#and everyone was like??? that sounds jumpy anyway but now we all know the old lyrics it sounds SO odd to get rid of 'in a row' like that

[hella1975]

you cant make edits to vampire empire by big thief bc the moment i hear that song i have to start singing it dancing to it acting it out throwing up clawing the walls etc. could be the best edit in the world sorry bossman im not watching that shit. im busy

[nataliasquote]

Ghost Of You | n romanoff

Summary: learning to move on after Natasha’s sacrifice is the hardest thing in the world

Warnings: mentions of grief, loss, Natasha’s death

wc: 3.2k

note: this is an old fic I wrote ages ago, but I used to love it. I’ve given you enough fluff now anyway… also inspired by the song ‘Ghost of You’ by 5SOS.

- ⧗ -

Four months.

It'd been four months since she died.

Four months without Natasha.

And Y/n keep telling everyone she was fine, but there was a part of her that kept saying that her Natasha wasn’t really gone.

And it's the irrational part of her brain.

But she missed that redhead more than anyone knew.

Words couldn’t begin explain how much she missed her.

It was painful. It felt as though the world had come crashing down, plunging everything into total darkness. And when there was light, colour ceased to exist. Because what was a life without a purpose or reason to live?

Her sun. Gone.

Her home. Gone

Nothing left except harsh reminders of what could have been. There was no future anymore. Y/n spent her days in the past, tangled in memories that were wearing with age. A distorted version of her reality that became harder to grasp with every day that slipped by. The memories were slipping through her fingers, no matter how hard she tried.

Yelena was left to pick up the pieces her sister had left behind. A crumbled widow, her whole life a subject of loss, yet somehow she remained an iron fortress throughout it all. Y/n was family, something Yelena didn’t have much of, or knew much about, but she would be damned if anything happened to her now. She wasn’t sure she could handle another loss.

Y/n had taken residence in her spare room, the barren walls now burdened with grief. It settled across the floor like an unsettling blanket, smothering all who dared to step foot over the threshold.

But Yelena soldiered on. It was down to her to pull Y/n out of the pits she had crawled into in her mind, and today no different. The door creaked from lack of use, the room’s darkness only broken up by the light spilling around the old curtains. A body lay curled up in bed, but the blonde knew she was not asleep.

Against her instincts, Yelena made sure her boots were loud on the exposed floorboards, alerting the jumpy woman of her presence. She crouched slowly, a hand reaching out to land on Y/n’s knee softly.

"You ok?" She asked, receiving no movement or change of expression. Y/n’s eyes were heavy, but not with lack of sleep. This tiredness extended further than that; a tiredness of life. “Y/n, it’s me.”

A mumble came as a reply, which Yelena took as a positive. Some days received absolutely no recognition, so a sound or nod was progress.

“Any idea of what you want to do today?” She probed again, moving over to the curtains to draw them back slightly. Y/n winced at the light, another good sign. The outside air was cool and a welcome refreshment as the Russian pushed the rusty window open a fraction.

“Bed and sleep,” came the reply. A possible plan, yes, but not exactly what Yelena was thinking.

“How about we go somewhere today?” Y/n didn’t look convinced. “Natasha would want you to, you know that.”

“Don’t say her name!” Y/n cried, her voice breaking from lack of use and raw emotion. She refused to mention Natasha anymore, too afraid of what was lying just below the surface if she did.

But something had switched in Yelena overnight, and she turned around quickly. “She was my sister. I have every right to say her name Y/n.” That was clearly the wrong thing to say, but what did she know? Yelena had barely been out of the Red Room for two years. Social cues weren’t a strong suit. “I am sorry, I didn’t mean to. I just know she wouldn’t want you moping around grieving her like this. She would want you to go out and live your life. See the world.”

"How can I see the world when she was my world." Y/n whispered, tears rolling down her cheeks and soaking into her pillow. "I loved her but never got to show her properly. There is so much more I could have done for her. If I'd just had more time." Yelena crouched down and helped her sit up, offering a tissue to clean herself up a bit.

"I have a suggestion for you. I was talking to Wanda yesterday and we think it might be a good idea if you go back there."

Y/n looked up at her with red and puffy eyes. “Back where?”

“Back home, Y/n. The apartment that you and Natasha shared. You’ve still got lots of your stuff there and I’m sure there’s some things of hers you want.”

Y/n had stopped listening at the word ‘home’. Home wasn’t a place, it never had been. It was a feeling. A person. Y/n would never be able to go home anymore. An empty apartment ridden with memories wasn’t somewhere she wanted to be. Not without Natasha to breathe life into those four walls. Without her it was just dark. Lifeless.

Just like how she felt right now.

Yet her response was surprising. An “ok” tumbled past her lips before she could even register what she was saying, taking both her and Yelena by surprise. She leaned against the wall and pulled her knees up to her chest, staring at a dark spot on the duvet cover.

“Ok? I’ll be there the whole time, don’t worry. How about I give you some time to get ready and I’ll meet you out by the truck?” Y/n nodded, her eyes not moving, and Yelena took that as her cue to leave.

A shower felt like too much work, so Y/n dragged her hair into a ponytail and let it hang limply, too exhausted to try and do anything with it. The yellowing light in the bathroom only emphasised her dark circles and she eyed her make up bag that sat balanced on the edge of the sink.

Concealer barely helped, as did mascara, but Y/n tried all the same, almost willing herself to look better. If Natasha saw her in this state she would have crumbled, but she wasn’t there so Y/n couldn’t find it within her to care.

Placing her mascara back in the bag, her fingertips brushed over a familiar tube. She pulled it out and stared at it carefully, the writing old and faded on the packaging. But there was no mistaking Natasha’s favourite red lipstick. She refused to use any other shade and it always looked so vibrant against her pale skin. But looking at it now, it just looked so dull.

Y/n pressed her lips to it gently and slipped it into her pocket, where it nestled alongside a folded photograph and a promise ring.

Natasha’s promise ring. The one she used to wear alongside her wedding ring. The wedding ring that matched the one currently strung around her neck, too obnoxious to stay on her finger now.

Their key to everlasting happiness.

But what good was a key on its own? Useless without its matching component, a harsh reminder of what could have been but never will be.

Yelena was sat in the back seat of the truck with Fanny, giving the Akita belly rubs which he clearly loved. She looked up at Y/n and smiled, climbing through to settle into the drivers seat. “Fanny doesn’t know the meaning of stay yet, so I’ll bring him along. But he won’t come inside.”

Y/n nodded, and placed her elbow on the window edge, her cheek falling into her palm. The gentle hum of the engine combined with the smoothness of the road pulled her back into her head, memories swirling around but never fully making themselves known. Y/n was in the muddy middle ground, somewhere between numbness and a breakdown.

After an hour the car came to a stop. She knew this parking lot. Knew which space Nat always kept her bike in. She was always so particular.

Holding the key tightly in her fist, Y/n ascended the metal stairs, ignoring the way the rough edges of the key dug into her skin and left an imprint. She knew how to wiggle it into the lock just enough to get it to turn, muscle memory taking over.

As she opened the door, the living room was dark. A light layer of dust covered all the surfaces from the lack of use, and small slits of lights peaked through the closed curtains. There were books piled on the table and a couple of old beer bottles stranded on the floor. Y/n looked around in a daze, completely absorbed by the change of atmosphere. This place used to be so full of life. But now it was dull and barren.

Her heart skipped a beat as her eyes glanced to the floor. By the door, like they'd just been taken off, was Nat's pair of old converse. They were once black, but now sported a dark grey colour, having been worn so often. She wore them everywhere when she wasn't working.

Y/n bent down and picked them up, looping the laces over her fingers so she could easily carry them with her. The kitchen door was open, so she carried on walking, almost in a trance. Yelena hadn’t entered yet, wanting to give her some privacy in her old home.

The kitchen was brighter as the blinds were open, and everything was just as they had left it. A pile of clean dishes on the rack, just waiting to be put away. Nat's collection of weird keychains that she collected from every place she visited. A pile of hair ties and bobby pins that always disappeared. But most importantly, the fridge.

It was used more like their main photo album. Photos covered the silver metal, miscellaneous magnets holding photos of the couple onto it. There was a picture of Nat kissing Y/n on the beach, the first date we ever went on as an official couple. Even in the one captured moment, you could see how tender Natasha was, cupping Y/n’a face with her rough palms like she was a priceless jewel. Looking at it, she could still feel her touch.

There were a few candid ones from their trip to Europe and even some from their wedding day. But the one in the middle made her heart ache.

Nat laying on a picnic blanket in the park, her hair pulled back in a half up messy braid. She was lying on her stomach with a book open out in front of her, legs bent up behind her with those damn converse on her feet. She had the biggest smile on her face and she was laughing into the camera. Y/n remembered that day so vividly and she started to cry. She could never feel that way again, so happy, so relaxed.

"Damn it!” She yelled, slamming her hand onto the counter and taking a shaky breath in.

"Y/N?" a voice questioned, breaking her out of her mini outburst. Y/n quickly turned around to find the source of the voice, which was coming from the door way. The shoes fell out of her hand as she layed eyes upon the woman stood in the doorway.

Red hair was the first thing Y/n noticed.

Arms wide. A big smile on her face.

Not wasting any time, she ran into her open arms and felt herself being picked up, bodies spinning around like they always used to do. Both women were both giggling and smiling at each other, tears running down their faces.

"Oh my god you're actually here! I thought you left me" Y/n cried, grabbing onto Natasha’s face and planting kisses everywhere. Her nose, cheeks, jaw, everywhere she had missed being able to feel beneath her fingertips suddenly felt so real and she could sense the weight being lifted off her chest. It just felt right.

"I would never leave you baby." Natasha said, before their lips met in a bruising kiss.

"I knew you wouldn't. I knew you'd come back for me!" Y/n couldn’t help but laugh against her lips, the worry and sadness leaving her body, making her lighter. There were truly no words to describe it, but feeling Natasha’s lips on hers and her green eyes bringing so much warmth and safety into her body, Y/n never wanted to leave again.

Music started playing softly and Nat looked at the girl in her arms. "Can I have this dance, my beautiful wife?" She wrapped her arms around Y/n’s waist, who placed hers loosely around her neck as they started to sway. She didn't know where the music was coming from, but she didn't care. All thst was in her brain was the fact that she was here with Natasha. Finally.

They danced to the music, waltzing around the kitchen, eyes fixated on each other. Y/n felt as giddy as she did when they shared their first kiss, her hands feeling the way Natasha’s hair was so soft as it brushed her fingertips. The way her hands felt on her body gave Y/n a sense of relief and she sighed, resting her head on Natasha’s shoulder. She leaned her head on top of her wife’s and wrapped her arms tighter around her waist, still swaying to the beat. They fit together so perfectly, like a key in a lock.

"I've missed this." Y/n muttered into Natasha’s neck who hummed in agreement.

"Me too" she husked. God, that voice. She’d missed that too.

As the song picked up, Nat released Y/n from her arms and spun her around, twirling her around the floor like a ballerina. The redhead scooped her up in her arms and spun around, their laughter filling the once empty room. Y/n was taller than Natasha when Nat picked her up, so she gazed down at her and grinned, the same look adorning both of their faces. Love. Admiration. Relief.

As Natasha slowly lowered Y/n to the ground, they met each other with another kiss. The song slowly faded away in the background and they gradually stopped moving, but stayed in each other's arms.

"I see you found my converse?" Natasha pointed out, and Y/n turned around to see where she was looking.

"Oh yeah. I picked them up because I didn't know you were here." She couldn’t help but blush.

Natasha bent down and picked them up, handing them back over with a soft look in her eyes. "You keep them. They look better on you anyway." She said, flashing her signature smile.

"Are you sure?" Y/n asked, her brows creasing in the middle. “These were your favourite shoes!"

"I can always get some more if I need them."

Y/n looped the laces around her fingers once more and pulled Nat into another hug, just breathing in her scent. There was no perfume to distract her, just purely Natasha. Tears started rolling down her cheeks as the familiar scent she knew and loved filled her nose. The smell of home.

They finally pulled away and Natasha took a couple of steps back, leaning on the door frame as she had done previously.

"You know I love you Y/N. I always have and I always will. Don't you ever forget that." She said, folding her arms and smiling at the woman in front of her.

"I love you too,” Y/n whispered and Natasha blew her a kiss.

"Y/n?" Another voice called from behind her. It was Yelena this time, the blonde having waited for long enough outside. She placed a hand on Y/n’s shoulder and followed her gaze to where Natasha had been stood.

"I love you" Y/n muttered again, tears streaming down her face.

"Y/n who are you talking to?" Yelena asked, worry lacing her words.

"Nat. She's right there." She said, pointing to Natasha in the doorway.

"What? Detka, Nat's not here. What are you talking about?" Yelena asked. Y/n turned around to face her and then looked back to where Natasha was standing.

Or where she was standing. Except now that spot was empty.

She wasn’t there.

"She was there! She was just there! No!" The girl was in distress, shouting and crying as she ran around, checking everywhere in the apartment.

"Y/n what's going on?" Yelena asked hesitantly, her concerned increasing by the second. What had she missed?

“She’s gone! Nat left! She left me again! No, she promised she wouldn’t leave me again.” She was a sobbing mess, collapsing to her knees in the middle of the apartment, no longer caring about the dust that thickly coated the floor. Yelena rushed to her side and knelt down, pulling her into a hug. She rocked the sobbing girl gently, tightening her grip as she felt Y/n clutch at her shirt to ground herself. She was muttering frantically, incoherent sentences flowing into each other.

"Y/n, Nat's gone. She isn't coming back." It was harsh, but Yelena had to say it. The truth stung.

"She was just here." Y/n whimpered. "We danced together. I felt her. She was real!"

"Oh Y/n. That wasn’t real."

"It was real to me!" She pressed her head back into Yelena’s shoulder and continued to cry, laboured breaths dragging themselves through her constricted lungs, clawing at her insides and almost begging to break through her chest.

And the whole time those stupid converse were in her hand.

She never let them go.

They were the last thing Y/n ever got from her.

The only thing close enough to serve as a final reminder.

Of Nat.

Her Nat.

Natasha Romanoff.

Daughter. Sister. Avenger.

Wife.

[jaxxsoxxn]

Do you think boomer would ever be comfortable talking about his son’s death? I mean losing the kid is way harder.

Or he hasn’t never told anyone he ever had a son and when he just mentioned it out of the blue everyone’s like surprise and I can just imagine Harley saying oh my God you have a kid can we see him and Boomer just said it’s so normally you can’t, he’s dead he got murdered anyway, I’m hungry 

I feel like Boomer doesn't deal well with death of people close to him. He probably just doesn't actually think of it as a thing that happened, but more like as a fact - my son was also ginger, he was young, he died.

He gets into his feelings only when he has to recall the way he died and it's like it happens all over again. I'd say it's something like shock for him, just staying way longer than for normal people.

Digger can be childish, but he's also kinda... Apathetic to most things that happen around him. Most people would probably tie the "he's dead" under it, but I feel like Harley, ex psychologist, would try to get some more information and with every push, it'd just make Boomer more jumpy, more scared.

If the kid would die in front of him, I imagine he'd remember every single detail. Especially since I hc it that the kid died at his 8th bday. (you know, just for fun)

