#I wasn’t feeling super inspired so I just did a handful of the divines | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

satanisnotapogostick · 3 years

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no tenderness director's commentary, requested by @girlkingsam. under a cut for all the warnings that were on the fic itself (violence and discussion of rape mostly). go wild y'all

It starts with a couple beers in the bunker. Dean and Cas have already gone to bed, Rowena is almost certainly lurking somewhere among the artifacts, and Jack has been put down for the night.

Gabriel and Sam are left in the library, halfheartedly thumbing through research that isn’t going anywhere. Certainly it can wait until the morning.

*waves hand* There’s a Plot going on somewhere in the background. Don’t think too hard about it.

Gabriel looks up and catches her eye.

“Look, Sam, in the Cage—”

She stops him with a wince and a shake of her head.

“Just, don’t.”

He nods.

A few more minutes pass before Sam slowly closes the book and leans back, meeting his eyes.

“So.” She feels her heart racing. Even after everything, it still feels like such a sin, like this is what will bring the divine fire. “You got any plans for the rest of the evening?”

This is integrated into teen mom AU so like this version of Sam very much did not have sex until marriage. And then all of the events of Supernatural happened and turns out maybe that one wasn’t such a big deal after all but the gut feeling is totally still there.

Gabriel looks confused for a second but then smiles slowly, leaning forward. “I can think of a couple options.”

I had in my outline notes: Gabriel tries to bring up Lucifer and Sam distracts him with sex. That is very much the dynamic that is going on here.

She swallows the instinctive rush of fear and takes another swig of beer. Keeps her voice steady, calm and husky.

“Why don’t we take this to my room, then.”

The fear is one of the little phrases I’m quite happy with in terms of the context above. First of all, I think Sam is still afraid of sex full stop. But also Gabriel is an archangel and Lucifer’s brother. This should actually be a scary situation for her even if she’s initiating it.

She stands up and Gabriel follows the motion. Leads her down the hall with a hand on her back.

When they reach her room, Gabriel spins her lightly and backs her into the bedroom, kicks the door shut behind him. She pushes him back against the door, kissing him for the first time. She has to crane her neck down to reach him, but it’s remarkably human. No spark of grace in her mouth, just flesh and spit. She runs her tongue against his bottom lip, thinking of the stitches that were there not too long ago.

She might be a woman but she’s still taller than Gabriel. Nonnegotiable. Also whenever she makes an observation about Gabriel there’s an unspoken comparison, of course.

Gabriel grabs her thigh and uses the leverage to pin her against the door instead, dipping his head to bite at her neck. She hisses, lets her head fall back. With hands on her hips and waist, he turns her around to face the door, mouthing at her shoulder as his hands dig in almost painfully at her hips. She braces herself against the door and leans into his touch, seeking the sensation. An idea forms. A way to make sure they’re truly alone.

It was also important to me that she’s not the only one bringing any violence whatsoever into the bedroom, even if she takes his love bite and immediately raises him murder.

“Kill me.”

“I—what?” His hands still.

“Not permanently. I just want to make sure that I’m out, you know. That he won’t bring me back, that he’s not watching.”

This of course is a moment from one of the posts that inspired this all. “oh sam asks gabe to kill him and then bring him back. just to test it out and see if lucifer will let him die or is secretly out there waiting to drag him back to life”

“And you want me to bring you back instead.”

“Well, yeah, that’s the point.” She turns her head, looking back at him. “Five minutes. You can do whatever you want in the meantime.” She presses herself back against him to communicate the point.

Gabe laughs. “I’m not a necrophiliac.”

“You sound so certain. So you’ve tried it, then?”

“You’ve been alive as long as I have, you’ve tried a lot of things.” He looks at her. “I saw the first death, you know.”

“And you’ll see mine, too.” Gabriel’s hands have loosened, so she turns around in his grip to face him. She guides Gabriel’s hand to her neck, leans into it. “Do it.”

He doesn’t look convinced, but he wraps both hands around her neck anyway.

There was a choice between regular smiting and an uncomfortably sexual death, but the latter seemed necessary given that this is all literally happening in the middle of a hookup.

It’s relatively quick and easy, as easy as death can be. Sam’s been choked out before—he’s definitely taking away some of the pain, the fear and panic. There’s only so much that he can do, though. She tells herself not to fight it, but that’s easier said than done, and she’s gouging at his arms before she goes limp.

When she comes to, she’s laid out on the bed. She gasps involuntarily, clawing her way upright. Where is—right. Okay. Here she is.

Gabe is watching her with tight eyes. She composes herself and smiles wolfishly.

There was the question of how into any of this Gabe would actually be, versus like weirded out and confused. I was expecting more of the former going into this, but it wasn’t happening that way. Because he’s pathetic and cowardly but he’s not actually sadistic per se. So he’s not going to stop this especially if he thinks this is what Sam needs but like, it’s not where he would have gone with it.

“So it worked. We’re really alone then, no hidden cameras. You gonna join me?” She pats the bed next to her.

He walks over and sits on the bed between her legs, tearing off his shirt. She runs her hand up his torso, feeling the heat of the skin. He leans over her, pushing her back down onto the bed. She goes easily, sighing.

He slides a hand up her shirt and she presses into it, raising her leg alongside his torso.

“Come on, I know you got more than that.”

He snaps his fingers and silk ties appear in his hands. She reaches out to touch them.

“No, rope instead.”

The silk changes to heavy fraying rope. He looks at her uncertainly.

Because like, Gabe actively avoids pain and discomfort, that’s his whole thing. But because of the whole situation, Sam has to be the one stepping on the gas.

“Isn’t this going to hurt?”

She stares at him like he’s an idiot. “Well, yes, that’s sort of the point.”

He looks at her for a second. She unbuttons her shirt, slides it off her shoulders, and he shrugs. The ropes appear at her wrists, binding them tightly above her head.

LOL I definitely forgot a sentence here. I’ll fix that late but the context I’m missing is that he tied her hands before taking off her bra.

“You’re an angel, just fucking cut it off. We’ll deal with it later.”

A snap and a knife appears in his hands. He cuts the bra loose, nicking her in the process. Blood wells up in the center of her chest. He dips his head and licks it up, then moves to lick at her nipple.

Sam laughs, wriggling under the movement.

“Not sexy, man, I just stopped breastfeeding like 3 months ago. Nipples are a no go right now.”

Gabe laughs, sits back.

“The tradeoffs of getting a hot MILF in your bed, I guess.”

Oh I do not like the word MILF actually like it’s so porny. Like older ladies are hot we don’t need to be weird about it. But Gabe is a creepy porn man so I had to have him say it. Also I was not planning on making this have like, a postpartum moment. But he was licking her nipples and it just didn’t seem right to let that go without saying something.

He moves down her stomach instead, flicking open her jeans.

This is the exact moment where I almost gave up. Keep your jeans on!!! And that is why we get our first timeskip over the action.

After he eats her out he releases the restraints. The ligature marks are red along her wrists, and he runs his fingers along them.

She kisses him again, tasting the salt and acid of herself in his mouth. He palms at her breast and she moans into his mouth. He returns in kind. She climbs entirely out of her jeans and underwear, and he unbuttons his own.

Oh this is super unclear huh. The implication is that her jeans/underwear were pushed down for easy access and then she removes them entirely afterwards. I’ll go back and edit that later.

She pushes him down, holding him down by the throat, and straddles his waist. He removes his pants eagerly.

“We don’t need a condom, right? You’ve got that under control?”

“I’ve had a vasectomy, both literal and metaphysical. And angels can’t get syphilis. We’re good.”

I just thought that was funny. Also condoms aren’t sexy but she’s not reckless enough to just not mention it at all.

She nods, and takes him into her hand. He bucks up into the touch, and she grins. She eases him inside of her, gasping at the sensation before she starts moving.

A few thrusts later and Gabe takes control again, wrapping hands around her waist and knocking her back on the bed.

He flips her over, twisting her arm behind her back. It pops loose from the socket with a sickening noise and she screams, more from the shock than anything.

Another part from the posts! It was a little bit of a challenge to integrate this one in, but it had to happen during the act itself. I’m not entirely sure that the escalation is earned, but Gabe was having a harder time really getting into the violence than I had anticipated so this was a necessary way of forcing his hand. Plus you know the Winchesters have had every joint dislocated in their time so it’s not too much of a stretch that this could accidentally happen.

Gabriel is immediately off of her, putting his hand on her shoulder, ready to heal. She shrugs him off. The motion sends sharp pains all down her arm and collarbone.

“Not yet,” she pants. “Not until we’re finished.”

“As in…”

“Happy ending and all.”

She shoves back with the captive shoulder, shakes him easily. Pushes him back onto the bed, climbs back on top to straddle him.

“You soundproofed this room, right? We can be as loud as we want without Dean barging in?”

He strokes her hips, looking up at her.

“I mean, yeah, but that wasn’t exactly the type of noises I had in mind.”

She shrugs. There’s something like concern in his eyes. It pisses her off. He doesn’t have the right to pity her.

Another one of my favorite little moments. This sentiment is why this encounter is even happening at all!

“You can’t tell me you’ve never experimented.”

There’s a pause, then--

“What did he do to you?”

One thing I really enjoyed about writing this is that Lucifer’s name is never mentioned but any time any of them say “he” they both know exactly who they’re talking about, no context needed.

She rolls her hips. Gabriel moans at the movement.

“What do you think? I’m sure you were imagining it, after you faked your death again. What do you think he did to me? Tell me.”

Gabriel’s voice is thin.

“He tortured you, didn’t he. I saw what he did with the woman, the demon. The first one, Lilith. How he made her.”

“And what did he do to her?” Sam’s breath is coming harder now.

I’m so sorry for making this conversation happen literally between like pants and moans, like genuinely sorry, but it’s what the scene demanded.

“He turned her inside out.” Gabriel pants. “That was his favorite. He would cut into her skin and pull it off.”

A classy amount of flaying!!!

Sam taps her sternum, where a speck of blood still remains. “This is where it would start, the vivisection. He would peel my skin off, or crack my ribs and then have me eat my own heart. He would put his hands inside of me, inside of my ribcage, trace the sigils that Castiel put there. Scrape them off with his teeth.”

I’m happy with that little detail, too. I’ve never seen the sigils referenced in any cage fics but it just came to me while I was writing the sentence and yeah he would totally do that. You thought you could hide from me? Etc.

Sam breaks off, breathing heavily. She leans forward onto Gabe’s chest. He strokes a hand across her back softly, looking horrified but hanging onto every word.

He both like really wants to hear this and really doesn’t you know which like. Again is the dynamic that is the reason any of this is happening.

“The torture wasn’t all. He’d fuck me, too. Get inside of me a different way, like you are now. Make me ask for it, beg for it.”

She punctuates each word with a roll of her hips, increasing the pace. Gabriel tenses underneath her, and she can feel him come inside of her. There are tears in his eyes.

Sorry!! This is another one of my posts although I cannot find it to cite it. But Sam tells Gabe about the Cage during sex and he cries. So.

She relaxes, pats his stomach in some sort of halfhearted apology.

He deserved to hear it.

Just like, his coming back makes the previous seasons a betrayal in retrospect. Like where the hell were you, you know? She deserves to be super angry at him about that.

He flips her over, and she hisses in pain and pleasure both.

“Asmodeus preferred beating. It only took me a year to crack under the torture. I wasn’t used to pain. Hadn’t experienced any in millennia. I was soft.”

I had to go onto the wiki page for Asmodeus and look at the pictures of Gabriel and just kind of feel out what vibes I got of what Asmodeus would do to him and the vibe I got was a lot of punching and kicking. If I’m off don’t tell me.

Sam looks up at him through her lashes.

“Do you want to learn? How to take it?”

Fucked up little moment. Seductively asking if someone wants you to torture them.

Gabriel nods.

“Okay, then.” She strokes the side of his face, down to his chest.

“I’m going to open up your chest, okay? You’re gonna be fine. I’ve got you, I’ll walk you through it.”

He nods again. “Okay.”

This is like. I thought the violence would happen more during the sex and some of it did but Gabe wasn’t really getting into it so I had to improvise. I like this better though, it feels more in character.

She takes the knife back from him and starts. Teaches him how to breath, when it’s helpful to scream and when it’s best to just stay silent. To learn what your own limit is. You don’t have to be scared as long as the person with the knife isn’t going past that. You can relax.

And the fact that like they both are thinking of this as a favor that she’s doing for him.

When they’re done, Gabriel is clammy and sweating. He dry heaves over the side of the bed, but there’s no actual food in his stomach so nothing comes up. Sam strokes his back.

He sits back up.

“Thank you. And I’m sorry.”

“You don’t have the right to apologize to me,” she says tightly. He nods.

He nods a LOT in this fic but sometimes you’re just nervous about putting your foot in your mouth you know. Because so much has to be left unsaid.

She breathes.

“There you go. You feel alive now, don’t you.”

She slides off bed, kneels between his legs.

“May I?”

This BJ was thematically important to include because I needed the torture to be in the middle of sex, not after. And I needed some element of like, aftercare without it actually being personal, comforting, or helpful.

When she’s done, Gabriel heals her shoulder. He knits the skin back together, cleans up the blood, removes the bruising from her neck. She asks him to leave the bruises that would be covered by her shirt anyway.

Also she does all of this with an actively dislocated shoulder. Do not forget.

When they’re lying in bed, afterwards, he snaps and a pack of cigarettes appears in his hand. Unfiltered, the old kind. He hands one to her.

“Cigarette after sex?”

She laughs, takes the cigarette from him.

“You’ll remove it from my body, right? It won’t affect Jack, no secondhand smoke or anything?”

“It would take a lot more than a single cigarette to do shit to Jack, you know. But yes. I’ll take care of it.”

I just think that after all that Sam worrying about the effect of secondhand smoke from one single cigarette on her magical devil baby is very in character. This came to me on a walk one night and was actually the moment where I was like oh. I gotta write this.

They smoke in silence, staring at the wall, unwilling to meet each other’s eye.

It’s gotta end badly. It’s gotta. They never sleep together again and they have wrecked any possible chance at friendship, and both made themselves feel worse. That’s what it’s about, baby.

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raminboots · 3 years

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↱ Unfortunate Circumstances ↲

Inspired by @chasing-starlights story about villain accidentally drugging a hero with a love potion

.・゜゜・ ♡ ・゜゜・．

“Get away from me you cretin!”

A large bang was heard throughout the city of Harfields as the city's favorite hero chased down his ten-legged nemesis. More specifically, the ten-legged man was jumping from building to building as the other one chased him down while flying. Moe was rushing all he could, feeling the adrenaline pump throughout his body as he hopped from one roof to another.

Although it wasn’t really him that did it, it was with the help of the mechanical spider-like legs that were protruding out of his back. He had eight of them, all connected to his brain and working together as actual limbs. Moe was a special case in the war between good and bad. Most of them, whether it was a hero or a villain, had some sort of power. Not Moe, he was a regular person, and to make up for that, he used machinery.

He had a bunch of body and limb enhancers, like his spider legs. But he also had a plethora of others that he stored on his body. But, they had a tendency to overheat or even break in the midst of battle.

The man was rushing with a briefcase pressed to his chest, holding on to it for dear life as he practically threw himself from roof to roof, taking sharp turns, dipping down in between buildings and even crashing into one apartment's window and out of another. All of this in desperation of shaking off the hero who was on his tail. Moe couldn’t lose the briefcase, he just couldn’t. He wouldn’t know what to do if he did.

“You know, running will get you nowhere, Arachnid!” He could hear the hero shout at him from behind, all this did was fuel the fire as he picked up the pace out of pure spite.

“Oh we’ll see about that one!” That was the only thing he had to say to that moronic meathead. But he would soon have to eat his own words as one of his legs got tangled up in two of the other spider legs, causing the whole thing to trip up and for Moe to fall down. Now, that wouldn’t have been too bad if he had fallen on the hard rooftop, it would have been humiliating but it wouldn’t have caused him too much pain.

Instead, he had to have fallen just before he was supposed to jump. So when he fell, he fell straight off the 30 feet tall building head first. He let out a cry of horror as he closed his eyes, waiting for the hard impact of the ground.

But it never came, instead, he felt his body jolt up as it stopped completely mid air. At first he thought that one of his enhancers had been caught on some wire or pipe sticking out from the building, that was until he heard a light chuckle from above him. Oh no.

He tensed up. As he looked up, he saw that the person who had indeed caught him was none other than Mr. Fire himself. Thomas Clément, more commonly known in the hero industry as Wildfire. He was intense, headstrong, insanely determined and robust. And he was Moe’s personally assigned hero.

You see, in the city of Harfields, there were two kinds of people. Normal humans and mutants. These mutants were gifted with divine powers and abilities that made them all powerful. And of course, the government was going to take advantage of that. They created an organisation called The Hero Preparation Foundation, or H.P.F for short. This was where mutants could train and earn their title as a hero. After that they were allowed to go out into the world and serve justice.

But not everyone who was a mutant wanted to be a hero. But the city didn’t care, and more often than not, resisting mutants either got forced into training or got locked up, getting labelled as “too dangerous” to walk freely.

In response to this horrid treatment, a small set of individuals created a resistance. The group went against all of the ideals of the H.P.F because of their corrupt ways. And as the cause got stronger, the more mutants joined, and sooner or later, the group became an underground organisation with hundreds of members. And Moe was one of those members.

But the thing was, once H.P.F got wind as to what was happening, they started a program where they documented each “villain”, as they called them, that was publically known. That would include all their powers, goals and attacks. Then they would try to find the best matching hero to “assign” to that villain, that way, whenever the villain was up to something, their hero would be notified and they would handle them. This way, they streamlined all the hero's work and made it easier to deal with.

Wildfire was assigned to Moe, and at first, Moe didn't understand why. Why would they assign a fire-type hero to a mechanic-type villain. But he would soon learn the hard way just why this combo was so effective. Wildfire’s powers included many different types of fire manipulation, including creating compact balls of flames that he could shoot and throw.

Moe couldn’t count all the times he’d massecared one of his machines or blown up one of his equipment. He could always rebuild them of course, there was a reason that he was called the mechanical spider. Whenever he was building his movements were fast, sharp and very persize. He could build things that would take days in just a couple of hours. But that didn’t mean it wasn’t annoying whenever Wildfire destroyed the shit he’d been working on.

The hero was looking at him with a playful smirk, not a menacing or mean-spirited one, rather one filled with amusement and glee. And that, in Moe’s opinion, was way worse.

“Well well well. If it isn’t my favorite spider. How’s it hanging, mon moitié?” The man said as he looked down at Moe who was in a very compromisable position. He couldn’t help but scoff at his stupid pun. And the french didn’t help his annoyance. He hated when Wildfire spoke french to him, because he couldn’t understand a word he was saying.

“Go to hell.” The hero quirked his eyebrow at this, a smile still remaining on his face.

“Ouch! Such hostility, what did I ever do to deserve this kind of treatment, Arachnid?” He asked in an exaggerated voice, Moe rolled his eyes, ignoring him. “Aww come on, is this really how you treat your friends?” Moe felt annoyance build up in his body as he heard this. Although, Wildfire couldn’t see this annoyance on his face since he wore a gas mask that covered half of his face and a pair of goggles, blocking out both his face and his eyes.

“Shut up! We’re not friends, we’ve never been friends and we never will be!” He kicked his legs slightly in frustration, making his body dangle slightly in Wildfire’s grasp.

“You know, you’ve got a lot of balls saying this stuff for someone in your position.”

“What are you going to do? Drop me? I thought you hero’s were supposed to be better than us.” Moe could admit, if it was anyone else holding him he would not be talking like this. But it was Wildfire, it was Thomas. That big idiot would never drop him. He has a strict no killing policy and he has never broken that policy throughout his years as a hero. He doubted that he would break this policy now.

“Nah, you’re holding onto something way too important for me to drop you.” Moe thought for a second before he remembered what he was holding.

“The briefcase? I’ll drop it! I swear to god I’ll drop it if you don’t put me down!”

“You wouldn't.”

“Oh I so would!”

“Okay, then I’ll drop you and catch the briefcase.” This caught Moe slightly off guard. He knew deep down that Wildfire wouldn't, but it would be so easy for him to drop him if he felt like it.

Wildfire sighed, running a hand through his brown curly hair. This only brought the fact that he was holding Moe with one hand to his attention. He would say that it was impressive but Moe knew about his super-human strength. And he’s not going to compliment him for doing one of the three things he was good at as a hero; Fire-casting, flying and being strong.

“Look. How about you just hand over the briefcase and we can spare you any extra embarrassment once you get home to your little villain hide-out.” At first, Moe was confused by this statement. That was until he looked down and saw a pretty sizable crowd that had formed at the bottom of the building. Any and all confidence that Moe had left his body as he felt his face heat up.

“Put me down! Right now! I’m telling you, you better-” Moe was interrupted.

“Say the magic words.” After Wildfire said that, Moe shot a glare at him, and after that he looked down once more. People were watching and some were even filming, but the two were very high up so he doubted that they could hear him. After a couple of seconds of consideration he sighed as he kept his gaze away from Wildfire. And he remained like that for a good minute or two. At this point he didn’t care if people were watching, he had already embarrassed himself enough, he wasn’t about to lose his last piece of dignity by playing Wildfires games. It didn’t take long before the hero sighed, and that was when Moe knew that at least in one way, he had won. Certainly not in any significant way, but it was at least something.

And so, the hero flew away. He flew with the villain dangling from his grasp, as he lowered himself down into an alleyway a bit away from the crowd. As soon as he was put down, Moe immediately tried to scramble away like a scared cat, but he didn’t get very far.

“Oh no you don’t. Come back here.” Wildfire grabbed a hold of one of the spider-legs and yanked it backwards, effectively pulling Moe back and also severing the leg. “Oh shit, sorry ‘bout that one. God, you oughta make them a bit stronger.”

“A bit stronger? You have superhuman strength! What do you want me to do? Get some indestructible material? You’re such an idiot- '' Before Moe could finish, a hand slammed itself mere inches from his face, making him flinch as he looked back at the hero towering over him.

“Listen, Arachnid. I’m really tired today, why don’t you just cut to the chase and give me the briefcase.” Moe hugged the briefcase to his chest, clutching onto it as he looked away from Wildfire. He sighed in response. “I will rip it out of your hands if I have to, and I don’t think any of us wants that.” Moe looked down at the briefcase one last time, furrowing his eyebrows before letting out a defeated sigh.

Looking at the ground, he extended the hand holding the case to the hero, and he grabbed it, very gently. Sometimes it was almost painful to Moe to feel how careful Wildfire was with him. He didn’t understand why he didn’t just rip the case out of his hands, why he didn’t let him fall, why he never aimed for Moe when throwing his fire balls. He had been presented with so many opportunities to hurt him, to kill him, and yet, he never did.

Without another word, only a glance over at Moe, Wildfire flew away, leaving Moe alone in the alleyway.

…

“Yes Mark, it would seem like the young hero Wildfire managed to secure a briefcase from The Mad Arachnid earlier today nearby the H.P.F headquarters. When asked about the contents of the briefcase or the villains whereabouts, the hero had this to say,”

The faint sound from a television plagued Moe’s mind as he walked through the streets of Harfields. It sat in the window of a television shop, broadcasting a news channel that was talking about the battle that had occured only minutes earlier. He looked at it, tuning out the sounds and feeling his gaze get stuck. Soon he looked at his reflection in the display window. His eyes were tired and unfocused. One big benefit from having a mask and goggles during his fights was that no one, not even Thomas could see what he was thinking.

After their fight, Moe had fled and hid away in a separate dark alleyway. He couldn’t be in the same one that Thomas had dropped him off at, there would surely be cops and people crowding the area. He needed a quiet space where he could not only calm down but also change out of his disguise since he didn’t want to draw any unneeded attention to him by walking home in his villain outfit. And once he calmed down, that’s what he did.

Hiding behind a big dumpster, he threw off his spider leg compartments by removing his backplate from under his trenchcoat. It had started to heat up during their battle and Moe was left with the uncomfortable heat on his back as he changed into his spare shirt and jacket that he had brought with him. He didn’t want to say that he expected to lose, but he believed that you should, as he was taught, hope for the best, prepare for the worst.

He took off his lower half gas-mask and thick goggles feeling like he could breathe properly and fully. He put his long hair into a ponytail as he pulled the hood from his jacket over his head.

He walked out of the damp alley and out into the streets of Harfields, feeling a pit start to form in his stomach as it finally started to settle in what had just happened, he just lost the briefcase full of the H.P.F intel.

Feeling himself snap back to reality he realised that he had zoned out in front of the tv. It showed a picture of him, The Mad Arachnid, along with phrases like “be on the lookout” and “Call immediate authorities if seen”.

He stuck his hands in his pockets as he muttered to himself while walking home. He couldn’t exactly take a bus there since public transport was on hold because of their fight, and he just had to get away from the main part of the city as fast as he could. Pulling on his hoodie strings, he grumbled and kept up his pace, trying to walk as fast as he could. Part of him contemplated even going back to the headquarters, he knew what was waiting for him there. But he knew the rules and what he had to do.

“How could you let this happen! Don’t you understand just how important those files were!?” Moe flinched as he got cursed out by one of the leaders of the organisation. They called him Raven. That was his only alias, only a handful of people knew his real name. The reason he was called Raven was because of his mechanical wings that he used to fly around, accompanied by a pair of claw-like gloves and a plague doctor mask. It was easy to see where Moe had gotten his inspiration for his costume from.

But Raven was similar to Moe in more ways than one. He too had no powers at all. He used his wings to get around and claws to attack. Although, since he was the leader and symbol of their movement, Raven didn’t actually attack all that often. He mostly helped people who trained, held meetings and planned out all the attacks.

“… I’m sorry…” Moe mumbled as he looked down on the table in front of him, feeling the shame drape over him like the very trench coat he wore. He was currently sitting inside Raven's office, getting lectured by the older villain. He let out a sigh as he looked at the shrunken up boy, whether that was with pity or disappointment didn’t make a difference to Moe. Nothing that Raven thought of him in that moment wasn’t something that Moe hadn’t thought of himself.

“Listen to me kid-”

“I’m not a kid.”

“Don’t… interrupt me.” Raven told the younger villian off. “You’ve got a lot of potential, alright?” This was what Raven always told Moe when he failed. You’ll get them next time, you have a lot of potential, you just need to work on your attacks.

Despite all his encouragement, Moe had a painful lose-to-win ratio, having barely won two or three fights while losing the rest. At what point do you just throw in the towel? Raven was conflicted, as his mentor he wanted to tell him that it was okay, that he would get stronger the more he trained. But as his boss he had to ask himself, was this all worth it? He wanted to see him thrive and grow, but at times it didn’t even feel as if Moe himself wanted to grow.

“... Don’t feel too bad about the files. We can just wait a few months and send someone else.” Moe didn’t expect to be allowed the mission again, but it still hurt to hear Raven admit that he screwed up, enough to deny any second chance.

Moe only nodded his head at this. Refusing to make eye contact with Raven. It pained Raven to see such a sad sight. He knew Moe was super passionate about their cause, joining them despite not having any powers. And no matter how many times he lost, he always returned. That’s why he didn’t want to give up on him, he was more devoted to their stand than most of their members.

Since their cause grew bigger and bigger, more people started to join just to have an excuse to commit crimes. They didn’t care about the resistance or the others involved, so to have someone like Moe, it wasn’t something you saw everyday.

“Why don’t you just lay low for a while, alright? You’ve been out on a lot of missions lately. You should go home and relax, you’ve been pushing yourself too much and I think it’s getting to you.” Moe let out a sharp breathy laugh, he knew that Raven was probably right, but it didn’t feel very good to be sent home when he should be doing something. But the laugh was short lived as he got quiet.

“… Alright sir, I will.”

As Moe walked out of his office and down the hallways of the HQ, he could feel almost a dozen eyes plastering onto him. He knew what they were all thinking. He was known as the runt of the organisation. Nothing but a waste of space and resources. He knew what they said to him behind closed doors. All of them, nothing but snakes.

Speaking of snakes, Moe sighed as he heard a certain low chuckle, a chuckle that anyone who’s been working there would know about. Turning his attention to one of the darker areas at the end of the hallway he could see two glowing eyes staring back at him.

