#OFC SHES GONNA HOLD ONTO THE DOCTOR WITH BOTH HANDS

[echoingbirdsofprey]

Delicate (Jake's Version)

23 - Jake's First Navy Cross

Pairing: Jake 'Hangman' Seresin x OFC Samantha Kazansky

Rating: Explicit (MDNI!)

Warnings: none really just my brain being crazy and having so much inspiration. The next chapter though is gonna be some wild smut.

A/N: Welcome to my not sick not. I feel sort of normal, no more body aches thank god, but still have a cough. As always likes, comments, and reblogs are super appreciated! We need Jake in his dress blues more often. Hehehe.

Tags: @mrsevans90 @djs8891 @gpsmississippihippie @barnesboo1967 @dizzybee03

The Navy Birthday Ball. Something that Samantha attended every year because it was her father who made the speech and presented awards. She always sat front row with her mother, Mark and Alex. This year was going to be a bit different. She knew they were doing a special dedication to her father. Mark and Alex were not going. Sam was not sitting with her mother. She was sitting with Jake.

Jake did not go every year. In fact, he hadn’t been in the past three years because he’d been deployed on two and the last year he just didn’t want to dress up and go. This year though he was obligated to go. He needed to be there for Sam, and he was getting a Navy Cross Medal. 

Jake had seen the doctor earlier in the day and got the okay to have his sling off completely. The physical therapy had been going smoothly. He was still struggling with the actual therapist though. He was decently compliant with Ryker’s questions, but Ryker knew not to pry too much. He'd been through a similar experience. He knew Jake would open up eventually, or he wouldn't heal. Jake needed to heal, if not for himself, for Samantha.

Sam on the other hand...Jake had opened up more to Sam than he intended. And being that vulnerable with her seemed to make the nightmares worse. He had awoken for a week straight, every night, screaming, thrashing, when he didn’t have to. He’d be drenched in sweat, shivering and shaking, and every night Sam was right there, holding onto him as tight as she could, trying her best to calm him. He felt like a fucking child, being held and rocked back to sleep, half the time sobbing into her chest or holding her entirely too tight. 

One of those mornings he had woken up four times and Sam with him. When they both looked in the mirror, they had bags under their eyes, and they both looked fucking haggered. Jake pressed a kiss to her neck and wound his arms around her waist, when Sam winced. She glanced down at where his arm was, peeling it from her sticky skin. There was a bruise there. Jake examined it, realizing it could only be from him.

“Fuck, Sam. I’m so...I’m...sorry...sorry...fuck...” He stuttered and Sam immediately took him in her arms. He wanted to collapse on the floor and die, but she wouldn't let him.

“There’s nothing to be sorry for. I told you to hold me as tight as you needed.” She murmured against his chest. His eyes held so much sorrow, so much worry, and as he blinked rapidly, his jaw working with uncertainty, she couldn’t do much else but be a steady presence. She knew he wouldn’t accept it, but she really was unbothered by the bruise. She had spoken with Margie about when Ryker came home and what that was like. Margie had her fair share of accidental bruises from Ryker whacking her in the middle of the night while he was fighting demons in his sleep. The mind was a powerful thing when it thought it needed to defend itself. 

Jake's was fighting for it's fucking life. It didn't need to, but his brain didn't know that. When a wad of squishy, wet, tissue controls the advanced electronics for a suit of meat and muscle made to hunt and kill, there's bound to be some fuckery. Especially when that suit of meat has had some bad experiences. 

Jake fully understood that people got captured and tortured when it came to war, but deep down, person to person, he didn't understand how someone could do that and not feel awful about it. He knew they didn't feel bad about what they did to him. The blood on the floor, his broken bones, and the conditions they kept him told him that. His captors were the scum of the earth and Jake might spend the rest of his life trying to figure out why it had been him that ended up there. He knew why, but of all the missions, of all the luck in the world, why did it have to be then and there?

He surmised maybe it had to do with the unbelievable, incredible woman that he came home to. They'd really been put through some hell between Sam losing her father and Jake getting captured. But there was so much good that had come out of it. Jake proposed. That was one thing he never thought he'd do. 

Then there were the puppies. Jake had made several new friends and connections with the acquisition of the puppies and they were just another thing that made Sam happy. Or maybe what really made Sam happy was watching Jake learn how to train the puppies and in turn learn a little more about himself in the process. Jake's unfurling of his ego was something that Sam admired to the point that it has changed her mind on having children, though since he'd come home there weren't many instances where they'd gotten the chance to consummate their desires. With his therapy, working with the dogs, beginning to work from his office at the base, Sam's work, and his physical therapy, Jake's libido had taken a hit. Sure, he got pretty damn excited to see Sam but he didn't have an overwhelming need to fuck her every other hour. And in all honesty, Sam was okay with it. She enjoyed the kissing and the touching but she only wanted sex if Jake was feeling up to it and most nights he fell asleep before they could get into it. 

Jake had planned the night of the Navy Ball to a T though. They would attend the ball for a few hours, then head home, and Jake was going to take his sweet time with her and make love to her with the intention of going a few rounds. He knew seeing her in a dress would have him riled up anyway. Sam had perfect curves and anytime she wore a dress, the fabric hugged those curves in a way that was so sinful that it left Jake feeling a sudden urge to destroy the beautiful clothing. He never did but the want was there, to rip the fabric from her body and ravage what was underneath. He was sure she would let him do it too. 

Jake would be dressed in his finest blues and Sam had picked an evening dress that would have him on his knees later. It was an almost midnight blue, sparkly all over like the night sky, and it had a slit up one thigh. It sat off her one shoulder and most of her upper back was exposed, but she left her hair down and wavy. She picked a set of pretty silver heels that still only brought her just barely eye level with Jake. 

“My short queen.” He murmured as he pressed a kiss to the exposed skin of her shoulder from behind. She was standing in the bathroom applying very modest makeup, just eyeliner, and dark blue eye-shadow and a rosy lipstick. She never needed blush because if she stared at Jake long enough, her cheeks would naturally go pink for him. He loved that he had that effect on her. “We should get going.” 

She agreed and turned to look at him. “Can't wait to see that Navy Cross on your chest.” She said softly as she stretched up to kiss him. He smirked and brushed his fingers across her cheek, his eyes lingering half lidded on her. He trailed his hand down and picked hers up, the one with her engagement ring on, and pressed a kiss to the back. 

“And I can't wait for you to be truly mine, for the rest of our lives.” He said, as he guided her out of the bathroom and into the hallway. He helped her down the stairs, holding her dress up slightly so that she could get down them easier. Maisy and Javy met them at the bottom of the stairs.

“Damn, Sammy. Lookin’ fine.” Javy exclaimed as he pulled Maisy in a little closer. “But not as good as my pretty chica here.” 

“That’s a matter of opinion, ‘Yote.” Jake joked and Javy punched him lightly in the arm. “Nah, just kidding. Both of our ladies are gonna be turnin’ heads.”

Jake checked on the dogs one more time, giving them each a soft bone in their crates before shutting the doors. They headed to their trucks and were on the road, ready to make their appearance at the ball in t-minus thirty minutes.

The drive felt short and Sam for whatever reason, was nervous. They met the rest of Dagger Squad outside and everyone was gussied up and gorgeous in their dress blues and formal attire. Nat pulled Sam into a tight hug.

“You’re fucking gorgeous, girl. I would say I wish you were my date, but Bob did ask me first.” She laughed and Sam’s smile reached her eyes and then she looked around for Jake. To her surprise, he was right there, his hands shoved in his pocket, but his eyes admiring her from a few feet away. When she stepped away from Nat, he stepped in and hugged her and then as Bob came up behind her, he shook Jake’s hand.

“Have you seen Rooster yet?” Nat asked, and Jake shook his head.

“Is he here?” Jake stepped away from her and grabbed Sam's hand.

“He’s supposed to be. Callie actually asked him to be her date, but I guess he said no.” Nat said as they all began to head into the hall. They saw Cyclone and Warlock, with their wives, and Maverick was inside already with Penny on his arm, who looked downright stunning in a champagne colored gown. Everyone grabbed drinks first and then made their way to their tables, which were all assigned. Jake took a walk around the table, checking the names at the ten seats. Bob and Nat, Javy and Maisy, Reuben and Mickey who came together as a joke, Sam and himself, and then to his surprise, Rooster and someone named Iris. Maybe Rooster had met someone?

They would find out soon enough. Everyone took their seats, but no Rooster yet. Nat and Sam shared a look as the ceremonies got under way. Cyclone walked up onto the stage and made an opening statement of sorts, talking about how the ball was a time honored tradition every year and that everyone should have fun, but not too much fun, and to be safe. He also made a short statement about Iceman and how much he’s missed by his fellow pilots and colleagues. He presented her mother with a small memorial plaque for his years of service. Sam hadn’t even seen her mother come in. She hadn’t talked to her much either, barely had gone home in the past few months while caring for Jake.

Then Cyclone began another monologue. “As many of you know, being deployed is an honor, but it can also be a curse. You never know if you’ll come home. Your spouse or partner will worry about you the whole time you’re deployed. You never know if a mission is going to go south. When it does, you never know if you’re coming out of it or not. That’s what we sign up for. And we do it for all different reasons, but mostly because we love our country and the freedom we enjoy here.” Cyclone's eyes settle on Jake and he continues. “There are some of us who go above and beyond, displaying valor beyond what is required. And for that, for a sacrifice such as the one that Lieutenant Commander Jacob ‘Hangman’ Seresin made for his fellow pilots, we award medals of honor. Jake, please step forward.” 

Jake stood, his heart pounding in his chest. There was roaring applause and he leaned down to kiss Sam before he headed up to the stage. Warlock and a few other higher up officers stood on the stage, holding their hands out for Jake to shake. When he stepped over to Cyclone, he shook his hand, and then Cyclone pinned the Navy Cross on his jacket just above his other mini service medals. 

“I present this Navy Cross Medal to Lieutenant Commander Jacob Seresin, for his extraordinary heroism and valor in air combat to save his fellow pilots. Without his sacrifice, the mission outcome would’ve looked much different. We thank you for your service, Jacob.” Cyclone said as the photographer snapped some pictures. Jake thanked him and headed back to his seat. Sam kissed him and wrapped an arm around his shoulders, giving him a perfect view of her perfect breasts nearly spilling from her dress. 

“My handsome and brave pilot.” She said, her lips brushing against the shell of his ear. It sent a shiver down his spine and he glanced around at the rest of the table. No one was paying any attention as their dinner had arrived in front of them. They were chatting and laughing and all Jake could think of was how fucking beautiful Sam looked in her dress. He thought he might be a little more excited to have his medal, but maybe he was just comfortable without his sling again. Jake leaned over as their food was placed in front of them.

“I don’t wanna rush you but...” Sam could damn near feel the smirk on his lips and she could hear it in his voice.

“You don’t wanna celebrate your medal? She asked and he nodded.

“Of course I do, but not with all these people. It's my damn medal.” Jake said, taking a few bites of his food. Sam placed a hand on his thigh and squeezed. She was going to fuck around and Jake was counting on her finding out the consequences in just a couple short hours. About halfway through dinner, Rooster and his lady friend made their appearance. He introduced her to everyone and they sat down, the waitress coming over to serve them dinner.

“Traffic from the airport was hell.” He said, glancing at Jake. “Hangman. You look good.” 

“Ah, I am good, Rooster. I’m very good. I heard you were in Virginia  the past month. How was that?” Jake asked and Rooster took a sip of the wine that had come with dinner. Jake observed him for a few moments. Rooster’s eyes flicked over to Sam every once in a while, while his date looked just as stunning, and he barely gave her a second look the whole dinner. Jake thought it was an interesting dynamic. Was it a stab at Sam, thinking he could get a girl who looked just as pretty as Sam and make her jealous? Or was it just what it looked like, that Rooster had elected to bring a date whom he didn’t know very well and they were just in that awkward new stage of their relationship where they weren’t sure how to be around people in public and together yet. Either way Jake thought it was interesting.

“It was good. Met Iris here. She works on base at Oceana as a nurse. We went to her base’s ball a couple days ago when I got back from deployment. She wanted to come out to Cali and come to ours and meet everyone and I guess I couldn’t say no.” Rooster explained and Jake pursed his lips. Interesting, Jake thought, very interesting. So Jake was right, they were in the beginning of their relationship, but it was clear that Rooster was rushing it. Iris seemed uncomfortable with everyone but as the dinner continued she seemed to loosen up a bit. Rooster got up at some point to go to the bathroom and Sam leaned over to talk to Iris.

“Hi. I’m Sam. I’m an old friend of Bradley’s. Hopefully you’re enjoying yourself?” She asked and Iris nodded.

“Yeah. It’s nice to meet everyone. I briefly met Pete.” Jake’s brow furrowed and then he realized she meant Maverick. She clearly didn’t use callsigns much. 

“Are you staying for a bit?” Sam asked and Iris nodded.

“Yeah. I got leave for Christmas and so did Bradley, so we’re going to stay here through New Year’s and then head back to Oceana. We’ll stop in Michigan on the way back to see my family.”

“Oh, you’re from Michigan? Must be cold in the winter.” Sam said.

“Yeah. As soon as I could get out I did. I was so happy to get stationed in Virginia. So much better winters.” Iris said. “Where are you from, Sam?”

“I’m from here. My father just passed away but he’d been stationed here for most of his career.” Sam said. 

“Oh so you’re not in the Navy?” Iris asked.

“No, Jake, my fiance is. My father was the Fleet Commander for the past ten years so the Navy’s in my blood I’m just not in it.” Sam patted Jake on the shoulder and he smiled warmly at Iris, just as Rooster sat back down.

“Getting to know Hangman?” He asked, placing his hand on her shoulder. Jake chuckled.

“No, our ladies were actually bonding, Roos.” Jake said and Rooster shot him a small smile. There was an awkward tension between them that Sam could feel, but she had gathered that the rest of the table didn't feel it or they were trying to ignore it altogether. Jake figured everyone was just trying to be cordial and friendly. Jake glanced over at Sam and seeing that she had finished her food, he smirked. He wiggled his brows and she shook her head.

“Can we go now?” He asked, leaning in to whisper it in her ear.

“You wanna leave that bad?” She giggled as his lips brushed against her neck. His hands went for her thigh, running up the slit in her dress. 

“Yes. I do. Did you want dessert?” He asked, kissing her firmly on the lips then.

“Kind of.” She whimpered and his eyes darkened as he drew back slightly to lock eyes with her.

“Too bad. I’ve got dessert at home for you, babygirl.” He growled. Sam’s mouth dropped open and the bush that Jake loved so much crept across her cheeks. She cleared her throat and used his shoulder to help herself stand up.

“Jake and I are going to head home. It was nice to see everyone. Nice to meet you Iris.” She announced to the table and Jake smiled wide and nodded to everyone as he stood. His fellow pilots all said their goodbyes and Rooster just gave Jake a passing glance. He fixed his jacket and then his hand connected with Sam’s lower back as they headed toward the door. They passed couples here and there in the hall as they left, some making out, some sharing drinks, some laughing and dancing. 

Jake could only focus on Sam thought as they stepped into the cool night air. He helped her into the truck and she immediately removed her heels, throwing them on the floor at her feet. Jake started the truck, the engine rumbling to life. He glanced over at her and then shifted the truck into drive and pulled out of the spot. Jake could make the half hour drive into twenty minutes if there was no traffic.

[princess-pine-cone]

STOP

*Slap*

TAKING

*Slap*

ROSE TYLERS JEALOUSY

*Slap*

AWAY FROM HER CHARACTER!!!!

*Slap slap slap*

ITS AN INCREDIBLY IMPORTANT PART OF HER DEVELOPMENT

*SLAP SLAP SLAP*

[clowningaroundmars]

previously:

Here, the Doctor leaps over to the side, narrowly avoiding a fist to the jaw and swinging 42’s still unconscious body into the air… letting him tumble over the ledge.

"Catch!" He announces brazenly.

42 falls down, down, down.

Gwen watches in horror.

here we are you guys!!! the final chapter! are you guys ready? :)

don't worry, i won't play with your guys' hearts for too long! well. i mean

oh yeah, and remember that death tw on chapter 1? well yeah. no gory details ofc but just mind the warning

anyways, enjoy! :D it's the final stretch

<< part 4 of 4

Doc Ock cackles gleefully as he watches 42’s body tumble into the air and down onto the concrete parking lot several stories below.

With one last burst of rage-filled strength, Gwen football-tackles him over the ledge while his guard is down, sending all three of them sailing through the cool night air.

Doc Ock clearly doesn’t expect this, if his screaming was anything to go by.

But Gwen wasn’t concerned at all with his idiotic cries, she was a woman on a mission and by god if she wasn’t going to complete it!

If she failed two of her friends and directly lead to both of their demises, then what the hell was she wearing the mask for?

No, this ends now.

She quickly grabs Doc Ock by the back of his neck and grips onto another one of his tentacles as they fall through the air, ripping it straight out of the node on his spinal cord with all of her might.

“N-no-- don’t!! AAAAAAAAAUGHH!!”

The Doctor’s soul-wrenching yowl of pain might’ve made Gwen feel a little bad… under normal circumstances. But at the moment, her every bit of focus was pointed towards Miles-42 like a compass pointing True North, and she wasn’t letting him out of her sight now.

Making split-second calculations, she kicked the Doctor’s body off of her and used the tentacle’s technological properties as a last-ditch effort to hook herself onto a nearby streetlamp, swinging her entire body’s weight with a loud grunt of effort.

She intercepted Miles’ flailing body in mid-air and succeeded in grabbing a hold of him, swinging down onto the ground safely and falling onto the concrete. She crashed onto her knees and rolled over a few times, clutching 42's head protectively all the way down.

The Doctor… didn’t make it.

With a sickening crunch and splatter, he was a disgusting mess of red, wet garbage on the concrete. His tentacles weren't long enough to reach back up to ledge of the building and his slower reflexes caused him to miss the streetlamp entirely.

His remaining tentacles laid next to him just as limp and as dead as he was.

Well, shit. That was gonna be a nasty surprise for the paramedics to find later on, huh.

Gwen sighed with relief as she laid her head back down and took a minute to catch her breath.

What a day. She wanted this to be completely over now, but… she knew that despite this small moment of relief, she wasn’t quite out of the woods yet. Literally.

But also…

“Miles,” she grunts with effort, every muscle in her body crying out as she pushes herself off of her elbows to sit up.

Miles-42 is laid across her lap now and showing zero signs of waking up anytime soon. Gwen’s heart started kicking into overdrive again, and she held him in her hands…

Just like you held Peter… after killing him, an evil little voice sneered at her from the back of her mind.

“Peter? Peter, oh god. What did you do?!” Gwen sobbed, excavating her beloved friend from the rubble of her school’s gymnasium.

He wasn’t gonna make it… oh god, he really wasn’t going to make it. The poor boy could barely open his eyes, and his bloody, beaten face was something that was going to haunt her in her nightmares forever.

It was etched into the back of her mind, the back of her damn eyelids, especially when to her delight-- or horror, it was hard to tell in the moment-- he managed to crack open his swollen eyes and look directly into hers.

“Gw-- Gwen…” he coughed, weakly.

Gwen continued to cry. “No no no no no, no, no! What did you do!? Why?!” She pleaded, wanting any answer, anything to hold onto.

“I… I wanted to be special. Like you,” he managed, even weaker than before.

Gwen knew it. She could feel the thready pulse of his heartbeat growing weaker and weaker with every passing second, and time was running out.

But she still held on.

“… Peter?” She sucked in a breath.

“Peter?”

“Peter?!”

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

“Miles?!”

Gwen sobbed once more, clutching yet another beloved friend in her arms, in a position eerily similar to that fateful night. “Miles!”

All of the feelings she felt the night that her best friend had died came crashing back down and flooding into her chest like a tsunami.

She sniffled angrily, ripping her mask off of her face and working to pry Miles’ mask off of his own face, too.

... Damn it! What the hell was this stupid thing made out of?!

She didn’t want to break his tech, as complicated and extremely well-made as it was. She knew it was valuable and expensive to make, but desperate times called for desperate measures.

She needed to see if he was still possibly alive, if he could give her a sign or something, and she wasn’t going to be able to do it with this stupid mask in the way!

She didn’t trust her shaking hands to be able to read his pulse in this state… she needed to see his face.

After a couple of minutes of careful jabbing and prying, Gwen was finally frustrated enough to just slide Miles right off of her lap and pry the whole thing off of his face with one firm pull.

She managed to do so without injuring him even more, and immediately got to checking the color of his lips in the low lighting of the near-empty parking lot. She fussed over him, sniffling and wiping her tears all the while.

It seemed like his bleeding stopped for now at least, but that was without even knowing how much he had lost in the first place.

“Miles… Miles?! Please,” she begged as she held him in her arms once more. “Answer me, please! Let me know you’re still alive, anything! Wiggle your eyebrows or…” she sniffled, “I… I don’t know but god, please, anything!”

What the hell did Doc Ock even do to this kid anyways?

She examined his face once more through the tears in her eyes and noticed a new injury that looked relatively fresh, still bleeding somewhere from his temple.

Maybe he knocked Miles out for a longer time in his mad dash to the roof… and if that was true… he really, really could be dead.

Miles-42 wasn’t a superpowered being like the rest of the Spider Band, he was a regular kid with cool gadgets and intense at-home training, but a regular kid nonetheless. Gwen could recover from a hard head injury herself just fine, all she would have to do is just sleep the pain off.

But Miles…

Miserably, Gwen sunk down even lower to the ground and sobbed her eyes out, tears wetting her face and staining the spray-painted Prowler logo on Miles’ shirt.

She stays like this, clutching onto the limp body of someone she would’ve been happy to call her friend-- especially after all they’ve been through today-- and now he won’t even live to see the fruits of his labor.

Fuck.

Gwen’s wandering thoughts takes her over to his uncle Aaron’s face, how he was going to react to the news of his nephew’s untimely and unfortunate death.

Gwen thought about Rio and… well, she cried even harder.

But she didn’t get to finish because… Miles then stirred a bit, his breathing speeding up a bit before he laid his head back and sighed softly.

Gwen stopped crying. She was shocked, staring back into his blank face with wide, teary eyes.

… Was it her imagination, then? Did she want Miles to be alive so badly that she convinced herself that he moved a bit while she wept?

No. No, she’s got to suck it up, stop letting her emotions get the best of her and give it a real try this time.

Steadying her breathing and wiping the snot from her nose, she brushes her hair back from her face and turns Miles’ face towards a nearby streetlamp that casts down a cold, white light onto the scene.

With gentle fingers, she lifts up one of his eyelids, then his other eyelid, and then finally bends down to listen to his chest as closely as she can.

She hears a heartbeat, though not so loudly underneath all of the gear he wears, but a heartbeat nonetheless.

Miles really stirs this time, groaning and sucking in a breath as he slowly comes back online.

Gwen laughs wetly, wiping more of her tears and boogers and sadness away, only tears of joy left brimming in her eyes.

“Miles! Oh my god, you’re alive… you’re alive! You made it!” She announces gleefully, giving him a happy little squeeze.

“Ow,” Miles answers hoarsely, squinting in the harsh, cold light of the streetlamp overhead and coughing a bit.

“S-sorry, sorry. I’m just. Well, y’know pretty excited that you’re alive. I thought that you were actually dead for a minute there, bud! You really gave me a scare!” She laughs and sniffles.

Miles finally cracks an eye open long enough to exhale a bit and lay his head back down.

“Uhhh… who are you again?” He mumbles, and Gwen’s heart sinks.

Oh no.

“What? Uh, i-it’s me, Gwen! Y’know, the girl who you’ve been fighting to escape this horrible building with this whole night? Oh no… is your head injury that bad?” She frets.

Miles then cracks a smile, not quite being able to laugh but getting pretty damn close to doing so.

“Gwendy, relax. I know who you are. Joke,” he explained, and it earned him another head bump from being promptly dropped right back onto the hard ground.

“Ow,” he complained.

“You are a dick,” Gwen replied, folding her arms over her chest. She didn’t stop smiling through her tears, though.

“Were you crying over me? Oh my god, you were totally crying,” Miles says with a smile, not making any movements to get up at all.

Gwen unfolds her aching legs from underneath her and stands up on her knees. “Shut up. Stop talking. You’ve sustained a critical brain injury and you need to not make stupid decisions before we get you out of here, alright?”

Miles chuckles quietly. “Mmnyeah, true. Lemme keep my mouth shut.”

He wasn’t slurring his speech or confusing her for another person, so that was a good sign.

He wasn’t moving any of his limbs, though. So… that was possibly a bad sign.

“Can you, uh,” Gwen starts, glancing all around her as she fully stands up, “can you walk? Or sit up? I can carry you, but I need to know that you’re not paralyzed from the neck down first. I don’t wanna risk any more injuries, y’know?”

Miles wiggles his feet and flexes his hands inside of his gauntlets for a bit before laying back down and sighing again.

“Yeah, I can move my limbs. I don’t think anything’s broken… except for this massive fuckin’ migraine I got goin’ on right now. Just, uhm. Just gimme a minute.”

Gwen continues looking over her shoulder. The blades of a chopper are vibrating through the air several miles away but it’s gaining speed quickly, and steadily getting closer.

“Okay, you might wanna hurry up on that, because we’ve got company coming and we still need to get the hell out of here,”

Miles blinks on the ground for a few more seconds, gears very obviously turning in his head as he does.

After a few seconds, he says, “okay. Help me up, then. Slowly,”

It takes them several more minutes of pained grunting and a slow ascent up to get Miles standing again, but once they’re both steady on their feet, they get a move on.

Gwen has one of his arms over her shoulder, steadying him and carrying some of his weight.

“Wait,” Miles says suddenly, just as they’re rounding a corner of the building where several guards and scientists are still milling around. There are a few big white buses parked close by, most likely hired to transport the personnel away from the facility. Some are already sat inside.

Gwen ducks back around the corner and takes a peek at the scene before turning her attention back to her friend.

