#I blame this old guard leverage fic I read | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

hoe-imaginess · 4 years

Text

hostage | madara uchiha

Madara x Tobirama’s s/o

summary: Tobirama’s wife is held captive when the Uchiha invade Senju territory. She does what she can to keep the peace. It doesn’t last long.

word count: 9.5k

warnings: sex as a bargaining tool, physical/emotional harm, heavy angst, mentions of miscarriage/abortion, brutal use of sharingan

a/n: part of a long and self-indulgent founders era fic I was writing, but recently gave up on. so this is just a very choppy rough draft. it’s all over the place. apologies for the poor & skimpy writing style. fair warning: bit of a darker rendition of Madara than what I usually write on this blog. IM me if you want more details before reading

⤰

They attack in the dead of night.

With the main host of the Senju army battling in far-away provinces, Hashirama and Tobirama with it, few seasoned shinobi are left to protect the plot of land which the Senju call home.

The Uchiha overwhelm the paltry resistance quickly and efficiently, then set about infiltrating the rest of the territory to claim as theirs.

They’re met with little defiance. Of the Senju who don’t escape into the woods, slipping through Uchiha clutches before they can fully surround the vicinity, a majority left to endure the raid are civilians with no real experience or means to contend the invaders’ assault.

Chaos ensues. Uchiha chase down fleeing families, drag them back to the center of the camp where hostages are corralled. They bark and shout orders at stubborn Senju who refuse to abide, sometimes resorting to violence to win obedience.

Then come the fires. The Senju, in one final, practiced act of loyalty, set ablaze as much property as they can in an effort to destroy any intelligence on Senju affairs which the Uchiha might find and use to their favor.

Some of these renegades are stopped before they can succeed, others manage to do their part before being apprehended.

She is one among them, burning the room in her home which her husband uses so often to practice and hone his jutsu; where plots of war are imagined and scribed; where important records are stored.

Tobirama would balk to see all his work going up in flames, but she knows that it’s what he would want her to do.

The anguish that beats mercilessly in her chest as she watches her home catch fire is dreadful.

Such a small little place, she thinks. Just big enough for the two of them. They hadn’t been married for more than a few months now. Arranged, like so many unions those days.

Yet the little, perfect home held such memories in that short time; watching smoke rise from the walls and foundations makes her sick with sorrow.

But it must be done. Whatever the invaders might pillage from her home, they would find nothing to their benefit, and nothing that might end up hurting Tobirama, or the Senju.

Two Uchiha men grab her just as she watches the roof of her home collapse in on itself, pillars weakened and corrupted by flame.

It’s a sodden and meager thing to find so fulfilling, but it’s the only thing from which to reap comfort.

Doomed as she may now be to whatever her captors have planned, she, too, has plans: plans to remember Tobirama’s prudence, adopt it as her own. Whatever awaits her, she can face with her chin held high.

As she’s herded into a crowd of the Senju hostages, uncertain of their holistic fate, the cries and tears of anguish from men, women, and children alike hurt her beyond words.

When the leader of the invaders stands before them and addresses them, with his coal-black eyes piercing every one of them even in the dark void of night, she feels anger beyond words.

And when she learns of his plans to occupy their land, to keep them as prisoners of war, she feels determination.

⤰

When she’s brought before Madara Uchiha in the coming days for the purpose of interrogation, he senses immediately that she isn’t a Senju.

Arranged marriages aren’t uncommon, and Madara knows Hashirama is quick to support alliances with clans he finds trustworthy enough. Madara wonders who, among the Senju prominent enough to be pursued for political marriage, might call this woman their wife.

Feeling foolish for having not expected such a question in advance—though somewhere, she’s hardly able to blame herself, given the chaos of the last few days—her mind races for explanation when he inquires about her husband.

“I’m a widow,” she lies. “He died months ago.”

She remains with the Senju to uphold the alliance her marriage created, she says, hoping he believes it.

His gaze is startling, and she fears intermittently that he’s staring right through her with those merciless eyes, extracting the truth under her lies, truths that needn’t be spoken, only simmering underneath the surface for his scrutiny to grab.

She feels apprehension like she’s never known when, after her explanations, he’s quiet. Utterly quiet.

Then, just as she tries and fails to steel her heart’s rapid beating, he dismisses her.

As she’s led out of the tent the Uchiha have constructed for their own purposes of war, she takes a calming breath.

If she plans on putting her wits to use and curbing the punishments soon to be expounded against the Senju innocents, she needs to leverage herself with composure.

She can’t let Madara Uchiha rattle her this much if she plans on contriving against him.

If she plans on winning his trust.

⤰

It’s fairly easy to be granted an audience.

She’s rigid in her loyalty to the Senju, and answers any of Madara’s interrogations about Senju information with silence or ignorance. Still, she’s compliant with otherwise basic facets of the Uchiha occupation; she tells him where best to find food and water in the land; from which fields they might find the most harvest; offers insight on neighboring clans that may contend the Uchiha occupation of Senju territory, loyal to the Senju as they were.

In compensation, Madara is usually merciful with her requests. She asks that the Senju hostages be given more daily rations and more room in which to sleep and live, now that the Uchiha occupy most of their old homes.

Generally, entreatments to the betterment of their well-being are met with leniency. Something for which she is glad, but the brother, Izuna, is not.

She hears them arguing sometimes: Izuna claiming that his elder brother is being too forgiving on the enemy—she assumes she is the enemy in question—and Madara stating in response that he has no quarrel with Senju commoners, and that amending some of their grievances is no harm to their cause.

These small victories continue to mount, until she finds herself at his side almost daily, discussing hostage afflictions, enduring his queries and, occasionally, even his frustration at receiving no answers.

This frustration burgeons quickly, until she’s half-convinced that her play at ignorance is one he sees right through. But he always dismisses her when his irritation becomes visible and unavoidable, almost as if to save her from facing the brunt of it.

It’s the first of the strange, apprehensive intimacies that he gives her.

More apparent, soon after, are his long-held gazes.

They sweep over her, inspect her while she talks, greedily scrutinizing her responses. He doesn’t miss the shiver that runs through her when his dark eyes linger for too long.

She isn’t naive enough to think this prolonged regard is devoid of any suspicious undertone, nor is she naive to dismiss the lust behind his gazes; the careful inspections of her very body that describe something hidden and desiring under his facade.

She doesn’t want him to look at her like that. She doesn’t like it. Doesn’t like the way it makes her skin crawl, or her heart stutter.

But how can she be ungrateful for his dangerous admiration when it might prove profitable?

⤰

She reaps the benefits of his greed not long after their invasion.

He’s taken up residency in one of the precluded houses near the center of the camp. No guards stand watch outside; he doesn’t need them.

When she asks for entrance to his room he gives it, albeit cautiously. She doesn’t bother disguising her visit under any pretense; she’s there for him, and he knows this, apparently, judging by the careful look he gives her when she walks in and shuts the door behind her.

Shame and irritation sizzles underneath her skin, but she ignores it. Her efforts have guaranteed the safety of the innocents under Uchiha rule so far, but those efforts won’t last forever. There’s more to be done.

It’s not long until she’s pressed against him. Insistently her hand rubs over the space between his thighs. He’s soft, unaffected by her touch. It discourages her, but she continues, regardless.

“What do you hope to gain from this?” he asks, eyes steely and trained on her, as if her eager hand isn’t even there.

He hasn’t made a move to stop her, so she urges herself on.

"Isn’t this what you want?” she implores.

“What makes you believe that?”

“The way you look at me.”

It’s a calm declaration, though she’s still explicitly hiding something under her tone, he sees, something like frustration.

“How do I look at you?” he inquires.

When she refuses to answer, he lifts a finger under her chin and forces her gaze to him.

“Like you want to control me,” she answers bitterly.

The bulge under her hand twitches to life. She rubs harder. His face changes; his expression is tighter, more concentrated.

“And that’s what you want?” His hand stretches across the back of her neck, keeps her head still. Fingers brush at the nape in deceptively gentle tandem. “To be controlled?”

“No.” She squeezes her hand, hard. He replies with an angry, swift breath. “You could never control me.”

The hand at her nape curls into her hair and yanks hard, so hard that her rubbing stops.

“I already do.”

She’s infuriated by his words, he can see that plainly on her face. But he doesn’t care. She’s made the mistake of dangling her seductions in front of him, and he’ll rise to the occasion, if she's so determined to stir him.

