#Had to gsg while writing that

[shallyne]

If you ship Nesta/Rhys and think they would work as a couple please leave this blog and block me. Thank you

[sodone-withlife]

glass is fragile

Criminal Minds Fic Part One

| PART 1 | PART 2 |

Word Count: 4.3k

Warnings: implied character death 

Notes: cross-posted on Ao3. this is the result of a random idea I had because while I love Hotchniss, I love the idea of the two meeting in college and keeping in contact with Hotch being an overprotective brother

fortuna vitrea est; tum cum splendet frangitur (fortune is glass; just when it gleams brightest it shatters) - Publilius Syrus

“Agent Hotchner?”

Hotch looked up and did a double-take. “Emily?” he stood up, sending a surprised look at the smiling woman carrying a file box standing in front of his desk. He walked around his desk and closed his office door before giving her a half hug. “It’s been a while hasn’t it?”

“Yeah,” Emily let out a brief laugh, placing the box down on one of the chairs. “Last we talked was what, two years ago?”

“Must have been,” Hotch walked back around the desk and sat down, gesturing for Emily to do the same. “How’ve you been doing?”

Her expression dimmed a bit, shadows encroaching on the brightness of their reunion. “Well, he is still locked away, so it’s old history,” she shrugged. “Joined the bureau about a year ago, and I’ve been stuck in a desk job over at White Collar.”

Hotch held her gaze, knowing what was going unsaid, then nodded and changed the subject. “Not that I’m not happy to see you, but what’s brought you here? Last I heard you were doing pretty well over in the DC office.”

Emily’s expression gave way to confusion as she sat up straight. “I’m transferring to your team,” she said slowly.

Hotch paused. “I didn’t receive any paperwork nor did I authorize any transfer,” he told her awkwardly.

She reached into the box and pulled out a file, giving it to him. “I’m not sure what to tell you,” she said and indicated the file, “but that’s what I have.” Hotch flipped through, lips compressed in thought.

“I’m going to have to look into this,” he looked up at her seriously and forestalled any protests with a placating hand. “There’s no doubt that you’re qualified to join this team. However, normally, all applications for this unit go directly to me, and your transfer happens to come just as there have been some inquiries regarding this unit.”

A look of mutual understanding passed between them, their experience with bureaucratic and office politics filling in all the blanks. “Well,” Hotch broke that silence that had fallen and stood up, “you’ve luckily caught us when we’re on stand down, so I’ll introduce you to the team and you can get set up.”

Emily nodded and stood up as he picked up the box for her, both slightly put off-balance in the new boss-employee dynamic between them after they had worked together on equal footing for a few years. Hotch nudged her arm, stopping her just before they walked out of the office.

When she looked up at him, a small but genuine smile had broken through the darker affect he had gained since the last time they had seen each other.

“It really is good to see you again.”

~~~

“Any idea why Sean, just out of the blue, asked to meet with us?”

Emily shook her head. “No idea,” she answered, looking at the suited man in the driver’s seat of the black Mercedes. “It’s been six years since I last talked to him. You?”

“Same as you, about six,” Hotch replied. “I remained in contact with him for a bit after I returned to the BAU, but our exchanges were usually brief.”

The two lapsed into an easy silence until Hotch pulled up in front of a jazz bar. They got out of the car and easily fell into an old rhythm developed over twenty years ago in New Haven, one that they often took advantage of during cases because of its apparently intimate nature.

“Emily Prentiss,” a burly Scottish man stood up from a booth towards the back of the bar and opened his arms invitingly. “Aaron Hotchner.”

Emily let out a delighted laugh and went in for the hug while a Hotch lagged behind with a faint smile.

“Sean,” Hotch sent the man a nod of greeting and shook his hand, “how are you?”

“Good,” Sean answered, gesturing towards the booth and sitting down.

“Sorry we weren’t able to get back to you sooner,” Emily said, scooting inward to make room for Hotch. “We got caught up chasing a spree killer couple out to the Pacific Northwest.”

“I had to be in DC anyway,” Sean responded. The delight the two FBI agents felt at seeing the man quickly faded and made way for feelings of foreboding when Sean’s demeanor and tone turned serious and almost fearful. He took a breath. “Ian Doyle vanished from prison, and Interpol can’t find him.”

His insides turning cold, Hotch immediately looked at Emily, who had gone pale. “What—” she swallowed, “what are you saying?”

Sean leaned in, a grim look in his eyes as he looked between the two. “He’s off the grid,” he said gravely.

“Do you think he’s headed here?” Hotch asked quietly, thoughts straying towards Emily and his son. Sean’s gaze only turned grimmer as he didn’t answer.

Emily’s shaky voice broke the tense silence—only interrupted by the ambiance of the bar—that had fallen. “Am I in danger?”

The Scotsman looked down, taking a moment to gather himself before looking back up, a chilling answer on his lips.

“We all are.”

~~~

“He sent freesias to your apartment?”

“No, don’t tell me, not even over this line. I’m going on a run tomorrow morning around National Mall and planning to eat at Dupont Circle afterward. I’ll send you the address if you’d like to join me?”

“Yeah, the moment I got home after Sean told us I checked and reset everything, did my rounds. You know how I can be, especially after… yeah.”

“If I didn’t know better I’d say I might be the least at risk, given that I was only involved half the time you guys were. But you are in significantly more danger than any of us.”

“Leave worrying about what I have to lose to me. You—for once in your life, just think about yourself and be careful.”

~~~

“You’ve got to get out of there.”

Hotch approached Emily out in the hallway, picking out fear from the urgency in her tone. “Get a flight. Leave France, get back to America,” she continued, unable to fully hide her fearful worry as she met his gaze with her own. “Cash transactions from here on out, am I clear?”

He watched as Emily listened to the other caller, a sinking feeling in his stomach. “Toss that cell phone and get home safely,” she finally said firmly, hanging up without waiting for a response.

“Who?” Hotch asked simply, having suspicions as to what this was about. Emily turned to glance through the window, seeing Reid watching the two carefully—Hotch followed her gaze just in time to catch Reid quickly looking back down.

He shook his head, looking back at Emily. “My office, as soon as we can.”

~~~

Hotch opened the next report in his stack and quickly flipped through only to see a ripped sheet of paper in between a crime scene photo and the autopsy report. Recognizing the handwriting, he pulled it out, only to freeze when he read the note.

I received a text last night. He’s in the country.

He ripped up the paper as he looked out into the bullpen, eyes landing on Emily, who was hunched over at her desk looking through a report. He took in a stabilizing breath as he felt yet another headache coming on in addition to the ever-present worry over his son’s safety, despite all the precautions he had put in place all those weeks ago in a fit of med-noncompliance-induced obsessive anxiety.

Digging out a sticky note from under the piles of paperwork on his desk and quickly writing a note, Hotch grabbed a fresh stack of papers and went out to distribute them. He surreptitiously slipped the sticky note onto Emily’s desk before moving onto the others and heading back into his office, closing the door behind him.

His personal phone buzzed.

>>T and C here in 48. 1300 rendezvous over phone (S): I’ll go out, you stay in the building

Hotch looked back into the bullpen at Emily, who was putting her phone away. He looked back at his phone and began to enter in a number when his gaze drifted over to the two pictures of Jack he kept on his desk. He sighed and deleted the number he just inputted, completing yet another round of the indecisive compulsion that started ever since that meeting in the jazz bar.

~~~

“I was beginning to think you weren’t coming,” Tsia’s voice came over the phone and faintly from a few meters away. “After what happened to Jeremy, I was afraid.”

Emily sighed, shifting the newspaper in her lap. “Tsia, I’m sorry you can’t be at his funeral. It’s today, isn’t it?”

“Well, that’s the problem with marrying a member from your own team,” the other woman responded resignedly. “One of you is a target, so is the other. I get it.”

“Hello, darling,” a new voice came over the call—Emily couldn’t help but mentally sigh at the nickname from Clyde.

“Alright,” Hotch interjected. “Emily and I took a late lunch, and I’m currently reviewing a potential field case, so let’s make this quick.”

“How many times do I have to tell you?” Clyde asked rhetorically. “I’m not quick about anything.”

Emily rolled her eyes in exasperation and faint amusement, practically able to feel Hotch’s glare over the phone. “I don’t know,” she drawled. “What about that time I blew my cover in Prague? You took out that sentry before I could even draw my weapon. You saved my ass, Clyde.”

“I’m surprised you remember the little people from your Interpol days, now that you’re a posh FBI profiler,” Clyde shot back.

Hotch pointedly cleared his throat and changed the subject. “What’s being done to locate Doyle?”

“Only every agency in the northern hemisphere is looking for him.”

“What are we doing to find him?” Emily emphasized.

“My contact at DCRI tracked one of Doyle’s aliases leaving France the day after Jeremy’s murder,” Tsia reported. “He took a commercial flight to Beijing, then doubled back on a train bound for Berlin.”

“But when GSG 9 intercepted it, he was already gone,” Clyde finished.

“He sent me flowers, so I think it’s safe to assume he’s coming here,” Emily wryly added.

“Why is he doing this?” Tsia asked.

“Why do you think?” Hotch threw back. “We put him away. Hold on—” he cut himself off just as Emily’s other phone beeped.

“Duty calls?” Emily didn’t answer, feeling Clyde’s eyes on her back. “I know what you’re thinking—absolutely not,” he said firmly. “Your team isn’t under oath—”

“They could help,” she interrupted.

“How?” Tsia questioned. “We don’t even know where Doyle is. Involving them at this point would be premature.”

“Hotch?”

“Emily,” Hotch started quietly. “They’re highly capable, yes, but they don’t have clearance, and I rather doubt Strauss would be willing to help plead our case.”

“It would also be highly reckless,” Clyde interjected. “Leave it to Tsia and I, and you two stay with your team.”

“Even in hiding Doyle can’t resist extravagance,” Emily suggested, relenting to the others. “Track the money.”

“I will find him, darling. Trust me.”

Hotch scoffed at the plea request over the phone. “I don’t trust anyone, anymore,” Emily threw back, her tone conveying how both she and Hotch feel about that appeal.

~~~

>>T and C tracked V to DC. Chuck Murray.

<<Isn’t that the name of V’s dog?

>> Yep.

>>I’m playing fish food tonight. Alone.

<<Are you sure?

>>Like you said: you’re in as much danger as the rest of us are. I also happen to be his main target and he’ll kill anyone in his way. You happen to have the most to lose, and you can bet that he’s already got eyes on you.

<<Don’t worry about me, I’ve gotten that handled quite a bit ago. Location.

>>Seriously?

<<I trust you. I just want to know where to start if you don’t show up tomorrow morning.

>>Fine. Hirshhorn Museum.

<<Don’t do anything stupid.

>>Awwww, is that emotion I detect from no-smile Iceman?

<<I can neither confirm nor deny.

<<Be careful, Blackbird.

~~~

“Ian Doyle is here in DC.”

“How can you be so sure?” Clyde asked skeptically.

“I sat next to him last night,” Emily deadpanned. “He said if I warned my team or told anyone, he’d kill them.”

“Does Aaron know about this?” Tsia was incredulous. Clyde snorted, rolling his eyes.

“Of course he does, he’s the protective big brother. Why didn’t Doyle kill you, and more to the point, why didn’t you kill him?”

“He’s not working alone,” Emily answered, staring at Clyde.

Tsia tried to reassure her. “Then he’s just playing with you—”

“No, no,” Clyde interrupted, disagreeing, “he’s a power-assertive psychopath. He doesn’t play games.”

“He’s meticulous, he plans everything down to the last detail—” Emily was cut off by a voice coming from her phone.

“Yeah, that last detail being you.”

“Finally decided to join us, Aaron?” Tsia turned to Emily. “Maybe you should tell your team,” she suggested.

“No, no way,” Emily shut it down. “This isn’t their fight.”

“Emily,” Hotch said over the phone. “He’s in DC, and he’s working with others. There is a high chance that the team is going to get pulled into something, you know that.”

“But—”

“I’m not saying we tell them now, but if the team does get pulled into this, we are going to have to tell them. You need to be prepared for that.”

Emily scoffed. “Are you?”

“We stay together, we can get him,” Tsia insisted.

“We already tried,” Emily retorted. “And look where that got us.”

“Wait, wait,” Clyde broke in, looking at her imploringly. “When you went undercover, I promised no one would harm you.”

“I’m not undercover anymore.”

“DC isn’t his comfort zone, it’s ours,” Hotch’s voice was firm. “This ends here.”

~~~

“Reid, you got anything?” Morgan asked, walking up behind the genius.

“The damage is pretty extensive, but luckily some of the tattoo remains,” Reid commented, focusing largely on the sketch.

“Seaver,” Hotch turned to the probationary agent, “get the victim’s photo out to the press.”

“I think I know who dug the hole.” Garcia’s voice rang out from behind them as she approached the group with a notebook in hand. The others turned. “The journo told me to follow the money, like straight up, that’s what he told me, so I did.” She moved to face the others. “It turns out ‘The Gazette’ is owned by a multinational global conglomerate—oil, new technologies, shipping, air and ground transportation—all of which employ the services of one company,” the analyst looked up from her notebook, “CWS.”

“Clearwater Securities?” Hotch asked, hiding the foreboding feelings starting to creep upon him.

Rossi looked at him in surprise. “You know them?”

“I’ve come across them,” Hotch confirmed, not looking at Emily. “They’re a private counterintelligence group out of Geneva.”

“Ron Cosenza, Byron Delaney, Kerry Fagan all worked for CWS,” Garcia told them.

“How long ago?” Emily asked.

“Seven years.”

“Seaver, hang up,” Hotch said, hiding the days-old conflict going strong in his head as she did as ordered.

Still looking towards Hotch, Rossi asked, “Do we have a problem?”

“No, CWS does.”

“Got it,” Reid leaned back in his chair, showing everyone the sketched reconstruction of the tattoo. Hotch froze, mind overlaying an old memory over the familiar design, and glanced at Emily, who had also gone pale. They made eye contact, and Hotch nodded to her unasked question.

As she slipped out of the bullpen, he turned to the others. “SCIF,” he ordered, bringing out his phone and scrolling through his contacts.

~~~

>>Are we…?

<<If V doesn’t already, he will know soon. There’s no reason not to tell them.

>>But like you said, they don’t have clearance.

<<Discuss this after the corporate roadblocks, see what the team needs to know and what they can know.

~~~

“Exactly why did you bring us here?” a portly man asked as the team walked into the SCIF. “And why is the BAU interested in CWS?”

