#actually kit is just constantly ready to fucking go he might have a problem

[th3houseofleaves]

my BODY is MY CREATION!

call me god, call me frankenstein, call me sculptor, call me creator because i am taking what i am owed i am shaping creating making myself over in the image of adam, i will rid myself of this extra rib called longing and i will be bloody and pure and new as i am born again in the body i forged for myself.

INTRODUCING christopher "kit" warren an original character based in the dc comics universe. he is portrayed by jordan gonzalez.

christopher "kit" warren is the civilian identity of the vigilante known as PORTAL, a twenty-six year old meta-human with the ability to warp or teleport short distances (safely). outside of hero work, he's an independent video game developer and graphic designer, though the latter job is more for bringing in a semi steady flow of income rather than a job he does for pleasure. ideally, he'd love to have more time to work on games but he knows that that's not feasible at this point; both for the lack of income and because of his commitment to protect his community. being a hero comes first to him.

kit is originally from star city but moved away in his early twenties. his birth parents died when he was just a baby, his godfather, cole carpenter, took him in and raised him. his home life was fairly chill, he was well taken care of and never went without necessities but it was incredibly clear that cole wasn't prepared to raise a child. he still had growing up to do when he took kit in, since he was only in his early twenties and still hadn't even decided what he wanted to do in life. and while cole did his best, he was more of an older brother figure rather than the parental figure that kit needed.

that being said kit wouldn't change a single thing. he loves cole so much. that's his only real family. plus, there were perks to growing up with a young parent — rules tended to be lax, he had an easier time getting his way if he needed, and, once he was older, he could have fun spending time with his godfather doing things that they'd both enjoy. (one thing they would do together regularly was training at the gym where cole works. it started off as easy stuff, where kit was trying to mirror what cole was doing and gradually became more serious and branched off into kit begging cole to let him seriously train to become a fighter like he was. cole caved fairly fast.)

growing up he, like so many other children, loved superheroes. he'd play pretend with the other kids in his neighborhood and they'd all have their own hero identity (no one ever volunteered to be the villain, it was always more fun to be the good guys because they got all the perks). if anyone asked him during that time, he would've proudly told them that he wanted to be a hero when he grew up, he wanted to save people just like the heroes on the news. it wouldn't be until he was a little older that he'd realise his childish daydream could be reality. (his meta abilities would first manifest when he was around nine or ten, thus paving the way for his eventual decision to become a hero.)

being a meta was only a shock to kit himself, his godfather knew there was a chance he'd be one since both his parents were. the only thing he wouldn't have been able to predict was kit's abilities, which were nothing like his parents'. having a superpower was cool as hell to kit but it was terrible for cole; he now had to wrangle a superpowered child, who wasn't easily convinced that he shouldn't show off his power, and who was capable of evading him without putting much effort into it.

shortly after his abilities first manifested, kit came out to his godfather which caused cole to become more protective of him. he enrolled kit into self defense classes, alongside the training he was already doing with kit, to make sure that kit was able to defend himself when he was on his own. he wasn't about to lose his kid because some asshole didn't approve of his identity.

cole had no way of knowing that kit was going to use those skills when he would sneak out at night, taking his first steps as a hero in his neighborhood. he should've expected it, he really should've, given how serious kit was about becoming a hero but it still nearly gave him a heart attack when he found out. not even because kit told him, no he saw something, when he was reading the news, about a new meta hero that popped up in star city... who appeared to be pretty young (there was questions about how safe it is for a kid to be fighting crime)... and who could seemingly teleport.... and he didn't have to be a genius to figure out that that was HIS idiot teenage wannabe hero. needless to say kit was grounded for a couple weeks after cole found out and they had to have a long discussion about safety and why he shouldn't keep going out, even though cole knew that it wouldn't stop kit from going out. unfortunately.

as he got older he got cockier. he'd investigate riskier cases, he'd patrol outside of his neighborhood, and he stopped trying to stay under the radar of other heroes and vigilantes that happened to be in star city.

at twenty-six years old he's a fairly well established vigilante (& if the whole no metas in gotham fanon rule thing exists, than he's pretty regularly breaking that rule because? he doesn't give a shit about what batman says. he can't stop him.)

additional link: pinterest.

(edit insp.)

[sauntering-down]

hey guys back in September i reread the first six Warrior Cats books and today i reread all the spam i sent Mary y'all ready for this

tbh my One True Warrior Cats Headcanon is that Darkstripe absolutely wanted to bone Tigerstar

just gonna imagine THAT Ravenpaw does in fact wear glowsticks and is constantly hauling around a boombox so he and Barley can mosh

once we got to "cats with MAGIC POWERS" everything went downhill lol Firestar? no magic powers. big of heart, dumb of ass. gorgeous orange himbo. did a fantastic job.

"how can you be sure Barley will welcome me?" buddy you and Barley are going to have THE most loving and functional relationship in this entire neverending series

Thornclaw is one of those YA-novel immortals who dates teenagers even though he's centuries old and i, at age 32, think teenagers are fucking annoying children

me: looks up Thornclaw in the Warrior Cats wiki me: sees shit about 'codebreakers' and a fucking Brambleclaw imposter and closes the window immediately

CINDERPAW MY PRECIOUS CHILD and poor Brackenpaw, you're gonna be so neglected, dude.

Brackenfur is absolutely that neglected child who winds up super responsible at a young age and grows up well despite his upbringing

Bluestar: well you're doing a good job with Cinderpaw AND Brackenpaw so you might as well just Keep Doing That me: poor Brackenpaw

Fireheart, himbo: Tigerclaw LIED to lure BLUESTAR to the thunderpath and CINDERPAW WAS BADLY WOUNDED WHY WOULD HE DO THAT TO MY APPRENTICE Princess, has more than three braincells: wow that definitely doesn't sound like it was absolutely a trap for Bluestar

ah, poor Brackenpaw, passed around between temporary mentors like a hot potato...

Sandpaw: god dammit at least this kittypet dumpster fire is hot

Fireheart and Graystripe are getting into it! THE GIRLS ARE FIGHTINGGGGGG

Cloudkit rolling up to the ThunderClan camp like: i'm babey and i want power

lmao love how Fireheart's up on the rock like "let all cats old enough to FUCK IT GET YOUR ASSES OUT HERE NOW WE'VE GOT A PROBLEM"

Oakheart: these are DEFINITELY some abandoned kits and not my children with a ThunderClan cat Graypool: that doesn't sound right but i don't know enough about ThunderClan to dispute it

i love how every description of Redtail is basically "snack-sized but absolutely will square up and kick anyone's ass"

AND THORNPAW THE LEGEND HIMSELF HAS ENTERED THE RING

whoops turns out Mistyfoot and Stonefur are filthy half-clan abominations!

Brackenpaw continues to be neglected if Graystripe could stop sliding into Silverstream's DMs for TWO MINUTES it'd be GREAT

everyone loves Cinderpaw and they're right to do so

Fireheart having a classic Orange Tabby Himbo moment - "oh wow, Stonefur and Mistyfoot look AMAZINGLY like Bluestar... IT'S SO TRAGIC CATS FROM DIFFERENT CLANS CAN RESEMBLE ONE ANOTHER AND YET MUST BE DIVIDED." but he redeems himself by actually bothering to train poor neglected Brackenpaw

Graystripe: oh yeah this dead cat is my secret RiverClan girlfriend and these are my lovechildren Tigerclaw: what the fuck for once having a reasonable reaction to Our Latest Bullshit

ahhhhh i missed Sandstorm's frigid bitch side SORRY GRAYSTRIPE YOU MADE SOME VERY BAD LIFE CHOICES

casual mention that Whitestorm and Willowpelt did the horizontal tango...

eyyyy Thornpaw Doin' A Rescue i love how Thornclaw has just become, like... an Immortal Legend (with an underage girlfriend)

Leopardfur... absolute #girlboss... bit of a bitch but we respect her craft...

i love [Bluestar] but she DOES completely Lose Her Gourd over the next two books...

Fireheart: man Tigerclaw's tiny baby son looks pretty sus

like damn, even Tigerstar wanted to be powerful and lead the Clans and shit... Ashfur's just a Nice Guy

Mousefur out-#girlbossing Leopardfur... iconic

Fireheart: BUT THAT ITTY-BITTY TIGERCLAW CLONE IS STILL SUPER SUS

Fireheart: TIGERCLAW JR IS STILL HAUNTING ME

YES FIREHEART YELLOWFANG MAY DIE BECAUSE YOU DECIDED TO SAVE TIGERSTAR'S HORRIBLE SON, A HELPLESS KITTEN. FOR FUCK'S SAKE

Tigerstar: SURPRISE BITCH I BET YOU THOUGHT YOU'D SEEN THE LAST OF ME

Leopardfur's about to gaslight gatekeep girlboss her way into a Bad Alliance with Tigerstar ~caught in a bad romance~

good old Brackenfur... "he had the serious air of an older cat." that's probably all the neglect

ah, but at least Stonefur and Mistyfoot now get to learn they're filthy half-clan abominations!!

Fireheart: lame excuses for why Sandstorm shouldn't mentor Tawnykit Graystripe: dude as your BFF... you're an idiot... "this is why you haven't gotten laid yet, Fireheart."

Fireheart: THIS SMALL APPRENTICE IS STILL SUPER SUS

Fireheart is like. the equivalent of a grown man holding a gun on a kindergartner happily playing with some blocks Fireheart: this kitten is a POTENTIAL WAR CRIMINAL

Fireheart: hot damn Spottedleaf is still SMOKING meanwhile, Spottedleaf: PLEASE go bone down with Sandstorm, this is getting ridiculous

in my head Bluestar sounds like Cate Blanchett's Galadriel

every other time the poor guy tries to take a NAP his dreams just roll up like "BLOOD FOR THE BLOOD GOD"

also i love how One-eye is just... always there lol. she's ancient and grouchy but like hell is she gonna die anytime soon she has to stay until Thornpaw is a warrior. he's the Clan's new Immortal Legend; she's gotta make sure she passes on the mantle

anyway fuck Darkstripe, Thornclaw is now the Immortal Legend he was always meant to be

love how Tigerstar barges in, kills an apprentice, and threatens to do the same to everyone else if Tallstar doesn't join him, and Tallstar's just like "u havin a giggle there m8? i'll bash your fookin head in i sware on me mum"

welp, Tigerstar fucked around and found out! got sent to the Shadow Realm for his trouble

love how Barley vagues "oh, Scourge doesn't believe in StarClan" instead of outright SAYING "he doesn't have nine lives" because... that would've been helpful to know

THE END that was one heck of a journey lol but a fun one... those books got me through some tough times back in the day... thank you for riding the Warrior Cats Express

(bonus from my brief dive into the Warrior Cats section of ao3)

utterly REKT by the idea of Oakheart being like "well, i seduced Bluestar, might as well try it on her deputy too and see if i can complete the set." Bluestar, upon reaching StarClan: ah, i can finally see Oakheart again... we did have an illicit relationship, after all... Redtail: wait you too Bluestar: Redtail: Bluestar: Redtail:

[wiypt-writes]

Stark Spangled Banner

Ch19. Cut Off One Head…

Summary: The Avengers have been tracking Hydra for a number of months now, systematically making their way through each base that their intel provides them…but a routine business trip turns out to be something far more sinister than Katie and Tony were planning for…

Warnings: Violence, kidnapping, bad language, angst… 18+

Pairing: Steve Rogers x OFC Katie Stark

A/N: The next few chapters take a bit of DARK turn…warnings will be detailed. @angrybirdcr​ provided a special banner for these next three chapters, and another wonderful edit...

Disclaimer: This is a pure work of fiction and classified as 18+. Please respect this and do not read if you are underage. I do not own any characters in this series bar Katie Stark and the other OCs. By reading beyond this point you understand and accept the terms of this disclaimer.

Chapter 18

Stark Spangled Banner Masterlist // Main Masterlist

 September 2014

“I’m not saying that I’m not open to the idea, I just don’t understand why you think we need to buy the firm.” Katie said for what felt like the thousandth time that morning. Tony glared at her and simply shook his head as he sat waiting in the reception area of the office block in Minnesota. “I’m not even gonna ask what you were doing that kept you up so late you clearly didn’t get enough sleep last night you cranky brat.” Katie rolled her eyes but she felt a small smirk pulling at her lips as she remembered very well the events of last night as Steve had quite frankly lost his shit at the fact she was wearing the new baby blue lace matching underwear set he had bought her just because he wanted to, but she caught herself. “Sleep or lack of, has nothing to do with it. I’m serious, Tony. We don’t need it”. “Investing” he said holding his finger up “building the brand. That’s what business is all about.” She groaned “Thanks for the lesson on running a business, you know, in case I didn’t know how to, but that is NOT the vision I have for SIP.” “Look, you said yourself when this proposal landed on your desk you were curious.” “I am!” She protested, and she was. From the research they had done, the company that had approached them, Hall General Publishers LTD, held the same ideas as SIP, except they focused on Biographies that were published in series magazines. They had reached out to SIP for a potential collaboration on a fiction series that they had been approached to run and felt it was out of their field, but they were keen to see if they could join forces. It had instantly caught Katie’s attention and imagination but as usual Tony had gone off on one and suggested they buy the smaller company out. “I’m curious about their proposal, and the potential to do business, collaborate yes, but not take over!” “Look, it’s a day out of the office, chance to forget about Tin Man and Hydra” Tony shrugged and Katie gave a groan of frustration again. “And their profits are pretty impressive. We can use them, keep their brand…” “Whatever.” She glanced around at the foyer. It was clinical, white, all clean lines. Nothing like the entrance to Stark, sorry Avengers Tower as it was now called .Mind you, that was to be expected from a ‘rent an office’. Eddie Hall, the MD of HGP had requested the meeting take place away from either of their offices to avoid anyone catching news of the potential collaboration and had arranged to hire a room at block some 10 miles outside of Saint Paul. Tony had shrugged when Katie questioned it, saying it wasn’t unusual for people to hire external meeting venues in order to keep things under the radar. “Miss Stark, Mr Stark, I’m so sorry,” the dark haired man hurrying across the foyer said. He was about 6 foot tall, slim, and was wearing a sharp black suit. Both Katie and Tony stood up, Tony extending a hand.

“Mr Hall I presume?”

 “Yes.” The man said, shaking both their hands, his manner flustered. “Sorry to keep you waiting, I had to ensure the room was ready.”

“It’s only a few minutes.” Katie said smiled at him, “No apologies necessary.”

 They followed him into the elevator and he selected the top floor and turned to the siblings

“Thank you for coming out here. I know the cloak and dagger thing is probably a bit much but I don’t want people getting wind of it. There’s a few changes coming at the company and I don’t want any of them making any assumptions…” “Understandable.” Tony sniffed, looking around the elevator.

They emerged onto the top floor, and he led them left down the corridor. Katie looked around, the whole place smelt of paint and there was decorating equipment dotted around. She frowned. “It’s a new office facility.” Hall explained, looking at her. “Owned by a friend of mine and they’re still kitting it all out. But he said this was the best room to use. It’s mocked up like a board room you see…” Katie nodded and shared a look with Tony, she was starting to feel ever so slightly uneasy. Tony just shook his head and patted his pocket where his trusty Iron gauntlet cuff sat. Neither of them had come with their suits, this was supposed to be a straight forward business meeting after all. But she took a deep breath, she was probably just being over sensitive after everything that had happened recently…

Hall stopped outside a door to the left and opened the room, revealing nothing but darkness. “Oh, sorry,” Hall let out a sigh of frustration, sweeping into the room. “Yes. Let me just… find the lights.” Tony looked at Katie, arching an eyebrow. 

No window? He mouthed at her, his hand slipping into his pocket as they stepped into the room, Katie not quite sure they should be to be honest. “Yes. Here we go,” the man said brightly, flipping on the light and flooding the small room with light as the door slammed shut behind them.

That’s why it didn’t have a window. It was a fucking storage room. And it contained three men in dark suits standing before them, each with a rifle trained on their chests. Katie instantly stopped, drawing a deep breath of shock. Besides her she saw Tony in the corner of her eye quickly move to pull the cuff from the depth of his pocket, but he suddenly stumbled forward and fell immediately, the cuff flying out of his hand as the man they knew as Mr Hall stepped round them both and leaned against the wall to their right.

Katie spun round to see another man to the left and her eyes widened as she instantly recognised him.

“Grant?”  She frowned, looking up at the face of her ex "What… what’s going on? "You know, I thought when you dumped all those files on the internet you might have actually read them.” He smirked, stepping forward and glancing down at Tony who had sat up and was watching him, his face contorted with hatred and rage. Katie swallowed as she took in his words before she shook her head as her eyes grew wide in sudden understanding.

“Heil HYDRA.” Ward’s smile spread further across his face.

The agents around the room started to close in. One of them, a larger built man who reminded her a little of Rumlow spoke in a deep voice.

“This is the one you say we need?” Ward nodded and at that point Tony slowly got to his feet, backing up, placing himself between his sister and the man who is advancing on her, the two of them backing towards the door.

“Need me for what?” Katie said, her voice soft as her back hit the wooden surface.

“Answers.” The large man said, looking bored at Tony’s display of protectiveness.

 “About what?” She said, a bit louder this time.

“Well, you see Kay…” Ward smirked and Katie turned to her left to look at him as Tony emitted a low growl in his throat at the use of his old pet name for her, Ward chuckled before he started again “We’ve had a bit of a problem since you and your boyfriend, sorry fiancée, congratulations on that by the way.” He smiled, and she glared at him in response “Yes, ever since you took down SHIELD, we’ve been a little bit on the back foot, constantly watching our backs, trying to figure out where SHIELD or the Avengers are going to pop up next. So we figured, we needed a bit of inside intel.” The larger officer yanked Katie’s arm and pulled her out from between the door and Tony, flinging her into the middle of the room where another one of the agents grabbed her. Another one stepped quickly in front of her brother, blocking his path to her.

 “Ok, stop…” Tony held his hands up, turning back to Ward and the other man. “If you want someone, take me. I’m more involved in the Avengers anyway…“

His voice was level but Katie could hear a level of desperation.

“Yeah, much as I’d love to take you in for a kicking Tony, the problem is she’s the only one of you who knows he’s alive and what he’s likely to be doing so…” “Knows who is alive?” Tony frowned as Katie swallowed thickly. Coulson, that’s the only person they could be talking about. But before she could say anything one of the agents butt Tony hard in the back of the head with the handle of his gun and he fell to the floor.

 Katie yelled out and started towards him, but the Agent holding her tightened his grip on her arm to the point of it being painful.

 “Now you’re gonna come with us, out of this building, quietly, no fuss and no escape attempts” The big man spoke to her “Otherwise Ward here is gonna put a bullet in your dearest bro’s head.” “And how do I know you’re not gonna do that anyway?” Katie whispered through her tears.

“Because it’s more trouble than its worth.” Ward shrugged. “And frankly, the thought of him alive, worrying about you is far more satisfying.” Katie glanced down at her brother, who was starting to push himself up, until Ward kicked him hard in the ribs and he collapsed, groaning, as Ward hit him on the back of the head again, knocking him out.

“Alright, alright!” She protested, her voice cracking. “I’ll come. Just leave him alone.” She was shoved harshly forward, her heeled feet slipping slightly as the door was pulled open. She stopped suddenly, turning to Ward. “You better watch your back .When Steve and the rest of the team finds out about this you’re a dead man.” Ward chuckled. “Quaking in my boots, Sugar.” She was shoved forward again, and managed one glance over her shoulder at Tony who was sprawled on the floor before she was shoved out of the room.

***** Tony groaned, as he pushed himself up slowly, the room spinning.

 “Kiddo?” he croaked, as he looked around. He was alone, no sign of anyone. He scrambled across the floor, and tried the door which was locked, before he slumped heavily against it, his trembling hands started to feel his suit pockets. His phone was gone, of course, as was his cuff and Katie’s laptop. He lay his head back against the door as he started to piece together what had happened. It was an ambush, Ward…HYDRA…

 Hydra had his sister. For information. About someone no one knew was alive? Were they referring to Fury? He ran his hand over his face again, and was just about to think about screaming in the vain hope they heard him on reception, but he stopped, suddenly. They hadn’t taken his watch.

Thick HYDRA bastards. 

With shaky fingers he pressed the button at the side and the face lit up orange.

 "Yes, sir?“ JARVIS spoke and Tony almost gave a sob of relief before he spoke a simple instruction, all he can think to blurt out before he gives into the throbbing in his head once more.

“Alert Captain Rogers. Send help.”

***** Steve was in the now finished training room with Thor. The pair of them were currently debating if the large room would stand up to them trying out a new move- Thor hitting Steve’s shield with his hammer to create the same wave it had done in the forest that time. It was useful, and Steve was thinking about perfecting it, seeing if it could be directed in anyway.

 “What metal is it made from anyway?”  Steve nodded to Mjolnir as Thor was throwing it up and down.

 “It was forged from the heart of a dying star- Nidevalir…” Thor said, as Steve picked up his shield.

 “It’s made from a star?”

 “No, metal, which was forged by a star.” Thor corrected.

Steve was about to comment that he still hadn’t answered the question when a red light started flashing in the corner of the room, along with a low siren, and Jarvis’ voice cut across them.

“Captain Rogers, Mr Stark has just sent a distress signal.”

 Steve instantly looked at Thor, swallowing slightly. “A distress…they were on a business trip. “I’ve no other details other than to alert you and send help.” There was a loud clap of thunder and Steve turned to see Thor was now clad in his armour and the God nodded at him as the two of them sprinted from the room. Steve’s mouth was dry and his mind was running overtime about what trouble they could possibly be in, but as they headed down the corridor to the armoury he found his voice.

“JARVIS, tell everyone to suit up and meet at the jet, now.” “Of course Captain. I’ve patched the location through to the jet.”

“I’m sure they will be fine.” Thor offered as some attempt at re-assurance. But as Steve shrugged on the top half of his uniform and grabbed his utility belt, he didn’t feel very re-assured.

Maria Hill met them in the hangar “I heard the signal, is everything ok?” “Tony and Katie…” Steve informed her. “They were at a business meeting but Tony just sent out a distress signal.” Maria looked at him and then nodded “I’ll start doing some digging into who they were meeting.”

