multifandom-rec-station - Tumblr blog

multifandom-rec-station · 7 hours ago

Note

Omg I love your writing!! I just read the Jon Snow alphabet and it’s just soo “chefs kiss”

I saw you write for BBC Merlin and when I tell you that makes my heart so happy!

Could I request a nsfw alphabet with Merlin? Or anything spicy with him really. I love that sweet boy (obviously no pressure if you don’t feel inspired or anything 😁)

YES MERLIN MY SWEET WARLOCK

NSFW Alphabet | Merlin

AN: An NSFW alphabet to quench ya'll while I finish up this Faramir fic hehe

Content warning (MDNI) under the cut

A - Aftercare

(What they're like after sex?)

He becomes a little shy

Once he pulls out of you, he climbs underneath the covers and becomes a little embarrassed about the mess and things he might have said to you during the moment

Needs a little reassurance that you really enjoyed yourself, because he becomes insecure in his performance

But once he is feeling confident again, he wraps you in his arms and holds you close to his body, wanting to feel your heat

Makes some cheeky jokes to you, classic Merlin style

You let out a big yawn in front of him "Aw, did I tucker you out?"

He is super lazy, don't make him get out of bed for anything after you've finished

Will also whine if you try and escape

Uses magic to bring water and a cloth over to you two eventually

B - Body Part

(Their favourite body part of theirs and also their partner's)

His favourite is your hair

Loves nuzzling his face into it during the moment and breathing in the scent of the products you use

It brings him comfort

But also loves running his hands through it, watching it fall between his fingers

Especially when you're sucking him off, he loves the slight control it gives him, but he could never pull it

Although he would never admit it, his favourite on himself would be his mouth

Only because he's obsessed with what he can do it you with it

The way it makes you sigh when he mouths at your neck, or your reactions when he uses his tongue on you

Makes him feel proud and heated in a way that he would never voice

C - Cum

(Anything to do with cum)

He tries to be polite about it at first, wanting to be clean and reserved and respectful of you

But he cannot help himself

He cums hard, with his face in your neck and his hands gripping your hips, your name falling from his mouth like a prayer

Like he's finally letting go of something he's been holding back for so long

His favourite is to cum inside you (duh)

The warmth, the closeness, the possessiveness that he won't admit to

He will apologise after, asking if he got too carried away, but he secretly loves it

D - Dominant

(How are they as a dom?)

As soon as he has control, his voice drops, and he is slow, low and unstoppable

Does not bark orders but rather gives slow, quiet demands that leaves no room for you to argue against him (unless you wanna be punished bad)

Binds your hands with an invisible magic force, and forces you to look at him as he says what you're going to take and how he will give it to you

Gets off on you being an obedient, little pet

"Good, just like that. You're being so good."

If you test the waters a bit with him, all it takes for him to say "Do you want to try that again?" to have you melting under him again

Can be rough, but only when earned

He does not realise how much he likes being dominant until he tries it, it awakens something primal within him

E - Experience

(How experienced are they? Do they know what they're doing?)

He is inexperienced, but curious

He reads about it, listens to you and learns, and when it finally happens, he is so insanely attentive and eager to learn what makes you squirm beneath him

He uses his magic to heighten his senses and understand what is working on you

Acts all innocent and unknowledgeable about sex, but once he has you, his confidence spikes, and he is not afraid to explore your body with his own

F - Favourite Position

(Goes without saying)

You on top

The view he has, and the control he feels underneath you he very much enjoys

Hands splayed across your thighs as he helps you rock back and forth on his cock, with your head thrown back

Moans your name like a prayer when you take control of the thrusts, letting you push his hands to his sides and make him take it

Naughtier part of him likes to take you from the back, with your back to his chest

Whispering filth into your ear and tucking his face into the nape of your neck

He goes slow and is possessive in this position, holding you against him with his arm around your torso and not letting you drop away from him

"Stay here love, just a little longer."

G - Goofy

(Are they more serious in the moment? Are they humorous?)

His natural shyness and awkwardness brings about some funny moments

He tends to fumble, tripping over his own pants, bumping his head against yours which always follows with a string of 'Sorry!'s

He loves it when you laugh during sex, makes him feel less nervous and likes that you are enjoying yourself in other ways

Gets a little cheeky, classic merlin

"You like that love?" he would say with a grin but gets all flustered when you answer VERY confidently

His magic sometimes gets set off during intimacy, like once a ceramic pot shattered nearby when he orgasmed, which left you both laughing for ten minutes

His goofiness disappears once he sees you trembling beneath him though, and he becomes solely focused on sending you over the edge

H - Hair

(How well groomed are they?)

He keeps himself well groomed

Not shaven down to nothing, but he likes to keep it short

Has a schedule and trims himself down each week

He has a dark happy trail leading down his navel, disappearing beneath his waistband

It looks delicious, making you want to follow it with your tongue whenever you see it

I - Intimacy

(How are they during the moment? Romantic aspect?)

He is a hopeless romantic and it always shines through during sex, even when he tries not to be

Every kiss, every touch, feels like it matters, like he's wanting your soul and trust

Is very clingy during and after sex, holding you close, not liking positions that keep your bodies separated too much

"I love you"s slip out all the time, always when he's fucked out underneath you while you're riding him or when he's deep inside you from behind, whispering it into your ear

He almost feels too much, and you see a soft glow underneath he sheets from his intense emotions radiating in his chest as he fucks into you

J - Jack Off

(Masturbation headcanon)

Does it often but with guilt

Fantasizes in painful detail, keeping his eyes tightly closed to imagine you there, sometimes even creating illusions of you, naked and across him, to help him finish

Uses sensitivity spells on himself when it's not really working

Loves to use something of yours, like a piece of clothing pressed to his face, can't get enough of your scent

Makes himself stay quiet while masturbating, getting shy and not wanting anyone to hear

But he secretly fantasizes about your walking in and catching him, and finishing him off with your mouth

K - Kinks

(One or more of their kinks)

Magic play, of fucking course

Glowing, gold ribbons that appear and restrain you while he watches from across the room with a cheeky grin

As said before, he uses pleasure-enhancing spells that makes you see stars beneath him, especially when he's rubbing your clit and you're arching off the bed grabbing his wrist to slow his movements, but he doesn't let up

He uses silencing charms on his bedroom walls so you both can moan as loud as you want

Also into praise, call him a 'good boy', please he begs for it

And melts when you tell him how good he's making you feel

Will whimper out little "thank you"s

Slight corruption kink, acts all innocent and inexperienced but flips the switch on you when you're least expecting it, ravishing you and having you all to his mercy

L - Location

(Favourite places to have sex)

His favourite is his bed in Gaius's place of course

Loves having you tangled in his sheets, moaning his name against the pillow while people go about their day outside, unaware of what he's doing to you

Also a sucker for bath sex

After a long hard day when he can just hold you close and sink into you, having you both moan against each others shoulders while he kisses your wet skin and licks the drops of water up your neck

Was risky, but once took you in arthur's chambers while he was out

Out of spite mainly, as he was angry at him during the time

It was over the prince's desk, but how would he ever find out?

(He did, he was not happy and you were banned from visiting merlin at work)

M - Motivation

(What turns them on?)

When you act a little bossy with him

Like grabbing his jaw, forcing him down and making him put his hands where you want them

Or when you initiate sex

Like undressing him, reaching for him and saying "merlin" out of pure neediness for him

Makes him drop everything and give you what you want

YOU IN HIS CLOTHES, makes him go crazy

Once you borrowed some clothes when you were staying over because you spilt water on yours

He couldn't keep his eyes off you, feeling so possessive and heated from it

Will fuck you with his shirt still on you, but pulled up and revealing your chest

He basically has heart eyes the whole time

N - No

(Something they wouldn't do, turn offs)

Anything where the power imbalance is used cruelly, like degradation, humiliation or anything similar

He has been treated like a lesser throughout his life, and he wants love and appreciation, not anger and cruelty

Coldness or silence from you, he likes you being bossy, but it must have affection and tenderness behind it, like kisses and light touches

He thrives off of your noises, so if you are quiet, he thinks he is doing something wrong

Any places that are dirty (like stables and dusty stone floors), and also places that are too public

If there is a genuine chance arthur or gaius is going to walk in, he cannot relax and it kills the mood

O - Oral

(Preference in giving or recieving etc)

He is obsessed with giving to you

He is surprisingly skilled with his tongue, just knowing which buttons to press

Flat tongue, licking in circles, he deliberately makes you tremble under him

Incorporates magic, making you feel pleasure deep inside you without him even using his hands

The first time he did it you almost sobbed in pleasure

He does not stop until you're shaking, but even then... he does not stop

When receiving, he is shy, with a lot of "are you sure? you don't have to."

Talks more than he means to, a lot of swearing, "oh god"s and whispers of your name as he grips your hair in his fist

First time you did it, he was very embarrassed from how fast he came, the warmth of your mouth, the sight of you on your knees, it was too much

"Did you feel okay love?" lots of reassuring and kisses after you're done

P - Pace

(Are they fast and rough? Slow and sensual?)

Thrusts are usually deep, slow and his hips roll, not slam

Drags it out, showing you how good he can make you feel without rushing

Will laugh when you beg for him to quicken his pace, and he doesn't until he wants to, feeling slightly mean

If he's been missing you and has been holding back for a few days, he'll snap

He will grip your hips hard enough to bruise, not letting you escape

Face tucked into your shoulder, repeating your name like a spell while he thrusts fast into you

After he cums, he apologises over and over for his roughness, but you just kiss his head, and tell him how much you loved it

Q - Quickie

(Their opinions on quickies, how often etc)

Is surprisingly into them

Acts all shocked and shy when you suggest it at first

"Wait, here? Right now? Um- Are you sure?"

Doesn't take long for him to start fumbling at your clothes, trying not to tear them out of anticipation

This doesn't happen often, but when it does, it leaves you both breathless and wanting more

He'll finish and say sorry for rushing, but will melt when you say you loved it

Helps tidy your clothes with a smile, trying not to look too proud of himself

R - Risk

(Are they game to experiment? Do they take risks?)

Secretly loves it

Is used to suppressing himself because of his magic, so any chance to let loose, he will take

Willing to experiment with magic, making sex more thrilling and fun and almost unpredictable for you

If it's gonna make you feel good, and having you shaking and gasping beneath him, he's down to try it

Exploring with magic sex has it's varying successes with you two, depending on the enchantment or charm type

But he loves playing with what's 'forbidden'

Of course, he is a communication king, and will always check with you before, during and after trying something new

S - Submissive

(How are they as a sub?)

He's soft, squirmy and SO eager to please you

Always is a good boy, wants to do everything right

Praise him? flustered immediately, hiding his red face when you whisper "Such a good boy" into his ear

You tell him 'on your knees?' He's there before you even finish the sentence

Absolute body worshipper

Definitely needs aftercare after being in subspace, needing hold you to him to keep him grounded, overwhelmed but happy

If you grab him roughly by his red scarf, he's immediately hard

So into light bondage, like when you tell him off for having his hands all over you when you're meant to be in control

As soon as you growl "Hands behind your back", his brain is empty, heart racing, doing exactly what you say

T - Toys

(Do they own toys? Do they use them? On partner or themselves?)

Did not use them at first, but got curious

He found them boring at times, and so he enchanted them

Has them buzz, move on their own, pulse, reacts to your moans, the possibilities were ENDLESS

Has a big kink for using toys on you while you're tied with silk to his bed, completely naked while he remains fully clothed

Gets so wrecked watching you come apart on them

Will use strokers on himself occasionally, but much prefers for you to control them and use them on him

Much more fun that way

U - Unfair

(How much do they like to tease?)

OH love he LOVES it

Could get off on it alone

Acts all innocent, hiding his smirk behind his shy boy demeanor, his hands maybe brushing a little too close to your core underneath the table

He just quietly lets out a "Did I do something?" when you give him a look 'yes you did Merlin and you know it'

When he's barely touching you, making you beg and plead beneath him, he'll say the most HEINOUS things that'll make you just want to rip his hair out due to sexual frustration

"Oh sweetheart, you make such pretty sounds when you're desperate to have me inside you~"

He has a spell that keeps you right on the edge for ages that drives you to insanity, saves that one for when you've been a brat to him

It literally has you thrashing beneath him while he just laughs at you

But the MOMENT you tease him back, his smug demeanor DROPS

Becomes a stammering, blushing, frustrated mess

"Wait... no! That's not fair!"

V - Volume

(How loud they are, what sounds they make)

He fights his sounds

Bites his lip, jaw clenched, trying to hold in all his moans

But once he slips, he is breathless against your ear

Little whines, gasps and groans that heat your skin

His voice cracks when you've been teasing him for too long

Sometimes gives a string of "don't stop... ah~ don't stop"

When he's subbing, he tries to muffle himself with his sleeve, or your shoulder, but otherwise will whimper through clenched teeth

When he cums, they're sharp, shuddering moans that echo through the room

Candles flicker and go out from the chanting he lets out

W - Wild Card

(A random headcanon)

He didn't know he had a praise kink until you used it once

"You're doing so well for me, Merlin," you whisper out during a particularly intense session. The young warlock's eyes rolled as you continued working on his slick cock with your hands. Your words make his hands tighten against the sheets and his entire body trembles, much to his surprise.

"Oh?" you smirked at his reaction. "You like that honey?"

He can't do anything but let a strained moan escape while you continue going at him, leaving him a trembling mess as you continue to praise, very nearly sending him over the edge with just your words.

After that, he never asks for it, but the slight begging look on his face as he watches you, waiting, every time you're in control, you know exactly what he's wishing for

X - X-ray

(What's going on under the clothes?)

He's big, not monstrously, but enough for it to be a problem at times

Has more length than girth, with a slight curve that hits all the right spots in you

Too pretty a cock, pink head, veins and leaks when he's overwhelmed

Very sensitive head, makes his thighs shake when you suck on it

Y - Yearning

(How high is their sex drive?)

Pretty high, but he hides it

Acts all shy and quiet until you're alone, then he watches your every move and is affected by even the smallest of touches on his arm from you

Sometimes gets flustered and awkward because he wants you too much

Sometimes goes weeks denying himself sex, either with you or masturbation, because he thinks "I'm busy" or "I shouldn't want it that often"

But all you have to do then is place a hand on his thigh a little too high, then he's got you pinned and he's devouring you

If you tease him a little in the morning in bed before you get up, he'll follow you around and struggle to focus all day, until you give in a relieve the ache you started in him

When he's very horny, his magic becomes a bit erratic, and things start to float around you guys, especially if you're teasing him

You laugh at him as he slams a floating book back down onto the table after you've licked a slow stripe up his neck

Z - Zzz

(How quickly they fall asleep afterwards)

He does get very tired, but he stays awake for aftercare and reassurance for both of you

You both check on each other over and over, talking about what you just did, especially if you had tried something new

Likes to make sure you're all comfy, clean and happy before he even considers going to sleep

A soft, slow, wet make out session is an absolute must for both of you before you close your eyes to sleep

If you turn to escape his arms during the night, he will wake to check if you're okay, and you have to reassure him that you're just a bit hot

Taglist: @cinnamon-girl-writes @mybrainsamess @pumpkin-soup333 @bloxholden35 @woodsofsunlight

#fic rec #multistation fic rec #merlin #bbc merlin #merlin x reader #emrys #emrys x reader #gn reader #unspecified reader #mod logan

25 notes · View notes

multifandom-rec-station · 8 hours ago

Text

H i d e a n d S e e k

Writer’s Month - August 2nd

Pairing: Deucalion Blackwood x Reader Prompt: Playground Synopsis: Late at night, playing hide and seek with Deucalion, testing his skills without having to see. Tags/Warnings: Deucalion/GN!Reader, fluff, already dating, sfw, age gap (Deucalion is 40ish, Reader is in their 20s) Word Count: 912 Notes: This fic was inspired by a ship I really love, Deucalion x @mermaniaa 's oc. I wanted to write this for you, Merm, a little playful fic, about Mara and Deuc. Fic is completely gender neutral, no body descriptions! Enjoy.

“You are not gonna find me!” Giggles spilled out, slipping through the playground found on a late-night walk with Deucalion. He was leaning against a tree, offering you time to hide—or run as far as you could— even if half of the time that didn’t change the fact that he could find you in a heartbeat.

“I like the challenge, dear, “ he replied, loud enough for you to hear, a hint of his smug, teaseful tone showing in his words. He was confident about his skills—eyesight or not—he had promised once that he would always find you. Or he would die trying. A dramatic thought for such a playful night, but Deucalion stayed vigilant. Danger was around the corner everywhere they went.

It was dark enough that you had to focus on your surroundings more than usual. The lack of light around you forced you to tread carefully, avoiding unseen branches or benches.

To outsiders, two adults playing hide and seek might seem odd, but you never cared about others’ opinions. What mattered most to you was that Deucalion had always encouraged you and played along with anything you wanted, even if it was the last thing he could’ve seen himself doing.

Behind the playfulness that you shared with him was something else, something that he understood without needing to hear about. He knew that growing up, you never had chances like this to enjoy the day, to play, to do things without overthinking them. You had been locked away, forced to face reality far too young. If playing hide and seek, or any other games you could think of, could bring back some sort of happiness for you, he would do it.

The Big Bad Demon Wolf, the one who was feared by most, but never by you. He had never expected to meet someone like you— someone who shifted his plans and made him want something other than power. He had never expected to fall in love with you. Yet, he had.

His eyes were closed ,and the cane he used to seem normal around people was left at home. When it was dark you knew that no one would see you, and if they did, he could always grab your arm and pretend as if you were guiding him and not the other way around.

Not having his eyesight was something that had made him stronger. Something that had made him even more aware of his surroundings. You joked sometimes and told him that he must have eyes on his forehead or something, because even without his red—glowing alpha eyes, he never stumbled.

It was one of the things you found fascinating about him. That, and everything else he had done and become for you.

You wouldn’t lie and say he wasn’t someone who could kill others without hesitation anymore, but you could see behind his actions and reasoning now. And you were safe with him. You were so sure about that.

“Ready, my love?” he asked, voice teasing. You bit back a giggle, staying silent behind your tree, heart racing with anticipation. It was one of his tricks that you had once fallen for. He could recognize where your voice had come from and found you so fast, but not this time, you stayed quiet and hidden behind the tree you had chosen, trying to control your rapid heartbeat.

Even in the safetiness of your relationship your heart jumped at the feeling of being chased. It wasn’t a bad thing now. Not with Deucalion. It was thrilling.

He walked slowly around the playground, listening to the sound of his own footsteps to make sure he was stepping on steady ground, using the tip of his shoe to find any surface that could be in his way. Then he heard it—the familiar sound of your heart, a rhythm he’d nearly memorized.

Deucalion moved slowly, his footsteps soft on steady ground, senses sharp. ‘We should have discussed my prize for winning,’ he teased, voice carrying a playful edge. “Although, considering I win every time, I think we should establish a prize that applies to any game.”

He’s too cocky, you thought, though his confidence was justified—he always won.

“Maybe a kiss?” He kept going, his footsteps closer to you now, which made you try to keep your breathing as quiet as possible. “No, I would kiss you either way, you know I can’t resist you, angel.” Now, that was what made you giggle. You quickly covered your mouth to stop the sound from being too loud, but it hadn’t mattered. A second later, Deucalion was standing right next to you, leaning against the tree that had been your hiding spot.

“That’s my prize. Hearing your laugh. Most beautiful sound.”

Your face felt warm at the compliment, and you reached for his hand before moving closer to kiss his cheek. “That’s not fair, you made me laugh on purpose, that can’t count as a win,” you said with a pout, even if you were not mad about it. “Oh, it can’t? Then maybe we have to try again,” He smirked and with a hand he guided your face closer to kiss your lips for a sweet kiss, his thumb caressing your cheek. “And this time you’ll choose my prize.”

“What if it’s ice cream and a hug?” you asked, eyes sparkling.

“Then I’d say it is the perfect prize. Having you with me is,” he murmured, his embrace already promising it.

Tag list: @loganwritesprobably @fanaticsnail @skullfacedlady @decaffeinatedscreaming

If you'd like to join my tag list, let me know!

#fic rec #multistation fic rec #teen wolf #teen wolf x reader #deucalion #deucalion x reader #gn reader #mod logan

10 notes · View notes

multifandom-rec-station · 9 hours ago

Text

Missed Calls & Make-Ups

Summary: Clark stands you up on your first date. It turns out he has a pretty decent explanation.

A/N: First fic in 3 years!! And about a DC character no less! The things I do for tall brunette lover boys <3

Warnings: Getting stood up, hurt/comfort, 24 hour clock mention, cursing, food mention, (extremely minor) injury mention, use of y/n, reader is described as having hair. Girl discovers how to use em dash.

Word Count: 8.2k

Pairing: Clark Kent x fem!reader

The skin of your legs sticks to the pleather upholstery of your chair as you bounce your leg. Face up on the table beside your empty glass, your phone displays the time.

19:37

Your messages and missed calls remain unanswered. He was late. That's what you repeated to yourself, Clark Kent would not have stood you up. Not Clark Kent, who stuttered and stumbled his way through asking you to dinner, a red flush creeping up from his collar. He’d even double and triple checked you were still up for your date as you walked out of the office together on Friday night, a mere 24 hours ago. Clark Kent would not stand you up… so why was he almost an hour late?

If this was any other man, you would have cut your losses after 5 minutes and no text back. But you were so stunned, so ultimately blindsided by the possibility that the Clark Kent could (and has) forgotten about your date. This is what you get for putting him on a pedestal.

Men, you think. Only it comes out more morose than scathing.

You joined the Daily Planet years ago, fresh from university and desperate to make a change. Your passion in science communication was stunted by an underwhelming lack of reader interest. You managed to put out a few columns here and there, but mainly you worked with Lois, Clark and Jimmy, getting swept up into the seedy dealings of the Metropolis’ rich and powerful. You’d spent many days and nights hunched over desks littered with notebooks, half-written memos on sticky notes, and letters from legal representatives. Corruption paid the bills in this city, as did writing about it.

That was until scientific misinformation about healthcare from capitalistic pharmaceutical companies became increasingly prevalent and public demand for fact rather than fiction rose—you were happy to rise to the challenge. Now your days are spent knee-deep in scientific journals, scoffing at social media rants about vaccines and having to bite your tongue in the bullpen when one of the sports journalists starts spouting off his questionable opinions on women's healthcare. The cease and desist letters didn’t stop though, only signed by a different set of lawyers now. That’s the one constant about your job you suppose—shitty coffee, red pens and threatened legal action.

“It’s how you know you’re doing a good job.” Clark had reassured you once, heavy hand on your shoulder, an unusually bold move of affection from him. Thumb brushing over your satin blouse, once, twice, three times before he squeezed softly, taking your dazed expression for dismay at the thick paper envelope that sat on your desk. “What you’re doing is important.” He said, quieter but with an unwavering surety in his voice, like there was no argument about it.

You wrote that article in record time, lawyers be damned.

When you first met Clark, you honestly thought he didn’t like you. He was quiet—polite—but quiet. He would chat happily to Jimmy, listen intently to Lois’ rants about a suspicious politician, chiming in with supporting observations where necessary, but with you it was like he short-circuited whenever you were near. Minimal eye contact, stuttering, he’d almost go out of his way to make sure there was never a situation where the two of you were alone together. It hurt, sure, but you figured he was just shy and hadn’t warmed up to you.

Thankfully, he did warm up to you. It had all started with a tentatively placed coffee on your desk, your usual order from your favourite cafe nonetheless. You stuttered out a thank you which he politely brushed off, sitting down at his desk, his mouth twisting in a way that made you realise he was trying not to grin. You had stared at your desktop in disbelief as you sipped your coffee. From then on things between you two progressed. Clark often found an excuse to hover near your desk, either to get your opinion on an article idea he wanted to pitch or offering to proofread your piece before it’s sent to the copy editor, even just to ask about what you did on the weekend. If you had an issue with the printer jamming, he was always the first one up to help you tackle it. He’d take an interest in whichever published paper you were reading, listening to you intently as you explained the theory behind certain medications, unafraid to ask if he didn’t understand—a quality you found pleasantly refreshing after spending your college experience surrounded by boys who constantly tried to prove themselves as smarter than you. You learnt very quickly that Clark was a dorky sweetheart who’d grown far taller than was sustainable. Who, to your delight, seemed to enjoy your company just as much as you enjoyed his.

When the waitress loops back round to you, a poorly hidden look of sympathy on her face you decide to call it quits.

Your phone buzzes on the table. You hold your breath in anticipation.

Lois Lane: Superman sighting on fourth street. Aliens. Eye witnesses. You wanna come?

You sigh. The waitress, seemingly also holding out hope, grimaces, which is admirably her first slip of the night.

“Just the bill, please.”

You swipe your card, tip graciously, duck your chin as you leave. You’ll wait until your apartment door is locked before you have a full-scale pity party, but you may have wiped a tear or two from your cheeks on your walk.

Lois, thankfully, stands where you agreed to meet. “Oh.. wow. Hot date?” She nudges your arm, giving you an approving up and down. You can’t wait to see this alien and fling yourself into its path. Your aspiration for a quick end to the conversation must show on your face, as Lois grimaces. “Ah, do you want to pretend it didn’t happen?”

You snort, “Technically it didn’t.” You keep your eyes ahead, walking towards where the sky pulses with red and blue beams of light. It doesn’t mean you can’t feel Lois’ eyes on you, assessing, trying to figure out how far is too far in terms of questioning your poor friend who has clearly not had a great night. Investigative journalists, you think. Deciding you can’t emotionally take an interrogation, you throw her a bone. “He didn’t show.”

“Sorry.” Lois doesn’t have any follow up questions. You’re sure she does, but none she deems tactful to ask.

“So, what’s the game plan?”

“Superman’s currently occupied with the second alien in under an hour, so see if we can get anything from eye witnesses, ideally someone will have seen where that thing came from. It’s a long shot but if we can find anything that ties this to LexCorp it’d fit nicely into my piece.” You nod as the noise from fleeing civilians grows louder. You can’t be far away from the barricades now. Tremors from the fight ripple through the ground beneath your heels, your bracelets clink as the impact travels up your arms. You clench your jaw through the natural panic and the rising ire at your situation—an evening of being wined and dined has devolved into you willingly heading towards an intergalactic battle, chasing a lead for a story you’re not even writing. Fan-fucking-tastic.

“I think you have a better chance of flagging Superman down for an interview than you do pinning this to Lex Luthor, Lois. We both know he doesn’t cut corners when it comes to covering his ass.”

Lois huffs a laugh, narrowly dodging a street vendor rushing away from the conflict, you watch him flee over your shoulder, smart thinking. “Yes, well we all know he’ll be too busy giving Clark an exclusive play-by-play of events to make time for the likes of little old me.”

