#I tried to get diagnosed and was told I was too smart and too funny | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

megan-loves-surveys · 8 months ago

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#26.

Do you have a large dog? If not, are you afraid of them? No, and it depends on the dog.

Has anyone ever told you that they loved you, and you didn’t say it back? No.

Who is your favorite photographer? No idea.

Were you shy in high school? Somewhat.

Did the last guy/girl you kissed have any piercings? Yes, my boyfriend has an earring.

Do you actually love your parents? Yes.

Do you know anyone autistic? Not that I know of.

Do you like your girlfriend’s/boyfriend’s parents? Unfortunately, both of them have passed away so I'll never get to meet them.

Do you like Polaroid photography? Not really.

Who was the last family member of yours that died? My Grandma.

Do you have any gay family members? Yes, one of my cousins. I'm also bisexual myself lol.

Would you be upset if you caught your boyfriend looking at porn? No lol, I watch it too xD

What is your favorite type of cat? Any, cats are adorable.

Who of the opposite sex has seen you at your worst? My boyfriend... and my Dad.

Were you raised by someone other than your parents? No.

What’s the last chore you did? Just cleaning up in general.

What is your favorite jungle animal? Dunno.

Is your father injured? No.

Are you part Native American? No.

What are your pets’ names? -

Have you ever worked two jobs? No.

What are the names of all the dogs you’ve ever owned? I've never owned a dog.

Would you ever get a face tattoo? God no.

Who in life have you felt the strongest need to protect? Dunno.

What is the cruelest thing a person has ever said to you? That I looked retarded.

Who have you most feared in your life? Dunno.

What is your strongest reason for your opinion on abortion? I dont want kids, so I always want the option if I accidentally get pregnant.

What one natural thing would you most like to see? Hmm.

Do you like the game Tetris? Sure.

What’s the most rebellious thing you’ve ever done? Oh, don't ask, I'll get in trouble.

Have you ever wanted to be a model? No.

Do you like your name how it’s spelled? Yes, it's the proper way :P I don't like when they add all the extra letters to it, like H and A and that.

Who was your first online friend? Zoe, probably. Not the Zoe I knew in NZ, she was from the UK and was a Blue fan - we met on a Blue fansite haha. We were friends for years! I wonder what she's doing these days.

Your last ex: how did you two get together? We were set up by friends of ours.

Does your mom dye her hair? Yep, her hair is currently like a pinkish red xD I get my love of dying my hair from her.

What’s the best kind of video game? (Adventure, shooting, etc) I love Pokémon, adventure games, strategy games and those 'choices matter' games, plus games like Cyberpunk 2077 & LA Noire that is open world but has a storyline to follow.

Do you know anyone who has road rage? One of my friends lol, he swears constantly when he drives, we get into a small traffic jam and he's like "GET OUT MY WAY CUNT!" out the window lmao.

Have you ever had a controlling boyfriend/girlfriend? No.

Have you ever tried to break up anyone because YOU liked the guy/girl? I don't do shit like that. I have had a crush on a friend's boyfriend before but I kept it to myself and didn't do anything about it cos I'm not an asshole.

Do you draw fanart of anything? No.

What was the last music video you watched? Did you like it? I watched Ladies Night by Atomic Kitten cos it's one of my faves and I hadn't seen it in ages.

What’s a condition you have that you haven’t been officially diagnosed with? Dunno.

Which one of your parents do you think is smarter? My Dad. My Mum is smart, but I think my Dad outdoes her.

Have you ever supported anyone’s Kickstarter? If so, what was it? Yes, I'm currently backing a Kickstarter for a Broken Sword remake! I can't wait to get my bonuses for it.

What band has the power to make you cry by splitting up? None of them, cos they've all split up and got back together so I'm used to it.

Would you feel funny if you kissed somebody of the same sex? No.

Can grills be sexy on a guy? No.

What’s your favorite comic book/graphic novel? That's not really my thing.

Do you prefer original or sour Skittles? I like both.

Do you find it easy to pass the time or do you get really bored? Depends.

Have you ever been in a Catholic confessional? No.

Who was the last non-relative you rode in a vehicle with? My boyfriend.

What was the title of the last song you listened to? "Bad Kind Of Butterflies" (by Camila Cabello)

Who is the lead singer of your favorite band? They're all the lead singer.

Do you expect to be married in the next 2 years? No.

Have you ever had an allergic reaction to an insect? No.

Who IMed you on Facebook last? My friend.

Is there an item that you bought on a whim, but now consider it a crucial part of your life and you would or have purchased it again? TBH, I decided out of the blue I wanted a FitBit and now I can't live without mine.

What flags do you have in your room, if any? None.

What was the last thing you ate? A banana.

What kind of natural disaster is most common where you live? Tornados.

Do you or your parents rake your yard? We don't have a yard.

If you’re not straight, who was the first person you came out to? Friends online.

What do you think of the ‘Healthy At Every Size’ movement/philosophy? It's stupid.

Where did you meet the last person you swapped numbers with? Work.

Who was the last person to add you as a friend on Facebook? Some random.

Did you enjoy high school? Yes, mostly.

What’s an unusual food combination you like? Hmm, not sure.

What’s the longest stretch of time you’ve spent completely alone? A few days over New Year's once, my Mum went to stay with my Grandma and I stayed at home, I didn't even go out lol.

Did your parents allow you to drink soda when you were a kid? Yes, but only on occasion.

Did you ever go through an emo or goth phase? No.

How many times have you stayed at a hotel in the past year, and where? None.

Do you take a walk every day? I try to.

Who was your favourite musical artist when you were 15? Do you still listen to them? Blue and Girls Aloud, and yep still a huge fan of them!

When was the last time you ate at a food court and what did you get? Last week, I had KFC haha.

How do you like your eggs cooked? Poached or fried.

What’s your favourite place to go on vacation? The USA, but I haven't been since 2019. Thanks Covid.

Have you ever done your own compost? No.

Would you ever get a tattoo on your hand or foot? Nah.

Do you open your doors and windows on warm days? Windows, yes. I feel like I'm suffocating in the warmer weather with them closed.

Are the blinds/curtains in the room open or closed right now? Open.

Were you mean to anyone in high school? No.

Have you ever accidentally started a fire? No, the closest I got was doing popcorn in the microwave and it exploded lol.

What is the last note you edited in your phone��s notes app? My shopping list of things I need to get.

Who is your favourite coworker? You can tell me about one from your past if you don’t have one right now. Hmm, probably Elaine, she's an older woman who is at the next desk to me when I do data entry. She's hilarious, she bakes a lot and always shares with me and doesn't mind swapping shifts with me - this week I wanted Monday off so she switched with me, I took her Friday shift and she took Monday.

Do you know anyone who’s adopted a child? No.

What was the last video game or board game you purchased? I bought a bunch off Steam a bit back.

Are any of your siblings taller than you? -

Name a song that reminds you of a past relationship: Hmm.

Have you ever seen a building on fire in real life? Yes, I remember in our last house, one of the houses down the street caught on fire and completely burnt down.

Have you kissed anyone and their first name started with an F, D, or L? Yes.

Have you ever been in therapy for anything? No.

Is there any part of your sexual/romantic history that you have not told your current significant other about or that you will not tell future partners about? No, my boyfriend knows everything.

Have you ever developed feelings for someone whose sexual orientation was incompatible with yours? Yes. One of my friends is sooooo damn hot, but he swings the other way lol.

How many relationships have you been in that actually got sexual? Most of them.

Who performs the most random acts of kindness out of everyone you know? Lynnette probably.

Who’s the most romantic person you ever went out with? My boyfriend.

Last person to tell you that you smell good? My boyfriend xD

Last person you told that they smell good? See above haha.

Who did you have your first kiss with? Do you remember what colour his/her eyes were? His name was Cameron, and I think they were blue but I'm not sure.

Which edible flowers have you tasted? None.

What was the last video you added to your favorites on YouTube? Not sure.

Do any of your family members have an upcoming birthday? Yep.

Is your favorite animal endangered? No, it's cats xD

What is the middle name of the last person you texted? Daniel.

Have you ever come close to drowning? No.

What’s the cutest thing your S/O does, but denies it’s cute in any way? He pouts, and then denies he pouts LOL.

Have you ever dined alone at a restaurant? Not a proper restaurant but at like cafes and stuff, yeah.

Have you ever changed in front of the last person you kissed? Yes.

Have you experienced any severe side effects of medications? Yes - I took antibiotics a few years ago and they gave me a super bad rash and diarrhoea. Found out I'm allergic to that kind!

Have you ever had a big YouTuber reply to a comment you left on their video? Yep.

Have you ever given a lap dance? Yes, as a joke xD

Do a lot of people tell you that you are funny? Not a lot, but on occasion people have said I am haha.

Have you gone to a tanning bed lately? No.

What did you do on the Fourth of July? I'm not American.

Do you have nice legs? I like to think so. I have a short torso so I'm mostly leg haha.

Have you ever been to Ohio? No.

Do you like The Goonies? Never seen it.

Do you prefer hardly toasted at all or burnt toast? Not burnt, but very toasted.

Do you have any unusual skills? Depends what you consider 'unusual'.

Do you have any bug bites right now? No.

Is there anything annoying you at the moment? Yes. I had caffeine in my Starbucks and now it's making me weird lol, I keep forgetting to ask them not to add any.

Are there any forms of art you personally find pointless? Nah, some of it isn't my thing but it means a lot to other people.

Do you have any projects on the go right now? No.

Are you a hat person? On occasion.

Has anyone ever approached you in the street and asked to take your picture? No haha.

What song’s stuck in your head? Cody Rhodes' entrance theme cos he was on SD earlier and it was playing for awhile haha.

Do your feelings get hurt easily? Not really.

Have you ever seen a cougar in the wild? No.

When was the last time you took a selfie? The other day.

Do you have any nieces or nephews? No.

Do you have a good relationship with your cousins? i don't see them much, but we did get along.

Are there any upcoming events for you to look forward to? Sure.

How many siblings does your significant other have? He has two brothers.

Have you ever done three or more shots in a row? Not in a row xD

What was the last zoo you visited? I think the one in Washington DC.

#survey #surveys #random survey #personal survey

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fibrowarriorgirl · 3 years ago

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Autistic women aren't as rare as you think

Did you know that women are a lot less likely to be diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder? And no, this isn't necessarily because autism in women is just a lot less common. It's because autism in women usually presents itself very differently than autism in men. Autistic women often get misdiagnosed with anxiety disorders and/or Borderline Personality Disorder. And to be fair, anxiety disorders, BPD and ASD all have quite a lot of similarities.

The damage of being diagnosed with ASD later in life is bigger than you might think. I know this too well. For as long as I can remember, I have felt different in comparison to my peers. I could never put my finger on it, but something about me felt different. Not even just different, no, I felt wrong. There had to be something wrong with me.

I remember a conversation I once had with my mum, although I doubt she remembers this. I think I was about 9 or 10 years old. She had just picked me up from school and we were sitting in the car, when I said to her "I'm special, aren't I?" My mum of course responded by saying how special I was because of how kind and funny and smart I was, because my mum has always been my biggest fan. And I remember I quickly stopped her and said "no not like that, I'm weird."

Weird. It's something I've been called a lot in my life. Most times, it was told jokingly by my friends and family. Other times I was being called weird by bullies or by teachers who should've never started working with children in the first place. I've always known I was weird. So when my friends called me weird for taking something a bit too literally, I honestly didn't mind. As a child I liked being weird. Being weird meant I was being true to myself. As I got older, I noticed that being weird wasn't all that it was cracked up to be. Before I knew it, people thinking I was weird became a subconscious fear of mine. Being weird meant I was myself, yes. But it also meant I didn't belong. Being weird confirmed that I was different, special. That I was wrong.

I was about 9 years old when autism was first suspected. I was making repetitive movements all day long. The movements looked a lot like stimming, something that a lot of autistics do. I don't really remember the test they did. All I remember was that I really liked my psychologist, Sarah. We were always in a room with lots of toys. I remember that my mum once explained to me what autism was, and why they thought I might be autistic. She said "autistic people don't see the big picture, they see a bunch of small things." As an example, she said that autistic people don't see a house, they see windows, a door, walls, etc. I told her I wasn't autistic, because I always see a house. In hindsight, it is pretty ironic to see how literally I took that explanation. Taking things 'too' literally, another sign of autism.

A few weeks after that, Sarah told me that she didn't know if I was autistic or not. In her words, 50% of me was autistic and 50% of me wasn't. They ended up not diagnosing me, and referred me to a hospital to see if it wasn't actually epilepsy.

No, I don't have epilepsy. We later found out I have something called Stereotypic Movement Disorder. Which I will elaborate on in a later post.

For years to come, that would be the closest I'd ever come to an ASD diagnosis. I was also tested for ADHD a few times as a teenager, but to no avail. As I grew older, the feeling of not belonging grew stronger. I was always wondering why I felt like such an outsider, maybe it was just all in my head? I was diagnosed with generalised and social anxiety when I was 16, which I thought could explain the feeling of being an outsider. But if that feeling was caused by anxiety, why did I have that feeling all my life?

When I was about 19 years old, I started suspecting I might be autistic after all. I asked my mum what the reasoning was of my psychologist all those years ago to not diagnose me. Apparently, I met all the diagnostic criteria. But because I had empathy and a lot of fantasy, I was not diagnosed. Since then, I have been fighting for an official diagnosis. I wanted to see on paper that I was diagnosed with ASD.

This was insanely hard to do. I tried talking about it to my psychologist, who dismissed me by saying I didn't need another diagnosis. Whenever I tried to tell someone about my struggle with getting diagnosed, I'd often hear "but you don't seem autistic". I'd get asked why I thought I could be autistic. I'd give my reasons and as a response I'd hear "well you might be on the autism spectrum but not enough to be considered autistic."

I was begging people to do a diagnostic test. I needed to prove that I was right about this, and how much it would help me. Even if we did the testing and it turned out I wasn't autistic at all, I could at least let that idea go and go on with my life. It was so frustrating that nobody believed me. My mum and my partner were the only people who actually believed I was autistic when I told them my reasoning.

And then, an angel in the form of a psychiatrist turned up. After only a few minutes of telling her about myself, she asked me if I was ever diagnosed with ASD. This resulted in enthusiastic rambling on my part. I told her everything, how I felt out of place, how I was almost diagnosed, about the repetitive movements, etc. She is the one who ended up setting up a diagnostic exam for me. And this year in August, I was finally officially diagnosed with ASD. The psychologist who did the diagnostic test told me this was one of the most obvious cases of autism he had ever seen.

You have no idea how relieved I was to finally, FINALLY be diagnosed. That feeling of being different, being wrong. No, there's nothing wrong with me. I'm autistic, that's it. My psychologist, who kept dismissing my suspicions, later told me she didn't want to see if I was autistic because she thought I was looking down on myself. Never once have I seen being autistic as a bad thing. It's just who I am, that's it.

Now I live through life, knowing that I am autistic. That feeling of being out of place, something I've had all my life, is gone. I cannot even describe how liberating it is to have that burden to be lifted from my shoulders. A part of me is angry though. I have been begging for years for help with this. And time and time again, I was ignored or dismissed. Often just being told it was some type of anxiety. I also wish that my psychologist all those years ago didn't refuse to diagnose me. I met all the diagnostic criteria, that should've been enough. Imagine if I was told I was autistic when I was 9. What that meant for me, why I felt like I was different, that there was nothing wrong with me.

Please, believe women when they say they think they're autistic. You have no idea how much you'd be helping us.

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redgillan · 5 years ago

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Under Pastel Skies - 3

Sugar daddy!Bucky Barnes x Reader

Summary: Modern!AU Bucky doesn’t need anyone, especially not a sugar baby. He isn’t that desperate… but she smiles so sweetly and she’s endearingly awkward, and he’s so lonely. She’s an artist, a painter, the type of person who always puts others before herself. Throwing caution to the wind Bucky offers her a place to live, a place where she can finally paint whatever her heart desires. He doesn’t need much in return; a friend, a muse.

Word Count: 2,587

Warnings: none

A/N: I wanted to give Reader a family and this is the easiest way to do it. Btw Peggy’s husband isn’t Steve, I have other plans for him ;) Enjoy!

Wannabe sugar daddies don’t interact, idc if you have money, eat it and leave me be.

The rest of the week went by, and you kept hoping Bucky would come back. You hadn’t seen him since he’d left 300 dollars under his napkin after visiting you at work. You had tucked the bills into your bra, knowing they would be safe there, and walked home at the end of your shift.

Now it was Thursday afternoon and you were craving a day off.

Natasha’s apartment was spacious and the oversized glass window bathed the living room in natural sunlight. The apartment was a gift from Sam. Obviously.

You dropped your purse on the sofa –your bed- and laid out the bills on the coffee table. It was made of marble and brass, another gift from Sam.

You didn’t know what to do with the money, so you took it wherever you went, to keep it safe. You wanted to return it to Bucky. It was too much and you weren’t used to random acts of kindness.

You sunk into the cushion and blew out a sigh as you stared at the money. The persistent vibration of your phone against your thigh pulled you out of your thoughts. Half expecting it to be Natasha, you answered without looking at the caller ID.

The operator told you that Scott Lang was calling from Saint Quentin State Prison, and asked if you would accept the charges. You agreed. You always agreed.

��Splotchy, I need your help.”

Closing your eyes, you let your head fall back against the cushion. “I told you to stop calling me that, Scott.”

It was a silly nickname.

As a child, your mother dubbed you splotchy because of the colourful doodles you painted on the living room walls, and your siblings, who were roughly a few years older than you, had loved using that nickname. Especially since they knew you disliked it.

Their support and endless enthusiasm played a big part in your artistic journey, nurturing that spark into a flame. What started out as a childlike fascination with colours and shapes became your whole life. No one was surprised when you decided to pursue a degree in fine arts.

After the death of her husband, Peggy Carter adopted five children; a little boy from San Francisco, a little girl from Wakanda, twins from Sokovia and a little girl whose birth parents were still in high school. You were the last one, the only one she adopted as a baby.

“Is it offensive to call an artist splotchy?”

“It’s irrelevant. I haven’t painted in months,” you replied. “And we’re not kids anymore, you can use my name.”

“I’ve been calling you Splotchy for so long, I forgot your actual name.”

“You’re so funny,” you deadpanned. “What do you need, Scott?”

Scott’s tone changed suddenly, his voice grew agitated. “I need you to call Maggie. She isn’t picking up when I call her.”

“Scott,” you sighed.

“I haven’t talked to Cassie since her birthday,” he cut you off, pleading. “Please, I just want to talk to my little girl.”

Maggie was Scott’s ex-wife. Six months after his incarceration, she had filed for divorce. Natasha thought it was a real dick move but you didn’t blame Maggie. She was alone, her husband was in jail –for basically being a dumbass although the official charge was embezzlement and destruction of property- and she had a kid to raise.

Maggie wasn’t a saint but she was a good mother, and Cassie was a smart and healthy kid. Now you knew what to do with Bucky’s money.

“I’ll call her,” you said. “Listen, I’m going to put 50 bucks on your book. Buy yourself a bar of soap, I can smell you from here.” Scott interrupted you with a monotone ‘har har’. You chuckled. “I’ll buy Cassie a Christmas gift on your behalf, all right? I think she wanted a bike.”

“Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you,” he chanted over the phone, his voice muffled as if he was holding the receiver too close to his mouth. “Are you sure you can afford it? I know it isn’t easy for you. Between living in New York and paying for mom’s nursing home, you don’t have to-”

“It’s fine,” you said, cutting off the conversation. “I’m not alone, Okoye helps.”

“And Wanda?”

“She sends postcards from time to time.”

The line went quiet for a moment. “I want to get out of here so bad,” Scott groaned. “Everything’s gone to shit since I went to jail.”

“Everything’s gone to shit since Pietro died, Scott.” You both remained silent, remembering your late brother. Just thinking about him made your eyes start to prickle with tears, so you cleared your throat and ended the call. “I’ll talk to Maggie. You’ll be out soon, just... stay out of trouble. Love you.”

