#But if baby groot came up to him with big eyes and was like ‘would you still love me if i was a worm’

[deeneedsaname]

This isn’t necessarily what they’d *do*, but what they would say when asked

[gingeraleluke]

𝗴𝗼 𝗳𝗶𝗴𝘂𝗿𝗲!

𝗽𝗮𝗶𝗿𝗶𝗻𝗴𝘀: tom holland x fem!reader

𝘀𝘆𝗻𝗼𝗽𝘀𝗶𝘀: tom’s girlfriend watches far from home for the first time and he cannot contain his excitement!hopefully he can contain the spoilers….

𝘄𝗮𝗿𝗻𝗶𝗻𝗴𝘀: spoilers for far from home and maybe some swearing? mostly just cute fluff + y/n is a huge marvel fan :)

𝗔/𝗡: this was requested by someone a few months ago and i lost the request so hopefully they see this!!

this is a sequel to spoilers!!

◦◦,`°.✽✦✽.◦.✽✦✽.°`,◦◦

dating tom holland was like hitting the jackpot, especially for a marvel fan. obviously, she loves tom for who he is, but him being a web-slinging superhero was definitely a bonus. she had spent hours upon hours of ranting and discussing marvel fan theories with tom, in hopes that he could give her some inside info. binge watching the films with him and constantly questioning him about the actors, was endearing to tom. that is, until she starts wanting spoilers.

y/n had tried her best to crack him during the filming for spider-man: homecoming, and it had worked! tom gave in and blurted out how vulture was actually liz’s dad and as soon as tom realized what he had done, it was too late. y/n was already bouncing off of the walls with theories.

tom was now determined to make sure that y/n would go into spider-man: far from home blind. after accidentally revealing that mysterio isn’t trustworthy, he realized that it was harder than he thought. y/n knew all the right things to say to get him to crumble in between her fingers. one look from her and he could reveal just about anything.

but not tonight.

y/n and tom had rented out a theatre to watch the new flick. it was something that they would always do whenever a new movie of his came out. tom would go to the movie premiere and a day or two later, the two of them would dress comfy, y/n in her matching pajamas and tom in a t shirt and sweats, and buy a bunch of snacks and watch the film together. this way was much more comfortable. not having to worry about people or red carpets; just the two of them in a theatre, chatting, watching, and enjoying each other’s company. plus, y/n didn’t like movie premieres and god knows how hard it is for her to be quiet while watching her boyfriend on the big screen. it was just better this way.

“are you excited?” tom asked, looking over at the girl. she was sitting cris crossed, with a bucket of popcorn in her lap. she wore a bright green shirt with baby groot on it and a pair of spider-man comics leggings. she had taken her shoes off so her fuzzy socks were on display. it was a position that tom would most likely hurt himself if he tried to mimic, yet y/n did it so gracefully.

“are you kidding?! i’m actually gonna die from excitement.” she grabbed his arm, anxiously laughing as she scrolled through something on her phone. one the commercials started, she shut her phone off and snuggled up into tom.

“where is the blanket?”

“oh— it’s right here.” he reached into the tote back y/n brought and pulled out the throw blanket. he couldn’t help the smile that appeared on his face once he realized what blanket it was.

“you’re really all marveled out, huh?” he smirked. the large blanket was black with an image of iron man on it. while y/n did had spider-man blankets (what with dating spider-man and all), they were all covered in tessa’s fur, so iron man would have to do.

“mmhmm! oh, um is there anything else in the bag?” she raised her brows and peered over his lap, looking at the purple tote bag on the ground.

“oh, boy. what else..” he sighed. his eyes wandered through the bag before he even reached inside.

“AWW!”

grabbing the spider-man plushie, he held it up to his face, happily. “this is so cute, when did you get this?!”

“i ordered it online! i figured you could have this one and i could have….” her stomach laid against his crotch as she bent over him to go through her bag, sticking her ass in the air while lifting up one leg to keep her balance.

“can you reach it? do you want me to get it?”

“i got it..” she shrugged him off and pulled out the iron man plush that she had purchased.

“this one is mine!” she hugged it, holding it tightly against her chest before tom pulled it away from her and analyzed it. “you do realize that he isn’t in this movie right? he’s dead, y/n.”

“yes! yes, i know! but we can just pretend.” she sent him a tight lipped smile before plopping some popcorn in her mouth and watching as the trailers began.

“ah, how mature of you, my love.”

◦◦,`°.✽✦✽.◦.✽✦✽.°`,◦◦

“that movie looked awful.”

tom bursted out laughing, “y/n!”

“what?! it’s true. i’m here to watch spider-man, not whatever the hell that trailer was.” tom laughed as she continued. “the only people who are going to go see that movie are elderly women and you know i’m right.”

“Y/N!”

“i’m sorry! i’m sorry! that was mean, i love old women. i just— OH SHIT, ITS STARTING!” she grabbed onto her boyfriends arm, her grip tightening once she saw the lights go down.

tom was extremely excited. he loved seeing her reactions to his work and hearing her honest opinions. it was important to him. especially since she genuinely loves marvel and follows it’s stories thoroughly.

“no, this in memorial is evil.” she watched as betty and jason told the daily news report for the school, cutting to a shitty slideshow of heroes lost in the blip. it continued to talk about how students who were dusted in the blip are now surpassed by younger students, physically.

“that must be so weird…��� y/n bit her lip, looking up at the big screen.

“oh, just you wait.” he smirked and kissed the girl on the side of her face, his lips brushing against her hair.

◦◦,`°.✽✦✽.◦.✽✦✽.°`,◦◦

“STOP, LOOK AT YOU! that suit! oh my— you’re so cute.” she watched as peter and may spoke behind the stage of the fundraiser.

“oh, happy. always flirting.” tom giggled at her words. “i mean, i would too! she’s stunning! beauty runs in the parker family.”

“the way you guys high-fived! awwww, please tell me she doesn’t die in this because i will actually be broken.”

“i can’t tell you!” tom shrugged and y/n threw popcorn at him. “tom!”

“okay, she’s safe. i promise.”

◦◦,`°.✽✦✽.◦.✽✦✽.°`,◦◦

“AWW, SHE PACKED YOU THE SUIT!!” she watched as peter looked at the spider-man suit that sat in the suitcase. “that’s so adorable. i love aunt may.”

tom gave a closed-lip chuckle and rubbed the back of y/n’s hand with his thumb. he was nervous.

he knew that he shouldn’t be, but he couldn’t help it. it was important for him to know her thoughts and he couldn’t keep from analyzing every little scene himself. he wanted the film to be perfect for her.

“flash talking about spider-man while hating on peter is the funniest thing ever.” she rested her head on his shoulder. the iron man plush was in her arms while tom adorably snuggled his spidey one as well.

the two watched as peter explained his plan to ned.

“do you guys date by the end of this?” her head was right under his chin, forcing him to notice her. tom pretended not to hear her.

“tom!”

“i’m not telling you spoilers!”

“pleaseeeee.” she whined, tugging on his shirt.

“okay! they may or may not be together by the next spider-man movie…”

“so that’s a yes!”

“what? no, it might not happen in this!”

“you said by next spider-man movie, that means it has to happen before that so therefore this movie!”

she could see the look of concentration in his eyes as he realized that he had messed up. “oh, be quiet and watch the movie!”

◦◦,`°.✽✦✽.◦.✽✦✽.°`,◦◦

as the film went on, y/n gushed over everyone, including mysterio, until fury showed up on screen again.

“wha—he shot ned!”

“it’s just a tranquilizer.”

fury explained to peter that he had been trying to get his attention and that he knew that he was spider-man. he continued to take peter to a secret hideout to meet maria and mysterio.

“oh my god, you and jake together! i’m gonna pass out—“

“y/n stop!” he giggled and kissed her face. his eyes were glued to her face as she watched the love of her life on the big screen.

◦◦,`°.✽✦✽.◦.✽✦✽.°`,◦◦

“umm who is this lady asking you to take off your clothes?”

peter stripped down as the lady watched. “that’s my sexy boyfriend!” she shouted, shaking tom’s shoulders until he started to blush.

“shhhh, pipe down darling.”

peter was stripping to get into a new stealth suit that fury had made him, when suddenly brad walked in on it.

“oh god.”

y/n watched in horror and she could hear tom snort in amusement.

“no…no! he took a picture?!” she made eye contact with her boyfriend who was nodding his head.

“if he shows mj i swear…”

◦◦,`°.✽✦✽.◦.✽✦✽.°`,◦◦

“EVEN DEAD I AM THE HERO?!” tom looked over to see y/n look as if she was about to cry. “hey! hey, it’s okay! what’s wrong?!”

“i miss him, tom. i miss tony.” he tried his best to keep a straight face.

“i know, love. i miss him too.”

peter grabbed the frames of his glasses before instructing edith to handle brad, which edith misinterprets as terminating him. “YES, KILL BRAD!”

y/n jumped out of her seat, standing as the scene played out. she bent over to grab a bag of m&m’s, trying her best to keep her eyes on the screen.

peter frantically tried to distract his classmates from the incoming drone that edith had sent to kill brad. instead of doing it naturally, he of course made a fool of himself.

“real smooth, pete.” y/n muttered, watching peter retry and had edith delete the image off of brad’s phone.

◦◦,`°.✽✦✽.◦.✽✦✽.°`,◦◦

a now dating betty and ned watched in horror from the top of the ferris wheel as peter and mysterio fought the fire elemental, peter barely doing any work.

“MYSTERIO! WHOOO!”

“don’t cheer for him!” tom grabbed her hip and had her sit on his lap, taking her by surprise.

“oh right, because he’s a bad guy…”

“how did you know that?!”

“well i wasn’t entirely sure but now that you said that, i am.” she turned to look at him, their noses touching before diverting her attention to the film.

“can you even see with me on your lap?”

“yeah!” his voice squeaked.

“no you can’t—“ she went to get off of him when he stopped her.

“i don’t need to see the movie! i just want to hold you.” he wrapped his arms around her, causing the spider-man plush to fall to the ground.

“but you dropped your stuffy!” y/n reached to grab it when tom just told her to leave it.

◦◦,`°.✽✦✽.◦.✽✦✽.°`,◦◦

“jake, i love you…but i want to punch you right now for tricking peter!”

tom could tell that y/n’s anxiety had risen as the tension in the film had risen. “does mysterio die?”

tom being the idiot he is, nodded. “i can’t tell you..”

“you just nodded.” she jumped off of his lap and back into her seat, grabbing her blanket.

“shit..”

“HE DIES?!”

◦◦,`°.✽✦✽.◦.✽✦✽.°`,◦◦

“i hope edith goes haywire and explodes on his face.”

tom knew that she wouldn’t like mysterio as much as she did before. he was personally excited to see her gush over his character as opposed to jakes.

happy and peter were currently getting a new suit that tony had made before going to london and saving his friends.

“i love you.”

y/n looked over to see tom looking at her. “i love you too, tom.”

◦◦,`°.✽✦✽.◦.✽✦✽.°`,◦◦

“mj with that spiked ball thingy is so badass.” y/n mentioned.

“you’re gonna love this!” tom say up in his seat as the beck and peter fight scene began.

throughout the fight, y/n stayed silent. nothing but small gasps and squeals as she gripped onto her boyfriends hand.

“HOLY SHIT!” millions of crazy illusions flooded the screen, beck trying his best to hide the drones and shoot peter, when peter swiftly grabbed the gun. the illusion wasn’t powerful enough to take on peter and his spidey sense.

“that was badass!”

“i know right?!”

“NOW KILL HIM!”

◦◦,`°.✽✦✽.◦.✽✦✽.°`,◦◦

mj and peter swung through the city as tom’s girlfriend gushed over the two. she ignored the slight ping of jealousy in her chest from seeing tom so close to another girl, but reminded herself that it was peter and not tom.

the credits began to roll while y/n gathered her belongings. she froze for a second and looked over at tom who was looking back at her.

“so the whole ‘peter parker is spider-man’ thing is an after credit?”

“yeah.” he nodded, looking at his phone. “wait! how did you know about that?!”

“you told me!”

“go figure…”

[i-have-a-wonky-eye-too]

One Night...

This is part 2 to One Night 12 Days Ago...

WARNINGS: Fluff, 18+ readers, smut, oral (f-receiving), unprotected sex, breast play, breastfeeding kink? Daddy!Bucky, Papa!Bucky, self loathing, own body shame, body worship

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Bucky ignored the princess tiara that was sat on his head thanks to Morgan making him wear it (along with Sam and Steve), and focused on you and his little girl. Even though she was here and almost four months old, Bucky still couldn't believe she was actually real and all his and yours. She was perfect. You, we're perfect.

"Buck, you listening?" Steve nudged his friend.

Bucky blinked and tore his gaze away from you as you fed his daughter. "Hmm?"

"Course he ain't listening. Look at him, all lovesick puppy, drooling over his baby's mama." Sam teased before taking a swig of his beer.

Bucky let out a heavy sigh making both men laugh at him.

"Ignore him, Buck, he's just jealous." Steve smiled and put his hand on Bucky's shoulder. "How is fatherhood treating you?"

Bucky's lips stretched out into a giant grin. "It's great."

He really loved being a dad. The past year had been a roller-coaster of emotions, but Bucky didn't regret his decision he made that day you told him.

"And how's the new house coming along? Y/N said you've been working hard." Steve smiled, although he was a little disheartened he hadn't had the time recently to help you and Bucky out.

"Almost finished." Bucky grinned, "Just got the master bedroom and guest room to redecorate and then that's the whole house."

"Then you've got the yard to start." Sam reminded.

Bucky nodded, "Yeah... Gonna need all the help I can get with that." He chuckled.

"I've got some time off coming up, Bucky. I'll come visit you guys and help out." Steve smiled proudly at his best friend.

"Me too." Sam offered, "Plus, we could always get Groot to help out." The three men burst out laughing together.

"... It's our one year anniversary tomorrow," Bucky smiled. "I'm gonna-"

A high pitched wail cut Bucky off and put him on high alert. "Oh, baby," You cooed softly as your little girl began crying. You stood up, rocking your daughter as big fat tears rolled down her cheeks. "Are those nasty teeth bugging you again." You spoke softly, "Shall we get papa to help? Hmm?"

Bucky's heart broke, "Duty calls." Bucky quickly jogged over to where you were. "Papa's here, princess," Bucky scooped his little girl up, kissing her little cheek softly before letting her suckle softly on his left index finger.

Who would have thought the hand Bucky was so scared of for all those years, would be the only thing to bring his little girl comfort.

Steve and Sam watched from afar, shaking their heads as they drank their beer.

"Ugh, it's sickening, isn't it?" Sam smirked.

Steve nodded and smiled to himself as he watched Bucky calm your daughter down like a pro. "Disgusting really."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Pepper was looking after your little girl, Bucky was downstairs cooking your anniversary meal whilst you were stood in front of your floor length mirror frowning.

All day you'd been excited for tonight, you'd even bought yourself a new dress. But then you put it on and began to doubt the decision because of the way you felt you looked. Bucky was a fool to be with you. Not that he had any choice. He'd be better off with someone different. God, you hated yourself.

"Why are you crying?"

You looked up from your reflection and met Bucky's eyes in the mirror, surprised by his presence. "Oh, hormones-"

"Don't." Bucky sighed as he stepped into your shared bedroom. "I know when you're lying, Y/N." He frowned softly at you as he came up behind you. He rested his hands on your hips and rested his chin on your shoulder. "You look beautiful." He whispered.

"I don't have any make up on yet, Buck." You scoffed and stepped out of his hold.

Bucky frowned, "You don't need it."

You scoffed again. "Right. Cause bags under the eyes is such a sexy look. Not that you'd know," You muttered.

"You don't have bags, Y/N. And, you never answered my question."

"It doesn't matter." You whispered, sitting down on your side of the bed.

"It does. If something has upset you, tell me, I can fix it and make it better." He smiled softly at you.

You shook your head, "You can't fix me, so... Just forget it."

Bucky stared at you with his mouth gaped. "Fix you? What are you talking about? You don't need to be fixed."

"Yes I do." You looked up at him. "My body has changed, it's saged and stretched and... I'm not, like you. I'm getting old..."

"You're still beautiful, Y/N. And, you're body changed because it was growing our little girl. It changed for the better. And, you haven't saged..." Bucky smiled as he walked up to you. He reached down and pulled you up onto your feet. He pinched your chin and lifted your face to look at him. "You're still the same woman I fell in love with."

Before any words could pass your lips Bucky kissed you deeply. Your hands moved up his sides and up to his shoulders, hugging him closer to you as Bucky held your face close to his.

"Let me show you," Bucky whispered against your lips. "Like you showed me, when I would feel down..." Bucky kissed you softly. "Let me love you..." He trailed his lips across your jaw and down the side of your neck, smirking against your skin as you let out a breathy moans, "... Like you love me."

"Yes," You crashed your mouth against his in a heavy kiss, pulling at his shirt.

You worked together to undress one another, your lips and teeth leaving trails across each other's skin with soft praises.

Bucky let out a soft moan as he knelt back from you, his hands sliding up your thighs as he took in your naked body underneath him. "I've missed you, baby," He leaned over and pressed a light kiss to your right hip and then your left before pressing one to the stretch marks just to the side of your belly button. "Your so beautiful... Even more than before... My sexy... Mama," Bucky smirked, kissing everywhere he could.

You let out a small giggle, pushing on his forehead to get him to stop. "Bucky, I need you... Please."

Bucky smirked as he leaned over you, "Gotta let daddy have a taste first, baby."

You let out a low moan and nodded as you bit your bottom lip.

Bucky moved back down your bottom. Lightly flicking his tongue over your nipples as he fif, smirking as you mewled and gasped at the sensation. He trailed his lips down your body until he came to your thighs. He lifted your legs and put them over his shoulders brfitr he dived right in.

"Fuck!" You cried out as Bucky devoured your cunt.

Bucky wasn't lying when he said he'd missed you. Since you'd given birth to your baby girl had been born, you'd put a wall up around yourself. You hardly showed your beautiful body off any more. He missed being intimate with you, and not just because the sex was always great. He missed showering or bathing with you. He missed laying around naked in bed doing nothing, laughing and making jokes, or walking around in your underwear as you talked first thing on a morning. He missed massaging your sore feet or painting your toe nails for you because you couldn't bend down to do them. He even missed when you did his that one time. He missed just being close to you.

You whined pushing yourself up on your elbows when Bucky pulled back just before you came.

Bucky chuckled as he pushed himself up. "What? You thought I was gonna let you cum just like that?" He winked.

"Tease," You pouted.

Bucky crawled over you until he came eye to eye with you. "Like you don't tease me." He grinned down at you and pressed a kiss to your lips.

"Please... Bucky," You breathed heavily as Bu KY trailed his lips down your throat.

Bucky smirked against you, "Think you're ready, baby? Shouldn't I open you up?"

"Just fuck me, Bucky," You moaned deeply as he lightly bit your shoulder. "Please."

Bucky crashed his his lips hard against yours as he slipped his cock through your slick pussy. You both moaned softly, hands holding each other closer.

You let out a long drawn out moan as Bucky slowly pushed the head of his cock inside your pussy.

"Fuck," You both moaned together.

You tightened your arms around Bucky's body, pulling him closer as he rolled his hips, pushing his cock deeper. Your nails dug into Bucky's back, leaving behind half moon crests.

"Fuck," Bucky panted, "Baby, you feel so good," He ran his nose along the length of your neck.

Your eyes rolled back as Bucky lightly bit your neck and lathered his tongue over the marks. You let out a soft gasp as you felt something wet smudge against Bucky's chest. "Buck, I'm-"

"Shit," Bucky pulled back and looked down to your chest. White droplets pebbled from your nipples. "Oh, baby," He whispered before he bent down and began to softly lick at your left nipple, moaning at the sweet taste of your milk. "... So... Good,"

You muttered and whimpered, wrapping your legs around Bucky's waist as he drove his hips harder into you. "Yes! Oh," Your eyes screwed shut as tingles ran across your skin. "Oh god, yes... Yes!" Your body spasmed as your toes curled and your orgasm ran through your body.

Bucky's stilled as he followed, breathing heavily against your neck and he squeezed your body against his. "Fuck," He kissed your shoulder softly and repeatedly. Bucky slowly and carefully pulled out of you as not to hurt your sensitive body and rolled over onto his side. "I-"

The scent of something burning hit your nostrils. "Did you leave the oven-" Before you could finish the sound of the fire alarm cut you off.

"Oh, fuck!" Bucky quickly jumped out of bed, quickly grabbing his pants as he ran out the door.

You let out an amused giggle, slowly and carefully getting out of bed. You'd missed your body feeling this way. You missed being with Bucky.

"What the?" Your toes touched something as your feet touched the floor. You frowned softly at the small box on the floor.

Bucky huffed angrily as he slammed the burnt chicken down on the side. Everything was going perfect. "Damn it!"

"Bucky,"

"I'm sorry, baby, I fucked up." He sighed deeply and leaned against the counter so his back was to you. "What shall we do? Take out? Or, make a sandwich?" He huffed out a laugh before letting out a frustrated sigh.

You sighed softly, "Buck," You whispered, slowly walking around the counter until you came up behind him. "You didn't fuck up," You gently trailed your hands around Bucky's waist and over his toned stomach. "You got carried away." You giggled, pressing your lips against Bucky's naked back.

Bucky sighed. "M'sorry, doll, I wanted it to be special." He reached up with his flesh hand and took yours as they settled on his pecks.

You smiled against his back. "It is." You tapped your left hand against his chest. "See? I love you too, Bucky."

Bucky frowned and looked down. His eyes widened as he they landed on your ring finger. "God damn it," He groaned and took your left hand in his metal fingers. He looked over his shoulder and smirked at you. "We've still got dessert..."

[wiypt-writes]

Stark Spangled Banner

Ch36: I Bid You Farewell And Good Luck, Morons. Part 1- It’s Like A Pirate Had A Baby With An Angel.

Intro: Thor wakes up on a strange ship, surrounded by even stranger people, a talking tree and a rabbit. Meanwhile, back on Earth, the fight to save Vision is won and the group make their way back to the compound to understand what exactly it is that they’re facing. 

Warnings: Bad Language words.

Pairing: Steve Rogers x OFC Katie Stark

A/N: So I HAD to write Thor and Tony’s POV over the IW chapters too, because, frankly, they had some of THE best scenes in Infinity War, and I love that freaking Norse God Himbo and chaotic Stark chemistry so bad! I know this is Katie and Steve’s fic, but Steve had so little screen time in this film all things considered…we were so robbed!!! Once again, I can’t thank @angrybirdcr​ enough for her edits, they’re awesome!

Disclaimer: This is a pure work of fiction and classified as 18+. Please respect this and do not read if you are underage. I do not own any characters in this series bar Katie Stark and the other OCs. By reading beyond this point you understand and accept the terms of this disclaimer.

Chapter 35

Stark Spangled Banner Masterlist // Main Masterlist

Thor wasn’t dead. But he felt like it. Every inch of his body ached and when he was jerked back to consciousness for a moment, just one split moment, he thought he saw Little Stark. Only it wasn’t her. The woman had dark hair, yes, but as he focussed he realised she looked nothing like the woman he loved dearly as a sister. This wench had huge eyes and antenna dangling from her forehead. And, whilst he knew it had been a while since he had seen his friend, she wouldn’t have changed that much.

Finding his feet he looked around, chest heaving, at the band of people stood in front of him; a woman with green skin and red hair, a man with grey/blue skin covered in red designs, a tree creature- a Flora Colossus unless he was mistaken- which was off to the side draped over a chair, some kind of furry, animal thing- a rabbit maybe- and finally a man who appeared to be a normal, human being. That was until he opened his mouth and Thor realised he was probably the most stupid human being he had ever encountered.

His rescuers had offered him soup, and then when he had explained about Thanos, the green skinned lady called Gamora had told Thor what the Titan wanted the stones for.  Which she knew, because she his daughter.

Thanos had a daughter. Interesting.

“Families can be tough,” Thor spoke wisely, placing a hand on her shoulder. “Before my father died, he told me that I had a half-sister that he imprisoned in Hell. Then she returned home, stabbed me in the eye so, I had to kill her.” He shrugged. “That’s life though isn’t it I guess? Round and round, but I feel your pain.”

The human, Peter Quill, pushed his way between Gamora and Thor, and looked at her “I feel your pain, as well, because, I mean it’s not a competition, but I’ve been through a lot. My father killed my mother, and then I had to kill my father. And that was hard. Probably even harder than having to kill a sister. Plus, I, came out with both of my eyes.”

