#⋅ they made you into a weapon and told you to find peace / nick lane.

[gracefuldisgrace]

❝ RUSSIAN ROULETTE. ❞ — nick

send “russian roulette” for generated angst  /  accepting

THIRTY THREE.  you’re just a scared little boy.

its only for the fact that he’s expecting it, already awash in the waves of her rapidly devolving stress and upset, that nick manages not to physically flinch. that’s not to say he doesn’t feel like he’s been burned, gutted where he stands, or that his jaw doesn’t go slack, that traitorously wet eyes don’t drop to the floor, or that he doesn’t shove shaking hands into his pockets as he tries to remember important things like how one swallows and breathes.

she’s right, that vicious voice at the back of his mind that sounds devastatingly like every person he’s ever loved chides. you’re pathetic, a terrified child. she’srightshe’srightSHESRIGHT

it’s impressive, really, that he even manages to meet her eyes again, washing himself down in the fearhurtconfusionlove that doing so brings.

“you’re right i ---  i’m sorry, i... i’ll just go.”

[sanctifiedsouls]

NICK LANE AESTHETIC   /   i am free and i am as likely to want to love a woman as i am likely to love a man, and what about that? isn't that what freedom implies?  ( alternatively: i like my men the way i like my women. that’s it, that’s the whole joke. i’m bisexual. )   /   blue, purple, pink.

@remuslupen​ sent a thing.

[lazywriter7]

on your left

This one’s dedicated to @suitofhumour , who often inflicts angst on people with a cheerful gusto I’ve always admired. I get the feeling that you’ve also often bemoaned the lack of SamSteve brotp content in the world, and so I have delivered... angstily.

warnings: canon death and grieving

The sunrise peeked through the darkened blinds, casting light-slivers high up on the wall opposite the window.

Lying in his bed, Steve watched the slivers grow – lengthen across the plaster as the minutes ticked by and the sun got higher and stronger in the sky outside. There was no other movement in the room: the temperature-controlled air perfectly still, the blinds hanging straight and undisturbed, even his own chest barely rising and falling with his breaths. His eyes burned from the watching, but he didn’t blink; the spots in his vision and the white-bright patches on the wall mingling together indelibly.

(Click to keep reading)

He didn’t remember the last time he’d been indoors when the sun came up. Dawn after dawn, his feet had pounded down along sidewalks, and gravel lanes, and dirt-packed running tracks. Sprinting up and down the Watergate Steps, the Potomac’s waters tinted pink by the lightening sky; weaving through the golden streets of Birnin Zana, trains whizzing overhead even at four am. It was familiar and addictive. The bunch and release of the muscles in his legs, lungs expanding and contracting in his chest, oxygen rushing in and the world brightening minute by minute. Running at the horizon, full tilt, as the streets stripped by and one day tipped into the next.

The slivers of light, unchecked by the blinds, had reached the middle of the wall now – about halfway up from the floor. Steve curled his toes in. Something itched at the balls of his feet, tension coiled in the forced stillness of his limbs.

He didn’t remember the last time he’d been indoors when the sun came up. Except today. And the day before that, and the day before that. And all the days since that one day – one morning when the world woke up different.

Halved.

 “Your bed, it's too soft. When I was over there I'd sleep on the ground and use rock for pillows, like a caveman. Now I'm home, lying in my bed, and it's like...”

“Lying on a marshmallow. Feel like I'm gonna sink right to the floor.”

 Steve turned on his side, and closed his eyes.

 ~

 The next day was worse.

He did not sleep, which wasn’t out of the ordinary. He stayed still in bed, watching cracks in the ceiling, arms and legs perfectly parallel to the sides of the bed. Like being locked in a coffin of his making.

He jerked out of bed at three thirty, and went down to the gym in his sleeping pants. He punched out bags till his bare feet were caked and crackling with spilled sand, the split seams and torn remains of the bags heaped on the floor where they fell, or were absently kicked out of the way. No one was there to raise a judging eyebrow – the place was absolutely desolate. He hadn’t exercised alone, in a gym facility empty of Dora Milaje or SHIELD agents or Avengers since… since the first time he’d been out of the ice.

The bag still strung up was swinging around noisily – Steve stilled it with his hands, split knuckles stinging with the motion. He rested his forehead on the cool canvas.