Hotch handed the men at the end of the table a few folders as Morgan threw the first question. “Why did you pull that story?”

The men gave him a critical look before flipping open the folders to see pictures of the victims and crime scenes.

“That’s how you remember them,” Hotch indicated the headshots, then the crime scene photos. “And that is how they are now.”

“You warned your friend, Byron Delaney,” Morgan stated. “You knew him the longest. It’s too bad you were too late.”

The man looked back impassionately. “If you’re looking for reactions, this is our business.”

“Business?” Rossi questioned the wording.

“Ugly as that sounds,” the man amended diplomatically.

“Kerry Fagan, Ron Cosenza, and Byron Delaney, they all worked for CWS,” Morgan pointed out.

“As do forty thousand other subcontractors do all over the world.”

“So they were subcontracted to you.”

“If you’re looking for answers, take it up with the main contractor,” the man avoided the question.

“And that would be… ?” Rossi asked.

“Your government.”

“Whoever is killing these families holds your company responsible, not the government,” Hotch informed them shortly.

“We run operations from the Middle east to Antarctica,” the man said, “going over them all will take months.”

“So you’ve already started investigations?” The man didn’t answer, but his silence spoke volumes.

“That’s why you pulled the story,” Rossi concluded.

One of the others leaned in, whispering something in the man’s ear. He nodded and turned to the team. “The cases these people were involved in are protected by a multinational official secrets agreement. Even if I wanted to I—”

“These people were killed on US soil,” Morgan interrupted,” by trained suspects who fired on federal agents.”

“As a courtesy,” Hotch said when there was no response, “and out of respect for the predicament your company now faces, everything in this room is off the record. However, outside this room, if you withhold information about the case, you and your company will be held fully accountable.”

The men shifted, uncomfortable, when the spokesperson finally relented. “Alright, what do you know?”

“We’re looking for a European team with considerable training,” Hotch chose his words carefully. “And for one of them, it’s personal.”

“Why do you think that?”

“Because they could have spared the child, but they chose not to,” Morgan said.

“The killing of Samuel Cosenza by one of the team was personal,” Hotch agreed.

“One of the attacks shot last night had the remains of a tattoo on his wrist,” Rossi informed them as Hotch passed over another folder.

“On the surface the tattoo may look like a simple four-leaf clover,” Morgan described, “but the stem has a ‘V’ at the end. We believe this is associated with a hidden sect of fallen warriors. It’s also the name of a ship famous for its journeys from Dublin to America, the ‘Valhalla.’”

Rossi eyed the looks on the men’s faces. “Have you seen that before?” he asked.

“We ran an operation to capture the leader of a breakaway IRA faction years ago,” the man said. “He assumed that moniker.”

“What’s his name?” Hotch asked, already knowing the answer. The man was silent for a moment.

“Ian Doyle.”

~~~

“Okay, Ian Doyle’s officially on everyone’s list,” Garcia said, eyes skimming over her computer screen. “His mug is all over the place. He’s not going to be able to get out of the district unless he sprouts wings himself.”

“It’s not that I’m not happy that we have his name,” Seaver interjected, “but how are we supposed to know who’s on his list?”

“We study his life and every single person he’s ever come in contact with,” Morgan answered.

“Look, Doyle’s been away for seven years,” Emily said as Hotch and Rossi entered the room. “But he still managed to figure out who the players were, maybe we should start with how he got out of prison,” she suggested.

“Well, where was he locked up?” Morgan asked.

“Russia, I think.”

“Actually, there are no extradition papers on him,” Seaver informed them.

“Was Doyle on your radar when you were at Interpol?” Hotch’s gaze locked onto Emily’s, putting the ball that had been passed between them over the past week in her court.

“Uh, sure, I had heard of him, but direct contact?” she shook her head. “I’d have to ask around.”

“You do that, I’ll see who I can get from my end,” Hotch said to the others’ surprise as she nodded and walked out. “Not now,” he said to the team, sensing their questions and pulling out his phone.

“Good guys and bad keep files close to them,” Rossi brought their focus back.

“What are in these files?” Garcia asked.

“It’s intel. Insurance. Protection, for times like this,” he explained.

“Maybe I should go to Byron Delaney’s house and see what I can find,” Morgan suggested.

Hotch looked up from his texting at him. “Take Prentiss with you, she might have some insight.”

~~~

“The more players we get on this board, the sooner Erin will get her nose into it,” Rossi remarked.

Hotch didn’t look away from the photos they had pinned on the board. “Strauss already knows,” he said absentmindedly.

“I’m surprised she wasn’t in the SCIF,” Rossi said, surprised.

Hotch finally glanced at him. “She’s on vacation.”

“Oh, great. Now she’ll never take another one,” Rossi quipped. “You know people in Interpol?” he asked.

“Taskforce, joined late 2001 and returned half a year after Morgan joined the team. Did a bit of everything,” Hotch gave him a sardonic look. “Apparently, being a former prosecutor, former tactical agent, and now a profiler was highly desirable.”

Rossi snorted, momentarily giving away to amusement before sobering up. “Is everything about this guy classified?” he asked, staring at the messy case.

“Somebody knows him,” Hotch said. “We just haven’t found them yet.”

~~~

“Here’s the million-dollar question,” Garcia said, pulling up a close up of a foreign road sign. “Anyone know what language that is?”

“Those are villages in North Korea,” Prentiss said warily.

Garcia tilted her head. “I love you. Of course she does.”

“There’s a political prison near Haengyong-ni,” Prentiss continued.

“Camp 22, kwan-li-so,” Hotch said in recognition. “North Korea denies it exists.”

The others stared at him incredulously. “How—?” Morgan began.

“Two years,” Hotch explained shortly. “Met Emily a few times, heard Doyle’s name being tossed around. You think they took Doyle there?” he looked at the woman.

“That would explain why he’s after them,” Seaver suggested.

“Even his prison is off the grid,” Garcia threw in.

“All we know is that he was never married, had multiple residences, and was arrested at his Tuscan villa,” Seaver continued.

“There’s paperwork to back that up?” Emily asked.

“Ans a list of who was there that day,” Seaver confirmed, nodding. “There may be photographs, Reid’s looking into that now.”

“Right, so those people need to be warned that he’s on the warpath,” Hotch noted Emily’s deliberate calm belied by a nervous swallow.

“They have been,” Seaver said. “But here’s a whole different life he’s led, one that isn’t in any file.”

“Prentiss, did you hear from your European associates?” Hotch asked, checking if she had anything, himself having not gotten anything from them as of yet.

“I’m waiting for them to send me a document.”

“We need it now.” call them, now. How did he get to North Korea?

~~~

>>Told T to get out. C isn’t telling us everything.

<<And you trust me and T?

>>Known you since what, ‘89? And we’ve seen each other on the daily for the past five years now, Iceman.

>>Honestly, I don’t know about T or C, no idea what they’ve been up to.

<<Corelli’s?

<<If you want to keep hiding this you need to be more discreet, overheard you walking to my office.

<<Tell me later.

~~~

“What’s holding us up?” Rossi asked.

“We’re waiting for somebody from DC Metro Police,” Hotch said. “Then we can start.”

“Who’s got updates on roadblocks?”

“They will. All parkways and interstates in DC, Maryland, and Virginia have station checkpoints.”

“Doyle has the means to get in and out of the country,” Emily pointed out. “What makes you think he won’t get out of the District?”

Hotch blew out a breath, glancing at Emily and then at the numerous agency reps standing around in the bullpen. “It’s the best we’ve got right now.”

The door opened to reveal Morgan on the other side. “Metro got held up. Double homicide on K and 9th,” he reported. “They want me to take a look.”

An icy feeling trickled down Hotch’s spine when he realized what the location was. “Doyle?” he asked, not looking at Emily.

“Vic’s apartment looks like a black market forger,” Morgan said.

“The other victim?” Emily asked.

“A woman, thirties, no ID, outside his door.”

“I’m coming with you,” her tone brooked no argument.

“Go,” Hotch urged the two, who left as he picked up the landline.

~~~

“It’s not often that we know a subject’s name, and in this case, knowing Ian Doyle’s identity doesn’t give us very much,” Hotch said, standing in front of a room full of members of numerous letter agencies. “He’s known to a select few, and those who know him well either work beside him or they’re on his list.”

“Two or three of his victims worked for CWS and were responsible for his transport to North Korea,” he said, noting Emily and Morgan’s return to the office. “There were seven opeartives on the mission altogether, and the remaining five have been warned. All the federal and international agents responsible for tracking him down are now on his list of targets.”

“We’ll find Doyle the way we find any other offender—by studying his behavior. We’ll dissect his every move since he regained his freedom. When he escaped from North Korea, he killed a man and he used his vehicle to cross the border into Russia…”

[marvels-agents100]

waltz (part 3)

pairing: bucky x fem ! reader

word count: 5709

trigger warnings: none

author’s note: so, it’s obvious the plot isn’t my own, and this part is very movie heavy (aka not much insert of the reader), but i promise it’ll get better as i’m able to add extra scenes! thank you for reading anyways!

It wasn't a shock to you when a full police escort guided the armored vehicles to Berlin. The Joint Counter Terrorist Centre didn't take any chances with security, not only securing everyone within protected vehicles, but having a long trail of police cars on each end of the transport. You knew it was completely overdramatic, but you knew who Bucky was now. Of course, most only saw him for what he was for the past seventy years, not who he had become since the fall of HYDRA.

You sat next to Sam, Steve on his other side and the man who you now knew as T'Challa in front of you. You kept your gaze out the window, trying to ignore the pain in your side while actively avoiding any confrontation with Steve. At that point, you weren't sure how he would ever forgive you for hiding Bucky, and you were even more unsure of wether you deserved his forgiveness. If the worry you felt in that moment for Bucky was only a fraction of what he felt all those years searching, then you couldn't even imagine the pain he had been going through. You knew that if you were in his position, you wouldn't forgive yourself.

"So you like cats?" Sam broke the silence.

"Sam." Steve scolded.

"What? Dude shows up dressed like a cat, you don't wanna know more?" There was a slight bitterness to his words- he was clearly holding a grudge.

There was a pause before Steve spoke.

"Your suit, it's vibranium?

"The Black Panther has been the protector of Wakanda for generations," T'Challa spoke, "A mantle, passed from warrior to warrior. And now, because your friend murdered my father," your  eyes snapped to him at his words, "I also wear the mantle of king. So I ask you, as both warrior and king, how long do you think you can keep your friend safe from me?"

His voice held a venom that made your blood boil. You were half tempted to scream at him, shouting that Bucky was with you, in Bucharest, the entire time. You wanted to take T'Challa by the shoulders and prove to him how wrong he was, a complete disregard of his feelings in your actions.

But, you didn't. And you wouldn't. Because at the end of the day, T'Challa acted in a way you could imagine yourself reacting to the situation as he saw it. This man had lost his father, watched him die when it was not yet his time. Not only did he have the weight of a new loss on his shoulders, but he also had to walk into a role where he protected a whole group of people, how large you weren't sure, but you assumed that responsibility didn't come without stress.

Your heart broke for T'Challa, not being able to imagine the pain he had suffered in such a short period of time. In fact, all of the people that surrounded you- Avenger or not- suffered from pain in their own way, and while it is so much easier to act upon pain, you have to be able to step back and provide understanding for rash decisions and impulsive action.

Trauma is one hell of a drug.

Maybe that's why you hid Bucky away without second thought. You had to give him room to feel his pain, so he didn't act out as a result of unprocessed trauma. You only hoped that Steve could see that as well, eventually.

The Joint Counter Terrorist Centre was a modern yet industrial building. In closest comparison, you would say it looked like a Stark-made building, but everyone had been following in Tony's design standards for years, so that wasn't anything new. You exited the van you were transported in behind Steve, your eyes immediately catching the glass cage Bucky was being moved in. It looked like a tank, like he was a caged animal, a spectacle to see. It made you cringe visibly, your lips pulling into a grimace. Steve followed your line of sight, his eyes softening for the first time since he hopped into the passenger side of the car you stole on that Romanian highway, his Captain exterior crumbling instantly when he saw his oldest friend.

Bucky seemed calm. Pissed, hurt, and overall unhappy, but calm. He kept his eyes on the ground in front of him, trying to avoid any eye contact with either you or Steve. He had learned how to keep his emotions in check through training as a soldier, but he wasn't sure if he would be able to keep it together if he saw either of you. The game completely changed when it came to the people he cared for.

You- in some way that even he couldn't explain- had been able to break down Bucky's walls and see the person he hid underneath. He had allowed himself to be fully expressed around you, wether it was a full, beaming smile while he laughed, or the way he let himself feel refreshed as the voice of Billy Eckstine filled your apartment, or when he would try to apologize to you a thousand times in a single glance while also fighting off GSG 9 units. It was the small things, the micro expressions and whispered confessions that his former self, his darker self, would've forbidden. Somehow, someway, he had no problem exposing those hidden parts of himself to you. So, he kept his eyes forward, refusing to give his captors any inkling of what was going on inside his head. He was so tired of people picking his brain; he'd had enough of that for a lifetime.

You ripped your gaze away from Bucky, following Steve as he approached the five people waiting for the five of you to arrive. You recognized the three men standing in the background as soldiers, there for protection. To the left was a small-framed blonde woman you knew as Sharron Carter- someone you had grown to know when SHEILD initially collapsed. Apparently, she had been reassigned here with her job in the CIA while you were hunting for a former assassin. The man standing next to her, although short in stature, held a confidence and slightly threatening nature to him, and you immediately knew that he was in charge in this facility.

"What's going to happen to him?" Steve asked flatly as you reached them.

"Same thing that ought to happen to you. Psychological evaluation and extradition." The man spoke, no fear or wavering in his voice.

"This is Everett Ross, Deputy Task Force Commander." Sharron introduced. Your eyebrow raised at him, a sneaking feeling in your gut making you believe that you shouldn't trust him. It wasn't something you could explain, but the way your stomach dropped when he began talking was a clear indication from your intuition that he wasn't on your side.

"What about a lawyer?" Steve asked, to which you had to hold back your scoff. It was a bold question, seeing as to how many laws were broken within the past day. Lawyers were completely out of the question at that point.

"Lawyer. That's funny." Everett spoke with a sarcastic grin. "See to it their weapons are placed in lockup." He spoke to Sharron without looking at her. "We'll write you a receipt."

"I better not look out the window and see anybody flying around in that." Sam threatened.

