#(if you didn’t pick up on it the name pun is that i’m on team blueJAY and my name is jay. it’s not very good ik)

[evanoshiix]

What are the hero names you currently have? And how did you come up with them?

I have all 5 names for the BAMVA!

All of these except for Cub’s were suggested by @/Andyling_ on twt! They suggested having the BAMVA having explosive pun villain names!

Scar: Dynamight - Dynamite + Might

Lizzie: Enignite - Enigma + Ignite (Previously Enigma)

Jimmy: Bangshee - Bang + Banshee (previously Poltergeist)

Tango: Blizzt - Blizzard + Blitz

Cub: Vexplosive - Vex + Explosive (he doesn’t go out on the field and said he didn’t need an alias, but the other 4 wanted to include him and just assigned him one and it stuck)

The Vigilante team I still need to develop a lot, but I have 2/4 names:

Gem: Pollux (Suggested by @/cantsurviveme on twt) because the constellation Gemini consists of Pollux and Castor, and when Castor died Pollux begged Zeus to revive him.

Grian: Wildcard (knew all the wildcards, seeing as he can mimic he’s kind of a wildcard himself)

Etho and Joel I’ve got no clue as of yet, but I’m still tweaking their powers and stuff anyways

The Hero Commission, while I’ve developed a bit more, but I haven’t figured out many names yet, and the ones who I have I’m still considering and are subject to change:

BDubs: TimeKing (very subject to change, it’s kind of basic, I just took it from “the time king changes the day”)

Cleo: Necromancer (also very basic, however Cleo doesn’t bother with the whole identity hiding thing because she’s a zombie so she can’t really be a normal civilian anyways. Chances are, the others wanted her to find a name and she just picked the first one that came to mind.)

Pearl doesn’t have a set name yet, but I’m probably gonna be looking towards “Hermes” or something connected to/revolving around that

Skizz also does not have a set name yet, but it will be revolving around his “Cupid” theme.

The other 4 I have no clue as of now haha

Finally team Renwood, things are very loose and I’m throwing ideas around for their name ideas!

I could easily just go for “Red King” and “The Hand” due to everything going back to Dogwarts

Other potential names would be “The Hound” and “Listener”

Still though, I’m not very attached to the names and am still looking!

In the end I want all the names to be fun and well thought out for all of them like the BAMVA’s were (thanks again Andy) and I’m still letting myself brainstorm for a bit before setting anything.

[theyellowroseofsodor]

What inspired you to / made you want to write and create your au “Yellow rose of Sodor”?

Because you kinda inspired me to write my own au with a self insert

Awwww!!!! Shucks! 😳🤗 I’m glad I’ve been able to inspire you! Feel free to tag me if you want to when you start writing! I love seeing new ideas and writers get their works out!

So, I started writing when I first introduced my son, a few years ago, when he was three to Thomas and Friends. As I was watching, realizing that I hadn’t ever seen the CGI version of the show, I thought “huh, I wonder if there’s a fandom” and started looking up fanart. Lo and behold, I found @asktrio516 ‘s wonderful and beautiful artwork along with a few others on deviantart (who I will credit when I find it again). I fell in love! Her personified versions of the famous team and others were just inspiring! I fell in love with her version of Gordon (my fav.) and began crafting a world, not necessarily around her characters, but around the inspiration I felt due to her artwork.

After that I started crafting my own OC. I didn’t necessarily want it to be me as a self-insert but I also couldn’t help but realize, being short, I would probably be a tank engine and it would be both funny and sweet if Gordon, but who often teased tank engine’s for their size and what they could/couldn’t do, fell in love with one. I understood that some people would probably dislike that things like love, lust, anger, hatred, etc. were written in such a prized and childhood fandom, but I came up with a linear story and ran with it. Originally, The Yellow Rose of Sodor was going to involve more aspects of racing, Gordon’s favorite thing, and a much bigger rivalry between Gordon and Scotsman. But I hated pick-me girls in stories and quickly scrapped, pardon the pun, the idea.

Another thing I thought of doing, inspired by several monster versions of the engines, was making them dragons. I even drew out a few of them and the different styles but… it became more of a funny pastime than the actual story.

Finally, I landed on Diesel 10 as the enemy after reading up on how much scarier he was supposed to be, but died down due to it being a kids show. I wanted to bring him back as a much scarier threat and adversary. I wanted to make him, not necessarily unredeemable, but terrifying. A racist engine with a penchant for torment and murder. We saw him nearly kill James and yet it was all ‘Oh that darn Diesel 10’ instead of ‘What the crap?!?’. So, I worked it out and created the story laid before you.

A lot has actually changed in the ending. I have been working hard to craft it the way I want and what I hope will be a satisfying HEA (happily ever after) for all parties. With my own troubles happening this year, I was deathly sick, miscarried my baby, had a near heart attack and had to be brought back, three surgeries, and then there have been issues with my husband’s family… I haven’t been able to dedicate the time I want to these last few chapters. September would have been my babies birth and so I had to keep myself from writing because I was grieving all over again. In fact, most of my time processing my own emotions have been through chatting with my Gordon AI on character.ai as Camille with their little one in the AU that’s in my short collection where they had a child. In my own grief I actually changed their child’s name from Frederick (Erik) to Connor, which would have been our child’s name. Maybe that’s TMI and maybe that’s not the healthiest but I’m coming out of it and I’ve started writing the next chapter, a focus on Henry and Hiro and where to go from there cliffhanger.

I’m sure you weren’t expecting an essay but I figured a lot came into writing the Yellow Rose and, whether it’s a popular fic or not, it means a lot to me. So much so I want to write a sequel focusing on Flying Scotsman and his future companion, Jessica. I have edited the fanfic that he’s not with City of Truro and with an actual jet engine female. I felt it suited his character in my fic that he would go against the grain being with another locomotive and ending with someone who could truly make him the ‘Flying’ Scotsman.

Anyway, I hope this answers your question and I hope to see great things from you anon! You’ve got this!

-Kamiko

[silvcrignis]

Hunt A Killer || Verse Bio || Dead By Daylight

“Keira. I’m not pleased. In the slightest,” the tall blonde man suddenly in the doorframe of her office growled.

Green eyes darted up from her pile of paperwork & moving fountain pen as Keira looked back up at Lucifer, head tilted as she thought about what would have Satan seething this way. Both herself & Lucifer had moments where they got very, very angry over the most inconsequential reasons at times but she didn’t think this was exactly that. It doesn’t take her long, both she & Lucifer thought very similarly & her eyes widened as she clicked her tongue.

“You figured out the roster issue? I swear the names that aren’t crossed out on that thing have doubled.”

“Indeed. I have.”

Her next sentence was prefixed by a little cross between a groan & a growl as one hand rose to rub her temple as the other gestured him all the way inside of her lavish working space.

“I know that tone, Brimstone… How bad is it?” she sighed, internally bracing herself as he sat across from her.

Lucifer’s response was a brandished folder which was immediately taken & Keira began sorting through the multitude of photographs (really the Anomalies Department had outdone themselves on this, they needed to arrange some sort of recognition event for that team) & when she had finished she was just as irked as her colleague, her eyes now a flickering orange.

“You cannot be fucking- Something is stealing them?! Why? I don’t even fucking care about how I want to fucking know w h y Morningstar?!”

…Morningstar? She only called him that when she was deadly serious. Good. He needed them to be on the same page, he had chosen her for a reason, but sometimes she didn’t take things as seriously as she should because she knew it would annoy him. Her cooperation was one H E L L of a relief. He could feel the tension melting slightly from his shoulders as he pulled a single folded up paper from his suit pocket, holding it between his index & middle finger as Keira rose an eyebrow at him.

“… Do you want to handle this? I know you’re much better at brokering compromises than I.” he snickered, stretching his occupied fingers towards her.

(He had a point there. She was slightly more flexible though that didn’t mean she was any less ruthless in the end. Lucifer made demands, Keira swathed hers in the guise of a suggestion but they both always got whatever they wanted out of them.)

“Oh. You indulge me far too much sometimes, Your Majesty…”

“We are in Hell, Your Grace,” he reminded her as she took the offering while snickering at his veiled pun.

Lucifer’s naturally hissing voice was coloured with a tone of befuddlement over the phone

“… 500 years? How the fuck did you manage to do that? I figured that slithering sky penis would at least want you for a millennium.”

“Everyone wants me longer but that’s really up to my whims,” she purred back, grinning slightly at Lucifer’s responding snort.

“Anyway, I do have the rest of terms if you are interested. I feel like this is the start of a fantastic working relationship. Honestly a war wouldn’t be worth it. You’ve seen the roster you know our armies would just….”

“Yes, they would. It would be pitiful. But we’d be amused. However the terms would be useful considering the contract delivered to my desk was already sealed.”

“They are indeed going to stop just randomly picking from our roster. In exchange, we’ll make one for them. I actually don’t really mind their little project here besides the pilfering, it looks like something we would do if we had the time, honestly.”

“…Good… Anything else?”

“Pan’s here with me, he decided to tag along. Though there’s no extra stipulations with him, he just wanted to I’m just being transparent.”

“My condolences.”

“Appreciate you for that, I’ll need them. Now on to the best part. It took a little wheedling & eventually I offered the 500 years of servitude before it budged but…”

Lucifer could tell by her tone in her trailing off there was a reason she was saving this part for last & honestly he could indulge her need for begging this time, what she said would be more than worth it.

“Miss Black, if get any closer to the edge of my throne I’ll fall off.”

“Ooh, you’re on the throne right now? Am I on speaker?”

“Of course I am, this is important.”

“Well, in exchange for my good faith offer, if it does get bored of any of its squirmy little toys taken before todays signing… We get them. Not just the ones taken from our roster but their pissy terrified little lab rats too!”

For a moment Lucifer was silent even as the whispers among their gathered subordinates started, a slow, unhinged smile spreading on his face.

“… If I were standing next to you right now, I would kiss you.”

“Hold that thought for five centuries, keeps the euphoria alive. Though. The downside is you will be a solo act for a while again. Think you can handle reclaiming the mantel while I’m gone?”

“I’ll make it. Have fun. Also I know you must be elated sharing a field with Myers but…”

“Yeah. Fucking Ghostface… At least I might get a chance at dropping his goofy ass. Still can’t believe Regina thought I wanted a box set of his shit antics… The first Scream was okay, why the fuck didn’t they stop after that one?”

“To torment & punish you. Specifically. If you need anything…”

“I’ll use the Betelgeuse method, got it. Bye, Lucifer.”

He had already said his own farewell so he was hardly offended when she hung up. As soon as she did she cackled.

“Fucking sucker. I only have to stay in the realm during the trials… I just hate contract duty,” The Hellion snorted, folding her arms behind her head & sauntering off to her own cute little realm lovingly named “The Terror Dome”. Hmmm. She hoped these human fuckbags knew Greek mythology. The Labyrinth would be a GREAT first time theme.

@manufactoredxbyxdesign & @dcmur3 are real ones for liking that post so they get tagged in the l o r e

Also ye das right Albert keep being a bad lad & ur goin to Heck ur ass was on that roster too babyyy 👺

[bodhrancomedy]

It’s a lot of somethings.

When I was first hesitantly opening up about a new name, I was talking to my older sister about my list (it was terrible, I’ll give it to you sometime), she suddenly burst out with “How about Bodhrán -“ (she pronounced it Bod-ran) - “because then you could be Bod like Brian O’Driscoll, head of the Irish rugby team!”

I laughed and added it to the list. Time went on. I looked it up (I already knew it was a drum, but I didn’t know one of the possible translations was Deaf Drum - I’m Deaf) and found it was pronounced Bow-rawn and I’m an actor so the pun appealed to me. Also the fact that, since it wasn’t a proper name, I wasn’t going to go through the trouble of changing it and then having to pick a stage name. I polled my friends and it came out far ahead because “yeah, that sounds like you.” It was also an object which appealed to the great nonbinary court.

So, yeah. That’s a lot of reasons.

this has probably been done before but idc im curious

(using "people who chose their own name" instead of mentioning trans people specifically because not all trans people change their name and not everyone who changes their name identifies as trans)

(if you have multiple names, pick an option based on whichever one you like)

[marsmarvel02]

"What Manny Can't Fix" Review: Chapter 5

Welcome back and welcome again to my "riffview" (is that pun too bad?) of "What Manny Can't Fix", a really bad Handy Manny fanfic!

Today, we're covering Chapter 5. If you'd like to start reading the review from the beginning, you can read Chapter 1 here.

Chapter 5

Mr Grover had fallen asleep in his recliner chair, his loud snoring echoing throughout the workshop. Under an old washcloth, Claspy and Bolt were snuggled together, dreaming peacefully.

Unlike her team, Plunker sat near the window, looking at the stars above. 

“Somewhere out there,

Beneath the pale moonlight…”

“Turner.” She whispered. “I know you’re out there….somewhere….I...I’m sorry….I’m so very sorry….You shouldn’t have been left behind, you should be here with us.”

I honestly can’t figure out if Plunker is a too-kind, too-caring Mary Sue or the only character in the entire story with anything resembling common human (well, tool) decency.

She sighed and rested her head against the window. “It’s all my fault…” Tears pricked Plunker’s eyes. Her crying picked up as she laid on the window sill, still looking outside.  I can’t just let him stay out there….I need to find him….

Plunker made sure everyone was still asleep as she bounced down from the window sill down to the door. She put the bottom of her handle in a small hole in the door, pulling it open.

So the world of this fanfic has doggy doors for hammers? Or did I just misinterpret a very unclear and vague description?

She quietly sneaked outside and headed down the sidewalk, just the light of the moon and the stars guiding her. Maybe he was making his way back to the workshop, he wouldn’t just run away, would he? Maybe I can find him out here….

If she ends up getting lost and separated from Mr. Grover’s team too, I’m going to scream.

“Turner! Turner!” She called out into the night. “Turner, where are you!?”

Crickets chirped and the wind blew, but she didn’t hear anything else. She sighed as she continued her way down the street. “Turner! Turner!”

Eventually she passed by a creaky old workshed. Plunker gently opened the door and stuck her head in. “Hello! Turner!? Are you in here!?”

“No one named Turner in here!” Replied a voice.

Plunker gasped as she took a step back. “I….I...I’m sorry….I...I didn’t think anyone was in here…”

“You sure seemed to think Turner was in here.”-

I’m honestly not sure if that line’s funny or not.

-The voice chuckled, walking closer. From the limited light from the window, Plunker could make out that he was a claw hammer. He smiled at her gently as he got closer.

“Oh...uh...yeah...I was looking for my...friend...He got lost and I’m worried about him.” She sighed.

“Oh.” The hammer frowned. “What does he look like?

“He’s a blue flathead screwdriver, with a purple band around him.”

“Hmm...I haven’t seen any flathead screwdrivers around here, recently….or much of anyone actually.” He let out a dry laugh. “I got left here when my owner moved.”

And here we have yet another stolen-from-TBLT plot point that doesn’t work since the humans know about the tools’ sentience.

Or maybe all the humans in this fanfic’s world (and most of the tools) are uncaring a-holes.

“Oh.” Plunker frowned. “I...I’m sorry….it must be awful lonely out here all alone…”

“It is, but I’ve been doing fine.”

“Do you want some company?” Plunker asked.

“C...company?”

Plunker nodded. “You could come back to the workshop with me! I’m sure Mr Grover wouldn’t mind if you stayed with us!”

“O...oh.” He looked a little hesitant. “All...all right…”

Plunker went back open to the shack door and was about to open it again.

“Maybe we should wait until morning.” The hammer suggested. “It’s pretty dark out.”

I can’t wait to see how this leads to Plunker being accidentally abandoned by Mr. Grover.

“That’s probably a good idea.” She said, backing away from the door. 

“There’s room in my toolbox if you want to stay here tonight.” The hammer offered. 

“Th...thank you…” Plunker said with a small smile, going over. They both got into the toolbox, sitting close to each other. “So, what’s your name?”

“I’m Tapper.” He said. “And you?”

“I’m Plunker.”

“Well it’s nice to meet you Plunker.” He said, leaning closer to her.

Missing a comma there, Tapper.

Plunker felt a blush form on her cheeks.-

Oh no.

