#the fact that she's going out to pubs and clubs when she's living with someone who has covid is bad enough

[ahordeofwasps]

Me: Hey, I have acquired the Plague and will be self-isolating. I’m worried about spreading it.

Flatmate: *proceeds to bring date home after spending the night out*

#*internal screaming* #the fact that she's going out to pubs and clubs when she's living with someone who has covid is bad enough #thank goodness she's moving out next month #on the plus side I think I killed their mood by yelling 'hey does your date know I got covid' through a door #dude left as soon as the buses started running again #also should have this plague beat by tomorrow #then it's just more self isolation to make sure I'm not contagious anymore

[watermelonsugacry]

I was wondering if you were still taking requests for this series and if you are I was wondering if bandmate!yn and harry ever shared any “platonic” kisses behind closed doors. Like to help with nerves or after a especially terrible interview and one of them is really worked up?

anon: did yn and harry have any secret kisses while in the band? like ones that they never told anyone else

A/N: They never had any "real" kisses during their time in the band...but they had A LOT of almost kisses. Here are a few of them! :

As the band gets more and more accustomed to this lavish lifestyle of fame, these teenagers tend to take any chance they get to go out to some club, pub, or party. In a way, it’s kind of like a substitute for what their lives could have been if they’d gone to college and gone to frat parties that they’re currently missing out on.

It had a lot of the same things that college parties would have had—blaring music, copious amounts of alcohol, and of course, stupid party games. 

With a couple of drinks already in his system, his friends drag Harry into sitting in a circle on the dirty carpet with other party-goers. As one of the bleach-blonde girls announces the game by putting an empty beer bottle in the center of the group, Harry looks around the rowdy circle and he raises a cheeky eyebrow when he spots his two bandmates sitting directly across from him. 

YN laughs at something Niall said before catching Harry’s gaze. Her smile never falters and after glancing down at the glass bottle, she gives him a shrug with a bubbly laugh that he can faintly hear over the blaring music.

Something twists in his tummy at the realization of what they’re about to play. He’s only played Spin The Bottle a handful of times and it's safe to say that he’s never been so nervous to play. 

He secretly holds his breath when one of the girls who kept trying to get his attention the second they got there reaches for the bottle. She pulls her shirt down to show off her cleavage and gives him a sly smirk before spinning the empty beer bottle. She dramatically pouts when the end of the bottle is directed at one of the other guys and reluctantly crawls over to meet the bloke halfway. 

With another attempt to seem attractive to one of the members of the world’s biggest band, she practically shoves her tongue down the guy’s throat. Not like the drunk bloke minded as he quickly reciprocates her heavy actions.  

When they pull apart, Harry bites back a laugh when he sees YN’s look of disgust at what just took place. Her top lip is cutely scrunched up with a crease in between her brows. When she locks her eyes with Harry again, she giggles behind her hand.

It’s Niall’s turn and with a flick of his wrist, the glass bottle rapidly spins around looking for its next target. When it comes to a slow stop, Harry’s heart nearly comes up and out of his throat when it lands on YN. 

Her laughter becomes muffled when Niall cups her cheeks and he leans in head close to hers. Harry can do nothing but watch as Niall’s blonde head covers her face from his view, her arms lazily wrapping around the tops of his shoulders to pull him in closer. Their kiss lasts a little too long for comfort and it takes everything in Harry to not jump up from his spot and shove him off her. 

As soon as whistles and Get it Niall! begin to sound, the Irishman pulls back with a dramatic Mwah! 

It would have been missed if someone wasn’t looking at the two so intensely, but Harry sees it. He sees the way that at the last second, Niall removes his thumbs from the center of YN’s lips. A great amount of relief (more than he’d like to admit) lifts from his shoulders and Harry can finally breathe again at the fact that he didn’t just watch his two bandmates make-out right in front of him. 

In his tipsy state, he gets so caught up in the thought of the possibility of kissing YN that he forgets that she’s vulnerable to getting picked on by someone else.

She gives her blonde bandmate a big, innocent kiss on his cheek before spinning the bottle herself. 

As it glides around the surface of the stained carpet, it’s right here where Harry decides that this is an utterly stupid game. This is a stupid game with stupid rules and he’s just about had enough of this party altogether. He honestly can’t stand the thought of just sitting here as his crush for the past three years spins the stupid bottle for her to kiss some stupid bloke—

The circle of party people all make a suggestive “oOo” sound and it takes a second for Harry to realize that the tip of the empty glass bottle is pointed directly at him. The majority of the group is already buzzed out of their minds to even think about seeing straight but he sees crystal clear. Everything around Harry becomes a fuzzy blur and the only thing clear in his sight of vision is YN sitting across from him.

Her cheeks are pink and surely they’re that color because of the alcohol in her system...right? He must be more tipsy than he thought since he sees YN slowly shift onto her hands and knees and begins to crawl her way over to him. His body and mind aren’t connected because before he even realizes what he’s doing, he’s making his way over to her. 

She flicks her eyes from his lips to his eyes. This must be a dream. This is it. He’s been waiting so long to finally feel the softness of her lips on his. While he would have liked this to be over a candle-lit dinner or as he drops her off at her hotel room after a night out, he will not—cannot pass up this opportunity. 

As they go to close their eyes, a big thud startles them from their positions.

Harry has to blink a couple of times in order to register that lying next to them are two angry guys rolling around together in a fight. In a blink of an eye, the bloke on top pulls his fist back and punches the other guy square in the face.

“Holy shit!” 

And just by YN’s words, Harry’s snapping out of his daze and quickly helping her up off the floor. Everyone in the circle backs off further and stands around as the two guys continue to wrestle on the floor. Harry has his arms wrapped protectively around his bandmate as they peer at the scene in front of them. 

“Are you alright, lovie? You hurt?” He asks worriedly but it begins to diminish when he sees that behind her hand lies her golden smile.

“I’m fine, ooo—” YN’s giggles turn into a cringe as she watches the guy throw another punch at the poor dude’s face. With a clearer look at her tipsy smile and the way that she's leaning on him, he unwillingly comes to senses.

“Let’s get out of here, yeah?”

"Woah, H," She throws him a teasing smile. "We were just about to kiss and now-" A tipsy hiccup interrupts her. "-now yeh want to take me home? At least take meh on a date first."

Maybe it's from some of the alcohol running through him or the high chance that she won't remember this talk tomorrow morning that makes him give her a painfully truthful response. "You don't think I would if I could?"

Her smile slowly fades and she looks up at her bandmate with wide, innocent eyes and the softest-looking lips that he almost had the pleasure of tasting tonight. If he had a couple more drinks in him, he would say fuck it and press his lips to hers. He would kiss her with so much love and passion at it'd make her head dizzy. He would show her all of his pent-up emotions for her in that kiss. He would hold her extremely close to her and never let her go.

And he would feel her kiss him back with that same urgency.

But instead, another roar of the crowd watching the fight take place snaps him back to reality. He gives a nod toward the general direction of the exit.

"Come on," He gives her a smirk and puts an arm around her shoulder to guide her through the crowd of drunk people. "Before I tell Paul you've been snogging Niall."

She lets out a snort before letting her bandmate lead her out, all the while he feels her eyes burn on the side of his face.

...

The job that the band has isn’t an easy one by any means and it can take a toll on everyone every once in a while. Even after four years into their careers, the amount of stress and pressure that the spotlight shines onto the six of them is blinding. Every one of the boys expresses their stress in different ways: Louis and Liam tend to have brief, petty arguments about the most unimportant things. Niall will often isolate himself and pluck pretty melodies out of his guitar to relieve the stress pinching at his shoulders. Zayn would find serenity in his art, and Harry...well he finds his peace in his person. 

So when he plans to go in search of her, the first place he goes to look is in her hotel room. With a smile towards her personal bodyguard, Noah, standing outside her door he’s let into her room with a quick swipe of the buff man’s key card. 

He doesn’t see her sprawled out on the living room couch like he normally would, watching a scary movie with a bored expression on her face only for it to light up at the sight of him. He doesn’t see her in the kitchen making herself a cup of tea with way too much honey in it and quickly offering him one as well. As he’s about to pull out his phone to send her a quick text, his heart falls to his stomach at the sound of a broken sob. 

Without a second thought, he taps his knuckles to her bedroom door, “YN?”

When he doesn’t hear her response, a surge of panic runs through him at the thought of being hurt. He pushed the door open and doesn’t seem to spot her anywhere in the spacious room. His eyes are drawn to the bathroom door a peek away from being fully closed. He repeats her name as he slowly creaks the door open.

He finds her taking up as little space as possible with her back to the sink cabinets, hugging her knees to her chest and ducking her head down. At the sound of her name being called, she looks up at him with her glossy, pink eyes. She’s quickly wiping at her cheeks, sniffing with a fake, happy smile on her lips.

“Oh, hey Harry,” She chuckles to herself. “I was just, uh...just...” She rolls her glossy eyes before taking in a deep sigh, knowing that she can’t come up with a proper excuse good enough to convince Harry otherwise. “Me harmonies for Spaces have been total shit today. Like every time I go to record me part, I just...they just don’t come out right.” She gives a dry laugh and wipes under her pink nose with her wrist. “S’funny, innit? I was the one who arranged the harmonies for everyone and I can’t even execute m’part.”

Even when he sees her trying to laugh off her emotions, he doesn’t encourage her to move on and try again tomorrow right away like the other people on their team would do. Instead, he plops down next to her and leans his back against the cabinets behind him. 

“S’just me, YN. Y’don’t have to hold it in for me.” 

With just one look, her lips are already trembling and she closes her eyes in defeat. When he wraps his arm around her shoulders and pulls her in close, he has to admit that he’s a bit surprised that she’s not pushing him away—physically and emotionally. Trying to ease her down, he presses his lips against her temple. 

“Hey, hey s’alright, lovie,” He says against her soft skin and his heart rips in two at the sound of a sob racking through her chest. Harry like read her like a book and as much as that scares YN, she’s grateful to be in the safe space he creates for her. Being in the music industry, keeping up a “good girl” image, and having all eyes watch her every move as they wait for her to trip up on anything causes her to retract a lot. There's so much pressure on her shoulders from being the only female in the band that she sometimes feels like she has so much more she needs to prove. She suppresses her emotions so much and it’s bound to erupt all at once. She needs cries like these and if it were anyone else, she’d only feel that much more embarrassed.

He continues to hold her close, softly rubbing her back as a sign for her to let it out. Her tears stain his shirt and she grips onto the material at his chest. 

They stay like this for a while and once she’s calmed down, he presses loving pecks to her forehead. It draws a sigh from her so he continues to softly press his lips to different parts of her face: her eyelids, her rosy nose, and the tops of her cheeks. Without thinking, he presses a kiss to the corner of her plushy lips and it pulls a small gasp from her. She looks up at him with her pink, glossy eyes with an unreadable expression. An apology is ready to be pushed past his lips but it comes to a halt when she slowly lowers her gaze to his lips and back to his emerald eyes. 

Neither of them know what’s happening: Harry with his arm wrapped securely around her, his thumb caresses her cheek oh-so softly. YN with her hands gently placed on his chest where she can practically feel his heart pounding underneath her fingertips—no doubt hers is beating with the same amount of force. 

Neither one of them can do anything but be pulled in by the natural force tied around them. 

“YN?” 

Their eyes widen at the sound of YN’s boyfriend’s voice echoing from somewhere inside her hotel room. 

His footsteps can be heard coming into the bedroom and it doesn’t take long before he’s pushing open the bathroom door. Matt is frozen in place at the sight before him. He’s quickly coming into the room and kneeling in front of his girlfriend as she sits on top of the toilet seat cover. He takes her face in his hands and caresses her cheeks soothingly.

“Aw, Baby. Baby, what’s wrong?” 

“Just stressed over some work stuff s’all,” YN answers swiftly, clearing her throat at the sound of her raspy voice. “M’fine though. W-what are yeh doing here? I though you were still on tour with the Little Mix girls.”

“I came to surprise you. I spoke with Paul and he’s allowed me to take y’out for dinner but this is way more important right now,” Matt shakes his head solemnly at the sight of his distraught girlfriend. “Here, let me run you a bath.”

“No!” YN takes the hand that’s going to pull back the shower curtain and brings it to her chest. Matt looks at her with wide eyes and she wants to cringe at how loud she was. “I, I mean, no thank you. M’feeling better honestly. Just had to get a good cry out s’all.”

“Are you sure? I can come in the bath with you—”

“M’actually super hungry. Starving really,” She lets a sheepish laugh.

“Okay,” Matt gives her a reassuring nod of his head. “Yeah, whatever y’want. Come on,” As if she was a delicate flower, he carefully guides her off of her seat and places a gentle hand on her back, leading her out of the stuffy bathroom. 

With the sound of the hotel door clicking shut, Harry thunks the back his head on the shower tile behind him, finally being able to let out the breath he was holding.

...

“Harry, chill out will yeh? Well, I guess this is gonna help, huh?” YN lightly laughs as she gets settled in the back seat of her car to face her bandmate. 

With all of the chaos going on lately from the band announcing Zayn’s departure from One Direction, to the stress of pressing interviews, fans, and the media—everything has become a tremendous weight crushing on everyone.

After their long work day was done at almost two o’clock in the morning, YN and Harry sneak out of their hotel rooms and past their security team to head downstairs to the garage. Covered by the night sky, the two settle in the back seat of her car with her familiar tin cookie box of intoxicating substances. 

“Sorry. I just don’t think Niall was our best cover up,” Harry rakes his fingers over his scalp as YN sets everything up, the orange street light from outside acts at their only source of light. “We were barely gone 30 minutes before they got the truth outta him.”

“S’because the lad was half asleep when we told him to cover for us.”

“So he was fully awake when you told him?”

“More like heading to bed,” She tease with a small smile. 

Harry watches as YN brings the wrapped drug up to her plushy lips, bringing her lighter to the end and cups the end to make sure the flame stays in tack. He sees how she puffs the excess smoke out of the corner of her mouth before taking a proper drag. While YN holds the smoke in her lungs, she leans her head back against the car seat before slowly releasing the vapor into the space above her. He can’t really place his finger in it but he thinks it's probably the sexiest thing he’s ever seen her do.

“Oh, shit,” She closes her eyes with a lazy smile and moves the blunt towards her band mate. “I needed this.” 

With wandering eyes, YN watches as Harry takes the drug between his fingers and she tries to ignore the tingling feeling her skin feels when his skin touches hers. It must be the drugs hitting her system already. It surely must be since the sensation only travels down to her tummy at the sight of Harry carding his fingers through his long hair, the crease digging in between his eyebrows when he takes an inhale and the hiss he makes at the feel of the smoke swirling around in his lungs.

Her eyes trace the gentle curve of his forehead, down the slope of his nose, and to the soft shape of his lips. She continues to stare fondly at his strong chin, the sharp curve of his jawline, and the ringlets at the tips of his hair. Was he always this pretty?

She’s snapped out of her daze when Harry suddenly coughs into his fist. When he leans over, YN puts a comforting hand on his shuddering shoulders as she stifles a laugh with the other.

“Fucking hell,” Harry manages to say through his coughing, chuckling along with her. “How do y’make it look so easy?”

“Practice I guess,” YN shrugs, and he can’t brush off the way her delicate hand continues to softly rub the space where his neck meets his shoulder. “Try not to hold so much in all at once. S’alright to take in some short ones.”

When Harry attempts to take another hit, her advice is no use (and his ego is way too big for small puffs) as he ends up sputtering out another fit of coughs. As she playfully rolls her eyes at her bandmate an idea suddenly pops in her hazed-induced brain.

“Come here,” YN cheekily bites her bottom lip as she scoots closer to the middle of the back seat.

“What for?” 

“Just, come ‘ere.” 

He doesn’t waste another second until his thigh touches her bent knee. As she hollows out her cheeks with her lips around the wrapped substances, she beckons him closer with a wave of her hand. Harry loses all sense of reality when she takes his chin in her hand and brushes her thumb over his bottom lip until his mouth parts. She brings her face incredibly close to his and for a second he thinks she’s actually going to kiss him. 

His eyelids flutter close at the feel of her gently blowing the smoke from her mouth to his and if his eyes weren’t already closed, they might have rolled back at this intimate sensation.

 When he reopens his eyes, he barely makes hers out through the thin wall of smoke between them. His grip on the last bit of control is slipping out of his grasp more and more as he can feel her lips ghost against his. When she tilts her head and her nose softly bumps with his, he lets out an uneven breath. 

He can’t tell if it’s from the drugs or just her but he’s hyper-aware of every part of his body: the way her hand has drifted down to the exposed skin on his chest from his open button-up, her gentle breath on his lips, her knee under his ring-covered hand. It’s all so overwhelming and calming at the same time.

“Was that better?” She whispers in the small space between them and Harry can do nothing but nod his head against her, pressing his forehead down to hers. YN rubs her thumb over his supple lip once again, “Use your words, H.”

A shiver goes down his spine at her words. “Yes.”

She gives a satisfied hum and brings her mouth to brush against the shell of his ear, “Do you want another one?”

He nods dumbly, “Yes.”

His nose brushes up against the soft skin of her cheek as she turns her head to take in another drag. She takes a hold of his jaw and gently blows the vapor into his mouth. They do this a few more times and soon enough the windows of her car are fogged up—both from the smoke and the heat radiating off of their bodies.

After a while, he takes the small bud from her hand and brings it to his lips. YN gazes at her bandmate with hooded eyes and her head blissfully spinning. Harry tucks his hand under her chin, his fingers and thumb gently digging into her cheeks to bring her face closer to his. Before she can even register what’s happening, her eyelashes flutter against the tops of her cheeks at the feeling of him passing the smoke to her parted lips. 

As she did to him, he runs his thumb along her bottom lip and he brushes their noses together in an Eskimo kiss. All the stress from before is nowhere in sight and it's replaced with a different kind of tension. The headstrong, stubborn girl is so pliable in his hands and one lift of her chin can connect their wanting lips.

As his last thread of resistance is about to break, the two jump apart at the sound of her phone ringing. 

YN reaches over to snatch her phone from somewhere in the front cupholder console and Harry leans back in the leather seat with a deep sigh. He cards a hand over his hair and he tries to get his dazed thoughts together. Never mind that she has a boyfriend, he just needs to focus on dead puppies and ill grandmas to help loosen the strain in his black skinny jeans. 

“Fook, Paul found out we weren’t in our hotel rooms,” YN takes one final hit before quickly blowing out the smoke, wafting her hands in front of her to dissipate the smoke. “Come on.”

As they navigate going back inside the building, ride up the elevator, and walk down the hallway to their angry tour manager/father, Harry doesn't have the capacity to hide his smirk at the fact that her hand had been in his the entire time.

SINCE 2010 masterlist

I write for free so if any of you lovies would like to help a college girl out and buy her a ko-fi i would greatly appreciate it :) 💚

taglist:

@wobblymug @be-with-me-so-happily @ashtongivesmebutterflies @kiwiskiwiskiwi @darlingdesire @obsesseddd @hopefulwastelandcreation @cacapeepee @breezie-b00 @harrysfolklore @theekyliepage @sunshinemoonsposts @nervousspiderling @tbslonelyhes @tenaciousperfectionunknown @harrystylesrecs @certified-nalayak @itsjustsel @iknowyouthinkimbulletproof @gviosca @behindmygreyeyes @twobluejeans @allisonxmcu @theemeraldbutterfly @jean-love @marvellover-sam @b-reads-things @reveriehs @rach2602 @thurhomish @perrypughstyles @luvonstyles @mxltifxnd0m @teamspideyman @c00chiemonster @juiceboxrry @s8tellite @folklorehrry @illicithallways @claramllera @eunoiaax @hoya122 @nichmedder @sleutherclaw @gloriousmoneyrascalbiscuit @harianaswhore @teawithcyb0rgs @vrittivsanghavi @vc55bughead @futuristiccroissantlampsludge @onecrazydirectioner @valluvsu @itsgabbysblog @awkwardbisexuall @rosehel @sucker4angstt @isalove @diorchives @mrshiddlestyles02 @fdl305

#harry x 1dbandmember!reader #1dbandmember!yn #since 2010 series #harry styles x you #harry styles x reader #harry styles and reader #harry styles and you #harry styles and y/n #harry styles and famous reader #harry styles x y/n #harry styles fic #harry styles fanfic #harry styles fanfiction #harry styles fan fic #harry styles writing #harry styles concept #harry styles fluff #harry styles masterlist #harry styles angst #harry styles x oc #harry styles x singer!reader #harry styles blurb #harry styles blog #harry styles one shot #harry styles

[jhilsara]

I Can See You

Pt. 1/ Pt. 2/ Pt. 3/ Pt. 4/ Pt. 5/pt. 6/Pt. 7/Pt. 8/Pt. 9/ Pt. 10/

Pt. 11/ Pt.12/Pt.13/Pt. 14/Pt.15/Pt.16/Pt.17/END

Mariana Jimenez-Watson or MJ works in a normal pub living life paycheck to paycheck. Nothing exciting happens to her except the occasional drunk getting thrown out. She's 24 working away and finds a wrench thrown into her very boring life. His name is Hobie and she thinks maybe, a little excitement isn't awful. In fact she might start to crave some change for once.

Small moments of Hobie meeting his world's MJ. AKA I made an MJ variant and I think she's neat.

Chapter 16

Mariana usually never gets off earlier than closing time. Today was one of those rare days that she got to leave around midnight instead of the early hours of three in the morning, or worse four.

She waves goodbye to Andy and the new girl who’s taking over her last few hours. Andy’s training her so they aren’t under staffed.

She leaves out the back and is ready to head home, maybe have a few hours of peaceful time to read or even catch up on a show or two.

She walks off down the street alone, it’s one of those nights that Hobie’s out patrolling and he can’t walk her home. Which wouldn’t bother her normally. Except about two blocks into her walk she feels like she’s being watched.

She stops and looks around, and the streets not dead, but the people walking are all tipsy walking to their next destination. No ones prying eyes are on her. She looks up, but still nothing. No one’s creeping on her looking out their flats windows, or at least that she can see.

She bites her lip and tries to push the sinking feeling away. She starts to walk once more. She makes it another block before the dreadful feeling consumes her. She doesn’t stop to look this time. She deviates her route. She isn’t walking home, not like this.

Not when she’s being followed. Part of her wonders if it’s that one patron from the bar, but he was arrested.

She shudders at the memory. She tries to not run, or quicken her pace. She knows one of the clubs down this road so she’ll just go there at least until they close. She sees the line to get in and she goes and waits. Her friend Sam works as the bouncer here and she greats her happily.

Sam’s like most bouncers, broad as a barrel and built to handle unruly crowds. She’s standing her post, arms crossed, looking intimidating without even trying. She’s more than glad Sam’s working tonight.

“I didn’t know you were swingin’ by tonight!” she says with a wide smile.

She returns it, but talks to Sam through her teeth, “I think someone’s following me...” She says in a tight voice.

Sam nods and rubs MJ’s back reassuringly. “Got it, go in and find Karla, she’ll get you situated.” She tells her.

She nods her head and dips inside, quickly walking over to the bar that Karla’s at. She’s shaking a bit and she’s never been happier that she’s close to the other bar workers in the area.

“Hey Karla,” she says leaning onto the bar.

Karla whips her head around and the smaller women looks more than happy. She smiles bouncing over to the end that MJ is standing at. She greets her happily.

“What are you doing here? Thought you were working tonight.” She asks her with a curious look.

MJ sighs and gives her the same story she told Sam at the front. She’s wringing her hands together nervously because the last thing she wants is to have another stalker.

Karla nods and tells her other bartender that she’s going on her fifteen. She pulls MJ to the back, which is much quitter from the booming music of the dance club.

“Do you have anyone you can call?” She asks MJ with concern.

She nods, she knows she’s calling Hobie. There’s no question there.

“Yeah, I got someone. I’m gonna call him and hopefully he picks up.” She tells her.

Karla nods and crosses her arms, “If he doesn’t me and Sam can take you home, or you can crash at our place. I don’t want you alone…not if you think you’re being followed.” Karla says nervously.

“I mean, especially after that other stalker almost attacked you… I don’t want another situation like that.” She tells her friend looking at her with worry.

MJ feels fear grip her heart at the memory, but she shakes it off. “Promise I’ll let you know. I’ll be fine though Hobie always answers when I call.” She reassures her friend.

Karla raises a brow, “Hobie? Is he the one you’ve been mucking about with all the time these past few months?” she says a little accusing, but MJ knows she’s being curious not mean.

She feels her own face burn a little and she nods. “Yea, we just, we get each other.” She shrugs trying to be indifferent.

Karla doesn’t buy it, rolling her eyes, “So he’s your boyfriend yea?”

“No, we’re…” MJ starts but stops…she feels her shoulders deflate. “I don’t know what we are…I just don’t want to lose him…he’s special.” She murmurs looking up at Karla.

She nods in understanding. “That’s how I felt about Sam, and now we’re married.” She says knowingly.

“Just don’t wait around too long, yea? I don’t want you to push someone away who could be good for you.” She tells MJ softly.

MJ nods solemnly, she doesn’t want to think about it. She’s scared, mostly. She doesn’t want to ask to define their relationship, because after everything with her mother… she loves him. She knows she does.

But she doesn’t know if he loves her. That is what scares her.

Karla’s break ends and she leaves, giving MJ a firm hug.

MJ doesn’t hesitate to call Hobie, still feeling the pit in her stomach from being followed. One problem at a time.

“Hey, you okay? You never call this early.” His voice slides through her speakers, easy and calm. It relaxes her. She can hear the cars in the distance, he’s probably on a building.

“Um… no?” She hesitates but sighs. “I’m at Spring Awakening, you know the dance club a few blocks down from the pub?” She tells him.

He hums in acknowledgement. “What’s wrong?” He asks her, voice calm, but she hears the wind. He’s already moving.

“Nothing technically, but, I don’t know, I felt someone watching me? Does that make sense? Someone was following me.” She tells him.

“If you think you’re being watched, odds are you are. I’m comin’.” He tells her in a firm voice.

“Can you stay on the phone with me?” She asks hesitantly.

He gives a soft chuckle, “Was plannin’ on it luv.”

It doesn’t take him more than ten or so minutes to get there. He knocks on the back door and she lets him in.

“You doin’ alright?” he asks her softly, holding onto her arms gently.

She nods, “Better now.” She tells him. “Let me go tell Karla I’m leaving, so she doesn’t worry.”

He nods and let’s her go back. She returns within ten minutes and he walks out the back with her. He’s still in his spider suit. Hoping it’ll keep anyone away.

“Do you want to walk home or swing? I could lose anyone if we swing.” He says with a smug tone.

She rolls her eyes, but the idea of being followed is enough to make her want to swing over walking. Even though she hates being up in the air. She doesn’t know how Hobie doesn’t get sick from it, but he’s built different. Literally.

He easily wraps his arms around her firmly and shoots a web. She’s flying off the ground and she squeezes her eyes shut.

He goes the long way, taking a couple of wrong turns just in case. She knows he has that… spider sense? She thinks that’s what he calls it. She really isn’t sure. She just knows that he senses danger much quicker than she can. So, she’s hoping that if that was going off he’d tell her.

He finally makes it to her complex and they both enter through the back. Hobie stays downstairs to wait it out. Just in case they were followed. She makes it to her flat and quickly goes in. She doesn’t bother turning on the lights and just drags herself to the bathroom.

She gave Hobie a key and he’s let himself in a million times. She’s ready to shower off the pub and the anxiety that’s still rattling around in her gut.

She takes a long shower, burning her skin with the hot water, her maroon hair falling down her back as she rakes her hands through it with shampoo. She tries to not think about the fear that gnaws at the back of her head. She’s okay, nothing happened. Hobie’s here and she’s safe.

She’s helped Hobie take down the Vulture, a Lizard, and the Green Goblin. She can handle some weirdo trying to stalk her. She’s dealt with worse.

She takes a shaky breath and finishes her shower.

When she exits the bathroom to the living room, Hobie’s sitting on her couch in his casual clothes just waiting for her. His head looks up as he hears her footsteps.

“Good?” He asks softly pressing a soft kiss to her temple.

She nods, “Just exhausted now.” She tells him truthfully.

“No one followed, promise.” He says as he stands up and stretches, “Go to bed, I’ll be in there soon. I need to shower.”

She gets up to grab him an extra towel and tosses it to him. “Your extra clothes are in the top drawer.” She tells him.

“I know!” he smiles brightly and pops into her room shuffling for some spare clothes before he closes the door to her bathroom.

She double checks to make sure her doors are locked, front and patio. When she’s satisfied she finally crawls into her bed. She tries to wait for Hobie but it’s a losing fight against the heaviness of her lids. She feels the weight shift as he gets under the covers and she rolls to find his body heat, but she’s already blissfully asleep. The last coherent thing she can remember is his arms slotting around her waist.

The next shift she has isn’t until that following Tuesday. It’s one of their slowest nights and honestly, they tend to only keep one bartender on.

She’s alone behind the bar, with one waiter and maybe about twenty patrons. It’s been a very slow night.

It’s around one in the morning and she needs to take out the trash behind the bar. She ties it all up, tells Mark, the waiter on shift, she’ll be right back.

Once she’s out back by the dumpster, she has that sinking feeling again. Like she’s being watched…or hunted.

She tosses the trash into the dumpster and before she can even turn around to look at her surroundings, she hears screaming and sees people running out of the pub. She doesn’t get a chance to see what’s happening before the pub explodes.

The explosion sends her across the pavement, rolling and debris falling on her. Everything hurts, searing pain goes down her body and she feels like she’s spinning. She can’t hear anything besides the ringing in her ears. She tries to open her eyes, but all she sees is smoke and fire.

She doesn’t even know where she is in comparison. The pub seems so far away, but too close at the same time.

She needs to push herself up, she has to get out, she’ll suffocate from the smoke if she doesn’t.

Her body barely moves and the burning pain that shoots up her right leg tells her it’s broken. She looks down and sees a large chunk of the brick wall is on her right leg. She squeezes her eyes shut and tries to think, but everything is spinning behind her eyes and she thinks she’s going to vomit from it all.

First things first, she has to at least pry herself out from under the wall debris.

She manages to sit herself upright and starts lifting what she can. It’s not as if the whole wall fell on her, but it’s big enough that her arms are shaking. She’s able to lift enough to shimmy herself out, but it hurts so much she’s sobbing. Once her broken leg is far enough away she drops the wall back down roughly and she falls flat on her back. Taking in deep breathes.

There’s still smoke everywhere and she needs to try to crawl away.

She sees yellow and green lights fly above her, quick and speedy and not normal street lights. She would know those lights anywhere. It was the bottom of the Goblin’s glider.

Suddenly she’s being swooped up off the ground and is flung in the air. She thinks it’s Hobie for a moment, but when she can finally open her eyes she’s staring at the mask of the Goblin.

“What-” she tries to talk but the smoke filled in her lungs makes her hack like crazy.

The Goblin jostles her and she shrieks, they cackle in response.

She struggles against them, shoving herself and trying to kick with her one good leg. “Let me go!” She spits out trying to shimmy herself away.

The Goblin’s flying on their glider faster than Hobie swings her above the city. Maybe this wasn’t her best idea, but it had to be better than being kidnapped.

“You’ll get put down, eventually.” They say in a clipped tone that makes her feel like they are talking about putting down an animal instead. It sends a shudder down her back.

She’s starting to panic and she has no idea where she even is. Suddenly the glider has a force pulling on it, and it almost sends her flying towards the ground. The Goblin’s grip on her is tight, almost bruising.

She tries to look for the source but she hears it before she sees it.

“Kidnapping now? That’s how low you’ve stooped?” It’s Hobie. His words might be the usual light joking tease he pulls when he fights, but the way he says it isn’t. His voice is hard and short.

He’s angry, in fact, she doesn’t know if she’s ever heard this tone in his voice.

“Looks like the Spider found it’s bait!” The Goblin cackles out, easily cutting away the webs to fly above.

“If you want her you better cast your web Spider-Man! The clocks ticking.” The Goblin goads him. He flies off and in the distance, MJ can see it.

It’s the Old York clock tower. It’s the highest structure in the city. Suddenly she feels her stomach drops. She shivers and the adrenaline shoots through her. Out of all the things she thought would happen today, being tossed off a clock tower like a rag doll wasn’t on it.

She starts to thrash against the Goblin but they just tighten their grip, and MJ feels the pain shoot through her broken leg. She cries out in pain.

“Mariana!” She hears Hobie shout for her, voice loud.

The Goblin flies to the top of the clock tower and hovers, waiting. Hobie lands on the tower, sticking to the side and glares up.

She feels the Goblin move her and dangle her above the city. “I’m tired of these games we play Spider-Man, and I’m getting tired of your little friend either interfering with my other chess pieces or almost killing me.” They hiss out.

MJ is clawing onto the arms of the Goblin tightly, she’s never been more afraid than in this moment. She bites back a sob.

“Not so brave now are you? You little brat!” the Goblin yells pulling her up to their face.

“Leave her alone, she has nothin’ to do with me! She’s just a random woman.” Hobie growls out, trying to dissuade the Goblin from doing anything drastic.

“Oh please, she’s important to you. You think you’re so smart, the both of you.” They say glaring down at MJ.

“You sent me to the hospital… I almost died because of that little flare gun stunt you pulled. You didn’t think I could see you, in the smoke, right? I made the tech on this suit, of course it can see through smog and smoke! I saw every little detail on your face little girl…and I’ll see your fear when I end your life.” They snarl to her.

