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crazycookiecrumbles · 3 years ago

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A Rip in the Multiverse

A/N: This takes place late in this series of one-shots. AFTER the wedding which I have yet to write.

Okay. So this is in my Stark!ReaderVerse! Feedback, as awlays, extremely appreciated and desired.

TAG LIST NOTES: I have no idea how to efficiently make a tag lists and am lazy as shit, so I would recommend post notifications just bc i’m, well,…tired lazy person

Pairings/Characters: Shang-Chi x Stark!Reader, mentions: Bucky Barnes, Clint Barton, Katy Chen, Steve Rogers, Tony Stark, Tony Stark x Daughter!Reader

Warnings: violence, fighting ,swears, angsty??

Summary: It started out as a casual day, and Stephen Strange and Peter Parker went and ruined everything.

WC: 3,170

This was not supposed to happen like this. It was supposed to be a casual day in the city. You were back in New York for a quick work trip. You were settling some business for Stark Industries, picked up your new suit, just in case of a fight, and, more importantly, you were hanging out in the city with Katy and Shangqi. Every single time you guys came to New York, you never went to just have fun in the city, so now you were going to.

You had just finished a late meeting. It was dark out now, and you were on your way to meet Shangqi and Katy for dinner, which you were late to, of course. They had already left a video message on how they had to start without you because they were starving, and they showed how they ordered drinks and appetizers for the table while begging for you to show up. It put a smile on your face, and you couldn’t help but laugh as you thought about what waited for you at the restaurant.

While you were sitting in traffic, you leaned against the window and sang along to your music. Nothing else mattered unless it was the car in front of you moving, and right now, nothing was moving. Groaning, you banged your head on the steering wheel before sitting up and sighing. Everything came to a standstill, and upon peering through your windshield, you realized that traffic was not moving for miles ahead of you, and there were strange colors in the sky. In fact, it almost looked like the sky was being ripped apart.

“Oh, shit,” you muttered and dug around your glove compartment. Grabbing an earpiece, you put it in your right ear. “Wednesday? What’s going on.”

“I’ve detected anomalies in the fabric of space and time,” she explained.

You nodded, “Is this a Doctor Strange thing?”

“Boss, it seems like this is going to be an everyone problem. I’m detecting lifeforms entering through the ripples in the sky. I can’t get in contact with Doctor Strange.”

“Shit,” you swore under you breath. “Fuck it. You know what? I’ll say it. Avengers Assemble.”

There was a pause, “Does that mean you’d like me to contact everyone?”

“Yes, Wednesday, get every single person here! Contact Wong, see if he can make portals. Do anything and everything we can. Geez, Steve says Assemble and you go on autopilot but when I do it you hesitate? The nerve.”

“Boss, you’ve overused the term and have said it just to get ice cream. I had to ask.”

“Rude,” you muttered. “Contact Shangqi and Katy — shit, they must know what’s happening. Tell them I’m on the way.”

You shed your jacket and tossed it in the backseat. After rolling up the sleeve of your blouse, you looked down at the watch you had clearly stolen from your father and worked on tirelessly to fit your needs. You tapped the face of the watch three times and sat still as a suit of nanotechnology enveloped you. It wasn’t an Iron Man suit, not by a long-shot, but it was your old suit with a bit of a design upgrade.

Exiting the car, you shut the door, locked it behind you, then took a deep breath. As you were about to leap into action, you nodded to yourself and ran into the nearest corner store and grabbed a protein bar. You went to pay, realized you had no cash on you in this suit, had to run back to your car to get cash, run back into the store, pay, inhale the bar, and then leap towards the chaos.

Finally someone was able to relay some information to you. Karen was able to send a message from Peter to Wednesday who was able to tell you a brief version of what was going on. In short, Stephen Strange and Peter Parker had fucked up.

You met up with Shangqi and Katy by landing with a mighty thud behind them. Shangqi had his rings, and Katy was equipped with a bow and arrow set she had looted from a nearby sporting goods store. You looked to the two of them and exhaled deeply.

“Wow, you look fucking hot,” Katy blurted out. “You should honestly go back to being a full-time Avenger because. God, wow, what a look.”

“I agree. Please, please wear that more often,” Shangqi nodded as he stared hard at you.

“Thanks, guys,” you laughed. “Well, welcome to the shit show,” you exhaled slowly and looked around quickly. “Katy, you’re not going to be good here.”

“Hey! I’m plenty capable and — “

“I’d never mean it that way,” you said quickly as you looked around. “You need a vantage point. You’ve only got a set amount of arrows, too. Okay. Here,” you opened your palm and gave them each an earpiece. “It’s already set to the channel we need, it’s 3, always 3. Katy, I want you up in that building, that window, right there,” you pointed. “Can you do that?”

Katy nodded, “Yeah, yeah. I can do that.”

“Good. We’re going to get you there. When we do, you’ll stay there. Give us aerial support. Clint’s in town taking care of some shit so he’ll be here too. I’m sending him to you.”

Katy nodded quickly, “Tell him to bring extra arrows.”

“Oh, he never remembers that. Okay. Shangqi, ready?”

He nodded, “Let’s go.”

You and Shangqi fought to get Katy to her designated location. He was using his rings far more than usual, just because these were giant aliens with armor and guns he’d never seen before in his life. You were using your powers to blast holes into their bodies, disintegrate their weapons, or knock them back. Katy was shooting off her arrows as well, and each time an enemy fell, she scooped up her arrow and tucked it into her, also stolen, quiver.

You reached the building. Katy held onto your shoulders as you launched into the air. You both went tumbling through the glass window of the building. Dusting yourselves off, you looked each other over to make sure the other was okay. When she was all set up, you leapt back out the window and landed next to Shangqi who was looking ahead of you.

The world was splitting. The multiverse was exploding all around you. Chitauri aliens you had defeated in 2012 were suddenly energy through ripples in the fabric of time, along with various other monsters and other people you’ve never seen before or you’d already defeated.

You looked to your left and saw Shangqi using the back of his hand to wipe the blood dripping down his brow. He looked to you after seeing the horde ahead of the both of you.

“Ready?” He asked you as the rings glowed on his arms.

You nodded quickly, “We don’t separate. We move forward, but we’re not letting them get past this point.”

He nodded back just as quickly, “And I’ve got a Snickers bar somewhere in my pocket if you need your energy back.”

You snorted at him, “Gee, thank you.”

“What? I can’t have you fainting on me at a time like this.”

Rolling your eyes, they began to glow a beautiful, bright golden color as you raised your hands ahead of you. “I appreciate the honesty.”

The two of you charged. Shangqi launched himself into the air while you sent your hands forward, your powers knocking down dozens upon dozens of aliens, if they didn’t turn to dust or drop dead from your powers. When Shangqi landed, he used the rings as whips extending from both of his arms to knock them back. The two of you were creating a pathway to connect with the rest of your team as they entered the fray, all while trying to get this under control.

Exhausted, you slumped against a lamp pole as Shangqi skidded to a stop next to you. He took a deep breath and reached out to hold your hand, muttering that you two were almost there. Just as he said it, four massive Chitauri dripped from the sky and landed in front of you, guns ready to blast you both to smithereens. Both of you held your hands out, prepared to stop whatever came at you, but nothing ever did.

You heard a familiar whir that made your heart stop. You gasped when you heard the noise, and when you saw a red and gold suit drop in front of you, you thought you were dead. Arms reached out to cover the both of you, and rockets launched from the back of the suit. When they were dead, you all stood up, and you stared at this Iron Man suit wondering who had the nerve to steal something that belonged to your father.

Whoever was in the suit was staring at you. They barely looked at Shangqi when asking if they were all right, but when looking to you, this person froze and stared at you for a moment.

You heard the mask open up and you stared into the face of your father. His eyes were red and overflowing with tears as he stared at you in shock.

“You’re alive,” he croaked.

You couldn’t believe it. Your dad was standing in front of you. Tony Stark, flesh and blood in his suit like so many times before. His breathing was heavy as he stared at you, and you felt like your legs were turning into jelly. It was hard to stand, but thankfully you were already leaning on the pole. You felt like you could faint at any moment. You were frozen in place as Tony’s hand reached towards you, the thumb of his suit running down your cheek.

“You’re alive,” he laughed in disbelief. “You’re alive. You’re alive! You’re alive!”

All you saw was a blur before you felt yourself be lifted in the air. You glanced back and noticed his suit was totally open and he was no longer in it. Glancing down, you realized Tony had lifted you in the air and was hugging you.

“My darling little girl,” Tony muttered into your hair as he hugged you. He sucked in a deep breath as his hand cradled the back of your head, “God, I missed you.”

You were speechless. Your dad was holding you again, something you had craved for so long and never thought you’d experience ever again. A cry escaped you as you finally lifted your arms to return the hug, a gesture that made Tony silently cry into your neck. But as you were hugging him, something was running through your mind on repeat.

You’re alive.

“What, what do you mean I’m alive?” you asked quietly.

Tony pulled away from you, unsure of what to say. He avoided your question and looked to Shangqi. He suddenly straightened up, his body on high alert as he studied him. “What are you doing with Kid Mandarin, here?”

“My husband?” You asked, sniffling and wiping your tears, “We’re kind of killing aliens.”

“Husband?” Tony was in disbelief. “What happened to Steve?”

“Oh, here we go,” Shangqi muttered under his breath.

“Long story — Why did you call him Kid Mandarin?”

Tony stared at you like you were insane, “He’s the leader of the Ten Rings. You know this, right?”

“Not here he isn’t…” you trailed off.

“Honey,” Shangqi said quietly, “You did say it was the multiverse. I mean, he’s….well, he’s not your Tony. Do you get what I’m saying?”

You did. You did. You knew it. But you didn’t want to believe it. You just nodded your head, stood tall and looked at your father.

“There’s a lot going on right now, but we can’t focus on us, as much as I want to. Get in your suit. We’re trying to get to the statue of liberty.”

Tony couldn’t help but smile at how you were taking charge, “Okay, cupcake. I clocked Legolas and Kid Mandarin’s sidekick, Mini Nectarine a few blocks back.”

“Jesus, that’s not even funny that’s lazy fruit naming.”

“Anyway, I can give them a lift. We’ll do a loop around, meet everyone there.”

“Okay,” you nodded. “Be careful, please.”

“You too,” he nodded and stepped back into his suit. Before taking off, he locked eyes with Shangqi, “No funny business, Tangerine.”

Shangqi pursed his lips as your father took off, “So that happened.”

“I genuinely cannot even begin to address that right now,” you said.

“Yeah, I figured.”

“I need that Snickers bar right now, please.”

Shangqi nodded and handed you the candy bar. He stood beside you as you ripped it out of the wrapping and ate it in three bites. When you were ready, he nodded, and the two of you took off once again to your destination.

On your way there you came across a mammoth of a monster. It was double the size of the Hulk and looked intimidating beyond belief, but you, you were impatient and wanted nothing more than to get to the bottom of this.

Glaring at this creature, you raised your hand and did a move you had only done to Steve once before, but it was so much harder to do this time around. Your outstretched hand clenched into a fist and you patiently stood there, glaring at this creature as you made its heart stop beating and watched the light fade from its eyes. He collapsed in a heap on the ground, blood seeping from all of his orifices while Shangqi stared at you. He frowned seeing a hint of blood drip from your nose.

“You can’t do anymore right now,” He said quickly. “That was too much for you. Calm down.”

“We gotta get to the statute,” you said quickly. “At least it looks like they’ve stopped coming in. Come on, we have to do this.”

“Fine, but we’re stealing a boat —“

“I can do it,” you said quickly.

You two reached the dock and looked in the distance at the statute. You looked to Shangqi who nodded to you and held on to your shoulder and forearm. Crouching down, you launched yourself into the air. Three times your feet barely skimmed the water before you launched off again. On your final landing, you just barely made it to the edge of the park. You collapsed on the ground with your nose bleeding, and Shangqi quickly crouched down to you.

“So stubborn. I told you we had to steal a boat,” he sighed as he helped you to sit up.

You shrugged, “I’m impatient.”

“Oh, trust me. I’m aware,” he muttered and looked around. “Okay. Easy, babe. I’ve got you.”

You both finally reached the welcome wagon. Bucky, Steve, and Sam were staring at a man on fire who suddenly was no longer on fire and looked alarmingly just like Steve. Peter was flanked by not one, but two other Spider-Man’s and what looked to be a girl in a spider suit that was white and pink and black with turquoise. You were so confused. There was a man built like an orange stack of rocks, a beautiful blonde woman, and another brunette man with streaks of grey on his temples.

Then there was the Black woman with stunning white hair, a man in a wheelchair, another with claws coming out of his hands, and what looked like a giant blue beast.

Then you saw her. Natasha Romanoff stood among everyone, and you knew immediately this wasn’t your Natasha. Her hair was short like you remembered, but it was back to being red. Her armor was unlike anything you’d seen her wear before. It looked apocalyptic. She looked tired. There was a sadness to her eyes that you’d never seen before.

Everything was so, so quiet, until you heard the whir of your father’s suit. Then suddenly, a gasp.

“Natasha?” Clint breathed when he stepped away from Tony and saw her.

Natasha turned her head. She looked to Clint and smiled softly, “Hey, stranger.”

It was rare to see Clint emotional. He was always so stoic. But that man collapsed to his knees right where he stood, sobs prompting his body to shake as he fell to the ground. Natasha holstered her weapons and quickly made her way over to Clint. He shook his head in disbelief, repeating over and over again that she wasn’t real.

Natasha rested her hand on his shoulder which prompted him to look up at her. When she touched his cheek, he reached out to touch hers. His thumb caressed her cheek, her lips, then he pulled away as he sobbed and Natasha wrapped her arms around him to hold him tightly to her.

Katy made her way over to the two of you. You were now leaning against Shangqi, who hugged Katy tightly and muttered that he was glad she was okay. Your attention was elsewhere, and Katy understood why. She said nothing as she watched you.

You were staring at your father. Tony looked around at this group of people, most of which felt like they were seeing yet another ghost. Tony’s head stopped as he spotted Steve. Quickly rushing over, he pulled Steve in for a hug that surprised everyone around.

“It’s good to see you, Cap,” Tony said. “I’ve missed my friend.”

Steve stuttered as he returned the hug, “I—yeah, Tony. It’s good to see you too.”

Tony pulled away and kept a hand on his shoulder, “Now, where’s my little girl?”

Steve glanced at Bucky and Sam who reached bowed their heads and took one step away from that shit show. Steve pointed across the way to you. Tony turned around and started to walk towards you. He left his suit behind as he stood in front of you, hands on your shoulders as he gave you a long, thoughtful look.

“I never thought I’d see you again,” Tony said softly. “I should’ve told you this before, and I never got the chance. You, Y/N, you are my first greatest creation.”

And just like that, you shook the park that the Statue of Liberty was on so violently that the torch fell clean off of her. Tony pursed his lips and studied you. Since you had seen him, you were sad. Your eyes were full of tears, and you stared at him like you’d never seen him before.

After a moment, it clicked for him. He took a deep breath and nodded to himself, “I’m the one that died here, aren’t I?”

Tears fell as you nodded quickly, unable to form any words at the moment.

“That’s how it should’ve been,” He nodded and pulled you in for a tight hug.

That phrase from earlier, you’re alive, kept replaying in your head. Sniffling, you clutched onto him tightly as your eyes darted back and forth as you processed this.

“Wait,” you said. “I—I’m the one that died?”

#shang-chi x reader #shang-chi x stark!reader #shangqi x reader #shang-chi #tony stark x daughter!reader #dad! tony stark #stark!reader #stark!readerverse #crazycookiecrumbles #tony stark x stark!reader #tony stark x daughter reader #shang-chi x avenger!reader #marvel fic

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jaeminscoffee · 4 years ago

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Daddy Issues | S. Jn

Pairing | Seo Johnny x Fem!Reader

Genre | Smut, fluff

Wc;type | oneshot: 3.93k [not proof read]

Warning(s) | Pwp, dilf!johnny, y/n's a pillow princess, daddy kink, overstimulation, teasing, edging, dacryphilia, slight voyeurism, degradation kink, heavy use of the words 'doll, princess, slut, pretty, angel', typical lyra smut, i made haechan johnny's son (i was about to write changbin as johnny's son but decided against it) age gap, unprotected sex ( the Reader's on pills. Remember this is a fiction, don't play the wrong card irl) filth.

a/n- i found this request buried in my asks and was tempted to write it. Sure, the warning looks intimidating, but i know you wanna read it, y'all whores (ily) shoutout to @bakugou-is-my-bae @cvntzennie and @jenopollo for helping me decide what to post first! @suhpersonic

Minors try not to interact! <3

Age is just a number, so surely, there's nothing to be ashamed or embarrassed of, right?

There's no reason for you to not fall for the friendly neighborhood bachelor, well not so bachelor bachelor, since he does go around asking people who knows of his marriage to pretend it never took place.

Johnny's hot, super hot. Has the build of a supermodel. Has the face that one can only imagine belongs to a greek god, as you'd jokingly tell him how he seemed to be god's favorite and how you loathe Aphrodite for showing favoritism (which would always end up with you getting a very sultry, teasing look from the lad)

Johnny has the type of personality that women can only wish the entirety of the male species would possess. He's an absolute sweetheart, life of the party, definitely the center of attention wherever he goes. And oh god, does he have an immaculate fashion sense.

But Johnny's also the father of Donghyuck. Your best friend.

More than being ashamed about the fact that you actually fell in love with a man who has a child of your age, it was the fact that you had to fall for Donghyuck's father of all people.

Donghyuck is a sweetheart, definitely got his personality from his father but he's also got that glare that could creep the Lord's of the darkness from his father. He's got so much from his father that the resemblance is uncanny.

You'd not want to get onto hyuck's bad side since you've gotten first hand experience at stopping him from almost committing homicide to someone who spoke shit about his friends, more specifically, you.

But Hyuck's not in town. So a little fun with Mr. Suh wouldn't hurt anyone, correct? After all, you're still only a human with desires and the want to take risks.

You'd always not so subtly drop hints at Johnny and he'd always give you that look that would have slick collecting itself between your thighs. A warning look.

A look that said, "cross the line and you'll get it"

But that's the thing, you want to get it and will do anything to get it.

"Y/n."

You'd ask yourself less than a million times if you want to do this or not.

Sure, you weren't this hesitant when you decided to sext your best friend's father knowingly when he was in business mode to irk him up but that's one thing.

And having to confront the same father who left a message smaller than a sentence that completely disregarded all the obscene text and images to show that he's not the slightest bothered or suprised by your behavior for that matter was another thing.

"Tomorrow at mine."

It's almost as though he deals with hormonal teenagers one as such as yourself on a daily basis and that thought kind of backfired at you considering the whole 'Let's piss Johnny off so that he'd finally give me what i want' agenda.

Ironic, huh?

"Mr. Suh." you start hesitantly, unsure of what to call him, scared of what his reaction would be after your inappropriate shenanigans last night.

Your stiff demeanor broke down a little with just a hint of shiver passing down your spine as you watch his features contort into a subtle but cocky smirk, "So now you're being all formal,"

"Well, what else would you like me to address you as?" you inquire, feigning oblivion to his tone and what he's implying at. "You tell me, doll. You seemed to have a lot of names to call me last night," he takes a step forward, prompting you to walk a step backwards, further into the corridors of his apartment and away from the actual location.

"I do not know what you're talking about.. " you let your voice shrivel towards the end, eyes wandering around the complex, finding interest in every small detail as you avoid Johnny's teasing gaze.

"You don't?" Johnny takes another step forward, latching his hands onto your forearms to prevent you from stepping further away, "You must have had a heavy sleep to forget all that you did last night," his voice drops dangerously low as he begins to walk backwards and back into the safety of his apartment, all the while keeping his gaze fixated on you.

"That won't do, would it? How about we take a walk down the memory lane? And see if that rings any bell?" He brushes your hair away from its static position on your shoulder, allowing him to appreciate all those fine details of your shoulders and neck that are exposed from your selection of clothing, an off shoulder.

"How about we don't...?" You ask with skepticism, jolting slightly when you hear the door shut behind you and at the new intrusion of personal space by the lad.

"Why are you acting all shy now, Y/n? Weren't you the one so eager to get into her best friend's fathers pants? Just be the whore you are, darling. Your facade's fooling no one." okay you definitely didn't see that coming.

Johnny's expressions morph into that of mischief as he watches your eyes grow wide and mouth fall ajar, "Am i not correct? Are you not a whore?" he asks with an eyebrow quirked up in a questioning manner.

You don't reply, almost as though the question was meant to linger in the open and that it was a rhetorical one. What you didn't expect, however, was for Johnny's hands to find pursuit around your neck, not necessarily applying pressure, but there as a warning.

"Answer me."

"I'm not.." you answer with a feeble voice, internally cringing at how squeaky you sound which only added to Johnny's amusement.

"Really? Because I don't think good girls go around drooling at a divorced man, her friend's father for that matter and definitely do not send lewd images and voice out their fantasies to a guy twice their age, still want to pretend you're innocent? Or you admit it and we cut down the chase?"

"Yes, I am." you breathe out when his fingers tighten around your neck, a triumphant smile making its way onto his lips. Yet, Johnny felt the need to keep pushing,

"you're what?"

"I am what you said I am," you speak, trying to avoid looking at the scrutinizing look on his face which seemed futile as he had his arms wrapped around your neck, keeping your head in place.

"I want to hear you say it, doll. I need to hear you say it." At this point Johnny's intent was to get you into a flustered puddle in his hold and it sure as hell was going in that direction, seeing how you can't even hold his gaze for more than a few seconds in a shot.

"I am.. I am a who-"

The sound of a phone ringing loud cut you off midway through your sentence, to which you were absolutely relieved. Johnny only seemed to grow annoyed the more he heard the phone ring. With a loud huff, he lets you go, not before giving you a stern look, "Go to my room." he instructed, making his way to the study.

You let out a breath you've been holding in unknowingly the moment he steps away from you. You watch his figure retreat from you with awe, only now realizing how messy you felt between your legs and how your knees keep buckling.

"Oh Hyuck!" you hear Johnny exclaim into the phone the minute you step forward to follow his command.

Your best friend is on call with the guy you're about to fuck.

Your blood runs cold as you shakily make your way into the apartment and towards the bedroom, shrugging off your sling bag, hanging it behind the door as you place your phone on the bedside table to wipe your hands dry from all the sweat that had accumulated at the palm of your hands.

"Yeah, I'm fine, about to eat to my dinner actually" you hear the moment to make yourself comfortable at the edge of the bed, looking over to the door where Johnny stood with his arms across his chest, the other holding up the phone as he leans his weight onto one shoulder, leaning into the doorframe.

You take the time to really appreciate his appearance. He adorned nothing more than a simple grey sweat and tight black tee but he seemed ready to walk down a runway at any given moment now. His long hair, slightly disheveled looking almost intentionally messed up, compliments his features. And oh his features.

The everlasting smirk stayed still on his lips, moving as he exchanged words with his son.

You only come back to your senses when Johnny snapped his free hand in front of you, gaining your attention. He points at his own shirt, then points at you, mouthing 'off' while he listens to Donghyuck speak about whatever he's speaking.

"Really? Jeno said that? Tell him I'm more than willing to welcome him as my gym partner, the lad seems strong" Johnny makes a quick move to remove the gadget from his ear, before holding it in front of him after placing the call on speaker mode

Your eyes widen the moment you hear the disturbance in the background and Donghyuck's voice resonate through the room. "no?? Why would you want to work out with him? He'll only make you feel old, you know?"

"Says the one who still can't beat me at arm wrestling. If anything, i think Jeno would make the perfect gym buddy for me," Johnny raises an eyebrow at your defiance, cocking his head towards the side, staring down at you with a predatory look, "Hyuck, you know, Y/n-" you scramble to take your shirt off at the mention of your name on the call, "-stopped by earlier" he lets out a silent laugh of disbelief.

"Oh? Oh yeah! I'd told her I'd give her book back before I left but I forgot, did you perhaps give it back to her?" Donghyuck questions.

"I figured you must've forgotten so, yeah i did." Johnny replies, pushing himself off of the doorframe, now walking towards you.

"Man, I miss her! I might facetime her after I end the call with you," Johnny sets down the phone beside you on the bed, leaning down, placing both his hands on either side of your lap, finding comfort at the crook of your neck,

"I remember her mentioning something about her cousin coming over? Maybe wait for an hour or so before calling her" his lips graze against your neck each time he spoke, you let out a tiny whimper at the so longed feeling, only to earn yourself a small bite at the earlobe, immediately accompanied by a hand over your mouth, "you need to be quiet, doll. Or my son would find out how much of a slut his best friend is," he whispers in your ear.

"Yeah? Did she mention which one?"