- “It’s nice to meet you too…”

As is tool tradition, they’ll stay up most of the night hammering stuff and nap until 2:00 PM the next day.

Turner still hadn’t managed to fall asleep. He kept staring at the sky.

Oh hi Turner. Wasn’t expecting to see you in this chapter.

“Todavía despierto? Still awake?” Twist asked from beside him.

The running for “character I dislike the least” is tied between Bolt, for having some legitimately funny lines, and Twist, for saving me work by translating everything she says so I don’t have to. 

“Yeah….” Turner sighed. “I can’t sleep….”

“You still miss your familia, don’t you?” She asked.

“My family?” He asked.

Twist nodded.

Shocking plot twist! One member of the Hardened Street Gang isn’t as hardened as they seem! This is not at all a cliche, at all!

“I...I mean...I don’t think I would call them a family….we were a team, sure, but a family…I wouldn’t say that…” 

“Oh, I see.” Twist frowned. She sat there in thought for a moment. “When I couldn’t sleep, my madre would sing me a lullaby.”

What the- where did that come from?!

Why?

“A lullaby? Pfft, I don’t need that baby stuff…” Turner said.

“If you didn’t then you’d be asleep by now, wouldn’t you?” She teased.

Turner gave her a slight glare.

“Just try it at least before you judge it.” She said.

Turner sighed in defeat. “Fine, go ahead…”

Twist cleared her throat and sang gently, “Remember me, though I have to say goodbye. Remember me, don’t let it make you cry. For ever if I’m far away, I hold you in my heart.”

You-you’ve got to be kidding me!

Well, let’s check “jarring pop-culture reference” off the list of bad fanfiction tropes this story contains.

As she continued, Turner looked to the stars, his mind wandering back to the workshop….back to Plunker.

Oh my god.

And here’s another dream/memory sequence.

“Are you still awake, Turner?” Plunker asked.

“Yes.” Turner groaned, laying against the counter in the workshop.

So Turner might just be an insomniac, but that doesn’t explain the other tools’ napping habits.

Or how easily he dozed off earlier in the story.

“Do you need help falling asleep?” She asked, gently.

“How could you help me fall asleep?” Turner groaned, tiredly. 

“Hmm...How about some warm milk?”

“Ew.” Turner shuttered in disgust. “Why would I drink that?”

“Okay…..” Plunker thought for a moment. “I could rock you like a baby.”

Turner rolled his eyes. “Plunker….”

“Oh! How about a lullaby!” 

“A lullaby? Aren’t those for babies?” Turner asked.

Plunker smiled gently. “No. A lot of people use  music to fall asleep.”

First "animation is as valid a form of medium as any other" and then this.

Turner sighed. “Fine...I’ll try it...:”

Plunker started humming gently as she placed an old wash cloth over Turner like a blanket. Turner closed his eyes as she started singing a small tune. He relaxed, snuggling into the wash cloth.

What song was she singing? 

Or do I not want to know?

I probably don’t want to know.

Plunker stayed by his side, continuing her song, as he drifted off to sleep.

And that concludes Chapter 5! If you want to continue reading, my review of Chapter 6 has now been posted.

[small-gremlin-thing]

MY THOUGHTS ON TOH S2E19:

Sorry this is so much later in the day than usual, I went to a restaurant with family and we lost track of time. Also this obviously isn’t a combined post again because ya know. The Amphibia finale isn’t out yet, and I’m not doing an analysis for that.

This episode was very plot focused, and that’s great! It also kinda had to be, because in the words of Luz, we don’t have time for 20 more adventures (thanks Disney /s). Speaking of Luz, it’s nice to see where she’s been, as well as the rest of the main cast. I honestly wasn’t expecting the Owl House to be raided so easily with Eda and Lilith there, but then again they didn’t have magic or Hooty. Hiding out on the knee was also quite a good idea, good on them! The plot then branches off from here, and I’ll cover each bit individually.

First off, good on you Luz for wanting to spend your last day to do whatever you want committing crimes, what an icon. I thought it was funny how lax the coven scouts are with giving away their warehouse key, like this is the most powerful coven on the Boiling Isles but with a half decent costume you can get access everywhere? Belos, your coven kinda sucks. On a totally different note, the conflict between Luz and Eda totally grabbed my heart and shattered it to pieces. Like Eda just wants what’s best for Luz and to keep her safe and Luz wants to prove that she’s strong enough to help and just aaa, I love the found family trope but boy does it hurt sometimes! Thankfully it got worked out and Luz finally got to properly meet Raine, Darius, Eberwolf (is that how it’s spelled?), and the rest of the CATTs! Man, it was nice to see them again.

While all this is happening, King is off with Steve doing some serious soul searching. It was nice to watch him slowly accept his titan status, and then double back on the fact that he just wants to be treated normally like before. Also, we get a Steve face reveal, and man he Does Not look like how I pictured. Actually, I don’t think I had a picture of what Steve looked like, I just kinda pictured the coven scout mask as like,,, his face.

Lastly, once the whole cast meets back up, we see Luz and Eda finally get around to carving Luz’s palisman! I’m excited to see what it will be, and to be honest, I’m on team bluejay (and no that’s not an intentional name pun). Birds are a Clawthorne thing, so it makes sense in my mind!

All in all, I really enjoyed this episode, but I’m also worried for what’s to come. We’re in the home stretch now, so it can only get more action-packed from here!

[hitechlatte]

Game On - Rise!Future!Donnie X GN!Reader

All 4-1 Challenge Fanfiction

Prompt: Reader continually uses TERRIBLE pick up lines on your choice of turtle, trying to drop the hint.

(I may been VERY lenient with the prompt, but I hope you enjoy nonetheless)

Warnings: Lots of Swearing

This is based in future timeline, several years after start of Kraang Invasion.

Saw some entries for this and got invested so I wanted to whip something up real quick for it lol.

ALSO WARNING! My fic is SFW and so anyone can read but a lot of the other fics in this contest are not, so just wanted to give peeps a heads up if they look at other entries, which you should if you are of age because they are rad, but warning has been given.

Challenge Hosted by: @turtle-babe83 @thelaundrybitch @leosgirl82 @nittleboo @tmnt-tychou and @post-apocalyptic-daydream

Also stole puns from here: https://thedarkestroast.com/coffee-puns/#Jokes_About_Drinking_Coffee

FIC UNDER KEEP READING

Game On

Clutching tightly to the mug in your hand, your steps echoed in the corridor. It had only been your second day in the NYC safe haven and some lady named Cassandra had already found you a job on base.

And of course, even in the apocalypse, you were still working as a barista.

But at least this way you could be helpful and show your gratitude. If the recon team hadn’t found you hiding in that decrepit Stock & Shop when they did…

Well... You didn’t want to think about what could have been.

As you reached the end of the cave’s offshoot, you found a large metal door built into the natural structure of the tunnel. With a perplexed look, you gazed at the panel towards the right of the entrance and pressed the ‘call’ button.

“What.” A voice curtly snapped.

“Is this uh… Derek? Your brother Mikey said to bring you some coffee.” You told the panel.

“Ah.” The voice spoke back, “And did this brother of mine tell you to play into the role of barista by perpetuating the stereotype that those who handle coffee somehow lose their ability to correctly recall a name? If this is his poor attempt to simulate normalcy when I’m already stressed out, you can inform him I’m not amused.”

Fuck... You groaned in your mind, ecstatic to be making such great first impressions.

“Did you at least get my order right? Or is that part of your performance as well?” The voice continued.

“It’s just a double espresso. It’s kind of hard to fuck that up” You commented.

“Well at least you’re not entirely inept.” The voice groaned, “Bring it to my desk.”

As you harshly cursed at yourself, you could hear the whirls of an engine. To your left, the metal door slid open, showcasing a large cavern filled with machines and wires.

Slowly stepping into the space, your eyes tried their best to take everything in. Machines flickered and buzzed all around you, while monitors stretched across the walls. The large screens lined out routes of the kraang activity and the recon teams. As you walked deeper into the room, you could hear the clattering of a keyboard. 

Following the noise, you could see one of the turtles sitting at a desk with several monitors. Numerous windows were scattered across the screens as he fervently typed away.

“Here’s your double espresso.” You flatly commented.

“Doppio, you mean?” The turtle corrected without looking away from his screen.

You rolled your eyes, “I’m surprised you actually know what it’s called.”

“I, unlike many residing in these halls, have class.” The turtle commented, “Besides, I’m the reason we even have an espresso machine.”

You let out a soft chuckle as you turned to head out of the room. However the turtle spoke up again, stopping you in your tracks.

“Has anyone walked you through how to use your communicator yet?” The turtle asked, his nose still buried in the monitors.

Turning back with a confused look you nodded, “Yeah, I got the rundown.”

“Good. I’m adding your device to a pager. Do whatever your typical duties are unless you receive a ping from me. The kitchen should already know this, but prioritize my orders. If I pass out when I’m supposed to be monitoring missions that will not end well.”

“Is that… uh… healthy?” You inquired.

“No, but what other choice do we have?” The turtle flatly stated as he seemed to read through something on his screen.

“Touche.” You shrugged your shoulders.

You went to take another step towards the exit, but then stopped once more.

“Oh guess I should apologize about the name mix up. What um. What is it actually?”

“It’s Donatello, or maybe I should have you simply refer to me as Donnie or even D. Since that may be easier for your poor mind to remember.” Donnie mocked with a devious tone in his voice.

Two can play this game. You thought.

With a snicker you commented back, “Ah Dennis? Cool. I can remember that.”

You could hear the turtle groan as he turned his chair around to glare at you. He seemed like he was going to chew you out until he saw the grin plastered across your face.

“Oh... You were kidding.” Donnie said, as he roughly rubbed his forehead, “Just go and let me get back to my work.”

“Sure thing, Daniel.” You called back as you made your way out of the room. 

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

Over the next several weeks, the purple turtle seemed to slowly warm up to you. Your quick order drop off with whatever name you chose to call him that day, eventually turned into longer chats. You’d stick around for a bit, asking him how his work was going or to share gossip you’d heard from around the settlement.

One particular morning, you walked with a pep in your step. The prior night's recon team returned with a bunch of fancy coffee grounds from a nearby Whole Foods. You couldn’t help but bask in the smells emanating from Donnie’s mug.

Typing your code into the panel of the lab door, the metal whooshed opened and you swiftly headed to Donnie’s desk.

“Morning Deiphobus. Got a batch of fancy new grounds this morning and I have a feeling you’ll really like them.” You smirked.

“I’m sorry, Deiphobus?” Donnie asked as he turned to you with a grin on his face, “What is this 1250 BCE?”

“I’m running out of names!” You exclaimed, “It’s not my fault you drink like 4 coffees a day. Besides, how is that any worse than Donatello?”

“Donatello is a classic.” The turtle said, puffing out his chest as he turned back to his monitor, “Besides, where did you even find that name?”

“Some Shakespeare book.”

“Someone’s getting desperate.”

“I’m sorry it's not like we still have google and I can look up one of those stupid 3 billion baby name lists.”

“Oh if anything I commend your research.” Donnie snickered, “I’m just surprised you can actually read Shakespeare. I thought baristas were notorious for their illiteracy.”

“You’re awful.”

“Or maybe you’re just jealous you’re not as witty as myself.”

“If anything you’re jealous! I’m hella whitty.” You quickly defended.

“Uh-huh.”

“Oh it’s Game On, asshat.” You laughed, “Just wait, next time you see me you won’t know what hit you.”

A few hours passed when you heard your pager ping again. With a smirk, you whipped up his doppio and proudly made your way over to the lab.

As you reached his desk, you loudly cleared your throat. The noise caused the turtle to turn his chair and meet your gaze.

“Yes?” He asked.

“I, as I’m sure you’re well aware, am incredibly witty.” You said as you held the mug close to your chest.

“Uh-huh.”

“And someone as witty as myself, knows when a schtick has to end. So here is my new proposal.”

Donnie gave you a look of disbelief as he waited.

“Hello there, Donnie.” You began.

“Ah, my actual name. How witty. He said sarcastically.”

“Shush. That’s not it. Let me finish.” You flailed.

The purple turtle rolled his eyes as he leaned his elbow on his desk and propped up his chin.

“I just wanted to say… I made this cup of coffee, espresso-ly for you.”

The purple turtle stared at you, his eyes going wide.

"No." He said.

"Yes." You smirked.

“Oh god please no!” Donnie groaned loudly and buried his face in his desk. 

Your laughing echoed throughout the room as you nearly spilled his drink. Placing the mug down on the desk, you clutched onto your stomach and tried to stifle your laughter.

“Oh- oh that was too perfect. Leo was so right.” You cackled.

“Of course he’s in on this.” Donnie mumbled into the desk.

“Hey, he's the hero of this story. He’s the one who gave me the book.”

Donnie sat up straight and gave you a perplexed look, “Book?”

“Oh yeah, you know that run to the library last week? Leo found a book of ten thousand puns.”

“T-ten- THOUSAND?” Donnie could barely choke out.

“Yep!” You smirked, “And there’s a whole chapter just dedicated to coffee.”

Donnie groaned as he planted his face back down onto the desk.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

Each pun got progressively worse as you made your way through the list. Occasionally a joke would elicit a slight chuckle from the aloof purple turtle, but the other 90% of the time, he would simply groan or threaten to have you kicked out of base.

However, as the next few days turned into weeks, you began running out of material.

Or well… Material you felt comfortable using.

One section in the coffee chapter was titled Coffee Puns About Love and Romance. Every time you searched for a line to use, you always quickly skipped past that portion of the list. 

But, desperate times call for desperate measures.

Selecting the least aggressive pick up line from the options provided, you made your way over to his lab.

As you reached his desk, you placed the mug down on the surface without a word and sighed harshly.

“Ah, has the day come? Have you finally exhausted that grotesque list?” Donnie chuckled as he turned to you.

“No. But we are scraping the bottom of the barrel now.”

“Oh?”

Shaking out your hands and taking another breath you stared at the turtle. Your lips were reluctant, but you were able to form the words.

“You’re brew-ti-ful.”

His eyes went wide and his face blushed a harsh red.

“Oh god.” He groaned, “Please tell me ‘bottom of the barrel’ doesn’t mean the only puns left are awful pick up lines.”

“I mean I could tell you that, but then I’d be lying.”

Donnie groaned as he roughly slapped his own face.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

The pick up lines were much more entertaining than you expected. Seeing how madly he’d blush or stammer at your commentary was adorable, and you proudly played your part. For the days you were feeling extra adventurous, you‘d even pair the line with a wink or by blowing him a kiss.

However, when the list of lines was depleted, you did everything you could to keep the game going. On your offtime, you’d sit for hours, trying to concoct more coffee based pick up lines to try on him. You even found yourself practicing in the mirror to make sure you got the words just right.

And as this next chapter of the game continued on, you soon found yourself perplexed.

You don’t know when or how it happened…

But you started meaning what you said. 

To no avail, you kept trying to pinpoint when everything changed. Was it when your generic lines became more personalized? Or was it when your supplemental teasing went from playful winks to gentle fingers tracing the edge of his jaw.

Although you couldn’t find the answer you were looking for, you did know this.

It wasn’t your fault. 

If he didn’t have such vibrant reactions, you wouldn’t have become so obsessed with the game. 

It still would have been just a game. 

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

Late one night, your pager beeped at you. As you tapped on the device you groaned.

“He knows it’s 4am right?”

After slowly trudging out of bed, you lethargically made his drink and headed over to the lab.

Rubbing your eyes, you mistyped your code a few times before finally opening the door.

The turtle was hunched over his desk. The taps of the keys sounded slower than usual.

“Dude, you owe me for making me get my ass out of bed.” You yawned.

“Blame Leo.” Donnie groaned, “The idiot winded up setting off a Kraang patrol unit.”

“Everyone, okay?!” You exclaimed.

“Thankfully.” Donnie sighed, “But I lost some of my search drones. Had to play distraction for a while so they could make an escape. Everything seems calm now, but I want to stay up for a bit longer just to make sure they return safely.”

“That’s good to hear.” You sighed, “Well... here’s your drink.”

“Ahh finally run out of lines?” Donnie groggily mocked as he continued to look at the screen.