Hobie tries to move to grab her, but the Goblin whips their head to look at him, releasing one hand from her to hover over the bombs on their belt.

MJ looks at the Goblin, and her own stubbornness might be the death of her but she doesn’t care, she’s more angry than scared right now. A fierce glare covers her face, replacing any other emotion. She sees the bombs that the Goblin’s hand hovers over on the utility belt and she gets an idea, it’s stupid, but it’s better than nothing. She erratically flings herself, to grab for one of the bombs on the Goblin’s belt and because their only gripping onto her with one hand, she succeeds surprisingly.

“I’m not afraid of a monster who hides behind a stupid goblin mask and bombs… and for the record, maybe don’t carry all your bombs underneath your glider where it’s an easy target.” She bites out. She hits the button to activate the bomb.

The Goblin, either in fear or shock, loosens their grip and drops her. It’s what she wants. She throws the bomb up, and it contacts the bottom of the glider. This time, a much bigger explosion than what her flare gun had set off.

She feels herself falling, she can’t see much beyond the smoke. She feels a little dumb in maybe her last moments, she thinks maybe her life should be flashing before her eyes but it’s not.

All she can really think about… is Hobie.

Beyond the smoke, she sees something falling towards her. She can’t make it out but it’s coming towards her quickly. She hopes its not the glider, she can’t dodge that in the air and she’d rather gravity be her demise than anything from the Goblin.

It’s not though, it’s Hobie. She sees his Spider-Man mask first as he falls towards her. Arms stretched out to grab her.

She laughs, it’s not funny, she’s just hysterical right now. She reaches toward him. Her barrels into her, wrapping his body around her tightly. She clings her arms to him, and feels the momentum of them falling together.

He keeps a good grip on her and shoots out a web, hurling them somewhere else.

She really might puke, she probably will once this is all over.

Hobie takes his time, swinging them and shooting different webs to slow down their momentum until their both safe on the ground. He lays her down, holding her head.

“What the actual fuck is wrong with you?!” He says in a clipped tone, but she can hear the fear behind his voice.

She’s breathing heavily, trying to calm down her own heart rate. “I… I need a hospital.” She says before turning away from him and vomiting on the street.

He picks her up gently when she’s done and goes in the direction of the nearest hospital, which thankfully isn’t far.

“What were you thinking? You could have died Mariana…” He hisses out to her, voice shaking.

She shakes her head, “They blew up the pub Hobie…they were trying to kill me…I was just taking them out with me.” She replies, voice raw and quiet.

“Fuck, Mariana…” He whispers to her. He’s looking ahead, he can’t look at her right now or he’ll crack. She can feel him shaking.

“It’s okay, I’m okay…we’re okay.” She tells him.

He’s shaking his head aggressively. “It’s not okay, none of this is okay. You almost died because of me.” He says in a tight voice.

He makes it to the hospital and rushes in, immediately the A&E staff are up and rushing over to them. He hands Mariana over to them. She starts to shove the workers away from her, this conversation isn’t over.

“Don’t you dare push me away because of this! Do you hear me?!” she shouts after him, as she is being dragged away to a room to be looked at.

“I’m serious! You promised!” She disappears behind the doors and the last thing she sees is Hobie flinch at her words.

The nurses that surround her are actively looking and prodding her, she cries as they touch her broken leg, and in the midst of everything the adrenaline stops and the exhaustion takes over.

Suddenly the world goes black.

Tag List: @missshelleyduvall

Message if you would like to be added to the tag list!

#hobie brown #hobie brown x oc #hobie brown x reader #hobie x reader #hobie x oc #mary jane watson #mary jane oc #hobie atsv #atsv #across the spiderverse #across the spider verse fanart #my art #spiderpunk #spider punk

[coloradohq]

+6 connections have been added.

RHETT LANCASTER (TIMOTHY OLYPHANT) is looking for FORMER TOUR MANAGER. they’d like the faceclaim to possibly be someone along the lines of BENJAMIN BRATT, JACK BLACK, or UTP, but you must reach out to AETHERFMS to find out more! (+ This would have been Rhett’s right hand person for YEARS like they wore a lot of different hats in the past but I imagine they’re someone that got him hooked years ago when he first took off and started touring, then was there the rest of the way. They could still be a potential bad influence on him if they come back to Denver, wanting there to be another tour with another band or an old band, etc. for a variety of reasons. They could be in it for the money, for the fame, for anything really to where they might miss the high of being on tour and running a band that’s taking the charts by storm. There’s a lot to plot here with a lot of potential for past angst and drama that could be stirred back up in the present with their arrival in Denver. )

RHETT LANCASTER (TIMOTHY OLYPHANT) is looking for YOUNGER SISTER. they’d like the faceclaim to possibly be someone along the lines of UTP BETWEEN 40-50, but you must reach out to AETHERFMS to find out more! (+ I’ve talked about his brother being the one that he’s staying with and has reluctantly let him stay with them, but they both have a younger sister that resides here as well. The family settled here while Rhett did no such thing. We can plot about how they feel about each other; if she isn’t happy that he’s back after all these years and still hasn’t settled down or has been the one to foot many of his rehab bills over the years, or is happy that he’s back and sober and ready to support. There’s a lot of ways to plot this connection! They would be the baby of the trio while Rhett is the oldest. )

RHETT LANCASTER (TIMOTHY OLYPHANT) is looking for GHOST WRITER. they’d like the faceclaim to possibly be someone along the lines of CHRISTINA RICCI, JACOB ANDERSON, SENDHIL RAMAMURTHY, ER FIGHTMASTER, WILL SHARPE, or UTP, but you must reach out to AETHERFMS to find out more! (+ This is Rhett’s attempt at holding onto his fifteen minutes of fame by hiring a ghost writer for his memoir while he’s based in Denver but knowing Rhett, it’s going to be a full time position where it’s going to entail a lot more than simply writing out his life on paper. They’re going to be chasing after him, trying to differentiate between fact and fiction, and then also be someone that he relies on for daily tasks as well even with constant reminders that they’re not his personal assistant. But he pays well, and he has some amazing stories to share, but he’s an asshole to keep up with so it’s a tough job for whoever wants it. And I’m very down for plotting it out more! )

CHANCE MONROE (MASON GOODING) is looking for 3 or 4 BAND MEMBERS (2 taken). they’d like the faceclaim to possibly be someone along the lines of UTP, but you must reach out to AETHERFMS to find out more! (+ Chance is the bassist and has been for some time now, but there are openings for others in the band that was started a few years ago. They play smaller venues around Denver, along with pubs/clubs but they’re working to make their big break as they are more like a family between the four/five of them. There’s nothing they wouldn’t do for each other but it’s UTP how they came to join the band, how they feel about each other, etc. I’m always open to plotting it out more since Chance is only one part of this band. )

CHANCE MONROE (MASON GOODING) is looking for BIOLOGICAL SISTER. they’d like the faceclaim to possibly be someone along the lines of JASMIN SAVOY BROWN, GRETA ONIEOGOU, or UTP, but you must reach out to AETHERFMS to find out more! (+ This connection is flexible as to how new they are to being back in each other’s lives after being separated in foster care when Chance was 9. I did envision them as the younger sibling, who always looked up to him about looking out for them both and it’s UTP as to how they feel now with them being in the same place again, but it is flexible if they’re the same age or older where he could have felt responsible about their separation. It’s also flexible and something we can plot out more as to what happened to your character over the years before them ending up in Denver together.)

CHANCE MONROE (MASON GOODING) & EMILY KNIGHT (Olivia Holt) are looking for THEIR ADOPTIVE PARENTS. they’d like the faceclaim to possibly be someone along the lines of UTP, but you must reach out to AETHERFMS/EMUKNIGHT to find out more! (they were the couple that took in fourteen year old chance and ten year old Emily and gave them a home, a family, and love to which they appreciate especially with how hard they worked to push him to not only finish school but also help push him to keep going and get his degree. emily was a tough nut to crack when she was first adopted, their first and having been their only for the next three years before she realized they wouldn’t abandon her. they might have been tough love, but there’s a lot of room for people to play with like whether they are still together or not, what they do, what they’re like, etc. )

#oc rp #city rp #town rp #appless rp #active rp #wanted.

[tonkieye]

Funny never have i ever questions

#Funny never have i ever questions full#

#Funny never have i ever questions free#

Needing a shower and showing up to a date worked for Maverick. Never have I ever smelled bad when on my dates Sometimes Blake Shelton just needs to know what I'm thinking about. Never have I ever written a fan letter to a celebrity. If you have, there's a good chance you're not waiting on that Nigerian wire transfer. Never have I ever tried to contact someone under a false identity

#Funny never have i ever questions free#

I mean, isn't free copier paper half the reason for going to work? 63. Never have I ever stolen something from work. Never have I ever slept completely naked.įollow up question, what's your thread count? 62. Here are 13 weird never have I ever questions 18+: 61. Here are some weird questions to ask that should kind of come out of left field, prompt some laughter, hurt some feelings, and require a stock up run to the liquor store. Now that you've got the game kicked into high gear, it's time to get weird with it. Is there a cool selfie? Stop sending people selfies. Never have I ever sent someone a cool selfie. Never have I ever winked or whistled at someone.Ī much bolder move these days than perhaps it used to be. My guess is it was part of a bar bet that went sideways. Never have I ever tried a cheesy pick-up line on someone. This question just tells you how hardheaded a guy is. Never have I ever had a date with someone I met on an app. Never have I ever given a lift to a stranger while driving alone on a highway.įun fact, if you live in Alaska, this is mandatory. Never have I ever had breakfast in bed.ĭid you make it? Or receive it? 37. Here are 15 never have I ever questions 18+ to ask a guy: 36. Take a look at these questions to ask a guy that will help define their boundaries, tease out some crazy stories, and perhaps, even torpedo them as competition in the game. If not, you're doing it wrong and you need to heed some more of our advice. Now, when playing Never have I Ever, you're going to be in a mixed crowd. Make sure you're on the right side of it. Never have I ever Fallen asleep on the bus and I’ve passed my station.įallen asleep and passed out is a pretty fine line. This one will probably come up again the day after playing never have I ever. Never have I ever lied to my parents about being hung over.

#Funny never have i ever questions full#

This is when the alarm bells should be clanging at full volume. Never have I ever Stop remembering my first love.Īh. Is she that unobservant? Are you that generic? How'd she react? 25. Never have I ever grabbed the wrong person’s hand. Here are 12 never have I ever questions 18+ to ask a girl: 24. Remember, always be closing, so use these questions to ask a girl to fill that pipeline. Kind of like an IRL version of swiping left. Playing Never Have I Ever, in addition to being a fun way to liven up a party, is an excellent fishing expedition for finding dating leads. Never have I ever met up with someone from a dating appĪlso relevant, are you still using a flip phone? Never have I ever partied for more than twenty-four hours solid Never have I ever used the gents in a club because the line for the ladies was too long Never have I ever been kicked out of a pub/club/barīeing 86'd is always a good story. Never have I ever shopliftedĪ little light petty crime never hurt anyone. Never have I ever danced on a barĬhannel your inner Coyote Ugly? 2. Here are the 14 best never have I ever questions 18+: 1. That said, these are the fun ones, so listen up. Pepper them in throughout the game, because if you push these ones too early, without sufficient time having passed, players might not be as forthcoming as you might like. Now you don't need to start the game with these. Let's come out of the gate firing with the 18+ questions.

#Funny never have i ever questions

[edvardsen88doherty]

Prestantiousfiction She Becomes Glamorous After The Engagement Annulment online - Chapter 12 - I'm Alone, I Didn't Gather Anyone kind marry recommendation-p1

Supernacularfiction She Becomes Glamorous After The Engagement Annulment novel - Chapter 12 - I'm Alone, I Didn't Gather Anyone boot offer quote-p1 Novel-She Becomes Glamorous After The Engagement Annulment-She Becomes Glamorous After The Engagement Annulment Chapter 12 - I'm Alone, I Didn't Gather Anyone knife goofy Angela viewed Anthony successfully pass her by to finally cease ahead of Nora. Amazed, Angela screamed, "Aid!" Angela heaved a sigh of relief. Just as she changed absent and was approximately to go out of, a tremendous drive suddenly smacked her from behind and kicked her within the fresh air. Experiencing that they were on the verge of begin, Justin suddenly changed and inserted the club. Smack! He was about to mention a little something, but Angela couldn't manage herself any longer. She screamed, "Anthony!" Angela's eyes purged angrily. "Are you presently actually defending her? Do you really know—" That male certain got a lot of guidelines. It was subsequently impacting her overall performance. The light in the bar was really a little dim, which produced her feel as though she was dreaming. Why experienced Anthony removed as much as the damned fatty? The main nightclub suddenly fell calm for a moment. The circumstance obtained perplexed every person. Angela was already in the panic or anxiety and at a loss at this stage. She glanced at Justin fearfully, looking simply to keep promptly. She reduced her speech and retorted, "What exactly are you losing their mind for? Enable go!" Chapter 12 - I'm By yourself, I Didn't Gather Anybody Angela shouted to every person around her, "What exactly are every one of you will still in a very daze for? Overcome her up! Overcome that woman to passing away!" "…" The entire bar suddenly fell tranquil for a moment. Your situation acquired overwhelmed absolutely everyone. For the sight of a lot of people hurling their day-to-day lives apart, Nora stretched and loosened her muscle mass to warm up. Finding they were getting ready to get started, Justin suddenly switched and inserted the pub. Angela had been able react, even so. "She's tricked you, Anthony! She's tricked us either! She made it happen on function just to get revenge on us and create us a joke!" She slapped Angela ruthlessly across her cheek. When she saw her cheek visibly aggravation, she slowly mentioned, "If you consistently maintain calm, I'll conquer you up so negative you won't even recognise yourself ever again." Seeing that someone was approximately to arrive above, Nora glanced in excess of coldly and asked, "Do you find yourself attempting to accumulate several men and women?" the incomplete poetess summary "Avoid!" Angela's view increased in astonishment as she stared for the picture in disbelief. That damned unhealthy had wrecked her proposition. She despised Nora's guts now. He cleared his tonsils, elevated his chin, and bought, "How dare you battle at Motel Best? Are you presently tired of existing? Get out!" Anthony immediately halted her. That has a sullen appear, he snapped, "How to find you carrying out, Angela? Don't make a arena here just like a shrew." The light during the club was obviously a little bit dim, which made her feel as if she was dreaming. Why experienced Anthony long gone around the damned greasy? Nora, who got only just received into your state of mind to address, lost attraction in an instant. Nora checked up a bit. Her appearance created her look well-behaved and smart. She replied gently, "I'm on their own. I'm not in a very group." He bent down and presented her the red roses in a very gentlemanly fashion. "Skip Anderson, may I had the recognize of becoming close friends along?" Angela reach the dining room table in front and decreased to the ground. She believed just as if all her internal organs had been sore. In the beginning, on consideration of how these people were sisters, in fact, she obtained only desired to know the whereabouts of her son and hadn't intended to make factors so unattractive. But injecting bodily hormones into her when she was only five? This type of grudge possessed extracted all of her restraint. When Nora observed that Angela has also been preparing to leave behind while using herd, a sharp look flashed across Nora's vision. She grabbed Angela's left arm. "Angela, there's something you haven't explained but." Nora didn't assume such a spectacular twist, sometimes. She experienced only attained Anthony double, nevertheless he possessed dumped his future fiancée to woo her? Angela heaved a sigh of comfort. In the same way she made away and was approximately to go out of, an enormous force suddenly struck her from behind and kicked her into your atmosphere. Section 12 - I'm Alone, I Didn't Collect Any one However, on the entrance towards the lobby. She Becomes Glamorous After The Engagement Annulment Angela was already in a freak out and confused after all this. She glanced at Justin fearfully, hoping only to depart quickly. She reduced her speech and retorted, "Exactly what are you losing their mind for? Just let go!"

#ull #stolen in the night

[novamirmirsblog]

Favourite crime pt 2

Natasha Romanoff x reader

Word Count: 2936

Genre: angsty fluff? or fluffy angst 👀

Request: yes

Warnings: swearing, mentions of cheating, slight coercion into sex (it doesn't happen tho)

Part 1 is here

A/n: The long awaited part two is officially here. I had lots of people who wanted the reader to move on, people who wanted them to get back together and people who wanted both. Thank you everyone for your INDECISIVENESS (kidding. ily). Also Emma was a randomly generated name - I'm sorry :3

Did I write this fic instead of sleeping? Yes. I have no regrets.

It had been a year since you moved back home. The seasons had come and gone and with that, so had your thoughts of Natasha. The same could not be said for the assassin. She had spent a blissful 3 months with Bruce before he had dropped off the face of the Earth and she was missing you. By the 5th month, she had stopped moping about and tried to find you. She searched everywhere but your town was large and unfamiliar and you didn’t want to be found.

Natasha both regretted what she had said and didn't. She regretted it because she realised just how much she adored you once she saw all the areas Bruce fell short in. You knew her better than she sometimes knew herself. You knew when to back off and when to put pressure on. You knew when she needed control and when you needed to take control. You knew when she wanted ice cream or when she wanted brownies. Bruce didn't. However, a part of her didn't regret those nasty things she said because she really didn't deserve you. You were everything she wasn’t, and she didn't know how to measure up to you.

She never voiced these concerns and so they festered and grew until she believed the only way out was to cheat. She knew that was the only thing that could drive you away. Natasha had told you all about her past, how she believed the Red Room had stripped her of her humanity – of her choice whether to become a mother. She knew there were other ways to have children - of course there were, but she hated the fact they had taken that option from her.

You were not like Natasha. You voiced your concerns which is why she knew exactly what to say and do to get you to hate her. Your previous boyfriend had cheated on you with your once best friend. You had watched as your father cheated on your mother and how that made her a hollow shell for a while, her never understanding why the man she loved could hurt her in that way. Supposedly, everyone models their future relationships on what their parents’ relationship looked like. Perhaps that’s why you kept choosing the cheaters. You were content with where you were. You had a forest, a busy town, and a beach all within a 15-mile radius of your house. You were far enough from civilisation that you could forget about reality for a while but close enough to occasionally dip back in whenever you wanted to.

You had kept in contact with Tony and Pepper, congratulating them on the arrival of Morgan and insisting that they should visit. You also continued to occasionally talk to Wanda when Carol was off world. Carol was overjoyed when she found out you had started dating someone new.

You had met Emma when you were taking a dip back into reality at the local supermarket. Her blonde hair vaguely reminded you of a woman you used to know, and you guessed that’s why you felt drawn to her. It wasn’t the electrical crackle that stole your breath away like your first meeting with Natasha, but it was something. Emma could occasionally be a little controlling, but you guessed that’s what normal relationships were like. She didn’t like you going to bars or pubs anymore and you certainly weren’t allowed in any clubs. You didn’t mind it too much as you hardly minded giving up a few nights out if it meant you could have something that resembled normalcy.

“Who’s that?” Emma asked, your face illuminated from your phone as the ding rang out.

“A friend. He’s bringing his wife and new baby over tomorrow and was reminding me to baby-proof the house.” You smiled lightly as you texted Tony back. You hadn’t mentioned to Emma that you were an ex-avenger, but it just kept slipping your mind.

“Why didn’t you tell me? Who is he? Where will he be staying?”

“I just forgot. Sorry. He’ll be staying here.”

“But you only have a single bed.”

“Yeah. I was planning to sleep on that and Tony, Pepper and the baby can stay in my room.”

“You mean our room.”

You said nothing, too engrossed in arguing with Tony about how under no circumstances will there be any celery in your house. Apparently, that was the wrong thing to do.

“Our room, right Y/n?”

“Um yeah.” You wave her off was apparently your second mistake, but you didn’t multi-task too well and so half answers were all you were good for while texting.

“I have been your girlfriend for 3 months Y/n. The least you could do is answer me properly and tell me what’s going on in your life.” She huffed, pushing your feet from her lap, and turning to face away from you, all of which you missed. You really weren’t having that evil green vegetable in your house.

“Seriously, what is even so important that you’re ignoring me right now!” Emma’s voice cut through the fog, and you looked at her with a blank expression. It was times like these that you really missed Na- No. You refused to go there. You didn’t miss her. You were over her.

“No celery.”

Emma threw her hands up in the air. “You seriously don’t see what’s wrong, do you?”

“No.” You tilted your head, confused at what your girlfriend was talking about.

“Well, I’m not just going to tell you! Jesus. You should know. I’ll see you tomorrow.” Emma stood up in a huff, making a lot of noise while getting ready to leave.

“Okay – bye” Your attention was bought back to the phone when Tony sent you a cute video of Morgan crawling about, probably as a bribe to get you to buy celery. You stood, watching the video a few times before you shut off your phone, finally getting around to babyproofing your house.

~~~~~

Babyproofing a house was a lot more work than you originally thought. You had spent most the night picking sharp objects up from baby-height areas and making sure you hadn’t left any weapons about. All the guns taped under tables had to be relocated and you found enough change to set you up for retirement. You just hoped and prayed there were no small beads for Morgan to choke on. You didn’t even get around to putting soft corners on the edges of tables and counter tops, but you told yourself that it was survival of the fittest at that point. The whole endeavour had taken most the night which is how you found yourself with only an hour till Tony, Pepper and Morgan arrived.

There was a knock on the door, and you saw that you were 15 minutes late. Luckily your girlfriend had arrived half an hour before so you figured she could let them in. You shouted down, telling her to get the door as you finished putting on your socks.

“Hiya baby!” You cooed at Morgan babbling in Pepper’s arms, watching as her chubby hands reached for your hair, grabbing on with a crazy amount of strength. “Oh my god you’re strong. Pep, are you sure she’s Tony’s? I’m pretty sure she’s as strong as Thor.” You laughed, looking over at Tony. Your face dropped into careful neutrality as you saw the redhead standing behind him.

“Of course she’s mine doofus. We had multiple paternity tests.” Tony winked.

You didn’t know what to do. You weren’t ready. Your throat went dry as you asked if anyone wanted any drinks, your girlfriend waving them into the living room. You prepared the drinks, and you felt a presence behind you, wrapping their arms around your waist, their head resting on your back. You hated it. You felt suffocated. You took a breath and handed half the drinks to Emma, opting to grab a wine glass and fill it with the wine you had been saving for a special occasion. It might not have been a special occasion, but you needed something strong to get though the next few hours and you knew this would do the job.

You made your way back into the living room and Tony gestured to Emma “I don’t think we’ve met yet.”

“I’m Emma.”

“Tony. This is Pepper, Morgan and Natasha.” Your heart dropped at the mention of her name, realising that she wasn’t some cruel hallucination but was in fact standing in your living room.

“Sorry. I forgot to introduce you all.” You smiled and took another large swig from your glass.

“Hey how come you’re the only one with alcohol?”

“Because you’re a parent now.” You rolled your eyes at Tony, feeling Natasha stare holes into your face.

“So I need it even more!” Pepper hit Tony as he said that, causing Morgan to laugh.

“Don’t worry about Y/n getting drunk, she can handle her alcohol pretty well.”

“We know.” Natasha finally spoke. Her voice bought back floods of memories and you realised you missed her voice – just the tiniest amount. “Who exactly are you to Y/n?” To anyone else, the question was flippant, like asking about the weather but you, Tony and Pepper could all hear the carefully laced venom within her words and while the question sounded like it was aimed at your girlfriend, you could tell she was speaking to you.

“Where’s Bruce this fine day?” You shot back, not letting Emma speak.

“My question first.” Natasha finally turned her gaze to focus on you.

“Why are you here?” You felt Emma’s arm slither possessively around your waist. Perhaps if it had been another day, you would have appreciated it but right now, you felt like you were drowning. She held you too tight, you couldn’t move.

“Ah.” Natasha wore a smug look on her face and yet her eyes flashed with hurt. You hated that she had found out information you weren’t willing to give.

“Why are you here Agent Romanoff.” You wanted- no needed her to answer you. You needed to know why she came to you. Then you looked at Tony. “Why would you bring her here?” Your voice was level, Morgan was pulling at your leg to get you to pick her up. You used that as an excuse to escape your girlfriend’s grip.

“We need you back.”

“So you bring your baby to try and bribe me back?” You ran a hand through your hair, lightly bouncing Morgan. “That I can understand but why bring her?” You waved at Natasha, feeling both her and Emma’s eyes bore into you.

“She’s part of the team too and you both need to get on.” Pepper said.

“You were in on this too?” Your throat felt tight. You couldn’t breathe properly.

“I’m sorry but who exactly are you?” Emma asked. Natasha scoffed at her, folding her arms, and rolling her eyes.

Everything was a little too loud and muffled. It felt as if you were underwater. The sun was too bright, and it made everything a little too hard to look at. You could see your furniture, but it wouldn’t stay in your brain long enough for you to fully register it. You placed Morgan on the sofa and took a deep breath, closing your eyes to focus. When you opened them again you looked straight at Natasha.

“I am not going to play nice with you. You broke me and now that I’m moving on you suddenly decide to show up? No. I don’t believe it. Why can’t you just let me be happy? Leave me alone. Besides, I thought I was a ‘fun little distraction’.” You spat at Natasha. You were tired of being the bigger person. She had hurt you and you wanted to watch her bleed. It’s why you leant over and kissed Emma harshly, why you let out a slight moan so Natasha could hear. It didn’t matter that it was completely fake because even though you knew you should feel satisfaction at Natasha’s hurt face, the twinge of sadness upset you more than you would have liked.

Natasha knew the kiss was forced. She knew it was, but it didn’t stop the knife digging deeper into her heart. You had moved on and she had to respect that. She had said some awful things to you, and you really did deserve someone much better than her. You stormed out of the house, saying that you were going for a walk, leaving your girlfriend to entertain your guests.

~~~~~

It was dark by the time you got back. You saw Natasha on the sofa and ignored her as you walked straight to the guest bedroom. All you wanted to do was curl up and sleep this horrible day into the past but unfortunately for you, you had a girlfriend sitting on the bed.

“This bed isn’t big enough for-” Emma cut you off with a rough kiss. “Emma not now-”

“Yes now. I want to remind your ex what she’s missing.” Emma went back to kissing you and you wanted to cry. You didn’t like her possessiveness, didn’t like her jealousy. With Natasha that had been fun but with Emma, it made you feel afraid.

“Emma seriously.” You grabbed her wrist, not letting her reach into your underwear.

Emma huffed and stepped back. “What’s your problem?”

“I’m really tired. Can’t we just sleep?”

“It’s your ex, isn’t it? Why is she even here? I can’t believe you were going to just let her stay here and not tell me!”

“I didn’t know she was coming!” You were both stage whispering, conscious of the fact there was a baby that most likely didn’t sleep all that often.

“Then kick her out!”

You said nothing. You couldn’t just kick her out. That wouldn’t be fair.

“Oh my god you still love her. You still love her and she’s in love with someone else. Or she was. Ha.” Emma let out a bark of laughter. “That’s so fucking rich. You know what, crawl back to her but don’t come crying to me when she fucks you over again do you hear me?”

“Emma that’s not- I don’t love her anymore. I hate her. She ruined my life.”

“You truly hate her?” You nodded at her. “Supposedly, you can only truly hate someone if you loved them first. We’re done Y/n”

“Seriously?! What? Because I used to love Natasha? Because I don’t want to have sex with you? Grow up Emma. I’ve loved people before you and at this rate, I’ll love people after you too. I’m tired. I don’t have to have sex with you. You can’t make me.”

“I’m your girlfriend! You’re supposed to want to have sex with me!”

“Well not when I’ve had a long ass day!”

“Guys, I think you might wake Morgan.” You winced a little at the addition of Natasha. You knew this was going to end badly.

“This is my fucking house!” Emma said, not lowering her tone.

“Actually, it’s Y/n’s.” Natasha calmly stated. She really wasn’t going to rise to the bait.

Your girl- sorry- ex-girlfriend, fumed next to you. “You know what? Have her. She’s so screwed over from whatever you pulled that I don’t think she can love anyone ever again anyway.” Emma seethed, grabbing her shoes, and slamming the door on the way out. The sound of baby Morgan crying echoed through the house.

“I’m sorry.”

“It’s fine.” You ran your hand over your face, the exhaustion of the whole day catching up with you.

“No, it’s not. I betrayed your trust over the one thing I knew you couldn’t tolerate. I knew how hurtful cheating is to you and I did it anyway. I know it’s not an excuse, but I guess I just felt like you deserved someone more than me. Someone better.”

You said nothing. You were so so tired. You missed her and it ached, but you couldn’t forget what she had done. “I can’t trust you anymore.”

“I know but please let me try again. Bruce wasn’t worth it. He only made me realise how much I love you.” Tears were filling up Natasha’s beautiful eyes and you could see just how tired she looked.

“I missed you.” You whispered out, not wanting to break whatever was being formed

“I missed you too. So so much.”

“I can’t forgive you. Not yet, but…you can have one more chance Natasha. That’s it. You get one chance at my forgiveness.”

“Okay!” Natasha sniffled slightly “I promise I won’t mess this up.”

“I’m serious Natasha. One chance. I don’t play baseball. There are no three strikes.”

Natasha gingerly reached up to cup your face. “I won’t waste this.”

“Good because I never really stopped loving you and I’d hate to be a simp.”

“I think it’s a little too late for that dove.” Natasha let out a watery laugh.

“Excuse me?” You let out a fake gasp and wiped some of the tears from her cheeks.

“It’s okay, I’ll tell you a secret.” Natasha ushered you to lean closer and you did, she tucked a strand of hair behind your ear and whispered, “I’ve been whipped for you for as long as I can remember.”

You were looking forward to all the ways Natasha was going to make it up to you and hopefully, you’d get to give Bruce a good punch too. You both knew it was going to be a long road ahead but you both felt a little more ready for what lies next.

#natasha romanoff imagine #natasha romanoff x you #natasha romanoff fluff #natasha x you #natasha romanov x reader #natasha x y/n #natasha romanoff #natasha romanoff x reader #natasha romanov #natasha x reader #Tony stark #natasha mcu #mcu imagine #natasha imagine #natasha romanoff imagines #natalia alianovna romanova #pepper potts

[idkthisisjustforfanfic]

too soon to tell, chapter s e v e n

December 2013

Harry felt like the tables had turned. When he pushed the door open to the Red Lion pub, his heart was pounding in his chest with nerves so high he would have thought he was about to take the stage in front of all his musical heroes and then some.

He wasn’t used to being nervous anymore. In fact, he was typically the calm one and everyone else was excited and stammering and had hands shaking with anticipation. He shrugged out of his jacket and wondered how much of a wanker he was for feeling more at ease when everyone else was nervous to see him.

The fresh coat of snow in Holmes Chapel had made the roads slick, the winter air was a good excuse for the heat he felt rush to his cheeks when he saw them all at a booth in the corner--but especially her.

It was a new feeling, one that seemed to grow each time he saw a post on instagram about her uni adventures or heard what she was up to from his mum or the other women in her book club. Tidbits here and there from Mrs. Northcut--who lived down the street and worked with Y/N’s mum--had Harry lingering in the kitchen or offering to put on the kettle whenever his mum had friends over.

In all honesty, Harry was nervous about seeing them, period. Sure, maybe there was a new swarm of butterflies in his stomach when Y/N was around that made him feel like a schoolgirl with a crush, but he wasn’t stupid: he knew he wasn’t good at keeping in touch and he knew he was going to hear about it.

“Hello, hello!” Jessie saw him first, stood to wrap her arms around him as Jake hurled an insult.

“Nice of you to join us, wanker!”

“Sorry m’late--my sister had the car.”

“In a band with platinum albums, but shares a car with his sister when he’s home for the holidays,” Bryn pulled a face but still squeezed him tight.

“Hey--I texted! I gave a fair warning!”

“You could text for this but not when my gran died, I see how it is,” Adam shoved Harry with an elbow and moved out of the way so Y/N could sneak by.

“Maybe one day when we meet up it won’t start with the reminders of how much I suck--”

“Maybe one day you’ll stop sucking and we won’t need to remind you,” Y/N retorted when she opened her arms to greet him.

Harry liked tugging her into him, keenly aware of how her shoulders were the perfect height for his arms to wrap around. She pulled back and looked up at him with an apologetic but smug smile, knowing her comeback had been spot on.

“Touche,” he admitted.

���Alright, alright, have a seat,” Jake pulled out a chair when they all filed back into the booth. “How’s being home?”

“Good,” Harry nodded. “Much needed. Nice to get a break before we hit the road for a tour in the spring. But how’s everything here--and in London? Everyone’s good?”

“We’re not rockstars but we got to class and work and do boring normal people things,” Jessie smiled.

They took turns like that, went around sharing their updates and catching each other (or, really, Harry) up on their lives and clinking their drinks against each other every time someone ordered another round.

Harry felt comfortable, always pleased by how easily he fit back into their puzzle like he’d never really left. At least, that’s how he hoped it felt.

Eventually they ordered food and stole chips from each other's plates like they’d long been doing, Adam humble-bragged about an internship and that’s when someone let it slip.

“Don’t know what’s more surprising,” Jake pointed at Adam. “The fact that you’re the first one of us who’s climbing the corporate ladder, or the fact that Y/N finally has a boyfriend.”

“Oh piss off,” she gave Jake the finger and leaned back in the booth. “You’re jealous because you haven’t gotten laid in almost a year.”

“Oi, don’t rat me out like that in front of my friends,” Jake leaned forward and lowered his voice for comedic relief.

“You have a boyfriend?” Harry looked at Y/N, his hands suddenly felt clammy under the table.

“Sure does,” Bryn answered. “He’s proper fit too, name is Charlie.”