“Hello, Serpent.” The black serpent, she was an infamous trickster among villains. Through her battles she proved two things; she saw everything as a game, laughing and messing around during her missions, but she also proved that she was quite useful when it came to winning. She had won so many of her battles, she was the complete opposite of Moe, having a drastically higher win streak than her lose streak. Everyone knew that she was one of the people who joined just to cause chaos, but it didn’t matter. She could care fuck all about the cause, she was simply too valuable of an asset to lose. And so, she got to stay.

“Evening to ya. Heard you totally busted your last mission.” She giggled as she formed out from the shadows, having only been a mist with two glowing eyes up until then.

“...”

“Yeah it was really embarrassing as well,” she let out yet another mocking laugh. “It was like, broadcasted to all of us. We got to see that sweet failure in raw HD.”

“If you’re just here to mock me then you can piss off. I don’t have time to talk to you.” He started to walk away, and that was when Serpent quickly turned into mist and slid in front of him. She reformed once more, much closer to him this time. Causing him to flinch back.

“Amazingly enough, I’m actually not here just to mock you.” Keyword being just. “I’m actually here to make you an offer.” Now this actually intrigued Moe quite a bit.

“What do you mean? What… kind of deal?” He asked, this made the shadow manipulator smirk. She got him.

“What Raven says about you isn’t false Moe,” he tensed up as she used his real name. They’re not supposed to refer to each other by their actual names unless it’s really urgent or serious. Although, Serpent was quite liberal with her use of these names, specifically Moe’s.

“You’ve got a lot of potential. But here’s the thing, those bastards at H.P.F are really good at matching heroes with villains, and it just so happens that they paired you up with a really good one. I think the only thing holding you back is your failures, if you could just win a couple of battles against that meathead, I’m sure you’ll get even better!” Moe picked at his fingers as he looked away from the taller woman in front of him.

“But… wouldn’t that be… cheating? What are you even going to do?” He asked, the woman started to walk away, nudging her head in his opposite direction, signaling for him to follow her.

“Since when have we ever followed the rules? There are no cheaters in this game, only winners and losers. I’m not gonna kill him or anything like that, then they would just send another hero. No, what if I told you there was a way for you to be able to completely control him? To control that wildfire that has been plaguing your life!” Moe fidgeted uncomfortably with the ends of his shirt as he interjected.

“How would you even do that?” Serpent only chuckled in response.

“A potion.” Of course. Serpent was known for her work with potions and other kinds of magic.

“How would I ever get close enough to give him the potion though?” Serpent sighed as she turned back to Moe, her eyebrow twitching slightly.

“God, do you ever stop whining. Figure it out. Doesn’t that big dope hold a bunch of fan meetups all the time? Just go dressed as a fan and give him a pastry with the potion inside of it. This seems way too easy for you to be complaining this much.” Suddenly, she stopped, turning back to Moe and grabbing his shoulders.

“Imagine it, you could play him like a fiddle- no, like a cheap kazoo! All with your own mind! You could finally win!” She was shaking him slightly, trying to build up anticipation in him. Moe pulled away, backing away from the woman. This only made her sigh as she rolled her eyes. “There you go again with your ‘oh god Serpent is crazy’ look. If you’re too much of a coward to do it that’s fine. But remember, if you ever change your mind,” She walked closer to him, placing a small card in his shirt pocket,

“You know where to find me.”

It was dusk, the sky was a orange hue. Moe liked the color a lot, it was really comforting to him for whatever reason. He had taken a train back home and now he was standing outside of his apartment, digging through his pockets to find them. After taking them out he hesitated slightly before he put the keys in and opened the door.

“Welcome home, Moe. How was today?” The monotonous voice of his assistant greeted him as soon as he entered his home. They were looking at him, eyes glowing as he turned on the lights in the apartment. There had been quite a few times that he had woken up to those terrifying yellow eyes staring at him in the middle of the night, but at this point he was pretty used to it.

“Not great.” His answer was short and sweet. He found that it was easier to not lie around E.S.A.H and just get their daily checkup done.

“Would you like to tell me about it or not?” They responded according to program.

“No thank you.” Moe said as he walked inside, going into his kitchen.

“Could you rate your day from 1 to 10 for me please?” They asked, following behind him, hands behind their back.

“Like, a 2? Maybe a 3? Yeah, a 3.” He answered, taking out a cold drink from the fridge. This was a standard procedure between the two. E.S.A.H would run a fairly simple checkup to make sure he was alright. If anything went wrong they would report to Raven and Storm, the second leader of the cause. Moe learned very quickly that he couldn’t be sarcastic with the bot after a bad joke led to a very awkward phone call with a very upset Raven.

“And how would you rate your overall well being at the moment?” Moe let out a breathy sigh as he thought to himself.

“Probably a 5. I’ll go with 5.” As he walked into his small living room, he threw himself on the couch and turned on the TV, absentmindedly flipping through all the channels, but he stopped once he came across an interview with none other than Wildfire. They were, presumably, talking about the fight earlier that day. Moe scoffed and was just about to change channels when he heard something.

“So, Wildfire,”

“Please, call me Thomas.” He was so pretentiously humble. Moe rolled his eyes.

“Ah, of course. Thomas, is there any reason why you can’t tell us where The Mad Arachnid went?” The interviewer asked. Moe tensed up slightly, looking towards the TV.

“What…” He mumbled to himself. And for once, Moe turned up the volume and listened.

“Well, sadly it’s classified H.P.F information.” Moe stopped paying attention as his own thoughts got louder than the TV.

Bullshit. In almost every single case of a villain escaping, the H.P.F always came out with at least a statement about where they believe the villain might be residing. There’s absolutely no reason as to why HIS whereabouts would be classified.

Was Thomas… Lying? Was he lying about their fight? He practically let him get away! He always does! Everytime they fight, he always lets him go, he never aims for him, he never lets him fall, he never reveals where he is or what happened. He grumbled as turned away from the TV.

“Are you okay? You seem upset?” E.S.A.H asked, looking over at Moe.

“I don’t need his pity…” Moe said to himself, completely ignoring the robot. E.S.A.H tilted their head in confusion as they could see Moe take out a card from his pocket.

“What’s that?” They asked, looking at him with wonder.

“It’s…” Moe looked down at the card. The phone number almost felt like it was calling to him, wanting for him to call it. That’s when a voice on the TV brought him out of his trance.

“So, you’re going to be holding a meetup of some sort on saturday?”

“Yes! I want to… well it sounds kinda silly, but I want to give back to the people for getting me this far!”

“And you’re not worried about any crazy fans?”

“Oh please, I fight villains for a living. I can handle anything at this point.” The hero smiled and laughed slightly as they continued the interview. Moe thought to himself for a second, looking down at the card in his hand. He stood up from his couch and walked towards his room.

“It’s nothing you have to worry about. Now,” He looked back at the robot one last time before opening the door to said room.

“I have to make a phone call…”

#this first chapter was mostly a build up and an introduction to all the characters #in the next chapter it's going to get really good #but for now #take this #enemies to lovers #enemies to friends to lovers #hero x villain #villain x hero #found family #villains and heroes #heros and villains #writeblr

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3pirouette · 4 years

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Fic: Domestic Bliss and International Espionage (1/1)

Title: Domestic Bliss and International Espionage By: TriplePirouette/3Pirouette Spoilers: General TFA and AC Disclaimer: They're not mine. Word Count: 8109 Distribution: AO3 Anyone else please ask first :)

Story Summary: For Tumblr’s @superhero-daugthers11 as a pinch hit for the Steggy Secret Santa. Steve and Peggy, back in the US after the war, go undercover as a newlywed couple to find a Hydra scientist hiding in the suburbs.

A/N: This is 100% inspired by several things. 1. One of my all-time favorite X-Files Episodes “Arcadia” 2. The first episode of WandaVision 3. My giftee saying she liked the idea of Steggy married/dating and working together for SHIELD, and 4. Getting another Steggy Bingo Prompt in there… sentence prompt: “Did you really just insult Captain America in front of me?”

Please assume/add in your headcanons for the following: Steve was rescued shortly after the Valkyrie crash and OBVIOUSLY has pursued a romantic relationship with Peggy. Due to this, the events of the Agent Carter series have NOT happened. They’re both working for the SSR, tying up loose ends from the war.

Easiest way to see what I see is to imagine Steve and Peggy in the Petrie’s house from the Dick Van Dyke Show… but if you’re not familiar with that, the house from the first episode of WandaVision will do nicely.

~*~

Steve turned from the suitcase where he was lifting folded shirts out. “Just… consider this a test run.”

Peggy smirked, leaning against the doorjamb of the bedroom. She held out her hand, one of Steve’s socks dangling from her two fingers. “What, for me finding your stinky socks on the bathroom floor? Strike one, Rogers.”

Peggy tossed the sock to him, moving into the small bedroom with its double twin beds. She sat heavily on the side of hers, shaking her head. “If this is anything like moving, I’ll never do it again. I’m exhausted.”

Steve tucked his shirts away in the drawer, turning back to her, balling the sock up in his hand and tossing it into the hamper in the closet. “Most houses don’t have top of the line surveillance equipment we would have to hide in the roses.”

“The neighbors are already peeking out,” Peggy said, kicking her shoes off and sliding them under the edge of the bed with her toe. “I saw some from the back door peeking over while I was finishing in the kitchen. I’m sure we’ll have visitors tomorrow.”

Steve grabbed his empty suitcase from the bed and slipped it in the closet, shutting the door. “I’m surprised we didn’t have any today, what with all the commotion of moving in.”

Peggy shrugged, bouncing back to lie on the bed. “In my experience, deep cover Hydra scientists trying to hide out in suburban communities don’t just knock on your door and announce themselves.”

Steve chuckled, moving over to sit on the side of her bed at her hip. He gently took her left hand, running his thumb over the fake wedding band she wore. Peggy smiled up at him. “You know, Angie told me you’d asked her about my ring size.” Steve’s eyebrows rose to his hairline, and she could see his mind trying to scramble to salvage the surprise. “Oh, I know it’s coming, Steve. Don’t try to pretend it isn’t.”

He smiled softly. “I was hoping to surprise you is all.”

“You will,” she whispered, shifting to hold his hand tight. “When, where, how… I’ll try to avoid using my super spy powers on you to divine those things.” She reached her other hand to slide up his arm. “I’m an inpatient woman, so don’t make me wait too long.”

Steve smiled wolfishly at her, leaning over and putting his weight on his left hand, trapping her under him. “I mean, this counts, right?” He leaned down, letting Peggy traverse the last few centimeters to bring their lips together, kissing her sweetly. “This counts as being married?”

She chuckled as she kissed him, reaching one arm up to twine in the short hairs at the nape of his neck. “Absolutely does not.”

He pulled back a bit, teasing. “I mean, I am sleeping right over there…”

“In your own bed,” Peggy pushed them up to sitting, wrapping both arms around his shoulders.

“And it would be so easy to just push them together.”

She shook her head, teasing, despite the fact that the idea seemed like a good one to her. “Scandalous.”

Steve kissed her gently again. “Well, I suppose I should at least pretend to let you get a good night’s sleep?”

Peggy nodded, smiling. “We’ve got a bit of work ahead of us, I think. Very few men trying to hide from prosecution for war crimes make themselves known.”

“Good night then,” he kissed her softly and pushed away from her, “Mrs. Harper.”

Peggy tipped her head with a sultry smile. “Mr. Harper.”

~*~

Peggy moved the eggs around the pan, eyes tight on them as Steve walked into the kitchen the next morning. “Don’t distract me,” she mumbled. “The second I look away they burn.”

He watched her for a moment as she gently stirred the scrambled eggs, eyes intent as he’d ever seen them. “Stove burning too hot?”

“Simply out of practice, I’m afraid. Already ruined four eggs this way.” She pulled the pan off the heat and separated the eggs on to two plates. “Anything I’ve eaten for the last few years has come from a mess, out of a can, or from the automat.” She set the empty pan down and snapped off the heat. “Why you ever married me I’ll never know.”

He moved over, taking both plates and kissing her on the cheek. “Why, I like it so much, I might do it twice.”

Peggy chuckled, moving the pan to the sink and running water in it. “Easy there, soldier. We haven’t made it through this mission yet.” She peeked over at his silence, then turned around all the way, meeting his intent stare. “It’s the apron, isn’t it? I’ve gone too far?”

Steve watched, hands still full of plates, as she spun in her dress, looking for something out of place while her perfect curls bounced around her face like something out of a beauty magazine. He smiled, “No, no- I just…” he cleared his throat, moving to set the plates on the small table in the kitchen. He took a gentle deep breath and moved over to her. “It’s all a little… too perfect, you know? Not quite us, I think, but like something out of a movie.”

Peggy bit her lip, stepping closer to him so he could wrap her in his arms. “This whole thing is a bit spot on.” She played with the edge of his cardigan, the blue doing amazing things for his eyes. “But needs must when trying to build a trap.”

He moved his hand to trace over her chin, feeling content and happy despite the threat. “Will you cook me eggs after this is all over?”

Peggy would her arms around his neck, humming happily. “If you’re a good boy.” After a moment, she pushed back, centering herself. “Though you haven’t eaten them, yet, so you are taking a large chance there, darling.” She pushed him towards the table and followed shortly, two mugs of coffee in her hands.

“Peg—”

“Betty,” she demanded, stopping and looking at him. “I agree that this little fantasy is a bit of a slippery slope for the both of us, but we really must start doing better.” She sat and slid his coffee to him, looking him in eyes pointedly. “Roger.”

Steve nodded, taking the coffee. “Right. Betty,” he paused, the name not rolling off his tongue easily, “I can help with the cooking.”

“And risk someone seeing?” She picked up her fork, face stern. “From this moment on, no matter what, we’re happy newlyweds Roger and Betty Harper. I’m a stay-at-home wife who loves to knit and worked in a bullet factory during the war, you’re a veteran and you do figures at an accounting firm in the city. Perfect little wife, doting husband. Suburban life to a ridiculous, stereotypical T, got it?”

He held out his hand and she took it, looking at her plate rather than at him. “Hey,” he waited until she lifted her eyes. “I was just enjoying it too much. I know our cover. I’m in this one hundred percent, okay?”

Peggy held his hand and squeezed lightly, the smile returning to her face. “Yes, dear.”

~*~

By mid-morning they’d had five of the neighboring wives stop in to introduce themselves. Most were kind, young, gregarious and a bit overly excited to get to know them once Steve showed his face.

“You should stay in the kitchen when the next one comes over,” Peggy complained, sitting heavily on their small couch. “I can’t stand another wide-eyed housewife dazzled by your smile.”

Steve laughed, sitting next to her. “There’s only one housewife I want dazzled by my smile.”

Peggy collapsed into his lap, looking up at him. “She’s a little too tired to be dazzled right now. Somehow social pleasantries are more exhausting than the battlefield.” She closed her eyes, letting Steve’s fingers running through her hair lull her into a sense of calm. “Anything on any of the cameras?”

“No,” Steve didn’t slow his movements as his hand combed through her hair. He’d spent his morning when he wasn’t meeting neighbors “working,” keeping an eye on all of the cameras and equipment they’d set up. “So far just people mowing their lawns and taking walks.” She could feel his chuckle. “Not that I expected to see anyone building a bomb in their back yard…”

She reached up a hand, gently hitting him in the chest. “Don’t be flippant about it. Some people are quite stupid.”

The doorbell rang again and Peggy hoisted herself from Steve’s embrace, straightening her dress and forcing a smile on her face. “You look perfect,” Steve reassured.

She huffed, her eyebrows bouncing high on her forehead as she moved to the front door. “Hello?” She asked, her tone changing as she pulled the door open.

Standing across from her was a young woman, similar in age to Peggy, with sharp features and immaculately styled blonde hair. “Oh, hi! I hope I’m not interrupting?” Her Midwest accent was sharp, just a little too bubbly as she held out the dish she was holding. “I just wanted to welcome you to the neighborhood.”

Peggy swept back, opening her arm. “Please come in. I’m Betty and this is my husband, Roger.”

“Dottie Underwood,” she said quickly, smiling back and forth between the both of them. “I brought you some cookies, I baked them fresh last night, and if I leave them around the house I’m afraid my father just eats them all.”

Peggy carefully took the dish, smiling as she set it down. “They look wonderful, thank you.”

Dottie’s eyes swept around the house, somewhat more intent than a simple curious glance. “You’re quite welcome. How are you settling?”

Steve stood tall, smiling brightly as he moved next to Peggy, gently laying his hand on her back. “Well enough, people have been very kind. I think we’ve met most of the neighborhood by now, haven’t we, honey?”

Peggy giggled, leaning into his side and watching how Dottie tried to keep her smile straight. “Oh, at least the whole street, I’m sure.”

“That’s wonderful.” Dottie smiled brightly. “I was hoping maybe you’d come over for dinner tonight? I live with my father and I’m afraid he doesn’t go out much anymore, but he does enjoy meeting everyone.”

Steve and Peggy shared a short look. To the average person it seemed just a husband and wife consulting one another, to the trained eye, the conversation that happened was much more in-depth and quick. “Well,” Steve replied quickly, “I think we’d be delighted.”

“Oh, that’s just wonderful,” Dottie replied, her smile growing wider, eyes sparkling as she moved toward the door. “I’ll go tell father, he’ll be so pleased.”

Dottie smiled at them, the three standing quietly until Steve nudged Peggy I the back. “Oh, yes, is there anything we can bring?” Peggy asked, trying to hide her forgetfulness with a fluster.

Dottie laughed lightly, moving towards the door. “Just yourselves. Six o’clock, sharp.” She stopped, hand on the knob. “We’re the little blue house, 1013, just on the other side of the street.”

Once she was out, Peggy scooted to the window, watching as Dottie meandered down the driveway and sidewalk, eyes never leaving her until she disappeared into her own home. “Did she strike you as…”

“Trying to hard?” Steve supplied, looking over her shoulder. “Suspicious?”

Peggy turned, looking at him, the agent emerging from the housewife. “Do we have a camera on their house?”

Steve smiled. “Rosebush 3.”

~*~

“What do you mean you invited them over?” Fennhoff bellowed, slamming his fist on the small kitchen table. “What about in hiding do you not understand?”

Dottie rolled her eyes at him, sitting across the table. “Sometimes the best place to hide is out in the open, Papa.” The title dripped from her lips, sarcastic and biting. She pulled the notebook he was scribbling in away, forcing him to look at her. “If we want to fit in, we need to get to know these people, make them want to help and protect the old man and his daughter.”

He grabbed the notebook back. “We should stay inside.”

“You can’t build a new identity by staying inside you helpless oaf.” Dottie stood, pushing away from the table and letting the legs of the chair scrape along the floor. She rounded the small table, leaning over the scientist’s shoulder, eyes dark. “My job is to protect you until Hydra builds itself back up and is ready for you to come back. You trust me, or you get caught. Your call.”

He pursed his lips tight, unhappy. “We should be at their home, going through their things.”

Dottie made a noise in the back of her throat as she rolled her eyes and moved away. “Like I haven’t thought of that.” She moved away, leaning on the kitchen counter. “I’ve already told them you’re unwell. At some point we’ll make your excuses and you can go see what you can find.”

His eyes narrowed dangerously. “I am not the one who is a spy, you are.”

Dottie smiled like a snake, her teeth sharp and gleaming in the light. “You’re whatever I tell you you are until this whole thing is over.”

~*~

Steve looked at the young man across the dinner table, knowing he was lying. As hard as he’d tried to get in the Army, there had been more people trying just as hard, if not harder, to get out of it. “4F you say?”

“Yeah,” Dan from across the street cleared his throat. “Asthma. Wouldn’t let me enlist over a little thing like that.”

Dinner was a strained affair. Steve and Peggy saw upon their arrival that they hadn’t been the only people invited. Dottie has also invited her neighbors, Dan and Laura Smythe, to try to help them get to know people. Though they tried to keep the conversation moving, it was stilted and uncomfortable. Dottie, all smiles, kept trying to shift topics of conversation while her father sat grumpily at the head of the table.

“Beastly affair, that war.” Dottie’s feigned sadness was easy to see through. “It’s how I lost my Earnie.”

Laura wasn’t quite as sharp as Peggy and fell for the faux sadness, letting her hand rest on the woman’s arm. “Your beau?”

“We were engaged,” Dottie continued, sniffling dramatically. “He was a pilot with the 107th, got shot down over enemy territory.”

Steve and Peggy shared a look. There hadn’t been any pilots in the 107th, definitely none named Earnie. A quick glance at the older Underwood revealed nothing. He had no feelings about the loss of the man who supposedly was going to marry his daughter, which struck them both as odd.

Laura, however, was eating it up. “Was he one of the soldier’s that Captain America saved in that amazing rescue? Didn’t he save nearly that whole battalion?”

Dottie shook her head. “No, he was lost just before that, I’m afraid.”

“Well, that didn’t happen, anyway.” Steve said with a bold confidence that made every face turn and look at him.

Peggy’s jaw tightened as she turned to him, putting a hand to his arm. “Darling.”

“No, you know how I feel about this, Betty.” Steve turned and patted her hand, every inch the dismissive husband. “I was out there, fighting for my life, fighting to get back to you, and they parade this guy around in tights on newsreels?”

“Laura and I saw him at one of those USO shows,” Dan started, causing Peggy to squeeze Steve’s arm in concern that their ruse was about to fall apart, “I swear I saw wires. Guy was an actor and a hack.”

“Right?” Steve threw up his hand, nodding appreciatively at the man. “No way he was that strong.”

Laura giggled a bit, leaning towards Dottie. “He was quite handsome, though, don’t you think?”

Dottie, hoping to defuse some of the tension she could feel radiating around the table, just laughed along. “Oh yes, very handsome.” Dottie turned her smile across the table. “Did you ever get to see him, Betty?”

Peggy folded her hands under the table. “Oh, a few times.” She snuck a look at Steve then leaned forward, whispering towards the women though she knew full well everyone could hear her. “Those tights were quite the uniform!”

The women giggled, Dan pressed his lips into a tight line, and Steve had to bite his tongue to keep a straight face. The elder Underwood, for his part, was growing more and more upset.

“That man won them the war,” the elder Underwood grumbled.

“Impossible.” Steve turned to him, almost enjoying the part he was playing. “Hollywood smoke and mirrors. I was out there and I never saw him or that shield. Not once.”

Underwood pushed himself away from the table, his face growing red. “Did you really just insult Captain America in front of me?” He stood, leaning over Peggy and Steve with enough menace that Steve put his arm across Peggy, ready to move her behind him if the man became any more aggressive. “You come into my house and you say these things?”

Steve had been having fun with their plan to insult his alter ego, see if their hosts were sympathetic, showed any leanings to the Axis powers, but this hit home. He knew people had idolized him, and as much as that had made him uncomfortable, he understood how important it was to have a symbol of hope in such a bleak time.

Before Steve could reply and apologize the man stormed off. Dottie stood, stuttering an apology, and followed him into the house.

“Well, I for one am with you,” Dan said, raising his fork and diving back into his dinner. “Man was a fraud.”

Peggy grabbed Steve’s hand under the table and squeezed.

~*~

“What was that back there?” Dottie demanded in a hushed voice once she’d closed the door to Fennhoff’s room behind them.

“Distraction,” he said sharply, his accent becoming more pronounced. “You want distraction, you get distraction.”

Dottie huffed, crossing her arms. “And what am I supposed to tell them now?”

“That your father is a great patriot. That he needs his rest. You say whatever you say while I go pretend to be spy.” Fennhoff waved her away and opened the window in his room, grumbling about how he was supposed to slip out. “Lock the door.”

~*~

Steve stood as Dottie joined them back at the table. “I should go apologize.”

“No, no,” Dottie shooed him back to his seat. “My father gets grumpy sometimes. He just needed to take his pills and lay down for a spell.” She sat herself back down and laid her napkin on her lap with deliberate flair. “It’ll all be forgotten after a quick nap, I promise.”

“Still, I’d feel better if I could,” Steve reluctantly sat, rearranging his own napkin.

“I’m sure he’ll be back out in a bit.” She smiled widely, a motion that did not reach her eyes. “He just never misses dessert!”

~*~

Anyone fluent in Russian would have been scandalized at the string of words coming from Fennhoff’s lips as he snuck into the back of the Harper home.

“Don’t even lock their doors,” Fennhoff mumbled as he slipped in their back door. He moved carefully through the dark kitchen, futilely opening and closing cabinets. He did not expect to find anything in the home of that vapid man who didn’t believe Captain America was real.

He’d seen the damage that man could do with his own eyes. Anyone who believed Captain America hadn’t won the war for the Allied forces was either dimwitted, a fool, or both.

He tried to stay quiet as he moved through the house, but there wasn’t much light and even less to see that was interesting. The house was only sparsely decorated with few, if any, places to hide things. He made his rounds quickly, opening and closing closets and doors and saw nothing that would make him think these people were anything other than what they said they were: boring American suburbanites.

He stopped on his way out and opened the small broom closet he’d neglected on the way in, sighing when there was nothing more than a broom, mop, and bucket there.

“Dumb woman spy,” he mumbled, letting himself out quietly.

~*~

“Next time we’ll have you over,” Peggy said, holding both of Dottie’s hands at the door. “Dinner was simply marvelous.”

“Oh, shucks,” Dottie took one hand to bat the compliment away. “It was so lovely to get to know you and welcome you to the neighborhood.”

The corner of Steve’s mouth crooked up sadly. “Please give my apologies to your father.”

“No need,” she reached out, stroking Steve’s shoulder in a motion that was just slightly more than neighborly. “He’s a stubborn old man and you are a great war hero, Mr. Harper. You’re allowed a difference of opinion, especially since you were there.”

“All the same,” Steve stepped back out of her reach, taking Peggy’s hand and moving away. He felt like if he didn’t escape, they’d be exchanging pleasantries all night. “Have a great night.”

“You too!” Dottie called, watching from the door as they turned.

Steve pressed his hand to Peggy’s back, pushing her down the pavement just a little faster. “She’s still watching,” he mumbled. “Gosh, such lovely neighbors around here, don’t you think, honey?” he let his voice drift louder.

“Absolutely, darling. I’m so excited to get to know them all. Maybe join the Women’s Auxiliary.” Peggy leaned closer to Steve, her voice lower now, “Is she still watching? My face hurts from smiling.”

“Few more feet, dear,” he whispered. He leaned down, “I think Dan and Laura are out there now,” he pointed to his ear, signaling he could hear them talking, “Want to give them a show?”

Peggy raised her eyebrow, the false suburban smile she’d been sporting morphing into a smirk he was much more used to seeing on her face. “Show?”

He led her up the steps, stopping to dig the keys out of his pocket. Once he did, he reached out and unlocked the door, pushing it open. Before she could step in, he swept her off her feet, carrying her like she was a brand-new bride. Peggy squeaked, grabbing on to his shoulders more out of surprise than fear that he would drop her on the front porch.

She laughed. “This is what you had in mind?”

He leaned forward, kissing her gently. “Gotta sell that newlywed cover,” he whispered against her lips. “They watching?”

Peggy shifted her head as he turned them a bit, his lips on hers again. Peggy squinted, making it look like her eyes were closed. She didn’t normally like to do double duty while Steve was kissing her, but he managed to avoid distracting her too badly. She could see the Smythe’s and Dottie on the porch, eyes glues to them. From the window, the elder Underwood peaked out. Peggy dragged her lips away. “All watching. And slightly scandalized.”

“They’ll be very scandalized in a minute,” he mumbled, kissing down her neck.

Peggy hit him playfully in the shoulder. “Barbarian!” She laughed as he growled in her ear. “Inside at once!” She kicked a bit as he straightened up, laughing as he bounced her in his arms. Steve made a show of almost losing his balance and nearly dropping her as he stepped over the threshold for their audience. For good measure he kicked the door closed, wishing he could see all of their faces.

He’d absolutely go back and check the surveillance tapes just to see what they looked like.

He turned, putting Peggy down and pressing her up against the door, letting his lips meet hers again. “That was fun.”

She hummed happily, but pushed him away. “Quite, but we still have work to do.” She moved past him, then stopped as she flipped on the light. She held out her hand, then pointed. “And you made fun of me for vacuuming us out before we left.”

