#and how all that noise just kind of gets drowned out when he reunites w tua and its his first time seeing her in color.

[roystory4]

i really just might write gen4 au and just stress that its for an audience of one. as if that werent already clear from my entire body of sintin works and related media

[theliterateape]

In The Young Century

By Dana Jerman

MY GRANDFATHER WAS IN A MOTORCYCLE GANG IN THE NINETEEN-TEENS. He lived in L’el Shoal, Nevada with a man named Felix who customized motorcycles that he built exclusively by himself in a garage that he also built. He allowed my grandfather to live with him above the garage because my grandfather, albeit poor, was savvy with machines, and very attractive. The young and unmarried Mexican women of the town would follow him home like lost kittens in the rain—helpless at his raw charm. My grandfather had in his charisma a bold streak, which gave him a power and magnetism often working in his favor. It was this lucky part, unfortunately, that precipitated the joining of a gang.

Once there was a man who came thru L’el Shoal in the early summer of 1919 bringing with him three young women of breathless beauty – his daughters. He had been taking them all, five originally, with him across the west in an effort to marry them off to men of trade and culture. In place of the first two daughters, his caravan contained a refrigerator and a gramophone. I do not know all of this story’s lurid details, however my grandfather, being impetuous and observant, went to the man with Felix’s prize motorcycle, offering it for all three of the remaining daughters. The man was reluctant, but my grandfather triumphed. He had spoken with the women the evening previous—sneaking into their camp only an hour after learning of their presence. The women saw his heart and asked him for help. They felt their sisters were married off to ancient, unkempt men who would only neglect them. In order to reunite with their sisters the remaining three vowed to stay together and were attempting to hatch a plan when my grandfather arrived.

Felix was dually upset, as you can imagine, on hearing that his most favored possession had been traded. Then he met the daughters, who were of the understanding that it was in fact Felix’s generosity which had saved them. My grandfather smiled the rich, knowing smile of the stealthy hero when he recalls the moment that the sisters retreated to the bedroom with Felix in a gesture of much gratitude. The kind of smile I believe he wore that night when he sat in a wooden chair in the long driveway before the garage. The end of his short cigar a dusty red star against a black sky dancing with specks of white fire, as he came to tell me the story of how he met my grandmother.

She had put her fist through glass to get out of a burning building when she was young. Her right hand had long soft indents of scars running past her knuckles and up onto her wrist. My grandfather told her that upon seeing her scabs and scars he knew that she had a place in heaven because it looked as if an angel had already tried to grab her by the hand and take her where it wanted. But it wasn’t an angel, it was a ferocious fire. A fire she started, and not accidentally…

Late in her thirteenth year she began work in a factory in the town of Campus near the county line. She made coats and worked both as a seamstress at a sewing table and a large spooling machine. The coats were big and designed for very cold temperatures. The kind Campus, Nevada, would never see. Almost a hundred workers occupied the cramped and dingy two-story building. Her uncle, her last living relative with whom she lived, also worked in the factory, there on the second floor, assembling zippers from thick silver teeth that came in big metallic canisters and glittered like shards of moon rock. Of course my grandmother, much like my grandfather, had a flash-in-the-pan quality about her that gave of sex and temper. Rebellion and direst justice. Qualities that she did not share with the authorities in the factory.

My grandfather smiled the rich, knowing smile of the stealthy hero when he recalls the moment that the sisters retreated to the bedroom with Felix in a gesture of much gratitude.

On her sixteenth birthday, and just as she and her fellow workers were getting back to their stations after a celebratory lunch, one of the suits came onto the floor to tell them that they were again to take a cut in pay. This time almost a quarter of the rate, which had been reduced by nearly ten cents a month previous. The workers froze, aghast at the news. A middle aged woman broke the silence, crying. Her cries soon escalated to wails as she sank to the floor. “I have to feed my children. My children will die! How will I feed them? My babies!!” Two women rushed to her side but she seemed inconsolable. My grandmother, standing a few feet away felt her hands reach up to grasp the sewing machine and the table to which it was crudely attached. In one motion she dumped it with an undeniable crash to the floor. The crying woman looked up. Pairs of eyes shot surprise at my grandmother, and through the sea of gazes one of the floor managers darted toward her. 