"No, not really, she kinda just stormed out after getting what she wanted" Johnny creates a trail of kisses all the way from your neck to your shoulders, down the collarbone while one of his hand worked to unhook your bra, "Yeah, she's weird like that," you hear Donghyuck let out a chuckle as you whine into Johnny's palm, your figure slightly trembling from the fear of getting caught all the while being excited about the risky situation he's put the two of you in.

"Anyways, I'll call you tomorrow? The boys are coming over now so I got to go! Night, dad!" Donghyuck speaks up again, "Night, Hyuck."

You hear the beep indicating the call has ended. Johnny let's his hand drop from your mouth and makes its way towards your hair, brushing through the strands before pulling at it with a firm grip, "I had my son on call and here you are making all these sweet noises, you wanted to get busted, doll?"

"It's not my fault! You-"

"ah-ah! Don't talk back, angel. You're already in deep trouble, don't want to add onto that now, do we?" He makes a swift move to have you lying on your back, your torso completely exposed to him while he remains clothed.

"But Johnny-" you whine, jolting when you feel his hands caressing the soft flesh of your inner thighs, "How do you think Hyuck would feel about this?" his hands travel further north, cupping your heat from underneath your skirt. "fuck, you're drenched"

"Now tell me, pretty girl, what are you supposed to be calling me, now?"

"Johnny-, tha-that was a joke! I don't have daddy kin-" you try clenching your thighs close from the sudden attention your core was receiving. Johnny wholeheartedly lets out a laugh at your attempt to hide your true feelings, making a quick act of disregarding your soaked panties somewhere behind him.

"Darling, the more you deny it, the longer we keep going at it-" his thumbs at your clit, applying pressure but making no move to quench your needs. You let out a sigh of bliss at the feeling, your back arching off of the sheets at the sensation.

In any other situation, you'd be embarrassed at how sensitive you'd gotten just from all the dirty talking and looks Johnny passed you. But that's the catch, he's Johnny, the only one who can get you this sensitive while doing the bare minimum.

"Say it, Y/n."

"No, Johnny! It's-it's embarrassing.." you plead with your eyes, grinding your hips against his fingers, earning a satisfied, dirty look from the lad.

"Very well.. I'll just draw it out of you"

Without warning, Johnny with little to no resistance, slides two slender digits into your wetness, setting a pace fast enough to draw loud chains of cries from your mouth.

"You hear that, doll? You hear how fucking wet you are? Hm?" he growls animalistically, the thumb that remained on your clit now moving in circles with a motive to get you undone in seconds.

"Johnn-..!" you whine out, feeling your orgasm growing so close that you could almost taste it, "Still going at that, angel?" he questions, not really expecting an answer as he soaks up the pleasured look on your face. "Johnny- I'm close.. -" you fail to notice the mischievous grin growing on his face as he speeds up the movement of his fingers.

"Of course you are, doll" He feels you clench around his fingers, back coming off of the mattress as you ready yourself for your release, waiting until the last minute to draw his finger out.

"Why would you-? Johnn-I was so close!" you cry out as you sense your core clench around nothing, whining about the incomplete orgasm. "Why would I give you what you want when you wouldn't comply, baby? That's not how this works." He shrugs, licking his fingers clean of your essence, moving up from the bed to remove the shirt that seemed to be suffocating now.

"Johnny, please!" you whine louder, rubbing your thighs together to create some sort of friction, all unsatisfactory as it did not meet the same intensity as that of his fingers.

"Please what, doll?" He smirks, knowing the ball is in his court and that you'd had to give in any moment now. Johnny leans down once again, drawing lazy circles at your clit, using his other hand to hold himself up above and close to you, his minty breath which had a hint of coffee fanning your face as you whimper, finally feeling your high building itself up again. "Spit it out, princess, you know you want to." he speaks in a soft voice.

"Please..please" you beg for nothing in particular, getting all worked up again, "The begging's lovely, doll. But you're starting to anger me here, will you say it? Or should I leave you hanging again?"

You mutter prayers under your breath, hoping he wouldn't actually leave you hanging again, "Fine-" he moves again to remove his fingers from you to deprive you of pleasure all over again when you finally latch onto his wrist, keeping his hands in place blurting out, "Daddy! I'm so-sorry.. There, daddy, please make me come" you give in, the name, the feeling and look of pure victory on his face as he grins like a cheshire cat only intensifies the heat growing at a rapid pace at the pit of your stomach.

"Final fucking ly, princess. Daddy will make you feel good" He reinserts his fingers in, drilling it with desperation to see you come undone as he draws rapid circles on your now sensitive clit with the other hand, watching you squirm under him.

"Joh-Daddy i'm coming..!" you cry out weakly as you feel your orgasm hit you with much force, easily driving you into over sensitivity. Johnny's patient in helping you ride out your orgasm, not stopping until you let out a throaty sob and plead him to stop to allow yourself some room to breathe.

Johnny, however, makes no move to stop, only speeding up his fingers, his gaze fixed on where his fingers disappeared inside of you while his other hand held you down with a vise grip, "Give me one more, doll. I know you've got one more in you. " he pants, the feeling of his girth in confinement only throwing himself to sensory deprivation as he feels himself twitch inside his sweats painfully.

You shake your head, tears now flowing elegantly down your cheek, your lips puckered into a slight pout, your eyebrows drawn together as you let yourself melt into the pleasure Johnny was providing you with. "Daddy.."

You whine, feeling your second high reaching you ridiculously quick as you see Johnny's face contort in concentration,

"I need to get you nice and wet for me, princess, you're doing so well. Give daddy another one" you coaxes you with his sultry tone, words and actions, inevitably having you come undone under him for the second time that night.

You let out a choked moan, finally having enough as you curl upon yourself the minute Johnny removes his fingers from you, full fledged crying at the overbearing feeling of sensitivity.

Johnny groans at the sight, leaning down to press a soft peck on your sweaty forehead before getting off of the bed to remove his pants alongside his boxer at a slow speed, granting you some time to recover.

"Condom?" he asks, readying himself to reach into the drawing when he notices you shake your head a no as a reply, "I'm on pills.." you mutter weakly.

You hear him curse out at the thought of doing you raw, flexing his muscles before climbing on top of you again. He takes his time to gently turn you back onto your back, pressing his tender lips against your irritated one for the first time that night, his hand ever so slightly moving to play with your clit once again, making you jerk, "Daddy!"

"Sorry, doll. Daddy just needs to make sure that princess is ready to take his cock"

Your whining intensifies at his words, wiggling your hips to move closer to his own, "But I am ready! Look, daddy! I'm so wet and ready for you!" you whimper, earning a chuckle from the lad.

Just like all the other times that night, he aligns his cock at your entrance without a warning, the tip ever so slightly pushing through your walls, "Alright, big girl. Show daddy how much of a slut you can be for him."

Suddenly, Johnny detaches himself from you, moving further away as he leans by the edge of the door, smirking at you whining at the loss of contact, "Patience, angel"

He grabs hold of your hips, manhandling your body into all fours as he enters you completely with no trouble once he's got you where he wants you to be.

Something about having to take Johnny from behind was so sexy that you could almost immediately feel your orgasm grow, "Fuck baby, keep clenching around me like that and i won't last long," he grunts, moving in you with a steady pace,

"I never expected my son to befriend such filthy sluts like you, Y/n. Look at the mess you're making on my sheets" He grabs a fistful of your ass in a tight squeeze, the sudden shift in his demeanor only serving as a whiplash as you feel yourself growing closer and closer to the sweet orgasm.

"Jesus, doll, you're so fucking tight i can barely move" Johnny growls, talking to keep himself from coming too fast.

"Daddy.. I'm close. M-I'm so so close" you cry as your arms give out and you fall face first onto the mattress, the new stretch in your back only encouraging his cock to hit you deeper, finding the sweet cushion that serves as extra pleasure for you.

"Me too, princess, me too.. '' You hear him let out a whine, his thrusts growing sloppier as he does you slower but deeper.

He reaches around your body to find pursuit at your clit for the nth time that night, rubbing rapid, messy circles to go with his deep thrusts, "Daddy!" you reach your high with a high pitched cry of his name.

Johnny comes not too long after you as he couldn't resist the constant tight clenching of your walls around his cock. He thrust slowly to ride out his high as you twitch helplessly, face scrunched up in too much pleasure.

You feel your body being manoeuvred onto your side as he whispers sweet nothings which pass right through your ears as you feel him softened inside you, the feeling ridiculously soothing for your used up walls,

"You did amazing, darling." he kisses your temple, not making any move to remove himself from within you, which you silently thanked him for.

You both lay in silence as you turned your body towards him, earning a hiss and a playful smack from him as it added pressure onto his sensitive member. You wrap your arms around his torso, about to nuzzle into his chest and just drift away to dreamland when you hear the familiar ring of your phone from the table beside the bed.

You feel Johnny's body shift to reach out to get your phone, looking at the caller ID before handing it to you with a smirk that you knew meant that he was up to no good. "Oh! It's hyuck" you exclaim in shock, quickly accepting the call and placing it near your ear, moving to get away from him.

But Johnny seemed to have other ideas, as he latched an arm around your torso to keep you from moving, "Hey-" you begin, immediately feeling Johnny experimentally thrust into you again, making you whine, "Y/n! I miss you~-oh hey, are you okay?" you hear Donghyuck's voice from the other side,

You look at Johnny with a pleading and warning gaze to which you earn yourself a toothy grin from the lad,

"Of co-course! Just a little.. peachy,'' You turn around to place a hand on his chest to halt his movement, "You don't sound just peachy.. I've heard you like this before!" you hear Donghyuck make those noises he makes when he's thinking as Johnny keeps thrusting lazily the more you look at him, you see him open his mouth to speak, "Oh fuck! You're getting laid, aren't you???"

"Tell Hyuck daddy says hi"

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1-800-gaygentsofshield · 4 years ago

Text

you + me = ? | n.r.

summary: after the war you and Natasha settle down, deciding to start a family in your cozy little home. The problem is though, how many times can hope be ignited before it fully burns out?

warnings: (trying to get pregnant) reader, canon/sterile Nat, swearing, Nat and you cry, post-endgame, sprinkle of angst with a very fluffy ending

word count: 4,016

im having baby fever rn im so sorry

-flashback, pre-endgame-

"I wanna have a family." Your voice is barely above a whisper as you both look up at the night sky, laying in the garden atop the Avengers compound. "What?" Nat asks softly, breaking out of her trance as she looks at you. You're laying on her chest and her arm is wrapped your back, Nat's other arm folded up behind her head.

"I wanna have a family, with you." You repeat yourself, making eye contact with your girlfriend as her brows furrow. "Y/n.." Nat's voice is hesitant and panic floods your chest, your eyes widening as you move to sit up. "Oh my god I'm so sorry, that was so quick-" You apologize quickly as you avoid Natasha's gaze, the redhead sitting up with you.

You've dated Natasha for two years but everything has been slow, knowing how the assassin will close herself off if you try and move too fast (emotion wise).

"Hey Y/n no." Nat says softly as she looks at your side profile, a soft frown forming on her face as she sees you. "That's not the reason why." She says as she gently turns your head to face her, fingertips delicately grabbing your chin. "I do want to have a family with you, moya lyubov'..it's just that I can't." Nat whispers and you finally lock eyes with her, seeing the pain and sadness on her face. "What do you mean?' You ask carefully and she sighs, waiting a beat before deciding to tell you. "In the Red Room me and all of my other group mates were sterilized..it was like a sick graduation ceremony that prevented us from having a family of our own." She tells you and hurt immediately grips at your heart, seeing Nat avert her gaze for a moment.

"Why?" You question and she purses her lips together, one of your hands rubbing her knee gently. "So we would never have any distraction from our mission..so that our only purpose in life was to kill and be used as a weapon." Disgust drips from Nat's voice at the last part, your soft hands on her wrist bringing her back to reality. "Im so sorry Nat, I shouldn't have anything I didn't know-" You start to apologize again but Nat stops you with a soft shake of her head, a bittersweet smile on her face. "Don't apologize, Y/n. I'm the one who should be sorry for not being able to give you the family that you deserve." She says and now it's your turn to shake your head, grabbing Nat's hands and caressing them gently. "Its alright baby." You smile gently before an idea pops into your head, your eyes lighting up and Nat gives you a look of curiosity.

"Besides.." You start, gently tucking a strand of hair behind her ear. "If you really..truly..wanted a family with me, there could still be other options. Like adopting or getting a surrogate..or I could get pregnant instead." You suggest and Natasha's eyes light up like the stars in the night sky, a small laugh escaping your lips as you see the excitement on her face.

"Really?! You'd do that?" She asks and you nod your head, giving your girlfriend a soft kiss before laughing. "Mmhm, but you'd have to put a ring on it first, Miss Romanoff." You giggle and Nat wraps her arms around you again, both of you laying back down on the blanket. "Im planning to, future Mrs.Romanoff."

-present day, post-endgame-

You nervously pace around the bathroom as you wait for the three minutes to be up, Natasha sitting on the edge of the bathtub and observing you walk back and forth. The pregnancy test is laying by the sink and you can’t help but glance at it every few seconds, not having felt this nervous since battling Thanos and his army. You’ve faced gods, powerful Titans, super soldiers, but you’re sure this the most nerve wracking thing you’ve ever had to do. Once the timer on Natasha’s phone goes off, you practically jump towards the sink, Natasha leaning forward a bit more on the bathtub. Picking up the white and pink pregnancy test, you nervously turn it over in your hands, eyes scanning the small window for the results.

Natasha doesn’t even have to ask for the results when she sees your shoulders slump and your face drop, quickly getting up from the bathtub to wrap you up in her arms. Hugging you from behind, she can see the negative test in your hands, gently kissing your cheek when you don’t say anything. “It’s okay baby, we can try again.” She says softly and you shake your head, slowly placing the test down and closing your eyes.

“Nat, what if somethings wrong with me?” You whisper and her arms hug you closer, tears pooling under your eyelids in frustration. “Nothing is wrong with you malysh.” Natasha reassures you and you turn in her arms, releasing a shaky breath as you press your face into her neck. “Three times Nat..three fucking times..” You sigh and she only holds you closer, knowing how much hope the both of you had for this one. “I know, I know.” Nat hums softly as she rocks the two of you back and forth gently, feeling the hope starting to dwindle from you. “What if we just weren’t meant to have a biological children? What if we weren’t meant to have lives after the war?” You question out loud and Natasha pulls back, gently tilting your chin up so you can look her in the eyes. “Hey no, don’t say that. We were meant to have a family Y/n, biological or not.” Nat takes a pause to brush some hair out of your face.

“Let’s try one more time, okay? And if that doesn’t work then we can look into other options.” She continues and you think for a moment, not knowing if you could go through the hope and pain again. “Okay.” You whisper softly and Nat nods her head. “Okay.” She echos you before placing a gentle kiss on your forehead, pulling you back in for a hug.

————

Nat’s leg is bouncing up and down as she watches the timer tick down, only ten more seconds before you can check. This is the last try, all or nothing. You’re too anxious to pace this time, instead opting to sit next to Natasha and leaning into her as you watch her leg bounce. “You know..whatever happens, I love you.” Nat says softly when she sees you blankly stare at her knee, lost in thought about what’s going to happen. “I love you too.” You reply equally as soft as you look up at your wife, grabbing her hand and intertwining them slowly.

Leaning into each other, you both share a soft kiss, love shining through the small interaction. You both only pull away when the timer dings, Natasha rubbing your back as you sigh and get up. It feels like time slows down as you walk towards the sink, heart pounding in your chest as you reach out to grab the test. The bathroom is silent as you pick it up and flip it over, looking at the little window for the results. You’re silent as you look at the results, body frozen in place as you stare at the test. Natasha’s brows furrow and she gets up, sighing as she rubs her temples.

“Baby I’m so sorry-” “It’s positive.” You interrupt Nat midway through her sentence, your voice in disbelief as you see those two pink lines. “What?” Natasha asks, unsure if she heard you right. “It’s positive.” You repeat as you turn to face her, pregnancy test in hand as you smile from ear to ear. “You’re pregnant?” Natasha asks, almost in disbelief as she stares at you. “I’m pregnant.” You nod your head and Natasha immediately sweeps you up in her arms, hugging you right and picking you up from the ground. “Holy shit! We’re gonna have a baby!” Nat laughs as she spins you around, joyful giggles falling from your lips as you cling onto your wife.

“Oh my god we’re gonna have a baby.” Nat breathes out as she comes to a stop, quickly putting you down once the realization hits her brain. “Shit, you’re pregnant we need to be careful.” She says and you only laugh, pulling her down a bit to kiss her. “You don’t need to be that a careful dummy, but yes..I’m pregnant.”

————

“Tony gave us an iron man onesie.” You laugh as you hold up the tiny piece of clothing, Natasha grinning as she watches you. Even though the announcement was made a week ago, the gifts have been steadily pouring in, Tony insisting that he pays for the majority of the things that are needed for the new arrival.

He paid for the crib, the high chair, the car seat, most of the nursery, and all the bottles and toys a newborn could ask for. Pepper had a huge part in it too, having experience since bringing Morgan into the world. “That man is self centered.” Natasha laughs as she walks over to where you’re sitting, her heart full of love as she kneels down next to you.

“Mmhm.” You hum in agreement as you fold the article of clothing away, Natasha handing you the next gift. You’re about sixteen weeks along and you’re already showing, a small baby bump forming from your midsection. You both decided to wait until the second trimester to tell the rest of the team, wanting to enjoy the first few months in peace.

Natasha watches you wordlessly as you open a gift from Steve, a smile tugging on her lips as she sees the captain america pacifier. “I love you so much.” She blurts out randomly and your head turns to face her, a smile on your face as you gently kiss her.

“You’ve gone soft Romanoff.” You tease and she only laughs, gently kissing you again. “I blame you, you’ve made me domestic.” She grins and you roll your eyes, placing the gift to the side.

————

As the pregnancy goes along, you start to notice Natasha’s lack of touch, the redhead only going as far as running her hands through your hair or holding your shoulders. You have no idea what has gotten into her and you're determined to investigate, missing the way Natasha used to spoon and cuddle you all day.

Your questions were finally answered when one day you and Natasha were watching TV in bed, the redhead's arm slung around your shoulder as you lean into her. When the commercial break finally came on, you turned your head to look at your wife, curiosity written all over your face. "Why don't you cuddle me anymore, Nat?" You ask softly and she looks at you with confusion, lowering down the volume on the TV. "What do you mean? I cuddle you all the time baby." She says and you shake your head, reaching up and gently toying with her hair.

"Ever since I've gotten pregnant you've treated me like I could break at any moment, what are you so afraid of?" You question and Natasha sighs, glancing at her lap for a moment before answering. "With these hands I've done some awful things Y/n..things too horrific to say out loud. I feel like if I touch you or the baby I'll just ruin it, or hurt you..like everything else in my life." Nat confesses softly and your heart melts at how scared your wife is, knowing how much she's struggled with her past and with the red in her ledger. "Natasha Romanoff." You whisper, gently grabbing her hands to put them in between the two of you. "You are the kindest," You start, gently kissing her knuckle. "Most caring." another kiss, "Most selfless" another kiss, "Person I've ever met" another kiss. "And I know, with my whole heart and soul, you would never do anything to hurt me or the baby." You look up at her and gently rub your knuckles over the back of her hands. "So please stop acting like you will. These are the hands that I love, the hands that will raise our child, they're strong and secure, so stop thinking otherwise." You finish as you wordlessly move both your hands towards your belly, gently placing Natasha's hands over the bump.

The redhead is stunned as your hands rest over hers, the baby suddenly kicking. A wide smile spreads across your face as you both look down at your belly, the baby never having kicked before. "That was the first time they've ever kicked." You inform Natasha and you could see her still processing that fact. "That's our baby?" She asks softly and you laugh, nodding your head. "Mmhm, that's our baby. They recognized their mama." You say fondly as the baby kicks again, Natasha's heart bursting with warmth as she looks at you.

Slowly, Natasha moves to lay down on the bed, resting her head right beside your bump and holding it gently. "Hi malen'kiy golub'." She whispers softly, your hand coming down to gently play with her hair. You smile as you watch Natasha gently cuddle with your bump, knowing without a doubt that she's going to be a great mother.

-----

Placing the stuffed animals down on the table, you turn to look at Natasha, a giggle coming from your lips as you walk over to her. "What?" Nat grins as she turns to face you, putting the paintbrush down to the side.

"You're a mess." You laugh as you rub some pastel green paint from her cheek, both of you deciding that the nursery would be painted a light grey with a pastel green accent wall. "I'm still hot though." She teases and you only roll your eyes, cupping her face as you gently kiss her.

"Yeah yeah you're always hot." You laugh and Natasha looks around the room, grinning at the stack of Avenger's themed stuffed animals your team gave you. "They're all trying to be known as the cool uncle aren't they?" She asks softly and you nod your head, knowing that whatever Avenger your child takes after will forever have that bragging right.

"Let them have their fun, they're happy for us." You smile and Nat only sighs, shaking her head with a small smile on her face.

-----

You feel like Natasha was more anxious than you when you went into labour, your water breaking in the middle of the night. There wasn't any dramatic screaming or freaking out, you just calmly pushed the sheet back and let out a soft "huh" as you saw the damp bedsheets.

"Oh, okay we're doing this." You say before turning on the light, acting like it was any other day as you gently shake Natasha awake. "Nat, baby wake up." You whisper softly as Natasha stirs, squinting at the light once her eyes opened. "Y/n? What's wrong?" Nat mumbles sleepily as she rubs the sleep from her eyes, seeing you in a sitting up position.

"My water broke." You say and it takes a second for the words to process in Natasha's brain, the redhead suddenly sitting up and fully awake. "What? Okay okay it's happening. It's happening." Nat says as she pushes the sheets off herself, her mind immediately going to all the books she's read over the past nine months. You've already packed your hospital bags a few weeks in advance so you aren't too stressed about it, only needing to change and grab a few extra things. Natasha, on the other hand, is working on full overdrive, pulling on sweatpants and making sure everything is in order.

"Natasha, baby." You say as you gently grab her arm, needing your wife to slow down if you're going to survive the next few days. "You need to calm down my love." You say softly as you hold onto her shoulders, making the redhead look at you and take a few deep breaths. "Okay..okay. I'm sorry. I'm just nervous." Natasha admits and you nod your head, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear.

"It's okay to be nervous Nat, you just need so slow down. We haven't even gotten to the hospital yet." You laugh softly and she nods her head, waiting a few more moments before stepping back slowly. "Okay, let's have a baby."

---

Your head is resting back against Natasha's shoulder as she acts like a backrest to you, allowing you to grip onto her hand when your contractions hit. Nat has been nothing but supportive the entire time, humming reassuring words into your ear as the pain washes over your body.

"Fuck." You whimper once another round of contractions end, Natasha's hand coming up to gently push back the sweaty hairs sticking to your forehead. "You're doing amazing baby, I'm so proud of you." She hums and you sigh, closing your eyes as you feel your wife rub your back. It's quiet as you feel Natasha's hands move down to your bump, rubbing your stomach softly as she sighs.

"Come on malen'kiy golub, your mommies are so excited to meet you." Nat coos and you smile into her neck, warmth flooding your chest as you listen to her. "And I know all of your aunties and uncles are excited to meet you too. We're so excited to hug you, and kiss you, and watch you grow." She hums as she rubs small circles on your belly.

"So please come out before your mommy kills me." Both of you laugh and you snuggle more into Natasha's embrace. "You're going to be an amazing mom." You whisper and Nat grins, looking at you with a quirked eyebrow. "Yeah?" She asks and you nod your head. "Yeah..I couldn't have asked for a more amazing wife, best friend, and now..a mother to our daughter." You hum and Nat blushes, kissing you gently.

----

Your eyebrows furrow as you grip onto Natasha’s hand, pain coursing through your body as you deliver the baby. “You’re doing amazing y/n, almost there.” Nat says as you practically crush her hand, hiding the pain in her face as she watches you. "Congratulations, it's a healthy baby girl." The doctor announces as the baby's cries fill the room, your chest heaving as you lay back. Nat cuts the umbilical cord ("I've seen worst in Budapest") and they place the baby on your chest, draping a blanket over the two of you to keep you warm.

"Hi baby." You coo as you hold your child close to your chest, Natasha standing next to you with unshed tears in her eyes. You look up at her and sniffle (you're crying so hard at this point) as you see the look of awe on her face, smiling as you gently reach out to grab her hand. Softly placing her hand atop of the baby's blanketed back, she slowly moves her thumb, the child's cries quieting at both of her mother's touch. Nat is speechless as she watches the tiny newborn cling onto your chest, loving the warmth radiating off of your body.

"She's a boob man, just like her mama." Nat whispers and you laugh, that being the first thing that comes to her mind. Your child's hand slowly comes up and wraps her fingers around Natasha's thumb, that being the breaking point for the tears as they finally fall down her cheek.