"Yeah, handle carefully, mine's borrowed property." You chimed in, "Also, you might not know me, (Y/N) (Y/L/N), former SHEILD agent," Everett looked straight at you as you introduced yourself, a sarcastic and slightly venomous air to your words, "if it wouldn't, you know, be too much of a bother, I am in a significant amount of pain, having fought alongside what was mostly super soldiers only hours ago, and would like to see any kind of medical professional before I bleed out internally, thanks." You smile sweetly, almost enjoying the way Everett's eyes narrowed at you. Sharron fought a smirk, finding herself missing the way you always fought for the best treatment of you and everybody else, no matter what the consequence was. It was a trait you shared with Steve, and it definitely made the bond between the Captain and yourself stronger.

"Can we get someone upstairs, to look her over while they meet." Everett spoke to one of the soldiers, who relayed the message into their walkie-talkies. He looked back to you with a slightly annoyed look, then turned and began walking towards the elevator, you, Steve, Sam, and T'Challa in tow. Steve glanced over his shoulder at Bucky, and you followed his line of sight to see Bucky was looking back, his eyes flickering to you. It was only a second, but his once emotionless face looked so helpless, his eyes turning sad and his lips curving downwards. It made you take in a deep breath, giving him a small nod and the best reassuring smile you could manage. He returned the gesture before leaning his head back, a large, steel door closing in front of him.

It was always those small, unspoken looks that made you see Bucky as he truly was. He wasn't incredibly flashy in his personality, not in the way Steve said he was back in Brooklyn. He was reserved and quiet, but opened up as you grew to know him. Most of his communication was done through small smiles, emotion filled glances, or the occasional soft touch. It took someone with perception to see into the mind of Bucky Barnes, and you were the perfect person to do the job. There was so much pressure on him to be better, to be a normal person, that it was almost suffocating. He felt only a fraction of normalcy in Romania, something he didn't know if he'd ever get back. But you, your way of knowing what he felt before he even knew what he was feeling- it was something that shocked him every day. When he was with you, there was no pressure to be the person someone had assumed he would be. People always thought they knew who he was before meeting him- wether they expect someone cold and murderous, or even if they expect their long-lost best friend, full of wit and charm.

It was a fact that ate at his heart, especially now that he sat within the mess that he had created. His existence had driven Steve Rogers, someone who held high regard in the world he was thrown into, to break numerous laws and risk his life to save Bucky Barnes. And at the end of it all, the person he sought out to save didn't exist anymore. Bucky Barnes now was not the same Bucky Barnes that existed in 1943. He wasn't charming and funny anymore, he could barely remember any inside jokes he shared with his life long friend, and he didn't hold the same confidence. Steve risked everything to save a ghost, and he was terrified of what would happen when the Captain finally realized that.

***

"You 'll be provided with an office instead of a cell." Everett explained while leading your small group down a stark white hallway, "Now, do me a favor, stay in it?"

"I don't intend on going anywhere." T'Challa spoke.

Natasha walked up the opposite end of the hall to meet Steve, a serious look in her eyes.

"For the record, this is what making things worse looks like." She spoke. What exactly had you missed during your time in Bucharest?

"He's alive." Steve ignored her taunting. "That's all I've been searching for." His eyes flickered to you, his voice hard. It sent a wave of guilt over your body, your muscles visibly tensing at his subtle jab. Natahsa looked you up and down with observant eyes, picking up on the tension between you and Steve.

You entered a conference room, screens with security and news footage lining the walls. You had to hold in your happiness when you saw Tony there, resisting the urge to run up and hug one of your closest friends.

"No, Romania was not Accords-sanctioned." He spoke on the phone. Accords? What Accords? "Colonel Rhodes is supervising cleanup." That made you cringe internally, thinking of the crumbled overpass that Bucky had exploded. You were shuffled to the side of the room by Nat, her seating you in a chair as what looked to be a doctor walked towards you.

"Try not to break anything while we fix this." She told Sam and Steve, not even looking over her shoulder to address them.

Tony turned and glared at Steve, his phone still at his ear. "Consequences, of course there will be consequences. Obviously you can quote me on that, because I just said it. Anything else? Thank you sir." And he hung up, stepping towards Sam and Steve. The doctor pressed antiseptic to your shoulder while you looked up at the three men, seated just to Sam's right.

"Consequences?" Steve asked.

"Secretary Ross wants you both prosecuted." Tony explained, "Had to give him something."

"Prosecuted? Secretary Ross? I'm sorry, what in the actual hell is going on?" You asked, unable to hold your words any longer. You tried to keep yourself out of the arguments the best you could, but if there was any hope on getting Bucky released, you had to understand why Captain America was now an accomplice to crime as well.

"Well, kid," Tony began, hands finding his pockets as he took another step towards you, "while you were having your vacation in Romania with Private Ryan on Ice, the rest of us had some messes to own up to." His gaze flickered to Steve before he continued, "The Sokovia Accords. After our run-in with Ultron, which I'm sure you know all about, the government realized how we need to be put in check."

"They tried to make us sign a paper so they could dictate wether or not we had a chance to fight." Steve interjected, his arms crossing over his chest. "They get to decide where we go, when we go. Anything out of their permission makes us criminals." His eyes met yours. "What was the word they used? Oh, yeah. Vigilantes." His gaze moved to Tony, an obvious annoyance in his features.

"The amount of innocent lives lost due to our 'Avenging' is what they're trying to control. We were trying to keep our list to New York, Sokovia, DC, and Lagos. I guess now we can add Bucharest, huh?" Tony argued, breaking the staring contest with Steve to look at you. "We were given free reign, and we failed. Now's the time for us to recognize that." Tony didn't give you or Steve any time to comment, turning around and falling in stride with Natahsa.

You looked at the floor, a furrow in your brows. It was a lot to take in, from the Accords to the obvious tear it was creating amongst the Earth's Mightiest Heroes. It made sense, the Accords, but only in a perfect world. Trusting the government with full control over people as powerful as the Avengers was a scenario you couldn't see ending well. Politicians weren't people you put full trust into, no matter who they were. Also, you had a hard time siding with the same government and intelligence agencies who decided that sending a nuclear missile to Manhattan in 2012 was the way to end the fight with the Chitauri. Plus, the infiltration of HYDRA within SHIELD made it hard to trust anyone in positions of power. You understood why Tony signed, and you didn't think it was the wrong decision, but you didn't think it was the right decision either. If it were you with the pen in your hand, you wouldn't sign. And you knew exactly why Steve didn't sign.

Telling that man to walk away from a fight was about as useful as telling a pig to fly.

You thanked the doctor as he finished bandaging your shoulder, taking the painkillers he handed to you for your- thankfully- only bruised ribs. You stood as he walked away, finding your place next to Sam.

"I'm not getting that shield back, am I?" Steve asked.

"Technically, it's the government's property." Nat answered.

"As before mentioned, gun was borrowed and I assume it was treasured, so I'm gonna need you to tell the government to shove it." You told Nat, causing a smirk to inch its way onto her face.

"Sorry, pistol's locked away." Her eyes moved to Sam, "Wings, too."

"That's cold." Sam muttered.

"Warmer than jail." Tony piped in over his shoulder.

***

You sat at a large table in the middle of the room, glass panes surrounding it to form a small conference room. Your hands flipped a pen you had found between them, your knee bouncing as you thoughts mulled over everything you had learned in the past hour. Steve stood looking out the window, his hands in his pockets and eyes fixed to the screen that displayed where Bucky was being kept. You were actively trying to avoid looking at that particular monitor.

"I'm sorry I hurt you, Steve." You broke the silence. He kept his back toward you, but his head fell, indicating that he heard you.

"Are you?"

His words felt like a dagger to your heart. He felt beyond betrayed, first with Tony and Nat siding with the government over him, then to find out one of the only people he saw as a true friend, (besides Sam), had been lying to him for months. Not just a small lie, but a lie about the one thing, the one person, that has occupied his mind for years.

"I'm sorry it had to be this way." You said truthfully, "I did what I thought was best for him, and I hope you can see that. If not now, then eventually." He let out a sigh, shoulders slumping. In a way, he knew why you did what you did. But, he couldn't fight his anger and disappointment either. It was truly a problem, it seemed, that only time would heal.

He opened his mouth to say something more, when Tony entered the room, gaining Steve's attention.

"Hey, you wanna see something cool?" Tony asked. "I pulled something from Dad's archives."  A thin, rectangular box was held in his hand, black velvet surrounding the outside of it. Steve sat in one on the chairs as Tony strolled closer, "Felt timely." He added.

Tony paused a moment, giving Steve a look with a small sadness in his eyes. "FDR signed the Lend-Lease bill with these in 1941." He placed the box, now open, in front of Steve, two black fountain pens with shiny, gold tips placed delicately inside. "Provided support to the Allies when they needed it most," Tony continued.

"Some would say it brought our country closer to war." Steve replied, his voice taking a certain melancholy tone at the mention of the Second World War. It felt like moments ago, he was battling Nazis in France, but in all reality, his life as a World War 2 soldier ended decades ago.

"See? If not for these, you wouldn't be here." Tony said matter-of-factly, the light insult making you cringe slightly from the other end of the table. "I'm trying to... what do you call it?" Tony sat beside Steve, "That's an olive branch. Is that what you call it?" His hand came up to rest on his chin, his elbow leaning against the table.

"Is Pepper here? I didn't see her." Steve asked, turning away while changing the subject.

"We're kinda.." Tony hesitated, "Well, not kinda-"

"Pregnant?" There was an unmistakable hopefulness to Steve.

"No, definitely not." Tony scoffed, "We're taking a break. It's nobody's fault."

Steve's gaze fell, focusing on the ground. "I'm so sorry, Tony. I didn't know."

"A few years ago, I almost lost her, so I trashed all my suits." Tony began, "Then, we had to mop up HYDRA, and then Ultron. My fault." He pointed to his chest, "And then, and then, and then, I never stopped. Because, the truth is, I don't wanna stop. I don't wanna lose her. I thought maybe the Accords could split the difference."

Tony leaned back in his chair, a moment's silence falling over the room.

"In her defense, I'm a handful." He added as he stood, hands settling in his pockets. "Yet, Dad was a pain in the ass, but he and mom always made it work."

"You know, I'm glad Howard got married." Steve piped up. "I only knew him when he was young and single."

"Oh really? You two knew each other?" Tony drawled out sarcastically, "He never mentioned that. Maybe only a thousand times. God, I hated you."

You closed your eyes, feeling like you shouldn't be hearing this conversation. The tension was so thick in the air, it felt almost hard to breathe.

Steve looked up at Tony, voice a bit softer, "I don't mean to make things difficult."

"I know, cause you're a very polite person." Tony mused, slipping his suit jacket on.

"If I see a situation pointed South," Steve reasoned, "I can't ignore it. Sometimes I wish I could."

"No, you don't."

Steve let out a sad chuckle, looking down again, "No, I don't," and his eyes were back to Tony, the faintest grin on his face. "Sometimes-"

"Sometimes I wanna punch you in your perfect teeth."

Your gaze popped up at Tony's remark, muscles ceasing all movement as you watched them carefully. You were now in defense mode, ready to jump up and break up a fight if needed.

"But I don't wanna see you gone." Tony sighed, "We need you, Cap."

Another silence.

"So far, nothing's happened that can't be undone, if you sign." He gestured to the pens in the velvet box, and edge of desperation in his words. "We can make the last twenty four hours legit. Barnes gets transferred to an American psych-center instead of a Wakandan prison."

Your fist clenched around the pen in your hand, nearly snapping it in half. If Tony trying to persuade Steve to sign the Accords didn't get on your nerves already, he spoke about Bucky like was an object to be passed around, not someone who had lived peacefully among other human beings for months in Romania. No one seemed to want to acknowledge that.

Steve picked up one of the pens from the box, standing and walking towards the glass pane opposite Tony, turning the pen over in his hands. He turned to look at Tony, then dropping his gaze.

"I'm not saying it's impossible," Steve began, "but there would have to be safeguards."

"Sure." Tony replied immediately, "Once we put out the PR fire, those documents can be amended. I'd file a motion to have you and Wanda reinstated-"

"Wanda? What about Wanda?" Steve interrupted.

"She's fine. She's confined to the compound, currently. Vision's keeping her company."

Steve's disgust was evident. "Oh, God. Tony." He walked a few paces away, "Everyt- Every time I think you see things the right way-"

"It's 100 acres with a lap pool, it's got a screening room, there's worse ways to protect people."

"Protection?" Steve challenged, one hand finding his hip and the other resting on the back of a chair. "Is that how you see this? This is protection? Its internment, Tony."

"She's not a US citizen." His voice raised.

"Oh, come on, Tony."

"And they don't grant visas to weapons of mass destruction."

"She's a kid!"

"Give me a break!" Tony yelled. "I'm doing what has to be done. To stave off something worse."

Steve nodded, just a small motion that you could've missed if you weren't paying attention.

"You keep telling yourself that."

Steve dropped the fountain pen on the table, "Hate to break up the set." And he left the room.

Tony put on his aviators, his eyes downcast.

"Neither of you are wrong." You said softly, understanding eyes looking to Tony across the table.

"I know, I know." He said dismissively, "That's the worst part."

"When all of this is done, no matter what happens," you stood and walked towards him, "you have to remember why you were all put together in the first place."

Tony stayed silent, his gaze following you. You reached for the pens, delicately putting the one Steve held back in it's place within the velvet box.

"It is so hard to find people to trust in this world," you began, "don't let them go so easily."

He gave you a small nod of acknowledgement, to which you gave a soft smile.

"How'd you get tangled in all of this, kid?" He asked, more to himself than you, "This all isn't going to end without a fight."

Your eyes found the monitor with Bucky on it, your heart swelling at the memory of your times in Bucharest. "You know all of the deep, dark thoughts I told you about?"

"Every one."

"Well," you sighed, tearing your gaze away from Bucky, "I didn't think it was possible, but I found happiness."

Tony's eyes moved to Bucky, a disappointed frown pulling at his lips.

"I hope it isn't temporary." He says sincerely.

Lowering your eyes, you gave his shoulder a reassuring squeeze before leaving the room, following Steve.

Your sole purpose in this fight wasn't within the Accords, or even in the wellbeing of the Avengers. It was in a single man- James Buchanan Barnes. If agreeing with Steve on the issue of the Accords would help bring Bucky to safety once more, then to hell with the government.

***

You sat by Sam in the conference room once again, Steve taking his place by the glass wall to watch Bucky, Sharron placing a paper in Sam's hand.

"The receipt for your gear." She explained.

"'Bird costume'? Come on," Sam complained.

