#but it's only 3 days before another 2 day break!

[scar-lie]

Crazy Love Pt. 2 {Natasha}

Summary : Natasha finally said the unspoken truth

Pairing : Natasha Romanoff x Fem ! Reader

Warning : Torture, blood, screaming, death, suicide

Word count : 5,800

Crazy Love Pt. 1

Crazy Love Pt. 3 Ver. 1

Crazy Love Pt. 3 Ver. 2

Cherrylemontober

NO one has permission to repost my work anywhere, if you see it please let me know.

It's been 5 months since you got away. The slip up of almost getting caught that day wasn't the end of what you're doing. No, not even close, everything just got worse

 Ever since that cursed day, following Natasha's every move was at the top of your list. The need to make sure she was safe was too much to ignore, you needed her safe, no matter the costs

Following her every move also meant witnessing men continuously flirt with her. The flirtatious acts towards Natasha made you angry, you couldn't control it. You really tried to but at the end of every night the man's blood would end up on your hands and another victim would be added to your ledger

It's not like she couldn't sense someone was continuously following and watching her, she is the Black Widow after all. One of the deadliest, sneakiest, and intelligent assassins but at the end of the day you still managed to outsmart her. No matter how hard or close she came to catching you, you would always find a loophole before she could

Tonight isn't any different. As you follow the latest man who harassed her, Natasha, thoughts of what he did swarmed your mind. The image of him cat-calling her as she walked into the party and even slapping her ass after her clear rejection. The guy would not quit and seeing that Steve wasn't there to protect her caused you to get more angry

The image in your head gets more consuming as you finally catch up with him and shove him into an empty alley

"Who the fuck are you," he questions trying to push you off

Instead of verbally answering you drive your fist hard into his stomach causing him to fall on the ground, gasping for air. You grab his head and send a hard punch to his jaw causing him to knock out

You kneel down and force him to sit up to make it easier to pick him up. As you pick him up from the ground you make sure no one is around and start carrying him to your car to put him in the trunk

You then climb into the driver's seat and smirk while you start to drive off, excitement filling your body as you think about the painful punishment awaiting him

"NO, PLEASE STOP!" he exclaims while pain shoots through his body as you run your knife through his body, occasionally adding more pressure to make large gashes

He continues to plead for your mercy while you put the tip of your knife on his thigh and add more pressure, slowly causing it to drive deeper into his skin. As you continue your actions he tries to break away, which is no use due to the ties you put on his wrists and ankles

As he continues to try to move away from you, more cries and pleads leave his mouth as more cuts are made on his skin from the metal bed you tied him to when he was unconscious

 You continue to do this until his body is full of large gashes and cuts. You carve carefully into his skin, making sure the words are visible for when the police find his body

A frown comes across your face as silence surrounds the room, the agonizing screams and begging no longer heard, even as you put the knife deep into his rib cage and twist it

You finally move your gaze to look at his face and huff and shake your head in disappointment as you see him no longer breathing and a slight paleness flooding his face. With a long sigh you roll your eyes and get off of him

From the amount of blood over the scene you could tell he died of blood loss. An annoyed groan escaped your throat

"You could only last ten minutes" You wipe your face with wipes, weighing as you get a sack to put his body inside and in carrying it into the trunk of your car, as you slam the trunk closed you mumble

"Well, that was no fun. I had so many fun plans for you but I guess I'll have to use them on the next douchebag" you quickly climb into the driver side of your car and put it into drive to make your way home

Before arriving at your house, you make a quick detour to dispose of the body. When you finally arrive home you quickly enter and make your way to your bedroom to dispose of your clothes and take a much needed shower

After you finish your shower you quickly change into new clothes and grab the old ones. You quickly go into your living room and start a fire in the fireplace

As the fire starts to grow you throw the clothes into the fire. Burning them was the easiest way to get rid of the blood stained clothes, no traces were left

In the Avengers Compound the team is stressing out due to the uprise of murders that have been going on for the past few months

The Avengers handling murder cases wasn't very common, the police handed the cases over to them due to them not being able to get any leads

The cases were getting worse every month, the only people who would be able to figure this out were the world's mightiest heroes

"Any lead where she could be?" Tony asked, clearly stressed out

The team has been tracking and trying to find where you are but they can't get any direct leads. The air is tense as they try to find a lead, tension fills everyone's body, especially Natasha and Wanda

When the pair figured out it was you behind all of the killings they didn't tell Fury. A divide was made in the team when they confessed to knowing it was you

The others wanted to tell the Director while Clint and Thor agreed with Natasha and Wanda on not telling him. Which is why the heroes are currently fighting with each other

"Nothing," Sam simply said while looking around the room. Steve abruptly got up from his chair

"No one can stop me from telling Fury. It's the right thing to do!" Steve said in a leader voice

"Don't you fucking dare, Steve!" Nat threatens while taking an intimidating step towards him

"Not even you babe, I'm sorry but we have to tell him," Steve said while trying to walk past her but Nat didn't let up and stopped him before he could

"No one will tell this to Fury," Nat exclaimed then that's the start of more chaos

Steve and Nat fall into a screaming match while the others have their own amongst each other. The screaming matches abruptly end when a hologram appears in the middle of the room. Everyone turns their gazes to see Fury standing with his hands behind his back

"Director Fury," Nat says while sending a respectful nod to him, causing everyone else to greet him

"Sorry to bother you all at this time but another victim has been found in the outskirts of the city," he simply states while keeping a stern look. The team all shake their heads as disappointment fills them

Natasha closes her eyes, she can't believe that this is happening, she can't and doesn't want to accept the truth that you're killing people for her, that your love is flooding over you to the point where you would actually kill just for her

She can't believe this because you're her best friend, the person who was always bubbly, cheerful, adorable and sweet

She can't accept that the Y/n she's always known is different now, a crazy person who would kill people just because of a feeling that's supposed to cause happiness in life, the feeling of love

She's so lost in her thoughts that her brain didn't even register that Tony and Steve were telling Fury about you being the murder

Natasha finally got out of her head when she saw Wanda's hands glowing red in her peripheral vision

"How long," Fury sternly asks, causing Nat to quickly sit beside Wanda and hold her hand to calm her down

"Since a few months ago," Bruce mutters while Nat continues to comfort Wanda until the red on her hands and eyes start to slowly fade

"And you just decided to tell me that Y/L/N is the person behind this" Fury sternly questions causing Nat to close her eyes and clenched her jaw, anger coursing through her body

She wants to save you because she knows that the Y/n she knows and loves is still there, Wanda wants to save you too, she believes what Natasha believes, they both have the same reasons and beliefs

They kept talking until the call ended, Wanda quickly pinned them down using her powers, excluding Nat, Clint and Thor

"What the fuck! why did you tell him," Wanda hissed, causing Nat to get in front of her and put her hand on her arm to calm her down

She could tell her powers were too powerful for the boys, their groaning and gasps of pain being enough to tell just how powerful Wanda's powers were

"He- he had the right- to know," Steve gasped out between painful winces, the statement only firing something inside Wanda causing her to hold them even tighter

"Hey, hey Wanda calm down," Nat cups her face, making Wanda's gaze turn to her

Once Wanda's eyes land on Natasha's, she smiles and sends a quick nod, then Wanda starts to slowly calm down causing her powers to fade away until she completely releases them

"We can't hide the fact that it's her forever" Bruce exclaimed while rubbing over the part of his body that Wanda's powers were on

A silence falls over the room as they take a few minutes to catch their breath, not wanting to fight anymore

"So now what?" Nat questions them, still angry. They look at each other having a silent conversation

After a few days of going over the cases, they finally come up with a plan which leads to now

The first part of the plan starts with Tony having one of his huge parties and Nat wearing a sexy revealing dress

Natasha quickly checks around the room to see everyone in position. Nat goes on the dance floor while Steve acts like he's busy with something else

Nat starts to dance while acting drunk causing a man named James to approach her and start to touch her

On the other side of the compound you're hiding with binoculars, you keep your gaze focused on Natasha. Anger starts to bubble in your stomach as you see someone all up on her again

As the scene continues to unfold, his hands continue to wander over her body causing your blood to boil, you quickly glance at Steve to see him busy doing something else

It goes on until the party starts to slowly die down, you keep an eye on the guy while keeping an eye on Natasha

Once you see that the guy is walking on the dark side of the compound you quickly go to him and knock him out, you pick him up and start to go to your car but before you get a chance to take another step the team corners you

The team's plan goes according to plan, James, the guy who was set to flirt and harass Natasha, is an agent of S.H.I.E.L.D (Clint's friend)

The plan was to let James act like an awful man who would harass Nat, the team would act like they don't know what is happening and when the party dies down James will be the last to go out. The team got in position and stood by the corner you were in and boom, they surrounded you

"Y/N" Natasha whispers

You look at the team and smirk, you drop James on the ground and chuckle, patting down your clothes to fix the wrinkles

"Long time no see guys" you enthusiastically exclaim with a grin on your face

"Y/N/N please, just stop this," Wanda whispers pleadingly, only loud enough for you to hear

You turn to her and smile sweetly, you take a step but Vision and Bucky stop you, Bucky points his gun and Vision puts his strong arm in front of you, you look at it and chuckle

"Don't you dare take another step," Tony hisses, pointing his repulser at you. You turn to him with innocent eyes

"Why Dad?" you question keeping an innocent look

"Am I in trouble? I didn't break one of your suits, nor interrupt you from your lab" you spit out the last part with a sweet voice

He shook his head at your antics, he loves you so much, he treated you like his own daughter. When you mentioned the last sentence, memories of when you were happy swarmed his mind

"Stop it" he bites out

"You're not her! I don't want to hurt anyone to get hurt, especially you but you're leaving us no choice here Y/N" Tony tries to bargain while looking at you again causing his eyes to fill with anger when he realizes you're not the same person anymore

"Awh, you're all so sweet," you sarcastically exclaim through gritted teeth with a smile on your face while your gaze is set on them

"Just surrender Y/N," Natasha says with a pleading tone and eyes

"You know that I love you so much Nat, I can give you the world, that's how much I love you! I'm willing to do everything for you but I'm so sorry my love, I love you Nat" you confess with a loving tone while staring into her eyes. As soon as she smiles and tries to take a step towards you, you drop the smile and look at her with an emotionless gaze. You wanted to fall into this, fall into her, but deep down you knew that it was a trap. You may be crazy for her love but you're not dumb, as soon as Natasha sees your change in emotion she frowns at you

"But you can't fool me" you lowly say, you then throw a gas bomb at your feet and as soon the gas spreads you quickly bring everyone down, some try to stop you but you dodge their moves

When the gas starts to fade you quickly run away from them. Bruce, Sam, Bucky and Vision groan and wince holding onto themselves due to you injuring them. Nat, Steve, Tony, Wanda, Clint and Thor weren't affected so they chased after you

As you're running Tony lands in front of you and tries to hit you with his repulser, you dodge it and with your skills you manage to take his mask and turn off his suit, as you're about to stab him in the thigh, Steve grabs you and throws you in a tree

You groan while standing up, Clint approaches you and tries to bring you down but you quickly slip him off of his feet and slice the side of his rib cage and stab him under his collar bone, seeing Clint on the ground, Steve and Tony try to bring you down

You fight with them, they are strong but you manage to get off of them and run again then Thor tries to hit you with his thunder but when he's busy summoning his power you throw two daggers at him and it lands on his right bicep and the side of his abdomen

Tony, Steve, and Wanda quickly approach you to try to end this. As Tony approached you, you noticed how he had his suit back on which didn't matter because you took it off of him and stabbed him in the hip and threw him into the tree

You're near your exit, but Steve stops you, you both exchange punches until Nat joins too. They try to bring you down but fail, you know them very well, reading what their next move would be was a big advantage for you

Steve gets a hold of you and Nat is gonna put you to sleep but you have other plans, you pout at her and laugh like a crazy person

"I love you Natasha but," as you trail off you use Steve as strength and kick Natasha to her face making her nose bleed and slam down on the ground

You jump Steve's back and quickly stab him on the back of his hip and tase him making him fall to the ground. Wanda quickly comes into your view, you look at her with a pout then smile, her eyes glow red while she starts to form an energy ball, you gasp at it like you're surprised at what she's doing

"You know my dear friend, you're late for the fight and now an energy ball, seriously?" You laugh at her actions causing her to look at you with anger in her eyes

"You leave me no choice Y/N, I don't want to do this but I have to" she continues to form the energy ball to throw it at you but stops when you state something that makes her question herself

"You have to because that's what they ordered you to do Wanda! Look at what happened to your dear brother, he died because you both followed Ultron, you both helped him take the whole city of Sokovia down, if you both didn't take orders, there would've been no war in Sokovia," you bitterly exclaim with a smile causing Wanda to get lost in her mind

"That's enough!" Natasha exclaims through gritted teeth

She then uses one of her widow bites on you causing you to fall to the ground. You quickly take it off and slowly stand up, you look at her with an emotionless expression

That's when Natasha realized that fighting with you will never change your mind but what she did next really shocked you

"Y/N, I'm not gonna fight you, okay," she said softly while taking off her widow bites and taking her guns and knives off of her body and resting them on the ground. She then stands up with hand in the air, showing you her surrender

"Let's talk, please," she says with a pleasing tone

"I'm not gonna fight you, I promise" You didn't buy it but you just look at her and she sends you a pleading nod

"Okay, it's fine if you keep your weapons, but please" she says while starting to take a step towards you causing your body to get into alert mode

Noticing this she stops to let you adjust to her, when she knows that you're okay she starts to walk towards you slowly again, you let her until she's in front of you. Tears fall down her eyes causing you to wipe them with your thumb, she then cups your face and sniffles while smiling at you

"Please stop this, this is madness, this is not the Y/n I know," she whispers, searching in your eyes for any sign of the Y/n she knows but she couldn't find the spark you used to hold in your eyes. She couldn't find you in them anymore

"I'm willing to do anything to protect you, those guys" you trail off trying to contain yourself

"They deserved to die" you whisper lowly and your eyes turn soft

Nat smiles as she notices the shift in your expression, hoping that the 1% of her Y/n will be enough to get through to you, she'll take that small chance to bring you back

"I know but you don't have to do that" she caresses your cheeks with her thumb and smiles at you

"You're a hero Y/n, you're not the Villain. You do good things for people, you don't go around killing people like that" she whispers softly and puts her forehead on yours, you close your eyes and feel the connection, you even drop the knife you held in your hand

"I'm just doing what I know is right" you whisper while looking at her eyes. You're so lost in the moment that you crash your lips on hers

Shock runs through Natasha's body while anger starts to bubble in her chest, unable to contain herself she harshly pushes you off

Guilt starts to cloud her brain as she starts to feel like she cheated on Steve which causes her to get more angry

"WHAT THE FUCK DID YOU DO!" she shouts while wiping her lips. Her lashing out causes you to go back to your crazy side, you chuckle and shrug your shoulders

"I just kissed you my love-" Before you could finish your sentence she cuts you off

"DON'T FUCKING CALL ME THAT! I'M NOT YOUR LOVER AND WILL NEVER  BE! YOU'RE A FUCKING KILLER!" As she shouts in your face, no emotion is seen on yours which causes Natasha to get even more angry

"YOU WANNA KNOW WHAT'S BEST FOR ME?!" she questions

"YOU KILL EVERY MAN WHO LAY THEIR HANDS ON ME BUT YOU KNOW WHO YOU NEED TO KILL NEXT?!" she bitterly questions, completely losing her composure. You keep your silence causing Nat to go on

"YOUR FUCKING SELF! YOU'RE A FUCKING KILLER!, YOU THINK THEY ARE DANGEROUS FOR ME?! WHAT IF I GOT WITH YOU?!" she exclaims with venom filled in her tone

"I WOULD CHOOSE TO BE WITH ANY OF THOSE MEN OVER YOU BECAUSE YOU'RE THE MOST DANGEROUS PERSON!" she shouts pointing her finger in your chest aggressively causing Wanda to snap out of her thoughts and watch what was going on

"YOU'RE A CRAZY, DANGEROUS, KILLER. THE WORLD WOULD BE A BETTER PLACE WITHOUT YOU IN IT!" she exclaims again, finally taking a deep breath to gather herself

"Stop following me, killing for me and most importantly stop loving me because I will never love you the way you want me to" she hisses out bitterly

You stand there, taking everything she said in, Wanda just stands there gulping at what Natasha said, she doesn't want to get in between this so she chooses to stay out of it

"Is that really what you want?" you ask with an emotionless tone

She looks at you with confusion, but nods frantically and Wanda bites her lips alternating her gaze between the both of you

"Yes! Yes that's what I want" she said still angry causing you to simply nod at her

"Okay" you simply state and then throw a small chip at Wanda causing her to fall to the ground and tase Natasha in the neck making her go weak

"But I will never surrender myself to you" you simply state, you run off until you approach your emergency vehicle, it was a black 2020 BMW R1250 RS

Once you get in the vehicle you quickly drive off, away from them and make sure that no one's following you. Once you confirm you're not being followed you speed off to your house

It's been a week now and the team stressed at first that you got away but it was a relief when no new victims were found, it makes them think that you stop but they are still trying to find you

They want to see and talk to you in a good way, not like your last encounter, they keep looking for you

But Natasha is so bother at where you at and the package you send to her the night after the fight, it was a small box with full of the flower of a cherry blossom tree and a note, she don't want to open it so she don't know what it is but she always keep it on her pocket

Then Wanda is so lost in her head, after the fight she feels something wasn't right after that she feels all of your connection to her is gone, and it makes her worried and drives her crazy, she just wishes that you're ok

"Finally!" Tony shouts and writes down the address of your house, everyone goes to him

"What? What is it?" Natasha asked frantically and Steve rubbed her arm

"I finally found her" Tony said and gave the address to them, Natasha quickly read it out loud

"What are we waiting for? let's go!" Wanda quickly said, getting anxious at what will happen next, she doesn't have a good feeling, she tried to connect to you for weeks now but she just can't, it's like you just vanished

"Ok let's go" They all said and quickly got to their cars, Steve, Natasha, Wanda and Vision are in one car then Bucky, Sam, Thor, Clint and Bruce are in the other car together and well, Tony is in his sports car alone

They speed off in your location, the others are happy that they will finally find where you are but not Wanda, she truly feels something is wrong, and she can't lose you cause you're the only one who's left of her family, she see you as a sister