“You were wearing pearls and an evening dress.” Steve pointed out, bending low to look at the fresh footprints that showed against the new, freshly cleaned nap of the carpet. “What do you think?”

“Man’s shoe, fairly large.” Peggy moved around, following the path. “Came from the kitchen, so… in through the back door.”

“Looks like he took a peek in each room,” Steve added, opening the doors and following the trail, “then back through the kitchen to go out.”

“You think they found…” Peggy started, but didn’t finish, following Steve into the kitchen and watching as he opened the closet door.

“Doubt it, everything’s exactly as I left it, including that little bit of flour by the wall.” He smiled up at her, trying to show off the tricks he’d slowly been learning from her since they’d been working together stateside. He warmed at bit at her smile, then moved the mop, broom, and bucket. With a firm push to one side of the back wall, it spun, sweeping the flour on the floor into a wide, tell-tale circle and revealing that the closet was actually three times the size, hiding a small bank of monitors and recording equipment. “Shall we?”

They both slipped in the small space, Steve on the stool he occupied for most of the day while surveilling, Peggy peering over his shoulder as he found the reel trained on their back door and rolled it back. It was fuzzy in the darkness, but the figure creeping through their rosebushes seemed quite familiar. “Is that Underwood?” Peggy asked, waiting for Steve to roll the tape back and forth until they had a fairly clear picture.

“Looks like it,” Steve mumbled, marking down the time and reel for future reference. “What do you think he’s looking for?”

“Same as we are,” Peggy said quietly, slipping from the closet to lean on the door jamb. “If they’re in hiding, they’re looking out for anyone wanting to find them.”

Steve reloaded some of the reels, marking others and setting the film aside to review tomorrow. Peggy watched him work, smiling as he rolled up his sleeves, concentration fully on his task. She leaned on the doorway, slipping off her heels and content to just be for the moment. Steve slipped out of the hidden space, pushing the fake wall back in place and sweeping the flour back into an indistinguishable line along the bottom of the wall.

“Do you think it will be like this?” Peggy mused, watching as he ran a damp cloth along the visible floor of the closet, hiding the existence of the flour even further to sell their ruse.

“Do I think what will be like what?” Steve asked, standing and laying the wet dishcloth over the back of a chair to dry.

Peggy bounced over to him on her toes, hands holding her heels behind her back, hips swaying and swinging her skirt around her in a manner that was much more carefree than Steve had seen her in a long time. “Do you think our marriage will be like this? Domestic bliss and snogging against the front door one minute and international espionage the next?”

Steve tilted his head, his forehead creasing in thought as he wrapped his arms around her. “You know, it probably will. Though I’d like to say we’ll need much less surveillance at our house.”

“Our house…” she mused, smiling widely. “Kind of thrilling, isn’t it?” Peggy wrapped her arms around him with a sly smile, heels still dangling from her fingers.

His brows knit together for just a brief moment, the concern replaced by amusement on his face. “I don’t think life with you will ever be boring, dear.” He leaned down, kissing her gently.

Peggy leaned back, eyes still closed, a smile on her lips. She blinked her eyes open, half lidded and dreamy. “What say you to pushing the beds together tonight, Mr. Harper?”

He kissed her again, nipping at her bottom lip. “Sounds like an excellent idea to me.” Without warning, Steve bent his knees, grabbing behind her thighs and lifting her up.

She wrapped her legs around his hips, a sly smile on her face. “You enjoy showing off like that, don’t you?”

“For you?” His smile lit up his face. “Absolutely.”

Her face went blank, her eyes darting around the room as if people were there that might overhear her. “Small confession.” She leaned close to him, eyes sincere. “If, tomorrow, you woke up and were that 98 pound asthmatic man I first met, I’d love you all the same. But, and I’ll deny this until the day I die to anyone else,” her eyes grew mischievous, “I like it when you show off very much. Please don’t ever stop.”

He laughed, full and hearty, as he started to move toward the bedroom. Peggy bounced her heel off his lower back, trying to turn him like a horse. “Ah! Back, soldier. We’ve got doors to lock!”

Steve laughed, turning back and shifting her to his hip so he could see and secure the house without having to put her down. “Yes, ma’am!”

~*~

“They are not spies,” Fennhoff insisted, pushing past Dottie.

She shook her head, closing the cabinet door with more force than necessary. The kitchen was still in a state from the dinner party and as usual she was left to clean everything up. “I’m telling you, you’re wrong. You just didn’t know where to look.”

The man grumbled and disappeared down the hall, the sound of his bedroom door slamming and locking echoing through the house.

~*~

The morning sun was bright coming through the front room’s picture window. Steve squinted as he stepped up behind Peggy, wrapping one arm around her waist as his other hand wound around her to offer her the cup of tea he held. “A little sunny, isn’t it?”

She hummed in agreement as she took and sipped her tea, her eyes never leaving the street where they were staring intently. “See that tabby?”

He followed her line of sight, things clearer as he got used to the brightness, to the small grey cat bouncing up and down the curb across the street outside of Dottie’s house. “I mean, it’s cute, but I don’t think right now is the best time to get a pet, Betty.” A soft humor infused his voice, knowing that Peggy’s plans were far past pets as she stayed intent on the creature.

“Hum, maybe not. But nevertheless, it’s been in and out of our yard, too, and I’ve noticed it doesn’t have a collar.” She let her free hand run over the arm around her waist. “What’s the range on those bugs Howard gave us?”

“With a direct line of sight, 100 yards.” He shrugged, thinking. “Obscured? Maybe 50. Could be more or less depending on what’s between us and it.” He buried his nose in her hair, inhaling her soft scent before pressing a kiss to the crown of her head. “You have a plan.”

She turned and smiled at him. “I have a plan.”

~*~

It started with a small saucer of milk late that morning. Peggy left it on the front stoop and spent a little while just sitting outside next to it, waving at neighbors and smiling. “You haven’t seen that little grey tabby, have you?” she would ask each passing person, concern all over her face, “I got a glimpse of him this morning and I could have sworn he was limping!”

By the afternoon, Steve was trying very hard to keep a straight face as he helped her “search” for the cat in their yard.

Just before dinner, Peggy palmed the small listening device, a thin disk that was barely the size of a quarter, and headed across the street, making tiny whispering and clicking noises, eyes, wide and sad.

Laura Smythe popped her head out of her kitchen window as Peggy knelt next to the storm drain between their house and Dottie’s. “Betty? Are you ok?”

“Oh, fine, Laura!” She stood and waved, her face tight. “I just could have sworn I saw that little grey stray cat and it was limping. I just want to make sure the poor thing is okay.” She huffed and stood, straightening her skirt. “Have you seen him?”

Laura shook her head. “Not since yesterday.” She smiled at Peggy. “So sweet of you to want to try to help him.”

“Well thanks, I—oh!” Peggy turned, eyes set on Dottie’s front yard. With a fake wobble in her heels, she was more adept in running in them than she’d like everyone to know, she darted towards the azalea bush and stopped short. She smiled back at Laura, “I think I’ve got him!” With a smile that had nothing to do with a cat, Peggy pushed her way into the bush and along the front side of the house. She made some noise, swished the plant a few times, and smiled to herself. It was going perfectly.

Dottie was on her porch before Peggy could even catch her breath from the run over, voice loud. “Goodness, Betty, what are you doing?” She demanded, incensed.

Peggy stood, using the ledge of the window to haul herself up and the exaggerated surprise she feigned to hide how she set the small bug in the corner of the sill and the window. “Oh! Dottie I hope I didn’t startle you!”

Dottie, less neighborly than yesterday, started at her. “You did, Betty. Why are you in my bushes?”

Peggy dropped her head, shaking it sadly. “Oh, I just saw that poor neighborhood cat limping this morning and I’ve been trying to get my hands on him and see if he was ok. I could have sworn I saw him over here!” Peggy looked around herself, as if she was just noticing what a mess she made. “Oh, goodness, what have I done? I just don’t think sometimes!”

Dottie couldn’t hide the suspicion on her face, but stepped down and offered Peggy her hand. “Let me help you out.”

“Oh, I am so sorry! Your beautiful flowers!” Peggy brushed the leaves and petals from her dress and gestured towards the slightly rumpled bush. “I’ll pay for any damages, I am so, so very sorry.”

“No need,” Dottie said coolly, her smile never reaching her eyes. “I never liked that one anyway.”

~*~

Steve was still laughing when she made her way back into the house. She rolled her eyes, but couldn’t deny that it must have looked a sight. “You almost done?” She crossed her arms, trying to hide her smile as she leaned against the counter.

He was still catching his breath as he emerged from his small control center in the broom closet, hand pressed to his chest. “Oh… oh that was priceless.”

She eyed him as he moved closer, leaning his hands on the counter on either side of her and looming with a bright smile on his face. Peggy rested her hand on his shoulders, enjoying the closeness. “Yes, but did it work?”

He nodded, reaching up with one hand and picking leaves and petals from her hair. He picked the last one and held the pink petal up for her to see. “It did. Not the clearest sound, but good enough.” He kissed her quickly, a peck full of pride and happiness. “You’re brilliant.”

“Why, thank you,” she replied happily, lifting up on her toes for another brief kiss before she ducked away under his arm. “Then you’re making dinner. I’m simply exhausted from looking for that cat all day!”

~*~

The chatter from the Underwood residence was tinny and quiet, but there wasn’t much to expect from the small transmitter. It did its job and Steve and Peggy could hear clear enough the woman and her father bickering in half sentences. Anytime they were in the back of the house they were out of range, but the front room and kitchen came in clear enough.

“They know they’re being monitored,” Peggy sighed, pulling off her headphones. Dottie’s tone had been harsh and clipped, and more than once her “father” had stopped short mid-sentence, either because he didn’t want to keep talking or because Dottie wanted him stopped.

Steve pulled off his own headphones and leaned back. He tried to stretch but his arms hit the wall of the small closet. “You’re right. They’re far too close lipped.”

“And the language is not nearly familiar enough to be father and daughter,” Peggy muttered, scooting to the side and leaning back onto Steve’s shoulder. His arm would around her immediately, stroking over her upper arm. “I’m not sold that they’re who we’re looking for, but I know they’re not who they say they are.”

Steve tipped his head into hers, cuddling close for a second. “What do you think? Time to turn in?”

She nodded against him “They’ll still be there tomorrow, I suppose.”

~*~

Peggy snuck out of her bed, tiptoeing as she picked up her robe and slippers, trying to avoid waking Steve in the middle of the night.

“Peg?” he murmured, turning.

She stopped, shifting her load to one hand to push his hair out of his eyes with the other as she bent by his bed. “Can’t sleep. Just getting some water.”

He hummed as her fingers moved over his cheek, catching her hand in his and turning his head to kiss her palm. “Don’t be long. You need to rest.”

She smiled as his eyes fluttered closed, sleep already pulling him back. “I’ll do my best, darling.”

Peggy slipped through the bedroom door, closing it behind her before wrapping herself in the robe and putting the slippers on her feet. There was a chill in the air, enough to make her wrap her arms around herself as she moved through the living room and to the kitchen.

She didn’t bother with the lights, the moonlight through the windows was enough to see by. She’d been lying in bed for hours, her mind running over scenarios of who the mysterious “father” and “daughter” team across the street could really be. She quietly opened the refrigerator, pulling out the orange juice. She filled the first glass she found and slipped the bottle back, sitting at the table in the darkness. She’d been expecting to find a man named Fennhoff masquerading as a widower. They didn’t know much about him, never mind what he looked like, but the presence of Dottie was baffling to her. The woman was suspicious and sharp, and deep inside Peggy thought she was smarter than she let on.

Peggy sipped her juice, not really wanting it but needing something to do with her hands. She thought about slipping back into the little closet, reviewing the tapes for the night, but decided against it. She needed to shut off her mind, quiet it, not rile it up. She needed rest so she could figure out what their next step would be. Steve was good, and getting better every day, but his real expertise was on the battlefield, not as a spy, and he still deferred to her in almost all matters for missions. She needed to be ready with a new plan by the time the alarm clock went off in the morning.

She wasn’t sure how long she was sitting in the dark, letting her mind wander, before she heard it: soft, crunching footsteps in the backyard. She lifted her glass and slowly made her way to behind the counter, crouched low and waiting. She didn’t have much of an advantage, but the juice would at least sting enough to give her the element of surprise.

Peggy steeled herself as she heard the doorknob slowly turn, the person jiggling it gently to confirm the lock was thrown. She slowed her breathing, mind clear and ready for anything as she heard the soft click of lock picks and the tumblers moving in place. The door opened almost silently, a small figure slipping in based on the shadow Peggy could see along the wall.

The person slipped in, looking quietly around the room. Peggy held her breath, waiting as the footsteps got closer, waiting for the person to be just close enough.

Without thought she stood, tossing the juice towards the intruder.

Dottie Underwood screeched as the acidic juice burned her eyes, stumbling back.

Peggy pressed forward, pushing her against the cabinets with both hands. She knew the rattle was loud enough to wake Steve and that he’d be there to back her up any moment. “What are you doing here?”

Dottie, eyes red and blinking furiously, took only a second to choose between lying and the truth. Truth, though, didn’t quite come with words. Instead, she threw her head forward, connecting her forehead with Peggy’s with a sickening crack. Peggy stumbled back, but had the advantage of knowing exactly where everything was in the kitchen. She didn’t need to look to get the pan from the stove, sitting and waiting for breakfast to be cooked up in a few hours, and swing it around.

Dottie threw a hand up just in time to keep the pan from connecting with her skull, and grabbed Peggy’s arm with her free one, grappling and forcing her to drop the pan with a clatter.

“Who are you?” Peggy ground out between her teeth, grabbing a fistful of hair and using that to hold Dottie in her frame of vision.

Dottie countered with a leg sweep, sending Peggy toppling over and off her feet. Peggy didn’t let go, though, and Dottie went down with her, landing them both between the island and the counter. “Just a concerned neighbor,” Dottie managed to huff out, pushing with her legs to try to get the upper hand and roll on top of Peggy. “Thought I saw a robber.”

“How kind,” Peggy grunted, managing to get her hand on a corner of the cabinet and use the leverage to get a leg out so she could knee the woman in the chest. Dottie lost her breath, leaving room for Peggy to pounce once again as she stumbled to stand and move away from her. Peggy started to move towards her again just as Steve rushed through the door of the kitchen, eyes wide and in nothing more than his pajama pants.

Steve’s arrival somewhat stymied Dottie. She paused, still trying to catch her breath, with Peggy huffing beside her. Steve looked between the two women and Peggy stared at him, disbelief in her eyes. “Her, please!”

Steve snatched Dottie around the waist and lifted her off her feet, keeping his head away from her flailing arms as she struggled. Peggy pulled the tie from her robe, using it to secure her hands behind her back once Steve had set her in one of the kitchen chairs.

“Still plan on sticking to your story,” Peggy huffed, sitting across from her as Steve stood guard, “or are you going to tell us what we need to know?”

Dottie smiled like a shark, her red, tearing eyes fighting the visual she wanted to present. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

Peggy and Steve shared a look, and without a word he slipped out of the kitchen, headed back to the bedroom.

Dottie watched as he returned only moments later with a shirt and shoes to go with the pants, and a very brightly painted shield on his arm. He stepped in the kitchen and handed Peggy her gun before he disappeared out the front door.

Dottie winced; her eyes painful. “Betty, is it? Are you two even married?”

“Does it matter?” Peggy asked pragmatically, rounding the woman and checking her bindings. “I think what matters here is that you’re hiding something and I’d very much like to know what it is.”

“Do you have twin beds? Or just one big bed?” Dottie asked dreamily. “If I could have that in my bed…” she hummed, the salacious tone somewhat ineffective when combined with her sniffles.

“Are you here on behalf of Hydra?” Peggy asked, picking up a towel and mopping the orange juice from the floor.

Dottie continued rambling. “I mean, that’s one hundred percent American beefcake right there. USDA Prime. And strong.” She sighed happily. “When he picked me up… mmm mmm mmm.”

Peggy rolled her eyes behind the woman, picking the pan from the floor. “What about that man you’re with?”

“Oh, he’s about to have his day ruined.” Dottie laughed manically. “You see, when that Greek God of a man of yours riled him up about Captain America, he wasn’t lying. He gets riled up. Mostly because he hates him so much.” She laughed again. “When he wakes up and sees that shield over him… oh, he might just have a heart attack.”

Peggy checked the robe tie as she passed again, knowing it was hardly enough to secure someone who knew what they were doing before she opened the broom closet and pushed out the fake wall. “Last chance to give me anything before I throw you to the wolves.”

Dottie just sat, head held high, eyes still watering.

“Have it your way.” Peggy reached in and pulled out a beacon, tapping it twice. “The cavalry will be here shortly.”

~*~

Steve didn’t exactly feel fantastic about waking the old man up, but when he started cursing in Russian at him and pulled a gun from under his pillow, Steve reassessed his position.

He still felt bad when he had to knock him out though.

~*~

Peggy stood at the doorway, watching the rest of the SSR team pack the surveillance equipment away and hurry the rented furniture back in the truck as the forensics team was going over Dottie’s house. Dottie was safely in custody and Peggy would be interrogating her tomorrow at the SSR when everything was back to normal. It had been only four days since they moved in, but Peggy could admit, at least to herself, that she’d enjoyed playing house.

Steve came up behind her, his hands still at his sides rather than at her hips. They’d set clear ground rules when it came to the office and the SSR, and that meant no touching in front of co-workers. The absence of his hands when he was so close was causing the hairs on her arms to stand at attention. “What do you think about suburbia?” she questioned lightly, though it weighed heavily on her mind.

“Well, when there aren’t sleeper Hydra Agents hiding in it, it seems pleasant enough to me.” He shrugged, leaning on the doorjamb to look at her. “I grew up in the city, but I’m not attached to that as some idyllic idea of what life should be. Might be nice to have a little garden, some grass to cut, a front yard to build a snowman in and rake leaves…”

Peggy jutted her chin out the to Smythe house, where, like everyone else on the street, Dan and Laura were looking out the window, trying to get every bit of gossip they could. “Neighbors being neighborly.”

Steve dropped his voice. “I think we’d do well in someplace like this.”

Peggy smiled up at him before turning back to the men in the yard. “Agreed.”

“It should be bigger, though, to make room for the kids.” He nudged her with his elbow, a smile threatening to break out on his face. “Four, at least.”

Peggy raised her eyebrows at him. “Two.”

“Only two?” He asked, partially teasing and partially actually let down.

Peggy turned so the men in the yard couldn’t see or hear what she was saying. “Will you be popping them out then? Because until you are, I think the person actually carrying the children should have her opinion weighed slightly more.”

He nodded, eyebrows together tightly. “Point taken.”

She stepped closer, nudging him with her shoulder. “Perhaps we start with one, and see how we do, hum?” She pushed past him, the bump intentional and flirty. “Besides, I’m still waiting on that ring.”

Steve smiled out at the front yard, shoving his hands in his pockets. Good thing the ring was sitting back in his apartment in the top drawer of his dresser. Seeing as this little test run had gone well, maybe he’d pop the question sooner rather than later.

Domestic bliss and international espionage… Steve couldn’t think of anything he’d like more.

#steggy secret santa #Steggy Bingo Bash #superhero-daugthers11 #Steggy Fic #3P's Fic

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that-damn-girl · 5 years

Text

(1) Bucky and The Bed

Completed

Bucky and The Bed Masterlist

Pairing: Bucky Barnes x (cis)fem!reader

Words: 5500+

Summery: You and Bucky are stranded in the middle of a snowy nowhere when there is an 'electronic blackout' during your mission. With no back ups or any way to contact your team, you take refuge from the worsening weather in the only cabin you find in miles. Not to mention, with no power, Bucky's become your personal heater and there's only one bed.

Chapter type: Fluff, mutual pinning.

Chapter warning: Language, undressing (graphic), nudity(not graphic), NO smut in this chapter.

A/N: This is my submission for @sourpatchkidsandacokecan ‘s Merry Kismet Writing Challenge. Thanks for letting me participate! My prompt is, "There's only one bed". I took some inspiration from 'Spy Kids 2' and 'Charlie's Angeles'(2019). Hope I don't disappoint you and you enjoy it!

An unfortunate mix up of thoughts and words. A slip of tongue. It was a simple case of a slip of tongue, which created havoc in not only the building but also Bucky's life.

It was one of the few rare occasions when the entire team was around. Like a family, not by blood but by feelings and emotions. Though a few were lost to fate, some to distance, one to time, they stayed together. Available for each other, always there for each other. Loving each other, taunting each other. Helping each other, making each other stronger. Trusting each other, never to betray each other's trust.

You were one of them too, recruited when Sam was, the new Captain America, his other best friend and partner in crime. You helped Steve Rogers, the former Captain America, take down the parasite in S.H.I.E.L.D. Helped him get back his lost friend, fought the world beside him. Formed with him one of the few platonic relationships you knew you would cherish for life. Fought aliens, got dusted, and got back only to discover him gone to another century, without any chance of being recovered. A curse or a blessing, you were still to process.

Although hurt, the team was recovering. Together. New relationships were formed, old ones were mended. Some out of loneliness, some out of guilt. Some platonic, some not so much.

As the entire team was around, free of missions for a while, free of saving the world, free of helping build the lost world order, free of looking after everyone but themselves, they decided to have some fun. Drink and let loose amongst themselves. Be happy and make those around them happy. They decided on the forever classic, alcohol induced truth and dare.

They were a group of superheroes, some of them having been traveled to different planets even. It was safe to say they were daring. Very daring. So much so that hardly anyone chose 'truth', and the ones that did were bullied into taking 'dare'. More than half the group was composed of spies, assassins, and a mind reader. They knew more than half the truths anyway.

As the bottle spun, your age-old best friend's turn came. You dared Sam to twerk. A collection of oohs and aahs rose. Everyone wanted to know what the new America's Ass looked like in action.

"Aw, man! Don't you got something else?" He protested.

"Don't be a chicken, Sammy."

"Chicken, your ass." That was all the prompting he needed. He confidently walked to the center of the room, supported himself on his knees, and moved his hips in the sinful motion, jutting his ass out with some extra effort every time he went low. Oh, he twerked well, really well.

"Hey sweetcheeks, c'mon join in." and that was all the invitation you needed. None but he knew the true and raw magic in your hips.

You went just as confidently and started twerking. You were the best of the best in this regard. The cheering you both received with your asses wiggling in the air was much more raunchier. You enjoyed the attention.

Bucky enjoyed the sight.

Bucky knew that things had become wild in the twenty-first century, but discovering that the obscene movements you and Sam did with your butts was accepted, enjoyed and encouraged openly was another shocking piece of information he had received. Not that he was complaining. If he had thought Sam did well, you were a whole another level of fineness in his eyes.

Enamoured as he was already with you, his eyes couldn't leave the enrapturing movement of your divine hips. He didn't understand how one could move their hips in such a flawless and mesmerizing manner.

He had meant to say, 'How the fuck do you do that?'. Somehow, he remembered that people today used 'do' as another term for 'fuck'. Somehow, the line re-entered his brain as, 'How the fuck do you fuck that?'. Most of his attention was on your hips. He was mostly unconscious of his thoughts at the moment. The end result?

"How do you fuck that?"

A pin drop silence followed. All eyes, wide and surprised, turned to Bucky. You and Sam stopped your ministrations and turned to him too. Bucky didn't understand why he became the center of attention all of a sudden. Until he did.

Oh shit.

A couple of days later, you and Bucky were sent on a last minute mission together. A group of S.H.I.E.L.D. agents needed some more help. Well, actually, a lot of help. Fierce and flawless, you and Bucky were equivalent to a mini-army together. Fury sent the pair of you in.

With your much needed help, the mission was a success despite the initial slim chances. The agents returned to the headquarters in their respective modes of transportation. Ever the diligent, you and Bucky decided to do a final sweep of the area before abandoning the site.

You were glad you did, because you both found a man not much later, seemingly your rival and half dead, tapping right and left furiously on a small white octagonal box. With a gun raised, both of you stalked towards him soundlessly. Before you could do anything as you approached him, with a single final push of his thumb, an almost invisible forceful wave rolled out of the white box, throwing you off your feet and pushing Bucky significantly back.

You thought you had passed out for a second there. You felt dazed and your eardrums stung, the silence around you deafening. You looked around, tried to blink the haziness out of your eyes but couldn't. Your limbs felt heavy. It was a difficult work to will your body to switch to an upright position. When you did, you saw Bucky at his knees, examining the unconscious man. Feeling nauseous and dizzy, you slowly made your way to him.

"Dead," Bucky said, sighing in disappointment. You looked around yourself. The force blast hadn't really disturbed anything other than yourselves in your sight. You needed to know why the man had his last breaths spent on operating that box instead of trying to run away for his life. Why had it caused what it did? What were the effects?

Feeling an impending doom, you asked, "What was it?"

Bucky shrugged. He turned towards the white octagonal box which laid half split, a few electric sparks coming out of it. "What is that?"

"Never seen anything like it before." You said, pressuring your still fazed brain to recognize it. Deciding to take it in for S.H.I.E.L.D. to look into and identify what it was, you held the split pieces in your hands and after sweeping the area one more time, made your way back to the quinjet.

You couldn't get the ramp at the hind side to set down. Usually, your voice activation was enough, but FRIDAY did not respond no matter how much you spoke. You tried to manually open it through the control panel embedded in the suit of your forearm but found out that it had shut down. You asked Bucky to do it, whose own control panel was in a similar situation. You tried to contact the headquarters with your comms. The comms were rendered useless too. "That's weird."

After you couldn't even open the doors by the well-hidden mini control panel outside of the quinjet, you panicked. Never had this happened before, neither were you ever prepared for a situation like this.

Any and every electronic item in your reach didn't work. Had one or few of your wireless gadgets malfunctioned, you would have understood the force blast had caused it. But this? It was total abandonment by the technology you and your life heavily relied on. And none of it worked. You failed to understand how it had happened. What would you call it? An 'electronic blackout'?

Oh shitty shit.

Accepting that nothing would come out of your futile attempts, you and Bucky decided to look for shelter in the crisp winter air and over the two feet thick snow covered grounds. Whichever direction you craned your neck in, you'd only see towers of dark bottle green leaves atop white grounds, a gloomy atmosphere all around with the sun resting behind the thick clouds.

You tried to remember if there were any safe houses where you two were stranded. Nothing came to your mind. Feeling defeated and lost, you and Bucky kept walking in the direction he thought you could find civilization and help.

In time, the cold was getting to you. Bucky was a super soldier, but you were only a human. The suits you wore were made of a material meant to keep you warm despite being not much thick. However, they weren't made for the extreme conditions you were currently in. Your ears were exposed to the much chilly winds which kept a constant inflow of tremors down your spine, and your gloves were fingerless. You didn't realize it then that your boots had loosened, possibly due to the same force wave which had caused this blackout, and melted snow slipped down to your feet, worsening your state. You were screwed.

Nonetheless, you kept walking with arms wrapped around yourself, shivering continuously. Though the serum made Bucky much resistant to the cold than you, he wasn't immune to it. He didn't shiver, but his body felt the bite of the cold.

He noticed your shivering. He noticed you slowing down. You were taking much smaller steps, just following him, the unease from the cold not permitting you to think at all. He reached behind and pulled you to his side, wrapping his flesh arm around you and rubbing the parts of your arm accessible to him.

After the slip up a couple of days ago, the team had teased both him and you endlessly. They were brutal. He had apologized to you several times after that and explained what he had originally wanted to say. Honestly, you were heavily disappointed he didn't really mean it. It was just a slip up and nothing more, no matter how much you wished it were.

Unknown to you, Bucky did like you, more than a friend, more than a confidante, but didn't want to jeopardize your friendship. After losing Steve, he valued his close friendships even more. So he stuck to being friends, just friends.

As his arm comforted you, you leaned into him, the tempting warmth of his body inviting you. You only nodded when he said, "Hopefully, we'll find something here. It's gonna be okay." Your shoulder rested on his chest as you both walked along silently. You trusted him, so you followed his lead.

You walked for hours it seemed until he heard a frail dejected whisper, "Hey, Bucky," his gaze swept over, concerned. Your eyes were closed, body numb. He stopped walking and turned to you, holding your face in his flesh arm only.