The cacophony from the alien ricocheting between adjacent skyscrapers distracts Lois from the way you freeze at the mention of his name, making you thankful for the decreasing distance between the two of you and the fight. As you get closer, you begin to make out the grotesque appearance of the creature, it struggles to look formidable. It almost reminds you of a chewed up tennis ball a dog would drop at your feet, slobber and all. The gratitude you feel is short lived because, as you approach the police barricade, it becomes quickly apparent that A) the space creature-thing smells worse than it looks, which is no small feat, and B) any and all eyewitnesses have left the scene. Cause and effect. The only people remaining are a few queasy-looking cops, Lois, yourself and a few onlookers with apparently iron stomachs. As the stench hits the back of your nose, you’re instantly glad you didn’t eat anything at the restaurant - a silver lining if you will. If this thing was engineered, whatever expense was saved on the appearance of the creature doesn’t appear to have been spent on its attacking ability. An unfortunate combination of bad looks, horrendous smell and even worse fighting prowess—you almost feel bad. Superman seems to be making quick work of it, each hit is purposeful and on-target, albeit with more vehemence than usual.

“He seems… aggressive?” Lois says, muffled by the sleeve she's using to cover her mouth and nose.

“Can you blame him? If I had to smell that up close I’d want this over with as soon as possible.”

“Do you think he has a super sense of smell?”

“For his sake I hope not.”

Further up the street, fifty metres in the air, blue and red blurs as the hits increase in speed. With one final blow the creature falls to the street, rendered unconscious. A puddle of…drool? steady growing outwards from where it lays. When the two of you look back up to the sky, the hero of the hour has disappeared. A still silence surrounds the street.

“Well, that was a bust. Sorry for dragging you along.”

You shrug, looking around as a few stragglers begin to creep out of store-fronts, assessing the danger before stepping out into the street, heading back to wherever they were going. You see a couple, the man helping a woman over a piece of debris in the doorway, hand-in-hand as they walk down the street. You swallow back the burn in your throat and turn to Lois.

“It’s okay, not like I was having a good time before.” You attempt a lighthearted tone, but your ears and Lois’ face confirm it missed the mark by a mile. “Anyway, I was…” You trail off as Lois’ attention is suddenly snatched by something over your shoulder.

Not something—someone—you realise as you turn.

In front of you stands Superman.

The Superman.

For an awkward 5 seconds, no one speaks. Even Lois, who has all but begged Clark to be put in contact with superman, is speechless.

“Hello, are you two okay?”

Nodding in near perfect synchrony, you’re sure you and Lois are quite the sight. A subtle look of amusement flashes across Superman’s face before his eyes land on you. Humour fades into something more earnest.

“You look lovely.”

…Oh?

Taken aback by the sincerity in his voice, you flounder. Your poor heart has only just begun to pick itself back up and is wholly unprepared to handle whatever this is. You manage eye contact and a small but genuine smile.

“Thank you.”

He nods. He doesn’t leave, he looks like he’s thinking of something to say. It’s a strange sight, a man who moves with such purpose and determination, looking unsure.

“You’re journalists, right? From the Daily Planet?”

This turns out to be what is needed to reset Lois.

“We are, yes. We work with your friend, Clark.”

You look down at your shoes, the momentary distraction from what happened earlier in the evening is shattered. On Monday, you’ll see him at work. Hell, you’re standing next to Superman in the aftermath of a fight, Clark’s probably on his way here now. You can’t help but look around in a fleeting panic, there’s only a handful of people lingering, none of which have tousled dark hair, no one with a pair of glasses that seem incessant on slipping down the bridge of their nose, no one’s a hulking 6’4” whilst somehow never making you feel small. You look back down at your shoes and blink, hard. Good god, you need to get a grip.

When you look back up it’s directly into the eyes of superman. The intensity of an ice blue stare brings you back to the present.

“I’d be more than happy to do an interview, if you’d like?”

Your eyebrows raise and you turn to Lois. Much to your surprise, she’s not taking his hand off for the opportunity. Lois shakes her head and nudges you. It takes you a second, and a glance at the man before you to realise he’s asking you. Not only asking, the way he’s looking at you is almost imploring. The offer should be too good to pass up—it is too good to pass up. But you’re so tired of reading things wrong, your confidence has been decimated and then some, your dignity can’t take another hit for at least a month. You really, really, really want to crawl into bed and go to sleep.

So, pushing down every journalistic instinct that screams against it, you decline.

“Oh, if you want a piece written, Lois is the one you want. I’m uh- I’m a bit rusty on the superhero stuff.”

He looks genuinely crestfallen for a brief moment, before he nods. You can’t shake the feeling of his gaze on you. The way he’s looking at you is not usually how a normal person looks at someone they’ve just met—at least you personally would never look at a stranger with this much awed fondness. You’ll admit you looked pretty in the mirror before you left earlier, but pretty enough for superman to look at you like this? Maybe he just thinks you look familiar. Or maybe it’s more of a thing among meta-humans.

“If it’s okay with you, I’m going to head back home.” You tell Lois. You’d stay, obviously, if she wanted you too. Leaving her alone with a man you’ve both never met is not a move you’d normally pull, especially when said man is wearing his underwear over his trousers. However, she’s got a look on her face that makes you feel a bit guilty that you’re leaving Superman alone with her—Lois has an incredible talent at making an interviewee squirm with her relentless questioning. You worry not that even superman will be immune to her interrogation tactics. You’ve been on the receiving end of Lois when she gains momentum (read: the missing mug incident—it was Steve) and it's no laughing matter. Poor guy.

“You sure?”

“Yeah, I just- I think the sooner this day’s over the better y’know.” Lois smiles softly in understanding. She squeezes your arm.

“You’ll be safe getting back, yeah? Text me when you get home.”

“Of course, let me know when you get back too.” You take one last look at Superman who is still watching you, an expression you can’t decipher on his face. You say a quick goodbye and start your walk home, Lois sending you a wave and a wink. At least you have some motivation not to call in sick on Monday—you can’t wait to hear that recording.

Monday comes around unpleasantly fast. Your phone has been switched off since you received Lois’ “I’m home!” text on Saturday. Opting to spend Sunday with every intention to bury your head in the sand for as long as possible, a big fan of delaying the inevitable.

Your commute is uneventful—no superman-related delays on public transport, an empty seat next to you on the bus (essentially gold dust during Metropolis rush hour), the forecasted rain blissfully holds off until you’re within touching distance of the entrance. Despite Clark being chronically late, you still watch the lobby door nervously as you wait for the elevator doors to shut. The last thing you need is to be trapped in a metal box with that man. You breathe a sigh of relief as the doors close without incident. So far so good.

Unfortunately, everything derails the second you step out into the Daily Planet bullpen. Despite being infamous for never being on time, Clark Kent stands by his desk nervously, muttering to himself whilst straightening his tie and brushing his hands over the material of his suit jacket. His head snaps up as you walk to your desk. You both freeze. The two of you look like deer in headlights, only on opposite sides of the road.

He clears his throat. “Y/N, I-”

“Hey, Y/N!” Grateful for any escape route, you whip around to see Lois racing towards you. “I’m transcribing the Superman interview, d’you wanna listen?” Truthfully, Lois could be offering you the chance to scrub the sidewalk and you’d take it.

Quickly leaving your bag and coat at your desk, making a great effort to not spare Clark any attention, you hightail it after Lois as she motions for you to follow.

“Did you make the man cry?”

Lois snorts. “That was one time, and no he didn’t cry. To be honest after you left he didn’t seem too keen on sticking around. Kinda antsy.”

“Really? Clark always seems to get a decent amount of information from him.” You follow her into an empty conference room, the recording already loaded on her laptop.

“That’s what surprised me. Maybe Clark has a technique of getting him to talk that we don’t know about, might be worth asking.” You hum in agreement despite having absolutely no intention of doing such a thing. “But if you ask me…I think it's because Superman wanted you to do the interview, not me.”

You roll your eyes. “Lois, you know that’s absurd. He wouldn’t know enough about our writing styles-”

This time it’s Lois that rolls her eyes. “I don’t think it had anything to do with writing styles.” At your oblivious expression she shakes her head at you, a sly grin on her face. “You should’ve seen the way he was looking at you. I’m telling you, that man looked like he was one second from dropping to his knees.” You splutter. Before you can respond, you’re stopped by a tentative knock at the door.

“Come in.” Clark Kent peers around the door, a flush across his cheeks. After spotting you, he opens the door fully. His eyes lock onto yours, the man who once would immediately look away when you met each other's eyes long gone. Whoever this is seems intent on not letting you out of his sight.

“I was wondering if I could speak with you? Alone?” You pause. It’s sickening, really, the way your immediate reaction is to nod and follow him blindly. You have to remind yourself that he had the chance to speak with you, alone, on Saturday night. But even with him right in front of you, it’s still difficult to put his face to all that hurt.

“Can it wait? We’re kinda in the middle of something.”

“Oh no it’s fine, she’s all yours, Clark.”

“Lois-” Too late, she's already shutting her laptop and sliding off her chair.

“There were no tears, promise. Not even a little bit of squirming. You’re not missing out on anything here.”

“But, Lois-” She slips past Clark, still in the doorframe, and disappears down the corridor. You sit in shocked betrayal.

Clark pushes his glasses up his nose - a nervous tick or a necessity you’re not too sure. He closes the door. The only noise in the room is the rhythmic ticking from the clock hanging on the wall. You look down at your hands, fiddling with the hem of your skirt.

“I’m- I’m so sorry.” To his credit, he sounds genuinely remorseful. You don’t think you have it in you to look at him. You don’t know what a contrite Clark Kent looks like, but you have a gut feeling that it would be potentially life-ruining. In the interest of self-preservation, you don’t look up. Clark, filled with an increased sense of desperation, makes his way towards you. He hesitantly pulls out the chair next to you and weighs up his options when you stiffen. After a brief second he decides sitting is still better than towering over you. As the chair squeaks under his weight, you find your voice.

“Did you forget?”

“No, of course not. I- I was looking forward to it the whole week.” He sounds wounded at the accusation, which only makes you more frustrated.

“You didn’t even text, I called you, and you couldn’t even-” You shake your head and look directly at the fluorescent ceiling light, hoping the searing burn will distract from the tears welling along your waterline.

“I can’t tell you how sorry I am, I swear. I was on my way to the restaurant and… something came up.”

You laugh, it’s pitiful and humourless. Out of all the excuses in the book, that’s the best he can do?

“Something came up?” You say sardonically. When you finally look at him, you can’t tell if he flinches at your teary eyes or the poorly concealed ire in your voice. You’ve never spoken to him with anything other than kindness or good humour before—you’ve never had a reason to. This is unfamiliar ground for both of you.

“Y-yes, I… I’m so sorry.” He looks at you with a heart-stopping hurt. Behind his glasses, you think he’s about to cry.

“You’re going to have to do a bit better than that, Clark. What could possibly be so urgent, that you had to abandon our dinner plans without even sending a text? I sat there, alone, for almost 40 minutes, like an- an idiot! And you couldn’t even spare ten seconds to let me know you weren’t going to make it?

His face twists, an internal debate going on in his head that you’re not privy to. He looks at you, really looks at you. You can see the moment he comes to a decision, his shoulders slump impossibly further and his eyes squeeze shut before he looks at you, resigned. You brace yourself for the impending let-down.

“I can’t…” He sighs, shaking his head. “I can’t tell you. I’m really sorry, Y/N.”

You search his face for any sign that he’ll change his mind, but his face remains the same—pained, but resolute. You push up to stand, all thoughts but one blurring—you need to leave this room. A shaky hand reaches to wipe away a tear rolling down your face. You take one unsteady step, then another until you reach the door.

“For future reference, Clark, there are much kinder ways to let someone know you’re not interested, instead of leaving them to figure it out for themselves.”

Clark feels physically sick as you shut the door behind you, leaving him sat in the aftermath of your words. His instinct to immediately refute the possibility that he doesn’t like you, dies on his tongue—because how could you not think that? As you pointed out, he invited you to dinner and didn't show, he didn’t even give you the courtesy of letting you know he was going to be late. If he was in your shoes, he would come to the exact same conclusion. The months of building up to asking you out unfortunately means nothing if he can’t even show up to the date. The way you looked at him, as if you expected more, as if you never thought he would be the one to cause such pain, has burned into the back of his retinas—he sees it even as he drops his head into his hands, scrunching his eyes shut. He wishes he could replace it with the image of you dressed up on that night. You looked gorgeous, pretty in your shiny jewellery and a dress he hadn't been lucky enough to see you wear before.

Clark was a firm believer that a relationship can never be built on lies—a lesson Pa had instilled in him during his teenage years. He knows if he wants something meaningful with you (and he does, he really does) the superman conversation is one that will have to be had sooner rather than later—that is, if by some miracle he hasn’t ruined any chance he had to get to know you in that way. But he doesn’t think it’s fair to use it as an excuse—this isn’t how he wanted to tell you. Your feelings are understandably hurt and whilst there was a glaring reason as to why he didn’t show, he still got too caught up in the motions to send you a quick text. He’s admittedly not above blame, so he won’t use superman to get him out of a corner he’s backed himself into.

The soft sound of your sniffles hit his ears—he rips his glasses off to scrub a hand over his eyes. He’s made you cry. Super-hearing is a tool he can dial down when needed, but Clark doesn’t try. He sits there and tortures himself with the muffled whimpers from the upset he caused. He figures it’s the least he deserves.

After taking some time in the bathroom to compose yourself, you return to your desk. You keep your gaze steadfast on the screen of your desktop for the rest of the day. No matter how often you feel Clark’s eyes flicker towards you, you don’t let your eyes stray from your desk.

For the rest of the week you feel like you’re constantly expecting Clark to corner you again. You don’t linger in corridors, you don’t spend more time next to the printer than you absolutely have to. Every morning he shuffles in, bouncing his shin off Jimmy’s desk chair, perilously balancing a tray of coffees, stacks of papers, and his briefcase. He always sets your coffee down with the utmost care, as if he’s terrified he’ll spill it onto your neatly stacked papers (an entirely plausible scenario, in his defence). You’re determined to be professional, so you say a polite "thank you". He looks as if he wants to say something but decides against it as you turn back to your work. Behind your back, Jimmy shakes his head, Clark waves him off.

Saturday night—an entire week since the Incident. You’re curled up on your couch finishing off a nice, yet deceitful, one-pot meal (you can count at least three from where you’re sat). A movie you’ve seen before plays idly on the TV, but you catch your focus straying back to the events of last week every five minutes. Saturday nights are something you look forward to the entire work week and it’s starting to grate that you can’t settle. Sighing loudly, you drag your hands over your face. Without thinking, you flick the TV off, stand up and grab your bag, pulling on your coat and shoes before leaving your apartment.

Distant rumbling a few blocks down and a quick look at your phone notifications is all you need to confirm that superman’s saving the city once again. Only this time you’re walking away from the fight. When you arrive at the office it's peaceful—no hubbub, no news livestream, no telephones ringing—so different from the day-to-day that it feels almost surreal. The novelty of being there at night is a guilty pleasure. You turn on a few desk lamps in order to get enough light without having to turn on the dreaded fluorescents, and make yourself comfortable at your desk.

For a span of almost an hour, you manage to get a productive start on your newest piece—a deep dive into the health consequences of inadequate sanitation caused by the mayor's neglect of the rundown neighbourhoods of Metropolis. Eventually, your fingertips slow over the keyboard as your bout of inspiration wanes. You stare at the blinking text cursor as you try to rack your brain for any ideas on things to add. That’s one of the downfalls of trying to work at night, there’s no one around to bounce ideas off of. After a failed attempt at reinvigorating your focus with some online games, you figure a walk around the office couldn’t hurt.

Once you’ve trailed aimlessly for twenty minutes or so, and nosed around the supply closet to see if there’s anything worth nabbing for your desk (there wasn't), you idle back to the bullpen.

You freeze.

Superman is standing at Clark’s desk.

“What the fuck?” You whisper under your breath.

He whips around, startled. A piece of paper flutters to the floor by his red boot. You blink at each other from across the bullpen before he straightens up to his full height, broad shoulders squaring.

“Hello.”

“...Hi?” You glance between him and Clark’s desk, papers in a state of disarray from where he’d been rifling through them. “What are you doing?” It comes out more as a squeak than a question, so much for being a journalist.

“Oh,” He looks behind him to the desk as if he’ll find a suitable answer there. “I was looking for something.”

You nod hesitantly. “Is Superman breaking and entering these days?” A weak attempt at a joke that you instantly regret. Because, if for some reason he has gone rogue, in what world are you able to take on superman? You give him a once over in the suit—you’re not sure any human would be able to take on superman. Mortifyingly, he catches you looking. You wish the ground would swallow you up as he raises an eyebrow slightly, a small smirk on his face. He chuckles lightly at your nervous questioning.

“I wouldn’t call this breaking and entering, I-.” He pauses, his eyes lingering on you as he thinks through his options. “The journalist, Clark Kent, mentioned something about a link between LexCorp and a new development in the suicide slum—he thought it may have been used to stash weapons, or house something illicit.” His eyebrows pull together in concentration. “Something caught my eye earlier, when I was fighting the kaiju, and I wanted to see if he’d found out anything about it.”

You didn’t know Clark was investigating something in the underbelly of metropolis, nevermind a dodgy dealing in the suicide slum. Is that where he disappears off to? You can’t picture Clark in those streets, a bumbling dork (said with nothing but love), wonky glasses, suit and tie—it’s a wonder he hasn’t been mugged. Eager to have something to do and quietly curious to see what Clark has been getting himself into, you nod at the remaining stack of files.

“I can help you look, if you’d like?” He looks appreciative of your offer, but hesitates to accept.

“Oh, I wouldn’t want to interrupt your..” He trails off as he looks towards your desk where you monitor sits, a more genuine look of humour appears on his face. You follow his gaze and curse loudly in your head—FreeSudoku is displayed at a dazzling brightness on the screen, on a maximised tab nonetheless. The serious journalist image you were aiming for dissipates into thin air in seconds—falling victim to a partially filled 9x9 grid. He’s kind enough to bite back his toothy smile when he looks back at you, but it appears that dimples are a little harder to conceal.

“It’s okay, I've got plenty of time before the deadline.” You wander towards Clark’s desk, quickly pressing the standby button on your monitor as you pass. “I don’t normally come in at night. I just- I, uh… needed the distraction.” He pauses at this, regarding you with a look you don’t have time to analyse before he turns to grab half of the stacked files. Your fingertips graze his hand as you take the manila folders from him. You’re about to go back to your desk but Superman has other ideas, clearing space on the bench adjacent to Clark’s and pulling out the nearest desk chair, also Clark’s, for you to sit in.

There’s a comfortable silence between you, filled only by the shushing of the pages as you scour through the headlines, pull quotes and everything in between. It’s heart-warmingly similar to the nights you, Lois and Clark would stay late when a deadline was fast approaching—surviving off of nothing but takeout, the dregs from the coffee pot, and hope that a hive-mind approach would be the key to finally piecing together conflicting tip-offs and witness statements.

You’re not confident in what you’re supposed to be looking for, but you’re determined to impress. What you lack in direction, you make up for in tenacity. You feel the familiar rush when you notice a small insignia, almost indistinguishable, in the corner of a photograph in the article you’re holding. Something to disregard, except you’d seen the exact same insignia earlier. Flicking through the pile of read articles you finally find the one you’re looking for. You compare the two badges—identical. There’s an inkling in the back of your mind, one which years of investigative journalism has taught you to trust, that makes you grab the remaining stack of unread articles and tear through them. You grin as you find one after the other—articles, all about unexplained and unsolvable crimes in the suicide slum. Granted, not an uncommon occurrence, but the presence of two L’s encased in a square in at least one image per article is unusual. Spray painted on a wall, tattooed on someone’s arm, a sticker plastered on a streetlight—easy to miss, but a clear message for those who know to look for it.

Superman’s thigh bumps your chair, subsequently bringing your attention back to him.

“You got something?” You nod eagerly and spread the articles in question out for his convenience.

“Here, see this logo? It appears in almost every article to do with crimes in the suicide slum. Only it’s never mentioned because it’s never noticed.”

Superman leans over you, one hand braced on the desk, the other on the back of your chair. Your eyes dart from his forearms to his clenched jawline then swiftly back to the articles in an attempt to calm yourself. The hand leaves the back of your chair to grab the nearest page, he stands tall as he brings it closer to his face to get a better look.

“Yes! This is the insignia that was branded on the kaiju's back.” He shows it to you enthusiastically, as if you hadn't just been searching for it.

“So whatever’s going on down there is linked to wherever the…kaiju came from?” He’s started to pace now, deep in thought but nods along with your pointing-out-the-obvious anyway. You watch him as he turns things over in his head. He eventually comes to a stop. You’re feeling far too inquisitive to sit quiet for much longer.

“What are you going to do about it?”

“Nothing tonight. I’ll have to scout it out first, try and get more information on what the badge means.” You nod along, a glint of a name plate catches your eye.

“You should tell Clark.” He blinks. “You’ll probably be due an interview soon—you should definitely tell him about the insignia in the articles, and now its connection to the kaiju.”

He swallows and nods. “I will, but I imagine you’ll see him first.”

“And exactly how do I explain that I know it was branded on an alien?”

“You interviewed Superman?”

“You think he’ll take that well? With you two being exclusive and all?” You tease, revelling in the reluctantly amused eye roll you get in return. He ducks his head, and for the first time you notice a cut near his hairline.

“Are you hurt? He raises his head, looking puzzled. The earlier events of the evening must come flooding back as he raises a hand to poke at the abrasion.

“Oh, no. Really it’s nothing.” He tries to disregard your concern but to no avail, you’re already on your feet.

“It’s alright I have…” You rifle through the bottom drawer of your desk before you pull out a small first aid kit—nothing too fancy, but enough to patch up a scrape here and there. “This. If you’ve been near that alien-thing you never know what germs might have gotten into it. The last thing Superman needs is an infected wound.” You open the box open where you were previously, and pull out an alcohol wipe. Superman is standing so close to you that your elbow brushes against his firm torso as you tear the packet open.

“You’re going to have to sit if I have any chance of reaching that.”

In an uncharacteristic show of false confidence, you stare up at him expectantly as he looks down at you. You wait for an argument, but he relents suspiciously easily, easing himself into Clark’s desk chair. You wonder if there’s more to his injuries than he’s letting on.

“You sure it’s just this?”

He nods affirmatively. You notice, with a burn in the pit of your stomach, that he shifts to spread his legs further apart, a silent invitation for you to stand between them. He watches you closely as you take a step forward, your heart jumping as his muscled thigh brushes yours. You take his face into your hands, tenderly, and begin carefully cleansing the wound. After a second, he leans into it, eyes dropping closed followed by a long, drawn sigh easing from him along with the remaining tension in his shoulders. Your previous notions about superman blur at the edges as he softens under your tentative ministrations. Does he have a family? Does he have anyone looking out for him? Someone to hug? Under careful consideration, it dawns that he is more likely to be on the receiving end of touches meant to harm than those with the sole purpose of comfort. You resist the startling urge to kiss his cheeks—coddling the universe's strongest superhero is probably a futile venture. Or at least you thought it was, only he suddenly appears alarmingly human. This monolith of a man squeezed into a too-small desk chair, who can shoot lasers from his eyes, one-two punch a foe back to whatever planet they strayed from, practically melts under your gentle touches.

If he notices you take a bit longer than necessary to disinfect a surface wound, he doesn’t mention it— he seems more than content to keep your hand on his cheek, fingers grazing his jawline. When you stop, unable to pretend there's more to clean, his eyes slowly open to meet yours. Again, almost a mirror image of the way he looked at you when you first met, with so much familiarity and intimacy that you struggle to put it down to coincidence. It’s far more than a fleeting appreciation for how you look, you’ve seen men who stumble after Cat—the double takes, the agape jaws, a poorly concealed heat behind their eyes—but this is different, this is more. This man must know you.

Letting your lingering hand drop from his face, you tuck the wipe back into its packet. You immediately miss the warm bracket of his thighs pressed against yours as you step back to discard the wipe in the small pedal bin under your desk. His warm gaze tracks each movement, drinking you in. The persistent questions bouncing around in your mind—where could he possibly know you from?—become uncomfortably loud. As if he can hear your thoughts—shit, can he mindread too?—he shifts in his chair, only to wince as something in his side tinges.

“I’ll get you a glass of water.” You’re halfway across the bullpen before he can begin to protest.

The breakroom fridge buzzes in the corner, a small noise you can never hear during the day. You let the water trickle down your hand as you wait for it to run cold. Naturally, your hand drifts towards Clark’s mug before you even realise what you’re doing. You course correct, take your mug from where it’s tucked beside Clark’s—a gag gift from Lois, Jimmy and Clark when you got your first front page. An exposé that had earned itself the title of cover story, despite Clark’s newest superman exclusive running that day—MetroPharma had been selling a glorified placebo to healthcare providers across the city and beyond, claiming it would provide an array of medicinal benefits. You’d toiled for months in order to make sure you landed the hit, working yourself to the bone to ensure no stone was left unturned, and that no rectification was made without supporting, reputable sources. You’d been nominated for a Pulitzer. A mug emblazoned with Science Investi-gator, and a ceramic alligator adorned with glasses and a lab coat modelled as the handle, was sat waiting on your desk the morning the story broke. The entire bullpen had wished you congratulations—even Perry, who was swamped with phone calls from MetroPharma’s legal team, had given you a proud nod when you peeked your head into his office. Clark had hugged you so enthusiastically your feet had left the ground. The smile didn’t leave your face the entire day. The joys of having a work crush.

You linger on that memory as you fill your mug under the tap.

When you make your way back to the bullpen, Superman is back on his feet, hunched over Clark’s desk as he pores over the papers spread across the hardwood. Your stomach drops to your feet—you’re grateful that you have two hands on your cup or that would’ve joined your stomach—because just for a split second it’s not Superman standing there, it’s Clark.

You’ve never noticed how the broadness of Superman's shoulders is the exact same as Clark’s. Or how, tussled from his previous fight, Superman's hair is identical to how Clark’s looks when he rushes in late. Could it be?

Superman(?) turns towards you, somehow made aware of your presence. He smiles at you, slightly bemused. “Are you okay over there?”

You nod, then have to manually put one foot in front of another to walk towards him. With each step, it feels like another piece of a puzzle slides into place. Clark, who is the only journalist to interview Superman. Clark, who is never around when all hell breaks loose. Clark, who swears he doesn’t live in the gym but is built like a greek god. Clark, who is never seen without his glasses. Clark, who stood you up at the exact time when superman was occupied with an alien three blocks down.

Oh god.

You’re close to him now, your heart beat loud in your ears. Your eyes dart around his face, scrutinising, desperate to find any similarities. It’s the same rush you get when you’re chasing a lead—when you know a breakthrough is in reach but you just need a final push to get there.

Superman double takes as he catches the expression on your face and pales. From your look alone, he knows you know. And a man who stands tall, a man who rarely falters, begins to fidget nervously.

