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madamechrissy · 8 months ago

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Silent Serenades

♔ An arranged Marriage with Duke Gojo ♔

♔ Pairings: Satoru Gojo x you - in this chap it's Satoru Gojo x random girl, Nanami x you It's messy and will get messier.

♔ Warnings: Sex, infidelity, mentions of disordered eating of the reader, descriptions of reader physically (just ties in with the story here) cheating on both ends, cruelty from Duke Gojo, cunnilingus, fingering, first time blow jobs, toxic attraction. OOC. ANGST. SO MUCH TENSION. More Mr. Nanami. Gojo is TERRIBLE still, you're warned

♔ Word count this chap: 10k

♔ Summary: you are the diamond of the season, he is the charming Duke, it’s the marriage of the decade. Prominent families joining, and it so happens that Duke Gojo is gorgeous. But, he doesn't want you, and now you're trapped in a loveless arranged marriage. Royal AU, dark bridgerton vibes, Cruel Gojo x reader. OOC Set in 1800s England. Gojo is awful at first, HEAVY angst Basically- Gojo is a royal dick and doesn't wanna marry you

A/N: Half Gojo's POV, Half yours. LONG ONE

Part Four - Masterlist - Playlist

Part Five: The Masquerade

Your POV

It’s the night of the Gojo manor masquerade, it’s so odd to think this is where you’d met Mr. Nanami years ago, in this cold man’s manor, long before you two were betrothed. Sometimes you wish you had just ran off with Mr. Nanami that night, but it was a foolish little idea, wasn’t it? How could you have happiness like that, when this is where you live.

After that night you’ve completely avoided the Duke, he has not just disgusted you, you’ve disgusted yourself with your reaction. You’d laid there for hours that night, and at some point Gojo had come into your room, you had acted asleep, of course so as not to face him.

It was late in the night, long past those disgusting noises you had to hear of Gojo and his Mistress, so you assumed they were asleep. You were just able to breathe finally, just able to exist a bit without feeling that tightness in your chest. Then he was there, you struggle to stay still as you hear your door open, hear it creaking gently in the night.

You could hear his footsteps in the night, bare feet padding along the old floors of the room, then he’d just stood there, like some creep, well he was, wasn’t he? A confusing, evil, cruel ass of a man. A man that had ripped your dress to shreds, and the worst part is you had been thrilled, you’d never felt more alive then when he’d consumed you.

You felt horrible, thinking of Nanami, someone you could see some future with, some happiness, his tired eyes and smirk on those lips. The way you felt so fucking safe in his arms. Not stupid Gojo, not the damned Duke who absolutely ruined your life, that wrecked your psyche. As confident and strong as you act, the Duke had single handedly destroyed so much.

Now he back tracks his words, shouldn’t have said this, shouldn’t have said that, but it’s poor, sad excuses. You cannot allow yourself to fall victim to him again.

He is leaning over you now, and your eyelashes flutter just a bit when he pulls your blanket up over your body, up on your shoulders, before you hear him sigh just a bit, brushing the backs of his fingers on your cheek. You want to smack him, you want to jump up, but then he’d know you were pretending, so you just lay there, exhaling and trying to keep still.

After a moment he’s gone, just like he was never there, leaving your cheek burning from the odd touch, and your mind more confused at this man. What even was his problem, why would he come here after fucking his whore, why would he watch you as you sleep!? The man who hates you so.

You shake off that weird night, and you had not said a word to him all day, even going so far as to eat breakfast in complete silence. He had just looked at you every so often, and you’d peeked back, raising a brow, expecting some nasty remark or comment, but he’d not said a single word. You’re not sure it’s much better than his cruelty, this weird silence.

You stand before the mirror in your room, your heart racing as your maid and Nan dress you in the gown of a glittery silver, the fabric shimmering like stars. It’s so very beautiful. Mei and Utahime absolutely did impeccably. It fits you so perfectly, cinched in with beautiful jewels along the bodice, it’s surely the finest thing you have ever worn or even seen.

“My, you’re a vision, your grace!” The maid says, and you smile at her, feeling yourself flush under the praise.

“Indeed, you’ll be the belle of the ball. Like a Princess.” Nan says then, and you twirl a bit, watching the light catching the flouncing skirts.

“You two are most kind. I do feel most lovely in this.” You admit, as you look at your reflection in the gilded mirror. Your hair is piled high on your head, adorned with a diamond tiara that sparkles brightly. You look like a princess, like a vision from a fairytale that’s come to life, and for a moment, you let yourself believe in the illusion.

Your mask is a thing of beauty as Nan ties it around your face, a delicate little creation of lace and velvet that covers the top half of your face, leaving only your eyes and lips exposed. You feel so mysterious with it, as if you could be anyone you want, and who would you want to be?

It feels as if you lose yourself more and more here.

You glide down the grand staircase now, the silk of your gown whispering against the marble as you descend into the masquerade ball, the violinists and cellists making the most beautiful melodies, mingling with the cacophony of laughter and conversation. As you step down further, the room is full of ladies in white, and gentlemen in black, dancing and mingling in pretty patterns.

Your heart is beating out of your chest as you step down, curious if Mr. Nanami may make an appearance, curious if your ‘husband’ would pretend to be kind or not. His mother is here, along with your parents. As you enter the ballroom at the last step, your lace gloved hand on the bannister, heads turn and eyes follow your every movement, until they’re all looking at you.

Well everyone but one person, Satoru Gojo, he’s laughing with those bright white teeth, in his white suit, different from every other man in black, along with a dark blue cape and dark blue mask, covering half his face. You can feel the air change, as they’re looking at you, and everything quiets. There are whispers then, as you nervously stand there, alone and in the center of attention.

‘The Duchess!’

‘She looks like a Princess!’

‘Beautiful!’

‘Breathtaking, look at that gown…’

You smile at them, as they look to you in awe, the many masked women and men, amongst a sea of butlers, waitresses and performers, no one moves a muscle. You see the familiar figure of Lord Geto and Lady Shoko, waving at you, and you look further, until you see his strong figure, in a suit that’s fit to him like a glove, those hazel lazy eyes twinkling.

You smile shyly as you see his lips part in shock, and you then watch everyone stare at Duke Gojo, someone tapping his shoulder then, and he looks to where you’re standing now, amongst the whispers. You expect the same coldness in his gaze as usual, but when his eyes land on you, something in them flickers.

For a moment, he’s stunned, his hand frozen mid-gesture, as they fall slowly, and he slowly walks toward you, as you now nervously fiddle with your own gloves, in front of your lap. You know he’ll try to ruin your confidence, even in this moment where hundreds of people are staring at your gown, your tiara, your beauty, but you know the damage the Duke can do.

He’ll show them what they need, he’ll pretend to hold your hand and smile as if you’re both great, but the coldness he emits will freeze you. He steps up one step now, holding his hand out now, eyes glimmering a shocking blue as he looks every inch of you over, making you nervous. Is he looking for some lack of perfection? Is he looking for something to mock?

“Duchess.” He says hoarsely, clearing his throat, and you hesitantly put your hand in his, gasping a bit when he pulls you towards him, your glittering heels stepping onto the floor below.

“Duke.” You respond, curtseying then, and Duke Gojo bows at the waist, then his lips part, then close. You watch his Adam’s apple bob as he leads you to the dance floor now, and the people gush over the two of you.

If only they knew, the real man, that looks so charming and fun, that’s so elegantly holding you at your waist with one hand, the other up, and you put your little one in his, which swallows yours. You suck in a breath as Gojo just stares at you then, as the music starts once more, and everyone’s gaze is on you both.

He begins to lead you into a waltz, elegant in his steps, your heels and his dress shoes clicking and echoing on the floor, as the music softly crescendos, and you’re spinning, in a dance with your fake husband. You keep your eyes affixed to his elegantly tied cravat as your body gets dizzy, as you brace for the blow.

He says your name, and you tense, looking up then. “I hope I am adequate looking tonight, Duke.” You murmur, and he turns you, before pulling you against him, dipping you over his arm, then slowly back up.

“You know what you look like, you had everyone in the room with their mouths open, what do you need a compliment from me?” He says then, through his terse lips, and you scoff, rolling your eyes behind your mask.

“I do not expect one, I expected you to say passable or the like.” You retort, and he laughs, his grip on your waist tightening and making you wince a bit, as his gaze burns you.

“You look… you look…” He sighs then, spinning you once more, and now your back is against him, his hand on your tummy, as one of his hands slides down your cheek, your neck, before spinning you back, your leg over his now. He grips your leg over your skirts, bending you low again, and your breaths come in quick pants.

“Not passable? Oh dear. I’m so sorry, husband.” You whisper, right against his lips, then you smirk at his glare. “I’m sure someone here will call me beautiful.”

Satoru’s grip gets tighter, as everyone starts dancing around you now, and the room is lively again. You see your parents by the buffet with Satoru’s mother and stepdad, watching you all curiously, then when you’re facing Satoru again, his eyes are lidded, snowy white lashes lowered over them. His hand is trembling slightly as it holds onto you.

“Is your lover here?” He demands, and you smile softly.

“How many of your lovers are here?” You counter, earning a scoff.

“Tch, insolent brat.” You scowl.

“Man whore.” He grits his teeth.

“You’re just a whore, then.” Your own eyes narrow as you spin once more, away from him, and he watches you with his fists clenched, as your gown glitters from the chandeliers above, bouncing light all over. You bow down, as does he, then your hands join once more.

“Can’t wait for this dance to end.” You say, and he’s sighing, a hand slipping up your back and making you tremble. “I know you also wish it was done.”

“You think you know me at all?” His voice is softer now, and your eyes lock, as you feel it, something just different now.

“You hate me, so I imagine having me in your arms is quite the task.” He brings you up then, off the ground spinning you, and you hate how you actually enjoy it. “Careful, don’t hurt-”

“You weigh nothing, stupid fucking girl. Less than nothing as you continue to ignore your meals in front of me.” His hiss is dark, and you sigh, looking away.

You realize you’re dragging out that comment, and for once you decide perhaps you should stop, Gojo has not said anything else about it since and you’re making it an ongoing issue, one that’s affecting you severely now. You let your anger consume you. “Very well, I will stop such comments, I am being…”

“You’re fucking beautiful, the most beautiful thing here.” You step back, nearly falling as your mouth opens wide in shock.

“You can’t just say that, it’s not what you think! You’re such a manipulative, confusing ass of a man.” You stomp on his foot then, and he snarls at you, hopping on a leg.

“You stomp my foot for a bloody compliment? Stupid fucking brat.”

“Yes well it’s false, I like you better when you’re honest.”

“Honest!?”

“Indeed, when you tell me how much I disgust you.” His grip is so brutal you feel it through your layers, as it digs in. “What’s wrong Duke?”

“You know how beautiful you are.” He whispers those words, and they feel foreign from his cold lips, and now the song is changing, but he’s just standing there, holding you for a moment. “Do not play stupid.”

“You ever think you’ve knocked down my thoughts of myself!?” You hiss out the words then, and he looks down, backing away and dropping his hands as if you are a fire that burns him.

“As if you’ll take a compliment from me.”

“Because it’s a lie.”

“It’s not!”

“Hello, love birds.” Comes Satoru’s mother then, elegant in her gown, with her stark white hair flowing down in waves, smiling at you both now. “You’re the prettiest lady I’ve seen, why you rival Her Majesty’s style.”

“Oh thank you, Mama.” You say then, kissing her cheeks, and Satoru is still fuming, fucking glaring at you.

“Satoru. How have you been treating your wife?” She asks then, and Satoru scoffs, opening his mouth, but you cut him off.

“He’s been so kind, Mama, truly.” You say, and Duke Gojo scowls at you now, earning his mother’s confusion. People all around are going to get refreshments, talking and mingling. Satoru’s mother has a confused purse to her lips.

“I’ve heard things, from servants and friends alike. That you two share no room together. That Satoru has live in Mistresses? Plural. This isn’t true, is it?” She demands, and Satoru says nothing, he’s still looking at you with disbelief in his eyes, forcing you to clear your throat, smiling brightly.

“You cannot trust gossip, Mama. Oh, hello Mother, Father!” Your parents come over then, and you hug them both politely, you and your parents had a decent relationship, but not too close. They were very about appearances, and trained you to be as well, it’s partly why you hide emotions so well.

There are no warm smiles, but polite ones, they had never been cruel, just they had not spent much time with you growing up. You were raised by governess, Nannies, and the like. You suppose it’s the way of nobility, but you know if you ever had children it would be very, very different.

“I was just asking how the marriage was, you said it’s going well, Duchess?” Satoru’s Mom asks again, and you nod, grabbing Satoru’s hand, and it’s stiff and unyielding, even when you give him a look behind your mask, he’s still staring at you, not saying a goddamn thing.

“It’s going well, isn’t it dear husband?” You ask, earning his lips parting, then closing, as he sighs. Then his hand enwraps yours, and for a moment you enjoy it, huge, enwrapping your little hand, entwining his fingers with yours. You suck in a breath at how good it feels, and how much you hate it.

Duke Gojo’s POV

Satoru is holding your delicate little hand in his, and it feels so good he can’t stand it, he can’t take it, how good you smell, how good your skin feels, how breathtaking you are. You’re a vision in this silver, glittery gown, you stand out in this sea of people, a diamond doesn’t even begin to describe you. As he danced he’d seen every set of eyes on you.

Even his mother loves you, everyone does, don’t they? And how can they not, when you smile brightly, those tempting lips hiding your true feelings. You look up at him then, with that lacy mask on your perfect face, only making you sexier, making him fill with want he has to shove down. Your glittery eyes, filled with tears just the other day, look right into his fucking soul.

He squeezes your hand back, watching your breasts heave in your dress, pressed up and delectable in that corset, fuck your body was so beautiful, Satoru couldn’t help but picture you when he fucks his mistress now. Now that he’s tasted you!? He wishes he could every day, fuck he wants to worship you on his goddamn knees.

But he can’t, can he?

Why are you lying for him, after what he’s done, what he’s said!? Saying you’re a pig, when you’re the complete opposite, making you not even eat in front of him. It breaks him, his cruelty and its effects, watching you slimmer and slimmer because he was evil and lied. Even if you’ve forgiven him, how will he forgive himself?

How can he forgive himself for your panic attack when he said the cruelest things, or the wedding night when he smacked your precious face, leaving a huge red hand print? You should hate him, fuck you should hate him more. That was his goal, for you to hate him, and he succeeded. To protect himself, because you look so much like her, so much…

So much like the love of his life that destroyed him. Fuck if you two weren’t related, she was all he could see when he first saw you, at that masquerade years ago, you were young. That night she had destroyed him, that night she had slept right with Satoru’s own father, and fuck if Satoru wasn’t glad that man was dead. She’d had no shame either.

As soon as Satoru became Duke, he sent her far away, and then who’s there but you and you’re the spitting image damn near. You were softer, prettier, not nearly as practiced and seductive, but seeing you had made him sick. Then your confidence and poise made you even more similar to her, she had Satoru ready to destroy the world for her.

He’d spent his entire money on her, he’d given her everything, only to have found her one day with his father, because his father had more money. Satoru had never forgiven him, even on his fucking death bed, and he let his dad know then that he will never give him an heir. That disgusting man had died in horror, and Satoru had just fucking grinned.

But fuck if you’re not more beautiful, and she was a gorgeous girl, but your energy, everything about you makes it worse. Now he knows you have some lover, and it brings it all back, he imagines you riding someone, he imagines you as the one who did that to him, that made him cold. Because of her Satoru closed himself off, drowned himself in alcohol, gambling and whores.

And he was living that life just fine until you.

Now, however, as he sees the dulling of your brightness, he knows what he’s done is so fucking wrong, but he’s too far gone in this, and now you’re rightfully gone. You moved on so quickly, to someone who surely worships you, and Satoru thinks maybe that’s for the best, no chance of you two ever being together, in any way, shape or form.

But when he’d kissed you?

Satoru had never felt anything like it, not when he kissed who he thought he ‘loved’ and Satoru had never tasted anything like your honeyed arousal on his tongue. As a man who gets sucked, who fucks rough, all he can think is having you gush down his mouth, down his tongue, he things of it as he strokes himself after his Mistress failed to make him cum.

He’d snuck in your room and watched you, with tears irritating his blue eyes, as you looked so tiny, so fragile, shivering in the cold. Having to listen to him, having to see him, he’s cruel, he’s terrible. You did nothing to deserve it. And you’re so fucking strong, so composed, so determined, you thrive even as he tried to shoot you down. He can’t even understand you.

It’s too late, isn’t it… and even if not, could Satoru not hate you, when you remind him so much of everything he hates? Could he ever even express an emotion, could he even compliment you, no you think they’re fake, and he understands. Even on your wedding night, looking so beautiful it made him ache, he’d lied, and you’d so easily believed that lie.

Why would you lie for him?

Take the opportunity, let his mother reprimand him, let him be made a fool of, he deserves the worst. Perhaps the worst is just beginning for him, now that he knows you have someone that makes you so happy. Your marks on those lush breasts, your slick wet cunt he knows someone licked, touched before him, it makes him furious, so furious, but he can do nothing.

“Indeed, we are doing well.” Satoru says softly, and you both talk to your family about a dinner coming, before you smile prettily up at Satoru.

“Could we get refreshments? My throat is parched, husband.” You say, and he just nods, leading you to the table where there was punch, and he did not ever wanna let your hand go. But you pull it away, leaving him empty. “I’m sorry, I just needed to get away, you don’t have to get me a drink.”

“Why?” He demands then, fists clenching on either side of him. You blink a bit, before pouring your own drink, Satoru would never even afford you a kindness like that, fuck he treats you like shit, he loathes himself more every moment.

“No need to cause a scene. I figure it best we handle an annulment after some time, especially if you wish to keep my dowry. I know you’re rich, but we technically are even richer.” You sip some lemonade, sighing, and he watches a little droplet fall down, right to your chin. He delicately swipes it off, and watches your intake of breath, your eyes darting to his.

“Why do you care if I have your dowry?”

“I figure it’s why you want to stay married. This gives us both what we want, me my freedom, you the dowry, and you never have to look at me again.” Your words are like a punch to the gut, how cold and detached you sound.

“Freedom to marry?” Satoru asks softly, pouring his own drink with trembling hands, usually so sure, but you have this stupid effect.

“Possibly, one day.” You get a soft, dreamy smile, as the chandeliers reflect off your glowing, soft skin, your gorgeous gown. You look like a Princess, perhaps more beautiful than one, not that he’d say it. Not that you’d want it from his cruel lips. But he knows someone else here will say it, and will whisper it in your delicate little ear.

Fuck he hates himself.

He hates you.

“Married to some baker?” He says, and you giggle then, fuck you’re so bratty, how you’d bragged about your breasts, about cumming, you confused the living fuck out of him. Intrigued him. Filled him with need.

Fuck.

“Maybe, Duke.” You would never call him his name, would you? Well unless you were cooing to your stupid puppy. “I think we’ve made our presence known, we should be free to spend the evening apart.”

He blinks rapidly, as you smile a bit into the crowd, and go to leave, but he stops you with a hand on your little waist, stiff and jeweled in that corset, making you pause, looking up curiously. “You are off to see your lover, like a whore?”

You smile then, that mean little smile that is full of hatred. “I will absolutely see him tonight. When he compliments me, it’s sincere, you know. Not for show.”

“You’re stupid. You’re fucking stupid.” He whispers, earning your glare now, your hand shoving his chest, burning through his dress shirt, starch and stiff. He imagines actually touching you, making love to you, doing the things you would do without him, watching that pretty face cumming? Fuck.…

“Duke Gojo, go have fun yourself, be discreet for appearances please. It’s not like I care. Now, if you’ll excuse me.” You peel his hand off, and it drops, as he turns and watches you glide through the damn crowd, a sea of ladies and gentlemen, and all that stands out is you.

Your skirts swish as your perfect silhouette disappears, and everyone greets you, everyone signs your goddamn dance card, including Suguru, who he knows has it bad for you. Fuck Suguru would have been good for you, but you’re stuck with a man you don’t want, aren’t you?

You don’t want Satoru at all. You’re the only woman who hasn’t. But he pushed you there, and now he has to watch everyone fawn over his wife, a woman he’ll never have, who he didn’t want. A woman he hates, because not just how she looks, how she acts, but what she’s doing, making him feel things he swore he never would, and then when he sees you light up…

That smile brightens the giant ballroom, as you’re in a man’s arms during the next set, a tall blond man with broad shoulders, and he’s grinning along with you, his hand on the small of your back, as the other caresses your cheek for a second. Just a second but he saw it. He sees your blush even far away, how you giggle, how your head tilts to the side.

That’s him, isn’t it?

You will never look at Satoru like that, why would you anyway? What’s he done to make you smile, laugh, or have any joy, all he does and continues to do is treat you like dirt, worse than dirt, kick you down. And you blossom in this man’s arms, and Satoru’s picturing you with him, under him, and it makes him sick.

One of the lady’s he’d fucked a long time ago comes to him now, asking him to sign her dance card, and Satoru decides to throw himself into the dance, to flirt with her, to smirk. To whisper in the shell of her ear, making her shiver as his fingers brush her upper back. Women were games to him, soft and easy, aside from you.

He hates himself.

He hates how you confuse him.

He hates you.

Your POV

Shaking off the very odd interaction with the Duke, you are now dancing in Nanami Kento’s arms, and he has a surprising grace - well was it surprising? - the man exudes elegance. But as a businessman unaccustomed to such events, he is a perfect dancer, and you can’t help but giggle every time he looks at you, earning his soft chuckle as you both turn about the ballroom.

“Imagine seeing you here?” He says then, and you giggle once more.

“Imagine, Mr. Nanami. Meeting here.” You tease back.

“I missed you and it was only a day, sweet girl.” His voice is husky now, and your heart is thudding in your chest, as you melt into the dance, almost tripping over your normally sure feet. Your gloved hand in his clutches tightly, your other hand on his chest, where he wore the most handsome black suit.

“You surely make me a blushing mess.” You say softly, earning a glint in those hazel depths, his big hand tightening just a bit on your waist.

“I’m honored to have such an effect on the most beautiful lady I’ve seen.” You look down a bit, nearly tripping, and he catches you with ease, chuckling a bit. “You surely know you’re a vision tonight.”

“Thank you, Mr. Nanami. You also look quite dashing, you know Sir.” You say now, as he spins you gently, pulling your back against his chest, and then your eyes catch him.

The Duke.

His blue eyes are boring into you across the room, staring straight at you, to the point you can feel that gaze like a brand. He’s dancing with a lovely lady in a white dress and a white mask, and you watch his fingers slip up her back then, as he bends down to whisper in her ear. You blink a bit, taking a breath and then looking away, up at Nanami behind you.

“You are an even more skilled dancer than last time, Sir. Do you have a secret hobby, amongst the rest?” You ask then, teasingly, and Nanami scoffs a bit, spinning you back around, pulling you close for a moment before you both step back. He bows and you curtsey as the song ends.

“No hobby, darling. You give me too much credit.” He goes to touch your hand, then pulls back, realizing he can’t, and you watch his jaw tense, that Adam’s apple bob a bit. You frown.

“I’m sorry you cannot take my hand, Kento.” You whisper, looking away and clutching your layered gown tightly. “It’s selfish you see?”

“Darling, I’ll be fine. You’re not a bit selfish.” You look back to him, as you see his hands open and close at the sides, before they land in his trouser pockets, and your heart aches, your mind swirling in confusion.

As the music starts to die down later that night, and you’ve made several rounds with everyone, currently finishing a set with Lord Geto, you notice the Duke’s eyes on you again as he’s just laughing and leaning against a wall, and the girl is blatantly against him.

“He’s still being terrible, isn’t he? Fuck, any better at all?” You sigh, looking up at Lord Geto, who had danced twice with Lady Shoko, which put quite a smile on your face, but they seemed just friends for now. She had headed home and you two had danced a beautiful quadrille, dancing with Suguru was always so fun.

“He’s slightly better. I suppose. I told him we would annul the marriage in time, and he seemed… angry? It’s hard to understand him.”

“Mmm. I suppose. He’s never really acted this way, aside from a long time ago, he did have someone break his heart. I never met her though.”

“Duke Gojo had a heart?” Geto grins at that, and you both laugh a bit, as he leads you to get a drink, pouring one for you.

“I suppose he did. Here, love.” You take it thankfully, sighing as the cool condensation of the glass hits your lips.

“You’re a gem, Lord Geto.” You say, brushing his shoulder with your hand and smiling brightly.

“And you’re a diamond. Clearly, look at you, glittering everywhere.” You giggle softly, shaking your head.

“That’s sweat, probably, my Lord.” Geto rolls his chocolate eyes with a smirk, and then you pay attention, as the entire masquerade shifts.

People are kissing everywhere, as the music gets heavier, and much of the older ladies and gentlemen leave. This was around the time you had to leave as a young lady, but now you were in full view, as they now brought out several ladies, scandalously dressed and dancing. As the ballroom clears out slowly and others are sneaking into little alcoves.

“Oh… Is this…” You trail off nervously.

“This is how these tend to go. Horny ton members.” He teases, and then studies your features. “What do you think of such things, Duchess?”

“I’m not quite sure.” You see the dancers saunter by, one comes to you, brushing her pretty nails along your cheek, smiling at you, and making you flush. She then comes to Geto, a hand on his chest, dragging him by his tie. He looks at you, and you wave him off.

“I should stay with you.” He says, and you shake your head with laughter as the dancer pouts.

“You have fun, Lord Geto. Not too much though.” He snorts, finishing his drink and then kissing your hand.

“Find me if you need me, Duchess. Holy… you bend that way!?”

You turn away in a fit of laughter, as alcoholic drinks are now being served, and you can feel the tension in the air as you sip on bubbly champagne. The whispers of scandal and passion whirl in your ears as the music builds to a crescendo, the dancers in the middle of the ballroom now, for all to see, as people in their masks are hiding their identities, kissing in dark shadowy corners.

You see Nanami again, and you walk back over that way, passing Satoru kissing now in his own corner, and you watch his long fingers dance along her waist, and for just a moment you feel them like they’re touching you. His eyes are shut, his pretty face concentrated as her head lolls over to the side, and he’s kissing her neck, before they open, and catch you watching.

You pause, breaths coming in little pants as he pauses his kisses, his hands sliding down her slowly, as he watches you so intently, his eyes going down your body, drinking you inch by inch. You are just frozen, and why? Why do you care, he’s not yours, you don’t want him.

You don’t care.

You don’t.

When he’s grabbing at her ass blatantly, you do look away, walking by quickly, past more and more couples kissing, caressing, sighing. Is this what you missed as a young, unmarried lady, you wonder? Where there were hundreds and hundreds of people, there were about fifty left, and all quite busy.

You hear the rustle of silk and satin mixing with the low murmur of sultry whispers and cries, as you’re right in the middle of it, your heart racing with the thrill of it all, shocked by what you see. But Satoru’s image is burned in your brain, and you fucking hate it. You don’t want him. You don’t care.

He’s disgusting and cruel.