Once they got in the house, it was quiet, the house was silent and like it's no life, it's not lively, the plants are already dead, dried leaves are scattered around the house, it's like someone abandoned it

"Ok, let's go" Bucky said, scanning the house

They nod and go to your front door, they knock but no one's opening the door nor no sounds inside the house, they look at each other worried

"Let's just go in" Sam suggests and Steve nods since he's in the front and he opens it

They frown at the door isn't lock, they got in and the scan the house, the house is neat, no object are out of place, the house looks like your style so they know it's yours, but it have dust that confused them cause you're the person who's organized and clean, who leaves no sign of trash nor a single dust in your place

"Ok scattered around" Nat said and they nod, Nat and Wanda go up with Bucky and Vision and they divide into two so Wanda and Nat wonder at the right side

They see nothing, so the guys go up and meet Bucky and Vision so they go to Wanda and Nat, then they hear a loud thud and scream of Wanda, they quickly run to where the sound is, clearly worried, and they burst into your room

They see Natasha and Wanda are on the floor, frozen while looking up, Wanda is screaming and trying to get out of Natasha's embrace while Natasha holds Wanda tightly

The woman was both crying, while Wanda screamed, agonizing that everybody's heart broke. Once the guys saw what it was, they were shocked

Steve, Bucky, Bruce and Sam shook their heads while tears ran down to their cheeks, their eyes glued to what was in front of them, crying specially Tony, his heart wreck

"NO NO NO NOOOOOOOO!" Thor shouts and the cloud turns to dark gray and thunder are everywhere, starting a thunderstorm

They see you, see you hanging in the ceiling, blood is already dried in your body and on the floor, that night until the other day, all is in your head is what Natasha said and what she wants

You didn't refer at what the last thing she said, your asking if she truly want for you to kill yourself, so when you confirm it, you think of it over night until you hang a rope in the ceiling of your bedroom and hang yourself there but not before torturing yourself too like you did to the others

"NO NO NO NOOOOOOOOOOO!" Wanda screams and gives up, leaning on Natasha and crying on her arm

Natasha acts strong but deep inside her, she's so broken, she picks Wanda up and goes out of the house to their car and they cry there but Natasha tries to comfort her, cause she knows how you meant to her

While the two women crying in the car, Steve and Bucky bring your body down, then they bring you to the compound and clean you up, only a woman who's not related to you cleans you up cause Nat or Wanda can't look at you

They mourn for you that day until you're already clean. They go to you and look at you, when they see you they finally see your innocent face

Memories flashing back to their head and tears falling, all the happy memories are coming back to their head, and it breaks their heart to see you like this, that you took your own life

Once they are around you they take the white fabric covering your body and you're wearing a white sando and shorts

That's when they saw the carved words, it was all over your body, they gasped at it, Natasha's world crashed when she saw it

'Killer' 'Crazy' 'Dangerous' are carved in you, all over your body, from head to toe

The night of your fight flash back on Natasha's head, when she lashed out at you and what she said, she gasped at it and just got out there

She can't handle it all, it's so overwhelming for her, so she got on her motorbike and went to one place you both love, it was a special place cause that's where you both always spend your free time and make happy memories

She goes to the mountain where you can see the city, you both even build a little tree house there and plant flowers there

Once she got there she got to the edge and sat there, that's where you both sit, but today she sat at your side, at the right one

She sobs there, she lets her emotion out there and holds her chest at how painful it is. The memory of her telling you what you are and what you should do that night is repeating in her head like her favorite movie that she didn't get tired watching

She keeps crying there, she take all of her emotion out there, she even throw a rocks and scream at the top of her long until her body collapsed on the ground, she sob there pouring all of her emotions that she never let anyone see it and let them to know it excluding you, your the only person she can be who she is and show every part of her

Until she brings out the note you sent to her, out in her pocket then she slowly opens it with her shaky hands and reads what you wrote

She thinks that she can't cry anymore, she thinks that all of her tears are all pour out but once she read what you wrote she sobs at it and more tears come out, while clinging the note to her chest with a shattered heart

I'll always do what you wantYour wish is my commandBye. Natalia

She cries there, she cries her eyes out, her heart sting more at the use of her birth name, you never used it before, it has always been Nat, Natty, Tasha or other pet names she loves but this? This broke her heart more than before, this is the first time she cried like this, like the half of her life ripped out of her, like someone took that away from her, when you took your own life, you bring the half of Natasha with you

You're her best friend, her buddy, her partner of crime, you show her love, you're the one who make her believe that she's not just capable but she also allowed to love someone, your the one who show her that love isn't just for children, Natasha's life is full of darkness, traumas and bad thing that hunt her but when she see you, when you come to her life, your the highlight of her life

You take all her worries away, because of you, her past never hunted her, she feels like all her life are all happy, you're the most important person in the world to Natasha, she will do anything to protect you cause you saved her, you saved her in any possible way

But she failed to protect you, even worse she's the reason why you took your own life, she killed you, and now this will forever haunt her until she dies

"I'm-I'm so........sorry bub, I'm so sorry I didn't protect you!" she whispered crying

She screamed at the top of her lungs, it was so agonizing, that if anyone will heard her will break

Your death will hunt her every night, every hours, minutes and seconds, she will never forget this day

[erigold13261]

(Post TADC/Culling Games arc, Eriverse) Satoru: So... what did we miss? Shoko: I kissed a cockroach entity. Ended up healing it. (Funny idea I had while reading that last post)

This was the immediate thought I had to draw out! (take these designs with a grain of salt).

What's not pictured: Dagon asking if Kurourushi and Smallpox Deity were okay with the kiss and Shoko making the Soul Eater Excalibur face to their question.

[britneyshakespeare]

I have to be so honest and vulnerable with you for a second. I keep thinking of getting another complete works of Shakespeare

[jilliam]

There’s this one tiktoker who made a few viral videos talking about relationships I’ve noticed in a few of her videos she mentions feeling like she is being blamed by these men for her relationships ending/other party losing interest or feelings, which I can kind of relate to but also not really

Like in general I am pretty sensitive to blame/criticism, and can sometimes feel like I’m being blamed/criticized for something when really the other person is just voicing a frustration (think ‘damn the laundry isn’t done yet’ but I hear ‘you’re lazy/dumb for not starting laundry earlier’)

But that’s generally not the case for me in dating I guess, like whenever I’m dating someone new and they told me that they didn’t want to continue seeing me or that they lost interest in me, I’ve always kind of seen it as a ~them problem, like the other party is telling me a fact about themself. I never internalized their reasoning as something that was my fault or that they were blaming me for losing feelings, maybe because I think of myself as a generally authentic(👁️) person and so it’s not like I have any regrets about my behavior or what I could have done differently

(unlike the laundry example, where I clearly see how I could’ve started laundry earlier)

[forgotten-daydreamer]

Took twice the max dose of melatonin before the final revision for tomorrow’s exam, I’m shitting my pants and I genuinely don’t know anything as thoroughly as I should but if I sleep less than 4 hrs before it I just know I’m gonna do even worse somehow

[imagine-nerd]

The fucking disconnect is so real.

[nerdie-faerie]

I swear to god can they stop changing up the reception times

[atinyladybug-daydreams]

Advice from experience: Be VERY careful on spending money on games, especially if what you're spending money on is like, limited events and shit.

Once you're in, you're IN and it's very, very hard to get out of mostly because of guilt and not wanting to put down stuff you've spent hours grinding for.

[opens-up-4-nobody]

...

[6ebe]

Replying to my thesis supervisors emails like what if we all just kill ourselves

[lennythereviewer]

My favorite Kingdom Hearts fact is that one of the biggest plot-holes that Nomura has never been able to meaningfully retcon or write his way out, a plot-hole so big that it fundamentally breaks the very rules the series is written on...

Is the existence of Steamboat Willie

Let me explain for the uninitiated:

In Kingdom Hearts 2, there’s a small detour in the story involving Maleficent trying to invade Disney Castle, the home of King Mickey. She can’t step foot in the castle due to an artefact of pure light that wards off darkness locked in the basement.

Pete, who is working for Maleficent, opens a door into the past (Before Disney Castle, this land was known as Timeless River) and decides to remove the artifact from it’s place in time so it won’t be there to stop them from getting in.

Sora, Donald, and Goofy chase Pete into the past thanks to another magic door provided by Merlin, and through some shenanigans involving old cartoons and teaming up with Pete’s past-self, they lock the door the villains are using, and return the artefact to it’s proper place so it can exist in the present.

You with me so far? Pretty straightforward-ish time-travel plot right?

Here’s where it goes off the rails.

Time travel would go on to become a staple of Kingdom Hearts going forward and would come with a very strict set of rules over how it operates:

1. You can only travel to a point in time where a version of yourself exists

2. You basically give up your body to do so, and travel as a disembodied soul unless you have a vessel to inhabit

3. You can’t alter the past in a meaningful way, what’s going to happen will happen

4. You lose your memories of said trip once you return, but your actions could leave a lingering instinct on your other self that could influence their decisions

“Wait” you may be thinking “Why should anyone go through all those hoops? Wasn’t time travel super simple that first time?”

And you’d be totally right, because the existence of Timeless River completely renders all of these rules and restrictions meaningless. 

There is no version of Sora that existed in Timeless River before he step foot there, everyone kept their bodies, the trio and Pete were able to mess with the timeline as freely as they pleased, and they all very much remember their trip. 

Nomura has never been able to meaningfully explain this super simple, easy way of time travel and the more convoluted method co-existing other than a cheap-throwaway line from one of the villains saying that Merlin “broke the rules” 

The hilarious part about this line is that it implies that PETE of all characters is actually more powerful than the actual villain of the series, because Pete opened a door into Timeless River through sheer willpower and nostalgia for “the good old days”

But the all-knowing chess-master of a villain who had an evil plan several decades in the making with countless moving parts and contingencies to account for had to use the roundabout, more complicated method of time travel where a lot could go wrong.

Pete though? Dude just casually broke all the rules of time travel because he felt like it. He's just built different.

TL;DR: Steamboat Willie breaks Kingdom Hearts lore in half, Pete is more powerful than Master Xehanort, and I fucking love this beautiful trainwreck of a series you guys it means so much to me

I love Kingdom hearts so much.

[neil-gaiman]

hi neil! big fan! first time i've mustered the courage to ask you a question, haha.

it's good omens related: i've heard a lot of people (and been infuriated by them) over the past nine months saying that you only did the kiss because of the fan pressure. i want to know whether this is true or if you still would've done the kiss had the fandom not been begging you.

tysm for reading this! can't wait for season 3!

No, I came up with the kiss in December 2019 because John Finnemore and I had spent a day talking about the general plot of Season 2, when, late in the afternoon, sitting by the Regents Canal, John asked how it was actually going to finish, because, he told me, he is the kind of writer who needs to know how something is going to end before ever he starts. (I'm the kind of writer who normally finds out how things end when I get there.)

And when he asked, I thought for a bit about where I wanted to be at the start of Season 3, and then I described the last ten minutes of Episode 6 to John, including the kiss.

Given that we wouldn't tell anyone that we were doing more Good Omens for another 18 months, the daily asks saying "THEY HAVE TO KISS IN THE NEXT SEASON OTHERWISE YOU ARE QUEERBAITING US" had not started to come in yet, and by the time they did, the kiss, along with the rest of the scripts, had long since been written.

(And at no time has any fan ever pressured me to write a kiss at the end of Episode 6 that would break their heart.)

[forgwater]

"Ah, yes. Me, my beloved Prefect and my lookalike tsum from another dimension."

Twst Boys and their reactions to you cuddling their tsum instead of them Headcanons

part 1 part 2 part 3

tagging: @darkflowerav

Trey Clover

This might as well happen.

The Universe just keeps throwing things Treys way doesn't it...

He was hoping for a chill night.

But no. The tsum had to mess that up.

It's fine. He's not gonna get jealous of a plush toy.

He'll let you have your fill of cuddles from the tsum.

But beware should you only show affection to the tsum and ignore his open arms he will pay you back for the entire next week by not giving you cuddles and kisses.

He doesn't hold grudges, he swears.

He does. He holds grudges.

Ace Trappola

Come on!

He's right here you know!

He can see you ignoring him and only paying attention to this tsum!

He swears it is looking down on him. Ugh!

.... Is this about the joke he made this morning? It was just a joke! He already apologized.

No, Deuce, he's not jealous! (he is.)

He already got teased all day about this!

Cuddle him? Pretty please???

He's giving you puppy eyes. The tsum redirects your attention back to it every singe time he does.

Ace is not amused.

Ruggie Bucchi

After a full day of running errands and looking after his tsum, Ruggie is ready to fall into bed and your arms.

Hey, what's the tsum doing here?

Oh, well, fine. It can have one corner of the bed.

What do you mean you plan on cuddling it to sleep and not him???

But he needs your cuddles! They're the best part of his day! ...Night?

Anyways! You promised him cuddles and one single hug won't do it.

He'd use his UM and make you up the tsum away... but he doesn't want to see you upset.

So as long as you promise to drown him in affection tomorrow, he'll let you have the tsum for the night.

You do wake up in the middle of the night with Ruggie hugging you. He's also not letting go.

Jamil Viper

He just can't catch a break, can he?

He'll live.

Jamil is not happy about the new arrangement. But he'll have to make do.

When you ask him about the sour look on his face he says he's fine.

He's obviously not thrilled about the tsum.

So you decide the three of you will cuddle.

You're pretty sure Jamil and his tsum are side eyeing each other.

Neither on of them moves tho. So it should be fine... right?

You'll make it up to Jamil tomorrow for letting you have your cuddles with his plush lookalike.

Vil Schoenheit

Vil enjoyed his tsums company well enough.

It was not doing anything that would get either one of them in trouble.

What a well mannered tsum. He expected no less.

Vil allowed it to be pampered by you for the day.

And he's even allowing it to sleep in the bed with the two of you. As long as it makes you happy he's willing to make a few exceptions.

But this is ridiculous!

You're not even paying attention to him!

Him! Vil Schoenheit! YOUR BOYFRIEND.

It's been such a long day and you're lavishing all of your attention on a plush and not him!

This is unacceptable!

...Perhaps he should test the new makeup products he just got on the tsum first.

And you! You'll have to make it up to him with lots of affection. Tomorrow.

Idia Shroud

It's okay. He'll just... play some games.

Idia knew you wouldn't be able to resist the cuteness of a tsum. They're perfectly made to be cuddled with.

It's alright. He expected this.

He can't really complain when it's HIS tsum that's making you so happy.

.....

BUT WHY THE HELL DOES HE FEEL LIKE HE'S THIRD WHEELING THE TWO OF YOU!?!??!

HE'S YOUR BOYFRIEND.

The tsum should respect this and back of a little!

A few cuddles here and there are fine! But come on! Pay some attention to him too!

At this point Idia can feel his hair turning orange.

You better calm down your gamer boyfriend before some unsuspecting player gets caught in the crossfire.

Malleus Draconia

So far Malleus has been unbothered with the tsum appearances.

They're quite interesting creatures.

He's been happily spending time with his lookalike. It's good to have an ice cream eating buddy.

Truly, he's enjoyed the company.

Malleus thought nothing of it when you brought the plush in the bed.

He was fine with it. Everything was fine.

Until the tsum started hogging your attention, that is.

The Diasomnia housewarden is a hair width away from incinerating his plush lookalike.

....Are those storm clouds forming in the distance?....

Maybe you should pay more attention to your boyfriend.... and quick.

Silver

Luckily for everyone Silvers tsum is a calm one.

I fact, both Silver and the tsum were already asleep when you were done changing in your pajamas.

You know Silver was trying his best to stay awake so you just give his temple a quick peck for his attempt.

And one for the tsum as well.

It looks like you won't have cuddles tonight since they're both sleeping.

To your surprise you do wake up in the middle of the night sandwiched between your boyfriend and his plush counterpart.

Nice and comfy~

[povlnfour]

ੈ✩‧₊˚ CRASH LANDING (LN4)

pairing: lando norris x f!reader

summary: lando accidentally hits a stranger with his car — the internet can’t stop referring to it as a meet cute. (un)fortunately for lando, mclaren agree.

genre: comedy, fluffy

authors note: a continuation of the ending to beached! you don’t need to have read that to understand this, however it will give some insight to the mclaren matchmaker jokes <3 also in light of that, this is set a few races in the future! *oscarsgf user refers to the character in beached!