Y/N rolled her eyes at Bryn’s words but then looked over to Harry. “He’s nice--we literally just started dating a few weeks ago.”

“M’sorry,” Jessie smiled, “wasn’t yesterday your 17 day anniversary?”

She was embarrassed by that, wiped her mouth with a napkin. “Oi, will you come off it? He was just kidding when he said that.”

“We’re just happy for you,” Adam nodded. “And happy that we don’t have to hear how badly you want a boyfriend.”

They all let out a laugh at that, even Y/N managed to let one slip through with an eye roll. Bryn eventually tugged her away to the bar, if I don’t switch to beer now I’ll be puking like Harry did on the train to London in Year 10.

Harry hadn’t meant to follow her across the room with his eyes, the way her hair swayed behind her back, the way her head tilted to the side when Bryn made a joke and they waited for the bartender to pass their drinks across the counter.

“You okay?” Jake’s eyes were narrowed as he watched Harry, a smirk tugged at his lips when Harry cleared his throat and looked over to Jessie and Adam, still sipping their cocktails.

“Yeah, sorry--tired, a little jet-lagged still. Did, uh--have any of you met Charlie?”

“Yeah,” Jessie shrugged. “He’s fine enough, kind of daft, but--she’s happy.”

Harry fiddled with the straw wrapper in between his fingers, head tilted to the side. “Is she?”

Jake and Jessie looked at each other, Adam leaned back in his chair when his eyebrows arched. Somehow, apparently, they were all thinking the same thing.

“Do you--are you asking because you’ve got feelings for Y/N?”

“What?” Harry pulled his head back at Adam’s question--had he really been that obvious? “No--I mean, I dunno, she’s got a boyfriend. M’just curious.”

Jessie sighed and offered a small smile, but Harry noticed the tinge of sadness in her eyes when she admitted: “she really likes him, H. She’s had a rough few years in the love life department, to be honest.”

“I think he’s good for her,” Jake shrugged, the corners of his mouth turned up slightly to soften the blow.

“No, yeah, I get it,” Harry took a swig of the beer in his glass, let his eyes flutter back to Y/N at the bar. The growing curiosity about the girl from his hometown was likely a silly case of the what ifs--what if Harry hadn’t left? What if he went to uni like the rest of them? Would he be the one that Y/N was giggling about in pubs?

He pushed the thought out of his mind like he’d been doing so often lately and reminded himself that in just a few years, all of his dreams had come true. Sure, maybe there were questions or curiosity about what could have been, but that night as Harry laid in bed and waited for sleep, he realized he was too late. So instead of focusing on that, he tried to focus on everything that had gone right.

**

October brought a crispness to the air that still caught you by surprise, leaves crunched beneath your boots and London glowed with an autumn afternoon. You officially had three days under your belt as an On-Air Correspondent for E! News and a pep in your step as you made your way back from the cafe on the corner.

You were due on-site for an evening assignment near Buckingham Palace at 5pm, so with your phone and laptop tucked in your bag, you headed back to the office for hair and makeup in order to be ready when Reed--the cameraman on the assignment--arrived at your office for departure.

The revolving doors danced into motion as you approached, the lobby of the tall skyscraper downtown was peppered with indoor plants and leather couches. You flashed your badge and smiled at the person behind the security desk, pushed through the turnstile and waited for the lift to ding in arrival.

It was one of those moments where you should have felt it coming, you’d been feeling cheery enough over the last few days that it should have been easy to guess that something would pull you back down to earth.

The doors to the lift parted and he looked just as surprised as you did--mouth slightly ajar as if he forgot how to speak. The woman beside him paused, looked to you and offered a questioning smile.

This jerked him into motion. “Hi--Y/N, hi.”

You stared up at him, cleared your throat and forced a smile at the woman, no clue who she was. “Hi--what are you doing here?”

“BBC Radio’s on the seventh and eight floors,” he explained. “What are you doing here?”

“Oh,” you nodded, remembering your words to Bryn and Jessie only two weeks earlier. I’ll tell him about the new job. Had they really chosen now to stop gossiping and take your requests seriously? You reached for your badge and awkwardly held it up. “I work for E! News,” you told him. “Tenth through twelfth floors.”

His face faltered a bit but he rebounded well. “Wow--uh, sorry,” he turned suddenly to the blonde-haired woman in a navy dress. “Y/N, this is Wendy Schaefer, she produces the Breakfast Show, Wendy, this is Y/N L/N. She’s--we grew up together. She’s a friend from home.”

“Nice to meet you,” you extended a hand, forced a grin to hide the way his words stung. Just like that, he’d reduced you to a blip on the radar, a chapter of his life that was no longer present tense.

His hair looked shorter, you nodded as Wendy greeted you and made small talk about the office building you shared. His hands were in his pockets, dress pants and a colorful shirt transformed him into the version of himself you’d grown accustomed to a long time ago.

Distant, professional, poised, polite. Harry at an arm’s length, Harry who you’d sooner see on the telly or in a magazine--not the one who fell asleep on your couch or kept a change of clothes in the drawer on the top right.

“I’ll see you ‘round, yeah?” Harry said casually, like bumping into each other in public didn’t feel uncomfortable or awkward. You swallowed, nodded, muttered a farewell to Wendy and hurried into the elevator to catch your breath.

Why did it throw you for such a loop? You were the one who broke up with him--not the other way around.

Maybe it was the uptick in tweets and headlines lately. Jeffrey had put out the statement and your direct messages were immediately flooded with questions: What? Why? How? When?

The entire world seemed to be questioning why you broke up, and as much as you hated to admit it, the questions swirled around in your head whenever you tried to outrun them. Was it the right choice?

Things with Harry had gone downhill, that was a fact. You felt distant and unsure of the next step and the cherry on top of all of that was learning that all your friends were more dishonest than you thought.

But here they were, now, not telling Harry about your new job and somehow doing exactly what you’d asked of them, and it only seemed to bother you more. Now when you walked in the room and Jake and Adam were talking about him, they easily changed the topic and quietly shifted gears to hold their healthy boundaries.

You’d gotten what you wanted, but it only made you feel more disconnected from Harry than ever before.

On Thursday night that week when Bryn cancelled dinner because of a date, you found yourself typing up another draft of the Gigi feature when Jake and Adam did exactly what they’d been doing.

“Oi--did you hear that Harry’s booking tour dates for next summer? Said we could go out to California with him if we--”

Adam seemed to make a face when you looked up from your laptop, Jake trailed off and they both seemed frozen.

“You’re allowed to talk about him,” you said with a shrug of your shoulders, eyes back to your screen as you typed.

“Yeah, but--” Adam didn’t seem to have much to say, his eyes landed on your face when you watched him expectantly.

“But?”

“S’weird--you’re both so…” he looked to Jake for help.

“Weird,” Jake nodded.

You readjusted, pulled your knees up to your chest. Apparently this conversation was happening.

“What are you on about?”

“Well, you both do this thing where you act like you don’t care when we talk about the other but then you both ask these weird questions, pretending like you’re not really invested in the answer but we all know you are.”

“He’s asking about me?”

Jake lifted his beer in the air and motioned towards you. “We rest our case.”

You rolled your eyes. “Well maybe it’s because you lot are always so dramatic, trailing off mid-sentence whenever you mention him. Harry said…” you dropped your voice an octave to mock them.

“Hey, s’hard to figure this out for us too. Our two best friends break up and you both act like you don’t care and like you can just be friends but when you’re in the same room it’s obvious that you’re both still in love with each other--”

Jake smacked Adam in the chest and you let out a scoff from across the room.

“We’re not still in love with each other.”

Adam pushed, “you don’t love him? You’re really going to try to sell us that rubbish?”

“Can we not do this?” Jake looked between the two of you, pleading.

“I don’t even know how to answer that question.”

“It’s a simple question, Y/N,” Adam offered a phony smile. “Do you still have feelings of love for him?”

You let out a huff of air, turned back to your laptop for a second like you were about to ignore him, but your chest was on fire and your eyes stung and you felt a lump in your throat. You couldn’t shake the thought of him since you ran into him, couldn’t ignore the headlines that were blowing up now that the news had officially been broken and, after all, your heart was too.

“Fuck’s sake, Adam, you made her cry.”

“M’not crying,” you said.

“Tears on your face typically come from crying--”

“Of course I love him!” You turned to see them again, wiping at your eyes quickly. “Do you think I wanted to break up with him? Do you think I wanted to end it? I mean--a part of me did but most of me didn’t! But it wasn’t going anywhere and we hadn’t even talked about moving in together and he’d never even mentioned getting married or anything like that. I would have preferred that we stayed together and actually moved forward but it didn’t seem like it was going to happen.”

They were both caught off guard, Adam’s eyes were wide and Jake’s lips were parted like he couldn’t form words if he tried.

“So of course I love him, but love isn’t enough sometimes.”

A moment of silence, you let out a shaky breath and Jake took a sip of his beer.

“S’deep.”

Adam rolled his eyes. “Why didn’t you try to talk to him about it more?”

“I did try, Adam! He got mad at me whenever I brought up my feelings and he sucks at communicating. And then I found out he lied, and Jessie lied, and you two twats did too, if you forgot.”

Again, you found anger bubbling inside of you as you explained the feelings that shipwrecked your relationship. If it wasn’t any of their business, why did you always explain yourself?

They could sense your frustration, Jake stood from the couch and came to put his hands on your shoulders. “We don’t mean to get you all riled up. We love you.”

“I know,” you nodded, swallowing the emotion.

“And besides, Harry’s not a words guy.”

You both turned to look at Adam, who now typed out a text on his phone. When he noticed all eyes on him, he cocked his head to the side: “what?”

“Not a words guy?” You asked. “He writes bloody songs for a living.”

“Yeah but--he’s better with action. Words are not his love language,” he let out a laugh as if what he was saying was obvious.

Jake walked back towards the couch and sat.

“I’m lost,” you admitted.

“Y/N,” Adam sat up and looked straight at you. “Remember your trip to LA with Harry when you wrote the feature for your old job?”

“Yeah,” you looked at him through narrow eyes, unsure where he was going with it.

“You said something to me on the phone, once, that made me think about that trip of yours. You said it took him forever to admit that he had feelings for you.”

“It did,” you reminded. “Years--almost a decade.”

“Okay,” he held up a hand to cut you off. “You’re missing the point.”

“What’s your point?”

“He wasn’t telling you how he felt because he was trying to show it,” he widened his eyes and stuck his chin out. “You always got so upset with him when he wouldn’t text on our birthdays or say that he missed us, but when he came home he got us amazing gifts or paid for our hotels in London to come see his show.”

“Money doesn’t buy love, Adam.”

“No--but acts of kindness are a way of showing it. Gift giving--that’s a thing. Haven’t you read those books our mums are always on about?”

“What books?” Jake asked, equally as confused.

“The love languages shit!” he held his palms to the ceiling, flabbergasted at the lack of emotional intelligence in the room. “It’s not shit, actually--s’quite good. Harry just doesn’t have the love language you want.”

You hesitated for a moment, thought back to the trip to LA and the time in New York, the way he’d send Roger to come get you, the flowers he’d bring home when he was away for a few days.

When you moved back to London and settled into a new routine, anxieties ramped up when you noticed the absence of certain words: marriage, moving in, future.

Had you been missing the subtle but certain proof that you and Harry were moving forward despite the lack of language to articulate it?

He spent that first Christmas at your parents’ house, always offered to bring you on the road when he’d travel for work. He kept your favorite tea at his house and he always left your toothbrush in the holder beside his, no matter how long it had been since you’d last stayed over.

He didn’t shy away from mentioning you in interviews when his love life came up. He bragged about your accomplishments to his friends and included you in decisions about redecorating his house and gave you access to his Google calendar.

“Shit,” Jake broke the silence, pulling your eyes over to the two of them, still sat on your sofa as rain splattered against the windows.

“Shit what?” You asked.

He sighed, lifted one shoulder as if to apologize in advance. “He’s right.”

“‘Course I’m right,” Adam said simply. “Just because he wasn’t communicating it in the way you wanted him to doesn’t mean he didn’t love you.”

**

You stared at your phone on the table in front of you, the same picture lit up the screen with his name up top. You’d only gotten the text from Naomi a few minutes earlier, pulled up the feature on The Face’s website, read through it four times even though you wrote it.

The buzzing mocked you: too afraid to pick up? Can’t face the music? Regretting all of your decisions?

Your thumb slid across the glass and Adam’s words from a few nights before echoed in your tiny flat: He’s not much for words of affirmation. His language is gift giving, you just have to know what his love language is.

“Hello?”

“Hi--uh--s’me.”

“Hi,” you said. “I just saw that it went live.”

“Yeah--only a few changes from the last draft.”

You’d sent it to Jeff only 48-hours earlier, cc’ed Harry as if an email didn’t feel cold and distant.

“Apparently Donna doesn’t think I’m too shit at my job,” you joked.

He let out a timid laugh, maybe he also felt the shift between the two of you when you said:

“I wouldn’t have actually written something that made you out to be a twat.”

“I know,” he said.

You wondered if he knew it, what Adam had told you. Was Harry aware that while words weren’t always his strong suit, he did his best to show you how he felt? Were they having the same conversations with him?

The pit in your stomach that you felt last week when you saw him in the lobby had only grown since then. Now it was the size of an apple rather than a walnut, and when he cleared his throat, you almost wanted to tell him that you missed him.

“Well, I--I’ll let you go. Just wanted to let you know it’s up.”

You scrunched your nose a little. It was your feature. Of course you knew when it was set to be posted when it’d go out in print.

“Okay.”

“I’ll see you next week maybe, Thursday?”

“Yeah,” you nodded to yourself. “Maybe.”

But you didn’t see him on Thursday. Held up in a meeting, was all he’d sent in a text to the group when Jessie groaned and ordered a second glass of wine.

“How obnoxious,” she rolled her eyes.

“I was in the middle of the story!”

“We’re listening,” you nodded at Bryn, ignoring Jessie’s theatrics.

“You’re not bothered by him waiting until now to tell us he’s not coming? We’ve been waiting to order for almost thirty minutes!” Jessie leaned forward on the table.

“No, Jess--s’not a big deal.”

She narrowed her eyes at you, scanned your face like she didn’t believe your words.

Bryn launched back in: “Anyway--so, I didn’t know if I should because the second date’s a little quick, but I kissed her and she said she had a great time.”

“Of course she had a great time,” you reached over to pat your friend on the arm. “You’re a catch.”

“Gonna bring her round at some point?”

“‘Round you shits?” Bryn laughed and took a sip of her cocktail. “Maybe.”

“You should bring her to the party at Harry’s,” Adam suggested.

Your brow furrowed and you could feel them all look at you.

“He’ll invite you,” Jake reassured. “He just brought it up the other day.”

“To everyone but me?”

“No,” Adam shook his head, turned to Jessie. “Did you know about it?”

She looked from you to Bryn and then to the boys, guilt on her face. “Yeah.”

Your heart sunk a little when you reached for your glass of wine. “S’fine--he doesn’t have to invite me to everything.”

“Yes he does,” Jessie said quickly. “M’not going to a party of his if he doesn’t invite you,” she said. “That’s low.”

“He’ll invite her,” Jake rolled his eyes. “It’s not for another three weeks or something.”

“What’s it for?” You asked.

“Album wrap.”

“He’s done?”

“Almost,” Adam told you. “S’in the final round of mixing he said.”

You nodded--familiar with the process and the words Harry would throw around. Mixing, mastering, he’d play you the same song three different times and promise they were all different. One has a background vocal after the second verse, one has louder drums, the other has a different effect on the vocal.

“You should bring her, Bryn, we’d love to meet her,” you hoped they’d let you change the subject without much fuss.

Of course Jessie didn’t.

“You’re not mad that he’s blowing us off tonight and that he hasn’t invited you yet to his wrap party?”

Jake shifted uncomfortably and you let out a sigh before looking at Jessie. You had two options: lie through your teeth and tell her you didn’t give a damn what Harry did or go out on a limb and offer the truth and transparency that you were hoping for in return.

“Being mad won’t do me any good,” you shrugged. It was true, but it wasn’t total truth and transparency. Bryn sensed it.

“What’s going on?” she asked you, her head pulled back in skepticism when you feigned innocence.

“Nothing,” you shrugged causally.

“Bullshit,” Jake coughed into his drink and then eyed you over the rim.

“Alright, come off it,” Bryn crossed her arms.

You let out a quick sigh, clenched your teeth together as you tried to figure out what to say. You didn’t have to, though, Bryn’s eyes went wide and she leaned forward to touch your arm.

“You miss him?”

“Do you want to get back together with him?” Jessie lowered her voice and leaned forward.

Jake and Adam looked smug, you narrowed your eyes at them both. “You didn’t run back to the group chat to tell everyone what I said the other night?”

“Hey,” Jake lifted his hands in innocence. “We’re minding our own business now.”

You let out a snort of a laugh, Jessie tagged in.

“He’s right, y’know! Just the other day Harry asked if you’d mentioned that you ran into him at work and I didn’t say a single thing to him! Moved right on and changed the subject.”

“So he brought it up?” You looked at her quickly, desperate for a peek inside Harry’s mind.

“None of your business,” she made a face at you, pulling a laugh from the rest of them.

Another sigh, Bryn sipped her drink and Adam offered you a knowing smile.

“I don’t know how I feel right now about it all. I recognize, after a good kick in the arse from Adam, that I...”

They all waited, even Adam, with arched brows and expectant glances.

You backtracked, nervous that your words would get misconstrued or you’d get a lecture. You weren’t in the mood for either of those possibilities.

“Maybe I miss him a bit, I guess.”

Quiet, they looked at each other and you waited for someone to break the silence.

“Nothing? I admit that and you all choose now to not have anything to say?”

“S’not that we don’t have anything to say,” Jake said. “Trust me.”

“Yeah,” Bryn shrugged. “We just know that our meddling never seemed to help. So we’re butting out like you wanted.”

You leaned your head back against the booth and groaned. Yes--what you wanted. You couldn’t forget what a stink you’d made about it and they’d never let you.

And now, armed with a new download of The Five Love Languages on your kindle, a tiny part of you wished one of them would repeat to Harry that maybe, just maybe, you were starting to miss him.

**

Bubbles danced towards the top of the glass, a pale yellow elixir that didn’t work any magic on your mood. You hadn’t really planned on coming.

Naomi and Tyler promised it’d be fun, they’d gotten the second-hand invite from Kira, one of the senior writers at The Face. But now, when Naomi downed another shot and Tyler laughed obnoxiously at the story a cute guy from a BBC podcast was telling, you wished you were in bed with a face mask on.

You hadn’t expected there to be so many people, first of all. A small get together, that’s what it had been billed as. You should have known by now that the celebrity definition of small varied greatly from your own.

A few of your co-workers had mentioned it to you, a journalist’s wet dream, one of them had laughed at the vending machine earlier that week. They must have forgotten, though, that you’d spent plenty of time rubbing elbows with Britain’s big names.

So there you stood, champagne flute in your right hand, phone in your left as you debated feigning illness and calling an Uber. Naomi, who’d now made a new blonde friend, tugged your wrist towards the living room.

“Natalie’s going to show us Roman’s game room!”

You offered a nod in pretend excitement, trailed behind her as if you hadn’t already seen it once when Harry brought you along to party the year before.

Again, maybe you should have felt it coming, a shift in the air or a buzzing in your chest. Instead, you rounded the corner and walked right into his shoulder, wobbling on your feet a bit when he steadied you with a small smile.

“Hey--hi,” he said, eyes flickering to Naomi as she trailed off to play pinball on an antique machine.

“Hi,” you bit out, looking past him to see who he was talking to. A face you recognized, sure you’d met before. “Hi,” you waved. “Nice to see you!”

“You too,” the man smiled, Alex, Bryan? Something like that.

“I was just going with Naomi,” you threw a thumb over your shoulder. Why was he here? He wasn’t in the journalism crowd nor did he have any reason to be showing up at an event that was meant to be on your turf.

“Right, yeah--I’ll see you later, maybe.”

A tight-lipped smile at both of them before you scurried away, blew out a huff of air and noticed that the farther down the hallway you got, the quieter it became and the less overwhelmed you felt. A swig of your drink to shake off the interaction.

The venue tonight might have been his friend’s house, but were you crazy to think that a networking event for young journalists in London would be a Harry-free zone?

Solace in a guest bedroom—dark except for the moon, glowing through the window. Two French doors and a balcony that overlooked the driveway, cool air was relief when you wondered: when would being around him start to hurt less?

“Feels like I’ve seen you more since we broke up than I did when we were together,” you heard his voice behind you, quiet and low when he stepped out onto the balcony.

You let out a sarcastic laugh, finished the last of your drink before shrugging. “You realize that only supports my reasons for ending it, yeah?”

“Yeah,” he admitted, lifting his eyebrows at the truth of it. He turned away from you and looked up to the sky, hands on the railing. “Thanks, by the way, for not telling everyone how much of an arse I am.”

You weren’t quite sure what he was referring to. The Gigi feature, the statement, the tweets that seemed to be circulating the internet saying it was over a long time ago, sexism is everywhere, Harry’s too busy, what really happened?

“When?”

“When I had food poisoning,” he smirked.

“Oh,” you recalled the night, the sadness in his eyes in the bathroom, the way he said we like it still felt natural. “Sure.”

“I know it’s been weird between us, and, uh--sorry, for not trusting you with the feature.”

“Did you read it?”

“I did.”

“And?”

“Thanks for not smearing me?” He phrased it like a question, eyes narrowed like he didn’t know what you wanted from him.

“M’not that much of a twat, Harry.”

“I’m aware,” he rolled his eyes. “Just--you know--didn’t want to be painted like the bad guy.”

“Maybe you should have thought about that more, then.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“If you don’t want to face the consequences of your actions you should think before you act.”

“I don’t want to fight, Y/N.”

“Then why’d you come out here? Every time I see you now it’s like I don’t know who you are. One second you’re nice to me and then one second you’re being a dick.”

He let out a huff and shoved his hands into his pockets. “Kind of hard to figure out what we are now, yeah?”

“I thought we were friends, Harry--isn’t that what the statement said?”

“Now you’re upset about that?”

“I’m upset about all of it!” You admitted, voice tense and emotional. It was true--you were upset about all of it. The way it ended, the way it felt, the uncertainty now of what you were and what it all meant.

He was quiet, dropped your gaze after a few seconds, didn't reply, just nodded and stared off into the night. You were about to leave him there, unsure how to go back to being friends or being strangers or being somewhere in between. It was cold and dark and while you’d certainly needed a minute to gather your thoughts after walking straight into him in Roman’s kitchen, you felt more prepared to face the party and schmooze your way into the hearts of the London journalism crowd.

“Y/N?” You turned at the sound of your name, shoulders stiff and lips parted in shock when you took in the smiling face that stood across from you.

“Hi--oh my God--what are you doing here?”

“I write for BBC Sport now--big upgrade from the Camden New Journal,” he admitted with a shrug.

Harry also turned at the sound of the balcony’s third occupant, though it took him longer to place him. When it registered, you felt his body stiffen beside you and his eyes land on your face as they both waited for you to say something.

“Charlie--uh--Harry, you both remember each other,” you motioned between them, chest suddenly tight with anxiety.

Harry had never been a fan of Charlie, which was something he didn’t make clear until you’d been together for months and saw his post on Twitter about the new job he’d just mentioned. Sure, you didn’t expect Harry to have any sort of pleasant feelings toward Charlie--seeing as most of their interactions had been in the green room at Wembley--but the conceited smirk on Harry’s face now left you almost speechless.

Harry stuck his hand out when Charlie finally dragged his eyes over. “Right, mate, how are you?”

“Good, yeah--crazy running into both of you,” Charlie bit out, an awkward gesture with his hands when he said: “sorry to hear about the break up.”

Harry waited for you to speak, you nodded slowly, unsure of what to say or how to say it or if you should just hurl yourself off the balcony and hope that you didn’t land on one of the nine Teslas you saw parked out front when you’d arrived at Roman’s. Surely they couldn’t all be his.

The only thing worse than running into Charlie at a party was running into Charlie at a party right in the middle of bickering with your now-ex-boyfriend who apparently was just as bothered by the surprise encounter as you were.

“S’actually all a misunderstanding,” Harry said quickly, arm around your shoulders when he forced an awkward shrug. “Yeah, terrible when that happens.”

“Oh,” Charlie nodded, masking the surprise on his face quite well. “Thought I saw something from your camp confirming—“

Harry let out an over dramatic groan. “Ugh! Crazy that magazines take ‘statements,’” he bent his fingers in air quotes, “from anyone, right babe?”

You were frozen, face red with embarrassment when Charlie waited for some kind of reaction from you. All you could manage was a nod.

“That’s great, yeah, glad to hear you’re still--”

“Going strong,” Harry finished for him, another squeeze to your shoulders. “Right, lovie?”

You looked up at him quickly, the pet name made heat rush to your cheeks and a terrible pit form in your stomach.

“Right,” you looked up at him, heartbeat picking up when you felt the warmth of his body against yours.

“Well,” Charlie fumbled a bit, another awkward glance in your direction when you let your left arm wrap around Harry’s waist. “Sorry to interrupt, just wanted to say hi.”

“Hi,” Harry offered him another smug look.

“Hi…” Charlie nodded, almost as perplexed by the exchange as you were. “I’ll uh, see you both later? Good to see you, Y/N.”

You both muttered farewells, watched as Charlie turned on his heel and headed back into the party. Once he disappeared down the hall, you pulled away from Harry.

“You didn’t have to do that,” you said quickly.

“I know,” he shrugged. “Wasn’t about to let him be a twat to you, though.”

“He wouldn’t have been a—”

“He’s a twat, Y/N,” his eyes were disapproving, a knowing look on his face when you let out a sigh.

“Okay, well, I was gonna head out I think.”

“What? Why?”

“Cause I don’t want to be here,” you said honestly. “I’m exhausted and I certainly didn't plan on seeing him--”

He nodded in understanding.

“--or you, for that matter.”

His face faltered, like being categorized alongside Charlie was an insult.

“You’re both my ex-boyfriends,” you reminded, a condescending look in his direction.

“Yes--I got that part,” he laughed, albeit a little briskly. “Just, I dunno, haven’t seen you in a while. Thought it’d be nice to catch up.”

You were quiet for a second, laughter from inside when the song that floated out of the speakers changed. The night was cool--if you hadn’t been so flushed from anxiety, the air would been have been to crisp to stand on the balcony and admire his features in the moonlight.

“Yeah--I mean, we can.”

“Do you want to go get some Thai?”

You rolled your eyes, fought the smile that tugged at the corner of your mouth.

“Nowhere here’s as good as Thai Jasmine.”

“‘Course not,” he agreed, a coy smile. “But there’s a good place over in Hackney.”

He grabbed his coat and keys, you followed him back through the living room and told Naomi and Tyler you’d catch up with them later. They both smiled excitedly when they saw Harry waiting for you by the door. Relax, it’s nothing, he’s just giving me a ride home.

His car purred to life and the passenger seat was too far reclined, you wondered who’d taken your usual spot when he accelerated onto the dark suburban street.

It felt stupid to glance in his direction, wonder what he thought about the fact that you agreed to spend time with him, just the two of you. He eyed you from the driver’s side, smiled a little when he caught you looking.

“Maybe you should just take me home,” you said quickly.

“What? Why?”

“Because, Harry.”

“‘Cause why?”

“Because we broke up,” you said the words like they were news to him, like they’d pop the metaphorical balloon of his heart and like you wanted to watch him deflate. “Because you don’t go on dates with your ex-boyfriend after he lies and tells your other ex-boyfriend that he’s still your boyfriend. I don't think I should reward dishonest behavior.”

He blinked a few times at your rambling, parted his lips but then you spoke.

“You shouldn’t have done that.”

“Lied to Charlie? Why not?”

Your heart ached at the truth--because it felt too natural and too right--so you settled for a watered down version. “Because it felt weird. And lying is wrong.”

He ignored the thinly veiled reference to his own mistakes. “You don’t owe Charlie anything.”

“I never said I did.”

“Well I don’t see why it was a big deal then.”

“I didn’t say it was a big deal, I just said you shouldn’t have done it.”

He let out a frustrated noise, shook his head like you couldn’t see him. He turned on his signal to head in the direction of your neighborhood. “Fine”

“Fine?”

“I’ll take you home.”

join the tag list here | talk to me | the playlist

tag list:

@thurhomish @styles217 @ursamajor603 @mleestiles @determined-overthinker @g0bl1nqueen @hsfics @rubytersteege @sing-me-a-song-harry @unknown7549 @harryspirate @havinaballinthisbitch @annesauriol @tenaciousperfectionunknown @fuck-w-mo @dontgiveupthedayjob @15christyxoxo @daydreamlife4me @msolbesg @somanyfandomsbruh @c-h-e-r-r-y-lips @foreverandaday-1 @mackenzmeme

#harry styles #harry styles fanfic #harry styles fanfiction #harry styles fiction #harry styles fiction writing #harry styles au #harry styles reader insert #harry styles x reader #harry styles x yn #harry styles blurb #harry styles imagine #harry styles story #harry styles fan fiction #harry styles fic #idkthisisjustforfanfic

[amarriageoftrueminds]

I honestly think that Steve's "feelings" for Peggy were more the result of some kind of idealisation rather than a genuine emotional involvement, since you know, she was the first woman to ever pay attention to him and so he probably had this idealised view of their relationship (and that's not what you base a genuine relationship on), but that's just my opinion

‘Nonny, there is no "just" about it.

Your ask could not have come at a better time because I’ve been discussing PC on the twits and was planning on making a post about some of the points raised. 

Viz: the MCU is always telling us things and then NOT showing them, or even showing us things that directly contradict the tell or make it actually impossible.

Characters' statements about themselves, which we then assume are true, unthinkingly, are not actually supported by the same characters’ actions, or by other events that unfold on screen.

Simply put: you cannot just take characters’ words for it. 

So I contend that, if you ignore the things said about Steve and Peggy, and only look at actions, there is in fact little to no basis to believe that Steve had any feelings for her. 

(Living up to the promised dance, for example. 

Well one, he doesn’t. 

Two, he knows that keeping the promise is going to be impossible when he makes the promise, so it’s not a promise; it’s just him paying lip service to Peggy’s crush on him, to appease her and/or use her own words against her to get her to shut up and stop trying to interfere with his plans (the second time he does this in that film). 

Three, even if it was a real promise, we know Steve is an honest man and a man of his word, so him living up to a promise is in no way indicative of some remarkable emotional attachment to the recipient. He would do the same for anyone; that's what makes him such a good man! 

Four, if promising a dance means you’re madly in love with, very close to, and going to marry a person, then Bucky is in a bigamous relationship with the two girls from the Stark Expo.)

Steve Said he would have wanted to date (Someone). 

He didn’t specify Peggy. 

And the Action he took (while free to take others) was NOT dating her. 

We’re supposed to accept that there was no time or place for him and Peggy to go dancing. 

(Taking only her word for it that they both wanted this to happen; in trademark style, Peggy presumes, on the basis of nothing from Steve, that they want to dance together. 

At that moment, Steve does not confirm that this is mutual, and he never said or even implied when he said ‘the right partner’ that he thought that was her. 

When he first brought up the subject of dancing, he was speaking in generalities; he did not mean or intend Peggy to assume he meant with her, since he didn’t know her and at the point of the pub scene still doesn’t.) 

But we know this apparent dearth of places/chances to dance is a nonsense because Bucky immediately asks “what are we waiting for?” as if there is nothing stopping them going dancing right that second, that very night. 

Which there isn’t. They’re both dressed up. This is the time, this is the place. This is London during the war, there were any number of clubs and dancing halls specifically set up to cater to US Officers and Englishwomen and they are literally within walking distance of said clubs and yet Steve does not ask Peggy to go dancing. He doesn’t even ask her to stay?! 

Funny how Peggy didn’t ask Steve to dance when he first mentioned wanting to dance, isn’t it? When he was unfuckable unheroic small? 

Also: flip the genders (you’ve basically got the plot of the movie She’s All That…)

A Girl, let’s say a Nerdy Girl, makes casual remarks about dating, while talking to a strange guy. 

- She says she’s not looking to date right now - that romance just isn’t a priority,  - that she finds talking to men ‘terrifying’, - she’d rather wait until after current Events are over,  - and then she will find Mr Right, - and she says all this while staring out a window, away from the man, disinterestedly. 

We all know what it means, when you say that to a guy, right? 

The film where a man interprets that ^ as meaning ‘please pursue me across continents and become violently jealous and possessive of me and act as if we were going to Be Together after I’m dead and revolve your whole life around me.’ 

Isn’t a romcom, it’s a horror movie. 

We all know that when a woman says what Steve said, it wouldn’t mean ‘I’m secretly hinting I want you to ignore my explicitly stated wishes as soon as I have a makeover, and act as if my offhand comment to a Total Stranger from multiple months ago was some kind of Secret Message I was giving you.’ Steve is not playing hard to get!

You’d expect it to be understood that dating Nerdy Girl wasn’t on the cards for ‘him’, or anyone else just then, right??

So if that same guy (who didn’t ask Nerdy Girl out when she was still a nerd, notice), then came up to her, after she’d had a big makeover and become famous and influential and he found out she was cool... Suddenly claiming that he always thought she was the One, and he’s the only guy who ever valued her, actually… 

(Announcing to a pub, ‘hey, you know you said you were waiting for Mr Right? Well good news! Here I am!! Once this is all over… I will Allow you to date me, you lucky thing! What can I say except you’re welcome?’ Like Gaston from BATB?) 