You left your phone on the table and kicked off your shoes before you lay down on the sofa for a well-deserved nap. In your dreams your brothers weren’t either dead or in prison, your mother hadn’t been diagnosed with Alzheimer, and you weren’t a burden to your friend.

If you were lucky enough, you wouldn’t even dream at all.

The next day, Bucky arrived at the hotel at six thirty and you playfully glared at him from across the lounge. He wasn’t stupid, he knew why you were glaring at him. At least he had the decency to look a little sheepish.

“Just so you know, you bought yourself about 30 breakfasts,” you told him, referring to the far-too-generous tip he had left the other day.

“A man’s gotta eat,” he replied with a boyish cockiness that made him look stupidly attractive. You were too flustered to find a good comeback.

You brought him his cup of coffee and let him enjoy his breakfast while you attended to your other clients. It was an unusually busy day, the room was packed with families who were getting ready to explore Manhattan. You didn’t have time to chat with Bucky and he didn’t stay long. You saw him flinch a couple of times; the muscles in his shoulders pulled tight and his eyes darting left and right.

He left another ridiculously generous tip, along with a handwritten note. Breakfast is the most important meal of the day x.

Bucky came back the following week, and even though it was a quiet morning, you made sure to find him a table in a secluded spot. He didn’t notice when you slipped the 300 dollars into the pocket of his coat. You could be pretty sneaky, too.

“Mmmh,” he said, wiping his mouth with a napkin, “I looked at your Instagram.”

“Oh,” you glanced at your shoes, embarrassed. “Wait, you’re on Instagram? I have a hard time imagining you scrolling through your feed.”

He laughed a little. “I’ll admit I’m not as tech savvy as you youngsters, but I’m not a fossil. I use it to look at the pictures my sister post of my niblings.”

“Cute,” you grinned.

“Anyway,” he said, pushing a hand through his hair. “I love your work. It’s very unique; a cross between Impressionism and Post-impressionism. It’s realistic, and yet there’s something different...” his face scrunched up as he tried to look for the right word. “There’s something in your paintings, something that isn’t here in real life but perhaps should be. It’s hard to explain. It’s a feeling, a color, a pattern; it’s indiscernible but it’s there.” He looked up at you, his cheeks red with embarrassment. “I’m not making much sense, am I?”

You blinked, suddenly stunned that someone had such strong opinions about your work. There was nothing but sincerity in his ocean-blue eyes, and for a moment, you were at a loss for words.

“I, um-” you cleared your throat, “Thank you, I didn’t know that. I look up to Monet, obviously. His work is phenomenal, and I also have a soft spot for Van Gogh.” You ran a hand across your face. “Sorry, I’m a little emotional. The people who compliment my art are usually my siblings, and Nat.”

“And now me,” he said with a warm smile. “And soon a lot more people.”

Flustered, you bit your bottom lip. “That would be nice.”

Bucky nodded. He gathered his silverware and set them on his plate, trying to buy time. You watched him hesitate before he turned to you. “I noticed that your last post was from almost a year ago.”

“Yeah,” you said with a casual shrug. “I don’t really paint anymore. I’m too tired when I get home and supplies are expensive.”

“Of course,” he pursed his lips in thought. “Are you free this afternoon? I was wondering if we could meet for coffee.”

You tried not to show your surprise but his words made the sleeping butterflies in your stomach crack an eye open, their interest piqued.

Was he asking you out? He’d come to your workplace every week since your brief ‘date’. He always gave you more-than-generous tips, and he listened to you with a combination of close attention and warmth that made you weak at the knees.

He’d made it clear he wasn’t looking for anyone but maybe he had changed his mind. Agh, down girl! He just wanted a friend.

You looked into his beautiful eyes, seeing a myriad of expressions cross his face before he smiled at you.

“I ain’t gonna hurt you, angel.”

It was an honest lie, just hearing him call you angel felt like a punch to the stomach. The butterflies were dancing around, reborn, and chanting the word ‘date’.

“If you don’t like coffee, we can have tea, or ice cream,” he said, “anything as long as you can sit down with me.”

You snorted. “Okay.”

“Okay,” he repeated, smiling. “This is my number. Pick a place and I’ll meet you there.”

After breakfast, you closed the restaurant and started cleaning the Lounge. You brought everything back to the kitchen, stacked the dishes in the dishwasher and turned it on. Then you put away the unopened miniature jams, butter and whatnot, and gathered the remaining patisseries and fresh fruits in a basket that you would later bring to the reception.

You worked mechanically. It wasn’t exactly the most exciting job you’d ever had.

You couldn’t stop thinking about Bucky. It was easy to let your mind wander into the cosy and dangerous territory of this being a real date.

You decided to go to the Australian coffee shop near Natasha’s apartment. It was popular but not as crowded as Starbucks, which suited you fine.

After your shift, you removed your uniform and changed into the spare set of clothes you kept in your locker for emergencies. Emergencies being an impromptu date or a night out with Nat. You dug around in your purse for your lipstick; the nice one, the Carter Red as your mother called it.

You dabbed the lipstick on your lips, staining them. You only wore it on special occasions, and you weren’t sure Bucky deserved your full red pout.

You walked to the café with a little pep in your step and a confident smile on your face. The freezing temperature didn’t matter, you were too giddy to care. It was a date, it had to be, why else would he ask you to meet for coffee?

You smiled when you saw him through the coffee shop window. He was chatting with the waiter as the latter set two mugs on the table.

“Hi again!” You shrugged out of your jacket and took a seat.

“I hope you like hot chocolate. Carl, here, says it’s their best seller,” Bucky said, smiling kindly at the waiter.

“Enjoy, and if you need anything else don’t hesitate to call me.”

You carefully wrapped your cold hands around your mug while you watched Carl walk away. A moment of silence rose between you. Bucky watched you with an unreadable expression, making you fidget in your seat.

“I’m glad you came,” he finally said.

“Me too. I’m a little surprised you asked.”

He looked down at his mug and smiled; it didn’t reach his eyes. “I have something to ask you.” He paused. “The night we met, you said you agreed to see me because being in a... financial relationship felt like the only solution to your problems.”

Your smile faltered but he didn’t seem to notice. Oh. The butterflies in your stomach fell so suddenly that it felt like carrying a ball of lead. They went back into hibernation.

“If I had been a decent person and, I don’t know, bought you a drink, talked to you,” he paused, meeting your eyes. “Would you have been interested in this type of relationship? With me, I mean.”

You swallowed hard. “You want to be my sugar daddy.”

It wasn’t a question but a statement. You were slowly realizing that you had been wrong about his intentions. This wasn’t a date, it was a business afternoon tea.

He winced. “Do we really have to call it that? I was thinking mentorship. I can provide financial help, and in exchange you could be my friend.”

“I can be your friend for free,” you said, your throat tightening.

He shrugged, a small smile on his lips. “This way we’ll both get something out of it.”

You looked down at your hands, still wrapped around the mug, and pursed your lips in thought. You felt a sharp tingling sensation in your nose, a sign that you were about to cry. You closed your eyes and clenched your jaw, fighting against the flood that was coming.

You pushed all the emotion down and forced a smile to your face. “Do you mind if I use the restroom? I just took the subway, I’d like to wash my hands.”

Bucky watched you, momentarily stunned by your request. “Of course, take your time,” he quickly recovered.

“Thanks,” you croaked, pushing your chair back.

You picked up your bag and walked to the restroom, your legs feeling like cotton wool. You didn’t need to use the restroom, you had walked to the café, but you needed a moment alone to collect yourself.

A woman came out of the restroom, holding the door open for you. You picked up the pace and thanked her before closing the door behind you. You looked pretty sickly under the artificial light of the restroom. Your eyes were glassy with tears and your red lips were taunting you.

“Got your hopes up, uh?” You watched your lips move. A little humourless chuckle escaped you and you shook your head at your own idiocy.

You aggressively wiped the lipstick off your mouth with the back of your hand and sighed deeply as you looked at your reflection in the mirror. Now you felt like an idiot.

It wasn’t Bucky’s fault. He had been nothing but nice and kind, and perhaps you had mistaken his kindness for flirting. A naïve mistake. You had always been a little clueless when it came to men.

You ran your index fingers under your eyes to get rid of the makeup that had gathered there. It wasn’t the end of the world, you barely knew him anyway. It didn’t hurt any less, though.

Maybe it was time for you to do something out of character, to experience life no matter how crazy it seemed. You were dreading this conversation with Bucky, but you couldn’t hide in the restroom forever. With another sigh, you pushed yourself away from the sink and walked out of the restroom.

Part 4

#bucky barnes #bucky x reader #bucky barnes x reader #marvel #marvel fanfiction #marvel imagines #bucky barnes imagines #bucky barnes fanfiction #marvel imagine #bucky barns imagine #redgillan #redgillanwrites

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imagines-r-s · 4 years ago

Text

Ocean’s Rise, Empires Fall

summary: you didn’t want your father’s death to be your downfall, but for the longest time it seemed like it was going to be to you and everyone else around you

taglist: @mdlyncline(send me an ask to be added to any of my taglists)

wc: 2.7k

a/n: kinda threw canon out the window, but nonetheless, i proceed. basically, clint and nat both survive- it doesn’t really check out but uh yolo

warnings: pretty angsty. very angst actually. there’s a description of depressive episodes so if that’s triggering please be cautious loves, mention of death

mentions of peter parker x stark!reader, but mostly avengers x reader (platonically)

When your dad snapped his fingers, he might have saved the world, but he destroyed yours. He obviously had no intention of doing so, he was just saving the world. You always knew your dad thought that he hadn’t done anything right in life, so you easily assumed that he thought this was his last shot.

Tony wasn’t even aware of your existence until you were about four years old, but once he did find out he knew that he had to change his ways. When he did find out him and your mom came to an agreement for custody where he would see you every other week and every other holiday.

What you didn’t know was that your mom had told Tony about you because she knew she only had a few years left with you, having been diagnosed with cancer a year before she had you meet Tony. She didn’t want you to be dropped off at some random man’s house and be expected to call him dad.

She never had anything against Tony, he hadn’t done anything bad to her, she just figured with everything else going on in his life, he didn’t need a child to add onto that-boy was she wrong. When Tony met you the first time, his whole perspective on life changed. He wanted to be a good person for you, obviously, he wanted to for Pepper too, but he realized either way you would look up to him and you needed someone good in your life.

He quickly noticed that you were just as intelligent as he was and the two of you bonded a lot through working in his lab. He made you do homeschool, considering how advanced you were and that if anyone knew that you were his daughter, you could easily be in danger.

Tony didn’t hide anything from you, you were aware of the Avengers and that he was Iron Man, much to Pepper’s dismay. Considering that you grew up with all the Avengers, all of them thought of you as their own. You would always help your dad with upgrades to suits and the two of you even started on your own suit at one point.

After the events that took place with Aldrich Killian, your parents were more adamant about your safety; making you train with Steve and Nat, finishing up your suit, and keeping more tabs on you. You understood, but it was still too much, which led to you starting to sneak out more.

Although your dad had many regulations on your suit, you were still smart enough to be able to override them, that’s why you were able to leave the tower in your suit so easily. As you were flying over New York, you caught glimpse of a blue and red form also moving through the air. “FRIDAY, scan the area for any heat signatures.”

“Sure thing, Miss Stark,” the A.I responded before doing what you had asked. Whoever was flying was found easily, and you followed them until they stopped on top of a building. Expecting some sort of suit, you were surprised to see someone who looked to be about your age, wearing a homemade jumpsuit and mask, “what are you supposed to be? The outfit is kinda wack, not gonna lie,” he hadn’t expected anyone else on top of the building, so when he looked over and saw you in your suit flying beside the building, he was shocked.

“You’re asking me that when you’re the one flying at the edge of a building?” you could tell he was your age by the way his voice cracked. Opening the suit to be able to step out, you stood by yourself on the roof of the building, “there. Is that better?”

“Oh, uh-uh, yeah. Is that Stark tech? Oh my god, you’re- you’re his daughter?”

“Aw, so smart.”

“What are you doing here?” he asked. You simply shrugged, “Just disappointing my father, what about you, I never caught your name?”

“It’s Pete... Peter. My name is Peter,” he said, purposefully lowering his voice. “My name’s y/n,” you mocked his fake lower voice, “So how do you do that exactly?”

“What? Swing?” you simply nodded your head, “oh, well, I was like bitten by this radioactive spider, and then all these cool things started happening. Like I’m stronger than I was before, I have quicker reflexes, etc.”

“So, you got the qualities of a spider, is what you’re saying basically?”

“Uh, yeah. Well, when you put it like that, the explanation is shorter,” you simply nodded once again. “So, Petey, what’s your superhero name? You obviously attempted a superhero look, but failed miserably.”

“Uh, spiderman? I haven’t really thought of it.”

“You’ve put a lot of thought into it, haven’t you?” he shyly nodded, “haha, well, you have the name, you have the missions or ‘civilians’ to rescue yet?”

“I just stay around my neighborhood, for the most part, you know friendly neighborhood type beat.”

“That’s honestly really cool, looking out for the underdog that not many think to save immediately, I get it. It’s cool. Do you have a phone?”

“Uh, yeah, you want it, Stark?”

“Well, I know you want mine, Parker,” his eyes widened at the sound of his last name, “yes, I knew your name before I asked you.” He slowly nodded in response, handing you his phone to add your number, “so, what do you look like under that mask?”

“Oh, hold on,” as you watched him remove his mask, you smirked as his floppy brown hair fell over his face before he had the chance to move it up, “Oh, you’re cute, Parker. Well, you have my number, so text me. Gotta go.”

You quickly left before he had an opportunity to respond to you. Leaving him with your number and the hope that he would see you again.

Peter had texted you shortly after, leading to the start of an amazing friendship. The two of you started teaming up more and more, which caused your dad to find out about your sneaking out, but it helped him with his discovery of the Spiderling. You two were a duo that no one wanted to mess with and it was that way for the next few years, up until Thanos attacked.

You like to think that Thanos caused everything in your life to be messed up, but there were so many things contributing to your downfall: the Accords breaking your family apart, not seeing said family for years, Infinity War, losing the person you were in love with but too scared to tell, losing your family after they had reconnected for the first time in such a long time, your dad being lost in space, the five years, getting everyone back, and then losing your father.

Although a lot of good things came from all of that, you refused to think about the positives. Everyone tried to help you out of whatever was going on in your head, but no one could help, not even Peter.

For the first time in your life, you were fearful. Fearful that another bad thing would happen. Fearful that you would lose more people. Fearful that you might self destruct, too.

Pepper had tried her best to help, but she was also grieving. Peter was, too. Morgan didn’t understand. The whole team was sinking, but they worked so hard to keep you afloat.

Bucky and Sam were trying to get you back into training, but anytime you went, you were hurting yourself more than anything else. Nat and Clint tried to get you back into your suit, but it had stayed in its case since the day Tony died. Wanda had tried to get in your head and help, it was a last resort, but she was hopeful. Banner tried to get you back into the lab. Steve and Rhodey were both well aware of how similar you were to your dad, so he simply kept a distance while keeping you away from things that would hurt you more in the end. Even Coulson tried to help by showing you his Captain America trading cards.

But nothing they did worked.

None of them gave up, but they were all losing hope that they would be able to get any aspect of you back to your old self. They knew that you were simply winding up to self destruct with all these bottled up emotions, and they didn’t want it to go terribly wrong.

You hadn’t cried since the day he died. You felt terrible for not going to most of the funeral, but people understood. You felt like a disappointment knowing that you weren’t there for the people that needed you most. The completely abandoned them from such close proximity, any other time you would have found that statement funny, but know it just made you feel worse.

When it hit a year since the funeral, you knew you either had to get up now or you’d slip deeper down the rabbit hole. For the first time in a long time, you got up from bed and you were able to take a shower. You combed out your hair, detangling out the knots. It wasn’t much, but it was enough to make you feel good at that moment.

You felt a little bit more like yourself again, it wasn’t much but you’d take it. You had started walking towards the kitchen of the compound when you heard one of the doors in the hallway open. Looking down towards the hallway, you saw Morgan leaving her room. “Morgan, you ok?”

“Yeah, I just wanted a juice pop,” she said smiling up at you. “That’s an idea I can get behind, c’mon let’s go.”

As the two of you were eating the juice pop, you hadn’t noticed that your family had crowded around the kitchen watching the two of you. Peter had woken up a little bit later than everyone else, but he saw that they were all crowded in the hallway, “guys, what’s going on?”

“y/n’s up and is laughing with Morgan,” Pepper said. Peter quickly turned the corner to see for himself, when he saw the two of you he smiled. He was so happy to see you up for the first time on your own since everything went down.

“You know that I can see all of you guys right there, right?” you said, after seeing the crowd of people in the corner. They all slowly emerged from the corner. “Yeah, we aren’t that small of a bunch are we?” Bruce stated to which you simply shook your head in response.

“It’s nice to see you up, doll,” Bucky said, kissing you on the top of your head. “Yeahhh, uh, I knew I needed to get up eventually, I guess. I don’t know.”

“Hey, take all the time you need. Don’t stress about us, y/n,” Sam said.

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

For the next few weeks, you eased back into everything. You started eating more, you got back to a kinda regular sleep schedule, you started training in small amounts, but still wouldn’t go down to your and your dad’s shared lab.

It didn’t take you long to realize that even when some superheroes take time off, the bad guys never stop. Which was the reason why the team had been trying to talk you back into getting into your old suit. “C’mon, y/n, please, we need you. Your dad’s tech is what we need. Please,” Steve said.

“Well see here’s the thing, it’s a dead man’s tech that hasn’t been used in a year, I don’t think it’ll help much,” you said pacing the livingroom. You didn’t want to bring the team down, but you weren’t getting back into your old suit.

“y/n. Listen, HYDRA is planning an attack and we don’t know exactly when it will happen, but it’s happening tomorrow, please. Think about what your dad would have wanted,” you drew the line at him mentioning Tony.

“My dad wouldn’t want some arrogant asshole to be trying to make me do something with his tech that I don’t feel comfortable doing yet. If you cared, you’d respect that. Now, talk to Peter or Banner, I’m sure they can figure something out.” with that last statement you walked away towards your room.

You had a few moments to yourself before you heard a knock on your door, “y/n/n, it’s me.” You recognized Peter’s voice anywhere, “you can come in.”

“Are you ok?”

You simply nodded when you realized you were tearing up. No one had asked how you felt, simply because they assumed that you didn’t want to hear the question. “Hey, hey, hey, it’s okay,” he said before wrapping his arms around you. “Love, it’s okay. Let it out.”

You weren’t sure how long you had been wrapped up in Peter’s arms, but he held you tight as you cried through this moment. Everything you had bottled up was finally coming out. All the walls you had built in the past year were breaking.

“Pete, I can’t help. You have to understand that I want to, but I just can’t go down to the lab and help. I can’t. And Steve expects me too and he said that dad would have wanted me to help and I just- I just don’t know what to do.”

“I think you have to trust your gut with this one. If you can’t go through with it, then don’t force yourself. Tony wouldn’t want you to hurt yourself.”

You simply nodded at the boy in front of you, “I’ve missed you, Sunshine.” He grinned after hearing the nickname he hadn’t heard in so long from you. “I missed you, too, Starlight.”

----------

Somehow a newscast had gotten to the fight, it wasn’t in a private place, so you weren’t surprised to see the cameras angled at your boyfriend and your family. Everyone was being taken out, one by one.

Sam, Bucky, Nat, Peter, and Steve were the last few still standing, but you could see how worn out they were. You thought about how you could help and there was only one valid option, you just didn’t know if you wanted to go through with it. Correction, you didn’t know if you could go through with it.

You made your way downstairs, stopping right in front of the lab that still looked exactly the same. “Miss Stark, it’s good to see you again,” you head the familiar A.I say. “It’s good to see you too, J.”

Slowly taking in the room in front of you, you slowly walked in. The familiar smell of your dad’s cologne still lingered in the air somehow. It wasn’t sad, it was just a bittersweet moment. “JARVIS, can you bring out Mark 85?”

“Of course, Miss Stark.” You smiled to yourself when you realized that Bruce had likely updated your suit.