*faceclaim: keeahwah on ig (but please imagine her as you see fit!)

landonorris posted a tweet ੈ✩‧₊˚

tmz posted a tweet ੈ✩‧₊˚

landonorris posted tweets ੈ✩‧₊˚

lando’s texts with y/n ੈ✩‧₊˚

landonorris just posted ੈ✩‧₊˚

liked by carlossainz55 and 203,488 others

landonorris practicing safe driving

view all comments

user you are so unserious sir

user SOOOO IS THAT THE GIRL HE HIT BC

user no clue but she’s CUTE

oscarpiastri @/fia look here

landonorris i will literally remind your girlfriend of your murder attempts when you first met

user it’s giving meet cute

user i’d read a fic on it

yourusername you literally drove off BEFORE I WAS EVEN IN THE CAR

landonorris IT WAS AN ACCIDENT I WAS DISTRACTED

user ASSUMING THIS IS HER???

user @/user CLICKING ON HER ACCOUNT IT DEFINITELY IS

yourusername just posted a photo ੈ✩‧₊˚

liked by bestfriend, landonorris and 3,907 others

yourusername monaco recap🇲🇨 successfully didn’t get hit by too many cars!

view all comments

user AS IF LANDO HIT THE HOTTEST PERSON IVE EVER SEEN

user nah this is actually a full meet cute i’m sorry this is the shit you see in romcoms

bestfriend still can’t believe you didn’t take compensation but accepted a lunch date instead

yourusername can you blame me

user @/yourusername oh girl no one can you are so real for that

friend1 wait till everyone finds out you’re only there for another 4 days

user WHAT. i can’t have them separated already😶

user parasocial relationship with lando ended y/n is my new idol now

twitter reacts ੈ✩‧₊˚

yourusername just posted stories ੈ✩‧₊˚

[captions:

photo 1: lando paid for me to get my nails done !!!

photo 2: :D

photo 3: ur all romanticizing my life rn but this is my view in a fancy ass restaurant]

texts with your best friend ੈ✩‧₊˚

yourusername just posted a photo ੈ✩‧₊˚

liked by landonorris and 11,276 others

yourusername final days in heaven. i’ll miss so much about this place

👤 tagged bestfriend, landonorris

view all comments

user wait she doesn’t live in monaco?? she’s leaving??? just after i’ve gotten attached to her and lando???

bestfriend please come back to visit asap i cannot go too long without my y/n cuddles

landonorris seconded

user um lando sir,,, seconded the whole thing? cuddles included?

user this cannot be the end of the meet cute i refuse to

landonorris just posted a photo ੈ✩‧₊˚

liked by oscarpiastri and 286,425 others

landonorris safe to say i’ve had a pretty good break between races

view all comments

user a whole post dedicated to her with THAT caption? oh yep they’re whipped

user please tell me y’all are going to stay in contact?

user my heart is shattering already

mclaren 🧡

user MCLAREN PLEASE YOU’VE DONE IT ONCE BEFORE

texts with lando ੈ✩‧₊˚

mclaren interview ੈ✩‧₊˚

[transcript:

o: safe to say you’ve had a pretty interesting break before this race

l: hey let me remind you what happened for you over winter break!

o: okay but i didn’t literally hit my girlfriend with my car!

l: oh so you finally asked her out officially?

o: stop deflecting!

l: okay okay! yeah safe to say i had a nice time. always need a bit of a change in life!

o: so how are things going now?

l: (awkwardly) well you know how it’s… yeah

o: ah i get it. quite literally been there done that got the t shirt. but hey you did say all that when i got my big moment about mclaren—

l: no no no don’t give them any ideas! they’re listening!]

mclaren just posted a photo ੈ✩‧₊˚

liked by 203,467 people

mclaren the boys are back! don’t forget to check out the new interview on our channel where lando and oscar talk all things hopes for the second half of the season, workouts and… girls?

view all comments

user mclaren. mclaren look at me. you know what you have to do

mclaren 👀

user when oscar asked him about y/n… i wanted to cry he looked so sad are things over between them?

oscarsgf @/oscarpiastri you’re such a gossip

oscarpiastri you love me for it

oscarsgf @/oscarpiastri you know what i’m thinking?

oscarpiastri @/oscarsgf plotting?

oscarsgf @/oscarpiastri plotting!

user what on earth is going on…

yourusername just posted a photo ੈ✩‧₊˚

liked by oscarsgf and 29,481 others

yourusername lately :)

view all comments

user you are so ! gorgeous !

user i can see why lando is obsessed

user speaking of… where is our favorite brit in the likes☹️

oscarsgf pretty girl!!!

yourusername oh?!? thank u cutie!!!

user ^ oh their plotting is in progress???

mclaren you’d look good in orange👀🧡

landonorris posted a tweet ੈ✩‧₊˚

an email from mclaren ੈ✩‧₊˚

yourusername just posted stories ੈ✩‧₊˚

mclaren just posted a photo ੈ✩‧₊˚

liked by 287,456 people

mclaren it’s race day🫡

view all comments

user WHO IS THE GIRL

user IS THAT WHO I THINK IT IS

user PLEASE TELL ME THATS Y/N

user LOOK AT HER STORIES ITS DEFINITELY HER

user SOMEONE WHO IS THERE KEEP US UPDATED PLEASE

user just posted a thread ੈ✩‧₊˚

yourusername just posted a photo ੈ✩‧₊˚

liked by landonorris, oscarpiastri and 106,544 others

yourusername i don’t know guys, do you think he’s cute?

view all comments

user OH MY GOD FINALLY

landonorris i will hit you with my car again

yourusername is that a challenge mr. norris?

landonorris @/yourusername oh you better run fast

yourusername @/landonorris well duh cause you don’t know how to do the speed limit

user i love them. i love them so much.

oscarsgf omg can we force the boys to do mclaren double dates

landonorris leave this comment section now

yourusername @/landonorris too late we’re already texting

landonorris just posted a photo ੈ✩‧₊˚

liked by yourusername, mclaren and 300,091 others

landonorris we are successful victims of mclarens matchmaking services

view all comments

user THEYVE DONE IT AGAINNN

user new fav couple fr

oscarpiastri oh how quickly you all forget me

user @/oscarpiastri WE COULD NEVER

user clearly i need to work for mclaren to get a cute gf

oscarpiastri @/oscarsgf is the second photo giving you flashbacks as well

oscarsgf they’re stealing our thing

yourusername thank you for posting the nice park date photo of me

landonorris well in all the others you’re mid cartwheel

mclaren glad to be of service🧡 anyone else? @/patriciooward how are you doing?

landonorris i’m gonna stop you right there

———————

a/n: WELL. hello friends. i said i wasn’t gonna post a one shot for a while, then this happened. i just hope its up to standard! i’m a little rusty in my writing considering everything!

in regards to new works, gonna be working on getting my wips out soon, and maybe popping some new smaus out at the same time as they’re easy and quick-ish for me to work on considering everything going on! do forgive me if i do some random family orientated stuff — pregnancy hormones are giving me baby fever for everything (is it still baby fever if you’re having a baby?)

let me know your thoughts in the comments/reblogs/asks — i’ve missed talking to you all sm! i have anon emojis available if people wanna chat too🤍

for the first time in a very long time,,, love, giselle xx

taglist (found here): @idkiwantchocolatee @vellicora @alessioayla @bborra @crimeshowjunkie @minkyungseokie @paolexsstuff @celestialpato @champagnelovers101 @loxbbg @hobiismyhopeu @tsukishitm-a @moonypixel @champagneproblems17 @ironmaiden1313 @lqvesoph @sunflower-golden-vol6 @six-call @skatingiswalkingincursive @peqch-pie @m0cha-bunny @woozarts @he6rtshaker @iluvvmeeee @goldenalbon @izzy-marvel @lucyysthings @lichterfee @tallrock35 @treehouse-house @iloveyou3000morgan @scopeiguess @amaranthineghost @gwginnyweasley @hetfieldd @sweetbabygirlsworld @wittywhispers @dark-night-sky-99 @namgification @casperlikej @marshmummy @geniusalpaca

tags for this post: @the-untamed-soul @itsprashimusic @purplephantomwolf @jasminesacademia

[gutsby]

Honor Among Thieves

Pairing: Mob!Bucky x Reader

Summary: Marrying Brooklyn’s most dangerous man was easy. Divorcing him proves to be a bit harder—particularly when you’re pregnant with his child.

Warnings: 18+. Unprotected p-in-v. Oral (f!receiving). Breeding kink. Hurt/Comfort/We-Almost-Just-Died-Sex. Morning sickness. Manslaughter. Brief coerced kissing. Beefy, mob boss Bucky is a possessive expectant father who just wants to make sure he knocked you up properly

Descriptions of violence throughout

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4

“You know exactly what you’re doing.”

Bucky’s words reverberated like a shotgun’s report, skimming across two dozen feet of marble, glass, and stainless steel before reaching your ears on the opposite end of the room. He was standing at the threshold of the kitchen, and your back was turned to him. Lucky thing, too, or else he would’ve seen the smile threatening to tug at both ends of your lips—effectively blowing your cover.

“Really, I don’t have the slightest idea, Barnes,” you told him, and it took everything in you not to laugh. Having just narrowly preserved your composure, you continued, “You keep me locked in this prison all day and expect me not to find ways to entertain myself? Well, this is all it is.”

Like hell it was, you could already hear in Bucky’s head. Feeling him eye you up and down from the archway, take his first steps into the room, loosen his tie, most likely.

“Prison?” You registered a low scoff, and his voice was already so much closer than it’d been five seconds ago.

Your husband was striding as quickly as his smooth, dark, tailored suit would allow, and he was undressing as he walked. You could hear the clothes coming off but pretended not to notice. Instead staring more intently at the crab bisque simmering on the stove before you, you licked the spoon you were holding and hummed a little.

“Yes,” you answered, simply, “Prison.”

Bucky was by your side in no time at all. Up close, he smelled like rosemary, oakmoss, and gunpowder.

“Well, this is news to me,” he said. He dragged out the middle syllables of his words longer than was necessary, likely to make his move sidling up closer to you. The last sound had scarcely died in his throat more than a second or two before you felt an arm loop around your back. A hand coming to rest on your hip, then his voice, again:

“See, I never knew they built ‘prisons’ up in first-class penthouse apartments in Brooklyn. Must be pretty nice.”

Bucky stepped behind you, and you were half-certain the black suit jacket he’d come home wearing was fully removed. Again, you pretended not to see, or care.

“It’s a metaphor, James.” But your voice wavered.

“A metaphor?” Bucky’s head sank into the soft groove between your neck and your shoulder, and he kissed it.

“Yes.”

Your mouth made a sound more akin to a breath than a real, enunciated word, and you knew Bucky felt it too. He sensed this headstrong, no-bullshit façade of yours was sure to come crumbling apart any second, and each new brush of his hands and lips would be making it happen. Knowing this, he wasn’t in a rush to get the rest of his clothes off. He did, however, start to toy with yours.

“Tell me more. Am I really holding you hostage, doll?”

You took a ladle and started to stir, trying to stay cool. Meanwhile, your husband tugged gently on your dress.

“Hostage, housewife, same thing,” you muttered, low.

For once, it was Bucky’s turn to break character, as he laughed. It was short-lived and sweet, and he pressed another kiss to the skin of your neck, as if in apology.

“Right, right. I forgot. You were forced to marry me.”

“Right,” you shook your head, just slightly emboldened by the way you’d made him crack, if only for a moment, “I’m forced to marry you, move into this horrific little shanty in Brooklyn”—gesturing to the multi-million dollar apartment surrounding you both—“and then you leave me here, all by myself, with nothing to do while you go play Godfather with your mobster friends. It’s not fair.”

By the tail end of that last sentence, you and Bucky both were already grinning a little, coming to terms with just how ridiculous it sounded when you phrased it like that. Still, your husband seemed game to keep the bit going.

“Now that’s just not true,” he said, tone all faux offense.

You felt the soft snap of a ribbon coming undone, and in a second realized it was the satin bow holding the back of your dress together. The fabric loosened, and Bucky’s hands slid down your sides, over your front—of course.

“I didn’t leave you ‘by yourself’ at all, doll,” he said, and suddenly, his palms were fanning out, over something, “Gave you this baby to keep you company, didn’t I?”

The ‘something’ he was touching now was your belly. All soft and smooth and protruding out in a perfect little globe beneath your dress, no bigger than when he’d left for work that morning. Bucky treated the bump like it was a novelty all the same—like he was seeing it for the first time and couldn’t believe he was actually the one responsible for making it get like that. It had gotten to be a hobby of his, nearly, just how much he loved watching it grow. He had his fingers splayed out across your tummy virtually every chance he could get, and that didn’t stop whether you were out in public or sharing a moment in the comfort of home; he couldn’t get enough.

Which was why Bucky was right when he’d said you knew exactly what you were doing when he came home that day. You knew just the kind of effect that wearing a tight, white dress while cooking dinner would have on him, and you hoped it would rile him up just like this: with his hands roaming over every inch of your body, making soft, sweet circles along the swell of your belly, and kissing your neck again and again. Biting some, too. Getting so worked up he was all but gnawing at the skin as he drank in your scent and got lost to pure instinct.

If it wasn’t clear that Bucky had had a breeding kink before, you saw it written plain as day across his face every morning and night since he’d first learned you were pregnant. Like all the life force within him was just a byproduct of the knowledge that you were his—and this baby, growing bigger each day, was a mix of you both.

You hated to say it, but fatherhood suited your assassin-trained, mob-heading, bloodlusting husband better than anyone could have predicted in a million years or more.

Presently, Bucky flipped you around and sank to his knees. He slid you over to the counterspace area, away from the stove, and made sure to flip each knob to ‘off’ to make sure there wasn’t a chance you’d get burned. You cast one last look at the crab bisque and knew at once your hard work would have to be put on the back burner for now, because Bucky wasn’t hungry for that.

Still, you kicked a foot in soft, muted protest when you felt him slide his hands up your legs, under your dress, and start to reach for your panties. You let out a breath.

“I spent two hours perfecting the seasoning on that, Barnes,” you chided him, gently and without much admonition in your voice as you pointed to the soup, “You say you want a good little housewife but won’t even leave me un-fucked long enough to try any food I make!”

“And I’m very sorry about that, Mrs. Barnes,” Bucky replied, head disappearing beneath your skirt so he could take your underwear off with his teeth instead.

But, much like your reproach, your husband’s strained apology held less than half of its professed sincerity. Your blue cotton panties were discarded in a second, your hips pushed back against the cool white marble behind it, and Bucky, almost too cheekily, brought his head back up from underneath your dress just to steal a quick look at your belly, then up at you. He was smiling.

“Anything you make tastes amazing, honey. Daddy just needs to eat a little something beforehand, that okay?”

He already knew what you’d say. The sweet, shit-eating grin hovering over your lower half knew all that and more. Bucky just loved to tease, taking the hem of your dress between his index and thumb, and rubbing all the more tenderly, murmuring again, ‘That alright with you, pretty girl?’ and ‘My wife likes getting tonguefucked in the kitchen, doesn’t she?’ while his breaths spread over you.

You nodded that you did. Momentarily forgetting the three-course meal you’d had planned for him since early that morning, you let your knees fall limply apart from one another, and Bucky’s broad form filled the space in between. The fabric of your dress was snug, especially so over your belly. Your husband pushed the material up your hips and let it rest just high enough to expose your warmth to him. Angling your hips back the slightest bit, trailing his fingers up your thighs and inside them, gently, Bucky let out a low groan against your body, and you could feel the vibrations of it travel up your spine.

“I really am mean for keeping you here all day, aren’t I?” he teased, sliding the tips of his fingers between your glistening folds and watching you jolt in response.

“So— so mean. Bucky, please.”

Your voice was far more hoarse than circumstances would seem to beget; your husband had just eaten you out that morning. Nevertheless, your hand was trembling as it reached for his head. Your pull was taut and dire. While your fingers threaded in through his hair and your body opened itself more and more for him, you could feel that kind smile, even if you couldn’t see it. Frankly, the swelling of eight-and-a-half months made it difficult to see much of anything below the waist, but Bucky made sure to let you know he was there. By holding your hand, skimming his lips against your skin, starting, just then, to sink his fingers in toward the heat of your body, and softly pulling his face away so he could look up at you.

“Baby?” he breathed.

Your eyes locked with his as he slid two fingers inside you. The stretch alone was enough to put your brain on the fritz, but, fighting the first shockwaves of pleasure:

“Y-Yeah?”

He withdrew. Pressed them back in and let out a grunt.

“I need you to do something for me.”

You couldn’t fathom what that might be, but you nodded anyway. ‘Anything’ was what you managed to choke out.

“And you might not like it, doll.”

Your eyes widened some.

“O— O-Okay, what?”

Bucky’s fingers curled inside you, and a short, sharp streak of dizzying pleasure pulsed through your body. Your knees felt weak, and your mind even worse, but with what little resolve you had left, you were able to keep your eyes entirely open and fastened to his. A look that struck you as almost bittersweet crossed your husband’s features, and you saw his gaze soften again.

“I need you to wake up,” he said, calmly.

“What?”

Your toes curled tight underneath you, and the warmth between your legs leapt up to over a thousand degrees.

“Melaya, I need you to wake up.”

At the same time, your blood ran cold in your veins. Surely, you couldn’t be hearing him right if the voice he used was so gruff and low—and laden with a Russian lilt.

“Bucky? What— What do you mean?”

But you knew. Or suspected something of it anyway.

Now the sound from your own throat was hardly one that you recognized as yours, so shrill and high and strange—what could he mean by that? Why was he watching you in that way? Your husband wasn’t smiling so brightly anymore, and the once-gratifying conflagration between your legs had grown to an almost scorching degree, no longer nice, generous, or pleasurable in the slightest.

“We need you to wake up now, honey. Right now.”

His tone, too, was distorted. Grating.

“Bucky, I-I don’t underst—”

“WAKE UP!”

“WAKE UP!”

Natasha shook you hard, and it hurt.

She didn’t mean for it to. She just needed you up and out of bed, and you’d been asleep for almost fourteen hours.

You started at the fifth or sixth shake, nearly punching yourself in the face when you tried yanking a set of covers up and over your head and discovered, shortly, that there was none. You were splayed out on a bed in an as-yet unfamiliar home—Steve’s new place—and, while you slept, you’d kicked all of the blankets you’d been given the night before off your body and onto the floor.

Your eyes were wide as saucers as they darted to Nat’s.

There was no need to say what had happened—she knew these dreams were getting worse by the day.

It’d been a week since you fled your Brooklyn apartment in an all-out terror. A week since a senseless, short-sighted idea on your part had led to the discovery that your husband was once part of a HYDRA sleeper cell whose activation phrase turned him into an agent of total destruction at will. A week since you’d seen a half dozen bodies litter your living room floor, more still being bludgeoned by the so-called ‘Winter Soldier,’ as Bucky had formerly been known. A week since you’d sobbed in Natasha’s arms and begged her not to let you go back. A week since you’d been obliged to hide out in Steve Rogers’ new bachelor pad upstate, because, frankly, there was nowhere else you could safely live until this whole ordeal with Bucky was settled—if it ever would be.

A full week since you’d learned you were pregnant, too.

As far as you knew, your husband was wholly unaware of this fact, and of Steve’s most recent real estate purchase up in Buffalo, and you’d been existing in a semi-serene and largely dissociated state for the past seven days.

Your gaze adjusted to the light, and you blinked up at Nat, feeling damp in just about every place on your body. You looked down and found yourself drenched in sweat.

“Hydrate. Please.”

It wasn’t so much a request as it was a standing order: Nat holding out a glass of water and instructing you to drink. Though your first instinct was to make a face and shake your head—you’d found that any new fluids in your body this early in the morning would only get thrown back up when you made your first frantic trip to the toilet—you accepted it anyway. You drank three big gulps to appease the woman standing next to the bed, then wiped your mouth with the back of your hand and smiled

“I’m gonna go puke now,” you said.

“Aim for inside the toilet bowl if you can,” Steve called out from the doorway. By the look on his face, you’d been doing a pretty shit job of aiming vomit lately.