Thor wasn’t paying attention. The man was clearly a moron, and he’d just noticed he had bent the spoon in the bowl of soup and was having a flashback to the time he had tried to bend the Captain’s shield. Little Stark had laughed so much at how annoyed he had gotten when he failed that she had cried. And then, to make it worse, a few days later the Captain had managed to move Mjolnir. Just a fraction, but it moved. No one had seen it, bar Little Stark of course, but there was something there, Thor was sure. Steve Rogers was a man worthy of a lot of things, but his hammer was complicated. You have to prove your worth. That had been explained to him by his Father the day he had given it to him. Of course, he hadn’t realised then that Eitri had actually made it for Hela first.

Eitri… Oh, yes!

“I need a hammer, not a spoon.” Thor mumbled, as the idea took hold and he looked at the pod at the back of the ship. “How do I open this thing?” He began pressing random buttons on the screen next to the door. “Is there some sort of a four-digit code? Maybe a birth date or something?”

"What are you doing?” the rabbit animal, Rocket asked.

“Taking your pod.” Thor replied nonchalantly.

And then there was an argument in which the moron Quill tried to imitate Thor’s deeper voice telling him he could not take the pod, but Thor was going to take the pod anyway because he was the God of Thunder after all, and then the lady Gamora cut them off quite rightly directing the focus back to Thanos by stating they needed to find out where he was going next.

But Thor had already thought of that. “Knowhere,” he answered as he brushed past Quill and over to the refrigerator he had seen Gamora get his soup from.

“He must be going somewhere.” Mantis argued innocently.

“No,” Quill shook his head and Thor noted his stupid voice was back to normal. “Knowhere? It’s a place. We’ve been there. It sucks. Excuse me, that’s our food.” He jabbed,  suddenly noticing what Thor was doing.

“Not anymore.” Thor shrugged, stuffing it into a backpack he found.

“Thor!” Gamora cut across the pair of them again. “Why would he go to Knowhere?”

“Because for years, the Reality Stone has been safely stored there with a man called the Collector.” Thor stated.

“If it’s with the Collector, then it’s not safe.” Quill snorted. “Only an idiot would give that man a stone.”

“Or a genius.” Thor shrugged.

“How do you know he’s not going for one of the other stones?” Gamora asked.

“There’s six stones out there.” Thor began to explain, “Thanos already has the Power Stone because he stole it, last week, when he decimated Xandar.”

He didn’t missed the shocked and horrified look the group shared with one another.

“He stole the Space Stone from me, when he destroyed my ship and slaughtered half my people. The Time and Mind Stones, are safe on Earth. They’re with the Avengers.”

“The Avengers?” Quill asked.

“They’re Earth’s Mightiest Heroes.”

“Like Kevin Bacon?” Mantis called out.

“Errr he may be on the team now, I don’t know.” Thor shrugged, having no idea who the man named after a breakfast meat was. “I haven’t been there in a while. And as for the Soul Stone, well no one’s ever seen that. No one even knows where it is. Therefore, Thanos can’t get it. Therefore, he’s going to Knowhere. Hence, he’ll be getting the Reality Stone. You’re welcome.”

“Then we have to go to Knowhere, now.” Gamora stated, looking around.

“Wrong. Where we have to go is Nidavellir.” Thor picked up the backpack.

“That’s a made up word.” Drax, the blue man countered.

“All words are made up.” Thor smiled, slinging the backpack onto his back.

“Nidavellir is real?” The animal called Rocket’s eyes grew wide and he jumped up onto the table and looked at Thor. “Seriously? I mean, that place is a legend. They make the most powerful, horrific weapons to ever torment the Universe. I would very much like to go there, please.”

“The rabbit is correct.” Thor grinned at Rocket’s excitement. “And clearly the smartest among you. Only Eitri the Dwarf can make me the weapon I need.” He turned to the furry animal. “I assume you’re the captain, Sir?”

Rocket grinned and nodded, “You’re very perceptive.”

“You seem like a noble leader. Will you join me on my quest to Nidavellir?”

“Let me just ask the captain. Oh, wait a second, it’s me!”  Rocket grinned. “Yeah, I’ll go.”

“Wonderful.” Thor beamed.

“Uh except that I’m the captain,” Quill chipped in

“Quiet!” Thor was now beyond bored of the moron.

“And that’s my backpack.” Quill continued pointing to the bag that Thor was stealing.

“Quill, sit down.” Rocket tapped at the pad and keying in the digits to open the pod.

“Look, this is my ship. And I’m not going to - wait, what kind of weapon are we talking about here?” Quill looked round.

“The Thanos-killing kind.” Thor smiled.

Boy, was it going to be a big, fucking weapon like no one had ever seen before…

“Don’t you think that we should all have a weapon like that?” Quill frowned.

“You lack the strength to wield them. Your bodies would crumble as you minds collapsed into the madness.” Thor shook his head.

“Is it weird that I wanna do it even more now?” Rocket asked.

“Erm, a little bit weird. Yeah.” Thor looked down at him, frowning.

“If we don’t go to Knowhere and Thanos retrieves another stone, he’ll be too powerful to stop.” Gamora stepped forward.

"He already is.” Thor shrugged.

“Look, I got it figured out.” Rocket interrupted, looking at Gamora. “We got two ships, and a large assortment of morons.  Me and Groot will go with the Pirate Angel here, and the morons will go to Knowhere to try and stop Thanos. Cool? Cool.”

“So cool.” Thor grinned before he climbed into the pod.

“For the record,” Quill said leaning down to Rocket, “I know that you’re only going with them because it’s where Thanos isn’t.”

“You know, you really shouldn’t talk that way to your captain, Quill.” Rocket smirked, walking backwards and gesturing outwards with his arms. “Come on, Groot. Put that game down. You’ll rot your brain,”

As Rocket sat down Thor nodded out of the pod to the rest of the people on the ship. “I bid you farewell and good luck, morons. Bye.”

******

It wasn’t hard for the team to track Wanda, her red power flashing bright against the dark sky over Edinburgh City Centre, and as the jet followed her movements, the four friends saw her spiralling through the sky with Vision and crashing through the train station roof, just as Sam put the jet on the ground.

Within seconds the Ex-Avengers were sprinting off the jet.  

“Katie, Nat, take the side!” Steve yelled, as he vaulted over the railings at the edge of the road running down onto the bottom half of the concrete ramp which led to the station. “Sam, up high and remember, we protect Vision at all costs!”

“Got em.” Sam spoke over the coms. “Platform seven, near the café.” 

Steve vaulted over another set of barriers, the station now deserted thanks to the evacuation taking place by the local police. As he ran onto one of the walkways over the lines, he was just in time to see two of the aliens crash through the station roof. Weighing up his options, he realised it was going to be quicker for him to hop down onto the platform he was currently overheard, and jump across the lines to help. He swung his legs over the railings and landed easily, looking up. Across from him he could see Natasha and Katie emerging to the right, as Wanda stood and moved protectively in front of Vision, building power in her hands. An express train whizzed past him and he stood still, waiting and it wasn’t long before the taller, blue looking woman spotted him, and she launched her spear over the platform. Steve easily snapped his left shoulder back whilst leaning over his body with his right, catching the staff in his hand.

“Heads up.” Sam muttered, and as Wanda and Vision turned to see Steve step out from the shadows, fury lining his face, Sam swooped in and kicked one of the aliens across the platform and through a closed café’s security gate, causing tables and chairs to go flying, before he spun and started to fire on the other alien.

Steve launched the weapon he had caught across the tracks where Natasha caught it and stabbed the second assailant in the gut as Katie moved in to head off the other who was stalking back towards them. The weapon Natasha had been using flew back into the alien’s hands and Katie ducked as she swung, jabbing her in the back of the leg with an electric powered escrima stick. The alien let out a yell, stumbled slightly and Steve cleared the platform in an easy leap, rolling and scooping up the second assailant’s staff from the floor, holding it up to block the blow that the creature aimed at Katie. He grit his teeth, planting his legs to absorb the power of the hit, as Katie rolled to the side, jumped up and the two of them began to fight the alien, joined shortly by Natasha. Steve had to admit, the woman (if you could call her that) was a force to be reckoned with, but the three of them were just about getting the upper hand when they heard Sam yell.

“DUCK!”

The three of them did so and Sam flew in hard, kicking the woman backwards where she fell and scuttled over to her fallen friend. Sam landed next to Katie, drawing both his submachine pistols on the couple.

“Get up” The alien instructed to her fallen partner, her voice was deep.

“I can't.” His gravelly, robotic voice replied.

“We don’t wanna kill you.” Natasha spoke coolly “But we will”.

“You’ll never get the chance again.” The female levelled them, with a cold glare and with that a beam shot down from the hole in the station roof and the two were transported upwards. The weapon Steve was holding also shot out of his hand. He frowned in surprise for a moment, looking at his hand then upwards as the beam of light disappeared and the ship sped off.

“Can you stand?” Sam asked Vision as Katie replaced her sticks and walked towards Wanda and the android. When Vision shook his head, Sam moved forward to help him up.

Supported by Wanda and Sam, Vision looked over at Steve, Natasha and Katie, electricity shimmering over his surface. He’d been badly damaged in the fight, and as he spoke his voice distorted.

“Thank you, Captain.”

Steve took a deep breath and nodded. His face stern, but his eyes were much softer than his expression and Katie knew why. It had been a while since anyone other than Sam, Nat or Wanda had called him Captain.

Steve looked at the android, he might have been damaged but they had the stone, and that was the main thing. Nodding, he spoke. “Let’s get you on the jet.” His voice was soft and he moved to let Sam and Wanda support Vision on their way past him, Natasha following.

Katie hung back a little, trying to stop the light-headedness she was feeling from washing over her.

“You okay?” Steve turned to her as she blinked.

“Yeah, just took a whack that’s all. “I’m fine.” She assured him as they took up the rear of the group, her fingers lacing into his.

Once Vision was safely settled in a seat at the side, Sam dropped into the pilot’s seat. Katie hit the button to close the ramp as the Jet rose into the air.

“I thought we had a deal.” Natasha spun angrily to Wanda. ”Stay close, check in. Don’t take any chances.”

“I’m sorry. We just wanted time.” The younger woman said gently.

Katie glanced at Steve, he was stood up in the middle of the jet, hands on the buckle of his utility belt, staring seemingly at nothing but clearly contemplating something.

“Where to, Cap?” Sam asked.

Steve looked up, he glanced at Sam then locked eyes with Katie as he spoke one word, one simple word that they had all been waiting to hear for almost two years.

“Home”

*****

After a few hours, with the morning sky being the only thing in sight, Sam started to lower the jet through thick white clouds and Katie couldn’t help but inhale sharply when the compound began to take shape as she watched out of the front window. It looked the same. The buildings, the grounds…she wasn’t sure why she had expected anything to change, maybe because it felt like everything had changed for them, but either way, there it was. The exact same as the last time she had seen it.

Steve noticed her demeanour change slightly as they landed. She stood up straight, her shoulders squaring as if she was about to face an onslaught. And they were, in a way. On their way Steve had called Bruce to tell him that they had Vision and were heading back, but had had no idea what they were heading back to, nor did he care. Be it Ross, police, the army, whatever, Steve was done bowing to anyone’s will, he was over playing other people’s tunes. The two years they had spent hidden had shown them all that they could operate on their own if required, and he wasn’t afraid to fight anyone who got in his way.

They stepped off the ramp and strode over the lawn, Katie taking a deep breath as she looked around. So many emotions flooded her system, she couldn’t explain or identify half of them. Memories flashed in front of her eyes, visions of long summer nights spent outside in the garden and on the BBQ patio until sunrise. Laughs during team dinners. Sam and Wanda collaborating on pranks. Training sessions with the team and Vision reading Tolkien aloud to Wanda before asking questions about humanity’s love of fiction. Walks and picnics and other things in the ground, just her and Steve. Their wedding, God their wedding! Frequent visits from Tony, bringing in new ideas and improved gadgets. Getting back safe after being out on a long mission. Feeling relaxed and at ease.

Feeling at home.

Steve’s arm curled round his wife for a moment before he pressed a kiss to the side of her head as Vision opened the door.

“Still no word from Vision?”  

“Satellites lost him somewhere over Edinburgh.”

“On a stolen Quinjet with four of the world’s most wanted criminals.” “You know they’re only criminals because you’ve chosen to call them that, right, sir? “

“My God, Rhodes, your talent for horseshit rivals my own.”

The sound of the call between Ross and Rhodey echoed down the corridor reaching the group that were making their way through to the lab.

“If it weren’t for those Accords, Vision would’ve been right here.” Rhodey shot back and Katie glanced back at Vision as the sounds the voices grew louder as they neared their destination.

“I suspect it will be a Hollo Call.” Vision said gently, answering Katie’s unasked question.  His suspicions were proven correct as they rounded the corner and the lab came into view. Rhodey was stood across from where the holographic image of Secretary Ross was facing off against him.

"You have second thoughts?” Ross was challenging Rhodey, who smiled simply as his eyes shot sideways. Steve strode forward, his presence as intimidating as ever, and the first thing Rhodey noticed was just how dark he looked. Gone was the upstanding, All American Hero, and in its place was someone much harder, far rougher round the edges. Kiddo looked different too. Her hair was shorter and she looked slimmer.

“Not anymore.” He grinned.

The holographic Ross followed Rhodey’s gaze and his eyes fell on Steve who was stood next to Katie at the front of the group, Natasha, Wanda, Sam and Vision behind them. Steve raised his chin a little defiantly and moved to take his power stance, feet apart, hands on his belt, before he greeted Ross politely.

“Mr. Secretary" 

Katie couldn’t help the smirk on her face as she watched Ross attempting to cover up the shock he had clearly felt at the group of outlaws turning up again. She locked eyes with Rhodey who gave her the smallest of winks before he glanced back at Ross who was shaking his head slightly as he approached Steve, his holographic form almost trying to square up to him.  Steve simply raised his chin further and looked down from the steps he was stood on.

"You got some nerve.” Ross sniffed, staring up at him “I’ll give you that.”

“You could use some of that right now.” Katie shot back bluntly, Ross turned his head to face her for a second. She held his gaze and arched an eyebrow until he turned back to Steve.

“The world’s on fire.” Ross said incredulously. “And you think, you can just walk back in here and all is forgiven?”

Steve levelled the secretary with a firm gaze. “I’m not looking for forgiveness.” his voice took on a threatening tone as he spoke “And I’m way past asking for permission.”

At that point the smirk on Katie’s face grew even wider as she stole a glance up at her husband, pride swelling in her chest as he continued, stoic and unyielding. 

“Earth just lost her best defender, so we’re here to fight. And if you wanna stand in our way,” he stepped down to be at level with the hologram, and stared it square in the eyes “We’ll fight you, too.”

Ross was practically foaming at the mouth as his eyes went to Rhodey and he spat out his order, “Arrest them.”

“All over it.” Rhodey promised nonchalantly before shutting off the hologram, shortly after a beeping noise sounded from the computers.

“That’s a court-martial.” He informed the group as he slapped the back of his right hand into his left palm, though his tone said told Katie that he blatantly couldn’t have cared less for Ross’ demands. There was a short pause as the group glanced down at their friend, Steve smiling softly, before Rhodey’s face split into a huge smile of his own.

“It’s great to see you, Cap.” He stepped forward.

“You too, Rhodey.” Steve answered, taking the last two steps down before he shook Rhodey’s hand. Katie threw herself at her brother’s best friend and he gave her a huge bear hug before he looked down at her.

“You do something to your hair?” He teased.  Katie smiled, stepping back from his embrace while he looked the rest of the group over.

“Well. You guys really look like crap. Must’ve been a rough couple of years.”

Steve looked round, an amused smile on his face as he glanced at his wife then to the rest of the team.

“Yeah, well, the hotels weren’t exactly five star.” Sam quipped back cheekily, the banter flowing between them like no time at all had passed.

“Uh, I think you look great.”

Steve turned at the new voice to see Bruce inching his way into the room nervously wringing his hands together.

Steve and Katie remained silent, exchanging a glance. In the rush around and the fray of the fight, we’d forgotten to explain exactly who it was that called.

“Yeah. I’m back.”

Katie glanced over at Nat, she had her gaze fixed solely on the scientist as she spoke “Hi, Bruce.”

“Nat.” Bruce answered inclining his head towards her slightly as he fidgeted.

“This is awkward.” Sam piped up. Steve and Katie looked at one another, before they both smiled and looked back up at Sam.

“Any news on Tony?” Katie asked gently, interrupting the silence that had fallen.

“Not yet no.” Rhodey said. “FRIDAY lost him when he left the atmosphere. We got NASA running scans and we’re trying to track his trail but…” He shook his head. 

“Typical Tony.” Katie rolled her eyes “Always has to go one bigger and one better doesn’t he?”

Her blasé tone wasn’t fooling anyone.

“Banner.” Steve said gently, looking across the room at the scientist. “Can you fill us in on what we’re up against here?”

“Yeah sure,” Bruce said nodding hesitantly.

Without so much as another word, the group all started to make their way out of the room. As Katie turned to follow Natasha, Steve’s hand gently fell on her shoulder. Without looking at him, she reached up and gently wrapped her fingers round his, giving them a squeeze before she left.

Steve took a deep breath as he glanced around the room once more, before he too followed on, that sick feeling in his gut was getting worse.

**** Chapter 36 Part 2

[shewhohangsoutincemeteries]

little things

Rocket Raccoon x Gender-Neutral Reader

Requested by: @bluemarsuniverse​

Summary: rocket talks to quill about the reader, confused as to why they do all those little things for him.

Characters: rocket raccoon, reader, baby groot, peter quill, mentions of other guardians

Warnings: adult language, fluff

Word Count: 2,047

CHECK OUT MY FANFIC DEDICATED BLOG

You were half-lost in inconsequential thought when you felt an insistent tug on the hem of your jeans. You smiled down at Groot, standing carefully and stretching your arms out above you. You groaned contentedly as you did, feeling a kink in the middle of your back ease.

It was your own fault that you were stiff; you’d been curled up in one of the cockpit seats since breakfast, shooting the shit with Quill and Rocket on a long-haul flight to a planet called Sakaar in the hopes of picking up some new work. Apparently, it was mostly junkers, but word had it the big wigs on the planet hired contractors pretty often. A couple of hours curled up in that chair, one leg thrown over the armrest… well, it would probably make anyone sore. Still, you’d had fun, as you always did. The three of you had just been talking about nothing in particular… although, truthfully, you’d spent most of the time just listening to the two of them squabble as you watched them fly the ship.

Rocket glanced your way as he heard your groan, his eyebrow quirked. It might have been concern, but maybe he was just exasperated. Or annoyed – you had technically interrupted him. You offered him a small, cheery smile and he rolled his eyes, a smile of his own touching at the edge of his mouth. You bent down to scoop Groot up off the floor when he took hold of your pantleg again.

“I’m gonna go and get lunch started,” you explained quietly as Groot grinned up at you, his tiny hand tangling in your hair as you placed him on your shoulder. “Try not to insult each other too much while I’m gone. I wouldn’t want to miss a good one.”

Quill turned his head to give you a crooked smirk in response. “All my insults are good ones.”

“Oh, please,” you shot back. “Half your references are so old and obscure even I don’t have any idea what you’re talking about half the time.”

His jaw dropped in offense, and you laughed. You were about ten years younger than Quill, and he took every single one of those years as some kind of personal offense. So, of course, you tended to play it up.

Rocket scoffed, shaking his head at the two of you. “You both make no sense.”

“I don’t know how you put up with us, Rock.” you said with a wink, and he smirked despite himself, ducking his head. “I’m gonna try making that spicy thing you liked again. I’ll bring up some for the two of you when it’s done.”

“You don’t even like spicy food.” Rocket pointed out and you shrugged the shoulder Groot wasn’t sitting on.

“Yeah, but you do.”

Rocket watched you leave, his brow furrowed. “I don’t get it.”

Quill adjusted the controls in front of him, settling comfortably back into his seat. “Get what?”

“Why Y/N… does that.”

“You’re gonna have to be a little more specific.”

Rocket rubbed at one of his eyes with his paw, shaking his head. “Just, that—”

***

You sidestepped a wrench as it clattered across the floor, a smirk playing on your lips. This was exactly why you never went around barefoot; steel-capped boots were pretty much a must on the Milano. Rocket’s head was in an open panel, his paw buried in his toolbox and his back to you. “You wanna watch where you’re throwing those things, man?”

He spoke without looking up, sarcasm lacing his tone. “Why do that when you can just watch where you’re walkin’?”

You scoffed, shaking your head. “You’re seriously a charmer, Rocket.”

“You know it, doll.” he replied without looking up.

“How’s it coming?”

Rocket huffed, turning to dig deeper into his tool chest. His fur was mussed, sticking up around one ear – a sure sign he’d been at this for a while. Whenever he was frustrated, he’d tug at that spot of fur absently. “Would be fine if I could find the damn plasma—”

“You mean this?” you bent down to pick up the tool from where it was half-hidden under a crate. You held it up pointedly until he turned around, surprise lighting on his features. “Is this what you were looking for?”

“I—yeah?” Rocket said, his tone softer than before. You handed it to him, leaning back against the crate. “Since when do you know anything about tools?”

“I looked it up a while ago. Taught myself.”

His brow furrowed in confusion. “Why?”

You shrugged, leaning back against the crate. “So, I could help you.”

***

“This is disgustin’!” Rocket snarled, clawing at his fur irritably. He, like the rest of the crew, was covered in thick, dark purple goo. It was viscous and sticky; it was the remainder of some seriously disgusting alien pods that you’d all been contracted to destroy. They were a pest species popular on the black market; they could do some serious damage to a planet if left unchecked.

You’d found them in a cavern about thirty miles outside a small city, hanging from the ceiling in nets. You’d dealt with the smugglers and Quill had opened fire on the closest net. It had exploded, leaving you all retching and covered in the goop.

“Why the hell did we take this job?”

“For about thirty thousand units,” you said dryly, rubbing a towel through your soaking hair.

Quill had called “Captain’s Rights” and claimed the first shower, so you’d filled a bucket with steaming water and lugged it to your bunk. You’d stripped out of your mission gear and spent twenty minutes scrubbing the gunk off your skin. It had taken half a bottle of body wash and you’d ruined your loofah before you’d even gotten a chance at the shower.

It had taken another fifteen minutes and a lot of shampoo to finally remove the goo from the locks it had gotten caught in. Drax was in there now, and while Gamora and Quill were getting the ship back in the air again, Rocket was left in the cargo bay, furious over his condition. He’d been standing behind Drax when the first pod had exploded, so he’d been spared most of the goop, but it still clung to sections of his fur stubbornly.

“Yeah, well, it isn’t enough.” he grumbled, cursing as the goo glued his paw to the fur of his neck. He grunted as he pulled it free, taking a little fur with him. You hid a small, amused smirk as he did. “This shit is never comin’ off.”

“This might help,” you suggested, setting a fresh bucket of hot water and a cup down next to him. You held out your now half-empty bottle of shampoo. “And so will this.”

He raised an eyebrow at you, and you shrugged. “It’s all I had. You might just have to deal with smelling like vanilla and grapefruit for a little while. Sorry. But it’s probably a good thing, because that gunk really stinks.”

Rocket snickered despite himself, shaking his head as he took the bottle from you. “Fine.”

“You’re welcome.” He gave you an exasperated look, and you smiled, sitting cross-legged on the floor. You watched him struggle with the cap for a moment, the goop on his paws sticking to the plastic. “Dude… do you want a hand?”

His ears rose in surprise before they lowered back against his skull again, his expression turning apprehensive. You held up your hands in surrender. “I’m just saying, it took me almost half an hour to scrub that shit off, and I’m not covered in fur. You wanna do it yourself, by all means. I’ll see you in a couple of hours.”

You made move to stand, and he groaned dramatically in annoyance. He didn’t say anything, he just held out the bottle petulantly. You smiled softly, taking it from him. You could feel his eyes on you, wary, as you filled the cup with hot water and squirted shampoo into your palm. “Relax, Rocket. I’m not going to hurt you.”

He huffed a sigh, his shoulders lowering slowly. He held out an arm, letting you gently take hold of his wrist. “I know.”

***

“Groot! Set your ass down, would ya?”