----

"Are you gonna hold her or are you just going to stare at me?" You ask as Natasha watches you and Mila sit on the bed, the two of you now alone with your child. Natasha looks hesitant as she walks over to you, never feeling so nervous as you look up at her.

"You aren't going to break her Nat." You say and Nat's eyebrows furrow, seeing the tiny infant look up at her with Y/c/e. The baby took from both you and Natasha, having scarlet red hair from her and beautiful y/c/e from you. "I just don't know..I mean what if I drop her? What if I do something wrong?" Nat worries her bottom lip between her teeth and you only beckon her to come closer, scooting over so she can sit on the hospital bed.

"You won't Nat, I promise." You reassure her and she slowly sits down on the bed, following your instructions as she places her hands out. Gently transferring the baby into her arms, you smile as Mila looks up at her mama, letting out a soft "gah". "See? She loves you already." You hum as you rub Mila's hair gently, seeing the love on Natasha's face. "Hi Mila." Nat breathes out as you rest your head on her shoulder, watching your wife interact with the baby. The tears return to Natasha's eyes as the newborn looks up at her, her emotions going everywhere as she processes that this is her child, her little bundle of joy that she gets the privilege of sharing with you. "Thank you." Nat whispers out as she looks at you, a smile on her face as she sniffles.

"For what?" You question and she only kisses you softly, smile still on her face as she pulls away. "For giving me another reason to live for." She whispers and her statement covers a wide range, thank you for being her wife, thank you for giving her a chance, thank you for her daughter, thank you for giving her the family she's always wanted, just thank you.

----

Mila's cries ring out through your room and pierce your eardrums, rousing you and Nat from your slumber.

"Mm, I've got it." You sleepily mumble out of instinct as you start to get up, now used to getting woken up in the dead of night.

Mila still doesn't have a sleep schedule since she's a newborn so sometime's she'll sleep for a few hours and other times only for ten minutes.

This time around though, you get gently pushed back onto the bed by Natasha, feeling a comforting kiss placed on your temple as your wife gets up. "I've got it, moya lyubov'." She whispers and you don't have enough energy to resist, watching as Nat walks over to the bassinet. "Hi malen'kiy golub, you have a healthy set of lungs don't you?" Nat mumbles sleepily as she pulls the newborn from the crib, cradling the baby to her chest and gently rocking her back and forth. "Yeah I know, it's okay baby. It's okay, mama's got you." She hums as the baby's cries slowly die down, you still sitting on the bed as you watch your wife in awe. "Your mommies need their sleep huh little one, that sounds nice doesn't it." Nat yawns and you cant help but smile.

"But don't worry, every time you wake up we'll be here okay? We'll love you and hug you each time you cry. And I'm gonna protect you, malen'kiy golub. I won't let anything happen to you or your mommy, I promise." Natasha coos as she continues to rock Mila, not noticing how you're wide awake now. It's a soft, quiet vow, spoken in the dead of night, that Natasha will protect her family with everything she has in her..and it makes you fall more in love with her, if that's even possible.

Getting up, you make your way over to your wife, gently placing your hands on her shoulders to notify her of your presence. She knew you were coming as soon as she heard the bedsheets rustle, even in her tired state she was looking out for the two of you. "Hi." Nat greets you softly and you only hum, a tired smile on your face as you rest your head on her shoulder. Your hand comes up and is gently placed on Mila's back, rubbing soft circles on her onesie. Natasha's heart swells as she looks at her small family, smiling when you kiss her cheek. "I love you." You whisper before looking down at your daughter. "And I love you too." You hum, gently kissing her fiery red hair. Nat kisses your temple gently and closes her eyes, finally at peace with her daughter in her arms and you at her side.

#natasha romanoff x reader #natasha romanoff x y/n #natasha romanoff x you #natasha romanoff #marvel #black widow #mcu #black widow x reader

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qqueenofhades · 4 years ago

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Hi. I’m curious. What did you mean by “women who read fiction might get Bad Ideas!!!” has just reached its latest and stupidest form via tumblr purity culture.? I haven’t seen any of this but I’m new to tumblr.

Oh man. You really want to get me into trouble on, like, my first day back, don’t you?

Pretty much all of this has been explained elsewhere by people much smarter than me, so this isn’t necessarily going to say anything new, but I’ll do my best to synthesize and summarize it. As ever, it comes with the caveat that it is my personal interpretation, and is not intended as the be-all, end-all. You’ll definitely run across it if you spend any time on Tumblr (or social media in general, including Twitter, and any other fandom-related spaces). This will get long.

In short: in the nineteenth century, when Gothic/romantic literature became popular and women were increasingly able to read these kinds of novels for fun, there was an attendant moral panic over whether they, with their weak female brains, would be able to distinguish fiction from reality, and that they might start making immoral or inappropriate choices in their real life as a result. Obviously, there was a huge sexist and misogynistic component to this, and it would be nice to write it off entirely as just hysterical Victorian pearl-clutching, but that feeds into the “lol people in the past were all much stupider than we are today” kind of historical fallacy that I often and vigorously shut down. (Honestly, I’m not sure how anyone can ever write the “omg medieval people believed such weird things about medicine!” nonsense again after what we’ve gone through with COVID, but that is a whole other rant.) The thinking ran that women shouldn’t read novels for fear of corrupting their impressionable brains, or if they had to read novels at all, they should only be the Right Ones: i.e., those that came with a side of heavy-handed and explicit moralizing so that they wouldn’t be tempted to transgress. Of course, books trying to hammer their readers over the head with their Moral Point aren’t often much fun to read, and that’s not the point of fiction anyway. Or at least, it shouldn’t be.

Fast-forward to today, and the entire generation of young, otherwise well-meaning people who have come to believe that being a moral person involves only consuming the “right” kind of fictional content, and being outrageously mean to strangers on the internet who do not agree with that choice. There are a lot of factors contributing to this. First, the advent of social media and being subject to the judgment of people across the world at all times has made it imperative that you demonstrate the “right” opinions to fit in with your peer-group, and on fandom websites, that often falls into a twisted, hyper-critical, so-called “progressivism” that diligently knows all the social justice buzzwords, but has trouble applying them in nuance, context, and complicated real life. To some extent, this obviously is not a bad thing. People need to be critical of the media they engage with, to know what narratives the creator(s) are promoting, the tropes they are using, the conclusions that they are supporting, and to be able to recognize and push back against genuinely harmful content when it is produced – and this distinction is critical – by professional mainstream creators. Amateur, individual fan content is another kettle of fish. There is a difference between critiquing a professional creator (though social media has also made it incredibly easy to atrociously abuse them) and attacking your fellow fan and peer, who is on the exact same footing as you as a consumer of that content.

Obviously, again, this doesn’t mean that you can’t call out people who are engaging in actually toxic or abusive behavior, fans or otherwise. But certain segments of Tumblr culture have drained both those words (along with “gaslighting”) of almost all critical meaning, until they’re applied indiscriminately to “any fictional content that I don’t like, don’t agree with, or which doesn’t seem to model healthy behavior in real life” and “anyone who likes or engages with this content.” Somewhere along the line, a reactionary mindset has been formed in which the only fictional narratives or relationships are those which would be “acceptable” in real life, to which I say…. what? If I only wanted real life, I would watch the news and only read non-fiction. Once again, the underlying fear, even if it’s framed in different terms, is that the people (often women) enjoying this content can’t be trusted to tell the difference between fiction and reality, and if they like “problematic” fictional content, they will proceed to seek it out in their real life and personal relationships. And this is just… not true.

As I said above, critical media studies and thoughtful consumption of entertainment are both great things! There have been some great metas written on, say, the Marvel Cinematic Universe and how it is increasingly relying on villains who have outwardly admirable motives (see: the Flag Smashers in The Falcon and the Winter Soldier) who are then stigmatized by their anti-social, violent behavior and attacks on innocent people, which is bad even as the heroes also rely on violence to achieve their ends. This is a clever way to acknowledge social anxieties – to say that people who identify with the Flag Smashers are right, to an extent, but then the instant they cross the line into violence, they’re upsetting the status quo and need to be put down by the heroes. I watched TFATWS and obviously enjoyed it. I have gone on a Marvel re-watching binge recently as well. I like the MCU! I like the characters and the madcap sci-fi adventures! But I can also recognize it as a flawed piece of media that I don’t have to accept whole-cloth, and to be able to criticize some of the ancillary messages that come with it. It doesn’t have to be black and white.

When it comes to shipping, moreover, the toxic culture of “my ship is better than your ship because it’s Better in Real Life” ™ is both well-known and in my opinion, exhausting and pointless. As also noted, the whole point of fiction is that it allows us to create and experience realities that we don’t always want in real life. I certainly enjoy plenty of things in fiction that I would definitely not want in reality: apocalyptic space operas, violent adventures, and yes, garbage men. A large number of my ships over the years have been labeled “unhealthy” for one reason or another, presumably because they don’t adhere to the stereotype of the coffee-shop AU where there’s no tension and nobody ever makes mistakes or is allowed to have serious flaws. And I’m not even bagging on coffee-shop AUs! Some people want to remove characters from a violent situation and give them that fluff and release from the nonstop trauma that TV writers merrily inflict on them without ever thinking about the consequences. Fanfiction often focuses on the psychology and healing of characters who have been through too much, and since that’s something we can all relate to right now, it’s a very powerful exercise. As a transformative and interpretive tool, fanfic is pretty awesome.

The problem, again, comes when people think that fic/fandom can only be used in this way, and that going the other direction, and exploring darker or complicated or messy dynamics and relationships, is morally bad. As has been said before: shipping is not activism. You don’t get brownie points for only having “healthy” ships (and just my personal opinion as a queer person, these often tend to be heterosexual white ships engaging in notably heteronormative behavior) and only supporting behavior in fiction that you think is acceptable in real life. As we’ve said, there is a systematic problem in identifying what that is. Ironically, for people worried about Women Getting Ideas by confusing fiction and reality, they’re doing the same thing, and treating fiction like reality. Fiction is fiction. Nobody actually dies. Nobody actually gets hurt. These people are not real. We need to normalize the idea of characters as figments of a creator’s imagination, not actual people with their own agency. They exist as they are written, and by the choice of people whose motives can be scrutinized and questioned, but they themselves are not real. Nor do characters reflect the author’s personal views. Period.

This feeds into the fact that the internet, and fandom culture, is not intended as a “safe space” in the sense that no questionable or triggering content can ever be posted. Archive of Our Own, with its reams of scrupulous tagging and requests for you to explicitly click and confirm that you are of age to see M or E-rated content, is a constant target of the purity cultists for hosting fictional material that they see as “immoral.” But it repeatedly, unmistakably, directly asks you for your consent to see this material, and if you then act unfairly victimized, well… that’s on you. You agreed to look at this, and there are very few cases where you didn’t know what it entailed. Fandom involves adults creating contents for adults, and while teenagers and younger people can and do participate, they need to understand this fact, rather than expecting everything to be a PG Disney movie.

When I do write my “dark” ships with garbage men, moreover, they always involve a lot of the man being an idiot, being bluntly called out for an idiot, and learning healthier patterns of behavior, which is one of the fundamental patterns of romance novels. But they also involve an element of the woman realizing that societal standards are, in fact, bullshit, and she can go feral every so often, as a treat. But even if I wrote them another way, that would still be okay! There are plenty of ships and dynamics that I don’t care for and don’t express in my fic and fandom writing, but that doesn’t mean I seek out the people who do like them and reprimand them for it. I know plenty of people who use fiction, including dark fiction, in a cathartic way to process real-life trauma, and that’s exactly the role – one of them, at least – that fiction needs to be able to fulfill. It would be terribly boring and limited if we were only ever allowed to write about Real Life and nothing else. It needs to be complicated, dark, escapist, unreal, twisted, and whatever else. This means absolutely zilch about what the consumers of this fiction believe, act, or do in their real lives.

Once more, I do note the misogyny underlying this. Nobody, after all, seems to care what kind of books or fictional narratives men read, and there’s no reflection on whether this is teaching them unhealthy patterns of behavior, or whether it predicts how they’ll act in real life. (There was some of that with the “do video games cause mass shootings?”, but it was a straw man to distract from the actual issues of toxic masculinity and gun culture.) Certain kinds of fiction, especially historical fiction, romance novels, and fanfic, are intensely gendered and viewed as being “women’s fiction” and therefore hyper-criticized, while nobody’s asking if all the macho-man potboiler military-intrigue tough-guy stereotypical “men’s fiction” is teaching them bad things. So the panic about whether your average woman on the internet is reading dark fanfic with an Unhealthy Ship (zomgz) is, in my opinion, misguided at best, and actively destructive at worst.

#long post #anonymous #ask

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yourcooladdiction · 4 years ago

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i didn’t have a back-up plan | bucky barnes

summary: reader x bucky break-up but nothing one of tony’s infamous galas can’t fix ;)

pairings: bucky barnes x female reader

warnings: 18+ only pls!! (smut, unprotected sex, public sex), angsty, little bit of fluff, jealous bucky, cuss words

You’re sitting at the kitchen table with your head cradled in both of your hands. Your cheeks are stained from the hour's worth of tears and for a second you are so glad you didn’t put on any mascara this morning. You hear the screeching sound of a chair pulling out across from you and you refuse to look up. You’ve been going at it for hours now.

He just got back from a three-month-long mission, and everything had been fine until he told you how long he was going to be gone this time. You couldn’t do another three, four, maybe even five months without seeing him. You’ve been together for almost two years, yet it seems like you’ve only physically been with him for maybe 4-5 months. You didn’t expect much from this relationship. You knew when you met him it was going to be hard, and if you’re being honest, you didn’t think it was going to last this long…but there was something about him you couldn’t get over. You fell for him hard and now you are dealing with the consequences. You weren’t accustomed to his lifestyle, and you knew you’d never adapt to it. Being an Avenger isn’t something you just sign up for and it’s certainly not for everyone. He didn’t force the lifestyle upon you, he never forced you to Tony’s lavish parties even though he wanted you to but he knew you’d be too uncomfortable. He loved you. You knew that. You loved him. He knew that. But you knew he deserved more, someone like him, and you deserved someone more like you, with nothing too special about them.

“You want to yell at me some more?” You ask.

“Doll...” His tone is cold and emotionless. You know where this is going. You both have known where this is going.

“Do you think we need to break up?” the words escape his lips, and you finally glance up at him.

“If that’s what you want.” You state.

His shocked response is not what you were expecting.

“What do you want? Do you want this to work? Do you love me?” His tone now filled with sincerity. Where the fuck has this been the past two hours you think to yourself. You could’ve sworn you were taking the words out of his mouth, you wanted to beat him to it. But his puzzled look is telling you otherwise, telling you he doesn’t want this at all.

“Bucky, we haven’t been doing well for so long. It’s just... it’s just not working. Our lives do not mesh together anymore. You are all over the place and I can’t drop everything when convenient for you.” You explain your decision and he sits back in his chair.

“I’ve never once expected you to ‘drop your life for me.’ Jesus fucking Christ.” His tone back to irritated. There he is. There’s the Bucky that you’ve been dealing with for the past few hours and the past few months.

“We fight all the fucking time! That’s all we’ve done for months! When you’re gone it’s over the phone or in text, when you’re here it’s in person. Nothing has changed. Nothing helps. It’s not fucking working.” Your voice cracks and his eyes begin to water.

“I... I love you, I don’t want this to end. We can work on this. I can work on this. I can tell Sam I need a break and take some time off.” He attempts to save himself and you shake your head.

“Buck – I love you but I’m holding you back. You need to be with someone who understands your world and I- I’m just not that person.” You try to fight back the stream of tears and he drops his head in defeat.

He attempts to save himself one more time as his mouth opens but nothing comes out. You stare deeply into his piercing eyes. Trying to memorize his face. Trying to memorize him.

He stands up from the table and stops beside you. He reaches down and squeezes your hand. You squeeze back and glance up at him one last time. His eyes fill with tears once more and he takes off to the door. You sit there and force yourself to stare at the now empty seat across from you. You hear the door shut and the floodgates of emotions hits. You sit there for the longest time. Tears and tears flow down your face. Your heart has found a new home in the pit of your stomach. Your eyes eventually dry up and you know that this was the right decision. It was never going to work…

You are pulled out of your poorly timed reminiscing when your date reaches out and grabs ahold of your hand,

“Ready babe?” He asks.

You force a smile and step out of the car.

You find it oh so incredibly ironic that your work is co-hosting one of Tony’s infamous charity galas. After you and Bucky broke up you landed a big-time PR job which involved working the one and only…avengers. You haven’t seen Bucky since the breakup but he had to know that you were practically working for the team by now. You had wondered how long you two could avoid each other, it was bound to happen eventually.

Nevertheless, 8 months post break up...here you are. The guy you’ve been seeing, a stockbroker on Wall Street was more than eager to be your date to this event. He wouldn’t shut up about the networking opportunity, and a chance to “meet the avengers.” Eyeroll.

You, on the other hand, didn’t want to go. You’ve been staring at the guestlist for weeks, well, you’ve been staring at one particular name on the guestlist for weeks. You’ve been racking your brain on why he would come to this event. He usually never goes to these stupid gala events, but yet he is attending a random gala…that you are in charge of…come on. You also find it convenient that he had a plus one beside his name. Of course, he does. He’s Bucky Barnes, why wouldn’t he have a date.

You and your date walk the imitation red carpet that’s laid out. You are the chair of this event so you have to pose for pictures and stop for questions. You hated this part of your job, you just wanted to be behind the scenes but unfortunately, people love you and your work, so they want to know all about you at all times.

You make it through the interviews and pull your date inside. He is enjoying this publicity a little too much. You find some co-workers/friends and push him off on them, and quickly head to the bar to get the strongest drink possible.

You order a dry martini with extra gin and take a sip.

“Some things don’t change, hm doll?”

You stand there frozen. The accent. The beautiful Brooklyn accent that you miss every fucking day. Those six words send chills down your back. The way “doll” flowed off his lips. This fucker. You take a deep breath and pray your makeup has remained in tack and your hair looks good from behind.

You slowly turn around and are met with those deep blue eyes. His hair was much shorter than the last time you saw him, but still so damn handsome. The scruff along his chin almost makes you drool because you miss the feeling of it against your skin. Your eyes make their way back up to him and he is smiling.

“Hi,” he says.

“Hi.” You say back.

“You look...fantastic,” he smirks.

You bought this dress specifically for tonight. For this moment. You got it in his favorite color because you wanted him to see you and admit you looked good. You give yourself an internal high five before responding to him.

“Thank you, so do you.” You gesture at his tux. One of your favorite looks on him.

“I-uh-I hope that it’s not weird that I am here,” he says as he takes a step into you.

“Oh, no. Not at all. I am glad you’re here.”

You quickly realize what you said and try to recover,

“SO you can take part in the donations! The more avengers the merrier!” You laugh nervously

You idiot.

He chuckles at you and shakes his head.

“Is there somewhere more private we can talk?” He asks.

“Uh-I shouldn’t. I have to-“

“Oh right, yes, of course, you’re working. Well, maybe we can meet up before the night is over? I would love to catch up,” his voice is almost a whisper as he is only a few centimes from you. You can smell his unique scent. You used to joke that if he could bottle it up and sell it he wouldn’t have to run off and save the world every other day.

“Yeah, mhm, enjoy your night!” You respond and walk off.

An hour or so passes as you get caught talking to other donors before you can make your way back to your date. He is completely sloshed and making a fool of himself. Great. You call him an Uber and tell him he has to leave. He doesn’t take this very well and begins yelling at you. You and a few co-workers manage to get him outside as you wait for the Uber but he continues yelling at you.

“You’re just a fucking bitch! Get over your fucking metal-arm freak of an ex and you will be happy! I could make you so happy!” He says as he points a finger in your face.

Before you can respond a man quickly jumps in between the two of you and slams him into a wall

“Call her a bitch again and I will kill you, yeah?”

Your date's eyes go wide, and he runs off to the Uber as it pulls up.

“Bucky, what in the absolute fuck is wrong with you?” You yell and he chuckles.

“Really? I just helped you with that fucking asshole and you want to yell at me?”

Without thinking you take ahold of Bucky’s hand and pull him inside and off to a side room. You slam the door behind them both of you and he takes a few steps inside before turning around to face you. You cross your arms along your chest and tell yourself to be calm, give him a chance to explain himself, but as he opens his mouth you cut him off.

“What the fuck are you doing here, James?” You question

A smile splays across his face as you use his first name. He takes a few steps towards you, attempting to close the gap. You slowly take a step or two back still allowing the distance between the two of you. He smirks as he realizes what you’re doing.

“Well doll, if you must know. I needed to see you He says. His accent was thicker than before, which is a clear indicator he’s been enjoying the open bar or some Asgardian liquor or both.

“What about your plus one? Where is she, hm?” You question.

“You mean Sam? Yeah, I’m sure he’s having a great time in there.” He chuckles.

Of fucking course it’s Sam.

“Why was Sam not on the – oh forget it, we aren’t together anymore Buck, you don’t get to just show up and call me doll and pretend that everything is normal.” You sigh.

“Why not?” He asks playfully.

“We broke up, Bucky.” You sigh once more.

“Yeah and?”

“And!? And YOU walked away” You scoff

“Are you fuckin’ kidding me, doll?” His voice irritated.

“No, I’m not fucking kidding ‘you.” You tilt your head and mock his accent. His eyes narrow and the muscles in his jaw clench. You forgot how fucking sexy he is when he’s mad.

You two stare at each other for a few seconds as if you’re having a contest. Your emotions begin to overwhelm you and you feel the tears swelling in your eyes. You look down in defeat and you hear him let out a small sigh.

“Love.” His voice cracks. Fuck. You can’t hold the tears back any longer and you feel them fall down your cheek. You look back up at him and his eyes are bloodshot too.

“I fucked up, doll.” He mutters.

“Yeah. You did.”

“I know I did! I know! I should have stayed and fought for you. I know that now. I am sorry. But I’m here now. I’ve been working on this little plan for weeks now, to see you and –“

“No! No, no. You can’t do this. You don’t get to do this.” You interrupt, you wipe a tear away, and turn around to leave.

“It wasn't just me, doll! What about you, huh? You couldn’t adjust to my lifestyle yet you’ve been parading around all the other avengers for the past 8 months. Helping Tony with these bullshit galas!” He challenges.

You spin around and narrow your gaze at him.

“It’s my job.” You defend yourself.

“Yeah? I was your fucking boyfriend, not a lot of effort given there though?”

“Oh, fuck you, Bucky. Fuck. You.” You ridicule.

You both stare at each other down. Waiting for the next one to say something. You are soon questioning why you were so excited to see him tonight. Why you picked out this specific dress. Why you enjoyed it when he defended you against your douchebag date. You feel another tear fall and you quickly wipe it away.

“I should’ve tried harder. I’m sorry. I couldn’t handle the distance and I gave up on us too easily because I was scared and I’m sorry.” You finally confess.

He stares at you. Contemplating what you just said. His jaw is still clenched, and both of his hands are stuffed into his pockets. The silence is almost deafening, and you turn to leave as your heart can’t take this anymore. 8 months later and you’re still not over him. You’ll never be over him.

Bucky grabs your hand as you begin to turn and spins you back around to face him.

“Doll, I miss you. God, I fucking miss you.” He croaks.

Before you can speak his lips crash against yours. He quickly has you pushed against the wall as he deepens the kiss. You moan as you feel his tongue enter into your mouth. You wrap your hands in his brown locks and attempt to pull him further into you. He slides a leg in between yours and you moan as he grazes your sweet spot.

“Buck, we’re in public-“ you let out a raspy moan.

“I need you, please.” He groans.

And with that, you’re gone. You give in to whatever he wants. He slips off the straps of your dress and you step out of it, he takes you in as if it was the very first time seeing you. You attempt to cover yourself up, you haven’t been this exposed since the last time you were together.

“Don’t,” he demands.

He lifts your chin with his finger and places the sweetest kiss on your lips.

“You’re so beautiful.” He whispers.

“Buck, I haven’t- I haven’t been with anyone else.” You admit.

“Me either, baby. I couldn’t bring myself to think about anyone but you. You’re all I’ve ever wanted. Let me show you how much I've missed you."

This time the tears swelling in your eyes were happy ones. He smiles as he finally renders you speechless. He wipes the tear away and kisses you once more. The kiss goes back to heated and passionate. You reach for his belt buckle, and he groans as your hands brush up against his erect member. He pulls his bow tie off and quickly unbuttons his shirt. He slips off his pants and underwear and once again has you pushed against the door. He begins kissing down your neck as he slips off your bra. He hooks a finger into your underwear, and you moan as his hands slide down your thighs.

“You ready?” He asks

All you can do is nod as the sight of him is enough to make you come.

He hoists you up against the door and you wrap your legs around him as he slips himself inside of you.

“Fuck, baby girl.” He groans.