Maybe this is how it would’ve been, if he’d never driven the Valkyrie into the ice. All this time, his fantasies of post-war peace had fixated on Peggy, on dance halls filled to the brim with celebrating people, on growing old with friends. But war didn’t only live in the fighting of it – it lived on in bombed out streets, in neighbourhoods that weren’t half as populated, in closed businesses and families that would always have empty spots at the table. It lived on in fear: of more enemies, of the next war, in crueller weapons and larger stockpiles, until entire cities were wiped off the face of the planet in the name of peace.

Maybe the ice had done him a favour. Maybe he’d been the lucky one who got to skip over the aftermath.

 “What unit you with?”

“58, Pararescue. But now I'm working down at the VA.”

 When he came up to his room, after a brief, scouring shower – his closet door was cracked open by an inch, the sleeve of a shirt caught in the hinge. He extricated it roughly, a too-firm tug causing a button to go flying off. It pinged and landed somewhere in the darkness of the closet floor, obscured by the line of running shoes set neatly along the back.

The first two or three were forty-dollar pairs, black or white with a plasticky gloss. It got better as one moved down to the right – flex grooves and EVA cushioning, a couple foam soles here and there. The furthest one, shoved right into the corner, was a brand new pair still in the box. Nike Zoom Pegasus Turbo, in a peat-grey colour scheme. Steve remembered researching it carefully, and ordering a pair under a false ID.

He’d never gotten around to wrapping it. Christmas had been so far away, and at the time with everything else going on, it’d seemed like the least of his priorities.

He’d probably have included a card, along with the gift. A little something to make up for all the pairs you left behind in your flat stateside. Then, in a postscript – thanks for always having my back.

Steve closed the closet door, the tiny click resounding in the silence.

 ~

The day after that, he went to the common area to sit with Nat.

Nat sat with folded knees and elbows on the couch, dulled and pallid strands of hair swinging to the fore of her face. She had a laptop open on her thighs, fingers tapping across the keys too fast to sometimes follow. Her lips flickered minutely, chapped and dry, mouthing along to whatever she was bringing up on the screen – a tell there was no longer any point hiding.

The cushions dipped as he lowered himself down next to her. Her eyes didn’t lift from the screen. Steve squeezed her gently by the shoulder; she pressed back into the touch.

You’re still here.

He didn’t ask for any updates – Nat would’ve told him if there had been any developments. She’d been working on this for weeks. Ever since it’d been reported that Cooper and Lila Barton were among the many registered as ‘long-term absent’ in their school’s attendance records. Laura had stopped turning up for local garage sales. The farmhouse was deserted, the upstairs crib empty. It all pointed to the obvious, but it wasn’t…wasn’t confirmed yet, with eyewitnesses. Not like Nick, and Maria, and Wanda, and Vision and T’Challa and Shuri and–  

Steve exhaled, letting the air scrape out of his throat inch by burning inch. It wasn’t confirmed, so he sat by Nat while she ransacked every corner of the intelligence community, shadowy underbellies and seedy hiding-holes, rooting through scores of copycat archers and blonde white men, looking. Just looking, while her fingers clasped and unclasped, unendingly, at the arrow necklace still strung around her neck.

After thirty minutes of this, Nat’s fingers grew slack again. She lowered the lid of the laptop by a fraction, baggy eyes staring above the rim.

“Didn’t know I still had it in me, to become complacent.”

“I know.” Steve said, quietly sufficient. He probably wouldn’t have phrased it that way, but the point stood. After the life he’d had, he wouldn’t have thought himself to be the kind of person who took things for granted. He could be affected by loss, but not surprised by it – or so he’d thought.

It was in the nature of such things, wasn’t it? To worm themselves into your safe, secure places, to irrefutably become a part of them. To be so…solid, so wholly dependable, that you could be the most jaded person on the planet, and still find a best friend in a smiling stranger on the street.

Steve had taken his gut punches. The ones that robbed him of breath, that made the world white out at the edges. Till the end of the line, pal. I will miss you Tony.

And he’d staggered, and he’d fallen – only to find nothing to put his back against. No wall to lean on, no easy smile waiting in the wings to support his strength.