That’s what does it.

The final piece clicks.

Clark Kent is standing in front of you.

“Clark?” It’s barely even a whisper. You’re petrified to be wrong, scared to be right. He reacts as if you’ve screamed it, flinching back.

“W- what do you…” He trails off as he sees the look on your face, a mix of confusion, desperation and shock. Clark is tired of having to lie to you. “I’m sorry.” He hesitantly steps towards you, like he’s unsure if he’s allowed but can’t help himself. You feel that pull too, it's what keeps you rooted in place.

“When you didn’t show, at the restaurant-” He nods urgently.

“I wanted to be there. I can’t tell you how badly I wanted to be there. I bought you flowers, I- I’m so sorry, honey.”

The pet name and the tenderness he delivers it with breaks your shock. You feel tears creeping along your waterline.

“You were right, I should’ve texted you. I was too caught up in trying to wrap it up as quickly as I could that I- gosh, please don’t cry.”

You’re still staring at him, he reaches out and, when you show no signs of pulling away, wipes your tears away with a level of care that causes a fresh wave of tears to join them.

“I thought you didn’t like me.” Clark can’t handle the gut wrenching vulnerability in your tone, or the slight wobble of your voice. He swiftly takes your mug from between your trembling hands and places it on the desk—his desk—then wraps his arms around you and tugs you towards him. You sniffle and hug him back as a large hand comes to cup the back of your head, tucking your face into his neck as he stoops down to press his nose against your hair. His other hand tightens around your waist, pulling you impossibly closer to him.

“It would never be because of that. I really like you, and I’m sorry that I made you doubt that.” You slowly lean back to wipe the wetness off your cheeks, a warm sticky feeling settles in your chest when Clark doesn’t pull away from you, keeping you enveloped between his solid arms and even sturdier torso. You meet his eyes and smile softly. He visibly melts, affection and adoration almost tangible as his eyelashes touch. Clark slowly drops his forehead to rest against yours.

“You looked beautiful in your dress.” His gaze traverses your face with enough dedication you swear he’s trying to memorise every feature. He gently strokes his thumb from your cheek to your hairline, tracing the path with his eyes. “You always look beautiful.”

“I can’t believe you’re superman.”

“How did you figure it out?”

“Superman suddenly looked like Clark…and the whole interview exclusivity thing doesn’t help.”

He frowns lightly, lips forming an endearing pout. “I offered you an interview, I gave Lois an interview.”

You smile up at him. “Lois said Superman was a bit reluctant to share any information though, not quite the same in-depth report you get.”

He shrugs, “Well, we’ll be sharing a byline for this piece. If you’d like? Technically you got the in-depth report from Superman for this one.”

“It’s your article, Clark. You did all the research.”

“And you made the connection.”

You both stare at each other, honeyed with affection. Clark squeezes you gently.

“Would you like to go to dinner with me, please?”

You tilt your head, a semi-teasing grin on your face. “That depends, are you going to turn up?”

“There’s nothing in this universe that could stop me, I promise you.”

Emboldened by his unguarded eagerness, you dare to relish in the adoration of a handsome man. “I’ll wear that dress again.” An elated grin lights up his entire face, accompanied by dimples that beg to be traced with your fingertips—you grant yourself the pleasure, and Clark’s happiness turns enamoured.

“I can’t wait.”

You can’t help the happy sigh that slips from your mouth. Clark’s eyes flicker to your lips, then quickly back to your eyes when he catches himself—you have the small joy of watching a pink flush spread across the apples of his cheeks.

“Clark,” you say softly. “Kiss me?”

He looks stunned for a second before his brain catches up. A large hand raises back up to your cheek, thumb softly brushing across the skin it touches. Clark leans in slowly, giving you the chance to back out, like he can’t believe he’s been given permission. You close your eyes and he closes the gap. The kiss starts off slow, with a tentative press of his lips to yours before you slip a hand around the back of his neck, fingers weaving into the soft curls that lie there. With your hand in his hair, Clark unravels. His other hand snaking around you to rest on your back, pulling you closer to him as he deepens the kiss. Your teeth clack and you remember you require air to breathe. Reluctantly, Clark pulls back just enough so he can see your face.

“I still have your flowers at my apartment, if you’d like to come home with me?” You raise your eyebrows in shock that he kept the flowers—Clark misinterprets this and flusters. “I swear that wasn’t a line I-“ His soon-to-be rambles are cut off by your laughter.

“I know, Clark. I was just…you kept the flowers?”

“They’re on my coffee table, I hoped I’d be able to give them to you before they wilted, I got your favourites.” You smile at the sentiment, reaching up to squeeze his hand that still cups your face.

“I’d love that. Let me grab my bag.”

As you hurry to pack your bag you share giddy glances with Clark as he hastily tries to tidy his desk, lest your coworkers think it’s been ransacked when they arrive on Monday morning (no doubt before Clark).

You pause, an abrupt realisation hits you. “Wait, are we flying there?”

Clark beams at you.

#fic rec #multistation fic rec #superman 2025 #superman x reader #clark kent #clark kent x reader #fem reader #mod logan

2K notes · View notes

multifandom-rec-station · 10 hours ago

Text

More than comfortable ~ M.F.

Pairing: Megumi Fushiguro x Reader

Summary: A quiet night in might soften Megumi just enough for him to be clingy, only if it’s with you.

CW (content warning): literally nothing, this is just tooth rotting fluff.

AN: Hi guys! I’m finally back after so long hahahah I’m sorry for neglecting you for so long but I had a writers block and thought I’d take some time off while I was starting my summer vacations. I still have a few trips planned but I’ll try to get through my requests and post a few works here hahahah. English isn’t my first language so I’m sorry if there’s any mistakes. Hope you enjoy and let me know what you think! :)

Requests are open so feel free to send yours! (you can check the list of characters I write for on my pinned post)

Masterlist

The faint hum of the television filled the room in a quiet murmur, casting soft colors against the darkened walls as the latest episode of some long-forgotten show played in the background. The blinds were half-closed, the sky outside painted in hues of late afternoon, tipping lazily toward evening. Everything about this moment was the definition of comfortable, the way the air settled warm against your skin, the weight of the blankets across your legs, and most of all, the solid, very much present warmth of Megumi Fushiguro curled up behind you in bed.

You hadn’t intended to get this cozy. It had started with just watching something together, a small shared indulgence between missions and mayhem. But then Megumi had pulled you into bed, under the guise of “getting more comfortable,” he’d claimed, and you hadn’t really fought it. Who were you to resist the rare occasion when Megumi asked for affection rather than quietly hoping for it?

He lay behind you now, arms draped lazily around your waist, chin nudged softly into the crook of your shoulder. You could feel the slow, steady rhythm of his breath against your neck, each exhale warm and ticklish. His grip wasn’t tight, but it was insistent, the kind of hold that told you without words: I’m not letting go any time soon.

You smirked to yourself, glancing at the screen but not really watching it. It wasn’t the show that held your attention. It was the way Megumi had slowly but surely been shifting closer over the last thirty minutes. First, it was a hand on your waist. Then that hand had slipped beneath the hem of your shirt, fingers cool and possessive against your bare skin. Then he’d pulled you closer, inch by inch, until your back was flush with his chest.

You hadn’t said anything. Not yet. But you were very aware.

Especially now, as one of his hands slipped up to brush gently over your ribs, fingers spreading out as if to mold you closer against him.

You bit back a grin. He was trying to be subtle, and failing miserably.

“You good back there?” You asked, voice casual but teasing as you wiggled slightly.

Megumi made a low sound in his throat. “Mhm.”

“You sure?” You pressed. “You’ve been inching closer for the last thirty minutes. I thought maybe you were cold.”

“Not cold.” He muttered, the tip of his nose brushing just under your jaw. “Just... comfortable.”

You turned your head a bit, trying to catch a glimpse of his face. “Comfortable, huh?”

His only response was to tighten his hold just a fraction. If you didn’t know him better, you might’ve missed the slight rise in color along his cheekbones. But you did know him. You knew every shift in his voice, every flicker in his expression. And this? This was Megumi being quietly, hopelessly clingy.

You grinned.

“Megumi Fushiguro.” You sing-songed, dragging your fingers lightly down the arm wrapped around your waist. “Are you being needy?”

His body stiffened for half a second, then relaxed. He didn’t answer.

So you turned in his arms, facing him now, your legs brushing against his under the blanket. He didn’t pull away. In fact, he pulled you closer without hesitation, thigh sliding between yours and arms wrapping around your back instead. His eyes met yours for a second, and you could see the quiet plea there, even if his mouth stayed silent.

“You are being needy.” You said, softer this time. You reached up and lightly traced your fingers over the line of his collarbone, letting them trail lazily across his chest.

He exhaled slowly, barely a sound, but his eyelids fluttered a little, and you swore you felt him melt just the tiniest bit.

Your fingers continued, dancing along the planes of his chest through the thin cotton of his shirt, sketching invisible shapes, patterns, swirls.

A quiet hum escaped him.

He tucked his head a little closer to yours, one hand curling gently into your side. “That feels nice.”

“Mhm.” You smiled. “You like that?”

“Yeah.” He practically purred.

You kept going, watching the way his expression softened more with every pass of your fingers. His eyes were half-lidded now, completely focused on your touch. When you stopped for just a second to shift your arm, he reacted instantly, nudging forward, cheek pressing to your shoulder, breath warm against your collarbone.

You laughed quietly. “You could just ask, you know.”

He didn’t lift his head. “Asking’s embarrassing.”

“Oh, baby.” You leaned down slightly, lips brushing his temple. “You’ve literally dragged me into bed, clung to me like a koala, and made sad noises when I stopped petting you. I think we’re past embarrassing.”

“I didn’t make sad noises.”

“You absolutely did.”

He groaned low in his throat, burying his face more fully against your skin. “I hate you.”

You chuckled, curling your hand back over his chest again, resuming the slow patterns. “Liar.”

“Mhm.” He didn’t argue further. If anything, he pulled you closer, as if he could fuse you together if he tried hard enough.

You stayed like that for a while, cuddled together in the tangle of sheets, the soft flicker of the television casting shadows over the both of you. Megumi was peaceful, you realized. There was always a part of him that carried tension, like he was constantly preparing for the next disaster. But here, in this moment, with you in his arms and your touch gentle against his skin, he let go.

It was rare. Precious and deeply, deeply adorable.

He made a little noise again when your fingers paused.

You raised a brow. “That again?”

“Keep going.” He mumbled, barely audible.

You teased. “Please keep going.”

He lifted his head just enough to give you a look, pink-eared, grumpy-sweet. “Don’t push it.”

You just laughed, kissing the tip of his nose before continuing your gentle ministrations.

Minutes passed, or maybe hours, you weren’t keeping track. The warmth of the blankets, the hush of the room, and the constant contact had lulled both of you into a slow, syrupy calm.

You stretched a little at one point, shifting to get a drink of water from the bedside table, but the second you started moving, Megumi clung tighter.

“Where are you going?”

You blinked. “Just grabbing my water.”

“No.”

“No?”

“No.” He curled around you more securely, dragging you back against him. “Not done.”

You snorted. “Not done with what?”

“With this.”

You turned halfway in his arms again. “Fushiguro, are you saying you haven’t had enough hugs yet?”

He looked you dead in the eye, all earnest seriousness. “Yes. You’re not allowed to move yet.”

You nearly melted right then and there.

“Okay, okay.” You whispered, letting him pull you back down. “I’ll stay.”

His lips brushed the side of your neck. “Good.”

“You’re so clingy tonight.” You murmured, grinning as you tangled your fingers in his hair.

“You don’t mind.” He muttered, almost smug.

“I don’t.” You agreed. “I really, really don’t.”

You spent the next little while trading soft kisses and whispers, hands gently tracing over each other's arms, shoulders, cheeks. Megumi held you like you were the only thing keeping him tethered to the earth and maybe you were. He sighed every time you kissed his temple or carded your fingers through his hair, like each touch grounded him in ways words never could.

“Y’know.” You whispered at one point, “You’re lucky I love you, because this level of clinginess would be criminal coming from anyone else.”

Megumi hummed. “I am lucky.”

Your heart stuttered a little at that.

“You never say things like that out loud.” You murmured, brushing his hair back from his forehead.

His voice was quiet, low and slightly hoarse. “I do when it’s just us.”

That made something warm and soft bloom in your chest, so full and deep that you leaned in to kiss him slow and sweet. He kissed back, sleepy and sincere, one hand cupping your cheek like you were made of something fragile and precious.

You pulled back only a little, your lips barely brushing his. “I love you.”

“I love you too.” He said easily, the words slipping out like they’d been waiting forever.

You smiled against his mouth and kissed him again, more lingering this time.

Eventually, you shifted just slightly to get more comfortable again, but Megumi made a small, scandalized noise and physically anchored you in place.

“You’re not allowed to move.” He grumbled. “You belong here now.”

You laughed, pressing your face into his chest as you gave up entirely.

“Fine.” You said, voice muffled. “I guess I belong to you now.”

“Always did.” He mumbled.

And that was how you spent the rest of the evening. Curled in bed, limbs tangled, the world reduced to the quiet hum of affection and the steady beat of each other's hearts. Whatever chaos waited outside this room, it didn’t matter. Not here. Not now.

Megumi Fushiguro had you in his arms, and he wasn’t letting go.

Tags: @hawkwithsocks @pickledsoda @savagecatsuga @suna-yoshihara @grignardsreagent @noooo-onee

Taglist is open so let me know if you want to be added in future works! :)

#fic rec #multistation fic rec #jjk #jjk x reader #jujutsu kaisen #jujutsu kaisen x reader #megumi fushiguro #megumi x reader #gn reader #mod logan

99 notes · View notes

multifandom-rec-station · 11 hours ago

Note

HEYYY!! Godspeed on your semester <33!! You got this. 🫶🏼

Fic idea: Reader is Reid’s roommate and is pretty laid-back (easily mistaken for a slacker because they don’t take on rigorous tasks often) and stumbles across a stumped Reid who’s trying to solve a case. Very casually Reader makes an insane prediction, and Reid learns that they’re basically a genius… who doesn’t really know they’re a genius?? (Because when they think “genius” the reader usually thinks of nerdy and scrawny people like Reid)

I hope that makes sense vro 💔💔

Baby you have been in my inbox for a MONTH i am so sorry i hope you like it 🥀

Lazy

pairing: spencer reid x fem!reader words: 1.2k warnings: Language summary: You, a chronically underachieving genius accidentally solve an active FBI case over takeout and crime scene photos. Spencer Reid blurts out an "I love you" before sprinting out the door in mismatched socks. a/n: fluffity fluff in the end for a little bit hehe <3

Truth be told, you hated that word. Lazy. You preferred efficient. Your 9-to-5 was soul sucking, much like any other 9-to-5, so you did the only thing you could to make sure this job doesn't eat you alive— the bare fucking minimum.

A report due by 5? Alright, it'll be on the desk at 5, not a minute sooner, and not a minute later. A task needs doing? Oh, it'll be done. Flawlessly, in fact. But that's it. No fanfare, no extras, exactly what is required, nothing more. Meetings? You speak only when necessary. Deadlines? Met to the second. No matter how convoluted the problem or the task, you found the cleanest, simplest way through.

You did just the right amount, never showed your true potential, and it never raised any questions. If you asked your coworkers, they'd say you were a joy to be around. With your social capital? You were never getting fired. It was the perfect ruse.

But when you reached home with takeout, took your shoes off at the end of the day, you left your job along with them at the doorstep of your house. 5-to-9 is your time. And no one was taking that away from you. Alright, maybe one person was taking that away from you. But truth be told, you didn't really complain.

Spencer Reid was an enigma. Living with him was never dull, be it because he was actually, quite literally, the best flatmate a person could ask for in all thinkable ways, or because he challenged you the way you liked best— intellectually. Today was apparently a latter kind of day.

"Reid-o. What's got you all worked up?"

"Reid-o?" he asked, looking up from the papers strewn about his desk.

"Term of endearment. You didn't answer my question."

The first thing you noticed after coming home was the pair of Converse that were clearly taken off in a hurry and left there haphazardly. The living room smelled of the strongest espresso in all of land, like a truck of coffee had decided to explode in your house, of all places. The room was relatively dark, except for the lamp burning over the desk where he was huddled over. He was so engrossed in whatever he was doing that he hadn't even noticed you come home. Ergo, he was stressed.

A heavy sigh, one hand running through his hair. You made a mental note of his stress level: medium-high. A few more hours of this and he’d either fall asleep at his desk or start quoting obscure philosophers.

"It's this case," he admitted finally, his voice sounding almost defeated. "I have been poring over the case files and the crime scene photos, and the interviews for hours, and I have basically no pattern or connection between any of the victims. So, how was your day?"

"Better than yours," you scoffed, "Can I have a look?"

“I thought you hated this stuff.”

“I hate paperwork and bureaucracy. Big difference.”

He hesitated, then pushed the files toward you, still half sceptical. “They’re all women, different ages, different occupations. Killed two days apart. Same method, no evidence left behind, nothing to tie them together. We’re missing something.”

You skimmed through the reports, flipping through pages with zero urgency. You tapped your finger on the crime scene photos, brows slightly furrowed at the gore; they were crime scene photos, after all. But you kept your focus on just the crime scene. Just the way it was staged. You tapped your finger on the last photo, humming thoughtfully.

“How did he get in?” you asked.

Spencer sighed again. “We don’t know. That’s part of the problem. No signs of forced entry, no tampering, no secondary footprints, nothing on any of the security footage. Just the victims entering their homes alone, like normal.”

“No delivery men, no dates, no door dash?”

“Nothing. Clean. Like no one else was ever there.”

You tilted your head, squinting at the arrangement of one of the living rooms. “Alright. So, let’s say the footage is legit, no one else enters or leaves the premises. The simplest explanation?”

He gave you a look. “Occam’s Razor?”

“Exactly. The simplest explanation is that no one entered because they were already inside.”

He blinked. “You’re saying the unsub was—”

“Already in the house. Yeah.”

“That would mean... he snuck in before the victims got home. Hid. Waited. Killed them. Then left... somehow.”

“Without triggering a single alarm or camera. Meaning either the cameras were looped at just the right time— which you’re saying they weren’t— or he never walked past them to begin with.”

Spencer stood now, pacing a little. “But how? Every entry point was covered.”

You leaned back into the couch, arms crossed. “Then maybe we’re not thinking three-dimensionally enough. You need to look at the architectural plans. House blueprints. Vents, crawlspaces, dumbwaiters, hell, even hollow walls. If he’s getting in and out without being seen, it’s because he’s not using the doors. Or windows.”

Spencer froze mid-step, then slowly turned to you, eyes wide.

“Holy shit,” he whispered. “Oh my god.”

“What? Did you get something?” you asked, sitting up a little straighter.

Spencer blinked, still stunned, like the gears in his mind had just snapped into overdrive.

“The houses, every single one of the victims’ homes, were renovated within the last year,” he said, more to himself than to you, “That’s why we didn’t consider construction anomalies. We assumed standard layouts, but what if— what if they all used the same contractor?”

You raised an eyebrow. “You think the unsub is the person who remodeled their houses?”

“Or someone connected to the company. Maybe he installed hidden access points, crawlspaces, false walls, and vent systems wide enough to move through. Places where someone could hide for days.”

He rushed back to the files, flipping through them like a man possessed. “This would explain everything— the lack of evidence, the absence of footage, the precision in timing...”

He looked up suddenly, eyes shining like the sun just rose inside his skull.

“Did you know you’re a genius?”

You smirked, stretching your arms behind your head. “I have my days.”

“No, no, I’m serious.” He was talking fast now, gathering files, tugging his coat from the back of his chair. “You just cracked the entire case with, like, three questions.”

"Guess I've lived with you long enough for it to rub off on me, huh?"

He laughed at that, face serious for a split second. “You’re incredible.”

That actually made your stomach flip. “Yeah, well, that makes two of us.”

“I gotta go,” he muttered suddenly, stuffing folders into his messenger bag hurriedly like he was trying to stop them from escaping, “Hotch needs to see this now. But, oh my god, I love you so much right now.”

And before you could even react, he leaned over, pressed a quick, distracted kiss to your cheek, and bolted out the door, his shoes half on.

You sat there, stunned.

“…Cool,” you mumbled, touching your cheek where his lips had been a moment ago.

#fic rec #multistation fic rec #criminal minds #criminal minds x reader #spencer reid #spencer reid x reader #fem reader #mod logan

323 notes · View notes

multifandom-rec-station · 12 hours ago

Text

carefully, with love | b. barnes

⋆. 𐙚 ̊ synopsis: Bucky’s never been good at saying how he feels—but he’s getting better at showing it. Almost. From close tension-thick moments in cramped SUVs to flour clinging on your eyelashes in the middle of the night, there are three times he nearly kisses you…and the one time he finally does.

-> pairing: bucky barnes x fem!avenger!reader

-> disclaimers: fluff, just a little angst, cursing, unestablished relationship, so much pining & yearning hello, avengers tower au cause i can’t be stopped, use of pet names (doll, like once), use of y/n, mentions of violence & injuries, bucky’s so in love it’s sickening

-> word count: 8k

-> song rec: please, please, please, let me get what i want by the smiths

-> a/n: i thrive for almost moments and this entire fic was just a projection of that. i also have so many bucky fic ideas, i need to write them all or i’ll combust. (i’m writing for other characters too but these bucky drafts are just accumulating, i’m sorry)

Bucky isn’t entirely sure if he should punch Sam or thank him for the face cut he inflicted on him during training. For one, it stung like a bitch when Wilson’s combat boot went right into his cheek and split a gash into it. However, on the much brighter side, after training is over, you approach Bucky with squinted eyes laced in concern.

“You’ll have to clean it.” You hum, examining the cut with a sympathetic smile. “You’re bleeding.”

Bucky brushes it off with a shrug, his expression flat like the gash actually doesn’t bother him at all. “I’ll be alright.”

You figure that. He’s endured a lot more pain in his past than a simple boot to the face, but you’re far too caring to let his stubborn nature win in this case.

“C’mon.” You say, ushering him to follow as you begin walking out of the Avenger’s Tower training room and towards the nearest bathroom.

Bucky is going to protest—to insist that you don’t have to stress over him and that he can patch himself up. However, you’re already walking down the hallway, not bothering to glance over your shoulder because you know he’ll eventually follow. Follow he does and if he wasn’t so distracted by the way your hips swish while you walk, he’d have noticed the teasing smirks Natasha and Wanda give each other as you both leave.

When the two of you slip into the floor’s bathroom, you shut the door behind you and immediately kneel down to fetch the first aid kit from beneath the sink. “Sit, Buck.” You order.

Wordlessly, he finds himself obeying and plopping down on the closed toilet seat lid. His eyes are trained on your every move, finding it difficult to look anywhere else, as you shut the cabinet and rummage through the kit searching for the proper materials.

It’s one of those moments where he doesn’t feel as if he needs to say anything—most of the time he spends with you is like that. You’d don’t expect him to converse or entertain because sometimes, merely sitting in silence with him is enough. It’s comfortable and equally as rich as any conversation would be.

Ripping open an alcohol wipe, you narrow your gaze at the feeling of his eyes on you. Your lips curl up at the corner sweetly. “What?” You ask, your voice gentle.

“Nothin’.” Bucky blinks, shaking his head. “You don’t have to, y’know? More than capable of cleaning it myself.”

You smile even more at his relentlessly headstrong mindset. “Would you? Remember last time you got hurt on a mission?“

At the time, Bucky didn’t tell anyone his non-metal arm was in pain for days because he simply didn’t feel like burdening them with his problem. It only came to your attention when you accidentally brushed his shoulder in the kitchen, and he flinched—just a tiny twitch, barely noticeable.

But you’d noticed. You always seem to notice.

You scolded him for not telling anyone he’d been hurting and then again for not taking care of it properly himself. Then you dragged him into the medical room to wrap it up comfortably, much to his chagrin.

Now, sitting across from you again, he nods slowly. “Yeah,” he mutters, brushing his thumb over the cut on his cheek. “I remember.”

Quickly, you lightly smack his hand down so he can’t touch it before shifting over to stand in front of him. “Exactly, so let me do this for you, yeah?” He doesn’t have time to answer because then you’re holding up the alcohol wipe in front of his face. “This might sting.”

Bucky doesn’t so much as flinch when you press the wipe against his cut, but finds your warning endearing anyways. He’s more focused on the way you position yourself in between his spread open legs and lean down to get a better look at his cut.

“How hard did Sam kick you in your face?” You let out a small chuckle, the noise echoing off the walls of the bathroom. “He mad at you or something?”

The corners of Bucky’s lips threaten to curl up at your comment. “I took the last pancake Wanda made this morning, that might be it.”

You smile, laughing breathily as you reach over to grab some antiseptic cream from the first aid kit. “Makes sense. I would’ve kicked you in the face too.”

Bucky’s eyebrows raise, watching you unscrew the lid to squeeze some onto your fingertip. “Oh, would you have?” When you nod, he hums. “I think I would’ve preferred a kick in the face from you instead of him anyway.”

Pursing your lips, you tilt your head teasingly. “Don’t let him hear you say that, Barnes. He might think I’m taking his spot as your best friend.”

“He’d never recover.” Bucky grins, but stills to a silence when you place your fingers on his cheek lightly.

His attention drifts up to your face, observing the way that your eyebrows knit together softly and lips twist in focus. You’re close to him now, so much so that he can smell your cherry perfume and he wonders how it’s managed to stay on despite having just returned from practice.

When his head tilts too far up as he looks at you, you gently grab his jaw and guide his head back down. The action is small, but sends a course of shivers down his spine, a feeling so rare and one he only ever experiences with you.

He doubts you know the effect you have on him. After all, he’s been trying his absolute hardest to conceal these newfound and confusing emotions until he can begin to understand them himself.

He knows something is off, though, when he catches himself smiling as your loud laughter echoes through the walls of the Tower during your and Natasha’s weekly movie nights, or when he wakes up early for coffee and finds you already in the kitchen, packing Peter a lunch for school with a bright smile on your face.

It’s the little things you do—like saving him a spot at the dinner table, handing him a fresh towel before he can even ask on sparring days, or patching up his wounds despite his grumpy protests—that make him worry he’s developing feelings no friend should have. It terrifies him, truly. But he’d be lying if he said it doesn’t feel good all the same.

You unwrap a butterfly bandaid and lay it carefully on his cheek, leaning your head back to admire your hard work. “Lookin’ good. Keep this with you,” You hold the antiseptic cream for him to take. “And put it on everyday so it doesn’t scab.”

Bucky takes the bottle from your hand, his calloused fingers brushing against your soft ones. “Yes ma’am.” He answers yet doesn’t get up from where he sits.

Suddenly, you become hyper-aware of the position you find yourself in—you’re still in between his legs and he’s still looking up at you like he can’t bear to pry his eyes away. It’s compromising and oddly intimate in a way you can’t determine if you like or hate, yet the warmth you feel in the pit of your stomach is answer enough.