So, for me, it would be way more like the second version.

~~~

The squad was mostly tired right now. The after-mission high was slowly dying out, when they sat down in the random Gotham fast-food and Flag went to get their orders in. The subject was technically started by Harley, one of her painted nails pointed at a kids meal with a toy.

"Ya think we should get it for my gal and Toyboy?" she said, a genuinely happy smile on her face. "And the toys aren't bat-themed!"

Shark grabber the menu and pulled it almost comically close to his face, while Floyd rolled his eyes.

"Zoey has been into green lantern theme lately, though she says Wonder Woman is still her favourite..." he mumbled, trying to keep his typical for Gotham look.

"My kid loved the toys back in Australia, doubt he'd like them here though."

Boomer said, shocking most of them. Deadshot looks at him with worry mixed with anger, while Shark tries to decide if it's another weird joke. Only Harley smiles wider, though there's slight surprise in her eyes, too.

"Ya have a kid? Oh me, are they ginger like ya? How old are they? Why haven't we met em?! Do ya have pictures?" her voice is delighted at the idea, even though a smaller Digger doesn't sound so great.

"Uh, ye, a son, yeah, eight and he's dead, been dead for a while, so I don't have pictures." he counts the answers out on his fingers, missing how everyone freezes. Before anyone tries to say more, he softly whispers under his breath, like it's a memory hitting him suddenly: "I didn't have money for his burial..."

And Harley catches the shake of his hand, the tremble of his voice and the way his eyes look down in shame and something so close to self-hatered that it makes her stomach flip.

By the time food comes, Boomer's acting like he never said anything, eating with vigor of someone who didn't have a meal for weeks. The rest of them just send each other worried stares in silence, poking at the food and trying to regain their appetite.

[rafescoke]

Never sent a request idk if I do this right. Been to lazy and not good lately and honestly I just need a good fluff. The basic plot where he is in a bad mood like angry and then he turns to his lover etc etc. Do your thing I just need some comfort and love!

Cupcake ; Rafe Cameron

masterlist

Pairing: Rafe Cameron x reader

Summary: Maybe making cupcakes with a girl he likes won’t be a bad thing

Warnings: Slight angst on the earlier part, cursing, substance, extreme fluff, adorable Rafe Cameron

A/N: I hope you're doing good, sending all my love and hugs @ you <33 remember to rest!!! @asimpwriter

p.s; you know the drill - send any requests!

"Fuck off," Rafe sighed, shutting his eyes against the bright chandelier above the dinner table. Since when did it got so bright? The last time he checked, it was dimmed. "I swear Sarah, say one more word and I'll fucking kill you."

"Rafe," Ward sighed, placing his cutleries down onto the expensive wooden table. "It's family time. Excuse your sister."

"She's hanging around with those stupid pogues, dad!" he groaned, not wanting to believe that his dad was on her side. Not that he was ever on his, but he thought his father would have the same mindset as him towards this topic.

"Let. It. Go."

"They're my friends," she breathed, and Ward closed his eyes again, knowing the screaming that was about to occur. "I'm sorry you're stuck with Topper-"

"Didn't you cheat on him?" he laughed, and turned to look at his dad. He mouthed at him with an amused expression, "She cheated on him."

"I didn't, and we broke up 2 weeks ago. I'm sorry he couldn't move on from me," Sarah shrugged, and Rafe watched as she put aside her green beans and offered some of the mashed potatoes to Wheezie.

How could she act so normal about this?

"Oh, and-" Sarah turned to Ward, and Rafe waited impatiently for the lies that was about to slip from her mouth. "Do you know that he does drugs?"

"Sarah!" Rose yelled, furrowing her eyebrows as Rafe laughed out loud, clapping his hands loudly that the sound echoed throughout the huge house. "It's a family dinner!"

"I don't give a fuck about this family," Sarah said, removing the napkin from her lap and quickly standing up to get out of the house. Ward didn't say anything, neither did Rose, and after a few seconds, he let out a sigh.

"This is getting out of hand," he started, clasping his hands. "Rafe, I'm no longer letting you take over my business."

Rafe stopped his movements, looking at his father with widened eyes. After all those time he spent at college, trying to make his father proud and to take over the business, only for this?

"Dad, you can't. She's lying, dad, I haven't been using drugs."

"I saw the stash, Rafe," he sighed, and Rafe thought about the space under his bed. He closed his eyes, muttering a ‘fuck’ when he finally remembered the empty space. He didn't think much about it earlier, thinking about how he must have used up all of the powder.

"Until you get your life back on track, or nothing at all."

"Dad-"

"Go find your sister, and bring her home."

"Dad, please-"

"Go find Sarah."

"Okay," he sighed, standing up immediately and letting the chair scraped the polished floor. Wheezie shifted uncomfortably at the sound, and Rafe had an urge to do it again, just for the sake of riling his father's anger.

He cursed silently, walking away towards the table and to the porch, all while thinking about the joy if he could destroy the Pogues' life for making his hard.

The drive from Figure 8 to The Cut took him 30 minutes at high speed and being fully caffeinated, and when he arrived at the Chateau, all riled up from the quarrel with his father that he had before, he didn't try to see if his sister was even in there before barging into the small home.

"Yo, what the fuck?"

"Where's Sarah?" he muttered, giving Kie his side glance and continued searching for her. "Where the fuck is she?"

"Yo, bro, this land is off to the kooks," JJ stepped in, eye to eye as he leveled up to Rafe's height. He was only an inch shorter, but the difference was apparent. He continued to place his hands against his chest, whispering slowly. "Especially to crackheads like you."

Rafe laughed, tilting his head to the back to release the tension building up in his body. He was so, so close to give the blonde boy the consequences of his words, but was halted when Sarah entered the room, hand in hand with John B.

"What are you doing here?" she groaned, walking forward and standing in front of him. "God, can't you leave me alone?"

"Oh, trust me, I rather do that more than anything especially-" his eyes trailed to John B, "When you're fucking with a trash."

"JJ-" Kie stepped up, pulling JJ's shirt to stop him from doing anything. She sighed, knowing that this was bound to happen anytime soon, and she had told John B about this before, but he didn't listen. Now it was like her job to protect her friends from Rafe.

"Leave," Sarah stated, her lips pulled into a tight grimace. "Leave before I'll tell dad about this."

"I'm just trying to protect you," he ran his fingers through his hair, making it more messier than ever. Why couldn't she get that? All he was doing - it was all to protect her, so that his father could see him for what he's worth.

"You know what?" he sighed, wrapping his face with his large hands and turning towards the exit. "You wanna be one of them? Go. Don't ever come back home. You're just another trash, anyways."

He wasn't sure if he meant them, or if it came from the heat of the moment. All he could think about was to run away, to hide and to never come out and face his father or the judgement put by everyone else. He felt an uneasy feeling rising in the pit of her stomach, but he was too proud to say sorry.

“That was useless," he thought, leaning over his motorcycle and blinking his eyes against the lights by the side of the road. He couldn't go back now, not when his father had just ordered him to bring Sarah home and he had failed to do so, and he couldn't go to Barry's; his dad could find him there if he search for him the next day.

He groaned, feeling the cold air nipping at his skin until the final thought occurred to him. He laughed then, not sure as to why he hadn't been thinking of that sooner, and soon he was in front of the mini apartment.

He rapped on the door and waited patiently, his heartbeat quickening. He looked at his watch, checking if his arrival was too late. He groaned, noticing the time, but it would be embarrassing for him to turn now.

(Y/N) was trying to figure out what colour should she put into the frosting mixture, her hands on her waist when she heard the knock.

Her head instinctively looked at the clock, frowning when she read the time. It was not that late, only around 10 p.m., but she was not ready for any guests or her friends to come over.

Had she been too loud that the cranky neighbor next door who sleeps early everyday had come to tell her off?

She sighed, lowering the music coming from the radio before making her way to the door. She was in nothing but her ribbed top and a pair of sweatpants, and her hair was messier than ever.

"I'm sorry, Jerry," she sighed, opening the door to greet the old man. But standing in front of her was not the grey-haired man with furrowed eyebrows, ready to scold her, but it was the boy she had been crushing on since forever instead.

"Rafe?" she exclaimed, and she couldn't deny the shock spreading through her veins at the sight of him. He was sweaty, like he had just been in a fight, and his shirt was sticking to his body. "What are you doing here?"

"Hey, I'm sorry, can I come in?"

The smell of freshly baked cupcakes wafted into his nostrils, and he noticed the drool in his mouth. He didn't eat dinner that much, being forced to chase after his sister, and all he wanted was to enjoy some good food and get a good sleep for the night.

"I'm not. . . we can't. . . I'm not prepared for anything-"

"It's okay, I didn't come for sex," he bit his lips, trying to contain her amused laughter at her statement. "We're friends, (Y/N), aren't we?"

"Yeah," she raised a brow, not grasping at the way he was playing his words. She allowed him in, asking him to sit by the kitchen counter and checking her porch outside to see if there was any cameras in case he was trying to prank her.

Rafe Cameron never contacted her for anything if it wasn't for sex.

"What are you making?" he pointed at the mess on the kitchen, and (Y/N) tried to hide her red face as she quickly tried to put the stained bowls and cutleries into the sink.

"Uh, cupcakes."

"Yum," he chuckled, liking the way she was so nervous around him. The truth with (Y/N), she was extremely wild in bed but also very shy outside. It was like a complete two different person, but he was always intrigued by this.

The first time they had done the deed, he was shocked when she got into control, and he would lie if he said he didn't enjoy it. That night was one of Rafe’s best nights, the starting point to the many after.

"Relax, (Y/N)," he laughed, watching as she tilted a cup and placing his hand under the table to catch it before it could break. (Y/N) yelped, struck to her position, and let out the biggest relief when Rafe put it back to its previous place, safe as ever.

"Why are you so jumpy?" he whispered, sneaking beside her to help with whatever she was doing. He hadn't got a clue about this whole baking thing, only watching Cake Wars for the drama, but he wanted to help the girl beside him if it means he got to spend time with her.

"What are you doing?" she muttered, glancing at Rafe's hands as he whisked the fluffy frosting. "Rafe, you're going to get it more clumpy."

"No, I won't."

"Rafe, I swear," she groaned, reaching over to grab the whisk only for him to turn around, laughing while she struggled to get him.

"I'm just making it more fluffier," he smiled, continuing to whisk the mixture without even looking at the white colloid. He was too busy looking at her, and he wondered if she knew about the small amount of flour powder that had gotten on the top of her nose.

"Was the coke good?"

"Huh?" she tilted her head, confused, and still angry at the way he was not listening to her.

"The nose. Was the coke good?"

(Y/N) gave him a look before going to the corner to stare at herself in the mirror, letting out a yelp when she saw the powdery stain on her nose. She quickly dusted them off, stalking back to the still-whisking boy, and she wondered about the amount of energy he had in him and how he was still not tired.

"Rafe! It's all clumped!" she sighed, finally having a hold on the large bowl. She took her a finger and tipped it into the mixture, pulling out before slipping the finger into her mouth. Her face scrunched up, and she reached for the glass of water by her side.

"What? It's more prettier. More texture-ish. If we're in Cake Wars, we'll be the winner."

"That's not how it works," she groaned, pouring the failed mixture into the sink and letting the water cleansed them off. "Now my cupcake's going to be naked."

"You know what can be naked too?"

She held up her middle finger, placing the wet bowl onto the counter and using the clean cloth to wipe it dry. "And I'm not giving these to the children's home naked. You have to help me, Rafe."

Rafe felt a smile tugging on his lips at the mention of 'children’s home', and he thought about how perfect could she be. She’s the epitome of the girl everyone wants to be - she's good in school, never using anyone's money for her, good at baking, and has a big heart?

He thought about how she's good in bed too, but he tired to shake the childish thought away.

"What can I do? Should I go to the store and get any Betty Crocker's frosting?" he offered, his hands in his pocket to reach for his keys. He watched as her shoulder slumped, and he felt bad for ruining her cake. He touched her shoulder, "Hey, I'm sorry. I didn't know it would actually be clumped. I thought it would get even more fluffier."

"You don't think, Rafe, that's why," she sighed, "But that's alright. Do you think you can help me make another one?"

"Are you sure? I don't want to ruin anything," he backed away, glancing at the sink and thinking about the clumped mixture making their way to the sewer.

"Yes. Can you reach for that sugar? That's flour, Rafe, god, yes, yes, okay, c'mere," she rolled her eyes, taking the container from him and dumping the content into the dried bowl. "Now, what do we do?"

"Put water?"

(Y/N) laughed, tilting her head to one side, trying to clutch her stomach from hurting. "Yeah, if you want the kids to get sick."

"Okay, Gordon, what should we do next?" he grunted, but he liked the lightness in the air. How the conversation flowed easily, and how quick he regained her trust to help her make whatever this is.

It was like she didn't care about the Rafe Cameron that gets into fights with the pogues or snorts coke when he's stressed. He felt like staying in this moment forever, wanting to help her bake whatever and watching her smile.

(Y/N) handed him the butter, muttering something along the words of 'dump them in', 'use the mixture', 'you're going to break your arms' and 'watch while it's whisking'.

He didn't care about the many orders she was giving him - he enjoyed it. He truly liked how his night was ending after a long day of bullshit, starting with his college sending him a letter for the vandalism he had caused outside of the Dean's office, Kelce and Topper going on a road trip without him and giving him the explanation of 'we asked you, and you said no'.

In truth, he didn't even remember anything about meeting them. His memory was starting to fade, and he shuddered at the thought of not knowing anyone when he reaches Ward's age.

"Okay, that's enough," she groaned, switching the button off. Rafe apologized quickly, being so caught up with his own thoughts, and waited for her next order.

"Choose the colour," she exclaimed happily, pointing out two different food dyes. "I can't choose!"

Rafe skimmed over the label that said 'blue' and 'pink', and made a face. "Are you going to give the blue ones to the boys and the pinks to the girls or something?"

"What? No?"

"Okay. . . why can't we just use both?"

"And make purple?"

"Yeah? Hey, look, I'm wearing blue and you're wearing pink!"

(Y/N) looked down to the ribbed top, noticing the colour, and her face turned into a red shade. Now everything's going to be awkward.

"Okay, purple it is," she rolled her eyes, giving him the blue bottle and taking the pink one for herself. "Three drops together. Are you ready?"

"Mhm."

"1."

Rafe licked his lips, so eager to watch the colour forming.

"2," she looked at him, and back to the frosting. "Rafe!"

"What?" he raised a brow, following her gaze and watching the blue dots on the frosting. He put his hand over his mouth, too stunned to say anything. "Oh my god, I'm so-"

(Y/N) laughed out loud, this time with her hands gripping onto the kitchen counter to stabilize herself, her mind rewinding back to his expression when he found out what he just did.

"Ha-ha, now you're just being an asshole," he rolled his eyes, but he was glad he had made her laugh. Instinctively, her laugh had made him feel better, and all of his worries dissipated into the air.

After a while, she tried to get ahold of herself to put the pink drops in, but failing to do so as his face kept appearing in her mind. Rafe groaned, having to wait for a few minutes now, and pulled her to feet. He pushed her against the counter, her back against his front as he trapped her.

"Don't laugh."

(Y/N) bit her lips, being in this position but not for what they usually do, and concentrated on dropping 3 drops of pink into the bowl. She cheered when she was done, pulling his hand away to move to the other side. The back of her neck was still hot, and she could still feel his arms around her.

"Mix it," Rafe smiled, leaning against the counter to watch as the mixer whisked the frosting, turning the pearly white colloid to a beautiful dark purple.

"It's dark!" she groaned, but she thought about how it still looked good, though it wasn't her expectation. Her job was almost finished now, and she could hear her bed calling.

"Now, the fun part," she smiled, taking her icing materials and placing them before his eyes. She watched as he laughed, being so excited as if he was a toddler seeing a playground for the first time.

"They used these in Cake Wars," he said proudly, showing her a nozzle.

"Stop with your Cake Wars," she mumbled, preparing the icing bag and giving Rafe one. "Put some frosting- not yet, Rafe, God, do you ever wait? Don't fill the bags too much, just in the middle, yes, just like that, and, wait, let me do mine."

She showed him how to do the perfect icing, practicing on a clean plate and asking him to do the same. He scoffed at her, saying how he got this, but what appeared was nothing more than a crooked line.

"That's nice," she muttered, sighing. "For a coming-out party."

Rafe groaned, trying to copy her artwork, and by the time it was 12.03 a.m., he had managed a copy of hers. Not literal, but there was a hint of hers in his.

"Okay. Now, Rafe, we'll make this quick. I do 80 cupcakes, and you do 20. Is that okay?"

"Yes, ma'am," he said, concentrating on his piping bag. He watched as she did the first cupcake, ending her icing perfectly and exclaiming happily as she put it aside. She looked at him, waiting.

"Don't look at me, you're making me nervous," he mumbled, and leaned to decorate the cupcake. It took him a total of 2 minutes, stopping at times and getting a yell from (Y/N), saying how he should not stop, and the result was impressive. At least to him.

"This will probably be in the rejected part of a bakery, you know, that they'll sell with a discount."

"Not everyone can do arts, (Y/N)," he rolled his eyes, but he truly enjoyed the joke.

It was nearing one in the morning when Rafe saw her sighing in relief, placing the last cupcake into the pastry box and safely storing them in the refrigerator. Her hair was in a bun, he had helped her put them up, and when she refused to let him help her, he gave her a poke.

"What? It's not like it's my first time putting your hair up."

"God, Rafe, you're impossible."

His eyes were almost shut, being so tired after being a cake decorator, and all he wished for was to pull her into her bed and sleep until the morning greets them. He waited until she was done cleaning all of the utensils, walking tiredly towards to him to wake him up.

"Get change, Rafe, I'm not letting you sleep in my bed with that shirt and that sweatpants."

"It's not a problem before," he mumbled, allowing himself to be pulled by her to the bedroom. He removed his shirt weakly, pulling off his sweatpants and jumping into the bed as soon as she closed the light. (Y/N) giggled lightly, noticing how adorable he was being, and she pinched his cheeks before she could stop herself.

"Take off your clothes."

"I'm not going to take off my clothes," she laughed, pulling down her shorts and getting into the bed beside him. She finally laid her back against the mattress, letting out the biggest relief ever as she tried to get comfortable.

He pulled her close towards him, breathing into her scent. She smelled like cupcakes, and he loved it.

"I'm going to the children's home with you."

"What?" she pulled a face, because she wasn't sure if she had heard him right. There was no way Rafe Cameron would ever step his foot into a children's home, what more to give out dark purple cupcakes.

"I'm going to the children's home with you. To give them cupcakes."

(Y/N) smiled and kissed his cheeks. "Okay."

"And we should do this again."

"Okay."

"Okay."

"Goodnight, Rafe," she laughed lightly, placing another peck before closing her eyes.

He placed a long kiss fully on her lips, feeling the butterflies soaring in his stomach. "Goodnight, (Y/N)."

-

taglist is close atm until i figure out wtf is up with tumblr :(

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[erimeows]

Yellow Roses

The first time was a learning experience.

Bumblebee had been innocent to the ways of human gift-giving back then, unsure of what to get or where to get it, but after using the internet and looking up where to buy gifts for humans, he found that there was a gift shop down the street from where the Autobot base was, and he begged and pleaded with Sari for some of her allowance money “for something important”.

He wasn’t sure what he wanted to get. What he was sure of, though, was that he was completely enamored with you and had been since day one- and he couldn’t bring himself to confess yet, but if he didn’t channel his feelings somehow, they were going to burst.

But as he approached the gift shop on that sunny day in Detroit, no other than Optimus Prime walked out and bumped into him. Thankfully, before he could fall back at the impact, Optimus reached out and caught him, placing him back on his feet with one strong servo. 

“P-Prime, hey!” Bumblebee grinned and tried to look as inconspicuous as possible. He knew he wasn’t guilty of anything nefarious, per say, but he had no idea how Optimus would feel about him being in love with a human and wanting to buy gifts for said human with money that wasn’t his. “What are you doing here?”

“Uh, nothing much...” The other Autobot blatantly lied and hid a bouquet of blue and gold flowers that Bee didn’t know the name of behind his back, face burning the brightest shade of red the smaller bot had ever seen it. “Are you looking for something in particular?”

“I don’t know, I mean, what do humans even like?” Bumblebee muttered without thinking, and upon seeing Optimus’s optics widen, he raised his servos defensively and shook his head. “I mean, uh-! Never mind! What’s up with the flowers?”

“Ah,” Optimus gave an awkward grin and held the flowers in front of him instead of continuing to hide them, probably realizing that it was too late and Bumblebee had already seen them. The younger bot wondered if they were for Optimus or for someone else, but he didn’t dare ask, only listening to his leader talk. “I learned that unlike some other organic planets, on earth, it’s considered rude to pick plants if they’re in close proximity to someone’s home or in front of a public building or park unless they’re a specific type called weeds, which flowers aren’t, but I wanted to buy some for someone, so I came here to pick them up after asking Sari about it. Are you gift buying, too?”

“Well, yeah, I guess you could say that,” Bumblebee looked away and held his forearm in one servo, anxiously shifting his weight between his stabilizing servos. It felt like him and Optimus Prime had reached into the cookie jar and caught each other. 

Bumblebee didn’t dare ask who the flowers were for even though he was dying to know in fear that Optimus would ask who he was at the gift shop for in return. An uncomfortable silence fell onto them momentarily, both of them quiet and staring at each other with the noise of traffic and the bustling Detroit citizens walking on the pavement who kept passing by to keep them company.

“I’ve been doing some reading since Sari’s birthday is in a few months,” Optimus tried to continue the conversation and cleared his throat. “The customs for gift giving can involve about anything when it comes to human girls, but the most common are flowers, books, chocolates, jewelry, clothing, video games, or gifts of practicality, which just seem to be hygiene products and things they can use in their daily lives. Gift cards and vouchers with money on them are also common, but considered less personable, so I wouldn’t go that route if you’re close with the one you’re buying for unless they specifically ask for it.”

“Oh... I gotcha. Good ideas, bossbot!” Bumblebee smiled again, the corners of his lip-plates sore from how forced it was due to his nerves.

What if Optimus had figured it out? That would defeat the whole point of his plan; buy you nice things and leave them at your door in the middle of the night without his name attached. It was simple and easy, but if Optimus knew before he even got to try it?

Well. That made it a lot harder.

Thankfully, though, Optimus gave him a nod and bid him a good afternoon, then walked away.

Bumblebee found himself letting out a sigh of relief.

Thank Primus...

...Hours later, Bumblebee regretted all of his life decisions. He was sitting, holed up in his room with one audial pressed up against your wall. It was a terrible habit of his, but he eavesdropped on you pretty frequently when he heard bits and pieces of you talking through the wall, and he was doing it right now.

He wasn’t sure how he had expected it to go, but when he dropped the bouquet of yellow roses at your bedroom doorstep when you were out for lunch and no one was in the halls, he had hoped that you would simply take the flowers, appreciate them, and never say another word. However, you were currently telling Sari about it, which made sense considering that the young girl dropped by your room often and asked you to do her hair or makeup as an excuse to spend time with you- you were an adult, a lot older than Sari, but the two of you got along very well considering that you were the only one who actually knew how to take care of her properly when Isaac Sumdac wasn’t around.

“I have no idea!” You exclaimed, no doubt in reference to the flowers. Bumblebee cringed. What if Sari made the connection that the money he had borrowed from her was for that? What if she told everyone, or what if you told everyone, and Prime realized why he was at that gift shop and let his secret slip? “I can only assume it was you or one of the guys, but like... I don’t know who.”

“Yeah, I have no idea! It wasn’t me, I would’ve just given ‘em to you. We should dig deeper, (y/n)!”

Oh. Oh, Primus, no. 

“I’m not sure, Sari, whoever it was probably dropped it off like that for a reason,” Bumblebee heard you sigh, and at the same time, he let out a sigh of relief. Maybe you would just forget about it and-

“Wait! Do you have a secret admirer!?”

Dammit. Maybe not.

“I... Highly doubt that, the only one I’d be interested in anyways is-” You started, and then cut yourself off in a way that made Bumblebee’s spark shatter and crumble into little pieces inside his chassis. You were single, but you were already into someone? What if it wasn’t him? He’d understand, of course- Prime was stronger, Prowl was smooth, Bulkhead was talented, and Ratchet was intelligent. Compared to them, he felt like he didn’t have much to offer you. Everyone around him was amazing, and he was just there, but... He loved you, and he wanted you to know how loved you were. So, whether you’d love him back or not, he’d keep giving everything he had to you; even if the way in which he went about it was indirect. “Actually, never mind, but your braids are done-”

“No, wait, you can’t just gloss past that!” Sari whined. Bee almost didn’t want to hear the rest of your discussion, but he couldn’t keep himself from listening. “Who is it, who is it!?