"I didn't write it." She defended. She looked around, earning a suspicious look from you, before reaching towards a button pad in the middle of the table, clicking the center. The surveillance footage on Bucky came upon the screen within the conference room, the voice of the therapist hired by the centre seeping through the speakers.

"I'm not here to judge you." He spoke with a strong Russian accent.

Steve looked back at Sharron, a small nod being sent his direction. You immediately sat straighter, your blood running cold when you saw Bucky, still confined in the glass tank. You wanted nothing more than to hold his hand and tell him that you would figure everything out, that the normal and happy life he had created wasn't out of reach. You wished you could hold him close while he hummed a song that danced on the edges of his memory, his hand planted firmly on your back and his cheek pressed against yours. All he deserved was warm, soft moments for the rest of his life, and yet he was sitting in a cold, hard cell.

"I just want to ask you a few questions." The therapist continued. "Do you know where you are, James? I can't help you if you don't talk to me, James."

"My name is Bucky."

His voice was so soft, so hurt. You felt everything inside you shatter, a sad sigh leaving your lips. A day ago, he had everything. He was adjusting to life in Bucharest, living day to day with the added bonus of a beautiful girl to share it with. In all honesty, he didn't know what his life in Romania could've looked like with you, but the daydreams he imagined always were heavenly. He would dream about the domestic moments, the moments that are so overlooked in the name of routine, the moments no one ever cherishes because they were never ripped from their grasp. Moments like seeing you smile as he approached the table at the bakery. Watching you rummage through the refrigerator for a quick snack. Watching you work on your laptop, your bottom lip curling between your teeth if you concentrated enough. It was the little moments he would dream about, and they always included you.

Apparently, even that was too much to ask for.

Steve looked to the pictures taken of his friend in Vienna again before setting them back down on the table.

"Why would the Task Force release this photo to begin with?" He asked.

"Get the word out, involve as many eyes as we can?" Sharron answered.

"Right. It's a good way to flush a guy out of hiding." You didn't miss the way his gaze flickered to you momentarily. "Set off a bomb, get your picture taken. Get seven billion people looking for the Winter Soldier."

"You're saying someone framed him to find him?" Sharron questioned.

"He never left Bucharest." You chimed in. All eyes turned to you, Sharron looking the most surprised.

"What?" She asked.

"I've been with Bucky for a little over two months, in Romania. He hasn't left since he arrived there." You leaned back in your seat, letting out a breath, "I know any court of law won't just take my word for it, but I can promise you that Steve is right. Someone wanted to get him out of hiding, and made sure they did something big enough to get the whole world looking."

"Okay," She began, processing your words, "But, that doesn't guarantee that whoever framed him would get him. It guarantees that we would."

There was a moment, just a moment, where her words hung in the air. Then the realization began to sink in, your stomach dropping as soon as it clicked together in your brain.

"Yeah." Steve agreed, his stare on the therapist in the same room as Bucky.

"Tell me Bucky, you've seen great deal, haven't you?"

"I don't wanna talk about it."

"You fear that if you open your mouth, the horrors might never stop. Don't worry. We only have to talk about one."

Suddenly, all of the lights in the building turned dark, the small emergency lights barely illuminating the room. You stood quickly, panic filling your veins. Steve turned towards Sharron.

"Sub-level five, East Wing." She said, her voice lightly shaking. You, Sam, and Steve began running, hoping to reach Bucky before it was too late.

***

You turned the corner behind the two boys, noticing the security guard laying unconscious on the floor. The three of you carefully tread forward, the next room reveling several more bodies.

"Help me." A raspy voice called. Steve stood and ran towards it while you knelt by one of the guards, checking for a pulse.

Steve walked towards the 'therapist'. "Get up." He ordered. He yanked the imposter off the ground, slamming him against one of the concrete walls. "Who are you? What do you want?"

"To see an empire fall."

Sam entered the room, you only a couple steps behind him. He immediately dodged down, a metal fist swinging for his head. You jumped back, stumbling over one on the unconscious guards' legs. In an instant, Sam was being thrown across the room, hitting the glass cage and the ground with two loud thuds. You pulled yourself behind a desk, knowing you wouldn’t beat Bucky in a fight on your best day, and watched with horror as Bucky fought Steve, each punch moving him backwards further and further. They reached the elevator, Bucky punching Steve with so much force that it ripped the metal doors away and sent him tumbling down the elevator shaft.

Although you had no chance against the super soldier and highly skilled assassin Bucky was, you ran from your hiding spot, following Bucky as he walked away from the elevator.

"Hey!" You shouted, stopping him in his tracks. He turned slowly, his eyes void of emotion as they looked at you. "Where do you think you're going?" You taunted.

He ran at a full sprint towards you, a yell leaving his throat. You stood your ground, nostrils flaring as you prepared yourself to fight.

He swung with a left hook, making you dodge the metallic fist. Your right foot kicked at the middle of his chest, making him stumble backwards. You took the opportunity to swing your right fist at him, but he was too quick, catching your swing mid air. Eyes widening in fear, you met his gaze. His left hand shot out and wrapped around your throat, backing you against a wall as you clawed at the metal fingers with your own.

"Buc-Bucky." You choked out, his face staying monotone. "Please."

You could feel your lungs begin to burn, your head grow heavy with pressure.

"My.. destiny." Your voice was strained, but you sang the words the best you could. "Is to be... in love... with you."

He blinked, a softness in the blues of his eyes for a fraction of a second before disappearing again.

"Makes.. no difference... what you say, or do."

His hand loosened the slightest bit, your voice coming out stronger as you sang softly to him.

"I must stay... in love... with you."

He began seeing flashes- an apartment with a laptop propped in the corner, playing a song that made him feel warm, content.

"That's my.. destiny."

His head shook, images of the soft sunlight peaking through the curtains flashing in his mind. He could feel your eyelashes on his cheek, he could hear your heart racing.

"It's a thing.. you can't control..."

He let out a pained grunt, dropping you to the floor in a crumpled heap. You coughed, sucking in lungfuls of air. His head twitched side to side, trying to ignore the memories fighting to get through to the forefront of his mind. You looked up at him, standing hesitantly with your hands in front of you.

"I belong to you, both heart and soul," your voice was raspy, but it kept the sweetness that Bucky adored. His eyes trained on you, his breathing heavy. You stepped towards him cautiously.

"With a love beyond control," You kept taking small steps towards him, his eyes never leaving you.

"They say nothing is sure," your hand slowly met his cheek, him flinching slightly at your touch, "even the sea runs dry." Your other hand met his other cheek, encasing his face in your hands.

"They're wrong, one thing is sure," you looked up at him, now less than a foot away from his body, "love like mine can never die."

He blinked, his breathing slowing to a normal pace. His eyes were glued to the wall to the right of your head, nostrils flaring slightly with every inhale.

"Bucky?" You asked softly. His eyes snapped to yours, the icy blue becoming soft, but freezing over just as quick.

His fists clenched at his side, and in a moment he had flung you off of him, your body hitting the wall as he continued on his rampage. The impact sent you to the floor, your side with already bruised ribs throbbing. You tried to breathe through the pain, but between the shock of it all and your hyperventilating, you eventually passed out, the world going black.

TO BE CONTINUED

TAGLIST:

@thewolfgirluniverse​

[protoindoeuropean]

I don’t like the guy in the slightest, but Črnčec has possibly the most phonologically interesting surname in the entire Slovene language ((not to mention that the č’s look orthographically scary to anyone who’s not used to Slavic in any case)).

Even in the most basic Nsg form it allows for multiple realizations of the -rn- cluster: Črnčec [ˈt͡ʃᵊɾn.t͡ʃət͡s] or [ˈt͡ʃə.ɾən.t͡ʃət͡s] (I will only write the first option from here on).

In the oblique cases, however, the stem loses the fleeting schwa, so Gsg is Črnčca [ˈt͡ʃᵊɾnt͡ʃt͡sa].

And then! the possessive – which I’d never even consider had I not witnessed it with my own two eyes while skimming the news today – usually formed from the oblique stem by appending the -ov/ev- suffix (that entails the appearance of 1st Slavic palatalization reflexes, thus -c- → -č-), would be **Črnččev creating the illegal geminate -čč- that requires the reappearance of schwa, so the form is then actually Črnčečev [ˈt͡ʃᵊɾnt͡ʃət͡ʃɛʊ̯].

/ Edit: I just checked and apparently the oblique stem in general keeps the schwa, which is IMO even weirder, so Gsg is Črnčeca [ˈt͡ʃᵊɾnt͡ʃət͡sa], but cf. the place-name Otočec [ə], Otočca.

[maggyme13]

The Last Mission (9/?)

AN: Please dont hate me after this! But this is a dark fic and i wanted to try somehing new.

There are German part in here at the end. the english translation is written right after them like this

Wordcount: around 1500

Warning: grafic description of birth, miscarriage

Masterlist

TLM- Masterlist

Part 8

Next time you woke up, you where laid on the bed, your head resting on a soft pillow. Something cold was pressed against your exposed chest and your instinctivelyd jerked away. It was a different cold than the soldier´s metal prosthetic.

An unknown male voice told you something in a stern voice you couldn´t underdstand.

“He tells you to lay back again so he can finish his check up.”, the soldier rumbled from your left. He stood a few steps away, his eyes fixed on the male stranger and muscles tense. You noticed his flesh hand was resting on the hidden blade, ready to pull it at any moment and kill the man, should he do something stupid.

Knowing the soldier would not allow anything happen to you, you did as the stranger had asked from you.

It took another few minutes for the doctor(?) to finish his check up. He then said somehting to your captor again, who nodded and handed over some money, before guiding the man out of your little appartment.

Waiting for him to say or do anything to you, you did not move from your position on the bed.

“You fainted.”, he finally told you, “I had to find a doctor after you did not wake up on your own after a while. He said to be carefull in your condition and to take it easy. He will check on you again in a few weeks to make everything is fine.”

“Okay.”, you nodded, pulling the sheets around your body to keep warm.

“Your clothes are on your left. get dressed and then sit down to eat.”

Nodding again, you pulled the offered shirt above your head and then sat down at the table- soup was served.

“What you and Barnes did was a stupid thing to do. You did not know where you were and then you left into the blue.”, his voice was angry, but stayed calm and even.

“I am sorry.”, you flinched.

“Good. Don´t do something like this again!”, he ordered staring you down to get his point across, “We will stay here. No one knows who we are and in your condition it is smarter. But you will NOT leave this appartment.”

__

It was hard for you to walk around and do your chores now..

You feet hurt, as did your back and head often times.

It was your seventh or eightth month of pregnancy and trusting the doctor, neverything was going fine.

Bucky had left you to buy some food on the little marked a few blocks away- you had suddenly started to crave plumbs- and you were trying to clean your appartment as best as you could.

You had wanted to mob it for a while now, but both Bucky and the soldier were stating it was to dangerouse. Unbeknownst to you, would they be right.

Hurried steps caught your attention and to stepped away from the door and into the far corner of the room.

Not a second later, did the door open and Captain America entered.

Fury rose in your blood.

He hadn´t notice you yet, and he wouldn´t, because a the moment his eyes would have caught your form, Bucky entered catching the man´s whole attention on himself.

Bucky´s eyes flickered to you to make sure you were alright while at the same time telling you to hide. He didn´t know who can be truste (which included himself), and unlike the soldier, who whould often touch your stomach to dfeel the child move, HE barely did- always afraid to hurt the unborn baby.

The two men started to talk , though you did not really listen; a movement outdside the covered window caught your attention and not a second later, all hell broke loose.

Explosions and smoke filled the room, blinding you for a while and making it hard to breath.

YOu wanted to get away from there, hide and wait until everything is over. But you would not be able to.

You had made it to the flat-door when she burts open again, hitting you. That caused you to loose your footing, when your foot caught the bucket with water.

“POLICE!”, someone shouted, though the only thing you registered was a sharp pain  in your abdomen when you fell onto the edge of the kitchen table; the corner embedding itself into your stomach.

Fuck

At once you curled yourself into a small ball, uncontrolably sobbing. It hurt too much and you hoped your baby was alright.

A presence appeared next to you and you could hear a slightly panicked voice of a man. Hands roamed your body on the search for secret weapons (as you later learned).

“Atlas 100 von 5-3. Wir haben eine weibliche Unbekannte. Schwanger.”, he spoke. ((”Atlas 100 for 5-3. We have an unknown female. Pregnant.”)) ”Verstanden. Negativ. ZP ist ins Treppenhaus geflüchtet. Mit dem Captain.((Understood.Negative. Target left into the stairwell with the captain.”)) Miss. Miss. German federal police. Can you understand me?”

The man tried to uncurl you, but you didn´t. Too great was your panic and pain.

“Frank hilf mir. Wir müssen sie beruhigen und auf das Bett legen und gucken obn und wo sie verletzt ist.((Frank help me. we need to calm her down and get her onto the bed so see if and where she is injured.))”, the man told another man.

“Klar. Gib mir Deckung, ich mach das. ((Sure. Cover me, I do that.))”, a new voice stated and not a few moments later you were lifted into the air, only to be placed onto the bed.

Another shout of pain left your throat upon that movement.

“I am sorry Ma´m. But- Scheiße. Atlas 100 von 5-5: wir brauchen dringend einen Arzt zu unserer Position. DIe Unbekannte hat Blut zwischen den Beinen und es wird immer mehr--positiv--negativ. Aber- verstaden. 5-5 ende. ((Fuck. Atlas 100 for 5-5. We need a medic to our position immediatelly. The unknown has blood between her legs and it gets more and more-- positiv--negativ. But- understood. 5-5 out.)). “

”Miss. I need you to lay on your back and open your legs. I need to see where all the blood is coming from.”, the first voice asked you through your sobbs.

Blood? What Blood? God no!

Shocked hearing those words, you did as the man pleaded and slowly uncurled your body. It was then that the cramps started.

“Shit.”, the second man cursed and you screamed in pain when another hit you and you felt your babies position shift down.

You had just starting to give birth.

“5-3 an alle: Weiß jemand wie man ein Kind zur Welt bringt?-Ja ich bin mir sehr sicher. Verstanden. ZP1 hat das Gebäude verlassen. Gebäude wird gesichert. ((”5-3 for everyone. Does anyone know how to give birth to a baby?- Yes I am very sure. Copy. Target 1 had left the building. Building is being secured.”)) “

You had finally found the courage to open your eyes,only to find two men dressed in black combat uniforms standing and sitting in front of you. THe one standing held his weapon in a way that made it possible for him to either shoot you or anyone coming throughh that door at a moments notice. The other one was tall and broad, his weapon laying next to him, but out of your reach. Both men had a worried glint in their eyes.