The bracelets that went with the suit quickly clung to your body, giving you the opportunity to suit up with the click of the two bracelets. “Alright, JARVIS, play dad’s kick ass playlist.” The sound of AC/DC filled your ears as you made your way to help protect your family.

By the time you had gotten there, the HYDRA soldiers had the upper hand, but you knew if you came around unexpectedly they wouldn’t be able to do anything. You took the time to get the other models to get to where you were, that way you could surround them. You watched as the Avengers all smiled to themselves after realizing you were the one doing this.

The other models were able to disarm HYDRA, giving all the worn out Avengers to strike at them and get them to the right correctional facilities.

“y/n, you came,” Peter said, he was the only one that wasn’t completely out of breath at that. “Yes, yes. No need to thank me, I completely saved your asses back there,” you have a slight bow causing everyone to grumble.

“Man, you really are your father’s daughter,” Rhodey said. “And you love me for that, Rhodes, don’t even,” you said raising a brow.

#peter parker x reader #peter parker x stark!reader #peter parker imagines #avengers #the avengers #bucky #natasha #clint #rhodey #tony stark x daughter!reader #peter parker angst #marvel angst #peter parker x y/n

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unsaidmar · 4 years ago

Text

WC: 2.5k (long winded girl, I know)

Plot: They share stuff and it changes how they see things. Connection ensues.

CW: Mentions of death, illness, hospitals I guess, violence.

a/n: Hello y’all. This is part two of whatever the fuck is going on inside my pea brain. Hope you enjoy.

Part one, the meeting.

Two; It’s better to have loved and lost, than never to have loved at all.

She laughed at the awkwardness of the text and the perfect grammar Dr. Spencer Reid maintained while texting. Ollie made a mental note to care a little more about the phrasing of her own texts, especially considering the circumstances. To say she wanted to impress him was an understatement.

“Good, germs are yucky.” Sent at 7:45 am.

“Also, hi. Good morning” Sent at 7:45 am.

Good morning? Too much too soon? She fell victim to her overthinking for at least twenty minutes after sending her last text, realizing she had to slowly build up the courage to ask about the next time they would be seeing each other, which apparently would have to wait, since Spencer had an inconvenient schedule and could be out of the state in a matter of 20 minutes. Ollie exhaled and stood up from her awful office chair to go and make herself some coffee, hoping to stop her mind from reeling and sending her into her usual never-ending pit of despair and anxiety that came with stepping out of her comfort zone.

A ping echoed in the room and her screen lit up, displaying a text from the one person she had been thinking about. Ollies mother would be crying laughing if she saw the state she was in, positively losing hair over the fact that a cute, smart, witty man was texting her back. A man she had spoken to for the first time not even 24 hours prior.

“I’m a nice person, I’m funny sometimes, I offered him coffee.” She whispered to herself, rationalizing every aspect of their interaction. “That’s how friendships start” She laughed bitterly. “I’m here… freaking… wishful thinking, and maybe he has a significant other… maybe he doesn’t even like women… maybe he just thought I was nice and he thought ‘yay, a new friend’… fuck” she plopped herself back on the chair and threw her head back.

Lia would have known what the right thing to do is, she would come up with a cool thing to text back on the spot, and she resented her absence like she had a million times before. Ollie had gotten used to writing her letters like her best friend was living somewhere else in the world and she would eventually read her friend’s attempt at keeping her updated, which she knew was not healthy and definitely not helping her move on.

The thing is, Lia’s death was not a surprise at all. It was a possibility to the point of actually being expected. She had been diagnosed as a terminal patient for a little over a year before she passed and almost everyone around her had made peace with the fact that she could go any day and that life would have to go on without her, but no amount of grief counseling and encouraging talks with Lia’s family could have prepared her for the unimaginable pain Ollie felt when it happened. She had heard about experiences that made the world turn upside down and how some life events made you go numb and make your legs give weight, but had never come face to face with a happenstance that painful.

She figured she was going to have to carry the burden of her loss till the day she died, and even then, the words “I missed you, till the very end.” would be carved in her grave.

Coming back from her spiral, she remembered how she fell down the rabbit hole in the first place. She took her phone with the intention of texting Spencer back and smiled at how stupid she had been to worry about seeing him again.

“Hey, arrest made successfully. Are you busy right now?” Sent at 7:57 am.

Sighing with relief, Ollie smiled and tried to sound casual with her reply as to not sound like seeing him again was the only thing she had been thinking about.

“I’m the boss, I can un-busy myself. Why? Were you charmed by my Keurig?” Sent at 8:00 am.

Spencer was not the kind to send sassy texts, or any text for that matter. This was completely new to him and he was determined to get it right, so he channeled the Derek Morgan that lived within him and prayed to whatever deity was looking out for him to make him sound cooler than he was feeling.

“I’m a sucker for coffee so, yes.” Sent at 8:05

“I’m a sucker for you, apparently” Ollie nearly screamed at how quickly that came out of her mouth. “Fucking loser, dear God” She shook her head, scolding herself and whatever hamster was in charge of her brain and thought process.

“Mi oficina es tu oficina, then. I’ll be waiting.” Sent at 8:07

Twenty minutes later, he was there, coffee cup in his hands. After what felt like no time at all, they were four coffee cups deep into their conversation and had learned a lot more about each other. Turns out Spencer had a day off after they landed from an away case, he had a thing with germs, his favorite color was purple and his co-workers were more his family than just the people he happened to work with. He liked a bunch of sugar with his coffee and had an eidetic memory that was as much of a blessing as it was a curse.

He was impressed at how this girl was not what you would expect her to be, every aspect of her seemed to make no sense and at the same time, it made perfect sense. This purple haired girl had ADHD and a PhD in history, she was the oldest daughter of two of the most stubborn Mexican immigrants and had a sister that made even the most patient of humans go mad. She loved music, and was not ashamed to admit that her taste in music was far from sophisticated. “I am Taylor Swift’s bitch; I know the words to every single one of her songs! Same goes for One Direction too” She argued when Spencer said that it couldn’t be that bad.

A blaring ring halted their conversation to an unexpected stop. Ollie picked up the office phone with an annoyed grimace and exchanged a few words with whoever was calling.

“Hold that thought, I have to go sign a thingy at the front desk” She dashed out of her office and left Spencer there.

For the first time, he felt compelled to look around and fixate on the details. There were a few old looking pictures and some newer ones with people who looked a lot like her. There was one picture that caught his attention, isolated from the rest like it deserved a spot of its own. In it, there was a red-haired girl that looked around Ollie’s age, one of her arms around her waist and the other one cradling her head that was laying on her shoulder. Ollie’s eyes were closed and the red head looked like she was caught mid-sentence. Stuck to the frame was a little post it note that read “I love you, head ass. -Lia” It looked intimate, they were clearly comfortable with that kind of physical affection, and if Lia hadn’t called Ollie a head ass in the post it, he would have assumed they were together romantically.

Ollie came back in a hurry, apologizing for having to run out like that and sitting back down to resume their conversation.

“It’s okay, don’t worry” Spencer assured her. “I was looking at your pictures, I hope you don’t mind” He said, suddenly very aware of how invasive that could be.

“Not at all, those are there to be looked at” She shrugged, bracing herself for the question she knew was coming. Somehow, talking about Lia with him did not feel as dreadful as it had all those times she was asked about it before, perhaps it’s just him and his calming presence.

Sure enough, he pointed at the picture Lia had framed for valentine’s day and asked, “Who’s that?”.

“That’s Lia, she was my best friend. She is my best friend.” She smiled fondly, something that had never happened before when talking about this specific topic. Maybe sharing Lia’s memory with someone who didn’t know her was different. “She passed away almost a year and a half ago. 468 days ago, to be exact. She was really sick, it was inevitable” Ollie let out a breath she didn’t realize she was holding, reaching for the post it and tracing the words over with her finger.

“I’m so sorry, I can’t imagine how hard that must have been”

“It was… heartbreaking. Even with all that time we had to process the news, it still took me off guard.” She shook her head trying to ground herself. “Anyways, that’s a sad topic. I don’t want to bum you out with it.”

He knew the feeling all too well, he had apologized to several people when he rambled about Maeve, feeling like he had said too much and gotten too personal. He was not about to let this beautiful, vibrant soul feel the way he had for so long. Like he still did, truly.

“Don’t apologize, I get it. You’re not making me sad” He felt like he needed to elaborate to actually convey the message. “I went through the same thing with someone I loved too” he said, looking down at his hands, the very familiar feeling of oversharing creeping in. As he looked up, he noticed the sad look Ollie was giving him, but if the profiler in him was right, she was inviting him to share, not to stop.

“Her name was Maeve. She… she was a geneticist. She helped me through a rough time and she became my friend. It’s a long story…” he looked away.

“I want to hear it, long or not. But only if you want me to.” She gave him the warmest smile she could muster, which convinced him to keep going.

“Um, I started getting some headaches a while ago. I went to a few doctors but none of them gave me an answer. I reached out to Maeve for help and… We bonded, I guess.” He took a shaky breath.

“You don’t have to continue if you feel uncomfortable” she whispered in the most delicate tone.

“No, it’s not that. It’s just… I’ve never told this story before. Everyone in my life that I care about was there to see it.” He said, meeting her eyes so she could see how honest he was being. The man got a hold of himself for a minute, and continued.

“Maeve had to go into hiding. She was being stalked by some woman she met at work. Beyond talking on the phone, we hadn’t even met. I had no idea what she looked like and vice versa. This girl, the stalker… She wrote a paper, and Maeve dismissed it because it didn’t have a good enough foundation. When she started stalking her, she scared her into hiding and eventually started dating her ex-fiancé to try and get closer to Maeve, assuming he knew where she was. They ended up finding her and confronting her. She shot herself and the first person I ever loved. Right in front of me and my friends. The first five minutes I got with Maeve face to face, were the last.”

Baring his soul to a person he had known for a whooping 18 hours was the weirdest thing Spencer had ever done, so unlike himself it was almost funny. But at the same time, he felt like it had to happen. By no means did he believe in fate or destiny, but this one moment made him feel like maybe whoever does believe in that stuff, is not completely wrong.

She was not a therapist. She listened because she was going through a similar thing herself and her interest in Spencer’s loss was not rooted in psychoanalyzing him and helping him cope. She was just a mundane human that did not look at him with condescension and pity, she looked at him like she, too, had found a person who wouldn’t ask her “And, how does that make you feel?” in a monotonous voice. They both knew better than to assume they had all the answers.

“Spencer, that’s horrible. I am so sorry you had to see that. Jesus, fuck. I- “She thought about her next words very carefully. “That’s enough to crush anyone’s spirit” She looked at him like he was turning green. The reason being, he did not look like he was crushed. He had a beautiful smile that shook Ollie to her core, he was easygoing and conversation with him was carefree and it flowed easily. If he had not told her about Maeve, she would not have guessed the man sitting right in front of her was as affected as her.

“How did you manage to get through that?” Ollie questioned, fully intending to take notes.

“I don’t really think I have yet…” Well, time to come clean. Spencer thought. “The whole reason I was here yesterday, and a lot more times before that one, is because she and I talked about this museum. She told me about some conferences she had attended here and we made plans to visit together. Doesn’t quite sound like someone who’s over the whole thing.” He fiddled with his fingers, suddenly too aware of how cold it was. “How did you get through Lia’s death?”

“Yeah, well. I don’t really think I’m quite there either. Not like I’m trying, anyways. I can’t seem to get away from the Grey Roots either” Mental images of two little kids running around with dusty books in their hands came to her and she couldn’t help the small smile she broke into.

“I’m a hopeless romantic at heart, I have always thought that the way Lia and I found each other was pure magic. We met when we were in the second grade, right in this museum, we were on a field trip and we clicked. It was crazy to me that I actually met my best friend at such a young age, and the kind that lasts forever too. It sounds like when people meet the love of their lives on their first try. It sounds dorky, I know”

“It doesn’t. If anything, it sounds like you consider yourself lucky to have loved her like you did. We need more people like that, people that believe in magic.” Spencer reassured her with a shrug. He wished he could believe in cute stuff like that, but he was happy Ollie led a life that made her believe.

“Yeah, but us crazy people, we get our hopes up too easily. Sometimes it hurts.”

“Tell me about it.”

And just like that, in the not so well-lit office of the head Conservator of the Grey Roots Museum and Archive, something in the world had shifted.

#spencer reid x original female character #spencer reid x reader #spencer reid x latina reader #criminal minds headcanons #criminal minds #bau #fluff #spencer reid headcanon

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ourimpavidheroine · 4 years ago

Note

I’ve gotta say, I’m really enjoying these stories. Also, your late father sounds like an amazing man. I can really see the inspiration for LoLo come out in your mentions of him.

When my mother got pregnant with me - a planned pregnancy, they were young when they married but I was born 16 months later - my father knew from the get-go that he wanted a girl.

This was (and, I am sad to say, still is) an unusual thing for a father to wish for. Most fathers wish for a son. My Dad, however, was raised by a drunken, abusive, narcissistic man and he was afraid that if he had a son he’d just turn into his father. He thought a daughter would help him break that cycle of abuse.

When I was born he told the nurse who brought me out to him in the waiting room that I was an angel, and Angel was the nickname that he alone called me.

He and I were very, very close, something that made my mother and younger brother jealous. (I didn’t really see or understand that until after he died when I was 26.) There was nothing whatsoever or remotely sexual about it, which is what people usually assume when a father and daughter are very close. As my girlhood best friend said to me a few months ago, my father thought the sun rose and set on me, thought that I was his fairy princess. All of my odd, Autistic/ADHD weirdness was something he loved. I always knew he loved me not just despite my weirdness but because of it. (Something that my late wife did as well.)

My father was a brilliant man. He graduated high school at 15 and went into university to study architecture. Academically he handled it, but he was way too young to handle the social aspects as well as the responsibility of it and so he dropped out a year later. Things were apparently hellish with my grandfather and my Dad enlisted in the Army on his 18th birthday. This was 1965 and the US started sending soldiers to Vietnam. Not my Dad, though. He took some tests the military gave him and after boot camp spent his entire three years on a Nike missle base in the middle of Milwaukee, working on one of those huge old mainframe computers (you know, the kind with punch cards). I’m guessing they didn’t send the really smart ones off to be killed.

He taught himself how to be an architect through reading books at the library, including textbooks that he would sit and read at UC Berkeley’s library, even though he wasn’t a student there any longer. Then, after he had learned that, he read through engineering and physics textbooks. Then he read through every single book he could find that taught him how to actually build the structures he had learned to draw. He was completely self-taught, and the man not only designed and built complicated, Broadway-worthy theater sets he also designed and built houses from the ground up. He wanted to build a rock retaining wall at our house (which was located at the base of a hill and was on an incline) and so he went to the library and got a book about how Romans built walls and spent three years going to the local river to source variously-sized river rocks to build that retaining wall, which he did completely without any kind of mortar, just balancing the rocks perfectly. It’s still standing, 40 years later.

He always worked at very menial jobs - he was a line cook, a stocker in a supermarket produce department, an RV park manager, etc. He was terrible with money, didn’t understand it at all. We lived right on top of the poverty line. He had zero executive functioning and that caused a lot of problems for all of us and meant a lot of broken promises, too.

I am completely sure that like me, like both of his grandchildren, he had Autism and ADHD. Not diagnosed of course, they weren’t in those days, But he had them nevertheless.

He was a voracious reader and introduced me to sci fi and fantasy. On my eighth birthday he gave me his copies of The Lord of the Rings and had me read them. (This was 1977, trust me when I tell you those books were not a household name at that point.) He’d wake me up at 3:30 am and we’d go fishing together, him with a thermos of black coffee, me with a bottle of orange juice and a box of Entenmann’s mixed donuts and we’d sit there in happy silence together, fishing and enjoying each other’s company. He was a wonderful storyteller and only once did he get angry with me. He never laid a hand on me or my brother but the one time he got angry with me he slapped me across the face and then the both of us cried.

He taught me many useful skills, like how to jimmy locks and how to walk through people unseen and how to learn on my own how to do things and how to make the world’s best pie. He always told me that I could absolutely anything I put my mind to. When I asked him once if that meant I could be a father - I was joking - he looked me straight in the eye and asked me if I actually wanted to be a father. When I told him no he responded that he had said if I had put my mind to it, and he wasn’t vouching for anything I pulled when I didn’t care.

He also told me that I was the strongest person he’d ever met and when I scoffed at that he shook his head and said, “Angel, most people see you and they have no idea at all what’s inside of you and what you are capable of. There is nothing in this life you won’t overcome. Someday, when we’re both dead, you come find me and tell me I’m wrong.” (So far, he has not been wrong.)

He was a functioning drunk; he only drank after 8 at night, however. Just enough to make sure he’d not be hungover in the morning. He was a night person and all his life only needed about 4 hours of sleep to be completely rested.

He loved movies but he hated to go alone and usually took me. Not all of these movies were appropriate for kids my age but there it was. When I was eleven he took me with him to see The Elephant Man and I broke down completely, devastated and sobbing, horrified at how cruel people were to the lead character, just because he was different. After the movie we sat in the car and he held me until I was done crying and when I was all done he told me to never forget how the movie had made me feel and to remember that no matter how different people were from me they were all human and deserved kindness, compassion and understanding. This was a lesson I have tried very hard to live throughout my life. He took people at face value, and that included everyone. I don’t think he was particularly woke based on 2021 sentiments but he tried very hard to treat people equally and that included queer people during the AIDS crisis, too.

He was a feminist and believed women should be equal to men. He walked the walk, too: he cooked, he cleaned, he changed diapers, etc. And by that I mean he did them as par for the course, as part of his daily life. He did not rely on my mother’s emotional labor to remind him to do shit. He just did it because things needed doing and he was a grownass man, not a man-child. He did not consider caring for his children as babysitting, either.

He liked to sing. My mother and brother have opera-quality singing voices - for real, both of them are quite gifted - but his wasn’t like that, it was just a perfectly ordinary, passable baritone, just like mine is a perfectly ordinary, passable alto. He sang and he whistled when he was happy and I do the same. He used to make up funny little songs and rhymes on the spot, he had a gift for improvisation that way. I wish I had inherited that but alas! No.

Even when he was a boy all of the neighborhood kids would come to him with broken toys to be fixed. He quite genuinely liked kids and even teenagers and spent a lot of time working with the local high school drama department, building the sets, working as the stage manager and setting up and working the lights and soundboard (he taught himself to do that as well) and even directing some of the plays when the drama teacher was out on maternity leave. To this day I still get contacted by people who were in school with me or my brother who tell me what an influence my father was on them, the special things he did for them to make sure they knew he was paying attention and cared. One guy a couple of years ago contacted me on Facebook and told me that he got into some trouble after high school, even got imprisoned for a few months. My father visited him in prison and afterwards took him to AA with him, became his sponsor, helped keep on the straight and narrow. He named his oldest son after my father, in fact. I hear a lot of those stories.

He loved books and he loved music and he taught me to love those things as well. He fell in love with my mother when he was seventeen and married her five years later and came to regret it - like his father, his wife was an abusive, narcissistic person. He stayed with her, though, until my second year of university, when he abruptly walked out on her, went to AA and quit drinking. I asked him about it later; he told me that he had wanted to leave her for years but knew that if he did he’d never see me or my younger brother again. The courts in those days automatically gave kids to the mother and my mother was an accomplished liar and would have told the courts anything and they would have believed her. Once I was out of the house and secure, then he was done. (The fact that my brother was only fifteen and left to fend for himself with my mother was...not good. Not good at all. My father was not perfect and he was not a saint and that was a mistake that still has repercussions today.) He did not do enough to protect me from my mother while I was growing up, however. He regretted it, he told me later. I understand now that he was constantly walking a knife’s edge, trying to keep her satisfied enough so she wouldn’t try to take me away from him, but it took therapy long after he died for me to really understand that.

His special interest was model railroading and he built these amazing, intricate landscapes, all by hand and by scratch. The man took latex molds off the sides of rocks to build mountains with and built buildings out of tiny pieces of wood and such. I spent many hours with him as he built, listening to music and reading or just laying there, thinking my thinks, or sometimes chattering nonstop to him.