“My bad, Rogers.”

You had a hand on your stomach, slowly easing back up into a seated position, when you heard something being flung across the room, followed by a ‘HEY!’ and a crash.

“Your aim sucks, too, Romanoff,” Steve griped, loudly, “And I was kidding. She can puke wherever she wants.”

By the door, a hefty hardcover book lay open on the floor. Apparently Nat’s options for projectiles had been limited.

“All good, Rogers,” you offered anyway. Fighting a smirk.

You were starting to stand, and your head felt as if you’d just taken your first steps off a rocking boat. Your other hand jumped to your mouth, and you muttered, ‘Fuck’ before brushing past Nat and her outstretched arms.

She held your hair while Steve retrieved the glass of water, as well as a towel. The unsightly first trimester ritual proceeded as it had for all of the last week, with Nat rubbing circles in your back and Steve making well-meaning but completely useless live commentary like, ‘Babies are a real pain in the ass, aren’t they?’ At the conclusion of each new stupid remark, Natasha would shoot a dirty look his way, but you never let her shoo him away. Through no conscious choice of your own, Steve had become something of a comfort blanket over the course of the past chaotic days. At the very least, you two were no longer at each other’s throats flinging accusations and exorbitantly-priced tumblers in the other’s direction, which was a marked improvement from where you were the day after you and Bucky’s wedding.

At length, you lifted your head from the toilet, and he daubed at your cheek with the towel—mostly just trying to wipe off spit and your own queasy-looking expression. He succeeded in clearing away just the former, but you forced a smile all the same, then shared it with Natasha.

Nat couldn’t smile back. In fact, the grimace on her face only etched even deeper, and her forehead creased.

“This is a horrible time to be asking you this, I know—”

“Nat, please.” Steve groaned.

Nat, what? There wasn’t a lot more that could catch you off guard after all the shit you’d come to see that week. Still, Nat’s breaths were both measured and slow, and you could see she was chewing on the inside of her cheek like she wasn’t quite sure how best to phrase her words. This, coming from one of the most astute legal minds this side of the Hudson River, gave you pause.

“Ask anything. I’m pretty numb, if you haven’t noticed.” You rapped on the side of your head for comedic effect, but neither Natasha nor Steve laughed or cracked a grin.

“How do you feel about filing for divorce tomorrow?”

At the sound of Nat’s words, you felt the bile jump back up your throat. You knew there wasn’t enough food or fluid to make much of anything now, but all the same, you craned your neck back over the toilet and retched. When nothing came out, as expected, you turned back.

“What?”

Natasha looked a little ill herself, but still, she continued.

“How do you feel about just…fast-tracking a divorce from him and taking off new? We’ll talk assets later.”

Assets? Fast-track? Divorce? What the fuck?

“What the fuck, Nat?” you repeated as much out loud.

It normally wasn’t your thing to be so blunt with her, but the inquiry certainly seemed to invite some extra candor. You swiped at your mouth for any excess spit that might’ve trickled out, crudely, and in a second, Steve was handing you the towel. Then helping you to your feet, holding your arm and lower back in a grip you could feel was secure. You were unsteady on your legs, so he and Natasha guided you over to the sink, where you could regain your bearings and freshen up a bit. Sneaking a look at your reflection in the mirror was a bad idea; your face was sallow, and the rest of your body had every appearance of being horribly weak, for lack of a better word. You caught a glimpse of a gash sitting just above your left temple and immediately looked away. Stupidly, you hoped Steve and Nat hadn’t seen it.

“He did that to you,” Nat said without missing a beat.

You winced, and you washed your hands, not looking up.

“I thought you said it wasn’t him. Soldat, you told me.” And for a second, your eyes flickered to Steve, whose expression was a touch more sympathetic, if not visibly discomfited now. Like he didn’t want to speak for once.

He did, anyway: “Doesn’t matter if it was Winter or him, really. Point is he hurt you while trying to protect y—”

“And yet, you asked me to forgive him just last week for killing my dad in the same type of rage,” you replied, and instantly regretted the accusatory tone you’d taken on.

Your anger was misdirected at Steve. It wasn’t his fault for sharing the truth about your husband’s—his best friend’s—past when you’d asked him. These were queries you’d made, helping to form justifications for your own decision to stay after what had happened in Madripoor. Obviously, Steve would be biased to help support his friend in a time of need. But now things were different; Bucky had never been activated as soldat and ended up hurting someone he’d loved before. Steve was free to change his mind after seeing that happen and urge you to leave, or at least reconsider, your marriage to Bucky.

The second look you gave him attempted to convey as much, a bit more apologetic as he and Natasha led the way out of the bathroom. Steve smiled and held your arm again, though you probably didn’t need it. You walked downstairs to the kitchen together. Over by the toaster, Sam was inspecting a charred bagel with a scowl

“Rogers, you really need to ditch this shit,” he said, gesturing to the rusted metal contraption that appeared to be from 1918, and had just burnt two bagels to a crisp.

“It was a gift from a friend, piss off,” Steve replied, grinning a little. Reaching for the blackened bread roll and even going so far as to take a bite, crunching loudly.

“Did your friend happen to fight in World War II?” Nat asked. She lent one look to the archaic machine but said nothing further, opting instead to take a seat at the kitchen table, where a sea of papers was strewn about.

Then, to you, “Come. Sit.”

Somewhere in your tentative stroll from where you stood to where she sat, and in the middle of the men’s toaster bickering, Sam called out that he’d have bacon and eggs ready in a second. Steve offered up his singed sesame bagel in the interim, and you told him no thanks. With a still slightly throbbing skull and a nauseous gait, you took the chair next to Nat’s and looked down at her papers.

Honestly, you thought your present condition might warrant some leeway when it came to holding off on the heavy-hitting topics first thing, but, to your surprise, Natasha slid a crisp white packet over almost instantly.

“Nat, what the fuck?” you groaned for the second time.

“Read it. Give it a second to digest, then we can—”

“No!” you cut in, pushing the packet back to her with a little more force than you’d meant, “I-I can’t. Not now.”

On the very first page, in bold and capitalized typeface, there was printed a brief string of words you’d never wanted—or thought you would ever need—to see:

‘VERIFIED COMPLAINT: ACTION FOR DIVORCE’

“It’s just the petition. No harm in taking a look,” Nat said.

You could hear a faintly gentler tone in her voice, even as you shook your head and looked away from the papers.

“I don’t want to. I can’t do this right now.” You kept shaking your head for a couple seconds after, turning your gaze instead to the bay window of Steve’s kitchen.

A nice, sprawling yard stretched as far as you could see. In the distance, a fuzzy white horizon was punctuated the slightest bit by the outline of a wood fence, but apart from that, the land was empty. The lot was secluded. Happy and effervescent in a nearly cloudless sky, the midmorning sun cast its rays without so much as the threat of a storm’s hinderance. You fixed your eyes on the clear expanse above and silently wished it would rain.

Before more than a minute or two had passed like that, Sam was approaching the table with two platters. Steve balanced four more by himself, watching the sway of one plate of scrambled eggs in his arms with a wary look before setting each one of the dishes on the table.

“Bon appétit,” Steve said, butchering his French just about as badly as Sam had the bagels. You and Nat thanked them both anyway and started clearing off the table, pushing papers away in favor of steaming plates. Sam and Steve sat down, and all of you began to eat.

While you dutifully piled on each scoop of eggs, bacon, sausage links, biscuits, gravy, and grits—far more than you knew you could feasibly consume—you wished again for a rainstorm, and maybe a quiet breakfast. One that wasn’t marred by talks of legal separation and lengthy battles in court, if you could help it at all. To this end, and perhaps against your body’s best interest, you shoveled two supersized spoonfuls of egg in your mouth, so that if Nat tried reviving those subjects again, you could put off the conversation by simply continuing to chew. You felt your stomach turn inside you but, stubbornly, ate more.

You had just swallowed it all, about to make way for a warm, flaky buttermilk biscuit, when a sound cut in, and your belly flipped again. Your teeth had barely sunk into the bread a second when Nat set her own food aside, then used two fingers to push something toward you.

“Just skim it. Let me explain what the process can be,” she said, tapping her index on the first line and meeting your eyes as if to plead. She had to have known she’d be met with resistance—from you, of course, but also Steve. She raised a defensive hand to him before he even cut in:

“Come the fuck on, Nat. Will you give her a break?”

“I’m saying this for her sake! I’m doing it for her.”

“And throwing divorce papers in her face over breakfast is really the best way of going about it? Is that for her?”

Sam swallowed whatever he’d been chewing on, glanced down at the top paper, and seemed to brace himself.

“Guys, is now really the right time—” he started.

“That’s what I’m saying!” Steve barked over him.

Natasha ignored the plainly disdainful look from the latter, lifted her hand off the paperwork and instead trained her gaze solely on you. Just like she had in Zurich. Focusing intently on your face, ignoring whatever Steve or Sam were saying in the moment, she turned to you and found your expression was stale. Unmoving. Frankly, half of what was running through your mind right then was how badly you wanted to puke again. As if the eggs had turned rotten in your gut the second they reached their destination in your GI tract, you felt a heavy, oppressive fog of nausea taking shape between your ears, and you just wanted everyone to stop talking.

Sam and Steve continued on without a hitch, agreeing vaguely but also appearing to bicker over other things, like when was the most appropriate time to have this conversation. Natasha was leaning in, reaching for your hand this time, and you knew she meant well. You would bet any large sum of money there wasn’t a malicious bone in her body, and she was doing this for your benefit. All the same, you were grateful when the front door swung back on its hinges, and a new person walked in. Nat, Sam, and Steve all suspended their conversations.

“Hey, wh—” the blissfully unaware, semi-stranger began.

“Sharon!” Steve cried, “Would you tell Romanoff she’s being a goddamn pest with no sense of boundaries?”

Sharon halted at the threshold of the house, skating a look between Nat and Steve at first, then Steve and Sam, then just at you. The look didn’t linger for long, and before you knew it, she was setting down a fistful of grocery bags and twisting her mouth into a frown.

“Will you shut up, Steve?” was her only response.

Sam rose from his chair and pointed as if to say, ‘Yeah, that’ before joining her in the foyer to help carry in the Wegmans bags. Natasha leaned back in her chair with a vaguely pleased look, and Steve just rolled his eyes. He slapped his palm overtop the stack of divorce papers still laying before you and, seemingly undeterred, continued,

“Do you think it’s fair for her to force divorce papers on this poor soul—” pointing to you, the poor soul, apparently, “—when it’s been a week since she left?”

Sharon started handing off the frozen stuff first, sliding a box of Stouffer’s across the counter to Sam, who then deposited it in the freezer. These exchanges took place in relatively quick succession, with Sharon only chancing a look toward the kitchen table once or twice as they did.

“I think she should do whatever the hell she wants,” she said, “And I think their divorce is none of our business.”

Fair enough take. One that you could respect, at the very least, even if you weren’t certain she particularly cared for you at all. You reckoned she had no reason to, and on the whole, appeared to be a pretty reserved person.

You wanted to add a word in her defense, reiterate to Steve that he didn’t have to go to bat for you, the poor, defenseless soul, right now. Instead of being able to speak, though, you felt an upsurge of something heavy in your throat. You clamped a hand to your mouth again, cheeks flushing with the heady sensation and also out of embarrassment, then pushed your chair back and stood.

“I— gotta—” you stammered, just audible to the table, through the wall your fingers had made over your lips.

You sprinted up the stairs without another word.

The first trimester ritual repeated, and ten minutes later, you re-emerged from the bathroom feeling two big spoonfuls of scrambled eggs lighter and still none the happier, healthier, or wiser. You took a peek in the full-length mirror at the other end of the room and discerned from a distance of ten feet that you looked like dogshit.

You flopped down on the bed face-first, heedless of the pool of sweat that still encompassed roughly half of it, and let out a weak, muffled breath into the sheets. Someone had been gracious enough to replace all the blankets and pillows you’d kicked off last night. When you heard a knock on the door, it sounded a lot like Nat’s.

You rolled to the side, eyes screwed shut in frustration.

“If you’ve come to tell me my marriage is a fucking dumpsterfire, I agree completely, Natasha. I’m dumb.”

A little huff of a half-laugh sounded from the doorway. You opened your eyes and saw Sharon standing there.

Up close, she looked a little paler than you’d remembered seeing her last in Switzerland. Soft beads of perspiration dotted her neckline from what had likely been a hot and arduous journey walking up the driveway with all the food, and presently, she seemed tired. She wore a simple gingham blouse that had her eyes shining with vibrance, though, and both hands, you noticed, were full—she had a mug in one and a spoon in the other. She smiled kindly.

“The mob tends to have that effect,” she said, strolling in. Setting the mug on the nightstand and easing the spoon into it, stirring, “Don’t be too hard on yourself.”

You had no idea what all she knew about your marriage. You weren’t so sure you could extricate yourself from all the blame of having the thing go up in flames in four short weeks. Nevertheless, you smiled back and offered up something good-humored in return, like, well, I’m not exactly winning wife of the fucking year anytime soon.

Again, Sharon chuckled. It was small. She leaned back against the nearest armchair and, pointing to the cup she’d left to rest on the nightstand, said in a soft voice,

“Give that a minute. It’s hot.”

You glanced over and saw a little string that you guessed was attached to a teabag sitting at the bottom of the mug. The drink smelled like chamomile, maybe. You sat up, readjusted your pyjama top, then slid your socked feet underneath you so you could scoot closer to the edge of the bed. On a deeper inhale, you decided the tea was definitely chamomile. And too hot, as Sharon said.

“Thank you,” you told her.

“It’s not poisoned, I promise,” she replied. Letting out that funny little chuckle of hers—one too low to be considered a full laugh, but very close—and then, seeming to realize what she said might’ve sounded off, “Like— I heard what happened with Schröder. Him trying to drug you after the wedding and all…that. I— I’m sorry.”

Bad time to be making jokes, she appeared to chastise herself, but you just nodded along with the faintest grin.

“It’s OK. I’d pay money to be knocked the fuck out now.”

You grinned bigger, and she smiled too.

“It should make you sleepier, if you wanted to nap.”

You replied that you would, in fact, love to be unconscious right now if it meant not having to put up with all this bullshit morning sickness, and you slowly reached for the mug. Sharon stood up, and while you took your first sips, she fluffed the pillows behind you.

She was right. The tea felt like a hug. You settled under the covers and brought the cup to your lips once more, taking two big draughts before setting the drink aside. Yeah, that shit’ll put you right out, no drugs needed. You sank even further under the sheets and watched Sharon hover between the bed and the doorway, looking around as if trying to find something to do—some way to make herself feel more useful, if you had to guess from the pensive look in her eyes. Finally, she settled closer to the door and gave you one, fairly sanguine look. The warmth of your drink had already begun to nestle inside your weary bones, and your eyelids felt heavier. Still, you tried to return the sunny look before getting fully settled.

“Thanks again, Sharon. I appreciate it.”

“Yeah, of course.”

She started to leave. In fact, she’d already made it three-fourths out of the room when something stopped her in her tracks. She turned back to you, and you looked up.

“This…probably doesn’t mean a whole lot coming from me, but—whatever you decide to do with Bucky…is okay. We’ll support you, whether you choose to raise this baby with him or do…whatever it is you want to do. Don’t let Nat or Steve or Sam or anybody tell you differently. It’s your choice, y’know, whether you wanna stay married…”

Sharon trailed off, and somewhere inside, you could tell she meant to finish with words like, ‘…even if you didn’t get to make the choice to get married in the first place.’ You appreciated it. You beamed with just your head poking out from over the covers and thanked her again.

And, before she left, for the second time, she stopped. She walked over to the nightstand and bent slightly at the waist, just enough to set something small down. You turned to the side and saw a vial—a minuscule tube—on the surface. Your eyes widened, realizing what it was.

“Sam picked it up in Madripoor. He said Steve had given this to you…to, uh, give to Schröder, and I thought you should have it back,” she said, pausing, “Just in case.”

You eyed the little vial of poison on the nightstand and nodded, still not completely understanding. Your head throbbed, your stomach was still turning, churning. Your brain was about ten blinks away from logging off entirely and drifting to sleep. All you could do, then, was repeat what Sharon had said as you exchanged one final look.

“Just in case.”

Your eyes closed, and you fell asleep very soon after.

You couldn’t have been out for more than an hour; you were sure of it. However, the next time you glanced over at the clock on the bedside table, you saw it read 11:04.

P.M.

Shit.

SHIT.

That chamomille tea was no fucking joke.

Just as your thoughts drifted back to Sharon, the conversation you’d shared, the drink she’d given you, the poison she’d left behind for you to keep, you heard her voice all over again—and now, not just in your own head.

Presently, she was standing over your bed again, though the room was much darker this time around. She pressed a finger to her lips, hey, please, please, be quiet, alright? At first you wanted to make a sharp and strangled sound. A cry for help? You weren’t sure. Didn’t know. Couldn’t see very much of the woman at all, except for the outline of her face from the moonlight streaming in through the window. She stared and ‘shh’ed’ some more.

And you were contemplating yelling out a loud obscenity in response to it when next she cut in, markedly gentler:

“Keep it quick. Nat and the guys will be back in thirty.”

You blinked hard into the darkness and waited for your vision, or else your still-missing voice, to return. It didn’t. You just stared back, eyelids going up and down and up and down like a goddamn idiot gone sluggish off one too many Quaaludes, and it was several seconds more before she gestured behind her, into the shadows.

You tensed under the covers, chock-full of terror. You squinted, and shrank, and might’ve nearly pissed yourself were it not for the intervening force of a face.

A familiar face.

Bucky’s face.

You leapt up from the bed, displacing each one of Sharon’s cool and careful warnings from your mind all at once. You didn’t mean to, and as soon as she’d shushed you again, you shut your mouth. Fell still. Sharon slipped out of the room, reminding you both, again, that you had to be quiet, and you had to be quick. Then it was just you and Bucky. Silence and slightly less than five feet of space between you two. Then, shortly, no space to spare at all, as you ran to meet each for a hug a second later.

Your head struck his chest, and it was hard. That, alongside the python’s squeeze he wrapped around your body, hugging you to him in the tightest embrace imaginable, had your mind reeling, skull pulsing just a bit. You pulled back and stood smiling up at Bucky, whose eyes were wide, drinking the sight of you in.