You shake off such an odd feeling, as the night reaches its peak, the music changes, the tempo slowing to a seductive crawl, and it almost gets hard to breath, as you walk over to Nanami now, and he smiles over a glass of neat whiskey, sitting down in one of the arm chairs. He pats his leg, and you look around nervously, slipping off your gloves and clutching them.

“I believe you can feel a bit more free tonight, Darling.” He says, and you nervously sit on one of his thighs, squealing as he pulls you against him, wrapping an arm around your waist.

“I fear I’ll still be under scrutiny.” You whisper, looking around, but you realize several people aren’t with their partners, some are with multiple partners even, two men kissing on one woman’s neck, two women on one man's lap. “I’m the only one wearing silver, Nanami.”

“Indeed you are.” He chuckles warmly, pulling you down softly, kissing your lips, and you exhale against them, how good it feels. “These events tend to be secret, as they do not wish their secrets shared.”

“You are rather familiar with these, Sir!”

“Mmm, I’ve been to some events with my business.”

“And what is it that you do?” You ask, leaning against him, your fingers brushing up and down his chest. You sip your champagne, and he takes the glass, setting it on the table along with his whiskey, pulling you closer, so close you feel how hot he is, how hard that body is.

“I tend to do a little of everything, up to and including baking cookies with a Duchess. I’m rather important.” You grin then, as your heart swells, as his hands touch you over your layers of gossamer and satin. One hand reaches down and runs up your calf, over your white stockings, and you sigh in pleasure.

“You are important to have such a baking partner, Sir.” His face is more serious now, though, behind that mask that you want to rip off, to see his handsome face, as his hand rests on your thigh, and you feel your core tense, heat building as he’s so, so close to where you’re currently getting wetter and wetter.

“Should I have such an angel on my lap?” He whispers, sliding even further, until he’s right where your lace pantalets sit, and he’s slipping his thumb down into that waistband, watching your every expression. You nervously cling to him, rolling your hips just a bit, and he exhales. “You’re so wet, darling, is this all for me?”

You hear it then, Nanami clearly wants you for himself, and you know that’s foolish for now, but you want to have that dream, of you and a man that wants you, that is so obsessed with you, and it makes your mind fuzzy as the champagne. You whimper when he finds your clit, rubbing in little circles, between damp folds, and you can barely form a word, clutching onto his shirt tightly.

“It is, Mr. Nanami…”

“Kento.”

“Kento. Mnh! Kento…” You whine out, as he’s rubbing you now with two fingers, flicking back and forth as he plays your cunt in public, right under your pretty ball gown, with your damn husband somewhere. It feels so wanton, so naughty, but so fucking good you’re dripping, craving more and more, gasping as he watches you, hungry eyes glinting in the dark.

“Mmm, so beautiful darling, that face when you feel so good? And it’s me making you feel that way?” He moans softly, the sound does things to you, and you find your lips against him now, pressing so deeply, wanting more, more, more of him, of his sure touch, of his sexy voice.

You gasp when he sinks a finger inside of you, right in this ballroom, and your walls are fluttering around it. “It is, Kento… it is.”

Duke Gojo’s POV

Satoru walks by, as he intends on being alone to rekindle the passionate encounters he and Lady Elaine used to have. She’s married to a rather old man who cannot take care of her needs, who is he not to assist? He’s grabbing a bottle of the finest wine, as he passes by to head up the stairs, then he stops in his tracks.

His heart drops to his stomach, his head pounding with the blood pressure that rises when he sees you, in your gorgeous fucking gown, on that man’s lap. Your slender arms are wrapped around his neck, one hand in his blond locks, and it’s like a stab in the chest, he stops right in his tracks, fuck he wants to grab you by your perfect little neck and yank you off him.

Satoru wants to bend you over something, beat your ass (fuck what does that look like!?) until you sob, pretty tears, then fuck you so good your tiara clatters to the goddamn floor. He wants to fuck you so good you can’t speak, can’t run that mouth, can’t do anything but drool. He wants to kill this man who dares to fucking touch you, wants to kill him right in front of you.

He feels the anger roll through him in waves, hot fury and something else… he’s hard under his trousers, straining against the stiff fabric as he watches your hips roll under those flouncy layers, as he watches your head fall back, and that man kiss your throat. Duke Gojo wants to do that, he wants to kiss you, touch you, so badly precum leaks against his pants.

But he can never have you.

You’re so out of reach, and he caused it all.

The man’s hand, bruised and cut and in no way a gentleman, grabs you so familiarly, the other mysteriously missing, but he watches your skirt rise and fall, then he knows. He’s fingering you wantonly, like you’re some whore, not a whole fucking Duchess, not his wife. He has no care of who sees you like it, and you clearly are enjoying, fuck he can damn near sense your desire.

He remembers it, how hot you got, how wet, only for a moment, glistening out of your perfect pussy, and he craves it so badly he can’t think, how good would it feel inside of you, to break you, to cum inside you? Something Satoru hadn’t done since her, along with licking a woman’s cunt, it’s not that he didn’t love it, it’s that it was too much to bear.

That overwhelming need to have cum spraying on his face again, and with you, who looks just fucking like her. Was he cursed, to not just repeat this vicious memory over and again, but worse, because he needs you more than her even. And he at least had her, for that time, constantly begging her, pleading with her, for affection, for her touches, for her looks.

Satoru was pathetic with her.

Now he’s more pathetic for you.

“Is everything all right, your grace?” Lady Elaine asks softly, and he notices her then, eager and ready to fuck clearly. But all he can think of is tasting you between your thighs, but you have another man’s hand there.

Fuck you, fuck this, fuck his thoughts.

“Nothing is wrong, let’s go, love.” He says softly, yes he calls her love, but he calls you Duchess, or bitch or something cold. Just as you call him Duke, or something colder.

He stomps by, passing you, and you pull your lips off the man long enough to look to him, fuck he’d been fondling Elaine right in front of you, shameless as you looked, with something in your gaze he couldn’t place. Not hurt truly, not even curiosity, what was that look you gave him, burned into his goddamn brain, as he takes her to his room.

Satoru has her naked in quick haste, she has a beautiful body, but for some goddamn reason he thinks of you, he can’t stop thinking of you, wishing he was the one fingering your eager cunt under your skirts. Why, why, why!? Why do you do this to him, you don’t want him, do you? How could you? How could you want him? If you did, it was physical, it was nothing else.

He’s not even good enough for you.

Is anyone good enough to look upon your pretty face, to taste your sweetness, to caress your soft skin? He imagines your eyes looking at him with desire, not with goddamn hatred, as he kisses Lady Elaine, as he slides his fingers into her cunt, which is soaking wet. He wishes it was tighter, like yours, he wishes he could feel it. Would he ever even get to touch you again?

Satoru flips Lady Elaine around, not being able to stand her face, pretty as it was, instead fingering her as she’s face forward against his wall. He’s listening to her moans, they should be sexy, shouldn’t they? Then why does he have to stroke himself, from the base to the tip of his huge cock, as he shuts his eyes and imagines rubbing that tip between your plump lips.

Why does that get him hard, not Lady Elaines’ rather lucious ass pressing out, her head thrown back, as Satoru’s mask brushes against the back of her neck. Why do you torture him existing? He told you, he wishes you didn’t exist, he remembers as he slides into her entrance, and she sucks him in greedily, and Satoru’s hands are on either side of her body as he fucks into her, braced on the cold door of his room.

Do you know you’re all he thinks of as he fucks her pussy?

Would you care?

Why should you?

Will you get fucked tonight, will you lose your innocence to him, to that man that you light up for? Does Satoru have any say in that, when he pushed you there? But the thought crushes him, as he rests his head down on her bare shoulder, as he fucks her against her cervix, and she’s screaming out, cumming all over him. All he thinks of is you.

All he thinks of is how he’s ruined everything.

All he thinks is how he’s a fucking idiot, for fucking this girl he cares nothing for, when he wants you, fuck he wants you. And it just gets worse every moment he breathes, and as he struggles to focus, rubbing her clit in circles, all he can do is imagine your pussy pulsing around him, your wetness down the ridges and veins of his cock, but you’re going to be that way with him that damn man.

Satoru ignores the tears pricking his blue eyes, fucking her harder and harder, chasing a feeling of anything other than you, other than you sitting on that goddamn man’s lap in your beautiful dress.

Your POV

You hate how you feel when you watch Satoru walk by, when you’d seen pain in his goddamn gaze, and for what!? It’s not as if he doesn’t have another woman he’s with, what’s this four in the short time you’ve had the unfortunate circumstance of being his ‘wife’. What did it matter you finally had some pleasure, with a man who cherishes you, who plays you so well.

You turn back to Nanami, eyes fluttering shut as he crooks his fingers up, and you’re so close you hold back, gasping, thighs tightening around his hand. “Mr. Nanami… somewhere private?”

“Of course, Darling. I got carried away.” He says softly, inhaling, pulling his hands out of you and helping you stand up. “It’s your home, Duchess. Where to?”

“My chambers, if you’re comfortable? Is it too… mad?” You ask softly, and he cups your face, bending down, his mask brushing right against yours as you both stand in the ballroom.

“Of course not, darling. You lead the way.” You take his hand, biting your lower lip nervously as you lead him through the corridors, up the winding staircases to where you must pass Satoru’s chambers to get to you own, hearing loud moans of a woman. You ignore whatever you feel, continuing to pull Nanami into your room, alone, shutting the door behind you.

You both stand there, breathless now, and your lips brush back against each other, the kiss is soft at first, tentative, then it deepens, growing more passionate and desperate with each passing second. His arms wrap around you, pulling you closer, and you can feel the thump of his heart against your chest, echoing the rhythm of yours, his hands roaming your body.

Nanami Kento pulls back, sucking in a breath, and taking off your mask carefully, licking his glossy lips and exhaling. “You’re so beautiful, darling. I feel I’m having another dream, in my Duchess chambers.”

“Oh, Kento…” You take his mask off gently, heart racing as you feel heat washing through you, along with the alcohol spreading heat in your body.

“What does my darling want? I’m at your command.” Nanami’s handsome face looks down at you, and you take a shaky breath, sliding your hands up his strong shoulders.

“Your darling would like to see you. Please.” He steps back, and you’re eagerly helping him undress, taking off his suit jacket, then his vest and shirt, until he’s bare chested, and he’s gorgeous. You feel your tummy tighten as you look at him, so built like a statue of a god, muscles thick and sinewy under golden skin. “Oh my, Kento you’re so beautiful.”

“Me, Duchess? You.” He huskily says, pulling you against him, bending low and kissing you, as you feel his hands unlacing your corset deftly. You soon are just in your skirts, which he gently takes off with great care, leaving you in pantalets and a chemise. “Darlin, look at you.”

“I see you, Kento, I see you.” He blinks a bit, gulping audibly, before pressing you against the door of your own room, you feel the cold wood press against your back as he slips down to his knees, and you gasp as he pulls your pantalets down.

“And I see you, darling. So wet, so ready. Do you want to cum on my mouth again?” He asks, and you whimper then, nodding eagerly, clinging your hands to bare, hot shoulders.

“I want to make love, Nanami.”

“Darling…”

“You’ll make me wait? Not at my command?” You feel his chuckle against your inner thigh.

“I’ll let you go further tonight, but not just yet. Let me enjoy my time?” You nod then, embarrassed you’re so eager, as you look at his handsome face and he’s pushing your chemise, silky up your thighs, and pulling a thigh over his shoulder. “Good girl.”

Good girl!?

You can’t take it, as soon as his tongue slides up your slit, you’re screaming out, moaning so loud it’s ridiculous, you’re so ready you can’t stand it. And Nanami is staring up at you, pulling back and grinning. “Darling, your husband is next door.”

“Shit.”

“You cuss like a man.” He kisses your clit, and you struggle not to scream out again, but you fail.

“He doesn’t care.”

“Mmm, let’s be a little quiet, wild girl.” You nod then, and he’s drinking you up now, your wetness pouring into his hot mouth, and your eyes roll back, toes curling in those glittery heels you still have on, rolling your hips for more. Nanami eagerly licks and sucks your little clit into his mouth, and you struggle not to scream, but fuck it feels so good.

Duke Gojo’s POV

Are you moaning in there!?

He hears you, wanton little whore that you are, he wants to be the one that makes you cum, fuck he’d make you cum so good you’d forget whatever he has done, you’d know nothing. You wouldn’t speak, if he had time with you, you wouldn’t even make those little moans, you’d be screaming.

Satoru is still pumping in and out of Lady Elaine, on her hands and knees in his bed, he’d been going at it for some time, but now he’s furious. How dare you be moaning with another man, what are you doing, and would he ever get a fucking chance to try?

How could he when he’s still inside a woman.

He’s no better than you, no he’s worse.

The tragedy of listening to you and picturing you just makes him fuck her harder, as her moans grow loud in the room, do you hear in your chambers he wonders, do you even care? Do you care about anything but surely dripping out cum down another man’s mouth, or worse?

Fuck he hates his thoughts, why are they always of you!?

Your POV

You hear Satoru’s moans as you’re pressed against the door, as Nanami is working on you, but you shove them out of your mind, what do you care, Satoru is no matter, not when you’re cumming so good. Not when you’re shattering over Nanami’s handsome face, knees so weak he has to catch you so you don’t fall as you scr4eam out your climax.

“Kento!” You cry out loudly, and Kento moans softly, pulling back, standing and kissing you deeply, and you flip him then, pressing him against the door.

“Darling?”

“My turn.” You unbuckle his leather belt, and he’s breathing heavy, thick muscled chest rising up and down as you work him, as you push down his trousers, your eyes locking on his.

“Darling…”

“I know you won’t make love to me yet, but will you let me pleasure you? Please?” You ask softly, and his cheeks are flushed and his eyes dark with lust, and he nods a bit, making you smile softly.

“Wanton girl, you’ll end me.” You giggle softly, as his pants fall away, revealing his cock, it’s huge and thick, with a reddened tip that’s leaking something white and pearly on the tip, and you bite your lip at the sight, your pussy clenching with anticipation.

“Kento… you’re so…”

“You don’t have to-”

“No, no. It’s so big.” You say, blushing yourself, stroking him hesitantly, watching him suck in a breath, clinging to you.

“Fuck, let’s have you sit, I don’t want your knees hurt?” You think of that then, of Satoru’s mistress sucking him on her knees, and it fills you with something you hate. You lead him to the bed, and sit on it, looking up at him now, hands clutching your red silk blankets.

"Show me what to do, please?"

Kento nods, his hand reaching out to guide your head. “Open your mouth, darling.” He orders softly, and you obey, earning a moan. “I’m dreaming. Okay darling, lick and suck what you can, if it’s too much, tap my thigh. Yes?”

You nod eagerly, tongue out and ready, and soon he’s guiding his tip in, and you’re taking his length in, feeling the heat and the velvet of his skin on your tongue. He groans, a sound that goes straight to your core, making you want to do more, making you want to make him feel as good as he’s made you feel.

“Fuck… darling don’t go too deep.” You pull back a bit, suction popping as you let go for a moment.

“You taste good, Kento.”

Nanami moans, bending down to kiss you for a moment, cupping your face, hands rough. “Darling you’re so perfect, fuck. We can stop here.”

“No, please. Please.” He nods then, opening your mouth with two fingers, shoving his thick cock back in you.

“Play with yourself, darling.” You look up, eyes wide, pulling back again.

“Um…”

“Oh fuck… rub it like I rub you?” You nervously slide up your chemise, finding your clit and whining out, so sensitive it twitches. “That’s it, that’s my girl.”

He shoves his cock back in, and you take more of him in, looking up at him, seeing the desire and pleasure on his handsome face, his cheeks hollowing as he’s stroking your hair now, his eyes on yours as he watches you suck him off. It’s oddly intimate, it feels so good to pleasure him you’re wet again.

Is this what that girl did to Satoru?

You hear him, Satoru is moaning again.

Your tummy clenches as you ignore it, as you focus on sucking Nanami, and your finger circling your clit, struggling to take more. “Breathe through your nose, darling.”

You follow his instruction, and your eyes water as you suck, but you keep going, because you want to please him, you want to feel him come apart in your mouth, like he’s done to you. You wrap your hand around the base of his cock, stroking as you suck, and he’s bucking into your mouth, his hips jerking, as he groans.

“Darling you’re so good at this, fuck. Fuck… darling, I’m close.”

You pull back, shaky. “Can I drink you, like you do me?”

“I’m dreaming, fuck maybe I’ve died.” You giggle then, a bit breathless, still rubbing your clit, as he pulls your hair, still clad with that tiara, heavy on your head, on your heart. “You can, but if you don’t enjoy it, please tell me.”

“I am sure I will.” He’s back in your mouth, and you’re rubbing faster, until you’re cumming from your own touch, and he’s groaning, fucking your mouth, but it’s different than you saw with Satoru, he’s gentle, he’s soft, he’s caring.

Satoru…

Fuck Satoru.

“I’m cumming, darling, ah- fuck…” Nanami groans then, pulling back a bit, then your mouth is filled with thick, salty liquid. You choke a bit at first, but suck it all down, feeling his tip quivering, and he’s groaning, his handsome face contorted in pleasure, stong hands shaking. “Darling… oh my god…”

“Was it good?” You ask after a moment, coughing a bit and swiping your lips, your answer is him on top of you, pressing you into the mattress, kissing you over and over, fingering you again, with two fingers. “Kento!”

“Good!? Good? No. Perfect.”

Perfect.

Hmm.

Why does this word hurt?

“Kento… Kento!” You’re whimpering and oversensitive, as he pumps his fingers, looking down into your eyes. “Please… inside me.”

“Not yet, but soon. I promise. I want you to be sure.” You sigh, shakily nodding, and he’s fingering you harder, scissoring in and out until you’re screaming out, as he’s kissing you, drinking your every cry, until you’ve soaked him. Soon he’s easing out, and his breaths are labored as he caresses your cheek. “Jesus, you’re too good for this Earth.”

“I’m not, I absolutely just sinned so many sins.” He laughs, his sexy little laugh, his handsome grin that fills you with warmth.

“Too angelic looking to be a real sinner.”

“Indeed, Sir!”

Soon you’re in your night shift, and Nanami is back dressed, and you’re seeing him out, kissing him over and over. “I’ll dream of you until we meet again.”

“As will I, Kento.” You say softly, and he is hugging you so tightly, as you walk out into the cold halls, and Kento bows to you, as he walks away, a distant shadowy figure. You take several breaths, tasting him still on your tongue, leaning your back against the hallway walls, struggling to come to.

You’re buzzed, you’d sucked a man, you’d wanted to go even further… what were you doing?

Was it the right thing?

You enjoyed it so much, but something gnaws at you, as the door to Satoru’s room opens, and he steps out, sweaty and shirtless. You stand there, still, as his eyes meet yours in the night. You both just stand there, staring at each other, and you expect him to call you a whore, to say his nasty fucking words. But he doesn’t, he walks to you, he presses you into that wall, leaning over you.

You just look up at him, eyes wide, and his blue eyes torturously analyze you, emotions making them glossy, as he then punches that wall next to you, chest shaking as he lets out a shaky breath. And you touch his bare chest, nails digging in, as you stare up at him, tears pricking your eyes, as you know what he’s done, and what you have done.

Both of you shouldn’t care.

What’s it matter?

Why can’t you breathe around him!?

“Did you have a good night, Duke?” You whisper, earning his broken laugh, as he leans down and cups your face, tears on his long white lashes.

“Did you, Duchess?” He asks, so soft it’s like it’s not his voice, and you just look away, unable to face those brilliant, insane blue eyes.

“Good night, Duke.” You say then, turning, and opening your door knob, for him to grab you by the waist, shoving you against him, and your head leans back, as you eagerly rock against him. You hate it, your reaction, as he’s sobbing against your ear, as you’re sobbing against the cold night air.

“Good night?” He whispers brokenly, and you just nod, shoulders shaking. “Good night… good night!?” He’s pulling your hair, as he’s pressing you so hard against him you can’t fucking breathe, you are so consumed by him, you’d bend over right here and have him fuck into you.

What’s wrong with you!?

You can never!

“Yes… um… is something…”

“Wrong? Everything’s fucking wrong. I can only imagine licking your perfect cunt as I’m fucking her. I can’t get you out of my goddamn head.” He curses, sliding your chemise up and you’re trembling, thighs shaking. “Please just let me taste you, please… just once. Please.”

At his begging, at his insane desire, you just nod then, spreading your thighs, this is insane, it’s insane… “Taste me, then.”

“Fuck.” He’s swirling his fingers along your clit, and you damn near cum from that, throbbing so hard it hurts, as Satoru Gojo’s fingers shove up into you, and all you can imagine is his cock, and you’re crying out, trembling, as he moans. “Fuck, fuck I hate you.”

“I h-hate you too. I do. Fuck!” You’re grinding your cunt on his hand, and he’s so hard against you back, as he’s pulling his fingers out then, and you bend over, gasping as you turn, watching him suck you off his fingers, closing his pretty eyes, white lashes fluttering.

“Goddammit. Goddammit.” He curses, shoving you against the wall now, and you look up at him in shock. “Fuck you, Duchess.”

“Fuck you! Fuck you, Satoru!” He pauses then.

“Satoru?”

“Duke. Duke Gojo. Fuck you.” You shove more and more, and he moans, resting his head on yours before he disappears into his room, and you’re left in shock, in confusion, in disgust.

What is this?

Who is he!?

Who are you.

Enjoy the shitshow, dear Masochistic readers.

Part 6 here

#gojo x reader #gojo smut #satoru x reader #jjk gojo #gojou satoru x reader #jjk smut #duke gojo #silent serenades #bridgerton au #royalty au #arranged marriage #gojo x reader smut #nanamin #nanami kento #satoru smut #satoru x female reader

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dolche-tejada · 10 months ago

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You know, I think this ending would have been slightly less of a fucking disappointment if the heroes hadn't been so unfairly favored by Horikoshi compared to the villains. I mean, seriously

Deku destroys every bone in his body multiple times throughout the story and is warned that if he continues, he'll permanently lose the use of his limbs ? Everything's fine, his body's just got used to being reduced to a bloody pulp somehow so there's no consequences for him. In fact even when he literally loses his arms to Shigaraki, he gets them back two minutes later thanks to Eri because guess what ? Her horn still works even when cut off from her body. How convenient.

Gran Torino gets his ribcage obliterated by Shigaraki ? Don't worry guys, he'll survive that despite his old age and injuries, and this to have no particular role in the plot afterwards.

Bakugo dies heroically trying to buy time before Deku arrives ? Lmao, did you really believe it ?? No of course not, Edgeshot just uses his last-minute Deus Ex Machina to save his life at the cost of his own and- Oops nope he's fine too, my bad !

Hawks murders a criminal fleeing for his life in cold-blood ? The best Hori has to offer is him completely free and in charge of the HSPC.

And no, losing his quirk isn't a real consequence for him because not only it literally played a major part in saving the world with Vestige!Hawks raising an insurrection among AFO's quirks, but also because his quirk has always been the element through which people exploited him.

Endeavor abused his family for years and completely destroyed his eldest son ? No jail time and no media backlash for that, the only blame he received was due to the heroes' failure to stop the League during the Raid Arc.

And don't even get me started on this bs about facing hell or whatever for what he's done : He's literally free and wealthy ; he has Rei, Fuyumi, Shoto, his sidekicks and Hawks on his side ; and all the difficulties he's apparently going to suffer are off-screened.

Deku had to sacrifice OFA and his future hero career to save the world ? Guess what, Bakugo invested all his time and money to make him an Iron-Man suit and now he can still be a hero with everyone else.

There are plenty more examples of this but I think you get the idea. Now let's take a look at the villains' ending :

Toya is now a piece of charcoal kept artificially alive for the few years he has left, unable to move a finger, and whose few minutes a day during which he can stay awake will be spent talking to his father who abused him as a child.

Toga, a literal teenager, killed herself to save Ochako and because she knew it's still better than rotting at Tartarus her whole life.

And not only did she die but she did by bleding to death. Let me repeat for those who have trouble grasping what I've just said : In a manga where the heroes can survive having their heart blown to bits, being impaled Kakyoin-style or smashed against buildings like a fly on a windshield, one of the main antagonists died of a fucking hemorrhage…

As for Shigaraki, after learning that his very birth and all the tragedies of his life have been orchestrated by AFO, after all this development and narrative promises about him being saved in the end... Deku just kills him.

Because despite all his speeches about saving him, it seems like the best our MC could do was beating him both physically and mentally until he crumbles to dust…

Compress on his side is apparently locked up for life and kept alive by machines too.

A begging Kurogiri tried in a desperate attempt to save Shigaraki, only to be unceremoniously blown up by Bakugo and dying off-screen without anyone giving a shit, including Aizawa and Mic.

And Spinner will now spend the rest of his life struggling with the extra quirks inside him that affect his body and mind, while having to cope with the thought that his boyfriend best friend and companions have either died alone or are locked away for life in horrifying circumstances.

Clearly not the same as with the heroes...

Now don't get me wrong, even if they suffered just as much from the consequences of their actions or the plot as the League, this ending would still be a disaster in terms of writing but AT LEAST it wouldn't reek that much of hypocrisy.

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lologoinsolo · 3 months ago

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Minds Us All Masterlist, Part 1, Part 2, Part 3 TW: Mentions of blood! Non-con sedation And kidnapping!

“Make her off…” Kyle murmurs under his breath. That annoying smell of something far too clean and sterile has kept him up. Everyone has been taking time to sit besides Johnny in the hospital bed. “Make her off,” he jolts a bit when the door opens. John’s not looking his best but he’s trying to keep himself strong. Johnny took a bullet and nearly died for him after all.

“What’s that?” John says, tiredness etched into his features as he takes his seat besides a sleeping Johnny. The doctors worked relentlessly to keep him alive, now he just needs to wake up from his coma. “Heard you muttering, do you need a break?”

Kyle merely scoffs, he and Simon’s been sitting here the most. He still can’t get how devastated Simon sounded when Johnny was laying in a pile— he shakes his head and breathes deeply. “You remember that girl,” he says offhandedly, “the one that acted weirdly around Johnny.”

John’s beard crinkles slightly, “yeah? Johnny mentioned it once. Gave a report and everything.” He leans a bit forward, “why?” The gears in his head starts to grind.

“She told him that sunshine can’t go down the tunnel.” John freezes and Kyle continues, “I don’t get it. She was clearly frightened and confused.”

“She said sunshine?”

“Yeah,” Kyle sighs, “said it like a prayer.”

“I called Johnny, sunshine, before we went in the tunnel.” At that Kyle sits up. “I told him that we wouldn’t go down easy”.

The man’s eyes widen. “Make her off, make her— Makarov!” He shouts and the nurse makes a shushing noise, Kyle doesn’t seem to care as he stands up. The realization crashed down on him. “She knew,” she had to. “John, she knew.” How else would she have known that Makarov would’ve been there before anyone else?

The tiredness ebbs from John’s face and the Captain shows up. “Get Laswell on the phone right now, Gaz.”