She sped in the other direction, toppling other sewing tables after her. By this time three floor managers were giving chase, but she was small enough to dart under the low-lying metal casing of the large industrial spooler. There was a lot of noise and shouting by this time, but my grandmother knew just what came next. She reached for her cigarette matches in her apron pocket and began to light the massive bobbins. Moving down the row, crawling fast and watching from the floor as the flames climbed the yarn and smoke began to billow at the ceiling. The workers went fast for the exits when she was pulled from under the spooler and tied to a sewing table chair by a floor manager. She tried to fight him, but the smoke was beginning to make her eyes itch and water. The fire had spread almost instantly. Flames snatched furiously over everything as the windows were being thrown open so all could make an escape. My grandmother toppled the chair and got low to the ground. She felt for a match as she knew some had tumbled from her pocket while she was being tied. She found a way to strike it and burn quickly through the yarn, the same she had used day after day to make the thick winter coats. She coughed hard on her hands and knees, unable to look up. Her eyes and lungs crowded by smoke.

My grandmother was always keen of her surroundings and knew that the quickest way to extract herself would be through the hole in the floor. An open chute where the finished coats went into oversized laundry bins. She only hoped that there would be enough coats to catch her, and there were, though the basket was nearly on fire. In the dusty factory the blaze spread as if it had been set in a dry forest and now the first floor was charring rapidly. It was then that she shattered the window and freed herself. Bleeding from deep gashes to her knees and arms, her eyes burned and felt as if they were swelling. When she could get up a moment later she limped to the front of the building and began to call for her uncle. One of the workers ran to her. In a coughing daze grandmother did not recognize her. “Mila…Mila! Your uncle brought out a young boy just a moment ago, but he raced back for you! No one could find you! Mila… Mila! Do you understand!?”

Mila turned back to face the building only to watch the second floor collapse into the first. Knowing her uncle had been trapped she screamed, and had to be held back from the entrance. A floor manager appeared, patchy black from the smoke, and struck my grandmother, attempting to apprehend her. Two men moved in on the floor manager and in a flash everyone was crowded around the fighters.

Grandmother escaped and ran from the factory and the workers to the apartment she and her uncle shared. He had the only key, and she had to break yet another window. She felt her hand begin to ache once she was inside. She moved to lie on the soft worn thatch rug of the center room floor. Catching her breath, coughing, she felt over the back of her hand and picked out a long razor of glass. After discarding still more glass from her arm, she crawled to a basin to rinse off the blood. Sixteen years old and she looked to herself in the smudged punched tin mirror as if she’d just turned sixty. Falling asleep in the bath she awoke with a jolt hours later, suddenly consumed with the dream that she was being drowned by a floor manager. A few tiny shards of glass hovering and glimmering at the top of the pink water.

Before the light of the next morning she collected most of her things and all the money she could find in the apartment and began to walk out of town. A long walk on roads that wound out through dried up river valleys and were not traveled by many. L’el Shoal was still thirty-eight miles away when she was picked up by a man in a brand new gray car. Somehow they got around to talking and he admitted he owned a factory and should she come work for him. He’d make a comfortable life for her, he said, and when she protested with remarks made deliberate and simmering with pride, he decided to put his cigar out in a gash on her knee. Like a tiger sprung from a trap she responded by swinging her heavy bag into his face, caving his nose in. The car lurched and she tumbled out into the loose gravel, the tiny rocks pushing into the bandages on her ankles and hands. Her brand new burn wound round, quarter sized, wet and trickling.

Grandmother sixteen years old, and my grandfather was twenty-one. This age gap didn’t make much difference. Not when he helped her up out of a ditch near town early the next morning, her body stiff but yielding. Small enough to fit between him and the motorcycle. Her pack on his back. His jacket reversed and over her shoulders to shield her from the wind. She had always liked to sleep. But working at the factory kept her from six in the morning to seven in the evening. Grandpa said she slept for two days straight. “Got up to piss and drink some water once shortly after that. Then I knew she’d be okay.” he recalls. The light in his eyes appears to brighten: “Next night I came home late and she is waiting up. She asks me where she is and what day it is, and if she can have some coffee or a cigarette. I say yes to the coffee, then tell her I only smoke cigars. She says “Not while I’m around.”