“Shit, you’re right. There’s a lot of people out there, most likely waiting for Octavius or something. We’ve gotta find a way too book it out of here undetected, though…”

“Mh, yep,” Miles grunts, sucking in air through his teeth for a second. “Ow, sorry. My head’s killin’ me… which kinda sucks, ‘cause my escape plan was to just hot-wire a car and hightail it outta here.”

Gwen laughed incredulously. “Oh my god. That was your grand escape plan this whole time?” She shakes her head. “In every single universe… Miles Morales is the exact same dork I always hate to love,”

“Psshhyeah right, hate to love. You’re not foolin’ me,” Miles smirks at her exasperated expression.

Gwen rolls her eyes and instructs Miles to lean against the wall and stay put while she goes to search for a viable vehicle they could steal.

“Cool. Good luck. I definitely won’t die,” Miles informs her, which just makes her roll her eyes again before bounding away.

Time for some espionage, Gwen thinks to herself as she skirts the outer edges of the parking lot and tries to avoid being seen by the several other armed personnel still waiting around to receive confirmation that they can now depart.

After a little bit, a few ambulance trucks pull up with flashing red lights and the paramedics jump out, which actually gives her some relief. The professionals were on the job now, everything was taken care of; they also served as a perfect distraction from what she was doing…

Which was looping around the entire building’s perimeter and seeing which car was left unattended and unlocked.

She really didn’t want to have to break any windows, especially because she needed to keep as quiet as possible since she still needed to go back and fetch Miles… but if all options were exhausted…

Bingo!

She eventually came across a parked Ford F-250 near a line of trees located just behind all of the ambulances and the commotion. It was unlocked (haha, sucker!) and was perfectly empty, ready for the taking.

Gwen couldn’t believe that despite failure after failure plaguing her on this day, her luck finally turned around at the last minute… what a relief!

Overhead, the chopper finally reached its destination, drowning out every sound around them with its spinning blades as it slowly lowered itself down onto the helipad located at the top of the building. Leaves were whipped violently into the air, trees swayed and shook with the force of the winds.

Gwen rejoiced again at the added distraction that would surely help with her sweet escape.

The helicopter crew wouldn't find much waiting for them up there, save for the unconscious bodies of several brutally-beaten henchmen, of course.

She fetched her friend who was now sitting with his knees tucked up under his chin against the wall, and together they limped their way back to the truck and climbed in.

Once inside, they successfully hot-wired it using Miles’ gadgets. Then Miles went to climb out of the driver’s seat.

“Uhh wait, huh. Where’re you going?” Gwen asks from the passenger seat.

“Oh, didn’t I tell you? You’re driving. Hop in.” Miles groans as he lowers himself from the high-as-hell cab, clutching at his side.

Gwen titters nervously. “Ohhh, no, no I’m not! I don’t even have my license yet, I can’t drive!”

Miles takes his sweet time painstakingly climbing into the back seat of the truck. He shirks his pack off, throws it onto the floor of the cab, and stretches himself out over the seats to lay down.

“Yep, I don’t have my license either, girl, you don’t see me chickening out when I’m picked to be the getaway driver!” He remarks, once comfortable.

Gwen huffs in annoyance, leaping over to the driver’s side and locking all of the doors once she makes sure they’re shut tight.

“Dude, forreal! I have no clue how to operate a truck like this! The gear shift isn’t even in the right place,” she complains.

Miles cracks one eye open. “Please tell me your dimension doesn’t have y’all driving on the left side of the road…”

Gwen huffs again. “No, I'm not British, Miles. I meant… this looks pretty high-tech for me and… what do all of these buttons even do? …Is this a touch screen?”

“Gwen, seriously, I get that this is a brand new experience for you but listen: there are like, no laws in this dimension. Literally not even kidding. Just pull up the GPS on that touch screen, punch in my address and we can get going. Left pedal’s gas, right pedal’s the brakes.”

She hesitated, but... there was no arguing with that! Who was Gwen to make decisions in a dimension she wasn’t even a part of, really? If Miles told her that his dimension ignored all traffic laws, well… then, when in Rome, right?

And besides, who else was getting them both to safety if not her? She needed to suck it up before they were noticed by any personnel sweeping the area, or before any cops showed up.

She took a deep breath and steeled herself.

“Well,” Gwen said nervously, both hands on the wheel and her eyes directly on the road in front of her, “bon voyage, then! Let’s pray I don’t get the both of us killed,”

“Vamos con dios,” Miles mumbled, an arm draped over his eyes. He quickly lost consciousness once again.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

About half an hour into their drive (which-- aside from terrible braking every now and then-- was admittedly pretty smooth, all things considered), Gwen pulls over to a greasy 24-hour fast food place that seemed to serve all of the shittiest, unhealthiest food ever invented under the sun.

She woke Miles up and asked him what his order would be, borrowed his jacket to cover up her unique costume’s design, and ducked inside.

She was surprised to see Miles up and sitting in the truck bed when she returned with their food, legs swinging like he hadn’t just gotten injured helping her fight a menacing four-armed madman not even an hour and a half ago.

He looked the worse for wear, braids frizzed out as they hung right over his shoulders like they usually did, but he was more alert now than he had been before. He looked fine, given the circumstances.

They sat side-by-side, gazing up at what scarce stars there were out in the early morning sky, the edges of the horizon peeking a slight blush of pink through the trees.

Gwen scarfed down her triple bacon burger and inhaled her large fries, only stopping every once in a while to take a sip of her extra-large milkshake.

A mildly amused Miles enjoyed his own fries and meatball sub in companionable silence.

“Feelin’ better?” Gwen asks, still munching on the last bit of her burger, which has now thoroughly stained the lap of her costume with grease.

Miles laughs, wrapping up the second half of his sandwich for later. “Yeah, a quick nap and a good meal helps a lot,”

Gwen hums in thought. “You were out for… a while. Like, back at the parking lot. I was getting real worried there, actually,” she admits.

Miles glances at her, studying her face for a second. “… How long? I mean, you were crying, so I guess it was a while,”

Gwen rolls her eyes. “Can you stop bringing the crying back up again? I just… I got scared, okay? You didn’t tell me what your grand escape plan was before you… uh, passed out, so I mean...”

Miles is skeptical. “Uh huh, the escape plan. That’s what you were worried about that whole time, right?” He ribbed her a bit, intending for it to come off light-heartedly.

The tense silence that fell in that moment made him a bit nervous, though.

Gwen looked… upset.

He backpedaled. “Uhhh, I mean. Yeah, yeah, the escape plan! The escape plan... woulda been a real shame if I croaked back there before telling you what it was. Of course.” He clears his throat awkwardly.

Gwen offers him a small smile and starts clearing the wrappings and the trash around her folded legs.

“I… uh. I don’t think I’ve ever told anyone this before. Well, not all of the details but. I don’t really do the whole friend thing anymore because of… I mean, I lost a friend before. And you’re Miles and-- I mean, not my Miles but the other Miles is-- was my friend, and I think we’re cool now, but when I saw you falling I just…”

Gwen sighs. “Sorry. I’m rambling. This is awkward.”

Miles leans back against the side of the truck bed, positioned in the same way that they were sitting back when they were having a bit of a heart-to-heart in the vents of Octavius’ compound. Funny how little moments like this seemed so serendipitous like that.

He studied her face again in the yellowing lights of the restaurant’s signs, thinking for a bit.

“Miles… the other Miles kind of told me some stuff. Not too many details, sure, but. Yeah,” he offered, trying to signal to her that he was down for a chat, no matter how depressing the topic got.

Not very many people in his world got to understand him on a deeper level, not even his own girlfriend. It was nice sitting next to someone who dealt with just as much trauma as him, if not more. It was... an opportunity for connection. Why not take it?

Gwen looked up at him. “Oh, you two talk about me?”

“Yeah, you’re all we talk about, your highness,” he laughs, then sobers up again. “Nah. I mean, y’know like, we talk about everybody. And he likes you, you know. So, yeah... sometimes you get brought up.”

Gwen sighs, leaning her head back against the truck bed and looking up at the stars above. “He shouldn’t, honestly. I think he can find someone from his dimension that… that’s gonna actually appreciate him, you know?” She looks back down into Miles’ eyes. “Not a self-deprecating thing, by the way. Don’t worry,”

Miles holds his hands up with an easy smile. “Not worrying,”

“Well good!” Gwen smirks. Then she shrugs. "I'm not sure it'd work out between us. That's all."

“... So about that back there… I took a look in the side mirror and uh,” he gestures to his shirt, the Prowler insignia now slightly messed up and blurred in some spots thanks to Gwen’s salty tears. "Yeah."

Gwen looks away, ashamed. “Yeah,” is all she says.

“Was your friend… a good friend?” Miles prodded a bit, trying to seem nonchalant about it.

Gwen saw right through it, even when she was purposefully avoiding looking at him. “Yeah. He was. My best friend,”

“Damn,” Miles replies. “I reminded you of him that much?”

Gwen laughs bitterly. “Don’t flatter yourself. I mean… I thought of you as my friend, which… y’know, you are, until we get to go our separate ways and forget all of this even happened. And I uh… I don’t like seeing friends get hurt. That’s all.”

Miles bobbed his head slowly, digesting this bit of information and taking a sip of his own milkshake.

"He, uhm." Gwen swallowed. "He died in my arms."

It was all she could say.

Miles winced because he understood. He really, really did.

After a few moments of silence, he cleared his throat. “Listen. I, uh. I wouldn’t mind calling you a friend after all of this, if you don’t mind. Like, even after we go home,” He strategically avoided eye contact with her. "We been through too much tonight to call each other strangers, right?"

Gwen smiled at him again. It was a sad smile. “Why don’t you have any friends, by the way? You seem cool. Well. When you’re not in work mode, that is.”

Miles chuckled. “Wow. Do I seem that lonely?”

Gwen shrugs. “The other Miles also tells me some things… sometimes. You just happen to come up every now and then, that’s all,” she manages as playfully as possible. She throws him a wink over her shoulder.

Miles' upper lip quirked up. “That little traitor. I’m giving him a wedgie the next time I see ‘im.”

Gwen barks out a laugh. “Good luck! He’s ten times stronger than you and he can go invisible,”

“Yep,” Miles nods to himself. “You definitely still have a crush on him.”

Gwen throws a fry at him and then they decide to finally dump their trash and continue their journey back into the city before the sun really started waking up and blinding poor Gwen, who was already learning how to drive on the fly and probably didn’t need the relentless sun rays beaming directly into her eyes while she was still at it.

They rode the rest of the way in much better spirits.

They drive past Newark, New Jersey and before Gwen knows it, they’re driving through Manhattan and reaching the Brooklyn Bridge.

“Okay okay, okay, okay okay okayokayokay,” she mutters to herself, hands firmly gripping the steering wheel and leaving slight indentations in the material. “I got this, I got this,”

Miles is now seated in the passenger seat, seatbelt firmly clicked in place. He’s leaned forward, ready to stop Gwen at any moment and pull the emergency brakes.

“Yeah, yeah, you got this, you got this! Don’t be intimidated by all the other cars around you, this ain’t our truck, remember? Everyone else is gonna be doing whatever the hell they wanna do, but don’t do anything stupid on the bridge, right? Otherwise, just keep your foot hovering over the brakes, like I told you before. Let this truck coast,”

Gwen tries her best to internalize all of his rapid-fire advice and not accidentally find herself flooring the gas by accident at the same time. She’s pretty sure her finger marks are going to be sunk into the polyurethane foam and possibly even the metal underneath forever.

She didn’t know who in the world owned this truck, but whoever he was, he was going to be real pissed off when he discovered it in the future.

Which, actually, speaking of…

“Sooo, how uh… where are we going to put this truck once we’re done with it? Should we… pull over soon, leave it in a parking lot somewhere and take the train the rest of the way?”

Miles chuckled. “Leave it? You kiddin’? This truck is basically brand new, pristine. We’re taking this straight to my uncle’s chop shop, we’re gonna take this stuff apart, sell a part here and there, keep the rest for our own gear.”

Gwen gave him a cursory glance. “Uh, your uncle has an auto shop? Huh. Dunno why that surprises me.”

“It’s not a legit business, that’s why. He only runs it as a front. We use it mostly to bring in abandoned cars, use the metals, wires and glass for our gear, other weapons we make to sell. Sometimes Aaron fixes other people’s cars and bikes for some money, though… and bribes.”

Gwen chuckles a bit. “Sounds about right. But I guess I don’t blame you guys. Gotta do what you can to… survive… right?”

She trails off as they get closer to Brooklyn's residential areas and see a rampant spike in crimes. Gwen’s Spider Sense goes off as she sees crime after crime being committed in the brand new hours of the dawn, when the sky hasn’t even finished lightening up to a nice baby blue yet.

“… I see that you guys, uhm… these New Yorkers here in this dimension are a… lively bunch, huh?” Gwen comments distractedly as she drives past someone actively committing grand theft auto.

“Yyyyep,” Miles sighs. “Home, sweet home.”

“You ever wonder what it’s like to live anywhere else in the world sometimes?”

“Only everyday. But us Morales never run from anything. So,” Miles shrugs.

Gwen gives him a fond look.

"Sure do wish I could stop some of these people, though-- wait. Is that man mugging that other guy over there?" She cranes her neck over the wheel to get a better look.

Miles grabs the wheel to keep them from veering into a line of parked cars. "How about we just keep driving, okay? Eyes on the road, girl."

Gwen laughs sheepishly. "Right! Sorry. Spiderwoman instincts."

"Yeah, trust me, I get it." Miles replies flatly. "Don't get distracted. This crime's ours to fight, not yours. Just get us home, like, alive please?"

After finally rolling up to Aaron’s garage at five in the morning, bright and early, Miles lowers himself down from the cab once again and limps over to ring the doorbell.

He presses it in a series of patterns that Gwen only vaguely recognizes before the metal garage door eventually starts rumbling open, revealing a slightly disheveled Aaron still in his PJs, but with a fly coat on as per usual, and some nice-looking Timbs. He was casually leaning against a vintage Cadillac.

He held a mug of coffee in one hand that read “WORLD’S WORST UNCLE” in bold lettering on one side.

Gwen bit her lip to keep from laughing.

“About damn time,” Aaron grumbles, scratching at his beard and pushing off of the Cadillac. “What took y’all so long?”

Miles only gives him a cursory glance before going around the front of the truck to help Gwen down from the cab and dive into the backseat to retrieve his stuff.

Aaron raises an eyebrow at her.

“Uh, hello… sir. I’m Gwen!” She responds, mostly to dispel the awkwardness that hung in the air.

Aaron eyes the truck as he paces casually towards the two teens, gaze occasionally flicking down to the purple jacket that Gwen still sported... that very clearly belonged to his nephew.

"What, uh," Aaron starts, "what... happened to you two?"

"Ah, you know. High risk life-threatening mission, the usual!" Gwen quips on auto-pilot. Her mouth moves faster than her brain does sometimes.

Miles followed Aaron’s gaze and quickly stepped in front of her, holding his pack out for him to take.

“I got it,” he informed Aaron. “All of it.”

Aaron made a noise of approval, taking the pack and examining it.

It still had a few cobwebs dangling off of it. He hummed in thought, eyeing his nephew once more.

“Sooo, we’re gonna go upstairs now, cool? I gotta clean this super awful and deep wound I got from… uh, saving Gwen here. Yeah, she was gonna be sushi if I didn’t jump in front of her. It was Doc Ock, by the way,” Miles continued, as they both made their way into the garage and towards the door in the back. “Doc Ock, that we killed, too. By the way. Mostly me, of course. But, y’know. No need to thank me or anything!”

Aaron laughs and shakes his head. "I'm tellin' Rio, kid. I am! I'm snitchin', I don't care."

"What!" Miles exclaims indignantly. "About what?!"

Aaron's shoulders are shaking. "I'm tellin' her you got another girl around now,"

Gwen laughed loudly, grabbing Miles by the back of his shirt and yanking him towards the back exit door.

“I do not! Do not call her! Bye!” Miles called out before stumbling into the landing that lead up to the elevator of his uncle’s building.

Miles apologized about his uncle in the elevator ride up, and when he opened the door to Aaron's spacious apartment, he kicked his shoes off and sighed with relief.

“Make yourself at home, by the way… mi casa es su casa, and all that,” he says nonchalantly as he peels his shirt off of his body, shedding gear on the floor all the way to the couch.

Gwen only stands by the door, jacket in hand, fiddling nervously with the material.

“I should… I should go.” She finally says after a moment of hesitation. Guilt weighed heavily on her shoulders. “I shouldn’t stick around if I really don’t need to--”

“Why, ‘cause of Spider Society rules?” Miles scoffs, pulling a first aid kit from under the couch and inspecting his wound. “Am I still bleeding on the side of my face, by the way?”

Gwen sighs. “No. And, no. You’ve stopped bleeding a while ago. Look…” she dumps his jacket onto the back of a computer chair and looks down at her watch. “This little adventure was very fun and all… but you got hurt because of me, and I should--”

She stops when she sees Miles’ wound. It looked nothing like she’d ever seen before on a person... and she’s seen her fair share of wounds.

The gaping… thing that Miles was inflicted with didn’t look like any wound she’d even experienced before.

It was green, still had a slight glow to it from the weird snake-like marks winding out from the center. The dried blood scabbing over didn’t bother her at all, she knew how ugly a stab wound could look most days, but the green glow…

It looked a lot like the glowing green circuits back in that power box that she destroyed at Octavius’ compound…

She gasped.

Miles looked up from his inspection and they locked eyes.

“Uhhh,” his pupils bounce around for a bit, trying to think of something to say. “It’s… it’s not as bad as it looks?”

Gwen winces and then swiftly turns around, immediately punching in her own dimension into the watchface. “I’d love to stick around… but I gotta go. Don’t die on me, okay?” She tells him, speaking quickly.

Miles is caught by surprise, but eventually concedes. He places a hand over his wound and nods in her direction. “Uhm. Yeah, cool. Will do. You uh, you take it easy, too. Yeah?”

Gwen only offers him a sad smile in return and her own watercolor-bright portal is immediately opened. Then, she’s stepping through it like she’s being chased down.

After the portal closes, everything that was in the vicinity settles down after floating in the air a bit.

Miles is left alone blinking in the place it used to be, unsure as to why Gwen just dipped on him like that out of nowhere.

He looks back down to his wound, only maybe slightly infected, but still very sure that the poison most likely worked itself through his body by now. Especially after that meatball sub and the fries...

Maybe seeing poisoned wounds upset her or something, he figured, shrugging and going back into the open kit laid next to him.

He starts cleaning his wound with isopropyl alcohol, wincing every now and then when the chemical stung a little harder as he peeled away dried blood.

It isn’t until after he’s done that he remembers their conversation about her best friend, back in the truck at the fast food joint.

He shuts the kit closed, tucks it back underneath the couch, and picks his phone up off of the counter where he usually leaves it before heading out to dangerous missions.

He selects and copies Gwen’s number from the Spider Band groupchat that he never sends messages in, opens a new message box, and sends only one text.

Thanks, btw. For everything.

[hrryshoney]

please god tea give me gyno matty thoughts

molly! so glad u asked i did miss this freaky man. idk if we want smut or fluff but yk what i’ll put both💐

lowkey have been thinking about this for a lil bc i mentioned it in the past but.. him saying she’s just so tight for him that he has to stretch her out… but he’s just a little sweetheart abt it ofc!

Matty’s head was resting on your thigh, curls tickling your skin as you threw your head back with pleasure. His fingers moved in and out of you at a slow pace, curling them and making a scissoring motion every now and then. He watched closely as your cunt leaked with arousal, and you could feel his warm breath fan across your clit. “Doctor,” Your whisper was breathy, and you bit your lip raw. Breath getting stuck in your throat as he continued his movements.

Matty’s thumb came to rest on your clit, a feather light touch that almost had your hips bucking into his hand. “Shh, good girl. Letting me stretch you out like this, huh? Dick is too big for my little girls holes.” He smiles at your gasps and whimpers, only moving his fingers faster and deeper. He looks at you with only adoration in his eyes, as if he’s not being filthy. “S’ok, I know. I know what’s best for you, and this little cunt, princess.” He thrusts his fingers inside of you pointedly, watching as you gush around his fingers.

Your walls clenched around the digits, and he slipped out of you to run his fingers through your damp folds. You shuddered, gritting your teeth together as he stared at your pussy. You bucked your hips into the air, hoping he would get the message. It didn’t do much for you, though, as his strong hands came to hold you down in place on the bed. With his fingers digging into your hips, you felt him blow a gust of cold air onto where you were dripping for him. “Matty! Please, need you.” A whine that accompanied your pout fell from your lips, and Matty licked a bold stripe on your upper thigh.

As he dragged his tongue closer to your core, you resisted the urge to squirm in place. Tingles ran all throughout your body. He was still grinning as his teeth grazed your clit, watching you struggle for him. He took his pointer and middle finger, spreading your hole for him as thumbed at your clit. He brought his head down between your thighs, inserting his tongue inside of you. You closed your thighs around the sides of his head, gasping at the feeling. He moved the muscle thoroughly through your cunt, making sure he tasted every part of you. He was messy, murmuring into your skin about how good you tasted, how he could stay here forever.

Matty moved his attention to your clit, sucking the bundle of nerves as he moved to insert his fingers instead. Three of his thick digits slid into you easily, being wet enough from how Matty continued to tease you. “My good patient. Fuck, so in love with you. In love with this body.” He moved his hands from your thighs up to your waist. Bunching your shirt up as he felt the curves of your body, eventually moving all the way up to your breasts. He squeezed and tweaked your nipple, rolling them between his finger tips. A mean pinch before he soothed them with the pad of his thumb. “Just my personal slut, right, bunny? Know you love it as much as I do.” The way he talked, you could think he was pussydrunk.

You nodded your head, feeling the pressure that had started building in your abdomen coming to a peak. “Yes, Doctor. L-love it so much.” You struggled to speak as his movements never halted. “I’m gonna cum, please.” You warned him as you squeezed your eyes shut, hips rolling into him. He sped up, flattening his tongue on your cunt. He shook his head between your thighs, and moaned against your core. You felt the vibrations of his groans, and it pushed you over the edge. White hot pleasure behind your eyelids, and Matty’s voice talking you through it the whole time.

“That’s right, so nice for me. Did so well, I’m so proud of you. Good pet f’me.” Matty’s accent was thick, sounding breathless himself. His last sentence full of lust and heavy teasing. His pupils were blown wide, and his hair was now nothing short of a mess. “Pretty little thing, my favorite thing to do it watch you cum.” He ran his fingers through your slick folds again, bringing them to his mouth and sucking his digits. You were blissed out, head against the pillow. Though, you could notice the very obvious tent in his gray sweats.

“Thank you, Matty. Felt so nice.” Your thighs twitched slightly with the aftershocks of your orgasm, and your reactions were slightly delayed. Which is why you almost didn’t realize when Matty’s hand found home between your thighs, again. “Fuck- what are you doing?” You sighed.

Matty’s face lit up as he grinned, his hand moving higher against you. He rubbed your upper thighs in small circles. “Said I need to get you ready for me. Need to open you up, sweet girl. We’re not done yet.” And when your eyes widened and you opened your mouth to ask him if he was serious, the only response he could give you was for you to, “Listen to your Doctor’s orders, princess.”

[mikaela-granger]

The Long Wait (Season 6) Chapter 12

The Son Also Rises

Fandom: Grimm

Pairing: Sean Renard/OFC

The Long Wait Masterlist

A/N: Lorelei and the twins return home. Meanwhile, Sean tries to better understand the symbols Diana has been drawing.

***Sean’s POV***

On Tuesday morning when Sean arrived at the hospital, he found out it would be the last time he would be doing so. Lorelei and the girls were being discharged that day. Aurora and Liliana had amazed staff by how quickly they had gained weight. As of Tuesday morning, they were 5.55lbs and 5.5lbs respectively. And with no additional health issues, the doctors had determined they were ready to go home. Lorelei’s own test results showed she had recovered enough that they felt comfortable enough to send her home. All three of them would have appointments to check their progress a couple of days after the New Year started.

Sean had contacted Angela to let her know. She told him she would let her sisters know, especially Amanda who would be acting as their night nurse for the first few months. After that period, she would join her sisters as their regular nannies, taking turns caring for the children. Once that was done, Sean helped Lorelei pack up hers and the babies’ belongings. “I swear, I didn’t have this much stuff when I arrived.” Lorelei commented as she pushed down on her suitcase, trying to zip it up.

Sean looked up from where he had finished zipping up the twins’ bag. He walked over to where his wife was and used his body weight to hold the suitcase closed, allowing Lorelei to finally zip it up. “You did receive some gifts while you were in here. I’m sure they added to the load.”

Lorelei nodded. “True.” She turned to look at the girls, who were in their bassinets. “Let’s get these two into their car seats and head home.”

“Mommy!” Olivia flew down the hallway, throwing herself at Lorelei’s legs as they entered the front door.

“Hi sweetheart.” Lorelei said as she bent down to pick Olivia up. “How are you?” Olivia in her arms, Lorelei headed towards the living room where Angela was waiting for them. “Hi Angela.”

Angela pulled Lorelei into a hug. “How are you sweetheart?”

Lorelei smiled at her. “Tired. But glad to be home.”

Angela nodded understandingly before turning her attention to Sean and the twins. “Hello little girls. Look how big you’ve gotten since I last saw you.” She cooed.

“Just over 5.5.lbs now.” Sean informed her. “And if you’ll excuse me, I might take them upstairs, get them out of their car seats.”

“Of course. Olivia was just about to help me make lunch, weren’t you sweet girl?”

Olivia nodded and Lorelei handed her over to Angela. Sean started making his way up the stairs, followed closely by his wife. Setting the car seats on the bed, he unbuckled Aurora from hers and gently picked her up. “Welcome home sweetheart.” Sean told her softly as he moved to place her in the bassinet.

Lorelei removed Liliana from her car seat. She gently placed her in the bassinet before turning to Sean. “I might have a bit of a lie down before lunch.”

Sean nodded, removing the car seats from the bed. He helped his wife onto the bed before sitting down on the edge beside her. “Is there anything you need?”

Lorelei shook her head, a smile on her face. “I’m all good.” She replied.