…

You watched the news repeatedly after you left the hospital. You couldn’t sleep, couldn’t eat, everything felt wrong. Those blue eyes haunt you every time you blink. Your left side of your head throbs and aches, an itch on the inside of your brain. You hate it. You hate him. You hate that you can’t help but wait for a sign. A sign that you’re not as crazy as the doctors have made you out to be.

A week passes and nothing, another and nothing. You give up hope till the news recounts a ‘gas leak’ in a tunnel. Causing multiple problems and a near casualty. You drop your remote when your vision shakes your world and you see the man with familiar blue eyes being rushed on a gurney. Voices shouting at you, voices you’ve never heard giving commands. Your hands claw at your hair and you feel bile coming up your throat from the intensity of the sight. He’s bloodied up and his left side of his head looks at though it’s been cracked open with the blood gushing out.

You scream and fall to your knees when you manage to pull out. Your stomach lurches and you struggle to stand. You grab your keys, your wallet, and anything useful and drive off. You don’t know where you’re going but you're running. You never stay long when the visions come true, you can’t risk yourself. You won’t.

So you move, move around quickly and find a job. You found a hole in the wall apartment, no one would come looking for you here… at least you hope. Weeks turn into months, months turn into a year and you feel like maybe your life is coming slowly back together. Your visions have been weak but consistent, the only one that’s ever shaken you was blue eyes but he’s probably okay now. Hopefully…

Getting off of work, a job at the gas station. Something easy to blend into and no one bats an eye when you don’t look okay. Everyday has been feeling weirder. You’ve been writing more, visions are starting to stay longer. They’re getting worse again, the left side of your head throbs more every day. You’re tempted to run again but you don’t have the funds to do that. Taking a deep breath you push the apartment's creaky gate open, trudging along up the stairs to your place. You pull your keys out and as you do a warning flashes through you.

A man with a beard is sitting at your table, holding a gun, waiting. Waiting. He’s— you don’t open your door and you take off down the stairs. Your panic is rising with every stomp of your foot. You are near the gate and a flash of a hand goes through your mind's eye but not quick enough when you’re grabbed roughly. Can’t even scream when a hand clamps right over your mouth.

“Shut it,” a voice as deep as the ocean growls out. Your arms are forced behind your back as you cry and flail. You try to move them back but your assailant cuffs you quickly before slamming a hand back over your mouth before you can even call for help. Something cold is then pushed against the center of your back and it doesn’t take your curse to see that it’s a gun. “Walk. Now,” you hear a click and you tremble a step. Your arms are painfully tight against your back as he shoves you forward.

You walk up the steps and tears run down your face when he doesn’t even turn the knob, the door just opens for him. Meaning it was already unlocked. He shoves you once more to your kitchen table, the man with the beard that your curse showed earlier is sitting there. Waiting with a gun on the table. “Sit,” beard says, the one behind you gives a sharp nudge from his own gun and you sit.

“Pl-Please, I— I don’t have,” beard raises his hand and you try desperately to not whimper. “Please,” you beg, hoping he doesn’t kill you. You don’t know what they want or who they are.

“We need to talk.” Is all he says, he leans forward. The chair groaning under his weight and you blink back your wet eyes to see that he’s wearing a fishing hat. “You’re not hard to find, you know? Never stay in a place for long though.” His eyes squint and your struggle to breath when says without saying that you’re being tracked and watched. “Why are you running?” He doesn’t ask, he expects an answer from you. That gun on the table won’t allow you to deny him that.

“I…” you swallow, you can’t seem to stop your tears or the snot. You rub your face as best as you can against your shoulder. “Am I in t-trouble?” It’s not the answer he wants and his hand moves to his gun. “Please!” You shout suddenly, “I don’t know what I did wrong! Tell me, please— I don’t have any money. I’m sorry, please.”

He says nothing as you plead and beg, the one behind you doesn’t even make a gesture. You didn’t even recognize that he was wearing a mask, a skull one at that. A grim reaper that’s come to reap.

“Don’t kill me,” you blubber, you’re trembling so much that you’re surprised you haven’t vibrated off the chair. “Just— just tell me what I did wrong.”

He stands and you flinch, his hand trails as he walks around you. Shrinking under his hard gaze even more, “how did a girl like you work for Makarov, hm?” He chuckles mirthlessly, “could spill your bits out easily,” the one behind you grunts in agreement.

“I don’t,” you shake your head repeatedly side to side, “Makarov? Who? I don’t—“ beard grabs your chin and squeezes tightly making you whimper.

“Don’t play dumb with me.” He sneers, “one of my best nearly died but you told him to not go into that tunnel.” His thumb shifts harder against the fat of your cheeks. “Why?” That’s what confuses him in the entirety of tracking you down. If you did work for Makarov, why did you tell Johnny about it?

“Tunnel?” You murmur, tears rolling down your face and he does you the single kindness of flicking them away. It dawns on you now. “I-I,” you start hyperventilating, your anxiety through the roof as you try to breathe. The visions come flooding back and you scream.

…

10 minutes prior.

Gaz searches through your computer. Searching for something that could prove that you work with Makarov. It’s the only thing that makes possible sense, you’re practically normal. Your records scream ‘normal’, Laswell couldn’t find anything save for the fact that you’re an only child that went through numerous foster homes.

“Son of a bitch,” he slams his fist against your desk. Your search history is useless save for everything else. Sourdough starter, flower pots, seeds, gas, kitchenware, gas, star lights, dresser, gas. He sighs after looking at all of it, he hears a woman crying and he knows that Price is already interrogating you. He’d feel bad but they all need answers, “what are you hiding?” He mumbles when he sees gas, floor, and dresser typed in repeatedly. Almost like it’s important but why would you type it so many times. “Maybe she wanted new flooring?”

He leans back, taking a breath and he rolls his neck. “Gas…” his eyes move towards your dresser, “gas,” it starts to click, “Gaz, floor, dresser.” He pushes off and runs to your dresser. He opens it and digs through your clothing for something, anything. He lets out a gritted curse when there’s nothing.

He runs his hand down the sides, “floor,” a light bulb flickers to life in his head and he gets on his knees. His hands tap on the floorboards and he hears a hollow sound. “Gotcha,” he pulls the floorboards back and he sees numerous journals. Some old and some new, he grabs the newest one and he flips it open. Flicking through the pages and most of the dated entries makes no sense. Some are singular words to full on spirals of paragraphs. The latest one that’s dated today brings him to a stop.

Gun, man with gun, home, no safe. Run, run, mask, grab, gas will read, gas is read. Read. Read. figuring out, knowing. He knows. Knows. Knows. Scream.

Just as he reads that last word he hears a scream and he comes running downstairs with his gun in hand. He sees you screaming as Ghost shoves a needle into your throat. You flail and flounder, tears staining your cheeks and you manage to get off the chair. Ghost stands over you as you try to crawl away but there’s no way to escape. You hold out for as long as you can but eventually you give in. The sedative works quick and Ghost gives a nudge to your soft side but you make no movement. “Out like a light,” he hears the big man say. He crouches down and turns you on your back.

“Sir,” Gaz says, holstering his gun, “you need to see this.” Price glares down at you but he follows after Gaz upstairs to your room. “She—“ he doesn’t even know where to begin, “she knew we’d come.” He pushes your room door to open more. The journals he rummaged through is sprawled out on the floor.

“Makarov?” There’s a tight look on his Captain's face when Gaz shakes his head, “then how, Garrick?” Ghost is probably taking you to their van right now. Everything’s off record and he’s sure someone is bound to call the police with how you screamed. Just what he needed, he sways to move his weight to one side as Gaz looks bewildered, confused, and shaken up.

“Here,” he passes off your journal with the entry written before the one Gaz had read. It’s dated yesterday.

Man. 1, no, 2. Gun, man with gun, home, no safe. Run, run, mask, grabs. Grabbing you. Men, 3. 3 men, 3 total. Blue eyes. Blue. Same Blue. Hurt? Are hurt you? Will hurt they you? Scared. No. Stop, stop. Needle! Taken. Dark, van dark.

#lolowrites #simon ghost riley #ghost x reader #john mactavish x you #john soap mactavish x reader #john price x reader #gaz x reader #simon riley x reader #kyle garrick x reader #cod mw2 #heart in a headlock #I don’t know what this is #I think I’m just gonna let it take me where it wants to go

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imtryingbuck · 5 months ago

Text

My Saviour

~ gif not mine credit to owner ~

Pairing: Bucky Barnes x fem!Reader

Summary: Buckys just received some news from the love of his life.

Word count: 6,269

Warnings: angst. fluff. suicidal thoughts. Bucky’s past mentioned. insecurities. scars mentioned. Bucky being madly in love. reader being an angel. past cheating and domestic abuse. pregnancy (it’s me im sorry) me not knowing anything about courts/sentencing.

Translation: ты мой сп��ситель - you’re my saviour (if wrong take it up with google translation)

Masterlist

Bucky wished Steve was still around so he could talk to him about things. He wish that his best friend was still there to see the progress he was slowly making. Wished to know if his best friend was proud of him.

But most importantly he wished Steve chose to stay with him and Sam so he could have met the person who brought him back to life, who brought his long existence actual meaning other than jumping from fight to fight. He knew Steve would have loved her and probably would have thanked her for everything.

But sadly Steve went to live a different life without him so he had to deal with Sam all alone.

For a year after Steve left Bucky struggled to go out, he struggled to find his path in a world that he wasn’t suppose to be apart of. He should have died that day when he fell from the train.

His therapist tried to get him to go out into the world and meet people, Bucky would say ‘next time’ until Dr Raynor eventually gave up on trying.

For a whole year Bucky moved with the motion, just existing, alive and breathing but just barely holding on to that invisible thread.

That was until six years ago. Six years ago everything changed.

** six years ago **

“Buck please-“

“Don’t call me that! How many times do I have to tell you”

“Oh I’m sorry Sir Bucky! But like I said please just come with me? It would do you some good to get out of your apartment, wait Bucky are you even listening to me?”

“Yeah, yeah I’m listening. I do get out-“

“To see your therapist and that’s it”

“I’m still going out aren’t I?” Bucky responds snappily, rolling his eyes as Sam groans through the speaker.

“Please Bucky, it’s just coffee!”

“God sake, okay. I’ll be there. Bye” He really didn’t want to go out and get a coffee with Sam but he ended agreeing knowing that he would not have stopped, probably even going as far as coming to his apartment just to drag him out of there. Since Steve left, poor Bucky had been left all alone on with Sam, okay it wasn’t as bad as he made it out to be but still he had been left with a man that annoyed him more than anything.

Groaning inwardly he slides his phone into his jeans front pocket before shoving his gloved hands into the pockets of his leather jacket, as he walked down the street he kept his head down so he didn’t make eye contact with anyone walking by. It was safer that way. For him and those around him.

“James Barnes” he spoke roughly to the receptionist who made a habit of always pushing her chest out so he could get an eye full of her cleavage.

“Take a seat” she responds batting her eyelashes with her chest pushed out. He thought after the tenth time of him rolling his eyes at her not so subtle attempt at flirting she would get the hint.

He was not interested.

“S-sorry is this seat taken?” A soft timid voice from a woman pulled Bucky out of his staring competition he was having with the fake plant by the water dispenser.

“Huh?”

“Is-is anyone sitting here?”

“No. No you can sit”

“T-thank you” Bucky smiled and nodded softly instantly curious as to why she was also seeing a therapist. Bucky found himself getting lost in the smell of her perfume, the sweet smell creeping up his nostrils and into his senses. His eyes focused on the slow motion of her leg closest to his bouncing in time with the ticking of the clock.

“S-sir?”

“Huh? Yeah?”

“A-are you um are you J-James Barnes?”

Great just great. She knows who he is and from the way she stutters his name she clearly knows what he’s done and is scared of him. “Yes that’s me” he finally answers.

“Y-your names b-been called sir” she points over to where the receptionist is and sees her waiting for him to follow her down the hallway to Dr Raynors office.

Oh. Oh okay he got it wrong. “Oh, thank you”

“Y-your welcome sir”

Bucky offers her a small smile that she responds with the same and follows Lila down the corridor. He has no idea that the small smile he gave her meant a great deal to her. Nor does he know that she talks about him to her therapist that was two doors down from his.

Neither one realises that one small smile would make such a massive impact on their lives.

Over the course of four months, twice a week Bucky would see the woman whose name he had yet to know, every time they sat patiently in the waiting room they would find themselves sitting next to each other. Always quietly asking if the seat next to them was taken. Even if there were other available seats.

Dr Raynor had quite enjoyed hearing about the woman who seemed to have taken residence in Bucky’s mind. And Dr Harlow was proud of hearing that her patient was seeing someone new. She laughed when her patient blushed and began stumbling over her words that she was not seeing this man in that sense.

Bucky walked in to the waiting room expecting to find the woman whose presence he had become content being around only to frown at seeing the two seats that became unofficially theirs empty. The whole time he waited for her but she never showed. His name was called, as he followed Lila he kept turning his head back to the double doors in hopes that he would catch a glimpse of her. Walking into the room he frowned at seeing Dr Raynor and another woman sitting down. This was new.

“James, this is Dr Harlow.”

“Hi?”

“Hello James”

“What’s wrong? I didn’t do-“

“No, no James it’s… well you know the woman you’ve been telling me about?” Raynor cuts him off and waits for him to nod “well Dr Harlow is her therapist, Y/n was rushed in to the hospital early hours this morning-“

“Y/n? That’s her name? Wait… what happened to her? Is she okay? Where is-“

“James, she’s okay. We can’t disclose anything about what happened but-well you see Y/n has been talking about you in her sessions, nothing bad don’t worry, and you’ve been talking about her so we agreed that we should let you know”

Bucky sat there staring at his doctor as his mind raced with questions. She was in the hospital? Her name suited her perfectly. Why was she in the hospital? Who hurt her? She talked about him? ‘Nothing bad’ the good doctor stressed. Is she okay? “James?”

“Yeah erm, are you sure she’s okay?”

“Yes. We, well we talked to each other” Raynor points at between herself and Dr Harlow “and we think it would be a great opportunity for you to talk to her, maybe offer her some support-“

“Why me? Aren’t you two the therapists?”

“Yes we are but James I don’t think you realise how much those smiles and a few quiet words mean to Y/n. Nor she with you, now in my opinion I think it would be nice if the pair of you had someone to lean on when you don’t have a session.”

Thinking it over for a few minutes he nodded and agreed. Dr Harlow said Y/n had mentioned that she felt safe with him which made his heart race faster than usual at hearing that a complete stranger felt safe around him when he was so use to it being different. No one felt safe around him, hell he didn’t even feel safe with himself but yet she did. Not even ten seconds after the door closed behind Dr Harlow did Bucky start questioning his doctor about what had happened or where she was so he could go and see her, he just wanted to make sure she was fine but Raynor held strong and didn’t back down from the harsh glare he was sending towards her. She never did though to be honest.

Ten minutes later Dr Raynor thought it was best to cut their session short, though promised him that she would make out that they did the full hour.

Two weeks. Two whole weeks it had been since he was told that she was in the hospital and he hadn’t seen her. That day he thought it wouldn’t be any different to the other days where he expected to see her, until he turned his back on Lila who thankfully now took the hint that he wasn’t interested in her. His eyes squinted at seeing someone sitting in their seats.

“Is this seat taken?” He asked quietly, hoping that the woman in front of him would raise her head and smile as she said ‘no you can sit’. And when she did. Well… let’s just say that what he wanted to do to whoever had caused such pain and suffering to his Y/n he wouldn’t have pinned it on the Winter Soldier. No because Bucky Barnes would have happily admitted to shedding blood that wasn’t his own. Happily and proudly.

“N-no you can sit” she responds with that smile he sees when he closes his eyes at night.

“Doll-“ Lila cuts him off by calling his name signalling that it was his time, he nods at her then faces Y/n. “After your session I’m going to be waiting right here okay, and I want to take you for a coffee.”

“O-okay” Y/n says with a shy smile. Bucky smiles back before going up to Lila, eyebrows burrowing when she doesn’t lead him down the corridor. And that’s when it finally hits him. He had never seen her doing that to any of the other patients.

He tells Dr Raynor that Y/n was back, told her the bruises that littered her beautiful face, told her what he had said to her and her response. “Go easy on her James, don’t try and rush her into telling you all of her secrets okay” but in the same breath suggests a nice place for him to take her.

Forty five minutes after his appointment had ended he was now sat a cross the table from Y/n with a black coffee in front of him and a hot chocolate in front of her.

“You know what I’m going to ask you don’t you?” He says with a gentle smile, she nods. “Are you okay?”

“I-I’m fi-fine now sir”

“Bucky, call me Bucky. How long was you in the hospital for?”

“A few d-days, Dr Harlow told me that she told you what happened”

“Not exactly they just said that you was in the hospital, wanted me to know since you talk about me all the time” winking at her when she blushed.

“I-I d-don’t”

“All the time they said, said that your obsessed with me”

“Well y-you talk a-about me too!”

“Me? Never!” Bucky was ninety nine point nine percent sure that he had died right there and then and went to heaven when she laughed. He was sure of it. Her laugh could only described as angelic. God he wanted to hear it again and again until he dying breath.

“I-it was my ex” she whispered. She wasn’t stupid she knew what he wanted to ask.

“Where is he now?”

“Jail still, h-have to go court in-in two weeks. My lawyer said h-he’ll be going to prison for a long time, he broke the protection order an-and well this” she said gesturing to her face.

“You had a protection order against him?”

“Yes, throughout our relationship he was abusive the o-only way I managed to get out was because he had been cheating on me with a friend of mine, he left me a-and I was so happy because it meant that I didn’t have to suffer no more but the friend didn’t want him anymore because the fun of sneaking around had gone”. Taking a deep breath before sipping on her hot chocolate she continued. “He broke into my apartment and attacked me because I said no to taking him back, police was called by my neighbour and I got the restraining order against him because I could do that then, he went to prison and h-he got out three weeks ago, he broke into my apartment again and did this b-but the police arrived quickly as I already rang them”

“Doll… I’m so sorry”

“It’s okay. I’m okay now”

“It’s not okay Y/n”

“It is what it is, he’ll be going to prison for a long time and I’ll be able to live my life again.” She smiled.

“W-when is it that you have to go to court?”

“In two weeks, why?”

“Can I come with you? To offer my support” With her lack of response he knew he overstepped. Of course she isn’t going to want the former Winter Soldier to come with her to face another monster in her life. He’s about to apologise until she smiles once more and nods.

“I would really like that. Thank you Bucky” Bucky smiled and nodded.

Their second cup of hot drinks had slowly grown cold as the conversation flowed effortlessly between the pair. Bucky loved the way she no longer stuttered or stumbled over her words the longer they spoke. She was about to say something when a bang from the window startled the pair of them.

“Great.” He muttered.

“D-do you know him?”

“Who the crazy guy with his face squashed up against the window? Unfortunately” Y/n giggled at his words then looked at the man who did in fact have his face squashed up against the window, his eyes moving back and forth between herself and Bucky. Waving shyly at the man who waved excitedly back Bucky rolled his eyes. “You do realise you’ve just basically invited him in, don’t you? Oh see now he’s entering.”

“Stop being mean”

“Didn’t expect to see you here Barnes. Hi I’m Sam, Bucky’s best friend in the whole world”

“Hi Sam, I’m Y/n” she shakes his hand and smiles at Bucky who sits there rolling his eyes for the umpteenth time.

“Scoot over then Bucky. So how did you two meet?”

Bucky looked at Y/n to see if she was comfortable with letting him know, she just smiled. “We met in therapy”

“Oh, are you a therapist?”

“No, no I’m a patient”

“Does it help?”

“Sam!”

“What? I’m just asking”

Giggling at the two men “it’s fine Bucky, it has been helping. My therapist is really nice and understanding”

“That’s great. So did you two meet from group therapy or?”

“No we actually sat next to each other in the waiting room”

“Aw that’s so cute!” Sam winks at her whilst Bucky grumbled under his breath.

Sam ends up convincing Bucky and Y/n in getting something to eat not that he puts up to much of a fight as both of them were hungry themselves. Once again conversation flows effortlessly, even Bucky joined in with the laughter.

After food was eaten and an argument between the three about who was going to pay - Y/n winning when the two men were still arguing over the bill - they walked her all the way to her apartment. Bucky’s heart clenched painfully seeing her front door with dried blood on it. Sam noticed too and smiled sadly at his friend.

Two whole weeks passed, in those two weeks Sam kept “bumping” into the pair, the three of them would walk around talking about their lives, both of the men noticing that she was very vague about her life but neither one pushed her into saying more.

Today was the day where Y/n was going to court, as she stood outside she checked her watch worrying that Bucky wasn’t going to show up, not like he needed to he didn’t owe her anything anyway. She turned around to head up the many steps when her names called, turning she sees Bucky running over towards her. Sam following closely behind.

“Hey, hi, sorry we’re late I tried to shake this one off but he’s persist-“

“No it’s okay, I-I really appreciate the pair of you coming today. It means so much”

“You’re welcome sunshine, you’ve got our support” Sam smiles wrapping his arms around her squeezing slightly.

“Y/n? We need to go in” her lawyer says from the large brown double doors.

Sam nods to the pair and heads up the steps, Bucky smiled “me and Sam are here for you, it’s going to be okay”

“I’m scared about seeing him again b-but I-I can do it” Bucky’s hand reached out to hers that shook.

“I’ve got you, I promise”

“T-th-thank you Bucky”

Hand in hand they head up to where Sam was waiting patiently and followed the lawyers lead into the courtroom. Bucky’s knee wouldn’t stop bouncing from anger as Y/n bravely stood in the witness stand and gave her statement, hearing all the things that the bastard did to her made him want to attack him. Sam knew what was going through his friends head, honestly? He wasn’t going to be far behind him.

Three hours later her ex received a ten year sentence. Bucky watched as her body relaxes by hearing the judges words. He and Sam smiles at her when she turns around, her eyes moving along the rows to find where they sat, smiling as soon as she lands on them.

After leaving the courthouse Bucky took her hand in his again and the three of them went to the restaurant that Sam had suggested, in a way to celebrate Y/n’s new found freedom. Neither one of the men mentioned about what they heard or the photos they saw in the courtroom, other than telling her that they were proud of her bravery.

Six months had passed before any of them had realised, both of the therapists were proud of seeing completely different people sitting in front of them in their sessions. Bucky opened up more and so did Y/n, not only to their therapists but to each other.

The knock on the door pulled Bucky away from his bickering with Sam as his friend argued that pineapple on pizza was nice. “I’ll ask Y/n and see what she says! Hey doll”

“Hey, sorry I’m late”

“You’re not, don’t worry. Hey does pineapple belong on pizza?” He asked taking her coat and hanging it up on the hook.

“I’ve tried it and I like it” she waves to Sam.

“See! Sam I told you it was nice”

“But you said-“

“Shut up. Sam said that it was wrong but I said it was nice”

“No yo-“

“So how was your day?” Sam looked at Y/n mouthing ‘he’s lying’ making her giggle, she goes on to tell them all about her day which had Bucky hanging on to every word she spoke.

Halfway through the film Sam had picked Y/n went to the bathroom, Bucky eyed Sam curiously as the latter was sitting there grinning at him. “What?”

“Whens the wedding?”

“What wedding?”

“Yours and Y/ns”

“We’re not getting married? Why are you smiling like that?”

“If you say so, hey when are you going to tell her you love her?”

Choking on his beer Bucky shook his head “I don’t love her Sam”

“Okay, how about you telling her that you’re in love with her?”

“Sam shut up.”

“Nope. So when are you going to tell her?”

“I’m not going too alright. It’s just-it doesn’t matter alright just drop it”

“Drop what?” Y/n asked walking back into the living room.

“Pineapple being on pizza” Bucky says quickly his eyes going wide looking at Sam.

Laughing she shakes her head sitting back down next to Bucky “we’re not having this argument anymore boys”

“Try telling him that Y/n/n” now it’s Bucky’s turn to have a grin on his lips as Sam’s eyes squint at the pair.

“Sunshine has Bucky told you yet?”

“Told me what?”

“That he loves y-“

“Yogurts.”

“You… love yogurts?” She asked him with her eyebrow raised, Sam struggles to contain his laughter seeing Bucky become a stuttering mess.

“Yes… I love yogurts, problem?”

“Nope no problem here” If Y/n wasn’t snuggling into his left side Bucky would have throttled Sam.

The knock on her door startled her from the tv screen in front of her - it didn’t help that she was watching a horror and that a jump scare was about to happen when the knock came.

“Bucky? Hey, are you okay?”

“I-I was just in the neigh-neighbourhood a-and I thought that I’d st-stop by”

“Yeah come in, James is everything alright?”

“Yeah, w-why?”

“It’s just that you’re stuttering… and I’m just worried that’s all”

“S-someone said something about me, it-it wasn’t good” he admitted twisting the bottle cap from the water bottle she had gave him.

“What did they say?”

“It doesn’t matter, I-I just wanted to see you-you know because I was in the neighbourhood”

The truth was he wasn’t, he had finally listened to Dr Raynors advice and go out. His plan was to go down the corner store to get some essentials in. Get in, get out that was easy and simple. He could do it. Until he heard two men who were talking clearly and loudly about him their conversation attracting the attention of others passing by them. And that’s when he realised his second mistake that day, the first mistake being to agree to go out, the second being that he forgot his gloves. The comments were harsh and unkind.

His first response was to put his head down shoving his hands into his pockets and walk all the way to Y/n’s apartment. Even if it was a forty minute walk.

Bucky needed to see her, he didn’t care if they sat in silence just as long as he was with her, he didn’t care if she forced him to watch that terrible tv show.

“Come on let’s watch something and have cuddles”

He was safe with her. Calmer. Happier. More comfortable and relaxed.

“Have you asked her?”

“No Samuel I haven’t”

“Why?”

“Because I haven’t seen her today”

“Why?”

“Because she had her session with Dr Harlow”

“Why?”

“Sam, I’m going to punch you in the face”

“Wh-“

Bucky rolled his eyes and put the phone call down. He couldn’t bear to hear why one more time. He was too busy going over what he was going to ask Y/n, so many things could go wrong she could say no, it would be weird as they’ve only known each other for a year now. She’s going to say no. Of course she is. He can’t ask, he just ca-

“Buck? Open up my arms hurt”

Buck. Buck, the name Sam was not happy about hearing slipping out of her mouth. He had tried years to call him that but always got shot down. It wasn’t fair.

“Buck? Shit are you not in?”

“No! No I’m in doll, hi, hello, hi”

“Hi, hello, hi to you too” Bucky laughs taking the bags off her arms carefully, then takes them into the kitchen. A month ago Y/n moved in to his apartment with him after the landlord put up the rent making her struggle to keep paying the higher rent, Bucky caught her looking for a new place to live when he suggested her living with him, she first denied but Bucky swore and promised that he was more than happy to let her stay with him, she ended up agreeing, Bucky could have cried with happiness all night but managed to contain himself.

“Did you get everything?”

“Nope, forgot absolutely everything you asked for” sticking her tongue out at him, he laughed.

God he loves her weirdness.