It shocks her how smoothly he maneuvers her to the futon at their feet, lays her down and climbs over her; how expertly his mouth captures hers and his tongue slides over her lips.

She opens her mouth obediently, lets him explore. Shame courses through her when a hand between her thighs coaxes a pleased, albeit startled hum from her mouth.

His fingers work her up quickly, pull her clothes off without a hiccup or delay.

She had, foolishly, underestimated the strength of him. After she’s stripped bare, when he holds her arms down, there’s no room for her to fight back. As he looms over her, powerful and dangerous, she realizes she should be shaking in fear, in hatred, in uncertainty.

Instead, her body is calm, forcefully calm.

Sensing this, he sees it not as her resolve, but as a challenge.

She refuses to close her eyes when he starts, and stares up at him, disputing his gaze. The pleased sigh that leaves his mouth when he starts rocking into her makes her shiver, despite her determination to keep her body still, keep it pliable for his pleasure but loyal to her convictions.

His thrusts are deep and hard, reaching into her in ways she didn’t even know possible until now. Her breath catches with every snap of his hips, until those breaths are choking off into surprised gasps when he angles his body a certain way, hits a certain spot inside of her that makes her legs jolt with pleasure.

One hand is planted firmly into the sheets beside her, keeping his body suspended over her. The other holds her thigh, keeps it pressed down to ensure she’s stretched as open as he needs her to be.

When pleasure urges him to go harder, he takes her leg and curves it around his waist to dig into her deeper. With the new angle she can peer down, watch his cock spear into her with precise finesse. She tears her eyes away, the sight of it making her nerves tingle, making the unbidden pleasure that much more potent.

Even if she wanted to vacate her mind, to numb herself to all feeling until she could be sure he was done and her task finished, it’s an impossible feat. Too many sensations; his heavy breath coming in low pants; strong thighs shoving against her legs with every thrust; his eyes, even when she turns from them, searing into her, pinning her down.

A flush spreads over her body, hot and feverish and anxious. In the scant light she sees his skin giving way to his own pleasure; sweat lines the curve of his prominent clavicles, a drop on his brow as it furrows with the heightened pace of his thrusts.

She starts to tremble uncontrollably as he roughly pounds into her, losing some of his rhythm, a basic need for release urging him. Rumbling, chest-born moans spill from his lips, and against her body’s wishes, she cums with a hard-fought whimper.

As she shivers through the onslaught of pleasure, he stares down at her, his face an emotionless canvas.

She doesn’t even realize he’s near his end until he grabs onto her hard, grunts loud and staggered, then stops moving.

He takes a moment to let the pleasure sink in, eyes closed to revel in the wet heat surrounding him, pulsing and twitching. Then he pulls out.

He leaves her on the mat, naked, curled into herself as if to hide the shame of her orgasm. Nothing in his posture speaks of an identical sentiment on his part. The sex she finds so monumentally impairing, he sees as nothing more than what it is: sex.

No sooner than he moves away from her is he dressing, the raw muscle of his back moving with every motion, his sweat-glazed scars glistening in the moonlight that invades from closed curtains.

Before he leaves, he says, “I assume you have herbs.”

Her eyes open.

The herbs.

She had almost forgotten. She hasn’t needed to take them since Tobirama left, since there was no one else to share her bed…

The thought of Madara’s seed quickening inside of her makes her nauseous. She’s almost grateful he’s reminded her of the contraceptives.

“Yes,” she says. She’ll take them first thing in the morning. They were made to work even after the fact. No need to panic.

“Good.”

He leaves her in his room, and she falls asleep despite her errant thoughts.

⤰

She draws a bath for herself and slips into the lukewarm water.

The bruises and love-marks haven’t gone away. Every time they do, every time her skin is returned to its unsullied state, she’s in his bed again, tempering him, giving herself over to his rough desires in some hope it will continue to coax leniency out of him.

She’s been bathing more often, she realizes: some meager attempt to wash his scent and his touch from her, no matter the pleasure she takes from it in kind.

But there’s still much resistance in her thoughts when she gives herself over to him, a chiding reminder in the back of her head that says what she’s doing is shameful.

She’s a married woman, after all; widow, in Madara’s eyes.

But the masquerade doesn’t take away from the guilt she feels every time she opens her legs for his lust. It’s not even easy to imagine it’s Tobirama anymore. Tobirama isn’t so purposefully rough, isn’t keen on making pleasure so hard-fought with such domination that she receives from the Uchiha.

A chill runs through her to think of the difference between them, to think she might never again know the softer, more loving touch of her husband. The possessive, taking nature of Madara’s intimacy might be all she ever knows.

She touches the skin under her breast, feeling no texture on the flesh, but knowing the seal Tobirama left is still there: a risky, but comforting reminder of his caresses.

She so misses them. She misses his voice, his touch, his earthy scent. The room around her is so devoid of it. The very air feels seized by the conquest of her Uchiha captors. Every breath she draws is more of their smoke, their fire, their danger.

She sinks underneath the surface of the bathwater, eyes closed, a calming air reserved in her lungs.

The water is comforting, reminds her of Tobirama. She imagines it’s him surrounding and warming her skin, if only for a moment.

She lets the world around her numb to nothingness, hoping at some point, so too will her anxieties leave her and make this dilemma all the easier to endure.

⤰

Izuna hadn’t meant to come across her this way.

The woman isn’t answering his brother’s summons, and the guards stationed outside her home say she won’t respond to the calls or demanding knocks they make at her door.

Izuna isn’t a patient man. He has much better things to do than fetch his brother’s stubborn whore.

The guards at the door had apparently been warned not to intrude on her sanctity more than necessary, and utter a protest when Izuna barges into her home unannounced. He ignores their murmuring, unfamiliar with the respect—or whatever it is—that keeps them compliant.

The living area is empty and so is the kitchen. He calls her name once, then twice, irritation coloring his shouts. They garner no response.

At the back of the house, he hears a sound, and goes to it. He hears it again once he’s closer, coming from the washroom, he thinks.

He knocks once.

No response.

He knocks again.

Still, no response.

Sufferance all but worn, he pulls open the door.

There’s a bath of water, her form distorted underneath its surface. His intrusion is apparently louder than any previous call for her attention and she folds up quickly from underneath the water, breaking the surface and sending splashes everywhere in her haste to glance around, size him up, and cover herself for modesty.

Too late. He’s seen it.

Never mind her naked body. Even if he needs to be forgiven for barging in on her later, he doubts, now seeing the mark that she quickly goes to hide under her breast, that she’ll be getting mercy from him or any other Uchiha from this point on.

⤰

When Izuna drags her into the war tent, Madara is more startled by the interruption than irritated.

She’s half-clothed, body and hair wet from the remnants of what he assumes was an interrupted cleanse; Izuna has a distraught look of fury on his face that never bodes well. What surprises Madara most, however, is the way she cowers into herself when Izuna throws her down at his feet.

“What is this, Izuna?” Madara demands of his brother, mildly offended to witness this treatment of her, at his brother’s hand, no less. Madara’s intimacies with her are common knowledge, if not frowned upon by some of his Uchiha lieutenants.

Izuna points an accusative finger down at her. “Look at it.”

Madara blinks through his confusion, waiting for clarity. Izuna hisses in anger, grabs her hair, and yanks her upright.

“Show him,” he commands her.

She groans angrily in response.

He yanks a little harder.

“Show him.”

Madara’s suspicion gains with rapid unease. The doubt always tugging at the rear of his conscience comes to the forefront, ready to be fed with truths, ready to reap its victory.

Izuna forces her to stay still, then claws at the hand she has wrapped about her stomach, hiding something beneath the haphazardly-adorned clothing.

Madara catches on, and approaches.

She slows her writhing when he crouches down in front of her. Then something like preemptive defeat rushes through her when he puts his hands on her, and she stills completely.

Madara doesn’t know what he expects to see beneath the fold of the robe he pulls away from her skin—the skin which is always covered by bandages when he strips her bare at night; courtesy, she always says, of a wound received during the invasion—but Tobirama’s Senju’s hiraishin mark is definitely the last.

The silence that ensues as he scrutinizes the seal is far more tormenting, she thinks, than any punishment he can possibly have in store for her.