Sean placed a gentle kiss on her lips. “I’m gonna put the car seats in the twin’s room. I’ll be downstairs if you need anything.”

The rest of the day was uneventful. Lorelei spent the remainder of the day upstairs with the twins. The twins were feeding around every 90 minutes for about 20 minutes each. Lorelei would alternate between feeding them at once or one at a time. When she wasn’t feeding them, she was either resting or pumping. Sean and Angela took turns staying with Lorelei, bringing her food and drinks. Both had offered to feed one or both of the twins, but Lorelei was insisted that for this first day, she would do it herself. She wanted to stock up on breast milk, so she was able to better rest overnight and tomorrow.

Amanda arrived around 7pm just as Sean and Lorelei were putting Olivia to bed. The twins and their bassinets were moved into the guest room where Amanda would be sleeping when she wasn’t attending to the twins. It was determined that for this evening, at least, Amanda and Sean would do the feedings while Lorelei slept. By 10pm, Lorelei and Sean were heading to bed. The twins had been fed and they had an hour and a half before they were due to be fed again. Turning off the lights, Sean joined his wife in bed. She shuffled closer to him, her head resting on his chest. “I’m glad to be home.” Lorelei told him.

Sean pressed a kiss to her forehead. “I’m glad you’re home as well. All of you.”

Lorelei looked up at him, her hand coming to rest on his cheek. Sean leant down capturing her lips with his own. “I missed being able to do that without the heart monitor going off.” She said with a chuckle.

Sean hummed in agreement. “Likewise. Now, get some sleep.”

Sean entered the kitchen the next morning desperate for coffee. Every time the twins had awoken, so had he. Lorelei had as well, but it didn’t take much to convince her to stay in bed and leave it himself and Amanda.  

“Morning. You look like you could use this.” Angela commented as she offered him a cup.

Sean smiled at her gratefully. “Thank you.” He said accepting it. He pressed a kiss to the top of Olivia’s head before sitting down at kitchen island. Olivia was eating some fruit while Angela was preparing breakfast. And it looked like she was preparing a feast.

“How’d everything go last night?” Angela asked as turned back to the stove to finish up the bacon.

“It went well. The twins are feeding frequently but not for very long.” Sean answered. “And with the two of us feeding them at once, we weren’t awake for very long.”

Angela nodded, placing the bacon on an oven tray. “How frequently are they feeding?”

Sean rubbed his eye. “Every 90 minutes.”

“That is frequent. I suppose it’s because of their size. Over time there will be longer and longer breaks between feedings.” Angela slid the tray of bacon in the oven to keep it warm. “How often did Lorelei try to get up?”

Sean swallowed his mouthful of coffee. “She didn’t. She would wake up, but it was easy to convince her to go back to sleep.”

“That’s good to hear. She needs to rest. I’m glad she’s taking the help. She can be quite stubborn, that one.” Angela said with a chuckled.

Sean smiled into his cup. That was true. Although Lorelei had gotten better at accepting help over the past year. “I’ll have you know, I come from a long line of stubborn people.” Lorelei said as she entered the kitchen.

“Of course you do.” Angela said, rolling her eyes. Lorelei smiled cheekily at her as she walked over to Olivia to kiss her good morning. “Do you want a drink? Coffee, tea, juice, milk?”

“I might grab a juice.” Lorelei said making her way to the fridge. “Anyone else want some?”

Olivia raised her hand. “Me!”

“What do you say.” Lorelei prompted her.

Olivia thought about it for a second. “Please.”

Lorelei nodded. “Good job.” She said as she grabbed a glass and Olivia’s sippy cup from the dishwasher.

Amanda soon joined them in the kitchen to let them know the twins were awake. Juice in hand, Lorelei headed upstairs to feed them. By the time she was done, breakfast was ready and the five of them sat down to eat together before Amanda headed home. Lorelei headed upstairs to feed the twins again while Angela got Olivia in her winterwear before taking her outside to play.

Sean headed into the office, closing the door behind him. He pulled out Diana’s drawings and sat down at his desk. Powering up his laptop, he opened up the program that would allow him to videocall a contact who may be able to shed some light on the meaning of the symbols. Sean had considered asking Lorelei, however if she knew about the symbols, she may be unlikely to tell him about them, especially if she had been told to keep it a secret.

Dasha looked surprised when she answered the call. “Allo? Sean Renard…This should be interesting.”

Sean smiled at her. “How are you doing, Dasha?”

Dasha shrugged. “How are things in Irkutsk, Siberia? What do you want?” She asked, although the smile she gave him indicated there was no malice behind her words.

Sean glanced at the drawings before looking back at the screen. “I have something I need you to take a look at.” He replied, holding the drawing up for Dasha to see.

Dasha stared intently at the image. “What is it?”

“I don’t know, that’s why I want you to look at it.” He told her.

“Where did you get this?”

Sean glanced at the drawing, wondering how much he should tell her. “My daughter drew it.”

Dasha’s eyes widened. “You have a daughter?” Sean nodded, unable to stop the small smile that crossed his face. “Things have changed, haven’t they, Sean.”

Sean nodded. “Yes, they have.”

Dasha swallowed the tea she had been drinking. “Why would your daughter draw something like this?”

“She said she saw it.”

Dasha raised an eyebrow. “Where could she see this?”

“In a secret room.” He replied. “That’s all I know. Can you figure out if this means anything?”

“I will tell you right now, it does mean something.” Dasha informed him. “What, that will be more difficult. I will call you…when I know something.” Sean nodded understandingly. He knew it may take some time. “What is your daughter’s name?”

“Diana.”

Dasha nodded. “Send me the drawing.” She paused for a moment. “Sean, do you know who the mother is?”

“Goodbye, Dasha.”

Sean headed upstairs to find Lorelei had fallen asleep while pumping. Noticing that the bottles weren’t drawing any more milk, he gently disconnected the pump and covered his wife back up. Bottles in hand, he headed downstairs to put them in the fridge.  As Sean was finishing up, Angela and Olivia came back inside, although it sounded as if Olivia would have preferred to stay outside. “It’s time to be inside.” Angela told her patiently as she removed Olivia’s little boots. “We’re going to have a snack and then you are going to have a nap.”

Sean took over getting Olivia out of her winterwear as Angela went to prepare the morning snack. “Another coffee, Sean?” Angela asked. “I was going to have one.”

“Please.” Sean answered as he hung Olivia’s jacket up before picking her up. “Did you have fun playing outside?”

“Yes.” Olivia said, fiddling with the collar of his sweater. “Brrrr.”

“Yes, it was cold outside.” Angela agreed adding some of the apples she’d cut up onto a plate, along with some cheese and crackers. She handed the plate to Sean. “I’ll make up our coffees.”

“Thanks Angela.” Sean said before carrying Olivia and her snack to the table. He placed the plate on the table before getting Olivia set up in her highchair. Sitting beside her, Sean placed the plate in front of her. She went straight for the cheese.

“Lorelei awake?” Angela asked as she joined Sean and Olivia, sliding his coffee towards him.

Sean shook his head. “No, she fell asleep. Which is good. She needs it.”

“Maybe you should get some sleep as well. You look tired.”

Sean nodded. He felt tired. And although he knew he should get some rest, he didn’t think he’d be able to sleep during the day. Perhaps he should at least lie down. It couldn’t hurt. Then he could be there for Lorelei and twins. After finishing his coffee, Sean headed upstairs to join his wife.

Later that evening, after Olivia had gone to bed, Sean was in the office again accepting a call from Dasha. Lorelei and Amanda were upstairs with the twins. “Are you alone?” Dasha asked him.

“Yes.” He confirmed.

“What you have me is unlike…anything I’ve ever seen…”

 “Do you know what it is?”

“I know what some of it might be.” Dasha said slowly, holding up a copy of Diana’s drawing. “And it scares me.” Sean frowned. “I can’t tell if it’s good or bad. Probably bad.”

Sean leaned forward, resting his arms on the desk. “What is it?”

“An ancient prophecy…possibly…which predicts…something coming…”

“From where?”

“Somewhere we don’t know.” She paused. “You said your daughter made these images.”

Sean nodded. “Yes.”

“Then she should be connected to this…in a way we can’t imagine.”

“To what’s coming?” He asked, wanting to confirm.

Dasha nodded. “Yes. Watch her very carefully.”

As Sean ended the call, he felt a sense of foreboding. Something was coming. And Diana was somehow connected to it.

A/N: Happy Holidays everyone. I’ll be taking a couple of days off from posting.

Next Part

Taglist: @zoexme, @nu1freakshow, @star-yawnznn, @bella250

Banner by @cafekitsune

[gojou-violin]

Alpha!fem!oc x omega!Deku hc. Look away if you’re under 18, hate a/b/o, and/or m!preg

Ok uh now that the rats are still here with me. I wanted to share the omega!deku brain rot I’ve been having cuz it’s literally keeping me awake at night-

Basically, my OC, Tetsuo, and Izu fuck like rabbits, so it’s not surprising that Izu would get pregnant— I just don’t think anyone expected that he’d get pregnant at the same time Kaiya would with Shoto’s baby. But that’s a diff side story.

When Izu’s helllaaaa pregnant, I imagine it’s hard for him to get around, so he stays home a lot while the pack goes out, and it just so happens to be a busy day where Kaiya has a doctor’s visit, so she leaves with Shoto and Kacchan; and they’re out of groceries, so Tetsuo decides to make a quick trip to the store.

But ofc Izu goes into labor while everyone’s gone. He tries to call Tetsuo to warn her and have her come home asap, but the poor thing drops his phone and he’s too big to lean down for it, and the contractions hurt like a bitch. Everyone warned them that male omegas have more difficult pregnancies than female omegas…. He just didn’t realize it would be this bad. Nor did he think a baby could come this fast! So he struggles to pull himself to his nesting room, immediately crashing onto his nest, throwing his shirt off because it’s getting really hot, and he grabs Tetsuo’s things to just hold onto because he’s scared and misses her. All he can do is hope that she feels his anxiety through their bond and rushes home.

Tetsuo, at the grocery store, is nearly done and about to check out when she feels it. The pain in her chest, her stomach twisting, her head throbbing. She can immediately sense that something’s wrong with her omega, so she tries to call him, but he doesn’t pick up. She decides to just make a run for it. Leaving the groceries behind in the store, she gets in the car and tries get home as fast as she can, but fucking traffic is between her and her omega… Her poor boy. She knows something’s wrong…. She tries calling Shoto, he says that they’re only just leaving the office, they wouldn’t get home any faster than her.

By the time Tetsuo gets home, Kacchan’s pulling into the driveway, running out of the car before it’s even really parked, all while telling Shoto to carefully help Kaiya inside. Tetsuo’s running. I mean. Fully fucking sprinting. She opens the door and calls out for her omega, but doesn’t hear anything. She sees his phone on the floor and assumes the worst. She runs upstairs and turns the corner to find her omega in his nest, sweaty hair sticking to his forehead, his face red and puffy, tears sticking to his cheeks… And there’s a baby in his arms. They’re half-wrapped in a towel that Izu must have been able to reach for on the nearby shelf at some point… From the looks of it, he barely even had the strength after that to properly clean himself or the baby.

“Kacchan, call for Recovery Girl. Quickly. Go-“ Tetsuo pushes at the Pro Hero’s chest to send him into action.

She’s so careful as she steps into the room, knowing that her omega would of course allow her into his nesting space, but she doesn’t want to spook him or the baby.

“Oh, my poor boy,” she cooes gently. She kneels down beside him, brushing hair out of his face so that she can see him more clearly. “Couldn’t wait for me, huh?”

With tears in his eyes, he shakes his head.

“My sweet boy…”

Tetsuo carefully sits beside him, kissing his forehead and pulling him into her arms. He immediately relaxes. His Alpha came home for him…. He’s gonna be okay. Tetsuo continues to calm him down while trying to cover the baby a bit more— The baby, btw, is fast asleep. Both dad and baby are exhausted, clearly.

“Are you okay?” Tetsuo asks.

Izu hides against her, unable to really respond. They’ll have to wait for Recovery Girl to know for sure.

When Recovery Girl does appear, she waddles in with her things while Kacchan stays at the door— This is for a handful of reasons, but most notably because he’s not Izu’s Alpha, so he has no right to go into the nesting room; but also because he’s the pack’s Alpha, so he’s naturally taking on the role of guard dog. No one’s going in that room unless they’re meant to. No one. Recovery Girl’s giggling at Kacchan and how protective he is of his pack nowadays. She goes on the opposite side of Tetsuo and starts to check on Izu. She gives him a quick smooch to help him heal a bit, then checks on the baby.

She smiles at Tetsuo. “Both dad and baby are fine. He’s gonna need some rest and some stitches, so I’ll have a doctor from the hospital come here to help. But he’s going to be okay. Baby’s a healthy girl.” She pats Izu gently on the head. “You did good.”

And he beams with joy.

After that, it’s just rest, like she said. Tetsuo sits with Izu the entire time, making sure he rests and eats. She takes the baby every so often so Izu can relax. The three of them never leave the nest. Kaiya has to come in after Recovery Girl just to change the sheets and help clean the baby, but aside from that no one except Izu’s mom comes in, and no one leaves. Tetsuo’s not letting her omega get up any time soon, and Izu would be caught dead before letting his baby out of his sight.

Happy family 💚

[karls-writing-space]

Eyo!! Can I be ⭐ Anon? Also, I'd like a request where Sarvente, C!Sapnap and Updike(if you can) comforting a reader who vurnt their hand by a candle on accident? I just got burnt by candle wax and it still hurts 😥😥 [⭐]

Absolutely - three comfort things coming up! I hope these are good!

Heya, mate!!

Ofc you can be ⭐ Anon. That's chill with me!

And owch, that sounds painful. I hope your hand feels better soon!

— ☆ — ☆ — ☆ — ☆ — ☆ — ☆ — ☆ — ☆ — ☆ — ☆ — ☆ — ☆ — ☆ — ☆—

Sarvente, C!Sapnap, and Updike Comforting A Reader That Burnt Their Hand Via A Candle

— ☆ — ☆ — ☆ — ☆ — ☆ — ☆ — ☆ — ☆ — ☆ — ☆ — ☆ — ☆ — ☆ — ☆—

Sarvente

Mom mode has been activated.

Sarv will drop anything she's doing when she's doing to come and help you.

This angel of a demon would ask to look at your hand. If you allow her to, she will be glad that you are co-operating with her, and will take a look at the burn.

If you refuse to let her look at your hand, she will persist that she needs to take a look. You're injured, and she's worried about your well-being. She will not stop until you show her your hand.

She would then rush you to the kitchen sink to run your hand under some cool water. As she leads you to the sink, Sarv asks you questions about the injury you sustained.

"How did you burn your hand love? Were you playing with the candle? Did any wax drip on you? Were you trying to put it out? Wait - why would someone put out a candle with their hand?"

As you tell her, she clearly gets more worried about you. Sarv would glance at your burnt hand every few seconds to see if it was blistering or if you needed to be taken to the hospital.

As she turns on the sink, she would gently place your hand under the running water. If you were to hiss in pain, she would try to comfort you with her words.

"I know it hurts, darling. We just have to keep it under the water for a little bit."

In a way to try and comfort you, Sarv would pull you into a sideways hug, pressing a gentle kiss to your cheek. She would ask if you needed anything as your hand remained under the water.

If you wanted to listen to some music, she would pull out her phone and (try to) navigate her way through some online music apps to play some music you like.

If you were hungry or thirsty, she would supply you with the food or beverage that you wanted.

If you wanted to talk about something, she will start a conversation about something you like. A book or show series? She'll ask questions about it. Randoms topics? She'll be happy to supply.

Once your hand was finished running under the water, Sarv will almost run to the medicine cabinet that was located a few rooms over to grab some antibacterial ointment, telling you to wait there at the sink.

Sarvente would then grab the first aid kit kept in the kitchen, grabbing some gauze and an adhesive bandage wrap. This wasn't her first time dealing with something like this. Ruv actually had gotten minor burns before, and who treated him? Sarvente, that's who.

As she continues to treat your wound, she looks at you gently. She knows that getting burnt isn't fun

"Is there anything that I can do to lighten your mood, love?"

If you want to cuddle, she will be down for that! Sarv will lead you to either your room, her room, or the common room, and carefully wrap her arms around you. She'll want to be the bigger spoon, but if you want to be the big spoon, she won't argue.

She will be cautious of your hand. She doesn't want to put you in more pain and wants to make sure you are comfortable.

Sarvente is a loving girlfriend, and she cares about you. A lot.

C!Sapnap

"Ohhh, shit-"

That was his first reaction when he saw your hand.

He's worried about you. Then again - who wouldn't? You burned your hand.

Sapnap would lead you to the tap to run your hand under some cool water for a little bit. To try and be somewhat comforting, he would gently rub your shoulders or back in a soothing manner. If he was to hear you hiss in pain, his breath would hitch momentarily. He hates hearing that you're in pain.

"I know, I know. It's almost over, hon."

He would then stop rubbing your back/shoulders and plant a kiss on your forehead before claiming that he was going to get something to try and lessen the pain and walking out of the room for a moment.

Sappinappi then returned to the kitchen with a cold compress and some ointment, gauze, and an adhesive bandage to help fix up your hand. The noirette would turn off the tap and gently move your hand to put it on the counter.

"Alright. This is gonna sting."

He would gently place the cold compress on your hand, moving his free hand under yours as to kind of hold it in place so it wouldn't flinch away.

After he places the compress on your hand, Sap begins to think of a way to try and comfort you or to get your mind off of the pain temporarily.

"Sooo... Did you hear about the fire at the circus? It was pretty ... intents."

A small grin spread across Sapnap's face as he told the punchline, earning a light punch to the arm, followed by a slight deadpan look.

"Really?"

"C'mon, that was a good one."

You lightheartedly rolled your eyes at your boyfriend's joke. The joke little ironic, as you were currently dealing with a fire-related injury at the moment. Sapnap chuckled lightly, deciding to joke around a bit with you.

From decent jokes to the downright dumb ones, Sapnap was feeding you jokes in hope that it would distract you from the pain.

"A man walks into the doctor's office. 'Doc', he says, 'I think I'm addicted to Twitter.' 'Sorry', the doctor replies, "I don't follow you."

"Uh... what do you call a rich elf? Welfy."

"What did the green grape say to the purple grape? 'Breathe, you idiot, breathe!'"

He does earn a few laughs from you, and it's enough to make him smile. He likes that this method seems to be working and that you're laughing. He really loves your laugh.

Once he removes that cold compress from your hand, he moves your hand onto the flat surface that is the countertop, having had moved his hand from under yours.

He applies the ointment and gauze onto your hand, then wraps it up in the bandage. All while pressing kisses onto your cheeks every now and again. When he finishes, he gently holds your bandaged hand in his hand, his eyes shifting back up at your face.

"So, you wanna mess around with Karl and Big Q? Do you wanna cuddle or...? Because I don't mind what we do."

You thought about it for a moment or so before coming up with a decision. "Cuddles." You reply.

The bandana-wearing man nodded, his arms picking you up from the ground, holding you bridal-style. Holding you close. All while being wary of your hand. He was being a bit of a playful dummy. But hey, you loved him. He loved you. It all worked out.

With a hum, Sapnap carried you into the living room. "Let the cuddles commence!"

Updike

"How... Did you burn your hand from a candle?"

The cloud guy may look calm, he's worried about the state your hand is in your hand. He's already leading you into the kitchen. He isn't trying to run, but he really isn't walking either.

On the way to the kitchen, Updike grabs an aloe vera plant that he had growing in his hallway. It's to soothe the burn.

As the two of you enter the kitchen and place your hand under running water, he places a hand on your shoulder and looks at you.

"Is there anything right now? I'll grab anything you need. Food, water, a book, a chair - anything."

"Can I have a hug?"

Updike blinks a few times, surprised by the sudden request. He nods, as he gently pulls you into his embrace. He's mindful of your hand and is careful not to move it all that much while it's under the tap.

Your free arm wraps around his shoulders, a soft smile forming on your face. You then move your hand to pat his (rather fluffy) head.

A rosy hue colors Updike's cheeks as he lightly melts into your touch.

"You're soft... And fluffy."

"Oh? Am I now?" He would respond with a soft chuckle.

"Mhm. Soft and fluffy like a ..." You tried to compare his fluffiness to another thing, but ended up saying "A cloud."

Updike cocks a brow, his smile growing a tad more. "Why am I not surprised?"

You snicker, which just makes Updike smile. He's glad that you're laughing a bit.

The two of you remain in each other's arms, both of you basking in the presence of the other. When the time comes for you to remove your hand from the water, Updike releases you from his arms, turns of the tap, and gently places your hand under his on the countertop.

The male takes a piece of the aloe vera plant off of the plant itself and opens the piece to expose the gel inside of it. He then rubs it on your hand, humming a soft, tuneless tune.

I think he would keep a first aid kit in a closet in his living room. It's used when he has to tend to some minor injuries from his occupation. Right now, you need it.

Updike leads you into the living room and sits you down on the couch, patting your head gently before going to grab his kit.

He's very gentle when he applies the ointment and gauze to your hand.

When wrapping your hand up, he asks if it is tight enough, too loose, or too tight on your hand.

Once Updike finishes maintenance on your hand, he puts everything away back where it was. He then returns over to you, asking what you'd want to do now.

"Can you read to me? Please?"

Updike doesn't deny your request and nods, asking if you have a preferred book or genre you wish to have read to you. If you do, he'll grab it for you. If you don't, he'll grab a book that he thinks you'd like.

He would let you rest your head on his shoulder as he reads. He would run his hands through your hair every once in a while as well.

[holylulusworld]

More than their roommate (3 of Arc 1)

Summary: Slowly the lines between lust and feelings blur and someone tries to destroy your blooming relationship.

Pairing: Bucky Barnes x fem!Reader x Sam Wilson

Characters: Director Nick Fury, Maria Hill, OFC

Warnings: language, bickering, smut, fingering, light oral, possible FATWS spoilers, hurt & comfort, cuddling & snuggling, polyamory, bad therapy etiquette, mentions of non-con filming, extorsion, mentions of former abusive relationship, implied smut

A/N: Part 3/3 of (Arc 1) - The Therapist

Divider by @firefly-graphics

<< Part 2

Since you moved in with the boys, they work together like a well-oiled machine. 

Fury wanted to know your secret, but this is something you’ll never share.

Unbeknownst to you, Bucky and Sam, Fury already found out why your roommates work better together.

He saw the footage from their office and more than one from your shared loft.

Someone sneaked into your home, installed cameras, and filmed you anytime you had sex with one of your roommates – or both.

“Sam,” you gasp, looking at Sam between your legs. He has you on the edge of an orgasm but won’t let you fall. “We got no time. Fury wanted an emergency meeting this morning, with all of us.

“Yeah?” he looks up at you, smirking as you admire his face, covered in your slick. “I’m just having a snack before we go, babe,” Sam grins, diving back in to wrap his lips around your oversensitive clit. 

“Ah, fuck – Sam!” you cry, grinding against his face. “Please, I need a shower, fix some papers, and make a few calls,” you say, breathlessly. “Let me cum, please.”

“Alright, lemme just-“ Sam slides three fingers inside of your cunt, presses his fingertips against the roof of your vagina. “I’m gonna make you cum now and we have a shower together. I wonder why Fury called you in the middle of the night…”

“So sexy,” Sam kisses your sweet spot, leaves open-mouthed kisses along your neck. “What are we doing here, Y/N? I’m not complaining but is this something serious or just fun?”

“Honestly,” you turn around to face Sam, running your loofah over his chest, “I don’t know. All I can tell you is that I never did something like this before with two men. When I’m with you and James, I feel-“

“Complete,” he whispers, stopping your hands from cleaning his body. “Y/N, we need to talk about this. I don’t think Bucky can lose someone else. He already lost so much.”

“I’m not here to break your hearts,” you touch Sam’s cheek, just looking up at him for a moment. “I like you both, a lot. Right now, I can’t call it love yet, but if I would ever fall in love with someone again, it would be you and him…”

“Doc carries her own package, huh?” Bucky wonders, flipping through the pages of your file. “Did we find out who the douche breaking her heart was?”

“Not so loud,” Sam tuts. “After what she told me this morning, I asked a friend to dig a bit deeper. Sharon said Y/N left her former job, a well-paid position as someone broke her heart.”

“What do with the information now? I don’t think she wants us to stick our noses into her-“ Bucky bites his tongue when you walk into the living room.

“Ready?” you ask, brows furrowed in a silent question. “What? Do I have something on my face? Damn, is there a visible bite mark at my neck?”

“No, you just look so sexy in your professional outfit, doll,” Bucky grins, holding out his hand. “Do we have to go to the office today?”

“Fury said it’s important, James,” you tut. “Let’s be professional for once, okay. I know you hate meetings, but this is unavoidable.”

“Why is this woman here?” Bucky eyes the foreign woman warily, not missing you squirm in your seat. “Something wrong, doc?”

Sam can see a hint of fear flash across your face before you clear your throat. 

“This is Sarah Murphy, our expert for, let’s say internal affairs,” Fury huffs, hating he must have this specific conversation with you. “Let’s get this over with, Ms. Murphy.”

“Director Fury asked me to be here today to make sure whatever we discuss, stay within these walls. I can assure you, the material we will show to you, will not leave this room either and no one but Director Fury saw the footage.”

“Footage?” you furrow your brows, confusion is written all over your face and you clutch your hands to your chest in attempt to calm your racing heart. “Did you spy on one of us?” 

“None of us spied on you, Doctor Y/L/N. I always appreciate your hard work. Sadly, someone sent us this,” Fury points at the laptop Sarah Murphy placed on the desk. “I want you to watch the footage, all of it. Ms. Murphy and I will leave the room meanwhile.”

“I don’t understand,” you panic, grasping for Sam’s hand to squeeze it tightly. “Why do you want us to watch videos?”

“I must tell you before we leave the room, that someone sent us the footage, along with a few demands,” Fury stands, gives Sam a curt nod before he turns to leave the room. “In other words, someone tries to extort us. I will tell you about the details later.”