You paused in the corridor as you heard Rocket bark irritably. Stepping into the doorway of their shared bunk, you watched in amusement as Groot terrorized his surrogate father. The raccoon was curled up in his hammock with his back to you – you’d relieved him at about three a.m. to take your turn ‘piloting’. Mostly, you just had to make sure the autopilot stayed on course and that nothing unexpected came your way. That was about six hours ago, and by the looks of things, he hadn’t actually gotten much in the way of sleep yet.

Groot on the other hand, was in high spirits, bouncing around the room and chattering excitedly. Rocket groaned, shoving a pillow over his head.

Rolling your eyes at the two of them, you whistled, catching the Flora Colossus’ attention. He immediately ran towards you, vines clinging to your leg. You saw Rocket’s ear perk up under the pillow at the sound as you let Groot clamber enthusiastically up your arm. “C’mon, sprout. Leave your Rocket alone and I’ll make breakfast.”

Rocket rolled over, his head peeking out from under the pillow. He watched you through one lazily opened eye, his fur mussed. “What’re you doin’?”

You tickled Groot’s belly with your fingertip, grinning tiredly as he giggled. You spoke through a yawn. “Distracting the child so you can get some sleep.”

“But you’re tired.”

“Not as tired as you,” you shrugged. “It’s fine. I’ll just take a nap later. This is what coffee’s for, anyway.”

Rocket gave you a small, weary smile. “You’re a doll.”

“And that right there is why I do it,” you teased with a smile of your own. You reached up to stroke the soft fur of his ear, and he sighed, settling back into the hammock. His eyes closed slowly, his lips curving softly. “’Night, Rock.”

“Night.”

***

“—that thing they do.”

Quill sniggered, shaking his head and setting the ship to autopilot before standing. “You really are thick, man.”

Rocket raised a brow, offended, following after him as he headed for the ladder down to the ship’s main quarters. The scent of warm spices already teased at his nose. “What’re you talkin’ about, humie?”

“C’mon, Ranger Rick. Is it really that hard to figure out?” Quill asked over his shoulder. He sighed when he caught Rocket just staring at him blankly. “They do it because they like you. It really can’t be that much of a shock.”

Rocket stopped, his cheeks warming under his fur. “You—you’re just—I—”

Quill turned to grin down at him as he reached the kitchen. “You seriously didn’t know? Oh, man, this is going to be fun.”

You looked up from the stove, ladling curry into a bowl. “What’s going to be fun?”

Quill winked at you, accepting the bowl from you as he stepped past you to sit at the table beside Gamora. She rolled her eyes at him, a light smirk curving her lips as he pressed a kiss to her cheek. “You’ll see.”

You raised an eyebrow at him, amused. You turned to Rocket, who still hovered in the doorway. Groot had run over to him as soon as he’d seen him and was now perched happily on his shoulder. “You didn’t have to come down, I would’ve brought it up to you.”

Rocket ducked his head, glancing at Quill briefly before shrugging. He rubbed at the back of his head bashfully. “’s fine. We, uh… we figured we could all eat together.”

You grinned, taking a seat and patting the space beside you. “Great. If the curry doesn’t blow your head off this time, I give up.”

He snickered, sitting up next to you. Groot ran out onto the table, set on bothering Drax while he tried to eat. You lightly touched a finger at the edge of Rocket’s ear, smirking as it flicked forward in reaction. He swiped at your hand with his paw, cheeks warming once more.

.

.

.

tags: @lovely-dreamer19​ @spacesuitsforemergency @wittyforachange​ @wefracturedmotivation​ @january-echoes​ @glossyloner​ @capitalnineteen​ @dragon-chica​

[lokislittlesigyn]

A Day’s Work - Pt.1

Hi everyone!! This is an older fic I started a while ago and was pretty happy with. It seemed a good opportunity to get started with posting things. Basically, this is a random au (may simply classify silly/nonsense fics into a separate au category of their own) based around Marvel, focusing on Loki and my own interpretation/characterization of his wife Sigyn. hence... you know, my blog name and pfp and. yeah, you get the picture.

Pairing: Loki / Sigyn (basically an oc based off the marvel/myth namesake)

Warnings: The Collector being creepy (as usual), some capture but don’t fret! It’s short-lived.

Summary: The Guardians of The Galaxy have been, well, guarding the galaxy on their own time. But when a handsome reward for the safe return of an Asgardian princess is released, they may get more adventure than they bargained for.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"Peter, you're an idiot." Gamora took a seat in the Milano’s cockpit, releasing a loud sigh.

"Yeah, yeah, I know..." Peter turned the ship, and within seconds the were on their way to Xandar. "It's not my fault that guy had literally the ugliest mug in the galaxy."

"He was not carrying a mug," Drax piped up from behind them, furrowing his brow at Peter.

"Face, then! Ugliest face."

"I disagree." Drax settled back into his seat. "You have the ugliest face."

"I am Groot."

Peter glared over his shoulder. "If you don't cut it out, I swear I will turn this spaceship around." Soon, the bunch of misfits reached Xandar. Landed, and took the opportunity to roam the city - partly in search for unclaimed bounties.

"Okay, since we haven't had the best luck under Quill's leadership lately, I’m electing myself as new leader of the group," Rocket smirked, holding a tiny baby Groot on his shoulder.

"Hey!" Peter huffed, "That Sakaarian was just one guy. One dude out of the whole universe. Every one of us has had a - a slight disagreement, over a keg of beer."

"I am Groot."

"Okay, except you. But you don't count."

"I am Groot!"

"All right fine, you count!"

Gamora rolled her eyes, walking over to a large, white wall, containing a screen that was shifting between advertisements. "Hey, come look at this." She put her hand up, stilling the screen.

Peter furrowed his brow, his hands on his hips. "Reward for the safe capture and return of an.. Asgardian? Asgardian princess?"

Rocket whistled. "Gorgeous."

"Yeah, I guess she's pretty-"

"I was talkin' about the money."

Peter's eyes settled on the bounty price, then widened. He grinned. "How do you guys feel about a rescue mission?" ~~~~ Sigyn awoke with a pounding headache. She blinked. Looked down at her bound hands. Great...

It was dark, but in the further reaches of the shadows she could make out the edges of rusty metal walls. In front of her stood an equally-rusted cell door.  Past it, another cell stood, identical if not for the fact it was empty. She stood, steadying herself against the wall. Voices came from down the hall.

"...won't remember anything. I gave her a double dose."

"Dunno, Asgardians are tough..."

"Not this one."

Two men stepped in front of her cell. Each wore patchy, well-worn clothes. One looked tanned and scruffy, the other had blue skin marred with scars.

"Oh look, she's awake," The blue one chuckled.

Sigyn stepped back, eyeing both of them. "Where am I?"

"That's not much'a your business, is it?" The man glared at her.

"Where are you taking me?"

"Knowhere." He smirked.

She blinked. "What... You must be taking me somewhere."

He nodded. "Knowhere. Hang tight, princess." Both men walked off, leaving her alone. She huffed, eyeing the door... Then noticed the clothing she had on. Interwoven leather and cloth, bits of metal, armored bracers on her forearms... Nothing like what those men wore.

What was going on?

She sat back down, defeated. Her headache became overwhelming, throbbing... She placed her head in her hands. ~~~~ Meanwhile, onboard the Milano, Rocket stepped over to a table in the center of the common area. "Now, behold." Rocket set a metal object that looked haphazardly thrown-together on the table. "A genuine Asgardian tracking device. Call it an A-T-D."

"You found a way to track Asgardians?" Peter raised his brows, arms crossed.

"Well yeah, why'd you think I called it an Asgardian tracking device?"

"I am Groot."

"Exactly! The nerve of some people!"

Peter rolled his eyes. Gamora spoke up. "How does it track them?"

"Now that is a good question." Rocket pressed a button on the side of the device. It started beeping slowly. "I won't reveal all my secrets, but it basically traces Asgardian DNA."

"Where did you get Asgardian DNA?"

Rocket grinned. "I have my ways."

"So we'll follow your tracker until we find the princess, grab her, maybe shoot some guys, and take her back to Asgard safe and sound?" Peter shifted his weight.

"That's the plan."

"..I love it. Good work, Rocket."

"Well, I am the resident genius." ~~~~ Soon, the Guardians reached Knowhere to the tune of Drax’s snoring, the tracker’s continuous beeping, and Suspicious Minds playing softly.

The tracking device released another loud, long bloop before returning to its rhythmic beeping - unfortunately, out of sync with the music.

"That toaster of yours better work," Peter huffed.

"I told you, Quill, it's already working. It's brought us this far, hasn't it?"

"We'll see. Asgardians are usually easy to spot anyway," Gamora stood, walking to the front of the cockpit. "They're loud and overbearing. Proud."

"Yeah but they've got a full medieval look, right? Armor and everything?"

"Yes, usually."

"So we're looking for a ren faire princess. Got it."

Rocket and Gamora exchanged a confused look. She shrugged.

The Milano landed, and the Guardians - after waking up Drax - began their search. Peter lead the way.

"All right, we should stick together. Remember what happened last time we came here."

"You ruined our chance at selling the Orb?" Rocket smirked.

"Okay, first of all, that wasn't entirely my fault." Peter huffed, glancing at Gamora. "Where should we start..?"

"I think we should follow the tracker," Gamora glanced around, "And keep an eye out for anything sapphire. Asgardians like wearing distinct colors - from her picture, it looks like sapphire is hers."

"Right."

"Hey, I got something!" Rocket held up the tracker, which had begun beeping faster. "This way!" He scampered off, the team in tow.

They reached the same bar they'd visited before,when waiting to meet the Collector.

"Geez, this thing is going crazy..."

"Rocket." Gamora said.

"I mean it's really losing its mind. Maybe I should've-"

"Rocket!" Gamora pointed to the betting table.

There, on the other side, the princess was being lead to the Collector's back room.

