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beefromanoff · 2 years ago

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Going Under Ch. 5

summary: Bucky Barnes is assigned to head the security detail of an internationally beloved singer named Gianna as his next mission.

characters: Bucky Barnes x OC

soundtrack: sleeping with a friend - neon trees; phantoms and friends - old man canyon

warnings: fluff, pop star fantasy x love story, set in an AU where the Avengers reunite after Civil War, pre-infinity war, slight angst, hurt/comfort, lonely reader/OC.

author’s note: realizing this story combines all my favorite things right now...the Anakin/Padme dynamic of love interests/assigned protection, the Taylor Swift eras tour content all over my FYP, and of course, James Buchanan Barnes.

chapter list/links - xo

Standing backstage, Bucky shoved his hands deep into the pockets of his dark jeans, watching as Gianna took the stage. Tonight’s show would be the first time she was performing the song they had written together live in concert, and he was nervous. Since it wasn’t recorded or released yet, she planned to sing it in the encore as a special acoustic version for her fans. He’d seen dozens of her shows, and every single one went to at least one encore, sometimes even more. The time she chose to do a third encore, Bucky had been tempted to walk out onstage, throw Gianna over his shoulder, and force her to leave the show. He’d held back, seeing the light in her eyes that didn’t seem to dim as she sang to a stadium full of people who adored her. He did, however, give Tom and the tour staff a very pointed warning that anyone who woke her up before noon the following day would risk losing the hand that knocked on her hotel room door.

Several hours later, the final song faded out and all Bucky could hear were the screams of the crowd. He wondered if he’d ever get used to the deafening roar of tens of thousands of screaming teenage girls, made even more unbearable by his heightened super soldier hearing.

“Great job, doll. Took my breath away.” Bucky winked, handing Gianna a glass of water as she walked offstage. She gulped the glass down, too parched to respond, but the look she gave him over the top of the plastic cup made his stomach turn. Her green eyes didn’t break eye contact with him as Kate dabbed her brow and another stage hand checked the settings on her earpiece. Gianna didn’t seem to notice anything but Bucky, and he almost felt himself shrink under her undivided attention. Especially knowing what she was about to do.

Just like all the nights before, not one person had left the stadium. The chants of encore, encore echoed throughout the arena, only growing louder the longer Gianna held out.

Tucking her hair back over her earpiece, she remained locked on Bucky. “Are you ready for this?” Her eyes showed genuine concern. “I don’t have to sing this one, if it’s too soon, if you’d rather not -”

Bucky cut her off, tilting her chin up to look at him as he stood inches from her face. The cool vibranium felt heavenly against her hot skin as he did so.

“I’ve been waiting for this all night.”

He looked back and forth between her eyes, shoving down the nerves he felt at something so vulnerable about to be shared with thousands of people. He reminded himself that no one would know what the song was about, or the circumstances it was written under. No one would know about that rainy day in the hotel room that changed their relationship from contracted security to something deeper and not yet defined.

Gianna nodded, a smile spreading across her pink glossed lips as she reached for her microphone from the stage manager standing beside her, parting the curtain. She took a deep breath, her chest twinkling with the sweat beads still illuminated in the neon lights.

Turning on her heel, Gianna walked back to the stage, taking a seat at the piano on the far side. She was facing the side of the stage where Bucky stood in the wings, shifting his weight as he waited for her to begin.

“If it’s alright with everyone tonight, I thought I’d play a little something I haven’t gotten to share with the world yet.” Gianna’s eyes twinkled as she teased the fans. The crowd erupted and lit up with tiny pinpricks of light from every phone rising into the air. It looked like she was singing to a sea of stars. Bucky swallowed nervously, trying to focus on the beauty of the moment and not the prospect of this song being played for millions of people via the internet. He always seemed to forget about it, no matter how many different iterations of it were scrawled down in his notebook.

“Okay, okay,” Gianna laughed, quieting the crowd down. “This song was written on this very tour, with someone who has come to mean a great deal to me.” If it weren’t for his super soldier eyesight, Bucky would never have noticed Gianna’s eyes searching for him in the wings. He took a step forward, letting the light illuminate him while remaining hidden from the crowd. Her eyes softened when she spotted him.

“This song is about strength, struggle, and coming back to ourselves on the other side. I hope you all feel a little of yourselves in this one. It’s called…Going Under.”

The crowd roared and then quickly quieted down as she began to play, fingers dancing over the keys. Bucky stood stiff and still, soaking in everything from the sound of her voice echoing through the room to the fans in the front row wiping their eyes on their sleeves.

Blurring and stirring the truth and the lies (so I don't know what's real)

(So I don't know what's real and what's not)

(Don't know what's real and what's not)

Always confusing the thoughts in my head

So I can't trust myself anymore

Gianna sang the lines that had gutted him the first time he heard them. After such a vicious struggle reclaiming his own mind, endless hours of work and therapy to find himself in his own mind, and years of brainwashing convincing him of what he was and what he wasn’t…these words sank heavily into his skin.

Her powerful voice filled the arena, stronger and bolder than the soft rendition he’d heard in the hotel room, and the words they had written together based on his history as the Winter Soldier took on new meaning.

For the first time, Bucky was able to see his horrific past as something other than shameful. He felt a sense of pride and gratitude that Gianna had been able to take his experiences and turn them into something beautiful. Everyone backstage had paused their closing duties to listen to her sing. He heard a chorus of soft voices saying “wow” and “this is her next hit” from the team gathered behind him.

As the encore came to a close, Bucky stood ready to escort Gianna offstage. Instead of the usual hand outstretched to guide her to the green room, he greeted her with the tightest hug Gianna had ever felt. Typically the extent of their physical contact was Bucky’s hand grazing her back as he guided her through crowds, and that was mostly unintentional. This was different. Warm, firm, assuring, full of gratitude, and something else Gianna wasn’t sure if she was imagining. She closed her eyes and relaxed into him, feeling her sheer exhaustion for the first time all day.

They stood like that for several moments before a sharp voice yanked them from their own world.

“Hey! Stop! You can’t go back there!” Bucky opened his eyes to see a thirty-something man in a mask running towards Gianna, having hopped the barrier and evaded the preoccupied security. The man was barreling towards them with a crazed look in his eye, but didn’t appear to be armed. Bucky rolled Gianna behind him and took two powerful steps forward, left arm rearing back. There was a resounding thud as Bucky’s metal hand collided with the man’s skull, and a second one as the man landed on the stage, unconscious.

Gianna gasped, unable to process what had happened in a matter of seconds, but Bucky didn’t hesitate. He put his arm around her shoulders and began weaving her purposefully through the backstage chaos. Her vision blurred with fear, confusion, and exhaustion as Gianna struggled t keep up with Bucky’s long strides. She heard him talking into his earpiece, but her ears were still ringing with the sound of the man’s head smacking the hard stage floor.

She closed her eyes and concentrated on the warmth of Bucky pressed against her side and the weight of his arm resting on her shoulders. She heard a whoosh of the sliding door, felt the cool night air on her skin, and hear sirens in the distance.

Gianna opened her eyes to see the black SUV parked right outside the back entrance to the stadium, but the bus was nowhere to be found.

“Get in. We aren’t taking any chances.” Bucky growled, eyes scanning everything around them. Gianna nodded and climbed in through the door he was holding open for her. Bucky joined her in the backseat and the private driver peeled out of the parking lot. Glancing over at him, Gianna noticed that Bucky’s hand was firmly resting on his right hip, where she assumed he had a gun holstered.

He must have felt her eyes on him, because he tore his eyes from the window and looked to his left where Gianna was sitting. His eyes softened, seeing her trembling from a mixture of fear, adrenaline, and cold sweat from the show.

“Hey, don’t be scared, this is what I’m here for. We haven’t had an incident so far on this tour and nothing happened.” Bucky tried to keep the angry edge out of his voice. Reaching for her hand, he spoke softly.

“I won’t let anything happen to you. I promise you, Gianna. That guy never had a chance.” He squeezed her hand and she smiled sheepishly.

“Thank you, Buck. It all happened so fast, I didn’t even…and you moved so quickly…it was weird to see you like that, so intense…” She fumbled over her words, eyes glossing as she recalled the events playing out. Bucky stiffened next to her, worried that she was afraid of him.

“It was cool, you know, seeing you like that.” She flipped her hand over to squeeze his. “You’re kind of a badass.” Bucky looked up and locked eyes with her again.

“Just doing my job.”

At that moment, with her green eyes locked on Bucky’s, it hit him how important his role on the tour was. He wasn't just there to protect Gianna physically, which proved to be more necessary than he’d originally thought, he was there to provide emotional support and comfort to a scared and lonely girl. Whether or not that was in the contract that Stark had given him, Bucky didn’t care. If he was all she had, he was determined to be everything she needed.

They took a service elevator back to the room and crept through the halls, Bucky remaining glued to her side as Gianna walked along. They got to her room and she slid the card into the door with trembling hands.

“Your bag should already be on the bed, Tom gathered it for you. The room has already been cleared, but I can do it again if you’d like.” Bucky stood in the doorway, one hand above Gianna’s head to prop it open.

“I’d appreciate that…y’know, can’t be too safe.” Gianna mumbled, flipping on every light switch in her reach. Bucky nodded and walked into the room, combing it for anything unusual. He ran his fingers over every door frame, checked each closet, and found nothing.

“Alright doll, you’re good to go. You gonna be okay?” Walking over to where Gianna sat on the edge of her king sized bed, still in full sequin leotard and heels, he tilted her chin up to look at him. Bucky felt a pang in his chest when he saw the streaks where her tears had torn through her makeup.

“Yeah, yeah, I’m all good. Thank you again.” She stood, mustering a smile. “Knight in shining armor and all.” Gianna reached for his hand, weaving her soft fingers through his metal ones. “Literally.”

Bucky chuckled, relieved she still had her sense of humor after a rough night.

“I guess that would make you a princess, which doesn’t seem like too big of a stretch.” Bucky’s voice was low and soft, gentler than she’d heard it before. He tucked a strand of her hair behind her ear and regarded her for a moment. Gianna couldn’t read him if she tried.

“If you need anything tonight, anything at all, just ring my room. I’ll be here before you can even get my name out.” He squeezed her hand.

Gianna felt a lump in her throat and hot tears welling up. Not wanting to seem childish or weak for being so upset over something that almost happened, she didn’t speak. She fixed her eyes on the ground and nodded, standing to walk him to the door.

As Bucky walked through and pulled out his keycard from his back pocket, he heard Gianna’s voice, barely above a whisper.

“Don’t go.”

He hesitated, unsure if he heard what he thought he did. He looked over his shoulder, still holding the room key in his right hand.

“Stay with me. Please.”

She stood in the doorway, illuminated from behind with all the lights in the hotel room left on. The way the rays of light shone around her made her look like some kind of angel. Some kind of sad, scared angel. Bucky let the door fall shut behind him and crossed the hall towards her.

“Whatever you need.”

She let out a breath she didn’t realize she’d been holding, unsure how he’d respond to her asking him to stay the night with her. Even given the circumstances, there wasn’t any way around the fact that her room only had one bed.

“Give me two minutes to get my stuff, I’ll be right back.” Bucky gave her a reassuring look. “You can time me if you want.”

Gianna smiled at the super soldier’s attempts to be goofy, and slunk back into her room. She wiped off her makeup, throwing her lashes in the garbage and running the hottest shower the hotel pipes had to offer. She heard Bucky let himself back in and set his bag down outside the bathroom door.

“I’m here, doll. Take as long as you need. I’m not going anywhere.” He rapped his metal knuckles softly on the door, a random but comforting thing he’d taken to doing when he had to retrieve her from her hotel room in the morning or green room before the show.

After scrubbing her skin and rinsing all the hairspray and most of the glitter from her hair, Gianna emerged from the bathroom in the hotel’s plush robe and slippers. Her feet ached from the extended time in her heels tonight. The excess cushion in the slippers felt like heaven. She rounded the corner into the bedroom to find Bucky pacing, talking on the phone.

He’d turned off the overhead lights but left all the lamps on, and even pulled back the covers so the bed was prepared for her to collapse into.

“I gotta go, I’ll call you tomorrow.” Bucky said to whoever was on the other end of his call. “Yeah, send me any details you can come up with. Thanks Nat.”

Bucky shoved his phone into the pocket of his sweatpants, a look Gianna couldn’t help but appreciate. He was typically in slight variations of the same outfit every day. Leather jacket, dark jeans, tactical boots, various holster buckles visible from different angles when he moved.

Tonight, he looked softer, more human. He wore dark grey sweats with a black t-shirt that read Stark Enterprises across the chest. She let her eyes wander over him, soaking in this unfamiliar look. The shirt was snug across his chest and even more so on his arms. The short sleeves revealed more of his metal arm than she was used to seeing, and it caught the lamp light when he moved. Bucky ran a hand through his hair and took a deep breath, turning to face Gianna. The dog tags hanging around his neck clinked as he lowered his hand.

Tousling her damp hair with the towel, Gianna sat down on the bed. “Who’s Nat?”

“Natasha, she uh, works with me. She’s good, we should know this guy’s blood type and childhood stuffed animal’s name by the time we wake up in the morning.”

“Natasha, she’s Black Widow right? I’ve seen her before, online and on the news, and wow - I can’t believe you just called her up, you are way, WAY cooler, than me…” Gianna gushed.

Bucky couldn’t help but notice how young she looked. The excitement over Natasha, her bare face and wet hair, the way she was swallowed up by the robe and the giant bed, she seemed so small. So innocent. So undeserving of tonight’s circumstance. Selfishly, part of him was glad it had happened. He wasn’t sure there was really a need for him on this tour or if Tony had just given him this assignment to throw him a bone and keep him busy.

Now, after tonight, he knew he was there for good reason. He tried to force away the small part of him that was thankful for the scare, because without it, he wouldn’t be crossing the room to spend the night with Gianna Cruz.

He perched on the edge of the bed, giving her a sympathetic smile. “Feel better?”

She nodded and widened her eyes to show how serious she was. “Oh, god, yeah. The attempted assault, or whatever that was, that was bad, but those heels were the real crime.”

“You’re a real trooper.” Bucky teased. “I figured I’d just sleep on the chair, I don’t want -”

“No!” Gianna startled him with her abrupt response. “Sorry, I uh, I just really want…I want to be held tonight.” Looking down at her hands in her lap, she fidgeted with the belt of her robe.

“It’s just been lonely, I guess, and tonight was so scary, and sometimes I have nightmares anyways, and you’re already here so I just thought…maybe you wouldn’t mind…” As she trailed off, she looked up to meet Bucky’s eyes. When he saw the way she looked up at him, his heart melted and turned to stone all at once. He knew he would do anything this strawberry blonde little thing asked him to do, hell, he’d throw himself off another train if it meant keeping her safe. He knew that he’d stop at nothing to protect her, and that scared him. He knew what he was capable of without having someone dear to him to protect…but now? He pushed the thought out of his mind and smiled.

“Whatever you need.” He sat down beside her, sliding his legs underneath the plush white comforter. Propping his back against the wall, Bucky lifted his arm so Gianna could crawl underneath it. She rested her head on his chest and nuzzled in, her hair leaving a damp spot on his shirt. He felt her sigh and then relax, as if she hadn’t taken a deep breath all day. Her shoulders rose and fell with her breathing, and Bucky used his left hand to stroke her hair out of her face.