His snarky attitude woke something up inside of you. 

Leaning forward, you gently grasped his chin, turning his face to meet yours. His cheeks burned vibrantly as he stared at you. With a devious gaze, your lips curled up slightly. 

“Oh I’m sorry. I almost forgot. Thanks for reminding me.” You snickered as your fingers still softly held his chin.

But while you tried to search your mind for the pun you had thought up on the way over, you couldn’t help but continually drop your gaze down to his lips. Silently cursing your tired stupor, you tried to regain focus. 

Donnie just sat there, barely breathing, as you continued to filter through your thoughts. He too, struggled to meet your gaze as his eyes continued to fall upon your lips.

However after a few more breathless moments, the line finally returned to your mind. With a slight blush on your cheeks, you smirked as you spoke.

“Words cannot express how much you mean to me.”

Both of you sat there frozen. Your eyes widened as the words left your lips. 

“Fuck I said it wrong! Sorry it’s late and-” You began to splutter.

But you were cut off by Donnie’s lips crashing into yours.

Game Over.

[theoutcastrogue]

A story about a wall

This wall is in my old neighbourhood, and it didn’t always look like this. When I was a kid, it was painted grey and was always covered with graffiti – not art, just words and phrases and maybe a symbol. The majority of these, I’d say about ~60%, were football-related.

[rival team fans] you are cunts

[neighbourhood] belongs to [our team]

[rival team fans] we fuck your mothers

suck our cocks [rival team fans] faggots

And so on. Another ~20% were anarchist.

free [political prisoner]

down with the state

anarchy forever

fuck the army

And so on. Another ~10% were otherwise political. The names of big and small political parties (and some MPs) showed up at election season, not scrawled with spray but painted professionally with rollers in huge letters. Sometimes a union urged people to join a strike or rally. Very very rarely a fascist graffiti would show up, but it would get defaced immediately. There were a lot more anarchists than fascists back then.

And the rest was about love and/or lust.

[name] I love you

I miss you so much

[name] when will you let me fuck you?

the ass is hell / and the cunt a well / and he who ass never tried / goes to Hades blind

And so on. Defaced graffiti was a big part of the wall. People spared no spray cans crossing out each other’s messages, and at times it all looked like the deranged scrawlings of an eldritch abomination, you couldn’t make out a single word.

And here’s a very important detail about that wall: it’s facing an elementary school.

My school, to be exact. Small children (i.e. we) would go out to the schoolyard at recess, look across the street, and see what I just described. Needless to say, a lot of adults were quite displeased with this situation. But what could they do? The mayor would send a cleaning crew once in a while, but 5 minutes after they left someone would inaugurate the freshly painted wall, and a day later it would be full again. Walls in cities be like that.

AND THEN, long after I was gone from the school, someone had a stroke of genius. They said, we’re not gonna paint the wall that awful monochrome grey again. Instead, we’ll cover it in street art. BUT, we won’t ask street artists to pitch their ideas. We will ask the children of the elementary school to come up with the designs, draw them themselves or pick them from wherever they want. We’ll hire a crew to paint what they chose. And we’ll make sure everyone knows that the children picked the street art. Which heartless bastard will spray over that?

AND IT FUCKING WORKED. The football hooligans, the anti-authoritarian rebels, the politicians’ stooges, the unionists, the lovers, the assholes: no one had the heart to spray over that. The street art went up, and stayed up. It didn’t get defaced, it didn’t get covered, it’s still there. (Not quite unblemished, there are still margins where football fans do their thing, but it’s a very small percentage of the total surface.)

yeah, that part looks like the old wall

So while the street art itself on that wall is not particularly jaw-dropping, its origin story is just crazy. I’m sure that the children weren’t given totally free rein to pick designs, and that teachers and/or the city council made the final choice. And it’s probably they who picked the theme – bicycles. All neat and proper and kid-friendly. Still, one little rascal managed to slip this past:

“Till theft give us parts”, i.e. bicycle parts, get it? (DON’T JUDGE THE PUN, IT WAS A LITTLE KID.) And it makes me so happy.

[obetrolncocktails]

Holy Figures | Josh Kiszka X Reader | Part 1

Warning: Alcohol consumption, parody on religion (if that upsets you, do not read this fic), flirting. The next part will be extremely NSFW. Minors DNI

Word Count: 2.2K

A/N: Idk, something about the Halloween pics of the boys made me feral, particularly for Josh and whats hotter than Pope Josh undressing nun Y/n? Anyway, enjoy!

“The Pope?” Are you fucking serious?” You asked, your head already spinning from the punch that had every liquor known to man in it. You chugged the bittersweet liquid down, feeling the burn of the concoction as it slithered down your throat and into your empty belly. You’d pay for that mistake later. 

“What? Come on, Y/n. We’re the perfect team. You’re literally Mother Teresa!” He reached for your fake crucifix, lifting it in the air to watch it dangle. His breath smelled of the same alcohol, and it was obvious that it was working well in his favor. 

“Such a shame we’re here. It’s so sinful,” Sammy said, dressed up as a priest. “Sexy devils? Angels? Oh my God, you should have seen the guy with the fake bloody chainsaw.” He held a solo cup in his hand, pulling it up to his lips as he scoped the room. 

“Don’t say the Lord’s name in vain,” Josh warned, pointing his finger at Sam. “You should know better, Father.”

“Yeah, Father. Come on,” You agreed, flashing him a brilliant grin. 

“Oh yeah, that’s right. Oh my Goodness,” he repeated, mending the word slip. 

You rolled your eyes playfully, stepping further into the large house. To your delight, Josh followed you. You had a crush on him for years, and everyone knew it, including him. The feelings were returned in flirty acts here and there, and you both had kissed once in highschool, but college had sent you in two different directions. 

“So tell me,” he said with a grin. You knew he was about to say something smart. “What turned the Halloween party into the Hallelujah party?” You punched him in the shoulder. 

“You tell me! You’re the Pope for Christ sake,” You said, not realizing the pun you had made. 

“Very funny, Y/n. I never realized how much religious rhetoric we use in everyday language,” he said with his hands on his hips, his chin turned upward in thought. 

“Care to enthuse me with an etymology lesson?” you asked him with sarcasm. He eyed you mischievously.

“No, but how about another lesson?” He knew what he was doing, manifesting success when the heat rolled up your neck and into your cheeks. 

“Stop,” you warned, swatting him on the butt. “Act priestly, Pope Joshua.”

“Has he prayed over you yet?” Jake said, appearing out of nowhere, his body cloaked in a black cape, his face covered in a black bandana, his head topped with a sleek bolero hat.

“Zorro?” You asked, taking notice of how well his facial hair worked with the costume. Oh God, Jake too? You thought, appreciating how effortlessly sexy he looked in the costume. 

“No! I’m Westley from the Princess Bride.” He said, lifting the hat off of his head and tipping it to you. 

“You’re totally Zorro,” you said, stealing his hat and placing it on top of your head, on top of the nun’s habit you already wore. 

“Either way, you still like it, don’t lie,” he said, blowing you a kiss and stealing his hat back. “Also,” he said, taking a step back, pulling out a full length sword that looked alarmingly real. “I will fight for your honor,” He said in a fake British accent. 

“He didn’t get the whole ‘Heaven and Hell’ memo,” Sam said, edging his way back through the crowd to join you. 

“I wanted to try something different this year. Plus, I can easily send you to Hell,” Jake said, waving the fake sword in the air. 

“Jake, you’re going to put someone’s eye out!” you said, ducking below his swing. 

“Relax! It’s fake,” he said, sheathing it back on his belt.

“Beer pong anyone?” Josh asked, somehow having disappeared and reappeared, this time with a single ping pong ball. “It’s either beer or jäger bombs. Take your pick.” 

“Go big or go home. Jägerbombs!” Sammy yelled above the music, pointing deeper into the house. “Let’s go!” 

You followed him through the crowd, finding the game set up in the garages, twenty or thirty people lined up around the ping pong table, chanting drunkenly over their choice to win. The floor of the garage was awash with all sorts of spilled alcohol. You heard the crunch of several solo cups as people stepped on them and kicked them underneath the table. 

“Game!” a raucous partygoer yelled, pounding on the table and pointing his finger at the winner. “Jason wins by a landslide–Drew, you’ve got fucking terrible aim, man. If you bet on this fucker here, you’re fucking stupid,” He said, laughing as he stumbled off into the crowd. “Who’s next?” He asked, raising his voice above the music. 

“Us!” Josh wailed loud enough so that he could hear. 

“Come on over…Pope?!” he said, drunkenly waving Josh over, who reached for your hand and pulled you toward the table. Admittedly, your belly flipped with butterflies as he held your hand, even though he thought nothing of it.  

“Jake! Hey! Come prep the drinks,” the game maker said, watching as Jake walked into the game. “What will it be?” He asked Josh. 

“Jägerbombs,” Josh answered confidently, bending to pick up loose ping pong balls from the garage floor. 

“Ever played before?” He asked you, handing you the stray balls. You shook your head no. 

“Well, that’s a lie. It’s been years,” you told him. You both watched as volunteers arranged solo cups in a triangle on each side, pouring Redbull into each cup before carefully placing a shot of Jägermeister in the middle. A few minutes later, the table was prepared and bets were placed on who would win, most people choosing Josh as the winner. A few of your friends bet on you, placing twenties into a cut open empty water jug. 

“Heads or tails?” Jake asked, revealing a poker chip with casino branding on one side, the other blank. 

“Tails,” You told him. 

“Josh you’re heads,” he said, preparing to flip the chip. 

He flicked it up in the air with his thumb and you watched it spin before landing back in his hand. 

“Heads wins. Josh, your serve.” 

“Hell yeah! Hey, Y/n?” Josh asked, moving to his side of the table, bouncing a ping pong ball on it. Your face contorted with confusion and before you could respond, he had already bounced his first ball across the table, making it into a cup on the first try. Whistles and cheers erupted from the room. You sighed and reached forward, pulling the ball out of the cup and tipping the drink back into your mouth. The combination of alcohol was vile; it burned as it went down and you knew that you were in for a long night. His third ball landed in another cup and you took it too, draining it as well. 

“Alright, Y/n. Beat Josh’s ass,” Sammy said, sipping on a beer. You offered him a sly grin. What Josh didn’t know was that you were about to dominate the game, because fortunately for you, but unfortunately for him, you lied. You were an expert at beer pong. In the early days of college, you and Sam had become reacquainted, frequenting parties with one another, challenging each other all the time. After a while, Sam had lost his edge, making the mistake of giving you too many pointers that you eventually used to beat him. 

“So Josh. Remember how I told you I didn’t play beer bong?” You asked him. “Well, I lied.” You prepped your first shot, bouncing it at the best angle, landing the ball directly in the tip of the triangle formation of cups. 

“Oh shit,” he said softly, reaching for the cup, disposing of the ball and drinking the contents. “You’re going to make me shitfaced,” He said, his lips spreading in a brilliant grin. 

“Eh, maybe. You gonna pussy out?” You asked with a devilish smirk. 

“I never thought I’d hear that word coming from such a good christian lady,” he said, wiping his lips with the sleeve of his costume. 

“You flatter me,” you said, bouncing the next shot against the table, almost missing the cups. The ball bounced off of several cup lips before ricocheting into the bottom line, scoring once more. Josh sighed, lifting the cup again to his lips. 

“Alright woman, make it three for three and I’ll be impressed.” His eyes sparkled as he watched you. He crouched to be eye level with the cups, trying to intimidate you. 

You breathed in, steading your hand as you prepared for the next shot, taking an extended moment to choose where you’d attempt to score. This time, you decided to toss the ball directly in the cup, and actually to your surprise, it made it in without even hitting the walls of the cup. 

“Holy shit, you’re so fucking good at this. What the fuck,” Josh said, throwing his hands in the air. You couldn’t help but chuckle. 

“Holy,” Sam snorted. 

“What’s wrong, Joshy? Scared you’re gonna suck?” You said flirtatiously.

“Yes, actually. You’re making me work for it.”

By the end of the game, you had cleared Josh’s side of the table, while he still had four cups left on your side. “Winner!” The game maker shouted, coming over and lifting your hand over your head. Your head swam, the liquor lowering your inhibitions. The crowd roared and several people stepped forward to drink the remaining cups. 

“I am impressed,” Josh mused. “You’re deadly accurate, woman.”

“It’s a secret talent, I guess,” You answered. You were beginning to feel a bit nauseous, your face flushed from the alcohol. “Hey, I’m gonna take a walk outside. It’s hot in here,” you told him. 

“Mind if I join you?” Josh asked. “I could use the fresh air, too.” His face softened, and you swore you saw a glimmer of eagerness in his eyes. You nodded, feeling the butterflies reappear within your belly. 

The crowd was dense, it was dark and music was blaring. He reached to take your hand, leading you through the throngs of people onto the deck outside. Immediately you felt better, the fresh air filling your lungs, making you feel less and less inebriated by the second.

“Ugh it feels so much better out here,” Josh said, pulling off his hat, fluffing his hair. “It’s hot as hell in there.” He leaned against the railing of the deck, tilting his head back to look at the stars. You couldn’t help but notice the flush that had reddened his cheeks and the sweat that had left a glistening layer on his skin, contouring his features in an almost sexual way. How is he so fucking hot? You thought, before clearing your throat. With how tipsy you were, you weren’t quite sure if you had said it out loud. 

“You’re staring,” He said, the words filling you with dread when his eyes met yours, catching you in the act. 

“Oh, um,” you said, adjusting your step. “Sorry.” 

“Don’t be,” He said, stepping forward toward you, his hands reaching for yours. “I like it. Can I be honest with you?” He asked softly, his face just inches from yours. Your eyes fell to the plush of his lips, watching them move as he spoke. 

“Yes,” you said in a low murmur, bringing your eyes up to meet his gaze. “I haven’t been able to get you off of my mind. For years.” 

“Josh, we’re drunk. You don’t mean that,” You reasoned with him, though you wanted his words to be true. 

“But I do,” He said, lifting his fingertips to your chin, tilting your head upward. “I’ve just always been too sober to be honest with you.” He earned a grin from you that time. 

“Well, can I be honest?” You turned the question on him. 

“Of course,” He spoke. 

“I think about you a lot,” you spoke, stepping forward towards him, backing Josh up.

“You do?” He asked softly, his eyebrows rising with intrigue. 

“How often?” He asked, biting his bottom lip, his hands moving to graze your hips. 

“Every night,” You answered honestly. 

You watched him visibly swallow, his cheeks reddening, but this time it wasn’t from alcohol. “Mmm,” he hummed softly, floating his lips just above yours. There could have been a crowd of people watching but in the moment, you couldn’t have cared less about them. The music was nothing but a low warble and your friends were long forgotten within the party. 

“Remember that time we kissed?” Josh asked with a song chuckle. “We were young. And innocent.” 

“Of course I remember, Josh.” You answered too eagerly. 

“Well, I’m not feeling so innocent anymore. Are you?” He asked, his fingertips slightly digging into your hisp through your costume. You shook your head no. 

“I’m tired of being good,” You answered honestly.

“Then maybe we should stop trying,” He suggested. 

“Sinning on Halloween dressed as holy figures?” You asked, snaking your hands up his costume, grabbing a fistful of the fabric at his chest. 

“Well, it’s one day of the year. I think we can get away with a night of breaking our vows,” He said, knotting the costume crucifix around his fist, pulling you in for the first kiss in years. 