“Let’s just go play Animal Crossing in the living room, we can talk about all of that at a later date, yeah?” You offered, voice laced with both your amusement and confusion. 

“Fine, fine, but you have to tell me soon! Pinky promise.”

“Fine, pinky promise. Now let’s go.”

Bumblebee heard your door open and close, followed by what he presumed to be you and Sari’s footsteps in the hallway. The sound eventually dissipated.

The Autobot was left to lay back on his berth and stare at the ceiling with a huff.

You were telling others about the gift he left, trying to get to the bottom of it, and you were into someone or somebot he didn’t even know about.

What had he gotten himself into?

-

The second time, he felt a little better about it. It was a week later and he hadn’t heard any discussion of the subject amongst the other Autobots, so he assumed nothing had come from it.

But, as he lounged on the living room couch, he jumped upon you sitting down on the couch’s arm- right by where his head was laid.

It made sense that he had been jumpier around you over the past few days. Part of it was the usual I’m-in-love-with-you-and-super-tense-about-it jumpiness that he had become accustomed to, but it was made worse by the fact that he was guilty; guilty of keeping a secret from you, of indirectly lying to you. He could’ve done it the one time with the roses and let it die down after, but when you’d talked about your old game controller breaking the night before at the dinner table, he hadn’t been able to help himself- he went and got it along with a new bouquet of yellow roses, left it in front of your room later that night, knocked, and ran away.

It was the next day, and understandably, he’d been anxious about it. It was better than the first time, but he was just hoping you wouldn’t talk about it.

Of course, he was never that lucky, and you looked at him with the controller literally in your hands. 

“Hey, Bee, do you know anything about this?” You asked.

Had he been caught? Did you know? Or were you just trying to get information from him in case he knew something? Unsure, he decided to play it safe and act oblivious. 

“Huh? What’s that?”

“I’m taking that as a no, but someone left this new controller on my doorstep with a bouquet of roses? I needed a new one, but I only mentioned it to you and the others, so I think it’s one of you guys... But this is the second time I’ve received a gift without any name on it and I’m really confused. I’ve done some asking around, but the only one who seems to know anything is Optimus, and he won’t give me any hints and insists that he has no idea what I’m talking about.”

Great. So, Optimus probably realized why Bumblebee had been at the gift shop last week. Well... From what you said, it sounded like Optimus was at least decent enough to stay out of his business and keep the secret for him- or try to, at least. 

“Yeah? That’s weird, I don’t really know why he’d be like that about it... Wanna play Streetfighter?”

“Sure, but I’m just super confused, man,” You muttered, turning on the playstation and giving a frustrated huff. The game quickly turned on, and while Bee took the old controller, you connected your brand new one and chose your stage, your character being Akuma. Bee chose Ken to fight with and listened to you continue as the game started. “I thought the first time might’ve just been a one-off thing, but it’s happened again, and the flowers were one thing, but now it’s flowers and a new controller. Anyone else would be creeped out, and I’m not creeped out- more flattered than anything since I know it’s from you or one of the other Autobots- but this is really expensive... I’d at least like to be able to say thank you!”

“That makes sense, I think I’d feel the same way,” The black and yellow bot mumbled. The game had hardly started and he was already losing due to his inability to focus- it was so bad that he couldn’t even combat you when you crowded his character into the corner and kicked him over and over and over again. His health bar dropped to zero, signaling that you’d won round one.

Round two started, and he did a little better; actually jumping away from your cornering attempts and offering some blasts and punches, but by the time it ended, he’d only gotten you down to half health, and you were delivering your final blow. Ken fell to the ground, Akuma still standing. 

You didn’t even press replay despite being player one. No, instead, you let out a huff and stared at the ceiling. Bumblebee found himself resting his helm against your thigh without thinking, enjoying the warmth against his faceplates. You two were best friends, very comfortable with each other and with physical affection, so you didn’t mind it, only running a gentle hand over one of his audials in return. 

Both of you set your controllers down. It was obvious that both of you were so focused on the subject of your anonymous gifts that the game didn’t catch either of your interests like it usually would. 

“I might try to ask Optimus about it again tomorrow... Information extraction,” You joked, but Bumblebee quickly sat up and objected. 

“Wait, I don’t think that’s such a good idea!”

“Huh? Why not? He’s the only one who’s given me so much as a reaction,” You argued and stood up to turn the game system off, then started pacing around the room. “And I guess his eyes getting all wide ‘n stuff may have just been something else, but like... It’s all I’ve got to go on.”

“Yeah, but you know how the bossbot is,” Bee stood as well, trying his hardest not to look like he was in the midst of blowing a circuit from the panic that was currently taking over his processor. “He shuts down when you push him too hard. If he knows anything about it, you gotta wait for him to come to you with that sweet info.”

“You’re probably right, Bee, thanks for the advice,” You smiled, and then walked to him to put a hand on his shoulder plate. “I’m gonna go to bed, ‘kay? Goodnight.”

You looked into his optics, and oh Primus, he was gone; your eyes were such a beautiful shade of (e/c), and your smile was so beautiful, and you were so beautiful, and he was so in love-

Quickly, he realized that he was taking too long to respond, so he quickly stammered something out.

“G-Goodnight...” 

And then, you left, swiftly turning and walking out of the living room.

Bumblebee found himself letting out a sigh of relief, but at the same time, he missed you desperately.

He wished he’d given you a hug goodnight.

And, as he stood alone in the dark living room, he thought back to how exactly he’d ended up in his current predicament; painfully in love with a human, giving them things without having the courage to do it face-to-face, life feeling like it was falling apart with every hour that passed without him being able to kiss you and tell you how much he loved you like he so desperately wanted to. 

He’d loved you from the very start, and as bold as he was, he couldn’t bring himself to tell you- he was just too scared, but...

What if this was what finally gave it away...?

-

The third time was what ended up blowing his cover. He should’ve left it alone, and he had told himself that after the last time- it was far too close of a call when you talked about Optimus knowing something, and he was so obvious with his own emotions during that, too... He wouldn’t do it again.

But then, he was shopping with Sari that day and saw a (f/c) hoodie that was just your size and style, and he decided you had to had it. So, when Sari was distracted at a different store, he got the hoodie, along with a new notebook, some pens, and a stuffed bee. He bought the gifts for you and put them in a nice gift bag with some paper, then left them by your door and disappeared before anyone could see him. 

He was sitting in the living room yet again. It was late at night, and though him and his team had spent most of that night playing board games and catching up with a movie playing in the background, they’d all went to bed hours ago, leaving him to think by himself.

He’d lost at every game; Uno, Monopoly, Candyland, Sorry, Cards Against Humanity, and Scrabble, all because he was staring at you the entire time. 

Why couldn’t he just get over himself and confess already? It was selfish to keep hiding from you, because what if the one you’d mentioned being interested in was actually him? And even if it wasn’t him, was it fair for you to think that he saw you as a friend when he was secretly in love with you? Was it fair for you to keep receiving gifts and never knowing who they were from? 

Speak of the devil, though- the second Bumblebee looked up from where he was standing in the middle of the room, you were leaning against the doorway, wearing the hoodie he’d bought you and a pair of pajama shorts. You looked sleepy with your (h/l) (h/c) hair a mess and your soft hands rubbing the bleariness out of your (e/c) eyes. 

“Bee?” You mumbled.

“(y/n), where’d you just come from? You look tired! You okay?”

“Yeah, I’m tired, but I’m fine. I was in the hallway, kinda waiting for everyone else to go to bed so I could talk to you, but... It took me a minute to come in here.” Bumblebee walked towards you and raised his optical ridge. His spark sank to the floor because oh Primus, was this it? Was it finally happening?

“Oh, uh... Why do you need to talk to me alone? What’s up?”

You averted your gaze and gently grabbed one of his servos with your hand, holding it tightly. Bumblebee took a sharp intake. You were about to start talking, and he wasn’t sure he was ready for it. 

“I know it’s you,” You confessed with a guilty smile. Bumblebee froze in place and cringed. “I feel bad, but my curiosity was killing me, so I asked around some more and did a lot of prying- Optimus seemed like he was hiding something when I talked to him about it, so I pried until he gave up and told me that he suspected it was you; that he’d seen you at a gift shop the day I got the first bouquet, that he’d seen you lingering in the hallways the past few times I’ve gotten something, etcetera. He gave me enough details that I pieced it together, so... Yeah.”

“Well, at least it’s out of the way,” Bumblebee laughed out loud, and surprisingly, you smiled back at him. This wasn’t how he wanted it to come out, but he wasn’t sure it would have come out at all if not for this. “Getting human money without a real job is hard! Glad I could at least confess without having to do it so much that I went bankrupt.”

“Bee...” You started again, peering up at him, but he felt like he wasn’t ready for what was going to happen next. Were you about to reject him? He wasn’t sure he wanted to find out. 

“Well, now that that’s done, I’m gonna go ahead and go to bed! I could use a really good recharge right about now-”

“Bee-” You cut him off with a pout and gripped his servo, obviously not done, but he only continued in hopes that you would give it up and let him escape the situation. 

“Goodnight, (y/n)-”

“Bee!” You yelled and pulled him towards you by his wrist so you could get in his face. “For God’s sake, man, stop and listen to me talk for a second!”

“Okay, okay! I’m sorry! I just-” He tossed his hands up defensively, ready to spill his circuits out, only for you to cut him off.

“You don’t think I love you back, right? You’re such a dolt!” You exclaimed. 

“What’s that supposed to mean!?” Bumblebee yelled back at you, processor only catching the insult before he thought back on ‘I love you back’ and froze. “...Oh. Sorry.”

“I mean I’ve loved you for months now! Even before I realized it, I think I would’ve been more than open to dating you at any point in time, I mean... You’re pretty great. Why didn’t you just tell me?”

“Well, uh-” Bumblebee stopped and took in a deep intake, then sighed and linked your fingers with his digits so he could hold your hand properly. The anxiety that had been building up over you for so long now was finally leaving his body and being replaced by relief.“I don’t know. I feel kinda stupid now.”

“C’mere,” You mumbled and wrapped an arm around him. He hugged you back, taking you into his arms and resting his chin on top of your head... He could get used to that. You were warm and soft as you relaxed your body against his and allowed yourself to be held. You let go of his servo in favor of curling your hands and arms up by his chest. “Thank you for the gifts. They were really sweet and I loved them all, so... I’ll be sure to return the favor.”

“Return the favor? This is more than enough to return the favor!” He grinned, only hugging you tighter. “I’ve always wanted to just, like, hug you like this-”

“You can kiss me, too, if you want,” You offered, which had him pulling back to look down at you, spark lit aflame. 

“Really?” Bumblebee asked, just to be sure.

“Of course.”

There was a moment of silence; hesitance from both ends. It was true that, while both of you had been physically affectionate as friends, you’d never kissed, and Bumblebee had certainly never kissed a human. He’d been waiting for this moment for so long, but he had no idea what to do now that it was actually happening. 

Thankfully, you took the initiative and wrapped your arms over his shoulders, hands on the back of his neck. You looked up at him one more time before standing on your tip-toes so you could gently press your lips against his. Bumblebee was frozen still for a moment as he processed your warm, soft lips against his cool metal plating, but after the tension faded, he found himself resting his servos on your hips and melted into it. 

One kiss turned into many; again, again, and again, you moved your lips against his in a manner so intoxicating that he couldn’t get enough of it.

Eventually, though, you pulled away and smiled up at him, but now that he had gotten to kiss you like that, he couldn’t help but want more. 

“I, uh... I’m not sure the favor has been returned yet,” Bumblebee averted his optics from your eyes, able to feel his spark beating faster. “I might need one more kiss just to be sure-”

You chuckled, cutting him off by leaning up again and sloppily pushing your lips against his- and, with that, he was gone.

[five-rivers]

Danger First

Chapter 2

Heya @pocketramblr. I have no self-control.

.

Izuku expected his anxiety to subside, one way or another, once the exam was over.

As always, the universe set out to prove him wrong.

Home was more or less okay. But, for some reason, minor household repair issues started to bother him so much he spent the rest of weekend working on them

Then there was school, which was even more hellish than usual, despite being exactly the same as it had been since the sludge incident. Izuku was way too aware of how much of a threat everyone there was to him, specifically. Especially the teachers.

His hypervigilante state did keep him from getting poked (smacked) quite so much by the teachers, or cornered by 'fellow' students quite as much as usual, but it also led him to hide in the library storage room. He'd never be able to look at the librarian the same way again. Not knowing she kept multiple copies of books by anti-quirkless hate groups on hand.

And all through the week, he got nothing but silence from All Might.

But the end of the week came, and with it a letter from UA, which told him-

.

"WHAT DO YOU MEAN, FIRST PLACE?"

.

"I don't know, Nana, Banjo makes a good point."

"Don't take his side just because he was your predecessor. You all know a One for All holder would never resort to such devious- Yoichi, why are you making that face?"

"In an unjust world, bribery can be a tool for justice. I'm sure Eighth didn't have to, though."

"That's it, I'm not talking to any of you anymore."

.

"Anyway," said All Might, wiping blood from his mouth and glancing nervously at the other beachgoers. "Congratulations, young Midoriya."

Izuku felt his lip wobble. "You're not mad that I couldn't use One for All?"

"Not at all! Actually, in some ways this might be better. We'll have some time to experiment privately. And if you're in school when it finally turns on... well, we'll just say you're a late bloomer, alright?"

"Okay," sniffed Izuku, rubbing his eyes. "I just... I couldn't use it. What if-"

"Hey, hey, it's alright, my boy. No need to cry. You passed the entrance exam without using a quirk at all! You should be proud. Even with a quirk, it's an incredible accomplishment. Also, just so you know, I had nothing to do with the selection process. Just in case you were worried about favoritism."

Izuku sniffed and nodded.

.

"What a strangely specific denial."

"Uh, Banjo, usually I'd be reveling in the chaos, but I think Nana is seriously considering ghost murder right now. Maybe you shouldn't insult her kid anymore?"

"You and Hikage would protect me, right?"

"Don't take this the wrong way, but I'd sell you to Satan for one corn chip."

"So would I; it's been way too long since I've eaten. As long as it is Satan and not All for One, you've got my blessing."

.

"You certainly proved this old man wrong."

"You aren't old," protested Izuku.

"We'll have to agree to disagree on that," said All Might. "Here, sit down with me," he said, settling on the sand.

Izuku hurried to follow suit, and for a while, they both just watched the ocean. It was nice, today.

"I owe you an apology, young Midoriya."

"H-huh?"

"For what I said on that roof," said All Might, "and for what I... implied later."

"You already apologized for the roof, though?" said Izuku, confused. "I mean, that day..."

"That's what I'm talking about," said All Might. "I shouldn't have- The way I apologized, when I offered you One for All... It was like saying that you couldn't do it without a quirk, that you needed a quirk to 'fix' yourself and... well, obviously I was wrong. Quirk or not, you're going to be an amazing hero."

.

"Oh," said Banjo, "I can already tell this is going to be a problem once he finds out about Danger Sense. Gonna blow a hole right through his confidence."

"Maybe he won't find out?" suggested Nana, who'd wrestled her murderous impulses into submission. Temporarily. "Danger Sense is pretty low key."

"I feel like I should be offended..." said Hikage. "But if I got offended, that would be offensive to people who don't have quirks..."

"I don't know," said En. "If someone insulted your legs by saying they were so skinny it was like they weren't even there, would you being offended be offensive to people who don't have legs? Or would the original statement be the offensive one?"

"Somehow, I feel more offended after that."

.

"Oh," said Izuku. He felt himself crying again. "Are you, um. You're not going to- Are you- Do you want it back?" he whispered. "One for All?"

"No, no, of course not. You... There's no one I'd rather have it. I'm just... even if you didn't, you could be a hero. But I'm hoping... I'm hoping you'll keep it."

Izuku swallowed and nodded. All Might awkwardly raised his arm.

"Do you mind if I...?"

"Sure?" said Izuku, not entirely sure what he was asking.

All Might put his arm around Izuku and gave him a sort of sideways hug. Izuku leaned into it. It was the safest he'd felt since the entrance exam.

Because, surprise, surprise, that anxiety hadn't gone away.

"What did you say?"

"Oh! Uh... it isn't important, it's nothing."

"It didn't sound like nothing," said All Might, concerned.

"I, well, I, ever since the entrance exam... maybe even a little bit before? I've been really... jumpy? About everything. I think it's just because I'm a wreck, but..."

"Huh. Well, you know, that could be a facet of One for All."

"R-really?"

"After I got One for All, it seemed like it was easier for me to tell when people were in danger and needed help," said All Might. "S- A friend who knew about One for All used to joke it was my original quirk. But it was subtle and intermittent, not constant."

"Huh," said Izuku. "So... it might have been One for All all along? Trying to get me to help people?" He picked at his lower lip. "Maybe... I noticed a bunch of stuff I usually don't... I'm not sure I would have seen all the people in trouble during the exam."

.

"So much for not noticing-"

"His confidence... let him have it for at least a little while..."

"He seems to be taking it alright," said Yoichi, hopefully.

.

"I'm sure you would have helped them if you did notice, regardless," said All Might, "and that's what was really being measured, so my earlier point still stands."

Izuku nodded. "It would be really strange for a quirk to have two completely different applications like that."

"Yes, but One for All is a rather strange quirk, and I've seen odder split quirks." He fell silent for a moment. "I can't think of a way to test for it, though. Speaking of which, we should find some time to try and work on One for All before the school year starts. How do you feel about coming to UA after school?"

.

"Th-thank you for helping us with this, Recovery Girl!"

"It's no trouble, dear," said Recovery Girl. "I'd be here at this time, anyway. You wouldn't believe the amount of paperwork I have to go through. Just try not to break too many bones."

Izuku nodded vigorously, still somewhat in awe of being in the presence of not one but two incredible pro heroes. And at UA.

It was like living in a dream.

Except for the highly suspicious mostly-hidden wall panels and the very intense feeling of being watched through camera by an incredibly threatening being. It was fine.

"Alright, young Midoriya! Are you ready?"

"Y-yeah!"

"Then come at me, you zygote!"

.

Nana stared at her (former) student in despair. "Toshi... why... out of all the people..."

"So, you admit he can make bad decisions-"

"Bad and immoral are two different things."

"I think calling people zygotes is pretty immoral, actually..."

Silently, Nana agreed.

.

Izuku blinked at All Might- not because of the zygote thing!

... Okay, partially because of the zygote thing.

But mostly because he was still in his skinny, prone-to-coughing-up-blood form.

"Are you sure?" Izuku asked. "What if I..." he trailed off, blushing. What he was about to say sounded so stupid, and more than a little conceited, but...

"Hey, even like this, I'm much tougher than I look, young Midori- Ahem, I mean, zygote!"

"Toshinori, don't you think role-playing as Gran Torino is a little much?" asked Recovery Girl.

"Ah, do you think so?"

Recovery Girl shot All Might a truly terrifying look, but Izuku's mind was on something completely different.

"Is- is Toshinori your name?" he asked, awed.

Blood drained out of All Might's face, making him look more skeletal than usual. Should Izuku not have asked? Was it supposed to be secret? Oh no...

"Please tell me you haven't been training this boy for most of a year without him even knowing your name."

"Oops?" said All Might, faintly.

.

"He did do that, didn't he?" asked Yoichi, his eyebrows almost touching his hairline. "Nana, your boy is a disaster."

"All of us were disasters. We're still disasters."

"I'm not."

"Hikage, you spent most of your adult life living in the woods, completely isolated from humanity."

"I know, it was great."

"Unbelievable."

.

"Back to what we were talking about before," said Mr. Yagi (Mr. Yagi! Izuku knew All Might's name! And had permission to use it!) after Recovery Girl was done scolding him. "Focus on actually hitting me before worrying about accidentally hurting me. Today, I just want to get a baseline. Next time, we can work on basic punches and throws."

"So, do I just-?"

"Yep, just come right at me!"

.

The next hour consisted mainly of Izuku being thrown bodily into various padded surfaces. Despits this, according to Mr. Yagi, he was much better at dodging than expected. As a bonus, although he certainly felt sore and bruised, he didn't break any bones.

He also didn't manage to activate One for All. Not even a little bit.

Nor did he on any of the other days leading up to his first day as a student at UA.

.

Aizawa Shouta, down two nights of sleep and dreading the new batch of bright eyed hero hopefuls he'd be teaching- and crushing the dreams of- next week, glared blearily at a computer screen. Currently, it displayed a student's name, a quirk name, and the single least helpful quirk description he'd ever seen. Which was saying something, because he'd seen Hizashi's original quirk description.

Midoriya Izuku

Quirk: undetermined

Description: None.

I am either too tired or too sober to deal with this, decided Shouta. However, sleep simply wasn't on the table, and getting drunk was illogical. In that case, simply not dealing with it was the only option.

Nevertheless, he picked up his phone and called Nezu.

"Good evening, Aizawa!" said the internally chipper maybe-rodent. "Or should I say good morning?"

"Midoriya Izuku."

"Ah, you're browsing your class list, I see. Any thoughts about their potential?"

"Illogical." It would be, to make a call about a student's potential without meeting them first.

"Quite so!"

"Midoriya. Quirk," grunted Shouta, reminding him why he was calling.

"Ah, yes, he is a strange case. He's listed as quirkless in the registry."

That woke Shouta up, just a little. He'd seen a handful of documents for the quirkless over the years. If Midoriya was quirkless, his file should read N/A, not undetermined.

"What?"

"I have reason to believe that he might have been diagnosed in error," said Nezu. "I am still investigating. In the meantime, I would appreciate it if you kept an eye on him. Assuming, of course, that he isn't expelled!"

Shouta grunted and hung up. He minimized the window on his computer and pawed through his files until he found the entrance exam video for Midoriya.

A kid who passed the UA hero course practical entrance exam either entirely quirkless or with a subtle, stubborn, or invisible quirk on rescue points alone. A kid who seemed to run straight for danger on purpose (mostly on purpose, Shouta amended after seeing him collide with the invisible girl, coincidentally pushing her out of the way of some sort of water pressure quirk. There was just no way he could have known she was there). A kid who had almost certainly faced brutal quirk harassment since the time he was four and most likely possessed the self-confidence and trauma to match.

"Least he's good at dodging..." muttered Shouta. He rubbed at one grainy-feeling eye and pulled his sleeping bag closer around his shoulders. Kid wasn't all that bad at falling, either. Some light martial arts instruction, maybe?

He paused the video and reopened Midoriya's file, flipping to school and admission records and exam results. He usually didn't look closely at this part of the file, it was enough for him that the students passed, but, exceptions...

Speaking of exceptions, Midoriya's file was a mass of contradictions. Unusually high written test score that didn't correspond with middle school grades. Dozens of citations and black marks on his disciplinary record that should have kept him from even being invited to take the exam, but a letter of recommendation from All Might.

He frowned at the last one. There was no way...

He shook his head, and clicked on the link at the bottom of the file. It brought him to a herotube video about a year old. A hostage situation with a vaguely familiar middle schooler and slime-like villain. Also, a bunch of heroes, but none of them seemed to be addressing the suffocating child. Shouta felt his lips curl. Even if this was in the past...

Then Midoriya Izuku ran into the frame and tried to pull the other boy free, just seconds before All Might arrived and punched the villain so hard it started to rain. Then the video ended.

Alright, then.

Shouta's admittedly currently-less-than-razor-sharp mind presented him with two possibilities. One, Midoriya was All Might's secret child and All Might had bribed Nezu into letting him take the exams despite his less-than-stellar records. Two, this child had, with bloody fingernails, managed to claw a single spark of luck out of an otherwise bleak existence by impressing All Might enough that he got Nezu to ignore the otherwise damning records.

If the first, well, he had still passed the practical without use of any obvious quirk. He probably had some potential.

If the second... Shouta had been a hero long enough to recognize the circumstances that drove people to desperate, and sometimes unforgivable, acts. Dangling a single hope in front of someone only to snatch it away at the last minute...

Forget the maybe-quirk. This was the real conundrum of Midoriya Izuku.

The rat knew he wouldn't expel Midoriya with these stakes. It would be the height of irrationality.

(Even if he did turn out to be All Might's kid.)

What a pain.

He flipped through a few more profiles, quickly reviewing 1-B as well, before hitting redial on his phone.

"Calling again so soon?" asked Nezu with a squeaky chuckle.

"I want Monoma." He paused. "In my class," he elaborated.

"Oh? Whatever for?"

"If I'm going to have to figure out Midoriya's mystery quirk, I want to make it as easy for myself as possible."

There was silence on the other end of the like, and Shouta checked to see whether or not he'd hung up accidentally. He hadn't.