Her eyelids fluttered open and looked up at him one more time. Wrapping his arms around her and holding her close, Bucky knew that he couldn't erase the trauma of what had just happened, but he could be there for her in that moment. He could stay through the night and until she didn’t want him there anymore.

As they laid together, Bucky realized that he had come a long way since he first started working with Gianna. He had gone from being a distant and cold bodyguard, reluctantly assigned to protect a twenty-something singer, to being the one holding her as she fell asleep.

“G?” Bucky asked softly, wondering if she’d drifted off yet.

“Mm-hmm?”

“Your song was incredible tonight. I never got to tell you.”

Her cheeks turned the slightest bit pink, and he saw her smile into his chest.

“Our song.”

#bucky barnes #bucky fluff #bucky fanfic #bucky barnes x oc #james bucky barnes #avengers #winter solider x reader #winter soldier fluff #winter soldier

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forsetti · 2 years ago

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On Another Day In America: Part Infinity

In 1985, I moved to Michigan to attend graduate school at Michigan State University. I was on a five-year plan. Thirty-three years later, it is still my home. This is why, today, I feel like Michael Corleone in “The Godfather Part II,” “IN MY HOME!?” This was an attack on my home. And, just like mass shootings in other communities, in other people’s “homes,” the recent mass shooting at MSU wasn’t just another tragedy. It was a tragedy that was as predictable as it was avoidable. I honestly don't know what it will take for America, as a nation, to take gun violence seriously, to address any of the complex symptoms underlying mass shootings. Twenty small kids gunned down in Sandy Hook? Nothing. Nineteen in Uvalde? Didn't even move the needle. The more mass shootings, especially at schools, the more the people who willfully ignore the issues and are responsible for many of the situations leading to mass shootings dig in their jack-booted heels to ensure nothing ever gets done. A decade ago, I wrote “Another Day In America,” about the causes, hypocrisy, gas lighting, lying...about mass shootings. It is as true today as it was ten years ago. Just once, I'd like to be wrong about this but after watching half the country fight against and ignore basic public health recommendations during a pandemic, I don't see any significant progress in my lifetime. Another day in America, another mass shooting. Another speech by the president asking for the most basic gun controls, another day conservatives scream about the coming tyranny of gun confiscations. Another plea or common sense, another day of gun and ammo sales going through the roof. Another set of families trying to cope with the sudden loss of loved ones, another call from the NRA to make guns more readily available. Another shooter who in a civilized world would not have been allowed to purchase guns, another day mental health services are cut. Another day our citizens are killed by a tool whose entire purpose is to kill, another day of people rolling out the intellectually lazy argument of “guns don’t kill people, people kill people.” Another list of names to add to the hundreds of thousands of others who’ve been killed by guns the past few decades, another day people go out of their way to pretend the deaths are isolated, unrelated and unpreventable. Another day someone shoots people due to some perceived grievance, another day people feed the fear, anger, hatred behind the killings and act like there is no connection. Another day where children are killed in cold blood, another opportunity for “false flag” conspiracies and deniers to minimize the loss. Another day politicians will talk about “sending our prayers to the victims’ families,” another day they don’t do anything meaningful to address the problem. Another stunned community dealing with overwhelming grief, another very profitable quarter for gun and ammo manufacturers. Another set of chalk outlines on a school room floor, another day where nothing is done to prevent it from happening again. Another day when the media pretends to care about killings, another day they feed a constant red meat diet of misogyny, racism, xenophobia, religious persecution…to their audience. Another police officer holding a press conference to describe a shooting, another day an unarmed person is killed by another law enforcement officer. Another day a child finds a loaded gun and kills themselves or someone else, another day physicians around the country are not allowed to ask if there is a gun in the home. Another day of eighty people dying from gun-related causes, another day the CDC isn’t allowed to research and study gun deaths. Another day a couple has a heated argument, another day a woman is shot and killed because there was a gun in the house. Another day a woman is shot and killed by an estranged boyfriend or husband, another day a state legislature refuses to pass a law preventing people with a history of domestic violence and restraining orders against them from purchasing and possessing a gun. Another emotional teenager in a moment of lax judgment takes their own life, another day the gun lobby talks about the need for guns in the home. Another day a person walks into a movie theater with multiple weapons and hundreds of rounds of ammo and opens fire, another day someone is arguing high capacity magazines are necessary for hunting. Another day a “good guy” who legally purchased gun shoots and kills a half-dozen people, another day someone rolls out the trope, “the only thing that can stop a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun.” Another day of eighty Americans killed by guns, another five years goes by in other industrial countries before they reach that number. Another day someone who does own a gun doesn’t shoot someone, another day they think because they don’t use their gun improperly guns shouldn’t be regulated. Another day of people say, “if people want to get a gun they will because criminals don’t follow the law,” another day they’ll argue for drug laws, drunk driving laws, speed limits, etc. with no sense of irony. Another day where someone else’s children are killed by guns, another day people will call for nothing to done because it didn’t happen to them. Another day someone calls for universal background checks, another day of opposition by people who have Red Dawn fantasies of protecting the homeland with AR-15s against a military with jets, tanks, and cruise missiles. Another day someone suggests we close the gun show loophole for gun purchases, another day someone will say, “You know who else took away guns? Hitler.” Another mass shooting in America, another day every single person who defends and argues for our current approach to guns is morally culpable for the deaths. Another mass shooting in America and no one is surprised anymore because it’s treated as just another day. It’s just another day in America because eighty people die from guns every single day and we not only don’t do anything to reduce this number, we are allowing laws to be passed that are making this number bigger. It’s just another day in America because Americas love guns more than they love civility. It’s just another day in America because Americans have delusional fantasies of Cowboys and Indians, John Wayne, John McClane, Wolverines, Dirty Harry, and Bryan Mills. It’s just another day in America because America is too arrogant to admit it does something wrong. It’s just another day in America because it more important to hold on to a centuries-old idea than evolve ethically, socially and culturally. Tomorrow more people will be killed with guns in America and no one will think twice about it because it will be just another day.

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wordsonly · 10 months ago

Text

Monsteriser.

The over-stimulated nerve misfires

Morse contracting

Muscle fibres.

A torso, limbs

Needled

Pinned

Electro-convulsive treats

Switch in

Lobes jerk in the unsheltered brain

Stitching

Super-human blame.

The snow-moon’s malady,

Effectuates spasticity

Paralysing lips, jaw, tongue

Wide-eyed words

That cannot come

Lamented moans and stifled screams

Begging, helpless, whimpered pleas

As stomach flutters

Eyes cocoon

Defensive mutterings

Resume

Vanished to the gaping lack

Sink hole of the deepest black

Strapped into the Monsteriser

The fear defined de-youtheniser Romanticised (It’s alive)

Wretched Loony goon

Terrorised (its alive)

Thunderbolt buffoon

Table cranked, electrode caged

Gears creak

Power craves;

Quartz programmed

Super-bass

X sequalised

Ferrous-oxide ape

With raging obsoleted scream

Rips free it’s master’s grief machine

Press play to start, button down

Hard

Upon the cuboid crown

Push-in

Dolly

Directing passion

Camera, Speed

Seductive action

Gushing

Seminal fluid

Thin

In sweaty efforts

To pass

Or win

Same.

Stain

Come Again.

Scrambled neurological pain

Bowing lower, in lowed repent

High-volume

Opportunities

Referred,

Spent.

Perhaps mis-spent ?

or simply missed ?

A thousand erroneous turns n twists

Points in an irresolute decree

Capitalised energy to infinity

White wired hairs

Cling to mastery

Fencing secrets in,

Defensively.

Demarcating obstructively

Within blood daubed mind and boundary.

To gift wisdom freely,

Is accordingly proscribed to be

A crime against the sweat

and upset

Of self-made productivity.

So under weight of souvenirs consumed

The master paints himself into a room

Old colour codes, violently shaken

‘Flamingo tears’ ‘Rose faced’ ‘Awaken’

Such

Vanity

Projects,

Case by case

The Pink-red sun

Exacerbates

Afloat above the halophilic thalassics

Of tears and arterial perquisites.

Transformed brute

Stares out

or in.

At distant iron imaginings

For this and that, and so and so

Sunken eyes watch memories go

In oh so, slowed

So-so

Slow-mo.

On the misted horizon

In containers levitating

Vessels shed

Dinghies and a sun-bleached

Life-ring

Moving imperceptibly across the distance, bleak

Til lost

To the esoteric

Heavy-mentalised deep

Strapped into the Monsteriser

Fear defined de-youtheniser Electrified, de-vitalised (in the name of God)

Monsterised (it’s alive) Sad n hulking mass of want

(Bridge)

No gift to give

No short-cut

No nepotistic lift

No leg-up

For the re-assembled

baby face

Esconded

In its cut-out place

Alone and sat converting leads

Coveting nubile Nubian genes;

A being supreme

A perfect ten.

Ogled by oil tanned leather head

High U.V non P.C inappropriate lech

Exhaling stale tobacco breathe

on a face, younfilled

Flawless

Her perfectly beautified brand messaging

A smiling goddess shining

Straight teeth’d insincere compliments

Lips flick pity

Upon cantankerous incompetence

A home with old insight and tools

Sensing redundancy

A gatekeeping fool

Her disdainful pupils burn

It is feeling the twitch return.

With eyes too sore to open,

To read the thrills or entertain

The lie of ecstasy

A natural human

Chained

To a deep bed of stratigraphic sheets

Hard chrono-blocks of cooled molten sleep

Where heavy anchor rots

Strapped into the Monsteriser

Fear defined de-youtheniser

Terrified. (it’s alive)

Monsterised (it’s alive).

0 notes

withoneheadlight · 4 years ago

Text

The kitchen’s Steve’s favorite part of the house.

It has this odd shape. Trapezoid. “Fuck, Stevie, so goddamn weird”. Doesn’t make sense in a, on the other hand, perfectly rectangular house (or, well, it does but, they’ll only find out about that later). The cabinets are ceiling-high. The tiles of the wall white and cracked under the repeating pattern of light mint-green-stemmed, yellow-petaled lilies. The whole backdoor is painted on that same shade Billy calls Ripe banana dreams, both so terribly old-fashioned and fiercely cute none of them says a word about repainting it. There’s a wooden piece, built into the farthest end of the counter. It looks disgustingly juicy and mercilessly stabbed when they move in, but Billy insists on keeping it, and sanding, and treating, and varnishing it. Manages to get it back up on shape because “Better than anyone, darling you should know what a little touch of class can make”. And for more than two weeks straight the only goal of his life is to learn to cut vegetables at high speed because “I have to live up to this level of professionalism. Impress our most un-impressionable guests”

(And, to Steve’s surprise –and probably hers– when she finally deigns to pay them a visit, his mom is, in fact, pretty much impressed.)

He learns how to make good casserole. Tries his luck with Mexican and Italian. Fails miserably with Japanese. Will never-ever admit it but, he loves it when flour ends up staining every single surface, making the biggest mess around himself when he bakes. Steve knows why it is. It’s a shared feeling. Floats up till it reaches the ceiling and bounces back down to them, heavy with the warm smell of cooking pie and cinnamon. Tastes docile and tamed like “Maybe not so much vanilla next time. Whaddaya think, babe?.” Tastes savage and daring, like the overwhelming tang of freshly squeezed lemon lingering on Billy’s tongue, when he crowds Steve against the fridge and kisses him, nibbles a shuddering laugh out of him “How the fuck are you able to even think about putting your mouth near that thing, Hargrove?. That was––ugh. That was disgusting”, “Well you know me, whatever it takes to make you squirm” leaving Steve with absolutely no option but lick the sugary dough stain over his cheek to “Cover up that foul flavor” and maybe because he wants to make Billy squirm a little too.

It’s a heart-warming, welcoming feeling. Like the vivid smells of green tomatoes and parsley and mustard sauce. Like the taste of love on Billy’s lips. The way he loses his breath when Steve kisses the sugary flavor into Billy’s mouth with his:

This place smells like home, tastes like home. Like finally, finally. Home.

It’s Billy’s favorite place, too. But Steve doesn’t think it’s just because of that. But also because maybe,

maybe.

He has also noticed that–

There’s this particular, particular moment. It happens around seven on autumns, right when the day starts to fade. It happens between six and six past twenty-eight on winters, and holds the sleepy cheeks of the newborn tulips on Steve’s garden till they fall asleep on springs, sun already sinking behind the horizon by the time both hands of the clock meet over the spiral of the eight, pointing towards infinity. And then grows bigger and bigger and bigger from there, flooding into summer: the golden sunlight seeping through the wide, double-paned window facing the backyard in an oblique angle, making the yellow flowers of the tiles look like they’re re-blooming in gold.

It’s the moment the day turns into a fire.

It’s their favorite moment in time. And in this particular, particular day of July, it happens at ten past nine.

Billy is making Spaghetti Carbonara. The kitchen is damp with the rich smells coming out of the boiling water. Mushrooms and oregano, black pepper and lime. A song is cooing at them from the radio, the beat of the drums a boneless memory of that one echoing around the quarry on faraway almost-night on a faraway July. Water rippling under the quiet sigh of the breeze. Trees cutting the liquid rays in asymmetric halves.

Billy takes off the apron. Turns the stove down.

Reaches out to Steve, fingers wavering come, come, come.

To me. Come to me. “C’mon, Harrington. Do I scare you or what?“

He has this way of looking at Steve that makes the space between them narrow, narrow: the whole unknown world. And aseptic, non-lived-in flat in downtown Florida. This tiny, tiny town. A mysteriously-shaped kitchen––

“��Can I have this dance?”

Steve walks to him, takes his hand.

––Their bodies, pressed flush.

Inside his chest, Steve’s heart is running.

(“Can I at least have this dance, before we say goodbye?”

Mazzy Star was playing. The corner of Billy’s eye felt wet where his skin brushed against the corner of Steve’s mouth. They danced till the daylight faded, till there were teardrops falling from the night sky.

“Billy, I don’t have to––”

“Don’t, pretty boy. Don’t say it. I’ll make you stay if you do. And I can’t do that”)

They made lovelovelove on the back of Billy’s car.)

In this light, they fell in love, they fell apart. Ran away. Ran back.

Steve nudges at Billy’s chest, makes him move backward till he’s far enough to tug, draw him in between their tangled arms, hands intertwined. Steve curls himself around Billy’s back, noses at the warmth trapped between his curls. He smells like BillyandSteve, like this home, like past, like future. Like us.

Steve whispers in his ear. Three words. Billy’s neck curves towards him. An instinct. Tickled by their warmth. Steve kisses the curve of his ear. Tugs the collar of his shirt aside, bites where shoulder meets neck and up, up.

“Easy, Prom King” Billy teases, grins at him tender and wild. Knows when to use the one that gets Steve every time “Or you’re gonna make me think we’ll become picture-perfect from this magical moment onwards. A bunch of kids. White fences. You know, the whole shebang”

(Billy crashed the Camaro into a tree in the winter of two thousand and fourteen. Had left the house in a frenzy. Something happened Max wouldn’t talk about. But she was scared, so she had called,

“Find him. Please.. Make sure he’s alright”

When Steve found him, Billy was in the middle of the Brookville road, feet stumbling on the twin yellow lines, following them nowhere. So weary, so impossibly small like this: head hanging, arms wrapped around himself. A crooked shape, carrying the weight of the shadows the tall pine trees cast on his back.

So unlike him.