When it’s only you and your roommates you look at the laptop, afraid to watch whatever someone filmed. “I don’t want to watch this.”

“We must,” Sam says, breaking the tension, just pressing play. “Whoever filmed us or one of us will pay for it.”

“Maybe it’s not that bad,” Bucky tries, metal hand balled into a fist. “Maybe that bastard only filmed me doing push-ups or-“

The first thing you recognize is your hoarse voice, and the slap of skin against skin. Your eyes widen in horror when you watch yourself getting fucked by Sam while you watch Bucky jerk off and later on, covering your body with his cum.

“No,” your body starts to tremble, and you can barely feel the hand touching yours when the scene changes to another video. 

It’s in the kitchen this time, you bend over the kitchen island, Bucky’s hands hold you down by your shoulders while he fucks you roughly, calling you his whore.

“No-no-no-“ Bucky stops the video, clicks on the next one. This time you get fucked in their office, not days ago. “Stop this, Bucky-“ you cry, hiding your face in the palm of your hands. “Someone invaded our privacy just like that.”

“Baby doll,” slamming his metal fist into the laptop, destroying it on his way Bucky feels his chest tightening. He knows how it feels to have no privacy. “I will rip whoever did this to you apart.”

“So someone filmed us at our home and sent it to Fury. Then the same person filmed us at our office and did the same again,” Sam tries to not freak out. He hates you choke out sobs, desperate to forget about what you just saw. “But why?”

“We should ask Fury,” you whisper, not fighting Bucky when he brings you in his arms to cradle you gently. “Sam, you should talk. I-I can’t right now and Bucky, he’s too mad.”

“I’ll go get Fury,” Sam swallows thickly. He slowly gets up to kiss your hair softy, hand gently smoothing over your arm. “We will handle this, baby. No one is going to see this ever again.”

“We-We looked hot, at least,” you try to laugh, but choke on your tears instead. “I hate someone did this to us. It’s not only about me, but you and Bucky too, Sam. How dare them?”

“I’m going to kill them,” Bucky growls. “Rip them apart, limp by worthless limp…”

“Do we know who did this?” Sam asks while you sit between Bucky and Sam, not meeting Fury’s eyes. “Director?”

“I need to get this off my chest, doctor,” Fury sighs. “Whatever you do in your free time, is up to you.”

You nod, still not looking up. “Do we have a name or a reason why?”

“Sergeant Barnes, this has nothing to do with you, if you would just calm down,” Bucky starts to pace the room, jaw ticking, hands balled into fists. “I know you were on the footage too, but according to my information it’s all about the shield and the title.”

“Wait—what?” you gape at Fury, feeling a cold shiver run down your spine. “No way! You can’t be serious! Someone wants the title and Sam’s shield?”

“I’m afraid so,” Fury says, watching Sam run his hand over your hair. “We will do anything to help you, though.”

“What if Sam doesn’t give it to them? What did they say will happen?” Bucky asks, watching Fury lean back in his chair. “That bad?”

“Whoever is after the shield threatens to leak the footage. Doctor Y/L/N would lose her job. She would be compromised,” Fury explains. “I can’t say what would happen to your uh-“

“I don’t have a career and give a shit on my reputation, but we can’t let anything happen to Y/N and her job,” Bucky grunts. “What can we do to find them?”

“John Walker,” you whisper, glancing at Fury. “It can only be him – right?”

“Who is John Walker? I never heard of him before,” Sam watches you focus your attention toward Fury, not answering his question. “Y/N? What’s wrong?”

“If it’s John, we got to be careful. I know he wanted to become the next Captain, not accepting the gentleman’s agreement between Sam and Captain Rogers. I know some people at the government would like to see that man wield the shield, but we won’t allow him to do so,” you stand, straighten your skirt before you look Fury straight in the eyes. “I quit.”

“Doll, just wait a minute. Let’s talk about this,” while Bucky tries to stop you from throwing everything you worked so hard for away while Sam silently watches the change in your posture.

“What is else do we want to discuss, James? That bastard won’t stop, okay. He wants the shield but won’t get it.”

“I give it to him if this saves your career and reputation,” Sam offers. “Steve hand the shield to me, believing I’ll do the right thing. He would’ve done the same to save you.”

“No,” you slam your fist onto the table, making Sam jump. “If you don’t want to wield the shield, fine by me but we will not let anyone take it away from you.”

“What about your job?” you don’t give in. Looking at Sam you give him a weak smile. “Y/N?”

“Fury, tell that bastard he can go and leak anything he wants to. I’m an adult and had sex with two men I love. This is not a crime. If he wants to ruin my career, so be it. He can go and shove it up to his ass.”

“I did not expect anything else from you, doctor,” Fury chuckles, admiring you give a shit on John Walker’s threat.

“Just give me an hour to get back home. I don’t want to answer any questions today. Let hell come over me – tomorrow…” your head held up high you walk toward the door, grasping for the door handle before you look over your shoulder. “Are you coming, guys?”

“We can’t let that bastard get away with this,” Bucky points at the TV. An hour after Fury told Walker he can fuck his deal, named man leaked all the videos he took of you and your roommates.

“Hill did her best to take all the videos down. Luckily, she found the server with the original files. She also marked the files and tries to locate any copy,” Sam explains. 

He watches you sit in your favorite armchair, snuggled in a warm blanket you just look at the wall. “She just lost her career only as we couldn’t keep our hands to ourselves and tried to get rid of her, Sam.”

“I know.”

“I will find and kill John Walker. He will pay for hurting Y/N,” Bucky crosses his arms over his chest, watching you brush a single tear off your cheek.

“So, we're partners?”

“Co-workers. Not necessarily a team, but we will team up to avenge, Y/N.”

“Sounds like a good plan,” Bucky holds out his hand. 

“Sounds like a good plan,” shaking Bucky’s hand Sam smirks. “Now let’s find John Walker and show him what happens if he hurts someone we care about.”

“Finally-“ you walk toward your roommates, smiling softly. “Took you long enough to admit you like each other.” you walk toward your bedroom, smiling to yourself. “Did you find all the hidden cameras?” 

“Yes. Why?” cocking his head Sam looks at you. “Y/N?”

“You know, I don’t have to be up early in the morning any longer,” you smirk. “You can keep me awake all night long…”

“Doll,” Bucky purrs, eyes drifting toward your ass. “Ready if you are…”

“Hey, I told you she’s mine,” following you hot on your heels Sam calls Bucky’s name. “Hands off!”

“How did Y/N know it was Walker?” Maria looks at the leaked footage, clenching her jaw. “Director?”

“Do you remember when I told you she quit her last job? I told you that someone made her leave, it was Walker,” Fury explains. 

“Doctor Y/L/N doesn’t seem like someone just giving up on her career for a man,” Maria wonders. “There is more – right?”

“They were a pair for years, even wanted to marry but then, he changed. After the blip happened he became a different man. And since Steve Rogers and the Avengers undid the blip, Walker wanted to become the next Captain and turned into a possessive man on a mission.”

“Sounds like the perfect partner,” nodding thoughtfully Maria looks at her boss. “What happened?”

“Y/N tried to make Walker see he was in the wrong, that the end doesn’t always justify the means. She ended up in hospital with two broken ribs and a concussion.”

“She walked out on him I assume.”

“John Walker doesn’t like rejection in any way. This is the opportunity he was waiting for. He ruined Y/N’s career and aims for his next target—the shield in Sam Wilson’s hands…”

End of Arc 1...

Arc 2 - TBA

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[potato-an0n]

Oddly specific Levihan pregnant hc I thought of as I deal with writers block and it’s really long 😅

- Hange found out she was 2 months pregnant after passing out at work and throwing up as she woke up.

- Ofc it was Moblit who woke her up and took her to the doctor.

- Moblit and Hange were both shocked and he basically forced her to leave early.

- Hange complied, but instead of going home, she went to Levi's tea shop because she wanted to tell him asap and she didn't want to be home alone.

- Levi was shocked but really happy and nervous. He felt a bit worried that he won't be good dad or if he's even ready to be a dad.

- Hange reassures him he'll be a great dad and that they'll do this together.

- Little do they know, Eren, Petra, Olou, Eld, Gunther and Mikasa (side note: Mikasa and Levi are distant cousins and she helps out from time to time bc she's bored and wants to spend time with Eren) were listening outside.

- When Hange opened the door, she found they were eaves dropping on them and they all started congratulating the two and asking them a million questions until Levi gave them an angry scowl and yelled at them to get back to work.

- Eren and Mikasa's friend group (who are Armin, Sasha, Connie, Jean, and Marco) came into the cafe (and are regulars) and when they heard Hange was pregnant, they were ecstatic and bombarded her with so many questions.

- Side note: whenever she's at the tea shop, she would help the kids out with their math and science homework, basically she's their personal tutor and second mom.

- Cute Levi side note: Sometimes Levi likes to watch Hange socializing with people bc she's so happy and giddy.

- As Hange goes through her pregnancy, she goes through morning sickness, cravings, mood swings, and sleeps ALOT.

- Levi being the caring husband he is, holds her hair up when she throws up (and forces her to brush her teeth), makes sure she doesn't go too overboard with her cravings, is patient through her mood swings and carries her to bed. He also talks to the doctor what foods she can and can't eat, and what vitamins she should take.

- Hange would crave twix, meat, potatoes and popcorn. She would sometimes drizzle chocolate syrup and sriracha sauce onto the popcorn, and yes it grosses Levi out.

- Levi would sometimes catch her snacking in the middle of the night and he would drag her back to bed.

- Ofc Hange's parents and Levi's mom is super happy for the two and excited they're having grandchildren.

- Levi and Hange met with Isabel and Farlan to tell them the news and Isabel was screaming with joy as she gave Hange a big hug, meanwhile Levi was telling Isabel to be careful with her as Farlan gave his congratulations.

- When they told Erwin, Mike, and Nanaba, Nanaba gave Hange a big hug as they were jumping up and down squealing with joy. Meanwhile, Mike and Erwin were giving their congratulations and teasing him that the kid is going to have his permanent scowl and grumpiness.

- Hange's pregnancy glow was really something else, like she looked so angelic, and Levi fell HARD! They had a really good made out session.

- Moblit would call Levi in the middle work when Hange is going through her mood swings.

- Once Hange's baby bump started getting visible (entering the 2nd trimester) Levi was 10x more protective of her than usual.

- Sometimes, Levi can go a bit overboard and Hange would reassure him that they're going to be fine and to calm down a bit.

- His hand is basically glued to her belly, especially at night.

- Their friends made bets on who the gender of the baby is. Erwin, Nanaba, Moblit and Farlan betted on girl, while Isabel, Nifa, Mike and Hange betted on boy. Levi didn't care, he loves their child either way.

- Levi opened the envelope to reveal the gender and was very surprised. They were having twins, a boy and a girl.

- The table was shocked and exploded with joy.

- Hange would go clothes shopping with Nanaba and Isabel.

- Sweatpants, men sized baggy t shirts, tank tops, yoga pants and basically any pants with belly bands.

- They also shopped for baby clothes and baby supplies.

- Levi got a bit emotional when he felt the babies kick for the first time. It was a sweet moment.

- Levi would talk to Hange's baby bump when he think she's asleep (a lot of the time, she wasn't ad heard everything, she teases him about it later, but thinks it's really sweet)

- Hange is a little bummed out that she has to take maternal leave, but that means more time for her to decorate the nursery.

- Erwin, Mike, and Nanaba helped them paint the room and moving the furniture.

- (Here's what I envision the nursery would look like except, the cribs are places like this)

- As she has gotten into 3rd trimester Hange felt she could barely move at all. Levi would have to help her up.

- One time Hange almost fell on him because she was heavier.

- To tease her, Levi would leave her on the couch or bed as Hange screams at him to come back and help her out. Because of her mood swings, she would start angry crying, angry bc he ditched her and sad bc she though he was gonna leave her there forever, so Levi would end up helping her up and comforting her.

- When Levi got home, Hange ran out of the bathroom telling him her water broke.

- Luckily the bags were already packed bc Levi had a feeling it can happen at any moment and babies were always born earlier than their due date (2-3 weeks early according to glamour's pregnancy in 2 min video).

- I think y'all can guess how labor went. Hange screaming her lungs out and cursing as she felt the contractions.

- Ofc Levi was at her side holding her hand, giving her water and trying his best to calm her down. Also, tolerating the pain he feels on his hand as Hange is squeezing the shit out of it.

- Once the babies were out, and are getting cleaned, Hange let out a big breath and collapsed against the hospital bed as Levi was telling her she did a great job, pulled her in a side hug and gave her a kiss on the forehead.

- The nurses handed their babies over to Levi and he felt a tear roll down his cheek as he held them.

- Hange let out a soft smile watching Levi holding the twins as she passes out.

Part two here

[mymoonagedaydream]

tony’s house is on fire and it’s literally in flames so u run in and get morgan and bucky thinks ur dead as steve just holds him back as he screams ur name sobbing. but ofc u come back out and let morgan run but u drop to the ground from too much smoke inhalation. :)) ty mama

Ablaze

Summary: In an instant, your relaxing housesitting break turned into your worst nightmare

Pairing: Bucky x y/n

Word Count: 1.4k

Warnings: Language

Author’s Note: I will happily be mama to any of you beautiful people I love that

---

Tony and Pepper were finally taking a much-needed holiday.

No work, no business, no phone calls.

Pepper kept chanting it to Tony in the days before they left, probably trying to condition him into accepting relaxation like one of Pavlov’s dogs.

To be honest, it was a bit of a surprise when they approached Bucky, Steve and yourself about house-sitting and looking after Morgan while they were away. You assumed he’d just get Happy to take care of it all, but you definitely weren’t complaining, because you loved Morgan to absolute pieces and you were pretty stoked to get some time away from the compound.

You arrived at the Stark residence early afternoon on the day they were flying, getting a comprehensive list of dos and don'ts shoved into your hand and a quick smile from both of them, before they said their long goodbyes to Morgan and hopped into the car.

She was a little upset after they’d left, so you did everything you could to make the rest of the day fun and distracting for her.

The three of you took her for a long walk in the afternoon, Steve and Bucky taking turns to let her ride on their backs and jumping in puddles on her command, then you made a home cooked dinner before all settling in to watch Morgan’s favourite Disney film for the rest of the evening.

She rested her head on a cushion in Steve’s lap while you and Bucky curled up together at the other end of the couch, your head nestled in the crook of his neck and his cheek resting on your crown.

Only an hour or so into the movie, you noticed Bucky’s head begin to gradually become heavier, and you realised he was probably nodding off. For as long as you’d known him, he’d never managed to make it through a whole movie.

You glanced over to Morgan, seeing that she was battling to keep her heavy eyelids open as Steve gently stroked his fingers through her hair.

‘Alright.’ Bucky’s head shot up at your sudden announcement. ‘I think it’s bedtime.’

Steve looked over to Buck, chuckling at his sleepy disorientation before jumping up and scooping Morgan into his arms.

‘Come on little miss, I’ll tuck you in.’

She frowned slightly as Steve carried her towards the stairs. ‘But we didn’t get to the end.’

‘We’re not going anywhere squirt, we’ll finish the movie tomorrow.’

When their half-hearted arguing had moved out of earshot, you clambered onto your feet, standing in front of Bucky and waiting for him to do the same.

A look of complete bewilderment spread across your face when he threw his arms towards you, silently requesting that you hoist him up off the couch.

‘You’re aware of how insanely heavy you are, right?’

He just pouted.

You took a deep breath and gripped both his hands, bracing a leg against the couch and yanking him towards you as hard as you could. He didn’t budge an inch. When you shrugged in defeat, he pulled back, bursting into laughter as you collapsed in a heap on top of him.

Eventually gathering his last morsels of energy, he hopped up and flung you over his shoulder, clumsily carrying you upstairs to the master bedroom.

---

You were abruptly woken by Bucky shouting your name inches away from your face and frantically shaking you.

When he was satisfied you were awake, he jumped off the bed and dashed over to the window, jerking it open with one powerful movement. 

You sat up and took a deep breath in, all of your senses immediately flooded by the overwhelming amount of smoke pouring in through the cracks in the door.

‘Come on.’ He grabbed your wrist and led you towards the window. ‘We can’t get out into the hallway, it’s too dangerous.’

You pulled your arm out of his grip. ‘What about Morgan?’

‘Steve’s in the room next to her, he’ll get her out.’

‘You can’t be sure of that Buck!’

‘Look, if there was any way to get to her, I would’ve. The door is completely blocked.’ Anger and frustration were leaking into his voice. ‘We don’t have a choice.’

You thought for a second before reluctantly conceding, lowering yourself from the window and jumping down to the ground. Once Bucky was out safely, the two of you sprinted around to the front of the house, your heart stopping when you saw Steve emerge from the front door on his own.

‘Steve? What the fuck happened?’

‘I don’t know, I was in the kitchen when something crashed through a window upstairs. Before I knew it the whole second floor was in flames.’ He paused, scanning the space around you. ‘Where the hell is Morgan?’

All three of you were still in silence for a second.

You didn’t even think, you just turned and ran as fast as you could through the open door. There was some vague shouting behind you but you didn’t look back. 

Nothing was going to stop you getting to her.

You buried your mouth in the crook of your elbow, trying to get your bearings in the unfamiliar, smoke-filled house.

The stairs were completely ablaze, but the upstairs hallway was open and lined with bannisters. You backed up a little, propelled yourself forwards and jumped, just about managing to grab them and climb over onto the landing.

You crashed through Morgan’s door, breathing a huge sigh of relief when you saw her sit up in bed and stare at you wide-eyed.

‘It’s gonna be alright, come here.’ You pulled a blanket off her bed and wrapped her up tight. ‘You hold on to me and don’t let go until I say, understand?’

She nodded, throwing her arms around your neck as you pulled her to your chest.

The fire was advancing quickly towards her bedroom. You just about managed to beat it to where you climbed up, but there was no time to scale the bannister and carefully lower yourself onto the ground floor. You just gripped her as tight as you could and vaulted.

You jarred your knees as you landed, but Morgan had already started coughing into your chest, so you kept moving through the pain. As you sprinted towards the exit, piercing sirens started in the distance and the room began dancing with flashing red lights.

Finally emerging through the door, you set Morgan down and collapsed onto your knees.

Your head was swimming. You’d been running on adrenaline up until this point, but now you could really feel the swelling in your throat as you struggled to gulp in raspy breaths.

Your vision started clouding, the only thing you were able to focus on was the sound of Bucky hoarsely yelling your name. It sounded distant but it couldn’t have been, because the last thing you remembered was the unmistakable feeling of his arms wrapping tight around you.

---

A harsh, sterile light penetrated into the slit of your slowly opening eyes, burning your retinas and making you wince.

You felt your hand being squeezed, and you just about managed to peel your eyes open wide enough to see Bucky sitting beside you. His free hand moved up to rest on the top of your head, his thumb gently stroking your forehead

‘You are some other kind of stupid.’

The corners of your mouth curled up as you fixed your misty gaze on his face. ‘Is she alright?’

Your own voice shocked you, it sounded like it’d come from an elderly lifelong chain-smoker.

‘She’s good. She’s with her parents, they got the first flight back.’

You opened your mouth to ask him more, mainly about why the fuck the house burst into flames, but he cut you off before you could get the words out.

‘The doctors said you should try to not talk too much, your throat needs to rest.’ A mischievous smirk spread across his face. ‘So not a bad result overall.’

You tried to smother your smile and throw a scowl at him, but you just ended up bursting into gruff, scratchy laughter. His grip on your hand tightened and he leant forward, holding your gaze as he moved his face to hover over yours.

‘You can’t be doing stuff like that, I thought you were a goner.’

You brought your hand up to his cheek, feeling him settle into your touch.

‘You’re not getting rid of me that easily.’

---

[writingsonawall]

Falling, fallen chapter 1

Pairings: Spencer Reid x OFC

Story summary: Spencer randomly meets Leah at the library and their first encounter was supposed to be just that; a random one-time occurance. When an unsub lands Spencer in the very same hospital she works at, she feels obligated to take care of him. But what happens when his team notices her everlooming presence and theorises that perhaps she could be the unsub they’re looking for?

Chapter summary: The guy Leah had met at the library just an hour ago suddenly gets wheeled into the ER where she works. 

Warnings: Mention of blood, but not a lot.

Wordcount: 6,6 k

Prologue, Chapter 2, Chapter 3, Chapter 4, Chapter 5, Chapter 6, Chapter 7,

Leah hadn’t even been on call for half an hour when a stretcher was rolled in through the doors of the ER, someone shouting “Male, early thirties! Gunshotwound to the lower abdomen.” That was about all she was able to concentrate on. The ER was a mess of chaos, every available doctor and nurse running between patients. People were running into each other, medicalequipments crashing onto the floor every now and then, some patients screaming out in pain… Leah could feel the beginning of a migraine sneaking up on her. She almost never worked in the ER, usually sticking to Post Op. or the ICU, but there had been a masscollision on the highway that night so it was kind of like an all hands on deck situation. 

Leah was currently working on picking out broken glass from the arm of an elderly woman. It wasn’t a terrible wound, but judging by the way it was bleeding she’d probably need stitches. Still, Leah had no idea why she was there. Her injuries weren’t lifethreatning and the ER was overcrowded with other patients who actually needed their attention more than this woman. She’d be just fine if she had gone to an urgent care, but Leah wasn’t about to argue.

 “Leah, I’m gonna need you with me in traumaroom 2.” Dr. Ruiz called over the noise and it gathered her attention. She caught his glance across the room and saw that he was following the stretcher which had just been brought in by the ambulance. Leah quickly mumbled her apologies to the woman, pulled off her gloves and started to navigate through the sea of chaos. She eventually pushed the doors of traumaroom 2 open, rubbing her hands dry from the sanitizer she’d covered them with. 

“What’s his status?” Leah asked once she entered, quickly making her way over to the man laying across the stretcher. She knew why Dr. Ruiz had called her in here. The patient was a gunshotvictim, which usually meant a lot of blood. Typically, in cases like this, there were two doctors to check the injuries and make medicaldecisions. Gunshotwounds were always messy and it was hard to know what to expect, so two doctors in the room was always ideal, just in case the patient were to crash or there was a lifethreatning injury. But currently all doctors seemed to be otherwise occupied, so Leah understood why Dr. Ruiz had called her in. Blood and gore never bothered her, it actually made her calmer. The more pressure she had on her shoulders, the calmer and more collected she stayed. She was on the traumateam for a reason, although be it as a nurse, so she had seen a thing or two in her past. 

“Oh my God, Spencer!” She exclaimed, surprised to discover the identity of the man sprawled out in front of her. She stood there frozen in place for a moment, wondering what had happened. She had left him at the library not even an hour previously and now he was here, blood pooling slowly from the open wound in his abdomen. 

The surprise only shocked her for a split second before she shook herself out of her thoughts. Stroking a hand over his forehead, she matted his mop of curls out his face. Using a thumb to force one of his eyelids open, she grabbed a small flashlight from the pocket of her scrubs. 

“Spencer, can you hear me?” She asked him, shining the light into his eyes a few times, watching for any sort of unusual reaction of his pupils. She did the same with the other eye. “Spencer?” She asked once more. He was out cold, but his pupils responded as expected so that made her a little more at ease. 

“You know him?” Dr. Ruiz asked over his shoulder, roaming through the cabinets to find all the equipments he’d need to fully check the injuries. 

“Well, kinda,” Leah answered, not knowing what else to say in that moment. There was no use to lie about the fact that she’d met him an hour earlier, but she didn’t exactly know him. 

“Are you gonna be okay with this or do you need to step out?” Dr. Ruiz asked her, finally returning to stand at Spencer’s other side. 

“I’m good,” Leah told him, probably a little too fast to sound convincing. But it was true, she was nothing if not professional. 

“Okay,” Dr. Ruiz nodded. “Ready to move him?” He asked and it was Leah’s turn to nod. She pushed the stretcher closer to the bed in the room as Dr. Ruiz got out of the way. Locking the breaks of the stretcher so it wouldn’t budge, she grabbed a tight hold of the sheet underneath Spencer as the doctor did the same on the other side. They locked eyes and counted. One, two, three. In a split second they had Spencer lifted onto the bed with such ease it looked like they had done it a hundred times before. Which they actually probably had. Dr. Ruiz was one of the doctors Leah worked closest with, since he was typically stationed at Post Op. When they were both on call, Leah was nomally the person Dr. Ruiz would call for if he needed help. They were kind of a dream team; a force to be reckoned with whenever they worked together. 

As the doctor started to cut Spencer’s shirt open, Leah wheeled the stretcher out into the hall to give them space. Locking the door behind her again, she quickly took a look at his medicalfile which another nurse had just delivered in her hand. 

“This is gonna hurt. Let’s push for 10mg Oxycodone,” Dr. Ruiz told her once she returned to Spencer’s side. 

“I don’t think that’s a good idea. Cave morphine,” Leah told him as she started slicing Spencer’s shirt open from his sleeve up to his shoulder. 

“Addiction or allergy?” The dortor asked. 

“Addiction. Dilaudid,” Leah informed him, having just read it in his file. She had already snapped gloves onto her hands and was working on getting the IV-kit ready. “Tramadol would be a safer option, right?” Tramadol was usually the kind of drugs they’d give to patients after minor surgeries or injuries to manage the pain. It was hardly as effective as Oxy-preparations, but it  was usually still enough to take the edge off. They hardly ever used it before they were able to assess the pain level of the patients, but it still seemed to be the least addictive morphinecontaining drug they had at hand. And given Spencer’s injuries some sort of morphine was needed despite what his medicalfile said. He needed something for the pain and NSAIDs weren’t going to cut it in that moment. They could handle whatever addiction-problem he had later; when he wasn’t in a potential life-threatening situation.

Dr. Ruiz nodded his head acutely, ordering her to administer 50mg. Leah worked quickly, finding a usable vein in Spencer’s hand and poking the cannula into it. Taping it down onto his hand, she hooked a bag of ring acetate to the pole by the bed and connected the tube to the IV. She noticed Spencer twitching a little at that and she moved to stand over his head. 