“Buck – Jesus.” You cry out as he fills you up. He stills as he thinks he hurts you and pulls away to check on you,

“Move, please.” You giggle and he nuzzles his head into your neck and begins peppering kisses along your collarbone.

He thrusts himself in and out of you at an unrelenting pace. Anyone else would probably be embarrassed with how quickly you’re about to fall apart but you don’t care. You’ve missed this touch for months. You’ve craved it for months. You knew you needed him again. You just needed to realize it.

“Y-you close baby? I’m so close. Fuck.” He moans.

You attempt to speak but all that comes out is a loud moan of his name. He smiles at how easily you fall apart for him. He’s always loved this effect he’s had on you. Even though you held your own, there was something about Bucky that made you putty in his hands. He knew he had to get that feeling back. He knew the second he walked out he wanted to come back. He almost did. He stood outside your door for the longest time but couldn’t bring himself to knock. He knew you’d come back to him. He knew he’d find you again and you two couldn’t help but get back together. You were meant to be.

“Fuck, I’m-“ is all you get out as your orgasm takes over.

“That’s it, doll. Let go. Fuck. I love you. I love you so much.” He praises you as you clench around his cock.

Your head spins as you see stars. With a few more sloppy thrusts, Bucky is moaning your name as he lets go inside of you. He slowly places you back down on the ground and kisses you all over.

“Are you okay?” He asks.

“I love you.” You say as you lean up to steal a kiss.

He smirks against your lips and wraps his arms around your waist. You two stand there in each other’s embrace.

“Can we make this work? Can you be mine again?” He whispers

“Yes.” You smile.

“Good, I didn’t have a backup plan if you said no.” He smirks and you laugh.

“Let’s get dressed. I’m sure everyone heard us.” You roll your eyes.

“Hey that’s never bothered you before,” he teases.

#bucky barnes smut #bucky barnes imagine #bucky barnes x female reader #bucky barnes x reader #bucky barnes x yn #bucky barnes x you #bucky barnes fanfiction #bucky barnes fanfic #bucky barnes angst #bucky barnes one shot

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sineala · 3 years ago

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Tony Stark and Arthuriana

Coming to you by special request, a very long post about 616 Tony's interest in Arthuriana, with a focus on all of Tony's run-ins with Morgan le Fay!

I feel like I should disclaim the extent of my knowledge here, which is that I still haven't managed to read anywhere near every issue of Iron Man -- at least, not yet, anyway -- so I'm just going by the things I know I've read, and Morgan le Fay's Marvel wiki entry is frustratingly under-cited, so it's very possible I've missed something relevant, but I'm pretty sure I've got the big stuff down. My other disclaimer here is that I'm not as big an Arthurian nerd as Tony is, which is to say that most of my familiarity comes from modern retellings -- T. H. White's The Once and Future King, Marion Zimmer Bradley's The Mists of Avalon, Mary Stewart's The Crystal Cave, Rosemary Sutcliff's Sword at Sunset -- and not so much the usual classic sources on the Matter of Britain, though I've read bits and pieces of them.

(This is because I wanted to read versions of them that were as close to the original as possible but so far have not ended up finishing any of them because, well, that's hard. So I've never read the Mabinogion because I do not know Welsh. I've got the Norton Critical Edition of Malory's Le Morte d'Arthur, which is probably the best student edition if you're looking for something without modernized spellings, as I was. I've also got -- well, okay, it's my wife's but I'm borrowing it -- a relatively recent Boydell & Brewer edition (ed. Reeve, tr. Wright) of Geoffrey of Monmouth's Historia Regum Britanniae (History of the Kings of Britain), which is, you guessed it, in Latin with a facing English translation. I haven't gotten very far in it because, in case you didn't know this about Latin texts, the beginning is pretty much always the hardest, so I gave up and read some Plautus adaptations instead. Anyway, if for some reason you too want to read Geoffrey of Monmouth in the original Latin I'd recommend that one, but I can't recommend any particular English translations because I've never read one by itself. I bet you didn't think you'd be getting Latin prose recommendations in this post. I mean, maybe you did; it is me, after all.)

Okay. Right. King Arthur. Here we go.

We've got:

Flashbacks to Tony's childhood in late Iron Man volume 1

A brief discussion of Morgan's origin story and Avengers #187

Iron Man vol 1 #149-150: Doomquest

What If vol 1 #33: What if Iron Man was trapped in the time of King Arthur?

Iron Man vol 1 #249-250: Recurring Knightmare

Iron Man: Legacy of Doom #1-4

Avengers vol 3 #1-4: The Morgan Conquest

Civil War: The Confession

Mighty Avengers vol 1 #9-11: Time Is On No One's Side

In terms of universe-internal chronology, we know from Iron Man #287, from 1992, that Tony has been a fan of King Arthur since childhood. This is an issue of a fandom-favorite arc which features Tony having a lot of childhood flashbacks, including the famous "Stark men are made of iron" line (in #286) that for some reason MCU fandom decided it loved; I mean, seriously, I've seen that quoted in way more MCU fic than 616 fic. But slightly later, in #287, we get an entire page devoted to Tony's love of King Arthur.

The narration reads: "Over the next few years, I learned as my father intended. Discipline of body. Strength of character. But in what free time I was allowed, I worked my way through the school's library. At thirteen, I discovered Mallory [sic], who showed me a whole new world. A world of dedication to a cause greater than oneself. Of chivalry and honor. And the fantastic deeds -- of armored heroes."

The art shows Tony as a child sitting under a tree, reading a book labeled Mort D'Arthur by Mallory [sic] -- no, don't ask me why nobody at Marvel checked how to spell either the name of the book or its author -- and daydreaming of King Arthur, the Sword in the Stone, knights, et cetera. Just in case you somehow missed the extremely blatant hint that we are meant to understand that Tony's knight obsession heavily influenced him becoming Iron Man as an adult, we see one of his armors mixed in with all the drawings of knights. So, yes, canonically Tony is Iron Man at least partly because he's a giant King Arthur nerd, which I think is so very sweet. I love him. He's such a dork!

(This issue is currently in print in the Iron Man Epic Collection War Machine, should you need your own copy.)

This isn't actually the only reference to Tony as a King Arthur fanboy in this era of canon, either; a little later, in IM #298, we see that one of Tony's passwords is actually "Mallory." (Yeah, no, they still couldn't spell. But it's cute.)

But in terms of actual publication order, this is definitely not the first time we have seen in canon that Tony is into Arthuriana, as I'm sure you all know. I would assume, in fact, that giving Tony a childhood interest in Arthuriana is because Doomquest is one of the most beloved Iron Man story arcs of all time, and that all started at least a decade before IM #287 here was published.

The villain of Doomquest -- the one who isn't Doctor Doom, at least -- is Morgan le Fay. Yes, that Morgan le Fay. Yes, Arthur's evil half-sister Morgan le Fay. Yes, all of this King Arthur stuff is canonically real history on Earth-616. Morgan's first appearance in Marvel, per the wiki, was in Black Knight #1 (1955), which I have not read, and judging by the summary I feel like this is probably just supposed to be a straight-up comic retelling of Arthurian legends for kids; I don't think Marvel really had the whole Marvel Universe in mind as a concept in 1955, so I'm not sure this was meant to connect to anything else. I feel like this is another one of those instances of Marvel discovering that they can write comics about characters in the public domain for free -- like, I'm pretty sure that's how we also ended up with, like, Norse, Greek, and Roman mythology wedged into 616.

As far as I can tell from the wiki, the first time Morgan tangled with the Avengers (or indeed the larger 616 universe) in any way actually predated Doomquest -- it was in an early arc in Spider-Woman (#2-6) and then Avengers #187, which came out in 1979, actually right when Demon in a Bottle was happening over in Iron Man comics. If you read #187, Iron Man is not in it because he's off the team due to his drinking problem and also his accidentally murdering the Carnelian ambassador problem. So Wonder Man's filling in instead. This issue is part of Michelinie's rather sporadic Avengers run, which makes sense, I guess, considering where we see Morgan next.

Anyway, Avengers #187 is the classic issue where Wanda is possessed by Chthon, but what you may not remember from Chthon's backstory (I sure didn't!) is that he was summoned by Morgan le Fay because she was the first person who tried to wield the Darkhold to summon him. As you can imagine, this did not work out especially well for her and her followers and they had to seal Chthon away in Wundagore Mountain, which was where Wanda found him. (The Spider-Woman stuff is only slightly earlier and also appears to be about Morgan and the Darkhold; the Darkhold is not one of the areas of 616 canon I am especially conversant with, alas. It's on my to-read list.)

Doomquest, as you probably know, was a classic Iron Man two-parter in Layton & Michelinie's first Iron Man run that set up Tony and Doom as rivals; Doomquest itself was IM #149-150, in 1981, and then in their second IM run they came back and did a sequel in 1989, Recurring Knightmare (IM #249-250), and then the much later four-part sequel to that was the 2008 miniseries Iron Man: Legacy of Doom, which was also by Layton & Michelinie but generally does not seem to be as popular as the first two parts. They've all been reprinted, if you're looking for copies; I have a Doomquest hardcover that collects the first four issues and then a separate Legacy of Doom hardcover. Currently in the Iron Man Epic Collection line there's a volume called Doom, which confusingly only collects the 249-250 part of the storyline (as well as surrounding issues), because for some reason the first Layton & Michelinie run isn't in Epics yet but the second one is. So the beginning of Doomquest isn't currently in print, as far as I can tell. I'm sure you can find it anyway.

So what's Doomquest about? Okay, so you remember how Doctor Doom's mother's soul is stuck in hell for all eternity? Well, Doom's obviously interested in getting her back, and the strategy he has embarked on is to try to team up with other powerful magicians who can help him out, and he thinks Morgan le Fay would be a good choice, for, uh, his quest. Doom's quest. A Doomquest, if you will. (If you've ever read Doctor Strange & Doctor Doom: Triumph & Torment, you're familiar with the part where he later ends up waylaying Strange for this and they go to hell together. And if you haven't read Triumph & Torment, you really should, because it's amazing.)

So Doom is off to his time machine to go team up with Morgan le Fay and Tony thinks Doom is up to something -- Doom has been stealing components for his time machine from a lot of people, including Tony -- and he follows him and it turns out one of Doom's lackeys has a grudge and wants to trap Doom in the past forever, and Tony gets caught up in it. Now they're both in Camelot. Surprise! #149 is actually all setup; they don't get to Camelot until #150.

IM #150 begins with Doom and Tony thrown back into the past; there's a fandom-famous splash page of them locked in combat, only to realize that they have found themselves in Camelot.

They are then discovered by knights; Doom would very much like to attack them, but Tony, who naturally would be happy to LARP Camelot forever, persuades him to play nice. Also Doom thinks Iron Man is only Tony's bodyguard so he keeps referring to him as "lackey," much to Tony's annoyance. Somehow everyone thinks they're sorcerers. Can't imagine why. The knights take them to meet King Arthur himself, and Tony has clearly had his introduction all ready to go, as he introduces himself in a timeline-appropriate manner, says he's here to apprehend Doom, and demonstrates his "magic" by levitating Arthur's throne. Doom's response is essentially "I'm the king of Latveria," which is, y'know, also valid. So they're guests at Camelot for the night while Arthur figures out what to do with them.

We then have a page devoted to Tony alone in his room, musing sadly about how alien he feels, how he doesn't know if he'll ever get home, how he could never fit in here without his beloved technology. Then a Sexy Lady shows up to keep him company for the night, and he decides maybe it's not all bad. Thanks, Marvel. I guess they can't all be winners.

Doom is using his evening much more productively; he compels one of the servants to tell him where Morgan's castle is, because he's still interested in having that team-up. Then he jets off. Literally. He has a jetpack.

The next morning Arthur's like "one of you is still here and one of you has punched a hole through the castle wall and flown off to join Morgan so I guess I know which of you is more trustworthy." He then explains to Tony who Morgan is, because Tony professes ignorance, because clearly we had not yet retconned in Tony's love of Arthuriana. Tony offers to go fight Doom and Morgan with Arthur; meanwhile, Morgan and Doom have teamed up and Morgan has offered to help get Doom's mother out of hell if he commands her undead armies against Arthur because for Reasons she can't command them herself anymore. So that's a thing that happens.

So, yes, it's Tony and Arthur versus Doom and Morgan. Fight fight fight!

Tony tries Doom first but then decides to hunt Morgan down, and in the ensuing fight we get what I think is Tony's first ever "I hate magic," a complaint that we all know he still makes even to this day.

Anyway, Tony freezes a dragon with Freon (mmm, technology) and Morgan gets upset and disappears, so the battle comes to an end, and of course Doom is extremely mad at Tony because he blames Tony for Morgan not sticking around to save Doom's mom, because I guess Doom trusted her to keep her word? Weird. (Like I said, for the next chapter of Doom saving his mother, go read Triumph & Torment.)

Doom says if he and Tony work together, the components in both of their armors can send them both home. So Tony has to trust Doom. Which he does, because he really has no other choice. They build a time machine and Tony makes Doom agree to a 24-hour truce when they get back, so they can both get home. So it all works out okay, and they end up in the present, and Doom tells him, ominously, that they will meet again. Okay, then. That concludes the original Doomquest. It's fun! You can see why fandom likes it.

So that's all well and good, but you might have noticed that Tony's ability to get home hinged on Doom actually being trustworthy. And Doom was. But what if Doom hadn't been? What if he'd just stranded Tony in Camelot forever As you may have surmised from the form of that question, that is in fact a question Marvel asked themselves, because, yes, there's a What If about this! What If v1 #33 is "What if Iron Man was trapped in the time of King Arthur?"

The divergence point from canon, as you can probably guess, is the very end of Doomquest. Instead of Doom bringing Tony home, he deceives him and leaves him in Camelot. And since Tony cannibalized a lot of the tech from his armor to make the time machine, he doesn't have a way to go home.

This is not a story where Tony comes up with a way to go home after all. He really doesn't get to go home. But instead of drowning his sorrows in mead -- because, remember, Demon in a Bottle has already happened and Tony is sober now -- he decides he might as well just play the hand he's dealt. So with what's left of his armor, he defeats some enemies that Morgan rounds up to send against Camelot. And for his services, he's knighted. He is now Sir Anthony.

Tony acknowledges that he is both living the dream and would also like very, very much to go home.

He does end up having some fun in Camelot; it's not all miserable. But he obviously doesn't want to be there.

So if you're at all familiar with King Arthur, you know how this goes, right? Arthur fights Mordred and Mordred kills him. And that does happen in this version. Except Tony is right there, and with his dying words, Arthur asks Tony to rule Camelot... and Tony agrees.

So, yes, Tony Stark becomes king of the Britons after Arthur's death and he never goes home again. The end. Man, I love What Ifs.

Heading back to main 616 continuity, there is still more of this arc to go. The original Doomquest was only two issues, yes, but it was popular enough that Layton & Michelinie did a sequel a hundred issues later, in their second run of Iron Man, and that's Iron Man #249-250, Recurring Knightmare. (In the intervening issues were Denny O'Neil's IM run, specifically the second drinking arc (#160-200), and then Layton & Michelinie came back and most famously gave us Armor Wars (#225-232). I would have to say that Armor Wars is definitely the standout fandom-favorite arc of their second IM run; for their first one, I think a lot of people would have a hard time choosing between Doomquest and Demon.) But anyway, yes. Recurring Knightmare.

Recurring Knightmare is... well, the best way I can describe it is "a trip." It is definitely a sequel to Doomquest, and it is also definitely not a sequel you would ever have expected to see for Doomquest.

Much like #149, #249 is pretty much just setup. Fun setup, but the big action is in the next issue. We open with Doom in Latveria, on his throne, pondering which of his servants he should have disintegrated. Anyway, he's just hanging out there when a mysterious object appears. In California, Tony is suited up and entertaining the crowd at a mall opening when the same object also appears! He takes it to his lab. Please note that this is after the Kathy Dare incident, so Tony is still recovering and is walking with a cane. Doom sees on the news that Iron Man has found the same object, which cannot be carbon-dated, and he shows up at Tony's house. He criticizes Tony's taste in art.

Anyway, Doom basically orders Tony to work with him. Tony refuses, and then Doom sends some robots to attempt to steal Tony's version of the object because he thinks if he has them both he will be powerful. Doom manages to steal it, and when he puts the pieces together, both he and Tony disappear.

So where do they go, you might ask? Camelot?

Not exactly. The future! There is a great callback to the Doomquest splash page.

It turns out they are in London in 2093. Merlin brought them there. Tony still hates magic. And in the future, King Arthur is still there, except he is now a child, because he has been reborn. But he does remember Tony from Doomquest, at which point Tony kneels. Doom, of course, is not impressed. He asks why they have been brought to the future.

The answer is that things are going wrong in the future. If you do not personally remember United States politics in the 1980s, I need you to google the words "Strategic Defense Initiative" right now. I'll wait.

Back with me? Okay, so this is a future where Reagan's Star Wars program actually happened the way he wanted it to, and the satellites are still hanging around the Earth in the future and messing everything up, and Arthur and Merlin need Tony and Doom's help to stop them. Doom once again flies away with his jetpack, of course.

Tony is game to help, but he's not in an armor that can stay in space for long. This is when Merlin takes him and Arthur to the mall and Tony manages to get everything to upgrade his armor at Radio Shack. You see what I meant about this issue being weird.

Tony is out in space trying to disarm the SDI platform, which is where he runs into his future descendant, Andros Stark, who is in armor you will probably recognize from Iron Man 2020. He is referred to as "the resurrected spawn of Iron Man 2020" so I assume he's actually directly related to Arno rather than a direct descendant of Tony; Wiki confirms that Arno is his grandfather. This is all from way before Arno was contemporaneous with Tony in canon. Anyway, he's fighting Tony.

Oh, by the way, Future Doom exists. Future Doom would like to rule this future Earth and for some reason Andros would like to help him. Meanwhile, Present Doom finds out from Merlin that he can't leave except by magic and he can't leave without Tony, so he is reluctantly on Tony's side.

They need help from the Lady of the Lake, except the lake has been paved over and is now a parking lot. Merlin makes the lake come back and then of course they get Excalibur. Arthur is a kid, so he can't wield a longsword; Doom assumes he's going to take it because he is basically a king, and he's pretty grumpy when the sword picks Tony. Tony then uses Excalibur to destroy the space lasers, and I bet that is a sentence you never thought you would read. It's pretty cool. Tony concludes that magic has its good points. Tony stops Andros and Doom stops, uh, himself, and the world is saved and they get to go home. Also, Doom finds out Tony is Iron Man, but when Merlin sends them back he conveniently erases their memories, so neither of them remember anything about this and Tony's secret is still safe. And that's the sequel to Doomquest.

And if you think that's weird, wait until you see Legacy of Doom.

Iron Man: Legacy of Doom is a four-issue miniseries from 2008, also by Layton and Michelinie. Even though it's from 2008, it's set during a much more classic time in Iron Man, continuing on from where we left off in this Doomquest saga. We start with a framing story in 2008. Tony, who has Extremis now, is busy scrapping some of his older armors and reviewing his logs when he suddenly remembers that there was a whole thing with Doom that happened that he seems to have forgotten about until right now. So the whole thing is narrated by Tony in flashback.

Tony's in space fixing a satellite when a hologram of Doom shows up and summons him to Latveria. It's not really clear why Doom needs Tony's help in particular here, but Doom tells Tony that he's discovered that Mephisto would like to bring about the end of the world, which Doom finds, and I quote, "presumptive." So Doom has his Time Cube, and with it he takes Tony to hell.

(Yes, I promise this is relevant to Doomquest. There will be some Arthuriana shortly.)

Doom brings Tony to Mephisto, and it turns out it's a setup! Doom trades Tony for an item he wants from Mephisto, leaves, and Tony's going to be trapped in hell forever! Oh no! (I mean, he's not. But it's quite a cliffhanger.)

At the beginning of issue #2, we find out what the Arthurian connection is, which is that we learned that after the events of Doomquest, Morgan had been granted sanctuary by Mephisto in exchange for a shard of Excalibur that she had somehow stolen. Doom still wants Morgan's help with some magic -- he doesn't mention what it is here, but he says he needs someone of Pendragon blood, and that'd be her -- so he traded Tony to Mephisto in exchange for, I'm guessing, Morgan and the Excalibur shard.

I have probably mentioned this elsewhere, but Legacy of Doom #2 is one of my favorite issues of Iron Man ever, solely because of the next scene. We return to Tony in hell. Howard Stark is also in hell, and he is now a demon, and Tony has to fight him. Mephisto brings popcorn and watches. This is the one time in canon when Tony actually confronts his father, and okay, yes, it's a fistfight in hell and Howard is a demon, but that's comics for you. Howard spends several pages insulting Tony -- specifically insulting his masculinity, but that's a whole other essay -- until he finally insults Maria too, and that's when Tony fights back, because his mother taught him to be good. Honestly if you're a Tony fan I'd recommend this issue just for that scene.

Anyway, we go back to the Doom and Morgan plot, and Morgan casts the spell Doom wanted, which was fusing the Excalibur shard with Doom's armor. Then Doom sends her back to Camelot rather than hell, because he's still mad that she never helped him get his mom out of hell like she said she would.

Tony freezes Howard with Freon -- yes, the same trick he pulled on the dragon back in Doomquest -- and tells him, "You're no father of mine." It is immensely satisfying.

(I had been going to mention that I thought it was a shame that neither canon nor fandom seems to have really engaged with this confrontation, and I know canon never believes in narrative closure but fandom sure does -- and then, anyway, it occurred to me that since the framing story of Tony remembering this is set when Tony has Extremis, there's a very good chance that he no longer remembers remembering it. Goddammit, Marvel.)

(If I got to retcon one canon thing about Tony, I think "the entirety of World's Most Wanted" is up there. I mean, okay, a lot of things are up there, but WMW is definitely on the shortlist.)

Okay. Tony has now engineered his way out of hell, and he's back with Doom in Latveria. Doom has Excalibur. Doom would very much like to fight him. While wielding Excalibur. You get the sense that this is going to be bad. Another cliffhanger!

Legacy of Doom #3 opens with Tony destroying Doom's lab to buy time and running away from Doom and Excalibur. I should probably mention that Doom still doesn't know Tony is Iron Man (anymore), so he thinks he is dealing only with Iron Man, Tony Stark's lackey. Meanwhile, some scientists at SI think there's something weird going on with space. Meanwhile meanwhile, Tony is in a forest taking a breather when a mysterious old man walks up to him.

It's Merlin! Surprise! Merlin wants Tony's help to stop Doom from doing whatever he's doing with Excalibur. The sword makes you invincible and the scabbard makes you invulnerable, so Merlin sends Tony to Scotland on a fetch quest for the scabbard. Doom has now magically sent the sword in search of the scabbard, so the sword flies away to meet it and Doom follows. Turns out the thing that's wrong with space is a thing that's going to hit Earth at the exact place Tony and Doom are. What a coincidence! So Tony and Doom get trapped in a stone circle and fight some stone warriors and then Tony ends up with the scabbard. And by "ends up with," I mean it fuses to his armor. Next issue!

Legacy of Doom #4 is when things really, really get weird. A giant demon made of eyes (???) appears, and this demon is apparently what Doom had been preparing to fight (because it's mad that Doom stole one of its spellbooks), and now he can't, because the sword and the scabbard aren't together. Thanks, Shellhead.

That's when Merlin shows up and says all is not lost. They can defeat the demon... if they put the sword into the scabbard.

"But I'm the scabbard now!" Tony says, uncomprehending.

"Yes," Merlin says. "You are."

Then Tony gets it.

So, yes, Doom has to, um, penetrate Tony. With Excalibur. I love comics. I love comics so much.

So that's a thing that happens.

And then Tony flies off and, I guess, resolves to never, ever think about any of this again.

We head back to the framing story, in which Tony, now having remembered all of this, flies to Britain, buys the land the lake is on, and paves it over, presumably so it will be there for Merlin to bring back in Iron Man #250. The end.

Whew.

Okay, yeah, I know I didn't have to summarize the whole thing, but Legacy of Doom here really is one of my favorite Iron Man miniseries. And I just want to share the love. Please read it. It's great.

But the Arthuriana fun doesn't end there! In fact, now we get an Arthurian-themed arc that actually isn't in Iron Man comics. It's in Avengers! Iron Man is involved, though.

(There is also apparently a Morgan arc in Avengers #240. I actually haven't read it. It seems to be yet another Spider-Woman arc. I get the impression that this isn't really Arthuriana other than having Morgan in it fighting Jess, though, so it doesn't seem quite as relevant. Morgan also apparently has some appearances in FF, Journey into Mystery, and Marvel Team-Up, but those seem like more of just basic villainy. Also, probably not involving Tony.)