He’s enraged, of that she’s sure. And the indignant, defiant scowl on her face which receives him when he looks at her undoubtedly makes that worse.

But she’s been found out, she knows. There’s little else she has to her aims at this point except her resentment, a resentment which she can now display with liberation.

Her masquerade is extraneous now; any excuse she can possibly make redundant. She has to accept her fate, with her chin held high.

Like Tobirama would.

But the conviction doesn’t last long.

“Hold her down,” Madara tells two of the Uchiha men in the room.

She panics.

When Izuna’s hands leave her and more vindictive ones take their place, she starts kicking away, trying to fight and make their hold on her that much more difficult to win.

But it’s useless against the pure fear that runs through her when Madara slips out of the tent and returns a moment later, in his hand, an iron poker which had been mending the campfire outside.

When he brings it over to her, she feels the heat radiating off of its glowing, orange, sharp tip.

Her heart rate skips into the margins of delirium and she shakes her head.

“Don’t—” she pleads, glaring up at him. “Don’t—”

Madara presses the singeing iron against the skin below her breast and she screams. Loud and ragged. He doesn’t care.

Even before the deed is done, the smell of her own burnt flesh nauseates her beyond the limits of her endurance, and she passes out.

⤰

The burn is so severe that it leaves her bed-ridden for days on end.

Every twist and turn of her body stretches the thin, pink skin and leaves her whimpering in pain.

Uchiha medics tend to her wound. She isn’t allowed the relief of healing jutsu; the burn is treated with oils and creams which alleviate only some of the pain, and none of the superficial scarring. Something for which she knows she has Madara to thank. He wants her to bear the mark of her deceit, wants the charred flesh to serve as a reminder of mockery.

She had slighted him with her seductions, made a fool of him with her deception. The burn itself would be a meager sanction in comparison—he could have killed her, after all—if not for the scornful significance it held that did more justice to his condescension than any words could.

Any semblance of superiority her secret had once given her is all but crushed with the wound. Tobirama’s seal had soothed her, served as a pillar of faith and courage; a warm breath of comfort on her skin whenever the chill of her captors’ doujutsu fixed her, whenever Madara’s gaze searched her for weakness.

Knowing her husband’s latent protection remained hidden from the eyes of the invaders had been enough, amidst all the turmoil, to shield her from fear.

Now it was gone, rendered useless and indiscernible under corrugated skin.

Like her home, her body now, too, at the hands of the Uchiha, denied her refuge.

Yet in some twisted, ironic way, the wound still grounds her. The pain is a bittersweet reminder that her body is alive, and not a shell for the hopelessness she feels inside.

It’s a degrading and pitiful comfort. But it’s all she has now.

⤰

Madara makes infrequent visits during her recovery.

The first few are made in silence. As she lies there, pitiful and motionless, he stares without a word to spare. His scrutinizing gaze, both spiteful to set eyes upon her and satisfied to see her agony, is the only acknowledgement he gives.

The patronizing graduates to interrogation. He stands over her impotent form, leering down as he demands to know the reason for her having the seal on her skin, demands to know her relationship to Tobirama Senju.

The line of questioning betrays the deductions he’s already made. He’s already decided that the woman is Tobirama’s spouse, or at the least, some sort of lover. The intimate placement of his seal is telling enough, and her previous elusion on the subject of her purpose on Senju land is further proof. All the suspicions piece together and exploit her lies.

But he wants to hear the truth from her own mouth, the very mouth which conspired to deceive him with its pleasure, keep him pliant with its warm caresses on his body. Only then will he be satisfied, only when she admits who she is, what she is, who she belongs to—

Then he can remind her that it’s he who owns her now. He who conquered her home as easily as he had conquered her.

Her silence isn’t as defiant as she thinks, not by a long shot. To patronize her is a pleasant notion, but the hooded, resentful gaze she gives him fails to stir him in any way besides to sing praises of his own power.

⤰

“Kill her,” Izuna insists.

His determined indignation on the matter comes like a chant in the days following the revelation.

Madara’s commitment to deciding how best to deal with her is only marginally interrupted by his brother’s input, but it does disrupt his logic and feed his own fury.

He should kill her. Should string her up for the rest of the Senju to see: let her be an example to whoever else among them may have delusions of defying him.

“What point is there in keeping her alive?” Izuna presses on. “Kill her. Send her body to the Senju army. Let them know we won’t be trifled with.”

“No,” is Madara’s decisive reply. “She serves more use to us alive.”

“I fail to see how. She’s done enough to outwit you. I would’ve thought you eager to be rid of her.”

Madara resents the comment, but tempers his irritation. “I know your dislike for Tobirama makes you enthusiastic to do her harm. And why is that? Because you know harm done to her is harm done to him.”

“Precisely.”

“Then you should understand the benefit of keeping her alive.”

“Fine. Keep her alive. But not unscathed. If you want to use her as leverage, deliver a gift to the Senju. The correspondence between you and Hashirama has been pitifully civil so far. Send something with the next envoy. Something of hers. A finger will do.”

“No.” Madara’s tone is unequivocally firm. “We will do no such thing.”

Madara has little doubt that his brother’s enmity runs deep enough that an adequate offense on her part, no matter how slight, might be cause for Izuna to damage her. That’s not something Madara can allow.

His conscience forces away the fact that part of his aversion to his brother’s threats are rooted in possessiveness; Izuna has no claim to her, has no entitlement to her punishment.

That’s Madara’s. That’s his. And his alone.

⤰

How she finds herself sharing his bed again, she may never know, and will never be brave enough to ponder.

She’s silent when he moves inside of her. Even when he makes her cum, as easily and powerfully as he always has, she barely lets the ragged, frustrated moan loose from her lips for a second before closing her throat and swallowing down the tightness.

When he rolls off of her he lies in silence. Where he would usually get up to bathe or leave, he remains, like he's done so often recently, to sleep beside her.

He taunted her once, told her he had no fears of sleeping beside her now, because she knows what it would mean for the Senju hostages if she tried anything.

That aside, she’s half-convinced that he’s awake at all hours of the night regardless, waiting patiently for the opportunity to catch her plots and punish her accordingly.

But how difficult would it be? To kill him, leave him, save as many hostages as she can while he bleeds out in the room, alone and cold.

It’s a fantasy she allows herself to imagine over and over again. A fantasy too opportunistic to ignore after their nights of scornful passion leave her weak and spiteful.

The kunai she left under her pillow feels cold as ice when she slowly reaches for it, hiding the purposeful movement behind a comfortable stretch.

It’s been a long hour since she first played at sleep. She never hears him breathing, but considers his silence as good a signal as any that he’s unconscious.

When she carefully turns over, she confirms that his eyes are closed. He sleeps on his back, always, as most shinobi do. Alert and at the ready even in slumber.

Slowly she rises from under the sheets, ever so careful not to let the fabric move an inch across his skin. She should just slit his throat, she realizes. But piercing into him will be swifter, and more profitable.

The kunai wavers in her hand. Killing unwitting men in their sleep isn’t so difficult a task; shinobi and kunoichi alike do it all the time, don’t they? That was war.

It should be easy to stab down into his heart and twist, to watch him wake in tormenting shock as the blood fills his lungs and chokes him. She would enjoy that.

But the wavering in her hand worsens to a subtle tremor.

He’s not an unwitting man, not some simple enemy to kill for convenience. That makes her confidence ever harder to steel, but she has to. She has to kill him.

She won’t wait a moment longer. Kill him, destroy him, and be done with it.

But just as she raises the kunai, a strong hand wraps around her wrist in an unforgiving grip.

His eyes are open, glaring at her.

She shivers with fear and rage as his hand tightens to a bruising grip. Her panic sends her mind into a frenzy of action.

She can still do it. Just one stab downwards and she can end it.

But even pushing down with both hands doesn’t overwhelm his strength. He still glares and scowls, infuriated.

She tries again, putting her entire body’s weight down on the weapon, limbs shaking with the effort.

He doesn’t budge.

He flips them instead, and the kunai is suddenly in his hands, pressed against her throat.

“There are easier ways to kill me,” he mutters. If his blood is boiling at her trespass, nothing in his bored, thin voice betrays composure. “You could be more creative.”

Tears prickle her eyes. Her hands press desperately against his, trying to push the cold blade away from her skin. But he keeps it there. Even the smallest movement will slice the flesh.