He called me, every single Friday night, right after the X-Files ended, right after the child’s voice said “I made this.” My phone would ring and we’d chat for hours, talking about the show (we both loved it) and whatever else. He lived about 5 hours away from me at the time and we did talk at other times during the week but that was our standard date. He died in the middle of Season 2 and to this very goddamn fucking day whenever I hear that “I made this” I wait for my phone to ring. And I cry every single time because he will never call me again.

I absolutely think that meeting my late wife via the X-Files was my father, watching out for me. When my twins were newborn and pretty much all I did 24x7 was breastfeed them I re-watched the entirety of X-Files on the DVDs I had and I’d talk to my father in my head, telling him about his grandchildren.

He’d always buy the new Stephen King books in hardcover and read them and then give them to me to keep. He especially loved the Dark Tower series but I haven’t finished the ones that were published after he died. I bought them myself but they are still sitting on my bookshelf, unread. I just can’t.

He died in the hospital after being in a coma for a week. The ICU nurses were very kind and showed me how I could turn off the life support machine if I wanted to and told me that I could be in there with him as long as I needed. They very considerately closed all of the curtains and closed the door to the room. I was alone with him in there and I turned off the machine and I held his hand and I sang to him as he died. I didn’t want him to be alone.

He was right. I was strong enough to do that. It hurt, though. It still hurts.

He’s buried in California with a free military headstone because my comfortably upper middle class grandfather refused to shell out for a headstone and I was flat broke. Many years later I had a regular stone engraved with the words, “Go then, there are other worlds than these” and I placed it at our summer cottage here in Finland for him. I like to think that he and my late wife are keeping company. They never met here, but they would have liked each other very much, that I do know.

#impavid storytime #my father #long post #I loved him very much #in case you didn't get that from this #Anonymous

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cookinguptales · 5 years ago

Text

A long post about having undiagnosed ADHD as a little girl. And how we all need to talk a hell of a lot more about Reaction Sensitive Dysphoria.

(cw: mental illness, childhood punishment, discussions of childhood self-harm & suicidal ideation)

When I was a little girl, I was a crybaby. I didn’t know why I’d cry all the time. I just did. Everything always felt catastrophic, even if it was just a disagreement over what to play with my friends. People called me manipulative. I got made fun of at school. I was sent to the school therapist. Hell, the only time I ever had to go to the principal’s office, I was in kindergarten and would not. stop. crying. I was literally sent to the principal’s office for crying too much.

(Note. How did I respond to that? I cried. A lot.)

Here are a few examples of things that made me feel like the world was ending:

Once I came home sobbing and my parents asked me what was wrong. Why was I crying? Because the other kids had called me a crybaby.

Once at daycare (around age six), some older boys were making effigies of their teachers out of play-doh and then smushing them and convinced me to join in. The minute I did, they told me that they were telling my teacher, which made me about lose my damn mind.

I was a voracious reader and often ran out of reading material. Once I sneaked some of my mother’s romance novels that she’d left in the bathroom for light reading. They were Very Adult. I was so scared she’d find out and scold me for reading sexually explicit books.

Now, my parents think these are kind of funny stories. They say that I was very cute. But in truth, I was a nervous wreck. My life was pretty good in most ways, but I’d have these moments that just felt like cascading catastrophes. Anytime someone criticized me or my work or my ideas, the sky would just come crashing down. I’d cry so hard I couldn’t breathe. I’d cry so hard I threw up. I grew out of the crying by about age nine, but that sickening feeling of failure never really left.

About 8 years ago, I was diagnosed with ADHD. Severe ADHD. I believe the doctor’s exact words were “I don’t even know how you graduated from high school”. They tried me on ADHD medicine but it made my heart go dokidoki so I just had to live with being unmedicated. I wasn’t told a lot about ADHD at that point, or how ADHD symptoms differ for women, so I just kind of assumed that it was just focus and that’s it. Brain fog wasn’t exactly new to me, what with my other illnesses, so I figured I’d just live with it.

But about a year ago, I learned about Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria, which is a fairly common symptom of ADHD that no one ever told me about in my goddamn life! It essentially means that when you are criticized (or perceive something as criticism) by others or by yourself, your brain goes into absolute hyperdrive. You go from zero to “everyone hates me and I deserve that and probably don’t deserve to live too because I am just the worst” over like. literally nothing. And it’s not just like a mental thing you can train yourself out of. It’s characterized by actual physical pain. Y’all, I have anxiety and depression and this is not the same thing. This is your whole body seizing up and your brain going into a maelstrom that’s fairly similar to a panic attack.

Here’s the less cute side to all of those stories:

I had very few friends, and the friends I did have thought I was annoying and manipulative. The more I cried, the more kids stayed away from me.

After the Play-Doh incident, I cried for days. Days. And I was scared of my teacher for weeks. My parents laughed it off as a cute child thing, but none of it was cute for me. The older boys forgot about it by the next day, but it haunted my interactions with that teacher for weeks. It interfered with my education. I was a nervous wreck at school. I was so scared that she would hate me. That I’d be singled out in class. That I’d fail and my whole education would be upended and I’d fail out of school and my parents would hate me too and my life would be over. That’s... a lot for a six year old.

Those romance novels? That was a closely guarded secret that I kept for years. For literal years, I was afraid she’d somehow find out that I’d read those books. I would think of it when I was nine, ten, eleven years old and my whole body would stiffen up. I’d occasionally throw up. I cried about what might happen if my parents ever found out. Would they hate me forever? Yes, probably. They’d never love me again. I was a bad child. I finally told my mom about it a few months ago. I was 29. A small part of me was still scared I’d get in trouble. (My mom laughed about it; she was just like ‘wow, I should have put those books up higher’.)

When I was six, I went to an aftercare at a neighbor’s house for a while. (This predated the other daycare.) One day, one of the kids at aftercare didn’t get off the bus. The lady asked if anyone knew where he was. Trying to be helpful, I said I thought I’d seen him on the bus. (And like -- I really did think I did. But I was six and six year olds are uhhh not smart.) Surprise! He’d actually left school early for a dr’s appt. But she thought he’d missed his bus stop and spent like an hour on the phone figuring out what happened. And y’all. When she realized he hadn’t been on that bus, she was furious. When my other neighbor picked me up for my mom that evening, the lady told her that I was a bad child who’d purposefully lied to scare her. She said I wasn’t allowed to come back. And ohhh guys. I begged my neighbor not to tell my mom. (She did.) And then I begged my mom not to tell my dad. She was honestly kind of alarmed at how vehement I was about dad not knowing. (I was like a shaking, sobbing mess.) She asked me what I thought would happen. idk. Maybe he’d hit me. (My parents never hit me.) Maybe he’d throw me out of the house. Maybe he’d never talk to me again. He’d definitely stop loving me. I was so bad. So, so bad. I was a bad child. No one would ever love me. I was a worthless, bad child.

In short, I was hysterical.

When my parents finally talked to me about it, it was less of a talk about consequences and more talking me off the fucking ledge. They weren’t that concerned about the actual incident; they figured out pretty quickly that I’d just made a mistake. A temporarily scary one, but a mistake all the same. (I basically never misbehaved, so they were kind of confused by the whole situation, honestly.) But they were very concerned about my reaction to it. I knew they loved me, right? I knew that they wouldn’t hurt me, right? Why did I think that was a possibility?

I didn’t know. I still don’t know. It wasn’t rational. It was just my brain exploding into a thousand tiny pieces.

This is not a memory my mom laughs about. I think it really genuinely disturbed her. She’s still angry at that aftercare neighbor for doing that to me. As an adult, I realize that the person who actually fucked up in that scenario was the boy’s mother, who didn’t call to alert aftercare that he wouldn’t be coming. (Funnily enough, that boy’s mother was my first grade teacher -- the one I was so terrified of. Small town. I guess I was scared of her hating me, too.) But as a child, this wasn’t just bad. It was catastrophic. I genuinely considered hurting myself. I was six years old and I considered hurting myself. Suicidal ideation is often part and parcel with RSD. I’ve had to deal with that since elementary school.

RSD is real and it’s terrifying and it’s not unusual in children with ADHD. It’s still a problem that I struggle with. I’ve had friends not answer texts for a while and my brain just. assumes that I said something wrong. And now they hate me. Because I’m a bad person. And my whole body will shake. I’ll sweat. My stomach will roll. My chest will literally hurt like I’m having a heart attack. I still have to blink back those tears. Sometimes I’ll go for a walk to distract myself and burn off all that energy. Sometimes I’ll write a post like this. Sometimes I’ll just lie in bed. Shaking. Trying very hard not to think about doing Bad Things. It’s hard to say how it’ll go until it goes.

(Note: I’m okay right now! I was just talking about this with dad yesterday so I’ve been thinking about it.)

And this is not my friends’ fault! Or my family’s fault. This is no one’s fault. It’s just... mental illness, I guess. It’s hard to predict. Sometimes I can have a calm and reasonable discussion about my faults (which I fully admit exist) and sometimes someone disagrees with me on whether a tv show is good and my brain shits itself. (I’m dumb and stupid and this person probably hates me now! Because I didn’t love Avatar! Why did I open my big mouth? Now our whole relationship is ruined and I ruined it because I am a dumb relationship-ruiner!) Obviously, it gets worse when my physical and mental state is already fragile. I have a lot of chronic physical and mental illnesses, so like... it happens. But it’s very hard to predict, very hard to control, and all you can do is really talk yourself through it when it happens. Breathe. Focus on what’s real and what’s not. Distract yourself. Be as kind to your brain as you can because it will not be kind back.

Talk to people who love you. Try, whenever possible, to be one of those people.

idk. I wish I had concrete advice to finish this off. But it’s more just like... please learn to see the signs, especially in small children. I had far too many strong emotions for a child to figure out on her own. I really could have used some help. It’s too late for my childhood, but not for the other kids who are struggling with similar issues right now.

And if you read this and see yourself in it, do me a solid and talk to your doctor? Your brain might thank you one day.

#adhd #reaction sensitive dysphoria #RSD #just me #long post

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lurafita · 5 years ago

Text

SIM Tony x Peter

So, I got this prompt/ask a while ago, about writing a Superior Iron Man x Peter piece, and I was all for it.

There are already a lot of pretty great drabbles and fics with this pairings here on tumblr (and a few on AO3), and I was fretting about what kind of content I could add to that.

I thought about maybe just a quick little PWP, you know, to scratch the itch; but then I remembered: I'm not very good with writing smut.

Then I thought: 'You know... maybe I could get this rolling differently.... In the fics I read, Peter comes across a Tony from (usually) another universe who already IS his superior/evil self. Their relationship comes after that, and is usually more sexual than emotional (at least from SIM's part) and with lots of kink. Which is fine, don't get me wrong, I crave those on occasion. But while those fics catered greatly to my love for possessive/dominant characters, my 'feelings-kink' has gotten a little neglected.

So I thought:

Maaaaaybe I could do a story where Peter and Tony know and like/love each other before Tony turns Superior.

And maaaaaaaybe Tony turns Superior because of his feelings for Peter.

And maaaaaaaaaaaaaybe someone would like to read that?

This doesn't play in any specific universe, but rather uses parts of different story lines and circumstances. You are free to picture which ever Spidey you like for it!

If Love Be My Poison (I Wish For No Cure)

Tony Stark had tried therapy exactly once. After Afghanistan, on the insistence of Pepper, Rhodey and Jarvis. He had sat through three hours of talking with a man that somehow reminded him of the owl in Winnie Pooh.

When the Owl-man had diagnosed him with an inferiority complex (among other things), Tony had stood up, snorted derisively, and left.

When he told Rhodey about Owl-man's diagnosis, his friend had laughed, clapped him on the shoulder, and said

“Well, even experts get it wrong sometimes. Just try finding someone else, Tones.”

Tony had nodded, though he had never dared to speak to another therapist again.

Because Owl-man had been far too close for comfort with his assessment.

Tony Stark: billionaire, genius, playboy, philanthropist.

An inferiority complex?

The thought was laughable.

True, though.

What else could all his posturing be about, if not that?

It was just so unbearably cliched. The man who had never gotten the recognition he so craved from his father as a child, now shouted out his accomplishment into the world.

See me! See what I have created! Acknowledge my work!

Being brought up in the spotlight didn't magically gift you with the kind of charm and charisma needed to handle reporters or please a crowd of fans and admirers. It was a skill that Tony had taught himself.

'The grand life of an eccentric billionaire, read all about Tony Stark's latest big bash!'

Envy me!

'The truth is... I am Iron Man.'

Adore me!

'Watch our exclusive interview with genius Tony Stark!'

Look at me!

It was such a pathetic cliche.

'Big man in a suit of armor. Take that away and what is left?'

But it was true.

And it was never as glaringly obvious as now.

“Why not?” He asked, vulnerability clear in his voice, and he hated himself for it. “Why can't you give this a chance? Give us a chance? I love you. That's not something I say idly, or to a lot of people. I. Love. You. And I know you feel the same, Peter. Don't even try to deny it. We both know you are the worst liar ever.”

Deep brown eyes looked at him with a touch of true devastation.

“I love you.”

And Tony latched onto those words like a drowning man would grasp at a straw.

“Then let's do this. Move into the tower with me. Stay with me. Be with me. Let's be one of those disgustingly affectionate couples who can't keep their hands off each other, even when in public. Especially when in public.”

He clasped one of the younger man's hands in both of his own, squeezing gently, tracing one thumb along the unnaturally soft skin. Peter averted his eyes, but he squeezed back and for a moment, Tony hoped. But life was never this easy.

“It's because I love you that I can't be with you. It's too dangerous.”

The argument wasn't an unexpected one, and Tony wasn't about to give up so easily.

“Peter, sweetheart. My life has been dangerous from the moment I was born. Do you know how many times I have been kidnapped?”

His tone was light, encouraging, playful even. He didn't mind making a joke of his own past traumas, if only it would give him the chance of convincing the man he loved.

But Peter didn't work this way.

“Then that's all the more reason why I shouldn't paint any additional targets on your back.”

“Peter-” But he didn't get to finish, as the brunette abruptly turned to him, eyes shining with unshed tears.

“Everyone,- every single person I loved has died because of it. Or ended up becoming a super villain. Because of me.”

“That's not true.” The older man tried to correct, to reassure, but Peter was becoming agitated.

“It is! The very first and best friend I made when I was a child, turned into the Green Goblin because of me! My first girlfriend was killed, because she was trying to help me! The guy I thought of as an older brother was possessed by an alien symbiote, because I wasn't strong enough to handle Venom!”

Tony shook his head vehemently.

“Peter, that's not-”

But Peter was on a roll now, getting up from the billionaire's couch they had been sitting on and pacing in front of it.

“Doctor Conners would have never turned into the Lizard, if I hadn't helped him work out my father's notes.”

Tony got up as well.

“You were trying to help him to develop a formular that let people regrow limbs. Him getting impatient and injecting himself with a barely tested compound isn't on you!”

But the younger hero hardly listened.

“Otto wouldn't have gone after Mary Jane if he hadn't felt betrayed by me!”

“Octavius willfully ignored your warnings about the dangers of hooking up the exoskeleton directly to his brain. Harry went behind everyone's back to get his hands on the serum that turned him into the Goblin. And so far no one has been able to 'handle' Venom. The fact that you are able to fight that parasite off, is not an indicator that it was in any way your fault that it possessed someone else! Non of all this was your fault!”

He had his hands on Peter's (deceptively narrow) shoulders, head tilted down to look the slightly shorter man in the eyes. Eyes that were red and sad and angry and defeated looking.

“If it wasn't my fault, then how come the people I love always end up suffering?”

And for a moment, staring into those brown eyes he loved, that were brimming with tears and pain, Tony hadn't known what to say. His silence was apparently all the answer Peter needed.

An agonized and bitter smile was formed by the lips that the older man had dreamed about kissing, fantasized of ravishing, as Peter spoke.

“You are a good man, Tony. You are,... wonderful. Smart, funny, caring... You like hiding yourself behind layers upon layers of sarcasm and pretentiousness, but I know you. You are possibly everything I ever dreamed of.”

And there it was. This was the chance he needed, the moment for the genius to swoop in and turn this whole, horrible situation around and proof to Peter that they had a chance. That it would work.

But, again, he was just a second too late.

“You are a fantastic hero, with or without the suit. But technology, even yours, isn't infallible. And without it, … without it, you are vulnerable.”

Tony knew where this was going, and he had to stop it. His hands traveled upwards, cradling the beloved face between them, directing Peter to look right at him.

“Pete, I'm not helpless. I'm not... I'm so sorry about Gwen and MJ and Brock, but I'm not like them, okay? There are plenty of people that I have made enemies of on my own. Who have tried to kill me. Non have succeeded yet. And yours won't either. Venom is in a Shield containment unit. They have managed to suppress the Lizard. Doc Ock is in Rykers. Harry may be at large right now, but we will get him, too..”

Peter was weakly shaking his head, but he made no move to shake off Tony's hands.

“We still haven't found a way to destroy Venom. It will get out again, it always does. Same with Otto. Conners biology will acclimate to the suppressants again, and the Lizard will take over once more. Harry will come back when I least expect him, when I start to feel contend, just like he always does. Your enemies are powerful and dangerous, but when it comes down to it, they are more focused on working on their own agenda. Mine...Mine are obsessed. They don't want to simply kill me. They want to hurt me. And they will use you to do it.”

Peter spoke the words with such certainty, with such helplessness, it broke Tony's heart.

“Pete. Sweetheart. Look at me. I'm not going to let them. I won't leave you.”

Brown eyes glimmered in the dim lighting of the room, full lips trembling and Tony wanted nothing more right then, than to kiss them. He closed his eyes, and slowly leaned down to where he was still holding Peter's face gently. Only to come to an abrupt stop, when Peter placed a hand in the middle of his chest, right above his arc reactor. The younger man looked broken, but non the less determined.

“You can't promise that.”

Then the slighter hero slipped out of Tony's hold, and hurried out of the room.

'Big man in a suit of armor. Take that away and what is left?'

Tony Stark having an inferiority complex? Preposterous!

'Technology, even yours, isn't infallible. And without the suit, you are vulnerable.'

Genius, billionaire, super hero. Inferior? Ridiculous!

'Big man in a suit of armor. Take that away, and what is left?'

….

… Nothing.

___________________________________________________

Okay, hope you liked it so far.

A second part will follow that focuses on Tony’s descent and transformation into Superior.

I’m really unsure about what tags to put here, Please tell me if I missed any!

#starker #fanfic #superior iron man #spider-man #peter parker #tony stark #mixed up canon #canon divergent #Dark!Tony #love #obsession #turning to the dark side #Tony turns superior out of love #ask #prompt #adult!peter #still a bit of an age gap though #op lurafita

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hillnerd · 5 years ago

Note

Romione au headcanon where they date and break up ootp and hbp happens same as it is

Sorry this took so long to write! Ended up being 8k+ words! Hope you like it! :)

Valentine’s day was the next day, but that meant very little to Ron. He had no romantic plans. He never had in the past, and this Valentine’s day was looking quite bleak. Angelina had scheduled a quidditch practice that day, and he knew he needed it. He was the worst player on the team- perhaps the worst player in all of history. What had he been thinking, trying out in the first place? The looks on everyone’s faces at the end of each scrimmage was enough to make him sick with nerves. He was always an eternal disappointment, he knew- but now the whole school knew.

He was moping by the common room fire, fingers pressed into his eyes when something miraculous happened. Angelina had gotten sick to her stomach in a nearby planter. She was ushered up to the hospital wing and diagnosed with Fwooper Flu, which had been going around the castle. Her getting sick wasn’t miraculous, but the rest of the team coming down with the Flu, and thus canceling practice? That was probably considered miracle worthy of Merlin himself.

Suddenly free, he realized the possibility of Valentine’s Day meaning more than just discount chocolate. It could mean spending the day with Hermione! On Valentine’s day!

Truth be told he’d spent every Valentine’s day with Hermione since he’d been in Hogwarts, but he’d never realized how much he fancied Hermione then. Maybe he had always fancied her on some level. Either way, he was fully smitten now and hadn’t a clue as to how to close the deal.

