#BMWs are very nice though

[georgegraphys]

Opinion on the ferraris?

No opinion because I think I've been pretty clear so far that idgaf about them and I don't feel like wasting my time criticizing or praising any parts of their institution anymore as it's pointless (even their racing suits or hats or whatsoever that people on twitter are currently arguing)

It's not just about Formula One if I were to be honest. Even before I got to know F1, I disliked Ferrari, their drivers on the road, and their cars. I'm a BMW user through and through for years and yeah it's more of personal preference and company preference. If people fucks with them then go on but not for me 😉😉

[penny00dreadful]

And They Were Roommates!

Part 2 AO3

Steve didn’t hate him exactly.

He was just… vastly irritated by his very presence.

When they’d fallen into being roommates with Eddie, Steve and Robin were just happy to have anywhere to live. 

They’d spent a few weeks living in the ageing BMW after they’d gotten booted by their previous landlord when the rent had spiked again and they couldn’t afford to pay it anymore.

Then Dustin had come to them saying he had a friend that had a spare bedroom that he needed to fill and they had jumped at the chance. 

It wasn’t a terrible apartment, all things considered. 

The bathroom needed a bimonthly mould clean out and the water pressure was nonexistent. It was almost always colder inside than it was outside, no matter how hot the weather got and the front door had clear signs of being broken down before, with a new lock haphazardly slapped over where the old one had been but it was shockingly quiet and secluded. 

A small and unassuming building that people tended to glance over sitting close enough to the city centre so that everything was within walking distance. It was twice the size of the place Steve and Robin had lived before, an open plan kitchen and sitting room with enough room for a dining table creating a barrier between the two. 

A nice dining table too. 

One that could fit more than two people.

Two bedrooms, one bathroom. 

Eddie had apparently wrinkled his nose at the idea of sharing with a couple but Steve and Robin weren’t about to correct him. He was a completely unknown person who seemed to make it his mission to look mean and scary, no matter what Dustin said about him. 

So Steve refused to feel bad about making assumptions.

But the guy was less mean and scary and mostly just annoying.

He left his shit everywhere, like he’d never heard of fucking organisation before. And he was so loud and exuberant all the time. Like yeah, they guy could enjoy his passions or whatever but that didn’t mean Steve had to like being an unwilling participant in it.

When Robin moved out, Steve stayed even though it was clear Eddie would have preferred if he'd gone too. 

He wasn’t going to give up a good place just because his roommate was a lot. 

And he certainly wasn’t going to give up a good place just because his roommate kept dropping hints he wanted his special someone to move in and Steve to move out.

Steve would show Eddie the meaning of stubborn.

They bickered like an old married couple constantly and Steve couldn’t exactly say that he hadn’t risen to the bait or caused his own fair share of problems between the two of them either.

Things had only marginally shifted once Eddie had proudly stuck up a flyer advertising the set list for the Pride Parade After Party that his band had somehow been signed to perform at.

When he caught Steve looking at it one morning he’d levelled him with his smuggest smile, like he’d just won some kind of argument. Like he was just waiting for Steve to go on a homophobic rant and run out of the apartment, never to return.

“Got a problem there, Stevie boy?”

Eddie crossed his arms loosely over his chest and leaned back against the kitchen counter with a feral look in his eyes, itching for a fight.

Steve had just turned to him with his sharpest, most cutting grin and lifted open the zippered side of his bomber jacket, revealing his bi pride flag patch sewn to the inner pocket.

“No.”

Eddie had glared at the patch like it had personally offended him before storming off to his room with a scowl.

After that, the barbs thrown at each other had gotten a little more… queer.

After one particularly frustrating argument, Steve had snapped at Eddie “I know how to keep a fucking shower drain clean, Mary.” before snatching his keys up and slamming the door behind him.

When Steve had finally seen fit to talk to Eddie again, nearly two full days later, huffing at him to hurry up in the kitchen, he wanted some coffee, Eddie had turned with the most exaggerated face of surprise and his hands thrown up in shock as he proclaimed, “She speaks!”

Steve had rolled his eyes and grumbled, “Jesus, you’re such a queen.”

Eddie had levelled him with his own cutting smile and responded, “That I am, darling.”

After that their arguments were full of a lot more condescending and patronising ‘Mary’s and ‘sweetie’s and ‘oh, honey’s.

It gave Steve the strangest feeling of companionship. Not only with Eddie, loathe as he was to admit it, but also with the culture and with the queers of old who were still around, who’d had to kick and spit and fight just to be seen.

Eddie had been buzzing around the apartment all day. 

It was A Big Date Night™ apparently. 

He was gonna ask the boyfriend to take a road trip with him back to Indiana to meet Wayne, a big step that he’d never made with a partner before.

Steve liked Wayne. But he liked even more how irritated Eddie was that they spoke. Wayne had called the apartment one day looking for his nephew and when Steve answered he heard the sounds of a game in the background and asked about it.

It was over forty five minutes later Steve turned to find Eddie staring at him with a horrified expression on his face and Steve couldn’t help the evil glint in his eye as he continued to debate Wayne on their favourite players.

But Eddie had left hours ago now and it was getting… late.

Really, really late.

Like four in the morning late and he hadn’t come home yet.

He was supposed to, he needed to be up the next morning for his shift at the nerd shop he worked at and he loved that job. He wouldn't miss it for anything.

Steve wasn’t like, worried or anything.

Not that Eddie needed to be babied, he wasn’t one of his kids. 

He was just… looking out for the safety of another human being.

The only light in the dark apartment was coming from the low glow of the tv and it was so quiet there was barely a sound coming from the speaker. Steve was curled up on the couch, swaddled in a throw and his mind kept drifting. 

He couldn’t pay attention to whatever was playing, his brain just kept catastrophising about what the fuck could have happened to make Eddie so late. 

He nearly jumped out of his skin and simultaneously felt his body unclench when he heard a key in the lock and recognised Eddie's wild head of hair coming into the apartment.

But that didn’t last long because Eddie caught the door before it could close with a loud snap like it usually did, shutting it slowly and softly behind him.

It was alarming because Eddie never remembered to close the door quietly, no matter how much Steve bitched at him. And it wasn’t like he was doing it on purpose, Steve knew that, it’s just that his mind was most often somewhere else, focused on some other thing so that he simply… forgot.

Eddie cursed low to himself as he slumped into the kitchen, pulling the freezer door open and rummaging around for a bit before pulling something out.

He kept his head low, hair spilling out around his face as he jumped up onto the counter and sat. 

He still hadn’t noticed Steve sitting there, watching the whole exchange under the dim flickering light of the television.

It looked like Eddie had snatched up a bag of Steve’s frozen peas. And they were Steve’s. Because Eddie didn’t eat anything green unless it was artificially coloured and covered in sugar.

Eddie squeezed the peas in hand hands, considering, before he muttered to himself, “so fucking stupid” and brought them up to rest on the side of his face.

That kicked Steve into action, unfurling himself from the couch, keeping his throw around his shoulders because it was fucking cold and he padded over to the kitchen in his fluffy socks.

“Eddie?”

Frozen peas scattered, skittling across the tiled floor, landing in the sink, ricocheting off the cupboard doors and clattering off the walls as Eddie jumped violently at the sound of his name, softly spoken as it was. 

He’d snapped his head up and Steve could see, in the dim light of the tv behind him, unusual darkness spreading over Eddie’s face, like a stain on his pale skin.

Eddie tightened his hands again around the now mostly empty bag, looking back down at it. 

“‘M sorry about your peas.” He mumbled.

Steve could only blink in response. 

Eddie wasn’t supposed to mumble. 

He wasn’t supposed to be quiet and subdued and wilted. 

He was supposed to be loud and brash and tawdry and bright.

“I’m gonna turn the light on, okay?” Steve tried to keep any rising panic and worry out of his voice, tried to keep himself calm and level. He could barely just make out the small nod Eddie gave after a beat of hesitation.

The light was harsh and painful after so long spent in mostly darkness and Steve had to squint through his glasses waiting for his eyes to adjust, but when they did he felt his stomach drop.

Eddie's face was scrunched up as he tried to blink through brightness but that wasn’t what caught Steve’s attention. 

Because there was blood crusting on the side of Eddie’s face, settled around his eye and in his hair from a gash over his eyebrow. His lip was split and puffy and swollen and his cheek was slowly blooming from red to purple.

“You should see the other guy.” Eddie grinned with a wince, when he noticed Steve cataloguing, but his eyes stayed distant and sad.

“What…” Steve stepped closer, hovering his hand over the injuries, over his hair. “What happened?”

Eddie shrugged, dipping his eyes back down to the melting bag of peas in his hands. “We had a disagreement.”

Steve looked down too and gently took the peas out of his grip, placing the bag in the sink next to them. 

It was only then that he noticed Eddie’s knuckles were bloodied as well, split and starting to swell.

He had to swallow against the sickening anger coiling in his throat as he closed a gentle hand around Eddie’s cold fingers and he tugged it over to the sink, turning the tap on. 

“Your peas-”

“Fuck the fucking peas, Eddie!” Steve snapped before trying to reel himself back in when Eddie flinched, nearly pulling his hand away but stopping himself at the last moment.

With the softest movements he could manage, Steve got Eddie’s fingers as soapy as he could before slowly working his rings left and right, pulling them off his fingers.

“What are you doing?” It wasn’t quite a whisper but the question was low, almost like a hum.

“Your fingers are going to start to swell soon. I can leave them on if you’d rather have them cut off later?” Steve looked up to see Eddie watching their hands working together under the dribble of the tap. 

He shook his head.

“Well okay then.” He tugged the last ring free and examined them, silver and wet and heavy in his palm. 

There was still some dried blood in the grooves. 

“Did you at least get him good with these?” He gestured to them before placing them carefully to the side and gently towling Eddie’s injured hand dry.

A smirk tugged at the uninjured side of Eddie’s mouth. “You’re damn right I did.”

Steve gave a short sharp nod, placing Eddie’s hand back in his lap. “Good.” 

He moved over to the freezer, pulling out his own cold compress which Eddie hadn’t chosen for some reason and tugging the first aid kit from on top of the fridge.

“So are you going to tell me what happened?” He said, trying to keep his voice even and his posture lighthearted as he laid the stuff out next to Eddie’s leg. He pulled their second drawer open and took a clean dish towel out, running it under the tap.

“Why, Stevie? You worried about me?” Eddie tried to grin but it quickly turned into a grimace as Steve pressed the damp cloth against the cut on his eyebrow, his lips turning down.

“Don’t be precious about it, honey. Just tell me. I’ll never stop pestering you until you do.” He pulled the cloth away and started gently brushing it across Eddie’s skin, trying to remove as much of the dried blood as he could.

“Alright, alright, keep your wig on.” Eddie huffed and pulled his mouth into a frown before shrugging again. ”Well I’m single now.”

Steve managed to keep his hands working, only halting for just a second as the words hit him. “Rick did this?”

“Yep.” Eddie said with a pop. “Everything was going good, you know. Standard date stuff, whatever. Then I asked him to come meet Wayne and he looked at me. Said, and I quote; ‘What exactly do you think this is?’”

Eddie snorted and shook his head. 

Steve was forced to pull the cloth away to stop tugging on the broken skin. “Wait so-”

“So apparently I’ve been seeing this whole thing as more serious than it was. Apparently I’ve been putting feelings where there were none. And get this,” he grabbed Steve’s hand, stalling his movements again and forcing him to look into those giant deep brown eyes, “he’s married.”

Steve felt his mouth drop open in an indignant stare. “No.”

“Yeah. I know, right? I’ve been the other woman this whole time.” He brought his hands up to make air quotes. “Just a bit of fun.” He tongued at his split lip. "And it's my problem, my fault that I didn't figure it out, according to him." He shook his head, forcing Steve to retract his hand from around his eye. "The fucker took his wedding band off every time we met, so…"

Rather than grabbing Eddie gently by the chin, which he was really, quite horrifyingly tempted to do, he instead said, "Be a dear and stop moving."

Eddie levelled him with a glare but there wasn't much behind it, it was all performative even as he tutted and started twisting the chain on his jeans around in his fingers. But he stopped moving his head.

"So how did that lead to this?"

Eddie scoffed. "How do you think, Mary? I got mad."

"Well good. You should've been mad. Did you throw the first punch?"

"Technically?" Eddie hummed in consideration. "Yes. But he had his hands on me before that soo…"

Steve froze, he couldn’t help it. 

What the fuck?

What the fuck?

"In what way?" He kept his voice light but the bright white concern underneath was like a foghorn. 

Eddie shrugged again and turned his head, giving Steve more access to the blood crusted above his ear and into his hairline. 

Then he leaned forward just a little bit more until his forehead was resting against Steve's shoulder.

Steve reached back to pull Eddie's hair out of the way, over the back of his neck so he could clean up his hairline.

Neither of them spoke for a few moments, the silence wasn't tense but it wasn't calm either. It was anticipatory. Eddie was building himself up to answer.

"He didn't see a problem with the situation, I mean obviously he didn't see a problem with the situation so he just wanted to… continue, I suppose. We'd been… experimenting with switching before this and he tried to go full dom on me. Kept trying to get me to submit." Eddie's voice had started to shake even though he tried valiantly to keep it down and it made Steve wonder just how long he'd been keeping it down already. 

Steve dropped the cloth off in the sink and brought a hand up, resting it on the back of Eddie's still bent head, making sure not to cage him in, making sure to keep his touches light and gentle but still there if he wanted them.

"I didn't- I didn't want to anymore but he just kept going and I told him he wasn't asking my consent, he was demanding it. He said I had to do what he wanted because he was in charge and that’s how it works-” 

“Eddie, that is not how it works-”

“Yes, thank you, darling. I know that. I told him that wasn't what's done, no matter the dynamics and he was just getting more and more pissed off, like I was ruining his fun and he wouldn’t get off of me so I just… fucking decked him." Eddie laughed, a terrible broken thing. “I thought… I thought we had… it had been so good while… why can’t I have… why does it always have to end like this?”

His voice had become harsher, more defeated as he went on, cracking and pitching along the words until the end. Until a heart wrenching choked off sound was pulled from his throat.

Eddie was weeping softly into Steve’s shoulder and his hands were twitching in his lap, like he wanted to reach out, like he wanted some comfort but didn’t know if he was allowed. 

But he must have decided he didn’t care if he was allowed or not because the next second he’d thrown his arms around Steve’s shoulders and pulled him in tight, sniffling openly and freely into his neck.

Steve took the tiniest of steps closer and wound his arms around Eddie’s middle, bypassing his leather jacket and battle vest, snaking his arms underneath until there was just the threadbare band t-shirt between them.

He ran a hand up and down Eddie’s back as he shook, while Eddie just clutched on tighter.

“Why does it always have to be… why can’t I… why…” a terrible little sob broke out of Eddie’s throat. “Why does no one ever want me the way I want them?”

Steve had to pinch his eyes shut against the pure heartbreak in his voice, coming out halting and thick and so small. 

He just held him tighter, whispering little placating words and small shushes that he felt more in his chest than he did his throat. 

He hesitated for just a moment before placing a light little kiss to the side of Eddie’s head, into his hair. The same kind of kiss he’d give to Robin or one of the kids if they were in the same situation. 

That was all.

“God.” Eddie muttered, pulling back and scrubbing his hands roughly over his eyes and nose, apparently uncaring of his injuries. “Your shirt is fucking disgusting.” He eyed the stains and wet patches and no doubt little traces of blood he’d accidentally left there. “What makes you think that’s an appropriate state to appear in?”

Steve just rolled his eyes, taking the lighthearted jab for what it was, a want to move on, to start snarking again and cracked open the first aid kit. 

“Your face is disgusting.”

“Yeah, well. You’re the one who’s been cleaning me up, sweetheart. So, who’s fault is that?”

He glanced up at the cut over Eddie’s eyebrow. 

“That might need stitches.”

“No stitches, can’t be bothered with stitches.”

“Stitches not punk enough for you?”

Eddie did glare at him for that.

“Don’t even. You know I’m not a punk.”

Steve grinned at him. “No?”

“Steven.”

Even through the heavy talk, Steve relished the sight of the slight smile that had appeared on Eddie’s face and his return to bitchy banter.

“Edward, is there a difference?” Steve shrugged as he fished for supplies in the kit. “Doesn’t seem to be.”

“To you, maybe.” Eddie flicked at a piece of his hair. “God you’re such a… you’re such a jock.”

“Wow,” Steve raised his eyebrows, “let’s add observant to your list of positives.”

“Assho-ow!” Eddie shrieked as Steve pressed a butterfly bandage over the wound.

“You’re a giant pain in my ass.”

“Only if you ask nicely,” Eddie growled at him, irritated and snappy, “you perpetual bottom.”

“Excuse you,” Steve snapped back, “I switch it up. I have versatility."

“Uh-huh.”

“But you gotta admit,” Steve flashed his most charming grin, “it’s a lovely bottom.”

Eddie scoffed but there was a red flush starting to creep up his neck. “S’not like I pay much attention to your bottom.”

“Oh, Eddie,” Steve gave a disappointed sigh, “everyone pays attention to my bottom.”

He didn’t get a response, just a bitchy roll of the eyes.

“You gonna call out of work tomorrow?” He dropped the cloth into the sink and crossed his arms as Eddie leaned back on his hands.

“Why? So you can mother hen me all day? No, thank you.”

“Oh sweetie.” Steve regarded him with mock sympathy. “You think you’d be lucky enough to get my mothering?”

“What if I die in my sleep tonight? You’d be inconsolable.”

“Yeah. Simply devastated.” He said as he all but pushed Eddie off the counter and herded him back to his room.

Part 2 AO3

@augustjustice @geekymagicalpotato @wormdebut (I remember you showing interest for this one but I won't tag you again unless you ask! 😘)

Big thanks as always to @hbyrde36 for her magnificent beta work and to the @strangerthingswritersguild for their motivation.

Divider by firefly-graphics

[sp0o0kylights]

Whole thing on A03

It didn't matter how much Steve explained. Not one member of the Party was going to get it. 

Tommy and Carol would, but then, they were no longer on speaking terms. A fact that hurt even if it was for the best--particularly in times like these, because they got it. 

They understood how he had been ensnared with the very same wealth people mocked him for. What it meant when his parents demanded Steve drop everything and go on vacation, his own plans be damned. 

They knew, because their families had done much the same, and so the lives they led also were tethered to leashes made of their parents' design. 

Dustin, whose mother bent over backwards to try and better her kid’s life, didn’t even have a frame of reference for this kind of thing, let alone sympathy. 

"Do they not understand you have a job?" Dustin asked incredulously, and Steve didn't have the emotional bandwidth to explain that his parents didn't consider working at Family Video to be a real job. 

As far as they were concerned, Steve could quit if he had to, and then go find another job when they were done using him to play the nice, All-American family. 

Likely for business purposes.

"They aren't the type to care." Steve said instead. 

It was easier than getting into it.

(Easier than explaining the BMW wasn't in his name, but his parents. 

How his money went into a bank account they had access to. 

That practically everything he owned was actually owned by Richard and Stella Harrington, and both were quick to remind him of that fact the second they felt Steve was acting out of line. 

And boy, had he been acting out of line. 

 Getting into fights. 

Turning their punishment of working a job they picked specifically for the humiliating outfit, into the far worse public embarrassment of being involved in a mall fire--an embarrassment because Steve had "lost" the keys to the BMW, had "put himself in danger" playing hero instead of letting the perfectly capable firefighters do it, then “paraded around” with bruises all over his face, racking up medical bills. 

Truly a sin for someone who hadn’t made it into college.) 

So no, this vacation they demanded Steve drop everything for  was not anything close to a reward, or even something they were doing to spend time together. There was a reason they needed Steve, and as far as they were concerned, Steve was at their beck and call until he shaped up and got his life back on track. 

His own plans be damned. 

"That's not fair though!" Dustin burst out and Steve sighed in relief, because here at least, he knew what to do to distract his younger friend.

 “We planned our trip months ago!” Dustin continued, looking two seconds away from giving in and stomping his foot. 

The kid might have been smarter than Steve--smarter than most people really--by a hell of a lot, but he was still fourteen. 

Smarts, Steve knew, didn't exactly equate to emotional intelligence, and it definitely didn't stop rampaging hormones.

Ice cream on the other hand, was a great aid in both areas. 

"You better be making this up to us." Dustin threatened thirty minutes later, spoon wedged deep into a sundae. “We can’t do, like, half the stuff we were going to do without you!” 

“I'm sure you guys didn’t need me to play ghost runners or whatever.” Steve said, but was quick to back down when Dustin nearly threw his spoon at him. 

Rather than antagonizing him more, Steve dutifully raised his hand to put over his heart. "I swear on your mom that I’ll make it up to you.”  

Dustin rolled his eyes, but otherwise, finally, let the whole thing go. 

Stupidly, Steve thought this meant the worst was over.

He was wrong. 

xXx 

Mike hadn’t cared. 

El and Will hadn’t really either, though both expressed some sadness that Steve wouldn’t be participating in the camping trip that the Party as a whole had been looking forward to for the past few months. 

Erica had simply snapped at him, making him promise much the same as Dustin had that he would be making it up to her sometime in the future. Likewise, she had been bought off by ice cream (even if she insisted it didn’t count because Steve owed her ice cream anyways.) 

Max was the surprising emotional standout. 

"You can't tell them no?" She demanded, arms crossed over her chest. 

Lucas was hovering awkwardly at her shoulder, shooting "what can you do?" vibes as hard as he could at Steve as his (currently on-again) girlfriend outright dressed the elder boy down; her shoulders creeping up higher and higher until she seemed to realize she was visually giving away her upset and forcibly relaxed them. 

Unlike Dustin and Erica, her tirade was very out of character and Steve was growing more concerned by the second that something was wrong the more she spat at him. 

“I mean for fucks sake, didn’t you tell them you had plans!?” She finished, eyes narrowed in rage. 

Which was rich coming from someone whose stepdad had Billy Hargrove running all over town before he’d run off after the guy’s death, but then, Steve knew better than to bring all that up.

(The image of Max, unresponsive in the hospital with casts on almost every limb, was still too fresh. 

Even now he didn’t like to push her, even if the Party as a whole did their best to take notice when one of them was isolating themselves again. 

Max, though she was down to one crutch, was still inclined to use it as a weapon and very much enjoyed practicing her swings on people’s ankles.) 

“I did indeed. They don’t care and they’re not giving me a choice, but for what it’s worth I am sorry.” Steve tried to keep his voice even and out of angry-shrieking range, and vaguely prayed it was working. “I swear, I will make it up to you guys, even if we have to go on a second camping trip.” 

This was clearly not the correct thing to say.

Though judging by the murderous rage being aimed his way, Steve was pretty sure nothing short of “You know what you’re right, let me go tell my parents to fuck off!” would make Max happy. 

“So you’re seriously just going to drop everything, all our plans, your job, us,” She took a very threatening step forward and despite her being a full foot shorter than him, Steve had to fight not to take a responding step back. “So you can go play rich boy in the Bahamas?” 

“We’re not going to the Bahamas--” Steve tried, but was interrupted with a loud “ugh!” of disapproval. 

“Whatever makes you happy, Steven.” Max spat, and then turned on her heel, storming off towards the rest of the Party (who had taken one look at Max’s face and fled into the arcade so she and Steve could “talk.”) “I’m sorry us peasants weren’t good enough to hang around!”  

“Sorry man.” Lucas apologized quietly, on his way to run after Max. 

Steve just scrubbed a hand through his hair and sighed. 

xXx 

“The kids are mad at you.” Nancy announced, appearing across the Family Video counter like a phantom. 

Steve swore, nearly dropping his stack of VHS’s, while Robin (who had clearly seen Nancy approach) cackled at his fumble. 

“Yeah, I did get that memo.” Steve said, after he stabilized his stack, safely moving them from his arms to the counter. 

Nancy peered around them, her face giving away nothing. “It is kind of shitty to cancel at the last minute like that. We were relying on you to drive.”

An old fury shook itself awake in Steve’s chest, taking an interest in the conversation the second Steve realized what Nancy was here to do. 

He took a deep, shuddering breath, and pressed it down, back into the box he’d slammed it in all those years ago. 

“I’d leave the keys to Robin here, but unfortunately, someone failed their drivers test.” Steve said instead, jamming his finger over his shoulder and blatantly attempting to pass the buck. 

Robin, who absolutely knew that was what he was doing, faked a gasp and kicked at his ankles. 

“That crotchety asshole failed me on purpose!” She protested, spinning to face Nancy. “He made like, three misogynistic comments before we even got in the car!” 

“Pointing out that he knew the car wasn’t yours wasn’t misogynistic, he was just surprised to see me letting you use the Beemer.” Steve shot back, rolling his eyes. “I don’t exactly let a lot of people drive it.” 

Unspoken was that Steve’s BMW was one of the town’s more unique cars, and thus easily identifiable by the locals at large. 

“How is that better!?” Robin returned, but Nancy cleared her throat before they could successfully get the Steve-and-Robin show on the road. 

“The point is that we--but really, the kids, were counting on you.” Nancy said, dipping into her patented “I’m upset with you” tone. 

A year ago it would have cut Steve to the bone, even if he didn’t show it. 

Now he just stared tiredly at her back. 

“I’m sorry, Nance, but it is what it is.” He said simply, hoping the apology (even if he knew it wasn’t so much a real apology as it was something he said to keep the rage from breaking out and wrecking havoc via his mouth) would soften his ex. “I don’t know what else to tell you.”

Given the abrupt narrowing of her eyes, it very much did not help his case. 

“For someone who was so vocal about trying to change I have to say this is pretty disappointing.” Nancy said simply, but with just enough of a tone that Steve had to close his eyes for a second. 

Feel the way that old anger, the one that had powered King Steve, hit the bars of its cage.

Robin stilled immediately next to him, her head ping-ponging between Steve and Nancy both as she too, clocked that Nancy was pissed, and here to chew Steve out about it. 

“Um.” She said, voice going high in discomfort. 