“Please.”, you sobbed not really knowing what to say or do.

The police-officers shared a look before the taller one spoke again.

“Miss. I need to strip your trousers and underwear. There is a lot of blood and we think you might have gone into labour.”

You could only nod, because another very painful cramp hit.

“Cut them off. I don´t care.”, you whined, the urge to spread your legs to ease the pain taking over. Hot shivers covered your body and sobbs left your chest. It was far too early for your little boy to see the world.

The standing man had turned his back more towards you, giving you a bit more privacy, while his comrade got rid of your clothing; only to place the covers of your bed over your legs.

You felt your inner walls stretch and your baby enter your birhting canal- but something felt wrong. Now the pain would not stop and it overtook everything.

____ ATTENTION TRIGGERING MATERIAL BENEATH THIS ____

You could not breath propperly and when you finally felt your child leave your body after a very long and painful time- nothing happened.

It was quiet. No cry or whailing of a newborn and you new your baby boy was dead. Even without having to see the looks on the faces of the men.

It was then that three more police officers (dressed like the two with you) entered with medics at their sides. At once the medics took over the situatuion, asking questions and doing their job.

You did not react. or answer. Your eyes cast on your stillborn child that was being looked over by another pair of newly arrived medics.

Everything that happened afterwards, your mind did not register. It was once big blurr.

Part 10

AN 2.0:  Sorry not sorry... So who caught my little GSG 9 easter egg? Any German readers who loved that series as much as I did?

So what do you think and do you hate me now?

Nothing is more discouraging than no feedback at all and maybe you get a quicker update … OR IS MY WRITING THAT BAD; THAT YOU HAVE TO SAVE OTHERS FROM READING IT??????

Thank you all for reading and until next time ;)

~MaggY

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[youzicha]

could the Chernobyl disaster have happened outside the Soviet Union or the communist bloc? was there anything socialist or autocratic about it? or could it have happened in any similarly-dangerous and similarly-complex engineering project?

My immediate reaction is to group the Chernobyl accident with other high-tech accidents like plane crashes, industrial fires, or radiation incidents in the west, but maybe that’s because I like to read step-by-step accident descriptions which focus on the technical aspects! It was definitely the case that Soviet nuclear power plants were much less safe than the western ones, although it’s not obvious if that is due to authoritarianism…

From an outside view, I think the various western incidents should make us less comfortable that it couldn’t have happened here.

• The radiation releases from the Fukushima accident were ten times smaller than at Chernobyl, but it still represents a failure of reactor containment. Apparently quite a lot of Cs-137 was in fact released from Fukushima (like a third of the Chernobyl release), but most of it went into the Pacific ocean rather than the atmosphere.

• The Three Mile Island accident showed that U.S. reactor operators can make mistakes too. I used to dismiss it—in the end there were no big radioactivity releases, so no big deal, right?—but after the Fukushima accident maybe we should re-evaluate it. TMI had a core meltdown and a hydrogen explosion, much like Fukushima, so I guess it could have gone badly.

• The Windscale reactor was also graphite moderated, so the 1957 Windscale fire might have developed into a miniature version of the Chernobyl accident. (The physical size of the reactors were similar—180 tonnes uranium and 2000 tonnes graphite at Windscale, versus 190 tonnes uranium and 1700 tonnes graphite at Chernobyl 4—but the Chernobyl burnup was 10.9 MW-d/kg while a typical value for making weapons plutonium is 0.5 MW-d/kg, so the Chernobyl reactor contained 20 times more radioactivity.)

At Chernobyl the core was scattered and caught fire, and then over the course of a few days almost all the graphite burned and the radioactive material was dispersed in the smoke. At Windscale, the graphite caught fire inside the reactor and there were no plans for how to extinguish it. According to the post-accident report,

[After the fire had been going on for about a day] the use of water was first considered. Two hazards had to be examined: first the danger of a hydrogen-oxygen explosion which would blow out the filters, second a possible criticality hazard due to the replacement of air by water. The Management were informed, however, of the danger of releasing high temperature Wigner energy if the graphite temperatures were to rise much higher than 1200°C. It was thought that this might well ignite the whole pile.

Happily the water worked well and the fire was put out before it spread to the rest of the core, but the filters in the air stack basically did nothing, so a large fire would have created a major radiological disaster.

Chernobyl was much bigger than all western accidents, but to me it feels like an extreme point on a spectrum.

If we take an inside view, the Chernobyl accident happened because of a combination of operator error and poor design, and we could try to trace either of these to Soviet authoritarianism.

As for the operator errors, there were three fateful decisions. First, the Chernobyl chief engineer Nikolai Fomin approved the plan for the turbine draw-down experiment, classifying it as an “electrical” experiment which could be signed off locally. In hindsight, because the experiment involved manipulating the power level of the reactor and the flow-rate of the cooling loop, it affected the dynamics of the reactor and should have been referred to physicists at Scientific Research Institute of Power Engineering (NIKIET) and the Committee for the Supervision of Nuclear Power Safety (Gosatomenergonadzor) for analysis and approval. It’s unclear if that would have changed matters, because the experiment would have been safe if executed according to the plan, but the physicists could perhaps have drawn attention to the safety aspects. As it were, the Chernobyl staff were quite complacent—perhaps because they had already tried it several times before, making various adjustments to the turbine control logic each time. On the day of the accident they seem to have treated it as a routine matter, and Fomin did not even notify plant director Brukhanov.

Maybe you can see the Soviet penchant for centralization here. I don’t know how it works in America, but Swedish nuclear power stations employ staff physicists who carry out calculations about how the plant will respond to various abnormal scenarios. That seems like it may be helpful for ensuring that the operating staff has easy access to physics expertise, compared to the Soviet system where those calculations where done far off in another city, and under a separate bureaucracy (NIKIET was under the Ministry of Medium-sized Machinery, while the reactor staff was employed by the Ministry of Energy).

Then in the reactor control room, deputy chief engineer Anatoly Dyatlov gave two crucial bad orders. First, he had the operators deviate from the plan and start the experiment from a 200 MW power level instead of 700 MW. It’s unclear why he would do that—at the trial it was suggested that he might have thought a lower level would be safer, although it actually made the reactor dangerously unstable. Then, when the reactor was inadvertently shut down, he insisted that the operators violate regulations and start it up again, which created the conditions for the explosion. Interestingly, Dyatlov’s position was administrative, outside the operational chain of command, so formally he had no authority to give orders to the operators on duty, but he still expected to be obeyed and threatened to have them fired if they didn’t comply.

The Chernobyl tv-series tries to sell this as part of Soviet authoritarianism too—they insert a fictional scene where plant director Brukhanov pressures Dyatlov to complete the test so that Brukhanov can get a promotion—but that still would not explain the 200MW order. Perhaps some of the blame should go to Dyatlov’s personality: his coworkers say he was knowledgeable but stubborn and intolerant of dissent. Either way, it’s hard to believe that that overconfident, authoritarian managers were unique to the Soviet Union. I don’t have any examples from the nuclear industry, but maybe you could look at e.g. ship captains—it is easy to find examples of captains making bad decisions, either because of pressure from their bosses or because they are just being stupid.

Meanwhile, the reactor design also suffered from several problems that contributed to the disaster. On paper, this should not have happened. The Soviet nuclear energy industry was monitored by the USSR State Committee for the Supervision of Nuclear Power Safety (Gosatomenergonadzor), who produced a set of Nuclear Safety Regulations for Nuclear Power Plants (NSR), and then approved the technical safety report of a reactor design. The Chernobyl plant was approved in May 1975.

It shouldn’t have been. A 1991 report points out that the regulations include NSR Article 3.2.2, the total power coefficient of reactivity is not positive under any operating condition, and NSR Article 3.3.26, the reactor’s emergency protection system must ensure that the chain reaction is automatically, quickly and reliably terminated—which point to the two major flaws which caused the accident. At the time of the approval, Gosatomenergonadzor was part of the Ministry of Medium-sized Machinery, and the same ministry also controlled the NIKIET and the Kurchatov Institute of Atomic Energy, the two main designers of the reactors. In this way, there was very little external checks of what the (notoriously secretive) Ministry was doing. Former Chernobyl physicist Vladimir Chernousenko writes:

How could a reactor with so many defects be built and put into operation? Firstly, no-one analyzed the RBMK plans at the design stage (that is, there was no independent, external scrutiny). Secondly, the designers themselves did carry out an analysis, but on a very superficial level (because of the poor experimental facilities, the chronic backwardness of the available computer technology, etc.).

Thirdly, thanks to the monopoly that exists in Soviet nuclear science, the RBMK reactors, unlike airplanes, automobiles, etc., were not subjected to any serious tests or trials of their durability. That is why 16 reactors were brought on line without even a Technical Basis of Safety of Reactor Installation (TBSRI) or a TBS of Nuclear Power Stations (TBSNPS) certificate.However, with these obligatory parts of the project missing, it is illegal to not only operate a nuclear power station, but even to build it (GSG §§1.2.3, 2.1.14). It was only in 1988 that the chief designer made an attempt to officially certify the safety of the second- and third-generation RBMK stations.

As for why the design had these flaws in the first place, both of them can be traced to schedule pressures and cost-cutting. First, the choice of a water cooled/graphite moderated reactor is inherently risky, because a disruption of the water supply can cause a power surge. When drawing up the plans for civilian nuclear power the Ministry of Power had considered three possible designs named RMBK-1000 (water-cooled/graphite-moderated), RK-1000 (gas-cooled/graphite-moderated) and WWER-1000 (water-cooled/water-moderated), and in September 1967 they announced that the RK-1000 had been selected. However, this was too technically ambitious to meet the schedule, and one year later they instead opted for the RBMK-1000, which was similar to the reactors already used to produce weapons plutonium.

A graphite moderated reactor has a positive void coefficient, and as it turned out, when the control rods were fully withdrawn this could get big enough to overwhelm the thermal coefficient and make the overall power coefficient positive. This effect had not been anticipated ahead of time, but was noticed experimentally when the reactors were taken in use:

Neither the designers, nor the plant operators, nor the regulatory body attached proper importance to the large positive coefficients of reactivity which became apparent from experiments, and they did not attempt to find acceptable theoretical explanations. The obvious discrepancy between the actual core characteristics and the projected design values was not adequately analysed and consequently it was not known how the RBMK reactor would behave in accident situations.There are a number of explanations for the poor quality of the calculational analysis of the safety of the design. These include the fact that, until recently, Soviet computer techniques were chronically outdated and the standard of computer codes was very low. Three dimensional non-stationary neutron-thermal-hydraulic models are required in order to calculate the physical parameters of an RBMK reactor under different operating conditions. Such models first became available only shortly before the Chernobyl accident and were not really developed until after the accident.

Second, the scram rods were poorly designed. In addition to the too-short graphite tips (which makes the reactor explode instead of stopping), the system was much too slow—the rods were forced through a water-filled channel and took 18 seconds to fully deploy. Actually, the 1969 technical drawings had neither of these problems, because the scram rod tubes were water-film cooled, so the rods could be inserted in 2.5 seconds and did not displace water. Film-cooled channels are more difficult to construct and more expensive, and the final design reused the water-filled channels for control rods for the scram rods as well.

In addition to the above two flaws, western publications after the accident generally pointed at a difference in design philosophy. Western power plants follow a “Defense in Depth” philosophy, with redundant systems designed to handle multiple simultaneous failures. The USSR took a “different” approach:

The Soviet philosophy of safety with both breeder and conventional reactors places heavy emphasis on excellence of design, reliability of equipment, and careful operating procedures to prevent any releases of radioactivity to the environment. Special containment structures are not thought to be justified because of the improbability of any serious accident, and such domes are therefore judged to be costly and superfluous precautions. The design-basis accident also does not include loss of coolant in the core, and thus the reactors do not have a special emergency core cooling system. Soviet writers question the philosophy of designing redundant systems, for:

 “An excess of such backup systems, where the need or the reliability is not clearly assured, introduces operational complexity and reduces over-all safety.”

It is acknowledged that some types of accidents might release radiation accumulated in the coolant, or possibly even some of the activity from unsealed fuel cans, but such releases are not projected as exceeding the daily permissible releases from power stations (1,000-10,000 Curies or less).

The Soviet equipment reliability was far from excellent, so I guess this difference in outlook was mainly due to a more relaxed attitude to radiation leaks. In the 1957 Kyshtym disaster the USSR had suffered what was then the worst radiation accident in history, and successfully kept the whole thing secret.

Indeed, the first six RBMK reactors (Leningrad 1&2, Chernobyl 1&2, and Kursk 1&2) had no structures at all to contain water/steam leaks, so any break in the cooling circuit would lead to a radioactivity release. (A 1991 report about post-Chernobyl safety improvements comments, “The main aim in these units must be to reduce the probability of large diameter pipe breaks to a point where such accidents may be termed hypothetical. With this in mind, some computerized and experimental research was carried out into the processes which cause cracks to appear.”)

Later RBMK reactors, including Chernobyl-4, added some containment structures more similar to Western reactors, by enclosing parts of the cooling circuit in pressure-tight concrete rooms that vented into a pressure-suppression (bubbler) pool. However, the reactor itself was too big to contain in this way. It was given pressure relief pipes, but they were only dimensioned to handle breaks in at most two of the 1661 fuel channels—the pressure from more extensive breaks could tear apart the entire core. NIKIET estimated the probability of a simultaneous two-channel break as 1e-8 per reactor-year, and three or more as negligibly improbable.

Although a lot of western publications after the accident highlighted the lack of containment, it is not known if a western-style containment building would have prevented the disaster—it’s impossible to say for sure, since it is not even known exactly what caused the explosion or how big it was. But in any case, it clearly shows the higher Soviet risk tolerance.

The risk tolerance is even more visible in the way that accidents were treated. The positive power coefficient was noted soon after the first RMBK reactor (Leningrad-1) was started, but never properly investigated. There were about 10 major accidents at Soviet nuclear reactors between 1970-85, killing at least 17 reactor workers and leading to multiple radiation releases to the environment. RBMK reactors suffered partial core meltdowns at Leningrad-1 in 1975 and Chernobyl-1 in 1982, proving that the supposedly unlikely simultaneous fuel channel rupture could happen quite often. And in 1983, the positive reactivity effect of the scram rods were noticed at both Ignalina-1 and Chernobyl-4. These accidents were more serious than Three Mile Island, and in the west any one of them would had prompted big efforts, but in the USSR they were kept secret.