He’d given her perfume at Christmas, but she didn’t act any differently afterwards. She’d politely thanked him, and he’d not gotten anything special from her. She gave him and Harry the exact same, rather horrible, talking homework planners.

But she HAD kissed him earlier that year. It was only on the cheek, but maybe… Maybe that meant something? He couldn’t remember her ever kissing Harry.

Then again, maybe it was all in his head. Maybe she didn’t fancy him at all. Maybe it would be better to skip Hogsmeade and practice flying, official practice or no. Maybe he should give up on Hermione altogether.

After all, she was beautiful, and smart, and had people like Viktor Krum after her. Compared to all that, Ron had little to offer. He was a skinny freckled ginger, who was poor, horrible at quidditch, and got average grades. Sure he was good at chess and kind of funny- but that was not exactly heartthrob material, was it?

Feeling thoroughly down on himself, Ron was ready to turn in to bed when Hermione stepped through the portrait hole, arms laden with books that looked ready to topple. He quickly got up, took them from her, and guided her to the seat beside his own.

“Thank you,” she said with a smile. Thoughts of his lameness fell behind him as he took in her countenance, and her hair got all huge and staticky as she removed her scarf.

“What’s all this?” he asked, pointing to a stack of books impressively large for a Friday evening.

“Well, we have quite a few papers coming up, and I wanted first dibs on these for our papers. And of course I have Arithmancy and Runes on top of our regular classes. The Runes texts are perfect for my new translating assignment. We get to choose our own epic poems to translate, and I’ve been torn between two poems for ages, so I think I’ll just translate both, then choose whichever one I translated better. I also have a few books you might want to use on our Transfiguration essay that you can borrow when I’m finished.”

“Sure, thanks.” Half the time he didn’t really listen if she got deep into it on studies, but he always loved to watch her animatedly ramble. She had such a breathless flush to her when she went on about something, and he found it charming most of the time. Sometimes he would exasperatedly sigh at her, but it was mostly so he could get her to glare at him. Her glares were practically pouts, and she’d scrunch up her little sharp eyes at him, and somehow it made him smile even wider. She was the cutest indignant person he’d ever met.

“What have you been up to?” she asked, sorting through her books and laying them out.

“Basking in my luck. The team is all sick with flu, except me and Gin- so practice got cancelled!” he said with a smile, putting his long legs up on top of some of Hermione’s books. She made her usual glare and he grinned at her before he gave a rough swallow. “So… I was thinking we could maybe go to Hogsmeade together then, since I’m not busy anymore… I mean, if you don’t have plans or anything.”

“Well, I do have something going on midday—”

“Oh! Ok, well then nevermind—”

“But! I think we could manage to spend some time together before it,” Hermione finished, shooting him a twinkly little smile.

“Oh yeah?” Ron said, perking back up. “Ok then! Erm… Meet you at breakfast around nine and we’ll go together from there?”

“Sounds good.”

It was perfect! Ron had a date with Hermione! Well… No it wasn’t a date. She didn’t even look all that excited. She was looking through her bag for a quill, and not even looking at him. Should he push it and make it clear he wanted it to be a date? It was loads safer to not say anything. She’d probably laugh herself silly if he tried. But…

“Well, then…” Ron said, standing up and taking a centering breath.

“It’s-a-date! See-you-tomorrow!” he blurted out.

He said it all very fast, and before she could say a word, and before he could check to see her face, he bolted up the stairs.

“Oh bleeding hell,” Ron cursed himself halfway to his dorm. What had he been thinking? Well… Perhaps she hadn’t understood him? Or thought he didn’t mean it that way? Merlin’s hairy bumhole! What an idiot he was.

As he got to his dorm he found Harry staring at a pile of clothes on his bed, as if they were a particularly difficult riddle that needed solving. He looked up at Ron with relief.

“What am I supposed to wear?” Harry asked gesturing to the pile.

“Start with pants and work your way outward.”

“Really helpful, that. Thanks,” Harry said shortly, giving Ron a two fingered salute. He looked grim and pale faced.

“Is this for… er… Hogsmeade?” Ron asked, putting his hands in his pockets. He and Harry never much talked about girls. He didn’t particularly want to start now.

“Yeah…” Harry groused, putting a hand through his hair. Ron found a sudden reeling sensation twisting in his stomach, knowing he’d have to make the same sort of decision.

Luckily for them both, Dean, Neville and Seamus came in.

“Boys,” Ron said stoutly, gesturing them over with as much bravado as he could. “Harry’s not a clue what to wear for his date with Cho. Thoughts?”

The other boys looked over and laughed a bit but finally, after they all stared at the mound of Harry’s clothes for a good ten minutes, they decided on his nicest jeans and one of his jumpers that fit alright. Something that was nice, but not too nice.

“Don’t want to look like you’re trying too hard, yeah?” Seamus had said.

Late that night, when everyone else was asleep, Ron did a similar dive through all his clothes. He had nothing that could even remotely fall into the category of ‘too nice.’ Did he have anything at all that was even nice? It took a lot of digging, but he finally found the pair of jeans he’d received from Percy that summer, not a week before the prat had abandoned their family. Percy rarely wore anything as casual as jeans, so they were in a respectable state and fit Ron better than any other trousers he owned. He settled on the one jumper he had that didn’t clash with his hair. It was a little knobby with pills of fabric in the armpits- but not enough he thought Hermione would mind. Yes… Hopefully he would look alright for his first Valentine’s date.

_______________________________________________________

“It’s-a-date! See-you-tomorrow!” Ron blurted out before practically sprinting away from Hermione.

Hermione stared after him, her mouth agape as she processed what he’d said.

Surely he didn’t mean… Did he really say date? He couldn’t have possibly meant it as a real date, could he? But then why would Ron say anything like that? She’d hoped he would take some initiative and show interest in her, but wasn’t sure what to make of this. Did this count as him asking her out? Or were they just going to Hogsmeade together because he had nothing better to do?

She hastily gathered her books, not able to think of anything as trivial as runes when she was on the crux of a possible first date with the boy she had fancied for two years!

Oh! Ginny! She needed Ginny’s help immediately. Hermione had no idea what to do with her hair! Or what to wear! Or even if it was possible this was a date.

With as much speed as she could she Leviosa-ed the books and flung them onto her bed, not caring when half of them fell to the floor with a large slam disturbing Parvati and Lavender from a giggling conversation they were having.

She bound to the fourth year’s dormroom and luckily found Ginny reading a quidditch magazine on her four poster.

“Merlin!” Ginny exclaimed, taking in Hermione, who was panting and ringing her hands. “What’s wrong?”

“I think… I think things might be right, actually!” Hermione let out a high pitched desperate sort of laugh, before she squeezed herself around her middle in agitation. “I’m not sure, of course, because I’m never allowed anything to go smoothly in this area, but yes… Yes I think things are going very well!”

Ginny looked at Hermione with concern before putting a hand to her forehead.

“What are you doing?”

“Making sure you don’t have Fwooper Flu.”

“I don’t have flu!” Hermione laughed. Ginny looked just as nonplussed as ever. “No… I— Oh Ginny, I think I might have been asked on a date!”

“What do you mean you think you might have been asked on a date?” Ginny smiled with incredulity.

“Well I was asked to Hogsmeade, and when we made our arrangements to meet up he said ‘it’s a date!’ So I guess, it’s a date?”

“Sounds like it!”

“But it is a common expression!” Hermione fretted. “Maybe it’s not!”

“Well, who asked you?” Ginny asked, seating them both on her bed.

“It was…” Hermione hesitated, biting her lip. Ginny had inferred Hermione liked Ron, but they’d never explicitly discussed it. It felt odd to confess her excitement if this was all a folly and Ron had meant to ask her only as a friend. It was a line she’d never crossed before, and the vulnerability of it made her tremble.

“Was it Ron?” Ginny asked quietly, a look of awe on her face.

Hermione silently nodded her head, and began to clutch at her arms again.

Ginny gave a broad toothy grin that made her resemble a smug Fred or George.

“The coward finally asked you out!” she crowed.

“We don’t know that he did! Like I said, it’s a common expression.”

“Not for Ron! Here, I can go and ask him—” Ginny moved to get up, but Hermione desperately tugged her back in place.

“No!” Hermione said in a strangled voice. “He can’t know I talked to you about it, because if he didn’t mean it as a date, and thought I thought it was a date and cared enough that I was talking about it and discussing it with his sister, then he’d think I fancied him, and he could be weirded out, and it could cosmically shift our dynamic, and then our whole friendship could be in jeopardy!”

“Hermione,” Ginny said putting a bracing hand to her shoulder. “You worry too much.”

“No! I worry the appropriate amount!”

“I won’t say anything, of course, but we all know he’s fancied you for ages. But even if it’s not a date, it can’t hurt to look nice for it and do a little bit of flirting.”

“Well, I came to you to help me with the looking nice bit, but as for flirting, I don’t believe I’ve ever been any good at it.”

“Just laugh at his jokes, and say nice things to him.”

“I do that already!”

Ginny arched an eyebrow.

“What?” Hermione replied defensively. “I do!”

“You kind of do, I guess, but you also go into scold and lecture mode a lot with him… I mean, he totally deserves it, but when’s the last time you complimented him?”

“I don’t know, the last time he did something worth complimenting obviously!” Hermione huffed, throwing up her arms.

“So, never?” Ginny laughed.

Hermione puffed up in response.

“That’s not fair! He’s done loads of things! He does things all the time! He’s very accomplished!”

“Well tell him that, and don’t wait for him to suddenly ‘accomplish’ something on your date.”

“Well you can’t go doling out compliments when people don’t deserve them.”

“I thought you said he was accomplished?”

Hermione squirmed. She was not sure how one should naturally segue way into complimenting when the act hasn’t been achieved recently.

“How?”

“I dunno, bring up past acts of valor or something? You’re a smart one. Make a cheat sheet for yourself and revise!”

Hermione nodded. That’s what she had to do. She needed to sit down and revise! She had no time, really, but she could manage this. Ginny agreed to help her with her hair and outfit the next morning, which left the rest of the night to think of some good compliments for Ron that she could apply in a natural way. And if it wasn’t a date, at least she was planting seeds that might blossom into affection later.

_______________________________________________________

Ron had never spent more time in front of a mirror. He didn’t have to shave all that often yet, but that morning he spent extra time making sure he didn’t have a stray whisker anywhere on his face or neck, made extra sure there wasn’t a pimple or anything hiding somewhere, and fiddled with where to part his hair a good ten minutes.

Before he knew it, he only had five minutes to get down the dining hall. He and Harry got the breakfast, both looking as peaky as Ron did before a quidditch match. It didn’t take long for Ron to spot Hermione among the students.

Her hair was looking extra tame and bouncy, like she had spent a lot of time on it. That had to be a good sign! She’d pulled back part of it from her face, and… her lips seemed to have a shine to them they normally didn’t. She looked lovely. Was this for him? Or was this for whatever her midday Valentine’s plans were?

She didn’t notice them at first as she was taking a letter from an unfamiliar brown owl. She had an intense look on her face as she quickly read the letter, seeming to come to herself as Ron and Harry sat with her.

“Oh good! You’re here!” she exclaimed, looking to Harry and ignoring Ron. “Listen, Harry. This is really important…. Do you think you could meet me in the Three Broomsticks around midday?”

“Well… I dunno. Cho might be expecting me to spend the whole day with her. We never said what we were going to do.“

"Well, bring her along if you must, but will you come?”

“Well… all right, but why?”

“I haven’t got time to tell you now. I’ve got to answer this quickly—” she said as she got some triangles of toast and shoved them into her bag, ready to leave the room.

Ron should have known she’d forget about their date. Whatever this plan was with Harry seemed to be more important to her than whatever plan she’d made with Ron. He gave a sigh and began to load up his plate, resigned to spend the morning alone, when Hermione stopped mid stride and turned to Ron.

“Well, come along then!” she said, looking at a befuddled Ron. “Make an egg sandwich with your toast or something! We can get more food after I respond to the letter.”

Ron quickly complied and gave a shrug to Harry, who was eyeing them with nothing short of complete confusion. Ron was highly confused as well, but felt quite cheery as he followed Hermione. It was easy to keep up with her, even when she was practically running, since his legs were so long. Hermione always took quick tiny steps wherever she went and it made her curls bounce in a unique was that Ron found adorable.

She was on one of her missions, so Ron knew it best not to interrupt until she’d finished whatever her little task was. She lead them to the Owlery and penned a letter before choosing a school owl.

“This is urgent,” she told the little owl. It hooted in response before taking off. They watched the owl as it got smaller and disappeared over the horizon.

“So…” Ron said, polishing off his hastily made sandwich. “Mind telling me what all that was about?”

She quickly explained her plan to blackmail Rita Skeeter into doing an interview with Harry for the Quibbler so he could finally get the truth out about Voldemort’s return. They were to meet at the The Three Broomsticks midday. Ron had never felt such relief, but also was in awe of how cagey Hermione was.

“That’s a brilliant plan!” he exclaimed giving her a hug. He hastily let go of her and gave her a moment to fix her hair he’d mussed in his excitement.

They went on to the village talking about Skeeter, Harry and a variety of topics in the same easy manner they always did. Ron didn’t know anyone he could talk to as easily as Hermione. Well, besides Harry of course, but it was different. He and Harry talked all the time, but much of it was laughing and shared looks and being able to just hang out. With Hermione there was this… spark. He didn’t know what it was. It just made the whole thing feel exciting, even if it was just debating over the difference between jam, jelly and preserves.

They went on to stare at the Shrieking Shack, recalling memories of third year.

Ron felt his palms begin to sweat. Was this a date or not? How could he make it romantic? Maybe he could do something chivalrous - like give her his coat if she was too cold? Or he could just use the cold as an excuse to hold her closely, and then look into each other’s eyes and, in a fit of passion, kiss each other.

“Are you cold?” Ron asked.

“No, I’m almost too warm, actually. I think I went overboard with my warming charms before we left the castle.”

Ron deflated. Well there went that idea.

“Er, Ron. You look nice today,” Hermione said stiffly.

“Thanks,” he replied, unsure of what to say. “You do too. Your hair is all shiny.”

“Ginny helped me with it.”

“Well she did a good job.”

“Thank you.”

“Welcome,” Ron replied before awkwardly looking away from her.

Oh, this was a disaster! What was he supposed to do or say? Did she look nice because of Rita Skeeter- perhaps wanting to give the woman nothing bad to print about her looks- or was she looking so lovely for him? ‘Your hair is all shiny.’ That wasn’t even a real compliment. What a tosser he was. He could do better than that, surely.

Despite his flimsy attempts at complimenting her, she was smiling at him. He loved the way her eyes seemed to sparkle a bit when she smiled like that. They reminded him of a rock in Percy’s rock collection he’d seen. It was called Tiger’s eye, and the shiny crystal had a special sort of soft lustre to it just like Hermione’s. Her eyes weren’t just brown, they had all sorts of honeyed hues to them.

“Your eyes look like rocks,” Ron said, before his eyes widened and his ears went red.

“I mean… Shit,” Ron cursed himself.

Hermione began to look angry.

“Did you really just say my eyes look like shi—”

“NO! I— fuck… No! I was trying to say they look like this special stone Percy had in his rock collection. It has all sorts of different colors in them. Tiger’s eye. Like… it was a really pretty rock, I swear! My favorite.”

Hermione stared at him in befuddlement before a smile broke out on her face, and her shoulders began to shake with suppressed laughter.

“Oh don’t laugh!” Ron rolled his head away from her, his face going red. After a moment of listening to her laugh, he found himself fighting a grin. “To be fair, in my mind it was really poetic.”

“I’m sure it was!” Hermione beamed at him.

“See, right there! When you smile like that! Looks just like it,” Ron enthused.

“That’s very sweet, Ron.”

His eyebrows rose as he looked down at her. So his rock thing had worked! Maybe he could try his other gambit?

“You sure you’re not cold at all?” he asked, giving her a hopeful look.

“Well, maybe my hands are a bit cold.”

Ron quickly grabbed her gloved hands in his own and held them tight. She was so tiny in every way. It amazed him how small even her knuckles were compared to his. He sandwiched her hands between his and began to rub them. He wished she weren’t wearing gloves- but it was still nice to have her so close and do something a bit more intimate than he’d managed before. _______________________________________________________

Hermione felt a thrill run through her as he took her hands in his. Even through her gloves she could feel the warmth of his hands burning through her. Everything about Ron was warmth and fire. His hair, his fiery temper, the way he could flush a deep red, and even how warm bodied he was. She’d be shivering from cold, and Ron would complain it was hot.

She wished she could bury herself in his embrace and feel warmed all over by him. He’d been rather daring, in his own way, trying to compliment her and holding her hands. Surely that wasn’t just friendly. It was notably different than his usual behavior. Perhaps she could test the waters and see.

“You know… I do think that warming charm on my coat is beginning to wear off.”

Ron’s eyebrows shot up high on his face, and his ears were beginning to turn a rosy hue.

“Well,” he said before roughly swallowing. “Well, you can share my coat if you like.”

Hermione quickly nodded, and he opened his coat wide for her to bury herself in. She slowly skimmed her hands along his sides before she wrapped her arms around his waist. Her face cuddled into his chest and she let a breath out as he closed in the side of his coat and wrapped his arms around her.

“I-Is that any better?” he asked, voice a bit husky.

“Much,” Hermione sighed. She knew she couldn’t keep doing this for long. She’d lied when she said her warming charm was wearing off. It was still going strong and she was already feeling a bit sweaty and overheated like this, and Ron would no doubt feel the heat from her coat soon. It was worth the physical discomfort, though, to be wrapped in his embrace like this.

The heat finally pushed her to let go of him. Even though he was so much taller than she, he was stooped so low his face was quite near hers. His face was flushed a deep pink, most likely from having a girl the temperature of a hot water bottle wrapped about him.

“I just remembered! I need some quills,” she lied, as she pulled herself away from him, not wanting to cause him further discomfort. ”Would you mind stopping by Scrivenshaft’s?”

“Wha— Er, yeah that’s fine,” he said, looking a bit glum.

“We can stop by some place more fun for you, if you like. I can put off the quills.”

“Naw, I’d probably just spend my pocket change on something stupid. Let’s get you some quills.”

They made their way down the road and Ron patiently waited as Hermione found herself new set of quills at Scrivenshaft’s. She’d dithered between a lovely set of minty green quills that was a little overpriced, or some more practical ones. Ron ended up waiting outside as she began chatting with a clerk about paper thickness and its effects on paper charms and hexes. She hadn’t made up her mind which set to buy when the lady behind the counter wrapped the nice quills in a colorful paper bag with a bow.

“Oh, no need to wrap that!” Hermione called out as the final flourish was added to the bow. “I hadn’t decided if I was going to indulge myself and buy them or not.”

“But it’s a gift!”

“What?”

The lady pointed to Ron who was casually leaning against the building. “He paid for it while you were chatting.”

They weren’t inexpensive quills, and Hermione felt prodigiously guilty that she’d made up the story of needing them in the first place. She’d only said that to more gracefully detach herself from Ron and not embarrass herself. She knew he didn’t have much money to spend on something like this.

As she opened the door, he gave her one of his lopsided smiles.

“All done?”

“Yes,” she smiled back before biting her lip. “You needn’t have paid for my quills, though.”

“I wanted to.”

“But, they were rather expensive and—”

“I know how much they cost. I bought them,” Ron said, brusquely cutting her off. His ears were red again. “If it makes you feel better, I’ll probably end up borrowing them and forgetting to return them. So it’s as much for you as it is for me.”

“Well…” He had a look on his face that clearly said she was treading into dangerous territory. “Alright then.”

He grinned back at her and she simpered before gripping the package close to her chest.

It felt a merry day until the skies opened and rain began to soak them through. Hermione had a small umbrella on hand that was most definitely not big enough for both of them. The umbrella did little to protect them from the wind whipping the rain into their sides, so they ran all the way to the Three Broomsticks. They both laughed as they entered the pub and found a table near the fire.

“Y’know, I think we got wetter trying to share the umbrella between us than if we’d just hoofed it,” Ron grinned as he unwrapped his wet scarf from around his neck. He hastily added, “not that it wasn’t appreciated.”