Steve grit his teeth. “I don’t exactly get a say in these things, Nancy. You know that.” 

He had to work to keep his voice even, fighting against the ice that wanted to sharpen his own tone. 

It was just---Nancy did know. 

Steve had told her all those years ago, in the safety of her arms, about his parents' expectations. Their predetermined path, the way they dictated large swathes of his life. 

How they’d allowed him to pick which sports he played, but required that he play a sport no matter the time of year. 

That the pool they had installed wasn’t for him, he just got to use it as much as he did in part because he’d joined the swim team, and the kind of mental mind games he and his parents played about things like that. 

Apparently either Nancy had forgotten, or simply hadn’t taken it in to begin with because she wasn’t backing down. 

(Not that Steve had ever seen Nancy Wheeler back down.) 

“I know you have trouble juggling your parents' plans with your own.” Nancy said, and her tone was absolutely icy now. “I certainly remember waiting for a date that never happened.” 

Steve sucked in a breath through his teeth, knowing immediately what Nancy was referring to. 

“I told you they came home unexpectedly.” He said, arms now crossed against his chest, nails digging into his arms as a way to help himself stay grounded. “They wouldn’t let me use the phone until the next day and I apologized.”

“And I recall having a lovely conversation with your mother where she said otherwise.” Nancy said, her words punctuated by another high pitched “Uhhhh.” from Robin. 

“Funny how you believe my mom over me.” Steve said and whoops, yup, he definitely sounded mad now. 

So much for all the effort he’d put in to staying calm. 

“Because I look at actions, Steve. Patterns. The same ones you kept repeating.” Nancy was clearly about to escalate, and Robin, bless her, had had enough. 

“He-eeey.” She said, wedging herself in between Steve and the counter Nancy was starting to lean over. “I totally get it, you’re both upset, but this maybe isn’t the venue to fight about it? There are customers in the store and--sorry Nancy--but I do kinda need Steve for work, so…” 

She trailed off, glancing nervously between the two of them. 

Nancy took a breath, blasting it out of her mouth like an academically inclined dragon. “You’re right. I’m sorry Robin.”

She then turned on her heel, making her way to the doors. She paused before them, and Steve prepared himself because he knew whatever she was going to say next, it was going to hurt. 

“I wouldn’t care if it was just me, Steve, but the kids don’t deserve you pulling this shit. Not after all they’ve been through.” With that, Nancy pushed through the door, head held high as she stormed to her car. 

As was typical for Nancy’s aim, she scored a direct hit. 

Steve, somehow, resisted throwing things. 

“Can you believe her!?” He said, the second the doors were closed and Nancy safely out of eyeshot. “Coming in here like that!?” 

He ran his hand through his hair, once, twice. 

A third time for good measure. 

“Yeah, that was seriously public for her.” Robin agreed, sliding up next to him. “Like really public.” 

Steve shrugged, because well. Not really. 

Not anymore. 

But Robin didn’t know that, just like Robin wasn’t entirely familiar with the depths Steve’s parents went to save face. They hadn’t exactly had time to really dig into it all, given how fast the Vecna situation had hit after Starcourt and the sheer PTSD both incidents had caused. 

Most nights they spent together was spent trying to avoid reliving nightmares, not discussing ones they were currently still living in. 

A fact that Steve was more than happy to bring her up to speed on, but to do so involved a lot of backstory, and backstory involved Nancy, and God, he was fucking pissed at Nancy. 

Soon it was an hour into his rant and he hadn’t actually gotten around to the sheer level of shit his parents would pull, too busy with Nancy and old echoes of ‘bullshit.’ 

 He only stopped when Robin put a hand on his shoulder, shaking him ever so slightly. 

“Dingus. You know I love you, and I know you’ve changed, but you do gotta admit, canceling at the last minute is kinda shitty and I get why they’re upset.” 

It was like the carpet had been pulled right out from under Steve, yanked so quickly he’d have to pinwheel to keep his feet. 

“What?” He said, eyes round in sheer surprise. 

“I just mean like, I get your parents are dicks but,” Robin’s face screwed up, looking like she’d sucked a lemon. It was her “I’m going to say something you don’t like face” and it hit Steve like a punch to the gut. 

“Our shift’s almost over and no offense, you’ve started to repeat yourself about Nance, and I get it! I do, memory shit is hard!” Robin’s hands moved as she talked, her bracelets jingling as if punctuating her point. 

“But I also think admitting you double booked yourself on accident and just taking responsibility for it would help smooth things over. Middle ground, you know?” Robin waggled her hands in a gesture that, for the first time in a long time, Steve didn’t understand. 

He found himself suddenly struggling to breathe. 

“Are you--are you saying you think I didn’t tell them I had a trip already planned?” 

Steve wasn’t sure how he managed to get it out. Wasn’t sure how he was doing anything, given the heat that was shooting through him, a hot mix of confusion and betrayal as Robin fidgeted to his left. 

“No! Okay well,” The lemon face got worse for a second. “I’m just saying you did kinda forget to pick me up that one time, and you do kinda blame your parents when stuff like that happens.” She bit a nail, peering at him out of the corner of her eyes.  

“I don’t--” Steve said, completely knocked adrift. “I…”

Robin didn’t believe him.

His Robin. 

Who wasn’t--wasn’t exactly siding with Nancy, but wasn’t saying she was wrong either, or that she understood that this shit was out of his control, and in fact, was kind of implying that Nancy was right more so than Steve was and---and--

There was a ringing in Steve’s ears he wasn’t sure actually existed. 

“I’m sure a lot of it is your brain injury. The doctors said your short term memory can take a while to fully come back and I totally get why you don’t wanna say that, I just, I think it would be better if--Steve?” Robin jumped back as Steve finally found his footing, swiping his jacket and punching out before she could catch how badly his hands were shaking. 

“I’m leaving.” Steve told her, his own words a million miles away, entirely uncaring if Keith fired him. 

Keith was likely going to fire him anyway, given Steve was about to ask for a week-long vacation not even four months after the whole Vecna ordeal. 

“Wait, Steve, hey--Dingus! I wasn’t done, I mean, I had more to say I, dammit Steve--!” Robin called after him frantically as Steve bolted for the door. 

Steve ignored her, aiming for the Beemer and swinging himself numbly into the driver's seat when he got it open. 

Put the car in park and avoided Robin’s face entirely as he backed it out, punching the gas far harder than he needed to. 

The Beemer roared in response, nose rising as it shot forward. 

Robin was his best friend. His fucking--platonic soulmate, as she kept calling him. The very idea that she agreed with Nancy in general was a blow but in this?

Against his parents? 

Nausea rolled angrily in Steve’s stomach, matching the sudden wetness that coated his eyes. 

Angry and needing an outlet, Steve stomped hard on the gas, taking the next corner far too sharp and making the beemer fishtail, tires squealing . 

He didn’t know where he was going.

He figured he’d find out when he got there. 

xXx 

Given what Steve knew about the universe at large, (nevermind Hawkins) it probably wasn’t the smartest thing to hang around the Quarry at night.

But then, summer was in full swing. Kids were home from college and itching to find a place to party without parental overhead. 

Deep to the left side of the water, around a few bends and tucked oh so neatly out of sight, was a place where one could do just that. 

Party.

This stretch had long been claimed by the college kids of Hawkins, and guarded zealously for it. 

With the sheer number of drunk people whooping and hollering around the bonfires below the ridge where everyone parked their cars, Steve figured he was safe enough. 

Even if he was up with said cars, sitting alone. 

Not like it mattered. If a demodog or demogorgan or demo-fucking-dragon decided to come along, Steve had half a mind to just let it have him. 

It felt easier than trying to fix the current mess his life was in. 

So he sat up here, blowing through the alcohol he’d purchased from the one gas station that never carded, drinking his problems away. 

(That also wasn’t the best course of action but with his parents home to spring the whole “vacation” ordeal on him, it wasn’t like Steve had a choice.) 

He hadn’t grabbed a lot--had been so damn upset and struggling to hide it that he’d picked up a four pack of wine coolers instead of the intended beer he’d wanted. It was all he had though, and so he chugged the last bottle with a wince and wished he was a hell of a lot drunker than he felt.

Then promptly caught sight of the person walking towards him, and wondered vaguely if he was drunker than he felt. 

Of all the people to come and offer him a can of beer, Steve would have never expected Tommy Hagan. 

He eyed it and his old friend both, before slowly reaching out and taking the can. 

“Heard you and your parents are doing CoHo this year.” Tommy said casually, leaning up against the front of the Beemer like it was old times. 

“Yup.” Steve replied, drawing the word out. 

“Angie Tideman’s parents are going, they’re bringing her ith .” Tommy said it casually, and had the good graces not to grin when Steve audibly groaned.

“Oh god.”

Tommy sucked on a lip, nodding absently. “Yeah.” 

Then; “It gets worse.” 

Steve, who now knew what this conversation was about, instantly began tearing into the beer can. “How can it get worse? You know what Angie’s like.”

Angie, whose full name was Angelina, lived a few towns over. Born to wealthy parents who doted on their beloved only child, Angie had more in common with your average shark than she did her fellow humans. 

A comparison that, frankly, was unkind to sharks.

She was without a doubt the most selfish person Steve had ever had the misfortune of encountering, and the mere idea of being trapped in a room with her made his skin crawl. 

Their parents were business buddies though, and god forbid he ever insult a business buddies kid, 

“She goes to Purdue, you know, with me and Carol.” Tommy said, instead of answering directly. “We cross paths a lot, party wise.” 

Steve stayed silent. 

Knew how Tommy talked, how his stories meandered. Especially the juicy ones. 

“She’s been talking a lot recently. Given you don’t look all that informed, I’m gonna assume the one person she hasn’t talked to is you.” 

Steve gripped the can of beer, a sudden, sick fear blooming in his gut. 

“Tommy.” He said mildly, not loud enough to really interrupt, but with enough force to let his former friend know to get to the point, now. 

“Got all super fancy right before we left for summer break. Hair done, whole new wardrobe, nails, you know.” Tommy waggled his fingers playfully, but dropped them when Steve just stared. “Went full whore on us. I swear she was making out with any guy who even looked at her--” 

“Tommy.” He repeated, this time a hell of a lot firmer. 

Done pushing, Tommy let go of the proverbial bombshell. “Apparently you’re planning on proposing to her this summer. She’s gonna return next year as an engaged woman, with you in tow, because apparently, you got into Purdue. Congrats by the way.” 

Tommy clapped him on the shoulder, right as Steve’s mouth went dry. 

For the second time that day, he found himself fighting the burning heat of embarrassment and fury as it rolled through him. 

“I’m proposing.” Steve said, as if saying it out loud would scare the very idea away. “To Angie.” 

“Yeah we kinda figured you didn’t know.” Tommy said with a snide little grin. To the average outsider it was mocking, but Steve knew better.

Tommy was uncomfortable, because Tommy had understood what Steve’s parents had done. 

“What I’d like to know is just how much Angie’s parents paid to get you into Purdue. That’s gotta be a minimum fifty thousand dollar donation at least.” Tommy removed his hand, to instead lean his shoulder against Steve’s. Like this was the old times, before they’d fought. “ I didn’t think they had that kind of money to throw around.”  

A past conversation with his father struck Steve, running through the front of his mind like a bad horror movie. 

“They sold the estate.” Steve said vacantly, the implications not quite hitting. “The one they’ve been trying to get rid of forever, over in Cape Cod.” 

“Oh shit.” Tommy said, blinking as he too, recalled what was likely his father telling him the very same news. 

“They sold the place on Cape Cod, and they used part of the funds to fucking buy me like a toy.” And yeah, saying it out loud, it definitely sounded bad. “I didn’t think Angie even liked me.”

“Does Angie like anyone?” Tommy asked, incredulously, but nudged Steve’s shoulder again when his joke didn’t net him the laugh he wanted.. “I mean, you had to know your old man had plans to straighten you out. He keeps getting mad at my dad, because the ass won't stop making jokes that I’m going to take over the company instead of you.” 

“And this is it. Attaching me to Angie.” Steve said vacantly. “Because they know if I get married…” 

He’d put his wife first. His family, first. 

The one he’d wanted, dreamed of, since he first realized he didn’t have one. 

He’d been playing checkers the entire time, too busy fighting fucking monsters and Russians to realize his parents had upgraded to chess. 

In a dizzying array of mental connect-the-dots, Steve replayed the last years worth of conversations. All the odd little things they’d said. All the dumb things Steve had just ignored. 

 They’d warned him. 

Had told him he better shape up, or they’d be forced to do something drastic. 

That his parents hadn’t wasted all this time, effort, money on him, for him to throw away his life like he was. 

“You better start acting right and figuring out how to get your life back on track, because you won’t like what happens if I have to fix it for you. You get a month Steven, and after that? Well. Just remember you forced my hand, Steven.” 

They knew. They knew him, and what made him tick.

“I think the real question is what Angie’s parents see in you.” Tommy teased, but then they both knew the answer to that puzzle. 

For all that Steve’s mom complained about her husband, the guy was a shrewd and calculating businessman. Those weekends, then weekdays, then more and more time away hadn’t just been so he could go screw his secretary. 

Richard Harrington had fast tracked his business to the point where it was now getting attention. The business journal, ‘Top 50 Companies to Watch’ kind. 

Even if Steve fucked up entirely, he was set to inherit a fortune and a business that would continue adding to it, for some time to come. 

Provided he did what his parents wanted.

Such as marrying Angie. 

Thing was, if his parents did what they always did, and held their wealth (his car, his home, his life and all the little things in it) against him like a gun to his head, if Angie got that ring around her finger? 

 Steve would bow to their whims. 

 Because they could fluster him into proposing so he didn’t embarrass Angie, and her parents and anyone else who’d undoubtedly be watching. They’d make a spectacle of it. 

Because once he did propose, they wouldn’t let him back out, burying him under guilt trips and veiled threats until he was marched down the aisle in a groomsman suite and told to stand. 

Because against all common sense, Steve wanted a family who loved him so desperately he’d chase it like a dog if he was presented with the opportunity and told to make it work. 

It didn’t matter that Angie was selfish. 

Steve would try anyway. 

His parents were maneuvering him as easily as they had back when he was a kid, using love as a tool to get him to do what they wanted and even seeing the nose hanging from the rafters, they knew just the right words to get him to place it around his neck. 

“Thought you’d wanna know.” Tommy finished, pushing himself off Steve’s car. “Before your parents sprung it on you.” 

“Sonofabitch.” Steve hissed angrily, a million thoughts racing through his head, the heat of being caught in a trap blasting down his spine. 

“Yeah.” Tommy added, rather unhelpfully. “But hey, given that you’re about to go on vacation to propose, why don’t we consider this,” here Tommy swept his hand, gesturing to the party below, “your proposal party?” 

It was a downright horrible idea.

But then, Steve didn’t exactly have a better one. 

Not  when the world itself seemed against him, grinding its heel into his back and laughing about it. 

He knew the drill. If he went down there, arm in arm with Tommy, then it wouldn’t matter that half those kids were from a few towns over, driven in by new college buddies.  

They’d see him as a reason to get wild, absolutely uncaring that they didn’t know who the hell he was. 

Steve needed that.

People who weren’t mad at him, buying into the easy lies his parents wove, or who didn't understand the games played against him. 

“Fuck it.” He announced, standing up from the hood of his car as Tommy’s grin morphed into something he used to see in the days of old, back when they were sneaking drinks from their parents' alcohol cabinets. “This way at least I get a party.”

Not like his parents were going to let him have an engagement party. Or a bachelor party, or likely let his ass back into Hawkins. 

No matter how long the engagement. 

Tommy cheered, raising his arms to the sky and Steve grinned wildly with him. 

He’d figure out how to get out of all this later--but for now, he wanted just a few damn hours where he didn’t have to think. 

Not about his parents, or Angie, or possible attempts to force him into marriage, like this was the yee olden days and Steve was a Victorian maiden who needed to be brought to heel. 

Likewise he didn’t want to think about the Party, or Russian torture, or how Nancy could be so damn smart in some things and downright stupid in others. 

He absolutely didn't want to think about Robin. 

“Hey boys and girls, look who I drug up!” Tommy yelled as they approached and soon, word had spread.

This was Steve’s proposal party, and he was here to get absolutely smashed (while encouraging everyone else to do the exact same, in his honor.) 

Which would be how Eddie found him a few hours later.

Still at the quarry, crossfaded off his ass, a forty in one hand and a lawn dart in the other. 

“Are you kidding me, Steve?” Eddie grit out, desperately trying to wrestle the lawn dart out of his hand. “You’re fucking partying with Tommy Hagan!?” 

Steve blinked at him a few times, finally catching on that Eddie was in fact, actually there. 

“When did you show up?” He asked, though given the wince on Eddie’s face and just how hard it had been to move his lips, Steve correctly assumed he’d slurred the shit out of the question. 

Somehow, Eddie understood him anyway. 

“Robin called me a while ago, gave me a list of places you might be. Almost skipped this one until I stepped out of my van to take a piss and heard the party.” Eddie explained, and somehow while doing so, he’d successfully gotten a hold of the dart. 

He was now working on removing the 40 ounce. 

Steve frowned, using his newly freed hand to grip it closer to his chest. 

“Harrington.” Eddie warned, and oh, wow, they were back to last names huh?

Well why not, it wasn't like his night could get worse. 

“This is mine, Munson.” Steve fired back, putting as much vitriol into Eddie’s last name as he could.

This did not detour the metalhead. 

“Come on man, give me the bottle.” Eddie said firmly. 

Steve shook his head stubbornly, enjoying the way his hair whipped at his face. “No.”

Another man stumbled over, a guy Steve absolutely did not know. He frowned, looking between Eddie and Steve. 

For two seconds, Steve thought they might have trouble, and given the way Eddie was tensing, he clearly thought so too. 

Instead, New Guy just kind of rocked on his heels. “Hey, shove off it, buddy. It’s this guy's bachelor party, let the man drink!” 

Eddie’s face did something complicated then, pulling the sort of expressive looks only he could manage.

It was both adorable and hilarious, and if Steve hadn’t just been reminded of the very reason he was drinking, he’d have told Eddie so. 

“Yeah!” He said instead, raising his hand in the air, toasting his bottle of forty against the other guy’s red solo cup. “It’s my proposalengagmentbachelor party!” 

Given the second, adorable-slash-hilarious look on Eddie’s face, Steve assumed those words hadn’t come out right either. 

“Okay.” Eddie said hands on his hips in a stance Steve was pretty sure Eddie had gotten from him. “Here’s what's going to happen. You’re going to put the bottle away. Then you’re going to give me your car keys, and then the two of us are going to my house to sleep whatever is happening here, off.” 

At least, that's what Steve thought he heard. It was a pretty un-Eddie like speech, and Steve maybe, might have been the one to say it, because he maybe, might have been mocking what Eddie had actually said.

Maybe.

It was hard to know, given that Steve’s thoughts were a thick soup on a bit of a time delay, and he was having a hard time figuring up from down, let alone what Eddie had been actually saying. 

Speaking of; 

 “When did I get into your car?” Steve asked, blinking as the van’s passenger seat appeared before him.

“Just now.” Eddie said, helping him in.

“Huh.” Said Steve, and then he maybe passed out a bit, because once again, he found himself awake and alert at a place that wasn’t where he’d just been. 

“Come on.” Eddie said gently, one of Steve’s arms over his shoulder as Steve leaned heavily into him, guiding the jock up the stairs and into the small house he and Wayne now called a home. 

The guy might have muttered a few things about bachelor parties along the way, but Steve was too focused on walking straight to really take notice. 

Part Two

[newkatzkafe2023]

Hello! I hope you're doing well! I wanted to ask, how would the Wukongs seduce their Monkey Queens? How would they let her know when they're ~in the mood~ 😏

There is always some madness in love, but there is also always some reason in madness-unknown

(Lmk Wukong) When Wukong is in the mood he would release deep purrs. You would be minding your business in your shared bedroom when he walks in. Wukong would lock the door, walk in front of the bed, and slowly take off his armor making you blush. Wukong would slowly strip what he's wearing not breaking eye contact with you, and flexing his muscles at you for you to see. The second his underwear becomes the last thing to go, he jumps your bones and making you see hearts.

(MKR Wukong) Ohhhhhhhh boi this when his territorial instincts come to play. When he's particularly jealous he'll get you alone and take a little bite into your shoulder make you moan. Wukong would nibble and mark your neck, shoulder and sometimes your entire arm and it wouldn't hurt but you would feel so good. He would have you panting as he strips you of you clothes and well, let's just say you both had a very wonderful night😉

(HIB Wukong) Your thicc thighs of yours were always his greatest weakness especially if you dared to were a skirt. Everytime he stupidly looks at those sweet sweet birthing hips he ends up imagining how many cubs he can get out of them. Wukong would give you theses predator eyes, looking directly at you, as he bites and licks your thighs never once breaking eye control. With his obsession with you and the look he gives Of course your legs instinctively open.

(NR Wukong) Peach and honey champagne the second he breaks that out, you'll know exactly what he wants from you. Wukong would get a couple of drinks in you, whispering sexy promises and flirting with you in your candle lit bedroom. Once your cute little self is nice and tipsy that's when he strikes, ripping his and yours clothes off and partied all night long🤤

(Netflix Wukong) Ohhhhhhhh myyyyy he would sneak you away to somewhere dark and private. Wukong never felt this way before and didn't know hot to handle it at first, but look at you so attractive, so powerful, soooo perfect. He needed to get some alone time with you or else he'll pop, so with a little bit of flirting he would sneak you off to the bedroom with you and turn off the lights. That's when you get frisky with him, as those red eyes of his stare into your heart and soul.

(BMW Wukong) Ohhhhhhhhh my God he would be in such a mood after a long battle, especially if it's against you. Like seriously you sparred against him like you were trying to kill him, and it was sooooo sexy to him and wanted all of you now. So he would purr and actively strip his armor saying that it's to help make his mobility better, but you soon realize he had a different way of working off that extra adrenaline🥵

(Destined one) ok now the Destined...................hard to decide really??🤔 though I feel he would get aroused by your innocence and charm. You would trip on the roads sometimes and all the Destined one sees is a nice round ass for him to smash later or when you spilled tea on your dress top and he got to see those perking pairs of huge squash. The last straw being how you could wear the latest lewd costume, but your sweet innocence made it wholesome. All i'm going to say is you're going to be Very dirty all over again when the Destined one is done with you.

FEEL FREE TO REBLOG🥵

[mendeshoney]

rough ride, hold on tight

a/n: this is a part three to "a taste of the devine," and you can read part one here and part two here! this is all because of @smileysvech and her moodboard. gif is courtesy of @pyotrkochetkov because I think it contributes to remind you all how broad this man is, for absolutely no particular reason. title is from "railway" by bang chan of stray kids.

summary: andrei buys a new car, and you both take it out on a test drive.

word count: 8,680

tags: five year age gap, older woman x younger man, fluff, l-bombs, previously established dynamics (including msub x fdom dynamics, switch, mdom x fsub dynamics - in this fic, mainly mdom x fsub, andrei is a pleasure dom/service dom if you can't tell), smut, morning sex, oral sex, drool/spit kink, car sex and therefore semi-public sex, penetration, finish inside, unprotected sex

Russian terms used (bearing in mind the author does not speak Russian and definitely Google’d these) can be referenced here.

***the events in piece this are pure fiction and are potentially dangerous, therefore please drive responsibly (ya filthy animals)

You purse your lips, eyes flicking up between Andrei and his sheepish smile, and back toward the brand new cherry red Lamborghini Urus sitting in the driveway behind him. It's sleek, shining in the Raleigh sun, and the sparkle of the rims in the afternoon light screams dollar signs back at you.

You absolutely do not sigh.

The only reason you recognize the car is because you’d seen Andrei looking it up on his phone a few times over the last couple of weeks, and now that it’s in front of you, you don’t know how you didn’t put two and two together before. 

From where you stand inside your shared three car garage, your Range Rover rests on your right, and Andrei's black Mercedes S-Class and his green BMW sit in the other two spots to your left. 

Andrei’s new toy is definitely not going to fit in here. 

"I traded my other Lambo in for this one," he explains, the smile impossibly wide on his lips.

"Who is it for?" You ask, though you don’t know why, considering it’s obvious, and Andrei flashes you a kilowatt smile.

"It's mine!" He exclaims. "You can use it too, obviously, if you want to. You can use any of my cars, you know that." 

You hum noncommittally, glancing at the car again, then back at your clearly very excited boyfriend.

"Well?" He asks, antsy, practically bouncing on the heels of his feet.

"It's really nice, malysh." You say honestly, because it is a very nice car, despite being far less discrete than the other two sitting next to you. It's also subtly flashier than his last one, and certainly more roomy. His old Lambo was a classic two-door, two-seater deal.

At least this one has a backseat.

"But...?" He asks, taking a step closer to you. 

You shrug, welcoming him when he wraps his arms around your waist. "Does Daniel know?"

Andrei scrunches his nose. Daniel's his accountant, who Andrei is usually good at calling before he makes big purchases like this. "It wouldn't be here if I didn't call him."

You pinch his side lightly, "Don't get sassy, I'm just making sure."

"I'm not," he protests, the slight whine in his voice not going unnoticed. "But you don't like it."

You frown, shaking your head, "That's not true, I said it was really nice."

"That doesn't mean that you like it." Andrei points out.

Carefully, you withdraw from his embrace and lean back against the door of your Ranger Rover. You consider your words carefully, because you know what it means to him to be able to spoil you, his family, and himself. But this is...well, kind of a lot. 

He surprised you with the Range Rover for your birthday, which you had been eternally grateful for - your thighs throb a little with the memory of just how thoroughly you'd thanked him for it - but that was only a couple of months ago. 

And a month before that - when you agreed to move in together as opposed to continuing the long sleepovers at the other's house - he'd moved the two of you into your current home. It had a three car garage, huge backyard, and a master bedroom with the most ridiculously large bathroom you'd ever seen in your life.