"Hey, Y/N! Y/N, look at me. You're strong. We're gonna be ok, hmm? Tell me what's wrong, sweety." Your eyes were still closed, but you were consciousness. You felt tired, really tired. He hadn't realized that for the last few minutes, Bucky was only dragging your semi conscious body with him.

You somehow willed your eye lids to open. Squinting at the inflow of light, you took him in. He looked scared, very scared.

"I don't think I can walk anymore, Bucky. Tired, so tired." The cold had gotten to you. Hours of walking against the wants of nature had gotten to you , especially after the dizziness you felt from the force wave which had thrown you off your feet. You were extremely exhausted.

"It's ok, we're gonna be okay!" He repeated the same lines over and over again, rubbing your face and arms in hopes to induce some warmth in your body . "We're gonna find a warm place, Y/N. We just need some more time."

Bucky looked around frantically, hoping to find a good enough spot for you, but all he saw was snow for miles and miles ahead in every direction. He stirred you to a nearby tree and leaned you against it.

"Y/N, Y/N look at me." he caressed your cheek, "I'm gonna run ahead and find us a place real quick, okay? You need to help me. Stay here for me, alright? Do not move. Do not fall asleep. We're gonna get you to a warm place, and there you can rest all you want."

Leaving you against the tree, trusting you to stand upright and not fall into the snow, he went out in search of a hospitable place. Bucky swore he had never run as fast as he did that day. He could feel his heart pounding in his ears. The fear of something happening to you, of losing yet another friend, it did something to him. He thanked God for making him a super soldier, so that he could run as fast as he did. But then thinking of you, he damned God for not making you one, or so your life wouldn't have been in danger from such extreme cold.

After speeding through the thick layer of snow for miles, he found a cabin in a small clearing in the middle of nowhere, covered in snow all around. It definitely looked inhabitable. He climbed up the steps and was about to break the lock of the main door with his metal door but thought better of it. He looked under the door mat and above the door panel and found a spare key which opened the door. Idiots, he thought, but realised those idiots were the reason he had found shelter to keep you safe. Thanking his luck, something which he rarely did, he quickly ran back to fetch you.

Your limbs felt tied down to weights, your body felt numb and unresponsive. Your head ached mercilessly, and you shivered uncontrollably. Yet you leaned against the tree, fighting against yourself to stay upright. You didn't know if your were feeling sleepy from exhaustion or were slipping into unconsciousness from the cold. Either way, you tried not to close your eyes for long intervals.

Bucky found you in a much worse state than he had left you in. When he took a hold of your shoulders to drag you again, you gave out a soundless whine, only puffs of translucent white coming out of your mouth.

"Walk no more Bucky, no more." You couldn't walk anymore and you couldn't form a proper line either . Fearing your condition, Bucky panicked even more.

He put your hands securely around his neck, "Hold on tight, princess, okay? I found us a place. A warm place. Don't you worry , princess." He was more convincing himself than telling you.

You wordlessly nodded at him. He picked you up in his strong arms bridal style and jogged towards his destination, careful not to disrupt you much. Eyes closed again, your head lolled on his chest. You nuzzled closer to him, needing more of his warmth.

He looked down at you, eyes closed and brows furrowed, trying to keep the vicious cold out. You clutched onto him like your life depended on it. Well, it actually did.

"Just a few more moments, Y/N. Don't close your eyes, doll. C'mon, please don't." He knew he whined like a baby, but didn't care. "I need you to stay awake for me."

You wanted nothing more than to be in his arms and sleep forever, but the desperate tone in his voice compelled you to open your eyes.

"Not sleeping, Buck. I'm awake." you assured him in a faint whisper.

"That's like my girl, Y/N." He leaned down and gently kissed your forehead. It was just a small peck, but it warmed you up more that his body did. Moreover, he had called you his girl. Oh, if only he knew how much you wanted to be his girl. It caused your heart rate to increase, swarming your insides a little with butterflies.

You knew you needed to keep your eyes open and not fall into the grasp of unconsciousness. You needed a distraction from the cold biting at your exposed skin. As far as you could see, you only had the never ending white snow, dull cloudy sky and Bucky's beautiful face in front of you. The latter was something you could gladly focus at endlessly. So you did.

You took in every feature of his charming face, how his dark hair contrasted his now pale skin, how the endless white around him brought out the majestic blue in his eyes, how his lips looked deliciously pink surrounded by his scruff, how much he looked like an angel - your saviour, your guardian.

Bucky sensed you staring at him and gently smiled at you. "Almost there, doll." Yeah, you could be his doll forever.

As soon as he reached the abandoned house, he carried you through the already unlocked main door and set you down on the worn out couch. It was cold, and all the body heat which you had acquired from Bucky went into the comfortable but cold surface of the couch. However, you couldn't do much except lay down and shiver, your mind blocking out all of your senses.

None of the electronics seemed to work, so finding the radiator was a lost cause. Bucky glanced at the fireplace. Fortunately, there were enough logs to last a day if he used them smartly. He immediately put some logs inside the brick structure and fired them up. He only allowed himself to relish in the heat after he put aside the center table and pushed the couch which you sat upon closer to the source of blissful heat .

You looked nearly unconscious, wanting nothing than to give in to the seduction of sleep. Sighing, he moved towards you. Taking your hands in his, he said, "Doll, I told you I'd bring you to a warm place, didn't I?" He slowly, affectionately stroked your hair. "I'm gonna get you some food and warm clothes. Be right back before you know it." He brought your hands to his lips and kissed each once with considerable force. You moved your head in the slightest, which he could only assume was a nod.

You both were lucky you found a place to spend the night in. Bucky didn't know the exact time, but sensed it would be dark soon, and one look at the window confirmed his suspicions. Now all he had to do was keep you and him sound and safe until you figured out what to do about the situation and how to get back.

He looked around the house for its resources. The house looked old. The kitchen cabinets were somewhat adequately filled for a short stay and there was a separate gas cylinder and stove. Sure some of the items in the there were expired and the cylinder felt more than half empty when he lifted it, but he could make do with them. He had to.

The kitchen was directly behind the living room, and there were only one other room in the house. A bedroom with an attached bathroom. He quickly rummaged through the closets he saw and pulled out the only two single blankets and some warm clothes he could find.

He carried them to your considerably less shivering form. He knelt down and lifted your legs to open your boots. Finding your feet totally soaked, he cursed and dried them with a towel he had found. A new wave of warmth spread through you as you watched him fret over you.

He needed to get you out of the half soaked jumpsuit you wore. His own was soaked too, but you were more important at the moment.

He took your hands in his once again, "Y/N, princess, you need to get out of this wet suit." He helped your reluctant form into a sitting position and placed a few of the warm clothes in your lap.

"I'll be in the other room while you change, alright?" He turned to leave but you caught his wrist in your hand in a vice grip. He looked down at it and then your face, your eyes fluttering in and out of consciousness.

"Can you do it for me, Bucky?" Your soft voice asked him. You were too spent at the moment to remove a wet, sticky and skin tight suit from your body. Neither did you have the energy nor the patience. Lethargy had already nestled itself in you.

You didn't like it at all. Not the part where your brain registered that Bucky would touch you in a way he hadn't ever before. You hated the part where you so helpless. You were a grown ass woman, not needing anyone's help in your self-made life. However, as the adrenaline had rushed out of your body long ago, you couldn't care moving anymore after resting your limbs. Besides, it was Bucky you had asked help from. Not some arrogant prick, but your sweet Bucky.

He looked taken aback by your request, but gulping, he gently asked you, "Are you sure, Y/N?"

You took a moment to deeply look into his eyes before answering, "Yes Bucky, I trust you." His heart swelled.

Trust. What a simple thing it was. Could easily be broken by the ones you had known and trusted for longest in the blink of an eye, but took years upon years to form and strengthen. He knew not many people trusted him, the Winter Soldier inside him, which had become just as much of a part of him as his metal arm. But you did, and he reveled in it, his heart beating joyously.

He nodded and smiled at you once before his hands reached your zipper at the front of your jumpsuit. He pulled it down slowly and carefully. As soon as he saw the hint of your cleavage and the starting bulge of your breasts, he cast his eyes behind you after a second of taking it in, no matter how much he wanted to divulge in the sight of you, but kept pulling the zipper down until it reached its end. He was not going to take your advantage in anyway. He'd only take you in with your permission when you were as conscious as the day and not in the half unresponsive state you seemed to be in.

He pulled you up and stared to slide the fabric, which seemed to stick to your skin, down your shoulders. You rolled your shoulders back to help him. Warmth seeped in wherever he touched you, leaving a trail of goosebumps on your skin not only due to the cold but also for another reason entirely. He moved down and dragged your skinny jumpsuit off your legs.

You wore a pair of panties and sports bra beneath the suit, without any clasps. You needed to remove any and all the wet clothes off of you. Bucky didn't know what to do next. You made the decision for him.

You grasped his head and forced his eyes on yourself, "It's okay Bucky. I trust you."

He nodded again, heart thrumming loudly as he took the sides of your bra in his hands, careful not to touch your breasts, and lifted it up and over your head, all the while looking at your eyes which fought to stay open. He would never ever take advantage of you, no matter how easy it would be. The initial resistance which he felt in the upliftment of your bra due to the swell of your breasts made him blush, but he manged to move pass it. He had undressed many dames during his time, but you were the first after being free from HYDRA.

You only had enough energy to push your panties down and let gravity do the work. You lightly kicked them and your suit away after they pooled at your feet. Bucky tried very hard not to think about the beauty in front of him in all her glory. Many thoughts invaded his mind, most of them sinful ones. His inner demons clawed at his soul to get just a look, but god forbid he ever acted on them. You trusted him, he wasn't going to let that trust go. He immediately grabbed a shirt and a pair of thick sweats from the couch behind you and made you wear them, eyes never once straying from yours.

After he covered you up in more layers, he made you sit down wrapped up in a thick layer of the only two blankets. He freed your hair from your ponytail, ruffling it a little for you. He quickly changed in the only other room and made a soup with the ingredients he could find. It tasted shit, but all your cared about was the heat it provided and the appetite it fulfilled.

He spoon fed you as you sat on the couch, wrapped up in the blankets like a cocoon, hands holding them tight around you. He would blow off the excess heat for you before bringing them to your lips, and repeated it patiently, affectionately. You appreciated it very much.

After having some for himself, he slouched down on the couch beside you, finally relaxing. You were more aware of your senses now, having recovered from the cold and exhaustion you had felt earlier with some food inside you now. However, your headache still persisted. You felt sleepy still, but not to the degree you thought you would collapse like before.

You looked at Bucky, who was under a few warm cloths himself but without a blanket, eyes closed and head rested on top of the backrest. You realised it was only one of the few times you had seen him truly relax. He looked really peaceful. Calm and serene, almost like a harmless baby. And oh so handsome.

Without any second thoughts, you shifted closer to him, snuggling into him. You repositioned the blankets so that it engulfed you both.

"You need it more than I do, doll." He started to untangle himself but you held him close, "Just relax and come here, Bucky."

Still stimulated from earlier, Bucky desperately tried not to think of the unintentional pun you used, or he'd soon have a situation going on downwards.

You knees were tucked under your chin as your entire body leaned on Bucky, your head and one of your palms resting on his chest, drawing random patterns. His flesh arm came up and pulled you further into his side as it circled around your shoulder and rubbed your upper arm. The motion so soothing and the warmth from not only the fireplace but also Bucky so alluring, you thought you'd enter the land of gleeful dreams right there.

You felt wholesome in that moment. Maybe it was because of the close proximity only, maybe something more. Whatever it was, you wanted to enjoy it thoroughly.

Nostalgia had hit Bucky when he was taking care of you. An unqualified nurse? Bucky was certified for that, courtesy to his scrawny blonde friend back in the day. He took care of you as he had for his friend. A sense of responsibility, worry, genuine concern, all had been there, but there was something more too. Something he couldn't pinpoint. He had felt something tugging at his heart. He didn't know what, but it did. It made him nervous and excited all at once, but he didn't know what to make of it as the two of you sat in silence for long, drowned in your own thoughts.

Soon it was dark outside, the fireplace the only source of light. The atmosphere chilled even further. As Bucky came back to his place after adding more firewood, you immediately wrapped your arms around him, not liking the brief inflow of cool air when he had moved. You buried your head deep into his chest as much as you could from your position. He laughed.

"Hey, Bucky," he hummed in response. You leaned away a bit to look straight into his blue grey eyes.

"Thank you for everything." You wanted to say so much more, but you felt overwhelmed.

Cupping your cheeks, he turned towards you, "No doll, you don't need to thank me for that. I'll always take care of ya, you know that right?"

You covered his palms and said, "No Bucky, you don't understand. I was thinking, wondering what would've happened if you weren't there. If I were alone..." The feminist in you didn't want to admit it, but you knew that was the truth at the moment.

"I couldn't even walk throughout. You carried me here, took care of me, changed me, fed me. You saved me today, Bucky. You saved me. If not for you..." Tears welled up in your eyes as you opened your mouth but nothing came out of it.

"Shh, shh, no honey," He hugged you tightly, rubbing your back, "You're safe, you're fine."

You sobbed into his neck, "God, I feel so pathetic, Bucky. You had to take care of me like a baby. I am a grown woman, an Avenger, for heaven's sake. Have been for years. I should've been stronger than that. And now I'm crying like a child." Somehow, the realization made you cry harder.

You didn't know why it was happening, why you were crying so hard. You've had near death experiences countless times before. Hell, you were even dusted, dead in a way, and brought back. This wasn't much life threatening. You were safe. You were alive. Yet you continued grieving what could've happened but didn't.

"Hey, hey, doll," with one hand under your knees, Bucky took placed your sniffing form on his lap sideways. You head was still in the crook of his neck and his arms embraced you, enveloping you, keeping you away from any fears you had, any regrets you had. He rocked you fondly, his cheek on your head.

"It was the blackout Y/N, it wasn't you." He comforted you, "Y/N, this wasn't our mission. Your mission was to back up our agents and you did, you did it perfectly doll. This...this is something none of us know about. It's well below freezing temperature outside. You can't win against the nature, doll."

He rocked you and whispered soothing words until you had calmed down. You weren't sure why you did that. Bucky and you had always been close, just like you and Sam. You confided in each other, supported and comforted each other. If you ever did show your vulnerable side, it was only in front of them. But it hardly ever came down to this.

"Sorry Bucky, you had to see that," you pulled back a little to look at him. He wiped your tear stained cheeks with his thumb. His nonjudgmental eyes looked at you, an understanding smile on his face.

"Doll, it's okay. You've let it all out, it's good. You feeling alright now?" Although you still felt a little embarrassed by it, you mumbled out a small, "Yeah."

"Fuck the snow for snow for making you cry." You replied, "How do you fuck that?" You both laughed a little.

Lost in your eyes, his hand moved from caressing your cheeks to caressing your tender neck. You looked up at him but were unable to focus on any single feature of his. His eyes, so soft; his smile, so pure; his lips, so juicy.

You tucked a few strands of his hair behind his ear, your palm on his cheek. Bucky felt his heart dance around his chest. You leaned in to kiss his cheek, but he unknowingly moved his head following the descent of your eyes and you pecked the corner of his lips.

Unsure of what to do about it, you dropped your head in the crook of his neck, as if it were normal for friends to go around kissing the corner of each others mouth. It wasn't. But you thought that if Bucky had a problem, he'd say something. He didn't.

Bucky didn't know if he was more remorseful or thankful for not fully turning his face and having your soft, luscious lips right on his.

It was then when all his nicknames started coming to you. Sure, he'd use them, but it was rare. That day you had heard more nicknames from him than you had in the entirety of your friendship. Doll, princess, sweetheart, honey... Not having heard those from this man before, in his sweet yet hard voice before. It did things to you, made your heart pound faster, your core heat up.

It was also then that you noticed one thing other than his strong and broad thighs beneath you. You leaning into him, him feeling your breasts pressed to the side of his chest, him taking in your sweet scent, it woke his nervous system. Moreover, in rocking you, Bucky had also rocked the nerves down there, the stimulus encouraging an inflow of blood, making not only his penis hard but also harder to hide it from you.

He prayed to heaven's that you didn't notice. You did, but you tried to make no indication that you did. However, he understood from the way you stiffened atop him that you did notice it. He was convinced that you'd hate him now.

Feeling immensely embarrassed, he unceremoniously stood up and dropped you on the couch.

"Uh, I'll just, uh, I'll just set up the fireplace in the bedroom. It's been a long day." He wiped his sweaty palms on his bottoms and bolted out of the living room.

You were low-key in shock. You desperately hoped you made him hard, but your rational side told you it was just because of the physical contact. He'd be in the same situation even if it were somebody else. Your presence didn't really matter to him. The thought made you physically hurt.

As Bucky set up the fireplace in the bedroom, it then struck to his mind. There was only one bedroom, which meant there was only one bed. He glanced at the queen sized bed bed behind him and then at his raging boner. Somewhere in the back of his head, he could hear Sam roaring with laughter at his predicament.

He knew it was going to be a long, long night.

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Chapter 2

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A/N: Thanks for reading! There is going to be lots of soft!bucky cuddling and pinning in the upcoming chapters, I don't live in a place where it snows and I don't really know how people hold up or how the houses actually are in such places. Sorry for the inaccuracies you find. Good or bad, your feedback is always welcome!

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geeks-universe · 4 years

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Veritas Vos Liberabit IV

The truth will set you free.

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A/N: Hehe, there’s gonna be a super awesome character arc just you wait

“You still haven’t explained,” John reminded you, pulling you from the staring match you were having with your phone.

You flicked your gaze towards him, stopping yourself from reading anymore texts. Lucifer was relentless, jumping from asking you to come home, to threatening sending Amenadiel after you.

“Hmm?” You hummed gracelessly, before realizing he was most definitely referring to your mojo. “Oh, just a little trick I learned from my dad.”

He didn’t really look like he was buying it, so you sent him an amused smirk. Deciding that presentation was better than explanation, you slowed him to a stop. Ever curious, Sherlock watched tentatively as you made eye contact with John.

“What is it you truly desire?” You inquired, that brief flicker of connection to your divinity sparking something inside. Your fingers tingled, air alight with a power you’d never had the opportunity to tap into.

“Uh,” John blinked a couple of times, “I…”

Sherlock was staring at his friend, brows furrowed as he saw the man at war within his own mind.

“I want to feel happy again.”

The smirk on your lips faded to a thoughtful smile. Humans were interesting creatures to you, but not in the same way they were to your father. He reveled in their sins, and believed in their corruption. You, however, were inspired by their flaws. Emotions were at the very core of their being, and it was a beautiful melody you would never tire of.

Sherlock looked to be torn between wonder and annoyance. John, however, shook his head, furrowing his brows in your direction.

“I couldn’t stop myself,” he explained slowly, trying to piece together exactly why that was in his mind. “No matter how hard I tried.”

You tilted your head to the side, just observing him. Confusion was evident, though he didn’t look upset by what he’d said, or embarrassed.

“Some sort of psychological trick,” Sherlock muttered to himself, pulling your attention to him.

John seemed ready to chalk it up to magic, while Sherlock was skeptical at best.

“Enough of that,” you exclaimed, “I was promised a tour! It’s already so different from Los Angeles.”

And just like that, John was back to the charming, kind host. Sherlock was inquisitive, but quiet. He kept a close watch on you, and offered brief explanations to some of your questions, but otherwise remained vigilant.

Every step you took was cataloged, along with each expression that crossed your face. Despite it, you didn’t let his quirky nature detract from the time you were having.

“Is it your dad,” John finally asked after one too many alerts from your phone. (Seriously, did Lucifer really not have anything better to do?) “That you’re ignoring, I mean.”

“Of course it is,” Sherlock interjected, looking for all the world like it was the most obvious assumption.

Instead of getting upset at his interruption, you found your lips turning up in a smile. He was rather fascinating, if not a little intrusive.

“I left without saying goodbye,” you admitted a little forlornly, nervously fiddling with your phone. There were moments when you felt that you absolutely made the best decision, but doubt wouldn’t leave you alone.

“Why?”

John didn’t sound judgemental, nor did he sound pushy. To you, he just sounded worried almost, like someone who knew the importance of close bonds and didn’t want you severing one without good purpose.

“I love him,” you were quick to defend your own actions. Of the two, John was the only one who seemed comforting. “But I need to be away from him. He was so worried about keeping me safe that he’d suffocated me.”

There was a hint of sympathy on John’s features. Even if he didn’t understand the full extent of your story, he did know a thing or two about family troubles. Perhaps having a confidant in him would help to soothe the growing loneliness in your family’s absence.

Silence reigned supreme over the three of you as you continued your walk. John was casting an occasional concerned glance to you. You were lost in the buildings and architecture that spread from the ground to the sky. And Sherlock, well, he was too busy connecting dots you’d thrown around with each word. Still, he couldn’t quite picture it all. There was something more to you than what he was able to uncover, though what it was he couldn’t be sure.

It wasn’t until a few minutes more that your feet stopped on their own accord. Your eyes, wide and full of sadness, scaled the stone steeple that stood proudly at a height far above the other buildings. There wasn’t much foot traffic moving in and out of the building, but a soft ringing called to you nonetheless.

You cleared your throat, dragging your teary gaze from the stained glass to your walking partners.

“I need a couple of minutes, do you mind if…”

John caught on immediately, quick to pull his friend out of the line of questioning he looked about ready to go into.

“I’ll grab us a bite to eat,” he assured you, practically dragging Sherlock away as you ascended the stairs into the church.

The air was buzzing with an energy you couldn’t recognize. The room was dark, and nearly empty. Something propelled you forward, bringing you to a stop at one of the pews in the back. You’d only ever been to a church once before. For obvious reasons, your father wasn’t the biggest fan.

Lucifer wasn’t the biggest fan.

But, then again, he wasn’t your real father.

You sucked a breath in, staring forward at the cross that stood proudly at the very center of the stage. Unlike the rest of your siblings, you had never actually met your father. As much as you tried to act like it didn’t bother you, deep down it did. Why had he handed you off to Lucifer? Why were you forced to spend your days in Hell when the rest of your family was acquainted with the Silver City.

You dropped your head into your hands, breaking your wandering gaze.

“Dad,” you breathed, your voice shaky.

“Why did you do this?” You asked into the silence, your voice nearly imperceptible to the people around you. “Why am I here? Why did you send me to Hell?”

There was no answer.

Not that you expected one.

Lucifer didn’t have any faith left in your father. He talked about abandonment, about the atrocities your father let happen. He spoke of an unfathomable cruelty and undeniable destiny.

You didn’t believe that.

No matter how bad things got, you couldn’t believe it.

There had to be some explanation, some rationalization of it all.

Whatever it was though, you would be the last to know. If your father didn’t even want you, he wouldn’t want to give you an explanation that he hadn’t even given his other children.

Tears were beginning to blur your vision, your phone burning in your back pocket. You should answer Lucifer. Your actual father may not be around, but you did have a dad, and at the very least he deserved an explanation.

“I just want to know who I am,” you quietly confessed to the empty room.

You took a moment to wipe away your tears and calm your breathing. Just as you moved to stand up, a person beside you cleared their throat politely.

He looked vaguely familiar, with his auburn hair and pressed suit. It wasn’t until you spotted the umbrella he twirled in his hand habitually that you realized who it was. John had told you all about Mycroft Holmes, and how you should expect him to pay you a visit just for breathing the same air as his younger brother.

“Oh, hello, didn’t see you there,” you admitted, smiling warmly at him.

The little you knew about the man in front of you caused a soft affection to bubble inside. You loved your family, and you could understand that desire to protect them. Even if he went about it in an odd way, you couldn’t blame the man for his vigilant nature.

“Miss Morningstar,” he greeted, the thin curve of his lips little more than an intimidation tactic, though he looked considerably charmed by your behavior, as did practically all humans. “I have a proposition for you, though I do apologize for disturbing you at a place of worship.”

You swallowed, briefly flicking your gaze to the cross.

“I’d say it hardly deserves worship,” you replied, inclining your head towards him. “Are you a man of faith?”

He raised a brow at your apparent disinterest in religion, despite your choice to retreat inside an old church. There was a certain amount of amusement in his brow, likely due to the question.

“Not particularly, no,” he answered cordially, but without much interest. “I consider myself a man of science.”

“Science,” you echoed, a fragment of a smile. “You believe science and faith can’t coexist?”

For one reason or another, he actually considered your argument. You knew it was likely a ploy to further his own business, but you found yourself innately curious about the man beside you. Most of what you knew of Sherlock came from John, and if there was a reason why he seemed to be immune to the divinity you exuded, you’d like to learn a little more.

“Faith is an explanation for what science can’t yet determine.”

His words were precise, and sure, as if there was nothing you could do to shake that determination. You paused thoughtfully, turning so that you might fully face him now. There was a glisten of veneration in his eyes, an unconscious acknowledgment to the river of divinity that flowed through your veins.

“Your proposition?”

You interruption was met with a continued cessation, followed by a diverted gaze.

“Information,” he claimed, leaning back to create an air of detachment. “Your recent neighbor, Sherlock.”

You waved off the rest of his proposal, not bothering to listen.

“No.”

His eyes narrowed a fraction, dangerous calculations swirling inside his mind as he scoured every detail on your person.

“So quick to align yourself without hearing how much I’ll offer you.”

You stood up, tilting your head curiously.

“If you want information on your brother, you could always just ask him, Mycroft.”

There was a momentary spark of confusion, or perhaps annoyance, in his stare, but you paid it no mind as you left without a further goodbye.

The sun was a blinding contrast to the dark building you were in before, but you found yourself comforted by its overwhelming presence. Your eyes shut on their own accord as you felt the heat seep into your soul. Before Lucifer returned to Earth, you had been in Hell with him. You hated it there. A part of you had always longed for the sun and the warmth it rained down upon mankind. In your youth, Lucifer took to calling you ‘sunshine’ and it had stuck with you through the years.

You knew, standing under the bright rays of the star, that you could never return to Hell again. Something in your veins longed for the sun, and the divine power that coursed through your system seemed to swell with its embrace.

Your thoughts were shattered as a body collided with yours, sending you stumbling a couple of steps by the sudden, unexpected intrusion. There was a moment, less than a fraction of a second, where your connection to the supernatural world was shifted.

“I am so sorry, I-”

Surprise stopped your words as you met the eyes of the man who ran into you. His gaze was unnatural, a color darker than night. They looked like the depths of Hell frozen over. A smile painted his face, one of cruelty and unspoken horror. His hands were icy where they held you in place, one on your shoulder and the other on your arm. You stood frozen to the spot, whispered tendrils beckoning you to the precipice of madness.

You nearly followed, to a destiny unknown and a journey fraught with danger. The presence was familiar, and much too comfortable. An evil lurked beneath his cool exterior, chilling the very air you breathed.

Still, you were entranced by the muted lunacy.

As you began to take the first step towards instability, you paused, a heat flaring up along your spine, to the base of where your wings stayed hidden. A claw gripped your throat, forcing fire down into your chest to wash away the sins of your thoughts.

As quick as the encounter began, it ended. You gasped for air, finding relief against John a minute later when he worriedly took a hold of your arm.

“Are you okay?” John asked, concern tinting his voice as he rubbed your back in the event you might have trouble catching your breath once more.

Sherlock was quick to look you up and down, tracing any details he might need.

“What happened?”

The black eyes flashed in your mind. This wasn’t an issue you could take to the two of them. Whatever happened was something more in your realm than theirs.

“Nothing,” you assured them, “Someone in a rush.”

Your smile was every bit as convincing as you could make it, hiding the image of blackened eyes and a searing pain along your collar.

Sherlock wished he could believe the lie you tried to sell, but curiosity got the best of him, and he would discover the truth without your help, as it seems.

#Sherlock Holmes x Reader #sherlock x reader #sherlock imagine #sherlock holmes imagine #vvl #the plot thiccensssss #also yes #the reader and mycroft are gonna be best bros #whether he wants it or not #because that man just needs a hug honestly

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davidmann95 · 4 years

Note

So... Morrison’s 10 part interview on All-Star Superman, along with all other older Newsarama articles, just seem to have ceased to exist. One does not simply live without having those interviews available to reread... Can I find them anywhere else?