"...Oh."

~~~~

The two men from before lead Sigyn through a strange, crowded room, past droves of cheering spectators. What was going on? She tried bumping into people to get their attention, tried catching someone’s eye, but the blaster pressed to her back kept her lips sealed.

They reached a back room. Walked through a maze-like trail of glass cages, lead by a pink woman whose smile looked far too forced.

Sigyn looked inside the glass cages, gasping when one of the beings inside moved. What is this place? she thought, swallowing hard when they stopped walking. Sigyn stood between the rugged aliens who lead her, staring forward at the strange man before her. He lowered a contraption that looked much like a mix between binoculars and glasses, setting them and the precious stone he was examining on the table before him.

"May I present, Taneleer Tivan, The Collector." The pink woman nodded to him, then disappeared behind more glass cages.

"As promised," The blue man smirked, "An Asgardian. The princess herself. Safe and sound. Not a scratch on her."

"Oh," the Collector leaned over the table, studying Sigyn much like he had the stone. She tensed. Felt a chill go down her spine. "How you managed a feat such as this, I cannot grasp.." He walked around the table, reaching out to Sigyn. When she didn't move, the men forced her hands toward him. He took one, kissing it, gaze never leaving her face. "It is an honor, fair princess."

Sigyn was frozen in fear. She clenched her jaw, pulling away from him as soon as he'd let her. "I-I.. What do you want with me?"

The Collector only chuckled. "She looks reasonably healthy.." He grabbed her jaw, turning her face back and forth. She gritted her teeth, staring at him.

"About that..” The blue man smirked. “We want two million additional units. Seeing as she's a healthy, young princess, seems fair.."

"Yes.. Yes, that would be fair. Stellina," He called. The pink woman returned. "Transfer the units to these gentlemen."

"Wait- I'm not for sale!" Sigyn struggled against her captors. "I am not a princess! I don't know who you think I am, but-"

"Quiet," the blue man snarled. "We hit her with a big dose of Amnesiac Gas."

The Collector glanced at her with an amused expression. "How long until it wears off?"

The man shrugged.

"Well, never mind, then..." He sent Stellina to open one of the glass cages. "I trust the Asgardians have no idea you are here?"

"Not a clue," The other one snickered, "We made out in the dead of night. Didn't even know it was us takin' her."

The men started moving toward the cage. Sigyn's heart leapt from her chest.

"Wait- Wait, no, no no no, please don't! Please!" She kicked, managing to rip her arm away from one of the men, only to be firmly grabbed by the Collector himself, who kept one hand around her wrist, the other on her throat. "Now, little beauty, don't struggle so. I do not intend to hurt you." He brushed a finger across her cheek - gentle. Too gentle. Tears welled up in her eyes. "You will be a prize addition to my collection." In a swift movement, he pushed her into the cage, and before she could jump out, Stellina closed the door. It locked with a snap.

Sigyn slammed against the glass, tears flowing out steadily. "No! Let me out! Please, I beg you, I'll do ANYTHING!" She hit the glass with her fists.

"Pleasure doing business with you as always, gentlemen." The Collector shooed the two men off, then turned to Stellina. "Do something about that noise. But do not hurt her, or you will take her place."

Stellina bowed her head, then turned to Sigyn, who was still pounding on the glass.

[thenerdyhooker]

Space Daddies The Mandalorian/ GOTG crossover fanfic.

The blazing sun beat down on the sand of the desert planet where the crashed ship lay in a smoking heap, random sparks and electrical popping sounds filling the air.  Three survivors; a large man, a raccoon and a small tree creature stood a distance away from the ship watching it in dismay.

“We’re stuck here!” Rocket ranted.  “In the middle of nowhere!  We’re stuck here on this desert litter box of a planet and it’s your fault!”  He kicked up a cloud of sand toward Drax in anger, “All that bragging about knowing how to fly now and you almost got us killed!”

“I never said I knew how to fly well; I know enough.”  Drax balled up his fists and glowered down at the raccoon, “We wouldn’t be here if you would have just listened to Quill.”

“Oh yeah, listen to Quill. His idea was stupid and would have had us killed on the spot.”

“Well it was better than what you have done.  That flight squadron chased us because you stole the infant prince’s bejeweled sucking toy!  Who steals from a baby!”  Drax kicked sand back at Rocket, his cloud larger, causing Rocket to wince and hide his eyes with wracking coughs.

“Yeah well, no baby needs to be calmed by anything with that many gems stuck all over it!”  He choked out, blinking hard from the sand, “It was a choking hazard.”  He looked over at little Groot who was chasing a small mouse-like creature, “And I thought that Groot would like it.”  He admitted sullenly.

Drax pointed at Rocket, “HA! I knew it!  You steal for the little tree now!  You love him and provide for him in inappropriate ways!”

Rocket looked up indignantly, “Well of course I love him!  He’s my friend… or was my friend.”  He sighed and threw up his hands in defeat, “He’s my friend’s baby alright??”

“No I mean you love him like the tender love a father feels for his child!  You feel paternal love!  You’ve gone soft!”  Drax’s bellow of a laugh rang through the area as he sat down in the shade the ship gave off and squinted up at the bright sky.  “It is a blissful feeling.”  He said thoughtfully, becoming lost in his memories of his own long gone beloved family.

“I am Groot!”  Groot ran up to Drax and held out the creature he caught, his thin branches wrapping around it tighter to hold it still.

Drax wiped a tear from his eye and smiled down warmly at the little plant creature, taking it gently into his hand.  “Thank you, that is a wonderful pet although I prefer something more menacing with more teeth and claws.”

Groot shook his head, “I am Groot.”

Rocket rolled his eyes, “He says that’s for us to eat.”  Shaking his head, he watched Groot scamper off after another mouse.  “Don’t go far, the sun is setting!”  He called after him.

After some time, the sun was nearly completely set as Drax and Rocket sat quietly, albeit impatiently for help to arrive.

“Gamora will be here soon for us and we can go home.  I am famished.”  He nodded to himself in self-reassurance.

“So eat that thing Groot brought you.”  Rocket sniped.

“It may have parasites.” Drax shuddered.  “Once I move my bowels I will have room for a large meal later and then a long nap.”

“Why do you have to be so blunt?  Nobody needs to know that.”

Drax crossed his arms, “I’m sorry if my body offends you.”

“It offends me! Your big mouth offends me!”  Rocket picked up a piece of broken ship and threw it as hard as he could, “This goddamn planet offends me!”

“I think you should go calm yourself and come back when you feel more like talking nicely to me” Drax muttered.

“I think you should go f—” He looked around suddenly, “Where’s Groot?”

“He’s still out looking for things I think, oh wait, here he comes.”  They stood and walked toward the tiny tree.  Something his size was wrapped up in his branches and he was stumbling between steps as he hurried to show them his find.

“I am Groot!”

“What the hell is that? Groot what did you do?”

“I am Groot!”  The tree said proudly, putting the little green creature down.  Drax and Rocket stared wordlessly, taking it in.  It was as tall as Groot, green, and had only three fingers on each hand.  His head was dusted in the finest pale hair and it wore a strange beige robe of sorts and had large dark brown eyes. What made the creature even more curious looking were its enormous triangular ears jutting out from its head. The wiggled as it looked up at the pair and blinked a few times, before cooing softly, smiling at them.

Groot nodded to it and smiled, “I am Groot.”  The little green child babbled back and then laughed.

Drax blinked back, his eyebrow raised as he stared, “It’s... adorable...”  He whispered in awe.

“Yeah, and something whose angry mother is going to be looking for it.”  Rocket quipped boredly, “Groot go put it back.”

Groot frowned as he grabbed the green child’s three fingered hand, “I am GROOT!”  The two stood looking up at Rocket, both pairs of large dark eyes shining in the last remaining light of the day.

“He is not your friend, he needs to go home.”  Rocket said firmly, “Just get rid of it, Gamora will be here soon. We need to build a fire and wait for them.”

Drax walked up to the child and knelt down in front of him, eyes widening with glee as the child raised his arms to him.  The man squealed, “He gave me uppy arms!  Did you see that??  He wants me to hold him!”

“So then hold him, I don’t care, just help me figure out what to do now.  He looked over from searching through his utility bag and his jaw dropped in annoyance, “Oh come on!  We can’t take that with us.”

Drax snuggled the child up in his arms under his chin, “He’s so small and the simply huge eyes and ears are just intoxicating!  I’m bringing him, he will be my son like Groot is yours.”

Almost immediately after he declared the child his, a blaster shot rang out and hit next to Drax’s feet.

“Yeah that’s not happening.” The man in the helmet said, his voice calm yet menacing as he came out of the shadows.

In a heartbeat, Rocket had a pistol drawn and Drax had his knife held at the ready.

“Hey pal, if my friend here wants to adopt a freakish looking bat-eared kid then he’s going to.” Rocket snarled.

The man in the helmet kept his stance, “Except that bat-eared kid is mine and if you hurt me, you anger him and you’re not going to want to anger him.”

“Oh please, I’ve heard that line before.”  Rocket rolled his eyes.

“Why do you wear a helmet?” Drax inquired loudly, “Are you ugly? I’ll bet the grown version of your species is hideous, that would explain why the babies are so amazingly appealing!”

The man shook his head, “We’re not the same species. I’m a human; a mandalorian.”  He nodded toward the child who was waving at him and patting Drax’s neck happily.  “I don’t know what he is.”

“Manda what now?” Rocket asked with a sneer.

“Mandalorian!”  He snapped impatiently.  “Just give me my kid and we’ll be on our way, no harm done.”

“I am Groot!”  Groot ran up to the Mandalorian and looked up at him with a dark glare.  “I AM GROOT!” His small branches began to grow in threat.

“He says you ain’t going anywhere with his friend.  Sorry pal, you need to get lost.”

The mandalorian cocked his head to the side, “You’re talking tree seems angry.”

“Oh he is.  He’s my kid and you don’t want to see him when he’s angry either.”

The pair stood facing off, their fingers heavy on the triggers.  Drax stood holding the baby in one arm and the knife in the other, lowering it slightly.  He looked from the man to the raccoon and back, beginning to laugh. “Your children are so ridiculously delightful, as a protective parent, I would kill for them both as well.”  He let the child down and watched as he started to toddle over to the man.  “Go to your father little one.”

The child held onto the man’s leg and looked back at Drax then up at the man. Groot turned back to Rocket, “I am Groot.”  He stated firmly, retracting his branches.

“Well he’s pointing his at me, what am I supposed to do, let him shoot me??”

The man rolled his eyes and lowered his rifle, “I just want to get back to my ship with my son.  I’m not looking for any trouble.”

“Well neither are we!” Rocket shouted in agreement.

“I just want to hug that lovable green baby again!”  Drax gushed.

Groot looked at the child and hugged him.  The child giggled and then noticed a small mouse creep near the fire.  He toddled over quickly and made short work of catching it and gulping it down.

“I am Groot!”  Groot laughed and spied another mouse, pointing it out then reaching a growing branch toward it to grab quickly.  He retracted his branch and held the mouse to the child who took it and ate eagerly.

“Ha!  Look at the little predators!”  Drax admired, “You both should be so proud of your sons!”

“Yeah yeah.” Rocket muttered, giving Groot a loving smile.

“He’s something else.” The Mandalorian admitted, his voice soft, sharing the same smile for his own little one.

***

[anotheronechicagobog]

Dunder Mifflin Meets Intelligence AKA

Volomag and Vodka Part 2

Warnings: swearing, mention of vomit, numerous times, pranks

Written by @anotheronechicagobog

A/N I hope you guys laugh at this as much as I did writing it. The pranks are from a show called “The Office U.S.”, I do not own that or One Chicago Also, Kevin’s sister Vinessa makes an appearance

Whoever coined the term ‘morning sickness’ deserves a slow and painful death. Kim thought bitterly as she was hugging the toilet at ten at night. “Kim? I made you some ginger tea and I got you a glass of water.”

“I fucking love you.”All Adam could do was laugh as he sat on the edge of the bathtub and gathered Kim’s hair in one hand and rubbed his hand up and down her back. Kim let out a grateful hum before her stomach lurched again. The gruesome sound of Kim spewing more stomach acid (because let’s face it, there’s nothing else left for her to throw up) into the porcelain toilet bowl.

Several minutes later Kim felt better, not good, but better. She felt okay enough to get off the floor. She stood up and grabbed the glass of water Adan had brought her from the sink counter and washed out her mouth before grabbing her toothbrush to complete the process of removing the acidic bitterness from her mouth. By the time she raised the mug of tea to her lips it was cold. “Thank you, Adam. For everything.” Her eyes met his in the mirror as he came up behind her to wrap his arms around her middle. “No thanks is necessary. This feels like a dream come true.”

“Really?”

“Yes. I... I don’t think that I’ve been this happy in a long time. I know that we’ve had our issues, but I love you. I have for years. Even when we broke up, I can’t stop. Even if I wanted to.”

“I love you too.” And she did. She might not know where she stands with him right now, she might not want to be labelled as his girlfriend right now, but she does love him. Dating after Adam was hard because she was always comparing them. No matter who they were or how much she tried to stop it, none of them came even close to the bar that Adam had raised. “C’mon,” he kissed the crown of her head, “let’s go to bed, we’ve got work in the morning and you might wake up a few more times in the night.” She smiled softly as he guided her towards her bedroom.

They hadn’t moved in together, but they were looking for a place. Three bedrooms. One for the baby, and one per adult. Adam and Kim, they had such a dramatic history, that they weren’t actually sure how to handle it. They wanted to have this baby, they wanted to parent together, they just weren’t sure if they should be in a relationship while doing so. It was a complicated situation, but they were doing their best to make it work.

————————————————————————————————————

The next day Kim was standing behind the desk at the 21st district. It was a... Unique change, because despite her bubbly personality, she’d managed to be grumpier than Trudy was behind the desk. It had absolutely nothing to do with the work, the officers, or the civilians, and everything to do with her pregnancy symptoms. Nausea and soreness kept her awake at night, causing her to be exhausted and in need of coffee, but she can’t have coffee! And on top of all that, people were constantly bringing food in that thrust her into a constant state of “if I don’t keep my mouth closed I’m going to hurl on everything in front of me, yes I have tried ginger ale, saltines, and ginger tea, and no, none of them have worked”. She was excited to be a mom but she was ready to behead somebody.

“Hey mama, how are you holding up?” Trudy, yes she was letting Kim call her by her first name now, had become her saving grace. Since Kim was covering the desk Trudy was free to do work in the back office and go on patrol. In return, Trudy was making sure Kim always water, Gatorade, and Polish beef barley soup (it was the only thing that didn’t make her hurl). “I haven’t disintegrated anyone with a glare today, so good.”

“Ha! Well, I brought another blue raspberry one for you. I’m gonna head out with Tay for the day since O’Donnel is out sick today.”

“I’m so glad that you were able to get her assigned to 21 again. I missed her.”

“Spare me the love fest, Burgess.” Her tone may have been snappy but the smile on her face and light in her eyes gave away just how happy she was. “Have a good day Sargent.”

“You too.”

————————————————————————————————————

Hailey and Vanessa had been keeping her up to date with all the goofiness of intelligence. All the jokes and all the pranks. When they noticed that Kim looked like she was going to cry, scream, and throw up, they figured they should do something to cheer her up. And since nothing ridiculously funny was happening on its own, they decided to make it happen, with some inspiration from one Jim Halpert.

First, they decided to try one of Vanessa’s favourites. The vending machine prank. They grabbed all of the small knick-knacks from the guys’ desks (excluding Voight because they didn’t have a death wish) and convinced the vending machine guy to let them put them in the vending machine. Adam’s Groot bobblehead, name plaque, and Chicago Bears bouncy ball, in places C4, D2, and H7 respectively. Kevin’s Chicago Blackhawks hockey puck, large globe pencil sharpener, and small Chicago bears teddy bear, in places A6, I3, and F2. Jay’s magic 8 ball, Deadpool figurine, and ‘cereal killer’ spoon, in places G5, D9, and A3.

Second, they moved Kevin’s desk into the bathroom. Phones, computers all plugged in. And aside from the items in the vending machine, all were where they normally were on Kevin’s desk. Vanessa even placed all of his files in order and each spine of the folder a couple of centimetres forward each level. So it looked kind of like a staircase made of folders, and that was how he always did it, according to Vanessa. That earned the dark-haired woman a knowing chuckle from Hailey who, Vanessa reminded, really didn’t have room to talk.

Third, they moved Jay’s desk into the corner of the bullpen, where Al’s used to be, and put a large navy blanket over it. Figuring that was enough to keep his desk out of sight. Together, with some scrap wood from one bewildered Matt Casey, they wrapped the pieces of wood together in such a way that they imitated a desk, a chair, a computer monitor, a phone (that one was a pain), his file divider, pencil cup, pencils and pens, and stacks of files. They were both so proud when the got to look at the finished product.

Fourth, Hailey had gone to a hardware store and gotten a spool of red wire. She plugged on end into Adam’s monitor before placing the wiring with tape along the front of his desk, the floor, all around the edge of the break room, out into the bullpen again, before going down the hallway to the interrogation room, up the wall across from the gun safes, attached to a plastic tub filled with neon coloured ping pong balls. This one went a little off-script, but they were both excited to see how it would turn out.

Fifth and finally, they took the containers out of the fridge that they had made first so that the contents would have time to solidify. Taking off the lids of the three containers, the two women flipped them over quickly onto plates. Thankfully the jello stayed completely intact, each confection clearly showing the mugs inside.

Giggling they stood back and high fived, feeling good and excited for the next day. A heavy cough interrupted them from their internal praise and sense of accomplishment. “Sargent. Hi. What are you doing here so late? We don’t have a case.”

“I was about to ask you two ladies the same thing Upton.” The two women looked at each other and sighed, knowing they were caught, Hailey answered.

“We were setting up pranks for the guys.”

“Don’t you two think that’s a bit childish?”

“It’s to cheer Kim up. She’s been so stressed, and the pregnancy symptoms have been so awful that we thought she needed a good laugh. Plus, it’s not like the guys will get mad at us. Adam and Kevin will go puppy-eyed once they realize this was all for Kim, and Jay’s in love with Hailey so he won’t be mad at her, and he can’t be mad at me if he isn’t mad at her since we came up with all of this together.”

“Hey! He doesn’t... Whatever,” she muttered when she saw the look Voight gave her, “Plus, we didn’t do anything that involved your office, your stuff, or you.”

“... Alright. At least there’ll be some entertainment to distract from the boredom of spending all day doing paperwork. Now get out of here, get some sleep, you have to be back here in five hours.”

————————————————————————————————————

“... Where is my desk?”

“Forget that, why is mine wrapped up like some kind of present?”

“Mine looks fine... But different? Does that even make sense?”

“I’m gonna need coffee if I’m gonna deal with whatever th fuck this is.”

“Start a big pot, Kev.”

“Hey what is this red wire? And duct tape?”

“It’s a computer, Ruzek. It has wires.”

“Thank you for your sarcasm Rojas, but seriously, what is going on? And why are your and Hailey’s desks normal?” Hailey pulled out her phone and started recording Adam as he unplugged the red wire and pulling it up. The duct tape came up with a sticky ripping sound. Everyone watched closely and angeled themselves to get a better look as the tape lifted up from the bullpen floor and continued into the breakroom, Adam growled in frustration as he exited the breakroom pulling the wire up just after he had entered and gone in a circle. Everyone followed him curiously as he went down the hall to the interrogation room, just as Jay was about to shout out an agitated question, the tape went up the wall. When Adam gave a final tug, the last bit of tape came off the wall, but he’d also pulled the rest of the wire, at what it was connected to, down to him. Causing started gasps and shouts from the guys as 100 neon ping-pong balls rained down from the ceiling all over them. “Okay seriously, what was that?!” Hailey, Vanessa, and Voight were all in the background enjoying the show.

“Wait, wait... Do you hear that?” The shouts stopped and everyone strained their ears to listen to what Kevin was pointing out. A desk phone ringing. From the men’s bathroom. Voight subtly took Hailey’s phone to continue the recording. “What the hell?!” Kevin, Adam, and Jay had found Kevin’s desk in the bathroom. Looking confused as hell he looked to his brothers before picking up the phone. “... Hello? Oh, hi Vinessa. Listen I’m gonna have to call you back, something’s going on at work. I love you okay? Say ‘hi’ to auntie for me... Okay, I’ll tell Kim you say ‘hi’. Bye.” He hung up the phone before sitting down and stretching his arms out over his desk. Almost nothing is out of place. “What the ACTUAL fuck?! And where is my hockey puck?!”

“Okay, now I’m even more curious as to why my desk is wrapped up like a birthday present.” Numbly nodding their heads all the men left the bathroom and cornered Jay’s desk. Vanessa had Hailey’s phone and she watched with her boss and roommate as they did their best not to blow their cover. Jay shook his head, puzzled at the state of his desk before putting his arm on his desk and plopping down in his chair... Everything immediately collapsed. Leaving the girls pushing back tears as Jay tried to stand up in the sea of slippery wrapping paper and wood. “Fucking hell someone please tell me that the coffee is done.” He looked like Bambi on ice trying to get up as Kevin hollered from the breakroom, “pot’s done! And thank fucking God for that! Hey! Why is my hockey puck in the vending machine?!” Hailey and Jay followed the crowd in last, Hailey having to help her partner get up. They entered and Adam looked like he was about to blow a gasket. “My name plaque! Groot! Who- Why would someone do this?!”

“Who the fuck put Deadpool in the vending machine?! And where is my desk?!”

Taking shaky breaths all the boys muttered the holy word; “coffee.” Kevin went to get the creamer when he stopped dead in his tracks. Three thuds later, and each of the boys’ favourite mugs were on the counter, floating in piss yellow jello. “Why is my mug in jello?”

“I washed these last night! First the ping-pong balls and now this?!” Adam reached into the jello and pulled his mug out, the jiggly substance still visible inside the mug. The two pranksters (and witness) burst into tear-jerking laughter. Hailey snatched her phone back and sloppily emailed the video to Kim before the boys could stop her. “O-oh - oh m-y- Fu- HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!”

“You two did this?!” The girls quickly got off the floor and hauled ass to the women’s bathroom. The lock clicked just as the guys reached the door. “Hey!”

“Get out here now!”

“What did we do to deserve this?!” Their voices were lost in a mixture of laughter and yelling. Hailey and Vanessa were curled up on the floor hugging their stomachs and each other as the laughter became painful.

Suddenly the yelling stopped, and their boss’ voice made it’s way to the two hyenas. “I think it’s time to explain, ladies.” They took deep breaths, their laughter finally coming to an end. They untangled themselves and stood up, but didn’t dare leave the sanctuary of the ladies’ room. “Kim’s been really sad lately. We wanted to cheer her up.”

“And you thought that pranking us was the best way to do it, Hailey?!”

“Yeah, Jay. We all get a kick from joking around now and then, and she’s told Vanessa and I numerous times that sending pics and videos of funny work mishaps brightens her day.”

“We just wanted her to smile again, guys. She constantly looks like she’s about to burst into tears or rip someone’s throat out with her teeth.”

“... Fair enough. I know that this has been hard for everyone, but Kim and I really appreciate your support.” The click of the lock and squeeze of the door had Jay looking into the delighted eyes of his favourite person and... he wasn’t angry. He’d calmed down when they were talking about Kim, but seeing Hailey smile? Really, truly smile? He’d do anything for that. Vanessa stepped out of the way, and into Kevin as Jay wrapped Hailey in his arms, tucking his face into the crook of her neck.

“Kim is my best friend.”

“Hey!”

“Shut it, Adam. Kim is my best friend. Thanks for caring about her.”

“Don’t thank me, it was really, really fun.” And just like that, the intense emotional mood was broken. Causing laughter, from everyone this time, to reign supreme.

“As much as I love this... I’ll call it team bonding and get HR paperwork on hand, we have a desk day today. And we all need to work. So let’s put Atwater and Halstead’s desks back in their rightful places.”

“Okay seriously, where did the two of you put my desk, Hails?”

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

The signature footsteps of Trudy Platt raced up the stairs to the intelligence bullpen, drawing all eyes to her. “Can any of you explain why Kim had to excuse herself to the back room to roll on the floor laughing?”

[beckstriad]

Huntress

Spike [Masterlist] CW: Swearing, as always Keep it cool man, keep it cool.

Bouncing slightly from one foot to another, Spike tried to not look as revved up as he felt. It’d been almost half a year since he’d last slept with someone - only a handful of times in all -  and too many false starts since. His mind was torturing him with images of what the girl who was coyly holding onto his waistband would look like when they… Gotta get to the place first man, keep it together...Shit! An angry looking girl wearing a plastic dress was giving him hell but he hardly heard, “Sorry!” He kept going, one thing on his mind gotta get out of here quick… 

Weaving through the crowd would seem easy for someone as ridiculously tall as him, but towering over the crowd meant it was easy to knee someone short if you weren’t paying attention.  It did provide a convenient excuse for the girl he was leading through the crowd to follow behind him  and play with his waist band as she clung to him so they wouldn’t be separated. 