“I think you’re right, I’m soaked,” Hermione agreed with a laugh, wringing out her hair a bit. She gave a shudder as she took off her coat and the cold prickled at her, but a blast of warm air quickly drove the cold away. Ron had his wand out aimed directly at her.

“Oh! You musn’t use magic!” she admonished, looking around them to make sure no one had seen. “If you get caught you could get in loads of trouble!”

“I’m near enough to seventeen. If it were in front of muggles alarms would go off or something, but a place like this?”

“The Trace follows you everywhere!”

“Well… kind of,” Ron said with a shrug, ordering them two butterbeers and holding out her chair for her. “They can’t know WHO did magic in a place, only that it was done. Unless they were specifically looking for me, in a place buzzing with magic like this, it goes largely unnoticed. All my brothers were able to skate by with spells in Hogsmeade, so I’m not too fussed.”

“Well you still shouldn’t do it in a pub where anyone could see you,” she warned, looking about the patrons. Ron simply leaned back in his chair, his rangy legs stretched out so far they almost reached the other side of the long table.

“It’ll be fine. One of the few perks from having a hundred older brothers is you know which rules are a bit more flexible than others. You get to sit back, watch their mistakes, and mostly not repeat them.”

“No, you find all sorts of new mistakes they couldn’t even imagine,” she smirked, thinking back to their misadventures.

“Well if your brothers have already succeeded in every way,” said Ron, putting out a dramatic hand, “you might as well fail uniquely and spectacularly.”

He had a conspiratorial smile on his face.

“I’d say the Twins are taking that approach to school,” she added.

“Yeah. Guess they beat me to that too,” he laughed, though his smile didn’t seem to reach his eyes. “Not really any paths left to blaze.”

“You are blazing your own path though, Ron,” Hermione protested. “You’ve done loads.”

“Hmm,” he said with a doubtful look, before thanking Madame Rosmerta for the butterbeers, and taking a long draw from his mug.

Hermione thought back to Ginny’s advice to compliment Ron. This was a perfect set-up.

“Y’know, I think that Ravencl—” he began.

“You are very accomplished!” Hermione interrupted Ron, her face red.

“What?” he incredulously asked, eyebrows raised.

“I said you’re very accomplished.”

“Oh go on,” he laughed with dismissive hand wave before chugging down some more butter beer.

Well that hadn’t landed well at all! What was she supposed to do? Specifics! She should lay it out like one of her essays. She’d studied up on it the night before, but why was her mouth turning to cotton and her brain turning horribly blank on how to say it? She had actually written out a list for herself and had it stowed in her book bag. She never had a problem answering questions in class, but right now she had no ability to speak.

“One moment!” she said, leaning down to fish the list out from her book bag. It took little time to find the parchment. It was rather long and she’d stayed up late to make sure she covered her bases. “Here it is. See! You’ve done loads!”

On autopilot she handed it to Ron like turning in an essay to a teacher. The facts were all there, and she was rather proud to supply her evidence, all neatly outlined in her even script.

The moment he took it from her hand, though, panic crackled through her. She reached towards the parchment to wrench it back, but it was too late— he was already reading it.

“What is this?”

“Oh! Er…” She couldn’t possibly tell him why she had compiled the list. What was she thinking, bringing the list out for him to see? He’d either think she was mad, or never want to look at her again for fear she was a stalker.

“I just … It’s proof of your accomplishments… good attributes…” she mumbled, glancing up to see what his reaction was.

Ron’s usually expressive face was wildly unreadable as his eyes went back and forth over the parchment. His ears began to redden as he continued on, and he shifted in his seat to sit up quite straight, intently studying it.

She needed an excuse for writing it. In her panic it took a moment, but she finally had it.

“When you got your prefect badge, and the twins were making fun saying it was unexpected you’d gotten the badge— I didn’t say anything to counter them, and I was feeling guilty about it, and wanted to let you know your good attributes and accomplishments. Perhaps it could have been a birthday gift. I shouldn’t have done it now… As you can see there’s a lot there…” she finished in a small voice. She stared at her lap unable to look up at him.

“You numbered them,” he said, bemused.

“Yes.”

“There’s a hundred and twenty three lines?”

“Yes… I know you must think I’m ridiculous for writing it all out but—”

His arms were suddenly around her, and she was pulled into a tight embrace. His cheek was pressed against the side of her forehead, and she could feel an almost imperceptible quake to his arms.

She’d never been hugged like this by him before, and was so stunned it took a moment for her to engage her arms and wrap them around his back. Had his chest always been so broad?

“Thank you,” he roughly whispered in her ear.

She nodded and leaned into his embrace further, closing her eyes.

“Oh, young love is it?” came a voice from behind them, startling them apart.

_______________________________________________________

Rita Skeeter stood at their table, looking bedraggled compared to the last time she’d bothered them. She’d always been overly polished and artificial— once the veneer was gone it wasn’t a pretty sight. Everything about her was chipped and worn looking, from her raggedy nails to her grubby raincoat.

“Harry and Luna should be joining us soon,” Hermione said, an imperious little look on her face. It was like her words willed Luna to appear, for the pale girl with the protuberant eyes worked her way through the crowded table to join them, a drink with a cocktail onion in her hand.

“Hello Ronald, I didn’t expect you here,” she smiled, staring at him with her grey eyes that just didn’t seem to blink as often as other people’s eyes. She was wearing a large woven poncho and her hair hung lankly from the rain. “It’s been perfect weather.”

“Er, I guess… If you like it when it’s bucketing down.”

“I do!” she said wringing out her poncho on the floor and getting some stares from local patrons as she flapped it in the air. Hermione had loudly started pulling out paperwork from her bag for Luna to look at, but Rita ignored everything. Instead she had out her acid green quill and had been scribbling away.

‘Harry Potter’s love life has taken a tragic turn as femme fatale Hermione Granger breaks his heart again, leaving him for his other, supposed, best friend Ronald Weasley. Weasley, who Potter valiantly saved in the heartrending second task of the Triwizard Tournament, was seen seducing Granger on an intimate date at the Three Broomsticks this Valentine’s Day. The two were entwined by the fireplace in an appalling display that left patrons gaping. One has to wonder how Harry could possibly forgive the two, the lanky ginger haired boy who has betrayed his friend, and the brunette who has broken his heart— ’

“Oi!” Ron cried out. “You can’t be writing claptrap like that about us.”

“You mean to say this wasn’t a romantic rendezvous between you and Little Miss Perfect.”

Ron opened and closed his mouth, unsure of how to respond. He looked to Hermione who was watching him just as avidly as Skeeter.

“We’re not the reason you’re here and aren’t your story. Harry is,” Ron managed, feeling quite proud of himself for such a diplomatic response. Hermione’s mouth was a hard line, but she began to nod.

“That’s right,” she added, looking away from Ron.

In short order, Harry arrived sans Cho, and the meeting was underway. Rita made her attempts to pry into his love life, but Hermione brilliantly shut it down and got the interview going in a trice. Ron couldn’t help but admire how she’d taken charge and put the horrid reporter in her place.

They sat nearby as Harry recounted what had happened the night of the Third Task. Every time he said Voldemort Ron felt a shiver go down his spine, but nothing left him quite as shaken as seeing the look on Harry’s face as he grimly talked about Cedric’s death and being tortured. He hated seeing his friend look so torn up and sporting such a far away sad look in his eye. He couldn’t look away though. If Harry had the guts to go through it and talk about it, the least Ron could do was sit and listen. Hermione’s eyes were filled with tears, but she wiped them away as soon as they appeared. Even Luna, who seemed to have a wandering attention span, was raptly watching the interview the whole time.

When it concluded Rita said a few acid comments to Hermione, but Hermione was beaming.

“Harry I’m so proud of you!” Hermione enthused once the reporter had left, giving Harry a hug. He feebly returned it.

“Well done, mate,” Ron added, clapping a pale Harry on the shoulder.

“It was nearly as powerful as that lovely article about the Crumple-Horned Snorkacks,” said Luna. She went off a bit about how she didn’t know when the article would be released, as the Snorkack article might take precedence. Ron vaguely knew Mr Lovegood, and had a feeling even someone as dotty as Luna’s dad would know he had a story worth galleons.

They walked out the door to find the rain had stopped.

“Oh what a terrible change in the weather… I was hoping to walk in it a bit more. It’s supposed to be a good cure for nargles,” Luna said vaguely before skipping off humming Ron’s least favorite song, ‘Weasley is Our King.’ In all the excitement, he’d forgotten about his ill-fated Quidditch tenure.

Harry gave a sigh, which brought Ron back to the moment.

“Want to head back to the castle?” Ron asked him. He knew it didn’t do much good to ask Harry directly how he was holding up.

“Yeah… You don’t have to though.”

That was Harry’s way of saying he wanted alone time.

“We’ll come with you,” Hermione said earnestly. Ron put a hand to her elbow, and gave her a look. She seemed to understand him and gave a small almost imperceptible nod. “But I do need to… to stop by the quill shop… Perhaps we can meet you in a bit at the castle?”

“Yeah, that’s fine. I’ll catch you at dinner,” Harry rattled off looking relieved before walking away towards the castle, hands in his pockets. Dinner wasn’t for another three hours at least. This one had hit Harry hard. Ron would have to get something to distract Harry when he checked on him.

“Let’s get him some sweets from Honeyduke’s,” said Ron, leading them to the shop and giving Hermione a teasing look. “‘Need to stop by the quill shop.’ You’re lucky Harry didn’t notice your sack from Scrivenshaft’s.”

Hermione gave a nervous laugh before biting her lip.

“Are you sure he needs space?”

“Positive.”

“‘Catch you at dinner,’ he says’” Hermione huffed. “Dinner is not for another three hours! It just seems an awfully long time to put off having company after going through something so difficult. You saw the look on his face having to live through it all again… It was clearly traumatizing. If it weren’t so necessary I would feel even worse for asking him to do it.”

“Don’t worry about it. He’s made of stern stuff,” Ron said with more confidence than he felt. “We’ll get him some sweets to tithe him over, then he’ll feel loads better when the article comes out and people are on his side again.”

“You really think this will work?”

“Of course it will! It was a brilliant idea,” Ron nodded. “And you handled Skeeter perfectly.”

Hermione was smiling at him and he felt the tinge of nerves from earlier come back.

“You handled her pretty well yourself,” she said a bit tightly.

“Yeah? Well…” he said putting a hand to the back of his neck. “Didn’t want her to get things sideways like she does…”

“Would it have been sideways to write that we were on a date though?”

His ears were on fire. His throat was so unable to produce sound he might as well have been twisted like a towel getting wrung out. Her eyes were boring into him, studying him as thoroughly as she did any tome.

“I… I said ‘it’s a date’ when I asked you to come to Hogsmeade,” he said testing the waters.

“But that’s a common expression, and I wasn’t sure if you meant it in the colloquial way, or if you meant it as a formal invitation,” she persisted. “Was-was this a date?”

“Well… to be honest…” But could he be? Could he tell her he fancied her? That her kiss on his cheek earlier that year had meant more to him than any other touch he’d felt in his life? That she smelled so good? That she made him actually look forward to studying because it meant more time with her? That she powered his Patronus more consistently than anything else? “To be honest, I’ve been wondering the same thing myself.”

“You’re the one who asked me!” said Hermione, throwing her hands in exasperation.

“Well which did you want it to be?” Ron asked, making a last ditch effort to know how she felt.

Her face turned scarlet. “Just answer the question!”

How come he had to be the one to lay everything on the line? He’d taken loads of risks already. He’d asked her out, he’d initiated some cuddling and hand-holding, he’d bought her a nice gift, held her chair out and done a drying charm when she was cold. He’d put himself out there fairly boldly… And if he’d misread this whole thing he wasn’t sure what the repercussions could be. Would the awkwardness dash their friendship to ribbons? Would she laugh at him for daring to think she’d like a nobody like him?

“If you are the one inviting a person out,” she began to lecture, “then you know which way you meant it when you said ‘it’s a date!’ That’s the basic structure of invitations, which you seem unable to grasp!”

“I just don’t want to ruin everything!”

“Oh, you’ve ruined plenty already!” Hermione snapped.

“Have it your way, then. I guess I just ruin everything.”

Ron stomped off to use his last few knuts to buy Harry some chocolate, but stopped to look back.

“You coming?” he growled at her.

Hermione petulantly looked away, but seemed to change her mind. Her hair had lost some of its sleekness and was bouncing in its usual wild fashion as she ran at him. He hopefully raised his arms out to catch her, and let out an ‘oof’ as she forcibly shoved the bag of quills into his stomach.

“Keep them!” she spat before tearing off for the castle, leaving a flabberghasted Ron in her wake.

_______________________________________________________

Hermione stormed her way to the castle and had to restrain herself from hexing a couple out of her way as they slowly ambled with their hands entwined. That was supposed to be her and Ron! Or was it? They were at this ridiculous impasse where he just wouldn’t tell her if all those little moments that meant so much to her were just friendship or something more. He’d been so sweet, and thoughtful, and bought her a lovely gift… And she’d shoved it right back at him…

“Oh well done, Hermione,” she cursed herself once she was finally alone in her dormitory.

She wasn’t even sure why she’d done it. He was just being so infuriatingly evasive, and she’d just snapped. She’d needed an answer. She’d needed to know without risking her pride being hurt. Maybe she’d have a chance to mend things at dinner. Ron wouldn’t abandon Harry after the hard day he’d had recounting the Third Task and that terrible graveyard. He could act as a buffer and they’d get back to an uneasy truce of some sort.

It took a while to calm her nerves and head downstairs to wait for the boys to come down. She sat beside the fire trying to translate her ancient runes poem, but found it impossible to concentrate. Would Ron even want to look at her? Would he have told Harry about her losing her temper demanding he declare it a date? She worried her lip until She gave a hiss and put her hand to her lip. She winced in pain and tasted a hint of blood.

“Hey. Seen Ron?”

She looked up to see Harry standing there looking peaked. She’d ruined Valentine’s Day for all three of them it seemed.

“Not since Hogsmeade, no,” she said, rolling up her parchment. “Did you want to get some dinner?”

“Oh… I guess…” Harry said with no enthusiasm at all. He looked about the room. She knew that look. He didn’t want her company; he wanted Ron. This was nothing new. Whenever Harry was down he immediately started looking around for Ron to cheer him up. Hermione couldn’t begrudge him doing this; she felt the exact same way. She and Harry got along very well of course, and she quite enjoyed his company, but neither of them were exactly the cheery sort. They were good at working out problems together, but just sitting and living their lives together? Having a good time? That was a bit more strained when they weren’t united with an actual purpose driving their conversation.

“Well let’s get some food. Where there’s food there’s usually Ron, right?” she asked, trying to bolster her spirits as much as Harry’s.

“Yeah… Right,” Harry said with a small smile.

But Ron wasn’t there. They each barely touched their food as they looked about for Ron and he was nowhere to be found as dinner came and passed. They finally gave up and went back to Gryffindor Tower.

“Are you quote sure he didn’t make his way to the dorm while you were there?”

“Er, well I was napping for a bit there, so maybe,” Harry replied.

He still looked exhausted and quickly withdrew to his dormitory, leaving Hermione by herself again. She sat by the fireplace again waiting for him, and it wasn’t until well past curfew when she heard the click of the portrait hole. Ron trudged through the portrait hole, his broom in hand, a miserable look on his face.

She moved from her chair and he gave a startle, nearly dropping his broom.

“Blimey, Hermione! You nearly gave me a heart attack!” he hoarsely let out. He was wet through and his boots were covered in mud.

“Where have you been?”

He looked to his broom then back to her with a quizzical look on his face.

“Fine… Why didn’t you come back for dinner? Harry was still really upset and could have used you here for moral support,” she said, her chin held aloft.

“I wasn’t hungry, and needed to get in some practice,” he said meeting her gaze, before dropping it. “I’ll check in on him in the morning and make sure he’s sorted, so don’t worry about it.”

“You shouldn’t skip meals.”

“Of the three of us, I’m the one who does it the least,” he said, voice tight. An edge filled silence choked them both.

“Well… It’s late, and I need to clean myself up…” Ron said after a beat. “See you at breakfast?”

“Alright…” she replied, cheeks beginning to burn.

His trainers squelched with every step he took as he headed towards his dorm. He had already taken a few of the steps, two at a time as usual, when he stopped his path.

“Hermione…” How was it he could say her name and it made her pulse quicken. “About Hogsmeade…”

She couldn’t bare it. He was going to reveal he cared nothing for her! That in her lonely desperation she’d somehow wildly extrapolated he liked her as more as a friend. She couldn’t hear him say the words. It’d make it too real.

“Don’t worry about it,” she cut him off. “I’ll see you both at breakfast.”

She retreated to her dormitory with such haste she was a bit out of breath by the time she reached her fourposter. She wanted to sob into her pillow, but refused to let herself, for fear of Lavender and Parvati hearing about it and reporting it to everyone around them. No. She’d never tell a soul that her dreams had been dashed; that she’d sabotaged a perfectly lovely time. Even if Ron had thought of her as a potential date, he’d never think of her that way now.

The next morning Ginny made her inquiries of how Hogsmeade was and Hermione forced a smile onto her face.

“We had a good time!” she said with forced lightness. Ginny raised her eyebrows, uncannily reminding her of Ron. She looked like she was about to question Hermione further, but with heavy thump Ron and Harry through themselves onto the bench across from Hermione.

Harry was looking remarkably better than he had the previous day. All he needed was a good dose of Ron’s company.

“Alright?” Ron asked, looking between her and Ginny.

“Of course,” Hermione said, taking a large gulp of orange juice. Ginny was called away by some of her friends, but gave her a look that clearly said ‘we have a lot to discuss’ as she left.

They ate their breakfasts and if there was any tension to be seen between Hermione and Ron, Harry seemed oblivious as he laughed about the state of Skeeter with Ron, and pointedly ignored the Ravenclaw table where Cho Chang was staring at his back.

As they rose to go to their first class, Ron pushed a small box across to Hermione. It had a bit of mud on it, but otherwise it was still the same beautiful pristine box of mint green quills he’d bought her.

“Thought you might want these before class.”

He was keenly looking at her. Sometimes she thought of Ron as quite clueless, but then he’d look at her like this and she’d feel utterly naked and seen. His blue eyes were looking right through her, surely.

“Thank you,” she let out, a bit breathless.

“What’s that?” Harry asked.

“Nothing!” They simultaneously replied, even though it was everything.

#romione #my fics #hillnerd writes #ron weasley #hermione granger #au #fanfic #my writing #harry potter #hogsmeade #ootp #order of the phoenix #Anonymous

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prorevenge · 6 years ago

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Buddy, You Picked the Wrong Person to Harass

The year was 2014 (or maybe 2013? who gives a shit?), and I was a freshman in high school. On a general basis it sucked. I mean, it was an American public high school with literally thousands of kids, it's a given that it's gonna blow some major balls. One thing in particular that made it extra sucky though was gym class. Specifically, this one guy in gym class.

This dude's name was Jack A. McGee, the 'A' of course being short for 'Ass'. As the name would imply, he was a jackass.

At first, it was pretty standard "high school guy in gym class"-level of obnoxious prick. You know the type: overly loud, unreasonably aggressive during games, bossy, tossing the collective brain cell back and forth between his two equally ape-like buddies. The usual.

I don't know when, exactly, it happened, but he developed a sort of... eye for me, after the first couple of weeks or so. He started asking me bizarre questions that I now believe may have been some sort of innuendo, sitting uncomfortably close to me, resting his hand on my gym shoe- general creepy behavior.

He once blocked a doorway with his body (this dude was massive), forcing me to literally squeeze my way through and crawl over him. He then tried to grab me and pin me to him once I was almost through, but I'm very good at dodging physical contact whenever possible, and dipped on him before his giant gorilla arm could catch me. I still shudder thinking about it. I cannot emphasize enough how terrible this dude smelled.

But the true breaking point came during the peak cruelty of this school mandated sadism: gym swim.