Rejoice! I finally borrowed a computer I could put my flash drive into, and emailed myself my copy of the Morrison interview. Here it is below the cut, copied and pasted direct from the source way back when, available again at last:

Three years, 12 issues, Eisners and countless accolades later, All Star Superman is finally finished. The out-of-continuity look at Superman’s struggle with his inevitable death was widely embraced by fans and pros as one of the best stories to feature the Man of Steel, and was a showcase for the talents of the creative team of Grant Morrison, Frank Quitely and Jamie Grant.

Now, Newsarama is proud to present an exclusive look back with Morrison at the series that took Superman to, pun intended, new heights. We had a lot of questions about the series...and Morrison delivered with an in-depth look into the themes, characters and ideas throughout the 12 issues. In fact, there was so much that we’re running this as an unprecedented 10-part series over the next two weeks – sort of an unofficial All Star Superman companion. It’s everything about All Star Superman you ever wanted to know, but were afraid to ask.

And of course there’s plenty of SPOILERS, so back away if you haven’t read the entire series.

Newsarama: Grant, tell us a little about the origin of the project.

Grant Morrison: Some of it has its roots in the DC One Million project from 1999. So much so, that some readers have come to consider this a prequel to DC One Million, which is fine if it shifts a few more copies! I’ve tried to give my own DC books an overarching continuity intended to make them all read as a more coherent body of work when I’m done.

Luthor’s “enlightenment” – when he peaks on super–senses and sees the world as it appears through Superman’s eyes – was an element I’d included in the Superman Now pitch I prepared along with Mark Millar, Tom Peyer and Mark Waid back in 1999. There were one or two of ideas of mine that I wanted to preserve from Superman Now and Luthor’s heart–stopping moment of understanding was a favorite part of the original ending for that story, so I decided to use it again here.

My specific take on Superman’s physicality was inspired by the “shamanic” meeting my JLA editor Dan Raspler and I had in the wee hours of the morning outside the San Diego comic book convention in whenever it was, ‘98 or ‘99.

I’ve told this story in more detail elsewhere but basically, we were trying to figure out how to “reboot” Superman without splitting up his marriage to Lois, which seemed like a cop–out. It was the beginning of the conversations which ultimately led to Superman Now, with Dan and I restlessly pacing around trying to figure out a new way into the character of Superman and coming up short...

Until we looked up to see a guy dressed as Superman crossing the train tracks. Not just any skinny convention guy in an ill–fitting suit, this guy actually looked like Superman. It was too good a moment to let pass, so I ran over to him, told him what we’d been trying to do and asked if he wouldn’t mind indulging us by answering some questions about Superman, which he did...in the persona and voice of Superman!

We talked for an hour and a half and he walked off into the night with his friend (no, it wasn’t Jimmy Olsen, sadly). I sat up the rest of the night, scribbling page after page of Superman notes as the sun came up over the naval yards.

My entire approach to Superman had come from the way that guy had been sitting; so easy, so confident, as if, invulnerable to all physical harm, he could relax completely and be spontaneous and warm. That pose, sitting hunched on the bollard, with one knee up, the cape just hanging there, talking to us seemed to me to be the opposite of the clenched, muscle-bound look the character sometimes sports and that was the key to Superman for me.

I met the same Superman a couple of times afterwards but he wasn’t Superman, just a nice guy dressed as Superman, whose name I didn’t save but who has entered into my own personal mythology (a picture has from that time has survived showing me and Mark Waid posing alongside this guy and a couple of young readers dressed as Superboy and Supergirl – it’s in the “Gallery” section at my website for anybody who can be bothered looking. This is the guy who lit the fuse that led to All Star Superman).

After the 1999 pitch was rejected, I didn’t expect to be doing any further work on Superman but sometime in 2002, while I was going into my last year on New X–Men, Dan DiDio called and asked if I wanted to come back to DC to work on a Superman book with Jim Lee.

Jim was flexing his artistic muscles again to great effect, and he wanted to do 12 issues on Superman to complement the work he was doing with Jeph Loeb on “Batman: Hush.” At the time, I wasn’t able to make my own commitments dovetail with Jim’s availability, but by then I’d become obsessed with the idea of doing a big Superman story and I’d already started working out the details.

Jim, of course, went on to do his 12 Superman issues as “For Tomorrow” with Brian Azzarello, so I found myself looking for an artist for what was rapidly turning into my own Man of Steel magnum opus, and I already knew the book had to be drawn by my friend and collaborator, Frank Quitely.

We were already talking about We3 and Superman seemed like a good meaty project to get our teeth into when that was done. I completely scaled up my expectations of what might be possible once Frank was on board and decided to make this thing as ambitious as possible.

Usually, I prefer to write poppy, throwaway “live performance” type superhero books, but this time, I felt compelled to make something for the ages – a big definitive statement about superheroes and life and all that, not only drawn by my favorite artist but starring the first and greatest superhero of them all.

The fact that it could be a non–continuity recreation made the idea even more attractive and more achievable. I also felt ready for it, in a way I don’t think I would have been in 1999; I finally felt “grown–up” enough to do Superman justice.

I plotted the whole story in 2002 and drew tiny colored sketches for all 12 covers. The entire book was very tightly constructed before we started – except that I’d left the ending open for the inevitable better and more focused ideas I knew would arise as the project grew into its own shape...and I left an empty space for issue 10. That one was intended from the start to be the single issue of the 12–issue run that would condense and amplify the themes of all the others. #10 was set aside to be the one–off story that would sum up anything anyone needed to know about Superman in 22 pages.

Not quite as concise an origin as Superman’s, but that’s how we got started.

NRAMA: When you were devising the series, what challenges did you have in building up this version of the Superman universe?

GM: I couldn’t say there were any particular challenges. It was fun. Nobody was telling me what I could or couldn’t do with the characters. I didn’t have to worry about upsetting continuity or annoying people who care about stuff like that.

I don’t have a lot of old comics, so my knowledge of Superman was based on memory, some tattered “70s books from the remains of my teenage collection, a bunch of DC “Best Of...” reprint editions and two brilliant little handbooks – “Superman in Action Comics” Volumes 1 and 2 – which reprint every single Action Comics cover from 1938 to 1988.

I read various accounts of Superman’s creation and development as a brand. I read every Superman story and watched every Superman movie I could lay my hands on, from the Golden Age to the present day. From the Socialist scrapper Superman of the Depression years, through the Super–Cop of the 40s, the mythic Hyper–Dad of the 50s and 60s, the questioning, liberal Superman of the early 70s, the bland “superhero” of the late 70s, the confident yuppie of the 80s, the over–compensating Chippendale Superman of the 90s etc. I read takes on Superman by Mark Waid, Mark Millar, Geoff Johns, Denny O’Neil, Jeph Loeb, Alan Moore, Paul Dini and Alex Ross, Joe Casey, Steve Seagle, Garth Ennis, Jim Steranko and many others.

I looked at the Fleischer cartoons, the Chris Reeve movies and the animated series, and read Alvin Schwartz’s (he wrote the first ever Bizarro story among many others) fascinating book – “An Unlikely Prophet” – where he talks about his notion of Superman as a tulpa, (a Tibetan word for a living thought form which has an independent existence beyond its creator) and claims he actually met the Man of Steel in the back of a taxi.

I immersed myself in Superman and I tried to find in all of these very diverse approaches the essential “Superman–ness” that powered the engine. I then extracted, purified and refined that essence and drained it into All Star’s tank, recreating characters as my own dream versions, without the baggage of strict continuity.

In the end, I saw Superman not as a superhero or even a science fiction character, but as a story of Everyman. We’re all Superman in our own adventures. We have our own Fortresses of Solitude we retreat to, with our own special collections of valued stuff, our own super–pets, our own “Bottle Cities” that we feel guilty for neglecting. We have our own peers and rivals and bizarre emotional or moral tangles to deal with.

I felt I’d really grasped the concept when I saw him as Everyman, or rather as the dreamself of Everyman. That “S” is the radiant emblem of divinity we reveal when we rip off our stuffy shirts, our social masks, our neuroses, our constructed selves, and become who we truly are.

Batman is obviously much cooler, but that’s because he’s a very energetic and adolescent fantasy character: a handsome billionaire playboy in black leather with a butler at this beck and call, better cars and gadgetry than James Bond, a horde of fetish femme fatales baying around his heels and no boss. That guy’s Superman day and night.

Superman grew up baling hay on a farm. He goes to work, for a boss, in an office. He pines after a hard–working gal. Only when he tears off his shirt does that heroic, ideal inner self come to life. That’s actually a much more adult fantasy than the one Batman’s peddling but it also makes Superman a little harder to sell. He’s much more of a working class superhero, which is why we ended the whole book with the image of a laboring Superman.

He’s Everyman operating on a sci–fi Paul Bunyan scale. His worries and emotional problems are the same as ours... except that when he falls out with his girlfriend, the world trembles.

Newsarama: Grant, what are some of your favorite moments from the 12 issues?

Grant Morrison: The first shot of Superman flying over the sun. The Cosmic Anvil. Samson and Atlas. The kiss on the moon. The first three pages of the Olsen story which, I think, add up to the best character intro I’ve ever written.

Everything Lex Luthor says in issue #5. Everything Clark does. The whole says/does Luthor/Superman dynamic as played out through Frank Quitely’s absolute mastery and understanding of how space, movement and expression combine to tell a story.

Superboy and his dog on the moon – that perfect teenage moment of infinite possibility, introspection and hope for the future. He’s every young man on the verge of adulthood, Krypto is every dog with his boy (it seemed a shame to us that Krypto’s most memorable moment prior to this was his death scene in “Whatever Happened To The Man of Tomorrow.” Quitely’s scampering, leaping, eager and alive little creature is how I’d prefer to imagine Krypto the Superdog and conjures finer and more subtle emotions).

Bizarro–Home, with all of Earth’s continental and ocean shapes but reversed. The page with the first appearance of Zibarro that Frank has designed so the eye is pulled down in a swirling motion into the drain at the heart of the image, to make us feel that we’re being flushed in a cloacal spiral down into a nihilistic, existential sink. Frank gave me that page as a gift, and it became weirdly emblematic of a strange, dark time in both our lives.

The story with Bar–El and Lilo has a genuine chill off ammonia and antiseptic off it, which makes it my least favorite issue of the series, although I know a lot of people who love it. It’s about dying relatives, obligations, the overlit overheated corridors between terminal wards, the thin metallic odors of chemicals, bad food and fear. Preparation for the Phantom Zone.

Superman hugging the poor, hopeless girl on the roof and telling us all we’re stronger than we think we are.

Joe Shuster drawing us all into the story forever and never–ending.

Nasthalthia Luthor. Frank and Jamie’s final tour of the Fortress, referencing every previous issue on the way, in two pages.

All of issue #10 (there’s a single typo in there where the time on the last page was screwed up – but when we fix that detail for the trade I’ll be able to regard this as the most perfectly composed superhero story I’ve ever written).

I don’t think I’ve ever had a smoother, more seamless collaborative process.

NRAMA: The story is very complete unto itself, but are there any new or classic characters you’d like to explore further? If so, which ones and why?

GM: I’d happily write more Atlas and Samson. I really like Krull, the Dino–Czar’s wayward son, and his Stalinist underground empire of “Subterranosauri.” I could write a Superman Squad comic forever. I’d love to write the “Son of Superman” sequel about Lois and Clark’s super test tube baby.

But...I think All Star is already complete, without sequels. You read that last issue and it works because you know you’re never going to see All Star Superman again. You’ll be able to pick up Superman books, but they won’t be about this guy and they won’t feel the same. He really is going away. Our Superman is actually “dying” in that sense, and that adds the whole series a deeper poignancy.

NRAMA: Aside from the Bizarro League, you never really introduce other DC superheroes into the story. Why did you make this choice?

GM: I wanted the story to be about the mythic Superman at the end of his time. It’s clear from the references that he has or more likely has had a few super–powered allies, but that they’re no longer around or relevant any more.

For the context of this story I wanted the super–friends to be peripheral, like they were in the old comics. The Flash? Green Lantern? They represent Superman’s “old army buddies,” or your dad’s school friends. Guys you’ve sort of heard of, who used to be more important in the old man’s life than they are now.

NRAMA: Some readers were confused as to how the “Twelve Labors” broke down, though others have pointed out that Superman’s actions are more reflective of the Stations of the Cross (I note there’s a “Station Café” in the background of issue #12). Could you break down the Twelve Labors, or, if the cross theory is true, how the storyline reflects the Stations?

GM: The 12 Labors of Superman were never intended as an isomorphic mapping onto the 12 Labors of Hercules, or for that matter, the specific Stations of the Cross, of which there are 14, I believe. I didn’t even want to do one Labor per issue, so it deliberately breaks down quite erratically through the series for reasons I’ll go into (later).

Yes, there are correspondences, but that’s mostly because we tried to create for our Superman the contemporary “superhero” version of an archetypal solar hero journey, which naturally echoes numerous myths, legends and religious parables.

At the same time, we didn’t want to do an update or a direct copy of any myth you’d seen before, so it won’t work if you try to find one specific mythological or religious “plan” to hang the series on; James Joyce’s honorable and heroic refutation of the rule aside, there’s nothing more dead and dull than an attempt to retell the Odyssey or the Norse sagas scene by scene, but in a modern and/or superhero setting.

For future historians and mythologizers, however, the 12 Labors of Superman may be enumerated as follows:

1. Superman saves the first manned mission to the sun. 2. Superman brews the Super–Elixir. 3. Superman answers the Unanswerable Question. 4. Superman chains the Chronovore.  5. Superman saves Earth from Bizarro–Home. 6. Superman returns from the Underverse. 7. Superman creates Life. 8. Superman liberates Kandor/cures cancer. 9. Superman defeats Solaris. 10. Superman conquers Death. 11. Superman builds an artificial Heart for the Sun. 12.Superman leaves the recipe/formula to make Superman 2.

And one final feat, which typically no–one really notices, is that Lex Luthor delivers his own version of the unified field haiku – explaining the underlying principles of the universe in fourteen syllables – which the P.R.O.J.E.C.T. G–Type philosopher from issue 4 had dedicated his entire life to composing!

You may notice also that the Labors take place over a year – with the solar hero’s descent into the darkness and cold of the Underverse occurring at midwinter/Christmas time (that’s also the only point in the story where we ever see Metropolis at night).

It can also be seen as the sun’s journey over the course of a day – we open in blazing sunshine but halfway through the book, at the end of issue #5, in fact, the solar hero dips below the horizon and begins the night–journey through the hours of darkness and death, before his triumphant resurrection at dawn. That’s why issue 5 ends with the boat to the Underworld and 6 begins with the moon. Clark Kent is crossing the threshold into the subconscious world of memory, shadows, death and deep emotions.

Although they can often have bizarre resonances, specific elements, like the Station Café, are usually put there by Frank Quitely, and are not necessarily secret Dan Brown–style keys to unlocking the mysteries. I think there might be a Station Café opposite the studio where Frank Quitely works and the “SAPIEN” sign on another storefront is a reference to Frank’s studio mate, Dave Sapien. At least he’s not filling the background with dirty words like he used to, given any opportunity

NRAMA: For that matter, do the Twelve Labors matter at all? They seem so purposely ill–defined. They seem more like misdirection or a MacGuffin than anything that needs to be clearly delineated.

GM: They matter, of course, but the 12 Labors idea is there to show that, as with all myth, the systematic ordering of current events into stories, tales, or legends occurs after the fact.

I’m trying to suggest that only in the future will these particular 12 feats, out of all the others ever, be mythologized as 12 Labors. I suppose I was trying to say something about how people impose meaning upon events in retrospect, and that’s how myth is born. It’s hindsight that provides narrative, structure, meaning and significance to the simple unfolding of events. It’s the backward glance that adds all the capital letters to the list above.

Even Superman isn”t sure how many Labors he’s performed when we see him mulling it over in issue 10.  When you watched it happening, it seemed to be Superman just doing his thing. In the future it’s become THE 12 LABORS OF SUPERMAN!

NRAMA: And on a completely ridiculous note: All–Star Superman is perhaps the most difficult–to–abbreviate comic title since Preacher: Tall in the Saddle. Did you realize this going in?

GM: Going into what? Going into ASS itself? In the sense of how did I feel as I slowly entered ASS for the first time?

It never crossed my mind...

Newsarama: I’d like to know a little more about Leo Quintum and his role in the story. He seems like a bit of an outgrowth of the likes of Project Cadmus and Emil Hamilton, but in a more fantastical, Willy Wonka sense.

Grant Morrison: Yeah, he was exactly as you say, my attempt to create an updated take on the character of “Superman’s scientist friend” – in the vein of Emil Hamilton from the animated show and the ‘90s stories. Science so often goes wrong in Superman stories, and I thought it was important to show the potential for science to go right or to be elevated by contact with Superman’s shining positive spirit.

I was thinking of Quintum as a kind of “Man Who Fell To Earth” character with a mysterious unearthly background. For a while I toyed with the notion that he was some kind of avatar of Lightray of the New Gods, but as All Star developed, that didn’t fit the tone, and he was allowed to simply be himself.

Eventually it just came down to simplicity. Leo Quintum represents the “good” scientific spirit – the rational, enlightened, progressive, utopian kind of scientist I figured Superman might inspire to greatness. It was interesting to me how so many people expected Quintum to turn out bad at the end. It shows how conditioned we are in our miserable, self–loathing, suspicious society to expect the worst of everyone, rather than hope for the best. Or maybe it’s just what we expect from stories.

Having said that, there is indeed a necessary whiff of Lucifer about Quintum. His name, Leo Quintum, conjures images of solar force, lions and lightbringers and he has elements of the classic Trickster figure about him. He even refers to himself as “The Devil Himself” in issue #10.

What he’s doing at the end of the story should, for all its gee–whiz futurity, feel slightly ambiguous, slightly fake, slightly “Hollywood.” Yes, he’s fulfilling Superman’s wishes by cloning an heir to Superman and Lois and inaugurating a Superman dynasty that will last until the end of time – but he’s also commodifying Superman, figuring out how it’s done, turning him into a brand, a franchise, a bigger–and–better “revamp,” the ultimate coming attraction, fresher than fresh, newer than new but familiar too. Quintum has figured out the “formula” for Superman and improved upon it.

And then you can go back to the start of All Star Superman issue #1 and read the “formula” for yourself, condensed into eight words on the first page and then expanded upon throughout the story! The solar journey is an endless circle naturally. A perfect puzzle that is its own solution.

In one way, Quintum could be seen to represent the creative team, simultaneously re–empowering a pure myth with the honest fire of Art...while at the same time shooting a jolt of juice through a concept that sells more “S” logo underpants and towels than it does comic books. All tastes catered!

I have to say that the Willy Wonka thing never crossed my mind until I saw people online make the comparison, which seems quite obvious now. Quintum dresses how I would dress if I was the world’s coolest super–scientist. What’s up with that?

NRAMA: Was Zibarro inspired by the Bizarro World story where the Bizarro–Neanderthal becomes this unappreciated Casanova–type?

GM: Don’t know that one, but it sounds like a scenario I could definitely endorse!

Zibarro started out as a daft name sicked–up by my subconscious mind, which flowered within moments into the must–write idea of an Imperfect Bizarro. What would an imperfect version of an already imperfect being be like?

Zibarro.

NRAMA: I’d like to know more about Zibarro – what’s the significance of his chronicling Bizarro World through poetry?

GM: It’s up to you. I see Zibarro partly as the sensitive teenager inside us all. He’s moody, horribly self–aware and uncomfortable, yet filled with thoughts of omnipotence and agency. He’s the absolute center of his tiny, disorganized universe. He’s playing the role of sensitive, empathic poet but at the same time, he’s completely self–absorbed.

When he says to Superman “Can you even imagine what it’s like to be so different. So unique. So unlike everyone else?” he doesn’t even wait for Superman’s reply. He doesn’t care about anyone’s feelings but his own, ultimately.

NRAMA: The character is very close to Superman, so what does it say that a nonpowered version on a savage world would focus his energy through that medium? Also, does Zibarro’s existence show how Superman is able to elevate even the backwards Bizarros through his very nature?

GM: All of the above. And maybe he writes his totally subjective poetry as a reflection of Clark Kent’s objective reporter role. The suppressed, lyrical, wounded side of Superman perhaps? The Super–Morrissey? Bizarro With The Thorn In His Side?

But he’s also Bizarro–Home’s “mistake” (or so it seems to him, even though he’s as natural an expression of the place as any of the other Bizarro creatures who grow like mold across the surface of their living planet). He feels excluded, a despised outsider, and yet that position is what defines his cherished self–image. He expresses himself through poetry because to him the regular Bizarro language is barbaric, barely articulate and guttural. And they all think he’s talking crap anyway.

It seemed to make sense that an interesting opposite of Bizarro speech might be flowery “woe is me” school Poetry Society odes to the sunset in a misunderstood heart. He’s still a Bizarro though, which makes him ineffectual. His tragedy is that he knows he’s fated to be useless and pointless but craves so much more.

NRAMA: Zibarro also represents a recurrent theme in the story, of Superman constantly facing alternate versions of himself – Bar–El, Samson and Atlas, the Superman Squad, even Luthor by the end. Notably, Hercules is absent, though Superman’s doing his Twelve Labors. With the mythological adventurers in particular, was this designed to equate Superman with their legend, to show how his character is greater than theirs, or both?

GM: In a way, I suppose. He did arm–wrestle them both, proving once and for all Superman’s stronger than anybody! And remember, these characters, along with Hercules, used to appear regularly in Superman books as his rivals. I thought they made better rivals than, say, Majestic or Ultraman because people who don’t read comics have heard of Hercules, Samson and Atlas and understand what they represent.

For that particular story, I wanted to see Superman doing tough guy shit again, like he did in the early days and then again in the 70s, when he was written as a supremely cocky macho bastard for a while. I thought a little bit of that would be an antidote to the slightly soppy, Super–Christ portrayal that was starting to gain ground.

Hence Samson’s broken arm, twisted in two directions beyond all repair. And Atlas in the hospital. And then Superman’s got his hot girlfriend dressed like a girl from Krypton and they’re making out on the moon (the original panel description was of something more like the famous shot of Burt Lancaster and Deborah Kerr kissing in the surf from “From Here To Eternity.” Frank’s final choice of composition is much more classically pulp–romantic and iconic than my down and dirty rumble in the moondirt would have been, I’m glad to say).

Newsarama: Tell us about some of the thinking behind the new antagonists you created for this series (at least the ones you want to talk about...): First up: Krull and the Subterranosaurs...

Grant Morrison: We wanted to create some throwaway new characters which would be designed to look as if they were convincing long–term elements of the Superman legend.

We were trying to create a few foes who had a classic feel and a solid backstory that could be explored again or in depth. Even if we never went back to these characters, we wanted them to seem rich enough to carry their own stories.

With Krull, we figured a superhuman character like Superman can always use a powerful “sub–human” opponent: a beast, a monster, a savage with the power to destroy civilization. For years I’ve had the idea that the familiar “gray aliens” might “actually” be evolved biped dinosaur descendants, the offspring of smart–thinking lizards which made their way to the warm regions at the Earth’s core.

I imagined these brutes developing their own technology, their own civilization, and then finally coming to the surface to declare bloody war on the mammalian usurpers! It seemed like we could develop this idea into the Krull backstory and suggest a whole epic conflict in a few panels.

Dom Regan, the Glasgow artist and DC colorist, saw the original green skin Jamie Grant had done for Krull, and suggested we make him red instead. Jamie reset his color filters and that was the moment Krull suddenly looked like a real Superman foe.

The red skin marked him out as unique, different and dangerous, even among his own species. It had echoes of Jack Kirby’s Devil Dinosaur that played right into the heart of the concept. A good design became a great design and the whole story of who Krull was – his twisted relationship with his father the Dino–Czar, his monstrous ambitions – came together in that first picture.

The society was fleshed out in the script even though we see only one panel of it – a gloomy, heavy, “Soviet” underworld of walled iron cities, cold blood and deadly intrigue. War–Barges that could sail on the oceans of heated steam at the center of the Earth. A Stalinist authoritarian lizard world where missing person cases were being taken to work and die as slaves in hellish underworld conditions.

NRAMA: Mechano–Man?

GM: An attempt to pre–imagine a classic, archetypal Superman foe, which started with another simple premise – how about a giant robot villain? But not just any giant robot – this is a rampaging machine with a raging little man inside.

Giving him a bitter, angry, scrawny loser as a pilot turned Mechano–Man into a much more extreme and pathological expression of the Man of Steel/Mild–Mannered Reporter dynamic, and added a few interesting layers onto an 8–panel appearance.

NRAMA: The Chronovore – a very disturbing creation, that one.

GM: The Chronovore was mentioned in passing in DC 1,000,000 and would have been the monster in my aborted Hypercrisis series idea. It took a long time to get the right design for the beast because it’s meant to be a 5–D being that we only ever see in 4–D sections. It had to work as a convincing representation of something much bigger that we’re seeing only where it interpenetrates our 4–D space-time continuum.

Imagine you’re walking along with a song in your teenage heart, then suddenly the Chronovore appears, takes bite out of your life, and you arrive at your girlfriend’s house aged 76, clutching a cell phone and a wilted bouquet.

NRAMA: One more obscure run that I was happy to see referenced in this was the use of Nasty from the old Mike Sekowsky Supergirl stories. What made you want to use this character?

GM: I remembered her from the old comics, and felt her fashion–y look could be updated very easily into the kind of fetish club thing I’ve always been partial to.

She seemed a cool and sexy addition to the Luthor plot. The set–up, where Lex has a fairly normal sister who hates how her wayward brother is such a bad influence on her brilliant daughter, is explosive with character potential.

They need to bring Nasty back to mainstream continuity. Geoff! They all want it and you know you never let them down!

NRAMA: Speaking of Mike Sekowsky, I’m curious about his influence on your work. I have an odd fascination with all the ideas and stories he was tossing around in the late 1960s and early 1970s – Jason’s Quest, Manhunter 2070, the I–Ching tales – and many of the characters he worked on, from the B”Wana Beast to the Inferior Five to Yankee Doodle (in Doom Patrol), have shown up in your work. The Bizarro Zoo in issue #10 is even slightly reminiscent of the Beast’s merged animals.

GM: Those were all comics that were around when I was a normal kid, prior to the obsessive collecting fan phase of my isolated teenage years. They clearly inspired me in some way, as you say, but certainly not consciously. I’d never have considered myself a particular fan of Mike Sekowsky’s work, but as you say, I’ve incorporated a lot of his ideas into the DC Universe work I’ve done. Hmm. Interesting.

While I’m at it, I should also say something about Samson and Atlas, halfway between old characters and new.

Samson, Atlas and Hercules were classical mainstays of old Superman covers, tangling with Superman in all those Silver Age stories that happened before he learned from his friends at Marvel that it was possible to fight other superheroes for fun and profit, so I decided to completely “re–vamp” the characters in the manner of superhero franchises. Marvel has the definitive Hercules for me, so I left him out of the mix and concentrated on Atlas and Samson.

Atlas was re–imagined as a mighty but restless and reckless young prince of the New Mythos – a society of mega–beings playing out their archetypal dramas between New Elysium and Hadia, with ordinary people caught in the middle – and Superman.

Essentially good–hearted, Atlas would have been the newbie in a “team” with Skyfather Xaoz!, Heroina, Marzak and the others. He has a bullish, adolescent approach to life. He drinks and plunges himself into ill–advised adventures to ease his naturally gloomy “weighed down by the world” temperament.

You can see it all now. The backstory suggested an unseen, Empyrean New Gods–type series from a parallel universe. What if, when Jack Kirby came to DC from Marvel in 1971, he’d followed up his sci–fi Viking Gods saga at Marvel, with a dimension–spanning epic rooted in Greek mythology? New Gods meets Eternals drawn by Curt Swan/Murphy Anderson? That was Atlas.

Samson, I decided would be a callback to the British newspaper strip “Garth.” Although you may already be imagining a daily strip about the exploits of time–tossed The Boys writer, Garth Ennis, it was actually about a blonde Adonis type who bounced around the ages having mildly horny, racy adventures.