Finally out in the cool air after collecting his backpack from coat-check he leaned against the signpost as they waited for a taxi to hail, mimicking being more drunk than he was. Spike missed the way alcohol let him relax more, but it also made him do stupid shit and he’d lost some tail because of it before. Plus he couldn’t afford it right now, so his rounds had been water shots for him, and Becky was fortunately a cheap drunk and willing to 50/50 the rounds. Speaking of, the cropped-black haired girl before him running her hands up under his shirt was driving him wild, “I’m cold” she giggled, and then attempted to jump up on his hips. Easily scooping her up he grinned stupidly, sloshed on the promise of what was to come and her plush skin under his hands, “I know how to warm you up…”  “Oh you’re strong!” She sounded surprised, then almost spit in his face as she giggled and tried to fix the hurt expression on his face “you’re just so scrawny...I mean! Lean! Or some shit I dunno.” It was true, and Spike had wanted to fix it but he’d always been the skinny kid, it only exaggerated his height further and gave him a beanpole look; he didn’t take kindly to Groot references no matter how well meaning they were. Now he struggled to eat two square meals a day so bulking up and fueling workouts was a pipe dream. “Runner’s build, baby.” Easy lies to cover up the werewolf strength, she couldn’t know about that. “Us tall guys, yea you know short guys bulk easy but we got these long limbs right? So the muscle spreads out, hides it you know?” The taxi pulled up shortly and they piled in, getting to the hotel without leaving too many marks on each other’s necks. Reaching into his back pocket, Spike’s face fell “mother fucker! Someone fucking jacked my wallet! Fuck!” He looked over at the girl who watched him with an unimpressed expression, “look uh...spot the cab and the room and I’ll just transfer you the cash once we got the total, yea?” She sighed but went for it and Spike prayed to every god he could name, though he believed in none of them, a prayer of thanks.  The light in the cab was dim as she pulled out the card and tried to quickly hand it to the driver, but as she tapped it down on the machine her surname was enough for Spike’s low-light vision to read. Cabrillo.  Benefits of being a werewolf in human form include, but are not limited to; increased strength, increased speed, low light vision and increased smell and hearing. Spike drew on the other supernatural feats as he burst from the cab and took off down the street. Fuck me fuck me fuuuuuuuuck me of course she’s a FUCKING hunter can’t I catch a break for fuck’s sake. How lucky had he been before? What if her last name hadn’t been that of the famous multinational hunting family that was well known for their ruthless and efficient extermination attempts on the supernatural community? What a stupid bitch though, haha! Dumbass. The roar of an engine cut his thoughts off as he pumped his legs faster, leaning hard as he careened into an alley but they didn’t stop. His eyes searched the alley in the bouncing headlights that were catching up behind him, and he spotted his chance in the form of a big green dumpster just up ahead. Jumping high and scrambling as his shoes slipped on the metal lid, he managed to stand just as the car squealed to a stop beside him. He heard the window rolling down as he jumped off and ran full speed back down the alley that was too narrow for them to turn around in. “SHIT!” His voice, high pitched with desperation and fear, was lost to the echo of gunshots as they fired a few shots in the hope of getting lucky at the retreating figure.  The world brightened as he ran back out onto the street, only to flinch hard as the bullet ricocheted off the bricks beside him. “FUCK, lady!” Becky stood strong, chest heaving but legs braced and arms steady as she aimed again. Taking his chances and knowing that running was what he did best, Spike took off into the street as a large dump truck came rumbling towards him. Grabbing the handles he cursed as a foot slipped and his heart stopped, but he managed to hold on and get his feet back under him. Standing on the bumper and ignoring his aching, twisted shoulder, he flipped a middle fingered salute to the cursing woman.  As the truck rounded the corner he saw the car backing out of the alley, fuck fuck shit! Climbing up the ladder, he cursed the fates that decided to mock him at every turn of his life one fucking joke eh? You all think this is fucking funny huh? Maybe he did believe in those gods afterall, and was going to do everything he could to spite them. The truck passed close to a fire escape and he jumped, heart in his throat as he flew with nothing under his paws, feet you fucking furry! FEET! Hands and feet landed with a clang and he made no attempt to quiet them as he scrambled up to the roof as quickly as possible.  Rolling over the edge and collapsing onto the tarred gravel, he tried to listen for the car through the rush of blood in his ears and wheezing of his breath. It came racing around the corner and was attempting to catch up to the dump truck, which was taking advantage of the lack of traffic to make good time. They’d clue in he wasn’t there a few blocks away, if they stopped the truck; he hoped they would just follow it to its destination instead. Peering over the edge he saw them fall in line behind it, assuming that he was hiding in its box. Fucking. Finally. It was a small break, but he needed anything he could get.  Pulling his hood over his head and taking his backpack off, Spike hugged himself and brought his knees up to his chest to try to ward off the wind that came suddenly cold and lonely, pressing his back against the lip of the roof. He hated how something inside kept thinking like a wolf, how he wanted to shift so he could tuck his nose under his tail and his fur could keep him warm. It colored his thoughts and actions if he dropped his guard, like thinking of paws instead of feet or trying to growl at a stranger standing too close. Gritting his teeth instead, he focused on the gravel digging into his bony hips and shoulders as he lay down, the fire in his gut that threatened to rise up and burn his throat and the hot tears he tried to not let fall. Fucking. Human. I’m not a monster I just...wanted to get laid for once. A warm bed, soft body and a few moments of bliss to brighten his otherwise bleak existence was what he craved, but then this wasn’t anything new. He’d always been like this, even before the change; forgotten, unseen, alone.  Trying not to think about the money lost, money he’d chosen to spend on a pretty smile instead of food, he focused on the next move. Fuck this town. No good work here anyway. He’d leave in the morning, head for the next city over before the local wolfpack caught wind of him and tried something unsavory. Like he always did. Like he always will.  No one’s fucking being the boss of me. Fuck that shit. Independence didn’t stop the shivering but it helped cool the fire in his gut as he fought for sleep. It was better to shiver in the cold than be fed by someone’s hand. 

[argylemnwrites]

Life Changes

Pairing: Seth Levine x MC (Jessica Parker)

Book: Red Carpet Diaries (about 5 years after Book 3)

Word Count: ~2000

Rating: PG

Summary: A surprise statement from Jessica might mean doubling a blessing for their family.

Author’s Note: Written for the “Things You Said” prompt 19. The things you said when we were the happiest we ever were as requested by @drakewalker04​ and Day 9 of the Choices March Challenge (Euphoria). Trigger warning for discussions of infertility and adoption.

“Come on, Ben. What do you say we stack some blocks? I hear they’re all the hottest thing with the daycare crowd.”

Ben let out a long string of random consonants as Seth laid down on his stomach across from him, watching him bang two blocks together.

“Sorry, sorry! My mistake. No plebeian daycare for the child of the Hollywood elite, only a personal nanny,” he said, picking up one of the yellow blocks laying on the floor and placing it on top of the red one that was sitting in front of Ben. Ben watched Seth’s movements and tried to imitate them, but got frustrated pretty quickly when he knocked the yellow block off in an attempt to add a blue one.

Seth wanted to scoop his son in his arms and just talk to him, as he was finding that usually soothed him pretty quickly, but he kept demonstrating the stacking motion. He knew Jessica would have his head if he quit working on fine motor tasks. He thought Ben was doing fine, all things considered. After all, he’d only been in LA for about three weeks at this point, and he was already more vocal, even if he didn’t have any words yet, and he was responding to his new name like a total champ.

But Jessica had taken him to the international adoption clinic at UCLA earlier this week, and after meeting with a developmental specialist and a therapist  had come home with about 57 tasks that she and him needed to work on with Ben to help catch him up when it came to his fine motor and speech development and to try and ease the transition from a Ugandan orphanage to a Brentwood home. This was in addition, of course, to all the research she’d done since they’d first considered adopting.

But after all the pain and heartache and frustration it had taken to get to this point, all the tears and disappointment and fatigue that came with trying and trying for years, all the stress and paperwork and need to let control over anything fly out the window once they’d decided on an international adoption, letting Jessica go back to her Type A ways, particularly when she was focused on making things the best they could be for their son, seemed like a pretty reasonable thing. The truth was that Seth was so insanely happy about finally getting to be a father that he would agree to just about anything Jessica wanted, particularly since her connection with Ben hadn’t been quite as instantaneous as his was. But things were progressing, and they clearly both loved being able to bring their son home.

“So… I’m late.”

Her voice interrupted Seth’s thoughts. He looked up towards the doorway, taking in Jessica standing there in a pale pink jumpsuit. “Relax, Iowa. Chazz isn’t picking you up for…” he trailed off, sliding his phone out of his back pocket and checking the time, “20 minutes.” He looked back down at Ben, who was now just sliding the blocks across the floor, babbling excitedly as he did so.

“No, not late for something. I’m late.”

His head jerked back up at that. It had been a long time since those words had brought him or her any sort of hope. A very long time. Her cycles had been pretty irregular since she’d gone off the pill all those years ago, and anytime they’d thought it had been “too long” to just be her cycle in the past, it had been followed by disappointment. 

“How late are we talking here?”

Jessica waited a moment before she answered, “My last period was… four months ago.”

“Holy shi-” but he cut himself off at the look in Jessica’s eyes. It would be just his luck to have his son’s first word be a swear.

“It is probably nothing. With all the stress and travel and everything, I could be this late for no real reason. With everything going on, I hadn’t really notice even, but…”

“What?”

“The dress I was gonna wear to brunch didn’t zip all the way.”

“Okay. Okay,” Seth said, nodding slowly, scooping up Ben into his arms as he stood up, “I think you have to take a pregnancy test.”

She sighed at that. “I know. Do we even have any left?”

“Probably,” he said, joining her in the hallway and heading towards their ensuite. “It felt like we were buying them in bulk for a while.”

“Do they go bad?” Jessica asked as she rummaged through the little cabinet that was right inside their bathroom, digging past extra toilet paper, Kleenex, and tampons, to the ovulation and pregnancy tests that had been shoved away after too many months of negatives. Sure, they’d never gone back to actively preventing pregnancy, but once they’d committed to the adoption path for growing their family, there had been this sort of unspoken agreement to not go back to that regimented, painful, stressful, calculated pattern of trying, and the tests had just been kept out of sight.

After several seconds of hunting, Jessica pulled a little pink box scanning over it quickly, “Well, looks like it’s good for another couple months,” she said once she found the date printed on the side, but she made no move to step further into the bathroom.

“You can do this, Iowa. No matter what it says, it’s gonna be okay.”

She breathed in and out deeply a few times before she spoke, “This was never the plan, Seth. We were supposed to get pregnant within a year of trying, and when that didn’t happen, we saw Dr. Agrawal and she was supposed to help us figure out how to get pregnant, and when that didn’t happen, we were supposed to find our kids through adoption and-”

“Jessica, you’re right,” he interrupted before Jessica could spiral any further.  “Nothing has gone to plan here. Why would you expect bringing our son home and settling into being parents to be any different?”

“I just wanted something to go right, just one thing.”

Seth paused for a moment. It was rare when he had to be the optimistic one in their household, instead typically using some self-deprecation and humor to cope while Jessica was usually able to plan their way to better days in her mind. But right now, she needed him to keep spirits high.

“Hey!” he said, settling Ben onto his hip with one arm, sliding his free hand over her jaw and neck, “I think having this little guy in our lives has been pretty alright!”

“I know, I didn’t mean that… of course finally meeting our son has been wonderful.”

“Jessica…” he sighed out, tilting her head up slightly to look her in the eyes. “I didn’t mean to make you feel guilty. I know this is a lot to go through, and I get that having to take another one of these probably brings back all sorts of awful memories I can only begin to imagine.”

“It’s not just that, Seth. I.. I don’t even know if I’m more scared of the test being positive or negative. Because negative, well you and I have been through that in the past, and while it hurts, I know we’ll get through it again. But positive…” Jessica trailed off, taking a deep breath before she continued, “We’ve never been there before. And what if we get all excited and something bad happens? I traveled internationally, and I definitely haven’t been taking precautions like I’m pregnant.

“And what does being excited even mean about us as parents? We just brought him home and I don’t… I don’t want to act like he’s just a consolation prize, and does being happy undermine how wonderful it felt to have him and hold him as ours? And he’s just going to be getting used to us and his life with us, and then what? We throw an infant into the mix?”

Seth shook his head, “Remember how when we first met with the adoption agency, and they told us we had to be prepared to just take this one step at a time? Well, I think the same thing applies here.”

Jessica nodded and let out a big sigh, “You know I’m not always the best at that.”

“Trust me, Jessica. If I could pee on that stick for you and it would be at all helpful, I’d do it. And while biology wasn’t my favorite subject in high school, I’m at least 70% sure that won’t work.”

She gave him a little smile before taking a step back and shutting the door in his face. After a couple of minutes, he heard a flush and the faucet running, so he knocked and entered.

“Alright, just a couple of minutes until the moment of truth,” she said, drying her hands on the teal towel hanging next to the sink. 

“How did we use to distract each other while we waited for these things to cook?” Seth asked, bouncing Ben on his hip and handing him the towel he was reaching for.

Jessica actually let out a little chuckle, “I think by the end, we just resigned ourselves to them being negative.” She reached over and grabbed Ben snuggling him close. “Be honest, Seth. What do you want it to be?”

Seth shrugged, “We always said we wanted two or three kids.”

“So you want it to be positive?”

“I mean, yeah? That’s nothing new. I’ve always hoped that we’d get a positive one day. Do you not want a positive?”

Jessica ran her hand over Ben’s curls before she answered. “I don’t know if I’m just so convinced that it will be negative that I’m trying to not get my hopes up, or the thought of having two children under the age of… two,” she said, clearly doing some quick math, “just has me terrified. I mean, I barely am figuring out how to be a mother to him.”

“Pssh, Iowa. You’ve survived a Markus von Groot set. You really think two babies as cute as this guy are going to be worse to deal with than a temperamental Dutchman?”

Jessica genuinely laughed at that, her head thrown back and her blonde curls bounding across her shoulder as Ben continued to pass the towel from one hand to another. Seth figured it was a testament to how worked up she was, waiting for the results of the pregnancy test, that she hadn’t commented on how passing objects from one hand to another was something they were supposed to work on with him.

After a few more tense, painful moments the alarm chirped on Jessica’s phone. They both turned to look at the white plastic stick on the side of the sink, Jessica flipping it over as she’d done so many times before. But this time, it wasn’t one vertical line. It was two.

“Oh my God,” said Seth after a few seconds, finally finding his voice. “Jessica...:”

He turned to face her, taking in her wide eyes, a slight glisten noticeable in the corners, a smile spreading across her lips. “Seth, we’re… We’re gonna have another baby.”

Seth pulled her into a tight hug, Ben sandwiched in between them. Well, Ben and their child currently growing inside Jessica. He felt so full of joy, of hope, and of contentment. It was like the feeling he’d gotten when they’d first seen a picture of Ben, this feeling of euphoric potential. But now not only was there a child coming to him and Jessica, but he had his son right there with him this time. It was everything.

“I know we shouldn’t get carried away,” Jessica mumbled into his chest, “But Seth, I’m just…”

“I know, Jessica. Me too. Me too.”

Permatag: @octobereighth @drakewalker04​ @kimmiedoo5​ @speedyoperarascalparty​ @mfackenthal​ @lilyofchoices​ @thequeenofcronuts​ @jamesashtonisbae​ 

Seth x MC only: @choicesarehard​ @chaotichuman0090​

Events: @choicesmarchchallenge​ @lovealexhunt​

[what-is-your-plan-today]

Stark Spangled Banner Ch36: I Bid You Farewell And Good Luck, Morons!

Intro: Thor wakes up on a strange ship, surrounded by even stranger people, a talking tree and a rabbit. Meanwhile, back on Earth, the fight to save Vision is won and the group make their way back to the compound to understand what exactly it is that they’re facing. 

But there’s no sign of Tony, and the more they heard, the more they start to wonder if this is a battle they stand any chance of winning. 

Warnings:Bad Language words.

Pairing: Steve Rogers x OFC Katie Stark

Stark Spangled Banner Masterlist 

This is a bit of a longer update than normal, but I wanted to explore IW using all 3 of the perspectives that were shown, for no reason other than I had favourite bits in them all! And I LOVE writing for Thor and Tony!

As always tags are open and I’m taking suggestions for that lovely 5 year gap post snap/pre time Heist so if you have any ideas or wants, hit me up!

 “It’s like a pirate had a baby with an angel…”

Thor wasn’t dead. But he felt like it. Every inch of his body ached and when he was jerked back to consciousness for a moment, just one split moment, he thought he saw Little Stark. Only it wasn’t her. The woman had dark hair, yes, but as he focussed he realised she looked nothing like the woman he loved dearly as a sister. This woman had huge eyes and antenna dangling from her forehead. And, whilst he knew it had been a while since he had seen his friend, she wouldn't have changed that much.

Finding his feet he looked around, chest heaving, at the band of people stood in front of him; A woman with green skin and red hair, a man with grey/blue skin, bald head, and red lines all over his body, a tree creature- a Flora Colossus he thought- which was off to the side draped over a chair, some kind of furry, animal thing- a rabbit maybe- and finally a man who appeared to be a normal, human.

They had offered him soup, and then when he had explained about Thanos the green skinned lady had told Thor what the Titan wanted the stones for. Which she knew, because she his  daughter.

"Families can be tough," Thor said, placing a hand on her shoulder, "Before my father died, he told me that I had a half-sister, that he imprisoned in Hell. Then she returned home, stabbed me in the eye so, I had to kill her." he said, shrugging "That's life though isn't it I guess? Round and round, but I feel your pain."

The human, Peter Quill pushed his way between Gamora and Thor, and looked at her "I feel your pain, as well, because, I mean it's not a competition, but I've been through a lot. My father killed my mother, and then I had to kill my father. And that was hard. Probably even harder than having to kill a sister. Plus, I, came out with both of my eyes."

Thor wasn’t paying attention. The man was clearly a moron, and he’d just noticed he had bent the spoon in the bowl of soup and was having a flashback to the time he had tried to bend the Captain’s shield. Little Stark had laughed so much at how annoyed he had gotten when he failed that she had cried. And then, to make it worse, a few days later the Captain had managed to move Mjolnir. Just a fraction, but it moved. No one had seen it, bar Little Stark of course, but there was something there, Thor was sure. Steve Rogers was a man worthy of a lot of things, but his hammer was complicated. You have to prove it. That had been explained to him the day it had been given to him. Of course, he hadn’t realised then that Eitri had actually made it for Hela first.

Eitri…

"I need a hammer, not a spoon." Thor mumbled, as the idea took hold and he looked at the pod at the back of the ship. "How do I open this thing?" he began pressing random buttons on the screen next to the door. “Is there some sort of a four-digit code? Maybe a birth date or something?"

"What are you doing?" Rocket asked.

"Taking your pod." Thor replied nonchalantly.

And then there was a row in which the moron called Quill tried to imitate Thor’s deeper voice telling him he could not take the pod, but Thor was going to take the pod anyway because he was the God of Thunder after all, and then the lady Gamora cut them off quite rightly directing the focus back to Thanos by stating they needed to find out where he was going next. But Thor had already thought of that.

"Knowhere," he answered as he brushed past Quill and over to the refrigerator he had seen Gamora get his soup from.

"He must be going somewhere," Mantis argued innocently.

"No," Quill shook his head and Thor noted his stupid voice was back to normal, "Knowhere? It's a place. We've been there. It sucks. Excuse me, that's our food." he said, suddenly noticing what Thor was doing.

"Not anymore," Thor shrugged, stuffing it into a backpack he found.

"Thor," Gamora cut across the pair of them again "Why would he go to Knowhere?"

"Because for years, the Reality Stone has been safely stored there with a man called the Collector." Thor said

"If it's with the Collector, then it's not safe.” Quill snorted. “Only an idiot would give that man a stone."

"Or a genius." Thor shrugged.

"How do you know he's not going for one of the other stones?" Gamora asked.

"There's six stones out there." Thor began to explain, "Thanos already has the Power Stone because he stole it, last week, when he decimated Xandar.”

He didn’t missed the shocked and horrified look the group shared with one another.

“He stole the Space Stone from me, when he destroyed my ship and slaughtered half my people. The Time and Mind Stones, are safe on Earth. They're with the Avengers." Thor stated.

"The Avengers?" Quill asked.

"They're Earth's Mightiest Heroes."

"Like Kevin Bacon?" Mantis called out.

"Errr he may be on the team now, I don't know.” Thor shrugged, having no idea who the man named after a breakfast meat was. “I haven’t been there in a while. And as for the Soul Stone, well no one's ever seen that. No one even knows where it is. Therefore, Thanos can't get it. Therefore, he's going to Knowhere. Hence, he'll be getting the Reality Stone. You're welcome."

"Then we have to go to Knowhere, now." Gamora said

"Wrong. Where we have to go is Nidavellir." Thor said picking up the backpack.

"That's a made up word," Drax, the blue man countered.

"All words are made up." Thor smiled, slinging the backpack onto his back.

"Nidavellir is real?" the animal called Rocket’s eyes grew wide and he jumped up onto the table and looked at Thor "Seriously? I mean, that place is a legend. They make the most powerful, horrific weapons to ever torment the Universe. I would very much like to go there, please."

"The rabbit is correct." Thor grinned at Rocket's excitement, "And clearly the smartest among you. Only Eitri the Dwarf can make me the weapon I need. I assume you're the captain, Sir?"

Rocket grinned and nodded, "You're very perceptive."

"You seem like a noble leader. Will you join me on my quest to Nidavellir?"

"Let me just ask the captain. Oh, wait a second, it's me!”  Rocket grinned. “Yeah, I'll go."

"Wonderful." Thor beamed.

"Uh except that I'm the captain," Quill chipped in

"Quiet!" Thor said, now beyond bored of the moron.

"And that's my backpack," Quill continued pointing to the bag that Thor was stealing.

"Quill, sit down," Rocket said, tapping at the pad and keying in the digits to open the pod.

"Look, this is my ship. And I'm not going to - wait, what kind of weapon are we talking about here?" Quill looked round.

"The Thanos-killing kind." Thor smiled. Boy, was it going to be a big, fucking weapon...

"Don't you think that we should all have a weapon like that?" Quill frowned.

"You lack the strength to wield them. Your bodies would crumble as you minds collapsed into the madness." Thor said.

"Is it weird that I wanna do it even more now?" Rocket asked.

"Erm, a little bit weird. Yeah." Thor looked down at him, frowning.

“If we don't go to Knowhere and Thanos retrieves another stone, he'll be too powerful to stop." Gamora said, stepping forward.

"He already is." Thor shrugged.

"Look, I got it figured out," Rocket interrupted, looking at Gamora. "We got two ships, and a large assortment of morons.  Me and Groot will go with the Pirate Angel here, and the morons will go to Knowhere to try and stop Thanos. Cool? Cool."

"So cool." Thor said with a smile before he climbed into the pod.

"For the record…” Quill said leaning down to Rocket “ I know that you're only going with them because it's where Thanos isn't."

"You know, you really shouldn't talk that way to your captain, Quill.” Rocket said, walking backwards and gesturing outwards with his arms. “Come on, Groot. Put that game down. You'll rot your brain,"

As Rocket sat down Thor nodded out of the pod “I bid you farewell and good luck, morons. Bye."

******

It wasn’t hard for the team to track Wanda, her red power flashing bright against the dark sky over Edinburgh City Centre, and as the jet followed her movements, the four friends saw her spiralling through the sky with Vision and crashing through the train station, just as Sam put the jet on the ground.

Within seconds the Ex-Avengers were sprinting off the jet.  

“Katie, Nat, take the side!” Steve yelled, as he vaulted over the railings at the edge of the road running down onto the bottom half of the concrete which led to the station. “Sam, up high,and remember protect Vision at all costs!”

“Got em.” Sam spoke over the coms “Platform seven, near the café.” 

Steve vaulted over another set of barriers, the station now deserted thanks to the evacuation taking place by the local police. As he ran onto one of the walkways he was just in time to see two of the aliens crash through the station roof. Weighing up his options, he realised it was going to be quicker for him to run down the platform he was over and jump across the lines to help. He swung his legs over the railings and landed easily, looking up. Across from him he could see Natasha and Katie emerging to the right, as Wanda stood and moved protectively in front of Vision, building power in her hands. An express train whizzed past him and he stood still, waiting and it wasn’t long before the taller, blue looking woman spotted him, and she launched her spear over the platform. Steve easily snapped his left shoulder back whilst leaning over his body with his right, catching the staff in his hand.

“Heads up.” Sam muttered, and as Wanda and Vision turned to see Steve step out from the shadows, fury lining his face, Sam swooped in and kicked one of the aliens across the platform and through a closed café’s security gate, causing tables and chairs to go flying, before he spun and started to fire on the other alien.

Steve launched the weapon he had caught across the tracks where Natasha caught it and stabbed the second assailant in the gut as Katie moved into to head off the other who was stalking back towards them. The weapon Natasha had been using flew back into the alien’s hands and Katie ducked as she swung, jabbing her in the back of the leg with an electric powered escrima stick. The alien let out a yell, stumbled slightly and Steve cleared the platform in a leap, rolling and scooping up the second assailant’s staff from the floor, holding it up to block the blow that the creatured aimed at Katie. He grit his teeth, planting his legs to absorb the power of the hit, as Katie rolled to the side, jumped up and the two of them began to fight the alien, joined shortly by Natasha who had stabbed the other one in the gut, taking him out of the fight. Steve had to admit, the woman (if you could call her that) was a force to be reckoned with, but the three of them were just about getting the upper hand when they heard Sam yell.

“DUCK!”

The three of them did so and Sam flew in hard, kicking the woman backwards where she fell and scuttled over to her fallen friend. Sam landed next to Katie, drawing both his submachine pistols on the couple.

“Get up” she instructed to her fallen partner, her voice was deep.

“I can't” his gravelly, robotic voice replied.

“We don't wanna kill you.” Natasha spoke coolly “But we will”.

“You’ll never get the chance again.” The female levelled them, with a cold glare and with that a beam shot down from the hole in the station roof and the two were transported upwards. The weapon Steve was holding also shot out of his hand. He frowned in surprise for a moment, looking at his hand then upwards as the beam of light disappeared and the ship sped off.

“Can you stand?” Sam asked Vision as Katie replaced her sticks and walked towards Wanda and the android. When Vision shook his head, Sam moved forward to help him up.

Supported by Wanda and Sam, Vision looked over at Steve, Natasha and Katie, electricity shimmering over his surface. He’d been badly damaged in the fight, and as he spoke his voice distorted.

“Thank you, Captain.”

Steve took a deep breath and nodded. His face stern, but his eyes were much softer than his expression and Katie knew why. It had been a while since anyone other than Sam, Nat or Wanda had called him Captain.

Steve looked at the android, he might have been damaged but they had the stone, and that was the main thing. Nodding, he spoke “Let's get you on the jet.” his voice was soft and he moved to let Sam and Wanda support Vision, Natasha following as Katie dropped behind to stay with him as they took up the rear of the group, her fingers lacing into his.

Once Vision was safely settled in a seat at the side, Sam dropped into the pilot’s seat as Katie hit the button to close the ramp as the Jet rose into the air.

“I thought we had a deal.” Natasha spun angrily to Wanda. ”Stay close, check in. Don't take any chances.”

“I'm sorry. We just wanted time.” The younger woman said gently.

Katie glanced at Steve, he was stood up in the middle of the jet, hands on the buckle of his utility belt, staring seemingly at nothing, clearly contemplating something.

“Where to, Cap?” Sam asked.

Steve looked up, he glanced at Sam then locked eyes with Katie as he spoke one word, one simple word that they had all been waiting to hear for almost 2 years.

“Home” he said, looking round the jet.

*****

After a few hours, with the morning sky being the only thing in sight, Sam started to lower the jet through thick white clouds and Katie couldn’t help but inhale sharply when the compound began to take shape as she watched out of the front window. It looked the same. The buildings, the grounds…she wasn’t sure why she had expected anything to change, maybe because it felt like everything had changed for them, but either way, there it was. The same as the last time she had seen it.

Steve noticed her demeanour change slightly as they landed. She stood up straight, her shoulders squaring as if she was about to face an onslaught. And they were, in a way. On their way they’d let Bruce know that they had Vision and were heading back, but had had no idea what they were heading back to, nor did he care. Be it Ross, police, the army, whatever, he was done bowing to anyone’s will, over playing other people’s tunes. The two years they had spent hidden had shown them that they could operate on their own if required, and he wasn’t afraid to fight anyone who got in his way.