“Remember that you are the one at my mercy. I could kill you and every Senju in this camp any time I wish.”

“You’re horrible,” she seethes, breath shallow in anger. "I hate you.”

“I’m aware. Yet you continue to share my bed night after night. You still think you’ll gain anything from it?”

The words sting her pride, split her open to let the doubts and faults and fruitless depravities spill in.

“You do nothing but shame yourself. Look at you. Spreading your legs for me like a dutiful whore, thinking it will somehow save you and your people. It’s pathetic—"

She slaps him, hard.

Though his cheek burns with redness, he’s otherwise unfazed by pain. He scowls and slams her arm down to prevent any more of her rage.

“You may think you have control over me,” she says in a seething whisper. Even with the kunai pressed against her jugular, the expression on her face is nothing short of brazen. A lofty, defeated brazen that comes across as scorn. “But you don’t, and you never will. There’s only one man I’ve ever loved. When you’re on top of me I think of him and only him. It makes it bearable. You’ll never be half the man that he is.”

He scowls at her, his eyes like burning, silent daggers. She knows she might have sealed her fate right then and there. But so be it. Let her last moments of life be spent spiting him.

Her body relaxes, unconcerned with fighting whatever comes next.

She doesn’t expect him to laugh.

“Tell yourself that, if you must,” he says, with a sadistic, grim smirk. “But you know very well the power I have over you.”

His eyes turn crimson and she gasps, but by the time she makes to look away, it’s too late.

In the illusion, Tobirama is frowning at her, eyes wide, a sneer of disgust on his face.

She doesn’t understand why, at first. Why does he look so gloomy? She feels only joy to see him. Joy and unbearable relief.

She tries to run to him. But burning hands at her throat summon her back. Despite no voice, face, or body to accompany the unforgiving grip, she knows it’s Madara who impedes her by the ferocious strength alone.

“Whore.”

It’s not Madara’s voice, but Tobirama’s. It carries over to her, like they’re separated by a valley despite his being only yards away. If she could reach out to him, touch him, feel his embrace—

“Uchiha whore,” he barks at her again, scowling now.

“No,” she pleads, eyes stinging with tears. She tries to pull the grip from her neck away and escape, but Madara locks her arms down to her sides, rendering her utterly trapped.

“Tobirama,” she begs for his sanctity, for his forgiveness. But he’s backing away from her now.

She cries and cries desperately, screeching in frustration when Madara’s grip tightens to a visceral degree, until she feels like her skin is alight with flames.

She looks down, and sees that they are. And the skin which these flames scorch dies off to corrupted, pink flesh as it travels up her arm in a slow crawl. An agonizing, horrible, slow crawl.

Hours elapse as she endures the torture. Hours of raw, inhuman pain and her husband slurring his vile insults at her. The sheer destruction it pillages on her mind and body makes her feel small, makes the flames which take their time in exploring her skin burn brighter and hotter until finally she feels like nothing but ash.

The last of her willpower billows away with that ash, as she watches Tobirama’s form start to disappear on some horizon that defies logic.

She still wants to touch him. Still wants to be held by him. She still wants him, despite how clearly he doesn’t want her.

His obscenities circle her thoughts, all-encompassing, completely and finally defeating her.

Whore. Slut. Traitor. Weakling.

She cries a voiceless cry when Tobirama disappears, and Madara takes the illusion away shortly after.

She blinks for clarity, eyes adjusting back to a reality no less harrowing than the previous artifice.

He leers down at her, takes in her anguish and her seedy frame with gluttonous cruelty in his gaze.

Numb, teary eyes stare up at him as they slowly read his form. Realizing her predicament, she starts to hyperventilate, and tears run down her face.

She shuts her eyes in one last attempt of modesty, forcing the stream of salt to sluice more violently down her cheeks.

“Tobirama,” she pleads weakly, the only thing that she can think of in her hazy pain.

It angers Madara.

“He doesn’t want you. Now look at me.”

She refuses.

His hand twists into her hair and snaps her head back so hard that she almost sees stars behind her eyelids.

“I said look at me.”

“No,” she cries weakly, though she obeys, regardless. Her bloodshot, desperate eyes feed his sadistic vengeance. Then she’s turning her head away from him. Meager defiance. “Please—”

Satisfied with the short admission of her defeat, he takes her face and forces her look at him.

“Try anything like that again and I’ll make sure you spend an eternity in a nightmare of my making. Do you understand?”

She has no energy to respond.

“Answer me.”

All she can offer is a weak nod, tears still streaming down her cheeks.

In a moment of triumphant vindictiveness, his fingers press harshly against the burn under her breast, bringing to life a reminiscent pain, a crushing reminder of what he’s done to her.

He pushes her face away and she curls into herself, thinking of Tobirama.

In these makeshift quarters he’ll find no sleep; his mind is a mess of anger, desperation, and confusion. He needed to hurt her, didn’t he? She had defied him again. What other choice did he have?

Another moment spent in her presence is another pin of irrational emotion nudged into his chest. He needs to leave.

He catches her glaring at him when he climbs off and starts to dress. It’s a look full of pure, searing hatred.

But he says nothing. He’s extracted enough triumph from her.

His silence is in victory; hers in defeat.

⤰

She feels less alive each passing day.

She doesn’t see him very often, not since the incident in the night when she’d failed to take swift revenge.

Occasionally she hears him on the other side of the door, inquiring the guards who stand watch outside about her disposition. Rarely does he enter and see for himself.

When he does, they exchange no words. He examines the room for any plotting demonstration of escape or sabotage, disguising his observation of her underneath these sweeping inspections.

However, sometimes he gives up on the pretense and simply stares, studying her, trying to decide how he feels.

His actions are regrettable, of that he’s sure and self-condemned, but there’s still a glimmer of insolence in her eyes when he catches her gaze: one which rekindles the spite within him, fans vengeful flames and reminds him that she brought this upon herself.

She would see no pity from him.

Any words of apology on his tongue fizzle away then, and his visits conclude as silently as they begin.

⤰

The fight in her dwindles helplessly, and as it dwindles, so too does all sense of reservation.

The prodigious determination there once had been to contend Madara and his Uchiha conspirators is all but spent. What good does it do her now? She’s broken, subjugated, and without leverage.

Her body, which had once enabled her to use its seductions to the advantage of her people, is now depleted and only a shell. A shell for the hollow, cold heap of defeat that she now is.

How deluded was she to think she could save all the people here? How had she ever thought that she alone could protect the hostages from the evil at their door?

And Tobirama, whose embrace was denied to her even in dreadful illusions—what would he think of her? Madara was right. What else was she now but an Uchiha whore? Obsolete, ruined, soiled.

Tobirama won’t want her. Not now. Not ever again.

What more is there for her?

As the weeks go by, Madara’s distrust ebbs away. Suspicions of subterfuge die with her audacity; the times he does happen upon her, she’s nothing but a husk of the sharp woman she had made herself out to be.

House arrest soon becomes a superfluous precaution, and even when the guards leave their posts, she makes few attempts to leave her home. And when she does, she wanders aimlessly, meanders without direction and without purpose.

She’s pitiful, Madara decides. Pitiful and crushed. He has nothing to fear or suspect from her. Her fire is gone.

What he doesn’t expect is that the last ember of that fire holds one desperate dredge of scorn. One which she won’t allow to be extinguished.

When she wanders into the Uchiha war tent that day, she isn’t stopped.

She’s given no second-glance by any of the Uchiha shinobi. Even if they were to give her careful inspection, they would never know of the kunai in her pocket, the steel icy and begging to be utilized for one final, desperate fight.

Madara isn’t there. Instead, she finds Izuna.

“Where is he?” she asks weakly.

Izuna pays her so limited attention these days, regards her as little else except the harlot his brother broke in and conquered, that her presence has nothing more than a fleeting impasse on his patience. Like a gnat buzzing around his head.

“My brother? Who knows.”

When he accords her his attention he sees that she’s looking lifeless as ever. Sometimes he ponders the nature of the unkind things his brother has done to her, with a fraction of a fraction of pity. Then he’s reminded of the trespasses she’s made, and the pity is gone.

“What?” he mocks. “If you’re hoping to charm some leniency out of him, you’ll get nowhere looking like that.” He tsks, a sneer marring his lips as he pulls his eyes over her form, like it’s a harrowing task to complete. “You’re better off groveling on your knees... save him the displeasure of looking at your face, at the least.”

