#“forgets how to talk” in school when his classmates get loud | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

keisgirl · 2 months ago

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2.0 ; miya atsumu

pairing; atsumu miya x reader

wc; 5k

is being miya atsumus clone the best thing in the world, or will she find a way to carve out her own identity on the volleyball court?

you grew up with the miya twins, tangled in the mess of their rivalry and camaraderie, always in the middle, always keeping up.

they called you the girl version of atsumu, from the moment you first stepped onto the court. same position, same drive, same reckless grin when you won. number seven stitched onto your back like it was meant to be there. you were quick, sharp, loud-mouthed, just like him.

and they never let you forget it.

"oi, girl-tsumu," atsumu would call, slinging an arm around your shoulders. "yer servin’s slippin’. ya gonna let me take the crown this year?"

"dream on, miya," you'd shoot back, flicking his forehead hard enough to make him whine. osamu would snicker, always watching the two of you go back and forth, never stepping in—just there to witness the chaos.

as kids, it was fun. as kids, it felt like being part of something bigger than yourself, like belonging. you bleached your hair when he did, let the color burn your scalp just to prove you could. you matched him beat for beat, dive for dive, living in the shadow he never meant to cast but did anyway.

but then you grew up. and suddenly, it wasn’t as fun anymore.

because when atsumu got praised, you got compared. when atsumu won, you were just second place, the girl version of him, as if you weren’t your own person. the name ‘miya’ carried weight, and even though it wasn’t yours, they tied it to you like a leash. you thought you could be his equal, but all they saw was an echo.

“yer too sensitive,” atsumu says one day, after you snap at a teammate for calling you ‘atsumu with a ponytail.’

your hands curl into fists, nails digging into your palms. “maybe yer too blind.”

atsumu blinks. “huh?”

“yer too blind to see that i ain’t you.”

the words hang in the air between you, sharp and cutting. you see the moment he realizes, the moment he pieces together every forced smile, every tense laugh, every time you swallowed down the bitter taste of second place.

his mouth opens, but you don’t wait to hear whatever he has to say. you just turn and walk away, wondering if you’ll ever stop being a reflection.

suddenly, you don’t play volleyball anymore.

suddenly, you’re not inarzaki’s genius girl setter.

suddenly, you have black hair.

suddenly, you don’t feel like yourself.

suddenly, you don’t talk in class.

suddenly, you’re first in grades, not in physical education.

suddenly, the girl who used to be on the court screaming at her teammates is now the one sitting in the back of the classroom, silent, unnoticed.

and people start to notice.

your teachers hesitate before calling your name, expecting the loud, confident voice that used to answer so easily. your classmates steal glances at you when tests get handed back, murmuring about how you’ve replaced your talent for setting with perfect grades. the volleyball team stares at the empty space on the court where you used to stand, the absence of your presence a hole they can’t seem to fill.

osamu, usually unbothered by everything, nudges atsumu one afternoon. “ya talk to her lately?”

atsumu scoffs, crossing his arms. “she’s the one avoidin’ me.”

“yeah?” osamu raises an eyebrow. “or maybe ya just never noticed how much she hated bein’ ya shadow.”

atsumu doesn’t have a comeback for that. because deep down, he knows. he just never thought you’d actually leave. never thought you’d change so much, that the fire in your eyes would be replaced with something distant, unreachable.

so one day, he corners you after school, standing in front of your desk before you can escape.

“what the hell’s goin’ on with ya?” he demands.

you don’t look up from your notebook. “nothin’.”

“bullshit,” he huffs, grabbing your pen and tossing it onto the desk. “ya dyed yer hair, quit the team, don’t even look at me no more—how the hell is that nothin’?”

you sigh, finally meeting his gaze. there’s something tired in your expression, something he’s never seen before. “it ain’t sudden, ‘tsumu.”

and that’s what scares him the most. because if it wasn’t sudden, then that means it was happening all along. and he just never saw it.

“i left alive, but at the same time, i felt like atsumu miya, ya know?” you murmur, voice quieter than he’s ever heard it. “like i wasn’t myself. i was just... you.”

atsumu stiffens, his breath catching.

“besides,” you continue, leaning back in your chair, staring at the ceiling. “the girls’ volleyball team can manage just fine. it’s not like we ever made it to spring high anyway.”

third year. the last year.

atsumu feels the weight of your words settle deep in his chest. there’s something final about them, something irreversible. and for the first time in his life, he doesn’t know how to fix it.

atsumu tries to ignore it at first.

he tries to act like nothing’s changed, like you’re still the same person who used to stand shoulder to shoulder with him, the one who used to bicker with him over who had the better toss, who used to swear up and down that one day, you’d be the setter people remembered most from inarizaki.

but he can’t ignore it. not when you won’t even look at him, not when every interaction between you now feels like he’s talking to a stranger.

he watches from the court, gaze flicking to the empty space on the benches where you used to sit. back when you stayed after practice even if you didn’t have to, back when you’d drill him on his serves and let him rant about whatever was on his mind. back when he never had to think twice about where you’d be—because you were always there.

except now you aren’t.

he lasts a month before he finally snaps. before he marches into your classroom after school, ignoring the way your classmates whisper as he looms over your desk.

“we’re talkin’. now.”

“no, we’re not.”

atsumu’s jaw clenches. “yer bein’ real difficult, ya know that?”

“not my problem.”

his patience wears thin. “what the hell happened to ya?”

you exhale through your nose, flipping a page in your notebook like he isn’t standing there, like he isn’t practically shaking with frustration. “i grew up, atsumu. maybe ya should try it sometime.”

“bullshit,” he hisses. “growing up don’t mean abandoning everything ya cared about. ya loved volleyball.”

“yeah? well, maybe it didn’t love me back.”

that shuts him up. because he doesn’t know what to say to that—doesn’t know how to argue against something so heavy, so full of something he doesn’t understand.

his fists tighten at his sides. “ya really just gonna throw it all away?”

“what’s left to throw away?” you mutter, finally looking up at him. and there’s something in your eyes, something hollow and tired and so unlike you that it makes his stomach twist. “i was never really playin’ for myself anyway.”

he swallows hard. “that ain’t true.”

but you only shake your head, gathering your things before standing, brushing past him like he’s not even there.

“if it ain’t, then why did it feel like i had to disappear to be seen?”

and atsumu has no answer for that either.

“ya got it bad,” osamu remarks one afternoon, watching atsumu glare at his untouched lunch.

atsumu scoffs, stabbing his chopsticks into his rice. “shut up.”

“yer miserable,” osamu continues, undeterred. “and ya know why.”

atsumu doesn’t respond, just shoves a bite of food into his mouth like that’ll stop his brother from talking. it doesn’t.

“always hoverin’ around her, always lookin’ like a kicked puppy when she ignores ya.” osamu shakes his head, a knowing smirk tugging at his lips. “if ya ask me, it’s kinda obvious.”

atsumu scowls. “nothin’s obvious.”

“except that ya like her.”

he nearly chokes on his food. “what?!”

osamu raises an eyebrow, entirely unimpressed. “oh, come on. ‘tsumu, ya been in love with her since we were kids.”

“yer talkin’ shit.”

“am i?” osamu leans back, arms crossed. “then why does it bother ya so much that she’s not playin’ anymore? why can’t ya let it go?”

atsumu opens his mouth, but nothing comes out. because as much as he wants to deny it, the truth is sitting right there, laughing in his face.

he’s spent years trying to outrun it, masking it with teasing and rivalry, with stupid fights and mindless competition. but now that she’s gone—now that she’s slipping further and further away—he realizes that osamu’s right.

he’s always been in love with you.

he finds you after school, waiting outside the gates, hands shoved into his pockets like it’s just another day.

“what now, atsumu?” you sigh, stopping in front of him.

he exhales sharply, staring at you like he’s trying to piece together a puzzle he should’ve figured out years ago. “yer right,” he says finally. “i never saw it.”

you blink, caught off guard. “saw what?”

“that i was losin’ ya,” he admits, voice quieter than usual. “that ya weren’t just my reflection. that ya were yer own person this whole time.”

there’s something vulnerable in his face, something raw, and it makes your chest ache in a way you don’t want to acknowledge.

“i don’t want ya to disappear,” he continues. “not from volleyball, not from me.”

you hesitate, searching his expression for any sign of insincerity, but all you find is honesty. and maybe a little desperation.

“i dunno if i can go back to the way things were,” you murmur.

atsumu nods. “then let’s make somethin’ new.”

he’s close now, closer than he’s ever been, and suddenly, you’re not just thinking about volleyball, about rivalry, about anything other than the fact that atsumu miya is looking at you like you’re the only person in the world.

“i mean it,” he says, voice barely above a whisper. “i don’t want ya to just be the girl version of me. i want ya to be my girl.”

your heart stumbles in your chest, and for the first time in a long time, you don’t feel like you’re standing in his shadow. you feel like you’re standing beside him.

and this time, you let yourself smile.

atsumu had already confessed.

it had been awkward and kind of messy, because he’s atsumu and of course it was, but it was real. undeniable. a moment so big and sudden that it left you standing at a crossroads with no map, no clear direction except the weight of his words anchoring you to the present.

so you said yes.

not just to him, but to volleyball. to trying again.

except trying again means stepping back into a world that’s always seen you as someone else’s shadow. and no matter how much you want to believe that things will be different this time, it’s hard not to slip back into old habits.

“damn, ya even move like him.”

it’s a passing comment from a teammate, said with no real bite, but it still sticks. the way it always does. the way it always has.

you shake it off, try to ignore it, but the more you play, the more you notice it too. the way your hands twitch into the same mannerisms, the way you call plays with the same sharp confidence, the way your presence on the court starts to feel less like yours and more like his.

and maybe that wouldn’t bother you so much if you hadn’t fought so hard to be something else.

“what’s goin’ on with ya?” atsumu asks one day, watching as you linger in the gym long after practice has ended.

you don’t turn to face him. “nothin’.”

“bullshit.”

his footsteps echo against the polished floors, stopping just behind you. you know he’s waiting for you to talk, but you don’t know what to say, don’t know how to explain the creeping feeling of losing yourself all over again.

“i just…” you exhale, gripping the ball in your hands. “it’s stupid.”

“it’s not.”

he says it so easily, so confidently, like it’s a fact. and that alone makes something tighten in your chest.

“everyone still sees me as your copy,” you admit finally. “i don’t know how to play without fallin’ back into it.”

atsumu is quiet for a moment, and then, gently, he reaches out, fingers curling around your wrist, thumb brushing against your pulse.

“then stop tryin’ to be different from me,” he murmurs. “just play like you.”

your breath catches.

because you never thought of it that way before. you’d spent so much time trying to prove that you weren’t just another miya atsumu that you forgot to figure out who you actually were.

“easier said than done,” you mutter, but there’s no real bite to it.

he grins. “yeah, well, lucky for ya, i happen to be an expert at bein’ myself.”

it’s stupid. it’s so stupid. but it makes you laugh anyway, and when he leans in to steal a kiss, you let him, because for the first time in a long time, you don’t feel like you’re drowning in someone else’s reflection.

you feel like you.

playing like yourself, as it turns out, is just playing like him.

but that’s okay, you think. because this time, you’re not fighting against it—you’re making it your own.

and maybe that’s why, for the first time in inarizaki’s history, both the boys’ and girls’ teams qualify for spring high.

It happened fast. one practice game, then another, and suddenly, the tickets are in your hands, the realization sinking in. you’re going to spring high. and apparently, word has spread fast enough that university scouts are interested in watching you play.

but that’s a thought for another time.

because right now, you’re in a gym, tying your freshly bleached hair back into a ponytail, watching as atsumu scowls at you like you personally offended him.

“what?” you ask, raising an eyebrow.

he gestures vaguely at your head. “yer tryin’ to steal my look.”

“please,” you scoff. “if anything, i pull it off better.”

“ya wish.”

“i know.”

before he can throw a comeback, osamu saunters over, phone in hand, suna right behind him.

“oi, oi,” suna muses, tilting his head as he looks between you and atsumu. “this is gettin’ kinda creepy.”

osamu hums, nodding. “y’know, we always joked about ya bein’ the girl version of ‘tsumu, but now? now yer just his clone.”

“take a picture,” suna says, already pulling his own phone out. “this moment deserves to be remembered.”

“yer both the worst,” atsumu grumbles, but he doesn’t move away, and neither do you.

because as much as you roll your eyes, as much as you pretend to be annoyed, there’s something warm about the way osamu adjusts the camera angle, about the way suna snickers under his breath before snapping the photo.

it’s a moment that feels like childhood and the future all at once—like proof that, no matter what happens, you’ll always have this. always have them.

spring high awaits, but for now, you let yourself enjoy this. let yourself smile as suna shoves the phone in your face, as atsumu ruffles your hair, as osamu mutters something about how he’ll use this to embarrass you both later.

it’s stupid. it’s so stupid.

but it’s yours.

spring high is everything you expected and nothing like you imagined.

the energy is electric, the anticipation thrumming under your skin as you step onto the court. it’s bigger than anything you’ve ever played in before, and yet, it doesn’t scare you. not this time.

maybe because you know you belong here. maybe because, when you glance at the boys' court in the other venue, you know he’s there too.

it’s funny. for so long, you hated being compared to atsumu. hated the way people called you his copy, his shadow. but now? now you don’t care. because you’re not his copy—you’re his equal.

but not everyone sees it that way.

on the way to the restroom before your next match, you overhear them—two university scouts talking in hushed voices.

“she plays just like miya atsumu,” one says, almost amused.

something tight coils in your chest, the words digging under your skin, itching like an old wound. but before you can turn away, the other scout hums thoughtfully.

“or maybe,” they say, “miya atsumu plays just like her.”

that gives you pause. because for the first time, it isn’t a comparison meant to diminish you. it’s a statement that acknowledges you—your skill, your presence, your worth.

and suddenly, the tension melts away, replaced with something lighter, something almost giddy.

you hold onto that feeling as you return to the court, and later, when you catch atsumu during a break between matches, you can’t help but tell him about it.

“guess what i heard?” you start, rocking back on your heels as he tilts his head at you.

“somethin’ dumb, probably,” he says, deadpan.

“nah,” you grin. “somethin’ real nice, actually.”

you pause for effect, then smirk. “some scouts said i play just like miya atsumu.”

he scoffs. “duh.”

“but,” you add, savoring the moment, “the other scout said maybe miya atsumu plays just like me.”

that makes him pause. his brows lift slightly, the corner of his mouth twitching up as he considers your words. then, after a beat, he huffs a laugh, reaching out to ruffle your hair.

“‘bout time someone got it right.”

when you step onto the court again, you play the way you always have—with precision, with instinct, with a fire that matches his in every way. you don’t have to fight against it anymore, don’t have to deny the way your movements sync up, the way your presence commands the game just like his does.

it’s a hard game. the best teams in the country are here for a reason. but you push through, setting perfect balls, making impossible saves, throwing yourself into every point like it’s the last one you’ll ever play.

and then you win. not the whole tournament—not yet—but the match, the one that guarantees you another game, another chance to keep going.

when you walk off the court, chest heaving, jersey damp with sweat, there’s someone waiting for you near the sidelines.

“ya looked good out there,” atsumu says, arms crossed, a stupid grin on his face.

“you too,” you reply, shoving his shoulder as you walk past.

but he catches your wrist, spinning you back around before you can go. there’s something in his eyes, something different. something you’re still getting used to.

“yer the real deal,” he says, softer this time. “not just ‘cause ya play like me. ‘cause ya play like you.”

your heart stumbles in your chest, and for a moment, it’s just the two of you in this massive stadium, the rest of the world fading away.

then he grins again, tugging you closer, voice dropping to a teasing whisper. “but i gotta admit, we do look good together.”

“oh my god,” you groan, yanking your wrist free. “don’t make me regret bleachin’ my hair.”

he laughs, easy and warm, and when you walk away, you don’t have to look back to know he’s still watching.

because this time, you’re not walking alone.

nevermind, spring high is chaos.

it’s sweat and exhaustion, adrenaline and pressure, the deafening sound of the crowd screaming for a win. it’s the last chance for third-years. it’s everything and nothing at once.

the boys’ team blazes through their matches, tearing down opponents like it’s their only purpose, and you do the same. for the first time in your life, you’re not just keeping up with atsumu—you’re standing beside him, in your own court, your own battlefield, chasing the same dream.

but dreams don’t always end the way you want them to.

it happens fast. the boys make it to the finals, just like everyone expected them to. but across the net is karasuno. an unpredictable team, a team that shouldn’t have even made it this far, a team that plays with something reckless and untamed in their veins.

it’s a war. point for point, neither side gives in. atsumu is sharper than ever, his sets perfect, his serves cutting through the air like a weapon. you winced when his set was a bit off then sighed when osamu reached it. but on the other side, there’s hinata. and kageyama. and something about them just doesn’t break.

and then, just like that, it’s over.

inarizaki loses.

for a moment, there’s only silence. then the reality crashes down, the weight of it pressing against their shoulders. suna looks pissed but resigned. osamu looks torn between frustration and acceptance. and atsumu—

atsumu is staring at the scoreboard, jaw clenched, hands in fists, like he’s trying to hold onto something that’s already slipping through his fingers.

you don’t say anything, don’t try to tell him it’s okay, because you know it isn’t. so instead, you wait until the crowd thins, until the interviews and formalities are over, until he’s finally sitting in the hallway outside the locker room, staring at the floor.

“it wasn’t enough,” he mutters when you sit beside him.

“it never is,” you say.

he laughs, but it’s hollow. “yer not gonna tell me we did great?”

“nah,” you lean back against the wall. “you wouldn’t believe me anyway.”

he exhales, sharp and tired, then turns his head to look at you. you meet his gaze, steady and knowing, because you’ve both lost before. you’ve both fought for something and had it slip through your fingers. you know what it feels like.

but you also know that this isn’t the end. not for him. not for you. not for any of you.

“yer up next,” he finally says, nodding towards the girls’ side of the tournament. “ya better win.”

“duh.”

and maybe that’s enough. for now.

because even in the aftermath of loss, there’s still the next game. still the next step. still the future waiting for both of you.

and you’ll be ready.

when you step onto the court for the semifinals, the crowd stirs. whispers ripple through the stands.

“number seven…? looks exactly like that number seven on the boys’ team.”

“they play the same too, don’t they?”

“no, she’s sharper, her feints are cleaner.”

“nah, atsumu’s serves are better.”

“but she’s fast. like—really fast.”

you hear it all. you always have. but this time, it doesn’t weigh as heavy. this time, when you glance towards the stands, atsumu’s sitting there with his arms crossed, a smirk on his face like he already knows you’re about to shut them all up.

and you do.

by the time the match is over, there’s no more comparisons. no more questions. you make sure of it.

you blaze through sets, direct plays with the precision only someone like you can manage. the semifinals are grueling, the longest, most exhausting game you’ve ever played. your body aches, your lungs burn, but you don’t stop—because this is your last year. your last chance. and you won’t let it slip away.

when the final whistle blows, you don’t even register it for a second. you’re staring at the scoreboard, at the impossible score, at the realization hitting you like a tidal wave.

inarizaki’s girls’ team made it to the finals.

before you know it, you’re being tackled, arms wrapping around you, voices screaming in your ears. your teammates are crying, laughing, shaking with disbelief. and when you finally glance towards the stands, atsumu is on his feet, cheering louder than anyone else.

“she’s good.”

“she’s atsumu’s twin.”

“nah,” the voice comes from a coach sitting close to the court, watching you with interest. “maybe atsumu is hers.”

when you hear it, your lips twitch into a smirk.

later that night, you tell atsumu, smugly, playfully. he groans, ruffling your hair even though it’s already messy from the match.

“shut up.”

“not my fault you got overshadowed.”

“yer my girlfriend, you should be nice to me.”

“i am nice. i let you sit next to me.”

he flicks your forehead, but his grin is unmistakable.

and maybe—just maybe—that’s the best part of all of this.

not the wins, not the competition, not even proving yourself.

but knowing that no matter what, you and atsumu will always be standing next to each other, pushing each other forward, even if the world only sees one shadow.

but the night after the boys' loss is quiet, too quiet. (maybe cause they got lectured after being praised)

even with the weight of victory on your shoulders, you can feel the air around you, heavy with disappointment. the inarizaki boys were supposed to go all the way, to take the championship, to cement their names in history. instead, they lost. and no matter how well they played, no matter how hard they fought, the sting of it is still fresh.

atsumu hasn’t said much. osamu is silent, suna is brooding, and the rest of the team is lost in their own thoughts. but even with all that, they still show up for you. still cheer for you. because you made it. because the girls' team, the brand-new, barely-established girls' team, is in the finals.

“yer gonna win,” atsumu says that night, his voice hoarse from shouting during your semifinals. he leans back against the wall in your hotel room, arms crossed, eyes sharp. “yer gonna bring back that trophy.”

“you sound so sure,” you murmur, stretching out your leg, wincing slightly.

his gaze flickers to you, narrowing. “what’s wrong?”

“nothing.”

it’s a lie. your knee has been screaming at you since the second set of the semifinals, but you didn’t say anything. didn’t let it show. you don’t have time to be injured. not now. not when you’re one game away from winning it all.

atsumu watches you for a second longer, then sighs, ruffling his hair. “don’t push too hard.”