 He nodded, and strode up the ramp to the jet. They’d been in the air about 30 minutes when Maria patched through to them

 “I don’t know who they were meeting but it isn’t Eddie Hill” she sighed “He was reported missing three days ago by his wife.”

 “So whoever took them got to him first.” Nat looked at Steve. “Took him out, replaced him with an imposter”

“And it’s probably safe to assume he’s dead.” Steve said, flatly. “Hill, start doing some digging. Into Hall…anything that might help.”

“On it Cap.”

It took them approximately another ten minutes to get to the location JARVIS had programmed for them. And it felt like ten years. Ever since receiving the distress call the entire team had been on tenterhooks, Steve especially, remaining stoic and unyielding, although he felt anything but, knowing his girl could be in trouble.

 The receptionists face was a picture when the Avengers, led by a focussed, stern looking Captain America stormed into the building and demanded to know what room the Starks were in. Tony heard them shouting on the corridor, Thor kicking over paint cans as he went, and he yelled, banging on the door.

 “Stand back…” Steve’s voice was loud before he aimed a huge kick at the door, breaking it easily along with the frame which splintered out of the wall.

“Where’s Katie?” Steve asked, swallowing and looking round, almost as if he expected her to be hiding somewhere.

“They took her.” Tony said, pacing in front of him “I tried to stop them but…”

“Who?” Steve looked at him and Tony sighed, his eyes brimming “Tony, who took her?” Steve’s voice was desperate.

“HYDRA.” he bit out, and Steve felt his mouth drop open before he took a deep breath and ran his hand over his face. “I don’t understand…“ Thor began, but Tony cut him off. “And you think I do?” he shouted at the God, his entire body trembling as he stopped pacing in front of him “I… we…” He stopped, unable to speak, his breaths coming in short, rapid bursts. Steve was too preoccupied to notice. He was simply staring down at the floor, his posture slumped as he removed his helmet which felt like it was suffocating him, his head kept replaying what Tony had told him.

 HYDRA had her. They had her.

 Banner grabbed Tony by the shoulders and gave him a single shake before he looked at him “Tony, focus on me, ok, keep breathing…”

 Tony slumped to the floor and Banner knelt down with him. “How did this happen?” Steve’s voice was thick as he turned to look at him. Tony swallowed and Bruce squeezed his shoulder “It was a trap. The man, Hall. We came to meet him only Ward and…” “Ward?” Clint’s head snapped round at the sound of that name, frowning “Ward is Hydra?”

Tony nodded and Steve let out a lowly growl of frustration.

“They wanted her, said they needed inside intel. I told them to take me, I said, take me instead, but they wouldn’t, Ward said that she’s the only one who knows…knows that someone is alive and what he’s likely to be doing…”

 At that Steve’s mind started whirring. Ward- she’d worked that last case with him and Coulson. She was the only Avenger that knew Coulson was alive, bar him, and no one knew she’d told him. Other than Fury that is.

 “Who’s alive, who were they talking about?” Natasha frowned.

“I don’t know!” Tony bellowed.

“Maybe they meant Fury?” Banner suggested, looking up.

Steve’s voice was quiet as he looked up. “They mean Coulson.”

 “What?” Tony wheeled round to face him “Coulson? He’s…he was killed, they buried him! We were at the funeral!” Steve shook his head before looking up at the ceiling, taking a deep breath “He’s alive. The last case Katie worked at SHIELD, the Asgardian staff case…” “The what?” Thor frowned, but Steve ignored him as he continued.

 “It was Coulson’s team she worked with. Ward was part of it.” “And you didn’t think to tell us?” Clint frowned at Steve

“What good would it have done Barton?” Steve snapped, before once more his hands ran over his face. The room fell silent until Nat spoke again.

“Ok, so even if he is alive, that doesn’t explain why they think she knows something.” she pressed “What do they think she knows that’s so important they’d risk taking her?” Steve grit his teeth “I’ve no idea. But I bet Fury does.”

“I’ll get Hill to find him.” Natasha says, pulling out her phone and leaving the room.

“I need to get to back to New York to access everything.” Tony said, suddenly “Start searching our intel, anything…” “What about the media?” Bruce suddenly said. “Should we release her photo?” Tony looked up but before he could speak Steve answered.

 "No. If we do that…” He shook his head. “The press’ll start digging and it could flush them further underground.” “Cap” Clint protested gently. “If we can get her picture out there, have more people on the lookout…”

 Steve shook his head, a miserable yet stubborn pout pulling at his bottom lip. “No.” “We are in the dark here!” Barton snapped.

 Steve turned on him, puffing out his chest. “There’s no way they did this and didn’t leave any sort of trail.”

 “A trail? Jesus Cap, these bastards grew within SHIELD for over seventy fucking years and no one noticed!” Clint snapped

 “I KNOW!” Steve roared.

Thor, who had been watching the exchange quietly up until that point stepped forward, placing his large hand on the Captain’s shoulder.

 “I know it is hard, but you need to remain calm Captain.” he said. Steve looked up at him, giving him a nod, taking a deep breath. Thor turned to Barton “I agree that we should have everyone we can hunting for little Stark, but maybe not straight away. We should regroup, get as much information as we can.” Clint nodded. “I’ll go see if they have CCTV. Maybe we can identify who else was with Ward.” Steve nodded at him as he turned and left the room.

 “I’m going to see if I can find anything outside.” Thor said “tracks, a trail…” he released his hold on the Captain leaving him in the room with just Bruce and Tony.

 Bruce had both his hands on Tony’s shoulders as the man sank to the floor, burying his face in his hands. “I tried to stop them…” Tony sobbed, his head rocking back and forth “I tried, I really did.”

Steve said nothing. He couldn’t. Instead he stood impossibly still despite the ground feeling ready to crumble beneath him.

*****

Thor’s search drew a blank. So after quizzing the staff who were distraught when they realised what had happened, they took the CCTV footage and headed back to base. The jet was silent, everyone lost in their own thoughts.

Steve was trying to make connections. What was Coulson doing, and why did HYDRA, mistakenly, think Katie knew about it? Why had no one told them Ward was Hydra? There was no logic in any of this, other than the fact they were desperate, broken and desperate to take the one person they knew for sure had a link to the assumed dead agent. And as that thought echoed in his head, he realised Barton was right. If he had told the rest of the Avengers about Coulson, then maybe they would have taken anyone else. The fact that he found himself wishing it was one of the others instead of her made him feel slightly ashamed but he couldn’t help it. Suddenly, the jet became hot and he felt the bile rising in his throat. He spun up out of his chair and just made it to the small bathroom at the back of the jet before he threw up.

They arrived back at base just after 2 in the afternoon, and immediately went into overdrive, running facial recognition on the CCTV, Tony instructing Jarvis to sift through the files for any mention of Ward in the vain hope it would give them a clue as to where they might have taken her.

Steve was numb, for once he was failing to direct his team, so Clint took it upon himself to organise everyone, which he was grateful for. Suddenly he felt his phone ring, and he pulled it out of his pocket as fast as he could, a low grown of frustration coming from his throat when he saw it was Sam.

 “Sam, I need to keep the line clear.” He answered, sharply.

“Woah, Cap…what’s going down?”

“Katie…” Steve stumbled over his words “She’s…she’s been taken, by HYDRA.” There was a pause and then the man spoke again, four words, before he hung up.

 “I’m on my way.”

Steve slid his phone back into his pocket and took a deep breath. He needed to focus. He was no good to Katie like this. He glanced over at his team, locked eyes with Thor who gave him a nod, and he strode across to see if there was anything he could help with.

It was an hour or so before they made any decent progress.

 "We got a positive ID on one of the Agents.” Hill said as she strode into the common room, handing Steve a file. He took it and glanced down, moving the surveillance photos they had extracted from the CCTV footage to one side, reading the information in it as Bruce continued. “Eric Jones. Ex SHIELD enforcer, clearly still active in Hydra. He worked out of one of the Canadian bases SHIELD had in Toronto, it fell when SHIELD did. We’re still running facial for the others, but I’ve told JARVIS to focus on the guy that Tony said was posing as Hall.” Steve nodded.

“We have a home address for Jones.” Hill added “But we’ve no idea if he’s been there recently or…” “We’ll check it out.” Nat stood up, patting Clint on his chest with the back of her hand. He nodded and stood up just as Steve spoke again.

“How did Ward know?” he looked up and turned to Tony “how did any of them know that you were gonna be there?”

Tony didn’t look away from the window as he replied "I don’t know. The company is real, we did all our research. They’re based in Saint Paul, not far from where we were.”

 “So either Ward got wind of it and took it as an opportunity or Hall was in on it from the start.”

 “If he was in on it then why kill him?” Thor asked gravely.

“Maybe they were worried he was going to blab.” Clint shrugged.

 “When we’ve been to Jones’ we’ll head over there, see if we can dig anything up.” Clint looked at Steve who gave him a nod before JARVIS cut across them.

 “Mr Stark. Director Fury and Agent Coulson are here.” “Send them up J.” Tony said, standing up.

 Steve took a deep breath and looked at Clint and Natasha “You two wait and see what he has to say before you go. It might help.”

*****

The news Fury and Coulson gave was received as well as could be anticipated. Thor let out a loud growl, turning over his chair in anger whilst the rest of the group started to angrily chatter amongst themselves, all except Steve. He simply looked at Fury, then got up from his chair, the anger radiating from every inch of his body as he strode towards him, jaw clenching.

“Rogers…” he began but shut up immediately as the Captain’s fist connected with the former Director’s nose with a satisfying crack which rang around the now silent room. Fury stumbled backwards, falling to the floor, and he wiped at his face, eyeing the trickle of blood from his shattered nose as waved away Hill away who had stepped forwards to help him.

 “Come on…” Thor patted Steve’s chest, “this isn’t helping anyone.”

 “You knew?” Steve glared down at the director. “You knew they had the damned thing and didn’t think to tell any of us that you were tracking it?”

 “It would have blown Coulson’s cover.” Fury staggered to his feet, wiping his nose. “What he is doing has to go under the radar…” “And because of that they took her.” Steve spat “Because Ward knows she knows he…”he pointed to Coulson “is alive, and because we worked with you to take them down, they think she knows something!”

 “Let’s just break this down…” Tony sighed, rubbing his face “How did they get it? I thought the Sceptre was on Asgard?” Tony frowned, looking at Thor. “You took it with Loki.”

 “No, I took the tesseract.” Thor said. “The sceptre was taken by err…not SHIELD, well a part of SHIELD but…”

 “Why did you not tell us about this?” Clint snapped, his usual placid mannerisms now spiked with anger as he turned to Maria. “Why has it taken us raiding fuck knows how many bases, and Nova getting taken for us to find out?”

“Barton, The rubble of the Triskelion took ages to sort out, the other SHIELD strongholds had been obliterated or infiltrated at the same time” she explained “Hundreds if not thousands of things have gone missing. Files, hard drives, laptops, alien artefacts, security badges, flash drives… the list keeps growing. We didn’t know it was missing until recently!” “Recently? How recent?” “Last week.” She looked down and Steve gave a snort as Clint growled.

“You should have destroyed it.” Steve looked at Fury, “Just like everything else you had in that god-damned lab.”

“We couldn’t” Coulson looked at him, and then Steve gave a sarcastic laugh as he understood perfectly what the man was saying.

“Of course not, because you never had it in the first place did you?” “What, I thought…” Tony began but Natasha cut him off.

“Sitwell and STRIKE collected the sceptre. They were HYDRA, they’ve had it right from the start.“

The room fell silent bar silent and a large clap of thunder started outside, making them jump.

“Sorry.” Thor grumbled.

“Fuck this shit.” Clint suddenly spat out, “Nat come on, we got somewhere to be.” he turned to Steve “If we find anything we’ll let you know.” Steve nodded as the arched clapped him on the shoulder and he left.

Nat turned to him, as if she was going to say something, but she didn’t. She swallowed and gave him a nod, before hurrying after her friend. Steve looked down at the floor, which was once more spinning under his feet. Hydra would be trying to get information out of Katie that she simply didn’t have. And the thought of what they would be doing… one more he felt the bile rise in his stomach and he turned, rushing from the room and made it down the corridor to the rest rooms. He pushed open the door of a cubicle, and threw the contents of his stomach up before slumping to the floor, his knees tucked to his chest, and he let out a loud cry of frustration, anger, his chest constricting around him as the tears began to fall.

*****

 Natasha and Clint’s re-con turned up something interesting.

 “Nothing at Jones’ place, it looks like it hasn’t been lived in for months, however, when we spoke to the Deputy CEO who’s running the gaff in Hall’s absence, he recognised the guy posing as Hall.” Clint looked at him “Peter Jackson their head of IT. Ran his face through the system and turns out he’s also known as Gary Jepson, ex SHIELD technician.”

 Steve ran his hand over his face, scratching the stubble on his chin as he glanced down at the photo. He hadn’t shaved since God knows when.

 “So there’s our connection.” He breathed out and Natasha nodded

“Apparently he got the job a few months ago. Timeline tallies with when HYDRA fell. Apparently he and Mr Hall had a mutual love of American Football, they hit it off, used to go for beers at lunch occasionally”

 Tony’s head hurt “I still don’t understand where Ward fits into this?”

“They both worked out of the Fridge.” Natasha said, “At the same time. They must know each other that way.”

 “From what Coulson told us, Ward has been rallying round people he knew.” Clint spoke “And, this is all supposition, but if you ask me Jepson probably tried to go legit, melted into the background post SHIELD falling but when he gets a call from his old friend, who tells him they’re not as dead as they could he reaches out. And then when he hears about the potential deal with SIP…”

 And then it clicked in Steve’s mind. .

 “I don’t think he did hear about it.” He swallowed. “You just said he was their head of IT….” “He could have easily sent those emails from Hall’s account.” Tony gave a groan. “It was all a set up from the start.”

 *****

 It was the week before Christmas. He’d been home from university for 2 weeks and his Dad was already pissing him off. Tonight, both parents were out and Tony was babysitting. He should be out himself, he knew that, Rhodey had invited him to a party, but when Katie had turned those green eyes on him and told him she didn’t want the babysitter she wanted him to stay and ‘hang’ with her (yes, he was especially proud he’d taught his 5 year old sister the word hang) just like he used to before he went away, he’d melted and told his parents to cancel the sitter.

 They’d played a board game- Snakes and Ladders. She won the tie breaker (even though he could have beaten her). They’d then watched The Snowman (well, it was nearly Christmas), Tony doing his best Choir boy impression to make her giggle, they’d had hot chocolate and marshmallows with a candy cane stuck out of the top (yes, he knew she wasn’t allowed it after 6pm but like he gave a shit) he’d then done the whole bedtime routine of supervising whilst she brushed her teeth, but she shoved him out of the room when she needed to pee. Then he’d read her a story, tucked her in well over an hour and a half after she was supposed to be in bed, and was now relaxing with a stolen glass of his dad’s scotch (cheers Dad) in front of Die Hard.  He was about halfway through the film when he heard a small sniff in the hall and she padded into the living room clutching her Winnie the Pooh teddy.

 “What are you doing out of bed?” Tony looked at his sister “I already let you stay up way later than Mom said you could!”

“Bad dream” she sobbed. With a little sigh, he opened his arms and she clambered onto his lap. “There’s a monster under my bed.”

“Nah, I killed it last week, remember?”

“It’s a new one.” She shook her head,  looking at him.

“That so…right…” He stood up.“This calls for the Monster Killer…”

AKA the Vacuum.

Grabbing it, he marched up the stairs and plugged it in. Once it was on he dived under the bed “Get here you son of a…arrrgh…” He made a big deal of thumping the floor and yelling. Eventually he stilled and emerged, turning it off.

“Got it!”

Katie smiled and her hands went up in the air in celebration “My hero, Tones!” before she wrapped her small arms around his neck and he hugged her back.

“I’ll always protect you, Kiddo, what are big brothers for?” "Tony?” His entire body jumped as he looked up and realised it was Pepper. He shifted slightly and let out a small breath. ”Yeah?”

 "It’s late.” She told him simply, but no unkindly. "Come back to bed.”

He shook his head and looked back down at the laptop on his knee. 

“You have to get some sleep.” she sighed, crossing the room before she dropped onto the dark leather sofa besides him “I know it’s hard right now, but – “ "Hard?” he interrupted with a scoff, “Hard? Great description.”

Pepper ignored his jibe and sighed “You haven’t slept in days. We can’t take a step back to where we were after New York. You need to sleep.“

 “I need to keep up with SIP.” he said, shaking his head. “She’s got so many potential authors and projects going…I mean, I can’t let her company crash…what do I tell them all anyway? What do I tell her work force?” “I had an email sent out from HR yesterday.” Pepper said

“Saying what?” Tony rounded on her.

 “That she was on extended leave for the foreseeable.” Pepper said “In the meantime, they’re all reporting into Jenny Jones.” “Who the fuck is Jenny Jones?” Tony looked at her. Pepper took a deep breath.

“She’s the General Manager.” Pepper said “Katie hired her last week.”

He looked at Pepper before the tears sprung into his eyes “the foreseeable…” “I’m sorry.” Pepper says, “I didn’t know what to say.”

 "The foreseeable, until they realise she doesn’t know anything…and they kill her too.” “You don’t know that,” Pepper said, and her voice for the first time trembled.

 Tony looked at her for a moment, before he broke.

*****

The days bled into weeks. And nothing.  They had identified every goddamned HYDRA agent on that CCTV footage now, but they had still found nothing. When Sam had arrived they’d gone back and re-raided every fucking Hydra base they could think of. Nothing. They were stabbing in the dark, and with every day that passed they knew the chances of them finding Katie were getting thinner and thinner.

Steve had a headache. A bad one. One that felt like it was going to split his head in two. He pressed the heel of his palm to the space between his eyes in a desperate attempt to quell the pain.

“Shit, steady on Cap…”

 Steve looked up and stopped before he walked straight into Tony.

“You okay?” Tony asked.

“No.” Steve bit back, before he sighed “Sorry, headache…” He looked at his fiancé’s brother, the worry evident in Tony’s face as well. In fact, it seemed the pair of them now sported that expression constantly, and had done since Katie had gone missing just over 3 weeks ago.

“I thought you were going to get some sleep” Tony said as his eyes scanned down Steve’s body, taking in the fact he was in the same jeans and T-shirt he had been at their meeting last night. Another useless meeting.

He lets out a long breath. “Couldn’t.”

“Me neither.” Tony shook his head, shrugging “Kinda hard… “

“I know.” Steve nodded, looking at Tony.

"I just…I just keep thinking,” Tony swallowed. “I keep thinking about… how I could’ve avoided this. How I should have spotted it was a trap, how I couldn’t stop them taking her…” “This isn’t your fault Tony.” Steve shook his head, thankful that he could now say this honestly. At first he had been angry, angry that the man hadn’t been quicker or able to protect his sister, but that anger had fast dissipated. Without the Iron Man suit, Tony wasn’t a trained fighter. He was physically fit, yes, but not everyone had super serum coursing through their veins. The man was as broken as he was at her being gone, his sister, daughter even, gone, without a trace.

 "I miss her,” Tony said, his soft words still cut harshly into the surrounding quiet. “I just… miss her.”

Steve dropped his gaze. He missed her, God did he miss her. They’d only been engaged, for what? Coming up three months when she was taken and were still in that excited phase of it. They hadn’t gotten down to any planning of any sorts, but that hadn’t stopped their late night, post love making discussions about it. Katie gently teasing him and stating all the things she was going to get, like doves, and fire eaters…utter bullshit of course, because she had no desire for any of that showy crap.

He missed her so much it hurt. Her laugh, her smile, the way she looked at him, her bantering with everyone in the common room, the way he would walk into a room where she was speaking with Natasha and the pair of them looked at him and broke into giggles making him paranoid, the way she kissed him, the way she felt, her hands running through his hair.

Tony cleared his throat harshly and Steve looked at him. “Me too Tony, me too.”

**** Chapter 20

**Original Posting**

[mallowstep]

(Reedwhisker anon) Reed just gives me Misty FEELS. Like, if he's from a second litter, (likely, hopefully) Misty has healed enough to love and want to raise kits again. And it likely that he's either a kit still or a really new apprentice when Feather and Storm go missing, so I can see Misty being extra protective? Especially once Storm returns without Feather in Canon. (I can also see her thanking Leafpaw personally if she found out/knew Reed nearly drowned.)

Misty AU....same thing about if he's a second litter, only one kit....I can see THIS Misty being extra protective. Or if it's because of a Head Injury, I can see her and Feather camping/stopping by his nest in the medicine den constantly to check on him, Feather keeping him entertained maybe while Misty interrogates Mudfur, wondering what's wrong with her son, why has he forgotten bits and pieces of his life, how has he forgotten how to walk, just--

(Mistyfoot watches as Feathertail helps Reedpaw re-learn how to walk, the silver she-cat gently guiding her brother. Reedpaw is frustrated with how he stumbles and twists, his paws falling out from underneath him. Feathertail gently purrs, telling him he's doing much better than he was before, and the memory of having Reedpaw wake up, and NOT remember her, or his siblings, or who he even was...it's one of the things she will never forget. The utter confusion in her kit's eyes as he looked at her, wondering who he was and who she was to him. Hatred of Tigerstar burns I her throat as the memories come rushing over her.)

Or

(Feathertail is looking at her wide-eyed, shock glimmering in her eyes at Misty's announcement. Stormheart feels the same kind of shock, but thinks...maybe this is a good thing? He remembers Perchkit, Pikepaw and Primrosepaw, and how Mistyfoot used to playfully play with all of them in Riverclan's nursery. Perhaps Mistyfoot willingly wanting and having another litter is a good thing. Perhaps some wounds Stormheart thought would never heal in his mother actually are. He remembers how distant she was with Hawkpaw, Mothpaw, and Frogpaw, and thinks...yes, maybe this is a good thing.)

Leopard AU, Reedpaw sobbing and just telling his mom and uncle what happened in Riverclan during those three days before the Bloodclan battle, him resting between her front paws, Misty gently making sure he eats--she noticed how he wouldn't touch Thunderclan's prey, and had gone and caught him a trout, but he hadn't eaten that either. That's when even more worry had bubbled up. Out of all her kits, Reed had always been the one who enjoyed eating. Him not...was concerning.)