They stepped off the ramp and strode over the lawn, Katie taking a deep breath as she looked around. She felt a wave of that many emotions she couldn’t explain or identify half of them. Memories flooded in, the long summer nights they sat outside in the garden and on the BBQ patio until sunrise. Laughs during team dinners. Sam and Wanda collaborating on pranks. Training sessions with the team and Vision reading Tolkien aloud to Wanda before asking questions about humanity's love of fiction. Walks and picnics and other things in the ground, just her and Steve. Their wedding, God their wedding! Frequent visits from Tony, bringing in new ideas and improved gadgets. Getting back safe after being out on a long mission. Feeling relaxed and at ease.

Feeling at home.

Steve’s arm curled round his wife for a moment before he pressed a kiss to the side of her head as Vision opened the door.

“Still no word from Vision?”  The holographic figure of Ross looked up from where he sat at a table and glanced at Rhodey.

“Satellites lost him somewhere over Edinburgh.” Rhodey replied. He knew they were on their way to the compound, but hadn’t told Ross deliberately. 

“On a stolen Quinjet with four of the world's most wanted criminals.” Rhodey felt his temper beginning to flare. “You know they're only criminals because you've chosen to call them that, right, sir? “

“My God, Rhodes, your talent for horseshit rivals my own.” Ross said as he stood up. The sound of the call echoed down the corridor reaching the group that were making their way through to the lab.

“If it weren't for those Accords, Vision would've been right here” Rhodey shot back and Katie glanced back at Vision as the sounds of Rhodey and Ross’ voice grew louder as they neared their destination.

“I suspect it will be a Hollo Call.” Vision said gently, answering Katie’s unasked question.  His suspicions were proven correct as they rounded the corner and the lab came into view. Rhodey was stood across from where the holographic image of Secretary Ross was facing off against him.

"You have second thoughts?" Ross was challenging Rhodey, who smiled simply as his eyes shot sideways, as Steve strode forward, his presence as intimidating as ever, and the first thing Rhodey noticed was just how dark he looked. Gone was the upstanding, All American Hero, and in its place was someone much harder, far rougher round the edges. Kiddo looked different too. Her hair was shorter, she looked slimmer too, but her upper body looked stronger. 

"Not anymore." he grinned.

The holographic Ross followed Rhodey’s gaze and his eyes fell on Steve who was stood next to Katie at the front of the group, Natasha, Wanda, Sam and Vision behind them. Steve raised his chin a little defiantly and moved to take his power stance, feet apart, hands on his belt, before he greeted Ross politely.

"Mr. Secretary" 

Katie couldn’t help the smirk on her face as she watched Ross attempting to cover up the shock he had clearly felt at the group of outlaws turning up again. She locked eyes with Rhodey who gave her the smallest of winks before he glanced back at Ross who was shaking his head slightly as he approached Steve, his holographic form almost trying to square up to him.  Steve simply raised his chin further and looked down from the steps he was stood on,

"You got some nerve." Ross sniffed, staring up at him "I'll give you that."

"You could use some of that right now." Katie shot back bluntly, Ross turning his head to face her for a second. She held his gaze and arched an eyebrow until he turned back to Steve.

"The world's on fire." Ross said incredulously. "And you think, you can just walk back in here and all is forgiven?"

Steve levelled the secretary with a firm gaze. "I'm not looking for forgiveness.” his voice took on a threatening tone as he spoke “And I'm way past asking for permission.”

At that point the smirk on Katie’s face grew even wider as she stole a glance up at her husband, pride swelling in her chest as he continued, stoic and unyielding. 

“Earth just lost her best defender, so we're here to fight. And if you wanna stand in our way," he stepped down to be at level with the hologram, and stared it square in the eyes "We'll fight you, too."

Ross was practically foaming at the mouth as his eyes went to Rhodey and he spat out his order, "Arrest them."

"All over it." Rhodey promised nonchalantly before shutting off the hologram, shortly after a beeping noise sounded from the computers.

"That's a court-martial." He informed the group as he slapped the back of his right hand into his left palm, though his tone said told Katie that he blatantly couldn’t have cared less for Ross’ demands. There was a short pause as the group glanced down at their friend, Steve smiling softly, before Rhodey’s face split into a huge smile of his own.

"It's great to see you, Cap." he said, stepping forward.

"You too, Rhodey." Steve answered, taking the last 2 steps down before he shook Rhodey's hand. Katie threw herself at her brother’s best friend and he gave her a huge bear hug before he stepped backwards.

“Hey Kiddo, you do something to your hair?” he teased.  She smiled, stepping back from his embrace while he looked the rest of the group over.

"Well. You guys really look like crap." He said lightly. "Must've been a rough couple of years."

Steve looked round, an amused smile on his face as he glanced at his wife then to the rest of the team.

"Yeah, well, the hotels weren't exactly five star." Sam quipped back cheekily, the banter flowing between them like no time at all had passed.

"Uh, I think you look great."

Steve turned at the new voice to see Bruce inching his way into the room nervously wringing his hands together.

Steve and Katie remained silent, exchanging a glance. In the rush around and the fray of the fight, we’d forgotten to explain exactly who it was that called. "Yeah. I'm back."

Katie glanced over at Nat, she had her gaze fixed solely on the scientist as she spoke "Hi, Bruce."

"Nat." Bruce answered inclining his head towards her slightly as he fidgeted.

"This is awkward." Sam piped up. Steve and Katie looked at one another, before they both smiled and looked back up at Sam.

“Any news on Tony?” Katie asked gently, interrupting the silence that had fallen.

“Not yet no.” Rhodey said. “FRIDAY lost him when he left the atmosphere. We got NASA running scans and we’re trying to track his trail but…” He shook his head. 

“Typical Tony.” Katie rolled her eyes “Always has to go one bigger and one better doesn’t he?”

Her blasé tone wasn’t fooling anyone.

"Banner.” Steve said gently, looking across the room at the scientist. “Can you fill us in on what we're up against here?"

"Yeah sure," Bruce said nodding hesitantly.

“We’ll use the living area.”  Rhodey said, “Slightly more comfortable”

They made their way to the lounge, the same lounge they had all sat in discussing the Accords. Not much had changed; the furniture was different, there was couple of new sofas and the TV was larger, but that was it. 

“So start from the beginning.” Steve looked at Bruce where he stood near the window, one hand on the back of a chair, the other on his hip. He nodded encouragingly, he could see the man was nervous “Who took Stark and what are we up against?”

“I’ll give you the short version and we can plug in the gaps later.” Bruce sighed, “His name is Thanos. He’s a War tyrant, from a planet called Titan. He goes from place to place, destroying worlds, taking what he wants, when he wants. Loki’s attack on New York?” Bruce looked around “Thanos was the one who sent him to attack Earth,"

"But what does he want?” Katie asked.

“All six Infinity Stones…” Bruce supplied.

“Infinity Stones?” Sam questioned.

“Yeah, so erm… the big bang, when it happened, it sent six of these crystals out across the universe. They each control an essential aspect of existence. Space. Reality. Power. Soul. Mind. Time.” Bruce said, rubbing his temple.

“Thor told us about them, after Ultron.” Katie looked round and her eyes fell on Steve’s “He said there were three out there unaccounted for, and three that he could locate. One was with some collector or something, one was housed in the tesseract which was locked in a vault in Asgard and the other…”

"Viz." Wanda murmured, glancing at the Stone in Vision's forehead.

Bruce nodded again. “Thanos came to our ship for the tesseract, which means he already had the Power and Space Stones before he came to Earth looking for the rest. Just that alone makes him the strongest creature in the whole universe, if he gets his hands on all six he could destroy all life as we know it."

“Hang on, the Tesseract was on your ship?” Katie looked at Bruce, “I thought it was on Asgard?”

“It was, but right before Ragnarok…” “Ragnarok?” Katie frowned, her mind whirring “But that’s…that’s the fabled downfall and the destruction of Asgard, I mean....” “I know.” Bruce looked at her. “Asgard was destroyed as part of a battle between Thor and his sister. So was his hammer.” “What?” Steve let out a breath as Katie felt her mouth drop open.

“Thor has a sister?”

“Look, that’s a whole different story.” Bruce said, his tone slightly frustrated. “All you need to know is that Loki –yeah, surprise, not dead, -stole the tesseract from the Vault before we left. Thanos boarded the ship and took the stone. Just took it.” he said, his arms swinging out to his sides before returning with a slap.

The room fell silent.

“So Thor.” Katie took a deep breath and asked the question she wasn’t sure she wanted to know the answer to “Where…”

Bruce dropped his head. “I’m sorry.”

“Oh no.” Steve muttered as he dropped his head, looking downwards. He glanced up and saw across the table that Katie had her right hand against her forehead the heel of which was pressed hard into the space between her eyes in utter dismay.

Thor. Gone.  

“He was no match for Thanos, not when he had those stones.” Bruce said gently. A single tear trickled down Katie’s cheek and fell to the floor and Steve watched as she took a deep breath, furiously wiping at her face.

“So the two we fought came for the mind stone.”  Sam spoke for the first time “I’m assuming the ones you fought were after another one that’s located somewhere in New York?”

"The Time Stone.” Bruce nodded “It was being protected by some mystical arts guy, or a Wizard as Tony called him, Dr Steven Strange.” Katie’s head whipped round to Steve and he took a breath and straightened up, before he glanced over at Sam and Natasha and the four of them shared an instant understanding, they’d heard that name before on top of a multi-storey parking garage in DC.

"A TV anchor in Cairo, the Undersecretary of Defense, a high school valedictorian in Iowa City. Bruce Banner, Stephen Strange, anyone who's a threat to HYDRA! Now, or in the future.”

“But he was taken along with Tony.” Bruce finished.

Katie didn’t even want to think about that right now. She had to trust in her brother’s quick mind and sharp resilience, because the alternative didn’t bear thinking about.

"Well, we gotta assume they're coming back, right?" Rhodey said and Steve looked down again, his mind racing as he tried to make sense of everything Bruce had said.

"And they can clearly find us." Wanda added.

"We need all hands on deck," Bruce said pacing, "Where's Clint?"

"After the whole Accords situation, he and Scott took a deal," Natasha explained, "It's too tough on their families. They're on house arrest."

"Who's Scott?" Bruce frowned.

"Ant Man," Steve answered.

"There's an Ant Man and a Spider Man?" Bruce looked around in confusion, but it was Rhodey who nodded, simply, like it was just perfectly normal. Bruce shook his head, realising that it didn’t really matter at the moment before he continued. "Thanos has the biggest army in the Universe. And he is not gonna stop until he gets Vision's stone." He said the last part softly, almost reluctantly.

"Well then, we have to protect it," Natasha said stepping forward but Vision immediately corrected her.

"No, we have to destroy it," he said resolutely, his gaze focussed on something out of the window as everyone turned to him.  He turned to face them and gestured to the stone in his head. "I've been giving a good deal of thought to this entity in my head, about its nature. But also its composition. I think if it were exposed to a sufficiently powerful energy source, something very similar to its own signature, perhaps" he made his way over to Wanda and held onto her upper arm, "Its molecular integrity could fail."

"Yeah, and you with it," Wanda looked at him, shaking her head "We're not having this conversation."

"Eliminating the stone is the only way to be certain that Thanos can't get it."

Katie noticed Wanda’s eyes flash as she glared at Vision. "It's also too high a price."

"Only you have the power to pay it," Vision said quietly.

Steve shifted slightly. He knew that Vision was right, but the idea of losing someone else in their group didn’t sit well.

"Thanos threatens half the Universe.” Vision persisted “One life cannot in the way of defeating him."

"But it should," Steve argued, his eyes were diverted to the floor as he spoke gently, and it was right. Who were any of them to decide one life was worth less than anyone else? He took a deep breath and looked up and around the room before landing back on the android "We don't trade lives, Vision."

"Captain, seventy years ago you laid down your life to save how many millions of people? Tell me, why is this any different?"

Steve took a sigh and stepped towards Vision, unable to answer because he knew the android had him, but then Bruce did it for him.

"Because you might have a choice," Bruce answered, and Steve could see the Scientist had suddenly had an idea, "Your mind is made up of a complex construct of overlays. Jarvis, Ultron, Tony, me, the stone. All of them mixing together. All of them learning from one another."

"You're saying Vision isn't just the stone?" Wanda asked.

"I'm saying that if we take out the stone, there's still a whole lot of Vision left. Perhaps the best parts."

"Can we do that?" Natasha asked looking back and forth between the android and the scientist somewhat impatiently.

"Not me. Not here."

Steve suddenly began to think, maybe not Bruce, but could Suri? She had fixed Bucky after all, surely she could do this. T’Challa would be happy to help. And with his defences, maybe Wakanda was the safest place for Vision to be.

"Well you better find someone and somewhere fast," Rhodey pipped in.  "Ross isn't just gonna let you guys have your old rooms back."

Steve nodded to himself, his mind made up before he raised his head to look up around the group. "I know somewhere."

His eyes momentarily locked onto Katie’s and he watched as the realisation crossed her face, she knew instantly where he meant.

“Wakanda?” she asked.

He nodded, turning to Sam. “Can we get wheels up in 20?"

Sam nodded and Steve turned to Rhodey. "That enough time for you to load up your suit?"

"Yeah. Should be."

“Ok. “Steve looked round “Banner, I suggest you grab what you need. The rest of us, back to the jet.”

The team began to bustle about and then Katie remembered something.

“Rhodey?” she asked, hopping down off the table, “Where’s Steve’s shield?”

Rhodey paused in the doorway and turned to face her. “I don’t know, sorry Kiddo. Tony never mentioned it.”

“It doesn’t matter.” Steve said gently. As Katie opened her mouth to suggest they had a look for it, he cut her off “And we don’t have time either, we need to go.”

Truth be told he didn’t want the shield back. It wasn’t his, not anymore.

“Fine.” Katie said somewhat stiffly. “I’m going to raid the armoury anyway, pick up a few things…” “Katie!” he called after her as she hurried out of the room. He let out a frustrated groan.

“I’ll go.” Rhodey said, patting the Captain on the shoulder. “I need my suit anyway.” The directions ingrained in her memory forever she headed to the armoury on autopilot and once inside she stopped dead. It had all changed. To the left were the usual lockers, although they now held no names she would lay odds on all the original seven of them still having kit in there. The guns, arrows, widow bites, shock batons were all still there on the racks. Rhodey’s War Machine kit stood in the corner, but what wasn’t was an Iron Man suit, or a Nova suit, of any description. Instead, in place of the the usual glass cabinets that held them were rows of smaller capsules.

“What the…” Katie mumbled, heading closer to examining “FRIDAY?”

“Welcome home Mrs Rogers…” The AI spoke, a hint of amusement in her voice “I believe Pod Seventy-Six is one of yours”

“Tony’s been working on upgrades” Rhodey spoke from behind, making her jump. “Nano-tech, courtesy of some work with Helen Cho.” “Why doesn’t that surprise me?” Katie frowned as Rhodey made his way to the War Machine suit.

“Sevety-Six you say?” Katie’s eyes scanned the wall. “OK, FRIDAY hit me up.” One of the capsules opened and a smaller capsule flew out, opening in mid- air and then out of nowhere a suit formed around her body.

“Woah…” Katie said, as the familiar heads-up display lit up.

“The suit is held in a simple bangle” FRIDAY explained. “I’ll show you once the calibrations are done.”

As FRIDAY rattled through the new features, including a shield, new weapons Katie stole a glance in the mirror. It was much sleeker and less bulky, almost like wearing a cat-suit in a way. It was dark blue and gold, as always, with her Supernova Star in the middle of the chest. She gently reached up to touch it and the suit melted away to a silver cuff with the star in the middle which she tentatively placed around her wrist.

“Impressive huh?” Rhodey asked as he stepped into the War Machine suit.

“One word for it.” She said softly, tracing the outline of her bracelet with her fingers. “I can’t… why did he make it?” she looked up at Rhodey who slid his face plate back up to look at her.

“You know what Tony’s like.” Rhodey said, “Just because you left doesn’t mean he stopped caring.”

Katie looked down at the bracelet on her right wrist.

"Was- Was he okay, you know...after?" She asked, her voice cracking.

"He was as okay as he could be…” Rhodey hesitated slightly “To be honest, nothing was great though. The team was split and…”

Katie looked down “I had to go, I couldn’t stay, not after what he said to me.” Rhodey looked at her. “And have you ever considered why he said what he did?” “Because he hates me?” “No, because he loves you.” Rhodey took a deep breath “He knew full well that whatever choice you made it was going to kill you, but he couldn’t see you sat in a jail, he just couldn’t Kiddo. So he did what he had to do make sure you stayed away.” Whatever she had been expecting Rhodey to say it wasn’t that. His words hit her like a tonne of bricks and she felt her face screw up as she blinked back the tears. 

“Shit…” she managed to mumble out. “I could, you know we could have called him, or he could have called us, tried to …” “You’re both as obstinate as one another” Rhodey said, shaking his head as he started to walk to the door of the armoury “Which is why I know he’s still alive. He’s too much of a stubborn asshole to die. “

*******

Tony was pissed, really pissed. Not only was he stuck on this fucking ship, the kid was still here too. Peter Parker was almost as much of a pain in his ass as Katie had been when she was his age. The thought of his sister brought a pang to his heart, especially when he knew she was more than likely at the compound now after Bruce will have called them. He hoped anyway, he’d thrown the phone down before the fight after all, he just hoped the scientist had found it.

He looked around and glared at Peter before his shoulders fell. Well the kid was here now, might as well use him.

“Come on.” Tony sighed “We got a situation” He lead Peter over to a viewpoint to see the torture going on below. Peter crouched to study the situation, with that damned cloak leaning over his shoulder. “See him down there? He's in trouble.” Tony continued “What's your plan? Go.”

“Um. Okay, okay... uh...” Peter and the cloak popped back up suddenly, a smile playing on Peter’s face. “Okay. Did you ever see this really old movie, Aliens?”

It was a dumbass plan, but dumbass enough to work. Tony blew a hole in the side of the ship which caused a huge depressurization and as such the alien was sucked out of the side. A quick struggle and Dr Strange was rescued from drifting off to space, Tony repaired the side of the hull with nanites and that was that.

“We've gotta turn this ship around” Strange looked at Tony who rolled his eyes. .

“Yeah. Now he wants to run. Great plan”. 

“No, I want to protect the stone.”

Tony walked towards the expansive front view-port and from the way things were moving out there, he assumed they were travelling at some kind of hyper speed. The wizard was irritating him though, if he’d just agreed to get the stone out of the way they wouldn’t even be in this mess. 

“And I want you to thank me now. Go ahead, I'm listening.” he turned to glare at him.

“For what?” Strange snorted, “Nearly blasting me into space? 

“Who just saved your magical ass? Me.” Tony looked at him. “

“I seriously don't know how you fit your head into that helmet”. Strange shook his head as he eyed the billionaire up and down. 

“Admit it.” Tony said, for some reason he felt the need to make this guy admit he was wrong, just like he used to try and do with Rogers. No particular reason for it, other than being the one to come out on top “. You should have ducked out when I told you to. I tried to bench you. You refused.” 

“Unlike everyone else in your life, I don't work for you”. 

“And due to that fact, we're now in a flying doughnut billions of miles away from Earth with no backup.” Tony gestured around him.  

“I’m back up.” Peter said, raising his hand. 

“No, you’re a stowaway.” Tony said, waggling his finger between himself and Dr. Strange “The adults are talking”. 

“I'm sorry, I'm confused as to the relationship here. Wh-- what is he, your ward?” Strange frowned.

“No. I'm Peter, by the way.” Peter said, holding out his hand. 

“ Dr Strange.” Strange replied, looking at him.

“Oh, we're using our made-up names. Um. I'm Spider-Man, then”. 

Before Strange could respond, Tony piped up. “This ship is self-correcting its course. Thing's on autopilot.”

Strange walked closer to where Tony was stood. “Can we control it? Fly us home?”

Home…Thanos…home. 

They’d almost flattened New York once, and then there was Sokovia…no, home was most certainly a bad idea.

“Stark?” Strange’s voice cut across his thoughts. “Can you get us home? 

Yeah I heard you. I'm thinking. I'm not so sure we should.” he said, honestly.

“Under no circumstance can we bring the Time Stone to Thanos.” Strange warned “I don't think you quite understand what's at stake here”.

“No. It's you who doesn't understand, that Thanos has been inside my head for six years since he sent an army to New York and now he's back!” Tony said, stalking towards Strange, jabbing a finger in the air as he pointed towards the ground. “And I don't know what to do. So I'm not so sure if it's a better plan to fight him on our turf or his but you saw what they did, what they can do. At least on his turf, he's not expecting it. So I say we take the fight to him. Doctor. Do you concur?“

Strange had to admit, the guy had a point. Let Thanos destroy his own place, not theirs. “Alright, Stark. We go to him. But you have to understand... if it comes to saving you or the kid or the Time Stone... I will not hesitate to let either of you die. I can't, because the fate of the universe depends on it”

“Nice. Good. Moral compass. We're straight” Tony nodded. Stepping over to Peter he tapped each of the kids shoulder with the edge of his hand, dubbing him as is done at a knighting. 

“Alright, kid. You're an Avenger now”

Tony couldn’t look at him as he spoke, because he knew what he was signing the kid up for. 

******

The jet was filled with chatter as Rhodey, Bruce and the rest of the team were catching up but Katie wasn’t listening. She wasn’t feeling great either, that damned sick feeling was back, most likely this time down to utter fear about what was to come. If Bruce was right, she wasn’t convinced this was a battle they were ever going to be able to win.

“You know,” she said, looking up at Steve and voicing her fear softly, “if he’s already killed Thor, and it’s going to take us, plus a royal army to attempt to fight this guy off what fucking chance does Tony stand?”

Steve didn’t answer, he couldn’t. Because what he was thinking wasn’t going to provide her any comfort. Instead he merely tightened his arm around her and pressed his lips to her forehead.

It was a couple of hours later before they hit Wakandan airspace.

"We're coming up." Sam spoke as Steve focussed his attention out of the front of the jet, one arm hanging lightly against the grab rails on the roof.

"Drop to 2600, heading 0-3-0." Steve instructed.

Sam glanced back over his shoulder before he spoke, "I hope you're right about this, Cap. Or we're gonna land a lot faster than you want to."

Katie gave a small smile as she drew up next to Steve, wrapping her arms around his waist. They both stood, waiting as Sam flew the jet right into the trees, and swore with a loud ‘holy shit’ as it passed right through the hologram barrier into Wakanda. Everyone on the jet moved to get a better look at the beautiful mountains, lakes, buildings as the jet circled and Steve directed Sam to the runway.

They disembarked and Katie strolled off shortly behind Steve, followed by Natasha. Vision and Wanda stayed put, Steve telling them he would get them some help soon.

Bruce, who was at the rear with Rhodey whispered as he shrugged his arms into his jacket, "Should we bow?"

"Yeah, he's a king." Rhodey answered casually without missing a beat.

Steve ignored their banter instead smiling warmly at T'Challa as he reached out to shake his hand. "Seems like I'm always thanking you for something."

T'Challa smiled back and he shook Steve's hand before embracing Katie in a warm hug. “Mrs Rogers, it is a pleasure to see you.” “And you.” She smiled softly, before she stepped back and T’Challa nodded to the rest of the group. The clearing of a throat caught Katie’s attention and she turned just in time to see Bruce bow forward towards T’Challa.

"What are you doing?" Rhodey asked, looking at him.

"Uh, we don't do that here." T'Challa said kindly waving a hand to stop Bruce’s bow. Everyone smiled in amusement expect for Bruce who turned and shot a disbelieving but amused look at Rhodey who grinned back at him, nudging him with his elbow.

Then they turned serious again as T'Challa asked, "So how big of an assault can we expect?"

His guards moved as he spoke, opening up a path that T'Challa took, leading them away. They followed quickly while Bruce piped up politely as he explained, "Uh, sir, I think you can expect quite a big assault."

"How we looking?" Natasha added, addressing the king with a similarly concerned frown on her face.

"You will have my King's Guard," T'Challa listed, "the Border Tribe, the Dora Milaje, and-" He gestured to the side just as a familiar, dark-clothed man stepped out of the building to greet them by the door.

"A semi-stable, one hundred-year-old man." Bucky grinned. Katie smiled back and then glanced at Steve as he walked forwards, that familiar boyish grin on his face as pulled the man into a hug clapping him on the back a few times.

"How have you been, Buck?" he pulled back to look at his friend. He looked as well as he’d seen him in years. Healthy and dare he say it, happy.

"Not bad," Bucky shrugged looking down at his new black vibranium arm, "For the end of the world.” Katie stepped forward to give him a hug and a kiss on the cheek. “You look good Buck.” she said, standing back to look him up and down before smiling, something that didn’t escape Steve’s notice. And yes, he knew there was nothing in it, and this was the most inappropriate time to get jealous but still…

“I feel it.” Bucky smiled as Steve slid his arm around his wife’s shoulder. “Goat farming suits me.” With that, Bucky turned to Sam. “Hey man.”  

“Frosty.” Sam responded with a jerk of his head.

They left Rhodey, Sam and Bucky with some of the guard to keep watch, and the rest of them followed T'Challa up to the labs where the person who was said to be able to safely remove Vision's stone was waiting. Steve could tell that the rest of the group weren’t expecting that person to be T'Challa's sixteen year old sister, Shuri. But T'Challa had full faith in her, as did Steve after she had managed to remove Bucky's programming.  

"Whoa." Shuri blinked as she stared at the hologram of Vision's brain and the stone in awe, "The structure is polymorphic...”

"Right, we had to attach each neuron non-sequentially." Bruce nodded and Shuri glanced at him with a raised brow.

"Why didn't you just reprogram the synapses to work collectively?" She asked looking at Banner. Vision also glanced at the doctor in question.

"Because... we didn't think of it." Bruce admitted sheepishly.

Shuri smiled and Katie had to fight the laugh that was brewing at the Princess’ playful nature "I'm sure you did your best."

"Can you do it?" Wanda asked stepping forward anxiously.

Shuri's smile dropped as she became more serious. "Yes, but there are more than two trillion neurons here. One misalignment could cause a cascade of circuit failures." Her gaze moved to T’Challa “It will take time, brother."

"How long?" Steve asked, straightening up slightly.

Shuri shook her head. "As long as you can give me." She answered honestly and worryingly.

A loud warning siren suddenly started and instantly Katie looked around. General Okoye tapped at something on her bracelet and she looked over at T’Challa."Something's entered the atmosphere."

Seconds later, Sam's voice called over their coms, "Hey, Cap, we got a situation here."

Katie moved over to the floor-length windows of the lab to look out, Steve stood close behind her as everyone followed to see what was going on. In the distance, they could see the plains all around as far as the border stretched to the city. A giant ship descended from the sky and as they watched it exploded high above the city as soon as it touched the shield, causing Katie to jump back slightly. Steve gently caught her, his hands going to her shoulders as his focus remained on the exploding ship which dissipated above the invisible barrier they had flown through.

"God, I love this place."  Bucky’s contented sigh rang over their coms.

"Yeah, don't start celebrating yet, guys. We got more incoming outside the dome." Rhodey warned.

More ships came crashing down to Earth just outside the Wakandan barrier disturbing the dust and sand on the ground as they landed. The lab they were stood in shook slightly and Vision sat up.

"It's too late."  he whispered and both Steve and Katie turned to look at him as he sat up. "We need to destroy the stone now."

"Vision, get your ass back on the table." Nat replied snapping her head back to look at him as she made her way to the door.

"We will hold them off." T'Challa said motioning to his guard.

"Wanda," Steve spoke up, looking at the young woman, "As soon as the stone's out of his head, you blow it to hell."

Wanda nodded with promise, "I will."

