#But I much prefer rehabilitation. Which in a way is what they do.

[ckret2]

(I said earlier I had a fic excerpt about DEATH LAWYER AXOLOTL, here it is.)

The god hopefully turned to the time giant—

She shook her head, expression flat. "Nope. I'm a civil engineer, not a hostage negotiator."

—and then turned to the Axolotl. "You. You know how to talk to mortals like this triangle that's taken over Dimension Zero, don't you? Isn't he like the omnicidal monsters you represent every day?"

The Axolotl looked nervously at the wormhole into Dimension Zero. He could see blue fire and hear wails of pain on the other side. "Ah," he said.

####

Biologically there was really no such thing as a god, in the same way that botanically there is really no such thing as a vegetable. Tomatoes are fruits; spinach is a leaf; carrots are roots; broccoli is an unfinished flower. The word "vegetable" just indicates the cultural role a plant performs in the kitchen.

The word "god" indicated the cultural role an entity performed in cosmology: a god was anything that exerted enough power that mortals felt driven to worship it.

Different beings so honored with the title "god" handled it in different ways. For the Axolotl's part, he thought it was a useful designation to help with networking, but mostly it was a pain that meant he was put up on a pedestal for doing his job.

The Axolotl was a god of justice. Not the god of justice, but one. He held dominion over an abstract concept; over millions and billions of years, his words and decisions slowly, inexorably altered the idea of "justice" on a multiversal scale. Mercy, retribution, punishment, rehabilitation, equity, equality, fairness, and righteousness were like multicolored clays he could twist, squish, sculpt, and blend at his leisure, permanently altering what those ideas meant to the mortals they affected.

Which was to say: he was a lawyer.

He was also known as a god of rebirth. Which was to say: he specialized in afterlife law. Before going into law he'd only been a psychopomp, but after having to escort too many despairing souls to afterlives he felt were too severe for their sins, he'd decided he wanted a say in where he took his souls. Now he helped clients get their charges reduced so they were eligible for a higher-tier reincarnation, or got their purgatorial sentences reduced, or—on rare occasions—even helped them avoid damnation. (Although he didn't take many damnation cases. He didn't always win—and those ones were too depressing to lose.)

And lately, he'd been developing a reputation.

For the past few centuries, he'd been working on a damnation case. He was defending a supervillain who'd built a weapon that could slice open the fabric of spacetime—a crime against reality—and bisect planets in its wake. He'd died inside the jurisdiction of an afterlife that had legalized eternal damnation. Case law had long since established that the dead had to be sent either to the afterlife system of their native jurisdiction or an alternate afterlife system of their choice in order to be judged, provided that the proper afterlife accepted their transfer request.

But if this villain had been extradited to his home world, the heaviest sentence he could have faced was a thousand years purgatory, with an option for early reincarnation for good behavior after a hundred years. So the jurisdiction he'd died in had summoned up some bureaucratic red tape to dismiss his native afterlife's extradition request, and he'd been sentenced where he'd died. They'd wanted to establish via case law that the dead who had committed crimes against reality could be damned in whichever jurisdiction they happened to die in, and hoped they could get away with it just for lack of anyone protesting the move. After all, everyone involved much preferred that a mortal wicked enough to obliterate multiple populated planets and trillions of lives receive eternal punishment.

Everyone involved except the Axolotl. 

Taking this case hadn't made him many friends. He didn't care; he had his principles. Let an interplanetary supervillain be dragged away to a foreign afterlife just so that he can be forced into damnation, and next it'll be a planetary dictator; let a dictator be dragged away, and next it'll be a murderer; and next it'll be a burglar; and next it'll be a jaywalker that a psychopomp has a personal grudge against. If the Axolotl could establish that even the most undeserving mortal imaginable, a criminal against reality, still deserved the right to be sentenced in the afterlife of his choice, then he could establish that everyone less evil deserved the same right.

If he had anything to say about it, in two or three trillion years he'd see eternal punishment outlawed completely; but untilthen, he was not going to sit idly by and let this flagrant abuse of interdimensional law become the new meaning of justice! He would get that supervillain out of eternal damnation, personally escort him to his native afterlife, and see him reincarnated on his own home world—and mark his words, he would rain so much bureaucratic hell on the judges and psychopomps that had let this abuse of justice take place that no god would dare keep a soul from its rightful afterlife ever again, or he wasn't the Axolotl!

All of which was to say:

Yes, unfortunately. This triangle was like the omnicidal monsters he represented every day.

And so he was appointed hostage negotiator.

####

(And that's why a trillion years later he's the guy helping Bill submit an insanity plea so that he can go to Theraprism rather than get the permadeath penalty.)

[goodgirlofglory]

A successful trial run/ One-shot

Pairing: Bucky Barnes x reader

Word count: 9,2k

Warnings: Explicit sexual content, explicit language, smut, making out, nipple-play, dry-humping, coming in pants hehe, me making up a lot of unconvincing sciency talk about tech and engineering and whatnot.

Summary: As a newly recruited scientist in the royal technical institute of Wakanda, your first task involves a certain Winter Soldier fresh out of cryostasis and in need of a new arm. Intrigued by his mysterious figure since forever, you’re brimming with fascination over the subject. Little did you anticipate capturing his eye in return. 

Note: This takes place somewhere between Captain America: The Winter Soldier and Avengers Infinity War. Kinda wanted to write something from the time Bucky spent in Wakanda. I enjoyed writing this one, hope you enjoy reading it😘 Likes, replies and reblogs are amazing. Luv you guys, you are the best, i am always so grateful and excited to receive all your feedback💕💕🦋

The first time the Winter Soldier entered the lab, he was flanked by the entire Dora Milaje and led by the king himself. Apart from the usual ceremony of greeting the king and his guest of honor, no one seemed jittered nor particularly preoccupied with the new project - or its primary subject. The engineers, scientists and technicians of the royal technical institute and Wakandan Design group were used to making much more extravagant and complicated designs than a prosthetic arm. 

It was a regular Tuesday for everyone - except you, that was. Extraordinarily gifted from a young age, you had quickly advanced and surpassed your peers and even superiors in your studies at the university of the capitol. Subsequently, you were the youngest person in the lab - apart from princess Shuri herself. 

And you were almost jumping out of your skin with excitement at having the Winter Soldier as your very first test subject. Or rather, you were on the team that was to build his next vibranium arm. You’d read all about him and watched all the news over the years, but you had started working in the lab after he’d been brought to Wakanda and put in cryostasis, so you’d never actually seen him in the flesh. Now he was out of cryo for rehabilitation and with that came the need for a new arm. Shuri had picked the team herself, and to your utter surprise, chosen you as a part of it. 

Your task was fairly simple: organize and execute the fitting of the prosthetic prototypes with the subject himself, take notes and report to the team whatever adjustments the soldier would prefer. The others would do most of the engineering, creative modeling and building - the more prestigious work. You didn’t really care that your tasks were relatively simple and low level though - it was an amazing learning experience for a newbie like you. Plus, it meant you were the primary contact person for the soldier himself, which had you flushing hot for both professional and decidedly less professional reasons. 

The soldier was an enigma; lethal chaos and extreme discipline spliced inside the body of what was once a regular American. His mythos was both intriguingly detailed and all at once a mystery - a sort of dangerous puzzle you couldn’t help but be drawn to like a moth to a flame. Everything he had lived and experienced and represented was so very very far from your own safe and mundane world. It wasn’t that growing up in Wakanda had been boring per se, but everything was just so… perfect, and despite yourself, you were drawn to the Winter Soldier and the extraordinary case of his unusual life. And from the moment you’d laid eyes on him, you knew you were out of your depth. 

He was beautiful - in a rugged, unpolished sort of way; raw and hauntingly real, he only seemed to move when it served the explicit purpose of his visit. Otherwise, he stood still as a statue. He had an air of mystery to him, but despite his huge, menacing and burly form, he wasn’t scary. His eyes were soft, the babiest of blue, his stubble revealed tiny streaks of silver, and his hair, though washed and groomed, had a consistently shaggy look to it that made him seem…human. Just another regular white guy to everyone else in the lab - the most intriguing person in Wakanda to you. 

Along with the king, the soldier had silently shaken the hand of everyone on the team, looking them in the eyes with a polite, though quite stoic expression that betrayed nothing of what was happening on the inside. You’d stared at him as he'd made his way down the line, scrutinized every inch of his face, trying to gauge the tiniest twitch of muscle, any indication or hint of emotion - to your utter astonishment, you could see nothing. Then he'd reached where you stood at the end of the line of team members, and your heart'd kicked into a sprint at the way he suddenly loomed before you in all his muscled, mystical and deadly glory. Holy shit, he was huge, surely a foot taller than you, with the most obscenely broad shoulders and thighs that bulged in a way that had your mouth going dry.

Get yourself together! Stop ogling the subject!, you had admonished yourself harshly.

By the time you got back in contact with your body and reached a hand out to him, your palms were sweaty and your face hot. And then, as he engulfed your hand in his pale, calloused one, hot like a multilayered sonic solar panel during july, you thought you saw a muscle near his eye twitch, catching your gaze the same way his eyes did a moment later when they glinted with something suspiciously alike curiosity, a flashing moment of undivided interest that had you flushing even hotter. 

Oh yeah, you were in big, big trouble. 

§

Three months later you no longer broke out in panicked sweating whenever Barnes came in for a fitting (most of the time). You’d had a total of four meetings so far, all of which had been professional, short and silent. Barnes hadn’t spoken more than a few words to you in all your time together in the lab, and none of them of much importance.

("Here?" he'd asked that first fitting when you’d asked him to take a seat on the surgical bench. 

"No" he'd said when you asked if the new fastenings at his shoulder were uncomfortable.

"Yes", he'd said when you’d asked if the first prototype arm was lighter than what he was used to.

Other than that, the winter soldier mostly communicated in grunts, nods and shakes of his head.)

The hiss of the sliding door alerted you to his arrival as you were readying the newest prototype for the fitting, and just like always, the door was the only sound even hinting at his presence. He was impossibly silent for a guy his size. 

“Sit down, please, I’ll be ready in a moment,” you threw over your shoulder, keeping your eyes on the clasps you would try on the shoulder today. 

When he didn’t answer and you could hear no sound of the shifting padding on the surgical bench, you threw a look over your shoulder and froze. 

Barnes stood by the bench, his one flesh arm raised high, fingers adjusting something on the…bun on the back of his head. His…bun of…gorgeous, thick locks of shaggy brown hair. You gulped, a tingling sensation of adrenaline starting to well up in your chest. He hadn’t worn his hair like that before, at least not around you, and man were you a sucker for a nice hair do on a man. Combined with this man it seemed to be suddenly and quite effectively lethal. His locks were collected and pulled away from his face, revealing high, chiseled cheekbones and a jawline that could cut diamonds and -

A screw fell out of your hand as your mind worked overtime to process the image before you, and then, so quickly you didn’t even see him move, the soldier was there, crouching at your feet, catching the screw before it could clink onto the floor. 

It felt like an eternity went by as you stared at his bent form slowly straighten up up up to his full height, the screw looking more like a grain of sand in his big, calloused and rough hand, his body so close you swore you could feel the warmth radiating off him. The lulling scent of fresh earth and spices filled your nose, taking you to luscious lands far away. 

You heard the hitch in your tiny, involuntary intake of air like a siren in a dead silent night, and your face blazed to a million fucking degrees, your heart galloping in your chest. Swallowing thickly, you looked up into his pale eyes - eyes that betrayed nothing in an equally neutral face. 

Fuckfuckfuck, he’s so close. Fuck, his eyes are so blue, shit, he smells good, is that freckles on his cheek bones - 

He held the screw out expectantly, and you mentally shook yourself for being so fucking slow. Stop ogling him! Take the screw! With fingers you were relieved to see didn’t tremble, you reached out and plucked it from his light grasp, furiously not hyperfocusing on where your skin grazed his. 

“Um,” you started, and painfully cleared your throat before trying again, cheeks burning, “t-thanks. Please, sit.”

He stayed unmoving for half a second longer than was strictly necessary, and then he turned and moved to sit on the surgical bench. 

Turning back to your table of tools, you took a few calming breaths, breathing as softly as you could in case the soldier could hear you (which he probably could quite well considering what you’d read about his enhanced body and senses.)

You turned back to find him watching you from a seated position on the bench, eyes following your movement as you walked up towards him, pulling your table behind you. You plastered on your best carefree smile and picked up the prototype vibranium arm, sleek black with silver accents, and like you always did, held it up so he could inspect it if he chose to. Like always, he didn’t seem remotely interested in the design. Only, he didn’t stare ahead out into the room like he usually did during these parts of the fittings. Instead his eyes remained on you, his form so fucking unmoving he could be a statue. You swallowed thickly, absurdly nervous. His scent still lingered in your mind. 

He’d removed his shirt, revealing the new shoulder prosthesis in the same black as the arm, fitted to mold over his scarred tissue and make a clean transition from steel to skin. Your eyes caught on the tiny sliver of golden, muscled skin peeking out from where his white t-shirt had been cut above the shoulder, and you quickly averted your gaze even as your mind started conjuring images of wide expanses of soft, golden skin under the tips of your fingers as you explored under rays of soft, morning sunlight. 

Why did he have to look so god damned good, with his stupid hair up in a stupid bun and stupid t-shirt that dared show even a square centimeter of his stupid skin, you thought perturbed as you started fitting the arm to the shoulder, hands working on autopilot while your mind frayed at the edges. 

All through the fitting, you felt his eyes linger on you, not staring per se, just…observing. Three times you peeked up from your work to catch his eyes on yours, and three times you hastily averted your gaze back, your cheeks heating anew, your heart picking up speed. He’d never done that before. He’d always just stared at the floor or the wall during his fittings, eyes vacant, seemingly far far away. He’d never been fully present, never watched you, very rarely met your eyes. It was what had kept your own visceral reactions to such a minimum you could easily manage them. But now, under his weighty gaze, your body started tingling all over, sweat gathering on your brow, your breathing going just slightly too fast. You didn’t know if it was excitement or some instinctive fight or flight-reflex kicking into gear. Why was he looking at you like that?

“There,” you said just a little too hastily when at last the final screw was in place. You retreated to the other side of the room under the guise of organizing your tools back into their rightful place on the wall. “Please test it out, feel how it fits, tell me how it feels,” you said with your back to him, reciting the instructions you always gave him during this part of the fitting. Usually, you observed him closely as he walked around the room, lifting the arm, flexing the fingers and grabbing at random objects to test grip and reactivity. Now it was all you could do to not flee the room all together due to how embarrassingly flustered you were. The fittings in themselves weren’t really necessary from an engineering perspective - the royal technical institute all but guaranteed the highest mark of quality and a near zero percent chance of faults. The fittings were more beneficial from a psychological point of view - to give the subject a smooth transitional introduction to their new limb. 

You heard him shuffling about for some time while you randomly moved tools and screws around your table while trying to collect and promptly ban all the inappropriate thoughts running wild in your head. It was so unprofessional to be affected like this! Sure, he was handsome (wildly so) but you couldn’t call yourself a proper scientist if you acted like this! It was disgraceful! Even as you scolded yourself for being this way around the poor, innocent hunk - SUBJECT - your mind flooded with the thoughts you tried so hard to keep at bay. What did his hair feel like sliding through your fingers? Did he always gaze so intently? What would those eyes look like in dark rooms surrounded by soft sheets? What would that new metal hand look like wrapped around your - 

The sound of a throat clearing had you yelping - for fuck’s sake, girl - and whipping around to find him right behind you, looking down at you with that expression that betrayed nothing. 

You stared up at him for a moment, heart thumping in your chest, stunned to silence by his clear initiation of contact, and then abruptly found your sense. 

“Does it feel right? Is anything uncomfortable or -”

Your words died out as he extended the vibranium hand between you. He let it hover there, hand straight, expectant. You stared for a moment, and then praised yourself for daring to reach your own hand out to clasp his, a bit unused to the flip to using your left hand to shake his, hoping to God this was what he was getting at and that you didn’t just make a fool of yourself. 

Your interpretation was correct, and the smooth, slightly cold metal closed around you, dwarfing your hand. The soldier squeezed your fingers and then shook your hand a bit stiffly a couple of times before stilling. You gulped, acutely aware of your heartbeat running a gallop in your chest, the silence around you so severe you could hear your own breathing like a wind tunnel. The feel of the vibranium, so alive in this form and shape, squeezing your fingers in a firm, unyielding grip had new, strange sensations slowly trickling south, and you fought the instinct to clench your thighs as unwelcome heat pooled in your lower stomach. Mortified by your own, inappropriate and decidedly unprofessional reaction, you hoped to all the dead kings and Bast herself that the soldier didn’t notice. Disturbingly, there came no sound from the soldier, not even from his breathing. 

After a moment of nothing happening, the both of you just standing there, clasping hands, you dared a peek up at his face. He was watching you again, but instead of pale, dead eyes, the blue of his irises simmered with something…something hot and wicked and - 

You abruptly pulled your hand out of his grasp, and gave him a far too fake gleeful smile. “Good grip,” you jipped, voice coming out far too strained and shrill to be casual. Barnes looked at you with those captivating eyes for a moment longer before looking down at his vibranium hand, flexing the fingers a little. 

“It’s perfect,” he said. 