Kurt Busiek's 1998 Avengers run, volume 3, is in large part the kind of Avengers run that is a nostalgic love letter to older comics. Heroes are heroes and villains are villains and good triumphs over evil. The Avengers all live in the mansion and are BFFs. I love it. It does assume that you are already a fan of the Avengers, because it starts out by summoning pretty much everyone who has ever been an Avenger and is available to the mansion, and that is... a lot of people. Thirty-nine, by my count. Also, when the entire team is magically whisked away, we are treated to the following narration, as Steve disappears: "And Captain America's last thought, as the world goes white around him, and he with it -- is that Iron Man would hate this."

The narration doesn't tell you why Iron Man would hate this, or how Captain America would know that Iron Man hates this. This is not explained later on. But if you have read comics -- or if you have read the above summary of Doomquest -- you know that Tony is absolutely, one hundred percent, thinking, "I hate magic." And Steve knows it.

The reference is not relevant to the plot; if you don't get it, you'll be fine. But that's what I mean when I say this is a nostalgia run. There are definitely Easter eggs for people who have read a bunch of comics. Busiek does this a whole lot in his work -- there's a reason you can buy an annotated edition of Marvels -- and, yeah, it happens here too. Just know that there will be references you're not getting, if you're new to comics.

Anyway. So Busiek's run actually starts out with an Arthurian arc, #1-4, "The Morgan Conquest." The name is a dead giveaway. Yes, Morgan le Fay is back. Again. For once, Doom is not involved.

The Avengers are all back from their sojourn on Counter-Earth after fighting Onslaught -- don't worry about it -- and mysterious things are happening. There are a lot of monster attacks. So pretty much everyone who has ever been an Avenger is summoned to the mansion, at which point we learn from Thor about some mystical artifacts that are being stolen. (They are the Norn Stones and also the Twilight Sword. That sounds like something from a Zelda game, doesn't it?) The Avengers go to try to stop this, end up in Tintagel, and then they run into Mordred. He wants to capture Wanda, presumably for Magic Reasons. Morgan le Fay casts a spell on all of them, reshaping reality. Yes, all of them. Surprise!

So now all the Avengers are living in a medieval castle and/or town; Morgan is their queen, and thanks to the power of mind-control they are all basically living in Ye Olden Times. The Avengers are all some variety of knight, except for Wanda, who is chained up in the dungeon so Morgan can steal her magic and use it to fuel all this reality-warping.

Wanda calls for help, and that snaps Steve (Yeoman America!) out of the mind control (or altered reality or whatever you want to call it) pretty fast, because Steve's always been very good at resisting mind control, and then Steve promptly goes and snaps Clint out of it, because I guess Steve is also good at inspiring people to snap out of mind control. "Oh, man!" Clint says. "Not another alternate reality! Not again!" (I assume he's referring to Counter-Earth? Maybe?)

So Steve and Clint go around reassembling the Avengers and orienting them as to reality. They get Jan and Monica easily, but then Steve insists on trying to get Tony because, I guess, he likes Tony and would really like to hang around Tony, who is half-naked and asleep in his bedroom, and certainly I am reading nothing whatsoever into this. Clint tells Steve it's not going to work. Tony has historically been fairly susceptible to mind control; it was only pretty recently at this point that he'd been doing Kang's bidding in The Crossing. But the more serious impediment is that this is Tony Stark and he would obviously like to LARP being a knight forever and ever. Tony, therefore, does not believe Steve, and throws him and Clint out of his bedroom and into the barracks.

"Iron Man's a good guy, normally," Clint says. "But he's waaay too into his whole nobleman/lord of the manor trip. That spell musta hit him right where he lives!"

Clint speaks the truth, clearly.

Anyway, they go around and manage to make pretty much every Avenger in the room other than Tony snap out, and attempt to rebel against Morgan while Tony is stil fighting them because he is Still A Knight. There's a lot of punching, because some of the Avengers still aren't free; they weren't ones Steve found.

The day is saved when Wanda manages to channel Wonder Man and break free. This gives the Avengers a fighting chance against Morgan and the Avengers are all lending Wanda their power when Tony finally snaps out of it and is on the side of good.

Then they take Morgan down, go home, and attempt to figure out which of these thirty-nine people should be on the active Avengers team. Hooray.

But that's not the end of Morgan le Fay showing up to screw around with Tony's life! There's more to come! Not much, but there is one that I know of, and at least one more memorable reference.

(I haven't read all her appearances or anything, but one of them definitely involves Tony; I can't swear that he doesn't appear in any of the other books Morgan shows up in, but it'd be a cameo for him, because I only know of one more arc that she's in in a book that Tony stars in.)

In a few more years, we have now entered the part of Marvel Comics history where Brian Michael Bendis writes all the Avengers books at the same time for, like, seven years running. It was sure A Time. There were a lot of word bubbles.

And the thing about Bendis is, Bendis looooooves Doomquest. If you're familiar with the very end of his tenure at Marvel where he made Doom be Iron Man after Tony got knocked into a coma in Civil War II, you have probably figured out already that he likes Doom. But he also likes Doomquest, specifically.

I mean, if nothing else, the giant splash page in The Confession where Maleev redrew the climactic Doomquest fight while Bendis had Tony talk about how deeply meaningful to his understanding of the world this all was -- and how it allowed him to predict Civil War -- was probably a big clue, right?

As far as I am aware, Morgan le Fay makes exactly one more appearance in Tony's life. And that's in Mighty Avengers vol 1 #9-11. Only one of those issues is named, so I'm going to assume the arc is named after it: Time Is On No One's Side.

You remember Mighty Avengers, right? The deal with the Avengers books at the time was that after Bendis exploded the mansion and made the team disband in Avengers Disassembled, the main Avengers book was no longer called just Avengers. Instead, the main Avengers book was New Avengers, and that was the only Avengers book. Then Civil War happened, Steve got killed, and New Avengers became the book about what was left of the SHRA resistance (i.e., Steve's side) after the war. So about halfway through New Avengers, Mighty Avengers starts up, and Mighty Avengers is about an extremely fucked-up and grief-stricken Tony Stark trying to run the official government-sanctioned Avengers team, with Carol's help. This is the comic with the arc where Tony turned into naked girl Ultron. You remember.

So, anyway, there's this Mighty Avengers arc where Doom is Up To Something (there are symbiotes and a satellite involved) and somehow Tony and the Avengers end up in Latveria, punching Doom. Also, by the way, Doom is visiting Morgan in the past because he likes her. The Avengers attacking his castle made him have to come back to the present, so he's kind of cranky. And he fights Tony, and in the course of the fight, his time platform explodes and sends Doom and Tony and also the Sentry to... the past.

This is one of those times where you should definitely look up the comics if possible because the way the past is visually indicated here is that it's colored with halftone dots the way you would expect old comics to be colored, although they have modern shading and color palettes. It's very charmingly retro.

So the three of them are stuck in New York in the past, and naturally they would like to leave. There's one person in this time who has a time machine and it is, of course, Reed Richards. Doom and Tony have a lot of banter in this arc; I think it's entertaining.

Sentry has to be the one to break them all into the Baxter Building because of that power he has where no one will remember him. So they do that, travel forward in time, and end up in Latveria in the present again except Doom is gone and also things are currently exploding where they are.

Doom, of course, has made a side trip to visit Morgan again and he asks her to help him build an army, because I guess this is what their relationship is like. So the rest of the Avengers are captured by what look to me like Mindless Ones and are in a cave in magic bondage, because comics. Jess comments that at least they aren't naked, because she too is remembering that memorable New Avengers trip to the Savage Land. Doom threatens Carol in some creepy sexist ways and eventually it turns out that Tony and the Sentry are fine and everyone kicks Doom's ass. Business as usual.

And the last page of the arc is Morgan alone, wondering where Doom is. So technically Morgan and Tony don't come face to face here, but I think she counts as being at least partially responsible for ruining Tony's day here. And then Secret Invasion happens and Tony has a very, very bad day.

There are a few more Morgan appearances after this, but, as I said, I don't think any of them involve Tony. She shows up in Dark Avengers, apparently, which was one of the post-Civil War Avengers titles I didn't read, and I know that recently, on the X-Men side of things, she's been in Tini Howard's Excalibur one, which I have only read a little of. No Tony there. Just a lot of Morgan and Betsy Braddock and Brian Braddock and the Otherworld.

If you are interested in Morgan's other appearances, you might like this Marvel listicle that is Morgan le Fay's six most malicious acts. I pulled some of the Darkhold backstory from their discussion, but it's not really focused on Morgan and Tony.

So there you have it! That's everything I know about Tony's love for King Arthur and every run-in I know about that he's had with Morgan le Fay! One of two terrible people in Tony's life named Morgan! Actually, I don't think we've seen Morgan Stark in a while. I wonder if he's alive. There should be a Morgan & Morgan team-up. I should probably stop typing and post this.

The tl;dr point is that you should all read Doomquest and its sequels, especially Legacy of Doom. They're great!

#posts i actually wrote

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glacial-snowflakes · 3 years ago

Text

Subtle hum of the Hudson River - part 2 // Loki

A/N: Hi darlings! I'm sorry for not posting but I kind of don't have that much time rn :( I'm so so sorry! I hope you like it! <3

Here is part 1

Pairing: Loki x fem!reader

Word count: 2,5k

Summary: You and Loki take a stroll down the river, letting yourself be honest with each other. The words you spoke have an unexpected result.

WARNINGS: it's all fluff, don't you worry!; parts written like this are retrospection

Likes, comments, and reblogs are greatly appreciated. It’s really motivating <3

Outrage and disgust filled every little whisper he heard. The team's looks were so sharp that they could cut one's skin open. Sighs full of hatred. Snarky remarks, supposedly innocent, yet hurt like hell. Why would anyone care about God of Mischief? Yes, he might live in the Tower, and yes, he might call himself one of the Avengers now, but he would never belong. Never. Not after what he did.

"They will never trust me, won't they?" Loki asked Thor, his sight focused on a cup he was holding in his frozen hands. The tea wasn't hot anymore. It went cold just like his heart that had never known the warmth of love. Trickster raised his eyes to meet Thor's. God of Thunder could swear that for a moment, he saw despair painted onto his brother's pale face. "I thought you didn't care about them nor their attitude towards you."

"I don't." The raven-haired man said immediately but seeing his brother's smile made him speak the truth. "I hate the way they look at me. I know what I did, and I deserve it. It's just— Nevermind." Loki sighed and took a sip of his cold tea. Speaking about his feelings was never his strong suit. Opening up to someone and spilling his guts felt like a nightmare he didn't want to experience at all costs. Runaway was the best choice.

"If you want to gain their trust, start with Lady Y/N. She's the most perfect for being the first one to break the ice with. Believe me." Thor gave his brother a clap on the back and nodded. "Go on."

"She's holding a knife right now. I am the one who stabs, not the one to be stabbed." Loki muttered. Thor's look said everything. In response, God of Mischief just rolled his eyes, stood up, and slowly approached you. You seemed so focused on the meal you were preparing that you didn't even notice him at first. He cleared his throat. "Lady Y/N."

You snapped out of the trance you were in just a few seconds ago. You lifted a knife you were holding in your hand. It was all covered up in ice, even sharper than the kitchen utensil itself. You held it up in front of your face as you were breathing rather heavily, scared of the sudden voice that made you come back to earth with a bump. Loki could swear that for a moment, your eyes turned impeccably white, just like the snow you could summon whenever you wanted.

"I— I'm so sorry, I didn't want to scare you. I truly mean it." Loki said immediately, waving his hands, the visible awkwardness painted onto his face.

"No, no! It's not your fault." You smiled to assure him that everything was fine. "Whenever I'm cooking, I'm in a trance. Just me, food, my mind free of all the bad thoughts that have been haunting me." You waved your hand in which you were holding a knife, and the ice melted away, just like that, not leaving any mark behind. Loki gave you a subtle nod and asked. "What are you cooking?"

"Oh, I won't tell you." You blurted out, which was followed by the awkward silence. "It's because I'm making my secret dish. Y/N's secret delicacy. No one knows what's inside except me." You explained in the blink of an eye. Loki seemed to be a little bit confused. Oh boy, you weren't good at small talks either. "If you want to, you can stay and sit here. We can talk about whatever you want or, if not, we can sit there in silence. It depends on you."

A sweet, delicate smile appeared on your face. You knew it was hard for Loki. You could see that. You noticed these quick looks he was giving whenever someone whispered his name. You noticed his need to be included when you were in a group, but everybody seemed to be ignoring him. Nobody wanted him to participate in meetings or conversations. He was in a crowd, yet he felt like he was all by himself. You saw all of this, and it made you feel bad. You knew what he did, but in the end, he was one of you now. Every god could bleed, and it hurt you to watch.

You wanted to make the raven-haired man feel better. Even if you were the only one to do this and every other person was about to judge you, you wanted Loki to feel included, to feel important. You promised yourself that it would be YOU who will make Loki feel welcomed, welcomed in a place where everyone pushed him away.

"Can I ask what your exact powers are?" Loki started the conversation, and you couldn't help but smiled. He truly wanted to talk with you. How adorable.

"I'm a demigod with cryokinetic powers. It would take a lot to talk about my abilities, but I will tell you that my favorite one is making ice daggers. Quick and simple, though it took some time to master the perfect shape." You chuckled. "Learning to aim ideally in a battle to cut through a chest and freeze someone's heart was the most problematic part."

"I didn't know you are so violent and tough."

"I am not... I guess I pretend to be." You said quietly, not looking upon a cutting board. A deep sigh escaped your mouth. "You know, it's not a job for everyone. Sometimes I'm too gentle for that."

You didn't let the silence last forever, as you immediately asked. "How do you find yourself here? Do you like the Tower?"

"Ah, you know... It has changed since the last time I visited." Loki said, clearly ashamed of all the damage he did back in 2012. Till these days, the thought of the Chitauri ravaging New York gave you the shivers. It was a very demanding and traumatizing first day of work as the Avenger.

"A renovation was a must." You joked; to clear the air and shoo away the atmosphere that was creeping towards you. "What about your room?"

"If you can call a small couch in Thor's bedroom my room, then I guess it's okay."

"You sleep on Thor's couch?" It was something that surprised you and not in a good way. You got that Loki wasn't everyone's favorite member, but there was a ton of empty bedrooms in the Tower in which he could live.

The God of Mischief nodded. "It's not that bad."

"I don't care. I will talk to Tony. You have to have your own bedroom. It's not like you can sleep on his couch forever. It's not comfortable in the long run." Loki opened his mouth to say something, but you cut him off. "I've got it covered, don't worry."

There was something in talking to you that made Loki feel at home. The way you looked at him; gave him the sweetest and prettiest smiles he has ever seen. There was no hate in your voice, no disgust that he's been experiencing on a daily basis since he could remember. You actually treated him like a human being, despite everything he has ever done. There was only one person he knew with such a kind heart, and you reminded him of her; you reminded him of Frigga.

"You know..." Loki begun. "I feel like you are the only one that doesn't want to cut my throat or stab my heart with my dagger."

You smiled gently. "I think you deserve a second chance."

"And why is that?"

"This is a story for another time."

***

"Where do you think you two are going?" Tony asked when you and Loki approached the elevator. God of Mischief gave him a quick stare before pushing the button with an arrow pointing down. You turned your head to face Tony, who was making himself a coffee. "We're going on a walk." You answered with a smile on your face.

"It's almost midnight."

"Said a man with a cup of coffee in his hand." You chuckled. "We're going to be fine. He's a god, and I'm a demigod. Nothing bad will happen to us."

You knew that it wasn't you who Tony was worried about; he still didn't trust Loki. When you joined the Avengers, you were one of the youngest in the group. Fresh blood, you could say. Stark watched you growing from an impulsive, careless kid with ice powers to a deliberate adult, a demigod aware of her cryokinetic strength. Seeing you change over the years, he felt responsible for your life. Even if Man of Iron knew you could handle yourself, Loki was too powerful. Tony refused to believe in his change, and with it, he was afraid that the Trickster was purely playing with you. If only they saw Loki as you did.

A few minutes later, you two were strolling down the New York. Just you, Loki, and the subtle hum of the Hudson River that made your troubled hearts feel at peace. Slowly paced steps. Your knuckles barely brushing each other woke up armies of butterflies in your stomachs that went on war. If you were bold enough, you would grab his hand in yours and intertwined your fingers together, holding him like it was the end of the world. It was something you truly wanted from the moment Thor brought him into the group.

"So..." Loki cleared his throat. "If you want to, we can talk or, if not, we can walk in silence. It depends on you."

"I'm not ready, not yet... I'm sorry."

"Don't you ever be sorry for not being ready to talk about your feelings, Lady Y/N." Loki grabbed your wrist and made you stop your steps. "Ever, okay?"

Something was mesmerizing in his beautiful eyes and a worried smile. Something that made your heart beat faster; palms get sweaty and clammy. Something that made you agree to everything he said. It was like a trick, but not like the ones he did from time to time to piss of Thor or Tony. No.

You snapped out of it and nodded. "Okay." You said and took your wrist from his hand. You began to walk again with Loki by your side when he asked. "Lady Y/N. A few months ago, I had asked why I deserve a second chance. You'd never gave me an answer. I'd still like to know."

You smiled, looking at the tiny waves on the river. "I knew you'd asked that sooner or later. I think I can finally tell you why I think this way." Your eyes focused on his face now. "Okay... Let me tell you something. It's not a surprise that you've made some pretty bad decisions in your life, and you've hurt a lot of people. You think you're a monster, and you don't deserve to be loved. You were never more wrong.

"In this group, you probably won't find one spotless person. We are people that made huge mistakes. You don't have to look far." You grabbed his hand without thinking. It was an impulse that just felt right. "I was a reckless kid when I got these powers. No one was there to guide me through them, learn how to be in control. And to a bullied kid like me, it was something that made me feel better than others. I was the one on the top. With my mortal mum that couldn't handle the demigod kid and my godly father that had so many half-blood children he didn't give a shit about, no one could stop me. The bullied became the bully. I don't like to call myself that, but this is true. I went through hell, and I made sure they felt the same way. I'm not proud of it, but that is who I was.

"So you have me. And then there's former HYDRA's witch, a billionaire who made deadly weapons, former Russian spy, former HYDRA's most famous brainwashed assassin and etcetera. Welcome, you're just as messed up as we are. Being here with us is your chance to become a better man. You belong here, Loki. Trust me."

At that moment, something broke inside of him. For a second, he stopped being a mysterious, private God of Mischief that didn't want to let in anybody. He let go of all the concerns and worries that had been occupying his mind for far too long. He threw away the image of a monster he considered himself to be.

The words you spoke made him realize that as long as you were next to him, there was nothing he couldn't do. You were the key to his pure heart from the beginning. You were the answer he'd been looking for all along. You were the light that could sweep away the darkness that'd been consuming him from within, and he wanted you to shine beside him forever.

When Loki leaned over to your ear, all you could feel was his warm, shaky breath on your neck that sent the shivers down your spine. "Don't hate me for this." He whispered almost inaudibly as his hands found their way to your hips. His long, lean fingers quite roughly pressed onto your skin. Just like electricity, his touch pierced through your whole body, made your knees get weaker. Your senses were fogged, almost like you were under control. All you could focus on was how his mellowy soft lips felt against yours. The kiss was sweet and passionate, yet gentle at the same time. It wasn't hasty and rough like you'd expect it to be, no. There was something else, something special about it. It was Loki's way to describe every little feeling he had for you. Your adorable smiles you'd been giving him, slight touches you didn't even think he noticed, tea and sympathy. It was all for what he wanted to return the favor.

For a moment, you weren't sure if this was real. Was it just a pure imagination of your mind that was thirsty for love and affection? Or maybe it was a trick, fake reality that you'd fallen for so naively? No, it couldn't be. You could feel it. Feel your heart crazily pounded like it wanted to escape the cage in which it was held for far too long. It was the only thing that helped you stay sober.

You didn't want to stop this. You wanted to stay in this moment forever, scared that once it ended, it would never come back.

"Loki..." You started when you two pulled out to catch a breath. "I could never hate you for making my dreams come true."

The raven-haired man didn't say anything. In response, he wrapped his arms around your still weak body and brought you even closer, so there was no space left between you and him. You felt his chin gently placed on the top of your head. With a smile on your face, you embraced him tightly and snuggled your face onto his chest. All that you heard was his heart pounding fast in the same rhythm as yours, as the subtle hum of the Hudson River accompanied your feelings growing for each other at that moment.

tag: @handmaiden-of-mischief @amiechuchu

#loki x y/n #loki x reader #loki x you #loki imagine #loki oneshot #loki fanfiction #loki fanfic #loki #loki laufeyson imagine #loki layfeyson x reader #loki layfeyson x you #loki laufeyson #loki x female reader #avengers x y/n #loki x avenger reader #avengers x you #avengers x reader

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retrievablememories · 3 years ago

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what happens at night | taeyong

title: what happens at night

characters: vampire!taeyong, reader, BP jisoo, side character ocs

genre: vampire!au, fantasy, angst

summary: There has been a vampire sighting in a nearby town. You and a few other amateur vampire hunters flock to the area for fun, but are soon in over your heads when you come face to face with a real vampire.

word count: 2.6k

warnings: some violence, use of weapons, mentions of blood and blood drinking, cursing

a/n: i got the prompt for this fic from this writing prompt post

writing vampire fic just reveals that i am maybe a little too intrigued with finding different ways to describe blood, lmao

also, this picture...are you fuckin kidding me

"Y/N, look. You aren’t gonna believe this.”

Adrienne holds the digital ledger out in front of you, and you look at it with tired, uninterested eyes until your brain registers what you’re seeing. Your eyes light up as you recognize whose face is on the screen.

“Taeyong.”

You take the ledger from her as she offers it to you, holding it tight with both hands.

“The Vampire King?” Jisoo perks up and gets up from her seat to rush over to see the ledger, peering wildly over your shoulder. Likewise, Percy makes his way over to the rest of you at a slightly speedier gait than his usual unaffected amble.

“Can’t be,” he says, shaking his head in quiet disbelief even as he looks over your other shoulder.

“But it is.”

The ledger’s screen displays the seal of Hawthorn Academy and its vampire registry, which holds the name, age, suspected location, and family lineage of every registered vampire in the world, along with a plethora of other pertinent details. On Taeyong’s profile, there is the familiar portrait of him you’ve always seen—his hair styled perfectly and curling over his forehead, and his eyes dark, piercing, and shining vermillion.

Under the list of Status Updates, there is a new entry from yesterday—a sighting nearby in the city of Dresden. Within that entry, there is a blurry, zoomed-in photo of a man in a dark trench coat and black boots, walking away from the viewer and down a shadowy street lit up with lampposts, almost too vague to be worth deciphering to the average viewer; but that silhouette is unmistakable.

“When was the last time Taeyong was seen out in public? I can hardly believe it,” Jisoo says, her voice practically trembling with awe.

“If he’s letting himself be seen, he must have specific intentions...whatever those are,” Percy notes.

“Let’s go pay Dresden a visit,” Adrienne announces, darting off to her desk and starting to gather up her essentials—phone and silver staff among them.

“Go? Pay it a visit?” Percy echoes, his mouth rounding on the word go and his eyes widening.

“Of course! Why not? Isn’t this exciting? A sighting of the Vampire King so nearby, and so recently,” Jisoo replies, grinning with all her teeth.

Percy narrows his eyes at her, uncertainty marring his features. “Yes, but what about dangerous?”

“Come on Percy, it’ll be fun,” you chime in. “Think of it as a field trip for baby vampire hunters. Dresden is huge, anyway, there’s like zero chance we’ll actually find him.”

“Just take it as more skills training,” Adrienne adds, grabbing her backpack and heading off to her quarters to get the rest of her things. “Except this time, we’re actually in the field instead of that same boring facility.”

Percy grumbles to himself, but he knows there’s nothing much left to argue about; when the three of you outvote him on a topic, he has no choice left.

By the time the four of you arrive at Dresden, it’s dusk. The perfect witching hour for the vampires to be out, with the last bleeding streaks of the sun fading out of the sky. The lack of sunlight unnerves Percy even more—you can tell by his disturbed countenance—but he says nothing. He quietly follows you out of the train once it stops.

On the outside, you all look like four regular sight-seeing young adults, taking a trip from the next city over and ready for a night on the town; but most of your weapons and gear are concealed within your clothes and the backpacks you wear.

“There’s a slight blood scent here,” you note, taking in a deep lungful of air once you notice it. Indeed, there is the lingering hint of sweetness and iron, and something more musky and earthy underneath it—like decaying organic matter. The smell every vampire hunter is trained to be able to recognize—the odor of a vampire who hasn’t taken their scent blockers.

“There is, though I’m just barely picking up on it,” Jisoo agrees, waving her hand across her nose and screwing her eyebrows up. “God, I’ll never get used to that.”

“Do you think he’s been here?” Adrienne asks, leading the pack as you all walk through the train station.