Steve stopped the car at his side, engine oozing steam, shaking in the icy mid-May air “Billy” he said. Low. Careful. Careful. Billy’s eyes looked wet in the moon-silver night, pupils blown, deceivingly calm, “What are you doing? This is dangerous” And Billy’s spine had bent even lower, forearms finding rest on the window frame. Leveling with Steve. Looking wasted, looking tired, but still, he flashed a grin at him, teeth-shark white, never going down if he wasn’t going down swinging. And Steve–– hadn’t known at the moment, but the blood staining his cheek, the screaming-purple mark around his eye.

Those weren’t from the crash.

“I was sleepwalking, Harrington” he said, voice dry, laugh harsh. Shrugged “Waiting for a lucky strike”)

“What does it make you think that’s not what I’m aiming for?”

(When he took Billy to his house Max was already there. Had sneaked out. “Neil will kill you if he finds out,” Billy said and she nodded, white knuckles peaking red with how hard she was gripping the handler of her bike, and Steve hadn’t seen her cry before, not ever, but her eyes were swollen and wet and,

“Are you––”

“I’m alright, kiddo. You know me. I’m always alright”

And the lie sat heavy, between them. Two lies, covering the truth. Poorly stitched. But Max had called Steve for help, so that’s what he did. Help. Sent her back home. Took care of Billy’s face. Billy’s hands. Nodded at those same lies, let them do their work while taking care of wounds he didn’t know, back then, couldn't have been for a crash. Made him spend the night.

Billy still hadn't woken up when Steve left the next day, leaving food and a note on the nightstand ‘I’ll be back soon. Stay’.

Retraced Billy’s steps down the yellow lines splitting the forest in half. To find it.

The Camaro wasn’t done yet. Howled like a wounded beast under Steve’s touch, but stayed together all the way to Donny’s garage. And Steve paid for the repairs. Covered it all up. Max has said “His dad can’t know, Steve. Can’t know. If he finds out he will--” and steve was starting to put two and two together. To realize some billy was, maybe, running away from something. Someone. When he crashed his car.

Woke Billy up when the hands of the clock met over the spiraling infinity of the eight. Seventeen hours straight of sleep and still looking like he could use a lifetime. Told him “The car will be ready in two or three days. ‘Til then, you stay'' covered his mouth with his hand. Didn't let him complain “And If whatever happened last night happens again, you take it and you run. Back here. And you stay again, ok?”

Two weeks later, Billy showed up at his door. Lit him a cigarette. Offered to teach him how to fight.

“I cannot give you back your money, but I know you don’t need that”

Made him laugh.

They spent almost the whole summer together, after that. Some days. Most nights.

Wasting time. Fighting. Joking. Driving.

Falling.

No ‘what ifs’. No promises. Just,

“Leave the light on if you can’t sleep, pretty boy. If I manage to sneak out of the Old fuck, I’ll pick you up. Promise I won’t stop kissing you until dawn. Gotta make up for what you paid for that ca, uh?”

Because Steve was gonna leave. Wasn’t gonna throw a single glance behind his back.

That was the plan.

And he did. He did. But––)

He spins Billy out. Tugs him back. When their chests bump, his laugh bursts, bubbles up. Weightless. Happy. Because all that matters to him, to them, it’s between these four irregular walls now.

And God this, this, is Steve’s favorite part.

(–ended up coming back running, hoping the love would re-stitch itself as he followed the road’s yellow lines.

Hoping Billy was the one letting his light on this time.)

Because the sun’s gonna keep on shining. They can keep on dancing in here, in their weird trapezoidal kitchen (in their house, in their home), for as long as they want. Hearts touching. Lips brushing. Bodies swaying, spinning, cutting through the golden light.

#harringrove #and #this is the end #!!#i know is not too goo but i'm happy i finished #it #and also #i wanted to have something for this #1 year anniversary so :D #thank you again fandom #i wouldn't have make it this far without you #also! ns*w anon. i don't know if your're still around but #i published this part for you long ago #and it my head its now for you so <3 #xharringrove #xfluffy

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maryniss · 3 years ago

Text

we’re young and so is the night (dance with me)

Hua Cheng spun a laughing Xie Lian around, the crystal-like sounds of his happiness echoing in Puji Shrine. They were both sweaty, even though they were only dressed in their inner robes. It was a fun night, it was another fun night, one in many that were and that would follow.

But, it was the first time they had such an instrument – a magic box that could play any sort of music. Hua Cheng had brought it back from Ghost City and Xie Lian was more than happy to offer him a first dance.

“San Lang, this is so fun!” smiled Xie Lian as he stepped away from Hua Cheng, only their hands holding tight onto each other, not letting go, never letting go. He came then back to crash into Hua Cheng’s chest, the Ghost King embracing him with his arms and swaying around with him to the slow rhythm of the music.

“I am glad to see gege is enjoying himself,” murmured Hua Cheng into Xie Lian’s ear, kissing the crown of his head afterwards. It was a sweet moment and both of their heart were feeling full; full of music, dance and love.

Xie Lian sighed happily as he turned around to look at Hua Cheng, placing one of his arms on his waist and the other one on his shoulder. Hua Cheng only smirked as Xie Lian took control over the dance, even if a little bit clumsy at first. Their steps synchronized quickly, as well as their breaths. Hua Cheng rested his chin on Xie Lian’s head.

“San Lang, are we getting old?” asked Xie Lian suddenly, hiding his face in his beloved’s robes. Sometimes, Xie Lian wondered about things like these; it was impossible not to after living more than two thousand years.

I lived with this man for more than 1200 years, thought Hua Cheng and he couldn’t contain the smile that appeared on his face.

“What do you mean, gege?” shouted Hua Cheng as the music got louder and quicker and he took Xie Lian up in his arms, laughing at the surprised sound his lover made. “Does this look like something an old man could do?” He then proceeded to hop Xie Lian on his shoulders so that Xie Lian’s legs hung off from both of his sides.

“San Lang!”

“What, gege?” asked the Ghost King mischievously, the teasing in his voice being obvious. Hua Cheng knew what Xie Lian meant, of course he did. But he chose to ignore it for now. It wasn’t a night for such dark thoughts. It was a fun night.

“San Lang, put me down!” whined Xie Lian and Hua Cheng just knew that he was a little red. Even after so many years together, His Highness was still getting flustered easily.

“Be careful, gege!” warned Hua Cheng.

“Careful of what?” asked Xie Lian back but he soon got his answer when Hua Cheng ran towards the door of the Puji Shrine and kicked it open. Xie Lian ducked and held tight on Hua Cheng’s robes, determined to not fall.

“San Lang, what are you doing?” Hua Cheng let out a laugh that meddled with the music still resonating from the Puji Shrine. The stars above them laughed at their love, too. The moon, more stoic, only smiled and sent more rays of white light down for them, to illuminate their path.

Hua Cheng didn’t answer Xie Lian’s question as he started running madly, only forward, passing over crops and rivers and out of the village, all while laughing and holding tight onto Xie Lian.

The Crown Prince couldn’t deny it, it was nice. The wind through his hair and he felt like a child again; he wasn’t old, he was just a child again, he was just ten years old again. There was still somebody who could take him up like this and run way with him, hiding him from the world outside of childhood. Somebody could still care for him even now and Xie Lian could still be taken care of.

He screamed at the top of his lungs while tears rolled down his face. He was so happy. Was there another better word to describe it? He really couldn’t think of one. He was happy; so happy that his heart was exploding, it couldn’t be contained within the boundaries of his human body. It wanted to be set free to explore the world with Hua Cheng by his side.

Only minutes later did Hua Cheng get tired and they stopped on a lavender field, cuddling each other, drowning in each other’s warm embrace that neither could forget, no matter how old they got.

But they were still young. They still had infinity to love and live.

Xie Lian looked down at Hua Cheng who was curled against his chest, absently playing with the red string tied around their fingers. The Crown Prince kissed the Ghost King. “Thank you, San Lang,” whispered Xie Lian and he wished he had better words to use to show just how much Hua Cheng meant for him.

“No problem, gege. But don’t you think I would deserve a reward now?” Hua Cheng coyly asked as he already stretched his neck, his lips finding Xie Lian’s and meddling into a gentle kiss.

And thousands of whispers that have been repeated so many times before between the two of them were spoken out again. ‘I love you’ and ‘Thank you’ and ‘You’re so good to me.’ and so many more.

They fell asleep in the middle of a lavender field, only watched by the moon and its shining light.

And who said they were old? Old is somebody who grew tired of life. Old is when you don’t have anyone by your side who you can be yourself with. Old is when you don’t have somebody by your side who will take care of you as if you’re a child. Old is when you don’t have somebody to laugh with. To dance with. To cry with. To run with. To scream with. To fight with. To die with. To live with.

The Crown Prince and the Ghost King aren’t old. Their love is keeping them young.

***

hua cheng made xie lian apply ointment on him later cause he was ‘sore’ uh-uh, but who is dianxia to say no?

#hua cheng #hualian fic #hualian #xie lian #fluff #tgcf #tgcf fic #tgcf fluff #dancing #hualian dancing #slow dancing #they are in fucking love ur honor #arrest them cause they make us all feel single ok #when is my turn

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sunmoonandeddie · 5 years ago

Text

light up my moon

pairing: steve rogers x stark!reader

word count: 7,014

summary: Not everyone gets a second chance, but you’re one of the lucky ones.

prompt: stark!reader

warnings: swearing, violence, tony stark’s death

a/n: This is a part two of yellow lights, which I wrote for @youngmoneymilla‘s writing challenge a while back, and I finally fucking wrote the sequel like I promised. You don’t necessarily need to read yellow lights to read this one, but it does help. This was written for @afterglowparker‘s 1K Celebration! I’m so sorry it took me so long! Thank you for your patience! Let me know what you think!

“Are you gonna talk to her?”

Steve jumped almost a foot in the air, whirling around to see Bucky standing behind him. “Warn a guy, will you?” He huffed, glancing down at the bit of champagne that he’d spilled. It had splattered down his hand and on his suit.

His seven thousand dollar Armani suit that Tony had gotten him for his birthday. God, Tony was gonna kill him when–

No. Tony wouldn’t kill him. Because Tony wasn’t here anymore.

Whatever. He couldn’t get drunk off the champagne, so what did it matter if he wore it on his suit instead?

Thor wasn’t even here with the good stuff that actually could get him drunk.

Fucking ridiculous.

“Stupid bullshit,” he said under his breath before finishing off the bubbly liquid.

“Hey. Language,” Bucky said, coming to stand beside him. His metal arm dinged against the metal railing of the balcony.

The city was completely lit up for the first time in over five years. It had taken months to get everything back in order, and even then, the effects of having half the universe’s population pop back into existence after Earth spent five years adjusting to not having them there… It had been nothing short of disaster.

“She always said that growing up… She almost never got to see the stars growing up in New York, so she said the city lights became her stars,” Steve said softly, before scoffing and shaking his head. “She says. She says. Not said.”

“You spent five years thinking she was dead,” his best friend scoffed, nudging him with his elbow. “Cut yourself some slack. It’s not like… It’s not like you went and found someone new.” He paused. Then, eyeing him: “You didn’t, did you?”

“No,” he snapped, rolling his eyes. “How… How could I–” He shook his head. “No. No way.” Almost as a reflex, he pulled out his old compass and flipped it open. It used to have Peggy’s picture in it. It did for years. But you had been the one to pull him out of that funk, out of his past.

You reminded him that he was alive.

But it wasn’t until after he’d left you in the Raft that he’d switched the pictures out. He’d stuck the one of Peggy into one of the lockers on the quinjet, replacing it with one of you. It was one of you after you’d first gotten back from college, before everything, before… before you’d gone on the run with him.

Before he’d ruined everything.

“Stevie, can you hand me the bowl?” You asked, absentmindedly scrolling through whatever app was open on your phone. It was probably Instagram or Twitter. One of the ones that Steve still hadn’t quite come around to yet.

He’d get there. Eventually. Maybe.

Probably not, but whatever.

When he didn’t immediately move, your eyes flicked up to find his. “Please?” You said, pulling your legs up to cross applesauce style or whatever that rhyme you told him was. “Pretty please, Steve? With whipped cream and a cherry on top?”

And, okay. How the hell was anyone supposed to say no to that?

Granted, he’d always had a soft spot for the youngest Stark, especially after you came home from college. You weren’t the eighteen year old that hid away in her room and ignored the Avengers every chance you could. Well, that wasn’t exactly true. You spent a lot of time with Natasha and your dad.

With Natasha, it had started with training. Tony had needed you to be able to protect yourself, even more so after he announced to the world that he was Iron Man. She had been more than happy to spend a few hours each day teaching you how to properly kick someone’s ass.

But part of Steve wished that she hadn’t. You had been itching to officially become an Avenger ever since you graduated, and he hated it.

And he hated that Tony had told you that he’d think about letting you join once you got your degree, because you took that as a guarantee that you could join.

Steve grabbed the mixing bowl form where it sat in front of him before sliding off the island stool and bringing it to you.

Without a single blink, you swiped your finger through the leftover brownie batter and smeared it across his cheek.

“You little… You little Stark,” he said, getting a dollop of batter of his own to cover your skin in.

You certainly hadn’t been expecting him to retaliate. At least, not in such a childish manner.

This was Steve Rogers, after all. Captain America.

He was the Golden Boy. The one who always followed rules, who never got his hands dirty.

And yet, there was a gleam in his eyes as he looked at you. One that screamed ‘troublemaker.’

Maybe… Maybe you’d misjudged him.

“Was that a challenge?” You asked, not-so-subtly dipping three fingers in before getting it all over his face and into his hair.

“Now it is.”

It turned into a flurry of hands and laughter as you two scrambled to cover the other in more brownie batter. At some point, you ran out of batter, but then you just started smearing the batter that was already on the two of you more.

“What the fuck is going on?”

Both of you froze, turning to see Natasha standing in the doorway, her hands on her hips.

You two were both staring at her like you’d been caught with your hands in the cookie jar.

“Uh… We’re making… brownies?” You said slowly, though it came out more like a question than a statement.

“You know what?” Natasha said after a long moment looking between the two of you. She raised her hands in surrender, taking a few steps back. “I’m not even going to ask.”

When she disappeared back around the corner, Steve and you slowly turned to each other. The impish look mirrored on each of your faces dissipated as you both erupted into giggles.

“D-Did you see… the l-look on her face?” You asked, struggling to get out your words or even breathe.

As he looked at you, something in Steve’s chest stirred. Something that he hadn’t felt in seventy years.

You made his heart feel so… light. Like when he was with you, the weight of the world no longer rested on his shoulders. At least, for a little bit.

And he couldn’t help himself. He grabbed his phone–the one that Tony insisted he have–and snapped a photo of you. It was mid-laugh, and you were just starting to reach to cover your face, but it was perfect.

It was you.

Steve swallowed around the lump in his throat as he stared at your smiling face in the compass. There were streaks of brownie batter over your face, in your hair. You looked so carefree, so young.

He turned around, his eyes finding you effortlessly. Even now, in the glittering lights of the party, you looked like you’d aged ten years since coming back in the Blip.

You had been clinging to Pepper’s side all night, like a thirteen year old girl at a family reunion. Your dress was some black Dior number that clung to you in all the right places and definitely cost more than he ever made in the forties.