“Spencer, are you awake?” She asked, once again matting his hair back. She noted, even through the gloves she was wearing, that he was warm and sweaty. “I’m gonna give you something for the pain, okay? It’s Tramadol, so I hope that’s okay,” she informed him, even though she highly doubted that he was coherent enough to register her words. She did as she’d said she’d do, pushing a needle Dr. Ruiz had readied for her into the IV-tube and slowly administered the drug. While the painkillers worked its way through his system, she leaned over to help Dr. Ruiz. She put pressure on the wound on his abdomen while the doctor probed around with an ultrasound, trying to look for anything that could indicate whether Spencer had an internal bleeding. 

It didn’t even take a minute before Spencer calmed down, his twitching stopping completely and his breathing evening out. She was glad for that, not wanting him to be more uncomfortable than necessary. 

“You paged me?” A woman's voice startled Leah and she turned to the door which was now wide open. She was another doctor, but Leah couldn’t really recall her name. Not that she really cared either. 

“Yes!” Dr. Ruiz said, tightening the bandage they had just wrapped around Spencer’s wound. It was still bleeding, but the wrappings should be able to hold for the transport to the OR. “GSW to the lower abdomen. Patient is non responding, but stable. No sign of internal bleeding, but I’m sure he needs surgery to remove that bullet,” Dr. Ruiz informed the other woman who nodded along. She moved further into the room and cast a quick look at Spencer, checking the vitals, pupil responses, making sure the oxygenprosentage of his mask was correct before she once again nodded. 

“I agree. He’s stable enough to be moved? Then we should wheel him down to Pre Op.,” she concluded. 

“I’ll go with him,” Leah found herself speaking before she could even register those thoughts. 

“No, no, no, Leah,” Dr. Ruiz said, laying a clean hand on her shoulder. “I need you here in the ER. I’ll go with him and I’ll keep you updated. Don’t worry, he’s going to be fine.” His words reassured her a little. It’s not like Spencer was a friend or anything, but she knew him enough to put a name to the face and that brought this whole case a little closer to home. But she let him go, knowing she was needed more in the ER. 

She kept her hands busy for the next two hours before Dr. Ruiz finally returned, hovering just behind her as she was working on trying to determine if she should send the teenager in front of her up to radiology or not. 

“He’s in surgery now,” Dr. Ruiz informed her, not giving a care to the boy Leah was inspecting. He cried out in pain when she moved his foot at an odd angle. 

“I think he needs to take a trip over to radiology. Do you mind signing the papers?” Leah asked the doctor, not wanting to talk about Spencer right now, especially not in front of another patient. She let Dr. Ruiz take over the patient, but she hovered around until they had sent the boy on his way. She cleaned up after herself and took a glance around the ER. It was getting quiet now. The rush of patients had died down now and she spotted several doctors and nurses just hanging around, chatting and taking a well deserved minibreak. 

“Come on,” Dr. Ruiz said, putting a gentle hand on Leah’s shoulder. “Let’s grab a quick coffee and then you can head up to the ICU.” Leah had never felt more relieved by the idea of a cup of the shitty coffee the hospital had to offer. She really needed coffee now. 

Leah had always liked Dr. Ruiz. She considered him a friend, at least a workfriend. It’s not just that they worked well together, but he was always very considerate; always being there if she needed a shoulder to cry on at the end of a hard day, pushing her to take a break because she always refused to, bringing her powerbars if there was a busy day and they didn’t have time for a real meal. He was nice and she liked how she could always lean on him. 

“I don’t actually know him,” Leah finally spoke up once they had both filled up their cups with the cheap stuff the vendingmachines wanted to pass as coffee. Dr. Ruiz didn’t say anything, just gave a gesture of his hand for her to continue. He leaned back against the wall of the corridor and Leah mirrored him. “We just met earlier today, actually. I forgot my librarycard at the library and he found it, handed it back. We just had a small conversation, nothing big. But then I got called in for the accident, so I had to leave. I mean, I’d seen him just an hour ago and then they wheeled him in,” she explained, not really knowing what to feel. 

“And what? You blame yourself or something?” He asked, clearly reading her mind. 

“No, not really,” she told him, which was an obvious lie. “I guess it just shocked me. I don’t know. I mean, maybe it could have been me. I don’t even know what happened to him, but I keep thinking that it could have been me. Or maybe if I had stayed a little longer then this wouldn’t have happened at all.” She hadn’t heard anything about what had actually happened. Maybe it had been a robbery gone wrong, or maybe there had been a shootout and he was in the middle of the crossfire. She didn’t suspect the last one since they hadn’t received any other gunshotwound-patients, but the possibilities were still endless. All she knew was that he was brought in with a bullet in his abdomen and that he would hopefully pull through. 

“You know, you should really stop thinking like that. It’s not healthy,” Dr. Ruiz told her and it was exactly what she needed to hear. No bullshit excuse about how it wasn’t her fault or that there wouldn’t have been anything she could’ve done. Just a plain and simple command to stop overthinking. It made a small smile play on her lips. 

“Yeah, well… How can I not?” She asked him, glancing up. He gave her a sad smile, knowing it was hard to let those thoughts go. He wrapped an arm around her shoulder and pulled her into his body. Leah sighed, leaning her head back into his shoulder while taking a sip of her coffee. He didn’t say anything else and neither did she. They just stayed there in silence for another few moments before he started leading her down the corridor. They said their goodbyes in front of the ICU, Dr. Ruiz promised he’d keep her updated on Spencer’s surgery. 

Leah prepared for a long night. Nightshifts were usually crap because it was so quiet and she was the kind of person who needed things to do. If she didn’t, she usually got all fidgety and restless, which was also why she never liked reading. She couldn’t sit still for longer periods of time. The more things she had to do, the better she felt once she got home at the end of the day. She had also prepared for a doubleshift, knowing the morning would be busy with doctorvisits, family coming to see their loved ones, breakfast coming around and helping certain patients go to the bathroom and get cleaned up. Yeah, she looked forward to the morning, but for right now she dreaded the long night ahead. 

Dr. Ruiz came up a little after two in the morning to let her know that Spencer was out of surgery and was recovering nicely. He’d been lucky, the bullet not hitting any major organs, but it had nicked his bladder so they were afraid of how his bladdercontrol would be. They wanted to keep him catheterized for a few days just to make sure everything was working properly. Apparently, he was also risking the development of internal bleeding and infections. Leah knew that, there was always a risk of that when it came to injuries like Spencer’s, but it rarely ever happened, not unless the bullet had nicked something or the surgery went wrong. But there was still a chance, so they always informed each other of it. She still knew that chances were slim so she wasn’t overly concerned about it. She was mostly happy he was going to be fine. 

Spencer was rolled into his own room at the ICU around 3:30 A.M. and Leah made it her personal business to check up on him. She finished the rest of her round rather quickly after that. Once she finished up the most important tasks she grabbed a fresh cup of coffee and some food from the cafeteria. For the next hour she hid out in Spencer’s room, figuring she’d deserved a nice, long break since she was going to pull a doubleshift. It was a quiet night anyway so she didn’t even feel remotely bad about it. 

He woke up a little before six in the morning, groaning softly from the bed beside her. Leah glanced over at him, giving him a moment to orient himself. She knew that her position was highly unprofessional; sitting a chair beside him with her feet propped up on his bed next to his. But she didn’t care. Her feet were aching and she loved being able to relieve the pressure for a little while. So, she played it cool, deciding it would be worse to drop her legs down in embarrassment. 

“Well, hey there, Stranger!” Leah decided to greet him with the biggest smile she could master. Spencer seemed to be more alert now and he had glanced everywhere imaginable; the door, her feet, the heartmonotor, the IV-bag, the ceiling. Still, his eyes wavered between her feet and her face. 

“You’re wearing mismatched socks,” he finally said. Leah couldn’t help but chuckle at that. That was probably the strangest thing anyone had ever said to her after coming out of surgery. 

“You know, we ruled out braintrauma pretty early on, but maybe we should still call neuro?” She teased. She could see a blush creep up his cheeks, taininting them in under half a second. His eyes roamed around again, finally locking in on the clock hanging above the door. 

“No, that won’t be necessary,” he told her bluntly and Leah felt like he probably wasn’t in jokingmood. “Where are my things? I need to call my boss,” he said trying to move up into a sitting position. Leah decided to just watch him struggle for a moment, finding it highly amusing even though she was still a little worried about him. He was probably still woozy from the anesthesia so sitting up appeared to be a struggle. Finally, Leah dropped her feet from his bed when he groaned out in pain. She walked over to him, putting both her hands on his shoulder and pushing him firmly back. 

“Don’t pull your stitches,” she told him. She took a seat in the chair again, grabbing the remote to bed and began to raise his back. He groaned out again when he was almost sitting, so she lowered the back a few notches again. “Don’t be a baby now,” she teased, but her voice was probably a little harsh. She couldn’t help it. She’d had a long day and she had been really worried about him. 

“I’m not a baby,” he whispered and Leah could see a pout on his lips. It only made her smirk. 

“You sure about that?” She asked, leaning over to snatch his file from the holder at the end of the bed. “You know what they say, right? About doctors being the worst patients?” She raised an eyebrow at him to give him the indication that she knew he was a doctor. It was in his file after all. 

“I’m not that kind of doctor,” he informed her and Leah just chuckled.

“Yeah, I figured that much out. I’ve been around enough real doctors, so trust me when I say you’re definitely not the type,” she laughed. “No offense, of course,” she decided to add as an afterthought. 

“None taken,” he replied, a little slurred. Leah looked over at him. “Can I call my boss now?” He asked and Leah sighed. 

“Spencer, look… they’re already here, your friends I mean-” He cut her off before she even had the chance to say anything else. 

“They’re not my friends. They’re my team.” His words surprised her. She hadn’t gotten the chance to talk to them yet, but she’d heard that they had all been really worried and constantly asked for updates on his condition. They seemed genuinely worried about his wellbeing. 

“And they can’t be your friends because they’re ‘your team’?” She asked, cocking an eyebrow at him. 

“Are you friends with your coworkers?” Spencer asked back, and it should’ve been a witty comeback, but he actually sounded interested in knowing. 

“Can’t say that I am,” she said after pondering the thought for a second or so. “Touché, by the way. But my point is, just take a minute to wake up a little bit. I’ll go get them later so you can see them, okay? Just please… take a breather, alright? And I want the doctor to take a look at you first as well. Do you even remember what happened? You just woke up from surgery after getting shot. Let that sink in before I call them in.” 

“I’m fine,” Spencer insisted, but Leah just shot him a stern look. She stared him down for what felt like too long before he finally caved, leaning a little further back in his seat with a sigh. 

“Good,” Leah smiled. She took a moment to really study him for the first time. He was actually really handsome, with these greenish eyes which got more honeybrown towards the middle and shaggy brown hair which she suspected was always unkept. His nose was straight and his lips slightly plump, skin clean. He actually looked like a specimen. The only negative thing she could point out were the dark circles under his eyes and she felt her heartstring tug a little, wondering what nightmares kept him up at night. The nasal cannula going into his nostrils made him look even sicker than he probably was, but it was still a sight for poor eyes. 

“So, you’re… a nurse?” He asked after a few more moments of silence. Leah couldn’t help the bashful smile that stretched across her lips. 

“Well, isn’t that kind of obvious?” She laughed, adoring how cute he was when he got all awkward. She took a sip of her coffee and decided it was time to call for the doctor, so she reached over Spencer's head to press the green button on the wall. Spencer was giving her a strange look and she had no idea what that meant. “What?” She asked him, cocking an eyebrow. His intense stare was kind of making her uneasy, but there was no way she was going to show him that. 

“I just didn’t take you for the nursing-type,” he mumbled. “No offense,” he quickly added, just as she had done previously. But he looked almost terrified about it, as if he was actually afraid he’d insulted her. Leah could only laugh. 

“Don’t worry about it,” she assured him. “I wouldn’t exactly picture myself as the type either, but here we are. I’m damn good at my job, though.” As if on cue the door to the room opened and Sophie, a young girl who happened to be Leah’s intern, stepped through the door. She decided to have a little fun with that. “Ah! Dr. Reid, meet my intern. Sophie, this is Dr. Reid. You’re in charge of him when I’m not here. Got it?” Spencer gave her an uncertain glance and Sophie had a look of pure horror on her face. She locked eyes with Leah, the ‘Oh dear God, he’s a doctor’ kind of look written over her face. Sophie was a sweet girl, but kind of slouch, and Leah had a tendency to play small little tricks to get her to work just a little harder. Knowing that the patient was a doctor (she didn’t need to know he wasn’t a medical doctor) would definitely nudge her to go the extra mile. 

“You, um, you called?” Sophie asked a little uncertainly and Leah found herself pleased when she noted the not so subtle way she leaned over to take a pump of the handsanatizer hanging on the wall by the door. It had been one of the many things Leah had added to her list of improving areas; always sanitize your hands before entering and leaving a patient’s room. 

“Yeah,” Leah tried to hide her grin. “Who’s on call right now?” She asked, knowing she could just as well walk out the door and find out herself, but she loved torturing her interns just a little bit. She never crossed the line, but she always pushed them around just enough that they’d remember who was in charge. She loved it, a little innocent fun. 

“Uhm, well… There’s you, obviously… and, uh, me and-” Sophie started and Leah resisted the urge to roll her eyes. 

“Sophie, calm down. It’s fine. I mean doctors, who’s on call?” Leah smiled up at Sophie, trying to reassure her that she’d only been joking. Well, at least half-joking. That was another one of Sophie’s flaws; she was too uncertain of herself and could hardly handle a joke. 

“Oh, um. I’m not sure,” Sophie mumbled, but didn’t make any move to find out. Leah just stared at her until she lifted her eyes to glance back. 

“So?” Leah asked and Sophie looked even more confused at that. “Are you gonna find out for me?” That seemed to startle her because she almost jumped. 

“Oh, right! Yes, I’ll be right back.” She was out the door so fast Leah couldn’t help but laugh. She shook her head to herself and stood up from the chair, leaning closer to the heartmonitor and noting down Spencer’s vitals on his chart. 

“That was mean,” Spencer mumbled. Leah looked at him for a second, pausing her hand which was still writing. 

“It’s a bit of innocent fun. I’m their boss and you see that pager behind you,” she pointed her pen at the wall behind his head. She didn’t even wait for him to try to turn around to look at it before she continued. “It makes me their God,” she finished with a smug smile and gave him a wink. Spencer narrowed his eyes at her. 

“She’s your intern. You’re supposed to teach her, not scare her half to death.” He sounded almost angry, despite the uncertainty in his voice. Wow, this guy really couldn’t take a joke. Leah sighed. 

“Look, it’s a bit of innocent fun. We have a good relationship and we always have a little debriefing at the end of the day. She’d tell me if I was being too harsh on her,” she said. She finished the chart and put it down in the holder by the end of the bed. She crossed her arms over her chest and sighed a little. “You probably think I’m too rough on her or whatever, and sure, I probably am. But here’s the thing, and I probably shouldn’t even tell you this, but she’s insecure. She needs to learn how to stand on her own two feet. She’s probably gonna lash out on me one of these days and I’m gonna be so proud of her the day she does. She’s a snowflake and she really needs to learn how to stand up for herself.” She decided it was best to just be honest with him. In all honesty she shouldn’t care what Spencer thought of her, but she did. She didn’t want him to think that she was some heartless bitch. She loved being a mentor and loved looking out for her interns. Sophie, despite all her flaws, was her favourite. Leah could see her potential, if she just worked past her insecurities she’d be a damn fine nurse one day. 

“So, you’re… bullying her to make her, what, stand up for herself?” Spencer asked, surprise lacing his voice, but he didn’t sound angry anymore. That was a good thing, she guessed. 

“I’m not bullying her. Just pushing her buttons a little. Call it reversed psychology or whatever. It always works.” Leah grabbed her zipup hoodie which she had draped over the chair and stuck her arms through. She shook the hood in place so it wasn’t one giant ball in the back of her neck. Spencer gave her a small smile and she wondered what he was thinking. She didn’t want to stay long enough to figure out though. “Okay, well… I’ll go see about that doctor. I’ll go get your friends in a while, so hang out and try to, I don’t know, relax I guess? Call if you need anything,” she told him, placing a gentle hand on his arm just because she could. Grabbing her coffeecup under her armpit she took a few pumps of handsanatizer on the way out. She made her way to the nursesation just as Sophie came practically running down the hall. 

“Jameson’s on call right now,” She said, almost sounding out of breath. Leah wondered if she had been running all over the Goddamned hospital to figure that out. 

“Okay, did you tell him to take a look at 104?” She asked and Sophie’s eyes went wide. Leah realized quickly what that meant. “No, no! Sophie, it’s okay. Seriously. I’ll go find him. Don’t worry about it,” Leah gave her a reassuring smile, reaching out to squeeze both her shoulders. “Did you finish your schedule yet?” She asked, knowing her interns had some kind of schedule, like a plan, they were supposed to follow.

“Uhm, well, I still have to take out the trash in 109 and I have some other small things I haven’t done yet, but-”

“Don’t worry about that,” Leah cut her off with a dismissive wave of her hand. She threw away her now empty papercup and hung her hoodie over the chair by the computer. “I’ll take care of it. Don’t worry. Take a break or something, get some air, whatever.” Sophie seemed a little reluctant to the idea, but nodded her head acutely. 

“Would you, uhm, like me to bring you back some more coffee? Black right?” Sophie asked and Leah couldn’t help but grin at her. 

“Yes, please. Take your time, though.” With that Sophie took her leave and Leah went to find Dr. Jameson to let him know that Spencer was awake and needed a quick check. She then went back to the nursingstation to check what was next on her to-do list. She finished her round rather quickly, even with Sophie’s small list of things she’d neglected to do, or hadn’t gotten around to do or for whatever other reason just hadn’t done yet. It was just minor things, so she didn’t mind. Sophie seemed to have been doing alright with everything else. 

When she once again returned to the nursingstation there was a steaming papercup with her name on it, decorated with a simple smileyface. Leah smiled at that. She sat down by the computer and started documenting the most important details of the nightswatch so the morningshift would know what had gone down. Just as she was about to finish up, Sophie approached her, fidgeting a little. 

“Thanks for the coffee, Sophie,” Leah told her, hoping that would ease her nervousness a little. 

“Oh, no problem!” Sophie smiled. “Uhm, Jameson took a look at the good doctor in 104 and-” Leah had to cut her off with a chuckle. 

“That’s what we’re calling him now?” 

“Well… he hasn’t yelled at me yet for screwing up and he’s actually been kind of polite, so… I guess?” She sounded so uncertain again. 

“Well, what did you screw up?” Leah wasn’t mad. Everyone made mistakes, even her, and she just needed to know if it was a major blowup she had to document or if it was a small thing that could hardly be called a mistake. 

“Oh, nothing I think? I’m just really afraid of messing up,” Sophie told her, rather nonchalantly and Leah felt a little proud of her for not freaking out.  

“Okay, good. Look, Sophie… You don’t have to be afraid of messing up. Everyone messes up and I won’t get mad or anything, alright? You know I’m only teasing you, right? I don’t mean anything by it.” Leah always felt good about having these heart to heart talks with Sophie. 

“Yeah, I know. It’s just, uhm, I’m kinda awkward, I guess.” Leah laughed at that and Sophie gave a soft chuckle as well. Good thing for her that Spencer seemed twice as awkward as her. Maybe that would help boost her confidence. 

“Anyway, sorry I cut you off. What were you gonna say about the good doctor?” Leah really liked that nickname, it seemed to be suiting him. 

“Oh, yeah! Uhm, Jameson said that everything seemed to be alright, but wants to keep him here under observation at least until tomorrow just to make sure. And he’s still on antibiotics four times a day and we can amp up his painkillers, but he doesn’t want any morphine.” That last part didn’t surprise her whatsoever. “And he decided to switch off the oxygen for now, but to keep it on standby just in case his saturation decreases.” That wasn’t a surprise either. Most patients receive oxygen after surgery because the anesthesia could make them sluggish and their breathing labored. Once it wears off they’d be taken off oxygen as well. 

“Okay, that’s good,” Leah said, nodding along. “Anything else?” 

“Oh, yeah. He, uhm, wants to see his coworkers now and I told him he could only see two at a time, because that’s still the rule, right? He wanted to see Hotch and J.J. first. I guess you could get them?” Leah nodded her head and gave Sophie a pat on the back before returning to finish up her reports. It was around 6:45 A.M. when she headed out to the waiting area with her coffeecup in hand, recently refilled after she’d downed the one Sophie had brought her.

“Do I have a Hotch and J.J. for Spencer Reid?” Leah asked, scanning the waitingarea. She somehow knew the people she was looking for before they rose from their seats to come greet her. The whole group of, wow, six people practically came running for her. 

“Is he okay?” One of the women, dressed in a very colorful dress and an excessive amount of accessories asked, almost screaming out. She must have been very worried. Leah noted the flowers in her hand and grimaced at the thought of having to tell her later that flowers weren’t allowed in the ICU.

“He’s fine. He’s fully awake now,” Leah tried to reassure her. “He’s given me permission to share the specifics of his condition, so I can do that now, or you can wait for the doctorsvisit later today to get some more details. He’s just been checked out by a doctor now, though, and everything seems to be alright. He’ll probably stay in the ICU until tomorrow at least before we consider moving him.” She gave them the rest of what she knew and they seemed pleased that he was doing okay. So was Leah. Bulletwounds to the abdomen were typically gnarly cases, but Spencer had been really lucky. 

“Can we see him now?” The darkhaired woman asked, sounding just as worried as the other one had been just a minute ago. 

“Sure, but he’s in the ICU and we only allow two visitors at a time. We’ve asked and he wanted to see Hotch and J.J. first,” Leah told them, still having no idea who the respective ones were. 

“What, so I don’t get to see him?” The dark skinned man asked. He sounded angry, annoyed and frustrated, but Leah didn’t find him intimidating whatsoever, even despite the fact that he towered over her. 

“As I said, only two at a time. But he can have visitors all day for all I care, so you can take turns to see him, I don’t care how you do it. But only two at a time.” She tried to sound stern, but she also had sympathy for them. They’d been worried sick all night and they probably wanted to storm his room and hug him.

“Come on! That’s a bunch of bullshit!” The man yelled, obviously getting a little agitated. Leah wanted to step forward forward, put a hand on his shoulder to calm him down or something, but before she got the chance the tall man in the suit, yes a Goddamned suit, stepped forward. 

“Morgan,” He raised his hand in a stopmotion which immediately calmed the man down. “We’ll be quick. You’ll get to see him.” That seemed to do the trick because he sighed in defeat and stepped back. 

“Alright then, follow me!” Leah said and turned on her heel, wanting to get out of there as soon as possible. She had other things to do, not really, but she could at least pretend she did. Standing in the waitingroom and arguing with friends and family of patients was not something she wanted to spend her whole day doing. 

“Wait, Sir. Can you bring him these for me?” Leah noticed that it was Flowerwoman who had spoken. 

“Actually, Ma’am… flowers are not allowed in the ICU either. I’m really sorry. If we move him to another unit tomorrow, you can bring him whatever you want, but as of right now I’m gonna have to say no,” she said, turning her body to give the woman an apologetic look. 

“Oh.” She sounded utterly wrecked as she uttered the simple word and it made Leah a little sad. These people cared so deeply for Spencer. How could he possibly claim they weren’t his friends?

She brought J.J,, a young woman a little taller than herself, and Hotch, the man who had calmed down the black man earlier, through the doors of the ICU. She quickly located Spencer’s room and knocked on the door a few times before entering. He seemed pleasantly surprised to see his colleagues following right behind her. 

“Oh, Spence!” J.J. exclaimed, rushing over to his bed. Leah rubbed some sanitizer on her hands as she watched her bend down to give him a gentle hug. She grabbed his chart from the end of his bed again and noted down his vitals as the three of them exchanged their greetings, also reading through what the doctor had written earlier. 

“Dr. Jameson was in here earlier. He explained that we’ve taken you off oxygen, right?” She hated to break up their happy reunion, but she had to give him some information before she bid her farewell. They all turned to look at her as she disposed of the chart again. “You understand that if you experience any shortness of breath, any dizzyness, anything at all you have to call, right?” She asked, looking directly at Spencer. 

“Well, I’m a doctor, so, of course I understand.” His response brought a smile onto her lips. 

“Well, you’re not that kind of doctor,” Leah laughed, throwing his previous words back at his face. “Do you need anything before I leave?” She asked and Spencer shook his head. “Well, if you do, don’t hesitate to call,” she told him seriously while pointing at the caller behind his head. She turned to leave when Spencer spoke up again. 

“Does, uhm, does that mean I’ll be your God?” Leah was stunned a little, not fully understanding what he meant, but then she remembered how she’d previously joked about being a God to her interns. Wow, her brain was working slowly. She needed more coffee. 

“Hey! Don’t push it now.” She tried to be stern, but her lips tugged upwards on their own accord. She then bid her goodbyes, shutting the door on the way out.

[vechkinfan]

Jack

A/n: I found this little one shot while I was looking through the deep dark depths of my google docs the other day and figured I might as well share it. Its a young Joker fic, and my fist time writing for the joker so please take it easy on me!😁

Pairing: Joker x OFC

Summary: A brief glimpse into the Jokers past, memories that he would rather keep buried, memories that reminded him of someone that held his heart. A heart that now burned for Gotham's reckoning.

Warnings: Talks of abuse, swearing, angst, vague talk of death

Jack found himself climbing the dirty, half rotten stairs of his apartment building. The light bulbs on every other floor, blown out or stolen, casting a darkness over him as he made his way up. 

His mother had one of her 'friends' as she liked to call them, over. So he made himself scarce for the afternoon, like he always managed to. Jack weaseled his way out of the apartment when those creeps were over. Especially the ones who would come right in and give him those looks. Those perverted sideways eyes when his mother was too plastered to notice any different. Looks that sent a piercing shiver across his whole body, and an uneasiness to settle in his gut.  He much preferred the men who would come over and pretended like he didn't exist. 