Reed just breaks down and spills everything to Misty after she and Feather had escaped, everything that happened...Cinderpelt giving him poppy seeds to help sleep, the grey medicine cat gently telling Misty that Reed's wounds were more mental then physical.

Like...Misty you deserve to watch your son grow older and to die before him. You've been through so fucking much.

I literally had my heart in my throat when Reed was captured by Darktail and was prisoner. Like... was he going to kill Reed? Was Misty going to find her son's body tossed away like it was nothing? Just the thought of her reuniting within and seeing how skinny he'd gotten, his ribs showing through his pelt, infection scent rising from scratches and wounds on his pelt. Like...fuck. if that didn't bring back PTSD I don't know what would. Especially if he is a second litter, (third in Misty AU, (and Leopard AU too, maybe??))

Like. She'd probably seriously start to doubt her ability to be a mother/queen at that point. Her sixth son (?? Think that's the right number, idk) has basically gone through nearly the exact same shit she, Feather,cStorm and Stone did.

Like...fuck, just let Misty have her last fucking kit and be happy.

yeah...like i should be clear...i have 0 feelings for him but 100 feelings about him. finding out mistyfoot had a kit was such fucking whiplash that it took several weeks for it to set in, which is when i wrote a primrosepaw lives excerpt, which is...how we got here. in a very convoluted way. but i digress.

ohhh yeah mistyfoot would be Hella protective. i do Know she is like -- in canon, because she's the one who's like "mothwing why aren't you doing anything" and it's like mistyfoot babe i know you're upset (valid) but you're not helping the situation.

and oh -- okay so. as a second litter yeah. she has -- i mean there's a Reason mistyfoot does not have more kits in the misty au. she's not really. ready to be a mother. she's got a lot of trauma around the whole concept. but -- oh. yeah. she would be extremely protective of him.

and oh like -- okay stonefur and feathertail both already have memory problems, so now they're just Memory Problems Gang.

(stonefur has persistent word issues; feathertail has a lot of gaps in her memory, mostly during tigerclan, but also some before and after.)

very Good. i like that.

and mistyfoot is just -- so tired. god. she's trying to do so much and she's trying so hard and. feathertail keeps forgetting things and reedwhisker has forgotten so much and they're both -- oh. yeah. good stuff right there.

and -- she's split, right? there's so much. because feathertail doesn't want to be in mudfur's den even though that would probably be better for her but reedwhisker is in mudfur's den and she's trying to be deputy and. god. and she did so much to protect featherpaw and reedpaw got hurt and it's not her fault but that doesn't mean it doesn't feel like it's her fault.

Fun Times.

on the other hand like -- fuck if I Know with Whom mistyfoot had kits bc i'll tell u it ain't blackclaw but. okay mix of feelings but mostly positive from the Crew.

feathertail is Happy if very Surprised and a small bit worried mistyfoot was coerced into this,

stonefur is just -- you know. he's happy, but it's really bittersweet.

and stormheart is being angry that his sister raised three kits and now mistyfoot is having kits again but he eventually settles on happy. shadepelt might have to yell at him again.

and yeah -- it's good. everyone is good, it's good. because mistyfoot -- before everything, she was proud of being a mother. and it's such a terrible thing, to have that taken from you. so yeah, yeah. it's good.

and god yeah. mistyfoot and reedpaw reuniting and just. hnng. realizing -- you know. god. god god god. there's so much -- leopardstar and mistyfoot and i don't even know what to say except yeah

and like -- i don't even -- feathertail is on the No Poppy Seeds list because they tend to cause more harm than good and i-

like cinderpelt tries and then he has the Worst nightmares and she feels bad and it's like -- what is she supposed to do? what can she do?

misty really does. i don't want reedstar. i want mistystar to die and reedwhisker to die before he gets nine lives but still after her and for riverclan to have a leadership crisis. that's what i want to happen. because i don't want reedstar but mistystar deserves for at least one of her children to outlive her.

and yeah? oh my god the ptsd? like? fuuuuuuuck. and i think -- hnng. reedwhisker being held, thinking about what mistyfoot went through and i. god.

like. you know. reedwhisker is the last kit mistyfoot has. and she feels -- okay. i'm okay. he's safe and whole and a warrior and i'm okay.

and then he gets taken and all of her children have been harmed and i-

i don't-

god. mistystar my beloved <3 i hope the erins mercy kill you <3 but i hope riverclan's time in isolation was full of family bonding and happy times.

[9r7g5h]

Teach to Learn, Learn to Teach

Fandom: Fantasy High

Rating: T

Genre: General/Friendship

Summary: Ragh and Tracker both have a lot to learn from each other. 

Words: 3269

AN: So, the topic of Ragh taking a level in cleric and Tracker taking a level in barbarian came up on tumblr, and I was so intrigued I had to write something for these gaybies. It will probably be three parts, one focusing on Ragh, one on Tracker, and one about them going home, or something like that. Just enjoy chapter one. 

Disclaimer: I do not own Fantasy High.

Part 1, Part 2, Part 3

They had both known, when Tracker first brought up her goal to Ragh, that it would be rough going. Fallinel wasn't the most welcoming of outsiders as it was, though at least High Elf decorum granted adventurers safe passage, so long as they weren't causing issues. But causing issues was the entire reason they were there, and Ragh's official adventurer certification he had received at graduation only did so much when he was helping Tracker constantly shoulder her way into temples of Galilea, trying to turn back the carefully placed lies the high priests had said to turn their goddess away from her wilder ways. 

The fact that she was actually making headway with the younger elves, the ones who saw how prim and proper their elders were and balked against that fate, only made things even worse for them. Add in the newly formed 'Pack of Galilea,' younger elves who not only wanted to worship the wild of the night but become wolves themselves, their leader constantly trying to convince Tracker to bite her so she could turn the rest of her pack and give more strength to the wild form of the goddess they loved, and, well. 

Honestly, they really should have expected something like this. Should have expected that the high priest would deem her a problem. Should have expected him to decide to end it. Should have expected him to know that only silver could hurt a werewolf, and armed the elf he had hired to do his will properly. 

Had they expected it, maybe she wouldn't be gasping in the back of their van, the silver poisoning from the arrow still stuck deep in her side seeping into her veins while Ragh tried to avoid the trees, putting distance between them and where they had been attacked. Had they expected it, maybe she would have cast Moon Haven earlier, ensuring their safety. Had they expected it, maybe they wouldn't have been goofing off, listening to music and chatting while their dinner cooked. 

Maybe, maybe, maybe she wouldn't be dying before she got to see Kristen again. 

"Ok, I think I lost them." 

She wasn't sure when Ragh finally pulled the van over, or how long it had been or how far they had gone, just that now he was besides her, talking. A knife in his hand, cutting through her second favorite shirt (damn them for that), pulling the cloth away from the wound. 

"Sorry sis, this is gonna hurt."

She barely felt him cut into her skin - the head hadn't gone all the way through, couldn't be broken off and the shaft pulled out, it had to be cut out and stitched up - but she did feel as he began to pull it out, the silver arrowhead brushing against the dying skin, making her howl in pain as everything within her wanted to flee. Flee the pain, the sheer burning agony of every single one of her cells dying, flee into the night and the moonlight until she could curl up somewhere that felt and smelt like home. 

But then it was gone. The silver was gone, she could think again, and though everything hurt, she could focus on Ragh's words. 

"Shit shit shit sorry sis, I had to get it out, shit. Fuck, god damn it, what was next? Think, Ragh, you know this." His voice fell to muttering for a bit as he pressed a cloth to the wound, looking through the medical kit. She wanted to say something, give him a hint or encouragement, but she was so tired. "Sterilize it, fuck, that's right! Where are you, you tiny little shit, you're hiding better then Riz to get out of PE... there you are!" He held up a small bottle triumphantly, used his teeth to undo the top, and splashed a generous portion directly into the wound. 

Tracker thankfully passed out immediately, her thoughts a dozen swirls of pain and Galilea thanking her for her efforts and wanting nothing more then to just sleep. 

It was morning when she next woke up. Her tank top had been replaced with a sports jersey, her side covered with enough bandages that she was almost sure she now classified as a large creature instead of medium, and the smell of burning fish covered everything else. Her stomach growled, despite the acrid smoke, and that was enough to get her moving, sluggishly kicking open the door to see what kind of trouble Ragh was in now. 

He was, surprisingly, doing well for himself. He had built a decent fire pit, had managed to grab a dozen fish or so from a nearby river, and only two of them seemed to have caught fire. The others actually looked amazing, and before she could even think the actual thought, she had grabbed one, sinking her teeth into the flesh, ravenous. 

Ragh just chuckled. "Good morning to you too, sis. I'm so glad you're ok. I was worried I was going to have to call Kristen and give her bad news, and honestly, your girlfriend scares me."

She couldn't help but laugh through her mouthful of fish, forcing it down so she could respond in a timely manner. 

"Full honestly, and I'll kill you if you ever tell her? She scares me a little bit too. Love her, but she has some weird shit going on with the gods that's just on a whole nother level."

She had been sleeping for two days. Ragh had done the best he could, keeping her comfortable and hydrated, just glad he had remembered enough from his mandatory healing class to stabilize her. He didn't know enough to actually heal, he had spent too much of the class mooning over a cute cleric guy in the front row, but cutting out arrows used knives, so he remembered that at least. 

"I just always relied on having a cleric," he admitted with a shrug. "Never thought much more about it."

"You thought enough to save me," Tracker pointed out, resting her non-cash covered hand on his shoulder. "Thank you." 

It took another day for her spells to come back, her energy finally high enough after gorging on fish and the few rabbits Ragh caught to finally cast a healing hand on herself. Ragh watched with a new found fascination as she unwrapped the wound, showing his shoddy stitches to keep her held together, only for the silvery light to flow from her hand, popping out the stitches and leaving her with healed, slightly pink skin. 

"Sis, you gotta teach me how to do that."

A raised eyebrow, a glance over at him as he half reached out, as if he wanted to touch her newly healed wound to make sure it was truly one, a tilt of her head as she waited for him to continue. He didn't, instead his skin flushing a deeper green as he shuffled his feet. 

"You want to become a healer?"

Ragh just shrugged, rubbing at the back of his head. They both needed to get haircuts soon, Tracker noticed and mentally filed away, watching as he felt the longer hair tickling the back of his neck and tried to move it away. Her own shaved side was growing out as well, much to her annoyance, though she quickly shook her head, forcing away the random thoughts as she looked back at her friend. 

"I know I'm not that smart," Ragh muttered, giving a shrug as if his lower intelligence score wasn't that big of a deal to him, "but even doing my best, there wasn't much I could do to help after, you know." He waved towards her and the pile of bloody gauze next to her. "I've never had to take care of someone before, someone else always did that, but now it's just the two of us, sis. What if it's worse next time? I don't know about all this religion stuff, but I've thought about it a lot over the last few days, and while I'm still gonna be the tank, it might help if I can also help take care of us." 

She wasn't sure what he was expecting, but Tracker could tell he wasn't expecting her to lean over and pull him into a giant bear hug, only to pull back a few moments later and punch him in the arm. 

"Don't sell yourself so short, big guy," Tracker said sternly, waggling a finger at him. "You kept me alive, which is the best thing you could have done. As for the healing, well, do you have a god in mind?"

Ragh immediately perked up, a half grin as he began to think. It would be a process, they would both soon find out - when he had come up blank, she had immediately begun with the most obvious of the gods: Cassandra and Galilea. Going over the pros, the cons, how both goddesses would easily accept him, though Cassandra might be a bit happier about it then Galilea was. But, eventually, neither of them just felt right to him, which was the most important thing. 

And so began their side quest - finding Ragh a god. 

"What about Tempus, god of war," Tracker asked one evening, gutting fish by the fireside as Ragh attempted to mend a hole in his shirt. "A neutral god, popular with a lot of fighters." 

It took him a long moment to answer, the tip of his tongue poking out from between his lips as he tried to keep his stitches straight. Tying off the line, he gave a small shrug. 

"Nah. I'm not much of a war guy. I like bashing heads, not overthrowing other governments for whatever reason I come up with, yah know?" 

“What about Gruumsh,” Ayda asked a few days later, pulling out the many goods she had brought from Riz’s borrowed suitcase of holding. She didn’t come often - Tracker had made it clear that this was her mission, and while all of their friends were ready to come the moment she said she needed help, she wanted to do this on her own first, or at least try. But every few months Ayda would show up in their camp with care packages and letters (Gorgug had made them satellite phones, but not all of them had planatar fueled vans to keep them charged with, so those were for emergencies only) and a few creature comforts they missed from home, stay for a meal, and then take back whatever they wanted to send with her, letters and keepsakes of their own to their own loved ones. 

It was always wonderful, getting the stack of letters from Kristen and Jawbone and the others, and this time she brought advice as well. 

“He is already the god of the orcs, which you are at least half of. I would need some of your blood to analyze the exact genetic makeup, and while that is a topic of conversation we will have to revisit in the future, for now I do believe Gruumsh would welcome you into his army.” 

Ragh was already shaking his head before she even finished, his nose wrinkled in distaste. “Nah sis, Gruumsh isn’t my kind of guy.” 

For a moment Ayda just stood there, watching him, her head tilted to the side. But then her eyes glowed just a bit brighter, and a look of understanding appeared. “Of course. You are neutral good. He is chaotic evil. Your alignments wouldn’t be compatible. I apologize for not thinking of this beforehand.” 

Ragh waved her off, giving her a fanged smile. “No harm, no foul, sis. I just get tired of people always thinkin orcs are evil, you know? I’m not, my mom’s not, Gorgug’s for sure not. So I really don’t want to get mixed up with an evil god if I can avoid it.” 

Ayda gave a deep nod of understanding. “On my honor as a wizard, and as both the mother and the daughter of the same quite wonderful half-orc, I swear to you, Ragh Barkrock, I shall not make that mistake again. Would you like an orange?” 

Ragh happily took the fruit from her outstretched hand, and Ayda gave a small, happy trill before returning to her unpacking, crying a few tears when he handed her a slice. 

“What about Talos, our lord of the storms and tempest that ravage our forests almost as well as you ravaged me last night?” 

Tracker could barely hide her eye roll and fake gag as she paid for their rooms at the inn, Ragh’s lately hook up hanging off his arm and batting his big elf eyes at him. She had known this was going to happen, again, and had warned him, again, that he needed better tastes in hook ups, but Ragh seemed to had a soft spot for elven twinks, and always ended up bringing one back to the inn whenever they were lucky enough to stay in one. She was just glad that they had separate rooms this time, and hadn’t had to sleep as a wolf in the nearest bush. 

“I’m not really a ravishing kind of guy,” Ragh said, trying to free his arm from the elfs’ grasp. “Sure, it’s fun to do every once in a while, but I’m not sure if I’m ready to commit to a ravishing lifestyle yet. What’s that, Tracker? We need to go?” Ragh looked at her with such desperation that she couldn’t turn her back on him like she had last time. 

“Come on Ragh, I have important things to do for Galilea.” 

“You hear the boss, important god cleric wolf stuff to do. I’ll call you, bye!” Ragh almost ran out the door past her, leaving the poor elf boy pouting at the table, wondering what Ragh meant when he said ‘call.’ 

“You need to work on your taste in guys, my dude,” Tracker said with a shake of her head as she slid into the driver’s side, glancing over her shoulder at the half-orc hiding in the back seat. “At least stop choosing the clingy ones?”

“Please, just drive.” 

In the end, it was Ragh himself who found his god, as was strangely right. 

The small town they had stopped in was, by far, their favorite stop so far. Mostly high elves, sure, but high elves strangely welcoming, much more like Adaine then the others they had met so far. A few other species were there too, half elves, a few fairies, and even a couple of gnomes that had taken residence in a nearby cave, turning it into a mix of apartment complexes and work stations. It was the most welcoming town they had been in; it almost felt like home. 

And, centered in the middle of town, were their shrines. 

It was common for towns this small, Tracker had learned, to not have a temple dedicated to every single god worshiped in the area. While for some towns that meant only one temple, maybe two if there were multiple families with influence, other towns had too many to count, each family or inhabitant following their own deity. So, instead, they had a shrine building instead, each deity with their own table and candles and cushions in front of them so those who worshiped them could pray. 

It was there, after he had gone missing for hours on end, that Tracker finally found him. He was just sitting there on one of the cushions, staring at the flickering candle, eyes both vacant and seemingly touched with a new found peace. He didn’t even notice when she sat down next to him, only starting out of whatever trance he seemed to be in when Tracker put her hand on his shoulder, gently shaking him. 

“This is him,” Ragh immediately said, his face lit up with almost the same happy glow as whenever he reminded people he was gay and was met with acceptance instead of the hatred he thought he would find. “I was curious what was in here, so I walked in and thought it was some kind of weird like, massage parlor, but I found my guy, and this dude totally rocks, Tracker!  Hoot growl, up high!” 

Tracker immediately gave him his high five, giddy with excitement for her friend. And taking a look at the shrine they sat before, she couldn’t help but agree that it fit. Torm, god of courage and self-sacrifice, a provider of protection. Symbolized by a white gauntlet raised against a coming sword. For her bodyguard and best friend, yeah, it felt right. 

Of course, finding the god was only the first step in becoming a cleric. Then there was the training. 

Not all clerics were as blessed as she and Kristen were (though, of course, no one was as blessed as Saint Kristen Applebees, chosen and denier of Helios, creator of the planatar YES!/?, healer of the Goddex Cassandra). Some clerics had to work to gain their deity’s blessing, to prove that they were good enough vessels of the gods’ holy power. Some were just pains in the asses to get a hold of. 

Luckily, Torm seemed to approve of Ragh. 

It took a while, a few days after they left the town, Ragh standing between her and a weird lizard creature neither of them could remember the name of, for Torm to finally respond to the prayers Tracker had been teaching him. An almost imperceptible white light seemed to surround Ragh's hand as it came down against the lizards' jaw, just bright enough that Tracker's wolf enhanced eyes caught it as she bit deep into the creatures' tail. And each time he fulfilled his role of protector, showed courage as he walked by her side into the temples of Galilea, took up his weapon to protect her against whatever else Fallinel had to throw at them, it grew a little bit brighter. 

Until one day, without even thinking about it, he cast a Sacred Flame at an enemy on the other side of their camp site, the burning bright light zapping into the creatures' side, sending it scampering back into the wilds of the untamed woods in the far reaches of the country. Together they quickly finished off their enemies, Rahg wielding his weapon and a new found spells with an enjoyable ease, taking joy in the blessing of his god. 

She remembered that feeling, the power and joy from being blessed by one of the gods, the sudden innate knowledge of exactly what to do to make everything perfect and wonderful and right. 

The fight eventually ended, Ragh having taken the brunt of the damage, though one of them did get a slice at her flank. Before she could shift back and heal it herself, Ragh had reached out and touched her shoulder. Another burst of brilliant white light, something she would have to teach him to control later, raced through her veins and across her skin, invigorating her and closing most of the wound, leaving a scratch where before there had been a gash. All while Ragh stared in awe, eyes and smile wide, though clearly he was exhausted from the small use of magic. 

Another moment and she was back in her human form, healing him herself as he sat back, staring at his hands as his wounds closed around him. 

"Tracker..."

She raised her head from examining her work, making sure there wasn't something she had missed. 

"This fucking rules." 

An easy smile shared between them, Tracker knowing exactly what he meant. 

"Yeah it does."

[naptoons]

Broken- Erick Colon

Warnings: verbal fights, cursing.

Theme: Angst

Summary: you and Erick thought getting together would be great, you guys liked each other since you were in middle school. But never told each other, you’ve dated other people and now y’all are broken. So broken that the relationship becomes toxic.

A/N: I apologize for all the angst buttttt yah girl ain’t feeling the fluffs at the moment, I’ve been in a very let down mood so i apologize. But enjoy!!!

Proofread? : no.

Being in love with Erick consisted of bricking, kissing and makeup sex. Then back to yelling at each other and making each other mad. Loving each other started to become a chore. The push and pull of wanting to and being scared. You both thought this relationship would save you both. But y’all are far to broken for each other.

“She was all up on you Erick!!, did you not notice or you just dont fucking care?!” You yell at him for the fourth time this week, because he was so nice he couldn’t notice his friend was being too flirty, even though she knew you guys were together and you were standing obviously right there. “Y/n?” He sighs “how many fucking times do I have to tell you shes a friend?!” “ friends?! To be all cuddled up in you like that?!” “I don’t understand why you’re so fucking pissed about it y/n I’m with you for fuck sakes!” Erick huffs walking over to the sofa, you stand on the wall apart from him, fighting the urge to block his view of the tv, you weren’t done with him, cause he doesn’t seem to understand how this friend of his has a crush on him, to make matters worse it’s an ex.

“You’re probably fucking her that’s why you don’t care” you mumble with your arms crossed Erick’s leg bounces up and down trying to calm himself down, he was angry at how big of a scene you made at the party, you had leaped over the arms of Richard and Joel, pulling her hair down to the floor as you got a couple of hits in, to make matters even bigger you threw a drink at her. “Y/n-please I’m done arguing with you” he demands through gritted teeth.

“Well are you? Are you cheating on me?” You ponder, Erick doesn’t answer instead he drinks water from the glass “of course you would go back to ex, she’s everything I’m not Huh?”

“How ment times i Gotta tell your she’s just a friend?!” He yells at you standing up and throwing a glass cup close to you, your body shutters in fear. You’d never thought these arguments would result to you guys putting your hands in each other. The impact of that throw just shattered all over your foot.

“Baby—“ he shutters before two members come in, Richard and Chris looking at Erick, one in anger and one in utter shock

“What the hell is wrong with you?!” Richard yells at him, walking towards him Chris grabs your arm softly moving you out the way of the shattered glass. Joel and zabdiel turn around the corner looking at your cut feet, Joel lifts you up bridal style to take care of the glass in your foot.

Joel sits you on the sink grabbing the first aid kit, he sees your somber mood, your eyes look so distraught and scared, Joel swallowed the lump in his throat thinking how he can advert your attention from what just occurred. “Hey you wanna go grab some frosty’s? Or do you want McDonald’s milkshake?”