‘Are you hurt?’ were his first words.

You shook your head that you weren’t, still unable to talk.

“Why are you— Who— who brought you— I didn’t—”

It seemed Bucky was equally hard-pressed to form a sentence himself, while his eyes were roaming wildly, all over you. Looking for bumps or bruises or cuts, whatever the wound might have been. He stumbled to the lamp and flicked it on. You tilted your head left, reflexively.

“I’m fine, Bucky,” you said. Sudden and swift, “I’m good.”

But you didn’t move your head too far to the right, either, for fear he might see the cut above your temple—the one soldat had caused when he’d pushed you to the floor, trying to protect you from a threat he couldn’t see.

As it was, your husband seemed to be too much in shock to see anything else apart from what stood immediately in front of him. He hugged you again. He kissed the crown of your head. He constricted your body so tight in his arms you felt a pressure start to build behind your eyes, and suddenly you weren’t so much pulling away as you were wrenching your body from him. When you met Bucky’s gaze again, the sweet blue irises were glossy.

“Nat wouldn’t say where you were, just that you were safe and needed to be…be alone for a while, but I—” He stopped, and it was as if he couldn’t even finish with the words, because his breath was stuck in his throat and his eyes were stinging too much. He looked down, briefly.

You wanted to reach for his hand but hesitated. He took yours a second later, holding extra tight as he continued:

“I thought I’d— thought you might’ve…left. I don’t know. I hadn’t been able to sleep, and then she— Sharon, she called me tonight, said you were here, so— so—”

You felt a pang of guilt holding his gaze, seeing how all the hurt that had come to accumulate behind those eyes over the last week went spilling, at length, into emotions he was either too overcome or sleep-deprived to express. The weight of this suffocated him, made him extra quick to speak his mind but slow to make sense of just about anything that was coming out of his mouth. He stopped, sucked in a breath, then pinched your hand in his, and you didn’t know what to do. You had no idea what to say.

“I was scared, Bucky.”

It sounded pathetic coming out of your mouth. Your husband nodded as though you’d just said the most profound thing in the world. His knuckles went white from just how hard he was gripping your hand, his head bobbed along in agreement, and for a moment, you winced to think that he might hug you again. Instead, the fingers tangled between yours just made a tighter knot.

“I know. I’m sorry. I’m sorry,” he said.

“You scared me,” you added, voice wavering.

Your left hand was going numb. You didn’t want to give him pause—possibly hurt his feelings—by freeing your touch from his, but that grip was brutal. Deathly rigid and unforgiving. Thoughts of Brooklyn and Madripoor came flooding back; Bucky was so much stronger than he realized. His tone, in contrast, was dulcet and soft.

“I didn’t know I’d get like that. I should’ve told you, doll.”

“I shouldn’t have tried the activation in the first place.”

You shouldn’t have tried digging into Bucky’s past all. When all there seemed to be at every turn was a brand new way for him to hurt you, or the people you loved, maybe there came a time when you had to stop asking questions altogether. Maybe that was what his mother and all the women who’d gone before her had known to do, what you had been too stupid to see all along. There was no knowing these men at all, only taking them as they were and learning to cope with what they became.

Bucky shook his head.

“No, doll, it’s not on you,” he murmured low. Still forceful

Thankfully, he released your hand to cup your cheeks, and he kissed your forehead. You felt your pulse in your palm, throbbing from where he’d held it. When he let go the second time, his expression was considerably softer.

“Listen, I’ll take you home, we can talk things over. As long as I know you’re safe, it doesn’t have to— to—”

Hey. He was already halfway toward the door before he realized you weren’t following him. He turned and gestured forward. He beckoned you, brows drawing in.

“Baby? C’mon.”

You didn’t budge.

Your feet were rooted in place, as though cemented to the floor. No matter how much you wanted to appease him, go along with whatever he asked, you couldn’t. You shook your head, and Bucky tilted his own, confused.

“Baby?”

“I’m leaving, Bucky.”

You couldn’t hear your own words slipping out between your teeth, only the blood rushing through your ears. Bucky stopped and turned to face you completely.

“What?”

“I’m leaving.”

“What— what do you mean, ‘you’re leaving’?”

“I want a divorce.”

That part you did hear yourself. You wished you hadn’t.

You wished you hadn’t seen the light break off from Bucky’s eyes, expression going limp the instant your words registered with him. You nearly wished you hadn’t said them at all, seeing just how far his face fell and how hurt he looked by them—but quietly, from somewhere more rational-headed inside yourself, there was a voice reminding the rest of you that it needed to be done. You couldn’t keep pretending like this wasn’t what had had to come next. What you’d been skirting with Nat all day and hadn’t been able to bring yourself to admit before now.

Your husband still didn’t seem to be computing it fully. He walked closer to you, and his gait was unsteady.

“Divorce?”

Your vision was bleary; you hadn’t even realized tears had begun to brim at your waterline as you watched him.

“It’s what we need, Bucky,” you could barely get it out.

“I don’t,” he shot back, not missing a beat, “I don’t.”

“It’s what I need.”

“You don’t mean that.”

His voice was hoarse, face shifting from lax incredulity to one of a wince—screwed up in a way that said he felt ill. You shook your head but couldn’t look away from him.

“You don’t mean that,” he repeated.

“It’s what I want,” you pressed on, just as sick yourself.

“You said what you wanted was me.” Again, Bucky’s voice splintered, and you could feel the pain in it.

“You said you wouldn’t hurt me, Bucky.”

Gritting your teeth, unsure where else to fix your stare on his face but those eyes—while your own betrayed their feelings too easily, fraught with wet, rolling tears—you shouldn’t have been surprised when his went wider.

“What are you talking about?”

The question was short, sharp, and biting, spoken with such haste as might be mistaken for anger, but the eyes softened his look at once. The anguish painting them now as he stared back at you were a proof, beyond a doubt, that it was betrayal, not rage, which steered him. He turned, and it was as if he couldn’t see a thing but you; his elbow clipped the lamp and knocked it over, but still, he just stared. In turn, the ceramic appliance rolled onto its side, toppled the mug and the vial beside it, and all three went crashing to the floor. Bucky didn’t blink.

“Wh—” he started again, but you didn’t hear the rest.

You remembered Sharon. Heard a flash of her last admonition in your head—be quiet, be quick—and without thinking, you fell to your knees. You tried retrieving what pieces of chipped lamp and shattered mug you could, quickly. You spotted the small vial on the floor and shoved it in a pocket. Your hands swept over the broken pieces without any real idea of what you were doing—all except needing to clean Bucky’s mess—and then swiftly, stupidly, you tried picking it up by yourself.

Of course, a shard cut you. The little slit that was left in its wake could have been no wider than a fraction of an inch, but still, it bled. You looked down at the cut, just then starting to sprout red from left to right along the side of your palm, when a new sight crossed your vision. It was fast, too. All but thoughtless in the way it broke in, gripping your hand in his, and yanking you to your feet. Bucky hadn’t seen that you’d cut yourself, it seemed, and, out of instinct, had grabbed your hand to help you up. As before, his grasp was like a vice, and his thumb pressed right inside the lacerated flesh, sending a whole new maelstrom of pain shooting up your wrist and arm. Now, as then, he was heedless of his strength and his sheer, brute force, that he didn’t even see the effect of his grip. He just held on, held you, tighter, tighter, and—

“STOP!” you shrieked.

You shoved him off. Pried his touch off your palm and gripped your forearm in your other hand and pored over the sight, seeing the gash almost doubled in size from just where Bucky’s finger had sunk into the fresh wound. You let out a sharp, muffled cry through lips that tried to stay closed—remembering Sharon again. You shook your head, clenched your jaw, and tore off the other direction.

And when your husband reached out, eyes wide with their own shock and apologies, ‘Baby, fuck, I’m so sorr—’ you threw him off again. With your non-bleeding palm, you thrust your hand against his chest and pushed hard:

“Don’t touch me!”

When he reached for you again, as if by force of habit, you held up a defensive arm and sobbed out, ‘Stop!’

‘Don’t touch me, don’t—don’t—don’t fucking touch me.’

You screamed it. You didn’t mean to. Thinking only vaguely of the need to be quiet, and almost entirely on the stabbing pain in your hand, the imprint of Bucky’s touch on your body, and the blood trickling down your forearm, you darted into the bathroom and threw the door closed behind you. You locked it. You meant to.

Twenty minutes might as well have been twenty years in Bucky Barnes’ mind. In a moment like this, following yet another supreme fuck up on his part, he felt powerless. He had had to fight the instinct to barge into the next room over with every fiber of his being, and, making fists by his sides and pacing the floor and hating himself was all that seemed capable of occupying his mind just then.

He’d knocked on the bathroom door at least ten times. He’d been ignored each time, no matter the duration.

He still had your blood on his thumb, and it made him ill.

You said you wouldn’t hurt me, Bucky.

While he uncurled his hand from a fist just long enough to stare at the streaks of red stretched over his finger, he heard those words replay over and over again in his head. He’d said it—swore it—himself, and still your blood was turning a cool, dark, dry shade of crimson on his thumb.

This wasn’t how he’d meant for any of this to go. Still, notwithstanding his best intentions, none of it mattered. He’d seen a sincere look of fear in your eyes looking up at him, and nothing in the world would change what he’d done, or who he was. He’d caused you pain tonight, last week—though his memory of that was still so hazy and dark he hardly knew what else had happened, even now—and above all, he’d failed you as a husband, a protector.

You were likely curled up in a ball by the bathroom sink, cowering in fear because of him. The thought sent another tidal wave of nausea thrumming through his skull, a lump in his throat growing larger alongside it, and before he knew what he was doing, Bucky was striding back to the bathroom door. He banged his fist against it.

“Honey?”

No answer.

“Baby, please open the door.”

More silence.

The moment brought to mind a memory from the night you two had been married. How you’d fled to the en-suite bathroom and locked yourself in it; how Bucky had rattled the whole doorframe with the force of his knocks, demanding you come out. He’d hardly known you then. You hardly knew him now. The realization of this made the weight in his throat all the more excruciating as he stood, and, wincing with pain, Bucky kept knocking.

“I’m sorry, honey, I’m so sorry.”

Pleading now. His voice was hoarse all over again.

Had he been the slightest bit more desperate and reckless, he might’ve been tempted to muscle through, kick the door in with his boot. But Bucky knew better. He could already guess how much that action would terrify you now, while tending to an injury that he himself had inadvertently made worse. Barreling inside would be neither romantic nor sweet, just sinking what may then be a lethal dose of salt in the deeper, metaphorical wound. He refrained. Instead of continuing to knock, he dropped his forehead to the door and closed his eyes.

“Please believe me, baby,” he tried again.

He’d said it so quietly he feared you might not hear it. Then, a little bit louder, ‘Please, please believe me.’

No sound to be heard inside but running water.

“You mean everything to me, doll.”

By now, his voice was clogged with pain, teetering on the brink of agony as he rested his hands on the door, and willed you to open it. Say something to him. Anything.

“I’d never mean to hurt you. Not in a million years.”

For a moment, he heard nothing more. Just how desperately he needed to hear a voice in reply could not be overstated. Craving a new sound worse than oxygen in his lungs. At first, when he heard something other than himself nearby, it nearly knocked him back with joy.

A voice right next to his ear, “But you did, didn’t you?”

The joy lasted less than a second.

The voice beside him was low. And close. Not coming from the other side of the bathroom door, as he might’ve reasonably expected from you, and not even in the tone of a female’s voice, as he might’ve seen, were Sharon to have appeared by his side. This new voice was deep, and masculine, and in his ear now, chuckling some as a gloved hand pressed the barrel of a gun to his temple.

Bucky didn’t blink.

You stepped outside not wanting to see him.

The bleeding had long since stopped, thanks to the aid of a cool, damp washcloth and a few minutes’ pressure, but even once it ceased, your legs were reluctant to carry you back. You dreaded the thought of having to resume your conversation with Bucky—of having to look him in the eye and tell him all over again that it wasn’t safe for you to be married to him. But you didn’t have much of a choice now, either. This wasn’t your honeymoon, where you could stay locked in the bathroom, try climbing out a window, and hope for the best like you’d done before. You had the man’s child inside you, for fuck’s sake.

That uncomfortable subject and at least a dozen more were already swarming your brain as you made your way out of the bathroom. You’d taken a few extra squares of toilet paper to press into the cut, were looking down at it with a tense, uncertain gaze as you ventured out, when you were obliged to stop just a few steps into the room.

“Hi, honey.”

It wasn’t Bucky.

Your eyes snapped up to the source of the voice in an instant, and, on seeing you were right—that it wasn’t Bucky but a gaunt, grinning blond with a gun to your husband’s head—you almost screamed at the sight.

You’d wanted to scream, anyway. It would’ve been the sane thing to do, and one that nobody could’ve blamed you for in the moment, you reckoned, but strangely the sound never came. You just stared at the two, eyes wide and jaw slightly more lax as your lips made an ‘o’. Bile jumped up in your throat. You wished it would choke you.

‘Please. Don’t.’ was all you could get out.

Johann Schröder’s smile stretched wider.

“Don’t what?”

The question was clearly meant to be derisive, rhetorical. Still, with your fingers trembling, you tried answering:

“Don’t hurt h—”

“Why?”

You watched the gun sink deeper against your husband’s face, and he flinched. Your stomach clenched inside you.

“Why shouldn’t I hurt him, hon? Seems like he’s gotten pretty damn good at doing it to you,” Schröder sneered.

His words stung. The grin didn’t flinch. And, as if to punctuate his sentence, or else remind your husband that he was tied to a chair and entirely at his mercy now, Schröder struck Bucky in the face with the butt of his gun. If an onlooker hadn’t known better, they might’ve mistaken you for the one who’d been hit, though—at last, you unleashed that scream, and you reached out for Bucky, hands open and pathetic and desperate to help.

“Think it hurt as bad as your hand?” Schröder hummed.

Your feet were stumbling forward, “He didn’t mean—”

Another resounding thud against Bucky’s skull, this time hard enough to split his lip in half. If he’d grimaced in the slightest, you would’ve seen the teeth smeared with blood. But, true to form, James Barnes didn’t wince. He hadn’t even seemed to acknowledge the blow as it landed. Just stared at you and, with eyes as hollow and deadened and faintly pleading as you’d ever seen them before, manifested their silent apology to yours—again.

“Bet he didn’t mean to hurt anyone as the Winter Soldier, either. Still couldn’t have felt too good for all the folks he butchered, though.” At that, Schröder’s sick amusement morphed into a laugh, and he was taking Bucky’s collar in his other hand. Shaking him lightly while he spoke.

“Couldn’t have felt all that great for your dad, I bet.”

The diversion turned to you, all toothy smiles and mocking eyes. He didn’t care. He let you stagger another step toward the two of them, even try to get your hands close to Bucky. But when you’d drawn too close, he stopped you cold. Not thinking much else in the moment, you made a move to push Schröder’s arm away, hard, and were shortly rewarded with a shove of your own. He knocked you sideways onto the bed, and you landed on the hand you’d hurt. Before you could let out so much as a sound yourself, Bucky’s voice tore in:

“Schröder.”

Schröder turned. He raised his Ruger to your husband’s head again, as casually as if he’d asked him for the time.

“Yes?”

“Don’t touch her.”

Schröder turned to you. Though he didn’t move the Ruger again, he did point his finger at your form, haplessly curled into itself amidst the covers and pillows.

“Why? Saving all the rough stuff for later, are we?”

You cowered as his free hand reached for you, and just as your husband’s eyes went wide and a vein nearly tore through his skin from how hard it protruded, you cried,

“What do you want?!”

Schröder stopped. He brought his hand to a halt just south of your thigh—and then he dropped his weight on the bed beside you. He gestured indistinctly, almost disbelievingly, toward Bucky. The latter appeared near-apoplectic, nails raking down either arm of the chair.

“What do I want?” Schröder quipped, incredulous, “What do you want, doll? To stay married to him?”

And you knew he’d intended the question to be hurtful; you knew it by the glint in his eye, the goading tone of voice and the look he’d flitted to Bucky—nondescript and yet saying a world more than words could ever convey. He knew what had gone on between you, had likely heard your last conversation in its entirety, and was now using it against you. Mostly to taunt, then to injure your husband with truths he hadn’t yet uncovered himself.

Schröder’s eyes were shining with sadistic delight as he took your hand in his. He didn’t waste another second.

“No, no, that isn’t what you want at all, is it?”

Ignoring the screech of Bucky’s restraints as he tried to lunge out of his chair. Hearing him curse when he failed.

“—you said you’re leaving him, right?”

Schröder slid the thin, glistening ring off the hand he’d been holding before you could even think to stop him.

“—said you want a divorce, is that it?”

Then his grin got so big and conceited and enlivened by the sight of pain working its way onto Bucky’s face that any good sense you’d had left inside you was abandoned in a blink. You didn’t hesitate, or else try and make a pass to retrieve your ring—you just hit the man in the face.

Your fist was small, and his chin was hard. You knew before you ever threw the punch that it’d probably hurt you more than him, but you did it anyway. It succeeded, at the very least, in catching Schröder by surprise and swiftly pissing him off. Seeing this and feeling a bit bolder, you were somehow able to dodge his hands when he lurched for you again. Inside, your own anger flared.

“Why the fuck do you care?” you spat.

You found momentary respite in the corner of the bed, sliding back against a wall that would only protect you for so long. As soon as Schröder regained his bearings, he had you back in his sights and his grasp just as quick.

He dragged you back. He pulled you up. He dug the tips of his fingers so hard into your side that you thought the flesh might tear in two across your ribs. But it didn’t. Crescent-like indentations did leave their mark in a grisly set of five, though. You felt the sting of it as Schröder loosened his grip, then sucked his next breath through his teeth as if calming himself. Your gaze only hardened.

“I care,” he said, once he’d completed this slow inhale. He replaced his touch by pinching your face in one hand and bringing it up to his, expression more like a snarl. Then, raising the gun to your face in his other hand, “because I made a deal with your father. Remember?”

You did. Your head jerked back by force of instinct, but he held it. From every direction, then, you had nothing to hear but the sound of your own pulse thrumming a fast, panicked tempo in your skull. You tasted blood in your mouth without a drop on your tongue. And, had that deafening fear and revulsion been anything less, you likely would’ve heard something else beneath it all.