"I must say," said Nezu, finally, "I had not considered that solution. Depending on the mechanics of Monoma's quirk... I cannot think of any reason to deny your request."

That was a strange way of phrasing it.

"We'll exchange him with Bakugo, in that case."

"Not that I'm complaining," said Shouta, "but why him? Why not..." He racked his memory. "Mineta. He's got one of those body part quirks Kan likes."

Nezu chuckled again. "Normally, I would pick Mineta, but, by my calculations, a classroom that contained both Monoma and Bakugo would be demolished within thirty minutes of their arrival."

Shouta groaned. Why did they even let people like that in?

No, wait, he had an answer to that, actually.

"Forget a mouse, a dog, or a bear," said Shouta. "You're a sadist."

"Some certainly think so! But one thing's for sure! I'm the principal!"

.

The door to class 1-A sure was big... and intimidating... and radiating a faint sense of malaise. But, then, Izuku's middle school classroom had done far worse, so...

He opened the door. No Kacchan. Thank goodness. He must be in the class B, then, because there was no way he'd let Izuku beat him to school.

The strict boy from the entrance exam was there, though, and, oh, dear, he'd noticed Izuku and was coming right for him.

(Oh, gosh, and the invisible girl was here, too. He felt himself blushing furiously.)

Still better than Kacchan.

"Hello!" he said, rather loudly. "I'm from Somei Private Academy! My name is Iida Tenya!"

"Oh, uh, I- I'm from Aldera Middle School..." said Izuku. Was stating the name of your middle school a normal thing? He hadn't read about this in any manga... "I'm Midoriya Izuku."

"Pleased to meet you!" He moved his arm in a rather robotic fashion, taking a deep breath.

Oh, no, was he about to yell at Izuku again?

.

"Danger Sense isn't even going off right now, Izuku," said Yoichi, despairingly. "Why are you still so nervous?"

"Maybe we never really gave him Danger Sense after all, and it was his natural anxiety the whole time."

"Please stop denigrating my quirk."

.

"Midoriya... you... you perceived the true nature of the practical exam. Meanwhile, I was blind! I misjudged you! I hate to admit it, but you were the superior candidate."

Oh, that was nice, but... "I didn't perceive anything, though. I had no idea rescue points were a thing. I was mostly just trying not to die."

"Ah! That curly hair! It's Midoriya!"

"Oh! Um, Uraraka?" Please, please, let him have remembered her name right.

"Yeah!" said Uraraka, smiling brightly.

Augh! Too cute!

"I'm so glad you're in my class! I was so worried I wouldn't know anyone here."

"Y-yeah. T-this is Iida, by the way," said Izuku, trying to get attention off of himself.

"Nice to meet you, Iida."

"It's nice to meet you as well, Uraraka!"

"Yeah! So, we've got the entrance ceremony and guidance sessions today, right? I wonder who our teacher will be- They're all supposed to be pro heroes, right?"

"Um," started Izuku, "that-"

"If you're here to socialize, then get out."

.

"That's a teacher, huh," said Yoichi.

"Why are you saying that like you've never seen one before?" asked Banjo.

"I've seen teachers before," said Yoichi. "I've seen all of your teachers. The ones you've had while you had One for All."

"Okay, now you're saying that like you've never had teachers."

"Yeah, that is kind of strange, Yoichi," said Nana.

"I had professors," said Yoichi.

"Still weird."

"I went to college. And med school."

"Did you graduate?" asked En, interested.

"No."

"Why not?"

"My brother kidnapped me, kept me in a vault for a while, and then I died."

"I didn't know what I expected," said En, shaking his head.

"Wait, weren't there several years between the vault and the whole dying thing."

"Yeah, but I'm ignoring them."

"Because?" Banjo hooked his thumb over his shoulder at Second and Third.

"Yep," said Yoichi.

.

"Todoroki. You were the highest scorer on the Recommendation Exam. See how far you can throw this ball with your quirk. Stay in the circle. Anything else goes."

A boy with white and red hair stepped forward, scowling faintly. He took the ball and stared at it.

"Time is valuable, Todoroki."

And then there was a glacier.

Izuku felt his jaw drop. How was he supposed to compete with that?

.

"My name is Monoma," said a blonde boy, offering his hand.

Izuku stared at it a moment before remembering handshakes were a thing.

"Midoriya," he said.

Monoma then offered his hand to Uraraka and Iida as well. "I look forward to experiencing UA's superior brand of education with you," he said.

Izuku laughed nervously. "You're confident," he said, glancing at the track where two others students were doing sprints. It would be their turn soon.

"But of course!" Monoma struck a sort of pose, fingers splayed out on his chest. "I welcome this sort of challenge, this opportunity to prove myself! It just goes to show, UA only accepts the best of the best!"

Monoma was called away to the starting line a moment later. "Two good, one dud," he mumbled under his breath.

What did that mean?

Then Monoma was at the starting line, and he was using Iida's quirk. Did he have a copy quirk? That was so cool!

... Is that what he meant by good and dud? Did he... did he see that Izuku didn't have a quirk? Oh, no... What if he told everyone? Even if people were being nice to him now...

"What's wrong?" asked Uraraka.

"U-um," said Izuku. "Nothing?"

.

"Oh, gosh," said Yoichi, crying. "I just want to wrap him up in a warm blanket. You deserve friends."

"Yeah, kid, it'll be okay," said Banjo. "Bakugo's just a freak. And so was your whole school. Place gave me MLA flashbacks."

"Sure glad they aren't around anymore," agreed En.

.

All in all... Izuku didn't do terribly. Especially given that he didn't actually have a quirk, and this was a quirk assessment. At least, he didn't think he did. At least, he hadn't tripped or hurt himself.

It had, in fact, been a rather good day. No Kacchan. No bullies. The teacher had clear standards and requirements, and he stated them up front.

He had been getting... bad vibes... from the short, purple-haired kid, and he'd noticed other people frowning at him, especially the girls. But he hadn't been able to put his finger on why, even though he had been watching him carefully during his turns.

Other than that...

UA really was the best.

"By the way, no one's getting expelled. It was a logical ruse."

Monoma raised his hand.

"What is it?"

"I must object!" said Monoma.

"You... want someone to be expelled?"

"In fact, I insist! To allow this to continue would blemish the reputation of the school."

"Well said, Monoma!" exclaimed Iida. "Living up to the reputation of UA and all the alumni who have come before us is a duty of us students! But what blemish are you talking about? Surely, as Mr. Aizawa said, we all went plus ultra!"

"Maybe so, but my concern has more to do with moral standards!"

"If you kids keep going like this, I'm just going to go to sleep. You're giving me a headache."

Izuku caught movement out of the corner of his eye, and a wave of unease went through him. He turned to see-

"Hey! What are you doing?" he demanded, shocked and more than a little horrified.

Once again, he was mortally embarrassed on behalf of the invisible girl.

"I wasn't doing anything!" said the small purple boy.

"You were looking up her skirt!"

"It isn't like there's anything to see!"

The invisible girl gasped and quickly moved away. "Gross!" she said. "That's terrible!"

"See? See?" said Monoma, wildly. "This is what I'm talking about!"

"Next time," said Aizawa, "get to the point faster. Time is valuable. Mineta."

"What?"

"You're expelled."

"What? You can't do that!"

"Go complain to Nezu."

UA really was the best.

"Midoriya."

Okay, never mind. He was doomed. Completely doomed.

"Monoma. I want to talk to you after class. The rest of you are dismissed."

Midoriya stood nervously as Uraraka and Iida bid him goodbye. Was this it? Was Aizawa going to expel him after all? At least it wasn't in front of absolutely everyone... But what was Monoma doing here?

Speaking of which, Monoma looked nervous, too... Was he okay? Surely, Aizawa wasn't going to expel him, too.

"Is this about me using other people's quirks?" demanded Monoma. "Because you said anything goes! I wasn't cheating. You can't expel me!"

Oh. There was some trauma there. Izuku could tell. Did people make fun of him for his quirk?

"I'm not going to expel you," said Aizawa, looking up at them from where he laid in his sleeping bag in the grass. He almost looked like he was praying for patience. "I need to ask you some questions about your quirk. For future reference and to better serve your needs as a student. I know how tricky meta quirks can be."

"Oh," said Monoma, slightly deflating. Then he sent a curious glance at Midoriya. "Is he-?"

"His matter is slightly more sensitive. If you would like me to send him away while we talk, I can do that."

"No, no, it's fine." Monoma sniffed, his eyes suspiciously wet. "What's the question?"

"You copy quirks through DNA contact. Do you decide when to activate passive quirks you copy, or can you choose?"

"I can choose, as long as it's within my time limit."

"When you first make contact, can you tell what quirk a person has?"

Monoma shook his head. "No, sir, I have to activate it to do that, so I can get duds- oh, that is to say, quirks I can't use because I don't have the proper activation conditions, like Midoriya's. He's got some kind of stockpile. I can get duds without realizing it. But I can tell whether or not someone has a quirk."

"Were you able to test all your classmates' quirks today?"

"Not everyone, yet," said Monoma. "I usually try to avoid more extreme mutation quirks outside of controlled conditions."

Aizawa's head bobbed up and down minutely. "Great. That should be enough for now. You're dismissed."

"Yes, sir! I look forward to seeing your superior lesson plans tomorrow!" He paused. "Midoriya."

"H-have a good day, Monoma."

Monoma had felt One for All! What a relief. Izuku had been half worried he'd lost it somehow.

But why did Aizawa want him?

"Um, sir?" he asked. Sort of asked. 'Sir' alone wasn't a question, even if it was said in an inquisitive tone.

Aizawa's eyes turned red, and his hair started floating. Izuku felt... Huh. Calmer, somehow? He was no longer vaguely aware of how the light post over there could fall on him, or any of the other many minor dangers surround him and oh, gosh, he was no longer aware of the dangers! How was he supposed to stay safe like this, when he felt like he'd been blindfolded?

Aizawa blinked. Everything came back.

"Wow," said Izuku. "That was so cool! Was that your quirk? Is it an emotional quirk? It made me feel calmer at first, but then I was, I don't know, too calm, and it made me anxious, but then-"

"Problem child," said Aizawa, and Izuku froze at the reprimand. "What I just did was erase your quirk."

Erase?

His quirk?

"Oh my gosh! You're Eraserhead! I'm a huge fan!"

Aizawa closed his eyes. Was he counting? No? Did he fall asleep?

"You do know you're listed as quirkless, right?"

"Yes?"

"But you just had a reaction to my quirk that a quirkless person definitely should not have."

"O-oh?"

"Combined with Monoma's ability to sense your quirk, I'd say you are not, in fact, quirkless."

"But I have the toe joint?" Izuku wasn't sure why he'd said that. He shouldn't be arguing against this, because, as Aizawa had said, he did have a quirk. It just wasn't exactly his.

"Yeah, that's an old wives' tale."

"Really?"

"As real as my quirk counselor license. Whoever diagnosed you was a quack."

"O-oh."

"My initial impression from your entrance exam video is that you might have a sensory quirk of some kind. On the other hand, we should take Monoma's assessment into account, and consider stockpiles. Either way, I would like to schedule some time to test things out with you."

"You- You'd do that? For me? I mean, I don't want to be a bother-"

"This is literally my job."

"It... yeah, I guess so." His previous teachers would have considered it a bother. Except Mr. Yagi, but Mr. Yagi wasn't really a teacher. He was more of a... a mentor.

(Or a dad.)

(Oh, no, he did not just think that. Bad. Bad brain. Bad brain that read too much All Might RPF as a pre-teen.)

"Besides, even if your quirk doesn't have many applications in hero work, it will be useful for you to know what it is and how it affects you." Aizawa yawned. "Also, don't tell your class that I'm Eraserhead."

"O-okay," said Izuku. "Of course, sir, but... why?"

"I have two full time jobs. I get my entertainment where I can. You can go now. We'll schedule tomorrow."

Izuku nodded, and Aizawa just... zipped his sleeping bag the rest of the way closed and rolled over.

Was... was he just going to go to sleep here? In the middle of the field.

"Um? Mr. Aizawa?"

A grunt came from the sleeping bag.

"This is... isn't this kind of a dangerous place to sleep?"

"Go home, problem child."

"... okay."

[ridiasfangirlings]

Forgive me if you've done this one before, but say a strain that makes fushimi lose his memory like around season one? Maybe putting him at the time he thinks he's in homra and confused why he's surrounded by the blues. Munakata allowing homra to kinda watch over him till he gets his memory back. You think yata would make any attempts to try and take advantage of the situation? Maybe even trying to"predict" why he betrayed homra? Kinda like a second chance.(Sorry if it sounds odd, but you have a very good way of telling these kind of scenarios)

I'm imagining Yata trying to like 'subtly' pry into reasons why Fushimi might leave Homra except Yata sucks at being subtle – and actually imagine in this scenario it makes Fushimi's mood worse because now he thinks that even Misaki can see he doesn't fit in here, from the way he keeps asking Fushimi how he felt about being surrounded by Blues and making 'hypothetical' comments about betrayal. Like imagine Fushimi gets hit by this Strain and it takes away his memory of the last couple years, so he thinks that it's still the time when he was in Homra. Naturally he's on edge when he wakes up surrounded by Blues, maybe he got attacked while on his day off or something too so Fushimi's not wearing his usual uniform and so it doesn't even occur to him that he 'should' be in Scepter 4. Instead he thinks the Blues somehow attacked him, Munakata steps in to explain that they rescued Fushimi from a Strain attack and to question how much Fushimi does remember. When it becomes clear that Fushimi thinks he's still in Homra Munakata decides the best course of action for the moment would be to send Fushimi to Homra so that he doesn't get agitated, like they all can just play along and try to act like nothing strange has happened.

Awashima calls Kusanagi to explain, Kusanagi's fine with letting Fushimi back for a while but I imagine he would want to talk to Yata first, to be sure this is okay. Yata's initially like why would we want that traitor here but then he hears that Fushimi still thinks he's in Homra and has been asking for Yata and I could see that just like striking Yata to the heart, that 'the old Fushimi' is back for just a little while. Yata agrees and Kusanagi tells him to just make sure not to upset Fushimi, from what they know about the Strain power extreme emotions could affect Fushimi's memory in negative ways and they need to try and act normal. Yata's like no problem I'll just act totally natural, all while looking stiff and nervous and Kusanagi just sighs like do your best.

Fushimi returns to the bar, his hair is back to normal and maybe Munakata found a way to have someone sneak a bandage over his burn scar and tell him the Strain injured him so Fushimi doesn't notice that either. Yata smiles when Fushimi walks in but there's obviously something strained in his eyes and Kusanagi has to nudge him a little, like remember we said be natural. Fushimi asks why everyone's staring at him and Yata says they were just worried, come on let's go out for a while. Fushimi doesn't get why Yata seems to be acting so jumpy but he agrees, he wasn't really looking forward to being at the bar with Mikoto anyway. They go out to get like some fast food and Yata keeps giving Fushimi these looks, like he's just really torn between being so happy Saruhiko's back and knowing that it won't last, and wondering if maybe this is a second chance and he can finally figure out why Fushimi left in the first place.

Yata decides that he needs to take advantage of this opportunity, to try and find out why Fushimi left and maybe even show him that Homra's so awesome there's no way Fushimi would want to leave (even knowing Fushimi's memory will come back eventually, but desperately hoping that maybe he can change things and Fushimi won't want to go back to the Blues). But then he ends up really just making things worse, like making what he thinks are subtle comments about how Fushimi would never want to leave Homra right and that the two of them need to work together to become the strongest team and help Mikoto-san just makes Fushimi think that Yata's feeling like he's going to leave Homra for some reason. Plus Yata still doesn't understand Fushimi so all the talk about Homra being great and becoming useful to Mikoto only makes Fushimi feel more bitter that Yata's still thinking about Homra rather than him. And maybe Yata makes a comment about how Fushimi woke up at S4 and like trying to sniff out if Fushimi 'felt like that place was comfortable at all' and what he's trying to say is that S4 must be an uncomfortable place to be but what Fushimi hears is 'you probably fit more in that place than Homra.'

[thewritewolf]

A Model’s Shadow

Summary: Juleka's dream is to be a model, and there is one person in her class that can give her a hand... and maybe she has a little insight that can help him out in return.

I wrote this fic way back in August of 2019 for @adrienagrestezine "Silver Linings". Now that the zine has been published and the left over sale has started, I'm pleased to finally be able to share this fic with all of you!

Enjoy!

Read on Ao3

Adrien walked up the steps of the school with a smile on his face. Not because he was particularly looking forward to learning today, but because this was the first day back to school after he and Ladybug had accidentally revealed their identities to each other.

It hadn’t been anything too exciting that finally did their secrecy in. They both simply happened to duck into the same alleyway as their miraculous gave their last shrill beeps. A few silent moments had passed between them before Marinette shrieked and sprinted away before Adrien could squeeze a word out.

But that was okay! It was a lot to take in and Marinette could be a little… jumpy under pressure. He gave her plenty of space. No matter how often he had wanted to run over to her house as Chat Noir that weekend. But now it was Monday and seeing each other was practically unavoidable.

His ears perked up when he caught her voice, although he couldn’t make out the words. He closed his locker quietly and crept towards the sound. That was definitely her voice, but he couldn’t hear the other speaker. Maybe it was her kwami?

Then they rounded the corner. Bumping into her didn’t bother him at all, that had happened plenty of times before. But her reaction was to spring backwards as if his chest had burned her? It stung to see. She lost her footing and almost went tumbling onto the floor before Adrien caught her by the wrist.

He helped her regain her footing, his hand lingering on hers as he asked, “Are you alright, Mari?”

Her face turned bright red and she pulled away. While she retreated, she pulled the person she had been speaking with around the corner and brandished her in front of herself. She blurted out, “Juleka wants modeling help!”

And then she was gone.

Adrien blinked and turned to face Juleka. No wonder he hadn’t heard her - he wasn’t sure if he had ever heard Juleka raise her voice to be much louder than a whisper. Juleka glanced up at him, blinking in confusion at what just happened. She gave a nervous smile and tiny wave before looking away again.

“So…” Adrien said, rubbing the back of his neck, “...you want to be a model?”

—————

Towards the end of the week, Adrien found himself at a photoshoot for the spring line. More precisely, he found himself waiting in the dressing room while they were working through the other models and getting his set assembled.

At least this time he had company.

Adrien squirmed in his seat. He felt like a bad host for letting the silence stretch between them. Especially since she’d be hovering at the sidelines anyway while he was in front of the camera.

“So… Modeling, huh?”

Juleka blinked in surprise before giving a weak smile. “I know, it’s not what most people expect, from, um… someone like me.”

“It’s not that I don’t think you can do it,” Adrien rushed to add. “I just didn’t think you wanted to be in the spotlight is all.”

“You’re not wrong.” She laughed nervously. “I guess… I guess it’s about proving that I could if I set my mind to it, you know?”

“I can get that and I’ll do my best to help, but…” Adrien frowned. “Are you sure you want to do something that stresses you out this much, just to prove a point?”

“You sound like Rose.” Her smile was bright and genuine. “She worries a lot about me, but even when she thinks I’m making a mistake she has my back.”

His thoughts went back to Marinette. Even when she couldn’t form words around him, he knew she was incredibly loyal to her friends and was always willing to go the extra mile for them. He was brought back to the present by Juleka waving her hand in front of his face.

“Hey. You zoned out for a second. Thinking about someone in particular?” There was a glint of amusement in the one eye he could see, as if she already knew.

“Am I that obvious?” He sighed.

“Just a little. The whole ‘watching her like a love sick kitten’ thing really gave it away.”

“Well, she’s just so…” He trailed off, gesturing wildly with his hand as he struggled to come up with the right words. “Small. And cute. And pink?” He buried his face in his hands as Juleka laughed.

“Trust me, I totally understand. That’s a spot on description of my girlfriend, after all. What else do you like about her?”

“Her kindness. Her creativity. The way her nose scrunches when she concentrates.” He peeked out from between his fingers. “Feel free to stop me at any time. I could go on all day.”

“Don’t worry. It’s cute.” She drummed nervously on her legs as she glanced at the door to the room, as if expecting the photographer to burst in at any moment. She asked distractedly, “Are you going to ask her out?”

Poor Adrien had been taking a sip of water at just the wrong moment and Juleka had to wait until his coughing fit subsided before he could answer. “Well, I- not that I don’t want to but- I’m not sure she really…”

She tilted her head at him. “You don’t know, do you?”

“Know what?”

“Um… let’s just say Marinette won’t turn you down if you ask for a date.”

“What do you-”

Juleka’s phone went off and she pulled it out quickly. “Oh! An update from the Ladyblog. So… the heroes of Paris - pretty cool, huh?”

Adrien was aware she was changing the topic, but considering it was ultimately still about the same person, he let it slide. “Yeah, very cool. Especially that Ladybug. She’d give Marinette a run for her money.”

“See, I always liked Chat Noir better.”

That caught Adrien’s attention. “Really?”

“Mhm. He’s… actually kind of a role model to me. Have you ever met him? In person?”

“I- No, I don’t think I have.” He smirked. “Is it because you two have a similar taste in colors?”

She glanced down at her mostly-black outfit and smirked. “I appreciate that he’s a cat of fine taste too, but no. He’s a sweet guy, friendly, outgoing… but he’s fine taking a backseat and letting Ladybug take the spotlight.”

“It sounds like you really admire him.” Adrien was proud of how level he was keeping his voice. It would be hard to explain if he started crying now.

“Oh, definitely. Especially his confidence. Whenever I’m scared about putting myself out there, I try my best to be like him.”

Adrien chuckled. “You’ve just summed up the big piece of advice I was going to give you.” At her confused look, he added, “Fake confidence looks exactly like the real deal if you believe.” He shrugged nonchalantly. “Everyone is afraid, but you do it anyway.”

For the next few minutes, he did his best to pass along as many tips that he could. The ones that he would have loved to have gotten when he was starting out. Soon enough they were chatting like old friends. By the time an intern came to get him, Juleka was looking more sure of herself and as ready as she was ever going to be.

——————

“A-adrien, if you could just move a little over… Perfect!” Marinette took another few pictures and checked her phone to look them over.

Adrien relaxed from his pose and walked around to look over Marinette’s shoulder, a spot already crowded by the rest of the girls. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Juleka wearing a similar outfit to his own, hanging back uncertainly. He gave her a reassuring smile and motioned her over.

“Wow, you guys did great!” Mylene beamed at the pictures as Marinette sorted through them. “I bet it’ll be hard to narrow them down to just a few for the website.”

“I’m so proud of you, Jules!” Rose threw her arms around Juleka, humming excitedly.

Alya pulled Marinette into a one armed hug. “Your designs look great, girl! How about we all go celebrate with some ice cream?” She glanced over at him.

“Sure! I’m not supposed to be home for another half hour anyway.”

While the others funneled downstairs, chatting excitedly among themselves, Adrien noticed that Marinette was hanging behind to put away the props and accessories they had used.

It was just the two of them in the room. Adrien took a deep breath and stood beside her, his mind racing with all the first date ideas he’d thought up during all the time they’d known each other. He called on all the fake confidence he could find.

“Hey, bugaboo… Got a moment to Chat?”

[thebigqueer]

"Growth" - Piper McLean & Jason Grace - One-Shot

Summary: Jason & Piper share a moment together as her birthday comes to a close

Note: WOOOO HAPPY BIRTHDAY PIPER ILY and also this is purely platonic

Word Count: 1979

Read on AO3

A cool draft of night air pours over Piper, and she hugs her arms closer to her body in an attempt to block out the cold. It’s awfully chilly for a June night, but she doesn’t mind; she prefers the crispy air anyway. It’s liberating.

The black sky spills like ink overhead; twinkling stars poke white holes into the mesmerizing darkness. A gleaming white moon spills over Piper like a spotlight, and her eyes sparkle under the beautiful night.

She sighs contentedly and pulls her knees to her chest. These are her favorite moments - the ones on the roof of her house, with nothing but the empty, dark sky before her and the cold for company.

She’s comfortable in her skin here. She’s herself.

It’s a nice change from the eventful night she’s had. She and her friends have been celebrating her birthday all day, first by spending a day out in the city, and then throwing an eventful party at her house during the evening. Her body aches with a happy exhaustion, and her mind still buzzes with the music that pulsed just hours ago.

But as much as she’s loved today - especially after seeing most of the Argo II group - an urge has been humming in her head since the evening. An urge to just be alone, to slip away.

Now most of her friends are asleep inside the house, and finally, after hours of laughing and celebrating, hours of smiles and stretched enthusiasm, Piper can throw off her mask and let herself deflate.

The midnight sky embraces her. Its cool, comforting arms wrap around Piper and accompany her in her solitude. The shadowed trees dance under the moonlight as another brush of wind sweeps through the clearing before her.

Piper leans her chin against her knees and allows a soft, quiet smile to slip over her mouth. A feverish and excited warmth blooms under her cheeks as she gazes ahead into the night, its darkness full of possibilities for the future.

She’s so lost into the silence, so consumed into the solitude, that she barely notices when a large thud rumbles behind her. It’s only when a warm arm brushes against that she realizes she isn’t alone.

Anxiety beats in Piper’s heart at the brush of contact. She reaches for a dagger by her side as fear courses through her. What if it’s a monster? What if someone’s here to steal her?

The look of surprise and terror in her eyes must be pretty amusing, because when she finally meets the gaze of her intruder, a warm, familiar laugh falls over her.

“It’s just me,” says Jason. “No need to get jumpy.”