“If their machine works” you dryly joke

“True,” he laughs a little “so what do you want? Or do you want both?”

“I want spicy nuggets and a frosty, maybe a McDonald’s caramel sundae”

“Orders up” Joel smiles, “Cmon lets go”

Sitting on the grass, you pick at your frosty slowly turning it into a milkshake anyways, Joel notices how you’re spacing out so he rubs your back softly “do you need space?”

“No, cause when I’m alone I don’t know what I might start thinking, or doing”

“Do you want to talk about it?” Joel whispers, as if theirs someone following you guys.

“I’m a mess Joel, a broken mess and I knew this all to well, I knew this before I dated him, my last two relationships were scarring, one was verbally abusive, and the other cheated, I don’t know why I thought Erick would save me, I should’ve never jumped into this relationship—" your voice cracked

“If I knew I wasn’t ready” you barely finished, but Joel caught every vowel and Constant. “I fuck up every relationship I have”

“Hey no, that’s not true, listen those guys they fucked up the relationship to not even consider how you felt, because love shouldn’t be difficult, love is when you’re so terrified of hurting the other person, of they loved you they wouldn’t have dare to break you”

“Is love constantly arguing?”

“It is if you’re arguing about something that could potentially cause you guys to separate, that means both of you are scared, and sometimes it’s a defensive mechanism because you don’t want another relationship to turn out as the last”

“Arguments are nothing but miscommunication gone wrong” Joel hums at the end “and when that happens neither party is listening, it’s just pain talking” drinking the frosty from your cup you nod your head. Yeah, it makes sense now, neither of you guys are communicating because you both are scared of your bruises resurfacing, so instead of flight, you fight instead. It’s just pain on top of pain.

“So if you want, take a break think it over, do you love him? and is it worth the wait for you guys to heal?”

“Are you saying we’re together at the wrong time?”

“No, love has no time, and it surely doesn’t wait either, I’m just saying healing takes a while, but you can still be together and heal too, communication is one form of healing” he bumps your shoulder softly

“Wow, you really do give out great advice”

“If I did, id be with my ex right now, I’m just trying to prevent you from making the same mistake”

“Thanks Joel”

It’s been four weeks since you saw Erick, you were trying to give yourself and him enough breathing room to think about your relationship. And not only that but to discover who you are within yourself. ”now or never right?” You ask yourself standing in front of their house, ringing the doorbell you Yep your foot on the welcome mat. “Aw fuck it I can’t do this” just as your about to turn around the door swings open, and there he was. Even after all these weeks, he still gave your butterflies, and your cheeks rose in color.

“Hey” he starts off softly

“Hey-um can we talk?” You ask fiddling with your bracelet, it was the bracelet he bought you back from touring, with every stop they had you always remembered to buy you a souvenir. Since you couldn’t travel along with him cause of school.

“Yeah of course come in” you walk in the house, following Erick to his room, sitting in the bed he sits across from you giving you enough space so you’re not uncomfortable or scared. He’d never want to see you make that face, specially on his accord.

“So I’ve been thinking, that we’ve been having way to many fights, this break we had from each other was much needed” you look to see ericks head looking down at his hands , his body looked so stiff and somber, he didn’t seem like himself. “But, I know that I still love you and I have so much growth for myself, I have a lot of room to improve, so just know it’s not your fault, nor is it mine, and it’s not our exes fault either, we don’t get to choose how or when we get hurt in this world, but we get to choose how we deal with the pain, and we both chose poorly” you turn your body fully towards him.

Erick looked like he hasn’t been motivated to do anything for these past weeks, you had hoped he’d be taking care of himself like you did, but this hit him in a different way. “Hey Erick, I’m not mad at you, I’m disappointed in you nor am I upset with you, I know you didn’t mean it, it was just fear talking so dont-“

“How you can you forgive someone that almost threw glass at you? How can you love someone that argued with you until they pushed you away? How can you even for a second, still love me after all the pain I’ve gave you?” Erick finally looks at you, his eyes drowning in every negative emotion you can think of. “Y/n you don’t deserve the repeat of opening and closing so much, you deserve to be happy, you deserve someone who is there twenty-four-seven, you deserve someone man enough to actually listen and value what you say, because all I did in that relationship was made you cry alone countless nights, and gave you more problems then I was worth, y/n you really are an angel, and I can’t drag you down for being stuck in the past”

You stood up from the bed still eyes laid on Erick, you stood in front of him removing his hand from his face. He looks up at you shocked and dazed. He was wondering why are you still here? How could you even look at him? “Listen, I’m not going to force you into a relationship if that’s not what you want but listen to me carefully” you pause for his answer

“Okay” he lets out an unsteady answer

“Erick, remember when I told you that even if you were a shattered glass house I would still pick you up and rebuild you?” You ask him

“Yeah” his voice simmer down slowly

“I didn’t make that promise because you were my friend, I made that promise because I know what type of person you are, Erick you’re the most wholehearted, passionate and charming man I’ve ever been with, so why the hell would I ever stop loving a person like that?”

Erick gazes at you again his breath stuck in a tight air bubble, “Erick, yeah you scared me that day, but what made me scared wasn’t the glass, it was that we couldn’t help or understand each other, so I thought I would lose you, I can’t pretend that day didn’t happen, but I’m willing to heal it, to heal us, only if you want too” you kiss his knuckles softly. You missed the way his hands fit into yours, the way he would rub circles on your inner thigh when he was driving. The crinkle in his nose when you pull out the awful dad jokes.

You missed him.

“I’m willing to try too, I love you” Erick stands up hovering over you just by a couple inches “you look beautiful by the way” he caresses your cheek In one hand, while the other holds your waist.

“You idiot, my cheeks and eyes are swollen but I’m beautiful?” You punch him softly

“Always beautiful the hell you mean?” He furrows his eyebrows, “your as beautiful as the moon dancing across the water” you giggle with a slight blush tint from ear to ear, luckily it was dark in his room, next thing you knew Erick pressed his lips on yours, passionately he softly laid your back on the bed and hovered over you.

We had to save ourselves. In order to save our relationship.

[fortheloveoffanfic]

Hurt.

John Wick x Reader (A/n- I know, the assassin/ hitwoman reader type is getting old over here, but forgive me and let me have this one, I promise I’ll try to change the model at some point.)

An inch deep bleeding stab wound right under his ribs, a couple bullets lodged in his shoulder, and an uncountable amount of tiny cuts on every visible surface of skin. None of it was fatal, but he was bleeding so fast that he was beginning to think otherwise. His cheek was warm and wet with dripping blood, John couldn’t even remember how he had gotten that one. It had all happened so quickly, a couple burly henchmen had somehow turned into a dozen. And that wasn’t counting his very able bodied target. Of course, he was John Wick, he had gotten the job done, but had walked out of the seemingly inconspicuous warehouse feeling worse than he’d like to admit. 

Every thing hurt, down to the joints in his fingers. He was seeing red and couldn’t really tell if it was because he was growing closer to unconsciousness or if it was because there was blood in his eyes. Maybe it was both.

As John dragged himself to his car, parked at the corner, he found himself wondering if he’d make it home to call a doctor. It was at least thee miles away without traffic. Wincing as he ducked into the drivers seat, he chuckled humorlessly, after everything he just did, what might be described as several counts of capital murder, his problem was traffic. So mundane, yet it might determine whether he woke up tomorrow or if he just bled out in his car, in the busy streets of New York. 

The engine rumbled to life, more life than John felt like he had and, he slowly peeled away from the shadows of the curb. As he drove, his red stained vison seemed to double and eventually, he realized that it would be suicide to try to make it home. The Continental was much closer. 

Taking a sharp turn, John headed towards his new destination, hoping he’d actually get there.

She usually preferred to park her car herself, she paid to much for it, killed to much for it, to trust some random kid with her very shiny, extremely expensive car. So, Y/n drove slowly through the underground park of the Continental, searching for a spot. The car barely hummed in the silence, it was much like her, stylish, quiet, and in the right circumstances, deadly. 

Eventually, she found one, next to a familiar Mustang. Cutting off the engine, Y/n gathered her bags, ready to head up and check in, though as she walked past the car, she noticed that it was still running. And that the driver was still inside. At an uneventfully and unhurried pace, Y/n shrugged her bag higher up, onto her shoulder, moving the window, confirming that the barely conscious occupant was in fact John. “Fuck,” she mumbled quietly. 

Worry swelled in her chest, causing her to roll her eyes to in annoyance. Leave it to John Wick, to make her feel this way. Hell, leave it to John to make her feel anything at all. Trying the handle, Y/n quietly sighed in relief when the door opened. “Y/n...” he mumbled, so he could see her, “What are you doing here?”

“I could ask you the same thing. What the hell happened to you?” Her words came out breathlessly as Y/n tugged on his arms, tying to pull him out of the car. “Please tell me you can still walk.”

“If I can drive, I can walk,” John quipped, Y/n was the last person that John wanted to show weakness in front of, she had always been this force of strength and quiet, calculated determination. He’d always thought that it was impossible for someone like her to exist, never, ever showing weakness or pain, at least not in front of him. It was indescribable really, like she couldn’t be phased. Emotionless, ruthless, incapable of caring for anyone outside of herself, all wrapped up in ethereal beauty. John shouldn’t have, but he had fallen for her anyway. That was why he hated that she was seeing him like this. It made him seem weak, surely a woman like her was anything but weak. Little did John know, he was her weakness. 

“Good,” as John leaned against the car, clutching his side to slow the bleeding, Y/n turned of his car, closing and locking the doors. Afterwards, she slung his arm over her shoulders, urging him forward, “Come on.”

For some reason, one that confused her above everything else,  Y/n had brought John up to her room instead of ensuring that he had gotten his own. She had also ensured Charon that she’d tend to his injuries and that the doctor wasn’t necessary. Y/n had convinced herself that it was because calling the doctor would be a waste of a coin, his injuries weren’t fatal and she knew her way around a needle. But really, what she hated to admit, was that it was because, she couldn’t trust someone else with his life. She didn’t want too. 

Huffing, Y/n helped John to the bed, “Take off your shirt,” she ordered, walking off into the bathroom. Thankfully, the rooms were always stocked with a capable first aid kit for those who preferred to patch themselves up. Returning with the kit and a small basin of warm water and a white hand towel, Y/n bit back a frown when she saw the bruises dominating his chest and the bleeding wound at his side. 

John straightened up, turning to her as Y/n took a seat next to him, “You don’t have to do this,” he objected as she got to work on cleaning around the stab wound, expert fingers working efficiently and almost painlessly. 

Her tone was flat, but John could swear that there was concern beneath it. Maybe he was more delirious that he originally figured, “I don’t have to do a lot of things. But you’re hurt and I’m here, I don’t suppose you wanted me to let you bleed out down there.”

John sighed, shaking his head. She was always so hard to converse with, it was like she was constantly playing defense. She was. “That’s not what I meant,” he said, staring her, wishing that she would just stop for a second and meet his eyes. 

Y/n continued, seemingly unaffected by his words, though inside, she was in turmoil, wondering why John made her feel the way she did, wishing she could just make his troubles stop, fix it all for him. Maybe that was what everyone meant when they said the people who show the least felt the most. “It doesn’t matter what you meant, or what I mean.”

“Then what does matter?”

Y/n’s jaw clenched and for a split second, she thought about just saying exactly what she felt, but caught it before it left and instead she said; “Would you just stop talking and let me finish this?” After Y/n finished closing the stab wound, she got to work on removing the bullets still lodged in his right shoulder, thankfully, they weren’t anywhere that would cause complications. Her mother used to be a doctor at the Continental, so Y/n liked to think that she had picked up a few helpful lessons. John winced and hissed very quietly as she continued, but he didn’t speak. 

When her work was complete, John was already half asleep, and she helped him lay back onto the bed. Y/n left to clear away the things she had used and when she was completely sure that she was sound asleep, she carefully removed his shoes and used a clean towel and some warm water to gently wipe dried blood and dirt from his face and bare chest.

It didn’t take long enough and for a while after she was through, Y/n sat at the bedside. She’d have hated for anyone to see it, but occasionally, she let herself go, caressing the side of his face or running her hand through the end of John’s hair. She had no idea of how long she spent there, doting on John with the lightest of touches, mesmerized by his soft, steady breaths and the rise and fall of his chest but eventually, the sky was changing, the sun rising. Almost entranced by his sleeping form, Y/n felt calmer than she had before. She had spent her entire life, learning and thinking that pain and love were weaknesses that she couldn’t be afforded. It wasn’t easy coming from a family that made crime a profession, she was learning to fight from the minute she knew what the word meant and being trained to patch herself up instead of relying on someone else. “You can trust me,” John had told her once, but she had laughed half heartedly instead of telling him he could do the same.  He could though, Y/n hoped he knew that.

Her eyes were heavy with tire, but she wouldn’t sleep, if this was they only time that Y/n could admire him, love him without prying, judging eyes, she’d take it. The morning light casted the faintest glow on his face and Y/’n’s eyes settled on John’s lips. In a fleeting moment, Y/n leaned down, her face hovering over John’s, and without thinking, she pressed a soft kiss to his slightly parted lips.

Ever since they had met, John had dreamt of her. In his dreams, she had the most beautiful smile- that was usually how he knew it was a dream, the Y/n he knew in the waking world never smiled. But he was sure if she did, it would have been better than anything he could have ever envisioned. Sometimes, in his dreams, he’d be chasing her, his finger’s barely brushing the edges of her blouse. Y/n would glance back, throwing her head back in contagious laughter and if he stayed asleep long enough, John would catch her. “You’re mine now,” he’d say, smiling down at her.

“I’ve always been yours,” she’ return, and reach up to kiss him. The kiss always felt like the wings of butterflies fluttering against his lips. So light and short that it was easy for John to remember that the moment was merely a creation of his subconscious. That time though, the kiss felt different, new, real. Before he knew it, the dream was fading. “Wait!” He wanted to call, but his eyes shot open.

To his surprise, the kiss didn’t go away with his slumber, it was actually happening and as fast as he had opened his eyes, he shut them again, responding to Y/n’s lips on his. 

At first, she melted against him, but when John’s hand found her hair, Y/n pulled away, mouth agape and eyes wide. Quietly, she gasped, her fingers brushing against pink lips which had had just started to grow plumper from kissing, “I’m so sorry,” she stood abruptly, trying to put more space between herself and John who now laid propped on his elbows. 

“Y/n,” he began, wincing slightly as he pushed himself off the bed, easing himself into a standing position. The pills she had slipped into his mouth just before he had dosed off had helped significantly, so he didn’t really feel like he had been shot, but more like someone had punched him really, really hard, with a literal iron fist. “You don’t have to apologize,” John reasoned, though Y/n didn't seem to hear it, backing away towards the window, turning her face away. “I feel the same way,” he finished with a sigh.

Turning back to him Y/n clenched her jaw, her eyes not meeting his, “I have no idea what you’re talking about. I don’t feel anything but mild annoyance for you,” she shook her head in defiance, though her façade was cracking. “That kiss.....it was just a moment of......” Y/n stammered, not really knowing how to hide her feelings. She hated feeling so exposed, so vulnerable. “It was just....”

“Stop,” John was in front of her in a couple long steps, his tone firm but in no way harsh, John just wanted Y/n to listen, understand that feeling didn’t equate weakness, “Just stop for five seconds, please.”

“John, don’t, don’t try to convince me to accept my feelings or-” faster than she could register, John cut her off, crashing his lips to his, holding Y/n at her forearms. At first, she resisted, but eventually she surrendered to John and the part of herself that had been begging for her to tell him how she felt for months now.

Sighing against him, Y/n submitted, melting against John, her hands sliding up his shoulders, wrapping around his neck. “John,” she whispered when they broke, leaving less than an inch of space between their lips.

“Don’t,” he shushed her quietly, “Can we talk about it later?” His hand crept up to gently cradle the back of her neck and instead of resisting she nodded, the slightest hint of a smile playing on her lips. It was nothing like the broad one she had worn in his dreams, but she looked even more beautiful than anything he could have ever dreamt up. “Come here,” he mumbled, pulling her into another kiss, slowly walking them backwards towards the bed.

[what-is-your-plan-today]

Stark Spangled Banner Ch19: Cut Off One Head...

Summary: The Avengers have been tracking Hydra for a number of months now, systematically making their way through each base that their intel provides them...but a routine business trip turns out to be something far more sinister than Katie and Tony were planning for...

Warnings: Violence, kidnapping, bad language, angst...

Pairing: Steve Rogers x OFC Katie Stark

A/N: The next few chapters take a bit of a dark turn...warnings will be detailed.

Tag list is open- Send me an ask

Open for suggestions to one-shots as well

Stark Spangled Banner Masterlist

September 2014

“I’m not saying that I’m not open to the idea. I just don’t understand why you think we need to buy the firm,“ Katie said for what felt like the thousandth time that morning. Tony glared at her and simply shook his head as he sat waiting in the reception area of the office block in Minnesota. “I’m not even gonna ask what you were doing that kept you up so late you clearly didn’t get enough sleep last night you cranky brat.” Katie rolled her eyes but she felt a small smirk pulling at her lips as she remembered very well the events of last night as Steve had quite frankly lost his shit at the fact she was wearing the new baby blue lace matching underwear set he had bought her just because he wanted to, but she caught herself, “Sleep or lack of, has nothing to do with it. I’m serious, Tony. We don’t need it”. “Investing” he said holding his finger up “building the brand. That’s what business is all about.” She groaned “Thanks for the lesson on running a business, you know, in case I didn’t know how to, but that is NOT the vision I have for SIP.” “Look, you said yourself when this proposal landed on your desk you were curious.” “I am!” She protested, and she was. From the research they had done, the company that had approached them, Hall General Publishers LTD, held the same ideas as SIP, except they focused on Biographies that were published in series magazines. They had reached out to SIP for a potential collaboration on a fiction series that they had been approached to run and felt it was out of their field, but they were keen to see if they could join forces. It had instantly caught Katie’s attention and imagination but as usual Tony had gone off on one and suggested they buy the smaller company out. “I’m curious about their proposal, and the potential to do business, collaborate yes, but not take over!” “Look, it’s a day out of the office, chance to forget about Tin Man and Hydra” Tony shrugged and Katie gave a groan of frustration again. “And their profits are pretty impressive. We can use them, keep their brand…” “Whatever” she said as she glanced around at the foyer. It was clinical, white, all clean lines. Nothing like the entrance to Stark, sorry Avengers Tower as it was now called .Mind you, that was to be expected from a ‘rent an office’. Eddie Hall, the MD of HGP had requested the meeting take place away from either of their offices to avoid anyone catching news of the potential collaboration and had arranged to hire a room at block some 10 miles outside of Saint Paul. Tony had shrugged when Katie questioned it, saying it wasn’t unusual for people to hire external meeting venues in order to keep things under the radar. “Miss Stark? Mr Stark, I’m so sorry,” the dark haired man hurrying across the foyer said. He was about 6 foot tall, slim, and was wearing a sharp black suit. Both Katie and Tony stood up, Tony extending a hand.

“Mr Hall I presume?”

 “Yes…” the man said, shaking both their hands “Sorry to keep you waiting, I had to ensure the room was ready…“

“It’s only a few minutes.” Katie said smiling at him, “No apologies necessary.”

 They followed him into the elevator and he selected the top floor and turned to the siblings

“Thank you for coming out here. I know the cloak and dagger thing is probably a bit much but I don’t want people getting wind of it. There’s a few changes coming at the company and I don’t want any of them making any assumptions…” “Understandable.” Tony sniffed, looking around the elevator.

They emerged onto the top floor, and he led them left down the corridor. Katie looked around, the whole place smelt of paint and there was decorating equipment dotted around. She frowned. “It’s a new office facility.�� Hall explained, looking at her. “Owned by a friend of mine and they’re still kitting it all out. But he said this was the best room to use. It’s mocked up like a board room you see…” Katie nodded and shared a look with Tony, she was starting to feel ever so slightly uneasy. Tony just shook his head and patted his pocket where his trusty Iron gauntlet cuff sat. Neither of them had come with their suits, this was supposed to be a straight forward business meeting after all. But she took a deep breath, she was probably just being over sensitive after everything that had happened recently...

Hall stopped outside a door to the left and opened the room, revealing nothing but darkness. "Oh, sorry,” Hall let out a sigh of frustration, sweeping into the room. “Yes. Let me just… find the lights.” Tony looked at Katie, arching an eyebrow. 

No window? he mouthed at her, his hand slipping into his pocket as they stepped into the room, Katie not quite sure they should be to be honest but… “Yes. Here we go,” the man said brightly, flipping on the light and flooding the small room with light as the door slammed shut behind them.

That’s why it didn’t have a window. It was a fucking storage room. And it contained three men in dark suits standing before them, each with a rifle trained on their chests. Katie instantly stopped, drawing a deep breath of shock. Besides her she saw Tony in the corner of her eye quickly move to pull the cuff from the depth of his pocket, but he suddenly stumbled forward and fell immediately, the cuff flying out of his hand as the man they knew as Mr Hall stepped round them both and leaned against the wall to their right.

Katie spun round to see another man to the left and her eyes widened as she instantly recognised him.

“Grant?“ She frowned, looking up at the face of her ex "What… what’s going on? "You know, I thought when you dumped all those files on the internet you might have actually read them.” He smirked, stepping forward and glancing down at Tony who had sat up and was watching him, his face contorted with hatred and rage. Katie swallowed as she took in his words before she shook her head as her eyes grew wide in sudden understanding.

“Heil Hydra.” Ward’s smile spread further across his face.

The agents around the room started to close in. One of them, a larger built man who reminded her a little of Rumlow spoke in a deep voice.

“This is the one you say we need?” Ward nodded and at that point Tony slowly got to his feet, backing up, placing himself between his sister and the man who is advancing on her, the two of them backing towards the door.

“Need me for what?” Katie said, her voice soft as her back hit the wooden surface.

“Answers.” The large man said, looking bored at Tony’s display of protectiveness.

 “About what?” She said, a bit louder this time.