Would’ve felt it, if you weren’t already so numb: Schröder’s hand sliding its way down your body, diamond ring still stuck to the tip of his index finger. You sensed it as though seeing yourself from another perspective—watching his hand trail lower, lower, lower until something in Bucky split in two and he bellowed:

“SCHRÖDER—”

He said something more after that; you were sure of it. You just couldn’t hear him, or see him, or discern much of anything else but your own racing heart as the man who’d just beat your husband twice and lifted a gun to your head proceeded to press his touch to your belly. Almost conscientious and gentle as he lowered it.

“Was this part of the deal, too, doll?”

Your eyes widened. Realizing—then feeling fear seize you completely. Forgetting the metal at your temple and shaking your head with a force, but slow enough that your husband wouldn’t see it. Meanwhile, across from you both, Bucky seemed more than sufficiently occupied by his own blinding rage—he spit a glob of blood to the floor and, with his teeth bared again, swore he’d kill him.

Over and over and over again, oaths of taking Schröder’s life and making it gruesome and painful and slow filled your ears, but none of it stuck, for either you or Schröder. Instead, your maniacal captor just smiled, leaning in.

“I said, was this part of the deal, Mrs. Barnes?”

The heel of his palm sank into your stomach, and as the shock of his first words began to fade, a pain replaced it. His hand made an impressive demonstration of flattening and forcing itself so hard against the skin that a flurry of stars cropped up in your eyes, and you cried:

“Stop! I-It wasn’t— just— just stop. Stop.”

“Stop? Was it part of the deal or not?”

Schröder bore down even harder.

“It just happened!” you keened. Unsure why you felt compelled to answer for what had gone on at all—addressing the baby in this awful, oblique way—though reckoning it had something to do with the pressure he was applying to your stomach. You tried to squirm back.

But your stuttering pulse and your pleading gaze and the ache in your stomach proved to be all too much for any real progress to be made. You’d scarcely moved off an inch before he drove his palm deeper, and with the agony of a body about to rupture beneath it, a shriek clawed out of your throat. Your mouth fell open, and for once, you couldn’t curtail the pain, or fear. Schröder’s hand had just forced the noise from your mouth, along with some mindless, broken pleas to stop pushing, it hurts, please, please, when the face above yours only brightened. Schröder’s cruel, snide mouth flashed a smile above you, and before you could whine again—

He kissed you.

It couldn’t have lasted for more than a second.

Still, the moment seemed to stretch indefinitely. And felt perverse. So deeply nauseating and unsettling to every last nerve, muscle, tendon, and bone in your body that the response it evoked could be nothing less than visceral. You didn’t need to think at all to shove him off. Whatever might’ve given you pause with a loaded gun to your head was forgotten in a second, and soon enough, you weren’t alone in letting your reproach be known.

It started off with a crack, then a harsh, crude splintering of wood. A violent rift, from what you could hear of it, and when you turned your head, your suspicions were confirmed: Bucky had snapped half the arm of his chair away from the seat, and his right hand was almost freed.

Whatever barrier he faced in being bound more than four times over with rope seemed immaterial to him now. He could strain as hard as he pleased—feel the coarse synthetic fibers dig into his flesh and leave streaks of red, if not break the skin itself—and any pain, as before, hardly appeared to register with your husband at all. He just muscled through it, thrusting his wrist even harder. The whole force of this movement rocked the chair on its legs, and just when you sensed it might collapse beneath his weight, you felt Schröder stand up. The man didn’t need to move too far or do much else other than drop his hold on you and flip his gun to point it at Bucky instead.

Even when he had, though, Bucky didn’t flinch. His hands were in fists and his drive was like a machine’s—he tried forcing his way out of the right hand’s restraints, and the second the wood gave way, he was shoving it off.

Blind to the firearm Schröder was holding, or his words:

“Stay where you are, Barnes.”

Bucky was just then shaking off the rope that had been loosened by the break in the wood, jaw still tight as ever.

“You’ve got three other limbs to free, my friend, just—”

Schröder was still speaking when you saw his finger slip to the trigger, and it seemed to you it was itching to pull.

“James, stop!”

That plea came from you. More of a strangled cry, really—no more pleasant for either man to hear than it was for your throat to shriek. It did, however, stop Bucky cold. Your husband paused just long enough to meet your gaze. And in it, you saw, at least, that he was all there, if not enraged. But not soldat, or anyone else but himself.

You sighed in relief, despite what seeing two red rivers seeping out of Bucky’s mouth might otherwise provoke.

It was him. You might’ve smiled if another hadn’t cut in.

Schröder seized Bucky’s wrist. With it, you saw his hand just as mangled and bloodied as his lips. Knuckles cracked, slit, and soon to be littered with bruises of every shade, he shocked you again by how calmly he took it. Even when Schröder sank a thumb inside a big, gaping crater of a flesh wound he’d found on the back of his hand, your husband didn’t blink; he just looked at you.

‘I’m sorry.’

When the barrel of the gun returned to his head—this time, at the rear, as Schröder had circled back around the half-broken chair and was leaning over him—you could see the apology lodged in his eyes on full display.

“For safekeeping.” The man wielding the gun seemed almost pleased as he dropped your ring inside the breast pocket of your husband’s shirt, before patting it gently:

“Now where were we?”

A beat. Bucky’s right hand twitched beside him, but evidently, he knew better than to move in that moment.

“Right, right—” Schröder pretended to be remembering, tapping steel to Bucky’s skull, “She’s leaving, isn’t she?”

More silence.

You wanted to speak, beg Schröder for mercy, anything.

“Do you know why that is, Bucky?”

But before you could utter even a word of protest, the voice pressed on. Schröder was leaning in his ear.

“—what you did to her?”

The baby. Brooklyn. All the bloodshed that had ensued last week, leaving your husband completely in the dark. Of course, he couldn’t remember. He hadn’t been himself, and was scarcely more able to control his actions as the Winter Soldier than he could in a dream.

To your horror, Schröder reached down for Bucky’s hand, and, still holding the gun to him with the other, lifted it.

Pointed it.

Pushed it closer to you.

“C’mon, Buck. You don’t want me touching her, right? Why don’t you feel for yourself what she’s been hiding?”

Your blood turned to ice. You’d never felt so immobile—paralyzed—in your life, but seeing the hands drift closer and closer and feeling defenseless to their course, your body went numb. Your limbs grew heavier than lead.

And when you felt the smug, smiling blond guide your husband’s touch toward your head, you understood it all.

You were perched at the edge of the bed a foot away. Schröder was nudging Bucky forward in his chair, urging him to reach out and tilt her chin a little, go on, that’s it. And neither one of you had a choice, so he touched you. His fingers, directed by someone else, were obliged to brush the skin of your chin, your jaw, your cheek, and your brow, before finally settling above your left temple.

Your husband felt the cut—touched the stitches.

You winced, but not from any physical pain. It was Bucky’s face as the tips of his fingers skimmed the wound. The look of chagrin that crossed his eyes. Then bewilderment. Fear, as plain as anyone could see it— was he the cause of that? Had the hurt been from him?

You couldn’t bear to answer him, so you looked away. It was Schröder, again, who had all the power to speak.

“Can’t remember pushing her down?” he said, tone dark, “Making her split her head open on the bedside table because soldat didn’t know his own strength—only that he had to keep her safe—and sensed a threat outside?”

Bucky shook his head. His face was grave.

Schröder kept making him prod the skin.

“It’s bruised here, too. You feel it?”

Your husband did, and you thought it might break him. So tender and forlorn were the eyes, raking over every spot where a touch, his touch, had left you hurt before.

If nothing else could bring you back to your senses, the wounded look in Bucky’s gaze was sure to get it done.

You hardly thought again, just croaked: ‘It’s not his fault.’

Schröder’s hand then descended your neck, your torso.

As if he hadn’t heard you at all—

“You already saw what happened to her hand.”

—and forcing Bucky’s touch lower still.

“But what about here?”

Your breath hitched in your throat when you felt your husband’s hand come to rest on your stomach.

It was like a fire had ignited in your lower half, and nothing close to the soft, pleasurable kind. Not the flutter felt in anticipation of a touch from your husband, not the desirous sort. In fact, you dreaded it now; seeing Schröder over his shoulder, urging him closer, making him flatten his big, broad, scorching palm over your belly.

What should’ve been the ecstatic scene you’d conjured in your mind at least a hundred times since marrying him—the picture of domestic bliss as you said it, smiling, I’m pregnant—was now nothing short of torture. Choice all but stripped from you here, forced to emerge inside this terrible place, you found yourself needing to shrink back, shake your head, look to Schröder’s stubborn, unyielding gaze and beg him not to make you do this now. Not now.

Not here, with Bucky’s skin a shade of glacial white and his eyes going wide, taking on a look you’d never seen.

“What do you—”

He stared hard at the hand on your belly, but it didn’t last for long. As if realization were trying to seep in, he couldn’t meet it. His eyes flitted back to your face.

“Baby, what’s—” he tried again, stammering.

“—right, that’s it, Mr. Barnes.” That was Schröder.

Satisfied in the suspense of the moment keeping your husband still, he lifted his hand from Bucky’s and snapped, that’s it, and clapped him over the shoulder.

Congratulating him before the truth had even sunk in.

“A baby, that’s right! You’re going to be a father, Buck.”

And how far was the look on Bucky’s face from the one you’d dreamed before. The lips you’d envisioned in a smile now twisting bleakly, parting slightly, and the eyes you’d once hoped to be bright and elated only staring back with rings of red enveloping the irises. Whatever tears formed at his waterline were decidedly not of joy.

Only guilt.

“You did it.”

Desperation.

More moisture in his eyes as his hand started to tremble across your stomach, voice hoarse and soft, “Is it true?”

You didn’t need to nod. You just watched him, let your own eyes fill with the worst, stinging tears you had felt in your life, and from the silence that followed, Bucky knew.

As if the life beneath his palm were something dear, but still too much for him to comprehend, he shook his head. He stroked his thumb over the cotton of your pyjamas and tried inching closer, as much as his restraints would allow him. Then, with words that were audibly strained, but always gentle, he lowered his voice—as if to keep the communication between you two, despite your position:

“I love you.”

His hand was still on your belly as he said it. He reached up to cup your face. Even lower than before, “I’m sorry.”

I’m sorry.

That much was evident from every look he’d given you tonight. Every move he made a de facto apology, all actions in the vein of atonement, it couldn’t possibly escape your mind or his that he knew he’d done wrong. It was only a matter of accepting this—maybe coming to terms with the fact that your life wasn’t safe in his hands—for the guilt plaguing Bucky to multiply. Paralyze him.

There was no better time for Schröder to strike. Just as the anguish had flooded Bucky’s face completely, and his hand had had to lower itself from want of strength, a sound split the air. Bucky was so lost in his thoughts that it didn’t even register at first, but the impact was real, and it was harsh: Schröder punched him squarely in the jaw. The next, swift snap was his nasal bone taking a blow, and breaking beneath it. Blood breezed down and into his mouth. Feeling warm, his lips and chin doused in a second, he sensed nothing else. He might’ve groaned.

He caught another swift right hook, and his mind went blank. Nothing of substance threatened to materialize between his ears, save for the rush of blood through and from his skull and the dim recognition of something ugly.

Something horrific.

He couldn’t protect you.

His body was as much an idle waste as it was a danger. Useless now, as he was tied to this chair, and a risk to your well-being even if he weren’t. The hazard was him.

Schröder hit him again, and Bucky realized that the ringing he’d heard in his ears was your screaming.

“I’m doing her a favor,” Schröder spat before shoving him back in the chair, almost knocking it sideways.

The blond advanced with ease. His knuckles were drenched in blood; none of it was his. When he reached for Bucky again, the resistance was slight, and a simple, firm grip on the collar was all that was needed to drag his frame to sit straight. Bucky was barely upright for a second before the next—and worst—blow struck his face. His whole head rang with it, reeling, but still, he could make out the words as they were spoken to him.

“She’ll never be safe with you, Barnes. Never—” and at the last, Schröder lowered his gun. Started to loosen the rope from Bucky’s left arm, “—I could free you now, and you still wouldn’t get within an inch of what you want.”

He nudged the rope away and let it fall to the floor. Bucky lifted his hand, but the effort was in vain. No sooner had a finger of his stirred than Schröder was delivering a kick to the chair and letting it splinter. Topple. Skitter a half-foot across the hardwood floor with Bucky’s ankles still bound to it, before finally, gracelessly, breaking apart.

Bucky was on the floor, blinking through a stream of blood and a sea of muddied thoughts when Schröder kicked the chair again. The rope slackened some more.

“Her own father knew as much, so he made me a deal to take her off of your hands. Settle his debts the way he should’ve done the first time around,” Schröder said, and now his tone was lower. Lethal as it ever was, and stern.

“I know how much you hate to lose your playthings, Buck, but this one’s better off with me, I promise.”

And, as if to emphasize his point, Schröder turned and reached for you. Bucky’s own hands were slow, fumbling in fits and bursts to get the rope unwound from his ankles, but they were determined. He just couldn’t get the bleeding to stop, the ringing to subside, or his brain, in its concussed state, to let him move with a little more agility. He’d been hit too many times. He could barely lift his head off his shoulders and hold it straight, so he was forced to stay where he was, keep at his task, and listen.

“You’re weak when you’re not soldat.”

Using his knuckles, Schröder brushed the blood that was evidently all Bucky’s across your cheek, and you flinched.

“When you make the switch, still…you’re inhuman.”

Then he tilted your head, making you show them both the mutilated, stitched-up flesh above your temple. Again, you tried to slink away, but his touch was firm.

“Don’t you think your bride deserves better than that? Your child? Forced to live in fear of that thing you are?”

Blood coursed down Bucky’s face, and his lips were curled apart in a grimace, mouth hanging slightly ajar. His eyes fixed their look on you. The rope was undone.

He’d just started to try and stand when the edge of his vision blurred. He felt the lacerations in his face pulse as one, and with it, half his sight went skewed to the left. Schröder couldn’t help but crack a smile seeing him stumble, pitch back, and barely catch himself on the bedside table. When he stood, he was mostly hunched.

“Look at you, Buck. You can’t try and save her like this,” Schröder taunted, drawing you closer, “So stop trying.”

The man’s hand was like ice holding your face. The grip grew tighter when he saw your husband limping your way, and before either one of you could move, the index of Schröder’s other hand had slid down to the trigger. He didn’t wait to give another warning before he did it—just pointed the gun and fired one shot over Bucky’s head.

His aim was good. The bullet missed your husband by less than an inch. The gun had gone off by your ear, and immediately, you seized the side of your head as a sharp, searing pain cropped up. Your skull was still ringing when you heard the thing discharge again, and you realized it had been aimed at Bucky’s neck. He’d ventured another step, and Schröder had fired a second round to graze the top of his shoulder. Crimson bloomed through his shirt.

Bucky should’ve stumbled again. He might’ve staggered back with a grunt of pain, lifted a quick, reflexive hand to feel the wound, but the sense of it all was slow to reach him. The moments that passed him were delayed just the same, as if the world around him were distorted—the fibers of time tugged and stretched before his eyes—and he could hardly keep himself straight. When he got another look down the barrel of the gun, he didn’t blink. Couldn’t see, really. It was all misshapen sights and sounds and a dim recognition that his mind was in a fog.

Somewhere from within that mist, he heard, faintly:

“I’ll go— I’ll go— I’ll go with you, I’ll go— just stop.”

Schröder turned to you, and the smile that he wore was cruel, but Bucky wasn’t able to make out the expression.

All he could see then, to the faintest extent, was you—your face, gripped hard in another man’s hand, eyes pleading and wet with tears, and a slightly slack jaw.

“Leave him for me?” Schröder repeated, sneering.

You nodded. Blinked. Rolled your tongue along the inside of your cheek before pulling it back and biting down once. There was a hint of a wince in your eyes, but, from what Bucky could tell, it vanished just as fast as it came.

Your lips parted again. Your eyes widened a little.

“So the girl has some fucking sense.” That was Schröder.

He’d had his weapon re-holstered and your face firmly seized in both of his hands in no more than a second.

What came next surprised no one, though the sensations of disgust and rage were as quick to turn a stomach as the shock would have done. Schröder bent down and, having pulled your face closer to his, kissed you again.

Schröder’s mouth was glistening with a grin and Bucky’s own blood—smeared all over your face from how hard he’d been holding you—when he looked up and turned.

“Sensible and sweet, isn’t she? Tastes like it, too.”

Bucky saw nothing but red. It wasn’t just blood crowding his vision now but violence and rancor and outright hatred, stirring his limbs to start moving again when the rest of his body was plainly too battered to venture an inch in that condition. He staggered again, watched you again, and had made it almost halfway across the room when another sight slowed him, if only for a moment.

Schröder’s lips were back on yours, as if to mock him, but what startled him, really, was the way you’d opened your mouth. You couldn’t mean it. Clearly. Schröder was gripping your jaw, forcing it open—it had to be—and he was coaxing your tongue out from inside and weaving it with his. Once more, time moved like molasses, and that was all your husband had had to see: you kissing him back, gripping his arm through the thick, black tactical gear, and still parting your lips more and more for him. Like you needed a touch, or something, worse than ever.

That stalled Bucky, though he was nowhere close to stopping now. Briefly preoccupied, and seemingly shocked as well that you’d accepted the kiss so eagerly this time, Schröder didn’t see the approach. If he had, he likely would’ve turned and made a move for his Ruger, but as it was, he had only to blink—and there was Bucky.

He hit him with a force that was blinding, directly to the side of his head so hard that he’d had no choice but to separate from you. Schröder was stunned one second and on the floor in the next. Bucky threw him there, kicked him down, and, wavering for only a moment to cock back the shoulder that’d been shot, he ignored the pain and punched the man again. And again. And again.

There was a callousness, an indolence, and an ease with which he was able to inflict the pain, that much was evident. What didn’t seem so natural, at least in Bucky’s mind, was the weight that was in his hands: Schröder’s body felt limp before he’d even landed the second blow.

The pressure grew heavier and heavier in his hands the harder, and more frequently, he delivered each hit, but for now, he didn’t care. Bucky kept on punching until the face beneath him was gnarled and bloody, and his own fist, too, slashed every which way with more cuts than he was able to count. He would’ve kept going—could’ve ignored the stabbing pain in his shoulder for as long as it would take to ensure the man was dead—but as it was, he refused to ignore the voice he heard. It was yours.