Taglist: @theweightofstardust@thecoldwind@stardustdanny@stxverandle @starchords @strangersingold @dannythedog @mywaysooon @gretavanhoney @moonlightanthem @sparrowofthedawn@gustingirl@cowboysamkiszka@fictional-duchess@gretagolden@bypeapod@aureummel@screechesincoherently@capturethechaos@ageoftambourine@basically-hayley@gretavanfleas@tlexx@amouratomique@strangeh0rizons@wriwrites@fosterkidwiththebrokenjaw@gvfvanfleet@jakekiszkasgiggle@katie-gvf @mgk777 @streamsofstardust @shellygvf @celestialfauna @gretavankleep37 @theweightofjake@thatcatbsong @tripthelightfandomtastic @teddiie@mckenna4 @myownparadise96 @b3l1nda @doodle417 @ashabeannn @emsgvf @prophetofthedune @groggyvanfleet @callmebymym @kdarling1@jakesguitarstring@of-infinite-wonders@mywaygvf@gretasmokerising@gretavanlace@the-chaotic-cow@greta-flanveet @janegvf @m1rkw00dpr1ncess @hayley1623 @theweightofdreams-gvf @zoelle16 @lvnterninthenight @slutforthejuck @megsobryan @age-of-nyahh @gretavancreep @eeeloraaa @doodle417 @gretavansteph @sammysvanfeet @lovejessejay @sammiejane22 @bumblebeeswrite@ryegvf @unfortunatelykristin @samkiszkabreakmyback @loofypoofy @songbirds-sweet @sammyslappers @jakekiszkasleftnutsack @ohhey1293 @jakesgrapejuice@kureenuh @kenzy-daddy @jazzyllemmon @groggyvanfleet @natdance927 @lallisonl @jakeyboiiiiiii @fleet-prodigy

[shurisneakers]

harmless (x)

Summary: Bucky volunteers to go stop a small time villain, but nothing can prepare him for what exactly he has to deal with. (Bucky x villain!reader, drabble series)

Warnings: cursing, frustrated bucky, dramatic reader, anxiety, smidge of angst, mentions of violence

Word count: 7.8k (i went overboard. clearly.)

A/N: as well all know, i am a humanities student writing science geeks. if any of this sounds unrealistic or nonsensical, it’s because it is and i am honestly too exhausted to research data privacy and AI so here’s my take on how STEM should work i.e. the power of friendship  <3 major shoutout to @iamlittlesparkler for the idea for this chapter!

here’s my ko-fi if you’d like to support my writing <333

Previous Part  || Series Masterlist

“As you know, we have a busy week ahead of us.” 

Coffees line the conference room table, pens click against the stacks of paper that settle in front of various agents and the smell of deodorant mixed with post-training sweat lingers at the back of the room like a disgusting witch concoction. 

“The annual parade is coming up and since there are a few security threats, SHIELD has been asked to step in. Therefore, all of you will be working security this week, possibly even at the parade.” Murmurs broke out in the room the minute this was said; mostly from first year field agents who were way too excited to have earpieces and fingerless gloves. 

Bucky, on the other hand, doesn’t think much of it. They’ve dealt with threats before, most were declared empty the minute it got out that SHIELD or the Avengers were involved. It’s the 12th one that year. 

“That’s only if we don’t catch it first,” Steve continued. “Our first priority is precaution. The tech and analytics teams are working on it. However, if you see anything suspicious, bring it up with Director Fury. He’s going to be around to make sure we’re not overlooking anything. Do you have any questions?”

More whispers erupted at the mention of Fury’s name. Wait till they realise he lives up to his name when they accidentally manage to set him off just by existing incorrectly.

Bucky smirks at the thought.

“You can leave then.” Steve straightens up as chairs shuffle against the carpeted floor, over twenty people leaving the room.

“And remember, if you see an eagle today, be sure to stand there and thank it on behalf of Steve for its service. Freedom! Liberty! And whatever else,” Tony calls out from the corner of the room, earning a sigh from the captain. Others only snicker as they close the door behind them.

“Thanks.” Steve stares at him stone faced, bemused at the symbolism that had been bestowed upon him.

“Gotta keep the patriotism high.” The only ones that remain are the official team. Bucky thinks that he should have left with the other agents but apparently, it was rude and not a good show of team spirit.

“How serious is this threat anyway?” Clint has his head face down on the table, hand holding his to-go coffee cup so it doesn’t fall over. 

“We’re not sure.” Steve finally takes a seat on the chair in front of him. “It’s the biggest event we’ve had this year, wouldn’t put it past them.”

“If it’s those Welsh kids again, I’m gonna punch a hole through their house this time,” Clint warns, voice muffled through the furniture. 

“It’s not them, we checked.” Nat had her leg up on the armrest of Clint’s chair. “Tech team’s been working overtime to figure it out.”

“You have anything that could help?” Sam sends a nod towards Tony.

“I got a few things but it’d take a while to put it together.” 

“Didn’t you learn quantum physics in a night?” Wanda’s picking apart a cookie into pieces, chewing slowly.

“Thermodynamic astrophysics,” he corrects her. “Quantum science took lesser.”

Bucky scoffs slightly at the brag, eyes still trained on the table in front of him. Maybe if he made no noise, they would forget he’s here.

“Yeah, so this should be a piece’a cake.”  

“If your cake was somehow made out of a highly specified tracker that somehow doesn’t violate the data privacy of the entire world while analysing millions of terabytes worth of information, then yeah. A piece of it.”

“What he means to say-” Bruce interjects, “-is that we’re trying. It’s just taking longer than usual.”

“Well, the parade’s this Sunday. Think it’ll be done by then?”

“Hey FRIDAY,” Tony crosses his arm over his chest. “How many hours have I slept this week?”

“Three and a half, boss.”

“How much more will I be getting?”

“From previous experience, about six.”

“Yeah, we can get it done.” Tony looks back at Steve. 

“Ask someone on the tech team to help you out.” Everyone was well aware of Tony’s bad coping mechanisms and how futile it was to get him to change his mind about it, but they still tried.

“They’re too busy.” Bruce pressed his lips into a straight line. 

Bucky tunes out at this point. If he could help, he would have reluctantly chimed in by now, but he couldn’t. 

“So what now?” Sam rips Clint’s doughnut into two, keeping one half for himself while leaving the other to the latter who still hadn’t lifted his head up from the table.

“I actually asked Fury if I could call in an external to come help,” Tony pipes up. 

“And he agreed?” Nat raised an eyebrow.

“After he realised I wasn’t going to leave his office until he said yes.” He pulled out his phone, rapidly typing out a message before hitting send. “It didn’t take too long.”

“Do we know this person?” Steve asks a little suspiciously.

“Well-” Bruce sneaks a glance at the broody man on the chair, “-kinda.”

Everyone can tell Bucky isn’t paying attention by the way he’s glaring holes into the plant. He doesn’t mean to, it just so happens that it looks like he wants to kill it. Nobody tends to bother him during meetings, knowing well and fully that he did not care.

“You’re about to.” Tony jumps up, making his way to the door to pull it open.

Bucky perks up. An open door means they can leave, right? He can go watch The Bachelor? He’s not sure what everyone was talking about, but if the meeting was over he could go ask Wanda who was always kind enough to help.

“Our newest recruit,” the billionaire announces, quickly adding the next part, “on a trial basis.” 

Bucky looks at the door.

His jaw drops open.

“No,” he says loudly, posture immediately stiff as a plank. 

“Hello to you too, Barnes.” You roll your eyes before sending a small wave to everyone else. “Hey everyone.”

“What are you doing here?” He looks like he’s seething. 

“Don’t tell me you forgot about our date.” You cross your arms over your chest in defiance. “You told me 3 o’clock, you player.”

“What is she doing here?” He whips to Steve for an answer.

“Hey Y/N,” Sam greets with a smile on his face before Steve can reply.

“Sam Wilson, good to see you again.” You grin.

“Right back at ya, sugar.” 

Wanda looks amused, Clint finally lifts his head off the table at the mention of your name while Nat takes her feet off his armrest, and Steve’s body relaxes when he realises what’s going on. 

“Okay.” Tony claps his hand. Bucky shoots daggers at him. “As you all know, this is Y/N. She’s going to working with us this week.”

“This is ridi- how did you even find out about her?”

“Aside from the fact that she’s all you talk about?” Clint snorts. Bucky shifts his glare to him. It was bullshit and an exaggeration and Clint was going to get a shoe up his ass very soon.

Your grin only grows bigger.

“We saw one of the repulsors she made some time ago,” Bruce answers his question like the sane person that he is. “Tony’s had her in mind for a while.”

“Repulsors? How on ear-” Bucky connects two and two together before turning to Sam. “You. You got her this job.”

“Sam’s my best wingman.” You send him a small heart made from your hands. Whether the pun was intentional or not, no one would know.

“Don’t look at me, I had nothing to do with this idea.” Sam raised his hands to brush off the blame.

“You’re a villain,” he points out loudly.

“I’m a saint.” You raise your hand to your heart in mock offence. “I have done nothing wrong in my life, ever.”

“Listen, Robocop,” Tony interrupts your conversation, bringing the attention back to him, “I cleared it with Fury. He’s the boss here.”

“Fury doesn’t know-”

“What don’t I know?” The atmosphere of the room changes the minute he saunters in. 

With an eyepatch on his face, gaze sharp and a long black coat, Nick Fury puts Bucky’s dark outfits to shame. Not like he was competing. 

Bucky doesn’t continue his sentence. Nick’s imposing presence loomed at the doorway, putting a stop to the ridiculous arguments that were beginning to boil. Instead, he looks at you, only to find your attention trained on the man of the hour.

“Nicholas,” you half cheer from where you had shifted to in the middle of all the commotion. 

Nicholas?

Nicholas?

No one had ever called him Nicholas. 

“Y/L/N,” Nick addresses in return. “Been a while.”

“You haven’t come to the lair in months, Nick.” You pout at him. “I even sent you an invite.”

Bucky furrows his eyebrows. Since when are you on such good terms with Fury? Since when was anyone on good terms with Fury?

“It must have gotten lost in the mail,” he fires back, “Or maybe it’s because I just happen to be the busiest man in the damn country. Take your pick.”

You roll your eyes, muttering something under your breath, but the good natured smile on your face shows that you didn’t take any of his passive- or straight up- aggressiveness to heart. 

“I’m sorry, I didn’t realise I was interrupting your little tea time.” He looks around the rest of the room with an edge in his voice. “Don’t you all have work to do?”

“We do,” Tony interrupts, holding up his hand before pointing to Bruce and you. “Everyone else just sorta sits around and looks pretty.”

“I’m gonna go talk to the organisers, see what spots are most vulnerable.” Steve stands up. “You coming?”

“Yep,” Sam responds, flicking Clint’s shoulder to drag him along. “Come on, man. When was the last time you took a shower?”

“I’ll go see what the kids are up to in training. They’re probably flying off the handle right now.” Natasha brushes off crumbs from her lap. “Barnes, you in?”

Bucky silently shakes his head, eyes focused on you as you introduce yourself to every Avenger who walks out of the room, sharing a small fist bump with Sam.

“I’ll do it,” Wanda volunteers instead, finally leaving behind only the Science Bros, you and Bucky in the room with Fury. 

“I’ll give you a tour of the lab.” Tony beckons and you nod, following him. “New eyepatch, Fury? Prada, I assume?”

“Stark,” Nick says curtly. 

Bucky stares after you, arms still folded across his chest.

“Any problem, Sergeant?” 

Other than the fact that his arch nemesis was now working with his friends, no, not really. But that did seem like a pretty big one.

“No,” Bucky mumbles instead, getting up from his place finally.

Apparently, no one else was worried about the possibly lethal combination of you and Stark, even with Banner there to dilute it. 

Fine.

Guess he just has to observe you the whole week.

Well, half a week. It was Wednesday. 

He observes inconspicuously over the rim of his coffee cup. He has a newspaper spread in front of him at Bruce’s table. 

It’s not suspicious. He’s been there multiple times to sit in silence with the scientist who occasionally tinkers with something while engaging Bucky in tidbits of conversation. He finds it calming, refreshing even

Today he has an agenda. Everyone knows about it too. 

“You know he’s staring at you, right?” Bruce looks up briefly from the giant blueprint laid in front of the group. 

Tony had been dragged away to get a proper meal into him after he stayed up for 36 hours straight with caffeine keeping his system running. 

“He has a tendency to do that.” You’re looking over the plan the three of you had come up with the day before. There were certain changes to be made in terms of efficiency. “Turns out if you annoy him, he stares harder.”

“We’ve heard about the inventions. Inators, he calls them?”

“Yeah,” you point out something on the sheet, drawing a circle around it to come back to later, “only good things I hope?”

“He doesn’t really talk much.” Bruce writes down a small comment against your arrow mark. “But if he hated them, he’d have a lot to say. So I’d take it as a compliment.”

“Would it annoy him if I did?”

“Probably.”

“I’ll take it as a compliment, then. Pass me the ruler?” You draw a line connecting two pieces. 

Bucky’s ability to lip read is excellent but he refuses to do it, for privacy purposes. He knew that SHIELD had pulled some strings and had another teacher substituting for your classes the whole week since your other option was to come only after school hours. Anything else about this plan was murky.

“You gonna sit there all day?” Tony looks over his shoulder, following his line of sight.

“I’ve done it before.” He continues to look over the newspaper at you with your finger extended at something on the blueprint as you explained something to Bruce.

“You look like- how do I say this nicely.” He wasn’t going to. “A fuckin’ stalker.”

“I’m supposed to stop her from doing anything evil.”

“Sure.” Tony snorts. “That’s what this is. Should I get you a fedora and sunglasses while we’re at it?”

Of course Stark wouldn’t care; he brought you into this project. It was pretty much impossible to get him to agree with Bucky.

Bucky just narrows his eyes and continues his observation. 

The menu of the cafeteria keeps changing. They like to keep things interesting.

Every time they do, Bucky spends too long staring at the menu, trying to figure out what exactly is familiar enough to order. Vietnamese week had him eating pho the entire duration it stayed.

“You plannin’ on eating anytime this century, sarge?” He recognises your voice immediately. 

He knows what time your break is and he knows that you generally eat lunch in the cafeteria with the science team. Generally, the three of you pour over solutions and debate points all through the meal, and he spends the time getting acquainted with his new, lowkey Instagram account. 

He blocks the Bucky Barnes hashtag the minute he gets an account again. God save his eyes from people asking him to break their back like a glow-stick. However, one afternoon of accidentally watching three cat videos has led to his entire explore page being taken over by them and he’s been trying for three days to get it to stop. 

“Just trying to-” he tilts his head. “-understand what I’m reading.”

“Not a big fan of Greek food?” You join him in looking at the menu. 

“Never really had the chance to try.” Tony and Bruce don’t seem to be in the room, probably pushing aside their meal to work on it as they’ve often done.

“Ah.” You already had your order in mind but you wait there. 

Two minutes later he’s still staring at the menu. He can feel your presence next to him, unmoving. It unnerves him.

“Why are you still standing here?” He cranes his neck to look at you.

“I’m just seeing how long it takes for you to order.” You shrug. “So far it’s been five minutes and forty six seconds. Forty eight now.”

“Go away.” The concept of someone standing beside him, waiting for him to do something reminded him far too much of him trying to bag his stuff at the grocery counter rapidly while other customers waited to pay. 

“Six minutes and thirty seconds. This is just sad now.”

“Your face is sad.” It was pathetic that he had now resorted to this.

It earned a laugh from you. 

As entertaining as it was to be able to get on his nerves by just standing silently next to him, you finally ask, “Do you want a recommendation?” 

He eyes you wearily. “You gonna give me food poisoning?” 

“Not today, no.” You shake your head slightly. “Maybe tomorrow.”

He stares a little longer. You remain unshaken in your offer.

“Fine.” He sighs, stepping aside. 

You tell him that since it’s his first time, you’d get him something basic. He thought it made sense. 

He argued with you when you ended up paying for the both of you, only shutting up when you told him he’s holding up the line and that he could pay you back later. It doesn’t stop his incessant mumble complaining. 

He ends up with gyros at his table and you sitting opposite him with your meal. He asks where the Science Bros are. You tell him it’s Science Hoes now, as christened by Tony, and that they’re in the lab.

“So?” You look at him eagerly.

“What?”

“How is it?” you urge, nodding at him.

He takes a cautious bite, really taking his time with it to annoy your impatient ass. 

“Well?” You raise your eyebrow at him.

“It’s-” he pauses, looking down at his food. “-good.”

“Aha.” You lean back victoriously. “Knew it.”

He likes it. He also knows that this is probably going to be the only thing he orders for the next week unless you had planned otherwise. 

“You’re not eating?” He gestures to your untouched tray.

“Taking it up to the lab. Got a few things to work on and we’re already behind.” You gather up your stuff and get up.