“I would think a high-ranking, old-ass vamp would know better than to leave their funk trailing everywhere,” Percy disagrees. “Maybe it’s a younger one.”

“Maybe we could get an actual kill tonight, then. Our first,” Adrienne suggests, and though her tone is nonchalant, her expression betrays her enthusiasm.

You chuckle. “Wishful thinking, but maybe that would make the seniors stop treating us like children for once.”

Your group ends up bouncing from the train station to a pub and then to a nearby park, where a festival is being held. There’s bright lanterns, food, dancing, singing, and little kids running around galore, which makes you think these citizens either don’t know about the recent vampire sighting in their area or don’t care.

You all spend an hour mingling around and checking out the festival’s fun-filled offerings, chatting in low tones about the recent vampire appearance and trying to put your skills to the test to scout out any other vampires that might be hiding in plain sight within this mass of people.

“Hey!” Adrienne’s shout rings across the area, and you whip your head around in shock as you watch her take off running behind some teenage boy, maybe 12 or 13 at most, who has managed to nip the digital ledger from her belt and take off with it.

“What the fuck?” Percy barks, and you all shoot each other a wild, surprised look before you and him follow behind her.

“Guys, really? Don’t leave me here!” Jisoo calls out from behind you. “You don’t need three people just to get the ledger back!”

You and Percy round the alley corner that Adrienne disappeared behind and spot her farther up ahead, still hot on the boy’s trail and cursing him profusely. He’s a lot faster than he looks. Just before you can get a good look at him, he’s turning down another road with her behind him.

“Maybe we can cut him off. I’ll go down one of the connecting streets,” Percy suggests.

“Wait, what? Shouldn’t we stay together?”

“That ledger is too important to lose to some street urchin, and the seniors will never let us leave campus again if we come back without it. You go that way, I’ll be down here.” He’s ducking into an adjacent alley before you can even respond.

“Shit…” you sigh and shake your head before running down the road he indicated.

You unstrap your silver staff from a hidden section of your pants and extend it, just to be safe.

This land is not overly familiar to you, with you only having been to Dresden a couple times before. You carefully navigate your way through the maze of interconnecting streets, listening for Percy’s and Adrienne’s footfalls, which have become distinctive to you by now, and the sounds of Adrienne’s yelling. There are few people on the streets, most of them at the festival or in their homes, which makes it easier to navigate and watch for the others as you catch glimpses of them rushing past neighboring alleys.

Percy bursts into the same alleyway Adrienne is running down, finally trapping the boy between them on either end of the narrow passageway. However, the boy remains undeterred from Percy charging toward him as he deftly jumps up onto a nearby closed dumpster and uses it to launch himself over the older man.

“Shit!” Percy makes a mad grab for the end of the boy’s shirt, but the boy is a few seconds faster and narrowly gives him the slip.

“Are you serious? You can’t catch a damn kid?!” Adrienne shouts; Percy only curses again and whips around to follow the boy.

You hear the commotion from a few roads over, and you make a beeline for the area.

Just before you make it there, Adrienne screams. The sound almost startles you into dropping your staff, and you tighten your grip around it. “Adrienne?! What’s happened?”

You reach the alleyway, your shoes skidding on the ground as you nearly overshoot it, but Adrienne is nowhere in sight. You look around confused and alarmed with your chest heaving, but there is no trace of her — when she was there only seconds ago. “Adrienne?” Repeating her name still doesn’t bring her out, and you see nothing as you walk farther into the narrow back street and search every shadow and corner. Something dark and distressing settles in your stomach, and when you catch a whiff of that blood-decay smell on the night breeze, your unease turns into an avalanche of fear.

“Percy,” you whisper, and you take off again. “Percy!”

Your heartbeat rushes in your ears, nearly blocking out all other sounds, and your legs and arms burn as you run. You are abruptly stopped in your tracks as there is another shorter sound, like someone suddenly being cut off in the middle of a scream.

You desperately want to call out for him, and the syllables of his name crawl up your throat though you struggle to contain them. The blood-decay smell still inundates your senses, and whatever vampire is skulking around this maze of streets with you is likely still present somewhere. You don’t want to call any attention to yourself with a shout, though it may already be too late.

With a spiny chill driving itself down your back, you realize everything is suddenly silent. No insects, no night birds, no other people on the streets surrounding you.

Pushing the button on your staff ejects the silver blades from both ends, and you hold it for dear life as you stand in the middle of the dim alley, shivering despite your sweat and waiting for any hint that the monster is approaching you.

It happens so quickly that it’s almost outside of your perception.

The air around you grows significantly colder even with the existing chill from the early-winter season, and you shudder once more, your jaw clenching and molars chattering against each other. When you blink again, he is standing in front of you.

Taeyong.

Melting out of the shadows and becoming one with them all at the same time, a strange liminality similar to his existence—being alive and dead in the same time and space.

His mouth and chin are wet and red from blood, presumably that of your friends and teammates, which sends an intense ache through your stomach. The newness and excitement of the vampire sighting has drained out of you, replaced with stone cold dread. You’re not sure what any of you were thinking. Percy tried to warn you, but now he is likely dead for it.

Maybe it’s a foolish move. All your training has gone out the window in your panic and fear. You make a sloppy, sudden swipe at his front with the blade of your staff; and the next thing you know, it’s flying out of your hand and clattering feet away. Behind him, and out of reach.

It takes a second for you to realize he’s knocked it out of your hand without even touching it or you; his own hand is still raised with the movement of telekinetically shifting the object. “You came terribly unprepared. I guess I shouldn’t expect anything more from you fledglings.”

Your sweaty palm slides against the other leg of your pants where a smaller silver dagger is concealed in a tearaway pocket, but that idea is useless. In the time it’d take to get any weapon out, he could kill you.

“The Academy has really been in decline the last few decades. This is the caliber of hunters they’re putting out now?” Taeyong sucks his teeth, and he takes a step closer to you. Your entire body is on high-alert, but you feel too stiff to move a muscle, and you vaguely wonder if this is somehow his doing, too. Only in the stillness of this moment do you realize that you cannot detect any of that blood scent coming directly from him, though the putridness of it still lingers in your nose. It’s coming from somewhere else, then. This confuses you more.

When he realizes you aren’t going to speak, he stops approaching you and takes a moment to really study your face, his big and curious eyes blinking slowly. The redness of his irises and the shiny, pale quality of his skin from the moonlight shining on it make him look just as surreal as he truly is.

“You’re a pretty thing. Maybe I could make you one of mine.”

“Never,” you blurt out, and it’s the first thing you can bring yourself to say to the Vampire King.

“Oh, so you can speak.” Taeyong reaches for your chin. His fingers brush the underside of it, the coolness of his skin freezing you, before you snatch away from his touch, stumbling backwards. A flash of irritation sparks on his face.

His hand reaches for you again, this time clasping at the back of your neck, and it is impossible to move away quickly enough. “Don’t waste any more of your time fighting. This will all be over soon. Well—this life, anyway.”

His teeth in your neck are sharper than needles, making your nerves twinge with stabbing pain; and then it’s strangely pleasant, like having painkillers injected into your veins. You can’t feel anything anymore except warmth and endorphins and his fangs inside you as the alley around you smears into a bunch of incomprehensible shapes—bricks, streetlights, strewn trash, Taeyong.

When you wake up, you’re in an unfamiliar place. An unfamiliar bed. You startle out of unconsciousness sweating and frightened, but with barely enough strength to push yourself up on your elbows. Looking around doesn’t provide you with many more clues; this space is murky with darkness, and your vision is foggy. You think you can make out the rectangular shape of a large curtained window, but it’s unclear.

You’re still wearing your clothes from the trip, although your backpack is now gone. Your throat has never felt drier in your life, and the pounding in your head threatens to split it clean apart.

You feel sick and feverish, like your body is trying to fight against some virus it’s picked up, but you haven’t the slightest idea where you could’ve contracted anything—you didn’t even eat at the festival—until you remember—

A door opens with a bang somewhere in the distance, and it isn’t until the footsteps grow nearer and a blurry figure approaches the bed that you realize the door is the entrance of the room you're in.

“You’ll want to feed soon.” As soon as those words break the quiet, you’re struck by the pungent smell of blood. Unlike the relative lack of response it would elicit any other time, its aroma pokes at a sudden and peculiar craving inside of you, and you find yourself futilely scrabbling on the bed to reach the source. “Lucky you. I have just what you need.”

There is a cold hand tilting your face up, the press of equally cold glass against your bottom lip, then the tang of blood entering your mouth. It is the best thing you have ever tasted, and a slowly dying, still-human part of you is horrified.

You finish the blood quickly. It doesn’t really seem like enough, but it does make you feel a little less like you’re actively decomposing. Despite your hazy vision, there is no misreading the small smile on Taeyong’s face.

“Happy Birthday, little one.”

#taeyong scenarios #taeyong imagines #taeyong angst #nct vampire au #vampire au #nct imagines #nct scenarios #nct fic #taeyong fic #nct angst #superm fic #superm scenarios #superm imagines #superm angst

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hwrryscherry · 4 years ago

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The one where the reader is a singer

characters: HARRY x SINGER!Y/N

blurb: The reader is finishing up her brand-new album and as Harry comes to visit her on her last day of working in the studio, he gets to react to one of her songs, 34+35.

word count: 1.9K

author's note: HI GUYS! It’s been a week I think? Anyway, I’ll get back to school tomorrow so idk when imma post the next request but I’m hoping that it will be soon! Anyway, I want to thank y’all for the love and support on my writing and I hope that the anon who asked this likes it as much as I did. Never forget that you’re so golden and tpwk. AND ALSO, HAPPY 27TH BIRTHDAY TO HARRY!

You took a deep breath right after asking for the track to be played again. To everyone else the track was perfect, but it was different for you. It just felt like something was missing and you didn't know what. And god, you were tired. You were so genuinely exhausted that if you sit up in a chair and stay silent for more than five minutes you'll simply fall asleep. You felt your eyes heaving at every blink of yours and it was only 5 pm, but you were in this studio for so long. You were inside this place for 36 hours now with no shower and no sleep. You did eat but now you were hungry again.Your shoulders were tensed up, and you couldn't feel comfortable anywhere. Not in the couch, not in the chair, not in the floor and not even stand up. All you genuinely demanded right now was to be home under your bed sheets curled up with your boyfriend of four years while taking many naps or watching many movies, but no, you needed to have this done. You needed the album to be done and were extremely thrilled to release it to your fans that were excited as well. But yes, you were so frickin' tired.

— Again... — You repeated after a long and sharp breath listening to some groans from your coworkers. You all have been listening to this one song for about an hour and a half now and you haven't actually changed anything yet. — I know, I know, and I'm sorry guys, it's just not right!

— Maybe you think it's not right, but it is and you're just making a huge deal about it. — One of your co-workers said. A girl, Lucy, one of your friends as well. You turned your head to stare at her face and gave her that glaze that made her shrug her shoulders because of it — Alright, I'm sorry.

— I'm not making a huge deal. It's just not right, and I feel like the entire album is so great and this is just wrong. Like... — You said standing up from the couch you were sitten in and walked to the table with the computers on to grab the one paper you used to write this song. You stared at it in your hands for a while as you read the letters. — See, here is the problem. So here it's "you drink it just like water" and then suddenly comes "so what you doin' tonight?", it doesn't make sense, there's something missing in here. — You go through the lyrics again as you hear more groans from the people in the room — And honestly, I'm disappointed with myself for the rest. I need to change it so badly, but I have no idea on how.

— No problem, love — You naturally said referring to his previous apologies.

That's when you hear the sound of the door being opened. You rise your head to look at the door and see Harry, your boyfriend, walking into the room with some paper bags in his hands that contained burgers directly from In-N-Out, which was in fact your favorite Los Angeles burger place ever. He arrived in silence, trying not to make a noise for fear that you were recording something but you could note his surprised expression when he saw everyone was looking at him instead of recording.

— Sorry guys, I didn't want to disturb you. I was passing by and wanted to check up! — Harry said as he closed the door behind him and walked farther into the room. You smiled tenderly when you saw the figure of the man walking closer to you. You haven't seen each other personally in some days, and he consistently secured you so much spiritual peace, he just had such a light energy and it made you feel so good — And also y’all had been stealing my girl for so long now! — He joked getting a slight laugh from everyone inside the studio. He approached you by wrapping your waist with one of his arms around your waist and sealing your lips together as he bends down a little.

— And Harry, technically she is maintaining us here and not the other way around — Lucy said in an ironic tone causing you to look at her quickly before letting out a deep breath and lowering your head by rubbing your sleepless eyes with the help of your hands, probably a negative result of sleep. Harry reflected the girl's words and then looked at you carefully before placing the bags on the coffee table that was next to the studio sofa.

— Why? What happened? — Harry asked encountering his gaze with yours as he crossed his arms and observed you raising your hand that contained the papers with the lyrics of your new song.

— I can't write a proper ending that I genuinely like! — You said, sounding frustrated to everyone in that room.

— The ending is good! — Another of your friends, Jaden, said as he got up and picked up one of the bags Harry had brought and then started walking again to sit on the sofa.

— Jaden, you in silence is everything to me! — You said in a mocking tone while running your hand through your hair — But you understand, don't you? — You asked Harry because he has experience with such a specific subject — It's not that it's bad, it's that I don't feel like it's ready!

— I get it! But have you already recorded? — Harry asked softly in his understanding tone. He more than anyone in this room comprehended exactly what you were feeling and he would do his best to help you since you did the same with him so many times before.

— Yes, twenty times! — Jaden murmured a little before taking a bite of one of the burgers that Harry had brought. Harry couldn't hold back the laugh when he heard the boy, as they knew each other well and Harry knew all his sassiness was based on nothing more than hunger.

— Let me hear it, so I can have some ideas to help! — Harry said looking at you, and then noticing your reaction. Your eyes widened at the man's request. It wasn't fear. It was just an apprehension and that made Harry extremely curious — What?

— Well... It's a little... — You said in a lower tone seeking your words.

— Promiscuous and indulgent! — Lucy and Jaden completed your sentence making Harry look at her and the boy sitting on the sofa and then Harry raised one of his eyebrows and looked at you with a smirk on his lips.

— Uh, is it about me? — Harry asked in a mocking tone, waiting for the answer that would raise his ego, of course.

— Look, let's not specify anything — You said quickly and nervously looking at the smirk on your boyfriend's face — Ok, Trevor, play the song right for the love of god! — You said getting a laugh out of Harry, Jaden and Lucy due to your despair in ending this matter.

And Trevor did as you asked and put the song on. You sat down on the bench near the wall and crossed your arms while watching Harry's reactions. The soon as the song started everyone could notice your voice and the rhythm of it that matched the beat.

You may think I’m crazy

The way I’ve been craving

If I put it quite plainly

Just give me them babies

You could notice Harry bouncing his head on the rhythm of the song as a sign that he liked it because you knew that he only did that to songs that he likes. And you also noticed a small smile when he listened to the end of this verse because he did remember all the times you both had talked about having a baby before.

So what you doin’ tonight?

Better say doin’ you right

Watching movies

But we ain’t seen a thing tonight

Again you noticed the smirk and you did smirk as well because you both knew the lack of ability that you had to watch any movie that lasted longer than two hours and you almost ended not watching anything.

I don’t wanna keep you up

But assuming can you keep it up

‘Cause then I’d like to keep you up

So maybe Imma keep you up

Boy

Harry wasn’t looking at you, though. He was looking at the floor while bouncing his head and paying attention to the song as he was trying to catch the vibe of it and honestly you don’t know if it’s the song that had this vibe but he was looking way too hot to handle at this moment.

I’ve been drinking coffe

And I’ve been eating healthy

Know I get squeaky, yeah

Saving all my energy

Now the chorus was about to start and you were actually excited and nervous to see Harry’s reaction of it. You two have been dating for four years now. He probably understood any little detail of this song more than anyone else.

Can you stay up all night?

F**k me till the daylight

34 35

You started to hold back your laugh as Harry lifted his head up fastly with winded eyes and a surprised look so he could face you. It wasn’t actually your style to write songs that promiscuous so he was actually surprised at it even though he loved it. He had a smile on his face though and so did you.

The song kept playing as the words repeated itself and it stopped just after the second chorus so Harry passed his hands through his hair as you waited for his opinion on it. Honestly, Harry’s opinion about your music is extremely important to you because you cherish and admire him way too much and love his songs so you hope that he does too with yours.

— So... What do you think? — You asked anxiously waiting for his opinion. The truth is Harry had already listened to all the songs on his new album except this one.

— I like it! — Harry said with a smile on his lips making you breathe a sigh of relief — Maybe I can help write the rest, but they really didn't lie and it's great. The beat is good and the lyrics are catchy and everything will be fine. The point, my love, is that you are too worried! — Harry said as he approached you, placing his big, strong hands on your shoulders and massaging them lightly feeling all the tension in your muscles slowly dissolving — Relax, it's amazing! You got it!

With Harry's help, you finished the song in less than an hour. When you recorded the rest and listened, you felt that now it was ready and now you could go home with him. It was simply incredible to know you could always count on him and to know that while you were together creativity would be present and life wouldn't be boring. After all, you had each other and had the art.

#hwrryscherry #hwrryscherryxreader #harry and y/n #harry styles and y/n #harry x reader #harry styles au #harry styles x reader #harry styles x you #harry styles blurb #harry styles x y/n #boyfriend harry styles #harry styles imagines #harry styles imagine

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batarangsoundsdumb · 4 years ago

Text

guess fucking what? my inbox is so fucking full right now i'm unloading all of this shit in one post.

For the 11th gotham memes: gothamites react to bruce being jacked in a tiktok he made with kids, like super yoked, ripped as hell

fucking hilarious thanks. i think i did it in one meme post, but i genuinely don't remember which one

i dunno which of the batfam would do this but one time i was sleeping over at a friends house and ended up on the floor bc the bed was so very small and i just stayed there because the rug was soft

that's a drunk jason move i don't know what to tell you

tim and jason are "i listen to pop punk" solidarity. whenever jason highjacks the batmobile theyll go on long ass car rides blaring mcr and paramore and then never talk about it again

as they should!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! tim: no jason it's my turn using the aux cord i gotta put on my jams jason: don't you dare put on weird shit tim: don't worry, you're gonna love this *plays fearless (taylor's version)

hear me out hear me out, red hood stans 🤝 nightwing stans t h i g h s

holy shit yes.

SNL au: Bruce breaks character when pretending to superman and says something like "I'm not superman! You've seen his gps!! It's from 2001!!!" @sabeanybabe

superman flies past the snl building the next day just to say 'actually it's from 2005, i'm not a heathen'

does your back hurt from carrying the batfam fandom

it hurts more from the exotic rock collection i keep in my backpack, but thanks for the concern.

I love your posts by why would you always leave the best parts in the tags?

as a treat for the people that check the tags ;) (and also because i'm committed to the short post aesthetic)

somehow your playlist was everything i never knew i needed. i mean it. this is my new favorite playlist.

and don't you dare get a new favourite playlist!

babe ur stoner tim playlist is exactly too perfect, earth is literally blessed by ur existence

babe thanks so much! i love my stoner tim playlist because it's just my usual playlist but people think it's an artistic choice that i put taylor swift and britney spears in there, when it's just what i unironically like listening to

JANDKSKDK BILLY RAY CYRUS ON THE STONER TIM PLAYLIST I LOVE IT IT

again it's not even an ironic choice, i know every single word and i genuinely like the song

The last chapter of Fundamentals of Casework has me crying at work. Thanks I love it @dudelookitsalesbian

oh babe, i'm sorry, but also, not sorry i love chapter 4 so much it's my lovechild with the 'mental illness' tag

soooo....stumbled on your tumblr by some stroke of fate??? read your DC fanfic first. which is PHENOMENAL btw. then found all the batmemes; the funniest thing EVER bc everyone forgets about regular old gothamites. kept scrolling and your blog pops up as recommended. clicked on the ao3 for shits and giggles and waddaya know?!?!? it's YOU!!! you're LEGEND!!!! ever seen that meme? it's a video of a cat that got into a baseball field and the two announcers get really invested in his escape attempt and start giving a play by play of the cat instead of the game. memeable moment: "GREAT stuff from the Cat!!!"

i seriously think about this ask every single day and it's so fucking funny to me that i've never seen the meme you're referencing, but i still find myself going 'GREAT stuff from the Cat!!!' whenever i see something funny. but wow i'm glad you liked this steaming pile of garbage

Fav dc character overall? And fav batfamily character?

don't ask me to pick between the loves of my life, but i can tell you i've cried about every single batfamily member and also wally west (my beloved)

What's your opinion on fans having a problem with batfam being "too big"? And some even claim that batfam is just "Bruce Alfred Dick Damian" and the rest of them are just "friends and allies" (source: reddit) Personally, I like batfam because of this reason but idk

stupid. a family can never be too big. i'm not that big a fan of like huge batfam stuff with everybody from every single universe, because as much as it's funny for bruce to have like 30 kids, it just feels a little too OOC for me.

This is the best tag I've seen involving the batfam, thanks for thinking of it

This is canon now @nctxrejects

lmao yeah i think at that point alfred has had to sit through like at least a dozen coming out talks and just has a pride flag collection in the attic that he pulls out whenever a kid comes out

idk why batfam hits different as compared to any other superhero family

bc it's found family and usually the other superhero families are almost all genetically related in one way or another

I don't know if you watch the umbrella academy but I saw your last post about batcest and saw the similarities. But the thing is (although I think it's weird) in TUA, they addressed it by saying "they were raised as weapons, not siblings" or something along those lines, which is simply not the case with batfam.

yeah i watched tua but i also thought it was ridiculous and they still treated each other as siblings so i didn't like the luthor/allison thing, and am glad they stopped doing that shit bc it fucking sucked.

Hot take: Batcest shippers are the same people who believe adopted siblings are not actual siblings

smoking hot take: batcest shippers are the people who watch 'my sister got stuck in the washing machine' porn

Duke was adopted by Bruce?

not technically no, but do i, tumblr user batarangsoundsdumb, look like i care?

True story but I had to change my freaking name because it used to be "Damien" and most people would go "OH LIKE DAMIAN WAYNE" like please I'm just tryna live

true story, but i don't actually think of damian when i hear the name damian, literally the first thing that pops up is damian darkh like bruh what?

apparently dc comics company supported comic stores by giving out new titles and stuff during the beginning of the pandemic to help them run and I just think that's wholesome

ah yeah that's so fucking cool, still don't like dc, the company, because this world is a capitalist hellhole and we're all owned by warner brothers or disney with no in between.

ayo looking at tumblr head canons and finding out bruce is actually a terrible father is a punch in the gut

lmao yes, in like 50% of comics bruce is a terrible father and it gives me whiplash

oooh I just saw the jason todd vs winter soldier post and the real question is: batman vs iron man

while iron man has like hundreds of cases of armor, batman could throw out an emp and have the guy dropping out of the sky in 2 seconds.

dickfast = fastdick = quickdick = quickie

magnum hot take

hey bata(?) just thought I'd let you know I have copied the obnoxious emoji and Billy Ray post for use on simping men going forth

thank you 😘🌷 (@spacebarsidecar)

why would you do that to your followers???? i get why i did it, but why would you???

what is scarecrow made the nightwing funko pop himself, like those diy-ers that paint over other ones

oh god no, horrible take, horrible take, that's a disgusting thought oh no

I see your HC that Bruce and Oliver fucked and raise you this: Dick and Roy ALSO fucked

yes they did and it was a horrible moment for jason to find out dick has fucked both of his best friends

"at this rate bruce adds like 1 child to his family every decade or so" Duke is introduced in 2013, Damian as Damian, not as an unnamed child, in 2006. And he is already 14 years old, Robins rarely remain Robins after 16 😬 It looks like a new Robin and Batkid will appear in a couple of years

i mean i can't wait? but somebody will probably die first tho, we're due for another major character death. my money's on either cass or duke this time.

BRO you're so right all of your Bruce's ex headcanons are amazing but they aren't ships, that's kinda wild. Like I don't want any peeks into how their relationship was I just want to see everyone make fun of them

lmao YES it's just i love bruce being a slut, like good for him.

I am in love with your posts your honour thank you

omg thanks are we like,, gonna kiss now?