The champagne glass in your hand was still full, though the rim rested against your lips as you stared at whoever was currently speaking to your stepmother. It was some senator or other that was more than likely trying to sell you on some policy of theirs they wanted you to back, but he could see all the way from the balcony that your eyes were glazed over. It was going in one ear and out the other.

But your attention was stolen as Morgan ran up to you, grabbing the hand that was laying by your side. Your eyes lit up, the senator long forgotten.

Morgan had seamlessly become your favorite person ever since you came back, and you became hers.

You’d spent years telling Tony that you wanted a younger sibling after him and Pepper finally got together, and you finally got her.

But you’d missed the first five years of her life.

He could see the guilt and remorse in your eyes every time you looked at her, thinly veiled with pure adoration. No matter what anyone said, you felt like it was your fault for not being there for her, for missing her first steps and her first words.

But at least you didn’t think she was your replacement.

Steve knew that Tony had actually been worried about that when they were getting everything ready to get the Infinity Stones, and it had broken his heart.

Tony stared down at the ground, his hands shoved in his pockets.

“You alright?”

He looked up to see Steve coming towards him, his strides slowing down as he realized just what he was looking at. He cleared his throat as he motioned to the door. “Have you…”

He shook his head. His lips were pressed in a thin line. “No. No, I… I couldn’t bring myself to…”

The two men stood there in front of the door with your name printed across it in floral letters. Even after five years it wasn’t covered in dust thanks to the cleaning robots that dusted weekly. So much had happened since the last time that either of them had stood there. The world had… The world had fallen apart.

“I… I went in once. Right after she chose you in the whole… Accords fiasco,” he said. He wasn’t even sure where he was going with this, why he was saying it. “I couldn’t even go in before I moved out to the cabin.”

The hall was completely silent as they stood there. Side by side. They were no longer enemies but they weren’t exactly friends anymore either.

Tony cleared his throat before looking up at him. “You… You can open it. If you want.”

He didn’t want to say that he still couldn’t bring himself to open that door on his own.

Steve nodded once at him before reaching for the doorknob and carefully opening it. It swung open with a soft creak, revealing your room just as you’d left it. He couldn’t help but let out a laugh, shocking even himself. “She always hated making the bed.”

A weak smile tugged at Tony’s lips, and soon enough the two of them were both laughing. It wasn’t a happy laugh, by any means, but it was a laugh.

It was Tony who flipped on the light, and he sighed as he saw the Christmas lights hanging up on your walls flicker on. There were a few little bulbs that didn’t come on. “When I first built this place, she asked that her room have Christmas lights instead of an overhead.”

Just like with the door, there was no trace of dust. But there was an eerie feeling in the air as the two of them stood in your room.

“If she were here right now, she’d be whining and telling us to knock,” Tony said. He paused. “Well, she’d be telling me to knock. I don’t know about you.”

A snort. Both of them shifting their weight.

“God, I wish she was here,” Steve said as a wave of sorrow washed over him. He rubbed the heels of his palms into his eyes as he tried to stop himself from crying. “Stop crying, stop crying, for fuck’s sake, stop,” he muttered to himself as he turned away.

Tony sniffled, tears streaking down his own cheeks. He knew how hard it was for Steve to cry in front of him. He was the same way. Always being told to man up and take everything in stride.

But this was his daughter, this was Steve’s… This was the love of Steve’s life, as much as he didn’t want to admit it.

“I keep thinking… What if she thinks I’ve tried to replace her with Morgan?” He said, voice cracking. “What if she thinks I’ve forgotten her?”

“It’s impossible to forget her,” Steve said, rubbing his hands along his pants. “And she… She won’t. Pepper was pregnant before everything happened, wasn’t she?”

A nod.

“And there’s no way she’d ever be upset with you for trying to heal, for trying to have a family,” he said, his eyes landing on a framed photo of you and him resting on the bedside table. It was taken at some gala he doesn’t remember. There were so many. “She’s gonna love Morgan more than she’s loved anyone in the whole world. You know that.”

Steve watched as you crouched down to her level, sitting on your knees.

The senator was rather affronted that you’d rather pay attention to your little sister, but you didn’t care.

Morgan had become your world. Your anchor in a new world that you didn’t quite understand. You had spent almost every waking moment with her ever since you learned of her existence, and she loved it.

She’d spent the last five years with only pictures and videos and stories. Stories of the first love of her father’s life.

And you didn’t really understand just how much you meant to your father, of course. Sure, you knew he loved you, but Tony had hid how you had been the one to save him.

The man had told him about it one night when you were still at college, the two of them completely exhausted after pouring over mission plans.

“I thought I had my life all figured out,” he said as he read a text from you, letting him know that you got home to your dorm safe after a night of studying at the library. “And then… This baby shows up on my doorstep. I mean, not literally on my doorstep,” he corrected after a moment. “But this girl I had a fling with shows up and tells me she’s my kid. She doesn’t want any money or anything, she just can’t handle taking care of a baby. She’s not ready to be a mom.” His eyes glazed over as he stared out into the distance. “And yeah, Pepper made me get a paternity test because she was worried the girl would come back and claim I kidnapped her kid or something, but no. She was mine. And… I looked at this little… pink bundle in her arms, and I knew. I knew I’d do anything for her.” His eyes refocused as he looked back at Steve. “She saved me, you know. I would’ve been dead a long time ago if she hadn’t come into my life.”

There was no doubt in his mind that Morgan was going to be the one to save you, to keep you from sinking and drowning in the waves of sorrow and guilt, so much guilt.

Steve wanted to be there for you. He wanted to hold you when you cried in the middle of the night and be the one to let you let your walls down.

But he couldn’t.

Because he fucked up.

Because he waited too long to act on his feelings and then he left you in the Raft and then he couldn’t even keep you safe and defeat Thanos and–

He was spiraling.

“You know, you get kind of creepy when you stare at her like this,” Bucky said.

But Steve’s eyes never left you.

You nuzzled your nose against Morgan’s as she burst into giggles, her tiny hands clutching onto hers. Your bottom lip was caught between your teeth as she whispered something in your ear, before you nodded.

You two were definitely up to something.

Pepper watched the two of you with so much love in her eyes.

It had been hard for her, losing her husband. And then she’d had to help you get through coming back to life and then losing your father less than a day later.

You were all still going through it. You’d probably still be going through it for the rest of your life. It was something you took day by day.

“No, really. You’re a fucking creep.”

Steve’s head rolled to the side, his eyes narrowing as he looked at the other super soldier. “You’re a real pain in my ass, you know that?”

“Are we talking about how Steve is a pervert?” Sam asked as he came out to the balcony. He looked sharp in his three piece suit. “Because, really, dude, the way you stare at her is getting weird. You need to talk to her soon or someone’s gonna call the cops on the former Captain America for stalking Tony Stark’s daughter.”

That was another thing that was going to take some time to get used to.

Not being Captain America.

After all this, he’d realized just how… tired he was. He was tired of going off on mission after mission and not knowing whether he was going to be home again. He was tired of giving every part of himself to saving the world.

He wanted to be selfish.

He wanted to know that he was going to be home at a certain time and that he’d have holidays off. He wanted to be able to sleep in on Sundays and maybe–just maybe–have someone to share those moments with.

And by someone, he meant you.

Steve would be a fat ass liar if he didn’t admit that you were a huge reason that he’d demoted himself. He was done lying. He’d lied to the support group he led in the five years after the Snap, telling them that they needed to learn to move on and grow. Truth be told, he’d had no right to tell them that when he’d clung to your memory. When one of the guys had tried setting him up with a girl he knew, he had refused point-blank.

But how was he supposed to just… go on a date with someone else? Even just the thought of spending his life with someone other than you was�� repulsive, to say the least.

So he stepped down to a consultant position. The Avengers and, by extension, whatever the hell was left of SHIELD were only allowed to call him during extreme emergencies. Like, a Thanos level of emergency.

Steve watched as you ran off with Morgan, slipping out of the party without so much as a glance back.

You didn’t care that it could be considered rude. You’d stopped giving a shit about societal expectations long ago, and even more so once you came back and realized you’d been dead for five years.

“Are you ever gonna talk to her?” Sam asked, echoing Bucky’s words from just a few minutes earlier.

Steve was brought back to where he was on the balcony, and he glared at the two. “Since when are you two friends?” He asked. “I liked you two better when you were fighting and not ganging up on me.”

The centurion smirked at the newly named Captain America. “Someone’s gotta knock some sense into you, right?”

“Gotta call your ass out when you’re being a shithead.”

“Which is all the time, by the way.”

The blond huffed as he stared at their matching shit-eating grins. “Yeah. Fuck both of you.”

“Language!” Sam called after him as he headed back into the party.

Fuck. That was never gonna end, was it? One little joke made over the comms and now everyone who had ever even breathed the same air as an Avenger knew about it.

The ballroom of the Tower was packed full of people. Anyone who was anyone was in attendance, celebrating the return of the Avengers to the city since the Compound was destroyed. It hadn’t been hard to convince the new owners to allow Pepper to buy the Tower back from them. The Avengers were being hailed as heroes again after the Final Battle and the Blip.

But he knew it would only be a matter of time before some politician tried to bring the Accords up again.

He could only hope that this time they’d be better.

He ignored anyone calling his name, making a beeline for the elevator.

He was on a mission.

He was gonna talk to you.

Steve didn’t really remember the elevator ride up to the residential floors. He was too busy trying to figure out exactly what he was going to say.

“Hi, sorry I didn’t talk to you for four months, I was scared you’d hate me for leaving you in the Raft.”

Yeah, right.

“Mr. Rogers, we’ve reached your destination,” FRIDAY said.

He blinked, realizing that the elevator doors had been sitting open for at least several minutes. “Uh, thank you, FRIDAY,” he said as he got off, heading down the hallway.

It was also a little weird to hear the AI referring to him as Mr. Rogers and not Captain Rogers.

But not in a bad way.

He slowed down as he heard giggles coming from down the hall.

The light from Morgan’s room was on, pouring through the slight crack in the door out into the hallway.

“–and they lived happily ever after. The end.”

Steve peered into the room, happy to find that he was out of sight.

You were sitting with your back to him, sitting with Morgan between your legs. You’d changed your little sister out of her fancy dress and into her Tinkerbell footie pajamas. Even though you were still in your evening gown, you’d pulled the skirt up, the slit up your thigh making it easy to get comfortable. You were working on undoing her hair, taking out the little braids throughout her hair because she wanted to look like ‘Uncle Thor.’ “Alright, viking princess, we’re almost done,” you said, grabbing her brush from the bed stand.

The tiniest Stark’s energy had considerably dipped since he’d last seen her in the ballroom. Her head was lolling to the side every few seconds as she fought to stay awake.

“Just a few more minutes, sweetheart,” you murmured, tenderly brushing out her waves.

“Sissy?” Morgan said, brown eyes blinking up at you.

Steve could see the sharp intake of breath, followed by a shaky, “Yes?”

“I miss daddy.”

You bit your lip, willing yourself not to cry. “Me, too.”

“Sissy?”

“Yes, Mo?”

“Does daddy miss us?”

Steve’s heart broke a little as he watched you wrap your arms around her, squeezing her tight. “So much, sweetheart.”

You held onto her for a long time, humming a lullaby in her ears as you rocked her back and forth, back and forth. It didn’t take long for her to fall asleep, but still you held her. You could feel her little heart beating steadily, giving you an assurance that she was there, she was alive, and she wasn’t going to be leaving anytime soon.

Not if you had anything to do with it.

There was so much going on around you.

Aliens, Avengers… They were all fighting in the rubble of the Compound.

You kept catching glimpses of your friends, your family, but you didn’t have time to stop and cry. To greet each other after apparently being dead for five years.

Yeah. You were gonna need a moment after this to wrap your head around this.

You’d seen Steve when Strange had first opened up the portals, his broken shield in hand. He looked like he’d been through hell and back and fuck, he probably had. Your heart clenched in your chest when you remembered that he hadn’t been one of those to die in the Snap.

He’d watched both you and Bucky turn into dust within seconds of each other and had been living with that for five years.

For you, it was just a blink.

“Your man is a goddamn idiot,” Bucky said beside you as he cocked his gun.

“My man?” You said, raising your eyebrows. “He’s your boyfriend.”

“When he’s making stupid decisions, he’s your man.”

As you heard Thor’s battle cry, everyone started to run towards Thanos and his army.

“You know,” you said as you charged forward with the rest of them, “if we make it out of this alive, we should really get Steve a dumbass jar. Kinda like a swear word jar. We can use the money for movie night.”

Bucky barked out a laugh. “If we make it out of this, we’ll do it.” He nodded towards you. “Stay safe.”

Panic reared its ugly head in your chest, but you nodded back. “You, too.”

As you fought alien after alien, you couldn’t help but wish that you’d taken your father up on the Iron Girl suit that he’d made for you. It had been a point of contention between the two of you several times.

As much as you didn’t like how clunky it could be, you could appreciate the extra protection that it provided and admit that you might need it now.

But you’d been trained by Natasha. You were more of a spy than a soldier, though you could still hold your own.

Speaking of–where was Natasha?

You could see flashes of your father, your mother, and Steve every now and again.

Was she…

You shook yourself out of your thoughts. There was no time to think about that now. You had bigger things to worry about.

But even just that one moment had been enough for the enemy.

You were thrown to the ground like a rag doll as an alien with particularly creepy eyes leered over you.

There was no way you’d be able to beat that thing in hand-to-hand. It was more than three times your size and had six arms.

You scrambled backwards, your hands getting cut on the rubble of what used to be your home.

This was it. You were going to die.

You were going to die again and there was no way that you were going to be brought back this time.

Your chest was heaving as you stared up at the beast with wide eyes.

But then it flew back, hitting a slab of cement and falling to the ground dead.

Tears pricked your eyes as you whirled around to see your father standing above you, his hand held out in front of him with the blaster still on and ready to strike again if it came back. “Daddy?” You cried, relief flowing through you at seeing your father again. You felt like you were five years old again, running to him with scraped knees after falling on the playground.

“No one touches my daughter,” he said, eyes still trained on the alien.

Without a second thought, you flung yourself into his arms, not even noticing the cold metal of the Iron Man suit cutting into your skin. Red hot tears streamed down your cheeks, washing away the dirt that caked your skin from fighting in a bunch of rubble.

“I’ve missed you. So much,” he gasped out as he clutched onto you. He tried to stop himself from crying, but fuck, he spent five years without his daughter.

“Not to interrupt this reunion, but we’re trying not to die here,” Wanda said as she suddenly appeared by your side. But there was a knowing look in her eyes as she looked at the two of you.

Tony took a deep breath and nodded at you. “I love you. Stay alive.”

“I love you, too,” you said. You watched as he took a long look at you, as though he was imprinting you into his mind.

Almost like he knew something was coming.

It wasn’t until you were watching your father on his knees before Thanos that you understood what that was.

“And I… am Iron Man.”

Snap.

“DAD!” You screamed as you ran for him. It was too much. Too much. He wasn’t going to make it.

The aliens were disappearing around you, fading into dust just like you had.

“DAD!” You were scrambling over rubble and dead bodies. No one else seemed to be moving, too entranced by what was going on around them. You came to a stop a few yards away, watching as Thanos himself sat down before he disappeared with the wind.

You were frozen in place as you watched Tony drag himself over to a pile of rubble to sit himself up. “Daddy?” You croaked.

The others were quickly taking notice, realizing what was happening. First came Rhodey, and then Peter.