Even though He never said Nerdy Girl was great before the makeover? Not even while they were discussing romance? Not even in a pitying ‘hell, I’d still date you’ sort of a way? 

And even though Nerdy Girl never said, just because she’s waiting for Mr Right, it doesn’t automatically mean that that’s Him…?  🤨  

And if Nerdy Girl’s female BFF, let’s call her Becky, then tried to hit on that same creepy guy, right in front of Nerdy Girl, would she be fine with it, like Steve is, and cracking jokes about it, if she was interested in the guy?? 

.

This idea that Peggy is the ‘first’ or ‘only’ woman to appreciate Steve before serum is straight up WRONG... 

(rest under the cut because this ended up being 22K!) 

Possible interpretations of the line where he says this is the longest conversation he has ever had with a woman:

1) Steve is being literal; this is genuinely the longest he has ever spoken to a woman. 

But Steve is the son of a single mother. 

Ergo, the suggestion that his talk with Peggy in the car is genuinely the longest conversation he’s ever had with a woman is complete nonsense. 

The proof that Peggy is not the first or only woman to acknowledge Steve, and the proof that this car scene was indeed meant to invoke a maternal mother/son relationship, not a sexual one, is in the original script: 

Steve mentions his mother. 

Bucky’s mother was also around during Steve’s childhood and after (including the period covered by Sarah’s death).

Bucky also had at least one sister, that we know of.

So that’s at least two and possibly even three women straight off the bat who would’ve known Steve before he was enhanced and appreciated who he really was as a person and with whom Steve could only have avoided a conversation as long as the one with Peggy in the car is if he was completely mute before the age of 27 and never tried any other means of communication, either.

( Once you realise that they’re pushing the false notion of Peggy as the ‘only one’ to appreciate pre-serum Steve, it becomes very obvious why, when even Tony’s mum gets a cameo in Steve’s movies, Sarah Rogers was never allowed to appear in the films. 

She presents too great a threat to the myth of Peggy’s specialness!

Bucky and Erskine are likewise excluded from mention in the AC show for the same reason; though Bucky’s traits and backstory are entirely stolen and given to Peggy, and a gender-flipped version of him in a Captain America radio show is sneered at by... guess who? )

.

2) Second possible (most likely) interpretation of that line; Steve is being hyperbolic. 

He is not literally saying a woman has never spoken to him before, he’s just exaggerating for comic effect, to self-deprecatingly make fun of his lack of association with women. 

Ergo, Peggy isn’t the first or only woman to ever speak to him for this long. She is not singular, special, insightful or unique.

And/or:

3) Third interpretation of that line; Steve only means this is the longest conversation he’s ever had with a woman (jokingly exaggerating) as in, with a woman who is a non-familial peer.

So 'women’ in this context only means women who could be love interests; not women he’s related to or considers family. 

But: 

A) in the original script Steve explicitly frames ‘dancing’ (and standing on someone’s toes) as connected to his mother. 

A woman he is related to. 😬 

So, even if he did mean that line in the sense of non-familial peer in the final script, Steve isn’t saying he’s sad he hasn’t got a woman. 

He’s saying he’s sad that he has been excluded from a group; from dancing (and the only option in his time would be to dance with a woman). 

IE. excluded from being what everyone else gets to be, (eg. a person who is asked to dance), excluded from being in the same group, or family, with them, like the Army. 

Which is why, when they talk about exclusion, he immediately asks why Peggy  would want to be in the Army. 

The conversation isn’t about a desire for romance; it’s about a desire to no longer be excluded; to be part of the group / in a family. 

As Steve says himself, romance itself doesn’t matter that much to him. 

This is why, when Peggy later shows up saying she would dance with him, it’s sufficient just for a woman to publicly say that, for Steve to be content. 

He doesn’t need to actually dance with a woman; he just needs to be included in the group of people who would be asked to dance. 

But if it’s family (a group) which Steve desires, not romance, then the ones who give that to him are.... Erskine and Bucky, not Peggy. 

Bucky gives him inclusion in the Army family, by taking him to the Expo (where he finally gets accepted), giving him an opportunity to prove his worthiness of inclusion (by publicly rescuing him), and picking out good guys -- who will accept Steve -- to be in the squad. 

Erskine makes him physically desirable to women, so he can be included in that group of ‘men worthy of dance partners’, which he hasn’t been in since his mother died. 

Cut either man from the movie, and Steve never gets inclusion. 

But Pggy’s role is also filled by eg. Pvt. Lorraine, Woman Wanting an Autograph, etc. and could’ve been replaced entirely by flashbacks to Steve’s mother. 

(It’s the biggest problem, with this film, that the writers frame Steve’s motivations as revolving almost entirely around a desire to overcome exclusion. 

In fact, Captain America’s Jewish-written Jewish-supporting motives are supposed to be: a desire to fight Fascism/Nazis, to protect minorities from them, to prove that minorities are not to be dismissed (disabled, blonde and blue eyed?! a Nazi’s worst nightmare!), and to support his friend/s in the forces, and he never gave a fuck about society’s acceptance or rejection of him. 

They Show us his desire to support Bucky in the film, but don’t Tell -- which is probably one reason why a lot of straights refuse to accept it. 

Eg. Bucky shows up in uniform, saying he’s shipping out the very next day, and, wouldn’t you know it, Coincidentally, suddenly Steve is amping up his attempts to get into the Army. 

Steve is moping about the unfairness of his life, but as soon as Bucky is in danger he’s leaping into action, etc. etc. 

Bucky asks him why he’s so keen to fight, and Steve’s mouth says ‘because of fairness’ but his actions say ‘to support you.’ 

.

B) if this is supposed to be a deliberate pass he’s making at Peggy in the car, then:

i) Steve wouldn’t be striking up a conversation by accident, after making an involuntary comment about what they’re seeing out the car windows (’I know this neighborhood!’) it would’ve been started on purpose.

ii) he wouldn’t be speaking with such disinterest, staring out of the window, away from Peggy, and: 

iii) his ‘compliment’ (actually a neg, but this is what misogynist male writers think a compliment is) wouldn’t have been a blunder he immediately tries to walk back; it would’ve been premeditated and deliberate. 

And the fact that Steve is single, pre-serum injection, does not mean Peggy is the only woman who appreciates him (in a sexual way) pre-serum. 

Steve outright stated he wasn’t looking to date for the last few years.

So there might have been a hundred women who appreciated him pre-serum, but Steve didn’t notice because he wasn’t looking (and he wouldn’t have dated them even if he had, because he didn’t want to date).

Passing over the... queerness... of a straight man in 1940s being asked if he’s ever ‘danced’ and saying ‘partner’ rather than ‘woman’ and yet specifying that women are terrifying and getting one doesn’t matter that much to him. (X) (X)

Steve dodging and wording it as ‘women aren't exactly lining up to dance with a guy they might step on’ is a general statement about how much luck he’s tended to have, not a universal denial that he’s ever had any luck, romantically... with women.

It also strongly implies that Steve is only talking about women who are physically larger than him, since women who are smaller than him wouldn’t have the problem of stepping on him. 

And, he mentions dating specifically in a framework of him asking/pursuing the woman.

So it doesn’t mean that no women have been interested. 

It implies that only the (non-petite) women (eg. sized like his mother would’ve ben when he was seven!)

whom he’s noticed 

and asked to dance, 

haven’t wanted to dance with him. 

(So he’s not counting the women who would’ve said yes, only Steve wasn’t looking and never asked. In other words, women like Peggy.)

.

Second of all, Peggy does NOT actually appreciate Steve before the serum.

At that point in CATFA, MCU Peggy is a blend of two characters (more on this below; later on, they cannibalise multiple other characters to serve her), both of whom did not appreciate Steve before serum, because one of them was lying, and the other one was physically no where near pre-serum Steve. 

Marvel ran into a problem when it decided that it was only people who knew Steve pre-serum who really appreciated him as a person and therefore loved him (so, at a minimum, just Sarah, Bucky, and Erskine). 

But that rules out the Carters. 

Comics!Peggy didn’t know Steve at all pre-serum. 

She only met him in France (where she was part of the Resistance), they never knew each others’ names, and she never even saw what he looked like under the cowl. 

So, (as they inadvertently showed in CATFA), her attraction to Steve was based entirely on what he was post-serum; on Captain America. 

And that’s embarrassing, because it means their big female Love Interest’s interest is canonically as shallow as a puddle compared to MCU Bucky, even compared to MCU Erskine. 

But the Rat cannot acknowledge such an inconveniently queer truth, and since they’re bigoted idiots, they think that a Nazi (Cynthia Glass; the other character source for her) would be looking at pre-serum Steve for the same reasons and in the same way that a non-Nazi person would. 

That she could therefore be put in the same category as people who appreciated Steve for who he is as a person. 

So they shoehorn Cynthia in (and cast a Cynthia lookalike, not a Peggy!) to patch the gap and try to claim something for Peggy’s character that was never true. 

Cynthia’s appearance was important; being a brown-haired brown-eyed white woman, fixated on a blonde blue-eyed man, because it was a reference to Nazi hypocrisy in idealising a Scandinavian appearance despite looking nothing like that themselves. 

(And you see this character design choice repeated, in other women Nazis, in, eg. shows like The Boys). 

In the comics, Steve awoke in the 60s, and immediately two-timed Peggy with her younger sister Sharon (who was killed off for twenty plus years and even after resurrection was still never framed as being a happy match, for Steve, because of the constant soldier/spy conflict.) 

The irony is, blonde American comics-Peggy, who’s all over Steve post-fame, does appear in the movie; but she’s called ‘Lorraine’, and she’s a creep, and still not the right woman for him. 

Like Peggy’s intro where she punches Hodge (a Nazi defector in the comics), they set MCU-Peggy against ‘evil’ analogues of herself from the comics, to make her look good.

So there’s a split-personality between American comics-Peggy (after whom she is merely named, nothing more), and English comics-Cynthia (upon whom she is mostly based). 

And since we know comics Peggy was only in Europe during the war, that cut off point, where Nazi-Cynthia ends and Peggy begins, is all the American-set scenes; is Project Rebirth. 

All the times ‘Peggy’ is looking at pre-serum Steve, in the film... that’s not Peggy, that’s Cynthia. 

(meta/proof on this here<<<)

There are no Peggy scenes they could physically have based those scenes on because Peggy was never anything to do with pre-serum Steve or Project Rebirth and wasn’t even in America when all that went down. 

So that’s a direct adaptation of a Nazi character; same uniform, same accent, same job, same (significantly brunette) looks, same attitude. 

The character of whom she’s an adaptation is not looking at pre-serum Steve because she appreciates his values (since hers are diametrically opposed). 

She’s not looking at him and seeing a hero, she’s seeing a candidate for euthanasia. 

This is why the character comes across so pitying, patronising, and maternal (as explicitly shown in the original script, which invokes Steve’s mother during talks with her), before Steve looks like an Ubermensch (hovers ineffectually before the procedure & has to be told asked to get out of the way.) 

And why she changed her tune when Steve transformed; in Cynthia/Nazi terms, he had gone from a subhuman (untermensch) to a superman (ubermensch). 

They expect us to believe she wasn’t shallow or only appreciative of Steve post-serum, and yet they maintain this sudden fickle lurch forwards in interest from her... after Steve looks like an Aryan wet dream? 

(Goes from: not seeking Steve out or speaking to him, despite him ‘saving’ her, and only speaking to him when directly spoken to 

to: actively seeking him out to speak to him, unprompted.  

If she had appreciated Steve exactly as much before the serum as after, there would have been absolutely no discernible alteration in MCU Peggy’s behaviour towards him, before and after. But there very clearly is. 

She goes from maternal, pitying consolation, to looking at him like a shark scenting blood. 

And that’s a Nazi character’s behaviour!

Any sweet, cloying, ‘empathetic’ mannerisms, pre-serum? 

If that’s Cynthia, then that’s not genuine. That’s a Nazi showing her pity for a wretched disabled ‘subhuman’, and/or trying to endear herself to the people she’s infiltrating by acting like a nice person.

*this two-facedness is an act she repeats somewhat in AC, eg. after going out of her way to seek out her ex’s new girlfriend, she puts on a fake nice personality around her, which she never exhibits at any other time in the show, just to impress upon her how Totally Fine she is about being replaced*

Sure makes MCU Peggy’s Jekyll & Hyde act ring true... ) 

.

This split personality also accounts for why the AC short & show are so desperately anti- everything about Peggy in the films. 

Because the show is retconning Peggy, but the films are giving us Cynthia. 

(Hence, a random Englishwoman plonked down at the top of an American intelligence organisation, when the person holding that position very clearly  needs to be an American. This is also why they took 10+ character traits of Bucky’s, from CATFA, to claim as Peggy’s. Because they didn’t show her having them in the fim... ) 

So if we say eg. ‘Peggy didn’t appreciate pre-serum Steve.’

Well... no. No she didn’t. 

Neither of the characters she’s based on was ever supposed to.

.

Analogy: 

Imagine they introduced a character who is... an anthropomorphic alien duck! 

Identical in appearance to Howard the Duck. 

Looks like a duck (all white). 

Waddles like a duck. Quacks like a duck. 

Lives in a pond (a place where ducks would be, but other, non-duck birds wouldn’t be.) 

Can only have the backstory that matches Howard the Duck’s, no other character’s. 

And yet they’ve called them... Peggy the Penguin. 

And then spent the entire film (and subsequent appearances) claiming there is nothing remotely duck-like about this waddling, quacking, duck-billed character with a duck‘s origin story, and they have paired her off with a character whose entire motive is supposed to be a hatred of ducks. 

Also, this 'penguin’ flies, like a duck usually can. 

But she’s not a duck, okay?! Sheesh! 

.

In CATFA, just as we’re Told that Peggy is in charge of the SSR, but we’re not Shown that. 

(EG. If you look at it, nothing else in the movie or CATWS supports the idea that she is in charge of anything. 

By which I mean: not the set design, costume design, her actions, or the actions of the people around her, or the way she is treated by them. 

In fact, the way she is treated strongly suggests she is not in charge but is instead a low-level employee, at best, who can easily be fired; unlike Howard Stark, and forgotten so thoroughly that Natasha sees her photo on a wall in 2014 and does not know who she is. 

If Peggy were important, this could not be the case. 

And ironically enough, by making Peggy both English and claiming she’s in charge, they’ve made her an expy of real life SOE vice-head, Vera Atkins... whose France-based spy ring was thoroughly infiltrated by Nazis, and who then tried to cover up SOE’s incompetence over that, with the result that some people thought she might actually have been a Soviet agent herself.)

.

We’re Told that Peggy appreciated Steve before the serum.

But we’re not Shown that.

In fact we’re shown the opposite of that. 

Because her actions are far less demonstrative than other peoples’ (who we are supposed to read as appreciating Steve pre-serum).

Examples of other characters appreciating pre-serum Steve:

Bucky immediately befriended him with no ulterior motive or benefit, though Steve had done nothing to endear himself; Peggy didn’t, even when Steve had done something that ought to have endeared him to her.

Bucky defended Steve from a bully; Peggy didn’t, MULTIPLE TIMES.

Erskine defended Steve against critics to his boss; Peggy didn’t.

Erskine asked Steve about his origins and his ethics; Peggy just criticised them (eg. not running away, wanting to be a soldier, being in the USO).

Erskine praised Steve’s personality before; Peggy didn’t.

Even post-serum Bucky went out of his way to tell Steve that it’s the ‘little guy’ he admires, not Captain America; Peggy didn’t.

Bucky tried to take pre-serum Steve out dancing; Peggy didn’t.

When Peggy mentioned dancing, Bucky immediately offered to go dancing; when pre-serum Steve mentioned dancing, Peggy didn’t offer.  

(And when she brought up dancing to post-serum Steve... he didn’t offer.)

Erskine touched Steve’s heart to indicate his inner, pre-serum qualities; Peggy copped a feel of him post-serum because Atwell touched Cevans... because she’s a fucking creep... 

(And Peggy being busy being a perv, not paying attention to her job, is why the saboteur was able to sabotage; even in D+ What If, which cuts out Atwell’s Weinsteining, Peggy is still so useless at her job that both Erskine and Steve get shot in that universe where she was paying attention.)

Peggy smiled during events which coincidentally proved Steve’s bravery and brains: jumping on the dummy grenade, and winning the flag-retrieve. 

And yet... 

Unlike Erskine, who has a personal interest in Steve and seeks his company from the beginning, Peggy never spoke to Steve after these events, despite sitting in a jeep with him, and despite it basically proving that Steve would’ve ‘saved’ her. 

Both occasions coincide with and involved an Authority Figure being brought down a peg; Phillips the Colonel (who questions Erskine’s judgement), and Duffy the yappy drill-sergeant. 

(And, again, the grenade incident coincides with everyone present finding out they’re not about to die -- worth a smile, don’t you think?!) 

Like Peggy, during the grenade-fall, Erskine also smiles at Steve. 

So are we supposed to surmise that Erskine fancies Steve?

Then why so for Peggy?

Because of comphet. 

We’re supposed to ascribe a man’s smile to other reasons; satisfaction in having his views vindicated, and Phillips proven wrong. (Also, Erskine appears to be out of grenade-blast range, so he wouldn’t necessarily be smiling from gratitude or relief). And yet we know he does like Steve; but that is not allowed to be the reason why a man smiles at another man.

But Peggy, as the person second-closest to the grenade after Steve, finds out that not only is she not about to die, but that even if the grenade had been live, Steve’s actions would have saved her from it (debatable, but let’s say.) 

...And yet her smile, we’re supposed to think, can only be because of admiring Steve in a sexual/romantic way? 

(Watching Steve destroy himself is marvellous and romantic, to her? )

Not basic gratitude or relief? 

(Apparently women are only concerned with their womanly pants-feelings, not living and dying...)

And if you argue that it’s admiration and also gratitude and relief, then why did she never thank him? 

And what are we supposed to make of the fact that she still didn’t think, after this, that Steve was worth talking to? 

He symbolically saves her life, with no ulterior motive, and she still doesn’t bother to speak to him?

How can we possibly call this ‘appreciating’ him?

.

(Steve smiling at Hodge being punched falls under the same logic as this comphet. Our inner comphet-filter has us seeing his smile and assuming he’s smiling at Peggy, not at bully Hodge being knocked down. 

But this smile is identical to the one Steve later wore when he watched Dernier successfully blowing up a Hydra tank. 

So do we assume Steve fancies Dernier, then? 

Oh, he can’t, because Dernier’s a man? 

So if Dernier were female? 

So it’s just comphet?)

.

Another reason we’re Told Peggy appreciated Steve pre-serum is that car conversation. 

But it actually provides immediate proof Peggy has never spoken to Steve before.

(And also, since it takes two to Not Talk, proof that Steve never bothered to speak to her before, either... despite sharing a vehicle with her before. Hardly the behaviour of a smitten guy. 

Contrast this with his friend and colleague Natasha, who’s happily flirting with Steve in vehicles all the way through CATWS. ) 

If we’re to believe that just as Steve, as a disabled man, has been discriminated against, Peggy (according to her) has been underestimated and discriminated against as a woman... 

(Somehow... despite her being posh and this being world war 2, when women were employed everywhere....and her class in fact means generally speaking most women are discriminated against a lot more than her, and the show confirms she’s never been out of work or refused jobs... and if she had suffered misogyny this is something all women suffer so it cannot make her somehow unique in Steve’s eyes). 

...Then, her alleged appreciation of pre-serum Steve’s triumphs is even less of an indication that she appreciates him as an individual. 

It just demonstrates that she might appreciate An Underdog Triumphing, generally; not that she admires this specific underdog as a person (if her claim of discrimination were true, which it isn’t even). 

What this car conversation actually Shows is that she didn’t seek Steve out or ever speak to him before the serum (even though he ‘saved’ her). 

She doesn’t ask pre-serum Steve out dancing when he mentions dancing, not even in a pity-date kind of a way. 

She doesn’t respond well to his (accidental) overtures (despite knowing of his brains and heroism already), and her body-language towards him drastically changes from maternal to overtly sexual the very second he gets a glow-up. 

In other words: 

She didn’t do any of the things other characters did which Showed they appreciated Steve. 

(Talking to him at first opportunity, defending him, befriending him, thanking him; Steve and Bucky are Bros, so they don’t say thanks, they say ‘I had him on the ropes.’ )

She just says she did all those things, later on, once that narrative becomes useful to her.

The writers establish exactly what ‘Appreciating Pre-serum Steve’ looks like in all the other characters, and then have Peggy not only doing none of it but sometimes doing even the exact opposite of it! 

(And also she refuses to mention the existence of other people who appreciated Steve; like his mother, Bucky and his family, etc. Bucky’s connection to Steve is not threatened by his mother or any other people, so Bucky does the opposite.)

Yet comphet is so rigidly enforced that a woman merely looking at a man, for any reason is considered sufficient proof of Twu Wuv. 

Kind of creepy really.

But hey, you know what doesn’t change in Peggy, after the serum? 

The way Peggy sneers at Steve’s lack of experience with women!  

While simultaneously dodging the question of her history with men! 

(Well that useless with women-ness is the true-Steve personality, Peggy, so if you don’t like that, then it isn’t really Steve you like, it’s Captain America...)  

Because it’s unacceptable to question her, ever, and a thing is only slutty if men do it, right?

We’re 'Shown’ later on that Peggy (believes she) appreciated pre-serum Steve by her keeping a picture of pre-serum Steve. 

But we see from the moment when Peggy got that picture, that it’s not a choice of that or another photo. 

It’s the only one shown being in the SSR file. 

No candid photos of Steve without his cowl are seen, not even in the Smithsonian; not even in the future. 

Only film footage, and his ‘official’ ID photo (sternly facing forwards). 

This pre-serum Steve photo is the only photo. 

She quite literally didn’t choose pre-serum Steve. 

And he didn't give her this photo, either. 

(That would be a significant event; if it had happened, it would’ve been in the film.) 

What kind of WW2 couple doesn’t give each other photos? 

Not even in the D+ superhet version?!

I’ve never heard of that anywhere before, not in fiction or reality! 

(And, incidentally, if ‘looking at a photo’ equals love then why doesn’t it count when Steve goes to the Smithsonian to look at images of Bucky? 

Or when Bucky has a picture of Steve in his diary? 

Oh, it can’t count, because he’s a man? 

So if Bucky were female? 

So it’s just comphet?) 

.

And to address the argument that Peggy could’ve gone and found a photo of big Steve if she wanted to but she clearly wanted this photo of pre-serum Steve. 

Sure, why not. 

But you know why her having that photo is still not romantic? 

Because Peggy is shown keeping this photo of pre-serum Steve in her office.

Twice. 

First in the AC short.

(In which she tries to claim, astonishingly, that Steve isn’t the reason she has a job; when she was five seconds from being fired by Phillips when Steve marched back into camp, so he literally is the reason she has a job. 

(Not that she was ‘his girlfriend’, just because Steve didn’t die and took responsibility, so she wasn’t sacked. But he nevertheless very much is the reason she has a job).

Yeah it’s written that way because of casually misogynist writers, but it’s still true within the framework of the movie’s universe. 

She kept that job because of Steve. 

Sucks, but true! 

This also explicitly establishes that a connection to Steve in the workplace has been beneficial to Peggy’s career; her boss is under the impression this is the only reason she’s employed at all.) 

Second, in EG, she has his photo in the basement bunker of Camp Lehigh: Birthplace of Captain America. 

In the second case the photo is turned to face the people who walk in. 

Just like when Pepper brings Tony a piece of Iron Man pop-art and he immediately hangs it up on the wall of his lab: the Birthplace of Iron Man. 

Imagine if, instead, Pepper hadn’t even been dating Tony, had never got verbal confirmation from Tony that he was interested in her, but nevertheless chose to show off how competent and mythic she was by association by having a picture of The Tony Stark in her office, in view of anyone who walked in (and then Iron Man died, so the only person able to substantiate her claims they were dating is now unable to do so). 

That’s not romance, that’s advertising. 

Not only is it patronisingly using disabled Steve as a cute ‘Just Hang In There!’ kitten poster for SHIELDra employees to chortle at. 

It’s propagandizing a parasocial relationship as a tragic doomed romance for clout, and then leveraging that fake narrative to advance Peggy’s status and career. 

It’s self-promotion. 

Of course, Disney Execs wouldn’t see anything creepy in this. 

Rewriting a Gothic story as a sugary fairytale? 

Taking credit for other people’s hard work and then displaying images in their office to remind everyone of how great they are?? 

I wonder what Kevin Feige’s office looks like... 

 .

I also notice that CATFA implies, through the magic of ~*Montage*~ that Peggy and Steve are working together, and (because their scenes are played out in long), therefore spending more time together in person than he is spending with other characters... 

But again we're not actually shown that. 

It goes:

Steve tells Phillips in person where he saw some Hydra bases (Peggy is present). 

[Steve puts together a team]

[Montage: Steve and the Howlies are out cracking open cold ones kickin' ass on the continent, destroying Hydra bases.]

[random extra moving Hydra bases off a map while Peggy is there.] 

...And, because we saw Steve passing on knowledge of the first set of bases in person, we assume, that if Peggy knows about these other bases, then it must be because Steve has come back again and told Phillips about these other bases in person. (And therefore... and therefore...)

BUT WE NEVER SAW THAT. 

First of all, it’s Phillips Steve would be passing that information back to, not Peggy; Phillips is the military strategist. 

Second of all, telling them 'mission accomplished/base destroyed' (and ‘we’ve found another base’) takes five seconds, and could be done over a radio instead of in-person (much more efficient and likely), and by someone else in the Resistance, from across the channel. 

We’re never shown that they were in London more than 2 times in total.

What’s particularly damning about this ^ is: 

Montage is a form of telling instead of showing. 

It’s used when you need to skip a load of boring repetitions or time. 

But ... 

That’s not how relationship arcs work. 

You can’t tell me a relationship is happening (in a medium whose very use implies it is boring, inconsequential, and/or repetitious). 

A relationship arc you have to show. 

Imagine if a schoolkid went to their teacher and said, ‘Miss, here’s what looks like the introduction to that essay you set me... but I got bored in the middle so I  skipped those bits... and anyway here’s the conclusion to tell you what I would’ve just showed you if I’d written that. Credit please!’ 

Even if Steve and the Howlies did go back to London between missions, that still puts the majority of Steve’s time on the continent, not in London, where Peggy was. 

(IIRC Peggy moves something like thirteen Hydra base flags off the map; and that’s just thirteen missions Steve is definitely not in London for, not necessarily all the missions there were. 

If he and the Howlies were in London most of the time, between missions, it would’ve been very easy to show that in the montage.

They could’ve had them clinking tankards in the pub again, to celebrate their successful missions, for example. 

If she was spending time with him or them, she could’ve been shown next to him or them.) 

From what we are shown, Steve was not in London again until after Bucky died.

And we actually have evidence to prove that Steve didn’t spend time with Peggy in between those two events, and that she and he weren’t communicating with each other any other way, either. 

What evidence? 

One: the two pub scenes. 

You don’t get all dolled up to go and announce in person your gracious condescension to one day be dated by someone if you’re: 

a) already dating them. 

b) secretly in contact with them and able to express interest that way, far more easily, in private! (by eg. exchanging letters or other correspondence.) 

Also: the fact that Peggy doesn’t have and isn’t given a photo of Steve, and he doesn’t have one and isn’t given one of her (his is either from a file or a newspaper, and introduced during the second of two Propaganda Showreels; hers is from that aforementioned SSR file.) 

This is further proof that Steve and Peggy are not dating or exchanging correspondence between the first pub scene and the second pub scene, because if they had been writing each other in between, it would’ve been the easiest thing in the world for them to exchange proper photos of each other. 

And they didn’t. 

So they weren’t.

And, in the second pub scene, after a whole year, Peggy asks Steve:

‘did you believe in your friend? did you respect him?’ 

Does Steve believe in... 

or respect... 

...Bucky?

BUCKY.

After knowing Steve a year?

I can’t even calculate how she could know Steve well enough to call him by his first name and yet still not know the answer to this question. 

Yes, it’s a rhetorical question, but: 

“Your friend.” 

Excuse You? 

How can she not be calling him his best friend, or on first-name terms with him? 

This is a woman who called Steve by his first name after speaking to him only twice. 

(She calls him ‘Barnes.’ 

And, despite him being the most important person and catalyst of Steve’s war, Bucky is never mentioned once in the entire AC show, for the same reason as Sarah; because Peggy didn’t really know Steve, and therefore didn’t know his best friend, and Bucky was the most important person to him, and mentioning him threatens to reveal that, and thereby undermine the false narrative that Peggy was the only one who knew or mattered to Steve. ) 

It Shows that Peggy and Steve were not in communication between the two pub scenes, because if Steve had been writing to her, the subject of ‘Bucky’ (definitely not ‘Barnes’) would undoubtedly have come up often enough for Peggy to have become comfortable with referring to him by his first name, too, even if she wasn’t friendly with him. 

So this second pub scene is certainly Showing us things about Steve and Peggy, but not the things the filmmakers think it’s showing us. 

Two. 

Given the next scene where all the Howlies are shown in the War Rooms with Steve, Peggy, Stark, and Phillips... 

Well, if that was Business As Usual, it actually means Steve spent almost literally zero time alone with Peggy. 

Steve’s at work, there. 

Even if they were back in London a lot (which we’re not shown so it didn’t happen) they would always have been in a room with other people; a war room, a laboratory, a pub, an enemy base. 

But if other people being there is a hindrance to a real relationship, then how come Steve is so intimate with Bucky in public? 

(Peggy doesn’t seem to have a problem with shooting at Steve in front of other people...) 

The AC show’s solution to this (as well as retconning that Peggy was a spy, who was important and respected and listened to by the men, all of which is a lie) is to just say that she wasn’t in London. 

But it’s very clearly shown (and mentioned in the script) that she was. 

The tl;dr: is Steve did not have enough time or inclination to develop or instigate a romantic relationship with Peggy. 

Certainly not enough to warrant her sticking her nose into his business as if she’s his personal Yoda, when he hasn’t asked her to do that, and they have barely ever spoken to each other (and that role is fulfilled for him by Bucky and Erskine, and later by Sam; people Steve actually asks for an opinion). 

The only times Steve asks for Peggy’s input is to say ‘what do you think?’ (about the shield, just before her violent outburst; which actually, now I think about, suggests he doesn’t value her answer anyway), ‘did you know that?’ (he can’t get drunk) and ‘did you read the report?’ 

And Steve especially did not know her well enough to warrant abandoning all his friends and his home (both past and future New York) for her, when he already knows she’s married, and moved on, a grandmother, and living somewhere else, that isn’t his home -- where his parents are buried! 

Not in-character or sane behaviour. 

Steve said he didn’t want to date during the war. 

Peggy herself stated that she would not be available to date Steve until ‘this is all over.’ 

Ergo, they weren’t dating while ‘this’ was still going on. 

.

(So they wouldn’t have been dating even if Peggy was on the continent during the war, too (which we know she wasn’t, because she would’ve been in the montage and the propaganda film reel if she was, instead of sitting in a cinema).

They use the compass photo as a cheat to imply she was there ‘in spirit’ (ie. while Steve is planning the Howlies’ route on a map, she is looking over it in effigy). 

But she wasn’t there, she wasn't in charge; Steve was.

And her photo being in the compass straight up doesn’t make sense??

Steve said he didn’t want to date anyone while the war was on; then Peggy said she also wouldn’t be available to date until after the war.

So why, then, would Steve be carrying a photo of a woman he’s not dating, and who's not dating him, during the war, contrary to both his and her stated wishes??

(It’s OOC, because he specifically said he didn’t want to do this, and didn’t jump on the chance to (change his mind and) date her right then, when it was dangled in front of him. If Steve didn’t mean what he originally said, or had changed his mind, he still would not have pulled this compass stunt, as it directly goes against Peggy’s stated wishes, which is sexist.) 

So why did he do it?

We have our answer in the shield-shooting scene.

Despite Peggy’s claim that she was fine waiting for Steve, she immediately punished him with physical violence when she (wrongly) perceived his attentions to other women.

(Classic hypocrisy and projection! The red dress also shows she was lying, under the erroneous impression Steve wanted her to wait; but secretly hoping he would carpe the diem. 

Why get dressed up now to announce you’ll be impressing someone in future? If she doesn’t want results now, who’s she dressed up for now?) 

That domestic abuse means Steve carrying Peggy’s photo after it should not be treated as genuine and unambiguous.

If he's acting as if he's 'taken' by Peggy after receiving a violent punishment for not doing so, that doesn't mean it's true. It could easily be read as self-defense. The compass’s odd inclusion in a propaganda reel (where you’d think an allegedly professional spy would not want to feature) supports this.

And imagine the genders flipped:

Nobody would believe a battered woman was carrying her boyfriend’s photo around of her own free will, unless it was meant in a sad, gaslighted this-is-true-love ‘he showed me he’d hit me if I didn’t’ kind of way.) 

. 

Another thing about Peggy that pisses me off, from a writing POV, is the air of Possession-Sue about her. 

viz. overhauling an extant female character just to make her ‘perfect’ for a guy. Think post-GoF Ginny Potter’s sudden retconned personality change.

It's a very common tediously sexist trope which you unfortunately find a lot of in fanfic, the "oh, all this hopeless man needs is a good woman to sort him out and run his life for him; and wouldn’t you know it! this female character has all the exact qualities necessary, suddenly!" 

You find it a lot in feminised versions of Bucky, too, or with the equally annoying 'little old lady or sassy token female friend' OFC where characters just mother Steve. 