(Go look him up then return the wiser before reading on, so I don’t have to explain anymore about this bastard – he’s often described as “the British Superman,” but oh...my arse! I hated meathead, personality–singularity Garth...but we all grew up with his meandering, inexplicable yet incredibly–drawn adventures and some of it was quite good when you were a little lad because he was always shagging ON PANEL with the likes of a bare–breasted cave girl or gauze–draped Helen of Troy.

(Unlike Superman, you see, the top British strongman liked to get naked. Lots naked. Naked in every time period he could get naked in, which was all of them thanks to the miracle of his bullshit powers.

(Imagine Doctor Who buff, dumb and naked all the time – Russell, I’ve had an idea!!!! – and that’s Garth in a nutshell.

(Sorry, I know I’m going on and the average attention span of anyone reading stuff on the Internet amounts to no more than a few paragraphs, but basically, Garth was always getting naked. In public, in family newspapers. Bollock naked. Let’s face it, patriotic Americans, have you ever seen Superman’s arse?

Newsarama Note: Well, there was Baby Kal-El in the 1978 film...

(Brits, hands up who still remember the man, and have you ever not seen Garth’s arse? Do you not, in fact, have a very clear image of it in your head, as drawn by Martin Asbury perhaps? In mine, Garth’s pulling aside a flimsy curtain to gaze at the pyramids with Cleopatra buck naked in foreground ogling his rock hard glutes...).

Anyway, Samson, I decided, was the Hebrew version of Garth and he would have his own mad comic that was like an American version of Garth. I saw the Bible hero plucked from the desert sands by time–travelling buffoons in search of a savior. Introduced to all the worst aspects of future culture and, using his stolen, erratic Chrono–Mobile, Samson became a time–(and space) traveling Soldier of Fortune, writing wrongs, humping princesses, accumulating and losing treasure etc. Like a science fiction Conan. Meets Garth.

Fortunately, you’ll never see any of these men ever again.

Newsarama: How have your perceptions of Superman and his supporting characters evolved since the Superman 2000 pitch you did with Mark Waid, Mark Millar and Tom Peyer? The Superman notions seem almost identical, but Luthor is very different here than in that pitch, and so is Clark Kent. Did you use some aspects of your original pitch, or have you just changed his mind on how to portray these characters since?

Grant Morrison: A little of both. I wanted to approach All Star Superman as something new, but there were a couple of specific aspects from the Superman 2000 pitch (as I mentioned earlier, it was actually called Superman Now, at least in my notebooks, which is where the bulk of the material came from) that I felt were definitely worth keeping and exploring.

I can’t remember much about Luthor from Superman Now, except for the ending. By the time I got to All Star Superman, I’d developed a few new insights into Luthor’s character that seemed to flesh him out more. Luthor’s really human and charismatic and hateful all the same time. He’s the brilliant, deluded egotist in all of us. The key for me was the idea that he draws his eyebrows on. The weird vanity of that told me everything I needed to know about Luthor.

I thought the real key to him was the fact that, brilliant as he is, Luthor is nowhere near as brilliant as he wants to be or thinks he is. For Luthor, no praise, no success, no achievement is ever enough, because there’s a big hungry hole in his soul. His need for acknowledgement and validation is superhuman in scale. Superman needs no thanks; he does what he does because he’s made that way. Luthor constantly rails against his own sense of failure and inadequacy...and Superman’s to blame, of course.

I’ve recently been re–thinking Luthor again for a different project, and there’s always a new aspect of the character to unearth and develop.

NRAMA: This story makes Superman and Lois’ relationship seem much more romantic and epic than usual, but this one also makes Superman more of the pursuer. Lois seems like more of an equal, but also more wary of his affections, particularly in the black–and–white sequence in issue #2.

She becomes this great beacon of support for him over the course of the series, but there is a sense that she’s a bit jaded from years of trickery and uncomfortable with letting him in now that he’s being honest. How, overall, do you see the relationship between Superman and Lois?

GM: The black-and-white panels shows Lois paranoid and under the influence of an alien chemical, but yes, she’s articulating many of her very real concerns in that scene.

I wanted her to finally respond to all those years of being tricked and duped and led to believe Superman and Clark Kent were two different people. I wanted her to get her revenge by finally refusing to accept the truth.

It also exposed that brilliant central paradox in the Superman/Lois relationship. The perfect man who never tells a lie has to lie to the woman he loves to keep her safe. And he lives with that every day. It’s that little human kink that really drives their relationship.

NRAMA: Jimmy Olsen is extremely cool in this series – it’s the old “Mr. Action” idea taken to a new level. It’s often easy to write Jimmy as a victim or sycophant, but in this series, he comes off as someone worthy of being “Superman’s Pal” – he implicitly trusts Superman, and will take any risk to get his story. Do you see this version of Jimmy as sort of a natural evolution of the version often seen in the comics?

GM: It was a total rethink based on the aspects of Olsen I liked, and playing down the whole wet–behind–the–ears “cub reporter” thing. I borrowed a little from the “Mr. Action” idea of a more daredevil, pro–active Jimmy, added a little bit of Nathan Barley, some Abercrombie & Fitch style, a bit of Tintin, and a cool Quitely haircut.

Jimmy was renowned for his “disguises” and bizarre transformations (my favorite is the transvestite Olsen epic “Miss Jimmy Olsen” from Jimmy Olsen #95, which gets a nod on the first page of our Jimmy story we did), so I wanted to take that aspect of his appeal and make it part of his job.

I don’t like victim Jimmy or dumb Jimmy, because those takes on the character don’t make any sense in their context. It seemed more interesting see what a young man would be like who could convincingly be Superman’s “pal.” Someone whose company a Superman might actually enjoy. That meant making Jimmy a much bigger character: swaggering but ingenuous. Innocent yet worldly. Enthusiastic but not stupid.

My favorite Jimmy moment is in issue #7 when he comes up with the way to defeat the Bizarro invasion by using the seas of the Bizarro planet itself as giant mirrors to reflect toxic – to Bizarros – sunlight onto the night side of the Earth. He knows Superman can actually take crazy lateral thinking like this and put it into practice.

NRAMA: Perry White has a few small–but–key scenes, particularly his address to his staff in issue #1 and standing up to Luthor in issue #12. I’d like to hear more about your thoughts on this character.

GM: As with the others, my feelings are there on the page. Perry is Clark’s boss and need only be that and not much more to play his role perfectly well within the stories. He’s a good reminder that Superman has a job and a boss, unlike that good–for–nothing work-shy bastard Batman. Perry’s another of the series’ older male role models of integrity and steadfastness, like Pa Kent.

NRAMA: There’s a sense in the Daily Planet scenes and with Lois’s spotlight issues that everyone knows Clark is Superman, but they play along to humor him. The Clark disguise comes off as very obvious in this story. Do you feel that the Planet staff knows the truth, or are just in a very deep case of denial, like Lex?

GM: If I had to say for sure, I think Jimmy Olsen worked it out a long time ago, and simply presumes that if Superman has a good reason for what he’s doing, that’s good enough for Jimmy.

Lois has guessed, but refuses to acknowledge it because it exposes her darkest flaw – she could never love Clark Kent the way she loves Superman.

NRAMA: Also, the Planet staff seems awfully nonchalant at Luthor’s threats. Are they simply used to being attacked by now?

GM: Yes. They’re a tough group. They also know that Superman makes a point of looking out for them, so they naturally try to keep Luthor talking. They know he loves to talk about himself and about Superman. In that scene, he’s almost forgotten he even has powers, he’s so busy arguing and making points. He keeps doing ordinary things instead of extraordinary things.

NRAMA: The running gag of Clark subtly using his powers to protect unknowing people is well done, but I have to admit I was confused by the sequence near the end of issue #1. Was that an el–train, and if so, why was it so close to the ground?

GM: It’s a MagLev hover–train. Look again, and you’ll see it’s not supported by anything. Hover–trains help ease congestion in busy city streets! Metropolis is the City of Tomorrow, after all.

NRAMA: And there’s the death of Pa Kent. Why do you feel it’s particularly important to have Pa and not both of the Kents pass away?

GM: I imagined they had both passed away fairly early in Superman’s career, but Ma went a few years after Pa. Also, because the book was about men or man, it seemed important to stress the father/son relationships. That circle of life, the king is dead, long live the king thing that Superman is ultimately too big and too timeless to succumb to.

NRAMA: There is a real touch of Elliott S! Maggin’s novels in your depiction of Luthor – someone who is just so obsessive–compulsive about showing up Superman that he accomplishes nothing in his own life. He comes across as a showman, from his rehearsed speech in issue #1 to his garish costume in the last two issues, and it becomes painfully apparent that he wants to usurp Superman because he just can’t be happy with himself. What defeats him is actually a beautiful gift, getting to see the world as Superman does, and finally understanding his enemy.

That’s all a lead–in to: What previous stories that defined Luthor for you, and how did you define his character? What appeals to you about writing him?

GM: The Marks Waid and Millar were big fans of the Maggin books, and may have persuaded me to read at least the first one but I’m ashamed to say can’t remember anything about it, other than the vague recollection of a very humane, humanist take on Superman that seemed in general accord with the pacifist, hedonistic, between–the–wars spirit of the ‘90s when I read it. It was the ‘90s; I had other things on my mind and in my mind.

I like Maggin’s “Must There Be A Superman?” from Superman #247, which ultimately poses questions traditional superhero comic books are not equipped to answer and is one of the first paving stones in the Yellow Brick Road that leads to Watchmen and beyond, to The Authority, The Ultimates etc. Everyone still awake, still reading this, should make themselves familiar with “Must There Be A Superman?” – it’s a milestone in the development of the superhero concept.

However, the story that most defines Luthor for me turns out to be, as usual, a Len Wein piece with Curt Swan/Murphy Anderson– Superman #248. This blew me away when I was a kid. Lex Luthor cares about humanity? He’s sorry we all got blown up? The villain loves us too? It’s only Superman he really hates? Genius. Big, cool adult stuff.

The divine Len makes Lex almost too human, but it was amazing to see this kind of depth in a character I’d taken for granted as a music hall villain.

I also love the brutish Satanic, Crowley–esque, Golden Age Luthor in the brilliant “Powerstone” Action Comics #47 (the opening of All Star #11 is a shameless lift from “Powerstone”, as I soon realised when I went back to look. Blame my...er...photographic memory...cough).

And I like the Silver Age Luthor who only hates Superman because he thinks it’s Superboy’s fault he went bald. That was the most genuinely human motivation for Luthor’s career of villainy of all; it was Superman’s fault he went bald! I can get behind that.

In the Silver Age, baldness, like obesity, old age and poverty, was seen quite rightly as a crippling disease and a challenge which Superman and his supporting cast would be compelled to overcome at every opportunity! Suburban “50s America versus Communist degeneracy? You tell me.

I like elements of the Marv Wolfman/John Byrne ultra–cruel and rapacious businessman, although he somewhat lacks the human dimension (ultimately there’s something brilliant about Luthor being a failed inventor, a product of Smallville/Dullsville – the genius who went unnoticed in his lifetime, and resorted to death robots in chilly basements and cellars. Luthor as geek versus world). I thought Alan Moore’s ruthlessly self–assured “consultant” Luthor in Swamp Thing was an inspired take on the character as was Mark Waid’s rage–driven prodigy from Birthright.

I tried to fold them all into one portrayal. I see him as a very human character – Superman is us at our best, Luthor is us when we’re being mean, vindictive, petty, deluded and angry. Among other things. It’s like a bipolar manic/depressive personality – with optimistic, loving Superman smiling at one end of the scale and paranoid, petty Luthor cringing on the other.

I think any writer of Superman has to love these two enemies equally. We have to recognize them both as potentials within ourselves. I think it’s important to find yourself agreeing with Luthor a bit about Superman’s “smug superiority” – we all of us, except for Superman, know what it’s like to have mean–spirited thoughts like that about someone else’s happiness. It’s essential to find yourself rooting for Lex, at least a little bit, when he goes up against a man–god armed only with his bloody–minded arrogance and cleverness.

Even if you just wish you could just give him a hug and help him channel his energies in the right direction, Luthor speaks for something in all of us, I like to think.

However he’s played, Luthor is the male power fantasy gone wrong and turned sour. You’ve got everything you want but it’s not enough because someone has more, someone is better, someone is cleverer or more handsome.

Newsarama: Grant, a recurring theme throughout the book is the effect of small kindness – how even the likes of Steve Lombard are capable of decency. And Superman gets the key to saving himself by doing something that any human being could do, offering sympathy to a person about to end it all.

Grant Morrison: Completely...the person you help today could be the person who saves your life tomorrow.

NRAMA: The character actions that make the biggest difference, from Zibarro’s sacrifice to Pa’s influence on Superman, are really things that any normal, non-powered person could do if they embrace the best part of their humanity. The last page of issue #12 teases the idea that Superman’s powers could be given to all mankind, but it seems as though the greatest gift he has given them is his humanity. How do you view Superman’s fate in the context of where humanity could go as a species?

GM: I see Superman in this series as an Enlightenment figure, a Renaissance idea of the ideal man, perfect in mind, body and intention.

A key text in all of this is Pico’s ‘Oration On The Dignity of Man’ (15c), generally regarded as the ‘manifesto’ of Renaissance thought, in which Giovanni Pico Della Mirandola laid out the fundamentals of what we tend to refer to as ’Humanist’ thinking.

(The ‘Oratorio’ also turns up in my British superhero series Zenith from 1987, which may indicate how long I’ve been working towards a Pico/Superman team-up!)

At its most basic, the ‘Oratorio’ is telling us that human beings have the unique ability, even the responsibility, to live up to their ‘ideals’. It would be unusual for a dog to aspire to be a horse, a bird to bark like a dog, or a horse to want to wear a diving suit and explore the Barrier Reef, but people have a particular gift for and inclination towards imitation, mimicry and self-transformation. We fly by watching birds and then making metal carriers that can outdo birds, we travel underwater by imitating fish, we constantly look to role models and behavioral templates for guidance, even when those role models are fictional TV or, comic, novel or movie heroes, just like the soft, quick, shapeshifty little things we are. We can alter the clothes we wear, the temperature around us, and change even our own bodies, in order to colonize or occupy previously hostile environments. We are, in short, a distinctively malleable and adaptable bunch.

So, Pico is saying, if we live by imitation, does it not make sense that we might choose to imitate the angels, the gods, the very highest form of being that we can imagine? Instead of indulging the most brutish, vicious, greedy and ignorant aspects of the human experience, we can, with a little applied effort, elevate the better part of our natures and work to express those elements through our behavior. To do so would probably make us all feel a whole lot better too. Doing good deeds and making other people happy makes you feel totally brilliant, let’s face it.

So we can choose to the astronaut or the gangster. The superhero or the super villain. The angel or the devil. It’s entirely up to us, particularly in the privileged West, how we choose to imagine ourselves and conduct our lives.

We live in the stories we tell ourselves. It’s really simple. We can continue to tell ourselves and our children that the species we belong to is a crawling, diseased, viral cancer smear, only fit for extinction, and let’s see where that leads us.

We can continue to project our self-loathing and narcissistic terror of personal mortality onto our culture, our civilization, our planet, until we wreck the promise of the world for future generations in a fit of sheer self-induced panic...

...or we can own up to the scientific fact that we are all physically connected as parts of a single giant organism, imagine better ways to live and grow...and then put them into practice. We can stop pissing about, start building starships, and get on with the business of being adults.

The ’Oratorio’ is nothing less than the Shazam!, the Kimota! for Western Culture and we would do well to remember it in our currently trying times.

The key theme of the ‘Dark Age’ of comics was loss and recovery of wonder - McGregor’s Killraven trawling through the apocalyptic wreckage of culture in his search for poetry, meaning and fellowship, Captain Mantra, amnesiac in Robert Mayer’s Superfolks, Alan Moore’s Mike Maxwell trudging through the black and white streets of Thatcher’s Britain, with the magic word of transformation burning on the tip of his tongue.

My own work has been an ongoing attempt to repeat the magic word over and over until we all become the kind of superheroes we’d all like to be. Ha hah ha.

Newsarama: The structure of the 12 issues involves both Superman’s 12 labors and his impending death. Do you feel the threat of his demise brings out the best in Superman’s already–high character, or did you intend it more as a window for the audience to understand how he sees the world?

Grant Morrison: In trying to do the “big,” ultimate Superman story, we wanted to hit on all the major beats that define the character – the “death of Superman” story has been told again and again and had to be incorporated into any definitive take. Superman’s death and rebirth fit the sun god myth we were establishing, and, as you say, it added a very terminal ticking clock to the story.

NRAMA: When we talked earlier this year, we discussed the neurotic quality of the Silver Age stories. Looking at the series as a whole, you consistently invert this formula. Superman is faced with all these crises that could be seen as personifying his neuroses, but for the most part he handles them with a level head and comes across as being very at peace with himself. You talked about your discussion with an in–character Superman fan at a convention years ago, but I am curious as to how you determined Superman’s mindset.

GM: I felt we had to live up to the big ideas behind Superman. I don’t take my daft job lightly. It’s all I’ve got.

As the project got going, I wasn’t thinking about Silver Ages or Dark Ages or anything about the comics I’d read, so much as the big shared idea of “Superman” and that “S” logo I see on T–shirts everywhere I go, on girls and boys. That communal Superman. I wanted us to get the precise energy of Platonic Superman down on the page.

The “S” hieroglyph, the super–sigil, stands for the very best kind of man we can imagine, so the subject dictated the methodical, perfectionist approach. As I’ve mentioned before, I keep this aspect of my job fresh for myself by changing my writing style to suit the project, the character or the artist.

With something like Batman R.I.P., I’m aiming for a frenzied Goth Pulp-Noir; punk-psych, expressionist shadows and jagged nightmare scene shifts, inspired by Batman’s roots and by the snapping, fluttering of his uncanny cape. Final Crisis was written, with the Norse Ragnarok and Biblical Revelations in mind, as a story about events more than characters. A doom-laden, Death Metal myth for the wonderful world of Fina(ncia)l Crisis/Eco-breakdown/Terror Trauma we all have to live in.

The subject matter drives the execution. And then, of course, the artists add their own vision and nuance. With All Star Superman, “Frank” and I were able to spend a lot of time together talking it through, and we agreed it had to be about grids, structure, storybook panel layouts, an elegance of form, a clarity of delivery. “Classical” in every sense of the word. The medium, the message, the story, the character, all working together as one simple equation.

Frank Quitely, a Glasgow Art School boy, completely understood without much explanation, the deep structural underpinnings of the series and how to embody them in his layouts. There’s a scene in issue # 8, set on the Bizarro world, where we see Le Roj handing Superman his rocket plans. Look at the arrangement of the figures of Zibarro, Le Roj, Superman and Bizaro–Superman and you’ll see one attempt to make us of Renaissance compositions.

The sense of sunlit Zen calm we tried to get into All Star is how I imagine it might feel to think the way Superman thinks all the time - a thought process that is direct, clean, precise, mathematical, ordered. A mind capable of fantastical imagination but grounded in the everyday of his farm upbringing with nice decent folks. Rich with humour and tears and deep human significance, yet tuned to a higher key. We tried to hum along for a little while, that’s all.

In honor of the character’s primal position in the development of the superhero narrative, I hoped we could create an “ultimate” hero story, starring the ultimate superhero.

Basically, I suppose I felt Superman deserved the utmost application of our craft and intelligence in order to truly do him justice.

Otherwise, I couldn’t have written this book if I hadn’t watched my big, brilliant dad decline into incoherence and death. I couldn’t have written it if I’d never had my heart broken, or mended. I couldn’t have written it if I hadn’t known what it felt like to be idolized, misunderstood, hated for no clear reason, loved for all my faults, forgotten, remembered...

Writing All Star Superman was, in retrospect, also a way of keeping my mind in the clean sunshine while plumbing the murkiest depths of the imagination with that old pair of c****s Darkseid and Doctor Hurt. Good riddance.

Newsarama: This is touched on in other questions, but how much of the Silver/Bronze Age backstory matters here? What do you see as Superman's life prior to All-Star Superman? (What was going on with this Superman while the Byrne revamp took hold?)

Grant Morrison: When I introduced the series in an interview online, I suggested that All Star Superman could be read as the adventures of the ‘original’ Pre-Crisis on Infinite Earths Superman, returning after 20 plus years of adventures we never got to see because we were watching John Byrne‘s New Superman on the other channel. If ‘Whatever Happened To The Man of Tomorrow?’ and the Byrne reboot had never happened, where would that guy be now?

This was more to provide a sense, probably limited and ill-considered, of what the tone of the book might be like. I never intended All Star Superman as a direct continuation of the Weisinger or Julius Schwartz-era Superman stories. The idea was always to create another new version of Superman using all my favorite elements of past stories, not something ‘Age’ specific.

I didn’t collect Superman comics until the ‘70s and I’m not interested enough in pastiche or nostalgia to spend 6 years of my life playing post-modern games with Superman. All Star isn’t written, drawn or colored to look or read like a Silver Age comic book.

All Star Superman is not intended as arch commentary on continuity or how trends in storytelling have changed over the decades. It’s not retro or meta or anything other than its own simple self; a piece of drawing and writing that is intended by its makers to capture the spirit of its subject to the best of their capabilities, wisdom and talent.

Which is to say, we wanted our Superman story be about life, not about comics or superheroes, current events or politics. It’s about how it feels, specifically to be a man...in our dreams! Hopefully that means our 12 issues are also capable of wide interpretation.

So as much as we may have used a few recognizable Silver Age elements like Van-Zee and Sylv(i)a and the Bottle City of Kandor, the ensemble Daily Planet cast embodies all the generations of Superman. Perry White is from 1940, Steve Lombard is from the Schwartz-era ‘70s, Ron Troupe - the only black man in Metropolis - appeared in 1991. Cat Grant is from 1987 and so on.

P.R.O.J.E.C.T. refers back to Jack Kirby’s DNA Project from his ‘70s Jimmy Olsen stories, as well as to The Cadmus Project from ’90s Superboy and Superman stories. Doomsday is ‘90s. Kal Kent, Solaris and the Infant Universe of Qwewq all come from my own work on Superman in the same decade. Pa Kent’s heart attack is from ‘Superman the Movie‘. We didn’t use Brainiac because he’d been the big bad in Earth 2 but if we had, we’d have used Brainiac’s Kryptonian origin from the animated series and so on.

I also used quite a few elements of John Byrne’s approach. Byrne made a lot of good decisions when he rebooted the whole franchise in 1986 and I wanted to incorporate as much as I could of those too.

Our Superman in All Star was never Superboy, for instance. All Star Superman landed on Earth as a normal, if slightly stronger and fitter infant, and only began to manifest powers in adolescence when he’d finally soaked up enough yellow solar radiation to trigger his metamorphosis.

The Byrne logic seemed to me a better way to explain how his powers had developed across the decades, from the skyscraper leaps of the early days to the speed-of-light space flight of the high Silver Age. And more importantly, it made the Superman myth more poignant - the story of a farm boy who turned into an alien as he reached adolescence. I felt that was something that really enriched Superman. He grew away from his home, his family, his adopted species as he became Superman. His teenage years are a record of his transformation from normal boy to super-being.

As you say, there are more than just Silver Age influences in the book. Basically we tried to create a perfect synthesis of every Superman era. So much so, that it should just be taken as representative of an ‘age’ all its own.

In the end, however, I do think that the Silver Age type stories, with their focus on human problems and foibles, have a much wider appeal than a lot of the work which followed. They’re more like fables or folk tales than the later ‘comic book superhero’ stories of Superman when he became just another colorful costume in the crowd...and perhaps that’s why All Star seemed to resemble those books more than it does a typical modern Marvel or DC comic. It was our intention to present a more universal, mainstream Superman.

NRAMA: In your depiction of Krypton and the Kryptonians, you show the complexity of Superman’s relationship between humanity and Earth even further. Krypton has that scientific paradise quality to it, but the Kryptonians are also portrayed as slightly aloof and detached, even Jor-El. But from Bar-El to the people of Kandor, they’re touched by Superman’s goodness. What do you see as the fundamental difference between Kryptonians and Earthlings, and how has Superman’s character been shaped by each?

GM: My version of Krypton was, again, synthesized from a number of different approaches over the decades.  In mythic terms, if Superman is the story of a young king, found and raised by common people, then Krypton is the far distant kingdom he lost. It’s the secret bloodline, the aristocratic heritage that makes him special, and a hero. At the same time, Krypton is something that must be left behind for Superman to become who he is - i.e. one of us. Krypton gives him his scientific clarity of mind, Earth makes his heart blaze.

I liked the very early Jerry Siegel descriptions where Krypton is a planet of advanced supermen and women (I already played with that a little in Marvel Boy where Noh-Varr was written to be the Marvel Superboy basically). To that, I added the rich, science fiction detailing of the Silver Age Krypton stories and the slightly detached coolness that characterized John Byrne’s Krypton, which I re-interpreted through the lens of Dzogchen Buddhist thought, probably the most pragmatic, chilly and rational philosophic system on the planet and the closest, I felt, to how Kryptonians might see things.

We also took some time to redesign the crazy, multicolored Kryptonian flag (you can see our version in Kandor in issue #10). The flag, as originally imagined, seemed like the last thing Kryptonians would endorse, so we took the multicolored-rays-around-a-circle design and recreated it - the central circle is now red, representing Krypton’s star, Rao, while the rays, rather than arbitrary colors, become representations of the spectrum of visible light pouring from Rao into the inky black of space. In this way, the flag, that bizarre emblem of nationalism becomes a scientific hieroglyph.

Showing Krypton and Kryptonians was also important as a way of stressing why Superman wears that costume and why it makes absolute sense that he looks the way he does. I don’t see the red and blue suit as a flag or as rewoven baby blankets. There’s no need for Superman to dress the way he does but it made sense to think of his outfit as his ‘national costume‘.

The way I see it, the standard superhero outfit, the familiar Superman suit with the pants on the outside, is what everyone wore on Krypton, give or take a few fashion accessories like hoods and headbands, chest crests and variant colors. In fact, all other superheroes are just copying the fashions on Krypton, lost planet of the super-people.

Superman wears his ’action-suit’ the way a patriotic Scotsman would wear a kilt. It’s a sign of his pride in his alien heritage.

Newsarama: Although All–Star Superman ties in with DC One Million, you style of writing has changed dramatically since then. How do you feel about One Million now?

Grant Morrison: I just read it again and liked it a lot. Comics were definitely happier, breezier and more confident in their own strengths before Hollywood and the Internet turned the business of writing superhero stories into the production of low budget storyboards or, worse, into conformist, fruitless attempts to impress or entertain a small group of people who appear to hate comics and their creators.

NRAMA: Obviously, this book is the most explicit SF–Christ story since Behold the Man, only...happy. Superman/Christ parallels have existed for decades, but this story makes it absolutely explicit, from laying his hands on the sick and dying to...well, most of issue #12. You’ve dealt with Christ themes before, particularly in The Mystery Play, but outside of the comics, how do you see Superman as a Christ figure for the “real” world?

GM: The “Superman as Christ” thing is a little too reductive for me, and tends to overlook the fact that Superman is by no means a pacifist in the Christ sense. Superman would never turn the other cheek; Superman punches out the bully. Superman is a fighter.

When did Christ ever batter the Devil through a mountain?

The thing I disliked about the Superman Returns movie was the American Christ angle, which reduced Superman to a sniveling, masochistic wreck, crawling around on the floor, taking a kicking from everyone. This approach had an odd and slightly disturbing S&M flavor, which didn’t play well to the character’s strengths at all and seemed to derive entirely from a kind of Catholic vision of the suffering, martyred Jesus.

It’s not that he’s based on Jesus, but simply that a lot of the mythical sun god elements that have been layered onto the Christ story also appear in the story of Superman. I suppose I see Superman more as pagan sci–fi. He’s a secular messiah, a science redeemer with tough guy muscles and a very direct and clear morality.

NRAMA: Continuing the religious themes, in issue #10, you have Superman literally giving birth to himself, both philosophically and as a character – a nice little meta–moment showing how Superman inspires a world where he is only fiction. How did that idea come about?

GM: It came from the challenge we’d set ourselves: as I said, issue #10 had been left as a blank space into which the single most coherent condensation of all our ideas about Superman were destined to fit.