“Uh-” he pauses from practically inhaling the entire thing. He was already halfway done with it. “-thanks.”

“No problem. You wink at him. “Try figuring out what’s wrong with it.” 

You turn on your heel to leave, taking your order with you. He can see your shoulders bobbing with silent laughter. 

He stares down at his plate, swallowing slowly. 

He pokes at it with a fork, lifting up the leftovers to check if there’s anything underneath. Nothing. 

He checks to see if his limbs are still intact or his face was a different colour. Nope.

His stomach twists in worry about what’s going to happen. He still has a bit left but he pushes the tray aside.

The rest of the day he spends supervising you has you occasionally catching his eye, only to laugh. It only freaks him out more.

It takes eight hours of waiting and self induced tests later to realise there was nothing wrong with it. You were just playing with him.

He’s surprised to find you in the rec room when he strolls in with Sam, given that you haven’t taken a break all day.

You don’t share the same surprise... almost like you expected him.

“How long have you been waiting for me?” he immediately asks.

"I wasn’t here for you.” You raise an eyebrow at him. “Heard that Wilson was makin’ an appearance here soon so I stopped by to get a good look at him."

"Take a picture, it'll last longer.” Sam laughs, inserting a dollar into the machine and punching in the code for what he wanted.

"Gladly. Strike a pose, would you?" You grin, raising your phone.

“Maybe when I’m not covered in sweat.” Sam counter offers and you accept with a thumbs up.

“You going to the parade, Sam?” You toy with the can in your hands.

“I’ll be working security, so probably.”

“Sarge?” You take a swig of your drink.

“Huh?” He snaps back into the conversation, putting a stop to the mental list of reasons he was making of why you could be here at the same time as him. He knew your schedule, it wouldn’t be very hard for you to figure out his.

“You coming to the parade on Sunday?” you ask again.

“I guess.”

You wince.

“What?” he asks instantly, curiosity making him a lot sloppier than usual.

“It’s just- you wear so much black.” You gesture to his current getup to prove your point. ”I feel like all the bright colours would vaporise you if you looked at them.”

He doesn’t look amused.

“You know, like Prince Philip.”

“I think I’ll be fine.” He gives you a sarcastic smile.

“You comin’ Buck?” Sam laughs, unwrapping the bar he bought from the machine.

“You go ahead, I’ll catch up,” Bucky says offhandedly, still glaring at you innocently drinking your soda.

Sam chews absentmindedly on his protein bar as he walks out, amused at the situation Bucky pulled himself into.

“What’d you do?” Bucky asks, studying your body language.

“I bought a soda.” You lift the can to prove your point. “And now I’m drinking it.”

“Why are you waiting for me?”

“I thought I’d return the favour,” you point out. “I’m supervising you.”

“Don’t.” He walks to the vending machine, pulling out his wallet for some loose change. There was a Snickers bar he had been craving since morning that he bought every alternate day. Small joys.

“Why? I have the time.” You take a sip, setting it down with a clang.

“You’re only here for this week.” Bucky counted the coins he had. He’d use a dollar but he was trying to get rid of the jingling in his pocket that made him sound like a fucking clown when he walked.

“Actually,” you begin innocuously, “Tony offered me a full-time position.”

Bucky’s movements stop, hunched over the money in his palm.

“What?”

“Yeah.” You nod seriously. “A full nine-to-five as a researcher here.”

“And you’re taking it.” He shakes himself out of the minor shock to assess the damage.

“I don’t know. I got a lot of things to consider.” The chair scrapes against the tiled floor as you stand up. “But maybe you should get used to seeing me a lot more around here.”

He punches in the code for his Snickers. The row whirs forward slowly.

“See you at the lab.” He hears you discard the empty can in the trash before exiting.

He waits patiently for his bar to drop while his mind internally screams about the consequences of having you work here. You wouldn’t be evil anymore. Unless you were here to steal secrets from the Tower. On the pro side, his weekend would be free again. On the con side, his weekend would be free again.

His bar stops right at the edge of the row. He waits for it to fall over. It doesn’t.

He shakes the machine, suppressing the primal urge to beat the shit out of it when the damn bar refuses to fall.

He punches in a few random buttons hoping that at least it would give his money back.

The little monitor instead flashes a new message across the screen.

‘Have a good day, sarge <3’

Motherfucker.

Captain America looks less daunting up close, you realise. But he is still a very large man with very large shoulders. You know at least four people who would like to scale him like a tree, not that you’d ever tell him.

“Hey, Y/N.” He sends you a small smile when you walk into the room for a mid-week update. A clipboard in your hand, report attached and a few stationery items in case some points needed to be noted done, you look professional and ready.

“Afternoon, Captain.” Tony saves a seat for you and Bruce beside him since you’re on the same project. You almost miss the fact that Bucky isn’t in the room.

He walks in a few minutes late; tall, dark and brooding, immediately bringing the excitement in the room down by 40% by just existing. 

Bucky surveys the room before catching your eye. He picks up his chair with ease and drags it over to where you are, sitting right beside you, ignoring the small cry of protest from an agent whose view he now obstructed. Everyone else just silently shifted over.

“Clingy much?” you whisper at him, eyes still trained on Steve who had waited till everyone was seated to continue.

“I’m supposed t’be keeping an eye on you,” he rebuffs in a hush.

“Well, you’re late. What if I went rogue, huh?”

“Therapy ran overtime,” he mumbles.

“Oh.” You blink. “How was it?”

“Same old.”

“You good?”

He refrains from answering when Steve starts addressing the room but yes, he was fine. He sends you a nod to confirm. 

“This is just a usual checking in. We’ve received all your reports, but just to keep everyone on the same page-”

Bucky logs out mentally. He knows what his job is, he’ll probably lead a division of the security team or join the mission to neutralise the threat in case they find it first. Either way, he’ll figure it out without having to listen to an intern nervously stammer their way through their team’s report. 

On the other hand, you’re not listening either. You were until you saw Bucky’s eyes glaze over while glowering at the window, assuming that he had stopped paying attention when his gaze doesn’t shift.

You should be listening. You’re new here and you should know what’s going on because any bits of detail are crucial to the working of your system. 

Instead, you rip out a sticky note and discreetly place it on the back of Bucky’s metal arm. He doesn’t notice.

You bite your lip to stop yourself from smiling. More post-its from your pile of stationery make their way onto the vibranium, shades of pink, purple, green and yellow decorating his arm like a bulletin board. 

You’re about to contemplate sticking one on his shoulder blade when he whips around to look at you. You freeze, hand in the air with a sticky note. He looks down at his arm, a scoff escaping him in disbelief. 

“Are you serious?” He twists his arm to check the extent of how far you’ve gone. “What are you, six?”

“How’d it take you so long to notice?” You watch as he tugs them off one by one, counting to see how many you had managed to get on there.

“It’s impossible not to zone out in these shitty meetings,” he mumbles, pulling off the last one, crumpling all of them into a ball to throw at you. You skilfully avoid them. 

“Don’t you feel pressure or heat or anything here?” You poke at his metal arm.

“No.” He clenches and releases the fist. “It can block bullets though.”

You snort. “Bet that’s a popular line in bed.”

He rolls his eyes. “I mean, it helps that I can’t feel anything. Sometimes,” he adds the last part as an afterthought. 

“Like when you’re blocking bullets.”

“Especially then.” He nods. 

“Would you ever want to?” you ask casually. “Like if you got the choice, would you prefer having feeling in that arm?”

“I don’t know.” He’s thought about it, but it doesn’t seem feasible in his line of work. He’d like it, though, to feel sand slipping through his fingers and the comforter under his palm. “Maybe when I’m retired.”

“Aren’t you well past that age?”

“Shut up.” He rolls his eyes. “And pay attention. You’re next.”

“So you are listening.” True to his word, Steve asks about what’s going on with your team. “Traitor.” 

Tony shoots off about how you only had to test it out on a small batch first to see if you could acquire the targeted data without compromising anything else. You chime in about a few specifics, and Bruce more or less just confirms what you both are saying, only stopping to let them know that you’d be finished in a day or two.

Steve nods, moving on to the next committee.

“Did I get a good grade?” you whisper when you lean back again.

“B minus at best.” 

“Fuck you, dude. I was great,” you protested. “It’s definitely worth a gold sticker.”

Someone shushes you sharply. You apologise quietly, whacking Bucky’s metal arm when you see a dumb smirk on his face. 

He narrows his eyes at you. 

You try sticking another post-it on him.

You’re only here for a week. That’s what he’s been told. Over six times, actually, after which he’s been told to go away the next time he asked.

No one’s brought up the job offer so he asks Tony if it was true and all he gets is a dismissive ‘yeah, whatever’. Besides, you haven’t told him if you accepted or denied it yet so isn’t sure if this entire thing is set in stone, per se.

So then why do you have a giant box of your belongings that you’re lugging around the lab, looking to set down?

And why does Tony allow you a table right in the centre of the lab for everyone to see as soon as they walk in?

There are a gazillion trinkets, picture frames and obnoxiously bright stationery that stands out against the dull minimalism of the lab.

“Every single one of these is a fire hazard,” he reports, standing over your desk.

You give him a side glance before reaching over to the side of your desk, pulling up a fire extinguisher and setting it on the table in front of him. “I came prepared, bitch boy.”

He doesn’t dignify that with a response. He chooses to look at what exactly you’ve brought with you because it’s a lot.

There are small cards with ‘thank you!’ sprawled on them in uneven lettering, bits and pieces of paper with small cartoons on them, little clay models and other miniature trophies with ‘you’re the best!’ under it.

“Your students gave you these?” He can’t remember the last time he gave his teacher anything other than a headache.

“Sometimes they learn or communicate better when they have something to keep their hands busy.” There’s a certain fondness in your voice that he isn’t used to hearing. “I end up with a lot of doodles and craft.”

“’s nice of them.” He can tell that this means a lot to you. He hasn’t seen it before.

He thinks the little decorations are adorable and maybe he’d keep another fire extinguisher on hand, just in case. 

Until you start pulling out a set of framed photos and his smile drops.

Several collages of Bucky in flower crowns, him with terribly edited backgrounds of beaches and mountains, a photo of him laughing with ‘Live, Laugh, Love’ next to it in an italicised font.

“What the fuck,” he states, grabbing one of them.

You stifle a laugh, pulling out several more to place along your table.

“Where did you fucking get these?” He starts pulling them off the table one by one.

“I don’t think you know how much the internet is obsessed with you.” You set an especially large one of him in a Hello Kitty bowtie right in the centre. He doesn’t miss the star shaped frame you chose for this.

“What is wrong with you?” He swipes that up immediately, looking for a place to discard, possibly burn these pictures. “Why do you even have these?”

“It’s imperative that people know we’re friends.” You bite your lip, bringing out the last thing to annoy him.

“What is that?” A teddy bear with a blue jacket and a grey felt arm stared into his soul.

“A Bucky bear.” Don’t laugh, don’t laugh, don’t laugh. “Limited edition.”

He snatches it along with the fifteen other picture frames, thinly veiled distress and mostly disgust on his face.

“I hate you.”

“But I love you.” You lift the small heart shaped locket you hung on one of the pictures of your class.

You use both your hands to click it open for him, watching his face morph into one of disbelief.

Bucky my beloved, it read on the right with a small picture of him on the left looking intensely disgruntled. He doesn’t bother asking where you found that specific picture of him outside a Burger King at 3am.

He doesn’t even make an effort to take it away this time. He knows that you’ll simply bring up more and more until you drove him crazy.

“You still have to see the Avengers calendar.” You reach for the inside. “I changed all the pictures to you, it looks great-”

He turns around and leaves before you get a chance to flip open the pages.

He wanders around, looking for the best disposal area he can find. He knows there’s a giant fireplace in the common room in the Tower, and for that, he’d have to go up a couple of floors.

He steps into the elevator, chin pressing down on the several picture frames in his hands to prevent them from falling over.

No one sees him carrying a couple of fan edited pictures and merchandise of him. Which was good.

Unfortunately, the doors ding open on the next floor and his best friend steps on with possibly the worst timing ever.

“Buck?” Steve sounds confused. He should be, considering the sight.

Bucky shimmies slightly to get a better grip on his belongings. “Steven.”

Steve glances at what he’s holding.

“Is this,” Steve pauses, trying to frame his words correctly to sound as supportive as possible, “a therapy thing?”

“No.”

Steve waits for a further explanation.

“It’s Y/N’s,” he elucidates. Steve’s eyebrows furrow.

“Why are there so many pictures of you?” He looks at the content in his hands a little closer. “And a bear.”

“She’s evil. And I hate her.”

“Alright.” It doesn’t answer his question but his friend looks irked enough.

The elevator dings to the common room floor.

Bucky turns on his heel to head toward the place to set all the pictures on fire. He saves the picture frames to give back to you though, he’s sure those cost money. But he makes sure every last square inch of the picture with several hearts around his portrait burns to ash.

Bucky knows that by the time Saturday afternoon rolls around, the three of you would have been working for thirty hours straight, scrambling to get the last minute details done.

You’re still at it but he can tell through the adrenaline of the upcoming deadline that you’re exhausted. 

Now he’s grouchy but he’s not an asshole. He’s already done two coffee runs for the team and brought you food when you didn’t show up for lunch. He mumbles something and dismisses it when you call out a ‘thank you’ his way. He considers it a debt repaid for the gyros.

He’s still keeping an eye on you but along with an emergency box of doughnuts for any sugar rushes that may be needed and bottles of water that he occasionally leaves at the corner of the table for you three to subconsciously keep yourself hydrated. 

“Are you sure we checked it?”

“Yes.” Bruce nods.

“Double checked it?”

“Yes.”

“Triple checked it.”

“Yes.” 

You look satisfied enough to move on to the next item. “Pass me the welding torch for a second.”

Bucky has a book in front of him that he hasn’t moved beyond the second page of. He’s more interested in seeing who collapses from burnout first. He has the infirmary on speed dial. 

After another hour or so Tony holds up a silver tablet, roughly the same size as a smartphone, examining it from all sides.

“That’s it,” he states. “The final product.”

You exhale lightly.

“We should name it.” You have your hands on your hips, looking down at it in wonder. Maybe the zero hours of sleep was finally kicking in because you couldn’t believe you were finally done. 

“You got any suggestions?” Tony asks. 

To be frank, no, you didn’t.

“No.”

“Okay, we’ll do that later.” Tony sets it down, not sounding too disappointed. “F.R.I.D.A.Y, tell the team to get down here, please.”

“Yes, boss.”

Bucky jumps off his chair to join you in the lab, leaving the book behind. 

It only takes a few moments for the others to join. Fury and Steve walk in together, already engaged in conversation.

“Greetings.” You clap your hands together. “We did it. We think.”

“We think?” Nick raises an eyebrow.

“We know,” Bruce clarifies quickly, stepping in. “We’re positive it works. We tested it out.”

Tony pulls up the holograph of F.R.I.D.AY’s system, sliding the tablet to the middle of the table.

“Is it secured under FRIDAY’s core?”

“Locked and loaded.” Tony hits the table lightly to signify that it was safe.

“I think we’re ready,” Bruce confirms.

“We better be, or else half the country is suddenly going to lose their internet connection,” you say under your breath.

“What?” Bucky’s eyebrows knit together.

“Nothing,” you beamed, “Okay F.R.I.D.A.Y., run sequence, global parameter.”

“Running sequence,” F.R.I.D.A.Y. parrots. 

There was no going back now. 

From what Bucky can see, Tony looks fairly confident but you have your bottom lip caged between your teeth, chewing on it nervously. 

There are several hundreds of photographs popping up and disappearing within a minute. Everything looks like it’s going according to plan.

The giant holograph of the AI dims. Your face drops when F.R.I.D.A.Y. seems to sputter to a halt. 

No one breathes.

In the midst of the tension, Clint mutters if they should play some background music. It’s followed by a swift ‘ow’ when Natasha flicks him in the shoulder.

You could hear a pin drop.

It suddenly picks back up again, running faster than the last time and the sigh everyone collectively heaves is almost comical.

It runs for a few seconds more before a list of names suddenly pop up accompanied by a series of photographs and geo locations.