The sun had long since started to sink in the sky  as he climbed the stairs towards home and Jack knew he had to make it before the streetlights in the narrows started to flicker. The evil in his apartment was one thing, but the evils that lurched about once all the sunlight was extinguished in the sky was much more frightening. 

Rounding the last flight of stairs, his eyes landed on a girl  sitting at the top of them. Her back pressed against the door jam of the closest apartment door.  One foot stretched out in front of her blocking his path and the other bent, shaking vigorously on the next step down. 

She was sucking on a red popsicle, as her fingers drummed against the skin of her knee that poked free from a hole in her ratty jeans. 

Jack knew she just moved in a few months back, but he never crossed paths with her before now. However every time he opened the door to let in one of his mothers 'friends', she would be sitting at the top of those stairs. Usually a pack of playing cards in her hands, flicking them one by one, aimlessly down to the next landing. 

"What flavor is that?" Jack asked, curious at what her voice would sound like. He'd been intrigued by her presence the moment he saw her all those weeks ago. 

Pulling the half melted popsicle from her mouth, the girl turned her head slightly to gaze towards him. Her dark brown hair in a curly mess that covered half of her face, but not enough for Jack to miss the darkness of her left eye. It almost appeared black, the deep brown of her iris engulfing her pupil, giving her a truly ominous appearance. 

"Cherry." She answered, her voice nothing what he expected. It held a delicate raspiness, nowhere near the point where it matched Ms. Emerson two floors up who had been smoking 3 packs a day since the depression. There was a softness to it though, one that made Jack want to hear more from her.  "You live in the apartment cross from me don't you?" 

Nodding his head, Jack shoved his hands into the front pockets of his jeans. "Sure do." 

She sat in silence after that, and he stood a few stairs below quietly staring at her. His feet shuffling against the creaky old floor board, wondering if this would be the end of their talk. Perhaps it'd be the last time they spoke at all. Jack knew the Narrows had people shuffling around from place to place, like one of them scam shell games. She very well could be gone by morning. 

 "I can bring you one next time…. If you want?" Swinging her leg around, she sat so she was facing him. Both feet planted one step down as she licked the red sugary liquid that was starting to drip down the wooden popsicle stick and onto the top of her hand. 

"I got two left in the freezer." Her voice was soft and held a nervousness that made fighting off a sly grin for Jack very difficult.  

"Yeah, I'd like that." Hustling up the stairs, Jack found himself sitting down beside her. 

His eyes getting a better glance at the girl, in the low light of the stairwell. Now he could tell she was using her hair to hide the right side of her face. Her right eye was an awful shade of purple, and the lid swollen so badly Jack knew she must be having a hard time seeing. 

As he let his eyes pan across her face, he noticed her lip that was stained with cherry popsicle was also busted open. The girl next to him seemed to have come from a similar home as himself. It was near luck that Jack hadn't gotten his ass handed to him by one of his mother friends in a while. Talking back was a habit that he couldn't quit no matter how much he was beaten for it. Not to mention the fit of laughter that usually escaped his thin lips as a belt or a fist swung in his direction didn't help either. 

"You got a name?" He asked, finally dragging his eyes back to meet her dark gaze. 

"Billy." 

Furrowing his brow and giving his head a subtle tilt, he wondered if she was fucking with him.

"That's a boy's name." He puffed out a small laugh. However the girl beside him didn't react at all. 

"I know, you don't gotta remind me." She shrugged her shoulders, before finishing off the popsicle and throwing the wood stick down the stairs. 

"It's  your nickname right?" Jack couldn't quite stop himself with the questions. Usually he kept to himself and avoided people, but she…  there was just something  different about her. Something that drew Jack in like a moth to a flame. 

He knew his interest was purely the result of her moving directly across the hall and appearing to be close to his age, if she had moved three flights up and was a little frilly girl, Jack was sure he wouldn't have even batted an eyelash in her direction as he carried on home. 

Shaking her head and rolling her eye, she was the one to laugh now. "No, my momma lost her first baby, who was a boy when he was real little. She ain't been right in the head since." Jack watched as she picked at the frayed edge of the side pocket of her faded army green vest while she spoke. "So when she found out she was having me, she just knew I was a boy. The doctors told her different, but she didn't really care what they thought. So she named me Billy." 

Shoving her hands into her vest pockets now, she quickly pulled out her deck of cards and began to shuffle them absentmindedly. 

"Billy's not a bad name, I mean there was Billy the kid that robbed banks in the old west right? Like some badass cowboy outlaw… Maybe one day I could live up to that name." Jack's eyes watched as she expertly flipped the cards against themselves, the loud noise filling the hallway. 

"Hate to break it to you, Billy the kid never robbed banks. He's just known for murdering people."

Peering up at him from the corner of her eye, her posture deflated, "Oh…." Billy sighed. 

They sat there in silence after that, Jack feeling some form of regret telling her about Billy the kid. The girl had seemed thrilled in her blissful unawareness, so happy with only a shared name that connected the two. Which was utterly ridiculous, and in any other circumstance Jack would have enjoyed watching the girls dreams come crashing down from the clouds. However it was like a small light had been snuffed inside of her and Jack hated that he caused that. Which blew his mind, cause why would he care about some girl he just met and her no good thoughts. She'd be gone in a few weeks, out of his life for good! The narrows would swallow her up just like it did the other kids, and he really shouldn't have cared. But he did on some level, and it fucking bothered him. 

"Billy where the fuck you at, you little piece of shit?" An angry voice screamed from just beyond the door she had been leaning against. The abruptness caused the girl to flinch and drop the stack of cards she was holding. 

They fell like dominos down the stairs, fluttering off in all sorts of directions. Making a fucking mess. 

Jack watched as she threw herself off the steps and down the stairs chasing after all the playing cards. "Fuck I'm gonna be in so much trouble." She muttered to herself as she frantically began the daunting task. 

Without much thought, Jack did something that surprised himself again. He stood up and grabbed a few of the cards that had fallen towards the top of the stairs. Bunching them together in his hand, before looking down at the Ace of hearts that was face up. The corner dog-eared like a well read book, from constant use probably. 

"I said where the fuck you at girl." A man ripped the door open to her apartment, and stumbled out. The stench of bad tequila filling the air almost immediately.

"I-im I'm sorry I…" Billy stuttered out as she crawled on the ground grabbing the last of the cards.  Her hands trembled bad enough that Jack could tell from where he stood that she was terrified. 

Eyeing the man cautiously, Jack saw him take a step closer to the edge of the stairs. His arm raised slightly, fingers twitching, ready to strike her hard when she finally made her way back to him. 

"Sorry, I tripped into Billy while I was coming down the steps. Made her drop her cards." Jack lied with a laugh, and held up the few in his hands. "I was just helping her pick them up." 

The drunken slob of a man, took a steadying breath, probably knowing he couldn't pummel a kid that wasn't his own. The man's overtly round face, covered in a patchy beard and a badly trimmed mustache that had the remnants of cheese puffs littered throughout it, gave Jack a nasty look. His lip turned up in pure disgust. 

"Yeah well watch where you fucking walk next time." He flicked his hand at Jack, and then turned his attention to Billy. Who was now standing up straight at the bottom of the landing, cards in hand. "You, " He pointed at her with a chubby accusatory finger, "pick up your goddamn mess and get in the house, and don't make me fucking tell you again." 

Jack watched as the man turned ungracefully on his heel and stumbled back from the pit in which he came. Slamming the door behind him with such power, some of the cracked plaster on the ceiling fell to the floor.

"You didn't have to lie." 

"I know." He heard her take a few hesitant steps up, until she was standing side by side with himself. "I ain't in the mood to watch an ass kicking at the moment." He couldn't stop the tiny laugh that escaped him at his own humorless joke. 

Tilting his head towards Billy, he finally held out the few cards that he managed to collect. She greedily took them back into her possession, and Jack watched as the girl seemed to be counting them to herself. Her fingers flipping past each number making sure they were all accounted for. 

"Thank you." Her voice was softer than anything Jack had ever heard as she finished what she was doing and tucked the cards back into her vest pocket. 

"He hit you a lot?" Jack asked aloud, as the girl pushed past him and towards her apartment door. 

Shrugging her shoulders, Billy nodded her head. "Not as much as my real dad did, so I'm lucky enough. I know some kids got it worse than me, so I'm not complaining."

"Lucky?" He quirked a brow at her choice of words. Luck was nowhere to be seen in the Narrows, especially not in that girls apartment. 

Perhaps the girl had been struck in the head so many times it actually made her dense. It wouldn't be a surprise to him if that was the case, because no one, and he meant no one, would ever call themselves lucky with the life she seemingly led. 

"You got to believe in something, right?" She smirked. "Luck seems more plausible than some god or a superhero saving me. Plus I got this." Reaching back into her pocket the girl drew out a single card, and quickly flicked it over to him.

Jack caught it and huffed an amused laugh. His eyes falling upon the joker card that belonged to her deck. The jester was skillfully juggling three knives while he balanced with one foot on a large green and purple circus ball. The character itself was off putting, his face painted white, his lips smudged with red paint  that made his maniacal grin even more pronounced. His jester hat constructed out of oddly colored rattlesnakes, multiple wrapped around one another to give its iconic shape. Their rattling tails hung as the bells at the tips. It was clearly far from the typical playing card one could get at the Bodega down the block. 

"It's my lucky card, bad things don't happen as often when I have it on me." 

Jack couldn't help but continue to stare at it. The wheels in his mind spun endlessly with hundreds of questions, but he knew he'd never have time to get them answered. She was on borrowed time as it was, and he didn't want to hold her up further. Cause if he did, the girl probably wouldn't be able to see at all next time he ran into her. The guy inside, smashing her other eye to the point it was swelled shut as well. 

Looking up into her eyes, Jack attempted to hand it back. But Billy just shook her head at him. 

"You keep it, it's the least I can do after you saved my ass. Maybe it will bring you some luck." She smiled at him before turning and opening her apartment door making her exit. 

"If you give me this, won't your luck be gone?" His words stopped her in her tracks. But all Jack could focus on was her soft laughter.

Without turning to face him, she pulled another card free from her pocket, twisting it expertly between two fingers so the face of it was in Jack's direction. An inverted match to the very card that he held in his hands. "There's always two jokers." 

Just as quick as she pulled it free, Billy shoved it back into her pocket, "See you around." She chuckled before disappearing into her apartment. Leaving Jack alone in the stairwell, staring quizzically at the place the girl once was. His lip twitching up in amusement, before he shook his head clear of their encounter. 

°°°°°°°°°°°°°°

The joker cracked an eye open as he startled awake. It was a rare occurrence in recent years that his dreams would startle him out of sleep. That was only reserved for a specific time in his life, and that was not now anymore. 

His half sleep blurred vision instantly focused on the ever growing water stain that was spreading across the ceiling tiles. It's dark brownish edges tainting the once white paint, giving the already run down room a greater sense of abandonment. 

His hand stretched out wantingly, his long fingers gripping into the cool sheets of the spot next to him. The spot that had been vacant for many years now. An emptiness that slowly consumed him in absolute sorrow, and then engulfed him in a burning rage, no one could ever put out. 

It was a pain that radiated through the Joker like a poison when his mind traveled to her. Pleading for him to remember, remember a time when things were pleasant. When she was by his side, and in his bed, places he could keep her safe. 

But he couldn't, the day Gotham took her from him was the day its reckoning started. They would all pay, every last one of them.

[avengerscompound]

The Tower: Family - 29

The Tower: Family An Avengers Fanfic

Series Masterlist PREVIOUS //

Pairing:  Avengers x OFC, Bruce Banner x Bucky Barnes x Clint Barton x Wanda Maximoff x Steve Rogers x Natasha Romanoff x Tony Stark x Thor x Sam Wilson x OFC (Elly Cooper)

Word Count: 1858

Warnings:  Pregnancy, labor, delivery, medical proceedures

Synopsis: With new powers, Thor now living on Earth full time, a wedding to plan, and Natasha and Wanda expecting, a lot is changing for Elly and her large and rather unconventional family.  When Elise’s parents try to reestablish connections, Elly questions what being a family actually means.

Chapter 29: Becca

When Natasha went into labor it was about as dramatic as what you’d expect it to be for her.

It was a week before her due date, but well into the zone the doctor’s call full term.  She was uncomfortable and hating it but she still insisted that she be the one that walked the kids to and from school every day so that she could cloak them.  Because it was getting so close to her due date, Clint and Bucky had started to shadow her again.  That meant, rather than a random changing of the guard for the people doing the drop-off and pick-up, it was always Clint, Bucky, and Natasha.

They had been out for around half an hour when they returned.  I was sitting in the living room with Sam and Wanda while she nursed the babies.

Wanda had been such a star with breastfeeding.  With Riley and Pietro I’d ended up needing a bottle supplement which had turned to complete formula diets when they realized the bottle was a much easier way to get lots of milk.  I also remember struggling to feed them both at the same time.

Wanda had no such trouble.  I don’t know if it was just her and she would have been fine no matter what, or if it was the fact her powers pretty much allowed for anything - or a combination of the both - but she could feed both twins at once, never complained, and the babies were steadily gaining weight.

If there was a way for a person to burst through elevator doors, Natasha did it.  All three of us looked over startled as Nat hurried inside, beelining straight to the stairs.  There was a shadow of wetness on her maternity pants and a look of frustration on her face.  

“What’s going on?”  Sam asked his eyes flicking from Natasha who was already halfway up the stairs to Bucky and Clint who were following after her.

“Nat’s water broke while we were dropping the kids off at school.  She started getting contractions on the way back,” Clint explained.

Wanda gave an excited squeak that made Rose give her the dirtiest look a newborn can muster.

“Wow, alright,” Sam said.  “El, you go with them.  FRIDAY, let the others know it’s happening.  And tell Happy, Travis, and Amber that I need to see them.”

“Yes, sir,” FRIDAY replied.

I gave Sam a curious look.  “Well, the kids are going to need to be picked up, I figure if Happy drives one either Travis or Amber. And they’re both going to need to be extra hands-on, because I’m pretty sure Wanda’s going to want to come down and be with Nat too, right, honey?”

“Oh yes,” Wanda agreed.  “I’ll come up to feed these two, but I don’t want to miss that.”

“Alright, I’ll go check on Nat,” I said getting up.  “I’m sure we’re still many, many hours away.  She probably won’t come until tomorrow morning.”

“Wanna bet on the time?”  Sam asked. 

I smirked at him.  “Yeah, alright.  I think 3.30 am.”

“I’m gonna say 11 am.  Rebecca’s going to sleep in,” Sam said.

“Closest to it wins?  If it’s exactly in the middle it can be you,” I suggested.

“Sounds good,” he said, holding out his hand for me to shake.

“What’s the prize?” I asked.

Sam smirked at me.  “I’m sure we can think of something.”

I giggled and headed upstairs to check on Natasha.  I found her in the shower with Bucky, while Clint lazed on the bed.  “How are you doing there, Nat?” I asked.

“Completely mortified,” she said.  “I was talking to one of the other mothers and I just … exploded all over them.  Amniotic fluid went everywhere.  All over her pants legs.  And the floor.  The worst part was that I think the labor started this morning, but I thought it was those Braxton Hicks contractions so I ignored them.”

“That is very dramatic, Tasha,” I teased.  “Perfectly you.”

“I am really glad I have those powers, I tell you,” Natasha said.  “I would have to murder half the population of the planet if pap photos came out with me looking like I wet my pants.”

I smothered a laugh.  “No, we wouldn’t want that.”

“Careful, El,” Natasha warned.

“Yeah, El, don’t anger the assassin that’s in labor,” Bucky teased.

Natasha got out of the shower and I grabbed a towel and wrapped it around her as Bucky turned off the water.

“What no towel for me?”  Bucky asked, stepping out onto the bath mat.

I grabbed another towel and threw it at him.  He caught it laughing and I giggled and turned my attention back to Natasha.  “Have you called the medbay?”

“Yes,” Natasha said.  “I called them on the way home.  They said to wait until five minutes apart and then come down.  I only had -” she looked at Bucky. “-two? Since my water broke, so I think we are a ways off yet.”

She wasn’t kidding.  Most of the rest of the day was spent just as normal.  Only every half hour, give-or-take, Natasha would have a contraction.  Happy and Travis went and collected the kids from school.  By dinner time Natasha was beginning to feel it and opted out of eating anything but she sat at the table with us.  She only winced once during the meal but tried not to let the kids see her discomfort.  Bruce even had time to read Riley and Pietro their bedtime stories before things started to get serious.

At around 11.30 Natasha was in serious pain and not able to hide it anymore.  Given her background and the super-serum her pain tolerance was higher than most, so it was difficult to see her struggling so much with it.

We took turns pacing with her, rubbing her back, and feeding her ice chips.  At around one I ran a bath for her and Steve sat on the edge of the tub and held the nozzle against her back.

By two she couldn’t take it anymore.  We went down to the medbay and Clint supported her while they put in an epidural.  When that kicked in, it was like Nat was a completely different person. She just kicked back in the hospital bed dozed through her contractions and we all spread out around the room doing the same.

We all awkwardly slept where we could, only waking when the nurses came in to check her progress.  At a little after three, they told us it was nearly time for Natasha to push.  They turned off the epidural and the pain of childbirth returned to her in full.  She hunched forward grabbing her knees and bared down.  Sweat clung to her skin and her face flush red.

“That’s it, Natasha,” Doctor Shroeder coached.  “Push.”

There was nothing beautiful or romantic about the way Natasha gave birth.  It wasn’t a magical moment where life miraculously entered the world.  It was messy and bloody and loud.  After half an hour of pushing, Rebecca began to crown, and right away we could see she was going to take after her biological mom more than her biological dad.  She had a little cap of pale red hair that was just visible.

“We can see her, Nat,” Sam said, excitedly.

“Not long now, Tasha,” Bucky added.

“It’s gotten to that freaky horror movie part, Nat,” Clint said.  “You want a mirror so you can see?”

Natasha nodded and Doctor Schroeder grabbed a mirror and held it up for her to see.  “There she is.  Your little redhead girl.”

Natasha smiled and started to sob.  She had gone past the point where she could speak it seemed and everything had gotten too much.  Bucky patted her forehead with a damp cloth.

“Alright, Natasha, next time you feel the urge again, push,” the doctor said.

Natasha bared down.  “I hate you so much, James Barnes,” she moaned as she pushed.

“I know, Tasha,” he said.  “I don’t blame you.”

“You’re doing so well, sweetheart,” Steve praised.

She shot him a look that screamed bloody murder.  “Shut your stupid, positive mouth.”

Tony tried to stifle a laugh as Steve’s cheeks flushed.

It was another two pushes until Rebecca’s head was clear, and only two more after that before she joined us screaming her head off.  “Here she is.  Your daughter has a lot to say.”

Natasha lay back exhausted but looking very pleased with herself.  I was ushered forward and cut the cord and the little squawling baby was put onto Natasha’s chest.  “Hey, Becca,” she croaked.  “You made it.”

Her cries began to settle and she lay staring up at all the faces peering down at her. “You did so well, Natasha,” Wanda praised.  “Look at that perfect little girl.”

“I can’t believe you did this with two and no drugs,” Natasha sighed, caressing Rebecca’s back.

“What time is it?”  Sam asked, reaching over and playing with Rebecca’s hand.

“Her official birth time is 4.23 in the morning,” Doctor Shroeder answered.

“Ha! I win,” I teased.

Sam smirked at me.  “Seems to me, we both win, princess.”

“Okay, okay, enough of that talk in front of the baby,” Bruce joked.

The medical staff fussed around Natasha, giving Rebecca her shots and a shot to Nat to help her deliver the placenta.  We were all too caught up in Rebecca’s presence to pay that much attention.  Though Bruce and I both looked over the placenta fascinated when it was out.

Eventually, the nurses took Rebecca off Natasha to clean her up a little and check her over.  Thor rubbed my back.  “Only one more to go,” he said.

“He can stay put for a little longer,” I said.  “Let him get fully cooked.”

Once Natasha had been taken to her room with Rebecca and she’d showered and changed into her pajamas it was just past breakfast time and Amber and Travis brought Riley, Pietro, Sarah, and Rose down.  It was funny, even though Sarah and Rose were almost three weeks older than Rebecca they were still a little smaller than her.  We once again got Riley and Pietro gifts from the newborn and they were much more interested in opening those than interacting with their new sibling.

“Alright kiddos, you better say goodbye to everyone, it’s time to get to school,” Amber said.

“Do we hafta?”  Riley asked.

Steve shrugged.  “You can stay if you want, but we’re all very tired and everyone will most likely be sleeping.”

Riley seemed to ponder the predicament for a moment and then nodded.  “Otay, we go.”

“Sounds good, bug,” I said and kissed them both goodbye.  “Are you going to say goodbye to all your sisters?”

“Otay,” Pietro said and the two went around kissing first all their parents and then the babies goodbye.

“Bye-bye!” They called as Amber led them from the room.

“Okay but that was really cute,” Clint said.

“Yeah,” I agreed.  “I have to say I am really glad we have FRIDAY recording things because I definitely want framed pictures of them kissing the babies goodbye.”

// NEXT

[drabbles-mc]

Adrenaline Rush

Kozik x OFC

Request by Anon: Hulloo there, may I get a sort of all sons x female reader, but mainly Kozik x female reader, where the clubhouse gets hit, and one of the guys gets hit - and they need something to stop the blood flow, so reader takes off her shirt to reveal her sports bra and ripped abs so that the wound can be attended while they wait for Tara, and the boys are like - damn, and when reader goes to get another shirt, Kozik follows and some form of smut ensues?

Warnings: language, blood, injuries, unprotected sex, brief mentions of bodily fluids

Word Count: 2.3k

A/N: I didn’t do a reader insert for this because I try not to describe and particular kind of body-type for the sake of inclusivity. I know I never really made a point to mention that explicitly, but yea. So I just switched it up and changed it to an OFC, hope that’s okay! This was also my first time writing for Kozik, so hopefully it came out alright! Enjoy xo

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The clubhouse was nothing but chaos. It had never been a place associated with calm, but with everything that the MC had been getting themselves into lately it had been a bit more of a hotbed than usual. It all came to a head when a rival MC rolled up and opened fire on the clubhouse one night.

The gunshots were deafening, and bullets were flying everywhere. Before she even fully registered what was happening, she was getting shoved to the floor, pinned underneath someone else’s body in an attempt to keep her safe. Her head smacked off the hardwood and everything went fuzzy for a minute, but there was so much going on that she wasn’t sure that she would’ve been able to keep up with it anyhow.

She didn’t know how much time had passed. It could’ve been seconds or hours that she was trapped underneath the weight of another body. The first thing that felt clear to her, though, was the loss of the weight on top of her when they rolled off. They crouched down next to her in the silence that followed the bullets, shaking her shoulder.

“Alli? Hey, Alessia,” they lightly tapped the side of her face, “You with me?”

She knew the voice sounded familiar but her brain still felt too scrambled to place it as she forced herself up, nodding her head as she tried to regain her bearings, “I’m here.”

She shut her eyes tight for a few moments before reopening them, hoping that it would make things come in a little clearer. She was rewarded with being able to see who it was that had tackled her to the ground, most likely saving her life in the process. One end of his mouth kicked up in a smile when she looked at him, glad that she was conscious and seemingly unscathed, but she could still see the concern pooling in his eyes.

“You okay?”

She nodded, “I’m good. Fine. You?”

“I’m fine. Just wanted to make sure I didn’t break you.”

He stood up and held his hand out and pulled her up to her feet. She stumbled a step and collided with his chest. In a calmer moment they might’ve let it linger, but there was too much to think about. She stepped back and shook it off as she looked around the clubhouse.

“We whole?” she glanced over at Kozik.

“I don’t—”

“No!” Jax’s voice cut through the rest of the dull noise of the clubhouse.

Alessia and Kozik glanced at each other for a moment before quickly making their way over to the chapel. They both looked at Jax as they walked, seeing the way that he was clinging to his own arm, face contorted in pain. He saw their looks of concern and shook his head, nodding towards the table. They pushed their through the small crowd of people and were met with the sigh of Juice laying on the table, blood gushing from his leg.

“You call Tara?” Alessia glanced back over at Jax.

He nodded, “She’s on her way.”

“Fuck,” Juice groaned, writhing in pain on the table.

“Stop moving,” Alessia’s voice was firm as she tried to get her thoughts in order.

She was no Tara—she didn’t have any kind of medical degree or professional training. But she’d been around the MC long enough to pick up some practical first aid. She’d MacGyver’d her way through more than a few injuries for herself and for the members of the club. She just had to figure out how to keep him alive until Tara could get there to do the heavy lifting. He was losing blood fast and she was just hoping that the bullet didn’t hit an artery.

“Shit,” she pinched the bridge of her nose for a moment, “Alright.”

She peeled her tank top off over her head and folded it into a long, thin rectangle, her fingers moving quickly and methodically. All of her focus was on the task at hand. She didn’t even realize that she’d drawn the attention of more than a few hungry, wandering eyes as she stood there in her sports bra and jeans.

She glanced over at Kozik, “Belt.”

He’d been too busy staring at her, allowing his eyes to rake over her chest and abs to hear what she’d said, “Wh-what?”

She snapped her fingers and pointed to the buckle, “Your belt. Now. Please.”

Her voice had so much authority to it that he instantly started undoing his belt without questioning it. He had no idea what she would need it for, but at that point he really didn’t care. He slid it out of the loops of his jeans and handed it over to her. She laid her shirt over the wound, pressing down hard on it to give it some pressure. Juice tensed up and cursed loudly. Her apology was passive as she slid the belt around his thigh.

“It’s gonna get worse before it gets better,” she warned him as she got ready to pull the belt tight, “But it’s better than bleeding out in church, yea?”

Juice nodded, already clenching his fists in anticipation, “Yea. Just…just do it.”

They each took a deep breath. Her eyes were on his legs and his eyes were on her. She pulled on the leather strap, tightening it as best she could around his thigh. Juice clenched his jaw tight and did his best to stifle the groan of pain that was fighting to escape past his lips. There were a few moments of utter silence as they all waited to see if her makeshift solution was going to staunch the blood flow at all, let alone enough to buy enough time for Tara to come in and do damage control.