“i always push too hard.”

he lets out a breath, something almost like a laugh. “yeah. i know.”

later that night, as the team settles in, as exhaustion weighs down on everyone, you stay awake. staring at the ceiling. feeling the dull ache in your knee, feeling the pressure settle on your chest. you think about everything that’s led you here, about the hours, the sacrifices, the moments of doubt and frustration.

and then you think about tomorrow.

one more game.

one more chance.

and no matter what, you’re going to take it.

the finals.

the first set is smooth, clean. you send a perfect toss to your wing spiker, and they score. your movements are fluid, precise,muscle memory carrying you through. you can feel the weight of every pair of eyes in the gym, hear the murmurs in the crowd.

“number seven…?” someone whispers the same phrase heard multiple times again. “looks exactly like that number seven on the boys’ team.”

atsumu’s name is everywhere, floating through the stands. comparisons, expectations, judgments.

second set, things start slipping. your sets are a little off, the timing just a fraction of a second late. you don’t miss, but you don’t feel right, either. the moment the ball leaves your hands, you can feel the weight of atsumu and osamu’s stares from the stands. especially atsumu’s.

third set. you send a toss too far, forcing your spiker to stretch for it. you grit your teeth. something is wrong.

you dump the fourth ball yourself, surprising the blockers, earning a point. but your team is still trailing by three.

fifth set. you go for a quick set to your middle blocker, jumping–-

pain. your knee gives out mid-air.

you don’t hit the floor hard, but the moment your knee buckles, the entire gym gasps. you wince, not in pain, but in frustration, in disgust. because you already know what comes next. you can already hear atsumu’s voice in your head, his inevitable lecture. he cares—he always does—but the competition is bigger than that. and you? you didn’t even last the first full game to three.

as the referee calls for a timeout and your coach rushes over, you swallow hard, forcing yourself to sit up. you don’t want to look at the stands, don’t want to see the expression on atsumu’s face. you already know what it’ll be.

but the game isn’t over yet.

and you sure as hell aren’t done.

“you’re done.”

atsumu’s voice is sharp, cutting through the noise of the gym like a blade. he stands (spawns??) in front of you, arms crossed so tightly his knuckles are white. there’s a fire in his eyes, something between anger and worry, something barely held back.

“no, i’m not.” your voice is steady, but your body betrays you. your knee screams when you try to straighten up, the weight of your stance unsteady, but you refuse to let it show. not to him.

“yer knee just gave out,” atsumu says, voice rising with frustration. “you can’t even stand properly, dumbass. ya think yer gonna play like that?”

“watch me.”

he scoffs, running a hand through his hair, tugging at the strands in frustration. “yer so goddamn stubborn. do ya even hear yourself? ya wanna wreck yerself for this one game? ya wanna throw away everything ya worked for, all for what?”

“you wouldn’t back down.”

the words are like a slap. atsumu flinches. his mouth opens, but nothing comes out. for once, he has nothing to say.

so you press on. “if it were you, you’d keep playing. you wouldn’t give up just because of some stupid knee pain.”

his hands curl into fists at his sides. “yeah, maybe i would. but that ain’t the point.”

“then what is?” you snap, stepping closer. “you don’t get to lecture me about pushing myself when you’ve done the exact same thing! you don’t get to stand there and tell me to stop when you never have!”

his jaw clenches. “it’s different.”

“how?!”

his voice finally cracks. “because i ain’t watchin’ someone i care about destroy themselves in front of me!”

the words hang in the air, heavy, suffocating. your breath catches in your throat.

the gym is too loud, the echoes of sneakers squeaking against the floor, the sound of the crowd buzzing in your ears. and yet, all you hear is him.

you swallow hard. “i’m playing.”

atsumu exhales sharply, shaking his head, something like defeat flickering across his face. “yer impossible.”

“and you talk too much.”

he lets out a dry laugh, bitter and frustrated, but he doesn’t stop you. he just mutters, “fine. go. see how far ya get.”

so you do.

the deuce drags on. and on. and on.

34-34. then 35-34. then 35-35.

you can hear the announcers losing their minds. you can hear the crowd buzzing, the tension so thick it makes the air feel heavy. no one is backing down. no one is letting up.

every muscle in your body screams. your legs are barely holding up. every time you land, the pain ricochets up your knee like a gunshot, but you bite down hard on the inside of your cheek and keep going. keep setting. keep pushing.

38-38. then 39-38.

one more point.

one more chance to finish this.

your hands tremble as you wipe your palms on your jersey, blinking back the tears blurring your vision. not from emotion, not from frustration—from pure, unbearable agony. you can’t feel your legs anymore. your arms are heavy, your body is screaming, but you refuse to stop. you refuse to let it end here.

atsumu’s voice echoes in your head.

“ya wanna ruin yourself for one game?”

“yer impossible.”

you take in a shaky breath, shaking his voice out of your mind. you have to focus.

the next serve flies over the net like a bullet. your libero gets under it, barely keeping it up. you sprint forward, nearly stumbling, fingers reaching for the ball—

you set.

perfect.

your spiker jumps, swinging, hitting clean, sending the ball crashing into the court on the other side.

40-38.

match point.

but you don’t get to celebrate.

because the moment the ball hits the ground, the moment the whistle blows, your legs give out.

you collapse.

the world tilts, your vision spinning, the sounds around you muffled and distant. you barely register the hands grabbing at you, the voices shouting your name. all you can feel is the burning in your lungs, the numbness in your legs, the tears slipping down your cheeks, unchecked, unstoppable.

you don’t know if you won. you don’t know if you lost.

all you know is that it’s over.

#keisgirl 🌷#hannahly!'s thoughts #haikyuu imagines #haikyuu x reader #haikyuu angst #fluff #angst #hq atsumu #miya atsumu #atsumu x reader #inarizaki #atsumu miya #haikyuu atsumu

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storiesofmyhead · 2 months ago

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Ghost - Wally Clark

Anastasia Nears had loved Wally Clark since she was a kid.

Wally Clark had noticed Anastasia Nears the second she walked into Split Rivers High.

But Anastasia was born in 1999.

And Wally Clark was born in 1964.

Warning: Swearing, Death, Murder

Prologue

"No!" Wally yells, "Turn around! Annie! Turn around!" He begs and pleads however he knows nothing he does can stop what was about to happen.

"Fuck! No." He whimpers, watching as the love-of-his-life was about to get murdered in his football jersey, but the hands of his football coach.

Sliding down the lockers, his hands pull at his hair as tears run down his face. "No, no, no, no." He mumbles repeatedly, shaking his head. The scene of her body getting knocked unconscious as she is strung up like a pig for slaughter. Hung in the very same locker room she would get ready for games in.

Staring at her body, he watched her convulse, before going still. Praying that she felt nothing in the process. His eyes glued on her dead, hanging body.

This was something he would never forget, a scene that he would never be able to erase from his mind.

The day the love-of-his-life died, but also the day god answered his prayers, the day she was brought to him.

Whimpering and shaking, the young girl rocks herself back and forth looking for some kind of comfort to her situation. However, nothing could comfort her in this moment. She had died. She had been murdered by the hands of someone she was supposed to trust. Someone the school was supposed to trust. The football head coach, Mr. Dauley. She had been strangled in the cheer locker room. And worst of all, everyone she knew thought it was a suicide. She wasn't suicidal!

She could hear the students murmuring and gossiping about, 'why would she does this to her family and friends?' or 'her life was perfect, this is so sad.'

Why couldn't everyone just stop talking. She could hear them, but they couldn't hear her. She could see them, but they couldn't see her! Why couldn't they see or hear her! She racked her brain for answers she couldn't find. The only thing could find was two questions.

'What is happening to her?'

and

'What did she do to deserve this?'

The tears had stopped a while ago, now she sat silent and numb. The final thing that broke her was her best friend, Alice Cambell, her cheer co-captain, finding her deceased hanging body. Her screams echoed through the locker room, people busting in when they heard her. The other cheerleaders gasping in horror as they try to comfort Alice's sobbing, trembling body.

It's been 2 days since Anastasia had arrived in her own personal hell. Watching her classmates and teammates live their lives as if she wasn't sitting on the floor, curled in a ball, forever 18.

But at least she had Wally.

Wally Clark, football player, Wally Clark. He had sat there with her, comforting her as she watched the events go down as he whispered small comforting nothings into her ear. Hugging her body close to his, trying to shield her eyes from the horror that was unraveling in front of her.

Little to her knowledge, Wally had watched her murder, as he screamed and cried for someone, anyone to help her, save her. He cried and cried until she took her last breath. After that he waited in the locker room for her spirit to appear, wanting to comfort her as she went through the different stages of grief. Something he didn't have, when he passed.

She was still wearing her uniform, clad with his jersey on her back and number on her cheek.

"I'm so sorry, sweetheart. It'll be ok. I promise." He whispered, her head nodding back, still unknowing of the man that had been sitting with her.

Her grief causing her to become numb and empty to the outside world and what was happening around her. Her eyes were un-focused staring off into the distance.

"How about we get you up and moving, hm?" Wally softly mutters. Almost scared that if he talked to loud that he would scare her off.

"Ok." She mumbled back numbly.

Wally's arms hooking underneath her armpits as he carefully and softly helping her stand.

"That's good. Now how about we get you out of this room." His voice calm and soft as he slowly guides her out of the room full of bad memories.

Taking a step out of the locker room had felt like a massive weight was lifting off of her shoulders. She could feel herself slowly coming back into reality or whatever her reality was now. It was night so all the students had gone home hours before and Wally had finally managed to get her out of the dreaded room.

Wally Clark knew Anastasia Nears. He knew almost everything about her, from her favorite color to her family problems. He had been there with her through most things, though she didn't know that.

Slowly coming back into consciousness, her eyes traveled up his arm and to the soft features on his face. Putting two and two together, she takes a step back and out of his arms.

"What? What did I do?" Wally asked, his face dropping at the sudden movements away from him, from the girl.

"You-" She points, eyes squinting in confusion and shock.

"Me?" Wally's head tilts as he points back at himself.

"You- You're Wally Clark." Her eyes widen, her face instantly reddening from the sight of him in front of her. It was him. He was the voice comforting her. Wally Clark. THE Wally Clark. Her all-time crush.

"Last time I checked." A goofy smile appears on his face, as he takes a slow step toward her.

"Oh my god." She exhales, her eyes slowly fluttering shut.

"Oh fuck!" She hears Wally exclaim before everything goes dark.

As Anastasia lands in his arms, he looks down at her admiring her face before picking her up bridal style and carrying her towards his makeshift bed in the nurse's office.

#wally clark fanfiction #wally clark #school spirits season 2 #school spirits #wally clark x reader #wally clark imagine

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bucketslutz · 8 months ago

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Don't Be Late (Logan Howlett/Fem mutant reader)

Chapter 1

(A/N): btw this takes place in an alternate universe where the x men as a team don't really exist, but the members and mutants obviously still do. readers powers are similar to atom eve from invincible, if you haven't seen that show i highly recommend it, but if not, you don't really need to know any of that to understand readers powers, they'll be explained in more detail later on.

Summary: You've spent your entire academic career trying to hide who you really are, your goal to end up working in a small museum or archive and live the rest of your life going unnoticed. The first day of grad school you meet someone that sparks something deep inside you that you never thought existed. Your history professor, Logan, makes you feel things you've never felt from someone before. Will you keep hiding your feelings, or will you get too close and risk him knowing who you really are?

Warnings: 18+!! explicit sexual content, minors DNI!! pls!!! oral (fem recieving), logan being a munch lowk, oral on the couch, teasing, dirty talking, cursing, logan being an asshole professor, no use of Y/N.

Word Count: 3,208

You anxiously rub your forehead as you struggle to find parking on campus, circling and circling the lot. Finally, someone pulls out and you turn in aggressively, someone in front of you flips you off, probably eyeing the same spot. You’re late. Very late. You have an American Civil War class, it’s an advanced level, with a professor whose name you cannot remember for the life of you. You’ve been preoccupied this summer, and time escaped you before you got the chance to research his credentials. It’s your first day of grad school and you’re late. A long commute, a new college, and shitty parking. You hope to god the professor doesn’t care or notice when you slip in late, as you carry a specific kind of disdain for drawing attention to yourself.

You were 13 when you first noticed something was wrong, walking home alone from school when a stranger tried to pin you down and do god knows what to you, until your eyes glowed a deep fuchsia and you threw him across the alley with a strength you didn’t even know you had. Your veins began glowing the same pink color and pulsating, scaring you shitless. You ran to the woods behind your house, avoiding your family for fear of harming them. With enough practice over the years, you’ve learned to control your abilities. Your eyes only glowing occasionally when you’re especially frustrated or angry. Sometimes even when you’re…taking care of some sexual urges. While you don’t know what causes these powers, you do know the general population’s feelings about mutants enough to understand that no one can know what you are. You don’t keep boyfriends for longer than 3 months, you don’t let friends become closer than you need them to be, and you don’t tell anyone what you are. You just want a normal life.

Your forehead is slick with sweat by the time you arrive at the history building, your breath heavy and labored, not from how fast you were walking to the building, but from anxiety, which is also the source of the excessive sweat on your brow. You cannot recall this courses class size, and you damn yourself for forgetting to check; not knowing if you can slip into the large class quietly or if everyone will be able to see you come in. This isn’t undergrad where people stumble in hungover with 10 minutes left of class, this is a graduate program where people go on to become masters in their fields of study. And you’re going to look like a fool in front of everyone. You approach the door to the classroom and can see through the window that it is, in fact, a small class. Fuck. There are maybe 15 people in there total. You hold your breath as you attempt to quietly push the door open, but it fails you with a loud, obnoxious creak. Every head snaps towards you, including the teacher, and you offer a meek smile to your classmates and turn your head towards the professor to issue a brief apology. You swallow hard when your eyes land on him. his tall frame is leaning against the white board, a little scary looking with muscles that bulge against his crossed arms, peaking out from under his rolled up sleeves. You’re surprised they’re visible even through his plaid button-up. His hair is fluffy, dark, as well as his beard…or actually, you should say mutton-chops, as that would be a more accurate descriptor. He glares at you, and you swear you’ve held his gaze for hours, but realistically it’s only been no more than a few seconds.

“Sorry,” you offer timidly.

The professor nods lightly, his jaw tense, and waves you off as he continues addressing the class. You attempt to quietly maneuver to an empty seat in the back, trying your hardest to not trip over your classmate’s bags and chairs. You feel like it takes forever to get to your seat, hoping no one pays too much attention to how clumsily you scoot past the chairs and over obstacles. You try and settle as quietly as possible, unzipping your shoulder bag and retrieving a pen to take notes. He’s still going over the syllabus, thank god.

“The only homework you’ll have is an essay, every week—every Friday—you have an essay due. Then every 3 weeks you’ll have an exam,” he instructs, rather nonchalantly. “And while I don’t give a shit if you waste your money and don’t come to class,” his eyes suddenly are fixed onto you, you swallow a lump of anxiety lodged in your throat as he continues, “The school cares a helluva lot more so, if you don’t mark your name down on the attendance sheet, you forget, you’re late, or whatever the hell, you’ll be absent. I’m not going back in and fixing shit.”

Noted. He turns his gaze back to the rest of the class and continues talking about the curriculum for the rest of the semester. you try to keep your head down as you scribble notes into your notebook, trying to look busy, when in reality you want to kick yourself in the face. You left your apartment too late, you didn’t anticipate the amount of traffic on the interstate, and you conveniently forgot how terrible parking is on college campuses. You look up to see the professor checking his wristwatch with a furrowed brow, like he’s considering something.

“Alright, that’s all i’ve got today, get out,” he commands, his gravelly voice showing slight indignation.

There’s a general look of confusion around the room at his abrupt dismissal with 45 minutes left of class. As people begin to shove their belongings in bags, you quickly get the memo as you collect your notebook and pen in your hands and stand up, ready to depart from this nightmare as soon as possible. But you’re the last in your row, shoved into a corner. the line of people in front of you have their chairs pushed back to the wall as they slowly collect themselves. It takes an obnoxiously long time for you to get out from behind the the long row of desks, even longer to leave the class as everyone shoves their way past you and out the door. Finally, you find an opening, but before your foot can even reach the threshold, there’s a strong grip on your arm. You turn your head to meet the gaze of your professor. Your heart skips a beat as he maintains eye contact briefly, before he hands you a piece of paper and lets go of your arm.

“Find your name, mark it,” he directs, causing you to scramble for the pen in your hands as you scan the paper for your name.

You try and offer a polite smile to the professor, but he remains stoic and unamused, making you feel even more uncomfortable. Once you find your name, you ungracefully set the paper against your flimsy notebook for structure, and scrawl a shaky check mark next to your name. You offer the paper back to him.

“Here, thank you, um, professor…” you trail off awkwardly, forgetting that you never actually checked what his name was. He takes the attendance sheet from you.

“Logan,” he answers.

“Ah, thank you professor Logan—”

“No,” he cuts you off with a wave of his hand, “just Logan.”

“Logan, right. thanks.”

“Don’t mention it,” he says, his tone far from indicating the typical politeness of the statement, and rather literally cautioning you to never bring up this act of kindness again. And with that you turn to leave the class, unsure of why this gruff, sturdy, serious professor bended his own personal rules just for you. But no matter with that, you at least know you’ll never be late to his damn class again.

***

You pull into the driveway of your house with a sigh. It's late, the time you prefer to get home, so you can fully relax and use your powers in peace. Despite living in the middle of nowhere, you still fear someone will mistakenly pull into your driveway and catch you flying into your second story window or creating an apple from nothing. The lack of sound, except that of the chirping crickets and cicadas, puts you at ease. You release the tension in your shoulders and float off of the ground, propelling yourself to the patio on the second story of your house. You unlock the door with a flick of your wrist, the fuchsia energy encasing the doorknob and letting you into your bedroom, you then toss your things down onto the floor. An exhausted groan escapes your lips as you face plant onto your cool, soft bed. Not even coming up for air when you fling your arm up and slam the door shut with a pink, crystalline whoosh. You turn over to face the ceiling, your eyes fluttering shut within the comfort of your bed. Longing to get out of your stuffy jeans and bra, you trail your hands over your body and watch as your clothes dissipate into a pink flash while you manifest some boxer shorts and a loose t-shirt. Finally comfortable, you slide under the covers, wanting to sleep off one of the most stressful days you've had in a while. A morning full of classes, then 5 hours interning at the museum, before finally finishing off your day at the convenience store down the road working a 6 hour shift. While you can create most anything you want with your powers, you cannot create the full nights sleep that you most desperately need right now.

As you drift, you think about how embarrassing of a morning you had. Stumbling into class like a fawn learning how to walk, Logan directly looking at you when speaking about attendance, Logan shoving the attendance sheet in your face so you mark yourself as present, Logan's strong arms and the way they looked with his sleeves rolled up. Logan's fluffy, dark hair and--No. Shut up. Don't think about that, he's your professor for god's sake. And, more importantly, an asshole. No amount of muscle or sheer sexiness will distract from that fact. You repeat this fact to yourself as you doze off, not wanting to give in to immature thoughts of attraction. Despite falling asleep to the negation of that attraction, your subconscious drifts somewhere you know you shouldn't physically go.

You're in Logan's office, your ass perched on the edge of his desk. Logan's back is to you, locking his door and drawing the blinds. He turns to you, his stance almost primal and animal-like, like he can't wait for the chance to devour you. The thought of that causes your arousal to swirl deep in your stomach. Logan saunters towards you, bearing his lower teeth like a predator ready to take their prey. Your breath hitches in anticipation as he gets closer, causing you to spread your legs, hoping the clear view of what lies beneath your skirt will draw him in closer. It seemingly works as he closes the distance between you two, his waist now flush against your lower stomach. Tingles shoot down your spine at the sudden contact, blood rushing down to your pussy. He pants as he brings his hands to your waist and strokes up and down the sides of your body, then achingly slow up your neck, then finally stopping at your chin. One hand creeps to the nape of your neck where he lays his palm flat while the other pinches your chin between his thumb and forefinger. Your eyes flutter shut, anticipating that he's close to having his way with you. He holds you there for a beat, his face so tantalizingly close to yours that you can feel his breath against your skin. You whine gently when his lips teasingly graze your own. The fingers pinching your chin adjust slightly to grip your jaw instead, allowing him better control to tilt your head up towards him. His other hand, at the nape of your neck, travels upward allowing his fingers to gently rake through your hair until he roughly takes a fistful and tugs. A soft moan escapes your throat and you try to satiate the throbbing pressure between your legs by rubbing your thighs together. An amused huff leaves Logan's lips as he looks down at your squirming figure beneath him.

"You gonna be good for me, princess?" he asks in a low, gruff tone as the hand on your chin trails down the side of your neck before landing on your breast. He massages the flesh fervently, finding it harder to hide his own desperate arousal and need from you. You moan into his touch and arch your back into him, your pussy searching for more friction that Logan is expertly avoiding giving you by not allowing his pelvis to meet yours.

"Logan," you gasp.

"C'mon, baby," his voice soothes, like smooth velvet, "tell me you want it."

"I want it," you whisper, desperately seeking any sort of release.

"Good girl."