It took you a moment to register the words, and then elation swept through you. You smiled and clapped your hands together and spun to go note his comment down.  “How wonderful, I’m so glad,” you said, not able to keep the excitement out of your voice.  A happy subject meant you’d fulfilled your task! The project could move onto its final stages of rendering and documentation. Happy progress!  You scribbled down some fast notes on the screws and fastenings, how he’d tested grip by shaking your hands and his own feedback, putting his exact words down as a quote. 

“The team will be so happy to learn you’re satisfied, they talked so much about the latest updates on the interface between sensory input and mechanical automobility - they wouldn’t shut up about it for days, I swear to Bast,” you said, the words falling out of your mouth in your excitement, and then you turned back towards him and again fell silent. 

He was staring at you, and for the first time, you could actually detect emotions on his face. He looked…dumbfounded, or something akin to that, watching you with avid eyes, mouth slightly open and brows for once out of their trademark downturned frown. You were stunned yourself for a moment seeing him so out of character, and then you promptly lowered your gaze. 

Oh great, first you’re fumbling and awkward and then you start rambling like a lunatic. What is wrong with you?, you asked yourself silently.  You cleared your throat and motioned for him to sit back on the bench. He obliged, and you found yourself slightly disappointed to see him schooling away his emotion behind the stoic mask. 

“So, I’ll have to take the arm off so it can be finalized, and then you’ll just have to have it fastened a final time, and then you’ll have your arm, Mr. Barnes,” you said as you got to work unscrewing and removing the prosthetic limb. He nodded, eyes glued to you like before. He didn’t seem happy, or if he was, he didn’t show it. You hoped he’d feel elated like you did, but considered how the whole metal arm thing might still be a little complicated for him. You wondered if he was going to a therapist, or a support group or anything. You didn’t dare ask, though. “I imagine the finalizing process won’t take much more than two weeks. I’ll send you a suggestion for the next appointment once it’s clear, and you can confirm using your compad like before. Sound good?” you asked, thankful you could keep a clear head through this part at least. 

“Yes,” he said, still watching your eyes as you removed the arm and returned it to the table. You nodded to him, and managed to stay upright until the door hissed shut behind him as he left. Then you curled into a mortified little ball and hid your flaming face in your hands. 

§

Fucking. Great. 

Your heart had been hammering harder for every mile that passed as your cruiser made its way into the heart of the Wakandan landscape. The prosthetic arm had been finalized within a couple of days and your superiors thought the best course of action was sending you out to fasten it instead of demanding Barnes make his way into the capitol on such short notice. Which meant you were on your way to his home, to be completely alone with him…in his home.   

Part of you was insatiably curious to see how he lived, to peer into such a private, revealing place. Everyone knew seeing how a person lived was like seeing a reflection of their soul. Your apartment for instance, was a hot fucking mess, but one you could navigate perfectly. You hadn’t allowed yourself to picture Barnes’s home, though, or make any assumptions. How he lived was of no scientific interest, and therefore no interest to you! Or so you told yourself, at least…

It’s fine. Everything is fine, you chanted in your head as the cruiser arrived at its destination, the small hut Barnes had been gifted as his indefinite residence. It was a beautiful place to keep a residence, right by the river, the surrounding trees providing plenty of shade from the hot sun and a gorgeous view over the plains. It only made you more curious about Barnes, and subsequently, more furious with yourself. 

Everything is fine. 

As you shut the motor down and climbed out of the vehicle, his large, burly figure emerged from the hut, and a spike of energy went off inside you as you locked eyes with Barnes. He was as stoic as ever, but he walked up to meet you right away and surprised you when he reached to grab the case with the arm in it to carry it for you. 

“Hi,” you said, and quickly added, “um, thanks for being available at such a short notice.” 

You’d felt kinda foolish for giving such a roomy deadline prognosis at his last fitting only for it to take a few days, and were sweating with the hope it hadn’t inconvenienced him in any way. There was a whole delicate, psychological process involved in getting a new limb - a process one shouldn’t meddle too much in - especially when there was significant trauma involved in losing the original limb. Fuck, you were so nervous.

He looked a bit puzzled for a moment, brows drawn down in consideration. 

“No. Thank you for coming all this way,” he said a bit haltingly, and to your astonishment, he sounded almost as unsure of himself as you felt. Uncomfortable warmth spread in your chest. That must have been the longest sentence he’d ever spoken to you. His voice was low and gruff, a smooth rumble that seemed to vibrate through the ground, across to you and straight into your chest. Fuuck, how were you supposed to survive that voice, and with him being uncharacteristically timid and polite?

Suddenly you felt like laughing. Here you were, both of you so awkward and unsure, and what for? This was a joyous occasion, for Bast's sake, and you were being silly! Forcing your nerves down, you leveled him with a smile. 

“Not at all. Let’s get that arm on, shall we?” you said, letting your actual excitement for the happening fill you instead. You were after all, genuinely excited to finally give Barnes his new prosthetic limb, and see him back to full mobility. 

He stared at you for a moment, his eyes fluttering around your face, and then abruptly stepped aside and gestured for you to proceed him into the hut. You obliged, holding your spirits high as you dared venture past the curtain and inside the hut. 

Barnes’s home was sparsely furnished but…surprisingly cozy. Brightly coloured pillows, blankets and tapestries lay everywhere, a window to the right letting in the bright, midday sun, casting a glowing light on everything. You recognised the patterns and color scheme from your own parents and grandparents houses, it was a traditional home in all senses of the words. You’d think Barnes would stick out like a sore thumb here, but really, he seemed to fit in well. There was a low table to the left with stacks of books and a mug on it, surrounded by more pillows and blankets. Your eyes caught on and swiftly ignored the cot at the back of the hut, made perfectly with a mountain of pillows. 

That’s where he sleeps. That’s where he rests. That’s where he’s most vulnerable. That’s where you would lay if he - NO!

Barnes squeezed around you where you stood just inside the entrance studying the space, and you quite viscerally realized how small the hut was for the two of you, how small it was for him alone really. This was gonna be way more tight and intimate than the lab, you thought with a mix of excitement and trepidation.

Barnes put the case down by the low table and proceeded to start clearing the table of books and pens and the mug. He looked down into the mug and then over at you. 

“Coffee?” he asked, and taken aback by the unexpected question, you shook your head quickly before immediately regretting it. It would’ve been more polite to accept, and you did feel a bit strung out by your morning so far. 

Barnes nodded in response, and then seemed at a loss, turning the mug in his hand. Was he…fidgeting? 

“Where do you -?” he started, and you cut him off. 

“Right there is fine. We can sit on the floor, no problem,” you said reassuringly, giving him another smile, suddenly filled with sweetness for this big hulk of a man and his nervous fidgeting. He nodded and proceeded to plump down where you assumed he normally sat. You quelled a smile at how normalcy seemed to bleed through even this exceedingly awkward situation, and was kind of enamored by the way Barnes seemed to relax once he was seated in his usual spot. It gave you the impression that this space was a comfort to him, which you were glad to see. 

You neared and sat down on your knees at his side, opening the case and swiftly taking out everything you needed as he took off his shirt to reveal the same t-shirt he used to wear underneath, sleeveless on the left side. Without further ado, you started the process of permanently fastening the arm. You slipped into a calm concentration as you worked, the familiarity and comfort of your skills calming you, a comfortable silence descending upon you both, only interrupted by the sounds of your electric screwdriver. The whole thing took no longer than ten minutes, and then you sat back and looked upon Barnes in silence as he took in his new arm, knowing it was finally, and wholly, his. 

He stared down at it for a long while, and then the hut was filled with sounds of gentle, almost silent whirring as he started flexing mechanical muscles, then fingers, then the whole arm, lifting it to examine and compare to his other arm, running them both through his loose hair and picking up different items on his table and tossing them lightly from hand to hand. He seemed completely engrossed, and for long minutes it seemed almost like he’d forgotten you were even there as he explored his new arm. 

It was awe-inspiring to see, to be allowed to observe such a vulnerable moment, to witness him seemingly letting himself really connect to this new possibility of having two arms and two hands again, in a way he hadn’t even seemed to entertain while in the fittings. It touched something deep inside you, witnessing with honor what you hoped might be a moment of healing, and tears pricked the back of your eyes. It felt so incredibly moving to be part of a team that could give something like this to a person who’d been through so much hardship, and the feeling filled you, making you feel all warm. This was why you’d gotten into this field, this was why you wanted to be a scientist. To be able to help people recover precious things lost. 

Your heart swelled with emotion, and then Barnes looked at you, his own astonished joy blasted clear across his face, completely unencumbered, letting you see it without any pretense or facades. Your breath caught in your throat at the sheer volume of his joy, and how intimate him sharing it so openly with you was. You were stunned. 

And then you kissed him. 

One moment you were looking at his broad smile full of slightly crooked, white teeth, and then you’d leaned across your own knees and half across his and unceremoniously pressed your lips to his. It was closed-mouthed and a bit off-center, your bottom lip caught awkwardly on his top one. But sparks crackled through your body all the same as you felt how soft his lips were, how warm his skin was, the slightly surprised gust of warm, gentle air from his nostrils. 

And then your senses kicked in, mortification hot on their heels, and you broke the kiss abruptly, all but ready to flee the hut. You didn’t get the chance to move away though, before cool metal fingers slid up the sensitive skin of your throat and back to cup your neck, gently, but firmly pulling you right back into the kiss.

A fire caught in your loins, sizzling hot sparks shooting up your body and you drew in a shaky breath through your nose only for the air to be caught in your throat, making a small, needy, desperately embarrassing sound. The metal fingers on your neck tightened at the sound. 

You felt completely blown off your center. Nothing had felt this good before, nothing in your whole, perfect life full of joys and pleasures and fulfillment had felt so sensationally good as James Buchanan Barnes's lips on yours while his brand new prosthetic hand cradled your neck.

The surge of desire that welled from that feeling propelled you to buck forward and crawl into his laps, straddling him with even more clumsy frenzy as you kissed him again. He answered in kind, his flesh hand landing tentatively on your hip before moving up your back to pull you tighter against him once he seemingly caught on to the fact that you were there in his lap of your own fruition. 

You kissed again and again, hungry, exploring, closed-mouthed but growing more desperate, more daring. You opened your mouth to catch your breath and was met by the shy swipe of his tongue just inside your mouth, and your whole body shuddered at the sensation before you wrapped your arms around his neck and swiped your own tongue to meet his. 

A growl came out of nowhere and exploded in Barnes’s chest as you tongue-kissed him with everything you had, and then the world was spinning, and your back hit the brightly earth-coloured rug. Barnes followed you closely, and laid down on top of you, pinning you down with his huge, burly body, claiming your mouth in an honest-to-Bast breath-taking kiss. 

It was explosively good, this gorgeous, muscled beast of a man pinning you to the ground, broad shoulders shielding you from everything above, leaning on his elbows while his hands cradled your face, holding you perfectly still as his mouth descended upon yours again and again, growing hungrier with every kiss. Your mind whirled with images of his metal arm wrapping around your throat, pinning you down, tearing your clothes to shreds and holding you put exactly where he wanted while the soldier ravished you, and it became even harder to pull air into your flaming lungs. You heard yourself whimpering into the kisses, your own desperation growing like a galloping crescendo inside you. You were suddenly, unexpectedly, and totally irrationally ready for him to tear your clothes off and take you right there on the floor of his hut, heat flaming in your lower stomach, a molten ache starting to let itself be known between your legs, everything else in the world be damned and forgotten if you could just feel him ins - 

A small beeping sound cut through the fog of desire overtaking you, and it took you a moment for your melting brain to recognise it as your pager. You wrenched out of the kiss and put your hands on Barnes’s broad, warm chest, feeling his strong heartbeat jackhammer beneath the layers of clothes and flesh. His lips followed you for a split second, his eyes opening to slits in order to find you again. Then, as he realized you’d intentionally ended the kiss, he immediately let you push him half-way off you to fish the pager out of your pocket. It was your boss, they needed you back by lunch. 

Fuck

Fuck, what the fuck were you doing? It dawned on you the incredibly inappropriate situation you were in, had put yourself and Barnes in. This was reckless and rash and completely not who you were or had ever been. With anyone! No, no, no, this was bad, you were so fucking stupid. You couldn’t bring yourself to meet his eyes as you pushed him gently all the way off you to sit back on his haunches and swiftly extracted yourself from under him and got to your feet. 

You were mortified, absolutely mortified, shame and embarrassment and guilt washing over you in tidal waves, slamming into your chest. 

“I’m so sorry, that was so…um…I have to go, but er, enjoy your hand - ARM and hand,” you sputtered out as you began fleeing the hut all together. Then you remembered what you were supposed to say upon leaving, and turned while halfway out the door, “If you have any trouble or complications, don’t hesitate to contact the institute. On behalf of the technical institute and design group, we hope you will be pleased with the product. Um, bye!”

Barnes remained in the same seated position on the floor while you made your stumbling exit, and you missed the look of longing in his eyes as you left. 

§

A week passed while you marinated in your own embarrassment and guilt, trying and failing to get the whole incident in the hut out of your mind. Partly because it was the most unprofessional and out-of-control thing you’d ever done, and partly because you just couldn’t get the memory of Barnes’s lips out of your head. The warmth emanating from him like a furnace, the way his hands gripped you gently, but possessively, the thrill that had gone through you when he flipped you and pinned you to the floor like you were nothing more than a rag doll. Had he been as turned on as you? Had he enjoyed himself? Surely he’d enjoyed it a little bit with the way he’d reciprocated, but had he really wanted it?

You shook yourself out of your daydream for probably the dozenth time that day, not a single word written on the personal essay you were to turn in with your other documentation in a couple of days. Fuuuck, this was so bad, you had to be able to focus and put this from your mind! If you were lucky and if everything went as it should with the prosthetic, Barnes would have no reason to contact the institute and seek you out ever again, and you would never have to see him again after your blunder. 

The project would be over soon, you would move on to new ones and the one tether you had to Barnes would be severed. It was best for everyone if you just forgot the whole thing. 

Except, in your panicked flight from his home, you’d completely forgotten the case that had contained the prosthetic arm, along with some screws and your most beloved screwdriver. You hadn’t even noticed it was left behind until you were halfway back to the lab, and had been completely at a loss on what to do. You couldn’t go back after the way you’d left, but you couldn’t just leave it either. The equipment wasn’t of that much value and the lab had plenty more, so that wasn’t the greatest issue. But you loved that screwdriver, and felt it as an obligation to retrieve it. Plus, it wasn’t fair to just leave it there, in Barnes’s home, what use did he have of it? Still, you couldn’t bear the thought of going back after the way you’d left….

Your head thumped down onto the workbench at the back of your lab. You were spiraling down the rabbit hole of warring thoughts for the upteenth time that day and was about to hurl something at the wall when the clearing of a throat came out of nowhere. 

Whipping your head up, you practically leapt from your chair when you saw Barnes standing  in the middle of your lab, clad in light pants and a loose-fitting half-sleeved shirt, completely unexpected, looking exceedingly unsure of himself (...and obscenely gorgeous)

Your immediate thought went to his arm, but as far as you could see, it was still intact and working perfectly from the way he clenched and unclenched the vibranium hand at his side. Then your eyes slipped to his other hand, and saw the case he held in it. 

“I, um, hello, I thought you might like this back,” he said, looking down and holding out the hand with the case. You immediately walked up to him and took it. 

“Thank you! So much, you didn’t have to come all this way just for that,” you rushed to say, feeling sheepish and grateful at the same time. 

“Oh no, I, uh…I…I have some errands in the… uh, the city and whatnot,” he said, and you almost smiled a little at the way he suddenly fumbled for words. Was this even the same guy that had pinned you to the floor and ravished your mouth a week ago? The same guy that had walked into the lab that first day, all menacing silence and calculated movement.

“Oh, okay, well, this was really nice of you, thank you again. Um, what did you say to the guards to get in here?” you asked, suddenly remembering the levels of clearing he had to go through to get here. Did he tell the truth? Would your superiors know you forgot the case? That you’d made a fool of yourself and made the whole institute look chaotic and unprofessional?

“I told them I had some more questions about the arm, and that I wanted to speak with you since you’re so knowledgeable and good at your job,” Barnes said, waving his metal hand in the air a little as if to show you it was indeed made of vibranium. 

He’d protected you? Kept your secret? A warm sense of giddyness spread through you, and you bit your lip to keep from smiling to broadly. 

“God, you didn’t have to tell them all that,” you said, feeling warmth bloom on your cheeks from his compliments. 

“I meant it, though,” he said seriously, and then he took a step towards you, “And I wanted to, needed to apologize…for what happened at my house…last week.”

Your heart surged in your chest and you couldn’t bear to meet his eyes. Apologize? What could he have to apologize for? You were the one who’d acted out of line. Did he regret what’d happened? What if you’d overstepped his boundaries and added more to his trauma?

“No, no, please, I’m the one who should apologize here. It was completely unprofessional to do that when I was working on a project with you, and so inappropriate to force myself upon you like that, all in this emotional moment and without knowing if you’d enjoy it or -”

“I enjoyed it,” he interrupted, voice clear and strong.

You looked up to find him another step closer. So big, and strong, and handsome, your insatiable desire whispered to you as he gazed down into your eyes, only inches between you. You wanted to kiss him again suddenly, your lips tingled with it. 