Her split-second decision-making paid off. The blood stopped flowing. It wasn’t going to be a long-term fix, but she figured that Tara couldn’t be far at this point. She looked over the rest of his body, making sure that nothing else needed to be taken care of. He looked a little pale, and extremely tired.

“Need anything else?” she asked.

Juice shook his head, resting it back on the table, “Just a fucking doctor.”

She chuckled, “We’re working on it,” she sighed, running her hands down her face, “You owe me a shirt and I’m about to collect,” she smiled, “Consider it your medical bill.”

“Done,” despite the pain shooting through him, Juice managed a laugh, “Top drawer in my dorm.”

“You’re a gem, Juicy,” she called back as she walked out of chapel towards the dorms.

The men all watched her walk away. It took him a few moments to snap back to reality, but once he did Kozik was hot on her heels. He caught up to her in a few long strides as she was about to push Juice’s door open. She heard him behind her but didn’t say anything, mind still reeling from everything the day had already entailed.

“That was, um, impressive,” he said as you started to walk over to Juice’s dresser.

“We do what we gotta do, right?”

“Right.”

She turned around to face him once she had found a shirt that she wanted to take as her own. Surprise was written all over her face when she saw the way that Kozik was looking at her. She felt the heat beginning to rise in her face, but she tried not to let it show that his stare was getting to her. Despite the fact that he was looking at her with nothing but admiration, Alessia found herself wanting to quickly pull her fresh shirt down over her head to cover herself up.

When she went to lift it up, though, he stepped in to stop her. He pushed the shirt down, taking it in his own hands, “Don’t.”

She watched him as he discarded the shirt, tossing it over onto Juice’s bed. Once his hands were free, they instantly found their way to her sides, running all over her exposed skin as he pulled her closer to him. She wanted to blame the fact that she wasn’t playing hard to get on the adrenaline of the day, and the fact that he had definitely saved her life only a few minutes before. But she knew in the back of her mind that this had been building for a while. There was a reason that he jumped to make sure she was okay before anyone else.

Before she could overthink it, she put her hands on the back of his neck and pulled him down into a kiss. He immediately pushed and leaned into her, hands roaming all over her, grabbing whatever he could hold onto. She bit down on his bottom lip and he let out a low moan as his mouth continued to move against hers. Her hands snaked up into his hair and gave it a light tug.

He quickly wrapped his arms around her and lifted her, prompting her to wrap her legs around his waist. With ease he carried her over towards the bed, not taking his lips off of hers.

Just as he was about to lay her down, she pulled away from him, “In here?”

“What?” he smirked, “Not like he’s going to be using it anytime soon.”

She laughed, “C’mon, he almost died today. Don’t need to disrespect his room, too.”

“You saved his life! Least he could do to repay you,” he laughed as he kissed along her neck.

She couldn’t stop the smile from spreading across her face. She shook her head slightly but didn’t protest any further as she let him gently lay her down on the bed. He made quick work of pulling off her shoes and jeans. She couldn’t wipe the smile off of her face as he climbed onto the bed, positioning himself over her. His lips crashed back into hers as his hands ran down the toned lines of her stomach, making her shiver.

Alessia reached down and undid the button and zipper on his pants. She could feel the rumble inside his chest as he tried to contain the laugh building up inside him. He pulled his lips off of hers to push his pants down the rest of the way, a smirk etched into his expression. He peeled his shirt off as well and threw it to the floor.

She hooked her legs around his waist, pulling him as close as he would let her. He kissed her, biting down onto her bottom lip as he slowly slid inside her. She tried to stifle her moans but it wasn’t any use. Her legs shook and trembled and she knew that it was no longer just from the adrenaline of the day.

His fingertips dug into her thighs as he thrusted into her. She tilted her head back, letting out a moan, and he took that moment to bite down on the soft, sensitive skin of her neck. She tangled her fingers into his hair and held him there, not wanting to give up the sensation.

“Fuck,” she breathed, “Don’t stop.”

Stopping was the absolute last thing on his mind. He felt the way that her nails set into his back, the way that her body tensed around him, and it only encouraged him to keep going. He increased his pace and let out a low moan as her nails raked down his back. She bit down onto his shoulder, attempting to muffle her screams as she came. His nails dug into her sides as he felt him bite down onto him. It sent a brief jolt of pain through him but he loved it. He cursed quietly under his breath as he approached his own release, pulling out of her right before he did so.

He collapsed next to her on the bed, looking over at her as they both attempted to catch their breath. She glanced over at him and when her eyes caught his, they both couldn’t help but to break into laughter. She ran her hands down her face, wiping away the sweat. Kozik carefully got up and went to grab his boxers and jeans.

“Let me get something to for you to clean yourself up with,” he chuckled as he glanced around the room.

“Time for you to give up your shirt for the cause, Kozik,” she laughed as she propped herself up on her elbows.

“What? No, Alli, c’mon, please,” he laughed as he picked his shirt up off the floor, “Don’t do this.”

She held her hand out, “Hand it over. Time to pay your dues,” she laughed as he threw the shirt at her, “Besides, you’ve got other clothes here anyway. What’s the big deal?”

She threw it back at him after she had wiped herself off, shaking her head with a smile as he dodged it, carefully choosing where to pick it up off the ground from. She set about getting her underwear and jeans back on, and finally pulling on the shirt that she had decided to borrow from Juice.

The two of them stood in the middle of Juice’s room. Alessia was redoing her pony tail, and Kozik couldn’t help but to stand there and watch with admiration. She could see him looking at her out of the corner of her eye and made a point to not comment on it.

“Y’know,” she looked at herself in the mirror with a chuckle, “I might be onto something here. I look good in Juice’s clothes.”

Kozik laughed and shook his head, “You look better than he does, for sure.”

The two of them slowly made their way out of the room. They looked at each other for a moment, each with a small smile on their face, before heading off in different directions. Alessia made her way back towards the chapel to see if there was anything else to be done, or if Tara had shown up yet, and Kozik headed back towards his own space to get himself a fresh shirt. As she walked away, she could feel his fingers trace lightly along her lower back for a moment before she had stepped out of reach. She shook her head slightly and tried to contain her smile as she headed back into the chaos.

[i8jisoo]

𝐒𝐓𝐑𝐀𝐘 𝐊𝐈𝐃𝐒 ⇉  skz with pregnant!reader

minho x reader | second part of dad!skz

↬ genre; fluff

↬ warnings; talk of sex (not like having it but just bein a lil horndog), talk of blood & miscarriage, cursing, labor, and breastfeeding  ˶ˆ꒳ˆ˵

↬ notes; minho such a cutie & his lil kitties i softie

minho and you were planning this, knowing that there was going to be a year break for them, so why not finally do what u to havent been able to do? 

start a family

u both were goin thru tests as if they didn’t cost 3$ each

make his pockets hurt amiright?

finally, a positive test

u were soo excited 🥺 u had gotten so many false positives so u took two more before u knew it was a real positive

ofc minho was at practice, tho there wasn’t anything happening in his career rn he still had to practice

u kinda hated his career now bc that meant u were gonna be lonely asf while pregnant :(

minho walked thru the door to ur guys place, seeing u asleep on the couch

he steps on something like wtf

there it was, the test on the floor that had fell from ur grip when u slept

he ends up just covering you with a blanket n giving u a kiss cause u must be tired right??? ur carrying a baby now, o ff i cial ly so 😳

he decides hes gonna cook dinner but then hes like fuck what if you get sick :(

now hes starting to worry n feels like hes gonna be the worst husband to go thru pregnancy with

hes mad distracted by thinking whether to cook something spicy or like pasta SOMETHING 😳

he feels arms wrapping around him n hes instantly turning around to look at you

“ohmygodohmygod.”

KISSES KISSES KISSES this man is fucking twirling you around in his arms n he is so excited to tell u that he knows

“we’re gonna have a baby!” he shouts, smiling proudly and seeing ur surprised look but nodding at him

just looking at u now he is whipped like frosting or eggs whipped he is just- wow

u were like sorta ABNORMALLY hungry for minho 😭

not just sex but cuddling, kissing, hugging, and anything in general that had to do with him

he was kinda scared u would break since ur body was now more sensitive and u two had to be careful doing even normal day to day things

u were usually the big spoon, just cause u liked holding minho like a teddy bear n letting soonie, doongie, n dori sometimes come up n minho holds them ฅ^•ﻌ•^ฅ

now it was ur turn to be the little spoon, minho starting to like the feeling of this, he’d play with ur hair n shit or he’d watch shows with u like this

ofc soonie, doongie, and dori still came up sometimes but when ur bump started to get bigger u couldn’t let them on top of u to snuggle 🥺

idc minho gets them cat themed shit

im talkin bibs, onesies, lil hats n mittens all cat themed 😣😣

ur pregnancy was surprisingly easy, just the pain towards the end of the pregnancy was horrible

minho definitely took the last few months off, practicing at home rather than going to the studio everyday, he just wanted to keep an eye on u n make sure nothing happened to all of his babies :(

u slept like a log when u were comfortable, minho only waking u up when he thought u should eat or drink something

he loves the little things u ask him to do like grabbing something from the kitchen or helping u with ur socks n shoes 🥺🥺 sure he hates the fact that u know ur upset ab not being able to see ur toes or ur bump blocking things

but u r adorable when u ask for his help n watch him go do what u need

hes a god at massages hes just so soft n gentle with u but he HITS those spots u know he is ACC U RATT E

u went into labor around thirty-four/thirty-five weeks

u were scared shitless because ofc it was the one day u told minho to go out and have a day to himself n u would just be at home watching a movie with ur babies (aka the kitties and the ACTUAL baby)

u were in a shitton of pain n u didnt expect it cause um hello u were just eating some gummies while dori was pushing her face against the bump

u thought she like scratched u or bumped u too hard n u pushed her a lil bit but when u realized it u were quick to scoop her up and hug her

“okay uhm, i— dori do you think i should call him? maybe it’s those practice ones yeah? we can sit here and wait dori.” to which she just pawed at u n she sat there in ur lap

u quickly realized ur pains were not PRACTICE as u felt the sudden dampness

it was not what u were expecting though, seeing the red discoloration which was blood n seeping through your grey sweatpants

u got up quickly, scared of getting it on anything n going to go change as well as needing to get the bags n call minho

u were fine this morning and now ur bleeding? how could this have happened? how could u have gone into labor or had a miscarriage so quickly

ofc minho picked up quickly when u called him, the second he heard come home he was already out of there n didnt need to hear anymore

u just held onto dori, soonie, and doongie like ur life depended on it (u didnt have a death grip on them btw)

it was probably a good ten minutes of you there with all the cats n here comes minho bursting in, panting bc poor baby ran hella fast inside

he gets the bags without even talking, looking at his lil baby on the sofa kinda scrunched up in tears n in pain he feels so fuckin bad for leaving u today

he lets u hold onto him n he just rambling on about how sorry he is and about how everything is gonna be okay

upon arrival to the hospital, u and minho argued literally the WHOLE way

it wasnt because u were upset he just RAMBLED so much and u two were choosing names n shit like u were IRRITATED now grrr

it was a good fuckin distraction from the fact that u were early + u were bleeding n minho decided to keep up the bickering because u seemed occupied and less afraid

then the dreaded, “c-section”, was what you needed

they assured u everything would be okay but this was a precaution they needed to do and that the baby was mostly likely okay with being delivered

minho crying 🥺 he was rly scared at the thought of anything else going wrong

they have the sheet up and hes so nervous while holding ur hand, goin up on his tippy toes trying to watch :(

“alright, they are almost here!”

there wasnt any cries 🥺 ur hearts dropped n u two just looked at each other waiting for the cries

suddenly u two heard cooing and then loud cries, the doctor rubbing their back to get the blood flowing and to help warm them up

“your baby girl!”

so many kisses n tears, she was fuckin perfect

u both had the biggest smiles and tears coming down ur faces while she slowly calmed down and u both carefully touched her

minho later watched you from the chair next to the bed, trying to feed her like the nurse taught u to do

he looked at u, silently asking you if he could help, you nodding and his hands slowly and carefully helped guide her to latch on

he was takin n o t e s from these nurses

she looked so comfortable n he was just amazed at you he couldn’t believe you created something so perfect, this tiny little girl was your person

they were your person ଘ(੭ˊᵕˋ)੭*

©️ maysdiors 2020 :: all rights reserved. do not repost my work on tumblr or other platforms.

[wiypt-writes]

Stark Spangled Banner

Ch38: Lost And Fallen

Intro: The Battle was lost, Thanos won and succeeded in eliminating half of all life across the Universe. But for Katie and Steve the loss is bigger than they could ever had possibly imagined…

Warnings: Bad Language words. Things getting dusted and death. Mentions of miscarriage- if this is a trigger please stay away.

Pairing: Steve Rogers x OFC Katie Stark

A/N: Please heed the warnings… once again huge kudos to @angrybirdcr​ for being my creative partner in crime, and to my beta who read this over again before this repost...I love you!

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

Chapter 37 Part 2

Stark Spangled Banner Masterlist // Main Masterlist

The silence that hung over Wakanda was haunting, punctuated only by the odd yell that reached Steve’s ears as people were calling for their fallen friends, family and loved ones. He was vaguely aware that people were gathering around the spot where he and Katie were sat on the floor, no one saying anything, until the still was shattered when Okoye came rushing through the trees. Steve looked up as she stopped short at seeing them all, but she was visibly shaking and her breathing was shallow.

Steve knew what she was going to say before she said it.

“The King is dead.” She announced shakily.

Steve looked at her and bowed his head before his eyes fell once more on Katie. She tore her eyes away from the spot she had been focussed on and turned her face to look at the distraught woman, but still she didn’t speak.

“He did it.” Rhodey spoke gently, looking around. “He got the stones, and he did it.”

“I should have gone for the head.” Thor bowed his eyes in sadness, his voice cracking. “He told me. If I had gone for the head I could have stopped him snapping his fingers and…”

“Thor, once Thanos had all of those stones, we never stood a chance.” Natasha sighed, her voice hoarse.

Steve glanced around the small clearing, there was no sign of Sam either. They’d lost him, Vision, Bucky, Wanda, T’Challa and he had no idea about Tony.

“I must to go back to the palace at once,” Okoye straightened up, “ensure that the princess and Queen Mother weren't…” she paused to regain her composure, "…among the fallen.”

“That might be the best idea.” Bruce looked around “For us all.”

“We can’t.” Katie shook her head, talking for the first time. "We can’t just…” She trailed off, gesturing at Vision’s body.

Thor knelt down next to her, his eyes locking onto hers, his hand reaching out to rest against her neck. “We can come back for him, Little Stark, right Captain?”

Steve looked up and nodded, jerking himself into action.

“Our first priority has to be getting everyone who is injured back into the city for attention.” He stood and offered Katie his hand and she took it, allowing herself to be pulled to her feet. With trembling fingers she gripped Steve’s hand and he squeezed his palm gently around hers. “Okoye, once you are there can you organise transport for everyone?”

“Yes Captain.” She nodded, straightened her shoulders and made her way through the line of trees.

Together the rest of them made to follow the same route, Katie and Steve dropping back, trying to snatch a stolen moment of privacy. Steve wanted nothing more than to hold his wife, and he knew her well enough to be able to read her body language and understand she felt the same, but on some subconscious level it was almost like the two of them knew they had to keep a distance out of respect for the others.

The relief Steve felt that neither of them had lost the other was insurmountable, but how was it fair that so many others hadn’t been so lucky? He was merely grateful for the fact she was still here, and he knew it wouldn’t be fair to show that until they were alone.

But then, besides him, Katie gave a sharp hiss and clutched at her stomach as she felt a searing pain across the lower part of her abdomen and all pretence at keeping that stoic front flew from Steve’s mind.

“Sweetheart? Are you alright?” He stopped, stooping slightly so he could catch her eyes, his hands cupping her face.

“Just took a few knocks but nothing I can’t walk off.” She waved his concern away, straightening up as the pain subsided, taking both his hands in hers. “You?”

“He gave me a pretty hard whack.” He muttered and watched as her eyes travelled over the trickle of blood that was on his temple and his split lip. “But I’m fine.”

Katie looked around to see that everyone had continued to walk before she glanced back at him and felt a wave of tears springing up on her.

“You’re still here.” She whispered. “So many of them, Stevie, I was so scared you…” He wrapped his arms around her, chin resting on her head and she was surprised to feel him shaking. “Me too, Doll, if…” his voice cracked “…if I’d lost you…”

How long they were there they had no idea, but it was when Katie felt another searing pain that they split apart, and this time she doubled over and the sound that left her mouth was a cry, not a hiss.

“That’s it, you need a medic.” Steve instructed, his hand on her back as he yelled out. “Thor!” Katie was aware of heavy footsteps, as another wave of pain hit her and she went light headed. She staggered backwards and glanced up at Steve who had reached out and caught her, his strong arm wrapping round her back, his blue eyes full of concern.

“I don’t…I can’t…” She began, and then her eyes rolled back into her head as they fluttered shut and she went limp in his arms.

“Katie, Sweetheart.” Steve’s voice cracked as he brushed his hand over her forehead. He looked up at Thor, panic on his face and the god nodded.

“I’ll get her to the palace.”

With another swallow, Steve gently moved Katie so she was in his arms and with a flash Thor took off.

“She’s probably just badly bruised and a bit…” Natasha began to speak, her hand gently squeezing Steve’s forearm as the Soldier simply looked up at the sky, before he sprinted after them, not looking back.

***** “No, that’s not…” Steve ran his hands through his hair as the Doctor looked at him. “I mean, she was…” He took a shaky breath as he looked through the window to where Katie was led on the bed in the hospital room, covered in a crisp white sheet.

“I’m sorry, Captain Rogers.” The Doctor looked at him, sympathetically “We’ve operated and removed…” he took a deep breath and Steve looked away, tears stinging his eyes before he looked back.

“Is she,” he sniffed, his voice wobbling with emotion, “is she gonna be ok?” “She should be fine.” The Doctor assured him. “Her vitals are good and there’s no other injuries bar some bruising. You can sit with her if you like.” Steve nodded and the Doctor gave him one last look before he moved away. He paused at the doorway, his hand shaking as he moved to push it open but a voice stopped him.

“How is she?”

He turned to see Natasha. She had been coordinating ensuring the injured and dead that hadn’t been dusted were recovered and looked tired and shaken, like they all were.

“She’s okay.” He said, his voice thick.

“Did they find out what was wrong?” Nat asked and Steve took a shaky breath, as he looked at her, the tears clouding his vision and she frowned “Steve? What is it?” “She was pregnant, Nat.” He stuttered, his voice nothing but a whisper. “All that time over the last few weeks she thought she was ill, and she wasn’t, she was, she was having our baby.” “Oh shit.” Nat mumbled as she wrapped her arms around his bulky frame. Steve buried his face into her shoulder and his chest heaved with the force of his quiet sobs. Nat screwed her face up fighting her own tears as she wound a hand into Steve’s hair, gently soothing him as he cried, helpless to do anything but lend him comfort.

Eventually he pulled away, wiping at his face. “Sorry.” he mumbled and Natasha scoffed.

“You don’t need to apologise, Steve. God, I’m so sorry.” Steve took a deep breath and turned back to the door. He paused again before he looked at her. “No one is to know, not until…” Natasha nodded. “If anyone asks I’ll tell them she took a bad blow.”

Steve sniffed again, and steeling himself, he pushed open the door and crossed the room, taking a seat by his wife’s bed. He took her hand in both of his and pressed a soft kiss to her knuckles, before leaning his cheek against the smooth skin on the back of her hand.

She’d been expecting their baby, and neither of them had known.

God, kids really hadn’t been on the agenda, certainly not for the foreseeable anyway, not whilst they were living in the shadows, but now Steve couldn’t help but feel empty. Empty at the thought that they could have been a family but it had been so cruelly taken from them. 

He sat in silence for a while, until what must have been an hour or so later the door opened and he looked up at Natasha as she crossed the room.

“Still sleeping.” Steve answered her silent question and she gave a little nod.

“Do you need anything?”

“No, I’m okay.” he managed a gentle smile, “Thanks.” Natasha nodded and Steve let out a soft sigh. “And thanks for…you know, before.”

“Steve.” a croaky voice from the bed caught his attention and he whipped back round to Katie. Her eyes weren’t open yet, but her face was scrunching up as she began to blink.

“Hey, Doll.” He said softly, his hand tightening around hers as he moved his chair closer to the bed. “You’re your time.”

Katie’s head felt like it was full of fluff, but she turned in the direction his voice was coming from, blinking as his face swam into focus.

“I’ll go fetch someone.” Nat said softly.

“Give me five minutes.” Steve spoke, looking over his shoulder, shooting Nat a significant look. She nodded and Steve turned back to Katie, smiling softly.

“Welcome back.” His hand gently stroked her hair. “What happened?” She asked, looking around the room in confusion.

“You collapsed.” Steve took a deep breath. “After the fight.” She turned back to look at him, frowning. “I can’t have been hit that bad, I had my suit on.” Steve hesitated for a moment, looking down at where his hand grasped hers. How the fuck did he tell her this?

“I err…” He looked up again, taking a deep breath and Katie was surprised to see his eyes were watering.

“Steve, what is it?” She asked, sitting up a little. “Is it Tony? Has he-“

“No, I mean…I don’t know, we haven’t…”

“Then what?” She demanded, her eyes searching his.

“You were err you were…” He swallowed, and the last word stumbled from his lips. “Pregnant.” The words hit Katie like a sledge hammer.

“No, that’s…that’s not possible. I had an IUD, I can’t…” She trailed off as she looked at Steve’s face as his eyes brimmed with tears and then his words registered even more.

You were…not are…

The look on her Soldier’s face said it all as it hit her just what was going on. “No…no,no….”

“Sweetheart…” Steve watched as she frantically pushed down the bed covers, whilst he tried to placate her, but she ignored him and hitched up the top half of the white shorts and T’shirt the Doctors had put her in her. Her hands and eyes gently moved over the inch long incision mark that was already fading thanks to the Wakandan technology, before her hands flattened on her stomach and Steve felt his heart break all over again.

“Was it the snap?” She asked, suddenly needing to know.

“It looks that way, yeah, they had to err…they had to operate.” “He took our baby.” She looked at him, and a tear fell from Steve’s face as she took a deep rattling breath “Oh Steve.”

He wrapped his arms around her and she pressed her face into his chest, as her heart felt like it shattered into a million pieces.

“I’m so sorry.” She sobbed through her tears. “I didn’t know, I swear-” “Hey, hey. You have nothing to be sorry for, you got that?” he pulled back to look at her, moving so that his hands were cupping either side of her face, driving his message home “Nothing…”

“I should have known.” she sobbed as he wrapped his arms around her again “I should have known. I thought it was a bug or food or…”

“Baby, listen to me.” Steve spoke, his voice firm but gentle. “This is not your fault. Nothing could have stopped Thanos and what that snap did.”

Katie heard his words, but she wasn’t really listening. She was numb. How could she have not known? Had she seriously been that wrapped up in herself, in everything else that she had missed the signs? As she wracked her brains, her face crumpled once more and Steve pulled her even closer, burying his face into her hair. 

***** They left Wakanda late the next day. Katie hadn’t slept all evening, neither had Steve. He’d laid by her side, curled round her, the feeling of loss for a baby they didn’t even know they were having was suffocating and neither of them knew what to do or say.

After a final check with the doctors, who were satisfied Katie was well enough to leave, not that that was going to stop her anyway, they bid goodbye to the Queen, who assured them that Wakanda would be open to them whenever they needed, just as T’Challa would want. The trip home wasn’t punctuated with the usual chat, no one really spoke other than to occasionally break the silence about what they needed to do next. Thor was wanting to head straight out when he got home to see if he could locate Tony or Thanos and Bruce was trying to get him to wait a while. But as they made plans, Katie found she had no real input, so stayed quiet, lost in her thoughts.

She should have realised her IUD needed swapping out. She should have sussed she was pregnant sooner. So many should haves, and now she really wanted the comfort of her brother’s arms too, but they had no idea where he was. None of the tech in Wakanda had picked anything up. One thing she was thankful for was that no one bar her, Steve and Natasha knew about the baby. She wasn’t sure she’d have coped with the constant sympathy that would have come her way. She’d tell them, eventually, but for now, she wanted to come to terms with it with Steve alone.

The jet landed back at the compound and they all filed off, heading through familiar hallways, only they were now void of life. Steve couldn’t bring himself to look at anything, not to mention the piles of ash that were littered around, instead he simply watched as his wife walked in front of him towards their old living quarters. When they arrived, Katie paused at the door and Steve realised that her hand was shaking. Without saying a word he reached round and gently pushed his palm to the security lock, FRIDAY greeting them somewhat forlornly, and the door swung open.

They stepped in and took a deep breath, walking from room to room, for no reason other than to take everything in. Nothing had changed. Glasses were still on the kitchen shelves, the TV was still on the side, the sofa was exactly how they had left it and their clothes were still in the drawers and closet, toiletries still in the bathrooms. And it was clean. Tony clearly having paid someone to keep up with the housework, just in case. At the thought, Katie’s eyes once more began to sting with tears and she sat on the edge of the bed and removed her boots, dropping them wordlessly to the floor.

“You want to take the bathroom, Sweetheart?” Steve asked, kneeling in front of her and she had to smile, which made Steve do the same as he knew what she’d found amusing. Despite all of Tony’s technology he had never managed to fix the issue that you couldn’t run the two showers in the apartment at the same time without the water running freezing cold. Katie reached out to touch Steve’s face and nodded, offering him a quiet thanks as she headed into the en-suite. She closed the door, but didn’t lock it. She never did, the thought of shutting Steve out of any aspect of her life was alien. She passed the His-and- Her sinks, turned on the waterfall shower and removed her clothes before stepping under the hot water, tilting her face up to greet it, willing it to wash away the events of the past God knows how long.

As she lathered her hair, washing away the dirt that was lodged in it, she felt nothing but an empty hopelessness. Try as she might, she couldn’t help her thoughts straying to Tony and how he was likely to be feeling the same only stranded somewhere millions of miles away from home. If he was alive. 