“So I- god sake Sam, hold on pretty girl. What now Sam? No I haven’t. Because she’s just walked in. You’re so needy do you know that? Okay I’ll ask now. Yes I’ll do it whilst you’re on the phone. Y/n, do you want to come to Louisiana with Sam and I?”

“Really?”

“Yeah, we’re going for a week to see his sister and nephews and we want you to come too”

“Will his sister mind me being there?”

“No. So?”

“Are you guys really sure?”

“Absolutely”

“O-okay, that would be nice”

His smile doesn’t just take up his face but Sam’s as well “good, good. Did you hear Sam? Okay see you later” chucking his phone on to the counter he turns back to Y/n. “We leave tomorrow”

“Tomorrow? Oh god okay, I’ll go and pack now”

Two days later they arrive in Louisiana after both men took it in turns to drive, it was long and tiring for them but Y/n loved it. She had never been out of New York before so she was taking in the sights. When Bucky wasn’t driving he would watch her from his seat, seeing her face lit up made his heart tingle.

“Are you sure she won’t mind me being here?”

“I promise, she’s excited to meet you” Sam reassures her as he pulls up the gravelled driveway.

Greeting his sister and nephews, Bucky doing the same Sarah turned her attention to Y/n instantly engulfing her in a warm embrace. “It’s so nice to finally meet you”

“You too” she smiled softly.

Later that night after putting their things away they all sat outside watching as the sun started to set, Sam was manning the grill and Bucky were chasing the two boys around making them squeal with laughter and excitement. Sarah and Y/n were talking when Sarah asked the woman sitting in front of her something that made her choke and splutter on her drink.

“W-we aren’t to-together”

“Are you sure? The way he looks at you makes me think differently”

“No, no we’re just friends. Plus he wouldn’t like me so”

“Do you like him?”

“I-yes. But I would rather have him as my friend than not have him in my life”

“Tell him how you feel”

“No I can’t do that!”

“You can”

“No I can’t”

“Can’t what?” Bucky’s voice comes from behind her. Sarah has to stifle her laughter as Y/ns eyes went as wide as saucers.

“I-erm nothing.”

“Okay? Hey there’s a crab down on the beach that the boys have found, want to come and see it?”

“O-okay” Bucky smiles and holds out his hand for her to take, helping her stand he keeps his hand in hers as they walk towards the two boys.

“Is she in love with him?”

“I think so, hopefully they’ll admit their feelings because they’re so cute together” Sarah says with her eyes trained on the two fading figures, Sam smirks before flipping the burgers.

Later that night Y/n got startled when she went into the bathroom seeing Bucky standing motionless in front of the mirror. “Shit! Bucky you scared- hey are you okay?”

“I-I’m fi-I’m not okay Y/n/n” Y/n moved so quickly wrapping her arms around him, both falling on the ground.

“It’s okay, it’s okay” the sobs wracked through his body making her body shake. She kept repeating those words like a mantra.

“M-my hair”

“Your hair? What about it?”

“I-I want it gone, please, please help me g-get rid of it”

Her heart broke at hearing him sounding so small, in the whole year of knowing him he had always sounded so strong, and confident. Also she loved his hair and they both knew it, on nights where they cuddled up together on the couch watching movies her fingers would always end up playing with the soft strands of hair.

“A-are you sure?” feeling him nodding against her chest “okay, let me find some scissors and a clipper and I’ll do it for you okay?” Trying to stand was difficult especially since having a super soldier clinging to her. “Buck, I need to stand”

Finding the scissors was easy, it was just finding the clippers she had a difficult time coming up on. Cheering silently in triumph when she discovered them in the fourth draw. “Should we go outside so we don’t wake everyone up?”

“O-okay. Leave the light on Cass is scared of the dark, Sarah leaves the bathroom light on for him” Bucky whispered wrapping both of his hands around her free one.

Outside with only the porch light illuminating them, Y/n started cutting his hair the shorter it got the more Bucky started to relax. When it came to trimming his hair Bucky’s left arm reached around to tug on her waist, bringing her around to stand in between his legs, he smiled shyly up at her. Without thinking she leaned down as she placed her lips to his forehead. His arms snaked around the back of her legs squeezing lightly.

“I-it’s done, maybe Sam can fix it up later if it’s bad?”

“I bet y-you did a good job”

“Would you be mad if I said you had a massive bald spot right on the top of your head?”

He laughed and shook his head “no I won’t be mad”

“It’s a good job that there isn’t one isn’t there?”

“Y/n, thank you, i-it means a lot to me. Thank you”

“You don’t need to thank me. D-do you want to talk about what happened?”

“It was a nightmare. Just about my past” leading her over to the hammock on that swayed ever so lightly from the night breeze. “T-they did bad things to me, made me do worse”

“I’m here if you want to talk about it” she says squeezing his hand.

“They made me kill people, even when I completed the mission to their satisfaction they would still punish me and I never knew why. The chair was the worst, I-I did what I was told to do and I was still punished.”

Looking at the water he breathed deeply, he was about to tell her something to no one else knew, not even his therapist. “I-I’ve wanted to end my life since coming back from Wakanda b-b-but not since I met you I swear!”

“Oh Buck”

“It was easier to end it you know? But I couldn’t do it, I needed to try and make up for all the damage I caused.”

“Bucky it was-“

“It was though, wasn’t it? It was me the whole time”

“It wasn’t. Bucky you wasn’t in control of your own mind, your a good man, an incredible man - don’t scoff at me mister - you are, if you don’t believe me think about Sarah, even though I don’t know her all that well she seems to have a good sense of judgement, do you really think that she would let you be around her babies if she thought you was a bad person?”

Thinking her words over he had to agree with her words about Sarah even Sam wouldn’t let him anywhere near his sister and his nephews. Hell Tony wouldn’t have allowed him near his wife or daughter if they believed he was the monster that he still believed he was. “Y-you’re right”

Now it was her turn to think over the words from Sarah earlier that night. It was most likely going to blow up in her face and she was going to lose him as a friend forever but maybe just maybe Sarah could be right. “I wouldn’t have fallen in love with you if you were a bad person Buck”

The silence that followed was killing her. She should have just kept her mouth shut.

He however couldn’t believe his ears. Surely she was playing a trick on him. There was no way this perfect angel as he always described her would ever feel the same way as him. Surely.

“I’m sorry Bucky, I-I’ll go n-“

He cuts her off by pressing his lips against hers. The kiss was soft, timid at first before they both gained their confidence their tongues dancing a slow dance together. Pulling away reluctantly Bucky leans his forehead against hers, both smiling widely at each other.

“I’m in love with you too” he whispered.

Nothing else was said. Nothing else was needed to be said.

Sam walks on to the porch with his hot cup of coffee that morning, his feet faltering when he sees Bucky and Y/n curled up together on the hammock fast asleep. Pulling his phone out he took a photo of the pair before running back into the house showing Sarah the photo.

As soon as they were back in New York Bucky asked Y/n out on a date, then another and another until he asked her to be his girlfriend. And soon enough she had moved into his room with him.

The first time she saw him topless was when he came out of the bathroom wearing grey joggers, he thought she was still in the living room. He heard the quiet gasp, he looked up to see her standing there and his stomach dropped.

“Y/n-“

“Your body… did the gods sculpt you? I-is that, two, four, six yep that’s an eight pack, how do you get an eight pack?”

Hearing her words he blushed with a little chuckle. “T-the scars-“

“Beautiful”

“Don’t lie to me”

“I would never lie to you Buck, everything about you is beautiful”

That night they made love for the first time, each of them taking their time in admiring the scars that littered their bodies. The second she pressed her lips delicately against the rough, raised patch where skin meets metal he honestly thought his heart was going to stop beating.

“ты мой спаситель, did you know that?” he whispered one night placing kisses on her bare shoulder.

“What does that mean?”

“ты мой спаситель?”

“Yeah”

“It means… your smelly”

“No it doesn’t” she laughs.

“No your right, it means you’re my saviour”

“Buck-“

“You are Y/n/n, you’ve saved me you’ve made me happier than I’ve ever been before a-and I know I wouldn’t still be here if it wasn’t for you”

“I’ll be with you until you want me to leave”

“So never” he laughed, pulling her body even closer to his. “I love you Y/n/n”

“I love you too Buck”

Bucky wished Steve was still around so he could talk to him about things. He wish that his best friend was still there so he could tell the blond about how nervous he was. He imagined Steve’s reaction as he fixed his tie for the ninth time within five minutes.

A year had passed, on their year anniversary Bucky got down on one knee and proposed, three months later he was standing in the spare bedroom of Sarah’s house in his suit as Sarah helped Y/n with her dress.

He really wished Steve was there to see him marrying his love.

A month before marrying both Sam and Bucky retired, both men tired of the bloodshed and nightmares. Sam told Bucky that he was going to move down to Louisiana, he even brought up a business proposal, Bucky had to admit it did sound tempting he promised Sam that he would run it by Y/n.

“Sam’s moving closer to Sarah, you know now that we’ve retired.”

“Oh, right”

“He erm he brought up a proposal to go into business together-“

“Did you say yes? Please tell me you said yes!”

“Why? Do you want to move to Louisiana?”

“Yes! I mean I knew Sam was going to move back there so I may or may not have been looking at houses down there…”

Sam cheered loudly down the phone when Bucky rang him to tell him that they were coming too.

“You ready Bucky?” Sam asked popping his head around the door.

“Yeah, yeah I’m ready”

Bucky faltered walking out of the house only expecting to see AJ, Cass and Roy - the man who was going to be marrying them - but yet all the people Y/n and himself had befriended over the two years they had been going to Louisiana, had showed up to watch them become one.

Being announced as husband and wife had their hearts doing a double take. They were married and neither one could believe it. And neither one could wipe the smile off their faces.

“ты мой спаситель… wait did I pronounce any of that right?” She panicked as they slow danced to the live music from a local band.

“Di-did you learn that just for me?”

“Yes” she giggled “so did I say it correctly?”

“Yes you did мой спаситель”

The celebration went on well into the night.

** present time **

“Buck?”

“Huh?”

“Did you just hear what I said?” Y/n looks up at him lightly nibbling on her bottom lip looking nervously.

Of course he had heard the words that came out of her mouth but those exact words made him think about how they met, and how far they both had come from being complete strangers who met in the waiting room of their therapist building to now being a happily married couple whose love continued to grow as the days passed.

“I did, but tell me again, please”

Oh how he can’t wait to tell his best friend Sam the news he had just received.

Taking his hands in hers she placed them on her still flat stomach and smiled.

“You’re going to be a dad.”

Tags: @imcinnamoons | @pigeonmama | @capsbestgirl77

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subdigitals · 1 month ago

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if I had written aelita I would have turned up the autism dial to 100, had her maintain some of her virtual characteristics even if her origin story was still that she was originally human (elfy ears, retains some tech abilities in some form on earth, etc), she would hate her ain't shit father (though I still think she would fight to save him bc she knows what it's like to be trapped in a computer with XANA), and she would have been acting way more strange and exuberant fresh out of being materialized. I mean she literally had to learn how to be a human person on earth for the first time. CMON

I have such specific preferences for aelita characterization/the ways I wish her character had been treated that I sometimes have to temper them in the face of canon

#i draw her w headphones around her neck at all times for both music and autism reasons #yumi probably had to take her shopping/lend her clothes at the start....they had to buy everything for her room...#jeremie definitely wired money to do it #idk i just think if i was a virtual creature being tortured by monsters and hunted by a dark magician virus #and thats all that i knew. and then i woke up on earth and had to be a human in a completely new sensory environment #and i have to go to SCHOOL now? and deal with bodily functions?#idk that would be overwhelming as fuck in general #for the virtual characteristics thing i just think it would be cool if having your physical body trapped in a computer for 10 years like #had an impact on you physiologically #shes such a severance innie its crazy like she was seriously born yesterday and then they had to teach her how to be alive #im kinda sad we missed a lot of that. although i do like those early episodes #where she struggles and her friends dont realize like how much of a struggle it is for her #i cant believe they left her alone she literally requires a disability aid in the form of one of her friends right at the start #her PTSD and horrible PTSD nightmares definitely stay. tho i might crank the dial on that too. just because

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is-this-even-relatable · 10 months ago

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Danny runs an Infinite Realms shop. Curiosities from every dimension, any culturally significant item lost to time, and some cheap china. He’s got it all~

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NEW FIC IDEA JUST DROPPED

Ok so i’ve been steeped in the dpxdc for many a year now. I've seen a bit of everything. I want to combine some of those ideas with a bit of my own headcanon and see what takes shape.

____________________

Danny, half dead and half alive, one of the rarest species in existence, grown up yet still so young considering his immortality, powerful sovereign of an infinite dimension of beings from every possible world and universe, decides to settle somewhere and take it slow. After all, he's got eternity to do so.

So he finds a dimension he thought could only exist in comic books, and thought to himself, Now this, this is a nice place to settle. He loves how many heroes there are in this world, heck there are even aliens! Yet there are many heroes for a reason. With so many dark forces in the universe, it had to produce many bright beacons of hope to balance the encroaching evil. That is another reason why he chose this particular dimension, and this particular city. There was just so much negative energy, too much, in fact, that the heroes in this city, Gotham, could not keep up. He hoped that over the next century or however long he remained in this dimension, that his presence would provide a much-needed balm to the area, and that the sickly dark fingers of cosmic corruption would lessen. If not, well, he could always take a more direct approach. After all, he had the power of infinite universes backing him, one measly dimension’s worth of corruption against him would be like a minnow trying to catch a shark.

With a little bit of time travel shenanigans (thanks, Clockwork!), Danny soon has a perfectly legal identity as one Daniel James Fenton-Phantom, 30 years old (he figures he can pass as such, even though he stopped aging around 25), from a random town in bumfuck Illinois (sue him, it’s familiar). And after a bit of researching, Danny chooses a small street in the rougher side of the city. Not too big to be deemed as suspicious for buying practically the whole block, and out of the way enough to not attract too much attention. He spends a couple weeks getting used to the energy in this new dimension and setting up his haunt. He cleaned up what he was now referring to as “his street” in his head, and got rid of the debris, trash and general wear from the buildings. He hired some locals to renovate one, an old apartment that he was planning on renting out and staying in. He also chose a smaller building, somewhat tucked away in the corner, to use as his own personal store. The rest he leased out for cheap to small and struggling local businesses. He figured it’s the least he could do after already occupying so much space.

Several days later, and voila, his home was set.

#DPxDC #dp x dc #prompt #mine #is-this-even-relatable prompt

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batsycline69 · 3 months ago

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Hell Knows It's Got A Home For Folks Like Me

Summary: After losing your childhood sweetheart, you sought a life of adventure. Years down the line, when your gang is gunned down by the notorious outlaw 'Two Guns,' you find the life you've built for yourself turning upside down

Pairing: Cowboy!Jason Todd x Outlaw!reader

Words: 7.2k

Content/warnings: kidnapping, brief descriptions of scars and wounds, grief, longing, hidden identity shenanigans, real threats turning to playful threats, jason likes when you're mean to him, p in v sex, reader is not described, 18+ MDNI

You always thought ‘Two Guns’ was a bad nickname. Plenty of people had two guns; what made him so special he got a moniker for them?

The speed, you understood, was what made him so special. The precision of his shots, even on the back of his galloping horse. Even as he took out most of your crew mates, some part of you was stunned by the way he moved.

Black Mask rode off and didn’t look back, leaving anyone still alive for dead. Two Guns was happy to oblige, scattering bodies all along the pasture.

His accuracy is an assurance that you were intentionally left alive. Prairie grass tickles your nose as he pins you to the ground. You struggle like a wild animal against the weight of his knee as it presses into your back.

“Get off me!” you snarl, trying to wrench your arm from his iron grip.

He lets out a scoff as he ties you up with a casualness that warns you he’s done this before.

If he ever thought the Black Mask gang posed as a threat, that threat didn’t include you. The thought prickles at your nerves, makes you want to spit if you could only crane your neck enough.

“Not a chance,” is his only reply. A terse muffle beneath his red bandanna. The leather of his gloves brushes against your wrists as he ropes them together before moving down to your ankles.

“Mask isn’t gonna pay for me,” you say. “You’re wasting your time. Just let me go!”

He doesn’t say anything as he hoists you up onto the back of his horse, chuckling at every threat you make against him on the way back to his camp. Given your current situation—reduced to some spoil of war—you thought your ride would be rockier, yet Two Guns takes the ride easily with you dangling over the back of his horse.

His people seem surprisingly pleased to see him. Certainly far from the reception Mask gets, but you know most of your late crew mates weren’t in the gang for love. Most of them are dead now, their lives abandoned all from the service of a man who only saw them as bodies to shield him from men like the one currently hauling you from his horse.

Two Guns shoves you towards a little tent set up at the edge of camp. Only when he plops you down on a stool inside that you get a somewhat decent look at him. He’s no longer a blur of endless action. The bandana makes it difficult to tell his age. All you can make out is the sea of his eyes, something playful glinting within them.

“What do you want?” you ask, eyes narrowed in on him.

His dark, scarred brow quirks up. The small narrowing of his eyes suggests he’s smirking at you. Right now, you feel more irritation than fear. “Black Mask usually doesn’t keep such nice company,” he says as if that answers your question. Before you can demand an answer, he pulls out the sack you’d been carrying. He must have grabbed it after he’d tied you up.

You struggle against your restraints to no avail. “Stay out of there!”

Everything clamors together as he rifles through the bag carelessly, tossing its contents onto the bedroll on the ground as he goes. He ignores your small sack of money, the small folio of maps, even the little journal of jotted notes, only to pause at a stack of yellowed envelopes.

“You’ve got a lotta junk in there,” he says nonchalantly as he turns the bundle over in his hand.

The sight of your name scrawled across those envelopes in that familiar boyish handwriting makes something snap inside of you. “Put those back!” you snarl, a new ferocity burning in your voice.

You finally catch Two Guns’ attention. “What, these your important plans with Mask or something?” He takes a step closer to you.

You’ve got plenty of choice opinions on Two Guns from everything you’ve seen of him so far, but you know he’s not stupid. If he wanted your plans with Black Mask, he could have them, but he’s already tossed them aside in favor of old letters.

“They’re nothing to you,” you reply.

“Nothing, huh?” he challenges. He undoes the tight knot binding the stack together. Your eyes follow the red ribbon as it drifts to the ground.

You remember the boy who gave you a handpicked bouquet of prairie flowers wrapped with that ribbon.

“Stop it.”

He doesn’t. Paper rustles as Two Guns pulls the letter from its envelope. You can’t make out the expression in his eyes as they scan the page.

The silence is agonizing. The sounds of Two Guns’ crew moving about camp are the only thing filling the void. You stare at the worn page in a stranger’s hand. Pages rumpled from being held to your heart as you cry and remember the boy you’d lost.

“Aw, a beau at home, huh?” he asks, glancing up from the paper.

“Put it back.”

“You carry these around with you everywhere?”

Another fruitless jerk against the ropes around your wrists. “What do you want?” you demand, your patience with his games growing thin.

Two Guns slips the letter back in the envelope, his eyes fixed on you as he does. “I want to know what a nice thing like you is doing running around with Black Mask.”

A nasty glower grows on your face. “Tough luck.” You don’t want to lose your indignation, but thinking of the words in those letters makes your heart twist in your chest.

In the schoolyard, your life seemed so perfectly laid out. You loved a boy who promised you forever. A boy whose heart seemed as wild as your own. Someday, you’d leave town, just you and him. Run away to a place just for the two of you.

Just after he turned seventeen, a falling out between Jason and his adopted father had him off to search for his birth mother. He’d promised you he’d come back for you once he found her. That you both could finally make the lives you wanted for yourselves.

In place of him, a letter found you in town. Jason’s mother had traveled with a bad crowd, and he’d gotten caught up in the middle of it.

Your mourning stretched out endlessly because moving on from him felt so unfair. Somewhere in these meadows, your heart laid buried. The walls of the life you were supposed to build together crumbled around you, and you were the only one left to clean it up. So you left. Getting married off to someone who wasn’t Jason was no life you could live. And if you could no loner find adventure with him, you would find it on your own. You never chose Black Mask out of any respect or adoration; he had money, and you needed some of it.

Two Guns gives an unimpressed hum at your resistance before pulling out another letter, eyes skimming the page again. “Let me guess. It didn’t work out too well for loverboy? Didn’t get your happy ending, sweetheart?”

Fury roars in your chest. “You don’t get to talk about him.”

Those blue eyes study you thoroughly for a moment before he puts the letter back in its envelope. The pile of letters scatter across his bedroll as he tosses them down. If you mouthed off to Black Mask like this, he’d probably kill you. For a moment, you think Two Guns might be the same.

“They feed you in Mask’s camp?” he asks instead with an evenness that makes you see red. You always knew how Black Mask was feeling from his incessant yelling. But Two Guns is giving you next to nothing to work off of.

You watch him carefully, trying to put together what he’s really asking.

“Yes.”

His eyes pass over you again like he doesn’t believe you. You brace for more questions, but none come. Wordlessly, he slips from the tent, leaving you alone with your mind cobbling together a plan.

Maybe you can slip out the back of the tent. Steal a horse. Black Mask’s gang was heading to a job; you could try to catch up? The strategy has enough gaps you know you’re better off trying to level with Two Guns, but you can’t get the image of his hands all over your letters out of your head. He’d touched Jason’s letters. Read Jason’s words that were only ever meant for your eyes. All you have left of him.

For that, you hate Two Guns. For that, you don’t care if he feeds you or offers you safety. You never found out where Jason was buried, so leafing through his letters felt the same as desecrating his grave. You want Two Guns dead for that.

The wish is enough to drive you through the burn of rope against your raw skin as you wrestle with it. But before you can make any progress, he returns, a bowl of something in his large hand. You freeze, looking at him with your eyes burning with resentment.

“You gonna run if I cut the rope?” he asks, looking down at your bound ankles.

“No,” you lie. Two Guns chuckles like he knows, but he pulls a knife from his pocket regardless. Slowly, he approaches, crouching down without moving his eyes from yours. Those damn eyes that give you nothing to work off of.

The muscles of your legs stay tight, prepared to kick if he tries anything. His blade dips between your ankles, beneath the thick rope before sawing your legs free. He keeps staring up at you like he’s waiting for you to make your move.

You don’t.

He towers above you as he rises back to his full height, gaze never shifting. You feel certain he’s trying to intimidate you as he stalks behind you. The smooth leather of his glove holds your wrist in place. You feel the rope tugging against your raw skin as he cuts, and finally you’re free.

As quickly as you can, you try to pull your arms back in front of you, but Two Guns catches your wrist just above where they’re red before you can hide the evidence from him.

“No use trying to loosen those knots. You’re not the first person I’ve tied up, sweetheart,” he says. “As long as you don’t bolt, I’ll get you something for those burns.” He turns away from you—cocky bastard—and picks the bowl back up. “In the meantime, eat.”

You stare down at the chunks of something in a thick broth and look up at him skeptically. “What is it?”

“Well, it’s stew. I’m sure it’s nothing compared to the five course meals you get over in Black Mask’s camp, but it’s food.” Sarcasm. No one ever said Two Guns was such a charmer.

After you hesitantly take your bowl of mystery stew, he disappears from the tent. Your back straightens once you’re alone, setting down the stew to carefully peer through the gap in the tent. Two Guns talks to one of his crew, the expanse of his back blocking most of your view.

They speak low. From where you are, you can’t make out a single word, and Two Guns walks away before you can try to put it together through context. When he turns to rummage through a small box, you move quick to collect all your belongings strewn about Two Guns’ bedroll.

Your fingers are steady as you take great care to bind Jason’s worn letters back together—can’t say working with Black Mask never taught you anything—before tucking the bundle gently into the pocket where they’re always kept.

Time isn’t on your side, but experience is. Black Mask always had you sneak around when furtiveness was required from a job. Usually, however, you were sneaking up on belligerent drunks and not a notorious outlaw in the confines of his own tent. But desperate times call for desperate measures.

Two Guns may have swiped your gun when you brought you to his camp, but he famously has two. He doesn’t strike you as the sharing type, but you don’t let it deter you. You aren’t really the asking type, anyway.

You poise yourself, waiting for the moment his hand slips through the opening of the tent. As he emerges, you reach out as fast as you can for one of the holstered guns on his hip. Fingers curl around the cool metal and tug, turning the weapon onto him as soon as you retrieve it.

Two Guns is facing you before you have time to celebrate, one hand gripping your shoulder firmly. The other holds his remaining gun just below your chin.

“Don’t tell me the stew was that bad,” he says as he crowds you. When you don’t lower your weapon, he nudges your chin with his gun. “I’d like that back,” he says with a self-assured cock of his head.

“Or what?”

He laughs. “Or you’ll have to go out there and explain to the rest of my gang why their boss has a hole in his head.” He knows you’re in no position to follow through with your threat, but the idea of admitting defeat and giving him the gun back makes you livid.

You step back as he shepherds you back to your seat. With one hand still occupied by his gun, he fishes a roll of linen out of his pocket. “Now, if you don’t give me that back, I won’t be able to wrap your wrists, and I’d hate for you to get an infection.”

“I can take care of myself,” you refute. Two Guns seizes the moment the second it occurs, disarming you and sliding the gun back to its holster as soon as you’re even marginally distracted.

“Oh, I know that,” he says. You hear the smirk in his voice. And he’s passing you your bowl of stew again. Ripping strips of linen with practiced ease.

He’s lucky he got the gun when he did. You would have pulled the trigger the second you heard that arrogance.

One of his large hands stretches out for yours expectantly, the bandage dangling in his grip.

Irritation prickles up your spine. You stare at his hand as if you don’t understand what he wants from you. Take a long, petty slurp of your stew to fill the time, your eyes never leave his.

Two Guns keeps his eyes locked onto you, hand still held out for you. He knows our game, and he doesn’t seem keen on giving you the satisfaction of his annoyance. “May I see your wrist?” he asks evenly.

You consider tossing your bowl of stew onto him, but the lukewarm meal would only serve as a minor inconvenience. So you surrender with a sneer on your face, giving him one of your rope-burnt wrists.

“Thank you,” Two Guns replies, still speaking in that same even tone that’s been steadily growing on your nerves. He sinks a knee down into the earth. The leather of his glove warms your arm as he begins to wrap it up. You know he could hold you harder than he does.

He doesn’t see you as a threat. Another reason to hate him. You’ll find Mask, make sure he takes care of Two Guns once and for all. He just lost half his gang to him, and while you certainly have no true loyalties to Black Mask or his gang, you know he’s going to be hellbent on getting back at Two Guns. You just want to be there when it happens.

When one wrist is wrapped, he holds his hand out for the other. You give it to him, still trying to work out his plan here. Why not kill you? If he thinks you’re going to tell him anything about Black Mask, he’s got another thing coming. It wasn’t like he ever told you anything anyway. You were nothing but another body for his means to an end.

“There,” he says, when your tender skin is safe behind bandages. He drops your hand and rises to his feet. “Now, stay here, and I’ll get you sorted once I’m back from killing your boss.”