And with that, Logan removes the hand on your breast so he can aggressively hook an arm under your ass and easily hoist you up with one fell swoop. Your legs wrap around his waist and your arms around his neck, reveling the feel of his palm that covers your asscheek. With a growl Logan spins you around and throws you onto the couch in the corner of his office, barely allowing you a second to recover when he crawls on top of you and captures your lips with his own desperately. The kiss is aggressive and needy, tongues dancing together ungracefully, teeth clashing, hasty lip bites between kisses. His hips grind against yours roughly, causing you to hook both your feet around his ass to keep him there for as long as you can, desperately seeking more friction. His hands alternate with each other between grasping your breasts to gripping your face passionately. Without breaking the kiss, he hooks his arms under you and drives you further up the couch so your upper back lays against the armrest. You whine when his lips leave yours, but it's quickly replaced with a moan as his lips travel down your neck, chest, the stomach he exposes by lifting the hem of your shirt, biting the fabric at the waistband of your skirt. You squirm underneath him, anticipating what's gonna happen next as his face nestles between your legs. He licks, bites, sucks, and kisses the skin of your inner thighs, causing you to gasp with each harsh move of his mouth, before promptly melting into a moan when he alleviates his biting or sucking with a kiss or flick of his tongue. Your clit is throbbing, your pussy aching for him to get closer to your center. So he does. His tongue dances along the edge of your panties, not dipping much further into the fabric, his head alternating between each of your lips. You whine desperately as Logan's mouth hovers above your core, his hot breath teasing you further. He looks up at you and into your eyes as his mouth latches onto your thinly clothed pussy, causing you to squirm and moan underneath him, the already damp fabric from your arousal, getting further soaked from Logan's saliva.

"Logan," you whine fervently. "Please."

His mouth leaves your pussy, just barely hovering above it now.

"I gotta make you want it, princess, it's no fun unless you're begging for me to taste you," he breathed against your pussy, his voice low and syrupy. He quickly resumes the hold his mouth had on your pussy, making your back arch off the couch with a moan.

"Okay, I'm officially begging, please, Logan, please," you whimper, not sure how much longer you're able to take his teasing.

"Atta girl," he rasps against your pussy. Like nothing, his fingers hook around the fabric of your panties and he rips it off of you with an experienced strength, leaving your pussy now exposed to Logan, and your torn lace panties on the floor.

"So wet for me, huh?" Logan teases through a cocky smile. You squirm more underneath him, causing his hands to move to your hips to hold them down. Logan stares hungrily at your cunt, removing one hand from your hip and bringing it to your pussy lips to rub it tantalizingly slow with his fingers. Flicking his eyes up to meet yours, he finally brings his tongue to your folds and licks up to your clit. You moan throatily and bring your hands to his hair to give it a tug of appreciation. He groans enthusiastically into your pussy, eating at it like your core is the forbidden fruit dripping in molten pleasure. He's animalistic in his movements and noises, lapping at your clit with groans and grunts in pleasure, almost growling even. He brings his fingers to your core, tracing the hole before shoving two digits inside of you. He pumps his fingers in and out of you, curling them with each push inside. The noises are lewd and wet with each drive of his fingers. Your moans grow more desperate and needy as you climb towards your climax, the death grip you have on his hair growing stronger and stronger. The hand holding your hip down crawls up to your breast, grasping desperately at your flesh, hastily circling your nipples with his thumb. Your breaths quicken, your eyes flutter shut as he continues the steady onslaught of your pussy with his mouth and fingers.

"Logan, I'm so close, don't stop...please..." you trail off, beginning to lose yourself in your pleasure. Logan responds with needy moans against your clit and the continuous pumping of his fingers in and out of you. His grip on your breast loosens to grasp your side, slinking down to your waist, definitely leaving a mark with how rough he grabs at you. As his lips and tongue continue lapping you up, you can feel your arousal swirling in your stomach more and more. Your moans grow louder, your hips begin bucking. Logan groans into you, desperate to feel your release around his fingers. White hot pressure forms around your clit as you teeter on the edge of your orgasm, you look down at Logan and lock eyes with him just as you feel yourself dropping off.

The feeling of hot pink fire pricking your eyeballs jerks you awake, mid-orgasm, your eyes glow a pulsating fuchsia. You pant heavily, your orgasm ending unceremoniously against your fingertips. Leaving you disappointed. You huff in annoyance, wishing you could plunge yourself back into the wet dream that ended in a rather mediocre way. No, wait, that was your professor. You shouldn't be feeling, or thinking, this way at all. You feel disappointed in yourself for having such lewd thoughts about another person, especially a person of authority. You catch your breath, turn your head to face the clock on your nightstand and gasp when you see the time.

"Shit, shit, shit," you curse, hastily throwing yourself out of bed. "Please don't be late today."

(A/N): and that's that!! i hope people enjoy! this concept popped into my head earlier today so i've spent my sunday working on this, if people are interested to see where this goes, please leave a kudos or comment!!! TYYY🫶🏻🙈 i also posted this onto my ao3 here if you would like to view it there and keep up with it there as well!

#x men #wolverine smut #wolverine fanfiction #logan howlett #logan howlett fanfiction #logan howlett smut #hugh jackman #deadpool x wolverine #deadpool and wolverine

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apomaro-mellow · 1 year ago

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Family Planning 1/?

Steddie; omegaverse; omega!steve x alpha!eddie

It's time for the ole flour baby project and who should Eddie get paired up with but none other than high school royalty Steve? They both need this grade to graduate but can they get through it without tearing the bag to shreds?

Read on AO3

Steve woke up to his alarm, rushing out of bed. His morning routine, however, was not rushed. The radio sounded as he stood in front of his bathroom mirror. Guitar riffs filled his head as he washed, brushed, and dried. He put on a red sweater, fall was finally kicking in and he felt it. With a quick goodbye to his parents, he got in his car and drove off to pick up his friends, Tommy and Carol.

Carol walked out of her front door. Tommy scaled down from Carol’s window. Steve only shook his head as they both got inside.

“How do your parents not know?”, Steve asked Carol.

“She knows how to keep things quiet”, Tommy winked at her from the front seat.

“Yeah, I just gag him every night. He loves it”, Carol pinched his cheek and withdrew her hand before he could swat it away.

They pulled up to the school as other students were arriving. There was still five minutes until homeroom which meant they had about twenty minutes before they had to get to class. So they took their positions, leaning against the car, talking about whatever drifted to their minds.

“Davidson is already staring me down like he knows I’m gonna fail”, Tommy said.

“Maybe he wouldn’t glare so much if you didn’t put a thumbtack in his chair”, Carol pointed out.

“He shouldn’t be such a buzzkill, right Steve?”

“His punishment fits the crime”, Steve agreed. “Davidson can’t touch you anyways.”

Carol smirked. “Yeah, your solid D streak makes you untouchable.”

“Why’s this woman always gotta give me grief Steve? Why can’t we just ditch her?”

Steve rolled his eyes but was smiling. “You forget, Carol came first. If anyone’s getting ditched, it’s you.”

Before Tommy could retort, a van roared into the parking lot, chaotic music playing too loud to discern most of the melody. It stopped abruptly and the driver excited just as quickly, slamming the door.

“Desperate for attention, much?”, Carol remarked.

Eddie Munson. A guy with all the bad markings of an alpha: loud, brash, hard headed, and just a general nuisance. Not wanting to cross paths with him, Steve led the way inside. He went out of his way to avoid Eddie’s van but unfortunately, the rest of his weird club was at the door and suddenly, Eddie was there, shouting at the rest of the members, causing Steve to wince. And that little movement was all it took to get his attention.

“My apologies, your highness, for inconveniencing your ear drums”, he gave a deep bow.

Steve rolled his eyes and went past. Steve had been one of the first of their senior class to present, doing so literally the first semester of freshman year. When he returned to school, smelling of cinnamon and vanilla, he had been dubbed ‘princess’ and the nickname stuck to senior year.

Living in a big house with parents who gave you everything you wanted didn’t help matters. Steve took it in stride. His classmates were willing to do a lot for their princess. Like Tommy shoving Eddie so they could get through the door.

“God, what a sleaze. What’re the chances of him actually graduating this year?”, Tommy wiped his arm like it was actually dirtied.

“As likely as you making it above a C average in Davidson’s”, Steve snarked.

—-----------------------

Eddie held the grin, even through the comment about his graduation status. Last year wasn’t it but second time was the charm, as they said. Still, it didn’t mean he was going to become a model student. Which was why he never went to homeroom. He skipped English on occasion too. But Home Economics, he usually tuned in to. There was a 50/50 chance they’d be cooking something and Eddie would get to poach tastes from his partner’s cooking.

He burst in just as Ms. Engels was in the process of getting the class to settle from their pre-lunch antsy-ness. He took his seat in the back, feet propped up on the back of the chair in front of him.

“Alright, children, listen! Today we are beginning a project that will take not just the rest of this semester, but also into the next”, Ms. Engels began, starting a wave of groans.

Steve was only half paying attention. Whatever project, he was sure he could lean on his partner to get it done. Home Ec was definitely still in the dark ages of family planning, putting most of the home-oriented things on the omega, but it was the 20th century. Omegas could go into the workplace, get high profile jobs, and didn’t need to just sit at home and pop out babies.

Then Ms. Engels put a sack of flour on her desk. With a little pink beanie on top. Steve’s stomach dropped.

“It’s time class, for the ‘family’ part of family planning.”

She went into detail about the assignment. That they would be paired appropriately according to their secondary gender and that they would need to keep a detailed log of when they fed the baby and changed it and who watched over it.

“Take note of how much formula and diapers cost. And the more in-depth you report, the greater chance of a high grade. As a couple, if you would like to give any updates during class, I would encourage it.”

Then she took out a list, announcing the couples and gesturing for one to come up and grab one of the many sacks of flour set in a box and to grab a beanie in either blue or pink. As she went down the list and choices got eliminated, Steve felt a sense of dread. The same feeling was coming over Eddie as he realized the same thing Steve did.

This was one of the few periods he didn’t share with Tommy or Carol. Dammit, as incessant as Tommy might’ve been, him being a beta meant they could’ve been paired together. But that wasn’t the reality right now.

“Aaron Hall and Cathy Mansley. Steven Harrington and Edward Munson.”

Steve was frozen in place. There was no way. No way in hell that he had to pretend to be a parent with Munson of all people. Eddie was frozen too, but only for a second before he shot up and strutted up to the teacher’s desk. He hefted a bag of flour into his arms and stretched a hat across its head, a pink one.

“She’s got your eyes honey bun~”, Eddie winked at Steve, causing snickers and giggles.

Steve scoffed but ignored him otherwise as Ms. Engels directed them to fill out the first form she gave them about name, sex, date of birth, the weight of the baby, as well as the names of the sire and the dame. Eddie pulled his chair right up to Steve’s desk, determined not to be ignored.

“So what are we gonna name our precious gift from above?”

“You decide. I don’t really care”, Steve said, barely sparing him a glance.

Eddie gasped dramatically and covered the pretend ears of their offspring. “How can you say something so cruel? And after she came from your own loins.”

Steve cringed. “Don’t talk about my loins Munson.”

“Okay, fair. In all serious though, I need to get a good grade on this project”, Eddie said.

The bell rang, saving Steve from another second of this. “Sounds like you better buckle up, pops. Can’t be a good example if high school takes you three times.”

Steve stayed long enough to watch the alpha’s face drop and then walked out of the room to his next class. Steve thought he’d made it clear that Eddie was on his own with this assignment. What was the point in playing pretend? Steve wasn’t having kids for a long time.

So he wasn’t impressed when Eddie stepped right up to his lunch table, that bag of flour under his arm like he was carrying books and not a child.

“I don’t think I was making myself clear back in Engel’s”, Eddie started.

“What’s he talking about?”, Tommy asked.

“Oh holy shit”, Carol’s face broke out in a smile so wide, “You’re doing that project with Eddie Munson?”

“You want the whole cafeteria to hear?”, Steve hissed. It went unbidden as Carol laughed and Tommy snickered. “I figured you could handle it. This isn’t your first time, right?”

Eddie set their unnamed flour pup onto the table. “Last year she did the nutrition diary, so I’m new to fatherhood. And you’re gonna need to shape up, mother dearest.”

“Ugh, don’t call me that”, Steve groaned.

“Father dearest, then?” There was a new wave of male omegas who preferred to be called dad over mom, and Eddie could respect that.

“Gag me.”

“Tempting, but I think Engels will have a problem if only one parent reports. And I have no problem telling her I did the brunt of the work.”

Steve raised a brow. “Is that a threat?”

“It’s a warning, Harrington.”

Tommy stood up then. “Back off trash!”

He shoved Eddie and multiple things happened at once. Eddie tried to grab for the table or something and instead grabbed the flour. He fell backward into someone, making them dump their lunch on his head, and the bag of flour flew, landing heavily on Principal Woolsley in a spectacular explosion of white.

“MUNSON! MY OFFICE! NOW!”

If Steve thought he was off the hook, he was sorely mistaken. While Eddie was hauled off to the office, he was able to keep his head down for a while. But Eddie must’ve snitched because Ms. Van Dorf in the office called his name on the intercom to come to the principal’s office.

Eddie was still sitting in one of the chairs, unidentifiable foodstuffs in his hair. Mr. Woolsley had gotten most of the flour off of himself, with only a light dusting on his shoulders. Ms. Engels was also present.

“I’ve been informed of the project your class is undergoing. Bags of flour don’t grow on trees”, Woolsley said, hands folded on his desk.

“Hey, even I can afford a bag of flour”, Eddie said. “What’s the damage? A dollar?”

“That’s not the point, Mr. Munson. What happened in the lunch room was a flagrant display of irresponsibility”, Ms. Engels said.

“I’m not the one being irresponsible”, Eddie looked to Steve who was still standing by the door.

“You two are going to show Ms. Engels that you deserve another chance at this project”, Woolsley started. “You have until the end of the week to show her your dedication and earn another sack of flour.”

“How are we supposed to do that?”, Steve asked, arms crossed.

“Get creative. Oh and detention for you both today. They need help in the theatre department”, Woolsley said before dismissing them.

Eddie shoved past Steve to get to a bathroom and wash his hair. Steve spent the rest of the day talking off his friend’s ears about the whole ordeal and by the time detention came, he was ready to rip him apart and let them both flunk this class. But unfortunately, Steve needed this grade as much as Eddie. He was only taking senior year one time, thank you very much.

He walked into the storage room as directed by the head of the department and found Eddie already there, sorting fabrics. Steve was determined to ignore him, getting right to work rifling through a box of paints and tossing ones that were either empty or bone dry.

Eddie spoke up after a whopping five minutes of silence. “So, any ideas on how to earn the favor of our warden?”

“We were told to get creative. I figured that was more your speed”, Steve said.

Eddie grinned. “I’ve been known to dabble in the creative arts. But I admit, my mind is drawing a blank. How to appear as a responsible parent? To be quite honest, I don’t have a lot of experience with those.”

“What about your uncle?”, Steve asked.

“...How do you know my uncle?”

Steve looked up from his box. “It’s a small town, Munson.”

“Yeah, well, you got me there.” His Uncle Wayne was a pretty nice role model. Decent, hard working. If Eddie was half the caretaker he was, any future kid or bag of food would be in good hands. “What about you?”

“Me?”, Steve said before shrugging. “My parents are fine. Kinda assholes sometimes, but what parent isn’t?”

“Do they dote on you like the rest of the royal court?”

“The wha-stop, I’m not the princess everyone thinks I am.”

“You’re avoiding the question”, Eddie pointed out.

“I don’t know if doting is the word, but they’re parents. They give me what I want sometimes. And what I need.”

“Well, that’s what we have to prove if we want another chance”, Eddie sighed. “But how the hell are we supposed to be doting parents to a kid we don’t have?”

Steve shrugged when just a half second through the motion, he had an epiphany. “Wait! We don’t have a kid yet!”

“Uh, yeah, that’s what I just said. Keep up Harrington.”

“No, we don’t have a kid yet”, Steve repeated, getting to his feet and moving closer to Eddie like proximity would make him easier to understand.

“I feel like I’m not high enough for this conversation we’re having.”

“What if-hear me out-what if we put on like we’re expecting parents?”, Steve suggested.

Eddie wasn’t sure where he was leaning on that idea, when he looked past Steve at something that had to have been put there by fate. A fake stomach for when someone had to act as a pregnant person during a school play.

“Oh this is either gonna be really stupid or really funny.”

Steve followed his sight and blushed a little, then turned back to Eddie. “I don’t see why it can’t be both.”

Part 2

#apo writes #stranger things #steddie #omegaverse #a/b/o

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deathmetalunicorn1 · 1 year ago

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Maki Zenin!reader x Class 1-A.

-When UA received word that they would be getting a new student, at first there was nothing out of the ordinary, just normal questions on if it was a boy, a girl, what their quirk was, and things like that.

-It was when someone found out that the new student was completely quirkless and going into Class 1-A, the Hero Program, that the school became very loud!

-How was this possible? How could someone with no quirk join the Hero Program?!

-When you walked in, being introduced to your new classmates, holding what looked to be a kendo sword case over your shoulder, you smiled, your eyes behind your glasses were scanning the room, “Nice to meet you all, I’m Y/N!”

-Instantly the room was alight with shouts, the students all asking you questions, wanting to know how you got into the program, and wanting to know if it was true that you really didn’t have a quirk.

-You weren’t bothered by not having a quirk, you grew up that way, your family made sure to never let you forget it, and you grinned, your hand coming to your hip, “I don’t have one, but I can handle things.”

-Bakugo sneered at you, looking down his nose, thinking you were beneath him, “Oh~ and what makes you so sure of that?” you showed no fear, looking down your own nose at him, “I know I can beat you, blondie.”

-Everyone was gawking, completely stunned, seeing you not only talking back to Bakugo, but talking down to him as well.

-Aizawa kept Bakugo from attacking you, but you didn’t seem bothered as he was screaming at you, wanting to put you in your place for being so arrogant, despite him also being arrogant.

-You very quickly proved that you were not to be underestimated that afternoon in training class, showing your wide range of weapons, and showing that you could absolutely handle them all, Bakugo included.

-It was almost intimidating, seeing how someone without a quirk could handle a whole class of students, training to be heroes, with ease, as you showcased your combat skills. Even Aizawa was impressed with your skills!

-After you proved that you did belong, Bakugo did back off, and you could say that the two of you were friends, but you were both constantly throwing snark at each other.

-Deku was elated to meet someone who was quirkless, wanting to know how you got so strong, as he felt a kinship with you, being the same as you, only up until a short while ago.

-You told him, almost like he was interviewing you, about your family, who was a very prestigious family and when you were found to have no quirk, they deemed you worthless, and to prove yourself, you trained endlessly, working with any weapon you could get your hands on, and in the end, your hard work had paid off.

-You were well liked in your class, you came off a bit blunt at times, but your heart was always in the right place, and you were willing to train with others.

-However, they also learned you could be very scary, Denki and Mineta learned this lesson personally, when they tried to flip your skirt up, using an underhanded technique.

-Aizawa just stood there as they ran by, screaming for help as you charged by, a red glint in your eye, fully intent on making them pay for disrespecting you.

-Other students, once they knew you were quirkless, wouldn’t hesitate to make rude comments, not caring if you heard, about how unfair it was that someone like you got into the coveted Hero Program. You weren’t really bothered, basically because you knew you could beat them in a fight, and it wasn’t anything new.

-Your classmates, however, weren’t so kind, as several of them, led by Bakugo, wouldn’t hesitate to put the fear of God into these worthless side characters (Bakugo’s words not yours) and threaten them for making such cruel comments.

-When Momo made sure to check on you, all of them coming over after they chased the bullies off, you couldn’t help but smile, “You guys didn’t have to do that. It’s more fun when I prove that I belong by beating them- like how I did you guys.”

-Bakugo was instantly shouted, being held back by Kirishima, “Oi what was that you-” you chose to ignore him, finding his anger amusing as you turned, flashing a warm smile, “But thanks!”

-Your classmates were surprised, but many couldn’t help but laugh, chasing after you as you laughed, enjoying teasing them.

#my hero academia #jujutsu kaisen #maki reader

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yourlocaltrashcan657 · 1 year ago

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Hey, do you do yandere aot girls x fem reader oneshots? If so, can you make a yandere Annie x fem reader please? (Modern Au)

Reader is Annie's best friend but has a crush on Bertholdt. Annie does not like that and ends up beating Bertholdt up, resulting in him ending up in hospital. At the end, maybe Annie cuddles amd comforts the reader (while acting all innocent)?

Crush Killer

A/N: OMG YES. Just for you pookie ❤️❤️❤️ Yandere! Annie Leondhart x Female Reader.

Modern AU

“Annie!!” Y/N called out cheerfully as she ran towards the blonde haired girl and hugged her from behind. “I missed you over the weekend!”

“Okay.” Annie bluntly said as she side hugged the happy girl. “How was your morning?”

”It was so good! I woke up and went to the bathroom to get ready for that day-“ Y/N rambled as they walked to the school. Annie would just stay silent and let Y/N talk since she just loved to hear her voice. Who wouldn’t? It was so angelic and not to mention her lips moving so gracefully. Her luscious hair, so silky and her pretty face just so beautiful like a doll.

”Annie, I heard that Bertolt came back from his vacation! I wonder if he remembered me and brought me something!” Y/N said as her hands made way up to her cheeks. “He’s soo handsome!~”

”Whatever you say, Y/N.” Annie said as they crossed the road. The one person in her way, Bertolt Hoover. Sure he was the basketball legend of the school, had great grades and a good upbringing but he was nothing but a nuisance.

He constantly hung out with Y/N during break, whenever Reiner would be busy with rugby. During class, he would always try to talk or pass notes with Y/N, in which she always responded. Not to mention, when Bertolt would ask the teacher to move closer to Y/N or in fact become her partner in class. He even had the audacity to bring her flowers on Valentines Day!