Although she doesn’t react, he sees humiliation simmering underneath the hardened, broken surface of her expression. He would have favored a more promising response to his taunts, but he’s satisfied to see her tamed of her previous unruliness, nevertheless.

He turns his back to her. Her misery is pleasant only for so long; the more he looks, the more unsightly it becomes.

The Uchiha sigil stares back at her, stitched proudly and delicately onto the back of his garb.

It mocks her, does more to incite her than any of his degrading condescension can.

Unthinking, she moves to him.

Hearing her approach he turns to meet her, the same bored sneer on his face.

The melancholy is still in full bloom on her features, but there’s something else there, too. Something that tells him she’s struggling to express a grievance on her tongue.

He scoffs.

“What is it, woman?”

He’s not Madara, she decides, but he’ll do.

Aimlessly, she yanks the kunai from her pocket, then brings it down on his neck, not caring for whatever consequences will follow.

⤰

She wondered why Izuna didn’t kill her the moment he wrangled the kunai from her grip.

Blood spills from his neck; thick crimson pours in rivulets down his shirt, down the hand that presses against his wound.

It may not be fatal but it’s certainly critical. Sharingan had worked in his favor. An inch more of the dagger’s descent studied without the activation of his doujutsu might have guaranteed his death. He inched away just in time.

She doesn’t have time to lament her failure.

He did throw her to the floor in his anger, but nothing else comes. If he hadn’t been so occupied with sealing his wound, she imagines his ire would prove much worse, if not terminal.

She doesn’t bother pushing up from her place on the floor when another Uchiha, hearing the din of Izuna’s angry hollers, barges in, sees the chaos, and sprints away after taking orders from Izuna. She doesn’t hear the essence of these orders, numb to the world as she is.

Had the kunai been in her hand, she would slit her own throat in defiance. Death would have been preferable to what comes next.

When Madara storms in, she’s still a pile of hapless defeat on the floor.

He says not a word, but the pure rage boiling behind his gaze says all it needs to: She made a grievous mistake.

She gasps when he grabs a fistful of her hair and yanks her to her feet. She screws her eyes shut, unwilling to look at him. He doesn’t seem to care whether she does or doesn’t.

She’s certain that he rips hair right from the roots when he whips her around, shoves her forward with enough force to break every bone in her body. A bookcase greets her as she barrels into it. That’s when her eyes open in pained shock, a rushed gasp escaping her as she struggles to regain the air thrown out of her lungs.

She wants to collapse, but a hand clasps around her neck and keeps her standing. Then the fingers tighten around her throat. She chokes pitifully for oxygen.

“I told you that if you ever tried something like that again that you would regret it.” His voice is cold with anger. “But to make an attempt on my brother’s life?”

She doesn't answer. Apparently, he doesn’t expect her to.

He shoves her back to the ground. It knocks the wind out of her, and when she pushes herself up on shaky limbs, a heavy boot in her back sends her to the floor again.

She yelps as he digs his heel into sensitive muscle. A burst of hot and red pain spreads through her back. Her kidneys, maybe? She doesn’t know. But he’s damaged something internally, and she wishes she were dead.

Her breaths are pitiful and scant when he finally takes his foot away. She says nothing. Thinks of nothing.

“Get up,” he demands, in a rigid, thin voice devoid of anything except fury.

Even if she wanted to obey, her body refuses.

“Get up,” he snaps, and the unforgiving hand returns to twist into her hair, sending webs of pan across her scalp as he hauls her to her knees.

He crouches in front of her, a hand still fisted in her hair. Now he wants her to look. His other hand takes her face and squeezes, so hard she’s half-convinced he plans to crush her skull.

“Open your eyes and look at me.”

Desperately, she tries. But it’s a task to keep her eyes open without nausea seeping into her gut. Her eyelids force themselves to shut in an effort to quell dizziness.

But then he jostles her around by the grip in her hair, so hard and so viciously that her entire world blacks out momentarily. The motion sends her mind reeling and her vision swimming.

“Open your eyes.”

Adrenaline shoots through her and demands her to obey.

She isn’t surprised when the red of sharingan is there to greet her.

Everything goes black in the world of his making. She almost expects to see Tobirama there, for him to shout at her and degrade her again.

Instead, she feels pain. The worst pain she’s ever felt. So painful she can’t breathe, can’t think. The only thing that exists is the hot, searing flame of anguish that stings every inch of her skin, every gap of her insides, down to the very organs.

A hundred kunai stab into her head. She hears them slicing flesh to ribbons and digging fractures into her skull. Her blood curdles until it’s set aflame. That too, she hears, bubbling underneath the surface of her skin like thick, boiling water.

Everything hurts. Everything is endless agony.

When air finally fills her lungs, she wails.

So loud, so violently, so wretchedly, that it’s almost itself anguish to hear.

Then he takes it all away.

The relief is heavenly. She crumples into a ball.

She hates it. She hates the weakness. If Tobirama could see her…

Then the pain comes again. She screams in tandem, then bites her tongue so hard it bleeds.

The cruel routine goes on, for what to her deluded, frenetic mind seems like hours, but is in reality passed in mere minutes.

Izuna watches as his wound is tended to, his expression as devoid of any mercy or sympathy as his brother’s.

⤰

Two weeks later, when her body and mind make the slow, pitiful climb back to equilibrium, she notices the change.

It’s unlike one she’s felt before, but not entirely unrelated to an irksome nausea: a queasiness in her stomach that neither food nor rest alleviates; something new, like an aura, that swathes her and accompanies her every second of the day; an extra weight added to the burden of her body.

Then comes the fearful ascent of logic.

Amidst her turmoil, she’s forgotten about missing her monthly bleed. Its absence could be blamed on the toll her body has taken, but she knows better.

The revelation brings her into a spiral of hectic anxiety, of despairing conflict.

It’s not long before she finds herself sneaking into one of the medical tents, decision already made on how best to deal with the new predicament.

She shuffles through the stock of vials and herbs which the Uchiha medics keep at the back of the tent, finds what she’s looking for and almost escapes as covertly as she had infiltrated, when she’s stopped.

“What is that you have?”

She pauses a foot away from the tent’s exit, her body in a mode of panic.

“Some herbs for my wounds,” she mutters.

An elder Uchiha woman, a medic, turns her around and inspects the filched items in her grasp.

“That is ginger root,” the medic observes warily. “If you need something for the pain, I would suggest dried poppy.”

The young woman stares fretfully at the old woman; the old woman stares back.

“Thank you,” the younger stutters blankly, unable to make a step in either direction; play along and heed the advice to go search for the proper herbs, or flee and risk suspicion?

“You look ill,” the old woman says, eyeing her, putting a hand to her forehead.

She backs away. “I just need rest.”

“Let me examine you. I can help you find the right medicines.”

“No,” she says. Any medic will be able to feel the life inside of her, given the chance. “I’ll be alright.”

She tries to leave then, but the old woman doesn’t let her.

⤰

When Madara answers the request for his presence at one of the medic huts, he’s surprised to find her there, sitting on a cot, hunched over and distressingly quiet. Two Uchiha men stand at her sides, supervising her.

“What is the meaning of this?” Madara asks.

Recently, he’s appreciated any reason to stay away from her. The sight of her makes him sick, makes a conflict of rage and confusion and culpability dance angrily in his head.

The old woman offers him the ginger root, and a small vial of clear liquid. “She was after these.”

Madara takes them into examination. “Am I supposed to know what this is?” His patience, already thin, dwindles considerably for the roundabout elucidations.

“A toxic mixture,” the old woman explains plainly. “Boiled with regular tea and these will certainly destroy whatever grows inside a womb.”

With subdued bafflement, Madara looks at the woman on the cot, understanding all at once.

She doesn’t dare meet his eyes. Even now her body trembles with frustration, with fear, with defeat.

Izuna, who had accompanied his brother, scoffs, incredulously loud. “So either you managed to put one in her, brother, or it’s the Senju’s.”

“Can it be determined?” Madara asks the medic, ignoring his brother, and never taking his eyes off the frail form on the cot.

“In a month’s time the chakra should be durable enough for us to sense.”

“Kill it,” Izuna insists, coming to stand next to his brother, a voice of frustrated reason. “If it’s a Senju, better off unborn. And if it’s an Uchiha... you would pass on the clan’s power to halfling filth.”