“I won’t tell you where he’s going.” Two Guns must think you’re loyal to Mask, which is a laugh. Right now, your strongest loyalty is to making Two Guns’ life as impossible as possible.

“Don’t need you to,” he replies. He pulls a stack of envelopes out of his pocket, shoving them into your hands, but you don’t even spare them a glance. “Now, my guys are a lot less nice than I am, so if you’re wise, you’ll stay in here.”

He takes a step back towards the flaps of the tent. You wait for him to turn around, disappear from the tent, but he just stares back at you for a moment. Rage burns in your chest again. You want to throw whatever he passed you down into the dirt, show him how little you care about anything he has to say to you.

A gun emerges from one of his holsters, the barrel nudging up the brim of his hat like some kind of polite nod before slipping out. Without hesitation, you storm after him. What does he mean get you sorted? What’s he going to do after Black Mask is dead and gone? His step doesn’t falter even after you protest after him.

One of his men catches you by the shoulder the second the light of the sunset hits your skin. “Two Guns says you’re stayin’ here,” he says.

The outlaw mounts a hulking stallion as your stopped. In the dark corners of your mind, you understand he would need a large horse to accommodate for the sheer bulk of him. You try not to entertain the thought. Two Guns helps, making your mind go completely blank as his eyes meet yours one last time.

His gaze feels like a suckerpunch. Somehow, it’s worse when he looks away.

When he rides off and the rush of horse hooves grows faint, you’re pushed back into your captivity. Only then, do you process he handed you something.

You sit back down on the stool looking down at the envelopes in your hand for the first time.

The tent feels as if it could be at the bottom of the lake you and Jason would swim in during the sun-drenched days of youth with the way the air seems to disappear. The familiar writing makes your hand tremble like responding to a long-forgotten call. The slopes and curves of the way your name is written. You know them by heart because they’re the same ones you seek when you miss Jason so badly everything within your body aches.

These letters feel like a trick. Your optimism has long vanished. So you pull out your own savored letters to make sure Two Guns hadn’t just snatched some earlier just to pass them back. But the weight of your bundle is the same as always, all letters accounted for.

Your only next guess is that Two Guns knows something of Jason’s death. He was somehow privy to more details than you. You, who waited in town for him to come home, only to be met with a letter from one of the guys he’d been running with. The one letter you never kept.

When you realize these are letters you’ve never read—letters from Jason with your name scrawled out on the front—you immediately begin to tear through them.

The first letter is dated two months after you were told Jason died. But these are his words, his penmanship, assuring you he’s alive. A close call, but he survived the shootout that was claimed to have killed him. He had things to do before he could see you again, but he assured you soon he would.

He alludes to letters he’s never sent in the next few, and slowly, your heart drops as you make the realization that Jason chose never to mail these to you. He was alive, and he chose not to let you know.

There’s a few months gap between letters until Jason writes to you to say he’s a bad man. He does bad things because someone needs to. He’s a bad man because he never came home to you, and now he’s not sure if he’s good enough. You wonder if the things you’d done to survive would qualify you as bad too. You wonder what that changes between you, if anything.

His last letter was written yesterday.

‘Two Guns’ Todd rode to your childhood home in search of you, only to find you were no longer there waiting for him. The townsfolk told him you left town after your childhood sweetheart was killed.

Jason didn’t know where you were, but he promised he would find you.

You don’t realize you’re crying until a tear drops. The ink bleeds across the page, and you gasp like you’ve ruined something sacred. But those words are no longer the words of a dead man. They’re the words of the man who’d lived all these years without you.

You stare down at the letters long after it’s grown too dark to read them, your mind racing as you try to grapple with what this means. Everything you’ve thought for the past two years has been a lie. The boy you loved had gotten to grow into a man without you knowing.

You’d uprooted your life with the grief of losing Jason. Searching to fill the void, you decided to listen to the call of adventure. To do something unrecognizable from the life you and Jason had imagined in the field behind the schoolhouse.

Outside the tent, your guards have fallen into a drunken sleep. Their snores overpower the chirping of crickets and the whirring of cicadas. To hell what Jason wants, you decide.

You make a quick escape with one of the men’s guns, a horse, and a lantern, riding towards Black Mask’s hideout.

Jason may have most of his crew with him, but every part of you needs to be with him now, even if you are absolutely livid with him. But you can’t help but savor the thought of feeling something other than everlasting grief when you think of him. You can scream at him, shove him, tell him you hate him because he’s alive. That’s nothing you’re going to take lightly. Not when you’ve spent your days wishing to see him one last time.

You think of the way he held your wrist as he bandaged it as horse hooves thunder through the night. You think of sunlight filtering through the leaves of trees the first time you kissed him and ran away, face burning with embarrassment. You think of years later when he’d held your hand and promised you forever, eyes burning with a certainty that only comes with youth.

You find Mask’s hideout, the rest of Jason’s gang hooting and hollering of a job well done. Your eyes skim the darkness for Jason, not daring to get closer unless you know he’s there. You’re not about to risk an escort back to camp without seeing Jason first.

“I had a feeling those two wouldn’t be able to stop you.”

The voice startles you. You prepare to be bucked, but Jason is already soothing your stolen horse. And then you realize the horse was never as startled as you to begin with. Its rubbing against his outstretched hand like a friend.

“You—”

“I know,” Jason says.

“I thought you were dead.”

Jason looks at you like you’re history. Like the part of him that held you was still buried in the earth where you thought his body was. Those years feel so much longer ago than they once did now that you’re looking at him again.

“I know you did, sweetheart,” he says, a pinch in his voice.

You scoff. “Don’t sweetheart me.”

“Alright then. Darlin’?” There’s challenge in his tone. His amusement with himself gets under his skin. Nips at your nerves. All this time, and this is how he treats you now that you finally know?

You slide down from the horse. His sturdy body barely moves when you give him a shove. He waits a beat. Lets the silence settle between the two of you, the sounds of his crew seemingly drowned out amidst the tension. “I take that as a no.”

He encroaches on your space as he takes a step closer, his broad shoulders closing in on you. His eyes glimmer with the longing from your youth, only now clouded with the weight of years passed.

Memories linger like a tune stuck in your head. You’d promised him everything. You’d meant it, too. But those days have faded away, hardened by the realities of life. Jason’s boyish grin came to you only in dreams, the only real place you had left to cling to him. So you’d thought, at least, because here he is. A phantom of the time you spent mourning him. The ache you’d carried inside your chest because you couldn’t hold him.

You knew what you had. You’d known just as well what you’d lost. A boy with a wild heart. One with kindness in his bones. He stole kisses behind the school when the teacher wasn’t looking. When he was old enough, he pursued greater ambitions, promising you the life you deserved one day.

The years haven’t been kind to you, and you imagine the same can be said about the man in front of you. Jason Todd, your honeysweet boy, didn’t become ‘Two Guns’ Todd for no reason. Fear lingers in the back of your mind that you’ll never get back what you had. That this reunion will end in bitterness when you realize all your childhood dreams were bolstered by naive optimism.

Whoops and hollers of a job well done still linger behind you, though Two Guns no longer seems to be in the mood to celebrate.

“We should talk.” Nearby flames make shadows flicker across his face. Now that you know the truth, you can’t imagine how you didn’t know immediately this was Jason. How the truth has bent him back into a shape you recognize.

“You’re damn right.”

“There’s an inn in town,” he says, crossing over to his horse.

You grip the reins of the horse you stole a little tighter. “And?” you inquire, eyes narrowing.

He tugs down the worn red bandana covering the lower half of his face. That alone is enough to knock the air right out of your lungs. That’s your Jason. Yes, he looks different—a scar along his top lip, another through his cheek—but it’s him.

“And we can talk there,” he replies, turning back towards you.

“Sounds like you’re just buying time,” you reply curtly.

He gives you another look. Both of you know you’re right. He’s not happy you called him out on it. Not happy, after all this time, there are still some things you’ll always have a read on. The men following Two Guns know him as the mysterious figure none of them dare to push. But you know Jason Todd. The sweet boy from class who always got the answers right. Who got in trouble for punching another boy because he made fun of you. The one who has always—would always—have a soft spot for you no matter how hard he tried to outrun it.

As you stand before him for the first time in five years,it dawns on you he hadn’t gone after Black Mask expecting for you to be there. His last letter—his real last letter—told you he would find you. He promised, just like he’d promised he’d come home for you. But he’d made a big show of it, made sure you didn’t know who he was beneath the bandana, so the fear seemed real for his audience. His audience, of course, being the gang you ran to when you couldn’t run to him. But this is your Jason; he’d never had any malicious intent. You didn’t know who he was, but he certainly knew you.

“Then will you allow me a little time?” he asks with a terse air of formality.

You don’t want to, but you agree. The foreign look on his face haunts you enough to not want to kick up any dust. Jason doesn’t run; you’ve always known that. You read what the past five years have been like. It’s not something he can dole out in casual conversation.

Riding beside each other in the night offers you time to think, though you’re not sure you appreciate it. Your thoughts seem to go as far and wide as the prairie, racing as fast as your horses.What happens now? When you were kids, everything was so clear cut, but neither of you went in a conventional direction. When it comes to outlaws, what is the protocol for a future?

As if he knows you’re sinking too deep into your thoughts, Jason spares you a glance. His bandana is pulled back up, but you just barely see his eyebrow quirk up in the darkness. Before you can make his meaning, he begins to speed up. He’s testing you. He wants to see what you’ve picked up since he last saw you, curious by the unexpected turn your life had taken you on.

You give your horse a small kick, speeding up alongside him, shooting him a glare when he glances back your way. You’ll indulge him, but you aren’t going to play around with him.

Or so you think as he starts to speed up again.

The glow of town is so faint in the distance, and his gang is long behind you. It’s just you and him, and that has you feeling bold. So you speed up again, still looking stern as you race beside him. “You’re gonna wear these horses down,” you call over the rush of hooves.

Jason’s eyes are crinkled at the corners again. “Naw,” he replies. “Rochester loves to run.”

As you get closer to town, Jason starts to slow down and you follow his lead. You worry about being a known associate of Black Mask alongside ‘Two Guns’ Todd, an incredibly prominent outlaw, but if Jason is concerned, he doesn’t bat an eye. You’re not sure if it’s his confidence or his reputation that gets you a room in the inn, but it’s certainly not the scowl on your face plastered there to make sure no one thinks you’re there for sex.

He tosses his hat on the bed first. Slips the leather gloves off his long, thick fingers. Fingers you remember as much nimbler from childhood. Hands that had fewer scars when you knew them. Finally, he hurries with the knot of his bandana, freeing himself of the burdens of hiding who he really is.

And now, as he stands before you, and it fully registers for the first time that this is Jason. Not a ghost, nor a haunted nightmare of who he could have been had he gotten to grow up. He’s as real as you are, and your heart pounds with the ache of it.

“Why didn’t you send those letters?” The flame of your anger seems to have been snuffed, now leaving you with only the energy to breathe your question.

Jason looks at you, pinched between the brows. “You read ‘em. You think they make me look very favorable?”

“Favorable?” you scoff. “God dammit, Jason, I thought you were dead. Who gives a damn about favor?”

He laughs. “You sound like you’ve been riding with a gang all this time.”

The attempt to diffuse your mood only fans the flame. You shove him again, this time harder than before. He has to take a step back to catch himself. His eyebrow quirks up at you again, and you want to smack the expression off his face.

“You were alive, and you never told me.”

“Well, sounds like you didn’t stick around very long to wait for me.” He’s still trying to tease you.

You give him another shove. His eyes light up with something. “I would have gotten married off! I couldn’t stay there and wait for someone who wasn’t you.” You shake your head, taking a step back to try and calm yourself down. Jason is just so damn sturdy now. He’s gone against the worst of the worst out here and come out on top. He’s survived death. What are a few pushes for him after that?

Before you can step away, Jason catches your wrist, just above where he’d bandaged them earlier.

“You went to Black Mask of all people,” Jason replies. He smooths his thumb over the linen wrappings gently despite the accusation in his voice. He touches you like he’s reading the signs of what happened to you while he was gone.

“I must have missed the word that Two Guns was looking for crew,” you chide.

From downstairs, you can hear the lively chatter of the people at the bar. Next door, you hear a happy paying customer moaning through the paper thin walls. And between you and Jason is silence, your words hanging heavy in the air.

In a show of the boy you knew, Jason’s cheeks flush slightly as he stares down at the ground, no longer able to meet your eyes. Good, you think. Let him feel ashamed of himself.

And as you glance away as well, you realize his shame may be coming from not his actions but his reaction to your stern voice. A bulge grows in his pants, and for a moment, your brain seems to slip away from your anger. But you only allow yourself the moment.

You’re mad. You have every right to be. You’d mourned for him. You’d planned a life without him in it after the heartbreak of losing him. And he has the nerve to get hard while you’re trying to get an apology.

Except you realize how big he is now. No longer the small, underfed boy you’d shared apples with in the schoolyard. Now he’s all muscle and strength from all of his many activities these past few years. He’s a fierce outlaw, and yet he’s still pink on the ears because of you.

You’re still angry, you remind yourself as your desire seems to catch up with you. You knew what it was like to be held by those hands when they were smaller. But now you can’t help but imagine them smoothing down your skin. You think of running your fingertips over the skin lightened by scar tissue. While he still glances away from you, your eyes flicker over him, hungry to know the grown up Jason.

When you push him again, he falls back onto the bed behind him, eyes surprised up at you. All it takes is a glance, and he knows exactly where your mind is. The hard-on jerks in his pants.

“I wanted you dead for the way you touched those letters,” you say. Jason blushes, but his eyes drink you in as you push him back against the headboard. “When you started opening them, I was thinking of all of the ways I’d get back at you.”

A warm palm wraps around your hip, pulling you close to him, but moves it as soon as he has you on his lap. Like he needs to touch you but can only stomach it for so long at a time like touching a pot still too hot from a flame. The grief that ate you alive was the longing he carried to have you in his life yet again.

One of your hands runs up his firm chest before your fingers curl around his thick neck. You don’t squeeze, but you feel his cock jerk against your thigh nonetheless.

“Lotta people have tried to kill me over the years, sweetheart,” he says, staring up at you like you’ve said something romantic.

Warmth shoots up to your stomach as you drag yourself across his lap. Jason’s punched out air brushes against your collar as he stifles a groan. “Did you let all of them get this close to you?” you whisper.

Jason is far from vulnerable with his guns still strapped on, but you know your Jason; his eyes are always on the prize, always have been since you were kids. You can’t imagine he’d been climbing into many beds when there was work to be done.

There’s no suave answer. Just a quick shake of his head as you drag yourself across his bulge. You duck your head into his neck, pressing your lips against the warm skin of his neck. His hands land on your hips again, curling into the fabric of your clothes. His breath is hot against your cheek.

“I got your gun earlier, didn’t I?” you ask, grinding against him yet again.

This time, he lets out a blissed sigh before he speaks. “Didn’t get you very far.” It’s subtle, but you catch the slight pitch in his voice.

You kiss along the muscles of his neck, feeling him jerk against your seam. Your hips roll into his again, trying to ease the aching between your legs. “I’ve got you distracted,” you murmur, grinding against him to prove a point.

The sound Jason makes is a mixture of a laugh and a groan. He bats his dark eyelashes open, looking at you like a long lost love. Your stomach flips with it. “You wouldn’t kill me now, would you?” he breathes.

You feel drunk on the sounds he makes. For the first time in who knows how long, you feel good. Genuinely. Your mind isn’t on a job or running for your life. Right now, the only thing you care about is the fact that Jason’s heart is still beating.

No. Never.

Instead of a response, you tug at his jacket, the scent of earth and leather lingering once you toss it off the bed. A fear seizes in your chest that this could all be a dream. That you’ll wake back up at Mask’s camp, Jason’s letters hiding away in a bag, and the warmth of his body fleeting with your wakefulness. This moment won’t pass you by without you digging your nails in.

Your lips crash into Jason’s, your hand moving up from his neck to hold onto his jaw.

He kisses like a man starved. Long gone are the timid brushes of lips, and sweaty palms reaching out for your fingertips. His hand stretches out on the back of your skull to hold you against him like he can’t afford to be without.

You feel the growing wetness of your drawers as you grind against him yet again, letting out a breathless sigh against his lips.

Jason’s head falls back, a low groan slipping from his kiss-flushed lips. His lids grow heavy over his eyes, fingers clinging onto your clothes. The sound seems to wipe everything from your mind except for Jason. He’s here. You’re in his lap, kissing him as if your lives depend on it. While you kiss him, there’s no history, and yet there’s all the history in the world. The first time you kissed him. The way his cheeks turned beet red every time you looked at him for a week after.

You kiss furiously as you both shed clothes, until your skin presses up against his. Until you’re sinking down on him, pussy fluttering at the feeling of being filled so deeply. A breathless curse slips through your lips as your head falls against Jason’s chest.

His arms wrap around you, holding you flush against him, another low moan rumbling in his chest. Your breath catches when you feel his heart pounding against your chest. You’re wrapped in Jason Todd’s arms, and everything is right with the world again.

Slowly, you raise your hips just to sink back down again. Jason’s hand catches your head as it tips back, pulling you into his lips again. You rest your hands on his shoulders, using him as leverage as you start to build up your pace, acclimating to the stretch of him.

You ride him, and Jason goes the extra mile to push you down even deeper on his cock each time you lower down, feeling him nudging at something blindingly brilliant. With Jason’s hands back on your waist, no longer holding you to his mouth, his moans fill the room. You could listen to him all night. Jason, who’s been through so much in his life—more than you even know—deserves this, even if he caused you sleepless nights and endless tears.

Your fingers drag through his thick, dark curls, gripping onto the strands at their base. His nails dig into the flesh of your hips as he lets out a whine. The noise drives something in you, burrowing into your brain until all you can think is how badly you need to hear it again. So you tug, and Jason’s lips break from yours to breathe another needy whimper.

With their newfound freedom, your lips move down to Jason’s jaw, nibbling, your breath hot on his skin. You feel warmth growing in the pit of your stomach along with the burning in your thighs, but you can’t even consider stopping now.

He promised you he’d find you. Jason Todd has always been true to his word.

You’re so full of relief and so full of him, you feel tears prickling at your eyes. You’re not sure if it’s more from the pleasure or the fact that you’re together again. As you pull back to look at Jason’s face, you see his eyes watering too, staring up at you like you’re something heavenly.

Both of you crying. You almost laugh, but it gets caught in your throat as Jason’s cock hits something blinding as he holds you down even deeper than ever. Your cry breaks through the room, eyes pinched shut as warmth washes over you. Everything seems to slip out beneath you, and for the first time in a very long time, you feel absolutely weightless.

Jason catches you when you lean back too far, guiding you so you still rock on him through the comedown of your orgasm. Your head clears just in time to catch Jason’s eyes as they roll shut. Even as your legs shake, you go back to work, the meat of your ass slapping against his lap.

He groans out your name, holds your hips down against him, and you feel him spilling into you. Lips parted as he groans, cock twitching against the walls of your pussy.

As he comes down, Jason just holds you against him. You savor his rapidly beating heart, the rising and fall of his chest, the smell of sweat and sex in the air because it’s him. You’re collapsed against your Jason, hand lazily draped against his chest as you still clench around him in the aftershock of your orgasm.

When you feel as if you’ve come to your body more, you look back up at him, wiping away the fallen tears from his cheeks with the pad of your thumbs. He does the same in suit, holding onto your cheek after he does.

“I’m never letting you out of my sight again,” he says. And you believe him.

a/n: huge shoutout to @janybabyy for beta reading as always 💛 if you enjoyed this, please consider giving it a reblog or sharing your thoughts

#jason todd x reader #x reader #cowboy!jason #dividers by saradika #🤠

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mcrdvcks · 6 months ago

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i love you, in every time ࿐‧₊ 1880 - labyrinth of my heart

chapter summary: When walking the streets of Chicago he spots you across the street, so real, so alive. Logan takes this as a second chance; but fear slowly slithers up, making him wonder if he'll lose you all over again.

word count: 9.3k+

pairing: Logan Howlett x fem!reader

notes: first, i want to say thank you so much for the support and love for this series! this is way shorter than the first chapter, only because i wanted the ending to feel abrupt to hopefully make it feel more realistic. anyways, i'm super excited for next chapter since it's a concept i haven't ever really done before. but for now, enjoy this while it lasts :)

warnings/tags: fluff, angst, outdated mindsets on women, character death

series masterlist - chapter 1 → chapter 3

Logan left New York City after you died, going back to Victor who told him exactly what he expected to hear, ‘you shouldn’t have fallen in love,’ and ‘the only people we can trust is each other’.

The Civil War had begun seven years after your death as he and Victor fought for the North for four whole years. There was one thing he always kept with him, the ring he bought for you, that he never got to use. It stayed in his pocket at all times, never leaving, always there.

He had been doing the same thing he was doing before he met you, moving around the country, never staying in a spot for too long, doing odd jobs to stay afloat.

Logan found himself in Chicago, walking along the sidewalk, the faint sound of a train in the distance. The air was heavy with the scent of coal smoke, the city bustling with life in the late afternoon. Men in long coats and women in modest dresses hurried past him, some tipping their hats in his direction as he walked by. It was just another city to him, another place he would pass through on his way to nowhere in particular.

It had been 26 years since you died. Twenty-six long years, but to Logan, it still felt like yesterday. The weight of your loss hadn’t lessened. If anything, it had only grown heavier. Every town, every face he saw, reminded him of you in some way. That soft smile you always wore, the way you’d brush your hair behind your ear when you were deep in thought. He kept your memory alive in the smallest of ways. The ring he’d never had the chance to give you stayed in his pocket, its presence a constant, painful reminder.

He walked without a destination, his mind lost in the past as his feet carried him down the streets of Chicago. The city had a pulse of its own, far different from the quiet life in New York where you’d once lived, where you had died in his arms. He hadn't felt truly alive since then—just going through the motions of life, the decades slipping by as if time itself didn’t matter.

As Logan neared a small schoolhouse, something caught his eye. A group of children were gathered outside, their laughter echoing through the street as they played. But it wasn’t the children that caused Logan to stop. It was the woman standing among them, her smile bright as she helped one of the younger boys tie his shoe. The world around him seemed to blur, fading away as his gaze locked onto her.

It was you.

Logan’s heart stilled in his chest. He blinked, sure that his eyes were playing tricks on him, but there you were, the same face, the same gentle presence. You looked exactly as you had all those years ago—maybe a little younger, maybe a little different, but unmistakably you.

For a moment, he couldn’t move. He just stood there, watching you laugh with the children, completely unaware of his presence. His mind struggled to make sense of what he was seeing. You were dead. He had been there. He had held you as you took your last breath, felt the life leave your body. And yet, here you were, as if the last 26 years had never happened.

Logan’s feet moved on their own, pulling him closer to the schoolyard. His heart pounded in his chest, his throat dry. His mind raced with a thousand questions. How could this be? Was it some kind of dream? A cruel trick?

But the closer he got, the more real you became. You were wearing a simple dress, your hair tied up in a way he hadn’t seen before, and yet everything about you felt so familiar. The way you carried yourself, the warmth in your eyes as you spoke to the children—it was all you.

“Excuse me, miss,” he called out, his voice rougher than he intended.

You turned at the sound of his voice, your eyes meeting his for the first time, and Logan felt his heart lurch. It was like being thrown back in time—like the years between this moment and the day you died had vanished. You looked at him with a polite curiosity, but there was no recognition in your eyes. No flicker of memory. To you, he was just a stranger.

“Yes, can I help you?” you asked, your voice soft, kind.

Logan’s breath caught in his throat. He didn’t know what to say. How could he possibly explain what was running through his mind? How could he tell you that he had loved you, that he had lost you, and that now—somehow—you were standing in front of him again?

“I... I thought I knew you,” he said, his voice low, almost a whisper. He didn’t trust himself to say more. His hands clenched into fists at his sides, the ring in his pocket suddenly feeling heavier than ever.

You smiled, but it was the smile of someone trying to be polite, not of someone who knew him. “I don’t think we’ve met before,” you said. “I’m Y/N. I’m the schoolteacher here.”

Logan swallowed hard. Of course, you wouldn’t remember. You had no idea who he was, no memory of the life you’d lived before. To you, this was just another day, another moment. But to Logan, it was everything. The realization hit him like a punch to the gut. You were here, alive again, but you weren’t his Y/N. Not yet, anyway.

“I’m Logan,” he finally managed, his voice thick with emotion he couldn’t hide. He couldn’t take his eyes off you, his heart aching in a way that felt both familiar and new.

You nodded, offering another warm smile. “It’s nice to meet you, Logan. Was there something you needed?”

Logan shook his head slowly, still reeling from the shock of seeing you again. “No,” he said quietly. “No, I... I just thought you looked like someone I used to know.”

You tilted your head slightly, a curious look in your eyes. “I get that sometimes. Chicago’s a big city, but it can feel small.”

Logan nodded, though his mind was far from this moment. He couldn’t tear his gaze away from you, couldn’t shake the feeling that this was some kind of miracle—a second chance. But what could he do with it? Could he approach you, tell you everything? Or would that only drive you away?

Before he could say anything more, the school bell rang, and the children started to gather their things. You glanced back at the sound, then looked at him with an apologetic smile. “I’m sorry, I have to get back to my class. But maybe I’ll see you around?”

Logan nodded, his throat too tight to respond with words. He watched as you turned and walked back toward the schoolhouse, his heart aching with the weight of all the things he couldn’t say.

For the first time in 26 years, Logan felt hope stir in his chest. You were here. You were alive. And even if you didn’t remember him, even if you didn’t know who he was... he couldn’t walk away. Not this time.

---

Logan stayed near the schoolyard most afternoons, hidden just enough not to draw attention, watching you from a distance. It felt strange, almost painful, standing there, knowing you had no idea who he was. Every time you emerged from the schoolhouse with Ida, another schoolteacher, chatting and laughing, the urge to approach you tugged at him. But fear held him back—fear that you’d think he was insane, or worse, that you’d reject him outright.

He clenched his fists inside his coat pockets, feeling the cool metal of the ring press against his palm. It had been with him through wars, across states, through lifetimes. And now, here you were, alive again, and he still didn’t know what to do with it.

It was absurd, the way his heart raced just from seeing you walk down the street. How after all these years—after so much pain—hope could sneak its way back in. This wasn’t just a coincidence. It couldn’t be. Logan wasn’t the type to believe in magic or miracles, but what else could explain this?

As he lingered, the school bell rang, signaling the end of another day. Children poured out of the building, laughing and running. A few hung on your arms as you walked them down the steps, their chatter filling the air.

Logan shifted from foot to foot, nerves prickling along his spine. Just talk to her, idiot. You’ve been through worse.

But when you stepped into the street, Ida at your side as usual, the words died in his throat.

“Y/N, you coming for dinner at my place tonight?” Ida asked, tucking a stray curl beneath her bonnet.

You smiled, brushing your hands on your skirts. “Can’t tonight, but I’ll stop by tomorrow. The kids wore me out today.”