A groan of relief escapes Piper’s chest and she scoffs, turning her gaze back to the scene before her. The prior calmness that floated over her has completely dissipated and she frowns in frustration. “Geez,” she mutters. “Can’t you be a little more quiet?”

“If I was quieter I’m sure I would have made you accidentally fall from the roof,” responds Jason. He gestures to the empty spot beside her and raises an apprehensive eyebrow. “Do you mind if I sit?”

Despite her annoyance, a small smile quirks over Piper’s lips. Usually she’d be angry if someone came to interrupt her alone time, but knowing that it’s Jason, she’ll allow his intrusion. She scoots over and nods. “Have a seat, Sparky.”

Jason’s body thuds softly against the roof as he sets himself down. His long legs dangle next to hers, and against the next gust of wind, both their feet sway like wind chimes.

Piper watches Jason closely, a suspicious line drawing itself over her mouth. Her eyes travel over his physical being, searching for any new changes that may have appeared in his absence. Pale moonlight washes over his features and offers Jason an almost ethereal, elvish glow. His blond hair gleams like sunlight; his pale skin glows as it absorbs the cool, empty gleam of the moon. Behind his glasses, Jason’s electric eyes spark in the darkness.

The demigod turns his eyes to her, almost as if he knows she’s watching him. A confused smile quirks against his lips. “What?” he asks. “Why are you looking at me like that?”

Piper shakes her head and smiles. “Nothing. It’s just… Seems like you’ve grown quite a bit since I’ve last seen you.” She nudges her shoulder against his playfully. “It’s weird growing up, isn’t it?”

Jason laughs softly, and the sound of his amusement billows in the air. He grins at her. “Gotta say, didn’t think we’d even make it to eighteen. Seems like a feat in itself.”

She hums in agreement, then turns her gaze back to the scenery around her. A warm blanket of quiet wraps around the two demigods, pulling them together in the intimate darkness, and Piper finds that she doesn’t mind this closeness with Jason at the moment. It’s been so long since she and him have truly taken a moment for themselves.

After a few moments of calm, Jason shifts a little, his sweatshirt rustling against his body. A slight whooshing sound slips over him - the sound of paper rustling against clothing - and Piper turns her head curiously to the noise.

In his hands, she notices a paper plate with two slices of pink cake, along with two white plastic forks. She offers a quizzical look to her friend.

He responds with a shy smile. “Do you wanna eat some with me? We can hoard it for ourselves before the others wake up tomorrow morning.”

A soft laugh puffs from Piper’s lips. She pulls a fork from the plate, jabs it into the cake, and pulls a piece of it closer to her mouth. Before biting down, she teases, “Damn, Grace, didn’t take you to be the rebellious kind.”

Jason chuckles as he takes his own fork and takes a chunk for himself. “Leo’s been a bad influence on me, I guess.”

Piper doesn’t miss the pink that bleeds over his cheeks at the mention of Leo’s name. After swallowing her bite down, she offers a sparkling grin to Jason. “Ah, yes. Your boyfriend.”

She relishes the sight of Jason’s red ears. “My boyfriend,” he agrees shyly, a hum of excitement lingering over his voice.

“How are you guys? Enjoying your new apartment together?”

The blond shrugs timidly, but Piper doesn’t miss the prideful smile over his mouth. “Yeah. It’s been kinda fun. He’s really hard to share a bed with though.” Jason rolls his eyes. “He hogs the blanket, which is stupid since he can literally turn to fire and be his own heat warmer. But no, he insists on leaving me in the cold.”

“Well, they never said love was easy.”

“Hm. Yeah, I guess so.” Jason offers her a pointed look now, a glimmer of excitement overcoming his own eyes. “And what about you? How are you and Shel?”

Now it’s Piper’s turn to blush. She stuffs her cheeks with another bite of cake, and watching her do so, Jason laughs merrily.

“Well,” she huffs after swallowing her food, “we’re good. We’re considering doing long distance for college. We’ll give it a try.”

Jason nods, and an almost pitiful look comes into his eyes. “Bet that’s gotta suck to leave her behind. But I have faith in you guys.” He nudges her. “And, if it doesn’t work out, then that’s fine, too. We’re still growing and we’re still learning. We still have a lot of life to live.”

Piper shrugs in reluctant agreement, but at his words, a chill of dread trickles down her back.

Growth. It’s all about growth. Life is about blooming and thriving, about setting up roots in one place and being ready to get transported to new soil whenever Fate decides it. As beautiful as growth can be, sometimes Piper wishes she could just stay in one state of mind for a while. But life just feels like a constant shift, a constant rotation of changes. It gets a little tiring.

She sighs and picks on a thread against her sweatshirt sleeve. “Jason,” murmurs the demigod, “I- I miss everything. You know? I miss the old days. Like, don’t get me wrong, I love how much we’ve all grown and stuff, but it’s just… I miss being with everyone again. I feel lost sometimes.”

Jason nods his head and gazes wistfully out to the trees. “Yeah,” he whispers. “Like, I don’t miss the danger and fear and trauma. But I miss the chaos and stuff in our group. Remember when we got Leo to snort all those Smarties on the ship one night?” A huff of laughter echoes from Jason’s chest, but this one isn’t as full as the others. It’s a little empty, like he’s laughing into the past. “Man, that was fun.”

Piper snorts. “Yeah. Poor Leo.”

Another curtain of silence falls between them, but this one is tense, high-strung, almost as if it’s waiting for some kind of confession.

Piper sighs and leans her head against Jason’s shoulder. He flinches at the contact a little but - after accepting her touch - he leans his own head against hers. Piper locks her elbow with his and closes her eyes, losing herself in the warmth of their bodies.

“I miss you,” she says. “I know we never really had any romantic feelings for each other, but… I miss our vibe, you know? I miss our friendship.” She smiles softly at him. “You were my best friend, Jason. You are my best friend. I guess I just miss being with you and Leo as a group together.” She rubs her finger over his wrist in an attempt to ground herself. “I just miss when it was us three against the world. Now we’re… growing farther apart. Living on different sides of the country.”

Jason sighs. “We miss you too, Piper. Trust me. Every night I always feel… I don’t know. I feel like we’re always missing some important piece of us. That important piece is you.” He chuckles sadly. “We can’t be the gay trio while you’re in some totally different state.”

Piper laughs hollowly. After another beat of silence, she whispers, “We’re growing up, Jason. I don’t know if I’m ready for that.”

Jason doesn’t respond for a while. Piper looks up at him, wondering where his voice has gone, but finds that his gaze is fixated upon the trees. He’s not quite here, not in her hands; instead, he’s drifting over some other plane of reality, thinking through all that’s around him.

Finally, after what seems like hours, he says, “Yeah, we are. And it hurts to leave so much of our past behind. But… growing up doesn’t have to be all bad. Think of it like an important milestone for us.” He turns and smiles at her. “Everyday that we live and grow, we’re achieving greatness. We’re pushing the Fates and daring them to hurt us. We’re reaching closer to our destiny, if you believe in that stuff.” His fingers grapple with hers and he squeezes softly. At Jason’s touch, a spark of joy jolts up Piper’s arm and explodes in her core. “We’re growing,” he murmurs, “and while that can be sad, I think there’s a lot of power knowing that we’re making it as far as we are.”

A comfortable, fleeting warmth blooms in Piper’s chest as she gazes up at Jason. Only love and admiration for her glimmer in his eyes, and for once in her life, Piper feels like she’s been found.

“So philosophical,” she chuckles. Then she squeezes his hand and leans closer to him. “I love you, Jason. Thanks for being my best friend.”

“I love you, too.” Then, in a sudden movement, he throws his other arm around her and sighs contentedly. “You deserve the world,” he whispers. “Happy birthday, Piper.”

[leximus98]

Airborne All The Way - Dick Winters x OC

Summary: Memories are fleeting. Charlie knows if she doesn’t get them all down, and soon, they’ll be gone. War, love, loss... she wanted to write it all down for future generations to come.

Charlie Finnegan had been a nurse before the war. After Pearl Harbor, she felt the same call to arms that many men felt. When Elanor Roosevelt started a program where women could join the Army on a trial basis, Charlie jumped on it. She became an officer and volunteered for the Airborne. Along the way she met Harry Welsh and the ever calm and collected Richard Winters. Through trial and error, Charlie gains the respect of her men, but can she gain the eye of a certain red haired officer?

A/N: So, I haven’t posted anything original in a long time. But I’ve had a really good idea for a story and I wanted to share it. I hope everyone likes it. It’s gonna be multi-chapter, this is just chapter one. Lemme know what you think!

Warnings: None

Tag List: If you’d like to be tagged, lemme know!

Word Count: 1824

Chapter One

“Why would you want to join the Airborne?”

It was a question I was asked frequently. In the early days, I would answer by saying, “It’s new!” or “It’s exciting!”

The answer changed over time though. When I was in the 82nd, I told people that it was to prove that girls could do it too. When they shipped me over to the 101st, I found a new answer. One I didn’t expect I’d find. But I found it in Easy Company.

“Because they’re my family. I would do anything for them.”

Of course that answer came more easily after D-Day. I hadn’t truly earned the respect of the men until that day, even though I grew to love them before then.

It all started one warm, wet afternoon.

Lieutenant Harry Welsh and myself had just been sent over from the 82nd. We were going to fill the positions of platoon leaders. Harry would be taking over first platoon and I would be taking over second.

As we walked by all of the soldiers, they were sitting around in their dress uniforms, waiting for the train. Their initial training and airborne training had been completed. Now they were going to be shipped off to either Europe or Asia to fight in the war. Battalion Intelligence hadn’t told anybody where we were going or which war we would be fighting. It was all a surprise, but for good reason. If word slipped out to the wrong people, it would be devastating.

Harry and I were told to find First Lieutenant Richard Winters. He was the Executive Officer of Easy Company. I’d heard of Dick Winters from friends of mine, he was good at his job and cared for his soldiers. I would be glad to be working under somebody like him. But I had also heard rumblings about the company’s Commanding Officer, Captain Herbert Sobel. He was sadistic towards his company and from what Harry and I heard, he was jumpy in the field. Too eager, not patient, and got people notionally killed in training exercises.

After walking down the line of barracks, and catching more than one lingering glance from the soldiers, Harry and I found the officers barracks. We walked inside and were met with two lieutenants.

Richard Winters was tall, lyth, pale, and had the brightest shock of red hair I had ever seen. His eyes were a soft blue and he held himself properly. Like he was important, but not stuck up. He looked over at us and I gave him a soft smile from behind Harry.

Lewis Nixon was behind him. His hair was thick, black, and styled perfectly. There wasn’t a single thread out of place on his uniform and he gave us a sly smile.

“Are we interrupting?” Harry asked.

“No, not at all. Lieutenant Lewis Nixon, Lieutenant Harry Welsh and Charlie Finnegan, just in from the 82nd,” Winters introduced.

Harry went to shake Nixon’s hand and I followed suit behind him.

“A WAC?” Nixon asked.

“Not a day in my life,” I smiled cheekily.

“Alright then. Well you’ll learn him pretty quickly,” Nixon said, smiling at Winters. “No flaws, no vices, no sense of humor.”

I smiled and looked at Winters who gave me a quick side look and smirked, “Just like your chums up at Battalion Staff?”

“So what’s up?” Winters asked.

I sighed heavily and scratched the back of my neck, “We’ve been hearing a lot of rumblings…”

“Sobel?” Nixon asked.

Harry nodded.

“We were just talking about that,” Nixon said.

The four of us moved closer together so as not to be overheard.

“He gets a little jumpy in the field?” Harry asked.

“Yeah, he gets jumpy and you get killed,” Nixon said.

“Oh, that’s nice,” I chuckled.

“I think if we talk about it, it should just be amongst ourselves,” Winters interjected.

“Alright, absolutely,” Harry said.

From behind us, I heard a heavy foot slam on the wooden step of the barracks. As if in slow motion, I watched Winters turn and snap to attention. Harry and I turned around fast and snapped to attention too. Standing in the doorway was Captain Sobel.

He stood there for an agonizing moment, just staring at all of us, like he knew we were talking about him. His eyes continued to linger on me when he started talking.

“Second Platoon ready?” he asked.

“Ready, Sir,” Winters said.

“Then get them ready, we’re moving out,” Sobel ordered.

“Yes, Sir,” Winters said.

Harry moved first, walking quickly past Sobel who didn’t move from the doorway, Winters followed, and I moved after Winters. Sobel shifted towards the open space so I had to turn more sideways to get out of the door. I felt his eyes burning into me and cleared my throat when I was outside. I glanced back while following Winters and caught Nixon’s eye. He winked at me and gave me a soft smile but quickly lost it when Sobel turned back to him.

“Finnegan, make sure your men are good to go,” Winters said.

“Yes, Sir!”

“Sergeant Lipton!” I called out as I saw the man walking by the cattle trucks.

“Yes, Ma’am?” he asked as I jogged up to him.

“Everyone is good? We’re about to roll out,” I told him.

Staff Sergeant Carwood Lipton was a nice guy. He had been kind to me since I first addressed their platoon and I assume he made the men keep their comments about a female platoon leader at bay. I wasn’t particularly popular at the moment, due to the fact that I had boobs. I didn’t blame them, I had to prove myself to them as a leader. That I could do everything they could do as a female.

“Yes, Ma’am. We’re supposed to be loading the train by platoon but, well, you know how it goes,” I smiled.

“Of course. Just try to keep them in line as much as you can. Captain Sobel is walking around,” I smiled back.

“Yes, Ma’am.”

I watched him walk off and I started in my own direction, but slowed down next to a group of men who were sitting in a small circle.

“Who? Sobel?” I heard Joe Liebgott ask. “He screwed up one manuever.”

“Yeah,” Cobb said.

“Well, you know I’m always fumbling with grenades. It would be easy if one went off by accident you know,” Liebgott said, smirking darkly.

“Well, now they must have put him in charge for a reason,” Shifty Powers said.

I smiled at his innocence.

“Yeah, cause the army wouldn’t make a mistake like that, right Shift?” Liebgott asked.

The group chuckled and I cleared my throat, standing behind Joe Toye with my hands in my pockets. Their heads snapped up to look at me.

“Now gentlemen, I do believe if you’re gonna say things like that? Maybe you shouldn’t do it out in the open. The Good Captain is out and about,” I said the last part sarcastically and smirked.

They all looked back at each other. I could tell that they were embarrassed to have been caught. I gave them a quick, “Just be careful” and walked off.

The train was uncomfortable. I sat next to Winters at an angle that had my head against the window and my feet on the other side of Harry who had his feet half on my lap and half on the seat between me and the wall.

“How’s your time in Easy going?” Winters asked me quietly so as not to wake up Harry.

“Well, it’s certainly not Easy,” I giggled. “It’s just gonna take the men some time to get used to taking orders from a girl. It was an issue for a short amount of time at the old unit too. I’m not too worried about it.”

“How did you get them to respect you?” Winters asked, putting his letter down and giving me his full attention.

“It was a training jump that went bad. I had dropped close to the injured soldier. He was screaming and screaming and screaming. It’s a sound that doesn’t quiet leave you. Anyway, he had landed wrong and broken both of his legs. I did my best to splint both of them with what I had and carried him to the rendezvous point.”

“You carried a broken soldier, both of you in full pack, four miles?” Winters asked, a look of amazement on his face.

“Ah, don’t give me that much credit. I dropped our parachutes and most of the gear we were carrying. Just our packs and weapons went with.”

It looked like he was about to say something else, but Nixon came up behind us.

“Goin my way?” he asked Winters.

“Wherever the train takes me,” Winters answered.

“Yeah, c’mon, take a guess! Atlantic? Pacific? Atlantic?”

“I think Nixon is saying without saying we’re going to the Atlantic,” I smirked.

“Well, we aren’t intelligence officers,” Winters said.

“Mmm, as such, I know, of course,” Nixon said, smiling.

He moved from his seat behind Winters to the seat next to Harry. I crossed my arms and watched him. He looked like the cat who caught the canary. A wide, mischievous grin on his face, and a spark in his eyes.

“If I told ya, I’d have to kill ya,” he said quietly.

“Then don’t tell us,” Winters said.

Nixon leaned in close and smiled again, “New York, troop ship, England. We’re invading Europe my friends.” Nixon pulled a flask from his back pocket and raised it in a toast style. “Fortress Europa!”

Nixon offered the flask to Winters who raised an eyebrow at him, “Since when do I drink?” he asked.

“If I knew you’d take it, I wouldn’t have offered,” Nixon smirked. “You?”

He offered me the flask and I shook my head no.

“Two non-alcoholic officers? That’s not good karma,” Nixon said.

“Hah, it’s not that I don’t drink, I just prefer mine mixed in soda, or in the fermented fruit variety,” I laughed.

“Uh-huh,” Nixon said, taking a pull from the flask.

“Nix?” Winters asked. “What are you gonna do when you get into combat?”

“Oh, I have every confidence in my scrounging abilities,” Nixon said, looking out the window. “And I have a case of Vat 69 in your footlocker.”

Nixon leaned back and laughed. Winters smiled for a minute and then it fell from his face when Nixon didn’t say anything to counter what he had said.

“Really?”

“Oh yeah.”

Before Winters could say anything, Harry popped his head up from the seat and looked at the three of us. He had one eye closed and the other squinted, barely coming to.

“Morning!” Nixon said, handing Harry the flask.

“Mm, ya’know, this could turn into a real nice trip,” Harry said, drinking from the metal container.

I scoffed a little bit and shook my head. It was going to be interesting to say the least.

[avengerscompound]

Running to a Standstill - 18

Running to a Standstill: A Captain America Fanfic

Masterlist PREVIOUS //

Buy me a ☕ Character Pairing:  Bucky Barnes x Steve Rogers x F!Reader

Word Count:  2893

Rating:  E

Warnings: Smut (mmf bisexual threesome, oral sex, vaginal sex, anal sex)

Synopsis: While on the run from an unknown organization trying to take your son, you meet two super-soldiers.  While they try to help you get to the bottom of who is hunting you and your son, feelings come out and admissions are made that make your personal life even more tricky.

Epilogue

Your feet hurt a little and you were hungry to the point that you were considering just tearing a piece off the sourdough loaf you’d bought, and eating it plain before you even finished your ride up in the elevator.  Even with these minor discomforts, you felt really good.  You had just ventured out to the nearest bodega alone for the first time since moving to the Tower.

It had been eight months since the raid on Madripoor and while everyone had doubts that HYDRA was gone for good the new rightful ruler of Madripoor was pretty thorough with cleaning the NAZI organization out of their nation.  Not for any particular need to clear out all criminal organizations mind you, just to clear out the one creating the most competition.  Madripoor was for all accounts, still lawless.

All the people involved in the production and distribution of the super-soldier drug had been arrested.  You had hopes that the drug might end up virtually extinct the way the Quaalude was now.  However, you logically knew someone who still had them would try and replicate them.  Given the fact that the drugs existed in the first place because someone was trying to replicate what they’d done to Steve way back in 1943.

What you’d stopped being worried about was them bothering you anymore.  The Avengers, thanks to Tony, Vision, FRIDAY, and with a little help from Geo, had managed to remove any details regarding the names of people who were experimented on.  Which meant there was no one left to know that Geo had powers and no one left to hunt you.  You were safe and you could finally have some semblance of a normal life.

It had taken you a while for any of you to trust that.  For a month you still didn’t want to go out at all just in case there was some kind of retaliation or last-ditch effort to grab you.  When you finally did it was with Bucky and a group of guards.  Gradually the guards dropped in number.   When all the HYDRA members were convicted you started to go out with just Bucky and every time you went out, there was no one watching you that shouldn’t be.  No one followed you or made you feel unsafe.  Sure, Bucky would get looks but you could tell the difference between Avengers groupies and the people who had been trying to kidnap your son.

Today was the first time you’d ventured out alone.  It was only down the street and you still weren’t brave enough to take Geo out without at least Bucky or Steve with you, but it was a start. You’d only looked over your shoulder a few times.  You’d done this alone for years, you knew what to look out for and it wasn’t there.  You were safe.

More than safe, you were happy.  With all that weight off your shoulders, you were able to just enjoy life again.  Every part of it.  Being a mother wasn’t just a case of protection and high alert twenty-four/seven.  You played with Geo more.  You let your guard down and let him get on with the job of being a kid.  You started to look back into the things you had studied in college and were seriously beginning to consider studying again so you might be able to have an actual career and not just a cash-under-the-table job that paid your bills but kept you off the books.  You were looking at schools for Geo.  You were letting yourself be a girlfriend and opening yourself up to the fact that this could be it.  You might have actually found two people that were your people the same way your husband had been.

The apartment was alive with sound and smells as you stepped in.  Bucky was cooking, he’d just started when you’d ducked down to the bodega for a couple of missing ingredients and now the whole place was full of the scent of garlic, herbs, and cooking tomato.  Music was playing over the speaker and Geo seemed to be talking animatedly with the AI as the two of them played some digital version of snap using his tablet.  Steve sat with a sketchbook on his knee.  There were crayons scattered over the table from when he’d been drawing with Geo but now he was just sitting with his pencil poised but not actually drawing anything.

“He looked up when you came in and smiled.  “Hey, sweetheart.  How did you go?”

“Good,” you said, as Bucky abandoned whatever it was he was stirring and rushed over to you.  “Got a little jumpy at the alleys but there was nothing to worry about.”

“Did you get what I needed?” Bucky asked, digging around your fabric bag while it still hung from your elbow and fishing out items as he found them.

“Yes, honey,” you said, pushing the whole bag into his hands.  “Here take it.”

Bucky took the bag and you went to sit down with Steve and Geo.  Steve took your hand as you went to pass him, and you let him pull you down into his lap.  “I’m proud of you,” he whispered.

“It wasn’t that big of a deal,” you said.  “I used to go out on my own all the time when I was on the run.  I didn’t have a lot of other choices.”

Steve’s arm circled your waist and he nosed at the side of your neck.  “I know.  Still.  I’m glad you're starting to feel safe.”

You relaxed in his lap and Geo climbed up onto you.  You did feel safe.  And loved.  And all the things you had missed for three years.  Despite the fact you had been trying to go slow for Geo’s sake, it was hard when you felt like this with them.  It was clear that Geo was feeling just as safe and at home as you were.

When he was very upset he was still the mommy’s boy he’d always been, but more and more he was turning to Steve and Bucky.  Not just when he wanted to be comforted.  He did it when he was excited about something, or wanted to play a game, or have a story told to him.  He’d ask them to take him out or take him up to the pool.  As scary as it was for you to see Geo starting to treat these two men the way he would have his own father, as melancholy as that hit, it was still happening.  Geo now had two father figures where he once had none.

Even though neither had said anything about it, you could tell they were seeing Geo as a son too.  This was your family now and some moments terrified you, but mostly you couldn’t believe how lucky you were.  There were days where you thanked whatever force it was that had led you to not only apply for a lease in Clint Barton’s apartment block but to begin dog sitting for him so that you just happened to be dropping Lucky off at the same time Steve and Bucky were there.

Bucky called you all for dinner and you ate around a table sharing stories about your day and making plans for the following day.  Just like a family on an old sitcom, only with extra dads and you all genuinely liked each other.

After dinner you gave Geo his bath and took him to bed, reading to him from a comic about Figment the dragon from that old Disney ride at Epcot.  It was a comic that Bucky owned for some reason which was odd because he would have been in cryo freeze during the entire time that ride even existed, yet he had it none-the-less.  Geo spent a lot of time looking at each picture so that the thin comic that would normally only take five minutes to get through was being dragged out so it was closer to twenty.

“Bug-key sayed dat dis dwagons was a robod,” Geo said, tapping the cover when you were done reading.

You chuckled.  “It was, and it’s weird he even knows that,” you confirmed.  “The robot dragon is gone now.  We can take you to Disney World some time, then you can see all the different robots.  I don’t think any of them will be as smart as FRIDAY though.”

“No…”  Geo said, shaking his head.  “FWIDAY is da smartest.”

“Thank you, Geo,” FRIDAY replied, the fondness of the little boy evident in her voice.

“Alright, you,” you said, putting the comic away.  “Lie down.  Time to sleep.”

He flopped back onto the pillow and you kissed his forehead. “Good night, I love you,” you said.

“Wuv you too, mommy,” he replied.  “Have sweed dreams.”

“You too, little one.”

“Mommy,” he said as you got up.  “I dotta say goodnight to Bug-key and Steeb.”

You chuckled.  “I’ll send them in.”

You stepped out of the bedroom to find Bucky and Steve sharing the recliner as they watched the news.  “He wants to say goodnight to both of you too.”

“We can manage that,” Steve said as they both got up.

Bucky and Steve went into Geo’s room as you went and got ready for bed too.  It was still early but you figured whatever the plans were for tonight, they’d be more enjoyable in your pajamas.  When you came out into the bedroom you shared with Bucky and Steve, they were there getting undressed.

“He didn’t cause you any trouble?”  You asked.

“No.  He just said goodnight and had FRIDAY turn out the lights,” Steve answered.

“I like when I’m here to say goodnight to him,” Bucky added.  “He’s so funny how he wishes you sweet dreams too.”

“Yeah, we can use them,” Steve added.

“Speaking of,” you said and looked over at Steve.  Lately, when you and Steve had been alone, you’d started talking about Bucky moving in.  He was here a lot anyway and the times he wasn’t it felt like he was missing.  The three of you still took time to enjoy each other one-on-one, but now you were all happier and more relaxed when it was the three of you.

Bucky froze in the process of stepping out of his jeans and stared at you like a deer in headlights.  “What?  What did I do?”