“All done.” You remind him, your voice coming out more quiet than you intend.

A sudden tension seems to wash over the room as Bucky’s Adam’s apple bobs when he swallows.

“Right,” He nods, then faster than you can register, he’s pushing himself to a standing position. His eyes are on you the entire time he rises, towering over you to look down with an expression you can’t quite decipher—one that makes your knees feel wobbly. “Thank you, Y/N.”

Your name sounds rich on his tongue like saying it is sacred to him. It makes your heart thump in your chest. “Anytime, Buck.”

The way you look up at him, through your softly kitted eyebrows, makes Bucky hesitate. His stare quickly travels across your face like trying to memorize it in its close proximity. His focus lands on your lips before flickering back up to your eyes. Now he’s aware of just how much he’d like to kiss you and just how much he probably shouldn’t.

You open your mouth to say something when a knock at the door interrupts, snapping your attention away from each other. You clear your throat, stepping back and increasing the distance between the two of you. Bucky hates how it feels colder without you close to him.

“Hey guys!” A squeaky voice belonging to Peter Parker echoes from the other side. “Sorry if you’re busy in there or something, but I really have to go and Vision’s fixing the elevator so I really don’t wanna have to run all the way upstairs!”

You let out a small chuckle, shaking your head. “We’re all done in here, Pete.” You turn to Bucky, offering him a sweet smile, back to your usual demeanor. “Don’t get kicked in the face again, ‘kay?”

His grin widens and with a nod of his head, he responds. “Not unless it’s by you, remember?”

You purse your lips to prevent your smile from stretching, then swing the door open. Bucky’s eyes are only trained on you as you walk, even when a desperate Peter runs inside and shoos him away with intentional shoves.

─── ⋆⋅☼⋅⋆ ───

Everything was on fire. Quite literally.

The mission the team is on has gone sideways fast and now, all that matters is getting out of there. The extraction SUV comes into view just beyond the crumbling warehouse gates, engine revving as the back doors fly open.

“Move! Move! Move!” Steve barks into comms as he sprints towards the vehicle.

Natasha is right behind him, dragging a limping Sam who’s still cracking jokes through gritted teeth. You and Bucky follow close behind with Peter in tow—grounded and grumbling without any buildings to swing from. Natasha helps get Sam into the backseat before joining Steve in the front, which means the rest of you are to squeeze.

“You first, Pete!” You order and he obliges, quickly shoving himself inside.

Bucky follows suit and once he’s sat, he turns back, motioning for you to come in.

Your fingers grip the edge of the door, glancing around inside the car at the lack of seats left. Craning your neck behind you, you watch as more explosions occur and enemies emerge, dead-set on the car that you can’t get inside of. “Fuck! Guys, there’s no more room!”

“What?” Peter shouts. “Sam, why couldn’t you have flown?”

“I’m injured, you little asshole!” Sam hisses back.

“What do I do?” You emphasize. “Seriously, there’s—”

“There’s room.” Bucky speaks up.

You blink. “Where?!”

He doesn’t answer but instead, grabs your wrist and pulls. You yelp as he tugs you into the car, the door slamming shut behind you. You barely have time to process that you’re safely inside before the car peels away from the curb with a screech.

Then you realize, you’re in his lap—legs draped over his, your weight settling against him as the car jostles over cracked pavement. His arm instinctively wraps around your waist, holding you steady and secure. Suddenly, there’s no space or distance. Just you and him.

You freeze and so does he.

Nat’s arguing with Tony over comms, snapping at him to tell F.R.I.D.A.Y to reroute traffic. Steve chimes in every few seconds, telling them both to calm down, but he’s way too focused on weaving through cars like a getaway driver. Beside you, Peter’s whining about Sam’s wing-pack jabbing into his side, but Sam just grits his teeth and tells him to quit complaining.

It’s complete chaos in the car but Bucky? He doesn’t hear any of it.

Because you’re right there, pressing up against him in a way that makes it hard for him to breathe, a pressure blooming tightly in his throat. One of your hands clutches the side of his vest, knuckles brushing against his chest as you stabilize yourself for the wobbly car ride. Your face is close—almost too close—and you have to duck your head slightly, settling into a stomach churning position near his shoulder and jaw. For a second, he thinks he can feel the warmth of your breath against his neck and suddenly, every bump in the road is utter torture.

“I’m sorry,” He mutters, his voice low. “It was the only option.”

You nod quickly, trying to brush it off like this wasn’t the closest the two of you have ever been—like it wasn’t physically compromising in a way that makes your head pulse. “Yeah, I get it. It makes sense. Practical.”

Practical. Right.

Heat radiates off of your body as you adjust yourself on top of him, sinking into his lap like some cruel test of his self control.

“Is this okay?” He mumbles, his voice just above a whisper, reserving the question for only the two of you.

“Yes.” It’s the only word you manage to get out, too distracted by the way his fingers curl around your waist—grounding and almost possessive. He squeezes you closer with each sharp turn Steve takes, like holding you in place steadies something inside of him too.

Bucky swallows hard and risks a glance at you. There’s a smudge of dirt on your jaw and a thin line of blood on your lip from where it somehow split during combat. Your chest rises and falls with exhaustion, cheeks flushed and eyes still burning with adrenaline. And yet, despite it all, you look unbelievably gorgeous, like the chaos has only made you even more breathtaking.

“Are you hurt?” He asks, though his eyes have already scanned you twice for any injuries.

“No, I’m alright.” You answer, fingers fiddling with the edge of his utility vest out of what he assumed to be nerves with no place to go.

He nods but then pauses the moment your eyes flicker up to meet his. There’s a major shift in the air and for what feels like minutes, everything else fades away—the rambunctiousness of the car, the shouting from your teammates, the smell of smoke and metal from the mission. It stills to a stop.

Because you’re looking at him like you might feel it too; the same sensation he’s been drowning in for months whenever he’s around you.

And in that moment, Bucky Barnes wants to kiss you more than he’s wanted to do anything in years. Maybe ever. There you are; warm, gentle and in his lap like it’s normal, like your bodies were meant to be this close together. It sends a heatwave through his body that he supposes can only dissipate when his lips meet yours.

Then, Peter accidentally elbows him in his side while he argues with Sam, and Bucky is robbed of that idea as quickly as he obtains it.

“Are you,” You say, eyes flickering over his face like he might disappear if you don’t look hard enough. “Okay?”

“I’m fine.” He nods, assuringly but you can read it all over his face. There’s something there—something heavy and sincere—so similar to the pulsing you’re experiencing in your own chest.

Bucky leans back, putting some distance between the two of you, though it’s extremely difficult both physically and mentally. His gaze locks outside the car window, focusing on the trees as they pass instead of the way your eyes still fixate on him. More than he could ever admit, he wants to reach out, pull you closer, and press his lips to yours. But this wasn’t the time, and he wasn’t sure he was ready for something so real, so permanent.

So instead, he holds himself back and swallows the feeling.

─── ⋆⋅☼⋅⋆ ───

You’re confident you don’t need to look at the recipe, but the more you mix the contents of your bowl, the more it looks suspicious.

The dough is too sticky, and there’s definitely more flour on your crewneck than there is in the bowl. You’re starting to think that you somehow missed a step while you were jamming out to the music playing from the small speaker in the kitchen of the Tower. However, you persevere, determined to manifest your grandmother’s chocolate chip cookie magic through sheer force and determination.

Over the quiet music and your own soft humming, you don’t notice the sound of someone entering the kitchen until a sudden shift in the air draws your attention. Your eyes flicker up and meet his electric blue ones.

Bucky stands in the doorway, dressed in sweatpants and a hoodie with hair still damp from the shower. There’s tiredness in his face, sure, but also something tender—deep in the way that he looks at you. It was almost as if seeing you here, bobbing your head to the music on the radio and mixing the contents of the bowl like you’re in your own little world, was the first time he allowed himself to breathe all day.

“Heard you were making cookies.” He says, his voice gruff with sleep.

“Who said?” You smile, mixing your dough again in hopes that it would make it better.

Bucky steps closer, moving to stand on the opposite side of the island to you. “Steve,” He answers. “Said I’d better check on you before you burn the kitchen down with yourself inside of it.”

You let out a playful scoff, rolling your eyes. “Just for that, he doesn’t get any.”

Bucky grins, leaning against the countertop and examining the situation before him. There’s powder all over the table and ingredients sprawled about that he isn’t entirely sure you even need for chocolate chip cookies. His eyes trial up to you and your pajamas that display remnants of your mixture. Not only that but there are splotches of flour on your cheeks, and when he looks up at the top of your head, some there too.

He lets out a small chuckle at the sight and the noise has you glancing up at him briefly. “What?”

Bucky shakes his head. “Didn’t know chocolate chip cookies were this messy. You’ve got flour all over your face, Doll.”

Your hand instinctively flies up to wipe it away, swiping at your cheek blindly.

“That made it worse.” He squints, sympathetically.

You shrug, not caring much about how you looked in front of the soldier. “A little mess is the price I’m willing to pay for these cookies,” You say at the same time you suddenly realize what’s missing from your recipe. “Hey, since you’re here, can you do me a favor?”

He hums, the noise rumbling from the back of his throat and sounding oddly attractive to your ears.

“Could you find me the chocolate chips? I’m sure they’re somewhere in that cabinet.” You ask, nodding in the direction of one of the top shelves.

Bucky, who is positive he’ll do anything you ask of him, pushes himself off of the counter to walk over towards the cabinets. “Don’t tell me you started making the cookies before you checked if we even have chocolate chips.”

You shrug, sprinkling a little more flour into your bowl. “I was choosing to be optimistic.”

He rummages around before effortlessly grabbing a bag of chocolate chips from the highest shelf. Then he’s walking over to you, joining you on your side of the table to pass you the bag and smile at your workspace. “These are gonna be quite the cookies, huh?”

“Family recipe.” You nod confidently, opening the bag to drop plenty of chocolate chips into your mixing bowl. Bucky watches as you stir, your eyebrows knitting together in concentration. “Wanna taste?”

His shoulder brushes against yours as you turn to him, holding the bowl up to his face. It smells delicious and with how excited you are, he can’t exactly resist. “Sure.”

Your eyes follow him as he swoops his index finger into the bowl, runs it around the edge to collect stray dough and pops it into his mouth. Then slowly and almost absentmindedly, he licks the dough off of his finger.

His eyes flick up to yours, catching you mid-stare. You try to play it off, try not to let the warmth rising in your chest crawl all the way to your cheeks. It’s just cookie dough and just Bucky—your very handsome teammate casually doing something that shouldn’t be as attractive as it is.

“Good?” You ask, and your voice is a little too light to be natural.

He hums, nodding. “Very.”

In satisfaction, you quirk your chin up and will yourself to turn away from him, no longer able to dwell on how horribly good he looks beneath the yellow light of the kitchen.

“You need my help?” He asks, watching you reach into a cabinet for a baking sheet.

You knit your brows, shaking your head. “Oh, no, it’s okay, you don’t have to.”

He rolls up the sleeves of his hoodie, his metal hand glimmering in a way that makes your stomach twist, and he takes the sheet from your hands. “I want to.”

You can’t find words to say as he immediately gets to work scooping the dough into balls and placing them on the tray, so you murmur a simple, “Thank you” and twist around to occupy yourself with cleaning your mess.

The kitchen falls into a domestically relaxed quiet, save for the sound of you doing the dishes and Bucky organizing the cookies on the sheet with an adorably concentrated precision. Every once in a while, you glance over your shoulder to get a glimpse of him as he rolls. Unknowingly to you, he does the same—twisting around when you aren’t looking to furrow his brows in admiration.

After you finish the dishes, you wipe your hands off on a dishrag and make your way back to the island where Bucky works. With a mindless grin, you lean against the counter, arms crossed as you watch him with your head in your palm.

There’s something about it—the sight of Bucky Barnes rolling cookie dough in his pajamas, damp strands of hair falling into his face as he leans over the counter. The notoriously brooding man had stepped into the kitchen wearing the softest smile, his hands now moving with a kind of gentleness, like the dough was a treasure you’d entrusted him with.

You can’t help but watch, hoping your heart-eyes aren’t as visible as you imagine they are in your head.

His gaze flickers to you, a small smile threatening to tear at the sides of his lips under the pressure of your attention. “You alright?”

You blink and nod, but don’t shy away. “I’m fine. Jus’ thinking.”

His head tilts in curiosity as he finishes rolling the last cookie. “About what?”

“About how no one would believe me if I told them Sergeant Barnes was helping me make chocolate chip cookies.” You purse your lips playfully.

Bucky raises his eyebrows, carrying the cookie tray to the oven with his metal hand and placing it on the rack. “I’ll have you know, I’m a man of many talents.”

“Hmm,” you nod. “And baking is one of them?”

“Kinda had to be,” He straightens up and gives you a crooked smile, dusting his hands off. “My sister always made me bake with her every Sunday night—said I was useless unless I was mixing the batter. She’d dance around the kitchen to the music from the radio, and boss me around like she ran the place. I got pretty good at it after a while.”

You smile, fighting with your insides to keep them from turning to mush. “That’s sweet.”

For a moment, he just looks at you as if he’s seeing a piece of that memory reflected in you, like something about this moment brings it back to life in the gentlest way. It’s delicately warm and wonderfully familiar, feeling like home in a way that means the world to him.

His smile softens briefly like he’s letting himself sit in it, in you, in the quiet comfort of something good. Then, with a small huff that sounds suspiciously like fondness, he shakes his head. “Don’t go spreadin’ that around. I’ve got a reputation to maintain here.”

You grin, eyes sparkling mischievously. “How’d you know? I was actually planning on leaving a note next to the cookie plate,” You say, motioning in the air with your hands. “‘Rolled by James Buchanan Barnes. Carefully. With love. Lots of it.’”

Bucky rolls his eyes at your response, but grins anyway. “Cause you’ve got a big mouth, that’s how.”

You scoff, hand against your chest in offense. “Excuse me?”

Bucky’s face doesn’t budge. It’s flat and neutral as he says, “You heard me.”

You narrow your eyes. “Jerk.”

Then without thinking, you dip your hand into the nearby flour jar—fingers curling around the soft powder—and flick it towards his chest in one swiftly impulsive motion. A white puff blooms across the dark fabric of his hoodie that he stares down at in a stunned silence.

You cover your mouth, a soft laugh slipping past it before you can even help it.

“Really?” He says.

You open your mouth to say something but then Bucky moves suddenly, reaching for the flour with a speed that ignites your fight or flight instincts.

“Alright, then.” He tilts.

You yelp, bolting around the kitchen island as he grabs a handful. “Bucky, no—”

“You started this.” He teases, following you in a confident sort of chase.

Circling the counter again, you attempt to increase the distance but as you round the far side, a cloud of flour explodes against your back.

“Hey!” You exclaim, eyeing the streak of white powder covering your crewneck.

Bucky just smirks, eyebrows raised in mock concern so in return, you reach into the flour jar again, desperate to get him back.

And for a sincere moment, the kitchen fills with laughter—yours bright and effortless; his, rough and warm, in a way it hasn’t been in years. For a full minute, nothing else exists but the sound of feet padding against the tiled floor as flour flies across the air in a ridiculous food fight. You’re both smiling like complete idiots despite the mess you’re making and Bucky realizes, suddenly and quietly, that this might be the happiest he’s been in a long time.

You lunge forward to circle the table again but this time, instead of running away from him, you run past him. It’s a drive-by attack, your arm shooting out as you pass to sprinkle flour directly onto his head.

A satisfying puff coats his dark hair and you let out a laugh of success. You attempt to make a run for it but then his fingers wrap around your wrist and in one fluid motion, he gently tugs you back towards him. Faster than you can process, your body spins around and your chest collides directly with his own.

Your feet stumble to a stop.

The both of you still.

Your head tilts up but his gaze is already on yours, staring at you with a longing look you only wish you can decipher.

Yet, before either of you can say anything, he lifts his hand and drops a handful of flour on the top of your head. The powder puffs out, sprinkling over your forehead and acting as glitter on your eyelashes.

Your mouth parts in shock, and Bucky, he’s grinning like he’s just won first place. “Got you.”

“You cheater.” You huff at the same time flour trickles from your hair in a silly fog of smoke onto the two of you.

He laughs, deep and sincere. “We didn’t establish any rules.”

You try to glare up at him but suddenly, you’re entirely hyper-aware of his hand that still holds your wrist gently, keeping you tucked against him. You swallow, eyes flickering across his face like you were trying to determine if he felt it too—that warmth pooling at the bottom of your stomach.

Some quiet song hums low from the kitchen speaker, delicate and slow, the kind of melody that makes everything feel like it’s moving in slow motion.

“You good?” He tilts his head, smiling crookedly.

His voice is too close, too gruff, that you almost melt into a puddle on the kitchen floor.

“Fine,” You say, the word coming out a lot quieter than you intend it to. “You win.”

Suddenly, Bucky gets trapped in the sincerity you watch him with. Your eyes are soft, puppy-like almost—wide and searching as they stare at him like they’re trying to figure him out without saying a word. Surely you don’t mean to, but he’s not positive he can handle the way you peer up with knitted eyebrows of velvety vulnerability. They’re gentle, so much so that it nearly knocks the air from his lungs.

A guttural ache curls at his insides, burning with a longing desire that he doesn’t know how to put out. For a split second, he thinks about leaning in to close the distance that is so obviously being pulled taut, like an invisible string, between the two of you. And in that same second, he thinks he might read it on your face too.

Would it be so horrible if his lips met yours beneath the gentle light of the Tower’s kitchen; where flour coats the counters, and your eyelashes, like snow. Where your laughter lingers in the air like a song he heard once and could never get enough of. Where the smell of warm, chocolate chip cookies in the oven dances around you and makes you feel like home. Would it be so terrible to give in to something so soft, so tender?

Bucky isn’t sure but, god, he wants to. He’s wanted to, for as long as he can remember. And he almost does.

Until his grip loosens and the weight of who he is pulls him back down to earth from the clouds you have him floating in.

His hand slips from your wrist and just like that, the window of opportunity passes. For a beat, he thinks he catches a glimpse of disappointment in those eyes of yours but then he’s forcing himself out of it, clearing his throat free of the tension and words he doesn’t say.

“I’ll check on the cookies.” He says, coming off confidently like usual, though he was far from it.

“Good idea.” You nod, far too quickly for it to be casual. “Don’t want them to burn and have everyone know Bucky Barnes isn’t as good at baking as he says he is.”

He smiles, the flutter stuck in his chest like the smoke after a flame is put out.

“They won’t burn,” He tilts his head. “Not when they were rolled carefully with love. Lots of it.”

And just like that, you’re back—the two of you falling into that easy, mutual rhythm as if the longing stares and gentle touches mean nothing. You move around each other like you always have, in that seamless and unspoken way despite the unsaid that lingers. It hovers, just beneath the surface waiting for one of you to finally put a name to it.

─── ⋆⋅☼⋅⋆ ───

It was supposed to be a low-level recon mission at a nearby Hydra facility—one where the team got in and out with no problem. No combat. Just surveillance and intel retrieval. Easy enough for you, Natasha, and Sam to handle on your own. The rest of the team had stayed behind to run tactical. It was one of those missions—quick, clean, no surprises.

Except something did happen. And now, no one can reach you.

“It was an ambush,” Natasha’s voice says through comms, sharp with static and urgency. “We didn’t see them coming.”

The facility had been more than just abandoned—it was bait. Seconds after infiltration, the place locked down, alarms blared, and drones swarmed the exits. A blast took out part of the structure, and in the chaos, the three of you got separated.

“Nat,” Steve speaks through the comms after a few minutes pass, his voice calm despite the circumstances. “Have you found each other yet?”

It takes a second but then Nat’s voice is echoing through the speaker. “I’m with Wilson but we can’t find Y/N. She’s still not responding to us on comms.”

Bucky leans against the control panel, his jaw clenched in worry. Guilt washes over his body in a wave because before you’d left, he insisted on going with you all. Something about the idea of you walking into an ex-hydra base, even one that’s been shut down for years, didn’t feel right to him. Yet you’d insisted he stayed.

“I’ll be fine, Barnes.” You had said.

“I don’t trust it.” He responded.

Placing a gentle hand on his metal arm, you continued. “Just trust me.”

So he did and while he’d never doubt your ability to take care of yourself, he’s more mad at himself for knowing something was suspicious about the ex-Hydra base and letting the three of you go alone anyways.

“F.R.I.D.A.Y,” Tony’s voice breaks Bucky out of his head. The Stark man sits across from Steve, observing the map and the way your location has been pinging in the same spot for the past five minutes. “Any intel on Y/N’s location or activity from her suit?”

miss y/n’s current location cannot be updated. her suit appears to have lost connection.

Bucky watches in real time as your location on the map flashes red before blinking away completely.

“Fuck!” He growls, slamming his fist down on the table before backing away, pacing like the movement might ease him of the frustration coiled in his chest.

Steve glances at his best friend, jaw tight. He understands the anger, he feels it too, but knows better than to try and talk Bucky down. Instead, he turns back to comms and speaks, low but urgent, “Nat, her location has gone off the grid completely. Any sign of her?”

“No! We can’t,” Natasha’s voice comes out in a panic before static ensues. It takes a moment amidst all of the chaos before she speaks again, “We can’t find her! Steve, the building’s gonna collapse, we’ve got to get out of here!”

With those words, Bucky’s heart sinks to the bottom of his chest, sudden and harsh like the drop on a roller coaster. “No.” He says, his voice loud and stern as he approaches the panel and leans over Steve to speak to Natasha himself. “You’re not leaving without her.”

“Buck.” Steve glances up at him.

“Her location last said she was in the building.” Bucky presses his index finger against the map. “If it collapses and she’s—”

“Hey,” Steve says more firmly, turning towards his friend. “We don’t know that she’s still in there.”

“We don’t know that she’s not!” Bucky’s voice rises before he can stop it, words tearing out of him louder than he means, but the release feels necessary.

“Steve,” Sam speaks through his earpiece. “We’ve scoured the entire building, Redwing too—nothing. The damn ceiling’s gonna fall!”

“What if they took her?” Bucky proposes, standing up to run a hand over his head in worry. It’s not an idea far out the picture, after all, Bucky knew a lot about how capable they were of doing so.

Steve rubs his forehead. He knew there was a chance Bucky was right. While you were more than capable of holding your own, he also understood the dangerous of you being forced to fend yourself off against a bunch of ex-Hydra operatives.

Steve’s silence might be enough to send Bucky into a full on crash-out. He can feel the anxiety coursing through his body—knowing that you’re out there by yourself, surrounded by the same people who once broke him. It’s a fear unlike anything he’s experienced before and when that thought hits, it doesn’t feel like a freight train, but something worse.

His whole life, Bucky had endured so much that pushing people away became the only way to keep them safe—from both the people that hurt him and himself. He hadn’t allowed himself comfort, hadn’t dared to reach for happiness because deep down, he didn’t feel he deserved it. And worse, he feared those who did veer close enough would come out exactly as he had.

But you—in all your warmth and kindness—had somehow snuck through the cracks in his armour and settled into his soul. He couldn’t keep himself away from you, no matter how much he tried. Sometimes, it made him feel selfish to want you as much as he did. You were good, far too good to be crushed under the burdens he carried. Yet, you had a way of imprinting yourself into his heart, where the damage was irreversible and Bucky hadn’t done a single thing to stop you.

And now, he is living that consequence.

He’s prepared to rain hell on anyone who might’ve taken you, who might’ve hurt you. With clenched fists, he readies himself to go out there and search for as long as it takes just so he can bring you home.

But then Sam’s comms crackle. “Guys! I think we found her!”

Bucky perks up, as Steve and Tony share glances of hope. They gather around the panel, waiting for Sam to speak up again or for your location to flash back on.

“Guys, we found her!” Sam shouts, his voice filled with relief. “We’re—”

But then his comms disconnect. Urgently, Steve tries to get back in contact with them, any of them, but it’s radio silence.

Bucky doesn’t know whether to be thankful or even more worried, and the knot in his stomach remains tight the entire time the tower awaits your return. They spend thirty minutes monitoring Sam and Natasha’s location as it maneuvers through the city, just hoping they’re coming back with you.

It feels like the longest wait Bucky has ever had to endure, like time was moving slowly just to fuck with him. He sits on a chair in the corner, leaning his hand back against the wall as his knee bounces up and down anxiously.

Then Tony speaks. “They’re back.”

Bucky looks up, eyes set on the map where Sam and Natasha’s location is pinned at the Avengers Tower. Without thinking, he pushes himself off of his chair and marches out of the control room. Tony and Steve are right behind him as he storms straight towards the elevators to greet you downstairs himself, but just as he enters the living room, the elevator door dings on their floor.

He blinks and there you are, limping in with Sam at your side and Natasha rushing into the kitchen to fill you up a glass of water.

Bucky freezes, observing the many scratches and scrapes on your face. Your suit is disheveled, reflecting a battle you seem to have clearly put up. For some reason, he can’t move. He just stands off to the side, watching with a distant expression.

Steve rushes over to your other side, though you insist you’re fine, and he and Sam guide you to sit on the couch. You hiss in pain as you do so, clutching your hip where you’d injured it during the collapse. Natasha makes her way over with the water cup, handing it to you and you drink it down almost immediately.

“We need to get you checked.” Natasha orders.

“No,” You say, shaking your head quickly. “I mean, yes but I just need a minute, just to catch my breath, please.”

Steve’s eyes flicker up to Bucky, who’s standing to the side like he’s afraid to get too close. He can see the longing on his best friend’s face, all of the unspoken words that are threatening to spill over the surface if he doesn’t say them soon.

“You two mind telling us what happened?” Steve turns to Natasha and Sam who nod almost instantly. Then he looks back at you and with a much softer voice, asks. “You gonna be alright for a bit?”

At his worry, your lips curl up into a weak smile—your attempt at lifting a weight off their shoulders. “Why? You wanna stay to babysit me?”

A few of the others let out small laughs, your usual positive attitude giving them some relief. All but Bucky, whose jaw clenches with a feeling he can’t determine.

Everyone moves to head towards the meeting room, leaving you on the couch to lean your head back in exhaustion. As they walk, Steve claps his hand on Bucky’s shoulder with a look that says, “If you don’t tell her now, I will.”

Soon, the team is out of the room, and it’s just you and Bucky remaining. You feel his presence before you look up to see him, but when you do, you’re met with devastated eyes that tell you just how much your absence has bothered him.

With a head tilt, your raspy voice speaks, “Buck—”

“You scared the shit out of me.” He admits faster than you can process. His words hang in the air, tension suddenly pulsing through the walls of the tower.

“I’m sorry,” You say. “The blast knocked me out and when I got up, I tried to radio but it crushed my earpiece.”

Bucky remains silent for a beat, but you can tell his brain is running a mile a minute. “They could’ve taken you.”