”Hey Y/N.. maybe it’s best if you forget about Bertolt.” Annie suggested causing Y/N to look at her shocked.

”W-what?! Why would I forget my 4-year-long crush?!” Y/N asked. “Do you think I’m not beautiful enough for him? Now wait, he’s so handsome that he probably won’t even think I’m even pretty!”

”What, no! I’m just saying that your out of his league. He’s not good enough for you.” Annie reassured. Her faith in that silly little crush was diminishing by the second! Annie just had to make sure that it wouldn’t affect her thoughts on her physical appearance.

“Still, after 4 years of talking, group projects and so much more, I’m not going to give up!” Y/N said with hope.

Reaching the school grounds, Y/N greeted her classmates around the seated areas and benches before sitting down herself. Looking at her watch, the two girls realised that they had time before their first class.

“I haven’t seen Bertolt yet.. what if he isn’t in because he’s sick?” Y/N thought out loud. “I don’t want to text him because then he’ll think I’m obsessed with him but if I don’t then he’ll think I don’t care about him!”

”Dont. He’ll probably leave you on read.” Annie said as he bit into a snack.

”You think he will?!” Y/N asked before a towering figure stopped in front of them. “B-Bertolt!”

“H-hey Y/N.! I uhm came back from vacation and uh thought I could say hi.” Bertolt said as he rubbed his nape.

”So say hi and leave. We’re talking-“ Annie began to say.

”Annie! Don’t be so harsh.” Y/N whispered before turning to look at the dark brunette only to blush. “S-sit down beside m-me if you want.” Bertolt proceeded to sit in between the two girls, separating the two girls. Much to Annie’s disappointment, she began to kick rocks and pebbles at his expensive shoes, wondering how they would look, scattered across his bloodied face.

”C-can you and I talk at L-Lunch Time.? I have something important to t-tell you but I can’t at Break b-because I have Basketball Practice.” Bertolt stuttered out as he rubbed his neck and sweated.

”Sure!” Y/N said.

”But Y/N, you and I are going to hang out together during Lunch.” Annie said unhappily.

”Oh right. It'll be quick though so you can wait a bit, right?” Y/N asked as Annie nodded to.

”I wanted to give you t-these.” Bertolt said as he handed over a gift bag. “I g-got it when I was on vacation. I remembered you talking about them and thought you’d want one.”

Opening the bag, Y/N saw accessories and different types of lotions along with tasty chocolates. Quickly hugging Bertolt and saying thank you, Y/N and Annie rushed to their first class. How could Bertolt do that?! Annie had just the right amount of money and was about to order her favourite things.

Sitting down in class, Annie had day dreamed the whole time as the teacher yapped on and on over something that wasn’t even class related. Bertolt had practice at Break, right? He was most likely going to confess at lunch too or would he try and humiliate her in front of all those guys? Annie just had to make sure that he wouldn’t lay a hand on her precious darling.

“At Lunch Time? You should have told her to meet at the end of the day.” Reiner said as he walked with Bertolt to the changing rooms. “And why’s you give the present in the morning? You could’ve given it when you confessed.”

”I didn’t know! I got really nervous..” Bertolt replied as he reached his teams changing room.

”You’re always the first person to arrive. See you later then.” Reiner said before walking off.

Walking in Bertolt began to lay his bags down and opened his P.E kit and sorted out his clothes nicely. The door opened and when Bertolt looked up he saw Annie standing at the door, unbothered by his half clothed torso.

”Annie.?! This is the guys changing room, what’re you doing in here?” Bertolt asked, startled.

”I’m not interested in your lanky body so don’t think I’m in here to spy on you change.” Annie said as she walked up to him.

”D-do you mind?! I’m getting c-changed.” Bertolt exclaimed as he covered his chest with his shirt.

”Do you have any idea of how much I have to struggle.? How much I have to deal with Y/N, going on and on about how you’re so handsome and so brilliant?” Annie asked as she gripped something behind her.

”S-she thinks that.?!” Bertolt asked shocked.

”Do you know how pissed I get when she looks at you with such lovey-dovey eyes and not me?!” Annie asked angrily before swinging a baseball bat at him.

“Agh! Annie what the hell are you doing?!” Bertolt asked as he gripped his head and fell to the floor.

”Getting rid of a pest.” Annie muttered before continuously hitting his body with the bat. Despite his constant attempts to escape, Annie dragged Bertolt back into the corner and kept beating his head violently with the bat until his head was nothing but blood. The scene was gory. Quickly wiping the bat clean, Annie left the room to attend to Y/N.

Entering the changing room, the basketball players each walked in on the body, laying in the corner, sprawled on the floor. Quickly calling a teacher, an ambulance was called and they quickly took the unrecognisable body to the hospital.

“Annie? You seem really quiet.” Y/N said, snapping Annie out of her trance. “Are you alright?”

”Y-yeah yeah.. it seems like there’s a problem.” Annie said as she looked at the ambulance. “Seems like someone got hurt.”

”I feel bad for them.. wait.” Y/N began to say until she squinted her eyes and looked at the body on the gurney. “Oh my god.! That body looks unrecognisable, so bloody and disgusting..”

”Y/N!” Reiner called out as he rushed over to the girls. “Was Bertolt with you?”

”B-Bertolt? No, I thought he had Basketball Practice.” Y/N said.

”Goddammit! That guy on the gurney must be Bertolt!” Reiner said with an extremely hurt expression.

“W-what?!” Y/N exclaimed as she got up and looked at Reiner, Annie still sitting down and unbothered.

”We can’t go now but at the end of the school day we’ll have to rush to the hospital..” Reiner muttered as he clasped a hand over his mouth.

”Your skipping practice for Bertolt?” Annie asked.

”Wha- of course! That’s literally my best friend in hospital.” Reiner said before leaving.

“Annie.. Bertolt is hurt! I feel so bad and I was going to confess to him at Lunch!” Y/N began to say as gripped her skirt.

”Y-Y/N. Come on back here.” Annie said as she patted the seat beside her. Y/N sat down beside her and sobbed into her shoulder, remembering the sight of her crush.

”He must’ve been in so much pain whilst we just talked amongst each other!” Y/N sobbed out.

”Yeah.. whoever did that must be a monster..” Annie muttered before running her hands through Y/N’s hair gently.

#annie leonhart #yandere aot #yandere aot x reader #yandere shingeki no kyojin #yandere #annie leonhardt x reader #yandere Annie leaondhart #aot x y/n #bertholdt hoover #reiner #Annie x reader #y/n

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cosmical-flowers · 8 months ago

Text

Danganronpa: Violent Voices (Enstars x Danganronpa AU)

Prologue: Feathering Hope in a Burning Field

Part 1: Forgetting Something Important

A dull noise. That’s all that rang in Subaru’s head. It felt like TV static, or the mindless noise of a washing machine. Something forgetful over the loudness of daily life. The schedule of waking up, going to school, getting home, doing chores, having dinner and going to sleep had been monotonous for a while. Doing that for so long can get so lackluster after a while. You can only wish for something shiny and new to appear. And after so long, his wish came true.

An acceptance letter to the Ultimate Course at Yumenosaki academy. A prestigious school, known for guaranteed success. Finally, a change in his life. He would be going to the course as the ultimate … ultimate … What was he going there as?

Subaru then woke up in the gym of an unknown school. The last thing he remembered was entering Yumenosaki so that he could attend the opening ceremony. So where was he now? He looked around, a hit of confusion struck his face when he noticed other students there as well. Who were they? Why are they here? A million questions rushed through his head and he was determined to get answers. He noticed a boy with beaujolais hair, fidgeting with a camera in his hands. He seemed to keep his head low, like he also has questions. Subaru then decided that since he was the first person he spotted that he could talk to him. As he walked up to the boy, he tried to appear more confident and friendly, pretending like he knew why he was here.

“Hello! I just woke up here and I think I'm supposed to be at the entrance ceremony for Yumenosaki Academy. Is this the right building or…?” Subaru decided to ask him. As the boy thought of a response, Subaru wondered if he made the wrong choice.

“No, this is Yumenosaki Academy. I'm also meant to be part of the entrance ceremony as a new student.” The other student added on, tilting his head up more.

Subaru’s eyes lit up as he heard that. At least he wasn’t alone. “Me too! Seems like we’ll be classmates! I'm Subaru Akehoshi! What's your name?”

“Mao Isara, i'm the ultimate photographer. Do you have an ultimate as well?” Mao asked Subaru, wondering what his could be. His cheery and determined demeanor could make him an ultimate with something like public speaking. Maybe Ultimate Motivational Speaker?

“Oh, I don’t remember mine.”

“You don’t remember?”

“Nope! Not at all!”

“How did you forget something as important as that!?”

“It just happened, I can’t remember anything else as well. Just my name and knowing I'm meant to be here.”

“That's … really unfortunate.” Mao felt bad for his classmate. Forgetting everything, that must be a terrible feeling. Like a burning picture, or an empty film. Something was meant to be there, but it’s gone.

“It should be fine! I’ll remember sooner or later! It seems like a lot of other people are here as well. Should we go meet them too?”

As Mao hesitated to respond to him, Subaru looked ahead at the crowd of people. He smiled at him and began to notice everyone. Colorful hair colors, shiny outfits, an exciting environment, this is exactly what he needed. A breath taken away from something old and taking in a new world.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Students met: 2/???

Taglist: (N/A)

A/N: HELLO YAY FIRST PART WRITTEN!! The tag list is open right now, all you have to do is send me an ask to be added whenever the story updates! I do hope y’all enjoy it because this has lingered in my head for a while!

#coughs up the first part to my au with a drdt reference #SO YIPPEE FIRST PART DONE WAHOOOOO!!!#DO TELL ME CHARACTERA YALL WANNA SEE IN THIS AU SO FAR I HAVE LIKE 14/16 COMPLETE #Ihave. So many ideas. BET IMA FINSIH THE PROLOGUE SOON #Danganronpa: violent voices au #enstars #enstars au #ensemble stars #ensemble stars au #subaru akehoshi #mao isara #danganronpa #danganronpa fangame #i think this counts as a fangame. i think.

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kirikorik · 1 month ago

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Adam’s Death

Bucky Barnes/femOC! (Aveline). 18+

Part 1! Part 2! Part 3! Part 4...

Summary: Maybe if he had turned away, pretended not to recognize her, everything would have been different. Maybe then she would have lived a long life — not with him, but at least a living one. But Bucky doesn’t know how to turn away. Doesn’t know how not to search for her in the crowd, not to grab her hand trying to remember everything… Maybe he could have saved her. Maybe next time he’ll make it in time and she’ll survive. Maybe next time… Aveline was destined to live three lives: as the sister of America’s hero, as the daughter of a great engineer, and as Hydra’s legacy.

Warnings: Angst, Drama, Blood and Violence, Jealousy, Love, Age Difference, Bucky Barnes Has PTSD, Slow Burn, Suicide, 1930s, 1940s, Reincarnation, Unrequited Love, War, Sexual Content, Miscarriage, Complicated Relationships, Friends to Lovers, Sexism, Child Soldiers, Love/Hate, Blood, Trauma, Psychological Torture, Grief/Mourning, First Time, Developing Relationship, Cruelty, Sexual Inexperience, Masturbation, Character Death, Feelings.

"Unnecessary"

"God sees and will not let me lie, migratory bird—in despair, I found peace only in not forgetting your name."

Date: 19...

The unexpected and unwelcome encounters between Aveline and Barnes become more frequent and nearly inevitable after the younger Rogers, having celebrated her eleventh birthday, transfers to Washington Middle School — which also serves as Brooklyn High School for Steve and Bucky.

It is then that the calm weekdays, peppered with silly quarrels at the elder Rogers’ home, end just as swiftly as Bucky’s quiet hours, who is almost always by his friend’s side.

Washington Middle School is one of those places lacking textbooks, with blackboards long covered in a web of scratches. Times are hard, and funding is far from ideal. Students are constantly reminded that not everyone gets a shot at a good education, and girls in particular are told their future lies in becoming housewives. But Aveline cannot stand such talk and rebels against it.

According to the teachers, young Rogers doesn’t fit the usual image of a "normal" student. Girls her age are learning to behave demurely, since modesty is expected of them. They sit quietly at their desks, hands neatly folded on their laps, collars pressed and tidy. But Aveline lives by her own rules — she races through the hallways like she's late for a derby, laughs louder than allowed, and shows up to school with messy braids as if she just fought over the last piece of bread.

Aveline smashes every expected mold with the loud rip of tights — which she refuses to wear, preferring pants instead. Even when she does agree to a pinafore and blouse, she somehow manages to get dirty before even reaching the school doors.

And no one can accuse her of restraint: loud, bold, defiant — she argues with teachers, quarrels with everyone, convinced she's always right. And what especially irritates her female classmates — and explains why she has no girlfriends — is that Aveline gets along only with boys.

The girls look at her with barely hidden contempt — not because she's loud, but because among the boys, she feels completely at ease. Her carefree and reckless nature sparks a vague jealousy in her peers. But, to their great frustration, Aveline doesn’t care in the slightest.

She’s different. Always. Too free-spirited, too brave, too feisty. Too improper and too smart.

Teachers disapprove of her, but what can they do? Aveline isn’t a troublemaker in the full sense — she just… acts first, thinks later. And even when she does think first, she still does whatever she wants. Her grades are good, and if she tried harder, she could be the best in class.

Girls are taught to be good wives, but Aveline doesn’t seem interested in the future at all. After all, she’s only twelve. She’s not afraid to get her hands dirty, not afraid to speak her mind, not even afraid to argue with grown men — let alone kids her own age.

And Aveline isn’t afraid to go after James, even though he’s two heads taller and clearly stronger, older. He could easily fight back. And yet Aveline is ready to take a hit, though Bucky would never raise a hand against her.

Still, Aveline, with unbearable persistence, always finds a way to drive him mad. She’ll sneak up like a tiny kitten, only to whack him with a textbook or backpack — then watch him with a devilish grin as he scowls menacingly, pretending to be all innocent when the teachers see.

But her eyes fill with fury the moment Barnes, frowning, stretches out yet another mocking nickname:

“What now, lil' squirt, making noise again?

Sometimes he ruffles her hair or lifts her off the ground by the handle of her bag, scolding her for being too skinny — finding his own ways to get revenge.

Though Bucky gets irritated, he always keeps an eye on that little brat to make sure she doesn’t get into real trouble. Aveline Rogers is a maddening storm who turns everything upside down — and she needs watching. After all, she’s still just a child. Though it seems no one could stop this hurricane. At least — not today.***

Date: 1937

“Stop right there, shorty!” James suddenly yells, lightning-fast grabbing Aveline under the arms. The girl flails her legs indignantly in the air, trying to catch up with her friends who’ve already disappeared around the corner of the hallway. For a few moments she dangles like a kitten, still squirming pointlessly, until Bucky sets her back down on the floor.

“Oh my God, you’re such a jerk, Bucky! You’re not that much older than me to act like this!” Aveline hisses through her teeth. “And I. Am. Not. A shorty!” she spins around sharply and, arching her back, nearly smacks him in the nose with her head — Barnes had foolishly leaned in too close.

And with wild animals — you’d better be careful.

Bucky is older than her. A lot older. But even if that wasn’t the case, in this society and at this time, it’s the status that matters — defined not just by age, but by gender too. Aveline knows this. She knows what’s expected of her: silence, modesty, obedience. But she doesn’t want to be like all those girls who braid their hair into thin plaits every morning and, from an early age, pin all their hopes on a single fate — to become good wives and mothers. It's weird — wanting to get married when you’re only twelve.

In her opinion — there’s no worse fate!

“Watch your mouth — shorty, shorty, shorty!” Barnes taunts, smirking with satisfaction, clearly enjoying the way her face turns red with anger. His grin is so smug that Aveline decides to kick him in the thigh with all her might. But he dodges.

“You should learn some manners yourself, you fossil!” she snaps back, eyes blazing. “What’s that creaking sound? Bones crumbling, huh?” She flashes a poisonous smile and sticks out her tongue.

James squints, but there’s a hint of approval in his gaze. Aveline is sharp and brave — and there’s nothing wrong with that. He’s trying to teach his younger sister the same — to be able to stand up for herself, even with words.

“You should listen to and respect your elders. Learn some manners, lil’ hobbit,” James grins, still gripping the younger Rogers’ skinny forearms as he sharply turns her to face her older brother.

“Brilliant move, dumbass,” she mutters, rolling her eyes hard and clenching her jaw. “What do you two want from me now?” she grumbles, sighing tiredly and casting a deeply reproachful look at her older brother — who stands there with a silly, apologetic grin that inspires zero trust.

Steve scratches the back of his neck, thinking about how to start the conversation. Finally, he tries the most innocent tone he can muster:

“Aveline, you know I love you more than anything in the world, right?” The girl squints at him but gives a reluctant nod. “And you know big brothers need help sometimes?” His voice is way too sweet to sound genuine.

“You’re overacting, Stevie,” she snorts, crossing her arms. “Just spit it out. What do you two really want?” Her judgmental gaze darts toward Bucky too, who is stretching his grin lazily and shaking his head at her.

“We want you to help Mrs. Schadel,” Steve mumbles, trying to smile kindly.

“Mrs. Schadel? That old lady from next door? Wait a sec… You’re the one who was supposed to go see her today!” Aveline exclaims.

“Um… well, you see…” Steve fidgets, exchanging looks with Bucky. His face turns slightly pink, and his eyes dart around nervously.

“We wanna hit the amusement park outside the city. So be a good kid and cover for us,” Barnes sighs, spilling the whole plan while patting his friend on the back.

“Steve, are you out of your mind?!” Aveline hisses, throwing up her hands. “If Mom finds out, she’ll bury you alive!”

And it doesn’t matter that all of Steve’s peers have long since slipped out from under parental control. Mrs. Rogers is raising them alone, after her husband died in the war — which is why she’s so protective of her firstborn. And the amusement park out of town? To her, it’s basically a den of thieves and liars, ready to shake down every visitor for all they’ve got. And if she finds out that Steve’s been working odd jobs to save up for a few ride tickets — she’ll be crushed. Crushed that she can’t afford to give him what he wants.

“But you won’t tell her, right?” Bucky drawls, wiggling his eyebrows in an attempt to charm Aveline — which earns him a deeply disgusted look from the younger Rogers.

“You’re trying to charm me? Seriously? With that face?” The girl makes a face. “Nice try. Didn’t work. Vain donkey. Try again.”

Barnes’s expression contorts in offense.

“Okay, okay! What do you want in return?” Steve quickly switches tactics, clearly banking on her pragmatism. Aveline squints thoughtfully, as if calculating just how good of a deal she can get.

“Alas, my desires are far too grand for fools like you to fulfill,” she says in an overly dignified tone, chin held high. — It sounds way too preachy and grown-up. Aveline is clearly very proud to have memorized that line from some book or magazine. Most likely from that same neighbor — Mrs. Schadel. “But I won’t say no to pink cotton candy. And a plush bear. And caramel apples too. And maybe…” — how cliché.

Steve lets out a long sigh, and James snorts loudly, covering his face to keep from laughing out loud. Seems like—for once—negotiations aren’t completely hopeless…***

Date: 2018.

A military aircraft pilot — reaches for the radio and, without taking his eyes off the instruments, presses the transmit button:

"North, this is Atlant. Approximately two hours to the arrival point. Weather is stable, holding course. Over." — "Север, это Атлант. До точки прибытия ориентировочно два часа. Погода стабильная, держу курс. Приём." his voice sounds confident, but inside — tension.

The base replies almost immediately:

"Atlant, copy that. Confirming route." — "Атлант, вас понял. Подтверждаю маршрут." a faint beep and static. — "North, out." — "Север, конец связи."

Outside the window stretches the endless taiga of Eastern Yakutia. Snow-covered treetops disappear into a gray-blue haze. Somewhere far below, beneath a layer of clouds, lies the harsh, silent Siberia.

Foreign hands.

They are always for Aveline. Sticky, icy, like metal frozen in the night air. They’re everywhere — on her throat, on her wrists, on the skin that no longer belongs to her. They press into her flesh.

Breathing — ragged, breaking, like that of a drowning person who realizes they won’t surface again. Aveline shudders and abruptly opens her eyes. The world tilts. Her breath catches in spasmodic jolts, a dull pain squeezing her chest. Her throat is raw from stale air — the smell of metal. Gun oil. Sweat. Blood. A heavy, viscous scent of violence fills her lungs, claws at her brain. Memories slam into her consciousness, flare wildly like frames of broken film.

There is no past or future here — only eyes frozen in emptiness.

Without emotion. Without doubt. Without life.

Aveline breathes in shallow, painful gasps. Her mouth fills with the taste of blood — a split lip. Iron. The coppery taste of panic. And darkness breathes into her face, reminding her of hundreds of hours spent in locked cells, where the air smelled of metal, sweat, and fear. Her temples pound so furiously it feels like her skull will crack, split at the seams. Panic tightens her movements, crawls under her skin, pulses in her veins like poisonous fear. Somewhere deep in her mind a memory scratches — white-gloved hands, needles piercing flesh. A whisper behind the door — emotionless, like butchers deciding which carcass to cut up first.

It’s always her.

Her whole body aches. Every tendon, every joint hurts. As if she had been thrown, beaten, dragged by the hair. A pulse throbs in her stomach, a pulling pain burns under her ribs. Something broken? Possibly.