They were saying goodbye.

It all felt like static as you heard Peter telling him that you won, apologizing over and over.

And then Pepper. Your mother.

You took a few shaky steps forward as you heard her voice.

“Hey.”

“Hey, Pep.”

She inhaled sharply as his hand came to rest on hers over the arc reactor. “FRIDAY?”

“Life functions critical,” the AI responded.

“Tony, look at me,” Pepper said, turning his face to her. “We’re gonna be okay. You can rest now.”

“Dad?” His eyes shifted to you as you fell to your knees in front of him. Your hands trembled as you reached for him. “Daddy, you… You…”

He took in a deep breath as he mustered his strength together. “Hey, kiddo.” He winced as pain jolted through him. “Don’t cry. Don’t cry for me,” he said as he reached up to wipe at your tears. “You gotta… You gotta go home and meet your sister.”

“I-I have a sister?” You asked, letting out a weak laugh. “It only took me dying for me to get one, huh?”

He tried to smile, but it was too much. “I love you, kid,” he breathed. He was fighting now. Fighting to stay alive.

“I love you, too,” you said, your voice cracking as you hugged him once more. His tears wet your shoulder, not that you minded.

When you pulled away, he was gone. His eyes stared blankly ahead, and the arc reactor went dark.

You collapsed against your father’s chest was your body was wracked with sobs. You tore the Iron Man glove off his left hand, the one that hadn’t been destroyed by the Infinity Stones, and held it to your chest. Pepper kissed his hair as she dissolved into tears.

The others around you didn’t know what to do. How could they tear you away from him?

It wasn’t until you got home and met your little sister that you found the hologram recording.

Well, Pepper had found it, and the two of you had agreed that you would wait to watch it with the rest of your little family until his funeral.

Morgan sat in your lap, having been clinging to you ever since she met you, Pepper with her arm around your shoulders. The living room of the cabin was filled with those your father loved.

“Everybody wants a happy ending, right? But it doesn’t always roll that way. Maybe this time,” your father said. Or, rather, the hologram version of him did. “I’m hoping if you play this back, it’s in celebration.”

The tears were already falling, and here you thought you’d cried yourself out.

“I hope families are reunited. I hope we get it back. And something like a normal version of the planet has been restored, if there ever was such a thing.” You couldn’t help but smile as you watched the hologram Tony crack a sad grin, shoving his hands into his pockets. “God, what a world. Universe, now.” He went off onto one of his tangents like he did, getting all excited. “If you told me ten years ago that we weren’t alone, let alone to this extent, I mean, I wouldn’t have been surprised, but come on, who knew? The epic forces of darkness and light that have come into play...”

You squeezed Morgan closer to you.

“And for better or worse, that’s the reality Morgan’s gonna have to find a way to grow up in. Hopefully with the help of her big sister, if this goes right.” He paused, growing a little somber as he straddled his chair backwards. “So, I thought I better record a little greeting… in the case of an untimely death. On my part. Not that death at any time isn’t untimely. This time travel thing that we’re gonna try and pull off tomorrow… it’s got me scratching my head about the survivability of it all. That’s the thing.” He let out a weak laugh. “Then again, that’s the hero gig, right? Part of the journey is the end.” He stood up, and Morgan clung tighter to your arm. “What am I even tripping for? Everything is gonna work out exactly the way it’s supposed to.”

God, he looked so much older than before the Snap. Like those five years had aged him twenty.

He stopped in front of you and Morgan, squatting down. His eyes flickered up to yours, a shiver running up your spine. It was almost like he knew exactly where you were gonna be, that they were gonna pull it off and undo the Snap. He gave you one last smile. “I love you 3,000.”

And then the hologram disappeared.

Even four months after losing your father, you kept having to remind yourself that he wouldn’t want you to grieve for him. He would want you to live, to remember all the things that you’ve gained.

A second chance. A sister.

You looked up as you heard the door creek, eyes widening as you spotted Steve standing there looking like a deer in the headlights.

You had Steve. Maybe.

The jury was still out on that one.

“Hi,” you said, voice soft enough to not wake Morgan up.

He gaped at you, blinking wildly. It was as though he couldn’t believe that you were talking to him. “H-Hi. Uh… Uh, sorry about, um…” He pointed towards the door and the hall. “I shouldn’t, uh, I… I shouldn’t be eavesdropping. I’m… I’m sorry.” All the gusto that he’d had when he first got into the elevator was gone. “I’ll just, um… I’ll just…” He rubbed the back of his neck. “I’ll just go.”

Oh, hell no. This was the first time he’d talked to you in months. There was no way you were gonna let that slip by.

“Wait!”

Steve stopped in his tracks, his face red. “Yeah?”

You swallowed thickly, looking down at your sister. “Uh… Let me put her in bed and then we could… You know.”

“Yeah,” he said, rushing out his words. “Yeah. Yeah, that sounds good.”

His heart felt soft as he watched you carefully peel back the covers before laying her gently against the mound of pillows. After tucking the covers in around her, you pressed a sweet kiss on her forehead. You slipped out of her room with a quiet, “Goodnight,” and then you were left with Steve alone in the hallway.

Fuck.

He was even more handsome than you remembered.

“You shaved your beard,” you said, not quite sure where to begin. “And… And you cut your hair.”

A beat.

“Do you not like it?” He asked. “Because I can grow it back out–”

“I like you no matter what your hair looks like.”

Steve’s cheeks flamed as he looked down at his shoes. “Uh… I, um… I missed you.”

“I’ve missed you, too,” you breathed, relief settling in your bones.

Even though Steve hadn’t tried speaking to you in four months, you also hadn’t tried to talk to him.

“I… I didn’t know whether you…” Steve cleared his throat, rubbing his clammy hands down on his suit pants. There was still a few damp spots from when he’d spilled his champagne. “I wasn’t sure if you would. After everything.”

Yout brows furrowed as you took a step towards him. “Steve, what are you talking about? about? Of course I missed you.”

All of a sudden, he became extremely aware that the two of you were standing in the hallway, where any of the other Avengers family could walk in on a very private, personal conversation. “Do you wanna, uh… Do you wanna maybe go up to the roof?” He asked.

The roof. Where the two of you sometimes escaped to talk when everything became too much.

“Yeah,” you breathed, nodding maybe a little too eagerly. But as you started to head for the elevator, you remembered that you were still in a fucking designer gown and heels. “Give me ten minutes to change? Into something more comfortable?”

Steve’s smile could light up the night sky as you agreed before he glanced down at his own tux. “Oh, yeah. I should do that, too.” He walked backwards towards his room, on the other side of the floor. He’d taken up his old residence after decided to stay in the Tower for a little while. He still had his Brooklyn apartment, but he needed to be close to everyone, at least for a little while. “I’ll meet you up there?”

You nodded, biting your lip as you headed the other way towards your room. “Yeah. Ten minutes.”

Five minutes later, your heart was pounding in your chest as you tried to decide what to wear.

What did it even matter? Steve had seen you at every stage and still decided that he liked you. Hell, he’d liked you when you were covered in blood and brain matter.

At least, you thought he still did.

Five years was a lot of time.

A wave of anxiety overcome you as you realized that you were supposed to meet him in two minutes, and you were standing in the middle of your room in just your underwear.

And not even the good kind. The granny panty kind.

Whatever. It’s not like you’d be having sex tonight.

… Right?

Shaking it off, you rushed to get dressed, pulling on an old oversized sweatshirt before bolting out the door. You couldn’t even remember where you’d gotten it, but it smelled faintly of aftershave.

When you reached the roof, you were welcomed with the sight of Steve Rogers in a pair of gray sweatpants.

God bless.

“Hi,” you said softly, catching his attention.

He’d been staring out at the city lights as though he was in a trance.

“Hey,” he said. His blue eyes were taking you in like you were the best thing he’d seen in years. When he saw the blue sweatshirt you were wearing, a grin tugged at his lips. “You look good in my clothes.”

You flushed as you realized what he was referring to. “Oh, uh… I’m sorry. I can give it back–”

“No,” he said, waving you off as he gestured for you to join him by the railing. “I like when you wear my stuff.”

The only sound between you for a long time were quiet breaths as you looked out over the city. It was beautiful, all lit up, and you swore to yourself that you’d never take it for granted ever again.

“You know, I looked out at the city every night,” he said slowly, testing the waters. His blond hair, a little longer than when he first cut it a four months before, blew in the wind. “Kept thinking about what you told me. About how the city lights were your stars growing up.”

Your brows furrowed, your eyes drifting up to look at him. To your surprise, he was already looking at you. “I didn’t think you’d remembered that.”

“How could I not?” He asked. His hand was inching closer and closer, until his pinky brushed yours and he hooked it around. “The city was only half lit, if that, most of the time. And I kept thinking about you, and wishing you were here. Almost like the city would be completely lit if you were by my side.”

“Steve–”

“God, I’ve missed you, sugar,” he gasped out, tears pricking his eyes for the millionth time that night. “I’ve missed you more than anything.”

But you were already crying. You seemed to do that a lot these days. “I love you. I love you so much,” you said, not bothering to wipe away the tears. “I was… I was trying to tell you, but then I–”

“It’s okay,” he said as he pulled you into his chest. “It’s okay. I love you, too. I love you.” His fingers cradled the back of your head. “I was so scared. I thought after… I thought you’d never want me again. Not after I fucked up so badly and left you in that prison.”

“I don’t care about that anymore,” you laughed into his chest, clutching onto him. “You’re here. You’re here. We’re alive and you’re here.”

“Yeah, sugar,” he said with a watery grin as he squeezed you tight. There was so much that he’d never gotten to say, and he was hoping that it was all coming through with how tightly he was holding you. And if it wasn’t, he’d gladly tell you. “I’m here. I’m not leaving, I swear.”

Biting your lip, you leaned back, your hands resting on his chest. “Say it again.”

His eyes crinkled as his nose brushed yours. “I love you.”

“Again.”

“I love you. I love you. I love you.”

“Again,” you teased, erupting into giggles as he tickled your sides. You broke off as his lips pressed to yours, melting into him. Your heart was thumping against your ribcage, your brain a flurry.

He leaned his forehead against yours as he broke away for air, his chest heaving.

The city lights blinked lazily as you nuzzled your nose against his. “I really think dad would come back to life and actually murder us if we didn’t get together,” you mused. “After all, I did kind of risk everything to be with you. He wouldn’t want it to be for nothing.”

Steve blinked at you before throwing his head back in laughter, pulling you in for another kiss. “It was never for nothing.”

#steve x you #steve x reader #steve x y/n #steve rogers x you #steve rogers x y/n #steve rogers x reader #steve fic #steve rogers fic #steve rogers fanfic #afterglowparkers1kwc

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wlw-lovestruck-fiction · 4 years ago

Note

bless us with your thoughts on Helena and "I thought you didn't want me" from the Super Sappy Lines prompt?

Written by @evoedbd

Her lips trembled as they framed the scar, tip of her tongue tracing the line of a shooting star across infinity. Smooth. Warm. Alive beneath her touch. Tamed only by the desire to be seen, for a goddess to gift herself to her directionless devotee. Kya’s lips lifted, leaving the damp imprint of her kiss to echo across Helena’s senses. Gods, it hurt. To part even that little bit pierced Kya’s heart so suddenly she whimpered. Only Helena’s calm breath guided her pace, allowing Kya to remain gentle as she dipped down to the Mage’s shoulder blade. A slice, the line stars had travelled, a new mark across the constellation, one which birthed a love story to echo for the ages. A story that bypassed the borders of reality, which overcame the challenges of the Universe and defied the very concepts of reality. Their story.

Kya’s lips lingered, drawn by Helena’s very soul to pay homage. The concept of a kiss or the flick of a tongue faded. Kya’s lips framed the old wound, caressing it between focused pecks. She knew there were so many scars to tend to, old wounds to soothe, yet that required her to break contact. The thought had her fists clenching, gathering the white sheets between snowy knuckles. Never had she felt so torn, even during the war. She craved the feeling of Helena’s muscles twitching beneath her touch, the sounds of contentment she could draw from her Mage… yet to do so meant she had to stop touching momentarily.

Her lip curled upwards, leaving her teeth grazing across Helena’s flesh. Her lip left a trail of delightful warmth, dragging down to the next scar before Kya’s bottom lip joined to deliver the next kiss. No longer could she let her mouth break away, not even to move to the next scar. With her eyes peacefully closed, she drifted on the tides of her memory, dragging her lips and tongue across the space between until she was positive Helena’s back would have been turned into a pool of residual saliva, if not for how swiftly each kiss dried.

“Mhhhmm…” Helena practically purred, the sound of her contented moan rumbling in her chest. A shiver worked its way down her limber body like wave, causing her to arch up into Kya’s loving attentions. The Sorceress felt her lover’s smile against the small of her back, just as she felt the heat of Kya’s breath turn her last kiss chilly for just a moment. Temperature. It was so… Helena was quite aware of it, even when she had no need to be. For so long, the feeling of a subtle chill on the air was enough to warn her to silence herself. To shrink from the Queen’s abuse, or beg for her attentions to avoid something less predictable. Now, Kya used that knowledge in such small ways. Ways most wouldn’t think about. Like how a kiss could become cold, then warm, then cold again within a single tick of the clock. How Helena could feel the patterns of scattered kisses or licks to paint a tapestry. Sometimes, it was the beauty of the scars across her back, the unique constellation Kya had begged to lay claim to like a deity of legend. Other nights it was messages, words of encouragement driven into her flesh in ways that would never mark. Never hurt. A quick peck could dot an i, whilst a slow, sensual curl of the tongue might carve hearts over the wounds of old.

“Enjoying yourself?” Kya questioned; tone laced with a smugness that Helena couldn’t help smile at. It was THEIR smugness. Kya’s inability to hide her own pride in what she could do to the tortured soul beneath her. And why should it be hidden? None had ever given Helena a reason to feel valued as even a human being, yet Kya made her feel all powerful. Helena knew her magic could destroy worlds, yet that was so insufficient when held to Kya’s love. Kya’s giving was more power than Helena knew how to handle. It burned and consumed her, until she had to touch lest the fire destroy her mind.

“As always, my Gentle Heart, you touch my soul.” Helena’s gentle, earnest praise drew heat to the tips of Kya’s ears, flooding from the deepest regions of her racing heart. Lord, Helena wasn’t even trying, and she took the wind from Kya’s sails. She locked the poor American in a place between fantasy and reality, where a blink could be a thousand years of the most romantic of memories, or the most heated of encounters. Where possibilities and everything Kya wanted to do were laid out, paved roads for her to speed down if only she dared pick her route. Instead, she froze, gaping, jaw flapping like a fish at the view before her.

Helena’s bare back almost glowed in the moonlight filtering through the window. Pale skin, scarred beyond reason, held such unspeakable vulnerability. Her body swelled with each deep breath she claimed, each a defiance against a lifetime of abuse. Her muscles shivered and twitched, reminding Kya of the waves of the ocean at night, crested by the gleam of lingering kisses and smoothed scars. Hair of winter gold was gathered to the side, spilling across the pillow in a glimmering pearlescent stream. The darkness of shadows embraced every curve of Helena’s body, delicately shading the swell of her partially obscured breast, the dips of definition in impossibly powerful arms, the exposed line of a once ravaged throat.

Kya felt hers constrict.