“They didn’t.” You answer, with a small shrug.

“They could have.” He emphasizes.

“But they didn’t.” You say honestly but gently, understanding how jarring this must’ve been for him considering his history. “I mean, I think,” You pause. “I think they tried to. I fought them off though, I took care of it. I don’t even think they were really a match for me.”

Your attempt at lightening the conversation doesn’t go unnoticed, and for a second, the ends of his lips twitch like he wants to smile, before dropping back to an unreadable expression.

To say you feel horrible would be an understatement. It wasn’t your fault—both of you know that—but it rattled him nonetheless. Even now, he’s staring at you like you’re some half-pretend haze in his mind, like he’s not sure if you’re even real.

With a deep breath, you start to push yourself off the couch, wobbling under the weight of pain and imbalance. Bucky is at your side in an instant leaning down to help. His hands find your hips with practiced care, gentle and respectful, as he helps guide you upright.

“What’re you doing?” He asks.

“Standing so I can talk to you.” You answer, wincing a bit as your back straightens but ultimately relaxing your shoulders once you meet his weary eyes.

“How badly are you hurt?” Bucky says, gaze examining you in your entirety, hands never leaving your hips as if he was afraid you’ll disappear once he lets go.

“My back’s sore, and I’m pretty sure I tore something in my hip but it’s alright.” You answer, your hands clutching his arms to stabilize yourself though you feel perfectly okay to stand on your feet. He doesn’t seem convinced and you duck your head to catch his gaze better. “I’m fine, Buck, see. I’ll be okay.”

Bucky is focused on the scrapes on your cheeks, resisting the urge he has to lift his finger and brush against them.

You’re okay.

He tries to remind himself—You’re standing in front of him talking, smiling, breathing. You’re okay. For a second, he almost can’t understand why he’s still so shaken up, until his eyes meet yours and everything makes sense.

“I thought I lost you.” He speaks before he thinks, the words slipping from his mouth like it takes all of his energy just to mutter.

Your own breath seems to get lodged in your throat because suddenly, you have no idea what to say. Despite its sadness, his admission feels like a swarm of butterflies is fluttering against the insides of your stomach—warm and fuzzy.

The way he looks at you, like you’re the only thing that matters to him beneath the soft light of the Tower’s living room, nearly makes your legs give out underneath you. You clutch onto his arms tighter, fighting how deeply you wish to tug him against you.

Your mouth opens like you want to say something but then you close it with a shake of your head. Seconds pass of the two of you only holding each other’s gaze before you work up the courage to mumble out a response.

“I’m here.” Your voice is quiet, just above a whisper.

Bucky feels it before he can even process it—that warmth flooding his chest in an overwhelming way only you’re capable of causing. It’s a twist deep in his core that somehow makes him feel light on his feet, and suddenly, the only thing of any importance is your gentle eyes as they blink up at him.

He’ll hate himself forever if he doesn’t take this opportunity—if he lets his fear of vulnerability control him any longer. Bucky Barnes has wanted to kiss you so many times, and all of those times have ended with him pulling away because comfort and love are things he’s been robbed of for years—things he doesn’t feel like he deserves.

But god, he wants it, and he wants you. More than you can even begin to comprehend.

With a singular blink, and a desire strong enough to destroy buildings, he’s moving to close the distance.

You almost don’t realize it’s happening until his mouth meets yours with a feverish want.

Undeniably, you’ve dreamt of this moment for as long as you can remember—Bucky’s lips against yours, your bodies pressed together closely. You’d almost believe you’re dreaming if not for the feeling of his warm fingertips at the skin on your hips. Your eyes flutter shut and your arms instinctively move to wrap around his neck, pulling him closer.

Bucky’s brain becomes a foggy mess the moment you start kissing him back. His hands move from your hips to wrap around your lower back, in an attempt to help you maintain your balance and, at the same time, draw you closer. As your lips move against his, he can’t help but wonder how something so soft can feel so earth-shattering.

You’re both in a daze—one gentle but hungry nonetheless—like you’ve both waited so long for this moment and now that it’s finally happening, all other problems cease to exist.

As much as you hate it, you pull away for air. Breathlessly, your eyes scan his pupils that you swore have grown larger in size since you’ve last looked at them. When your mouth begins curling up into the brightest smile you’re sure has ever graced your face, you lean forward to press a small, gentle kiss to his lips.

Then another one.

And then another one.

And another.

He accepts them happily, almost entirely in disbelief that this is even his reality. His heart thuds hard beneath his ribs, almost like it wants to jump out right out into your hands.

“I’ve wanted you to do that for so long,” You hum against his lips as you press a final kiss to them. When you finally lean your head back, your eyes flicker across his face like maybe you’re making sure this isn’t a dream.

“I’ve wanted to do that for so long.” He echoes softly, fingers rubbing slow, soothing circles over the tender part of your back.

“Why didn’t you?” You ask.

He shakes his head, eyebrows free of that constant furrow they always seem to be burdened with. “Thought I had all the time in the world,” His voice is just above a whisper when he adds, “Today showed me that I might not,”

He brings one hand up to your face, placing the back of his index finger carefully against your cheek and brushing over a cut beneath your eye with a delicacy that feels like air.

“I wasted so much of that time already, being scared and holding myself back,” His focus never once leaves you. “I can’t anymore. I just want to spend it with you.”

For a second, you can only pause and wonder if Bucky knows the impact of his words—the very ones he uses so scarcely. They make your skin heat up and it feels as if the throbbing pain in your lower back suddenly dissipates.

“Me too, Bucky.” You breathe, sincerity coating your lips as you smile up at him. In traditional you fashion, your eyes glimmer with a sudden playful tease. “If I knew that’s all it would take, I’d have gotten beat up on a mission a lot earlier.”

Bucky lets out a breathy laugh, allowing himself the joy of grinning. “That’s not a funny joke.”

“It’s a little funny.” You reciprocate, tilting your head at him.

“No, it’s not.” He responds, wrapping his arms tightly around your waist.

You shake your head softly before leaning in to kiss him again. Bucky melts into it without hesitation, already cursing himself for all the time he spent keeping this at arm’s length. Now that he has it—has you—he can’t imagine ever letting go.

#multistation fic rec #fic rec #mod mimi #mcu x reader #thunderbolts x reader #thunderbolts #bucky barnes x reader #bucky barnes #fem reader

671 notes · View notes

multifandom-rec-station · 13 hours ago

Text

Sparks

NSFW | bucky barnes x reader

word count: 4.8k

tags: 2nd person pov, afab reader, former-SHIELD agent reader, NSFW, sexual tension, canon-typical violence, sweating, teasing, oral sex (f receiving), couch sex

summary: When Steve and Bucky are on the run, you reluctantly take them in. At first, you and Bucky don’t seem to get off on the right foot. But there’s something undeniable about the pull you feel toward each other.

A/N: So I heard we were doing Avengers fics again now that Thunderbolts* is a thing, and I’ve seen the Bucky thirst resurgence, so here’s one that I wrote years back (I think after I watched TFATWS).

masterlist | read on ao3

It starts with a beat-up old Volkswagen parked on the street across the way. You notice it almost immediately as being out of place. Not because there’s anything particularly conspicuous about it, but because of your acute instinct, finely honed into a sixth sense over the years you spent as an agent. There’s just something about that vehicle that gives you a sense of unease, that churns your stomach.

Then, there’s a knocking at your door, quiet but urgent, that nearly jolts you out of your skin. Makes your muscles tense. You knew there was something off. There’s an alloy baseball bat resting against the wall that you reach for, always at the ready for times like this. But when you finally open the door, you nearly drop your makeshift weapon.

It’s Captain America at your doorstep, or a shadow of him. He’s hunched in a bulky jacket with the hood pulled up, the beginnings of a beard emerging from his darkened face. Even more surprising, he has another man in tow—James Buchanan Barnes Jr. You recognize him from the news.

“Are you fucking serious?” is all you hiss at Steve before hurrying them into the apartment.

The hallway outside your apartment is empty when you shut the door again quietly, and your unexpected guests shuffle awkwardly into the living room. It’s an unspoken rule that clients don’t bring guests, but it’s also an unspoken rule that you don’t ask questions. For Captain America, you’ll consider bending the rules a little. Especially if he pays.

“We’ll be a week, at most,” Steve says.

“Double, upfront,” you say, crossing your arms sternly.

James Barnes scoffs at that, and you send him a withering look.

“I don’t have the money yet, but I’ll get it. All of it,” Steve promises.

That’s how you start sharing a safe house with two fugitives on the run. The space looks almost cramped with their presence—it’s not really meant for so many occupants. You play the part of the gracious host and set them up in the living room with clean linens and towels. Like most people who show up at your place, they could use some first aid. So, the next thing you do is grab the med kit from your bathroom.

At the time, there’s no way of knowing that you’re in the presence of two super soldiers. You know Steve has an enhanced healing factor, so logically you focus your initial attention on the man you assume is normal. Or whatever normal means anymore compared to Captain America. He’s sporting a couple bruises to the temple and cheekbones. A few cuts are beginning to scab over on his face. Clear indication that he’s been hit hard in the head a few times over.

“Is your head okay? Any sensitivity to light?” you ask, tapping a couple pills out into your open palm.

“No,” is his surly response.

You hand him the pills along with a glass of water. He’s reluctant but accepts them one at a time. You’ve had enough clients over the years fail to report the extent of their injuries and bleed out on your run as a result. He seems like the type to downplay his ailments.

“Take off the jacket,” you say firmly, plucking the glass back out of his hand.

“No,” he says again, and this time his tone is somehow even more caustic than before.

Alarm bells sound in your head. He’s hiding something, and it better not be a serious wound. “This is standard procedure. Lose the jacket.”

You take a fistful off his left sleeve and freeze. There’s nothing beneath the cloth. You realize for the first time that James Barnes is missing an arm. The revelation hits you like a train, and instinct drives you to rip the jacket clean off his shoulder.

Your initial reaction is visceral, a punch to the gut and an uncomfortable tightening along your spine that you fight to contain internally. His shoulder is a shiny silver that reflects the muted sunlight coming in through the lace curtains. Below the joint, a mess of wires peeks out from shredded metal.

“Fuck, I’m sorry,” you manage to choke out.

Neither he nor Steve react brashly, but the incident does sour the atmosphere in the apartment indefinitely. After that, you let them deal with their own wounds themselves. It’s not your job to get along swimmingly with clients, but it’s always nicer when you’re not actively offensive to them. Thankfully, Steve is a good buffer by virtue of just being Steve.

Day one is business as usual. You spend a few hours hunched over your work table, trying to finish a recent project. You keep up appearances by visiting the corner cafe and the supermarket after lunch. You train in the makeshift gym in the spare room in the evening. Steve and his friend mostly stay out of your way, but they finally stick their heads in through the door as you’re wiping the sweat from your brow.

“I’m grateful that you agreed to help us,” Steve says. “I was wondering if you could do one more thing for Bucky tomorrow.”

You bite your lip, narrow your eyes at the both of them. “What is it?”

“His prosthetic. The damage is still making it malfunction,” he explains. “Is there anything you can do to clean it up and take it offline permanently?”

Your eyes catch Barnes’ for a split second, and he looks as uninterested as ever. Steve seems to sense some hesitation on your part.

“I’ll have the cash for you after tomorrow, I promise,” he says.

It’s not a matter of money. It’s just that you haven’t really touched machinery in years. Still, he sounds keen enough for the two of them, and you nod your head with a sigh. “I’ll do what I can.”

Steve leaves early the next morning, alone. His friend protests, but his lack of a limb makes his arguments fall a little flat. So, he sits in front of the TV and scowls as Steve heads out the door in nondescript clothes and a hat pulled low over his brow.

“Can’t believe he’s really leaving me behind with you,” Barnes mutters loudly, staring at the screen.

Don’t antagonize him. Don’t antagonize him, you think.

You try to go about your day like yesterday, starting by putting the coffee on. You offer a cup to Barnes on your way to your work table, hoping that it will function to convince him you’re not trying to neglect him completely. The sounds of a football game on the television provide you with invigorating white noise as you lay out your nearly-completed project from the previous day and set to work.

During your days as a field agent, you used to make cables and wires lay down for you like lovers—your nimble fingers working expertly, your tools as familiar to you as your own hands. No switchboard or electrical panel on a mission was safe from your expertise. Nowadays, you make the needle and thread dance for you instead. Your already-practiced and dexterous fingers adjusted quickly to your new cover profession as a dressmaker. The logic of the patterns and garment construction even sing to you like those old engineering manuals you used to read.

It’s twenty minutes later, in the midst of carefully pinning the last bit of trim to fabric, that you realize you’ve been altogether too consumed by your work to notice that you’re being closely watched. You glance up to see Barnes has migrated over from the couch to stand over you, coffee still in hand. His eyes are trained on your deft hands, but when they go still, he moves his gaze to your face.

“Sorry,” he grumbles. “I like watching you work.”

An unexpected warmth floods your chest. “Oh. I don’t mind,” you say, trying to keep your voice steady.

Why did you say that? You quickly realize you definitely do mind. He’s trying not to be creepy by remaining out of your periphery, but you can still occasionally feel his ice blue stare on you regardless. You try to concentrate as you thread your needle, but from then on out, your fingers feel just a little bit more clumsy than you’re used to.

It’s useless to try to untangle your feelings on exactly what about Barnes is unnerving to you. It could be the lingering doubt about his innocence, despite the explanation Steve delivered yesterday about recent events. It could be the way what you presume to be his resting face makes him look like he could snap at any moment. Or it could be the way your stomach does a flip every time you remember he could be scrutinizing you as you work, the strange sort of magnetism he possesses over you…

When it starts to get close to mealtime, you finish up your work and head wordlessly to the kitchen. You try to feign indifference as he follows you and leans against the fridge. Ignoring him entirely proves a difficult feat—it’s agonizingly awkward for you to not at least acknowledge his presence as you brown the beef for your meat sauce in a pan. Maybe the decades he’s spent isolated from society have addled his brain some.

“It’s rude to stare, you know,” you say, finally giving in.

He pauses a beat before he replies. “Bit full of yourself.”

You clench the spoon in your hand to stop yourself hurling it into the wall and whirl on him, but he’s breaking out into a quiet chuckle. You freeze, unsure of what in the world could be so funny when he’s just dealt a low blow to your ego.

“I’m joking,” he says. “I don’t mean to stare. It’s just been a while since I’ve witnessed anything so… domestic.”

You press your lips together, still unable to piece together a response right away. The sizzling of your cooking draws your attention back to the pan as you consider his words. “Domestic,” you scoff softly. “I’ll assume you mean that as a compliment.”

After retreating to the bedroom to eat your meal alone, desperate to escape the uncomfortable silence that’s settled between the two of you, you steel yourself again and emerge determined not to let him make you feel like a stranger in your own apartment. He seems to have enjoyed the pastitsio, having helped himself to seconds in the meantime. He looks up from scanning your bookshelf as you reappear in the living room.

“I’m going to drop this off at the post office,” you say, neatly folding up the garment you completed just that morning.

“Can I come with you?” he asks.

“No,” you say a little too quickly. “There’s-there’s going to be surveillance cameras at a post office. Stay here.”

“I’ll steer clear of the post office,” he says.

Well, you’re not his babysitter, so he ends up tagging along anyway. You’re not sure why he’d want to join you on the relatively boring journey other than for the fresh air and the opportunity to stretch his legs. You decide it’s up to him if he thinks that’s worth the risk. He’s wearing a bulky jacket that disguises the fact that one of his sleeves swings limply at his side as he walks. At least he seems to be a natural at blending in with the crowd.

“Your new boyfriend?” the middle-aged lady helping you at the counter at the post office asks cheekily as she hands you your change. She nods knowingly out the windows toward your unlikely companion, keeping his word by waiting safely outside.

“Ahh, no,” you say hastily, waving your hand dismissively.

She just smiles as you take your leave, ears burning slightly. When you reach Barnes across the street, he smoothly takes your arm and loops it around his before taking off with you down the street. Your heart nearly bursts from your chest.

“James!” you hiss as he steers you back toward home.

“Call me Bucky,” he says simply, pushing through the crowds.

He’s grinning slightly, and you’re nonplussed at the fact that you appear to be a source of entertainment for him. There’s no way he could have heard what the lady at the post office said, even if he has some sort of super hearing power.

“I may be able to lip read,” he says as if he knows what you’re thinking. “And I may know a little Greek, too.”

You let him tow you all the way back to your front door. By the time he lets you go, you’re nearly shaking with exasperation and eager to find some way to let it out that doesn’t involve potentially slapping a super soldier across the face. You slam the door of your bedroom behind you so you can quickly change into something to work out in. When you come back out to head to your tiny gym, Barnes eyes you curiously from the couch.

You waste no time in wrapping your hands and throwing a few warm-up punches at the heavy bag. The metal stand creaks under your blows as you pick up speed and intensity. It would likely prove to be counterproductive to picture Barnes’ face in front of you, so you imagine you’re still a field agent kicking the shit out of your asshole kickboxing instructor.

“Hope the aggression isn’t being aimed at me,” Barnes says from behind you.

“Clearly, it’s being aimed at a punching bag,” you snark between combos.

“You’re telegraphing your jabs,” he says. “Don’t wind them up like that.”

The instant his hand is on your left elbow when you’re not expecting it, your body acts on instinct. Your stomach clenches, and you kick your leg back and up high. Without his other hand to block, your heel lands squarely on the side of his head, and he doubles over with a groan.

“Oh shit, sorry!” you gasp, bending to prop him back up. “James? Are you okay?”

“It’s Bucky,” he grunts, brow furrowed. “And Jesus, sweetheart, I was just trying to help.”

“To be fair, I’ve been doing just fine on my own,” you say, helping him over to the couch.

Once he’s seated, cradling his head in his hand, you stride over to the freezer to grab an ice pack. When you return, you crouch to gingerly peel his fingers away and lay the pack against the spot where you landed your kick. This is perhaps the closest you’ve ever been to his face, and you notice for the first time how pink his lips are beneath the dark growth of his facial hair.

“W-while I’m at it, I might as well keep my word to Steve and take a look at your arm,” you say hastily, backing away. “Or what’s left of it.”

He takes the hint and lifts his hand to hold the pack in place so you can fetch your old tool kit from the closet. You set it down on the ground by his feet and settle onto the couch on your knees beside him.

“Do you mind?” you ask, tapping on the empty sleeve hanging limp from his shoulder.

He shakes his head, so you move to hook your fingers under the hem of his shirt. It’s not until he gives you a strange look that you realize maybe he didn’t really need your help at all. Still, it’s a little too late, and he removes the pack from his head long enough for you to finish what you started and pull the shirt off over his head. You almost miss the coffee table as you attempt to place the shirt down, preoccupied with the revelation that today he’s not wearing an undershirt.

“You know, it’s rude to stare,” he says, echoing your words from earlier.

Your face suddenly feels really hot, and you consciously shift your gaze to the remnants of his metal arm. “Get used to it. I’m gonna be staring at this arm for a while.”

You reach down for a small pair of pliers and gently start familiarizing yourself with the circuitry. A couple wires touch as you shift them around and send a few sparks flying. You jump a little in surprise. Another one makes his shoulder twitch violently when you accidentally nudge it into the shredded metal casing.

“This is a very sophisticated prosthetic,” you say, not bothering to tone down how impressed you are. “Physiology isn’t my strong suit, but I think I can disconnect the live wires.”

“Be my guest,” is all he says.

He watches your hands as you work as closely as he did when you were sewing that morning. But, you quickly get lost in the wires and forget all about his piercing blue gaze. Your fingers labor expertly, your back starting to ache from being hunched over.

“You seem as comfortable with wires as you are with thread,” he says offhandedly.

“I used to be an electronics technician for S.H.I.E.L.D.,” you say, pausing to rub the small of your back.

You shift your weight, trying to get at the right angle to refocus. Twisting your leg around to prop yourself up a little higher makes things a bit easier, but you could do better. Without thinking, you maneuver him forward a bit and scoot in a little closer, finally satisfied with your position. Once you think you’ve gotten all the nerve connections severed and there are no more sparks spitting out at you, you cut the wires jutting out and file down the jagged ends of the shredded metal.

“There, all fixed,” you say, wrapping a bandage around the end of the arm to cover the open cavity.

“Oh, good. Do you think you could get off me now?” he groans.

For the first time, you realize the position you ended up in after all that squirming. Your right knee is trapped between him and the back of the couch. Your left is settled in his lap. His torso is wedged between your legs, and his face is inches from yours. But what really catches your attention is something warm and hard pressing against your inner thigh. You hold your breath subconsciously and lower your eyes to the noticeable bulge in his pants without meaning to.

“You gonna fix that too?” he says, voice low in his chest.

Your breath hitches in your throat and a fluttering sensation occurs deep in your stomach. A sudden, overwhelming need for him to put his hand on you threads through your body. His remark is just as glib as you’ve come to expect from him all day. So when did being around him go so quickly from being awkward to infuriating to sensual? And more importantly, how?

He’s looking at you like there’s something he’s searching for in your eyes. Maybe it’s permission he’s seeking, or maybe he’s giving you the chance to flee while you still can. His pink lips part slightly, invitingly. You can’t quite find the nerve to take them up on their enticing offer, so you lean instead down to place a light kiss to the defined corner of his jaw. His body shudders almost imperceptibly against your chest.

The ice pack falls with an audible thud to the floor, and he surges to press his lips to yours before you pull away completely. At the same time, his hand delves into your hair to cradle the back of your head. You gasp into his mouth at the feeling of his fingers, sharply cold from holding the pack all this time. He jumps at the opportunity to thrust his tongue between your lips, sliding it against yours. Your head is spinning, senses overwhelmed with the scent and feeling of him.

It’s not a habit of yours to provide such comforts to your clients. Running a safe house requires staunch professionalism on your part to offer sanctuary to oftentimes less than savory characters on the run. You’ve gotten pretty good at basic gunshot first aid, at stitching up wounds as well as fabric tears, at cooking a comforting meal for shell-shocked survivors. But this—crossing that particular line into morally grey territory—this is a first.

Perhaps that’s why this all feels so thrilling. Your rib cage feels like it’s about to burst as his hand tilts your head, deepening the searing kiss. He’s being slow and methodical, but there’s no lack of passion on his part. He reminds you of a starving man finally led to feast, yet he’s taken the time to savor each bite as if it could be his last. When you’re starting to get a bit dizzy, he releases you and moves his hand to your hip to help you shift into his lap.

There’s no time to fully register the hardened bulge straining against your clothed center as he renews his fervor, lips latching onto the side of your neck. His tongue swirls hot over your pulse point, and you’re convinced you’re losing your mind. Desire splinters down your spine and rushes straight to your core, and your hips move of their own accord, seeking out a source of friction against your throbbing clit.

“Need to taste you,” he murmurs, his lips ghosting over your skin. “Can I?”

Oof. His words shoot through you like electricity, make you shiver like the sparks that were sprinkling from his broken prosthetic. You let your head fall back to expose more of your skin to him and moan. “Yes.”

He moves his hand from your hip to languidly stroke the length of your neck. He appears to relish the sensation of smooth, warm skin beneath his fingertips. His eyes follow his path intently, as if in awe at his own tenderness. When his hand settles at the hinge of your shoulder, he rests his thumb gently at the hollow of your throat and easily guides your back to the couch cushions.

His hair falls into his face as he leans over you. You fight the urge to sweep it aside. Would that be too intimate a gesture? Feverishly, he pries your shoes off your feet and tosses them away with little regard for where they land. He tugs on the waistband of your shorts and underwear, and you lift your bum briefly as you help him pull them off completely. Once you’re bare to him, he sits back on his heels and lifts your legs one at a time to hook them over his broad shoulders. You can’t help but squirm a little under his intense gaze.

“Try to hold still for me,” he says, reaching his hand down to swipe two fingers through your slick folds. He smears your wetness up over the hood of your clit, but he offers little of the pressure you crave there. Instead, he circles softly twice and lifts his fingers to his mouth, letting out a soft groan as he tastes you.

“Please.” The word tumbles from your lips unintentionally. His mouth twists up at the corners and disappears between your thighs.

Your eyes fly wide open at your plain white ceiling. He hasn’t wasted any time in going straight for your clit, lapping firmly over it in short flicks. It’s almost too much—your hips buck involuntarily, and he lays his strong arm across your abdomen to hold you in place for him. The walls here are thin, something you’ve learned through experience. You squeeze your eyes shut and stifle your moans with one hand clapped over your mouth.

His lips slip around your clit, and you’re sent reeling. He apparently enjoys this just as much; you can hear the couch creaking under his flexing hips as he presses his groin into the cushions, trying to relieve the pressure of his neglected cock. He lets out a groan as he sucks the bundle of nerves. No one knows your body better than yourself, but the tantalizing notion of having a dangerous man eating you out coupled with his obvious delight at doing so does a lot of the work of building pleasure in your center. You can start to feel your orgasm hovering just out of reach.

“Go get a condom,” you breathe, pushing him off you by the shoulder.

He eyes you skeptically for a second, like he’s not sure you really know what you’re asking for, but he reluctantly slips out from under your knees anyway. Your fingers slide down to replace his mouth, teasing your clit just enough to keep you lingering just shy of your release. He fixates on the sight of you playing with yourself and makes quick work of undoing the closures of his pants, even with only one hand. You let your eyes fall to where he’s lightly gripping the base of his thick cock.

“In the cabinet above the bathroom sink.” Your voice betrays how needy you’ve become for him to be inside you. He wastes no time in disappearing to the bathroom and reappearing as he rolls a condom down his length.

“You’re sure about this?” he asks, as if he weren’t the one who asked you to “fix” his hard-on to begin with.

“I’m sure,” you say, sounding a bit more impatient than you intend to.

He’s settling between your legs again, and you hook one ankle over his lower back to urge him closer, faster. He persists, holding steady against your efforts as he leisurely lines himself up at your entrance. When he finally starts to ease in, the sharp pinch of pain from the stretch draws a gasp from your lips. He shudders through an exhale, dipping down to bury his face in the crook of your neck. His stubble and soft puffs of breath tickle your skin, but you only notice it for a brief moment before you’re pulled back to the sensation of his length sinking into your aching cunt.

“Oh, shit,” he groans, shakily pausing once he’s fully seated. It’s the last vestige of his control before he starts moving again.

He snaps his hips into yours, setting a frantic pace. You hiss as his teeth graze harshly against your neck and match the circles you’re drawing on your clit to the rhythm of this thrusts. He’s making you feel so full, you clamp down around him hard, chasing your own end.

“That’s it, sweetheart,” he says. “Use me to come.”

It’s not long before your body obeys. Another few swipes of your fingers over your clit, and you’re sent flying over the edge of your orgasm. The edges of your vision blur white, and you raise your hands around him to dig your nails into his sculpted back. He continues to fuck you into the couch through your high, his breath harsh beside your ear. He drags a low whine from your throat as your overly sensitive pussy pulses around his plunging cock.