“You did?” you asked, only half paying attention as you lost yourself in his heavenly baby blue eyes, framed by thick lashes paled by the sun. Your eyes flicked down to his full lips, and when they went back to his eyes, they glinted with a spark of that same ferociousness that’d awakened in him on that floor in his hut. A glint that had your lower stomach going all molten. 

He nodded, breathing a little laugh that surprised you. Your heart started soaring in your chest despite your best efforts to keep from getting ahead of yourself. 

“Yeah,” he breathed, swallowing and licking his lips, “a lot. I, uh, I was really sorry to see you leave so abruptly too  - before I could speak with you,” he said. 

Arousal welled up in your body, and you felt a little dizzy all of a sudden. He’d enjoyed it…

“Me too,” you whispered, not trusting your voice not to crack. 

He took a final, tiny step closer, too close for any kind of professionalism or even decency, really, so close you could almost sense the atoms sparking to life in the tiny space between your bodies. Just like that, you were back in his hut, the moment swelling to level with the heavy, sizzling churn of when he'd flipped you to the carpet and caged you in underneath him. He had such a presence, his body thrumming with life and power and fuck, you wanted it on top of you. Again. 

“I’m relieved to hear that. And,” he said, slowly reaching his flesh hand to tentatively cup your neck, hot and possessive in one, tender gesture, his calloused thumb coming up to stroke over your jaw, the intimate touch sending fireworks through your nervous system, ”though I don’t want to disrespect your work ethic, I’d like to point out that we’re not working on the same project anymore, so if you’d like to -”

The case hit the floor with a loud bang the moment you wrapped your arms around Barnes’s neck and threw yourself into his arms, your lips meeting in a sizzling kiss. Barnes caught you around the waist and hauled you up into his arms, your feet dangling off the ground as he crushed you to his chest, returning the kiss tenfold. 

His tongue was immediately in your mouth this time, licking hot and wet and dominatingly over your own, and you whimpered at the sheer intensity, the way it blazed to a fire in your loins.

You clung to him like your life depended on it, and moaned into his mouth as you felt him turn and lower you to the bench in the lab, not letting much space get in between you before he draped himself over you and continued putting his mouth to yours. Your hands found their agency and started moving, mapping out his shoulders, feeling the muscle ripple under your fingertips as you caressed down his chest and around his sides to stroke his long, chiseled back.

His loose cotton shirt rode up as he moved to step further in between your opening legs, pressing himself closer, and your hands were unable to resist the pull as your fingers met the hot flesh of his lower back, stroking over silky smooth skin up again under his shirt. 

His whole body shuddered against you, a small gasp emanating from him as he broke the kiss, and your excitement went through the roof. You opened your eyes and stared at his expression going lax, eyes closing and mouth hanging slightly open as you continued your caress up his back. You hooked your hands over his shoulder and pulled him down to you again, nibbling on his lip before kissing his open mouth, your fingertips dancing in swirling patterns down his back. 

His body shuddered again. 

“Oh my god,” he whispered a little breathlessly against your mouth, mostly to himself it seemed, and your discovery made you almost feverish with desire. 

He was sensitive, and probably more than a little touch-starved. 

You brought your hands forward and found the top button on his shirt, staring to undo it as you breathed into each other's mouths. You’d gotten to the third one when Barnes gave a (admittedly adorable) little huff of impatience and pulled free to wrench his shirt over his head, revealing a sculpted torso right out of your wettest dream. You had to take a moment just to stare at him, hard abs, flat stomach, pecs that stretched into rounded, muscled, obscenely broad shoulders. Tight, sculpted muscles that shone in the dimmed, bluish fluorescents of the ceiling lights, one muscled arm with prominent veins running down to a calloused hand, one arm reflecting the lights in shiny, sculpted, black vibranium.

His chest rose and fell with his labored breath, his abs flexing, the muscles of his torso and arms tensing and shifting as he stood before you and it was just so different from the statuesque, almost frugal way he’d moved before, when he only exerted energy at the utmost importance. This man was alive in a completely different way. And he was looking at you like he wanted to devour you. 

You’d barely raked your eyes up to his and caught the feral glint in his eyes before he was on you again, ripping your lab coat open and sliding his hands up and down your sides. His touch sent shivers of warmth through you and you moaned into his mouth as he kissed you. That only seemed to spur him on. When his hands slid under the cotton sweater you wore, exploring the folds and dips of your abdomen, you shuddered. He was touching you like he hadn’t touched anyone before, all curious and explorative with just the hint of inexperienced clumsiness, fingers curious for such a mundane thing as the fold of skin over your ribcage as you lay there crouched beneath him. 

Bast, you needed more, his touch sending you into a frenzy. You wanted him, all of him. 

You started awkwardly extracting your arms from your lab coat, and when Barnes caught on, he was more than willing to help you shed it before his fingers went to the hem of your sweater. He paused then, and looked into your eyes for permission. You nodded, a bit eagerly perhaps, but whatever. 

He slowly slid the fabric of your sweater up your torso, and in a move more gentle than you’d anticipated from the way he removed his own clothes, he bent down and tentatively kissed your stomach - right on your tummy, soft kisses following the fabric up. It stole your breath away as you watched the movement avidly. 

He pushed the fabric all the way up over your bra, and reached with a curious hand to tug the cup down, revealing a hardened nipple. You were nearly shaking with want at this point, and shuddered embarrassingly hard when he took the nipple in his mouth and swiped his hot, wet tongue on it, nibbling gently and curiously with his teeth until you shuddered again.

You let your hands wander and found his hair, finally, finally getting to feel the soft, straight locks of hair sift through them, basking in the opportunity after having snuck peaks at it for months. It was even silkier than you’d imagined, despite its shaggy appearance. You combed your hands through his hair as he moved to suck on your other nipple, pulling the cup of your bra down to free your breast to the open air of the room. 

Scraping your nails over his scalp, you felt the way his form trembled atop you, and he almost purred, a deep, rumbling groan vibrating through you and into the very bench beneath you. You scraped over his scalp again and bit your lip as it elicited another rumble.

He let your nipple go, puffy and a shade darker than usual from his bullying, and you watched the string of saliva connect it to his lips with a blush burgeoning on your face. Oh, this might get filthy, you thought to yourself, almost embarrassed by how much you liked it when he closed the distance between you and licked into your mouth again, seemingly not caring about his spit getting everywhere, the kiss messy and wet. 

There was a tell-tale hard bulge pressing against the heated spot between your legs, and you rolled your hips down on it. Barnes gasped out of the kiss, looking almost shocked as he quickly looked down between your bodies to where he was pressed against you, and you wondered if he might’ve forgotten where all of these horny urges came from. You rolled your hips into him again, experimentally, and watched as realization hit him, as his eyelids drooped and a tiny groan escaped him. Then he rolled his hips to meet yours and it was your time to groan. 

“Just like that,” you whispered encouragingly, and met his gaze as he returned his eyes to yours, watching you intently as he rolled his hips again and again, grinding himself between your legs. 

He felt…big, to say the least, and he was grinding against your clothed clit in a way that you knew had you gushing into your panties. You could already feel the fabric getting soggy, sliding along your flesh as Barnes widened his step and grinded against you with more grounded precision. 

Fuck, it felt so good it was getting hard to think, and when his - oh god - vibranium hand slid down your side to grab your hip, effortlessly pinning you down into the bench so he could grind even harder against your core, the breath in your lungs fucking punched out of you. You knew just how much strength was packed into that metal arm. Knew there was a fine line between using too much strength and keeping you pinned firmly enough so you couldn’t move your hips an inch. Barnes traversed that line perfectly. 

Your pussy was on fire, the grinds of Bucky’s big, hard bulge against your clit too much while - simultaneously - the layers of clothes between you made it somehow not enough. It had been so long since you’d just frotted, clothed, like this, and you now wondered how you could’ve forgotten how fucking good it felt - or if it’d ever felt this good at all before. You seriously doubted it, for you couldn’t really believe it, but the rhythm and weight of Bucky's hips while his mouth lowered to mouth at your neck was somehow actually propelling you towards the edge. 

You tried to move your hips to grind back, to make him go faster, harder, but found yourself utterly - and deliciously - fully at his mercy as he nuzzled the crook of your neck and laved his tongue on your skin, tasting it in that fascinating curiosity of his. 

Fuck, it was right there, you could feel it, he was gonna make you come, you just needed a little more. 

Through the haze of your impending, building release, you could hear yourself start to whimper. Needy and a little embarrassing, the sounds escaping you despite you biting your lip and clutching at Barnes’s shoulders, barely holding on as he hurled you towards that precipice.

His face suddenly appeared from the crook of your neck, and it took you a second to realize he had a look of confused concern on his face as he looked down on you. 

To your utter distress, his hips slowed their steady, hard thrust against yours, and he gave you a once over you had a hard time understanding. Then it hit you that he must be concerned he’d done something wrong; that he’d mistaken your sounds of need for ones of pain or that you didn’t want it or something utterly ridiculous like that. Sweet, respectful, slightly confused and apparently wildly inexperienced man, you thought with an almost woeful endearment. You could feel yourself slipping further under the power of his spell as his eyes returned to your face, flitting about to try and decipher your expression.

That elusive orgasm you were dancing up to started to slip away as his hips grinded to a halt, and you reached out to cradle his face in near panic. 

“No, please, please, please don’t stop. It’s so good, please,” you practically whined, trying to move your own hips to get more of that sweet, intoxicating friction. You barely managed a little squiggle under the pinning strength of his hand on your hip and his body on top of yours.

A great gust of breath whooshed out of him, and he started up his rhythm again almost immediately, meeting your tiny writhing with thrusts of his own like he just couldn’t help it, and you threw your head back, biting your lip and nodding frantically as the pleasure built inside you again, picking up just behind where you’d left off. 

His hand, the one of flesh, slid up your torso to caress the exposed column of your neck, almost curiously, exploring, holding it in an almost tender grip as you moaned in delirium. His thrust grew harder, your moans louder and his hand gripped harder like he enjoyed the feeling of your moans being forced from you by his moving hips. 

You could tell the moment he started climbing his own precipice, how his movement grew more focused, more intent, leaving all exploration behind to chase a goal with an almost singular, feral possession. His breaths turned to gasps, which turned to grunts and then low growls. His movement turned frantic, almost feral in their one mindedness. He was losing himself to the pleasure and you whined, mind turning to slush under the onslaught of his ferocity. You were going dumb on his cock and he hadn’t even taken it out of his pants. Didn’t matter, you were done for. 

The wild, animalistic abandon with which he chased his own high was so blastingly hot it sent you tumbling over the edge almost entirely on its own. You gasped, your body tensing and then exploding under his as his grinding thrusts sent wave upon wave of searing, orgasmic bliss crashing into you, riding you so hard you nearly passed out. 

Your sight went blurry, blood roaring in your ears, but you heard the moment his breath caught in his throat, such a vulnerable sound, and then the bulge pressed to the sticky, clothed cunt between your legs started throbbing in an uneven, staccato rhythm, which you could feel against you even through the layers of clothing separating you. His grip turned to bruising steel and you gasped anew as the intensity of the pain mixed with your abating orgasm, making a shocking, intoxicating cocktail of sensation blast through you. 

He threw his head back, the thick column of his neck stretching taut, and growled like he was in pain, and it sent vibration straight through you down to the table beneath you. Fuck, he was like nothing you’d ever experienced - pure, raw power, lust, shocking honesty and a sense of almost ardent fascination - mixed together in this anomaly and mystery of a man.

It felt like several minutes passed as you tried to catch your breath and gather your mind from where it’d melted out of your ears to puddle on the bench around you. Bucky’s face had made its way into the crook of your neck, where he seemed just as slow and sluggish to come back down to earth. He was like a furnace on top of you, even hotter from his exertion, forehead damp and hot where it pressed to the sensitive skin of your neck. 

His weight on you was a comforting one though, making you feel safe and protected, covered and nestled into a cocoon of muscles and warmth and soft, puffing breaths. Taking a cheeky chance, you carded a hand through his hair, the brown strands soft, glinting in the fluorescents above as they shifted through your fingers. Bucky’s whole form shivered as you raked your fingernails along his scalp, and the bulge nestled tight between your thighs and his body throbbed once as he grunted softly, neck twisting to push his head into your hand, almost like a cat rubbing against your palm to get more scritches. 

A chuckle left your mouth as you kept carding your hand through Bucky’s hair. He looked up at you then, and the moment caught up with you. A blush had the audacity of spreading on your cheeks even after everything you’d just done. He looked into your eyes, silent but for your deep, still slightly labored breaths. You couldn’t help smiling. 

He looked a little dazzled for a moment, then a slow, beautiful smile spread on his own lips to answer yours.

"Um, it's been a long time, and I d-don't remember much, but I'm pretty sure this is not how you court a lady properly," he said a bit self-deprecatingly. You chuckled again, and he joined, his form vibrating with myrth. He made no move to get off you though. You wrapped your arms around his neck.

"I don't know, this doesn't feel too bad," you said, and you could practically feel the relief in Bucky as he let you keep him laying draped across you.

"Still. I'd like to take you out sometime. It was the real reason I came here, after all," he said.

You felt your smile turn wry.

"I thought you said you had errands...and whatnots," you said.

His gaze wavered for only a moment as he realized he'd revealed his own bluff. Then his smile grew sheepish, and so warm it sizzled.

[darth-mortem]

This is a small background of what's happening in this fic.

Fluff, 721 words.

“I'll help ye!” Ghost heard Soap's cheerful voice and looked around, lowering the knife.

Johnny stood in the doorway, smiling his shiny smile, and his eyes radiated so much love that Simon involuntarily stared at him and forgot to answer. Dressed in shorts and one of Ghost's black T-shirts, Soap looked like he had just gotten out of bed. However, it could be true: he was still weak from his injury and tired quickly.

“No need to, sweetheart.” Simon finally spoke up. “We agreed that you would go to the store and I would cook. You should get some rest.”

He tried to make his voice sound soft and gentle, but he could tell by the way Johnny's expression changed that something was wrong. This was all hard for Riley, who had spent most of his life in the military with occasional breaks for hell like the one Roba had given him. He preferred living on military bases, and when he and Johnny rented this apartment, all of Ghost's belongings fit into a small bag. And Simon could never have imagined that civilian life, even with someone you love with all your heart, would be so difficult.

“What's wrong?” He asked quietly and somehow helplessly, and Johnny immediately stopped pouting and came closer.

“We need to do something together.” He said, taking Ghost's hand. “All of this that's happening now is a test drive for our future, when we retire, get married, and become a real family. All families do things together; it’s called ‘tradition’, ye know?”

“We watch movies together on Thursdays.” Simon said, bowing his head.

“That's not it!” Johnny argued. “We do a lot of things together, but it's all recreation, and I'm talking about housework. Ye do everything by yourself; ye clean, wash the car, do the laundry, cook... If ye didn't hate being around people so much, ye'd go to the store by yourself too!”

“I was just trying to take care of you.” Ghost pursed his lips and turned away to the kitchen table where he was slicing meat; in that moment, he was really regretting agreeing to be at home without a mask.

“I know, luv.” Soap looked at his back sadly. “If ye hadn't taken a leave to be with me, I would never have been able to handle it. But I'm feeling better now, and I want to take care of ye too. Otherwise, ye're going to come back to the base so tired that Price is going to fly here himself to ask me personally what I did to ye.”

The knife stopped moving, tapping the board. Simon washed it, wiped it down, and put it back before turning to Johnny again.

“I would have stayed with you for the rest of your recovery.” He said.

“I know ye would.” Soap nodded. “But the boys need ye, too.”

Ghost sighed but quickly shook off the sad thoughts because they still had plenty of time. Of course, the command was not happy that the lieutenant had decided to take all the leave he had stubbornly ignored for at least seven years, but Captain Price sided with him, arguing that Sergeant MacTavish needed to be cared for while rehabilitating from a serious injury. Of course, Soap could have gone to his parents' house, but it was too far from the hospital, and the eldest daughter and her children were staying at MacTavish’s family home, which would not have been conducive to the peace and quiet the doctors recommended.

“All right, then.” Finally, Ghost said, taking the second apron off the hook and handing it to Soap. “Put it on, take three medium-sized onions, and start cutting.”

“Oh no, not the onions!” Johnny rolled his eyes tragically, tying the apron.

“No arguments, Sergeant.” Riley cut off and reached for the meat mallet. “It's Tuesday, right?”

“Aye, Lt.” MacTavish took out an onion and began peeling it, standing next to Ghost.

“So on Thursdays we watch a movie.” Simon tossed the hammer and caught it by the handle. “And on Tuesdays we cook together.”

Johnny smiled happily, and Ghost couldn't help but smile as well. He began to pound away at the meat, thinking that Soap was right: of course, and if they were going to be a family, they should have some family traditions.

[kitthepurplepotato]

Chapter 13 - Walking in circles.

Summary: Fuck the summary, this is the last angsty chapter and it ends on a positive note, so if you were waiting for the angst to end, you can read now! (Warning: it’s 90% angst and 10% comfort though, so if you are hyper super sensitive, wait for the next chapter.)

Warnings: Swear words and a lot of tears and some sad suggestive stuff, because that’s a thing.

First Chapter Master List

~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~

To do list (Midoriya Izuku)

P.s - this bit is not medically correct for human beings. These people heal differently + this is a fanfiction, don’t forget that.)

After care (chest):

- Change the hydrocolloid dressing on Midoriya-san’s chest once a day for 10 days and use the provided ointment.