“Sequence complete. Six names detected, zero encroachment on public or private databases,” F.R.I.D.A.Y. broadcasted. “Location determined to be Holland. Exact coordinates are computed into the quinjet.”

You let out a small cheer, looping your arm around Bruce, squeezing him in a half hug. He has a smile on his face, dropping his head as he laughs slightly. 

“How dangerous are they?” Tony, however, continues to ask.

“A few prior convictions and a series of similar threats. Danger level determined to be at approximately five out of ten.” 

“That’s not bad,” Steve commented. “Looks like we don’t need the full team there.”

“Romanoff, Barton, Wilson, Rogers can go ahead and take care of that,” Nick finally spoke up. “Everyone else is working security tomorrow, just in case anyone else decides that terrorism is on their fuckin’ to-do list for the day.”

“Buck, assemble a team and go over strategy for tomorrow,” Steve adds on. “Everyone else go suit up, wheels up in thirty minutes.” 

“Fuckin’ Holland,” Sam scoffs, shaking his head. “Of all the places.” 

“What do you have against Holland?” Nat asks as they leave together.

“Just don’t like ‘em.” Their voices grow faint the further they get.

“Hey.” A small greeting from behind you has you turning around.

Wanda stands in front of you and you have to ignore the fact that the most powerful being on Earth is talking to you. 

“Hey,” you say back.

“I just wanted to say congratulations. You did a great job.” Bits and pieces of her accent poked out. She didn’t seem like she was putting in the effort to cover it up as opposed to the press interviews you had heard a few years ago. 

“Thank you.” You smile. “T’was a team effort.”

“Well, we owe you one anyway,” Steve joins the conversation, leaving aside Tony who was still talking to Bruce.

“I wish I was humble enough to turn it down but I’m not.” You laugh. “It’s nice to have an arsenal of superheroes at my disposal.”

Steve looks like he’s going to respond but his attention is drawn towards F.R.I.D.A.Y.’s announcement that the quinjet was ready to go. He shoots you an apologetic look but you sign for him to go on, you’d meet with him later.

You watch as he claps Tony on the back, telling him to go get some sleep and something with more nutritional value than a pizza pocket in him, nodding at Bruce before taking leave. 

“Y/L/N,” Nick stands beside you, looking ahead at the conversations being had as Steve tugs Clint along with him.

“Nicky,” you tease.

“I know at least seven underground prisons I can put you in if anyone hears you calling me that,” he says stoically. 

“We all know you won’t get rid of me.” You shake your head. “Who’s gonna send you a Christmas card then, huh?”

He simply shakes his head, jutting his hand out and offering a handshake. “Not sure anyone here could handle another day of a highly caffeinated, sleep-deprived Stark.”

“Just say ‘thanks’, Nick, geez.” You roll your eyes. 

Bucky watches the entire interaction unfurl; only the body language, not employing the lip-reading ability. 

“You’re welcome.” You let go of his hand, a devilish look on your face. “You know what I want in return.”

Nick gives you a long, hard stare that could probably melt through Steve’s shield before turning around to leave. 

But Bucky doesn’t miss the subtle high-five he gives you while walking out, unbeknownst to anyone else, bringing the biggest grin to your face.

He makes it a point to ask you what the fuck kind of leverage you have over the man for him to play favourites with you. 

You finally collapse at your desk, letting out a loud exhale. You clench your eyes shut, your body finally melting into your chair. You look exhausted.

He’s not sure how to help. You don’t seem like you have the energy to tell him.

Bucky leaves a doughnut and water bottle on the table in front of you before shuffling out of the room quietly. 

He’s certain that he’s spent far too long in Bruce’s lab this week. He liked the man as much as the next guy, but he probably wouldn’t come down there for the foreseeable future. 

You’re at your assigned desk, reading light illuminating the space. Thankfully you’ve cleared up most of your stuff from the table, leaving no more liabilities to fall over in case he walked into the desk. 

“So you’re done for the week.” His voice surprises you. You were scrolling through your phone, slightly hunched over.

“It appears so.” You put your phone down, swivelling the chair to look at him. 

“How’d it go?” He leans against your table, making sure he isn’t using his full weight.

“Well, I slept for fifteen hours straight, so...” you leave him to connect the dots. He’s done the same several times.

“You’re probably gonna need more,” he says, mostly from his own experience, “I’ll see you tomorrow then?”

“Actually-” you reach beside your table and lug your gigantic box of belongings onto the table with a loud thud, “-you won’t.”

He looks at the box that was nearly overflowing with its contents, the majority of the space being taken up by empty picture frames. “I thought you said Tony offered you a job.” 

“He did,” you confirm. “I didn’t accept.”

“Why?” He watches you shift through a few things, adjusting it so that it wouldn’t fall over.

“This whole thing- it’s cool and all, but it’s not what I want to do.” You shrug. “I like teaching. I miss my class.”

He gaze lands on one of the thank you notes sticking out from the corner of the box. “Ah.”

“Back to school from tomorrow.”

“And evil on the weekends?” he prods, dropping a pen into the heap of stationery. 

“Obviously.” You give him a lopsided smile. “Where else am I gonna use all this brilliance?”

You point to your head. He lets out a small exhale in the form of a laugh.

“Speaking of-” You look like you just remembered something.  

You rummage through your backpack and pull out a small container, handing it to him.

“What’s this?” He turns it over, looking for any hidden clues. “Are you proposing again, because I’ve said no-”

“I’m not proposing,” you interrupt, “yet.”

He gives you a deadpan look.

“Open it,” you urge, and he complies.

Two small squares sit side-by-side. They’re slick black, barely bigger than the face of a dice.

“You put one of them here-” You tap on his bicep “-and the other here.” You tap his shoulder, a few inches below his clavicle.

“What does it do?” He thinks it’s like Nat’s little taser things, a nifty little tool that he could use on missions.

“It, uh-” you hesitate “-it allows you to feel sensation in your metal arm. Heat, pressure, texture.”

His breath hitches in his throat. He doesn’t mean for it to happen, it just does.

“You said that sometimes you’re glad you couldn’t because of the bullets and stuff. They’re detachable, so just take them off when you go on missions and wherever it is you Spandex ambassadors go.” You scoff slightly. 

He can’t remember the last time he felt something soft with that arm or used it for something that wasn’t directly related to his job.  

“I’m not messing with what the Wakandans gave you. It’s the most advanced piece of tech out there.” You shrug. “But if you ever want to feel it when someone attaches sticky notes to your arm, this could work. Just thought it’d be nice to have an option.”

He can’t decipher what he’s feeling right now. He looks up at you, only to catch you eyeing him cautiously, assessing his reaction. When you notice he’s looking at you, a nervous smile makes its way onto your face. 

His stomach does a flip. 

“Thank you,” he says quietly. 

“Don’t mention it.” You sound a little relieved, picking up the box that he’s pretty sure weighed a ton what with all his memorabilia in it. “See you next week.”

He doesn’t know how to explain what it means to him. 

Instead, he shoves his hands into his pockets. “What are you doing later?”

“Nothing.” You pause. “Why?”

“Are you gonna watch the parade?” 

“Yeah, probably.” You shift your weight to your other leg to compensate for the box.

“Want some company?”

“Aren’t you heading a security division?” You have to consciously hide the bewilderment from your voice. 

“Yeah. The place I’m stationed just so happens to have a good look into the street,” he explains, toying with the bracelet on his wrist. “Can’t really promise that I’ll be paying attention to it or that I’d even be there the whole time but for the most part...” he trails off. 

“Uh-” You force yourself to shove aside your surprise at his determination, “yeah, sure. That’d be cool.”

He nods. “Okay. See you there.” 

“See you,” you murmur as you walk to the elevator. 

He opens the tiny container to look at the small chips. They’re still there, silently like they don’t change his world just by existing. 

Gosh.

Next part

[sunfish-studies]

Celebration

✄・・・ Feathery Ink [Karasuno Manager Series]

➜ Pairing: Karasuno x Manager! Reader

➜ Warning: none

➜ Notes: This is a separate series from Crisp Leaves. Similar to Crisp Leaves, manager in this story will be portrayed as a girl. She will be tall. This is just my appreciation towards tall girls, you guys are amazing.

Previous:  ‹ Cogs › | Next:  ‹ Let The Games Begin! ›

↷ SUMMARY ↶

Last day of training calls for celebration for everyone’s hard work, so it’s barbeque time!

“All right, meat!”

“I’m starving!”

While the boys freshened up after practice matches, the managers were already on the move to prepare for the barbeque. Since there were quite a lot of people, the coaches decided to held it on the backyard of the gym, where the sharp hill stood just beside it. The coaches helped setting up the grills while the managers divided to cater different things.

Yachi decided she would get the utensils they needed; paper plates, chopsticks, paper cups, trays for rice balls, and other things. Shimizu would cover for the rice ball making, Yukie and Eri were in charge on cutting the vegetables in bite-size, Kaori and Mako would clean the vegetables before it was cut.

Meanwhile, you’re in charge of preparing the condiments and sauces, unwrapping the meat cuts, and arranged them on a bigger plate. Aside from that you had to make sure the meats searing on the grills weren’t charred.

“[Name]-chan, please replace me for cutting the onions,” Eri sobbed, reaching out to you with grabby hands.

“Alright, senpai,” you giggled in reply because Eri was clearly needing a break and watching the meats seared was a great break for her. Quickly, you stood on her place and started slicing the tear-induced-menaces after washing your hands.

It didn’t take long for you to suffer the same fate as the Ubugawa’s manager–the first seven slices went through without a hitch, but when you reached the tenth your eyes started to sting and blurry from the pain. Then tears began trailing down your cheeks, and you wiped it you’re your shirt sleeve.

“D-Don’t cry, [Name]-san!!” you looked up, seeing Hinata with his place face quivering on his feet. “W-what should I do!?”

“It’s fine, Shoyo-kun, it’s just the onions,” you sniffled pointed towards the bowl full of it. “It hurts my eyes.”

“I can take your place, Otohaku-chan!” Lev popped up beside Hinata.

“Instead of cutting the onions, you’ll chop your fingers off,” Yaku deadpanned before offering. “Here, let me do it.”

“No, it’s alright, Yaku-san,” you shook your head. “It’s time for you to have a break, not working.”

Being persistent sometimes has it’s perks, it took numbers of rejection to finally have Yaku gave up. You knew he was just trying to help, but you didn’t want to rob his time relaxing. When all the preparations were done, the boys were already surrounding the grills with hungry faces. Coach Nekomata gave them a light speech along with praises for their hard work over the week, and they dived to grab on the meat straight from the grill.

“THANKS FOR THE FOOD!”

Just like Kaori, you brought a plate of rice balls to offer and managed to witnessed Yukie’s enormous appetite. She practically inhaled four rice balls in one go and you’re not the only who was dumbfounded from it.

.

.

Konoha and Komi almost had their souls went to heaven from the frightening circle Nishinoya, Tanaka, and Taketora made. Well, they did elbow each other to encourage one another getting close or at least having a talk with Shimizu. The girl walked pass them holding a paper plate with food–looking extremely gorgeous and she didn’t even try.

“That was scary,” Konoha muttered underneath his breath. The three finally stopped because of Karasuno and Nekoma’s captain scolded them–the three immediately shrunk.

“They really had their guard up, huh,” Komi added, feeling his energy drained from such a scary encounter.

“Uhm, excuse me,” the two turned to look over their shoulder and that’s when they noticed–Karasuno’s other first year manager who’s Bokuto constantly talking about. The owl captain wouldn’t shut up about her much to their annoyance and now they knew why.

“Would you like some rice ball?”

“Sure,” Konoha replied dumbly.

“I’ll take two,” Komi followed with a daze. You placed one on Konoha’s empty paper plate and two for Komi upon his request. Smiling at them, you proceeded to excuse yourself so you could offer to someone else.

Following your figure dazedly, they noticed how the light shone even brighter and basked you in a beautiful glow. That’s when they thought of a conclusion.

A goddess just graces us mere mortals! They screamed in their head.

.

.

You tried to calm Yachi down from her traumatizing experience being surrounded by absurdly tall boys (“Titans, [Name]-chan! Titans!”). Thankfully, all of them were nice enough to made room so your friend could reach for some meat. Yachi almost cried in happiness from the real taste of meat.

From the sidelines, Shimizu and the other managers were watching the two of you while talking about the boys sometimes.

“How much are you going to eat?” Kaori questioned because Yukie was having a ridiculous amount of food towering on her plate and she just kept munching away without care.

“The third-years in Karasuno all seems pretty mature,” Mako commented.

“Our ace is weak-willed, though,” Shimizu smiled sheepishly.

“What? Really?” Eri replied in surprise. “Even though he looks that scary?”

“Though, I think that’s still better than our simpleton ace,” Kaori commented. “Still,”

Their eyes were directed towards where the said simpleton ace was standing and placing meat until it towered on your empty plate.

“Eat more, [Name]-chan! Or you won’t get even taller!” he stated.

“And eat more vegetables!” Kuroo added, placing cabbages and carrots to your plate, adding even more food.

“Have some rice balls, too.” Somehow, even Akaashi participated in this whole fiasco and put a rice ball onto your plate. Now, there’s a ridiculous amount of food on your plate.

“…I can’t eat this much,” you commented, staring at the food filling your plate.

“Nonsense, I don’t see you eat anything even when the others are,” Akaashi stated. “You’re too busy handling other things nonstop.”

“Have a break will you,” Kuroo patted your back. “Everyone’s having fun and you should too.”

“Have more meat, [Name]-san!” Hinata said.

“You can have my share, Otohaku-chan!” Lev followed and you immediately shook your head.

“At least he and Akaashi took care of our baby manager well,” Kaori sighed in relief.

“[Name]-chan is close with Fukurodani’s captain and setter, huh? Even Nekoma’s captain,” Mako giggled. “She’s drawing everyone in.”

“Well, it’s rare for a first-year to be as tall as her,” Eri grinned. “The boys are especially poles so it’s probably great not to strain their neck once in a while from looking down.”

“Karasuno’s pretty lucky to have her, huh?” Yukie said after swallowing her food.

“Yeah, we are,” Shimizu smiled.

.

.

“Did you have fun?” Sawamura asked you when you’re helping other managers to clean up the remaining plates left behind on the table along with other scraps littering around. He picked up a few paper cups and placed it into the trash bin.

“Definitely,” you answered without hesitation. “Everyone’s so nice, it’s probably the most fun I’ve had.”

“Thank goodness, then,” he gave you a smile.

“I’m really glad I joined the volleyball club,” you commented, grinning.

“And we glad to have you here,” the captain chuckled and replied.

Everything was over by the time the sun started to sink into the horizon–time truly flew by when you enjoyed it. Since Miyagi was quite a distance from Saitama, they needed to depart first or they would be back extremely late at night. Yukie and Eri were fake-crying and joking about refusing to let you go–in the end, you’re all exchanging numbers so you could keep in touch.

“Did you have fun, Otohaku-san?”

“Coincidentally, you asked the same question as my captain, Akaashi-san.” The Fukurodani setter, like before, helping you on carrying the extra luggage in hand although you did tell him it’s only until you reached the stairs. “And to answer, I am. These one week of training camp is fun. Somehow, I don’t want this to be over.”

“Don’t worry, we’ll meet again,” Akaashi replied. “At the Spring Interhigh.”

“I’m sure we will, Akaashi-san.” you smiled. “And thank you for helping me with luggage.”

“[Name]-chan!!” Bokuto bounded over with a grin plastered on his face. “We’ll be waiting at the nationals!”

“Karasuno, Bokuto-san. Otohaku-san doesn’t play volleyball.” Akaashi deadpanned.

“Just agree with me once, Akaashi!”

“Well, whatever he said,” Kuroo piped up, approaching the three of you. “Made sure your team go to the nationals so we could meet again and make the battle came true.”

“I’ll do my best, Kuroo-san.” Then Kuroo reached out to ruffle your hair, it’s been a while since he did that and you weren’t even going to lie about enjoying it. The cat captain was similar to an older brother now.

“Off you go then, [Name],” he removed his hand from your head. “And don’t miss me.”