So this was a bit…well…

You weren’t the kind of person who dictated how others lived their lives or spent their money. And it wasn’t like Andrei didn’t have money.

But, you remember a conversation the two of you had early on in your relationship. Andrei held you tight in his arms as you lounged on a chair by his pool, gazing at the stars as his fire pit kept you both warm. He’d told you about his upbringing, about the things his parents did and how much they sacrificed for him and his brother to keep them safe so that they’d be able to pursue their dreams.

He told you about what it was like to feel the want for things, both out of survival and desire. He told you about how being in the position he was in empowered him to give back to his family and to himself to make sure he never felt that want ever again.

So…

While you understood all of that, the shiny new car in front of you still gives you pause. 

“As long as you’re happy,” you say, “then I’m happy with it.”

Andrei stares, considering the - what you hope is neutral - expression on your face. Whatever he sees there doesn’t convince him though, so he pulls you back to him, looping his arms around your waist and pressing his lips to your forehead.

“You trust me don't you?” he asks. 

You're nodding without a second's worth of hesitation. "Of course I do."

"Then I'll show you it's worth it."

You’re not entirely sure what he means, or how he plans on doing that, but you nod anyway, tilting your head back so you can kiss the sharp angle of his jaw. “Okay, malysh. But you’d better park that new ride in the garage. You can move my car into the driveway.”

~

There’s a delicate caress to your waist that coaxes you from your mid morning nap, followed by gentle kisses that trace the line of your jaw, then neck. 

You stir, exhaustion still running rampant in your body, shifting to lay on your back.

"Kroshka," Andrei murmurs. You feel when he makes his way under the covers, lifting up his shirt that you wore to bed to expose your bare lower half.

He carefully rests your thighs over his shoulders, placing kisses to each as he goes, before you feel a kiss to your sternum, your belly, and then a kiss to your core, before he hums to himself, content. His hands rest on your waist, fingers gripping your body in a way that anchors him to you.

His tongue is warm and gentle against your skin when he takes his first taste, and you stir a little more, back arching in a stretch.

Andrei makes a soft noise to calm you, reassure you, and you smile, hands disappearing under the covers. Your fingers tangle in his hair, and you can feel when he smiles against you. He tilts his head to meet the touch of your other hand, where you gently caress his cheek, thumbing against his jaw. 

"My love," you say sweetly, and he presses a kiss to your palm.

"My love" he says in turn, turning back to your pussy. You welcome the open mouthed kisses he presses there, the long and filthy licks he gives you in between, moaning when he sucks your clit into his mouth, rubbing his tongue against it in a way that makes you dizzy.

You arch into his mouth, both hands diving into his hair as you giggle, scratching gently at his scalp. 

"Won't you come up here and kiss me properly?" You tease, tugging lightly at the strands before your hands fall to your sides.

He laughs, pressing noisy kisses to your skin. Andrei wiggles dramatically, your thighs still draped over his shoulders as his head pops out from under the covers, body bending you in half a little. His hair is a mess from your hands, lips pink and wet, smile dazzling you.

You can't help but think of how cute he looks like this.

"Hi beautiful." He says, eyes crinkling with his smile.

You return his smile with a bright one of your own, arms reaching out for him. "Hi handsome.”

“Have a good nap?” 

You nod, “I did. Can I have a kiss?"

He goes to you, eager as always. Your arms wrap around his neck, fingers dancing at his nape. His kiss is soft, gentle at first, like he’s coaxing you to fully wake up, drawing the exhaustion from you with his mouth. Your lips fit together like puzzle pieces as they move, exchanging delicate kisses back and forth as the mid morning sun creeps in through a small gap in the curtains.

It’s not long before you’re more awake, more aware of the fire pooling in your belly, and your tongue teases at the seam of his lips, turning your kisses dirty in an instant.

You moan when you can taste yourself on his lips, head going dizzy. He moves his arms, allowing your legs to drop from his shoulders so you can wrap them around his naked waist.

You lock your ankles at the small of his back, arching into him, pussy rubbing against his hard cock. He’d worn briefs to bed, and after you two went for a run this morning, then came back to shower and eat breakfast, he’d changed again, and was definitely dressed before your nap, but had clearly shed them before he decided to wake you.

Little shit. 

You’re usually sensitive in the mornings anyway, so when his cock brushes against your folds, Andrei grinding himself against you, and your nipples brush against the fabric of your sleep shirt as you press against his bare chest, you feel yourself getting wetter, mouth dropping open in a whine.

He makes the already filthy kiss filthier when he slips his tongue in your mouth, caressing it against your own, almost massaging it. You reciprocate, and he takes you by surprise when he sucks on your tongue, Andrei moaning in approval.

The noises his mouth makes as he sucks on your tongue echo in your brain, bouncing around the edges and intensifying the haze of arousal. Andrei presses his hips tighter against you, the slide of his cock up and down along your pussy getting easier and more slippery with each passing second.

The haze clears for a second when you feel the head of his cock catch at your entrance, and your hands trail from the back of his neck to his shoulders, pushing at him. He parts from you with a small dissatisfied noise, breathing heavily through his nose as he gazes down at you.

“Are you going to be good for me, shchenok?” You murmur, one hand coming up to cup his chin, thumb gently rubbing against his bottom lip.

He nods, pressing a kiss to the pad of your thumb.  

"If you make me come," you start, sugary sweet. "You'll get a reward today."

Andrei's eyes flutter shut, turning his mouth to suck lightly on the tip of your index finger, tongue delicately licking at the digit. Your finger slips out of his mouth when you pull your hands away, resting them down at your sides again.

Nothing else needs to be said as Andrei wiggles his way back under the covers, settling back between your thighs and resting them on his shoulders. His mouth latches onto your pussy without preamble, tongue dragging up through your folds to taste you before the tip of it flicks against your clit. He repeats this a few times, and it draws a pleased high pitched noise from you, arching yourself closer against his mouth.

His tongue dips into your entrance and you keen out, his name leaving your lips in a breathy moan. He rests his forearms across your abdomen, pushing down just a little to anchor you to the bed, fucking his tongue in and out of you, burying his face into your pussy, nose brushing against your clit.

"Shchenok," you sigh, lifting the hem of your shirt a little higher. You wiggle your hips, trying to ease his grip on you so you can take what you want, but he's too strong, too focused and too pussy-drunk to do anything except reach up, cupping your tits in his hands and squeezing, his arms pressing down against your stomach so he can continue fucking you with his tongue, burying his face against you, stimulating your clit with gentle bobs of his nose.

You can feel your orgasm approaching quicker than you expected, and you give into it fully, hands descending back into Andrei's hair and gripping at the strands when you come, thighs tightening around his head as your body shakes, a cry of relief tearing from you throat and echoing around the bedroom. Andrei groans at the taste of your release, lapping you up and cleaning you up with his mouth at the same time. 

After you've had the chance to calm down and catch your breath, you're quick to throw the covers back, taking in his flushed appearance and thoroughly mused hair. He climbs up your body a little, resting his head on your chest and his hands at your ribcage as you comb through his hair lightly, trying your best to tame it. 

"Happy, kroshka?" He asks, lips brushing against the bare skin of your breasts. 

"Always," you nod, pushing a happy sigh through your nose. “Do you need-”

He shakes his head. “No, I’m alright.” 

You nod. Andrei’s always been the giving type, good about not always expecting things back, but even more so the longer you two stay together.

You also did promise him a reward for later, so you suppose him holding off right now isn’t so bad.

He squeezes you, burrowing his face further into your chest. "I love you so much, you know that?" 

You smile, squeezing him back. "I do, Drei. I love you too."

You can feel his kilowatt smile more than see it, and your heart pounds behind your ribcage. You hear him hum to himself, which is his telltale sign that he's got something on his mind. So you wait him out, let him gather his thoughts. 

"Will you go somewhere with me today?" He asks finally, fingers dancing gently where they rest on your sides. It tickles a little, causing you to squirm, and it makes Andrei laugh, pressing a small kiss to your skin in apology.

"I'll go anywhere with you," you say honestly, and mean it. 

There are moments more often than not lately, especially now that you'd been together a little over a year and a half, where you felt like you two were never going to get out of this “honeymoon phase.” Maybe it’s the domesticity of living together, maybe it’s how easy the two of you fell together, or maybe it’s the optimism for the future - either way, you’d go anywhere so long as you had Andrei at your side.

He smiles, kissing your sternum once before he’s carefully climbing off of you and off the bed. You notice the small wet patch on the front of his boxers and giggle.

It also still amazed you at how easily you could turn Andrei on, how he could come without touching you, how giving you an orgasm was enough to send him into his own. 

“Get dressed, kroshka,” he says, pointing at you with a mischievous smile. “Wear something pretty.”

~

About forty five minutes later you’re slipping into a sundress, grabbing your purse, and putting on your sandals as you head out to the garage, then stop the second you’re in the doorway.

The garage door is open, and you fully expect to see Andrei in the driver’s seat of your Range Rover, on his phone and waiting for you to go. Instead, your car is back in its old spot, and he’s leaning against his Lamborghini from where it sits in the driveway, his charming smile too hard to ignore.

You make your way out, locking the door behind you, and Andrei presses the garage door opener on his keys the second you’re in the driveway and in his arms.

“What’s this?” You ask, curling into his embrace.

At the hesitation in your voice, Andrei gives an easy shrug and a reassuring smile. “Thought we’d go for a drive. Maybe even along the coast.”

You raise an eyebrow at that. “The coast is two and a half hours away, Drei.”

“Good thing we have the right car to take us there then.” He wiggles his eyebrows, then makes a show of opening the passenger side door for you. “Your chariot awaits, kroshka.”

You take his outstretched hand, letting him help you into the passenger seat safely before he closes the door behind you. You take an appreciative look around as you buckle in, noting the sleek leather interior and the softness of the seat beneath you. 

Andrei climbs in, buckling himself up before starting the car, and you jump a little when the rumble of the engine reverberates even through your seat, vibrating beneath you.

…Interesting.

He smirks, putting on his sunglasses before driving away, and you settle in, relaxing in your chair as the car continues to rumble under you.

~

Andrei’s been driving for about forty five minutes when you start to get antsy.

The car practically purrs beneath you, Andrei maneuvering the luxury vehicle with a practiced ease. He looks ever so handsome in his fitted black shirt, the fabric sticking tight to his muscles and accentuating the hard work he’s been putting into his body over the off season. 

His jaw clenches when the road opens up in front of him, allowing him to press on the gas and send the car flying forward on the highway. The engine rumbles to life, the vibrations of the car getting stronger as you speed up, the other cars becoming a blur beside you.

The vibration rumbles against your skin, but particularly, between your thighs, and you find yourself turning your head toward the road, biting your lip to keep from making any noise. 

You were still sensitive from that morning and had been turned on since then by the wheels in your brain turning to figure out what Andrei’s reward would be for being so good, the anticipation of it all sending liquid heat through your veins. 

Andrei eventually slows down a little, speed plateauing, and the intense vibrations of the engine only dull down slightly. You can feel yourself getting wetter, and you end up squeezing your thighs together, trying to pass it off as nothing as you stretch your arms and then your legs, wiggling as you try to get comfortable in your seat. Your hands fall into your lap, right where the skirt of your dress rests, and you flex your fingers to stop yourself from lifting the fabric and rubbing against the cotton of your definitely soaked thong to get some reprieve.

He notices - because he notices everything about you - and rests a hand on your thigh, right above your knee, rubbing his thumb in gentle circles on your skin. “You okay, kroshka?”

You hum, nodding, trying not to focus on how warm his hand feels, how far it is from where you want him to be. “I’m okay, malysh.”

“Do you need me to take the next exit? Get food or anything?”

You want to say no, but you need a break from this goddamn car that you’re starting to think has been sent to drive you insane, so you nod instead, saying “Maybe, I think I just need something to drink.”

He nods, reaching for your hand where it rests in your lap. A little gasp almost escapes when his hand brushes against your lower belly, taking your hand in his and bringing it to his mouth to press a kiss to your knuckles, his other hand still on the wheel and driving expertly. 

It’s a few minutes to the next exit, but Andrei takes it smoothly, driving till he gets to a gas station. He doesn’t need to fill up the tank quite yet, so he follows you inside to get some drinks and a couple of snacks.

You head straight for the sugary stuff - taking your time as you browse to try and calm yourself into some semblance of normal. You go about grabbing some lollipops, sour strawberry belts, a couple of chocolate bars, a pack of M&Ms and some Skittles, before heading toward the soda fridge and grabbing a Diet Cherry Vanilla Pepsi. Andrei grabs his usual chips, an energy drink, some water, and a couple of packs of his favorite gum. 

Andrei usually travels with a cooler in his trunk, and he must have grabbed it before you headed out for your drive, because he also grabs a few ice cream bars and a bag of ice, before you follow him to the counter. He pays for everything, grabbing all of the bags so you can grab the receipt and get the door on the way out. 

You both eat an ice cream bar each in the car before Andrei gets back on the road, slowly picking up speed about ten minutes later. He’d loaded most of your cold items in the cooler in the backseat, save the two ice cream bars you ate, your Diet Pepsi, a cherry lollipop for him and you, and his water. 

He’s currently sucking on the lollipop while you quietly sip your soda, trying to focus on the lingering taste of vanilla ice cream and the cherry vanilla-esque taste of your drink instead of the heat that had been plaguing you earlier.

It works, but not for long, because soon the road opens up again and Andrei’s slowly pressing down on the gas, the engine purring to life beneath you. It’s like a rollercoaster, the way you can feel the vibration of the car slowly get more intense before it starts to rumble as Andrei reaches a higher speed.

This time, you’re not able to stifle the quiet moan that spills past your lips, and you immediately tense, clearing your throat to play it off as you put your soda in the cupholder, fidgeting in your seat.

Andrei notices.

Out of your peripheral vision, you see him turn his head to you, eyes no doubt curious behind his sunglasses, before turning back to the road. His hand returns to your knee, thumb resuming his rubbing in gentle circles as he speaks around the lollipop in his mouth.

“Kroshka?” He asks. “Are you alright?”

“Mhm,” you respond weakly, “‘M fine, Drei.”

When he doesn’t say anything back to you, you chance a glance at him yourself, and Andrei turns his head toward you, observing, before turning back to the road.

His hand squeezes your knee, and you know he knows. 

It’s probably all over your face at this point, and your stomach clenches when he smirks around the lollipop, control hanging on by a thread when his hand travels up your knee, higher and higher till it’s right below the hem of your dress. 

He flexes his fingers, the tips of them dancing on the insides of your thighs, and your teeth sink into your bottom lip, trying your best to tamp down the moan that threatens to spill over. Andrei speeds the car up suddenly, switching lanes, and the sudden rumble of the engine has your thighs squeezing together before you can register what’s happening, trapping Andrei’s hand there. 

You pry them apart only a second later, but Andrei makes a small noise of protest. 

“What’s got you like this, kroshka?” He says, lollipop tucked against his cheek. His lips are so red.

Shaking your head, you reach for your soda, taking another sip, letting the bubbles dance around your tongue to give you something else to focus on. When you put it back in the cup holder, Andrei’s hand moves from your thigh to your hand, bringing it to his mouth and wrapping your fingers around the stick of his lollipop, helping you guide it out of his mouth.

The candy leaves his lips with a soft “pop!” that nearly makes you dizzy, the sound going straight to your pussy in an almost painful throb. You can feel yourself getting wetter, the cotton of your panties probably soaked by now.

Andrei, careful as his eyes flick between you and the road, guides the lollipop to your mouth, gently pushing it past your lips to rest on your tongue. You see the way his throat works around a swallow, and you know what he’s probably seeing, imagining. Your lips wrapping around the head of his cock, sucking him like this stupid lollipop, lips bright red as his precum drips onto your tongue.

You make sure to purse your lips nice and pretty around the candy before his hand leaves yours, resting back on your thigh, squeezing once.

“Zajka,” he practically croons, his voice deep, teasing, taunting. It nearly makes your thighs squeeze together again. Instead, you try to shift a little in your seat to get comfortable again, but Andrei’s hand feels like a solid weight, keeping you still.

You pull the lollipop from your lips, the cherry flavor sticky against your lips. “Yes, malysh?” You answer.

God.

You’re shocked at the sound of your own voice, how fucked out it sounds, and that just about does it. The last grip on the control you maintained this morning is gone, slipping from your hands and right into Andrei’s lap. 

It’s not like Andrei never takes control in the bedroom. He does, and he’s damn good at it, but he revels in the moments where the control is in your hands, where he can do whatever he can to please you, to be told that he’s perfect for you, being so good for you.

But when the control changes hands, when he takes charge, he takes it firmly by the reins and relishes in it, makes you question why it’s not like this all the time. 

He looks at you briefly, his eyes tracing from the lollipop to your mouth, before glancing back at the road. You comply, slipping the candy past your lips to rest on your tongue, teeth biting down on the stick when you feel Andrei’s hands against your pantie clad pussy. 

A pleased noise rumbles from his chest, knuckles brushing against your clit. “Are you enjoying yourself?”

You nod, a muffled “mhm” coming from your chest. He puts a little pressure behind his hand, and though you don’t mean to, your back arches, thereby taking your lower half a little bit away from his touch, and his head snaps over to you, brow raised, the corner of his mouth turned down in a slight frown. 

The apology is on the tip of your tongue, but it’s too late, because he takes his attention away as well as his hand, and the loss of his touch is almost too much for you to bear, especially when he directs his attention back to the road, both hands gripping the wheel as he speeds up, the engine rumbling to life beneath you with a vengeance as the luxury car tears off down the open highway in front of you.

“You’re gonna have to be patient, zajka.” He says, voice toeing the line between stern and gentle. “I need to find somewhere for us to go so I can take care of you.”

“Mkay,” you murmur around the candy, squirming a little in your seat as the car vibrates under you once more.

Andrei laughs to himself. “I just got this car, baby,” he says pointedly, “and you’re already going to leave a wet spot?”

You say nothing, too overstimulated, too desperate for him to fight him or comment on his teasing. Between the car, Andrei’s not-enough touch, and this lollipop that you suspect was used to keep you occupied in the meantime, you’re halfway to delirious, panties soaked with arousal growing uncomfortable with each passing second. The purr of the engine feels nice, but it’s nowhere near enough to satisfy.

All it does is push you closer to the edge, but never allowing you to leap.

You can only let your eyes flutter shut as you rest your head on the window, trying to focus on your breathing, on the sticky candy in your mouth, resting on your tongue. You try to focus on anything and everything other than the luxury car sent from hell - the heat fluttering low in your belly, and Andrei’s heavy breathing from beside you. 

You’re not sure how much time has passed when you feel the car finally start to slow down, too lost in the haze to process anything. 

“Kroshka,” Andrei murmurs, and your eyes blink open, head turning to gaze at him. His voice is rough, the way it always sounds when he’s barely hanging on by a thread, and you squeeze your thighs together. 

Taking a look around outside, you notice he’s pulling up to a hotel with a tall parking garage, and as he pulls into the guest side of the garage, you raise an eyebrow.

Pulling the lollipop from your mouth, you ask “Are we staying here or something?”

Andrei shakes his head, using one hand to take off his sunglasses and toss it onto the dashboard before he grabs a ticket from the machine, pulling forward once the arm raises. You note that the garage seems mostly empty, so you turn your body to look at him curiously, taking another sip of your soda before pushing the lollipop between your lips again, watching as he passes all of the empty spots and continues up to the next level, then the next, until he gets to the roof.

He parks in a spot at the corner of the roof, one not in the eyeline of any of the rooms of the hotel beside the garage, or one that can be seen from the street. There’s a cement base to a tall street lamp that hides the front seat of his car, obstructing the two of you from the view of the rest of the parking spots up here.

Andrei turns to you then, leaning over the center console and gently pulling the candy from between your lips. He reaches behind your chair to the backseat and grabs the plastic bag from the gas station, tossing the candy inside and then tossing that bag in the backseat before he all but launches himself back at you, pulling you to him with a hand behind your neck and seizing your mouth in a bruising kiss that has you rising up to your knees, sitting back on your calves. 

A surprised noise leaves you before you moan into the kiss, loving the way his hand tangles itself in the hair at the nape of your neck, pulling your head back a little. It causes your mouth to open a little more, and Andrei takes full advantage, licking into your mouth rubbing his tongue against yours as his other hand snakes its way down your torso and into your soaked panties, Andrei passing your clit altogether and sinking two fingers into your soaked cunt, all the way down to the knuckle. 

“Oh!” You cry out, arching your body towards his, and a wicked grin crosses his features.

He’s the picture of arrogance, cocky as ever as he starts to work you open on his fingers, scissoring them this way and that but never curling to touch that sensitive part of you. The noises that his fingers make as he works are obscene, echoing around the car and mixing with the little whines you let out against his mouth.

Andrei breathes them in, his lips curling around your tongue as he sucks on it, the meat of his palm grinding against your clit and sending a fresh wave of arousal through your body, dripping onto his wrist. 

“Taste so good,” he says around your tongue, licking into your mouth. It’s so obscene, nasty as his spit and yours starts to trail down your chin, neck, onto your chest. He bends his head, licking it up before pushing it back into your mouth with his tongue, lips and tongue messy as he kisses you.

His fingers finally brush against that sensitive spot inside, distracted by your mouth, and you moan, grinding down on his hand only for him to grip your hair in his hand again, a warning that says “Behave” as he pulls you back just a little. 

“Naughty little zajka,” he says against your lips. “You say you hate my brand new car then rub your little pussy all over the seats when the engine purrs for you, hm?”

You shake your head in protest, mewling when Andrei drags your bottom lip between his teeth before he sucks on it, pressing messy wet kisses to the corner of your mouth, chin, lips, all over as you speak. “Never said I hated it, I - nghhh!” 

Your words die in your throat when Andrei starts to finger fuck you in earnest, the pads of his fingers rubbing against your g-spot each time as he fucks them in and out of you. 

“Show me then,” he taunts, “Show me how much you love it. Come all over the seat, zajka. Make a mess.” 

You shake your head - it’s too fast, the pressure’s just right and you’re aching for release but it’s too much too soon. Your orgasm is racing towards the finish line and you can barely catch your breath. You reach out to touch Andrei, hands landing on his forearms where you squeeze as his fingers bring you to the edge. 

“Can I come, malysh?” You plead, pushing the words out through stuttering breaths.

He nods, leaning forward to bury his face into the crook of your neck and suck a bruise there, his ministrations never stopping. His fingers practically beckon you to him, beckon your orgasm out of you in their insistent “come here” motion, and when Andrei drags his teeth against your skin, fingers pressing deep against your g-spot, your eyes squeeze shut, body seizing as stars burst behind your eyelids and your orgasm overtakes you, arousal dripping down Andrei’s fingers and through your soaked panties onto the seat below you.

You can distantly hear soft sobs as Andrei’s voice pulls you out of your daze, calling for you gently, and it takes you a long moment to realize that it’s you sobbing, tears of relief streaming down your face as Andrei’s fingers inside of you keep still while his other hand holds you steady. 

“So good for me, zajka,” he praises. “So beautiful. You did so good waiting for it, didn’t you? Waiting for me to make you feel better.” 

Your head feels heavy when you nod lightly, and Andrei waits till you come back down a little more before he carefully and slowly withdraws his fingers from you, careful to avoid your sensitive clit as he brings his hand out from where they’ve been in your now soaked cotton underwear.

You don’t see it when his eyes glance below you, at the wet spot on the chair, and he smirks, his broad chest somehow getting ten times bigger at the sight. 

You do see it when he sucks his fingers coated in your release between his lips, eyes fluttering open the moment he does so, watching with apt amazement as his eyes drift shut, lost in the taste of you. 

Carefully, you rise back to your knees, arranging yourself until you’re sitting normally again so you can slump against the seat. Your chest heaves as you breathe, trying to calm your racing pulse, ignoring the fact that despite how hard Andrei just made you come, your pussy still throbs between your legs when you hear Andrei’s fingers finally leave his mouth with a wet “pop!” 

It’s quiet, and for a moment you think he’s going to say something smart or cocky, tease you more, but instead, he leans over the console, hand reaching for the lever on your chair and pulling until your seat is pushed all the way back, leaving a large amount of room in the well under the dashboard in front of you. 

You could almost laugh, watching Andrei and his broad, tall body maneuver itself out of his chair and across the console until he’s on his knees in front of you, pulling your legs apart gently. His hands come up to your waist, pulling your soaked underwear off of you in one go, stuffing them into the pocket of his shorts before he’s reaching for your waist again, pulling you until you’re perched on the edge of the passenger seat.

He looks up at you with a fond smile, and you can only find the energy to peer down at him with a curious look, head still thick and dizzy with your recent orgasm.

“Gonna clean you up, baby.” Andrei answers your unspoken question, pressing his hands on the back of your thighs and pushing upwards.

He moves so fast that you can barely get out an “Andrei, baby, wait-” before he buries his face in your still wet pussy, tongue pushing into your entrance. 

Your back arches, mouth dropping open in a loud cry as your body unconsciously pushes your pussy further into his face, body wrought with overstimulation.

Between the time he spent between your legs this morning worshiping you with his mouth, and how he fucked you on his fingers just now, you’re more than overwhelmed, overstimulated, and spent, but you should have seen this coming. When Andrei gets like this, when he takes control, he’s prepared to wring orgasm after orgasm out of you until he gets too impatient and finally slides his cock into you to the hilt.

And lately, Andrei’s become very good at being very, very patient. 

He licks and sucks at you like a starving man, like he’s been stuck in the desert and you’re his first drink of water in days. His mouth is even more insistent than this morning, tongue alternating between lapping at you, circling around your clit, dipping inside of you, and his lips sucking you into his mouth, making you buck your hips into his face. Every time you do, he moans, the vibrations rumbling against your skin, and he ends up just yanking you impossibly closer to him, hands on your waist feeling like an anchor. 

You can feel your orgasm creeping up on you like a runaway train. It’s almost too much, too soon, but at the same time it’s never enough. 