“Nothing, Buck,” Steve chuckled.  “We were wondering… hoping really, that you’d move in here with us.”

“What?  Really?”  Bucky said, standing up straight and looking between the two of you.

“Yeah.  You don’t have to decide right now…” Steve said.

“No, I want to,” Bucky said, lurching forward, completely forgetting he was still in his jeans and falling flat on his face.

“Bucky!” You yelped, rushing to his side and helping him back up, while Steve watched on with a slightly bemused look on his face.

“I’m okay.  I’m good,” Bucky assured you as he got back up and kicked off his pants.  “I want to move in.  When?”

“Whenever you like,” Steve said.  “We can bring your stuff down tomorrow if you like.”

“I do like,” Bucky said.  He pulled you close and cradled your face.  “Yes, I want to.”  He leaned in and kissed you deeply.  As the two of you kissed, Bucky reached out to Steve, pulling him closer, so when Bucky pulled back from you, he moved straight to kissing him.   You ran your hands down Steve’s chest and nuzzled at Bucky’s neck, nipping at his throat gently.

Bucky pulled back and smirked at you.  “You tryin’ to start up some celebrations, huh?”

“Maybe?”  You giggled, tugging on his boxers.

“I think that might be something that can be arranged,” Steve teased.  He picked you up like you weighed nothing and tossed you onto the bed.  You squealed and quickly spread your legs and opened your arms to Bucky as he crawled up your body.  He began to unbutton your flannel pajama top and kissed your skin along each new part that became exposed to him.  His fingers brushed over your breasts as he pulled the fabric apart and your right nipple, puckered and hardened under the cool metal of his left hand.

Steve took off his boxers and moved up beside you.  He leaned in and kissed you.  His lips moved slowly against yours and his tongue teased the corner of your mouth.  You reached down and massaged his cock.  He was already semi-hard and as your palm moved up and down his length and you curled your fingers around his shaft, the blood rushed to it.

Bucky began to grind down against your cunt.  You could feel the press of his cock through the fabric of your pants, the thick shaft pushing between your folds and rubbing up and down against your pussy, making your whole body tingle and your cunt start to drip.  He leaned down and pulled one of your nipples into his mouth.  His teeth pressed against it and you moaned, breaking the kiss with Steve and arching your back so you pushed your breast up into Bucky’s greedy mouth.

Steve moved to his knees, pumping his cock as he looked down at you.  You leaned up and lapped over the head as it disappeared and reappeared under the foreskin with each pump of Steve’s hand.  He teased the head over your lips and you opened your mouth, letting him guide his cock into your mouth.

As you sucked hard up and down Steve’s shaft, Bucky moved from one breast to the other.  His hand slipped down into your pajama pants and he quickly fingered your clit in small circles as he ground his cock against you.

Your whole body buzzed like an electric current was swirling through your veins, making your body thrum.  You moaned into Steve’s cock as a hot pit pressed down inside you and your fluids slicked your folds.  Bucky pulled back and pulled your pajama pants off.  You released Steve’s cock and no sooner had you sat up that Steve was up beside you and pulling you into his lap.

“Mmm… did you want something?”  You asked as you straddled his lap and started to grind down on his cock.

Steve cradled your jaw.  “I think you know,” he teased.  You smirked and leaned in and kissed him deeply.  As you dipped your tongue into his mouth, you guided him inside of you.

You both moaned into the kiss and you slowly rolled your hips with his, appreciating the way he stretched and filled you.  Bucky got up and grabbed the lube.  He moved behind you and kissed your shoulder as he put his hand on Steve’s chest and pushed him back on the bed.  You lay down with him, pressing your body against his chest and continuing to bounce on his cock as Bucky lifted Steve’s legs and pushing them up against your sides.  He began to apply lube to Steve’s ass, sinking a finger into Steve’s ass.

Steve gasped and bucked up under you.  You broke the kiss with Steve and you looked down into his blue eyes.  “Feel good, Steve?” You purred.

He groaned and closed his eyes.  “Yes.  Oh god, yes.”

“You want my cock, Stevie?”  Bucky teased.

“Please,” Steve groaned arching his back and forcing his cock up into you deeper.

Bucky took his hand away and slicked his cock.  Steve raised his hips needily and as Bucky sunk in Steve groaned and dug his fingers into your hips.  You started kissing Steve again and moved with Bucky as he started to thrust.  Bucky’s stomach pushed your forward with every snap of his hips, pushing you up and down on Steve’s cock.  Steve was breathless and moaning under you both.  He reached up and grabbed Bucky’s hand, holding it against your back as the two of you fucked him.

A sheen of sweat began to cling to your skin and your skin prickled.  A dull ache built in your cunt, making your walls clench and spasm around Steve’s thick shaft.  Steve groaned and his hands opened and closed on your back.   You slipped your hand between the two of you and began to finger your clit.

It brought you over.  Your orgasm shuddered through you and you moaned loudly.  Steve gasped and jerked up under you, coming deep inside your pussy.  Bucky kept thrusting.  His hand tightened in Steve’s and his hips began to stutter.  You kept being bounced forward on Steve’s now softening cock with each thrust of Bucky’s hips.  With a groan and a hard thrust, Bucky came.

The three of you slithered into a pile, your breathing coming much more labored than theirs.  Bucky rolled on his side and ran his metal fingers down your stomach.  “We break you?”

“Mm-hmm…”  You hummed.  “In the best way.”

“Well we can now do that any time,” he said.

You laughed and pushed him.  “Did you forget I have a toddler?”

Bucky hummed and kissed your shoulder.

“Big changes,” Steve said.  “It’ll be good though.  Us together.”

You smiled and cuddled in between us.  He was right.  It was a big change. You had been through a lot of change in the last five years, but this was the first one since Geo was born that you felt truly excited about one.

To be continued in Until the End of the World...

[the-final-sif]

Now, for the fake quarantine dating au aka the Fuyumi has gone feral au, we’ve now got 3/4 todoroki siblings hanging around the league of villains. Obviously this can only go well. Incorporating some lovely suggestions I got in here.

Fuyumi is now on quite good terms with most of the league. She’s practically adopted Toga as her new younger sister. Because really, the girl is quite sweet when she’s not stabbing people and she’s still a teenager. Fuyumi is a really good influence on Toga and while there’s obviously a lot of things she can’t help with, she’s able to at least get Toga to be better about consent and stalking.

Twice & Fuyumi become super close, at first just because Twice is keeping an eye on her to make sure she’s not taking information she’s not supposed to, but it quickly becomes a regular friendship. Twice is extremely supportive of Fuyumi and honestly he’s just so happy to be helpful that Fuyumi can’t help but like him.

She’s so used to being in a caretaker/helper role, that Twice being so eager to help her out is unfamiliar to her, but honestly a godsend at the same time. Twice helps her manage the new extra workload of being a villain, and encourages her to keep going when she starts worrying that she’ll never find Touya.

I should mention in here that the league is actually the paranormal liberation front by this point, and Skeptic/Re-Destro/the others are hanging around, and at the very least Skeptic and Re-Destro are aware of who Fuyumi is and why she’s here/that she’s not really a villain, but honestly they’re just so relieved that there’s an Adult that Tomura and the others will listen to and who seems to actually know what’s she’s doing, so they’re keeping their mouths shut.

There’s probably a good month in here where Fuyumi suspects that Geten might be Touya who got quirk swapped by AFO, but eventually that theory gets disproved, putting her back at square one.

Under Fuyumi’s guidance, the league rescues Kurogiri from jail (although none of the core members are aware of his status), so now they have two Real Adults around, which is great.

Tomura is extremely happy to have his foster father back. Kurogiri is so proud of the progress he’s made while he was gone (and he 100% pulls Fuyumi aside privately to thank her for getting Tomura to dress respectably), and the two of them have a genuinely nice reunion.

One problem: Tomura now has now been dating Natsuo for a month, has caught Serious Feelings, but nobody knows about any of this and Tomura doesn’t even know how to go about telling anyone, let alone Kurogiri.

It doesn’t help that 1) since he accidentally told Natsuo his old name, Tenko, he then had to tell Natsuo that he’s still in the closest and ask him not to mention him to anyone by name to stop that from getting out. 2) Natsuo has no idea that he’s a villain, let alone the leader of the league of villains, because for obvious reasons, Tomura doesn’t think that will go over well.

He doesn’t want to lie to his boyfriend, but he doesn’t know how to tell the truth either. There’s so many things he can’t say, and even though he’s mostly just been avoiding answering certain questions, it’s still weighing on him.

All of which comes to a head one evening when the two of them are lying in bed, not doing much besides cuddling, something that is still extremely foreign to Tomura and which makes him a bit nervous, even with special gloves on. Maybe it’s how undemanding Natsuo is for answers, or maybe it’s because getting Kurogiri back has made Tomura more brave, or maybe it’s just that he’s kept secrets for too long, but regardless, Tomura’s the one who breaks the silence.

“I feel like- I- There’s things you should know. About me. That I haven’t told you. That I need to tell you. But-” And he doesn’t even know where he was going with that, because he can’t tell Natsuo, but god he needs to.

“Hey, hey, hey, easy.” Natsuo has a grin on his face, softer than his normal one but every bit as bright. “It’s okay. I mean, if there’s things you want to tell me, than I’m happy to listen, but you don’t owe me answers or anything. I get it. Everyone’s got skeletons in their closet. If you’re not ready to tell me yet, that’s just fine.”

God, he was so nice and Tomura wanted nothing more than to take him up on that, but all the same he knows that Natsuo wouldn’t be saying that if he knew.

“I want you to know, but I also don’t. Because it’ll change things. Don’t try to say it won’t. I know it will. There’s no way it won’t. And you deserve to know about it, but I don’t know how to tell you. I want you to know, but I like things how they are too and I don’t want them to change.”

Natsuo’s quiet for a moment, clearly considering before his fingers come up to gently stroke through Tomura’s hair, and fuck if that doesn’t help him calm down.

“Okay. I get that. It’s still okay if you aren’t ready yet though. If it makes you feel any better, there’s stuff I haven’t told you either, for the same reason. I like what we have now, and I don’t want to lose it. But hey even if knowing more about each other will change things, that doesn’t mean it’ll be worse. Just different. Change can be good too. Who knows.”

Again, it takes a lot for Tomura not to interrupt and say he knows this won’t be a good change. But he manages. He doesn’t manage to find any other words to say though, too busy wondering what secrets someone as kind as Natsuo could possible have. 

“Tell you what, I’ve been meaning to get this off my chest anyways, so how about I go first? Then if you feel like telling me your stuff, you can, or we can just save it for another night. Okay?”

Tomura nods, because that sounds nice, and who knows, maybe he’ll get lucky and Natsuo will reveal that he’s a villain too or something.

“Alright, here goes; the reason I haven’t told you my last name is because it’s Todoroki. And yes, it is the Todoroki you’re thinking of. Endeavor’s my father, and Shouto Todoroki, from the UA sports festival and stuff, that’s my younger brother.”

Oh god fucking damn it.

Suddenly, Tomura’s brain helpfully supplies him with a few facts.

He has, while not directly tried to kill Natsuo’s (and Fuyumi’s???) father, enabled Dabi to attempt something of that scale.

Wait, doesn’t Dabi have a grudge against that guy? It’d always been a bit weird to Tomura, but he hadn’t really questioned it. Not until now. That’s going to be a major problem.

“I didn’t tell you for a few reasons. One, I didn’t want you to like me or not like me because of him. Two, I noticed you were kinda jumpy about hero stuff and I didn’t want to scare you off, and three, my relationship with him is kinda... complicated. Definitely not great. It’s got to do with a lot of things, but Touya’s a pretty big part of it all.”

It takes everything in Tomura’s body to hold back his instinctive responses of ‘Do you want me to kill him for you?’, because at this point he doesn’t want to make that offer unless he means it, and he might mean it soon. Depending on a few things. He let’s his gut guide his tongue instead.

“You’re brother’s pretty important to you, huh?”

Natsuo laughs, and it’s something soft and bittersweet, but fond. Still so very fond.

“Yeah, I mean, both of them are. But Touya was my older brother. He was always looking out for me. He was a pretty sickly kid, but he had a fire in him like nobody I’ve ever met. Literally and metaphorically. I still remember how some older kids tried to pick on me after school- it must’ve been ten years ago now- he was so tiny back them, but that didn’t stop him. They weren’t taking him seriously, one of them asked him what he planned to do against them when he wasn’t even up to their shoulders.”

This time Natsuo’s smile is more fond, lost in memories. Something about this is causing ideas to connect in Tomura’s brain, and he knows it’s heading towards something, but he’s scared to get there. Why though?

“Touya looked the guy right in the eye said ‘This’, and without blinking or even changing his expression, just with a little flick of his hand, he sent a wave of flames across the ground. Before they could do anything, he melted their shoes in place so they couldn’t do anything. Then, while they were panicking about it, he got his big creepy grin on his face. The kid who’d been leading them looked up and I think he almost fainted out of fear when he realized that he couldn’t fight back or get away. He apologized real after after that, promised they’d never do it again, and Touya said they better not, or next time it wouldn’t be their shoes that he melted. Then he turned on his heel, grabbed my hand and walked me all the way back home. I never got picked on again after that. But that was Touya for you, nothing ever scared him.”

Vividly, a memory flashes in front of Tomura’s eyes of some low level grunt getting in Dabi’s face. The guy had been getting a bit too friendly with Toga while she was still recovering from her eye injury. She was on pain meds at the time, and honestly Tomura had been about to decay the guy where he stood when Dabi stepped in and told him to back off. Apparently the guy thought he was hot shit because he asked why he should.

The very next second, blue flames had erupted and the guy was stuck in place, bound by his own shoes and helpless to do anything but simper out apologizes as those flames hovered around him, the smell of burning flesh hitting the air. Tomura hadn’t heard what Dabi had said, but he’d heard the rumors afterwards. ‘Next time, my flames will be burning a whole lot more than just your feet. Got it?’.

He hadn’t actually burned the guy’s feet off all the way, but it was enough to leave scars as a reminder.

Tomura had wondered many a time what Dabi was like when he was younger. Before he was Dabi.

It was almost funny, to find out that he’d always been like this. At least on some level.

Years of training was the only reason Tomura managed to keep a straight face and his voice somewhat even.

“Sounds like he was a pretty good brother.”

“Yeah. He really was. I miss him so much. All of us do. I know Fuyumi told you guys that she’s thinks he’s still out there, I don’t know if I believe that or not, but I don’t really have the heart to tell her to let it go. I probably should. It’s been years. I just... I just really like to think he’s still out there somewhere. I’d give almost anything to get him back, if I could, so I can hardly blame her for looking for him.”

Silence for a moment.

“Sorry, that’s kinda a lot to dump on you- I don’t really talk about him a lot these days.”

“No, no, it’s fine. I- I get it. My family- some of them anyways- it’s not the exact same, but it’s similar. I miss them a lot too. And-”

Tomura wanted to tell him the truth, but fuck, he couldn’t. As much as he wanted to tell his boyfriend that his brother was alive, had been this entire time, even now looked out for them because now that he was thinking about it, fuck, no wonder Dabi had been avoiding Fuyumi even while he vouched for her. But-

But it wasn’t his place to. That wasn’t his secret to share.

“-who knows, I can’t say I’m one to believe in miracles, but they do happen sometimes.”

Fuck that sounded sappy. It made Natsuo grin though, bright and wide, and so it was worth it. Worth the guilt that settled in Tomura’s chest, for all the things he couldn’t say yet.

Biting his bottom lip, Tomura decided to switch topics, meandering back to far lighter discussions of new games coming out soon. He’d wanted to tell Natsuo everything- but not tonight.

There was someone else he had to talk to first.

[bangchanstudio]

Never Have I Ever | Changbin (2/?)

pairing: seo changbin x fem! reader

genre: university au, awkward friends to ? something more?, smut, mild angst, dom!changbin tendencies?, oral (giving)

tw: sex..ish

word count: 4.6k

ch.one // ch.three

synopsis: you couldn’t for the life of you remember what the fuck happened at the party that made Changbin avoid you like the plague. your friends clearly succeed in their quest to get you drunk, but now you’re left wondering what happened after you went into that room with Changbin. It bothered you so much that you ended up at his door step in the middle of the night looking for clarity, instead you found yourself in other shit.

note: again, i don’t know what the fuck i’m doing, but i hope you like it! I’m going to start a taglist for this, if you want to be added let me know in the tags or send me a message!

“What the hell was that?” No one would look at you.

Seungmin was sipping on his iced peach tea looking rather interested in his nails, Jinnie was clearing his throat and touching up his face in his little compact mirror, Felix was playing god knows what on his phone and Jisung was just straight up staring at the ceiling.

“Hello?” You said, snapping your fingers in everyone’s face. “Is no one going to answer?”

Seungmin looked at Jinnie, who in turn looked at Felix who just shrugged before saying, “She’ll find out eventually.”

“What will she find out eventually? That my friends are all backstabbing assholes? Well, she already knows that!” You massaged your temple remembering the events of the night before. Never have I ever, admitting your secrets, sitting on Changbin’s lap, and then worse: getting locked in the bedroom with him watching explicit videos before being allowed freedom. There was something else… but your mind was too fuzzy to remember exactly what.

Frustrated you reached for your phone that was face down on the cafe table, mumbling about how unfair all of this was.

Jisung sighed before wrapping his arms around your shoulders, snuggling his cheek to yours, “Don’t be upset, (Y/N). We were just trying to have a little fun.”

Out of all of your friends, the one you couldn’t ever be mad at was Jisung. There was just something about him that made you want to protect him, he was funny and sweet. He was always the first one to notice when you were upset and made it his personal life goal to make you smile. While, you had never been mad at him before, you were pretty close to being mad at him now.

“Fun at the expense of my sanity?” You pouted accepting Ji’s hug and snuggled into the crook of his neck. Your eyes locked on Hyunjin’s who was seated across from you, his beautiful chocolate brown eyes that looked lighter today. They were loud and calculating. You could tell he was, for once, thinking of what he should say.

“Yes, because your sanity is exactly what I plan on destroying.” He smirked his mean girl smile before excusing himself for his next class.

One by one everyone left until it was just you and your laptop. There was an empty word document pulled up on half the screen and the other half was displaying the most recent chapter of Freaking Romance webtoon. Studying wasn’t your strong suit and neither was focusing on a single task for more than a few minutes at a time.

“What an asshole,” You mumbled to your screen, clicking your pen ferociously.

“Oi,” Chan greeted before dumping a textbook on the table startling you and causing the pen you were beating to fall to the floor.

Reaching over to grab it another hand beat you to it. You looked up and came face to face with Changbin.

“Shit,” you said. You tried sitting up straight too quickly and bumped heads with him on the way up, “I’m so sorry.”

Idiot! Why are you being so jumpy? You scolded yourself, rubbing the top of your head that clashed with Changbin’s. Your cheeks turned red as the memory of you sitting on his lap last night came rushing back. The way his eyebrow raised when you drank to kissing a girl, the way his eyes fixated on yours as you drank to “Never have I ever thought of someone else while having sex”, the way his hands clenched in his jacket pockets up on the rooftop, to following him into the bedroom to watch p*rn, to… what else happened? Your memory was still too fuzzy to recall anything other than his back as you followed him into the bedroom. The feeling of a memory being just out of reach annoyed you.

“I just came to give this back,” Chan said placing the book he borrowed next to your laptop. It was Hermann Hesse’s “Demian”, you let Chan borrow it at the start of summer, you honestly thought he had lost it or threw it away.

“It took you six months to read one book? I thought you threw it away or something.” You laughed, flipping through your old book remembering when you had read it for the very first time. Now, it smelled like Chan’s room. “Anyways, what happened last night? I don’t remember much just waking up on the couch, but no one was home.”

Under normal circumstances and to normal friend groups that might not have been the weirdest thing, but to your friends that was abnormal. Everyone knew the passcode to your apartment and you often found one or multiple of the guys there unexpectedly. When you had your get togethers everyone stayed over, always, at least until noon the following day or whenever you had classes. This morning was the first time you woke up after a party to an empty place.

“Oh, we just-“ Chan started before being interrupted by Changbin dragging him away by his backpack. You weren’t sure, since his cap was hiding his face like usual, but you could have sworn his face was… red.

“Sorry (Y/N) we’re late for something and I gotta steal this guy.” Changbin shouted before rushing out the door, Chan practically fell over in the process.

Well, that was weird.

—

Changbin was avoiding you, again. This time you knew for sure he was avoiding you. It had been 2 weeks since your get together and anytime he so much as spotted you within a 20-foot radius he would turn on his heels and disappear. No matter how hard you pushed for someone to tell you something, no one budged. Everyone insisted that you both went into the room, watched one video and that was the end of that. If that were true then why was Changbin avoiding you like the plague?

Was he really that freaked out over watching some vanilla p*rn?

“(Y/N), can I ask you something?” Chan was cooking breakfast in the kitchen while you finished citing your sources for Lit.

“Mm?”

“You know Changbin likes you, right?”

Your fingers stopped typing, eyes snapping over to Chan from the table, “He what?”

Chan came around placing a small plate of eggs and toast in front of you before taking a seat. “Changbin likes you.”

Maybe smoking really was bad for you after all. “I’m sorry, what did you say? I thought I heard you say that Changbin likes me.”

A nervous laughed left your lips as you sipped at your morning coffee. The warmth soothing your building nerves.

Chan was giving you that look again. The one where he lets you see the honesty in his eyes and on his face. He was really handsome, like really handsome. Even though you started out having a crush on him, that quickly faded into pure platonic love for him after the first few months of being friends. He was too kind and pure for you after all. Chan was good; you doubted you were. No matter how much you searched his face, his eyes, his lips for a twitch or some kind of giveaway that he was lying, anything.

There was nothing. 
He was telling the truth.

“Seo Changbin, likes you.” Chan said, emphasizing every single word as if to get it through your thick skull.

You squeezed your eyes shut, shaking your head, “If that were true, then why is he avoiding me?” You didn’t mean to sound so annoyed, especially when it wasn’t even Chan whom you were annoyed with, you couldn’t help it. Part of you felt like this whole party had been a set up just to embarrass you.

Chan raked his hands through his hair in mild annoyance, but he usually wasn’t one to get annoyed in the first place so any time he displayed any type of annoyance it made you flinch. “I don’t know, (Y/N), why don’t you just ask him?”

That was a lie.

The blinking of the line where you left off typing was your only source of distraction. You didn’t want to look up. Why am I like this?, you thought, just talk to Changbin. Stop making things awkward.

—

It was late probably close to midnight. Your whole day was spent contemplating Chan’s words, flipping them around and upside down. Picking them apart and putting them back together to form “Changbin likes you.” Before you realized what you were doing you found yourself outside of Changbin’s apartment. He transferred a week into the semester which is why he wasn’t placed with one of the guys.

“Can I help you?” You jumped as a tall guy appeared seemingly out of nowhere. He had a backpack slung over his shoulder and textbooks in the other.

“Oh, s-sorry, I was just looking for a friend.” You stuttered waving to the door.

“Does this friend have a name?”

“Changbin.”

The guy nodded telling you to follow him inside the apartment. He said something about it not being wise to leave a girl out in the cold. After you stepped into the warm apartment you were grateful. Your thoughts had consumed you to the point of not even grabbing a jacket when you left your place. He said his name was Sam and that he was going to be gone that night, so to feel free to stay over. You blushed and told him he was mistaking the situation. Sam seemed nice enough.

He called out for Changbin as he walked into his room.

“I’m in the shower!” You heard Changbin call out.

“There’s someone here to see you!” Sam called back.

“Be out in a sec!”

Sam gave you kind smile, “Make yourself at home, I just came to get change of clothes.”

He was in and out of his room in seconds, leaving you alone in the quiet apartment, the only sound coming from the shower. Changbin had music playing in the bathroom and you sat nervously on the couch, scolding yourself for coming here in the first place.

It’s not like you planned to confess your feelings for him. Maybe you just wanted things to go back to the way they were, back to those long afternoons in your high school hideout where everyone laughed and cried together. Where you fought and made up. Where you did homework and tried cheap drugs together. Back to when you didn’t fear holding onto Changbin, in that dark forest, because you trusted him with your life.

The click of the bathroom door opening broke through your thoughts.

“Oh, it’s you.” Changbin was shirtless, with only joggers and a towel wrapped around his shoulders. You tried to avert your gaze as fast as possible, biting your lip to keep yourself from squealing, your face flushed. How could he be so hot? His arms looked bigger than Chan’s now, and his chest could no undoubtedly be dubbed the eighth wonder of the world. “What are you doing here?”

“I just… came to see you.” Great response. There was no way you could stay here, “Maybe I should come back later, I didn’t realize it was this late. Honestly, I’m not even sure how I ended up here…”