He takes it to mean she doesn’t like the smell, but we know it’s something different. She does not leave the garage for a week, though she knows she can and is not afraid. One night my grandfather helps her clean and re-bandage her wounds and she admires his way and the closeness of him surges through her. She moves to kiss him and he accepts her. She offers her kisses like she was made out of love and nothing else. For my grandfather, memories of what it was like to be kissed by other women drop away like the last stars at daybreak. In the days that followed, he taught her how to ride a motorcycle.

[honeyparker]

waiting with the moon — p.p.

summary: you don’t even know if he’s alive, but you find comfort in the solace of the moon and her children.

a/n: i have at least ten requests in the box rn. some of them are from when i first began my blog and im slowly powering through them be patient w me!!

masterlist

DAY ONE — EARTH

“Hey, Peter.” The stars, barely visible in the city, twinkle overhead. The sky is clear for once, perhaps shining in honor of Peter. The air only gets colder on the roof, nipping at your face harshly. “I don’t know where you went when you left the bus, but then I saw Tony Stark was missing and I just, I knew you were with him. You just can’t stay away from trouble, can you?” A little chuckle escapes your lips.

You know he can’t hear you. You don’t even know if he’s alive, but you find comfort in the solace of the moon and her children. You find numbness within the night, the only thing that can stop your pain, if only temporarily. “I’m asking you, no, I’m begging you, you gotta come home. I need you. Earth needs you. And, and I have absolutely no idea which one of these stars you may be on, or a planet invisible to the naked eye, but I’m asking you to leave it behind. For me. Please?”

A choked sobs leaves your throat, and all of a sudden the stars are no longer shining — they’re burning. They’ll eventually go out, become dull and lifeless — die. They look ferocious opposed to their usual golden light. “As good as a listener the moon is, I want you. I want you and your interruptions and your stories. I’m sorry that I need you so much, I really am, but I do. 

It’s been hard. I’m not sure what to do without you here, it’s kind of a mess. It’s hard to function, I never really knew how much I rely on you until now. Now you’re gone. Maybe, dead, even. I’m praying you’re not. Because you are the only source of light left in this goddamn world. And I can’t live in darkness.

So, please. Please be safe. I love you, I love you so much. Come back to me.”

And then you're gone, leaving the moon to her own devices, teardrops staining the roof.

DAY ONE — UNKNOWN

Peter’s terrified. He has no idea where he is, only that Bucky is there and so is Sam, and Wanda, and most of his teammates and he’s terrified. He’s left you alone. He’s abandoned you. Peter has nothing to point him to the conclusion that you’re alive. For all he knows, you’re somewhere here with him.

It’s all orange and dusted, no buildings, only small huts. The sky is rusted and the ground is of turmeric powder. It’s relatively quiet, apart from the cries he hears of others. People who’ve lost their Y/N’s, their kids, everything. And all he wants to do it scream and shout but he knows the team is too busy to take care of him.He can’t be a kid here, no. He can’t be a liability nor a responsibility. He takes a seat on the sand.

“Hey, Y/N. I know you can’t hear me. I have no idea where I am, I don’t know if you’re here with me. I thought—“ His voice is cracking and he can barely get the words out between sniffles. “I thought Heaven was supposed to be beautiful. But, maybe this is purgatory, or hell, maybe I don’t deserve Heaven — I let you down.

I let everyone down. Mr. Stark, the team, the weird space alien team, all of Earth. Aunt May. Ned. I couldn’t stop him, we couldn't stop him, no matter how hard we tried, and god, Y/N, we tried. We really did. I have no idea what to do now, all I know is I want to come home. See you. I can’t do this without you.”

He doesn’t notice Bucky coming up behind him, listening intently. He doesn’t notice Bucky sighing behind him. “Hey, kid, can I sit?”

“Mr, Mr. Barnes. Yeah, yeah, go ahead.” He tries to hide the pain in his voice, tries to be strong, tries to be resilient. He comes up short.

It’s quiet, for a moment. Mutual basking in the situation and people they both left behind, people they failed to save. “Who’s Y/N?”

“She’s, uh, my girlfriend. Yeah.”

“Yeah? What’s she like?” Bucky inquires.

“Oh, she’s the best. Real smart, and she gets along with my Aunt great — she loves her. She gets along great with my friends, too. Loves kids. She’s, she’s the best. And she deserves someone that’s going to come back to her at the end of the day.”

“You love her?”

“So much.”