Their baby sure wasn’t.

It was then that the tears and the sobs began to come again, and this time she didn’t even try to choke them back. Their friends were dead along with trillions of other people, her brother was MIA, and they had no idea how to fix any of it.

Steve unzipped the top half of his dirty uniform and dropped it onto the bed, his fingers skating over the star shaped hole in the middle. It had certainly seen better days, like him. He heard the water start in the bathroom and then, as he dropped onto the bed to remove his leg wraps and boots he heard Katie’s crying over the sound of the shower. With a weary sigh he stood up, removed the last of his clothing and headed into the bathroom. As the steam cleared he could see his wife was stood with her hands pressed on the cool tiles of the large shower cubicle, head bowed, her small frame wracked with sobs. Blinking back his own tears, he stepped in gently behind her and she turned to him burying her face into his chest and wrapping her arms around his waist as the water continued to beat down on them. Steve held her shaking body close, squeezing his arms around her and dropping his head to rest on top of hers, his tears escaping into her wet hair.

Steve had no idea how long they were in the shower, but eventually the water started to drop in temperature and he reached round and turned it off, Katie still clinging to him, as if letting him go would mean he would disappear too.

“Honey,” he said gently, his hand tangling in her hair, “you’ll get cold, come on…”

She nodded and allowed him to step out of the shower, where he handed her a large towel before grabbing one for himself.

“Are you hungry?” He asked as they both exited the bathroom. “I can try and find something.” “No.” she said, her voice croaky “I just want to go to bed.”

He dropped a kiss onto the side of her head and then the pair of them set about drying off. Katie pulled on an old Stark Industries T-Shirt that was in one of the drawers, towelled her damp hair and crawled into the familiar sheets. Steve followed shortly, without saying a word as he pulled her to him so her back was clutched to his chest as he dropped another tender kiss to the back of her neck.

“Steve.” she whispered, her tears falling to the pillow as her body began to shake again. “I don’t know what to do.”

“Oh, Doll.” Steve’s voice cracked slightly as he pulled her tighter and she lay her hands over his arm which was wrapped firmly around her waist, and before long she couldn’t fight the sheer exhaustion that overwhelmed her and she drifted off, the sounds of her gentle crying growing silent and her shaking shoulders grew still.

Steve stayed awake well into the night, letting his own tears flow down onto his pillow because whilst she slept, he didn’t have to be strong.

******

The next morning Steve woke long before Katie, although he wasn’t sure if he’d actually slept properly anyway. She had tossed and turned all night, waking a few times crying and he’d simply rocked her back to sleep. Now, with her face pressed into his chest she looked peaceful, so he stayed still for another hour or so. Then, as the first tendrils of light from the morning sun sneaked in through the blinds he felt her stir a little before she gave the usual, adorable twitch of her nose as she woke and he dropped a kiss to the bridge of it as she let out a small murmur and pressed further into his chest as she blinked. He could tell her eyes hurt and he wasn’t surprised, they were red and swollen she’d been crying that much. He didn’t say anything for a moment, instead they simply lay tangled around one another, his hand reaching up to gently stroke through her hair.

Eventually he had to give into his bladder and with a sigh he pressed a kiss to the top of her head.

“Kitten, sorry but I gotta pee.”

She gave a soft chuckle and sighed, moving away from him. “I suppose that’s okay.” He gave her a soft smile and then untangled himself from around her and sat up, stretching as he moved the covers back to stand, wincing slightly as he did so. His ribs were pretty damned sore. Katie took a deep breath as she saw the extent of the bruising on his side. He bruised fast, part of his accelerated healing process but it still shocked her to see sometimes, especially after a particularly brutal fight. He paused, turning to look at her, and then she noticed the purple hue also surrounding his left temple and eye socket, and the various cuts and marks on his handsome face.

“Give it a day or so and it will be gone.” he said gently, clocking the look on her face, before he headed into the bathroom.

Katie sat up, looking around at the solid oak furniture that she had handpicked for their room when the facility was being built. It felt so long ago, a lifetime ago. As Steve went about his morning routine she pulled a pair of old faded blue jeans from the drawers along with a purple vest top and white Nike hoodie, all items of clothing she forgot she had even owned. She was scraping her shoulder length hair back into a French braid when Steve emerged from the bathroom in his boxer shorts, a sight that would normally turn her into some form of hormonal teenager. But not today. Instead she rose from her position in front of the mirror and headed into the bathroom, taking the soft kiss he offered, but not saying a word.

Once they were dressed and Katie had gently rubbed the arnica into Steve’s bruises they headed out of their quarters. The Compound was still eerily quiet. Given that it was still early, as they headed through the lifeless halls to the conference room, Katie assumed they would be the first ones up, but they’ weren’t. Natasha and Rhodey were sitting at the table, both looking like they hadn’t slept a wink.

"Morning.” Rhodey greeted them as he looked up.

“Morning.” Katie said touching his shoulder briefly. Natasha pushed the plate of various breakfast items across the table towards them and Katie suddenly realised she hadn’t eaten in almost forty-eight hours. To Steve’s relief she dived for a croissant and began to pick at it. It wasn’t much, but at least she was eating.

Steve leaned back in his chair and looked at Natasha

“Have you heard anything from Barton?” he asked softly.

“I tried calling, but nothing.” she shrugged.

“We’ve been trying to figure out how we can get a headcount of all the people that might have disappeared in the Snap.” Rhodey offered “See how far this stretches, which world leaders are still here, what happened to the authorities everything. Then we can figure out who’s left and what we can do from there.

“It stretches across the world, at least.” Nat said, gently as she swiped over the tablet she was holding causing several holograms to appear, with various snippets of footage. “Emergency broadcasts all started coming through in the early hours…”

“As horrible as it is, it needs to be done.” Steve nodded.

"Anything from SHIELD? Fury? Agent Hill?” Katie looked at Natasha.

“I’ve sent out calls and messages, if there’s anyone left they’ll respond.” she replied as she continued to tap at the computer.

“Good.”

“I spoke to Pepper earlier” Rhodey looked at Katie. “She’s on her way up, Happy’s driving her.”

Katie moaned in disbelief that she hadn’t even thought about the woman that she’d loved as a sister for so many years “Pepper.”

“Hey, don’t.” Steve said, gently squeezing her shoulder “We’ve all had a lot to cope with and think about.”

“He’s right Kiddo.” Rhodey nodded “The main thing is she’s alright. “

“Still nothing from Tony?” Katie asked tentatively  

Rhodey shook his head. “I think…” he looked at Steve who took a deep breath. “I think we have to assume the worst.”  

“No, we have to hope for the best.” she countered, not looking at anyone as she shoved another snippet of croissant into her mouth. It was a hope she was clinging to, because the alternative, even though it was more likely, was unbearable and every time she contemplated it, it was as if someone had tightened that rubber band around her chest even more. She couldn’t cope with losing her brother as well.

Steve looked at Rhodey and gently shook his head, causing the other man to take a deep breath and they all looked up as the other members of the group trickled into the room.

"We’ve been trying to get a signal from my ship” Rocket offered, “So far, nothing.”

"No sign of my people either.” Thor bowed his head.

“I thought that-” Steve began in a confused tone but Thor cut him off.

“When Thanos attacked our ship, half of the people on board escaped so some of them will still be out there. I just need to find them.”

“So what do we do now?” Bruce asked, and all heads turned to Steve, their leader.

“We wait until we find something useful. Then we do what we have to, what we can.” Steve leaned his elbows on the table top. It was all he could suggest.

“You can wait all you want.” Thor shrugged, “But I’m going to find Thanos.”

“Oh yeah?” Rocket rolled his eyes “And then what?”

“I’m going to kill him.” Thor replied simply.

“How?”

“I’ll cut his head off, bring the stones back and we can figure out how to undo this unholy shit stain of a mess that he created.”

“If we’re going to have any hope of going after Thanos and being successful then we need to come up with some form of plan, otherwise we don’t stand a chance.” Steve looked up at Thor.

“I’m done with planning!” Thor growled, and there was a clap of thunder outside making Katie jump. “How can you sit here, waiting for something to happen? We need to be out there, looking for this bastard!”

“And we will.” Steve started to placate him and Thor simply snorted before pointing at him.

“This man killed half my people, murdered my brother and stabbed my best friend through the heart with a sword!”

“We all lost people, Thor.” Steve tried again and Thor snorted.

“I lost everything. No offence, Captain, but what exactly did you lose? Because as far as I can see the person you love the most is still here and-”

He was cut off by Rhodey who jumped in to tell him he was out of order, but as Katie listened to the two of them start to bicker, she glanced at Steve who had his head hung down, looking at the table, biting the inside of his cheek. She reached out to gently touch his arm and he looked back at her, his eyes swimming with tears.

And that was it, her temper snapped.

“Best friends?” Thor was loudly responding to Rhodey “Well pardon me if but I don’t particularly feel-

“We lost our baby, Thor!” Katie yelled, looking up at the God as she cut him off, her voice cracking. “That good enough for you?”

There was a pause and Steve felt the atmosphere in the entire room thicken as he swallowed and looked at his wife. Her eyes were blazing as she was glaring at Thor, whose own eyes had grown wide with surprise and something that looked like remorse. Steve’s hand gently crept to Katie’s back, and he felt hers fall to his knee, her gaze on Thor never moving. “I don’t understand.” Thor continued, looking around.

At that point Katie looked down at the table and licked her lips, steeling herself to respond, but Steve did it for her

“Katie was pregnant.” He said softly, looking up. “But we didn’t know. Not until…” “Oh Jesus.” Rhodey sighed, running his hand over his face “Guys, I…” “I don’t want sympathy.” she said, as Steve’s hand moved to take hers. “We don’t want sympathy, I just thought you should all know.” “I’m sorry.” Thor bowed his head.

“He snapped away our baby.” Katie took a deep breath and looked up at the God “So yeah, Steve lost a lot. We all did. But that aside you’re right, we do need to find him, get those stones and reverse what he did but you can’t do it alone, and we can’t do it without you.” She looked round the table. “If we are going to have any chance of succeeding, we need to be clever as fighting him like we did in Wakanda won’t work.”

Thor looked at her, then his storm blue eyes locked onto Steve’s as he sighed and nodded.

“Okay, Captain, we will do this your way. But I’m still going to cut his head off when we do find him.”

No one dared suggest otherwise.

The rest of the morning was spent in the Control Room. No one spoke much other than to comment on the various provisional numbers that kept coming in from the Countries all over the world. Provisional because no one could confirm anything, until official census reports were completed. And no one was starting official census reports because the governments were in disarray. Basically, the only thing any of them could be sure about, was that the world was in a monumental fucking mess.

At about half past three in the afternoon FRIDAY spoke, making them jump slightly, to announce that Pepper and Happy had arrived. Suddenly Katie’s mouth went dry, it wasn’t just her brother she had walked away from two years ago. She stood up from her seat and made her way down the hallway and met them both halfway towards the conference room. There was a moment where Pepper paused, and Katie took in her appearance. Her hair was pulled back into an immaculate pony-tail, but she was dressed in a pair of jeans, trainers and a simple button down, far from the famous Pepper Pots crisp suits and Manolas everyone associated with her. Katie met her eyes which were red raw and then Pepper stepped forward, opening her arms with a sob. Katie fell into them hugging the woman back.

“I’m so glad you’re ok.” she said gently.

“You too.” Pepper croaked.

“I’ve missed you so much.” Katie’s voice cracked as she pulled away gently, looking at her.

“We missed you, we all did.”  

“I’m sorry.” Katie sniffed, bowing her head “I really am, if there had been any other way.” “Don’t.” Pepper urged her “You had your reasons. Tony knew that.”

“Have you heard from him?” Katie asked gently.

Pepper shook her head, “Not since he went up after that ship. You?”

“No, but we have every scanner we can going.” Katie turned to look at Steve, Nat, Rhodey and Bruce who had now gathered behind her. “We’ll find him.” “I hope you’re right.” 

“Well whilst we have hope, we have something huh?” Katie said, wiping at her eyes before she turned to Happy, releasing Pepper who was instantly swept up into an embrace by Steve.

“Hey Kiddo.” Happy smiled sadly, pulling her into a huge hug, his large arms circling around her back. “It’s good to see you.”

Katie couldn’t find any words to respond.

Eventually everyone finished their greetings and they all made their way back into the main office where they had been sat, watching the reports.

“There’s a Racoon.” Happy eyed Rocket as he walked passed.

“Yeah, his name’s Rocket.” Katie replied. “It’s a long story.”

“Not like we got anything else to do.” Pepper sat down and looked expectantly round the table. “Tell me everything.” So they did. The entire tale, start to finish. It took a good hour and a half to explain and answer all her questions, everyone chipping in when and where they could and she gripped Katie’s hand, fresh tears springing in her eyes when she learned about the baby. Rhodey stepped out at one point to take a call, returning about twenty minutes later with an unreadable expression on his face, one which caught Steve’s attention but the man simply shook his head and Steve turned back to the conversation.

“The one thing we do know is that Tony wasn’t alone.” Bruce concluded the tale “He was with Peter Parker and this Dr Strange guy. We’re running scans, but we’re limited to what the StarkSats can pick up.”

“Yeah well I might be able to offer a bit more.” Rhodey spoke “The call I got before, it was Ross. The President is asking for a debrief. They need something to tell the public. Said I’d go but I could do with back up.”

Steve was about to offer to accompany him but Katie beat him to it.

“I’ll do it. That is unless anyone else particularly wants to?”

Steve took a deep breath and looked at her, grappling with the fact he was pleased she wasn’t holing herself up, hiding away like she could have been, but on the flip side, he wasn’t sure if she was up to it both physically and mentally.

“Are you sure you’re alright to do this?” He asked her. “You should be resting and-“ “Don’t.” she looked at him, silently pleading with him. She needed to do something, anything to stay busy.

“Alright.” He acquiesced eventually, knowing her well enough to understand if he pushed it any further it wouldn’t end well. “If you’re sure?”

She nodded. “Always a pleasure to see Ross.” she looked up at Rhodey who nodded.

“I’ll tell them we’ll be there tomorrow morning.”

******

“So as I was saying,” Ross looked down the table, “the US Government is attempting to start a census to compile a list of the Vanished. We need to understand just what we’re looking at.”

“What we’re looking at is simple.” Katie folded her arms. “Thanos had one goal. To wipe out fifty percent of everything across the Universe.”

“What do we know about this Thanos?” President Ellis asked and Katie took a deep breath before she looked at Rhodey. They were half an hour or so into the debrief and questioning and she was already starting to get a headache.

“He’s a Titan.” Katie recalled what she knew from Rocket and Bruce “He has been systematically working his way from planet to planet, wiping out fifty percent at random because he believes that the Universe’s population would essentially consume all resources and condemn it.”

“From what we know he started to look for Infinity Stones to help him complete his mission.” Rhodey said. “Once he had all 6, he was able to do it with a simple snap of his fingers.”

“Was this guy not on SHIELDs radar? Or the Avengers radar?” A man to the right of President Ellis asked.

“The Avengers haven’t existed for the past two years.” Katie looked at him, before she glanced at Ross. “Your Accords put paid to that.”

“Those Accords were ratified by over a hundred different countries.” Ross looked at her “I couldn’t just overrule or ignore the fact you broke the law.”

Katie snorted and looked around the room, pointing at Ross as she turned back to him.

“Seriously, half the population of the world crumbles to dust and you survive?”

“Kiddo.” Rhodey cut her off and lay his hand on her arm, she ignored him and carried on.

“We broke the law trying to keep you safe!” She shook her head. “Those other soldiers in Siberia, if they had been alive then the entire world could have fallen. We knew what the consequences would be, but stopping that threat was far more important. And what did we get for it?” She glared at Ross, her temper rising. “You locked half of us in a jail. Put an eighteen year old girl in a straight jacket and a collar that stripped her of her power and her dignity. Do you know she suffered nightmares for months after we got her out? Months!” Ross at least had the grace to look a little abashed.

“And you wanna know the worst part? During those years on the run we still did the dirty jobs SHIELD didn’t want to do. We bust illegal arms traders, took down drugs cartels, all to keep the very people that exiled us safe.”

“I appreciate there has been a lot of water under the bridge and you may feel aggrieved but what matters now is how we go forward.” Ross looked at her. “We lost, the world lost…”  “You’re not getting this are you?” Katie snapped. “We lost because we weren’t together. And we weren’t together because of you!”

“Mrs Rogers,” President Ellis was calm as he looked at her, “I understand emotions and tempers will be running a little frayed. Your team has suffered. You, your husband and friends were criminalised and I realise now that we were wrong to do so.”

The President considered something for a moment before he leaned toward Ross to speak. Ross took a deep breath and looked around before he nodded and the President spoke again “I’m going to pull the US out of the Sokovia Accords. You’ll all be pardoned immediately, all charges dropped.”

“Thank you, Sir.” Rhodey said, and at the same time Katie asked

“What about Bucky?”

“What?” President Ellis looked at her.

“Sergeant James Buchanan Barnes.”

“The Winter Soldier?” Ross frowned.

“That’s not his name.” Katie said fiercely “And that’s not who he is, who he was.” She corrected herself “Not anymore.” “After Siberia, Captain Rogers took Barnes to Wakanda.” Rhodey supplied at the puzzled glances from around the table. “He underwent treatment to remove the HYDRA programming from his brain, which was successful. He was on the battle field with us.”

“He went in the snap along with Sam and Wanda and he deserves to be honoured alongside them with a full unequivocal pardon.” Katie looked at Ross, holding his gaze. “He saved my life a few years ago when he pulled me out of that shit hole in Canada, he didn’t bomb the UN and he’s no more responsible for the atrocities HYDRA forced him to commit than you or I.”

President Ellis nodded. “Consider it done. We’ll also give you access to the equipment we have, people, anything we can at NASA to help you find your brother…”

“Thank you, Sir.”  She nodded to him.

“And we don’t know if it will help in any way but Fury’s SUV was found in DC along with some belongings. In the absence of anyone else to look through it, we thought…” The President trailed off and Katie looked down at the table. She’d been hoping that Fury was going to pop up soon, help them formulate some kind of plan with a trick up his sleeve like he normally did. But instead, here they were, getting the confirmation that he was gone too.

“We’ll take a look.” Rhodey nodded.

“We can have it delivered to the compound or you can take a look at it in situ.” Ross stated and Katie looked at Rhodey, the pair of them instantly agreeing which option would be best.

“Compound would be better.” Katie stated.

“Ok, we’ll make it happen right away.” President Ellis nodded. “This afternoon we’ll issue a full statement to the world, tell them what we know. Then I guess we need to try and regroup what is left of our Armed Forces, get some kind of census going.” He stood up, signalling the meeting was over and Rhodey and Katie did the same.

“The Avengers were Fury’s greatest achievement.” Ellis spoke. “He had faith in you. Absolute faith. Right now, I’m hoping that faith is justified as frankly, I don’t have a clue where any of us go from here.” “No one does Sir.” Katie shrugged, holding his gaze before she gave him a nod. And then, as she made to leave the room, Ross spoke from where he was stood, not far behind her.

“Give Captain Rogers my regards.”

She stiffened instantly and stopped dead, taking a deep breath and besides her, Rhodey let out a soft groan, knowing full well what was coming. In a flash she spun round and her fist connected straight with the man’s face in a perfectly executed right hook.

Ross reeled back, crimson billowing from his nose, and in the corner of her eye, she saw President Ellis hold a hand up to stop the guards that had stepped forward, and she was sure he was smirking a little. She turned her attention to Ross who was wiping at his face, looking at her in shock.

“I’ll be sure to pass on your greeting, Mr Secretary.” Katie arched an eyebrow, before she wheeled round and left.

*******

Steve choked on his coffee, spitting half of it down his shirt as he looked at Rhodey, his eyes wide. “She did what?” “Punched him, straight in the face. Great right hook.” Rhodey chuckled as Steve let out a groan as he wiped at the liquid that had spilt onto his Henley. “Oh he was asking for it, Cap, telling her to pass on his regards to you, sarcastic asshole. Next thing I know she’s whacked him and he’s blowing scarlet all over the place.”

Steve scratched at his beard, shaking his head.

“And then she just smiles at him and says…” “I’ll be sure to pass on your greeting, Mr Secretary.”  Katie finished Rhodey’s sentence for him as she strolled into the kitchen and went straight to the fridge for a coke. “Thought my ears were burning.”

“You punched Ross in the face?” Steve looked at her.

Katie shrugged “He deserved it.”

Steve watched her as she took a long drink of the soda, a smile twitching his lips. God, he loved her fucking sass-bag nature. “So what is President Ellis planning to do?” He asked, clearing his throat.

“They’re putting out a statement later.” Rhodey said, “Emergency broadcast, not sure when but we’ll keep the news channels tuned.”

“When’s Fury’s stuff supposed to be arriving?” the Captain looked at his wife. 

“Not sure, they just said as soon as possible.”

***** As soon as possible turned out to be three pm that afternoon. After a quick search, the only vaguely interesting thing they found was some form of pager that had been found at the rear of the car. According to the Government Agent that handed it over, they weren’t even sure if it was Fury’s but they had gathered it up anyway.

Katie and Natasha had never seen anyone in SHIELD use a device like that before, neither had Steve, so in an attempt to try and find out exactly whether or not it was Fury’s, Natasha hacked into the CCTV footage of the area in which it had been found. As they watched, Nat fast forwarded through to the point of the snap and they watched it unfold. The pager was the last thing Fury went for.

“Fury wasn’t the kind of guy to waste time.” Steve spoke, breaking the silence that had fallen across the room. “And I doubt he would be making an exception to that rule in this situation.”

“So why was that thing so important?” Rhodey asked, looking at it. “Who was he trying to reach if it wasn’t us?”

“No idea.” Natasha sighed, “But we should find out.”

“It’s dead.” Katie pushed a few buttons on the pager. “Battery probably died.” “I can try and wire it into the mains.” Bruce took it from her, turning it over in his hands. “It might not work but…” Katie watched, half listening as Rocket hopped up onto the table and asked Bruce to see the item for a moment. He frowned, holding it up to the light.

“This is a Kree Booster.”

“A what?” Bruce looked at him.

“Kree, they’re another race and this is a piece of their technology on the back. It uses all available communications links- satellites, phones, ships, relays and normally makes the reach of the signal impossible to miss.”

“So he was contacting someone on another planet?” Steve frowned.

Rocket shrugged “Maybe.”

“Well whoever it was he was turning to them for help.” Katie nodded, “Lets fire it up and see.” Bruce took the pager with him, Rocket following just in case he might be able to help. Steve watched them leave, hoping that the pager would lead to something

. They could do with a win, however small.

******

President Ellis’ address was broadcast at little after six pm. The group settled in the communal lounge to watch what he had to say.

“3 days ago the world suffered an attack. Firstly there was the ship over New York which Tony Stark was taken by, and a little over sixteen hours later, the world suffered a catastrophic event whereby people watched friends, family and love ones vanish in front of their eyes.

This attack came at the hands of a being called Thanos. Someone who believed he had the right to destroy half of life throughout the Universe with a snap of his fingers. Most of us didn’t see it coming. But a small band of heroes did. The Avengers, including those who were outlawed two years ago by the Sokovian Accords. They, plus others and countless Wakandan Soldiers fought to the bitter end to try and prevent this event. But they couldn’t, and what’s evident now is that no one could.

The Avengers Wanda Maximoff and Sam Wilson along with the Wakandan King T’Challa were just three of those heroes who met the same fate as half of the rest of the world along with Sergeant James Buchanan Barnes. He stood alongside the rest of the Avengers fighting to keep the world safe, a world which for many years had shown him nothing but cruelty and pain.”

At that Steve glanced down at his hands and he felt Katie slide her arm round his shoulders where she sat next to him on the couch, gently laying her head against his. He knew she would have had a hand in that particular point and he slid his arm around her back, pulling her closer.  

“Tony Stark remains missing along, whilst the remaining Avengers are back where they belong, on US soil and are currently following any leads they can. In light of recent events, I would like to hereby issue them all formal pardons and furthermore, the US has officially withdrawn from the Sokovia Accords with immediate effect. For now, I ask for your cooperation and patience as we begin the necessary steps to rebuild going forward.” As they watched the President took a deep breath before he continued, his voice wobbling slightly.

“I am sorry that I cannot give you more answers, I cannot tell you why some people lost no one and some people lost everyone. But what I can tell you, and anyone else who is listening is that Earth IS strong. We will NOT be defeated, and we WILL rise from the ashes.”

At that cameras started to click and flash and the inevitable chatter started up from the journalists that had assembled. The President wasn’t taking any questions though, and made a swift exit.

No one in the room said anything. There wasn’t much to say. Suddenly Steve found it all too stifling so he stood up, excusing himself and headed out for some air, dropping a kiss to Katie’s head before he left. Heading out of the doors at the back of the compound he walked the well traced path to the jetty by the river which curved the edges of the grounds and sat down with a sigh on the bench.

He was totally out of ideas. The entire team was looking to him to lead and he had nothing. He was drained, he’d hardly slept, too worried about Katie who had tossed and turned all night again last night, waking with a full blown nightmare which had taken him a good half a minute to rouse her from and she had still managed to go to the White House and sit through hours of questionings and debriefs. And he knew the dreams could come again, and that made him feel even more helpless, because he didn’t know what to do. Nothing he could say would make her feel any better about what had happened, hell, he couldn’t make himself feel any better.

Sniffing slightly he wiped at his nose and glanced out at the sun which was just retreating behind the trees that lined the other bank of the river, when he heard familiar footsteps behind him.

“I forgot how beautiful it could be here.” Katie sighed as she sat beside him, looking out over the water as the deep purples and yellows of the sky bounced off the surface of the Hudson.

“Yeah, yeah it is.” Steve shifted slightly so he could drop his arm round her shoulders.

“Steve,” Katie let out a slight sniffle, and Steve swallowed, pulling her into him even tighter. “I know, Baby.” He took a deep breath, laying his head against hers, as her tears began to fall “I know.”

**** Chapter 39 Part 1

**Original Posting**