“Well, you see Kay…” Ward said and Katie turned to her left to look at him as Tony emitted a low growl in his throat at the use of his old pet name for her, Ward chuckled before he started again “We’ve had a bit of a problem since you and your boyfriend, sorry fiancée, congratulations on that by the way…” he smiled, and she glared at him in response “Yes, ever since you took down SHIELD, we’ve been a little bit on the back foot, constantly watching our backs, trying to figure out where SHIELD or the Avengers are going to pop up next. So we figured, we needed a bit of inside intel.” The larger officer yanked Katie’s arm and pulled her out from between the door and Tony, flinging her into the middle of the room where another one of the agents grabbed her. Another one stepped quickly in front of her brother, blocking his path to her.

 “Ok, stop…” Tony held his hands up, turning back to Ward and the other man. “If you want someone, take me. I’m more involved in the Avengers anyway…“

His voice was level but Katie could hear a level of desperation.

“Yeah, much as I’d love to take you in for a kicking Tony, the problem is she’s the only one of you who knows he’s alive and what he’s likely to be doing so…” “Knows who is alive?” Tony frowned as Katie swallowed thickly. Coulson, that’s the only person they could be talking about. But before she could say anything one of the agents butt Tony hard in the back of the head with the handle of his gun and he fell to the floor.

 Katie yelled out and started towards him, but the Agent holding her tightened his grip on her arm to the point of it being painful.

 “Now you’re gonna come with us, out of this building, quietly, no fuss and no escape attempts” the big man spoke to her “Otherwise Ward here is gonna put a bullet in his head” “And how do I know you’re not gonna do that anyway?” she said, through her tears.

“Because it’s more trouble than its worth.” Ward said “And frankly, the thought of him alive, worrying about you is far more satisfying.” Katie glanced down at her brother, who was starting to push himself up, until Ward kicked him hard in the ribs and he collapsed, groaning, as Ward hit him on the back of the head again, knocking him out.

“Alright, alright…” she said, her voice cracking. “I’ll come. Just leave him alone.” She was shoved harshly forward, her heeled feet slipping slightly as the door was pulled open. She stopped suddenly, turning to Ward. “You better watch your back.” she looked at him “When Steve finds out about this you’re a dead man.” Ward chuckled “In a bit sweetheart.” She was shoved forward again, and managed one glance over her shoulder at Tony who was sprawled on the floor before she was shoved out of the room.

***** Tony groaned, as he pushed himself up slowly, the room spinning.

 “Kiddo?” he croaked, as he looked around. He was alone, no sign of anyone. He scrambled across the floor, and tried the door which was locked, before he slumped heavily against it, his trembling hands started to feel his suit pockets. His phone was gone, of course, as was his cuff and Katie’s laptop. He lay his head back against the door as he started to piece together what had happened. It was an ambush, Ward…Hydra…

 Hydra had his sister. For information. About someone no one knew was alive? Were they referring to Fury? He ran his hand over his face again, and was just about to think about screaming in the vain hope they heard him on reception, but he stopped, suddenly. They hadn’t taken his watch.

Thick Hydra bastards. 

With shaky fingers he pressed the button at the side and the face lit up orange.

 "Yes, sir?“ JARVIS spoke and Tony almost gave a sob of relief before he spoke a simple instruction, all he can think to blurt out before he gives into the throbbing in his head once more.

“Alert Captain Rogers. Send help.”

***** Steve was in the now finished training room with Thor. The pair of them were currently debating if the large room would stand up to them trying out a new move- Thor hitting Steve’s shield with his hammer to create the same wave it had done in the forest that time. It was useful, and Steve was thinking about perfecting it, seeing if it could be directed in anyway.

 “What metal is it made from anyway?”  Steve nodded to Mjolnir as Thor was throwing it up and down.

 “It was forged from the heart of a dying star- Nidevalir…” Thor said, as Steve picked up his shield.

 “It’s made from a star?”

 “No, metal, which was forged by a star.” Thor corrected.

Steve was about to comment that he still hadn’t answered the question when a red light started flashing in the corner of the room, along with a low siren, and Jarvis’ voice cut across them.

“Captain Rogers, Mr Stark has just sent a distress signal.”

 Steve instantly looked at Thor, swallowing slightly. “A distress…they were on a business trip. “I’ve no other details other than to alert you and send help.” There was a loud clap of thunder and Steve turned to see Thor was now clad in his armour and the God nodded at him as the two of them sprinted from the room. Steve’s mouth was dry and his mind was running overtime about what trouble they could possibly be in, but as they headed down the corridor to the armoury he found his voice.

“JARVIS, tell everyone to suit up and meet at the jet, now.” “Of course Captain. I’ve patched the location through to the jet.”

“I’m sure they will be fine.” Thor offered as some attempt at re-assurance. But as Steve picked shrugged on the top half of his uniform and grabbed his utility belt he didn’t feel very re-assured.

Maria Hill met them in the hangar “I heard the signal, is everything ok?” “Tony and Katie…” Steve said, “They were at a business meeting but Tony just sent out a distress signal.” Maria looked at him and then nodded “I’ll start doing some digging into who they were meeting.”

 He nodded, and strode up the ramp to the jet. They’d been in the air about 30 minutes when Maria patched through to them

 “I don’t know who they were meeting but it isn’t Eddie Hilll” she sighed “He was reported missing three days ago by his wife.”

 “So whoever took them got to him first.” Nat said, looking at Steve. “Took him out, replaced him with an imposter”

“And it’s probably safe to assume he’s dead.” Steve said, flatly. “Hill, start doing some digging. Into Hall…anything that might help.”

“On it Cap.”

It took them approximately another 10 minutes to get to the location JARVIS had programmed for them. And it felt like 10 years. Ever since receiving the distress call the entire team had been on tenterhooks, Steve especially, remaining stoic and unyielding, although he felt anything but, knowing his girl could be in trouble.

 The receptionists face was a picture when the Avengers, led by a focussed, stern looking Captain America stormed into the building and demanded to know what room the Starks were in. Tony heard them shouting on the corridor, Thor kicking over paint cans as he went, and he yelled, banging on the door.

 “Stand back…” Steve’s voice was loud before he aimed a huge kick at the door, breaking it easily along with the frame which splintered out of the wall.

“Where’s Katie?” Steve asked, swallowing and looking round, almost as if he expected her to be hiding somewhere.

“They took her.” Tony said, pacing in front of him “I tried to stop them but…”

“Who?” Steve looked at him and Tony sighed, his eyes brimming “Tony, who took her?” Steve’s voice was desperate.

“Hydra.” he bit out, and Steve felt his mouth drop open before he took a deep breath and ran his hand over his face.

Hydra, fucking Hydra. “I don’t understand…“ Thor began, but Tony cut him off. “And you think I do?” he shouted at the God, his entire body trembling as he stopped pacing in front of him “I… we…” He stopped, unable to speak, his breaths coming in short, rapid bursts. Steve was too preoccupied to notice. He was simply staring down at the floor, his posture slumped as he removed his helmet which felt like it was suffocating him, his head kept replaying what Tony had told him.

 Hydra had her. They had her.

 Banner grabbed Tony by the shoulders and gave him a single shake before he looked at him “Tony, focus on me, ok, keep breathing…”

 Tony slumped to the floor and Banner knelt down with him. “What did they say?“ Steve’s voice was thick as he turned to look at him. Tony swallowed and Bruce squeezed his shoulder “It was a trap. The man, Hall. We came to meet him only Ward and…” “Ward?” Clint’s head snapped round at the sound of that name, frowning “Ward is Hydra?”

Tony nodded and Steve let out a lowly growl of frustration.

“They wanted her, said they needed inside intel. I told them to take me, I said, take me instead, but they wouldn’t, Ward said that she’s the only one who knows…knows that someone is alive and what he’s likely to be doing…”

 At that Steve’s mind started whirring. Ward- she’d worked that last case with him and Coulson. She was the only Avenger that knew Coulson was alive, bar him, and no one knew she’d told him. Other than Fury that is.

 “Who’s alive, who were they talking about?” Natasha frowned.

“I don’t know!” Tony bellowed.

“Maybe they meant Fury?” Banner suggested, looking up.

Steve’s voice was quiet as he looked up. “They mean Coulson.”

 “What?” Tony wheeled round to face him “Coulson? He’s…he was killed, they buried him…” Steve shook his head before looking up at the ceiling, taking a deep breath “He’s alive. The last case Katie worked at SHIELD, the Asgardian staff case…” “The what?” Thor frowned, but Steve ignored him.

 “It was Coulson’s team she worked with. Ward was part of it.” “And you didn’t think to tell us?” Clint frowned at Steve

“What good would it have done Barton?” Steve snapped, before once more his hands ran over his face. The room fell silent until Nat spoke again.

“Ok, so even if he is alive, that doesn’t explain why they think she knows something.” she pressed “What do they think she knows that’s so important they’d risk taking her?” Steve grit his teeth “I’ve no idea. But I bet Fury does.”

“I’ll get Hill to find him.” Natasha says, pulling out her phone and leaving the room.

“I need to get to back to New York to access everything.” Tony said, suddenly “Start searching our intel, anything…” “What about the media?” Bruce suddenly said. “Should we release her photo?” Tony looked up but before he could speak Steve answered.

 "No. If we do that…” He shook his head. “The press’ll start digging and it could flush them further underground.” “Cap” Clint protested gently. “If we can get her picture out there, have more people on the lookout…”

 Steve shook his head, a miserable yet stubborn pout pulling at his bottom lip. “No.” “We are in the dark here!” Barton snapped.

 Steve turned on him, puffing out his chest. “There’s no way they did this and didn’t leave any sort of trail.”

 “A trail? Jesus Cap, these bastards grew within SHIELD for over 70 fucking years and no one noticed!” Clint snapped

 “I KNOW!” Steve roared.

Thor, who had been watching the exchange quietly up until that point stepped forward, placing his large hand on the Captain’s shoulder.

 “I know it is hard, but you need to remain calm Captain.” he said. Steve looked up at him, giving him a nod, taking a deep breath. Thor turned to Barton “I agree that we should have everyone we can hunting for little Stark, but maybe not straight away. We should regroup, get as much information as we can.” Clint nodded. “I’ll go see if they have CCTV. Maybe we can identify who else was with Ward.” Steve nodded at him as he turned and left the room.

 “I’m going to see if I can find anything outside.” Thor said “tracks, a trail…” he released his hold on the Captain leaving him in the room with just Bruce and Tony.

 Bruce had both his hands on Tony’s shoulders as the man sank to the floor, burying his face in his hands. “I tried to stop them…” Tony said, his head rocking back and forth “I tried, I really did.”

Steve said nothing. He couldn’t. Instead he stood impossibly still despite the ground feeling ready to crumble beneath him.

*****

Thor’s search drew a blank. So after quizzing the staff who were distraught when they realised what had happened, they took the CCTV footage and headed back to base. The jet was silent, everyone lost in their own thoughts.

Steve was trying to make connections. What was Coulson doing, and why did Hydra, mistakenly, think Katie knew about it? Why had no one told them Ward was Hydra? There was no logic in any of this, other than the fact they were desperate, broken and desperate to take the one person they knew for sure had a link to the assumed dead agent. And as that thought echoed in his head, he realised Barton was right. If he had told the rest of the Avengers about Coulson, then maybe they would have taken anyone else. The fact that he found himself wishing it was one of the others instead of her made him feel slightly ashamed but he couldn’t help it. Suddenly, the jet became hot and he felt the bile rising in his throat. He spun up out of his chair and just made it to the small bathroom at the back of the jet before he threw up.

They arrived back at base just after 2 in the afternoon, and immediately went into overdrive, running facial recognition on the CCTV, Tony instructing Jarvis to sift through the files for any mention of Ward in the vain hope it would give them a clue as to where they might have taken her.

Steve was numb, for once he was failing to direct his team, so Clint took it upon himself to organise everyone, which he was grateful for. Suddenly he felt his phone ring, and he pulled it out of his pocket as fast as he could, a low grown of frustration coming from his throat when he saw it was Sam.

 “Sam, I need to keep the line clear” he answered, sharply.

“Woah, Cap…what’s going down?”

“Katie…” he said, stumbling over his words “She’s…she’s been taken, by Hydra.” There was a pause and then the man spoke again, 4 words, before he hung up.

 “I’m on my way.”

Steve slid his phone back into his pocket and took a deep breath. He needed to focus. He was no good to Katie like this. He glanced over at his team, locked eyes with Thor who gave him a nod, and he strode across to see if there was anything he could help with.

It was an hour or so before they made any decent progress.

 "We got a positive ID on one of the Agents,“ Hill said as she strode into the common room, handing Steve a file. He took it and glanced down, moving the surveillance photos they had extracted from the CCTV footage to one side, reading the information in it as Bruce continued. “Eric Jones. Ex SHIELD enforcer, clearly still active in Hydra. He worked out of one of the Canadian bases SHIELD had in Toronto, it fell when SHIELD did. We’re still running facial for the others, but I’ve told JARVIS to focus on the guy that Tony said was posing as Hall.” Steve nodded.

“We have a home address for Jones.” Hill added “But we’ve no idea if he’s been there recently or…” “We’ll check it out.” Nat said standing up, patting Clint on his chest with the back of her hand. He nodded and stood up just as Steve spoke again.

“How did Ward know?” he looked up and turned to Tony “how did any of them know that you were gonna be there?”

Tony didn’t look away from the window as he replied "I don’t know. The company is real, we did all our research. They’re based in Saint Paul, not far from where we were.”

 “So either Ward got wind of it and took it as an opportunity or Hall was in on it from the start.”

 “If he was in on it then why kill him?” Thor asked gravely.

“Maybe they were worried he was going to blab.” Clint shrugged.

 “When we’ve been to Jones’ we’ll head over there, see if we can dig anything up.” Clint looked at Steve who gave him a nod before JARVIS cut across them.

 “Mr Stark. Director Fury and Agent Coulson are here.” “Send them up J.” Tony said, standing up.

 Steve took a deep breath and looked at Clint and Natasha “You two wait and see what he has to say before you go. It might help.”

*****

The news Fury and Coulson gave was received as well as could be anticipated. Thor let out a loud growl, turning over his chair in anger whilst the rest of the group started to angrily chatter amongst themselves, all except Steve. He simply looked at Fury, then got up from his chair, the anger radiating from every inch of his body as he strode towards him, jaw clenching.

“Rogers…” he began but shut up immediately as the Captain’s fist connected with the former Director’s nose with a satisfying crack which rang around the now silent room. Fury stumbled backwards, falling to the floor, and he wiped at his face, eyeing the trickle of blood from his shattered nose as waved away Hill away who had stepped forwards to help him.

 “Come on…” Thor patted Steve’s chest, “this isn’t helping anyone.”

 “You knew?” Steve glared down at the director. “You knew they had the damned thing and didn’t think to tell any of us that you were tracking it?”

 “It would have blown Coulson’s cover.” Fury said, standing up “What he is doing has to go under the radar…” “And because of that they took her.” Steve spat “Because Ward knows she knows he…”he pointed to Coulson “is alive, and because we worked with you to take them down, they think she knows something!”

 “Let’s just break this down…” Tony sighed, rubbing his face “How did they get it, I thought the Sceptre was on Asgard?” Tony frowned, looking at Thor. “You took it with Loki.”

 “No, I took the tesseract.” Thor said. “The sceptre was taken by err…not SHIELD, well a part of SHIELD but…”

 “Why did you not tell us about this?” Clint snapped, his usual placid mannerisms now spiked with anger as he turned to Maria. “Why has it taken us raiding fuck knows how many bases, and Nova getting taken for us to find out?”

“Barton, The rubble of the Triskelion took ages to sort out, the other SHIELD strongholds had been obliterated or infiltrated at the same time” she explained “Hundreds if not thousands of things have gone missing. Files, hard drives, laptops, alien artefacts, security badges, flash drives… the list keeps growing. We didn’t know it was missing until recently!” “Recently? How recent?” “Last week.” she looked down and Steve gave a snort as Clint growled.

“You should have destroyed it.” Steve looked at Fury, “Just like everything else you had in that god-damned lab.”

“We couldn’t” Coulson looked at him, and then Steve gave a sarcastic laugh as he understood perfectly what the man was saying.

“Of course not, because you never had it in the first place did you?” “What, I thought…” Tony began but Natasha cut him off.

“Sitwell and STRIKE collected the sceptre.” she said quietly “They were Hyrda, they’ve had it right from the start.“

The room fell silent bar silent and a large clap of thunder started outside, making them jump.

“Sorry.” Thor grumbled.

“Fuck this shit.” Clint suddenly spat out, “Nat come on, we got somewhere to be.” he turned to Steve “If we find anything we’ll let you know.” Steve nodded as the arched clapped him on the shoulder and he left.

Nat turned to him, as if she was going to say something, but she didn’t. She swallowed and gave him a nod, before hurrying after her friend. Steve looked down at the floor, which was once more spinning under his feet. Hydra would be trying to get information out of Katie that she simply didn’t have. And the thought of what they would be doing… one more he felt the bile rise in his stomach and he turned, rushing from the room and made it down the corridor to the rest rooms. He pushed open the door of a cubicle, and threw the contents of his stomach up before slumping to the floor, his knees tucked to his chest, and he let out a loud cry of frustration, anger, his chest constricting around him as the tears began to fall.

*****

 Natasha and Clint’s re-con turned up something interesting.

 “Nothing at Jones’ place, it looks like it hasn’t been lived in for months, however, when we spoke to the Deputy CEO who’s running the gaff in Hall’s absence, he recognised the guy posing as Hall.” Clint looked at him “Peter Jackson their head of IT. Ran his face through the system and turns out he’s also known as Gary Jepson, ex SHIELD technician.”

 Steve ran his hand over his face, scratching the stubble on his chin as he glanced down at the photo. He hadn’t shaved since God knows when.

 “So there’s our connection.” he said and Natasha nodded

“Apparently he got the job a few months ago. Timeline tallies with when Hyrdra fell. Apparently he and Mr Hall had a mutual love of American Football, they hit it off, used to go for beers at lunch occasionally”

 Tony’s head hurt “I still don’t understand where Ward fits into this?”

“They both worked out of the Fridge.” Natasha said, “At the same time. They must know each other that way.”

 “From what Coulson told us, Ward has been rallying round people he knew.” Clint spoke “And, this is all supposition, but if you ask me Jepson probably tried to go legit, melted into the background post SHIELD falling but when he gets a call from his old friend, who tells him they’re not as dead as they could he reaches out. And then when he hears about the potential deal with SIP…”

 And then it clicked in Steve’s mind. .

 “I don’t think he did hear about it.” he said, speaking for the first time. “You just said he was their head of IT….” “He could have easily sent those emails from Hall’s account…” Tony gave a groan. “It was all a set up from the start.”

 *****

 It was the week before Christmas. He’d been home from university for 2 weeks and his Dad was already pissing him off. Tonight, both parents were out and Tony was babysitting. He should be out himself, he knew that, Rhodey had invited him to a party, but when Katie had turned those green eyes on him and told him she didn’t want the babysitter she wanted him to stay and ‘hang’ with her (yes, he was especially proud he’d taught his 5 year old sister the word hang) just like he used to before he went away, he’d melted and told his parents to cancel the sitter.

 They’d played a board game- Snakes and Ladders. She won the tie breaker (even though he could have beaten her). They’d then watched The Snowman (well, it was nearly Christmas), Tony doing his best Choir boy impression to make her giggle, they’d had hot chocolate and marshmallows with a candy cane stuck out of the top (yes, he knew she wasn’t allowed it after 6pm but like he gave a shit) he’d then done the whole bedtime routine of supervising whilst she brushed her teeth, but she shoved him out of the room when she needed to pee. Then he’d read her a story, tucked her in well over an hour and a half after she was supposed to be in bed, and was now relaxing with a stolen glass of his dad’s scotch (cheers Dad) in front of Die Hard.  He was about halfway through the film when he heard a small sniff in the hall and she padded into the living room clutching her Winnie the Pooh teddy.

 “What are you doing out of bed?” Tony looked at his sister “I already let you stay up way later than Mom said you could!”

“Bad dream” she said, sobbing. He opened his arms and she clambered onto his lap. “There’s a monster under my bed.”

“Nah, I killed it last week, remember?”

“It’s a new one.” she said, looking at him.

“That so…right…” he said, standing up abruptly “This calls for the Monster Killer…”

The Monster Killer, AKA the Vacuum.

Grabbing it, he marched up the stairs and plugged it in. Once it was on he dived under the bed “Get here you son of a…arrrgh…” he made a big deal of thumping the floor and yelling. Eventually he stilled and emerged, turning it off.

“Got it!” he said,

Katie smiled and her hands went up in the air in celebration “My hero Tones!” before she wrapped her small arms around his neck and he hugged her back.

“I’ll always protect you, Kiddo, what are big brothers for?” "Tony?” His entire body jumped as he looked up and realised it was Pepper. He shifted slightly and let out a small breath. ”Yeah?”

 "It’s late,“ she told him simply, but no unkindly. "Come back to bed.”

He shook his head and looked back down at the laptop on his knee. 

“You have to get some sleep.” she sighed, crossing the room before she dropped onto the dark leather sofa besides him “I know it’s hard right now, but – “ "Hard?” he interrupted with a scoff, “Hard? Great description.”

Pepper ignored his jibe and sighed “You haven’t slept in days. We can’t take a step back to where we were after New York. You need to sleep.“

 “I need to keep up with SIP.” he said, shaking his head. “She’s got so many potential authors and projects going…I mean, I can’t let her company crash…what do I tell them all anyway? What do I tell her work force?” “I had an email sent out from HR yesterday.” Pepper said

“Saying what?” Tony rounded on her.

 “That she was on extended leave for the foreseeable.” Pepper said “In the meantime, they’re all reporting into Jenny Jones.” “Who the fuck is Jenny Jones?” Tony looked at her. Pepper took a deep breath.

“She’s the General Manager.” Pepper said “Katie hired her last week.”

He looked at Pepper before the tears sprung into his eyes “the foreseeable…” “I’m sorry.” Pepper says, “I didn’t know what to say.”

 "The foreseeable, until they realise she doesn’t know anything…and they kill her too.” “You don’t know that,” Pepper said, and her voice for the first time trembled.

 Tony looked at her for a moment, before he broke.