She jerks — but it’s useless. The metal holds tight. Metal knows no mercy. Panic chokes, swells inside in a lump of liquid ice. Pain. Numbness. Fear. She sees her own knees — the white fabric of the dress is torn. Crimson stains spread along the ragged fringe. Her scraped knees ooze blood. Scabs haven’t formed yet, dirt ground into the skin like stains that can’t be washed out. Her nails tremble, her hands still weakly try to move, but her wrists are bound.

Tick-tock.

Somewhere deep in the plane, there’s a steady clicking. Either the instrument panel in the cockpit, or some inner timer counting down her seconds. Aveline clenches her teeth, grabs the seat back with trembling fingers. The stiff seatbelt rubs her neck. Had she thrashed so hard it tightened on its own?

Or did someone fasten it?

She lifts her gaze from her shaking knees. The porthole reveals a face from the darkness.

A face half-hidden under the shadow of a mask. Black tactical material tightly wraps his lower jaw, leaving only the eyes exposed — empty, dead, without a glimmer of life. She knows them. The eyelids marked with harsh black smears of paint — like markings. Dark strands of hair fall onto his forehead, tangled, wet with sweat and, maybe, blood. His blood. They cling to his skin, hiding part of his face. But they don’t hide the sinister essence. He is a monster.

The Winter Soldier — sits across from her in silence.

Motionless, as if he had been carved from steel and left to cool in this metal coffin. His posture — unnaturally straight. Only his metal arm bends slightly. And in that motion there is something so disgustingly precise, mechanical, unnatural. The metal glistens in the dim light, streaked with thin lines of dried blood. Her blood.

The Asset does not move.

Barely breathes. In the silence, Aveline hears neither sighs nor the slightest movement. He is motionless, like a corpse, but in his eyes smolders a slow, silent threat. Familiar — and still wild.

The Asset is more alive than all the dead he left behind. More alive — and more terrifying. His stillness is not numbness, but anticipation. Aveline feels her body instinctively tense, muscles heavy with lead, but it’s useless. He is the axe raised over the executioner’s block. He is a weapon that does not rust or break. It just waits for the command to start killing.

She was prepared for this.

A clean shadow falls from the line of his shoulders. His hand still rests on the holster, and inside — the pistol lies as before. Aveline can no longer look at him. She jerks her gaze away, feeling a cold knot twist in her stomach.

She hates him. But that doesn’t help.

His presence presses down, pins her into the seat. She feels him even with her eyes closed — like a shadow, a nightmare that haunted her all those years in freedom, hiding under her bed, holding its breath before grabbing her throat, pinning her into the mattress and ordering again: — Fight, or I’ll break your jaw.

And then she screamed.

Terror. Ancient and nauseating. Far too familiar. She hadn’t seen him in years. And now — the Asset, just a few steps away, and she — his target.

He doesn’t remember me. Not again.

It slices through her consciousness, pierces tender flesh like razor wire. He doesn’t remember her. He doesn’t react to her. He looks — but sees nothing.

But she knows what he’s capable of.

His eyes are cold, detached, not a spark of recognition in them.

He doesn’t remember her. But he knows.

Avelina feels sticky horror spreading in her stomach, her legs weakening, and her heart cramping painfully against her ribs. She’s starting to fully come to her senses. Cold slowly creeps into her chest, wraps around her ribs, squeezes her heart in the grip of icy fingers.

She’s there again.

In those corridors, where the walls are soaked through with screams. Where pain is something mandatory, even familiar. Where a broken voice is just another experiment. Her own voice—weak, hoarse, trying to break free through clenched teeth—dissolves into the sound of footsteps. Clear, confident, measured—they’re coming toward her. She shudders. They’re looking at her. Her fingers clench into fists, nails digging into her palms.

Fight.

The Winter Soldier still doesn’t know who she is. And she doesn’t have a clue what his real name is. The Asset has once again become a soulless weapon. And they still want to make her the same.

Was he always like this? He’s always been like this. She just used to want to believe there was something human left inside him—back when she was ten. She believed someone, anyone, would save her.

But now she’s not looking at a person. Before her stands a creature made of flesh, metal, and filth, stuffed with kill codes, programmed for violence. He’s a traitor. Even his breathing—if it even exists—doesn’t break the absolute control he holds over his body.

And her memory flares up, like a point-blank shot. Avelina feels like she’s being shoved headfirst back into a sticky darkness, where there’s no up or down, only a cold, faceless evil tightly coiling around her body. Obey. Pain from the past rises sharply, slamming into every cell—blows, jerks, indifferent stares through the glass of the observation post.

She’s not a person.

She’s material, a tool.

They taught her not to think. Not to feel. Not to ask questions. In her mind, they built a cage—carefully, by the book, from fear, pain, and obedience. There was no room for a name, for memories, for childhood dreams. Only commands. Only results. They sliced her soul into pieces and sealed it away in archives like a useless file. Now she’s just a shell. But a shell that still holds a spark somewhere inside—a tiny, barely visible one. Maybe it’s hatred. Maybe it’s a trace memory of what it means to live, not just exist. But that spark is a traitor. Because it’s what makes the pain so real. It’s what makes her scream, even when her tongue sticks to the roof of her mouth from terror.

A doctor once told her that fear is weakness. Then why did he force her to be so afraid?

A sharp blow of memory pierces her consciousness—like someone is plunging her into icy water. The ice hole. Hydra. The chambers. The experiments. Volkov’s voice. Soldiers—their indifferent faces. The twins. Pain. Torture. Metal sliding under skin. A scream tearing through the dark corridors in echoes. She’s small again—back in that hellish place.

She’s seven. Eight. Nine. Ten. Eleven. Twelve. Thirteen and…

Every day—a new horror.

This time, the attack hits instantly. She arches like a cornered animal. Her body thrashes in a panic attack.

They’re dragging her back to Hydra. Again.

"No!"

A loud, horror-filled scream rips from her throat. The soldiers barely manage to hold her, but she squirms like a wild beast, clawing at clothes, at skin, at air. Her nails leave bloody marks on her palms, her legs kick out in a frantic attempt to break free.

A wave of nausea rises to her throat. Her head pounds so hard it feels like her skull is caught in a vice. Her vision swims, images shaking, blurring. A hum in her ears grows—heavy, crushing. Her heart slams so hard it sends pain through her ribs. Her skin burns, like boiling water is being poured over it.

She’s choking. The oxygen is heavy, sticky—there’s not enough of it, again… again… the doctor, his laughter, his smile, his scream… and blood.You did this to him.

Every cell in her body thrashes in hysteria. Panic is no longer an emotion. It’s a state. It seeps into the bones, cramps the muscles, makes the guts twist. She wants to scream, but her tongue is paralyzed. Heat crashes over her, then cold, and it feels like her skin is peeling off in sheets, like after a burn. All she can do is tremble. And hope someone stops this nightmare. But deep down she knows: no one is coming. No one will save her. Because real torture isn’t pain. It’s loneliness. It’s the realization that you’re screaming into a void, and all you get in return — is silence.

But someone’s voice breaks through the thick haze:

“Hey, what’s wrong with her?” — Russian language, but she understands. Understands the knowledge hammered into her skull through starvation.

No… she can’t go back there again…

She won’t survive it again.

She can’t.

“Shit! What the hell’s wrong with her?!” — another soldier shouts back. — “Give me the damn collar!”

I’m begging you, don’t…

Please!

Please…

“What the… girl, can you hear me?” — a light slap burns her cheek.

She hears. Hears everything, but understands nothing. Her hands twitch, legs curl up in spasms. The mind screams, demands rescue, demands movement — survive. Don’t end up in Hydra’s jaws again, don’t let them sink their teeth into her flesh.

“Igor, hold her! Fuck!” — the first yells when she throws her head back and drops to her knees.

A jerk. Fingers dig into her shoulders. Rough hands clutch her wrists, trying to shove her back into the chair. She tries to break free. Panic tears at her lungs, bursts out in a hoarse, broken sound. Her hands are tied, and she hears the crunch of her own wrists as she fights to escape.

“Calm down!” — the Russian yells as he gets accidentally hit in the face by the back of her head.

“Pin her arms down!” — a scream, deafening, rotten.

“Shut your mouth!” — they order her, as Avelina, writhing, begins to scream in pain, chased by the blood running from her nose. But she dodges, and they can’t get the metal collar onto her.

Another seizure.

Another terror.

It’s all your fault…

The doctor is to blame for everything.

“Bitch!”

She feels steel fingers on her throat. Not now — back then. Long ago. In that place where they told her pain was a necessity, that fear made her useless. Hands in white coats, the smell of burnt flesh, the sticky fear that can never be washed away. She screams. They throw her to the floor, metal slices her skin.

But the scream — is empty.

No one hears it.

No one saves her.

“Don’t feel. Don’t feel!” — the plea sounds, not her own voice.

Because pain — is nothing. Pain — is an illusion. They drilled it into her for years. Until she learned to endure.

But enduring — doesn’t mean forgetting.

And in the next moment, a cold barrel touches the back of her head, and the collar clatters to the floor.

“Shut up, you freak!” — one of the soldiers snarls, grabbing her hair and forcing her down. — “Or I’ll fucking shoot you!”

Metal presses into her skull. The soldier shoves her head down roughly. Avelina’s eyes widen, her breathing breaks into sharp, ragged gasps. She doesn’t want to die. But she can’t return to that Hell.

Living is more than breathing. It’s remembering. Remembering hands that held her without pain. Voices that held warmth, not the cold clarity of command. Avelina remembers their faces — blurry, maybe imagined, but real to her. And the thought that she’ll disappear here again, like a disposable mistake, brings not so much terror as — rage. Not at them. At the world. At herself. At those who made her capable only of surviving, but not living. And from that rage is born a trembling, uncertain protest. It’s not the desire to win. It’s the desire not to vanish without a trace.

“What the fuck is wrong with her?!”

They’re afraid of her. Afraid because they know what they did to her. Afraid because Hydra broke her — but didn’t destroy her. They saw how she was turned into a weapon. How they shattered her, burned away everything extra, erased the personality, replacing it with cold command. They know that the ugliness still lives inside her — the Moth. They saw her being turned into an obedient beast, one that can be unleashed on anyone.

They raised it themselves.

Molded it from terror, screams, sleepless nights under the icy light of laboratories. They gave her a name, but erased her identity to replace it with the beast. They wanted a weapon — and got a creature that fears itself. The Moth lives inside her — a shadow on the wall, a voice in the dark, a predatory breath behind her. She feels it. Especially now, when fear rises above her throat. The beast whispers to her, tells her how to survive. It knows what to do. It is her salvation and her end. She fears the monster born of her pain. But she also knows: if she doesn’t let it out — she will die. Because the Moth demands blood. And blood — is already flowing.

The soldier’s finger trembles on the trigger. Click. The hammer cocks. In the next instant, she will be gone.

Shoot… I beg you, just shoot me!

Cold pierces her spine. Somewhere deep in her mind, a voice is screaming, but Avelina no longer hears it. Her eyes fly open, and tears start to fall down her cheeks. They will make her suffer again, will torment her again, cause her even more pain…

But Avelina can’t stop shaking. She can’t. Can’t stop the chaos in her mind, can’t suppress the convulsive urge — to live. Her lips part. A trembling breath cuts into her chest, and then — the shot.

A dull ring.

But the world doesn’t fade.

And the body behind her collapses…

Blood. It’s everywhere. Warm, sticky, thick. Avelina sees the drops settle on her dress, leaving ominous stains, soaking into the fabric, running down torn knees. Blood splashes onto the second soldier’s boots. The smell — iron, salt, death. She blinks, but the world doesn’t clear. Everything shakes, smears into a crimson mess.

The body falls slowly, too slowly. Knees buckle, feet slip in blood, and the soldier sinks down, leaving a smeared scarlet trail behind. His eyes stay open. Something wet, something grotesque trickles from his parted mouth. A last breath bursts out in bubbling mush before the world spits him out.

There’s a hole in his forehead.

She can't breathe. The air is heavy, like a blanket pulled over her face. Panic claws at her chest. She can't even recoil. All that’s left — is to watch. To watch as the second soldier, terrified, tears the weapon from his shoulder, as his mouth opens in a silent scream, as his pupils widen, frozen in animal fear.

He doesn’t even try to shoot.

He knows he's already too late.

Click. Bang.

The second one's head jerks, snaps back, as if someone yanked his hair hard. Then — a splash. Hot droplets on her face. On her lips. On her tongue. The bullet pierces the skull. The body twitches and slumps, collapsing lifelessly.

Avelina chokes. Her stomach knots up. She gags on nausea, but nothing comes out. The pilot pulls off his headphones, turns around, white as death. His eyes widen in horror, and he reaches for the alarm button. But the third bullet finds his throat. He doesn’t manage to scream. Only a strangled gurgle before he falls face-first onto the control panel.

The Winter Soldier stands in the center of the cockpit. His hand grips the pistol, its barrel still smoking. His eyes are cold, lifeless, reflecting the dim light of the emergency lamps. Those eyes — have watched the agony of dozens of people, but remembered none of them. Eyes — that saw darkness not as something foreign, but as a native home.

He doesn't just carry darkness inside him — he radiates it. As if the void within demands to consume everything around. Even light. Even hope. She remembers once hearing a doctor say about him: "He's a program with the face of a dead man." Back then she didn’t understand what it meant. Now — she does. These are not the eyes of a killer. There is no rage in them. Rage implies choice. And he has no choice. And yet — why him? Why is her past so tightly tied to this being, in whom there’s no name, no story, no future?

The red lights on the panel flash and flicker, slicing through the darkness, illuminating his silhouette in sharp bursts. Avelina sees the steel hand twitch ever so slightly. The muscles under the skin of the living arm contract. The bullet he just fired has only just landed, but his finger is already ready to pull the trigger again.“Protect the target at all costs. Avelina Stark — date of birth: 2000… Father — Tony Stark. Project — Adam’s Death. Mole — priority. She is important to us, Soldier. Avelina Stark — is your mission.”

The plane jolts, tilts to one side. Screams of metal, warning signals on the panel, harsh bangs — the heavy machine is losing control.

The Asset’s eyes flash as they land on the girl. In them, for one fleeting moment, a vague, anxious shadow flickers — a faint echo of something that might once have been a memory. But it fades, dissolving like steam on glass.

Then — a crash.

Thunder, shaking the air. As if the world itself cracks at the seams. Heavy gravity throws Avelina up, slamming metal into her back. Gunfire. Blasts. Screams. Dull thuds of bodies hitting the walls of the cabin. Blood. Blurred, torn silhouettes in the chaos of death...

An explosion tears through space.

Flames flare up, devour everything. The plane goes down. Her vision becomes alien, flips, blurs into one continuous insane fall. Avelina screams, but the wind rips the cry from her mouth, drowning it in the roar of fire and metal.

Flame shows no mercy. It doesn't choose who to burn — the living or the dead. It just devours. With every second she feels the hull groaning under the overload, the air growing hot, like the breath of a beast ready to consume everything. Sparks in her eyes. A howl in her ears, as if the world breaks loose from its hinges. She doesn't know how long the fall lasts. Maybe a second. Maybe an eternity. She's being pulled down. But the worst part — is knowing she’s not falling alone. Somewhere close — he is there. And even in this chaos, he remains the one carrying her to the edge of doom.

A jerk. Pain. Something slams into her wrist.

A steel hand. The Winter Soldier — is holding her tightly.

And for one moment — just one moment — their eyes meet.

Then another explosion. Metal shrieks like a living creature. Scorching fragments fly in the chaos of destruction. The world loses shape, turning into a mix of charred shadows, sparks, and torn bodies. For a moment Avelina thinks the fire reaches her too — seeping under her skin, ripping into her muscles, sinking into her bones...

Heat. Light. Flame. Bang. Darkness.

But in this chaos, there’s only one movement and one direction — downward. The fall — slow and inevitable. On the steel, red and orange reflections. But it means nothing. Because they are falling to be smashed to pieces.

And then the grip slips. And Avelina falls down alone.***

Date: 1937

"Bucky, no!" a loud laugh echoes down the hallway as James skillfully grabs Avelina by the elbow. She wriggles, laughs, begging him to stop. "No!" she shouts, trying to break free from his firm grip between fits of laughter.

Tickling is his favorite revenge. And now she’s getting it in full for having managed to weave another ridiculous story for the teachers, claiming that it was Barnes who drew on the wall in the music room. One thing remains unchanged—Avelina always finds a way to get out of any trouble unscathed.

They’ve grown older, but they still squabble like cats and dogs, fighting and bickering over anything. But now, their faces are always adorned with smiles.

Bucky hadn’t even noticed how he had gotten used to this annoying, tiny, fragile girl—the sister of his best friend. Now, he can’t imagine a day when, on his way to meet Steve before school, he wouldn’t throw something in her direction, wouldn’t hide her backpack so she’d be late, wouldn’t mess with her books or lunch. It’s become routine. What he does every day.

"You asked for it!" James exclaims with a broad smile, enjoying her helpless attempts to escape. Avelina’s cheeks are flushed, her hair disheveled, and tears from laughter are gathering at the corners of her eyes.

"You’re just awful!" Rogers mutters hoarsely, barely catching her breath.

"I'm awful?!" Bucky feigns indignation.

After all, it wasn’t him who stuck Mrs. Bridge’s notebook to the desk, or hid one shoe from each of his classmates while they were in gym class. And it wasn’t him who accidentally ripped off a board with a piece of the wall while playing tag. When teachers saw Avelina, they grabbed their heads in horror, and she calls him awful—how ironic. Because it certainly isn’t Bucky they fear letting into the chemistry lab, worried about the new surge of intellectual abilities in one of the middle school students. They thought it would pass with age, but Avelina is already fourteen, and things have only gotten worse.

With a screech and a defiant cry, Rogers finally manages to break free from his embrace. She immediately hides behind her brother, who watches this mess with a smirk. Traitor.

"Hey, James," suddenly a bright, sickly sweet voice rings out beside them, interrupting the idyll. Avelina tenses immediately, turns toward the sound, and her smile vanishes, turning into a grimace of disgust.

Kate. Of course, it’s Kaitlyn. One of those girls—whom Rogers can’t stand. She’s the one who fits perfectly into the old-fashioned mold: a good, obedient student who makes sure everyone is happy and that everyone loves her. Anything to stay safe, in her cocoon, never stepping out of line. Part of Avelina even feels sorry for her.

Everything about Kate seems taken to the extreme: from perfectly styled chestnut curls to the immensely expensive school uniform, lacquered shoes bought in one of New York’s best boutiques, and her sly smile. What she’s doing in their school, which doesn’t fit her status, remains a mystery to many. Probably because in a private school, she has no competition.

"Hello, Ketti." Bucky’s voice immediately softens, even too much. He straightens his back, squares his shoulders, and smiles so brightly, it’s as if he just stepped off a magazine cover. "You look… stunning today. Just like always."

Avelina clenches her jaw, feeling her irritation boil up again. This is envy, resentment, and anger.

"‘Stunning, huh?’" she grumbles in her head, but remains silent.

Bucky’s words feel like a nail piercing the sole of her shoe, but somehow the pain resonates in her chest. No matter how hard Avelina tries to remember, if he’s ever said something like this to her—it doesn’t come to mind.

In class, the talk often turns to "perfect ladies" and what that means for a girl in the 1930s. A perfect lady must be modest, submissive, and not upset social norms. In their right mind, no one would agree to such high standards. But these are the girls who are taught to settle for what they get from an early age.

But for Bucky, Avelina is just the annoying little sister of his friend, whose only purpose is to tease her, mock her, and make faces at her.

He’s never told Avelina that her new dress or shoes, her earrings, or the hairpin in her hair look good on her. Not that she dresses up often, but still. He’s never complimented her smile or her eyes. And, of course, he never looks at her with the same admiration as he looks at that damn Kate.

"Kate, that blouse looks great on you. Kate, you have the prettiest dimples. Kate, you have beautiful eyes." Avelina hates Kaitlyn. And even more, she hates the flattery towards her.

Rogers quietly hisses through gritted teeth, unable to suppress her irritation. There’s a hot lump in her throat, like a piece of coal that she can neither swallow nor spit out. She hates herself for this weakness, for the fact that her heart betrays her, beating faster every time Bucky talks to Kate. When he laughs at her jokes or nods with that same light admiration that she’ll never get. Her fingers clench into fists so tight that her nails dig into her palms almost to the point of blood.

Bucky gives compliments to others. Many others, and often. James Barnes is always the center of attention. He’s charismatic, tall, broad-shouldered, and brave. By the time he’s eighteen, he’s transformed, and even his perpetually messy hair now falls in beautiful curls, framing his high forehead. As if he’s a model off a magazine cover, one Avelina could never afford.

It’s hurtful and painful.

A beautiful face: sharp, sunken cheekbones, full lips, a nose with a slight bump — he’s into boxing and he’s excellent at it, though of course, it hasn’t come without injuries. Dark, thick eyebrows emphasize his expressive grey eyes. And that crooked smirk.

Aveline hates it.

She hates it so much that only her diary, hidden in the nightstand by her bed, knows how many years she’s been in love with him. In a world full of rigid social rules and predictability, feelings like these must always remain hidden. Aveline can’t even think about telling anyone — it would become a joke. You don’t say things like that out loud.

Although, truth be told, she doesn’t even have any friends to gossip with…

And all of this infuriates Aveline Rogers. She’s not supposed to fall for Steve’s best friend. Especially not when she’s been fighting for his older brother’s attention since they were kids.

It’s wrong. It’s not how things are supposed to be.