Before anyone asks, let it be known that yes, I did try to tell someone about this. I told my gym teacher first semester, really early on, that Jack was making me incredibly uncomfortable. The gym teacher waved it off, saying he was "just playing around" and that "it's probably because he likes you". His suggestion was basically to just put up with it and wait it out, because he was sure Jack would lose interest soon anyways.

Spoiler alert: he didn't

Second semester rolls around, and the four week period of gym swim descends upon us like the bloated carcass of a catapulted whale, crushing us beneath its wet, foul smelling body. 40 some odd adolescents forced into a cold, overly chlorinated pool for 50+ minutes, adorned in swimsuits determined to crawl up into our assholes like Antman himself.

It was hell on earth, basically.

As I've mentioned in a previous post, I am autistic, so the echoing sounds, reflected fluorescent lights, pungent odors, slimy floors, and assorted BS made the situation even worse for me. I wasn't officially diagnosed yet, so my complaints were written off as me being whiny, and I was told to shut up and deal with it. So I did. I think I had more meltdowns in that four week span than I've had in the past two years combined, but whatever.

On top of the sensory overload, there was Jack.

I think something about being allowed to go shirtless and stare at the nearly bare asses of girls for an entire period emboldened him, because Jack promptly lost whatever semblance of restrain he'd had until then.

He made frequent attempts to grab me, trying to hold me against his bare skin, which was disgusting, and I spent most of the class trying to evade him. The swimsuit I was forced to wear fit a little awkwardly around my chest, which he delighted in pointing out to his buddies, staring unabashedly at my breasts. He managed to sneak up behind me and snap the strap of my swimsuit, even trying to pull it down off my shoulder, but I jerked away fast enough to prevent that. I was furious at this point, but I'm like, 5'2", maybe, whereas he was easily over 6'5", probably 300+ pounds, and I'm not stupid.

While all of this was happening, my new gym teacher, (they switched every semester), was busy trying to keep a couple of the other guys from drowning each other. She was one adult forced to watch over 40 rowdy ass kids in a swimming pool; she was a bit preoccupied.

The final straw came one Wednesday afternoon, the event that finally pushed me off the edge of the rationality I'd been clinging to and sent me plummeting into full on bloodthirst.

There I was, paddling around, minding my own business, when Jack and his two goons manage to corner me. I'm immediately suspicious, hackles raised, as they ask me fairly banal questions about how the pool is today and the like, sniggering the whole time. I give short, terse answers, trying to see if I could maybe slip past them. I spot an opening and bolt for it, but Jack was apparently expecting this.

As I swim through the narrow gap between him and one of his friends, he stretches his arm out, and actually manages to slip his hand under my suit to grab my breast. I froze for a moment, the delighted giggling of him and his friends echoing in my ears as if from a thousand miles away.

The next thing I knew, I was out of the pool, being held back by the gym teacher, and Jack had a bloody nose. He was shouting angrily at me, calling me a "crazy bitch!!" as his nose gushed blood into the water. There was mass confusion among the class. I was told to change quickly and sit in the hallway.

Apparently, the gym teacher had heard me screech like a banshee, followed by a number of shouts, and had looked over to see me wrestle out of Jack's grip, jump on his back, and throw him off balance enough to smash his face into the edge of the pool wall. I remembered none of this, but I did find a few chunks of greasy brown hair clenched in my fist that I'd evidently ripped from his scalp when the teacher pulled me off. I washed my hands thoroughly.

It was decided that I'd go in early to school tomorrow to have a little talk with the Dean. They would've just sent me there straight away, but gym was my last class of the day, and the Dean had already left by then for whatever reason, so it had to be postponed a little while. It was pretty heavily implied that I was going to be suspended, quite possibly even expelled, for what had happened.

I was furious. Not only had Jack made my life a living hell, but his horse shit was now going to be the cause of my expulsion?!? I wasn't about to go down without a fight, but I realized that I'd have to play this pretty smart if I wanted to weasel out of it.

The next morning, I did two things: I put on mascara, and I made a superficial, but rather painful incision on my right thigh, high enough so as to be covered by my shorts.

Normally, I hate wearing makeup, because I don't like the way it feels, but I'd worn mascara before and noticed the interesting effect it had on my appearance. Specifically, I already have pretty long, pretty dark eyelashes, so adding mascara draws a lot of attention to my eyes and makes them look huge. Like, total Bambi eyes- wide, innocent, naive, harmless.

I sat down in front of the Dean at 6:40 a.m. I didn't need to fake the fear in my expression, but I made sure to throw in something that could be interpreted as guilt, too, bowing my head and twisting my face in dismay.

Needless to say, the Dean was pretty pissed.

"Do you know why you're here, young lady?" he said

"Yes," I said softly.

"And you know that what you did is very serious?"

"Yes," I said again, making my voice tremble.

"Care to explain yourself, then?"

"I..." I began, my voice shaking. "I just wanted him to stop..."

"Stop what?" The Dean prompted, his eyebrows furrowed.

"I just wanted him to stop touching me!" I blurted. As I said this, I reached my hand under the table where he couldn't see it and dug my finger into the cut on my leg, causing me to lurch forward as if in a sob, my other hand covering my face as my eyes watered from the pain.

"Touching you?" The Dean asked, his brows now on a collision course for Mars.

I spent the next several minutes divulging all the shit that had happened to me that year, digging into my injury for some tears whenever necessary, and by the end of it the Dean looked horrified. He reaffirmed that no, I shouldn't have attacked Jack like that, but that they'd have to investigate the matter further.

I basically got off with a slap on the wrist, and after multiple testimonies from other girls, Jack got suspended for two weeks. I wasn't satisfied. They hadn't been able to expel him due to "lack of hard evidence", but I was out for blood.

He returned to school two weeks later, and I was ready.

One of his friends had a little brother in my bio class, a fairly chill dude named Owen, who I had worked out a deal with. See, Jack had been very vocal about his displeasure with me to his friends, which made its way to Owen, who, for the low low price of bailing his dumb ass out in biology, was more than willing to share that information with me. I had a direct pipeline.

Anything Jack shared with his friends made its way directly to me via Owen, and, as it turns out, this dude didn't keep a whole lot to himself.

There was a lot of shit I was tempted to nail him for. For instance, I found out he was selling drugs (mostly adderal and some occasional weed) from his locker, and had been cheating his way through most of his classes. However, I knew how suspicious it would look for me to report something like that so soon. It'd probably just look like I had a grudge, (which I did), and was trying to get even, (which I was).

He slipped up really, really bad about a week after his return, and that was when I struck.

See, he hadn't been subtle about his displeasure with my retaliation, and spent most of gym class sending really ugly looks my way. The gym teacher kept us as far away from each other as possible, but he managed to track me down in a passing period one day and rant at me about how I had screwed him over and that I was a lying little bitch, yada yada yada, and that he'd make me regret it. Funny, stole the words right out of my mouth.

I found out from Owen later that Jack had been bragging to his friends last night about the switchblade he'd stolen from one of those hunting stores downtown, and promised he'd show it off to them later that day.

I seized the opportunity.

I took a few seconds in the bathroom mirror, scratching at the scab on my leg until my eyes were teary enough to really sell the "terrified victim" look, then bolted down to the Dean's office, stuttering and shaking, crying out for help. The front desk lady was understandably startled by the sight of a seemingly panicked freshman girl bolting into the office, and called the Dean out right away. His face grew serious when he saw me.

"M-Mr. Dean, please help! He's gonna kill me!" I cried.

"Now, slow down," he said. "What happened?"

"Jack!" I said, resisting the urge to grin maniacally at the hardness that appeared in the Dean's eyes. "He, he cornered me in the hall! He called me a bitch and said he was gonna make me regret telling on him! H-he's got a knife!!"

"He what?!" The Dean barked.

Everything moved very quickly after that. The security guards were told to search the kids locker, while a couple other security officers were called down to get Jack out of his classroom and take him to the office. I was told by the front desk lady, who had heard the whole exchange, to hide with her in the copier room so Jack wouldn't see me.

They found the (stolen) knife in his backpack, and the drugs in his locker. That, combined with his previous charges, was enough to get him not only expelled, but arrested. I never saw him again, which is probably a good thing because I'm still mad and would probably try to kill him if given the opportunity.

TL;DR: Guy sexually harasses me in gym class, I give him a bloody nose, a two week suspension, an expulsion, and a criminal record, all in that order.

(source) story by (/u/FeralTaxEvader)

#prorevenge #by /u/FeralTaxEvader #pro revenge #revenge stories #pro revenge stories #pro #revenge #last10

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autistic-characterhcs · 5 years ago

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Autistic!Wayne (P1)

I wrote this back at the start of summer and thought I should post it here. It’s the introduction for a fanfic I started and kind of dropped from a show called Letterkenny. I think the main character, Wayne, is Autistic. He has some symptoms that are all but text book.

Warnings: Stronger than usual swearing langue. If you watch Letterkenny, this oneshot is cleaner worded than any given episode.

Wayne had been diagnosed with Autism when he was eight or ten. His parents knew there was something a little “off” with him but it was Pa’s friend, Dan, who tied everything together. They were going hunting- Dan, Pa, Darry, and Wayne that is- until the trip got rained out. If it was just rain they would have gone but thunder and lightning put a pin in any notion of sitting in a metal framed deer blind.

Pa and Dan didn’t mind that much; they sat at the table chatting with Mumma over a couple of Gus’N’Bruno’s Puppers. Darry was watching cartoons in the living room with Wayne and Katy. Well, sort of. Wayne was mighty antsy and couldn’t sit still for long, so Darry was trying to calm him down. Wayne wasn’t upset the trip was cancelled, they could reschedule. He was irked the plans had changed within an hour’s notice.

“You know, Bens, I thinks Waynes got the Autisms.” Dan said.

The three of them could see Darry shuffling a deck of playing cards on the coffee table while Wayne watched, his foot bouncing a mile a minute and he kneaded the knees of his pants like he was trying to wring water out of them.

“What’s that now, Dan?” Mumma asked, getting a snack for the kids.

“Well, I was thinking an’ it fits. My cousin’s nephew’s son has it and Waynes acts sort of simulars to him. Theys both stoics, gots to has a water-tight routine. Theys both move their hands sorts of funnies.” Dan explained.

Mumma and Pa looked at each other. “What do you figure, honey” Pa asked. “Worth looking into?”

“If there’s something they can do to help him.”

Within three appointments Wayne was diagnosed with Autism. Same as always, gas travels fast in a small town so by the end of the week most of Letterkenny knew.

*****

As Wayne, Katy, and Darry got older, peers started bullying Wayne and Darry more. Come middle school, the three of them were pretty good at fighting. However, little gangs often sprouted. If someone picked on Wayne, Katy and/or Darry quickly taught them not to fuck with him. If someone went after Darry without reason or went too far with Katy, Wayne told ‘em where to go. By the time Wayne and Darry graduated high school, most of Letterkenny understood.

*****

When Wayne and Katy’s parents died, Wayne went nearly nonverbal for almost two weeks. He wasn’t one much for words in the first place, so the one and two word answers scared Katy. Wayne hadn’t cried after a week of Mumma and Papa’s death and Katy didn’t know if he was going to; she’d never seen him cry before.

Two weeks passed before he finally crumbled. He was making breakfast for himself, Katy, and Darry (with some extras for Dan). He’d forgotten to do the dishes the night before, so the spatula he needed wasn’t clean and it drove the final nail in.

He threw the spoon he had in his hand across the room and a deep growl rose from his throat, his hands tugging hard on his hair. Katy and Darry both jumped when Wayne threw the spoon. Daryl jumped up from his chair and stood behind Wayne, getting a tight grip on his wrists. Slowly, Wayne’s fingers released his hair and Darry steadily lowered Wayne’s hands to his waist.

“You’re okay, good buddy, you’re okay.” Darry whispered again and again. Once Wayne’s breathing was a little closer to normal, Darry let go of Wayne’s wrists and hugged him tightly.

With a body shuddering sob, Wayne’s knees gave out and Darry lowered them to the floor. He moved around Wayne so he could properly hold him as he sobbed. Katy quickly set to flipping pancakes on the stove so they wouldn’t burn.

Ten minutes later when Dan came in, Wayne was still sobbing into Darry’s shoulder where they sat on the floor. At the 15 minute mark, the heart wrenching sobs that made Katy tear up quieted down and he’d sobbed himself out after a total of 25 minutes. He let himself be held by Darry, being a limp weight.

Darry backed up slightly so he could see his best friend’s face. His eyes were red; his face red, blotchy, and tear streaked. “Okay, big shooter?” Wayne shakily nodded and Darry pulled him back into the hug. “Got a headache?” Darry guessed. Another nod. “Let’s get you in a chair an’ I’ll get you a tylenol, hm?” There was a pause but Wayne nodded all the same.

Darryl got Wayne on his feet again and he brought his hands to his head again but Darry caught them around the wrists. “Wayne, eye contact.” He prompted. “Wayne.” Hesitantly, Wayne brought his eyes to meet Darryl’s. “Ya gotta stop pullin’ your hair, buddy. It’s just gonna make your headache worse.” Darryl kept his firm grip on Wayne’s wrists until he got another nod of conformation. As promised, Darry helped Wayne to his usual chair.

No-one said anything about Wayne’s outburst and he took the two painkillers when Darryl put them in front of him with some water. No-one said anything when Wayne teared up throughout the day, either.

Dan stayed over more than usual knowing what Wayne and Katy were going through. Dan stayed closer to Wayne and Katy too so he could cheer up the grieving siblings.

*****

Two months passed before a lawyer came knocking and this fuckin’ idiot got Wayne fully verbal again.

“We think it would be best to move your sister into a group home,” the case worker said.

“Hard no.” Wayne didn’t pause, still moving the bales of straw onto the trailer. “This family’s been broke up enough. Katy isn’t going anywhere.”

“We’re just worried she won’t be provided for with your mental cond-”

“This doesn’t have anything to do with my Autism. If I was unfit to care for my sister, I’d be unfit to care for myself and someone at the hospital would have told me before I turned 18. We’re staying together.”

“Mr-”

“Look, I can take care of my sister just fine. ‘Sides, if it’s me yer worried about I’m never alone with her. Go ask Darryl, Squirrely Dan, and the McMurries what they think. Darry lives with us, he brings in some pay o’ his own and we have friends we can ask for help from if we ever needed it. Give me the papers and I’ll take custody over Katy. She ain’t living under someone else’s roof until she’s 18 or good’n’ready to be living somewhere else.”

“Are you sure? That’s a lot of stress and burden for someone your age. Especially with you still running the farm.”

Wayne stopped moving bales of hay and set his stern, squinted eyes on the pair of caseworkers, pointing stiffly at them. “You call my sister a stress and burden one more time an’ I’ll have to go over there and talk to ya.” He put his arm down. “Get me the adoption papers or get the fuck off my property.”

“We don’t have the papers right now. We didn’t think you were going to…”

“Then get off my property. Come back with the papers or don’t come back at all.”

*****

Wayne dated Angie for two years before he found out she cheated on him. He wasn’t a fan of being touched by anyone other than Darry or Katy. He’d been perfectly happy with their relationship. All the talking and occasional hand holding but nothing too out of his comfort zone. They’d kiss or make out sometimes but he always felt weird afterwards and he couldn’t pin it as a good thing or a bad thing.

He heard rumours around town of someone cheating on a “sped” but he ignored it. Despite Letterkenny being pretty small, he didn’t know everyone, so it must have been pert near impossible for it to be about him and his Angie, right? Hard no. Katy told him it was true. She hadn’t mentioned left a bright pink hand print on the cheek of the bastard Angie had cheated on Wayne with. She figured it wouldn’t help her brother’s broken heart.

It took a lot for Wayne to trust someone and Angie had somehow gotten herself into the farmer’s heart and then stomped it into the dirt when she got bored. Wayne didn’t cry but he didn’t turn down a hug from Katy either. Darry had been there for him too with a couple of Puppers and some stupid jokes he knew Wayne would understand and enjoy.

*****

A year passed before Wayne pieced things together for himself with a little help from Katy. He wasn’t one for talking about his feelings; it made him feel 10-ply. So when he went to Katy to ask questions about her love life, the young woman had some idea of what was going on.

“How’re ya now?” Wayne sat next to his sister on the couch.

“Good. ‘N you?” Katy put her phone down and gave Wayne her full attention so he’d know she was listening and wasn’t bored or wanted him to stop talking.

“Oh, not so bad.”

“What’s up, Big Brother?”

“Well, I have a question and don’t completely know how to ask it.” He started off slow. He was still thinking as he spoke but Katy knew how to talk to her brother so she knew it sometime took him a little while longer than most people to get the question just how he wanted it.

“We can figure out.” She adjusted how she was sitting.

“You know how you try to go after Bonnie McMurry?” Wayne tried.

“Bonnie McMurry,” Katy sighed dreamily. “What about her?”

“Well, before you liked her you were dating the hockey players.” Wayne’s head was racing with how to ask the next part. “How’d you know you liked Bonnie and not another man?”

Katy was a little taken aback. This was out of character for Wayne. Usually he wanted nothing =to do with Riley and Jonesy aside from tripping them with Darry when they dropped her off before they broke up. “Well, uh… just… I don’t know, Big Brother. There’s just something different, you know? Jonesy and Riley were good for in bed stuff but they didn’t have the brain space put together for a full conversation. With Bonnie, though, she’s smart and can laugh.”

Wayne thought for a second. This was backwards of what he was going through. All Angie seemed to have wanted was the “in bed stuff” without much of the talking and laughing. Darryl, on the other hand… Darryl made him smile that rare smile only he and Katy- not even Dan anymore- got to see. Angie left Wayne for the exact opposite reason Katy had left the hockeyplayers. He was a good listener but didn’t want anything to do with a bed if it wasn’t for sleeping or relaxing and he didn’t want anything to with touching if it wasn’t a handshake.

“What’s going on in your head, Wayne?” Katy asked fondly. She knew he was trying to figure something out.

Wayne’s throat made the little growl it always did when he was thinking too hard. “I don’t know.”

“Well, what are you trying to figure out?”

“I figured out why Angie cheated on me.” He said, folding his arms across his chest. “I did not want any of the bed stuff.”

“That’s alright; some people don’t.” Katy nodded. “Do you like someone else now?”

“I think so. I don’t know if it is okay.”

“Who do you like? I can probably tell if they’re into guys,” Katy offered. She knew not to push too far with the question. Wayne had come to her and he wasn’t likely to leave until they got it figured out. “It’s okay. I dated two guys at the same time where all three of us were in the relationship and now I’m chasing after a girl two years younger than me. I’m not in a position to judge anyone.”

“Except Gailer.”

“Except Gailer.” Katy could give him that one. “So who is the lucky person?”

“I think… I think it’s Dar.”

“That’s alright. You two would be cute.” Katy smiled. She happened to know that Darry felt the same way about her brother. The fond and sappy look he’d give Wayne when he was playing with one of the dogs or joking around with Katy. “You gonna get after him?”

“I do not know.”

“Why not? He wouldn’t judge you.” Katy prompted, tapping Wayne’s knee with her socked foot.

“Because if something were to go wrong then it’s 20 years down the drain.” Wayne tried to reason. “I can trust…”

“You can trust Daryl, Wayne. He’s one that won’t hurt you and you don’t even have to worry about it. Not even a little.” Katy comforted him. “You don’t have to tell him, but I think he’d want to know the truth, Big Brother.”

It took Wayne a couple days to say anything- he didn’t really. Just kissed him casually one morning- but he and Darry were dating by the end of the week.

#autistic character hcs #autistic!wayne #letterkenny #letterkenny wayne #letterkenny katy #letterkenny darry #letterkenny dan #wayne x darry #letterkenny imagine

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abcsofadhd · 6 years ago

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On being diagnosed with ADHD in midlife

@campfiresbeerandcoffee got diagnosed with ADHD in their early 50s and I asked them to share their story.

It’s kinda long but its a damn interesting read about a person’s experience with ADHD and a late diagnosis. It’s VERY well written and I’ve only spaced it out and bolded it for better readability.

Remember, it’s really NEVER too late to get a diagnosis.