 “No, it’s okay. You can stay.” Changbin said stepping closer before realizing he was still half naked. He lifted his towel from around his shoulders to dry his hair, “Wait here, I’m just going to grab a shirt.”

When he came back he offered you a glass of water, apologizing for not having anything better like tea or coffee.

“It was my roommates turn to do the grocery shopping but he’s pre-med and forgets shit easily.” He said from the opposite side of the couch.

You sat cross legged facing him from your side. Just being this close to him gave you those annoying butterflies in your tummy. Changbin mindlessly flipped through the channels of the TV before deciding on a horror movie.

“So… why are you really here?” You were expecting the question from the moment you stepped foot into the apartment, but still hadn’t worked out a decent answer. Changbin turned to face you straight on for the first time that night.

His face was unreadable, the way it usually was. Damp hair, dark eyes, fresh skin.

“I came to ask… if I did something wrong at the party?” The surprise was clear on his face, he wasn’t expecting that. “I don’t really remember anything after we walked into the room other than what we were suppose to do. And well, I feel like you’ve sort of been avoiding me since then. I know we don’t really talk anymore, but it just seemed like you were actively avoiding me these days… I just thought maybe there was a reason.. ?”

Changbin searched your face before looking down and smirking. “You really don’t remember anything? Like.. at all?”

You shook your head, the worry in your chest building. What if you said something pervy or worse, tried to seduce him? The thought made you visibly shake.

“Nope, nothing.”

He shrugged, “We watched porn. You chose. It was a pretty good video. After that I left and you stayed.”

Something still felt off, there was still something missing. While, you didn’t know Changbin’s tells as well as you did Chan’s, you still felt as if he was holding something back, “Really? That’s what Seungmin told me but I just feel like there’s something missing.”

You squinted, and spaced out before bring the glass of water up to your teeth and tapping it slightly against them.

The only memories that seemed to comeback were feelings of heat and something grabbing your jaw…

“Oh my fuck!” You shouted as a blood curling scream echoed from the movie scaring you half way to death. The mostly full glass of water you just had was now empty in your lap, your white t-shirt and jeans soaked. “Shit, I’m so sorry.”

Changbin laughed as he got up and helped you, taking the glass off of your lap and placing it on the side table.

“Why are you apologizing to me? You’re the one who’s drenched. Come here, I’ll let you borrow some clothes.” You followed Changbin into his room. It was painted a dark grey and decorated with the basics: a bed, desk, recording equipment — of course — and a laptop. There was something else on his desk that caught your attention.

It was your high school Photo ID card, senior year.

“You still have this?” You asked smiling and turning to show him the card. It was customary for friends to trade Photo ID cards at the end of school years, usually middle schoolers and high schoolers did so. There was no particular reason why you gave yours to Changbin other than the fact that he was the first one to ask you for it. Jisung pouted for days afterwards, but you reminded him he had your junior year ID card. He still didn’t give it up easily.

Changbin’s cheeks turned a light pink, “Oh, yeah. It’s cute.”

“Didn’t really take you for the sentimental type.” You mumbled bitterly before placing the card back on his desk.

“What is that suppose to mean?” There was hurt in his voice.

When did he step closer?

“I just figured you weren’t that sentimental…” You trailed off distracting yourself with looking around his room, anywhere but at him. “You didn’t seem to care.”

The words slipped out before you could swallow them. You squeezed your eyes shut, exhaling. “Maybe I should just go. Coming here was a bad idea.”

You tried brushing past him but he caught your wrist with a tight grip. He didn’t pull you back, but he didn’t let you go either.

“I’m sorry… for leaving.”

Your eyes widened in shock.

The truth was, it wasn’t all his parents fault. He could have stayed if he wanted to, but he didn’t. You didn’t find that out until later though, one night when Jinnie was too drunk for his own good and was scolding you for not trying to move on. He called it the worst break up to never exist. Whatever that was suppose to mean. There was no hiding your true feelings from your friends, they all knew you were in love with Changbin, even if you were too stubborn to admit it to yourself. It was stupid, you were nothing to Changbin, he didn’t have a reason to stay in the first place.

“The truth is, I was scared of falling in love with you… so I ran away.” His grip tightened around your wrist, you wondered if maybe he’d cut your circulation.

His words made your heart sink.

“Am I really that terrible, that you’d rather leave than want me?” Your voice was small, the tears you were trying so desperately to keep at bay were blurring your vision. Your fists were clenched tight, you could feel your nails leaving moon marks on your palms.

“I was scared of hurting you, (Y/N). That’s why. There are things about me that you don’t know, things I’ve never shared with anyone. Things I’ve done that I’m not proud of. Things that could have hurt you, things that could have put you in danger. Not only you but everyone else too.” His voice was so full of pain, all you wanted to do was take it away.

You turned to face him, he was breathing a little heavier, and his voice was shaking. In that moment it was as if you were scared teenagers again.

“You didn’t have to push us away like that, Changbin. We could have helped you, we could have come up with a plan or—“ You weren’t sure what he meant by putting you all in danger but you knew if you were all together, there was nothing that could stop you. “Why didn’t you let us in?”

The tears spilled over, running down your cheeks, your voice was weak. You covered your mouth with your freehand closing your eyes trying to center yourself again, trying desperately to get a hold of yourself. There was nothing worse than letting people see you cry.

“I didn’t realize..” Changbin didn’t finish his sentence, instead he pulled you to his chest wrapping his arms around your waist and burying his face in the crook of your neck, “I’m so sorry for hurting you.”

He was warm.. he always was. You could feel his heartbeat racing, and his breathing hitch as if he was trying to hold back his feelings too.

You hid your face in his chest, sobs escaping your lips, fists clenched on the hem of his t-shirt. Minutes passed; it felt like hours. Neither of you spoke a word, instead the room was echoed with your small sniffles. The sound of Changbin’s heartbeat returned to normal after awhile and you felt like you could sleep for days after that long cry.

“Sorry for crying,” It took you a minute to find your voice, “I think I’m going crazy.”

Changbin brushed your hair to the side, “Stop apologizing. It’s okay. I’m the one who is sorry.”

You looked up at him, still with his arms around you. His eyes were soft and mesmerizing, they reminded you of home. His lips were also pretty and plump, you wanted so desperately to feel them against your own. Just once…

Before you could stop yourself you reached on your tip-toes to meet Changbin’s lips. They were softer than you imagined, like silk or cream. He tensed under your touch before you felt him relax and close his eyes. His hands at the small of your back pushed your body closer to his, your still wet t-shirt making you shiver.

Or was it his touch that made you tremble?

You brought your hands up to his hair, fluffy and soft from being air dried. What started out as a sweet and small kiss soon turned into a deeper and hungrier affair. Your were starting to moan slightly into his mouth when he pulled back.

“I didn’t realize this is what kissing you would feel like.” He breathed, pupils dilated, his breathing was shallow. “Can we keep doing this?”

You nodded pulling him back into your lips, teeth teasing his bottom lip, you felt him smile. Changbin walked you both backwards before finding the edge of his mattress and sitting on it, back to the headboard.

The wet of your clothes was making you shake so you unzipped your pants and pulled them down, kicking them to the side. There was a tshirt folded up on Changbin’s night stand that you grabbed pulling it over your head and on top of your wet one. Then you pulled your arms into your wet one taking it off without revealing yourself to him any more than you already had.

“Nice trick,” Changbin laughed as you discard the wet t-shirt. His fit you big like a mini dress, you felt cute in it brushing your hair behind your ear. “Come here.”

He grabbed your hand, pulling you onto his lap. His body was warm and strong. You felt shy straddling him and couldn’t help burying your face in his shoulder and squealing.

“What are we doing?” You whined making Changbin laugh, the vibrations of his chest running through your hands.

“Whatever you want, baby.” He chimed.

You straighten immediately, “Baby? Since when am I baby?”

“Ever since you made your way onto my lap.” He was so cocky, it turned you on.

His lips crashed on yours with more fever than before, his hands gripping your cold thighs before making their way up and squeezing your ass. He moaned at the feeling of his hands on your skin, the sound was sweet and filled your ears with pleasure. His tongue teased your lips before you granted him access to meet yours, teasing him with your tongue before letting him dominate. You giggled at the sensation, making him laugh too.

“What?” He asked his voice getting lower and raspier, you could hear the smirk in it. “Do you like it when I win?”

“Maybe.” You confessed. You weren’t exactly a full dom, but for Changbin all you wanted was to be a sub. You laid your head on his shoulder, catching your breath. He grabbed your jaw forcing you look him in the eyes.

“What do you want me to do, baby?” His fingers were rough against the skin of your jaw, your eyes wide at the motion. His eyes were so dark, so lusty, so hungry for you. “If you tell me to stop—.”

You shook your head viciously, “No, it’s okay. I wa—“ You stopped yourself from sounding so desperate, what the hell was wrong with you.

“What do you want, baby, come on.. don’t be shy.” Fuck, his voice was so sexy saying those words.

You closed your eyes trying to control your lust.

Bad move. Changbin squeezed your jaw harder with his hand. “Look at me when I talk to you.”

Look at me when I talk to you.

Suddenly, your memory came rushing back from the night of the party. You remembered watching the video, getting hot. Changbin saying how pretty your lips would look around his cock. The way he slipped his fingers in your mouth and your tongue wrapping around them. The way he held your jaw in place as he threatened to dominate you.

How badly you wanted to taste him.

You opened your eyes with new hunger pouring out of them.

“Didn’t you say something about wanting to see my pretty lips around your cock back at the party?” You asked knowingly. Changbin looked at you in shock, his jaw opening before composing himself.

“Did my hand bring back your memory?” He asked cooly.

You nodded biting your lip. “Do you want me show you?”

His bulge had been growing since the moment he saw you in your wet white t-shirt.

“I’ll take whatever you give.” Changbin said making himself comfortable against his pillows.

You moved off of his lap and wasted no time in pushing his joggers and boxers down his thighs, exposing his hard, warm cock. You tried hiding the surprise on your face but nothing got past Changbin.

“What? Like what you see?” He asked raising an eyebrow.

“It’s nice.” You admitted before taking him in your hand, testing the waters. He was bigger than you thought, thicker and longer. You were confident in your skills at sucking someone off but you actually wondered if you could even take all of him in your mouth.

Guess there was only one way to find out.

“Fuck, baby that feels so good.” Changbin hummed, his hand taking a fistful of your hair trying to guide you. He definitely did not fit in your mouth, but what didn’t fit was compensated by your hands. You hollowed your cheeks, always mindful of your teeth. Your tongue swirled around the tip before taking as much of him in as you could. You looked up to find Changbin watching you, making eye contacted just made you wet your panties even more so than they already were. His hips bucked into your mouth making you gag. The sensation causing Changbin to throw his head back, releasing a string of curses under his breath and mentions of how pretty you looked.

You took him out of your mouth with a pop to take a breath, but kept the pace with your hands.

“Do my lips look as pretty as you imagined?” You asked, innocently batting your eyelashes. The move was slutty but it made you feel sexy.

“So much better than I could have imagined.” He groaned in pleasure as you took him in again, deep, gagging, “Fuck, you really are good at this.”

“Mmm.” You mused, the vibrations making him buck his hips into your mouth again.

You could taste his sweet precum start to spill out the sides of your mouth, and your jaw started to ache but that didn’t stop you from sucking and licking his length. You could tell he was getting close to his peak by the way his breathing started to shallow out, the way his hips seemed to buck more frequently. His moans coming faster and louder.

Before he could break, he yanked you off of him by your hair, the pain rushing through you.

“Fuck! Changbin, what the hell was that for?” You shouted rubbing your scalp. 
 “I was about to spill in your mouth,” He said as if he was doing you a favor.

“You could have just said so!”

“Shh!!” Changbin said covering your mouth with the hand that was previously tied up in your hair. You squinted your eyes at him, but then you heard the front door click and footsteps approaching Changbin’s open door.

“Hey Changbin, sorry for stopping by so late but could you do me a fav— holy shit!” Chan shouted covering his eyes and turning around. “Shit I— I’m so sorry!”

It would have been easy to hid what you were doing if it wasn’t for your face being so close to Changbin’s lap still and his dick hanging out.

“Chan, what the fuck!” You shouted throwing a pillow at him.

“What?! How was I suppose to know you were here?” He asked defensively, flinching from the pillow but still facing the opposite direction.

“Get out!”

“Yeah sorry, oh my god. I’m leaving, fuck this. You guys are crazy. You avoid each other like the plague one minute then I walk in on this.” Chan muttered to himself all the way to the front door.

You and Changbin stared at each other processing what the hell just happened. Well, what the hell just happened in it’s entirety.

“What the fuck..” Changbin said, cracking in to a smile first and laughing.

“What the fuck.” You echoed laughing harder, still in shock of your best friend walking in on you sucking a guy off.

But not just any guy,

You just sucked off Seo Changbin.

[softfeelingsandangstywriting]

Whumptober: I’ve Got Red In My Ledger

Leonardo spun forward, slicing his blades down on anything that came near him in a deadly dance. Behind him, he could hear Raphael doing almost the same, anything that dared attack violently killed. He was enjoying himself, too.

Donatello and Michelangelo were definitely doing just fine, too, used to these enemies. Leonardo was pleased, glad to see them finally independent in battle.

Above them, Karai provided support, suddenly taking down an enemy that was getting a bit too close with a throwing sword or kunai, lunging down and stabbing one in the head before returning to her previous position, keeping herself both helpful and available.

Their enemies, the Kraang, were cleared out quickly with an ethic like that, nothing but metallic corpses left around, still and unmoving.

"Was that it?" Raphael called, sounding vaguely disappointed.

"It should be," Donatello chirped back as he picked around one of the bodies.

"I hope it was," Leonardo looked his swords over. Darn, he really needed to get back into the care routine he had before the space thing that happened, however he was supposed to explain that. One of the blades was chipped.

Michelangelo engaged in a game of catch with Karai, using a head as a ball while the rest of them poked around for anything useful, shouting taunts to get her off guard.

A pillar moved.

Leonardo would have brushed it off as a trick of the light, but, being as paranoid as he was, he found himself moving towards it instead.

He could have sworn he saw it move, in the far corner of the room, even if it was just a slight shift to the right-

It moved again, the cracks between plates that seemed like an artistic trend in anything made by Kraang widening.

"Guys?" Leonardo called, the panic in his voice showing as he took a few very large steps back.

The pillar was definitely moving now, slowly expanding as plates moved to reveal bunched up limbs that grabbed at whatever solid support was near to move itself upward.

Oh.

Well. That sucked.

The creature that stood before him reminded him of that one robot samurai they had to fight that one time. (He never remembered the names of the things they had to fight, but he was fairly certain that one’s name was Chrome Dome or something like that).

Behind him, banter and play stopped, everyone bracing for… Whatever Michelangelo planned on naming it.

Then it lunged.

And God was it fast. It moved fast enough to force them to try and keep up, struggling more and more by the second as they had already been coming down from their previous battle. Their mistake. Weapons bounced off its metal plating unless you were specifically aiming for the gaps between its main body and its limbs. Even then, that was risky, close range, and not likely to work. After an especially rough blow to the plastron that he was sure broke his ribs, Leonardo was not too eager to try that again.

Still, they had to have put an emergency shut-down in there somewhere, just in case it went haywire. The Kraang were probably just as hesitant about fighting as they were, right?

Shifting to a more evasive fighting style, Leonardo began to keep an eye out for something they could use as a weak spot, anything that would help them take it down. Already, he was hurting, and he could see that the others were too, blood dripping from various injuries caused by an arsenal of weapons.

It always had a weak spot, there was no way that this one didn’t have one too.

There, on its shoulder, and of course it was somewhere that it could reach.

Leonardo considered, for a moment, that he was getting too old for this, even though he was only just getting into his 20s.

But Karai was in a good spot to hit it, it would really only take one hit, and it would all be over.

“There’s a shut-down on its right shoulder,” he pointed out, getting a couple glances from the others, “Try to grab it if you can!”

With that pointed out to the others, he glanced up to Karai, looking to her for assistance.

And she, noting that he needed her help, catching his glance, paused to look the battle over, then smirked and back out, taking their entry to get out.

Freaking he-

Leonardo ducked down and snaked backwards to avoid getting hit, and heard Raphael yell something after Karai that he didn’t catch. It probably wasn’t that important anyway. What was important though, was actually paying attention to the task at hand.

Gliding over to Michelangelo, Leonardo nudged him, signaling from his chains to the robot (had Michelangelo named it already? There hadn’t been a lot of commentary this time around). It seemed to click almost immediately, and Leonardo stepped back to avoid getting in the way as Michelangelo threw the weapon in a curve, then darted around to grab it and wrap it around the metallic soldier.

Going round and round until he had it secured, Michelangelo bounced back to Leonardo, struggling to hold it and silently requesting assistance. While the oldest and youngest grappled the chains, fighting to hold it still, a sai went flying over their heads and into the hand of Donatello, who promptly adjusted his grip on the weapon and went clambering up the enemy’s back, sai raised to-

It- It collapsed.

The chains slackened as it crumpled to the ground, unmoving, and Donatello hopped off to avoid falling. For a long moment, everyone was silent.

“Did- Did you get it?” Michelangelo asked tentatively.

“No-” Donatello almost shrieked, looking it over.

“So it just shut down on its own?” Raphael eyed the body suspiciously, as if it might get up and start moving at any second.

“I don’t know Raph, it just suddenly fell, I didn’t do anything to it!”

They all paused, still watching, still waiting, just in case it got back up. Leonardo tightened his grip on the chains and pulled back slightly to tighten them. That way, if it did try again, they would already have it down. He’s restrained large creatures before, it wasn’t like he couldn’t do it again.

Seconds turned to minutes without any sign of life, and slowly, they relaxed, gathering up weapons and turning to leave. It wasn’t up anymore, and they had finished up everything else they needed to do, so there really wasn’t much point in staying anymore. After all, they were injured, too, they needed to take care of those. Donatello could only work so fast in the middle of a fight, so any stitches he had to give while they were out of sight were hastily done.

On their way down to the sewers, Raphael rambled about the stunt Karai pulled, clearly angry at her. Leonardo silently lamented as he still didn’t trust their sister as he talked, bracing for raised voices and insults.

“Raph,” he began, trying to keep his voice soft, “calm down. You’re getting worked up over nothing.”

“I’m getting worked up over nothing ?!” Raphael whirled on his heel, snarling at Leo, “She left us in the middle of a fight, Leo! I’m not going to calm down! You brought her here, this is  your fault!”

“It was probably a misunderstanding, Raph. She’s been on our side for a long time now. Please just lower your voice, at least.”

Raphael was still wound up from the battle, Leonardo could see it in his face and in his posture. Tense, squared up, jumpy. His adrenaline was still going, and it probably wasn’t the best idea to agitate him further.

And he was staring, he was silent. Raphael wasn’t usually silent when he was angry, what was going on-?

Leonardo reeled back when Raphael lashed out at him, but not fast enough. There was a sharp crack, and he realized that there was blood dripping from his beak long before the pain actually registered. There was blood on the hothead’s knuckles, too, but he looked like something had suddenly clicked and he was definitely regretting what he did.

Leonardo, however, could not find the energy in himself to really care.

Raphael almost immediately began feverishly apologizing while Donatello tried to peer past Leonardo’s hand at his beak, scolding Raphael for striking out like that. Michelangelo yelled something along the lines of “that was uncalled for”.

“Leo, move your hand,” Donatello ordered, and Leonardo obeyed, pulling his hand away and seeing red. Oh, great.

“Well,” The resident doctor announced after a long moment, “I’m pretty sure it’s broken, but we’ll find out once we get home. Raph, when this is over, we are going to have a very long talk.”

Leonardo “hmm”ed softly as they started walking again, wiping blood off his face. The pain was, in the moment, actually manageable. It wasn’t too terrible, he really didn’t understand what the big deal was. Faces were easy to break anyway, he was fine as long as it didn’t really affect anything.

%%%

Once home, Donatello approached Leonardo with the first aid kit, clearly wanting to go to him first since he possibly had his beak broken.

But one glance over Donatello, and Leonardo knew that he should probably get some care first.

“Don, take a look at yourself, first. If you’re bleeding all over the place you can’t take care of anybody else.”

The purple-clad opened his mouth like he wanted to argue with him over that, before realizing that no, it was not an argument he was going to win. He lingered for a long moment, then turned away to deal with the others first. Leonardo smirked, knowing he had won, and turned his attention to cleaning his katanas and figuring out the best way to repair the chip in the blade.

Eventually, when Donatello returned, bandaged and looking a little more than annoyed, he grabbed Leonardo’s face and made him look at the genius before slowly bandaging his beak. Leonardo said nothing, although the movements jostled whatever was broken and made it sting, he refused to wince or hiss over something so small. While Donatello went on to cleaning and bandaging the other injuries, he confirmed his earlier suspicion.

“It is broken.”

Raphael flinched, like that was the worst thing in the world (Leonardo knew it was guilt, but didn’t say anything about that).

“Oh,” he said, mulling it over. Like he said, it wasn’t too bad, it was only his beak.

“What do you mean oh?” Donatello’s voice raised slightly, almost into a screech.

“I mean, it's not really that bad, right? It's not gonna, y’know, affect anything, it just hurts.”

Everybody blinked, astonished, before it clicked that of course Leonardo would be so unbothered by it, he was just Leonardo, he didn’t really have the energy, nor the will to care about things like that anymore.

Donatello scowled and Raphael still apologized anyway, Michelangelo was silent across the room, staring at Leonardo.

Leonardo had to cut Raphael off. It was fine, he was angry too, he knew that they still didn’t fully trust Karai, it was fine, it was fine.

He could still tell that Raphael was beating himself up about it, though. It was always clear, the hothead was like an open book.

%%%

It was two in the morning.

It was two in the morning.

It was two in the morning.

Raphael groaned and rolled over to slap the hand shaking him, presuming that it could only be Michelangelo.

Instead, the hand he grabbed was far more callused from endless hours of training, scarred from brutal battles that were long past.

He paused, blinking the sleep from his eyes as he tried to get his head working. They had to fight blind plenty of times, they all learned to recognize each other just by the feel of their scales and hands. There was only one person who trained enough to get his hands that rough, free of childish innocence and soft skin.

“Leo?” Raphael mumbled, slowly sitting up and yawning, “What is it?”

“I need you to come with me, we’re supposed to meet up with Karai,” Leonardo whispered in the dark, still invisible to Raphael. They were-

“What?”

“Mhm. She texted me like, an hour ago. She wants to explain to the two of us. You, because you were so upset and me because, y’know.”

“Oh.”

Raphael blinked a few more times. His eyes had finally adjusted to the dark, and he could see a burning gaze fixated on him. It was almost creepy. After all, Leonardo always managed to be the stealthiest of them, so it was like those horror movies, just seeing a shadow, then bright eyes reflecting dim light and just. Staring.

He grunted and kicked out weakly to move the older of the two before he crawled out of bed, yawning again and stretching. “Alright, alright, let's go.” He didn’t even have his mask on yet, but this was clearly something that Leonardo wanted to get to quickly, and considering that Raphael planned on getting back to sleep immediately, he wasn’t too eager about getting his gear on for this event.

As they got going, he kept his eye on the bandages over his brother’s beak. Frick- He did that? Why? What was even his point? Instead of asking if Leonardo was angry, what came out was:

“Why'd she only want us to come?”

“Me and her are closer and you're more distrustful. Don and Mikey are just neutral towards her, she assumed they’d be less angry about it.”

“Oh.”

“Oh is right. Move faster, we'll be late at this rate.”

“It's the middle of the day for humans, Leo.”

“And? She will leave if we take too long.”

They neared what Raphael could only assume was the meeting spot, the roar of water getting louder until it was almost deafening. By the waterfall, Karai was leaned up against the wall, and Raphael’s rage flared up. That little-

He paused for just a second, trying to take deep breaths and soothe his anger. Something bad had already come out of it, he didn’t need anymore guilt on his mind.

Still, she smiled at them like nothing had happened, and didn’t even move to stand up straight. He wanted to wring her neck because of it. No apology? Nothing? No “sorry for abandoning you when you needed help”?