Steve turned his attention back to the window, watching the space ships which at the moment were doing nothing. T'Challa meanwhile, turned to his General and her warriors and began barking orders, "Evacuate the city. Engage all defences."

Steve turned to look at him as the king pointed in his directing before adding firmly. "And get this man a shield!"

Steve gave a small nod before he glanced back out of the window. For 2 years his fighting days had been focussed on simple people. Small groups of nobodies. Now, they were being thrown back into the crazy world of Aliens, AIs…and he knew they were going to look to him for leadership.

He might not be Captain America anymore, but he was still Captain Rogers, still that dumb kid from Brooklyn. And he still wasn’t going to run from a fight. 

 Tags

@the-omni-princess

@momobaby227

@geekofmanythings16

@angelofhell-666

@thewackywriter

@marvelfansworld​

@cobalt-gear

@asgardlover75​

@jennmurawski13​

@jtargaryen18​

[queercapwriting]

Domestic Sanvers (always needed)

This is for my dear, dear friend - Cap and Sam, Lena and Maggie, Winn and James - who’s getting top surgery tomorrow. Thank you for being in my wedding party, for always being there when I need you. For assuring me, even when I don’t believe it, that We Are Groot (to be clear, I always believe that You Are Groot. I just have trouble believing that I am, so much of the time). For the zoo and the terrain race and the Captain Marvel squeeing and the Hawkeye and Iron Man shenanigans and the Sanvers support and the Pokemon comforter and your home gym and our affirmations and our letter writing and your brilliance. The pictures of you and me on my wall make me happier than I know how to tell you, and I will always cherish the memory of putting Coming Home on my wedding playlist just for you, just so we could dance in all of our nerd Sanvers glory. Mazal tov and congratulations, Groot. You deserve your wonderful surgery and you deserve every amazing thing in the world. I got your six, I’m on your left, and I love you, so damn much.

“I don’t wanna,” they muttered, still burritoed in the covers they’d stolen from Maggie in the middle of the night. “Still sleeping.”

Maggie grinned and unleashed the hound.

Gertrude leaped onto their king-sized bed -- that Alex still somehow managed to take up all of -- and somehow, impossibly, burrowed into their burrito and licked at their face mercilessly.

“Okay, okay, I wanna,” Alex fumbled to untangle their groggy arms from the sheets, throwing them around Gertrude as gently as they could, their hands still clumsy with sleep.

“Good, because I thought I was gonna have to fly you out of there,” another figure crashed down on the bed next to them. 

“What is this,” Alex asked, turning from Gertrude to Maggie and then to their sister, now laying next to them, on her stomach with her chin innocently in her hands and her feet swaying behind her. “The let-everyone-into-our-bedroom-and-watch-Alex-sleep show?”

“I’m not in your bedroom!” Winn called from the kitchen. “I value my life, thank you very much!”

“So do I, but Guardian could totally take you, Alex,” James added.

“And I wouldn’t need to,” Lena laughed along to the sound of sizzling pancakes. “My wife would just give you those big eyes and any argument would be over.”

Kara demonstrated said big eyes. Alex threw a pillow at her. And set Gertrude loose. Kara shrieked and Alex chuckled in sleepy victory.

“Okay Kara, Gertrude,” Maggie clapped gently like she was talking to two puppies, not just one. “They’re awake now. Out.”

“But your bed is so comfy,” Kara moaned, flopping over so Gertrude was standing on her chest, eagerly wagging her tail and licking every surface of Kara’s face.

“Yes,” Maggie agreed, “and I very much took all your sibling’s clothes off before we fell asleep last night, so -- “

“I’m going, I’m going, I’m going!”

Kara flew out of the room, Gertrude in her arms, at a speed that would make Barry Allen sweat.

Alex laughed and pulled Maggie down on top of them, shifting the covers so she could feel their body underneath hers. They shook their head as they tucked Maggie’s hair back behind her ear.

“Why are you doing all this, Mags?” they murmured.

“All what?” Maggie kissed their nose, their cheek, their chin, their neck. Alex shifted and bit their lip, suddenly breathless. “This is basically a regular Sunday morning. Just... on a Thursday. J’onn’s on his way with three dozen donuts, by the way.”

“So there will be exactly half a donut for each of us when Kara gets through,” Alex nodded.

“Yeah, but Lena’s making pancakes.”

“Oh god, is the kitchen on fire?”

“I can hear you!” Lena shouted.

“When did you become the one with super hearing?” Alex shouted back. Maggie flinched dramatically and Alex kissed her ears in teasing sympathy.

“Seriously, babe. You’re perfect. Why are you perfect?” Alex lowered their voice and asked while they fumbled for their glasses.

“I’m not,” Maggie took pity on them and helped put their glasses on. “You just deserve to be celebrated, and I just love you.”

“And I love you. But celebrated?” Alex snorted. “I didn’t -- “

“Save an entire warehouse full of baby Astonians without breaking a sweat? You sure did! And that’s cause for celebration, Danvers!” Winn called again.

“And if I recall correctly, it’s been exactly a year since you came out. Um, again,” James added.

Alex’s eyes flew wide as they stared up at their wife. “You all remembered?”

“The night you brought us all to the bar and wept while you told us what pronouns we should use? Yes, sweetie, we all remember.”

“No, I meant. The date, and everything. Like an anniversary. Like it’s something to celebrate.” Alex sat up, their eyes suddenly wet. Maggie crawled off of them, kissed their lips, and tossed them a t-shirt that had been discarded the night before.

“Because it is something to celebrate,” Maggie kissed them again, as soon as Alex got the shirt down past their neck. 

“Are they decent?” Lena asked.

“Please don’t lie,” Kara pleaded.

Maggie tossed Alex a pair of basketball shorts -- neither of them were sure, at this point, whose shorts they originally were -- and when Alex tugged them on and nodded, tears still in their eyes and wonder still on their face, Kara reopened the bedroom door.

Lena was holding a cake big enough for Kara and everyone else, yellow and white and purple and black frosting. Winn was wrapped in a blue and pink and white flag, James’s arm around him. And Kara had painted a collage of the past year, from directorship and haircuts to wedding prep and space flights. She held it shyly in one hand, a tail-wagging Gertrude tucked under her other arm.

“I love it,” they spoke to Kara first, when they remembered how to speak at all. “I... guys. Thank you. It...”

“It’s family,” J’onn said simply, stepping into the room behind Lena. 

Just as the smoke detector went off.

“Damn that thing!” Alex jumped out of bed as their family both groaned and laughed.

Because it might be a day for celebration, but Alex’s war against smoke detectors would never end.

And neither would any of... this.

[trashstoriesforthegarbagegang]

The Wild Things of the Galaxy

Guardians of the Galaxy (Vol. 2)  Summary: Groot is overly tired. Gamora and Quill tuck him into bed with traditions from their home worlds. (some unspoken thing / family fic / right after V2 / too much sap on this sad tree to handle really and yep I just watched these movies alright but I fell in love fast and hard and haven’t posted a fic in years quarantine made me do it) Rated: K Word Count: 5,400

“Peter, bed time!”

It’s a memory that’s comfortable to slip into as a familiar melody plays on the Zune — a brief recollection that doesn’t take up too much time, a moment in time that is enough to put a smile on his face…and only slightly pulverize his heart.

“Five more minutes?”

His mother was tired, and it’s not just the end-of-day kind of tired that he grew up knowing. Somewhere in his heart, Peter knew that it’s the treatment which has her more exhausted than normal and when she held in a sigh, for his sake, he regretted asking immediately.

“I mean…” He grabbed the edge of the table where he had been fiddling with Erector Set that his uncle got him for Christmas a month ago that he hasn’t tired of for even a day. “I’ll go to bed. Yeah. Now’s fine.”

Meredith smiled despite her obvious desire to head to bed herself. She ruffled his sandy curls and asks, “What were you working on today?”

He beamed. “Just my cool Star Lord ship! Mama — mom?”  Meredith tilted her chin in a manner that told him to just ask. “Do you want to maybe read a quick book before bed? I mean, I can totally read to myself, I can read,” He emphasized, though truthfully he was behind for his grade and he has been struggling with basic books, but he didn’t want to worry his mother with one more piece of awful news. He’d been tossing the notes from his teacher in the trash and covering them with something gross so she wouldn’t know. “But you’re a better storyteller than me and I thought maybe…”

“Of course there’s time for a book before bed, if that’s what you want,” She responded sweetly. Letting him leave his spacecraft construction for another time, she didn’t even ask him to clean it up, just took his hand. “Do you want to read the next chapter in the book you’re reading at school?”

Due to the notes he’d tossed, she didn’t know he’d been downgraded from How to Eat Fried Worms and had been back to simple basal readers for two weeks. “No, no. I’m thinking something more classic. Something you used to read when I was half the man I was, and had half the strength I have now!”

She lead him to his room, covered from floor to ceiling in posters of all his favorites — Star Wars the most prominent of them. Peter crawled into bed and scooted close to the wall, leaving room for Meredith as she flipped through the old books from when he was younger, the few she’d picked up at yard sales over the years, as they didn’t own a ton of children’s stories. She was more of a library-trip-per-week sort of mom since it was something free to keep Peter busy for an hour; at least she had been that sort of mom before three months ago.

“Okay,” She smirked, holding up a title. She supposed it had been some time since she was last conscious enough to get through a book for him at bedtime, so the giddiness on his features was completely justified. She tried not to let guilt tear her apart.

“Yes, I still love this book even though I’m not a little kid.”

“Well I also still love this book and I’m definitely not a little kid,” Meredith teased him, kissing his nose as she slipped onto the mattress next to her son. He let out a contented sound and curled into her side, squeezing her tightly and nuzzling her arm. Meredith dropped another kiss to the top of his head.

“The night Max wore his wolf suit he made mischief of one kind and another…” Meredith’s familiar cadence washed over Peter and it was hardly long before his eyes droop until he shouted, “Be Still!” When it was time. Meredith rubbed his back, taming him just like a wild thing.

The book ended unceremoniously and it was too short and Peter was not ready for his mother to leave the room. As she told him sweet things and stroked his hair and kissed him three times and said a prayer, he clutched onto her hand, looking up at her with longing brown eyes to plead, “Please don’t go, I’ll eat you up, I love you so.”

Meredith was so tired. But as Peter’s eyes welled with tears of something that was impossible to verbalize for a little boy who was going through too many changes and anxious and a little bit lonely all the time, she laid down beside him, humming a comforting tune for him. “Baby don’t go…pretty baby, please don’t go. I love you so….pretty baby, please don’t go.”

“Mom?” Peter wondered, when he was almost asleep. “Can you put that book in my backpack?”

“Why?” She wondered, not sure that it was an appropriate read for school for a boy his age, no matter how much he loved it.

“That way, the next time we have a long night at the hospital, you can read it to me before grandpa comes?”

Peter jammed his finger on the pause button of the Zune, silencing Sonny and Cher. Maybe it wasn’t a completely easy memory to slip in and out of. He hadn’t heard the song since his mother sang it to him that night and when it came up on shuffle, it had been like a fist to the face.

Peter searched for a new song, relaxed in the comfortable chair in the lounge of what had been the Ravager’s ship that they’d made quick work of cleaning out over the last week since it became their second, much more spacious headquarters. Before he’d had a chance to sort through Thin Lizzy and Alice Cooper to the other random, random tracks that someone had downloaded to the device, Rocket suddenly appeared. He had a practically tantruming Groot following behind him, his little branch-like arms up, eyes squinted, tears on his cheeks and an awful sound that was not his usual coming from the back of his throat. Rocket looked as exasperated as the memory made Peter feel. “You’re it, Quill. I can’t listen to him anymore! He’s been carryin’ on like this for an hour! He don’t wanna play or eat or nothin’! Won’t say what’s wrong. Just hollerin’ like a baby.” He spit the word at Groot, who would usually stubbornly respond ‘I am Groot,’ — I’m not a baby! But their distressed, infantile colleague could just carry on in response.

“Well, he is a baby,” Peter said with a grunt, leaning over as Rocket rolled his eyes — of all of them, he still tried to think of Groot like a friend still, when clearly their little tree was not quite developmentally capable of that yet. “What’s wrong, bud?” Frowning a little at the sight of the toddler tree, Peter bent a hand low to try and comfort him, but Groot just walked up and kicked it pitifully, falling back onto his backside at the force and managing to scream louder.

“Oh, man, little dude! What’s gotten into you?”

He tried again to reach out, but Groot just flipped onto his side, kicking his arms and legs.

Rocket put a paw on his face and shook his head. “I seriously can’t deal anymore tonight. I don’t wanna hurt the twig.”

The second insult still didn’t work and he tossed up in defeat. Peter could sense that Rocket must have been really through with the behavior, given he’d pretty much sacrifice anything at any time for his best friend.  

“I got ‘im,” He said quickly and Rocket mumbled something incoherent about building a sound-proof greenhouse as Gamora, soaked in a layer of sweat in athletic clothes, obviously heard the fuss on her way back from working out in the Ravager gym, stopped in the doorway.

“Hey,” Peter smirked at her, despite the thrashing foliage on the floor. The skin-tight spandex pants she wore revealed her muscular calves and a good portion of her midsection as her top was cropped shorter than usual. Her hair was slicked back in a braid, small sections falling out. “Good workout?”

“Sure,” She mumbled, crouching on the floor to examine Groot. “Rocket just deposited him to you like this?”

“Said he’s been at it for almost an hour, that he tried everything to get him to stop. If Groot doesn’t even want candy?” He emphasized and the screaming didn’t cease, “Something must be up. Maybe he’s getting sick? Can trees get sick?”

“I’m not sure…” Gamora reached out her hand, but didn’t touch Groot. She kept it comfortingly beside him as he sniffed and screeched. “You know what?” She realized, finding another frown, “He didn’t take a nap this afternoon when we were on Berhert looking for our missing parts. He was being too stubborn in his attempts to help. He’s probably just overly tired.”

Peter scowled a little at their own shortsightedness and Groot quieted for just a second as he realized Gamora was in the room. “Hi,” She said sweetly, softly. “Are you ready for bed?”

“I am Groot!” He yelled at first, but it ended in a loud cry.

“I know you’re not a baby,” She replied with gentleness. “But that does not mean you do not require sleep. I know I am particularly tired today.”

“I am Groot?”

“Being strong also is not a disqualifier for needing sleep,” She gave a dramatic yawn for show. “I aught to get cleaned up and go to bed.”

“I am Groot?”

Peter chuckled. “You want to go with her? Buddy, you’ve got your own bed.”

“I am Groot!” He wailed.

Rumpling his brow, Peter wondered, “You sleep with her regularly?”

“Started when we got here…” Gamora shrugged as she tried to keep a blush down. “He says that his bed is too big and he’s scared of getting lost in it and he doesn’t like to be alone so…”

“I’ve said the same thing yet you kick me out of your bunk when I try it.”

“You’re not a baby,” Gamora leered though there was humor in her gaze.

“I am Groot!”

“Of course, of course,” She rolled her eyes. “You’re not a baby, either.” Gamora looked down at her glistening chest and shrugged. “I will let you come to my room if you let me take a shower first. Can you stay with Peter for a little bit?”

“I am Groot,” He whined, flopping over onto his back and glaring at the captain.

Peter winked. “I got ‘im. C’mon, buddy. I’m gonna show you something cool.”

“Just…” Gamora winced. “Do not get him all wound up if we want him to sleep, please?”

“I’ve got something in mind,” Peter agreed, managing to scoop Groot up, who finally stopped fighting him.

Gamora disappeared to get herself showered and Peter got the little tree on his shoulder. “So, when I was tired but didn’t wanna sleep, you know what I used to ask my mom?” Groot shook his head. “Five more minutes?” Peter said in a jumbled, silly kid voice. “I’d say, ‘mom, pretty please with a cherry on top can I have five more minutes? Then, she would take me into my room and do something like read a book or sing for me.”

“I am Groot?”

“No, Gamora is not my mother, dude,” Peter almost chuckled. “I like her a lot and she likes me a lot…we’re…well, it’s complicated. But we’re friends.”

“I am Groot?”

“Well, no, I’ve never asked Gamora for ‘five more minutes,’ because she’s never told me to go to bed before.”

“I am Groot! I am Groot!”

“Well, it is fair, but no, it’s not because you’re a baby. But you know, it’s ‘cause you’re growing. And you gotta eat lots of vegetables and sleep if you want to get big and strong like me.”

“I am Groot.”

“Hey, I am too strong! Mouthy little thing.” Groot let out another distinct whine and flopped back against Peter’s chest, making him chuckle. “Dude. We are so not skipping out on nap time just because you want to be a helper in the future. Anyway,” He switched topics before Groot could argue, “I wanna show you something.”

He walked the little bugger to a storage compartment where he kept the majority of his special… stuff. It didn’t have a lock on it. Despite their general attitudes towards each other and them being a bunch of assholes, he did trust his team. They knew better than to mess with something of one another’s that was sentimental.

The drawer was fireproof, though, just in case someone else tried to mess with his family at large via the ship.

Groot tried to jump into the compartment, but Peter firmed up his grip and tugged out a thirty-some-odd-year-old backpack. “This was mine, when I was a kid. On Earth, where I’m from, you have to go to a place called school whether you like it or not.”

“I am Groot?”

“Nah,” Peter smirked and tickled his chin with his thumb, making Groot squirm. “You’re gettin’ the best schooling in the galaxy right here, pal. But…” He tugged at the zipper with one hand. “I wasn’t really using it for school the last time I had it on. I had to go places a lot, kind of like we do, only I was no hero then…that’s for sure…” He shook his head after a moment of silence. “So I had stuff in here that wasn’t really for school. And this,” He pulled out a very well-worn paperback book, with a monster like something he’d find on a planet probably just four jumps away on the cover. “Was one of my favorite bedtime stories.”

“I am Groot?”

“A bedtime story! It’s…when you don’t really want to go to bed, and you ask your mom for five more minutes, and she doesn’t really want to give them to you, but she does ‘cause she loves you so stinkin’ much, but she still has to be responsible. So she reads you a book instead. Even if you’re too old for that.”

“I am Groot.”

“Well, Gamora could read it to you,” He said, he’d trust her with his special book, however, “I’m right here, though and she’s getting all clean and smellin’ pretty just for you, so how ‘bout I read this to you while we wait.”

“I am Groot?”

Peter rolled his eyes. “Yes, you can still ask Gamora for five more minutes when she gets back.”

He pouted shrugged, bringing a little hand to rub his eye. “I am Groot.”

“Great. Glad you’re ready,” Peter held back a chuckle, plopping into a chair and keeping Groot on his chest as he touched the title like his mother always did. “Where the Wild Things Are, story and pictures by Maurice Sendak.”

“I am Groot?”

“Well, if you listen,” Petter squeezed his leg playfully with one hand, “You’ll find out what a Wild Thing is. Ready?”

When Peter turned the first page, he didn’t even get a chance to read before Groot gave a gasp and leaned forward, delicately touching the fluffy tail of Max’s wolf suit in the illustration. “I am Groot!”

“That’s not Rocket,” Peter laughed. “That’s Max!”

“I am Groot?”

“That’s Max!” He tried not to let himself get carried away as he pointed to the face of the boy in the picture. “He’s a little boy. Probably like…six Earth years old. Older than you, but not by much. He’s just as naughty as you.”

“I am Groot?” He pointed to the blanket on a string and Peter sighed.

“He’s making a blanket fort.”

“I am Groot?”

“It’s this, when you take a bunch of blankets and make them into like a cozy place to hide or be alone.”

“I am Groot?”

“Well, he wants to be alone because…actually, you know…” Peter touched the expression on Max’s face. “I don’t think he wants to be alone. I think he just wants his mother’s attention.” He could relate to that a lot. “I think he’s actually lonely. So he’s carrying on like this,” He looked down at Groot with a little frown. “Because he doesn’t know what else to do to get his mother’s attention.” Kicking himself for not realizing why Groot was acting the way he was with Rocket before — and even himself, he gently rubbed the top of Groot’s head with his finger. Gamora would be back before the little bundle of sticks knew it.

“I am Groot.”

“That is sad, huh? You know, maybe I should read it. Let’s find out if Max gets happy, okay?”

Groot nodded and Peter cleared his throat, making sure there was no emotion. “The night Max wore his wolf suit he made mischief of one kind…” He flipped the page, “And another,” Groot gasped, not liking the way that Max was chasing the dog around in the image before him. Peter turned to the next one, “His mother called him ‘wild thing’ and Max said, “I’ll eat you up!’” Groot shook his head as Peter had a flash of Yondu saying the same thing to him and smiled sadly, carrying on, “So Max was sent to bed without eating anything.”

“I am Groot!”

“Max is gonna be hungry, huh. He should have been kinder to his mother.”

“I am Groot,” The little one on his chest looked down.

“Of course we still feed you even when you’re…well, you’re not bad. You just don’t always make good choices, especially when you’re tired or when we’re tired. But this is just a story, remember? Besides, I think you’ll like how it ends.”

Peter managed to read as the forest grew in Max’s room and he sailed over the sea, Groot’s eyes growing wide as he touched Max’s fierce stance on his little ship as he prepared to fight a sea monster.

“And when he came to the place where the wild things are they roared their terrible roars and gnashed their terrible teeth and rolled their terrible eyes and showed their terrible claws.”

Groot covered his eyes and Peter quickly turned the page, practically still knowing the book by heart to know what would come next. “Till Max said, “BE STILL!” and tamed them with a magic trick of staring into all their yellow eyes without blinking once and they were frightened and called him the most wild thing of all.”

Peeking with another started sound, Groot stood up on Peter’s chest and shouted, “I am Groot!” holding his little hands up in the same way that Max did in the book.

“Are you going to be the most wild thing of all?” Peter asked with a little chuckle.

“I certainly hope not,” Called a gentle voice from the hall. Gamora had reappeared, squeaky clean in just minutes. Her hair was still wet and all tied up on the top of her head to be dealt with later. A pair of comfortable pants for sleeping was low on her hips, revealing gorgeous green skin. Peter swallowed hard.

“‘Xpected you to take a little longer.”

She leaned forward, her oversized shirt from some awful junk market they’d been too revealing too much with nothing underneath it (probably intentionally, Peter thought), “Well I knew I had a very over-tired somebody waiting on me, so I just wanted to wash the sweat off. “Are you ready, little wild thing?”

“I am Groot!?” He asked in a panicked tone, pulling his hands together under his chin and looking between her, the book, Peter, and back at the book.

“Five more minutes?” She chuckled. “Oh, you’re in the middle of reading,” Gamora said with a amusement in her voice.

“I am Groot,” He glanced up at Peter.

“Start over?”

“I am Groot!” Groot pointed to Gamora.

“That’s okay,  I have no need to start from the beginning,” She tried to start but Groot pouted hard and crossed his arms.

Peter winked at her, mouthing, “It’s short.”

At least, he assumed it would be, until he flipped back to the beginning and Gamora touched the same spot that Groot initially had saying, “It is a tail like Rocket’s!”

“It’s a wolf’s tail, a raccoon tail has stripes — like Rocket’s.” He said with an exasperated sigh the same time that Groot agreed with her, “I am Groot!”

Continuing to read, Gamora sat on her knees beside him, genuinely interested in the Earth bedtime ritual that involved reading of stories for children. There were no such works for children on Zen-Whoberi. Books anywhere in the Galaxy (outside of Earth, apparently) were honestly rare to come by, let alone with pictures meant for little kids.

“No wild rumpus,” Gamora whispered as Groot made a move like he was going to jump up and participate in his own halfway through the book (again).

“At least not before bed. Maybe tomorrow morning. You can boss Rocket around and tell him you’re his king.”

“I am Groot!” He approved of the plan.

Peter kept going, “…and Max, the king of all wild things was lonely and wanted to be where someone loved him best of all.”

“I am Groot,” The littlest of the guardians sympathized, looking up at Gamora, who tried to hide her sympathy but didn’t do so well.

“Yes, that is why I let you stay beside me when you ask. It is hard to feel lonely.” She looked up at Peter with the smallest smile and shrugged. “But it is nice to have friends who can help you not to feel so alone.”

“I am Groot!”

“Hey,” Both Peter and Gamora corrected him at the same time. His best friends were the Guardians of the, “Freakin’ Galaxy.”

They read on as Max gave up his position in the forest, and the wild things told him, “Please don’t go, we’ll eat you up, we love you so!”

Gamora found that to be exceptionally cute as she looked at Groot, leaning back against Peter again, his eyelids so, so heavy as he struggled to stay awake for the end of the book.

As Max sailed in and out of weeks, Gamora observed Peter’s cadence getting a little slower as it came to an anticlimactic close. She imagined his mother must have read the book to him in much the same way when he was little.

“I am Groot!” Groot made a contented, happy sound almost like a giggle when he learned that Max had supper waiting for him in his room.

“…And it was still hot.”

“That is an excellent Earth legend, Peter,” Gamora said sincerely as he shut the book. He smirked as she used such high praise for a simple kid’s story. “Was this Maurice Sendak a philosopher of yours? Did he see the tale in a vision?”

Recalling several of the other oddly illustrated books by the guy that his mother had checked out of the library for him, Peter was quite sure, “Oh he was getting visions, though I don’t know they were celestial. More acid induced, probably. It was the sixties. Times were different.”

She didn’t know what that meant but accepted his answer seriously, as she usually did when he described anything about Earth. Groot had his eyes closed as he laid back Peter’s chest and Gamora smirked, nodding him towards the quarters she’s been sharing with Mantis since they arrived. “He could probably go in his own bed, if he’s already asleep?”

Gamora shrugged, voicing on his behalf, “I don’t want him to wake up feeling lonely.”

Nodding, Peter swiped his Zune and stuffed it in his pocket, carefully balancing Groot to stay in his sleepy position as they shuffled quietly down the hallway.

Gamora opened the door and gestured to the bed on the left, which had a little metal tool box on the nightstand beside it, with a red… “Is that my scarf?”

She shrugged. “He needed it more than you do. A regular blanket was too big,” She patted it and Peter tried to move with extreme caution, desperately hoping to keep the little guy asleep, but the movement was just enough to cause Groot to shoot up and cry, reaching up for Gamora. “Okay, okay.”

“I am Groot!”

“You have your own bedtime ‘ritual?’” Peter smirked, stuffing a hand in his pocket.

“I am Groot?”

“Sing?” He all-out smiled and took a seat on the edge of Gamora’s bed, making it obvious he wasn’t going anywhere for that. If she got to hear him read a bedtime story, he was going to hear her lullaby… “I’m just kidding, I can go,” He said when he watched her face go through a whole process.

“Um,” She was flushed as she held Groot on her shoulder and he cuddled into her. “I…it’s…”

“Seriously, I’m teasing —” He stood and was met with her other hand on his chest like a slap as she tried to let herself be vulnerable.

“You shared an important tradition from your home, so, I can share one, too.” She patted Groot’s back and took in a deep breath before sitting on the mattress with a little hum. “I, there’s…not many things I remember about home. I was so young and Thanos…he really manipulated most of my thoughts to make me forget. But, I…I never forgot the song my mother always used to sing before I went to sleep. In my cell in the Sanctuary, I could not sing it out loud. I would have been punished for that…but I would think it every night, so that no matter how much he tried to brainwash me, strip me of all the things important to me, I could never forget my mother’s song.”

Peter held his breath as Gamora hummed again, finding the tune. In a small, sweet voice she sang her people’s traditional lullaby for Groot, and him. There was such honor and privilege he felt to receive such a performance. “Foar tiid om te sliepen is it myn bern en de wyn groeit rêstich, en de loft is tsjuster, it is tiid, it is tiid. Ik sil jo hearre foar as jo rêstje, oant slûch jo forteart. Mar dan moatte jo allinich ôfdriuwe, mar noait echt allinich. Ik bin hjir, ik bin hjir, ik bin hjir.”