There is a definite air of this matronliness about Peggy. 

You could transpose most of her dialogue into Sarah Rogers' mouth without having to change a word. Telling Steve off for not running away, for not putting himself forward, for not making the most of himself, for not doing as he's told, for being late, for being dramatic. 

Cut the pub scene and the forced kiss, and she could’ve been played by an actress in her 50s without editing.

In most of her scenes with Steve she has such a Mary Poppins vibe about her you half expect her to spit in a hanky and wipe his face. 

Receipts: the other actress considered for the role of Peggy, Emily Blunt, went on to play the rebooted Mary Poppins -- who is, of course, also owned by Disney. So Disney has literal money invested in encouraging ‘Poppins=Good’. And neither of them look anything like Peggy from the comics, and both of them are English, like Cynthia. 

.

For this Possession Sue, the writers picked a bunch of qualities they think would match Captain 'Murica (that is, their sanitized, Disney-neutered version -- who is not Catholic, not Irish, not Socialist, not poor, and a Told-Disabled not a Shown) and then forced them onto Peggy like a glass slipper onto an ugly sister. 

As if: 

Captain America represents good ol’ fashioned patriarchal WASP values. 

(no he doesn’t.) 

So if there's a Matronly Type knocking around? 

Oh then obviously she must be his True Love! 

(People who make MCU Steve out to be this Stern Patriarchal Daddy type don't realise that a whole load of subtext has just gone whooshing over their heads. 

Steve is very much transgressive, in terms of gender. He’s almost like a trans man in the way he is treated and treats others. He is feminised; penetrated, sexualised, objectified; his weapon is non-penetrative; he leads by example not by force; he is no respecter of (masculine patriarchal) authority; even after the serum, he is repeatedly scorned or fetishised by 'real' men because he was ‘made’, not born, as men are ‘supposed’ to be, and Peggy herself ridicules his unmanly lack of experience with women. 

But since Steve chugs his respect-women juice and always respected himself, just as he was, this effeminacy in him is a not a problem in Steve’s own eyes. 

However, the film would like us believe that Steve suffers from feeling emasculated by the lack of opportunities to ‘prove’ himself via acts of physical violence, the fact is, given a choice of more manly attire, he still chooses to keep ‘the outfit.’ Because his male friend likes it. 

Steve may be a Dad (in the sense of tired responsible figure trying to corral exasperating kids), but his transgressiveness means he is the furthest thing possible from the ‘Daddy’ to her ‘Mummy.’ ) 

.

Another of Peggy's supposedly 'ideal for Disneyneutered!Steve’ qualities:

The brisk, military neatness. 

They both wear their uniforms immaculately (whereas Bucky doesn't, suddenly, because appearance is tied into his mental health) so therefore they must be MFEO?

...R- really?

I feel like this is also why they (apparently) intended to hint at Steve/Hill as well; she wears an immaculate uniform and that’s what Steve is hot for! 

Military Smartness! 

Gimme a fuckin’ break. 

Steve didn’t seem to give a shit about clothing neatness before he was in the army and regulations meant he had to -- dude didn’t even dress up smart for his own mother’s funeral!

(And that uniform may be military but Peggy isn't a soldier, she's a spy. Steve is shown very much not liking spies, both in the comics and the movies, not even when they look like Scarlett Johansson, which is a pretty big even.) 

Another ‘perfect for Captain ‘Murica’ (but not Steve) quality of Peggy’s: 

His n Hers shared undersexed-ness. 

Steve is shown as disinterested in sex (because squeaky-clean Captain America cannot have a libido, gosh darn it! But he can’t be inexperienced, either!! What is he, The Madonna??)

(Meta on his sexuality here.)

And Peggy is dismissive of the hyper-sexed Howard Stark.

Therefore, they're both undersexed and MFEO, right?

Except...

Steve specifies that he only avoided trying to date because it was terrifying and difficult and, during the war, didn't seem that important (and it continues to not seem that important to him, from his later inaction). 

This tells us nothing of what Steve's sex drive and lovelife are actually like, during peacetime and good health. 

In fact, there may have been plenty women interested in him whom pre-serum Steve ignored or was unaware of, since he wasn't looking.

And when you consider that his poor health, his mother's death, and the first war years cover his late adolescence and early adulthood, maybe even Steve himself doesn't know how sexually driven he normally is. 

(Evidence to support a latent horndog-ishness hypothesis in Steve, if you wanted to make one, include: the bedroom eyes he makes at Bucky. 

But, you'd expect a horndog to pick up a bone when it's hurled at his face; and that red dress was a real clanger. Unless it’s her that’s the problem... ) 

Peggy, on the other hand, while clearly under the impression that she is a Martyr, a decorous non-hypersexual Lady, is very overtly sexual in her treatment of Steve as soon as he gets that glow up and suddenly becomes worhty of physical attention. 

From immediately touching his chest, to repeatedly getting up in his personal space in situations where that is inappropriate (in front of everyone, when she's supposed to be working; you’d expect this kind of behaviour from Tony Stark), dressing up in a vampy, (for the period) deep-cut red dress to go see him, in front of everyone; expressing violent sexual jealousy, stopping him mid-work and pulling him into a kiss...

So he’s apparently undersexed and she’s oversexed. 

How are they well matched, exactly?

(Can you imagine Steve shooting at a woman he liked for kissing someone else? Dressing up sexy to go stake his claim on a woman in front of all her colleagues? A woman who hasn’t invited him to do that?)

.

Two things we’re supposed to believe ‘show’ Steve is interested in Peggy: 

One (to paraphrase myself from Another Ask) :

On the subject of inbuilt comphet-filter / unqueer-goggles, I almost lost my damn MIND on twitter recently because we were discussing the red-dress moment in CATFA and how it totally tricks you into thinking Steve is checking her out, giving her the ol’ lingering up-and-down, when in actual fact:

He isn’t even looking at her!?

Two: 

Peggy’s only big battle scene, where she is very obviously filling in the role just conveniently vacated by Bucky -- shooting someone who presents a threat to Steve. 

(Her inclusion here is not Feminist, as she is only given something to do because a man has left the cast. And this scene, incidentally, makes her lack of presence for the rest of the battles look like laziness or cowardice, if she was capable of joining in all along. Ditto Phillips.)  

...And Steve looking appreciatively at her, right after- IIRC -she had just gunned down a guy with a flamethrower who was about to barbecue them both. 

This deliberately parallels previous moments where Peggy has got up in Steve’s personal space, inappropriately, with obvious sexual interest in him.

So the fact that Steve does it back: 

A) could be simple return of Peggy’s mannerism; him doing what he knows she expects; he has a track-record of doing this; he’s very gallant. She, as usual, gets right up in his space for no damn reason. 

And we know what happens when you don’t go along with what Peggy wants: you get Shot!

B) It could be simple ‘thanks for the save’ appreciation, a la the grenade, which Steve would express to any person who did him that solid. 

(Like he did when he saluted Bucky! If doing so means he’s attracted to the person doing it, then? But it didn’t count, because Bucky is male? Oh, so if Bucky were female? So it’s just comphet?)

.

So what are some other things about Peggy we’re told but not shown; supposed to infer, but which when you look at it are NOT in fact backed up by her actions? 

.

Claim 1. Peggy has shared life experiences with Steve.

"I know a little of what that's like, to have every door shut in your face."

Uhh-

-every door?

What doors, Peggy?

straight from a private girls' boarding school (this is if AC is true)

to a job at the WRENS/WAAFS/ATS (because of the uniform)

straight to a job at Bletchley Park (because of her class or looks)

to the SOE (because of her brother/Home Office fiancee)

to being Col. Phillips' SOE liaison (because he ‘took a chance’ on her)

to being co-director of SHIELD (because Stark appointed her).

So when, exactly, was she rebuffed or refused an advancement?

What door was shut in her face?

to quote myself again:

She cannot have advanced to be the vice-head of the SSR, in her early 20s, as a well-fed woman, of her class, in the 1940s, if she had had to contend with any serious discrimination (on the basis of sex or class or anything else) on the way up. There simply isn’t the time for her to have done so - it isn’t physically / temporally possible.

Also, when it comes to having a man’s job, Peggy isn’t even unusual in this respect, because during WWII women were literally everywhere in the workplace. She picked the one time period in which it was absolute nonsense to claim that it was difficult for a woman to get a job, like a poor man.

*It may well be that A Woman at the time, of Steve’s class, would’ve experienced the same or similar kind of discrimination as Steve, before the war… but This Specific Woman (Peggy) has not, and could not, especially not During The War, when women could basically name their price.

Marvel could claim this pre-war experience of discrimination for a Pvt Lorraine, but not for an Agent Carter. Intersectionality has ruled her out.

She doesn't have that in common with Steve, even though she's a woman.

So:

She doesn't have adversity / discrimination in common with him;

Her money, accent, job history, and the time setting preclude it.

She doesn't have religion in common with him (the dogtags may claim Steve as P but the rest of his background and the comics clearly say he's a C; Peggy is obviously going to be CofE. Protestant.)

She doesn't have class in common with him: her parents were rich enough to afford private school, even during the Depression!

(She's mentioned as having a PhD from Cambridge; 

She can shrug off an engagement and a job simultaneously with her brother dying, as if money isn’t even a consideration; 

She leapfrogs between multiple careers whenever she gets bored, and even switches continents / sides of continents, without any indication of worrying about money;  

In her show she gets into housing because her daddy’s friends with a Senator, which is not something any kind of lower- or middle- class person could ever be, since only a rich and upper class man would’ve had the chance to even meet a US Senator; 

She seems to have a new dress every episode (doing the opposite would’ve been a subtle way to suggest lower income)

She gets free housing from her billionaire friend Howard Stark; 

Her diner-waitress friend is dazzled by Stark’s Manhattan (penthouse?) apartment, but Peggy acts as if it’s a completely natural experience for her to be / live in such a place

She namedrops the Stork Club, an exclusive Manhattan club of the rich and famous, not the kind of dives a Brooklyn boy like Steve would have frequented...

Yeah. She’s a Rich Bitch.)

She's not from the same country.

(And in fact her combined class, religion and nationality are a Big black mark against her, since she belongs to the group of people (Upper Class, English & Protestants) currently oppressing Steve's; Irish & Catholics. In America itself, and in Brooklyn, the Ku Klux Klan were also Protestant and virulently anti-Catholic.)

She's not a soldier but (debatably) a spy (we’re retconned / told later she is, while only being shown her doing nothing but secretarial tasks inside a bunker, fucking up all actual spy stuff she attempts, and having a personality much more like that of a rampaging she-Hulk than a subtle, clever spy, such as, eg. Coulson or Natasha).

(Some dipshit on twitter said she ‘fought alongside’ Steve. No, she didn’t; she was in London, he was on the Continent. She’s not a soldier. She’s not even a spy in that film. )  

She doesn't have any kind of physical disability, like Steve, and in fact has such rude health that in her show she can shrug off being impaled within a matter of episodes. 

She is only objectified or looked down upon in her own, later, (therefore retcon and irrelevant to her CATFA claims), show; and even that sexistly implies she uses her objectification to succeed under the patriarchy, (which makes it an asset not a problem?! Not feminism.)

And even if she had been looked down upon, this last discrimination is something she shares with... 

Literally every woman on earth, so it doesn’t make her somehow special to Steve. 

You could swap out any woman and she could say the same to him.

Scarcely the basis of a relationship.

It amounts to saying ‘she’s the woman for Steve because... she’s a woman.’

She is involved in the same war as Steve, but her path though it is totally different (again: posh admin). 

And if Living Through WWII is enough to qualify her as the Love of Steve Roger's life well then, fuck me, so is Hitler! Someone Steve actually chose to touch!  

And all of these, even if they applied to her (which they don’t), would not be ‘shared life experiences’ (as in: things which have shaped Steve’s life and which she was going through, alongside him.) 

Merely somewhat similar life experiences.

There are people who do have 'similar’ life experiences to Steve.

Two of them are super soldiers.

One is a PJ.

All of them are MALE.

And there’s only one person with ‘shared life experiences,’ and that’s Bucky.

.

Claim 2. Peggy is as anti-Nazi as Steve. 

IS SHE THO? 

Unlike Steve, who was based on an anti-Fascist character, Peggy was based on a Nazi character. 

(Shitty thing for the comics writers to have ever created, given the motivations of Cap’s original Jewish creators. 

Even shittier and stupider for the antisemitic Rat to choose to incorporate her into Peggy when that wasn’t at all necessary; there are other love interests they could’ve chosen!  

Not only was Cynthia a direct and inexcusable snub to the intentions of Cap’s creators -- two Jewish men wanting to create a staunchly Socialist Antifa ally to encourage other non-Jewish people to fight the Nazis. 

...but including her in the MCU also contradicts the authorial intent of Cynthia’s creators, too. They never intended for Steve to find out he was dating a Nazi collaborator and then just... continue... to date her??

Cynthia was supposed to repent of her past and then redeem herself by dying to save Steve. 

Steve was never supposed to knowingly date someone who would ally themselves with Nazis. 

And if we’re supposed to read Gilmore Hodge's Nazi-defector comics origins as an easter egg, his and Peggy’s whole interaction could be read as a weak attempt to distance this Peggy from Cynthia (revealing that they know they ought to be trying to do that; that they know it’s wrong).   

If we never saw any actions to contradict Peggy’s alleged anti-Naziism onscreen it would be fair enough to assume. 

We don’t accuse every character of being secretly pro-Nazi who has not actually said out loud that they want to fight Nazis, to be fair. 

BUT.

Peggy’s actions call this into question because: 

1) She is based on a Nazi. 

Confirmed in the AC Season 1 Book. 

 (Meta on this here.) 

She’s not the only MCU property who is a blending of two comics characters.

Before he’s revealed as the Winter Soldier, Bucky has the characterisation of another character, too; Jewish Arnie Roth.

Specifically, Arnie Roth in the comics pretended to be a ladies man, a ‘confirmed bachelor’, to cover up the fact that he was gay. 

In the MCU, Bucky does the same thing... but it’s re-made into a sign that he’s straight. 

In other words, MCU use their adaptation to pretend that black is now white, and that the original never showed us a gay man at all (by making his original philandering now seem straight-forwardly straight.) 

They do the same thing with Peggy. 

They take traits that, in Cynthia, were indications of her being a Nazi.

(Eg. her pitying maternal view of pre-serum Steve, in the scene in the car before he gets serum, followed by an extreme and avaricious lurch in interest once he looks like an Ubermensch. 

Her very appearance is itself indicative of her Nazi values. She is a brown-haired brown-eyed white woman as a reference to Nazi non-common-sensical hypocrisy in worshipping a blonde blue-eyed ideal, despite not even looking like that themselves, and also because she, as a spy, benefits from looking like the sort of person who you’d think wouldn’t be into worshipping Aryan ideals... (but, of course, Nazis don’t have common sense). 

Conversely, unlike comics Cynthia, comics Peggy is a blonde-and-blue-eyed woman because she -- as an Allied spy -- is undercover in a Nazi-occupied country, where looking like their ideal increases her chances of survival.) 

They rename Cynthia Peggy, have her look in a way she didn’t, as an Allied spy, and have her do the same things Cynthia originally did, only now we’re supposed to see those things as a sign she is Good, Actually, and not Fascist in her thinking. 

(Possibly because the writers, worryingly, don’t see anything fishy about Cynthia’s behaviour before her reveal as a Nazi in he first place.) 

2) In CATFA Peggy dodges the question when Steve asks why she joined the Army. 

(Steve, whose motives were framed as explicitly linked to a desire to fight Nazis; because they’re bullies). 

The film has Peggy change the subject to deliver a burn to Steve about his lack of experience re: dating. 

As a Nazi spy, this would be her throwing sand in Steve’s eyes by changing the subject / trying to distract him.

Why so evasive, Disney? 

Gee I wonder... 

Could it be because Disney’s founder, Walt Disney, was himself so antisemitic and pro-Nazi that not only did he:

1) give a personal tour of the Fantasia production to Nazi director Leni Riefenstahl (whom Hitler described as “my perfect German woman”, and who directed Nazi propaganda films Triumph of the Will, and Olympia.) Disney also: 

2) Disney also made movies about space with Wernher von Braun, the former SS Officer pictured alongside Zola, who pulled Jewish slave labour from Buchenwald concentration camp, and whom Operation Paperclip brought to the USA to work for NASA in Huntsville (aka ‘Rocketsville’), Alabama (birthplace of Nick Fury).

And Disney now needs to capitalise on both the right wing fans of this history, but also make faint superficial moves to appease leftwing customers -- by whitewashing this aspect of their own history and pretending they weren’t pro-Nazi at all. 

And using a pretty Englishwoman to do it.

(Why, if Disney themselves worked alongside Nazis, well, it couldn’t really be all that bad, could it?? If they cannot cover it up, the next best thing they can do is get their customers to think this way.)  

3) In her own words Peggy says she wants to fight because she’s ‘bored’ (AC short), and wanted ‘a life of adventure’ (AC series). 

Contrast this with, eg. Steve who specifically says he wants to fight to capture and kill Nazis, because he doesn’t like bullies, wherever they’re from. 

(Like his Jewish creators, who wrote Steve and Bucky, in the comics, also fighting on behalf of decent German-Americans who had been pressured to join the Nazi-promoting organisation the German American Bund.)

Peggy also says she eschews a marriage to a staff member of the Home Office to reluctantly take up the flag of her villainous brother, after his death, because he told her she was 'meant for more' than a boring desk job (... a post at Bletchley Park.) 

Better than code breaking at Bletchley Park?

The sheer snobbery! 

No mention of wanting to fight Nazis, or evil doers generally??

This is echoed by the tie-in comics which have Howard Stark initially refusing to join the SSR but then changing his mind after being caught in a Hydra car-chase ... Because it was fun. 

(Especially disturbing because it's later retconned, by a description of his upbringing on the LES, that Stark himself is Jewish.) 

These things are being written by people who cannot conceive that to a good person fighting Fascism is motivation enough in itself. 

They have to have had some other, selfish reason for doing it. 

(So Peggy is bored, and has a dead brother.)

This is the opposite of depicting her as being anti-Nazi. 

She would not need to be mentioning any other motive, if her motive was clear.

4) In Disney+ What If...? Given yet another opportunity to voice her opposition to Nazi values, Peggy instead says of supersoldier serum:

'...you could end the war. We mere mortals can only dream of doing such things.' 

A line which could’ve been plucked straight out of Red Skull’s ubermensch-worshipping mouth. 

He is someone who wants to steal serum for himself, to become a ‘superior man’, in order to seize the Tesseract (which is... exactly what Peggy does as soon as she has it.) 

Once again, given the chance Peggy is aping Red Skull and not saying anything about wanting to fight Fascism. 

Just how stopping Nazis would look. 

So... the Nazis can keep doing what they’re doing, so long as it’s not annoying Britain, and she looks good by making it happen? 

And getting serum, not to help others, (other countries, other groups in society) but to no longer be a ‘mere mortal.’ 

It’s about all about the optics; the allure of power. 

No self sacrifice (like Steve), only self aggrandizement (like Red Skull). 

No regard for saving lives for the sake of saving lives; just for being seen as impressive because you saved lives. 

This is megalomania, not heroism. 

Oh - and, worshipping strength? 

Fascist Barbie strikes again! 

This is the same character who didn’t spot or stop the Hydra infiltrator Clemson when that was her job, nor the Hydra goons loitering outside the top secret base, the woman who hired Zola (along with others), and was supporting a eugenics project (see below). 

Never says she disagrees with or wants to fight Nazis. 

And is now speaking lines that sound like Red Skull; not condemning the evil of what the Nazis are doing...  but avariciously saying ‘imagine being that powerful!!’ 

And then she literally steps over Steve’s bleeding body to seize that power for herself.

Yikes!

If you take Endgame and WhatIf at face value, as the Rat wants us to, she's even shown being happy to work alongside Zola. It’s so an intrinsic part of her character to work alongside Nazis that she even does it in other universes!

So it’s not even just one flavour of Hydra which Peggy fails to spot or condemn in word or deed. 

She's running a ‘quasi-fascistic’ organisation for decades (Tony’s words) with active Nazis in it and either didn’t notice or didn’t care. 

5) She’s introduced working on Project ReBirth. 

Project ReBirth is a Nazi Eugenics program. 

It started out under Schmidt, in Nazi Germany, funded by Nazi economic policies (who do you think that money came from?), probably using Nazi-accrued human guinea pigs, and according to Nazi science and values. It’s implied that Zola worked on it too. 

Even if it hadn’t started out in Nazi Germany, the Nazis got all their eugenic science from America. 

America had a huge Nazi presence (there was a Nazi spy ring busted in Brooklyn IRL in 1942) and a massive recent uptick in KKK membership in New England especially (largely from anti-Catholic Protestant Swedish). 

They even used gas chambers for prisoner executions, after the war. 

We’re supposed to infer ReBirth isn’t an evil or antisemitic scientific endeavour because Abraham Erskine invented it and we’re supposed to read Erskine as Jewish (without having to go to the indignity of actually saying the word 'Jew' because it’s Disney and they’re so virulently antisemitic that even JK Rowling is like ‘steady on’.) 

But Erskine can be Jewish and yet still fully support the ableist teachings of eugenics. 

In fact, even though he gives different reasons, as we’ve seen, Told is not Shown; Claimed is not Proven. 

The fact that he singles out a disabled man for his test subject and not a healthy one makes it more than likely that he does think disabled people need to be changed. 

Them and not, for example, the way society treats them. 

(This also buys into the patronising, ableist Dickensian image of the ‘Saintly Disabled’ person, whose suffering is beautiful because being close to death is like being close to God and being disabled is therefore character-building and must mean you’re a good person. Like being good on the inside is a consolation prize for being disabled-and-therefore no good, on the outside.) 

And Peggy’s all for it. 

She even compares Steve to a lab rat (unprompted. Gee, thanks), and when Col. Phillips says to him:

'You're an experiment, you're going to Alamogordo. I asked for an army and all I got was you. You are not enough.’ 

This alleged spitfire does not speak up in Steve’s defence. 

Or try to comfort him! 

(Rather puts the lie to her claiming to believe that Steve has other options and should exercise control over his own life, doesn't it? Apparently only when her boss isn’t within earshot!) 

This is the second of three times Steve is bullied right in front of Peggy and she says nothing. (See more under Claim 3.) 

Contrast this against his characterisation as the champion of strangers against bullies, putting his own neck on the line. 

In her cameo in the Agents of SHIELD show, she meets with the head of Hydra (alone, not any other member of SHIELD staff; nobody else is ever shown being involved one-on-one with the decisions for hiring of Nazis; not Stark or Phillips or anyone else). In her own words, she tells the Nazi that she “considered” freeing and hiring him, because his work (which includes vivisecting human beings while they’re still alive) would be “valuable”. 

Also... 

In WhatIf they’ve shown that Peggy wanted to work on a eugenics program and later also wanted the power of that serum for herself. 

So that’s another parallel; she’s channelling Red Skull again. 

This woman’s face ought to have melted off the second she got serum in her. 

6) It’s argued she fought Nazis: 

She did NOT. 

Number one, in CATFA (and, officially, not even in most of AC), she’s not a spy, nor a soldier (turning up in one battle where everyone goes because Bucky isn’t there, including old men and scientists, doesn’t make you a soldier, or a spy). 

Allied spies don’t wear Allied uniforms, they don’t live on Allied Army bases, they don’t work in Allied bunkers (unless they’re Nazi spies). 

They also don’t have their faces broadcast in internationally-screened propaganda showreels (unless they’re a total moron). 

Despite Peggy’s estimation of her own abilities (and later portrayals of her), she’s not a spy / field agent; she carries a clipboard, is told to liaise with MI5, she relays Stark’s messages, she moves flags around a map, she describes what is in photographs taken by spy planes (reconnaissance which she is not shown doing herself), and she also tells Howard Stark’s guests when he is ready to see them. 

That’s secretarial/PA work, with a dash of Intelligence Analysis and Military-ADC to Phillips. 

No spying, no fieldwork, no soldiering. 

Number two, Nat said in TWS that under Operation Paperclip the SSR (later re-dubbed S.H.I.E.L.D.) 'recruited German scientists with strategic value.' 

(Sidenote: this also means, since Steve doesn’t seem to be aware of it, that SHIELD and Old Peggy have purposefully concealed the fact of Operation Paperclip from him. Shady as fuck.)

And what Peggy runs is the Strategic Science Reserve. 

The clue’s in the name. 

Hiring Nazis is what it was created to do. 

The fact that the first German Hydra scientist they recruited happened to be also a Jewish (coded) Hydra prisoner is coincidental. 

They didn’t save Erskine because he was Jewish; but because he was strategic. 

They could just have easily have ‘rescued’ Zola first. 

The fact that they’re working on fields which attract Nazis (eugenics and Norse-god related occult energy) is also very convenient. 

Steve hunts Nazis. 

Peggy headhunts Nazis. 

Number three, even if it weren't her job to appear to fight Nazis during the war, we know that fighting Nazis matters to Steve. 

And since Peggy is transparently fixated on Steve, invested in impressing and proving her worth and usefulness to him, and repeatedly assents to do things she doesn’t want to do, just to impress him, then it is both in-character and also in her interest to be seen to fight Nazis, too. 

(Just as it’s in her interest to pretend to care about Erskine or Bucky, neither of whom she actually knew.)

Just like Cynthia the spy, even if Peggy loved Nazis, she would pretend to want to fight them just to look good to Steve. 

Like punching Hodge, they are passing off self-interest as self-sacrifice; as heroism. 

Number four, what she did is NOT ‘fighting’ Nazis.

Fighting Nazis means imprisoning and/or killing them.

Well she didn’t imprison them, she freed them. 

(Zola and Reinhardt, and Zola again in another universe!)  

And not only did she not kill them, she again did the exact opposite – allowing them to be made immortal. 

I didn’t even realise there was an exact opposite to killing a Nazi until I saw the Nazi being made immortal.

(Again, in two universes this happens to Zola under Peggy’s watch; this is such an intrinsic part of her character that she does it even across the multiverse. They try to reframe Zola as a fun side character, a ‘reluctant Nazi,’ but this very trope is a component of the whitewashing propaganda that the US government and Disney originated, for the sole purpose of downplaying the indefensible Operation Paperclip.)

What Peggy does to/with Nazis is the antithesis of fighting. 

7) Peggy is shown repeatedly hiring Nazis. 

If she disagreed with their science at any point, she clearly didn’t after the war (which is horrifying).

Zola is not the only Nazi she recruits; he is merely the only named Nazi in the main films (and the most egregious in terms of his relation to the main characters and the extent of the havoc he wreaks).

But he’s pictured in a large group of other Nazi scientists, then pictured with her. 

And in AOS, she also considers recruiting Reinhart. 

Has a chat with him in prison, and he is later released by Pierce (head of Hydra) during her directorship. 

She also has a friendship with a Black Widow, and breaks her out of prison, in AC, while the Widow is still working for the Red Room, at a time when Hydra was operating in Russia and therefore probably connected to RR, so while Bucky was in their hands. 

And this act (and Peggy’s arrogance about her own ability to anticipate her enemies) leads directly to the only confirmed Jewish character in the entire MCU being shot. In the uterus. And rendered incapable of having children. 

If that isn’t a dog whistle... 

And why is this all on Peggy and not on the other founders of SHIELD?

Because nobody’s going around claiming Howard Stark is a poor disadvantaged discriminated against squeaky clean Saint whose reputation is spotless and irreproachable who is just simply better than Steve in every single respect and never did anything wrong in his life, ever, and anyone who says different just hates All Men, IRL.

Or that Steve’s ending would make sense if it consisted of him saying ‘hey Sam, Bucky... I know I just got you back, but I’m going to back to live alone and isolated in a more sexist racist time, to be with my Only True Friend... Howard.’ 

‘Spying’ isn’t Howard or Phillips’ metier, the other founders of SHIELD (frankly I don’t think she was a founder, she’s too useless). But if we believe she was, then if there’s anybody whose specific job is (supposed to be) spotting and ousting Nazis, it’s Peggy.

tl;dr: No incontrovertible evidence of Peggy’s anti-Nazi-ism, plenty evidence to suggest collaboration, suspiciously convenient and repeated ‘incompetence’ where Nazis are concerned, neutrality amounting to pro Nazi-ism, disclaiming and changing the subject whenever an opportunity to clarify her position/criticise them arises, and doing literally the exact opposite of making sure Nazis are ‘dead or captured’ like Steve wanted. 

.

And, hey, on an especially-damning sidenote: here’s the character that this version of Peggy Carter is also based on - Cynthia Glass, aka Agent X, Nazi spy:

(Whereas the character she’s named after, based on RL-Nazi fighting American badass Virginia Hall, is blonde, blue-eyed, American, and never wears this uniform ^ and never has anything to do with Project Rebirth, or meeting pre-serum Steve, because she’s too busy embedded in the French Resistance at the time.) 

.

Claim 3. Peggy is as honourable/heroic as Steve.

IS SHE THO.

Because she is, for example, introduced punching a bully?

Wrong.

In the fight which introduces us to Steve, Steve is defending other people, total strangers, from a bully (everyone else looks upset by the cinema-bully’s actions; there’s a woman weeping), who is much bigger than him, so at personal cost.

(Then Bucky appears and defends Steve (the weak) from the bully (the strong), at less personal cost; but similarly noble, because underdog-Steve defending other underdogs is in a sense fighting for his own caste, whereas Bucky is composed of pure non-Fascist altruism the way post-serum Steve is.)  

So Steve is:  

a) defending Others, from  

b) a bully who’s much bigger than him, who’s

c) allowed to punch him back, and (until Bucky arrives) there’s

d) no one else around who’s going to help him with that.

Whereas Peggy, on the other hand, is not. 

First of all, Hodge isn’t questioning that she’s a woman in authority; he’s questioning that she’s English and in authority. 

(Mentioning both his nationality and hers; he’s making fun of her posh accent, not her sex, calling her ‘Queen Victoria’ and ‘Your Majesty.’) 

He asks a completely valid question, albeit sarcastically -- which is not critical of her gender -- viz. why would a bunch of American GIs answer to an Englishwoman of no rank? (Either named or shown on her uniform). 

Second of all, Peggy is the person in a position of power. She is punching down, like a bully.

Third of all, instead of addressing Hodge’s totally-valid not-sex-related question, her reaction is to immediately humiliate him by having him step forward and order him to brace his feet, ready to be punched in the face just for questioning her authority. 

(Just like the bully in the theater was ready to attack Steve for questioning him, just like Red Skull is repeatedly shown as willing to attack and kill any underlings who question him. This trait is a sign, the film says, of a bully, not a hero; and not a sign of someone who is good at fighting, either.

In Avengers 1 a cop does exactly the same thing to Steve, when Steve gives him orders; and because Steve is a good person, not a bully, his reaction is not to punch the copy’s lights out for daring to question his authority!! 

In fact, in CATFA, Steve himself later confirms by his lack of regard for any orders Peggy gives, that Hodge was completely correct to question her authority). 

So Hodge is not, at that moment, bullying, he is only undermining her. 

Not cause to be punched in the face.

So Peggy is not selflessly defending others from a bully, like a hero would, she’s: 

a) a bully attacking a person under her charge who is daring to question her authority, 

b) her victim is a person of comparable strength to herself, (so, not ‘the weak against the strong’, like Steve, but the strong against the strong; this is bold, but not honourable), 

And she’s:  

c) surrounded by men (including Phillips) who will support her with that attack  if it goes against her, (so, not so bold, then) and:

d) she chose to make this altercation a physical one (by making Hodge step forward). 

She is not heroically equivalent to Steve or Bucky.

Steve is the weak defending the weak from the strong. Bucky is the strong defending the weak from the strong. Peggy is the strong attacking the strong. 

It’s not hero versus villain, it’s an authority figure bullying an inferior. 

Hodge conveniently says something sexist... but only in reaction to being humiliated; he wasn’t saying anything disrespectful to a woman in that way until he was provoked. Which is still not okay, but the film is very clearly (and misogynistically) giving him a reason to justify his misogyny; as if to say, “yeah men are misogynist, but only because women deserve it!”

This, and the fact that he is also later shown bullying Steve, is used as an excuse to make Peggy’s authoritarian violence seem justified (because she is punching someone she, and we, later see is a bully and a misogynist). 

But... at that point, Hodge had not been a bully or a misogynist yet; he had merely questioned her authority. 

The sexist taunt was not why she punched him, since she had already made him step forward and told him to brace his feet to be punched before he said it, just because he questioned her authority. 

This is what we call: Authoritarianism.

That’s what Nazis are; not good guys.

Which is why Steve himself in the next Captain America movie says, to an honourable person, “the punishment usually [comes] after the crime.” 

But in this moment they have Steve smiling, and nobody comments on Peggy’s Project Insight -like corruption. 

. 

The real gender flipped analogue of Steve’s intro would be if a petite dowdy woman overheard a guy being creepy to a bunch of women strangers, and squared up to him, without the element of surprise, without any authority/power behind her to keep him in check, without anybody to help her, and despite not being anywhere near big/strong enough to fight him off.

Peggy falls short in every single respect.

Later on, Hodge -- literally the same guy who, as said, is a Nazi defector in the comics, so they know damn well they’ve based this Peggy on a Nazi -- bullies Steve, and Peggy does not do anything about it.

She is -- according to the film’s own examples -- villainous not only in what she does, but in the good things she does not do. If Hodge is supposed to be seen as a bully, then she has more than one golden opportunity to defend the only person present weaker than herself, from a (Nazi)bully ... and she didn't take it.