Bucky’s gaze — fixed, like he’s spellbound, stirring the blood in her young body. He always looks at you like you’re the only thing that matters to him. Maybe he doesn’t even do it on purpose.

And it’s that very gaze that makes Aveline ache. Because it doesn’t belong to her. It’s random, scattered through the hallways, bouncing from one girl to the next. But one day, for just a second, it lands on her — and that moment is enough to crush Aveline’s heart into a fist and bury the pain so deep that no one would ever suspect it’s there.

It drives her crazy, absolutely crazy. She shouldn’t be acting like this, she shouldn’t be falling for Bucky, and she definitely shouldn’t be like all the other girls in her class. She’s just the sister of his friend — nothing more.

And it must stay that way.

“My dad bought me two tickets for the premiere tonight…” Kate starts sweetly, tilting her head and twirling a curl around her finger. How cliché. “Maybe you’d like… to come with me?” — her voice is half-shy, half-smug, but for Barnes, it clearly works.

As if she’s not a stuck-up, spoiled only child who doesn’t care about anyone but herself. Kate is always surrounded by attention, as if there’s never been a day in her life when someone hasn’t told her how amazing she is. And those endless compliments — they get under your skin. Aveline can’t even remember the last time someone said anything like that to her…

Her patience snaps with a deafening crack. Because tonight Bucky promised to take her to her first fairground. Without him, Mom will only let her go with Steve. And knowing Barnes definitely won’t say no to Kate — that hurts the most.

“He’s not going anywhere with someone like you!” Aveline blurts out, lunging toward the girl.

In that moment, she catches Bucky’s shocked expression, Steve’s confused one — and Kate’s shifting into a glare. Well, at least the younger Rogers can proudly say this whole thing didn’t start because of her. Kate was the one who first called her a pathetic, dirty street boy months ago…

“With someone like what, exactly?” Kate hisses through a venomous smile, like a snake about to strike. Her face twists, her eyes full of disdain. The mask falls off.

She’s learned to smile in a way that hides the poison. To sound just a bit softer than she should — like a warm hand that presses the pillow too hard over your face. Like the noose her mother tightens around her neck. Like the snap of her father’s belt buckle.

Sometimes Caitlyn herself doesn’t even understand why she says things that can hurt — maybe it’s because she wants to see Aveline flinch. To watch that flicker of uncertainty cross her face. Because as long as Rogers stays strong, she feels weak.

“With a filthy bitch!” flies out of Aveline’s mouth before she can stop herself. Her heart skips a beat, her face goes pale. First heat, then cold. But not for a second does she regret it.

Kate’s twisted expression — worth it.

“Watch your language!” Steve immediately cuts in, looking at his sister with disapproval. This time his face says more — he’s disappointed…

“You little—!” Kate screeches, stepping forward and raising her hand for a slap. But Bucky grabs her wrist in an instant. His face remains calm, but there’s barely restrained anger in his smile.

Caitlyn has always thought it was unfair. No matter how hard she tried to be perfect — obedient, elegant, with flawless curls and the most expensive dresses — Bucky still looked at Aveline. Not the way he looked at her — not with admiration, but with something… something warm, careful, and protective. Bucky looked at Aveline with the kind of love you feel for someone so close, so deeply yours, that you’d always put them first.

But love can’t just be given for free. Can it?

Her parents had always told her since she was little: to be loved, you had to try, you had to work for it, you had to be better than the rest. And it drives Caitlyn insane. Why does she, smart, rich, and beautiful, have to fight for Bucky’s attention, while that awkward, rough little nobody gets everything — and more — just like that?

It’s not fair.

What’s even more unfair is that Aveline doesn’t even try to be better. And Caitlyn is forced to be perfect every single day. Forced to do things she doesn’t want to do. They never give her a choice. Never. But that girl… Maybe that’s why, every time she hurts Aveline, it gets just a little easier to breathe…

What’s it like to fight for James’s attention against a plain girl who doesn’t even seem like a girl? It’s pathetic and low. But as long as Aveline is around — Bucky never gives a damn about Kate.

But she wasn’t afraid of Aveline. Not until she started looking at Bucky like he was more than just her brother’s friend. Like he was her whole world. And if there’s one thing Kate knows for sure, it’s that looks like that ruin her plans. Even if Aveline herself doesn’t yet realize how often her eyes betray the truth.

“I agree. Let’s meet after class?” Bucky says gently, looking Kate straight in the eyes. “I’ll walk you home and we’ll talk everything through.”

Ketty freezes for a second, and then, unable to hide her selfish joy from the victory, starts nodding rapidly, forgetting everything else. But Aveline, to her fortune and a triumphant smirk, clearly sees a vein twitching nervously on Kate’s forehead. Throwing one last contemptuous look at Rogers and smiling even wider, Kate turns to her friends and quickly walks away to brag.

The younger Rogers watches her go, clenching her jaw so tight it almost cracks her teeth. She’s already preparing to say everything she thinks about this situation, but suddenly Bucky steps up to her, grabs her shoulders hard, and turns her to face him.

“Don’t you ever do that again!” he growls, towering over her like a storm cloud. His grey eyes are cold as ice, and his voice so serious it makes the hairs on the back of her neck stand up.

“But she started it…” she tries to defend herself. Her voice drops in fear, her ears flushing red with shame and embarrassment.

“I don’t care,” he snaps like a slap. “You were the first to insult her, Aveline. You called her a ‘nasty bitch,’ what the hell?!”

Rogers presses her lips together guiltily and lowers her eyes. Somewhere behind them Steve mumbles something unintelligible, but no one listens. Just like always.

“If you’re jealous, don’t take it out on others,” James barks, shaking the younger Rogers again by the shoulders.

Her chest tightens with hurt, a nauseating lump rises in her throat. Aveline wants to disappear. To bolt for the door and run until she collapses. A strange, sticky feeling gathers between her ribs — heavy, nasty, disgusting — and her eyes fill with tears…

“What makes think I’m jealous?!” Aveline suddenly shouts, gasping like she’s been hit. The sting in her eyes grows stronger, and she jerks back, trying to break free.

“Hey, guys, seriously, that’s enough…” Steve mumbles, placing a hand on his friend’s shoulder, but Barnes pushes him away. “Please, stop…” — now more firmly.

“Because it’s obvious! Don’t lie to yourself!” Bucky insists. His voice is harsh, with not a hint of kindness.

Each word cuts like broken glass. And he’s absolutely right.

“Ketty has everything you don’t! She’s got tons of friends who adore her. Everyone loves her. Everyone respects her, listens to her! Everyone wants to be like her — not like you — and you know it! That’s why you’re so angry! Just admit it! At least she looks like a damn girl!” — those words knock the air out of her.

They pierce her heart like blades. Hot tears stream down her cheeks. Clenching her teeth against the pain, Aveline finally pulls out of his grasp and presses her wrists to her chest. Her lips tremble, her brows furrow — she’s barely holding it together.

She can’t bottle it up anymore. She was wrong — then she’s guilty. But how long is she supposed to take this? Every day with Bucky is torture. And she’s done being silent.

“Screw you!” Rogers yells, unable to hold back her tears. “I hate you! Do you hear me?!” — she takes a step back, lowers her head, and through a choked sob hisses: “Traitor.”

Aveline won’t let him talk to her like that anymore. Won’t let anyone.

She turns around and bolts off, running toward the school stairwell. Bumping into some guy on the way, she scolds him out loud in embarrassment. And finally, with a loud, desperate sob through the tears streaming down her face, she vanishes from sight…

And Bucky is left standing there, frozen. A strange weight presses down on his chest. He went too far. Every word he said now echoes in his mind like dull hammer blows on metal. And with every new strike, it just hurts more.

What has he done?..

The bell rings and class starts. The hallway begins to empty, and suddenly Bucky thinks he can still feel her trembling in his hands — the way she did when he grabbed her too roughly. Harsh and painful. Pressing his lips together, he mentally slaps himself — shamefully and harshly, not understanding how it came to this…

How could he do this to her? Bucky was supposed to be her friend… Bitterness. He is her friend. The one who protects her, shields her, even when Aveline bites his hand. But now, Bucky is the one who crushed her. He made Aveline cry. And she wasn’t even…

Aveline wasn’t ugly or jealous or plain or “not right.” Aveline was always just Aveline — and that was perfect. And he… he’s a bastard. A traitor.

“That was too much,” Steve exhales dryly, coming to his senses after his sister’s screams, looking away. “You had no right to talk to my sister like that.” Rogers furrows his brows, breathing hard as he scans the ashamed Barnes, who can’t even look him in the eyes. “And I… I’m no better…”

Turning away, Steve says over his shoulder:

"I should have stopped you earlier, Bucky, and now I'm... Damn!" his friend swore for the first time in Barnes' memory. Rogers clenches his fists with all his might so as not to pounce on him, exhales hoarsely and follows his sister.

And Bucky makes a move to follow Steve, but sharply stops himself, irritated and angry — angry only at himself. As if that could help anything.

He didn't want to hurt Aveline. Didn't want it all to end… like this.

A thousand thoughts flash through his mind, but each one sounds like an excuse that only makes things worse. He's too stubborn, too harsh, and now that all his anger is turned only on himself, it's already too late to change anything.

All Bucky sees in front of him now is Aveline’s frightened face and the shine of tears he himself made her shed.

He lets out a bitter chuckle, frowning.

"Traitor."***

Date: 1991.

The instruments come to life at last, and the grim laboratory fills with a sharp hum. The sound intensifies with each passing second, soon resembling a monstrous heartbeat — cold, mechanical, inhuman.

He feels the stiff leather straps biting into his wrists and ankles, as if they wish to merge with his body. They don’t just restrain — they suppress the very essence of his being, preventing escape, not allowing even the slightest movement. His chest rises and falls erratically in a desperate attempt to inhale more oxygen, but with each moment, it becomes harder.

This is not fear.

It is something worse, deeper, and more desperate.

It is helplessness.

The apparatus above his head looks like an instrument of torture. It is. Massive metal plates are surrounded by a tangled web of wires that hang down like black snakes. These wires twitch at the slightest movement, as if preparing to strike. Every twist promises pain. The current is already filling the system.

Electric flashes hiss as they slide along the rings spinning above his head. The sound moves in ragged pulses — now closer, now farther, as though death itself is playing hide and seek with him.

The glass screen on the control panel flickers, displaying rows of unfamiliar symbols. And from behind, the operator's voice rings out. A cold, lifeless voice:

"Activate the remaining levels. Initiate full cleansing." — "Активировать оставшиеся уровни. Начать полную очистку."

Aktiv already knows what this means, and so he tries to focus on something, anything, that won’t bring terror. But the memories betray him, slipping away.

A crackling sound erupts, and the metal plates descend with a dull thud onto his head. Their sharp edges pierce his skull, causing a slight tingling. The cold iron almost soothes him. But this calm lasts only a moment.

The first electric charge runs through the plates.

The world collapses around him. A bright light strikes his eyes, blinding him, followed by darkness. Thick, sticky darkness, as if it’s filling every corner of his mind. The current penetrates deeper, igniting an unbearable fire in his head. His muscles seize, his body jerks, the straps tighten to their limits, as though trying to hold his convulsing shell together.

The world collapses into a single point. And then comes the pain.

It’s not physical pain. This pain is far worse. It tears him apart from within, ripping away everything human. All the memories, everything that makes him who he is.

Voices from the past scream in his head, but they quickly fade, dissolving into the flashes of light. Her voice, the warmth of the sun’s rays, the laughter of a friend, his best friend, her blue eyes, the blue sky, the sound of the sea, the touch of palms, her voice, the cold winter, her smile, her tears... All of it disappears, quickly and swiftly.

His eyelids tremble but do not close — it feels as if they’ve fused to his skull, and his eyes are filled with dry, burning pain. Aktiv wants to scream, but his throat is tight, his vocal cords numb and dry. Sweat trickles down his temples, but his body remains icy, as if he’s been plunged into a hole in the ice and forced to burn from within. He feels his muscles stiffening, fibers tearing under the pressure of the current, but he can no longer tell — is it real pain, or just a signal in his crumbling brain?

Aktiv tries to remember his name, even just one letter, but instead, a new thought flares up in his consciousness: "Soldier."

How many letters in his name?

Three? Four? No, more. But which?

He tries to find them among the chaos, among the pain, among the electric discharges, but they crumble, turning into white noise. Something important, something that keeps him afloat — vanishes. LETTER. WORD. NAME. It’s here. It slips away.

It... is not here.

Only the cold echo remains:

— "Winter Soldier."

The echo of this word fades somewhere inside, beneath the shutter of consciousness. It is foreign, disgustingly cold, but it already belongs to him. Appropriated by his shell. As if his true self had never existed.

An electric charge stimulates the nerve endings, and he tastes copper in his mouth. Bitter and salty, rusty. Somewhere in the distance, indifferent voices of scientists can be heard:

— "Resistance is dropping. Subjugation level 95%. Increasing power." — "Резистентность падает. Уровень подчинения 95%. Повышаем мощность."

The new charge hits harder than the previous one. His body shakes and arches like a bow, the straps tighten even more, cutting into his skin, leaving scars. His fingers dig into the metal surface of the chair, then, fists clenched, he tears the skin on his palms.

He almost feels the spikes of pain penetrate every cell, leaving traces. His lips press together, yet from his throat escapes a muffled, almost animalistic scream.

A dull electric shock pierces his skull, like a nail driven to the base. In that moment, the world compresses to a searing point of agony. The smell — horrible, sticky — immediately fills the air. It's not just burning, not ordinary smoke, but something bitter and wrong. A mix of burnt flesh, ozone, and bitter metal.

As if wires are burning inside his head, as if someone is slowly charring his very essence. This smell sticks to the palate, enters his nostrils, sinks into his skin, leaving the sensation that it is forever lodged somewhere deep in his memory — if fragments of memory even remain.

The skull heats up from the inside. Not just pain — burning, exhausting — but also the feeling that something is boiling, bubbling, swelling inside the skull. Thoughts crack, tearing apart like a taut thread, and inside spreads a blind, hysterical heat that cannot be cooled. The pain doesn't stay in one place — it pulses, spreads down the spine, radiates into the teeth and jaw...

Then, a silhouette flashes before his eyes. Pale, blurry, as if the figure is covered in thick fog. No face, no contours, just an image. It stands before him, but with each new charge, its outlines grow fainter, until it disappears altogether.

The eyes... They feel as though they are filled with lead. His eyelids grow heavier, trembling, but they won't close. His gaze clouds, distorting everything around, turning the world into a viscous shimmering mush. Somewhere at the edge of his vision, dark spots dance, as if burned scars on the retina. Pressure grows in the skull, as if the brain is about to burst. And behind all this — a dead, hollow ringing. Prolonged, endless, like a distant echo of a scream that no one hears.

The scanners complete the final adjustments. Every fragment of his memory is rewritten. His memories are replaced with cold commands: "Kill. Obey. Execute." The pain begins to fade, but with it fades everything that made him alive. Every part of his being is completely erased.

This is already irreversible.

His body continues to convulse, but his brain no longer perceives the agony, leaving only vile emptiness behind.

c is too exhausted.

The scientists disconnect the devices without a word. The plates snap off his head with a sharp sound, and he takes a hoarse breath, filling his chest.

Suffocate.

No one looks him in the eye. To them, he is not human. Just an Object. An Active. A tool. A task that has been successfully completed.

Bucky Barnes is not here — only the Winter Soldier. And he is not human; he has no need for feelings and emotions. Neither regret nor sympathy — he does not need them.

He is here forever. It’s as if it is biting into his skull. It becomes his essence. He no longer has a past. And there is no future either. Only execution. Only orders. Only the cold voice that will always decide who he is. Tomorrow they will wake him again. And again they will cleanse him. And again they will erase him. It will continue endlessly, again, again, and again...

His world is gray, cold, and empty. Emotions, feelings, memories — all of this is unnecessary. All of it is gone. His life no longer belongs to him. From now on, commands will govern every movement of his.

And the Asset no longer remembers that things were once different.***

Date: 1937.

When Avelina stops coming to school, the days lose their color. The corridors become quieter, as if someone has turned the volume down to the minimum, depriving the place of life itself. Even the school posters advertising new films seem less vibrant.

Bucky, tormented by guilt, struggles for a long time to gather his thoughts to speak to Steve.

Time passes, and his judgments become like something familiar, like rusty iron rails covered in dust, over which trains continue to roll. He is not the only one trying to escape. Steve also carries something similar—indecision and sadness. But this conversation is necessary if he wants to fix things, even a little.

Bucky knows he acted terribly, and for the first time in a long time, he feels it gnawing at him from the inside. When he finally gathers the courage to ask his friend where his sister is, Rogers only lazily nods and says:

— "She doesn't want to see you anymore."

Bucky understands this himself. He doesn't like being wrong, doesn't like admitting mistakes. Pride always makes him hold on until the end. But this time, something changes. Something breaks. He knows he should apologize, but he still doesn't know how to do it.

And when Avelina finally returns to school after several long weeks, he's happy, but something in her is no longer the same as before.

She doesn't look at Bucky. Not at all. She doesn't even grant him the smallest glance, as if he is just a void. She speaks to her brother in a whisper, and Barnes becomes invisible to her. He tries to joke, start a conversation, but her silence strikes harder than any shouts. It eats away at him from the inside. He is used to being the center of attention, used to even anger or resentment from her being directed at him. But now—nothing. Just nothing. Empty. As if he no longer exists. As if he is an empty space.

It's completely fair, and yet...

This ignoring is killing him.

Weeks stretch on endlessly. She continues to avoid him even at the Rogers' house. As soon as Bucky appears at the doorstep, Avelina either goes out for a walk or locks herself in her room. He notices how she changes. As if something inside her burns out.

Her clothes, which used to be untidy, dirty from her frequent runs and fights, now look flawless. The skirt of her dress is shortened and ironed, the collar of her white blouse even, without a single crease. Even her stockings no longer bunch up, and the shoes that were always scratched and covered in dust now shine as if new.

She braids her hair into neat plaits. Her school bag no longer looks haphazardly stuffed, and sometimes her classmates exchange smiles with her as they whisper about something. But this is not the Avelina that Bucky knew.

She is becoming fake. Wrong. Different.

Her blue eyes no longer sparkle with mischief. She doesn't fight, doesn't shout, doesn't run through the corridors. She lacks the boldness, the freedom that made her special. Bucky knows why. It's his fault.

Bucky starts thinking about the things she used to do, noticing for the first time that most of them were about fighting for her own freedom. For not being confined.

When the teacher told her to sit still, she would rock on the back legs of her chair, as if testing how far she could go before it fell. When they made her write neatly, she deliberately wrote big, sprawling letters to prove that it could be done that way too. When one of her classmates was unfairly punished, she convinced the others to stage a boycott, and when they called her to the principal for it, she simply shrugged and said it wasn't her fault if everyone listened to her.

When they forbade her to run with the boys in the streets after sunset, she sneaked out through the window, ran barefoot on the warm asphalt until she was out of breath. When her mom told her to wear skirts, she stole worn-out pants from her brother because they were easier to climb fences and roofs in. When the adults said a girl should behave decently, Avelina clenched her fists and fought with those who tried to put her in her place.

She didn't think of it as a fight then. She just didn't want to obey.

Now, Avelina is boxed in. Bucky himself cornered her, locked the real her away, and accidentally lost the key. She no longer feels free to be herself in a society that demands normality and hidden propriety. Every day at school becomes a kind of test for her personality, and every drop of freedom is pushed out. Skipping, fighting, loud conversations—these all disappear. Now, something restrained, hidden, striving to dissolve into norms and rules, is inside Avelina.

There is no horrifying, militant cry. There is no one hanging on his neck with hugs. There is no one leaping off the steps, racing with him and Steve to the river in the early morning. There is no one causing trouble and hooliganism just for fun, not afraid of judgment. Instead, Avelina becomes part of the decency, like so many others who strive to meet expectations, giving up their desires for the sake of compliance. Everything feels foreign. And now there remains only the obedient doll, the model student, the beloved daughter, quiet, shy, and annoyingly kind.

Bucky misses Avelina Rogers.

To Bucky, she was always the younger sister of his best friend. Responsibility for her seemed natural, like for any close person he had to protect. He never thought of her otherwise—as part of the family, someone who had been around since childhood, and whom he, as the older one, out of habit considered his duty to look after.

He was used to her audacity, to her smiles, to how she barged into his life, mixing everything up to the point of chaos. Now, when she is gone, an alarming emptiness forms inside. As if an important person has simply been ripped from his life. And he realizes Avelina's value too late.

All this time, he took her for granted, never thinking about how important she was to him. He cared for Avelina, teased her, got angry, but never realized that she was not just Steve's sister, but someone who truly held a special place in his heart. And only now, when Avelina has turned away from him, when Bucky feels this emptiness, does he understand how recklessly he treated her feelings...

And then two more months pass.

Everything around is as it was before: dim light in the shop windows, women in simple dresses with headscarves tied around their heads hurry about their business, and men, pulling on fedoras, move with an accelerated pace, but it feels as though time has stopped. Even the music playing on the radio can’t distract from the feeling of endless monotony.

Bucky feels this—each morning starts like the day before, and nothing can break this cycle. He can’t afford to delay his apology any longer, or he will only remain part of this gray routine behind.

Bucky accepts defeat with shame, fully aware that if he does nothing, nothing will change. He’s too accustomed to the ever-moving Aveline, to the annoying Aveline, to the brazen Aveline, to the daring and disobedient Aveline.

He—must apologize to her.