Trust. This is what trust truly was. A back exposed freely, a sleepy body offered, laid prone, without any trace of tension despite a tapestry of reasons to be fearful. Here, with a Siren lounging so comfortably in her bed, a vision of realistic perfection and dreamlike seduction, Kya was elevated to the clouds by the simplest of truths. Helena trusted her completely. Every image of lust Kya could summon to her mind felt pale in comparison, like the ghosts of true and lingering emotions. Here, she had every chance to take, to sate whatever desire could come to mind. Helena’s silent offering was not merely a chance to indulge, it was an offering of her entire self. She did not shy from Kya’s gaze, did not conceal a single weakness. To hide had been beaten into Helena, yet she so boldly defied every harsh lesson when it came to Kya. The realisation made Kya cling even tighter to the sheets bunched around Helena’s plentiful hips. Her fingers itched to reach out, to trace the lines she had just soothed and once more learn the constellations of her galaxy. From the dotting stabs and grazes, down to the savagely delivered whip lashes, and lower. The wounds she knew existed only because Helena had given her those stories, had let Kya see beyond the walls of General Klein. A gash down the inside of her thigh, delivered twice. Once with a knife, once with a curse. The thousands upon thousands of burns down Helena’s ankles from where she had fought, or where the Queen had bound her too harshly. Alchemy and magic had preserved the image of flawless skin, yet Kya could not help but question the purity of such things. The scars no longer existed, yet all that did was erase the crime from the world. The deed only existed in murky depths. Tangles of traumatic flashes across Helena’s memory. Had they ever happened at all? Were they just a night terror? Their only acknowledgement was the words Helena gave when her shoulders caved beneath the pressure of horrific memory. Worlds might forget, yet for Helena the deed still stood so stark, still drove her mind to the depths of conceivable hell. To places where communication was screams and pleading for mercy, and mercy was merely a more violating touch.

Never. Again. Kya’s body thrummed with the silent declaration, as it did a hundred times a day. Never again would Helena’s trust, body and soul be violated. God, she had somehow earned this beautiful woman’s trust, and she vowed to protect it until her dying breath. Never would she stop striving to earn the blessings Helena gave, or stop appreciating everything that Helena was. How two worlds could miss it, she had no clue. Helena was a goddess, and Kya was all too happy to offer her soul in devotion.

“You’re… I don’t have the words, Helena.”

That was true. What words could ever sum up everything Kya could see painted across a single body? Ten thousand words may compose the weight of Helena’s crimes, yet a million could not begin to grace the essence of her. What words could explain a young girl growing from an abused daughter to an abused possession? What words could bare the weight of how Helena had been tortured, twisted into an image so terrifying that nations whispered in fear? Could anything explain the gravity of Helena’s fight? Of every defiance torn from her humanity? Of how she had continued, spent over thirty years fighting just to be seen as a human? What words could sum up her gentleness? How tenderly she touched despite the power of pure destruction running through her veins? Kya knew no way to express the simplest of things any more than a traumatic story. The mischief twinkling in sapphire blue eyes. How she possessed both the grace of a dancer and the power of a stallion whilst also withholding the gentleness of flower petals. How, even holding Kya’s hands down, Helena’s grip never became too tight. How her thumb would always seek out Kya’s pulse, as if reminding herself that the war was over. That Kya was alive in her grasp. The relief Kya often saw flood Helena’s eyes when their gazes met. Admiration for Helena’s struggles continued to claim Kya’s breath, even as she watched the Sorceress lift her head.

“You’re crying. Hav-“

“No!” Kya interfered, refusing to let the words of self-blame escape Helena’s lips.

“Helena, Christ, no. It’s just, sometimes everything you’ve been through just hits me. Its… I am so fucking furious for you, like I could go and bomb the Queen’s castle. But I’m also so insanely proud of you! How you fought, how you managed to face everything you’d endured.” Kya confessed, letting her forehead fall back to the small of Helena’s back for a moment. She couldn’t resist leaving another loving kiss to the bump of Helena’s spine, followed by another, and another, all as her tears fell.

“You are so beautiful, Helena. I love you so much my body can’t always contain it.”

“To think,” Helena began, pushing up onto one of her hands so she could turn enough to gaze down at Kya. All at once, the Sorceress’ breath caught in her throat, stolen by the sincerity in Kya’s otherworldly eyes. Grey, but not the type of grey that mimicked storm tainted clouds, nor the type of greys reminiscent of steel. No, Kya’s eyes were the grey of of stone, flecked with little slithers of blue which reminded Helena of diamonds before they were cleaned. Always, the images were of Earth. Grounding. Afterall, Kya was the grounding force in her life, the bedrock she had rebuilt herself upon. Kya had moved her to defy the Witch Queen, to embrace her own fears and rediscover who she was as an individual. Kya had moved an entire world, shown them one of the most horrific figures in their history, the fearsome General Klein, then made them see a hero. The Curse breaker. The slayer of the Witch Queen. Made them see Helena Klein in lights none dared dream.

“there was a time I had been convinced you could never truly want me. That it was my obedience you truly craved.” Helena’s confession earned a quiet yet sharp hiss from Kya, along with a literal flinch. Kya understood, boy did she ever, yet her body rebelled against the notion. She attempted to press closer, scattering more patient kisses up Helena’s back. How? How could any power that be, any god which may exist allow such a beautiful soul to be tormented to the point of worthlessness? The injustice of it all was a fire in her heart, causing her to tremble with the effort of keeping those flames contained.

“I hate that you ever felt I did not want you. I never wanted to force my wants onto you, but, Helena… have you seen yourself? Before I even knew your name, I was imagining things.”

“Things?” Helena enquired; brow arched playfully.

“You. Me. A bed. Alone and safe. How your arms around me would feel on cold nights, holding me close. How comfortable your chest was to lay my head on when you first hugged me. How that would feel to sleep on every night.” Kya’s response drew a rare flush to Helena’s cheeks.

“Then, I got to know you. The more I got to see, the more I wanted. I got to see a woman who is the best artist I have ever met. A woman built for peace, not war. A woman who has the element of destruction in her veins, but the power of endless growth and love in her heart. Not to mention the things just looking at you does to me. I could watch you draw for decades and never get tired of it. You make me appreciate the little things in life, even when I miss them because I am too busy watching you enjoy them. I don’t think I’ll ever stop wanting you, I doubt I even could.” Kya spoke clearly, leaving no room for misinterpretation. God, she already knew she would never stop wanting Helena. It was carved into her soul by carpenters of universal renown. Yet, it was only a shallow mind who would associate Kya’s desires to something carinal. Lust was simple, easy. What Kya wanted was so much more; a mountain compared to a pebble made from the droppings of a rabbit. After all, lust could be so fleeting, an experience of touch and taste to drive someone to the brink, then watch them drown and plummet beneath waves of momentary bliss. Sensations which would fade before a turn of the sun. Kya’s desires were so much more than that. Already, she welcomed the pain of overworked hands, even as she moulded each brick from the clay of understanding and sincerity. Her own blood played the mortar she offered as she tried to help Helena piece herself back together. The tower of Babylon, possibly, yet Kya was committed to continuing to build. To rebuild and repair, each time sturdier and aiming higher. Did Helena even have limits? If so, Kya wanted to help her find them, to reach the stars she’d always looked towards. Then, to shatter the ceilings of what ancient civilisations considered Heaven. The moon. The sun. Blackholes galaxies away. All challenges Kya believed Helena could conquer.

“Kya…” Helena couldn’t force more than the most reverent whisper past the lump in her throat. She felt the truth of Kya’s words, just as she felt everything Kya never voiced. Sheets tickled the swell of her hip, prickling along erased wounds and violations. Helena couldn’t help but feel how Kya trembled, only allowing her dark hair to brush Helena’s skin. A dry brush whispering across a plain canvas, held by an artist who was pleading to birth delights for the world. Even driven by such powerful emotions, Kya held herself back, silently waiting for invitation. Such power brought a smile to Helena’s lips. If she were water, she knew Kya would die of thirst before claiming a single droplet… And oh, she felt Kya’s thirst. It shouldn’t amuse her as it did, to feel how desperate Kya was to touch. To love. Even now, it was mystifying how Kya could love her. She was a murderer, a general of a genocide, something more dangerous than any creature within any world of fantasy or reality. No dragon could destroy the world on a whim, not as Helena could, yet Kya approached her as if she were a lost kitten. Where the Queen’s hands had tortured Helena into a weapon, had tried to erase her imperfections, Kya longed only to feel them. To understand.

“I would not mind… more…” The Sorceress finally admitted, her mind clawing for the words she so desperately wished to say. A small smile dawned at the small whimper which escaped Kya. It was a sound Helena now understood meant Kya was holding back her tears, drowning in emotions too pure for Helena to touch. Yet, touch she would. Again, and again, until the concept of individuals faded. If magic could not combine them, then Helena was greedy enough to claim every other closeness… and Kya was too.

“Helena… please. Can I touch your back?” The level of desire in such an innocent request punched the breath from Helena’s lungs, tore the concept from her body, just as it would tear her heart to refuse.

“Touch as you desire, Gentle Heart. I surrender myself to you, for tonight.” She granted her permission with a soft sigh. Her head sunk to the pillow once more, eyes closed. She waited, searching for the feeling of dread that often swelled beneath her breast when she invited such things, gave such power to another, yet it did not come. Worlds did not collide within her head, nor did her heartbeat begin to wage war against her veins. Instead, there was unity. The way her breath picked up fell in gentle pace with her heart, with Kya’s heart. She felt Kya’s body trembling above hers, skin whispering across her own as Kya audibly swallowed. Then, fingers, the lightest touch against her shoulders. A soft sigh of wind over fields of peaceful wheat. Loving rains over meadows green. Kya’s fingers were so careful, so gentle, so… reverent.

“I’m just going to touch your shoulders, maybe lay over you, ok? You have complete control, even with my weight on you, I promise, if you don’t like this, I’ll stop.” Kya whispered; voice thicker than molasses. Helena only hummed in response. Kya’s promises were branded into her soul, then upon the world as Kya birthed them to reality. The Sorceress trembled, allowing herself to feel every touch. Lips had branded every scar, time and time again. Every disgusting moment she could recall, and many she could not, had thrown themselves against Kya’s reassurances; foot soldiers laying siege to a temple. If pain acted the aggressors, then Kya’s words played the role of Goddess.

“I want you to enjoy how I love you.” Kya’s words were the fires she cast upon shame. Helena sighed softly, feeling that unique, unspeakable fire beginning at her core. It was an ember, a brief spark, nothing as shocking or frightening as the Queen made it. This was so very different. Kya was different. With the Queen, if Helena did not offer flame, she was punished. She was trapped, burning too brightly, too painfully for her soul to endure unscathed. She was made to destroy in order to survive. The Queen had tried to take that ember and destroy the world with unholy fire. Kya held that ember within her cupped hands. She spoke gently, sacrificing her body to shield that little ember from a world of storms and rain. Kya fed that flame with gentle words, coaxing and praising with nothing but the purest of intentions and utter patience. The Queen had set that flame across the world, only to punish it for burning. Kya sought only to see that flame grow as it would, to revel in it’s beauty without turning it to her own whims.

Above the Sorceress, Kya flushed brilliantly, the goofiest of grins forming across her lips as she slowly moved to lay herself across Helena. The way her hand touched Helena was nothing short of worship, tracing the lines of her muscles with delicate fingertips and gentle palms. The weight of Kya’s body over hers did not intimidate, even when Helena felt Kya’s hand push that little bit harder. Instead of fear, she was flooded with a sense of contentment. This was warm. Safe even, despite being so unknown. Her brows furrowed in curiosity for what Kya had planned. She had been taken like this before, punished by strap and spell, or a third party to entertain. She had accepted this position in exchange for food when she had been weak and starving. But this wasn’t them, this wasn’t a violation from her hideous past nor torture for her crimes. This was Kya. Gentle, caring Kya who had nothing but smooth skin pressed to Helena; hips rocking slightly against Helena’s rump. No, not rocking. Fidgeting. Wiggling. Trembling.

Kya was trying not to apply pressure, even at the sacrifice of her own comfort. That made the warmth in Helena’s heart intensify. It radiated through her muscles, soothing her until she allowed herself to give in. On a soft breath, the Sorceress released the tension in her body and finally allowed herself to melt into the mattress.

Kya waited, watching the pinch in Helena’s brows, searching for anything beyond curiosity. Helena remained calm, her cheek pressed into the pillow, lips parted to take small gulps of air. Beautiful blue eyes were closed, relaxed, save the occasional flutter of eyelids. Unable to resist, Kya allowed herself to fall forwards, only to catch herself on an outstretched hand lingering beside Helena’s. Kya’s free hand came to Helena’s brow, light fingers tracing each delicate line of Helena’s expression. Her curiosity. Her contentment. Her smile. Oh, how that gentle curve of lips could undo Kya a thousand times over. It was strange, feeling such pillowy softness beneath her thumb when she knew lips had a thousand grooves, each leaving a unique print behind to mark a kiss. It was a gentle kiss to the pad of her thumb which drew a soft gasp from Kya, even as the Sorceress beneath her let out a soft yet playful hum.

“You seem relaxed. Is this ok?” Kya questioned; her tone filled with tender concern as she let a little more of her weight rest across Helena’s scarred back. She watched, trying to decipher the slow blinks and twitch of Helena’s brow.

“I am completely at ease, Kya.” The realisation that her words were entirely true was enough to make Helena’s heart swell. She reached into herself, scouring the further most regions of her conscious in search of her fear, only to find nothing save contentment and passive curiosity. Not only did she not fear Kya’s touch, she welcomed it. Helena longed for such gentle contact across her wounded body, across every foul memory. Kya could wash away the shame Helena had carried for her entire life. Kya could wash away the ugliness of abuse. Kya. Kya was everything Helena wanted, every salacious desire and tender comfort she could comprehend. Acts which she knew brought her shame and agony suddenly intrigued her when paired with Kya. Situations that had left her scarred were now potentially enjoyable and safe, if Kya was there. If Kya was the one leading. Surely, if it was Kya behind her, she was safe.

“I can feel that.” Kya breathed; voice strained. Thick, like molasses and honey dripping through a sieve.

“I can… gods, Helena.” Kya’s voice broke, hitching on an all-encompassing sob that rocked her entire being. It was true, she could feel the honesty in Helena’s words. Helena was just so soft. So warm, so close and so relaxed. The Sorceress was liquid muscle beneath her, as if lacking a skeletal structure. It was enough to have Kya’s eyes stinging, for tears of pride and joy to flow down her cheeks and onto Helena’s skin. The raven-haired woman rested her forehead between Helena’s shoulder blades, sobbing softly as she wrapped an arm underneath Helena’s torso. Kya squeezed gently, cuddling Helena as close as she could. She lost herself in Helena’s scent, earthy and magical. Parchment, herbs and a unique smell no human could categorise. Nobody was ever allowed close enough to Helena to notice that little underlying note.

“I’m so proud of you. I love you so, so much. I wish you could feel how full my heart is.”

“Show me.” Helena found herself whispering. Pleading, even. It shocked her. How her body reacted to Kya’s mere presence, the weight and warmth plastered across her back. Lust had always been stoked, something brewed with intention. It was Kya who’d shown her spontaneous, yet even those situations had a logical formula Helena could follow. This… this was something entirely different. It was not the roaring inferno, or even the trickle she was used to. It was a sudden yet gentle warmth. Something spilling from her overflowing heart that slowly warmed her veins. A radiant glow peaceful bliss.