The reactor designers at NIKIET were notified of the scram anomaly, and started to consider improvement to the rods to eliminate it, but it was not treated as a priority; the Chernobyl-4 reactor was to be upgraded after the next shutdown in 1986. They sent out a short and inconspicuous notice to the reactor operators. NIKIET also revised the operating instructions for the RBMK-1000, specifying a new minimum “operational reactivity margin” (ORM), i.e. a limit on how far the control rods may be retracted. In 1980 the ORM  limit was set to 10, and then in 1983 it was increased to 15. (After the disaster, it was increased again to 30.) If this limit had been respected, it would have kept the power reactivity coefficient negative and prevented situations where the scram-rod could cause a reactivity increase, so the NIKIET engineers might have considered the two main flaws of the reactor solved. But the updated manual only stated a number for the ORM; it didn’t flag it as a safety-critical limit. The RBMK reactors were plagued by shoddy workmanship and the operators were in the habit of constantly improvising to work around issues.

So the safety standard of the Soviet reactors was low. But are these failings particular to east bloc authoritarianism? For each cause I listed above, it seems one can find examples of the same thing happening in the west.The RBMK designers assumed there would be no safety issue as long as the reactor operators followed the ORM in the manual; this seems very similar to how Boeing reasoned about the 737 MAX. Very low failure probabilities were invented out of thin air; much like in Feynman’s description of the space shuttle program. Equipment was in disrepair forcing the operators to improvise; much like in the U.S. Navy. Reports of safety incidents were ignored; when the crew was evacuated off the Deepwater Horizon, the installation manager was heard shouting “Are you fucking happy? Are you fucking happy? The rig’s on fire! I told you this was gonna happen” into a satellite phone.

And there was trouble even in the western nuclear program. The 1944 Hanford B reactor was also water cooled/graphite moderated, and it was placed in remote location since the core might explode. In the 1950s there was several core meltdowns in small American research reactors. And as we saw above, the Windscale reactor was rushed into service with no containment at all. Instead of asking why Soviet reactors were shoddy, perhaps we should ask how the western reactors became safe.

Part of the credit must go to the open society. From 1954 onwards, the U.S. government invited commercial companies to build nuclear power plants. Unlike secret military reactors, the application to build such plants were public, as was the Atomic Energy Commission’s decisions to judge them safe or not. And the first serious study of a worst-case nuclear accident, WASH-740, was done because Congress was considering a law to indemnify nuclear power companies.

But the nuclear industry is not unique in being regulated in this way, and nuclear power plants still seem safer than, e.g., oil rigs. Perhaps the other part of the credit belongs to the anti-nuclear movement. The very first commercial nuclear power plant was planned to be built at Bodega Bay near San Francisco—local activist started to organize against it already in 1958, and in 1964 the public pressure forced the AEC to reject the plant. In other words, from the very beginning, America has had a third party which reviews the government/industry decisions and pressure them to take safety seriously. And reading the Wikipedia historical description,

By the early 1970s, anti-nuclear activity had increased dramatically in conjunction with concerns about nuclear safety and criticisms of a policy-making process that allowed little voice for these concerns. Initially scattered and organized at the local level, opposition to nuclear power became a national movement by the mid-1970s when such groups as the Sierra Club, Friends of the Earth, Natural Resources Defense Council, Union of Concerned Scientists, and Critical Mass became involved.[43] With the rise of environmentalism in the 1970s, the anti-nuclear movement grew substantially:[42]

In 1975–76, ballot initiatives to control or halt the growth of nuclear power were introduced in eight western states. Although they enjoyed little success at the polls, the controls they sought to impose were sometimes adopted in part by state legislature, most notably in California. Interventions in plant licensing proceedings increased, often focusing on technical issues related to safety. This widespread popular ferment kept the issue before the public and contributed to growing public skepticism about nuclear power.[42]

In 1976, four nuclear engineers -three from GE and one from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission- resigned, stating that nuclear power was not as safe as their superiors were claiming.[47][48] These men were engineers who had spent most of their working life building reactors, and their defection galvanized anti-nuclear groups across the country.[49][50]  […] These issues, together with a series of other environmental, technical, and public health questions, made nuclear power the source of acute controversy.

it is striking that every single aspect here—the grassroots organizing, the ballot initiatives, the whistleblowers—would be impossible in the Soviet Union. So according to this story, democracy is not sufficient to create a safe industry, but it is a necessary condition; without it, you can’t get the environmentalist movement.

The U.S. environmentalists got things done. Starting in the mid-1970 there was a dramatic increase in construction costs of nuclear power plants in the U.S., with the capital costs increasing several times over, and in the 1980s companies basically stopped building plants. (You can’t get any safer than that!) Although there are several reasons for the cost increase, the most commonly cited factor is increased safety regulations. Lovering et al. show the following graph, and analyze it as follows:

Between 1967 and 1972, the 48 reactors that were completed before the Three Mile Island accident in 1979 began construction. Their OCC rise from a range of $600–$900/kW to approximately $1800–$2500/kW. These reactors follow a trend of increasing costs by 187%, or an annualized rate of 23%. Phung (1985) attributed these pre-TMI cost increases to emerging safety requirements resulting from pre-TMI incidents at Browns Ferry and Rancho Seco. Two outliers, Diablo Canyon 1 and 2, cost about $4100/kW in overnight construction cost, and were completed 17 and 15 years later, in 1984 and 1985.

A break in construction starts is visible around 1971 and 1972,which is likely attributable to a confluence of events affecting nuclear power construction in the late 1960s and early 1970s. These include the establishment of the Environmental Protection Agency in 1971, and the AEC’s gradual loss in public trust and its eventual replacement by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) in 1975. Golay et al. (1977) determined that 88 reactors in various stages of permitting, construction, and licensing were affected by the 1971 Calvert Cliffs court decision resulting in revised AEC regulations that included back-fit requirements.Finally, the last 51 completed reactors represent a set that began their construction between 1968 and 1978 and were under construction at the time of the Three Mile Island accident in 1979. For these reactors, OCC varies from $1800/kW to $11,000/kW. Thirty-eight of these reactors fall within a mid-range of $3000/kW to $6000/kW, with 11 between $1800 and $3000/kW and 10 between $6000 and $11,000/kW. From the OCC of about $2,000/kW for reactors beginning construction in 1970, OCC increases another 50–200%, or an annual increase of 5–15% between 1970 and 1978.

In particular, the safety factors Phung (1985) highlight for the mid-1970s cost increase were as follows.

Phung also notes that due to new safety regulations, power plants that had already been completed in 1978 then had to be back-fitted to fix issues that had been discovered during the 70s, which increased the cost by 28% on average compared to the original construction cost. This is a rather glaring contrast to the Soviet experience, where reactors were notably not back-fitted to fix the multitude of issues that were discovered. As late as 1983, one Soviet offical boasted that “the evolution in capital cost of Soviet WWERs has no comparison with the increase of pressurized-water reactor costs in the West during the same period.”

Anyway, the environmentalist story seems convincing as long as you only consider the the U.S. and the USSR, but I still kindof doubt it. Environmentalism and the anti-nuclear movement came to the U.S. first, and didn’t really emerge in Europe and Japan until in the first half of the 1970s (with a strong inspiration from America), when it would be too late to have a big effect on the main nuclear build-up. In Sweden, the reactor fleet was designed in the 1960s, by experts who knew best and didn’t particularly talk to outsiders. (Holmberg and Hedberg describe an Edenic state of affairs: “In the beginning of the 1970s all parties in the parliament supported a plan to build eleven nuclear reactors in Sweden. No debate, no conflict, everything calm. At the time energy policies were the topic for experts and a very limited number of politicians. Mass media were silent and the general public ignorant. In this atmosphere, the first Swedish reactor started operations in 1972.”)

Similarly, Lovering et al. notes that the pattern of construction cost increases in the U.S. is somewhat unique, and in other countries you either see more moderate increases (France, Canada), or no clear pattern of increases (Japan). You can see a small increase in French construction costs after the Chernobyl accident, but nothing like the huge jump in American costs after Three Miles Island, so does that mean that the reactor designs also didn’t benefit from the additional democratic scrutiny? By the above logic we would expect the Swedish reactors to be as crappy as the Soviet ones, but as far as I know they are actually perfectly fine…

[r6shippingdelivery]

Not sure you've done this before but.... What would the GSG 9, GIGN, and Spetsnaz operations reactions be to their first hands-free and ruined orgasms? Asking for a friend 😊

Remember I told you no way I was gonna do all that cause it was a lot of people to consider? Well, I decided the ask still was interesting and maybe I could pair them off in two couples for each CTU. Then I got invested in it and started writing small ficlets for each ship and… look, all I’m saying is that maybe I wrote a lot more than I originally intended 😂 I also “cheated” and for the GIGN I swapped Twitch for Lion, sorry. You can also read this hurricane of smutty ficlets here in AO3, or just click on the read more below and scroll for a while 😉

SPETNSAZ

Tachanka/Kapkan

It’s not often they get to do this, since usually there’s training early in the morning. Not today though; today is just for them. Tachanka rolls closer to Kapkan, who is still sleeping, and starts kissing his exposed shoulders, nipping the sensitive skin just as he knows the hunter likes, slowly making his way closer to the neck. A satisfied hum is the only sign he gets that the hunter is awake, at least until Tachanka peels the sheets away, exposing his partner’s body. 

Still drowsy, Kapkan pushes himself closer to Tachanka, mumbling something that sounds suspiciously like “don’t stop”. He’s in luck, Tachanka feels generous and very much inclined to grant his wish. His kisses and caresses grow rougher, until he’s playing with Kapkan’s nipples, pinching them while also pushing his quickly hardening cock against the hunter’s ass. Completely awake now, Kapkan turns around, showing how his erection is barely contained in his boxers, and asks Tachanka to take responsibility for it. The older defender spreads Kapkan’s legs and settles between them, takes the lube, and teases both his dick and hole until Kapkan is begging for more and dripping so much pre-cum that the lube feels unnecessary to jerk him off. 

Slipping inside him is pure heaven, and judging by Kapkan’s delighted gasp and how he wraps his legs around Tachanka, it’s equally good for him too. Tachanka keeps an unusual leisurely pace, just a slow but steady slide of skin against heated skin, hearing the hunter’s quiet moans every time he fills him. Eventually, he holds Kapkan’s legs open, hands gripping his knees as Tachanka pounds into him faster. The hunter’s cock lays heavy against his stomach, bouncing in time with the thrusts, leaving pre-cum droplets on Kapkan’s happy trail. Tachanka wants to play with it, stroke it and tease it and see if he can get Kapkan to beg. Hearing the hunter beg is one of his favourite moments during sex, knowing he has the power to satisfy him and that Kapkan trusts him enough to ask for it. However, he’s also mesmerized by the way Kapkan is reacting today, laying pliant and without making a single demand, moaning with each thrust and rocking back, eyes clouded with pleasure as Tachanka fucks him.

He picks up the pace, going faster now, and Kapkan’s reaction is so wanton that the hunter blushes at it. He is whimpering “Sasha” and “please” almost continuously, hitching up his hips to meet each thrust and digging his nails on Tachhanka’s arm, scratching him. Tachanka feels the sudden trembling on Kapkan’s legs, the way he clenches around his cock, and he’s not all that surprised by the spurts of semen coming from his unattended erection. The hunter makes a noise he’d probably deny later, almost a sob, and Tachanka chuckles, pleased with himself for wringing such reaction from his lover. He fucks Kapkan through his orgasm, the hunter’s body still shivering under him while Tachanka milks him to the last drop. He reaches his own peak too, the way Kapkan’s body seems to draw him in proves too much for Tachanka to resist, and when he announces he’s about to come, Kapkan locks his legs around Tachanka, anchoring him in place. 

They’re still tangled together and gasping for air when Kapkan whispers “holy fuck”. He sounds so blissed out that Tachanka can’t help teasing him a bit, asking if his cock was that good that he sounds as if this was his first hands-free orgasm. It’s truly surprising when instead of telling him to fuck off, the hunter admits it is his first, yes, still looking dazed. Something similar to pride but much softer fills Tachanka, and he decides to just kiss Kapkan, wrapping his arms around the hunter and holding him close until he can stand up again.

 —————————————————————————

Glaz/Fuze

Sometimes, after an intense workout, Fuze slips in the same shower stall as Glaz. The sniper had been the first to suggest doing it in the showers, but that was usually as a celebration when they won a training match. Today is different, though.

He knows he’s tempting his luck, since the sniper is cross with Fuze for team killing him, even if it was an honest to god mistake. However, Glaz doesn’t push Fuze away when he slips in the same shower stall, in fact he brings him closer and crowds him against the wall. Making out under the warm spray of water is rather pleasant, even if there’s an undercurrent of anger in Glaz’s kisses. Instead of his usual calm, Glaz is hasty, pushing Fuze into a bruising kiss. He digs his nails in, scoring down Fuze’s stomach, making him hiss and his cock twitch.

Fuze doesn’t mind the roughness, welcomes it even; he’s not a delicate thing to coddle and likes  knowing that Glaz isn’t holding back. One of the sniper’s hands clutches at his hip in an almost possessive gesture, before taking his cock in his hand and pressing with his thumb under the head of it. Fuze’s body jerks and he moans as Glaz keeps rubbing the same spot. The sniper massages the head, pressing onto the slit and then sliding back down into that spot, which has Fuze kissing him to avoid making more embarrassing noises. The grip of Glaz’s hand around his cock is a thousand times better than his own hand will ever be, and Fuze feels himself getting closer and closer to the edge.

Just then, as he’s about to reach his peak, Glaz stops stroking his cock and kissing him, flat out turning his back to him and grabbing the body soap. What the fuck. Fuze whines his name, half a protest half a demand, but Glaz doesn’t seem to care about his predicament. He observes how the sniper lathers his body with soap, before he does the same for him. It’s nice to have Glaz’s hand caressing his body, except he only wants them in one very specific part of him. Eventually, Glaz’s hands find his aching cock again. Fuze leans against the sniper, grinding his ass into Glaz’s crotch while he uses both hands to jerk him off. It’s so good, the heat radiating from the sniper’s body mixing with the heat growing inside Fuze. Then, as it’s getting to the best part again, Glaz stops. Just for a moment, to turn on the water again, but Fuze isn’t pleased with this second interruption. Luckily, Glaz immediately goes back behind him, kissing Fuze’s neck and stroking his cock just as he knows the Uzbek likes it. He’s so close, and Glaz’s thumb is pressing against the slit, rubbing that spot under the head, and Fuze feels his pleasure crest.