Ida chuckled. “You’ll turn into an old maid before you’re thirty at this rate.”

You rolled your eyes, but your laugh was warm. Logan felt the sound of it settle deep in his chest—like an old memory coming back to life. It was a laugh he hadn’t heard in 26 years, and it took everything in him not to run to you right then and there.

As you and Ida turned the corner toward the tenement, Logan followed at a distance. His heart hammered against his ribs. He just needed a moment, a chance to say something—anything.

Finally, the two of you paused outside the building. Ida gave you a quick hug before heading upstairs, leaving you alone on the stoop. You stood there for a moment, adjusting your shawl against the evening chill.

This is it. Now or never.

Logan forced his feet to move, crossing the street toward you.

You looked up as he approached, a little surprised but not alarmed. “Logan, wasn’t it?”

His throat felt tight, but he gave a short nod. “Yeah. Logan.”

You smiled softly, the same kind smile that had haunted his dreams. “What brings you by?”

He cleared his throat, trying to find the right words. “I... I’ve been meaning to talk to you.”

Your brow furrowed slightly, but there was no fear, only curiosity. “About what?”

Logan shifted his weight, his hands tightening around the edges of his coat. The ring in his pocket seemed to burn against his skin, a reminder of everything unsaid.

“I... You remind me of someone,” he admitted, voice low. “Someone I lost a long time ago.”

You studied him for a moment, your gaze steady but gentle. “I’m sorry,” you said quietly. “That must’ve been hard.”

Logan’s jaw clenched. “Yeah,” he muttered. “It was.”

There was a beat of silence between you—heavy, charged with the weight of all the things Logan couldn’t say. You didn’t know him, didn’t know what you’d meant to him in another life, but standing here, so close to you again, it felt like the world had tilted back into place.

“You... wanna walk for a bit?” Logan asked suddenly, the words tumbling out before he could stop them.

You hesitated, but only for a moment. Something in his expression must’ve stirred your kindness, because you nodded. “Alright.”

The two of you started down the sidewalk together, the city humming around you. Logan kept his hands stuffed in his pockets, fingers brushing the ring again and again like a talisman.

“So, how long have you been in Chicago?” you asked, glancing over at him.

Logan shrugged. “Not long. Just passing through.”

You gave a small smile. “It’s a good place to get lost in for a while.”

He huffed a quiet laugh. “Yeah. Guess so.”

The conversation fell into a comfortable rhythm after that—small talk, nothing too deep. Logan told you bits and pieces about his travels, careful not to reveal too much. He learned that you’d moved to Chicago a couple of years ago, taking the teaching job because it felt right.

“I’ve always liked working with kids,” you said with a soft smile. “There’s something... hopeful about it, you know?”

Logan nodded, though hope had been a foreign concept to him for a long time. But walking beside you now, listening to your voice, he felt something stir in him—a flicker of warmth he thought he’d lost forever.

As the evening deepened and the sky turned a dusky purple, you reached your building again. You stopped on the stoop, turning to face him.

“Thank you for the walk,” you said, your smile gentle. “It was nice.”

Logan nodded, his heart heavy with everything he wanted to say but couldn’t. “Yeah. It was.”

For a moment, it felt like time stood still—like the universe had bent just enough to give him this moment with you. And even though you didn’t remember him, didn’t know the history you shared, Logan knew he couldn’t let you slip away again.

“Y/N...” he began, his voice low, almost hesitant.

You tilted your head, waiting.

He swallowed hard, the words catching in his throat. “Can I see you again?”

Your smile widened, something warm flickering in your eyes. “I’d like that.”

Logan gave a short nod, his heart pounding against his ribs.

“Good,” he murmured.

And for the first time in 26 years, Logan allowed himself to believe—just for a moment—that maybe, just maybe, he’d found his way back to you.

---

You had taken up Ida’s offer after all, you lived in the same building so it wasn’t like it was out of the way for you.

“Oh, hey! Thought you weren’t gonna come by.”

You shrugged, taking off your shawl, “changed my mind.” You sat down on the couch and told Ida about your walk with Logan, and she listened intently.

“I’m surprised you hadn’t noticed him. He’s been watching the schoolyard for the past few weeks.”

"Wait, what do you mean, ‘he’s been watching the schoolyard for weeks?’” you asked, your brows knitting together as you leaned forward.

Ida waved her hand dismissively but gave you a sly smile. “Oh, don’t get the wrong idea. He hasn’t been creepy about it or anything. Just... noticed him hanging around, that’s all. Kind of hard to miss a guy like that, don’t you think?”

You blinked, a sudden flush creeping up your neck. “A guy like what?”

“Oh, come on, Y/N,” she teased, sitting down across from you. “Tall, rugged... that serious, brooding look. You’re telling me you didn’t notice? He’s practically been glued to the corner across from the schoolhouse for days.”

You chewed on your bottom lip, thinking back to the walk you’d just had with Logan. You hadn’t seen him watching the school, but now that Ida mentioned it... there had been something in his eyes. A familiarity you couldn’t quite place, like he was looking at you but seeing something—or someone—else.

“I didn’t know he was hanging around,” you admitted, glancing down at your hands. “But... he seems kind. Sad, but kind.”

Ida leaned back, crossing her arms over her chest with a thoughtful hum. “Sad, huh? You picked up on that, too?”

You nodded, feeling a strange tightness in your chest. There had been a weight to Logan’s presence, something unspoken in his voice, like he was carrying the world on his shoulders. And then there was the way he looked at you—like he wanted to say something but couldn’t bring himself to.

“You think he’s okay?” you asked quietly.

Ida shrugged, her teasing expression softening. “Who knows? The world’s a tough place. We all got our own burdens to carry. But... maybe he’s looking for something.”

“Looking for what?”

“Maybe someone to share the load,” she replied with a small smile, her eyes twinkling. “Maybe that someone’s you.”

You shook your head, the idea seeming too far-fetched. “I don’t even know him, Ida. I mean, we just talked for the first time today.”

“Hey, stranger things have happened,” Ida said, getting up to grab a pot of tea from the stove. “You felt something, right? That’s not nothing.”

You sighed, leaning back against the couch. “I guess. He did say I reminded him of someone he lost.”

Ida paused, setting the teapot down carefully. “Lost, huh? That would explain the sad part. But... why hang around you then? What’s he hoping to find?”

“I don’t know,” you murmured, more to yourself than to her. The idea that Logan had been watching you, even unknowingly, made something stir in your chest—a mix of curiosity and something you couldn’t quite name.

Ida handed you a cup of tea, sitting back down beside you. “Well, maybe next time you see him, you can ask.”

You looked up at her, one eyebrow raised. “Ask him why he’s hanging around the schoolyard?”

Ida laughed softly. “Maybe not that bluntly, but yeah. There’s something about him, Y/N. Might be worth finding out what.”

You sipped the tea, the warmth spreading through you. Maybe Ida was right. Maybe Logan was carrying something heavy, and maybe—just maybe—you could help.

---

The next day, you found yourself more aware of your surroundings as you walked to the schoolhouse. Every sound, every movement seemed sharper. You scanned the street, looking for a familiar figure, but Logan wasn’t there—at least, not that you could see.

The day went on as usual, though you felt a bit distracted, your mind drifting to the walk you’d shared with him. There was something about Logan that pulled at you, a quiet intensity that you couldn’t shake. He was a mystery, and part of you wanted to solve it.

When the school day ended, you lingered outside a little longer than usual, hoping—half-expecting—that he might show up again. The children ran off, their laughter echoing down the street as they disappeared into their homes. You smiled at the sight, but your thoughts were elsewhere.

“Looking for someone?”

You jumped slightly, turning to find Logan standing just a few feet away. He had approached so quietly you hadn’t even heard him.

“Logan,” you said, surprised but not unwelcome. “I didn’t see you.”

He gave a small shrug, his hands shoved into his coat pockets. “Didn’t mean to sneak up on you.”

You smiled softly, your heartbeat slowing as the initial surprise wore off. “It’s alright. Just didn’t expect to see you today.”

Logan shifted his weight, his gaze flicking to the ground for a moment before meeting yours again. “I wanted to see if you’d like to take another walk. If you’re not too tired, that is.”

You hesitated, but only for a second. There was something in his voice—something vulnerable, almost hesitant. And despite not knowing him well, you found yourself wanting to say yes.

“I’d like that,” you said, stepping down from the schoolhouse stoop.

The two of you started walking again, this time in a different direction, the afternoon sun casting long shadows over the street. For a while, neither of you spoke. It was a comfortable silence, though, the kind that didn’t need to be filled with words. Logan walked beside you, his steps steady but deliberate, like he was trying to figure something out.

“Why’ve you been hanging around the school?” you finally asked, your curiosity getting the better of you. “Ida said she noticed you there for a while.”

Logan’s jaw tightened slightly, and he didn’t answer right away. When he did, his voice was quiet. “I wasn’t trying to... I don’t know. I guess I was just... drawn there.”

“Drawn there?” you echoed, glancing up at him.

He nodded, his gaze fixed ahead. “Yeah. Like I said before, you remind me of someone.”

You didn’t press, sensing that whatever it was, it was personal. Instead, you walked in silence for a few more steps before Logan stopped abruptly.

“I don’t want to make you uncomfortable,” he said, turning to face you fully. His eyes were intense, but there was something almost apologetic in them. “If I am, just tell me, and I’ll leave you alone.”

You shook your head quickly. “No, you’re not making me uncomfortable.”

Logan studied your face, his expression unreadable for a moment. Then he gave a small nod, almost as if he was relieved.

“Alright,” he said quietly.

The conversation shifted after that, lightening as you talked about small things—the city, your students, even the weather. Logan listened more than he spoke, but you could feel him relax bit by bit, the tension in his posture easing as the afternoon wore on.

When you reached your building again, Logan stopped with you on the stoop. There was a moment of hesitation, like he wasn’t sure if he should stay or go.

“I’ll see you tomorrow?” you asked, offering him a small smile.

Logan looked at you for a long beat before nodding. “Yeah. Tomorrow.”

As you turned to head inside, you couldn’t help but glance back over your shoulder. Logan was still standing there, watching you with that same look in his eyes—the one that made you feel like you were more than just a stranger to him.

And in that moment, you realized... you didn’t want to be just a stranger to him either.

---

After about a week of Logan walking you home, it became a familiar routine. Each time, you’d stand on the stoop, exchanging a few words before you’d head inside, always with that lingering feeling of something left unsaid. But tonight was different—the air was colder, and the wind was biting, so when you reached your building, you didn’t hesitate.

“You’re not going out in that cold again,” you said firmly, reaching for his arm. He tensed slightly under your touch, but you ignored it, tugging him toward the door. “Ten minutes outside in the cold, you need to warm up before you go.”

Logan didn’t protest, but you could sense his hesitation. He glanced around the dimly lit hallway as you led him up the stairs to your small apartment.

“Don’t worry,” you teased, trying to lighten the mood. “I won’t keep you long. Just until you can feel your fingers again.”

He gave a small, almost imperceptible nod, following you inside. Once you were both in, you motioned for him to sit down on the worn couch, tossing your shawl onto a chair as you made your way to the stove to boil some water for tea.

Logan stood there for a moment, his eyes scanning the modest space, before finally sitting down. His presence seemed to fill the room, making it feel smaller, more intimate.

“You don’t gotta fuss,” he muttered, his gruff voice breaking the silence. “I’m alright.”

“Humor me,” you replied with a soft smile, setting a kettle on the stove. “Besides, I’ve been dragging you along on these walks. Least I can do is make sure you’re not freezing to death.”

Logan huffed a quiet laugh, leaning back into the couch. His eyes followed your movements, though his expression stayed guarded. He looked... cautious, like he wasn’t sure how to be here with you, in this space. It was strange, this carefulness, coming from a man who seemed so unbreakable.

“Why don’t you tell me more about yourself?” you asked, turning to face him while the water heated up. “We’ve been walking for a week, and I feel like I barely know you.”

Logan’s gaze shifted, and you could tell he was weighing his words. “Not much to tell,” he said after a beat. “Just a guy who’s been around a while.”

You raised an eyebrow, crossing your arms. “That’s it? No family, no friends? You just... wander?”

He looked down at his hands, his fingers idly tracing the worn fabric of the couch. “Had family once. Friends, too. Lost most of ‘em.”

There was a heaviness in his voice, and you could feel the weight of his words. You didn’t push him, though. Instead, you poured the hot water into two cups, walking over and handing him one.

“Sorry,” you said softly. “That must’ve been hard.”

Logan took the cup but didn’t drink right away. He stared down into the tea, his expression unreadable. “Life’s hard for everyone,” he muttered, more to himself than to you.

You sat down beside him, the warmth from the cup seeping into your hands. For a while, the two of you sat in silence, sipping tea and letting the quiet fill the space. There was something about being near him that made you feel calm, like the world slowed down for a little while when he was around.

“Why’d you let me walk with you?” Logan asked suddenly, his voice rougher than before.

You blinked, caught off guard by the question. “What do you mean?”

“You don’t know me,” he said, shaking his head slightly. “Most people wouldn’t... They’d be scared, or they’d push me away. But you... you let me stay.”

You frowned, trying to find the right words. “I don’t know... I guess I just felt like... I should.” You shrugged, feeling a little self-conscious under his intense gaze. “Besides, you’re not exactly a scary guy. Brooding, sure, but not scary.”

A small, barely-there smile tugged at the corner of his mouth. “You’re not afraid of much, are you?”

You laughed softly, shaking your head. “Not really. I mean, what’s the point of being afraid? Life’s hard enough without worrying about things that might not even happen.”

Logan’s smile faded, replaced by that familiar look of sadness. He stared into his cup for a moment, then set it down on the table in front of him. “Yeah,” he muttered. “Guess you’re right.”

The silence stretched between you again, but this time it felt heavier, like there was something unsaid hanging in the air. You could feel it, pressing down on both of you, but neither of you seemed ready to break it.

Finally, Logan stood up, his movements slow and deliberate. “I should go,” he said, though he didn’t make a move toward the door.

You stood up too, your heart pounding a little harder than usual. “Logan...”

He turned to face you, his eyes dark and full of something you couldn’t quite place. “Yeah?”

You took a step closer, your hand reaching out to touch his arm again. “You don’t have to carry it all alone,” you said softly.

For a moment, he just looked at you, his expression unreadable. Then, without saying a word, he nodded once, a silent acknowledgment that you didn’t need to explain.

“I’ll see you tomorrow,” he said quietly before turning to leave.

You watched him go, your heart heavy but hopeful. There was something between you—something unspoken, something old—and you weren’t ready to let it go.

Not yet.

---

It had taken a few more days to convince Logan to come back into your apartment. You weren’t sure how you convinced him this time, but you were happy that you did.

Your apartment smelled nice and homey. Before you had left for work, you had put bread in the oven to bake, and now, as you came back home with Logan in tow, it was finished. The warm, inviting scent of freshly baked bread filled the room as you stepped inside. Logan hesitated in the doorway, lingering for a moment before following you in, his expression unreadable but curious.

You busied yourself with the bread, slicing into the crust and offering Logan a piece. He took it, though his attention seemed more focused on you than the food.

"Thanks," he muttered, taking a bite.

You smiled, trying to ignore the way your heart sped up just from him being here. "I was thinking..." you started, turning to grab a couple of plates from the cupboard. "Maybe we could go into the city tomorrow? It’s market day. There's a lot to see, and it’d be nice to get out of the schoolhouse routine for a bit."

Logan raised an eyebrow, leaning back against the counter. "Market, huh?"

"Yeah, you know, just... walk around. Maybe pick up a few things." You looked over at him, half expecting him to decline, but to your surprise, he didn’t.

"Alright," he said, his voice low but without hesitation. "I’ll come with you."

You smiled, feeling a small flutter of excitement in your chest. "Great. It’ll be fun. I promise."

---

The next day, you found yourself walking through the bustling streets of Chicago with Logan by your side. The market was crowded, full of people haggling and chatting, the air thick with the smell of fresh produce, spices, and the occasional whiff of roasting meat. It was a world away from the quiet walks you'd shared, and you could feel Logan's unease in the busy atmosphere. But he stayed close, his hand brushing yours more than once as you wove through the crowd.

"Do you come here often?" Logan asked, his eyes scanning the vendors with mild interest.

"Once or twice a month," you replied. "I like the energy here. Makes the city feel alive, you know?"

Logan grunted in response, though he didn’t seem entirely convinced. You could tell he wasn’t used to this—being around so many people—but he stuck close to you, his presence protective without being overbearing.

After a while, you stopped at a stall selling flowers. The colors were vibrant, a burst of life in the middle of the dusty street. You picked up a small bouquet of wildflowers, smiling as you held them up.

"These are my favorite," you said, glancing up at Logan. "They're simple but... I don't know, they make me happy."

Logan’s gaze softened as he looked at the flowers in your hand, then back at you. There was something in his eyes, a flicker of something unspoken, but he didn’t say anything. Instead, he reached into his coat and pulled out a few coins, handing them to the vendor before you could protest.

"Logan, you don’t have to—"

"Consider it a thank you," he said quietly, cutting you off. "For the bread."

You blinked, surprised but touched by the gesture. "Well, thank you."

He nodded, and the two of you continued walking, the flowers resting in the crook of your arm as the city bustled around you. For a while, you walked in comfortable silence, the sounds of the market fading into the background as the two of you wandered further from the busy streets. Eventually, you found a quiet park at the edge of the city, a small, peaceful space away from the noise.

You sat down on a bench, feeling the cool breeze brush against your skin. Logan sat beside you, his posture relaxed but his eyes always scanning the area, as if he couldn’t fully let his guard down.

"Do you ever stop looking over your shoulder?" you asked, half teasing but curious.

Logan’s mouth twitched into a small smile, though it didn’t quite reach his eyes. "Old habit."

You studied him for a moment, sensing there was more behind those words. He had a way of holding himself, like he was always ready for something, always waiting. It made you wonder just how much he’d seen, how much he’d lived through.

"I’m glad you came with me today," you said softly, looking out at the park. "I feel like I’ve been stuck in a routine for a while now. It’s nice to just... do something different."

Logan glanced at you, his gaze lingering a little longer than usual. "I’m glad I came too," he admitted, his voice low.

There was something in the way he said it, something that made your heart skip a beat. The air between you felt different, charged with a quiet tension that neither of you seemed willing to break. You wondered if he felt it too—the strange pull between you, like something just beneath the surface was waiting to be uncovered.

After a long pause, Logan spoke again. "I ain’t good at... this." He gestured vaguely, his brow furrowing as he searched for the right words. "Being close to people."

You turned to him, surprised by the admission. "You’re doing fine," you said gently.

Logan’s jaw clenched slightly, and he shook his head. "It’s not that simple."

You felt a pang of something—sympathy, maybe, or understanding. Whatever it was, it made you reach out, your hand lightly brushing his. "You don’t have to explain," you said softly. "I get it."

Logan’s eyes flickered down to where your hand rested near his. For a moment, he didn’t move. Then, slowly, he turned his hand over, his rough fingers brushing against yours in the faintest of touches. It wasn’t much, but it felt like a step—like maybe, just maybe, he was letting you in.

---

As you walked to the tenement building after work one day, you glanced over at Logan. “You ever been to the exhibition hall in the city?”

Logan looked over to you, slightly puzzled by the question. “The exhibition?”

You nodded, turning toward him. “There’s a display of inventions and art from all over. I heard they’ve got this new thing—electric lights. I was thinking about going this weekend, and… maybe you’d like to come with me?”

For a moment, Logan just stared at you, as if unsure what to say. The idea of stepping out into the city, surrounded by people, probably wasn’t something he did often. But he shifted slightly, his eyes softening in that way they did when you caught him off guard.

“You want me to go with you?” he asked, a hint of surprise in his voice.

“Well, yeah,” you said, smiling. “We’ve been walking the same few streets for days. Thought it might be nice to do something different. Besides, I’m curious about those lights. They say it’s going to change the way people live.”

Logan gave a low, thoughtful hum, and for a moment, you worried he might decline. But then he nodded slowly, his expression softening further. “Alright. I’ll go.”

Your smile widened. “Great! We can meet at my place on Saturday afternoon, then head out.”

The conversation drifted back into easier topics—your students, a new bakery that had opened nearby, and the way the city seemed to grow busier every day. But beneath it all, you couldn’t shake the feeling that this small invitation marked a shift, a way to see more of who Logan was beyond the quiet man who walked beside you in silence. Maybe out in the world, you’d understand him better.

---

Saturday came quickly, and the two of you walked side by side through the busy streets, the sounds of horses and carriages filling the air. You led Logan through the bustling avenues toward the exhibition hall, your excitement barely contained.

“Ever seen anything like this?” you asked, glancing up at him as the towering hall came into view.

Logan’s eyes flicked over the building, a hint of amusement tugging at the corner of his mouth. “Not in a while.”

Inside, the hall was a wonder of modern marvels. Booths lined with mechanical inventions, sculptures, and paintings from around the world. The hum of excitement filled the air, and the bright new electric lights cast a strange, almost magical glow over everything.

You wandered the displays together, your curiosity leading the way. Logan stayed close, his attention less on the inventions and more on you. Every now and then, he'd glance at a piece of machinery or a strange-looking contraption, but his eyes kept drifting back to your face, watching the way your expression changed with each new discovery.

"This is incredible," you murmured, leaning in to get a closer look at a large machine labeled as an ‘automatic loom.’ You smiled at Logan, your excitement clear. "Can you imagine how much time this would save?"

Logan nodded, though you could tell his thoughts were elsewhere. "Yeah, I can see how it'd be useful."

You moved to the next display, but Logan lingered for a moment. When he finally caught up, you were already studying a painting—a soft, pastoral scene that contrasted with the industrial energy around you.

"It's beautiful, isn’t it?" you said, glancing at him.

Logan’s gaze flicked to the painting, but quickly returned to you. "Yeah," he said, though it was clear he wasn’t talking about the art.

You felt his eyes on you again and looked up, meeting his gaze. There was something there—something that made your heart skip. Logan had always been protective, always hovering just close enough to shield you if need be. But this felt different, like there was more to it now.

"You sure this ain’t boring for you?" you asked, trying to lighten the moment. "I know you’re not one for crowds."

Logan gave a quiet grunt, his version of a chuckle. "It’s fine. Long as you’re enjoying yourself."

You smiled, touched by the sentiment. "I am. Thanks for coming with me."

For a while, you wandered together in silence, taking in the sights and sounds of the exhibition hall. The crowds around you buzzed with excitement, but the space between you and Logan felt almost separate—like the world had shrunk to just the two of you.

At one point, you stopped in front of a display showcasing early electric light bulbs. "Look at that," you said, pointing to the glass bulbs flickering with soft light. "They’re saying these will replace gas lamps soon."

Logan raised an eyebrow. "Doesn’t seem right, replacing something that’s worked for so long."

"Change is good sometimes," you said, glancing at him. "It keeps things moving forward."

Logan met your eyes, his expression soft but thoughtful. "Guess I’ve never been good with change."

You tilted your head slightly, sensing the weight behind his words. "Maybe you just haven’t found the right reason to embrace it yet."

For a moment, Logan didn’t respond. His gaze lingered on you, like he was trying to make sense of something. Then, slowly, he nodded. "Maybe."

As the afternoon wore on, the two of you eventually stepped outside the exhibition hall, the sun low in the sky and the city’s evening glow starting to take over. The air felt cooler now, a welcome relief after the warmth of the crowded hall.

You walked beside Logan in comfortable silence, but the charged undercurrent between you hadn’t faded. It felt like something had shifted—like you’d both acknowledged a deeper connection, even if neither of you had fully put it into words yet.

"You want to get something to eat?" Logan asked, breaking the silence.

"Sure," you said, smiling up at him. "There’s a place not far from here. They make the best stew."

Logan nodded, falling into step beside you again as you made your way toward the small restaurant you had in mind. The quiet between you was easy, but there was an unspoken understanding that something had changed between the two of you today. Neither of you said it out loud, but you didn’t need to.

As you entered the restaurant, the warm scent of food filled the air, and you found a table near the back, away from the main crowd. Logan took the seat across from you, his eyes scanning the room out of habit, but eventually settling back on you.

"This place isn’t so bad," he said, giving a small nod of approval.

You laughed softly. "Glad it meets your standards."

Logan smirked, but there was a softness behind it. As the two of you talked over dinner, you realized just how much you enjoyed moments like this—quiet, simple, yet meaningful. It wasn’t about grand gestures or fancy places; it was about being together, about the way Logan made you feel safe and seen.

---

One day, after inviting Logan into your apartment once again, you set out to make tea like you always do.

You felt a cough building up in your throat, so you grabbed a small handkerchief from the counter and coughed into it. You had seen the school doctor while you were at work, and he said you just had a mild cold.

Logan, who was sitting on the couch, immediately turned his head to you, his heart almost beating out of his chest. He’d heard that cough before—26 years ago.

"Y/N?" he asked, his voice low, almost hesitant.

You turned around, still holding the handkerchief to your mouth. "Yeah?" you answered casually, noticing the tension in his voice but thinking nothing of it. “Just a little cough, nothing serious. I saw the doctor earlier, and he said it’s just a cold.”

Logan stood up slowly, his eyes fixed on you, his expression unreadable. He took a step closer, his mind racing back to 1854, to your last days—bedridden and coughing, just like this. He had lost you then, watching helplessly as the illness took you. He couldn't shake the feeling, the memory, and the fear that history might repeat itself.

"Cold, huh?" he said, trying to keep his voice steady, but there was an edge to it.

"Yeah, no big deal." You smiled, folding the handkerchief and putting it back in your pocket. "Really, Logan, I’m fine."

Logan’s jaw tightened. He had seen too much, lived too long to believe in coincidence. This was too familiar, too painful. And yet, here you were—alive, vibrant. This time, he couldn’t lose you again. He wouldn't.

"You should take it easy," he said, stepping closer, his tone gentler now. "You been workin' too hard at that school."

You raised an eyebrow, sensing his concern but not quite understanding the depth of it. "I’m fine, really. It’s just a little cold. Nothing that rest and tea won’t fix."

Logan didn’t argue, but the worry in his eyes didn’t fade. He reached out, his hand hovering for a moment before he gently brushed his fingers against your arm, grounding himself in the fact that you were here, with him. This wasn’t 1854. But the memory haunted him.

You noticed the way he was looking at you, his eyes searching yours like he was afraid to lose you. "Hey," you said softly, resting a hand on his. "What’s really going on?"

Logan’s breath hitched for a moment, and he fought the urge to pull you closer, to tell you everything. But how could he? How could he explain that you’d been here before—that he’d watched you die, that he’d loved you once in another life, in another time? Instead, he just shook his head, the weight of those memories too heavy to share.

"Just... don’t push yourself too hard," he said, his voice quieter now. "I’ve seen people get worse when they don’t take care of themselves."

You nodded, though his intensity still lingered in your mind. "I promise, I’ll rest." You gave him a reassuring smile, trying to lighten the mood. "Besides, you’ll make sure I do, right?"

Logan’s lips quirked into the smallest smile, but there was still something distant in his eyes. "Yeah," he said softly. "I will."