“I surrender myself to your guidance, my love.”

“In that case…” Kya began, voice wavering beneath the weight of Helena’s words. Thunder echoed in her chest, rocking her overflowing heart to the very last molecule. Suddenly, there were immense possibilities, many of them mistakes. What if her touch inspired fear? What if she scared the Sorceress with her eagerness to please? Or worse, if she tempered her desire, would it seem as if she did not appreciate the gift so lovingly offered? A gentle kiss placed to the curve of Helena’s shoulder bought Kya a few moments to collect herself, to remind herself that this was her Helena. Helena was not her destination, not a goal to reach or an objective to meet. Helena was not a journey to take, nor was she an adventure to best. Helena was the path. Even when there was no clear trial to follow, Helena was the direction Kya took. She was the golden pavement and gravel both. She was oceans and forests, storms and sunshine. Helena was everything. The fact Helena trusted Kya with her physical self was just a sweetener to the fact Helena existed at all. Kya could do no wrong, not if she followed as she always had. If she was honest, if she loved as she wished to be loved in return. Whether the night unfolded into seduction or laughter, it was with Helena. That was all that truly mattered.

Reassured by her realisation, Kya leaned closer, allowing her lips to skim the shell of her Sorceress’ ear as she whispered the first of many less wholesome requests for the night.

#Anonymous #lovestruck #women of lovestruck #helena klein #helena x mc #lovestruck helena #love and legends helena #love and legends #fluff #scatterday

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sasorikigai · 3 years ago

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"I can tell when you're lying, you know. You ain't slick." (( From Yang for MK2021 Scorpion. ))

* idiots to lovers romantic starters || @yetremains || accepting

▬▬ι═══════ﺤ 🔥 || Scorpion has to know the fact that he is not a product of someone else’s, but of himself; his pain, neglect, fear, hatred, disappointment or failure. And he has no responsibility over what the world wants to do with him or with his life. Hanzo Hasashi is his own being, whole and right; precious and meaningful, lest those infected black tar lips and his entirety may speak of ceaseless pain that heaps with metaphorical bandages, those beige scraps with lazy blossoms of blood and magmatic flames spilling forth, breaching the confines of his well-used steel and leather of his armor. How his eyes, that dilate in the dark like matter, deliquescing into fathomless pools of night, darkens further beneath before the revealed intensity of his light hones like lenses beneath a sunbeam.

Hanzo Hasashi’s world had been complicated and insane; for his life was never meant to be understood. This was logic and yet, getting overwhelmed by the sickness of it all have felt just as natural. What is the all the excruciating pain, but of shattered bones and muscle aches and his fragile heart leaking incessantly, but never extinguishing in the evisceration of his toughened heart and soul? Obliterated by the infinity and eternity of his pain, still too elegantly entwined in the brilliance of his pillar-like flames. How with the force of one thousand suns, would the ten thousand shall rise; reverberating, festering his unhealed wounds that continually break the aura of effervescent calmness Scorpion strenuously tries to wear with a certain air of indifference, to collect the ashes of all the honored dead, their tortured, condemned souls collecting ashes in his lungs, despite their incorruptible arising. As such, the Phoenix shall fly high above all, from the begotten flames and beneath the moonlit skies of the Fire Gardens, which will soon bring about vast reconciling dawn.

But how Scorpion remains choked on proverbial darkness, as it slithers down his throat, enveloping his body, and filling him in helplessness. Only wretched whimpers are left, clenching around his lungs, and there, Hanzo Hasashi would hear the vicious loops of Harumi and Satoshi’s screams, wringing violently with its icy claws as thick panic courses down his bones. How bright light explodes behind his eyelids. Suffocation overpowers him, and Yang’s words ring true with the exacerbated bursts of pain that pervades his body, mind, and soul. “I have endured much worse pain than this,” Scorpion knows, nothing could rectify him of the poignancy of his traumatic illness, as his cyanic, unblinking gaze futilely attempt to lick away those forever self-inflicted wounds of his immolating conflagrations. “Your sweeping light has already suffocated their melancholic songs and agonizing screams.”

Scorpion cannot focus on Yang’s objective accusation; for him, reliving not only his own demise, but of Harumi and Satoshi’s, and even beyond that, the entirety of Shirai Ryu’s is a natural endeavor that will always swallow his sinking heart and soul towards the hazy oblivion. For he goes through the very specific kind of exhaustion that feels as if his bones are shaking from the very weight of living. For the weight of their absence still rocks his entirety, as the surging magmatic blood flowing in him pulsates, as his flesh trembles. In the light of his pain, how he defiantly resists the shame and humiliation of crumpling under the weight of such expectation burdened on his broad shoulders. For Scorpion’s living is conditional, and he still fears if all of his days will simply blur into one gray haze of pain, until he disintegrates into bone-dust and ash. ▬▬ι═══════ﺤ 🔥 ||

#✗ the ineffable testimony of spawned hellfire (scorpion)#✗ hellfire fibrillating beneath his skin (iv)#✗ fight to the final breath (yang || yetremains)#(just couldn't resist the exquisite pain so you get my writing)#(*MY HEART!!!*)#yetremains

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salty-ironstrange-shipper · 5 years ago

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From The Top Endgame: Family

sometimes you see an idea on tumblr - like, say, everyone holding Tony’s hand when he goes to snap like at the end of GotG - and you just gotta briefly rewrite the ending of one of your fics to incorporate it. y’know?

you know.

“I . . . am . . . inevitable.”

Thanos snapped.

And nothing happened.

The Mad Titan looked around in shock, his eyes landing on Tony. Iron Man raised his red-and-gold gauntlet, showing off the Infinity Stones. He closed his fist, and immediately resisted the urge to scream. Raw power and energy, enough to fuel the sun, enough to power a thousand stars, filled his hand, then his arm, then his whole body. He was dissolving, consumed by acid and venom and fire.

He never faltered. “And I . . . am��”

Suddenly a hand, scarred and shaking took his, one that he knew so well despite having not felt it in five years.

Tony whipped around to look at his husband. “Stephen?”

The sorcerer, looking tired and far older than he was, gripped Tony’s hand with all the strength he had. “Don’t worry,” Stephen said, his voice a promise. Barely ten feet away, Wong and Wanda held Thanos in one place, giving them time. “I’ll bear it with you.”

Tony shook his head and tried to wrench his hand away. “Stephen, you’ll—”

Someone else grabbed Stephen’s free hand, her fingers sheathed in blue-and-gold. “We’ve got you,” Pepper said, and beside her, Rhodey landed heavy on the ground and wrapped a hand around Pepper’s. He didn’t speak, only nodded once to Tony, but Tony’s heart beat and ached to see them.

Suddenly, a spiderling in red and blue and gold was bounding towards them. “Hold on!” He leaped up and landed beside Rhodey, panting as he grabbed an armored hand. “I’m here! I’m also a part of this!”

By then, the remaining Avengers, Steve and Clint and Thor and Bruce, had joined Wanda and Wong in holding Thanos down. The Guardians, Nebula and Gamora and Quill and Drax and Mantis and Rocket, joined the chain. Behind them came T’Challa, Shuri, Okoye, and a host of sorcerers, not all of them knowing what would happen, but all understanding the importance.

Tony and Stephen looked at each other once more. Stephen’s weak hand squeezed his. “We’ve got you, Tony.” In his head, Stephen’s voice echoed. I love you.

By then, Tony was close to passing out from the pain, but he raised his head high and faced the Titan head-on when he spoke. Where was I? “We’re Earth’s defenders. And I am Iron Man.”

Tony snapped.

(also on AO3)

#tony SNAPPED #ironstrange #tony stark #stephen strange #from the top #my writing #my fanfiction #endgame #avengers endgame #ironfamily #ironfam #supremefamily #strangefamily #pepper potts #rhodey #james rhodes #peter parker #irondad #incorrect-ironstrange

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thursdayplaid · 5 years ago

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Silver and Scaled Chapter One: Witness Statements

Tags: Li Qian, Ye Zun, Time Travel, Mental Collapse, Amnesia, Hallows related shenanigans, dangerous overuse of magical artifacts, drawing the wrong conclusion from available facts, the weirdest ship ever

Li Qian wants to save the people she cares about, Ye Zun doesn’t want to be left behind and so they try and try and try. The Hallows want to reshape the world. ____________________________________________________

Ye Zun knelt on the floor of Dixing Palace staring at the smear of blood where his brother had once been.

There was a hesitant stumbling behind him, someone roiling with the shaking floor. “Where-?” came a woman’s voice. “Where’s Shen Wei? Where’s Zhao Yunlan?” “He died,” Ye Zun said. “And now the rest of us are going to die too. The barrier around Dixing has been breached. Light energy is leaking in and mixing with the dark energy that’s been building up. We’re sitting on a bomb that’s going to crack this planet in half and send us off to peacefully float through space. So, you see it doesn’t matter if I killed him.” He looked at her with wide eyes. “It’s okay that I killed him, you see. Because we’re going to die anyway. We were going to go away together but something happened. And I ended up here.”

A small woman collapsed next to him, scraping her elbows as she tried to catch herself. She was holding the Hallows in her arms and her face was smeared with tears and dirt and blood. The Lantern was lit but the Longevity Dial was glowing even brighter, harder to look at. “No!” she said, voice small and fierce all at once. “I’m not going to let that happen!” He laughed at her. “Who are you to stop the end of the world?”

She scowled at him and arranged the Hallows in front of her. “If you’re not going to help I’m not going to waste my time!” She began picking the Hallows up, one at a time, two at a time, rearranging them, trying out different formations. “How did you even get here?” he asked. “I-” she turned and looked at him with her large dark eyes. “I was a student of Professor Wei’s, he was always kind to me. I took a job and- Well. I came down with the rest of them to help stop Ye Zun.” “Don’t you know who I am?” he asked her, leaning close. He could see that she did, but she just shook her head and started in with the Hallows again. “I know I can fix this if I just figure it out!” She clenched the Longevity Dial in one hand. “When you care about people you do whatever’s necessary to help them! There’s point in giving up! I’d rather die trying to save my friends!” The Dial turned sun bright with a golden glow and then the other Hallows. They floated up in the air, round and round, pulling the girl up on her toes. A portal formed in the air above them.

If the Hallows really were going to work he might be able to get his gege back before the Haixingren poisoned his mind.

Ye Zun leapt to his feet and wrapped his arms tight around her waist, “You’re not going anywhere without me!”

*** Li Qian and Ye Zun stood side by side on a barren world. There was a melancholy to her face like the white marble lid to a tomb. It might have been mistaken for serenity, it wasn’t. She was tired. Her hand tightened and released on the Longevity Dial as though the gestures of one in an unheard conversation.

The man’s face was wild with a mix of protective fury and hunger. His eyes a little too wide, his smile a little too sharp, the movement of his body too tight in some places, too loose in others. An imitation of a person. “Rest for a little while.”

She shook her head, her hair fallen into her face. With her free hand she was writing notes on her arm about what had and hadn’t worked. It didn’t help to go to Zhao Yunlan first and keeping Shen Wei and Zhao Yunlan separated took too much effort. Where their two hands interlinked swirls of dark energy curled between them. Both of them fed and fed off of each other.

“Friend,” Ye Zun said the word barbed to stick in and catch inside. The hook of his arm pulled her close enough her head rested under his chin. “Rest for a little while. Going back takes so much out of you.”

“I don’t know how much radiation our bodies can take,” she said. She inhaled deeply. “Not all energy is good for the human body, and I have no idea what it would do to yours. The sooner we leave the better. The time before this, was that when we tried meeting with the Crane Tribe or the time before that?”

Ye Zun gave her a sharp look. “Don’t we have other things to worry about?”

His teeth looked bright and sharp when he bared them. “Very well. We’ll try again. Hold tight to me. Don’t think you can escape and leave me here.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” she said, her voice tired. He tsked at her and squeezed her hand just a little too tight.

She nodded. “We were close. We’ll get it next time.”

***

The ninety-first time ended in fire.

***

The ninety-second ended in ice.

***

Zhao Yunlan held out his hand for her to shake. She paused with her mouth open ready to speak but suddenly going blank. “Her name is Li Qian,” Ye Zun said, leaning in too close.

Of course that was her name, she really needed a nap. “As he said,” she told Zhao Yunlan and counted out the acceptable number of seconds to shake a hand before drawing it back again. “It’s a pleasure to meet you. We hear you’re interested in becoming a police officer. We thought we’d offer you something a little more intriguing.”

This had to work, it was such a great idea.

***

The hundredth time he blinked down at her when she introduced them as husband and wife. His hand had been resting on her hip, it seemed a natural conclusion anyway.

“Of course,” Zhao Xinci said. “Follow me, Mr. and Mrs. Shen. My office is this way.”

They didn’t like him. He remembered they didn’t like him, but they had to try something different. All the obvious things weren’t working.

Her face was controlled, serene, her eyes swept over the inside of the SID. Her hand went to the Longevity Dial under her sweater for comfort. The SID wouldn’t always look like this - he remembered brick? a room of glowing spheres? - or maybe it wouldn’t always be at this location. Or maybe he was confused. He did get confused sometimes. Was she his wife? He knew he loved her, and in most of his memories she was with him. (She wasn’t though. He had ten thousand years of memories where he was totally alone, betrayed by one who loved him. Had someone taken her from him? Is that why he had been so hungry for blood? Is that what had made him tear at Zhao Yunlan and Shen Wei in front of each other? Had they stolen his wife from him? Had they taken her away? She never would have left on her own, not her.)

He remembered Shen Wei, or was it Shen Mian? One wore black, one wore white. He- he remembered Shen Wei as a child in his distant memory, he remembered one of them at least. Or maybe both? Things were confused. But there had been a small face looking up at him in the fruit tree, there had been small hands reaching up for a large father’s hand to throw down a special fruit just for him. He had been happy in that moment. He had always liked to be important to the people he loved.

His hand flexed and she looked up at him, blinking in question. They’d spent so much time together he read the words in the sharp up and down of her eyelashes. She was not a peony with an infinity of fluttering layers. She was a lotus, all her edges sharply defined. He smiled back and she read everything he had to say in the flat curl of his lips.

She sat down first and then he sat down second.

Zhao Xinci leaned forward on his arms - informal - and clasped his hands together. “So you said there’s been some weird lights?”

She opened her eyes wide as she said in a conspiratorial whisper. “I think it might be aliens.”

***

The man- the man tried to wipe his face but only accomplished smearing blood across his sweaty skin. His name- He couldn’t remember but Li Qian would. She wrote careful notes on her skin from palm to the inside of the elbow where her flesh looked plump and soft as sponge cake. She had held something once in her hand. Her palm had been burned with a fishscale pattern that glowed gold. She had lost whatever it was. Or had she?

There were other things. Other things she had to worry about.

She ran up the steps, Li Qian with her hair pinned up in a bun with that jade pin he stole for her. When she saw the mess she screamed in frustration. “What were you thinking!” “He stole my face!” he screamed back at her. “He’s your twin, moron!” she roared at him. “And we’ve been trying to save him!”

“Oh,” he said quietly, staggering sideways into her. “Oh. I forgot.”

Her back bowed with the effort to take his weight but she didn’t let go.

He felt his eyes begin to leak. “Oh. Oh. Gege. I remember now.” “It doesn’t matter,” she told him, her arms tightening around his ribs.