The justice league needs to have a meeting to discuss how many of their members/partners have slept with bruce. Because through a combination of cannon & fannon (if DC wasn’t homophobic) we have AT LEAST: 1) clark 2) lois 3) oliver 4) dinah 5) john

Thats not counting villains or random civilians @dudelookitsalesbian

yes yes yes, they'll have a yearly meeting about how many of their collective exes could be out for revenge and batman's list just keeps getting longer.

tim was like "i'm drake now" and everyone was like ahh so your fursona is a dragon and tim was like pffffft no. ducks.

and what about it?

when steph's fighting livewire and she zaps her with lighting and nothing happens and then they both just. stand there awkwardly for a second and talk. yeah i couldn't stop laughing at that batgirl steph is the BEST

oh yeah that was fucking hilarious and i think it would be so cool and sexy of dc to give steph a little comic series,,, as a treat

Hi I absolutely adore all of yours "Bruce and Oliver very badly pretending they didn't fuck each other" memes

lmao i do too

I need you to know that “Bruce Wayne had frosted tips” is one of my favorite Bruce takes of all time it’s so galaxy brained. you’re right and you should say it

he also painted his hair blonde once when he was travelling and in conclusion, this is why he's being blackmailed by the gotham gazette.

you know my thing about gordon being branded as the only good cop in gotham is its a load of shit like arguably he's a good person and not working to screw people over or anything but the fact that he also works w. batman makes him a shit cop. like yea batman is better than the mob but its still illegal its still an abuse of power he just not making bank

babe, all cops are bad cops. (but yeah youre absolutely right, working with vigilantes makes you a shit cop, but also working against vigilantes just makes you an asshole cop yanno?)

ruh roh i think i’m about to add “so not yeehaw” every time i don’t like something

that's a very good vocabulary upgrade

somehow i feel like steph already knew. like babs obviously knew but i feel like bruce got high/drunk in front of steph and started telling his boarding school stories and steph was just like “oh you fucked up i’m never gonna forget this”

steph and bruce have weird uncle/rebellious niece dynamic and they just hang out sometimes and bruce will be like 'i once broke my arm when i tripped over a hedge when i was drunk so oliver drove me to the hospital on an electric scooter' and steph will just have to sit there with that knowledge in her head.

Hello I just wanted to tell you you are So right in all your steph opinions bc she is, in fact amazing and I think that's very sexy of you. Ps. Your Bruce/Oliver fic is hilarious

babe, thank you so much and yes steph is amazing and i love her and she deserves the world and she's the best member of the batfam hands down. also thanks

In Supersons we see a couple of kids that are implied to be Damian and Jon's children and the boy has laser eyes and can fly, so I asume he's not adopted. The girl, who calls Bruce grandpa, can also fly, btw. So it's canon (probably by accident) that Jon can have kids and he must have married one of Bruce's kids. (I'm hoping for Damian, mostly because any other of his children would be waaaaaaaaaaaaay too old.) @artemisa97

lmao that was probably an accident seeing as jon is a 17 year old superhero in the year 3000 (by the jonas brothers)

You know, I'm a die hard fan of your memes, but I gotta say one thing: if Gothamites actually took gas mask everywhere with them, then the Scarecrow would just be a weird dude in a weird costume, and not a villain oh so scary. DC really should just takes notes from you.

bold of you to assume there's no gothamite anti-maskers

How does it feel being the funniest person on this app?

horrible, next question.

I can't listen to Green Day or Billy Joel without thinking of your post about how Bruce got arrested at a Billy Joel concert @nightwings-kid

yeah that's your mistake, i on the other hand can't enjoy billy joel without thinking about the glee rendition of 'uptown girl'

I've FINALLY been watching the Batman animated series and I gotta say, after watching "the gray ghost" I am CONVINCED that Batman is a closeted super hero geek who was 100% freaking out the first time he met Superman and is just REALLY good at hiding it.

superman: so what do you do in your free time? batman, thinking about the superman fanfiction he's writing on the batcomputer: i have no free time

bruce and oliver be like boyfriends to co-workers 401k (do the justice leagues get 401ks??? not that bruce and ollie would need them, but-)

lmao yes just 400 thousand words of bruce realising 'oh dip oliver is such a fucking dumbass' (also i don't know what a 401 k is but i assume they don't?)

Gothamites would totally boo superman as he saves Gotham while batman is out. @meenje

he's like 'okay think about that next time you want to be saved from an alien octopus'

I just took long break from dc comics and I come back to see ric grayson ??

i think it's very cool and sexy of dc to see dick and just think 'you know what? let's just give him a traumatic brain injury' and then didn't develop his character in any real way

SPEAKING OF RIC GRAYSON, gothamites making confused memes out of ric grayson is much needed

'dick grayson is my taxi driver? can anyone explain what the fuck happened he looks like an italian plumber?'

i hate to say it but batfam are def "marvel characters" in that sense they are characters who are human but become superheroes unlike most dc characters who are gods trying to be human maybe this is why I like batfam

fair enough

#this is only like half of it #but at least you can get like a few answers #yanno fuck it #bataranswers #ask #asks #anon

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pftones3482 · 3 years ago

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Sometimes Stupid

Commission for @randomfandomfan from one of their many prompts they gave me. Took forever bc of work and life and also???? Now I have a cat??? So that's fun. But this was fun to write. Read it here on AO3

Set post TLO and pre HOO (and a little bit post HOO). Under a cut for length.

Contrary to popular belief, Leo Valdez was not stupid.

He was an idiot, at times – for instance, maybe running away from his seventh (fifteenth? He’d really lost track at this point) foster home wasn’t the best decision he could have made, especially given that it was the middle of summer and oh, also, hurricane season. And okay, maybe he should’ve taken more with him than a single change of clothes, a box of Ritz crackers, a pocketknife, and a water bottle that had definitely seen better days, but he was in a rush, okay?

But he wasn’t stupid.

When he ran away from his foster homes, Leo tended to stay away from people where he could. And if he had to be around them, he cleaned up, smiled brightly, “Yes ma’am”ed and “Yes’sir”ed to an obnoxious point, and lied his pants off. People were less likely to call the police on a Hispanic kid if they thought he was just a darling little angel waiting for mom at the grocery store, and the last thing he needed was the cops in his business.

Not that it hadn’t happened, of course. He’d dealt with cops of all kinds – nice cops, bad cops, black cops, white cops (WAY too many of those, in his opinion), the occasional cop who would speak Spanish with him, cops who were just there to write a report and move on with their days – cops.

He tried to stay away from them.

Which meant sticking to beaches and forests, lakes and campgrounds, middle of nowhere places with no people for miles. Leo was good at disappearing. Hiding.

But there were always times when he needed an adult. When he needed to hitchhike, or when he needed food to the point of near passing out. Once for serious medical attention. There was a system to what adults you could trust.

Never cops. You could never trust the cops, no matter what naïve white parents thought. Leo had been in cuffs enough to know that was false.

You also couldn’t usually trust priests. They meant well, sure, but they always ended up calling the authorities in the end. That, or they tried to convert Leo to Catholicism, and while one of those encounters had ended with a swiped bottle of watered-down red wine and a night that made him vow to never drink again, he wasn’t trying to contact the church.

(THAT night, Leo would say he had been stupid. He could admit that)

Homeless people were usually okay. While a lot of them were very suspicious of everyone, almost every homeless person he’d ever met would point him in the direction of food, water, free showers, free clothes, or a library (his saving grace during the heat of the summer and the cold of the winter). The times when he came across gay homeless people were when he felt safest – they especially never pressed him about his background. Ironic, really, that he felt safer with strangers on the street than his foster homes.

Moms were sometimes okay. Especially if they were Hispanic, or black, or just anything but white. They, at least, wouldn’t call the cops on him. But they were also hit or miss – sometimes they helped in way of a meal, or a new bottle of water. One mom even took him to the store and got him new socks and underwear (he had cried that night). But other moms rushed him away from their precious babies. Some moms called him ungrateful for the “space he had.”

Dads were a never. Leo never went to men if he could help it, even if they had children with them. He didn’t trust them as far as he could throw them, and that wasn’t very far.

But it was hurricane season. And he was on the coast. And it was downpouring, and he was starving, and the only people he had seen for miles were a white couple, a man and a woman, standing on the porch of a somewhat rundown shack that Leo would’ve probably thought was abandoned if he hadn’t seen them there.

The man was tall, peppered hair that was shifting more to salt, with a rough beard and a pair of glasses perched on his nose. The woman at his side was short, probably Leo’s height, with dark curly hair and vibrantly blue eyes. It was streaked with gray, but she was, admittedly, a very pretty woman. Something about her smile put Leo at ease.

He clutched his backpack tighter in his fist and stumbled over the sand towards the shack, ankles rolling uncomfortably on the wet ground. He was sure he looked atrocious, sure that the moment they spotted him, they’d shriek and cuss him out and lock the door.

But then he coughed, hard, his shoulders shaking, and the woman whipped her head around. He watched her eyes widen, watched her tug at the man’s sleeve, and then she was bolting – barefoot, Leo noticed – down the steps and over to him.

He flinched when she wrapped an arm over his shoulders, jolting out of her grip more from habit than anything else. She froze, holding both hands up and relaxing her stance. “Hey, honey. It’s okay. It’s okay.”

Somewhere deep down, Leo’s brain was scoffing at the patronizing words. But on the surface, he focused on the words, and then sharpened his eyes onto the man as he approached, phone in hand. “I-I c-can’t-”

The woman looked back, down at the phone, and her shoulders stiffened. “Paul, put the phone away, please.”

Her voice held an intonation that Leo couldn’t decipher, but the man – Paul – instantly shut the phone off and pocketed it. The moment it was gone, Leo let his shoulders loosen, and he looked at the woman anxiously. “I’m sorry,” he whispered. “I-I just…”

“Hey.”

Her arm was more cautious this time, sliding around Leo’s shoulders with a pace that would let him move if he wanted. He didn’t, just let it happen, and then the woman was easing him over the sticky sand and up the steps of the shack, Paul close behind them. He stopped at the door, pushing back hard against the woman’s guiding grip. “I don’t want to ruin your house,” he managed.

The woman’s laugh was…well, to be perfectly honest, it made Leo feel warm. Like she could never hurt him.

Those are usually the most dangerous people, his mind tried to reason with him.

“Sweetheart, it’s just a rental cabin. Besides, I’ve had far worse than a little sand and water on my floors before.”

Before he could wonder at that sentence, she opened the door and nudged him inside. The second that Paul closed the door, the sound of the wind died down and the chill in the air evaporated. Leo realized he was shivering.

The woman’s hands were warm on his cheeks. “My name is Sally, hon. You are-?”

He usually gave a fake name, but – “Leo, ma’am.”

“Don’t you ma’am me,” she scoffed, her voice easy as she helped Leo to the couch. “I’m not that old, am I Paul?”

Paul put his hands up. “I abstain from answering.”

Sally scoffed and pressed a cool hand on Leo’s forehead. “Can I take your backpack, sweetheart?”

Something like panic flared in Leo’s chest, and Sally must have seen it, because she pulled her hand back and held it up. “I’m not moving it far, I just want Paul to dry everything out for you, okay?”

Fingers shaking, Leo shrugged off his bag – the one he’d been carrying for nearly three states – and passed it over to her. She took it like it was a priceless artifact, and handed it to Paul with more tenderness than Leo had ever seen given to an inanimate object. “I think my son might have left some clothes here while he was with us last week,” she said, voice soft. “He’s a little older than you, so some things might be big, but is it okay if we give you some of his clothes while we dry out yours?”

Leo swallowed around the lump in his throat. “Um. Yeah.”

She stood up and left with Paul, giving Leo a moment to be alone and take in the cabin around him.

It was old, but obviously well taken care of, with weathered planks of wood gracing the walls and the floor. He was in the living room, full of mismatched couches and chairs and a bookshelf stacked full of books and games. He didn’t see a TV in sight, but he wasn’t expecting to find one. He stood shakily, suddenly very aware of how wet he was getting the couch, and wrapped his arms around himself as he explored the rest of the main room.

The kitchen was small and cramped, but he could smell something full of tomatoes and spices in the oven that made his tastebuds water. He didn’t dare look for fear of getting caught, so he stepped away and into the tiny dining area. There was sand on the floor, spread thin and fine, and it was such a small thing, but it made Leo relax even more – Sally meant it when she said she didn’t care about him ruining her floors.

But she and Paul had been gone for a while, and Leo wasn’t stupid, okay? It didn’t matter how well intentioned someone was, they always thought they knew better, and if they were gone too long, it meant they were trying to decide for him. So he crept towards the hallway they’d vanished to, praying that he didn’t step on a squeaky board. Old homes always had them in the most inconvenient places.

“-not answering?” he picked up Paul’s voice saying.

“No,” Sally said, a sigh in her voice. “He did say he and Annabeth were on a date, but I didn’t expect them to be in Paris of all places. How did they even-?”

“Can you get ahold of Chiron?”

Not the police, then, Leo reasoned, unless they knew an officer by that name. He leaned a little closer.

“No – I try not to call the camp unless I need to. Phone lines and all that, you know?”

Paul huffed. “I know. And Rachel is at art camp, right?”

“Yup,” Sally said, and Leo heard a sound like a blowing raspberry. “He clearly isn’t aware of anything, Paul. He’s terrified.”

“Probably a runaway,” Paul hummed, and Leo flinched at the damning statement. “Met a couple kids like that teaching.”

He looked like a teacher. You couldn’t trust most teachers either, Leo had learned. They were just like priests. Tried their best, but they always inevitably called someone.

“What did you do? Who did you call?” Sally asked, and Leo stiffened. Here it comes, his brain taunted.

“No one,” Paul said.

Leo blinked, taking a slight step back. What?

“Kids don’t run away for no reason, Sal. Especially not kids like him. Perce taught me that. I mean, maybe in my early days of teaching, I might have called the authorities, but ever since this summer I…how could I risk that? Even before then, I mean…the stories I’ve heard from some of these kids I’ve talked to. We don’t know anything about him. If he ran away, all this way, in this weather? It was bad, love.”

Leo’s throat ached.

He’d never, the whole time he’d been in foster care, ever heard an adult admit that they were wrong to call the authorities on him. Never heard an adult take his perspective into account, especially without even knowing him. Never had an adult admit that his life could be anything other than ideal.

He took another step back and oh shit, there it was, the cursed piece of wood in every old house to ever exist. He cussed under his breath and ducked his head as Sally stepped into the hallway. He refused to look up at her. “I’m sorry,” he whispered. “You were just gone for a while a-and I thought you might be calling someone.”

No verbal response. Instead, a soft bundle of fabric was pressed into Leo’s hands. He startled, gripping onto the clothing, and looked up at Sally and Paul with wide eyes. Paul shook his head. “We’re not calling anyone, son. Not if you don’t want us to. But we do ask that you get cleaned up, before you catch pneumonia.”

Sally tilted her head towards the door across the hall. “Let me know when you’re done, I’ll toss your clothes in the dryer. Paul was just finishing up dinner when you came along. Do you like lasagna?”

Leo’s mouth watered at the thought of eating any kind of food that wasn’t stale crackers and canned tuna. “Yes ma’am.”

“What’d I say about that ma’am nonsense?” Sally scolded.

Leo ducked his head, trying to press down the tears. “Yes, miss,” he chuckled.

Sally laughed as Paul headed for the kitchen. “It’s a start, love.”

Sally’s son’s clothes were soft, well loved. They smelled like sea water and lavender detergent, and though the t-shirt was a gaudy orange with letters so faded that Leo couldn’t read them, he sank into the fabric with a sigh. Sally had also passed him a pair of sweatpants, and Leo hoped that her son wouldn’t be mad if he ever found out that some random foster kid had borrowed them.

If he was anything like Sally, though, Leo had the feeling he’d like him.

His hair was still wet, but this time from a shower, and Leo couldn’t remember the last time he’d gotten to stand under an actual stream of hot water without people literally timing him to make sure he didn’t take too long. He stood in front of the mirror, sighing a little at how skinny he’d gotten. He’d always been small – being skinny only made him more of a punching bag for the bigger foster kids. His hair, untamed from weeks of running, hung in his eyes, and he wondered briefly if Sally might have a hair tie he could borrow.

He left the bathroom and crept into the dining room, where Sally was setting the table and Paul was pulling one of the most beautiful lasagnas he’d ever seen out of the oven.

“-texted me, said they’d be back tomorrow morning. He offered to come back sooner,” Sally was saying as Leo stood in the doorway, “but I know he and ‘beth haven’t really gotten to go on any non-monstrous dates recently.”

She blinked when she saw him standing there, and her smile softened into something warm and inviting. “Come on, hon. Paul was just getting dinner out.”

Maybe it was the malnourishment, or Paul’s cooking skills, or Leo’s exhaustion, or a combination of the three, but Leo had never tasted such good Italian food in his life. He downed one, two, three pieces and a full salad before he finally slowed down. To his relief, neither Paul nor Sally gave him any grief about how many pieces he took. Honestly, he thought he watched Paul actively make his slices bigger than theirs.

They’d clearly been talking about their son when he came in the room. This guy was in Paris, on a date with his girlfriend, and he was coming back tomorrow. Leo wondered just how rich this family was – the dad was a teacher, but Sally hadn’t said what she did, and Leo was a little afraid to ask.

When Paul brought out a pie for dessert, Leo almost cried. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d had any dessert fancier than a stolen Ding Dong from a corner store. Paul definitely gave him a larger slice than them, and as he ate it, Sally poked at her own pie.

“Leo, we’re not going to pry,” she started, gentle. “Your story is yours, and I know how tricky it can be to share yourself and your past with new people.”

The sad smile Paul shot her didn’t go unnoticed by Leo, and he internally bristled at the thought that this wonderful mom in front of him could understand anything about how he felt, because that meant that she’d gone through shit she didn’t deserve. He said nothing, though, just nodded.

Sally eyed her pie thoughtfully, stabbing a blackberry that had escaped the crust. “But I feel like…well, I feel as though my son especially can relate to how you’re feeling, or at least some of it. If you’d be willing to wait for him to come home, maybe we can figure some things out together.”

Leo felt lost. He’d been lost a lot before, but this was the first time it was mental and not physical. “What?”

Sally looked up, seeming to realize that she’d baffled him. “I mean…”

She looked at Paul, and Leo looked between the two of them, tightening his grip on his fork. They were having a silent conversation. Leo hated when adults did that. “You mean you want to wait until I’m asleep so you can call the cops o-or foster services or-or just wait until your son gets back so he can tell me to get out.”

He shoved his chair back from the table, tears prickling at his eyes. Every time. Every time. He always got his hopes up, always thought he’d found the perfect people, people who got it, and every fucking time, he-

Hands settled on his shoulders, and he ripped away, scowling at Sally. Her eyes were sad, and Leo felt an unwelcome stab of guilt in his chest. “That is not what we were suggesting, ever, honey. I would never call foster services, first of all. They’re atrocious, especially for kids of color.”

Leo jolted back. He’d never had a white woman actively acknowledge his race so bluntly before – it was usually partnered with some demeaning comment about “his kind” of people. He eyed Sally warily.

She lowered her hands, keeping them on her hips where he could see them. “Second, I’d never call the police either. You’re not a problem, and my son has had enough unfortunate encounters with them for me to…distrust them severely, to say the least.”

Her son had-?

“I just…we know a place. Where you would genuinely be safe, hon. No foster homes, no cops, with people who get it.”

She was lying. She had to be lying, no matter what Leo’s heart said. But she wasn’t going to let this go, and he knew it. So he sighed, fidgeted with his fingers. He wished he had something to build. “Okay. I’ll wait for your son to get home.”

Sally relaxed, and Leo gave her a thin smile.

He helped her and Paul clean up the kitchen, put away the leftover lasagna. Sat with them and did a puzzle, played a game of Clue with them. Fixed their radio for them, much to their surprise, and then watched with a small smile on his face as Paul and Sally danced around the living room together. They tried to get him to join, but he’d never been much of a dancer, so he declined.

They bid him goodnight around 11, and he shut the door of their son’s room, let the hours tick on.

At three am, he got up, changed back into his own clothes, left the borrowed ones folded neatly on the foot of the bed. He took a flashlight from the bedside table and slid it into his backpack, stepped out of the bedroom and avoided the squeaky floorboard.

The tool kit from fixing the radio was still on the coffee table, and he picked it up with only the slightest feelings of guilt. Went through the cabinets and pulled out sleeves of crackers, a box of granola, eyed the leftover lasagna with a sad gaze. He found a roll of toilet paper under the sink, a bottle of hand sanitizer in a junk drawer.

He paused by the game of Clue, left out on the table from their match, and let his fingers trace over it sadly. His gut screamed at him to leave. His heart screamed at him to stay. He wasn’t stupid.

Leo had always trusted his gut.

He pocketed the candlestick piece and turned for the door, flinching the second his eyes landed on Sally.

Her hair was done up in a braid, her pajamas wrinkled, and the moon shining through the window reflected the sadness in her eyes. Leo opened his mouth, but couldn’t find it in him to speak – the lump was back.

She stepped forward and he shut his eyes, expecting a lecture. Instead, her hand cupped his cheek. Her other hand pressed into his, and he gasped as he felt the telltale touch of money in his fingers. He looked down at the wad of cash – he couldn’t see how much it was, but he knew that he didn’t deserve it. He looked up at her, panicking. “I can’t-”

“Stay, I know,” she whispered, and that wasn’t what he’d been planning to say, and he knew that she knew that. “I understand, Leo. I understand, sweetie.”

The sob slipped out before he could stop it, and Sally’s eyes softened. She bent at the hip, pressing a soft kiss to his curls. “When you end up meeting my son,” she murmured, “come visit, okay?”

Leo had no idea what that meant, but he nodded, if only to appease her. “I’m sorry,” he croaked.

She squeezed his shoulder. “Nothing to be sorry for, honey. Be safe.”

Sally watched him go, watched him shut the door behind him, and he looked down at the money in his hands with a choked feeling in his chest. It was more than he’d held in his entire life. He couldn’t take it, but he knew she’d be upset if he didn’t. And if there was one thing Leo refused to do, it was make Sally more upset than he already had.

So he pocketed it and, with an aching heart, stepped off the porch of the cabin. The storm from earlier had died down, and, fingers tight on his backpack straps, he started making his way up the beach.

Percy was bouncing up and down at the entrance to Camp Half Blood, fingers curled around Annabeth’s hand. “Do I look okay?” he asked for probably the thousandth time that morning.

Piper rolled her eyes. “Percy, it’s your mom. She doesn’t care what you look like.”

Percy shot her a mock glare. “I haven’t seen her in over a year, McClean, sue me.”

“You look fine, Perce,” Annabeth laughed, kissing his cheek. “She’s gonna mostly care that you’re alive.”

“Okay but this tattoo-”

“Sorry, you vanished on me for over a year, crossed the globe, and you got a TATTOO?” came a very scolding, very obviously Mom Voice, and Leo snickered, turning to see who was about to absolutely whoop Percy’s ass.

And he stumbled on his own feet, lips parting as Sally (Sally Jackson, his unhelpful brain mocked) appeared at the top of the hill. Her hair was a little grayer than it had been when Leo met her, her hips a little wider, but her smile was the same, her laugh as Percy launched himself at her the same peal of delight Leo remembered on his toughest nights, and when she caught his eye over Percy’s shoulder, her smile only widened.

Okay, so sometimes Leo Valdez was kind of stupid.

#percy jackson #pjo #leo valdez #heroes of olympus #pjo fanfic #my writing #sally jackson #paul blofis #percy jackson and the olympians #hoo

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astradrifting · 4 years ago

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This is kind of inspired by this recent ask I sent to @esther-dot about Jon’s characterisation and Jonsa shippers’ apparent disregard for it, because it made me think of another part of Jon’s characterisation that is really integral to who he is. Mainly, that Jon really loves his brothers. Especially Robb. His rival and best friend and constant companion. Jon envies him, competes with him, buried a formative traumatic memory where he was deeply hurt by him... but ultimately loves him. Complex relationships with his brothers, both the Starks and his Night’s Watch brothers, are a running theme in Jon’s chapters.

Speaking of Jon’s brothers...

Aegon VI and Robb have a lot of potential parallels, actually. The “Young” moniker, red-haired counselors who are also their parents, trained to be the heir to a great kingdom from a young age, the barely younger half-brother Jon borne of their father’s dishonour of their mother… one that they might both have a good relationship with despite that?

The show tried to play with Jon ‘accepting’ his Targaryen lineage through the jonerice romance, very unconvincingly because it was simultaneously undermining it at every opportunity, in what was maybe a half-assed attempt at Pol!Jon (”They’ll all come to see you for what you are” isn’t anything but a threat in all contexts).

Jon will ultimately choose the Starks over everything else, that’s not really a question. But if Jon were to genuinely connect with another Targaryen, it’d likely be easier for him to find kinship with a half-brother than with an aunt - he has a basis for positive relationships with trueborn half-brothers, while the only aunt figure he’s ever known about is a) long dead and b) actually his mother. I think it’d both make more sense and be more compelling for GRRM to leverage Jon’s existing complex relationships with brotherhood by having him interact with and build a relationship with Aegon, than a rushed and out-of-character romance with Dany.