Muffled now, as your body was bent to the side and your head drooped lower still. Your voice was soft but clear:

“Bucky, please, stop.”

He did.

He dropped the man’s collar from his hands as soon as he’d heard you say it, and he turned away as if nothing had transpired behind him at all. His focus was on you.

“Baby—”

To his surprise, he watched you spit on the floor.

Your face was grim and almost sick, and you spit again.

The look grew even worse, and afterward, you didn’t waste a second more; you stood and left the room.

Bucky was stunned at first, and his instinct had been to follow. Then he heard a rattling sound beside him. He glanced down and paled, seeing Schröder there.

His face had turned blue much sooner than Bucky had expected—and not from any bruising but a lack of oxygen in his lungs. He was choking, foaming slightly at the mouth while he gasped for air. Surely, it hadn’t been the hits that caused it. The whites of Schröder’s eyes were as conspicuous as he’d ever seen them. Desperate.

Bucky swiftly got the sense that the life of his former captor was lost, and frankly, he didn’t care enough to watch him die. He left what remained of Schröder’s form to continue writhing on the floor, choking and sputtering for a breath that would never come, and went after you.

Downstairs, he found you hunched over the kitchen sink—spitting, retching, and trembling, too, but breathing.

You let the water from the faucet fill your mouth, and you rinsed again. You winced as something stuck your cheek.

Bucky drew closer, quickly, and when he was right by your side, he saw you spit a shard of glass into the sink. He looked over to the counter, and he spotted three more

They were minuscule, really. Nothing quite the size to leave a wound too deep, but sharp enough to cut your lips, your tongue, or the insides of your cheeks. When Bucky leaned in, he saw droplets of red joining the flow of the water beneath it. You coughed over and over again

“Don’t,” you croaked, seeing Bucky reach for the glass.

Before he could reply: “It’s the poison. From Madripoor.”

Your husband’s blood went cold in his veins. He didn’t touch the glass, but he did press closer to you, feeling his insides churn as the cogs started to turn in his head.

The vial of poison you’d been given to slip in Schröder’s drink at the Foxy Den—how the hell had you gotten it back? Why would you think you needed it, if he— but no, that couldn’t be the case. There wasn’t a shot you just—

“—put it in your mouth?” Bucky couldn’t curb the fear in his voice. He reached for you and spun you to face him.

“Did it kill him?”

Your eyes were wide for entirely different reasons. Bucky couldn’t believe what he was seeing; his mouth was dry.

“I didn’t want to kiss him,” you went on, voice shaking a little, “I didn’t— I just— I couldn’t get him the poison any other way. I knew he’d kiss me again, and when he did—”

“I know,” Bucky said. He smoothed the hair from your face, shaking his head. Feeling his stomach clench with fear and dread as he hurried to get a look in your mouth.

You’d snuck the vial inside your cheek, then crushed it between your teeth before Schröder had kissed you. You’d all but forced him to swallow the poison, shoving your tongue down his throat, but what of the stuff that remained? The rough, trembling fingers of Bucky’s hand were trying to pry your lips apart as gently as they could, ensure all the serum was out, but at present, you wouldn’t let him. You pushed back gently, though not too far to prevent your own touch from roaming his shoulder.

“The bullet—” you started.

“Barely nicked me,” Bucky cut in, “Baby, I need to see—”

That you’re safe. That you won’t be hurt in any way. He couldn’t finish the thought himself, having seen what the poison did to Schröder. Instead, he just held you closer and fought the lump that was starting to form in his throat. Adrenaline had worked well enough to clear his mind of the haze, but the rest of him was all high-strung.

Your clothes clung to you both, wet with blood and sweat. Your breaths were fast. Your expressions were feral, eyes no calmer as they scanned over the other’s form and soaked in every trace of what had happened. Bucky in his formalwear and you in something close to a chemise—like your honeymoon night all over again—you each got a glimpse of the gore ornamenting yourselves and let the room fall quiet, if only for a minute or two.

Your husband was the one to break the silence, at length, with cracked and grisly hands sliding down to your hips.

“You’re okay?”

His touch shifted you back in place to sit on the counter.

“I’m alright.”

You wanted to say more; assure him, in a voice as sedate as you could manage, that this wasn’t his fault. Whether he would believe a word of what you said was a separate question, but, at any rate, it didn’t matter. The next thing you knew, Bucky was slotting himself in the space between your legs and pulling you into his arms.

In spite of himself and all the wounds, he held you tight.

“You’re alright,” he repeated.

His face sank into the crook of your neck, and you felt his muscles contract again—pulling you closer—as he drew a shaky breath against your skin. You hugged him back.

“Are you?” Your voice was small.

In a blink, Bucky resurfaced. He lifted his head from your neck and, still holding you, hadn’t seemed to have heard.

“The baby,” he said quickly.

He stepped back. Lowered his gaze and his hands to trail over your hips and near your stomach, and he stared, as if trying to make sense of something dire. His blue eyes were wide, and they assumed such a look of panic that you feared a blood vessel might actually burst in one.

After all the great lengths he’d gone to, ensuring you were safe and taking extra precautions, on the off-chance you might be pregnant, here you were.

And there he went, sliding his touch lower and lower again until his hand was pressed into your belly, and the gaze you’d once thought soft before had all but melted into tenderness—delicacy. Complete, loving unreserve.

When his eyes met yours a second time, they were shiny.

Wet with the only kind of tears you’d want to see in them.

“You’re really…” he started, just to taper off, blinking.

And then his cheeks were dotted with the tiny, round droplets, and he’d finally ventured a smile for the first time in what seemed like ages and you couldn’t keep from reaching for him. The second you’d lifted your arms you were back in his, lips and nose smushed against the front of his stained white button-up and breathing deep.

Or trying to, anyway. Bucky had you squeezed so tight to his chest you had nothing but his shirt to inhale at first. You didn’t mind, and when he pulled away a moment later, you realized that your eyes, too, were filling up quick. You had to steel yourself against a maelstrom of emotions that threatened to emerge—the aftermath of a half-dozen traumas laid bare over the last hour—but the longer you were here, and the more your husband stared at you like that, the quicker your courage was depleted. In the span of five seconds, your senses were shot to hell. All you could think was what you could feel, and all you felt was Bucky: his arms and his hands and the raw, blistering heat between your bodies. The rest was noise.

It surprised you both when you kissed him. Physically, your mouth and his were hardly up to do it, injured as they were, but the impulse was strong, and it flowed between you. As soon as your lips latched onto his, Bucky was holding your face, molding his body to yours without so much as a second thought, and the mouth you met was sturdy. Hungry in the way it kissed back.

A string of words from Schröder flashed in your mind—‘Never be safe’—and you grit your teeth together, snagging the cusp of Bucky’s lower lip as you did it. He groaned. Before you could even try to apologize, though, he was gripping your face harder in his hands and coaxing your mouth open with his tongue. His front was still flush with yours, and your legs were starting to wind around his hips. Your husband nudged you back against the cabinets, and from the force of that push, you felt it.

Felt him.

Surely, it had had to take two very fucked up individuals to get all hot and bothered from a bloodbath that had just taken place; but, again, here you were—together.

And there you went, grinding your lower half with his.

“Doll?” Bucky broke out, word slurred just a little.

For a second, you thought he was going to stop you. Your eyes scanned his, and you were already planning to apologize for being so horny, it must just be the—

“You know I love you, right?” he breathed.

You blinked. You were about to nod, when you felt the bulge in his slacks start to rub against your barely-clothed heat, and something akin to a shockwave coursed through your frame. It couldn’t be helped. A monsoon of hyper-sensitized pleasure trembled over the skin in a way you’d never felt it before, and suddenly you were letting out a moan: a muffled cry of, ‘Yes, I-I know.’

Your husband swallowed and stared, slightly taken aback by the reaction his erection had produced. He’d never felt that either. At least from what he could remember.

The truth was that he’d never had a pregnant wife before—someone whose body was now extraordinarily responsive to his touch, nearly aching for him.

When you scooted your butt to the edge of the counter and dug your heels in the backs of his legs, humping him, almost, he got the idea. Bucky swallowed again.

“I love you too, I— I—” you started, already out of breath, “I just really need you to fuck me. Can you— please—”

Bucky didn’t need to be asked once, much less twice. He already had his belt, button, and zip undone before you could even look down, and then your own pyjama shorts were sliding off too. The counter was cool against your skin, but your husband’s warmth was more than enough to compensate for the loss. You smiled again, sheepish.

“It’s just…hormones,” you said, quieter toward the end.

You weren’t sure why you felt so ashamed to simply say, ‘James, I’ve been damn near insane with desire ever since you put a baby in me. Can you give me five more?’ But you did. You felt your cheeks start to heat as your lower half was left exposed to the air, and Bucky slipped his hand down between your legs, practically groaning:

“Honey, you’re soaked.”

There wasn’t one iota of shame in his tone.

He was more than happy to find you drenched beneath his touch. He had a smile on his face and a warmth bleeding from every fingertip as he caressed that soft, tender spot. You didn’t need to tell him what was on your mind, either. He sensed something was making you shy, and rather than have you say it aloud, he just touched you gentler, stroked the skin more affectionately, and tilted his head so only you could hear him, quiet as ever:

“That’s my girl. Feeling good for me?”

You felt your heartbeat between your thighs.

“My baby,” Bucky went on, voice dulcet and slow.

Your body was trembling at the edge, waiting. Impatient.

“My wife,” he said that with a smile, into your neck.

He lowered you onto his length, and you whined.

“Mother of my child.” The smile got bigger.

You couldn’t see it, but you could feel it. Feeling him slide inside the most precious, wet, pliable part of you, stretching you out, you couldn’t help the sounds you made. You felt full in a whole new way; the groan Bucky let out when you were impaled down to the base of his cock said he shared the feeling. He throbbed inside you.

“You’re—fuck.” Bucky’s words broke off at the sensation.

Your walls were as slick as ever, your body delicate, rolling your hips to the first gentle thrusts that his shaft carved inside. Neither one of you could last long like this.

Still, at the threat of sublime pleasure, you felt fear, briefly: Schröder’s implacable stare—and the thousands more like him in HYDRA. You couldn’t help but grip Bucky tighter, willing these thoughts away with the rhythm of your body over his. Feeling him fill you up, fuck you with quick, deliberate thrusts and hold you, ‘That’s it, take what you need, sweet girl, you’re okay.’

You wished you were. You wanted to be. With every stab of Bucky’s hips, you hoped this would be the last night you ever feared for you or your child’s life, but deep down, you knew that wasn’t true. This was everything your husband’s varied ‘enterprises’ entailed, and a life with him meant never knowing a day without it—fear.

The head of Bucky’s cock grazed an especially sensitive ridge in your walls, and you whimpered into his shoulder.

You smelled blood.

He pushed you back against the counter and pounded harder, breaths heavy and labored and gruff as he spoke:

“You’re okay, baby, it’s alright.”

Your mind tried clinging to that thought, nodding along as if to convince yourself. The pleasure grew stronger, and your body was hot. Everything was heightened. Bucky couldn’t keep his eyes or his lips or his rough, bloodied touch from roaming you wherever he could reach, and he kept rutting his hips, assuring you gently, again and again, that it was all okay. He was right here.

The pleasure from the depths of your body was beyond your control—you couldn’t help it when the band inside of you snapped. You held Bucky closer and you moaned, more desperate and needy and soaking for him, taking something from him, and knowing the bliss you felt would only steal the dark thoughts for a moment or two.

Bucky’s eyes said it just the same. He couldn’t keep stuffing you full, feeling his pleasure hit its peak, and finally painting your insides without sharing that look.

You were less than halfway down from your highs when you felt him go still, panting fast, then hold your face.

“I love you.”

It was desperate. Hoping for something.

“I love you, too,” you told him, and you meant it.

But there was more. Both of you knew there was more.

“I can’t be married to you, Bucky.”

You didn’t know why it had to come out now, but the emotions were there—his gaze had all but drawn it out.

Still sheathed inside you, your husband tensed. He looked as if he might try and shake his head, but the movement was stalled by his own momentary shock. He’d known the words were coming, but the sound of you saying them now wasn’t any less jarring to hear. Before he could reply, you found yourself cutting back in:

“Not now, at least. We need some…time. To think.”

You weren’t sure what you were saying, just that your lips were moving and every new word was hurting him more.

“Even with Schröder gone, there are so many…dangers for both—or, all—of us, and I don’t know…I just can’t—”

—imagine bringing a child into a world like this. Like his.

You didn’t need to say it.

The pain in Bucky’s eyes already communicated as much, and the conviction in your own only convinced him that you’d meant it—and what you said was the truth. You couldn’t stay in a marriage that wasn’t safe.

Just as you opened your mouth to say something more, the man surprised you when he squeezed your hand.

Nodding, almost imperceptibly, in front of you.

“I can wait,” he said, “Whenever you’re ready, doll.”

His voice was hoarse, words strained from the lump in his throat as he spoke, but the message was sincere.

“Whenever you feel safe,” he added, softly.

You wanted to hold him again. Like before, your eyes began to well with something stinging and harsh, but the look you’d fixed on him was filled with nothing but love. You would’ve reached for him then, if he hadn’t moved his hand to his pocket. He felt around inside it, briefly.

Then Bucky retrieved your wedding ring.

Holding you up against him, pressed snugly into the counter with your legs still wrapped around his lower half, he pinched the silver band between his forefinger and thumb and held it up to you. It glistened in the light.

“The next time you wear it, I want it to be because you chose to marry me. Not for anything, or anyone, else.”

Nothing arranged, no game, no being forced to stay.

You nodded and had to blink through a layer of tears.

Bucky’s thumb traced the moisture, cupping your cheek in one of his hands. He’d had to keep blinking himself, and before you could reach for him, he kissed you.

“I really hope you marry me again one day, Mrs. Barnes.”

You smiled, having parted but still holding on.

“I think I would like that, too. One day.”

The next thing you heard was a sound at the front door: what sounded like a crash. Half a dozen sets of feet stumbling inside, crowding the foyer, making a loud, frantic clamor that you and Bucky knew only too well. The two of you scrambled to get your clothes back on as Steve, Nat, Sam, and Sharon all seemed to yell at once.

You had one hell of a story to tell them.

Taglist: @vicmc624 @she-could-never @mcira @kentokaze @ordelixx @stinkerbelle007 @wilsons-striped-ties @pono-pura-vida @geminiflanagansblog @buggy14 @sky-full-0f-fl0wers @buckysdoll1520 @armystay89 @kunakizen @ghostiebby06 @blackhawkfanatic @sushiseoks @deansapplepie @mrsjoequinn @lunaroserites @first-edition @jaggedsi @excusememrbarnes @mostlymarvelgirl @yujyujj @mrs-bucky-barnes-73 @athenabarnes @christinabae @wintrsoldrluvr @bethbunnyy @i-heart-smut @5thgoddess @oogaboogabeepboop @sky-full-0f-fl0wers @buckysdoll1520 @armystay89 @mimimarvelingmarvel @counteveresttt @thepetitemandalorian @diannana @aagn360 @aka-tua-braindump @shortnloud @dahliawolfe @fantasyfootballchampion @lilyevanstan1325 @kandis-mom @ladyvenera @gyokujyn @bigtreefest @winterschildren8 @mega-kittyglitter-1

[c0llisiion]

NEED TO KNOW — j.jk

★Pairing: jeon jungkook + f!reader

★genre: smut

★: older!jk, dads bestfriend!jk , oral (giving and receiving ) , unprotected sex , reader has a crush on jk, bachelor!jk, big dick jk, size kink kinda, hair pulling, gagging, slapping, pervert jk , dry humping , anal play , degradation, name calling, nicknames - lmk if i missed any!

★W/C: 4,395

A/N: remember that time I mentioned a jk fic that i was writing? This is that fic. Literally put this on hold for 2 months and finished writing it last night 😭 anyways enjoy!!

.02 <3

☆⋆｡𖦹°‧★ MDNI. Please refrain from reading if the topics make you uncomfortable. ☆⋆｡𖦹°‧★

“But i dont wannnnaaaaa goooooo!..” you whined as you declined your dad’s offer to go to his big company party. “Sweetheart this is a huge deal for me …” your dad countered. “… more over, mr.jeon is going to be there ..!” Your ears perked up at the mention of Mr. Jeon. The tall, tatted bachelor with his piercings and built body, who has been your dad’s best friend since his college days.

Since you were a teenager, you have had the biggest crush on him. He was perfect in every way. He was older. More wiser. Handsome. Just your type. The initial infatuation was small, but as you grew into your adult years, it grew stronger.

You were starting to dream about him. Not even the usual kind. Wet dreams.

He grew older like fine wine. Body covered in beautiful art. Built like an actual Greek god.

Surprisingly, he was not yet married, even though he was well off in his late 40s. He used to say 'no woman has ever caught my attention' when someone mentioned him still being single at his age—from what you've heard.

Your dad and him, being business partners, frequently bring him to your home. Always hanging out at the bar or in your dad’s study. You capitalized on these small visits and began attempting to attract his attention. Whenever he came over, you started hanging out at the bar. Offering to make him special drinks. Talking about his interests , which you found out through intense stalking just to impress him. wearing revealing clothes, buying him his favorite food and snacks whenever you visit his office to pick up something for your father. You got very close to him. Your obsession with him became stronger because he seemed so nonchalant about your little tactics. The worst thing you have ever done was hire someone to break off one of his relationships. Only you were meant for him. No one else.

Hearing your father say that he would be there was another opportunity to impress him. You shot up. “WHY DIDN’T YOU SAY THIS BEFORE???” You say as you rummage into your closet for the perfect dress. Your father believed that your attraction to Jungkook was innocent and similar to that of a child. You had always said you hated the smell of alcohol, so he thought it was strange for you to start hanging out at the bar. Despite noticing many changes, he dismissed them as 'innocence', so he expected you to join him if he mentioned Jungkook. He left your room with a satisfied smile on his lips. You finally found the dress. A satin spaghetti strap dress in black, his favorite color, with a dangerously low open back. The dress was revealing when you put it on; the side of your boob was peeking out, but it hugged your curves perfectly. As the time got closer, you finished up spraying on your most expensive perfume, taking a final look at yourself before leaving.