By the end, Groot was fully asleep again. Carefully, Gamora tucked him into Peter’s scarf in the little makeshift bed. Stroking his cheek, she smiled down at him then looked at Peter with a gaze that expressed a little bit of embarrassment, but mostly gratitude.

“That was beautiful,” He said with such genuine beam at her, it made her further blush. “What does it mean?”

“I…I’m not sure,” She responded with a longing sound from the back of her throat which meant she was suppressing a lump of emotion. “I do not remember our language. Just the song.”

“Gamora,” He frowned, opening his arm up. She let him hug her from the side. “It’s still beautiful. And I think it’s really sweet that you’re sharing it with Groot before he sleeps.”

Biting back a comment about how it would likely be the only time she ever got to share her mother’s song with a baby she was raising, Gamora added, “I really liked your story. How did you manage to keep it and your walking man and your orange-haired talisman all these years?”

Choking back a smile with how she referred to his stupid troll and broken music player, Peter explained how the book, among the other few possessions from 1988 had been in his transition bag from school to grandpa’s to hospital and that had been all he’d had on him when he was abducted.

“My mother also used to sing to me before bed.” He smirked, pulling out his Zune. “I didn’t hear this song since I left earth and it hit me like a ton of damn bricks earlier when it came up on shuffle.”

Offering her one of the earbuds, he clicked play and restarted the song. They got most of the way through it until Peter bit the inside of his cheek to keep from replicating the lyrics himself. “When I get to the city, my tears will all be dry. My eyes will look so pretty, no one's gonna know I cried.”

Gamora looked at the little album cover on the screen as the song started to fade. “Your mother, did she know Sonny and Cher?”

“She didn’t know them personally, but she admired the heck out of Cher. Sonny, well, poor guy. They’re basically like you and I, Sonny and Cher. Sonny was this guy with an annoying voice and bad haircut, and Cher was basically a goddess, but she saw something in him anyway and they were a great team.”

Gamora found a little grin at that. “I am hardly befitting of a goddess. I am physically more capable of you. But I do not believe you have a bad haircut, nor is your voice annoying. Just off-pitch.” He took his turn to let his cheeks flush through a chuckle. “Why did your mother pick their song as her lullaby if she did not know them personally? What was the meaning of it, then? Who sang the song to your mother, to pass down to you?”

“Oh,” He shrugged his shoulder. “That isn’t like, a traditional lullaby. I don’t think I know any of those. My mam—mother, she just liked to sing. Any song that came into her mind, so like, a different song every night. I can’t remember them all. But when this song came on, I remembered it very, very distinctly like a memory sucking me back in time.”

“Do you know of any traditional Earth lullabies we can sing to Groot?” She wondered with such an innocence about her, he was fairly sure she just wanted to hear him sing one for himself.

“I…” He thought back thirty years and shrugged. “I’m sure there was but they weren’t…just weren’t really important to me. I mean, there was a song they used to play on Sesame Street a lot that I’m pretty sure it was a lullaby.”

“Where is Sesame Street?”

“It’s where the air is clear,” He said in a joke that only he understood. “Sesame Street was a TV show, for children.”

“People of Earth value their children most dearly,” She said with her brow furrowed. “They make them telly-vision shows, movies, even books!” Peter shrugged, hiding another amused noise at her concept of ‘telly-vision.’ “What is the lullaby from this show?”

“Ernie, he was a muppet,” He paused, explaining, “That’s a puppet, which is like a plush animal, where a human controls it’s mouth and makes it look like it’s talking.” Gamora gave him a very confused expression but did not ask a clarifying question. “Ernie sang this song about the moon, and…good god, now that I’m thinking of it I think it might’ve been a warning for me,” He chuckled, trying to remember all of the words. “It went something like…Oh I’d like to visit the moon…but I don’t think I’d like to live there.”

“Well that is fortunate,” She said fighting her own smile. “You are well past the Earth’s moon out here.”

“Yeah,” He wound his arm around her again — he really had it in for the alien girl who was raising a talking stick with him (what a bedtime story that was). “You know, there’s another bedtime tradition on Earth that I could teach you about.”

“Hm?” She blinked up at him curiously finding a shit-eating grin stretched between his cheeks.

“A goodnight kiss.”

Gamora shoved off his chest playfully, responding, “Well, go ahead and give Groot a kiss goodnight before you leave.” She took her still-damp hair out of it’s bun and carefully reached into her nightstand drawer, taking out a brush and a tie. Peter extended a hand out and Gamora raised her brow.

“Are you going to tell me that hair brushing is also a bedtime custom on your planet?” She asked sarcastically.

“Nah,” He shrugged, taking the brush and starting to gently detangle her locks. “But we could make it a custom here.”

Flushing so her roots were pink like her ends, she let Peter brush her hair out with a surprisingly gentle hand. Gamora starved off a yawn. It was early, for the adults of the crew, but she supposed there was nothing wrong with succumbing to a very comfortable bedtime routine.

[mirkwoodshewolf]

Died a true guardian; Rocket raccoon x reader

*Author’s note*

Hey all well this request took some thinking and I feel like I may not have delivered to the fullest I can but I tried my best. So for the long waited Rocket raccoon angst request that both an anon and @guardiana6543 wanted, I hope this is still to your liking.

Warnings: ANGST, DEATH OF CHARACTER, words mentioned like slut and prostitution, so if this isn’t your cup of tea don’t give me any hate. I’m not asking you all to read this fic. But if you do read at your own risk.  

Permanent taglist:

@psychosupernatural

@ixchel-9275

@plethora-of-things

@waddles03

______________________________________________________

“Of all the things in this world you just had to go and do that?!” I snapped.

“What?” Rocket said.

“We had a game plan Rocket. Get the information out of the guy by any means! And you just had to step in too early!”

“He had his hands allover you! What else was I supposed to do!?”

“Let me handle it. I know how to handle myself if a guy gets too handsy with me!”

“Uhh guys can I say something?” Peter spoke up.

“Shut up Quill!” both Rocket and I snapped.

“You’ve always gotta let your pride and anger take control of you. When will you learn to control that temper of yours Rocket? I have put up with that shit for 2 years since we started dating and 5 years since I’ve known you and I’m tired of it!”

“Hey, I’ll learn to control my anger issues when you learn to stop being such a slut when it comes to undercover missions!” At that word, it was just like being shot at (which I have been, multiple times by some of our bounties we’ve tried to find together before we met up with Quill).

“You did not just say that to me.” I muttered.

“Well what other word is there to use? Should’ve just left you there in that whorehouse to begin with, since that’s all you’re ever good for.” he sneered.  I just glared at him and didn’t say another word as Quill spoke up again.

“Hey guys, hate to break up this little pow-wow session but our dude we tried to capture, he’s popped back up on our radar, but he’s not alone this time.” Rocket turned away from me and hopped into his chair and said.

“Lock in the coordinates.”

“This is my ship you aren’t the Captain here.” Quill spoke up.  But everything else around me just muffled because all I kept hearing were rocket’s hurtful words.

He had some nerve to call me that.  He should never have brought up my past like that.  You maybe asking what he means well long story short ever since my mother died giving birth to me, my father wasn’t—well a kind soul.  He never once acknowledged me and then once I got old enough, he sold me to a ‘prostitute house.’

There I learned how to seduce and swindle men.  That’s how I actually came across Rocket and Groot—or well they came across me.  For you see I wasn’t just going to allow men to do whatever it was they felt like they were allowed to do.

I’ve taken down men 5 times my size with just a kick and the right place for a knife to cause some serious pain without killing them or severing any main arteries.

“(Y/n)?” a soft voice spoke up and I felt a hand touch my shoulder and the voice said again, “You feel—betrayed. Hurt.”

“Mantis please take your hand off of me.”

“I am sorry. The puppy didn’t mean to say those things, I could tell he was just jealous of the fact that Peter choose you to distract our target.”

“Well you don’t know Rocket like I do. He’s a touch shell to crack but I’ve found the way, and when he talks a certain way to me, he always means it.” I said solemnly.  I sighed heavily before I asked her, “How’s your power to make people feel things coming along?”

“I have greatly improved on it. But it is still not a permanent thing.”

“That’s fine. Just….make me forget about what just happened in the last five minutes.” I turned towards her pleading for it, I knew that if we needed to catch this guy then I couldn’t be distracted.

“(Y/n) I don’t…..”

“Please Mantis. I don’t care what it is you have to say in order to make me forget, just do it.” She looked down sadly before placing her hand on my shoulder and her antennas glowed blue as she said to me.

“Focus on the mission.” Suddenly the hurt washed away and I was consumed with the focus of the mission at hand.

“Okay so get Quill and Gamora, I’ve got a plan in mind.”

We soon arrived at the location of our target Quill and Rocket landed the ship and we all exited the Milano and began circling the perimeter cutting off all escape routes for our target.  I was with Gamora as we went to the right and that’s when I heard her say.

“(Y/n). About what happened earlier…..”

“Not now Gamora, please I—I’d rather not talk about it.”

“But (y/n)….”

“Gamora. Not now.” I snarled softly at her.  The two of us stared each other down before she backed off and said.

“Alright, I understand. But when we get done with capturing this guy, I’d like to keep talking about this. I—I may not know much about relationships as I am still learning, but I do know that company of other women can help.” My eyes softened and I said.

“I have heard that before. Thank you Gamora.” She nodded and we continued to walk forward until we both stopped and there was our target.

Serial bounty hunter killer Naveen Samir.  He’s wanted not only by the Nova Corp but 12 other systems as well, including the Kree government. He’s well known for killing any and all bounty hunters from every single part of the galaxy.  Rumor has it that he’s known to detect whether one is out on the hunt for a good bounty just by simply looking into your mind.

And since the—well my previous life before becoming a Guardian of the galaxy taught us how to lie extremely well and how to make someone think you’re only after one thing, I was the best candidate for the ‘trade off’ before the guys would attack, but then you all know what happened after that.

And now here we are at attempt #2 of trying to stop this homicidal maniac.

We watched as Mantis slowly came up towards Naveen.  Since she was the quietest person for a sneak attack. We figured she could use her powers to either make him sleep or think that he couldn’t move his legs in order to run. But as Mantis kept walking towards Naveen, I kept hearing Rocket’s words in my head.

‘Should’ve just left you there in the first place. I’ll learn to control my anger issues when you learn to stop being such a slut when it comes to undercover missions!’ I shook my head trying to rid of it when suddenly we heard the sound of Mantis’ grunting.  We both looked to see Naveen gripping her throat.

“You are scared.” Mantis’ antennas glowed but shockingly it didn’t work.  Her eyes widened in fear and Naveen said.

“Specialized empathic conductor. With this headband your powers are useless against me.” He then tossed her aside like a piece of garbage.  Mantis fearing for her life, backed away from him as Naveen proclaimed, “Now where are the rest of the Guardians of the galaxy? Too afraid to come out and play with the big boys?”

“Damn it, just go for it. Go! Go! Go!” Quill’s voice spoke through our commlinks and soon it was just a sudden burst of a fight.  First he managed to kick Drax to the side before literally flipping in the air and dodged both Rocket’s and Quill’s gunfire.  Now Gamora and I were trying to attack, with the levels of training we both had, we managed to at least stay on him sword on sword.

The two of us trying to bring him down but he soon kicked Gamora’s leg so hard that he actually broke it. She let out an agonizing scream before being kicked aside and suddenly I found myself locked in his arms, his and my sword up against my neck and my back against his chest.

“To be honest, I expected a bit more. After all you did promise a fun time.”

“Then let’s have some fun.” I sneered as I slammed the heel of my boot into the front of his before headbutting him and getting free of his grasp.  The two of us went at each other’s heads with our swords almost doing a dance around each other until our swords crossed and he tried to get the upper hand by using his upper body strength to try and make me kneel down.

I held on as strong as I could until our swords slid across each other and like a whip, he kicked me right in the chest sending me backwards.  He chuckled as he walked towards me.

“Hey dickbag!” Rocket’s voice came up.  We both turned to see Rocket scarred up and bleeding but he held his gun and aimed it right at Naveen. “Didn’t you learn your lesson the last time?”

“I did, in fact that’s why I came better prepared.” Suddenly a detonator appeared into his hand. “Get rid of the jealous lover before you make your move.” He then pressed the button and suddenly the ground under Rocket’s feet began to crumble until he suddenly fell through.

“ROCKET!!” I didn’t hesitate.  I raced towards the crater and fell down into it hoping that I would reach him.  I extended my hand out to him but it soon got so dark I couldn’t even see a thing and next thing I knew was pain, dust and the sound of rubble still falling down on top of me.

*Rocket’s POV*

When I finally came around, I let out a pained groan and reached for my torch hoping it was still working. Thank kriff it was, although; it flickered but with a couple of smacks it was finally lit up.

“(Y/n)? (Y/n) are you there?” Oh god where is she? Please tell me she’s not buried underneath all this rubble.  Slowly I managed to get up, feeling nothing but soreness.  “(Y/n)!? (Y/n), where are you?” I suddenly heard a groan and when I shined my light to the right, there was (y/n) lying on her side under a large piece of rubble.

I quickly ran over to her and touched her cheek softly calling out to her.

“(Y/n), baby say something c’mon. (Y/n) you okay?” She slowly opened her eyes and looked up at me.

“R-Rocket?”

“Hang on babe I’m gonna get you out.” I quickly moved aside any of the smaller rocks aside before trying and trying to lift up the boulder that was crushing her.

“Rocket.”

“Just shut up and hold still will yah? I’m gonna get you out.”

“You can’t…..”

“The hell I can’t.” I growled as I tried to lift the rubble again and I wouldn’t stop until I felt her cup the side of my face.

“Rocket, you—you’ll always be the love of my life.”

“Why are you talking like that? I’m not gonna let you die here! I’ll get you out I promise.”

“You can’t—because it’s too late.” She looked down and that’s when I shined the light to finally see blood pooling down from between the rubble. “My—I think a pipe has gone through my left side. I can feel something poking through me.” She then coughed out blood.

“No, no, no, no, no, no please (y/n) look at me. Keep your eyes on me!” I pleaded with her.

“I feel—so numb. I…..Rocket….”

“Just hang on baby, the guys will find us. We’ll get you out and I’ll take care of you. Just hang on, please.” I sat down and leaned her head against my leg while I stroked through her hair. “Please…..I can’t lose you too.” When I looked down at her I saw that she wasn’t breathing. “Baby? Baby doll?” I shook her head and held my hand to her nose hoping to feel her breath.

I didn’t.

Tears filled my eyes and I held her as I sobbed and blubbered hysterically.

I don’t know how long it was, but finally Quill and the others managed to find us but when they saw me crying by (y/n)’s dead body, they knew it was too late for her.

On the Milano much like we did with Yondu, we dressed up her wound, made her look beautiful once again and covered her face up with wraps as surrounding around her were her two swords.  We sent her down the hatch where her body burned and her ashes went off into space.

My eyes were red as my heart was nothing but broken pieces.  The last thing I ever said to her was that she was a slut, now I can never take it back.  I can never apologize to her, and now in death she’ll always remember that being the last thing I ever said to her.

“I am Groot.” Groot spoke up as I felt his hand come to my shoulder.

“She might’ve. But it’s too late for me to apologize to her.”

[ive-got-99-problems]

Rocket Raccoon x OC (Male Penetration)

Everything after this chapter takes place after the events of my fanfiction “In The Woods.”

Max belongs to me, everyone else peoples to Marvel!

-----------

Male Penetration (NSFW)

-----------

It was a quiet night for the Guardians, everyone was in bed and was asleep, everyone that is except for Rocket and Max. They sat together on their bed; blankets wrapped around them as Max held the holopad. Rocket and Max had a very passionate love life, they could never keep their hands off of each other. Whenever they would introduce something new to the bedroom, they would always milk it for everything it had before trying to find something new. Tonight, they were watching porn together, seeing if any of the videos they found were hot enough to try. So far the only thing that really stood out to them, mostly Rocket, was female overstimulation and edging.  

 They went down a long series of rabbit holes before landing across a video that made Max blush. The thumbnail was of a slender man fucking a dildo that was placed on the wall, his stomach was bulging and his cock was red from the cock ring he wore. Max clicked on the video instantly, Rocket giving her a weird look as she did so. 

 “Uh Max, what’re you doin’?” 

 Her blush deepened, “Oh um, well we’re looking for new things to try in the bedroom so maybe-“ 

 “Max,” he said sternly, “I ain’t doin’ that.” 

 She tensed, embarrassed for clicking the video. She always felt bad when Rocket used that tone of voice with her, feeling as if she had done something wrong or had let him down.  

 “R-Right, yeah, sorry,” she mumbled as she backed out of the page to find another video. 

 The rest of the time they sat in silence, whatever arousal Max had was now gone. After about an hour of searching Max finally called it quits, telling Rocket that she was too tired to continue. Rocket nodded, noticing how quiet she had gotten since he shot down her idea. 

 “Hey, Maxie, about that video before, I uh, it’s just something I’m not comfortable with doing,” he said in a much softer tone than before. 

 “No of course Rocket, I understand. If you’re not comfortable with it then we won’t do it,” she said with a small smile. 

 He nodded slowly, “But you liked that, the video?” 

 She blushed as she shrugged, “Yeah, I mean, a little.” 

 Rocket was silent for a moment as he thought, he then leaned over and kissed her forehead, telling her goodnight before rolling over so his back faced hers.  

 It had been about three weeks or so since then, the video completely escaping Max’s mind as she sat at the bar. She watched as the Guardians went about doing their own thing, Drax betting on the Orloni race as Mantis watched with fascination, Thor, Peter, and Nebula all drinking together at a booth with Groot by their side as he played on his gamepad. Rocket had stayed back on the ship due to him 'not feeling well,' Max was a little concerned, telling him that she could stay behind with him if he wanted but he insisted she went with the rest of the Guardians. 

 She sat at the bar, her mind wondering when she suddenly got a message from Rocket. She pressed on her earpiece and a holoscreen appeared about a foot in front of her. 

 : are you alone? 

  She narrowed her gaze at the text, confused by the message. 

 : umm no, why? 

 : go someplace private, I want to show you something  

 She looked around the bar, trying to think of the most private place to go to. She settled on the bathroom, turning off her earpiece off before turning it back on once she was inside. 

 : alright I’m alone 

 As soon as she sent that text, Rocket started a video call. Max accepted it, her face turning red as she saw what was on the screen. In front of her was Rocket, he was holding onto the bed frame as he squatted down on a large dildo, his cock fully erect as he panted softly. Max covered her mouth, almost moaning at the mere sight. She didn’t hesitate in locking the bathroom door as Rocket let out a soft moan as he lowered himself deeper onto the cock. 

 “Rocket,” she whispered, “I, w-what’re you…” 

 He chuckled breathlessly, “You like what you see, baby?” 

 She swallowed thickly before nodding, “Y-Yes.” 

 “Fuck,” he moaned, “I thought you would. I remember the look on your face when you saw that video. If some random fucker on the internet can get you to look like that, I could only imagine what I’d do to you for you.” 

 Any witty comeback she would’ve given him completely left her mind as she stared, her stomach curling as she could feel her panties slowly become damp with arousal.  

 Rocket smirked, “How wet are your panties, baby?” 

 She whimpered as her knees became weak, “T-They’re, they’re really fucking wet.” 

 Rocket moaned, his hand sliding over his cock as he listened to her, “Good, that’s good baby, you gonna touch yourself?” 

 She bit her lip, “Most likely.” 

 He chuckled again, “Good girl, touch yourself while I fuck this big cock.” 

 She gasped as her body ignited with arousal, “Fuck, Rocket…” 

 He stared at her as he lowered himself onto the cock until he was fully seated on it. 

 “Fuck, it’s so big…” 

 Max’s back arched against the wall, she hadn’t even started touching herself and yet she was already such a mess. Her eyes widened as she looked at Rocket’s stomach, his stomach was bulging. He followed her gaze back to his stomach, smirking back up at her as he ran his hand over the small bulge. 

 “Ooh you like that, baby? You like how this cock is so big that it stretches out my stomach?” 

 She whimpered as she closed her legs together and thrust her hips against them, “Y-Yes…” 

 He chuckled, “You touchin’ yourself yet?” 

 She shook her head, “N-No.” 

 “What’re you waitin’ for?” 

 With that she immediately unbuttoned her jeans and slid them down, she dipped her fingers under her panties and ran them through her wet lips. 

 “F-Fuck, Rocket, I’m so wet,” she moaned softly. 

 “Show me.” 

 She did as she was told, pulling down her panties as she angled the camera down at her wet pussy. 

 Rocket moaned when he saw it, “Fuck, baby, you weren’t kiddin’, such a good little girl…” 

 She whimpered, “Rocket, please…” 

 He wiggled his hips, “You wanna see me fuck this thing?” 

 Her back arched, “Yes, yes, please…” 

 He gave a sly grin as he watched her, “Alright baby, I’ll fuck this big fat cock for you.”  

 “Rocket,” she whimpered as her free hand covered her mouth. 

 Rocket rose his hips up until the cock was barely inside of him before thrusting down onto it. He let out a genuine moan as the cock brushed against his prostate. 

 “Oh fuck, baby, this feels so fuckin’ good…” 

 Max whimpered as she ground her hips against her hand, watching intently as Rocket lifted himself again from the cock and sank back down. He let out a broken moan as he sat on the cock, his body shaking from the sudden pleasure. 

 “Rocket, please…” She breathed, “Go faster... 

 He looked up at her and smirked, “As you wish.” 

 He rose up from the cock again before slamming back down, his back arching and stomach tightening as the cock rammed into his prostate. 

 “F-Fuck, oh shit…” he breathed before doing it again. 

 He yelped as he squeezed his tight hole around the intruder, whimpering as he ground down onto the cock. 

 “Rocket, fuck, Rocket, please, go faster,” Max whimpered her fingers rubbing circles against her clit at a fast pace. 

 Rocket nodded before falling onto it again, his back arching as he did so. He took him a moment before he really started to ride it. His pace slowly began to quicken, his moans becoming louder and louder the faster he went. 

 “Fuck, fuck, fuck, oh baby, oh shit, it feels so fucking good, so fucking good, oh shit, I ain’t gonna last long like this,” he cried as his cock slapped against his belly.  

 “Oh fuck, Rocket, please…” she whimpered as her back arched against the wall. 

 Rocket’s speed quickened, biting his lip as he pounded his prostate. He closed his eyes tightly as he saw stars, he had never felt anything like this before. 

 “Fuck, oh fuck, baby, I, I never felt anything like this before, fuck it feels so good!” He sobbed, “So, so fuckin’ good, ah fuck! So fuckin’ big, I feel so full, fuckin’ stretching me out, shit, oh Maxie!” 

 He could feel tears slowly falling from his eyes as he bounced on the cock, he went as fast as he could, completely blinded by pleasure. His hand let go of the bed frame and was about to grab his cock when Max stopped him.

"No Rocket, don't," she said in a stern tone.

Rocket whimpered but did what she said, his hand balling into a fist as he hit it against the bed.

"Don't touch yourself," she whispered.

"Fuck Maxie, please, it's so good, I just need a little more-"

"No," she snapped, "You're going to cum from that cock alone."

He whimpered as he writhed against the cock, "Please, oh please, please Maxie, don't do this to me!"

She moaned softly as she could feel her climax nearing, "It's ok Rocket," she panted, "Tell you what, when you start cumming you can touch yourself."

His toes curled as he gritted his teeth, "A-Alright, alright, fuck, ah, ah, ah fuck!"

"You getting close baby?" 

He let out a sob, "Yes, yes, I'm so fuckin' close, please, please," tears were now streaming down his cheeks, the pleasure and the need to cum were so great he couldn't help but cry.

Max whimpered as she quickened her pace, "Yes Rocket, that's it, cum for me, cum for me baby, come on Rocket, cum for me!"

"FUCK! MAXIE!!" He screamed out as thick white ropes of cum sprayed from the tip of his cock, his hand immediately clasping onto his as he jerked himself to completion. He continued to sob as the thick ropes turned into thin ones until his cum merely dripped from his cock. 

He watched breathlessly as Max came, she cried out his name as her back arch. Her cheeks here flushed red as she ground against her hand, his name coming from her lips like a waterfall. Rocket's cock twitched out the last of his seed onto the bed, his arm holding himself up as Max came down from her high. She panted as she looked back at Rocket, he carefully removed the dildo from his body, Max's body shivering as she watched the bulge disappear. 

Rocket panted as he sleepily looked up at her, "How, how was that?" He questioned in between breaths. 

"It was good, I, I liked it a lot. Thank you, Rocket," she said with a smile.

He nodded, "Yeah, no problem, I um, I honestly liked it more than I thought I would."

"Really? I couldn't tell." She chuckled sarcastically. 

He blushed, "Shut up."

"Seriously Rocket, it was really hot, you should be more vocal when we have sex."

"R-Really? Well, yeah, sure, I can do that. But next time we're tryin' that overstimulation thing, I like seein' ya squirm," he smirked.

"I can't wait."

[learned-foot]

001 + MCU! ❤️

Favorite character: It should come as no surprise that this is a tossup between Peter Parker and Tony Stark for me. I think what it comes down to is Peter is my #1 fandom darling, the one who gives me the biggest heart eyes and who I want to whump the most, but when it comes to canon content, Tony wins by a hair. He’s just been so good for so long.

Honorable mention to my girl Nebula, who is a close third place. 

Least Favorite character: Disregarding the random mediocre villains, who are actually the worst, I think this has to go to Clint. Just...what is a Clint? Why is a Clint?

5 Favorite ships (canon or non-canon):  Peter/Tony, Nebula/Gamora (and specifically 2023!Nebula/2014!Gamora), Sam/Bucky, Hope/Scott, Tony/Bruce specifically post-A1. 

Character I find most attractive: The single moment I am most attracted to any character in the MCU is Peter Parker getting sewn up on that plane in FFH. Overall, the award goes to Tony Stark. but he has some heavy, heavy competition from Valkyrie.

Character I would marry: If he weren’t a king, T’Challa, but I don’t want to deal with the royalty thing. If I could transport her to the future, Peggy Carter. 

Character I would be best friends with: Peggy. Carter. Though hat tip to MJ, who I would totally be besties with once she got into her mid 20s. 

a random thought: There is not a single lie in the Vulture’s big villain speech. Peter is equally correct that selling weapons is indeed wrong, and obviously the whole attempted murder of a teenager thing is Very Bad, but the man makes some good points.

An unpopular opinion: I don’t actually like TWS that much. I acknowledge it’s a very well done movie, but it’s middle of the pack in terms of personal enjoyment. 

my canon OTP: Hope/Scott! They are adorable. 

Non-canon OTP: WHAT A MYSTERY. No, it’s Peter/Tony, obviously. 

most badass character: I mean, that’s gotta be Carol. Though single most badass moment goes to Thor with the lightening in IW. So good.

pairing I am not a fan of: There are many, but the most baffling is Stony. That ship should be like crack to me, I normally love antagonism and angst in my ship, but they just never strike me as important enough to each other, so it doesn’t work for me.

character I feel the writers screwed up (in one way or another): Steve. I don’t even care about Steve that much, but I still feel like his arc is a mess. The end of Endgame could work, but it didn’t fit with what came before. 

favourite friendship: It’s a small thing, but Tony and Neubla. The opening of Endgame is the BEST. Tony and Rhodey also gets a big nod. Love them. 

character I want to adopt or be adopted by: I don’t think Rocket wants to be adopted by me, but I want to adopt him. Or maybe my favorite murderbaby Nebula. Or just give me Baby Groot.