I wanted to do a “day in the life” story. So much of All Star had been about this threat to Superman himself, so we wanted to show him going about a typical day saving people and doing good.

Then came the title “Neverending,” which comes from the opening announcement – “Faster than a speeding bullet!...” of the Superman radio show from 1940, and seemed to me to be as good a title for a Superman story as any I could think of. It seemed to distil everything about Superman’s battle and his legend into a single word. And the story structure itself was designed to loop endlessly, so it went well with that.

On top of that went the idea of the Last Will and Testament of Superman. A dying god writing his will seemed like an interesting structure to use. Then came the idea to fit all of human history into that single 24 hours. And then to show the development of the Superman idea through human culture from the earliest Australian Aboriginal notions of super–beings ‘descended” from the sky, through the complex philosophical system of Hinduism, onto the Renaissance concept of the ideal man, via the refinements of Nietzche and finally, down to that smiling, hopeful Joe Shuster sketch; the final embodiment of humanity’s glorious, uplifting notion of the superman become reduced to a drawing, a story for kids, a worthless comic book.

And also what that could mean in a holographic fractal universe, where the smallest part contains and reflects the whole.

Of course the next panel in that sequence is happening in the real world and would show you, the reader, sitting with the latest Superman issue in your hands, deep within the Infant Universe of Qwewq in the Fortress of Solitude, today, wherever you are. In “Neverending,” the reader becomes wrapped in a self–referential loop of story and reality. If you actually, seriously think about what is happening at this point in the story, if you meditate upon the curious entanglement of the real and the fictional, you will become enlightened in this life apparently. According to some texts.

NRAMA: On a personal level, you’ve explored all types of religions and philosophies in your work. What is your take on religion and how it influences humanity, and the Christian take on Jesus Christ in particular?

GM: I think religion per se, is a ghastly blight on the progress of the human species towards the stars. At the same time, it, or something like it, has been an undeniable source of comfort, meaning and hope for the majority of poor bastards who have ever lived on Earth, so I’m not trying to write it off completely. I just wish that more people were educated to a standard where they could understand what religion is and how it works. Yes, it got us through the night for a while, but ultimately, it’s one of those ugly, stupid arse–over–backwards things we could probably do without now, here on the Planet of the Apes.

Religion is to spirituality what porn is to sex. It’s what the Hollywood 3–act story template is to real creative writing.

Religion creates a structure which places “special,” privileged people (priests) between ordinary people and the divine, as if there could even be any separation: as if every moment, every thought, every action was not already an expression of dynamic ‘divinity” at work.

As I’ve said before, the solid world is just the part of heaven we’re privileged to touch and play with. You don’t need a priest or a holy man to talk to “god” on your behalf: just close your eyes and say hello. “God” is no more, no less, than the sum total of all matter, all energy, all consciousness, as experienced or conceptualized from a timeless perspective where everything ever seems to present all at once. “God” is in everything, all the time and can be found there by looking carefully. The entire universe, including the scary, evil bits, is a thought “God” is thinking, right now.

As far as I can figure it out from my own reading and my own experience of how the spiritual world works, Jesus was, as they say, way cool: a man who achieved a state of consciousness, which nowadays would get him a diagnosis of temporal lobe epilepsy (in the days of the Emperor Tiberius, he was crucified for his ideas, today he’d be laughed at, mocked or medicated).

This “holistic” mode of consciousness (which Luthor experiences briefly at the end of All Star Superman) announces itself as a heartbreaking connection, a oneness, with everything that exists...but you don’t have to be Superman to know what that feeling is like. There are a ton of meditation techniques which can take you to this place. I don’t see it as anything supernatural or religious, in fact, I think it’s nothing more than a developmental level of human consciousness, like the ability to see perspective – which children of 4 cannot do but children of 6 can.

Everyone who’s familiar with this upgrade will tell you the same thing: it feels as if “alien” or “angelic” voices – far more intelligent, coherent and kindly than the voices you normally hear in your head – are explaining the structure of time and space and your place in it.  This identification with a timeless supermind containing and resolving within itself all possible thoughts and contradictions, is what many people, unsurprisingly, mistake for an encounter with “God.” However, given that this totality must logically include and resolve all possible thoughts and concepts, it can also be interpreted as an actual encounter with God, so I’m not here to give anyone a hard time over interpretation.

Some people have the experience and believe the God of their particular culture has chosen them personally to have a chat with. These people may become born–again Christians, fundamentalist Muslims, devotees of Shiva, or misunderstood lunatics. Some “contactees” interpret the voices they hear erroneously as communications from an otherworldly, alien intelligence, hence the proliferation of “abduction” accounts in recent decades, which share most of their basic details with similar accounts, from earlier centuries, of people being taken away by “fairies” or “little people”.

Some, who like to describe themselves as magicians, will recognize the “alien” voice as the “Holy Guardian Angel”.

In timeless, spaceless consciousness, the singular human mind blurs into a direct experience of the totality of all consciousness that has ever been or will ever be. It feels like talking with God but I see that as an aspect of science, not religion.

As Peter Barnes wrote in “The Ruling Class”, “I know I must be God because when I pray to Him, I find I’m talking to myself.”

Newsarama: When we spoke earlier this year, you talked about some of your ideas for future All Star stories. Are you moving forward on those, or have you started working on different ideas since then?

Grant Morrison: I haven’t had time to think about them for a while. I did have the stories worked out, and I’d like to do more, but right now it feels like Frank and Jamie and I have said all there is to be said. I don’t know if I’m ready to do All Star Superman with anyone else right now. I have other plans.

NRAMA: You end the book with Superman having uplifted humanity – having inspired them through his sacrifice and great deeds, and with the potential to pass his powers on to humanity still there. Do you plan to explore this concept further, or would you prefer to leave it open–ended?

GM: I may go back to the Son of Superman in some way. At the same time, it’s best left open–ended. I like the idea that Superman gets to have his cake and eat it; he becomes golden and mythical and lives forever as a dream. Yet, he also is able to sire a child who will carry his legacy into the future. He kicks ass in both the spiritual and the temporal spheres!

NRAMA: The notion of transcendence – always a big part of your work. But the debate about All Star Superman is whether or not it "transcends its genre." Superman becomes transcendent within the series itself, and inspires the beings on Qwewq, but does the work aspire to more than that? Is it simply the greatest version of a Superman story, and that’s enough?

GM: That would certainly be enough if it were true.

It’s a pretty high–level attempt by some smart people to do the Superman concept some justice, is all I can say. It’s intended to work as a set of sci–fi fables that can be read by children and adults alike. I’d like to think you can go to it if you’re feeling suicidal, if you miss your dad, if you’ve had to take care of a difficult, ailing relative, if you’ve ever lost control and needed a good friend to put you straight, if you love your pets, if you wish your partner could see the real you...All Star is about how Superman deals with all of that.

It’s a big old Paul Bunyan style mythologizing of human - and in particular male - experience. In that sense I’d like to think All Star Superman does transcend genre in that it’s intended to be read on its own terms and needs absolutely no understanding of genre conventions or history around it to grasp what’s going on.

In today’s world, in today’s media climate designed to foster the fear our leaders like us to feel because it makes us easier to push around. In a world where limp, wimpy men are forced to talk tough and act ‘badass’ even though we all know they’re shitting it inside. In a world where the measure of our moral strength has come to lie in the extremity of the images we’re able to look at and stomach. In a world, I’m reliably told, that’s going to the dogs, the real mischief, the real punk rock rebellion, is a snarling, ‘fuck you’ positivity and optimism. Violent optimism in the face of all evidence to the contrary is the Alpha form of outrage these days. It really freaks people out.

I have a desire not to see my culture and my fellow human beings fall helplessly into step with a middle class media narrative that promises only planetary catastrophe, as engineered by an intrinsically evil and corrupt species which, in fact, deserves everything it gets.

Is this relentless, downbeat insistence that the future has been cancelled really the best we can come up with? Are we so fucked up we get off on terrifying our children? It’s not funny or ironic anymore and that’s why we wrote All Star Superman the way we did. Everything has changed. ‘Dark’ entertainment now looks like hysterical, adolescent, ‘Zibarro’ crap. That’s what my Final Crisis series is about too.

NRAMA (aka Tim Callahan): Continuing with the theme of transcendence: The words "ineffectual" and "surrender" are repeated throughout the book. Discuss.

GM: Discuss yourself, Callahan! I know you have the facilities and I should think it’s all rather obvious.  

NRAMA: What was the inspiration for the image of Superman in the sun at the end? (I confess this question comes as the result of much unsuccessful Googling)

GM: I didn’t have any specific reference in mind - just that one we‘ve all sort of got in our heads. I drew the figure as a sketch, intended to be reminiscent of William Blake’s cosmic figures, Russian Constructivist Soviet Socialist Worker type posters, and Leonardo’s ‘Proportions of the Human Figure‘. The position of the legs hints at the Buddhist swastika, the clockwise sun symbol. It was to me, the essence of that working class superheroic ideal I mentioned, condensed into a final image of mythic Superman, - our eternal, internal, guiding, selfless, tireless, loving superstar. The daft All Star Superman title of the comic is literalized in this last picture. It’s the ‘fearful symmetry’ of the Enlightenment project - an image of genius, toil, and our need to make things, to fashion art and artifacts, as a form of superhuman, divine imitation.

It was Superman as this fusion of Renaissance/Enlightenment ideas about Man and Cosmos, an impossible union of Blake and Newton. A Pop Art ‘Vitruvian Man‘. The inspiration for the first letter of the new future alphabet!

As you can see, we spent a lot of time thinking about all this and purifying it down to our own version of the gold. I’m glad it’s over.

NRAMA: Finally: What, above all else, would you like people to take away from All Star Superman?

GM: That we spent a lot of time thinking about this!

No. What I hope is that people take from it the unlikelihood that a piece of paper, with little ink drawings of figures, with little written words, can make you cry, can make your heart soar, can make you scared, sad, or thrilled. How mental is that?

That piece of paper is inert material, the corpse of some tree, pulped and poured, then given new meaning and new life when the real hours and real emotions that the writer and the artist, the colorist, the letter the editor translated onto the physical page, meet with the real hours and emotions of a reader, of all readers at once, across time, generations and distance.

And think about how that experience, the simple experience of interacting with a paper comic book, along with hundreds of thousands of others across time and space, is an actual doorway onto the beating heart of the imminent, timeless world of “Myth” as defined above. Not just a drawing of it but an actual doorway into timelessness and the immortal world where we are all one together.

My grief over the loss of my dad can be Superman’s grief, can trigger your own grief, for your own dad, for all our dads. The timeless grief that’s felt by Muslims and Christians and Agnostics alike. My personal moments of great and romantic love, untainted by the everyday, can become Superman’s and may resonate with your own experience of these simple human feelings.

In the one Mythic moment we’re all united, kissing our Lover for the First time, the Last time, the Only time, honoring our dear Dad under a blood red sky, against a darkening backdrop, with Mum telling us it’ll all be okay in the end.

If we were able to capture even a hint of that place and share it with our readers, that would be good enough for me.

#All Star Superman #Grant Morrison #Superman

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lady-divine-writes · 5 years

Text

A Dish Best Served Cold - A Prince of Omens Inspired One-shot (Rated NC17)

Summary: Starmakers rarely Fall. Crowley was the first. But every time one does, Crowley feels it, like razor sharp thorns throughout his body. When the latest one does, Aziraphale offers to accompany Crowley to Hell to make certain they're all right. But while they're there, Aziraphale decides to settle a score on his husband's behalf. (3689 words)

Notes: All right, I said I wasn't going to do this again, but I couldn't help myself. So this is inspired by @whiteleyfoster 'Omens of Egypt' mini comic 'Down' about Crowley's Fall from Heaven, along with their Bastille torture implied pic, which you can see here . I know there's a contest going on. This isn't about that. There's better writers for that. It's just something I've been working on since the end of 'Down'. I needed some BAMF Aziraphale sticking up for his demon husband against his former managers, so to speak. Warning for angst and mention of torture (not explicit).

Read on AO3.

“N-no … s-stop … I … I didn’t … I didn’t do … anything wrong … I … I’ll stop! I … swear!”

Aziraphale closes his book and sets it aside, then rolls on his hip to face his husband grabbing at the sheets covering his body, gripping so hard his knuckles have begun to turn white.

“Dearest?” Aziraphale whispers, brushing aside strands of hair from Crowley’s face with careful fingertips. “Wake up, dearest. Please wake up. You’re safe, my love. You’re all right …”

“N-no … no, you can’t … p-please …”

“Crowley? Dear? Can you hear me?”

“N-no … no, please …”

Aziraphale sighs as his husband continues to whimper. He rests a hand over one of his to anchor him, give him something tangible and familiar to hold on to, even in sleep.

An anchor is all Aziraphale can offer because there is no consoling him.

Crowley had once confided to Aziraphale that as much as he loved sleep, he had nightmares pretty on the regular, and they got worse as time went on. They’re rarer now that angel and demon sleep together, but they still crop up from time to time.

Unfortunately, Aziraphale can’t always tell which torture he’s reliving - being tossed out of Heaven into a steaming pit of sulfur, or the various punishments he endured the second he became a demon.

Having the down torn from his wings over the sin of being vain and naive.

Or having symbols of degradation burned into his skin with hot irons for the treachery of rescuing an angel.

Aziraphale didn’t even know that was a possibility until he’d discovered them.

The burns had faded, but the malevolent power that created them remained, its vile signature seared into Crowley’s skin. Aziraphale stumbled across them one night while they were making love, when they were close together, mouth to chest, with Crowley sitting in Aziraphale’s lap, riding him. Aziraphale blew hot air across Crowley’s chest and there they were.

Aziraphale’s divinity had brought them to light.

The way Crowley covered them, the shame in his expression when he confessed what he’d gotten them for, speared Aziraphale to the depths of his soul.

For that, and for a hundred other things (including blessing that blasted Thermos of water) Aziraphale has never forgiven himself. Crowley tells Aziraphale there’s nothing to forgive, especially when they’re in the throes of passionate embraces and a single puff of breath from Aziraphale’s lips brings those marks to the surface. Despite the consequences of his decisions, they were Crowley’s decisions, and the ones pertaining to Aziraphale’s health and safety, he’d repeat a thousand times.

Yet, the nightmares continue.

“Sleep easy, my love.” Aziraphale leans over and lays feather-light kisses on his demon’s sweaty forehead. “Sleep, and dream about whatever you like best.”

Crowley’s breathing slows. The furrows in his brow smooth away. His hands begin to loosen, let go of their vice hold. He melts into the sheets, eyelids fluttering slowly.

A small smile even manages to tilt up the corners of his mouth.

“That’s it. Relax. Be calm … at peace. I’m here with you. I’m not going anywhere. I won’t leave you alone.”

Crowley hums behind his lips, finally happy in his dreaming.

Aziraphale exhales with relief. It worked … thank God.

…

But for only about a minute.

Aziraphale goes back to his book, but a second later, Crowley jerks, jarring the bed as if the mattress had saved him from a terrible tumble. He sits bolt up, fist clutching his chest over the shadow of one particularly gruesome burn, his eyes wide and unblinking like those of a frightened foal.

“No!” he gasps, staring straight ahead, the remainder of his nightmare fading where Aziraphale can’t see.

“No what, dearest?” Aziraphale asks, careful not to speak too loudly in case it takes Crowley a moment to remember where he is, and that he’s not alone. “Which nightmare was it this time?”

“A … an angel … will Fall,” Crowley reveals in a voice that trembles. “A … a Starmaker.”

His answer stuns Aziraphale into closing his book and setting it on the table beside the bed without saving his place first. “Is that … will that really happen?”

Crowley swallows hard. “Yes.” He runs a hand through his sweaty hair, on the verge of tears. “Yes, I … I feel it. I could see it. It’s happening now. Tonight.” His eyelids pinch shut. He shakes his head, trying to dislodge the image from his brain, but Aziraphale knows it will be difficult to erase.

Starmakers rarely Fall. Maybe one in a thousand years. Crowley was the first, and for some reason, he can feel when another does. It rips through him like shards of ice, makes the return trip like tongues of fire, and haunts him for days after.

Aziraphale has often wondered if Hell did that on purpose - found a way to curse him with that foresight as one of their many forms of discipline.

Or perhaps it was Heaven’s doing.

Aziraphale wouldn’t be surprised either way. It seems like something they would both come up with.

“Do you have any idea when they will …?”

“Any second now,” Crowley says on a single breath, eager to push the knowledge from his mouth.

“Well then …” Aziraphale lifts the comforter off his legs and makes to get out of bed “… would you like to accompany me to Hell? Make sure they’re all right?”

Crowley’s eyelids snap open, blown pupils finding Aziraphale’s smiling face. It wouldn’t be the first time they’ve traveled to Hell together. Crowley looks like he might jump at the offer, but something holds him back.

Things are different now. They’re different now. They’re free agents. Crowley doesn’t answer to Hell anymore. As for Aziraphale, it’s not like Hell welcomed angels too freely downstairs with open arms before the Nope-ageddon. Angels’ visits to Hell have always been procedural, planned ahead, with paperwork involved. Heaven holds the keys to the bottomless pit, after all. It’s their job to tend to the prisoners there.

What Aziraphale is recommending they do is more than a little unprecedented.

If Aziraphale gets himself in a tight spot, Heaven more than likely won’t help him.

Is one Starmaker worth that chance? Worth the Guardians of the Gates treating Aziraphale the way they treated Crowley?

No, Crowley decides. For all it does to break his heart, it’s not worth putting his angel in danger.

“I’m … I’m probably overreacting,” he says, forcing himself to calm down. “There’s … there’s no reason to drag you down there. They’ll be fine. They … they don’t need me.” He closes his eyes again. Aziraphale can see the pain on his face, the memory of that poor angel’s Fall, or maybe his own, playing behind his eyes.

The harsh reality is that those angels that Fall need to learn the hard way that Hell is a terrible place. No one is waiting in the wings (so to speak) to rescue them.

No matter how slight their sin.

But this is important to Crowley. Aziraphale knows it is.

And Crowley means the world to Aziraphale.

Aziraphale puts a hand beneath his husband’s chin, coaxes his eyes open with kisses to his lips. “It never hurts to check, my dear. I’ll go get my coat.”

***

Hard-packed dirt where very little grows.

Thick clouds of black, acrid smoke.

Yellow-orange sulfur seeping from the earth, super-heated and bubbling, popping, releasing noxious gas into the air.

Aziraphale pops the collar of his coat, holds the ends tight over his nose.

He hates the smell of Hell.

The pools of sulfur fallen angels nosedive into are located right outside the gates, so they’re still far from the mildew infested basement that is Hell’s head office.

But this outdoor landing pad is probably worse: surrounded by air that burns the sinuses with every breath, the breeze swirling around them hot and oppressive instead of cool and refreshing.

Looking up and seeing a Heaven that no longer welcomes you, stars you will never touch again.

He envisions Crowley here - scared, confused, emerging from the pits for the first time to see his beautiful, snowy-white wings blackened and singed, covered in this foul-smelling ooze.

All alone.

Consigned here by those he loved.

Aziraphale feels a long-building contempt for Heaven rise up in his chest and does everything to keep it at bay. This isn’t him, he reminds himself. Not really. It’s Hell’s influence. It’s too easy to surrender to anger here, which is why the Almighty sends the Archangels to conduct Heaven’s business in Hell.

They’re more immune to the air here.

“There they are!” Crowley says, rushing towards a pit about fifty feet from where they materialized, where a drenched and bedraggled set of wings sits atop an orange mess, attached to an angel … a demon … lying underneath the surface.

Aziraphale doesn’t rush to help. Best to let Crowley lead that charge. Instead, he keeps watch. He’s only been here a handful of times, but that’s definitely enough.

One time in particular, he could do without.

Aziraphale peers through the black smoke, trying to decipher their bearings. Crowley snapped them here. It’s the easiest way to come. Which means that Hell should know they’re there. Every time Crowley performs a miracle, they receive a fax. So there’s a fifty-fifty chance a welcoming committee of some sort might arrive.

The wind blows.

The smoke shifts.

Vacant mold-gray eyes catch his.

Bingo.

As the smoke continues to clear, Aziraphale gets a better view, and he smiles.

Luck, oddly, seems to be on his side.

“You stay here, my dear,” he says, not bothering to raise his voice since he knows Crowley will hear him. “I’ll take care of this.”

Aziraphale isn’t a vengeful angel. His job is to inspire humanity, to spread love.

Wrath is normally reserved for Archangels.

But as in most things, Aziraphale doesn’t feel they’ve done their jobs right for close to a millennium.

And besides, this is personal.

Aziraphale strolls up to the demon hopping through the sulfur pits in his direction.

“You’re Dagon, right?” he asks.

The demon slows, approaches warily, not expecting to meet Aziraphale (of all entities) after the memo they received.

Not expecting to see an angel flash a smile that is eerily at home here in Hell.

“What’s it to you?” Dagon asks.

“Come on. Let me preen these for you,” Aziraphale hears Crowley say to the new demon he’s helping out of the sulfur. “And take my advice … learn to do it for yourself. You don’t want to ask anyone down here for help.”

“Nothing, my dear.” Aziraphale steps to the right, blocking Dagon when they try to blow past. “I just like to know whom I’m addressing. I’ve heard a lot about you.” Aziraphale sashays left - another block that leaves Dagon gnashing their teeth in frustration. “Crowley says you’re a rather creative demon … when it comes to cruelty and violence.”

Dagon squashes their plan to leap around the angel and grins proudly at that remark. “Did he now?”

“Indeed,” Aziraphale returns, the words as dry as the ground beneath his feet. “In fact, he told me that from the first day he Fell you couldn’t keep your hands off him. I almost got jealous … until he elaborated.”

Dagon’s face falls, their eyes blank, but they snicker when they catch on.

Every time Dagon tore at Crowley’s wings.

Every time they put a hot iron to Crowley’s skin, tied him up and whipped him for his treachery.

Or worse …

That’s what the angel is referring to.

Dagon can’t help noticing the loathing in Aziraphale’s eyes, the undeniable rage.

And Dagon smiles.

Anger feeds demons like well-roasted mutton. It intoxicates them like wine.

And the anger of an angel?

That’s about the finest vintage any demon can find on earth.

Hence why calling off the war disappointed them so.

It makes Dagon long to stab Crowley in the back with their claws to see how angry this angel can get.

What Dagon might be able to convince him to do.

Dagon tries to dash past again, but Aziraphale is surprisingly quick. This time, Dagon walks straight into Aziraphale’s chest and stops short.

It’s like walking into a brick wall.

Dagon sniffs. They refuse to be intimidated by an angel. Especially a plump and useless little Principality like this one. Dagon remembers Ligur talking about what the Archangels think of him, how they have no respect for him.

Thinking of Ligur reminds Dagon that that demon is gone. Gone at the hands of Crowley, who doused them with Holy Water.

Holy Water he got from this angel.

The only angel in Heaven that can withstand Hellfire, pudgy or not.

Dagon’s face goes pale. They swallow hard. Those memories of torturing Crowley, the times they’d been so proud of, flood their mind with vivid sound and color.

Staring at this angel’s cold, hard expression, they begin to regret every single one.

“You look parched,” Aziraphale says with an unexpectedly warm smile.

“Yeah, well, it’s hot down here,” Dagon growls suspiciously. “Otherwise it wouldn’t be Hell.”

“True, true. That’s why I brought this.” Aziraphale reaches into his inside coat pocket and pulls out a tartan Thermos. Dagon stiffens at the reveal, but they’re too curious to back away.

It’s just a Thermos. How much damage could Aziraphale possibly do with a Thermos?

“It’s … it’s a Thermos,” the demon points out.

“Yes,” Aziraphale says in a condescending tone. “Very good. And what do you think it’s filled with?” He pulls off the cup and puts it in his pocket, then unscrews the cap. “I’ll give you three guesses and the first two don’t count.”

Dagon scoffs. “How the Heaven should I …?” Their eyes blow wide as context melds together in one harrowing spark of realization. “That wouldn’t be … Holy Water? W-would it?” Dagon takes a step back, but Aziraphale’s hand shoots out, grabs the demon by the wrist. Thick, sausage fingers wrap tightly around, solid as stone.

“You know,” Aziraphale says in a low, gravelly voice to match, “I don’t like the way you’ve treated my husband.”

Dagon pulls, trying to break free, but Aziraphale has a grip like iron. “We’re … we’re demons! It’s what we do! Wot did you expect?”

“Doesn’t matter what I expect. It matters what I’ll tolerate.” Aziraphale lifts the Thermos to his mouth and takes a drink. Dagon stares as Aziraphale gulps the blessed liquid, licking his lips when he’s done. But from the sound of sloshing, there seems to be plenty left. “Oh! How rude of me,” Aziraphale says, holding the Thermos out to his captive. “Fancy a sip?”

Dagon’s eyes nearly pop out of their head. “You … you wouldn’t!”

“Wouldn’t I?” Aziraphale lifts the Thermos over Dagon’s wrist where it’s caught in the angel’s fist. “By the way, I wouldn’t tug too hard if I were you. I am clumsy. I might slip. It only takes one drop to dissolve a demon.” On cue, a single drop begins to form on the silver lip of the container. Angel and demon watch it grow, dangle like a trapeze artist lowering themselves down the rung of their swing, preparing to jump. Aziraphale looks on in amusement; Dagon in utter horror. The drop lengthens, heaves, the tenuous connection thinning as it threatens to break.

“N … n-no! “ Dagon stutters, lurching backward, but Aziraphale holds on impossibly tighter.

“What was that you said?” Aziraphale asks, taking his eyes away from the precarious drop, not caring a whit for its fate.

“It … it’s going to fall!”

Aziraphale shakes his head, inadvertently shaking the Thermos as well. “I’m sorry. I couldn’t quite …”

Aziraphale doesn’t finish his sentence.

He sticks out his tongue and catches the drop seconds before it falls.

Dagon makes a strangled sound as they struggle to recoil.

Aziraphale watches the demon flail in his grasp and laughs. “Phew! Will you look at that? That was a close one!”

“You’ll … you’ll start a war!” Dagon cries, utilizing this momentary reprieve since the Thermos is still there, held aloft by the angel, his loathing brewing into a full-fledged flame. “A war between demons and angels! You didn’t want that, re-remember?”

Aziraphale shrugs. “Perhaps I’ve changed my mind. You wanted a war, didn’t you? Well, now you’ll get your wish, provided doing away with you is impetus enough to start one. Pity you won’t be around to join in. I’ve heard you give some rousing pep talks.”

“N-now, listen to reason, angel …”

Aziraphale’s grip around Dagon’s wrist ratchets from tight to bone-crushing, almost bringing Dagon to their knees. They lose their footing, but Aziraphale drags them closer, holds them upright by that one thin and straining joint.

“You … don’t get to call me that!”

“I’m sorry! I’m so sorry! I …”

“Aziraphale …” Crowley’s voice creeps into Aziraphale’s ear. It sounds distant for the pounding in Aziraphale’s head, but it’s mere inches away “… don’t ...”

Aziraphale doesn’t turn to look at his husband, the full force of his anger trained on this one pathetic demon, ready to turn them into dust with the weight of that alone. But Aziraphale pictures Crowley’s amber eyes in his mind - doe wide and pleading.

Begging for no more.

“Are you sure, my dear?”

“Yes.” A hand finds Aziraphale’s shoulder and squeezes gently. “I’m sure. Don’t do this. For me?”

Aziraphale shudders. He would do anything for Crowley, give him anything he wanted … but he can’t seem to do this. For all his posturing, all of his simply wanting to put the fear of God into this demon for everything Crowley said they’ve done, he can’t just let go. With his Thermos poised over the green-gray and fetid skin of their arm, he’s so ready to pour.

And it would feel good.

It would feel like righting a wrong.

The wrong of Aziraphale not being around to protect Crowley when he truly needed protecting.

But the kneading of his shoulder muscles loosens his grip ever so slightly. A kiss on the crown of his head loosens it more.

“Angel,” Crowley whispers against his scalp, his cheek pressing there to enjoy the softness of his hair, “please?”