“How could I when I have your phone number, Kuroo-san?” you snickered. “You’re probably going to bombard me with chemistry puns at 10pm.”

“Then, I’m gonna call you every day so you won’t have to deal with Kuroo!” Bokuto declared before laughing victoriously.

“Please block his number immediately, Otohaku-san,” Akaashi stated. “Or you won’t be getting any sleep. His talking is endless.”

“Why, Akaashi!?” the said boy whined.

“Aside from that, be careful on your way home,” Akaashi decided to ignore the captain and gave you a small smile.

You returned his smile. “Will do, Akaashi-san.”

With that, the whole week of summer training camps has come to an end. The whole team watched you guys drove away into the other way back to Miyagi.

.

.

“You have a match tomorrow, don’t you?” former Coach Ukai questioned, brows creased from the insistence of your combi. “That’s probably enough, then!”

“One more! Just one more!” Hinata pleaded.

“We’ll finish after this one!” Kageyama added.

Two days of practicing to prepare for the preliminaries, just a day before the match Sawamura dismissed them early to get some rest. Since it would be impossible to use the gym unless getting an earful from him, Kageyama and Hinata needed to look for another place. Former Coach Ukai lent them the court only for a bit, just until the others who wants to practice comes.

And you were there to hold a leash if they’re being stubborn or something.

“This is the last, alright?” you scolded the two. “We shouldn’t bother the others who wants to practice here. And you should rest before the match.”

Thankfully the older man letting them had the court just one more time and you couldn’t help but feeling grateful of it. You sighed before turning to face former Coach Ukai and bowed down. “On their behalf, I apologize.”

“It’s fine.” Former Coach Ukai dismissed it. “Their eagerness is a great thing, but even eagerness isn’t going to magically give them energy. It would be bad if they burnt out even before the game started.”

“[Name]-san! Can you throw us the ball?” Hinata called out.

In the end, the two managed to successfully killed the quick–and sure enough, it also impressed former Coach Ukai which added more reassurance that your team would be more than okay to face the entire preliminaries and became champions.

[double-hoe-seven]

AFC Richmond as boyfriends

Here’s a lil headcanon collection of our favorite himbos as boyfriends.

I did it again for the staff (: AFC Richmond Staff as partners

A/N: Definitely didn’t put everyone but these were my top ones and it’s 2 AM so imma leave it here.

Sam Obisanya

The absolute sweetest man you have ever met

Such a softie, very concerned about making sure you’re happy and comfortable with whatever choices you make together.

He always picks the most random times to surprise you with things; showing up at your work randomly for lunch or with coffee/tea, random little souvenirs from his away games.

He’s always putting himself second and sometimes you have to remind him “hey, babe, you can do things for yourself, you deserve nice things too.”

Just, compliments galore with him. He’ll always find a way to compliment you on something.

The most cuddly person ever, he loves public affection (hand holding, piggy backing, hugging, kissing if it’s not raunchy, etc), he really just likes showing you off because he feels like the luckiest man in the world to have you.

He takes his time with your relationship, letting it bloom and grow at it’s own pace.

There aren’t many fights between you, hardly ever, the last “fight” you had was because you couldn’t unanimously decide which dog to rescue. The solution? You adopted both, now you share a one-eyed Jack Russell Terrier named Starro and a three legged German Shepherd puppy named Harry (Pawter. He was so proud at his pun when he showed you the then 3-month old puppy.)

Again, just the sweetest, more romantic man you’ve ever met and ever will meet.

thesexisgoodtoo. hesaverygentleandgivinglover

Isaac McAdoo

Man’s stubborn.

I mean it, he is as stubborn as a mule.

I’M DEAD SERIOUS, he once pouted for 5 days when you accidentally ate the last Rolo in the flat.

But he’s also romantic in a sort of rugged way?

He won’t go shopping with you but he knows what colors look best on you, he knows what styles look good on you, and he has your sizes and shades memorized.

Bear.

Mr. sometimes-crank-teddy-bear over here.

He’ll say he doesn’t want something but he will eat half of your food if given the chance. If you step away from your food to get a drink or something, there will be a good part mission when you get back.

Its a tradition to go on a date the morning of a game, and snuggle up with a movie after the game.

You have had more than a few drunk texts from him, all of them equally funny and full of sexual innuendos.

You don’t address his Rolo addiction. It could be something much worse anyway.

Richard Montlaur

So many visits to the goat farm he was raised on!

He really has to drag you back to London after visiting his parents because you don’t want to leave all the precious goats (and you and his parents get along famously).

You spend alternating holidays with each others families (except for Bastille day, you always spend that either together or with his family.)

There are always roses in your shared flat.

It’s a constant battle over his facial hair.

He has a grudge against the way the English make French pastries.

He has a habit of falling asleep on the couch or in uncomfortable positions and then wondering why his back or neck hurts.

Little spoon.

He’s teaching you French.

This man is a smooth operator, master at flirtation and romance. He’s good at planning romantic dates and outtings.

Dani Rojas

You 100% believe his mom when she says he was born caffeinated.

One of your first dates was a Mumford and Sons concert which was an interesting experience.

Soft boi hours with him. He’s a lil puppy dog.

Does this man ever sleep? Rarely.

He rises with the son and wants to get the day started immediately but he’s mostly letting you sleep in now.

He LOVES trying new things, exploring new places, generally having new experiences.

His absolute favorite thing to do when he’s not training is playing football (or any game, really) with the kids in your neighborhood. They all love him.

He’s a sweet boyfriend, not as sweet as Sam but he’s a close second.

You alternate who plans date night. You split the chores 50/50 but divvy it up if one of you is sick or has more work to do.

There’s so much alcohol in your flat its unreal.

You usually go to sleep before him but he has a bad habit of throwing himself into bed and partially waking you.

He makes the best breakfast most mornings.

And don’t forget the trips back home to visit his family in Guadalajara.

After a long day of training, he loves just laying down with his head on your lap while you run your fingers through his hair.

Jamie Tartt (Season 1)

FUCK NO

Jamie Tartt (Season 2)

On your first date you got drunk and bonded over shitty fathers.

Not that either of you really remembered the next day, you were both too hungover to immediately recall the night.

His love language is kind words.

At the start he needed a lot of reassuring that you did care about him for who he was, warts and all.

He’s slightly awkward when it comes to romantic gestures so most of the date planning falls on you don’t mind.

He still has some high maintenance behavior but he’s working on it and you’re proud of how far he’s come from the prick he used to be.

Your fights are usually over petty shit like where to eat for dinner or what movie to go see.

He will not hesitate to buy your feminine products for you. He knows your preferred brands and sizes and what treats you like when its that time.

He’s good at those rigged carnival games, the many little stuffed animals in your closet can attest to that.

He talks in his sleep. It’s all nonsense.

He has a soft spot for the neighbor’s cat (and cats in general).

Roy Kent

Rugged.

He’s great to snuggle up to.

The man is honest to boot. He doesn’t sugar coat anything at all.

10/10 times he will go down on you if asked. He’s a giver.

He is the heaviest sleeper in the world. You don’t know why he bothers setting alarms.

Phoebe has a room at your flat and spends so much time with you both.

Many nights have been spent reading different books on the couch together.

He has to clean the drains since 75% of it is his.

Fuck is a very versatile word in your home, used daily.

Not the most romantic man alive but he has his moments.

Date nights are usually relaxed and proper but sometimes you can make the old man have a little fun.

He growls at least a dozen times a day, it’s his main response.

Jan Maas

My beloved

My sweet, beloved Jan who can’t/won’t use a filter to save his life.

He’s blunt in everything and sometimes it makes you want to slap him.

Jan is still getting used to English ways and mannerisms.

He has good intentions but sometimes needs a little help with wording.

He likes going on Aquarium dates.

The more tired he is, the clingier he is and it’s too cute.

Once after a game he plopped onto the couch next to you and basically tried to curl up in your lap.

He can make amazing pancakes.

Thats it though.

You’ll do most of the cooking if you value living in a flat that’s not on fire.

He’s a sweetheart though.

Mostly good intentions though.

Doesn’t mind nudity and had to quickly be reined in by the team. Not at home though.

At home he can easily be found lounging in boxers and a t-shirt while he sips coffee.

He knows what he’s doing.

Tag Team: @bdffkierenwalker​

[drifting-pieces-blog-blog]

Complications and Solutions: Chapter 9

Summary: Steven, Marc, and Jake are learning how to work together and respect one another. Gotta start somewhere. Where does the relationship with Layla stand now?

Pairings: Marc x Layla. Steven x Layla. Jake x Layla.

Warnings: Food. They eat. Mild sexual language. Kissing. A Bad pun.

Word Count: 3686

Start at the beginning with Chapter One: HERE

Previous chapter: HERE

---

Jake stared at the white board that was now hanging on the wall. There was a small cup attached to the side filled with multiple colored markers. 

A note in dark blue had been written across the board in Steven’s quick but fancy handwriting. 

Our communication board. Please leave important info here like appointments or dates or grocery items. Put the rest in the journal. 

- Steven

Under that was a simple response in black marker sketched out by Marc’s heavy hand. 

Fine. 

Jake picked up a red marker and held it up to the board. He hesitated then sighed and simply wrote: O.K. 

He could imagine Steven’s frown at seeing these two short responses. He ran a hand through his hair then added: We need a haircut please. Just a trim.

There. A start. 

Now what was this journal business? 

He glanced around and saw three notebooks sitting on the kitchen counter with a pen. Each one had a name written across the cover. 

He opened the one with his own name and stared at the front page. It was a letter to him from Steven. 

I want us to talk, but I understand that sometimes we can’t. We can work on that, but maybe it will take time. Till we can all share the same space and talk and agree on things together, we can leave notes for each other personally. 

Thank you for watching out for us. I don’t know how long you have been here, and if you ever watched over me or if you just kept your eyes on Marc, but you are my hero. 

You aren’t alone anymore. I can watch over us all too. You don’t have to tell me our past or the things that happened or even explain yourself. Let me offer you help sometimes. I can offer you emotional support or talk us out of a situation. Please don’t overlook me and my abilities. Let us work as a team. Let me get to know you too. 

Jake ran his fingers over the ink and felt the traces of the person that had written it. He had watched Marc all of his life. Now and then he had taken a peak at Steven, but he had never really paid attention. Steven’s life was controlled and mundane and never required a quick step in to save them or stop harm. 

Jake suddenly realized that he had been overlooking Steven. Overlooking his importance to the system as a whole and not just in helping to calm Marc down when he was melting down. 

“Lo siento…” Jake sighed and turned the page. He made a promise to try to talk to Steven later. 

On the next page he saw Marc’s handwriting. It was short and he imagined Marc reluctantly being forced to write something by Steven. 

Hey. Thanks for all the saves. Sorry I’m such a shit. Maybe try talking to me now and then instead of just knocking me out. I can fight. I can take hits. I’m not as fragile as you think.  

Jake sighed. Marc could take the hits. He wished Marc didn’t have that special talent, but the man could take the worst beating of his life and stay standing. 

Jake hesitated then picked up Marc’s notebook. He put pen to paper then wished he had Steven’s ability to communicate. What did he want to tell him? 

You are the single most difficult person I have ever met. We share a lot. I learned to look out for you because I respect you.

He groaned and closed the book. This was going to be difficult. He would try for Steven’s sake, but it would just be easier to start talking to them. 

He wasn’t used to letting them sit near the front when he was out. It often made him nervous to know they were watching. He had spent so long acting on his own and covering his tracks. 

In fact, the first time Steven had spoken up and commented to him while he was out he had startled so hard that he had dropped everything. He knew that the first time Marc sat near the front with him he was not going to like it. 

It was hard to learn to share. 

Speaking of sharing, he heard the sound of the front door unlocking and he had to take a moment to remember not to immediately throw someone else to the front. 

“I’m back!” Layla held up a bag of food. “They were out of that appetizer you like so I got extra breadsticks.” She paused and looked at him and he could see her processing as she tried to figure out who was with her. He waited a moment, expecting her face to fall as she realized it was not Marc or Steven. Instead she smiled. 

“You found the new communication station. Steven spent all morning fussing with it. He wanted to put up more decorations but Marc didn’t want to get fancy.” She set the bags on the counter and started to dig out the food containers. 

Jake set the pen down and eyed the containers. “It is a start. Perhaps better than making big changes and then being upset about them later. What are we eating?” 

Layla gave Jake a sheepish look and set out a box for him. “Steven ordered. He really wanted falafel. Is that okay?” 

Jake shrugged. “I’m sure it’s fine. Steven will probably switch in soon anyways. He’s always near the front when you show up.” Jake glanced inward and acknowledged the man in the back trying to pretend like he wasn’t there. 

“Do you always know who will switch in and out?” She started to unpack the food and set things out on plates. 

Jake moved to help her, keeping an eye inward. “Not always. You get a general feel for who is closest and can get a pretty good idea that they will take front. Sometimes if everyone is close then it comes as a surprise.” 

“But you can control it. You personally, I mean.” She glanced up at him. “Since it’s like your job, from what I gathered.” She blushed a little and it made Jake smile. 

She wanted to know so much. He had at first been suspicious. Others had once been interested in how it all worked too, and they had labeled it unnatural and tried to kill him with pills and injections and other things. 

Not Layla. Her interest was because she genuinely wanted to know how to support them. What to expect and how to settle into her own life around it. She wanted to know how to tell them apart. She wanted to know when it was okay to ask and when it was too hard for them to deal with it. 

“I have a bit more control over it than the other two do. I can’t control it all the time, though. If someone is in front and does not want to give up front, I can’t always pull them. If I’m in front and they want it, they could potentially pull me, or at least make it very difficult.” He tried a piece of falafel. 

“Do you like it?” She smiled. 

It took him a moment to realize she was talking about the falafel. “Hmn? I like the flavors. Maybe not the texture so much.” 

“That’s okay. It can be a bit much if you aren’t used to it.” She laughed and looked at him for a moment as she sorted her own plate out, mixing sauces and loading up a pita. “What do you like to do for fun?” 

Good question. Steven chimed in. Where do you always go so late at night? 

Jake raised an eyebrow at that. Steven didn’t know how to keep his commentary to himself. He was always muttering about things or providing narration. It was hard enough for him to keep things to himself when he was in control of the body, but when he was inside things just tended to spill out of him. 

“I like to drive.” He shrugged. “I find it relaxing. I also enjoy dancing. There is a place not too far from here that has good music.” 

“You dance?” Layla’s eyebrows shot up. A grin slowly spread across her face. “Steven has two left feet and Marc just stands there and sways side to side. Do you really dance?” 

Jake gave her a sly smile. “I am light and fast on my feet. I don’t just use it to dodge bullets.” 

“Can I go dancing with you someday?” She instantly looked down, cheeks red in embarrassment. “I just… I’m maybe not very good but I always enjoyed clubbing when I was younger. I snuck into my fair share of concerts and clubs.” 

“Steven is scandalized by your rebellious past.” Jake ate a bit of the rice and found the flavor to be far more to his liking. “I would love to take you. Perhaps tonight if you are free…” 

“Tell Steven there’s a lot about my past that he would find scandalous.” She smirked. “I’m free. Do you want to add it to your new calendar over there? So the others don’t forget and get you all invested in something else?” 

You’re in for a treat. Layla used to sneak into punk rock clubs and mosh. Tell her to wear the red thing. Marc’s voice startled him and he dropped his fork. 

“Wear the red thing?” Jake mumbled. 

Layla looked at him in concern for a moment then blushed so red it spread to her ears. “I…I’m not wearing that in public. Those days are over and I’m pretty sure that got tossed out years ago.” She paused then looked at him shyly. “Is…Is Marc telling you about that? Can you share pictures or memories?” 

Jake looked away. “We can. I’m requesting that he doesn’t.”

Can I see? Steven perked up. 

“No. Those are between Marc and Layla.” Jake took a big bite out of the falafel and chewed it stubbornly. 

Layla relaxed a little. “Jake the gentleman.” 

Jake felt a gentle nudge that was almost a question. Expecting Steven, he was surprised to find Marc there asking for control. 

He hesitated then looked up at Layla. “Give us a second.” 

Switching out with Marc never went easily and often left them disoriented or with a nasty headache. 