The moment hung in the air, the unspoken weight of Logan’s past pressing down on him, though you couldn’t see it. You were the same, and yet not. The woman he had once loved and lost was standing right in front of him, alive, but without any memory of that life you’d shared.

---

You didn’t see Logan for a few days, which was unusual, ever since he started walking with you he had never missed a day.

You couldn’t help but worry a tad bit, it wasn’t like him to just not be there. Even Ida had made a few comments, including now as you sat in her apartment, just a few doors down from your own, sipping tea.

“He hasn’t been by at all?” Ida asked, her brow furrowed with concern. “That man never misses a day. He’s usually lurking outside, waitin’ to walk you home.”

You nodded, biting your lip. “Yeah, I noticed. It’s been three days now.”

Ida leaned forward, her hands folded on the table. “You don’t think somethin’s happened to him, do ya? That man is tough, sure, but even the toughest get into trouble sometimes.”

You shook your head quickly, not wanting to entertain the thought. “No, I’m sure he’s fine. Maybe he just needed some time alone. He’s... not the type to explain himself much.”

Ida hummed, though she didn’t look convinced. “Maybe. But if he doesn’t show up soon, you ought to go find him. He’s a good man, Y/N, and you’ve only known him a month, but it’s clear he cares about you.”

The truth of her words settled over you, heavy and unspoken. You cared about Logan too. Even if you didn’t quite understand the pull between you, it was there—undeniable. And the fact that he hadn’t shown up, without so much as a word, made your chest tighten with worry.

Later that evening, after you’d left Ida’s apartment and returned to your own, you couldn’t shake the uneasy feeling. Logan had become part of your routine, part of your day-to-day life. And now that he was gone, it felt like something was missing.

Just as you were about to turn in for the night, a knock sounded at the door.

Your heart jumped, and you rushed to open it, half expecting—half hoping—it would be Logan.

And there he was.

He stood in the doorway, his coat damp from the light rain outside, his hair slightly tousled. His eyes, though, were what caught you—the familiar intensity, but with something else lurking beneath. Something darker.

“Logan,” you breathed, stepping aside to let him in. “Where have you been? I was starting to get worried.”

Logan stepped into your small apartment, his broad frame somehow filling the space, making it feel even smaller. He didn’t say anything right away, just ran a hand through his hair and exhaled sharply, as if he were trying to gather his thoughts.

“I needed time,” he finally said, his voice low and gravelly.

“Time for what?” you asked gently, sensing that whatever he was about to say wasn’t easy for him.

Logan glanced at you, then looked away, as if he couldn’t meet your eyes. His jaw tightened, and you could see the struggle on his face—like he was wrestling with something deep inside. After a long pause, he spoke again, quieter this time.

“I’m scared,” he admitted, the words sounding foreign in his mouth, like he wasn’t used to saying them.

You blinked, taken aback. Logan was the last person you ever expected to hear those words from. “Scared of what?”

His eyes flickered up to meet yours, and you saw the vulnerability there, raw and unguarded. “Of losing you,” he said, his voice barely above a whisper.

You stared at him, your heart pounding in your chest. “Logan… we’ve only known each other for a month,” you said softly, though the words felt strange even as they left your mouth. Because deep down, it felt like you’d known him much longer—like this connection between you was more than just a month in the making.

“I know,” Logan said, his voice rough. “But it doesn’t change how I feel.”

There was something in the way he was looking at you, something desperate and pained, like he was holding onto you with everything he had. You wanted to ask him why, to understand what had happened in his past to make him feel this way. But instead, you just reached out, your hand finding his.

“I’m not going anywhere,” you said quietly, squeezing his hand gently. “I’m right here.”

Logan’s breath hitched, and before you could say anything more, he stepped closer, his hand cupping the side of your face. His thumb brushed your cheek, his touch rough but gentle, and for a moment, the world around you seemed to fall away. It was just the two of you, standing in the quiet of your apartment, the air between you thick with unspoken words.

And then, without warning, he leaned in and kissed you.

It wasn’t a gentle kiss. It was urgent, almost desperate, like he was trying to tell you everything he couldn’t put into words. His lips moved against yours with a fierceness that took your breath away, and for a moment, all you could do was hold onto him, your fingers curling into the fabric of his coat as you kissed him back.

When he finally pulled away, his forehead rested against yours, his breath warm against your skin. His hand still cupped your cheek, his thumb gently brushing along your jawline.

“I can’t lose you,” he whispered, his voice thick with emotion.

Your heart ached at the raw honesty in his words, and you wanted to promise him that he wouldn’t—that you were here, that you weren’t going anywhere. But something about the way he said it made you hesitate, made you wonder what he wasn’t telling you.

“Logan…” you started, your voice soft. “What aren’t you telling me?”

For a long moment, he didn’t answer. His hand dropped from your face, and he took a step back, his expression guarded once again. The walls he’d let down just moments ago seemed to be rising back up.

“I’ve lived a long time,” he said finally, his voice low. “I’ve lost people before. People I cared about. I can’t… I can’t go through that again.”

You felt a pang in your chest at his words, but there was something else there too—something unspoken. “Logan… who did you lose?”

His eyes flickered with pain, but he didn’t answer. Instead, he just shook his head, as if he couldn’t bring himself to say it out loud.

You wanted to press him, to understand, but you also knew that Logan wasn’t someone who opened up easily. So instead, you just stepped closer, wrapping your arms around him in a gentle hug. He stiffened at first, but then his arms slowly came around you, pulling you close as if he was afraid to let go.

“I’m here,” you whispered against his chest. “I’m not going anywhere.”

For now, that was all you could offer him. And for now, it seemed to be enough.

---

You and Ida sat in the back of the rattling carriage, bundled against the cold, the wheels creaking beneath the weight of your bags from the market. The late afternoon sky was heavy with clouds, promising rain before nightfall and a storm by morning.

“Supposed to come down hard tomorrow,” Ida said, clutching her shawl tighter. “Glad we got everything done now. Don’t wanna be caught in that mess.”

You smiled, shifting a bag of potatoes off your lap. “It’ll be nice to have an excuse to stay in and rest. Logan’s been after me about taking it easy anyway.”

Ida gave you a knowing look, her brow lifting. “That man likes you, Y/N. More than you think.”

You shrugged, though your cheeks warmed slightly. “I know he cares. He’s just… different. Keeps to himself.”

“He’s different, alright,” Ida muttered, peering out the carriage window. “But he’s not the type to care about someone without good reason. Don’t let that one get away.”

You didn’t respond, but your thoughts drifted to Logan—how he had kissed you that night, holding you like you were the only thing keeping him grounded. There was something ancient in his touch, like he had carried the weight of loss for far too long. You didn’t fully understand it, but you felt it—something deeper than words or time.

The carriage jolted suddenly, jerking you forward in your seat. The horse up front whinnied, wild and panicked.

“Whoa!” the driver shouted, yanking hard on the reins.

You clutched Ida’s arm, your heart racing. “What’s going on?”

The driver cursed, standing in his seat to get a better look. “The damn harness snapped! The horse—”

Before he could finish, the horse bolted, the broken leather straps slapping wildly behind it. The carriage lurched, and you and Ida were thrown sideways. The wheels screamed as they spun out of control, the driver shouting as he fought to keep it steady.

“Hold on!” he yelled.

The world tilted violently as the carriage careened off the road, slamming into a ditch. Bags spilled across the floor, and you hit your shoulder hard against the side wall. Ida’s scream filled your ears, but the noise was drowned out by the thunder of the collapsing carriage, wood splintering and wheels buckling beneath the weight.

And then—nothing.

The carriage stopped, shuddering to a halt in a twisted heap at the bottom of the ditch. The rain started, light at first, pattering against the wreckage.

---

Logan was walking back toward your tenement building, the collar of his coat turned up against the cold drizzle, when he saw it—just beyond the next block, down by the road.

The sight hit him like a punch to the chest.

A carriage, overturned, one of the wheels still spinning lazily. The horse was gone, its reins dangling uselessly from the harness. People were gathering, but no one dared approach the wreckage yet.

Logan’s heart stopped. He knew—he just knew.

His feet moved before he could think. He sprinted toward the wreck, rain falling harder now, soaking through his clothes. His boots hit the muddy road with heavy thuds, splashing water as he ran faster than any ordinary man should.

By the time he reached the scene, a bystander had climbed down, trying to pry the splintered door open. Logan shoved him aside without a word, claws itching under his skin, ready to tear the door off if need be.

“Someone’s inside!” the man stammered. “Two women—”

Logan didn’t wait. His hands found the edge of the door, and with a growl of effort, he yanked it off the hinges. Inside the crumpled interior, he saw you, half-buried beneath scattered bags.

“Y/N!” His voice cracked, raw and frantic. He dropped to his knees and pulled you free, cradling you in his arms.

You stirred, barely conscious, your head lolling against his chest. Blood streaked your temple, and your breath came in shallow gasps.

“Logan…?” you whispered, confused, your hand weakly grasping his coat.

“I got you,” Logan said, his voice breaking. “I’m here. You’re gonna be fine.” But even as he said it, dread gnawed at him—this wasn’t fine. It was happening again.

Ida groaned nearby, struggling to sit up, but Logan’s focus was locked on you. He pressed a hand against your side, where your ribs felt wrong under his touch. He could feel the heat of your blood seeping into his fingers.

“No, no, no…” Logan whispered, shaking his head. The storm raged around him, but all he could hear was the shallow rasp of your breathing.

You looked up at him, your gaze unfocused, but your lips curled into the faintest smile. “I told you… I’d rest…”

“Don’t,” Logan begged, his forehead pressing against yours. “Don’t do this. Stay with me. You hear me? Stay.��

You blinked slowly, your hand slipping from his coat. “I… tried…”

Logan clenched his jaw, biting down hard against the scream building in his chest. His healing mutation would keep him alive through anything—but it couldn’t save you. Not now. Not again.

He kissed your forehead, his breath shuddering. “I can’t lose you again, darlin’. Not like this…”

Your breath hitched once, then stopped.

“No,” Logan whispered, rocking you in his arms. “No, no, no…”

His hands trembled as he pulled you closer, your lifeless body limp against him. The rain poured down harder, drumming on the wreckage, but Logan didn’t care. He sat there, holding you, feeling the familiar, soul-crushing emptiness settle in his chest like an old wound tearing open again.

And still, he held you. Because this time, just like 26 years ago, he couldn’t let go.

in this chapter logan is 48 years old and reader is around 22-24 years old. just a reminder that going forward there is going to be an age gap between the two since logan obviously keeps getting older.

#logan howlett x reader #logan howlett x you #wolverine x reader #wolverine x you #james howlett x reader #james howlett x you #logan howlett #logan howlett fanfiction #logan howlett x fem!reader #logan howlett fic #i love you in every time

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vervee · 3 months ago

Text

I am so screwed

Summary - You’re about to take your driver’s test when your Uber crashes into a truck. You wake up as a baby in a dating sim you used to play. Cue the mental breakdown. You’re stuck in a new life with no control, and worst of all, you’re starting over—puberty’s back, and you’re pretty sure you’re screwed.

Warnings in General - MDNI, Mature themes, blood, gore, violence, drugs, death, human experimentation, etc...

Maybe it was a sign?

You were just a college student, about to take your driver’s test. You did everything you could—roped your friends into helping you memorize road signs, survived all those breakdowns with your older brother yelling at you in his not-so-calm voice every time you messed up.

Couldn’t God just let you catch a break this time?

On test day, you took an Uber. No one in your family could drive you, but they all wished you good luck. You were so pumped, hyping yourself up like you were about to win a gold medal.

You’d nailed the written exam—now it was time to prove to the government that you could actually drive.

But then, for some reason…

Your Uber driver was way worse than you.

He swerved into passing traffic at an intersection and crashed right into a freaking Costco truck.

You didn’t even know what was going on at first. You were too busy texting a friend until you felt the impact. You remember the coil in your seat and how the seatbelt dug into your body as you clung to the grab handle, praying you'd stay alive.

‘Fuck this,’ was your last thought as you closed your eyes, just seconds after hearing the wail of the ambulance sirens.

In those seconds, you hoped your dad was okay. After his stroke a few years ago, he struggled with so much. You just hoped mom wasn’t pushing herself too hard at work—being the only one working since dad had to retire after the accident left his left arm useless.

You remembered your oldest brother texting you about a package being delivered to the front door, telling you to bring it inside before someone swiped it off the porch. Your older sister probably went home after her graveyard shift at the hospital, waiting for your brother-in-law to come back from a flight. And your older brother? He was probably about to call to ask what’s for dinner.

You were the youngest in your family, a solid ten years apart from your older brother, who was the third oldest. Growing up, you didn’t have anyone to play with—your siblings were all angsty teens who didn’t want to play ponies with you anymore.

Now, though? They all wanted to do everything with you. Their baby sister, who was almost done with her angsty phase too.

You always figured they were jealous because you were the favorite. And honestly, who could blame them? You were a total godsend. Dad would’ve laughed if you said that out loud—if you were anything like him, you'd know that statement was far from the truth.

Still, you hoped they wouldn’t have trouble anymore.

At least now, you'd get to see your grandfather and the niece you never got to meet.

Then, your heart beat its last.

"Isn't she pretty?" A man's voice made you stir.

"So cute!" A woman gushed, her voice full of excitement.

You had no idea if they were talking about you, but your eyelids felt heavy, and all you wanted to do was sleep. These voices were way too close for comfort, and you just hoped they weren’t some crazy lunatics cooing over you at your deathbed.

Your vision blurred, and instead of seeing your dead grandparents, you saw a young couple, their faces lit up with big smiles. “Oh, she’s waking up!” The woman said, clearly delighted.

Who the hell were these people?!

You wanted to move, to get up, but your body had no strength. “She’s squirming… Maybe her diaper is full?” Diaper?

Wait, what?

NAUR!!!

This couldn’t be real! In any other situation, you might’ve been stoked to get another shot at life, but these were NOT your parents! You wanted your real mama and papa, not these strangers!

“WAHHHH!” Your cries came out so high-pitched, they could’ve made your music teacher, the one you never missed a chance to tease about his bald spot, flinch.

The woman holding you flinched too, clearly a new parent. “Hon, quick! I need to change her diaper!” she called to her husband, who immediately rushed to grab the duffle bag from one of the chairs.

‘No! Get away!’

Your tiny body was in full meltdown mode. You were so mad—not only were these people your new parents, but you were gonna have to go through the whole school system again! All of it. All that effort, all those grades, just to start over like a baby.

Puberty.

That thought only made you cry harder. It had taken you YEARS to achieve the perfect poreless face. Why did nothing ever go your way?! What kind of karma was this BS? You were a genuinely good person—you’d even stopped yourself from committing arson multiple times! That alone should’ve earned you a life back with your real family!

Apparently, your meltdown over having to go through puberty again was enough to distract you from your diaper being changed. The next thing you knew, a baby bottle was being shoved (gently) into your mouth, warm formula milk filling it.

‘Now this is just degrading...’

Though comforting, you finally understood why babies stop crying when they’re fed. But... you grew up lactose intolerant. Hopefully, you didn’t inherit any of those genes from your previous life.

Your “mother” giggled, her smile lighting up the room. She was so pretty—no, gorgeous. She looked like she’d stepped right out of a magazine.

“We waited so long to meet you…” she whispered, and you realized she had already decided on your name.

They kept your name.

The name your dad gave you at birth.

Maybe, just maybe, you could tolerate this new life after all.

Turns out your “mom” and “dad” were loaded.

Apparently, “dad” was some kind of financial day trader, and “mom” was a fashion designer.

You were pretty sure they had money in the same way most people had Netflix subscriptions—like it was just a given. You were starting to see how this new life might not be so bad… though you still wished it didn’t come with the whole baby thing.

The neighborhood was nice, and the house they pulled up to was even nicer. This was… so different from how you grew up. Your parents weren’t wealthy at all, didn’t come from much money. You and your older sister had to be the breadwinners of the family—go to school, get good grades, and make sure you got paid.

Comfort always felt… unfulfilling to you. It was like you’d never earned it, never had to fight for it. It didn’t have the same satisfaction as the struggle. Maybe that’s why it felt so empty now, even with all the luxury around you.

It was just how you grew up.

You shifted in the little stroller your "mom" had put you in, your tiny body still adjusting to everything. Your "dad" was the one guiding it to the front door. “Welcome home, pumpkin,” he cooed at you.

The pet name made you sick. This man was nothing like your real papa.

You pouted, and he tilted his head, clearly trying to figure you out. “You’ve been pouting since you woke up. Do you want a nap?”

God, you hated that sweet, patronizing tone of his voice. It made your skin crawl.

The nursery was nice—fit for a princess, really. Pastel pink and ivory white were the main colors, everything had fur, and even the little bunny in the crib was now your new roommate.

‘I miss Mr. Puffles II.’

You watched the mobile above you spin slowly, playing a familiar melody. Mr. Puffles had been the first and only Christmas present you ever got from your parents—a pink teddy bear you’d had since you were six.

You knew you were being a Negative Nancy, but this was just how you coped. There were too many things still spinning around in your head. You hated not knowing things.

Ultimately, you decided to sleep on it—partly because you had way too much to process, but mostly because watching the mobile spin was making you really sleepy.

Sleep came easier than you expected, but that didn’t stop the weird sense of disconnection you felt the moment you woke up.

The next morning, or whatever time it was (you had no real concept of time anymore), you were greeted by your “mom” hovering over your crib with a bright, almost blinding smile. “Good morning, sweetheart~” her voice was as soft as the ridiculous amount of plushies surrounding you.

You merely blinked at her.

How were you supposed to respond to that? Cry? Giggle? You refused to do either.

Instead, your stomach betrayed you, letting out a grumble so loud that even you were embarrassed. Your “mom” giggled. “Sounds like someone’s hungry.” No. No, you weren’t.

You were just—okay, maybe you were. But you didn’t want to be.

You still weren’t over the fact that you were back to square one in life, stuck in a body that couldn’t even hold up its own head properly.

You barely had time to protest before you were scooped up into her arms and carried downstairs. The house was even bigger than you realized, all modern and pristine, like something out of a home magazine.

Your “dad” was already at the dining table, dressed in some fancy-looking suit, sipping his morning coffee like he was living in a commercial. “Morning, princess,” he greeted, flashing you a smile.

You wanted to glare at him. Instead, you just stared.

This was your life now, huh?

She passed you along to him, and he held you securely in one arm while holding the bottle with the other. You begrudgingly accepted it—because, well, survival—but that didn’t mean you were happy about it.

“Mom should be here soon,” “dad” said to “mom.”

You assumed he meant her mom—your supposed “grandmother.”

“Mom” visibly relaxed, letting out a relieved sigh. “That’s a relief.” And honestly, it was—considering she had just given birth to you a few days ago. She should be recuperating.

You were at least glad to see they had some family support instead of just handing you off to a nanny. Not that it changed much for you, but hey, better than being raised by a stranger, right?

The doorbell rang.

“Mom” started to get up, but “Dad” was quicker. “I’ve got it, just rest,” he told her, his tone firm but gentle. Before you could even process what was happening, he brought you with him to the door.

“Dad" opened the door to reveal a young woman who looked about the same age as "Mom." She was holding a gift basket in one hand, and with the other, she kept a grip on a little boy who couldn't have been older than two.

The kid had black hair and hazel-green eyes, and despite his baby face, he had the most dead inside look you’d ever seen.

‘What are you looking at, brat?’ you mentally challenged him, locking eyes.

For some reason… he looked weirdly familiar.

“Ah, James. How is Miriam?” the woman asked with a gracious smile.

So those were their names.

“Oh, and here’s a little goody basket for you guys. Congrats.”

James returned her smile, adjusting his hold on you. “She’s resting,” he said, then accepted the basket with his free hand. “Thank you, it’s much appreciated.”

The woman’s eyes brightened when they landed on you.

Heh. Of course they did. No one could resist you—you were the ultimate weakness of women. A baby.

“Is this her?” she asked, already smitten.

James nodded vigorously, beaming with all the pride of a new dad. “Yep, this is our little miracle.” He held you up slightly, practically showing you off like a prized trophy.

Yeah, yeah. You got it, you were cute.

The woman lifted her son, leaning him closer so he could get a good look at you. “Say hi, Zayne,” she encouraged.

Wait—

Zayne?

The little boy stared at you with those same dull, lifeless eyes. His mom smiled warmly. “I hope they become good friends when they’re older,” she said. “They’ll be seeing each other often since we’re neighbors. Miriam and I would love for them to get along.”

Black hair. Green-hazel eyes. Monotone even as a child—

YOU REINCARNATED INTO LOVE AND DEEP SPACE?!

Of all universes, why a dating sim you used to play?!

This had to be some sort of joke, right? This kind of thing only happened in fanfics! You were not built for fighting Wanderers! You could barely survive the mile run in high school, let alone deal with all the chaos in that world!

And worst of all? You did not want to get wrapped up in MC’s messy love life, her harem.

“WAAHHH!” You wailed, absolutely losing it.

James, Zayne, and his mother all flinched at the sudden outburst.

James immediately started bouncing you gently, trying to calm you down. “It’s okay, princess, Daddy’s here,” he cooed, but you were not having it.

You were freaking out, and rightfully so! This was not the life you signed up for!

James shot Zayne’s mother a helpless look, silently pleading for assistance. She, in turn, gave him an understanding nod. “Seems like we disrupted her,” she said. “We’ll leave for now. Tell Miriam to take it easy, okay?”

With that, she turned away, guiding little Zayne back toward their home.

But you? You were still internally screaming.

James closed the door behind him, still bouncing you gently as he walked back into the house. “It’s okay,” he murmured, trying to soothe you.

No! It was not okay!

You were far from okay!

‘I am so screwed!’

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gatorbites-imagines · 6 days ago

Note

Dear gator.............I LOVE THE LAST POST WITH WOLVERINE!!!!

Sir.....may we get more of him???? Like the same AU or something else? Like reader is as old ad him and they (mostly Logan) finds comfort in R (his) arms? He knows that someone may live as long as him and that makes him happy as he knows he will outlive most of the x men in some way or another?

LOVE THE WAY YOU WRITE!!!

Logan Howlett x mutant male reader

Headcanons

If I remember correctly, I got this request after writing about feral mutant reader and Logan, so thats what im going with.

Maybe reader has a similar mutation to Logan, healing factor and all, he just doesn't have the adamantium bones. Hes got a quick healing factor though.

You two being equally old means you two have been together for a very, very long time. It means you two know each other like the back of your hands, and you two can coexist without needing to speak.

Being feral mutants also helps in that regard, as you two are able to communicate with scents. It has nothing to do with being feral mutants, but you guys can also just grunt or huff, and the other will know what you mean.

You two are probably kinda codependent after so long together. Sure, you guys split apart for periods of time to do your own thing, but you always end up back together.

Being apart for longer periods of time make you both itchy. Your friends and allies can always tell when this is happening, cuz you both get extra grumpy and grouchy.

Having a partner who's been there all along helps keep a lot of memories alive too, because things are worth remembering now.

Logan will always say he's forgotten the first time you two met, or when he fell in love. But those memories are still clear all these years later.

Being together for so long also means that you are each other's comfort. Somewhere you can both go and find solace and love when the world falls apart.

With you not having the protection of the adamantium, Logan will at times get antsy when on missions, especially when he sees you in pain from broken bones or the likes.

You and Logan will always scent each other. Its a very normal sight in the X-men to see you sitting on the couch, and Logan will stop behind you to rub his chin on the top of your head.

Or the times where you will snuffle Logans neck and shoulders before you start nibbling on him a little, just to make the scent stick longer.

Theres no his or yours, and all your friends and allies know this. When it comes to laundry, food or drinks, there is no need to struggle who owns it. Just dump it all in your shared spot.

This would probably result in Logan having a broader amount of outfits, outside of white tank tops, boots and jeans, since he will wear what you buy and wear. And vice-versa.

Logans a grumbly guy, we all know that, but he allows himself to be vulnerable with you.

Being together for so long, and having known each other from the very beginning, means that Logan feels he can be open and himself with you. Theres no need to pull up his defenses for someone whos been with him every step of the way.

You guys probably have similar trauma and have been through similar things, and you understand one another on a deeper level that cant be matched.

This is also why Logan allows himself to be such a cuddlebug when you guys are alone in your shared room, or whatever motel you two are staying at. Or even in some cave or tent in the middle of nowhere.

Aging as slowly as you guys do means you have lost a lot of people, and you will continue to lose people, a fact that never stops hurting.

But being able to be held by you, to hear your heart and smell your scent, to feel your warmth wrapped around him, makes it hurt a little less.

And of course, it goes your way too. No matter how much time you two spend apart, knowing that Logan will always be there, waiting for you.

Even the times where you guys have argued and not seen each other for years, you still accepted each other and just held on. This also just means you two are a lot more protective when things go down, but thats to be expected.

170 notes · View notes

palmanatomy · 2 months ago

Text

Since people are still confused about Tims dating history and over-exaggerating how big of a slut he is or saying that his type is blondes, I'm going to clear some things up.

Also, I'm counting actual canon relationships, not just random women who kissed him because I cant be bothered and some of those were grown ass women kissing a fifteen year old.

First girlfriend: Ariana Dzerchenko - Tims first girlfriend when he was fourteen was a black haired Russian immigrant who lived with her uncle. Their relationship was kinda strained because Tim couldn't tell her everything about himself as Robin and she kept accusing him of cheating on her and then cheating on him and when she tried to admit to him that she went out with another guy he fell asleep and her uncle tried to kill him and they were forbidden from seeing each other. It was a whole thing. By the end of the relationship, it was very strained and they were obviously trying to make something that couldn't work, work.

Tim technically kissed Stephanie after she saved him from getting buried alive with her dad, and went on kinda dates with her as spoiler and robin when Ariana and Tim were forbidden from seeing each other. I think Spoiler and Robin kissed during those kinda dates after Tim and Ariana were allowed to see each other again and trying to make their relationship work. Tim was going to tell Ariana but she dumped him so the whole issue was resolved.

This is the only instance of Tim cheating. Yes, it was very messy. But it was mainly chuck dixon trying to push for Timsteph to be together and force steph into a manic pixie dream role and make her seem so much more rational and reasonable than ariana and not like other girls.

Second Girlfriend: Stephanie Brown. Honestly, they were so cute together. Especially when they written by Jon Lewis. Steph starts off not knowing anything about Tim but Batman betrays his trust and reveals Tims identity to her when he goes missing. Their relationship only becomes stronger though and they lean on each other and are honest and open and Tim tries to kill someone for her. They loved each other and I loved them together. They genuinely looked out for eachother.

And then, something stupid happens.

Darla decides to kiss Tim instead of saying hey I like you when Tim has said repeatedly that he has a girlfriend. Steph was spying on Tim and runs away just before Tim cuts off the kiss and tells darla that she shouldnt have done that. This is what people also bring up for Tim cheating. but. literally.