(So she’s not even measuring up to Bucky, since he’s introduced defending the weak from the strong!)

What makes this especially egregious is that she was praised by her superior for punching that same bully, so if she wanted to help Steve against him she could absolutely positively have gotten away with it. 

This inadvertently proves that it’s not bullies she has a problem with. 

It’s people who annoy her, personally.

And she won’t defend the victims of bullying in front of her boss.

So it’s not right and wrong she cares about, it’s looking good. 

(Later on, after she has already been goaded into facilitating Steve’s disobedience, and so is already in trouble with her boss, she is called out for it by Phillips, and is very visibly unsettled... 

So she tries to shunt the blame off onto Steve. 

Earlier, on the three separate occasions when Phillips criticised Steve in front of her, she didn’t speak up; despite standing right behind Steve, two of the times. 

She’ll criticise Phillips’ behind his back, but when actually confronted, she’s a coward. Until... Phillips makes a personal criticism; about her having a crush. Whereupon, suddenly, she grows a spine and answers back. 

Again. It’s only herself she cares about; her own image. 

Her own honour, she defends, but she’s happy to shove Steve under the bus. )

The Hodge punching scene is one of many ‘strong woman’ scenes where the idiot writers think Woman + Violence = Feminism, where it’s only acting like a man (eg. not a damsel) that makes a woman admirable.

And the argument that this is about a woman taking a stand against sexual harassment?

Well then explain to me why, when this Feminist Icon later thinks she’s caught Steve in the act of -what looks to her like- taking advantage of another woman, she doesn’t even speak to that woman? Only asks for Steve’s input?

AC characterisation don’t mean shit.

And after, Peggy isn’t attacking Steve because she thinks he’s guilty of sexual harassment, either; she thinks he and Lorraine are just like Stark and his floozies, making an assumption about both Pvt Lorraine and Steve, without asking.

She’s wrong. And she’s jealous.

And she ends up attacking an innocent man.

So she’s also being hypocritical and projecting, too; because taking advantage to cop a feel was exactly what she did to Steve the first chance she got!

She’s draping herself over desks and cooing about how ‘perfect’ he is but then accusing him of acting like a hussy in the work place??

Pot, Kettle!

Told: Steve is a good man / defends others from bullies, he is anti-authoritarian.

Shown: he has already fought a bully who was upsetting others but doesn’t attack Hodge when he bullies Steve himself, the serum works perfectly and doesn’t alter him in a bad way (ergo: he’s a good man), he punches Hitler in effigy, jumps early from a plane so Peggy and Howard can save themselves; goes out of his way to save the 107 even though he doesn’t know any of them (again, at great personal cost), he even tries to get Bucky to leave him behind and save himself. (Followed by Bucky demonstrating his loyalty and honour by refusing.) He also crashes the Valkyrie to save others. He defies authority figures in order to do the right thing (anti-authoritarian). 

Steve defends others, Peggy doesn’t.

Peggy defends authority (authoritarian).

Peggy violently attacks those she sees as undermining her (a bully; authoritarian). 

I have also seen people argue (outrageously!) that Peggy was going to throw herself on the grenade, like Steve did.

Well:

1) we don’t know that, and we physically cannot know that, since not only is it not shown happening, it’s not verbally confirmed as having been about to happen, either!

All that is Shown is her moving towards the grenade, to perform an unknown Action.

Peggy is not like Steve.

They do not deal with things the same way or make the same choices, given the same situations, at any other point in the film; given the opportunity to outline a plan of attack, they butt heads at every turn.

So to claim she would suddenly, for some reason, break with her established pattern of behaviour and do exactly the same thing as Steve would, here, is the textbook definition of ‘OOC’.

There’s a whole Disney+ episode dedicated to showing how this is the case.

In fact I’d go further and say, that if you wanted to guess what Peggy would do in any given situation, just look at whatever Steve would do; and it’ll definitely be different to that.

So if it’s Steve’s style to throw himself bodily onto a grenade, then we can infer (from pattern of other behaviour) that Peggy definitely wouldn’t do that.

2) as if ‘Told not Shown’ characterisation wasn’t bad enough already, now we’ve got ‘Told as Going-to've-Bin-Shown.’

Not just what it’s erroneously claimed Peggy has done, but what it’s erroneously claimed she was going to have done?!

She’s a hero because although she didn’t do a heroic thing she was possibly going to do a heroic thing?

That’s not how characterisation works!

(I wish my school teachers had had this attitude tho.

‘Miss; you should give me the same marks as the best student in the class, because although I didn’t actually do my homework, you could interpret it as looking like I was gunna!!’

...And if they marked me based on my results the rest of the time, and the rest of the time I didn’t do whatever the best student in the class did, I wouldn’t deserve to be marked identically, would I?

If there’s such a thing as an inner comphet filter, there’s definitely a herofilter at play when people ascribe a level of heroism to actions Peggy didn’t even take.)

3) the fact that Peggy is:  

A) currently supervising this part of the men’s physical training,

B) Phillips’ aide-de-camp (ergo responsible for knowing things like, for example,  when they’re going to be training with dummy ordnance and which is which),

C) standing next to a truck full of said dummy ordnance, and is

D) a SPY, (later responsible for surveilling a weapons factory) makes her, of all the people present, most likely to know that those are dummy grenades.

If she doesn’t know and can’t tell, she’s either:

A) oblivious, and therefore

B) incompetent, or

C) not important enough to have been told about it (and therefore overestimating her importance, making her pompous and arrogant), or:

D) all of the above.

If she does know it’s a dummy, she’s not being heroic going towards it.

If she doesn’t know it’s a dummy (because she is incompetent and/or oblivious and/or unimportant enough to have been told and/or all of the above) then we still don’t know that she was being as heroic and self-sacrificing as Steve by moving towards the dummy grenade, because we don’t know what her plan was!

.

And about Krausberg...

I’ve seen people spin her ‘helping’ Steve get to Krausberg as heroism, on her part; but she doesn’t do so because it’s right, she does it because Steve goads her into having to put her money where her mouth is.

He points out that she can’t claim to believe he’s worthy and then not help.

It’s not about helping him, or doing good, it’s about Steve making her eat her own words; by correctly guessing that she wants to look good in front of him (and be right in her own eyes; which is most important to her).

So when Steve suggests, dismissively, that the only thing she can do to be of any use to him is to get out of the way (‘then you gotta let me go’) Peggy stops him to say ‘I can do more than that.’  

Steve doesn’t care about her opinion; he cares that she’s in his way.

She doesn’t care about his (noble) goal.

She just wants to be needed by him.

She just wants to be seen as ‘right’, by him.

(Peggy herself confirms this, when Phillips accuses her of helping Steve because she had a crush on him -- which is true! But she won’t allow Phillips to say things that make her look bad.

Instead she claims she did it because she had faith;

Yes, but it was faith in her own judgement, not in Steve!

Steve, she told to wait!

Steve, she tried to dissuade from going!

But when Steve quoted herself back to her?

Oh, yeah, suddenly she miraculously had faith in ‘him.’

She rewrites history to cast herself in a better light.

She also presumes to speak for Steve in his absence -- despite only having spoken to him on four occasions, total -- to use him as an excuse to cover her own arse.

('You shouldn’t criticise me, because he did it too!’)

Snitch.

Typical Peggy ‘apology’, too.

In CATWS it’s not ‘I mucked it up’ it’s ‘we mucked it up.’

What ‘we’?

Phillips was old and retired (probably dead), Stark was dead.

I thought you were the girlboss Peggy?

So who is this we?

Is it the Royal we, your majesty?

This repeated presumption (that she has insight into Steve’s mind) is one she repeats, over and over, and in her own show. She uses other people’s assumptions (which match her own delusion) about the degree of her relationship to Steve as an excuse to act like she is Steve’s mouthpiece, after he is dead and cannot object.)

.

So, this moment in CATFA where Peggy agrees to help in the rescue attempt...

At first glance, it might appear to be feminist of Peggy to value her opinion but not Steve’s.

But it isn’t -- because feminism is not about privileging women over men, it’s about valuing men and women equally.

(And Steve is not being feminist at all in not valuing her opinion!)  

And being so desperate to be needed/valued by a man is certainly not feminist.

It is brave of Peggy to go in the plane with Steve and Howard, but no more noble or brave than Howard is being too.

However, unlike Howard, Peggy’s presence wasn’t even necessary, since her only function in the scene is to exposit to the audience tell Steve things he already knows.

(see more below.)

NB: I’ll get into the ‘hiring Nazis’ side of Peggy’s character more anon, but suffice to say that sitting in a pub with Steve, listening to him weep over his dead friend, providing him solace (while once again presuming to speak for the dead  man whom she doesn’t even know, and to mansplain their views to their oldest friend), listening to Steve declare he wants all Hydra dead or captured...

And to then turn around six months later and give a job to- not just A Nazi, but The Specific Nazi responsible for that suffering?

Has got to be the most heinous, unheroic, ignoble thing an allegedly heroic character has ever done in the MCU.

Not even Red Skull is this two-faced, and he literally has two faces.

.

Claim 4. Peggy is as competent as Steve.

IS SHE THO.

Peggy introduces herself by saying she’s in charge; but if you delete that line, nothing else in the movie supports her claim.

We only have her word for it.

Nobody else’s actions in the movie support the idea that Peggy is in charge of anything; she’s treated more like Stark’s P.A. and/or an intelligence analyst. 

(They never seem to settle on what her responsibilities are! 

She’s carrying a clipboard making notes while the soldiers are training, as if she might be Erskine’s assistant. 

But then she’s putting the men through drills as if, no, she’s Colonel Phillips’ assistant? 

During the sabotage in Brooklyn she goes out guns blazing as if that’s her job??

But then later on she’s talking about aerial surveillance photos as if that’s her job? 

But then she’s doing P.A. tasks for Howard?! What is she?!) 

But if we take AC as ‘canon’...

(it has since been declared not-canon by IIRC the Russos, but the Rat seems to be trying to re-retcon Peggy as an important honourable character in their next releases so who tf knows. The thing is that AC is more like an adaptation of Comics Peggy. But Film Peggy isn’t comics Peggy, she’s Cynthia. 

Also, the events of AC are not possible within the timeline of the films, because they’re claiming to have happened in 1946, when the films say Peggy was already co-founder of SHIELDra, and Zola was already freed from prison and given a job. 

But, devil’s advocate...)

...if we said AC Peggy was film Peggy:

She used to work at Bletchley Park at a very young age,

was going to ditch it for marriage to a staff member of the Home Office but then became a spy at SOE because her brother got her a job there,

and is apparently such a good spy that she's raised to head of the SSR and co-founder of SHIELD and has a PhD from Cambridge*.

*honorary, given later on.

People are so afraid to validly criticise a female character for fear of being accused of doing it out of sexism or rabid ship-fangirlism but look-

Let's go in order:

writers are notoriously lazy when it comes to showing intelligence in comic book characters; it's much easier for them to just 'tell' a character is smart by chucking a bunch of qualifications alphabet after their name. But still: working at Bletchley Park while still a teenager? (Since she's supposed to be in her early 20s in CATFA). Without qualifications? Unlikely! Not even Alan Turing managed this! I wonder what quality this posh, pretty, unqualified nineteen year old girl had that would make them hire her?

Even if we take that claim ^ at face value, it could only be because of her class (because they were only hiring upper class women at the time; that’s if we’re being charitable -- it might have been because of her looks too), and either way, it’s not because of merit, and:

She quit that job in the middle of a war! (Further proof of class privilege, btw; ditching a steady job and fiancee after she was going to be a homemaker, simultaneously with losing her only brother, who is an officer.) Is it the behaviour of a good, competent spy to sneer at codebreaking as a career and/or abandon their essential post during wartime?

The photo of her shown inside Steve's compass is either a newspaper clipping or a photo from an SSR file. Is it the behaviour of  A) a real couple to not give each other proper photos?

B) a competent spy to have their picture broadcast in a public propaganda showreel??

We're supposed to believe she is not pro-Nazi (or is merely indifferent, which amounts to the same thing; as Elie Wiesel said, "indifference is always the friend of the enemy, for it benefits the aggressor"). But we are shown that Hydra infiltrated her organisation THREE TIMES (counting Disney+ WhatIf...) Is it the behaviour of a competent spy not to notice that a Nazi is a bad person and therefore a bad hire? Neither during the chaos of war or for decades after?

Since Steve himself is the one who uncovers this “infiltration”, we know for a fact that she was not his equal in competence, there; not for decades!

And in all that time she was apparently fine enough with Zola that he only died of natural causes?

None of this criticism is based on her being female or in the way of a ship somehow.

Being given a job above one’s pay grade due to class privilege or nepotism, ditching a crucial post during wartime because of boredom; never being sacked or demoted despite repeated dangerous incompetence and inappropriate, erratic misconduct in the workplace.

And, failing to stop Nazi infiltration of one’s own alphabet agency -- TWICE in the movies! THREE TIMES if you count Zola approaching Fennhoff in her own show! FOUR TIMES counting D+ WhatIf -- all these are signs of incompetence in a man, and would be so in a world where Bucky never existed.

And look at the beats they use to show her competence and/or being a ‘badass’ in CATFA. 

In order:

1) Suckerpunching Hodge. 2) Running towards the grenade. 3) Shooting the saboteur’s driver. 4) ‘Helping’ Steve get to Krausberg. 5) Shooting at Steve. 6) Shooting the Hydra goon-with-a-flamethrower. 7) Peggy’s Speech.

If you look at the ‘combat’ beats (which the movie thinks is how you prove competence; brawn, not brains), all depend on the element of surprise for success.

1) Suckerpunching Hodge.

Peggy’s intro is supposed to show us a male power fantasy (and a nasty misogyny about the ‘best’ kind of women’s reactions to harassment; that harrassment wouldn’t happen if the victims would just fight back!) of a woman punching out a man who is being a creep, for the sole purpose of making her look good by comparison.

But first of all this isn’t a punch, it’s a suckerpunch.

Setting up a strawman only for someone to knock them down isn’t a good way to show that character is strong; it’s like kicking over a scarecrow.

Hitting a man who isn’t expecting it and cannot fight back, no matter how much he deserves it, isn’t a demonstration of guts or competence in fighting.

It isn’t even a demonstration of Peggy’s attitude towards the harassment of women in general; only of her attitude towards harassment of her, personally.

(It is a good way to stop Hodge annoying her in future... but that’s not what the film thinks it’s showing. It thinks this is demonstrating that Peggy is a Badass. Also, if combat is competence, then failing to knock Hodge out despite using full force and surprise is incompetent, as demonstrated by pre-serum Steve when he fails to knock out his attacker in the alley.)

Their choice of strawman is also damning:

Hodge is a(nother) adaption of a Nazi character; a defector.

They introduce a character who is clearly Cynthia Glass

(Since she’s brunette and English, while Peggy was blonde and American, and in Project Rebirth, where Peggy never trod).

Have her immediately introduce herself as Peggy.

(So that comics aficionados will not be sitting there thinking, ‘okay so that’s Cynthia?’).

And then have her punch a character who is a bully/adaption of a Nazi.

By having Cynthia!Peggy hit him, they’re also trying to stake a flimsy claim of anti-Naziism on a character whom they know is based on a Nazi.

(And also, discredit an American audience’s immediate reaction to her -- that she sounds like a posh English bint and why would she even be there?? - by putting them in the mouth of bully Hodge.)

Two other things to consider about the Hodge stuff:

First, if the pre-serum training montage is supposed to be the most important part of Steve’s backstory, viz. a vis. prospective love interests noticing him (because he has a chance at doing notably heroic and clever things).

And Steve’s love interests can only be female.

See anything... constraining about that?

That training sequence takes place on a military base.

Where there are no women.

‘Of all the women on the military base, She was the most special!!’

Yeah, in a pool of one. Big whup. 

It means the only thing special about is that she’s a woman. 

So... if there were other women there, she wouldn’t even be special?

How easy is it for the one lone woman present to look ‘unique’ or ‘competent’ in that scenario, when there are literally no other women around with whom to compare her? 

Peggy can punch!  (debatable. Can other women punch? Irrelevant! Never mind other women! There are no other women!!)

It’s damning with faint praise.

In that scenario, Peggy is the ‘one woman’ who notices Steve in a pool of one (1).

That’s not an achievement. It doesn’t make her unique or insightful. It just makes her female and in the vicinity. 

It’s a ‘last woman on earth’ scenario.

Second: this Hodge suckerpunch is supposed to show that Peggy isn’t a damsel.

In peak white feminist writing terms, she’s Not Like Other Girls (in which ‘other girls’ are Bucky), she is worthy because she is a man in a woman’s skin (since men are not damsels, men solve their problems with violence).

But when you establish X quality = good, in a character’s eyes, you set up the concomitant idea that X quality's opposite = bad, in a character’s eyes.

If Peggy is seen as ‘remarkable’ and ‘worthy’ and 'the One’ because she's not a damsel.

This says that physical strength/violence, ‘not being a damsel/needing rescue’ = worthy, in Steve’s eyes.

Therefore: ‘being a damsel/needing rescue/being physically weak’ = unworthy, in Steve’s eyes.

But if that were the case (and how Steve thinks) then:

1) he wouldn't respect Bucky

2) he wouldn't respect any of the people he rescues as an Avenger

And, most stupidly of all:

3) he wouldn't respect himself, pre-serum.

But 1, 2 & 3 are clearly not true (because he does respect Bucky, he does respect ordinary helpless people, and he does respect the hell out of himself pre-serum).

Therefore: strength ('not being a damsel') should not be an admirable quality in Steve's eyes.

In fact if there’s one thing Steve definitely would not see as an intrinsic sign of worth, it’s strength!  

Apart from anything else, if Steve thought this way, it would mean he sees the strong as being better than the weak.

And that’s... Fascism, folks!!

This is why it’s Antifa Jewish Erskine who appreciates Steve; and why he argues in favour of “qualities beyond the physical” and against picking strong Nazi Hodge for the serum.

But Peggy is also strong; she’s strong enough to knock that exact strong man on his ass.

So she’s not an underdog. The exact opposite of Steve; he values the underdog, the weak, not the strong.

(The person who gets back up from a sucker punch; not the person throwing their weight around. Peggy is the exact opposite of him; a foil, not an equivalent.)

And Therefore:

Peggy being strong (not being a damsel) would not make her special, remarkable, worthy, or ‘The One’ in Steve's eyes.

Suckerpunching wouldn’t impress him.

A woman not needing help wouldn’t dazzle him.

(He’s the son of a single mother ffs, why would female competence be new or noteworthy to him?? As if competence is an unusual quality for a woman to have? Wait, so that’s... straight up misogyny, then?)

Giving comeuppance to a bully would impress him.

But that’s not what this scene thinks is impressive about Peggy.

It thinks a Girl being violent!! and throwing her weight around is titillating and impressive.

(It’s staggering, really.

How hard can it be to write a love interest for an anti-Fascist without giving them qualities that are specifically idolised by Fascists?

Seriously! They could’ve picked any quality for her to have! How about brains, for one?

You can’t have weak, disabled, Antifa Steve and then a Jewish guy saying ‘qualities beyond the physical’ and soldier guy saying ‘you win wars with guts’ but then say Steve would admire physical strength?

That’s the opposite of guts!

That would make his taking of the serum selfish, not altruistic; motivated by a Fascistic desire for and admiration of Strength

(Um... y’know... like Captain Carter? And John Walker? Red Skull?)  

It exposes the double standard, too, since Steve barely glanced up at Bucky punching a bully.

(If he admires violence and physical strength, shouldn’t he have been watching with bated breath? If he liked physical strength so much, where was his admiration then? It’s only admirable if a woman is physically strong? So it’s just comphet?)

But women + violence = Feminism, and that’s hilarious, right?

sidenote: Peggy’s presence in the workplace does fly in the face of the Fascist dictum that women should be “merely breeders” and homebodies.

But: (despite what silly supervisory claims she makes, what she is actually shown doing is secretarial work) and the fact that she is in a non-fieldwork role conforms to the Fascist ideas that women should be “helpers, excluded from all ceremonial functions.”

Likewise the air of titillation, and her own blatant euphoria over her physical violence, conform to the Fascist worship of Strength.

Her depiction also conforms to the Fascist assertion that women “represent a threat [viz. competition and a sexual distraction from their manly work] to the integrity and strength of men.”

CATFA itself, sadly, integrates this last idea when it repeatedly frames Peggy (and other women) as distractions who keep trying to introduce romance while a disinterested, manly Steve is busy working, dangit woman!

tl;dr: Steve should not be admiring physical strength/violence because that is what Fascists do and he is staunchly Antifa.

.

2) The grenade.

We’ve already established (under ‘Heroism’) that:

A) just because Peggy was running towards the grenade, it doesn’t mean we know what she was going to do once she got there; so we can’t claim that we know it would’ve been Heroic on a par with what Steve did (ie. throwing herself on the grenade), especially not considering that she never does anything else Steve would do at any other point in the movie, and:

B) it’s actually supposed to be her job to know the grenade is a dummy, so if she was running towards it because she thinks it’s live, then she’s simultaneously proving herself incompetent or irrelevant.

C) And the argument is that she doesn’t recognise dummy ordnance... well, she’s overseeing the surveillance of a Hydra weapons factory, later on, but she can’t spot a fake weapon? (Or 500 men marching back from a raid either, apparently?!) Then she is NOT competent.

.

3) Guns.

In CATFA, Peggy’s alleged ‘competence’ with guns is downright dangerous.

She has a habit of discharging her sidearm in a way that is potentially catastrophic:

The Saboteur.

First of all...

IF Peggy is -- as she claimed -- the person in charge of supervising all SSR operations, then guess whose job it is to make sure Nazi spies don’t find out about or infiltrate the organisation?

And whose job it is to spot a Nazi spy when one appears?

That’s right, Peggy’s job! 

It’s Peggy’s job to stop Nazi spies infiltrating the SSR, and yet she has fucked that up.

(D+ WhatIf is aware of this, since this is the exact specific point at which they start their episode. What If... Peggy Had Actually Done Her Job?

Also, since this is the universe in which Steve gets shot, and the only difference in it is that Peggy is nearer to the bad people in the lab... 

Instead of Hayley Atwell being busy creepily groping her poor costar Cevans on the other side of the room (LOL!! Groping is hilarious! ✨#Feminism!!) 

Uhh... then... they just said she is the reason Steve gets shot? Oops?? 

They also nerf Erskine, who was originally the one who spotted the spy, by giving that to Peggy.

And the writers’ idiotic quotes about This being the ‘verse where The Woman (singular) gets to stay ‘in the room’ are nonsense because she was already in the room?? She was just being creepy and/or useless at her job, as usual.)

And if it’s not her job to stop Nazis infiltrating, then -- as with the grenade -- she’s not important. She’s over-stating her own importance (arrogant and deluded) and overstepping her remit, with limited success. 

Second of all: 

Having outlined her own job responsibility and then apparently fucked it up within minutes by: 

1) not noticing/preventing infiltration & sabotage in the first place.

2) failing to notice two suspicious Hydra goons loitering outside the Antiques Store before they go in (who later open fire).

3) failing to manage to fatally shoot the saboteur while he was going up the stairs from the Lab, even though he was close enough and a plain enough target that she did manage to clip him... 

4) following the saboteur out and failing to prevent them from detonating a second (car) bomb on the public street (!) and turning disinterestedly away from said exploded bomb, 

(And why is this necessary? Because the only other woman present, of course, has failed to stop them getting away and is now dead, despite being armed with a machine gun! No other women are allowed to be good at their jobs, only She Who Must Be Obeyed!) 

Successfully shooting the getaway driver in the back of the head but then:

5) Trying and failing to make the second (taxi) getaway crash, by shooting the  already-injured saboteur (who is driving) in the face, while she herself is standing directly in front of the car and there are civilians and other cars close by all around. 

Even disregarding any potential stray bullets, (as her majesty is so often wont to do) from this firefight, that ought never to have happened if she had done her job in the first place...

By killing the first driver Peggy directly puts innocent peoples’ lives at risk.

Given that these are Steve’s people, and they’re in his neighborhood, it’s hardly surprising that he tackles Peggy out of the way to stop her doing this again.

(Chillingly, this specific move -- standing in place while a car races towards her -- displays a level of insouciance about her own safety, hubris about her own abilities, and an indifference to civilian casualties, emulated only by that famous softie, the Winter Soldier (both when he flips Fury’s car and when he lets Sam drive right at him on the bridge).

Unlike Peggy, however, the Soldier is a superhuman man, capable of backflipping himself up onto the roof on a much-faster oncoming vehicle using his cyborg prosthetic arm. So it’s not foolish, reckless, or arrogant for him to stand his ground as the car approaches. Peggy, on the other hand, is an ordinary woman, with poor aim, in impractical shoes.)

So: having already missed a kill shot in the lab, Peggy misses all three of her second set of shots at Clemson (while he’s coming towards her and is thus both a bigger target and aware of her), after having hit the first driver. 

Charitably, if I blame Steve for her missing the last shot, that’s still three misses.

That’s a pattern of failure.

The fact that she misses her last (even easier shots) at the car means either: 

A) the first hit was a deliberately good shot, but she overestimates her own ability by following up that success with two/three consecutive failures. If she’s good enough to make the first shot on purpose, missing two/three easier shots is incompetent.

Missing one shot would be back luck; missing three shots is bad shooting.

Or:

B) her first hit was a fluke and was only successful because the first target had his back to her/didn’t know she was about to shoot him; which means she’s an idiot who’s just gone out into the street firing a gun at targets she is not capable of hitting on purpose. She’s incompetent.

In both cases, her success rate is erratic. Not competent.

In other words; she fires five shots in total at Clemson and still only manages to clip him once, even when he’s in the same room as her!  

But despite this, Peggy keeps on going, keeps on failing, acts as if it isn’t happening, and then shouts at Steve for being the reason she missed! 

(‘I had him!’)

OK, Karen. 

(Yet another example of Steve and Peggy not doing the same thing in the same situation is that he runs off after the saboteur, unarmed, whereas she goes straight to guns -- which endanger other people. Steve’s people, not hers. His go-weapon is a shield. Which is why he’s Captain America.) 

Even though you could delete Peggy entirely from CATFA without any effect, this specific sequence of failures by Peggy is absolutely crucial to Steve’s hero arc. 

Because, if Peggy had done her job properly, Steve never would’ve had to go out into the street after a saboteur. Never would’ve made the newspapers, never would’ve had a publicity-hungry Senator shoving him into a USO Tour (instead of being shipped to be a lab rat in Alamogordo), never would’ve been pictured holding a taxi door with a star on it as a shield (which later inspired his costume), never gone to Europe, never saved the 107, etc. etc.

(WhatIf, for some reason, gives pre-serum Steve an Iron Man suit, but still have Peggy save the 107, when Steve is the one to have a reason to care about them, not her. In CATFA she argued against the rescue attempt of the 107. A similarly dismissive attitude to Red Skull’s. It also gives Peggy a shield when she never used one before.) 

In short, if Peggy was competent, Steve never would’ve become Captain America.

And not only is she incompetent, the hero’s arc actually depends on her uselessness.

(And D+ WhatIf understands this, by saying the only way she could be a superhero is if Steve wasn’t. That’s not equality. Equality would’ve been both of them getting the serum. The show says she can only be important if men aren’t. So, she isn’t their equal, then, she’s just filling in? And if no-serum underdog Steve can go to into battle... then why didn’t no-serum Peggy? ) 

4)

When it comes to saving the 107, Peggy initially tries to stop Steve from going.

(And, of course, fails!)

Then, after Steve has forced her to eat her own words, and is about to drive off in his jeep, she stops him to offer him a different vehicle. 

So far, all she has done is offer to give Steve something he already has, and her competence extends as far as ‘knowing Howard Stark’, which Steve also already does.

Then, on the plane, she plays the role of Peggy Exposition, exposits for the audience tells Steve where the Hydra camp is, which Steve already knows, since he saw the same map she did and he has a photographic memory.

It’s also Howard who demonstrates competence by saying he’ll be able to drop Steve ‘right on the doorstep’ (and proves his piloting skill by successfully evading enemy fire).

Peggy’s competence then extends to offering Steve a transponder and telling the audience how to use it. 

But again it’s Stark who assures him it’s been tested (in perhaps the most misogynistic moment of the entire film, Steve turns away, ignoring Peggy’s input completely, to ask a man to repeat the exact same information she was just giving him, even though the man is many feet away and busy flying a plane!) 

In any case, tech is Stark’s skillset, not Peggy’s. So it’s Stark competence; he who provided the transponder, not Peggy. 

All she’s done is hand it to Steve. 

*oh! another Pepper parallel This transponder proves to be useless anyway, since it gets shot. This is going to be Significant later on. 

Peggy then helpfully reminds Steve that Hydra will be trying to shoot him.

(Wow. Amazing insight. No wonder Bletchley hired her. )

Then she tries to give Steve orders to stay on the plane and wait to be airdropped once they’ve taken him ‘all the way in.’ 

But it’s too late; they’ve already been spotted and are being fired upon.

Peggy picked this stealth plan, and it’s already proven infeasible.

So Steve ignores her, and helps them by bailing out immediately (so they can get safely away) while Peggy -- of course -- tells him off.

This is the second of four(?) times she shouts at him for doing the thing that is safer for others, just because it’s not what she ordered him to do. 

There is a definite controlling tendency here.

And Peggy -- whose alleged background at the SOE is supposed to be in espionage -- had no backup plan to account for the eventuality of Steve not being able to call in, and no pre-established rendezvous point. 

If she’s been involved in the SOE this ought to be her bread and butter; dropping people behind enemy lines.

This and the ‘stealth’ aspect of the parachute drop are the only parts of the process of getting Steve to Krausberg which fall exclusively in her wheelhouse --- not Howard’s or Steve’s -- but she fucks both of them up.

So in what way is she competent, here?

Howard’s plane, Howard’s flying, Howard’s tech.

Crediting Peggy with helping Steve get to Krausberg is like thanking the waiter for cooking the meal.

Steve couldn’t have got to Krausberg so fast without Howard, but he definitely could without Peggy.

(Peggy mis-characterises her actions as having ‘faith’ in Steve... although she tried to stop him going, only agreed to help him once Steve threw her own words back in her face -- actually her brother’s words -- tried to control how/when he enacted his plan, questioned his odds, and shouted at him for not doing it all her way. Where’s the faith, exactly?)

5)

She later shoots at Steve in a jealous snit.

Ooo boy this is so bad for so many reasons, so much to unpack; as much as I’d like to just throw away the whole suitcase, let’s get into it anyway.

She shoots at him (*possibly with a prototype gun? it’s just lying there on the table, it could be dangerous) without knowing for certain that the shield he is holding is bulletproof.

If she believes the shield is bulletproof, she’s still wrong to assume because:

the first three times Stark Tech features in this movie it fails (the crashing hover car, the overburdened vitaray tube, and the transponder; Peggy was present for 2/3. She should know better.)

She cannot know that the shield is bulletproof because tech is not her area of expertise, it’s Stark’s.

Even if Tech was her area of expertise, given that she earlier provided Steve with a pre-tested non-prototype transponder that turned out to be un-bulletproof, it’s clear that she doesn’t know what she’s talking about when it comes to recognising bulletproofing, specifically.

(Steve made her aware of this failure so if she’s acknowledging her own shortcomings she ought to know that she’s not a good judge of bulletproofing).

And it also shows that successful pre-tested Stark tech is nevertheless not necessarily bulletproof.

Even if she knew Stark was going to show Steve finished bulletproof shields, she has (wrongly!!) assumed that the shield Steve is holding, is one of those finished designs (which nevertheless may not be bulletproof, like the transponder). But Steve didn’t even pick that shield from among the finished designs -- they were on top of the bench, Steve’s shield was under it.

(Given even pre-tested Stark-Tech’s track record for not being bulletproof, If Steve had picked up one of the finished designs Howard actually intended him to try, and it proved as un-bulletproof as the transponder, Peggy would essentially have ended up shooting Steve, in lethal center mass, point blank. That she didn’t is a stroke of blind luck.)

The shield she shoots is made out of the rarest metal on earth (so how could she know its properties??)

She was out of earshot when its properties were discussed (in the big noisy lab; as she approaches, she has to raise her voice to be heard from a further distance, so that proves she can’t have overheard normal-level speech from further away).

We know she wasn’t discussing that shield’s properties with Howard immediately prior (because he was shown tampering with the Tesseract stuff instead).

And when Steve did pick that vibranium shield up, Howard said ‘no, no, that’s just a prototype’ and waved a hand at him to dissuade him from trying it.

(So if Peggy was paying attention, even if she couldn’t hear what was  said, this should have warned her that the round shield Steve was holding might not be bulletproof. But she was too busy sulking, so...  Also proves that Howard couldn’t have told her ‘hey this one specific round shield is 100% bullet proof’ at any other earlier time. )

Peggy nevertheless opens fire while they are standing in an underground room, with a curved ceiling (perfect for ricocheting bullets unpredictably), and surrounded by un-armoured innocent bystanders!

And the closest person is Howard, who is as vital to the war effort as Steve, and frightened enough by this wild act to dive for cover.

(As he is behind Steve at the time, this is the proof that Howard didn’t know the vibranium shield specifically was bulletproof, so could not have told Peggy it was bulletproof at an earlier date, and he doesn’t think firing at it in this environment is safe.)

Once again, she’s showing a callous disregard for civilian casualties and also for endangering her own people.