Since you’ve been with Andrei, it’s almost never been enough. It’s why you both end up in this constant push and pull of control, patience, restraint, restricting yourselves to “just one” or “just one more,” putting limits on yourselves until the dam breaks and the two of you end up going at it for hours.

Afterall, you two became so addicted to one another from the very beginning. There had been ten whole days between the first…well, several times…and you two entering a relationship, thereafter which you spent two unbelievable days practically glued to his bed, his shower, and your favorite, his kitchen counter, which you spent at least thirty minutes cleaning once you’d come out of your horny stupor.

Whenever Andrei gets like this, near delirious with the need to please you before he can seek any kind of relief, it takes you right back to those two days spent in his bed, to the way he made you both physically and emotionally feel his desire for you.

Now, that desire is still there, but his love always overpowers it.

It’s what drives you straight over the edge when he dips his tongue inside of you then sucks on your clit, his name falling from your lips as your hands fall over his, fingers intertwining as you shake under his mouth.

When you’ve come back down, chest heaving as you try to get your breathing under control, Andrei licks at your pussy lazily, cleaning you up with his gentle and caring attention. 

You allow it for a few moments, until you realize there’s still a small fire in your belly, and you know Andrei’s probably as hard as a rock beneath his shorts.

So you squeeze his hands, offering a small smile when he looks at you. 

“I said you’d get a reward, didn’t I?” You say, and Andrei nods, tongue still gentle as he licks at you again. You gesture for him to come to you, so he does, rising up on his knees, resting the back of your knees on the crook of his elbows as he carefully bends you in half. He doesn’t waste another second before he brings his lips to yours, kissing you with all the desperation and desire he can convey.

You reach for his waistband, undoing his belt, the button, and the zipper before pulling the waistband of his briefs down. Andrei helps, not breaking away from your kiss as he shimmies his clothes down his thighs until his cock springs free, red and leaking against his abdomen. 

He bucks into your hand when you wrap it around his cock almost immediately, moaning into your mouth. His hands rest on either side of you gripping the cushion of your chair so tightly that his knuckles turn white at the force, every part of his body fighting to restrain itself from fucking his cock into your fist, especially when you make your grip that much tighter. 

“You wanna fuck me, baby?” You murmur, moaning in surprise when he licks into your mouth, body leaning into yours that much more.

“So badly,” he asserts, sucking on your tongue the second you lick into his mouth in return. He moans, all but drooling into your mouth. He’s so desperate, so lost in your kiss and earnest in his desires that it’s a little bit messy and a little bit uncoordinated, but Andrei doesn’t care and neither do you.

You pull your head back a little, and Andrei makes a small noise of protest. “You want to do it like this? Here?”  

He nods, trailing his lips to your chin, your jaw, and to your neck, his lips wet with your lingering arousal and spit. “Pozhaluysta,” he pleads, leaving open mouthed kisses at your nape.

You adjust your hips, lining him up with your entrance. His hips buck, restraint most likely breaking, and the head of his cock slips inside. 

The moan that echoes around the car belongs to both of you, and you can feel Andrei’s breath stutter against your neck. “S-Sorry, moya koroleva.”

You shake your head, hands coming up to cup his face, bringing him from his hiding spot in your neck to come face to face with you. Your eyes flutter shut, and you pull him closer to rest your foreheads together. “No need to be sorry, baby,” you murmur, squeezing around the head of his cock experimentally, smiling a little when you can hear him start to whine. 

“No games, Drei,” you promise, kissing him sweetly, sucking his bottom lip into your mouth, running your tongue over it gently before pressing little kisses to it. “Just you and me, okay?”

He hums against your mouth, chasing after your kisses even as he speaks. “No games?”

You shake your head gently, careful not to detach your lips from his. Andrei needs you too much to deal with the push and pull, and you’re still too needy to bother with it. You rub your thumbs against his cheekbones, murmuring against his lips when you say “I just want you.” 

The sigh of relief he lets out practically stutters past his lips, and you swallow it down, breath catching in your throat when he finally pushes in a little more. He groans low and deep in his chest, hands releasing the seat cushion and fitting themselves against your waist as he continues to push his thick, long cock inside until his pelvis is flush with your ass, the head of his cock close to kissing your cervix in this position.

You both physically relax when he bottoms out, and Andrei cups his hands over yours where they rest on his face. 

This is the kind of sex that Andrei loves having with you the most - the kind where you can both just lose yourselves in how good you both make each other feel, and how good it feels for you both to be able to please each other in a way that’s basically instinctual at this point. He loves being close to you, loves being attached to you in every way; buried inside you, lips attached to yours even if it’s just to kiss lazily, arms wrapped around you. 

A shiver runs through your body when you feel him throb inside you, and you tug at his bottom lip gently. “Please, Drei,” you plead on an exhale, only to inhale sharply a second later when Andrei pulls his hips back, only to drive them forward and bury himself deep inside once more.

He starts at a slow pace like that, withdrawing halfway to just push himself back in, jaw clenching when you squeeze around him each time he’s buried deep inside once more. He keeps his forehead pressed against yours, his hands resting over yours, keeps your knees tucked safely in the crook of his arms. When he buries himself deep, pressing almost tightly against your cervix, he exhales through his nose, shakily breathing in on his next inhale. 

A whine works its way out of your throat when he starts to pick up speed, still keeping the depth, still driving his cock in so deep that it hits that soft part inside of you that makes you see stars now each time he drives inside. It stokes the fire in your belly, pleasure rolling over you in waves.

When you squeeze down on him again he moans, low and deep, pushing a breath through his nose as he tries to keep focus, but he’s losing it so quickly. His hands finally fall from yours and grip onto your hips, setting a quicker pace, lighting you up from the inside out. 

The pressure and the drag is so good for both of you that moans and whines echo around his car, and your eyes roll back into your head, hands dropping from Andrei’s face to his forearms, fingers flexing uselessly, too weak and pleasure drunk to grip onto him tightly.

Meanwhile, Andrei feels like he’s going insane. It hasn’t been long since you’d both been intimate, and it hasn’t been long since you’d both been intimate like this, but it never mattered when it came to you. You lit something on fire inside of him, walked into his heart and his soul and turned on all the lights and settled in. It was almost laughable with how good you made him feel, about anything and everything, but especially this. 

He can feel a knot form at the base of his spine at the same time he starts to feel your pussy flutter and clench around him, the way your body wants to push him away and pull him deeper at the same time. Carefully, he tightens his grip on you and thrusts harder, a little faster, careful to keep you in place on his cock and not jostle you too much.

His car is definitely shaking with the force of his efforts, and the moans and whines falling from your lips start to get louder, dragging out as you both climb and race towards your orgasms. You tilt your chin up, eyes squeezed shut as your lips search for his. He captures them in a bruising kiss, groaning into your mouth as one of your hands reaches up weakly to cup his jaw. 

“I love you,” you manage to choke out, pressing the declaration to his bottom lip. “I love you so much.”

A low whine of relief echoes in his throat, and Andrei leans forward, burying his face in your neck, pressing your hips down as he fucks into you with reckless abandon. “Ya tebya lyublyu,” he grunts out against your neck, sealing his words with a kiss. “Ya lyublyu tebya bol'she vsego na svete.”

His confession takes you by surprise, and you gasp, spine arching as you come and pussy squeezing him so tightly that it’s almost painful for him as he fucks you through it, bullying his cock into you as he chases after his own orgasm. When he comes, he presses deep inside, leaning into you, and you wrap your arms around his neck, pulling him as close as you can, your fronts pressed together.

Your heavy breathing fills the car, the silence echoing against your ears and making your head throb a little bit, but you hold tight to Andrei, feeling his chest heave against yours as he tries to get his breathing under control. He drops your legs after a moment, and you stretch them delicately behind him before locking your ankles at the base of his spine. 

“I like your car,” you eventually say. 

The silence that follows is brief, Andrei cutting it when he laughs out loud, and you can feel his teeth press into your skin with how wide he smiles from where he’s still hiding in your neck. He noses along the length of it, nuzzling that ticklish spot under your ear, and then presses a kiss there, whispering a soft thank you. 

He’s still weakly pulsing inside of you, and you willingly wait him out, content to just sit here with an armful of your doting boyfriend who just fucked you silly in the front seat of his stupidly expensive luxury car that secretly (apparently) doubled as a vibrator.

“There’s baby wipes,” he says eventually. “In the glove compartment. We can throw the wipes in the bag from the gas station.” 

You raise a brow. “Did you come prepared for this?”

He shakes his head, slowly pulling himself back to look at you. His face is flushed, pupils blown wide a little, gaze still slightly hazy. “Not completely, but I brought them just in case.” 

Carefully, he twists his upper body a little so he can turn and open the glove compartment, taking a few of the wipes out and turning back to you with a happy grin. You smile, pressing a quick peck to his lips. “My smart guy.”

Andrei chases after your mouth, and you let him catch you, savoring the delicate kiss he gives you. He presses three more to your lips. “Gonna pull out now, baby. Gonna clean you up.” 

You nod, fully relaxing back against the seat and unlocking your ankles from behind him. He carefully withdraws himself, and is quick to begin cleaning you up with the wipes when his come starts to immediately fall out of you. 

You’re not surprised at how much there ended up being - he had been pent up since the morning, after all. 

You reach behind you to where the plastic bag with your lollipop fell to behind his seat, and you hold it open for him as he deposits the wipes before tying it off and putting it back behind his chair. He carefully massages your legs, offering you a wolfish smile. 

“Should we keep driving?” He asks, “Or should I maybe book us a room here? Since we’ve basically commandeered the roof of their parking lot.”

You smirk at him. “Fucking in a Lamborghini not enough for you?”

“It’s never enough when it’s you,” he says. Even though it comes out playfully, you can hear the seriousness in his voice.

You reach out, running a hand down his front. “Let’s go home, actually. The coast can wait another day.” When he looks at you, confused, since he didn’t mention that as an option, you smile mischievously at him. “I want to suck your cock while you drive and see how many times I can make you come by the time we get home.”

He blinks at you, stunned, before he’s fumbling, pulling his briefs and pants up before all but launching him out of the passenger side of the car and racing back to the driver’s seat.

You can do nothing but grab the hair tie on your wrist and pull your hair into a ponytail, a content feeling running through your veins. 

You could definitely get used to having this car around.

[lihhelsing]

Part 3

Eddie can barely react when Steve offers to pick him up at his house for their date night.

Eddie is a nervous wreck at this point as he's been with everything that's related to Steve (or related to not-Steve). 

Ever since he first matched with him, Eddie felt like he was living in a parallel world because there was no way in hell someone like him would ever swipe right on someone like Eddie. And yet. It really happened. 

Well, at first it didn't, but then Steve called and said all those nice things to Eddie and fuck if he wasn't easy when someone flattered him. 

But Eddie was also a paranoid shit, so he kept waiting for the other shoe to drop. For Steve to laugh at him and tell him it was just a prank. For him to ghost him - which maybe would be even worse. 

But Steve didn't and now he was waiting outside of his place in a fucking BMW? What the fuck was that? 

Steve looks good because he always does. They had been exchanging pictures of themselves as they talked and even when Steve was all sweaty and gross from a workout he still looked good. Eddie compensated with good angles and dork faces that Steve said time and time again were adorable. 

He insisted so much that he thought Eddie was cute that Eddie was almost believing him. He had also tried his hardest for their date, putting on some of his favorite clothes, a band t-shirt and ripped skinny jeans that made him look good. His hair was down because it felt like a good armor if he needed to hide from something. 

Steve doesn't even give him time to anything before he's smiling and saying 'you look so handsome,' and placing his hand on Eddie's thigh and fuck, he forgot how to breathe. 

"Thanks, you, uh, you look good, too," Eddie blabbers and Steve chuckles and it's adorable. He's adorable and Eddie is losing his shit. 

"Ready for our date?" Steve smiles and turns the car on, his hand heavy on Eddie's leg still. There's a part of Eddie that's sure he's the farthest thing from ready, but this is happening, no question. 

X

Somehow, Eddie tricks Steve into inviting him over after the movie is over. Steve said he wanted to take him to dinner, but he failed to mention dinner was actually eating popcorn and candy at a drive-in. 

Eddie had no notes. 

After the movie started, he managed to relax a bit. Steve seemed to feel it because he, too, relaxed and when they were done with their food, he offered his hand for Eddie to take. He felt giddy like a high-schooler and like Steve had, somehow, known Eddie never had the chance to do any of that in high school.

Despite his fancy car, Steve's apartment is more modest than Eddie expects it to be. He mentioned having a roommate who he's friends with, although he said he just met her over the internet and she hooked him up with the job. 

"So, is she like your best friend or something?" Eddie asks as Steve opens the car door for him as if he's a prince out of a fairy tale. 

"Oh, no. I mean, we're friends and we talk and I really like her company, but I don't think she likes me very much."

"Why not?"

Steve shrugs, but Eddie can tell it's a sore subject‌. Eddie gets it, though. For the little he knows Steve, he can already tell he cares a lot about people liking him or not. He also doesn't understand why someone wouldn't like Steve, but well, people are weird. 

"Is she out?" Eddie asks as they get in the elevator and Steve nods. 

"Yeah, she usually spends Friday nights at her girlfriend's place. That's why I normally get the Friday shift. I kind of hate being home alone and it's just a nice thing to do for her, I guess."

Eddie hums noncommittally. He's trying to piece Steve together, but it's hard because his looks and his posture sometimes say one thing and then he lets out this incredibly vulnerable information and it leaves Eddie confused. 

They walk in together and the place is small, but cute. There's an old couch and Steve tells him to sit down, saying he's getting them some drinks. Eddie doesn't want to drink, he wants to just grab Steve by the face and kiss him dumb. 

Steve doesn't take long and as he sits down, Eddie can't hold it anymore. He has no idea where all this bravado comes from, but he leans forward and pecks Steve on the mouth. Steve's eyes widen and Eddie is about to apologize when two hands cup his face and pull him forward. 

And then they are kissing. Really kissing. With tongue and little huffs that come out of Steve's mouth and Eddie feels like he's died. 

If he is, in fact, dead, then Eddie is going to make the best of it. He lets his hands move to Steve's waist and he pulls him in. He has no idea what he was trying to do, but Steve seems to be much more confident because he straddles Eddie's hips and then he's on top. 

"Fuck," Eddie says. He's completely out of breath and Steve feels so good like this. He grips his waist harder and Steve thinks it's a go-ahead for him to roll his hips down and Eddie sees stars. 

Steve kisses him like he's hungry for him, and it's a heady feeling. Eddie has kissed boys before, but no one that looked like Steve. No one that made his heart skip so many beats like he does. 

No one that seemed to want Eddie as much as Steve does right now. 

"Stevie," Eddie whispers. He's not even sure he managed to get the words out but Steve stops kissing his neck. His pupils are blown out and his mouth is red and swollen and Eddie did that. 

"Yeah?" Steve is out of breath, too. His chest rises and falls in quick intervals. 

"Can we slow down?" Eddie says when he catches his own breath. He's afraid of saying it because it makes him look pathetic, but he doesn't want to rush this. 

They've been talking for a month before they even went out, but Eddie still feels too raw and insecure and-

"Of course, baby," Steve interrupts Eddie's train of thought and he has a soft smile, but he doesn't move away. He's not repelled by Eddie. He leans in and kisses him softly on the mouth. 

The pet name wraps itself around Eddie's heart. He's desperate to believe all of this means more than just a casual hook up but he knows he can't. Not yet. 

"Oh, wait! I saved a video I wanted to show you," Steve says as if they weren't eating each other a few short seconds ago. Eddie chuckles. He likes it. He likes how Steve can just roll with whatever Eddie throws his way. 

"Yeah, let's see this video," Eddie smiles, takes a moment to just admire Steve, hair a complete mess thanks to him, face flushed a pretty shade of pink. He looks perfect and Eddie wants to keep him so bad. 

"Wait, can you call my phone? I don't know where I put it." 

Much to Eddie's disappointment, Steve gets out of his lap and pats his pockets, frowning. He starts moving around the house and Eddie fishes his phone, dialing Steve's number from his contact list. 

He watches as Steve disappears back inside the kitchen and listens as his phone starts to ring right beside him, on the couch. Eddie can't see it, so he pushes his hand at the edges and pulls out Steve's phone. 

They must've been making out pretty hard for the phone to go this deeper on the couch. Eddie chuckles and presses the red button at the same time Steve comes back into the living room. 

"Found it! I left it at the kitchen counter when I grabbed us water," Steve says, waving a phone he has in his hands. Eddie frowns at him and holds out the phone he found. 

"Me too."

It's Steve's turn to look confused. "What?"

Previous | Next

[redroomreflections]

Not Easily Broken Chapter 2

Natasha Romanoff x Fem!Reader

Summary: Natasha and Reader go through a tragic divorce

Masterlist | General Masterlist

2/10

Note: Yes, it's getting finished besties

W/c: 3.8k

You’re late. You’re really late. Not even just an ‘oh I got stuck in traffic I’ll be there late”. You’re the “I hope my daughter doesn’t hate me and harbor those feelings the rest of her life late.” As you bob and weave through traffic in your BMW SUV you curse to yourself. You feel stupid. Very stupid. There’s no way you can ever make up for this but you can certainly try to.

As you pull onto the street of what was once your home you squint just a little to see how many people are still there. You can see the cars lining the street start to dissipate as you pull into the driveway. Natasha is on the porch talking to one of the people you recognize from Emma’s dance class. She spots you, rolling her eyes and angling herself, so you’re not in her vision. Parking the car, you look over to the passenger’s seat where Emma’s gift is wrapped in yellow paper (her favorite color) and a bright pink bow. You turn the car off with a sigh. You really did it this time. You unbuckle your seatbelt and reach over to grab the present and exit. You walk slowly up the pathway marveling at all of the decorations that Natasha has put up for Emma’s fifth birthday.

Five. Your baby girl is five and you’ve missed her birthday party. One Natasha had gracefully invited you to. Briefly, your mind flashes back to the mornings where you and Natasha would wake the little girl up with breakfast in bed. Mini pancakes, strawberries, her favorite juice. You would go the whole nine yards for her. Now you’ve done everything but that. You reach the edge of the steps with a small wave to Natasha’s guests.

“Kerry, Doug, nice to see you again.” You give them a tight smile hoping to appear calm even though don’t feel that way.

“I’ll call you,” Natasha says bidding them goodbye. She doesn’t speak until they’re down the path and in their car. She trails her eyes over to you still in your work clothes with an apologetic look on your face. “Unbelievable.” She scoffs turning to go inside the house. You follow after her with an apology at the tip of your tongue. She starts collecting the trash she sees around the living room.

“I’m sorry, I got sidetracked at work,” You begin.

“You don’t have to apologize to me.” She shrugs. Pushing her hair behind her ear she glances at you. “I’m not the one turning five and I’m not your wife.” Something about the last part of that statement strikes you right in the heart. The divorce has been finalized for eight months now. Eight months and you’ve barely seen each other. Only during pickups and drop-offs. Even then you barely speak. Hearing her voice is...nice. Even if she is angry with you.

“I know but I’m really making an ass of myself,” You shake your head. “Where is she?”

“Backyard,” She answers.

“She must hate me,” You mutter more to yourself.

“She doesn’t hate you,” Natasha walks to the kitchen and again you follow. “She’s just really confused on why her Mommy said she would be here and wasn’t.” She gives another wave to one of the last guests and they trickle out of the house.

“Yeah,” You say following closely behind her. She stuffs the trash into the bin carefully.

As she stands to her full height you take a second to look at her. She’s gorgeous. Her hair flows behind her back longer than she’s ever let herself allow it to. Her eyes are just as expressive and beautiful. God, you’ve missed her.

You open your mouth to speak but you’re interrupted when a familiar figure steps into view. Richard Matthews. An agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. and Natasha’s new partner. He accompanies the Avengers on missions every now and again. You’re not exactly sure why but he’s always paired up with Natasha on missions and it never really bothered you until now.

“Everything’s all set with the kiddos,” Richard says to her. He completely ignores you and you can’t really tell if that’s intentional. The way he steps into Natasha’s space makes you think they’re closer than she’s letting on. “Emma’s having a blast with the new American doll I got. Says she’s gonna sleep with it tonight.” He smiles down at Natasha. “Will you be okay here? Ryan helped me with a lot of the backyard so there’s not much else to clean.”

“Yeah, I got it.” Natasha nods glancing over at you. She can see how uncomfortable Richard makes you feel. “Thank you, Richard.” She raises her hand to rest lightly on his bicep. You narrow your eyes. Clearing your throat they both look towards you.

“Oh, y/n, I didn’t see you there.” Richard feigns innocence.

“I’m sure you didn’t, Dick.” You say with every ounce of disdain. You can see Natasha’s lips quirk in amusement but she quickly hides it.

“Well, I’m gonna go.” He says before giving her a kiss on the cheek. He lingers before walking past you towards the front door. You two don’t break eye contact until he’s gone.

“That guy is a real tool,” You roll your eyes.

“He’s nice and he’s a part of the team.” Natasha shrugs. She steps over to the sink to do the dishes giving you the idea that this entire conversation is over. You want to ask her if she’s seeing him. If he’s more than just her partner. You’re not entitled to any of those answers and Natasha won’t be afraid to tell you.

“I’m just gonna go,” You wave the gift in your hand heading towards the back door. Once you’re out there you finally exhale. From the porch, you can see the giant pink bounce castle that both of your children are currently playing in. You go down the steps content to watch them for a moment. It’s Ryan who spots you first. Before all of this, he would have scrambled out of the bounce house to meet you halfway. Instead, he just stands there.

“Mommy!” Emma breaks you from your trance flopping onto her bottom. She slides out of the bounce house to run into your arms. You catch her twirling around in your arms. “You came!”

“I did, baby girl.” You kiss both of her cheeks.

“You missed my party though,” She reminds you.

“I know, Mommy’s so sorry,”

“It’s okay,” Emma forgives you. She wraps her arms tightly around your neck again.

“I got you something,” You jiggle the box in your hand. She leans back to inspect it her eyes widening. “Let’s go ahead and open it.” You let her down to stand on her own two feet. She takes your hand dragging you over to the picnic table on the other side of the yard. She’s small so it takes her a minute to sit correctly but when she does she beams up at you. Her socked feet swing underneath the table as she waits for you to hand her the present. You place it in front of her and take your spot next to her. She doesn’t hesitate to rip into the paper tossing the bow somewhere in the grass behind her. You can hear the sound of someone sliding out of the bounce house and you look over to see Ryan stepping closer.

“Hey bud,” You greet.

“Hi,” He says softly. You raise an arm beckoning him over to come to give you a hug. He presses himself against you as you hold him close. “I missed you.” He mumbles into your neck. Through this entire divorce, your relationship with him has been strained. Everything has been strained.

“I missed you too.” You whisper back. You give him a soothing kiss on his head. He doesn’t let you go as you both watch Emma to see her reaction.

“Wow!” She says pulling the last pieces of paper from the gift. She turns the box over and over in her hands. “I got a watch!” It’s not some fancy watch. You’re not that out of touch with reality. It’s an Apple watch. The most she can do on the thing is take pictures, use the phone features, and use a calculator. She loves it all the same as she hugs the box to her. After hearing what Richard got her you were apprehensive about it being enough. Sitting here watching her cherish this gift you know you picked correctly. “Can I call you on it?” You nod. “Every night?” You nod again. “Cool!” She cheers.

There’s a squeak coming from the back door and you know Natasha has come to the back porch.

“Can I go show Mama?” She asks you.

“Go, show her.” She turns from the picnic table rushing over to Natasha to show off her cool new present. Natasha looks down at the box and then back to you with a raise of her brow. She doesn’t share in Emma’s excitement but she tells the girl how cool it is.

“How are you doing?” You turn your focus to Ryan. He shrugs. “You sure?” He nods silently.

“Ryan, come on, it’s almost bedtime,” Natasha says. “I want to check your backpack before the night is over.” She ushers Emma inside.

“Guess we better go and check those backpacks.” You say rising to your feet. Ryan clasps your hand in his and you both move to walk inside of the house. It’s there Natasha is setting up Emma’s watch. “Patience, Printsessa.” Natasha scolds lightly. She presses a few buttons on the screen.

“Can Mommy stay for bath time?” Emma asks innocently. Your eyes fly to Natasha’s. You haven’t done that in a while.

“Please?” Ryan joins in. Natasha’s resolve is broken as she gives a meek “yes.” The children cheer in unison.

Guess you’re staying for bedtime.

This takes almost two hours to get both children through their nightly routine. Emma is more reluctant to fall asleep as she doesn’t want to miss you leaving. You tuck her into bed with a kiss and a promise to see her again soon. She pulls the American girl doll under the covers with her. You wait for her to fall asleep before leaving her room. Ryan is next and he’s much easier. He climbs into bed all on his own with his back turned to you. He’s conflicted and you being here is not making it easy on him. You sit on the bed beside him. You press a kiss to the back of his head.

“I love you,” You say before reaching over to turn off his lamp. You exit his room leaving his door cracked. You amble down the hallway to the stairs. You find Natasha in the front room gathering all of Emma’s new presents that she would put into their proper place later.

“Thanks for letting me stay to tell them goodnight,” You say awkwardly.

“Don’t mention it,” She dismisses tossing the last of the toys into a pile. The house is pretty much clean now save for the leftovers she has to put away. She’s not kicking you out as you follow her down the same path into the kitchen.

“Natasha,” You begin. stopping yourself when you realize you don’t really have anything to say. “Thank you for inviting me. I know you didn’t have to do that. I feel like a jerk. Especially with how things have been going.”

“How have things been going?” Natasha busies herself with pushing the leftovers into whatever Tupperware they can fit into. She curses turning to look for a lid for this particular bowl. “Where is it?” She searches.

“Bottom right cabinet,” You inform her. She pauses before moving over to search the cabinet you gave her. She finds what she is looking for and turns back to the food.