It is getting darker outside, and the alleyways seem even emptier than usual. Strips of light passing through the clouds barely touch the wet asphalt tiles. In the air, there’s not just the smell of rain, but something stagnant, like in the empty shops where nothing is bought except newspapers, and where only old radios still whisper fragments of news. It feels like even the rain rolling down the school roof brings not relief, but an additional weight to the air.

Hiding under the school’s awning from the pouring rain, Bucky waits for the younger Rogers at the entrance after her extra evening classes. And when he sees Aveline coming out, his heart trembles.

Aveline still looks like a stranger, different, wrong. If he doesn’t act now, she will leave and never forgive him.

“Aveline!” he calls, immediately blocking her way. Bucky pulls on his trademark smile, the one that always disarmed all the girls around.

But not hers. Never hers.

Aveline’s gaze suddenly became… older. As if in these weeks she changed so much that she was no longer the girl who never thought something was wrong with her. In Aveline’s eyes, which once burned and laughed, there was now something detached, something alien to the time when she and Bucky laughed on the porch while waiting for Steve, without thinking about what would happen tomorrow. Time had changed her, and now even the rain seemed colder than ever.

Aveline sizes him up with a disdainful look. Her face contorts with disgust. The warmth that once existed is no longer in her blue eyes. His chest involuntarily tightens with pain.

“Don’t look at me like that,” Bucky wants to say, but remains silent.

And Rogers sharply turns on her heels, intending to leave.

“Wait!” Barnes calls out, running after her.

“What do you want from me?!” she turns and shouts in response. There is bitterness in her voice, tears welling up in her eyes. Her lower lip trembles, but Aveline grits her teeth to keep from bursting into tears right now, right in front of him.

The rain intensifies. Streams run down her face, mixing with her tears. Her white shirt gets wet, sticking to her skin, and her hair, like pearls, darkens and sticks in damp strands to her red cheeks, neck, and forehead.

Where is she going?

Right now, the younger Rogers has no desire to talk to Bucky. She hopes that they never will.

“We need to talk!” Barnes shouts after her.

“You need to. Not me.” Rogers exhales roughly.

With each raindrop hitting the leaves of the trees, the tension in the air increases. In moments like these, even the light from the nearest streetlights seems foreign and cold, like everything around her. The world around fades, becomes alien. Time keeps moving, but she freezes. The years that were once before can never be returned, and between her and Bucky, it seems there is no longer any way to remove the invisible barrier she has built in her feelings.

Avelina furrows her brows and lowers her gaze sideways. Memories of that day float before her eyes: Bucky's loud, angry tone. The way he yelled at her, shaking her by the shoulders. Scolding her as if she were a little child. A child who understands nothing. Calling her not beautiful enough, jealous, not even like a girl. Bucky humiliates her. And prefers the stranger, the bitch Caitlin—her, his friend, as Avelina had thought before. She was wrong.

Avelina trusted him. She believed in him. And it turned out that for him, she was just the younger sister of his brother, whose feelings, it seems, didn't matter at all. Bucky, just like the others.

She remembers running down the hallway, swallowing tears and sobs, the panic rising in her chest, and the pain. He is disgusted by her. Bucky hates her. Avelina believed him. She believed that he accepted her the way she was. It turned out that wasn't true.

How could anyone love someone like her? Right?

That night, Avelina, sobbing into her pillow, bit her palm with her teeth to avoid waking up her mom and Steve. She was choking on her tears, her hands shaking, her heart tightening under burning lungs. She scratched her own skin, mutilating her body with blood. Her nails trying to tear off everything that felt so foreign to her.

She was disgusted to be with herself. And yet, she hoped even the next day that Bucky would come to her and at least apologize. Or pretend nothing had happened.

That would have been better.

But the rain doesn't stop. It lashes the streets, and there's a sharp dampness in the air. Far off, somewhere in the distance, a police siren sounds, almost like another sign that time is becoming merciless. Even the light from the street lamps, breaking through the raindrops, can't warm, just like the words she desperately waits for. Still waiting. Everything is too cold, too gray to believe that anyone will ever truly understand her.

And her own pride turned out to be more important to Bucky. He didn’t even think to come to her that evening. Or the next day. Or at least… And now Avelina is broken.

"Avelina, I just want to talk!" Bucky shouts, stubbornly following her, until Rogers finally stops and turns to face him angrily.

"I have nothing to talk to you about!" she hisses through clenched teeth. Her gaze burns with resentment, pain that makes Bucky feel something squeeze inside him.

"Come on, kid! Stop being stubborn! I want to apologize! Okay?!" he bursts out, raising his hands in surrender. Damn it, he really feels sorry.

"No, not okay!" Avelina screams, her voice cracking.

"But..." Bucky repeats in surprise, as if he can't believe her words. As if he didn't hear it right.

"I. Said. No." Tears roll down her cheeks in torrents. Rogers breathes heavily, almost gasping for air, yet still stands in place, clenching his fists until the joints turn white.

Bucky wants to say something, but can't.

It hurts him to see her like this.

He's the one to blame.

Avelina knows that right now she’s a pathetic sight. And all she feels for herself is disgust. She wants to run, to get as far away as possible, to her home, lock herself in her room, and hide in the corner again. Wait for Mom and Steve to fall asleep, for the silence to envelop the house in its cold peace, and only then breathe out...

"What do you want from me?" her voice cuts through the air, a tremor running through her body, making Avelina even more vulnerable. "Stop hurting me! Is it still not enough for you?!" she screams, desperately gasping for air.

As if in response to her words, the gray sky splits with a thunderclap, and the rain starts to drum louder, turning everything around into cold gray chaos. Bucky, on the other hand, is soaked to the bone. His shirt, his pants—everything is wet, and if he blames her for this too, she won’t be able to handle it.

"I’ve already understood everything perfectly, James," she says, hugging herself as if it might protect and comfort her. Her legs involuntarily take a step back, away from him. "You can tell Steve that he’s wasting his time."

"Steve has nothing to do with this!" Bucky mutters, his voice harsh, as if wounded pride won't allow him to speak more gently. Damp hair sticks to his forehead, getting into his eyes uncomfortably. The cold seeps under his clothes, crawling on his skin, making him shiver. "I didn’t want to hurt you, Avelina. Really, I didn’t!"

The appearance of dreams and hopes for tomorrow feels so distant that these minutes stretch out like an eternity. Avelina freezes, as if all the horrors of the past are once again tightening in her body, and she can’t breathe. The system that still forces women to be "good" doesn’t allow her to be weak. Being herself in a world of other people's rules and expectations turns out to be much harder than it seemed before.

Bucky is soaked, with lips that can’t say what he really feels. Standing helplessly before Avelina, he feels his own guilt crash down on him with new force. It seems that every step he takes today is a mistake, and there’s no way back. But in his mind, one thought keeps turning: they could have fixed everything. But now, there’s no time for that.

Rogers no longer wants to listen. No. It’s over.

Avelina doesn’t trust him, so without thinking any longer, she simply turns away and steps away. One step, another. She speeds up, while Bucky, caught up in his apologies, doesn’t seem to notice, staring at his feet.

If Steve forced him to apologize to her, it doesn't mean she’s going to listen to all this, and she definitely isn’t going to forgive him. Bucky has always been self-centered and selfish. The problem is that now Avelina sees it.

"You can call me an idiot, a fool, whatever you want! But I... I’m really sorry. I didn’t want it to turn out like this," his voice shakes as Barnes continues, "You know what an idiot I am. You always said that…"

A weak smile flashes on his face, but it looks strained, forced. He wants to ease the tension, bring back the mischievous troublemaker he once knew. But the words get lost in the noise of the rain. She isn’t going to listen. Her gaze grows colder, her lips pressing into a thin line. And only then does Barnes notice that she’s pulling away from him.

"Hey! Wait! Where are you going?!" Bucky shouts in surprise, immediately rushing after her. He catches up to Avelina in a couple of steps, grabs her by the elbow, and pulls her toward him.

"Let go! Don’t touch me! No!" she screams. Her voice breaks, and her eyes fill with fear. Her sobs come faster, Avelina is shaking so much that her legs can barely hold her up.

Water runs down her cheeks, but it’s not the rain; it’s tears hidden under a disappointed gaze. Her heart feels like it’s tearing from the pain. Avelina can’t believe she’s become so weak. Too many times she had lifted her head, believing Bucky would support her in everything…

"Kid, stop," Bucky says more firmly, lowering his gaze to the elbow he’s holding tightly.

"Don’t call me that." Her skin is cold, thin, as if Avelina could break with one awkward move.

"Just don’t cry, okay? Those words... they weren’t true. I just... I was angry. And stupid," he says quickly, nervously glancing around, as if searching for support in the emptiness.

"I said I understand everything, James," she hisses in response, once again trying to pull her hand away.

"Avelina, stop! You’re pretending to be someone you’re not! I said too much, I get it! So why don’t you stop pretending?!" Bucky bursts out, not holding back as she jerks away once again. His voice sounds harsh, rough, even with a note of desperation. "What more do I need to do for you to forgive me?!"

Avelina jerks back as if struck, lifting her eyes to him, full of terror.

The damage is already done.

"You really are a damn idiot, Bucky Barnes! How can you not understand that the world doesn’t revolve around you?! I don’t care about you! Do you hear me? I don’t care!"

Breathing heavily, she clenches her fists.

"I listened to your words and realized that it’s really time for me to grow up. And now I’m exactly who I need to be! But you don’t like it again! The problem is that now I don’t need anything from you! Get out of here!" She steps closer, her fist striking his chest.

There’s no lightness in her eyes like there once was. Avelina feels how the cold winds seep into her soul, how the gray clouds over the city deny both sunlight and hope. The rain, like thoughts, doesn’t stop.

"And if you really need my forgiveness, here it is. I forgive you. I forgive you! But don’t expect anything more from me! You’ll never hear from me again! Never! Get lost!"

Her scream is pierced by a lightning strike. The next moment, her palm strikes Bucky’s chest again—not with anger, but with helplessness, with powerlessness. And Barnes struggles to respond, but can't.

And suddenly, out of nowhere, a young man appears. A red-haired guy, slim but tall. He looks just a bit older than Aveline, but still a few years younger than Barnes. The guy confidently grabs Bucky by the arm, sharply pushing him away.

"Ethan, don’t…" Rogers mutters confusedly, but he silently shields her with his shoulder, pulling her close. His gaze, full of reproach, is directed straight at Bucky.

"Don’t get near her again! You heard what she said—she doesn’t want to see you!" he says angrily.

"Dude, stay out of it." Bucky grimaces, stepping forward.

But Avi doesn’t wait for him to say anything else. She hides under her new friend's jacket, throws a final disgusted glance at Barnes, and hurries away. And Bucky, watching her go, feels anger and hurt tearing him apart inside, but he can’t do anything about it.

Although it would be foolish to say that before entering the building, Aveline didn’t throw one last look at him. Unfortunately, Bucky, who had been watching her closely until then, had already turned around and, hidden by the rain, shuffled away...

I don't know English. Maybe there are a lot of mistakes. ♡♡♡

My AO3^My Tiktok^

#winter soldier #the winter soldier #buckybarnes #marvel #bucky barnes fanfiction #Thewintetsoldier / oc #bucky barns imagine #bucky barnes smut #captain america #james bucky barnes #Bucky Barnes × oc #Adam's Death #Bucky Barnes × original female character #oc fic #original female character

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1nm806 · 2 years ago

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At any given time you could climb up to the roofs of Manhattan and find assorted newsies up there, I think.

Jack and Crutchie get up there and Jack rambles on about cowboys and seeing the big wide world and Crutchie smiles and listens and knows that his brother is all talk. Jack wouldn't really leave New York, not unless he got to take everyone with him. Jack's waxes poetic about this place he's never been too, and Crutchie joins in the daydreaming, knowing neither of them are taking it seriously. It's like make believe to them.

Davey and Les is always the former chasing down the latter, who is "too young to be somewhere this high up", but they end up chatting up there anyway sometimes. About Les' fears of going back to school without his new friends, about whether the newsies will still welcome them if they don't work with them, about whether they'll even remember them. Davey, of course, says that they're silly things to worry about. The Jacobs family made an impression on the newsies, and it'd be ridiculous to think they'd forget the pair of them. He doesn't say that he has the same fears.

Jack and Davey is mostly silent, with the occasional worry spoken softly between them, shot down by the other with words of kindness and the underlying tone of "you're being stupid to say that, course that's not true". Once Davey asked Jack if he really would leave to Santa Fe without them, and was content when he received the answer of: "Not without you. Not without any of you."

Race and Jack talk loudly into the night, bickering and playing cards and seeing if they can throw things at targets they set up back when they first became friends. Very few serious conversations have happened with them, but there were a couple of ones about relationships or worries they didn't think they could say to the others. The odd tear-filled conversation about sexuality is overshadowed by the constant talking over each other and teasing. But it doesn't go unappreciated.

The rare times that Spot is up there with anyone, it's normally Racer. Race who talks and talks and occasionally pauses to let the other add commentary. The pair of them make fun of Jack, and talk about issues going on within their boroughs. It's not a special place for them, but the lodging house is loud, and Spot always makes his way up to the roof of it whenever he visits for a while - just to get away from it all. Race follows him up there after a while, then keeps him company with chatter and hand-holding until Davey inevitably joins them and he can go back down to play more card games.

Davey and Spot exclusively end up there when they're both already too exhausted from socialisation to continue it. They sit in almost complete silence, drinking in the sounds and sights of NYC, until one of them eventually regains their voice and asks the other how things are going. They discuss important meeting topics and whether or not this next challenger will dethrone Spot (the younger boy is confident in his abilities, but checks with Davey's logical mind whenever he can). Davey asks him about Jack, and about the history of the bad blood between Manhattan and Brooklyn. And, now he thinks about it, Brooklyn and everyone. Spot nods along and explains in an incredibly biased way the reasons, and in turn asks Davey about his school - about his lessons, classmates, "anything interestin been said there lately?".

Jack and Spot used to go up there. Back when the latter liked the Manhattan leader. He still tries to spend time with Brooklyn's leader, but more often than not it ends in awkward silences, snide comments and the shorter boy announcing his leave about 2 minutes in. Then one day, Jack manages to catch the other boy when he's talking to Davey. He joins them, and Davey - after a few minutes - says something about needing to get Les home and leaves. It's completely silent, the wind's blowing, and goddamn it Jack's sure the other boy will just leave as well. But he doesn't. It's the only time Spot opens his mouth and says what he means to the Manhattan newsie - and he's still not sure why he did. He tells the other that him leaving the strike was a betrayal that cut him so deep he considered cutting all ties with the borough. He says that Jack hadn't left just the strikers, but friends and family, and that he'd left it all on Davey and him to sort out the mess as leaders. It's the only time he ever says to Jack that he thought they were family. And he makes it clear that he's unsure if they can ever be again. They're up on the roof for hours, long enough that the sun sets and rises. It ends with them both going off about their days, and if both leaders were seen and heard in tears that night, well. That's neither here nor there.

#jack's hawkin the headlines !!#newsies #92sies #spot conlon #davey jacobs #jack kelly #racetrack higgins #les jacobs #javey #(<- implied)#sprace #(<- also implied)#newsies headcanons #if the stuff ive written the most about is spots bits then um #close ur eyes please. he is an infection #we're makin' headlines !

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disaster-oilvera · 1 year ago

Text

Love Notes - Masquerade AU

Masterlist

For @the-coffee-fandom

Marinette stood at the edge of the dance floor, trying not to pick at her dress. Gotham Academy was having its Annual Masquerade, and she had spent months making her dress and mask. Not to mention she also made Tim’s suit, the reciprocate for her anonymous love letters. This was the first time they were meeting where Tim was aware he was talking to the secret writer. She nervously scanned the room, waiting for him to arrive.

For months, they’d written back and forth leaving the letters in Tim’s locker. Whenever Marinette would leave a letter, she would take any response he had left. He had never asked how she got into his locker. He only knew her as L, short for her secret identity; Ladybug. When the date of the Masquerade had been announced both of them immediately asked the other to the dance, with Marinette offering to make both their outfits.

With the Kwami’s help, she put magic into the mask that would keep Tim from figuring out who she was. Which would frustrate him to no end, she, unlike her classmates had figured out he was an amazing detective. The whole time they had been in correspondence she could see him take note of any information she gave him and go through their classmates, eliminating people. But he was one of the most popular people in the school, and Marinette was well-liked but flew under his radar.

“I’m assuming that since you match my suit, you’re L?” Even though she was positioned to see the whole room, she missed him sneaking up beside her. She whirled around to face him and stared back as he tried to place her. When he didn’t recognize her, his eyes fell to the intricate embroidery of her gown.

“Tim, you look amazing.” He looked up from admiring the detail on her dress and blushed.

“L, you’re breathtaking,” He held out his hand. “May I have this dance?”

~Five Months Earlier~

Last night had been a tough patrol, and being bruised all over Tim had wanted so badly to skip. But he had two tests and a presentation, so he powered through. He was so tired he almost missed the out-of-place letter, placed in the middle of his locker. It was faintly pink paper folded neatly into a square. Grabbing it along with his textbooks, he hurried to first period. Luckily he sat in the back of the class, so he didn’t have to worry about someone looking over his shoulder.

As he read through the letter, he found his eyebrows raising. The thought of someone having a crush on him was a surprise, much less having a secret admirer write to him. It said if he wanted to write back, all he had to do was leave a letter in the same place he found the first one. He couldn’t help but smile. A mystery.

Marinette rushed through the halls, late. She had slept through her alarm after staying up all night working on designs for the launch of her MDC website. She was already a well-known fashion name after all the big names she had designed for in Paris. So the upcoming website was the talk of the industry right now.

Turning the corner, she ran into a surprise wall and fell to the floor. Except it wasn’t a wall. It was Tim, who looked down at her startled.

“I’m so sorry! I was trying not to be late and wasn’t looking where I was going-” She rambled as he helped her up.

“Hey, no worries! It happens sometimes..” He looked at her expectingly.

“Oh! Marinette.” He beamed at her.

“Marinette! Nice to meet you, I’m Tim. Now, I won’t hold you up. The bell is ringing in 2 minutes.”

Forgetting her mortification she rushed passed him, as he laughed kindly. She couldn’t believe that was how they met.

Tim opened his locker to a new note. Good, that meant she got the one asking her to the ball. It was perfect, a masquerade so she’d feel comfortable coming, and he’d get to see what she looked like (other than her face, but a win is a win). He opened her letter right there and almost laughed out loud at her also asking him to the ball. There were also beautiful sketches of different suit designs along with the offer to make their outfits for the night. He couldn’t accept it quickly enough.

He had spent months trying to figure out who L could be. It wasn’t anyone whom he knew well enough to know their handwriting, and he had already crossed out any girl with a name starting with L. If he tried to beat her to the locker to see who was leaving the notes, she always knew and wouldn’t show. It was driving him mad. He had started to develop feelings for her in return, and he didn’t even know who she was.

Dancing with Tim was like a dream, they spun around to the music and talked like they knew each other forever. There was a break in the music, and they headed toward the snack table. As Tim handed her a cup of punch he asked,

“So will I get to find out who you are today?” He seemed nervous like he wasn’t sure he should be asking.

She tapped her finger against the edge of the cup, considering revealing herself earlier than planned. But she was nervous of what they’d become once he knew who she was. Would he reject her? Confess his feelings and make them official?

“Maybe, it does feel a little unfair to you to keep you waiting.” She set down the cup, looking back at him. “But I hope you’ll understand if I wait.”

“Of course, I don’t want you to do anything uncomfortable. I just would love to be able to talk to you every day, whenever we want.” He grabbed her hand and pulled her into a side hug.

The dance was almost over, with an hour to go when Marinette made her decision. She pulled Tim toward the doors that led to the outdoor courtyard and went outside. It was surprisingly empty as she sat down on one of the benches. Tim sat down beside her, not knowing what she had decided to do. Without speaking, she grabbed his hands and brought them to her mask. Tim’s eyes widened as she guided him to remove her mask.

“You’re Marinette! The girl that ran into me!” He cupped her face and brought their foreheads together. “That explains why you were so flustered, we had been talking for over a month at that point.”

“It was so embarrassing that that’s how we met.” Before she could start to ramble, he tilted her face up towards him. He paused, wanting her to make the move if she wanted to. She leaned in.

author's note: I hoped you liked it! This idea popped into my head almost fully formed. Please join the discord down below and tell me what you thought!

https://archiveofourown.org/works/54893752

#maribat #marinette dupain cheng #mlb x dc #fanfic #timari #tim drake #masquerade #secret admirer #ao3

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come-away-with-me87 · 1 year ago

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Love & Angst Chapter 1

Hi, Tumblr fam! Here's a teaser of the Shouta Aizawa fic I've written so far. If anyone shows interest, I'll be happy to continue with it! And please bare with me, this is my first fic I have written in nearly eighteen years, so I may be a little rusty!

Pairings: Shouta Aizawa x Fem!Reader; Toshinori Yagi x Fem!Reader (platonic).

Warnings for later on in the story: Angst. Brief, undetailed mention of assault. Implied smut.

******

U.A. high school was holding its first gala dance for their students. Considering all that the students have been through, especially dealing with the League of Villains, it was well-deserved break to let loose and have a little fun.

You were the aunt of Shoto Todoroki on his dad's side. Yes, you were Endeavor's sister who happened to be born quirkless. Endeavor, or as you know him, Enji, never let you forget it, either, while growing up, constantly teasing you. But you knew deep down, when it came to it, he'd protect you in an instant if you were being hurt. Even though he could be a brute, you're his little sister, quirkless or not.