Unperturbed, Madara stares in silence. Finally she meets his gaze, unsettled by the look of dark concentration in his eyes.

“Why attempt to destroy the life inside of you unless it’s a burden to you?” he ponders out loud.

She realizes his train of logic: it must be his, for her to be so adamant in her pursuit to terminate it.

“If it was my husband’s,” she says, “and it is, I would do the same. You would kill my child the moment I bring it into this world. Why let life grow that is destined to be murdered in cold blood?”

“And if it were mine?”

“It isn’t."

Madara scowls.

“And if it were,” she goes on dangerously. “All the more reason to destroy it.”

That visibly infuriates him.

“Give her the herbs,” Izuna asserts again. “Let her solve the problem. Either way she’s doing you a favor.”

Madara doesn’t speak for a long time.

His careful inspection of her lasts long enough to make her doubts rise afresh, make her feet fidget uncomfortably and her heart pound in desperation.

“She stays here tonight,” he decides ultimately, looking to the Uchiha guards at her side. “She doesn’t leave.”

Izuna looks muddled, and somewhat irritated by the decision.

She just looks afraid.

⤰

He doesn't return for many days, but his absence can’t be appreciated as much of a reprieve at all; her mind is a mess of anxiety and denial the entire time.

This can’t be happening, she tells herself countless times. She can’t be pregnant. And worse, can’t be ignorant to the father. There’s no possible way. It can’t be happening.

Part of her reasons for the better: it must be Tobirama’s. No more than three months have passed since the Uchiha first conquered and occupied the land, no more than three months since she’s been with her husband.

The other part of her, downtrodden and beaten into pessimistic depravity, knows that with the chaos Madara brought, so too came a negligence to her normal routines: was she taking the contraceptive herbs as diligently as she needed to, given their intimacies? Amidst the turbulence he caused, had she remembered each and every time they were together to make sure nothing was conceived from their depraved liaisons? How could she not, when the way he touched her and took her made her sick?

But then, doubt: leading her astray, reminding her that everything horrible and miserable that could happen already had, so what was a bit more to the mountain of suffering she already endured? What was stopping fate from deciding that the life inside her womb belonged not to her loving husband, but to her unforgiving captor?

Thinking about it drives her to depressive insanity. By the time Madara comes to see her, she’s depleted almost all of her brain power.

“Leave us,” he commands the guards who have been assigned to watch her.

They obey, and the pair are left in silence.

Her mind pleads with her to run, to attack, to simply scream—anything. Anything that will quell the distress of the pause in the air, the distress of not knowing his intent.

When he takes a step forward she inches back. Noticing this, he’s dissuaded from approaching any closer.

“So long as the child is inside of you, you have nothing to fear from me.”

Her heart pounds so furiously in her chest that she’s sure it’s audible in the quiet of the room.

The statement angers her, scares her, and much to her shame, relieves her.

“It’s not yours,” she claims.

“Unless I’m miscalculating, the Senju host left a week before my arrival. And not long after that, a fortnight at most for the sake of assumptions, this child might have been conceived. Between us.”

Bile rises in her throat and she wants to protest, but he goes on, badgering her with the logic she’s thus far refused to entertain.

“If it were his, you would be farther along. Visibly, for one. And more than likely, I would be able to sense the chakra, deduce which clan it belongs to.”

By now she’s trembling quietly with her fear, fighting the urge to deny him, to preserve the hope that the reality he speaks of is in fact skewed.

“The child inside of you is an Uchiha,” he says determinedly.

She shakes her head.

“You know I’m right.”

“You’re not,” she argues. “You said yourself there's no way of knowing. Not yet.”

He cocks his head. “Then you really have no idea, do you? No idea who it belongs to? Normally mothers can read the chakra within them at this stage. Can you not?”

She won’t grant him an answer, instead stares down at her feet as they dig into the ground, as if in a desperate attempt to escape underneath.

Madara watches her with careful scrutiny. “I suppose we’ll have to see, then. But somewhere in that head of yours, you know I’m right.”

You’re not right, she repeats in her mind. You’re not. You’re not.

Just as he makes to leave, he stops.

“And let me be clear,” he says, menacingly. “If you make any attempt to destroy what grows inside of you, you won’t be the one suffering the consequences.”

The glare he gives her speaks volumes: The Senju hostages. The violence that would ensue. The atrocities he might commit if she disobeyed.

He leaves her. She clutches her stomach, letting the first, long-suppressed tear roll down her cheek. A warm, wet trail is left in its wake.

In the turmoil she finds evidence for and against his claims when she lets her thoughts run away with logic. A wash of anxious desperation enlivens her, makes her conscience grab for a reprieve to her doubts. But even that is denied by the crushing reality of her situation.

The life inside of her might belong to the enemy, to the Uchiha.

And still, it might not.

She stumbles between one acceptance and the next, each clouding her ever more until the tears are spilling in streams down her cheeks.

When she puts every morsel of her ability into sensing the life within her, she can’t tell if the faint trace of Senju chakra she feels is authentic, or a desperate manifestation of her mind’s making.

#madara #madara uchiha #naruto imagines

749 notes · View notes

wardog-of-the-endless · 4 years

Note

5 & 20!

FanFan! You’re a terribly beautiful awful person I love you dearly.

5. What’s a crackship you love? Hmmmm, so this is an interesting question. I'm not sure if we define crackship as within fandom, or like, cross fandom? Like, absolutely banana-boat type ship? WHAT IS THE CRITERIA? TO FANLORE: "A crack ship is a ship that is highly ridiculous, bizarre, disturbing, and/or unlikely to ever become canon. The characters don't have any chemistry, never interact, are in different canons or timelines, are different species, one is an inanimate object, etc." OK. Using this criterion (subtract disturbing, though, because... no?):

(MCU) MARVEL: WinterIron (Bucky x Tony) & WinterHawk (Bucky x Clint) probably both count in the MCU for Crackship selections. WinterHawk makes a bit more sense in some of the comic stories (Hawkeye & The WinterSoldier) with a bonus option of a Triad featuring Natasha, if you're into that. (I'm not mad about it, to be honest).

TMFU/The Man From Uncle (Movie): Napollya/Spies In Love, etc. So I love Napoleon Solo x Illya Kuryakin. I'm not sorry for it. I'll probably write about it. CanonWise, probably not. Bromance wise? Off the charts. Blame Henry & Armie, if you must.

Criminal Minds: Derek Morgan x Spencer Reid. Not gonna become canon but honestly, there was way too much "Pretty Boy" for me not to go "they should totally make out". This is a pairing I'm casually affectionate for, I haven't read much or written any.

Inception: Do we consider DreamHusbands aka Arthur x Eames a crackship? Unlikely to become canon and minimal interaction. Whatever, I ship it like burning.

DC (Comics, Cartoon, DCCU, Whatever): I'm always a fan of SuperBat or SuperWonderBat.. So. Superman x Batman, Superman x Batman x WonderWoman, all good. Supremely powerful alien & warrior vs the man that keeps them human? Continueeee.

Crossover Crackships: (I wasn’t sure above was cracky enough?) *Eliot Spencer (Leverage) x Carlos "Cougar" Alvarez (Losers) x Jake Jensen (Losers) is a great triad ship. I read like, 2 fics but oh man, hot like burning. Toni Likey, very very much. *Lo Zingaro aka Fabio Cannizzaro (They Call Me Jeeg aka Lo Chiamavano Jeeg Robot) x Majid (Wolf): Bad Boys in Love CrossoverFic. Blame the TOG server. Luca Marinelli & Marwan Kenzari's chemistry in The Old Guard has me shipping a bunch of their alternate characters, but none as hard as these guys yet. It's pretty cracktastic, I'm still not sorry.

20. Do you have a favorite fanfic or author? If so, tag them/post a link and share the love!

Oh man this is TOUGH. Ok, ok, so... Sorry this is gonna be TOG heavy, I think.

droit du seigneur by silvyri

- TOG. Nicky has to marry a truly terrible man but the new lord takes a shine to him and claims the right of first night. (Nicky x Joe)

as our love shapes our universe by nicolorenaldigenovia

-TOG. This is L’s Princess Diaries AU (I love L, I recommend everything I’ve read of her’s, truth be told. If she’s reading this, HI DARLING!) The Old Guard Princess Diaries Fusion/AU where Prince Nicolo is Princess Mia's cousin, who introduces his friend Prince Yusuf Al-Kaysani to be Mia's future king.

let's right, these wrongs, together by nicolorenaldigenovia

-Another TOG L fic-. (Remember what I said?) or the one where Nicky is housemates with Nile after Yusuf breaks up with him. And when he finally opens up about it, Nicky realizes that his current predicament was brought on by misunderstandings and good intentions with ill results. But it’s too late. It’s been nearly a year; it doesn’t matter now.