*****

The days bled into weeks. And nothing.  They had identified every goddamned Hydra agent on that CCTV footage now, but they had still found nothing. When Sam had arrived they’d gone back and re-raided every fucking Hydra base they could think of. Nothing. They were stabbing in the dark, and with every day that passed they knew the chances of them finding Katie were getting thinner and thinner.

Steve had a headache. A bad one. One that felt like it was going to split his head in two. He pressed the heel of his palm to the space between his eyes in a desperate attempt to quell the pain.

“Shit, steady on Cap…”

 Steve looked up and stopped before he walked straight into Tony.

“You okay?” Tony asked.

“No.” Steve bit back, before he sighed “Sorry, headache…” He looked at his fiancé’s brother, the worry evident in Tony’s face as well. In fact, it seemed the pair of them now sported that expression constantly, and had done since Katie had gone missing just over 3 weeks ago.

“I thought you were going to get some sleep” Tony said as his eyes scanned down Steve’s body, taking in the fact he was in the same jeans and T-shirt he had been at their meeting last night. Another useless meeting.

He lets out a long breath. “Couldn’t.”

“Me neither.” Tony said, shrugging “Kinda hard… “

“I know.” Steve nodded, looking at Tony.

"I just…I just keep thinking,” Tony said, “I keep thinking about… how I could’ve avoided this. How I should have spotted it was a trap, how I couldn’t stop them taking her…” “This isn’t your fault Tony.” Steve shook his head, thankful that he could now say this honestly. At first he had been angry, angry that the man hadn’t been quicker or able to protect his sister, but that anger had fast dissipated. Without the Iron Man suit, Tony wasn’t a trained fighter. He was physically fit, yes, but not everyone had super serum coursing through their veins. The man was as broken as he was at her being gone, his sister, daughter even, gone, without a trace.

 "I miss her,” Tony said, his soft words still cut harshly into the surrounding quiet. “I just… miss her.”

Steve dropped his gaze. He missed her, God did he miss her. They’d only been engaged, for what? Coming up 3 months when she was taken and were still in that excited phase of it. They hadn’t gotten down to any planning of any sorts, but that hadn’t stopped their late night, post love making discussions about it. Katie gently teasing him and stating all the things she was going to get, like doves, and fire eaters…utter bullshit of course, because she had no desire for any of that showy crap.

He missed her so much it hurt. Her laugh, her smile, the way she looked at him, her bantering with everyone in the common room, the way he would walk into a room where she was speaking with Natasha and the pair of them looked at him and broke into giggles making him paranoid, the way she kissed him, the way she felt, her hands running through his hair.

Tony cleared his throat harshly and Steve looked at him. “Me too Tony, me too.”

Tags

@the-omni-princess​

@momobaby227​

@thewackywriter​          

@geekofmanythings16​

[thecursedhellblazer]

@mythsxndlegends​​ asked:  “  Shippy thingie for Oliver? ”

Look at our idiots together || Accepting !

who hogs the duvet None of them. Oliver has slept in the most uncomfortable places ever, so he doesn’t really mind having a blanket or not, especially when the heating system takes care of keeping a comfortable temperature. As for John, he moves a lot in his sleep constantly ends up kicking the sheet off his body and off the bed, so that’s where they usually end up being in the morning. If one of them gets cold in his sleep, they usually end up pressed up against each other. Sometimes face to face, more often back to back. Of course, if they have fallen asleep tangled in each other, that’s how they’ll probably stay, no need for a blanket in the first place.

who texts/rings to check how their day is going None of them does it. They aren’t fans of texting in general and Oliver usually calls if he needs John’s help or advice with something, exploiting the chance to also ask him how he’s doing. Constantine, from his part, just texts Oliver random crap for the mere reason that Felicity told him that such kind of texts annoy the hell out of the vigilante and John is nothing if not a smug bastard when it comes to this kind of things.

who’s the most creative when it comes to gifts It depends on your definition of “creative”. John gets his hands on the most random things during his travels and there has been one time when he has brought Oliver a demon skull straight back from Hell. Useless to say, the Green Arrow had no idea of what to do with it, but he didn’t want to throw it away, so it has ended up in a glass case in their secret headquarters. Oliver’s gift are a bit less odd, but more practical. High quality Swiss knives, decent first aide kits, a talisman he retrieved thanks to one of his many contacts, even a gun with special bullets once (even if he knows that John doesn’t really use them).

who gets up first in the morning Oliver, even despite his nightly activities. John is not a morning at all and getting him out of the bed is a real challenge at times. Especially since, more often than not, he stays up till almost down and then drinks himself to sleep, which lands him very hangover the next morning. That when he sleeps at all. Both Oliver and Felicity tend to worry about his fucked up sleeping schedule, she more than him, but they just can’t be helped. And all this without mentioning all the times Oliver arrived late to his office because John had made sure he didn’t get out of the bed either.

who suggests new things in bed It’s fatally up to John. The magician had seen and tried things that Oliver can’t even start to imagine and that is a bit scary too at times, even if it brings out some interesting options for what they can try out. John, on his part, really appreciates Oliver’s abilities when it comes to tie someone up.

who cries at movies None of them does. However, John has the bad habits of making lots of comments while watching movies and that becomes a problem when the rest of the room doesn’t want to hear them. Also, it makes the team movie nights a mess because he and Curtis just can’t shut up for a moment. Diggle is always a breath away from shooting them both with tranquilizers.

who gives unprompted massages They are a rare occurrence, but they can happen and mostly they come from Oliver. John is less “touchy-feely”, so he tends not to initiate contact unless he’s aiming for sex, but he can appreciate the way the vigilante works his hands on his back and arms. John ends up giving the massages after some particularly rough intimate session they had or whenever Oliver is stressing too much or feeling to guilty over something. None of them likes to talk, so Constantine makes him sit down, with magic if he has to, and works on Oliver’s body until he has managed to loosen the worst knots in his muscles.

who fusses over the other when they’re sick None of them really fusses. Oliver worries, because John isn’t good at taking care of himself in general and, demon blood or not, he can get injured quite badly considering the kind of job he does. However, he knows better than to try and get in the other man’s way of life. As for John, he mostly isn’t around when Oliver gets wounded during missions. Felicity calls him only when it’s worse than the usual and there have been a few times he has shown up literally out of nowhere just to make sure that Oliver would recover. Of course, he always has an excuse not to admit that he is doing that.

who gets jealous easiest None of them really gets gets jealous. John might from time to time, but the feeling always comes more from the fact that he ends up thinking that Oliver would be better off with someone less messed up than he is. Oliver has been the cheater in too many relationships in the past and that makes him rationalise any possible jealous feeling he might get. Moreover, he knows that John is a flirt and and that he uses that to gets what he wants and needs from time to time. Plus, there is the chance that he feels a bit unequipped when it comes to engage someone with John’s kind of sexual experience.

who has the most embarrassing taste in music John has the weirdest ones, but not necessarily the most embarrassing. The problems start when he gets over fixated on one single song and that’s the only thing everyone who is around him is allowed to listen to. Oliver might have a few girly songs he started to like because of Felicity and Thea, and those definitely earn him some playful teasing from John’s part.

who collects something unusual John. Retrieving and collecting artifacts is part of his job and some of them are literally out of this world. Oliver has a small collection of the items he has brought home from his five years spent around the world and on Lian Yu, but even the oddest of them looks absolutely normal comparing with what John can pull out of his vault.

who takes the longest to get ready It depends. Usually Oliver, because he actually cares about getting his looks together, while John just showers and then goes out still with his bed hair. There are times, however, when Constantine spends over an hour in the bathroom because he is sleep-deprived or hangover or simply lost in his thoughts and it takes ages for him to get himself together and ready to go.

who is the most tidy and organised Oliver, and it’s pretty obvious. He keeps his things in order, stashed away in the right place and he instantly notices if something is missing or out of place. John is chaos personified. He leaves his stuff hanging around everywhere, even if he eventually cleans after himself, at least when he is at Oliver’s (let’s not talk about what he does when he is alone at his own place). Oddly enough, though, he always manages to find what he needs. The team is secretly running a poll on whether or not he puts a tracking spell on everything to make sure he doesn’t lose it.

who gets most excited about the holidays None of them is a huge fun of holidays. Oliver doesn’t mind to celebrate them quietly, with friends and what’s left of his family. John couldn’t care less for them if not for the fact that they usually mean more people messing with magic in the wrong way at the wrong time (a lot of modern holidays have taken the place of old pagans rites and they usually coincide with days when the Veil is thinner). No one, however, will ever forget that one Halloween when John introduced them to the ghosts of some of his dead mates.

who is the big spoon/little spoon It depends on the mood and on what they have been doing before finding themselves in such position. They usually don’t spoon at all and either sleep facing each other or remaining entangled in each other’s limbs. There are times when Oliver rolls over in his sleeps and plasters himself against John’s back, in an instinctive need to shield whoever is sharing his bed. John eventually moves away, because being held without him having somehow asked for it for too long makes him feel caged and brings back unpleasant memories. The other way around usually happens only if Oliver asks, with words or, more often, just making John understand what he wants without saying it.

who gets most competitive when playing games and/or sports They are both competitive, with the difference that John is a pathological sore loser. He always finds a way to cheat, no matter what they are playing, and that can be overly annoying. However, most of the times, Oliver chooses to takes it as a challenge, a way to train himself to put on a fair fight even if his opponent isn’t playing by the rules. It actually makes the competition more fun, even if there is always some lingering frustration on both sides.

who starts the most arguments John. He is the one who usually snaps or start being unreasonable about things that, in Oliver’s eyes, are perfectly logical. The problem is that, when Constantine is in one of his moods, he is beyond touchy and every pretext is good to start an argument, even when there’s no real to do so. It’s his way to unload whatever feeling is eating him up on the inside and, unfortunately, from time to time he ends up saying or doing the wrong feeling, triggering Oliver’s anger in response. Whenever the latter things happen, John ends up storming out of the building and of the city too and it takes days, if not weeks for him to come back or get in touch. And usually it’s always because Felicity or Curtis have reached out to him first (Oliver is too stubborn to do it in person).

who suggests that they buy a pet None of them is really a pet person and, with the kind of life they lead, they wouldn’t have the time to care for once. From time to time, John turns up with some magical creature he is temporarily looking after, for one reason or another, and they usually end up causing some trouble. Nothing too big, but they still leave enough of a mess to need to be cleaned up in their coming.

what couple traditions they have John likes watching Oliver working out and from time to time he even allows himself to be persuaded to join the training. That last thing had started as a joke from his part, but it ended up becoming almost a habit. Oliver also takes John sightseeing around Star City when he gets a chance, telling him about the places he has grown up in. Constantine usually ends up having them walking along the ley line that passes through the city, since he is naturally attracted to the power that comes from it, and it isn’t there for them to find some off object or even a small surge of energy on their path. John totally thrives in it and it’s one of the very few ways he can share something of his world with Oliver. They go out for milkshakes. John was skeptical at first, but Oliver insisted and eventually convinced it. It’s something he used to do while dating Laurel and he thinks that doing something normal can be good for them boths.

what tv shows they watch together None of them is really much into TV shows. They end up watching movies from time to time, whenever Oliver is up to dealing with John’s commentary or sports, when Oliver is willing to put up with John’s yelling.

what other couple they hang out with They don’t really do the whole double dating thing, especially since they don’t go on dates (or at least do and never call them such) in the first place. Usually, if they go out as a “couple” it’s a team outing plus John. They had dinner a quite a few times with Diggle and Lyla and in a couple of occasions with Curtis and his husband. There was this one, awkward time when they found themselves having coffee with Lance and Donna, and things got very awkward because the other two had no idea that John and Oliver were a thing and Donna started to ask Oliver about any potential love interest he had. The vigilante was left in a very tight spot, while John was so laughing his ass off next to him.

how they spend time together as a couple John also tags along for some of the team missions, even if in rare occasions. Moreover, there’s the time alone they spend together whenever Oliver can afford a half day off and John isn’t too busy chasing his latest interest in the occult field. They occupy it either in bed or doing some of the things aforementioned (sight-seeing, training, not-dates, movies, etc)

who made the first move John. He is the one who started to flirt with Oliver, out of fun, because he was utterly persuaded that the other was straight. And he was also the one who kept pressuring once he had grasped that Oliver might actually be interested, after all. That’s how the physical part of their relationship started. As for the emotional one, it developed on his own, without any of them ever mentioning it. And that’s the reason why they are in desperate need of having a talk about the subject.

who brings flowers home John used to show up at the lot with flowers for Thea when she was still around, bur for the rest it has never been their things. The only time Oliver was the one to bring the flowers was when John introduced him to a friend of his (and ex-girlfriend) who could have lent them a hand to deal with a cult. It turned out that Zatanna had quite a few interesting tales to share about Constantine and the magician totally regretted having brought her along.

who is the best cook Oliver. John can manage well enough, but the vigilante is the one who can whip together high quality meals all the time. Constantine doesn’t mind, also because, deep down, he knows that he needs to eat properly, at least from time to time.

[sasuhinasno1fan]

Unlocking for you

So it's a bit later than usual, but I had been working on making things for my book arts class which also involved me cutting myself really badly. It's ok though. I'm kinda not looking forward to tomorrows date because I can't write YouTuber aus, even though I wrote a whole birthday series. So if I don't post a fic tomorrow, don't be too worried. Also, this is a Now You See Me au, if the words The Eye and Four Horsemen didn't make a ton of sense. Movie AU

“You are such a fucking control freak! I can’t believe I have to be in a group with you!” Lance screamed from the other room.

Pidge really wished they hadn’t broken their headphones. Granted with the fact they were working under the sponsorship of Daibazaal Industries, it would be totally easy, but nothing was easy to get from Zarkon. That’s why they were building their cred as the Four Horsemen so he’d easily fall into their plan. They needed at least one more show to truly get his full attention so they could start their final plan. Pidge wasn’t sure how alive they’d be for this with the way Lance and Keith kept arguing though.

They knew a bit of the relationship the two had, some parts filled in by Hunk’s mentalism. Lance had been Keith’s assistant back when he was just starting out as a magician. Apparently, there was a falling out and Lance was replaced with another assistant. In Pidge’s opinion, Lance was better. Lance then went on to working his own act of being an escape artist. Keith left comments on his website that at first at first glance seemed kinda nit-picky but Pidge actually noticed they were good criticism to keep Lance safe anytime he dropped into water. Lance could complain all he wanted, but Pidge noticed Lance actually listened to those comments. Hunk had figured out the two used to date but it ended badly, something about Keith not giving a ton of attention to Lance. Point was, there was a lot of tension between them. Of course, with the pressure of doing what The Eye wanted them to do, things were getting worse.

“It’s a shame Keith knows how to tune into my tricks. I could have hypnotized him and had him and Lance solve their issues.” Hunk said, lifting his hat from his face from where he was sleeping on the couch.

“Then Lance would have kicked your ass like he keeps threatening to do.” Pidge reminded.

“Oh yeah. Can’t forget what he did to that handsy stage hand can we?”

“Or what Keith did to him after when Lance wasn’t looking. But I swear this is getting out of control. If this keeps up we could end up messing up and losing Daibazaal and lose our chance at The Eye.”

“I’m sorry that you can’t seem to understand basic instructions. Apparently, all the water you keep drowning in has gone to your head!”

“Basic instructions? Who the hell put you in charge you K-pop star reject!”

Pidge was focused on the lock they were trying to undo when Lance’s screaming broke their concentration and they heard a snap. Their pick broke. The pick they had as part of their kit since their brother gave it them. The same brother they couldn’t talk to by order of The Eye ‘for protection’ they said.

“What happened?” Hunk asked.

“I just broke my lock pick because they’re fighting. You know what, screw hypnosis. I’m taking care of this myself.” Pidge stood up and grabbed their bag from the table, dumping everything out and grabbed a pair of handcuffs. They’d been giving them problems because the tumbler wouldn’t unlatch to unlock the handcuffs. And now, it was their problem. They walked into the room Lance and Keith were arguing in and quickly latched the cuffs around their writs.

“What the hell? Pidge?” Lance asked.

“Uncuff us now.”

“No. thanks to you two, I just broke my lock pick, the one my brother gave me before we got started on this whole crazy plan. So you two can spend all day together, because even I’m having trouble unlocking these.”

“You can’t be serious.” Lance said, tugging his hand, like he could break the cuffs apart.

“Oh I’m very serious.”

“We have practise in an hour.” Keith reminded.

“Then it’ll be just like old times. See you there. Hunk and I are going for lunch. Come on Hunk!”

“What the hell? Pidge!” Lance yelled, trying to go after them but stumbled back when his wrist was tugged.

“Ow! Lance!”

“Have fun you too!” Hunk called from the living room before the front door was closed.

Lance glared at Keith, “this is your fault.”

“How is it my fault? And by the way, aren’t you the escape artist?”

“With a hidden key I can.” Lance reminded.

“Well apparently you can’t do your job properly.”

Glaring at Keith, Lance kicked him hard in the shin, not realising that Keith collapsing would drag him down as well.

“Pidge, what the fuck!”

“That’s a very interesting way to practise.” Zarkon said, raising an eyebrow at Lance and Keith handcuffed together.

“You can thank Pidge for that.” Keith said, shooting a glare at Pidge, who shrugged helplessly. None of them were expecting their sponsor to show up at their practise.

“I’m practising my lockpicking skills and thought I should try on someone other than myself.” Pidge explained.

“Well then, I look forward to the practise.”

“Of course. Excuse us.” Keith said, grabbing Pidge by the arm and dragging them, and essentially Lance, to the side. “Get these off of us. We’re not going to be able to practise with these on and especially not with Zarkon right there.” He hissed.

“See, um, slight problem. Those handcuffs are giving me issues unlocking.”

“High and might ‘nothing is ever locked’ can’t unlock a pair of handcuffs?”

“I was working on them but you two arguing was starting to piss me off and you made me break my lock pick by the way.”

“Then find a paper clip or something because if we’re still stuck together when it’s time for us to get up there for practise, I’ll make you disappear like I do my cards got it?” Keith threatened.

“Alright fine. You two just stay in the green room. Hunk, you first.” Pidge called jumping off stage.

“Alright then.” Hunk said turning to the theatre staff, who all looked a bit nervous. “Who’s first?”

Lance tugged at his hand, making the cards Keith was shuffling fall from his hands. He hadn’t really meant to do that but Keith’s constant moving was hurting his hand. Keith always had a deck of cards on him, shuffling through them with ease. Lance knew Keith always wanted something to do with his hands. He remembered back when he was his assistant. Due to the fact they were late, they climbed into a cab and Keith had his cards in the suitcase in the trunk. Keith had started picking at his hands to the point where he was starting to draw blood so Lance took his hands and started drawing with his fingernail in his skin. He’d calmed down after and even though he never got a thank you, there had been a black rose on Lance’s bag at the end of the show. Lance tried giving Keith one back after they’d been reunited, but it seemed Keith didn’t remember.

They did date back when they were working together. They depended on each other, held each other up but Lance wanted more support than Keith could give. Maybe at that time, they thought they were more than ready for and wen things started not working out, they took it out on each other. Lance wanted to work things out with Keith. Part of him still felt the same but the other part of them still hated Keith.

“Where the hell is Pidge?” Keith groaned.

“Probably got dragged into practise probably, which we still have to get to.”

“This isn’t like back in the old days Lance. we can’t exactly do our old trick up there.”

Lance had a small smile to his face. “It would certainly make things interesting. I remember when you let me try my first escape trick on stage.”

“You lost the key and had to then clip me to the saw.” Keith felt like reminding.

“It worked didn’t it? I got the audience very impressed with me.” Lance bragged.

“Yeah, that’s one word for it.”

“Course, you never let me even try to even do anything else after that. Guess you didn’t want me screwing up anymore.”

Keith didn’t say anything but started to shuffle his cards again and then fan them out. Lance went ahead and took a card without prompting.

“Compared to now, your skills weren’t nearly as good. You still manage to get yourself stuck in bad situations because you can’t get to your key quick enough.”

Lance tried not to bristle at that. Thing was Keith was right. But Lance had wished Keith had told him this back when they were working together instead of making him feel like he was constantly disappointed in him.

Shoving the card back into the deck, Lance snapped, “Sorry I wasn’t good enough.”

“I never said that.”

“It sure felt like that half the time. You know, I was hoping with how we have to work together that maybe we could fix things from how they’d been before but you could apparently care less. I don’t know why I’m so surprised. Where the hell is Pidge?”

Keith handed Lance a card not looking at him. Lance took it, still annoyed at Keith but stopped when he saw what was on the other side. It was an old picture of Lance, locked in his chains. “Unlock your mind to the newest escape artist, Lance McClain? What is this?”

“The flier I would have made you pull before we broke up. The show at that big theatre? I was going to give you the stage. But I guess my usual behaviour had finally pushed you over the edge.”

“Why did you never tell me this?” Lance asked, stunned that Keith had actually been thinking of giving him a show, like a complete show.

“Would it of made a difference? It might have fixed things with us for a little while but we both know we weren’t right for each other then. I can’t give you a show now, but I can at least help you get into the one thing I always said had to be a myth.”

“Guess you have changed.” Lance said. “Well not everything. You’re still a control freak.” Lance said.

“Thank you.”

“Ok,” Pidge said, finally coming into the room. “Sorry, I had to pull Hunk away from hypnotizing Zarkon’s wife and practise a few card tricks. Thankfully, I did grab his wife’s brand new broach, sharp end and all. Hold still. Also can I just say I’m surprised you two didn’t kill each other while I was gone.”

“Yeah, don’t hold your breath. I’m sure I’ll say something that’ll piss Lance off later.” Keith said.

“Yeah, we’ll see if I can hold me tongue.”

[aleksvndcrs]

&&. announcing his royal highness, ( aleksander brynjar magnusson ), the ( 30 ) year old ( prince ) of ( iceland ). he is often confused with ( kit harington ). some say that he is ( irresponsible & inconsiderate ), but he is actually ( earnest & independent ).

Okay look. LOOK. I TOLD myself this wasn’t gonna happen, but I felt a burning need for another man in my life and I wanted to fill some WCs and also cause more drama. So here we are. Say hello to Aleksander.