Never mind the Winter Soldier, this is some straight-up Red Skull shit.

(Literally; later on in the film, a peon says something Red Skull doesn’t like, so he turns around and fires a pistol at them, despite the fact that they’re one of his own. Peggy literally behaves like Red Skull.)

Even if Peggy did somehow know or correctly guess that the shield was bulletproof (despite it not being her business or area of expertise), Steve and Howard (the genius who made the damn thing) clearly didn’t.

It’s cruel to shoot at them.

It’s dangerous.

The ammo is live, Steve might be surprised enough not to shield himself effectively, and even if he did, the ceiling is curved, it might still have ricocheted and hit him (from above, right on the head; so, fatally), and they’re surrounded by innocent people.

This is an absolutely unhinged way to deal with hurt feelings (which she has no right to, since she misread the situation, and even if she hadn’t misread it, she and Steve are not dating. So this isn’t domestic violence, it’s just straight up violence).

At best, a gigantic dick move.

And for no better reason than sexual jealousy, wounded pride (realising it’s actually Steve who is out of her league and not the other way around), and rage that Steve has smiled and shrugged off her displeasure with him, and that mentioning it hasn’t impacted his friendly relationship with Stark, as Peggy was clearly hoping it would.

And that’s not even getting into the childishness, the level of abuse, the lack of professionalism, the hubris, the staggering injustice to Steve.

(I don’t know how anyone who had ever met Steve could be stupid enough to believe he would abuse his position of power to sexually take advantage of women in the workplace. 

But Peggy knows so little about him that she does. 

And Steve is so sure that Peggy intended violence that he braces the shield with his arm as she stalks past, glaring. And as it happens he is completely innocent of the crime for which she has visited this psychotic punishment upon him.)

It’s another case where Peggy is making a sneak-attack and then acting as if this is an impressive Girlboss feat somehow.

And she exhales... as if it’s satisfying and funny;  like she’s really getting something out of it.

Yikes.  (That’s... Sadism, folks!!)

Not only does this sequence prove that neither Steve or Peggy actually know each other at all (because she doesn’t know he’s not a sleazebag, and therefore isn’t going to be chastened by her disapproval, and he doesn’t know not to smile when Peggy is pissed off at you and standing near a gun). 

This sequence also, coincidentally, belies the idea that any of the men around Peggy see her as an equal.

It’s odd enough that she still has a job when she failed to stop a saboteur, disobeyed Phillips’ orders to drop Steve behind enemy lines, further endangered him and Stark, and a lab full of scientists, and also failed to do proper surveillance (which should have shown the 107 marching back to camp).

But if a man ever opened fire on Steve in anger, the way she did in the lab?

Never mind official channels, he’d be dead. 

But Peggy gets away with it, as if she has the same level of responsibility as a child, to them.

6)

Shooting the Hydra flamethrower goon.

Well, once again, the Hydra goon is looking at Steve, not her, their vision is entirely obscured by the flames, so they aren’t expecting to be shot at; and she has a machine gun, but still takes multiple shots to hit a very big, very close target.

And this flamethrower would be just as dangerous to her, in a second, so she’s also saving her own skin.

This is self-preservation, not heroism; nor extraordinary competence.

It could just as easily have been Howard the scientist doing this. Or Phillips the old man. 

It proves again that Peggy can only hit an unsuspecting target.

Competent, how?

We are shown Peggy being an accomplished hand-to-hand combatant throughout AC...

(However, they claim she’s into boxing, because Steve is into boxing; but then have her never win any fights by using boxing moves, only by a Judo throw -- taught her by her brother, of course -- or hitting people with  objects. And this is yet more stealing of welterweight-boxing-champ Bucky’s backstory from the comics. Can’t have shit in Brooklyn...)

But she is still reckless, deliberately withholds dangerous information from colleagues because she doesn’t rate them, and loses fights with a Black Widow  (she failed to notice) after hubristically un-tying her hands and releasing her from custody.

(She is also yelling at the men for not appreciating how brilliant a spy she is as a woman, while simultaneously not clocking that a Black Widow has moved into the apartment next door to hers, until the woman is literally kissing her full on the mouth. 🤦‍♀️ 

Good God, it’s like Peggy was written in the 1980s as a deliberate critique of the deluded masculine Working Woman HBIC type.)

Terrible job, Carter. 

Very on-brand.

And in any case:

After CATFA = irrelevant to CATFA.

Does not count. Not relevant to the films when they were being made, not relevant to Steve’s view of her. It’s a Dumbledore. It’s pretending they were adapting Peggy and not Cynthia.

And many, many, many other female characters are shown being good (frankly much better) at hand-to-hand combat, so this scarcely qualifies Peggy for some special position in Steve's esteem.

Likewise doing it in high heels and lipstick with immaculate hair.

#SoCouldNat. #SoCouldPepper.

(Iron Man 2 repeats CATFA’s sexist ‘see!! she’s not Helpless! she’s Not Like Other Girls!!’ bullshit with Nat throwing Happy in the ring.

However, Nat’s alleged and proven competence is greater, because the style of takedown she performs is much more difficult, her assailant should be expecting a reprisal, given what year it is; and Happy is twice the height and width of Nat.

But John Favreau is in such a rush to perve on poor ScarJo that he forgets Nat is undercover and would actually be much more likely to pretend to be helpless...)

Back to Peggy:

CATFA argues that it's guts, not power, that make a person worthy.

If we’re supposed to read Peggy as being already strong & skilled enough to knock a man down (when it’s a suckerpunch).

Or firing a gun at the back of a man’s head?

How is it gutsy to do so?

It isn’t. By definition.

And, if you think about the hiring of Zola... Well, even if we delude ourselves she is merely a hapless P.A. who (despite all evidence to the contrary) is a good person with no power over that initial hiring decision...

It still means she sat on her arse doing nothing about Zola, working in the same place as him, for decades.

Gutless.

(And WhatIf shows that working with Zola, far from being an aberration, is such an intrinsic plausible part of Peggy’s character that even other versions of her would do it in other universes.) 

Contrast this gutlessness with, for example, Bucky, who lets an assailant take a swing at him first, after a verbal warning -- and then knocks him back with a haymaker the guy can clearly see coming. Or with Bucky who is visibly frightened during a battle, but conquers his fear and carries on fighting.

Or who doesn't dodge the draft or leave Steve to fight alone; who stands to lose life and limb by doing good but does good anyway. 

Or pre-serum Steve, who stands his ground against a bully in an alleyway, without anyone there to thank or defend him. Who raids a Nazi death camp on his own just to save a friend, even though he might be court martialed and shot for having done it.

Now that’s guts.

In terms of competence, Steve is diffident and doesn't seek out special treatment, he just wants a chance to prove himself.

Whereas, not only has Peggy not proven herself, nor had to prove herself (see below), she repeatedly demonstrates incompetence and yet is elevated above her experience level and then demands to be treated as if she's equal to men who, actually, are her superiors in both onscreen demonstrated competence and experience.

(Phillips has seniority and more experience; he’s a field Colonel.

Stark has ability; plenty evidence of his irreplaceable genius in the film, and Phillips said he can’t touch him.

Not a single damn example of Peggy’s alleged mathematical skills or competence in the field.

Again, if she were 'Peter' Carter this still holds true.

If Peter Carter had waltzed into the middle of a training montage, saying ‘I am a super-competent Spy responsible for your training today, my skills include suckerpunching idiots’ and yet failed to spot or know about a piece of dummy ordnance, or a Hydra spy, and failed to stop them... multiple times... 

We’d be allowed to call him an arrogant dumbass.

But if Saint Margaret does it...?) 

Peggy is then not punished for wild dangerous incompetence because her gambles pay off due to other peoples’ competence. 

(She’s willing to help someone else put their life in danger to make her look good. That is not selfless or noble.) 

In AC, Peggy is treated as less competent than men, and shows her sudden OOC (impossibly acquired) code-breaking skill. 

But this takes place after CATFA.

(And Peggy herself, predictably enough, assumes that she is more competent than the men. Not equal in competence (which is reasonable and feminist), but better.

But she has not been put in a position to gage that, since her exclusion by them by its very nature means she hasn’t seen those men out in the field yet.

They make an assumption about her competence due to sexism.

She makes an assumption about their competence due to radfeminism.

It is incompetent of the men not to establish whether or not Peggy has more to offer first before making a judgement about her abilities; it’s equally incompetent of Peggy to do the same.

Peggy goes further in believing her ability to recognise her own worth as a woman, when men can’t, is a sign that she is more competent than them in  fieldwork specifically.

When, in fact, it’s just a sign that she has lived as a woman, and they haven’t.

She has every right to be pissed off at the men for their sexism. But that doesn’t mean she can do fieldwork better than they can.

The most egregious line -- often quoted out of context -- is, when faced with having her contributions credited to a man instead, Peggy refuses to let another man speak up for her to insist on her getting recognition, and says

‘I know my value. Anyone else's opinion doesn't really matter.’

What. The Fuck.

Oppressed people, just stay where you are, accept what you’ve got -- so long as you know you’re oppressed, that’s all that really matters.

NO IT ISN’T. 

How is this feminist??

How are women to advance, by letting men steal their accomplishments and continue to think nothing of them, and then get away with it, and then telling people to shut up when they try to draw attention to that inequality?

I can’t help wondering if someone wrote this line, on its own, meaning it to be feminist, but then someone else fit it into a random place in an episode, in the one place where it would be as un-feminist as possible.

Noticing oppression levelled against herself isn’t a proof of some impressive insight or intelligence on Peggy’s part; it just proves she has functioning eyes and a brain.

(The only time it’s posited to make her better at her job than the men is when they’re dealing with a female spy that they don’t know how to handle... But Peggy nevertheless fucks up and doesn’t notice her until it’s too late, and then later releases her just to flex on how Unbothered she is.

She claims her sex is her strength but then it immediately makes her a liability? The showrunners don’t seem to agree with her.)

It’s interesting that Peggy only speaks out against misogyny when she has been unmasked as two-faced, is suspected of being a double agent, and has absolutely nothing left to lose by doing so (and in fact she needs the fact of her oppression to prove her innocence; by explaining her motives in double dealing with men.)  

She’s content to remain silent in the face of institutional oppression unless she absolutely has to speak and/or it’s in her own interest to do so (not, for example, to defend the women on the switchboard -- who, we found the next season, had the same training). 

She speaks out about misogyny when it’s in her own interest, (and sneer at her expy Betty Carver being rescued by Steve on the radio show... though that’s stealing Bucky’s backstory, again). 

But she will shunt secretarial work (as beneath her) off onto other women, hypocritically pretend she never doubted female colleagues in front of men (when she did), and act like she’s speaking to an alien species when, eg. a diner waitress is friendly. 

And even then, the ‘my value’ line suggests sometimes she won’t speak out against misogyny even when it is in her own interest, too.

Because the Cool Girl never complains, right?

Feminist, how?

This bizarre zigzag between decrying oppression one minute and then enabling it the next shows that the creators don’t actually have a handle on what sexism or feminism are.

It’s as if they just wanted to invent a reason why Peggy isn’t banging on about feminism all the time -- giving her an arc from feminist to conformist -- and this was all they could come up with.)

In any case, as said, even AC if characterisation made her look good (it doesn’t). 

It is not relevant to (and in several cases 100% contradicts) the films, whence Steve knew her. 

The AC show could’ve revealed that Peggy was a many-tentacled eldritch abomination from the Dungeon Dimensions (makes sense) and it would still have no bearing on what Steve thought about her. 

At that time, when Steve knew her, Peggy had no on-screen grounds to claim equal, greater, or undervalued competence.

The fact that Steve nevertheless respects her, you're right Anon, does smack of Steve (like Fandom) having put Peggy up on a high high pedestal; of having believed her own hype, or inferred worthiness against the evidence of his own eyes.

(Not to mention shrugging off the shooting and the Nazi-hiring thing?! WHO THE FUCK IS HE??)

At the same time, because of who is writing him, Steve is pretty dismissive of Peggy at moments, in a worryingly sexist way.

In Europe he only half-listens to her (doesn’t get up or turn around) until he finds out Bucky's in danger, whereupon Peggy is suddenly reduced to an early-Pepper-like role of traipsing along after him, twittering ineffectually in alarm at his plans.

(Blinkered viewers will interpret this scene, as the writers intend, as a moment of Peggy inspiring Steve to go and be hero. But his call to heroism is actually Bucky and his current/imminent peril. 

While Peggy is telling him to go and do something, Steve remains sitting on his ass, doesn’t even bother to turn around to face her when she’s speaking. 

They only put The Designated Female / Sexy Lamp in the scene in the first place to relay this information because it makes Steve’s sudden leap into action over his imperilled male ‘roommate’ seem less gay. 

Oh he’s not saving Bucky to save Bucky, he’s doing it to Impress a Gurl!? 

Sure pal, sure.) 

Here Peggy is also playing the tedious sexist role of ‘Woman Who Nags the Hero Not to Do the Incredibly Cool & Heroic Thing.’ 

(Incidentally demonstrating that her first instinct is to try and stop things that will make her look bad in front of her boss, or which she is not allowed to control).

You'd think the fact that she then does help Steve, when dared to, would be a subversion of this trope. 

Except it's not...

Because the writers are going: "SEE?? this Ideal Female doesn't whinge and nag when a man wants to go out and kick ass!! she's a Cool Girl! Cool Girls don’t complain! They go with the flow! She’s a Badass! Not Like Other Girls!!"

In other words, a Pick Me.

Whaddya want, male writers - a medal?

.

All it comes down to is, the male writers desperately wanted (or rather, desperately had to have) a Designated Female/Sexy Lamp to be the love interest in the movie to make sure Steve isn’t just doing gay shit. 

They can’t have her do typical damsel stuff because the simultaneous damselling of Bucky and Steve’s impassioned rescue of him would lead to unfortunately queer implications about that and make a total joke of the female analogue.

So she has to be Strong. 

A perfect Fascist Mary Poppins.

But they didn’t actually leave anything for her to do??

They tell us she’s important, but then show all the men around her treating her as if she’s not, (Steve included), and they write a plot which demands that she fucks up whenever she does anything.

(Since they want to fit her in unobtrusively, without having to change the plot to accommodate her as they would with a male character, they have to make sure that whatever her choices are, they have no impact on the baseline trajectory of the plot at all. 

Ergo, everything she attempts to do, fails. 

These try/fail cycles provide nothing more than brief detours, which circle back onto the main route of the plot, without altering the course it takes in any way (since where it goes is determined by men, only).

The net result is Peggy may as well never have existed.

You could cut her entirely out of CATFA without it altering the story or emotional impact at all.

It could’ve been Howard who bumped into Steve backstage at the USO show and told him about the 107.

(And in fact it makes a damn sight more sense for serial philanderer Howard to be loitering backstage where there are chorus girls.)

Since it doesn’t take any combat skill, it could’ve been Howard who machine-gunned down the flamethrower Hydra goon (and would’ve been a nice bit of Avengers foreshadowing too; a Stark versus a guy in a mechanical suit!)

It could’ve been just the surviving Howlies huddled round the radio set, listening to Steve say goodbye.

The only things Peggy sets out to do and actually succeeds in are suckerpunching Hodge (no skill), shooting a man in the back of the head, and shooting the Hydra goon with flamethrowers; a role which is only free for her to fill because Bucky has died.

Her arc is nothing but a romantic plot tumour.

This irrelevancy carries through to the later movies, where she is revealed as having hired Zola, among others; but this is something co-founders Howard and Phillips also did, so it doesn’t require it to be her who did that for the plot to still hang together.

And she is still merely a sounding board for Steve to voice aloud what his already-decided intentions are, without putting the writers to the inconvenience of her actually influencing what Steve does/thinks in any way.

(She essentially just exists to capitulate with whatever Steve has already decided he’s going to do, and maternally chide him for being uncontrollable; with the unfortunate side-effect of making Steve look like he only allows ass-kissers and yes-men around him).

If we humour the idiocy of this US-centric whitewashing claim and say that that ‘infiltration’ did indeed happen (and not them just inviting Nazis to have their pasts expunged and come live in the US to help them make nukes), and happened under Peggy’s auspices...

That would mean she’s repeating past incompetence and on a much grander and therefore damaging scale.

If we say she is merely a hapless P.A., a minor paeon who (despite all evidence to the contrary) is a good person with no power over that initial hiring decision...

It still means that she sat on her arse doing nothing about Zola, working in the same place as him, for decades.

Which makes her gutless, and treacherous to Steve.

So if I had a pound for every time the exact same branch of Nazis infiltrated an organisation Peggy said she was in charge of, I'd have four pounds.

Which isn't a lot, but it's still weird that it happened four times... 

To quote a Jewish character from another movie: 

The first time someone calls you a horse, you punch him on the nose.  The second time someone calls you a horse, you call him a jerk.  But the third time someone calls you a horse?  Well, then... perhaps it's time to go shopping for a saddle.

.

7) Peggy’s Speech.

Perhaps the most crucial aspect of (what the writers try to pass off as her competence) is in Peggy’s ‘wise’ dialogue. 

But the most striking thing about that is, all her ‘big speeches’ aren’t even hers -- they’re men’s.

She makes herself a mouthpiece for powerful men, who happen to be conveniently dead and incapable of contradicting her... and then either quotes them as if she’s quoting herself (to pass off their wisdom as her own), or quotes them openly but in such a way as to imply a closer degree of relation to them, herself, than she actually had (and thereby ingratiate herself with another powerful man; usually Steve). 

Far from making speeches of her own, she merely steals. 

In CATFA alone she does this five times: 

1) Within minutes of Dr. Erskine calling her ‘Agent’, (when we’re supposed to interpret first-name terms as a sign of familiarity elsewhere), Peggy is speaking for the just-murdered man by telling Steve that he would be proud the serum worked on him… 

(As if she knew Erskine personally... But then, why did he call her Agent?

And why would a man his age, in that time period, be friends with a woman of her age and vastly divergent values, unless it was for some unsavoury reason? 

She may well be right to say he’d be proud of Steve, but it’s creepy that she’s:  A) making general plausible guesses about a dead guy’s mindset in such a way as to make it sound like she knew him, and  B) suddenly going out of her way to kiss Steve’s ass now that he looks like Chris Evans.) 

2) Later, she talks as if Erskine -- the same man who wasn’t on first name terms with her -- for some reason, shared with a twenty-something year old woman his personal theories about the possible side effects of the top secret serum? When she isn’t even a scientist?!  

3) It’s revealed in her own show that the ‘meant for more’ words that she passes off as her own to Steve (where they could also be a paraphrase of Steve himself saying Erskine ‘deserved more’), were actually her brother’s; another powerful dead man whose influence has furthered her career. (Again, this is whitewashing history to imply that Peggy inspired Steve to go into action; but he didn’t, it was Bucky’s peril that galvanised him. But of course, Peggy would never see it that way.) 

4) When Steve is 'KIA’ after going to rescue Bucky, and Peggy is on the brink of getting sacked for it, to cover her own arse she tells Phillips that Steve (to whom she has spoken a grand total of 4 times, at this point) wouldn’t regret her actions. How the fuck would she know what Steve would regret, she barely knows him? 

5) And then, after Bucky is dead (yet another man whom she is not apparently on first name terms with, despite her show alleging she was friends with the Howling Commandos... and then never mentioning him) 

She has to ask Steve whether he respected him… and then presumes to mansplain to Steve what his own oldest friend must have thought. 

(So, if those words are a success, it’s because they sound like something Bucky might say; not Peggy! Not feminist!) 

.

One of the worst examples of her doing this comes in CACW, where they for some idiotic reason (uhh, stupidity, I’m gunna go with stupidity) put a comics Captain America speech in the mouth of Peggy, via her niece Sharon.

Problem being, this Captain America speech was a paraphrase of Mark Twain. (And meant something totally different, in context; once again, Disney adapts things in a 180 degree fashion to pretend the original didn’t mean what it actually meant.) 

And it was on the nature of what it means to be a good American, and the nature of a Republic. Absolute bollocks for a (Constitutionally Monarchist non-American) Englishwoman to be saying it, then! 

But, again, it allows them to credit Peggy with having said something Steve agrees with because it sounds like something Steve would say -- yes, because it literally is something Steve did say. 

They stole from Steve to feed her. 

And that means it’s not her merit; it’s Steve’s.

The only way a woman is credited with speaking sense is when she quotes a man? 

That’s not feminism!

Her accomplishments are also, entirely, men’s. 

Despite portraying herself as a self-made woman (like a Kardashian) she is given her job by her brother (and/or her Home Office staff member fiancee Fred Wells). 

Her second job by Phillips. 

Her third job by Howard Stark (in her short film). 

Her housing, first, by her daddy’s friend the Senator, and second to Howard Stark again. 

She is saved from firing in CATFA by Steve’s competence (turns out he’s not KIA!), and it’s repeatedly stated in her own shorts and show (and denied, but never actually, y’know, disproven) that she only has her subsequent jobs in SSR due to the misconception that she mattered to 'Captain America.’

And finally, in WhatIf and Multiverse of Madness, she is still not a hero in her own right; but merely a shoddy lumbering female rip off of 'Captain America’ (not even of Captain Britain, whose accomplishments are totally different!)   

And they think having her Mary Sue her way through everything Steve did (even quoting a catchphrase that doesn’t apply to her, doesn’t mean what she thinks it means, which she never heard Steve say, and therefore has no context for). 

And doing what he did only Better, is feminism when... that is not feminism. That’s radfeminism. 

Feminism is equality, not supremacy. 

But supremacy is what Fascist characters are all about, isn’t it?

I can’t help wondering what the Jewish creators of Cap would think about Wernher-von-Braun fanboys Disney buying the rights to their Antifa Ally character and then marrying him off to a Nazi spy expy version of a character (whom they themselves wrote Steve ditching for her younger sister anyway) who hired the Josef Mengele expy, who tortured the Gay Jewish Man expy... 

When the sole reason they created Cap in the first place was to encourage people to fight Nazis?

Make it make sense.

#long post #anti-st*ggy #antipeggy #antisteggy #p*ggy meta #mcu meta #meta #mcu #dat's me #hey nonny #toAyourQ #oof non you ask me about peggy you get a TALK #22K of why she's a BITCH #putting images in a post when tumblr will only show me gradients: DEDICATION #steve doesn't actually WANT a woman #he just wants to know he COULD GET ONE if he wanted (and for other men to know) #marvel properties have complete cognitive dissonance between what characters SAY and what they DO #and what writers THINK they've written and what they've ACTUALLY written

[anamelessfacelessnerd]

s1 Jonmartimsasha Polycule headcannons (NSFW under the cut)

Tim is the tallest at 6’3, Martin is 6’, Sasha is 5’10, and Jon is the shortest at 5’7

Martin is the first one to say “I love you” to all of them. Tim and Sasha has said it to each other before, as they were together before the polycule got together, but not to the entire group.

They’re all really into board games. Sasha and Jon get super competitive, so much so that they don’t even notice Martin and Tim teaming up to beat them.

They all love music. Any kind of music really. Sometimes they tease each other about the kind of music they listen to, but they will listen to it anyway because music is a great way to understand the deepest corners of someone’s heart and mind. (If they were all alive and well in 2021 they would go HARD to drivers license)

They love dancing too. They have dance parties in their living room all the time. Tim was an assistant dance teacher at his local community center throughout most of university, so he teaches them to salsa and swing dance and ballroom dance and so much more. Jon was a bit grumpy about it in the beginning, but now he’s really good at dancing.

They usually share a bed, but they do have a second bedroom as well for guests if they have them or if one of them is sick or just doesn’t want to share the bed that night. Everyone thought it would be Jon who used it most often, but it’s actually Sasha. In fact, Jon only uses it when he’s contagious.

Sometimes Sasha will go to sleep in the spare bed, then get lonely or cold during the night and have to rejoin the “boy pile” as she calls it.

Jon is basically a clingy cat. He can’t resist cuddles, naps, and warms rays of sunshine. He may even purr if you play with his hair.

Jon is tiny and all the others can and do pick him up, sometimes just to mess with him.

Sasha has an undercut and the boys take turns choosing what color to dye it. Tim actively tries to pick the mose outlandish and funky colors. Martin spends a lot of time thinking about her hair color, skin tone, and the colors of her clothing before he picks a color that would go well with everything. Jon always forgets until they’re in the store so he just picks the first color that speaks to him, and it usually ends up being Sasha’s favorite.

They convinced Jon to dye one of his grey streaks purple once. He really liked it but Elias gave him dirty looks until it faded.

Once when they had all gotten a bit drunk, Tim convinced them all to get matching tatoos. They decided on each getting the symbol for a different suit of playing cards on their ankles. Martin got a heart, Tim got a diamond, Sasha got a club, and Jon got a spade.

Legally they couldn’t get married but after a while they start calling each other their spouses and they even get wedding bands.

They have an elderly long haired cat named “Sargent Fuzzypaws” or “Sarge” for short.

They have weekly movie nights where they take turns picking movies. Martin likes sci-fi and fantasy, Tim likes classic B horror movies, and Sasha likes period dramas or superhero movies. Jon makes them watch documentaries at first, but once he is comfortable that they won’t make fun of him, he reveals his true love of rom coms.

Jon and Sasha are more or less the same clothing size, and they share clothes all the time. Jon especially likes wearing her skirts and dresses. He likes them so much in fact that Tim, Martin, and Sasha buy him some for his birthday.

Jon and Sasha also love to steal Martin and Tim’s clothes because they’re big and comfy.

Every weekend they go out on a date that they take turns planning. Martin tends to take them on walks in the park and nice picnics. Tim drags them to clubs whenever he can (he claims it keeps them young), but will bring them to a pub instead if they’re not feeling a club that night. Jon likes to plan day trips to Calais. It’s a long drive (about 3hrs each way), but they don’t mind as long as they’re spending time together. Sasha plans these fun guided tours of musesums, historical events, old warships, “haunted” buildings and whatnot.

Jon doesn’t have his drivers license. Tim does but he’s a terrible driver, he speeds, he takes turns to sharp, and he practically gives the rest of them a heart attack every time. Sasha and Martin are the only good drivers.

Sasha and Martin were the ones who decorated the flat. Tim’s still a frat boy at heart and after seeing his old apartment, all three of the others decided that he couldn’t help them decorate. He didn’t really mind until they made him throw out his rainbow monster energy can display (“But Sasha, it’s a rainbow! We’re gay! It fits perfectly!” “Idc Tim, it’s ugly”). Jon’s taste was a little too dark for the rest of them. They spent the majority of the week days in a dark basement, they needed a bright and colorful place to come home to.

They all think they’re being really subtle when they first start out, but everyone knows right away. Elias considers talking to them about it, as a relationship between archival staff is strictly against the employee handbook (that he wrote of course) but then decided to leave it be as the closer they are, the easier it will be to use one to manipulate the others.

They have pride flags all over the apartment. Pan, bi, ace, poly, the classic rainbow flag, they even have duplicates of some of them.

Tim is incapable of not buying anything rainbow that he sees. Everytime he goes out for groceries he comes back with balloons, or a rainbow bouquet, or more likely, some sort of candy with rainbow packaging.

Speaking of bouquets, Martin loves buying them flowers. He does it all the time. He’ll pick them up on the way home or even have them sent to the institute, anything to bring a smile to their faces.

The group dynamic changes so much based on who’s hanging out with who. Here is a handy chart:

Jon is pretty sex neutral. He doesn’t tend to engage, but he usually likes to watch or just be in the same room. Sometime he sits with them on the bed and kisses/touches them, though he rarely wants to be touched.

When he does want to be touched, the others spend hours taking him apart completely.

He does love kissing and making out though. Martin in particular loves making out with Jon. Jon will often get him worked up and then turn him over to Sasha and Tim to take care of the rest.

Tim and Martin get so horny when they’re alone together. Tim’s a literal sex god and he loves groping Martin and whispering dirty things in his ear to work him up. Sasha does this to the two of them as well, though not as much as Tim.

When Martin tops he’s sweet and gentle until he gets close, then he pounds in mercilessly.

Sasha’s rough the whole time. She slaps them and bites them and calls them names the whole time.

Tim’s really good at dirty talk. He’ll lean down and whisper beautiful yet filthy things in their ear until they come

Jon is king of aftercare. He’s become so in tune with his lovers’ bodies that he always knows exactly when to put the kettle on in order to have warm tea waiting for when they finish.

#the magnus archives #the magnus institute #tma #jonathan sims #martin blackwood #jon sims #elias bouchard #jonny sims #sasha james #tim stoker #jonmartin #jonmartim #jonmartimsasha #tma s1 #tma s1 spoilers #tma season one

[itsjustmyfantasyroom]

Not my thing

Warnings: Talks of strip clubs, based a Nick comment in an episode and fluff.

WC: 1093

Enjoy x

It wasn’t often, if ever that you guys got to go out, but you all found yourself getting to a Saturday afternoon with not getting called in. Amanda sent out the first message asking what you were all doing and it went from there. Pub food and drinks. Everyone was relaxed and having a good time and you and Nick were flirting up a storm,

“You’re going home with Nick tonight” Amanda nudged your side, it being a statement more than a question.

“Don’t be stupid Amanda” you rolled your eyes.

“Let me know on Monday” she winked at you picking up the tray of drinks and walking back to the table.

It was just after midnight, you all had a enough to drink and were all peckish, walking out of the pub towards your favourite pizza place. The four of you walked down the sidewalks that you all knew too well and a beat that was almost vibrating the pavement hit you all, the music flowing out of the doors. Amanda looked up at the neon sign, with bright pink lettering reading “Pink Cherries” and a moving neon picture of a woman spinning around a pole,

“Let’s go” Amanda looked between you all.

“You are joking?” you raised an eye brow.

“No way” Sonny scoffed.

“Your dreaming Rollins” Nick shook his head.

“Y’all need to live a little. I know for a fact none of you have been to one and how often do we get to go out?”

“Amanda we are-“

“I know what we are Y/N, 4 friends out for a good time after a hard week at work”

“It’s not my thing” Nick looked over at Amanda.

“If Y/N goes, I’ll go” Sonny smirked down at you and you rolled your eyes back.

You looked over at Nick and he locked eyes with you. You shrugged your shoulders and gave him a little smile,

“Fine. 1 hour” Nick looked at Amanda “And I mean it, one hour”

You weren’t uncomfortable but you weren’t comfortable. You sat between Sonny and Amanda, Nick on the other side of Sonny in a booth. Amanda brought the first round, which very quickly turned into 5 and the 1 hour turned into 3. Nick started to drink water after the 2nd and you paced yourself.

You sat in awe of the women on the poles, how they moved their bodies, how flexible they were, not looking at them sexually, but looking at how talented they were with what they did. As much as you were paying attention to the women with their different routines, you were taking notice of Nick, if his eyes weren’t on his hands, on the table or on his glass, they were on you. His eyes mesmerised you, the way they glowed in the dark of the room when a white strobe light would shine over his face and your face heated up every time just looking at them.    

It was just after midnight when Sonny called it a night, telling you all that he had a family thing the next day and Amanda had met some guy at the bar who brought her drinks. She bounced back over to the table grabbing her jacket and telling you the guys address and for you to come there at midday if she hadn’t message you by then. You moved to get out of the booth, leaning down to Nick’s ear your hand resting on his shoulder,

“Still feel like that pizza?”

Nick looked up at you with a grin and nodded back. You moved for him to get up and he rested a hand on the small of your back as you started to walk out of the club. As you both walked out onto the side walk, Nick came to stand next to you holding out his arm for you to link onto it,

“Had a good night?”

“I have. You?” you looked up at Nick.

“Yeah, it was good” Nick gave you a small smile.

“I know you didn’t want to go there. But I’ am glad you came and didn’t leave”

“Me to. Funny what you do for the person you have feelings for that you wouldn't do for anyone else”

“Oh Nick. I’ am sorry. Are you ok? Seeing Amanda go home with someone else must have been hard”

Nick chuckled looking down at you with a big grin,

“I don’t have feeling for Amanda, I have feelings for you.”

“Really?” You looked up at him, his eyes finding yours.

Nick stopped in his tracks, pulled his arm away from you and moved to stand in front of you, both his hands coming to rest on your shoulders,

“Yes really. And if you hadn’t of said yes to going into the club, I would have gone where ever you wanted too instead. It’s not my thing, but you were there I wanted to be with you. And there was no way tonight I was going to miss my chance to do this-”

Nick’s hands moved to your neck, his long fingers resting on your skin and his thumbs came up to rest on your cheeks. He lent forward, his lips just about to touch yours,

“I have feelings for you to” you blurted out nervously.

Nick licked his lips with a knee trembling smile,

“Happy to hear it” he whispered “Can I kiss you now?”

“Please” you nodded back.

You closed the gap, getting up on your tippy toes. Your lips met sweetly at first and your hands went to rest on his sides over his polo shirt. You tilted your head to the side and Nick pushed his tongue into your mouth, them twisting together exploring each other mouths, you both really enjoying the moment. Nick pulled back peaking your lips and then along your cheek before he pulled you into him, wrapping you in his arms. Nick stepped away from you, hooking an arm around your neck, you putting your arm around his middle as you both started to walk in the direction of your favourite pizza shop,

“How about we get the pizza to go and you can come back to mine for a night cap?” Nick kissed the top of your head.

“Just a night cap after that kiss?” you looked up at him with a cheeky smile and he grinned back gifting you wink.