He moans Glaz’s name, telling him he’s about to cum, and the sniper tells him to go on right before biting his shoulder. That’s the last straw, and Fuze feels wonderful for a second, before Glaz retires his hands from him. He comes with just the stimulation of the water hitting his overheated skin, semen dribbling almost lethargically from his cock. His satisfaction is short lived, orgasm leaving him more frustrated and antsy than before. Fuze curses in a mix of all languages he knows, but Glaz looks fairly unperturbed. It’s his punishment, he tells the Uzbek while getting out of the shower. 

However, instead of drying himself and getting dressed, Glaz sits on the wooden bench, legs open and holding his growing erection. He tells Fuze he can get the satisfaction he craves if he apologises properly, and despite everything, Fuze wastes no time sinking to his knees.

——————————————————————————–

GIGN

Lion/Doc

He can’t remember how the conversation began, but Doc feels a headache already bubbling up. Lion’s being oddly defensive, and Doc tiredly reiterates his point: prostate orgasms, while possible, are difficult to achieve, much less without toys designed exactly for that. The look of pity that Lion throws at him makes Doc gnash his teeth. What would Lion know, he isn’t the one with accurate medical and physiological knowledge of how human bodies work! And yet, he insists it’s relatively easy, unbelievable. They continue arguing until Lion cockily offers to show him. Doc knows they shouldn’t settle all their arguments with sex, but he says yes all the same, because this time it’s just empirical experience, right?

There’s a moment of awkward confusion once they move to bed, since Doc thought Lion would demonstrate on himself, while Lion in fact meant to do it on Doc. It’s fine, he can see the value on testing it first-hand, curiosity making him agree. He undresses while Lion brings out the lube, and then for a second Doc feels oddly vulnerable, as if this was their first time again. Maybe it’s because he’s stark naked and laying on bed while Lion is completely dressed and towering over him. 

He’s asked to turn around, face down on the bed and ass up in the air. It’s a rather undignified position, but any complaint he might have dies on his lips as soon as he feels Lion gently kneading his buttocks. He tells Doc to relax, kissing down his back, and it’s working because Doc feels his tension melting away. A couple of lubed fingers press against him, not breaching him yet but gently rubbing the cold lube around. Lion tells him to relax, again, and Doc is about to snap at him he’s achieving the contrary when a slicked finger finally slides inside him. The rebuke becomes a moan, and when the second finger finally slips in as well, Doc forgets how to breathe for a second. Okay, maybe he’s more aroused than he realised he was, but that’s good. Oh so, so good. The two fingers curve downwards, seeking, resting against his sweet spot. And then Lion presses down on it, softly but insistently. He doesn’t relent, up and down, up and down, up and down, and Doc’s eyes are rolling up as he drools into the pillow.

It seems to go on forever, like a torture he doesn’t want to end, and as close as he feels, Doc knows that’s not enough to make him come. He’s caught in the duality of gloating at being right and desperately wanting to be proved wrong. Lion slides a third finger inside him, the thumb pressing against his perineum while the digits relentlessly stroke his prostate. However, it’s Lion’s poorly concealed moan something hot and wet brushing against his thigh what have Doc spiraling closer and closer to the edge. Lion’s masturbating with his other hand, he has no doubt of it, and if Doc was still capable to talk coherently, he’d ask to be fucked and to hell with the chance of settling their argument. When Lion tells him he’s not going to come unless Doc orgasms first, he feels the heat pooling in his stomach grow out of control. His cock lays heavy between his legs, twitching at the familiar and overwhelming pleasure taking control of him, and Doc’s only mildly surprised to feel the hot splashes of semen landing on his thighs.

He can’t feel anger when Lion softly says he was right, not when the attacker lies on the bed and puts him closer, not when Doc’s still floating on a cloud of bliss. A very instructive session, and Doc doesn’t mind admitting he was wrong. He also can’t wait to try it on Lion next time.

———————————————————————————-

Montagne/Rook

Sometimes, Montagne feels like an old lecher when he’s with Rook, like he’s robbing the cradle. Other times, he’d swear that Rook is in fact a little devil who rejoices in stripping away what little innocence he still has. A blowjob behind the shooting range isn’t what Montagne expected when Rook asked him to come here, no matter how late it and unlikely it was to be discovered. However, here they are, Montagne leaning against the wall and sweet Rook on his knees, eagerly working his mouth over the attacker’s cock.

As he already knew, Rook isn’t an adept at deep-throating, but he’s mastered the art of treating his shaft like a sinful lollipop. He goes slow, teasing,  kissing the crown. He gives small, short licks on the underside of the head, and the part not in his mouth is stroked by his deft fingers. It’s impossible for Montagne to keep silent and detached in such a situation, and he reacts accordingly: low moans rolling from his throat and a hand shooting to  rest on the back of Rook’s head,  petting his hair in encouragement. Rook makes a noise akin to a whimper and his tongue does that practiced  flick that can make Montagne shiver.

There’re noises close to them, and while in any other occasion Montagne might try to scramble into a less compromising position, right now he can only think about the wonderfully hot and wet mouth where he has his dick buried. The voices and footsteps get closer and Rook stops, hesitation written on his face as he looks up at him. In an uncharacteristically selfish move, Montagne gently pushes him down on his cock. Rook doesn’t complain, and whatever pang of guilt Montagne might have felt is quickly forgotten in favour of rocking his hips and chasing after that wonderful high that Rook is leading him to. He can’t hear anything except for his own heartbeat and the lewd sounds Rook makes while sucking him off. He’s going to cum any moment now and doesn’t even care about anyone who might be around and hear them, even if he would strongly prefer to not get discovered by anyone.

The pleasure shoots up to the point of no return and coalesces into a blissful explosion. Or it would have, if Rook didn’t choose that moment to stop his ministrations to ask Montagne if he wants to end on his mouth all over his face. The end result is a severely disappointing orgasm that barely offers any relief, cum lazily spurting out of his cock while Rook sheepishly smiles at him. Montagne frowns, it was an accident, and Rook is apologising to him, but he’s still unfulfilled. The defender’s proposition to go to their rooms and make it up to him sounds tempting, although Montagne will have to refuse since he has a meeting with Six. Rook promises him he’ll wait on his bed, naked, and Montagne has never been so tempted to forget about work and indulge.

———————————————————————————–

GSG9

Bandit/Jäger

Jäger is in a sour mood, and when the engineer’s pissed off, he’s extremely disagreeable with everyone. Bandit asks what set him off this time, but all he gets as an answer is something about Fuze and Echo fighting in the workshop, following an angry rant on Mira for hoarding all the tools he needed, which segued into… well, to be honest at this point Bandit stops paying attention. All he knows is that Jäger is acting like an asshole to everyone who crosses his path, and he’s not happy that Blitz thought he could fix this just because he’s fucking the engineer.

Truth is, Bandit has an idea on how to fix Jäger’s mood. A damn good idea, if he might say so, and it also doubles as a punishment of sorts, so it’s perfect. Bandit finds that either exercise or indulgence work best to lift someone’s mood, so what’s better than combining both and just having sex? Jäger seems to approve of this course of action, since all it takes for the engineer to throw himself at Bandit is a few kisses and a whispered promise to make him forget his own name.

It’s Jäger who leads them to his room, who pushes Bandit down and attacks his clothes like they’re his sworn enemies. Bandit lets him do as he pleases until they’re both naked. In that moment, he takes back control, and it’s enough to just take out Jäger’s favorite dildo to have him become putty under him. Someone’s definitely eager.

Jäger tips his head back and lets out a  long, deep moan when Bandit inserts the lube-coated toy inside him. He shifts his attention to the engineer’s neck, leaving a trail of warm, wet kisses on his skin. Bandit turns on the toy at a low level for now, and delights in the drawn-out moan from him. Jäger looks up at him, panting when Bandit turns up a couple of notches the vibration setting. And yet Bandit pretends to ignore his partner’s need, lightly circling a finger around the tip of his erection, playing with the pre-cum droplets drooling out from his slit. Jäger eventually complains about the lack of proper stimulation, and Bandit gives  him a saccharine smile that should have been warning enough about his intentions.

Bandit watches Jäger arch his back when the vibrator starts buzzing even harder inside him, and Bandit works his fist over Jäger’s dick with a practiced movements, knowing how to quickly get him to the point of no return. The engineer angles his hips up and can’t help moaning Bandit’s name as he bucks into his tight fist. He’s so close, blabbing random nonsense, and ordering him to go faster and thanking him all in the same breath, as Jäger always does when he’s desperate to cum. When he finally reaches his peak he cries out wordlessly, first in anticipation of pleasure, then in confused disappointment when Bandit lets go of his erection and turns the vibrator off. 

His cock shoots cum onto his stomach, a small load befitting the pitiful amount of satisfaction he got from it. Jäger gives a dissatisfied whine, and he looks at Bandit with mounting anger in his eyes. Unperturbed by the murderous looks thrown at him, Bandit  kisses Jäger sweetly, turning the vibrator back on to a low hum. Well, if his partner is dissatisfied, maybe they can try again. As many times as it’s needed for Bandit to get it right, this toy is so complicated liebling, he says with a shit-eating grin on his face. Jäger groans again, complaining about how Bandit will be the death of him, but otherwise submitting to his will. This time, Bandit doesn’t plan on torturing him as much, just a little. His own dick is straining against his jeans and he doesn’t know how long he can hold out before fucking his brains out.

————————————————————————————-

Blitz/IQ

She lies on her back on the bed, naked except for the harness holding her silicone cock, and IQ has a moment of doubt. Blitz asked for this, more than once, and she can’t really understand why, but damn if she will not try to please him.

Her fake purple cock stands up in the air, solid and thick and glistening with all the lube Blitz has dribbled onto it. IQ beckons at him to come closer, and he does, straddling her stomach kissing her. The nervousness abates a bit since this is familiar territory, and IQ brings the tips of her fingers to trace around the head of his cock. He rocked into her touch and back against her plastic dick, she can tell he’s eager, so she tells him to be a good boy and go on.

Although this isn’t something IQ had fantasised about, there’s something about seeing Blitz pressing his ass against the tip of her fake dick that makes her tingle with arousal. Perhaps it’s because it’s because of his expression,  face screwed up and focused, as he slides all the way down. She  arches her hips gently to meet him, and the sound Blitz makes is a startling mix of pain and pleasure. He wriggles back, gently bouncing up and down the length, and IQ feels a rush of heat between her legs. She lets him do as he pleases, trusting him to control the pace while she just strokes his thighs and encourages him as Blitz does when she’s the one riding him. One of the times he sinks down on the purple cock he moans loudly, his thighs tensing beneath her hands. She starts rocking her hips up into him too, helping him stroke his prostate more or less constantly. Blitz stares at her with wide eyes and bites his lip, every muscle in his body tense as he gets closer and closer to cumming. IQ had never felt so powerful, and yet so dedicated to someone else’s pleasure. She’s glad Blitz convinced her to do this. 

His face is tight in an expression of both concentration and ecstasy, and IQ realises she wants to see him come more than anything. IQ herself was so wet that she’s probably going to leave a dark spot on the bed, and she wonders if it’s possible to orgasm without being touched at all. She fucks him harder, watching how his dick twitches with every thrust upwards of her hips, the beads of pre-cum dripping down Blitz’s cock until it’s like a continuous stream. He groans something she doesn’t quite understand, maybe a plea, maybe a curse; his thighs tremble from the effort of bouncing up and down, she assumes. So IQ does as Blitz sometimes does on her, grabs his hips and pushes him down as she snaps her hips up, forcing the dildo deep into him. 

Blitz moans and cries out, his stomach tensing as he pushes himself slightly towards her, closer to her. IQ feels a slight movement on her plastic dick as his ass tenses with the impact of the orgasm, and his cock twitches violently in her hand. He shoots white globs of semen over her tits and IQ feels a familiar ache deep within her, her pussy clenching in sympathy and agonising desire. Once Blitz crawls over to the side, uncoordinated and thighs still trembling, IQ reaches down to finger herself to completion. It takes her so little time to reach a blinding orgasm, and they both lay down to each other, dazed and deeply satisfied. Next time Blitz asks to be pegged, she’s going to enthusiastically agree to it.

[rivalmelty]

for the meta asks (there's a lot b/c i am Nosy): 2, 18, 20, 23, and 25

it has been so long agsjdhjdjd this the meta ask

under the cut because i will not shut up ahsjdjdk

2. Tell us about what you’re most looking forward to writing – in your current project, or a future project

theres a couple of arcs in gsg that ive been wanting to write for ages so much whump so much angst some good good character building yknow my favorite stuff to write but aside from my main project im really looking forward to developing how i like to write certain characters hhhhh rn im like really focusing on hyrule and ive already posted one lil thing exploring that but theres so many facets to character design in a writing sense and i want to play some more with that 

18. Do any of your stories have alternative versions? (plotlines that you abandoned, AUs of your own work, different characterisations?) Tell us about them.

hell yeah asjdhgkajh i abandon many plotlines in favor of something that flows a bit something or that shortens my writing load its a piece of advice i got while dancing that i tend to follow for a lot of creative endeavors but writing specifically and its find three options and pick the fourth because your mind is going to naturally pick the first three as the most logical answers but the fourth one tends to spice things up and make things exciting unfortunately a lot of these scraped plotlines are like entirely scraped so there’s very little evidence that they’ve ever existed but just know that things change in my writing a lot even if i don’t always write down what goes on in my little worm brain

20. Tell us the meta about your writing that you really want to ramble to people about (symbolism you’ve included, character or relationship development that you love, hidden references, callbacks or clues for future scenes?)

DUDE TWILIGHT AND TWILIGHT PRINCESS LINK IN GENERAL hhhhhhh i’ve defo exhausted all my thoughts to you in the discord dms but i shall share some of my thoughts here ajshdgjah imo tp link is the second most tragic link based off my own person hcs and postgame lore that i’ve built for myself he defo will never beat out the hero of time for the most tragic because i will sob thinking about the hero of time but i digress 

the way i write tp link and twilight in general gives the vaguest references to those personal hcs i think by default the hero’s spirit is youthful and just because tp link is older doesn’t mean that still isn’t true i personally believe he started his adventure 16 almost 17 years old and it all takes place over about a year so by the time his adventure is over he’s barely if not 18 he’s gone through this life changing event and he’s changed as a person with nothing really as evidence for that sure the twilight is gone but that’s really it so when i write him in any capacity i try to keep that sort of anguish at least in the background but idk if that’s really apparent in my writing agsjshsj

23. What’s the story idea you’ve had in your head for the longest?

hmmmmm honestly idk agajsjsk the oldest wip in my google docs is a pokémon swsh royalty au tho so take with that what you will

25. What part of writing is the most fun?

DIALOGUE!!!!! god i love writing dialogue so bad 😭 it’s so fun having characters talk with each other hhhhhh

[dantesunbreaker]

Jäger x Reader

@jaegerismykink had a specific request for Jäger fic in which the reader dies, so here it is. Hopefully this at least somewhat meets your expectations. I had a good time writing this so I hope you enjoy it!