“Just a little longer, just hold on a little longer,” he whispers, sliding his hand across your collarbone to rest gently around the base of your throat.

It’s the last bit of tenderness he offers before his pace turns ferocious. You reach up to tangle your hands in his hair, tugging softly as overstimulation bites at the edges of your lingering pleasure. You can feel him clenching his jaw, chasing his own end desperately. His fingers apply pressure to the sides of your windpipe, and when the initial panic that shoots through you mixes with the thrill, you gasp his name.

He makes a gravelly sound low in his throat that sounds like a growl and leans back to sit on his heels. His knees spread your legs further, and his hand cups your right calf to raise it up over his hip. Your back arches up off the cushion, quivering at the change of angle as he works in and out of you. You let your gaze shift to his face and immediately flush. He’s focused on the juncture between the two of you, watching as his length disappears over and over again within you. His eyes snap up to meet yours, and your heart nearly jumps out of your mouth.

“Been thinking about this all day—about being inside you like this,” he murmurs, voice ragged.

You choke back a pathetic whimper as his hips begin to stutter. He’s a gorgeous sight to behold, brow glistening with sweat, his head falling back with a breathy moan as he bursts. His eyes slam shut, voice jumping as his release takes him and shuddering through a few more punishing thrusts.

Eventually, he slows to a stop above you. His hand lazily caresses your thigh at his side as his breathing comes back under control. He doesn’t move again for a while, just sits with his hand running gently across your skin, still buried within you.

“So, all day?” you ask quietly with a grin.

He cocks an eyebrow at you and leans in close, a small smirk playing across his face. “Just about,” he admits.

Your stomach flutters as he presses his lips against yours. He tastes faintly of salty sweat and of you. You think about maybe inviting him into your room for the night when he abruptly parts from your mouth.

“Oh, shit,” he whispers. “I hear Steve coming back.”

#multistation fic rec #fic rec #mod mimi #mcu x reader #thunderbolts x reader #thunderbolts #bucky barnes x reader #bucky barnes #fem reader #afab reader

548 notes · View notes

multifandom-rec-station · 14 hours ago

Text

Cosmic Joke: Buggy (1/3)

Cosmic Joke Masterlist

ONE PIECE Masterlist

Main Masterlist Here

Pictures

Buggy x Reader Length: 10k+ Rating: 18+, Warnings: Clown-themed despair, Psychic harassment via soulmate bond, Unsolicited mental images (shirtless clown edition), Weaponized flirtation, Goats???, Clown-themed romantic propaganda, Canon-typical clownery, Stalking, but like...magically?, Possessive soulmate nonsense with jazz hands, Buggy the Clown thinks he’s the love interest (and he’s RIGHT???)

Having Buggy as a soulmate is like dating a bedazzled midlife crisis with finger guns. He’s loud, needy, and fully convinced your silence is part of a long-running flirt bit. He’s been obsessed since the bond activated, and yes, he genuinely thinks psychic balloon spam is an acceptable love language. “If my soulmate’s ignoring me, I’ll just somersault into their dreams in a rhinestone thong. Easy fix.” Now you are being haunted by glitter.

Interested in being in the taglist? HERE

You were, in most respects, a standard youth.

You liked books. You hated pickles. You believed recess should be a fundamental right protected under divine law. You had a working knowledge of dinosaurs, an irrational distrust of ceiling fans, and a growing collection of erasers shaped like food.

Also, you hated clowns.

There was that.

You were four when you first realized you were afraid of them.

Not ‘Oh no, clowns are creepy’ afraid. Not ‘I don’t like their vibes,’ kind of frightened.

You were biblically afraid. Visceral, bone-deep, ancestral terror; the kind that suggested one of your forebears had been slain by a jester during a medieval coup and your DNA had never quite let it go.

There was a birthday party. There was a clown. There was screaming.

Most of it was yours. Some of it was the clown’s. He had the gall to make a balloon giraffe, and you reacted like he’d summoned a demon from beneath the bouncy castle. You don’t remember much after that, just being forcibly removed from the party, clutching a slice of cake and trembling like a Victorian child who’d just glimpsed a cursed marionette.

You’ve never really recovered.

And then, at the tender age of six, fate decided to personally spit in your cereal.

His name was Buggy. Later to be known as Buggy the Clown.

A name you would come to associate with spiritual suffering and glitter-based psychosis. A sentient fever dream. A shrieking, rhinestone-covered migraine with a superiority complex and red lipstick.

You once asked him if he was a demon. He said no. He said he was a pirate. He said it with pride, like that somehow made it better.

For a while, you assumed you were cursed. Haunted. Possibly just mentally unstable in a precise and flamboyant way.

The kind where you’d wake up sweating, tangled in your sheets, convinced a balloon animal was watching you from the closet. Where the sound of honking in the distance made your spine lock up like a cursed wind-up toy. Where birthday party invitations felt like threats.

Buggy, of course, found this hilarious.

“You’re welcome, by the way. Most people’s soulmates are boring. I’m a once-in-a-lifetime carnival experience.”

You wanted a refund. Or an exorcist. Possibly both.

Your soulmate bond was a joke.

Not metaphorically. Not tragically. Literally. A goddamn cosmic joke. You’d heard him in your head since you were a kid — loud, self-aggrandizing, prone to screaming about treasure, betrayal, and how “this nose is natural, thank you very much!”

You never took him seriously. Why would you? You were a normal, functional person. You paid your bills. You drank your water. He once spent a whole day in your brain arguing with someone named "Alvida" while deep-throating a banana.

You don’t like Buggy. You don’t trust Buggy.

But unfortunately, you understand him.

And that’s worse.

-X-Bond Awakening-X-

AGE 6:

It started during math homework. One moment you were peacefully failing fractions, the next—

“THEY STOLE MY GOAT!”

The scream echoed inside your skull like a kazoo possessed by the ghost of circus past. You screamed, too. Reflexively. Loudly. Possibly in Latin. Your mother dropped her mixing bowl. Your brother laughed so hard he farted. Your sister didn’t even look up from her book.

You told your mom a sentient kazoo with unresolved trauma was haunting you. She handed you a journal and said, “Write it down. If he turns out to be famous, we’ll sue.”

Your brother, deadpan, said, “Sounds like a you problem.”

Your sister said, “I hope my soulmate’s a dragon.”

For a whole week, you were convinced you'd been possessed by a flamboyant, emotionally unstable poltergeist from a cursed carnival. You lit a multicolored candle. You rubbed garlic on your forehead. You read a self-help book called "Banishing Clowns from the Spiritual Plane." It did not help. The author had reportedly been soul-bound to a jester and mysteriously disappeared during the Void Century.

The book caught fire halfway through Chapter Three. You did not find this encouraging.

The voice didn’t go away.

You asked about the goat.

“Her name was Lunch,” the voice said, dramatically.

You asked if Lunch was a pet or a person.

“Yes. What are you, my internal doubt personified?”

“I think I’m a kid.”

He introduced himself as Buggy. He thought you were a manifestation of his self-doubt.

“Captain Buggy, thank you very much. I’m going to be a great pirate! Also—how do you feel about clowns?”

You blinked.

“They scare me.”

He pauses.

“Perfect! I’m going to be Buggy the Clown! Everyone will be scared!”

You sat very still, absorbing that like someone who had just been told the monster under their bed wanted to go into marketing.

He was ten. He was loud. He was unhinged. He talked too much. And he was, apparently, a clown.

Which, for you, was the red mark of death.

Your soulmate wasn’t just a circus-affiliated lunatic. He was proud of it. He had aspirations. Branding. A vision board, probably made of glitter and threats.

And he would. Not. Shut. Up.

“I’m too beautiful to die in this crate! If anyone finds my remains, tell them I had perfect skin!”

“Why does everyone like Shanks? He doesn’t even have flair!”

“ My toes are freezing. Freezing! Do you think I could start a war over that?”

You knew, with a clarity usually reserved for natural disasters and public speaking, three inescapable truths:

He had crippling main character syndrome. The kind that came with dramatic pauses, inexplicable monologues, and the belief that shirt buttons were optional in moments of emotional turmoil.

His nose had a mind of its own. It showed up five seconds before the rest of him, bent gravity like a minor celestial body, and may or may not have cast a ballot in the last election.

He really, really hated some guy named Shanks — with the kind of simmering grudge usually reserved for tragic backstories or ex-best friends who stole your lunch and your future.

You were six.

You still had to ask permission to use scissors. You have a dentist appointment next week. You didn’t know how to spell “bureaucracy,” but you were living in one. Run entirely by a glittery pirate in your skull who might commit a felony over cold toes.

And worst of all?

He was a clown.

You had a fear of clowns. An irrational, all-consuming, biblical terror of greasepaint and red noses. Your earliest core memory involved a birthday party, a balloon giraffe, and enough screaming to summon the dead. You threw cake. You may have bitten someone. The therapist said your fear was “deeply rooted.” You said it was “earned.”

And now the universe, in its infinite cruelty, had paired you permanently and telepathically with a teenage pirate clown who monologued like he was auditioning for a musical called We’re Miserable, But With Cannons.

You had multiplication tables to memorize, trauma to suppress. And this maniac was up there in your brain, setting off metaphorical fireworks and talking about vengeance like a Shakespeare character on helium.

And he wasn’t going anywhere.

And neither were your night terrors.

A Sample of Your Childhood Psychic Transcript – Extended Cut:

“a.k.a. The 'Why Is My Brain Narrated by a Screeching Jester”

It was horrifying. You’d be brushing your teeth or trying to finish your times tables, and then—bam—a cackling scream would rip through your skull like a haunted cockatoo being exorcised during a thunderstorm. Not just laughter. No. Maniacal laughter. Sobbing laughter. Choking-on-a-fishbone-while-laughing laughter. Always stupid. Always loud. Always unwelcome.

You cried. More than once. Your mother chalked it up to early hormones and started keeping your favorite snacks stocked. Your sister, watching you flinch mid-cereal spoon, just sipped her juice and told you to “vibe with the madness.” Your brother made you a tinfoil hat. It did nothing except make you look like a conspiracy theorist in crisis at first grade.

And meanwhile, somewhere deep inside your poor, hijacked psyche:

“I’m gonna be KING OF EVERYTHING! I’ll show ‘em! Stupid Shanks with his STUPID HAIR and his smug little face!”

A pause. A sniffle. Then:

“I’m gonna be the greatest pirate alive!—Wait. Wait. Where’s my NOSE?! RAYLEIGH I LEFT MY NOSE BACK THERE. TURN THE SHIP AROUND.”

You are unsure of the logistics of losing a nose, but his seems liable to flee at any given chance, and frankly, you relate.

And then, just when you thought it was over:

“Do goats feel betrayal? I think Lunch does. She’s stopped looking at me.”

You dropped your pencil. You stared at the wall. You began to contemplate the logistics of selling your brain.

This was not your imagination. This was not a phase. This was your life now.

Age 7:

You were seven years old, trying to focus on your glitter crayons, when Buggy’s voice shoved its way into your consciousness with the urgency of someone announcing both a fire and a betrayal.

“Okay, so picture this: I’m gonna be RICH.”

You blinked at your paper.

The cat had three eyes and no tail. That seemed important.

“Rich and famous. And unstoppable. Like, the kind of unstoppable where people throw money at me just for existing. Y’know?”

You carefully drew a gold crown on your cosmic cat.

“All I had to do was not eat the Devil Fruit. One job. One job. And I had it, okay? I HAD IT.”

The bond pulsed with fury.

You could feel him pacing. Somewhere far away, your soulmate was seven years old and already full of rage.

“Then Shanks happened.”

The name landed like a curse word, spat out with the venom of a betrayed gremlin.

“He bumped me. Right as I was hiding it in my mouth. Not to eat it! For safekeeping! Like a pirate! Because I’m SMART!”

You paused mid-crayon stroke.

“Next thing I know, I’m choking on cosmic sea garbage and I can’t swim anymore! That’s HIS FAULT. I was fine. I had my map. I had my plan. Now I have no map. And I’m chopped into PIECES.”

You dropped your crayon.

“LIKE. A. TOY.”

You didn’t fully understand what he meant. But you got the emotional gist.

“Do you know what it’s like to sneeze and accidentally launch your left leg across the room?! Or to stub your toe and then realize your toe is three feet away?! I’m living in a NIGHTMARE.”

You tilted your head.

“It’s called the Chop Chop Fruit. I guess it’s cool or whatever. But I didn’t want to be chopped. I wanted a treasure empire and a map that smelled like victory. At least I can hide my nose now.”

He sniffled once. Then recovered immediately.

“Anyway, just so you know—if I ever disappear mid-thought, it’s because part of me rolled under a table. Don’t panic.”

You sat very still.

The crayon cat stared up at you with wide, spacey eyes.

“Also, Shanks is dead to me. Emotionally.”

You quietly pushed the glitter crayons away and went to hug your mom.

You didn’t know what the Chop Chop Fruit is. You didn’t know who Shanks is. You didn’t know why your brain is now connected to a soul-split pirate child with cartoon physics and abandonment issues.

But you knew one thing for sure.

Your nightmares just got very specific.

Age 8:

Your parents got you a fancy new therapist. She had framed degrees, soothing indoor plants, and a voice like herbal tea. She advised you not to engage with the clown. “Starve the delusion,” she said gently. “Don’t feed it attention. Clowns aren’t real.”

You nodded. Said okay. Pretended to take notes.

You didn’t tell her you hadn’t spoken to him directly since that time. That time was the time you tried to ask if he had any hobbies, and he screamed about a goat rebellion, then cried for twenty minutes because someone named Shanks "got a cool rock and I didn’t." You were just a little person, and you already knew he was bad news. You haven’t emotionally recovered.

Still, you took her advice.

You tried ignoring him. You tried music. You tried learning Latin just in case summoning a counter-demon would cancel him out like overlapping Pokémon types.

It did not work.

“Why are there so many rules on this island?! I just want to juggle knives in peace!”

You began developing what your teacher gently referred to as “the thousand-yard stare.”

Your therapist called it dissociation.

Your brother, ever supportive, called it “finally quiet.”

Your gym coach assumed you had trauma.

You did.

It was clown-shaped.

“Do you think I could pull off feathers and sequins? Or is that too powerful?”

This was the year you accepted two terrible truths:

Buggy was not a phase.

He had entered what could only be described as theatrical puberty.

It was loud. It was gross. It smelled, conceptually, like cheap cologne and gunpowder. You wanted peace. You got a live-streamed existential crisis, narrated by a future warlord with unresolved glitter issues.

“I deserve a cape. A long one. That billows. With skulls. But make it fashion. And one day I will own a cannon so majestic—so sexy—it gets its own bounty. Also, boobs. But Rayleigh says I’m not allowed at the place with girls yet.”

You tried yoga.

He tried vocal warm-ups.

You tried denial.

He tried opera.

“Do you think I’d be more intimidating if I growled? Like, grrr. No? Hm. Workshopping.”

And then came glitter.

He discovered it.

You discovered anxiety.

“Do you think I’d look better with glitter? Wait. Don’t answer that. Of course I would.”

“I think I want to launch myself out of a cannon for dramatic effect. Is that a weird impulse or a visionary one?”

“I bet Shanks couldn’t pull off red leather pants. That coward.”

By the time your classmates were writing essays about their dreams, you were writing apology letters to God.

Buggy did not sleep. He napped dramatically.

Buggy did not think. He monologued internally.

You were nine. Just nine.

And you were already Googling how to break a soulbond without using dark magic or fire.

You were nine. You wanted peace. What you got was a one-man circus lodged in your frontal lobe with delusions of grandeur and the energy of a bedazzled bomb.

Instead, you had waking nightmares that now included breasts and clown faces.

And Buggy still didn’t believe you were real.

Age 10:

This was the year you started locking yourself in the bathroom just to scream into a towel. Your mom thought it was a privacy thing. Your sister high-fived you in solidarity.

But really, it was Buggy.

Buggy had reached peak volume. He’d whisper nothing—absolutely nothing—for hours. Lulling you into a fragile, twitchy peace. And then, mid-math test, he’d explode:

“I’m too pretty to die like this!”

Your pencil snapped.

“If this cage doesn’t open, I’m chewing my way out—with style!”

You looked around the classroom. No one else flinched.

Of course not. No one else had a clown prince screaming in their cerebellum like he was auditioning for Broadway and a hostage video at the same time.

“Should I start a revolution or a brand? Wait—I am the brand.”

Buggy, as far as you could gather, was sailing around some mythical nightmare known as the Grand Line aboard a ship called the Oro Jackson. He was constantly fighting for his life, whining about closet space, and ranting about someone named Shanks, whose greatest crime seemed to be existing with a better hair routine.

You weren’t sure if he was real or just your brain’s most flamboyant delusion. His commentary came in garbled bursts. Sometimes present, sometimes echoing from the past, like a pirate-themed fever dream being poorly edited by a caffeinated theater kid with a god complex.

“He thinks he’s funny. He’s not. I’m funny. I’m a vision.”

You were ten. You had times tables to memorize. You had a therapy appointment at four. And you had a one-man circus squatting in your frontal lobe, actively threatening to chew through prison bars with flair.

Your guidance counselor asked if you were feeling overwhelmed. You nodded. You did not explain the screaming.

You did not explain the disembodied voice that laughed like he’d just won the lottery, adopted a goat, and been crowned prom king on the same day.

You didn’t think they were ready for the part where your imaginary friend might be real, and was potentially applying for a cannon permit.

Because the clown? He was happy. Alarmingly happy. Deliriously, dangerously, unhinged levels of happy.

“I’ve got it all! A crew! A ship! A goat that might be magical! I’M PEAKING!”

You figured, okay, maybe he was on a small ship. A mid-tier crew. Probably had bad uniforms and worse hygiene. There was no way—no way—this was the actual Pirate King’s ship. Your mom said Gol D. Roger was a legend. And legends, famously, did not associate with kids who yelled about foot cramps and glitter shortages.

...Right?

And then the stories started.

“Skypiea was a NIGHTMARE. Clouds should not be walkable!”

“I swear if one more Fish-Man mentions the nose, I will bite them.”

“Water 7 has terrible hat shops. I said what I said.”

Islands. History. Some guy named Oden who could read rocks, and evidently, this was a superpower now?

You paused mid-toothbrush one morning when Buggy casually dropped:

“Yeah, yeah, Roger said I’m not going! I’ve got a FEVER. A BETRAYAL FEVER.”

And then came the tantrum. A complete day-long psychic meltdown about germs, abandonment, and missing the world’s greatest treasure because his body had the immune system of a damp tissue.

To your horror, you felt bad for him. Just a little. He sounded crushed. Not whiny. Not dramatic. Just... gutted. Like some glitter-covered part of him had genuinely shattered.

“I DESERVE to see Laugh Tale! This NOSE is destined for GLORY!”

...Okay. Never mind.

“Do you think if I fake-died dramatically enough, they’d rename the island after me?”

You twitched every time someone said the word legend. Or nose. Or Roger. Your eye developed a tic when anyone said “island” too casually.

You were tired of mid-math soliloquies. Tired of unsolicited cannon blueprints. Tired of the phrase “bedazzled armor concept” showing up in your brain before breakfast.

You should’ve been worried about pop quizzes and snack swaps. Instead, you were hosting a one-man clown cabaret inside your head that ran 24/7 with no union breaks.

And slowly, ever so slowly, you began to shift.

The fear? Still there. Buried under layers of secondhand embarrassment, glitter-induced migraines, and a creeping suspicion you might accidentally be part of pirate history.

But mostly?

You were tired. Tired enough to stop being entirely scared.

There’s only so many times a metaphorical Jack-in-the-box can scare you before you stop flinching and start stabbing it with a very real fork.

Age 11:

Buggy, by his own chaotic and deeply biased standards, was going downhill.

The constant rants were fewer now. The screaming? Muted. The volume knobs of your sanity, blessedly, turned down from “Broadway Finale” to “forgotten intermission music.”

But that wasn’t comforting; it was worse.

Because now Buggy was quiet.

Not peaceful. Not stable. Just… listless. Mopey. Adrift. Still sparkly, somehow—but with grief-glitter, the kind that sticks to your soul and won’t wash off no matter how many metaphorical showers you take.

It started after some place called Laugh Tale. (Which you initially thought was fake. Because, well, what kind of name is Laugh Tale?)

The crew reached it. The end of the world. The One Piece. The final island, the final secret, the final everything.

And then?

Nothing.

No battle. No explosion. No legendary last stand. Just a quiet speech on deck. A decision. A disbanding. You weren’t sure if he ever truly believed that the adventure could end.

Buggy did not take it well.

“Disbanded? Just… poof? That’s it? We sail the whole Grand Line, fight Sea Kings, dodge volcanoes, meet weirdos, LOSE MY NOSE at least twice—and he just tells us to go home? This is my home!”

You didn’t understand all the details. But you felt it. That hollow ache. The sharp, confused fury. The kind of pain that didn’t fit right inside someone like Buggy. Someone too loud, too bright, too absurd to carry real grief without it spilling into you.

Then came the silence.

Not sulking and not monologuing. Not even his usual passive-aggressive humming of off-key sea shanties.

Silence.

It stretched. Days, maybe. Weeks. You started to think he was gone. That maybe whatever thread tied you to the world’s most dramatic pirate had finally snapped.

Then one morning, halfway through a soggy bowl of cereal, with precisely zero warning, it happened.

“He turned himself in.”

You dropped your spoon.

Buggy didn’t elaborate.

He didn’t need to.

You felt it through the bond. A heavy, stunned weight. Not anger this time. Not outrage. Not betrayal.

Just… shock.

Disbelief. And something raw. Like a child watching the sky fall and realizing the sun isn’t invincible after all.

“He didn’t even say goodbye,” Buggy whispered one night. “Not to me. Not really.”

No shouting. No cannon monologue. No cackling declaration of vengeance against hat stores or goats or Shanks’ left eyebrow.

Just silence. Cracked open by something too quiet for a kid like Buggy to hold without bleeding.

And honestly? It was more terrifying than anything he’d ever done.

“He chose to go. Walked into Marine hands. Said his journey was done. Do you understand how insane that is? Do you know what kind of man does that?”

You didn’t. But he wasn’t asking you.

He was speaking to the ache. To the invisible weight pressing behind his ribs and yours, until the silence in your brain felt crowded.

“He was supposed to be invincible.”

You sat there, curled under your blanket with your nightlight casting little moons across the wall, listening to a pirate mourn the only man he ever saw as immortal.

“Now they’re going to kill him. For being free.”

You didn’t say anything.

Because Buggy wasn’t looking for advice, he didn’t want comfort. He wanted to grieve. And you, eleven years old, socks mismatched, with a cavity and a spelling test tomorrow; you let him.

Because what else could you do?

Later that morning, still fogged from too-little sleep and too-much psychic despair, you sat at the kitchen table trying to will your cereal not to betray you with sogginess.

Your spoon hovered halfway to your mouth.

The Den Den on the counter crackled to life, fuzzing through a grainy broadcast: “Pirate King Gold Roger. Captured. Vice Admiral Garp of the Marines captured him—”

The air didn’t move. You didn’t breathe. Your mom poured her coffee and, without looking up, said:

“Didn’t think they’d ever catch that one,” she said.

You froze.

The cereal went limp. The milk turned treacherous. The spoon sagged in your hand like it knew too much.

Huh. Weird coincidence.

He didn’t say much after that. Just… fragments. Sadness. Fury. And once, very softly, as if it still mattered:

‘I bet Lunch would’ve understood.’

Age 12:

At this point, you could recognize his moods like weather patterns. He didn’t need to speak. Didn’t need to shout or cry or mutter obscenities into your mental link anymore.

A certain heaviness behind your eyes? He was brooding again, deep, ocean-trench brooding, the kind that made your teachers ask if you were getting enough sleep.

A sharp buzz in your jaw? Someone had insulted him, probably to his face. Possibly while he was wearing platform boots and a sequined cape, possibly said something about his nose.

And a sudden, near-violent urge to throw glitter at passing strangers? Yeah. That meant he was rebranding. Again.

“I INVENTED charisma. It’s a tax burden.”

“That’s it. I’m done being reasonable. I’m going full clown mode. Full. Clown. Mode.”

Oh god.

Mother of Mariejois, you were going to have to get out your emergency flashlight and pepper spray again. You’d already had to explain once to your mom why you were sleeping in rain boots and a bike helmet.

“Would you say I’m enigmatic, or just hauntingly powerful? Be honest. I can take it. (I cannot.)”

You were twelve, and already burdened with the knowledge that your soulmate had the emotional regulation of a vintage carnival ride held together by trauma and chewing gum.

Lately, he’d been trying to get to the East Blue. You didn’t know why. He didn’t say. He rarely said much anymore, at least not the important things.

He wasn’t miserable. Just… drifting.

Like a drunk cat trying to find its way home, only to discover it had never had one to begin with, and also someone had stolen its shoes.

Directionless. Tired. Still theatrical, but the tempo had slowed. His voice still rang in your skull sometimes, but it was quieter now. A little ragged around the edges. The spark was there, somewhere, buried beneath sarcasm and swagger and a thousand bad ideas, but it didn’t shine quite like it used to.

And for the first time, you found yourself not just worried for your soulmate.

You felt how lonely he was.

It started as pressure behind your eyes, sharp, sudden, and cold. You were doing something normal. Math homework, probably. Or trying to convince your pencil not to fall behind the couch again, where it had formed a support group with three others and a melted crayon.

And then everything shifted.

A wave of noise without sound. Emotion that slammed into you so fast and so hard, it didn’t feel like him. No voice. No sarcastic muttering. No dramatic monologue. Just a pure, uncut sensation that hits like falling through the floor of your own body.

Something massive.

And breaking.

Your chest hurts. Your hands trembled. You couldn’t breathe right, like you were underwater or underground or too far from anything that made sense. Too far from land. From light. From words.

Grief.

That’s what it was.

Not the kind that weeps. Not the type that sobs into someone’s shoulder or writes poetry at three a.m.

The kind that claws.

The kind that drags.

Like a ship pulling away before you can climb aboard.

And no one ever told you it would feel like this.

Like losing something you never even had.

You heard nothing from Buggy himself. No clever insults. No clownish monologue. No screaming about Shanks. Just the crackle of something raw coming through the bond like static; grating and empty, like laughter that had been hollowed out and left to rot.

You clung to your bedsheets and tried to hold yourself still.

No answers came. No explanation. Just that awful pressure, like your soul had been dragged down with something too heavy to carry.

That night, your mom turned on the kitchen radio while making dinner. The scent of rice and soy sauce filled the air. The hum of the stove. The usual buzz of everyday things. You sat at the table, still shaken, still not sure what was wrong with you. You couldn’t focus. Couldn’t speak.

Then the announcer spoke.

“Pirate King Gold Roger. Executed today in Loguetown, by Marine forces.”