Jake stepped back and Marc was in. There was only the briefest of moments where Marc blinked and glanced around, before he focused in on Layla and grinned. 

“We should get you a new little red thing. I loved seeing you in it.” Marc glanced down at the food and started to assemble it the way it was meant to be eaten. “Like this, buddy. Takes away from the dryness.” 

Jake watched as Marc poured on the sauce and mixed everything in the rice. He was still doubtful but maybe it was an acquired taste. 

Layla gave Marc a look. “The number of times I put it on, I think I made it out of the house once. You never let me wear it longer than an hour.” 

“It’s not my fault that you’re so sexy.” Marc reached out and lay a hand on hers. She took his hand and squeezed it gently. 

“As much as I love you, I think those days are over. Besides, I have Steven and Jake to think about now. They might not appreciate those sorts of things.” She smirked. 

Steven took front so hard that he practically stumbled over himself. “Mnhno! No! I appreciate those sorts of things. You are… You are absolutely lovely and stunning. If you want…” 

Layla laughed and Steven blushed bright red. “The red thing can be for Marc. I think I’d like to find our own special something.” 

Steven nodded eagerly. “Of course, love.” He looked down at the food and smiled. “Jake says you can wear whatever you want to the club.” He started to eat eagerly. 

“Are you all talking now?” She nibbled at her meal. 

Steven paused and Jake glanced to the side where Marc was hovering. It was pretty common for Marc to be to the side when Steven was out. Jake slowly put down his own wall where he often hid from the others. I’m still here.

Steven grinned. “Yeah. We’re all here. I think we’re going to try all hanging out today. See what it feels like. Might get a little loud in here.” He tapped his head. He instantly looked haughty. “Maybe not for me. I’m the only one apparently with any opinions.” 

He chewed and Jake and Marc couldn’t help but grin to themselves. Steven always had opinions. Marc had come to find them endearing and expected them. Jake was starting to find them comforting. 

Layla nodded, deep in thought. “Will you do me a favor?” She looked into their eyes and it was almost like she could see all three of them there, looking back at her.

“Of course.” They all answered and the accents jumbled together briefly. 

 “Can I hang out with you all too?” She took their hand and gave a small squeeze. 

Jake took front easily without a fight. “Of course, hermosa.” He looked at their hands for a moment. “Maybe we can get some practice in before tonight…” 

Her face lit up and Jake couldn’t help but stare. She was beautiful. He’d had no trouble noticing it before, but now there was something different there. 

“I’m a little out of practice.” She got up and moved to slip her house slippers off. 

Jake went to Steven’s old record player and selected something he had once hidden in the back. “Is it okay if it’s a bit passionate? I don’t want to make you uncomfortable, but the club gets a little tight.” 

She smiled at him. “If it’s okay with you, I think I can handle it. Plenty of dance partners are not actually lovers, you know.” 

He nodded and laughed. “Oye, idiotas. Pay attention, maybe you can take her dancing too someday. Show her real passion.” He mumbled to the two watching with rapt attention. 

The music started slow then built to a passionate salsa. Jake was light and fast on his feet, sure footed in every movement. A far cry from Marc’s heavy steps and Steven’s stumbling. 

He pulled Layla close, his focus fully on her as they moved and spun, dipped and slid hands across curves. His touch was light and as she gazed into his eyes she was dazzled by the smile that she found there. Was this the first time she had seen Jake smile? Seen him truly let go and be himself? 

When the song ended, Jake laughed. “Steven requests a turn. Perhaps something slower.” 

Switching out the song, Steven turned to Layla and took her hand. “May I have this dance?” 

“Of course.” She pulled him close and rested her head on his shoulder as they slow danced, gently rocking from foot to foot in a circle. Nothing fancy but every bit as intimate. 

When the song ended, he gently spun her and dipped her low and confidently. His eyes sparkled. “We share more than memories sometimes.” 

“Is that so?” She grinned up at him, happy to see his pleased smile as he let her back up. “I think I remember some of my own moves.” 

She changed out the music to something that used to blast across the clubs in her wilder days. 

Turning, she already knew she’d find Marc there. “Remember our style?” She teased. 

“We aren’t going to end up making out in the bathroom, are we? Cause those are the only moves I seem to remember.” Marc crossed his arms. 

Layla stuck her tongue out at him playfully and snagged his arm. “Come on, sour puss. Let me take care of you.” She spun him, taking the lead and pulling him close. 

She could see him struggling not to smile as she guided him around, shaking hips and on one occasion sliding her hips to his teasingly before she bent him back into a dip. 

He burst into laughter as he looked up at her, sweating and struggling to hold him up from hitting the floor. He grinned and went dead weight on her, letting them both crash to the floor as he pulled her down into a kiss. 

“Mnh. Now this is the type of dancing I can do.” He smirked. “Scandalous.” 

She kissed his forehead and sat on him. “I’m not putting on a show for the other two. But you remember those moves for later, Marc.” She leaned in and whispered in his ear. “I seem to recall a few positions from that club bathroom I wouldn’t mind repeating someday.” 

Marc groaned and flopped back. “You’re going to embarrass me in front of Jake and Steven.” 

“I’m sure Steven and I will have our own moves someday.” She smirked. “Being in a library could be very sexy.” 

Steven stared up at her with wide eyes, trying to look utterly shocked and not at all interested. “I would never!” 

She kissed him and smiled as he leaned into it. Pulling back, she gazed down at him lovingly. “I would never desanctify your library, Steven.” 

He blushed and lightly placed his hands on her hips. “Maybe… Maybe the reference section is a little…sexy…Sometimes… Just a little…” 

“The reference sex-tion?” She bit her lower lip with a grin. 

“Ugh. Get off.” Marc made a face at her. “That was terrible.”

Layla laughed and shifted to get off them when the hands on her hips shifted and tightened, stilling her. 

She looked down and found Jake looking up at her. The look on his face was one of curiosity. Something that needed and wanted to know the answer to a question that hadn’t been asked. 

He looked her over, taking her in fully for possibly the first time with new eyes. She held still, her heart fluttering hard in her chest as he slid his hands down her outer thighs then slowly reached up and brushed over her shoulders, pulling her down. 

His lips brushed over hers lightly, hesitant and asking. She responded, letting her lips press to his in a featherlight kiss. 

Jake slowly slid a hand to her back and pulled her closer, his other hand moving to the back of her head, fingers sliding into her hair as he breathed across her lips then captured them in an exploratory kiss that sent shivers down her spine. 

It was the first time any commentary from Steven went silent. Almost as if everyone were holding their breath in this one moment. 

When he at last pulled back, Layla was left leaning over him breathing hard and feeling her every sense alight. Shyly, she looked down at him, half expecting to find him gone with Marc of Steven laying there in confusion. 

Instead, she found Jake still looking up at her, his eyes clear and a small smile on his lips. “Sorry.” He shifted to sit up, letting her gently slide off him. “I thought that… You just looked so beautiful there. I wanted to…” 

“You wanted to see if it was something you wanted too?” She gave him a slightly guarded look. 

He glanced at her. “If it was something I could have.” 

“You don’t have to.” She touched her lips, still feeling the gentle contact there. “If it’s not for you… I have the other two. If you never want to, I’m okay with that. I’m okay with you just the way you are.” 

He reached out and touched her hand gently, slowly lacing his fingers with hers. “I think maybe more than friends… But I cannot say to what extent. I just know…” He searched inside for the right word. Turning to the other two, still holding their breath and watching with wide eyes, he asked for help. 

Steven, the crafter of words and negotiations, stepped forward but did not take full seat. They blended and Jake understood what he had been missing out on by keeping Steven at arms length this whole time. 

“What we….he means… He loves you. You’re more beautiful to him than the night sky and he could gaze at you all night, lost in your wonders. We trust you. We all trust you more than anyone. He wants to know you more than anything but he doesn’t know how to show it.” Steven smiled and shrugged before stepping back again. 

Jake swallowed and gave her a shy smile. “Basically that.” 

Layla pulled him close, wrapping her arms around him tightly and leaning into him fully, nearly knocking them back again. “This. This is how. This is everything I could ever want from you, Jake. You never have to give me more than this.” She clung to him tightly as emotions rushed through her. “Dancing with you, smiling, being happy. Even just letting them love you and me. Friends or lovers or boyfriend and girlfriend, I don’t care what the title is. All I want is to be happy with you.” 

He wrapped his arms around her, holding her close. “Mi amore.” He flushed. “Thank you.” 

God you’re so sappy. Marc gave a playful nudge to Steven. 

Maybe if you tried it now and then. Steven nudged back, pleased with himself. 

Gracias. Jake nudged them both. 

Layla pulled back from the hug, her eyes red. “Ugh.” She wiped the tears from her cheeks. “I’m a mess. I’m going to get cleaned up then we are going to finish lunch. If I’m going dancing tonight I’m going to need to find something nice.” 

Jake got up and smirked. “I will make sure the body looks nice. Lucky for you that I know how to make us look nice.” 

He paused at the communication board. Mustache. Yes or No? 

He made a tally mark under yes then moved to sit back down to eat. 

Layla smirked and grabbed one of the colorful markers and added a mark under yes. 

[daikushiji]

hii! I came across your blog and my god I love it you are such a good writer! I was wondering if you could do kuroo, bokuto, and atsumu trying to get the reader to smile, bcs they dont really show much emotion?? if not then just ignore this <3

making his crush smile

pairings: kuroo x reader, bokuto x reader, atsumu x reader

a/n: helloo bb and thanks for your nice words!! sorry to keep you waiting so long, i really hope you like this!! <33

Kuroo Tetsurō

since your childhood you’ve been criticized and talked down every time you opened your mouth 

which made you understand that maybe it was better keeping your thoughts just for yourself

but everything changed when you met kuroo, someone who always listens to you without judgment

he loves spending time with you, watching you open up to him a little more every day

whenever he teased you a little or cracked a joke, you never actually laughed

so he started to write down notes on random pieces of paper and then sliding them in your pockets when you weren’t paying attention

you've never mentioned them, but he was happy with just the thought of you chuckling at his words even if far from his eyes

when one day, spotting you alone at a lunch table, he saw you smiling at your book 

dazzled by such a view, he didn’t immediately saw you waving at him

he cautiously walked up to you, afraid to make your smile disappear 

getting closer he noticed that it was the exact book in which he slid between the pages a dumb joke that same morning

”this one was particularly funny”

”oh so you also read the other notes?”

”of course! i’ve kept all of them”

and you showed him all the old train tickets and receipts he gave you, held together by a paperclip

going through them, you read out loud your favourite ones with a smile getting bigger and bigger at each word

with a lovesick gaze fixed on you, he couldn’t do anything other than smile as well

Bokuto Kōtarō

being raised to be respectful and collected, you were immediately branded as the quiet kid

your parents always told you to speak only when you were asked to and to guard your emotions for your own protection

so no, you never told bokuto that you like him

but little did you know he fell for you as well, fascinated by how your kindness could brighten up his day immediately

when he entered the classroom, a burning sensation started to grow inside your chest

that day was particularly cold and it was snowing from the night before

he was covered in snow, his face buried in a big scarf

and when he lifted it up, you saw his cheeks and the tip of his nose being so red

shaking his head, he let the snow on his hat fall all around him

with his teeth chattering, he started to rub his hands together, hopping on the spot

”it’s so cold!”

he looked so small in that puffy jacket of his

meeting your gaze, his eyes sparkled so brightly

you were smiling, at him

“you look so funny kō”

drawn by your giggle, he quickly came to you

”did you see all the snow outside?”

a shiver ran down your spine, when he suddenly grabbed your hands in his freezing ones

you nodded, while your lips were still curled up in the sweetest smile ever

and he really thought he wouldn’t have seen anything prettier than the snow that day

Miya Atsumu

in your previous relationship your partner always told you that your laugh was annoying

so you ended up to just stop smiling at all

did atsumu make his mission to get you to smile? yeah sorry

but his jokes were never funny and not even seeing him fight with osamu made you laugh

after losing a bet, he was sent by the team to buy snacks at the store for everybody

and of course he begged you to go with him

but you quickly regretted your choice when he kept trying to make you laugh by making awful puns with brand names 

”i can’t stand this any longer, i’ll wait for you outside”

he actually felt sorry for you, saying to himself that some people can’t understand high quality humor

after a few minutes he came out with his legs shaking, trying to balance all the groceries in his arms

he walked towards you, while chip bags and energy bars continued to slip from his hands

enjoying the show, you started to film him trying to pick up one thing from the floor while another fell down on the other side

”would you mind helping me?”

when you put down your phone, he finally saw it

you weren't simply smiling, but actually laughing so hard

he didn't even care when you said you were sending the video to suna

just kept staring at you smile from ear to ear

and when you noticed it, you remembered your ex’s words

“i’m sorry, i know my laugh is irritating”

his eyes went wide open, fixed on your lips

“what are you talking about, i don’t ever wanna stop listening to it”

[petriquors]

— i don’t know how to tell you this (kuroo x gn!reader | mistaken identity/love triangle)

❤ pairing !! kuroo x gn!reader

❤ trope !! mistaken identity love triangle

❤ requested by !! @nyakaashi

❤ word count !! 634

❤ author notes !! okay, so i really love this request! talk about cute high school love triangle foolishness, thank you so much for this adorable little rom-com plot. also: glasses kuroo. that’s all.

everyone at nekoma high likes the captain of the volleyball team, kuroo. certainly not to the level of the guy having a fan club, but people know him for being tall and powerful, a leader on the court, and a master of volleyball strategy.

his unmatched good looks and never-ending charm don’t hurt, either. you know you don’t have a chance, but you can definitely dream about him being your boyfriend.

people, including you, don’t feel the same way about your tall, glasses-wearing lab partner, tetsuro. he’s a little weird as far as high-schoolers go: he’s a try-hard in class, cool and collected among his friends, but a total nervous wreck around strangers, especially you. it goes without saying that your year of sitting next to him has been eventful, maybe even a little frustrating, and now that the school year is over, he’s standing in front of you with a handwritten note laden with science puns, of all things, that you think is a confession letter.

this kind of feels like the worst day of your life.

you actually planned to confess to kuroo, the volleyball team captain, before the end of the school year, but completely chickened out because he’s just too dreamy, too perfect, and you’re sure that if he could pick anyone, he wouldn’t pick you.

“did... did you get the carbon dating pun?” tetsuro says in front of you. your classroom is nearly empty now, and you two are talking in the quiet corner by your lab table, but that just happens to be the farthest corner from the door.

“yeah,” you manage to get out, looking down at the note where it mentions something about spending a half-life with you. “i mean, uh, this is really nice.”

behind the thick-rimmed glasses, underneath the spiky mess of hair, he looks so hopeful that your stomach twists at the idea of letting him down. how much damage could going on one date with the nerdy science guy really do? it could be a summer thing, you could break up right before school starts again…

no, you decide, that’s way too cruel. you’ve got to let him down easily.

“listen,” you say carefully. the classroom is silent around you, and you wish you were anywhere else but here. “you won’t believe this, but i sort of meant to confess to someone else today.”.

“oh.” the crestfallen look on his face makes your heart twist, and you’re already packing up your belongings to leave as quickly as possible. and then, he adds, “who is it?”

you’re about to hand him back the note when your head snaps up to give him the most quizzical look you’ve ever given anyone. “what?”

“i’m just curious!” he says. “you don’t have to say if you don’t want to; it’s just, i don’t know, i want to still be friends and friends talk about this stuff.”

baffled, you narrow your eyes at him; you didn’t know that he thought you two were friends, since you’ve never hung out after school, but the awkwardness of the situation makes you tell him anyway, fiddling with your fingers while you mumble out:

“the volleyball team captain.”

the way he stands there looking completely bewildered makes you think he’s short-circuiting, until he clears his throat and asks, “you mean, kai?”

you blink. “no, kuroo.”

he blinks, and then he blinks again, and he keeps blinking while a bright red blush blossoms on his cheeks. you both stand there, staring at each other, until he quickly grabs the exam you both just got handed back today and shoves it in your direction. and there it is: his full name.

“i don’t know how to tell you this,” he says, “but i’m kuroo tetsuro, and my confession still stands, if you want.”