- Once the scar stops oozing completely, remove the bandages but use the prescribed cream three times a day to keep the fresh tissue moisturized and clean.

- Do not soak the scar but quick showers are okay after 3 days. Do not use soap, the cream has antibacterial properties anyway.

- Sudden, harsh movements can open up the scar so please refrain from doing anything excessive.

Aftercare (arms)

- Midoriya‘s left arm has a metal plate inside to stabilize the fractured bone and it also has a cast to protect it while it’s healing. Nothing here to do really, just keep the arm away from harm’s way. Do not scratch the skin underneath the cast, even if it itches because it might get infected. (No, you can’t scratch it with black whip. I asked - Ei)

Basics:

- Wheelchair for 3 days to keep the scar on the chest from being pulled.

- After three days, small walks around the house are allowed but nothing else.

- Rehabilitation starts after a week of rest.

- Lifting: small plastic bowl of food is okay, but no heavy plates, no actual workouts, definitely no cars and buildings until advised otherwise. Try to avoid opening doors for the first week. Use a small water bottle to drink, preferably drink with a straw. (Do not lift All Meowth! - Kacchan)

- Please refrain from sexual intercourse for at least until the scar gets healed, which is approximately 2 weeks. Do not lean on your arms. (What he’s trying to say is that you can still do it after 2 weeks if you are the bottom. Just be gentle. You should be fine with being on the top after a month if you are careful, yes, I asked, you are welcome. - Ei)

- Drink plenty of fluids, a healthy diet is advised. Take the prescribed medicine after meals and rest as much as possible.

~•🥦•~

“Welcome home!” Eijirou pops a party pooper as Inko wheels his son into the apartment.

“Really?” Katsuki facepalms himself, waiting for the other shoe to drop as Midoriya has an unpleasant frown on his face instead of a happy one and while you feel bad about siding with the other two instead of Eijirou on this, but… well… there is time and place for a celebration. “We are going.”

“Thanks for everything, guys.” Izuku gives them a sad smile but he doesn’t tell them to stay.

This is the first time when being alone with Izuku doesn’t sound appealing. It’s not because you need to take care of him, hell, you have no problems with doing that, it’s more about the fact that you already know he’s not going to let you do that.

You are terrified of being rejected by him, terrified to see that uncomfortable smile on his face, the one he usually gives to the overly enthusiastic fans when they come too close or ask questions that are too personal.

You know what Izuku needs now has nothing to do with his feelings towards you but there is a voice inside your head telling you that you are just not good enough, that you should just let his mother take care of him and give up before it starts to hurt even more but you try to think about Izuku’s words, about the way he looked at you when you two had a few minutes alone, about the touches you two have shared right before the accident… you know that deep inside, Izuku genuinely wants you here and even if you’ll need to hide in the bathroom to cry sometimes, you know it’s worth it. He’s worth it.

Inko and All Might stays over until you get Izuku’s food heated up. You feel terrible for giving a grown ass man a plastic bowl of Katsudon but you managed to find an All Might themed set in the small convenience store just a few streets down this morning; it comes with a bowl, a plate, a spoon and a fork. You decide to give the utensils to Deku too, just in case it makes him smile a little bit. It’s probably easier for him to eat with a fork right now, anyway.

Just as you make your way out of the kitchen, All Might bursts out laughing at your shenanigans.

“That’s so sweet but also, why is my face so weird?!”

“I have a feeling the makers of this bowl did not pay for the license to use your actual picture so they… made their own version of it.” You smile as you point towards the kitchen. “There is more if you want to eat!”

“No, we are fine, but I do want to see how it turned out! Do you mind if I take a bite?” Mama Inko sneaks closer to the bowl in your hand and steals a piece of meat. “Hmmm, lovely! Good job!” Inko smiles and ushers All Might towards the main door. “We will leave you two, please keep us posted! Izuku, be a good boy and don’t make your Sweet Pea cry!”

“Mom…”

“Okay, honey, do not aggravate the kid.” All Might mutters and Izuku looks at him with an incredulous face, but there is a tiny smile on his lips as he watches the two leave.

“Will they ever stop treating me like I’m a big baby?” Izuku mutters with a fond smile on his face.

“You’ll forever be their baby, Izu, deal with it.”

“But I’m your baby now.” He mumbles under his blushed nose; he looks like a teen trying to flirt for the first time and it’s so fucking adorable you want to kiss him senseless.

“You are. But they don’t need to know that.” You smile back but you can barely finish the sentence before Izuku speaks up again.

“Are you okay, Sweets?”

You almost drop the cup of water in your hand. That question came out of the blue. Are you… okay? You have no idea. Your mind is a mess, you are so fucking worried deep inside you want to yell and cry and break something but you are also happy to be able to be with Izuku right now, to help him, to be close to him.

“A little bit shaken, I guess.” You admit. “It’s a lot but it’s also what I agreed to, it just hits different when you are actually in the situation. But overall, I’m just glad you are alive.”

“I’ll… need some time” He repeats his words from yesterday. “Can we stay in our own rooms for a while?”

It hurts. It really fucking hurts but you brace yourself to smile, making it look like it’s no biggie, even as the world crumbles inside you.

“We can… use the living room as a common space. If you ever feel like talking or just co-existing, just come out. Send me a message when you need any help and please, ask for help, because I will really miss you and if me helping with your dressing or heating up your food is my only way to see you, I’ll gladly take it.”

A few more minutes until Izuku finishes his food. You can do this. You are strong. You are still loved. This is not the end of the world. Just keep the act up for a little bit more for his sake. Please.

“I love you.” Izuku announces confidently. “And once I’m… better… mentally and physically… I’ll show you how much. I promise I’ll make it up to you, for all the pain I’m causing right now. I’ll bring you all the stars from the sky if I need to.”

“I love you too, Izu-Izu.” You try your best to smile but a few stray teardrops manage to escape. Izuku doesn’t comment on it, because Izuku’s face is just as wet as yours.

~•🥦•~

Izuku wasn’t lying when he said he won’t… communicate too much. He only comes out of his room when he gets hungry or when he needs help with the bandages. He’s more than capable to do his everyday things even in the wheelchair; it’s a super high tech one which can go up and down, making the change between sleeping and moving around quite easily manageable even alone. He could probably do his bandages alone as well, with no problem whatsoever but he asks for your help anyway, probably to be able to see you a little bit without the need of a conversation, to steal a few touches before he retreats to his room again, to let you have a bit of time with him even though the distant look in his eyes tells you he’s not ready to do that yet, but still, he gives you a chance every day, let’s you change the bandages and kiss his forehead after you are done. It feels like an atonement, like a silent way of saying “thank you”.

You cry a lot when he’s not around, mostly at night, before you fall asleep with tear-streaked cheeks. You even get some acne overnight, probably from sleeping with a dirty face.

Izuku doesn’t sneak into your bedroom like how he used to. Not on the first night, not the second and not the third but on the fourth night, you hear the door open and close, you hear the buzzing of his wheelchair, you feel the bed dip by your side but you are terrified to make a noise, terrified to scare him away so you keep pretending you are asleep, you let him snuggle closer and try your best not to shiver as Izuku’s lips find your nape and he starts peppering small, slow kisses there, to the only area he can reach. He stays for an hour, maybe two, he runs his nose through your hair, mumbles into your skin, words jumbled and incomprehensible, then goes back to his room and acts like nothing had happened when you meet up in the kitchen in the morning.

There are ink marks on Izuku’s hand the next day, his eyes dark and lifeless like he haven’t slept at all. You call the doctor that day, ask him if it’s okay for him to write. You should probably say something about his lack of sleep as well, but… you just can’t. It feels like a backstab to do so. Izuku have promised he’ll take care of himself so you can’t help but trust him for a little bit longer.

Izuku keeps coming to your room every night but he never stays. Some nights, he doesn’t say anything then some nights he mumbles up a storm, mostly about the villain gang or about how much he hates not being able to help with the investigation. Then he mumbles about missing you, mumbles about how much he wants to kiss you, to hold you in his arms, to carry you to bed like in the “good old days.” There is one time when you mumble back an almost silent “I love you”. Izuku cries. Then he leaves after he’d cried enough.

You change his bandages. You kiss him on the forehead. You give him something to eat. He takes the meds. He pets All Meowth and goes back into his room. There is even more ink smudged on his hand. He’s not sleeping well. He admits he’s been talking to a therapist through the phone. He gives you kisses at night. You change his bandages. He says thank you when you put the All Might bowl down in front of him. He takes a deep breath, his face buried in your hair as he cries, feeling safe to do so under the cover of the night. You silently cry with him. Then you change his bandages again. It goes on an on for a full week like a never ending circle of nightmares.

Something new happens on the seventh night.

It’s the first night Izuku can’t make himself to leave.

It all starts as per usual, with Izuku sneaking under your covers, peppering kisses on your nape and your neck, the touch so light it barely touches your skin yet it still sends thrills down your spine. Then starts the muttering, half-sentences mumbled into your your skin then comes the wetness, Izuku’s tears as he mumbles louder, unable to whisper, choking on his sobs but he does not stop peppering kisses all over your neck.

Then… it happens.

Izuku’s “healthy” arm snakes around your hip, his thumb playing with your hipbone, his body slowly shifting closer and closer until he’s flush against your back.

“I love your body shape so much. Have I ever told you that? Probably not. I love how I can just… do this.” He moves up, his hand finding the small of your waist, relishing in the softness, grabbing into the skin possessively and you can’t help but whimper.

Here goes nothing. Now Izuku knows you are up. This is when he usually leaves. Will he just stand up and go away now? You really don’t want him to. Would it be too much to hold his hand in place? You have no idea what to do, how to make your point across without scaring him away, but…

“I wanted to do this so much a week ago, when…” Izuku chokes on another sob.

“I would’ve liked it. A lot.” You admit, finally feeling brave enough to speak up.

Warning: suggestive. A tiny bit of… frottage? Is that the word? I dunno. It’s literally 5 seconds though.

“I also wanted to do this…” He whispers, his voice cracking; suddenly, he tries to move on top of you but he has nothing to lean on; he makes a frustrated noise which breaks your heart. With all the strength you can gather half asleep, you try to keep him up long enough so he can put his working hand on the other side of you, then you keep your palm flat on his chest, keeping him up with shaking arms. Izuku moves to his favorite place right away, face hidden in the crook of neck and his tongue pokes out to lick your collarbone only a few seconds after, tiny whimpers leaving your lips as he finally finds his balance and dips down, grinding between your legs a few times before he breaks down, his body falling into you without a warning.

“It was so perfect back then… you are so perfect, yet…”

There is no way any words can get into the man’s thick skull so instead of words you decide to speak with your body; it’s a little bit hard to breathe with his whole weight on you but that’s the least of your concern as you pull Izuku up by his chin and kiss him with so much fervor it takes him several seconds before he can even react.

After not being able to kiss him for so long you can’t help but devour the shaking man on top of you, your hips arching from the bed to be as close to him as humanly possible, all the love, all the adoration, all the lust loud and clear as you kiss him deeply, tongue massaging his own while Izuku whines frustratedly, probably from the fact that he can’t touch you and keep himself up at the same time. You try to soothe his troubled soul by caressing his side and his back with your one free hand, wandering around the areas where Izuku isn’t bandaged up.

It goes on for several minutes until both of you need a breather; Izuku looks at you with deep, dark eyes, the bags even darker under it, panting and tired but after 7 days of acting like a shadow of himself, finally, there is a glint of emotion on his eyes, an emotion other than sadness, a little half-happy shine that makes your heart leap out of your chest as you stare into them with the same intensity. There are no words strong enough to describe what you are feeling right now and by the look of it, Izuku feels the same; without a word, he slowly rolls off you, ending up on your side of the bed as he let’s out a big sigh and pulls you closer, his face hidden in his favorite spot. He takes a deep breath and lets himself relax for the first time this week, mumbling “I love you” as the sleep takes him almost right away.

“I love you too, Izu-Izu.” You mumble into his hair, your fingers buried into his messy curls as you follow him to the land of dreams.

~•🥦•~

It’s 10AM and Izuku is still fast asleep next to you. For the first time this week, your tears are happy tears. You decide to let him sleep in for longer, clearly, he needs it; there’s a week worth of insomnia he have to sleep off, a week worth of tears, a week worth of stress. You leave a kiss on Izuku’s curls, making the man scrunch his brows adorably then you leave the warmth of the bed to make some breakfast.

You decide on omurice. It’s filling and tasty and you can also make cute little All Might drawings on the top of the rice which will for sure make Izuku’s day a tiny bit brighter!

The clock hits 12 when you hear rustling from your bed so you start to make some eggs to finish the dish. Izuku opens the door but instead of coming to the kitchen he disappears in his room. You can’t help but sigh.

Are we doing this again? You were 100% sure this is over. Maybe you were too naive.

“Izu?” You try to knock on his door but there is no answer; hell, there isn’t even a movement in the room, no signs of a person being inside which makes you so worried you break your own promise to not bother your boyfriend until he’s ready to talk.

When you open the door, the room is empty.

Don’t freak out. - You tell yourself as you look around the surprisingly messy room just to find an opened notebook on Izuku’s desk.

Diary chapter 243

I want to see you. I really do. But my mind is a mess and I can’t stop hating myself for being so reckless when I promised you I’ll come back to you unharmed. I can’t help but hate myself for trying to make everything perfect, despite the fact that deep inside, I know that whatever I do, if you are a part of it it can’t be anything but that.

I hate myself because I promised you I’ll take care of myself but I still don’t. My eyes hurt, I’m tired and I can’t feel my fingers but I can’t help but move those books around, ruin the order until it makes sense again, open the door to another world and loose myself in the tiny details as I’m trying to decipher words and sentences I’m not supposed to read nor understand right now, in my weak state. I’m nothing but a shell but I still can’t give up, I can’t stop helping, even if my actions do nothing good to my body and they make everyone around me mad. It’s extremely selfish, really.

The world won’t crumble if I rest, but my own world will if I loose you.

Maybe… it’s time for me to let my friends take over. Maybe, I do deserve a bit of rest.

Maybe, after a few weeks of atonement, I’ll feel like I deserve you too.

I’ll keep my books in order from tomorrow. I promise.

“Move the books around? Keep them in order? What?” You mumble to yourself as you make your way to Midoriya’s bookshelf to take a peek.

“Y-you can sleep in my room, Sweet Pea. You… can. Just don’t touch the bookshelf in the middle. Please. I beg you.” You remember Izuku’s words from a few months ago; needless to say, you make your way towards the forbidden shelf, because at this point, you can’t give a single flying fuck. Izuku will understand.

Izuku’s collection of All Might books are uncomfortably out of order. It starts with the third volume, then it’s just a mess of random numbers. You have a slight urge to clean that up but you take a deep breath instead and start to think. There must be some kind of logic behind it. There is a reason why Izuku left his diary open today, there is a reason why it was so obviously left on the desk. When Izuku wants to keep secrets, he’s more than capable to take them with him to the grave. It took him months to tell you the truth about his quirk and he still managed to keep All Might’s secret safe until the man himself decided to tell you the rest of the story.

He wants you to find him. This is the last challenge.

You stare at the numbers for several minutes, trying to make a connection, to find some logic behind it but honestly, it just looks like a mess.

Maybe… it’s not the whole shelf you need to make sense of.

Oh.

There are 7 volumes next to each other in the middle, if you look at the numbers, they make out All Might’s birthday.

That’s it.

That’s the key to whatever Izuku wants you to find.

When you push the first book in, something clicks, so you decide to push them all in, in order. Suddenly, the whole shelf moves backwards and disappears behind the one next to it.

Your heart leaps out of your chest as you take a look inside.

There is a staircase running down to a creepy, barely lit hallway. You take a deep breath and make your way down just to find a single All Might themed note on the floor.

“Don’t freak out.”

Just as you read the note the “door” behind you closes itself and you can hear the books moving back to their original place with 7 little clicks.

Oh, boy.

Another deep breath. You can do this. You just need to find… a door? A fucking chamber? A pot of gold? Is it guarded by a basilisk? Do you need to play chess with your own life on the line? Wait, that’s two different movies.

Thankfully, there are no booby traps around here so you just keep walking, straight for a while then turn right then left then up the stairs again then there is a small door in front of you with a little panel, probably an electric lock next to it that opens with a set of numbers. There is another post it.

“Another date of birth, I know, it’s silly. Hint: The person I love the most.”

Well, shit. You have no idea when Izuku’s mother was born. You’ll die in this hallway. You try Katsuki’s; it doesn’t work. Fuck. It’s definitely not All Might’s because he already used that. As a last resort, you try yours; and for your surprise, the door clicks and opens by itself.

“You found me.” Izuku looks at you with teary eyes, fumbling with a bunch of paper he has thrown around the desk in the side of the room.

This room… is absolutely mental.

Think about that meme with the conspiracy theory guy but ten times worse.

“Holy mother of shit, Izuku, what the actual fuck is this room?!”

Izuku gives you an adorable giggle at that. You have a really strong urge to call the mental hospital on him or on yourself for enjoying this.

“If you tell anyone… I’ll need to kill you.” Izuku mutters with a blush on his face. “And I really don’t want to kill you so please don’t tell anyone. Actually, I wouldn’t kill you, I wouldn’t be able to kill another human being even if I tried and I can definitely not hurt you as you are important to me and you also take care of my place.. so…”

You can’t help but laugh. He’s so fucking adorable, goddamnit!