“Things have been going good.” You continue your earlier conversation. “Work is work. My mom is doing well. She sends her love. I can’t complain.” You watch her stuff the fridge full.

“Well I’m glad things are going well for one of us,” She slams the door of the fridge a bit harder than intended. “Not all of us are able to abandon our motherly duties.”

“Natasha, I’m trying my best here.” You say immediately knowing what she means.

“That’s what pisses me off the most,” She says exasperatedly. “They’re so good with you just trying. They don’t care how many times you mess up. They don’t care if you don’t do something. They don’t care if you’re having a bad day and you’re doing everything to make them happy. They don’t care if you don’t show up for their goddamn birthdays but it’s me that get’s the brunt of the madness and the anger.” She slams her hands against the counter. Running her hand through her hair, she shakes her head. “Do you know Ryan got into a fight at school the other day? He’s been...angry these days. I’m considering seeing a therapist with them.” She nods to herself. “Emma’s been giving me hell too. I wouldn’t allow her to watch tv one night because I dislike them having so much free time. She threw a tantrum.” She swallows thickly. “She told me, she told me she hates me and that she wishes she could come live with you.” The unshed tears in her eyes break your heart into a thousand pieces. “So, yes trying your best doesn’t really fly with me.”

“Natasha, I’m,” There’s no amount of apologizing that could take that hurt from her. “I’ll talk to them. I’ll take them out for dinner and we can talk.”

Natasha sighs. She knows this isn’t something that can be fixed with a simple talk. She lets her tears fall freely. You hate that this is what you’ve done to your family. Stepping around the counter you reach out to her. It’s reminiscent of that night all those months ago when you left. All you want to do is make it better. Make her feel better. Your emotions are conflicting as you bring your fingers up to caress her cheek. She stands stock-still closing her eyes at your touch. You rub your thumbs across her cheeks clearing away the tear tracks.

“I’m sorry,” You say and she lets out a sob.

“You’re not sorry,” She shakes her head.

“No, Natasha, I’m sorry,” You say firmly. You’re hoping she can hear the sincerity in your voice. She opens her eyes searching your face for a lie. You get lost in the forest of her eyes. So trusting and loving even with all of the pain you’ve brought your family.

You don’t know who makes the move first. Your lips meet tentatively. There’s a hint of familiarity that comes from nine years of marriage. The kiss is soft and sweet. Her lips glide over yours in a slow, languid motion. It’s not lacking in passion. Quite the opposite actually. Her mouth is hot and wet and hungry for you as your tongues meet. Taking in her flavor, you moan. She tastes like leftover cake with a hint of toothpaste. You pull back slightly to suck her bottom lip into your mouth. You nip it gently and the moan it elicits from Natasha only spurs you on. Her arms come up to wrap around your neck pulling you closer as you push her gently towards the counter. Her back is pressed against it as you kiss her harder. You spend a few more moments wrapped up in each other. Your hands roam her body tracing over every curve.

The need for air becomes too great as you pull away to trail kisses down her neck. You lick at her pulse point before giving it a soft bite. She moans a bit louder tensing under you. You’re moving fast and hurried as you push her tank top over her breast. You move the cup of her bra to expose her nipple taking the rosy bud between your lips. You give it a hard suck and she gasps loudly. Her hands push your head closer to her as you swipe your tongue across her nipple. Your right-hand slides down to trace the front of her jeans.

“Please,” She says in her lust-filled haze. You flick the button of her pants open skirting your fingers under the waistband of her underwear. She’s wet. So wet. You slide your fingers through her folds collecting her wetness. On one particular slide, you bump her clit causing her hips to jump. You trace her opening and she’s panting now. When your fingers slip inside of her she lets out a yelp. You push until you’re at the second knuckle. You can hear the sound of her arousal and it is music to your ears. Natasha has always been loud during sex and this is no exception. You abandon her breasts to return your lips to hers.

“Shh, baby, you don’t want to wake them,” You whisper into her ear. She nods shakily as she tries to fuck herself on your fingers. You thrust harder sending her reeling as she reaches blindly behind her for the counter. “Good girl,” She flutters around your fingers, and god damn you want to stay like this forever.

“Harder,” Her breath is airy and hurried. She’s close. You listen thrusting into her harder, faster, deeper. Her brows are knit together as she chases her orgasm. You can feel the way she tightens around your fingers.

“He doesn’t fuck you like this does he?” You breathe close to her ear. “Doesn’t take care of you like I do,” The moment is over faster than you know it. Suddenly Natasha is pulling away and pushing you away from her. It’s like a bucket of ice-cold water has been dumped on you as she takes a huge step away. She’s buttoning her jeans and wiping at her mouth as you try to catch your breath. “What? What happened?”

“You can’t be serious?” She says. “You think I’m fucking him?”

“Natasha,” You drop your hands to your sides. She pushes her shirt down over her breast and you immediately miss your closeness.

“No, no, you cannot be serious.” Natasha turns to catch her breath. “You don’t have the right,”

“Fuck, I didn’t mean to assume. He was close to you, kissed you.”

“On the cheek,” She whips her head to look at you. “He comes over sometimes to help with the kids. They like him. That’s not any of your business if I was fucking him or not by the way. You lost that when you served me with the divorce papers.”

A wave of anger washes over you. Swiping your hand across the counter you cause all of the glasses she dried earlier to crash to the ground.

“Fuck,” You yell. The glass resting at your feet satisfies you. It’s a representation of how you’re feeling right now. Natasha jumps back avoiding the glass from touching her. She looks down at the mess in surprise before looking back at you. You both wait in anticipation for one of the kids to come down. They don’t.

You rush out of the back door to sit on the steps. You bend so your head is between your knees. The blood rushes there and you cough hoping to catch your breath. The backdoor creaks. A comforting hand is placed upon your back as Natasha comes to sit next to you.

“Breathe, y/n.” She hums. You’re having a panic attack. She sits with you so patiently as your breathing becomes normal again.

“I’m not good for them,” You say. “I’m just like him.” You whisper brokenly.

“No, y/n, you’re not.” Natasha lifts your chin to look at her. “You’re not.”

“But you said-”

“I know what I said,” Natasha interrupts. “You’re nothing like him. I only wanted to hurt you as much as you hurt me.” The admission sits between the two of you.

“Fuck,”

She returns her hand to her lap.

“I can’t…” You struggle. “It wasn’t making sense. Any of it. It doesn’t make sense. One minute we were happy and the next we weren’t. We became too much. I couldn’t make you happy anymore. Emma told me during her bath that she hears you crying at night when you think she’s asleep. I never meant to do any of this. I never meant it, Tasha.” You cry. You mean it. You ran. You did what you do best and ran.

“I know,” She says solemnly. “You never asked me if I was happy.” You lift your head to look at her questioningly. “You said you couldn’t make me happy anymore but you never asked me. You never ask you just assume. I’ve always been happy with you. Back during our days in the tower, when we got married, when we were pregnant with Ryan.” She names. “Even when we weren’t having sex and not communicating and fighting all of the time. I never once thought that we would end.” You’re surprised by that. All this time you thought you were doing the right thing for everyone and now you don’t know if it was the right thing at all. “Couples have rough patches. Tony and Pepper did. Thor and Jane. Clint and Laura. They got through it. I thought we could too. When you handed me those papers -- my entire world stopped, y/n. I thought there was something wrong with me. I thought maybe you found someone else. I thought so many things. But that I didn’t see coming.”

“I’m sorry,” It’s your turn to cry now. “I didn’t want this.” You shake your head. “I fucked up.” You say.

“Is this because you think I’m sleeping with someone else?”

“Partly,” You admit. “I have had some time to think and I just… I thought I was doing what’s best for us. You’re right I didn’t ask you. I assumed. I pulled away. I’m so sorry, Natasha. I never stopped loving you or wanting you. Even though all of that.” Natasha’s breath hitches through your admission.

“Then why?” She asks. “Why did you leave me?”

You don’t have a single answer. “I thought you were better off without me.”

“How could you ever think that?” She asks. You don’t have an answer for her.

“I have to leave in the morning,” You say. The moment is broken and though Natasha thought you were getting somewhere it’s clear you haven’t. She moves to stand and you catch her wrist. “Come with me. It’s a week in Florida. Come with me. You and the kids.”

“Y/n, we can’t just leave in the morning.” She says. “The kids have school and I have work.” You deflate. Of course not. You shouldn’t have asked. “But we could meet you there Friday night? Gives us time to pack and get everything in order with their teachers.” She’s giving you a chance. You stand to look at her. “The moment we come back we’re in therapy. All of us.”

“Yes, yes, of course.” You promise.

“Don’t break my heart again,” She begs quietly. “I don’t think I’ll survive this time.”

“I won’t.” You pull her into your arms. Standing here with her you wonder how you ever thought you could be without her.

---> next part

[sunflowerwinds]

all in a day’s work [h.c]

summary: being spider-woman is going pretty well for hazel. that is until you notice these cuts and bruises appearing on her skin. she’s just a little clumsy, though, right?

pairing: hazel callahan x fem!reader

contains: mature language and content, shower sex (very little detail), spider!hazel, mentions of hazel’s transformation since becoming spider-woman, slight violence, cannabis mention, mentions of the avengers events, josie is hazel’s guy in the chair.

word count: 4.4K

a/n: it’s here. i’m beyond excited for you guys to read this short series. it’s going to be a four parter, uploading each part every week for the month of october. thank you and enjoy <3

one | two | three | four

Hazel hated criminals.

The ones who stole purses from innocent old ladies who were just trying to buy groceries. The ones who harass and assault women for rejecting them. Or in this special Brooklyn norm, a guy who had hotwired a BMW who was now involved in a high speed chase with four cop cars and a special hero following him.

Normally, she would be more than pleased to arrive at the scene. On any other day, she wouldn’t have promised to meet her girlfriend — sweet and patient you — at the bodega that your uncle owned. But some dumbass just had to hotwire a car when she had to meet you in an hour.

Hazel swung in between buildings, following the sirens of the police cars and the map inside of her mask, her eyes darting from car to car to find the one that was described. A dark purple BMW speeding down Tillary Street, turning down Gold Street. Once she had spotted the vehicle, she launched herself faster in the vicinity before landing on a U-Haul truck that was a few cars behind the BMW.

This guy was swerving and weaving through cars like a maniac as Brooklyn’s finest were hot on his trail. Hazel shook her hands out as a nerve-releaser, her gloved hands stretching in and out. She then sprinted across the top of the truck before launching a web at a tall building to maneuver her way onto the back of the BMW.

The breeze felt nice, though, after swinging around for so long. Her hands were gripping onto the sides of the vehicle to keep her balance.

“Excuse me, sir!” She tapped on the back window, waving a hand to get his attention.

The man’s eyes flickered to his rear-view mirror, eyes visibly widening at the sight of Spider-Woman hanging from the back of the stolen car. His response was to step on the gas. Hazel groaned as her lower stomach thumped onto the trunk, but quickly regained her posture as she hoisted herself onto her feet.

“Incoming text from honey with the white heart emoji and bee emoji,” Karen told Hazel, her Siri-like voice echoing in her ears. “Are we still on for sandwiches, babe? Semi-colon. Parenthesis.”

Hazel smiled at the message from you as she crawled to the top of the vehicle, mentally pumping her fist at the sight of the sunroof. The man had left it wide open. So he was an idiot in many ways. Hazel slipped in quickly, her bottom landing in the backseat. She’d tell Karen to reply as soon as she finishes with this nuisance.

“C’mon, dude, high-speed chase? What? Was stealing an old lady’s purse too cliche?” Hazel quipped with a cheeky attitude.

The man didn’t say a word but instead attempted to throw a punch in the backseat, letting out grunts of annoyance. Hazel blocked every swing with a sigh, wondering why the hell he was even trying.

“You know, you’d punch way better if you weren’t driving, sir.”

As the man continued to speed between cars, Hazel stares up ahead to see an empty alleyway in an upcoming street. She needed to get him off of the street so that innocent people wouldn’t be in the way of danger.

Hazel shoots a web at the man's eyes. He grunts at the sticky feeling and temporary blindness, releasing the wheel entirely. Hazel reaches over from the backseat, hands gripping onto the wheel to turn sharply into the deserted alley. She mutters a string of curses as the side of the car scrapes against the brick building.

She’ll tell Mr. Stark about billing that to the owner later.

Cars honked and came to a sudden halt at her illegal moves but the car was now in the alley, away from the public. She releases the wheel to quickly crawl out of the open sun-roof. Mid-way out, she feels the glass begin to close on her torso.

Hazel groans out at the squeezing pressure and looks down into the car to see that the man had hit the sunroof button on the roof of the interior. One of his hands gripped onto her spandex covered calf, trying to tug her back down.

“I have a girlfriend, dude. Let go,” Hazel grunted, wriggling in his grasp.

Hazel threw her foot back into his chest and jaw before jumping up and out of the car. She landed on a metal fire escape balcony. From that distance, she shot multiple webs at the end of the alleyway, creating a makeshift trap for the car to run into. Her wrists were beginning to ache but she kept her movements flowing, releasing the web as he was reaching the end. The car hit the large web with a loud thump but had stopped, which is what Hazel was aiming for.

The thief had stepped out of the car and began to book it.

“Karen, send a text back to honey reading,” Hazel stood on the fire escape and walked on the side of the building as she aimed a web at the man. The substance wrapped around his legs causing him to trip and hit the ground. “Of course. See you soon. With two x’s and o’s.”

“I am sending the text to honey.” Karen alerted Hazel to her mask.

Hazel swung over to land right next to the criminal's head, tilting her body to the side to grin at his scraped up face. She knew he couldn’t see her shit-eating grin but it brought her some sort of badass feeling. Like an ‘I-just-did-that-shit’ feeling.

“The cops will take care of you so if you’ll excuse me,” she shot her web around his wrist to keep him down and held them behind his back. “I have to see my girl.”

The man grunted loudly to which Hazel responded with a: “Bye, Mr. Criminal!” as she launches herself out of the alley and around the corner of the building.

You were browsing the shelf of snacks and candies in your uncle’s bodega. You had just gotten off your shift at the Build-A-Bear in the mall and you were absolutely starving. The array of chips and gummies made your stomach grumble, sighing as you were waiting patiently for Hazel to arrive.

Her Stark internship had consumed a lot of her time lately. Of course, you were incredibly happy and proud of her to be working under Tony Stark: a billionaire industrialist, inventor, and the Iron-Man.

You didn’t mean to seem clingy, but you missed her when she was gone.

“Bee, here you go.” You hear a voice coming from behind the counter.

There stood your uncle with your turkey club sandwich wrapped — no tomatoes. You let out a groan of relief as you walked up to the counter to take it from him. You reach into your tote to grab a five dollar bill.

“Bee, you’re not paying.” He began to walk around to avoid you giving him cash.

“Uncle Karter, take it now. I’ll hop over this counter and shove into the register,” your threat was playful, but you meant every word.

“You’re hungry so I’m giving you food. It’s just like having lunch at home.” Your uncle insisted as he pointed at you, resting his arms on the glass display of the different kinds of sandwiches and deli meat he had to offer.

You sigh, giving him a wary look. Yes, he was your uncle, but you felt guilty just being handed sandwiches that you could easily pay for. You have a job. Your uncle wouldn’t let you pay, though, so you reluctantly slip the dollar bill into your bag.

“Thank you,” you give him a small smile before taking a bite of the fresh sandwich.

“It’s nothing, kiddo.” The man shakes his head as his eyes flicker behind him at the front door. The bell rings and he jerks his head to whoever was walking in. “Your little girlfriend is here.”

You whip your head around mid-bite to see Hazel panting as if she had run here with a wide, charming smile. Her hands were holding something behind her back as she approached you happily with her brown broken-in leather backpack over one shoulder, her keys that were clasped onto a loop of her jeans jangling loudly.

“Hey,” she breathes out, her gaze flickering between both of your eyes. Hazel raises her hand to wave at your uncle. “Hi, sir.”

“Hazel, I told you to call me Karter. None of that ‘sir’ shit, dude. I’m 36, not 50.” Your uncle replied teasingly, causing you to chuckle. Hazel nodded, muttering a ‘right’. Her eyes locked with yours as your uncle began to attend to the other customers.

“How was it today?” You tilt your head as you take another bite of your sandwich.

Hazel shrugged her shoulders, scoffing out. “Boring science shit but it was good. New scientist named Dr. Connors that Mr. Stark introduced me to.”

You deadpan at her, nodding your head. Sure, the subject wasn’t your favorite but you always wanted to hear about Hazel’s day. You brushed off the short response as you swallow that bite of your sandwich.

“Okay, well, that’s good. What are you hiding?” You try to peer over her shoulder but she only leans to the same side as you.

“Grabbed something for you on the way here.” Hazel beams as she pulls out the present from behind her back.

It was a small bouquet of an array of flowers for this time of the year. It was fall in New York, so the array of white roses and yellow sunflowers brightened up your mood. Forest Hills blossomed during the chilly season; a beautiful orange hue washed over the neighborhood in Queens as the decaying leaves fell from the tree branches.

Your eyes softened at the simple yet sweet gesture. Hazel grinned awkwardly, hoping you loved them.

Ever since you two had started dating half a year ago, Hazel has always felt like she had to be the best girlfriend she could. You were her first girlfriend and she was absolutely crazy about you, as you were about her.

Other people haven’t been the kindest to you and she knew that. Lying and cheating were a main factor as you’ve told her.

The guilt ached in her chest everyday having to lie to you about being Spider-Woman. You were her entire world. Tony insisted it was for the best if she didn’t want anything to happen to you.

“You are too sweet, I swear. Thank you, baby,” you lean in close to kiss her lips quickly and take the bouquet in your free hand.

Hazel flushed so easily, making your smile widen. It was a good feeling to see after so many months that she still got flustered when you kissed her.

“It’s nothing. You deserve it.” Hazel replied as if it was something you should know.

You don’t respond to that, only blushing like Hazel was moments ago. You sniff the soft flowery scent for a moment before taking another bite of your sandwich.

“You wanna head to mine?” You offer with a flirty smile.

“Uh, yeah, sure.” Hazel nodded, eyes warily darting to your uncle who was occupied with his line of customers that appeared out of the blue.

“He’ll be here for hours. C’mon,” you loop your arm around hers. “Bye, Uncle Karter. See you later.”

Your uncle simply waves his hand mid-conversation with the middle aged woman in front of him. Hazel leaned into your touch for a second before letting herself get dragged out of the bodega by you.

A fresh autumn breeze brushed against her, hitting her pale skin. You leaned your head on her shoulder as you talked about all the adorable children that had come into the Build-A-Bear.

Hazel loved these small moments with you. Well, she loved every moment but little things like this clouded her brain when she wasn’t focused on keeping her identity a secret. Watching your eyes light up when you spoke about how happy these children looked when you handed them their bear made her heart grow tenfold.

When the two of you had arrived at you and your uncle's apartment, you reached into your bag to grab the house keys.

“You hungry?” You ask as your sliding the key into the slot.

Hazel shook her head, placing a hand over her stomach. “I’m okay. Thank you, though, honey.”

You place a gentle kiss at her cheek as if to tell her that you asked her questions like that to show that you cared. You frowned, though, as you noticed a bruise and cut on her top lip that you hadn’t really seen before.

Hazel noticed you paused and furrowed her brows.

“What is it?” She whipped her head around to see if there were any potential threats. She was tempted to check her watch that Tony had given her to get Karen to scan the area.

“Babe, did you hit your lip?” You raised a hand to graze over the reddening area.

Hazel’s eyes widened once she realized what you were talking about. Earlier this morning, Hazel had a guy hit the butt of his gun at her face when she had dealt with a smoke shop robbery. She actually got free weed from the guy working the register which she plans to give to PJ.

“Oh, yeah. May was opening a cabinet up top and it hit me straight in the lip. I kind of forgot about it.” Hazel easily lied through her teeth, letting you caress the outline of her lips.

“It doesn’t hurt, right?” You ask her softly, eyes flickering up to her freckled under eyes.

Hazel shook her head with a hum, her smile growing as she admired your worried features. You looked away with a flushed grin as you pushed open the front door. The faint aroma of pumpkin and cinnamon filled Hazel’s nose, warmth filling her chest.

It wasn’t the largest apartment but it was home to you. You and uncle didn’t need much more than this.

“How is May?” You asked as you hung your keys on one of the Smurfs wall mounted key hooks that you had found at a thrift store.

“She’s good. Working at the hospital right now so she’s hoping that‘ll pay well.” Hazel explains as she traces the knick knacks on the shelf’s in the living room.

You can’t help but smile at the thought of Hazel’s Aunt May. She really was one of the kindest women you’ve ever met. May had a tendency to call you her ‘future daughter in law’ in front of Hazel just to tease the girl, watching her cheeks and tips of her ears flush a deep red.

“That’s good. I don’t want her overworking herself, though.” You sigh as you set your bag down next to the arm of the couch.

“Yeah, me neither.” Hazel sighed. “So, what did you wanna do?”

You hum in thought, bringing your single braid from behind your head to over your shoulder. You began to untangle the twisted hair as you thought about what activities you and Hazel could do now that she was free.

A certain idea came to mind.

“Well, I do need to shower so,” you say nonchalantly, hoping Hazel would get the hint.

“Oh, okay. Yeah, I can wait out here. Take your time, honey.” Hazel nodded and went over to take a seat on the couch.

You stared at her grabbing the remote for the TV, turning it on and flicking through the channels. You release your hair to allow it to sit on your shoulders, waiting patiently for Hazel to realize.

“Oh, do you wanna watch Foot Loose when you get out of the shower?” Hazel’s gaze floated back to you.

Her excitement to watch the movie dropped when she noticed you tilting your head and looking at her like that. You had only given her that look when you were insinuating something sensual. Your body was swaying back and forth as your smile grew when she set down the remote.

“Sorry. I didn’t— I thought you meant by yourself.” Hazel rushed out as she turned off the TV, chuckling nervously.

“At first, yeah. But, hey, we’re conserving water if we shower together and you know I’m all about keeping the Earth green.”

Hazel couldn’t help but nod, standing up to walk up to you. “That— yeah. That’s true. Conserving water conserves energy that reduces greenhouse gas pollution.”

Her brain shouldn’t have turned you on as much as it did.

“Yeah? What else does it do?” Your fingers hook onto her belt loops, tugging her closer into your body.

Hazel allowed you to manhandle her as she would truthfully let you do anything to her. She knew how much her ability to retain and cite facts turned you on. It was obvious by how you were drinking her in like you could devour her.

“It can… oh, protect aquatic life and extend water supply to areas that lack and ensure agricultural production to thrive.” Hazel rambled out, her flush growing as your thumbs brushed past her hip bone.

“Oh, those poor sea creatures.” You frown, smacking your lips.

“Don’t you need to shower?” Hazel asked, suddenly overwhelmed with impatience.

Your smile only grew, a giggle falling from your lips. You intertwine your hands with Hazel’s as you hurriedly walk over to your small bathroom. Hazel made sure to remove her watch and set it down on the porcelain sink, not wanting any sort of message from Tony to interrupt her time with you.

You turn to shut the door and turn the lock with a ‘click’. Hazel is caught off guard by you removing your work shirt, blushing at the sight of you in your bra. She felt like such a virgin. She’s seen you naked at this point and still was a flustered mess around you.

“Can’t take a shower with clothes, Haze.” You raised your brows as you were unbuttoning your pants.

“Maybe I can. I can do laundry that way.” Hazel quipped back with a chuckle.

Nonetheless, she began to slip off her sweater. You walk over to her, hooking your fingers underneath the thick fabric to help her. Her sports bra came into view as you tugged the sweater up and off, tossing it onto the blue and white tiled ground.

You both messily kissed, clanking teeth from how rushed your movements were. Soft laughter released from you as you removed the rest of your clothing and underwear, Hazel following by copying your actions.

Hazel hoisted you up with ease by your plush thighs, causing you to let out a yelp at the sudden movement. You lazily kissed her jaw as you held onto her neck, listening to her soft hums as she stepped into the shower. You never understood how all of a sudden, Hazel had this strength and toned body. You’d never seen her hit the gym once since you’ve been together.

Not that you were complaining. Just confused.

“Alright, let me down,” you hum against her skin, “I really do have to shower.”

“I’ll, uh, help.” Hazel offered as she released her grasp from your thighs, carefully watching you step onto the tiled ground.

You simply give her a soft kiss, whispering a ‘thank you’ onto her lips. Hazel hums back before grabbing the hydrating shampoo from the shelf. You turned on the shower, letting out a soft ‘fuck’ at the cold water. You hurriedly turn the knob to the red ‘H’ symbol, leaning back into Hazel’s body.

Once the stream of water began to heat up, Hazel squirted out the correct amount of shampoo into her palms. She massaged the product to your scalp as you tilt your head back with a sigh. Her fingers work into your scalp, sending you into a domestic bliss.

“That feels so good.” You practically moan as Hazel continues with the shampooing.

Hazel chuckles with a blush, leaning down to press a gentle kiss onto your naked shoulder. Your mind practically turns to mush but you force yourself to continue the rest of your routine.

You and Hazel bathed each other after a few heated kisses. That’s all. (You had gone down on her and she fingered you until you came twice.) She had told you how much you resembled a beautiful Renaissance painting with every curve and dip of your body. The words squeezed at your heart, feeling yourself fall more and more in love with her — if that was even possible.

Now freshly bathed and spent from the day, you and Hazel settle down, remaining in just underwear with an oversized tee. The sun had been long gone — the only light source being the city lights from outside of your bedroom window. You were cuddled up in your bed on your sides Hazel was running one hand up and down the fresh and lotion-covered skin of your arm as you twirled her wet hair around your fingers.

“I wanna stay here forever.” You yawn and rub at your bare face.

“Yeah?” Hazel hummed.

You nod with a chuckle. “Oh, yeah. If I didn’t have to work or worry about stuff like the apocalypse and aliens taking over, I would stay here forever.”

“Aliens?” Hazel’s brows arched at your words, chuckling along with you.