Sunlight streams through the wooden panels that cover one of the windows, creating a striped pattern across the floor that would almost be pleasant to look at if there weren’t a bunch of terrorists trying to enter the building. The subtle clicking of Jäger’s ADS mounted onto the wall beside her distracts Y/n slightly as she flips through the camera feeds in the building with her phone. Jäger stands at the other window with a small hole broken into the barricade so that he can peek through to spot any approaching threats. Below them, one floor down, the rest of their squad, which consists of Doc, Kapkan, and Mute, all have set up a room to protect a bio-hazard container. The goal is to keep it from falling into the hands of the terrorists trying to make their way into the building.

“Let me know if you see anyone coming down the hallway, mein liebling,” Jäger doesn’t turn to look from his spot as he speaks to Y/n.  He fully trusts that she will cover his back while he covers the window. Together, they always work just as well as a well-tuned machine, or at least those are the words Jäger uses to describe them.

Flipping to the camera that is in the hall outside the room in which they reside, Y/n sees two men in white masks quickly approaching the barricaded door. They are going for a breach. One of them looks up to see the camera before Y/n can utter a word and shoots it. The feed dies and Y/n’s screen is left with only static.

“Door to your left, two hostiles,” Y/n shouts to her German lover, springing up from her cover and rushing to grab his hand just as a smoke grenade is rolled underneath the door. Shoving Jäger towards the other door way, Y/n takes aim through the smoke and fires a couple deterring shots before she moves to follow.

Ripping down the barricade they had placed earlier, Jäger stumbles out into the other hallway with the plan to circle around and take the terrorists out from the backside. Just as he steps out and glances behind him to check if Y/n is following, he hears her let out a grunt of pain.

“Keep going! I’ll keep them distracted from this way!” she shouts over the sound of gunfire. Jäger is unable to see her through the smoke as another grenade is hurtled into the room. Despite how much he wants to rush back in there, be her hero, and save the day, he does exactly as she instructs.

As he turns to go down the connecting corridor, however, he spots two more terrorists at the exact moment that they spot him. “Scheiße.” Swiftly he ducks behind a large column that supports the ceiling just in time to narrowly avoid the bullets flying towards him. Behind him, he can still hear multiple guns going off, so he knows that Y/n won’t be in any position to assist him with the two from his front.

Luckily, one of the hostiles decides to try to make a rush forward. Peeking out just long enough, Jäger lands a head shot on the rushing man. As he is dropping back to his cover he also manages to spot the other man ducking behind a small cabinet slightly further down the hall. It isn’t sturdy, and a well placed bullet could easily pierce right through the wood and hit whatever rests behind it. So Jäger makes his plan.

Taking a steady breath to calm his nerves, he readies himself, rifle gripped tightly. Rolling out from behind the column, he lifts his gun and fires three shots in quick succession. One rips through the wooden cabinet and into the man’s chest, causing him to slump slightly forward into the hallway. The second bullet goes through his shoulder as he tries to support himself on the ground with one arm, and it sends him flat to the floor with a groan of pain. Finally, the last bullet lodges itself it the back of the man’s head. Lifeless, the body splays across the floor as a puddle of deep red begins to pool around it. But it isn’t time for Jäger to celebrate a victory just yet.

Approaching the room Y/n is in from the other side, he is surprised to hear only silence. Bits and pieces of the broken barricade lay across the floor inside the hallway. Somewhere a small piece of him worries that Y/n was not the victorious one in this battle.

“Are you alright, Y/n?” he cautiously calls into the room as he presses against the wall, ready for a fight if somebody else comes out.

Several moments pass before he hears shuffling on the other side of the wall. “Yeah,” comes her strained, soft voice. Clearly, she is not nearly as alright as she wishes to portray.

“Are you lying?” he calls back as he stands up, moving to enter the room slowly. Immediately he spots the bodies of both terrorists lying flat across the floor ridden with bullet holes. The wall opposite the entrance he also notices is spotted with holes.

“Yeah,” Y/n replies as Jäger finally spots her propped up against a desk, hands clutching at her side with blood leaking out between her fingers. Looking lower, he also sees another wound in her right calf. It has bled to the point her shoe is filled with the warm liquid.

Y/n smiles at him, a smile that is warm and soft, despite that he can sees a couple tears escape and roll down her cheek as she tries to ignore the pain. When he takes a step forward, she collapses to the floor. Running, he drops down beside her, dropping his gun on the ground as he moves to cradle her in his arms. Briefly, he grips her hands in his own to pull them back to see the extent of the wound in her side.

“It doesn’t look that bad,” Jäger says as he presses her hands back against the wound, watching her press down hard in attempt to stop the blood flow. As he says all the time, he is an engineer, not a medic. So he cannot really tell if the wound is dangerous or not. Y/n is breathing heavy, which is enough that Jäger knows he should at least get Doc to come help. “Do you think you will be alright if I leave to go get Doc?”

Tears are still in Y/n’s eyes as she bites her bottom lip, looking up at her boyfriend. She doesn’t want him to leave her alone. Being in his arms makes her feel safe, as if nothing could hurt her despite that she feels that there is seriously something wrong. If he doesn’t get Doc though, she may bleed out anyways, even if the wound isn’t serious.

“I think I’ll be okay,” Y/n finally mutters as she tries to adjust herself in his arms better for more comfort. “Just… I love you Marius. I don’t want you to forget that I love you a lot, and that I always will. But if anything happens to me, I don’t want to be what holds you back from moving on.”

“I love you too, Y/n,” Jäger’s voice is soft and soothing as he holds her chin so that she will look at him. Raising the visor on his helmet, he lets her gaze into his eyes as he pulls his balaclava up far enough to expose his lips. Leaning forward, he presses their lips together, trying to put as much passion into the gesture as possible. “I will be right back, mein liebling. Do not worry, everything will be fine.” He adjusts his gear and grabs his gun from the floor as he sets out into the hall.

At the time, he doesn’t realize that it would be the last time he ever held Y/n in his arms, the last time he would ever kiss her, or the last time he’ll ever see those beautiful eyes looking up at him with nothing but admiration. When Jäger gets downstairs and finds Doc, the French man instructs him to take his spot as he goes up to care for Y/n. By the time Doc reaches Y/n, she is still breathing, but she looks pale and sweaty. There isn’t much blood around her, aside from the wound in her leg. Some vital organ was punctured by the bullet that went through her side, causing internal bleeding. When he approaches, her eyes are out of focus as her mouth opens to speak but never says a word. He doubts that she is even aware who has entered the room. It is clearly too late for her as Doc sits down beside Y/n, hoping to give her some form of comfort in what he knows will be her final moments. It hurts him to know that not only will he lose a strong and capable squad mate, but also a dear friend.

“I’m sorry, mon amie,” Doc whispers as he sets down and lets Y/n rest her head on his lap, his fingers threading through her hair as they wait out the inevitable. She whimpers slightly, struggling to lay comfortably. He doesn’t have anything to save her, but he has a small syringe of morphine he gives her to help with the pain. Making her comfortable is his only option. “Shh, it will be over soon. There will be no more pain.”

“I’m sorry Marius. I tried to be strong for you,” Y/n whispers, and Doc knows that it will be the last words she ever speaks as her eyes flutter closed. Her chest rises a few more staggered times before her body is still. Doc’s presses his fingers at her pulse point to check for anything as he looks at the time, recording the exact time of death.

Several days pass before everyone gathers for Y/n’s funeral service. All the operators at Rainbow Six, as well as Y/n's family and friends have managed to take the time out of their schedules to attend. Jäger sits beside the other GSG 9 operators that are all dressed in fancy black attire, tears streaming down his cheeks as the casket is slowly lowered into the ground. He doesn’t bother to wipe away his tears, even as Bandit rests a consoling hand against his shoulder. No amount of words can change the feelings of pain and regret he feels. It pains him that he was not there for her in those final moments, and that he hadn’t done anything more for her. Doc constantly assured him that there was not much he could have done to save her due to the severity of her wound, but it doesn’t make him feel any better.

Once the service ends and people rise to give the family their condolences, Jäger steps up to Y/n’s family first. After being with Y/n for so many years he felt close to her family. He can’t bare to be with them for long, because he sees Y/n every time he looks at any of her family members. They understand and don’t think any ill of him as he has to excuse himself to go stand alone for a while. People approach Jäger to express their sorrow, and he does his best to converse with them, but it is difficult when there is a constant hitch in his throat as he tries to hold off his sobbing.

Jäger is standing over Y/n’s headstone when everyone begins to leave, and he is one of the only people left in the cemetery. Reaching into the pocket of his slacks, he pulls out the ring he had planned to propose to Y/n with and sets it on top of the stone. Behind him, he can hear someone approaching him, but he doesn’t have the emotional strength to turn and face anyone at the moment.

“She was a great woman,” Blitz steps up beside him, hands shoved deep into the pockets of his jacket. “I’m glad I got to know her in the time we all had together.” Sighing, he turns slightly and places a gentle hand on the other German’s shoulder. “I am sorry my friend. I know how much she meant to you.”

Jäger manages a slow nod, fat tears rolling faster down his face. “This feeling...it feels like my heart is being ripped from my chest. How do I make it stop?” He turns fully towards Blitz, searching his face for the answer. All he gets is a sad smile in return as Blitz pulls him in for a tight embrace.

“You may feel this pain for a while my friend, but know that it is not forever,” Blitz’s voice is gentle as he holds him. “What is important is that you remember all the good times that you had with Y/n and not the bad. She would not want you to beat yourself up over her death. Y/n would want you to eventually move on and be happy.”

Nodding silently, Jäger accepts his words as he buries his face into his friend’s shoulder and finally releases the hold he has managed to keep over his emotions through the whole service. Blitz allows the slightly older male to sob into his shoulder for a long as he needs. It will be a long time before Jäger is done grieving the loss of his lover, but Blitz hopes that the process will be made easier with help of their fellow friends and operators.

[artsoccupychi]

The Healthiest Shopping Cart in Costco

I like living healthy and sharing the experience with others. I was in Costco a few days ago and the lady behind me in line said, “That is the healthiest shopping cart I have ever seen!” I told her I write books teaching people how to eat whole foods and I have a site called GreenSmoothieGirl.com. I told her about GSG because she looked like a young mom. And you know how I feel about young moms–I see them as having tons of power to change the world, and I want to know them all! Before their kids are McD’s addicts and so much harder to change.

In this article:

Healthy Living Blog Offline

Living a Healthy Lifestyle is a Choice

Socially Maintaining a Healthy Lifestyle

Final Healthy Living Tips

Living Healthy One Shopping Cart at a Time

  Healthy Living Blog Offline

And it turns out her name is Marla and she is already a GSG reader. I don’t know if the camouflage shorts I was wearing actually WORKED, or if it’s the fact that my hair has morphed excessively blonde, that she didn’t recognize me as GSG.

Hiding the Mountain Dew

That’s one thing that isn’t entirely “natural,” my need to change my hair color. Also. I do weird things sometimes. A while back, I wanted to make a gift basket of “favorite things” for the guy I am dating. I would love to tell you that his favorite things are green smoothies and sprouted hummus with flax crackers and wheatgrass juice. But alas, I had to go to the grocery store and slink out of there . . . ducking my head, hoping not to be recognized . . . with a six-pack of MOUNTAIN DEW. Then I went somewhere else to find really good, made fresh daily, CHOCOLATE CHIP COOKIES. (He has been telling me that he could blackmail me with that info, should he ever need to – “GSG was seen buying Mt. Dew!”, he guffaws. Might as well preempt that by coming out of the closet.)

I was also “in and out” of an In-N-Out Burger last night. This is because my children asked their father what he wanted for Father’s Day, and he wanted a gift certificate and t-shirt from there. Even though I have never eaten their food, and I would not eat in that establishment unless I were completely without other options (notice I didn’t say “wouldn’t be caught dead”), I aim to please. He can eat what he wants. (Sure wish he wouldn’t feed it to my kids, but again–no use fighting unwinnable battles.)

I also ate at Texas Roadhouse Grill last night. Okay, I ordered the vegetarian platter for both me and my son! But I’m just sayin’. I ate there. That’s where my friends and sister-in-law wanted to eat after we watched Ten’s baseball game.  

Living a Healthy Lifestyle is a Choice

I seem to be rather cavalier with the nutrition of those close to me who are not my children. Here’s why: people will eat right when they want to, and not a minute sooner. So I’m not going to expend my energy trying to change anyone else’s diet or feeling frustrated about it.

He, Dixon, of the Mt. Dew, started drinking green smoothies even before he read my book. He said when I asked a couple weeks ago, on Day 17, that he notices no health benefits. (I told him that a green smoothie doesn’t cancel out the deleterious effects of the Coke and Mt. Dew. And he is still making and drinking GS because he knows academically that they’re good for him.)

No More Caffeine

A couple of other close friends, though, who have finally taken the plunge, told me this month they notice more energy and no need for caffeine, less than a week into the new habit.  

Socially Maintaining a Healthier Lifestyle

It’s philosophical for me: I won’t wreck relationships over food! I was talking this week to a certain person who is a huge presence in raw food, on the internet. She and I bonded a while ago in our common mission and in our single-mom status. Sometimes we talk about world domination via raw food. I asked her what happened with the last guy and how it’s going with the new.

She said, “Turns out the raw foodist had no personal ethics. Now I’m with a meat eater and I think I’ll keep him.”  

Final Healthy Living Tips

True enough, that. Let’s live our healthy life, speak up when it’s appropriate, shut up when it’s appropriate. In general, be as “normal” as possible while doing what’s right.

  What do you do to continuously improve your health and well-being? Mention them in the comments section below!

Up Next: How To Eat Healthy if You Have More Time Than Money (or More Money Than Time)

Editor’s Note: This post was originally published on January 9, 2017, and has been updated for quality and relevancy.

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