“Work on your threatening method a bit in the future will ya?”

Izuku gives you the fondest look you’ve ever seen on his face. Oh how much you love this man, it’s actually ridiculous.

“I really should.”

…Next Chapter!

~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~

Potato ramble:

- haha funny story so i completely forgot that Izuku is supposed to have an office And the secret room is supposed to open from there and not his room but I already had hints in the story about it being around Izuku’s room so I had to… well… improvise. 😂

- Izuku was able to stop using the wheel chair in three days so he was able to get down on the stairs without a problem, in case you wondered. He’s been writing his diary in the fist three days then he went into his secret room to continue with his conspiracy theories. There will be more info about this room and about his work in the next chapter.

TL: @garfieldthomas @porusuniverse @stickygumchewer @sixxze @mily-moo @aei-sedai-moiraine @aymasakusa @katsuari @kenzie-deadly @shiviwrites07 @lukerycyja-reblogs @cloroxisadelectabletreat @coffeent @kisskissshutmydoor @bobcar1 @yazminetrahan @cringefan @ronimacaroni77 @thekookiecorner @dangerousluv1 @emperatris-rinaka @shotos-angelic-whore @angelsdemonsmonsters @norvacaine @rei165 @unofficialmuilover @yao-ai @happydragonfrog @eeerreehhh @vinivave

[sweet7simple]

I apologize but a part two my last dratchrod ask where you said rodimus has breakdowns.

Maybe he can be himself around another mech *cough cough* megatron *cough cough* or maybe dratchet get a feeling and catch him breaking down or notice something?

Or maybe its both and they see how easy it is for roddy and *cough* megs *cough cough* to work with each others terrible or hard parts and maybe they want that? Or Maybe its too late & *cough* gray mech *cough* won’t give roddy up because he knew the moment the change happened

I am a slut for when others write Megarod, but I can't personally think of a way to expand upon what you have already written. It summarizes the situation quite well.

Either Drift and Ratchet gets their slag together (which they did in another ask I answered), or someone else swoops in and takes Rodimus off their servos.

The thing is, Rodimus is terribly lovable. Even when you don't want to love him (and I personally found him insufferable for most of the MTMTE/Lost Light series; I prefer the version of him I see in fandom and didn't like his canon characterization until the last few issues), you eventually realize that you're willing to die for him because he is equally willing, if not more so, to die for you.

So if Rodimus can be himself with Megatron where he can't be himself with Drift and Ratchet... If he can look at Megatron and go, "I don't have to be perfect because he's already so fragged up, I can't mess him up even more," then that's good. That's great.

Losing Rodimus would hurt Drift and Ratchet and they'll be angry at him and themselves for a long time, but they would never want to force Rodimus to stay with them if he isn't happy.

If he's happier with the mech he feels is just as imperfect as himself (arguably worse, we all know that), if he's more comfortable being mouthy and selfish and lazy with a bot he knows can handle it and not walk away, than Ratchet and Drift will let him go and they'll work toward rebuilding a friendship when the spark wound isn't so fresh.

It helps that Megatron is medically trained and can keep up with Rodimus's self-injurious shenanigans and self-sacrificing plots.

EDIT:

Not mutch to do with the ask, but I was still thinking about why Rodimus would be more comfortable with Megatron than Drift and Ratchet and the short answer is because Rodimus can't really hurt Megatron.

Yeah, he can get Megatron really, boiling mad and annoyed, but there's not much he can say or do to make Megatron lose faith in him or abandon him. Meanwhile, he can absolutely say the wrong thing and lose Ratchet and Drift so fast, or create wounds so deep just by not thinking before he opens his big mouth.

If Drift says, "This is a bad idea, Roddy," Rodimus can't snap back with, "Oh, like taking boosters was so smart?"

Boom. End of relationship right there. Rodimus has joked about rehabilitating Drift in the past and revoking his rights and no one, I repeat, no one found him funny. Bringing up Drift's history as a drug addict or as an assassin or as a decepticon any time Drift tries to talk some sense to him? Not cool. Drift gets upset, sometimes angry, but it's Ratchet who absolutely will not stand for it.

For Rodimus, Drift's past is just part of Drift, part of what makes him who he is, part of why the way he is and the story to how they met. It's nothing bad, it just is. Which is probably why he doesn't treat Drift's past with the delicacy he should.

Meanwhile, there's Megatron.

Megatron can say, "That's a stupid plan," and Rodimus can snap back, "Oh, like starting a war is a bad idea? Or is it like how forming the DJD was a bad idea? Or is it a bad idea like how -" and the list can go on and on down the entire list of Megatron's crimes, but his co-captain is just waiting him out with the most deadpan expression possible.

"It's because of my mistakes that I can say this is a stupid plan."

"Says the failed warlord," Rodimus mutters sourly because he's losing this one-sided argument and he hates that.

But Megatron isn't even hurt. He's smug because the best Rodimus can do is try to distract him by hurting his feelings so he can go risk his life on some suicidal mission. Megatron has dealt with soldiers and officers speaking sweet things to his face and trying to stab him in the back for millions of years. He's dealt with the Senate and the Functionist universe and war and so many endless cycles of victim impact statements - Rodimus's temper tantrums are nothing to him.

He knows what he is. He knows what he's done. He wants to do better, be better, even atone, but he isn't going to get upset by Rodimus's big mouth (the feelings and thoughts Rodimus's mouth inspire in him are a separate matter, but they are not upsetting things).

What matters to Megatron isn't what Rodimus says - except for those instances when he says something truly inspiring, something so awe-inducing and humbling and empowering that Megatron can't help but be impacted - but what Rodimus does.

One time, Rodimus lost his ship and most of his crew because he wouldn't betray Megatron.

One time, Rodimus reached out to him when he was about to give his life fighting Tarn and saved his life even when he didn't want to be saved.

There's a universe where Megatron dies with a Rodimus star in his servos. There's a universe where Rodimus smuggles him out of their own universe for wild adventures across many others.

Rodimus is so easy to love for someone like Megatron. It helps that Rodimus is a brat and Megatron is Into That (See: Orion Pax before he took on the responsibility of the matrix and the entirety of Starscream).

What I am getting at here is, while Drift and Ratchet would have to work hard to forgive Rodimus - and maybe not even fully forgive him - Megatron sees nothing that actually has to be forgiven.

Megatron says, "Do you even possess a brain module or is there only room for your inflated ego in your helm?"

And Rodimus says, "Talk about egos, pal, I'm not the one who thought Cybertronians were soooo superior that every organic in the galaxy had to die."

"Like recognizes like."

"Ex-squeeze me? Did you just compare my awesome stars to genocide?"

"Even I had to start somewhere."

"I think I'm a long ways off from planning a mass murder of a governing body and then conquering whole planets."

"I am not so sure. You were quite efficient against the Functionists."

"How dare you, that's not the same thing. At least I've never killed a boy by throwing them into a giant smelting chamber."

"Rodimus, you can burst into flames. You have absolutely burned a fair number of bots yourself."

Rodimus can't hurt Megatron the same way he can accidentally (sometimes on purpose when he's being self-destructive) hurt others.

It means he can relax and be himself. Even the not-so-good parts of himself. Even the nasty bits that made him use Rung as bait to catch a sparkeater. Even the nasty bits that once made Ratchet vote to remove him as the Lost Light's captain. Even the nasty bits that made him agree to take Overlord onto his ship. Even the nasty bits that made him let Drift take the blame for Overlord and exile him without a fair trial. Even when he left Ratchet behind on Luna 1 to Pharma's not so merciful tender mercies.

He has fragged up so, so bad. And that's all just since he got on the Lost Light.

It's comforting to be with someone who has messed up worse than he has. They're growing into better captains together.

[navree]

this is dc twitter discourse at the moment so i thought i'd ask your thoughts on it do you think red hood jason hurting children is ooc/a bad writing choice???

And this ladies and gents is why I avoid DC Twitter because I don't think I've seen any good takes there ever, no matter where you are. Sometimes people post panel compilations that hurt my heart, that's the like the only good thing to come out of it, I don't even click on the MAWS hashtag if it trends while the show is airing because last time I did it was people bitching that 25 year old Slade did not look or act the same way that current in his forties Slade does (not to mention, how can you complain about MAWS Slade? he's the best part about the show how did anyone not just fall over laughing with delight the second he showed up and proclaimed himself to be literal Slade Wilson?).

With that said, yeah I would consider that to be a bad writing choice. Talking about characterization for comics is hard because, as I've mentioned, comics is an incredibly decentralized creative medium in a way none others are. Movies, TV shows, novels, they all tend to have a main core group of people or even just one solitary person in charge of the creative direction, and for a lot of them, a very finite "this is where we start and this is where we end" mentality that comics do not. These characters have had constantly changing creative heads, with new directions and ideas for characterization attached, since their inception, and they've all been around for a very long time. This is why comics are kind of the only medium where you can, in fact, really pick and choose your canon, because the canon has changed so much depending on who is in charge at a giant company. Like, canonical eighties Batman characterization would be considered super OOC for someone writing canonical modern Batman, and vice versa. So talking about characterization is hard, especially with Jason when nobody has had any idea what to fucking do with him for decades at this point. But, when it comes to Red Hood Jason, there is something I consider gospel canon, which is the Under the Red Hood arc, since that is what nearly all subsequent canon imaginings of Jason take from. That is our gold standard here. And based on UTRH, yeah, Jason harming children is out of character and it is bad writing.

When Jason comes back, he has two very clear goals. Goal one: the Joker's gotta die, preferably Batman kills him so Jason gets concrete proof that he was loved and mourned (Jason is not mentally healthy so his thought process doesn't make sense just roll with it), but Jason is fine killing the man himself, so long as he dies. Goal two: essentially fulfill Batman's mission in a way where it actually accomplishes his goals. Jason outlines this pretty specifically in Batman #641, he tells Bruce "You. I'll be you. The you you're supposed to be." Jason's goal as the Red Hood is to make Gotham better (in his head), safer, and cleaner, but unlike Batman he is willing to take that goal as far as he can and will kill if necessary. What he wants is to just take Batman's mission to its logical extreme. Eradicate the various elements that have caused suffering in Gotham throughout the years, just with more permanence than Batman does, and less of a focus on rehabilitation, because you can't rehabilitate a dead person. And as part of this, Jason does not act unnecessarily. When he kills, it is people who (arguably) deserve it, and it is never innocents. It is always the criminal element, and people he believes are past the point of no return, as well as those who might be trying to stop him in that. His mission statement is literally "Death will come to those who deserve death, and death may come to those who stand in my way of doing what's right." and he means that. This is not a character you've created to then go out and harm children, because kids have not done anything to deserve it, and they are not the cause of the issues that he is trying to eliminate.

There's also the fact that Jason, even in his early Red Hood days where editorial just decided that he's a straight villain now, was never someone who went after kids, but in fact actively tried to help them. He makes it a point to tell his people that they do not sell drugs to kids and that if they do, he'll kill them (along with telling them not to get previously clean people hooked and only sell to repeats, which also paints him as someone who isn't just hurting others willy-nilly). The first person Jason ever kills, as seen in Red Hood: Lost Days, is a man who was involved in child trafficking, and he does it specifically because he wants to save those kids and future victims from him, and considers him scum of the Earth as a result (I think his name was Egan? Egon? idfk I don't reread Lost Days because I find their whole "look at fully adult Talia fucking the mentally ill sixteen year old under her care who is reliant on her for everything, how sexy" shtick abhorrent, and using Talia as their child rapist doubly so). So Jason, even at his most villainous, at his most "this is a bad dude" characterized, is someone who deliberately avoids harming innocents because it's not compatible with his mission or his personal code, and includes children very specifically in that.

It is also out of character and a bad writing choice because of Jason's own childhood. You might think a rebuttal to this is "Jason wants to kill/hurt criminals, what if kids are criminals" well guess what Jason was a kid criminal! It is actually illegal to steal parts off of people's cars, even if that person can afford it because he's Batman (to say nothing of the multiple very heavy handed hints dropped that Jason solicited as a prostitute during his time being homeless, which is also a crime, it is illegal and he would have been picked up by the cops for it if found out). Unless you want to argue that Jason thinks he himself should have been taken out with a Glock at the big of age of eleven for doing illegal things in the name of survival, you can't say that Jason's philosophy would allow him to harm children and remain in character or decently written, you just can't. Like, your other gospel for Jason's characterization should be his original Robin run from the 80s, since that's literally what introduced him to this world in the first fucking place, so duh. And there's nothing in that characterization to suggest that he would harm anyone unnecessarily, especially kids. Like, Robin Jason spares Two-Face's life, after having found out days ago that Two-Face murdered Willis Todd in cold blood; he tries to save Sheila Haywood's life after she straight up helps murder him; this isn't someone whose characterization allows for him to hurt children later in life. Especially once you factor in his struggles as a child, and how that most likely just breeds empathy for other children, especially children who are having a hard time.

Now, I can guess that some of this comes up in discussions of one of my most loathed subjects, the stupid bad stupid dumb stupid attack on fucking Titan's Tower. Now, even beyond the fact that the stupid attack on stupid Titan's Tower is less about Jason wanting to beat up children and more his specific issues with Bruce and the concept of Robin that can't be transplanted to other people, the attack itself is bad writing. It is out of character for Jason. It does not jive at all with his stated characterization and motivations that he himself outlined (also the only other closest thing to that is his fight with Mia Dearden, where he's pretty tame in just warning her to leave vigilantism and straight up beats her twice before letting her go relatively unscathed of his own free will, just saying) and it makes no sense. His issues are that the Joker is alive and Batman didn't do anything about it. Why the fuck would he care about Tim? Tim means nothing to him, he never even met the little dude, he doesn't have an issue with him. He doesn't even have an issue with the idea of Robin being passed down because Jason literally said he was perfectly content to not be Robin and just be Jason, and his problems don't arise from Robin! The issues at the heart of Jason's conflict with Bruce hinge on the Bruce and Jason relationship of father and son, not Batman and Robin! And not fucking Tim! Tim means nothing, he is a nonentity. The only reason this fuckass plot exists is because DC didn't know what to do with Jason and threw shit at the wall to see what would stick, similar to what we saw with that dumb plot with Nightwing from this time that also has similar issues, in that why would Jason care enough to cause problems for Dick, he doesn't have an issue with Dick, he legit interacts with Dick in UTRH and he's fine! (a better writing decision would have been post-UTRH Jason immediately writing the entire Batfam off and treating them as hostiles whenever they wander into Crime Alley and them having to regain his trust back/him agreeing to let down more and more barriers as time goes on and they all reconnect, but I was like seven when all this was being written so DC didn't seek my input) The fucking dumb Titan's Tower thing that people are gonna use to prove that Jason hurting kids isn't bad writing isn't even about Jason, the only reason this shit gets trotted out again and again is because Tim Drake has a lot of fans who are absolutely convinced their poor uwu baby has suffered more than Jesus when the only person in the Batfam who's suffered less than him is, like, Alfred (although I can make the argument that Alfred has still suffered more by having had to put up with Bruce Wayne almost singlehandedly for most of his adult life). It exists in people's minds even tho it is objectively bad writing and out of character for one of the main players because fanon Tim has to be the most special boy ever (and also because these people wanna use it to make Tim interesting which is impossible because nothing can make Tim interesting).

Jason hurting children deliberately is, indeed, bad writing. It is, in fact, incredibly out of character. It does not compute to his explicit motivations and how he was characterized in the stories that have since been used as a jumping off point for his characterization ever since. And ultimately, the thing is this: if Red Hood Jason is just trying to do Batman's job better than Batman, who is he doing it for if not children? Who is he trying to clean up Gotham for, make Gotham a better place for, if not her children? And if that's the case, as it obviously is, why on Earth would him then harming her children be any kind of good character writing or coherent characterization?

TL;DR, yes it is.

[riggedtraps]

——————————————————————————

Lawrence silently paced around his room.. Or.. Office, if you will. It was more of just a place of business, nothing more, nothing less. Lawrence Gordon was not known for being this shady man, well- Up until his divorce. Everything that he did, landed him here.. To this very moment. He stared at the unconscious "patient" on his padded table. He was an oncologist, he was supposed to help people. Not permanently altar their lives for the worst. But this was his life now, and he was going to have to suck it up if he himself wanted to keep what he had going.

Lawrence sighed sharply through his nose. Whether he liked it or not, this had to be done. He walked over to the counter, which happened to be oddly neat for a room filled with malpractice. First, he washed his hands thoroughly with whatever cheap tap water they somehow still had, and some soap Lawrence frequently replaced. Then, he grabbed a box of slick blue gloves— Safety first, of course. Lawrence begrudgingly grabbed a pair and began to slide them on. The stretchable band of the gloves slapped against his wrist with an echoing SLAP! He did the same thing to the glove, and walked right back over to his moveable leather black stool on wheels.

He then slid over, closer to the patient. His hands shook a bit. Usually, he did this during every regular procedure- But of course, this wasn't regular. He knew he had to fulfill his end of the deal. He agreed to working with John anyway, right? He sort of put himself in this 'silly' little mess. Lawrence positioned himself back up, back no longer leaning, hunched over, but now straightened over. He looked at the clock on top of the door. He was waiting for somebody, a helper of his, if you will. She had started helping him with these surgical procedures when he first started. It all started as "Can you hand me this?" Or- "Can you get me more thread?" but now, she was more hands on. He didn't mind it though- If anything preferred it. He liked having someone in there with him. It made him feel at peace in a way, knowing somebody was in the same "Situation" he was in.