“Well, I mean, you saw what happened with Avengers in the city a few years ago. That was terrifying, you know?” You mutter, zoning out as the memory flooded back into your mind.

You had been just a few streets down when Loki had sent an army of aliens down onto the city. Who knows what could’ve happened if you had been just one more street closer to the destruction.

Hazel only nodded because how can you forget an event like that? Lives were lost and changed forever. Hazel, at the time, was just like you; a normal girl in the city just trying to live day by day. She wasn’t able to save people as she could now.

“Let’s just… lay here a-and not think about that, honey. Okay?” Hazel whispered as she tried to reassure you while reassuring her own scattered mind.

“Okay. I’m sorry.” You whispered back with a self-deprecating chuckle as you felt that you had ruined the mood.

Hazel shook her head as she moved her hand from caressing your arm to cupping your bare cheek.

“No, no, no, it’s okay. I just don’t want you to worry about all that stuff that hasn’t happened.”

Hypocrite, Hazel’s mind echoed after she had continued to utter soft and kind words to you. That’s all she ever did. Worrying about the unknown or stuff she couldn't control.

You ultimately felt your worries fade for the time being. Hazel caresses the length of your back until your heavy eyes shut, allowing sleep to take over. Not too long after Hazel knew that you were sound asleep, she did the same.

Hazel was awakened by the sound of a loud alarm echoing throughout the space of the room. She had shot up quickly from the bed, looking down at her watch to see it was a call from Josie — her only friend from Stark Industries.

Hazel checked the time to see it was 7:04 in the morning; way too early to be calling her. She glanced at you tangled up in your bed sheets next to her, mouth slightly hung open as you were knocked out. She carefully got up from the mattress, trodding over to the bathroom to get some privacy.

Hazel groaned at her reflection, her hair a tousled mess and her shirt half-way off of her shoulders. She reluctantly answered the call on the watch, squinting her eyes as Josie came into view.

“Hi Hazel!” Her cheery voice threw her off guard.

“It’s seven in the morning, Josie.” Hazel grumbled, trying to fix her hair.

“That didn't sound like a ‘oh, good morning, Josie’ so I’ll pretend you said that.” Josie quipped back, adjusting herself in her cubicle. “Anyways, Mr. Stark told me to call you because he needs you here, like, immediately.”

Hazel’s eyes shot open. “Wait really?”

Josie hums as she types something on her laptop that was lighting up her screen. “He said in his email, and i quote: ‘call Underoos and get her here immediately. No’ and this is in all caps ‘questions’.”

Hazel rolled her eyes at the nickname. Within the first few days of working under Tony, the nickname came to mind and never left. As much as she wanted to stay in bed with you, she knew she had to see whatever Tony needed her there for. She scrunched up her nose and yawned, nodding and scratching the back of her head.

“I’ll be there soon. Probably 10-20 minutes.” Hazel stretches her free arm, releasing some tension in her biceps and upper back.

“Alright, cool. Oh, wait,” Josie muttered as she stopped typing on her keyboard, leaning back into her roller chair. “Ah, shit. Son of a bitch, dude.”

“What?” Hazel responded as she was about to leave the bathroom so she could hang up.

“No, nothing. I lost at Solitaire against Happy.” Josie shook her head, groaning before typing again on the laptop.

Hazel furrowed her brows before hanging up with a: ‘See you soon’. The last thing she heard was Josie angrily typing as she whispered: ‘Filthy cheater’.

Josie took Solitaire extremely personally.

Hazel slowly crept out of the bathroom as she had forgotten that your Uncle Karter was now home, if not, awake. She tiptoed back into your room, grabbing her bag from the small carpet strawberry right next to your bed. You had adjusted once again in your sleep, snuggling into the plush of your pillow.

You were a fidgety sleeper but she found it adorable. Watching over you right now almost made her stay but she couldn't risk Tony being angry with her. She quickly changed into her suit, walking over to your window to unlock it and crack it open.

Taking one more glance at your unconscious body, Hazel tugged her mask over her face before she shot a web out of the window at a building across the street. She threw her bag over her shoulder as she swung to the apartment building next door all the way to the Stark Tower.

Mid-way there, she suddenly remembered that she didn’t leave a note for you like she usually would when she left so suddenly. She brushed it off and told herself she’d send you a text as soon as she left.

Nothing to worry about.

Right?

taglist: @imjustapearl @seethesin @matchamilkislover @beabeebrie @curiousshifter101 @uraesthete @fictionalcharacterspecialist @c4llahansgirl @maggiecc @fruitysnackysmain @crvptidgf <33

[cloversnstrawberries]

platonic!yandere!alastor & 1950s!teen!gn!reader ! ! [prologue]

series masterlist ! !

description; You and your pals were taking a ride in your friend, Matty's, nice convertible, enjoying the last moments of summer break before school started up again for your senior year. A rich kid without a driver's license and his daddy's BMW changed that all.

additional notes; the start of a series! this doesn't feature Alastor, considering this is just how Reader died/got to hell in the first place, and a little bit of backstory involving them. I tried to make reader as non-descript as possible so you could insert yourself in their shoes! enjoy :] this chapter is pretty heavy though, so be careful!

also, i thought i should mentioned that reader in here is a wolverine! i've always associated them with anger. be ready for a lot of symbolism in this series, that's my jam.

warnings; graphic violence, graphic description of corpses, car crashes, murder (for the sake of revenge), death of close friends, stabbing, head trauma, lots of mentions of blood, brief mention of vomit/vomiting, + let me know if i missed any !

w/c; 2.1k

While alive, you hadn't put much thought in where you'd go afterwards. After all, you were in the prime of your life! Your senior year was about to begin, and you and your friends were squeezing the last bits of joy from your summer break before it ended.

You were sure you still had at least 50 years in you, and you were carefree. Sitting in the passenger seat of one of your closest friend's car, three of your others pals right behind you-- chatting, enjoying the warm summer rays and fresh air blowing past you as your friends rode around town in Matty's bright red Chevy convertable.

Nothing could go wrong, you thought-- you hadn't even considered the notion, not even as you heard tires screeching down the street Matty was just driving by-- not even as you heard the police sirens blaring,

"It's probably a speeder," You heard Lorraine say behind you, and you turned to respond, assuming she was talking to you. She was, in fact, addressing Marnie and not you-- but ever the nosy nancy, you asked "What're you talking about?"

Lorraine looked at you, and shrugged. She gestured to Marnie, who'd taken off her cateye-framed glasses and cleaned them on her nice silk blouse. It'd been a nervous habit of hers ever since you met her, way back in the 5th grade on the first day of school.

"Marnie here's being a worry wart 'bout that screeching." You looked at Lorraine again, then to Marnie, who eyed the side streets wearily. "I'm just saying, it sounds awfully close and awfully unpredictable-- it sounds like they're looping through all the streets. Who knows when they'll merge onto main--"

Rudy playfully shoved Marnie, pushing her into Lorraine on accident. He gave an apologetic smile before saying in a softer tone, one you didn't hear very often from the class clown-- "Oh c'mon Marns! Don't be such a party pooper! it's probably Dick takin' a joyride in his dads new BMW. He said he was gonna take it for a spin soon."

This time, worry began to settle in your chest. "I thought Dick didn't have a drivers license?" and Lorraine's brows furrowed and she replied "He doesn't."

Rudy tugged at the color of his polo shirt, looking to the side nervously as he leaned back "Hey! It might not be him, who knows! Just a guess, no need to take it as gospel."

For a few seconds, the conversation dropped. The only thing you bunch could hear was the wind whistling by, Matty's radio playing Everyday by Buddy Holly, birds chirping, the police sirens wailing and the shrieking of someones tired.

"What's everyone talking about?" Matty asked, and Lorraine said "Just talking about all that noise." And Matty gave his signature smile, his bright laugh following shortly behind. You could see why girls threw themselves at him like nobody's business-- he does have a certain charm, you found yourself thinking.

The perfect golden boy-- your group often called him "boy scout supreme" on account of how painfully good natured he was. "clark kent" was a close second for the most used nickname regarding his behavior.

He was not superman, though, as you'd come to learn. He wasn't invincible, because as he opened his mouth to reply-- try to soothe everyone's gringles, especially Marnie...

"It sounds really close," You said, pushing yourself up using the armrests and leaning forward to peek past Matty and--

Sure enough, it was a fancy blue and white BMW that you saw. Dick at the drivers wheel, seeming to have shaken the cop that was trailing after him. He was heading right for you bunch, and just as you opened your mouth to scream-- to tell at Matty to swerve, about ready to reach forward yourself and grab the steering wheel--

The two vehicles collided, sending the both of them through the safety railings and tumbling down. The five of you had nothing to protect you from the brunt of it all-- you were lucky enough to be in the passanger seat, and quick thinking led you to hiding under the footwell. You were lucky enough to cram yourself in before the car really started rolling.

You aren't sure how long it took the car to stop rolling. The forest off the side of main's hill were pretty damn steep, the steepest point of them was where you'd been passing by before Dick came speeding your guys' way.

When it stopped, you stayed inside the footwell for a while longer. Your head was pounding like hell, and you grimaced as the sticky blood gushed from a wound somewhere on her forehead-- you're pretty sure there was another gash on the back of your head, contributing to the awful headache.

When you heard a door open, you felt hope. Hope that your friends had survived, despite having no real protection.

You lot were lucky enough to land the right-side up, not trapped underneath like those Soap Opera's your gran liked to watch all the time. You were careful to be slow, to be methodical with your movements as you set to wrangling yourself from your hidey-hole in the footwell.

Footsteps, footsteps on the underbrush-- they sounded pretty steady for someone who's been in a crash like you'd been in, so that lending you the idea that it was Matty. Always calm and collected-- Rudy would probably be screaming his head off by now, Marnie crying as Lorraine comforted the girl.

You hope to whatever God is willing to listen that they're just unconscious.

The footsteps were walking away-- you wanted to cry out, stop! stop, i'm still here! but you knew Matty couldn't of been leaving you. His first instinct, for better or for worse, to go seek help no matter what. You were only halfway-through pushing yourself from the footwell, it was bent in and damaged from the rolling. It was harder to get out of than it was to get in, for more then one reason.

When you'd finally managed to pull yourself free, and stand, you stumbled, woozy. Vision blurred, and mouth desert-dry.

"Matty?" You called out, voice barely above a hoarse whisper. You turned to your side-- you'd slammed against a big oak tree. That's fine. You'd get out from behind,

You would've screamed if you could've. As you took in Lorraine-- god, was that even Lorraine? Her face was so mangled, blood coating the slashes where her eyes, nose, and mouth would've been-- clinging to it, making it impossible to tell anything.

You reached forward. She gave no reaction. You looked to her side-- Marnie... that had to have been Marnie, was no better off. Her glasses gone, her head twisted to an unnatural angle-- a broken neck.

Rudy wasn't even there, and that gave you hope. Hope that was quickly dashed as you saw his body lying lifeless about 20 feet up the hill. He never was good on wearing his seatbelt, not like the rest of you were.

Okay. That's- you... you can just get out Matty's side! That'd be easy, since he was the one who got up--

This time, this time you were able to scream. It wasn't very loud, more of a yelp with how much your throat hurt. Matty's... Matty's head wasn't there. It was gone. It was jus--

Oh... oh no, you'd leaned over to try and look for his head, where it could've gone in the underbrush. Only to have it brush against your leg, still attached to his neck by way of a thin strand of sinew.

You fought to keep down whatever was still in your stomach. You failed miserably.

Once you were finished upchucking, you came to a realization.

You looked to the fancy BMW, it'd landed upright too. It's got a roof, no matter how damaged the thing was. The door was open, and there was no trace of Dick.

The bastard's just gonna walk away you realized, rage fueling you as you hauled yourself over the body of your friend-- you said a quick apology to Matty, though he couldn't very well hear it. You wobbled out the car, and then looked to Rudy's body.

Dick was going to get away with it, you knew he was. His dad was a wealthy oil tycoon and his mother was an heiress to a popular beauty brand her ma ran. You and your friends were nobodies compared to them, simple, regular people. Not rich, not like Dick was.

You stumbled to Rudy's body, swallowing your next bout of upchuck as you kneeled by his body. You said a quick apology, before rummaging in his pockets.

Soon enough, you found what you were looking for. A switchblade, one Rudy liked to use for tricks to impress gals and spook Marnie, who insisted he was gonna cut himself on it one of these days.

When you stood, your vision blacked out and you had to lean against a tree before regaining it. Judging by the state of you, you weren't going to last very long either. You could either try and scale the hill to go get help,

Or trail after Dick, make sure he didn't get away with this like he surely would without your say. You'd already had your mind made when you'd fished Rudy's switchblade from the pocket of his torn, bloody chinos.

You had a good idea where Dick had gone off to, low-hanging branches broken, a path through the fallen leaves and underbrush caused by dragging feet.

Despite your injuries-- the adrenaline surely running through your system definitely helping you in your mission-- you managed to catch up with the boy. He was a lot better off than any of your friends, obviously-- and yourself. All things considered, he looked like he'd gotten into a parking lot fight more than a car crash that killed all four of your friends right away (god, you hope it was right away. you hope they didn't suffer),

But you want Dick to suffer. You want his suffering to amount to what he may have caused your friends in their end.

His back was still turned as you approached him. You know you weren't being quiet, no matter how hard you try; either his hearing was damaged or he didn't deem the noise important enough to turn around.

When you grabbed his shoulder, he become very aware of you. He became even more aware of you when you jabbed the switchblade in his shoulder. There was a tussle-- he was in much better condition than you, but in the end you won out. Your rage refusing to let you stay down, to let him get away with this.

You don't remember what you said, the words tumbling out of your mouth as you climbed on top of him. You stabbed him, all non-fatal unless you left him to bleed out.

You felt yourself begin to slip, as if your life was falling through the cracks in your fingers as if it was a tangible thing. Growing lethargic, numb to the pain and tired. You couldn't go on. You wanted to draw it out more, but...

If you left him, there was still a chance someone could find him before he succumbed to blood loss or whatever brain trauma he may have endured (like you had).

You remember what you said last, even if your consciousness was slipping. You'd never forget what you said at you drove Rudy's beloved switchblade into the scums forehead, you said it as loud as you could, but it wasn't much. Hoarsely, you call out,

"I'll see you in hell."

You don't remember how long you lasted after Dick stopped moving. You pulled the switch blade from his head, and with what energy you left you headed back to the crash. You wanted to give Rudy his knife back. It was the least you could do for your friend,

But you didn't make it. At least, you don't think you made it to him. It's uncertain-- everything got so blurry at the end. You don't remember collapsing, one moment you’re shambling towards the hill; Rudy's corpse in sight, quickly cooling and sure to become a snack for some wildlife (just as you all were, probably),

and the next, you were in a field on stinging nettle, luckily having fallen in one of the various patches devoid of the plant. Your mouth felt crowded like never before, yours hands were clawed, and you took that time to just sit. To look around, and realize where exactly you were.

In hell. You were... definitely in hell, like you'd expected. You glanced around, expecting Dick to fall down-- but he died before you. probably walked away by now, if hell-time was like earth-time, you were unsure; you just knew that Dick wasn't here right now-- or maybe he'd dropped somewhere else. You aren't sure how this works.

After all, you just got here. Just an hour or so ago, you'd been thinking about what you'd wear to the first day of school. Now that was the last thing on your mind.

[neminomnom]

Cars I think arcane characters would have

Send me requests I beg 🙏🙏🙏

includes: Viktor, Jayce, mel, Caitlyn, Ekko, Felicia, Vi, jinx and isha :)

Viktor

- Viktor would have a Toyota Camry or something very similar, it would be dark grey with a bunch of scratches on near the bottom of it.

- Viktor would keep his car very clean, in the glove box he would keep a bunch of old CDs he’s never even touched.

- has so many air fresheners on the rear view mirror that havnt been taken off in about a year, his car smells like a mix of lavender and that old musty smell.

Jayce

- oh he would definitely have some big, electric car, like a Volvo EX90, that thing would be SPOTLESS inside and out, not a speck of dust out of place.

-Jayces Volvo is in the colour ‘sand dune’ and probably has a custom number plate saying T4L1S or something along those lines

- The inside of the car is pretty clean, he doesn’t keep much things inside of it, but he does have a photo of him and Ximena stuck onto the edge of his dashboard.

Mel

- I feel like mel would have two cars, one being a Bugatti mistral in the colour of black, and the other being a Land Rover defender, she likes the look of the Bugatti and how clean they look, but she also loves the space in the defender.

- the Bugatti is a show car, she uses the defender 110 to get around, it’s in the colour ‘Gondwana stone’ and has a bunch of the accessory packs to go with it.

- that car smells DIVINE, you could not shower for a year, go to sit in that car for five minutes and come out smelling like the world luxury.

Caitlyn

- Caitlyn would have a Mercedes-benz AMG G 63 in black, her car would look incredibly clean on the outside, but on the inside not so much, sure it was clean, but there were a few bits of paper on the floor of the car, Caitlyn hates it and tries to clean it a lot, but it still gets messy

- She doesn’t let people eat or drink In her car, she doesn’t want people to stain the leather seats or get crumbs in the little corners of them.

- she keeps gum in the cup holders and offers it to anyone who gets in.

Ekko

- you could be stuck in traffic for hours then see him filtering on his racing bike, that thing can go fastttt, He would have a Kawasaki ninja H2R.

- him and jinx would have spent ages decorating decorated his helmet and gear thingys with spray paint, he would also have some cool car stickers on the sides of the bike, or the firelight symbol.

-Ekko loves to race with other people, of course he wins, but he still enjoys it

- He would get a bunch of custom stuff done to it to make it stand out, like a custom exhaust, and during the Christmas season he wears a reindeer helmet cover

Felicia

- Felicia would have an old lady car, small but still a nice car, like a 2014 fiat 500 in white, there would be quite a few scratches and it would always be a bit lucky on the outside, not too dirty though.

-the inside of her car feels like the word home, it smells like warmth and she has so many Polaroid photos of her and people she loves on stuck onto her dashboard, there’s a few wrappers littered on the floor, but she doesn’t care that much.

- at 7 in the morning, you could hear her music playing in the car from the opposite side of the street.

Violet

- There’s two options, either a big monster truck what hasn’t been through a car wash since 1987 and has so many problems with its engine, or something like a 1990 bmw 325i, it’s seen better days but is still usable, and I’m going for the second one.

- the bmw sounds like it’s about to take off to space each time she starts it, and it bounces each time someone sits down in it, vi loves it though.

- this car has so many scratches on, the inside has a bit of damage, the seats having spill stains on, so she brought those seat cover things.

- You can tell that thing smells musty, no matter how many air fresheners Vi buys, the smell doesn’t go away.

Jinx

- you bet she has the funkiest car, like a hot pink Mini Cooper with go faster stripes all over it, she has a wrap of her monkey symbol on the roof of the car in a dark grey, still visible but not too noticeable.

-that thing looks like it’s been through wars, but the inside is even more chaotic, she had LED lights around the edges of the roof inside and so many trinkets on the dashboard.

- like mother like daughter, she also plays music so loud it can make you deaf at any time of the day, no matter the song you bet she’s blasting it.

- once tried to race Ekko in it and failed miserably.

Isha

- it isn’t a car, but she has a scooter and a skateboard, Isha and jinx made the scooter all bright and colourful, it has a bunch of things hanging off the handles.

- for the skateboard, that thing is hanging into its last limbs, the wheels keep on coming off and jinx always has to fix them, but Isha loves it too much and she doesn’t want to get rid of it.

—————————————————————————

[emwritesstuff]

DYNAMO | Steve Rogers x Reader | part 7.

HYDRA has made their share of human experiments. You're just one of them. One of the least successful ones. One of the least functional ones. At least your life in the facility gave you a few things: unwavering resilience, cool(ish) superpowers and a great sense of humor. Steve Rogers would strongly disagree with that last one. A single chance encounter with him reluctantly brings you into the Avengers Compound, and you're determined to make his life as miserable as you can. Feeling's mutual.

AO3 | Masterlist | Playlist (coming soon!)

notes: There's more to your powers than you could have imagined. my biannual update, a large boy at least... do you guys still read this thing? (warnings: inaccurate science, brief mention of HYDRA shenanigans and minor injury) (7,411 words)

7: JOULE'S PRINCIPLE

After swinging your leg over the seat, you’re left with no other choice but to put your arms around his waist to hold on. The wind whipping around and the lapses in stability has you clinging to Steve against your better judgment, even though he’s a skilled rider and you doubt he’d get both of you into an accident.

Still, it’s enough to make you decide you’re definitely a car person.

Although you have to admit having an unobstructed view is great. You can see the entire city from the bridge you’re crossing, twinkling like it did in your imagination. It’s nice to know it does it justice. You now get why everyone loves this place so much, and you don’t regret being irresponsible one bit.

The bike is also pretty convenient. Steve zips through traffic, and soon enough the city views become a treeline and the Compound gates welcome you in.

“The lights are back on!” You say, loud enough for Steve to hear over the noise of the Harley— you’re not sure how much his super hearing can pick up.

His answer comes roughly in the same volume, as he drives you into the garage: “The maintenance guys got to it pretty quickly. No harm done, besides the temporary outage.”

“And Tony’s PacMan streak?” You ask, hopeful he’d say that was left intact too.

“…and Tony’s PacMan record streak.” This stupid video game will get you kicked out one day, you’re sure of it. Steve sighs as your shoulders fall, despite him looking way more amused at the situation than you are.

He has to help you with the helmet straps again, and you flinch from the cold feel of his fingertips. “Besides that, everything’s back to normal.” His touch makes you feel like you poked a live wire, or like when you zap yourself with your powers. “Are you—”

You shove the jacket into his chest the second Nat’s bleached-blonde head pokes inside the garage. Bruce follows right after her, and it makes you want to tease her about it, but the look on her face is so serious you decide against it.

“There you are! Bruce told us what happened during training. Are you okay?”

“He… told you. He told you everything?” You look over her shoulder at your doctor, and he shrugs apologetically.

“We were worried when you fucked off. Don’t do that again.”

You widen your eyes a little, then give her a sheepish look. “Sorry I stole your car.” Nat smiles.

“Don’t sweat it. It was smart you dumped it at the train station, actually. It has a tracker I can’t take out.” The way she says it makes you think that she can’t because she isn’t allowed to, not because she doesn’t know how. Natasha would know how.

You don’t mention that you were feeling way too queasy to drive her favorite BMW all the way to New York City, and that’s why you opted for the train; it’s likely not a very good idea, considering how cool she’s being about it all.

You’re not even sweating.

“You’re lucky Steve found your ass before we had to bring S.W.O.R.D. into the picture.”

“Yeah, I suppose it was lucky he was in town.”

“In town?” Bruce questions, and you look at him as the four of you leave the garage in direction of the Compound living area. “No, he said he was gonna find you himself—”

“Bruce.”

“—didn’t he ‘Tasha? Just took off on his Harley and–”

“Bruce!”

“…what?” Before you can finish turning to Rogers and question his previous statement, he’s already got the elevator half closed.

You glower at the metal doors. He was right about things being back to normal - here was evidence he is back to helicoptering you, watching your every step because of course he wouldn’t find you capable of staying out of trouble; and you are back to feeling the bitter taste of animosity on your tongue.

You suppose this your own fault. Maybe you should just accept you’re stuck in this place forever.

Steve lets out a big, slow breath as the elevator doors close, leaving Sparky and her pinched eyebrows on the floor below. It’s for the best. He wouldn’t have answers for her nor himself at the moment. The feel of her body, her legs, wrapped around him made him feel electrified without her using those powers of hers.

He sure wishes he had them as an excuse.

Bucky raises an eyebrow at him when the doors open again, welcoming him into their shared quarters.

“You’re back already. You found her?”

Steve nods, walking over to the kitchen and fetching a bottle of water. He’d found her alright, looking cold and distracted on the steps of the Brooklyn Museum.

“She good?”

He nods again. “Barely put up a fight.” He’s glad he acted fast and got to her before anyone else took notice, because that would be a whole lotta trouble and she was enough of it on a normal day.

The thought of a S.W.A.T team being sent, anything that seemed too much like an arrest, or in truth, anyone other than himself finding her made his skin crawl.

Maybe he was a control freak. She’d told him so herself, more than a few times now.

“No— I mean, is she good. Physically, mentally?”

Steve looks up from his water. Bucky’s empathy was not really a rare occurrence, but he’s surprised nonetheless. HYDRA is as much his enemy as it is Steve’s, and he figured that would be too big of a barrier for Bucky to cross. Apparently not.

“She’s good, Buck. All back to normal.”

Back to extensive training. Back to occasional missions. Back to mutual dislike, the image of her in his jacket already a hazy, surreal memory.

Shoved away like the jacket itself, the second Natasha had eyes on them. Normalcy.

Bucky nods, knowing as well as Steve that for people like them, and her, nothing was ever really normal.

“Try not being too hard on her tomorrow.”

“I’ll be moderately hard.” Steve shakes his head, biting the innerside of his lip to stop the chuckle that wants to come out. It’s such a stupid piece of humor.

That’s what she said, Rogers.

“I hate this,” You mutter to his broad back, and he turns to you briefly. Of course he wouldn’t slow down to keep up with your pace; his own fitness routine is more important than camaraderie, especially when you’re involved. “Three more laps.”

“What? It was two!”

“It’s three now,” Steve Rogers is a petty, insufferable little motherfucker.

Well, not actually little. It’s the principle.

“Screw you.”

You’re almost waiting for him to clap back with a “you did”, or maybe “language” but that is how you’d react. Definitely waiting for him to add another lap, or ten. He doesn’t do either, just keeps on running ahead of you.

It’s like nothing even happened.

You shake your shoulders and head like a dog does when it’s wet, as if the innuendos were water drops.

You’re not a fan of running. It’s hard for you to understand how people say they run to clear their heads, because your way to do that is taking a nap. Or several.

