finished!" And bowing His head, He gave up His spirit. 31 Therefore, because it was the Preparation Day, that the bodies should not remain on the cross on the Sabbath (for that Sabbath was a high day), the Jews asked Pilate that their legs might be broken, and that they might be taken away. 32 Then the soldiers came and broke the legs of the first and of the other who was crucified with Him. 33 But when they came to Jesus and saw that He was already dead, they did not break His legs. 34 But one of the soldiers pierced His side with a spear, and immediately blood and water came out. 35 And he who has seen has testified, and his testimony is true; and he knows that he is telling the truth, so that you may believe.

1 Corinthians 1:18-24

18 For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. 19 For it is written: 20 Where is the wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the disputer of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of this world? 21 For since, in the wisdom of God, the world through wisdom did not know God, it pleased God through the foolishness of the message preached to save those who believe. 22 For Jews request a sign, and Greeks seek after wisdom; 23 but we preach Christ crucified, to the Jews a stumbling block and to the Greeks foolishness, 24 but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.

#orthodoxy #orthodoxchristian #ancientchristianity #firstchristian #spirituality #holyscriptures #gospel #sacredtexts #wisdom

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