The radio kept talking in the background, something about the crowd, about the executioner’s blade, about Gold Roger smiling on the scaffold like death was just another punchline. You didn’t hear the rest. You couldn’t.

Because the bond sparked.

At first, just heat behind your eyes. Then static.

Then rage.

Not like before. Not cold. Not quiet.

This was messy.

You flinched as it slammed into you. Not words, not really. Just fragments, bursting and colliding like fireworks mid-fuse.

“Should’ve gone with him—should’ve—stupid—”

“We said we would—he said—he SAID—”

“You’re just gonna SAIL AROUND like it MEANS NOTHING—”

“—you were gunna be our CAPTAIN—”

There was something about Shanks. About dreams. About a promise shattered at the feet of a ruined friendship.

You didn’t catch it all. The signal cracked and dipped, barely audible beneath the roaring ache. But you felt it.

You felt the betrayal. The helplessness.

And the loss so sharp it nearly tore you open.

Somewhere, laughter echoed. Not joyful. Not warm. Not real.

The kind of laugh that breaks after.

The kind that scrapes its way up because there’s nothing left to do but laugh. Because if you don’t, you’ll scream. And if you scream, you might never stop.

Gently, like opening the trapdoor to a hyena enclosure, you reached inward.

Toward him.

Toward the clown-shaped chaos that lived in the corner of your mind like a permanently installed fever dream.

He was always there; loud, gaudy, dramatic. A hurricane in face paint.

But now he felt… far away.

Like his spotlight had been stolen mid-scene. Like someone had ripped the rug out from under the tent and left him standing on cold stone, soaked in grief he wasn’t ready to admit existed.

You sent the only thing you could: a pulse of thought. Not words. Not logic. Just the quietest impression of I’m here.

No answer.

Only a slow, bitter burn in your chest.

Like something had been set on fire low and deep, and no one remembered how to put it out.

You tapped at the bond. Light. Gentle. Like knocking on the door of a house that might be abandoned.

“Hey, clown boy… Are you okay?”

Silence.

For a moment, you thought maybe he genuinely was gone. That whatever kept you tethered had snapped under the weight of it all.

A sound.

A whisper, low and splintering, like it had been dragged across broken glass just to reach you.

“… No.”

No screaming. No tantrum. No rhinestone commentary.

Just that one, flat word.

And it filled the whole room.

It stretched out across the wood floor and curled up into the corners of the ceiling. It seeped into the walls. It pressed against your ribs like grief with painted nails.

You didn’t know what to say back.

You were only twelve.

And he was somewhere far away, trying not to drown in the memory of a man who lit the world on fire just to keep them warm for a little while.

So you did the only thing you could.

You whispered into the bond, soft and serious.

“Okay. Then I’ll stay here. Until you are.”

Ages 13 – 20:

They say significant trauma can do strange things to Soulmate bonds.

In your case, your ridiculous clown of a soulmate went quiet.

Not in the usual, theatrical way he did when Shanks got more attention or a scheme collapsed. Not the heavy pause before a tantrum. This was something else entirely.

Still.

Hollow.

Like the aftermath of a party no one enjoyed.

If it weren’t for the occasional crackle in the back of your mind, like a broken radio trying to tune in through a storm, you might have thought he was dead.

Sometimes there were flickers. A heat behind your eyes that wasn’t yours. A spike of irritation when you were perfectly calm. Once, you dropped your pen for no reason and felt the inexplicable certainty that somewhere, someone had lost a card game and blamed the table.

But no words. No cackling nonsense. No psychotic shrieking about glitter grenades in the middle of science class. No half-baked monologues on fashion, violence, or revenge.

You should have been relieved.

You weren’t.

It was like missing a headache you had grown attached to. An ache so familiar it had started to feel like part of your spine.

The bond remained.

Thin.

Trembling.

But unbroken.

You carried it with you through the blur of school and growing up, like a strange scar no one could see. Not painful, not exactly. But present. Always present.

And every so often, you’d stop.

Tilt your head.

Listen.

Just in case.

But the only thing you’d get was silence. And the static. Always the static.

“… You okay, scary clown dude?”

Nothing.

Not even static this time. Just silence so complete that it made your ears ring, as if the bond had fallen into a vacuum.

You stared at the ceiling for a while after that, arms folded behind your head, wondering if the bond had finally gone dormant. Or if maybe he’d just stopped listening.

At least your grades were doing better.

No mid-test pirate rants.

No psychic glitter migraines during history presentations.

No one yelling about cannon design in your skull while you tried to do algebra.

Your therapist called it a sign of emotional separation.

You called it weirdly depressing.

He used to be unbearable.

He used to be there.

Now he was just... gone.

What do you do during the time of peace?

You lived, mostly.

You adjusted.

Slowly. Grudgingly. Like a person recovering from a bizarre allergic reaction to birthday parties and circus music.

At first, you avoided anything remotely clown-adjacent. Birthday stores. Red noses. Balloons. Stripes. The sight of overly arched eyebrows on anyone made your stomach turn. Once, someone wore face paint for a school spirit event, and you had to leave the room.

You told your counselor it wasn’t a phobia exactly. You just… had experiences.

No one needed to know those experiences mainly were psychic, glitter-filled, and occasionally involved the disembodied sensation of falling off a cannon mid-rant.

Over time, though, you began to deal with it yourself.

Clown images in old cartoons? You watched them. Arms crossed, spine stiff. But you watched.

A party clown in the park? You walked past. Quickly, yes. But you didn’t run.

That one time a friend tried to drag you to a haunted carnival-themed corn maze? You went. You screamed once. You lived.

It was less about conquering fear and more about rewriting instincts. Because for years, your instincts had been trained to respond to a single flicker of chaos with fight-or-flight. One dramatic flourish of psychic confetti, and you were reaching for a paper bag to hyperventilate into.

Now?

Now you just blinked. Maybe flinched. But the bag stayed in your backpack.

You practiced breathing through the static when it flared. Practiced shaking off the occasional cold sweat when someone mentioned circuses. Once, in a particularly bold moment, you made it through an entire documentary about pirate entertainers in the Grand Line.

Progress was slow. But it stuck.

You still hated clowns. You probably always would.

But one day, someone told a joke about rubber chickens, and you didn’t twitch.

And that felt like winning.

You got a job at a party supply store.

Because apparently, fate thinks it’s hilarious.

You didn’t plan it that way. It was supposed to be temporary. Just something to bring in some cash while you finish school. You figured you’d be stocking napkins and quietly resenting capitalism, maybe sweeping confetti into corners.

Instead, you were folding clown wigs into bins and organizing novelty horns by pitch.

The first time someone asked you to restock the rubber noses, you froze. Stared into the red plastic pile, as if it might blink first. Then you took a breath, grabbed the bin, and did it anyway. You went home afterward and stared at the ceiling for three hours, but you did not cry. That, in itself, was a victory.

You didn’t tell your coworkers about the soulmate thing. You didn’t tell them that you could recognize clown shoe sizes by vibe alone or that you had recurring dreams about cannon maintenance. When the assistant manager asked if you had a clown-related childhood trauma, you said, “Probably,” and changed the subject.

Over time, it got easier. You learned to tolerate the greasepaint aisle. You only shuddered a little when the store played circus music on themed weekends. You developed a system for dealing with customers in full costume: be polite, keep your eyes on their eyebrows, and for the love of all things holy, do not engage if they juggle.

You were good at the job. Scarily good. Customers complimented your speed and calm. Coworkers asked how you managed to keep such a straight face while selling giant, squeaky shoes.

You just smiled.

Tight. Professional.

The smile of someone who has seen the void and found it wearing glitter suspenders. You were just surviving.

But some days, survival looked like taping up clown-themed sale banners and not flinching once.

And that, frankly, was more progress than therapy ever expected.

Your clown therapy is going so well, and the bond has been quiet for so long, you assume Buggy is probably gone.

Dead, maybe. Or locked up somewhere. Or retired on some isolated island where no one would ever question a man in face paint muttering about lost treasure and betrayal.

The nightmares had stopped. Mostly.

No more dream sequences where you woke up in a cannon, or trapped in a funhouse mirror maze full of angry laughter and exploding balloons. No more psychic nose-honking at three in the morning. No more surprise visions of sword-swallowing competitions while you were trying to study for history class.

The silence was strange at first. Too quiet. You kept waiting for him to come crashing back in with a poorly-timed emotional monologue or an opinion about glitter taxes. But nothing ever came. Just the occasional echo of what had been. A flicker. A static hum. Faint enough, you could pretend it was just stress.

So eventually, you stopped checking.

Stopped listening.

Stopped waiting.

You even started to feel guilty about that.

Just a little.

Because yes, he gave you nightmares.

He also gave you migraines, an aversion to carnivals, and one truly cursed afternoon where you burst into tears at a birthday party because the cake was shaped like a cannon.

But he was also…

Well.

Yours.

And part of you, the part that still remembered the hiss of static and the occasional snort of laughter during bad movies, wondered if he had ever made it out of that grief. Or if you had indeed just… lost him. Quietly. For good.

You thought about lighting a candle. Once.

Instead, you cleaned the clearance section of the party store and took your break like always. Coffee in one hand, respect in the other.

You just sat there, entirely at peace.

Which, in hindsight, should have been your first warning.

Age 21:

By this time, you had settled into something dangerously close to stability.

Your job at the party store had become weirdly permanent. You’d moved into a tiny apartment with uneven floors and a stove that made threatening noises when used, but it was yours. You were functional. Peaceful. Occasionally, even productive.

And Buggy?

Still silent.

Not a whisper. Not a flicker. Not even the familiar crackle of static that used to haunt the edges of your thoughts like a squeaky shoe in the dark. The bond had cooled into something distant and dormant, like a forgotten string tied around your finger. Always there, but easy to ignore if you didn’t tug too hard.

Your therapist thought this was a huge win.

You weren’t sure. But it was easier to pretend than to explain the spiral of bizarre emotional whiplash you had experienced for most of your adolescence. Harder still to explain the clown-specific nightmares or the soul-deep dread you felt whenever anyone in face paint made eye contact.

Still, she was proud of you. And that was nice. She started suggesting you might be ready for something new.

Not dating. She knew better than to push that button.

“Just… a little intimacy. With yourself. A reconnection. A reclamation. You’ve had so many boundaries crossed, and so little control. It might help to reframe your relationship with touch. Desire. Pleasure.”

You tried to nod, as if that was normal. Like she wasn’t asking you to face decades of neglect thanks to a haunted red-nosed poltergeist.

You went home.

You lit a candle.

You turned on music.

You locked your door and unplugged your toaster, just in case.

Then you sat on the edge of your bed and stared at your hand like it had wronged you in a past life.

The bond was silent. Cold. Empty. Probably broken. Probably fine.

Surely you were safe.

You lay back on the bed.

Tried to breathe.

Tried to relax.

And just when you finally, finally started to feel something like peace—

The bond lurched.

Like something rolling over in its sleep. Like a switch being flipped. Like a clown-shaped disaster hurtling into your soul at terminal velocity.

“WELL HELLO, STRANGER!”

You froze like a raccoon caught stealing cake.

“I DO HAVE A SOULMATE!!!”

No. No, no, no.

Your soul bond had activated. During your personal midnight fiesta. And Buggy the fucking Clown was tuned in like it was front row at the freak show.

“Sweet Jesus, you’re REAL? WHEN DID THAT HAPPEN? YOU’VE BEEN HIDING THAT?!”

You panicked. Naturally. Immediately.

You tried to shut the bond like a snail with a curse. Yanked the metaphorical plug. Slammed every mental door you had.

It did not work.

He kept talking.

“Is this—this is real, right? This isn’t a hallucination from when I accidentally ate that moldy cracker?”

You shrieked.

In your own room.

On your own bed.

Somewhere deep inside the bond, he gasped.

“WAIT. Are you—oh my god. OH my GOD. Were you—WAS THIS A SEX THING?!”

You made a noise not known to science. Something between a scream, a sob, and a plea for divine intervention.

“Stop listening! Stop TALKING!”

“Nope. This is real. Ohhhhhh, look at you. My little soul-bonded bundle of—is that lace? Are those—wait, are those ruffles?! Are you seriously wearing something cute to touch yourself? Who taught you class?! I swear to god I’m in love. God, fate is so generous sometimes.”

You slapped your hand over your mouth like it could trap the last thirty seconds back inside you.

“ Is this for ME?!”

No. No, it was not.

And now you were in hell.

Not metaphorical hell. Not emotional hell.

A very specific, highly personalized soul-bonded clown hell.

You nearly cried.

“Wait. WAIT. Did you just moan?! SAY IT AGAIN. Please, for the love of all things freaky. I’ll juggle knives naked. I’ll shoot myself out of a cannon. Just do it like that again.”

You didn’t.

You physically could not.

Your body had frozen in place, caught somewhere between fight, flight, and spontaneous combustion. Every muscle in your body had gone on strike. Your brain was white noise and shame.

The bond buzzed with something electric, chaotic, deeply cursed.

You could feel his energy pressing in from the other side. Eager. Unfiltered. Practically vibrating with circus-grade enthusiasm.

You considered chewing through a power cable just to reboot your nervous system.

Instead, you just curled tighter into your blankets and whimpered.

He was screaming inside your brain while you were halfway to climax. You collapsed into existential despair while he cheered like a drunk uncle at a bachelor party.

It was the most humiliating moment of your life, and he sounded like he was having the time of his life.

Buggy, you now realized with abject horror, had a sixth sense for accidental horny brain static.

“Don’t be shy next time, sweetheart—Buggy wants a private encore. Preferably with jazz hands.”

You slammed the bond shut so hard it echoed psychically. It felt like slamming a door and throwing a shoe at it for good measure. Somewhere in your subconscious, a disgusted sigh rippled through the void like a curse.

Buggy immediately took it as a challenge.

“Okay. I get it. You’re shy. You need romance. Flowers. A singing telegram. Maybe a cannonball proposal? I can make that work.”

Nothing.

“Ah, you’re mad. I understand. You have every right to be mad. But I am your soulmate. You can’t stay mad at me forever. I’m charming! I’m flexible! Literally—I can detach things!”

You did not respond. You refused to give him the satisfaction.

He paused for a moment. Then, like a man who had just thought of something deeply stupid, he sent you images.

Not thoughts. Not words. Visuals.

A topless version of himself holding a bouquet of balloon animals. His face is hazy, but his body is fairly well-rendered. Unfortunately.

There’s a velvet couch.

Something like a suggestive wink.

The word snugglefunk in gold calligraphy, sparkling like the world’s worst wedding invitation.

“If you don’t talk to me, I’m going to start narrating your dreams in circus announcer voice. You think you’re safe? YOU’RE IN THE BIG TOP NOW, BABY.”

You try to play it cool.

You try to breathe, to reclaim your mind after the psychic horror Buggy unleashed.

But no amount of sea-salt air or meditation can erase the memory of the banner that read:

CIRCUS IN THE FRONT, AFTERPARTY IN THE BACK.

You added psychic barbed wire to your mental walls. Triple layered. Reinforced with salt, spite, and sheer willpower.

So naturally, he started narrating.

“In today’s episode: YOU. In a very tight corset. Trapped in my circus. Only way out? Kisses. Or a magic trick.”

You would restart sleeping with loud music and a bucket of holy water by your bed.

“Boomcakes! I’m going to haunt you until you say my name with purpose. I don’t care if I have to put on an entire telepathic Broadway show. Soulmate: The Musical. Opening night: every time you touch yourself.”

“I hope someone staples your hat to your ass.”

He swooned like he had been proposed to.

“You spoke to me. Again. God, your rage is so sexy.”

You yeeted the bond into a mental trash compactor with the force of a thousand sunburned regrets. You rolled over, pressed your face into your pillow, and spent the next hour whispering increasingly unhinged curses while his laughter echoed across your consciousness like a cursed kazoo from hell.

It was only the beginning, and you feared you might live forever.

The next afternoon, you marched into your therapist’s office, hair still sticking up from a night of psychic kazoo concertos. You sat, placed your notebook on her coffee-scented table, and announced, “Personal time was a catastrophic regression.”

She blinked. “Catastrophic?”

You nodded with the solemnity of someone confessing to grand larceny. “Negative progress. Reverse evolution. I may have un-invented fire.”

She folded her hands. “Tell me what happened.”

You considered telling her the literal truth. That a pirate clown long presumed emotionally defunct had live-streamed himself into your frontal lobe with balloon-animal burlesque and a standing offer of detachable limbs. You opened your mouth. Closed it again.

“Metaphorically,” you said, choosing life, “I invited a guest performer onto the stage of my psyche during a quiet rehearsal. He arrived unannounced. Loud. Shirtless.”

Her eyebrow climbed. “An intrusive thought?”

“Louder than a thought. Think stadium speakers strapped to a jack-in-the-box.”

She wrote something that probably reads as an exploration of obsessive imagery. You imagined jotting back, 'Explore exorcism.'

“Have you tried grounding exercises?” she asked.

“Five. I counted tiles on the ceiling, listed types of pasta, even sang the Weather Report for Loguetown under my breath. Nothing helped.”

“Loguetown?” Her pen paused.

“Meteorology trivia.” You coughed. “Very niche.”

She tilted her head. “Maybe we need a different approach. Focusing on safe space visualization.”

You pictured Buggy in velvet lounge wear, prowling around the safe space like a housecat with cymbals. Safe space exploded like confetti.

“Or,” she continued, “we could practice assertive boundaries. Telling intrusive content to leave when it appears.”

You pictured your last attempt at assertiveness: psychic barbed wire, holy water, and a whispered wish for someone to staple his hat to his posterior. The clown had called it foreplay.

You managed a smile that felt like holding back a landslide. “I will try that.”

She smiled too, warm and steady, utterly unaware of the circus smoldering behind your eyes.

Session time ended. You scheduled the next appointment, stepped outside, and inhaled the city air, thick with sea salt and the scent of roasted peanuts from a street cart. A normal smell. A non-clown smell.

Inside your mind, static crackled.

“Sweetheart, about those boundaries… How do you feel about backstage passes?”

You tightened every mental lock you possessed.

“Come on. Just one little encore. I can juggle your coping mechanisms.”

You pictured a steel vault, ten feet thick, with no doors. You sealed it. You sat on a bench and counted breathing cycles until his voice faded to an almost bearable background hiss.

One step forward, eighteen tap-dancing steps back.

But you were upright. You were breathing. You were, technically, winning.

Small victories mattered. Even if the victory was simply not screaming the phrase snugglefunk in front of afternoon traffic.

Tomorrow you would buy stronger earplugs. Maybe sage. Possibly a taser for spiritual emergencies.

For now, you walked home, repeating a new mantra: Clowns are mortal. Soul-bonds are negotiable. Personal time can wait until the circus leaves town.

Unfortunately, even a somewhat dead bond can come back to life.

-X-The Cold War-X-

“Baby, don’t be mad, I assumed you were literally just my crippling self-doubt! Let’s rendezvous and you’ll clock it immediately!”

No.

Hard no.

You, in no way, shape, or cursed telepathic form, were ever agreeing to meet with the sentient chaos gremlin who weaponized your trauma and turned it into a lifestyle brand.

You slammed the bond shut like a guillotine. Silence. Cold. Petty. Beautiful.

One week in and you’ve developed a new tic.

When he tried again, you countered with dry sarcasm that could strip paint. Or worse—utter, icy disinterest. He tried jokes. You gave him mental static. He tried seduction. You mentally summoned a mime doing taxes.

He. Was. Crumbling.

“C’mon, babe. You can’t still be mad. It’s not like I chose the timing—okay, I enjoyed the timing, but it’s fate’s fault!”

You said nothing.

“Do you have any idea how long I’ve been waiting for fate to stop treating me like a punchline with a personal vendetta?”

Still nothing.

“…You moaned. It wasn’t my name, but it was close. Don’t lie. It gave me hope.”

Untrue.

You mentally imagined a custard pie to the face with satisfying splatter.

But he didn’t stop.

“If you ignore me long enough, I will manifest shirtless in your dreams. I’m just saying. There will be confetti. And balloons…And emotional intimacy, if you’re into that.”

You responded with a single, icy mental whisper:

“Choke on your big red nose.”

He gasped. Audibly. Through the bond. Like a Victorian widow catching her husband in the arms of scandal.

“You spoke to me...I missed you. Also, how dare you. This nose is iconic.”

You blocked him again. Thoroughly. Emotionally. With psychic barbed wire and wet socks.

Two weeks, five petty taunts, and one psychic wedding registry later, you are now locked in the telepathic equivalent of the Cold War: Mutually Assured Destruction edition.

He’s been sending mental visions of your honeymoon suite, and you’ve resorted to the mental equivalent of an air horn and divorce papers.

He’s moaning your name mid-fight like it’s a war cry.

You’re filing fake celestial HR complaints citing “clown-based harassment and nose-related trauma.”

He made a Wanted Poster of you with the tagline: “Property of the Greatest Showman—in Bed, In Bond, In Life.”

He signed it with a lipstick kiss. You don’t know whose. You don’t want to know whose.

You are actively considering nunhood. Pirate-resistant convent. Remote island. Anti-nose policy.

Meanwhile, he is planning your wedding with the reckless optimism of a man who has already bought the matching circus rings and trained the pigeons to throw confetti.

A cannon.

Painted hot pink. Bedazzled. With your nickname misspelled in glitter glue across the barrel because you’re not stupid enough to give him your real one. It only fires heart-shaped smoke bombs, which are neither effective nor subtle. They squeal on impact.

Cabaji tried to “accidentally” sink it. You did cheer that.

Buggy had it pulled from the ocean, polished, and gave it eyelashes.

Oh yes.

Your walking, talking, megalomaniacal torment is now ostensibly that of a pirate captain. Not just any pirate captain, a wanted one. A problematic one. A theatrically unstable menace to navigation. And you? You’ve got front row seats to the goddamn glitter-covered car crash that is his ascent to power.

He’s recruiting. He’s scheming. He’s making speeches like:

“This cannon—this symbol of love—will strike FEAR into the hearts of all who underestimate my thighs, my flair, and my soulmate!”

You received that declaration mid-lunch. Choked on a piece of melon. Had to do psychic CPR on yourself while your coworker asked if you were allergic to fruit.

He sends you live updates. Psychic bulletins. Occasionally with visual aids.

“Today I made a new Jolly Roger! It’s me! Crying! In a sexy way! Cabaji said we need more cohesion as a unit, so I duct-taped hearts to the deck. It’s called branding. I am this close to getting a bounty poster that says ‘Armed and Emotionally Volatile’. I can put your name on the back—”

No one is safe.

Not the East Blue. Not his crew.

Not you.

You’re just trying to live your life. Just trying to rest. Just trying to be normal for once in your godforsaken existence. But no.

Your soulmate is climbing the ladder of infamy wearing a rhinestone corset and shouting about cannon-based courtship rituals.

And it’s all clown-themed, just to salt the wound extra rare.

He’s terrorizing the seas in oversized shoes, holding strategy meetings where glitter is mandatory, and allegedly bedazzled a prisoner once for “disrespecting the nose.” His bounty keeps rising. His ego keeps expanding. His outfits keep getting worse.

And you?

You are ghosting hard in retaliation.

Weeks.

Months.

Years, if you count the years that felt like decades thanks to secondhand confetti trauma.

No replies. No acknowledgment. No shared thoughts. Nothing.

You built mental walls so thick they have guard towers, moats, trench spikes, and a rotating schedule of fake emergencies—including but not limited to:

“Sorry, can’t talk right now, I’m being spiritually audited.”

“Currently unavailable due to sudden clown allergy.”

“On hold with the divine tech support team. Soul link’s down. Try again in never.”

He tried flirting.

He tried guilt.

He tried emotionally manipulative mime routines through the bond (you suspect he hired an actual mime just to psychically project it).

Nothing.

You gave him crickets.

He tried to romance the crickets.

“Tell your silence I love her. She’s elegant. Mysterious. She hurts me so good.”

He once held a candlelight vigil for your “emotional unavailability” and invited the crew. No one came. He cried. Dramatically. In public. With interpretive juggling.

Still, you didn’t answer.

You’ve been so quiet for so long that the bond itself started growing dust. Spiritual cobwebs. Metaphysical tumbleweeds. A tiny “CLOSED FOR RENOVATIONS” sign appeared in your inner consciousness. You didn’t put it there. It just knew.

And still, every now and then…

He knocks.

Cheerfully.

Desperately.

Wearing metaphorical stilts and a feather boa made of delusion.

You don’t answer.

You won’t answer.

Not until he learns you’re not interested in clown-bomb proposals and nose-themed love songs.

Buggy?

Oh, Buggy took it personally.

“You’re ghosting me? Babe. Soulmate ghosting? That’s ICE COLD. I’m impressed. Hurt. But impressed.”

You said nothing.

There was a pause in the bond.

A rare, precious silence.

You dared to hope.

Maybe—maybe—he had finally taken the hint.

Maybe he’d gotten distracted.

Fallen into the sea.

Accidentally glued himself to a cannon and launched away.

And then—

Soft. Gentle. Whiny.

“Are you ghosting me because of the cannon? You can tell me. Be honest. Is she too sexy? Did she make you insecure? Because I can add your name to another cannon. Equal representation. You want glitter skulls? I can do glitter skulls.”

You buried your face in your hands.

He continued.

“Just say something. Anything. A mental cough. A sigh. A moan. Preferably that last one. But I’ll take what I can get.”

The bond crackled with anticipation.

You sent him the psychic equivalent of being pelted by a wet sock.

“Was that—was that affection?!”

You dropped the connection as if it had burned.

He screamed.

Like a man rejected by the gods, the circus, and fate itself.

And somehow, you were still the villain.

You stared at the sky.

It did not save you.

Buggy?

He took that… as a flirty challenge.

“Aha! So this is how it’s gonna be. I see. You’re mysterious. A little mean. I LIKE THAT.”

No reply.

“Playing hard to get, huh? That’s fine. I love games. You know I’m flexible, right? Like, literally. My body parts detach. Endless positions.”

Still nothing.

You reinforced the bond with barbed wire, spite, and three layers of Catholic guilt. You lit metaphorical incense. You whispered passive-aggressive affirmations into the void. You carved “Not Today, Clown” into your mental walls with a steak knife.

He kept going.

“Listen, sweetheart. I don’t know who hurt you, but if it wasn’t me, it should’ve been—because clearly you have unresolved issues, and I would love to roleplay as your emotionally unavailable ex.”

The silence only encouraged him.

Because, of course it did.

He was powered by ego and rejection. You were just adding emotional kerosene to the fire.

You went still.

The kind of stillness reserved for prey when they smell a predator.

When the trees go quiet. When the wind changes. When something awful and glittery is watching you from behind the metaphorical bush with finger guns and psychic jazz hands.

Your entire mental landscape went dark—lights out, shutters drawn, emotional “Closed for Business” sign nailed to the door—hoping silence would bore him.

It didn’t.

He started sending visions.

Not thoughts. Not words.