Anyway, war games, darla dies, steph dies, jack dies, dana is hospitalised with grief and darla comes back to life. what they had i wouldnt call a relationship, especially because tim isnt in the right mental state for one right now, what with losing steph and all. And darla isnt in the right headspace either, so they didnt actually date even though people keep trying to bring up darla as a relationship.

Third girlfriend: Zoanne Wilkins. An african american high achieving girl who is on her way to harvard. I love her, and she and Tim are similar in the way that they are academically smart and inclined and shes understanding of what hes struggled through with losing his parents and getting kidnapped right in front of her and everything. She is understanding, but ultimately they call off the relationship and stay just friends.

Also weird thing with Cassie I wouldnt count because it was a grief fueled depressive spiral that was bound to end badly because they were both thinking of kon while it was happening. so i dont think they really dated

Fourth girlfriend: Tamara Fox. Tam is different because she knew Tim was Red Robin from the start and she has been involved in so much crazy shit with him i dont know why she hasn't beat him up yet. They werent really together a whole lot, but they had like a fake engagement to get Vicki Vale off their back and hey it worked. They

And then there was this weird thing with lynx who was maybe a good guy maybe a bad guy and tim broke her out of prison and they kept like getting freaky on rooftops. It was weird, but this kinda happened at the same time of the Timtam stuff. Not really dating, just a few makeouts on the roof. So cheating? If Tim and Tam were actually dating, which was really unclear.

Idk what happens in new 52 cos i just. ignore. all that.

Tim and steph are back together! In young justice 2019 at least. And they are so cute and in love.

But then they break up off panel and Tim comes out as bi and dates bernard. Its very much a disservice to this relationship that is so iconic and amazing and im not saying that tim being bi and tim dating bernard is bad or wrong, im just saying that tim and steph not having any real closure on their relationship is not good because they kind of just thrust tim into this realtionship with bernard built on nothing. but its whatever.

First boyfriend: Bernard Dowd. His friend at louise e grieve memorial, before it got shot up and the third person in their trio died. when the school got shut down, people were sent all over the place, Bernard to some rich private school and Tim to bludhaven where he drops out of school completely. They dont keep in touch, which is pretty much explicitely states in robin 1993 when bernard makes a rough estimation to darla as to where tim is. but still. its very random and kind of bland and kind of like they just forced a boyfriend onto tim to be like hey look we have a bisexual character.

I just wish there was a proper build up instead of it kind of being random. And breaking up with steph off panel. and just there being nothing of substance of their relationship. all of his other relationships show conflict and resolution. Secret identities play an issue with his ability to communicate, his inability to be honest, his grief and issues with balancing his lives and living up to expectations of a relationship. Does bernard know tim is robin? ive seen those pride covers and like i read td:r but idek when he reveals hes robin. it was a while ago but still. does bernard know what happened to darla? also why would they reunite two of the trio and not bring back darla. like where is their magic best friend? it could be so interesting to see their relationship change from when they were in high school to young adulthood but no. They had so much potential, but the execution was just oh look hes gay and has boyfriend now. theyre happy, no conflict, no substance, no nothing.

Anyway. Four official relationships. I feel like thats normal for like a 19-21 year old. Hes not that big of a cheater, but he is still messy and weird and has strange homoerotic friendships. anyway. dc bring back zoanne wilkins and darla aquista and i will love you.

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with-my-calamitous-love · 9 months ago

Text

SIX WEEKS (8 YEARS) OF BREATHING CLEAN AIR / I STILL MISS THE SMOKE

touya todoroki x reader

you finally bring yourself to visit your husband in the hospital.

mha official ending spoilers

part 2/3, part 1

inspired by the black dog

what a long 8 years.

touya’s defeat came at no surprise to you. as much as you wanted to root for your husband, to hope he achieves the twisted, revenge-filled dreams he dedicated his like (death) to, you knew his attempts would be futile.

you knew that the moment shouto’s fists connected with your husbands, it’d be over. the flames would subside, and dabi’s fiery reign would come to an end. for just a moment, in the midst of the blue and red flames, you saw a glimpse of two broken brothers. just a glimpse.

what followed wasn’t any less heartbreaking. touya was kept alive in his own, high tech cell. though he had made sure to keep you hidden from the world, you heard from short whispers that there was nothing that could be done about his current state. he could only manage a few words, his vessel slowly slowly dissipating into nothing but ash.

you absolutely could not bring yourself to visit. not in any of those 8 years. maybe its because you knew you could very well be hearing your last words from him soon.

too many memories engulfed in fire. his arsons match and your tear-stained eyes, watching it all helplessly.

so for as long as you could, you stayed in your house, grieving for the living.

until now.

it wasn’t a surprise you were eventually found out. when you opened your door, expecting the mail, you were greeted with a familiar face- not when you were angry about seeing, but not particularly delighted by any means. his dual coloured eyes and scar similar to that of your husbands- not by look but by origin.

you honestly couldn’t remember how he convinced you to leave your home. he may as well have dragged you by your feet, into his car and to the facility they were keeping touya in. this man was technically your brother, too. but seeing him felt like a wound reopened.

touya laid there, his body weak and emaciated, as the machines beeped and whirred around him, monitoring his vital signs and keeping him alive. a futile but admittedly impressive effort by his rich father, wanting to somehow make amends. everyone knew, however, that he was not saving a life- he was prolonging a death. the death of his firstborn son, to be exact.

his mind was hazy, his vision blurry as he struggled to keep his eyes open. the sound of the machines became a constant, familiar background noise, almost like white noise.

as he laid there, fading in and out of consciousness, one thought ran through his mind again and again: you.

while you stood outside the room, touya’s barren body laid in his tomb. his eyelids could hardly closed, so he was more or less forced to take in the grief-stained drywall. he thought about you, every single day. wondered where you were, how you could be doing- he hoped it was better now that he was gone.

your hand was wrapped shakily around the doorknob. just one twist and push. but it felt as though that door was made of iron. why was it suddenly so heavy? why was it being weighed down with the weight of your love and grief all rolled into one?

“…i don’t think i can do this.” you say shakily, a single tear rolling down your eye at the thought of seeing your dying husband after all this time.

a hand is placed on your shoulder. a comforting touch, like one who is learning to navigate through the grief alongside you.

shouto stood silently beside you, his expression stoic as he waited for you to make a decision.

he knew how difficult this must be for you, the years of pain and guilt weighing heavily on your shoulders. if he was grieving a man he hardy knew as his brother and more as a villain, he couldn’t even grasp how his wife must be feeling- someone who had loved him despite it all.

“you can do it.” he says softly, his voice firm but gentle as he tries his best to hold it together. he doesn’t want you to face this alone, though he knows he cant enter that room with you.

“you’ve made a good name for yourself.” you say, acknowledging shouto’s growth. at least one of the two brothers can still live, still be happy. “no one even calls you endeavours son anymore.”

he nods silently, his expression softening slightly at your words.

“i guess so.” he said quietly, a small hint of a smile on his face. he doesn’t dare to jinx his success. “ i’ve… i’ve tried to separate myself from my father’s shadow, to be my own person.”

he says for a paused moment, looking at the small glass panel that gave a window into touya’s room, his hand still resting on your shoulder.

“but t wasn’t easy. it never is.” he says, taking a deep breath before speaking his next piece.

“the doctors think they can buy him a few more months, maybe.” shouto reveals. the extent of your absence towards your dying husband finally begins to sink in. you waited until it was almost too late to see him. its a guilt like no other. what could you possibly say about to him after all this time?

“…i’m going in.” you say, pushing the door open and letting it close behind you with a click that rings through the room.

theres constant whirring and beeping from the technology keeping touya breathing. he lays there, his body held together by planks of metal and wiring. god, as morbid as it may seem, you wondered why they were even trying at this point?

he doesn’t seem to notice you, not till you walk closer to him. its hard to move his head with that brace around his skull, anyway.

his eyes weakly tracked your movements as you weakly made your way over to the bed, pressing your hands against the glass keeping him inside of his pod. he recognizes you, because how could he not? he married you, after all.

“…hey.” you manage, despite the dryness on your tongue.

your heart clenches as you watch him try and respond. his throat was dry and raspy, like his quirk had given him sandpaper for lung. he was forced to swallow several times before he could even mutter a word.

“hey..” he finally croaks out, his voice barely above a whisper, hoarse and strained.

you take a deep breath, silently cursing yourself for your already shaky words.

“you look like shit.” you have the audacity to chuckle at him, the numb laughter devoid of any empathy. you were grieving, grieving yet angry. as much as you understood and wanted to understand, he still left you.

touya would be nothing if not an asshole.

“thanks, doll.” his voice almost mechanical. “..don’t look too hot yourself.”

there he is. that smartass touya you love. his quick tongue and his smart heard, smarter then he lets on. you love his remarks, his sass, his demeanour. and it seemed that even through all this pain, he still managed to give you some of it.

the tears are already sliding down your cheeks, knowing that this is likely the last time you’ll ever get to feel it.

and for a moment, through your hazy eyes, a silver glimmer catches your eyes.

“…you kept the ring..?” you have to rub your eyes, unsure if its just a grief-stricken illusion.

he scoffs, as if it should be obvious. “yeah… course i did.”

his time is running out and you both know it. you cringe watching his weaken state, trying to slide the ring off his finger. you quickly hush him, your delicate hands carefully reaching into his pod to help him remove the band. though most of his nerves are killed off, he feels as though he’s truly lost his favourite part of him.

his eyes continue to grow tired, but me fights them valiantly to catch a glimpse of you slipping the ring onto your own hand. he had taken that part of him, and given it to you.

you sob, pressing your forehead against the glass. your hand just barely grazes his, feeling the charred skin you still loved, no matter how dead.

“i love you.” you sob, baring your soul to your husband. his eyes close, feeling the exhaustion sink in- but he can’t give in. not when this is his last chance to see his wife.

despite the pain and the knowledge of his imminent death, he manages to find his voice and responds, his voice hoarse but filled with a raw intensity of emotion. he’s doing everything to stay with you right now, though you know it can’t ever make it up.

“… i love you… too…” he croaks, letting what soul he has left reach itself out to you.

“and i’m so mad at you.” you sob. “not just you… i’m mad at the world.. i’m at the world that let your father get away with abusing you and breaking you down.. i’m mad at the world that didn’t see you were a boy who needed help. i’n mad at the universe for not giving you and i a chance… i’m mad at your god damn fire for taking you away from me.”

your tears slide down the glass, only continuing as you see his eyes close. he’s still breathing, yes, but either he was so exhausted from fighting death, or he couldn’t bare to see you in this much pain. probably both.

“i know… i’m… sorry…” he prays you know how sorry he really is. for doing this to you. for exposing you to the evil of the world when he should have been protecting you.

“..don’t cry..” he rasps, asking more for him than for you. you scoff.

“i’ll cry if i damn want to, touya.” you chuckle. “i lost my husband.”

just for a second, its almost like he smiles.

“you… still… call me.. that?”

without a trace of hesitation, you nod. “of course i do.”

he’s having trouble forming his next words and you can tell. you know you have to do it. you somehow have to say goodbye.

“i love you, touya todoroki. i love you so much.” you declare, showing your soul to him right before he enters the afterlife- maybe so he knows to look for you once your time comes as well.

“…i… love you.. too..” he rasps. he’s trying and you love him for it, despite the sobs that choke out of you seeing his struggle just to speak.

“i’ll never ever, ever forget you. i wouldn’t dream of it.” you whisper.

“you better not…” he rasps out weakly. what a fucking smartass you married.

you cant kiss him. but you do press your forehead and your lips to the glass, and give his hand once last squeeze. you have to rip yourself from the room and out the door, otherwise you might have stayed in there forever.

the door clicks behind you. a breath escapes your lips, knowing that you have truly said your goodbye. you still clutch his silver ring on your finger.

the ring served as a reminder. that no matter what happens now, a part of your soul forever belonged to touya todoroki. that no matter how many of your clothes you burn and how many exorcisms you perform on your house, the love you shared with touya will never leave. no matter how much clean air you breath, a small part of you will always miss the smoke he gave. always.

you vowed to never forget him, anyway.

tags!🪽

@the-dumpster-fire-of-life @greenmanshoe @connorsui

439 notes · View notes

buckbuckbarnesstuff · 11 months ago

Text

Completed Series

Get yourself a snack, enjoy these wonderful series and leave some love for the creative writers :)

♤ - includes sexual themes

Also, this gif has me in a chokehold

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Something domestic [50k] @fandoms-writings

ex-military amputee!Bucky x fem!Reader

Summary: Needing an escape from the loud and busy city life, Bucky comes to stay with you on your little farm. He didn’t expect you, a hardworking and beautiful woman with struggles of your own, to take his breath away and make life a little less dreary.

{personal comment: This is one of a kind and it got stuck in my head immediately. The way Bucky heals is beautifully written and I love how the animals of the farm got included}

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For the love of the game @pellucid-constellations ♤

College Athlete!Bucky x Reader

Summary: Bucky Barnes was a menace. NYU’s top baseball player, he was used to girls falling at his feet and could smooth talk his way out of just about anything. You hated him. He couldn’t figure out why. So when the novelty of weekend parties and quick hookups finally wore off—and his feelings for you began to grow—he made it his mission to fix it.

{personal comment: I love the changes Bucky goes through and the way all the characters are portrayed. This story never fails to give me butterflies every time I come back to it}

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Undisclosed @pellucid-constellations ♤

Lumberjack!Bucky x Reader

Summary: Desperate to outrun a secret that could cost you your life, you seek refuge in a small mountain town. Its deep forests and small cabins make it the perfect place to hide, but the travel website hadn’t mentioned anything about the quiet, burly lumberjack that wouldn’t leave your thoughts. No one had warned Bucky about you either.

{personal comment: The story is so creative and I got hooked on the few hints of the reader's backstory in the first parts and how it got revealed. Overall, it was a great mix of angst, fluff and Bucky in love}

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Scars @chickenfics

Bucky x reader Western AU

Summary: Running from a past that haunts you and a future that is unsure, the last thing you wanted was to take up with a stranger. Strangers, you'd learned, are almost always more trouble than they're worth. But when dangers from the life you're trying to leave behind get too close for comfort, drastic times call for drastic measures, and the stranger you'd once feared becomes the only person you can trust -- and perhaps the only person you'd call your friend. Now you both just have to make it out alive...

{personal comment: I'm a sucker for Western AU's and this piece of art satisfied me to no end. I love how naturally a connection bloomed between the two and the way they learned about each other. I would give so much for being able to read this for the first time again}

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A World of Our Own @shreddedparchment ♤

Bucky x Reader Castaway AU

Summary: You and a man named Bucky crash land on a deserted island. Can the two of you come together and make it until rescue comes? After you begin to fall for the mysterious Bucky Barnes, will you even want to be rescued?

{personal comment: I was astounded with the idea of this story and the creativity that came with it. It was lovely to read how Bucky and the reader grew closer over time and how they dealt with getting rescued and having to adjust to a 'normal' life on mainland again}

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Just One Kiss @sarahwroteathing

40s!Bucky x 40s!Reader

Summary: Bucky Barnes has been chasing after you since he was ten years old, but you’re determined not to give in. How long can you hold out when all he’s asking for is just one kiss?

{personal comment: This is such a lovely series. Bucky is a sweetheart and those letters were giving me all the feels. I loved all the characters and how they are written}

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Awake My Soul [78k] @foreverindreamlandd

Bucky x reader

Summary: It's been five years since zombies first started walking the Earth, destroying anything and everything in their wake. Now, in this apocalyptic world, fighting for survival comes as naturally as breathing. The one thing you've learned ever since they arrived, though, is that the living can be so much more dangerous than the undead. When you stumble across two young, scared boys lost in the woods and being chased by walkers, you go against your better judgment and help them to safety. Little did you know that helping them would lead you to Bucky - an angry, grumpy, distrusting member of the camp Shield. Bucky has zero interest in having you enter his life. He's been hurt before and lost too many people to risk experiencing that kind of pain again, and he knows that there are secrets you aren't telling the group. Yet, when push comes to shove, and you're put at risk, he'll stop at nothing to keep you safe.

{personal comment: The storyline of this series is so creative and I was hooked since the beginning. So much thought went into this and the background of the characters, and I'm beyond grateful I got to read this lovely piece of art}

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Burn The Witch @dreamwritesimagines ♤

Bucky x reader

Summary: The mission was simple; get closer to the Winter Soldier and start a relationship with him to get the necessary information for your superiors to use.

Everyone told you not to get your feelings involved.

You should have listened.

{personal comment: I loved reading about how Bucky interacts with the two different personalities the reader portrays without knowing it’s the same person and how she switches between those two. The other characters are great as well and I really enjoy your writing style here]

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The Bienville @indyluckycharlie ♤

Modern!Bucky x reader

Summary: Bucky is the young CEO of his family’s publishing house. A year into the role and working his ass off, he’s finally taking a much needed vacation (upon the advice of his well-meaning family and friends).

Solo and feeling a little lost, Bucky finds himself getting a little attached to the front desk receptionist, a local who grew up on the islands and dreams of bigger things.

{personal comment: I've read this a few times already and will definitely do it again. I loved how Bucky relaxed more and turned so charming, and how they built that connection so naturally. I felt everything I read and it was beautiful}

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Harmless @shurisneakers

Bucky x Villan!Reader

Summary: Bucky volunteers to go stop a small time villain, but nothing can prepare him for what exactly he has to deal with.

{personal comment: I had so much fun while reading this and it’s so damn creative. It was lovely to read how they grew closer over time and the many things they did for each other]

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Heart to a Gunfight [38.3k] @lailannajacobs

Modern!Bucky x reader

Summary: You didn’t want to help Bucky Barnes make it through the party by pretending to be his fake girlfriend, after all, you had just met him. You also didn’t plan on the charade lasting as long as it did.

{personal comment: This is so lovely and I found myself grinning so much while reading this. But I also enjoyed the little angst in there and how they ended up together}

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Leave This Town @avengerofyourheart ♤

Mechanic!Bucky x reader

Summary: Your dreams of kissing your small town life goodbye are about to come true when an unexpected detour leaves you stranded. Meeting the handsome local mechanic has you rethinking your plans. Perhaps happiness is less about where you’re headed and more about the people you meet along the way.

{personal comment: I'm a sucker for Mechanic!Bucky and I really love this creative piece of art}

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Vacant Mirrors @whirlybirbs

Bucky x reader

Summary: Shit’s been rough. Shit was rough even before the blip. Dr. Hart shares an office with dr. Raynor, and you share a waiting room with Bucky Barnes.

{personal comment: I enjoyed this so much and went through so many emotions while reading it, feeling everything so vividly. This includs all I need of Bucky Barnes and I'm in love}

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The Two of Us [39.7k] @bucky-bucket-barnes ♤

Bucky x Avenger!Reader

Summary: You and Bucky go to investigate the phenomenon happening in Westview, New Jersey. While attempting to understand the issue, you yourselves are sucked into Wanda's world of pretend. Now, you believe yourselves to be the happily married Mr. and Mrs. Barnes; in real life, you are most definitely not a happy pair. It is up to you and Bucky to piece together what's happening while dealing with one another inside the hex.

{personal comment: We all love a good enemies to lovers and this was really exciting to read. It got me hooked so fast and I loved it till the end}

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Everything Backwards [35.2k] @buckybabybaby

Bucky x reader

Summary: When you make-out with a ‘James’ on a night out, you don’t expect to see him again, so imagine your surprise the next day when it turns out he’ll be your new sort-of-flat-mate. As Nanny for Peggy & Steve’s three children, you’ve hit the jackpot, but now the guy across the corridor is threatening to ruin it.

{personal comment: I really loved how Bucky softened and the way they formed a connection. The interactions with the kids are lovely, I enjoyed this so much}

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Sky full of Song [65k] @wkemeup ♤

Pirate!Bucky x Pirate/Siren!Reader

Summary: Despite the bitter resentment of the crew, you found a home on Captain Barnes’ ship; on the ocean where you belonged, at the side of a captain you swore loyalty and heart to. But when course is plotted for a legendary island, the secret that has kept you alive for years is threatened to be revealed.

{personal comment: This series is amazing and the storyline has such a nice flow to it, that had me hooked so bad. Bucky's so respectful and protective and I read this so many times already, it might actually be sad. But I'm in love with this art}

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365 Days @abovethesmokestacks

Bucky x reader soulmate AU

Summary: "You all know how it is, the one constant in this hellish life: You have a soulmate. No idea who it is, no clues whatsoever, only 25 years to find them. In 364 days, my time’s up. It sounds like a lot, but so does 25 years, and look where that got me. So, for better or for worse, I’ll try. I’ve got twelve months to find whoever my soul is knit together with."

{personal comment: I didn’t think I'd be into solemate au's but this was really lovely. The small glimpses into the life of Bucky in between really piqued my interest}

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All Good Things @sagechanoafterdark

Ghost!Bucky x witch!Reader

Summary: After only three days of dealing with the annoying specter haunting you, you break the rules and accidently give a ghost a body. So what do you do when you find out the man you’re now sharing your your apartment with isn’t really a ghost and that haunted touch is a little warmer than you realized?

{personal comment: The concept of this story is so interesting and captivated me instantly. I had fun reading this and went through a lot of emotions throughout}

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Wild horses [22k] @whitewolfbumble

Biker!Bucky x reader

Summary: Kicked out of school and exiling yourself in a town time forgot, one little incident lands the sights of the locally infamous Avengers biker gang square on you. Wild horses run faster and there was no chance to turn back now.

{personal comment: I'm smitten with this story, it’s so nice and I found myself relate to the reader so lany aspects. It’s some lovely work}

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The Thrill of the Hunt [12k] @rookthorne ♤

Scare Actor!Bucky x reader

Summary: Ancient game of cat and mouse, a fight for survival between a predator and their prey, wasn’t a new phenomenon — it had been practised for centuries and it was an art that very, very few perfected. For years you had chased the craving to find someone that had mastered the art of the hunt, and for Halloween, you had gone all out and visited a haven unlike any other.

It was there that you found your match.

Cloaked in nothing but black and shrouded in a sense of lethality, you would have to run from this shadow in an adrenaline fuel haze unlike any other. A chase for the ages, the very one you desired.

And if he caught you, your world would end as you knew it.

{personal comment: This is so thrilling and was really exciting to read. The switches between him as Bucky and then his character had me reeling}

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Want one? @hootyhoobuckaroo

Demon!Bucky x reader

Summary: The reader summons a demon by accidentally drawing an occult symbol in sandwich condiments. The demon, a strange yet oddly charming being by the name of Buchanan, begins to frequent her little apartment. It’s only a matter of time until she can make her way past his guarded exterior.

{personal comment: The story had an interesting concept, and I really liked it, it’s endearing}

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Drifting @real-jane

Bucky x reader

Summary: Bucky saves the life of a woman when she's buried in an avalanche. Faced with the possibility that his cover might be blown, Bucky must keep the woman alive, and try to keep her from finding out who he is... or what he's done.

How long can he hide?

{personal comment: I don’t read a lot of fics written in the third person but this did me in and I had to try. Couldn't stop, the writing style is captivating and I was really invested}

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A dish served cold @artficlly

Outlaw!Bucky x reader

Summary: After the murder of your pa, you go on a journey to find justice. Fate brings you to Crimson Junction for a reason, and that reason is Bucky Barnes.

{personal comment: This series got me so invested. I'm loving the captor/captive energy and although I do feel bad for Bucky, I am so grateful the reader doesn’t instantly fall in love with him and forget about the reason she tracked him down for in the first place. I got so excited when they talked about what happened and I'm thrilled to find out that there is going to be a sequel}

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Salt the earth @mallowswriting

Childhoodbestfriend!Bucky x reader (best friends to enemies to allies to lovers/Road trip AU)

Summary: Brock Rumlow is a slick, charming, wise-cracking businessman that you are lucky to have a claim to. Brock Rumlow is your fiance. brock rumlow is going to suffocate you.

Brock Rumlow is going to be surprised when you disappear, nothing left behind but a note. But once you’ve gone through with steps 1-4 of your 5 step escape plan, you find out that the ‘friend’ nat told you to meet - the ‘friend’ who is going to drive you across the country to the utopia of safety that is new york - just had to be Bucky fucking Barnes.

“If you’re so annoyed with the music, you can drive.”

“You’d never let me drive this car.”

“Exactly. Now shut up.”

{personal comment: Read all this in one go, just couldn't help myself. The way that connection forms again all throughout the bickering and heartfelt conversations and the way the backstory of them both is introduced is so captivating. This was a nice read}

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Something more @tellmealovestory ♤

bestfriend!Bucky x reader

Summary: After a bad breakup you ask your best friend to take your virginity. It’s just friends with benefits. What could possibly go wrong? Modern AU

{personal comment: Bucky is such a sweetheart, so soft and considerate, I'm so smitten and I really enjoyed the way the sexy times are written}

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That Summer @tellmealovestory ♤

Biker!Bucky x reader

Summary: You’ve spent every summer since you were a child in the idyllic beach town that you call home three months out of the year. This summer should be no different except for the addition of Bucky Barnes. Sparks fly upon first meeting, but it’s only a summer fling, right? Modern AU.

{personal comment: This made me feel so warm, it’s beautiful. I love this relationship and how it’s portrayed}

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It’s a Deal @justreadingfics ♤

boytoy!Bucky x reader

Summary: You’re out of a relationship of 10 years and you’re just in desperate need to get laid, no strings attached, no romance, no complications. You dear friend Natasha feels like she’s going to regret this later, but she might have the perfect guy to fulfill your needs.

{personal comment: I love fuckboy!Bucky falling in love and this was just what I needed}

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Relationship tutor @samingtonwilson ♤

College!Bucky x College!Reader

Summary: Bucky, a relationship novice, asks for your help in dating your friend. Unable to say no to him, you agree despite everyone and everything telling you not to.

{personal comment: Another beautifully written series. I love the many friendships, especially the little interactions with Sam. And Bucky's a lovesick idiot, and I find myself craving that a lot, so that was perfect}

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No such thing @sanguineterrain

College!Bucky x College!Journalist!Reader

Summary: You’ve been assigned to write a column for your school paper on the team’s spectacular running back. You don’t care very much for your university’s football team; you just can’t understand the hype, okay? Turns out your distaste for football bigheads was exactly on point: James Barnes is insufferable.

{personal comment: Sassy reader here and I loved it. Their bickering is everything and I enjoyed how they grew a friendship to realizing there is more}

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Breaking the Rules @redgillan

Modern!Bucky x reader

Summary: You hate James Barnes with a burning passion and the feeling is entirely mutual. Just when you think things can’t get any worse, you are tricked into attending his sister’s wedding as his girlfriend. Stuck with a bunch of strangers, you come up with a set of rules that are not going to last long.

{personal comment: I enjoyed this so much. It’s incedibly relatable, real and it’s enemies to lovers, so that’s a huge bonus in the first place. Bucky's backstory touched me and I love how she needed some time to process everything and not just jump at the chance to be with him}

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#bucky barnes x reader #bucky barnes fanfiction #bucky x reader #bucky series #bucky x female reader #bucky barnes #bucky fic #bucky fic rec #fic recs

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