The night arrives of the gala, and at the very last minute, Shoto asks you if you could take him to where the dance is being held, as he has no other way of getting there that evening. Enji was busy as always, and it was too far to walk there. You were more than happy to oblige for your favorite nephew.

As soon as you park your car, you decide, against his reservations, to escort Shoto into the building. You know there are teachers outside & inside that are there to protect the students, but you were still weary due to everything he and his classmates have been through. Still, you did feel silly escorting him, because chances are, if something were to happen, he would the one to use his quirk to save you.

You both arrive inside the building, where there was already a pretty big crowd forming. Shoto thanks you for bringing him, and just as he's walking away, you grasp his hand. "Shoto, listen....you're always so serious. Which is understandable, considering how much you've been through. But please, try to have some fun tonight. And smile. You deserve it." Shoto smiles shyly back at you, squeezing your hand lightly and walks away.

Shoto blends into the crowd, so you take this opportunity to scan the scene around you. Many of the students were just standing there talking to each other, still in that awkward beginning phase of a school dance, not entirely sure how to act. You smile to yourself, and walk out to leave, when you spotted him. It completely slipped your mind that the former Symbol of Peace was a teacher at the school, and he happened to be one of the chaperones at the dance. You walk over to him, and over the loud music, shout to him, "Toshinori!"

When he sees who could be calling his name, his face broke out into the biggest smile. "Y/N!" he called, and like a scene from a movie, you ran to each other and gave each other the biggest hug, his hand gently placed on the back of your head, yours around his upper torso. He always gave the best hugs.

Toshinori had saved your life once upon a time, not even from villains, but from a group of thugs who were very close to assaulting you. Toshinori happened to be in the area at the time, hearing your screams, and came to your rescue. You were forever grateful to him, and have been friends ever since. At that time, you also saw him in his true form, before he was inevitably outed, and you've always kept his secret.

As you and Toshinori catch up, something feels...different. You feel someone watching you. Feeling slightly unnerved, you scan the room once more. And that is when you saw...him. He quickly looked away once you met his eyes, but you felt your heart literally skip a beat the moment you laid eyes upon him. In that moment, you had tunnel vision. Everything else around you faded, including whatever Toshinori was talking about, and all you saw was him. Nothing or no one else existed in that moment.

After several seconds, you came back to reality and faced Toshinori, suddenly feeling very bold, face boiling hot. "Say, Toshinori, who is that man standing over there next to the blonde man with the mohawk?" You ask, interrupting what he was talking about. You followed up quickly with an "I'm so sorry!" You felt bad for interrupting your friend. Toshinori gently shook his head and just smiled at you, he already had a sense of what was happening, as he always did. "Oh, that's Shouta Aizawa, one of the teachers. And the blonde man next to him is Hizashi Yamada. You may know them from the hero world as Eraserhead and Present Mic. Would you like me to introduce you to them?"

And you two begin your small journey over to them.

*****

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redolentgrove · 10 months ago

Note

Fiona @ Bijoux: "hi!!!" The sneasler waves at the Cinccino-taur. "Ive seen you around campus a few times, you're so pretty! Are you a new student here at Harmonia? How is your university experience so far? Any favourite moments?"

"Oh, hello!" Bijoux greeted the Sneasler in kind, a small blush forming on her snout as she realised who was talking to her. "Oh yeah, I saw you when I was here on my orientation tour. Hard to forget a face as pretty as yours." Wait. Was that out loud? Shit. She recoiled a bit, but recollected that the cat had already said that she was pretty before that. It didn't exactly help, since instead of focusing on her own mention of the Sneasler's beauty, now she was focused on this beautiful cat calling her pretty! It was borderline illegal!

"Wait, me!? Pretty???" The Cinccino-taur blinked in disbelief, that pinkish blush turning a bright red, really showcasing all of the freckles in her cheek and ear fur. "Wait a minute, are you sure you're talking about the same girl at this point? Cause, uh… I mean, thank you, but… wait." She stopped for a minute to compose herself. She didn't even know this girl's name. Well, maybe by briefly hearing mention in the halls, but that was about it. "I think I heard one of the other students talking to you in the hall when I was first touring. Fi... uh. Fiona? Yeah, I think so. Fiona, right? Anyway…"

"Yes. I'm an incoming freshman here at the university." Bijoux began to slowly collect herself. "I'm from White Forest in the Unova region, which luckily for my and my Mom's sake isn't that impossibly far of a travel. I was valedictorian at Undella High, and I think it was moreso the like, six or seven extracurricular things that I was stuffing down my schedule that got me into Harmonia than the valedictorian honours, but still."

The Cinccino-taur thought Fiona's last question for a while and shook her head. "I dunno. The whole tour felt like a bit of a blur. I guess I haven't spent a lot of time out here, so I don't know if I can really say I have a 'favourite' moment so far. I think one of them has got to be when I officially moved into my dorm with my roommate, Millie. That's probably when the whole 'you're going to college' thing really sank in and felt real, you know? It's one thing to make it through high school, get the tour, get the acceptance letter, but it just all felt like a long, ambiguous dream."

Bijoux smiled warmly up at the poison-type cat. It was kind of business as usual, being slightly shorter than someone around school; she recalled that for the most part, the students at Undella were more in line with so-called 'human' height, and even Millie was almost a foot taller than her! And that was just five-six! Pokemon sizes were weird, weren't they? The taur had seemed to be certain that the cat had to be at least Millie's height, given Sneasler were known for being lanky, but nope! Here she was, only just a bit taller than the Cinccino-taur, as the top of her head came up to Fiona's nose, essentially.

"Hey, uh, I was wondering if you could do me a small favour," Bijoux began, once she was done marveling at how adorable Fiona was. "I was in a lot of clubs at Undella. Choir, maths club, computer club, yearbook, archery, a lot of community service groupings… oh, heck, let's even add band and orchestra. Even though I was never actually in high school band, I want to start off right and try for harp now that I'm here. Do you have any leads on who some of the heads of those groups might be? I'd like to talk to them and make a decent first impression, try and get the ball rolling early so I have enough time to get as much practice in as possible before I have to audition. And uh... maybe get a few trips to the local mall for new clothing... or get a slice of pizza or two and get to know my new classmate friends a bit better..."

(( @harmonia-university ))

#plot #bijoux cinccinotaur #fiona sneasler #harmonia university #i love this cat so much #she is so dang precious

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blueminnies-blog · 1 year ago

Text

Mansae | Choi seungcheol

☆ミ Every day in my dreams,you put your arms in mine.

Summary: Seungcheol having a hard time making his classmate Seoyun falling in love with him. ( ft. Seoyun's friend Nabi, Mingyu, Wonwoo )

Pairing : Seungcheol x oc

Genre : She fell first then lost her feelings, he fell last but harder, high school!au, enemies to lovers.

Warning : cursing, pet names ( darling, sweetheart, .. ), a little angst, mentioning of crowd, rushed at the end a bit ^^.

W/c : 4k

Note : This is for caratland event on seventeen songs, and that's my fic ever! so I'm thrilled ＼(^^)／

" So which one you gonna date ? "Nabi asked while packing her suitcase.

" Neither of them," I answered briefly, zipping the suitcase.

" the fuck seoyun !"

I shrugged with a straight face. " Sorry, my heart didn't beat for neither of them, nabi,"

" Then it must be an idiot like its owner." Her brow raised." Who on the earth won't fall for Jeon wonwoo or Choi seungcheol? " she folded her arms.

" it's me, nabi. besides, i hate seungcheol." I shoved my hands in my pockets.

" Then date wonwoo! He is the cool, quiet kid. He wo– "

" no,no,No dating— stop talking about this stupid subject," I snapped, slamming the doors of the wardrobe," So shut the fuck up and don't forget to pack another panties cause I won't lend you mine when you lose yours like you did last time" sticking my tounge out teasingly before leaving the room .

" DON'T NEED YOURS ARROGENT BITCH !!", she gave me the finger.

I returned back and leaned against the door's jamb. " Nabi, darling , you're the only bitch here and to be more specific mingyu's bitch not me cause i didn't even hold a guy's hand "

I really enjoyed the fact that nabi gets annoyed easily when I tease her about her relationship with mingyu. She didn't hesitate to throw a pillow at my face as a" shut up," so I picked it up and threw it back on her, announcing the start of our pillows fight.

Such a normal day in my life with nabi, my middle school friend, i ran to know her since moving to their neighborhood 8 years ago. same middle and high schools now, that's why we know each other pretty well.

She was the loud one that knew the entire world, not only people at the school and in spite of the big difference in our personalities. I totally adored how she is kind-hearted, pure, and selfless, not like the other at our school.

Nabi was my no.1 supporter and protecter from any bullying, or at least that's what I thought till some day!

Even when nabi started dating mingyu two years ago, everything was quite the same. Nothing changed a lot other than she would send more time kissing/making out with him instead of finishing her projects and tasks.In my opinion mingyu was not that bad he was the ' okay ',I'm not going to talk about the fact that I sometimes wanted to slap him or even threw him from a claft, because he stole some of her attention that used to be ALL MINE :)

It was 7 in the morning when the sunlight sneaked through the blinds. I got up from the bed, stretched my body for a few minutes, then looked at the dead body of nabi still sleeping like she didn't in a million years. I chuckled at the way she was lying on her tummy, and the saliva wetted the pillow under her head , garbed my phone from the drawer beside the bed and snapped some pictures for her to blackmail her later.

" Hey woman, wake up," I poked the exposured part of her tummy.

She whined, pushing my hand away, turning her back away." Stop—"

" Get up, lazy ass we have to be ready by 9," I said , started tickling her.

" Stop! Stop! I'm awake, "she shouted, throwing the pillow at me.

I giggled while pushing her closer to the edge of the bed. She let out a loud groan, " PARK SEOYUN! I WILL KILL YOU "

I ran for my life because she wouldn't hesitate to beat the shit out of me ." I'll prepare the breakfast in the time you take a shower,"

" I hate you.." she whined, burying her head back onto the pillow.

After 15 minutes, nabi finished showering. We sat for breakfast talking about the things we're going to in 3 days of school trip . It's our second time since attending high school, which, by the way our last year, so I wanted to make it special since I'm not sure if I'll be able to see her more often like now because we made our minds to study different majors.

"Seoyun— please," she begged.

" No! You're going there to have fun just.you.and.I not to sneak out in the dark to lay in mingyu's arms"

" PLEEEEEASE " her eyes went round like the little puppy.

" Just one night !! I'm begging you .. I'll stay the other two with you," she promised.

" Fine," I huffed.

" YAH FINALLY!!" shouted enthusiastically, " I LOVE YOU SEOYUN !! "

" I don't," I replied.

" Stop, i know you're lying," she laughed.

" put a fucking sock in your mouth, grap your suitcase and hurry up we will be late " i informed.

" YES,SIR!" she said, thrilling.

We took the bus straight to the school, 10 minutes and we were there. a lot of students summoning up in front of the school's gate,that's started to freak me out a little bit , I'd always hated the idea of socializing with people, but nabi gave me the courage to stop being more introverted than needed and try to open up a little bit since I wanna be a doctor and I'll be dealing with maybe tens of people daily.

We both get off the bus, carrying our suitcases. I was maintaining calm expression on my face, feeling confident in myself till the moment our eyes accidentally met, the moment of eye contact from across the crowd that magically blurs everyone out of the world. it's just us.

God ! Why is he still existing? Why are the dinosaurs extincted, and he's still alive— and why the hell is he checking me out his stupid cow eyes ? I really wanna pock his two with my fingers, so he never sees the light again.

I turned looked away, muttering all the cursing words I learned and know in my entire life. The only thing that I was relieved about is that I won't see his ugly face the entire trip as we are going to stay in separate buildings.

"My dear students, please gather up here. I've something important to say." That was Mr Jung's voice, the headmaster.

" So I've bad and good news. With which one should I start ?"

" The bad one," some student said.

" Unfortunately, our buildings' reservation was canceled due to a short circuit that caused a small fire but fortunately was controlled, and no one was injured .." he explained, and I could hear the sighs of frustration from all the people around me.

" And where is the good news here ?" questioned another student.

" Well, we managed reserving a small hostel so we all don't miss the fun," The whole crowd started bouncing and cheering in excitement, I was happy too, a little anxious at the same time, i didn't wanna have any partners other than nabi, but unfortunately what I fear happened..

" Now let me pair you alphabetically seeing we don't have many space for 24 students "

' No.. no..this can't be real... It's a nightmare, and I'll wake up now.. I'm sure. ' I was losing every single brain cell I own in my mind the minute I heard, Mr. jung saying the word ' alphabetically ', I can’t end up with that seungcheol..

" Park seoyun— did you hear what I've said ?" My thoughts were intruptured by Mr Jung.

" S.. sorry.. I was a little distracted.. "

" No problem, so you'll be with seungcheol for this trip, okay ? " he gave me the widest smile ever literally knew nothing about my suffering after what he's said.

"Well, well, well, the jerk is here—" he was heading to me with a lifted head and all puff like he won in the war.

“Sweetheart, I know I’m your favorite. no need to pretend.” he smirked.

" Favorite! Huh,never Choi seungcheol in Your.Wildest.Dreams. " I pointed my thumb at his face.

" Just watch me make it happen, honey," the pet name made me seethe.

I feel the weight of the world on my shoulders. Why am I the unlucky one here ? Like everyone seemed to enjoy the whole pairing thing, even nabi ended up with the stupid mingyu. I don't wanna be dramatic, but 72 hours with seungcheol are unbearable...

" Will you stay there till the rest of your life? Move ! " his hands grabbed my suitcase.

" Don't act like a gentleman! " I protested.

He turned to face me."I AM— since my birth, sweetie."

"Huh,whatever, wanna sit by the window," I raced as he placed both suitcases in the overhead parcel.

"Let me open it for you, darling." His hand crossed me reaching the window handle and opening it.

"I can do it myself and stop calling me pet names !! " demandly voiced.

" I refuse —" he said.

"That mouth of yours does nothing but talk dumb shit?"

He leaned slightly toward whipering, with a small smirk made on his face . "You wanna know what else it does?"

The warmth that radiated off his body sent chills down mine as I locked eyes with him, I gazed into his eyes unintentionally for seconds, they held the hue of tea-stained lace, cozy, soft, and delicate, with wash of gentle brown against the harsh dark shadows of millions of stars. That was the prettiest thing I've seen for a long time.

" My eyes are fabulous, aren't they ?" he interpreted the silence.

" N..no..they are pretty normal." I glanced away quickly to look through the window.

" it's obviously a lie, but okay "

I didn't reply, and the silence filled our space for minutes. As sight of his eyes cast was sat unintentionally in unlimited loops in the cogs of my mind.

This daydreaming didn't last long as my head started spinning, I've had motion-sickness since I was a kid, and out of the pocket, I forgot to pack my medicine.

I facepalmed, tried to regulate my breathing pattern, and drink some soda as my mum taught me, but everything seemed fruitless.

" I can give you a shoulder if you want,"he suggested ,lightly tapping his chest as a ' sleep here '.

" I'm fine..only a few minutes, and everything will be okay," I stuttered, drewing my lower lip between my teeth.

I felt his fingertips gently sneaking into the hairline at the back of my neck, guiding me to rest on his chest. Somehow, I threw in the towel and allowed my body to dive into his arms. As His cologne devoured every single cell in my lungs, that seductive scent with a burst of deep, tart blackberry juice, blending with the freshness of just-gathered bay brambly woods sent me to Utopia.

" Just relax, seoyunna," he whispered softly near my ears.

"I hate you..."

"You hated me. Big difference, sweetheart," he corrected, wrapping me and pulling me, and I spontaneously nodded off.

I finally woke up to a vision of him and our faces inches apart, I freaking out and jerked back " WHERE THE FUCK ARE WE AND WHY ARE YOU SLEEPING ON THE BED BESIDE ME !? "

" Calm down, yunna. we arrived two hours ago, and as a gentleman, I didn't wake you up, so I carried you and your suitcase to our room. " he laughed loudly on my freaked expression,holding his tummy.

" Two Hours!! " I let some mocking chuckles as i pulled my hair back, " Do tell me everybody saw you holding me ? "

" Yes, they did " he simply replied.

" Fuck—"

tipping my chin to make me look into his eyes. " You should at least thank me for not waking you up, yunna,"

" I WON'T THANK SUCH A PERVET JERK WHO USES PEOPLE TO FULFILL HIS DESIRES!! " I clenched my teeth,pushing his hands off my face as I rose from the bed.

He startled, "p.p..pervert ..my desires, what're you talking about ?"

" Yeah pervert!! Do you wanna me say it louder so everyone can hear it, Choi seungcheol??! " I burst out in anger, throwing hands into the air.

"What is.. wrong with you.." he pent up with diluted pupils.

I huffed, raking a hand through my hair, trying to control my anger.

"Come on, bury my heart deeper, seoyun. If that's what you're trying--it's working." with a painful smile as the tears started rolling down his face.

" Is this how you thank the person who protected form day one since high school? Do you think nabi is the one who did !! Nabi can not even protect herself from a mosquito! "he boomed with words that I knew after that those were facts not just randoms said to me to make me like him, " Seoyun, I regret every second I spend under your window watching you day and night just to make sure everything is going alright with you since your mother's death, "

I stayed limp in front of him as my voice was lost in my throat, realizing that I went way too far, destroying his feelings, I didn't know what to do or say at that moment, feeling the regret and ashame torturing me.

" Alright.. seoyun, you'll use the slient treatment, fine.. I'm leaving you alone as you want, " his anger and despair drained out as he exhaled before his body vanished behind the room's door.

Half an hour passed and the voices of my head never shut up about making me feel guilty and how this wasn't the perfect way to push him and my feelings for him, and yeah, I admit I was wrong and I deserve so—and now it's time to gather some courage, give up my stubbornness and make everything right.

I managed to run to him before leaving the hostel's gate, grabbing him by the wrist, and surprisingly, he neither resist nor push my hand of him, maybe shocked, maybe surprised or both, I don't know.

" Don't leave! please.." I commanded, looking him in his bloody colored eyes from crying.

Glistening tears in my eyes bright and crystal as I rapped those words, "Cheol.. I'm sorry for hurting you, I didn't really mean it.. I was just trying to push my feelings for you away, " my grip loosened as I slowly kneeled down.

He bowed after a few seconds to hold my hand in his and started rubbing its back gently as he hushed " Why you did so, seoyun?"

" Our mixed signals back then, don't you remember? I gave upon dating you because you were playing the cold boy game "

" I know, and I've to apologize for being an idiot— but after awhile I was head over heels in love with your dumb fucking ass, seoyun, So please, don’t stop thinking about me. Don’t stop… Don’t stop being in love with me." he vocalized softly as he drew me closer to him till the space between us vanished." Every day, where the school is buzzing with people, I would navigate through to see your face,if you're here or not ? If you're all okay, or is something off today ? I'd care for every single detail about you, Seoyun." His tone slowly turned into whispering those sweet nothings.

those delicate words were enough to form my own little bubble amidst the sea of chatter and laughter. I buried my face in the nape of his neck and mumbled between my smile," I won't seungcheol, I won't— enough being tongue tied, I like you,No,no, I love you— actually I have loved you since the day when only both of us were at the basketball court and you were showing off how you're such a prefect player and how you were over the moon once yourm scored a point !! "

" Is that a confession ? " he smirked.

" Yeah, whatever." I jerked back to sigh and roll my eyes, trying my best not to laugh and keep it as cool as I could.

" Wow! Look at your blush invading your face, " he addressed teasingly while pinching my cheeks.

" What The Fuck Choi Seungcheol ! "

" If you called me with my full governmental name again, I'll shut you up with my mouth in yours"

For the first time in a long time, my mind went blank. All I could do was stare as I felt those warm breaths of his ghosting my cold lips.

" Wow..that was wild.. but yeah, please do— " feeling giddy in love, hot in our fingers, warm near our bodies, gazing at each other lips ,shy under the sheets, he grinned while brushing his thumb gently against my cheek. " I've been waiting for your permission for years,baby, now it's time to taste each other's heaven "

he immediately slotted his cherry flavored lips to mine, kissing me passionately but slowly. My eyes fluttered close with how gentle he was. Every argument we had ever had, every misunderstanding happened, every hurtful word we said in the past. They had all lived behind this moment and were finally coming to the surface. His mouth was searing as he tilted my jaw to get a better vantage. I rest one of my hands at the side of his face and the other at the back of his head. That was my first kiss, and I'm sure I'll never be kissed like this again from someone else in my entire life. Because there was no anyone else. There would only be him.

He slipped his tongue into my mouth and let out a low hum of satisfaction when I ran my fingers through his black hair. His words broke along my lips, 'How could we have waited this long?'

We parted, gasping for air as we let out a few giggles. Seungcheol pulled me closer by the waist on his lap, gazing into my eyes. " Baby, I love you .. I love you so much, seoyunna. " his voice was so soft that I could barely hear it over my speeding heart.

I grinned, glistening at him as I brushed my thumb along his face. " I love you too, Cheollie .. And I promise won't quit till the day I die. "

'And that's how I fall in love with seungcheol, My seungcheol, In a random November night, with the first fall of snow celebrating our love with a Mansae!'

Tagging: @caratsland

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#svt #scoups #choi seungcheol #seventeen #fanfic #svt x reader #seventeen x reader #scoups fanfic #seventeen oneshot

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