The door slid open the slightest bit, a small crack for someone to poke their head through. Messy brown hair, wide eyes, clammy skin.

“Hey,” Amanda spoke, her voice more of a mumble than her usual confident snark. She still wasn’t used to this. She wasn’t used to any of it. Still, she believed in Jigsaw and his teachings, and if she had to do this to help rehabilitate people, then she would do it.

It wasn’t even forced, really. Amanda had volunteered it. She liked being helpful, it made her feel like she had a purpose in the chaos of life. For the entire time she'd been alive, Amanda had been flailing in a tornado of doubt, pain and fuck-ups, tossed to and fro between whatever awful situation God deemed fit for her to suffer in. However, when she was in Lawrence's office, when she was helping him, the tornado calmed. When she was in that room, doing her duty, Amanda had the resounding, firm thought of: I am doing something good. For once.

Stepping into the room, Mandy cast her gaze to the clock on the wall, then she looked over to Lawrence, fully equipped and ready. For a moment, she looked away, shuffled her feet—they hadn't known each other long, they were merely acquaintances, but Amanda had a deep pit in her stomach at the idea of letting him down. “Sorry I'm late.” She murmured. It seemed the more she said, the quieter her voice got.

Crossing the room, Amanda headed over to the sink, giving her hands a quick yet thorough wash before pulling on gloves of her own. The materials she used when creating traps resembled broken heaps of rust more than metal, her hands were consistently grimy and full of small cuts so she didn’t want to accidentally contaminate anything. Amanda didn’t want to ruin anything. Amanda didn’t want to be a disappointment.

Rolling her shoulders back, Amanda felt herself sinking into her usual role, growing much more relaxed. Walking over to Lawrence, she stood beside him, eyeing the 'patient' before them with a slight grimace. “So, what's it today, Doc?”

[shywhumpauthor]

Villain Rehabilitation

Based loosely on a dream—I have no recollection of writing this

Cw: medical malpractice, institutionalized abuse, mentioned “therapeutic” torture, mentioned drowning/water torture, burns, there’s just a general upset, creepy vibes here, mentioned electrical torture, accidental self inflicted burns (Villain has fire powers.. it makes sense in the piece)

The floor was cold to match the air, villain could feel the chill seeping up from the tiles, through their thin socks. It was freezing in their small room, of course it was. It was always freezing. The thin blankets on their cot did absolutely nothing to protect them from that cold. It didn’t bother them like the way it used to, but on particular bad days it still caused old scars to ache, healed wounds to throb as if new.

It was Thursday. They knew that much. They had no clue what the date was, nor the month. In their little cell, there was no windows, only their bed and a dresser, and a little bathroom through an open doorway. And the camera in the corner, which they did their best to ignore. Their last attempt at escape had lost them the shred of privacy they had left, two of the staff members coming in during the night to remove the curtain that blocked the bathroom from the main space. Whatever. They tried to act as if that didn’t bother them. One of the few luxuries they had left, gone.

They knew it was Thursday, though, because no one had come in. No staff to deliver their meal, no guards to drag them off to another therapy session. They were alone and cold and hungry, which meant only one thing.

It was Thursday, and that meant Hero was coming.

They honestly would have preferred therapy. They would have preferred to be submerged into the depths of the ice cold tub, or the burning hot steam, to scream and thrash as the water seared their skin, leaving welts and burns similar to that flames would cause. But the staff had tried that, dozens of times. Sparks from a lighter, or whatever humane name they chose to give it to cover the fact they were intentionally trying to burn them did not bother Villain the way they would others. Fire didn’t harm Villain unless it was of their own creation.

Those flames were snuffed out the moment they crackled to life.

The so called criminal cast a bitter glance towards the ceiling, the four sprinklers connected to the main water tank, just waiting for the activation button to be pressed. Either from the security office where they knew a guard was watching them now, just waiting for the first flicker of light to turn on the water, or from the outside of their room where any traveling worker could press it if they saw fit through the little glass window on the door.

It was more annoying than anything. With the cold, it would take much more energy for them to produce even a spark, energy they did not have to spare from the nutritional meals they were given. What a load of crap. The sludge served on the tray could barely be considered food, only enough to keep them alive, not doing anything for the hunger.

If there was one thing they had to look forwards to in Thursdays, though, it was lunch. Hero always brought them lunch, from wherever they could spare the time and expenses beforehand. Usually it was fast food, something quick and greasy that would leave Villain sick for a bit afterwards, but other days it was true meals from expensive restaurants, multiple rich courses with drinks and desert to go along. Though Villain usually ended up full before that, their appetite not what it used to be after their strict, forced diet, they could appreciate the thought, and Hero would never comment when they slipped an extra roll or handful of fries into the pocket of their jumper, to stash away in the corner of their room for whenever the next bout of hunger would strike.

That almost made up for the distress the rest of their visits would cause.

As if on a cue, Villain looked up just in time to hear the heavy lock of their door slide out of place. They were backing up even before the guards stepped in, knowing the procedure by heart now.

“Against the wall.”

The room wasn’t small, but it wasn’t very big either. Eight steps across was all it took for the distance between them to be closed. Villain bit the inside of their cheek, more annoyed than anything as they raised their hands, holding them out to either side as the pair of guards stepped forwards, one holding the dreaded pair of gloves, the other with his prod already flicked on, electricity buzzing the end, prepared for any outbursts.

Fire might not have hurt them, but electricity sure did.

They didn’t fight as the first guard grabbed them by the arms. They knew better than that. The scars they held from the first and only time they tried to fight back still stood out starkly against their skin.

When Hero had given them the choice between prison or the Villainous Rehabilitation Center, the choice had seemed obvious. Life bound in chains behind bars, isolated in a cell under constant watch, or a brochure with a lovely castle like campus, smiling faces and gentle therapeutic programs to reteach criminals the way of society and introduce them back into the community, it was obvious which one they were going to pick. They weren’t a criminal, they had at first tried to protest. It had been an accident, a mistake. They hadn’t meant to hurt anyone.

Now they wish they had chosen prison.

The gloves fit snug and warm over their hands, borderline burning as the guard then fastened the familiar cuffs around their wrists. The fabric stretched nearly to their elbows, thick like the ones a person would wear when tending a fire. Villain was sure that’s where the inspiration for the design had come from. In some weird, twisted opposite way, they were designed to rather keep the flames contained. So the only thing they would burn if Villain slipped up was themself.

The marred burns that covered every inch of skin from their forearms down proved that they were effective.

The guard grabbed their arm, and they were walking out of the room. Down the hall, through the compound. Villain knew there was a nicer side to the center, somewhere towards the outside where all of the minor patients were kept. The ones with chances of recovery, one of the doctors had told them as Villain caught a glimpse through a cracked door. They had looked like the ones in the brochure, happy and smiley and hopeful. They did puzzles, and ate at buffets, and watched movies and played piano and went to normal therapy sessions where they talked about their feelings and their pasts and were only there for a few months before they were let out. But anyone who had the misfortune of being deemed “too sick to help”, anyone like them, were all locked away, behind doors that required keycards and cold cells and torture disguised as treatment. Villain knew there were others, they could hear the screams and sobs in the middle of the night if they pressed their ear to the crack in the door, or listened through the vents.

They were brought to a familiar room. The soft lights and cushioned chairs gave it the illusion of safety, of comfort, but Villain knew better. The shackles were connected to a short chain fastened to the table, and Villain was pushed down to sit in one of the chairs.

“Hero will be here shortly.”

Of course they would. It never took them more than five minutes after Villain was brought to arrive. They were sure that was purposeful, Hero was likely just sitting in another room, waiting to be given the go-ahead. There was some procedure, Villain was sure, but they didn’t care enough to risk asking. With nothing to do but count the seconds, Villain shifted in their seat and waited.

True to their history, Hero didn’t take long. The door opened and Villain looked up, a sour taste budding on their tongue.

“Hey.”

They sounded tired. Villain didn’t respond as Hero closed the door behind them. They held a bag in their hand, the smell of freshly cooked food making Villain’s stomach flip as they walked over and set it down on the same table villain was chained to before taking the seat opposite.

They waited, but Hero didn’t make any move to take the food out, so after a moment they leaned back. They would have crossed their arms, but the chains wouldn’t allow that so they settled for crossing their legs instead.

“Villain, the doctors said you have stopped putting effort towards recovery.” Hero’s voice was soft, their hands folding on the table. They didn’t meet Villain’s eyes. “They have suggested a new treatment plan, and after a long consideration, the agency has approved.”

Villain’s entire body went cold when Hero looked up. There were tears in their eyes.

“After today, I am no longer permitted to visit. The sessions will become more frequent and intense. Your rules and schedule will become more strict. Until further notice, all items of luxury or comfort will be revoked.”

Revoked? Villain felt nauseous. They weren’t entirely sure what counted as an item of luxury, but they had a really bad feeling.

“The faculty has issued a formal appeal to request your entry to a clinical trial, which after long thought the committee decided to pass. I’m sorry, Villain. We have all been trying, but you can’t get better unless you try, but since you’re not willing to put in the effort by choice, dire measures must be taken.”

“I… I don’t understand,” Villain murmured after a long moment, their voice coming out a quiet rasp. They didn’t do much talking anymore, only using their voice to scream or beg in sessions. Speaking felt weird, wrong.

“I tried to suggest alternatives, Villain, I did. I couldn’t change their minds.” A single tear rolled down the hero’s cheek, and they quickly scrubbed it away. “I really hope you get better soon. I don’t want you to turn out like the others.”

Not another word was spoken after that. Villain sunk back in their seat. They weren’t sure they wanted to know what that meant.

When it came time for Hero to leave, the food sat still on the table, untouched and cold. They glanced back over their shoulder, but villain didn’t look up.

The door shut behind them without so much as a “Goodbye.”

[alexanderlightweight]

Writing Wednesday! Magnus pampering Alec? If you’d prefer something darker then maybe Magnus pampering Alec, but being manipulative? He sees the way Alec is treated and doesn’t like it, and knows that Alec maybe doesn’t see it and will always be selfless when it comes to his job/family, so to get Alec to stay with him (where he’ll be appreciated) he employs some tricks he picked up in the past.

Ooh maybe even Cat or Ragnor being like WTF are you doing? And Magnus is just like, it’s not manipulation it’s rehabilitation ✨ and spins some story about Alec being in danger

this ended up being team immortal figuring out the best way for gentle manipulation ^_^

i hope you enjoy!

<3 lumine

-

“Oh, Cat. Can you send me a package of your lavender and honeysuckle candles.” Magnus says absently as he puts down a hand of cards and smirks at Ragnor who huffs a smoke ring at him and scowls, clearly put out by once again losing.

“Oh?” Cat asks and Magnus recognizes that tone of worry but he waves it off.

“And an antidote, in case I don’t have the same resistance I used to. Perhaps a grade…” He pauses, thinking it over and then nods, “a grade six I think. That should do it. Tailored for a seelie cocktail specifically, I think.”

“Are the seelies giving you trouble?” Cat asks and Ragnor’s eyes are narrowed from where he’s very much aware and over his loss.

“No, not at all.” Magnus admits and then he hesitates, which he knows is unlike him and then he sighs. “I need them for Alexander.”

“Your nephilim?” Ragnor asks, sounding confused, “I thought the wooing was going rather well.”

“The wooing yes—” Magnus mutters, “the getting him to stay in one place long enough to take care of him, not so much.”

“Does he need to be taken care of to that degree?”

“He’s been the interim head of New York’s Institute since he was little more than sixteen or seventeen.” Ragnor actually exhales smoke that doesn’t come from his pipe at that. There is a furious gleam to his eyes as he understands exactly what those kind of burdens entails, even better than what Magnus is slowly learning. “He doesn’t know how to turn off the parts of himself that exist only to be a leader, to be a soldier.”

Magnus sighs and he creates an image of a restless Alexander who looks around Magnus’ home with delight and interest, yet seems still tense. Magnus lets the magic play for a moment, the memory continuing and then he reaches out with his fingers, brushing Alexander’s cheek and letting the image fade with a sigh.

“I can’t get my darling to relax.” He bemoans, knowing that his friends can take the full force of his dramatics and that they’ll understand what he really wants. “Every time he starts to gentle for me, there’s some kind of interruption or disaster. Half of the time it’s something small, something a commander shouldn’t need to be called in for, let alone a Commander and Head. Yet—” Magnus sighs wistfully, “he deserves to know how much I want him, regardless of his worth as a soldier.”

“You’re going about this all wrong, ducky.” Ragnor says, shaking his head with a sigh. “You have to wear him out first, then relax him. Nephilim have far more energy that is in tune dimensional energy than we warlocks have ourselves. They’re on par with the fae in fact. Your boy is probably so high strung because he’s never let that awareness fade. You wear him out good and proper and then use the candles, not before. You don’t want a sluggish nephilim who is trying to figure out threats on a rift level.”

“I haven’t fucked him yet, Ragnor.” Magnus says dryly and both of his friends roll their eyes.

“Then spar him or drop him in the middle of the ocean and have him swim to shore!” Ragnor seems truly exasperated now, “or take him shopping. One night of shopping with you will be enough to wear out even a battle-hardened nephilim, I guarantee it. Make him carry your bags or something if you’re that concerned.”

“And then?” Magnus asks, curious because Ragnor rarely gives this much advice on those Magnus is interested in.

“Then you take him home, use the candles and give him a massage. Some of that ointment we created after Peru should do it. If he can manage to do anything but cling to you after that, I’ll be surprised.”

Magnus nods, mentally ticking through which storage he has that particular ointment stashed away in.

“Magnus, I think you need to ask yourself. What is your goal here?” Cat smiles at him, sharp intelligence softened by her love. “Because as much as I know you’d like to keep him forever, you’ll eventually have to let him leave again. So what do you want this to accomplish?”

“I want him to come to me, when the Institute and his family are too much. I want him to curl into my arms and let me soothe away his burdens and protect him from everyone who tries to take a piece from him and then tell him he shouldn’t have let them cut it out of him.” Magnus doesn’t even notice his voice dropping or his magic sparking but Cat and Ragnor exchange a significant look and nod at each other.

“The deep-tissue eucalyptus bath salts you remember them? I made a double batch. An unseelie warrior team contacted me so they are catered to angelic blood, just like the candles.” Cat reaches out and pats his hand, “you don’t have to fuck him to get him in the tub, Magnus. I know you want to take it slow with him, indulge him and coddle him but you’ll need resources or he’ll struggle with it.”

Magnus sighs, “if I didn’t worry that the Institute would come at me, I’d simply lock him away for a weekend.” He shrugs, “but I’d rather not fight the clave this early.”

He’ll end up fighting them eventually, he always does and he always probably will need to.

“Then we shall help you. I’ll send over some of that watermint tea I used to make for injured nephilim at the Academy. It’s in potion form, three drops per cup, though from what we’ve seen, you might need five for his size.” Ragnor nods, snapping his fingers and no doubt sending himself a note for his apothecary desk.

“He is deliciously tall, isn’t he.” Magnus murmurs, forgetting the goal of the conversation for a moment before he sighs and controls himself. “I refuse to let the clave and his duties break him when I’ve only just got him.” It’s a selfish admittance but Magnus sees no shame in saying it aloud when it’s true.

“And we will help you.”

[kienansidhe]

hi, im kienan! im the current host of the disaster hearts system. we are a korean american body with dissociative identity disorder and have had multiple diff hosts over the course of this blogs run. i or some variation of me have been host since around 2017-18ish. for transparencys sake, the body is 25+. do not ask abt age specifics please.

we are a survivor of csa trauma, parental abuse, religious and cult abuse, and generally very traumatized, and our experience of life is irrevocably colored by that lens.

we are disabled and unable to hold a job ever since we got long covid in april of 2020. we are fully dependent on our partners, working on our disability application, and still coming to terms with the reality of being probably permanently disabled.

unless otherwise specified it is probably some variation of kienan speaking.