“What’s up?” she greeted casually, like nothing happened.

“You know what’s up,” he snarled, unable to help himself from snarking at her.

"Raph," Leonardo whisper-hissed, "Don't yell at her." After a moment to compose himself, the eldest met Karai's gaze evenly. "Still, we do want to know: Why?"

"Yeah, about that," Karai began, rubbing the back of her head, "I didn't really, y'know mean anything by it. I just knew an easier way to take it down quickly, and well, it'd be faster to do that, too, so…"

As she trailed off, Raphael shrank where he stood.

Oh. It really was a misunderstanding.

Leonardo nodded as if he understood what she had done and why she had done it. He probably did, too.

"Sorry, it uh, it probably looked like I was just leaving, huh? And uh, you're all definitely worse for wear."

Leonardo thanked her for apologizing, and Raph felt nothing as his brother did. that was not what he needed to make his night better.

Before he realized it, Leonardo was poking him, telling him Karai left a bit ago, he was waiting for Raphael to process, and they needed to go. Raphael nodded stiffly and walked in a daze, head down.

"You were right," Raphael mumbled at some point, getting a look and a "hm?". "It was just a misunderstanding. Sorry about- Y'know, about hitting you."

Leonardo stared for a long minute, leaving Raphael in uncomfortable silence for a bit before smiling, "It's alright, I already told you that, Raph.”

And there he went, just accepting the apology like it was nothing, because he was Leonardo.

Raphael turned on the TV when they got back, switching the channel to the news before settling down, unable to sleep. Leonardo, apparently, had the same idea, sitting down next to him. This time, silence was far more cozy. When they fell asleep there, nobody said a word about it in the morning.

[smol-and-grumpy]

EUPHORIA - Chapter 3

Pairing: Dean Winchester x Reader

Summary: He’s Dean Winchester, owner of a shady night club. She’s a journalist who has been asked to write an article to expose the indecency and debauchery that’s going on behind closed doors. But he’s also Dean Winchester, the boy who sat next to her in class. The boy who was too cocky for his own good.

Chapter Warning: Feelings? Implied smut, a little.

WC: 3088

A/N: Please share your thoughts with me, I’d love to hear your feedback.

Beta’d by @deanwanddamons​​​​​​ <3

Series Masterlist ~ SPN Masterlist

Become a Patron ~ Buy me a coffee

Dean couldn’t sleep that night after meeting her. 

He had to leave the club for a short while, because he needed to relieve himself. He even had a debate with himself on doing it at the club but that would have been weird. He always considered himself to be like Jay Gatsby. Organizing pleasures and entertainment for others but never participating himself. It didn’t seem professional to do so, when that's all he wants to come across as. He had built his reputation to be the untouchable club owner, always present but staying in the background, looking out for his employees and guests, and going off on people who didn’t respect his rules. 

Thankfully his apartment is situated on the top floor of the building. Above the club are some office spaces that he rented out and on top of that, there’s his loft. So, what Dean did was slip out of his office and take the staircase up to get into his apartment. 

He stripped himself off quickly and stepped into the shower. He needed it to cool himself down. His dick was still hard an hour after she left and that’s not normal, is it? He jerked himself off while he had his eyes closed, letting the water rain down on him. Images of her face flickered in front of his closed lids. He saw her bright eyes, her plump lips, and wondered how it would feel to have them wrapped around his cock. 

Dean came too soon. He wasn’t even finished with picturing things about her, but he got out of the shower nonetheless, dressed himself back into his suit and went down to his club. 

 *

 The next night was not really any better either. 

He wakes up close to midday, with the realization that there are still no messages from her, nor is there a missed call. The sad thing is, that the ball is in her court now. He offered her to show her around but it’s on her to contact him. He thinks it would seem desperate of him if he would contact her first, wouldn’t it? Yeah, it definitely would. Dean Winchester, owner of a shady club should not contact anyone first. At least that’s what he believes. Maybe because that’s expected of him.

His phone’s in his hand when he drinks his morning coffee, thumb hovering over her contact. Suddenly the phone starts to vibrate and his heart drops to his balls. He’s so jumpy, what the fuck is wrong with him? However, his heart climbs back up when he sees that it’s only Sam. 

Sammy asks if he wants to join him at the gym and yeah, maybe that’s not a bad idea. It would take his mind off things. Would take his mind off of her, and he would stop asking himself for a fucking minute, why she hadn’t called or text him.

Dean notices her text during one of their breaks but he figured that he can’t answer now. He needs to think about an answer. Make it sound somewhat intelligent and he needs a clear head without Sammy nagging him who he's texting. He doesn’t want Sammy to find out just yet, so he leaves her on read to finish this sparring session. 

He is not really there with his head. Sammy won. Twice. And he’s so fucking cocky about it. Dean’s never going to hear the end of this, he supposes. 

  It’s two days later that Y/N can bring herself to send him a text. 

 Y/N: Hey, Dean. Do you have time today to show me around?

 She needed time to process alright? It felt pretty surreal and she walked out of that club light headed and more than turned on.

She met the club owner. 

She met Dean. 

Dean, of all people!

Yeah, right, she admits it. She might have had a crush on him back in her teen days, just a little, but like, she wasn’t the only one? He was that charming bad boy all the girls were talking about. He was known as a gentleman too because he wouldn't kiss and tell. And apparently, his kisses were out of his world if the girls were right, because even if Dean wouldn’t tell, the girls did. She wouldn’t know about his kisses though, because she never got the chance to kiss him. How could she? She was not exactly popular, was probably known as the girl who zoned out into her own little world and they were not  wrong about it. She couldn’t blame them. 

Seeing Dean was also kind of cool in a way. He looked damn good, aged pretty damn well, unlike old classmates she met during those years. The kiss on her cheek burned until she arrived home and it continued to burn when she took a shower to cool herself down. She might have touched herself too, how could she not. When she closed her eyes, she pictured herself in that VIP room. Imagined someone touching her, someone eating her out, someone whispering dirty promises in her ear and she can’t deny the fact that while she imagined all these things, she had a clear picture of Dean in her head. Which is totally weird, she knows that. He smelled so good when he was so close to her, the smell of him alone made her mind fog up. 

Now she’s sitting on her sofa, laptop on her lap, gnawing on her bottom lip and trying to come up with an introduction of her article of the club but she abandons it quickly because she can’t concentrate, not when she just sent him a text and is waiting for him to answer. 

Why isn’t he answering? 

Is he taking back his promise to show her everything? 

He’s probably thinking about a way to talk himself out of it. 

Looking at her watch, she realizes that only three minutes had passed since she sent the text. Why is the time ticking so slow today? Surely, she should give him more time. Dean probably has better things to do (haha) than her. He’s most likely busier than she is. 

After five minutes, she looks at her message. Maybe she sent it to someone else? Maybe the number is not right? Maybe he gave her a fake fucking number?

Y/N sees that the message has been read. 

Ten minutes.

It’s still on read.

He fucking left her on read.

Twenty minutes.

Still on read.

Thirty.

She’s about to give up and go into work. The thing with being a journalist is that she doesn’t always have to be in the office but she has to meet her deadlines. However, the office seems more appealing than sitting here and waiting for a stupid fucking text. Maybe she can go for a jog? Get the frustration out of her system and get her mind off the fact that Dean fucking Winchester left her on read. She doesn’t even know why she’s upset about it. It’s just— ugh.

Dean’s answer comes when she’s out for a jog to clear her head.

 D: Hey sweetheart, I wanted to get back to you sooner but had a sparring session with Sammy. Yeah, today sounds good.  I’ll be waiting. Come around 7? We open at 8.

 Sweetheart.

Oh, she remembers that. He called everyone sweetheart back in the day and the girls  gushed over it. Guess old habits die hard, huh?

Y/N leaves him on read, for fucking good measure, and continues her run. Well, she wants to get her mind off it, but now all she can think about is his text. Dean took his time to explain to her why he didn’t answer her text. He really didn’t need to do that, yet why did he?

Taking the longer way, she runs home and when she’s back in her apartment, she almost collapses. Instead of answering him right away though, she takes her time and takes a bath to relax because she knows that she’ll be on edge the whole evening when she meets him. She can be petty like that.

  Dean’s back in his apartment. He can already hear people working down at his club. He hears trucks beeping,  people shouting. He wants to tell them that they need to be quiet because the sound is kind of penetrating and he can’t really concentrate. Dean wonders why the people renting out the offices from him still didn’t complain. 

After the shower, Dean sits down on the couch in his loft, thumbing over his phone to look at emails. He can’t help but check the text messages again to see if she has read it. 

She had. 

It’s on read. 

She has left him on read for over an hour now. And it’s close to 6.00pm. She’s doing this on purpose, isn’t she? Some kind of a payback because he didn’t answer right away either. That little minx. Dean chuckles a little. Can’t really find it in his heart to be mad about it.

He abandons his phone because he needs to get dressed. It doesn’t really matter if she comes or not. Dean still needs to be there anyway. Well, it actually does matter to him if she’s coming or not. He would love to see her again, there’s no denying. 

Dean buttons up his shirt when the phone chimes and his thumb eagerly opens the message, too eager because he almost swiped it away and deleted it. He had to remind himself to calm the fuck down. 

 Y/N: I’ll be there at 7

 It’s simple. It’s short. It still made him smile like an idiot.

  Y/N manages to make up her face a little. She wears a skirt too, not too short and a blouse because she doesn’t want to come across as cheap. The heels are a little torturous, though.

When she walks up to the club, the bouncers are already there, joking with each other and going through a list of probable VIP’s. She doesn’t really know. She wonders what Dean pays them to make them look over the fact that there are orgies going on in there every night. Well, it might be no fucking big deal to them because they’re working here, but it’s weird to her.

The same bouncer that greeted her two days ago comes forward and opens up the door for her immediately without even asking any questions. Dean must have instructed him about her.

Stepping in, there’s sounds and noises from people working and talking to each other. She can see Garth piling bottles into a cooler, other waiters and waitresses cleaning tables, making sure that everything’s ready for opening. 

Dean sits in the booth facing the door and he immediately stands up when he notices her. He walks up to meet her halfway. The smile sits bright on his face. He looks good. Dean sneaks a hand around her waist, bends down to kiss her cheek and she can smell his cologne. It’s intoxicating. He smells as good as he looks.

He seems relaxed today. He’s a little different to the Dean she met two days ago. He was a little more tense back then. 

“Come on. My office,” He jerks his head towards the stairs and she follows him. 

“Not so fast. I’m wearing heels,” she says, when she feels him getting away too far ahead as they step into the VIP room. It’s empty and the air smells different. 

Turning back, he chuckles and walks back to weave a hand around her waist to help guide her so that she’s able to keep up with him, “I can see that. You wear them for me, huh?”

Oh my god. She can’t roll her eyes to the back of her head fast enough and Dean laughs. 

She should have known that he was going to be like that. He was so cocky back in school. 

He pulls her closer to him by her waist, “Relax, I’m only joking. You know me,” 

Yeah, she does know him. 

“But,” he says, looking at her while they pass the next door which opens to the long hallway, “I’d like to think that you wore them for me. The skirt too. You look great, Y/N.”

She has to look down to hide the slight rise of color in her cheeks.

When they arrive in his office, he lets her sit down and it does wonder for her feet. Ugh, heels are so hard to walk in. 

Dean sits next to her, twisting his body around so he can look at her, his one arm braced on the back of the couch, “So, what do you want to know?”

She bites on her lip, thinking. After a while she says, “I don’t know, what can you tell me?”

He moves closer. It’s only a little, but it’s enough for her nose to pick up his scent. Dean clears his throat, “I’ll be frank with you, Y/N. I have a lot to show you, but I need to know if you want this. I have to know if you want me to introduce you to the things you’ll be seeing. I want you to have an open mind about it, because I want you to get the whole experience out of it.”

“Oh, okay.” She frowns a little, doesn’t really know where he wants to go with that but the hell, she’s rolling with it.

“Are you in a relationship?” He asks, one of his eyebrows is raised in question.

“No, I’m not.” She swears she could see his shoulder relaxing when he hears that she isn’t. But maybe it’s just her imagination. Clearly Dean Winchester wouldn’t give two cents if she’s in a relationship or not. 

“Good,” He smiles, “It would be a shame if you were, as I would have an angry boyfriend of yours come knocking down my door because I showed you things that he might not be happy about. Also, I would love for you to try some things in the rooms, if you’re up for it.”

“What things?” She asks, because she’s curious. 

“Things you might like, things you might not. When I open the door to one of these rooms, you have to let me know if you want to go in or if you don’t. If we go in, I will tell you what happens in there and maybe if you’re curious, you can even try it.”

She has no idea what he’s talking about, but she’s interested nonetheless. She can already feel the tingling feeling between her thighs. Since when did she get so desperate?

“Okay,” She nods her head.

Dean smiles, and reaches out to tuck a strand of hair behind her ear, “You know that consent is the essence here. I want you to know that you can get out anytime, and if I should do anything to make you feel uncomfortable, I want you to tell me, you understand? I won’t get mad, I promise.”

She nods.

“I need a verbal confirmation, Y/N.” He says again, a little more firm. 

“Yes, I understand.”

“Good. Because I’m not binding you to any NDA’s. You’re here on your free will, are you?”

“Yes.”

“And you want to see what I have hidden in the rooms and how things work around here.”

“I do.”

“If you want out at any point and at any time. Just say tomato.” 

“Tomato?” She furrows her brows. 

Dean chuckles, “Yeah. The safe word used to be pie in this club but it got mixed up a couple of times so we’re going with tomato because it seems like nobody would say tomato while doing anything sexual.”

“That’s fair.” She shrugs and has to grin herself. 

“Right. It’s good we got that out of the way. Now,” He makes himself more comfortable and rests his head on the back of the couch, turning to her. He looks younger, more comfortable, “What do you want to ask me about?”

“Tell me a little about how you started with this club,” She says and takes out her laptop opening it up to a word document, “You built this whole thing up, right?” She read that he did, but she isn’t entirely sure right now. 

Dean smiles. He looks so easy, “I didn’t buy it as it is, if that’s what you’re asking. Bobby, my uncle owned the building. He let me take over for a fair price, and I kind of used all my money to build up this club. It wasn’t successful at first but I did some research and figured that people are often lonely in cities. Some of them just want to have a good time outside of the walls of their own home. I figured that I could provide it for them. And believe me, people are kinky. I live comfortably owning just one club. We’re in talks of expanding it. It’s strictly business for me, you know. I see myself as a businessman and there’s nothing wrong with that, right?”

“No, you’re right. It isn’t,” She agrees but something about what he said has stuck in her head. He talks about others being lonely but is he? She has learned to speak her mind as an investigative journalist, so she asks, “Are you lonely?”

He tilts his head to look at her again. His face changes a little and he looks sad for a second before he curves his lips into a smile, “I was. Not anymore.”

“So, you never used one of the rooms for yourself or engaged in the orgies in the VIP room?” 

He laughs. It sounds bright and it’s addicting. She has to smirk. 

“No, I’m the boss here. I don’t like to mix work with pleasure. What I do or who I do, is strictly private. And it’d be weird for my employees to see me naked, when I think about it.”

“Ugh, yeah.” She shudders because she just imagined seeing her boss naked. She has to shake her head to get the image out of her mind. 

Dean watches her with a grin but he doesn’t say anything.

They continue to talk for a short while longer and Y/N types about things he reveals to her, before Dean suddenly gets up from the couch, “Come on, time’s almost up. We’re opening soon. I want to quickly show you some rooms before opening.”

Chapter 4

[fluffyferalkacchan]

BNHA Headcanons #3: Kacchan is afraid of ghosts

Okay so pull Bakugou into a Battle Royal style situation, surrounded by villains? He'd just smirk while going Great Explosion Murder God Dynamight on their ass.

But ask him to watch a ghost movie, or go to a supposedly haunted place? He'd nope his way out faster than Hawks at full speed.

So whenever the Ashido or Kaminari invited him to a ghost stories night, he'd categorically refuse. On every friday night aka. "movie night" he'd ask whoever is inviting him (a member of the Bakusquad or Todoroki, absolutely NOT Deku though) what movies they were supposed to watch (thankfully after the First Movie Night Fiasco, Iida instated some rules which worked in Bakugou's favor) so he'd googled it and knew when it was safe to come.

Besides the ghost types of horror movie, he's actually fine with all the other ones, so no one picked up on the fact that he didn't like ghost movies yet. (He's definitely not asking Deku, because he knew that that nerd would notice the pattern).

Somewhere along the line though Kaminari and Todoroki ended up finding out about it. In totally different circumstances, though.

Kaminari

After coming back from his supplementary classes, Bakugou was dragged to movie and since he was tired he totally forgot to ask about the title. He totally should have though, because it became obvious ten minutes into the movie that this was going to be about ghosts. But at this point it was too late to extract himself from the situation.

Halfway through, Kaminari, who was sitting right next to him on the sofa, noticed that Bakugou had gone strangely stiff and that he was clutching very hard at his knees. One subtle peek at Bakugou tense face and wide-eyes was enough for Kaminari to understand. And he mentally went like "Oh shit."

So like three seconds later he went like "Eeeek!" and splashed the full content of his glasses on Bakugou's face. Predictably, everyone around them went like "?!!!!", while Bakugou was like "What the actual fuck, dunce face?!"

Kaminari made a super sheepish face and explained that he felt something touching his neck from behind so he got super jumpy. So he dragged Bakugou to the bathroom to try to help him clean up, all the while apologizing super loudly.

"Whoa you got strawberry milk in your hair! Hmm... how about you go wash your face, while I take care of your shirt, okay? Just take it off and hand it over, I'm really sorry, Bakugou!"

He was half-expecting the other teen to explode on his face and to bite his head off for telling him what to do, but Bakugou was oddly silent and just studying for a while. Then,

"You did that on purpose. What's your deal, dunce face?"

Busted.

"Hmm.... I just sort of feel guilty 'cause I'm the one who dragged you there to watch the movie? And you must really be super tired 'cause you didn't even ask what we were going to watch and.....now that I think of it you probably ask for that specific reason so -"

"Quit the fucking rambling you sound like the nerd!! Get to the fucking point!"

"Right, so like, I think it's really not cool to force you to watch something if you don't like it? "

"The hell? I was fine!"

"Dude, it was written all over your face that you were sca-"

"I WASN'T SCARED!"

"... that you'd rather go kiss an octopus than be anywhere near that scary ghost lady. Unless you want to go back there?"

"..."

"Yeah that's what I thought. Now give me your shirt."

.

.

.

"Don't fucking expect me to thank you for throwing milk at my face!"

"Yeah no, no, don't. t'was my fault, anyway!"

(Though if sometimes afterwards Bakugou tutored Kaminari with way more implication than usual, it was because that dunce face was even more dumb that usual and absolutely not because he was feeling grateful or anything.)

.

.

"But like dude, it's actually kinda unexpected... like you seem the type to go full on "DIE, DIE, DIE" on anyone even on ghosts."

"... ghosts are not corporeal, dumbshit. And they're already fucking dead."

"Oh, right!"

Kaminari thought right there and then, that it actually made a whole lot of sense that Bakugou would be afraid of things that he was defenseless against and couldn't physically fought off.

Todoroki

Todoroki actually figured it out on his own by noticing which movies Bakugou tended to avoid and how he'd react when sometimes someone in the class would talk about that or that rumor. So one day he just came up to Bakugou and bluntly announced. "You are afraid of ghosts."

Bakugou of course blew up a gasket trying to deny it, but then Todoroki just went and showed him a picture of Sadako up close and reaching out like she was about to come out of the screen on his phone and Bakugou swatted at the phone so hard that it nearly fell down on the floor. "GET THAT THING OUTTA MY FACE!"

So yeah, the cat was out of the bag after that.

At some point, class 1A went to an amusement park and they decided to do the haunted maze.

Todoroki, whispering: Do you want to take my at hand?

Bakugou, hissing like a feral cat: Ask me that one more time and I'll fucking punch you in your asymmetrical face!

(Bakugou is fine with haunted attraction, because when he was a kid he once punched a fake ghost in the face and it actually went down, so hunted attraction are (relatively) safe).

The Origin Trio

Actually, I think that Bakugou is not the only one afraid of ghosts. This probably extends to any of the Origin Trio. Like all three of them are super badass and used to harsher and more dangerous situations than any other hero-in-training were at their age (and even than some actual pro heroes)...

But put them in a situation where they might be confronted to a ghost, like an old 'haunted' place? They'd react just like any scared teenagers would and I think it's hilarious.

Like at some point during their week-end internship with Endeavor, they went to an old inn in the middle of nowhere. And Endeavor had left them there alone for the night, while he went ahead to some place he wanted to scope beforehand.

While being served to eat, Midoriya asked the owner if she'd notice anything strange going around here recently. He actually just wanted to know if the suspect they were chasing had escaped there, but she ended up talking about how sometimes at night there would be that weird low scratching noose, like nails dragged on the wall and thumping in room where no one was supposed to be... and cue interjection from other resident of the inn about local tragic deaths and ghost rumors.

Which of course caused Bakugou to turn two shades whiter. But aside from that they determined that it probably wasn't the villain they were looking for and put it out of their mind. Until they heard the exact same scratching the owner had been talking about in the middle of the night... coming from inside their closet.

Midoriya, looking uneasy as they are inching closer to the closet: M-maybe it's just wind...

Bakugou, looking just as uneasy, if not worse: Inside the fucking closet?!

Midoriya, mumbling, mumbling: well, depending on the structure of the inn, there might actually be some places susceptible to air leakage and because of the difference of pressure between the inside and the outside -

Bakugou: Oh for fuck's sake, shut up.

And of course the light chose that exact moment to malfunction. Then a loud banging noise came from the inside of the closet, causing all three of them to flinch and frantically using Todoroki's light and Bakugou's explosion as their source of light.

Midoriya, sweating bullet and voice shaking: I think it wants to come out. See? It's banging and scratching on the closet door as if it is stuck in there... maybe it is too weak to properly move the door yet? Or it has not realized that the door is a sliding -

Bakugou, swatting him on the head: Are you freaking dumb, don't give it ideas on how to escape, damn Deku!

Todoroki, who had kept his poker face until now actually started to feel scared as well: M-Midoriya, what if I burn the whole closet down, while it's in there?

Midoriya: No your fire probably wouldn't be able to affect it. Odds are you'd actually end up burning only the closet door... which would actually allow it to escape....

Todoroki: Oh.... I think I understand now why you're scared of ghost movies, Bakugou. Feeling this helpless is very unpleasant.

Midoriya: Wait, what?! Is that why you're avoiding movie night, Kacchan?

Bakugou: Can we fucking focus on the actual fucking threat trying to break through our closet door?!

Midoriya: But now that I think about it, it's really strange that the door managed to physically restrain it while it's supposed to be incorporeal. Was there some kind of seal on the door? Or is it actually linked to the way it died -

And then the "actual fucking threat trying to break through the closet door" mewled. Yes mewled. Because, turned out it was actually just a cat who had sneaked in at some point and got stuck in there.

(And when Endeavor came back some time later, they unanimously decided not to tell him about what happened.)

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So yeah, while Bakugou is the type to be afraid of anything ghost related and avoid them as much as possible, Todoroki is fine with ghost stories and movies and so on, but he would be the type to be really scared when actually confronted to a "possible ghost encounter situation". Midoriya, while still scared shitless, is probably the one who would be the most level-headed in such situation, 'cause he's sort of used to be scared?

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About ten years ago.

Kid Deku and Kid Kacchan were exploring some part of the forest and they saw an abandoned shack and Kacchan wanted to go look inside,

Deku: Kacchan, it looks like it's haunted. What if we meet a ghost? Aren't you scared?

Kacchan: I'm not scared! Even if there's a ghost, I'll just use explosion on it!

Deku: But ghost doesn't have bodies. I don't think you can touch or hurt it. But it can touch you.

Kacchan, going super still:...

Deku: So what if we see one, and it tries to hurt us because we went inside its house?

Kacchan, looking at Deku with wide eyes: ....

Deku: Or what if it follows us home and attack us when we're asleep? I don't wanna go in there, Kacchan. Let's go back?

Kacchan, close to tears: F-fine, but that's just 'cause you're scared! I'd totally go on my own!

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Deku accidentally being the source of Kacchan's traumas and totally forgetting about it, since time immemorial.