“Urgh! All right!” Aziraphale grumbles, releasing his grip. He’d been holding on so tight, it takes a few seconds for his corporal form to actually detach, sending Dagon stumbling back, landing undignified on their tailbone in the sulfur. “But just you remember, Dagon,” Aziraphale adds, straightening his waistcoat, “the next time you get it in your empty head to try and do something … anything … to my husband, that he’s the only reason you’re not a puddle right now. Yes?”

“Y-yes,” the demon stutters. “I-I’ll remember.”

“In that case, I do believe some appreciation is in order.”

Dagon shoots a glare Crowley’s way. Not an inch of conceit can they see on Crowley’s face, only concern for his angel. And that makes Dagon furious. Despite themselves, Dagon scowls. But seeing as Aziraphale has put no cover on his Thermos and could always change his mind (that’s what Dagon would do) Dagon has little choice. “Thank you,” they grind through pointed teeth.

“Thank you what?” Aziraphale stresses.

If Aziraphale weren’t both immune to Hellfire and carrying a Thermos of Holy Water, Dagon would bolt out of that pool of sulfur and rip him to shreds.

At least, that’s what they tell themselves.

“Thank you … sir.”

“Better. Now run along. My compassion only lasts so long in this place, and it’s getting rather hot out here.” Aziraphale swirls the Thermos in Dagon’s direction, taking another drink as the demon scurries away, mumbling under their breath. The sulfur pits become tensely quiet, thicker and heavier than the black smoke stinging their eyes.

“Aziraphale …?”

“How’s the fallen Starmaker?” Aziraphale asks before Crowley can finish. Whether he intended on thanking Aziraphale or lecturing him, Aziraphale isn’t ready to hear it.

Crowley sighs. “As good as can be expected.”

“Well, that’s the best we can hope for, I suppose,” Aziraphale says with a sympathetic smile.

“Don’t you think that was going a little too far?” Crowley asks, lowering his voice and gesturing toward a sulking Dagon with his chin.

“Not at all. In fact … would you like to make your friend Dagon over there lose their bowels, so to speak?”

“Only always.”

“Do you trust me?”

“Without question.”

“Take a nice long swig out of that, my dear,” Aziraphale says, handing off the Thermos.

Crowley knows this Thermos. Knows it well. He pauses when Aziraphale offers it to him. Touching it gives him a jolt, fills his brain with the echoes of Ligur’s screams, but he can’t betray fear for one second. He’s supposed to be the demon who can withstand Holy Water, after all.

Plus he trusts Aziraphale … more than anything.

He brings the Thermos to his lips and throws his head back, taking the biggest mouthful he can before his survival instincts can force him to stop and spit it out. He hears Dagon curse from across the sulfur pits, and Crowley almost sputters. His eyelids squeeze, preparing for the burn of the righteous.

It burns, all right, but it doesn’t dissolve him into the dirt.

“It’s … it’s not Holy Water,” Crowley comments only loud enough for Aziraphale to hear, helping himself to another hefty mouthful. “It’s not water at all! It’s vodka!”

“Oh dear. Look at that,” Aziraphale says in a dry, sarcastic tone. “I brought the wrong Thermos. I’ll be more aware of how I pack next time.”

Crowley shakes his head, wrapping his arms around his angel’s body and holding him tight. “You know, you’re pretty sexy when you’re being all guardian angel and stuff.”

“Yes, well, it’s only for you, my love,” Aziraphale says, resting his head against Crowley’s chest and hugging him back, more than ready for his husband to snap them back home. “Only for you.”

#good omens #good omens fanfiction #ineffable husbands #anthony j crowley #aziraphale #aziraphale x crowley #crowley x aziraphale #prince of omens

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de-profundis-ad-astra · 4 years

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Tag Games!

I was tagged by @teriwrites in multiple tag games and because I love these so much I’m just going to do all of them and put them in one post. Thanks for the tag!!

Meet the WIP Tag

Title: Legion (A 4-part series)

Logline (1-3 sentence premise): Two agents who work for the same highly classified espionage corporation are forced to work together after they learn they were assigned to kill each other. At the same time, two similarly displaced agents try to locate their missing team members after a mission goes awry. As they dig deeper into the infrastructure of their employer, they learn that the lies and deceit go far deeper than they could have imagined.

Favorite theme explored: There’s a lot going on in this series, but I think my favorite has to be either exploring the concept of absolute power corrupting absolutely, or the idea of revenge vs. forgiveness.

A character I’m proud of and why: Probably Kerri. She’s gone through so many changes since my co-author and I first created her, but she’s really come into her own and I’m super proud of her development and arc that we have going through her across the four books of the series. I can’t wait to see how she continues to grow.

That character’s tag: I’m really bad about tagging - but it might just be “kerri”. The general inspiration tag is “legion inspo”, or you can search “the fox and the ghost” for posts that inspire me about her and her partner.

Link to a piece/excerpt/post that I’m proud of: I have a few, but this one might be my favorite for undisclosed reasons

Any additional info I want people to know/am proud of: I finished writing the second/third-ish draft of the first act of book one last year, and I’m FINALLY starting on act two. I was spending too much time trying to make sure the first act was polished so I’ve decided to just keep forging ahead. I’m really excited to get back to writing about the supporting cast, and I hope to post more about it here, as well!

Manuscript Search Tag

My words: accept, voice, near, resent, silence

And she might have said no, were it not for her audience. There simply was not enough information in the file for Kerri to accept a job with such heavy ramifications in good conscience.

“It’s... she seems so rigid.” Charlotte watched Kerri accept a fresh glass of water from the bartended with barely a nod.

She almost felt that she could accept the things she could not change, face the things she could, and have the confidence that she had the knowledge to tell the difference.

First her father, then Ward, had dangled over Kerri’s head that her hearing impairment normally wouldn’t have been acceptable within Legion’s ranks--no less from an agent in a position as renowned as hers.

It was far from a promise for something more, but even the insinuation that, upon completion of the assignment, Max could potentially take upon himself the rank of Names Agent, was more than enough to sway him and the rest of the team into accepting the challenge.

Voice

Her voice felt oddly detached from her body when she said, “I understand.”

He managed to keep his voice low, despite his rage. “I’ve done more than my due diligence.”

The dial tone in Charlotte’s ears cut off in the middle of the third ring, followed by Director Soren’s voice saying: “It’s been less than twenty-four hours, Agent Gatsby. You can’t have run into a problem already.”

A small voice at the back of her head told her it was just paranoia. Kerri was not about to take that risk.

Near

Charlotte shrugged, an air of indifference about her that brought Director Soren’s blood to near-boiling temperatures.

Ward brought a hand to his mouth, appearing to be deep in thought. “If your information is anywhere near accurate, there aren’t many options left.”

She watched, mouth parted slightly, as Stevens took her seat near the end of the bar and called out for a pale lager.

Her hand still tingled from the residual heat and near endless lathering as she hovered her thumb over the green ‘call’ button.

She didn’t have time to be relieved before Charlotte grabbed her ponytail near its base and dragged her off the island.

Resent

Her disability had been nothing but an obstacle. Another hurdle for her to overcome on her journey. She’d grown to resent it. Strongly.

She did, and she resented the opportunity it provided more than anything.

Silence

At her silence, Shaw added, “Consider this a test run.”

She was met with more silence, as she had been for the past hour.

Suddenly being in such silence was... jarring. She clenched her jaw, hating that her target, the person she’d been assigned to kill, was such a friendly person.

Charlotte’s laugh broke through the silence; Kerri never thought she would feel anything like relief to hear it.

There was one statement that was seared into her brain, nagging at her from the moment the snap of his breaking neck faded into silence.

Typically--as she was well aware--such infractions were dealt with by way of probationary periods and, in the most dire of cases, dishonorable discharges and vows of silence.

Words I’m leaving: never, swing, reason, and hurt

Tag Game: This or That (Fantasy Edition)

spell or curse ∙ abandoned mansion or haunted cemetery ∙ vampire slayer or ghost hunter ∙ phoenix or griffin ∙ wrist bite or neck bite ∙ fairy godmother or evil stepmother ∙ herbs or potion ∙ ghost or wraith ∙ dragon scales or werewolf claws ∙ druid or mage ∙ elf or hobbit ∙ divination or necromancy ∙ wand magic or hand magic ∙ centaur or unicorn ∙ dark fairytale or disney-style fairytale ∙ sword or bow & arrow ∙ siren or water nymph ∙ garlic or silver ∙ talking animal or walking tree ∙ demon trap or crossroads pact ∙ enchanted fairy forest or mermaid lagoon

Heads Up, Seven Up

This is going to be waaaaaaaaaaay more than seven sentences but I wrote this last night and feel pretty proud of it, so I’m gonna post it here

Charlotte wasn’t laughing anymore. “Here’s the thing,” she said. “I know exactly why people—anyone, really—would want me dead. So yes, the list is as long as I am tall! There’s a reason why intelligence specialists have the highest mortality rate of anyone in Legion.”

Kerri paused at that, her body giving the tiniest jump before going still. Something flickered behind her eyes. Recognition? It’s wasn’t a secret that agents in Legion’s intelligence sector had the highest turnover of any department. Charlotte had dealt in information long enough to know people didn’t take kindly to having their secrets stolen from them. Many of them would stop at nothing to see those that vilified them dead.

But it wasn’t recognition in her face, and Kerri averted her eyes a moment too late. Charlotte let go of her own rage long enough to see that it was pain written across her features.

Everything clicked. Kerri had refused to answer her questions in jail, then later on at the cafe. Now, her shoulders seemed to sag under some unseen weight, her jaw clenching and unclenching.

Who had she known?

Who had she lost?

I’m gonna tag a few people; don’t feel like you have to do them all!! Pick ones you like and have fun!

@marmaladewords @procratinatingwriter @nominalnebula

#tag games

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celiabowens · 4 years

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2020 reads, summer tbr edition. The plan is to come back to this post as I read the books and probably dump my thoughts here, not sure yet lol

On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous: really liked it, although the narrative structure wasn’t quite my cup of tea. Still, Ocean Vuong’s prose is incredibly beautiful and raw. Overall, I’d still recommend it to everyone, even if non-linear narratives aren’t your thing, because Vuong’s prose is incredibly frank and yet stunning, and the way it captures memories and brief moments in time is absolutely incredible. The novel has so many layers, its complexity and nuance are truly outstanding.

The Empire of Gold: really liked this one! It develops the political conflict that was built in the first two books very well. The build up is quite slow and I get why some people may have issues with the pace, but I really liked the different storylines and how they all came together. Also loved the romance so much. I wouldn’t have minded more space for female side characters though.

Provenance: this wasn’t a bad read, but not as good as I expected it to be either. It reads much like a comedy of manners mixed with interplanetary politics, which was fun, but not as in depth as I wished. The characters fell a bit flat (especially the secondary characters) and their relationships weren’t as developed as I had hoped. The world was very cool though, especially with how fleshed out it felt, even when it came to minimal details.

The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo: i’m very conflicted about this. On one hand, I really did like it, the book is fast and compelling (and reads very much like a tv show). On the other hand, the ending felt like unnecessary drama and it ruined it just a little bit for me. Anyway, worth the hype.

Girl Serpent Thorn: sort of disappointing? It’s a nice YA fantasy, but the premise begged for a more complex and nuanced development. The characters weren’t particularly fleshed out and the plot was a bit too flimsy. The mythology and world building, mostly inspired by Persian folklore, were really interesting and the bisexual rep was nice as well.

The Nickel Boys: I really don’t mesh well with Colson Whitehead’s writing style (it just sort of reads very essay-like? I’m more of a purple prose person and his books almost read like non-fiction in general), but I liked this much more than The Intuitionist. This is such a hopeless and cruel novel and it delivers one punch to the gut after another. The final twist was as brilliant as heartbreaking truly. Glad I read it, as hard as it was.

Shorefall: I liked it as much as Foundryside, but I still think this series lacks the spark and the nuance The Divine Cities Trilogy had. It’s still a pretty complex fantasy series (and Bennett is a master of his craft for sure) and I liked the economical and political subplots so much, but the characters do very little for me. The f/f romance is super cute and the cast works well, but the characters aren’t as compelling on their own. Still, a solid read.

Realm of Ash: this was great! I really like how Tasha Suri creates so much tension between her characters (the slow burn, the yearning...) and the character development in general. I love how this book was mostly focused on the court, because the moral ambiguity and the intrigue really set it apart from its companion, in a good way.

Salt Slow

Dune: DNFed this one at 40% (which is like, over 250 pages), because it was extremely boring and yet confusing. As much as I like modern science fiction, I think most of the classics may not be for me.

The Once and Future King

Angels and Insects: DNFed this one, no regrets. I read Possession earlier this year and as tough as it was (it’s just really such a dense book), the painfully slow pace was worth it, because of how well crafted and complex it was. Angel and Insects contains two novella and the payoff wasn’t worth the boredom, so I just dropped it.

A Gentleman in Moscow: this was literally perfect until the ending. I just...found it overly bizarre and forced. The rest of the novel is, however, 100% worth the hype. It’s compelling and nuanced and such a good character study. Really loved the prose too.

The Impossible Girl: the premise was better than its execution, I guess. I feel like my biggest problem with this one was how flat the characters felt to me and how the plot was a little messy. The premise was great (crossdressing girl with two hearts working as a resurrectionist was interesting to say the least), and I can’t say I didn’t enjoy the novel overall, because I did, just not as much as I thought.

Notes on a Nervous Planet (if all the academic reading I need to do for thesis doesn’t end me first)

I actually don’t do too well with structured TBRs and I might read these in a month truthfully, so I don’t know how this experiment will go, but I guess I’ll see.

Stuff I’ve read out of the TBR: The Kindgom of Back by Marie Lu (I loved this one, would totally recommend checking it out), The Gameshouse by Claire North (the first novella is good, the rest was painful to read tbh), The Glass Hotel by Emily St. John Mandel (well written, but I really just did not care at all for it).

#2020 reads #gio rambles #tbr #summer 2020 tbr #i only have to do thesis and academic reading so #i might actually fly through some of these

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sonichkkaaascreams · 4 years

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Mountain with a Flower Crown (chapter 1)

Just a super long one shot that is broken into a bunch of parts

Zaraki Kenapchi X OC Yamase Yasu

wordcount: 3090~

this is the fist part instalation of Mountain With A Flower Crown. this was inspire by post made by @bleachhaven and @shadowsnlace who both made posts regarding Kenpachi and an S/O who is larger than him. I use their headcanons as inspirational sparks to my own greedy little imagination.

Kenpachi may seem a little off but eh, what can I do about it. it just happened. also the starting point of this oneshot came to me in a hormonal fever dream. this is gonna be a super fudging long thing. i think it may be a very well around 6 to 8 chapters knock on wood to keep up my writing mojou.

enjoy ;) and please let me know what you think. XP

Yamase Yasu prided herself on being an early riser. She had practiced the discipline of waking up before sunrise to another day of hard work no matter how tired she may be from an early age. As such, her current circumstances were less than ideal.

She was not only awake, forced to endure the bright rays of the sun right in her eyes and listen to the damned feathery monsters sing annoyingly but also she was required to stay still and not move an inch.

Unlike her, her beloved spouse was sound asleep free from all the worries of office work. She greatly envied the man’s ability to not only sleep through the annoying chirping of birds but also all the way through the morning to evening regardless of the loud ruckus his squad members made. The only thing that would make him open his eyes was if she moved about. Witch is why despite her dire need to get up, stretch, make breakfast for an entire squadron of men who can’t take care of themselves properly and go to her own squad office to work; she was laying on their futon and fighting the urge to coo at the slumbering beast.

Contrary to the common belief of those who shared a futon or a roof with Zaraki Kenpachi, he is not by any means a light sleeper. Take away the threat of the man rolling on top of his partners and smothering them to death and the man sleeps like a bear through winter. And that extra layer of peace and ease showed on his face and the way he slept.

For one, he was sprawled on top of her with no care in the world. No matter how neatly or sweetly they sleep he always finds a way to roll over her, using her chest or stomach as his pillow. And so long he didn’t drool on her she wouldn’t mind it. Another sign that he was deep asleep was the light yet deep and rattling snores. And even those were endearing and cute.

This morning however it seemed her spouse was hellbent in testing her patience – witch she was never renowned for – he was not only sleeping with a slighting parted lips, lightly snoring, and had done this absolutely cute thing where he held a fistful of her sleeping Yukata, but also his stupid and unreasonably soft hair was fanned out over her, tickling her skin.

She is only but a mere woman. She is flawed and weak to temptation. Especially one as sweet and divine as this one. Not many would describe the 11th captain of the 11th division who just happens to be the sole successor of Kenpachi Yachiru cute. But at the moment that was the only word she knew of, that could capture his peaceful slumber - And until someone made a better word her husband had to deal with being called so – as mentioned Yamase Yasu as disciplined as she claimed to be, was only a mere woman and of course, she gave in to the divine temptation and ran her fingers in her husband’s hair and feel the silky soft yet soapy dry hair – he refused to use any proper hair product and she had no right to complain since she was no better – running her fingers a little higher she reached his scalp and began to massage his head. Feeling every secret scar that charcoal black mane hid. And taking inventory of the one or two gray hair she would find.

“hmmm.” The rumbling groan of his dry throat rattled her bones and resonated in her skull. How she truly found his voice calming. “you’re awake.”

“Sorry I woke you up. I couldn’t resist.” Her voice equally cracked and dry was louder and clearer than his own. Zaraki Kenpachi refused to admit that even after 100 years of married life, her voice still made his heart race.

“I’m not complaining.”

With a grunt, he pushed himself up and pulled himself up towards her face. His unkempt mane falling around them like a curtain of privacy against the prying eyes of the sun and those birds – that Yasu, who also prided herself on being ‘peaceful’ wanted to kill one by one if they didn’t shut up and let her listen to Kenpachi’s voice and NOTHING else – it was a solid minute or two of them just staring at each other and by any bystanders, it was not only unromantic but also rather unsettling to have the beastly captain Zaraki stare at them for long periods. Usually, a glance was enough to make grown men lose control of their bladers. For this fated pair, however, this was a ritualistic habit of cataloging every scar and wrinkle the other had gained.

The small scars on her face, the slightly chipped and torn lip, the small scar and the smaller bald patch it had resulted, a barely visible scar on her eyebrow, the shallow wrinkles around her eyes resulted by squinting at the sun, and the visible laugh line, the small blue veins he could see if he paid attention and the way every muscle twitched.

“it’s a bit late for you to be still in bed.” He stated matter of factly in a way that only she would realize what it meant. It’s a bit late for you to still be in bed meant: did you sleep in again because you didn’t want to wake me up. And only she knew his matter-of-fact tone was not an observation or a statement but a self-condemnation.

“why captain Zaraki! You think me so cruel that I would up and leave my beloved husband cold in the morning to go to work? Without saying good morning?”

His grunt made evident that her teasing was effective. With a smile she continued to tease as she wrapped her iron grip around his waist and slide a finger on the arch of his back – she couldn’t bring herself to call anything on this man small even to describe the small of his back – “you’re not just a warm body my dear. I love to wake up to see you still asleep so peacefully. You look so cute I want to eat you up.” She giggled. The Mountain woman of Gotei, in all her 8’8 glory, giggled. “I love it when I get to run my hands in your soft hair and take in your scent and have your head in the crook of my ne-AAHH…” her insufferable cooing was brought to an abrupt end when the strongest Kenpachi hit her in the face with a pillow. Using her initial shock as a distraction he rolled off of her and buried his face in the pillow to cover the ever-growing deep blush that dusted his face. It wasn’t a feminine blush rather it was a dark, red almost brownish. And he was not cute. By gods, he was NoT CuTe. AT ALL. HE WAS THE CAPTAIN OF SQUAD 11 AND HE WAS NOT CUTE GODDAMIT. Well, at least he’s not cute as far as anyone else is concerned.

Laughing loudly she rolled and embraced her husband in her arms, after 100 years of marriage and 50 more years of knowing the woman beforehand, it still amazes him how easily he is held in her arms. How well fitted his face is in her neck and how safe it all feels. Like he's a scrawny child all over again back in Zaraki woods but this time he’s safe and he doesn’t have to sleep with one eye open or dig himself a hole under a tree for warmth, hell he doesn’t even need to hug his sword for safety and safekeeping. No, he can just sleep, or rest, or just lean in the warm embrace and drown himself in the scent of sea salt, peaches and ink. Completely safe and loved. He’d never tell her that, no, he’ll take it to his grave and beyond. But he doesn’t need to. She doesn’t need him to. The simple soft hum that rumbles in his chest and the long, deep exhale on her throat says more than enough.

“you’d think after this long of a time, you’d be used to my pampering chi-chi.” She cooed at him barring her nose in his hair. She loved how he always smelled so distinctly him. Just him. Nothing ever changed his scent. His sweat, his stupid cheap dry soap – that she also used because she is too busy to use the shampoo and hair conditioner and all the other dumb things lieutenant Matsumoto gives her every year for her birthday – and woods, the special pine woods only found in Zaraki. He always smells of those. And if he comes back from missions, blood. The metallic rusty smell of blood that always compelled her to ask for a full day off from her captain immediately to attend to her… private needs with her husband.

“Unfortunately, love of my life, you are awake which means I have no excuse to stay in bed any longer. And if you and the boys want breakfast I better shake a leg.” She hummed as she left chaste kisses over his face.

“Fuck them, the bastards can go eat shit for all I care.” He snarled. How dare they and their needs take his wife from his bed?

“Honey, you need breakfast as well.”

“No I don’t.” he – dare she say the word? – whined like a bratty child and gripped at her even harder. It wasn’t even a sexual groping, he just really really wanted the warm embrace to last longer. But from past experiences she knew if she catered to him any longer she would most likely not leave this room for about another years or so. And so as the sensible wife of the squad 11 she wiggled into a comfortable position and willed herself to her feet. Her 2 feet shorter husband refusing to let go, hung from her neck.

“chi-chi, light of my life please don’t swing from my neck.” She lovingly stroked his back and hair beckoning him to be a little more mature. Earning a guttural, loud, ground shaking, ear-piercing growl as he tightened his equally iron grip. “ at least wrap your legs around my waist so I wouldn’t trip and fall on you. you wouldn’t want to explain to Isane-Chan WHY you have a broken arm early in the morning again…. Right?

Given the choice of letting go of his precious peach-scented giantess and holding on to her like a monkey’s babe, you’d think the strongest Kenpachi would hold on to his dignity and let go. But no.

The man had gone nearly 800 something years of his life touch starved with no real understanding of affection, the moment his beloved Yasu had begun to shower him with it his mind was simply blown. ‘Is this why Yachiru always hung off of his shoulder everywhere? Is this why she always ran to his arms like a crazed boar?’ because that’s what he wants to do with her.

“She can keep her mouth shut.” He says taking in another breath full of sea salt and peaches. But finally, lets her go. It’s been 100 years for them and he knows she gets annoyed when she can’t go to her office on time. But he can sure make it difficult for her as he is still very much salty that she chose squad 10 over his own. “the hell you chose the Lil' brat over meh?” he had thrashed and at one point picked a fight with everyone from squad 10 – the captain in question, the Lil' brat. Refused to indulge her suiter at the time. – “you coming home earlier today? for lunch I mean.”

Home. Another thing that made her heart flutter and bounces about like a lamb, is Kenpachi referring to squad 11 barracks as home. He had only started calling the place their HOME about 30 years into their marriage and Yasu firmly believed to this day he doesn’t realize he started doing so and if she pointed it out he would instantly stop.

“Ahh, no. I promised to go to this new ramen stand that’s opened recently with Momo and others.” She smiled apologetically as she followed him to the adjoined captain’s bathroom. Kenpachi fast to strip to wash off before entering the basin of warm water and Yasu, who hated showering in the morning simply brushed her rust-colored crow’s nest, braiding the gray strands and adding her handmade decorations. Smiling at the second set of decorations that belonged to her beloved. They were much simpler and significantly less intricate than hers – just a few sharp wolf teeth and hawk feathers and one or two polished stones kept for special occasions such as date nights – which was just a stroll and wrestle in the woods and sex in the wilds night – and birthdays – the same as date nights but less walking, more sex and a lot steamier plus a gift is given as well –

“I should seriously get going love, I won't be home for lunch but I’ll try to be home for dinner earlier so we can wrestle.” She smiled her big kind stupidly beautiful smile that made Kenpachi avert his eyes to avoid another humiliating blushing event. And he would have succeeded if Yamase Yasu, the mountain of squad 10 hadn’t bent down – he still can’t wrap his braid around the fact that she has to bend down for him – and placed a gentle kiss on his forehead.

He deemed himself lucky that she left and didn’t see how that simple cherishing act turned his whole being into mush. And also very unlucky because now that she had departed for the barracks kitchen, he was left alone to deal with the aftermath of looking at her swaying hips in a thin, light white Yukata. As a married man, he should not have to deal with this predicament alone, however, he realized soon after actually living with Yasu under the same roof that, being an obstacle between her and her career is a fool's errand and it’s best if she is left to manage her time and duties herself. In fact, he begrudgingly admits, their afternoon wrestling is far more enjoyable than any morning quicky he could convince her into.

On the other side of the barracks, newly dressed in formal black Shikaushou, Ymase Yasu was already in the middle of preparing breakfast for her hundreds of beloved morons. Ymichika, being an early riser himself was also present. Having retired from his morning shower he was enjoying a cup of tea as he helped Yasu warm up her habitual – albeit horrid and unsightly – blood milk. “you don’t have to help you know. I can manage myself.” She would politely say, which was her way of saying ‘please get out of my way.’ She had already stepped on his poor dainty feet and her mobility was further reduced by being careful not to barrel into the small, dainty fellow. “I know. I want to help dear. You don’t let me take care of your hair so I thought I’d do something else.”

Oh, god. Please no. “ Yumichika, dear, I already told you, I don’t care for hair. It’s fine as it is. And you don’t need to help me in the kitchen.”

“what she really means is that you’re small and get in her way. Stay around and she might accidentally step on ya like a bug.” Madarame Ikkaku, her husband's lieutenant and right-hand man – and in her personal opinion, the closest thing Kenpachi has to an actual friend. – may be rude and insufferable with absolute no table manners but she could always rely on him to tell the mean things she didn’t want to say.

“that’s one way of putting it.” She smiled, offering him a full plate of the most protein-filled breakfast a man could ever dream of. “I put extra spinach, berries, and eggs for you; I hear it’s good for hair growth.” She adoringly said as she patted the lieutenant's shoulder. Making Ikkaku break his chop-sticks. Oh, how he wished he could kick her ass. Unfortunately, his captain would kill him if he so much as looked at her with ill intent. – something about her not partaking in violence witch was dumb, he’d seen the way they ‘wrestle’ once by complete accident and the image that’s unfortunately burned in his mind is nothing if not violent and he hears things. Violent-sounding things. How is she not into violence when she married him?- he shouldn’t think about his captain’s wife that way, he tells himself. And instead says:” I’m not bald…my head is shaved.” A vein popping on his head.

“I didn’t say you were.” She deadpans causing Yumichika to snort into his tea. “just because I’ve never seen you shave your head, or your hair to grow out – even after spending time on missions or never seen you in possession of a single strand of hair – anywhere – doesn’t mean I said you’re bald.”

Ikkaku Madarame respects his captain greatly. Sometimes, however, he thinks he married a devious demon.

“you take that back you damn Yama-Oni.” He cries out attempting to draw out his sword but is held back by Yumichika who is using his mastery over his eyebrows to tell Yasu to ‘please don’t bully him.’

“mountain- demon? Now that’s a new insult. I should write this one down.” She happily sings out as she prepares the last bits of breakfast and proceeds to ring the bells of the kitchen. Informing the squad that their breakfast is now served.

Yamase Yasu is an eternal pain in Ikkaku madarame's behind, but he admits if it weren’t for her food that this squad would have A) starved to death and B) would have slept till evening. She managed to convince them to get up early and to eat a healthy diet. What was it that Yumichika had said? Something about a woman’s touch? The berries are too tasty for him to care for anything else.

And as she is about to leave to her own squad, to the one she actually works at, the members of the loudest, rudest, nastiest squad in Gotei all bow and thank Yamase-san. And the new ones who are still shy around the giantess bow and thank their ‘Oujou-sama’ which makes him want to laugh.

Yeah…a woman’s touch. Or something.

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