“I won’t mess up again,” he told her. “I’ll remember next time.”

He didn’t remember. The Black Cloak Envoy was at the center of things and so the man killed him a few dozen times to see if it helped. She was furious every time, turning silver cold and meteor metal hard. The hard line of her mouth cut deeper into him than any sword could. He tried killing the Lord Guardian - Yunlan - a few times instead. Most of the time though that meant having to kill the Envoy as well any way.

They went back and forth through time like a rubber ball thrown against brick, the hard thunk of the end of the world hitting them every time. She’d broken something in herself. Her body shifting and changing. He thought about their ancient ancestors crash landed and the frantic way they reshaped their DNA to survive. He liked to think about her. He liked to think about her probably too much. He thought she knew he was thinking about her too much but they only had each other. If he was cruel to her, if he tried to hurt her or get her to hurt herself he thought she would probably leave and take the consequences. She was strong, effortless in an emotive silence, and laughing like a fish leaping up into the moonlight, and firm in the set of her jaw and the clench of her hand in his.

She’d had a jade pin in her hair once, an ancient stolen thing that had once belonged to an empress, but it had been lost when the bombs fell.

He liked to think about her DNA changing inside her body. He imagined the little helixes zipping and unzipping. He wanted to measure her by fingertips. He wanted to hold her the way a mirror held a reflection the way a shadow held a heel, the way winter held the cold. She didn’t mention it so he didn’t either. They laid side by side in a ditch while jets flew overhead framed in starwork gunfire and flaring comets of missiles. He thought about her cells, the nucleus, the lysosomes, the mitochondria. He pictured the cells of her liver, and her eyes, and her stomach. His mouth watered. He imagined her cells splitting and dividing, increasing, growing so she was more and more and more so that she took an even infinitesimally greater part of the percentage of things in the world.

He thought about how each person died to gunfire and bombs that she would become a greater percentage of the population. A soldier came down into the ditch, fumbling a gun in surprise when he saw the whites of their eyes. She reached out a hand and glowed gold and the soldier aged forward, forward, forward until his back curled and his muscles turned to loose chicken skin and his eyes turned cloudy and then his dried skin cracked open over aged bone and the soldier collapsed into a pile of dust at their feet.

It would be so easy to roll over on top of her. They were lying side by side. It was just a matter of tipping his body over. Flipping himself like a pancake. He didn’t do it.

She reached out and took his hand in hers. He squeezed it back.

***

The two hundredth time there wasn’t much they could do, it was one of the most delicate timelines. They opened a bakery and waited. They had a few decades before the end. Their mooncakes were considered the best in the country and they did the majority of their business around the Mid-Autumn festival. She liked how much fun he had, how he experimented with types of lotus seeds and rose petals and jelly molds. Liked how she knew how to make him laugh and how easily he made her laugh as well.

***

Time two hundred and one he realised that the timeline just before would have been the perfect time to make his move. He could have done something! She had stayed with him for so long. She hadn’t needed him. She was so clever, with her eyes swishing back and forth, back and forth over all the possible timelines as if she wasn’t sorting through a stack of universes in her head. Instead they baked cakes and he had eaten their neighbor who played loud music at midnight, and the world hadn’t ended anyway. What a waste!

***

Shen Wei was staring at that moron Zhao Yunlan. “Maybe it's the end of things, but at least we found each other.”

“Gross,” the man said.

The woman elbowed him in the ribs. “Let them have their moment before the planet blows up.”

***

The two hundred fiftieth time he kissed her glowing palm. The one with the fish scale scar.

She stared up at him. She was too surprised to speak and too careful of him to act rashly.

They had avoided death so far, but they were running out of oxygen.

She wrapped her arms around them and pulled them out into the river that was the stream of time.

***

He watched her patience crack at trying to explain to a man who wouldn’t listen to her and was too stupid to understand even after she had explained it three different ways so simply that a child could comprehend it. “No,” she said, pinching the bridge of her nose. “The Dixingren aren’t creating the Dark Energy. The Dark Energy already exists. With Dixing sealed, the dark energy can’t escape and it’s been building up. Like when you shake a bottle of soda and then take the lid off and it sprays everywhere.”

“I don’t even know who you two are, why should I even listen to you? You just walked in off the street!” Zhao Xinci said, of all the inane things, and so Ye Zun slammed his head into the desk. No one talked so dismissively to her.

***

The three hundredth time they watch the earth explode from the moon. It seemed the thing to do. He handed her a moon cake. Beautiful. Perfect. Expertly pressed. She looked up into his face. It was a subtle gesture. It put no demands on her at all. There was no way she could eat it. But he had carried it up for her and given it to her anyway.

***

He looked down at the smouldering remains of Dixing. “Well, I mean, it was worth a try.”

She let out a sigh. “Yeah. I suppose. It couldn’t have made it any worse.” She rolled up her sleeve to make a note on the skin of her arm next to all the other notes. “Don’t breach the barrier around Dixing after the buildup started, still explodes.”

He turned to face her, already done with the flames below. He pulled her hair back from her face and pinned it up carefully for her. She smiled, tilting her head so he could stroke down her neck. Her skin didn’t feel quite the normal temperature. She seemed both too hot and too cold all at once. She was pushing herself too hard. He had always admired her determination. When the Hallows had stolen his senses she hadn’t stopped until he had devoured new sight, new hearing, new touch. His measured the curve of her shoulder by the fingerprint. “Do you need a moment to find a new timeline?”

“No,” she told him. Smiled up at him to press a kiss to his cheek. “I have one in mind.”

His mind was still… off, memory perforated, but he remembered her. Remembered that she hadn’t left him, that she wouldn’t leave him and that was important because he’d- Because he’d- Someone had-

He looked down at her arm. The first on the list was to protect Shen Wei and Gui Mian. He had killed… he knew he had killed Shen Wei, had he killed Gui Mian as well? Is that why it was so important that she was here with him? Because he had killed them and she had been angry or sad or disappointed and left him? Is that why he was so afraid of being alone? Had she left him before and he had to find her and keep her this time? (Had she forgotten that he had killed them? Was it wrong to keep it secret?) “What’s wrong?” she asked looking up at him with those bright, bright eyes, sometimes silver and sometimes gold. Glowing like little moons in the dark. They had a bakery together once and they had made moon cakes and he could have told her (he could have eaten her so she’d never leave him again) but he hadn’t and almost lost his shot but she introduced them as husband and wife. Why would she do that if they weren’t married?

She held his face in her hands. “Do you need a rest? Do you need a moment? We have an hour before the dark energy could kill us.” He wrapped his arms tight around her. She felt so sturdy in his arms. “I almost forgot how we met. I- I don’t know how. I almost forgot about the bakery. You’re my wife. I remember you’re my wife.” She was silent for a moment. “It’s okay. I can’t remember the wedding or my name sometimes. But I can remember how we met. We opened a bakery together and I asked if the great Ye Zun wanted to bake cakes for the rest of his life and you said here in the sunlight with a friend is the only place I want to be. We did most of our business in Mid-Autumn. You made these beautiful moon cakes.”

He let out a laugh that was mostly tears, his arms tightened around her. “Let’s go, please. Let’s go back to the sunlight.”

***

“Maybe we should go back further,” she said from where she was leaning against the wall of the barn. They don’t need a light, she’s glowing faint and soft. A light that is such a faint gold it’s almost silver. With the care of someone who had been made to practice starvation she sawed the top off a fresh egg with her pocket knife and threw the yolk and white back like a shot. The eggs were all theirs, the man she traveled with had killed the farmer who had come to check on the animals before she could stop him. There weren’t any animals to check anyway. The Yashou they had freed from the camp down the road had eaten all the livestock raw, tearing into it like creatures that had forgotten they’d once passed for human. She knew her dear friend had enjoyed watching them eat, she hadn’t been able to stay in the barn, but he had been almost whistling when she finally braved coming back in. Her dear friend had wanted to keep walking past the Yashou camp, find a safe place to regroup, but she had insisted. She was glad she did for all that they were about to abandon this timeline. It wasn’t the worst they had seen, but it was in the top ranking.

When they left the temporal energy would curl back into the time river like none of this had ever happened. They wouldn’t be able to try this tributary in the flow of time once it had atrophied, but the suffering here would disappear, unwrite itself. Once they left this specific suffering could never happen again. Maybe something worse, maybe something equally as bad, but never again Yashou camps with collars and cattle prods and cages.

She cut open another egg with the same precision and care as the first. Her body had stopped bothering with feeling hungry really, but she knew she needed the calories. She watched Da Qing where he was lying on a soft pile of hay with the little Yashou children the cat had insisted on carrying out. She didn’t know how much longer the cat would last. She’d seen him die many times before in many other timelines but it hurt more now for some reason. Da Qing’s lips were so pale from loss of blood. Her hand reached out to hold tight to her husband’s, his arm hooked up around her shoulders to pull her close. He was a man for whom impulse control was temporary at best. He pressed a kiss to the top of her head out of habit. Her hand fell to rest on his thigh. It reassures her for them to be braced off each other.

“How much further back?” he asked.

She pulled back her sleeve. First in the list was Save Shen Wei and Gui Mian.

“Farther than we’ve gone before,” she told him. “Back to when we can really change people’s minds.” She had become close enough to some of the members of the SID in their previous tries - especially the attempts where they had plead their case to the Black Cloak Envoy. She knew a lot of their secrets. Shen Wei, the Envoy's name was Shen Wei and she cared about him, she had to. Saving him and Gui Mian was the first thing on the list. She had to care about him, otherwise why would she have gone through so much? The influx of energy punched holes through her, took things without her knowing what they were, but she had written down the notes of what they needed to do. That was something else, something that couldn’t be stolen.

“Alright,” he told her. “You can do this. Deep breaths.”

***

"Zhao Xinci really is a great shot," the man said.

"Maybe we should try something different," Li Qian replied, mouth a thin line as she bandaged up his arm.

"No, you had a good idea, Wife," he insisted. "It's just the execution of it.” He winced. “Maybe the wrong choice of words."

She ducked her head, “We can’t. That was our only attempt at that branching path. We’ve burned it now. It’s just another endtimes.”

“We’ll try earlier then! Or later! We’ve done it before!” he insisted.

“Not all branching paths are so flexible, Ye Zun,” she scolded him, and oh yes, that was his name. He was Ye Zun. “And it takes a lot out of me to separate the strands,” she told him. In his frustrated silence she concentrated on bandaging his arm. His energy transfer would heal him fast enough, but she wanted to do something and he was the sort of person that thrived on being fussed over.

“Don’t demur,” he said before his voice tinged with pride and warmth. “It wasn’t a total failure. You’ve killed to keep me safe. The blood red on your hands and face. You slit the throat of Chief Zhao when he tried to hurt me and you took my hand in yours still hot from his blood and you ran away with me. You chose me. You cried and you cried but you chose me before anyone else.” He was whispering at the end, drunk on the words in his mouth.

She pressed her hands to his cheeks and pressed her forehead to his. “We’re going to fix this. We can do it.”

***

They sat and watched Shen Wei and his brother doing battle against whatever it was the Regent had turned into. The last three living creatures locked in desperate battle. Why were their boys always trying to kill themselves? There wasn’t much they could do about it this time. One of the energy shackles was still around his wrist and they didn’t have any tools to take it off. He couldn’t help in the battle and his clever wife was limited to how much she could help in situations like this. She was a soft golden light next to him, her hair was shock white falling in a curtain over the edge of the building. Shen Mian screamed out and flew backward. She shivered and gripped hold of Ye Zun’s hand. She had always found her motherly affection at odds with the cold efficiency choosing timelines demanded. They knew something must have happened to her long ago when whatever started this cycle that had damaged her mind.

“We can go,” he told her.

“I need to stay here for them. It’s important for parents to be there for their children, even if they can’t help. It’s important to be there,” she said.

“As soon as we leave this timeline will roll back. We should go, I can’t protect you like this. They wouldn’t know one way or the other,” he said.

“I would know!” she snapped at him.

She only had memories of the boys as adults. She would laugh and tell him stories about Shen Wei - his sneaky sense of humor that sounded like a mirror of hers, their shared interest in the sciences, how her poor son had not understood technology at all. Shen Wei had been an attentive son - protecting her and the Dial from danger, bringing her food when she was in the hospital in a sign of filial piety. He didn’t say how he knew how much it broke her heart how much her memory was scattered and broken. That she couldn’t even remember holding her own sons in her arms as infants. He shared what he could remember with her as if that was any sort of panacea for her heartbreak, how she blamed herself. She had to have loved them, she wouldn’t have put herself through this if she hadn’t. He wouldn’t have agreed to this without the fishhook of familial love caught in his flesh.

She also didn’t seem to remember he had been the one to kill the boys that first time. Maybe she did and had blocked it out. Maybe she didn’t know and had just stumbled upon the scene.

She kept watching. He just held her hand, he was too tired to do anything else. He watched the fight with a blank curiosity.

"Husband," she said. "There's something I need to tell you."

He had seen the world young and the world old, it was very rarely good when someone said they had something

"I've been discussing the future and the past with the Dial. We've seen two choices moving forward," she told him. "In one you replace the original Longevity Dial with this one and I wait inside it and in secret I guide and protect the Lord Guardian, I ensure the guardians of this world gain the holy tools and I use my power to ensure that Zhao Yunlan and Shen Wei meet much, much earlier. It is the easier way and it will work. We've run through the calculations.” Her lips pressed together as though to brace him for what she was about to say. “Doing it this way will bind me to the Dial forever. And it will use up all your energy, but it will work. The world will be saved. It absolutely won't end. And Shen Wei and Shen Mian will be safe at the end of it."

He staggered forward, almost tipping off the edge of the building, almost surprised into saying yes. In another universe he may have. He was strong, but he didn't know if he could bang his head against the wall ten thousand more times. Not when there were only two avenues of success left. They had an option. They had a chance. In another world he said yes and in someways it destroyed him, remade him. “But we would never see each other again,” he said.

She nodded.

In this world he reached out and dragged the pad of his thumb against the skin of her cheek. She so often looked so still so serene when really she was the maelstrom, she was the moon exerting her power on the sea with a look. She was so loved by him. "I would rather stand in the bones of a dead world with you then save everyone and have you forever out of reach. I’m not an easy man, I don’t like people. But I liked you once and had two sons with you. Now even with our memories stolen from us I fell in love with you again,” he said despite everything they’d been through. “Who but you and I know each other’s pain of giving up so much, such an unbearable sacrifice, only to lose everyone who was supposed to love us. We have been abandoned by the whole world except for each other. We have been desperate for someone to want us. We have been desperate for anything like family, and yet here we are. After everything we’ve done, we’re alone. Alone except for each other.”

To her credit she didn’t look away.

“I would never hurt you intentionally nor lead you to hurt yourself,” he swore.

“You’d think that would be a simple oath,” she half-laughed, looking down at where their fingers interlocked. “You think that would have been so simple for anyone else to love us. Perhaps we are the only ones who can see clearly, or perhaps we are blind together.”

“I would rather be blind with you than clear sighted alone. What is the second option?" he asked.

"My energy is still damaged," she warned. "I’m falling apart. I'll need to be bound to something. Could you stand that?"

"If we were together I could stand anything," he answered too quickly.

She smiled, so small and so big all at once. “We’ll see.”

#guardian #guardian fic #here you go elvencantation #li qian #ye zun

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