TW for alcohol and substance abuse, death, overdose

His full name is Aleksander Brynjar Elías Magnusson, while his current full title is His Royal Highness Crown Prince Aleksander of Iceland. His primary nicknames are Aleks and Alek, although he also responds to things like “hey dickhead!”

Aleks is the oldest son of the current king of Iceland, and at present the heir apparent. His younger sister Natasja is next in line after him, a point of no small amount of contention.

Aleks has always been allowed certain liberties that Nat never had. He was permitted a great deal of leniency in school and at home, free to do basically anything he wished. He goofed off in school, really only making it through because he was a prince and therefore had access to any number of tutors. Academics were never his strong suit. Actually, it’s always been hard for him to find anything he’s really good at, other than screwing things up constantly. But that didn’t matter. He was Crown Prince, and he would be king. That’s just how it was.

His and Nat’s mother died when they were still quite young, which didn’t help matters. Despite his independent streak, Aleks was always very adamant about looking out for his little sister. They were very close growing up, all things considered, and he was fiercely protective of her. And to a large degree, this is still true. Aleks and Nat might have their issues, but by god you do anything to his sister and he will fuck you up. He has her back to the end.

This didn’t stop a rift forming in the Icelandic Royal Family. Their dad went through many mistresses after their mother died, so he wasn’t exactly a fantastic role model. And since Aleks was basically allowed to do whatever, he spent his time partying with friends, developing a pretty serious drinking problem, and seeking whatever thrills life could provide. Meanwhile, Natasja was stuck doing the heavy lifting, being the model royal for their country, picking up the slack that her brother (and their father) left. This bothered her, and he could tell, but he didn’t see what he could do about it. And frankly, he didn’t really care at the time.

Aleks is a thrill-seeker, always looking for a good time and something to get his adrenaline pumping. He does as many extreme sports as he can, is actually a trained mixed martial artist, and loves traveling wherever and whenever he can. He’s also a model, though that’s really more so he can meet attractive people to sleep with.

As you might be able to tell, he’s not great at making good choices. He’s had a slew of failed relationships, some short, some long, a few clean breaks, many messy ones. Everyone has always told him he’s an idiot, and while he’s not really stupid, he’s definitely bad at understanding the consequences of his actions and how they affect others. But he’s internalized that he’s a moron, and just kind of accepts it at this point.

Of the few good choices he’s ever made, one of the top three was his long-term relationship with the Crown Princess of Wales. Aleks and Rhiannon were very close for several years, and while he never officially proposed like everyone thought he would, most people agreed they were going to end up married. They were really inseparable and had a lot in common, including a love of partying, and Aleks genuinely loved her a lot.

Unfortunately, one of the things they had in common was a penchant for drug abuse. Though Aleks was always more fond of alcohol, he wasn’t shy about trying new drugs when he was younger. They fed each other’s addictions, and it ended up almost killing Rhi when she overdosed. As stated earlier, Aleks isn’t actually completely stupid, just a terrible decision-maker. But this time, he felt the decision was clear. He was responsible for encouraging Rhiannon’s habit. He was responsible for putting her in the hospital and back in rehab. And it would be better her if he wasn’t in her life anymore. So he was gone, with barely a word, leaving heartbreak in his wake. He believed it was for the best, so that she could have a safer, healthier life without him. He didn’t take into account how much it would affect her, and has avoided thinking about it since.

This incident did no favors for his own drinking problem, and Aleks’s reputation as a partier only grew. He distanced himself from his family, choosing to escape around the world whenever he felt like the consequences of his actions were too close to catching up. Not long ago, a magazine back home revealed evidence of his father’s many affairs, plunging their family and country into scandal. The king decided to shove a ring on the finger of his long-time mistress with barely any warning, and revealed to his children that they had a half-sister who was almost the same age as Natasja. So he’d been throwing his dick around when their mother was barely cold in the ground, what a delight.

Aleks was in Vegas with some friends when this new development hit the newsstands, and during this trip got so plastered that he made a video stating his intention to abdicate his title and leave the throne to Natasja. Screw all this bullshit, he was tired of the royal lifestyle being a massive drag, tired of being the family screwup, tired of his father being a disgrace of a king. He wanted out. And at the time, it all felt perfectly reasonable. When he got home, it was a slightly different story. Confused and hungover and unwilling to sit and talk about all that had just happened, he and Natasja actually got into a full-blown fistfight. Between the scandal, his video, and their father’s hasty engagement in the span of a few days, they had a lot of pent-up tension and anger that just came spilling out.

Since then, Aleks hasn’t seen Nat for more than a few minutes at a time. He was present for his father’s wedding, but didn’t stay for the reception, choosing to fly to the Bahamas at once instead. He’s traveled extensively, modeling around the world, drinking heavily, getting into some seriously risky shit to distract himself from all the pressures waiting when he goes home. And, of course, sleeping with a new person (or a few) in every city he visits.

Aleks was in New York on New Year’s, and the next morning received a call from his father telling him he was to go to Natasja and make things right, or risk being cut off from the family entirely. He’s very reticent, but he’s also had a lot of time to think (in between hangovers) over the last few years. With his father turning out to be a massive douche, Aleks has started re-examining some of his own behavior. And while he’s not really ready to buckle down and be a perfect royal, he also knows he needs to do something to change how much of a dumbass he is. He needs to make better choices, be better to the people he cares about, which there are surprisingly many. He needs to get his shit together, and working things out with Nat is the first step. He knows their dad is mostly worried about the whole abdicating business, but this is more personal for him. He’s trying to un-fuck his life.

So there you have it. My dumbass baby who legit thinks he’s cursed to be a terrible person and be dumb his whole life. He needs friends, he needs lovers, he needs enemies, he needs everything. So hmu and let’s get this drama train rolling.

[ask-readyplayergaymers]

((Mod post!! Gonna answer some questions for me that have been sitting around for a while, sorry the response is so late ;w;

Everything’s under the cut to save space 0w0 ))

Anonymous said: Okay but totally loving the concept of Michael as Gil and Jeremy as Oz??? Like, freaking Alice is Christine (even tho its totally a personality clash apart from the childish aspect but shhhh) and just yes

YEAH MAN...any type of PH crossover is good hhh but GOSH imagine Michael like. After growing up and spending ten years looking for Jeremy like Gil did ahh my heart aches!! And Jeremy coming back pouting like “You’re taller than me now that’s totally not fair, M” Christine would make a really cute Alice I think, just seeing her dress up like Alice and having her kick ass as the B-Rabbit?! Hell yeah!

zekromztk2 said: Out of all of the Pandora Hearts characters, who is your favorite? Mine is... probably either Alice or Oz

HELL I LOVE GILBERT I’D DIE FOR THAT MAN LEGIT;; I love Oz and Break a lot too and! RUFUS BARMA AS WELL I ADORE HIM

Anonymous said: did I hear Harry Potter?

Ye man talk to me about the Marauder days any time I love talking about Sirius, James and Remus getting into shenanigans at Hogwarts hoo boy

Anonymous said: (Hey mod, so basically Jake and Rich are just gonna be background characters with kind of their own stories?)

Yes! Jeremy and Michael are the main focus here, but Jake and Rich sort of have their own thing going on in the background as more minor characters to the overall blog! I want to make a more developed backstory for the treasure hunter girls and Christine as well, so we’ll see how that goes~

Anonymous said: Thank you so much for introducing the novel this AU is based on to me!! Now that I've finished reading, I understand a lot more about this AU and now I want to ask... Would you consider Mr. Heere/Reyes as Morrow?

You’re very welcome, it’s a great novel so! I’m glad more people are reading it after having run into this blog, I must spread the pureness that is Aech to all of humanity //shakes fists And yes! Mr. Reyes is Morrow, I can imagine him sort of contributing to the hunt with lots of theater related things, which Christine specializes in! Book!Squip is Halliday, and there’s actually a little more about that and his relationship with Jeremy that I want to get into later.

Anonymous said: ((I had literally never heard of ready player one but I lov this blog so much I actually went out and bought it. Consider me murdled dead))

Yeah man like;; I didn’t read the novel until this past summer and after that I just got so into it and BMC at the same time so? I combined the two and here we are! Aaah I’m so glad!! Like I’ve said before I love it when people come tell me they went out to buy the novel and read it because of me, it makes me so happy :’) Hjrhjd please don’t die lol

emibeani said: ((I just finished reading Ready Player One, and thank you so much for this blog.))

I’m glad to hear it!! And you’re very welcome, I honestly didn’t expect so many people to get into but I’m super appreciative of all the interest you guys have shown so far so?? Thank you!!

Anonymous said: THIS IS NOT A ASK, BUT, OMG, THIS AU IS FUCKING PERFECT.

Glad you like it, ty! ;D

aslyn-is-artsy said: Your art is absolutely amazing

Hrhrhgfh I’m blushing thank you wow;;

aslyn-is-artsy said: Thank you so much for showing me this amazing book. I now aspire to become the real version of Art3mis. Just with short blonde hair instead. ;)

No problem!! It’s such a fantastic read and I was honestly blown away by it, so yeah...! Haha yeah I love Arty! She’s such a badass character and she doesn’t put up with any of Wade’s shit, which is great, she’s so empowered and I adore her

theitalianscribe said :I don't remember if this was answered, but is Michael trans male in this au?

Nope! I mean if you want to headcanon him that way that’s fine, I won’t stop you! I’m not going to endorse that since I myself don’t see him being that way, but you all are entitled to your own opinions so! And even if he were trans that wouldn’t be the main point of the blog anyway, I’m focusing more on their actual relationship, not their sexuality or gender or anything like that ^^

Anonymous said:i checked the book Ready Player One out from the library just because of this blog! are there any other books you recommend? (i havent finished the book but i like it so far i think!)

Oh nice!! I hope you enjoy it as much as I did! Ahhh hmm well if you like supernatural teen stories, there’s a series called Darkest Powers by Kelley Armstrong about this girl named Chloe who finds out she’s a necromancer after being sent to a “troubled teens” home, and she meets these boys named Simon and Derek who also have special abilities and then all sorts of crazy things happen! I first read it back in high school and I still love it a lot, so yeah it’s a trilogy and all of the characters are really great so! (I looooove Simon like. So much.) Check it out if you have the time, it’s a good read!

kitikat101 said: Random potential song parodies: I Love the OASIS (I Love Play Rehearsal), Find That Egg (Be More Chill, pts. 1 and 2), Two-Player Game (but with Joust), Oases In My Head (Voices In My Head)

Kit can I say how much I adore these song titles they fit so well I’m really tempted to make parodies for all of them, absolutely brilliant

geeklychic1012 said: So are we allowed to send in fanfics based on this blog? (Cuz I submitted one but my wifi is shit and I think Tumblr might have eaten it haha)

YES!! Please do I’d highly enjoy reading stuff from you guys! And yes I saw and it breaks my heart like. Why. I’ll post it soon for everyone else to see too! They must all suffer as I have hfhdjhgjg

Anonymous said: Who would be I-r0k in this au? Or would I-r0k still be his normal jerk self?

I’m actually...not sure :0 There aren’t enough characters in BMC to properly cross over with all the rest of the RPO characters so;; I might have to go through the BMC novel and find some obscure background character to sneak in as I-r0k lol, because I would like to have all of the RPO characters replaced by BMC counterparts, if that makes sense!

theitalianscribe said: Does someone else take Halliday's place in this au? Also, do the gunters have a shared obsession with pop culture from a certain time period? What time period?

Yeah, I mentioned that up above! But Book!Squip takes over the role of Halliday, and musical Squip is Sorrento, of course~ Honestly I’d say like, probably the early 2000s, since that was when I was growing up and I can actually make references back to that time lol? I mean I love the 80s as well, just as it is in the book, but I feel as if I don’t know enough about that time period to actually. Make proper references and constantly. (I mean I could ask my parents who lived during that time too but;; haha.) Most of the stuff on here are me self-projecting, like with video games, books, and anime, that’s all me lol

Anonymous said: " “You don’t need to sell me on anything, Wade,” she said. “You’re my best friend. My favorite person.” With what appeared to be some effort, she looked me in the eye. “I’ve really missed you, you know that?”My heart felt like it was on fire. I took a moment to work up my courage; then I reached out and took her hand." aka perfect au is perfect how does it fit S O well

!!! yEAH MY DUDE I LOVED THAT PART and just imagining Michael saying that to Jeremy I wanted to cry;; I don’t even know but the INSTANT Aech was introduced I was like “Ohhh man. I’m getting major BMC vibes here” and bam, a week later this blog was born lol

Anonymous said:Would you be okay with cosplay of your character designs? I can't do one anytime soon, but they look really cool (and jerm's hair honestly looks fun to do)

YES!! OH MY GOD I’d probably die of sheer happiness if you guys cosplayed these dorks! If you want I could draw a character ref sheet so you actually get a proper look at their outfits! But yes I’d highly enjoy that;; like the cosplay doesn’t even have to be accurate I’d still love it anyway, and doing things like acting out some of the asks here (I’ve seen it be done before and it’s so cute!) would be totally okay too! But yeah as always TAG ME or submit it here so I can see it aaaa I’d love love LOVE that! ^^

Anonymous said: SPECIAL BOY SPECIAL BOY SPECIAL BOY SPECIAL BOY SPECIAL B

YEEEEEAAAAA IT’S ABOUT TIME I MADE AN OUTFIT FOR RICH RIGHT I LOVE HIM SM

maysurprisedyou said: Hi! This isn't quite an ask, but!! I started reading Ready Player One because of this blog and it's really interesting so far so thank you!! All of your posts seem to make my day ahah <3

Oooh I’m happy you’re liking it so far, I’m glad my blog inspired you to read it! And aaAAAA that’s so sweet I’m?? Hhhhfh thank you! :’)

[initiala]

could you possibly do another smut fic with killian having sex with a guy? Or maybe a threesome fic with him and emma and a nameless guy?

I have a secret hard-on for Captain Hood. In fact, this is something that @idoltina and I texted about for like a week last year and we each went “I’m not writing it, you’re writing it” for at least two days but now I guess I’m writing it. Who’s up for a college sports AU?

(anyway this is my first actual real slash fic, be kind for I only know what not to do. many thanks to @bookstoreromantic​ for giving this a once over and telling me how soccer works)

It felt like they’d known one another forever. They moved together on the field with ease, passing without thinking, sensing where the other was – just knowing they would be there with the assist. They stayed up late in the common area, going over plays and devising new ones, finishing each other’s thoughts late into the evening until someone inevitably reminded them about morning drills and the need for sleep. When one had a bad day, the other knew and was often the first to drag him out for a pint and some mindless entertainment to cheer him up. They had similar pre-game rituals, sat next to each other on roadies, and their teammates were surprised when one was seen without the other. They laughed and took the piss out of each other like the oldest of mates, but Killian and Robin had only been playing together since their first year at uni – sorry, freshman year.

(Killian still had some trouble wrapping his mind around the linguistic differences between American and British English. At least he’d known better than to ask to borrow someone’s rubber in the middle of class.)

Regardless, he’d certainly heard of Robin Locksley before decamping to America and Robin had heard of Killian Jones; the amateur competitive football world was small back home and everyone knew who was being scouted by the leagues and by the universities. Locksley was good, a striker with the makings of an excellent skipper one day. They’d never played against one another, but everyone kept tabs on the big names.

(No one had ever thought to mention how ruddy fit Locksley was. Oh, he’d noticed at first – beautiful people drew his eye in that way – but he’d had a few other dalliances before realizing just how bloody fucked he was when it came to Robin Locksley. It was during a rain delay that Killian had realized he was absolutely fucked when it came to Robin. They’d gotten caught in a downpour during warm-up drills and everyone had gotten soaked through, but Killian had zeroed in on how Robin’s kit clung to his well-defined muscles and the water ran down his chiseled jaw and bloody fuck he was well and truly fucked.. He’d also decided then that an artist should capture Rob’s beauty in marble, like the Greeks. Though it wouldn’t capture the way the sun glinted off his hair and made it shine, or the way his cheeks dimpled when he laughed, or the cold fury in his eyes when another player committed an unnecessary slide tackle and injured one of their teammates.)

The fact that they’d both been scouted for this small university’s football team – rather, soccer, as the Americans stubbornly continued calling it – just happened to be a twist of fate.

A rather cruel one, if he was going to be melodramatic about it – which he was apparently rather adept at, according to Swan.

Swan was his roommate, a lacrosse player with a mean right hook, a passion for grilled cheese, an old Volkswagen Beetle that he was constantly trying to keep running for her, and a penchant for throwing her pre-law books at him when he was in one of his “melodramatic moods”. And yes, Emma Swan was a girl – woman, as she and her friend Snow were fond of reminding him.

The university’s rather liberal policy of gender neutral residence halls had ended up quite in his favor, despite the book-throwing. While even he could admit that Swan was a striking example of womanhood, his tastes ran more towards the men. And sharing a room with another man had always run hit-or-miss for him in the past. Swan hadn’t even batted an eye that first year, offhandedly mentioned an ex-girlfriend named Lily, and then asked if his practice schedule was as grueling as hers.

They’d been the best of friends ever since.

“If I have to hear you sigh over Robin’s quads one more time, I’m banishing you to the lounge for the night,” she grumbled, highlighting something in a textbook.

“They’re just so–”

“Perfect, so I’ve heard. Just ask him out already.”

“I had to wait fifteen minutes before I could shower,” Killian said, flopping back on the futon with one of his lit texts. “Bloody git took forever.”

“Scandalous,” she remarked, her voice dry. “Can’t even shower together. Oh wait, yes you can, because half the LAX team is gay and we have no problem.”

“Women don’t have knobs, bit different,” he retorted.

He could practically hear her rolling her eyes. “There is nothing sexy about a locker room, Jones. Quit being a – a, what is it you always call Will?”

“Bellend,” he deadpanned.

“Right, that. Stop being a bellend and just say something. And don’t give me another speech about ruining the team ‘vibes’.” She actually used air quotes, the sarcasm dripping from her tongue. “If nothing else, you have to learn to keep personal shit off the playing field. Or use it as fuel during a game.”

Killian sighed, resting his book on his face. She was right, he knew she was right, but when it came to actually admitting his own feelings, he was the biggest chickenshit – one of Swan’s delightful Americanisms that had rubbed off on him.

He just didn’t know how Rob would react.

It wasn’t as if his teammates didn’t know about his sexuality; as Swan had said, coming out to his mates hadn’t ruined any of the team’s closeness. Locksley had clapped his shoulder, thanked him for his trust and honesty, and assured him that the team would do their best to return that trust and honesty.

Well, that was all very well and good when stating a general interest in men and women, but in Killian’s experience, men who had no interest in other men tended to react… poorly.

To put it mildly.

“Rob’s not like that.” Swan’s quiet voice broke through his thoughts.

“What, are you a mind reader now, love?”

She snorted. “No, that’s you. I just recognize that silence.”

“Come here.”

She did, dragging her textbook with her and settling against his side on the futon. She could be a pain in his arse sometimes, but she also knew the value of physical contact; he was, admittedly, more free in his general affection towards friends, but he counted himself lucky to be one of the small handful of people that Swan regularly showed any sort of affection towards.

“I’ll bring it up tomorrow,” Killian said quietly.

Swan made a noise as if she didn’t entirely believe him, and truth be told he didn’t entirely believe himself, but it was said and it would be enough for her to hold him to it. “I have a test tomorrow,” she told him, settling more comfortably into the crook of his arm.

He breathed a laugh and pulled her in closer, picking his own book back up to get some reading done before he was too inconsolable to think of studying.

Perhaps Swan was right about his inclination towards the melodramatic.

His body may have been at practice, but his head clearly wasn’t. He was passable at drills, but he was easily distracted during the scrimmage and it did not go unnoticed.

“Jones,” Robin called.

His skip’s voice cut through the locker room chatter. Killian paused only after securing a towel around his own hips, ready to half-drown himself in the showers after that abysmal practice. “Aye, mate?”

Robin made his way through their teammates, giving Killian a critical once-over before speaking. “You alright?” he asked, dropping his voice now.

Killian glanced up, then away, irritated at himself for a multitude of reasons now. “Aye. Long night. Sorry, skip, I’ll get right tomorrow.”

Robin was silent for a moment, then reached out and clapped Killian’s shoulder. Killian had to fight the urge to lean into it, to show how the familiar gesture affected him as he stood there half-naked in the bloody locker room. “Shower up, we’ll go for a pint and a chat,” Robin ordered and turned before it could be argued.

Killian stared after his friend’s retreating back, taking a long moment to compose himself and adjust the towel a bit before grabbing his caddy and stalking off to the showers.

The hot water and soap didn’t make him feel anything other than clean of sweat and grass stains. Try as he might, letting the water beat against his skin did nothing to relieve the guilt of giving less than his best or the anxiety gnawing at his gut at the conversation to come.

After he dressed, he went out into the hall to find Robin waiting for him. Wordlessly, they fell into step together, practice bags slung over their shoulders and hands shoved into their pockets. He followed Robin’s lead as they left the training facility and went down the street to their favorite dive bar – fairly empty at this hour, which would make Robin’s scolding easier to hear.

They ordered, and after the waitress brought their pints, they each took a long drink as Robin regarded Killian thoughtfully over the rim. “So,” he said, setting his glass down. “Something’s eating at you. And don’t give me any nonsense about everything being fine or I’ll go talk to Emma and she’ll tell me what’s really going on with you.”

Killian winced, setting his own glass down. Swan absolutely would, if for no other reason than she was an abysmal liar. “That’s a low blow, Locksley.”

“Aye, but you’re a right stubborn bastard when you put your mind to it, so my hand is forced. You’ve never played so badly, not in all the years I’ve known you. Even after the mess with that lass Milah and then your disastrous rebound with Jefferson.”

Those had been easier to handle – after Milah left, there had been nothing for him but throwing himself into the game, leaving everything on the pitch until he was spent, an empty shell left for Swan to care for, making sure he ate and had a decent night’s rest. Jefferson had been an angry affair, both of them lost and angry and winding up hurting the other more. But it had only led to more fuel, something like a dam breaking in Killian’s soul that flooded his body with pain and rage and powering his game until he was left with only quiet and acceptance inside.

But this, this situation held more at stake.