The party was classy. A huge venue with what appeared to be millions of waiters with champagne. Upon entering the venue with your family, your eyes immediately searched for Jungkook. It wasn't long before you spotted him in the middle of a small group. He seemed to notice your family and hurried towards all of you without delay. As he got closer, your heart was beating fast. “Hey hey! My man!” He said taking your dad into a tight hug. “You could have come a bit more later!” He said sarcastically, taking a jab at your dad’s late-coming habit. “Don't blame me! This one took too long!” Your dad exclaimed, hugging you by your side. Jungkook’s eyes landed on you. He stared you down. Taking in each and every curve, his eyes eventually landed on your chest before he looked at your face and smiled. “So glad you came! You look gorgeous tonight.” He said, taking in your hand and kissing the back of your palm slowly, in a sensual way, while deeply staring into your eyes. He pulled away and rubbed the skin with his thumb before giving you a smirk. You felt your insides melt and your brain malfunction at his simple gesture. You were frozen in place and didn’t know what to do. You shyly backed away and looked down , trying to hide your wide smile with your bangs, which Jungkook took notes on.

Time flew by as you watched Jungkook speak in front of the huge crowd with charisma and confidence. One of his best traits. He always caught everyone’s attention with his choice of words and tone. It was embarrassing for you to admit that, but it turned you on. Your legs were crossed, rubbing your thighs together from time to time, and no one seemed to notice, except for Jungkook, of course. He eyed you every time you made a small movement.

All the speeches and boring talks concluded, which made you run out onto the balcony for some fresh air. You stared off into the distance, thinking about what Jungkook had done to you earlier. Was it platonic? Was he just being nice? Does he have feeli- “did all those old men bore you out?” Jungkook was behind you. His voice husky. His lip and eyebrow piercing, shining under the moonlight. You were caught off guard and turned around to see ‘your man', “mr.jeon! Ugh you scared me!” You said dramatically, placing a hand on your chest. He gets closer with a charming smile on his face and hands in his pockets. “My apologies. I didn't mean to scare you!” He let out a soft chuckle. “How is your night going?” He asked you. “Hm? Oh good i guess, it’s kinda boring, but i would do anything for my father..” He chuckled and gave you a side eye. “For your father? Really?” it seemed like he knew the real reason why you were here in the first place. “Wdym really? I love my dad!” You said in a playful, offended tone.  He chuckled once again. “Fine fine! I know how much you adore him.” You sighed softly and smiled.

“I like that dress on you. It suits you a lot.”  He said while eyeing you. You blushed at his compliment, looking down and fiddling with your acrylic nails. “Thank you..” you mumbled under your breath. You feel him getting closer to you. “Sorry? I didn’t hear you,  sweetheart.” His hands were on your hips, squeezing them softly. You froze in place. Heart beating faster. Your legs threatening to fall. His hands creeped towards your ass. Groping it softly, not wanting to seem too pushy. “Mr.jeon…-“ you let out a shaky whimper at his touch. “It’s jungkook for you, doll.” He said leaning in closer to your ears. He took a huge sniff of your neck and hair. “Thierry mugler alien eau de parfum? You have good taste.” He said while softly chuckling in your ears before pulling away. He lifted your chin so you can look at him. Your eyebrows were slightly furrowed as you stared into his intoxicating eyes. “What did you want to say earlier?” You gulped before speaking up. “Thank you… jungkook.” He smiled at you before placing a kiss on your forehead. His hands went under your ears, caressing the soft skin gently. Your eyes widened, and you just stood there. “I’ll see you around okay?” He said smiling before he left. You were standing put, like a statue, your limbs refusing to move. 

A few days went by, and you were still processing whatever happened with jungkook that night. His kiss. The way his hands caressed your body. His little nicknames. It was just too much to process. You didn’t see or hear much from jungkook since that day. There were small interactions, but he seemed to ignore you each time. You were starting to get worried. What happened? What did you do wrong? Did you fuck up? Does he hate you?. You never stopped overthinking.

One morning, you heard the familiar voice of Jungkook from the kitchen, laughing and giggling with your father. You quickly put on your clothes and dolled up, still hoping to impress him, before you went downstairs. “Ah! She’s finally awake! We were just talking about you!” Your father exclaimed. You observed jungkook as he sat on the kitchen island and ate what appeared to be lucky charms. His favorite cereal. He glanced at you briefly before turning away. You felt your heart shatter. After all that he did? Is this the way he treats you? . You walked past him and got yourself a glass of orange juice. “Did you sleepwell princess?” Your father inquired. Jungkook was still not looking at you. His gaze was fixed on the newspaper in front of him. “Yeah yeah i did.” You said putting on a fake smile. “Oh!” Your father exclaimed as he heard his phone ring. “Excuse me.” He said before rushing out of the kitchen.

You glared at jungkook and gulped down your orange juice before dropping the glass onto the table. Jungkook noticed your action, which made him put his newspaper aside and walk towards you. “What’s wrong?” He inquired, leaning onto the island. “Hmph!” You huffed, turning around. He let out a low chuckle, shaking his head. “Come onnn! Tell me.” He said while hugging your waist from the back. You let out a heavy sigh before turning back around. “What did I do wrong? Why do you keep doing this to me?” You asked. “Doing what?” “Are you seriously going to act like you don’t know?” You said folding your arms. Jungkook had a confused look on his face. “You are ignoring me damn it!” “Ohhhhh! About that! I just didn’t have anything to say.” He said shrugging. You rolled your eyes at him. “Admit it, Jungkook, you just want to play with my feelings. You don’t care about me. You never did.” You let it all out. It was weird for you to act like this, but you couldn’t help yourself. Jungkooks eyes darkened, and he stared at you. You gulp.  “You think I don’t care about you? Me? Not caring about you? You think i come to your house almost every other day for your father?” He said while pushing you down onto the island. He turned you around and hugged you close to his body; you could feel his clothed hard dick on your pussy. You shudder when he slowly grinds his hips into your behind. “Ya feel that doll? Thats how you got me everyday..” he said whispering into your ears. His free hand found your right tit before he gave it a squeeze. Tugging the thin white fabric of your crop top down to expose your hardened nipple. You hear him darkly chuckle in your ear before giving the sensitive bud a squeeze. His hips never seemed to stop as he continued dry-humping you. You felt yourself involuntarily lowering yourself on the island, pushing your ass back into him for more stimulation. He immediately pulls away, leaving you weak and clenching around absolutely nothing. You whined, turning around to face him with pleading eyes. “What?” He scoffed at how desperate you were. He got closer and fixed your shirt. He didn’t say anything and just rubbed your shoulders down before walking away. 

A while later, you were napping in your bedroom. It was not uncommon for you to take naps in between the day since you were basically unemployed and didn’t have much to do, and you also needed one after what happened with jungkook.

All the blinds were shut, leaving the room completely dark. It was silent; the only sound that was heard was the faint noise of the air conditioner. You were in deep sleep and didn’t notice or hear Jungkook entering your room. You felt the bed sink next to you before you felt a cold hand on your hip. His hands, kneading the soft flesh of your ass before it grazed around your desperate cunt. You whine when you feel his fingers touch and draw circles on your sensitive part. “Shh..” he shushed you before pressing onto your pussy. He chuckles at how quickly you got wet. Your mouth was agape, soft grunts escaping every second. He slowly pushed you onto your stomach, climbing on top of you before pulling your pink panties to the side.

It was dark, and he couldn’t see much, but he could feel how soaked you were. He spread your cheeks and lowered his mouth down onto your cunt, sucking on it. Your eyes shot open, heavy breathing as you turned around to see the man of your dreams eat you out from behind. “Ju-jungkook..?” He shut you up by lapping his tongue over your dripping cunt. You let out a loud moan, your head falling sideways, already drooling even though he barely started. He lifted your ass up using his strong hands, making you arch your back. He dropped his head lower and started sucking on your clit, his big nose pressing into your soaking pussy. You grabbed a handful of his hair from behind and pushed him closer. He hummed into your pussy, making you gasp for air. Loud slurping and squelching sounds, along with his groans and your moans, echoed throughout the room. You were seeing stars. The way his mouth ate you out and the feeling of his cold lip ring on your pussy were beyond comprehensible. Your heart started beating faster as you felt your body warm up, and a knot formed in your abdomen. Jungkook took notes on your body language and pulled away. You cried out when you lost contact.

He leaned in and switched on one of your bed lights, finally giving the room some light. He observed your body. Your ass was still up, your pussy glistening with his spit and your arousal. It was clenching and unclenching around nothing. He let out a scoff before turning you around. Your face already looked fucked out. Tears painted your cheeks, and drool was all over your mouth. He hovered over you, placing a hand on the headboard. He used his other hand to wipe your face clean. “We have gotten ourselves a good hour; better make this quick, alright?” You nodded softly and wrapped your hands around his neck, pulling him into a soft and tender kiss. He kissed you back and hugged you closely to his body. His hands went under your tee, squeezing your tit. You whined into the kiss. “You are so sensitive, sweetheart…” he mumbled. You break off the kiss and cup his face. “Jungkook… want more..” He tilted his head to the side and stared at you. He put on a smirk before standing at the foot of the bed.

He took off his pullover, revealing his tatted arms and toned abs and pecs. The soft bed light that was illuminating the room was able to capture every detail of his body. You stare. Hand in between your legs, squeezed shut. You bit your lip softly before your eyes met his. He gestured for you to come closer, which made you crawl to him. Your face was now right in front of his hard dick. You could see the bulge growing. His hand went behind your head, grasping your hair gently. You looked up at him with your doe eyes, which instantly made him fold, but he kept his composure. He gave you a nod, pushing your head closer to his crotch. Your nose nudged the bulge before your greedy fingers hastily unzipped his pants. Your eyes widened when his cock sprung out and hit his stomach. He was big. Girthy. The tip was red, and you could see his precum peaking from the slit. Without wasting time, you took a stripe from the base of his dick until the tip before you sucked on it. He hissed at the feeling of your plump lips sucking on his sensitive tip. He was starting to get impatient and pushed your head down, filling your mouth even though he was only half way in. You looked at him with teary eyes as you choked around his girth. He almost lost it when you looked up at him with those eyes of yours. His other hand caressed your cheek, pushing himself further down your throat. You could feel him. Your jaws were hurting, and you grabbed onto his hips for stability. Your throat spasmed around his cock. He noticed how you were kinda struggling. “Better make me feel good, okay? I want that throat to show me what it got.” With that, he started thrusting into your mouth. You started choking and gagging around his length, which just turned him on even more.

He yanked your head off of his cock. A string of pre cum and saliva connected your lips and his cock head. You looked up at him and whined, wanting his dick to stuff your mouth again. He bent down to your level before licking your chin clean, swallowing the mixture before speaking to you. “On your knees and hands, baby girl." You obliged immediately, taking off your flimsy tee before throwing your ass in the air and arching your back for him. You felt the bed dip behind you, and jungkooks long dick landed on your ass, slowly grinding through the sheer panties.His wet cock making it translucent. You whimpered, already feeling yourself getting hotter. “You are such a dumbslut.” He lowly chuckled.

“You think it wasn’t obvious?” He removed your skirt and ripped your panties. You gasp at his sudden action. “All these skimpy skirts and tops.. and just when I'm around? Were you that desperate, princess ?” He said while pushing his cockhead into your sopping hole.

You let out a loud moan; his tip was enough to stretch you out. “Not gonna lie… i was very flattered” gripping your ass cheeks as he slowly pushed further, letting you adjust to his size. He continued. “I only kept my cool because you were my best friend's daughter, but—holy shit-“ he gets cut off as you clench around his length, tears already dripping down your face. Your mind fogging up. You were constantly letting out soft moans and whimpers as he slowly bottomed down into you. “Woah there-“ he chuckled. “im not even half way in sweetheart” he said while grabbing a handful of your hair and pulling your head back. You looked at him with teary eyes. Lips quivering. He smirked before kissing your cheek. He let go of your hair and pushed your head down into the pillow using his hand. The other hand was on your hip as he finally pushed all the way in. “Since you are begging for it— ” you let out a loud scream as he filled you to the brim.

Although it was painful, the pleasure made you forget about the pain. you felt warm spit fall on your pussy as he starts moving. “Gon’ fuck you silly, alright? Isn’t that what you wanted? Getting dicked down by your father's friend? What a whore…” You nodded incoherently. A loud cry left your lips as his hips thrust into you harshly. His pace was slow, but the way he thrust in was so... Your body was moving forward with every thrust. Sounds of wet skin slapping echoed through your room. You were not able to focus on anything. His pace increased, and so did the harshness of his thrust. You clenched around him, making him fall forward. He caged your tiny body under his larger one. “Fuck babygirl.. you are gonna rip my dick off..” he chuckled. “Jungk-kook… feels too good…” you managed to blabber out as he fucked into you like a madman. “Yeah? you like that? You liked getting fucked by older men, dont you sweatheart?” You whined as his large hands gripped your hair.

This was wrong. Very wrong. This man has seen you grow up. He has been there since you were a baby.

“Let me hear those pretty sounds…” he said while landing a tight slap on your ass, reddening the area almost immediately. You gasped and whimpered, letting out a loud pornographic moan as Jungkook hit a specific spot. His other hand found your swollen clit and started drawing rough circles on it. Pinching and tugging the abused nub. Your legs trembled, and your moans got louder. “F-fuck! Jungkook…don’t s-stop! Feels so good!” You babbled. Jungkooks eyes were focused on your pussy. The way you took in his length. Your milky white cream coated his entire length, collecting at the base of his cock.

He stopped thrusting in you for a moment. You whined as you felt him suddenly stop. Jungkook smirked before leaning over and whispering in your ears. “Fuck yourself on me, doll.” You cried in defeat. Jungkook placed his hands on his hips, waiting for you to start moving. You gulped before slowly rocking your body forward and backward. You could feel his every inch penetrating the insides of your gummy walls. His large tip hitting your cervix over and over again. “Thats all you can do? Wow.. so pathetic..” he scoffed. You shook your head furiously and started going faster. Jungkook let out a satisfied groan as he watched your ass ripple. “Play with that little clit of yours.” He commanded. You reached down in between your legs, finding the sensitive nub almost immediately. You slowly rubbed your clit, sending shivers down your spine. You moaned out as the stimulation of your pussy and clit was getting overwhelming. You fucked yourself faster on his cock. Mouth in a soft ‘o’ shape and eyes crossed as his cock hit your gspot every time you moved in and out. Jungkook was in a different world. His eyebrows were furrowed, and sweat dripped down his neck. He was close to cumming just by seeing you fuck yourself on him.

His hands spread your ass cheeks, before a glob of spit landed on your asshole. You shuddered and panicked, stopping for a moment. “J-jungko-?” “Just focus on fucking yourself; everything is going to be alright…” he reassured you. You nodded before going back. His long fingers toyed with your rim. You grunt when you feel his fingers prod into your asshole. “Shh- shh.. youre safe .. jus’ wan’ try something new..” You gulped and shut your eyes tightly as his fingers ventured further into your asshole. He shoved three of his fingers into you, making you moan out loud. “Fuckkkkk- so tight…” he whispered. You melt and crumble when you feel his fingers move inside of you. You buried your head in your pillow, muffling out any unholy noise.

Your pussy and asshole clenched around his fingers and dick, making him groan. “So damn sensitive… has any guy fucked you, this good princess?” You shake your head. “N-no sir …” Jungkook shot up at the name. His fingers increasing in speed. You let out choked-out moans and cries as his fingers curled inside your asshole. “Say that again, will ya?” His other hand found your hips and started stretching your pussy out again. “Please.. f-fuck me harder… sir.” That was all it took to make Jungkook go feral. His cock left your pussy and was immediately shoved inside your sensitive ass. Your eyes shot out, and you couldn’t make any noise as you looked back at jungkook with tears rolling down your cheeks. He pinned your wrists behind your back before moving in and out. He struggled, initially. curse him for not stretching you out more, but his cream-coated cock provided enough lube for him to start pounding into you smoothly. “Shits so fucking tight- gah-“ your lips quivered and legs trembled as Jungkook fucked into you with great strength.

You screamed out, finally getting your voice back after he fully plunged his cock into you. Your cunt was leaking arousal, dripping down your thighs. Jungkook didnt seem to stop. His heavy, cum-filled balls were slapping against your pussy. “Jungkoook…- its too- too much!” You cried out. “Take it. You are a big girl. Take it like a big girl. I know you fucking can. Look at your little ass sucking me in. So good. So fucking good.” He pulled your body back and pounded into you. Your face was a mess. You cried and moaned like a bitch in heat every time he filled you to the brim. You felt your orgasm approaching as the feeling of the familiar knot in your stomach began growing. “Jung-jungkook- gon’ cum…” you whined. “Go on princess… be a good girl and cum all over me..” you nodded weakly, focusing on reaching your high. Jungkook flipped you over, laying you down on your back. His hands pushed your legs up against your chest. You were in ecstasy as the new position had you seeing stars. You observed Jungkook's sweaty body and fucked-out face.

A slap was landed on your glistening, sopping pussy before two fingers were shoved inside them. His thumb stimulating your clit. “Ngh- oh fuck- jungkook m’ so close…!” Your eyebrows were knit together, and sweat dripped down your face. The overstimulation getting too intense. Both his hips and hands increased their pace, determined to help you reach your high. You saw white as Jungkook pressed down on your sensitive bud. Clear liquid gushed out of your pussy and landed on his abdomen. You screamed as he continued fucking you through your orgasm. “Yeah.. just like that.. so dirty.. you are such a dirty little girl..” Jungkook's movements got sloppier. Your orgasm turned him on by a mile, and he was close to cumming himself. You twitched under him, still not over your intense orgasm, not noticing that he had slipped out of you and was furiously jerking himself off. His head was thrown back, and soft moans left his mouth. His breath hitched when a load of his milky white cum shot out all over your body. Coating your stomach and your boobs. You moan as you feel his hot cum land on your body, taking the mixture in your shaky fingers and licking it off while staring into his eyes. Jungkook smirked at you with half-lidded eyes.

“My dirty little girl."

A/N: HEHE THANK YEWWW 4 READINGGG! how was it tho? This would have been a stepcest fic but i changed my mind in the middle 🙁💔 im currently writing fics from my inbox! You can send in your rqs <3