Jon also is already primed to believe that Aegon is the real deal, that he was saved as a baby, because he’s already done the exact same thing himself - he swapped out a baby of royal blood who was in danger for a common-born boy, and then sent him halfway across the world for safety (side note: if Septa Lemore is Ashara, and if the baby was actually Ashara’s son as theorised here by @agentrouka-blog, that would just strengthen the parallel, because it would be his body double’s mother caring for him, as Gilly has to do for Mance’s son).

They’re definitely going to come into conflict first - politically, Jon will likely be in a position of power in the North by the time they meet, maybe as the KitN through Robb’s will or regent for Rickon, and probably will fight for Northern independence, while Aegon is fighting to be king of the Seven Kingdoms, not 6. Personally, it will be hard to get past the fact that Jon is the direct result of Rhaegar dishonouring Elia, plus that the Kingsguard who should have been protecting her were all stationed in Dorne, guarding Jon’s mother (in whatever capacity). But these interactions, a conflict and eventual friendship/brotherhood between them, would all be a lot more layered than jonerice can really offer. If a relationship between Jon and Dany was truly all that GRRM has been building up to, then there would have been no need for R+L=J - it adds nothing to that storyline, it doesn’t even make it a forbidden romance, because aunt-nephew is hardly the worst incest the Targaryens have engaged in.

It’s almost inevitable that Da*nerys is going to kill Aegon VI/Young Griff in the books, likely by burning him with dragonfire, in the Second Dance of the Dragons. The weird Dragonpit meeting in the show was very contrived, but it does make sense for Dany to meet the ruler on the Iron Throne at least once in a semi-peaceful context. In the show, she used her dragons only to intimidate Cersei, but she didn’t have a personal grievance with her. Aegon is in much more danger during such a meeting. After all she will think he is a pretender, and she doesn’t much care for the rules of safe conduct, as she showed to the envoys from Yunkai.

Dany shrugged, and said, "Dracarys."

The dragons answered. Rhaegal hissed and smoked, Viserion snapped, and Drogon spat swirling red-black flame. It touched the drape of Grazdan's tokar, and the silk caught in half a heartbeat.

[...]

"You swore I should have safe conduct!" the Yunkish envoy wailed.

"Do all the Yunkai'i whine so over a singed tokar? I shall buy you a new one... if you deliver up your slaves within three days. Elsewise, Drogon shall give you a warmer kiss." She wrinkled her nose. "You've soiled yourself. Take your gold and go, and see that the Wise Masters hear my message."

(ASOS, Dany IV)

"Ah, there is the thorn in the bower, my queen," said Hizdahr zo Loraq. "Sad to say, Yunkai has no faith in your promises. They keep plucking the same string on the harp, about some envoy that your dragons set on fire."

"Only his tokar was burned," said Dany scornfully.

(ADWD, Dany VI)

So Dany will burn the Blackfyre pretender, and everyone will be happy and cheer to see the rightful queen, the last Targaryen, Slayer of Lies, Breaker of Chains, Insert-The-Million-Other-Titles-Here. Right?

Except how would she prove that he’s an imposter? She can’t exactly roll up with an Alt Shift X video pointing out that Illyrio has said some weird things about Aegon. Is Varys going to have an attack of remorse and explain his whole plot, complete with Blackfyre family tree? Or maybe she’ll explain that she went on a vision quest in Qarth and Aegon totally matches up with the vague symbolism that a bunch of drugged up warlocks told her before she set them on fire?

I don’t think it’s going to matter if Aegon is fake or not, and we might never find out either way. The mystery of his identity isn’t his main narrative, and all of his significance to the story and to multiple other characters is removed if he’s proved to not be Aegon VI. Him being proved fake would just make this plotline a weird, unnecessary digression on Dany’s journey to being the righteous and true queen, his death just another #girlboss moment for her. That’s definitely going to be her perception of it, but once she reaches Westeros we won’t have to rely on only her POV of her actions. History is written by the winners, and no one’s going to miss that it’s a lot more convenient for Dany if the boy with a stronger claim than her turns out to have been fake all along. Arianne and the Dornish are definitely not going to take it lying down, and neither is Jon. He’s not going to fall in love with the woman who murdered his brother, especially by burning him alive. ADWD has plenty to say about how much he hates death by fire.

“Men say that freezing to death is almost peaceful. Fire, though … do you see the candle, Gilly?”

She looked at the flame. “Yes.”

“Touch it. Put your hand over the flame.”

Her big brown eyes grew bigger still. She did not move.

“Do it.” Kill the boy. “Now.”

Trembling, the girl reached out her hand, held it well above the flickering candle flame.

“Down. Let it kiss you.”

Gilly lowered her hand. An inch. Another. When the flame licked her flesh, she snatched her hand back and began to sob.

“Fire is a cruel way to die. Dalla died to give this child life, but you have nourished him, cherished him. You saved your own boy from the ice. Now save hers from the fire.”

(ADWD, Jon II)

Funnily enough, the same fire as a kiss imagery from Dany burning the envoy’s tokar appeared there too, also used as a threat.

If he is not a kinslayer, he is the next best thing. [...] What sort of man can stand by idly and watch his own brother being burned alive?

(ADWD, Jon IX)

So Aegon’s death is not going to be a triumphant victory for Dany, after which everyone proclaims her the true queen. It’s likely to just solidify opposition to her, from every corner of Westeros. If it happens during a summit or negotiation, it’d be even more of a tragic parallel to Robb and the Red Wedding; the young king murdered off of the battlefield, at an event where he was promised safe conduct. Featuring Dany in the role of Roose Bolton and Tywin Lannister. Tywin’s already died a very undignified death, and Roose Bolton looks to be on his way too.

I think the tragedy of Aegon’s death would also hit harder if we see it through Jon, as a main POV, or at least the aftermath of it. Jon was integral at the Dragonpit meeting after all, and probably would be at a peace summit or negotiation between the leaders of Westeros and the invading force.

In ASOS, there’s a curious lack of Jon’s reaction to Robb’s death. We see his initial reaction to Bran and Rickon’s supposed deaths when he gets back to Castle Black, but he doesn’t even know about Robb’s death until Stannis arrives to defeat the wildlings, and we’re not shown the moment he’s told about it. He barely even thinks about it, not even a mention until he meets with Stannis on top of the Wall:

“Your brother was the rightful Lord of Winterfell. If he had stayed home and done his duty, instead of crowning himself and riding off to conquer the riverlands, he might be alive today. Be that as it may. You are not Robb, no more than I am Robert.”

The harsh words had blown away whatever sympathy Jon might have had for Stannis. “I loved my brother,” he said.

(ASOS, Jon XI)

And that’s literally all we get that is specifically about Robb’s death - the rest of Jon’s chapters, his guilt and grief is about the loss of all his siblings, and the idea of stealing Winterfell from them. It doesn’t really make sense for him to not think about it at all, considering how close they were. This reminds me of how he has a non-reaction to Sansa’s marriage to Tyrion as well, as talked about in this post by @agentrouka-blog. Part of this could be Jon’s tendency towards denial and suppression of all his feelings, but it also points to GRRM explicitly obscuring his reaction - perhaps because he’s going to explore it in the wake of another brother dying a very similar death? One that this time he’ll be there to witness?

#astra rambles #meta #speculation #half speculation half 'my wildest dreams and hopes'#anti daenerys targaryen #anti jonerys #jon snow #aegon vi targaryen #jon and aegon #anti got #because i do dunk on the show a lot in this lmao #i've spent far too long on this and had to delete five tirades against the show already

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lucifer-is-a-bag-of-dicks · 3 years ago

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I have two suggestions for the Gray Ghost AU.

1: Wes Weston is no longer under suspicion of being a Ghost. Now, he is under suspicion of being the Phantom Hunter. He is athletic, fits the build, is on record as saying he wants to fight Ghosts, and has access to the tech (just BS a connection to the GiW or Axiom). The difference this makes in his regular life is mostly null... except for the fact that Ghosts now keep targeting him for retribution attacks. Danny goes out of his way to obscure his identity from everyone, meaning Wes is seen as them catching Phantom Hunter off guard. I imagine him trying to pin it on Danny but because he so clearly disdains his parent's work, literally no one believes him.

2: The idea of Danny getting his hands on an Ectoplasm enhanced suit like the Technus upgrade Val got to her suit, most likely given by Maddie as a way to bond with Danny (and further prep him for a transformation into a Halfa). Except given his preexisting contamination (his mum is half Ghost) and Maddie messing with the suit, he ends up with the suit now fusing to him more thoroughly. After reading too many Iron Man comics, I picture something like his Bleeding Edge armour. It is basically stored mostly in his body, and he can augment it with extra technology. This would probably be a win scenario for Maddie because this puts Danny even further into Halfa territory. This also makes things more tragic with Val. Because not only has Maddie betrayed Danny to experiment on him, but because it means Val failed to stop this happening to someone she cares about. Also, this opens up a new opportunity for one of the Clones: one who is now a more pronounced cyborg made with a prototype of the suit Maddie gave to Danny, maybe he looks like the Terminator or something. For extra irony, he's the nicest one and likes gardening or something. I know this can be taken further, but I'm not able to focus on it more due to exhaustion.

Also, your idea is great, and thank you for sharing it with us and letting us all throw our suggestions at you. Thanks for all the good content.

no thank you! this stuff is always way more fun and interesting when it's collaborated! most of these ideas wouldn't exist without other people's suggestions, even the initial prompt! ✨

also @everystarstorm this will answer your ask too ~ y'all sharing a braincell today haha

1. omg yes YES yes this is perfect absolutely 100%

Wes just cannot catch a break in ANY universe (the concept of Walter Weston working for Vlad has been a Thing so we can keep that around here since Vlad works at Axion and that can be the connection, maybe Walter is just the paperwork guy or the company's legal attorney)

I also had a suggestion from @burns-art-account that Valerie gets her own version of a Wes, but like since the name Wes initially came from a joke about Sam's name being misread upside down, we could do the same with one of Val's friends, like Star could be Jets or Jeqs, or something like that

although I think this person would be less open and vocal about Valerie since her popularity would make it impossible to point a finger at without being laughed at by the whole school (I mean just look at Wes, his target is just some nerdy kid and he's still a laughingstock), so this character could be a little more subtle in trying to get evidence to out Val, it would make a pretty funny running gag if every time she got a chance to photograph Val transforming or capture some kind of evidence, something always gets in the way at the last moment, like a bird flying in front of the camera or something

2. I want to keep Danny getting the suit from Technus because I'd want this universe's version of that episode to still happen because it was a great episode between these two and it could still work with the switch around

but Maddie really would have to change course with her portal plan because this whole thing could actually make that more difficult for Maddie, all of her calculations weren't made with a highly ecto-contaminated person in mind, this would mean she would have to readjust the portal's design between Danny and the rest of her family, or actually just throw that plan away in favour of working with this new angle

she could realise that her kids HAVE picked up some traits from her because yeah a normal human shouldn't be able to do that to ghost tech

the idea that Maddie does add to his arsenal is good, once she figures out that any tech he uses gets absorbed into his suit she starts making more weaponry that's super compatible with him, possibly even making stuff that will purposely contaminate him further to bring him closer to being like a halfa (this would be a pretty huge step in Maddie's villain development because now she's resorted to experimenting on her own son, she's losing sight of why she's doing all this in the first place) it would be really cool to see Maddie gradually losing her maternal motherly nature to the cold calculating scientist

like her warmth used to feel at least somewhat genuine deep down but now it just feels like a part she's playing, slimy and sinister, she was always manipulative but she had a real genuine care for her family underneath, she thought she was doing the right thing, but that love and care is slipping away into just doing whatever it takes to get what she wants, to complete her experiment

also I was thinking about the cloning ep being set kinda earlier in this universe, so that would have happened pre-upgrade, but the idea of there being a cyborg clone made later is super cool, and then we could get a clone centric episode where the other clones try to convince this newer more dangerous clone to join their family, and yes him becoming the sweetest, nicest clone is *mwah* perfection

that ep could pave the way and maybe even foreshadow Maddie's eventual experimentations on Danny himself

and the repercussions on Val oooooof, she would feel so guilty, she would feel so much like she let him down and she couldn't save him from becoming something he never wanted to be and now it's getting to a point where it'll be too late for him to get back to normal

and since we've established in a previous post that Vlad knows about Danny, he could even play as Danny's one guiding light, warning him that if he keeps doing this he won't be able to turn back, and his interactions with Danny could give us some insight to what's going on in Danny's head, he's trying so hard to point Danny away from all this while his own mother is more subtly encouraging him and pushing him in the other direction, like a shoulder angel/shoulder devil kinda thing

these are some great ideas thank you for sharing! ❤️❤️

#asks #danny phantom #gray ghost au

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kai-writes-fan-fiction · 4 years ago

Text

In Hiding Part 6

Author’s Announcement: Hey guys! I really appreciate all of the recent feedback and the patience. My life has been pretty hectic these last few weeks, so as a reward for your patience, this is the longest part yet, and I’m really proud of it! I hope you all enjoy it!

P.S. Doctors scare me so sorry if the “medical” part of the story is shitty.

Word count: 2567

Warnings: mentions of blood, bodily harm, non-consensual medical treatment, reader is StRaNgLeD, tiny OCD routine, slight language, non-descriptive violence, and grammatical/spelling errors.

The Avengers were everything you hated. They were destructive, they took whatever they wanted without a thought about anyone else, and they loved behind a façade. You’d seen who The Avengers truly were; they were menacing, inhumane, and lacked empathy. They could’ve just left you alone; you weren’t hurting anyone. You may have been doing some illegal things, but they were minor offenses! You’d never killed, and you were against terrorism of any kind. You just wanted to go home, wanted to be left alone. Your freedom had been stripped away after you’d made your final decision. You wouldn’t fight with The Avengers; you’d do everything in your power to get away from them.

You looked up from the floor of your cell, into the eyes of Steve and Bucky, and you could tell they knew what was coming next. You were stronger than them; you could easily overpower them. They’d seen it earlier when you grabbed their wrists, and every second you sat in that godforsaken cell, you became more immune to the effect of the material blocking your powers around you.

You intimidated them, and you knew it. You knew that your time in this compound was running out, and soon you’d be free. Free. Free. Free. Free. You repeated the phrase in your head five times to lock it in.

You felt that you were ready to share your decision. “I’d never fight for you people, never. Never. Never! NEVER! NEVER!! You people are killers; you take everything for yourselves! You’ve destroyed cities, taken the lives of so many innocents. How can you live with yourselves?” You yelled. Your eyes had begun glowing, and your hair was lifted off of your head as your volume increased. “How?!” You questioned, your eyes shining brighter.

Steve and Bucky were backing into corners of your room, staring down at you. A blue aura began to form around you, illuminating the room in a vibrate blue. Your crossed legs began to levitate off of the ground, and a strong wind began to sweep through the room in a circular motion.

You didn’t want to fight, this trick took all of your energy, and the two super soldiers were helpless, so you decided this would be the perfect time to escape.

As soon as you turned to the wall farthest from the room, which you hoped would lead outside, a particularly strong wave of fatigue hit you. The wind and your aura began to dim, but Steve and Bucky knew not to lunge at you yet.

A string of mumbled curses fell from your mouth, and you let your feet descend onto the ground. This might conserve your energy so you could put more into escaping this wretched complex.

Being back on the ground and looking less powerful, Steve decided to go for it. He jumped forwards and wrapped his arms around you, pressing you into him; you could only wiggle your hands.

Lifting you off the ground, he tried to make it so you couldn’t use your feet as any leverage.

“Fucking dick!” You yelled, thrashing in his arms.

“Language!” He yelled.

You’d had enough of his bullshit and began thrashing more. His grip only tightened, but you were still stronger. There was a vent located right above you, so you flew out of his arms.

You tucked your legs into your chest after he tried to reach out for them and stretched your arms, reaching for the vent. You swiftly pulled it off its hinges and forced yourself into the circulation system.

The tunnels weren’t dissimilar to a maze, you tried to go in one direction, but after 20 or so corners, you have turned around. The alarms blaring throughout the compound, warning everyone of your escape, were bringing about an awful migraine, and you were becoming more and more fatigued by the minute. You wouldn’t stop, though.

You had heard a few voices in the tunnels with you, as well as footsteps. You made sure to avoid them, and after 10 minutes of wandering through the ventilation, you found an air vent to the outside. You pushed hard, and with the last bit of strength you had left, the vent became dislodged. You tumbled out and plummeted about two stories before hiding the ground with a painful ‘thud.’

You crumpled into a ball on the grass, and you felt blood trickle down your forehead. You could also no longer feel your right foot, meaning it was broken. Everything hurt, but your ribs were also a very obviously damaged part of your body. Every time you moved, you felt a shooting pain.

You slowly sat up and wiped the blood from your face, and the amount of blood on your hand was startling. You looked around other parts of your body to assess the damage and found that your knees and elbows were also bloodied, as well as a few scrapes here and there. You lifter up your blue scrubs to get a better look at your side, where a wide purple and blue patch was starting to form. Hesitantly, you placed two fingers on your side, looking for anything broken. The shooting pain was the response, and you pulled your hand away. It was most likely broken, as was your right ankle. It was also a swelling purple and blue mess, and the pain was begging to hit.

You let your eyes fall away from your body to look at your surroundings. You were greeted by vast green forest on all sides, and behind you stood The Avengers compound. It loomed over you, and you could still hear the alarms blaring from the inside. You struggled to get up, and, to no avail, did you.

So, you lay on the ground, your tribulation had failed, and you were doomed once more. You tucked yourself into a ball and cried.

‘How could you be so weak?’ You thought to yourself. ‘How could you let people like the Avengers-like HYDRA-control you like this?’

It would be best if you found somewhere to hide, and quickly. You wouldn’t let The Avengers control you anymore. You couldn't.

You pushed yourself up, so you were on your hands and knees, but you were weak, and I’m so much agony. You kept pressing on, though. You crawled your way to the forest and let yourself fall behind a tree. You must’ve hit a tripwire or a perimeter alert, as a new set of sirens went off and an automated voice yelled your location. You cursed, but you couldn’t go on much longer. With your injuries and your temporary inability to shift, you had to surrender.

—————Avenger POV—————

“We’ve got a location!” Tony yelled through the team's comms. “Kid’s headed East, and it looks like she’s stopped behind a set of trees. I can see her on cams.”

“Who should we send out there? You saw what she did to Steve and Bucky.” Implored Natasha.

“She looks pretty tired. We could probably take her if we needed to, but I don’t think a fight is in store.” Bucky advised.

“How about we all just go out there?” Steve added sarcastically.

“Oh yeah. Good idea, capsicle.” Tony agreed. “Everyone grab your things and meet me in the common room; we’ll all go out and surround her. Bucky, Steve, you go from the East. Natasha and Clint, you guys, take the North. Strange got here a few hours ago, so he and I will take the West. Loki, you’re just going to ignore me, so Thor, go with him and make sure he doesn’t do anything rash. And Bruce? You stay inside; we don’t want a code green, big guy.”

‘Okay’s and ‘mhm’s sounded through the Comms, and three minutes later, everyone was gathered in the common room, looking at one another surreptitiously, not knowing what would greet them on the other side of the doors. They didn’t know whether or not you’d be putting up a fight, but they were about to find out.

“We’re all here? Let’s go then.” Tony commanded. His suit's helmet fell over his face, and he strode forward, everyone else in close pursuit.

—————Your POV—————

You were weaving in and out of consciousness, and you still lay crumpled on the ground in your ball. You felt weak, and you couldn’t think straight. The world was a spinning vortex, and you almost thought you heard voices and feet. You opened your eyes and were met with the face of Tony once more.

SNAP! SNAP! In your face again, but with metal fingers instead of flesh. Tony likes snapping, it seems. You, however, did not. You attempted to growl to ward him off, but you couldn’t produce any kind of sound.

You turned your head slightly to face the rest of the team. They towered over you, weapons drawn and aimed at your face. Typically, you wouldn’t fear them, but in your fragile state, they were pretty threatening.

This wasn't very pleasant. You, one of the most powerful enhanced humans ever, were lying on the ground, bloodied and broken, at the will of The Avengers. They stared down at you, pity written all over their faces. Pity, not a feeling you wanted to be affiliated with.

Two metal arms reached out and wrapped around you, hoisting you up. A sudden rush of adrenaline caused your limbs to begin thrashing about, and the pain from your ankle and ribs subsided. Your sudden movement caused the metal arms encasing your body to pull you closer to the body they attached to. You felt the metal chest and put two and two together. You were in the mostly impenetrable arms of the Iron Man.

Tony picked you up carefully and began walking back into the compound, and the team followed suit. You tried to summon the adrenaline once more, but it didn’t want to come.

Feeling completely vulnerable, you decided to surrender. Yes, it was the cowards’ way out, but did you have another option? Your body was giving up on you, you couldn’t use your powers, and your opponents happened to be the killers of Thanos, another very powerful being.

There was no hope, so you just closed your eyes and allowed the sleep that had been creeping up on you to take over. Your vision faded into black, and the last thing you remembered was the mechanical hum of the Iron Man's suit.

——————————

You awoke to quiet chatter, and a beeping machine you could only assume was a pulse monitor.

As soon as your eyes fluttered open, your senses were flooded with a bright white and the smell of rubbing alcohol.

You looked up from your supine position to find yourself strapped to a table once more, but stronger and additional restraints were added this time. You still felt weak, and your side and ankle were aching, as well as your head.

An IV was embedded in your forearm, and as your eyes traveled the length of the tube up to the bag supplying it, you found it contained a thick blue substance. It must’ve been combating your powers because you couldn’t shift.

You took in your surroundings and found various members of The Avengers watching you. Creepy.

“Welcome back to the land of the living (Y/N).” Chuckled Tony, “You gave us quite a scare.”

The rest of the team went silent, and Bruce, dressed in a white lab coat, whipped around to face you and ran to your bedside. He whipped out a flashlight and shoved it in your face, his fingers following to hold your eye open while the flashlight shined in.

“Pupils are dilating, so no concussion.” He hummed, moving to your other eye.

He moved to pull a stethoscope from his neck and pressed the bell to your chest. You bit your tongue to stop from yelling out when the cold metal touched your bare skin. You must’ve bitten it when you fell because you sensed a metallic taste in your mouth. Bruce was in spitting distance, so you let the blood and saliva pool in your mouth, and you prepared to launch it towards him.

As soon as he lifted his head, you released your spit bomb. Bruce recoiled and began incessantly wiping his face with gloved hands. A hand flew around your neck, preventing you from spitting again.

Blood dribbled down your chin, and you looked up to the face the hand belonged to. It happened to be the winter soldier, and you grinned up at him, blood coating your teeth. He stared you down, and you did the same. The rest of the team just stood by, wearing “What The Fuck Just Happened” expressions.

Bucky finally released your neck, and Banner walked back over, blood-free and with duct tape.

“Shouldn’t have done that.” Tony mocked from behind Bruce as he and Bucky taped your mouth shut.

You tried to shake him off, but your movements were no use. Barnes had a firm grip on your head that prevented you from thrashing about, and Bruce was wrapping your face.

‘Duct tape is the best they can do?’ You thought to yourself. ‘Do they know that duct tape loses its stick when wet?’

You laughed to yourself, and Bruce and Bucky ceased their actions and looked up at you, as did the rest of the team.

“What’re you laughing about?” Bucky snarled.

You only shook your head and rolled your eyes. If they didn’t know, why tell them?

Banner ripped the tape and stepped back. Bucky released your head, and you stared up at the ceiling, hoping they’d all leave.

“The rest of you can go. Bucky, you stay here. I need help controlling her.”

“You got it, Banner.”

The rest of the team reluctantly left, leaving you, Bucky, and Bruce. You looked over to them and stared them down with undeniable murderous intent.

“So, uh, what’re we doing next?” Bucky turned to Bruce, who was still staring you down.

Bruce snapped out of his trance and looked over to Bucky. “She’s still got some injuries from her fall; I need to check those out. Do you have any medical training?”

Bucky nodded. “A little bit, from when I served. Just basic stuff.”

“We can work with that.” Bruce crossed his arms and walked in the direction of your injured ankle.

You tried to get away, but the power suppressors and restraints prevented you from doing anything, so you just wriggled around uselessly.

Banner pressed two fingers to your swollen and bruised ankle, and you bit your tongue to stifle a muffled scream. He moved his fingers to another part of your ankle, and you hit your head against the table to suppress another outcry.

“Bucky, can you grab some Ace bandage? I think the Talus is fractured. We’ll need an X-Ray to make sure, but I doubt she’ll cooperate.”

“I can make her, or we could try sedation.” Bucky offered.

Bruce seemed to rather like that idea, as his brows raised, and he procured a metal syringe.

Forcing it into your arm, you let out a muffled, yet surprised yelp. Immediately after the syringe was removed from your arm, your world began to darken, and you became dizzy.

You tried and failed to resist, but your body gave in, and the last thing you saw was Bucky and Bruce watching you.

To be continued…

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