Swan’s voice was in his head, telling him she’d hold him to his statement yesterday, but he reasoned that if such a confession went poorly he would have nowhere to turn. He’d left his feelings out on the pitch after Milah, after Jefferson, but the pitch was where Robin was. Robin was his friend, his teammate, his skipper.

Robin kept things grounded with the rest of Killian’s world had fallen apart.

Killian took a long pull from his glass, stalling for time. Thankfully, their food arrived, and both young men were too well-mannered to talk and eat at the same time – Robin’s family descended from some stuffy upper class lot, Killian’s mum drilling the mantra of “manners maketh man” into his head as a lad. During a lull, he finally said, “All twisted around about someone, s’all.”

His burger sat heavy like lead in his stomach, watching Robin’s face. Robin’s eyebrow lifted. “Enough to ruin your football? Don’t tell me it’s Emma.”

Killian tried not to laugh. Swan was gorgeous, but it wasn’t meant to be. “Roommates are off-limits, remember? Or have you and Regina started sharing a bed as well as a room?”

Robin’s cheeks pinked and he stabbed a chip into the ketchup. “I should bloody well think not… Very well then, who are they?”

His mouth felt dry, no matter how much of his beer he drank – indeed, he drained the glass and still felt parched. The waitress came and got him a refill and Killian stopped himself from guzzling it down lest he hurry along his buzz. He hardly thought a drunken confession of attraction would make things any better. “It’s… complicated,” he finally said. “Telling them, it would change a great many things that I’m loathe to give up.”

He met Robin’s gaze then, willing him to understand the words he wasn’t saying, but he knew it often took a straight answer for things to sink in. Robin’s blank look confirmed that. Killian swallowed hard, then said, “I value our friendship too much, Rob, to allow my personal feelings to get in the way if it makes you uncomfortable. I apologize if this admission alters the way you think of me –”

Robin’s eyes widened and Killian shut up fast; Robin was a good man, but he’d known plenty of men who turned on a dime at the thought of a man desiring them. “Bloody hell, me?” Killian’s mouth opened wordlessly, an icicle of fear slicing down his back as he tried to figure out whether he should run for it now or go down swinging. Robin blinked, shaking his head. “Well. I have to admit, Jones, this is a surprise, but I can’t say I’m not flattered.”

It was Killian’s turn to blink, his emotions a complete jumble. “You’re not…”

Robin met his gaze. “Killian, don’t be a tosser, I’m not upset.”

“Well, you don’t go shouting about your conquests in the locker room, so I couldn’t be sure if it would be received well or not.”

Robin grinned. “No, we’ll leave that to Will. As it happens, I suppose it’s never really mattered to me.”

“Oh.”

“Indeed.”

There was a long pause and Killian fought the urge to gulp half his beer to fill the silence. His fingers must have twitched towards his pint, though, because Robin started to grin. “So, is this a date, then, or should we do one proper another time?”

Killian stared, flabbergasted. “One - what? And two, are you seriously asking me out right now?”

“Well, you should probably be the one to do the asking, but you seem – for the first time in your life, I might add – at a loss for words.”

“Rob, don’t indulge me if you’re not serious about this.”

“Who says I’m not?”

“You’re being awfully flippant.”

“I’m not getting on one knee, if that’s what you want.”

Killian felt his ears burning and he wasn’t sure what the cause of it was: embarrassment or anger, possibly a mix of the two. “Look, just forget it,” he said, balling up his napkin and tossing it on the table. He dug in his back pocket for his wallet, trying to look anywhere but at Robin; but when Killian opened the tri-fold to look for cash, he stilled when Robin’s hand covered his.

“I’m sorry,” he said, and Killian looked up to see a soft, earnest look on his face that matched his voice. “I thought – well, occasionally humor helps to ease tension, and I see now that it was a mistake.”

“Too bloody right,” Killian muttered.

Robin’s hand was warm, an odd but nice mix of calluses and softness against his own skin. Killian called up every ounce of courage he had, then turned his hand over to clasp Robin’s. His friend looked surprised at the gesture, perhaps a little unsure of how to handle it, but seemed neither disgusted nor displeased. “We’ve got a match Saturday afternoon, but how about after dinner we ditch the team and take in a movie?”

There were normally team dinners after matches, so it made sense – no need to alert anyone of anything new developing. And Killian and Robin normally went out after matches, though normally with Emma or Regina and their friends (they’d agreed that both of their roommates were useful in separate situations: Emma might not be a wild party girl but her LAX teammates knew how to celebrate a victory, while Regina and her group knew the perfect way to drown out any anger at a loss)

“Alright,” Killian said. Then, feeling bolder and remembering Robin’s remark about humor, added, “Though just so you know, I don’t put out on the first date.”

Robin blinked and Killian thought his joke may have missed the mark, then Rob started to laugh. “You’re probably a bloody awful kisser anyway.”

He thought about proving him wrong right then and there – he’d received approximately zero complaints about his technique, thank you very much – but in all honesty Killian was too busy trying to hide the fact that he was now very much staring at Robin’s mouth, wondering how he kissed and what the combined sensations of their beards might feel like.

Swan, bless her, did her best not to gloat when he told her what had happened later that night.

Though given the fact that he couldn’t stop grinning, he probably wouldn’t have minded a bit of gloating anyway.

Their style of play didn’t falter and Killian’s ability returned now that he was free of the stress of any difficult conversations. He’d been out with Robin before and though he fundamentally knew this was different, part of him wasn’t able to truly understand that this was a date and not just two friends out on the town. Perhaps that’s why he could keep his head on straight over the next few days, even managing to score a goal and assist on two others to help win the match on Saturday.

It wasn’t until after the team dinner that Robin caught his gaze and gave him a meaningful look.

That’s when the waves of butterflies hit.

They took Robin’s truck – Killian had never gotten the hang of driving on the wrong side of the road and happily allowed others to chauffeur him around – and headed out to the shopping mall on the far side of town. There was a theater there that gave student discounts. Knowing their teammates, no one would be out that way celebrating, and it wasn’t likely that they’d run into Emma (the LAX team was on a retreat for the weekend) or Regina (who had an organic chemistry exam on Monday and had threatened to set anyone who disturbed her on fire).

Killian had found that there was always an odd moment concerning who paid when on a date with a man, but it seemed that Robin had already thought of that. “You get tickets, I’ll buy snacks?” he asked as they jumped out of the truck.

“Sounds good to me.”

They wound up eating most of the popcorn halfway through previews, making snide comments to the other about trailers for this overblown blockbuster or that lackluster comedy. By the time the lights went out, Killian was feeling more relaxed, though it still felt decidedly more like friends hanging out rather than a date.

About forty-five minutes in, he decided to make it feel like a date.

It took another fifteen minutes to build the courage to do it, sneaking glances at the armrest that lay between them and Robin’s arm casually resting on it.

He felt Robin still when Killian took his hand, and almost withdrew, but then Robin’s fingers laced with his and Killian’s heart soared.

He couldn’t remember the rest of the movie if he tried.

They were quiet as they left, Robin’s hands casually tucked in his pockets. There weren’t many people leaving the theater at the same time, so Killian pretended to stumble, bumping their shoulders together and making Robin laugh. He nudged back and it turned into a little game, shoving one another until Robin finally just threw his arm around Killian’s shoulders. It was almost a headlock, and to anyone observing it would appear so, but he recognized it for what it was.

Maybe Robin understood the value of physical contact, too.

“So,” Robin said as he pulled up to Killian’s dorm a while later.

“Yeah.”

“That was nice.” Killian scoffed and Robin grinned. “Right, you have a better adjective?”

“I had a good time,” Killian said, his voice pitching high at the end, silently asking if Robin felt the same.

Robin smiled and reached over the center console to take Killian’s hand again. “I did too. Though perhaps next time we not dine with our teammates beforehand?”

“Is there a next time?”

“I’d like there to be.”

They stared at one another for a long moment until Killian smiled. “Alright. Next week?”

They had two more dates before the championship tournament hit, and Killian didn’t like to admit how it frustrated him to put whatever this was between them on hold for the sake of the game. At the same time, he knew it was more important to focus on winning, that there would be more time in the off-season, but he was frustrated all the same.

More because Robin seemed to hide behind his skipper mask, even when it was just the two of them discussing plays after a scrimmage.

He missed his friend. Or his… whatever this was.

They won the next game, solidifying their place in the quarterfinals, but only by the skin of their teeth. Everyone was frustrated after the game, Robin snapped at everyone in the locker room, and Killian’s own frustrations at his own poor play combined with his personal frustrations towards Robin. He managed to hold his tongue until everyone else had gone, finally lashing out, “It’s enough that we’re aware of our own mistakes, mate, there’s no need to be a prick to us all on top of it!”

“I’m skipper, Killian, it’s my damn job to be a prick when you all deserve it!”

“And whose job is it to put you in your place when you’re being an unjust prick?!”

“Not yours, that’s for certain! Take it up with the manager if you have a problem with my skipping!”

Killian fumed. “It’s not enough to know your team isn’t happy with their treatment? You stubborn arse, we selected you and we can damn well take that away. We know we won by the skin of our teeth, we know we need to do better next match, and trust me when I say we’re all going to be beating ourselves up over these mistakes until the next time we can go out there and prove we can do better than before.”

“It’s not enough,” Robin said, scowling.

“What should we do, Robin, become gods? Invest in a Time-Turner? Because the only way we can fix what already happened is to–”

Anything else he might have had to say was abruptly cut off, his ability to speak lost as Robin surged towards him, gripped his shoulders, and fused their mouths together.

If Killian had any lingering doubts about Robin’s intentions – if he was merely indulging Killian’s crush or humoring him so as not to cause any alienation or hurt feelings – they vanished. Hands moved slowly, from clutching to embracing, fingers tentatively twining in hair. They both were in need of a haircut, too superstitious about it at this stage in the game, but something deep and primal in Killian’s bones liked being able to twist his fingers through Robin’s hair as his tongue traced the seam of his lips and begged for entrance.

He hadn’t any expectations for what kissing Robin Locksley would be like, hadn’t allowed himself to think that far ahead or get his hopes up. But even in his wildest fantasies he couldn’t have imagined this – there was a soft urgency to his kiss, unsaid words pushed into actions and touches and the soft glide of their tongues, and Killian could feel Robin’s restraint, how much he was holding back, his inability to lose control in this moment and give in to the feeling.

He vowed to work on that.

Both were breathless when they parted, only enough to get air. Their foreheads touched and Killian almost chuckled when Robin’s mustache tickled his lip. He liked this – really liked this – the feeling of Robin’s arms around him and their bodies pressed chest to thigh. Though, he did try to angle his hips away, feeling his cheeks heat up as he realized Robin could surely feel his erection pressed against his thigh.

But if Killian wasn’t mistaken, and he’d bet a lot that he wasn’t, Robin wasn’t feeling very calm after that himself.

“Bad form,” Killian said finally, giving in and resting his head on Robin’s shoulder. It was a bit awkward, as Robin was actually a bit shorter, but he liked it anyway.

“Are you really commenting on my technique?” Robin asked, sounding both amused and exasperated.

“No,” Killian said with a laugh. “Bad form for shutting me up in the middle of a tirade. As for the actual kissing, that’s a solid eight out of ten.”

“I’m going to regret asking how one scores a perfect ten, aren’t I?”

Killian only grinned.

It was a hard loss.

The weeks leading up to the finals had been good ones. Robin had eased up a little, leaving any discipline discussions up to their manager and refocusing his energies on team morale. He’d confessed to Killian that part of his outburst had been fueled by his nerves about advancing their relationship.

Killian, in turn, was too stunned about Robin defining this as a real relationship to comment.

Little touches had helped. Lingering shoulder claps or gentle touches when they thought no one was looking. Spending time together after practices also helped; Swan knew enough that they could hang out in Killian’s room without much fuss, but Robin wasn’t sure about Regina’s reaction just yet. If anyone asked, they were studying together. If anyone took a closer look, they’d notice Killian’s hand on Robin’s thigh, or the casual way Robin’s arm slung around Killian’s shoulders.

Well, maybe one didn’t need to look too much closer.

Still, playing the last few matches with that kind of support, that kind of assurance, helped. They’d entered the final match with their heads held high – all of them, everyone on the team – but losing in the championship would sting regardless of their pre-game morale.

Losing 5-0 basically annihilated whatever morale they had left.

The team was slow to leave the locker room. Robin had no rousing speeches or kind words – in fact, he had no words at all. No one spoke, the silence dulled only by the steady hiss of the showers and punctuated by the occasional slam of a locker. Everyone trickled out in ones and twos, their heads decidedly less high than they’d been earlier that morning, until only Killian remained in the main room.

Sometimes he did this, lingering in the locker room, letting himself feel whatever emotions he felt after a match without worry that anyone would see. Today he sat with his head in his hands, going over every play in his mind and trying to find what he could have done differently, what plays they could have made instead.

He heard both Robin and Swan in his mind, telling him not to do this to himself, that he knew better.

Well, he did know better, but it was all he could bloody think about.

Disgusted with himself, Killian stripped off his grass-stained jersey and shorts, tossing his dirty uniform into a bag to be washed and grabbing his towel and shower things; everyone else would be back at the hotel by now and he’d join them later, but right now he had to wash off the stink of failure.

It appeared he wasn’t alone in thinking that.

He hadn’t noticed the water still running, but there was a lone occupant in the communal showers: Robin. Killian tried to think back to the last time he’d seen him and concluded that his boyfriend had probably been trying to literally drown his misery for at least three quarters of an hour.

Boyfriend. That was still strange.

Killian dropped his things in the partition, then stepped into the steam. “Rob.”

Robin turned slightly and Killian’s heart broke all over again at the self-loathing and anguish on his face. It mirrored his own feelings, but actually seeing it made him push them away and focus on trying to make Robin feel better. Or at least stop looking like he’d never feel happiness again.

As Killian went to hug him, it dimly registered that not only was this the first time in several years that he was seeing Robin naked, it was the first time they were even touching one another in an intimate way without clothes. And there was nothing sexy about it. And that was perfectly fine.

They didn’t speak, the water beating down on both of them and keeping them warm as Killian held Robin close; and it wasn’t as if he disliked the way that Robin clung to him, he just wished it were for any other reason than misery. And he really had no idea how to make it better.

“You’re going to prune,” he finally said, voice barely audible over the hiss of the water. Robin only nodded, tucking himself under Killian’s chin. “Did you wash at all?” This time Robin shook his head.

Well, that was easily taken care of. Killian eased back to grab his things, then set to work.

He always found value in casual displays of affection. Whether it was hugging friends or letting Swan sleep on his lap when they watched telly or now gently washing Robin’s hair, Killian knew that simple touch, simple gestures of care, warmth, and safety were so scarce these days that the extra effort was appreciated by anyone on the receiving end.

He raked his fingers through Robin’s hair, massaging the shampoo in and scrubbing out the sweat and lingering feelings of defeat. Robin’s eyes were closed and slowly his features relaxed, following Killian’s gentle lead to tip his head back under the spray to wash away the soap suds. Then came the body wash and Killian was hesitant as he lathered up his hands and spread them across Robin’s chest. It was then that Robin opened his eyes, meeting Killian’s hesitant gaze with his own. “Can you handle it?” Killian asked.

“Yes, I think so,” Robin said; it was hard to hear him over the sound of running water, his voice hoarse from shouting on the pitch and likely from the emotions that kept him shut away in his self-imposed confinement.

Killian nodded and stepped back, going to scrub his own hair while Robin got the soap.

He sighed as he stepped into the spray, scrubbing his fingers against his scalp and inwardly bemoaning the fact that he desperately needed a haircut. With finals coming up he’d be hard pressed to find time to get it done, though perhaps he’d ask if one of Swan’s teammates knew how to cut hair.

“Killian.”

He jerked up, wiping water out of his face as Robin took a step towards him. Their lips met and Killian grunted in surprise, hands automatically moving to cup Robin’s head and circle his waist. “Make me forget,” Robin whispered against his lips. “Make me feel good, Killian, please.”

His cock swelled at the words and nudged Robin’s. Killian swallowed hard, pulling back only enough to look his boyfriend in the eyes. “Are you sure?”

He didn’t want this to be something Robin regretted, this large of a step in their relationship brought on only by the urge to expunge negative feelings. But by God, did he want to.

Robin gave a small nod. “Yes.”

Killian surged forward, their lips crashing together and making Robin stumble back slightly. They turned so that Robin was practically pinned against the wall but for Killian’s hand reaching down to grip his ass. They both groaned, Robin’s hips jerking up as Killian kneaded and squeezed the firm muscle. Killian moved quickly, kissing a path down his jaw and gently biting the thick cords of Robin’s neck before reaching the juncture. He bit a little more hard, then sucked. Laving his tongue against the skin, desperate to mark him in some primal need to stake his claim, and squeezed Robin’s ass in time with his sucks. Killian pulled back with a slight popping sound, then dropped to his knees, ignoring the hard tile as his free hand traced the muscled lines of Robin’s stomach. Even over the water, Killian heard Robin suck in a breath when his hand reached his cock; glancing up, Killian saw he was being watched with an intense expression and hooded eyes. “You like this?” he asked, running gentle fingers over Robin’s cock before wrapping his hand around it.

He gave it an experimental pump, watching Robin’s eyes flutter shut and his head fall back against the wall. “Ah, ah,” Killian scolded, getting used to the feel of Robin’s cock and moving his hand in firm, even strokes. “Watch me.”

With that, Killian leaned forward and flicked his tongue against the head. He heard Robin groan as he tasted the salty precum leaking from the tip, then wrapped his lips around the head.

Robin’s hand fisted itself in Killian’s hair as he promptly put every other blowjob he’d ever given to shame. His tongue swirled around the head and traced the fat vein pulsing along the side of the shaft. Robin’s cries echoed through the room, his hips jerking in Killian’s hold and forcing his cock further down Killian’s throat. He only gagged the first time, not expecting it, but relaxed and tried to keep a stronger hold on Robin as he continued.

When one hand went to fondle Robin’s balls, that seemed to be the breaking point. Killian eagerly swallowed his release as Robin came with another shout, only wincing slightly as the hold on his hair tightened. Only when he’d licked the last of it away did Killian sit back on his haunches, looking up to see the results.

Robin slumped against the wall, head tilted back as he caught his breath. As his eyes opened, Killian grinned. “Get up here,” Robin practically growled, taking the offered hand and hauling him up.

Something had snapped in him; Killian felt it as Robin’s kisses became fiercer, more possessive. Killian groaned deep in his throat as Robin practically shoved him back against the wall, his mouth tracing a similar path that Killian’s had done earlier, though Robin paid attention to different areas of his body. Robin nibbled his ears before nipping his way down Killian’s neck; his hands weren’t idle either, running down Killian’s sides and kneading his ass in a decidedly greedy manner. Killian shuddered as Robin’s fingers danced along his thighs, wondering what it might feel like to be pinned to the wall and properly fucked – but that would have to be another time, when they were prepared and not trying to distract each other.

As he mused, Robin slowly dipped down, pausing briefly to pay attention to Killian’s nipples and nose through the thick, wet hair covering his chest. (One of the many things Killian appreciated was that Robin was nowhere near as hairy as he was; only one of them needed to be part-wolf.) His breath hitched as Robin ran his tongue along his abs, tracing a path down to Killian’s aching cock and wasting absolutely no time at all before wrapping his lips around the head.

Killian would have to take a moment later, when he wasn’t about to collapse from pleasure and when he wasn’t trying to contain screams, to appreciate that as both of them were uncircumcised, both knew exactly how to handle the other’s cock. It was a marvel, and one he would put into appreciative words.

Later.

Eventually.

When his boyfriend wasn’t going down on him so earnestly, one hand playing with his balls and the other teasing Killian’s ass and making him want to melt into a puddle of goo.

He tried so hard not to rut his hips, not to fuck Robin’s mouth, but God he couldn’t help it. He did his best to keep his thrusts shallow, but then the goddamn son of a bitch sucked hard and Killian’s body jerked involuntarily; he felt the head of his cock brush the back of Robin’s throat and almost came right then.

He decided to copy Robin’s earlier move and threaded his fingers through Robin’s hair; he silently urged him to move faster, desperate for more and half-wild from the need to come. Robin obliged, his tongue swirling and his teeth ever-so-slightly grazing along the shaft and Killian vaguely tasted blood from biting his lip too hard to keep from crying out.

He didn’t remember an orgasm that powerful before, his hips rutting and rutting into Robin’s willing mouth as he came down his throat. He sagged when it was over, when he was finally spent, and released Robin’s hair to let him up. Killian fell gratefully into Robin’s kiss, both of them more relaxed and their touches more tender, less frantic than before. “Water’s getting cold,” Robin said softly, cupping Killian’s face briefly before tracing the line of his jaw.

“Someone interrupted my wash,” Killian said, his weak joke earning a grin in response.

Robin ducked out first, letting Killian scrub himself, though he was a bit more reluctant to wash away the feeling of Robin’s lips over his body. It was a consolation to realize they could do it all over again another time, with more time and more preparation and less chance of someone walking in on them in a somewhat public locker room.

Nothing sexy about locker rooms, he thought, Swan’s words from several months ago coming to mind, we’ll see about that. He wasn’t one to kiss and tell, but he’d give a mild update to Swan when they returned.

Perhaps. Or perhaps he’d keep this new, warm feeling in his chest to himself for a while longer. His own private happiness to keep the demons of defeat away.

Or perhaps it was a private happiness to be shared by two people; Robin’s face when Killian went to change was a complete 180 from before, soft and with a glow that matched the one Killian felt.

They kept sneaking glances at each other as they dressed, smiling when their eyes met. When Killian’s head popped through the opening of his shirt, Robin was there, moving to gently cup the back of Killian’s head and touch their foreheads together. “Thank you,” he said softly.

“Anytime,” Killian replied. “Really.”

That made Robin laugh. “Next time let’s be a bit more private, though, eh?”

They slung their bags over their shoulders and Robin took Killian’s hand as they left the facility. Killian gave it a squeeze, a reassurance that it would be okay – and it would, they both knew it. Their shower dalliance bled away most of the poison but some of the sullenness would return.

But it would be okay. They had each other.

They’d be okay.