I’ve known people with ADHD most of my life. I knew what it was, obviously. It was that boy who was socially inappropriate and weird, the one who got angry too fast, who touched oddly, who couldn’t sit still.

It was the squirrel brained women I knew, that changed jobs, were super smart, had multiple competencies and could instantly grasp systems, but had so much drive they were always up, always working, always learning. It wasn’t ME.

It didn’t even occur to me that I had ADHD. I wasn’t a problem. I sat quietly in class, lost in my own thoughts, doodling. I could focus for hours on books, on coding, on the grains of sand on a sunny beach. I certainly didn’t have an attention disorder.

My dad died in my 2nd year of uni. I didn’t do well. Well meaning counselors said I was high strung and should avoid all sugar and stimulants. Are you kidding? Caffeine kept me sane. Eventually I changed majors, and managed to graduate with a BA.

I even managed to get into grad school, and did entrepreneur things too. But eventually I crumbled again and didn’t finish my thesis. I had anger issues. I was high then low. I would rage and weep. I’d spend weeks in apathy, when I had everything I wanted: a business, a wife, wonderful family. But it was a long dark bleak tunnel every day.

Then I heard a radio show on chronic depression and recognized my symptoms. Got some help and medication, and managed to co-found a company. The anti-depression meds helped, settling on Wellbutrin eventually. But things were still hard.

I got a straight job to help my wife start her career. I worked in an office, coding and structuring information systems. Prestige, recognition, it was great for my ego, good benefits and fair pay.

10 years in this high performance position I crashed from accumulated stress when my mom died. I was prepared with Wellbutrin and counselling and even so I burned out with major depression and anxiety and ptsd symptoms.

Took 3 years off work before I dared to take a job with minimal responsibility. In that time I had full on major ADHD symptoms but didn’t recognize them. I couldn’t say what I did all day.

I couldn’t make a list, couldn’t go in the store. Couldn’t read. Couldn't feed myself. Couldn’t clean. Couldn’t listen. Just- floated in a fog of stress and anxiety. Developed skin issues, auto-immune issues, insomnia, eye twitches. Couldn’t even sit at a computer screen. I was completely useless. Couldn’t leave the house.

Eventually tho, as I worked through what I thought was PTSD, learning to accept the new broken me, I was able to watch a full 20 minute sitcom. Success! I was elated. Who could I tell? Who would celebrate that as an achievement? Yay, you watched TV? Pffft.

But I was thrilled. And I could go to the store. Maybe even buy a few things. Often I’d just sit in the parking lot. But increasingly I could do some things around the house. Walk the dogs. Buy milk. So I accepted when opportunity offered me a lower-stress job related to my interests.

At my new job, I learned to make eye contact again, slowly re-learned to do simple math again. Cashing out would take me over an hour. I tried so hard to remember names and orders. Failed miserably. Tried to accept the new no-brain me. Found comfort in routine tasks. Developed coping strategies for memory. Accepted that maybe my purpose was to be a heart not a brain. My whole self-worth was always being the smart expert. Now I was busted. But that was ok, because it had to be!

Medicated with prescription cannabis and started seeing big improvements in depressive symptoms. That led to being able to exercise. Exercise helped immensely. So I was bringing in a bit of money, I was leaving the house and interacting, and felt much better.

Met a co-worker who told me about her ADHD. I understood completely. Had my first “a-ha!” moment when someone asked me how was it that I understood her. Oh. OH! Other people don’t understand her, and I do. Why?

But, I couldn’t be ADHD, surely? My coworker was classic ADHD in the way I then understood it. Changing topics all over in conversation, but I’d follow right along? We’d chat for hours after work. I grew to admire her strategies for getting things done, her tenacity, her acceptance that she could do things differently.

And as I admired her force-of-nature engagement with the world, her acceptance of herself, I started to be open to the idea that there was more to ADHD than I thought. I really didn’t think I was ADHD, but how was it I could understand and keep up with her? And when I asked her about it, she looked at me like of course I probably had ADHD, and she thought I already knew?

So after working with her for 2 years I started to read about ADHD, because I was experiencing a little less stress and could focus to read again. But I hadn’t found out yet about the emotional dysregulation. I just knew I was functioning again, kinda. And so I embraced the feelings. I chased them, like an addict, seeking to feel good again.

And boy did it feel good to let myself feel. I’d learned to build a box around my emotions, because I was always too sensitive, too happy, too sad, too worried. At my coding job, I just lost myself in matrices and code and denied my emotions. My coworkers had affectionately called me Mr. Roboto. That hurt. But that was the old me. Now, I was going to LIVE and FEEL HAPPY, and it was great. I was elated.

I partied and made new friends and drank too much and got stoned too much and talked too much and in my exploration I left such wreckage around me. I was oblivious at first. But when I saw what I’d done, I was in torment. If I couldn’t be a brain, and I couldn’t be a heart, then what good was I? I desperately wanted to be ordinary, but I didn’t know how, and I was going to lose everything.

And then as I tried to get a handle on my behavior, some ADHD memes popped up on social media, and then they popped up with a funny story and I related. And again. And again. And I couldn’t ignore it anymore.

Your blog specifically woke me up to the emotional dysregulation aspect, and following that thread of research made my likely ADHD undeniable. So I did the predictable thing and denied it for another year.

Finally I went in for assessment because if I had it, I couldn’t let my kids go untested and if I was going to ask them to try, I had to start with me. Doc didn’t even blink. Basically said, of course you have ADHD.

This has been everyone’s reaction, when I share my diagnosis with my friends: “Are you really surprised, really?” Yes, dammit, I am! It’s surprising and hard to hear, yes, you are in fact broken. But it’s also freeing. I can stop beating myself up. I can get appropriate help. I can try meds.

I am terrified of stimulants, because I’m super sensitive to caffeine, and even Wellbutrin was unsustainable for me, causing too much jitters. But I’m taking my Vyvanse and being hopeful. If it doesn’t work out, there is a non stimulant option.

I know meds won’t solve everything. I know that I have so many of the strategies already, I recognize them in the ADHD forums, and books. But maybe meds will leave me enough energy to address things. Maybe I’ll be able to Get Things Done.

This medicated hopeful happiness does feel a bit like mania, I’ve learned to be distrustful of my happiness. But if it’s going to be helpful, I’m going to try it. It’s early days.

I’m reading Gina Petra’s Is It You, Me, or Adult ADD? Stopping the Roller Coaster When Someone You Love Has Attention Deficit Disorder. And it’s wrenching. I knew my latest crisis was hard on my family, but I didn’t realize it’s been the whole marriage, it’s been my whole life, school, college, career, midlife! It’s enlightening but hard to read testimonials from people living with untreated ADHD partners, and recognize myself in their stories. I had no idea of the extent ADHD was contributing to my personality and behavior.

My wife and kids deserve to be off the rollercoaster. I also deserve to be happy. I want to look forward to each day again instead of waking up knowing I’m going to fuck up again.

So it’s not a comfortable place to be, here in the spotlight. But it sure as hell beats being in the dark and blindly flinging myself in a new direction. It’s revealing. It means taking personal responsibility.

But it also means hope. Hope that it can be better. Hope I can stop hurting the people I love. Hope I can be the person I want to be, the person I’ve been on occasion. It means hope for sustainable stable relationships and jobs.

#adhd #actually adhd #adhd tag #abcs of adhd #diagnosis story #adhd story

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theeternalspace · 6 years ago

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walls that we repainted white 1/1

I had been in the Sanders Sides fandom for a little while before I started posting my own work. I read fanfics, I reblogged art. I even worked up the courage to speak to a few of you and made a wonderful friend in the form of @jittery-glittery

Thanks to her encouragement, a year ago today, I posted the first chapter of what would become the ongoing epic The Consequences of Sound. Without Flo, I don't think I would ever have posted a word. (Another chapter is going up later tonight)

I made more friends, I gradually started talking to other fanders and making friends like the awesome @i-will-physically-fight-you (who very kindly stepped in and let me break her heart while she checked my tenses for this ficlet) or the sweet and funny @romanticsanders. To name only a fraction of the lovely people I'm proud to know. I love you all and I wish I could list more but then this would be nothing but a list because I am so blessed.

I also want to talk to a whole lot more of you and maybe one day I'll work up the courage. Social anxiety is hard as we all know.

Anyway, I wanted to do something special to celebrate my one year anniversary writing as well as still a little stunned that it had been a year already.

So I give you angst! Terrible, terrible angst. This is part of a story I've wanted to write for a very long time now and is in fact from the middle of the plot. It would eventually have a happy ending but there isn't one here. If this gets a good response I will have to write the rest but I just needed to get this part out of my head right now.

You could also call this chapter one of a story with the history planned in flashbacks, should I continue it...

walls that we repainted white

Genre: Angst. Hurt, no comfort. Miscommunication to the max.

Word Count: 2.7k

Pairing: Virgil/Roman. Human Au.

Warnings: Past injuries, hospital mentions, miscommunication, possible brain trauma.

Story and tag list below the cut!

walls that we repainted white

The clock on the wall was ticking.

Tick. Tick. Tick.

So loud that for a moment it was all that Virgil could hear, the steady monotonous tone of tick, tick, tick. It was even louder than his own heartbeat and he tried to time his own breathing to the beat, tried to will his racing heart to calm down. He needed to be calm but the only problem was that it felt impossible to be calm right now.

Not with Roman in the room with him, the other man examining the dirty plates in his sink as though they were the most fascinating thing he had ever seen in his whole life. Virgil felt his skin crawl, able to imagine all the thoughts that had to be running through the redhead’s mind as he stared at the evidence of Virgil’s laziness, of his disgusting life habits. Virgil knew he should have cleaned up, housework was a good way of gently exercising without pushing himself too much because there was always a comfortable surface whenever he got tired. It was a good workout for his brain as well, something slightly more mentally taxing than a mere walk, could he remember where everything went, could he put it all away without breaking anything?

Virgil had gone for a walk instead, had ignored all the not so subtle advice of his doctors and wandered out in the middle of the day without his phone.

He could see it sitting on the counter next to the dishes. It lit up as though on command, a text from Patton flashing up on the screen. The brief moment of light was enough to show him that he had multiple texts and missed calls from various friends. There are a few from a number that had no name attached, but Virgil knew the number off by heart.

He might have deleted Roman's contact info from his phone, but he had never gotten around to actually blocking him completely. Perhaps some part of him had wanted to know if Roman would care, if he would try and contact him or if he would let the friendship wither and die now that he revealed himself as the fair weather friend Roman really was.

He should block him completely. If only it was that easy in real life, if only he could press a button and not have to deal with Roman, never have to look at his stupid smug beautiful face ever again. Never have to hear him sing or the musical way in which he said his name. In Roman’s voice, his name became almost magical, imbued with far more power than it really possessed. Virgil often felt as though he could have committed any wondrous feat with the energy of Roman saying his name.

Now Virgil never wanted to hear it again. Not his voice, not his name. He wanted to block and hide Roman from his own memory and never be confronted by the inconvenient truth of Roman ever again.

Snap him out of existence.

No, not that. Virgil didn't want Roman to stop existing. His brush with the blind fury of fate had given him a new appreciation for life in any form. No matter how spiteful he might feel towards other people - and spite still made up about eighty percent of his thoughts - he wouldn't wish even his worst enemy to go through what he had done.

None of that changed the fact that despite deleting his number and ignoring him, Roman hadn't taken the hint. Strange considering Roman had ignored him first.

Apparently Roman not only tried to call but also tracked him down. Question answered. It didn't settle him - in fact it did rather the opposite, it set him on edge, made him stand stiff and to attention, aches and pains creasing deeper into his body and soul. His body was still so broken, held together by tape, determination and spite.

Virgil was so tired. The clock was ticking. They were breathing, both of them rather heavily and Virgil knew why he was so worn out and lost for breath but he couldn't start to guess what Roman had been up to, in order to warrant such heavy breathing. It was almost as though the other man had been running around although there was no reason for him to do such a thing, especially in the middle of the day.

He shifted a little, the crutch handle feeling slick with sweat under his fingers. It had been warm in the sun, so warm and Virgil had perhaps pushed himself further than he should in his impatience to be normal again.

To be whole.

It was as though he had run a mile instead of a small walk around the block. Logan would be terribly disappointed in him, but at the same time Logan should have known better than to expect anything better from the mess of a person that Virgil was stuck being. He hated the weakness that ran through his mind and body. An invisible crack on his soul that was breaking him further and further apart to go with all the physical damage that the... incident had caused him.

All his fault. The incident, the sleep that followed, the damage that he had to carry around on his back for the foreseeable future. Possibly for the rest of his life and Virgil could at least appreciate that the doctor hadn’t beat around the bush, hadn’t tried to sugar coat the pill or wrap the truth up in lies. He had been honest, brutality so, and Virgil hadn’t told Patton about those conversations.

Or Roman, but then he had no intention of ever sharing that information with Roman. He had no intention of ever speaking to Roman again and yet - and yet here they were in his kitchen, staring at the remains of last night's meal on dirty plates that festered in his sink. Virgil wasn’t ready to tell Patton either, but that was because he knew Patton would cry, would hug him and be so supportive. He would break Virgil with his kindness and Virgil would let it happen. Anything to try and make Patton feel better, even if it ripped Virgil’s soul apart in the process.

Logan, he strongly suspected, knew. Logan who was too smart for his own good, who had seen charts and overheard snippets of conversation, who knew all the medical jargon. Logan who would never bring it up first because of all the emotions that swirled around the topic.

At least Virgil could always count on Logan to want to avoid anything with unpleasant feelings because he didn’t know how to properly express them. His friend had emotions, felt more deeply than he would ever willingly admit to, but right now, Virgil couldn’t help but feel selfishly glad that he struggled to share them because it meant he got to avoid talking about it for a little while longer. The diagnoses swam in his mind, the words thick and black behind his eyelids with every slow blink.

Possible brain damage.

Tick. Tick.

“Virgil.”

His name sounded as though it has been spoken underwater, distorted and distant. Some part of Virgil wasn’t even sure if he heard it. Maybe he had just imagined it. He imagined a lot of things lately, his brain slipping like a disconnected call, the handset just gently humming to nothing and nobody.

A low level static where all manner of things could lurk.

His whole body was aching, screaming out as if on fire and begging him to sit down, to take the weight off. Virgil didn’t move though. He couldn't, not while Roman was in the room with him, not while he had to remain strong. As soon as Roman left, Virgil could collapse, could give in to the pain. He was long overdue another dose of medication, something his body was only too keen on reminding him. Virgil didn't know how much longer he could remain on his feet. The blackness of unconsciousness was calling to him.

It wasn't fair. He had spent so much time unconscious, nothing but a body in a bed and now that he was finally awake, he wanted to do nothing but sleep. More time forever lost.

Humpty Dumpty had a big fall.

Virgil didn’t understand why Roman was here at all, why he had belatedly decided to care.

When they had first met, Virgil dismissed him as a vain, shallow excuse of a man, someone who cared only for the illusion of the moment, who was delighted by the splendour, by the fireworks and emotion but not the hard work that came with anything real. At the first sign of trouble, Virgil had expected Roman to fade into the background. To some extent, he had been confounded by his own expectations.

Once, in the early days of knowing Roman, Virgil had been ranting to Patton and described him as nothing more than a vain crack of words with no substance behind them.

Later, Virgil had been ashamed of that first opinion, at being so quick to judge him after so long of being judged himself.

Now it seemed as though he had been right all along. The moment things had gotten hard - really hard, in a way none of them could have predicted - Roman had bailed. As though he had been the one with a parachute and all of Virgil’s other friends had hit the ground in the form of an uncomfortable hospital chair.

Didn't he already know that all the king's horses and all the king's men had failed to slot him back into place? Sending the prince after they already failed seemed like a fools errand because there was nothing else to be done for either of them.

“Well? What do you want?” He snapped, feeling the rage rise so swiftly and Virgil didn't want to do this. He didn't want to stand here in his kitchen, he didn't want to pick a fight with someone he had once thought was his friend, who he had once hoped could be something more.

Then again, he hadn’t wanted to lose seven weeks of his life to a hospital bed so it seemed as if what he might want was nothing more than another dream to go with all the other lost ones.

Tick.

“Virgil,” Roman tried again, his face pinched and sharp. Idly, Virgil wondered if that was the face Roman pulled whenever he tasted citrus fruit. He had always claimed the taste of lemons or limes were too unpleasant for him, that the sharpness cut through any other flavour, overpowering and ruining it.

That should have been Virgil’s first clue that his daydreams were simply not to be.

He was nothing but sour, nothing but tart.

How could he have ever possibly thought he would fit into the sweet honeyed world that Roman inhabited?

They were two different beings and they might as well have belonged to two different races for all that they had in common. It had been a miracle, a wonder, that they had gotten along for as long as they had, that they had been able to be friends for a little while at least before the shards of what they had dared to try to be rained down on them.

Still, he always just assumed that the crash would be his fault. That Virgil would do or say something unforgivable because he was good at that after all.

He hadn't expected to be abandoned by Roman when he was at his weakest, that the moment he had opened up and risked his heart by telling him how he really felt. It hadn't been the way he had wanted to tell him or any of the various ways he had imagined finally working up the courage to confess but that still didn't explain why Roman had been so cruel about it, why he had turned coward and run when Virgil had admitted his feelings.

Maybe if he had done it in a more romantic way, Roman wouldn't have crushed his heart so casually. Virgil had never thought Roman would be the type to take an offered heart and stab it with a needle. He would have thought Roman would let him down gently if he ever told him. He had pictured Roman being sweet and charmed and flattered before regretfully telling Virgil that it was never going to work between them.

Virgil never entertained any real hope that Roman might have liked him back, he knew life was no fairy tale.

Nobody was going to fall in love with the urchin child in the corner, the scowling, angry boy who was lost. Nobody was going to rescue him from his tower, nobody was going to search a whole kingdom looking for him based on one fragment of himself that he had left behind.

And nobody was going to kiss him awake.

He was already awake, in a world he no longer understood. Awake. He needed to stay awake. Just a little longer. Virgil blinked, the world snapping back into focus. The clock on his wall was ticking.

Tick. Tick.

“-ied. I was looking all over for you.”

Roman looked at him after he finishes speaking as though he expects - as though he expects something. Exactly what, Virgil doesn’t know. An explanation? An apology? His words sounded as though he had said a lot, a whole speech and that was what Roman was good at after all. Saying all the right things to get what he wanted without worrying about the damage he left in his wake. He had smiled and said all the right things to Virgil, he had caught him hook, line and sinker.

Until eventually he was done playing with him and had tossed him back into the sea. Now the siren was back, and had Roman changed his mind? Decided he wanted to keep Virgil dancing to his tune for a little longer? Didn't he know that Virgil no longer knew how to dance?

Virgil was just so tired. Too tired to try and soften the blow for Roman, far too tired to come up with a nicer way to say what he was thinking. The words that he had heard slice into his heart and soul, cut open a wound that has never even started to heal. Virgil can't even start to piece together what Roman might have said before because all he can focus on is the hypocrisy of what little he heard.

Roman hadn't cared to find him when Virgil had been still and silent in his hospital bed. He hadn't cared when Virgil had needed him and more importantly when the others had needed him. It was one thing to abandon Virgil - he had been unconscious, blissfully oblivious to the betrayal. It was quite another to do the same to their friends, to leave Logan, Patton and Remy struggling to hold themselves together. If nothing else, Roman should have been there for them.

He lifted his head, mismatched eyes meeting Roman’s gaze, his own for once focused, sharp and boiling. The rage had to be visible because Virgil no longer cared about hiding it. There was a lot he didn't care about anymore, lost under misery and the rising pain of his injuries. Roman needed to leave, because Virgil really didn't know how much longer he could hold on and he was damned if he would pass out in front of him.

Roman flinched before he actually spoke, almost as though he could peer into all the broken pieces that made up Virgil's psyche and see the storm that was brewing there. He still looked worried, almost concerned for Virgil and that makes him want to laugh until he cried. It was far too late for Roman to be playing that role again. The clock on the wall was ticking, his life draining away in relentless little seconds.

Tick. Tick.

Tick.

“I’ve been sitting still for nearly two months Ro... how hard did you look?”

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