“It’s fight or flight,” Sam said, without sounding like he was explaining. More than anything, he sounded slightly amused. “We always knew you liked punching out your problems. Turns out, you also like running through the streets if there’s nothing to be done, till it feels like you’ve gotten somewhere. Coping mechanisms – everyone’s got them.”

“I,” Steve said. It stuck strangely in his throat, though he’d swallowed so much worse. Lived through so much worse. This one stuck. “I can’t go running anymore.”

[gracefuldisgrace]

TAG DROP #1

⋅  there's a side of me that just won't stop dancing in the flame.  /  tequila. ⋅  there's a side of me that just won't stop dancing in the flame.  /  tequila : ic. ⋅  leave them at the bottom of the grave they dug for you.  /  alex krycek. ⋅  leave them at the bottom of the grave they dug for you.  /  alex krycek : ic. ⋅  i preferred shark teeth to the chains around my neck.  /  carter blake. ⋅  i preferred shark teeth to the chains around my neck.  /  carter blake : ic. ⋅  risen from the ashes - murder and mercy rolled up in one.  /  charlie matheson. ⋅  risen from the ashes - murder and mercy rolled up in one.  /  charlie matheson : ic. ⋅  fault lines tremble underneath my glass house.  /  daisy johnson. ⋅  fault lines tremble underneath my glass house.  /  daisy johnson : ic. ⋅  step one - surrender the idea that you can fail.  /  daniel atlas. ⋅  step one - surrender the idea that you can fail.  /  daniel atlas : ic. ⋅  equal parts sweet honey and dangerous ferocity.  /  ella grace boone. ⋅  equal parts sweet honey and dangerous ferocity.  /  ella grace boone : ic. ⋅  keep your head; heels; and standards high.  /  elle woods. ⋅  keep your head; heels; and standards high.  /  elle woods : ic. ⋅  clever as the devil and twice as pretty.  /  henrietta boone. ⋅  clever as the devil and twice as pretty.  /  henrietta boone : ic. ⋅  what will get you killed first? your loyalty or your stubbornness?  /  jack wilder. ⋅  what will get you killed first? your loyalty or your stubbornness?  /  jack wilder : ic. ⋅  they made you into a weapon and told you to find peace.  /  nick lane. ⋅  they made you into a weapon and told you to find peace.  /  nick lane : ic. ⋅  i sat with my anger until it told me its real name was grief.  /  orm marius. ⋅  i sat with my anger until it told me its real name was grief.  /  orm marius : ic.

[gracefuldisgrace]

In the moment when I truly understand my enemy, understand him well enough to defeat him, then in that very moment I also love him. I think it's impossible to really understand somebody, what they want, what they believe, and not love them the way they love themselves. And then, in that very moment when I love them... I destroy them.

Ender’s Game

[sanctifiedsouls]

tag drop

⋅  born with the weakness to fall﹐and the strength to rise.  /  amenadiel canaan. ⋅  amenadiel canaan  /  interpretation. ⋅  amenadiel canaan  /  wishlist.

⋅  i preferred shark teeth to the chains around my neck.  /  carter blake. ⋅  carter blake  /  interpretation. ⋅  carter blake  /  wishlist.

⋅  you rose from the ashes﹐murder and mercy all rolled up in one.  /  charlie matheson. ⋅  charlie matheson  /  interpretation. ⋅  charlie matheson  /  wishlist.

⋅  a magician's power lies forever shrouded in his empty fist.  /  daniel atlas. ⋅  daniel atlas  /  interpretation. ⋅  daniel atlas  /  wishlist.

⋅  what will get you killed first? your loyalty or your stubbornness?  /  jack wilder. ⋅  jack wilder  /  interpretation. ⋅  jack wilder  /  wishlist.

⋅  they made you into a weapon and told you to find peace  /  nick lane. ⋅  nick lane  /  interpretation. ⋅  nick lane  /  wishlist.

⋅  the most powerful weapon on earth is the human soul on fire.  /  rich goranski. ⋅  rich goranski  /  interpretation. ⋅  rich goranski  /  wishlist.

⋅  the need to know is greater than the desire to be fooled.  /  thaddeus bradley. ⋅  thaddeus bradley  /  interpretation. ⋅  thaddeus bradley  /  wishlist.

⋅  sorry﹐a machine cannot forgive your mistakes.  /  squip. ⋅  squip  /  interpretation. ⋅  squip  /  wishlist.