-♡♡♡-

i, kienan, am queer and i prefer to be addressed by strangers with he/they/it or fae/faeself pronouns. i dont rlly care which of those you use, tho, no need to rotate or anything.

some other labels that generally describe me: nonbinary, transmasc, gnc, cuntboy, [redacted], [redacted], femme, femboy, genderweird, bi, aro/ace with a couple exceptions, sex favorable, kink obligate, freak, degenerate, pervert.

i currently have 4 partners, referred to here as prettyboyfriend, nesting boyfriend, girlfriend/daddy, and moirail.

no dni, i think theyre stupid and the only ppl i would not want to interact would not respect dnis anyways lmao. if i have a problem with you i will just say so or block you or whatever.

some of my beliefs and what to expect on this blog are under the cut.

i believe in rehabilitation and compassion, full stop. yes, even for those people. i think that othering and dehumanizing others sucks, that thoughts do not define you (yes, even those thoughts), and that the only thing that matters is your actions.

i think callouts are never helpful, ever. ive literally never seen one do anything helpful or good.

i try my best to interact with others in good faith, and i expect the same in return.

we were homeschooled in a cult and our education was heavily ~moderated~ to keep us brainwashed, and every time i think ive rooted out all the misinfo new stuff comes up. please be patient with me if i ask stupid questions, i literally am stupid. i have so much literal actual brain damage. i will do my best to be open minded, i rlly want to learn!

i believe that the best ways to combat csa are better sex education, breaking down the sanctity of the nuclear family, youth liberation (more legal rights and self advocacy for children), and not clogging child abuse report portals with fucking fictional art, jesus h christ.

medicalization of identities sucks. sysmeds, transmeds, im sorry youre miserable but thats not an excuse for trying to make everyone else miserable with you.

labels are only useful insofar as they help you connect with others like you and form solidarity in order to combat systemic oppression. if labels make you angry or miserable, consider not taking them so seriously.

its okay to just dislike ppl. its not always that deep. trying to come up with moral reasons to justify disliking ppl is rlly fucking catholic.

dont talk to me abt christianity. im aware that my trauma affects my ability to be compassionate in this area, so im staying in my lane. in fact probably dont talk to me abt religion in general.

im not a proshipper or an anti i touch grass <3, HOWEVER:

antishipping / purity politics / anti-kink / whatever you wanna call it, ppl equating fictional depictions of Obvious Bad Things with condoning, supporting, or normalizing them in real life are fucking stupid and have done unbelievable amounts of damage that has now reached far beyond fandom and kink circles. get a life, for fucks sake.

ppl who call themselves proshippers and then go around harassing antis are fucking stupid and have lost the original spirit of the term proship / anti-anti, which hinged around not harassing or harming others over fiction. get a life, for fucks sake.

just be kind. dont be a dick. treat others how you wanna be treated. we are all traumatized but thats not an excuse to be cruel. leave the world better than you found it.

youre gonna make mistakes. you just are. youre not perfect and also the world is complex. remember that you cant help everyone. try your best but dont lose yourself in the process.

art is everything. the act of creation is holy. more progress is made by creating -- building communities, making art, growing plants, building houses, building relationships -- than by tearing things down. there is probably a time and place for violence, destroying oppressive systems, bombing weapons factories, but if we arent creating a positive, healthy society alongside the destruction we are just leaving fertile ground for new oppressive structures to take root. create. create. create.

-♡♡♡-

many hosts has left a chaotic mess of tags on this blog but here are some we use pretty consistently:

#headspace: original posts. diary rambling, random thoughts, actual semi coherent opinions, anything

#my face: the body

#humans are good actually: reminders

#recovery things: mental health help

#important: there is so much stuff in this tag

#bookmark: too much here too lol

#feel better: just fluffy stuff

#vine: general funny video tag

#about, #me kin id, #i ghostwrote this post: stuff we relate to rlly hard + uquiz tags lol

#posts that are funnier when plural

[venerable-sun]

hello! If possible, I would like to request head-canons of prince Nuada with a heavily traumatized autistic reader?

specifically an autistic reader that suffered severe emotional abuse and instability as a kid? (Am I projecting the entirety of my life into a single request…maybe)

no pressure if it’s not for you! I just rlly like your writing!

thank you! ❤️🧡💛💚💙💜

Thank you for requesting! I'm sorry it took me so long to write this- I wanted to make sure that I'd done a lot of research so I could accurately portray everything you were asking for. Anyways, here are your headcannons!

---

~ Nuada doesn't even try to hide his distaste for humans, even after the BPRD rehabilitates him and Nuala after his battle with the Hellboy. If anything, his inability to leave the compound without supervision, his forced participation during missions, and his twin sister's increasing closeness with a certain anthropomorphic fish-man only fuel the flames of his hatred even more.

~ Everywhere he goes, people scatter before him. They are afraid of him- afraid of his wrath- and Nuada likes it that way. But there is one human in the BPRD that doesn't run from him or flinch away from his presence.

~ You.

~ He watches you from afar, trying to figure out what makes you so different from the rest of your peers that can't stand to be around him. As the BPRD's librarian, you aren't built especially strong or have much field training. When you talk, it's softly and usually with your eyes on the ground. And yet, whenever he enters the library, you remain calmly behind your desk when all others would have left.

~ Your interactions start simply with him asking for specific books or an item to examine from the archives, which you always help him find with the same demure air that you do anyone else. But slowly, the two of you begin to talk about your favorite books, history, philosophy- and Nuada starts to find that you're almost always on his mind.

~ One day, he goes to the library to find it empty. You aren't at your desk or in the stacks, and Nuada doesn't have time to register the fact that he's disappointed you aren't there when a slight noise catches his attention.

~ His keen warrior ears lead him to a small secluded corner of the library. He finds you tucked behind a cart of books, knees drawn to your chest and rocking slightly. You raise your head to look at him, and he's filled with anger at the sight of your tear-stained face.

~ "My lady, what has upset you so much?" He murmurs softly, slowly falling to his knees so that he can move closer to you. You sniffle. "Manning came by earlier. He was angry I hadn't finished cataloguing the newest influx of items. I tried to explain that I have no help, but he wouldn't listen!" You're unable to finish, burying your head in your knees once more while Nuada struggles to reign in his temper.

~ He's seen the way Manning can be when he's angry. It's no wonder the man upset you- you, who flinches at loud noises, who prefers the company of books more than other people.

~ Nuada remains sitting with you, even after you finish speaking. He tells you stories softly, stories from his childhood, myths and legends of his people. When you finally seem to calm, you shuffle close to him and place your head on his shoulder. He tenses for just a moment before relaxing and continuing his story, lulling you into a light sleep.

~ For now, he will let you rest. He makes a silent promise to you in that moment, that he will always protect you from all that could cause you harm. That you are the only human in the BPRD worth anything.

~ Soon he will realize the true extent of his feelings for you, and he will confess them between the tall stacks of books that you feel so safe in.

~ But first, he has a little meeting with Manning to schedule.

---

[youcouldmakealife]

Is bryce's fixation on his physical appearance in 'riposte' a presentation of his general anxiety over the situation (if i do this totally insignificant thing correctly it will all work out!) or like. Is Bryce aware on some level of his 'pretty privilege'. Like he would never think of it that way/use that term, but he does know he looks a certain way and is used to people giving him what he wants when he leans into it? iirc we've seen him weaponize The Bryce Marcus Smile™ before, so is there a bit of that thought process going on in this case?

Oh yeah, Bryce is much more aware of how his appearance comes across than, well, Jared. In the case of needing his hair to be perfect, it's more a 'presentability' focus that day than, say, pretty privilege (a term he's never used but would innately understand and which he absolutely has used to his benefit before personally and professionally -- with media especially).

Basically 'the doctors will listen to me more if I show up well dressed and groomed and appear to be taking care of my appearance which in their brains will extend to me taking care of my shoulder rehabilitation'. Not that level of awareness, and it's also partly him just wanting to control what he can control about that day (his appearance, his attitude, his vehicle -- Bryce prefers to drive generally, but no chance in hell Jared's driving that day in particular) but he knows what he looks like and uses his appearance to his benefit.

Jared's actually very similar to Bryce in those sort of situations, vis a vis fixing his hair, making sure his suit fits well, trying to come across as 'mature' and 'responsible' (younger Jared especially) and 'professional', and you'll see that when he has important meetings with management, at the draft, etc. But he, of course, is oblivious as hell to pretty privilege and how much it smooths the way in his interactions (with fans and the media especially). It alternately amuses and infuriates his friends and teammates when witnessing it.

[buckybarnesthings]

Introductions (first impressions are everything)

Well I never thought I'd be here riding the elevator up the Avengers tower where some of the team waits to meet me. When I say some I mean the ones who were happy to be getting a new team member. It seems that the announcement of my arrival wasn't as warmly welcomed as Fury thought it would have been. I guess a witch who is known for dabbling in dark magic isn't exactly what some people had in mind as a teammate.

At least I have Wanda who's been so warm and forthcoming with me about how excited she was to have another enhanced witch on the team. She's been amazing to train with but I'm a little annoyed that people underestimate my abilities when it comes to magic as Fury thought I was unstable and hadn't used the full range of my powers, which is kinda true, but there's a lot no one knows about me yet. Despite the not so obvious disdain of my teammates I'm excited to move forward and make amends for everything I've done during my time at Hydra. It still haunts me every now and again lingering in the deepest depths of my brain.

"Hey, are you ok? You seem lost in thought there." Wanda asks, breaking my momentary silence and placing a hand on my upper arm as a form of comfort.

"Yeah I'm just really nervous if I'm being completely honest." I say, laughing nervously shaking her hand off me. She gives me a reassuring smile and we both go back to our own thoughts.

I'm not quite ready for physical contact with others unless we're training or in battle. I've never been one for human contact on any level, I much prefer the company of animals which brings me to my first question about the new living arrangements at the Avengers compound. Can Hades live with me, Hades is my companion he's a black wolf I found during my entrapment at Hydra. He was a pup shivering out in the freezing climates and his mother had abandoned him, so on the odd occasions I got to be outside I'd bring him food and nurture him. Eventually we built a strong bond and he would give anything to protect me, as I would him. I don't tell people he's a wolf as they tend to go ballistic that he's a wild ferocious beast blah blah blah, so if anyone asks he's a husky.

I was fortunate that Fury's wife is a fellow animal lover and was happy to keep him with them even though I couldn't leave SHIELD during my mentoring and rehabilitation as they called it. She was slightly alarmed when I told her he only eats live animals but I told her that he will scavenge for his prey and she wouldn't need to provide for him. He is a solitary animal outside of our connection, hiding away from civilians and wondering eyes.

I'm once again brought out of my thoughts by the elevator coming to a stop, Wanda ushers me out and directs me to a meeting room where I spot Fury and Coulson standing at the other end of the table facing the door way, they seem to be debriefing those who turned up to greet me. As Wanda opens the doors all chairs and heads turn to us. Stopping all conversation.

"There she is, team this is Aspyn Davis she's 22 years old and is your newest recruit, as we've already discussed she's known as The Grey Witch and has abilities similar to Wanda and upon lab results we've found the super soldier serum running through her veils as well." Fury states.

"She's shown amazing progress towards rehabilitation and her training alongside Wanda. She still hasn't disclosed her past with us but we've found files from previous RECON missions that she was taken by Hydra at some point." Coulson adds, looking at me with dismay.

"She's also standing right here. Yes I'm Aspyn and to most of your disbelief I do actually mean well and want to help rid the world of Hydra and other similar organisations. Yes my magic can be dark but it's also light and I don't appreciate being labeled as evil before you take the time to get to know me." I argue, receiving a few looks of kindness and understanding.

"See I told you she was badass, Nat." Wanda exclaims.

"Well I can't speak on behalf of the entire team as some are apprehensive about your arrival to say the least but I think you'll be a wonderful addition. I'm Natasha or black widow but you can call me Nat, it's so good to have another girl on the team." Nat shares, a warm smile gracing her features.

"I'm Ironman, you can call me Tony. Welcome to the team, I'm sorry to rush off but I've got to go to another conference but please introduce yourself to the team and when I get back we can talk and get you settled into the compound." Tony states, hurriedly grabbing his belongings and rushing out of the room before I could say anything.

"I'm Captain America, call me Steve." Steve says, apprehension tainting his smile.

"Hi it's wonderful to finally meet you. I'm Peter Parker, my superhero name is Spider-Man but nobody outside the team or SHIELD know that." Peter said, he seems young and very enthusiastic.

"I'm Bruce." Bruce states, I know who he is out on the battlefield but I also know he isn't fond of his alter ego so I don't press for a comment there.

We go around the table like that for the next few minutes, people just introducing themselves whilst I simply nod and take in the names and faces. In the room is Rhodey, Pietro and Vision, all of which seem nice enough and I've already put an alert in my head to stay clear of Pietro as he seems extremely flirty and I'm not interested in breaking any rules yet.

"This is most of the team, obviously the Wakandans aren't here but you'll meet them soon enough but some of the others may avoid you as they didn't really agree to a new recruit. You're still yet to meet Sam aka Falcon, Bucky aka the winter soldier, Thor, Clint aka Hawkeye, the guardians, Carol Denvers, Doctor Strange, Wong and Scott aka Ant-Man. I may have forgotten a few other but they tend to do missions as per request and don't really hang around much. One of us will always be nearby to introduce you to anyone you don't already know. But I'll leave it to Tony to give you the formal run down and get you settled in when he gets back. Is there anything you want to know before we head off?" The Captain queries.

"Where are we going?" I ask.

"To the compound where most of us live together, some of the others are there at the moment so you may see them but otherwise it's best to assume they don't want to meet you yet." He explains, remorse filling his voice when explaining some people don't want me here.

"I assumed I wouldn't be instantly welcomed and I intend on proving myself to anyone but I won't accomodate their feelings of disdain at my presence." I address.

"That's understandable I've told them they should judge you based on your file or lack of one." He expressed.

"Putting all of that aside I do have a few questions about these living arrangements." I start. "Am I bound to the compound or can I come and go as I please? Are we allowed to have animals?" I continued.

"As per SHIELD's request you can leave the compound as you aren't a prisoner but you will have to be chaperoned by another Avenger for the first few months. About animals you are allowed to keep them on the compound but their your responsibility to take care of and are expected to be kept in your room depending on the animal or reason for having them. Bucky has a white cat named Alpine that you'll see anywhere he is and she's friendly but tends to stick to him. Why what animal do you have?" Steve asked.

"I have Hades he's a black..." I began, hesitant to tell the usual lie as I don't want to get off on the wrong foot so soon. "Admittedly he's a wolf that I raised from pup during my time at Hydra but he's loyal to me and will do as I command. He is a solitary animal and will keep to my room as wherever he is allowed to roam but he hunts live prey, so I may need to introduce him to Alpine so he doesn't hunt her."

"Hold on a minute you told me he was a husky!" Fury exclaimed, rage crossing his face before being replaced with a grimace.

"I'm sorry but I didn't think you'd let me keep him if you knew he was a wild wolf." I said honestly.

"Well thank you for being open and honest with us about his true nature." Nat thanked, a soft smile reassured me I had made the right choice.

"I'll talk to Bucky but he may not agree right away and may be against Hades staying in the compound." Steve admitted.

"Look he's a big part of me and I'd rather keep him close for my benefit and his own, I don't believe he would hurt the cat but it's a risk I'm not willing to take." I shared.

They all shared a look of sadness as they seemingly spoke to each other with their eyes. I'm guessing this Bucky character doesn't like me or want me joining the team but that's ok after reading his file and coming face-to-face with the winter soldier I understand his mistrust and I'm willing to give him the space and leeway he deserves.

The rest of the afternoon went by with the chatter of my arrival spread across the room I had a few individuals happy to get to know me better asking generic questions about my likes and dislikes. Nobody wanted to ask about my past to which I'm more than grateful as it's not something I'm willing to disclose. At about 5:30pm Steve announced he'd received a message from Tony asking us to meet him at the compound as the conference ran over. So they all went their seperate ways into their own vehicles and nobody spared me a glance so I was left in the reception area racking my brain for how I'll get to this compound that I can't locate. Until I felt a presence behind me and spun to find Wanda and Natasha walking out of the elevator.

"Ah they've done their typical male thing." Nat stated as if it were obvious.

"Sorry I'm I supposed to know what that means?" I asked.

"Oh you'll come to learn that the men on the team, minus a couple, tend to over look these things, such as forgetting you're new and probably don't have your own vehicle or directions to the compound." Wanda explains. "Don't worry you either get used to it or you prepare for their forgetfulness."

"Typical males." I scorn, rolling my eyes.

"Don't worry once you get to know the rest of the team you'll find the good ones are always happy to help." Nat adds.

"And who might I categorise as 'the good ones'?" I press, wondering if there's such a thing in a world full of egotistical superheroes.

"Well Scott who was mentioned earlier is nice and he's considerate, Sam is but he tends to come off like the rest, Thor is just a big goofball and then there Bucky and let me tell you his Mama raised him right." Wanda shared, believe me I know one of them is harmless after my history with him.

"Well it seems like one of them may not like me already." I stated.

"Look if you're talking about Bucky he means no harm, he's quiet and keeps to himself unless Steve is around. He may come off as grumpy but he'll warm up-to you after a while. Actually from what I know he's actually your neighbour on level 3, I think it's just you and him on that level as the rest of us that stay there are on level 5." Nat expressed, a soft expression on her face.

"Well thank you for the heads up I have no intention of confronting him or anything but I would like to get to know him as I would with all my other teammates." I said, honestly I really would like to see if he recognises me or not.

"We'll come on the car has just pulled up and we've got a fair drive ahead of us so let's get a move on." Wanda encouraged.

So far I really do like Natasha she's been very kind to me and seems interested in getting to know me not the superhero the world will get to see.

"Oh by the way Tony will probably go through this with you but since the whole accords thing we have had to keep a good social profile and we have team social media platforms that we post stuff on frequently. I don't know if you have have a phone or anything but I just thought I'd tell you that from here on your social media will be strictly monitored by our social manager who gives the approval for anything you post." Nat says.

"Yeah I appreciate that but I don't have a phone or any intention of getting one for personal use." I laughed, I find phones reclusive as it encourages assault in the online domain and lets the wrong people have an opinion.

"Well sorry Aspyn but Tony will definitely have a phone ready to go for you with the expectation that you use it to contact us at most occasions. Also on top of what Nat was saying you'll have to maintain a public profile by going to formal events and special occasions or parties." Wanda said.

I simply just nodded at that as I assumed there would be some nonnegotiable conditions for being an Avenger. I wouldn't mind having a phone but I won't use it for anything outside communication with other Avengers, even then I'd rather find them and speak in person.