Full cinematic hallucinations.

Of himself, shirtless, hair blowing in nonexistent wind, standing on a cliff like a tragic romance novel cover titled My Love, My Madness, My Maritime Mistake.

Behind him: roses. Exploding.

There were doves. At least one cannon. Possibly a fog machine.

Text at the bottom, glittering in gold foil and menace: “Buggy the Beloved.”

You considered ritual brain exorcism.

You started praying to deities you’d previously insulted. You lit candles for the gods of peace, privacy, and decent boundaries.

And just when you thought it couldn’t get worse?

He started writing stand-up comedy about your thighs.

Worse?

He was killing.

The crew was laughing.

“I’m just saying,” he quipped mid-set, “if love is war, her legs are nuclear deterrents. Look at ‘em. You could end global conflict with a well-placed wink.”

Someone allegedly passed out. Cabaji fell off a barrel. Mohji wept.

You are now considering:

Becoming a sea witch

Disappearing into myth

Transferring your soul into a crab Anything to escape the psychic equivalent of Buggy’s thirst-based improv career.

You’d been so careful.

So silent.

So fortified in your mind-palace of indifference and salt.

But you made one mistake.

A single, sleepy thought slipped through when you stubbed your toe on a cannonball:

“I hope a seagull steals your stupid nose and chokes on it.”

There was a pause.

Then a gasp.

A scandalized, breathless, romcom-worthy gasp, like you’d just whispered “I love you” under a dying moon, cradling him in your arms and kissing his bloodied clown makeup.

“You missed me.”

You did not.

You wished him psychic food poisoning. The bad kind. The kind with metaphorical kale and emotional cramps.

But Buggy?

Buggy took your one moment of pain-fueled insult as a confession.

An olive branch. A vow. A wedding proposal, somehow.

“That’s okay.” He cooed smugly and insufferably. “You’re shy. I get it. You’re gonna keep ignoring me. You’re gonna act like I didn’t see those thighs. That little lip bite. But I was there. And I am not letting you forget it.”

Ever since?

It’s been a waking nightmare.

A cursed romantic novella with glitter on the pages and blood in the margins.

You open your eyes: mental balloons.

You fall asleep: dream roses, raining from the heavens, each one whispering his name like a pick-up line you never asked for.

You sigh at the sea, and there he is in your mind’s eye: dressed like a tragic poet in a storm, shirt flapping, eyeliner smudged, declaring your thighs a national treasure to a crowd of horrified pirates.

Worst of all?

The emotional blackmail.

Delivered via unsolicited psychic monologues, raw and melodramatic enough to make a sea king cry:

“Do you even KNOW what it’s like being in love with someone who unquestionably has taste, a backbone, and hates your entire personality? It’s exhausting.”

You tried to drown the bond in holy seawater and lemon juice.

You tried to smudge the connection with sea salt, sage, and spiritual malice.

You whispered curses under your breath and carved sigils into driftwood during low tide like a woman possessed.

None of it worked.

Because Buggy, King of Clowns, Patron Saint of Poor Boundaries and Unholy Commitment, knows one thing with complete, unshakable, delusional confidence:

This bond? It’s sacred. It’s unbreakable. It’s horny. And you can’t escape it unless you die — or say my name in a sultry voice. Which, honestly, is the hotter option.”

You didn’t reply.

You didn’t blink.

You didn’t even breathe, in case he could use oxygen as an emotional loophole.

But he felt your silence.

And like a man convinced that rejection is just romantic tension dressed in a leather corset, he grinned.

“See? You’re still here. Thinking about me. Dreaming about me. Plotting my murder with tender intent. You know what that is?”

He paused.

Dramatically.

Psychically.

Like a man proposing with a ring pop and a cannon.

“It’s love, baby.”

And just like that, a mental glitter bomb detonated across your thoughts.

The sky rained roses.

Your internal monologue short-circuited.

Somewhere in your soul, a clown car crashed into your last nerve, honked, and burst into flames.

You closed your eyes.

Whispered to no one:

“I am going to kill him.”

And from across the bond, full of smug, shameless joy, he whispered back:

“Wear white.”

#fic rec #multistation fic rec #one piece #one piece x reader #buggy the clown #buggy x reader #fem reader #mod logan

204 notes · View notes

multifandom-rec-station · 15 hours ago

Text

of stems & swords

⟡ one piece - roronoa zoro x reader

⟡ wc: 2,158

⟡ mutual pining, fluff, unintentional confession, botanist!reader, strawhat!reader, floriography/language of flowers, zoro gets lost again

⟡ summary:

you end up drawing the short straw, but you don't mind when it's to go find your favorite swordsman.

Archive of Our Own

a/n: another short prompt from my bestie for her favorite man

[ Zoro gets lost and you drew the short straw, so it's up to you to bring him back to the sunny (but secretly you wanted to spend time w him anyway :>) ]

“Got the straws?”

Usopp nods and salutes, holding up the nine straws in his other hand. “Yes, ma’am!”

Nami nods sharply in approval. “Ok! Everyone on deck! You know what time it is!”

You hear an audible groan, courtesy of Sanji who then mutters a few curses under his breath. At that, you offer him a small smile as you go to stand next to him, appeasing his frown in an instant. The rest of the crew follow suit, and everyone, minus a certain someone, is in a circle at the center of the deck, Usopp’s arm outstretched so the straws are in the middle. One by one, everyone reaches for one, and you reach for the one that calls to you.

Unlike the chef, who whispers prayers to not pick the one with the painted tip, you secretly hope that the one pinched between your fingers has the little stripe of red at the end.

“Alright, one, two,” Nami counts down, and everyone waits with bated breath. “Three!”

You all pull the straws from Usopp’s hand, and to your surprise—

A stripe of red paints your chosen straw.

“Looks like you��re on Zoro Retrieval Duty!” Nami announces, and everyone looks unfazed, except for Sanji who looks equally relieved and guilty at your supposed misfortune. “Try to find him before dinner, but let us know if you can’t find him by sundown!”

“No worries, Nami. It can’t be too hard to find him,” you reassure her, waving a hand. “I’ll see you guys later!”

The crew bids you off and you make your way down the gang plank to head into town. From what Chopper had told you, Zoro had gone off to explore the forest further inland, curious about what it has to offer. So, you head deeper into the town, making your way across it before entering the forest past its gates. Thankful for the temperate climate of the island, you take in a deep breath, enjoying the warm sun and the fresh air that fills your lungs. It’s a calm respite from the chaotic islands you’ve visited before, and you bask in its peace. You’re not quite sure if it will stay that way, and you keep your fingers crossed that trouble doesn’t find you.

Or perhaps, Luffy doesn’t find trouble in the next few nights you’re here.

Regardless, you take the time to traverse forest, following the dirt path as you listen for any sign of the swordsman. The trees seem endless as you continue forward, and eventually, they open up, revealing a beautiful stretch of green, speckled by a myriad of blooms and hues. It’s a perfect spot to relax, it’s a perfect spot for a daytime nap.

“Zoro!” you call out, scanning the meadow. The breeze makes the grass and flowers sway, the movement reminiscent of ocean waves that you’ve grown accustomed to in the past few years of becoming a pirate.

Still, to this day, you’re not quite sure how fate had led you here. It had never been your plan to sail the seas. Originally, you’d lived a peaceful life, studying to become a botanist and having worked in your town’s research labs for years.

That is, until it had been taken over by your island’s government. They’d forced you into corrupt projects that went against all your morals and ethics, yet you had no choice but to lower your head and follow their orders to survive.

For months, you had suffered quietly alongside your team, until a fateful day had arrived— the Straw Hats arrival to the island, and their rebellion against the evil ruler.

And of course, the one to save you from the lab was none other than the green-haired swordsman, Roronoa Zoro.

It had concerned you quite a bit when he had nearly led you back from the way he came—aka, where he’d burst into the lab, a hoard of guards and enemies in tow. You had to lead him out of there and back to where his crew was in the aftermath of the battle, where you were introduced to everyone.

If not for your chance meeting with Zoro that led you to meeting the infamous captain of the Straw Hats, you would never have been invited to join the crew. You couldn’t help it though– not when Luffy was about to eat one of the most lethal fruits on the island. It snowballed from there, once Luffy realized you had all sorts of plant knowledge that even Robin commended on. It was helpful for him– especially when there was so much native vegetation on the island that he didn’t recognize, but smelled absolutely heavenly.

Yes, you’ve had to stop Luffy from eating other poisonous plants that resembled grilled meat and yes, you had to do it multiple times during their stay in your hometown.

Same with Chopper, who had nearly eaten a deadly flower that looked and smelled like cotton candy.

That alone was enough for an invitation (along with Nami and Usopp pleading you to keep the crew safe), and it’s how you find yourself as the Straw Hat’s dedicated botanist. Did pirate crews normally take in botanists?

Well, you consider Robin’s role as the archaeologist, and realize perhaps maybe it’s fine.

But back to your current search–carefully, you trek through the meadow, you do your best to navigate around patches of dirt and grass, eyes scanning the picturesque scene until you notice something in the distance.

A hilt—three, actually, stick up from the blooms, and as you grow closer to it, you find Zoro’s swords laid against a low tree stump, their owner lying comfortably in a patch of flowers. You can’t help but chuckle at the irony of it, recognizing the blooms to be gladioli, as Zoro sleeps away unbothered on his back, hands behind his head as a makeshift pillow.

“Zoro,” you murmur a bit quietly, crouching down next to him. “Wake up. It’s time to head back to the ship.”

At the sound of your voice, he grumbles a bit, but he cracks open his eye, blinking a few times before he focuses on you. “Oh? When’d you get here?”

You offer him a small smile. “Just now. Did you have a good nap?”

With a grunt, he sits up, yawning as he stretches his arms above his head. “Yeah. It was nice and peaceful. Couldn’t just pass up on a nice spot like this.”

“It’s perfect for you, too,” you point out, and Zoro raises an eyebrow.

“What do you mean?”

You gesture to the flowers that surround him, gently swaying with the breeze. “They’re gladiolus flowers,” you explain, gently caressing one of them near you. “In ancient languages, the word, gladius, means ‘little sword.’ Quite fitting for a swordsman like you to be around them, don’t you think?”

Zoro cracks a smile at that. “Guess so.”

You continue, “Warriors wore them around their necks for protection. Gently, you pick three and hold them in your hands. “They’re a symbol of strength and fierce loyalty.”

And with that, you offer them to him, holding out the bundle of flowers toward him. You watch as he sits up, eyeing them curiously until you flinch, realizing, “Sorry. This must sound quite foolish for someone like you.”

Just as you go to pull away, Zoro’s hand wraps around yours, his fingers curling around your own as he stops you.

“‘Course not,” he mutters quietly as he takes the flowers into his own fingers. They look much smaller in his calloused hands and he peers down at them with a gentle look in his eyes. “Thanks for teaching me.”

And your heart flutters at his words. “Of course.”

The sun melts into the expanse of the ocean by the time you return to town. Strolling through the dwindling foot traffic, you diligently stick by Zoro’s side, careful to keep him on the right path. While usually annoyed when someone corrects his path, he follows your lead without complaint, letting you reach out and tug on his arm to lead him down the right way. He’d given you the flowers back to hold onto, in case the two of you were to be ambushed by enemies or bounty hunters.

You never thought he’d cared much about your ramblings or your knowledge of flowers, but something about the three little gladiolus flowers in your hands says otherwise, and you can’t help but let the warm feeling bubble inside you as you make your way back to the ship.

At one point, you realize your footsteps have lost the echo of another, and you stop immediately, realizing that his presence is nowhere to be found. You sigh—it really does only take a split second for him to sneak away somehow, and it’s rather impressive he’s able to achieve such a feat. To be fair, you shouldn’t have been so distracted over the flowers in your hands or your bubbling emotions in your chest.

Feeling just a bit embarrassed, you backtrack, making sure to check every street and crossroad in search of the man, and you even go as far as peeking into the taverns and bars you’d passed by, wondering if he was just thirsty for some sake.

As soon as you’re turning around the corner, your heart leaps up as you crash into someone—only to yelp in surprise—“Zoro!?”

He makes a startled sound, maneuvering one of his arms upwards and steadying you with his other as you barely catch yourself against him. “Shit—sorry!”

You feel yourself grow warm—while one of your hands is still clutching the small bundle of gladioli, the other is splayed across Zoro’s bare chest. Fuck, fuck, your mind is going haywire at how firm his muscles are and how warm his skin feels under your fingertips and you’re absolutely mortified at your train of thought that continues down in a spiral.

“Where did you go?” you muster out, hoping you don’t sound frantic as you focus on the edge of his green coat and not his bare chest. He relaxes his hold on you, but makes no move to let go or step away.

“Saw something that caught my eye,” he answers nonchalantly with a small shrug. “Didn’t think you’d come running into me.”

“Hey, I was worried you’d end up back at the meadow with that compass of yours,” you joke lightly, tapping his forehead for emphasis. Zoro chuckles, and finally, he unwinds his arm from around you, and you take a small step back. “So, did you find something?”

Zoro nods, revealing the little item of interest that he’d been holding onto this entire time.

A small potted cactus. An Alabastan Spire, to be more specific.

“For you,” he says simply, and you shift the flowers to rest in the crook of your elbow, reaching out to accept the pot gently into your hands.

Your eyes land on the blooming flower at the side, the light pink petals beautifully flaring out despite the long needles that surround it.

“Why… Why a cactus?” you ask curiously, knowing your voice trembles a bit. You can’t help it—not when the botanist side of you pulls out any and all cactus related information from your brain in an instant, and the implications of it hitting you full blast. Floriography isn’t your strongest suit, but you remember some meanings well enough—including the meaning of gifting a blooming cactus. But to your surprise, a flush of pink dusts his cheeks, and as he turns his head away to avoid your gaze, you notice the tips of his ears are painted a similar hue. Your breath hitches as your heart beats faster.

“They’re resilient. Not sure if that’s what they mean or symbolize, but it made me think of you,” he answers a bit bashfully, before he musters up the courage to finally meet your eyes. “Don’t laugh.”

Rough and tough Supernova Roronoa Zoro may as well be pouting at this very moment, barely meeting your gaze with rosy cheeks, and you can't help but smile to the point your own cheeks hurt.

“I would never,” you breathe out, half in relief and half in adoration. “I love it. Thank you, Zoro.”

He perks up and grins, a beam of pride as he looks down at you. “Good. Now let’s head back. I’m starving.”

With a smooth step, he takes the gladioli from your hands, before making his way down the path. With a chuckle, you shake your head before catching up to him, slipping an arm around his and tugging him the right way back home. With your arm entwined with his, and your new little cactus in your other hand, you make your way back to the Sunny by his side.

But you’d never tell him the true meaning of giving one a blooming cactus. You’ll save him the embarrassment, but perhaps one day it’d be a humorous story to tell him.

"In the Japanese tradition of Hanakotoba, giving the gift of a flower from a cactus is a clear way to indicate you’re sexually attracted towards someone due to its connection with lust." (thank you flower meaning dot com)

#fic rec #multistation fic rec #one piece #one piece x reader #roronoa zoro #zoro x reader #fem reader #mod logan

164 notes · View notes

multifandom-rec-station · 20 hours ago

Text

Olympo Masterlist

Nothing here is written by us, we're a recommendations blog, these are all pieces written by other creators

If there's anything you think we've tagged incorrectly/you have a users tumblr where we don't/a link is wrong or broken - please let us know and we can adjust it

Feat. content about Scooby Gang, Slayers, and Vampires

Reader insert and canon/canon content ahead

✅ - SFW Content

🔞 - NSFW Content

✅ Meanwhile, at some random party in the cabin by @pascaloverx

Sebas/Roque

🔞 Persuasion on AO3 by sebasroque and @lesbiradshaw on Tumblr

Sebas/Roque

#navigation #nav #multistation posting #fic rec #olympo netflix #olympo #olympo fanfic #roque perez #sebas sendon #roque x sebas #sebas x roque

4 notes · View notes

multifandom-rec-station · 2 days ago

Text

a helping hand || spencer reid x fem!reader 18+

it's been a long night of no sleep and no ability to help yourself relax. in a moment of pure desperation, you call your lovely boyfriend spencer to help you out. he's enthusiastic to say the least.

warnings: 2.2k words of pure smut. fingering (fem receiving). some dirty talk. reader uses a vibrator. soft, domestic spencer. they both just love each other with so much care that it's a little sickening. not proof read.

18+ under the cut. MDNI.

It’s nearing 2 am when you cave. Chewing your lip, you roll over and fight the sheets looking for your phone. When it tumbles onto your lap with a soft thump, you stare at it, considering. Fingers twitching, you pick it up and navigate to Spencer’s contact.

You know he’s home, on a week break from cases. You can imagine him, likely still awake, reading. You hit the text button, sending a short hi honey, are you awake? and throwing your phone away, face hot with embarrassment.

The thing is, you know Spencer will be delighted to hear from you. The delight will turn to smugness quickly when he recognizes your problem, of course, but you’re certain that it’ll be dripping in fondness, too.

Spencer has never faltered in his desire for you or to help you.

Repeatedly, when you first started seeing him, he would spend hours in bed with you, holding tight and whispering in your ear.

“I could never be bothered by you” or “you know how you hate when I cut myself off when talking about something? That’s how I feel about you keeping quiet in self-doubt with me” and “I love you, angel, every part of you. Every curve, every word, every roll or wrinkle, and especially every thought in that pretty head.” You force yourself to replay those memories, the heat already simmering in your belly rising to a boil as you do.

Your phone buzzes and the speed at which you snatch it off of the pillow beside you is embarrassing.

Yes, angel. What’s wrong?

Before you can start to type an answer, an incoming call shakes the phone in your hands.

Spencer <3 his name reads, a little pink heart next to it that you’d blushed privately about when choosing, the flush increasing by tenfold when he’d discovered it and cooed at you about it.

“Hi,” you whisper into the receiver, voice soft and gooey. You wonder if he’ll be able to read you from the one word, soft and sloppy in your want for him.

“Hi angel, everything okay?” His voice is similarly soft, mirroring your tone. You can hear the quiet sounds of his apartment behind him – the hum of the air conditioner, a faint record playing. He shifts and you hear the soft sounds of fabric moving. You have the childish urge to ask him what he’s wearing to fill in the details of your imagining of him.

“Yes, I just wanted to ask you something,” you say, rolling over in your bed and pulling the sheets to cover your chest.

You’re hot, burning up, but to lay exposed on the phone with him feels vulgar, like you’re taking something you’ve yet to ask him for. You doubt he would mind, would likely be pretty keen on the idea of you naked on the other side of the phone, touching yourself, but you don’t want to assume. Phone sex isn’t an area you’ve ventured into with each other yet, and it’s not your goal tonight either.

“Ask me,” he urges, and you can hear him set something down. Likely a book.

You hum, listening to the proof of him existing outside of your orbit for a moment. The silence stretches for a few moments and your eyes close drowisily. You’d nearly forgotten that your original ultimate goal was to unwind that tense part of yourself enough that you might slip into sleep.

Instead, all you’d achieved was winding yourself tighter and tighter, unable to let the tension snap.

“Lovely?” Spencer asks, resorting to the nickname he knows makes you melt.

“Sorry, it’s just a lil’ embarrassing is all.”

“Hm,” Spencer hums, voice deep and so hum that you melt further into your mattress. “You don’t have anything to be embarrassed about with me, so you should just ask so I can help you.”

You know he’s right but shame floods you just the same. When you speak, you do so slowly, like a child confessing they broke a bowl.

“I was trying to get myself to sleep but I couldn’t and so I thought if I, um, made myself come it would help. Cos you’re always saying about how it releases the endorphins and stuff. But, I can’t, not without you.” Your voice has shifted into a soft wine, one laced with so much earnest love and want for him that you can’t help it. “So I was wondering if you could come help me? Can’t do it without you.”

You hear Spencer breathing on the other line, a thick swallow, then more breathing. You’re just about to take it all back and hang up. Take a shower to wash away the feeling of rejection and just take some melatonin and sleep by yourself like the adult you are.

Before you can, though, Spencer lets out a rush of air in a pleased sort of exhale.

“I’d assumed, you know,” he says, voice flush with excitement, the clear sound of him moving around in the background, “you get a certain way when you’re all worked up. But that was so pretty to hear, baby, I’m on my way.”

“Thank you, Spence. Mean it,” you say, cheek pushed up against your pillow and relief flooding your veins.

“Of course, angel. Thank you for calling, you’re so good for that.” The sound of his door, his shoes clipping against the concrete outside of his door, a key in a lock.

“Yeah?” You ask, feinding for praise after setting yourself out on a ledge like that.

“Yeah, angel, yes. It’ll take me twelve minutes to get there, okay? Just wait, I’m on my way.”

“Okay. Love you, Spencer.”

“I love you too, sweet girl.”

Spencer arrives promptly twelve minutes later. You hear him unlock the door, a sliver of excitement painted anxiety pressing under your ribs at the sound. You listen as he shuts the door behind him, locks it, and takes off his shoes.

On socked feet he makes his way into your room, lightly knocking on the door before pushing it open.

You’re sure you’re a sight to see, strewn across your sheets, naked, body slightly sweaty. You’ve turned off most of the lights other than a small lamp and the gentle glow hits his face at a harsh angle, giving you a perfect view of his eyes and nothing else. He looks pleased to see you, honeyed gaze watching you with a sort of familiar hunger that makes the tension of coil tighten in your belly that much more.

“Hi angel,” he greets, “can I come in?”

Always so aware of you and your space. Always so polite. You simper, privately wishing he’d barge in and ravish you. You love him all the more for the fact that he doesn’t, though, the tight net of safety with him always hung just below you, ready to catch you when you fall.

“Please,” you whisper.

He’s in soft pants and a sweater, the collar stretched. He looks so warm, so comfortable, you can barely stand the sight. Slowly, he presses a knee against the edge of your mattress and hovers over you. He makes a soft clicking sound in the back of his throat, curving at the spine to press soft kisses to each apex of your cheeks.

“Thank you for calling me.”

“Thank you for coming.” He smiles at your answer, leaning to stand again and pulling his sweater over his head before he climbs into bed.

He’s swinging his leg over you, positioning himself for what you assume will be a real proper kiss, when his hand hits something in the sheets. He pauses, settling half over you, and lifts his hand holding a small object.

It’s your vibrator. Small, palm sized, and pink.

You burn with heat when you realize.

“What’s this?” Spencer asks, voice amused. He doesn’t wait for you to answer, though, twisting it in his hand and pressing a button. It jumps to life with a soft buzz. It’s quiet, one of the major selling points for you, but you can still hear it humming in his hand. “This what you were using before you called me, hm?”

You nod, aching for him. Under your desire to kiss him, to press your hands to his warm arms and pull him down to you, you’re sure there’s some shame. It’s hard to find, though, when he’s looking at you like the most interesting person he’s ever seen.

“Want me to use it on you, to help you finish what you started? You’re shaking your head no emphatically before he finishes his question.

“No,” you whimper, giving into your craving and reaching up to touch him. His shoulder, his neck, the soft skin under his eye. “Just want you, baby, only you, please.”

“Okay,” he whispers, voice velvet. He clicks the small machine off, setting it on your bedside table, “Okay, angel, of course.” He crawls over you, then, weight pressing deliciously down on your legs. He skimms his nose across the line of your jaw, scraping his teeth softly before moving down to the soft line of your throat. “Whatever you need.”

He spends his time lavishing the soft skin there, sucking and kissing and licking. You’d mentioned once how you hated your profile, hated the soft lines and lingering baby fat you never quite shed.

Spencer looked personally offended as you did so, pinching the skin where your jaw meets your neck and pulling you closer by the back of your neck. You’re joking, right? he’d asked, mouthing the spot and sucking gently. How could you? So afronted, so gentle, so loving.

You’re busy sighing at the memory and his ministrations that you nearly miss the way his hand skims your thigh. What you don’t miss is the way his fingers press into you, slipping past the warm, slippery mess you’ve made of yourself to press gently onto your hole.

“Feel that, angel? So wet. Were you thinking of me, with that little toy pressed to your pretty pussy?” You nod, cheek pressing against his hair.

“Yes, always thinkin’ of you, Spence.”

“Is that so?” He humms, pressing slowly into you. You let out a soft keening sound. “Did you use your fingers, too, stretch yourself out?”

“No,” you shake your head, “never feels right when I do it. Only you can do it right.” Your answers are pathetic, slipping into that heavenly place you always do when Spencer gets you like this. You’re worked up, ready for him to take you and guide you where you need. He always knows what’s best for you so you turn pliant in his hands, mouldable and vulnerable.

He’d once told you how he adores it, the total trust in how you look at him. The loss of self-conciousness you feel. How you strip for him in every sense of the word and let him have his way.

Now, though, his head lifts from where he was working his lips across your chest to look at you. His pupils have dilated, blown out with lust for you.

“You’re so perfect, baby, fuck.” The swear makes you suck in breath sharply as it’s accompanied by his fingers suddenly reach further into you, stretching you in a way you’ve craved for hours. He doesn’t usually curse, saving his word for gooey fondness pressed with velvet sweetness aimed at you. Usually it’s reserved for fuck, yes, angel girl mouthed into your hair as he tumbles over the edge himself.

“Am I?” You ask, stretching your neck to reach him, wildly aware he hasn’t kissed you the right way yet tonight. You crave his praise, his attention, his everything. You know he has all of you and you want all of him in turn.

“Always baby, always.”

He dips to kiss you, deep and slow as his fingers work inside of you. You feel yourself close, the rapid tightening in your belly pooling. It comes to a point suddenly when he presses his palm to your clit, pressing down hard and grinding with every movement.

You let out a string of soft ‘ah’s’ at every press, coming around his fingers and into his mouth. You kiss him as he lets you ride it out, open mouth presses to his lips, his jaw, anywhere you can reach. Slowly, the sounds you’re making morph into his name, repeated as a mantra.

He doesn’t slow, fingers deft in their movements. He sushes you when you try and ask him to stop, to slow down, pressing a kiss to your hairline.

“I’ve got you baby, shh,” he simply says, catapulting you into another orgasm.

This one is sweet, low and warm in your belly. You feel the heat of it pool into your hipbones, turning you to all cooing soft sensation. He slows his hand as you melt, boneless, into your mattress, eyes slipping shut.

The exhaustion that had chased you through the day only to fight with your mind when you went to sleep encapsulates you now.

“You did good, angel,” Spencer whispers to your temple. “So good.”

“Mmm,” you mumble, sliding your hands around the back of his neck to pull him down, weight against you. Blanketed by his warmth, you promise, “you next.”

He chuckles, fully aware you’ll be asleep in seconds. He presses another kiss to your hair, then a second to the space below your ear. “Sure thing, angel, I’ll be here.”

#fic rec #multistation fic rec #criminal minds #criminal minds x reader #spencer reid #spencer reid x reader #fem reader #afab reader #mod logan

292 notes · View notes