Taking advantage of the current distance between you and Rogers, you pause, your hands on your knees and lungs working quickly for more air. You’re surprised when he turns instead of going around to finish the lap.

“Keep up, Sparky.”

You groan, standing up with your hands on your hips and shoving a petulant finger to his chest. “Don’t call me that. I could fry you like a fish andrunright out of here. Make sure to use money this time—”

“Don’t.” He’s not looking at you. His eyes stare behind and above you, and when you turn Fury is watching you both. There’s another man with him, in a fancy military uniform that screams everything but friendly. “Just. Keep. Up.”

The urgency in Steve’s tone makes you frown. His gritted teeth. He hasn’t stopped staring at the other two.

Alrighty, then. “Three more laps?” He nods, and you resume your early morning run.

You’re both one lap in when you speak again. “Who’s that?”

“That’s General Hoss. He’s Chief Commander of the NSA.” He looks back to check if you’re following, but you aren’t, neither his pace nor the words. “National Security Agency?”

“So… he’s pest control.” You bite your lip when he agrees. “He’s here because of yesterday, isn’t he?”

“I’m guessing yes.” Frost seeps into your bones, the regret Steve wanted you to feel yesterday finally kicking in. Like he can read your mind, he continues.“I’ll talk to him when we’re done here. You don’t have to worry about it.”

“Who’s worried?” A humorless laugh leaves your lips. You keep on running. “Last one, Cap.”

He nods. “That’s the spirit,”

By the middle of the third and final lap, Bruce Banner is standing at the side of the track field, a clipboard on his hands. You stop when Rogers does, a little surprised he doesn’t make the doctor wait for you to finish your workout.

“You feeling okay? You look a little green,”

“Good morning to you too. Cap.” He says tiredly, but you’re proud of your joke regardless. Even Steve has a curl to his lip this time.

You’re wearing them all down, little by little.

“What can we do for you, Banner?”

“I’m going to need Sparky here at the lab.” You raise an eyebrow. The routine checkup is supposed to be on Monday. “Me and Tony have been analyzing your data and have a few theories about your powers being unstable.”

“Okay…” The thought of the two scientists turning you into their little project makes you feel a little uneasy.

Tony Stark specially.

“Oh great, you’re here. Why are you sweaty? It’s 7 a.m.”

You point back to Rogers with your thumb, then realized that not only there was a crowd, but also an audience to your personal shitshow. Of course Tony had to drag the spider kid into this.

“Mornin’ run.”

“Ew. No time for a shower though, lucky us. Come sit over here.” Stark ushers you to a chair, strapping your monitoring bracelets on.

“Do you plan on explaining what in the fuck you’re about to do to me?” Steve mutters a timid language, and you both glare at him. “Or at least what is it that you found out about my powers?”

He sighs and stops what he’s doing, as if you’re wasting his precious time. “What do you know about Joule’s Principle? Physics?”

“In short? Nothing.”

“Then there’s no point in explaining anything to you.”

You’re about to tell him to shove the laws of physics up his wormhole when Bruce turns from the computer he was typing on.

“Joule’s Principle is a theory about energy conversion. Basically, an electric current produces heat as it passes through a conductor,” Bruce pulls up a full body scan, your full body scan, the areas on your head, torso and hands colored deep red and orange. “This shows your body temperature spiking as your powers flare.”

“So…I am the conductor in this Joojoo…thing?”

“Joule’s Principle, my little genius. And from our observations the extreme overheating could be causing all of those gross side effects of yours. The dry cleaners were concerned about that, by that way— ”

“Just get to the point, Tony.” Steve is leaning casually on the doorframe, his eyes focused on your body scans.

Stark’s head whips in his direction. “Didn’t notice you were still here, ‘Merica.”

In all honesty, you hadn’t either.

“Anyway, the side effects- especially bad when you’re not feeding off a generator. So! Here’s a little gift for you, from me and my little elves Banner and Peter.”

You blink once. It’s a lot to digest, especially when Peter Parker is shoving a glass case on your hands, with a small glowing disc floating inside.

“Do you like it?!” He says, and you wish you could mirror his teenage nerd enthusiasm.

“Uh… sure? Very shiny. Is it gonna fix everything?”

“Yes! I mean, not exactly. Maybe?” It’s Tony’s turn to answer, and you look at Bruce for help. He gives you a sympathetic smile and nods, agreeing with his mad scientist colleague.

Great. “And you can match Mr. Stark!”

…great.

“Uh– match? Isn’t your thing basically a mini atomic bomb? How am I suppose to use this? Wait, isn’t yours inside your chest ? Where—”

“Whoa, whoa… slow down. It’s not an atomic bomb, it’s a fusion reactor. And it’s going on your suit.” You breathe out a sigh of relief, although maybe you shouldn’t. Rogers also seems relieved.

Of course it’s going on the suit.

They wouldn’t just carve a hole in your body…right? Right. You’re still coming down from that small panic when FRIDAY speaks out. Captain Rogers, General Hoss is waiting for you at the lobby.

The monitor bracelets on your wrists make sure to tell everyone about your heartbeat spiking up. Your eyes find Steve’s, his posture now stiff and imposing. The good old by-the-book Captain America everyone knows and loves.

“I’m on my way, FRIDAY.” Shit. Shit shit fucking shit—

You can only imagine how that meeting is going to go. You’re probably fucked.

Right?

Maybe you’re hallucinating, but you swear he mouths three words to you before leaving: I got you.

“Sparky, you need to breathe.”

You draw in a desperate breath, only now realizing your lungs were completely empty.

“What…what were you saying?”

“The fusion reactor is going to be installed on your suit, giving you essentially an endless energy source for you to feed off from. We noticed that your side effects are more intense when you don’t. While they might not go away completely, it might help.” You nod, it makes sense. Sort of.

“Wait— isn’t this nuclear energy? My thing is electricity, I don’t know if you noticed.”

“My Pac-Man machine surely did. Which brings us to our second point… I’ve never seen electricity put cracks on a concrete wall, babycakes.”

You shake your head, as you would if your ears were full of water.

There’s something you need to pick up from what they’re saying, but you’re not a science person like they are.

“Our main theory is that your powers are not simply manipulating electricity,” Bruce says, pulling up a screen with graphics you don’t understand. “But also converting it. We believe the electricity you converted into mechanical energy is what caused the damages to the wall. Which means you could probably do it the other way around—”

“Like a dynamo!” Peter pipes up, and he and Tony share a look.

It scares you almost as much as the outcome of General Hoss’ and Steve’s conversation.

“A what?”

“A dynamo is a type of old-school energy converting machine, like you but made of iron and magnets. It has a ring to it, don’t you think?” In your indignation, you don’t pay attention to the fact that Bruce is still explaining things.

“I’m not old-school. You have me confused with the other guy.”

“—So by analizing all this data your suit and the other tests picked up, well, it seemed natural that you could convert all other types of energy into each other. Thermal, electric, mechanical, nuclear, sound, the possibilities are—”

Endless. The potential is endless.

Dr. Hermann Steiner knew it all along.

The dots connect in your brain almost instantly: your words, your failsafe— it uncapped the ability to harness so much energy it took your powers to a whole other level. Giving HYDRA all of the control in their hands, turning you into a near-perfect, glass-domed weapon.

Until now. Maybe.

Something tells you that S.W.O.R.D is going to have a field day with this information.

What an absolutely insane week you’re having.

“I feel like this isn’t right.”

It takes Wanda a couple of seconds to answer. “Your knees are a little bent, but you’ll get there.”

Your body is folded awkwardly into the downwards dog position, the muscles at the back of your legs burning from the unfamiliar stretch. Wanda’s so good at it she puts Natasha to shame, and that one has never lost her ballerina skills.

“I’m not sure how this is supposed to be relaxing and therapeutic,”

“It helps if you focus more on your breathing than in complaining.” She grins at you, looking at little crazy from this angle.

“I’m not complaining. It’s just an— observation,” You’re slightly out of breath, and she laughs. Things have fallen into routine after General Hoss’ visit. You’re not entirely sure what the results of his conversation with Steve were, but it’s been four days since and besides the fittings with your improved suit and a promise of testing out Stark and Banner’s theory soon, not much has changed.

Beside the whole…Steve Rogers thing. You’ve barely seen him these days, since he has been leaving the Compound every single day and when he is home he makes sure to stay out of your way. And everyone else’s. You know you should be feeling elated, but for some reason it bothers you.

His constant hovering and nagging would be better than this. Probably.

Wanda announces it’s time for the reverse warrior position, and you swear you hear your joints creaking as you move into it.

“Speaking of observation,” You start now that your lungs have air in them and you can breathe again. “What’s going on with you and Vision?”

She opens her eyes slowly, tilting her head at you innocently. “Nothing’s going on. Me and Vis are just good friends.”

Her accent makes the words drag slightly, thickened as she does when she wants to play tough.

“Right. As good as Nat and Bruce, eh?” Wanda blushes, and you grin like the Cheshire cat. Bingo.

“I’ll trade that answer for one about you and Steve.” Your grin falls off your face at the same time hers grows.

“What makes you think there’s something with me and him? We’re not even good friends, and besides, he’s been avoiding me like the pla–”

“Us witches always know. Hi Steve!”

You whip your head in the direction she’s looking, fast enough to rival a horror movie. Wanda’s giggling as you stare at the empty doorway, and you roll your eyes.

“You’re the worst.”

“You started it.” She says, standing beside you to correct your posture. “Come on, deep breath. Remember the mantra?”

You glare at her while you say “Om” , elongating the O instead of addressing her first comment.

The both of you finally get to sit in a comfortable silence, after the many torturous positions you attempt to twist your body into. You have to concentrate to keep your eyes closed and not hyper alert to your surroundings.

She’s so much better at it than you are it’s almost funny, despite her insisting every time that you’ve been doing better and should keep practicing.

Not that you’re planning on giving up your joint yoga sessions anytime soon.

Wanda Maximoff is probably the most welcoming and understanding out of all of your housemates, with endless patience for dealing with your moods as if they were her own. From what you knew, she’d been in a similar position as you are now. Maybe that was why.

Maybe she was just good.

You weren’t asking about Vision simply out of curiosity: although a part of it was, you needed to know if a stern conversation with him would be necessary.

After nearly three months, she was one of the only you could confidently call your friend, besides Nat. It was… a strange feeling, still.

“Hello, Stark.”

“Fuck off. You can’t get me with that one anymore,” You call Wanda out humorously, eliciting a laugh out of her.

“I thought Yoga was supposed to make you zen,” Tony Stark’s actual voice startles you, making you jump.

He’s standing at the previously empty doorway, hands on his hips as he stares at you as if you’re wasting his precious time. You make a face at him, raising your shoulders in question, and he rolls his eyes.

“You’re late.”

“Late for what?”

“For the suit’s first real test drive, Tiny Taser. I had FRIDAY call you fifteen minutes ago!” He says, urging you to your feet.

“We can’t hear FRIDAY from here. I blocked all noises out… for zen purposes,” Wanda pipes up, and you barely have time to fight against his antics and shoot her an apologetic look as he ushers you out of the room and through the endless Compound corridors.

You end up in a glorified broom closet, with Tony reinforcing that you have 30 seconds to change into the suit or he’s making you do this on your underwear.

Alas, you’ve changed, you’re about 10% zen, and you have an audience. Natasha waves at you from behind the tempered glass where Tony is also going for safety purposes. Bruce appears behind her with a clipboard in hand.

You see Nick Fury and Rhodes at the back of the elevated platform as well, making you wonder if Netflix isn’t on today or something.

Oh, and let’s not forget Peter Parker.

They’ve place a bunch of different things on the floor for you: an array of lamps and electronic devices; heavy metal objects, like oversized dumbbells. Barrels, some empty, some filled with firewood. A chair, very thoughtful of them.

“What do I do with this shit?”

Tony Stark comes to the center of the window, leaning over a small microphone.

“You’re so sweet, aren’t you? So delicate. You can start by–” Tony is eager to get his experiment going, but someone interrupts him, though you can’t make out who or what they said. “He’s the man’s little lapdog for the week and we get held up because of that? There’s no time to lose, Romanoff.”

“Should I do some tricks?” You say, making your fingers sparkle with lightning. No one seems to be amused.

You shrug, taking to repeating your HYDRA words quietly, falling into the familiar empty head space. The best way to get precise results, since you’d be using them during missions too.

You’re more than halfway finished when the door to the test room opens and slams closed, heavy footsteps following. Steve Rogers - or better yet, Captain America - strides in, fully clad in his own tactical suit. The vintage one. “I’m here– sorry I’m late.”

As if you needed any extra pressure. Fuck me.

“What’s with the costume? Hoss made you do a kid’s birthday party?” Stark quips, and you would’ve laughed if not for the present circumstances.

“Don’t start, Tony.”

Change of momentum with change of time. Noether-Theorem.

Hail HYDRA.

You really wish that last sentence wasn’t part of it.

“Alright, Sparky. Now that we’re all here, let’s get this show going.” You nod, watching as Rogers climbs up the metal steps to join the others. “We want you to focus on using the reactor on your suit as your main source of energy. I put some stuff for you to play with there, start with your usual party trick first. Anything else, Dr. Banner?”

“If you feel anything out of the ordinary just stop immediately. We have your wrist monitors functioning at all times too.”

You can see that Rogers is saying something to them, crossing his arms against his chest.

“Yeah, yeah. Take it easy, your safety is most important. I thought that went without saying,” Tony says through the speakers.

You take a deep breath, trying to concentrate on the task and not on the group watching you. It should be nerve-wracking but it’s not, thanks to how your programming works: the energy flows from the arc reactor down to your palms, lighting up the special seams of your suit in the process.

You almost miss the feel of the electricity inside you, running on the surface of your skin instead. It’s like being under a cold shower.

With little effort you make the lamps that were displayed light up, picking up a small one and holding it in your palms until the thin glass bursts.

“Sparky? Everything good?”

“Yeah.” You don’t look up, although a voice at the back of your head says you should be protesting over the rampant use of the nickname.

You move on to the other electronics, satisfied as they all power up one by one. It was easy enough, something you could do with or without a special suit. Your usual symptoms are nowhere to be found however: a very promising result.

“Let’s tackle the other stuff now. Maybe thermal energy? The barrel in front of you has wood, try getting a fire going.”

You walk over to where Tony suggested, staring at the wood. A fire? How on earth– you’re flabbergasted they’re just letting you play and figure things out, even in this very controlled environment, when it clicks.

It might be cheating, but if you zap the wood hard enough a fire could spark.

And it does. Your lips curl as the woods begin to burn, heating up your extended hand. Heat. You can feel it on your palm, scorching instead of the familiar coldness. If the arc-reactor is a source… what isn’t?

The potential is endless.

You push your hand further into the barrel. The fire is close enough to blister skin, but you barely feel it; all you care about is the new type of energy flowing towards you as the flames roar.

It’s enough to make you stumble backwards, your palms red and burnt, eyes dry and wide. Your body feels unbearably hot. It’s not as easy to control as you expected, probably because it’s so new, leaving you to release it all at once against whatever is on the way.

The thing you classified as a large dumbbell is knocked down as your blast strikes, rolling away. The other empty barrel crashes against the concrete wall.

Half melted.

You look down at your hands. Your temple is starting to hurt, but only a little bit. “Bruce, how’s my levels?”

“…surprisingly within range.”

This time, you turn your eyes towards the audience behind the glass. You probably look deranged, wide-eyed and grinning. Steve Rogers’ eyebrows are so close to one another they look like a singular line, and if it wasn’t for the glass he’d lean off the rail and fall into your little playground.

All this attention on you, as if he hadn’t spent the past few days pretending you didn’t exist. Typical.

Not that you care.

Nat comes up to him, touching his arm and saying something in his ear. His attention shifts from you to her, and you look away.

He didn’t have to be here, did he? You wish he’d gotten caught at whatever schmoozing to General Hoss he was doing before this.

You huff through your nose, cursing your programming for not being exactly thorough with keeping your feelings at bay. The more you used it, the more loopholes you found; if someone was able to elicit a strong enough emotion out of you, it was able to slip through the cracks of the flimsy mental armor. Rogers was one of those people. Natasha too if she picked her words right.

Maybe it was the lack of rewiring your brains every time you used it, like HYDRA used to do. It was extensive and painful, much more taxing than what you do now to come down from the programming. You are definetely not reminiscing that part.

Von Strucker could stay dead and buried.

If you could not use it at all, you wouldn’t. Fury’s presence in the training room is enough evidence of how much you have to.

“Now that’s a Dynamo if I’ve ever seen one. Right, Peter?” Tony says on the intercoms, and you look back to see Peter Parker enthusiastically putting both his thumbs up.

You groan. “No. I don’t need a superhero nickname, Stark.”

“But it’s great!” Peter says.

“Too late sugarplum, you already got business cards on the way.”

“Try not to fog the glass, Rogers.” Natasha’s voice calls out on his ear, and Steves snaps out of the trance he was in.

You and that wild smile of yours, with powers just as untamed. The sight filled him with a foreign pride. It worried him immensely.

“Her vitals might be regular but she has to be more careful,” He reinforces, turning to Bruce and ignoring Nat for a second. She raises one eyebrow. Steve shrugs.

He hadn’t missed the blisters forming on the skin of your palms, something you’d feel only later but his super-soldier vision had picked up.

S.W.O.R.D was already more interested in you than he’d like, and you’ve been pushing yourself hard enough. He doesn’t want you to find out where your breaking point is.

Instinct tells him that HYDRA still having vestigial roots inside your head is what’s keeping you from harnessing your powers fully, despite the immediate effects of the programming. He can tell when you’re under the spell, his eyes finding indifference instead of a passionate hatred inside your gaze.

With abilities like these, it could all go to shit if you’re not in control. The guys in suits wouldn’t hesitate in retiring a malfunctioning S.W. on the Raft.

Sentient Weapon. Asset.

The thought makes him cringe.

“We won’t let anything bad happen to her,” Natasha whispers, and he tightens his fists against the rail. It’s a silent agreement. He’d guaranteed General Hoss your record would be set straight and that he’d oversee it personally. Control freak. He was paying that vow with cashed in favors and his dignity. This damned old suit was proof enough. Itchy, too.

The outcome of that morning turns out to be unbelievably positive, even with the stupid new nickname. You’re eager to keep finding out what you can do with your powers — S.W.O.R.D is eager to have you on the field, putting them to good use. Which in hindsight it’s quite stupid of them.

The mission had gone to shit. It had been an intelligently laid trap, with an empty warehouse building stuffed to the brim with explosives, the HYDRA rats long gone from there, resulting in the side of the building being blown to smithereens. No one was dead, which was the most important thing, but you saw ambulances speeding by as you boarded the Quinjet. The media arrived before they could, transmitting the failure live. So much for no casualties. No one felt like saying anything, not even you, ears still ringing from the blast and trying to make sense of the sight in front of you. Steve Rogers, with his shoulders hanging in defeat. His hair looks powdery from the soot and cement that littered the air.

You’re sure yours is the same way. He shares a look with you, but it feels like a question, so you tear your gaze away, whatever had been locked away slowly rising to the surface as you recite your words in reverse order. You can’t handle another half hour in this emotional limbo; you’ll just have to deal with the comedown in this noisy flying tin can instead of your quiet bathroom.

You wonder if any of it could’ve been avoided. How did none of you see this coming? It looked too easy. Too good to be true.In a whim, you used your powers to keep you all from being buried under the rubble. Rogers, Romanoff, Wilson, yourself.

But if you hadn’t deflected the blast, those neighboring buildings wouldn’t be affected. Cars crashed on the streets trying to avoid the falling concrete.

You’re the getting the hang of it, sure, but it can be either too much or too little especially working with anything that isn’t electricity.

Despite it all, the worst of it that you’ve seen was a man with a broken leg and a poor Lexus that was already on it’s last breath anyways. You’re unsure about the extent of the material damage.

It’s New Jersey’s fault for being so damn crammed, Nat says, and you want to laugh. It’s her way of assuring you everything would be okay, and you focus on the part of you that believes her.

Despite it all, everyone is alive.

One thing is certain: for the good side and the bad, it’s all your fault.

There are reporters climbing over themselves once the Quinjet lands, and Steve makes his way down first; they all also nearly climb over him too, shooting questions out so fast you can’t keep up.

His broad back basically shields you from them, almost intentionally, which is great because you suddenly can’t breathe and your surroundings are feeling too tight. Damned programming that only works when it wants.

When a stray reporter finally notices you, Sam and Nat are already grabbing your shoulders and towing you away from the crowd.

“We left him behind,” You croak once the three of you are inside the elevator and you catch a glimpse of Steve’s now straightened posture, nothing like the one on the flight back. Nat squeezes your arm in a comforting gesture, but then you look at her and see some dried blood on the side of her face. Bright red as her hair used to be.“He’ll be fine. The news channels love him,” She sighs. “At least more than they do us.”

You’re quite aware of that; you’ve seen some snippets of his interviews on YouTube. He’s always dressed sharp, not a hair out of place. The gleaming smile of America’s greatest hero.

Tony has the TV on when you arrive to the communal living room, Roger’s appearance miles away from that mental image, except for the way he always carries himself at times like these: composed, with a gentle demeanor and attentive eyes.

You hate the diplomatic part of this job.

Despite Stark’s protests, you sink on the expensive leather couch, not having the will to do anything else. Your chest feels tighter, your throat dry; is this what guilt feels like?

Someone could’ve died today.

Either way, it’s your fault.

Steve Rogers moves on to another reporter from another news channel and the one that’s on the TV begins recounting this morning’s incident.

The cameras did you dirty; everything the news got from you is a blurry picture of your face. Your eyes have more white in them than usual, and you could probably benefit from a hairbrush and nose job. Your stance is akin to a cornered wild animal, almost.

You’re not like him at all.

Rogers is back on the screen, speaking into a microphone even though there’s at least three others near his face. You don’t really register the words.

Just accident and comes with the job.

His eyebrow twitches for a single second, but it’s enough to take you back to your shared look on the Quinjet.

“Hey. You really need to go shower before Tony hoses you down right here.”

Natasha’s voice sounds distant from your left - your ear is still ringing slightly, but it’s enough to pull you out of your flat-screen induced trance.

“Yeah— yeah, okay. I’m going.” You get up, but it’s hard not to look at TV again now that they’re showing the aftermath of today’s mission.

Avengers leave warehouse destroyed at Union City: 2 surrounding buildings suffered severe structural damage.

5 people are hospitalized. 8 units have been evacuated.

“Don’t beat yourself up about it too much, okay?” From the right, her voice is somehow distant too - but you can’t blame the explosion this time. “We’ve made worse mistakes. And yours saved all our asses.”

It’s hard to focus on the bright side when you are the accident that comes with the job.

“I don’t think Fox News would love that statement, Romanoff.”

“That’s why Steve does the interviews. He’s good at keeping the peace,” You finally manage to look at Natasha. Her face and hair are clean now; hair wet, a very large T-shirt that definitely does not belong to her hanging from her shoulders. “and they like him more than they do us anyway.”

“‘Cause they think they own him,” You roll your eyes. “and he’s too good to tell them to fuck off.“

Steve’s pleasant façade is back on the screen, and it makes you feel a little sick.

“Wow, you’re starting to sound like you care about him,”

You glare at her, an incredulous noise coming out of your mouth, and you think you might actually be sick. “I’m gonna go shower.”

“Good.” She laughs, and you don’t bother turning as you make your way to your room. “I won’t tell him, you know?”

“Fuck you!”

Natasha laughs harder.

You come out of your bedroom at least an hour later to a quiet, dim-lit floor. Your feet make little sound as you pad towards the kitchen you share with Wanda and Nat, and you don’t bother turning any more lights on besides the one inside the fridge.

You’re like a raccoon this time of the night, hungry for any kind of trashy snack you could get your hands on; it doesn’t help that you tried to speed up the coming down process of your powers and it made your stomach reject its contents.

With your head inside the refrigerator you almost don’t hear the sound of the elevator doors closing shut, and the heavy steps that followed - almost.

Steve Rogers is back at last.

His shoulders are slumped, hair and uniform still grimy from earlier. His face is the worst of all, with dark circles, droopy eyelids and smeared soot from where he probably rubbed it countless times during the press conference.

Eyebrows scrunched up in surprise, as if he wasn’t expecting to run into you.

“You look like shit,”

He breathes out a tired laugh. You half expect him to say it back to you. He doesn’t. “I know. I just wanted some water before I go fix all of—this,”

It’s something logical, really - you’re the one closest to the fridge, so you pour him a glass. You’re not gonna overthink that.

“The news people were here this whole time?” He hums in response, downing the glass of water like Tony Stark would do with a shot of tequila.

“CBS just left a few minutes ago.”

You’re also not gonna overthink about the way he looks at you when you take the glass from him and fill it up again. He drinks it slower this time.

“They’re pieces of shit.” “They’re part of this job. We do ours, and they do theirs.”

“It’s still bullshit.”He chuckles, shaking his head. “Yeah, I suppose it is.”

For once you’re more focused on your nightly snack - tortilla chips and a queso dip you pulled out from the back of the fridge - than Steve’s presence at your side. You’re waiting for him to just to go upstairs without another word.

“How are you feeling?”

It’s so quiet after you can hear your heartbeat speeding.

You meticulously scoop the still cold queso with a tortilla chip before turning to answer. “Me? I’m fine,” He’s assessing you with his eyes, and you regret not covering up more. You pop the chip into your mouth. “Just hungry.’

“Are you sure?”

“Why wouldn’t I be?”

Steve sighs. “I know what you’re doing.”

You scowl.

“Yeah? What am I doing, Rogers?”

“Answering my questions with questions,” He says, running a hand through his dirty hair. “I know you’re using your HYDRA words during missions. During training.”

“So? It’s not like it’s a secret.”

You can tell he’s becoming irritated. Good.

“I know it’s taking a toll on you. Coming down from it, and everything else.” You frown, trying to square up to when he steps closer. “I just— I think you should stop using them.”

“No.”