Hemingway by silvermadi (Orientation)

-Remember Fabio x Majid? It’s my Madi-babe’s fault. This is her work, I love it, I love her, I’m rec’ing.

Finally Alive by domini_moonbeam

-”Joe is the new immortal not Nile, and Nicky is the one sent to go find him.” Ok so I don’t know domini but I’d probably fall at their feet if I did. This is for sure one of my favorite TOG stories.

as your sun sets (i know you in bleary-eyed 3AM) by theprophetlemonade

-This is a Sense8/Shadowhunters crossover AU. I have read it entirely too many times. It’s MARVELOUS.

Laying Claim by laceymcbain

-Inception/Dream Husbands. “Arthur, you've rung me at 2:30 in the bloody morning from Soho where you appear to be on a street corner and shirtless, possibly drugged. I've no doubt you're capable of handling yourself under normal circumstances, but drunken blokes aren't always the most understanding sort, especially when you're not actually selling what you look like you're selling.”

The One Where They're Stars on HGTV by earlgreytea68

-Inception/Dream Husbands. Super long HGTV AU Series that is FABULOUS.

And I’m stopping before this gets out of control because I have HUNDREDS more but. I want to sneak in a Standalone Author Rec, in case someone is wanting some Marvel and because I can’t pick a story from her but I would rec all her WinterIron without hesitation, is Ray.

RayShippouUchiha

6 notes · View notes

dhaskoi · 6 years

Text

Love, Judgment & Forgiveness

This was my entry for the Supercat Christmas in July fic exchange for the incomparable #damelola. If you liked my earlier drabble about Lena getting caught with the kryptonite you might like this too.

Cat leans back in her seat with a sigh as she lays the paper down on the empty seat next to her, the DC cityscape slipping by outside the town car’s window. When you work in the big white house your workday never really ends, but she’s found that with an early start she can snatch some time to herself on the drive in, usually spent flipping through her preferred papers. Her fondness for newsprint is a little old fashioned, especially when her own publications (and she will always think of them as hers, no matter what shenanigans take place with CatCo stock) are steadily switching over to a focus on digital content. The smoothness of the transition a significantly greater online presence is one of the things James has gotten right. But Cat can’t imagine a time when she won’t love the tangibility of ink under her fingers, the weight of the folded paper in her hands, the rustle of the pages. The day that picking up her morning paper doesn’t give her a little thrill she’ll know it’s time to cart herself off to a nursing home to play shuffleboard and be wheeled out into the sunlight at set times like a potted plant. God willing she’ll die before there’s any risk of that.

She knew it would be hard, walking away from CatCo and National City for the second time. She knew that this would happen, reading about Kara’s adventures and triumphs second or third hand and feeling left out. The traitorous voice that used to whisper that she was already left out hardly even stirs these days, after all the times she’s repressed it. Cat had told herself that White House Press Secretary was a job worthy to the challenge of keeping her fully distracted from what she’d left behind. It turns out that once she’d settled into the role and started to get the hang of Beltway maneuverings the mechanics of the job were in fact less challenging than being a CEO. She hadn’t realized how badly her schedule had been bloated by encounters with murderous, superpowered ex-employees, scheming billionaires (other than her), alien invasions and whatever crisis of the week their resident superhero had to deal with.

That said, she’s learning a lot from Olivia. She suspects her old friend had more reasons than a desperate need to replace her decimated staff when she offered Cat the job, but Cat is so used to being on the other side of that equation that it took her an embarrassingly long time to realise she was being groomed for more. She’s still considering what path she wants to take after her stint as press secretary wraps up. On to communications director to put her name on some worthwhile legislation and get the experience she’d need to make a credible run for governor or the senate? She doesn’t intend to be one of those idiots who thinks they can spend their way into an office without any accomplishments to prove she’s worthy of the task.

Some new business enterprise? The way news gets distorted on social media has riled Cat for years, but being the WHPS has given her a new, more urgent perspective on the subject. It’s different hearing briefings from the FBI about acts of violence set in motion by lies spread on Facebook and Tumblr. Idle thoughts about a new type of media platform that integrates social media more directly, combined with rigorous fact checking and moderation, have been growing less idle lately. Getting a new company off the ground at this stage of her life sounds like a nightmare, especially in a field that cutthroat, but the money from the CatCo sale and Carter’s impending college years are two significant differences from the insane and sleepless days when she was getting CatCo off the ground.

Which brings her to door number three. A return to CatCo with the skills and knowledge she’s acquired here, using them to elevate her company further, take it to even greater heights. Her understanding of how to leverage media influence for social change has been honed to an even sharper edge by her time in Washington – new knowledge of how the political machine works from the inside has given her some interesting thoughts about changes she’d like to make at CatCo if she went back. The thought of it is tempting and unnerving in almost equal proportion. Would she be moving forward or falling back into the same old rut if she went home to the city where she truly made her name? And could she bear to see a certain bright-eyed reporter growing closer to the woman who seems to have stepped into what used to be Cat’s place in her life? These are questions she doesn’t have answers to yet. Until she does she’ll keep supporting and learning from Olivia –

Something in her driver’s body language catches her attention and Cat frowns, turning away from the window to reach forward and tap her on the shoulder.

“Lisa is there a -”

The whole world blurs as the car jerks to the side and Cat is thrown against the seatbelt suddenly cutting into her torso. Force, pure force tossing her around. It’s like being a bug in a jar, picked up by the hand of a giant angry toddler and shaken hard. Cat still remembers her first encounter with the sensation from her mercifully brief stint as a war correspondent when she’d been too close to an IED. For years after she’d persisted in the happy delusion that that part of her life was over, until with the arrival of its own superhero National City suddenly seemed to have a new hostile alien or ridiculous metahuman attacking every damn week. No matter how many times it happens you never get used to it. Noise, tyres screeching, engine revving, Lisa in the front seat swearing - and then silence for a second before the sound of voices shouting and feet pounding. Cat raises a hand to her head and tries to focus past the shock and the disorientation. There’s an ache in her neck that makes it hard to raise her head. Don’t stop thinking, that’s her rule in situations like this and it has always served her well. First task? Check on the person in the car with her, who is also the one person who might immediately be able to tell her what’s going on, or get free? Do both. Cat scrabbles at her seatbelt even as she calls out.

“Lisa? Lisa can you hear me? Lisa?”

No response. Cat hopes she’s merely unconscious. The crash didn’t feel as though it was that bad. Did they have an accident or – no, there’s gunfire. Despite the circumstances and the surge of adrenaline Cat feels a sort of tired resignation creeping over her for a second. Does this always have to be her life?

Then the door slams open and rough hands are grapping at her shoulders, yanking her out unceremoniously to land on her hands and knees on the unforgiving tarmac. She feels it cutting into her palms and her knees and takes a moment to be grateful that the situation isn’t triggering a flashback. Therapy works, apparently.

Ordinarily the Press Secretary simply doesn’t rate their own secret service detail and Cat hasn’t broken the tradition. Due to her colourful personal history (most press secretaries have never faced a single attempt on their life, let alone multiple attacks by supervillains) Cat has the distinction of being offered a detail by Olivia. The worry was that someone with her high profile assuming such a public position might become a target in a way that the Press Secretary usually isn’t, but Cat dismissed the concern. She doesn’t need a coterie of bodyguards to feel special - and she doesn’t believe that men and women whose job it is to take a bullet guarding the country’s leadership should be used as adornments to someone else’s ego. Vanity is one thing, but that just smacks of insecurity to her.

And if she’s being honest with herself she couldn’t tolerate the loss of freedom, especially freedom of movement, that came with a security detail. Evidently, that was a mistake.