“Well, don’t tell Steve I said this, but I’m kind of a sucker. And I also know this world sucks. And whatever is up there, God, the Universe, whatever you want to be up there, they're rooting for you. I promise. Y/N is here, wherever here may be, waiting for you to find her, or, she’s on Earth, waiting for you to come back to her. Either way she's waiting for you, and you gotta go to her. It isn't a question, it isn't an option. If you really love her, kid, get off your ass and find her. Go back to her. It’s the end of the day, and if she’s everything you say she is, she’s waiting for you.”

And he watches as a powder sun sets on a world of death, eyes puffy and swollen. He watches as another day goes by without you, and as you await another day without him.

DAY TWO — EARTH

The moon is attentive that day. She’s full, spreading all the light she possibly can over a world that’s lost so much. She’s trying. Sometimes trying is all you can do. “Hi, Peter. I hope you’re doing well. I miss you, we miss you. Mr. Delmar asked where you were today and I just, I didn’t have the heart to tell him. I couldn't look him in the eye and say ‘I don’t know.’ So I didn’t. Told him you were sick.”

It’s solemn. The cars honk on the street below you, the noise almost drowned out by your sobs. Almost. You wish for the city to stop, to mourn for a minute, but it continues on its way as if you’re not falling apart on a rooftop above. It doesn’t care.

“I’m scared, Peter. I’m scared of this world without you, and I’m scared of you without this world. It’s horrible and it’s painful, but you — you made it better. You could make the most heartless people smile. Peter, god, I can’t do this without you. I can’t live. Living and being alive are two different things and I’ll only be alive without you. I won’t — I can’t, not without you. We can’t.

You gotta come home. You gotta fight your way out of wherever the hell you are and you've gotta make it back. I don't know what I’d do if you didn’t. I don’t. I can’t live like this, I can’t live without your smile, or your laugh, or your presence. I can’t. It’s not up to me.” You’re unsure if your voice will hold up under all the tears. “I— I saw a shooting star earlier and I swear you were brighter. It made me think of you and I just can’t get you out of my head. I wonder if you can see the moon where you are, I wonder if she’s just as beautiful. Miles and miles of radiance. And the stars — god, can you see the stars?

“You have to graduate. Apply to colleges. Drive. If you — if you come home, in a coffin, I—“ you can’t finish your sentence. The image of Peter’s body, limp and cold, rotting six feet under is too much to fathom. “Goodnight, Peter. And you—“ you point to the moon. “Take care of him.”

And you go to bed, another night without Peter, another night where your tears stain your pillow.

DAY TWO — UNKNOWN

Peter’s beginning to give up. He’s spent the whole day separating people into countries, regions, states, cities, reuniting families and helping children find their mothers. He doesn't know if you're disappointed or happy that he hasn't found you, maybe you're even still alive. But there’s no reassurance, not yet.

“Kid,” Bucky calls. “Dinner!”

Dinner is a generous term. It’s just rice and some things Wanda had been able to find, and although he’s starving, Peter can’t bring himself to eat.

“Eat up. Gotta be strong for when we get you back to Y/N.”

“Y/N?” asks Mantis. “You — you feel attraction for her.”

Peter’s eyes begin to well up, and he knows he shouldn't be crying, everyone else here left people behind, but he can’t help it. “She’s my girlfriend,” he mutters. “Or, or was. She probably thinks I’m dead, which I think I am, so…”

He hears Sam’s voice from the left of him, “It’s only been a couple of days. Give her a chance and give the rest of them, Tony and Nat and all, give them a chance to fix this.”

“It’s over. Thanos won. But at least she's safe. That’s the most important—“ He chokes on his words, unable to get them out. And then he's running, running to the moon and taking a seat underneath her shelter.

“Hey, sweetheart. I hope you’re doing alright, I hope you're taking care of yourself. Knowing you, you're not, but I need you to. I need you to check on May, god knows she's killing herself, and Ned. It seems like forever ago I was holding your hand on the bus.

I miss your warmth, and your smile. But you just gotta wait, just wait a little longer, cause I’m gonna get out of here. I promise, you'll see me again. I promise. I won’t leave you there, I couldn't forgive myself if I did. You just gotta hang on a little longer cause I’m coming.”

He doesn't know what you're doing. Perhaps you're acting like you're just fine, maybe you're falling apart at the seams. He has no way to tell and all he can do is fight and all you can do is wait. And that’ll have to be just fine for now.