“Maybe I can talk to Shuri and she can—”

“Really? You want to deprogram me? My powers are already out of control as it is, and you want to remove the one thing that gives me the slightest edge over them?” You nearly snarl, and he closes his eyes.

Neither of you are in the best headspace for this conversation.

You’ve seen the headlines. If that’s what they think of you semi-functional, you wonder what it would be like if you’re not.“Nothing that comes from HYDRA can be for your sake, Bucky is getting be—”“I am not Bucky.” You huff, and you want to throw something at him. And here you thought he was starting to accept you.

“I know. You— are you gonna let me finish?”“No. I’m fine like this—“

“Fine? You’re everything but,” You stare up at him, breaths quickening, waiting to hear him make clear how he thought you weren’t good enough. “You think I don’t know about how frequent your migraines are? About the morphine? The nosebleeds, the nausea, all of it?”

“So what? They’re not as bad with the new suit.”

“And the programming? Reliving that shit, again and again? You can’t convince me you’re tough enough to not let it bother you.”

“I am tough. I am HYDRA scum, am I not? Maybe I’m reminiscing,”Steve scoffs. “You can lie to everyone else. Not to me.”You breathe out through your nose, closing your eyes to fight off your annoyance. You try to remember he took one for the team today, with the press.“It’s fine. I’m finally being useful during missions, just like everyone always wanted—”

“Not at that cost. You don’t need to be useful—”

“Really? Because as far as I know, the only reason I’m still here is to be functional. An asset. This was the deal from the start, do you think anything but that will be enough?”

“It’s enough for me.”

You blink. It feels like the blood has drained from where it had rushed into your head, leaving it empty, your hands clammy. This night has taken such a wild turn you will need at least a couple days to process it fully. Steve and you are standing very close now, so much that your field of vision is nearly entirely filled of him. If you stood on your tiptoes your foreheads would be touching, even if you don’t remember stepping any closer. He looks the way you feel - exhausted.

“Has it ever crossed your mind, Steve, that my failsafe is there for a reason? What if I’m even worse without it?” You say quietly, voicing the fear at last.

“I don’t believe that for a second.” The way he says it makes you want to be a pathological optimistic like him.“Just… think about it, okay?”

It takes you a second, but you nod anyways. He squeezes your arms gently, and you only now notice he’s had his hand cradling your elbows ever since you were within reach.

“What about you?” Your question seems to catch him off-guard, and he tilts his head. “How are you feeling, I mean.”

If you moved your hands just a little, you’d be touching his chest.

“I’m—I’m fine. I’m good.”“Are you sure?”

Steve’s hand is still on your arms, his thumbs caressing your skin like you’re the one that needs comfort. Not that you don’t… but it doesn’t matter either way.

“I do this all the time.” You decide you’ll have to be content with his answer, even if his body language is telling you what his words aren’t. His eyes are soft like you’ve never seen before; at least not directed at you.There’s other things to be concerned about, however: the heat from his hands and the way he looks at you making your knees weak.

He’s so damn close.

“You really need a shower, good lord. You smell like wet dog.”

He lets out a breath. “Yeah, yeah, I know. I’m going now.” Steve says, letting go of you and stepping back, just a little. “G’night.”

He opens his mouth like he wants to say something else.

“‘Night, Steve.”

You’ll never tell a soul about the urge you just had to smother yourself in his arms, and how your queso and chips were forgotten on the kitchen counter as you scurried back to your room.

[intrepidacious]

occupy my brain [4]

series summary: Being Harlan Thrombey’s research assistant would be the perfect summer job if it weren’t for his grandson.

pairing: ransom drysdale x f!reader

word count: 1.8k

chapter warnings: heavily implied smut; ransom being his usual asshole self; the repercussions of chapter 3 😏 please note that my blog is rated 18+. minors dni. ageless/empty blogs will be blocked without warning.

a/n: these chapters keep getting longer and someone needs to stop me to be quite honest. or maybe don't. this was a fun one 🤭

series masterlist | main masterlist | read on ao3

searching for redemption

It had been a few days since the incident, and your mind couldn't stop replaying that night. It was like you were stuck on a loop. Every time you closed your eyes, you could feel his hands on you again. His lips.

And when your own hands traveled down your body, you couldn't replicate the sensations those memories brought you. The frantic clashing of your bodies against each other, the heat, the sounds.

It was maddening.

The last thing you needed right now was an unhealthy obsession with the memory of Ransom fucking Drysdale's dick.

You'd have to quit. You'd have to leave the country. You were still thanking your lucky stars that Harlan Thrombey hadn't said anything about the state of you the morning after, when you arrived at your meeting late and in a very wrinkled shirt. You'd wanted to die.

The man wrote detective novels, for crying out loud. It didn't exactly take Sherlock Holmes to deduce what you'd been up to the night before.

The one silver lining was that Ransom was still as unwilling to get any actual work done as ever, and so you'd been pretty successful at evading him. Apart from a couple of research-related texts exchanged between the two of you, you hadn't heard from him at all; and even though your own messages were bordering on passive-aggressive, his stayed surprisingly, and thankfully, innuendo-free.

You just wanted to forget any of it had ever happened.

There were only a few weeks left of your run at Blood and Wine, and then you never had to see him again at all. You'd never been more grateful for your semester schedule picking up immediately after break. After sinking a couple of eighty-hour weeks into lab reports and essays and analyses, you'd be back to normal again.

Everything was going to be fine.

Except there were still a few weeks left of your run at Blood and Wine, and when you left the lab building on Friday afternoon to catch a ride home with your friend, her car wasn't anywhere on the parking lot. Instead, you could see a beat-up BMW and a certain dark-haired asshole leaning against it.

Heat rushed to your cheeks immediately at the sight of him. His lips were twisted into his usual scowl as he scrolled through his phone. It wasn’t bright enough outside to warrant wearing sunglasses, and yet Mr Pretentious did it anyway.

"What are you doing here?" you called out, stopping a couple of paces away from him.

Ransom put his phone away, and even though you couldn't see his eyes you could feel his gaze dragging up and down your body lazily. You ground your teeth.

"We've been summoned," he finally said. "Don't you ever check your phone?"

As a matter of fact, you hadn't in a while; labs made you forget all concept of time, particularly with the amount of reports you'd had to finish. You found an e-mail from Harlan Thrombey marked urgent as well as several missed calls from [Don't even think about it] and a message from your friend telling you she'd left without you after "your asshole guy told me u had plans. use protection!!"

"How did you even know where I was, anyway?" you asked, putting your phone away again without deigning to answer that particular text.

"I asked nicely."

You snorted.

"Can we go or do you wanna wait here until you take root?"

"Right now?" you said reluctantly.

"Right now," Ransom drawled. "Get in."

So much for your evening plans of watching a couple of episodes of your favorite show and eating sushi in bed. With a groan, you climbed into his car. It smelled surprisingly nice in here, like worn-out leather and some expensive air freshener and, well, Ransom.

Hot breaths and sticky skin and low moans and—

The engine roared to a start and you quickly turned away to put your seatbelt on. It was a twenty minute drive to the Thrombey estate, and you spent the first half of it staring out of the window, ignoring the man behind the wheel. You weren't sure what you were waiting for; some snide remark, probably, an excuse for you to rip into him like you usually would and leave everything that had happened between you behind for good.

"You're being awfully quiet today."

When you looked at him, he was staring blankly at the road ahead, his face unbothered. He still hadn't taken off his sunglasses, even though the lights were pretty low now. Prick.

"Because this is weird," you said.

He put the blinker on, every movement nonchalant. "Why?"

You rolled your eyes. "You know why."

The pause that followed was long enough it almost let you hope he'd just drop it and you'd be off the hook. You could just move through the uncomfortable air between you and continue working together as history's worst team until you could finally part ways.

"Do you always get like this or has it been a while?"

Then again, always lovely to be reminded how much you hated the guy.

"You know what, I'm not even going to answer that," you said sharply.

"The second one, then."

"It's none of your business, Ransom."

"No," he said and readjusted his glasses. "It was fun, though."

"Fuck you."

He stayed silent for the rest of the drive, but the smug energy still radiated off him. You entertained yourself by thinking about murder.

*~*~*

"Ransom, take those glasses off," Harlan said as soon as you sat down in his office.

You gave Ransom a look that said told you so; you'd had that discussion just minutes earlier.

"No thanks," he answered, leaning back in his chair. "What did you want to talk about?"

Harlan sighed heavily. "Off now or so help me god, I'm going to write you out of my will after all."

There were a couple of angry red splotches forming on Ransom's neck, right above the spot where you knew you'd left your mark on him, which was just hidden by the collar of his sweater today. With another gruff sound, he finally pulled his sunglasses off.

You swallowed your gasp down.

"What happened with you?"

Ransom raised his chin to look his grandfather straight in the eye; it made the shadows fall on his face in a way that made the dark bruise stand out even more.

"I fell," he said dryly, his features made of stone.

You didn't hear Harlan's reply; you barely took anything from the meeting, even though you felt yourself nodding, agreeing to consider a couple of different things in your research for the remainder of your work time. Later, you even found a couple of notes you'd taken on your phone.

Your thoughts were swirling and you didn't even know why. It was all very confusing.

Only when you got back to Ransom's car, because of course you'd had to agree to him driving you again, that one thing crystallized for you clear as day: you were furious with him.

"You fell, huh?" you said sharply.

"That's what I said."

"Bullshit someone else, Drysdale. What did you do?"

"Why do you care?" he said, tilting his head. "Because we fucked one time?"

Your face was burning. "Sorry for trying to be a decent human being."

You crawled into the passenger seat and slammed the door shut behind you, which really didn't have the intended effect when he was getting in on the other side just moments later.

Neither of you spoke this time. You were staring at your own reflection in the car window, still fuming; that's why it took you until the car slowed down that you weren't even in the area of your apartment building.

"What are you doing?"

"I'm going to ice my face," he said, turning off the engine, "and then I'm going to sleep."

"Hey!" You got out of the car after him, face incredulous. "You said you were gonna drive me home!"

"I said I'd drive you. I did. If you don't wanna stay, call yourself an uber."

Drowning. Strangulation. Multiple lacerations to his thorax.

"You're such a prick."

"Where have I heard that one before?"

You followed him into the entrance hall because damn him, you were not going to stand out there in the middle of the night and hope for an uber to be in the vicinity.

"Brighten up, sunshine," he said, another way too smug expression on his face. "You need to learn how to relax."

"What the hell is wrong with you?" you hissed, throwing one of your shoes at him.

"Jesus, what—I should be the one asking you that."

You threw the second shoe. "I’m not the one driving you insane!"

"You sure about that?" His voice was low, almost raspy, and your gaze snapped to his, almost involuntarily. His eyes seemed to bore straight into your soul, like he was searching for something.

Slowly, he stepped closer to you, his hands roughly grabbing your face. Still, the way he pulled you towards him was almost gentle, his gaze heavy with something you couldn’t pin down. At last, your faces were merely inches apart. You couldn’t breathe.

Then, finally, his lips found yours again, softer this time but no less demanding. You clasped your hands around his neck to keep your balance when he started walking towards you, making you blindly stumble backwards, his arms securely around you when you almost tripped over something on the floor. You didn’t care to open your eyes.

You hissed when your calves hit the stairs sharpy, the pain almost enough to break the spell he put you under. "Ransom—" you tried.

He huffed disapprovingly, his grip tightening, and then he continued walking you up the stairs, letting you lean on him just enough to not lose your balance, the hunger in his eyes growing even as he noticed the uncertainty in yours.

Getting to the second floor took moments. It took hours. His mouth found that spot on your neck again and you shuddered, your grip on him tightening.

"We shouldn't—" You gasped when he nipped at your shoulder. "Shouldn't we talk about this?"

"Do you want to talk?" he snarled, his hands wandering down to your ass. "Or do you want to stop thinking for once in your life and let me make you cum enough times you won't be able to walk tomorrow?"

You grabbed a fistful of his hair and tugged his head backwards until he hissed, forcing him to look at you. The bruise around his eye looked even angrier up close, and you inexplicably found yourself wanting to trace it, not to hurt him more but to soothe.

Instead, you swallowed it down. "Promises, promises," you said.

He didn't need another invitation.

thank you to everyone who voted for this chapter on my most recent poll, it was a close one!! if you want to see more of my writing, check out my masterlist or follow @intrepidacious-fics for update notifications 🧡

[the-austrian-candidate]

Hetalia Cars Headcanons

Germany: Ludwig is a big fan of cars. For him, it is a hobby; he likes getting his hands dirty, repairing, checking, etc. On a daily basis, as in my head, he is environmentally conscious; he drives a nice electric Mercedes or uses public transport in Berlin. But, give this boy a few free hours, and he will take his Ferrari (yes, Ferrari; Feliciano chose it) to the Autobahn (Highways), which in Germany are mostly with no speed limits, and he will show you all his talents. He still drives safely and is careful, but he is a speed devil.

Prussia: Gilbert drives well; he is not as into cars as Lutz is, though he still knows what he is doing. He also drives something German, maybe a BMW or Audi. Classic one, with manual gearbox, black, because black cars are awesome. Prussia actually sticks to the rules on the road, although he still, after all these years, tends to forget about seatbelts. He is also in possession of a Trabant, a car produced in Eastern Germany. It is one of the oldest models from the late 1950s, in a light blue colour. It is well maintained, and you can still drive it, which Prussia does from time to time to let the old boy breathe a little. He won't admit it, but he kept his Trabi out of pure sentiment. 

Austria: Roderich can drive, sort of. He learned how to do it very quickly, but he dislikes it. Austria always had someone to drive him around, and nowadays he usually uses taxis or someone else like Ludwig or Gilbert is driving him. In the early days of cars, it wasn't that bad; there were just a few machines around, but in the 21st century, he is simply slightly afraid (he won't admit it aloud, of course). of the number of people on the roads, it is way too fast for him, and with him being easily distracted, it is just hard to drive. He has a car; Ludwig chose it, it is sensible, comfortable, and German. Roderich spearly uses it, but if Germany, Prussia, or anyone else visits by plane, they usually take the car. 

Bonus headcanon: Alfred once made a comment about Ludwig driving rather slowly in the city and having a boring town car. Germany took Al for a drive in the Ferrari. Americ's life was never the same.

[newkatzkafe2023]

To celebrate new monkeys, how would the Wukongs’ react to a mate who is basically like Discord? You know, teases them, has chaotic magic, probably some clingy behavior since they didn’t really have someone who cared about them. Just heaven’s nightmare meets self proclaimed god or goddess of chaos.

MY LITTLE PONY!!!!!!! DISCORD IS ONE OF MY FAVORITE MLP CHARACTERS!!!!!!!🤩🤩🤩🤩

(Lmk Wukong) You are his dream girl. The chaos, the anarchy, the pranks he wouldn't be able to come up with in a million years. He just had to have you, especially when learning how sweet and caring you actually are when you're not being a bad girl🤤. Wukong wasted know time wooing you over after another day of you never making sense, he cooed and flirted all while you flirted and teased him. It wasn't hours before you were making out as exploding peaches cobblers rained down on heaven and earth.

(MKR Wukong) Ohhhhhhhhhh, you two are a match, and he totally feels it's meant to be, just as much as you do😉. You are so beautiful, so powerful, so Chaotic he just wants to take you home so bad🤤🤤🤤. It's safe to say that he will adore you, and you're a chaotic magic, especially when it's really sticking it to heaven and its stupid forced organization. It all started when he wasn't invited to the celestial banquet and therefore he robbed them blind but surprise surprise you weren't invited either. So you both met up and came up with a plan to get back at everyone😈. Then, hours of watching your magic at work was when he knew he was in love with you. He took full advantage of your clingy nature as he would demand unpresided cuddles from you personally.

(HIB Wukong) Your chaos actually scares him😳. the way you torture the 3 realms, specifically heaven with your Chaos magic, especially when it's supposed to be out of control. You tease him on a daily basis and perform cutesy fun party tricks for Luier and Silly Girl. Not to mention your pranks on pigsy make him laugh sometimes, which he hates how he let's that happen. The one thing that touches him is how caring and concern you would be for him, which is honestly sweet of you. Wukong may find your magic to be chaotic and unpredictable, but knowing your personality as someone who actually considers him and his emotions, it really feels nice.😊

(NR Wukong) Oh my god, this, this can't happen. Everyone would forbid you from ever meeting him because the chaos would be talked about for the rest of everybody else's life🫢🫢🫢😧😧😧. Not to mention, he can be quite clingy himself, so cuddles and hugs are a must he even except hands holding from you. He fell madly in love with you and your chaos, and especially with how caring and sweet you are to him. You've been his other half ever since you made it rain alcohol🥰🥰🥰

(Netflix Wukong) People have literally cowarded upon seeing you both together. I mean we saw the chaos that he can reign especially in a fit of rage but once he meets you it's over😨. Wukong is very fun to tease and play little pranks on because his reactions and Whines are priceless and adorable. He himself is also the clingy type so the cuddles are very Frequent as they are intimate, when he finds out that nobody cares for you either he had made a Vow to always be there for you as you started to be there for him.

(BMW Wukong) Heaven will totally sh*t themselves so hard they would actively lose weight if you both ever were to meet. You both will always be on the drawing board when it comes to planning pranks and acts of chaos. Although he would be a target to pranks and teasing as long as he does it to you, which is always fair on your part. Not to mention, your clinginess would always be something for him to poke at jokingly, even though he secretly liked that to you as he's always touching you in some way. The point is you guys will be a match made in hell for heaven and everybody else that knows you personally!!!😈😈😈

(Destined one) Ahhh, clingyness is the one thing he will never mind from you. The Destined one definitely tends to get bamboozled by you and your magic, but he definitely never minds it. It comes to be quite useful in the journey, and he loves your creativity and enthusiasm for it. Not to mention, the way you would carefully look over him and make sure your prank didn't upset him is very heartwarming to him. But you should know he can have bouts of mischief as well😉😉😉

FEEL FREE TO REBLOG💥

[whitefox2k18]

Well seeing this on s0rr3l's post and seeing the Idea form @szynkaaa's post, so I deiced to try it out myself.

Big Spoon/Little Spoon

Méi doesn't mind being little spoon, and likes to cuddle on Juzi's fluffy chest fur. They can also hide their face when feel embarrassed.

Júzǐ likes being a big spoon, that he can make sure that Mei is safe with him and he also goes to them when Mei feels cold or when they have nightmares.

Also like to cuddles too.

Lends Clothes/Borrows Clothes

Mei would just stitched their clothing on their own sometimes.

Júzǐ on other hand looks for clothes that fits Mei if not he lends his lends own while he would also fix Mei clothing if it was damaged.

In the My life is Peachy AU, Mei loves snuggling into Oversize jackets or sweat shirts.

Doesn't Use Pet Names/Uses Pet Names

Both dont mind pet names much

Both would find the way tease each other any way possible

Mei would be flusher a lot

Introverted/Extroverted

Mei somewhat introverted but not as much.

Juzi Doesn't mind having company even if he doesn't do a lot of talking.

Mei would teach him a bit of sign language if he's comfortable.

Affection Through Words/Affection Through Actions

Mei can be affection physical a bit but makes sure that are boundaries until they feel comfortable.

Juzi tries to be respectful of Mei personal space.

Overtime, Juzi reads Mei like a book that makes him sure what touch, they were okay with.

Confesses First/Waits for Confession

Méi developed feelings during chapter 4, but cant confess, thinking it wasn't the right time and was patient for Júzǐ to confess.

Júzǐ realized his feelings in post-chap 5. Confessed to Mei before the battle of The Great Sage's Broken Shell.

Sadly Mei have to go back home.

Has Mei's lily hair band to remember them.

When Mei went back home, they made a doll that looked like Juzi missing him.

Screams about Bugs/Squashes Bug With A Shoe]

Mei's not scared of bugs.

Juzi willingly squash bugs for Mei, even though they can do it.

Drives the Car/Can't Drive

Mei can drive

Cars don't exist in ancient fantasy China X3

Can't Cook For Shit/Makes Dinner

Mei can cook awesome

Juzi is a gatherer and sometimes watches Mei for learning experience and Mei taught him to be patient,

Mei uses ingredients that Juzi gathers and be creative way possible.

When Mei was Isekied into BMW verse, They couldn't tell which was edible until Ying taught them.

Dislikes PDA/Loves PDA

Mei is a bit shy about it at first and gets embarrassed.

Finding out that Juzi loves it and doesn't care what others think.

Face turned red but enjoys it.

Over the course of their journey into dangerous areas, fighting demons, and such, Juzi will find a way to touch Mei, either through hand or tail.

Overprotective/Chill Going

Juzi is very Overprotective because Mei have gotten injured during chapter 2 and was nearly killed by rat Yoaguis, and he make sure they stayed close to him.

Juzi learns soon enough that his travel buddy can hold out well enough.

After Mei proves to him that can handle themselves and confessed that they dont want to be burden nor useless and thanks to Ying training them.

If someone talk smack or disrespect Juzi anyway, off the nice Mei and on the roasting and reprimanding mode (Kind of like fluttershy thing form MLP)

Has More Relationship Experience/Has NO Relationship Experience

Mei has a bit relationship experience but to the point of dating but overall not so much.

Juzi never had experience in romance, whatso ever.

They would go slow, Mei's patient.

I'll might be doing Quang Bo and Sun Wukong's, maybe.

@blackknight-kai @marcu-bug

[dronebiscuitbat]

Give me a Reason: Chapter 12- "Petals"

Uzi sat on the park bench scrolling through songs on her phone, the air around her was warm and humid, summer seemed to come faster every year and this year was no different. It was marginally cooler in Copper, the valley it resided in shielding it from the sun's rays most of the day, but not by much.

The park itself was nothing special, a small playground in the middle with a few covered seating areas around it, she was just on the outskirts, sitting under a dogwood tree that was spitting it's big, pink flower petals out at everyone who passed it. She'd already had to pick several out of her hair.

And at exactly 6:30pm. A dark grey BMW pulled into the parking lot, and Uzi looked up at it before looking back down at her phone.

N:I'm here! Where are you?

Nvm! I see you!

Uzi blinked, looking back at the fancy BMW that had just pulled in and sighing, oh so N's family had money, money. That made a bit of sense, though she was a little surprised he'd never mentioned it before.

She stood up, dusting herself of and trying to look as presentable as possible, suddenly feeling a little self conscious in her tank top and (currently open) jacket.

A tall woman with long brown hair and gorgeous emerald green eyes stepped out of the sedan, doing a once over of the park before the passenger door opened and out stepped N. A hoodie and jeans despite the temperature. (Though it's not like she had room to talk)

N pointed at her excitedly, which made her freeze for a moment before awkwardly smiling. Stepping up towards them a bit warily.

“Um, heeey?” Oh fuck everything, she was so awkward. Someone please come rescue her from this conversation.

“Hey Uzi! This is Tessa! The chef of the food you like so much!” She winced, they hadn't shared lunch that often, but being put on the spot so suddenly made her heart speed up and breath get caught in her throat.

“Oh-uh, it's nice to meet you. I guess.” She curled in a bit on herself, feeling more out of place then ever. She felt her face getting warm despite her efforts to stop it.

“Oooh, N didn't tell me his ‘partner' was the girl he met on the first day.” She side eyed N, a smirk growing on her face as she turned to him.

“You didn't lie to mom to go on a date did you little bro~?” She teased, earning a squeek as N turned an impressive shade of cherry red, something that seemed to also spread to Uzi, as she looked down to hide her own fluster.

It wasn't a date! It was an exhibition to gather data! No romantic undertones at all! Nothing romantic about hunting for ghosts!

“Tessa!” N seethed, being the first time Uzi had seen him look genuinely upset since she'd known him. “Its-Its not a date! And I didn't lie! She is my project partner!” He defended, fidgeting his hands.

“Riiiight, alrighty then. It's nice to meet you too Uzi, N was right, you are very pretty.” Tessa winked at her, and Uzi felt whatever oxygen she had escape in a tiny gasp as N looked like he was about to perish on the spot.

“I'll be back at ten sharp. Have fun you two!” Tessa waved them off, chuckling to herself at the way she embarrassed her younger brother before hopping back in the car. N was still stuck ramrod straight, face redder then beetroot.

There was a moment of very tense silence, before N cleared his throat, trying to calm down a little.

“Ah-uh… don't mind her, she likes to embarrass me…” He explained, rubbing the back of his head sheepishly, smiling like a fool.

Uzi gave a half-laugh. “I-Its okay. She's your older sister, it's kinda her job right?” Her hands gripping onto the bottom fluff of her jacket as she also tried to coax the heat from her face.

Right. She just likes to embarrass him. He probably never said that about her…

“You are- you are though.” He murmured, looking down at his own feet to avoid looking anywhere near her.

Well that certainly didn't help calm her fluster.

“Oh… thank you?” She managed to get out before she had to look away, a dumb, smiley look on her face. She still didn't know how to take compliments, and this one made her heart feel all fluttery… for some reason.

“You have petals in your hair.” N said after a moment of awkwardly walking back to the bench she was at before. Pointing at the pink petals caught in her beanie and purple locks.

“Huh? Agh! Come on!” She shook her head and huffed, watching as a few petals floated down around her, crossing her arms.

“Uh… there's still… here.” He suddenly stepped incredibly close, hand brushing through her hair as he fished for the final stubborn flower, she almost wanted to yell at him for invading her personal space, instead all she could do was squeak and watch his arm like a mouse watching a cat.

The moment was over quickly. N pulling back with an intact pink flower in his hand, he was beaming, letting the flower float out of his hand and onto the ground gently.

“There! It really wanted to stay with you!” He giggled, fidgeting with his hands again.

Uzi blinked. Before figuratively slapping herself. Pulling herself put of whatever weird headspace she'd just fallen into and clearing her throat.

“T-thanks. Uh, you wanna start walking? The forest is thata-way.” She pointed forward through the park, past the fenced in area of it's well trimmed confines, the forest grew thick and untamed.

“Yeah! Let's go, I love doing anything!”

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