There’s indistinct yelling around her as she looks up – right into the barrel of a gun, wonderful – and she catches something about ‘alien loving bitch’, oh of course, Cat thinks, the woman who named Supergirl becomes the face of the administration that passed the alien amnesty act. It was only a matter of time before some bunch of backwoods bigots crawled out of the woodwork. She really should have seen this coming, except she can never take these kinds of lunatics as seriously as she probably should, refuses to engage with the fearful mindset that considers them real threats. Cadmus running around being, well, being Cadmus, also made it easy to forget that they weren’t the face of all prejudice in America and the threat didn’t end with Lillian being locked up.

Looks like she’s going to pay for that now.

The reality finally sinks in as she sees her assailant’s finger tighten on the trigger, some nondescript thug in coveralls with weaponry easily brought at any gun fair in the country.

This is it. This is when she dies. No lucky escape or last-minute superhero save this time. The smallness of it stings a little. After everything she’s survived this is how it all ends for her?

Time slows.

Cat has always known that the time gifted to us is finite and too precious to be wasted. She’s understood so ever since she came home from school at the age of ten and found her beloved father dead in his study from a stroke decades too soon. As a child she was furious, betrayed, she blamed everyone and everything and cried out the injustice. As an adult she came to understand, slowly, that loss and pain are part of life, that they sharpen the edge of every experience. Cat doesn’t fear death. Unfinished business, on the other hand . . .

Carter. He’s not so little nowadays, but he’ll always be her baby and he still needs his mother. This is going to break his heart. Will his father come through for his son this once? If any deity should be listening, please let him grow up happier and steadier than she did.

Adam. They’ve stayed in touch, sporadic yet ongoing. He even sent a card for her last birthday. She can never be the mother to him that she wanted to be, but there was hope for closeness, for something of the relationship she thought she’d lost any chance at.

Kara. There’s a lot she still wanted to say to the most promising young woman she ever mentored. A lot that she might never have said, regardless of what she tells herself in this last moment. She can only hope Kara knows, that her veiled and not-so-veiled comments made it clear how important the other woman was to her, and in how many ways. And she’s selfish enough to hope that she’ll be missed, that Kara will shed a tear or two just for Cat.

And then -

The familiar whoosh of displaced air and the distinctively heavy thump, felt as much as heard, that can only be caused by a pair of strong legs suddenly hitting the ground at speed. There’s no stopping the smile that begins to from on her face, an ingrained reaction to the knowledge that a certain blonde Kryptonian is still her guardian angel.

Cat looks up and is startled to see a flash of dark hair instead of the expected blonde. With a flicker of disappointment, she realises it’s him, not her, and then she has to check that assumption too as further details sink in and she realizes something very strange is happening. Black and white is her first impression. A black, vaguely leather looking bodysuit with a metallic sheen and a matte white cloak that sweeps back from her shoulders. Long dark hair falling in a queue down her back. She’s moving too fast for Cat to see more than that, as she pushes herself to her feet.

The mystery woman – mystery girl, Cat realizes - rips through the attackers with superspeed and rather less moderation than she’s used to seeing from Kara or Superman, although it doesn’t look as if her surprise savior has killed anyone. Her shoves and throws as she blurs from one location to the next are more than forceful enough to break bones and she throws their weapons away with enough energy to put bystanders at risk. One of the thugs gets thrown into the side of the van that rammed Cat’s car with enough force to leave an ugly dent.

She’s new, says the analytical part of Cat’s mind that never switches off, even when the rest of her is saying her final goodbyes. Determined but short on practical experience. Like Kara when she first started out the new arrival isn’t familiar with the million little details that add up to doing a complicated job right and she hasn’t had the benefit of anyone else’s experience. She’s trying, but it’s clear no-one has taught her how to fight safely with her strength.

What are they going to call her, Cat wonders? There’s no convenient letter shaped symbol on her chest to hang a name on, no obvious theme for branding. With a jolt of realisation it occurs to her that these decisions are not hers to make anymore. Someone else – Kara? James? Please god not Lois – will choose a name for this new arrival. The sense of loss she feels at that realization is stronger than she might have expected. Then Cat realizes it’s over, every attacker down, and the new superhero in town is headed towards her at a swift trot. The expression of concern on her face is a little surprising from someone Cat has never met.

Oh hell – Lisa. Cat rushes towards the car, a little unsteady on her Jimmy Choos but not slowing down as she heads towards the driver side door to check on Lisa.

“Ynugh! Cat,” a hesitant pause at Cat’s lack of response, “Miss Grant! Miss Grant are you okay?”

The voice isn’t quite the light, warm tone so familiar to her (yet another giveaway of the secret she’s supposed to keep ignoring) but it’s close. And so are those worried blue eyes. The face though . . . there’s something about it that claws at the edge of Cat’s memory. Something that’s obvious yet out of sight. She pushes it into a corner of her mind for later consideration, so she can focus on the more urgent present.

“I’m fine, I’m fine, Lisa, my driver, I think she was knocked unconscious -”

Before Cat can complete the thought the girl is reaching forward and with a tearing shriek of abused metal the door is ripped away and flung aside. Lisa’s seatbelt is no obstacle to Kryptonian strength (Cat’s assuming – she’s certainly got the flight, the strength and the speed) and in the time it takes Cat to blink Lisa is being laid gently down on the road by the mystery brunette. Cat is already shrugging out of her blazer to make an impromptu pillow while the brunette looks her over with an analytical care that Cat recognizes. That’s a tick for x-ray vision then.

“She’s okay, she’s okay. It’s safe, she doesn’t have any spinal damage,” the young brunette says reassuringly when she sees Cat hesitate to disturb Lisa’s head.

“It’s just bumps and bruises and a mild concussion,” she goes on as Cat tucks the folded blazer under Lisa’s head.

“I am so glad you’re okay, Miss Grant.”

“So am I, miss . . .”

Cat lets her voice trail off questioningly. Danger past and her immediate fears assuaged her investigative instincts are kicking in. She wants answers. She wants the story.

She wants to know what the hell is going on.

The young woman focuses an intense gaze on Cat, before breaking into a beaming smile. Finally, able to get a clear look at her, what stands out is how pleased she looks with herself. Cat is reminded more than anything of Carter as a child when he thought he’d managed to sneak an extra cookie without her realizing. He was so adorable when he did that she occasionally let him get away with it, purely for the pleasure of his happy I’m-so-clever smile. She’s striking, no surprise ( why do superheroes always look as though they came straight from central casting?) with fine features, clear skin, long dark hair and the blue eyes Cat already took note of. Possibly the brightness of the smile she’s directing at Cat is skewing her judgment slightly there.

“I’m a friend, Miss Grant. I promise you that.”

Cat looks her dead in the eye and makes a show of dusting herself before planting her hands on her waist, summoning every ounce of poise she has.

“Really? Isn’t it considered friendly to introduce oneself where you’re from?” Cat smirks a little, reminded of her earlier thought and a long past conversation with Kara. “If you don’t provide a name you’ll have to live with someone else’s pick.”

“I’m sure you’ll come up with something suitable, Miss Grant.” More grinning. “You’ve got some practice naming superheroes.” She tilts her head in way that’s familiar to anyone who has spent much time around Kara, focusing elsewhere for a second. Add another tick for super hearing, Cat decides. “And that’s my cue to leave. Stay safe, Cat.”

She grins wider and it’s so bright and fiercely joyful that the connection Cat had wondered at is undeniable. Then she tenses, and Cat barely has time to take a faltering step back before the girl launches into the sky, going fast but not so fast she can’t be seen, until there’s a strange shimmer and she’s simply gone. Cat stays watching for a moment, the way most people do when they’ve just seen one of the supers fly away, before the sound of sirens shakes her out of the reverie.

“That never stops being impressive,” she murmurs before returning to Lisa’s side, already drafting the release and considering how the administration will break the news without admitting they don’t know anything.

The next several hours are spent in the D.C headquarters of the D.E.O, recounting the same five minutes over and over, while Sam Lane pitches a hissy fit in the background. Which explains why she’s hours behind the curve when James Olsen decides outing himself as the Guardian is a good idea.

Read the rest on AO3

#supergirl #supercat #cat grant #kara danvers #kara zor-el #fic #LJ&F #the full story is not totally friendly to lena or james #but if you think there were unexplored implications of their behavior at the end of S3 #you might like this #lena luthor #james olsen #alex danvers #lucy lane #this thing grew way out of control #but i'm committed to finishing it now

31 notes · View notes

docholligay · 7 years

Text