“Guess we will have to wait and see. I’ am sure you saw some moves that I wouldn’t mind you trying on me”

Tags: @beccabarba @lovebishoplosamiguelgalindo @alwaysachorusgirl​ @ben-c-group-therapy​

#nick amaro #nick amaro x reader #nick amaro x you #detective nicolas amaro #nicolas amaro #law and order svu #SVU fanfiction #SVU FANDOM #svu fan #svu x reader

[eyeballjazz]

First of all I've been binge reading your fics whenever I get some free time so huge kudos to ya <3

Second, I've got a fun lil ask for ya: domestic headcanons for HB/PI and SS/DD :D

how do they share all their houses' chores? We all know HB is probably an amazing cook and DD looks like an organization freak but what about the rest? Does anyone besides HB knows how to cook a proper meal? We need to know!!

Well, hell!

First of all, thank you so much this is so sweet! Absolutely makes my day to know you’re enjoying my work. I hope you get lots more time to read soon, bro!

And second I’m about to go ON so I’ll chop the post here, but I’ve got headcanons old and new cooked up for you:

As I’m sure you’ve noticed I like writing about buildings so I can tell you exactly what everyone’s houses are like. The whole Crew lives across from each other on a block in the center of their territory, Slick and Droog in a Victorian townhouse and Hearts and Clubs in a duplex that’s broken into two railway style spaces. Slick would live shoebox if it was up to him, so thankfully Droog has very opinionated taste and likes spending his husband’s money enough to buy a whole antique for them to live in. 

I don’t have to tell you that cooking is huge for the Crew. They’re a small family of Italian uncles, so cooking is a major factor of their lives. 

As skill goes Droog is the best cook out of anyone. He’s self taught but for the very basics and some old family recipes his mother drilled into him back in Tuscany. And like everything with Droog, he’s someone who grew up dirt poor and now desperately wants to show off taste and affluence by being a highbrow snob. That means his skill for cooking has driven towards very elegant, subtle cuisine, lots of French influence (he says it must have been Italian, originally, but the French got famous for it somehow), and small portion size. Think of the fanciest restaurant you've ever been to and how teeny the serving sizes were and then imagine it was cooked by someone who is ferociously closeted and you’ve got it. 

Despite all that, Droog has not had working taste buds in at least thirty years because he’s smoked two packs a day since he learned to walk. Slick, likewise, had a bad smoking habit and quit for the kids so he’s not swimming in buds either. Add to that the fact that he’s had his nose broken so many times he’s functionally lost his sense of smell and you’ve got a match made in heaven. 

Lucky them, Karkat and Aradia get the spoils of Droog’s great cooking and are the picky eaters their fathers wished they could have been as boys. Droog is very proud to have snotty kids. So it is his great displeasure when, instead of having a single scallop lightly seared in browned butter then dusted with rosemary and thyme, the kids just want peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. But both happen regularly. 

Hearts is a close second but of a very different school. He learned to cook primarily from his mother, who is a master of Southern cooking and made sure her boy knew how to do for himself before she let him leave her home. The rest he learned as a cook in the army, and then later from Droog after Hearts insisted he learn some real Italian recipes since his father never cooked when Hearts was a boy. Hearts still has a habit for cooking for a literal army and so he often cooks for the whole family. 

His food is mostly soul food/American southern and he seasons hard and often. One might even say it is dangerously flavorful, and everyone agrees it is extremely fortifying. It’s even strong enough to get through to Droog, who can (with the addition of hot sauce) taste it and secretly wishes Hearts would offer to teach him a thing or two.

Too willful to learn, Slick is a very low third place. He doesn’t care about food much and burns most things he tries to cook out of impatience. Plus, he hasn’t needed to learn since he married Droog so why start now?

Pickle Inspector, dead last, can’t so much as fry an egg. He loves food and knows the locations and operating hours of every restaurant and pub and gas station hot bar in the city. But cooking itself eludes him. He does occasionally try to go vegetarian but folds immediately when offered the chance to have a big beautiful meal he didn’t have to cook himself.

This matches up perfectly with Hearts’s master plan, which is to feed Pickle Inspector to within an inch of his life. And Pickle, like a stray cat, loves the attention and knows where the free food is. Hearts insists he’s too skinny and will often say ‘Just have a little,’ and then hand him a plate with half a lasagna on it.

HBPI is a ‘you cook, I clean’ split. Self conscious of his lack of cooking knowledge Pickle does every dish in the house whenever he sneaks in (read: breaks in) to spend time with Hearts and Tavros. And very often when he breaks in he tries to carve out some time to spend playing DnD with Tavros, with an ambition to get him and Hearts in a game so they can show Hearts a more kinetic version of fantasy than having a read a lot of books by nudists from the 60’s.

Because they may or may not be out as a couple to the Crew, Pickle and Hearts don’t get to spend a lot of time out on Hearts’s front porch together, although kicking back on the porch is one of Hearts’s favorite things to do. But, every so often, they take their coffee together out on the porch way before anyone else is awake. They watch the city all in blue together, right before the sunrise.

SSDD and chores are much more complicated.

Droog is fastidious, meticulous, and intense about cleaning. He also uses it to avoid or ignore any emotions he may be feeling so their Victorian is constantly spotless. Droog does all the kitchen chores, all the rewarding dusting of art pieces, mantles, and mirrors, and looks after the kids to make sure they learn how to keep their own spaces clean.

He dumps all the chores where you actually chance getting dirty on Slick. Taking out the trash, mowing the lawn, cleaning the bathrooms, washing the cars, touching anything weird, bugs, that’s all Slick.

Slick also looks after their garden, not for any love of plants but because he’s gotten himself into an all out war with a warren of rabbits that want to eat Droog’s spices and tomatoes. The war has been multi-generational for the rabbits and they’re too invested to pull out now. Slick is the only person who really looks after the garden, Droog assumes ownership of the plants but doesn’t care about them beyond having fresh basil to cook with.

Slick’s contempt for the bunnies and ferocity in keeping his husband’s plants alive have made him an unwitting expert on what a good spice garden needs. Like Droog, his feelings for the whole thing aren’t tied to love for the plants but instead pride and anger. Droog, meanwhile, loves seeing Slick do violence in his name and will often watch his tantrums in the backyard whenever one of the tomato plants gets chewed up.

Whew, this got long quick. Since it’s already so long, I’ll leave you with one more hc which is that Pickle Inspector knows how to juggle. Thank you again for the great questions, this was so fun!!!

#the midnight crew #ssdd #hbpi #spades slick #diamonds droog #hearts boxcars #pickle inspector #the intermission #I fucking love domesticity bro I LOVE IT

[nooneelsecomesclose17]

Daddy's first pride

This is probably terrible, if so I'm sorry. From the Ana'verse.

"Plain iced cupcakes with different flags or rainbow icing." Robert announced as Aaron walked in the door with Ana on his hip and Seb following, making a beeline for his toys, giving his Dad a half hearted wave, as usual too interested in playing than anything else.

"Is this a quiz or..." He sets Ana down on the floor having picked her up from Sarah. He just stares at his husband, surrounded by recipe books, tapping away on his laptop, Sara in her bouncy chair in front of him fast asleep.

"For Pride. I can't make my mind up. Which do you think would be better?"

"Can we go back to the beginning, because I feel like I've walked in halfway through the series."

"Charles came in the cafe today, he's organising Pride in the village and he asked me to get involved." Aaron hasn't seen Robert look so eager about anything for ages, not since he came out of prison and he smiles along with him. "He's asked all local businesses for sponsorship or to be involved. I'm doing refreshments and stuff."

"When is it?"

"Next month. He said he'd called at the yard but couldn't make you hear." He goes back to scrolling on his laptop. "What do you think of these?"

"Must've had the crusher going." He shakes his head and picks his way through the mess surrounding Robert before he can sit down, lifting Ana onto his lap. "I can't hear a thing with that going you know that. What am I looking at?"

"Cookies. Maybe Mum could ice them, you know, all the different flags?"

"Yeah, why not. You know I'm the wrong person to ask, all I care about is if they taste nice."

"Idiot." He leans over to kiss him, closing his laptop. "I've put tea in early because there's a meeting at the village hall at six."

"About?"

"Pride, Aaron! I'm on the committee so I have to be on time. So you'll have to do bath time and that. I'll be home before they go to bed."

"There's a committee?"

"Yes. It all has to be arranged. You can help if you want. Mum's already volunteered, and there's Matty, Ethan, Charles, Nicola and Vic, oh and your Gran." He couldn't help smiling because he'd not seen Robert this animated in ages even if he truly couldn't remember any conversation they'd had about any of this.

"I'm not one for meetings am I, but I can do heavy lifting and that." He hesitates, not wanting to dampen Robert's mood one bit.

"What?"

"Nothing, it's just...you've never really seemed interested in going to pride or 'owt." Robert looks down and he instantly feels bad. "Oi, it's not a criticism, I just wondered...you seem to be going at this hell for leather that's all. Did you want to go before or...?"

"Not really...I, nearly went once, in London. Chickened out at the last minute, worried someone from work might see me and just know which was daft I know, and when you and me got together, something always seemed to get in the way. I just thought...I know who I am now, and I'm happy. That's something to celebrate, isn't it?"

"Yeah, course. Be my first time too." He winks making Robert laugh. "Right, so, what else have you got planned?"

--------

"Robert!" It's only been a week and Aaron is wishing the days away so he can have his husband, and his house back. He's come home to a living room full of boxes.

"Oh, you're home. You're early."

"I thought I'd sack it off for the day and we could go to the pub for tea with the kids. I didn't expect to come home to...well this."

"Daddy look!" All of a sudden Seb emerges from behind the pile of boxes with what looks like a door curtain trailing behind him.

"Very nice mate. Robert what is all this."

"Ah...well..." Robert scratches his head as he untangles Seb from the decoration he's wrapped himelf in. "The thing is, I'm kinda in charge now."

"How come?"

"It was meant to be Andrea, although if you ask me she only agreed because she thinks it'll keep her in with Charles." Aaron nods, even though he really has no idea what he's talking about, but then Robert's always been more into village gossip than him. "Anyway she's cried off, I don't know, some kind of drama with Jamie again, and well Charles needed the help."

"And you agreed."

"He was stuck!"

Robert and Charles have struck up a kind of friendship since Robert came home, and Aaron knows that he's confided in him, stuff he doesn't want to tell Aaron, or things he needs to sort out before he does.

"Right, so basically the house is going to be a store room for the next fortnight?"

"No, I'm moving it all over to the village hall, but it needed checking, and Mum was going to help but then Ana wanted to go to the swings so she took her, and Sara."

"I'm helping!" Seb pipes up, with his head inside another box as Robert shook his head.

"Well how about you help me and Daddy move these boxes and then we can go and get some tea?"

"Chips?"

"If you get your head out of that box and stop spreading stuff everywhere then maybe."

--------

The next few weeks are a flurry of plans, of Robert having daily brainwaves or panics about one thing or another, and his phone is constantly lighting up with WhatsApp messages, but finally it's the evening before and he thinks Robert has calmed down. He's at one final committee meeting leaving Aaron in charge of the kids tea.

"You alright mate?" Seb's pushing his pasta around the plate rather than eating.

"Where's Daddy?"

"He's at his meeting, you know sorting things for tomorrow. He won't be long."

"What's Pride?" He says after pushing a few more bits of pasta around. He supposes he shouldn't be surprised Seb's asking, it's all they've spoken about for the last month or so after all.

"Well in some places it's like a big parade and it's full of colour and everyone's happy. Emmerdale's a bit small for a parade though ain't it, so it's just going to be like a big party with music and face paints and food and all sorts of things."

"Oh."

"What's up mate?"

"Oscar, at school, he said havin' two Daddies is weird." Aaron's never head of this Oscar, and he has to remind himself it wasn't the kids fault that he obviously hadn't been taught properly.

"Do you think it's weird?"

"No. You and Daddy both play with my trucks and take me on the swings."

"Exactly, some boys and girls have a Mummy and Daddy, like Eve, some have two Mummies like Moses and Johnny, and some like you, Ana and Sara have two Daddies. But all of you have fun, and everyone loves you, so it's not weird. Oscar maybe just doesn't understand hey?"

"But I had Mummy too." Aaron let out a breath, it'd been a good while since he'd mentioned Rebecca, other than saying goodnight to her photo every night. He wished Robert was here, he was always better at dealing with it than him.

"Yeah, well, Moses has a Daddy too doesn't he? A family can be made up of whoever, and still be the same as everyone elses. Do you understand?"

"I think so. And pride is like a party?"

"Yeah, celebrating the fact that people like me and Daddy can be together and stuff."

"But...why?"

"Because years ago we wouldn't have been allowed to get married or be together and some people still think we shouldn't."

"That's silly."

"Yes it is. Really silly."

"Can we go see Daddy?" Aaron smiles, and nods, happy that Seb's satisfied with his answer.

It's a bit of a struggle, managing the three of them, but eventually he gets Seb to push Sara in her chair, while he carries Ana, and they're heading towards the village. Suddenly Seb stops, mouth open and Aaron stops fiddling with Ana's cardigan to see what's wrong.

"Wow." Main Street is literally awash with colour and Seb's eyes are as wide as Christmas. "Look Daddy!"

"I am mate. Cool huh?" He can see Robert in the distance, with Charles and he nudges Seb to carry on walking, smile growing wider as they gets closer to his husband, seeing how happy he is.

"Daddy! Everything's pretty!" Seb all but abandons the buggy to run the last few metres to Robert who immediately picks him up and sits him on his shoulders.

"What do you think young man?" Charles asks him and Seb giggles. He likes Charles, had crazed them to be allowed to go to the after school club he'd set up in the village.

"I like the colours! Daddy said that Pride is cos he and Daddy are allowed to get married. Is that right?"

"Something like that yes. Do you remember we talked about it last week at after school club?"

"When we coloured in?"

"That's right. All of your drawings are hanging up in the church so maybe you can show your Daddies tomorrow."

"OK!"

"Come on chatterbox, let Charles get home."

"He's fine. I'll leave you to it. It looks really good Robert, you've done a great job getting everyone organised, especially last minute."

They take a slow walk home once Robert's done one last check of everything. Aaron's just happy to wait, happy to watch him. It's been a strange couple of years since he came out of prison, ups and downs along the way and he knows Robert's struggled with village events sometimes, feeling as though people are watching him, judging him. Seeing him taking such a delight in organising everything hopefully means he finally feels properly back at home.

"You ready?" Finally finished he kisses Aaron, Seb resting against his shoulder, suddenly tired. "It does look ok, right?"

"Yeah. Proper proud of you I am."

--------

"She's sleeping again." Aaron clicks off the light and slips into bed beside him, not getting any response from his husband. "You ok?"

"Hmm? Yeah. It's just..."

"What?"

"Charles asked me if I'd say something tomorrow."

"Ok, and...you don't want to? I'm sure he'd understand."

"No I do but...I don't know what to say."

"Just say whatever comes to mind. You don't have to make a big speech, just welcome everyone. He wouldn't have asked you if he didn't think you could."

"I just...it has to be perfect."

"Robert, it already is. Look at what you've done, the village looks amazin', and tomorrow is going to be brilliant and that's down to you."

"People helped."

"Yeah, but they wouldn't without you geeing them up. It's all set up now...you get to enjoy yourself."

"Mmm, love you, you know. I'm glad I didn't go that time in London, I'm glad my first pride is with you."

"Soppy git."

--------

"Right, I'm ready." He's barely set a foot on the bottom stair when Robert stops him.

"No."

"What do you mean no?"

"You are not wearing all black. I will suffer it the rest of the year, but not today."

"Why the hell not? Last I checked it was a free country and I can wear whatever I want."

"No Daddy. You has to wear colour! It's the rule." Aaron bends down to Seb who has his arms crossed, mimicking Robert.

"Oh is it? Well I heard that it's the rule to tickle little boys until they shouted me to stop!"

"No! Daddy, stop it! Daddy help me!"

"Seb's right." Aaron stops tickling his son to frown at his annoying husband. Robert's wearing a t-shirt with PRIDE emblazoned across the front in the colours of the bisexual flag and before he can ask what he considers colourful enough he's handing him a bag. "I got you this."

He glares at him a moment longer, pulling what looks like a t-shirt from the bag.

"I knew you wouldn't actually wear proper colour so I got it made up in black." The shirt has 'love wins' across the front made to look like rainbow paint splatters. "Will it do?"

"Fine." He sighs, but he's smiling.

"I, er, I also got these, for the kids." He hands him three more shirts each saying the same thing. "You like 'em?"

"Perfect. Right then, I'll get changed, you can sort them, and then finally we can go!"

Fifteen minutes they're off, Seb running ahead, while Aaron has Aaron on his shoulders, little hands clutching at his hair. Robert's behind them, stopping to adjust Sara's sunhat.

"Seb hang on mate." He stopped at the top of the drive until Robert catches him up.

"Oh my God."

Main Street was full of people, and Aaron couldn't wipe the smile from his face.

"Look what you did."

"Yeah." He sounds stunned.

In the crush, the lose each other after a little while, and it's not until he hears Charles announcing Robert's name that he knows where he is. Making his way to the stage that's been set up next to the church he stands to one side with Sara's pushchair, Ana still on his shoulders. He can see Seb at the side of the stage with Vic so he's happy to stay where he is.

"Um...I don't quite know what to say. When Charles talked about this, I don't think any of us expected quite so many people. Er, it took me a long time to accept who I was, that, um, that I'm bisexual, that it's ok...Fifteen years actually, and now I'm married to the most wonderful man in the world and we've got three kids, and I'm happy. It's been a hell of a journey but I'm truly happy. Anyway I guess what I'm trying to say is that it's ok to not know, to take your time, to go at your own speed...so, have a wonderful day everyone!"

Aaron can barely hear himself think at the cheer, the whistle as Robert steps off the stage, picking Seb up and kissing him as he goes.

It takes a while but eventually they find each other and he sees that Seb had convinced his Daddy to let him get his face painted, cheeks perfectly matching his t-shirt that proclaims 'my daddies love me' with both a pride flag and bisexual flag.

"Was it ok?" Robert asks as Aaron moves Ana so she's standing with Seb, holding onto his hand.

"Did you hear them? It was perfect." He kisses him before hugging him tight. "Love you so much."

"Love you too."

"Daddy I'm hungry! Can we get a cookie from Ganma now?"

He laughs into Robert's neck as the moment's broken. It didn't matter, the whole day has been perfect from start to finish.

#ok so i'm really nervous about this #robron fic #but i couldn't have aaron at pride with ben #it had to be robert #also all black...no #also no andrea #anyway enjoy #and if it's terrible i apologise #ana'verse #i also love the idea of robert and charles being friends #robert needs that person he can go to with his troubles when he doesn't want to burden aaron

[nanasparadise]

“Paradise lost” Yan!Bruno x female reader

Hiya everyone! This is my first fanfiction, I hope you enjoy it 🥺

Summary: You live a pleasant and regular life as a curator in Naples, until a certain over-protective Capo turns it upside down...

TW: alcohol, drugs, stalking, cursing, noncon touching, mentions of violence and death, toxic relationship, MATURE AUDIENCE ONLY/MINORS DNI

I do not condone any type of yandere behaviour in real life.

You were living in a paradise. Your paradise. After having moved to Italy, you were finally able to lead the life of your dreams. The city of Naples with its gentle sea breeze, the vivid streets and the ancient architecture just felt right to you. Not to mention the people; you've met some of the most supporting individuals. Your friends helped you integrate in Italy and gave you some Italian classes in order to improve your, admittedly, quite basic Italian skills. Your job as a curator in an art museum fulfilled your passion. Your small, but very cozy flat felt as if it was sculpted for you. Even after having spent nearly a year in the city, you never regretted your decision to move there. That was until you met a certain peculiar man, who would change your whole life forever.

You spent the night at the bar with Analisa and Federico, your two closest friends. The trio consisting of you were a bit tipsy, because of one too many drinks. The intoxication offered you lots of fun though, as you were constantly laughing at the slightest things. At 4 a.m., you were finally shooed out of the pub by the annoyed owner. The three of you went outside of the bar. You inhaled gladly the cool night air, which put you a bit back to your senses. Your friends, on the other hand, remained tipsy while constantly gigglying and grinning. Analisa and Federico suggested to go back to their place, where they might continue enjoying the night with some pills. You smiled at them, but declined. Drugs weren't really up your alley. 

"Aww, come on Y/N!", Analisa pouted, "it will be fun!"

"No thanks, you guys. You know how I feel about drugs", you replied patiently. 

"Should we take you home, then?", Federico asked, forehead frowned in worries, "You know it can be dangerous out here all alone with the whole mafia." 

"I'll be fine, thank you. You should be more worried for the guys with my Krav Maga skills!", you joked, trying to ease your friend's concerns, “and by the way, you two better be careful with your pills!"

After having hugged them goodbye, you parted ways with your friends. The streets of Naples were mostly quiet. In the distance, you heard fainlty some music from a club. A few stray cats roamed in the shadows, watching you with their predatory eyes. Admitteldy, it made you feel a tad uncomfortable. "Stop it", you muttered to yourself, "Don't let a few cats play tricks on you." Still captured by the felines' gaze, you accidentally stumbled over the pavement. Before you could actually hit the floor, as you anticipated, a strong hand caught your upper arm and hindered the fall. You looked up to your saviour to thank them. It was a rather unusual man. He wore a unique white suit with black spoon-like dots on it and zippers and his black hair was cut in a bob. But what you noticed the most were his deep, ocean blue eyes, which stared back at you with concern. Even though he seemed rather strange, the man's whole atmosphere drew you in. As you kept contemplating him, a sudden thought crossed your mind. "Where did he come from so quickly? I didn't see anyone in the street", you pondered. The thought made you shiver slightly. Realising that you still shamelessly stared at the man, you decided to finally speak up. 

"Thank you for catching me, I guess I had one too many", you said humoursly to him, trying to relax the tense ambience. The handsome guy offered you a smile to your relief. 

"No need to thank me, signorina", he answered cheekily. Something about him calling you "Miss" didn't feel right to you. After all, you were a grown adult and not some teenage girl. 

"No really, thank you, I could have hurt me", you insisted politely. The man still held your arm. You were eyeing uncomfortably to it, hoping he would catch the hint. Luckily, he did so and retrieved his warm hand from your body. The man cleared awkwardly his throat and continued speaking.

"Are you alright though? It is dangerous to walk at night the streets in Naples, especially for a young lady." His worry for you was quite flattering, you admitted to yourself. 

"I am fine, thanks to you", you winked at him. You could swear his cheeks turned slightly pink, but because of the darkness, you couldn't be entirely sure. 

"May I accompany you home?", the man asked, "It would ease my mind if I knew you arrived home safely." You weren't sure how to react. Sure, he was beautiful, but did you really want a stranger to know where you lived? 

"Thank you for your kind offer, but my flat isn't far away, I will be there in a minute", you replied carefully. After all, Federico was right: there were many mafiosi in Naples, maybe he was one of them? Your suspicions towards him increased. The man seemed to feel your paranoia. He flashed you a reassuring smile that would have made every woman swoon over him. 

"I understand your suspiciousness fully,” he said smoothly, "but I do think it is not necessary in this case. If I wanted to cause you any harm, I'd have it done by now. After all, this is a quiet and dark street and no one would have witnessed anything." "Fair enough", you thought. He was right. He could have easily murdered you by now if he wanted to. And there was nothing harmful about letting him follow you, right? 

"Well, if you put it that way, then sure, I'd like that", you answered with a soft smile. You shouldn't have agreed. Oh Y/N, if only you knew, you would have went with your friends. Instead, you went home, the stranger remaining by your side. "By the way, I don't think I introduced myself. My name is Y/N." 

"Pleasure to meet you, Y/N, I am Bruno."

Slowly, the two of you became friends. Bruno turned out to be a loyal and charming man. Being the ever so polite gentleman, you didn’t have a clue about the raven-haired man’s true intentions. Oh no, you were blissfully ignorant to his advances. In fact, he knew you before that fateful night. The capo - you didn’t actually know his real job as he kept smoothly tip-toeing around it - had been chasing an enemy Stand user in the art museum where you worked when his attentive gaze had fallen on your form. You had explained patiently to an elderly couple every little detail of the Veiled Christ statue. In that moment, Bruno hadn’t known why he had stopped just to stare at you. Maybe it was the way you had treated the couple with kindness, maybe the way your eyes had lit up with passion as you had talked about the subject that fascinated you. Bruno still wasn’t sure what exactly enchanted him when it came to you. All he was aware of was the fuzzy warmth in his stomach and his racing heartbeat whenever he glanced at you. And that he would never let go of that feeling. So, the young mafioso started following you from that day on. He wouldn’t necessarily call it stalking, he just wanted to make sure that you were alright. And look where it had led him to - if he hadn’t been there to watch over you, you would have hurt yourself, which Bruno couldn’t let happen, of course. He was convinced that you needed him in your life. The following months since the Italian man had been by your side, you were in total safety. 

But you also felt ultimately caged in. You were grateful for Bruno’s friendship, but it also smothered you. Every time you were trying to go out with your friends, he would ask about every tiny detail: where were you going, who did come with you, what were you doing and so on. Eventually, he’d always join you. 

“Cara,” he would say with pleading eyes, “I only want to protect you. The world is a dark place and Naples is its hell. I don’t want to witness how anyone takes advantage of your sweet innocence.”

“Somehow he always knows when I go out with them, too”, you wondered. If you didn’t know any better, you would think that the two of you were dating. Bruno did behave like an overly jealous and possessive boyfriend. Plus, he always acted super touchy and affectionate around you: a pet name here, an arm around your shoulders there. Every time you confronted him, he would laugh it off. “I guess I am bewitched by you, tesoro.” All of this made you feel uncomfortable. Still, you didn’t want to lose your friendship. So you kept quiet most of the time. 

Until one day, you talked to Analisa and told her about it. For once, you needed some other friend than Bruno to listen to you, someone who wouldn’t act like a partner around you. Luckily, you knew for a fact that he would be gone this evening due to his mysterious profession he never mentioned to you. So, you invited Analisa over to your flat to vent. The blue-haired woman listened attentively to your lamentations. The words just spilt out of your mouth until you realised you actually started crying. Analisa held you in her arms and tried to calm you down. “Hey, Y/N, it’s fine. he’s not around”, she kept repeating. Eventually, your sobs died slowly until you were left staring at Analisa puffy-eyed. “If I allow myself to share my piece of mind,” Analisa said angrily, “he is a pezzo di merda. Who does he think he is to behave like that? You’re not his girlfriend, and even if you were, he doesn’t have the right to treat you like you are his possession. You can do whatever the fuck you want.” Her furious words filtered through your brain. “She’s right”, you agreed silently. “And you know what else? I hate to see you down because of that asshole,”  Analisa continued, “But I’ve just got the perfect solution for that.” The blue-haired woman grinned as she took some small pills out of the pocket of her leather jacket. “Let’s have some fun, shall we?”

At first you weren’t sure about taking the hallucinogens, since you never took drugs before. But for once, just for once, you wanted to escape reality. When did your little paradise turn into hell? You thought, you valued your friendship with Bruno, but now, all you wanted to do was to run away from him. The drug slowly started to kick in as you felt your head spinning. The dizziness made you feel light, as if you were about to fly away any moment. Analisa started to giggle next to you, already high. Suddenly, you began seeing black dots around you, coming closer and closer. “Weren’t these the dots on Bruno’s suit?”, you thought anxiously. They were talking to you, calling you principessa, amore mio, stella mia and many more terms of endearment. The dots turned into hands, touching you everywhere. But you decided to not give in. Not this time. Instead, you transformed your fear into anger. You energetically pushed away all the hands until they scurried away. Your rage wasn’t quenched yet, though.Under the effect of the drug, your fury was amplified significally. You took your phone and called Bruno. You wanted to let your frustration out on him, not only on the creations of your mind of him. He picked up immediately after the first ringing. “Y/N?”, he asked, worry dripping from his voice, “Are you alright? You don’t call normally. Should I come to you? I can drop my work just-”

“Bruno,” you interrupted him abruptly, “stop it. STOP IT. I can’t take this shit anymore. You cling onto me like some lovesick puppy and I’m done. Who the fuck are you even? I hardly know your name and you behave as if we were married. Guess what, you’re not even my boyfriend.” It was quiet for an instant. At first, you thought he hung up, but then you heard a slight chuckle from the other end of the phone. “The fuck?”, you thought, “Did he now completely have lost his mind?” 

“Y/N, is that what it takes to call me? Being high?”, the Italian man replied. Another bitter laugh espaced his mouth. You weren’t sure if he knew about your current state, because of your atypical rage or simply because he seemed to know everything about you without you telling anything. “Another reason for him to leave me alone.” 

“I bet one of your lovely friends gave you a pill, didn’t they?”, Bruno continued, seemingly angry now, too, “You know how I feel about drugs, right?”

You didn’t answer, your fear suddenly coming back. The room around you started to spin more and more. 

“Right?”, Bruno growled again. 

“Y-yes”, you stuttered eventually. 

“Good. I assume you’re in your apartment. Stay there and don’t make anything stupid anymore. I’ll be there soon. Clearly, you need me even more than I thought you would.” With these words, Bruno hung up, leaving you even more confused and frightened. Your body started trembling terribly. You didn’ t know if it was because of the drug or your pitless fear. Analisa, coming back to senses again, realised your bad state and immediately rushed over to you. 

“Shit Y/N, what happened?”, she inquired, worry written in her eyes. You explained to her the situation as best as you could in your foggy condition. “Fuck, I should have never given you the drug,” Analisa replied remorsefully, “I take full responsibility. I’ll call the cops before that bastard arrives here, I don’t care if they find my drugs, we’ve gotta do-”. The woman was interrupted by a loud knock on your door. 

“Y/N?”, Bruno shouted, “I know you’re in there. Open the door please.” 

“What are we doing now?”, you cried desperately. You didn’t even know why you reacted that way. Bruno never gave you a serious reason to be scared of him, but now, after the phone call, your gut feeling told you to run away as fast as you could. 

“I’ll call them now”, Analisa replied hastily, looking for her phone. But it was too late. Bruno broke the door in, his stern gaze resting on you. “Since when was he so strong?” 

“Analisa,” the man said, not breaking eye contact with you for a single moment, “give me your phone and walk away.” 

“Are you mad?”, the blue-haired woman shouted furiously, “I’m not gonna leave Y/N alone with you after that.” 

“Give me your phone and walk away, now”, the man repeated gloomly. His eyes, normally a serene blue ocean, turned into a destructive storm. Bruno smashed his fist into the wall, leaving it with a gaping hole. “If you don’t leave immediately,” he growled, “your family will suffer great consequences. Your little sister Teresa? She will die in a tragic car accident. Your father Marco? He will die of liver failure for drinking too much. Or so will be the official reports.” You stared big-eyed at Bruno, your fear only increasing. There was no doubt now that he worked with the mafia. Analisa slowly walked past you, tears falling down her cheeks, as she softly said sorry to you. Her phone was resting on your couch. Once she was gone, you broke down completely. What was he going to do? Bruno stood now in front of you, dragging you ungently by your arm and monitoring you to your bedroom. Was he really going to…? 

“No, no, no, NO!” What first started with a whisper ended in a bloodcurdling scream. The Italian didn’t stop though, pushing you instead on your bed. He seemed to be tired of your behaviour. Bruno sighed deeply, finally speaking to you now. 

“Y/N, I’m not going to do such thing. I just want you to realise, that you behave recklessly and I can’t let you continue like this. I just want to protect you. Look at you, being high now.” He gestured elegantly at you with his slim hand. What was he talking about? Your hallucinations had stopped the minute Bruno knocked on your door. 

“I am not high anymore”, you simply replied. 

“Are you sure about that?”, the raven-haired man replied. His eyes began to glimmer darkly. Suddenly, you witnessed how your legs were zipped away. 

“What the fuck?”, you screamed desperately. What was happening? You were sure, that this wasn’t the effect of the drug, that Bruno somehow did this to your body. “What are you doing to my legs? I-I kn-o-ow that you a-are z-z-ziping them off of m-me”, you stuttered anxiously. 

“What do you mean? I can’t see such thing”, Bruno replied coolly. “As I said, you are hallucinating.” 

“I am not hallucinating, you are doing this to me! I know you do! Please, stop it. Stop it...”. Your pleads turned into ear-piercing sobs. Tears clouded your vision as you desperately tried to grasp for air. 

“Hush, cara.” Bruno was suddenly next to you on your bed, draping his arm over your shoulders and whispering in your ear. “This is all in your mind. You need to sleep now. Tomorrow, everything will be fine again. I will stay by your side and protect you.” His warm breath grazed your earshell. The man nuzzled your hair, admiring its smooth texture and lovely scent. “I will always be with you.”

Eventually, after all your crying, you did fall asleep in Bruno’s arms. The latter kept stroking your cheek, marveling your soft breathing and beautiful face. Of course he felt a tinge of guilt for having used Sticky Fingers on you. Your desperate cries as you called him for help still pained him. But you needed to learn your lesson. Bruno could tolerate a lot, but drugs weren’t on that list. He would give Analisa a quick visit to make sure she’ll never talk to you again. Or to anyone, for a matter of fact. You didn’t need such a bad influence. “Not my sweet Y/N”, he whispered in your locks. “From tomorrow on, you will live with me, where I can always protect you. Now, doesn’t that sound like paradise?”

#jjba #jojo's bizarre adventure #jojo vento aureo #jojo part 5 #bruno buccellati #bruno bucciarati #bruno x reader #yandere #yandere jjba #yandere jjba x reader #yandere bruno x reader #minors dni #tw: yandere #tw: implied kidnapping #tw: threats #tw: drugs #tw: noncon touching #tw: stalking