The rest of the car ride was quiet except the occasional moments a conversation would appear like when they thought of something to share with me. Otherwise I was happy looking at the window gathering my thoughts. I need to remind myself sometimes that I have to speak with people and start the conversation myself otherwise they may mistake my silence for something else entirely.

_____________________________________

Words: 2484

(Not proofed)

A/N- thank you so much for reading this first chapter, I'm hoping to make this into a three part series and I have big plans for where this story will go. In the next one we will get to meet some of the other Avengers Aspyn will be living with and conflict may ensue but something else may begin to blossom as well. I don't have a strict schedule for posting yet but I'm hoping every two-three days if not daily. Let me know what you think so far and tell me what you want to see happen.

[envihellbender]

Teen Hezekiah killing his monster in the final boy support group AU

Rating: Mature

Fandom: The Magnus Archives

Characters: Hezekiah Wakeley, Nathaniel Beale

Content: Murder, serial killer, sexual assault mention, addiction, abuse, age difference, gore, buried alive

Summary: A letter Hezekiah wrote to Nathaniel about his experience with a serial killer.

—

Found within patient Hezekiah Wakeley’s belongings: a letter, never sent.

Dearest Nathaniel,

I have wanted to discuss this in person but it seems you have been reluctant to come visit me in the hospital. I suppose it would make things difficult for you if the lecherous journalists and photographers gathering outside were to spot you. I have decided you are owed an explanation, despite the fact I think it must be rather obvious given recent events. Since no individual from our St Columba’s Church has been to visit me, despite me attending since I was a babe, I assume their rhetoric on the subject differs from my account. I think it is only fair I give you both sides of the tale and I leave the matter of your own morality and allegiance to you.

You are aware of the story up until we left the aptly named “St Columba’s Rehabilitation for Wayward Teens” I am sure, or rather the story you prefer to tell yourself. I do not intend to list the ways in which you and the others failed us. As you also know, it turned out that the forest retreat was nothing but a well crafted lie, in reality the Monsignor took us to a house instead of a camp site, we were kept in a cellar with several mattresses. The cold stone did not have the same heart and life to it that I craved from the ground, we were allowed books to read I suppose, the others did have mobile devices that did not have any ‘signal’ or enough ‘battery life’. Junia was taken first, she was the loudest, she screamed when the Monsignor would check on us and fornicated with Zion when she thought we were asleep. Zion was next. The both of them were just like us in a way, following the rules of the rehabilitation centre only to have someone visit to rip the sacraments to shreds. Junia had a friend who brought in water bottles filled with vodka, Zion had a boyfriend who injected him with varying substances, and I had you slipping me red wine in a flask. I think that was why it was so difficult for us three, the cellar quickly became filled with the stench of vomit, it was not cleaned up as much as it should have been.

I cannot tell you what they went through. I can tell you Bridget’s abduction hurt the most. Back at the chapel we were almost perhaps friends. We would swap books, I would never be able to return her copy of Turning of the Screw. I still have it. I cannot bare to be rid of the thing. She used to help run the garden with me. I do hope someone is still taking care of the plants there. Whilst I am glad I am alive, seeing all of them be taken past me was quite horrific. I would not trade it for anything. Whilst Junia and Zion were loud in their removal, Bridget went quietly, she simply nodded and got to her feet. All I could think about were if you took my warnings seriously, we would have been safe - but I suppose there is little to be done now. Judah, Naomi, and Claudia. They were next. Would hearing of the descriptions of those you helped doom to the earth truly help? I know not.

When it was simply I left in the cellar, that is when I can regale to you the entire truth. I am unsure how long I was there for. I slept, vomited, and hallucinated much of the time I was there up until I was brought up to his small cabin, he had me bathed by some nurses who were too thorough, he had me an intravenous drip, and made me a rather delicious meal with a glass of rich expensive red. Of course I was suspicious of the entire display but I was too starved and desperate not to play along with the charade. From this entire story, I expect this next part will be the elements you dispute and argue against, as if being a pederast is anything compared to serial murder. After I finished eating the old man came up behind me, pulled me up by the hair, slammed my face into the table, and decided to use my weak body however he saw fit. It was not long, but it was not quick, it was painful and repulsive. He would use me in various ways six more times from either my behind or mouth depending on his fancy. I did tell you he had wandering hands, did I not, Nathaniel? I told you of his fingers brushing my thigh, of him slipping his hand into my trousers during confession, and you had told me I misunderstood. Will the church look upon his deeds in the same way?

It is most odd, for when he brought me to my feet I had no strength to fight back. He began to beat me, he punched, kicked and slapped me. He pulled my hair and forced my face into the table again and again. He had a cane he used to whip my thighs and between my legs. Eventually I was a whimpering, crying dog on the floor, curled up and desperate for mercy. He picked me up into his arms, he carried me into the forest like a babe, he kissed my forehead and after a few minutes in the cold and dark he dropped me. The fall was quick yet slow, numb yet overwhelming. My head was particularly loud upon hitting the earth, my cranium bled internally as it felt as if it had split in two. My body felt so angry, weak, and sore that I was pleased to be against the earth. I felt the mud around me and my eyes closed. I felt a smile spread across my face. Can you believe it Nathaniel? A smile! A smile for heaven’s sake! I felt as if I was returning to the earth, and I was at peace. That was until I felt the dirt be shovelled onto my body, a strength I did not know I had filled my body. I may be one with the earth, a peace I will never part from, but I knew I shall not return to it by the hands of this evil, sinful, rotten man.

I waited for the shovelling to pause before I made my escape. The Monsignor had not been wise enough to pack the soil in tightly. The loose dirt was easy to displace in a way, the hard part was pulling myself out. I was buried around four feet downwards, a pathetic attempt I agree. I was able to aid myself and this is when God I am certain must have been with me. For he sat on a lawn chair facing away from me looking upon a bare patch of ground between the trees. I noticed that there were six rocks in the ground two feet apart from each other and realised this is where they had been buried. I picked up the shovel that had been leaning on a nearby tree, and without a moment’s hesitation I began to beat the devil’s cranium. I hit him again, and again, and again. I did so until his head was concave into his body. It feels so small now I write it down, perhaps that is why it was so easy for you to dismiss my fears.

When I called the police, I anticipated an arrest, not a mug of tea. Not a safe house with a comfortable bed and a garden. I did not anticipate the kindness, the understanding. To be admitted into a secular hospital with a secular rehabilitation facility and psychiatric ward. I know I am one of the lucky ones, but I cannot say I was lucky when the only person I had to aid me was you.

I will forever be yours. I do love you. But I must beg of you: Please do not contact me again.

Hezekiah Wakeley

[serknighted]

Hey there, hello! Welcome to tumblr! Please tell me about your OC, I'd love to know about them! As much as you feel like writing down!💖

Thank you for the ask :D!

So I have... a few OCs for Fallout (This isn't even all the Fallout characters I have, just some of the ones I write about the most). The one I probably focus on the most though is the first one, on the left. His name is William S. Moore (although we'll just be calling him Moore, since that's what he prefers to go by). I might make more posts for the other three (plus the ones who don't have full references yet) in the future! But for now... I wanna talk about my little guy...

(pictured: a young Nora and Liam Moore)

William Shepard Moore, Sole Survivor of Vault 111, Sad Widowed Father of Several

(Pre-war)

Born the 9th of September of 2033, Moore's family originates from Ireland-- however, they quickly relocated to America to seek better opportunities for their only son, and so the family moves from Europe to Massachusetts. Moore always showed prowess more for history & literature than science, always being fascinated by world history, and more importantly, law. Being raised in a world with a constant fear of Communism, he sought to understand politics and the government that seemingly caused nothing but fear and panic in his family & friends. Despite how gifted he was, he was quite the trouble-maker, and his father believed that enlisting in the army would whip him into shape, just as it had done for him. Graduating at 18 in 2051, Moore decided to take his father's advice, and enlisted in the army.

His behavior was relatively clean while enlisted, and it wasn't until a war-time injury occurred two years later, with shards of grenade shrapnel made its way right near his right eye, that Moore found himself in dire trouble. While he lived and escaped the injury relatively unscathed vision-wise in the end, he was given a nasty facial scar, and the treatments and surgeries were plentiful and painful. Luckily for him, though, the nurse who took care of him most often was another soldier named Nora. When he was inevitably [honorably] discharged to rehabilitate from the injury, he promptly enrolled in college, deciding to study American Law. When he found out that Nora had enrolled in the same college as him, he jumped at the opportunity to try and befriend her, and throughout their long college years, they fell in love, and eventually got married after both got their masters in their respective fields.

Moore had a comfortable life as a lawyer; he was happy with Nora, with plenty of money to spare. Although the two of them believed they would likely never have the family they wanted due to Nora's chronic illnesses, it was discovered that Nora was pregnant with their first and only son-- a miracle baby, to say the least. Such a miracle inspired Moore to finally pursue something he had dreamed of for years, which was running for Mayor of Boston. He believed he could make the world better for his son, and he had already worked so hard on what he would do if he were to run, so he decided to run for office in 2076, just a year before the bombs fell. Although he had many supporters behind his back, his detractors were many; it had become exceptionally clear through media leaks that Moore had not been given the most mentally stable of minds, and many believed his PTSD made him entirely unfit for office; some using it as ammo to fire at his more left-leaning values. Moore was already exceptionally shy, but this treatment made him regress into his shell-- he forced upon himself a "perfect political persona," of sorts, completely repressing anything undesirable, and causing him to become more toxic in his own views of his masculinity. He would never get to see if this strategy worked, as the bombs fell before election day.

(pictured: post-war Moore)

(post-war)

Moore's story has many themes; it is him finding who he is while trying to survive the wasteland, and just as importantly, trying to find the family that he had lost so many centuries ago. The Wasteland of the Commonwealth is a ravenous, unloving beast, but while it may be cruel, there are some hidden good-sides to its chaos.

The first few months out of the vault were a kind of hell that Moore cannot even remember. He actually has no recollection of the time he spent in Diamond City or Goodneighbor, much to the dismay of Hancock. No one (including Moore) knows how he survived so long by himself, given the intense dissociative episodes from the new trauma of losing his entire family, and the Commonwealth itself being a never-ending reminder of the battlefield. The only reason he found his footing was because he had managed to accidentally stumble into Goodneighbor; the kindness of the residents to take him in and nurse him back to health while he was in his absent, half-dead state is one he can't remember, but still appreciates. Hancock was the one who paid out of pocket for the stranger to receive treatment ("no one is dyin' in my town. Not if I can help it.").

He befriends Preston Garvey afterwards, and the small group begin rebuilding what they can as they try to help Moore find his son. Moore takes quite well to the role of a leader of the Minutemen; he didn't think he would, but it makes him feel a bit better knowing he has people to back him up. It takes him many, many months to begin tracking down leads for where the Institute and his son might be, and he makes a few unlikely friends along the way... mainly the Mayor that took care of him way back when.

Moore is bad at forgetting, and hates remembering. He only travels constantly because he feels the need to be away from things that remind him of a life he no longer has. Nothing hurts more than the loss of his wife. Nora was more than the world to him; she took care of him, and he dedicated his life to her in return. Sanctuary reminded him of her, the songs on the radio about love, the giant Hubflowers that bloomed her favorite color... He hated remembering her, because he hated that he could never have her, again. His strong, fiery, extroverted wife, with a passion for ridiculous clothes, a girl who always spoke her mind.

...It sounds a little familiar, huh?

He didn't really realize this with Hancock, at first. He just thought he enjoyed the company, enjoyed not being alone... but when he did realize, it was initially so painful that he sent John home, much to the despair of seemingly both of them. So many things about their relationship was deeply painful. He had so far buried the idea of being queer, the idea of being vulnerable around someone, the idea of being himself... that he had forgotten what it was like to be happy with his life.

It takes him a while to really unpack this. To realize how much he'd accidentally fucked over his friendship with a man who had gone out of his gosh-darned way to take care of him... Just like Nora did. It's a lot to deal with the realization that you don't like the person you made, but it's a start. He realizes how much he actually cares about the people around him, the society he's helping foster... and that if he doesn't tell them now, he may never be able to, tomorrow.

While he falls in love both literally with someone and with the community he swears to protect, he finds the Institute, and his son. The son who terrorizes everything he now loves. It's hard for Moore to bear; the baby his Nora was so, so excited to love, is now telling him to his face that he cared little about the lives of his own parents. And despite how much it pains him, he can't let go. Unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on how you look at it), the world had already decided for Shaun to go, and so Moore spent his time learning about the facility around him as he watched his only flesh and blood pass.

Taking up the role of the Director, Moore is uninterested in "destroying" the Institute; there is too much good being done here to slaughter so many innocent people. He essentially tells the boards, "we cannot keep torturing the people on the surface, and if you don't discontinue these unnecessary projects my son started, I will be more forceful," and with some... helpful suggestion from the Railroad and his now much-larger Minutemen army, he successfully turns the Institute into a place of proper medical study and aid for the surface. In return, he stages a false explosion on the surface; the people of the Commonwealth now truly believe the Institute is gone, and with the boogeyman dealt with, the Institute could operate in relative peace, with the silent safety-net of the Minutemen army (given they honored their side of the deal: no more synths, more research in cultivation and medical science).

(pictured: post-story Moore)

Nowadays, Moore serves as a kind of Governor for the top-half of the Commonwealth, controlling most of the Greater Boston Area and above. He is romanced with Hancock (obviously), and spends most his time dealing with legal Government work, as well as trying to keep peace between his land and the land that the Gunners and Rust Devils claim. Although he's not perfect, he's learned what he's here for, and has found more peace and love within himself that he did not have before the war. He's also cybernetically-enhanced; thanks to an "accident" regarding laser rifles, his left eye was amputated and replaced with a prosthetic (formerly synth) eye, and he also has similar life-extension technology that Kellogg used to use. He tries to live a quieter life with his synth son Shaun and his partner John with the rest of his friends, but God knows that Plot Shenanigans love striking.

That's all the major information on Moore!! If you actually read this entire post, thank you! I appreciate it. And thank you for the ask again! I was honestly procrastinating on posting him for a while despite how much I absolutely adore him ;_; .

[haloabove]

Do you have a personal preference for how Bruce should behave in his civilian and vigilante persona respectively?

For example: Should he play up the dumb himbo angle, should he use excessive violence, does he do talk shows, is he straight/bisexual, etc, does/should he have kids, how is his relationship with Alfred (i.e. employee/employer or father-and-son, I don't mean romantic), is his smile obviously fake or can people not tell,...?

You can answer whatever you like, that list is just to give examples. Would love to hear your own headcanons, too!!

Have a nice day!! <3

Hello!! This is such an amazing question, I’ve been thinking about it for a bit now and here’s what i have for you :D (Its a long one so I’ve put it all under the cut)

I do think Bruce has a bit of a “snobby rich boy” persona especially when it comes to press because he’s overly protective of his privacy and in his mind that also includes his real personality. However, anyone that has spoken to him at events understands that this persona crumbles the moment someone challenges his intelligence. He knows he’s smart and he’s not afraid to show it if someone questions it but until then snobby Bruce stays at the forefront.

Im a strong believer in Bruce being a charming man and he knows how to use it to his advantage. He can talk his way out of any situation, a flash of his smile and a few charming words and people will do anything he wants. So when his company gets bad press or a rumour is spreading about him that he needs to nip at the bud, he’ll slowly increase the press appearances and maybe he’ll flirt with someone and let the media he controls snap a few shots and suddenly he’s working the narrative into something that benefits him and whatever he needs. It’s dirty play but the man never knew how to play clean.

I do think Bruce is bisexual and is fairly open about it but the man has never been in a relationship with anyone long enough to know what fits well for him outside of a purely physical relationship. As for if he has kids, I like to think he has his robins but the Bruce I have in my mind was never made to be a father. That’s not to say he wouldn’t be a good dad if it came down to it but he’s spent so much of his life just him and Alfred that when he has to suddenly stop his very active life for a person who is wholly dependent on him, I just don’t think he’d cope well when it comes to caring for young kids. However, I think he would be much better with older children (like 16-19 year olds) because while children still need affection from parents (which i think he would give in his own way), older teenagers are much less dependent on a parent which is the main aspect he would probably struggle with.

With his relationship with Alfred, I’m a big fan of the (not quite) father-son dynamic for them. Alfred raised Bruce for most of his life and Bruce probably views him as a father figure but will not see him as his father because neither of them will lean into that. Alfred views Bruce as a son he didn’t have, the son that he should never have had to take in. He saw him through the murder of both of his parents and had to emotionally support him through so many major life moments, filling in for where both his parents should’ve stood. At some point, it probably became less about how this is his job and more about keeping Bruce happy and healthy and letting him grow into a person Thomas and Martha Wayne would’ve been proud of.

As for the Batman persona, I’m really not sure about his whole “no-kill” policy because as a vigilante, should he have special rights into taking a criminal’s life but also then we also have to account for the view of should we be killing criminals or rehabilitating them which is a whole other kettle of fish I’m sure Bruce Wayne thinks about a lot. I don’t see why he should be excessively violent but i can understand the concept of equal force of violence. if a criminal knifes an innocent then Batman would have the right to stab them back, I think Bruce would follow this as much as he could but the man is 100% torn up about the ethics of his vigilantism sometimes but if he dwells too much on it then it’ll probably send him into a spiral so he doesn’t.